Nick Carter - Run, Spy, Run

She nodded.

He kissed her lightly on the cheek and left his seat. Several passengers looked at him as he passed. His jaw was working and his face was pale. It was Yoga, not airsickness, that brought about the pallor, but they were not to know that.

He brushed against Janet Reed in the aisle again, turning his body sideways and avoiding her eyes.

"Mr. Cane," she began solicitously.

He shook his head dumbly and went on his way. When he got to the pair of occupied cubicles, his expression was that of a man praying for death to deliver him. He sighed, and leaned against the outside wall of the one occupied by the man with the cast and strained his ears for whatever there was to be heard. From the corner of his eye he saw Julie coming toward him, her purse open and a comb in her hand. She reached the vacated forward seat and stopped, looking at him with lovely, sympathetic cat eyes.

"Oh, sweetheart," she whispered, "can't you get in?"

He shook his agonized head and turned away.

His ears were primed for the slightest sound.

The baby was still crying. Water splashed into a sink.

Three minutes crawled by in which the only sounds were coughs, low conversations and the pulsing of the jet engines.

Then he heard something else.

Faint, slapping, sliding sounds. The soft, clothy sounds of someone dressing or undressing.

Carter tensed. Still not enough to go on. If he were wrong and burst in like a fool, he'd lose all hope of stopping whatever was going to happen. If anything was going to happen.

Then he heard the sound that removed all doubts.

It was a coarse, tearing, cracking sound. Given his memory of the lavatory as he had last seen it, and his suspicions of the man who had just entered, there was only one conclusion to be drawn.

Nick had heard that familiar combination of sounds, too many times, in dressing stations all over the battlefields of Europe. The tearing, ripping sounds of bandagesbeing removed and plaster-of-paris casts being cracked apart.

Why should anyone remove a brand-new bandage?

The baby gurgled and stopped crying.

Right or wrong, he had to act — now.

The belt around his waist slipped quickly off into his hands. He adjusted it rapidly and clamped the metal buckle over the doorknob, fitting it over the lock mechanism like a vise.

Carter adjusted the tongue of the buckle and stepped to one side. Julie had taken her .22 lighter out of her bag and was watching with rapt attention.

It took only two seconds for the power train of fulminate of mercury — similar to that of the U.S. MI grenade — to ignite and energize a quarter ounce of nitro starch.

The lock blew and the door caved inward neatly, almost noiselessly. But not completely. Nick flung the battered barrier to one side and threw himself past it into the tiny room. Behind him, the Jetliner came alive. Someone screamed. Not Julie. He could hear her speaking in a calm reassuring voice.

A clutter of trailing white bandage and plaster lay discarded on the floor. The broad-shouldered man had swung around to face him, his right hand free of its bandage and raised to his mouth as if in a gesture of shock. The hard edge of Nick's palm slashed at the thick neck, and two sinewy arms turned the square body and snaked about the man's back. A strangled foreign oath split the air. Suddenly, the man's back undulated powerfully and Nick found himself slamming backward until he was cruelly checked by the wall.

The man's face loomed close to his. It was mottled with rage and surprise. A knife, point upward, sprang into his fist and jabbed viciously forward. Nick rolled swiftly and the blade clanged against the wall. The man lost his balance and staggered, clutching the metal rail of a shelf, leaving himself wide open.

Nick brought his right knee up in a savage jab which found the lower vitals. There was a high-pitched groan of agony and the man doubled over, clutching his body and wheezing bitterly. Nick followed up with a chopping thrust of his hand into the base of the man's skull.

The man lay inert, crumpled into a half-sitting position against the seat. The main job was still to be done.

Ignoring the clamor at the door and an insistent male voice demanding to know what the hell was going on, Nick crouched beneath the sink and found what he was looking for.

The man with the false broken arm had lined the underside of the sink with the plaster of paris which had bound his arm. It clung damply to the curvature, dropping little fragments to the floor. There was no mistaking the copper blasting cap device and the connected watch timer that jutted ominously from the doughy mass of plaster.

Nick worked swiftly, removing the cap and timer.

Julia stood in the doorway, a restraining hand on the arm of an angry pilot. In a controlled, authoritative voice, she was saying something about security, government agents and enemy saboteurs.

Nick filled the sink with water and doused the detonating mechanism. Then he scraped off the remaining plaster from underneath the sink. Wrapping the hardening mess in the bandage he placed the innocuous bundle in a waste container.

"Captain," he said, not stopping in his work, "Is there some way we can jettison this stuff? It's out of action now, but I shouldn't like to take a chance."

The pilot was pushing Julia to one side. He was a stringy, tanned young man with a moustache and sharp, intelligent eyes.

"When you've explained all this. And you'd better do that now."

"In a minute," he answered crisply. Nick was leaning over his victim. He went through the pockets. The wallet, passport and driver's license identified one Paul Vertmann, Munich businessman. That was all. There was no weapon of any kind other than the knife that had failed to kill him.

Nick rose. A knot of people clustered in the forward aisle. Janet Reed's beautiful face was white with fear and incomprehension.

"Please ask everybody to return to their seats. I'll see you in your compartment — this isn't for the passengers."

"You'll tell me now — in front of everyone. And come out of there."

Nick sighed and stepped through the doorway.

"All right, then, say this much. An attempt was made to kill one of us on board. To blow up the plane and everybody with it, just to get one man. That won't happen now. Now please have the passengers go back to their seats."

The Captain barked an order. Janet pulled herself together and began shepherding the passengers back to their seats.

"Now what is this, and who are you?" The tanned face bristled at him.

"I'll show you the proper identification in your cabin, if you don't mind. Meanwhile, if you have some manacles on board, or rope, we'll tie this fellow up for delivery in London."

"Henderson!" the Captain rapped, without turning. "Handcuffs!"

"Right!" a voice came back.

Lyle Harcourt walked firmly down the aisle toward them.

"Excuse me, madam." He gently pushed his way around Julia.

"Captain, I think this may have something to do with me. What happened, Cane?"

The young Captain's manner changed. "You, sir?" he said, amazed but respectful.

Harcourt nodded. Nick explained in a rapid undertone.

"The man on the floor had what we call an Aunt Jemima kneaded inside his false cast. Enough to blow this plane and all of us to kingdom come. Harmless by itself, but when triggered with a blasting cap — well, it's over now. But I'd like to talk to you in more privacy, sir."

"By all means." Harcourt looked dazed but in full control.

"Peter! Peter!" It was a scream from Julie. "Look!" She was pointing at the figure on the floor.

Nick swung around, his hand on Wilhelmina.

The man had rolled slightly in his huddled position. The face he turned to the ceiling was a ghastly suffusion of black and purple mottling. A strangled gasp escaped the tight throat. Nick cursed and bent over him. It was too late.