Nick Carter - Temple of Fear

Yes. Hawk could understand how badly the British wanted Richard Philston.

Aubrey shook his head. "No, David. I don't think it's a bad steer or a plant. Because we've got something else to go with it — there is some sort of deal being arranged between the Kremlin and Peking. Something very, very big! This we are sure of. At the moment we have a very good man in the Kremlin, tops in every respect, as good as Penkovskiy ever was. He's never been wrong and now he tells us that the Kremlin and Peking are cooking up a stew that might damned well blow the lid off. But to do it they, the Russians, will have to use their best man. Who else but Philston?"

David Hawk stripped cellophane from a new cigar. He watched Aubrey narrowly, his own withered face as impassive as a scarecrow.

He said: "But your big man in the Kremlin doesn't know what the Chinese and the Russians are planning? Is that it?"

Aubrey looked slightly miserable. "Yes. That's it. But we know where. Japan."

Hawk smiled. "You people have a good network in Japan. I happen to know that. Why can't they handle it?"

Cecil Aubrey left his chair and began to pace the narrow room. At the moment he reminded Hawk, absurdly, of the character actor who had played Watson to Basil Rathbone's Holmes. Hawk could never remember the man's name. Yet he did not underestimate Cecil Aubrey. Never. The man was good. Maybe even as good as Hawk himself.

Aubrey stopped pacing and towered over Hawk's desk. "For the excellent reason," he exploded, "that Philston is Philston! He ran my department for years, man! He knows every code, or did. It doesn't matter. This isn't a matter of codes or rigmarole like that. But he knows our ploys, our methods of organization, our MO — damn it, he knows everything about us. He even knows a lot of our men, at least the old-timers. And I daresay he keeps a file updated — the Kremlin must be making him earn his keep — and so he'll know a lot of our new men, too. No, David. We can't do it. It needs an outsider, another service. Will you help us?"

Hawk studied his old friend for a long time. Finally he said, "You know about AXE, Cecil. Officially you're not supposed to, but you do. And you come to me. To AXE. You want Philston killed?"

Terence broke his Scot's taciturnity long enough to growl. "Yes, mon. That's exactly what we do want."

Aubrey paid no attention to his subordinate. He sat down again and lit a cigarette with fingers that, Hawk noted with some small surprise, were trembling slightly. He was puzzled. It took a lot to unnerve Aubrey. It was then that Hawk first distinctly heard the clicking of wheels within wheels — for which he had been listening.

Aubrey pointed the cigarette like a smoky wand. "For our ears, David. In this room and for our six ears only — yes, I want Richard Philston killed."

Something moved in the back of Hawk's brain. Something that clung to shadow and would not be hauled into light. A long ago whisper? Rumor? Press story? Men's room joke? What in hell? He could not summon it. So he pushed it back to be fallow in his subconscious. It would emerge when it was ready.

Meantime he put into words what was so obvious. " You want him dead, Cecil. But your government, the Powers, they don't? They want him alive. They want him caught and taken back to England to stand trial and be hanged in the proper manner. Isn't that it, Cecil?"

Aubrey met Hawk's glance squarely. "Yes, David. That's it. The PM — it's gone that high — agrees that Philston should be taken if possible and brought to England to stand trial. This was decided on quite some time ago. I was put in charge. Until now, with Philston safe in Russia, there has been nothing to-be in charge of. But now, by God, he's coming out, or we think he is, and I want him. God, David, how I want him!"

"Dead?"

"Yes. Dead. The PM, Parliament, even some of my superiors, aren't professionals the way we are, David. They think it's a simple thing to catch a man as slippery as Philston and get him back to England. I don't. There will be too many complications, too many chances for slip-ups, too many opportunities for him to escape again. He isn't alone, you know. The Russians won't just stand by and let us arrest him and take him back to England. They'll kill him first! He knows too much about them, he'll try to make a deal, and they know that. No, David. It's got to be a straight kill job and you're the only one I can turn to."

Hawk said it more to clear the air, to have it said, than because he cared. He ran AXE. And why wouldn't that elusive thought, that shadow skulking in his brain, come into the light? Had it been so scandalous that it had to bury itself?

He said, "If I agree to this, Cecil, it certainly must remain between the three of us. One hint that I'm using AXE to do someone else's dirty work and Congress will be yelling for my head on a platter. They would get it, too, if they could prove it."

"You'll do it, David?"

Hawk stared at his old Friend. "I really don't know yet. What is going to be in it for me? For AXE? Our fees for this sort of thing come high, Cecil. There will be a very high quid pro quo — a very big tit for tat. You realize that?"

Aubrey looked miserable again. Miserable but resolute. "I realize that. I expected it, David. I'm not an amateur, man. I expect to pay."

Hawk took a fresh cigar from the box on his desk. He did not look at Aubrey for the moment. He found himself hoping most devoutly, that the debugging crew — they made a thorough sweep of AXE headquarters every two days — had done their job well, Because if Aubrey would meet his terms, Hawk had decided to take on the job. To do MI6's dirty work for them. It would be a kill mission and probably not as difficult to execute as Aubrey imagined. Not for Nick Carter. But Aubrey would have to pay his price.

"Cecil," Hawk said mildly, "I think that maybe we can do a deal. But I'll want the name of that man you've got in the Kremlin. I promise that I won't try to contact him, but I'll have to know his name. And I want an equal, full share of everything he sends out. In other words, Cecil, your man in the Kremlin will also be my man in the Kremlin! Do you agree to that?"

In his corner Terence made a strangled sound. He seemed to have swallowed his cutty pipe.

It was quiet in the little office. The Western Union clock ticked with a tiger sound. Hawk waited. He knew what Cecil Aubrey was going through.

A top agent, an unsuspected man in Kremlin high circles, was worth more than all the gold and jewels in the world. All the platinum. All the uranium. To make such a contact, to keep it fruitful and unsuspected, took years of arduous work and all the luck there was. It was, on the face of it. impossible. Yet it had been done once. Penkovskiy. Until at last he had slipped and they shot him. Now Aubrey was saying — and Hawk believed him — the MI6 had another Penkovskiy in the Kremlin. Hawk happened to know that the United States did not. The CIA had been trying for years and had never made it. Hawk waited patiently. It was quite a plum. He could not quite believe that Aubrey would go along.'

Aubrey nearly choked but he got the words out. "All right, David. It's a deal. You drive a hard bargain, man."

Terence was regarding Hawk with something very akin to awe, and most certainly respect. Terence was a Scot who knew another Scot, at least by inclination if not blood, when he saw him.

"You understand," said Aubrey, "that I'll have to have some absolute proof that Richard Philston is dead."

Hawk's smile was dry. "I think that can be arranged, Cecil. Though I can hardly have him killed in Times Square, even if we could get him there. How about sending his ears, neatly done up, to your office in London?"

"Seriously, David."