Ник Картер - Assassin - Code Name Vulture

We reached the guard at the elevator. He was looking at Sergiou oddly.

“Where have you been?”

“These are members of the press,” Sergiou said, acting out his new role. “They have heard of a terrible massacre of junta colonels that took place just a few hours ago. The police reported the tragedy to them. They want a short interview to learn Mr. Minourkos’ views on this dreadful event, and I will speak to them upstairs.”

I felt Hugo the stiletto on my right forearm and wondered if I would have to use it. If the guard had been on duty for a while, he would know Tzanni had not left the building.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll get the elevator.”

The elevator was upstairs at the penthouse. He rang for it, and it slowly began its descent. It seemed like an eternity before it arrived on the main floor, but the doors finally slid open. The same elevator operator who had taken me up and down previously was on duty. We got aboard while the operator stared openly at Sergiou. The doors closed behind us, but the operator did not push the button to take us up.

“I didn’t know you were out of the building,” he said to Sergiou, eyeing us warily.

“Well, now you know,” Sergiou answered testily. “I left to meet these newspaper people. Take us upstairs. I am giving an interview.”

The man studied Sergiou’s face carefully. “I will just make a call upstairs first,” he said.

“That is not necessary!” Sergiou complained.

But the operator had stepped to the communications panel at the side of the car. I nodded to Spencer, and he stepped closer. He pulled his Smith & Wesson .38 and the other man saw the movement. He turned just in time to receive the muzzle of the gun across the temple. He gasped and slid to the floor.

Erika stepped to the controls. “Take it up,” I said.

On the way up to the penthouse, we moved the limp form of the operator into a corner of the elevator where it wouldn’t be readily seen when the four of us emerged. A moment later the doors opened on the penthouse corridor.

As I suspected, there were still two men on duty. One of the two was the blond thug I had met previously. These were gunmen, and I did not want to play games with them. The blond rose from the table at the entrance to the penthouse while the other one remained seated. Both looked at Sergiou as if they were seeing an apparition.

“What the hell—” the blond one exclaimed. “What goes on here?”

Sergiou captured the blond thug’s attention while Spencer went over to the dark-haired one at the table. The man rose slowly to face Spencer.

“I have given permission for an interview with these men,” Sergiou said.

“How did you get out of the penthouse?” the blond asked.

I stepped around beside him while Sergiou answered. Spencer stood close to the dark man. Erika covered us both with the little Belgian revolver hidden behind her purse.

“Don’t you remember my leaving?” Sergiou asked indignantly. “It was just about an hour ago. I told you that—”

No further explanation was necessary. Hugo slipped into my palm soundlessly. I grabbed the blond man with my left hand and pulled him to me while he was off-balance. I made a quick pass across his throat with the knife hand. Red spattered onto Sergiou’s shirt and jacket.

The dark man went for his gun, but Spencer was ready for him. He pulled an ugly-looking garrote from his pocket and looped it quickly over the thug’s head, then pulled hard on the crossed wire with the two wood handles. The man’s hand never reached his gun. His eyes went wide, and his mouth popped open as the wire bit through flesh and arteries down to bone. More blood sprayed onto the thick carpet at our feet as the thug jumped and twisted in Spencer’s grasp for a moment, his legs kicking at the air. Then he joined his comrade on the floor.

Erika loosened her grip on the trigger of her revolver. Sergiou looked at the corpses, white-faced, as I wiped the blade of Hugo on the blond’s jacket. Spencer nodded to me, abandoning the garrote now deeply imbedded in the other man’s neck, and moved to the door of the penthouse. I kept Hugo in hand, and Spencer pulled out a special pistol he had mentioned to me earlier. It had been supplied by Special Effects and Editing — an air gun that shot darts. The darts were tipped with curare, a quick-acting poison that AXE had borrowed from the Indians of Colombia.

Sergiou had regained his composure. He went to the door and inserted another key that Minourkos had given him and unlocked the heavy door with it. He looked at me, and I nodded. He pushed the door open silently and stepped aside, since he wasn’t to enter the penthouse. He wasn’t equipped to help in that phase of the assault.

We all three stepped quickly through the doorway, fanning out as we went Erika held the revolver well out in front of her, ready to fire, but she was just a back-up gun. I didn’t want to alert anymore of Stavros’ people than was absolutely necessary before we found Stavros himself.

It would have been perfect if Stavros had been in that big living room at the entrance. That would have ended the whole thing very quickly. But, instead, we found the tough Hammer sitting on a long sofa, his back to us, a glass of brandy in his hand. I saw the holster straps from where I stood. He was still armed — a dangerous man.

There was no evidence of life down the interior hallway that led to the bedrooms, but there was the sound of voices from the well-lit office. I was just about to start toward Hammer’s back when suddenly two men came from the office into the living room. One was a thick-set gunman with an automatic in a shoulder holster, and the second one was the other fake Madoupas, Yianis Tzanni.

They stopped short when they saw us, and both gazed saucer-eyed at Sergiou. The two imposters stood staring at each other for a brief moment, while Hammer turned to them and saw the looks on their faces. In another split-second, the thug with Tzanni was going for his gun.

Spencer aimed the dart gun and fired. There was a dull popping sound in the room, and a moment later a black metal dart stuck out of the man’s neck, just beside the Adam’s apple. His jaw began working silently as Tzanni stared at the black object, horrified. Hammer had begun turning and drawing his gun in one cat-like motion.

His eyes focused on me first, and I saw the menace in them as his hand found the gun in his holster. I dropped to one knee and simultaneously swung my arm in an underhand loop, releasing the stiletto. It sliced through the air as silently as a striking snake and hit Hammer in the chest beside his heart. The blade thudded into his body audibly and sank to the hilt.

Hammer’s ugly eyes, exposed to me for the first time, since he wasn’t wearing the blue-tinted sunglasses, stared hard at me for a moment, incredulous that I had managed to kill him so swiftly. He looked down at the stiletto where crimson seeped from his shirt. He took hold of the knife as if to pull it out, then raised the gun in his hand toward me. But he was dead. He fell face down on the sofa, his long hair covering the bewildered expression on his face.

The other gunman had just stopped twitching on the floor. Tzanni turned to run back into the office, but another dart from the air gun stopped him, catching him high in the back. He grabbed wildly at it, was unable to reach it, and then fell headlong into the doorway to the office, flailing there for a moment, then going limp.

“You should have saved him,” I said quietly to Spencer.

I walked over to the doorway and saw that there was no one else in the office. I turned back to the others. I motioned toward the corridor leading to the bedrooms, and Spencer preceded me to it. Erika followed after me.