Ник Картер - The Asian Mantrap

“How do I know you’re authorized to speak for him?”

“Accept the fact that I am, Mr. Carter. We are here to save you considerable trouble. I can assure you that General Martin intends to return to Washington in good time. At the present, he prefers to be left alone.” The earnest spokesman appeared outwardly calm. His friend, on the other hand, seemed nervous and impatient. He kept shifting his feet and in doing so had moved closer to the office door. My lack of a ready response and immediate agreement to break off my pursuit of Martin did not sit well with him.

I’d already made up my mind that their appeal had no bearing on what I had been instructed to do. Rather than argue the point, I decided that leaving would be the simplest course. I sidestepped to go around the man who had moved beside me. He kicked the door closed with his foot. Then he almost tore my arm out of its socket spinning me around.

“Hold it, Wyler!” snapped his companion. The order came too late to halt my countermove. With near-automatic reaction, I twisted away from Wyler’s grip as my right foot left the ground and lashed out. I used the momentum Wyler had given me to add impetus to my swinging leg. My heel struck him at the knee joint, snapping his fibular ligament. Wyler’s breath hissed through clenched teeth as he sucked in a sharp cry of pain. His hold on me loosened as he bent over to lift his weight from his injured leg. He’d be limping painfully for the next week.

As he staggered back, he reached inside his suit coat. The next instant I was staring into the business end of an army issue Colt .45 caliber automatic. The pained, angry look on his face gave him the appearance of a grimacing gargoyle.

Behind me, Layton’s voice intoned, “That wasn’t necessary. I’m sorry it happened. Since you’ve shown that we can’t reason with you, more direct means will have to be used.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Layton had moved closer. I swung about to face his challenge. That was a mistake. It made my face an easy target for a blast of mace.

Before the stinging spray reached and blinded my eyes I saw the container in Layton’s hand. It was painted olive drab and had black block lettering on it. That and the regulation caliber .45 pistol convinced me that the determined pair had armed forces connections.

Blinded, choking, and wholly disoriented, I stumbled about the room, crashing into the office furniture. I ended up on my hands and knees, completely incapacitated.

It couldn’t have been very long before my mind began functioning again. I felt my way to the door and pulled myself erect using the knob for support. Through tear-curtained eyes I looked out into the terminal. The two assailants had fled. I propped myself against the wall outside of the office door and took deep, regular breaths.

When my vision became less misty, I made my way to a water cooler and soaked my handkerchief. The water washed away most of the irritant, but the debilitating effect of mace left me with a throbbing headache. I was functional again and seething inside. I’d never forget those two. Nor what they did to me.

A quick glance at my wristwatch told me that Flight 131 had departed without me. Intuition made me reach into my pocket for my airline ticket and boarding pass. Both were gone. I patted my other pockets. My wallet was missing as well. Layton and Wyler had frisked me. They hadn’t taken my belt, though; it holds an emergency reserve of cash. Short of breaking my legs, those two thugs had put every possible obstacle in my way which made me all the more determined to reach San Francisco.

I hoped there would be an available seat on the next flight to the coast. When I found a TV monitor displaying airline schedule information I got a surprise — TWA Flight 131 was still posted on the screen. Its delayed takeoff would give me ten minutes to get aboard.

But I had no boarding pass and no ticket.

The TWA counter clerk who had served me initially was taking a twenty minute break. His stand-in, a patient, understanding young woman listened to my predicament. She didn’t get the true story. Besides taking too much time, she’d never believe it. I did get the point across that I wanted a duplicate of the ticket already purchased. She said she couldn’t do that because of some obscure but pertinent Civil Aeronautics Board regulation. There wasn’t time to debate the issue. I asked her to sell me another ticket.

She fingered a keyboard behind the counter putting the request to a remote computer. She stared at the instantaneous read-out. Her smile faded. “Oh, I’m sorry. You know that’s a very popular flight. Every seat is sold.”

I groaned.

“I can put you on stand-by,” she suggested, her smile back in place. “We’ll know if there’s space in just a couple of minutes.”

I stood by... right next to the counter where I could make my presence felt. As the public address system announced the last boarding call, I grew fidgety. When it seemed pretty clear that I was going to have plenty of time very soon to discuss with Hawk my failure, to leave, the clerk answered a ringing phone located behind the counter. She talked briefly, then turned to me. Her smile was set at its widest. “There are three no-shows for Flight 131. First class and coach seats. Which do you want?”

“First class,” I replied. Her smile evaporated and her innocent eyes grew wide as I started unbuckling my trouser belt. I whipped it out, turned it over, and unzipped the money compartment to extract some narrow-folded bills. I removed all of them, pocketing the ones not needed for the ticket purchase.

“Luggage?” she asked politely. I shook my head. She would never understand if I told her my bag was already aboard. “It’s Gate D-3,” she said unneccesarily.

I walked at a brisk pace. There was a slight delay while I waited my turn to go through the passenger checkpoint where detecting rays scanned each person for metal objects. A male flight attendant was standing beside the open aircraft door. He began closing it before I was fully inside. An anxious stewardess hustled me along to the empty aisle seat in the last row of the first-class compartment. They were in a hurry. I was barely settled when the fully-loaded jet began moving.

I sat with my eyes closed. Somewhere high over eastern Pennsylvania I began to feel well enough to set my brain into motion again. Through a stroke of very good fortune, I was back on schedule, but with an entirely different outlook on this job.

The skin of my cheeks and neck itched and burned from the burst of mace. As soon as the Fasten Seat Belts lights went off, I unbuckled and made my way back to the rear of the plane. There was a john in first class, but I wanted to take a good look at the rest of the passengers. I didn’t expect to see Layton or Wyler, but I had to make sure.

I didn’t recognize anyone in the coach section. I waited at the back of the plane until the lavatories were vacant — I didn’t want to miss anyone.

The soap and water helped a lot. On the way back to my seat I decided to check out first class too. I had been rushed down the aisle too quickly and since then, I’d seen only the backs of heads.

The compartment was full. That meant that someone was travelling on my stolen ticket. Layton — or Wyler? My step quickened.

I came to a full stop just before passing through the partition separating the two sections. The extent of my idiocy struck me and I realized that my thinking processes were still dangerously short of optimum.

Of course every first-class seat was occupied.

I came aboard as a stand-by to take the only first-class no-show space.

I was the no-show passenger.

I’d paid twice for the same seat.