“Nick? Darling?” Tanya was saying. “The bleeding has stopped. I gave you a shot. Here, take these two pills.”
My waist was pulled tight with bandaging. When my eyes opened I blinked at the harsh light overhead. Tanya’s puffed, discolored eyes were smiling at me.
“How long have I been out?” I asked. I thought I heard a sound like a London police whistle. It wasn’t loud; in fact I could barely hear it. For some reason a name kept popping up in my mind. The Winged Tiger.
“No more than five minutes. Now take these pills.”
I popped them in my mouth and drank the glass of water she handed me. The dizziness and lightheaded feeling had left me. I was alert, but in pain. That sound was bothersome — a high, screaming sound far away.
“Nick?” Tanya asked. “What is it?”
Winking at her, I said, “Sweetie, get it out of your head that you blew this mission. Maybe we both goofed a little along the way, but our covers were blown by something unforeseen. Okay?”
She kissed my forehead. “Okay. But what was bothering you? You looked like you were reaching for something and couldn’t find it.”
“I still can’t find it. Sheng killed Nicoli. But before he did he said he had the list of the Winged Tiger, then he laughed out loud. I saw something that should have made that whole scene important to me. Maybe that stuff you gave me fouled up my thinking process.”
“It’s supposed to make you clearheaded,” Tanya protested.
As soon as I pushed myself to my feet a wave of nausea washed over me. I fell back against the bunk but remained on my feet. The feeling passed.
Then I snapped my fingers. “Of course! That’s it!”
Tanya stood in front of me searching my eyes. “What is it?” she asked.
“There is a list of Sheng’s contacts in the States. I knew it existed but I didn’t know where. Sure. He told me himself. The Winged Tiger. Now I know where it is.”
“Nick, listen!” Her head was cocked to one side. She had been getting dressed. Now she sat on the bunk, skirt hiked high, pulling on her stockings. We both heard a high, screaming sound.
“It’s Sheng,” I said. “He’s got the Lear jet running. Maybe I can stop him.”
She called to me when I reached the door. “Nick? Wait for me.”
“No, you stay here.”
“Oh, pooh!” Her lower lip stuck out, but by that time I had Wilhelmina in my hand and was out the door.
I took the ladder steps two at a time. The crisp night air hit my bare torso as soon as I reached the main deck. The blood at my feet was a reminder of how I’d gotten there.
It was too dark to make out the Volkswagen bus. I went over the side to a wooden finger of the dock. The scream of the jet was louder now. But why hadn’t he taken off? Why was he just sitting there letting the engines run?
As soon as I reached the asphalt I knew something was wrong. Two things happened at once. At that distance I could easily make out the Volkswagen bus against the glimmering harbor. There was a smaller, darker shadow behind it. The black Mercedes. Then I heard the smooth, purring chuckle of Tai Sheng behind me.
“Drop it, Carter,” he said in his oily voice. There was a kind of amusement in it. He had caught me in a stupid trap.
Wilhelmina thudded to the asphalt when I let her go.
“I thought the sound of the Lear jet would pull you off the boat. No, there is no one at the controls. It is still tied down and chocked, waiting for me.”
“Don’t let me keep you.”
“Oh, you won’t. I intend to go right after I kill you. But you see, Carter, you have something that belongs to me. Nicoli’s list. You could have saved us both a great deal of trouble if you had handed it over to me outside the hotel. I had a special small camera that I was going to use to photograph it, then I would have turned the list over to Nicoli.
“Don’t turn around, Carter. Do not even think of it. Is the list on you?”
“No.”
He sighed. “I can see you’re going to be difficult. I was hoping to just shoot you, then take the list. Carter, I am pressed for time. There are people waiting at the next meeting point for the heroin. And I am thirty minutes behind schedule. Did you hide it somewhere on the boat?”
My hands were hanging at my sides. “Maybe. What are you going to do with it?”
The oily smoothness of his voice was showing impatience. “Really, Carter, this is all academic. You’re going to be dead when I leave here anyway.”
“Let’s say I want to go down filled with knowledge. Since I’m dying for the list, don’t you think I have a right to know what it will be used for?”
“You have no rights. This is stupid, I don’t...” He paused for a few seconds. Then he said, “Turn around, Carter.”
I slowly turned so that I faced him. He must have been hiding under the bow. There was no doubt that he had a gun and that it was aimed at me. But I couldn’t see the expression on his face. It was merely a featureless shadow.
“You’re trying to buy time, Carter,” he said. “Why?”
If I couldn’t see his face, he couldn’t see mine. Keeping my arms close to my sides, I shrugged slightly. Hugo, my thin stiletto, fell to my hand.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sheng.”
“Willie!” he shouted. “Willie, are you on board?”
We both listened to the lapping of water against the yacht and the faraway, high-pitched scream of the Lear jet.
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll run out of fuel running that jet all this time?” I asked.
“Don’t play games with me, Carter. Willie! Answer me!”
“He isn’t going to answer you, Sheng. He’s through answering anyone.”
“All right, you killed him. You saw what he did to the girl and you hit him. So much for Willie. Now where is that list?”
“If you kill me, you’ll never find it. And I’m not going to turn it over until I know what you’re using it for.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tanya crawling inch by inch along the forward deck of the yacht. When she reached the bow she would be directly over Sheng. I wondered what had kept her.
“All right,” Sheng said with another sigh of impatience. “Several copies will be made, and one copy will be sent to each branch headquarter station in America. Every name on that list will be followed and watched. Information about personal lives will be gathered and stored. Any method available will be used: wiretapping, spot checks on places visited, home searches while they’re away. You might say we will be acting a great deal like your Federal Government.”
“And what will be the purpose of all this?” I asked. Tanya had almost reached the forward edge of the bow. She was inching very slowly and carefully. She knew what Sheng could do, probably much better than I did.
“Information, Carter. Some of it will be used against those who decide a new power should not take over. Your agency should be delighted. We will make evidence available so that many underworld arrests can be made. Those who will go along with us will be amply rewarded. But first we will use the information to find a man with the right combination of stupidity, greed, and ambition. Another Rozano Nicoli will be hard to locate. He was truly perfect, and things would have gone well if you hadn’t meddled.”
Tanya was at the bow edge now. She was slowly getting herself turned sideways, fingers over the edge. I knew what kind of an attack she was going to launch — hands to the side, drop and push, lash out with both feet against Sheng’s head. She was almost ready. All I had to do was buy another minute or two.
“What about the list of the Winged Tiger?” I asked. “What are you going to use that for?”
His shoulders rose and fell in an impatient gesture. “Carter, you are beginning to bore me with these incessant questions. No more talk. Where is the list?”