Ник Картер - The Code

I remembered her line from that afternoon. I repeated it. “Now who’s showing off?”

“I am,” she admitted. “But you like it.”

Still smiling, she tugged down the zippered fly of her slacks, wriggled out of the heap they made at her feet. Now she wore only the black bra and a matching splash of black lace below.

Calmly she walked to the bed and sat down on the edge. She unfastened the bra and pulled it away from her large breasts. With a casual movement of her arm, she draped the garment across the headboard, then lay back on my pillow.

“I’ll leave the pants for you,” she said. “I thought you might like to tear them off me.”

Something other than a challenge was shining in her eyes now. Excitement, desire.

When I shed my clothing, and she saw the stiletto and the gas bomb, she exclaimed, “My God, you re a walking arsenal.”

I grinned lewdly. “You re packing a pair of cannonballs yourself.”

Her laugh was husky and uninhibited. She might be out to prove she was the equal of any man, but she certainly didn’t mind being regarded as a sexual object “Come on, N3,” she urged.

“Nick,” I told her. “The bed is no place for formality.”

“Nick. Nick,” she said, “I’m ready.”

I tore the lace pants off her. She had been right. I enjoyed doing it.

Pat was a strong girl. I felt muscles ripple in her back as we embraced. Her mouth was soft and warm, her tongue quick and darting. I buried my face in her breasts and her fingers clawed in my hair. When I toyed with her hard nipples, she writhed and growled like a hungry cat.

My hands slid down to her buttocks and I raised her to meet my opening thrust. I sank deep inside her and heard her moan. Her body ground against me. When I sped my movements, she bucked and shook the bed. She had the lithe power of an animal.

“Nick,” she gasped. “Let’s finish together.”

As far as I was concerned, her timing was perfect. All of it, as a matter of fact, had been perfect.

Her hand slid down my thigh, exploring. “Muscles. You’re quite a hunk of meat, Mr. Carter.”

“So are you.”

“I wasn’t prepared for this. You’re even better than I’d been told.”

“I take it. I’ve earned more than your professional respect.”

She laughed. “May I sleep here tonight?”

“You can stay the night,” I said “I don’t know how much sleep you’ll get.”

In the morning I rose early and started gearing up before the redhead awoke and turned over in the bed.

“Nick,” she said, “it was great. Especially the last time.”

I taped the gas bomb to the inside of my thigh. Last night had been last night. Today it was back to business as usual. I strapped the stiletto to my forearm and tested the spring mechanism. I flexed my arm and the thin knife popped down into my hand, ready for use.

“The look on your face is a little frightening,” Pat said.

I gave her a grin that failed to reach my eyes. “I’m not exactly the boy next door.”

Then I put on the clothes that went with the role of Ned Harper, donned the Luger, slipped a zippered jacket over it, and examined myself in the mirror. As far as I could tell, I looked like a down-at-the-heels truck driver. When I drifted into the town where Sheila Brant was hiding out, my story would be that I was looking for work.

“I’m not supposed to ask this,” said Pat, “but what happened to N1 and N2?”

“Their luck ran out,” I told her. Like David Kirby’s, I thought.

I snapped shut the suitcase AXE had furnished me. I was ready to leave. All I had to do was say goodbye.

The redhead saved me the trouble. “I know. Ships that pass in the night and all that. Stay lucky, Nick.”

I drove into Bonham, Idaho, at two o’clock in the afternoon. The town had 4,700 inhabitants and this looked like the day 4,695 of them had decided to stay home.

Turning in at a gas station that advertised instant service, I pulled up to the tanks. The instant service failed to materialize. I got out of the car and went inside, where I found a man napping behind a desk cluttered with dust, roadmaps, cracker jars, and boxed auto parts. I rapped my knuckles on a clean edge of the desk.

His eyes cracked. “Yessir?” he yawned.

I pointed to my car. “I want some gas.”

“Oh,” he said as though the possibility hadn’t occurred to him.

While he yanked loose the hose and thrust the nozzle into the Ford’s almost empty tank, I stood nearby and glanced along a drowsy street brightened by the pale sunlight of late spring.

I saw no traffic signals, no neon signs. Bonham looked like a Norman Rockwell painting of a small town. I felt out of place, my assorted deadly weapons strapped to my body and locked in the trunk of my car. Bonham looked nothing like the spot a Mafia chieftain’s former mistress would choose to hide out. That was probably the very reason Sheila Brant had chosen it. Give her credit for brains, I thought.

I flexed my tired shoulders. I had been driving fast and for long hours every day since I left AXE’s base on the Carolina coast. Later in the day I’d be contacting the AXE agent who’d been watching Sheila to make sure i she didn’t skip out on us.

The service station attendant was getting around to swabbing the car’s windshield. “You’ve got enough dead insects on here to fill a bucket,” he complained. “You must have driven all night.”

“Yeah,” I said. He was observant, if not instant.

“Tourist?”

“No,” I said.

His head turned and his eyes weren’t sleepy anymore.

“I’m a truck driver,” I said. “I’m hoping to land a job here.”

“Any special reason you picked Bonham?”

“I like small towns.”

“There’s lots of other small towns.”

Damn, I thought. He was certainly curious. I said, “I like the looks of this one.”

While he was checking the oil, I went into the men’s room and slid the bolt on the inside of the door. I splashed cold water in my face. I was tired from being glued to the seat of a car so long, I told myself, or the service station attendant’s questioning wouldn’t have irritated me.

He knocked on the door. “Hey, mister, I need to see you.”

I unzipped my jacket so I could reach the Luger quickly, then opened the door. “What about?”

“About Sheila Brant,” he said, then grinned. “I’m the agent you’re supposed to meet, N3.”

I had never seen my contact and I was taking no chances. “What are you talking about?”

Pushing the door shut, he dipped a hand in his pocket and produced a cigarette lighter identical to mine. He pitched it to me. “I’ve talked to a couple of people who worked with you in the past, Carter. I thought I recognized you from their descriptions. Then I raised the hood of that battered car you’re driving and spotted a motor that’s a piece of art. Some of Hawk’s gimmickry, I told myself. My name’s Meredith, by the way.”

I turned the lighter over. What looked like a manufacturer’s serial number on the bottom was actually a code that identified the owner as an AXE operative. “All right, Meredith. But I’d be more careful if I were you. Don’t forget that the cause of this whole business is the loss of a damn good agent.” I didn’t press the matter further. It wasn’t my place to chew him out “What’s the latest on our girl Sheila?”

“She’s still here, playing it cool. I’ve tried to avoid getting too close so I wouldn’t arouse her suspicion. I took this job because I was afraid the townspeople would begin to wonder why I was sticking around. I’m staying at the hotel. I’ll see you there tonight and we’ll talk some more.” He hesitated. “I understand I’m to be the backstop on this assignment and I’m looking forward to working with you. Don’t judge me by what just happened. I’m usually not so casual.”