Ник Картер - Assault on England

“That’s it, Yank,” the second man told me, speaking for the first time.

“Take me to him, then,” I said. I don’t argue with guns staring me in the face.

The second man uttered a harsh laugh. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? But it is not going to be so easy. You’ll just come with us, tell us what we want to know, then take the next plane back to America.”

I climbed into the back seat and they got in after me, one on each side. They were taking no chances. We pulled away from the curb.

We were heading along Oxford Street now, toward Marble Arch. If they stayed on that main street, it would complicate things. Just before we reached Hyde Park, though, the driver turned into a narrow side street, heading toward Grosvenor Square. This was my chance, if there was ever going to be one.

The man on my left was watching the progress of the car, but his buddy with the gun hadn’t taken his eyes — or the gun — off me. So I had to encourage him a little.

“Look out!” I said suddenly. “In the street there.”

The driver slowed automatically and the two men in the back seat looked forward for a split second. That was all I needed. I chopped down hard on the gun arm of the agent on my right and the gun dropped to the floor of the car. I followed that up with a quick, hard chop to his throat that left him gagging.

The other agent was grabbing for my arm. I jerked free and rammed the elbow savagely into his face, breaking his nose. He grunted and collapsed into the corner.

The Austin careered wildly along the narrow street as the driver tried to steer with one hand and point his gun at me with the other. “Stop it. Carter! Stop it, you bloody bastard.”

I pushed the gun toward the roof of the car, twisted the wrist and the gun went crashing through a side window, splintering glass. I felt a sharp pain in my right cheek where a piece of flying glass stabbed me.

The driver had completely lost control of the Austin now. It skidded from one side of the street to the other, passed gaping pedestrians, finally going up over the right curb and crashing into a utility pole. The driver’s head struck the windshield and he collapsed against the wheel.

Retrieving Wilhelmina from the man on my left, I reached over the agent on my right and kicked the door on that side. It sprang open and I threw myself over the man and through the door, hitting the pavement on my shoulder and rolling with the impact.

I got up and looked around at the Austin, at the two dazed men in back and the unconscious driver slumped over the steering wheel.

“Don’t bother to drive me back,” I said.

“Since time is so important,” Heather York was saying across the intimacy of a table for two, “Brutus insisted we leave for Cornwall this evening. Actually, I rather like driving at night.”

She was wearing a short, very short, green dress with shoes to match and an auburn wig styled in a shoulder-length hairdo. I told her when she picked me up at the hotel, “If that wig’s supposed to be a disguise, it won’t work — I’d know that figure anywhere.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “No disguise, a girl just likes to change her personality once in a while.”

On the way to the little restaurant on the outskirts of London, where we stopped for dinner before proceeding south to the coast, I described my run-in with Novosty’s boys.

She chuckled. “Brutus must have loved that... you did call him?”

“I did.”

The restaurant was charming, very Old English. The waiters had just brought our order when a man approached the table. He was tall and square with blond hair and a rugged face. Along the left side of his neck, almost hidden by his shirt, was a thin scar. He had hard dark brown eyes.

“Heather — Heather York?” he said as he stopped at the table. “Yes! I almost missed you with the wig. Very flattering.”

Heather responded with a strained smile. “Elmo Jupiter! Nice to see you again.”

“I was going to ask you and your friend to join us,” he motioned toward a dark-haired girl at a table in the corner, “but I see you’ve been served.”

“Yes,” Heather said. “This is Richard Matthews... Elmo Jupiter, Richard.”

I nodded. “My pleasure.”

He studied me for a moment and the hard eyes were definitely hostile. “You’re an American.”

“Yes.”

“Heather does have exotic tastes.” He grinned, turning back to her. “In men and motorcars. Well, I must get back to my black ale. I’ll see you about, Heather.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, still wearing the tight smile. “Have a good evening.”

“I always do,” Jupiter said, turning away.

As he walked back to his table. Heather glanced at the girl waiting for him there. “I don’t like that man,” she said abruptly. “I met him through a friend who’s a clerk at SOE. He thinks I work in public health. He asked me out but I made an excuse. I don’t like his eyes.”

“I think he’s jealous,” I said.

“He probably resents my turning him down. He’s used to getting what he wants, I hear. Makes automobiles, I believe. He’d be surprised to learn about the girl he’s with. She has a long record for selling drugs.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“I worked at the Yard for almost a year before SOE offered me my job.”

She said it casually, as if it were of no importance, but I was impressed. Lovely Heather, I suspected, was full of surprises.

We drove all that evening and into the night along winding, shrub-lined narrow roads at first, passing through villages with such names as Crownhill and Moorswater, then along the seacoast for a while. Heather drove her dated but custom-made S.O.C.E.M.A. Gregoire.

“It has a Ferodo type 11L clutch,” she told me proudly as we roared around a tortuous curve in the blackness, the headlights scything two swaths of yellow through the night. She had abandoned the wig and her short blond hair was mussed by the wind. “And a Cotal type MK electromagnetic gearbox.”

We stopped at a bed-and-breakfast inn long after midnight when Heather finally tired of driving. She asked for separate rooms. When we were given adjoining rooms and a wink by the old Scottish landlord, Heather offered no objection but no encouragement either. So I fell asleep in my own bed, trying not to think of her so close.

We arrived very early in Penzance where Novosty was reported to have been seen a couple of days before. Brutus had given us a detailed description of him and what was known of his cover. He was going under the name of John Ryder and his English was supposed to be flawless.

After some discreet inquiries at the local hotels and pubs, we learned that a man answering Novosty’s description had indeed been in Penzance, at the Queens Hotel, with another man. He and his companion had checked out of the hotel the previous morning, but the desk clerk had overheard Novosty mention Land’s End, the tip of Cornwall jutting into the sea.

“It’s Land’s End then,” Heather said as we drove out of town. “A perfect place to hide and plot.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But we go slow from now on. Novosty probably knows we’re looking for him.”

“You’re the boss.” She smiled.

The road to Land’s End was a bleak one, winding over rocky terrain dotted with heather and gorse, and passing through gray stone villages. About five miles from our destination, we stopped a farmer driving a wagon in the opposite direction and asked about visitors to the neighborhood.

He rubbed his ruddy cheeks with a thick hand. “Two gentlemen took up in the Heamoor cottage yesterday. The one chap give me a fiver for priming the well. Seemed nice enough gents.”