Nick Carter - A Korean Tiger

They stopped abruptly. The smell of the river was much stronger now and Nick could hear the lap-lapping of water nearby. It wouldn't be long now until they made their move — and the man behind him was still the key man. He would be the one to sap Nick from behind. But they wouldn't do it until the very last second — they wanted the unsuspecting victim to walk to within an inch of the gallows!

"You'll have to take off the blindfold." It was the man behind them. "The catwalk is narrow. He'll have to be able to see."

The blindfold was taken off. It was still very dark, but across the river, to the east beyond the end of the pier under which they stood, Nick made out a thin line of pearl. He stood loosely, relaxed, slumping a bit in the grip of the two men on either side of him. He willed himself to forget the agony in his groin. There was no time for pain now. Death was waiting out at the end of this pier. Death for whom? He thought not for him — but you could never be really sure.

The man behind him prodded with the gun. Good, you sonofabitch! Stay close to me. The closer the better. Now every micro-second was important. He couldn't wait too long. Any moment now the man behind him would raise a hand, bring the sap swishing down…

They were on a narrow catwalk under the long pier jutting out into the Rhine. "Kommen" said the man on Nick's right. He took out a slender flashlight and played the tiny beam on the rough planks underfoot. The catwalk was barely wide enough for them to go three abreast.

In reaching for his flashlight the man had slightly relaxed his grip on Nick's arm. Killmaster guessed that the man behind was still close, not more than two or three feet. Perhaps even now raising the sap. It was time!

Ignoring the blinding flash of pain in his groin, he raised his elbows abruptly. Like muscular wings coming up. He slammed backwards with both elbows, with every ounce of his strength, catching each man squarely in the chest. They staggered back into the following man, knocking him off balance. All were flailing wildly for balance on the narrow catwalk. The man who had spoken to Nick let out a startled yelp. "Gott Verdammt!"

Nick Carter pivoted on one foot, put his head down and dove at the man with the pistol. The Luger flashed and banged just alongside Nick's head. The muzzle flash seared his face. Then the top of his head was in the man's paunch with pile driver force. They went off the catwalk together. As they hit the river Nick flicked the blunted stiletto down into his hand.

The man was fat and bouyant. Nick had a hard time taking him down. But he did take him down, all the way to muddy bottom. He got one powerful arm under the struggling man's chin and lifted it. He put the jagged blunt point of the stiletto into that fat flesh a dozen times, feeling the blood swell hot on his fingers, tasting it in the water. He could easily have drowned the man — Nick was good for four minutes under water — but now that he could strike back at last he found himself in a cold fury. Again and again he rammed the stiletto home.

His flash of rage passed. He let the corpse go and, still with two minutes of air, came back up near the surface. He could see nothing. It was dark and the water was roiled and muddy. He would have to risk a fast look to orient himself, in this case literally, because he must swim to the east away from the pier.

He broke water as quietly as a seal. They were fools, those remaining two. One of them was back on the catwalk, playing his flashlight about as he helped the other one out of the water. Killmaster could have pulled them both down and drowned them, and for a moment he was tempted; then he sank silently beneath the surface. Let them go. They were tools. Muscle heads. Not worth killing unless they threatened him. Nick's smile was grim. They had enough to worry about. Colonel Kalinski wasn't goinh to like this.

He swam underwater until his lungs began to hurt. When he surfaced again he was a hundred feet off the end of the pier. Both men were using flashlights now. Trying to find their dead friend, no doubt.

Downstream he could see a glow in the sky, paling now in the first flush of dawn. That would be the central park of Cologne. He let the current take him, relaxing and floating, swimming only enough to stay close inshore. He had to get out of the river without attracting the attention of the police. He would go back to Ladenstrasse, to the little whore. She might not like it, but she would have to hide him for now. Later he would have her make a contact for him by phone.

The porter's jacket was binding him. He was about to cast it off when he felt something in the pocket. Now what in hell — then he remembered. The shards of the ceramic tiger he had picked up in Bennett's hotel room. Why was he lugging it about? Nick shrugged in the chill water and admitted that he didn't know. Probably it didn't mean anything. Certainly it hadn't meant anything to the Kalinski woman or she wouldn't have put it back in his jacket.

So he might as well take it along. He kept the jacket on. It just might mean something. He would turn it over to Hawk and the lab boys in Washington. If he made it.

Right now he had more important things to worry about. He had to get out of Cologne alive. He had to report failure of his mission. That thought tightened his throat and brought a bad taste into his mouth. Failure. Abject and absolute failure. It had been a long time since he had used that word.

How, and where, was he going to pick up the trail of the Yellow Widow and Raymond Lee Bennett? It must be alone.

The Shanghai Gai, one of the more exclusive gesang houses in South Korea, stood on a hilltop near the village of Tongnae. It was some ten miles north of Pusan, but the roads to the port were good, for Korea, and the phone service was adequate. Not that adequate was good enough in this instance — Killmaster was gambling, playing a long hunch and an educated guess — and he was in constant touch with his men in Pusan by short-wave radio. Nick Carter was taking the biggest chance of his career — and placing that career in jeopardy. He was betting that the Yellow Widow would try to take Raymond Lee Bennett into China through Korea.

It was the middle of June. Ten days since he had floated down the bloodstained Rhine. On his return tc Washington he spent two days in an AXE hospital,' most of the time floating in a hot bath loaded with Epsom salts to reduce the swelling, but he was still fiendishly sore and moved with difficulty. During his time in the bath he had refused to eat, had gone into an intense yoga trance. It was the water pranayama, in which he hoped to achieve what his guru had called a "one pointed" mind. The AXE doctors were doubtful, and puzzled, and one suggested that Nick needed a psychiatrist more than the soothing bath. But Nick stuck by his guns, abetted by Hawk, and though the doctors grumbled they let him have his way. For two days he was deep in hatha yoga; he united the moon breath and the sun breath; when he came out of it and the hospital, he entered a long series of high-level conferences with a certainty that he was right. In the end he won his point, but only over furious objection from the CIA. AXE had goofed it, they said. Fumbled the ball. Now it was their turn. Hawk did not tell Nick about it, but it was his own call to the White House that finally turned the tide. Nick, and AXE, were to get one more chance to handle it alone. They had better be right!

The door opened and Tonaka came into the room. Her getas whispered on the straw matting as she crossed to where Nick stood at the single window, gazing into a silver curtain of rain. The monsoon had come to Korea. It rained for at least twelve hours out of every twenty-four, dispersing for the moment the stinks and aridity of this Land of the Morning Calm.