Nick Carter - Assassination Brigade

I knew when the phone rang in the gray, pre-dawn hours that it could only be one person on the other end of the line — Hawk, my boss at AXE.

The phone was on a night table on the opposite side of the bed, so I had to crawl over Maria Von Alder, asleep beside me, to reach it. Maria stirred in her sleep, drawing up one leg slightly so that her sheer pink nightie rode up above her hips, as I scooped up the receiver.

“You’re needed back here immediately,” Hawk said as soon as he had identified my voice. His words were clipped and urgent. “There’s been a new development in that deal we’re working on. Be ready to leave in thirty minutes.”

“In thirty minutes?” I asked. “How? You seem to have forgotten where I am.”

I was on Whiskey Cay, a tiny island off the Bahamas, where Hawk himself had sent me on assignment. I would have to arrange for a boat to pick me up and take me to one of the larger islands so I could catch a plane back to the States.

Hawk was impatient with my answer. “Be ready to leave in thirty minutes,” he repeated, his voice icy. “Mr. James is providing your transportation.”

I nodded without speaking. “Mr. James” was the AXE code-name for the President of the United States.

“Good,” Hawk said, as if he had seen me nod. “A boat will pick you up at the main dock of Whiskey Cay in precisely twenty-seven minutes.” He hung up. As I put down the receiver, I saw that Maria had opened her eyes and was watching me.

“That was my office in New York,” I told her. “I’m afraid I have to go back. The company’s sending a boat.”

Maria thought I was a millionaire named Tony Dawes, the cover I was using on my present AXE assignment. Even if she had heard my conversation with Hawk, she still wouldn’t have any reason to doubt my cover.

But she made a face, her ripe, red lips pouting. “Do you have to go back today?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” I said cheerfully as I started to swing out of bed. “And not just today, but right now. I’ve just about got time to dress before the boat gets here.”

But before I could get out of bed, Maria reached up and playfully tugged at my arm, pulling me toward her.

“You don’t have to be in that much of a hurry,” she said huskily.

There was no doubt about it Maria Von Alder was a beautiful creature, a long-legged, shapely blonde with a superbly molded, golden body and full, smooth breasts, their pink tips thrust hard against the bodice of her transparent gown. She was looking at my body, and she could see what the sight of her was doing to me. She slithered down the bed on her back, her hips slightly upraised, offering her silken body to me, like a loving cup waiting to be filled.

With all the willpower I could muster, I whispered, “There’ll be other times.” I brushed her cheek with my lips and took off for the shower.

I couldn’t complain that the past five days on Whiskey Cay hadn’t been enjoyable. The island was a pleasure playground for the very rich. There were luxuries everywhere you looked — the sea-going yachts, scrubbed clean, riding at anchor on the sparkling blue waters; the acres of expensive, landscaped lawns, blazing with flame-bright flowers, stretching away to the sea; the clusters of palatial villas, vividly colored, as if they had been drawn with a child’s crayons, cresting high above the Atlantic Ocean. I had been enjoying everything, including Maria Von Alder, for the past five days.

But my visit to Whiskey Cay had still been frustrating; I was there on business, and I was no closer to a solution of my current assignment than I had been the day Hawk first briefed me at AXE headquarters in Washington.

Hawk had opened the conversation with an un-characteristic monologue about the dangers of this particular mission, the impossible odds, the vital importance of success.

I had shot him a look out of the corner of my eye, thinking, so what else is new? I’d half-expected to see those wrinkle lines around his thin lips break into a smile. It wasn’t often that Hawk, a reserved New Englander, tried to be humorous. But I saw that these lines around his mouth and piercing eyes only deepened, and I knew he meant it.

He shuffled some papers on his desk and frowned. “We were just informed — it’s top secret, of course — that six hours ago the Prime Minister of England was threatened with assassination by his life-long friend, a fellow member of Parliament. The two men were at the Prime Minister’s country house when the friend suddenly produced a rifle, aimed it at the Prime Minister, and then, quite inexplicably, turned the rifle on himself and blew his own brains out. There was no one else present at the time, so we can give out a fake story to the public. But the real implications of the incident are frightful.”

I nodded. This was more bizarre than I’d expected, even after Hawk’s lead-in speech.

“The official British version is going to describe it as an accident,” Hawk continued. “A misfire while the friend was examining the rifle. Of course, it will not be mentioned that the weapon was first turned on the Prime Minister.”

“Are you planning to lend me to the English to help with the investigation?”

Hawk shook his head. “The problem is closer to home. There have been reports of similar occurrences in China, France, Japan, and Germany. In each instance the would-be assassin had the power to kill his victim but instead killed himself.

“You can imagine what effect these reports have had on the President. He could easily be the next target. And he’s not about to wait until a member of this assassination squad reaches the White House, even if the killer eventually murders only himself. Our job this time is to search out and destroy — preventive action.”

“Do we have any leads?”

“Not much,” Hawk admitted. He lit one of his cheap cigars and puffed in silence for a minute. “I have all the files of the investigations from the various intelligence agencies in each of the countries and those of Interpol as well. Want to know what they’ve found?”

He ticked the facts off on his fingers. “One, all the dead assassins were overweight. Two, all were obsessive about their excess poundage and spent considerable time trying to get rid of it. Three-three of them were close to the Von Alder sisters.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Terrific. I’m looking for fat men on a diet who like pretty girls. You’re not exactly making this easy.”

“I know,” Hawk said. “I’m sorry.” From the way he said it, I almost believed him. But then he turned crisply businesslike again.

“We start with the Von Alder sisters — that is, you do. They’re the only real clue we’ve got.”

The Von Alder girls were a little bizarre themselves. Maria, Helga, and Elsa — identical blonde triplets, well known to any newspaper reader or television viewer. They were in their twenties and beautiful. They had come to the United States from Germany after World War II with their mother, Ursula. They specialized in millionaire husbands and lovers, who’d made them wealthy with gifts of homes scattered around the globe, yachts, jewels, even private jets.

Thinking it over, I decided that getting close to the Von Alders was probably one of the most pleasant ways I’d ever started on an assignment.

It had been simple enough for AXE to supply me with a cover — Tony Dawes, wealthy business-man who had inherited a prosperous export-import business with headquarters in New York. Soon, with Hawk pulling the right strings behind the scenes, I’d been invited to a number of the same parties as the Von Alder girls. Once I met the sisters, it was reasonably easy, with lavish displays of gifts and attention, to become a part of their social set.