Nick Carter - Run, Spy, Run

Harcourt and the Captain spoke at once.

"Good Lord, what's happening to him?"

"Now what, for the luvva God?"

Nick stood up, defeat shining bitterly from his eyes. He looked past them at Julia. Her eyes were downcast, her face was pale.

"L-pill. He won't be doing any talking. Skip the 'cuffs."

"I thought he was unconscious," Julie said helplessly. "How did he do it?"

"Roof of the mouth," said Nick. "Fixed in place with a layer of gelatin. Body heat dissolves the gelatin... and that's it."

Harcourt frowned. "I don't understand. Why, that would only take minutes, and a man wouldn't have to be unconscious..."

"It's the way they play," Nick answered. "He may not have taken it if I hadn't forced his hand. Perhaps he would have waited to be sure his bomb worked, and gone up with us in a blaze of patriotic glory. But I rather think he meant to go before the rest of us. Cheating, to the end," he finished bitterly.

"The true fanatic." Lyle Harcourt shook his head. "Captain, Mr. Cane... let's seal that door and do our talking somewhere else."

"Right. Henderson, get this door closed and wait right here. Don't let anybody near."

A uniformed youngster nodded and stepped forward.

"Now let's go forward and get this whole thing sorted out. Because so far, I don't get it."

"That's what I wanted to do in the first place," Nick said drily. He motioned for Ambassador Harcourt to precede him and closed his hands over Julia's fingers.

It was the curse of espionage, that people very seldom "got it."

Peter Cane and Julia Baron, newly arrived from New York and wearing their hearts on their sleeves, registered at the small but glamorous Hotel Rand in the heart of Piccadilly. For a "love-nest," it was ideal. The carpets were soft, the management discreet, the decor quietly luxurious, the pulse of the city within easy reach, the rooms charmingly intimate. They took adjoining suites with a connecting door.

Julia luxuriated under the warm shower, recovering from the tension of the trip and the question period that had followed. A squad of officials and a worried United States Consul had met the plane at London Airport. Nick, Julie and Harcourt had answered questions for well over an hour. Security Service was impressed with Nick's credentials, congratulated him and Julie, and indicated their total cooperation in tracking down the moving force behind the attempted murder. Consul Henry Judson had expressed deep concern over Harcourt's safety and had begged him to stay at the Consulate, but Harcourt courteously pleaded a preference for his usual quiet hotel and left in the company of the U.N. official who had come to meet him.

"I'm hungry!" Nick's voice came through the connecting doorway.

"What?" Julie poked her head out between the shower curtains. Nick padded damply over the thick carpet of her room and peered into the bathroom.

"I'm hungry. So I called down for champagne and caviar. All Fve had today is one lousy watercress sandwich."

"And tea and a pill." She laughed and ducked back under the shower. "But champagne and caviar! Do you think that'll fill up the spaces?"

"It'll do until dinnertime. Besides, it's romantic. Remember why we're here. Oh, there's the door. They don't keep lovers waiting, do they?" Nick enveloped himself in the huge bath towel and went back to his room.

Julie did remember why they were there. A small frown creased her forehead.

She stepped out of the shower. Wrapping herself voluptuously in an enormous, feather-soft towel, she trailed into the companion suite. Iced champagne and a silver tray waited on the low-slung table in front of the couch.

Nick was standing on his head.

"What in the world are you doing?"

He lowered himself neatly and sat down with his legs folded beneath him.

"Yoga exercises. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor lovely lady nor waiting bottle of champagne can stay me from the swift completion of my appointed rounds. And now I have completed them."

He smiled and stood up his muscles rippling smoothly under the light tan that never left him.

"And very quickly, too," she said approvingly. "What's that scar on your right thigh? And the one on the shoulder?"

She touched his shoulder lightly.

"Knife up there, shrapnel down below. He kissed the tip of her upturned nose and wrapped his giant towel around his waist. "Ready for champagne?"

"Dying for it." The cat eyes crinkled with amusement. "You look like one of the new delegation heads at the United Nations. Down on First Avenue you could go out and not a single head would turn. Correction. All the girls would look."

"I must try it some time."

The cork popped.

They sank down on the soft, inviting couch and toasted each other.

"What now, Peter? What do we do next?"

"Hmmm?" He eyed her languorously.

"I mean the job."

The smile went out of his eyes. He had drafted a code message to Hawk and Judson had undertaken to see that it went off immediately. The reply should not be long in coming. "Hawk will get in touch and the Consul will get some kind of code message which he'll refer to us. Don't worry about it now. Time enough when official orders come."

"How will we find Judas? God, he must be a monster. And that — that fanatic on the plane, with the Betty Crocker."

"Aunt Jemima."

"Peter, why did he take off the cast? He knew he couldn't get away if the explosive did go off. Couldn't he have just — sat there — and..."

Nick took her hand. "Someone might have seen him. And then, I suppose, even the most diehard fanatic must find it difficult to sit calmly and wait to explode. An L-pill is easier. Now don't think about it. There's a time to worry and a time to spy and a time to — to be almost ourselves."

The towel slid gently from her pale-copper shoulders. She leaned back and pulled him to her. He could feel her heart thudding as his head came down on the twin pillows of her bosom. Cool fingers traced the scar on his shoulder. He moved his head. The marvelous breasts responded to his touch. He covered her mouth with his, and her body with his body.

Shadows lengthened across the floor. Big Ben rumbled metallically. Julie stretched like a cat.

"Isn't Yoga wonderful?" Deep contentment filled her eyes.

Nick stroked her hair and rose as smoothly as a panther.

"No more wonderful than you. Please stay there — I want to look at you."

He had known many women in his life, but very few so truly beautiful; and none before with Julie's exciting tiger-like quality of controlled and sinuous strength, none who could melt so slowly and softly and then burst into a vital, blazing flame of passion that stimulated, thrilled, licked hungrily, hung for long moments on the high precipice of desire, then burst into a blinding flame-shower of fulfillment.

She could laugh, too. They had loved and laughed and brought to each other the soul-filling satisfaction and body release of a perfect sexual union. She was almost dangerously desirable. With her, it was easy to love and forget the murderous hand of the man who had reached around the world to blow up planes, smash lives and damage the tenuous links of national policy. The red shadow in the background made the lovemaking all the more urgent, all the more compelling.

He began to dress, paying special attention to the harnesses and holsters that held his lethal friends.

"I should think he would have called by now."

"Judson? Perhaps we didn't hear the telephone." She propped herself on one elbow and watched him dress.

"Oh, we'd have heard all right. But it's getting late. Hawk's had plenty of time to reply."

"Perhaps the Consul downs tools at five. Maybe he won't call until tomorrow. After all, he's a fairly big wheel."