“Is your mission accomplished?”
“Indeed, yes,” Hakim answered, all at once fully alert. “No visible problems. What orders?”
“It is necessary to arrange the final disappearance,” said Nick. “The American is finished. Attend to the room accordingly, taking only what might be useful. Understand? There was a struggle, but he lost it. Report to me when ready, and be quick.”
“Right,” said Hakim. “Anything else?”
“One more thing,” Nick said tiredly, feeling stabs of pain shoot through him and willing them to go away. “It is impractical for me to contact headquarters — you will soon learn what difficulties we have had tonight — and find out for me if there are any new developments. But first things first, you understand me?”
“Perfectly,” answered Hakim calmly, and rang off.
Nick left the phone booth and staggered up to his room. He tended his aching body as best he could, propped chairs in front of door and windows, and fell almost instantly into a dreamless sleep.
“Lizzie Borden took an axe... Lizzie Borden took an axe... Lizzie Borden took an axe...”
Nick pulled himself out of the deep well of sleep and took Wilhelmina with him to the door. A stranger stood there — a stranger with Hakim’s stooped body and another face.
“For God’s sake, where do you get them all?” said Nick. “Come in and take it off.”
Hakim stepped in swiftly and tore off the rubbery mask as Nick locked the door. “It has been a night to remember,” Hakim said. “And in God’s name, what happened to you?”
“Your report first, please,” said Nick. “Sit down.”
“Yes, sir,” said Hakim, with exaggerated deference. But his strangely unmatched eyes were serious. “First, the plan went off as scheduled. Bodies moved, I checked out, came back to occupy your room, fended off attempted entries. Received your call, damaged room severely as if you had been abducted, and took all valuables. Here they are.” He tossed a small bundle at Nick. “Left there, put through early call to Honest Abe. Bad news. Your friend Miss Ashton has been snatched, her living room a mess. She has been among the missing since midnight.”
The Dying Immortals
It was the goddamndest, smelliest cave in all the hills of Africa. She knew it had to be, though she was no expert on the subject, because there couldn’t possibly be a worse smell in all the world. It was mountain goat and monkey, dank moss as old as time and human filth almost as old, and the sickly-sweet smell of — now what the hell was it? — death, maybe, or that obscene looking root some of the old-time herbalists seemed to set so much store by.
Liz moaned and stirred. Her head throbbed like last New Year’s day and her stomach churned. Cut that out, she told herself sternly, struggling against nausea and fear. Whaddya want to do — add to the mess?
The faint light of approaching dawn filtered into the cave. So at least there was fresh air somewhere near. She dragged herself into a sitting position and muttered angrily at the damp leather thongs that bound her wrists and ankles. Very clever, she thought bitterly. As they dry, they tighten. Don’t take any chances, these mad bastards. Very goddamn clever...
They had come during the night when she was getting ready for bed, about half an hour before the one man Abe had left on duty had been due to change shift and go home. She knew that he had never made it, because when she was through wrestling with the two thugs in her living room and was dragged outside, she had seen him lying outside her front door with a dagger in his back. She had yelled again and bitten hard into a fleshy hand, and then darkness had fallen like a bomb and blotted out her consciousness. After that there was a wild ride, more choked screams, more painful darkness slamming at her head.
And now this foul, filthy cave.
Come now, Elizabeth, she admonished herself. What would Aunt Abigail think, to hear you talk like that? Aunt Abigail... A sudden stab of terror shot through her. Aunt Abigail Nick Carter Abe Jefferson and Julian Makombe. They were all somehow part of this and she’d never see any of them again but what in God’s name was she doing here and where why who?
Why was the only question that made any possible sense. Never before had she been in a spot like this, and never before had she met anyone like Ambassador Nicholas J. Huntington Carter. Trouble was his middle name, though how J. could stand for trouble was more than she could...
When she regained consciousness for the second time she felt infinitely stronger and almost able to think straight. Get out of here! she thought.
The bonds were tighter than before, and the gray-pink light showed the silhouettes of two men standing at the entrance to the cave, one looking into it and the other facing outward. And she was cold. Who wouldn’t be, she thought crossly, with nothing on but panties and a bra and a bandage on the shoulder? The knowledge of her near-nakedness made her feel twice as uncomfortable but not quite twice as scared. Covered by a wave of indignation, she thought wryly; too bad it’s transparent.
The sun came up more slowly than she had seen it rise over the flatness of Abimako. So I’m probably in some godforsaken valley, she thought, miles away from any hope of help. Nicholas Carter, where are you!
There were sounds of life from somewhere near. Tin clanked against tin and a low voice hummed with early morning song. The tang of wood smoke caught at her nostrils, dimming out the other odors in her prison cave. Footsteps scrunched outside. The two guards came to attention and a third man stepped between them and entered the cave.
He walked around her, silently at first, and then he laughed.
“So the elegant Miss Ashton has come to join us in our mountain retreat,” he said. “Improperly clad, I see, but no doubt feeling that anything is good enough for your inferiors. Is that it?” He laughed again. “But we must not be ungrateful. You have come here to see how the other half lives, and I will make sure that you do see.”
His face was in darkness but his lilting voice was unmistakable.
“Rufus,” said Liz. “Well, well, well. And just how do you expect me to see the sights, tied up in this foul cave of yours? And what in hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Do you talk to me as your servant, Miss Ashton?” His voice was thin and dangerous. “Do you think you are in a position to take that tone with me?”
Liz sat up as straight as she could and stared at him in the gloom. “Servant”? So he was still licking those old colonial wounds...
“My tone be damned. What do you expect — thanks? You must be crazy, to do a thing like this. What’s the idea?” But she knew even as she spoke that it didn’t make the slightest difference what she said. The very fact of her abduction made that obvious enough, even without the bitterness of his words and the unbalance she sensed in his voice. The lilt was just a little ragged around the edges, and it rose a note or two too high. Besides that, his men had killed to bring her here. She wondered, with a chill, how many others he’d had killed. And why?
“The idea, Miss Ashton? You cannot guess? And I thought you were so clever!” he mocked. A knife came out from somewhere within the folds of his toga-like garment and raked down toward her, almost skidding to a stop in the air a bare half-inch short of her chest.
Rufus laughed softly. “You flinch, do you?”
“Naturally,” she said, with icy anger. “Who wouldn’t? If you want to kill me, go ahead. But don’t play games with me. Just tell me why first, then get it over with. Or do you have a real reason, Rufus? Is it only spite?” She tugged at her bonds in the gloom as she spoke. Hopeless. Goddamn things were tighter than ever. Fear butterflied inside her.