Nick Carter - Run, Spy, Run

Now, once again, Nick went through the wallet, address book and personal documents of Peter Cane. Age. Height. Weight. Birthplace. Parents. Siblings. Education. School record. Friends. Sports. Other interests. Travels. Credit cards. Bank plate. Social Security number. Health Insurance. Club memberships. And so on, and so on, over and over again, until the information was printed on his brain.

A faint rustling noise came from the hallway. He snapped erect in the chair, all senses alert. A corner of something white was edging under the door. Carter rose soundlessly, reached for Wilhelmina, and glided over to the wall near the door frame. As he flattened himself against the wall, a white strip edged into the room.

The faintest of footfalls receded down the hall. He waited for a minute or two after the sound had faded, and then toed the letter toward him without putting his body in range of the door.

The envelope was inscribed with his new name.

It contained an airline ticket for Flight 601 from New York to London, leaving Idlewild Airport very early on the following morning. The ticket was made out in the name of Peter Cane. There was no need to wonder about the sender of the envelope: The a-n-e in "Cane" had been written in such a manner by whoever had sent the ticket that it looked like a-x-e.

Hawk was obviously ready to move.

Nick sniffed the envelope. His nostrils flared with the soft, subtle scent of a rare perfume, something exotic that he couldn't quite place. But it certainly wasn't aftershave lotion.

The party who had delivered Hawk's envelope was a woman.

Everything was in order.

Dossiers read, information memorized. Peter Cane would fly out of New York on Flight 601 from Idlewild in the morning, doubtless receiving further instructions about his mission before the plane left the field. Nick knew Hawk and his methods.

But a woman! Who? Not Meg Hathaway from the Ops office. True, she always smelled delectable, but Coty was more in her line.

Nick filed the question away for future reference. Security, at the moment, was the main consideration. It seemed highly unlikely that any unauthorized person could know where he was, but the unknown enemy was resourceful.

The door was locked and Nick's coat hung over the knob to blank out the keyhole to prying eyes. He hooked a heavy chair under the same knob to make forced entrance difficult and furtive entry virtually impossible. The windows were as secure as height, and Nick, could make them. He surrounded his bed with newspapers, making it impossible for an intruder to approach him silently.

You had to keep on your toes if you wanted to stay alive, and you had to sleep while you could because there was no knowing what the assignment would bring.

Nick showered and prepared for bed. He mentally reviewed the facts in the bulky dossier willed to him by Hawk. In the morning he would destroy everything that did not relate directly to Peter Cane. Copies of all the data would already be on file with all the appropriate departments.

Nick yielded to sleep. His quiet, even breathing was the only sound in the room.

Outside his door, the hotel corridor was silent and deserted.

But not for long.

Smoke.

The first indication of it was a pungent stab at Nick's nostrils. He came awake quickly, eyes straining in the darkness. An instant passed while he assembled his five senses before giving due credit to the phantom sixth that always seemed to alert him in time of danger. But there was no mistake. His nostrils were curling reflexively, pulling away from the acrid odor of stifling smoke. Yet the hotel was as peaceful as sleep.

Nick reached for the automatic pencil lying on the bedside table. It was also a flashlight with a beam that traveled a full thirty feet on high-powered batteries. Nick flicked it on, aiming it at the door.

The stab of light picked up a coiled snake of black smoke roping across the floor, from the narrow space beneath the door. But there was no sign of flame, no lick of orange light. He held the beam a second longer before easing himself to a crouch. Then he hurdled the newspapers with a broad jump and landed like a cat on the balls of his feet. The smoke began to gather alarmingly in the room.

Nick knew this game. Knew it too well to lose it. When you couldn't enter the bear's lair, you tried to smoke the bear out. The trick of the game this time was the imitation of a hotel fire. Didn't terrified guests, waking from a deep sleep, obey their first instincts and rush for the door, throwing it open both to see what was going on and obtain some blessed fresh air?

So there was only one thing to do.

It was a matter of flying seconds to dress hurriedly with only the propped pencil light to guide him. He kept his back to the billowing smoke as long as he could and held his breath while he gathered up the files and papers to thrust them into his briefcase.

He could have hollered "Help! Fire!" thrown a chair through the window, or phoned downstairs for help. But his instinct told him that his wire was probably cut. And he had just as much reason to maintain secrecy as did whoever was in the hall. Up to a point, Nick had to play the game their way and exit via the door. He padded back to the bathroom and moistened his handkerchief.

With silent speed, he pulled the chair away from the door, and whipped on his coat. The briefcase he put next to the door where he could reach it easily when he was ready to break out. Then he placed the handkerchief over his nostrils and tied it behind his head. He released the latch-lock with an audible click, pressed his ear to the door, and waited for any tell-tale sound.

He heard a door creak. Shoe leather made a little complaining sound as somebody moved. Nick stepped back and flung the door open, away from him, flattening himself against the wall.

Light from the corridor spilled in, revealing a length of rubber hose curling across the hall floor. There was no time to see anything else.

Three quick, muffled splats of sound and tongues of gun-propelled flame licked into the room. Carter managed a credible scream of choked surprise and hurled the chair over backwards. At the falling sound, two men loomed in the doorway, dark and indistinguishable, guns jutting, their long barrels made ungainly by bridged contraptions that were silencers.

The two men fired again, a salvo of pinging shots that picked up the chair and flung it around in the room. There was a brief, hesitant lull.

Nick detached himself from the wall in a lightning-swift move and kicked his hard-toed shoe upward in a savage arc. It might have been a perfect place kick in a football game. As it was, the deadly weapon, employed with the finest French accent of Le Savate, caught the nearest man dead-center on the point of the chin. A dark fedora sailed from the crown of his skull as his head flew back. Nick moved swiftly around him in a flying crouch. The second man gave a croak of surprise and swung his gun toward Nick. He was too late. The karate blow, with the elbow pointed upward and the palm stiffened in a flying wedge of destruction, chopped viciously and landed with the impact of a sledgehammer. The man screamed his pain and collapsed on the threshold, his nose spouting great gouts of blood.

Time was running out. The hotel was showing signs of coming awake. A door slammed down the hallway. Voices rose in a querying clamor.

Talking to policemen was not one of the things Carter intended to do. He scooped up his briefcase, stepped swiftly over the moaning human wrecks in the doorway, and streaked down the hallway toward the stairs yelling, "Tire!"

The smoke created a useful diversion. Behind him, the quavering voice of a guest took up his cry of "Fire!"