Nick Carter: The Terrible Ones

Nick Carter went on climbing.

The claws roved over the rock face, biting into its surface and holding him there by minute fractions of inches of knife-sharp steel. There was no way to hurry, nothing to hold onto, nothing but the claw-blades to keep him from the deadly rocks below.

Not quite halfway, yet. And the strain on his body was becoming unbearable. It was not as if he even knew what would be waiting for him at the top. Sure, he had a name to go on, but not much more. The briefing Hawk had given him flashed through his mind. The name was Paolo, and Paolo should be waiting in that mountain cave a mile and a half away.

“Why Paolo?” he had asked the head of AXE.

Hawk had glowered at him. “What do you mean, ‘Why Paolo?’ ”

“An Italian name for a Dominican?”

Hawk had chewed irritably at his cigar. “So? They’re as mixed a lot as we are. Anyway, it may be a code name. Whatever it is, that’s the name you’ll have to use for him. Paolo’s your contact, not Tomas or Ricardo or — or Enrico.”

“It may be a code name!” Nick repeated. “We don’t know much, do we?”

Hawk eyed him coldly. “No, we don’t. If we knew as much as you seem to think we ought to, we probably wouldn’t be sending you. ‘Matter of fact, Carter, we don’t even know that this isn’t a trap.”

A trap, yeah. Encouraging thought. Nick gritted his teeth and went on climbing. The sweat poured down his face. Every muscle and nerve screamed for rest. For the first time he began to wonder, to doubt, if he could really make it to the top.

It was still a long way up. It was also a long way down. And there’d be no second chance.

Get on with it, goddamn you! he told himself fiercely. He knew that he was good for little more of this. It was becoming physical agony. His hands clawed, found nothing, clawed again, and held. He dragged himself up another painful notch.

No, this was ridiculous. He could not afford to think of the sheer impossibility of it. So he forced himself to think back to that unsatisfactory briefing.

“If it is a trap,” he had said, “what sort of trap do you think It might be?”

He remembered Hawk’s answer but it slipped from his clutching mind as the claws on his feet lost their grip. His body slithered downward with appalling speed and the raking pitons scraped uselessly against unyielding stone. He clung like a leech, willing his limbs and his body to plaster themselves against the cliffside and praying that some infinitesmal outcropping would be hooked by the wildly probing, scraping claws and stop his deadly slide.

Nick dug against the rock wall like some giant cat searching desperately for a clawhold. His flailing feet bit into the flinty surface. Found a tiny fault. And held.

He clung there for a moment, breathing heavily and blinking his eyes against the hot sweat. But he knew his toehold was too slight to support him there for more than seconds and he made himself move on. Sideways first, then slowly upward with a surge of desperate effort that took his last reserve of strength. He knew it would not last him to the top.

This is it, he thought dully. What a hell of a way to go.

Then his feet found a two-inch-wide ledge. Miraculously, the rock wall above it was at a slight angle so that he could lean inward and snatch some sort of respite. He took a deep, grateful breath and made himself relax as best he could. A minute passed. Another. His breathing slowed to normal and the knots in his muscles gradually unwound. The searchlight beam that he had forgotten about cut through the sky behind him. Again he became conscious of it, but he knew it would not find him here. Haitian officialdom was so sure the cliff was unscalable — and God knows it looked as though they were right — that they did not even bother to keep an eye on it. Or so said Hawk’s Intelligence reports.

Nick wiped his streaming face against his shoulder and flexed his straining arms. Incredibly, he felt rested and refreshed. His clawed fingers reached upward; his feet sought and found another skimpy hold. A stubborn root brushed against his hands, the first he’d found. He reached for it tentatively and It held.

Perhaps he would make it after all. It seemed easier now.

The night was silent but for the slap of the water below and the gusts of wind through the trees above. He could hear the scrabbling, slithering sounds of his own climb, but he knew that his tiny, ratlike noises were normal sounds for night and would not be noticed. Unless, of course, there were listeners much nearer than there were supposed to be.

Out in the dark sea behind him the baby submarine submerged. The silent boat was in its special compartment and Jean Pierre was in his, his ear to a listening device that relayed the quiet sounds of a man’s slow climb up an impossible incline. He heard, but he was one who was supposed to.

Someone else heard too.

The watcher who knew what to wait for stole silently away from the clifftop and glided shadowlike to the appointed meeting place.

Nick climbed. The going was rough but it no longer seemed impossible. The hardest part of it, now that he knew he was well past the halfway point, was that uncertainty about what lay ahead. A kind of anger swelled within him.

Treasure! for Chrissake! he thought to himself. Trujillo’s hidden millions, and I’m supposed to find them in Haiti? This whole thing was insane. Somewhere up there in the darkness was a man named Paolo, leader of an outfit with the comicbook name of The Terrible Ones. The Terrible Ones! Nick chuckled silently and bitterly. No doubt the Mafia of the Caribbean, and Uncle Sam was being taken for another ride. Supposedly these people were an organization of Dominican patriots, itching to get their hands on some of the ex-dictator’s loot and use it for the good of their country. That was their story, anyway, and they had gone to Hawk, and the head of AXE had called on Carter. So here was Killmaster, climbing up a cliff in Haiti to meet the kingpin of The Terrible Ones. And what was he to do when he met them?

Hawk had shrugged. “The usual. Find out who they are and how they stand. Help them if they’re on the level. Check into this business of Operation Blast and put a stop to it. That’s all. Now, as to how you’ll be making contact, you’ll go with Jean Pierre Turnier in the Q-boat and aim for Cap St. Michel. Here’s the map…

It always looked so simple, back in Washington.

Now it was Haiti, one hour past midnight, and Paolo of The Terrible Ones was waiting in the shadows.

Nick glanced upward. The rim of the cliff and the low fringe of bushes were now only a few feet above him. He paused for a moment and took breath for the final effort. It was windier up here, and the gusts plucked at his clothes. And it seemed a little lighter, too. He took a quick look at the sky. Yes, the clouds were thinner, and a few stars gleamed above.

It was just as well, for he would need their trace of light to lead him through the trees.

He reached up for the last lap of his climb and moved on steadily.

His clawing hands came at last to the edge and clung there. One more thrust of his weary legs, and he would have it made. He peered over the edge to see what lay beyond, for he had no intention of grasping loose twigs and sliding back down that monstrous slope.

He stared straight ahead at something that should not have been there. At the cave, yes, but not right there in front of him only inches away from his eyes. His gaze traveled up from the heavily booted feet, up the unmoving, stolid legs, up over a massive chest, up to a bearded face.

The face split into a grin of broken teeth. Even in the dimness it did not look like a pleasant face.

“Welcome, amigo,” a low voice whispered. “I help you, yes?”