Nick Carter
Safari for Spies
Dedicated to
The Men of The Secret Services
of the
United States of America
You Are Accused
There was not, so far as he knew, the slightest reason for anyone outside his official reception committee to be waiting for him in Dakar, but somebody else most certainly was. And it was much too early in the game for that.
Nicholas J. Huntington Carter stepped off the Jet into the cool African morning feeling both overdressed and oddly naked. New Panama hat, slim briefcase practically covered with initials, bone-handled walking cane to match the stiffness of his back... all this, when all he really felt like wearing was a set of bush khakis and a knotted handkerchief. But what the hell. This was a job, not a picnic. And it was going to be a sticky one, for all the diplomatic camouflage.
Something about using his own name made him feel stripped to the buff yet painted over with signs blazoning out his identity and purpose, HI, SPY! the invisible label announced. THE NAME IS CARTER. NICK CARTER. SECRET AGENT N-3, KILLMASTER FOR AXE. Beneath, in smaller print, the imaginary sign confided the inscription across his chest: TROUBLESHOOTER WITH LICENSE TO KILL. He could almost read the tempting invitation offering him as a target to anyone on the opposite side of the espionage fence. COME AND GET ME, RED, said the bullseye over his heart. READY, AIM, FIRE!
But nobody did. At least not right now.
It was probably because he felt so exposed that Nick sensed the eyes upon him from the moment he stepped into the airport building. They were watching him from behind a newspaper while Tad Fergus of the Embassy whisked him through the brief formalities of passage through Senegal and into the main arrival center to meet Liz Ashton and the two officials from Nyanga. And they stayed with him until they saw whom he had met.
Raphael Sendhor and Oscar Adebe, Foreign Minister and Vice President respectively, greeted Special U. S. Ambassador Carter with cool courtesy.
“We welcome you,” their liquid accents said while their calm expressions denied, “on behalf of President Makombe, our country and ourselves. You wish perhaps for refreshment and rest before we complete out journey?”
“Thank you, gentlemen, but no,” said Nick, his voice as soft as theirs and his manner as restrained. “I’d like to get to Abimako as soon as possible.”
They nodded, satisfied, two very young and strikingly handsome ebony men from the six-month-old Republic of Nyanga.
“You will permit me, then,” said Sendhor, bowing slightly. “The President’s plane awaits. I shall lead the way. Your luggage...?”
“I have taken the liberty,” said Tad. “It is on the plane.”
Two multicolored flowing robes rustled and glided ahead across the marbled floor. Nick followed, flanked by Liz and Tad. The back of his neck was crawling, and the feeling had nothing to do with the gangling, redheaded Tad or the darkly attractive Liz Ashton. The sensation he got from looking at her was much more pleasant than the warning tingle that kept his instincts tuned in to some alien presence. Not just something unfamiliar; something wrong.
He saw the eyes upon him, bulbous and frog-lidded, staring over the top of a French newspaper. They rolled over him like greased ball bearings, and with such intensity that he could literally feel them on his body. They were ugly, glass-pale eyes, and the oddly olive-green cast of the skin rendered them even more horribly colorless.
Nick nodded attentively at something Tad was saying and scrutinized the watcher as they approached. He’ll know me anywhere, Nick thought. And I’ll know him.
“Do you recognize the fellow watching us from behind the newspaper?” he said conversationally. “Left front. He’s very interested. Miss Ashton, how do you like living in Abimako?”
“Why, I... I like it very much,” she stammered, slightly off-balance. “What man?”
The newspaper went up like a flag as they passed.
“Good God,” murmured Fergus. “Literally green in the face. Jealous of the company we keep? Never saw him before. I’d remember if I had.”
Nick grunted softly to himself. The three Americans followed the young African leaders out of the terminal and back onto the airfield where President Julian Makombe’s private plane waited.
The pale pink glow of early morning turned into the orange blaze of a hot day as they stepped into the plane.
Moments later the two-engined Skycraft was soaring high above the gleaming coastline of West Africa toward the tiny capital of newly independent and deeply troubled Nyanga.
Nick put aside his cane and stretched his long legs beneath the seat in front of him. Sendhor and Adebe had finished lavishing cool courtesies upon him and were sitting together in silence. Tad Fergus and Liz Ashton, respectively First and Second Secretaries of the bombed American Embassy in Nyanga, were sunk in a silence of their own, wondering just what this sleek-haired, bespectacled and almost too-handsome man with the rakish chin and foppish cane could possibly do about the mess in Nyanga.
Nice looking, thought Liz. Probably conceited. Special emissary. Big deal. What does he know about Africa and its problems? Suppose he thinks this is going to be another Washington cocktail party and a lot of backroom baloney. He’ll learn. Sure, he’ll learn, she thought resentfully. And go back home to report the facts while the whole damn country blows itself to bits.
Tad Fergus chewed his lip thoughtfully. Nyanga was his second assignment in Africa, and he wanted it to last. He loved the country, its golden beaches and white deserts, its stretches of hilly scrubland that changed from pearl-pink to blazing red to deep purple with the passing of each day, its proud handsome people who wanted so very much to be the masters of their own destiny, the flamingoes and the bark canoes on its cool, dangerous waters, and the sharp bite of air untainted by the belch of factory fumes. Even the modern capital city of Abimako was clean and airy. Its builders had planned it as a tree-lined, streamlined model city of the new Africa. But something was going horribly wrong. He glanced sideways at Nick Carter. So. This was the man who was supposed to set everything right. Funny that he’d never heard of him before.
The small, plush presidential plane droned smoothly on. Nick stared out of the window at the vividly tinted clouds and wondered if a killer spy was really the right man for a delicately diplomatic mission. But wholesale murder was never delicate, and diplomacy had already fallen on its face.
He looked down as Sendhor called his name and pointed. The plane banked sharply and circled low over drifting wisps of smoke. What lay beneath the smoke was the remnant of a ravaged village. Charred stumps of huts pointed starkly at the sky, and what was once a grain field was a vast black scar. There was not a living soul or an animal in sight.
“Yesterday,” Tad said tightly, his red head thrusting past Nick’s. “In broad daylight, with a band of kids in front of them. No one believed they really would attack. But they did. A few of the women in the fields got away. A handful of men and children wound up in the hospital. The rest — just didn’t leave. The troops got here last night. Too late, as you can see. The bush telegraph isn’t quite as miraculous as people like to think.” His last comment was full of bitterness, as though outsiders like this Carter were full of misconceptions about the Africa Tad Fergus loved so well.
Nick pulled his eyes away from the scene below. Sendhor and Adebe were looking at him with ill-concealed dislike. Tad’s face was an angry mask and tears trembled in the corners of Liz’ eyes.
“They think we could do a thing like that,” she whispered.
“Who else?” said Sendhor, his fine lips twisted with contempt.