The Filthy Five (KM 029), page 2
part #29 of Killmaster Series
If Harry Crabtree, late Sergeant-Major of the Royal Australian Rifles, could have seen the AXEman then—and if he had been sober enough to comprehend what he saw—he would have had very dubious second thoughts about the beachcomber who had provided such sport that late afternoon. He would have seen a man with a rangy, smooth-muscled body who, when he was not acting a part, moved with the unconscious grace of a hunting leopard.
The body had been bronzed by the sun to a near chocolate color. The lean face, though a little fuller now than was usual—Nick had been resting—brought to mind either of two words. Or perhaps both. Pirate! Swashbuckler!
The mouth was firm without being cruel or mean; the brow was high, with the close-cropped hair making a dark brown V; the eyes were wide spaced and ceaselessly alert and restless, of an indeterminate color. This man, this licensed killer in behalf of AXE and the United States Government, did in fact have very strange eyes. Chameleon eyes. Sea water eyes, changing colors with the vagaries of mood and stress. At times the eyes would become opaque, and the handsome face would grow hard and rigid, the flesh appearing to shrink. Such times were rare, but when they occurred it meant that death was walking hand in hand with this man, that a victim had been selected and condemned. Then, and only then, did Killmaster reveal the tiger in him, the inflexible will and cold ferocity that made him hated and respected and feared in all the dark and secret byways of the underground world of espionage.
And had Harry Crabtree been present, perhaps behind a nearby almond tree and equipped with powerful night glasses, he might have been able to count the scars on that superb body. There were thirty-odd scars, ranging from the white worm cicatrix of razor to the puckered purple hole of bullet. Nick Carter was not unscathed by the ceaseless wars, but he was alive!
Nick took a long time bathing, then went back to the car. As he went he whistled a little French tune, an ancient thing of Provence that had to do with naughty ladies. It was altogether untranslatable, at least in polite company, and Nick always whistled it when he was happy with his work. As he now was.
There was one thing about the superannuated car that was not quite genuine. A false compartment had been built into the rear seat. It had been a hurry-up job—AXE mechanics had been flown to Puerto Rico from Washington—but the completed work would have fooled even an expert eye. Nick now picked up a screwdriver from the floor of the car and, using the flashlight, turned a single screw and lifted the false bottom. Beneath it, in the long but shallow compartment, an amazing amount of stuff had been crammed. He checked it over quickly with the light, after first donning clean denims and sport shirt and a pair of sandals.
There was a complete aqualung outfit, of the double tube variety with demand regulators. A mask and flippers, the latter very large and heavy to give maximum propulsion. This type of flipper could be used only by a swimmer with powerful legs.
Also in the compartment were two tanks of air, each with more than two hundred atmospheres of pressure. (One tank to get out to the rendezvous, Nick thought, and one to get back to land. If I get back.)
Huddled in the back seat, carefully shielding the light, he counted over the other articles: a compass, camera, watch, weighted belt, knife, diver’s tool. Nick did not, at the moment, have his Luger or stiletto with him. They were in Hawk’s tender care and perhaps it was just as well; when they were around he felt constrained to wear them, in fact felt naked without them, and a beachcomber with a Luger and a throwing stiletto in an arm sheath could get into a lot of trouble. Or, at the very least, have a great deal of difficulty explaining the weapons. Hawk had been right. Nick admitted it now. He was better off, for the time being, without his loved and trusted companions in arms. But he still felt a little naked.
He took a nasty looking machete from the compartment and looked at it for a moment. A lethal weapon, of course, as near a cutlass as a man could want, with a razor-sharp edge that could behead a man at one blow.
Nick tossed the machete to one side. He had considered taking it with him on his beachcombing expedition today, but was now just as happy that he hadn’t. He might, just might, have lost his temper when that Aussie bastard started shooting at him. Might have committed a little mayhem or, more likely, gotten himself well ventilated by the Sten gun. Either way, Nick thought now with a wry little grin, would have been bad for the plan, for the mission. It had been a probing operation only; he had been a one-man patrol with intent to draw fire if the fire was there to draw. It was, and he had, and now he was content. He wasn’t going to approach Gallows Cay from that angle!
Killmaster took a small package wrapped in plastic from the compartment and replaced the seat. This was his personal treasure, his dinner. Beans and sandwiches. Two miniatures of scotch. A handful of his especially made cigarettes, very long, of latakia, perique and Virginia with gold tips and a golden embossed NC on the long tube. It was one of his very few affectations, but one he insisted on. It was, he admitted now as he took a long and satisfying drag, perhaps even a little dangerous to be smoking them. They shot his cover to hell!
But so did the scotch, for that matter, and all the other exotic equipment in the compartment. Nick let the fragrant smoke trickle from his nostrils. To hell with it. He was safe for the moment. He knew it, as a jungle beast knows it. So he watched the dirty cloud scud whip past high overhead, listened to the just perceptible increase of the wind in the cocoa palms and for the moment was content. Tomorrow’s danger could wait—until tomorrow.
Before he turned in for the night he took a stained and crumpled road map from the glove compartment of the car. Concealed in its folds was a small chart on a single sheet of onion skin paper. Nick Carter studied the chart for a long time in the light of his flash, now and again making marginal notes. At last he pursed his lips in satisfaction and whistled his little French tune. He had done all he could for now. Matters were moving along well enough in this early stage. The fact that he knew very little of what was going on did not particularly bother him; he was accustomed to working in the dark. When Hawk was ready to tell him what it was all about—then Hawk would tell him. Not before.
It made sense in Nick’s profession—a man under torture cannot divulge what he does not know.
What he did know was: he was to keep a rendezvous with a lady, name of Monica Drake, in the wreckage of an old Spanish galleon that had gone down with all hands in 1715. A hell of a long time ago, that. The galleon was El Conquistador and she had gone down three miles off Gallows Cay in the Mona Passage. In ten fathoms. Sixty feet.
Meet the lady! Hawk’s orders. Don’t be seen doing it. There will be danger, plenty for both of you. The lady will give you something—Hawk hadn’t the slightest idea what—that will help us make sense of this latest threat to the peace and security of the world.
(Here Nick Carter had longed to ask just what peace, what security, his boss had in mind, but he had managed to hold his tongue. Just as well. Hawk did not like flippancy, though Nick occasionally got away with it, and Hawk did not send his men on wild goose chases. If Hawk said it was important, dangerous and ominous, you could believe him. It was.)
Killmaster got a dirty Navy blanket from the car and rolled himself in it. On second thought he took the machete into the blanket with him. Just before he drifted off into a deep and dreamless sleep, he remembered that there was one thing, and it could be important, that Hawk hadn’t mentioned. He hadn’t said anything about a goddamned hurricane!
At one-thirty the next afternoon Killmaster made a careful reconnaissance. No one had come near his hiding place, nor displayed any interest in him. The only life that stirred were the birds and a few cattle grazing on the nearest of the hills. He spent the morning cleaning the car’s gas line, plugs and carburetor, and finally got the old heap to chug over a time or two. Maybe it would get him back to San Juan. If things went badly today he wouldn’t have to worry about it.
There was little coastal traffic on the road. The hurricane signals would be flying by now; tourists would be sticking close to hotels, and the natives would be battening down everything in sight.
At two o’clock Nick left the protection of the foliage, walked across the highway and down to the surf line. The sea was deceptively calm, but where yesterday this reach of the Mona Passage had been a plain of hammered turquois and silver with an undertint of jade, and the sky cerulean, today everything was blended into the dreariness of battleship gray. Massy gunmetal clouds obscured the sun and the wind had picked up an urgent, keening note. Cocoa palms tossed their feathery heads in dismay and foreboding.
Killmaster was carrying a torpedo-shaped object three feet long and nine inches in diameter. On one end were hand grips, on the other end was a small propeller. It was, in fact, a sort of torpedo in reverse; it pulled instead of pushed and was powered by a battery. Nick intended to ride out to the wreck of el Conquistador, to save his strength for whatever he might find there. The sea scooter had been carried beneath the old car in specially installed clamps.
He went into the water quickly, feeling a sense of relief as he submerged. A scuba diver on open beach is pretty fair game for a sniper.
He had memorized the chart and burned it. His compass bearings were as accurate as he could make them. By his reckoning the wreck should lie to seaward about a mile, maybe a little over that, and perhaps a point or two north of due west. He pressed the button that started the motor of the scooter, grasped the handles and let it pull him along at ten feet below the surface. He would remain shallow as long as possible to conserve his air. Even so it was going to be a near thing in the air department. He would probably be on reserve before he got back.
The cavitation of the scooter was slight, but nevertheless it began to attract fish. A huge grouper picked him up almost immediately and began to follow along behind, changing color as it slid over vari-hued coral formations. Nick churned his way through schools of indignant small fry, rainbow tinted, darting about in frenzy. He paid them little heed—he was an experienced scuba man—and the sergeants and schools of ballyhoo were to be expected.
He was ten minutes out before he noticed the four long shadows that dogged him. Barracuda! This posed a slight problem and Killmaster cursed mildly. Four of them at once was unusual, to be sure, but there was probably no real danger. The barracuda was a nosy fish and looked meaner than it was. These would probably dog him until their curiosity was satisfied. Worse—they might decide to dine on the grouper or some of the other myriad fish around. That would mean blood in the water.
Blood in the water he could do without! Blood meant sharks in this part of the world.
Nick went steadily on his way. One of the barracuda, braver than his fellows, swam close to him and gnashed his nasty alligator jaws, proud of the rows of white needle teeth. Nick ignored him, muttering into his mask, “Go away, buster! You don’t bother me and I won’t bother you.” He loosened the knife slightly in the leg sheath, not that it would do much good if they decided to take him. One barracuda he could handle, maybe two. But not four.
He tried to lose his unwelcome companions by going deeper than he had intended. He found a long coral canyon and swam through it, careful to keep an eye on the compass. When he emerged from a pink grotto he had lost the grouper and most of the small fry, but the four barracuda were still there. But now they fell back, fifty yards behind, following Nick four abreast. For the moment they appeared harmless.
He saw no game fish, none of the tarpon, bonito or snook that were supposed to abound in the Passage. The water down here, beneath a surface that was riffling now, was crystal clear. Nick went back up to ten feet, anxious about his air, and narrowly missed a stingray that was albatrossing gracefully along. He had to swerve sharply to avoid a coral turret thick with sea fan and sponge. His mask was taking a little water and Nick turned on his back, mask upward, to blow it clear. When he looked again there were only two barracuda and he felt a little better.
His information was scant—Hawk had muttered dourly about going by guess and God—but he did know that El Conquistador was lying in a cup-shaped depression on a reef. The reef accounted for her being at only ten fathoms, and the depression where she lay might, just might, have kept some of her wooden bones together over all the years. Nick did not really expect to find a wreck worthy of the name, nor anything resembling the galleon she had once been. Storms, sea rot and marine worms would long ago have taken their toll. There might, he thought, be a bare outline of hulk, a spar or two, some coral encrusted guns. Nothing more. But then he hadn’t come to explore a galleon. He had come to meet a lady.
Killmaster was checking his watch and compass constantly now. He should be nearly there. He glanced back, saw the two barracuda still tailing him, and when he looked forward again there it was. The slant of a mast protruded from the coral reef directly below him. Nick saw immediately that the ship was well preserved, much better than he had supposed she would be. He could trace her bow and bulwarks in the coral and far back, abaft of where her mizzen would have been, he could see her poop cabin shearing up from the silt and sand that covered the rest of her. Odd, that. Very odd!
Before he went down to explore the oddity Nick went up to within five feet of the surface, looking for boat bottoms. He doubted that the lady intended to swim three miles from Gallows Cay. He saw nothing and glanced at his watch. He was early. Still fifteen minutes until rendezvous time. Nick went down to the bones of El Conquistador. As he did he glanced behind him once more. The two barracuda were still there, hovering now, gnashing then-teeth, each of them six feet of snake-like menace. Nick sighed into his mask. He hoped they wouldn’t go after the lady when she arrived, if she arrived. Because then he would have to be a gentleman and save her and that meant blood and—
To hell with it! He was worrying too much, imagining things. It was no way to start a mission. Nick knew the trouble, of course. He was out of his element. No matter how good he was at scuba, nor how experienced, he was still out of his element and so at a disadvantage. Those barracuda, now—
Killmaster gave a powerful kick and the big flippers drove him sixty feet downward to the wreck. He could feel a little ear pressure now. He swam straight for the high jutting poop cabin that had so miraculously survived since 1715. Nick veered, somersaulting with the freedom of a fish, and approached the wreck from the stern. And saw immediately that the miracle was not a miracle at all. Or perhaps it was at that! A man-made miracle, a masterpiece of underwater repair.
The poop cabin and deck of El Conquistador had been reinforced with angle iron at each corner. Some of the planks and boards were not that at all, but aluminum sheathing painted over. Long beams of steel had been wedged into the sea bottom and used to prop the cabin, to keep it from disintegrating. Nick glanced about him. The wreck was in a shallow bowl of coral, right atop a reef, and this had saved her some of the usual travail, but it was the steel I beams shoring her up that were really doing the job. Nick frowned beneath his mask. Nothing in his briefing had prepared him for this. But then it hadn’t been much of a briefing. “You will,” Hawk had said, “just have to play your hand as it develops. When you have met the lady we will know more.”
Nick finned slowly around to where the poop deck ended. Nothing. A drop of ten feet to the barest outline of hulk below coral and silt. The mouth of a rotted cannon gaped at him and he saw a misshapen wedge that might have been cannon balls at one time.
He examined one of the long steel beams supporting the poop cabin. He used his light and read: Phoenixville, Pa. 1964.
Nick shook his head and admitted that, for the moment, he was a little confused. Somebody was playing games. Funny games. Why rebuild and reinforce a long moldering wreck like El Conquistador?
Movies? Were they shooting a film around here, or had been recently? No. The brain boys at AXE slipped now and then, but they wouldn’t have missed a thing like that.
He saw the iron door then. It was massive, standing half open, and was also new. Nick flippered himself toward it, saw that an entire new frame had been installed to hold the heavy door. There was a hasp and a heavy chain and a big padlock, not in use now. Nick Carter swam into the dark cabin, using his light, half expecting to find an octopus or a giant squid. It was all this setup needed.
He found nothing. Just that. Nothing. The cabin was barren, a vacant space sixteen feet square. Nick swam around the cabin once, saw that it was also reinforced on the inside with angle iron, then left it. Empty. So? Something must have been stored here, hidden here, at one time.
Either that or—something was going to be hidden here!
As he swam clear of the dark cabin he glanced up and saw that he had company. The lady had arrived. He could see the twin hulls of a small catamaran. He could not make out an engine on the transom, so the lady must have been sailing. Much quieter that way.
Nick Carter clung to one of the new steel beams and waited. The catamaran floated quietly overhead, bobbing gently on the beginnings of a swell. Killmaster wished the lady would hurry. He had the feeling that it would be nice to get away from this place. He searched in the cool peacock shadows until he located the two barracuda, their lean silhouettes patient and quiet, hovering in the current with only an occasional flick of fins.
She plunged then, feet first, and silver bubbles cascaded and burst around her. Nick waited, noting that the woman carried only a single tank of air. She did not expect to be under for long, just long enough to hand him something that contained vital information.
She saw him now and was stroking toward him, moving her good forty-odd-year-old legs in an even rhythm. She was wearing a bikini and Nick saw that her breasts were too large for beauty, that there was a tire of fat around her waist. Strange thoughts—he wasn’t keeping a lover’s assignation, damn it! His smile was wry inside the mask. Habit was hard to break.
