Carnival for Killing (KM 039), page 1
part #39 of Killmaster Series
Carnival for Killing (1969)
(The 39th book in the Killmaster series)
Version 0.9
Dedicated to The Men of the Secret Services of the United States of America
Chapter I
On a certain night in February 1968, three very different men, in three different places, thinking very different thoughts, said exactly the same thing. One spoke of death, one spoke of help and one spoke of passion. None could know that their words, like some psychic, cosmic, invisible noose, would draw them all together.
In the mountains of Brazil, some 150 miles from Rio de Janeiro, at the far edge of the Serra do Mar, the Mountains of the Sea, the man who spoke of death turned a pungent cigar slowly in his fingers with a rolling motion. He watched the smoke curl upwards to flatten against the ceiling and his eyes narrowed in thought. He leaned against the straight-backed chair and looked across the desk at the other man waiting there. He pursed his lips and slowly nodded his head.
“Now,” he said coldly, “it has to be now.” The other man turned and slipped away into the night.
On the turnpike, as he neared the exit, a young, blond man drove recklessly, as fast as he dared. He thought of all the letters, all the misgivings and the worried nights and now, today’s letter. Perhaps he had waited too long already. But he hadn’t wanted to be an alarmist, and now he was sorry. Actually, he realized, he had not known just what to do or where to turn, but with this latest letter he knew he had to act, no matter what others thought. “Now,” he told himself aloud in the loneliness of the car. “It has to be now.” He drove through the tunnel toward the city without slackening his pace.
In the near-darkness of the room, the tall, broad-shouldered man stood before the girl who sat looking up at him, her quietness betrayed by the shallow harshness of her breathing. Nick Carter had known Paula for some time now. They kept crossing martinis at parties, just as they had earlier that night. Dark-haired and pretty, with a pert nose and full lips in a saucy, alert face, her attraction for Nick had been instantaneous and unquestioned by either. Everytime they’d met, a silent, chemical communication passed between them and yet she had always found some way, some excuse not to pursue matters. But earlier, at the Holden’s party, he had spirited her away and brought her back here to his apartment. With deliberate slowness he had kissed her, letting his tongue stir her desire and now, once again, he was aware of the same inner conflict going on inside her. Fairly shaking with desire, she fought back in what seemed almost a kind of fear. With one hand gently but firmly behind her neck, he stood before her and wordlessly unbuttoned her blouse, slipping it from her smooth shoulders. Unhooking her bra, he appreciatively saw the round fullness of young breasts and then, carefully, slowly, he pulled her skirt off and then bikini panties, gray with pink edging.
Paula Rawlins made no move of protest, letting Nick’s experienced hands do what they would as he undressed her, watching him through half-open eyes. Yet, Nick saw, she made no move to help, only her hands on his shoulders, trembling and moving in spasmodic little motions, revealed the height of the turmoil raging inside her. Gently, he pressed her back upon the couch as he cast off his own shirt to let his body touch hers with pulsating electricity.
“Now,” he said softly, “it has to be now.”
“Yes,” the girl breathed, hardly audible. “Yes, oh please, now.” Nick let his lips explore her body while Paula arched her back and then, suddenly, like a dam that has burst, she threw her arms around Nick and her mouth was a devouring raging weapon. Her belly, rounded gently, rose up in trembling desire, and she was all unrestrained female, the fiery core of creative energy focused on that one primordial act, the beginning of all beginnings and the end of all ends. As he moved his body upon hers, she gasped and sobbed and pleaded but he refused to be rushed, too aware of the excruciating pleasure in haste made slowly. Paula’s lips bruised his own in her frenzy and her hands moved up and down his body, pressing against his buttocks, pressing him down into her as hard as she could. The girl of conflict, of desire held back, had vanished completely to be replaced by an unchained hunger. “Nick, Nick, Nick,” Paula gasped, each cry an ascending note on the scale of ecstasy until, when it seemed she would explode, he brought the earth to a stop for her and she hung suspended between two worlds. Her head thrown back, breasts pressed against his chest, abdomen hard against his, she looked out with staring but unseeing eyes that mirrored the completeness of his lovemaking.
A half-shudder, half-sob drained from her and she sank back down upon the couch, carrying Nick with her, clutching him to her, refusing to let him move away. Finally, her arms limp, he moved to her side and cradled one soft, rose-tipped breast against his chest.
“Was it worth the visit?” Nick asked softly.
“Oh, God, yes,” Paula Rawlins said. “Was it ever!”
“Then what kept you so long?”
“What do you mean?” she asked innocently.
“You know damned well what I mean, honey,” he answered. “We talked about getting together a number of times and you always found some reason why you couldn’t make it. Yet I knew you wanted to. Why?”
“Promise not to laugh?” she asked. “I was afraid. Not of you, of myself. I was afraid of being a disappointment to you. I know about you, Nick Carter. You’re not just an ordinary date for a girl. You’re a connoisseur of women, to say nothing of wine and song.”
“Come on,” Nick protested. “You make it all sound like an entrance exam.”
Nick laughed with her as he realized the possibilities of what he’d said.
“That’s not a bad description,” Paula remarked. “And nobody likes to flunk out.”
“Well, you didn’t, honey. You can go to the head of the class, or should I say the bed of the class.”
“Do you have to go on a silly old vacation tomorrow?” she asked, snuggling down onto his chest.
“Definitely,” Nick said, stretching his long, muscular legs the length of the couch. Her question brought back his anticipation at getting away alone for a good rest. He needed to recharge his batteries, relax and regenerate, and Hawk had finally agreed to the time.
“Take me with you,” Paula Rawlins said. “I can get time off from the agency.”
Nick looked down at her soft, full, creamy body. A good woman was one way of recharging the body, he knew that full well, but there were times when even that wouldn’t do. There were times when a man had to go away and find his aloneness, to do nothing and do it slowly. This was one of those times. Or, he corrected himself, tomorrow would be. Tonight was still tonight and this surprising girl was lying in his arms, this timid wanton, this contradiction of terms.
Nick cupped his hand around one deliciously rounded breast and let his thumb move slowly, gently back and forth over the nipple. Paula’s mouth, soft and wet, opened at once and she turned over, pulling against his body, bringing his chest over onto her breasts, reveling in the tactile excitement of their skins against one another. As she brought her leg up to half-entwine his, he heard the sound of the phone ringing. It wasn’t the small, blue phone inside his desk but the regular phone on the end table. He was instantly glad of that. It wasn’t Hawk calling with some earth-shaking, impending catastrophe. Whoever it was could go to hell, he would ignore its insistent ring. He would have done so except for one thing, that omnipresent, sixth sense tucked away in his subconscious, that unexplained and undefined personal alarm system that had saved his life so often. It was beginning to reverberate in time with the insistent ring of the phone.
Paula’s arms held him tightly. “Don’t answer it,” she whispered. “Forget it,” and he agreed, only he couldn’t forget it. He’d let the phone ring many times on many occasions and this was certainly a good one, yet he knew he was going to answer it. That dammed subconscious of his. It was worse than Hawk, more demanding, more insistent. Yet he had learned never to go against it.
“Sorry, honey,” he said, lifting himself up. “If I’m wrong I’ll be back before you can turn over.”
Nick crossed the room quickly, conscious of Paula’s eyes following his hard-packed, lithe body, the statue of a Roman gladiator come to life. The voice on the phone was unfamiliar.
“Mr. Carter?” it said. “This is Bill Dennison. I’m sorry to bother you so late but I’ve got to see you, sir.”
Nick frowned and then suddenly half-smiled. “Bill Dennison,” he said. “Todd Dennison’s son?”
“Yes, sir.”
“God, I haven’t seen you since you were in knee pants. Where are you?”
“Right now I’m in the drugstore across the street from you. The doorman told me you’d left strict orders not to be disturbed but I had to try again. I drove all the way down from Rochester to see you. It’s about my father.”
“Todd?” Nick asked. “What is it? Is he in trouble?”
“I don’t know,” the young man said. “That’s why I came to see you.”
“Then get the hell up here, boy. I’ll tell them to let you in downstairs.”
Nick put down the phone, alerted the doorman and returned to where Paula was already in bra and panties.
“I heard,” she said, slipping on her skirt. “I understand. Or maybe I’m just conceited enough to think that if it weren’t important you wouldn’t be leaving me.”
“You’re right, and thanks,” Nick grinned. ‘You’re a good girl in more ways than one. Count on hearing from me when I get back.”
“I’ll save up,
“Thanks for seeing me, Mr. Carter,” he said. “Dad used to tell me a lot about you. I just hope you won’t think I’m a dope about all of this but I’m worried about Dad. You know, I presume, that he’s in Brazil, building a new plant a hundred and fifty miles or so from Rio. Well, Dad has always taken pains to write me detailed, informative letters and he’s been telling me of a lot of weird accidents on this job, accidents I can’t believe are really accidents. Then, he’s received some veiled warnings which he laughs off. I wrote and said I was coming down but this is my last year in college … engineering school … and he wouldn’t hear of it. He called me from Rio and laced me out good, said if I quit now and came down he’d ship me back in a straightjacket.”
“Sounds like your father,” Nick grinned, his mind leaping back through the years. He’d first met Todd Dennison many years ago when he was new in the espionage racket. Todd was only an engineer on a construction job in Teheran but he’d done Nick a few life-saving favors and they’d become firm friends. Todd had gone on his own and was now a wealthy man, one of the country’s leading industrialists, who personally supervised the construction of every one of his plants.
“So you’re worried about your Dad,” Nick mused aloud. “Think he might really be in danger. What’s this plant he’s building down there?”
“I don’t know too much about it except that it’s in the mountain region and follows his objectives of putting up plants that will do something for the people of the region. Dad feels that sound, proper business policies that will really help the economy of a country are the best answers to the communists and agitators. All his recent plants have been based on that philosophy and built in places where there is a need for both jobs and products.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Nick commented. “Is he alone down there, that is anyone close besides his employees?”
“Well, as you know, mother died a few years ago and last year Dad got married again. Vivian is down there with him. I don’t really know Vivian. I was away at school when it all happened and came back only for the wedding itself.”
“I was in Europe when they got married,” Nick recalled. “Found the invitation when I got back. So, Bill, you’d like me to go down there and see what the real story is.”
Bill Dennison’s face reddened and he shifted in embarrassment.
“I can’t ask that of you, Mr. Carter.”
“Call me Nick, please.”
“I don’t know what I expected you to do, actually,” the young man said. “I just had to talk to somebody about this and I felt you could come up with something.”
Nick turned what the boy had told him over in his mind. Bill Dennison was plainly and honestly worried, justifiably so or not. A jumble of memories, past debts and old friendships flashed through his mind. He had been planning to go to the Canadian woods to fish and relax but what the hell, the fish would be there quite a while yet, and there was always time to relax. Rio was a great place, and he’d just read some place that it was only days until Carnival time. Besides, seeing Todd again would be its own kind of vacation.
“Bill, you picked a good time,” Nick said. “I was going on a vacation starting tomorrow. I’ll take a plane down. You go back to school and I’ll be in touch after I’ve had a look for myself. That’s the only way to evaluate a thing like this.”
“I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this,” Bill Dennison began but Nick cut him short.
“Forget it. You may be worked up over nothing but if your suspicions are correct, you did the right thing in coming to see me. Your dad’s too stubborn to do what’s good for himself, anyway.”
Nick saw the boy to the elevator and returned to the apartment. He turned off the lights and went to bed. There was time for a few hours sleep before checking in with Hawk in the morning. The Chief was here in the city visiting the AXE office. There was no such thing as not telling Hawk where you were going, vacation or no vacation. He wanted to know where Nick could be reached in a matter of hours at all times. “It’s the mother hen in me,” he once said. “You mean mother dragon,” Nick had corrected. He went to sleep thinking about Todd Dennison.
Nick arrived at the purposefully plain, unobtrusive offices of AXE in New York to find Hawk already there. The spare, rangy frame in the chair behind the desk always seemed as though it ought to be somewhere else than behind a desk—out tilling the soil on a farm, perhaps, or looking for archeological specimens in some desert. The usually ice-blue, penetrating eyes were blandly genial today, a sign that Nick had come to know was a mask for anything but mild interest.
“Todd Dennison Industries,” Nick said. “I’m told they have an office in Rio.”
“I’m glad you changed your plans,” Hawk said blandly. “In fact, I was going to suggest you go to Rio, but I didn’t want you to think I was interfering with your plans.”
The Chief’s smile was so pleasant and genial that Nick felt his antenna crackling.
“Why were you going to suggest Rio?” Nick asked, trying to match the noncommital geniality of Hawk’s tone.
“Well, Rio’s more your type of place, N3,” Hawk answered pleasantly. “You’ll enjoy it much more than stuck away in some Godforsaken spot fishing. Rio has a wonderful climate, great beaches, pretty girls and it’s nearly Carnival time. Really, it’s much more your kind of spot.”
“Never mind the sales talk,” Nick said. “What’s your real reason?”
“Nothing but my interest in seeing that you enjoy your vacation,” Hawk said. He hesitated, let a mild frown cross his face and then handed Nick a sheet of paper. “There is this report we’ve just received from some people we have there. Being as you’re going down there you might want to see it, just as a matter of general interest, of course.”
Nick quickly read the decoded message in its cablegram-like style.
“Big trouble brewing. Too many elements to trace.
Suspect outside sources but can’t pinpoint them.
Need help if possible or any leads you have.”
Nick handed the sheet back to Hawk who continued to maintain his infuriating air of mild interest.
“Now, look,” Killmaster said, “this is my vacation. I’m going down to see an old friend who might need some personal help but this is a vacation, see? V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N! I’m way past due for one and you know it.”
“Of course, my boy. Indeed you are.”
“And you wouldn’t lay an assignment on me while I’m on vacation, would you?”
“Wouldn’t think of it.”
“Like hell you wouldn’t,” Nick said grimly. “And I guess there’s not very much I can do about it, is there?”
“Not much.” Hawk smiled affably. “I always say there’s nothing like combining a little business with pleasure. But then I’m different from most people. Have a good time.”
“Something tells me I shouldn’t even say thank you,” Nick commented, getting to his feet.
“Always be polite, N3,” Hawk smiled, his eyes still masked in genial interest. “Good manners are a sign of good breeding.”
Nick shook his head and walked out into the cold air, feeling like a man who knows he’s been taken but isn’t quite sure just how. He sent a wire to Todd that read, “Surprise, you old bastard. Arriving Flight 47, 10 A.M., Feb. 10th.” The Western Union girl made him take out the word bastard, but he left the rest unchanged. Todd would know what it was that was missing.
Chapter II
Rio de Janeiro, the River of January, emerged under the right wing of the airliner as they came down through the clouds over Guanabara Bay. Nick quickly found the small crescent within the larger outline of the shore where the towering granite rock called Sugar Loaf faced the even taller Corcovado, the hunchback, topped by the majestic statue of Christ the Redeemer, arms outstretched in welcome over the bay. As the plane circled, Nick caught glimpses of the curving, hard-packed beaches that ringed the city, places whose very names were an evocation of sun, sand and lovely senhoritas: Copacabana, Ipanema, Botafogo, Flamengo. It could be a great spot to vacation. Perhaps Todd’s problems were really nothing more than minor irritations after all. But what if they weren’t? Then there was Hawk, damn the Machiavellian cleverness of the man. No, he hadn’t exactly been given an assignment but Nick knew he was expected to check it out and if it needed action he was to act. Years of working with the Chief told him that the mere mention of the possible problem, even when done with such casual obliqueness, was tantamount to an order. Somehow, he had the distinct feeling that the word vacation was growing dimmer and dimmer. But dammit, he was going to try for one, anyway.
