Ник Картер - Butcher of Belgrade

Like a great black snake, the Orient Express slid out of the station at Milan. Picking up speed, the train burst out of the city and into the green Italian countryside, whining along the rails as it raced toward Trieste.

In a compartment near the rear of the swaying train, a small, nervous man sat alone, his brown suitcase at his feet. His name was Carlo Spinetti. He was a tradesman, homeward bound after a journey to visit distant relatives. As he gazed out of the train window at the landscape speeding past, he thought how glad he would be to see his wife and children again. This business of travel might be exciting for some, but for Carlo Spinetti the incessant hustle and bustle of crowds proved a strain on the nerves.

A tall man opened the door to the compartment and stood looking at Carlo with cool, dark eyes that seemed to have been chiseled out of ebony. His gaze dropped to the brown suitcase Carlo had not bothered to place in the luggage rack. A faint smile curled the corner of the man’s mouth, and then he stepped the rest of the way into the compartment and sat down opposite Carlo, stretching his long legs out in front of him.

“Getting off at Trieste, are you?” he asked.

Carlo Spinetti blinked and stirred in his seat. He was surprised that this stranger knew his destination. He said, “Yes, and you?”

The man continued to smile as though he knew about a joke that was being kept from Carlo. “I am also getting off at Trieste.”

Five minutes later, a heavyset man entered the compartment. He closed the door and leaned against it, studying Spinetti as the first man had. His gaze, too, dropped to the bag at Spinetti’s feet. Then he nodded to the tall man as though the two of them knew each other from some distant past.

Instinctively, Carlo reached down and shifted the suitcase that seemed to interest the two strangers. He could not have explained their interest. The bag was battered and worn, and it contained little of value except Carlo’s clothing and some small gifts he was taking home to his family.

“Are you going to Trieste too?” he nervously inquired of the second stranger.

“Yes.” The voice was gruff and harsh. The heavyset man sank to a seat alongside the first stranger and folded his arms over his chest. He sat there silently, his eyes hooded as though he had dozed off, while the train churned on.

Carlo wriggled uncomfortably. He told himself he must be imagining the threat he felt behind their casual words. Both men were more expensively dressed than he was. Their faces appeared hard, but they did not look like thieves who stole from innocent travelers.

“What is the matter with you, my friend? You seem a little jumpy,” said the tall man mockingly.

Carlo worked a finger in his collar to loosen it. “I was wondering — could it be that you know me?”

“No, my friend, I don’t know you.”

“I have the feeling that you are staring at me.”

“I’m looking at you, but I’m not staring,” said the tall man. Then he laughed.

Carlo’s nervousness was rapidly turning to fear. Telling himself that he didn’t have to stay here, that he could change compartments, he leaned down and quickly grabbed hold of his suitcase. But as he started to move from his seat, the tall man across from him lashed out with his foot and pinned the suitcase in place, blocking Carlo’s path with his leg.

“Do not leave us, my friend. We are enjoying your company,” he said in a menacing voice.

Suddenly the eyes of the heavyset man flicked open. He glared at Carlo. “Yes, sit down. And be quiet if you don’t want to be hurt.”

Carlo dropped back into his seat. He was trembling. He felt something crawling on his cheek. He swiped at it with his hand, then realized it was a stream of sweat.

“Why are you doing this? I have never seen you before. What could you want from me?”

“I told you to be quiet,” growled the heavyset man.

Bewildered and frightened, Carlo stayed in his seat until the train pulled into the station at Trieste. He was so terrified that he arose only when the heavyset man stood up and gestured. “Let’s go. You walk ahead of us.”

The tall man had reached into his coat. He produced a knife with a short, broad blade. “We will take your suitcase, my friend. Behave yourself if you wish to live.”

Carlo protested. “I am carrying nothing of value in my suitcase. Surely this is a mistake; you have the wrong man.”

“We have the right man and the right suitcase.” The knife’s sharp point pricked Carlo’s neck. “Shut up and start walking.”

As Carlo moved slowly down the steps of the train, sweating and shaking with fear, it came to him that perhaps these men would kill him no matter what he did. Panic thundered in his brain. He stepped to the station platform and his eyes caught a glimpse of a policeman’s uniform in the crowd. Instinctively he yelled, “Please help me!”

He started to run toward the policeman, and then the blade of the knife sank savagely into his neck. He staggered, gasping. What was the reason for it? Why did they want his suitcase? Bewildered to the end, he lunged blindly off the edge of the platform and plunged downward onto the tracks with a scream that trailed off into a dying sob...

A soft rain was falling on Washington. Thick fog hung over the city like a gray overcoat When I looked from the window of my hotel room, I could see just about as far as I could throw the Pentagon. Just for the hell of it, I tried to make out the shape of the Soviet Embassy down the street. I wondered if any of the boys there were busy thinking up projects that I’d be assigned to abort.

The telephone rang and I moved to it quickly. I was waiting for a message from David Hawk, the man who called the signals for AXE, the cloak and dagger agency that employed me. The work was risky, and sometimes the hours were terrible, but I got to meet a lot of interesting people.

The voice that came over the line belonged to one of Hawk’s assistants. “The Old Man is in a meeting and he sends word that he’ll be tied up for quite a while. He says for you to take the night off and check in with him tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” I told the voice and hung up with a scowl. When David Hawk got tied up in long meetings, it usually meant something had gone wrong for our side.

Impatience gnawed at me as I stripped off my hardware — the Luger in the shoulder holster, the stiletto up my sleeve, the small gas bomb I often wore taped to the inside of my thigh — and stepped into the shower. Sometimes my business was just like the military: hurry up and wait. For two days now I’d been in Washington awaiting orders, and Hawk still hadn’t told me what was up. When it came to inscrutability, many Orientals could have taken lessons from the lean-faced old pro who commanded AXe’s operations.

Hawk had summoned me to the capital from New Delhi, where I’d just completed an assignment. The summons had been tagged Priority Two, which signified that urgent business was at hand. Only Priority One instructions could bring an agent winging homeward any faster, and Priority One was reserved for the kind of messages dispatched when the President was on the hot line and the Secretary of State was chewing his fingernails down to the knuckles.

Since my arrival, however, I’d been able to talk to Hawk only once, and that conversation had been brief. He’d told me only that he had an assignment coming up that was right down my alley.