Istanbul (2 page)

Yes, Nick admitted now, it had been a good week. But it was nearly over. Almost time to go to work. An old World War I tune began to run through his head and Nick deftly altered it, humming to himself:
When it's poppy blossom time in Turkey I'll be there...

Fragments of his last briefing flitted through his mind. When the opium poppies had been harvested and the pods cut, then the real skullduggery began. The farmers were obliged by Turkish law to sell all the opium to the government — only they didn't! They held back as much as they could and sold it on the black market — meaning the Syndicate! The Syndicate in turn ran it across the border into Syria and processed it into heroin. Then it spread all over the world and, eventually, into the veins of addicts.

A hell raid, Hawk had said. Smash as many opium caravans as you can. Put the fear of God — or of Allah — into them! He would put the fear into them, all right. They had given him a new weapon for that!

But the hell raid was secondary. Number one was — find four men and kill them! The names whipped through Nick's mind as though on tape: Dr. Joseph Six — Maurice Defarge — Carlos Gonzalez — Johnny Ruthless. The last name intrigued Nick the most. Ruthless! An alias for whom? Somehow — he had no real reason why — he thought that he would probably kill Johnny Ruthless last.

Nick rolled over, glanced at the special AXE watch on his wrist — water and bullet proof — and sounded like a whale lonely for the depths. Might as well test his lungs, exercise them a little.

He went down and down in a deep probing dive, found sandy bottom. He stooged around on the bottom until his lungs began to pain, then shot to the surface. He glanced at the watch. Three minutes on the nose. He could do almost four if he had to. It was what yoga and constant breathing exercises did for you.

Nick saw the beach wagon coming along the sand from the north. Janet at last. He began to swim in, taking it as fast as he could this time, gliding with furious speed.

Janet Leeds was waiting beside the beach wagon, smoking a cigarette, when Nick dashed up the beach. She tossed her cigarette into the sand and raised her small, triangular face for a kiss. "Hi, darling. Miss me?"

Nick kissed her. She clung to him. "Did you? Miss me?"

"Sure did," Nick lied cheerfully. He picked her up and held her over his head, one hand on her spine just above the taut little buttocks.

"I was going to drown myself," he told her. "I thought you weren't coming back. I thought maybe you had run away with the butcher in the village, I swam way out — and I was just going down for the last time to end it all when I saw you coming back. So / came back."

Janet squealed. "Put me down, you fool! And liar!"

Nick put her down. He regarded her with mock hurt. "Liar? Is that a way to talk to a man who was just about to kill himself over you!"

"You aren't a fool," she murmured. "I know that. But you
are
a liar! You didn't miss me a bit."

"But I did," Nick insisted.

Janet put her little hands into his chest hair and tugged hard. "Liar — liar and ingrate!"

"Ouch! That hurts. Lay off!"

"Not until you admit you're a liar."

"Okay — okay! I'm a liar. Where
are
the steaks, anyway?"

"In the wagon, stupid! With all the other things." Janet turned away and began to run up to the beach house. Nick had seen a glint of moisture in her eyes. He sighed inwardly. It looked as though he would have to be cruel after all.

He gazed after her. What a perfect little doll she was! Everything about her was tiny and tight and perfect. Small hard breasts, a waist he could nearly span with one hand, little taut fanny, surprisingly long and slim legs. Hair of dark gold, spun fine. Eyes huge and gray with corneas of a startling white. Eyes that could laugh and love — and now cry.

Nick sighed again. Then he scooped bags and parcels from the beach wagon and trudged up the slope after her.

Janet was at the bar mixing martinis when Nick entered the spacious beach house. Nick lugged the groceries into the kitchen. She won't, he thought as he stored things away, have much trouble finding a new man. Someone to marry. That's what she really wants.

When he joined her Janet was perched on a bar stool smoking a cigarette and staring into the fast pervading gloom. When Nick moved to turn on the lights she said: "No! Leave them off, honey. Suits my mood right now. But you might start the fire — please?"

Here we go, Nick thought as he touched a match to the already laid kindling and logs in the great fieldstone fireplace. A farewell scene played to martinis and fire-light.

He went to sit beside her. Still wearing only the jock. Janet swiveled on her stool and looked him up and down. "You know something, you bastard? You look like a Greek god! Anyone ever tell you that before?"

Nick straddled the stool beside her. "Well, yes — there
was
a little Greek girl back around 360 B.C. who said..."

"Nick! Please don't! Not tonight."

Janet's face was a pale heart shaped blur in the gloom. Her voice quavered. "Let's be serious this last time together. Serious — and completely honest." She gulped her martini.

"You'd better slow down," he warned, "or you'll be completely passed out."

"I don't give a damn, darling! You don't either, not really." She finished her drink and reached for the shining frosted pitcher of martinis. "Do you?"

Nick told her the exact truth. "Of course I give a damn. I don't want you sodden. I like you, Janet. We've had a hell of a good time together and..."

She didn't let him finish. "But don't get sloppy when it's over?"

Janet filled her glass again. "Okay — I won't. But I'll get drunk.
That
all right?"

"Up to you," said Nick. "Maybe I'll get a little drunk with you." He tasted his martini. Just right. Cold and very dry. Janet was a good bartender.

"You? You drunk? That I would like to see. You drink gallons and you're always as sober as a judge. You drink the way you do everything else — perfectly!"

She half turned away from him, drinking, a cigarette smouldering between her lingers. Logs were catching in the fireplace now, popping and cracking and casting little whorls of roseate flame. After a long silence Janet said, so softly that Nick could barely hear: "They are not long, the days of wine and roses ..."

"I always liked that one," Nick said. He spoke as softly as she had. "Ernest Dowson, isn't it?"

To his surprise Janet laughed. "You see what I mean, Nicholas boy! You even know poetry. You're perfect! Maybe that's why I want you so much. A perfect man is hard to find these days."

Nick sipped his martini. Coldly and without rancor he said, "Drink your goddamned drink and get blistered if you want to! Only don't get maudlin. I can't stand maudlin women."

Janet put her head down on the bar and began to weep softly. Nick regarded her dispassionately.

Without looking up, without ceasing to cry, Janet said: "You are going to leave me, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"You aren't coming back, are you?"

"No."

She sat bolt upright. She finished the last of her drink. She wiped at her eyes with the back of one hand. She turned to him in the fire-splattered gloom and he felt the burn of her flesh on his. Her hand reached for him.

"So that is that," she said. "And damn you, Nick Carter. But before you leave you're going to give me something to remember you by! Tonight I want you to do everything to me. Don't hold off the way you do to keep from hurting me! You do hurt me, you know. I'm too little and you're too damn big, but tonight forget it. Promise?"

Nick told her that he promised. It was, oddly enough, in that moment that he felt a fleeting tenderness for her. It surprised and somewhat dismayed him. Tenderness was a dangerous emotion. It brought your guard down.

In one corner of the large room was a rattan couch covered with soft cushions. Nick picked Janet up and carried her to it. She crooked an arm behind her to unsnap her halter. Her little breasts, like soft pale fruits with sugar candy tips, pressed into Nick's face as he put her gently down on the couch. Her little hands, strong as talons, reached for the single sketchy jock he wore and tugged it down his legs. Nick stepped out of the strap and immediately her hands were avid for his body, demanding, caressing, pinching, stroking.

Janet deftly arranged herself on the couch, her sepia and white limbs glimmering in the firelight. She studied Nick's readiness and her red little mouth rounded into an O of delight and anticipation. She stroked her breasts once with her fingertips and then let the motion segue into one of outthrown arms of invitation.

"Come to me, darling. Quickly now! Love me — Nick. Love me!"

Nick Carter let his senses slough over with the stuff of ecstasy and oblivion. This was a fact of life — not of Death, and for the moment he was safe. This place was safe. This woman was his for the taking.

"No mercy," she begged. "Show me no mercy!"

There was a large window just over the couch. Nick glanced out just before he entered the woman. There was a pale crescent of moon hanging low on the horizon and, by some accident of conjunction — a single star nestled in the horns of the moon. Crescent and star! For a flash of an instant Nick thought of blood red poppies — this time next week he would be in Turkey and the killing would have begun.

Nick surged into the beckoning red target with the brutality she had begged of him. Janet screamed in pleasure and pain. Neither then nor later did Nick show her any quarter.

The
SS Bannockburn
was making heavy weather of it through the Sea of Marmara. It was not that the weather was bad — there was a gentle swell running — but that the
Bannockburn
was so old. Moreover she was without cargo and carrying insufficient ballast, which had been badly stowed. So the old girl was down by the bow, digging her prow into every wave, rising and shaking the spray off herself like a bedraggled old hen. She was an ancient rustpot with a paintless superstructure and sprung plates and tubercular pumps that barely kept her afloat. Yet there was a certain pathetic dignity about her. She was going home to die.

The Second Engineer was explaining this to Norris, the new oiler who had come aboard at Suez. They had left the reeking engine room to catch a breath of clean sea air and enjoy a smoke abaft the old fashioned high bridge.

The Second was normally a dour man, not much given to chat. But he had an itch of curiosity about the new oiler. Norris, Thomas J.!

Nay, thought the Second. That will never be his true name. And he was never an oiler before, though he had been quick enough to pick it up.

There was the matter of the owners, too. Those squeak-pennies hiring an extra man? Knowing the skeleton crew could cope well enough to get the old lady to the bone yard! Nay — not that crowd! Yet here the man was, shipped aboard at Suez, and as silent a man as the Second had ever seen.

He was dying to ask questions, was the Second, but something about the big man said 'twould not be canny!

It was not so much the size of him, thought the Second. He had seen bigger men. Nor the sleek tremendous muscle of him — the Second had seen bigger muscles. Nay — it would be more the eyes of him! Sometimes in the red shadows of the engine room they glinted as hard as ball bearings.

The Second flipped his butt to leeward. "Aye," he went on, " 'tis the old girl's last trip. We'll be picking up the jute in Stamboul and then on to Clydeside. She was built there. Now she'll be junked there. A bit sad, ye'll ken."

The oiler flicked his butt over the side. "How long until we're in the Horn?" His tone was flat, unaccented. This also puzzled the Second. You couldn't place the man! His voice spoke of everywhere — and nowhere.

The Second stepped into a fan of light from a port in the deckhousing and consulted a fat gold pocket watch. 'Two, three hours noo and we'll be tying up."

He glanced at the oiler's face, smeared with grease, handsome and inscrutable in the poor light. "Ye'll no be expecting shore leave, lad? Not this trip. It's in and out we'll be."

The oiler nodded. "No. I wasn't expecting shore leave. Just wondering when we got in."

"Weel, now ye know. So let's get back to it, laddie." He took a deep breath and glanced at the few lights now visible on either shore. The ship would be leaving the Sea of Marmara soon and entering the Bosphorus.

"A peety we'll have no time," said the Second. "Stamboul's a fair port to quench a man's thirst."

It was an hour short of dawn when the oiler came on deck again. The ancient ship was quieter now, her plates eased as she glided with engines half down around the tip of Seraglio Point. Before her lay the Golden Horn!

The oiler cast a glance over the rail and thought:
Baby
—
it's going to be cold down there!

The oiler went as silently as a ghost to the stern. There was a silvery glint in his hand. The movement itself was quicksilver as he slashed at the lashings on Number 8 lifeboat. "Sorry, Hugo," the oiler murmured as he put the little blade away. "Not your usual work, I know. But we've all got to do things we don't like at times."

The words reminded him of the words of another man. A man who sat in a darkened bedroom and talked.

From the lifeboat the oiler lifted a huge suitcase of the Gladstone type. He replaced the lashings on the lifeboat, then went stealthily around the taffrail to starboard. There, in the shadow of Number 4 lifeboat, he waited. It shouldn't be long now.

While he waited patiently the oiler's eyes roved. And his memories. It was not his first time in Istanbul. He had been here before on business.

He stood motionless, mingling with the shadows, a shadow himself as his eyes remembered the harbor. He could sense, rather than see, the clutter of shipping, the docks and derricks and cranes, the warehouses and piers. From the city rising roundabout on the hills there was the thrust and loom of dozens of minarets and mosques. Soon now the
muezzin
would be calling the Faithful to the first prayer of the day.
Allah akbar.
God is great! There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet!