Hood of Death (12 page)

A small Chinese in a white coat came in from the far archway carrying a tray of what appeared to be canapes. Nick ducked barely in time.

The waiter passed the tray, put it on a coffee table and departed. Nick wondered how many others were in the house. Thoughtfully he assessed his weaponry. He had Wilhelmina and an extra magazine, two lethal gas bombs — "Pierres" — in the pockets of his jockey shorts, which were as much magician's equipment as his coat and a variety of explosive charges.

He heard Hans Geist say, "...and we'll meet Command One on the ship a week from Thursday. Let's make a good impression. I know he's proud of us and pleased by the way things are going."

"Are your negotiations with this group going well?" Ruth Moto asked.

"Splendidly. I never thought it could go otherwise. They are merchants and we want to buy. Matters usually go smoothly in such a situation."

Akito asked, "Who is Alastair Williams? Britisher with Vickers' oil division. I'm sure I've met him somewhere before yet I can't place him."

After a moment of silence Geist replied, "I don't know. The name is not familiar. And Vickers doesn't have a subsidiary they call the oil division. Exactly what does he do? Where did you meet him?"

"Here. He's with the guests."

Nick raised his head for an instant, saw Geist pick up a telephone, dial. "Fred? Look on your guest list. Have you added an Alastair Williams? No... When did he arrive? You never admitted him? Akito — what does he look like?"

"Big. Plump. Red face. Gray hair. Very English."

"Was he with any others?"

"No."

Hans repeated the description into the phone. "Tell Vlad and Ali. Find a man who fits that description or there's something wrong here. Check out all the guests with English accents. I'll be there in a few minutes." He replaced the telephone. "This is either a simple matter or a very serious one. You and I better go..."

Nick lost the rest as his keen hearing detected a sound outside. One or more cars had arrived. If the room filled up he'd be caught between the groups. He crawled to the hall entrance, keeping the furniture between himself and the people at the fireplace. When he was around the turn he stood up and walked toward the door just as it opened to admit five men.

They were talking jovially — one was high, supported by another as he giggled. Nick gave them a broad smile and waved a hand toward the big room. "Come right in..."

He turned and went briskly up the wide staircase.

There was a long corridor on the second floor. He went to the windows overlooking the drive. Two big cars were parked under the floodlights. The last group seemed to have driven themselves.

He went toward the rear, past a luxurious sitting room and three lavish bedrooms with the doors open. He came to a closed door and listened with his little stethoscope, heard nothing, and went into the room and closed the door behind him. It was a bedroom with articles here and there showing it was occupied. He searched swiftly — desk, bureau, two expensive pieces of luggage. Nothing. Not a scrap of paper. It was the room of a large man, by the size of the suits in the closet. Perhaps Geist's.

The next room was more interesting — and nearly disastrous.

He heard vigorous, panting breaths and a moan. As he slipped the stethoscope back into its pocket, the next door down the hall opened and out came one of the men who had first arrived and Pong-Pong Lily.

Nick straightened and smiled. "Hello. Have a nice time?"

The man stared. Pong-Pong exclaimed, "Who are you?"

"Yes," a hard and loud man's voice repeated behind him. "Who are you?"

Nick whirled to see the thin Chinese — the one he suspected had been behind the mask in Maryland — approach from the stairway, his footfalls noiseless on the thick carpeting. A slim hand was disappearing inside his jacket to where a shoulder or clamshell holster might be.

"I'm Command Two," Nick said. He tried the door at which he had been listening. It was unlocked. "Good night."

He hopped through the door and slammed it behind him, found the catch and locked it.

There was a gasp and a growl from a king-size bed where the other early arrival and Jeanyee were untangling themselves. They were nude.

Fists thundered on the door. Jeanyee screamed. The naked man hit the floor and lunged toward Nick with the overweight purposefulness of a man who had played football long ago.

Nick sidestepped the rush with the graceful ease of a matador. Carrington hit the wall with a crash, adding noise to the clatter from the door. Nick used a
savate
kick and a hand chop, both placed with the precision of a surgeon's strokes, to put him gasping on the floor.

"Who are you?" Jeanyee almost screamed.

"Everybody is interested in little me," Nick said. "I'm Command Three, Four and Five."

He watched the door. Like everything else on the premises it was of top quality. They'd need a ram or a sturdy piece of furniture to break through.

"You're what?"

"I'm Baumann's son."

"Help!" she yelled. Then thought an instant. "You're
who?
"

"Baumann's son. He has three. It's a secret."

She slid to the floor and stood up. Nick's eyes flowed over the long, beautiful body and his memory of what it could do gave him an instant's tingle. Someone kicked the door. He felt proud of himself — I've still got that old nonchalance. "Get dressed," he barked. "Quick. I've got to get you out of here."

"You've got to get me out of here? Are you crazy..."

"Hans and Sammy plan to kill all you girls after this meeting. You want to die?"

"You're mad. Help!"

"All except Ruth. Akito fixed that. And Pong-Pong. Hans fixed that."

She grabbed her filmy bra from a chair, whipped it around her. What he had said had tricked the woman in her. Given a few minutes to think, she'd know he was lying. Something harder than a foot hit the door. He drew Wilhelmina with one practiced whip of his wrist and put a shot at twelve o'clock high through the exquisite paneling. The noise stopped.

Jeanyee slid on her high heels, stared at the Luger. Her expression was a mixture of fright and astonishment as she looked at the gun. "That is the kind — that we saw at Baumann's..."

"Of course," Nick snapped. "Get over beside the window."

But his senses leaped. The first clean-cut lead I This gang, the girls and definitely, somehow, Baumann! With a flick of a finger he turned on his tiny recorder.

As he opened the window and slid the aluminum screen from its spring clips he said, "Baumann sent me to get you out. We'll save the others later if we can. We've got a small army at the entrance to this place."

"It's a mess," Jeanyee wailed. "I don't understand..."

"Baumann will explain," Nick said loudly, and flicked off the recorder. Sometimes the tapes survived when you didn't.

He looked out into the night. This was the east side, It had had a guard at the door, but he had apparently been sucked in by the turmoil. They hadn't practiced tactics for an internal upstairs raid. They'd think of the window in a minute.

In the glow of the light from the lower floor windows, the smooth lawn was empty. He turned and held out his two hands to Jeanyee. "Grip." It was a long way to the ground.

"What?"

"Take hold. As you do for work on the bar. Remember?"

"Of course I remember, but..." She paused, looking at the plump, elderly, but so strangely athletic man who bent in front of the window offering her his hands, twisted for an aerialist's lock-and-hold. He had even pulled up his sleeves and cuffs. The tiny detail convinced her. She grasped the hands and gasped — they were leather-over-steel, as powerful as those of any professional. "Are you really..."

She forgot the question as she was pulled headfirst through the window, imagined herself hurtling to the ground to break her neck, and tried to curl for a rolling fall. She tucked slightly but it was unnecessary. Strong hands guided her in a tight forward somersault and then twisted her sideways as she swung back toward the building's side. Instead of crashing against the white-painted shiplap she thudded on it lightly with her hip, held by the strange, powerful man who now hung above her, gripping the sill with his knees.

"It's a short drop," he said, his face a weird blob, with features reversed, in the blackness above her. "Bend your knees. Ready — oopsy-daisy."

She landed half in, half out of a hydrangea, scratching her leg but bouncing on her strong legs without effort. Her high-heel shoes were far gone into the night, lost during her outward spin.

She looked around with the helpless, panicky air of a rabbit flushed from a brush patch into open ground where hounds were baying, and started to run.

Nick made a crab-like mount up the side of the building as soon as he released her, gripped the ledge and hung for a moment until the girl was away from the area underneath him, then twisted sideways to miss the hydrangea and landed as lightly as a skydiver with a thirty-four-foot chute. He tumbled to break the fall, and rolled right-side-up running after Jeanyee.

How that girl can go! He caught just a glimpse of her disappearing into the meadow beyond the range of the lights. He sprinted after her and ran straight out into the blackness, reasoning that in her panic she might not turn and cut sideways for at least a few dozen yards. Nick could cover any distance up to the half-mile in times which would be respectable at the average college track meet. He did not know that Jeanyee Ahling, in addition to family acrobatics, was once the fastest girl in Blaghoveshchenski. They ran distances, and she helped whip every team from Harbin to the Amur River.

Nick stopped short. He heard feet pounding far ahead. He ran on. She was going straight for the high wire fence. If she hit it at full speed she'd knock herself cold, if not worse. He mentally computed the distance to the edge of the valley, estimated his time and strides covered, guessed how far ahead of him she was. Then he counted twenty-eight strides, stopped, and cupping his hands to his mouth called, "Jeanyee! Stop, Danger. Stop. Look out."

He listened. The pound of feet had ceased. He trotted forward, heard or sensed a movement across his front toward the right and angled his course to match. A moment later he heard her move.

"Don't run," he said softly. "You were heading right for the fence. It may be electrified. Anyway you'll hurt yourself."

He found her in the night and took her in his arms. She was not crying, just shaking. She felt as delectable and smelled as delicious as she had in Washington — more so, perhaps, with the heat of her excitement and perspiration wet against his cheek.

"Easy, now," he soothed. "Get your breath."

She would need it. The house was in an uproar. Men ran along the side, pointed up at the window, searched the bushes. Lights went on at the garage building and several men came out, half-dressed and carrying long objects which Nick decided were not shovels. A car raced up the road and disgorged four men and the lights of another hurtled toward them from beside the main house. Dogs barked. Through a patch of light he saw a guard with a dog join the men under the window.

He considered the fence. It had not looked electrified, just high and barbed-wire topped — the best industrial plant fencing. The three gates in the valley were too far away, led nowhere and would soon be watched. He looked back. The men were organizing — and quite well. A car went down to man the gates. Four patrols spread out. The one with the dog headed straight toward them, his nose on their trail.

Swiftly Nick dug at the base of a steel fence post and planted the three plaques of explosive that looked like black plugs of chewing tobacco. He added two more power-bombs that looked like fat ballpoint pens, and the eyeglass case filled with Stuart's special blend of nitroglycerine and kieselguhr. It was his stock of explosives, but with no way to contain the force it might take it all to rend the wire. He set a miniature thirty-second fuse and dragged Jeanyee away, counting as they went.

"Twenty-two," he said. He pulled Jeanyee to the ground with him. "Lie flat. Flat! Put your face in the ground."

He faced them toward the charges to present as small surfaces as possible. The wire might fly like grenade splinters. He had not used his two grenades, built Like cigarette lighters, because their charges weren't worth risking their shower of razor-sharp metal. The patrol with the dog was only a hundred yards away. What was wrong with...

WHAMO-O-O-O!

Old reliable Stuart. "Come on." He dragged Jeanyee toward the explosion point, explored the ragged hole in the blackness. You could drive a Volkswagen through it. If the girl's logic started to work about now and she refused to move he would have had it.

"Are you all right?" he asked sympathetically, squeezing her shoulder.

"I... I guess so."

"Come on." They ran toward where he estimated the trail over the mountain might be. After covering a hundred yards he said, "Stop."

He looked back. Flashlights probed at the hole in the wire. The dog bayed. More dogs answered — they were leading them in from somewhere. They must have several breeds. A car raced across the lawn, its lights stopping when the torn wire was in their glare. Men tumbled out.

Nick fused a grenade and hurled it as hard as he could toward the lights. It wouldn't reach — but it might be a depressant He counted fifteen. Said, "Down again." The blast was like a firecracker compared to the other. A submachine gun chattered; two short bursts of six or seven each, and when it stopped a man roared, "Hold that!"

Nick pulled Jeanyee erect and headed for the valley border. A couple of the slugs had passed in their general direction, ricocheting off the ground to flip past in the night with the vicious whir-r-r-r-r that is intriguing the first time you hear it — and chilling whenever you hear it forever after. Nick had heard it many times.