The redhead had removed the needle from Hammer's arm and had slipped it into his pocket. Now he dragged him over to the couch, dipped Hammer's lifeless right index finger in the pool of blood rapidly forming under it and guided the finger across the bungalow's whitewashed wall.
He paused every few letters to dip the finger in fresh blood. When the message was complete, the other two men looked at it and nodded. The one with the scarred neck pressed the handle of the blood-soaked razor into Hammer's right hand and all three helped carry him into the kitchen. They placed his head in the open oven, took a last look around, then filed out the front door, the last man triggering the tumbler of the snap lock so that the house was locked from inside.
The whole operation had taken less than three minutes.
Chapter 2
Nicholas J. Huntington Carter, N3 for AXE, leaned on one elbow and looked down at the lovely, sunkissed redhead who lay on the sand beside him.
Her skin was tobacco brown and she wore a pale yellow bikini. Her lipstick was pink. Her legs were long, shapely, her hips round and firm, and the mounded V of her bikini looked up at him and the proud breasts in the tight cups were two more eyes.
Her name was Cynthia something and she was a native Floridian, the girl in all the travelogues. Nick called her Cindy, and she knew Nick as "Sam Harmon," an admiralty lawyer from Chevy Chase, Maryland. Whenever "Sam" was on vacation down Miami Beach way, they made a point of getting together.
There was a dew of sweat from the hot sun beneath her closed eyes and at her temples. She sensed him looking at her and the wet eyelashes parted; the tawny eyes, big and far-away, looked up with remote curiosity into his.
"What do you say we flee this vulgar display of half-cooked flesh?" he grinned, showing enviably white teeth.
"What do you have in mind?" she countered. A faint smile lurked in the corners of her mouth.
"The two of us, alone, back in suite twelve-eight."
Excitement began to grow in her eyes. "Again?" she murmured. Her eyes trailed warmly over his brown, muscular body. "All right, yes, that is a nice idea…"
A shadow suddenly fell across them. A voice said, "Mr. Harmon?"
Nick swung onto his back. A funereal man in black, in silhouette, bent over him, blotting out part of the sky. "You are wanted on the telephone, sir. By the blue entrance, phone number six."
Nick nodded and the assistant bell captain went away, treading slowly, cautiously through the sand to preserve the shine on his black oxfords, looking like a dark omen of death amid the riot of colors on the beach. Nick climbed to his feet. "I'll only be a minute," he said, but he didn't believe it.
"Sam Harmon" had no friends, no relations, no life of his own. Only one man knew of his existence, knew that he was in Miami Beach at this moment, at this particular hotel, on the second week of his first vacation in over two years. A tough old man in Washington.
Nick walked through the sand toward the Surfway Hotel's entrance. He was a big man, slim-hipped and wide at the shoulders, with the calm eyes of a top athlete who has dedicated his life to challenge. Feminine eyes swiveled behind sunglasses, taking stock. Thick, slightly unruly dark hair. An almost perfect profile. Laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Feminine eyes liked what they saw and followed him, openly interested. There was a promise of excitement in the sinewy, tapering body, and of danger, too.
"Sam Harmon" fell away from Nick with every step he took. Eight days of love, laughter and idleness vanished stride by stride, and by the time he reached the hotel's cool, dark interior he was his usual working self — special agent Nick Carter, top operative of AXE, America's super-secret counterintelligence agency.
The telephones were to the left of the blue entrance, a row of ten mounted on the wall, with soundproof barriers between them. Nick went to number six and picked up the receiver. "Harmon here."
"Hello, my boy, just passing through. Thought I'd see how you were getting on."
Nick's dark eyebrows rose. Hawk — on an open line. Surprise number one. Here in Florida. Surprise number two. "Everything's fine, sir. First vacation I've had in some time," he added pointedly.
"Splendid, splendid." The head of AXE said it with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. "Are you free for dinner?" Nick glanced at his watch. At 4:00 p.m.? The tough old bird seemed to read his thoughts. "It will be the dinner hour by the time you reach Palm Beach," he added. "The Bali Hai, Worth Avenue. The cuisine is Polynesian-Chinese, the maitre d's name is Don Lee. Just tell him you're dining with Mr. Byrd. Fivish is fine. We'll have time for a drink."
Surprise number three. Hawk was strictly a steak and potatoes man. He hated Oriental food. "Fine," said Nick. "But I'll need time to get organized. Your call was rather… unexpected."
"The young lady's already been notified." Hawk's voice was suddenly crisp and businesslike. "She was told that you were called away on business unexpectedly. Your suitcase is packed and in the car, your street clothes are on the front seat. You've already checked out at the desk."
Nick fumed at the highhandedness of it all. "I left my cigarettes and sunglasses out on the beach," he snapped. "Mind if I get them?"
"You'll find them in the glove compartment. I take it you haven't been reading the papers?"
"No." Nick let it go at that. His idea of a vacation was to sweat the poisons of everyday life out of his system. Those poisons included newspapers, radios, TV, anything that carried news of the outside world.
"Then I suggest you switch the car radio on," said Hawk, and N3 knew from his voice that something big was up.
He moved the Lamborghini 350 GT through the gearbox. The heavy traffic was pointed toward Miami and he had his half of U.S. 1 largely to himself. North through Surfside, Hollywood and Boca Raton he sped, past the endless procession of motels, gas stations and fruit juice stands.
There was nothing else on the radio. It was as if war had been declared, as if the President had died. All regular programs had been canceled as the nation honored its fallen astronauts.
Nick swung onto the Kennedy Causeway in West Palm Beach, made a left into Ocean Boulevard and headed north toward Worth Avenue, main drag of the town society columnists called the "platinum watering hole."
He couldn't figure it out. Why had the head of AXE chosen Palm Beach for their meeting? And why the Bali Hai? Nick reviewed what he knew about the place. It was said to be the most exclusive restaurant in the United States. If your name wasn't in the Social Register, or if you weren't fabulously rich, a foreign dignitary, a senator or a high State Department official, you could forget about it. You wouldn't get in,
Nick made a right into the street of expensive dreams, swinging past the local branches of Carder's and Van Cleef & Arpels with their small vitrines displaying rocks the size of the Kohinoor Diamond. The Bali Hai was situated between the elegant old Colony Hotel and the ocean front, and was painted to look like a pineapple rind.
An attendant swept his car away and the maitre d' bowed obsequiously at the mention of "Mr. Byrd." "Ah yes, Mr. Harmon, you were expected," he murmured. "If you will follow me, please."
He was led along a leopard-striped banquette to where the leathery old man with the rustic appearance and gimlet eyes sat at a table. Hawk rose as Nick approached, holding out his hand. "My boy, glad you could make it" He seemed rather unsteady. "Sit down, sit down." The captain pulled the table out and Nick did. "A vodka martini?" said Hawk. "Our friend here, Don Lee, makes the very best." He patted the maitre d's arm.
Lee beamed. "Always a pleasure to serve you, Mr. Byrd." He was a young, dimpled Hawaiian Chinese, wearing a tuxedo with a colorful lei draped around his neck. He chuckled, adding, "But General Sweet accused me last week of being an agent of the Vermouth industry."