Nick Carter - Temple of Fear

The Colt was lying partly under the dead beggar. "Nick scooped it up — the butt was sticky with the old man's blood — and ran down the passage. He kept the Colt in his right hand, jutting out. No one in this neighborhood was going to interfere with a man carrying a cannon.

It was now a matter of seconds. He wasn't going out of the Sanya jungle, he was going in, and once in the cops would never find him. The shacks were all of paper or wood or tin, flimsy fire traps, and it was simply a matter of bulldozing his way.

He made the turn to his right again and ran toward Matu's house. He ran in the front door, still open, and on through the inner room. Kunizo was lying there in his blood. Nick kept going.

He smashed through a paper door. A brown face peered in fright from a floor pad. The servant. Too scared to get up and investigate. Nick kept going.

He put his arms in front of his face and bulled through a wall. The paper and flimsy wood tore away with slight complaint. Nick began to feel like a tank.

He crossed a little open court littered with junk. There was another wood and paper wall. He plunged into it, leaving the outline of his big body in gaping cut-out. The room was empty. He slammed ahead, through another wall, into another room — or was it another house — and a man and woman gaped in astonishment from a floor bed. A child lay between them.

Nick touched his hat with a finger. "Sorry." He ran on.

He ran through six houses, kicked three dogs aside and surprised one couple in copulation before he came out in a narrow winding lane that led somewhere. That suited him. Somewhere away from the cops who were blundering and cursing along behind him. His trail was plain enough, but the cops were polite and dignified and had to do things the Japanese way. They would never catch him. Not in Sanya they wouldn't!

An hour later he was over the Namidabashi bridge and approaching Minowa station where he had left the Datsun parked. The station was crowded with early workers. There were many cars in the parking lot and queues already forming at the ticket windows.

Nick did not go directly into the station grounds. There was a small snack bar already open across the street and he had a koka-kora, wishing it was something much stronger. It had been a rugged night.

He could see the top of the Datsun. No one looked especially interested in it. He lingered over the Coke and let his eyes wander over the crowd, sifting and judging. No cops. He could have sworn to that.

Not that it meant he was out of this yet. Home free. Cops, he acknowledged, were going to be the least of his worries. Cops were fairly predictable. Cops he could handle.

Someone knew he was in Tokyo. Someone had followed him to Kunizo's place, in spite of all his precautions. Someone had killed Kunizo and set Nick up for it. That might have been accident, happenstance. They could have wanted to give the cops someone, anyone, to stop pursuit and questions. They might. He didn't really think so.

Or had someone followed him to Sanya? Had it been a setup from the very beginning? Or, if not a setup, how had someone known he would be in Kunizo's house? Nick could think of an answer to that one and he didn't like it. It made him feel a little sick. He had come to like Tonaka.

He headed for the parking lot. He wasn't going to solve anything by beating his brains out over a suburban Coke bar. He had to go to work. Kunizo was dead and he was without contacts for the moment. Somewhere in the Tokyo haystack was a needle by the name of Richard Philston and Nick had to find him. Fast.

He reached the Datsun and stared down. Passersby hissed in sympathy. Nick ignored them. All four of the tires had been slashed to ribbons.

A train came in. Nick started for the ticket window, reaching for his hip pocket. So he didn't have a car! He could take his train to Ueno Park and change to a train for downtown Tokyo. It was better, actually. A man in a car was confined, a good target, and easy to follow.

His hand came out of his pocket empty. He didn't have the wallet. Pete Fremont's wallet. The little cop had it.

A trail like a bull moose on roller skates careering through a formal garden.

That, Hawk considered, was an apt description of the spoor left behind by Nick Carter. He was alone in his office, Aubrey and Terence having just departed, and after he finished going through a stack of yellow flimsies he spoke on the intercom to Delia Stokes.

"Cancel the red APB on Nick, Delia. Make it a yellow instead. All points to stand by, to offer any assistance if he asks for it, but not to interfere. He is not to be recognized, followed or reported on. Absolutely no interference unless he requests help. Got that?"

"Got it, sir."

"Right. Get it out at once."

Hawk clicked the intercom off and sat back, stripping a cigar without looking at it. He was playing a hunch. Nick Carter was onto something — God might know, for Hawk certainly didn't — and he had decided to stay out of it. Let Nick work it out his own way. If any man in the world could take care of himself it was Killmaster.

Hawk picked up one of the flimsies and studied it again. His thin mouth, which often reminded Nick of a wolf trap, quirked in a dry smile. Ames had done his job well. It was all here — as far as Tokyo International Airport.

Nick, accompanied by four Japanese Girl Scouts, had boarded a Northwest Airlines plane in Washington. He had been in a gay mood and had insisted on kissing a stewardess and shaking hands with the Captain. At no time had he been really obnoxious, or only slightly, and it was only when he insisted on dancing in the aisle that the co-captain had been summoned to quiet him down. Later he had ordered champagne for all aboard the plane. He had led the other passengers in song, proclaiming that he was a flower child and that love was his thing.

The Girl Scouts had managed to control him fairly well, actually, and the crew, questioned by Ames over long distance, admitted that the flight had been lively and different. Not that they would care to do it again.

They had, with absolutely no reluctance, poured Nick off at Tokyo International and watched the Girl Scouts whisk him into Customs. Beyond that they did not know.

Ames, still by phone, had established that Nick and the Girl Scouts had gotten into a taxi and vanished into the wild melee of Tokyo traffic. And that was that.

And yet it was not quite all. Hawk turned to another yellow flimsy containing his own notes.

Cecil Aubrey, a little reluctantly, had at last admitted that his tip on Richard Philston had come from one Kunizo Matu, a retired karate teacher now living in Tokyo. Aubrey did not know exactly where in Tokyo.

Matu had lived in London for many years and had worked for MI5.

"We always suspected him of being a double," Aubrey had said. "We thought he worked for Jap Intelligence, too, but we could never prove it. We didn't really care at the moment. Our, er, interests didn't clash and he did a good job for us."

Hawk had gotten out some old files and searched back. His memory was very nearly perfect, but he liked to confirm.

Nick Carter had known Kunizo Matu in London, in fact, used him on a couple of jobs. There was not much else to be gleaned from the barren reports. Nick Carter had a way of keeping personal business just that — personal.

And yet — Hawk sighed and pushed the stack of papers away. He stared at the Western Union clock. This was a devious profession and very seldom did the left hand know what the right was doing.

Ames had searched the apartment and found Nick's Luger and stiletto in the mattress. That was odd, Hawk conceded. He must feel naked without them.

But Girl Scouts! How in hell had they gotten into the act? Hawk began to laugh, a thing he very rarely did. Gradually he lost control and sat helplessly in the chair, eyes tearing, and laughed until his chest muscles began to pain.