Nick Carter - The Weapon of Night

Hakim swore softly to himself in several languages. There would be no questioning now. And yet it was most interesting that his would-be killer had been equipped with a suicide pill and had chosen to take it. It was not gangland’s last resort; it was the spy’s way out.

There were uniformed policemen coming in at the door and he would have to make himself known to them.

He showed them his identification and went with them to their Chief of Police, with whom he had spent most of the day on the baffling case of von Kluge. It was even more baffling now. Or maybe it was not.

He must dig, and deeply. And he must stay alive. Which meant that he must make a radical change in his approach to the problem, and that if he must pass information on to AXE he must do it in some other way.

But what could he know that might be dangerous to them? He sat in Chief Fouad’s V.I.P. chair and explained how he had been meeting a friend of a friend when the attack had occurred, all the while mulling over in his mind what it was that he might know. Everything — but everything — he knew was known to the police.

With the possible exception of one tiny little thing. Or maybe two, the second even tinier. They had the guest list of the party von Kluge had attended. But he and he alone knew exactly who had been in the room at the time when he was listening to von Kluge. Accounts differed, partly because of the consumption of alcohol and partly because party-goers are not particularly observant and partly because no one there had known everybody else. Neither had he. But he was observant, and he had a photographic memory for faces. He was known for it. And then, too, he was the only one who had heard each nuance of von Kluge’s voice and seen his eyes dart nervously about the room when he had realized that he had said too much.

Thin, Sadek, very thin, said Hakim to himself. But maybe something…?

“We must look for secret files,” said Hakim. “There is no evidence of anything missing even though von Kluge’s office was quite thoroughly ransacked. He might have records elsewhere. We must continue checking missing persons, for there are faces, if not people, missing from Cairo. We must redouble our efforts with embassies, with immigrations, with the Passport Department. We must make people think of faces. Von Kluge’s associates. His friends. His housekeeper. His assistants. All must think of faces that haye come — and gone. We must…”

He went on talking, for there was still much investigating to be done in regard to the murder of von Kluge. But with the death of AXE’s Eiger he had an even deeper personal motive than before to unravel this puzzle, and he himself was thinking of one face he had seen….

The square-shouldered man at the head of the boardroom table looked up and nodded a greeting.

“Ah, good to see you, BP.,” he said in a thin-toned voice that seemed to be inappropriately fragile for such a barrel-chested man. “You are late — I was beginning to think you were unable to come.”

B.P. put his briefcase on the table and drew up a chair. It was unusually cool, even for late fall, and yet there were beads of sweat on his brow and he was puffing slightly.

“So was I! he said, flinging himself down beside a tall dark man with an open folder in front of him. “This is a busy time for me. But I thought it best to come at this stage, before things get even busier. I see I am not the last one here, though,” he added, glancing around at his half-dozen colleagues.

“Ah, but I am afraid you are,” the chairman said regretfully. “Jones and Meister are both away on business and will not be back until tomorrow. However, I shall see that they have copies of our minutes and I, of course, will go through their reports myself. In the meantime we have a quorum. So. gentlemen, let us call to order this meeting of Canadian Ceramics, Ltd. We will commence at once with item one on the agenda.” As he spoke he reached for the compact black box on the table near him and flicked a switch. “Market trends continue to favor the expansion of our enterprise,” his high, reedy voice went on. But his pale, almost bloodless lips were motionless. One after the other, the men with him at the table slid sheets of paper across to him and he read them without comment.

Another, deeper voice filled the room, to be followed by yet another. It was a typical enough board meeting; each member spoke in turn and then the voices joined together in a round-table discussion. Yet, none of the men at the table spoke a single word.

“By nineteen-seventy-two, then, we should have eight factories in complete operation,” the thin voice piped confidently. But the face of the man at the head of the table mirrored the man’s displeasure. He leaned across the table and spoke for the first time since he had switched on the tape-recorded meeting, but his voice was a low, hissing whisper that reached only the ears for which it was intended.

“That was bad, J.D., very bad,” he hissed. “Why was I not informed of this before? You will have to go there at once and put a new plan into effect. And you had better make sure that it works. I will not take a lot of that sort at this stage — at any stage. And you had better arrange it so that you yourself will be free for your other duties. Pay what you must — but get it done and be sure that it’s done right!” His head swung in another direction. “You, B.P.” The sounds of the meeting droned on steadily, like a high waterfall drowning out the tinkling sounds of the river. “You. Is there no way that you can arrange to be away from there?”

B.P. shook his head. “It would look extremely strange, M.B.,” he murmured quietly. “My position compels my presence. Even supposing I were to have some sort of ill-timed accident it would perhaps be thought a little odd. But…” He scribbled a note and thrust it across at the man he had called M.B.

The chairman of the board read it with narrowed eyes. His thin eyebrows arched speculatively and his lips curved into something like a smile.

“But of course you must be there,” his thin voice tinkled.

“So true, what you say of accidents. And you, of all people — no, I cannot spare you. Very good, B.P. Very good, indeed. For that I think we might arrange a bonus. A special dividend.” He paused, and his cold gaze swung around the table. “Anything else?”

Silence. Heads shook. The take-up reel on the recorder was almost full. The man at the head of the table unlocked a sturdy leather portfolio and gave each man a thin sheet of paper.

Each read in silence, nodded and reached for matches or lighter.

The slips of paper flamed, then curled to blackened crisps among the cigarette butts in the ash trays.

There were only inches to go on the tape.

“Then the meeting is adjourned,” said the sibilant voice of the chairman.

“Ah, the great outdoors, how I love it, Nickska!” Valentina boomed. Her big hand gestured expressively at the wintry landscape of upper New York State. “I wish I had been in time to see your turning leaves, but even so, this is so very beautiful.” She turned toward him suddenly and her round face was solemn. “But you are not happy, Nicholas. You are much too silent.”

“Let us be thankful for small blessings, Madam Sichikova,” said the girl in the front seat. “Usually, it’s impossible to turn him off.”

“That’ll do, Miss Baron,” Nick said austerely. “One more crack from you and I’ll send you straight back to your cluttered desk at the O.C.I.” He sighed heavily. “Really, the quality of the help these days…”

Valentina chuckled, hugely enjoying the exchange. “You do not fool either of us, Nicholas. You could not have been more pleased when you heard that the delightful Julia was joining us. I, too, am pleased. But very pleased.” She leaned over and patted Julia on the shoulder, and the two of them exchanged the knowing smiles of sophisticated women.