Nick Carter - Operation Moon Rocket

"Harmon," said Nick. "Sam Harmon."

The answer came instantly. "I don't believe I see…" Hugo snaked out of his hiding place, the tip of his vicious ice-pick blade probing Lee's belly. "Ah, yes, here it is," gasped the maitre d', struggling to suppress the quaver in his voice. "Mr. and Mrs. Hannon." The attendant slid behind the wheel of the Lamborghini and swung it around into the parking lot.

"Let's go to your office," rasped Nick.

"This way, sir." He led them through the foyer, past the coatroom, snapping his fingers at the assistant captain. "Lundy, take over the door."

As they moved down along the leopard-striped banquettes, Nick murmured in Lee's ear, "I know about the two-way mirrors, friend, so don't try anything. Act natural — like you're showing us to a table."

The office was all the way to the rear, near the service entrance. Lee unlocked the door and stood aside. Nick shook his head. "You first." The maitre d' shrugged and went in, and they followed. Nick's eyes swept the room, looking for other entrances, anything suspicious or potentially dangerous.

It was the "show" office, the one where the Bali Hai's legitimate business was conducted. There was a white broadloom carpet on the floor, a black leather sofa, a kidney-shaped desk with a Calder mobile hanging above it and a free-form glass coffee table in front of the sofa.

Nick locked the door behind him and leaned against it. His eyes moved back to the sofa. Joy Sun's eyes followed his and she blushed. It was a celebrity sofa, having played a supporting role in a now famous pornographic photo.

"What do you want?" demanded Don Lee. "Money?"

Nick crossed the room like a swift, chill wind. Before Lee could move, Nick delivered a quick left scythe-like blow to his throat with the edge of his hand. As Lee doubled up, he added two hard hooks — a left and a right — to his solar plexus. The Hawaiian fell forward and Nick brought up his knee. The man dropped like a sack of shale. "Now then," said N3. "It's answers I want and time is running out." He dragged Lee over to the sofa. "Let's assume I know all about Johnny Hung Fat, Reno Tree, and the operation you're running here. Let's start from there."

Lee shook his head, trying to clear it. Blood made dark wriggling lines down his chin. "I built this place up from nothing," he said dully. "I slaved day and night, sank every nickel I had into it. Finally I achieved what I was after — and then I lost it." His face twisted. "Gambling. I've always been a sucker for it. I got into debt. I had to bring other people in."

"The Syndicate?"

Lee nodded. "They let me stay on as nominal owner, but it's their operation. Completely. I've got no say in it. You've seen what they've done to the place."

"In that secret office in back," said Nick, "I found microdots and photographic equipment that pointed to a connection with Red China. Is there anything to it?"

Lee shook his head. "That's just some game they're playing. I don't know why — they don't tell me anything."

"What about Hung Fat? Any possibility he could be a Red agent?"

Lee laughed, then cradled his jaw in sudden pain. "Johnny's strictly a capitalist," he said. "He's a swindler, a confidence man. His specialty is Chiang Kai-shek's treasure. He must have sold five million maps to it in every big-city Chinatown."

"I want to talk to him," said Nick. "Call him back here."

"I'm already here, Mr. Carter."

Nick spun around. The flat, Oriental face was impassive, almost bored. One hand was over Joy Sun's mouth, the other one held a switchblade. The tip rested against her carotid artery. The slightest movement would send it slicing into her. "Of course we bugged Don Lee's office, too." Hung Fat's mouth smiled. "You know how wily we Orientals can be."

Reno Tree stood behind him. What had appeared to be a solid wall now had a door in it. The dark, wolf-faced gangster turned, closing it behind him. The door sat so flush with the wall that no line or break in the wallpaper could be seen from more than a foot away. Down at the baseboard, however, the joining wasn't quite so perfect Nick cursed himself for not having noticed the thin vertical line in the baseboard's white paint.

Reno Tree slowly advanced toward Nick, his eyes boring auger holes through him. "You move, we kill her," he said simply. He took a twelve-inch length of soft, pliable wire from his pocket and tossed it on the floor in front of Nick. "Pick it up," he said. "Slowly. Good. Now turn around, hands behind you. Make the thumb-tie."

Slowly Nick turned, knowing that the first hint of a false move would send the switchblade plunging into Joy Sun's throat. Behind his back, his fingers gave a twist to the wire, making a small double-bow, and waited.

Reno Tree was good. The perfect killer: the brain and sinews of a cat, the heart of a machine. He knew all the tricks of the game. Getting the victim to tie himself up, for instance. It left the gunman free, out of reach, and it kept the victim busy, off guard. It was going to be tough to get the better of this man.

"Lie on the sofa, face down," Reno Tree said flatly. Nick moved across to it and lay down, hope beginning to fade. He knew what was coming next. "The legs," said Tree. With this tie-up you could bind a man with six inches of string. It would hold him more securely than chains and handcuffs.

He bent his knees and lifted his foot, resting it in the crotch formed by the bent knee of the other leg, all the time trying to figure a way out. There was none. Tree moved in behind him, gripping his raised foot with lightning speed, forcing it down hard so that it trapped the other foot behind the back of the calf and the thigh. With his other hand, he lifted Nick's wrists, hooking them over the instep of the raised foot. Then he released the pressure on that foot and it sprang up against the thumb-tie, so that Nick's arms and legs were painfully, hopelessly locked.

Reno Tree laughed. "Don't worry about the wire, friend. The sharks will cut right through it."

"They need incentive, Reno." It was Hung Fat who said it. "A little blood, know what I mean?"

"How's this for starters?"

The blow seemed to crush Nick's skull. As he tumbled warmly into unconsciousness, he felt the blood flowing through his nasal tubes, choking him with its warm, salty, metallic taste. He tried to hold it back, to stem its flow by sheer willpower, but of course he couldn't. It came out his nose, his mouth, even his ears. This time he was done for, and he knew it.

At first he thought he was in the water, swimming. Deep water. Way out. The ocean has a swell to it, a body that the swimmer can actually feel. You rise and fall with it as you do with a woman. The motion soothes you, rests you, untangles all the knots.

That's the way he was feeling now — except that the pain in his loins was growing unbearable. And it had nothing to do with swimming.

His eyes burst open. He was no longer lying face down on the sofa. He was on his back. The room was dark. His hands were still looped together by the thumbs. He could feel them, aching, beneath him. His legs were free, though. He moved them apart. Something still held them prisoner. Two things, actually. His pants, which were down around his ankles, and something warm and soft and excruciatingly pleasurable around his midsection.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness he could see the silhouette of a female body moving expertly and wantonly above him, the hair swinging freely with each sinuous movement of the fluid hips and sharp-pointed breasts. The perfume that hung in the air was Candy Sweet's and the panting, whispered words that goaded his passion were, too.

It made no sense. He willed himself to stop, to somehow throw her aside. But he couldn't. He was already too far gone. Systematically, and with deliberate violence, he pi stoned his body into hers, losing himseli in the savage, loveless act of passion.