Night of the Warheads

by Nick Carter

  Carter barely made a yellow and pushed the little car up to fifty on the Corniche J.F. Kennedy before flicking her a quick, sidelong glance.

  Her jaw was set in a hard line, and her complexion was an ashy white. But she was not trembling, and there was no sign of hysteria.

  "Are they?" she asked again, turning her face toward him but unable to meet his eyes.

  "No," Carter half lied, then he checked his watch. It was 7:00 sharp. The train to Avignon would leave at 7:14.

  "They are evil men, aren't they?"

  "Yes," Carter said, "they are."

  "Then it is all right… what you have done."

  "Am doing," he corrected and threw her another quick glance. Her fragile lips were trying to smile.

  Ahh, youth, he thought, whipping the car into the station drive.

  He rolled on past the entrance into shadows, stopped, and tugged her purse from her hands. Pulling the wads of money from the right-hand pocket of his pea jacket, he stuffed the whole amount into the purse.

  "What is that?"

  "A little bonus," Carter replied, dropping the purse in her lap. "It will replace your bag and clothes at the hotel. Adieu."

  "Just adieu…?"

  "That's it," he replied, looking straight ahead. "That's got to be it."

  She leaned across the seat and turned his face to here with one hand. With the other she stuffed a piece of paper into his hand as she kissed him.

  It was a short but sensitive kiss that said a lot without promising anything.

  And then she was standing outside the car, her face obscured in the shadow from the building.

  "What's this?"

  "My address… my telephone number in Avignon. Perhaps one day…"

  She left it hanging and turned away.

  Carter watched her all the way through the station before he lit a cigarette and pulled the Cortina back into traffic.

  * * *

  Rue Emile Zola was a narrow, tree-lined street in one of Marseille's more posh and older residential districts. The estates were large and set far back from the road in the midst of heavy shrubs and towering, leafy trees.

  Number 37 was not a great deal different man its neighbors, except that its huge wrought-iron gates fronted just across from a side street that angled up a hill.

  Carter smiled when he noticed this and lightly ran his fingertips over the small electronic device clipped to the sun visor above his head.

  He made two passes in front of the gates, then turned into the side street and climbed until he could look down into the property behind him. When he was satisfied, he made a U-turn, parked, and killed the headlights.

  With the binoculars he studied the layout.

  A thick, crenelated wall ran around the entire perimeter of the property. The house itself was massive. Architecturally, it was a bastard cross between an English Tudor mansion and a French country chateau.

  To the right, where the stables had once been, three sets of open double doors now revealed a garage. On the left was a swimming pool, and beyond that were a pair of tennis courts.

  Monsieur LeClerc's organization might be pleading poverty, Carter thought, but the gentleman himself certainly managed to live in style.

  A wide, asphalt lane led straight down from the gate to a courtyard and the main entrance of the house. The Mercedes limousine and a dark blue Citroen station wagon with Paris VLT plates sat near the marble steps leading up to the front portal.

  Satisfied that his little plan of surprise had at least a ninety-five percent chance of success. Carter moved to the rear of the Cortina.

  "Hey, sleeping beauty," he whispered, tapping lightly on the lid with the silencer of the Walther.

  There was no response.

  He opened the trunk with the keys and felt short and pudgy's pulse. It was faint but still there.

  "Well, little man," Carter said, "if you survive the crash, you're going to have a lot of explaining to do to your boss.

  He dragged both bodies — one dead, one breathing — from the trunk and propped them up in the back seat. When they were secured with the seat belts, he closed the trunk lid and crawled back behind the wheel.

  Everything had to be arranged just so.

  The electronic gate opener he held in his left hand. The PPK — with the safety safely on — he tucked into his belt.

  Then he started the Cortina.

  "Ready, gentlemen?" he growled, glancing at his passengers in the rearview mirror.

  Hollow-eyes stayed that way. Short and pudgy s lips were twisted into a grotesque grin.

  "Good show… we're off!"

  He rolled forward in low, then pressed the accelerator halfway as he shifted into second.

  Fifty yards short of the bottom of the hill, he pointed the little gray instrument forward, pushed the «open» button, and sighed with relief as the huge iron gates rolled inward.

  At the edge of Rue Emile Zola, he floored the car for two seconds, then shifted into neutral.

  Ten feet short of the gate he rolled from the car and hit the soft, grassy ditch in a tuck.

  One roll brought him to his knees and then to his toes. Without a second's pause, he scrambled back up the drive.

  The Cortina was already through the opening and careening directly down the hill toward the courtyard.

  Carter hit the «close» button, and the gates swung swiftly and silently shut. The latch had barely clicked before he was pumping shells into the black box just inside the gate that controlled the electric eye.

  When the Walther clicked on empty, he threw it and the gate opener over the wall and took off in a sprint up the hill.

  He did not turn around until he heard the crash. By that time he was in the darkness at the top of the hill.

  The smile that creased his face was pure satisfaction as he crouched on one knee and brought the glasses to his eyes.

  The Cortina had sideswiped the Citroen and kissed grille to grille with the Mercedes. The bigger, heavier, and better-made car was far from out of commission, but cosmetically it was a mess.

  There had been only two or three lights on in the house. Now it was like a Christmas tree, and men were pouring through the front door and around the side of the house from the garage.

  Two of them assessed the situation in the Cortina instantly. They both looked toward the now closed gate, gestured, and sprinted toward the Citroen. The driver's side door was unopenable, so they both had to get into the car through the passenger side.

  In no time they had the car started and were roaring up the hill toward the gate.

  Through the glasses, in the Citroen's dashboard lights, Carter could see the man on the right feverishly pumping the button on an electronic device similar to the one Carter had just used and tossed over the wall.

  When both men realized that the gate was not going to work, the driver slammed on his brakes. The sound of screaming tires broke the night stillness, and the car rocked to a halt with its front bumper inches from the gate.

  Carter replaced the glasses in their case under his arm and jogged on over the hill. Sure now that there would be no pursuit, he slowed to a leisurely walk when he hit a main boulevard and made for the port.

  About a mile from Rue Emile Zola, he stepped into a small bistro. Inside, there was a young crowd, mostly college age. They sat at tables surrounding a small stage where a girl strummed a guitar and sang a lamentation about the state of French politics.

  "Monsieur?"

  "Calvados, s'il vous plaît."

  "Oui. monsieur."

  Carter sipped the brandy and smoked for the next twenty minutes.

  "Is there a phone?"

  "In the rear, monsieur, in the Gentlemen's."

  "Merci."

  Carter made his way down a dark hallway and entered the men's room. Inside, he checked the two booths, found them empty, and dropped coins into the phone.

  "Oui?" It was answered on the second ring.

  Carter squeezed his nostrils with
a thumb and forefinger and spoke with his tongue hitting his teeth to simulate a lisp.

  "Monsieur LeClerc, s'il vous plaît."

  "Un moment."

  LeClerc's voice, raspy with tension, was on the line in ten seconds.

  "Yes?"

  "Monsieur LeClerc?"

  "Yes, yes, who is this?"

  Carter dropped the lisp and removed the fingers from his nose.

  "This, Pepe, is Bluebeard."

  The silence from the other end of the line was like a tomb. Carter waited until he was sure that LeClerc had digested the fact that his cover for Pepe was blown, then he spoke again.

  "Did you get my message, LeClerc?"

  "So it was you. I suspected as much. Did you have to kill Petri to make your point?"

  "I didn't. It was an accident. He killed himself. How about the other one?"

  "A broken back."

  "Too bad," Carter said. "The misfortunes of a dangerous business. You should have called them off."

  "I think it's clear why I didn't. You now have the advantage of knowing who I am, and I know nothing about you."

  "In fairness, LeClerc, I am willing to rectify that. If you see my face and can identify me, will that give you some insurance that I plan on carrying out my part of the bargain?"

  "I think that would be acceptable."

  "Good. Do you know the vista drive above the Hippodrome?"

  "Of course, the Pont de Vivaux."

  "Very well. Tomorrow morning, I want you to drive to the very top… just you and a driver."

  "What time?"

  "The forecasters tell us that sunrise tomorrow will be at six fifty-eight. Shall we say, two minutes past dawn?"

  "Agreed."

  "Au revoir, monsieur," Carter said. "Sleep well!"

  He moved back through the bistro, pausing only long enough to drop a few bills on the bar.

  Three blocks away, he hailed a cab and rode directly to the Vieux Port and the hotel.

  "Wait," Carter said to the cab driver, dropping some francs over the seat.

  "Oui, monsieur."

  He took the tiny elevator to the fifth floor and walked down to the fourth. It took less than five minutes to gather all of Lily's things and take them back to his room, where he packed them in his own duffel bag.

  At the desk, Carter dropped the keys in the slot and regained the taxi.

  "La gare principle, s'il vous plaît."

  It was ten minutes to the main railway station. There he paid the cabbie and made directly for the transient bag claim area.

  "Your claim check, monsieur?"

  The old man paid little attention to the seedy-looking sailor picking up the two very expensive leather bags. Carter tipped him just enough francs to keep him happy but not enough to crease his memory.

  A block from the station he deposited the duffel bag in a large garbage container and continued on to the public baths.

  A half hour later he emerged, clean-shaven, in a conservative black suit with gray pinstripes, soft leather loafers from Italy that could not be purchased anywhere for less than two hundred dollars, and a crisp white-on-white shirt with a narrow, unpatterned indigo tie.

  On the street, he shunned a cab and walked the ten blocks to an all-night rent-a-car.

  "I ordered a car by phone this morning," he said, passing over his passport and credit card.

  "Oui, monsieur. It is ready for you."

  An attendant loaded the car with his bags while Carter filled out the papers under the clerk's watchful and appreciative eyes.

  It was not often he had a customer who could afford a month's rental on a forty-thousand-dollar automobile.

  The doorman was just as appreciative of Carter's style of arrival when he pulled into the drive from Rue la Canebiere and rocked the impressive little car to a halt in front of the Hotel Grand et Noailles.

  The crisply attired concierge waited behind the huge mahogany desk with a beaming smile.

  "May I be of assistance, monsieur?"

  "You may. I have a suite reserved."

  "The name, monsieur?"

  "Carstocus. Nicholas Carstocus."

  Eight

  Nick Carter stood on the very edge of the cliff, smoke rolling slowly from the corners of his lips. Against the misty dawn sky he made a clear and easy target.

  He meant to.

  LeClerc would feel much easier because of it.

  Far below him, the city of Marseille had already come to boiling life. Autos jammed the corniche leading to the docks, and commuter traffic flowed inward on the city's two northern arteries from the port city's suburbs.

  He heard the low rumble of a powerful engine behind him and flipped the cigarette in a high arc over the edge of the cliff. Other than the movement of his arm, he was still. Even his eyes did not blink when the front bumper of the Mercedes rocked to a halt a scant six inches from the back of his legs.

  He heard the door open and then the soft pad of feet over the grassy earth.

  "Are you armed?" a voice, just behind and to his left, asked in slightly accented English.

  "Yes, a Luger. Shoulder holster, left side."

  A hand snaked under his jacket, and Carter felt the weight of Wilhelmina lifted from her soft leather sheath.

  Only when the hands had completed a quick frisk of his waist and down his legs did Carter finally turn.

  The Mercedes's front bumper was an inverted vee, the grille was a mangled mess, and the fronts of both fenders were pleated beyond repair.

  "A pity," Carter smiled. "Such a marvelous machine."

  "Basta!" the dark little man hissed and motioned Carter to the rear, passenger side of the limousine.

  Carter slid into the rear seat, and the door slammed behind him. He heard the unmistakable click of the electronic door locks and calmly lit a cigarette.

  "Monsieur Bluebeard, at last," the man said in French.

  "Monsieur LeClerc… and, I assume, Pepe?"

  "I think it is far from an assumption on your part, monsieur. My congratulations on your cunning."

  He was about sixty, with an earnest, fleshy face. His wiry, sleek black hair was just receding on each side of the crown and had only a touch of gray in the sideburns. His skin seemed to sag like the rest of him, but his eyes were black pinpoints of alert intelligence.

  A whirring sound closed the window between the front and rear seats. That, coupled with the blacked-out windows, threw the rear of the car into near darkness.

  LeClerc's hand moved to a console between them, and a dome light and lights in the doors came on.

  For the first time, Carter noticed a thin manila envelope in the man's lap.

  "I must say, I admire your courage if not your methods. My driver could have shot you where you stood when we drove up."

  "He could have," Carter agreed.

  "And letting yourself be relieved of your gun takes a lot of nerve."

  "Not really."

  LeClerc took time to study Carter before speaking again. He perceived the wide shoulders, the powerful chest, and then he met the other's eyes with his own. Carter's eyes seemed to look completely through him, sifting as they penetrated.

  A barely perceptible chill seemed to slice through LeClerc's body. In his lifetime he had dealt with many men whose eyes held the icy chill he saw now.

  Always there was a killer behind them.

  "How so?" LeClerc said at last.

  "I really don't need a gun to kill you or your little appendage in the front seat, LeClerc. I could do it with my bare hands. And if they failed, there is always this…"

  Carter tensed the muscles in his right forearm to activate the spring in Hugo's sheath. The thin stiletto shot from his cuff, the hilt settling comfortably in his right palm.

  The driver had been watching his every movement in the rearview mirror. When he saw the blade in Carter's hand, he activated the window and pawed for his gun.

  The window had slid less than an inch when Carter jammed Hugo's point into i
ts catch, arresting its downward movement.

  LeClerc's hand came up to calm his driver, and a thin smile creased his wide face.

  "Once again, you prove your point quite well."

  Carter shrugged. "It is an age of specialization. I assume that you, Monsieur LeClerc, are good at what you do. I, at the same time, am a specialist at what I do. Shall we get on with it?"

  LeClerc passed the envelope across with another slight shudder.

  "Everything you need to know is in here. There is a complete background on the target, as well as photographs and personal habits."

  "Current location?"

  "It's there, as well as a prediction of any movements in the near future."

  "Good," Carter said, slipping the envelope into an inside pocket and lighting another cigarette. "Now, about the remainder of the payment upon completion."

  "An additional one hundred thousand dollars upon completion, as agreed. In the envelope there is a Barcelona number to call when the job is done. In light of the quasi-celebrity status of your target, the news media will confirm for us. Within twenty-four hours, the rest of the money will be deposited in your Swiss account."

  "Excellent," Carter said. "Now, there is only one more thing. Nels Pomroy."

  "What about him?"

  "I think I should know a little more about his situation."

  "I told you. We think he is dead. Why do you ask?"

  "Because I think he may have sold me out somehow. Not informing me of this, for instance." Carter patted the pocket where the envelope rested.

  "Quite possible," LeClerc replied, a wan smile accenting his words. "We feel he may have done the same to us."

  "How so?"

  "I cannot and will not be specific, monsieur. As you have said, you are a specialist. We require your services. Beyond that, our business is none of your business. But I can tell you this. Our organization…"

  "Which is…?"

  "Also none of your business. Our organization has had a slight rift in leadership…"

  "So one wants to get rid of the other," Carter interjected.

  "Sadly, that is the case. We thought that Monsieur Pomroy was working exclusively for our side in this little power struggle. It would seem that, in point of fact, his allegiance was for the other side and he was only baiting us, draining our funds, and probably reporting our activities to the other side."