Nick Carter - Istanbul

The oiler flicked his butt over the side. "How long until we're in the Horn?" His tone was flat, unaccented. This also puzzled the Second. You couldn't place the man! His voice spoke of everywhere — and nowhere.

The Second stepped into a fan of light from a port in the deckhousing and consulted a fat gold pocket watch. 'Two, three hours noo and we'll be tying up."

He glanced at the oiler's face, smeared with grease, handsome and inscrutable in the poor light. "Ye'll no be expecting shore leave, lad? Not this trip. It's in and out we'll be."

The oiler nodded. "No. I wasn't expecting shore leave. Just wondering when we got in."

"Weel, now ye know. So let's get back to it, laddie." He took a deep breath and glanced at the few lights now visible on either shore. The ship would be leaving the Sea of Marmara soon and entering the Bosphorus.

"A peety we'll have no time," said the Second. "Stamboul's a fair port to quench a man's thirst."

It was an hour short of dawn when the oiler came on deck again. The ancient ship was quieter now, her plates eased as she glided with engines half down around the tip of Seraglio Point. Before her lay the Golden Horn!

The oiler cast a glance over the rail and thought: Baby— it's going to be cold down there!

The oiler went as silently as a ghost to the stern. There was a silvery glint in his hand. The movement itself was quicksilver as he slashed at the lashings on Number 8 lifeboat. "Sorry, Hugo," the oiler murmured as he put the little blade away. "Not your usual work, I know. But we've all got to do things we don't like at times."

The words reminded him of the words of another man. A man who sat in a darkened bedroom and talked.

From the lifeboat the oiler lifted a huge suitcase of the Gladstone type. He replaced the lashings on the lifeboat, then went stealthily around the taffrail to starboard. There, in the shadow of Number 4 lifeboat, he waited. It shouldn't be long now.

While he waited patiently the oiler's eyes roved. And his memories. It was not his first time in Istanbul. He had been here before on business.

He stood motionless, mingling with the shadows, a shadow himself as his eyes remembered the harbor. He could sense, rather than see, the clutter of shipping, the docks and derricks and cranes, the warehouses and piers. From the city rising roundabout on the hills there was the thrust and loom of dozens of minarets and mosques. Soon now the muezzin would be calling the Faithful to the first prayer of the day. Allah akbar. God is great! There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet!

Istanbul! Stamboul, to the English tongue. Old Constantinople in song and history book. Ravished and reborn a hundred times. A squalid, teeming, dynamic nexus between Europe and Asia. A natural magnet for intrigue and for the inevitable concomitant of intrigue — Death!

The oiler peered to starboard. There across the oily waters of the Horn lay Beyoglu. He smiled to himself and for a moment the harsh planes of his face were gentle. She had been a white Russian. Her name was Jali. And she could have given lessons to the houri. She had known how to make a man happy, that one. Without clinging.

The oiler sighed and glanced at his wrist watch. He did not like to think about Jali. He had failed her. One of those unaccountable slips that every agent made now and then. Only he had not had to pay the tab. Jail had paid it. They had decoyed him away and cut her throat!

The oiler shifted his feet. He stared into the mist. The signal should come from somewhere between the Maritime Station and the Musretiye Mosque. If all had gone well. If there had been no slips — if! A big word in his profession!

There it was now! A bright little eye winking in the misty dark. Di da— da di di da— dit— AXE!

The oiler took a pen flash out of his pocket and flashed an answer back across the misty Horn. AXE!

Once more the blinker came back. AXE!

"Evet," said the oiler, speaking to himself in Turkish. Might as well get in the mood of things. Yes. This was it.

He picked up the suitcase and went over the side feet first. As he went over the rail he patted it. "So long, old girl. Good luck!"

There was nothing golden about the waters of the Golden Horn. They were as cold as he had expected, and as stinking with oil and garbage and other harbor debris. He surfaced and swam away from the Bannockburn.

He made a hundred yards and stopped to tread water. The Bannockburn kept steadily on her slow course for the Galata Bridge. Her stern lights faded into the mist. Now and then he held the pen flash over his head and flashed — AXE!

Five minutes passed before he heard the sound of oars to his left. He flashed the signal again. A reply blinked back at him. A moment later a voice, made eerie by mist and water, floated to him. "N3?"

The man in the water recognized the voice. Charles "Mousy" Morgan. It was okay. He answered softly. "N3 here. Get me out of this soup. It's colder than a brass monkey!"

A pale face, made owl-like by horn rimmed glasses, peered down at him. "Welcome to our harbor, N3. Refer all complaints to Ankara, please. This is a hell of a time to go swimming anyway, if you ask me!"

Nick grabbed the gunwale and swung himself into the little boat. Mousy Morgan said, "Easy, pal! This ain't much of a boat, but it's all we got." He looked at Nick's suitcase dripping in the bottom of the boat. "Dunking isn't going to do that much good!"

Nick was squeezing water out of his pants. "Won't hurt it," he said. "Specially waterproofed for this job. Wish I was!" Nick leaned close to Mousy and nodded toward the big man who was rowing. "Who's our pal?" Nick was not especially pleased to find that Mousy had company. He had expected the little agent to be alone.

The bulky man wearing a raincoat and a snapbrim hat, and handling the oars, answered for himself: "Jim Todhunter, sir. Narcotics."

Nick gave the man a curt nod.

Mousy Morgan said, "It's okay, N3. I couldn't handle this damned tub myself. Anyway he's doing all the work." Mousy chuckled and added, "And he stole the boat!"

Nick sniffed. "Not much doubt where he stole it, either."

Mousy chuckled again. "Yeah. I know. Horn fishermen don't worry much about cleaning their boats."

"All right," Nick commanded. "Let's get the hell out of here before we have harbor patrol trouble. It'll be light soon.

Todhunter put his broad back into the rowing. Nick sat in the stern sheets the Gladstone bag at his feet, and regarded Mousy sitting on the thwart facing him. This little character hasn't changed much, Nick thought with a touch of affection. Brash and big-mouthed as always. Compensation for lack of size. Mousy came by his nickname legitimately. Mousy was superbly unnoticeable. Nondescript. And an extremely valuable agent! No one ever really saw Mousy — until it was too late. Mousy could never have made it through PURG, the section of Hell that AXE used for training and conditioning its agents, but special dispensation was made in his case. Mousy wasn't meant for the rough jobs. His speciality was creeping in and out of tiny holes where no one else could go!

Mousy leaned toward Nick and whispered so the man rowing could not hear. "I'm glad they sent you, Nick. I guess they really mean business this time. About time, too! But we're okay now — if anybody can put those bastards behind bars you can!"

For years now Mousy Morgan had had a galloping case of hero worship for Nick Carter. Nick tolerated it because he knew the little man was sincere.

Nick was feeling a little better about Jim Todhunter's presence. Todhunter would know him only as N3. And to all of them — the AXE men, the Narcotics people, the Turkish cops, he would appear to be on a routine mission. Object to apprehend the ring-leaders of the Syndicate.