by Nick Carter
"Julie! The Luger!"
Judas kicked savagely at Nick and squirmed with his body like some thick-shouldered serpent. Nick held on and then suddenly ducked and pulled the heavy body down over his shoulders. Then he was up again. Dimly, he saw sweat on the globular face. The massive arm muscles strained with effort. Nick kept turning and turning ...At last the thick fingers straightened and the snub-nosed gun dropped on the floor. Nick scooped it up and leapt back, pointing at Judas.
"Don't shoot!" Judas screamed at him. "Don't shoot! I tell you you'll die and Harcourt will die!" He bounced back on his feet and reached out his hand.
Coldly, Nick shot at it.
Judas grunted, tried to clutch his hand, but had nothing to clutch it with. Blood drooled down a shapeless mass protruding from his left sleeve.
Julie was on the far side of the overturned table with the Luger in her hand. The look of disgust had been wiped away by a look of astonishment — and then hope.
Judas was still trying frantically to do something with his hand, but the mask of pain had become a mask of hatred.
Through his bared teeth he said, "For that, Cane, you die."
"You're as dead as we are, Judas. Deader. And now we really have some talking to do. Sit down. Sit down."
Judas sat, not taking his agonized eyes off Carter's face.
"Yes, we have some talking, Cane." His thin voice came from a distance. "Perhaps I am as dead as you.
But remember what you said last night? I'll take you with me."
"Is that the cellar door?" Nick gestured with the gun.
"Forget the cellar door. I am less a bluffer than you turned out to be. Pay close attention to what I say. This house and all it holds is prepared for instant destruction." He paused and swallowed painfully.
"Keep your eyes on both doors, Julie," Nick cut in. "We may have company coming."
"No company, Cane. Just Death. Even now, as we sit here talking, there are strategically planted magneto charges all over the structure. Oh, there's no need to sneer. I'm an expert in demolitions. Big ones, anyway." The white-hot hatred still flashed in his eyes. "Those charges, in turn, will trigger a full payload of TNT. A payload sufficient to raze this entire block of houses." He was talking very slowly and deliberately. "It is timed to the minute. For this one, there will be no mistake. I set it myself. We made our appointment for nine. I allowed you twenty minutes to arrive and allotted a half hour for our transaction. Do you have the time now, Mr. Cane? It must be nearly up."
"Julie?" Nick kept his eyes on Judas.
"Ten... nine minutes to ten," she reported.
"And ten minutes to make our farewells. It seems I planned it fairly accurately."
"Just what are you trying to bargain for, Judas?"
"My life, Cane. We can all leave here alive. Or none of us need leave at all. Even if you killed me now you could never find the device in time — and I am sure you would not leave Harcourt in the cellar to the tender mercies of TNT. No, Mr. Cane. You will have to let me disarm the device — or die."
Julie sneered. "Fu Manchu rides again and falls on face. He's bluffing, Peter. Worse than you did."
Judas' bandaged head sprang angrily in her direction.
"Am I, dear lady? Very well. But don't forget that Cane's gambit was no bluff; it was a very treacherous trap. Wait another eight minutes and we shall all see for ourselves if what I say is true."
Nick's mind was racing.
"You don't want to die either, Judas. Why should we believe you'd rig a scheme like this?"
"You can believe it, Cane, because you can see I have none of my colleagues with me. They don't want to die. As for me, I am a fatalist. I was a physical tragedy at birth, and later — you see my hand. My hands, perhaps I ought to say. Aside from that..." His strange eyes shone. "I have always hoped to die by demolition. Not just to be mutilated, but to die grandly in a vast explosion of my own making. To expire like a flaming Roman candle strikes me as a glorious finale to a brilliant career. Wouldn't you say?"
"I'd say he's either crazy or stalling for time," said Julie harshly. "Make him show you the timer, Peter. We've got to get Harcourt out of here."
Nick shook his head. "So far we've had no proof that Harcourt really is here. I asked you, Judas — where is he?"
Judas sighed. "In the cellar, my dear Cane. I told you that. Yes, that's the cellar door. But do hurry if you want to look. Time grows short. We have less than seven minutes."
"Julie. Go and see. Keep that Luger cocked. Quick, now."
She darted to the door and flung it open. Her high heels clattered down the stairs.
Blood was seeping through Judas' right pocket.
Within seconds Julia was back, breathing quickly.
"He's there all right. Tied down to the table and out like a light. But breathing. Shall I cut him loose?"
"Yes. Need a knife?"
"No, I..."
"Mr. Cane!" the high voice rapped out. "You don't seem to understand. In six minutes — six minutes — this house will blow to hell. Miss Baron, get back in this room."
Julie took a slow step or two back into the kitchen.
"Stay where you are, Julie," Nick's voice lashed out. "In less than five minutes we can be out of here with Harcourt. Why should we wait around for his explosion?"
"My God, you're right, why should we? Shoot him, Peter..."
"Just a minute! You touch Harcourt without my help and you're finished! Don't you think I knew enough to wire him to it? One careless contact, and everything is over."
"I thought you said it was a timing device," said Nick, "not a land mine."
"It's both, you fool, it's both!" The voice reached an incredible pitch.
"I saw no wires, Peter," said Julie quietly. "Just cords."
"Of course you wouldn't see them. Do you think I'm an amateur? Five minutes, Cane. That's all." Judas' voice subsided in a gasp. The arm was hurting.
"Shoot him, Peter. I think he's lying." Julie's face was a hard, purposeful mask. "Let's try to get Harcourt out of here. If we're wrong, at least we will have died trying."
Nick could have kissed her on the spot. "Stand by with Wilhelmina, honey." Even if they were wrong, it would be almost worth it. Score: one arch enemy of the world, one fine diplomat and two skilled agents. So. You can't make omelets without breaking eggs.
"Goodbye, Mr. Judas," said Nick. He raised his hand.
Judas stared into the dark bore of his own gun.
"You're serious, aren't you?"
"Dead serious."
Judas did a strange thing. His grotesqueness made it both horrible and oddly pathetic.
He slowly raised his hands, the one that was streaming blood and the one that was nothing but an empty glove.
It threw Nick for a second.
Several things happened in rapid succession. Their order was a blur. The lights in the kitchen winked out. An orange tongue leapt from Nick's hand across the darkness. Wilhelmina barked. A chair scraped and fell. Some sort of movement flowed across the room. Julie made a grunting, unladylike sound. Something thudded and clattered at the same time. Nick gathered his muscles and shot across the room, stumbled into the overturned table, flailed the air with the borrowed gun. He hit nothing but air. Whirling, he faced the direction of the door. There was no movement there, either. Cursing, Nick groped for the light switch. Couldn't find it. Reached for a pencil flashlight, darted it around the room. A fallen body. Light switch on the wall. He clicked it.
The scene in the kitchen had changed considerably. It was like some fantastically clever disappearing act. Judas was gone.
Julie was lying on the floor, gasping for breath. A trail of blood led — nowhere. To a blank wall. Nick ran his fingers over it, picked at it uselessly. God — how long? Three minutes? Four? He bent over Julie. Sorry, Julie, no time for first aid. The Luger lay beneath her. At least Judas hadn't got that.
Hugo slid into his hand.
Nick had no memory of flinging down
the wooden steps and finding Lyle Harcourt. He was only aware of maybe three minutes of time in which to live. Maybe no time at all, once he moved Harcourt. And no time to wonder about Judas' bluff.
Lyle Harcourt was lying, fully dressed, on a rough wooden table. Coarse ropes bound him at ankles and shoulders. Nick held the flashlight between his teeth as he made swift, deft motions with Hugo and tried to spot anything that could possible be linked with an explosive charge. Then Harcourt was free. No explosion.
Nick hung the big man over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and climbed up the stairs. Harcourt was heavy. The steps were steep, the way narrow and dark.
Julie lay on the floor, groaning and trying to lift herself up.
"Ohhhh... Peter!"
"Can you make it? Get up!"
"Peter, he's gone. What..."
"It's all right, I've got Harcourt. Here, give me Wilhelmina. Come on, let's go." He thrust Wilhelmina loosely into his pocket. "Up, Julie, up!" He took her hand and pulled. "That's it. Can you run?"
"Got to run."
She stumbled down the hall after him, borne along by his tugging hand. He almost fell in the darkness. Harcourt seemed to get heavier with each passing second. Their bodies pitched full-tilt against the door, slamming it. Nick let go of Julie's hand and wrenched it open. It crashed back against the wall. The house reverberated with the sound. The street lay ahead of them, cool, dark and calm.
"C'mon." He grabbed her hand again. They staggered down the pebbled walk, half-wondering why no one seemed to have heard the commotion.
They reached the sidewalk, gasping. Julie faltered.
"Can't stay here. Move!" Nick barked at her, slapping her face sharply. "Gotta keep going."
She got going, running and stumbled.
"Thanks... a... lot..." she panted. "So good for you... you... when you're... winded."
"Shut up and run."
They were halfway down the street when a bell tolled somewhere. It may have been Big Ben talking in the light fog. Whatever it was, it tolled ten o'clock.
The house they had fled remained where it was.
Peaceful, undisturbed, dark, and...
Intact.
* * *
He had made it with about thirty seconds to spare. The watch mechanism was simple enough, but it had been no easy matter to hold it in his shattered, slippery hand and pull out the timing device with his teeth. If it had not been for foot-operated push buttons, he would never have made it at all.
Judas stood in the basement storage closet that was separated from the kitchen by a flight of stone steps and a sliding panel and allowed his body to shudder. He had been hit again in his headlong dash for the panel. Whether his own gun or the Luger, he didn't know. Everything happened so quickly. He was bleeding badly. Have to get back upstairs for towels. Who would have thought that Cane would shoot like that? Mr. Judas wearily shook his bald head. He had misjudged those American spies. Pity that Cane was such a dedicated operative in the employ of the enemy. He could have used that man. Girl, too.
He felt an unfamiliar sensation of weakness. Upstairs, now, Towels. Outside and away. Or Cane would be back with his own damn bombs. He dragged himself up the steps. From somewhere outside he heard the sound of a car backfiring. Harper coming back for him. Those foreign cars made hell's own noise. He'd better hurry.
He'd meet Cane again.
Or whatever his name really was.
Ten minutes later he left the house. Crude dressings covered a searing pain in his ribs and the mutilated left hand. The absent right hand ached in sympathy and the arm above it was a flaming agony. But his firm step and military posture reflected none of his pain. A coat shielded him from the cool mist and a soft slouch hat concealed his dome-like head. The gate, fortunately, was open. It might have given him a little trouble.
Where was the car, and that surly Harper?
The car was nowhere in sight.
Judas walked slowly along the sidewalk to the corner.
A dark hedge bulged with a darker shadow. A sprawling, ungainly shadow.
Harper was dead.
The street was quiet. Someone must have heard something. Shots and running and a car driving off. But the houses were tranquil. Not a soul was abroad.
Well, that's London for you. Just as well.
He turned the corner and walked on, feeling weak and ill. But his step was firm and his shoulders were straight and his mind was functioning normally. There was a time to work and a time to head for cover. It was better to drop out of sight for the time being.
Mr. Judas vanished into the London fog.
ACTION WASHINGTON ATTENTION BIRD HARCOURT SAFE HOTEL RAND CARE OF CANE AND BARON...
The cable was long and specific and had taken time. There were still some details to clarify, but an early-morning phone call from Harcourt's office would take care of that.
"Incredible, Cane! I still can't believe what I saw with my own two eyes." Harcourt drained his glass. "I'm not, as a rule, a drinking man, but... Thank you, yes, I'm glad you asked."
Nick grinned and mixed him another bracing Scotch and soda. They were together, the three of them, in Nick's suite at the Hotel Rand.
"Cane, Miss Baron, I don't know how to thank you. And I'm not even going to try — or I'll use up all the clichés I'll be needing for tomorrow's speech. But... good Lord, what an experience. The people at home will never believe this."
"They'll believe it, sir. And it'll do 'em good. Julie! Mind your manners when we have company."
She stifled a prodigious yawn and turned it into a smile. The smile made even the ugly bruise on her forehead seem somehow attractive, as if she were a little girl who had fallen while playing with the boys in some rough game. A cat-eyed, lovely little girl...
"I'm sorry. I'm really awfully sorry. But we've had two rather late nights..."
They all laughed.
"I must admit I'm tired too," said Harcourt, "and tomorrow will be full of reports and words and lots of questions. But they'll keep. This sort of thing is — well, I just can't..." He gave up, shaking his patrician head, a peaceful man gradually awaking from a nightmare of violence.
He stayed in Nick's suite that night. Julie and Nick shared hers. It was, after all, two rooms and a bath...
"Peter."
He came awake instantly. She lay in the crook of his arm, warm and soft as a cat. Somewhere a clock struck four.
"Yes?"
"I'm awake."
"So am I."
"Perhaps we should do something about it."
"Perhaps we should."
And so they did, with lighthearted passion, secure in the knowledge that, this time at least, there was a tomorrow to count upon.
