Assassin: Code Name Vulture

by Nick Carter

  I rose. The man stiffened and shuddered. His face was already turning blue.

  "Let's get out of here," I ordered. I turned to Spencer. "You stay here."

  There was resentment in his voice. "I'm wounded, Carter."

  I examined him. It was only a flesh wound and involved nothing vital. "You'll be all right," I said. "Stuff a bandage in that and call Hawk from here. Tell him the latest developments. I'll have Minourkos get a doctor to take care of your wound. Any questions?"

  "Yes," he said. "Why don't you want me with you at Mykonos?"

  "You need a little seasoning, Spencer. You're not going to get it all on this case. Stavros is too important to AXE."

  "Shall I tell that to Hawk?" he asked sourly. "He recommended me for temporary duty on this assignment."

  "Tell him whatever you like." I turned to the door, holstering the Luger. "Come on, Erika."

  "What do you expect me to do, just wait until I hear from you?" Spencer asked.

  I stopped and thought about that a moment "At breakfast time tomorrow you can leave. It will be too late for the newspapers to pick up the story. Let Minourkos call the police and tell them everything. Call Colonel Kotsikas and have him back up Minourkos. I'll be on Mykonos by then and will have found Stavros if he's there. It will be too soon for him to have received any news of what has happened here and at Kotsikas' place."

  "What about Sergiou?" Erika asked.

  "We'll send him home," I said. "He's done a good job, and he can go back to his family now."

  "Carter," Spencer said.

  "Yes?"

  "I'll do better next time."

  I looked at him. "Okay," I said. "Let's go, Erika. We have a vulture to catch."

  Ten

  The harbor of Mykonos lay like a massive cut sapphire in the early morning sun. It was an almost completely closed harbor with small fishing boats and launches inside and two large cruise ships anchored outside the sea wall. Ships didn't dock at Mykonos. Passengers had to climb down an uncertain gangplank, luggage in hand, to a bobbing launch that took them to shore in small groups.

  Erika and I hadn't experienced that brief adventure. We had arrived at the new airport across the island just an hour previously and had taken a bumpy bus ride over primitive roads to the village. I sat now at a waterfront cafe under a sailcloth canopy, perched on a straight yellow chair, watching a half dozen mustachioed Greek sailors guide a newly painted fishing boat into the water just fifteen yards away. Curving away from me in either direction was the waterfront, a line of whitewashed buildings housing cafes, shops, and small hotels. I took a sip of Nescafe, the Greeks' token tribute to American coffee, and watched an old man in a straw hat selling grapes and flowers pass the place. In this atmosphere, it was difficult to remember that I was here to kill a man.

  Erika wasn't with me. She had disappeared down the maze of whitewashed streets just off the waterfront to find an old lady whom she had known from a stay on Mykonos a couple of years before. If you wanted information of any kind on Mykonos, you went to the dark-haired, black-shawled old ladies who rented out rooms in their homes to visitors. They knew everything. Erika had gone to find out about the military camp on the island and to find out where the commander of this camp might live, for we would probably find Stavros there.

  I was just finishing the Nescafe when Erika came swinging along the stone walk before the cafe, dressed in a yellow slacks outfit, her long red hair pulled back with a yellow ribbon. It was still difficult for me to understand why a beautiful girl like Erika would become involved in my world. She should have been married to a rich man with a villa and a long white yacht outside Tel Aviv. She could have had all that with her looks. Maybe she didn't know it Or maybe yachts were just not her style.

  "You look like a tourist, Nick," she smiled as she sat down beside me. "Except for the jacket and tie."

  "Give me another hour," I said. "What did you find out?"

  She ordered a cup of hot tea from the waiter, and he left. "It was a good thing I went alone. Maria was very reluctant to talk at first These islanders are very distant with strangers and any person who doesn't live here is a stranger."

  "What did she have to say?"

  Erika began to speak, but had to wait until the waiter left her tea. When he was gone, she spooned a little sugar into the cup from an open bowl. "There is a camp near Ornos beach, and only a couple of islanders have been inside. The commander resides in a rented villa near the camp. His name is Galatis. One of the two local taxi drivers took two Americans to the Rhenia Hotel just at the edge of the village; Later the same man drove them to the villa of Galatis."

  "Excellent intelligence work, Miss Nystrom," I said. "Come on, let's visit the Rhenia."

  "I just sat down," she complained. "I still have a half cup of tea."

  "I'll get you another cup later." I thrust a few drachmas onto the small table.

  "Okay," she said as she hurriedly sipped some more tea and then rose to follow me.

  We walked along the waterfront past the cafes and a small band to an open square where busses to outlying points stopped. The post office and the harbor police headquarters fronted the square, and there was a tarnished bronze statue of an ancient hero. We passed this square and turned off the waterfront into a short block and soon arrived at the Rhenia. It was a multi-level hotel built on a hill with an almost-tropical garden in front.

  The slender young man at the reception desk was quite cordial. "Yes, two Americans checked in yesterday. Are they friends of yours?"

  "What are their names?" I asked.

  "Let me see." He took a register from under the counter and thumbed it open. "Ahh. Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith."

  "Yes. They would be our friends," I said. "What room are they in? We would like to surprise them."

  "They are in 312. But they have left already. They mentioned returning for lunch at the hotel before noon."

  We checked the room anyway. I knocked on the door and then let myself in with a Lockpicker's Special supplied by the Special Effects boys. We closed the door behind us and looked around. Both big beds were still unmade, and there was a bottle of scotch half gone, sitting on the night table. Stavros was not much of a drinker, so I figured it was the gunman he had brought with him who had drunk the liquor.

  Besides the scotch and a few cigarette butts, there was nothing else the two had left behind. Stavros had probably brought no luggage. What he had to do wouldn't take long. He had to inquire about that phone call from a man identifying himself as Minourkos, and he had to test the loyalty of Galatis, the camp commander. Galatis' life was in immediate danger if he had obeyed Minourkos' instructions not to move until hearing from him further. Since Stavros had arrived yesterday, Galatis might already be dead.

  "We'd better get out to the villa," I said.

  "I'm with you, Nick."

  After a half hour search, we finally found a cab driver sipping an ouzo in a cafe. He didn't have any inclination to drive us to the villa until I showed him a wad of drachmas, whereupon he hunched his heavy shoulders and led us to the cab. It was a beat-up 1957 Chevrolet with most of the paint gone and cotton stuffing protruding from the upholstery. The cabby started the old engine, which emitted a loud belch just as we drove away.

  Most of the drive was over a badly paved road along the rocky coast of the island where sheer cliffs dropped off into the Aegean Sea, When we were almost at Ornos beach, the driver turned into a pocked gravel road toward the camp and the villa. We got only a glimpse of the camp, green buildings crouching in the distance, as we passed a high, barbed-wire fence. We turned away from the fence onto a long drive that led toward the villa. When we reached the tiled-roof house, I asked the cabby to wait, and he seemed very content to do so.

  We were ready for anything when I knocked on the ornate wooden front door. Erika had the Belgian revolver hidden behind her purse again, and this time she hoped to use it. She stood coolly beside me at the door, waiting. I had put the Luger into the side po
cket of my jacket, and my hand was in there with it A servant, an elderly Greek, opened the door.

  "Kali mera," he greeted us. He continued in Greek. "You wish to see the commander?"

  "Excuse me," I said, gently moving him aside. Erika and I moved into a large living area with one glass wall overlooking a hillside of trees.

  "Please!" the old fellow protested in English.

  We went from room to room, cautiously, finally meeting back in the big room. Nobody was there.

  "Where is the commander?" Erika asked the old man.

  He shook his head violently from side to side. "Not at villa. Away."

  "Where?" I asked.

  "Go with Americans. To camp."

  "Efharisto," I said, thanking him.

  We went out and climbed back into the cab. "Take us to the military camp," I told the driver.

  "What will we do when we get there?" Erika asked.

  The cab pulled away from the house and started back along the gravel drive. "I'm not sure yet," I admitted. "I just have a feeling we should at least take a look from the outside."

  But we never got that far. When we turned back on the road that paralleled the fence and proceeded along it for a few hundred yards, I saw a place where tire tracks left the roadway and stopped near some scrub brush.

  "Stop!" I ordered the driver.

  "What is it, Nick?" Erika asked.

  "I don't know. Stay here."

  I got out of the cab and pulled out the Luger. I moved slowly past the tire marks toward the scrub brush. There was evidence of a scuffle near where the car had been parked. When I got into the brush, I found what I had feared. A tall, slim man lay behind a thick bush, his throat cut from ear to ear. I had apparently found Galatis.

  I returned to the car and told Erika, and we just sat there for a moment while the cabby eyed us in the rearview mirror.

  "Stavros must already have one of Galatis' subordinate officers on his side," I said heavily. "If we don't find Stavros, he'll have these troops in Athens tomorrow."

  "We can't go into the camp after him, Nick," Erika said. "He would have a small army to defend him there."

  "We'll return to the hotel and hope that what Stavros told them there is true — that he intends to be there by noon. We'll be there waiting for him."

  At the Rhenia, Erika and I got to Stavros' room undetected. We locked ourselves in and waited. It was mid-morning. The beds had been made, so we didn't have to worry about the maids. I poured us both a short shot of the scotch, and we sat on the edge of a bed drinking it.

  "Why can't we be here on vacation like the tourists?" Erika complained. "With nothing to do but visit the windmills and go to the beaches and sit at the cafes, watching the world go by?"

  "Maybe we'll get here together some day," I said, not believing it for a minute. "Under different circumstances."

  Erika had removed the small vest that went with the slacks suit. She wore only a sheer blouse tucked into the slacks. She lay back on the bed, her feet still on the floor and her red hair spread in disarray against the plain green bedcover.

  "We don't have much longer together," she said, staring at the ceiling. A small breeze came in through an open window, a soft sea breeze. "No matter how this all works out."

  "I know."

  "I don't want to wait for some possible future moment together. It may never come." She began unbuttoning her blouse.

  I looked over at her. "Erika, what the hell are you doing?"

  "I'm undressing," she said, not looking at me. The blouse was off. She unsnapped a small bra and whisked it away. I stared down at her.

  "Do you realize that Stavros might walk in here at any moment?" I asked.

  "It's only mid-morning." She had unfastened a catch at the waist of the yellow slacks and was pulling them down over her hips. There was only a wisp of panties underneath, a small piece of cloth that covered almost nothing.

  I remembered, and my throat went dry. I remembered the sheer animal pleasure I had felt with her.

  "Erika, I don't think…" I tried to protest.

  "There's time," she assured me, moving languorously on the bed. I watched her body move and stretch. "You said yourself that Stavros will probably be in conference with a replacement commander at the camp all morning."

  "We can't be sure of that," I said as she unbuckled my belt. My pulse rate was up, and I felt the familiar gut reaction to the touch of her.

  She pulled me down beside her and moved against me. My left hand moved of its own volition to a breast.

  "How sure do we have to be, Nick," she breathed, her hand inside my clothing.

  Well, what the hell, I thought. The door was locked. The Luger would be within easy reach. We would hear Stavros before he got inside the room. And I had the same feeling Erika had. This might be the last time.

  I turned and let my eyes move over Erika's body and the mane of flaming hair that fell over her milky shoulders, and I wondered if there had ever been a more desirable woman than Erika Nystrom. Anywhere. Any time.

  I kissed her, and her mouth was hot and moist, and there was an urgency in the way she moved her lips against mine. As we kissed, she undressed me, and I didn't stop her. Then we were lying on the bed together, and I was sliding the sheer panties down over her hips and thighs. She helped me at the end by kicking them off.

  She lay on her back, her eyes almost closed, and reached for me. I moved over her and she pulled me close. We kissed again passionately, and she had hold of me and was caressing me. When she guided me into her, there was a moment when her mouth opened in a gasp of pleasure, and then there was a low moan from her throat.

  Her hips were moving against me, taking the initiative, demanding. I responded, thrusting hard into her. The long thighs left the bed and locked themselves behind my back, forcing me deeper inside.

  And then the explosion ripped through us. It came sooner and with more violence than I had ever thought possible, making flesh shudder and tremble in its naked power and passing only after we had both been emptied of all the turmoil that had mounted inside us. We were left with soft ripples of pleasure that found their way into the deepest and most secret parts of us.

  We dressed leisurely. It was still not late morning. I was beginning to fear, though, that Stavros might not show up. He might be at the airport waiting for a plane to Athens. He might have said he was returning at noon only to throw any pursuer off his trail.

  It got to be eleven-thirty. Erika had another scotch, and there was a growing tension inside her that showed plainly in her face.

  "I'm going to the desk," she said at eleven-thirty-five.

  "What for?"

  "Maybe he called and changed his plans," she said, taking a quick puff on a long cigarette. "'They might know something."

  I didn't try to stop her. She was all knotted inside, despite the lovemaking we had earlier.

  "All right," I said. "But if you run into Stavros, don't take him on yourself. Let him come up here."

  "Okay, Nick. I promise."

  After Erika left, I began pacing the room. I was getting jumpy myself. It was important that we get Stavros here. We had chased him long enough.

  It was only five minutes after Erika had gone down to the hotel reception area when I heard the sound in the corridor. I drew the 9mm Luger and went to the door. I listened for a moment. There was another sound. I waited but nothing happened. Cautiously and quietly I unlatched the door. Easing it open an inch, I peered into the corridor. There was no one in sight. I stepped into the hall and looked up and down it Nothing. The corridor had open archways to a garden beyond. I went and looked out there and again saw nothing. There was an exit to the garden area down the corridor about fifty feet. I went down there quickly and took a look around and finally gave up. My nerves must have been on edge, I decided. I returned to the partly open door to the room and entered.

  Just as I grabbed at the door to close it behind me, I saw the movement from the corner of my eye, but it was too l
ate to react. The crunching blow to the back of my skull sent a rocketing pain through my head and neck. The Luger slipped from my hand. I grabbed at the door jamb and held on as I fell against it heavily. I got a glimpse of the face before me and recognized it as the one I had seen at the penthouse in Athens. It was the hard, scowling face of Adrian Stavros. I made an animal sound in my throat and reached out toward that ugly face. But then another blow hit me alongside the head, and bright lights exploded inside. I was swimming in a sea of ebony, and there was no horizon line between the black sea and the black sky. It all closed in on me and merged into a swirling, dark mass.

  Eleven

  "He's coming around."

  I heard the voice indistinctly, as if it were coming to me from another room. My eyes fluttered open, but I couldn't focus them. I saw three vague forms around me.

  "That's right, open your eyes."

  The voice was familiar. It belonged to Adrian Stavros. I tried to focus on its source. His face cleared up in my vision. I looked into the tough, hard-lined face with the receding, dark hairline and the icy cold eyes, and I hated myself for letting him take me. I looked from him to the other two faces flanking his. One belonged to a husky, dark-faced fellow with a bluish glaze over his left eye. I took him for a Brazilian bodyguard of Stavros. The other man was quite young and wore a khaki uniform. I guessed that he was the officer who would replace the executed Galatis.

  "So," Stavros said in an acid-etched voice. "The window washer." He made a kind of laugh in his throat. "Who are you really?"

  "Who are you really?" I answered, trying to clear my head, trying to think. I remembered Erika and wondered if they had found her, too.

  Stavros hauled off and slugged me with the back of his hand, and I noticed only then that I was seated on a straight chair. They had not bound me, but the Luger was gone. Hugo was still on my forearm under my unbuttoned jacket. I almost fell off the chair when the blow landed.