Ник Картер - Agent Counter-Agent

“Which was written just to get us over here,” I said.

“Exactly. And I fell for it — hook, line, and sinker. If anybody is to blame, Nick, it’s me.”

“I read the note, too,” I said. “Maybe we’d better quit trying to place blame and start thinking about bringing this assignment to a close. We’ve destroyed their grand plan, but now we have to nail them.” I looked at the floor. “I have an idea they’re patting themselves on the back over this one and maybe getting a good laugh out of it. Well, the fun at my expense is over. When I find them, they won’t be laughing.”

“I suspect you’ve sobered them up some already,” Hawk said, “since you aborted their multiple assassination attempt. How do you know the girl is KGB?”

“Because she told me,” I said. “Or at least she admitted it when I asked her. That was just before the drug knocked me out. Anyway, her real name is Tanya Savitch, and she has a hint of Russian in her German accent. I couldn’t quite identify it before the drug.”

“Is that all you can remember about her?”

“At the moment. I have an apartment to check out and the German Embassy and a restaurant where I saw her. Also, I have a memory of a clinic and white-coated men and Tanya giving me instructions about all this. I can’t remember their names or the things they did to me there. They blindfolded me when I left the clinic, so I have no idea where it is.”

Hawk grimaced. “Well, at least you avoided the tragedy they had planned, Nick. You say you came out of your trance prematurely?”

“The jets going over made a sound similar to the one I was supposed to hear from the machine. That sound, along with the warning messages my subconscious had been sending for the past two days, made me to go to the window to hear the jets again. The KGB must have wanted me to return to my real identity after the assassination was over. If I denied I was Nick Carter, that might have confused the reporters. They wouldn’t have known who was really responsible. Or they might have just figured I’d gone berserk. The KGB didn’t want that. They were out to humiliate us, and they damn near succeeded.”

“Are you all right now, Nick?” Hawk asked, watching me closely.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “But then, I’m supposed to be.”

He grunted. “Okay. Is the girl our only lead?”

“The only good one. I remember something about that mystery man. Something new. I think he was at the clinic.”

Hawk puffed at his smelly cigar and blew a smoke ring. “That figures. Well, you should probably have some tests first, but we don’t have time for that now. Get on with it if you feel up to it.”

“I’m up to it,” I said. “But keep the police and the other agents away till my twenty-four hours are up. That’s all I ask. I don’t want to be stumbling over assistants.”

“All right, Nick,” Hawk said.

“Then I’ll see you at your hotel.”

I was seated across a large mahogany desk from Herr Ludwig Schmidt, the West German deputy ambassador, who was supposed to have taken Tanya to the reception the night I met her. Schmidt was reclining in his high-backed chair, a long cigarette in his right hand.

“Oh, yes. I took Fraulein Hoffmann to the reception. She wanted to attend a diplomatic function. She is a bright girl, you know. She called in sick right after the reception. Apparently she ate something at a bullfight that upset her stomach terribly. She has still not returned to work.”

“How long has she been with you here?” I asked.

“Not long. A Hamburg girl, if I’m not mistaken. Her father was a Russian refugee.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“Yes. She speaks German with a slight accent because of her family situation. Her family spoke Russian in the home.”

“Yes,” I said, “I see.”

Herr Schmidt was a very thin, sexless man in his forties, obviously very satisfied with his role in life. “A lovely girl, don’t you agree?” he asked.

I remembered the times I’d been with her on the sofa, cot, and bed. “A very lovely girl. Can I reach her at the address listed in your files?” It was the same place she’d taken me the night she’d drugged me.

“Why, I’m sure you can. She is ill, after all.”

“Yes. In case I don’t find her at home, do you know of anyplace else I might look? Restaurants or cafés or special places for relaxation?”

“But I have told you the girl is ill.”

“Please,” I said impatiently.

He seemed irritated by my insistence. “Well, I myself have taken her to lunch on occasion at a small café near here. I don’t remember the name, but she likes the Venezuelan hallaca, and they serve it there. It is a cornmeal dish.”

“I know,” I said. I remembered that Tanya had ordered that at El Jardín after the bullfight.

Schmidt smugly stared at the ceiling. “Actually, I think the girl is attracted to me,” he said confidentially, “Being a bachelor in this city is a delightfully consuming pastime.”

“I suppose,” I said. “Well, I’ll try to find her at home, Herr Schmidt. Good afternoon to you.”

He didn’t get up. “My pleasure,” he said. He stared up at the ceiling again, probably daydreaming about his sexual potential as an unmarried male in Caracas.

I really didn’t expect to find Tanya at her apartment. She must have arranged to leave it the minute the last phase of the operation began — my capture. But I hoped I’d find some land of clue there. I was met on the main floor of the building by a fat Venezuelan portera who didn’t speak any English.

“Buenas tardes, señor,” she said loudly, a big grin on her face.

“Buenas tardes,” I answered. “I’m looking for a young woman named Ilse Hoffmann.”

“Ah, yes. But she doesn’t live here any more. She moved out very suddenly, several days ago. An unusual foreign girl, if you will excuse me for saying it.”

I smiled. “Did she take everything with her?”

“I haven’t checked the apartment carefully. There are so many apartments here, and I am a busy woman.”

“Would you mind if I took a look upstairs?” I asked.

She gave me a hard look. “It is against the rules. Who are you, please?”

“Just a friend of Miss Hoffmann’s,” I said. I reached into my pocket and offered the woman a fistful of bolívares.

She looked at them, then back at me. She reached out and took the money, looking around her shoulder down the hall. “It is number eight,” she said. “The door is unlocked.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I climbed the stairs to her apartment. With luck, I might be able to stop Tanya and her comrades before they caught a plane to Moscow. But I was worried — they undoubtedly knew by now that their plot had failed.

Upstairs, I entered the apartment. Memories crashed in on me again in rapid succession. The wide sofa sat in the middle of the room, just as it had on that night when Tanya had bartered her body for the capture of an American agent. I closed the door behind me and looked around. It was all so different now. It lacked the life, the vibrancy, that Tanya had given it. I rummaged through the drawers of a small desk and found nothing but a couple of theater tickets. They wouldn’t do me much good in the next twenty-four hours. I moved on through the rest of the apartment. I went into the bedroom and found a crumpled bullfight program in the wastebasket there. I recognized Tanya’s handwriting because she scribbled the notes on the program when I was with her at the bullfight. Just some kind of reminder to pick up groceries. It was worthless to me. I’d just thrown it back into the wastebasket when I heard a sound in the living room. The door to the corridor had opened and closed very quietly.