Nick Carter - Run, Spy, Run

Nick slumped back, joining Julie in unconsciousness, Wilhelmina dangling from his trigger finger.

It was only then that the driver turned around and let the corners of his mouth twist in a frosty smile. The inner layer of the partition's shatter-proof glass held a tiny puncture and a miniature network of spidery lines. The glass immediately behind his own head was untouched. One rear window was in the same condition.

The chauffeur was pleased. Nothing like a specially designed Rolls for a good, neat job. Satisfied with what he had seen, he reached into the glove compartment and turned a switch. Then he applied himself to his driving.

Wilhelmina dropped from Nick's nerveless fingers.

Mr. Cane and Miss Baron were ready for delivery.

"Non-toxic, Mr. Cane. An effective sleep-inducer, but not permanent." It was the most peculiar voice Nick had ever heard, like the high, tinny whine of a cheap transistor radio. It was distant yet close; in his ear, yet on a different plane. "Do open your eyes. Two minutes more and I will know you are shamming."

Nick opened his eyes suddenly, as if he had automatically responded to the commanding quality of the strange voice. In one second he snapped from the black well of the unconscious to a reality in which his shoulders and ankles burned horribly.

There is no pain. No pain, he told himself.

But for a moment, there was pain, and his knees tried to sag.

It was a weird sensation.

Weirder still was the tableau before him.

He was in a cellar of sorts, it seemed. The light of a single dangling bulb flung a circle of illumination over rotting wallboards, stone floor, and mouldy-looking barrels. The only furniture was a rickety table and two unstable looking chairs. No one was using them. The smell of the place was damp and close, almost intolerable.

There were four people in the room.

Julia was several feet away from him. Seeing her condition alerted him to his own.

Julie was naked.

Her tall lithe body had been anchored to one of the beams which supported the ceiling above. Rough cord bound her cruelly to the coarse wooden post. Her arms were pinned back over a sort of crossbar that he couldn't see too well, but it seemed to be some kind of metal rod attached to the beam. She hung, in effect, from the rod, her shoulders uncomfortably raised and her dangling wrists lashed to the post. Her feet barely touched the floor; her ankles were confined with the same abrasive cord. She was awake now, too, and straining in a useless effort to get free. He could see the fierce red welts where she had surged her soft, copper-colored flesh against the searing bonds, and felt an almost blinding wave of anger. For God's sake, had it been necessary to tear the clothes off her? He had a fair idea how she was feeling.

The fluting voice spoke again. "The lady is a tigress, Mr. Cane. If you care to imitate the action of the tiger — to paraphrase Shakespeare — it will come to nothing. Your bonds, if anything, are even more secure than hers."

He could feel the truth of it. The cold, damp feel of rough-grained wood behind him, the taut suspension of his arms and legs, and the sharp bite of the cord were all the proof he needed.

He blinked under the dazzling light of the unshielded bulb. Two dark, shadowy figures swam into focus, rimmed with light, featureless.

He swallowed a foul taste and the impulse to be sick.

"Judas, I suppose."

A high, humorless laugh rang hollowly in the bare cellar. One of the dim figures came forward and stood beneath the bulb. Its full glow splashed upon his head.

"Yes. I am Judas. Take a good look, Mr. Cane. You and the lovely lady. Drink your fill of my face. It is the last time you will see it. Anyone who has ever looked upon me is long since dead. With the exception, of course, of my faithful Braille, who is always with me. Braille is blind. I trust that you appreciate the joke."

Braille was a vague silhouette beyond the perimeter of the bulb.

Judas, the legend, the obscure, stood revealed in the harsh light.

There was nothing ordinary about the legendary Judas. If Nick had ever formed any impression of him at all through the years that echoed with his infamous name, it dissolved at once with the impact of the man himself.

Judas was a symmetrical man. Short, well-proportioned, compact; body as militant and cut-from-the-mould as a Prussian Junker. In action, it would be a flying wedge of strength and iron control. The face and the strange right hand compelled attention.

Judas' face was a shining globe of hairless, bloodless features, a one-color, one-surface mask of precision that might have been cast from an assembly line die. The eyes were slits which showed no more than narrow, unfathomable pools of liquid fire. The nose was small in the globular face, hardly raised above the flat cheek bones, finely chiseled, ruler-straight. The huge, permanently-grinning mouth beneath it would have looked more appropriate on a skull; some of Judas' face had been lost in a long-ago accident and had never been quite replaced. Apart from the hideous grin, there was no expression on the face, save a fixed one of watching, of waiting, of preparedness to strike. The head, brows and lids were completely bald. It was not a view to be savored up close.

Julie made a stifled sound in her throat. It echoed through the dank cellar and came back like a whimper. The figure called Braille turned to her, arm upraised, but Judas made a restraining gesture with the glittering device that was his right hand.

"Wait, Braille."

The light bulb sent dancing arrows of silver reflection off five metallic, rigid fingers, that simulated the human hand in all but color and texture. The fingers curved, as if the muscles were real, and the hand was lowered.

"The lady is correct," said Judas. "I am not pretty."

"So I see," Nick agreed. "What do you want with us, aside from a discussion of your appearance?"

The eye slits narrowed. "A good question. The answer is in your own hands. And I want more than names, ranks and serial numbers. I know that you are American agents who have successfully counteracted my aircraft operations, making it necessary for me to find another way. But in the meantime I intend to get all I can out of you. Everything that is in you." The inhuman eyes suggestively raked Nick's body. "I already know enough to assure you that nothing will be gained by prevarication."

"Judson," Nick said bitterly.

"Judson," Judas agreed evenly.

"Judson is a fool," said Nick. "And we played him for the fool. There's no secret about our job. We were told to take a certain flight. We did. It's over. If there's any stupid melodrama of agents, ranks, and serial numbers, it came from him."

"Judson is indeed a fool," Judas said agreeably. "It has always been my good fortune to find fools in high places who place money above patriotism. And now Judson's services are at an end. Your government will wonder why two of their operatives have disappeared after contacting him. I cannot — I'm sure you understand — afford investigations. But I can afford to spend a little time with you."

"I've already told you," snapped Nick, "that we've nothing to say. Judson was an idiot with spy stories in his head and lots of conversation and very little else." He tested his bonds as he rapped out the impatient words. Whoever had trussed them up was an expert.

"And I've already told you, Mr. Cane — I'm sure that is not your name, but it will do for the moment — that lies will get you nowhere." The weird, mechanical voice had climbed in pitch. "I may not know all about you, but I do know that you're working for the CIA and that you were sent to look for me."

Quick relief flashed through Nick Carter. Almost certainly, he had not heard of AXE or Operation Jet. Nick had been wondering for a moment just how much Judson knew. Not much, to judge by their evening with him; not much, to judge by Judas.