by Nick Carter
Simian smiled thinly. "Correct up to a point," he said. "But it's not just gambling debts, Mr. Carter. I'm afraid the Syndicate's back is against the wall."
A second head moved into the picture. It was Reno Tree, in ugly close-up. "What our friend here means," he rasped, "is that he took the Syndicate to the cleaners with one of his boiler plate operations on Wall Street The mob kept sinkin' more dough into it, tryin' to get their original investment out. But the more they put in, the worse it got. They lost millions."
Simian nodded. "Quite true. So you see," he added, "the Syndicate will pocket the lion's share of any profit I make from this little enterprise. It's unfortunate, because all the original spadework, all the brainwork was mine. The sabotage campaign to discredit Connelly Aviation, the Apollo disaster, even beefing up the original GKI police force with Syndicate hoods — all my ideas."
"But why destroy Phoenix One?" demanded Nick. The flesh around his wrist was raw and the pain from his effort to loosen the knots sent shock waves of agony up his arms. He gasped — and, to cover it, said quickly, "The contract is practically GKI's anyway. Why kill three more astronauts?"
"To begin with, Mr. Carter, there's the question of the second capsule." Simian said it with the bored, slightly impatient air of a corporation head explaining a point to some troublesome stockholder. "It must be destroyed. But why — you will undoubtedly ask — at the expense of human life? Because, Mr. Carter, GKI's factories need at least two years to regear for the moon project As things stand now, that's the strongest argument NASA has for sticking with Connelly. But public revulsion at the massacre to come, you see, will demand a delay of at least two years..."
"Massacre?" His belly crawled with the knowledge of what Simian meant Three men dying was not a massacre; a city exploding in flames was. "You mean Miami?"
"Please understand, Mr. Carter. This is not just a wanton act of destruction. It serves a twofold purpose — turns public opinion against the moon program and also destroys the original evidence." Nick looked blank. "The evidence, Mr. Carter. In the room you occupy. The complicated directional tracking equipment. We can't have that lying around afterwards, can we?"
Nick shivered slightly at the chill he felt creeping up his spine. "There's also the tax angle," he rasped. "You stand to make a tidy profit from the destruction of your own Medical Center."
Simian beamed. "Of course. Two birds hit with one rocket, so to speak. But in a world gone mad, Mr. Carter, self-interest approaches the level of a sacrament." He glanced at his watch, the chairman of the board once again winding up an inconclusive stockholders' meeting, "And now, I must bid you adieu."
"Answer me one more thing!" Nick shouted. He could make the line slip a little now. He held his breath and made a single effort, wrenching at the ropes. The skin tore at the back of his hand and blood oozed warmly over his fingers. "I'm not alone here, am I?"
"That would look like we had been forewarned, wouldn't it?" smiled Simian. "No, of course not. The hospital is fully staffed and has the usual complement of patients."
"And I'm sure your heart bleeds for us all!" He began to shake with helpless rage. "All the way to the bank!" He bit the words off, spitting them up at the screen. The line slipped more easily because of the blood. He struggled with it, trying to force it over his knuckles.
"Your anger is pointless," shrugged Simian. "The equipment is automated. It's already been programmed. Nothing that you or I say can change things now. The moment the Phoenix One lifts off the launching pad at Cape Kennedy, the automatic guidance equipment in the Medical Center will take over. The spacecraft will seem to go out of control. Its auto-destruct mechanism will jam. It will come hurtling down into the hospital, spewing its millions of gallons of volatile fuel over central Miami. The Medical Center will simply melt, and with it, all the incriminating evidence. What a terrible tragedy, everyone will say. And two years hence, when the moon project finally gets under way again, NASA will award the contract to GKI. It's as simple as that, Mr. Carter." Simian leaned forward and Nick caught a glimpse of coconut palms blurring past his left shoulder. "And now goodbye. I'm switching you over to the program already in progress."
The screen went dark for an instant, then shimmered slowly back to life. The huge Saturn rocket filled it from top to bottom. The spidery arm of the gantry had already folded to one side. A wisp of steam rose from the nose cone. A series of superimposed numbers flowed past at the foot of the screen, recording elapsed time.
There were only jour minutes and thirty-two seconds left.
The blood from his torn skin had clotted on the line, and his first efforts tore the clots loose. He gasped at the pain. "This is Mission Control," a voice drawled on the screen. "How's it look to you, Gord?"
"Everything's A-OK from here," a second voice replied. "We're go for P equals one."
"That was Flight Commander Gordon Nash replying to a question from Mission Control, Houston," the announcer's voice cut in. "The count is now three minutes, forty-eight seconds to lift off, with all systems go..."
Sweating, he felt fresh blood ooze from the back of his hands. The rope slid easily over the lubrication it provided. On the fourth try he was able to work it over one knuckle and the widest part of his twisted palm.
And then suddenly his hand was free.
"T minus two minutes, fifty-six seconds," the voice announced. Nick closed his ears to it. His fingers were stiff, hampered by pain. He tore at the stubborn cord with his teeth.
Seconds later both hands were free. He loosened the rope around his neck, pulled it up over his head and went to work on his ankles, fingers shaking with strain...
"In exactly two minutes, the Apollo spacecraft, renamed Phoenix One..."'
He was on his feet now, moving stiffly toward the door that he saw illuminated in the spillover from the screen. It wasn't locked. Why would it be? And there were no guards outside. Why would there be? They were all gone, rats who'd deserted the doomed ship.
He hurried along the deserted hall, surprised to find Hugo, Wilhelmina, Pierre and family all in place on his person. But then again, why not? What defense would they be against the holocaust to come?
He tried the stairwell first, but it was locked, then the elevators — but the buttons had been removed. The top floor was sealed off. He hurried back along the hall, trying doors. They opened into empty, deserted rooms. All except one, which was locked. Three hard raps with his heel tore the metal loose from the wood and the door flew back.
It was a control center of some kind. The walls were lined with TV monitors. One of them was on. It showed the Phoenix One on the launching pad, poised for takeoff. Nick swung around, looking for a telephone. There was none, so he began switching the remaining monitors on. Various wards and corridors of the Medical Center shimmered into view. They were crowded with patients. Nurses and doctors could be seen moving along the hallways. He twisted the sound volume up and reached for a mike, hoping that his voice would reach them, warn them in time...
Suddenly he stopped. Something had caught his eye.
The monitors clustered around the one that showed the rocket on its launch pad — they were recording various views of the Cape Kennedy Moon Port, and one of those views, Nick knew, was not open to regular TV cameras! The one showing the top secret interior of the Launch Control Blockhouse.
He plugged the mike jack into the corresponding number on the console. "Hello!" he yelled. "Hello! Do you receive me? Launch Control Blockhouse, this is the GKI Medical Center. Do you receive me?"
He realized what had happened. Simian had gotten some of his directional engineers to build a secret two-way link with the Cape for use in emergencies.
A shadow moved across the screen. An incredulous voice barked: "What the hell's going on here?" A face blurred into close-up focus — a grim, lantern-jawed military face. "Who authorized this linkup? Who are you?"
Nick said: "I've got to get through to General McAlester — without delay."
"Y
ou'll get through all right," the military type rasped as he snatched up a telephone, "right through to J. Edgar Hoover. Gratz here, Security," he barked into the receiver. "Hold the count. There's something screwy going on. And get McAlester over here — on the double."
Nick gathered saliva back into his dry mouth. Slowly he began to breathe again.
* * *
He sent the Lamborghini hurtling along palm-lined Ocean Avenue. The sun shone brightly out of a cloudless sky. The homes of the wealthy swung past behind their discreet hedges and wrought-iron fences.
He looked like a handsome, carefree playboy out for a mid-afternoon spin, but agent N3's thoughts were steeped in vengeance and destruction.
The car radio was on. A voice was saying, "...a pinhole leak in the Saturn propellant tank has caused an indefinite delay. We understand they're working on it now. If the repair work takes the Phoenix One past the 3:00 p.m. launch deadline, the mission will be scrubbed for twenty-four hours. Stay tuned to WQXT Radio for further developments..."
That was the story that he and McAlester had decided on. It would keep Simian and his crowd from getting suspicious. At the same time it would keep them nervous, on the edge of their chairs, their eyes pinned to the TV set until Nick could reach them.
He knew they were in Palm Beach — at Cathay, Simian's seaside villa. He'd recognized those coconut palms fanning past the financier's shoulder as he'd leaned forward in the Lincoln to adjust the closed-circuit TV controls. They were the palms that lined his private driveway.
N3 hoped he would be able to beat the special AXE mop-up crew to the scene. He had a personal score to settle.
He glanced at his watch. He'd left Miami an hour ago. A planeload of guidance control engineers were now winging their way south from Cape Kennedy. They would have exactly forty-five minutes to disengage the complicated electronic nightmare that Simian had constructed. If it took longer than that, the mission would be scrubbed until tomorrow. But then what was a twenty-four hour delay compared to the flaming destruction of a city?
Another plane, a small, private one, was on its way north at this moment, and Nick's best wishes — as well as a couple of fond memories — went with it. Hank Peterson was flying Joy Sun back to her post at the Kennedy Space Port's Medical Center.
Nick reached down, driving one-handed as he slipped Wilhelmina from her hiding place.
He entered Cathay's grounds through an automatic gate which lifted when the Lamborghini passed over a treadle. A tough-looking type in a green uniform came out of a kiosk, did a double take, and came running toward him, tugging at his service holster. Nick slowed. He stretched his right arm out, shoulder high, and squeezed the trigger. Wilhelmina bucked just a trifle and the GKI guard thudded face forward into the ground. Dust billowed up around him.
A second shot sounded and the Lamborghini's windshield shattered, raining glass over Nick. He hit the brakes, opened the door and dived out in one smooth motion. He heard a gun roar behind him as he rolled and another bullet punched into the dust where his head had been. He spun a half-turn, then reversed the spin and came up shooting. Wilhelmina bucked twice in his hand, then twice more, coughing gutturally, and the four GKI guards coming around both sides of the kiosk went sprawling as the slugs struck home.
He swung around in a half crouch, left arm protecting his vitals in the approved FBI manner, the Luger held low, ready. But there was no one else. The dust settled on the five bodies.
Had they heard the shots in the villa? Nick measured the distance with his eye, recalled the sound of the surf and doubted it. He walked over to the bodies and stood looking down at them. He had aimed high, resulting in five terminal cases. He chose the largest and hauled it into the kiosk.
The GKI uniform he put on got him close enough to the next set of guards to dispatch one with Hugo, the other with a karate chop to the neck. That got him inside the villa. The sound of TV and voices drew him along the deserted halls to a covered flagstone terrazza off the east wing.
A group of men stood in front of a portable TV set. They were wearing dark glasses and terrycloth robes and had towels looped around their necks. They seemed on the verge of heading toward a pool, visible just to the left of the terrazza, but something on the TV was holding them. It was a news commentator. He was saying: "We expect the announcement at any moment. Yes, here it is. It's just come in. The voice of NASA communicator Paul Jensen from Mission Control in Houston saying the Phoenix One mission has been scrubbed for twenty-four hours..."
"Dammitohell!" roared Simian. "Red, Reno!" he barked. "Get back down to Miami. We can't take any chances with that Carter guy. Johnny, get the launch out I'm heading to the yacht."
Nick's hand closed over the large metal marble in his pocket. "Hold it," he rasped. "Nobody move." Four startled faces swung toward him. At the same instant he caught a sudden motion at the edge of his vision field. A couple of GKI guards who'd been lounging against the wall came springing toward him, swinging rifle butts. N3 gave the metal marble an abrupt twist. It went rolling across the flagstones toward them, hissing out its lethal gas.
The men froze in their tracks. Only their eyes moved.
Simian staggered backwards, clutching at his face. A bullet cut Nick's right earlobe. It came from the gun Red Sands was holding as he backed off the terrazza and out across the lawn, moving ahead of the deadly fumes. Killmaster's wrist flicked up. Hugo soared through the air, burying itself deep in Sands' chest. He went right on over in a backward somersault, crashing feet first into the swimming pool.
"My eyes!" Simian was bellowing. "I can't see!"
Nick spun toward him. Reno Tree was supporting him by the shoulder, leading him off the terrazza. Nick started after them. Something hit his right shoulder like the flat of a board swung with incredible strength. The impact drove him down. He landed on his hands and knees. He felt no pain, but time slowed until everything could be seen in careful, minute detail. One of the things he saw was Johnny Hung Fat standing over him, holding a table leg. He dropped it and ran off after Reno Tree and Simian.
The three of them went hurrying down the sweeping expanse of lawn, heading toward the boat house.
Nick climbed groggily to his feet. Pain washed over him in dark waves. He started after them but his legs collapsed. They wouldn't support him. He tried again. This time he managed to stay up, but he had to move slowly.
The speedboat's engine roared to life just as N3 reached the boat house. Hung Fat swung her out, spinning the wheel as he looked astern to watch his clearance. Simian sat hunched in the front seat beside him, fingers still clawing at his eyes. Reno Tree was in the rear seat He saw Nick coming and swung around, reaching for something.
N3 sprinted the last ten yards, reaching up and swinging from a low-hanging beam overhead, flat-out on his face and stretching, kicking hard on the upswing and letting go while he was still rising. He came down on his toes on the edge of the speedboat's stern, arched, clawing frantically at the air.
He would have lost his balance if Reno Tree hadn't jabbed at him with the boat hook. Nick's hands clamped around the hook and pulled. The leverage swung him forward onto his knees and brought Tree twisting and squirming out of the rear seat like a hooked eel.
The boat burst out of darkness and into blinding sunlight, banking sharply to port, the water curving up around it on both sides in a great foam-topped wake. Reno had his gun out now, pointed at Nick. N3 brought the boat hook down. The bullet zipped harmlessly past his head and Reno screamed as his good hand dissolved into blood and bone. It was a woman's scream, so high-pitched as almost to be noiseless. Killmaster choked it off with his hands.
His thumbs sank into the arteries at either side of Reno's straining throat. The wet, glistening wolfs mouth lolled open. The dead gray eyes bulged obscenely from their sockets. A bullet slammed past Nick's ear. His head rang from the concussion. He glanced up. Hung Fat had twisted around in his seat. He was steering with one hand, shooting with the other as the speedboat pounde
d across the inlet, engines screaming free and over-revving as the props spun in the air, then twisted back into the water.
"Look out!" Nick yelled. Hung Fat swung around. Killmaster's thumbs finished the job that someone else had once begun. They dug into Reno Tree's purple scar, almost piercing the thick, horny skin. The whites of the man's eyes flickered up. The tongue came out and lolled from the open mouth and there came a terrible gargling from deep in his lungs.
Another bullet whined past. Nick felt the wind of it. He undamped his fingers from the dead man's throat and spun to the left. "Behind you!" he shouted. "Look out!" And this time he meant it. They were roaring between Simian's yacht and the breakwater and through the spray-flecked windshield he saw the nylon hawser tethering its bow to a piling. There was no more than a three-foot clearance and Hung Fat was out of his seat now, looming up over him for the kill.
"That's the oldest trick in the world," he grinned, and then suddenly there was a meaty thud and the Chinaman was horizontal in the air, with the boat going out from under him. Something came out of him, and Nick saw that it was his head. It splashed into the wake some twenty yards behind them and the headless body followed, sinking without a trace.
Nick swung around. He saw Simian grabbing blindly for the wheel. Too late. They were headed right into the breakwater. He dived over the side.
The blast wave hit him as he surfaced. Hot air fanned over him. Fragments of metal and plywood rained down. Something large crashed into the water near his head. Then, as his eardrums were relieved from the some pressure of the explosion, he heard the screams. Shrill, inhuman screams. A piece of flaming wreckage was climbing slowly up the jagged rocks of the breakwater. As Nick looked closer he saw that it was Simian. His arms were flapping at his sides. He was trying to beat the flames out but looked more like a huge bird trying to take off, a phoenix trying to rise from his own funeral pyre. Only he couldn't and fell back with a great, shuddering sigh and died...
