Nick Carter - Istanbul

Nick put the matches in his pocket and went toward the door. He thought — Maurice Defarge, offices and suite in Divan Annex. Entire top floor. Important? Maybe — maybe not. A lot of people would be carrying those matches around. We shall see. Time will tell.

N3 was not at all unhappy or displeased as he reached to unlock the door. He cared not a damn that Leslie Standish had been murdered. Even under torture she probably couldn't have told them much.

Nick whistled softly. A thing from the Threepenny Opera— Mack the Knife.

And Mack was back in town. Or Johnny Ruthless was. This gladdened what the AXE man liked to think of as his heart. He liked to think, too, that his own presence in Istanbul had something to do with Johnny's emergence from retirement.

He was looking forward to meeting Johnny Ruthless!

Nick Carter opened the door and stepped into the dimly lit corridor — and got his wish. There, at the intersecting corner of the two corridors, stood Johnny Ruthless! In dinner jacket, black Homburg, glistening shirt front, a mocking little smile on the thin lips beneath the dark pencil moustache. He stared at Nick, silent, mocking, poised like a dancer.

Nick Carter let shock and surprise wait until later. With first rapid instinct he raised the Luger, then knew it was no good. Gun fire would bring every cop in town. And he didn't want to kill this man — not yet.

Neither spoke a word. Nick went down the hall in great lunging strides. The man in the dinner jacket did a graceful pirouette, a flowing, sinuous feline movement, and ran for the door at the far end of the hall. The door that led into the court. Nick, following, ran squarely into the trap.

It was the oldest and simplest trap in the world — you chase me and I'll catch you! It worked to perfection.

Both big men were waiting as Nick raced across the intersecting corridor in pursuit of the flitting, elusive figure in the dinner jacket. It was an amateur's mistake and N3 made it and never quite forgave himself for it — but at the time he had only one thought. To get his sinewy hands around the throat of Johnny Ruthless.

The man nearest the corner kicked at Nick's legs as he ran past. Nick went sprawling, knowing even in that racing desperate moment before he hit the floor that he had been tricked. As he fell he turned his head, watching, and saw the remaining man come fast with a short length of cord in his hands. That was it, then! Thuggee! They were going to strangle him. Quick and noiseless — and most painful!

Two big men against one big man! As Nick hit the hard splintery floor and rolled over on his back he knew that these men must consider the odds pretty good. So did he. Yet even then, just before the brawl, he knew this was going to be a tough one. Nick had never underestimated an enemy in his life — which was why he was still around.

As the first man leaped to pin him down Nick hooked a foot around the man's calf and kicked hard at the knee with his iron shod heel. A fast way to break a leg. This man slipped away from it, spun, and kicked Carter brutally in the ribs. It hurt. Nick rolled away from the second man, with the cord, who was trying to catch at Nick's ankles with it. Nick kicked him in the face. The man fell sideways, cursing. By now Nick guessed they had orders not to kill him unless they must — the cord was just to choke him into submission. Johnny Ruthless probably had a few questions in mind. With the amazing computer-like speed of the human brain — even locked in this sweating, grunting, cursing struggle — Nick thought of Dr. Six and the operating table that must be waiting!

Both men smelled of fish. Nick noted this as the largest man came at him in a long stretching dive with gnarled brown hands like talons. They were getting a little more than they had bargained for and Nick could sense their thoughts — they had somehow to tie down this wildcat in the crazy tight suit, use their weight, maul him and smother him.

All this time Nick had the Luger in his right hand. They were ignoring it. They knew he didn't want to use it.

As the diving man came in Nick whipped the Luger against his face, slashing and cutting with it. The thug grunted and instinctively flinched away. Nick whipped him again, back and forth, driving him off as he kept an eye on the fellow with the cord. That was the baby to watch!

The cord man was circling, trying to close, to toss the loop over Nick's head. Nick leaped about a foot in the air, twisted, and tried to get the man with a savate kick in the groin. He missed. And slipped as he came down. The man with the cord gave a little grunt of triumph and raised the looped cord, leaping in, at the same time hissing something to his companion.

Nick Carter did three things nearly at once. He was off balance and outnumbered and getting a little tired of the whole mess. Also he was, just a trifle, beginning to weary. The past twenty-four hours had been damned tough.

Nick dropped the Luger. He shifted his feet ever so slightly, like the champion heavyweight boxer he was, and crossed his right to the cordman's chin. The impact of knuckles on flesh and bone sent a flash of pain as high as his elbow. The cordman's knees sagged, he turned with an odd silly expression on his face and began falling.

N3 whirled to see the remaining thug diving for the Luger. He had expected that. It was bait, the Luger.

Nick had only to hold out his arm, straight, with the stiletto pointing like a sixth gleaming metal finger. The man impaled himself on the blade, running on it with a certain crazy eagerness, unable to stop, looking down and watching the sharp steel slide into his guts like a fork into butter. He ran right up against Nick, this nameless hoodlum already dying, and for a moment they stared into each other's eyes.

There was pain in the Turk's eyes. Pain and total misapprehension about what was happening to him. What could not be happening to him! His mouth opened and his tongue came out and blood gushed down over a black-stubbled chin. He began to fall slowly. Fall toward Nick, pressing heavier on the stiletto that was killing him, pushing it farther and farther into his stomach.

N3 stepped quickly back. He whipped out Hugo and let the man fall the rest of the way, crashing to the floor, whipping about like a gaffed fish. Nick took a moment to breathe. He looked down at the dying man, still writhing and bubbling blood. In a voice as cold as an Arctic wind Nick said: "See how you like floating around the Horn, you son of a bitch!"

Nick scooped up the Luger and put it away. He snapped the little stiletto back into the arm scabbard and moved for the main corridor. As he rounded it he saw Memet, the cop who was supposed to have been guarding Leslie Standish, coming through the curtains at the far end.

Memet spotted Nick and quickened his pace. Nick saw the wariness in the man as he came toward him. Memet's hand slipped under his jacket to his armpit. Damn it to hell! Couldn't the man have waited one more minute!

N3 knew he must look like Frankenstein after a hard night. This Turk cop was going to be suspicious as hell. Memet was going to ask questions, a lot of questions, and when Memet saw what was around the corner…

Nick went into his act. He staggered and fell against the wall, gesturing to the plainclothes-man, calling out in a croaky voice.

"Imdat! Imdat! Polis! Cabuk gel. Effendim Standish!"

Memet ran toward Nick. In his hand now was a squat, black bulldog revolver. "Ne? Ne? Nerede?"

Nick staggered into the cop, clutching at him, twisting between Memet and the bodies in the short corridor. He pointed to the office door. "Suraya bakin! I but came to deliver a message and this I find. Come! See!"