"Sorry," he said. "Looks like you get the vacation. I'll lake notes and tell you all about it when it's over."
Her eyes snapped.
"I'll be out of here tomorrow!" she promised, then her face pinched with pain.
"Not tomorrow," he said quietly. "A week. And I don't want any of your magical escapes. Two of your friends are on the door. They'll keep anyone suspicious out… and, if they have to, they'll keep you in until the doctors say you can go."
"Some friends."
He laughed again. In three days she'd be plotting her escape. Within a day or two of that, depending on her strength, she'd be out. She was unstoppable.
"I've got to go, Mike. Sorry."
She looked at him balefully.
"Enjoy yourself," she said grumpily, then she smiled. "I'll be thinking of you. Care to kiss a fellow spy goodbye?"
Carter sat in the park near the hospital, the headphones of the small Sony look-alike over his ears. Lovers strolled nearby. Teen-agers laughed and giggled in the New Zealand summer sun. Children romped on the grass under the watchful eyes of mothers or older brothers and sisters. The traffic was moderate, slow as was the New Zealand habit. For a moment he thought he saw the yellow Mazda circling the park. A man in a tam-o'-shanter and small features was driving. It could have been the same one who'd left the first aid kit and radio after the Cessna's crash. No way to tell for sure.
Carter relaxed. He was just another park-goer enjoying the fresh air, warm sunshine, and a recording by the New Zealand Symphony. He pressed a corner of the machine. The music disappeared. A small keyboard slid out from the special AXE machine that used satellite electronics to hook into the mammoth AXE computer in Washington, D.C. He touched the buttons of the code he needed.
"Ah! Nick!" the sexy female voice whispered into his ears. "It's been too long. What can I do for you?"
Carter grinned and shook his head as he punched in his request. The sultry voice was one of Hawk's jokes.
"Rocky Diamond," the voice purred. She sounded like a cat who'd just licked clean a saucer of cream. "Real name Philip Shelton. An adventurer, born June 23, 1945, in Omaha. A graduate of the Air Force Academy, lowest marks in the class of 1967. Best known for his weekend passes. Put in his time with the Air Force, got out first chance he could.
"It was an honorable discharge," the husky female voice continued, "and few were sorry to see him leave. After that, he threw knives with a traveling Renaissance fair, punched cows in Wyoming, lived off a rich elderly widow in Los Angeles, and eventually drifted back to flying. His most recent work, as far as we can tell, has been for private contractors. He's 'for hire'. If there's a job that will pay him enough, he'll fly it.
"His character is unreliable, except where there's enough money to stabilize him for the job. He does have one asset, however." There was a smile in the mechanical sex-kitten voice. "He's very attractive to women. His sex life is exhausting. His favorite drink is a martini with a dash of Pernod. Sometime in the last ten years he's affected an English accent and English ways, and lives accordingly. He's precisely six-one-and-a-half and weighs one-eighty-five. Sometimes his hair is brown, sometimes blond. Rangy, athletic, and smokes a pipe." The voice paused, almost breathless from its relating of important business matters. "Is there anything else, dear Nick?"
Carter stifled an impulse to thank the lifelike voice. Instead he grinned, pleased. Hawk had found enough information for him to begin the search.
Nick Carter thought about New Zealand as he rode the quiet elevator up through the warehouse building near the Rail Ferry Terminal. The nation was isolated geographically from the rest of the world, and that isolation had been turned by the citizens into an advantage. They'd created their own brand of civilization, one that pleased them and worked, despite similar controversial attempts that failed in Europe.
In the warehouse, the air smelled of dust, lumber, and oily machinery. On the first floor, room-size crates were piled so high that cranes were needed to unstack them. The elevator that Carter rode alone jerked. The cables groaned as it stopped.
He stepped off onto a plywood floor of a secret office whose location was described to him only after his second phone call to New Zealand intelligence. In a good organization, all contacts were checked thoroughly.
He walked across a narrow deserted hall. The automatic elevator door closed behind him. It was a typical warehouse room. Dust was puffed up in the corners. A single overhead lightbulb shed dim light. But he noted the hidden cameras, the size of U.S. nickels, embedded to look like knotholes in the rough lumber planks that served as walls. Probably some of the planks slid away so that hidden computer-controlled guns could swing out when needed.
He went to the only door. He spread his right hand on the shiny brown plaque that said Office. The plaque heated briefly. He took his hand away. The door swung open, and Colonel Chester ffolkes, chief of New Zealand intelligence, extended his hand.
Six
The sounds of conversations, ringing telephones, and ratcheting computer printers swept through the open door into the small warehouse room where Nick Carter stood. Besides being skillfully hidden, the New Zealand intelligence headquarters were soundproofed behind the deceptive walls of rough planks.
Colonel Chester ffolkes cleared his throat. He was in his early sixties, a wiry man of medium height. His face was ruddy, his front teeth gold-capped. He had a hearty handshake, and a nonchalant gaze as his sharp eyes swept the empty warehouse room around Nick Carter.
"Sorry, old boy," he said to Carter as he drew the Killmaster over the threshold, enclosed the sounds once more behind the office door, and escorted the American agent down the tiled hall. "Would've liked to roll out the red carpet, but in our business…" He shrugged expressively.
"I understand," Carter said.
Maps and photographs of New Zealand lined the hall. Charts and lists hung nearby. A water fountain gurgled in a corner. The walls were painted a cheerful yellow. There seemed to be a half-dozen agents and secretaries at work, their desks in small cubicles piled with papers and books.
"Your superior, David Hawk, contacted me," the colonel said as he walked into a small office. He closed the door.
"Have a chair. Take the leather one there. It's most comfortable."
His appraising eyes watched Carter sit. Only then did he go behind his desk and settle himself in his wide chair. He was observing Carter, watching the fluid movements, the speedy physical reactions.
"I appreciate your seeing me on such short notice." Carter said. He took out his gold cigarette case. "Mind if I smoke?"
Again the gaze swept over Carter, pausing at the case. Colonel ffolkes allowed himself to smile. He knew he was being overly cautious, but then he'd lived a long time in a dangerous business. Caution was one of the prime ingredients to longevity.
"Delighted," ffolkes said. "May I?"
Carter offered him the open case, and the intelligence head chose one of the Killmaster's custom-made cigarettes. They were one of Carter's few affectations. Besides being made from specially selected tobaccos, each filter bore the initials NC embossed in gold.
With a flourish, ffolkes lit Carter's cigarette, and then his own. The New Zealand chief glanced briefly at the monogram. His eyes flickered with acknowledgment at the good taste of the agent sitting across from him, men he savored the tobacco.
The two men smoked quietly, each well aware that they were allies, yet the secretiveness of their jobs worked against their cooperating.