Nick Carter - Operation Moon Rocket

"I take it he got in with no difficulty. Is that because he had a card?"

"No. Because of the girl," said Lee. "Joy Sun. She's been here before. She's an old friend, as a matter of fact. She's some kind of scientist up at Cape Kennedy."

"Thanks, Lee. I won't detain you."

Nick stared at Hawk in amazement. The controlling hand of AXE, troubleshooting arm of the American security forces — a man responsible only to the National Security Council, the Secretary of Defense and the President of the United States — had just conducted that interrogation with all the subtlety of a third-rate divorce detective!

Had Hawk turned into a security risk? Nick's mind suddenly tensed with alarm — was the man opposite him actually Hawk? When the waiter brought them their coffee, Nick said casually, "Could we have more light here?" The waiter nodded, pressing a hidden button on the wall. Soft light fell across them. Nick glanced at his superior. "They ought to give out miners' lamps when you come in," he smiled.

The leathery old man chuckled. A match flickered, casting a brief glow across his face. It was Hawk, all right. The pungent smoke from the malodorous cigar settled that with finality. "Dr. Sun is already a prime suspect," Hawk said, blowing out the match. "You'll be filled in on her background by the CIA investigator with whom you'll be working…"

Nick wasn't listening. A tiny glow had gone out with the match. A glow that hadn't been there earlier. He glanced down, to his left. It was faintly visible now that they had extra light — a spider-thin wire running along the edge of the banquette. Nick's eye quickly followed it, searching for the obvious outlet. The wrought-iron pineapple. He tugged at it. It wouldn't give. It was bolted to the center of the table. He dipped his right index finger into the bottom half, felt the cold metal grating under the fake candle wax. A remote pickup mike.

He scribbled two words — We're bugged — on the inside cover of his matches and pushed them across the table. Hawk read the message and nodded blandly. "Now the thing is," he said, "we absolutely have to get one of our people into the moon program. So far we've been unsuccessful. But I have an idea…"

Nick stared at him. He was still staring in disbelief ten minutes later when Hawk glanced at his watch and said, "Well, that about covers it I've got to be going. Why don't you stay awhile and enjoy yourself? You're going to be pretty busy for the next few days." He stood up and nodded in the direction of the discotheque. "Things are beginning to warm up in there. Looks rather interesting — if I were a younger man, of course."

Nick felt something slide under his fingertips. It was a card. He glanced up. Hawk had turned away and was moving toward the entrance, waving goodbye to Don Lee. "More coffee, sir?" asked the waiter.

"No, I think I'll have a drink at the bar." Nick lifted the edge of his hand slightly as the waiter retreated. The message was in Hawk's handwriting. CIA operative will contact you here, it read. Recogphrase: ''What are you doing here in May? The season's over." Reply: "Social, maybe. Not hunting." Counter-reply: "Mind if I join you — for the hunting, that is?" Beneath this, Hawk had written: Card water-soluble. Make contact with Wash. h.q. no later than midnight tonight.

Nick slipped the card into his water glass, watched it dissolve, then got up and sauntered into the bar area. He ordered a double scotch. Through the glass partition he could see the cream of Palm Beach's youth writhing spasmodically to the distant roar of drums, electric bass and guitar.

Suddenly the music grew louder. A girl had just come though the glass door from the discotheque. She was a blonde — pretty, fresh-looking, slightly out of breath from dancing. She had that special look about her that spelled money and breeding. She wore olive-green hip-huggers, a midriff blouse and sandals, and she had a glass in her hand.

"I just know you're going to forget Daddy's orders and slip some real rum into my cola this time," she said to the bartender. Then she noticed Nick at the end of the bar and did an elaborate double-take. "Why, hello there!" she smiled brightly. "I didn't recognize you at first. What are you doing here in May? The season's practically over…"

Her name was Candace Weatherall Sweet — Candy for short — and she completed the recognition exchange with breezy self-confidence.

Now they sat facing each other across a table the size of a top hat in the bar area. "Daddy wouldn't be a certain General Sweet, would he?" Nick asked grimly. "Member of the Belle Glade Club, who likes his martinis extra dry?"

She laughed. "A perfect description." She had a beautiful face, with wide-apart, deep-blue eyes under lashes paled by the sun. "They call him General, but he's really retired," she added. "He's a high muckamuck in the CIA now. He was in the OSS during the war, didn't know what to do with himself afterwards. The Sweets don't go into business, of course — just government or public service."

"Of course." Nick was seething inside. He'd been saddled with an amateur, a debutante looking for excitement on her summer vacation. Not just any debutante, either — but Candy Sweet, who'd made headlines two summers earlier when a party she'd thrown at her parents' East Hampton home had degenerated into an orgy of drugs, sex and vandalism.

"How old are you, anyway?" he asked.

"Almost twenty."

"And you're still not allowed to drink?"

She flashed him a quick smile. "Us Sweets are kind of allergic to the stuff."

Nick looked at her glass. It was empty, and he'd seen the bartender pour her a substantial slug. "I get the picture," he said, and added abruptly, "shall we go?"

He didn't know where, but he wanted out. Out of the Bali Hai, out of the whole case. It stank. It was dangerous. It had no shape. Nothing you could grab it by. And here he was in the middle of it without even a decent cover — and with a flighty, cotton-headed young deb in tow.

Outside, on the sidewalk, she said, "Let's walk." Nick told the parking attendant to hold off on the car and they started down Worth. "The beach is lovely at dusk," she said enthusiastically.

As soon as they were past the Colony Hotel's mustard yellow awning, they both spoke at once — "The place was bugged." She laughed and said, "Do you want to see the setup?" Her eyes were shining with excitement. She looked like a kid who'd just stumbled on a secret passageway. He nodded, wondering what he was in for now.

She turned down a cute yellow-brick alleyway lined with even cuter antique shops, then made another quick right into a patio hung with plastic grapes and bananas, picking her way through a shadowy maze of upended tables to a grillwork gate. Quietly she swung it open and pointed to a man standing in front of a short length of cyclone fence. He was facing the other way, studying his nails. "The rear of the Bali Hai's parking lot," she whispered. "He's on duty until morning."

Without a word of warning she was off, her sandaled feet making no sound as she moved swiftly across the open stretch of palazzo tiles. It was too late to stop her. All Nick could do was follow. She moved in toward the fence, edging along it, her back flat against it. When she was six feet away the man suddenly turned, looked up.

She moved with blurred, catlike speed, one foot hooking behind his ankle, the other driving for his knee. He went down flat on his back as if snatched backwards by a coiled spring. As the breath exploded from his lungs her sandaled foot swung with controlled force to the side of his head.

Nick watched with awe. A perfect coup de savate. He kneeled beside the man, felt his pulse. Irregular but strong. He'd live, but he would be out for at least half an hour.