Ник Картер - Assassin - Code Name Vulture

“Oh, Nick,” she said, touching me, her breath coming unevenly.

My hands found her roughly, and I moved over her. A few seconds later there were lovely sounds coming from her. She became a clawing, raging, primitive woman, losing all control as she thrust to accept fulfillment deep inside her.

Later, after Erika had fallen asleep, I left her bed and quietly went to my own room. She didn’t awaken.

The next morning I left Erika and Minourkos at the hotel and went to the Apollo building. I had obtained a uniform from a local crew of window washers who worked regularly in the building and who were allowed access to the penthouse with a pass. Minourkos had helped me forge a pass and I had also blackened my hair at the hotel and pasted on a dark mustache so I would appear to be Greek. I lied to the guard outside, a uniformed building employee, saying that Madoupas had ordered the penthouse windows to be cleaned.

I couldn’t even get on the special elevator until I had identified myself. The elevator operator was obviously one of Stavros’ men. A gun bulged under his blue uniform. He eyed me and my pail suspiciously as we rose to the penthouse. No other elevator went up there and, according to Minourkos, the one stairway leading down from the top floor was blocked off and guarded.

When I got off the elevator, I found myself in a plush corridor that ran from the front to the rear of the building. It had thick pile carpeting and planters and fancy chandeliers hanging from a high ceiling. Two guards sat at a desk at the entrance to the penthouse. They were Stavros’ hired thugs, part of his personal army. Minourkos’ own guards, who had been few, had to have been dismissed shortly after the secret takeover of the penthouse.

One of the two men, the taller, came to meet me in the middle of the corridor. He was anything but friendly.

“What is your business?” he demanded.

I responded in my best Greek. “Is my business not obvious?” I asked. “I come to wash windows.”

“Who sent you?”

“I pointed to a cloth patch on the uniform that bore the name of the small window washing business.”

“Did your employer have orders from the penthouse?”

“If they didn’t, I would not be here,” I answered. I took a big gamble. “I heard Madoupas’ name mentioned.”

The other man scowled darkly from the table. He had light hair and a very tough look, and I figured him to be one of the men Stavros had brought with him from Brazil As he studied my face, I felt that he was seeing right through my disguise.

“Hmmph,” the man beside me grunted. “Turn to the wall and place your hands against it.”

I had wondered how careful they would be about weapons. I had left Wilhelmina at the hotel and had taken Hugo, the stiletto, off my arm and strapped it to the inside of my right ankle. I hadn’t wanted to go into the lion’s den without any defense. I turned around and held my breath as the thug frisked me with expertise. After checking out my torso and arms, he worked slowly down my left leg to my knee. Then he moved down my right thigh toward the knife. He got to the knee and passed below it. My stomach tightened. He stopped just an inch or so above the handle of the stiletto.

“All right,” he said. “Turn back and let me see your identification.”

I pulled out the phony card, and he examined it carefully. Without saying anything, he took the card to the other man and showed it to him. The man finally nodded and the tall, dark one returned, handed the card back, and looked into the pail.

“All right. He will take you inside.”

“Thank you,” I said humbly.

The second man rose from the desk and studied me carefully as I went to meet him. I was beginning to feel that it would be easier and much less trouble to get into Fort Knox. He opened the door, and I preceded him into the interior of the penthouse.

I was inside the fortress at last. It was a formidable feeling, considering my vulnerability if they found me out. The chances were, if that happened, I would never leave the building alive. And the way Stavros chose to kill a spy might not be the most pleasant way to die.

We had entered a spacious living area. It was luxurious to a fault. Rich carpeting covered two levels of floor, and the high ceiling was painted with a mural depicting a scene from ancient Greece. On the far side of the room was a wall of glass overlooking the city, opening onto a small balcony by way of a sliding glass door. That was where I would begin my work. I turned and saw expensive furniture all around the room, much of it antique. Ancient urns rested gracefully on polished tables.

To my right through a partially open door I could see another room with desks and cabinets that apparently had been converted into an office by Stavros. To my left there was a corridor with rooms off it, apparently bedrooms and living quarters.

“I will begin on the large windows here,” I said.

“You wait here,” the man who ushered me in commanded.

I hunched my shoulders. “Of course.”

He went into the office and disappeared for a moment. I moved to my right so that I could see the inside of the room better. There were several dark-suited men moving about and somebody talking on a telephone. It seemed to be a communications center. There were probably a half dozen men in that one room. While I waited, two other men walked from the corridor into the big room where I was, gave me a look, and also went into the office. Stavros had plenty of people here — maybe a dozen or more at any given time. And there was little doubt that most of them wore guns and knew how to use them.

In a few minutes the man who ushered me in reappeared and returned to the corridor outside without speaking. He was followed out of the office by another man, one who wore his hair long and looked like a student radical who had outgrown his clothes and hair style. He was dressed sloppily and carried a big revolver openly on a shoulder holster over a fringed leather vest.

“How long does this take?” he asked in English.

I guessed that he, like the man at Paracatu, was an American. Stavros had taken a hard core of political activists with him.

I answered in broken English. “How long? Maybe half hour, maybe hour. Depends how dirty the windows.”

“Madoupas doesn’t remember calling you people.” He peered at me through large, blue-lensed granny glasses. His face was slightly pockmarked, and his lips were very thin, almost non-existent. From AXE files I identified him as a crony of Stavros; he was known as Hammer, a real nice fellow who was believed to have murdered two women by strapping sticks of dynamite to their waists.

“No, he not call?” I took a scrap of paper from my pocket and studied it. “They tell me Mr. Minourkos’ place.”

At that moment another man came into the room and stood beside Hammer. He was rather short and dark and obviously Greek. I had seen a photo of Salaka Madoupas in the AXE files and this man looked exactly like him.

“I don’t recall calling any window washers,” he said in English for the benefit of Hammer. “When did you come here last?”

“I not recall without records,” I answered nervously. “One must have records, you understand.”

Hammer walked over to me arrogantly. “But you have been here before?”

I hesitated. “Yes, before.”

He pulled the revolver and aimed it at my face. Its barrel was unpleasantly close. “Tell me what the kitchen looks like.”

A trickle of perspiration broke loose under my left arm. I tried to recall the description of the kitchen that Minourkos had given me. “It is large with sink and cupboards! What is this anyway?”

“Oh, let him get started,” the fake Madoupas said.

Hammer ignored him. “How many windows in the kitchen?”