The Liquidator

by Nick Carter

  I took the overpowered runabout over to Scylla; it was mid-afternoon by then, the sky still bleak above, and the boat looked ominously quiet. As I climbed aboard I cast the runabout adrift; someone would pick it up in the busy harbor, and I doubted it made much difference to Sue-Ellen or her absent husband whether it was ever returned to them or not. There were plenty more where that came from.

  "Hello? Christina?"

  The companionway was open, but there was no sign of life in the gray darkness down there. I pulled the .45 from my jacket pocket as I approached the door, but I was a fraction too late. As I peered inside I found myself, for the second time that day, staring into the black tunnel of death.

  Fifteen

  "Put it down very slowly, Nick. I will kill you if you don't." Alex was glaring up at me from the main cabin, the revolver rock-steady in his hand. I didn't doubt him for an instant, and did as I was told.

  "You don't need that," I said.

  "Now I do. You have destroyed everything. Everything!"

  "I hope not." Cautiously I eased down the short ladder as he backed up to keep a distance between us. It was the first time I'd seen him standing up in a decent light, and though he was thicker through the middle than he'd been fifteen years ago I wasn't tempted to try to take him. Even if he hadn't had a gun. "Where's Christina?"

  "Forward. Crying."

  "Look, Alex, there was a problem…"

  "McKee? Nick?" Christina's voice came from the forward cabin, and a moment later she appeared. "What happened to you?"

  How do you explain to a desperate man and a girl you semi-love that you've been kidnapped by a spoiled rich-bitch because… well, I did the best I could. At the end it was Alex who was grinning, Christina who looked dubious.

  "Do you mean, those men in the car, they were watching her?"

  "And I guess me, a little. The hotel in Pirgos."

  She nodded, and her smile wasn't pleasant. "So you break hearts wherever you go, eh Nick Carter?"

  Her brother snapped his head around at her and told her to be quiet. Then he put his gun away.

  "Let's get back to business, Alex," I said. "It's too late to get Christina on a flight back to Athens today without having it look funny…"

  "She has already been ashore to cancel her reservation. Now it is for noon tomorrow. Until then we will all stay aboard. You say you were taken to this woman's yacht as though passed out drunk. Fine. Christina is devastated. You are sick. I think a quiet night for all of us." He turned to head forward to his chain locker hideaway.

  "Maybe we could use the time better than that," I said. "What did you mean I'd ruined everything?"

  "Perhaps not all. Either way, you and I cannot talk until we are at sea. Not even my sister must know what I have to tell your people; there is too much danger for her."

  "Then for God's sake why did you bring her into this in the first place?" It was my turn to get mad.

  He straightened up, filling his end of the cabin like a genie coming out of a magic bottle. "Because she is my family. Perhaps I never see her again; in this world who can say? Can you understand, Nick Carter, how this can be?"

  Almost. I'd never had a family to speak of, but I sort of got the picture.

  Darkness came with merciful swiftness on that cloudy day. I got a few hours' sleep, even with Christina pottering around the cabin with slam-bang petulance, and when I finally got up it was night, black as the inside of a pistol barrel.

  "Christina?"

  "Yes?" She was up on deck, seated behind the wheel with a black shawl wrapped around her shoulders like an old peasant woman. I went up to join her.

  "You don't have to be mad at me. I'd hate us to part with you feeling this way."

  "Oh, it is not so much that, N… McKee. But today I was prepared to go, to leave you, to leave my brother whom I knew for only a few brief hours… and now this. This waiting. What is the word? Anticlimax?"

  "It's a good Greek word."

  That brought a ghost of a smile to her tight lips. "I should know, shouldn't I."

  "Anyway, you don't have to worry about those people in the tan Mercedes any more. They weren't following you; you can go back to Athens and… that will be that."

  "Yes. Perhaps." She turned to me, her face taut. "But McKee… there was the other… in the taverna and my hotel."

  "You're sure it wasn't one of the same people?"

  "Why should it be? Why would that woman's bodyguards follow me?"

  "Oh, maybe nothing better to do," I said lightly, not believing my own words for a minute.

  "You do not believe me."

  "Of course I do."

  "Oh no. You are a spy; you expect things like that, and when they try to kill you with a gun you use a woman's body to protect you while you kill them."

  When I was telling Alex the story of my problem with Sue-Ellen I'd forgotten all about Christina's presence; now I was sorry I'd gone into all the details.

  "Come on," I urged her gently. "This is an ugly business, Christina. Be glad you're out of it as of noon tomorrow."

  "Am I? Will I ever be?"

  "I don't see why not…"

  From the way she reacted we must have heard it at the same time, the quiet approach of a boat at our bow, the soft bump and the quick scramble of leather-soled shoes on the forward deck. I slid off the seat into a crouch, reaching for dead Dino's .45 at the same time. There was just enough light to see a couple of indistinct shapes ahead of the thick mast, moving slowly in our direction.

  "Nick…!" Christina hissed.

  The last thing I wanted to do was shoot; the sound across the quiet harbor would have been like cannon fire. I slipped Hugo down into my left hand and waited.

  "Mister McKee." The voice came from the other side of the mast, soft but clear.;

  I didn't answer.

  "The girl is in my sights. You will answer or she is dead."

  I glanced over my shoulder. Christina still sat frozen behind the wheel, a hand at her throat:

  "Okay," I replied.

  "We only wish to speak to her. If you do not move, we shall not. Is it agreed?"

  I recognized the voice; it had been in my room in Pirgos a few nights earlier, apologizing while its owner lugged a dead body out to the fire escape.

  "What do you want from her?"

  "Only a few words. If you have a gun, please 'drop it, Mister McKee. We do not wish a disturbance, do we?"

  "Talk, then."

  "In private. Miss Zenopolis, will you please come forward?"

  Christina started to get up, but I gestured to her to remain where she was.

  "She'll talk where she is. You told me you were police?"

  "So you remember me, Mister McKee?"

  "Yeah."

  "Very good. Then you will have no objection. Miss Zenopolis?"

  I saw the other shadow edging along the walkaround and started to ease the .45 up in his direction. Noise or no noise, I wasn't going to let them take us.

  "No, Mister McKee," the man behind the mast said. "I can see you very well. Drop it now."

  I did. Maybe I could have gotten one, but not both. But as I laid the automatic on the deck I felt the shape of a flashlight under my hand. I didn't stop to think if either man could see what I was doing, but picked it up and flicked on the four-cell beam.

  The man at the mast flung a hand over his eyes, and I quickly swung the light to the other. For a moment he stared, blinded, then staggered back and dropped overboard. Before I heard the splash I drilled the light back at the other man, at the same time reaching back to drag Christina down into the cockpit behind me.

  "Drop the gun!" I ordered, keeping my voice low as I retrieved the .45. He did as he was told, his weapon falling to the cabin top with a dull clunk. He still held a hand in front of his face. I stood up, moved toward him, Hugo in my hand.

  If I'd been willing to shoot him he would have been dead, but with a sudden move he turned and dove over the side. There was a big splash, then si
lence. I went to the side to see where he was; my light picked up some underwater movement, then lost it. I started forward, but Christina grabbed my arm.

  "Nick! Nick!" To my ears her voice carried over at least a couple of miles of water, with a thousand ears listening. "That is the man! The one who was following me!"

  "Which one?"

  "The… the first one. The one who fell first."

  I snapped off my light and ignored the sound of a boat pushing off from the bow of Scylla, because I had seen very clearly the face of the man the light had hit first. He had a glorious drooping mustache, and only a few nights ago he had died in my arms, shot through the chest by his partner.

  * * *

  "So where the hell were you?" I demanded after I'd crawled into the forward cabin and opened the door of the chain locker.

  "Me? I'm not here. Remember?"

  "Sure. So they kill your precious sister and you stay in this hole like a rat?"

  "If they kill you both, then maybe I come up by the forward hatch and kill them, yes. Then there is no other way. But I have great regard for you, Nick Carter; I hear those stupid shoes and I know you can handle them without revealing myself."

  "You could have killed them with a knife. From behind. I didn't want to shoot, so they got away."

  For the first time Alex looked uncertain. "Yes. Maybe you are right. But…" He looked beyond me at his sister, who was clinging to my shoulder.

  "Nick?" she said. I was annoyed that she used my real name; all we had had together was when I was McKee, and now I felt as though we didn't really know each other at all.

  "What is it?"

  "Do not leave me here, Nick. I cannot go back to Athens now, not ever."

  "Look, it's not possible…"

  "But why not, Nick?" Alex broke in. "My sister, she is in danger, eh? We must take her with us."

  "Alex, from here, if we're lucky it will be a good two days before we can reach Taranto. The whole idea of this operation is that we do nothing that looks out of the way. If Christina goes with us, with me, it could blow the whole thing."

  "And if she stays, probably she dies. No, my friend, I could not allow that. My fault, yes, that I brought her into this business, but now the two of us must do what we can to be sure she does not suffer because of it."

  Her hand was trembling on my back, and that more than Alex's logic was what decided me. "Okay. Let's get under way. Right now."

  Sixteen

  I cleared the harbor under running lights, using the inboard auxiliary. When there were no other boats in sight, Alex crept up into the cockpit and sat down at my feet.

  "You do not know these waters," he announced. "The light buoys, they tell you where not to go. I will tell you where to go."

  Under his guidance we chugged along the still sound that lay between the island and the mainland; one cluster of brilliant lights, he told me, marked the border between Albania and Greece. "Such fortifications they have! Not even a baby eel could get past them on the darkest night of the world."

  "How did you manage it?"

  "Not there, my friend. But where they put so much men and equipment to safeguard their borders, then there must be other places where there cannot be so much. Perhaps not even enough, eh?"

  "I thought the Albanian coast was pretty well guarded everywhere."

  "Yes… pretty well. But maybe not well enough."

  "Like the northern border?"

  "Ah?"

  "Along Yugoslavia? And that part of Greece?"

  Alex sat up a little straighter. "Do you know about that then, Nick Carter?"

  "Enough," I lied. "You said you had something vital to tell us when you came out. You're out. What is it?"

  He chuckled and pointed ahead. "When we clear that strait there, where we run under the guns of the Albanians so close you can smell the powder in their artillery shells, then I will tell you one or two things. It will be time for you to know."

  He was right about being close to the Albanian coast; as he pointed out the navigation lights I had the feeling I could almost reach out and touch the shore on either side. A tanker coming through the passage from the other direction scared the hell out of me for a little while; it seemed to fill the space with no room for even our small boat. Alex advised me to ignore it.

  When we cleared the strait and headed out into the open sea I almost heaved a sigh of relief again, but didn't. The wind had freshened and, once we were free of the barricade of Korfu, was blowing directly in our teeth. As we started to buck in the heavy chop, Alex went forward to raise the jib, then the main. He handled both the way you drop a couple of hamburgers on the grill and stand back to watch them char.

  "We sail, Nick Carter. You are a good sailor?"

  "I manage."

  "Good. This is still your pleasure cruise, and when the daylight comes I must go below again. If anyone approaches… well, my beautiful sister could not bear to be parted with you, eh? You will wave and be happy, and if they look unfriendly you will shoot them and kill them."

  "Alex?"

  "Yes?"

  "What the hell is all this about? We've cleared the strait now."

  "Yes. And I should tell you, because if I do not survive you must know. You know what I have been these many years?"

  "A defector."

  "Oh yes, that, but do not be so disapproving, my friend. In my country… well, look at it today. Is a Communist a greater menace than one of those loyal to the present government? Or the one just past? No. I make no excuses for myself, Nick, understand that. I found unbearable corruption in my own country, and so I went to Albania where they were very happy to use my services. They are strong people, those Albanians, sometimes called the Mongols of Europe. Different from everyone else, do you know?"

  I did, vaguely. They were strong, secretive, hostile to outsiders and fierce fighters who had resisted centuries of would-be conquerors. More than half the people were Moslems, and they fought in their mountains as fanatically as their brothers did in the desert countries of the Near East.

  "What happened?" I asked. "What made you come back."

  "Ah well, my friend, it would take weeks to tell you all about that. Communism, you see, is the great leveler; even in Albania it makes petty bureaucrats of the proud warriors. But that is not the answer to your question, eh?"

  "No."

  "So I will tell you, and you must listen closely. The great World Communism movement has drifted to almost a standstill; your President meets with leaders in China and Moscow, and the war in Vietnam is over. For the moment." He chuckled. "Yes. But there are members of that great Movement who are not pleased with such developments, my friend. They are still listening to Marx, to Lenin, to Stalin, and they believe that Communism must always expand until the system controls the entire world. At one time, believe me, I was almost one of those. But not now, Nick, not now. At any rate, they are still active, those fanatics, and they are preparing a monstrous action which may well further their cause better than twenty Vientams."

  "What's that?"

  "Do you know the two lakes along the border between Albania and Yugoslavia? Just next to Greece?"

  "I do." Hawk's map lecture was clear in my memory.

  "There is an army there, right now. They belong to no country; they are Greeks, Albanians, Yugoslavs, but they are all dedicated Communists of the old, hard-line school. In… yes… two days, they, will launch a series of guerilla attacks from that no-man's land between three countries that will totally confuse the world powers. They will be led, no, advised, as you Americans coined the expression so nicely, by a contingent of the Vietcong…"

  I let go of the wheel as I snapped around to look down at Alex's broad calm face. "What!?"

  "That is right, my friend. Who is better fitted to conduct such military actions than the Vietcong? With their primitive weapons and their puny, underfed troops, they have fought the French and the Americans to a standstill for as long as we can remember. Is it unthinkable that they s
hould lend their knowledge and their idealism to such a group as has been gathered in that remote terrain between Lakes Ohrid and Prespa? Think of the opportunities! On one side a staunch ally of the United States, though a military dictatorship these days; on another the most repressive Communist regime in the western world, and on the third Yugoslavia, more compatible with the West than with the Russians. Who will act to retaliate against them once their forays begin? From which country do they conduct their operations? And even if they can be found, what will any of the Great Powers do? Will the United States napalm them? Will the Russians send in tanks through Yugoslavia? No, my friend. And yet something must be done, eh? Because together with this campaign of terror and death there will be a campaign of propaganda that will not permit the world to ignore what is happening in our little corner of the world. Action must be taken, sooner or later, and that must inevitably lead to conflict between the West and the Communist powers."

  "Sounds pretty grim," I admitted. "But how do you know all this?"

  "Me?" Alex laughed. "Because I, my friend, helped set it all up, until I knew what I was doing."

  "You mean you didn't know?"

  "Do not sound so skeptical, Nick. I am an expert in my field, and like many such experts I was not told any more than I needed to know about the over-all purpose of any plan."

  "But you found out?"

  "Yes. I found out. And I found out I could not live with the knowledge I had. So…" He looked around at the dark, oppressive sky above us. "And so I am here."

  Before daylight came he took the wheel, but I didn't even try to sleep. There were too many questions to ask.

  "You told our agents in Greece that nobody would miss you in Albania for several days. How did you manage that?"

  "Oh well, that was not too hard. It is a country all mountains, you know, the roads very bad. I have had great freedom to travel in the course of my duties. Back and forth over the mountains; I have never been to South America, but from what I have read there are countries like Chile and Peru with much the same conditions. All the time there are cars and buses going off the roads to plunge down some remote mountainside. Not found for days, quite often."