Nick Carter - Rhodesia

Perhaps it was the sun's flash, that sparkle from space to blade to a nearby window or bit of metal that reflected for an instant to catch Nick's eye and alarm his alert senses. He never knew — but he turned his head suddenly to check his backtrail and saw the baboon face hurtling at him less than eight feet away, saw the blade...

Nick fell to the right, pushing off with his left leg, curling his body. Stash paid the price for concentration and lack of flexibility. He tried to follow that spot on Nick's back but his own impetus carried him too far too fast He braked, turning, slowing, lunging the knifepoint downward.

The AXE manual on man-to-man combat suggests: When faced with a man holding his knife properly, first consider a lightning kick to the testicles or running.

There's a lot more to it, about finding weapons and so on, but right now Nick realized those first two defenses were out. He was down and too twisted to kick, and as for running...

The blade came hard and straight for his chest. He writhed back and felt a shiver of pain as the point tore in under his right nipple and made a dull clanging sound on the walk. Stash was crouched over him, carried forward by his own powerful spring. Nick locked his left hand on that deadly right wrist, his reflexes as instantaneous and precise as those of a fencing master parrying a pupil's attack. Stash bent his knees and tried to pull back, feeling sudden dismay at the crushing power of a grip that seemed to have a two-ton weight behind it and strength enough to break the bones in his arm.

He was no novice. He twisted his knife arm toward Nick's thumb, a breakaway maneuver impossible to counter, a tactic by which any active woman can free herself from the most powerful man. Nick felt his grip slip under the rotation of the arm; the blade prevented his reaching Wilhelmina. He braced and pushed with all his conditioned muscular power, hurling Stash four or five feet back just before the grip on the knife arm was broken.

Stash regained his balance, poised to thrust again, paused for the barest second as he saw an astonishing thing: Nick ripped open his left jacket sleeve and shirt sleeve in order to draw Hugo without hindrance. Stash saw a second gleaming blade flash into sight and steady, its point a yard from his own.

Stash lunged. The opposing blade dipped, parried his thrust with a miniature left turn and upward push en quarte. He felt superior muscles carry his knife and arm upward and he felt horribly naked and helpless as he fought to regain control, pull back his blade and hand, and cut again. He got his hand back near his chest as that now appallingly fast sliver of steel he faced rose and crossed his blade and came for his throat. He gasped, struck forward at the man who was coming off the ground, and knew dread as a left arm rose like a granite block against his right wrist He tried to turn back, slash sideways.

That horrible blade dipped to the right as Nick feinted and Stash stupidly moved his arm to parry. Nick felt the pressure against his blocking wrist and thrust easily and straight over Stash's arms.

Stash knew it was coming. He had known it since that first gleaming flicker toward his throat, but for an instant he had thought he had saved himself and would conquer. He felt terror and dread. This was no bound victim with tied hands waiting...

His brain was still shrieking alarmed commands to his outmaneuvered body as panic struck — in time with Nick's blade, which entered just beside his Adam's apple and went completely through his throat and spinal cord, the point projecting like a metal-tongued viper under the hairline. The day turned red and black with gold flashes. The last flaming colors Stash would ever see.

As he fell Nick withdrew Hugo and stepped away. They didn't always die at once.

Stash lay in a spreading, bloody pool. His squirms drew red patterns in half-circles. He banged his head on the walk. The throat cut reduced what would have been screams to unearthly whines and gratings.

Nick kicked Stash's knife away and searched the fallen man, keeping away from the blood and plucking at pockets like a seagull pecking a cadaver. He took a wallet and a card case. He wiped Hugo on the man's jacket, high on the shoulder where it might be mistaken for the man's own gore, evading a hand that groped at him in death throes.

Nick walked back into the building entrance and waited, watching. Stash's squirmings were lessening, like a wind-up toy running down. The last of the vans clattered by, and Nick was thankful there was no caboose or cabin car on the end of the drag. The courtyard was silent. He went through the arcade, found a little-used door on the street side, and walked away.

Nick walked back to Meikles. No use hailing a cab and giving the police another time fix. Barnes would decide he should be questioned about the death in the railway building, and a long stroll is a flexible time unit.

He bought a newspaper as he went through the lobby. In his room he stripped, put cold water on the two-inch slice across his chest, and inspected the card case and wallet he had taken from the man. They told him little except for Stash's name and an address in Bulawayo. Would Alan Wilson have sent him? When you protect millions you get rough, yet he couldn't believe back-stabbing was Wilson's style.

That left Judas — or "Mike Bor," or someone else at THB. Never discounting Gus Boyd and Ian Masters and even Pieter van Prez, Johnson, Howe, Maxwell... Nick sighed. He put the packet of banknotes from the wallet with his own money without counting them, cut up the cases, burned what he could in an ashtray, and flushed the rest down the toilet.

He searched the cloth of his coat, shirt, and undershirt carefully. The only blood was from his own knife scratch. He rinsed the undershirt and shirt in cold water and tore them into scraps after removing the collar labels. As he unwrapped a clean shirt he looked affectionately and regretfully at Hugo, strapped to his bare forearm. Then he called Masters' office and arranged for a car.

It wouldn't do to discard the coat; Barnes might legitimately ask about it. He found a tailor shop far from the hotel and asked to have it mended. He drove a few miles toward Selous, admiring the countryside, and turned back toward town. The expansive groves of fruit trees looked exactly like parts of California, with long irrigation lines and giant sprayers drawn by tractors. Once he saw a horse-drawn spray cart and stopped to watch the blacks operate it. He supposed their trade was doomed, like the cotton-pickers in Dixie. An odd tree caught his eye and he used his guidebook to identify it — a candelabra, or giant euphorbia.

Barnes was waiting in the hotel lobby. The questioning was thorough but led nowhere. Did he know a Stash Foster? How had he returned from Tillbourne's office to his hotel? What time had he arrived? Did he know anyone who belonged to the Zimbabwe political parties?

Nick felt amused because the only completely honest answer he gave was to the last question. "No, I don t think so. Now tell me — why the questions?"

"A man was stabbed to death at the railway offices today. At about the time you were there."

Nick put on his astonished look. "Not — Roger? Oh no... "

"No, no. The man I asked you if you knew. Foster."

"Care to describe him?"

Barnes did. Nick shrugged. Barnes departed. But Nick permitted himself no elation. There went a smart man.

He returned the car to Masters and flew in a DC-3, via Kariba, to Main Camp at the Wankie National Park. He was pleased to find at Main Camp a thoroughly modern resort The manager accepted him as one of the escorts for the Edman Tour that would arrive in the morning, and installed him in a comfortable, two-bedroom chalet — "No charge for your first night."