Nick Carter - Death of the Falcon

“What’s going to be the official story?” I asked. I knew that the police would have to come up with some explanation for the gunfire and bodies in one of the city’s better residential sections.

“Four muggers made the mistake of picking on a decoy squad, with two detectives posing as women, and, in the shootout, came up losers.”

“Will the newsmen buy that?”

“They may not, but their editors will. The request for their cooperation came from so high that they couldn’t help but go along with it. The story will make the papers, but won’t be played up at all. The same will hold true for radio and TV; they’ll probably pass it up completely.”

“Sorry to cause you so much trouble.”

“It couldn’t be helped, I guess, N3.” Hawk’s tone was considerably more gentle than it had been a couple of hours earlier. “The thing that concerns me most,” he continued, “is that you may have blown.your cover with Sherima and the girl. I still can’t understand why you agreed to taking that walk in the first place. The wiser course, it seems to me, would have been to come back to the hotel by car.”

I tried to explain that I was faced with the decision of whether to appear a party-pooper and perhaps lose the advantage of being looked upon as enjoyable company or to take the risk of a stroll in what should have been a relatively safe area.

“I hadn’t counted on the restaurant being staked out by that foursome,” I admitted. “However, there’s always the possibility that if they hadn’t caught up to us walking, they might have cut off the car and just started shooting.”

“That could have been nasty,” Hawk agreed. “According to our information from New York, one of that pair from there usually uses a sawed-off shotgun. That’s how they linked him to the killing of the trooper. If he had opened up with it when the three of you were jammed into the back seat of the limousine, there’s a pretty good chance the District police would have had the same number of victims, only a different cast. I wonder why he didn’t use it in the street. It probably was in the station wagon.”

“Maybe The Sword had established the ground rules,” I suggested. “If he plans to blame the CIA for Sherima’s death as we suspect, the shotgun might not have seemed the proper weapon for secret agents to be using.”

“Whose idea was the little walk in the first place?” Hawk wanted to know.

That was a point that had been bothering me from the time the three of us had climbed into our fortuitous cab and headed back to the Watergate. I had been mentally playing back the conversation that led up to our almost fatal stroll, and I told Hawk that I still hadn’t reached a definite decision about its origin.

“I’m sure it was Candy who remarked on the nice night and had the sudden inspiration about walking,” I explained to my chief. “But the idea seemed to have popped into her head only after she and Sherima had been talking about getting more exercise. And the conversation about exercise, as best I can recall, really began when Candy made a remark that was intended for me and had no connection with walking.”

“How’s that?”

Trying not to arouse Hawk’s moral indignation, T explained as simply as possible that her words seemed intended to convey the message that she would be visiting my room later that night. He harrumphed a bit, then decided, as I had done long before, that it didn’t seem possible to lay the blame for the Georgetown ambling on any ulterior motive. At least not at present.

Hawk wasn’t about to let the subject of my sexual adventures drop, however. “I feel certain there will be another attempt on Sherima’s life soon,” he said. “Perhaps even yet tonight. I trust you won’t let yourself be distracted, N3.”

“By now, my charges should be sound asleep, sir. At the Great Falls today, Candy told me that she had some tranquilizers, so I suggested that she and Sherima each take one or two before going to bed tonight. And they agreed it was a good idea. I’m hoping that a good night’s rest will help them forget some of the details of this evening and, hopefully, keep them from having too many doubts about my explanation for being armed.”

Before hanging up, Hawk said he had followed through on a suggestion I had made in our initial conversation after the attack. “I had a call made to the assistant manager of the hotel, as we discussed. He was told it was the Adabian embassy calling and that Sherima had been accosted by a persistent freelance photographer while at dinner this evening. The ‘Adabi gentleman’ requested that someone watch the hallway on your floor tonight and see that no one disturbs her. The night manager said he would take care of it at once, so there should be someone out there.”

“He’s there,” I said. “I checked the hallway myself earlier and an elderly Irishman who had to be a house detective pretended to be searching through his pockets for his room key until I came back inside.”

“Didn’t he get suspicious of your sticking your head out into the hail?”

“No. I had some coffee sent up as soon as I got back, so I put the tray back outside the door. He probably just assumed I was putting it there for Room Service to pick up.”

“Well, with him out there, the only other entrance to Sherima’s room is over the balcony and I guess you’ll be covering that,” Hawk said.

“I’m watching it right now, sir. Fortunately, the second phone in this room has a long cord and I’m just inside the balcony door now.”

“All right, N3. I’ll expect a call from you in the morning… Huh, I guess since it’s already morning, I mean later this morning.”

When I said that I would check in at eight a.m., Hawk said, “Make that seven. I’ll be back here by then.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, then hung up, knowing that the old man really wouldn’t be going home to bed but would be spending what was left of the night on the well-worn leather couch in his office. It was his “ready room” when we had a major operation under way.

I had turned the two wrought iron chairs on my little terrace into a makeshift chaise lounge and my trenchcoat into a blanket. The night was still balmy, but the dampness from the Potomac finally penetrated, and I stood up to move around a bit and work the chill out of my bones. The luminous dial of my watch read three-thirty, and I was just contemplating trying a few pushups when a soft thud on the next balcony, the one outside Sherima’s room, attracted my attention. Pressing into the darkest corner near the door, I looked over the low wall that separated my balcony from Sherima’s.

At first, I couldn’t see anything there. Straining my eyes in the darkness, I spotted a rope hanging down from the roof of the hotel and extending past the front of Sherima’s balcony. What I heard, I decided, was the rope striking and falling on past the curving front wall. Then I heard another sound from up above, and I looked up to see someone coming down the rope. His feet swung precariously past the overhang as he began the slow, hand-over-hand descent. I could see no more than his shoes and pants cuffs when I vaulted the divider and pressed myself against the opposite wall, deep in the shadows. So far, it had been impossible for the intruder to spot me. A moment later, as he secured a foothold on the three-foot-high balcony wall, he was less than ten feet away from me. I stiffened, controlling my breathing, standing completely motionless.

Dressed completely in.black, he steadied himself momentarily, then dropped quietly to the terrace floor. He stood still as though he were expecting something. Thinking that he could be waiting for a confederate to follow him down the rope, I waited, too, but no one appeared from above to join him. At last, he moved up close to the sliding glass door and appeared to be listening for some-, thing, probably to determine whether anyone was moving about inside.