Ник Картер - Assassin - Code Name Vulture

I watched his face. “Are you sure?”

A wry smile. “How sure must I be? In Athens a rifle shot breaks a window and misses my head by inches. So I take the hint. I take a vacation to see my cousin here in Salisbury. He is an import merchant who emigrated here ten years ago. I thought I would be safe here for awhile. Then, two days ago a black Mercedes almost struck me on the main boulevard. The driver, who drove up onto the curb, looked exactly like a man I had seen before in Athens.”

“Do you know who the man is?”

“No,” Salomos said, shaking his head slowly. “I had seen him coming from the Apollo Building recently when I was doing a little snooping there.” He paused and stared at his ale. “Have you ever heard of the Apollo Lines?”

“An oil tanker company, isn’t it?”

“That is correct, my friend. The biggest tanker line in the world which is owned by my countryman, Nikkor Minourkos.”

“Oh, yes. I know of Minourkos. A billionaire ex-sailor. A recluse; nobody ever sees him these days.”

“Correct again,” Salomos said. “Minourkos withdrew from public life almost ten years ago while still a relatively young man. He is believed to spend almost all his time in his penthouse in the Apollo Building near Constitution Plaza where he conducts his business. Personal contacts are made primarily by associates close to Minourkos. Almost no one ever obtains a personal audience with him.”

“Very rich men seem to place a high value on their privacy,” I said, sipping the ale. “But what does Minourkos have to do with the attempts on your life?”

Salomos took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “About six months ago, Monourkos’ behavior began to change. This was of particular interest to me, and other newspaper editors, of course, because any information about Minourkos is exciting and important to the readers of the Athens Olympiad. So I began taking notice when Minourkos, who has always stayed out of politics, began issuing public statements against the ruling junta in Athens. Suddenly he announced that the leaders among the colonels were weak and socialistic. He claimed they betrayed the ‘revolution’ of April 21, 1967, and implied that Greece would be better off with the restoration of Constantine II or some other monarchy. He referred to the danger of leftists like Papandreou and suggested that there needs to be another ‘shake-up’ in Greek government.”

“Well,” I said, “the man has a right to grow a sudden interest in politics after all these years. Maybe he’s bored with trying to spend his money.”

“It seems to be going farther than that. A man like Minourkos can buy a lot of friends. Generals and colonels are seen going to and from his penthouse, but they won’t talk about the visits to the press. And there are rumors of a private army being financed by Minourkos at a specially built camp in northern Greece and at one on Mykonos, an Aegean island.

“Lastly, there is the recent disappearance of Colonel Demetrius Rasion. A Minourkos-dominated newspaper concludes he drowned while boating at Piraeus, but his body was never found. Nikkor Minourkos is now starting a big campaign to have Rasion replaced with a man of his own choosing, a fascist named Despo Adelfia. The junta does not want Adelfia, but its new and genteel leaders are afraid of Minourkos and his friends on the staff of generals.”

“An interesting situation,” I acknowledged, “But do you think Minourkos is embarking on a terror campaign with ideas of a bloody coup?”

“Perhaps. But there are other possibilities. There are new faces that none of us newsmen have seen before coming and going from the penthouse atop the Apollo Building; Minourkos himself still stays in hiding. I did notice, however, that one of the new faces belongs to a Greek-American named Adrian Stavros.”

My eyes narrowed slightly on Salomos. “Stavros in Athens?” I murmured slowly. “Keeping company with Minourkos?”

“It appears so. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Well. Since Minourkos’ recent utterances have been so out of character, perhaps he himself has not been the source of them.”

“A Stavros takeover of the Minourkos empire?”

“Perhaps against Minourkos’ will,” Salomos suggested. “Perhaps there has already been a small coup, a hidden one. Since Minourkos is so secretive and always deals through subordinates, it would be possible to kill or capture him and operate under his name, and spend his vast sums of money without anyone taking notice for a time. It was just after I implied such a theory in my editorial that the first attempt was made on my life in Athens.”

The haunted look had returned to his eyes. I remembered the AXE file on Adrian Stavros and realized that he was capable of just such a maneuver. Stavros had spent his college years demonstrating with placards at Yale. Then he had become involved in a radical bombing of a CIA office, and later he had made an attempt on a senator’s life. He had escaped the clutches of the FBI and the CIA and had buried himself somewhere in Brazil where he had graduated to big-time crime like smuggling and assassination. Since the evidence against him in the States has been slim, the US had not tried to get him back. But they kept a watch over him in Brazil.

“And the man who tried to run you down here in Salisbury?” I asked. “You had seen him coming from the penthouse at the Apollo Building?”

“Yes, Nick,” Salomos said. He swigged the rest of his ale and looked over the hibiscus-lined balustrade down the hill to the city. “I am getting desperate. A friend of my cousin who lives in the country outside Bulawayo has asked me to visit him for a short time until this blows over. I have accepted his invitation. A rented plane waits for me at the airport. I will fly it, since I am a licensed pilot, and will enjoy the trip. That is, if I can forget about—” There was a brief silence, then he looked over at me. “Nick, I would be very grateful if you could accompany me to Bulawayo.”

I knew that Alexis Salomos would not ask if he were not desperate with fear. And I still had several days leave left before I received another assignment from David Hawk, the enigmatic director of AXE.

“I’ve always wanted to see Bulawayo,” I said.

A look of relief came over Alexis’ face. “Thanks, Nick.”

Two mornings later we were airborne. Salomos was a competent pilot, and it appeared that the flight across the wild country of Rhodesia would be uneventful and pleasant. Salomos flew low so that we might spot occasional game animals and interesting topographical features of the bush. The flight seemed to raise Salomos’ spirits, and he seemed very much like his old self. But at mid-morning, just about halfway to Bulawayo, the serenity of the morning was transformed into a nightmare.

The small Mooney aircraft, a two-seater, began coughing. Salomos was not concerned at first, but then it became worse. He throttled the small engine, but that only made matters more difficult. We lost altitude and started into a wide, banking spin.

Salomos swore in Greek, then his face went pale. He studied the panel and glanced over at me. “The fuel gauge reads full ,” he shouted over the sputtering engine. “It has not moved from its original position this morning.” He banged on the glass that covered the gauge, but nothing happened. The needle stayed fixed on the letter F .

“We’re out of gas,” I said incredulously. That was bad news in any airplane, particularly in a small one.

“Not quite, but we’re running out fast,” Salomos said, pulling the Mooney into a temporary, steep glide and fighting the controls. “This plane was sabotaged, Nick. The gauge was frozen in position, but the tanks were almost empty when we started out. It had to have been on purpose.”