Macao (KM031), page 11
part #31 of Killmaster Series
Killmaster moved a little farther out on the limb. He was acting on his own now, without sanction or liaison with Hawk. So be it. If the limb was sawn off it was his ass.
He lit a cigarette, gave the Prince one, and studied the man with narrowed eyes through the coils of smoke. One of the sailors had dropped coins in a jukebox. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. It seemed appropriate.
Nick said: “We might be able to do business, Prince. Play ball. To do that we have to trust each other to a certain extent. I don’t mind saying that, as of right now, I wouldn’t trust you to the corner with a Portuguese pataca.”
The filed smile. The amber eyes glinted at Nick. “Nor I you, Mr. Carter.”
“That being the case, Prince, we’ll have to try and work out a deal. Let’s look at it closely—I’ve got money, you haven’t. I’ve got an organization, you haven’t. I know where the Princess is, you don’t. I’m armed, you aren’t. On the other hand you’ve got information that I need. I don’t think you’ve told me all you know yet. I may also need your help in a physical way.”
Hawk had warned that Nick must go into Macao alone. No other AXE agents could be used. Macao was not Hong Kong. The British might be stuffy and fume a little, huff and puff, but in the end they usually cooperated. The Portuguese were another matter altogether. They were as fiesty as any little dog barking at the mastiffs. Never forget, Hawk had said, the Cape Verde Islands and what is buried there.
Prince Askari held out a strong dark hand. “I am prepared to make a pact with you, Mr. Carter. For the—the duration of this emergency, shall we say? I am a Prince of Angola, and I have never broken my word to any man.”
For some reason Killmaster believed him. But he did not touch the hand that was preferred.
“Maybe,” he said curtly. “Maybe. First let’s get things perfectly clear. Like the old joke—let’s find out who is doing what to whom, and who is paying for it?”
The Prince withdrew his hand. A little sullenly he said, “As you wish, Mr. Carter.”
Nick’s smile was bleak. “Call me Nick,” he said. “We don’t need all this protocol between two desperadoes plotting thievery and murder.”
The Prince nodded. “And you, sir, may call me Aski. It was what they called me at school in England. And now?”
“And now, Aski, I want to know just what it is that you want. Precisely. Briefly. What will satisfy you?”
The Prince reached for another of Nick’s cigarettes. “That is simple enough. I want the Princess da Gama. At least for a few hours. Then you may have her back. General Boulanger has an attache case full of raw diamonds. I want them back. Because, obviously, if you kill this Colonel Chun Li there will be no market for the diamonds. That is a very grave loss to me. My rebellion always needs money. Without money I cannot buy arms to keep fighting.”
Killmaster inched a little farther out on the limb. It was beginning to sag a trifle. “We might,” he said softly, “just be able to find another market for your crude diamonds.” It was sort of a tattle-tale gray lie. And maybe Hawk could swing it. In his own way, and using his own peculiar and devious means, Hawk had as much power as J. Edgar. Maybe more.
“And,” said the Prince, “I must kill General Boulanger. He has been plotting against me almost from the beginning. Before he became as mad as he is now. I did nothing about it because I needed him. Even now I do not really want to kill him, but I feel that I must. If my men could have succeeded in getting the girl, and the film, in London—” The Prince shrugged. “They didn’t. You people beat us all. Now I must personally see to it that the General is put out of the way.”
“And that is all?”
The Prince shrugged again. “It is enough for now. Maybe too much. In return I offer my fullest cooperation. I will even obey your orders. I who give orders and do not usually take them. I will require a weapon, naturally.”
“Naturally. We’ll go into that later.”
Nick Carter crooked a finger at the mamasan and ordered two more drinks. Until they came he stared idly at the dark blue canopy of cheese cloth concealing the tin ceiling. The gilt stars were tawdry in the half daylight. The American sailors had gone now. Except for themselves the place was deserted. Not even a yum-yum girl. Nick wondered if the possibility of a typhoon had anything to do with the lack of business.
He glanced at his wristwatch, comparing it with a Pernod clock over the oval bar. A quarter of three, the Hour of the Monkey. Up to now, everything considered, it had been a good day’s work.
Prince Askari also had been silent. When the mamasan glided away, her stretch pants rustling, he said: “You agree, Nick? To those three things?”
Killmaster nodded. “I agree. But killing the General is your concern, nothing to do with me. If the Macao or Hong Kong cops get you I don’t know you. Never saw you before.”
“Of course.”
“All right. I’ll help you get your crude diamonds back—if it doesn’t interfere with my own mission. I’ll take you to the girl and let you talk to her. I won’t stop her signing documents—if she wants to sign them. In fact, we’ll take her along with us tonight. To Macao. As a guarantee of my good faith. Also as bait, lure, if we need it. And if she’s with us, Aski, it might give you a little more incentive to do your part. You’ll want to keep her alive.”
Just a glimpse of the pointed teeth. “I see that you have not been overrated, Nick. I understand now why your Portuguese file—I told you I have a photostat—why it is marked: Perigo! Tenha cuidadol”
Dangerous. Be careful.
Killmaster’s smile was glacial. “I’m flattered. Now, Aski, I want to know the real reason why the Portuguese are so anxious to get the Princess out of circulation. To put her in cold storage. Oh, I know about the moral turpitude bit, about the bad example she is setting all over the world, but that isn’t enough. There’s got to be more. If every country went around rounding up its drunks and addicts and whores, just to protect an image, there wouldn’t be a cage big enough to hold them. I think you know the real reason. I think it has something to do with this uncle of hers, this big shot in the Portuguese Cabinet, Luiz da Gama.”
He was only repeating Hawk’s thoughts. The old man had smelled a bigger rat among the lesser rodents, and had asked Nick to test his theory if possible. What Hawk was really after was a source of counter-pressure on the Portuguese, something he could pass to the top and that could be used to ease the Cape Verde situation.
The Prince bummed another cigarette and lit it before he answered. Then: “You are right. There is more. Much more. It is very explosive. I will tell you and then you will be one of only five people that know, really know, the truth about the Princess da Gama and her uncle. It is, Nick, a very nasty story.”
“Nasty stories are my business,” said Killmaster. “Tell me.”
Chapter 9
THE MINI-COLONY of Macao lies roughly forty miles southwest by west of Hong Kong. The Portuguese have been there since the year 1557, a tenure now threatened by the giant Red Dragon that breathes fire, brimstone and hate. This tiny green piece of Portugal, clinging precariously to the huge delta of the Pearl and West Rivers, lives in the past and on borrowed time. One day the Red Dragon will raise a claw and that will be the end. Meantime Macao is a beleaguered peninsula, subject to every whim of the men in Peking. The Chinese, Prince Askari told Nick Carter, had taken over the city in everything but name.
“This Colonel Chun Li of yours,” the Prince said, “is now giving orders to the Portuguese Governor. The Portuguese try to put a good face on it, but they fool no one. Colonel Li snaps his fingers and they jump. There is martial law now and more Red guards than Mozambique troops. That was a break for me, the Mozambiques. The Portuguese use them for garrison troops. They are black. I am black. I speak something of their language. It was a Mozambique corporal who helped me escape after Chun Li and the General failed to kill me. It is a thing that may come in handy tonight, old man.”
Killmaster could not have agreed more. Nick was more than satisfied with the state of things on Macao. The riots, the looting and the burning, the terrorizing of the Portuguese nationals, the threats to cut off electricity and water from the mainland, all these would work in his favor. He was going to stage what was called, in AXE parlance, a hell raid. In and out fast. A little chaos would work on his side.
Killmaster had not prayed to Hung Hsing for bad weather, but he had asked the three Tangar water men to do so. It seemed to have paid off. The big sea-going junk had been beating steadily to west southwest for nearly five hours now, the bat-winged rattan sails pulling her as close into the wind as a junk will sail. The sun had long ago disappeared into a spreading black pile of cloud in the west. The wind, hot and wet, was skittery, coming and going in little flashes of fury and an occasional line squall. Behind them, to the east and Hong Kong, half the sky bowl was lined in dark blue twilight; the other half, before them, was tempest, ominous, a dark jumble where lightning ran wild. Nick Carter, something of a seaman along with all the other things a top AXE-man had to be, could smell the coming storm. He welcomed it, as he welcomed the trouble in Macao. But he wanted a storm—only a storm. Not a typhoon.
The sampan fishing fleet of Macao, herded by Red Chinese patrol boats, had vanished into the westward gloom an hour before. Nick, Prince Askari, and the girl, along with the three Tangar men, had been lying in sight of the sampan fleet, pretending to fish, until a gunboat began to take an interest in them. They were flying the Union Jack, but when the Chinese gunboat drew close Nick gave the order and they ran before the wind. Nick had been betting on the Chinese not wanting an incident in international waters, and the bet had paid off. It could have gone either way, and Nick knew it. The ChiComs were hard to figure. But the chance had to be taken—when darkness fell Nick had to be within a couple of hours running time of Penha Point.
Nick, the Prince and the Princess da Gama were in the hold of the junk. In half an hour they would leave it and swim to the point. All three were dressed as Chinese fisher folk, in black denim pants and jackets, rubber shoes and conical straw rain hats. Nick, in addition to the Luger and stiletto, was wearing a belt of grenades beneath his jacket. A trench knife with a brass knuckle hilt was suspended from his neck by a leather thong. The Prince carried a trench knife also, and a heavy .45 automatic in a shoulder holster. The girl was not armed.
The junk creaked and groaned and wallowed in the rising seas. Nick smoked and watched the Prince and the Princess. The girl was looking much better tonight. Dickenson reported that she had eaten well and slept. She had not asked for a drink or drugs. As he smoked a foul-smelling Great Wall cigarette the AXE agent watched his companions talking and, now and again, laughing. This was a different girl. The sea air? The release from confinement? (She was still his prisoner.) The fact that she was sober and free of drugs? Or a combination of all these things? Killmaster felt a little like Pygmalion. He wasn’t quite sure he liked the feeling. It irritated him.
The Prince laughed loudly. The girl joined in, her laugh softer, toned pianissimo. Nick scowled at them. Something was bugging him and he was damned if he knew what! He was more than satisfied with Aski. He almost trusted the man now—as long as their interests ran parallel. The girl was proving obedient and most compliant. If she was frightened it did not show in the green eyes. She had discarded the blonde wig. She took off the rain hat and ran her slim fingers through the closely cut dark hair. It sparkled like a sleek black cap in the dull light of the single lantern. The Prince said something and she laughed again. Neither of them paid much attention to Nick. They were getting along famously. Nick couldn’t blame her for that. He was liking Aski more and more with every passing minute Why then, Nick asked himself, was he showing symptoms of the same old black ass that had afflicted him in London? He held out a big hand to the light. Steady as a rock. He had never felt better, been in better shape. The mission was going well. He was confident that he could bring it off, because Colonel Chun Li was over-confident and that was going to make the difference. Why, then, was he—?
One of the Tangar fishermen hissed at him from the hatch. Nick rose from his squat and went to the hatchway. “What is it, Minh?”
The man whispered in pidgin. “We velly close come Penha bimeby, sar.”
Killmaster nodded. “How close now?”
The junk heaved and pitched as a big wave struck her. “Maybe mile, sar. Not go too close, I think not. Have yes many many Red boat, I think by damn! Can?”
Nick knew that the Tangars were nervous. They were good men, lent very sub rosa by the British, but they knew what would happen if the ChiComs caught them. There would be a propaganda trial and a lot of hoopla but in the end it would be the same—minus three heads.
Nick gave the order to come about. A mile was as close as they could hope to get. They would have to swim the rest of the way. He looked at the Tangar again. “Weather? Blow storm? Tai-fung?”
The man shrugged his glistening, sinewy shoulders, wet with sea water. “Maybe can. Who tells?”
Nick turned to his companions. “All right, you two. This is it. Let’s go.”
The Prince, his pointed teeth gleaming, helped the girl to her feet. She gave Nick a cool glance. “We swim now, I suppose?”
“Right. We swim. It won’t be hard. The tide is right and will take us in. You’ve got life preservers and we’ll be roped together. Keep your heads down and do not talk. Is that understood? Do not talk! I will do all the talking, in whispers. You will nod your heads that you understand, if you do.” Nick looked hard at the Prince. “Any questions at all? You know exactly what to do? When, where, why, how?” They had gone over and over the thing.
Aski nodded. “Of course, old man. Got it letter perfect. You’re forgetting that I was once a British Commando. Of course I was just a sprout then, but—”
“Save it for your memoirs,” Nick said curtly. “Come on.” He began to climb the ladder up through the hatch. Behind him he heard the girl laugh softly. Bitch, he thought, and marveled again at his ambivalence where she was concerned.
Killmaster swept his mind clean. The killing time was at hand, the final play about to begin. All the money spent, the contacts used, the scheming, the trickery and the finagling, the blood spilled and bodies buried—it was coming to, a head now. The payoff was near. Events that had had their beginnings days, months, even years before, were coming to climax. There would be winners and there would be losers. Around and around the ball of Fate goes—and where it stops nobody knows… .
An hour later the three of them huddled among black, slime-green rocks just off Penha Point. Each had his clothes wrapped in a compact waterproof bundle. Nick and the Prince had carried the weapons the same way. The girl was naked but for little panties and a bra. Her teeth were chattering now.
Nick whispered to Aski. “Shut her up! That guard comes right along the waterfront on his tour.” He had been thoroughly briefed in Hong Kong on the habits of the Portuguese garrison. But with the Chinese now in virtual control he would have to play it by ear.
The Prince, disobeying orders, whispered back, “He can’t hear much in this wind, old man. I—”
Killmaster drove an elbow into his ribs. “Shut her up! Wind carries sound, you damned fool. They can hear her in Hong Kong, the way this wind is backing and veering.”
The chattering stopped. The big black man had gathered the girl in his arms and put a hand over her mouth.
Nick glanced at the watch glowing on the inside of this wrist. The sentry, one of an elite Mozambique regiment, should be passing them in five minutes. Nick jabbed at the Prince again.
“You two stay here. He’ll be passing in a few minutes. I’ll get that uniform for you.”
The Prince said: “I can do it myself, you know. I’m used to killing my own meat.”
Killmaster noted the strange simile, then dismissed it. To his own surprise one of his infrequent cold rages was building in him. He snapped the stiletto into his hand and pressed it into the Prince’s bare chest. “That’s the second time in a minute that you’ve disobeyed orders,” Nick said savagely. “Do it again and you’ve had it, Prince.”
Aski did not shrink from the stiletto. Tension stretched as the moment lengthened. Then Aski chuckled softly and patted Nick’s shoulder. It was all right.
Minutes later Nick Carter had to kill a simple black man who had come thousands of miles from Mozambique to die, for reasons he could not have understood had he known them. It had to be killing because Nick dared not leave any traces of his presence in Macao. He could not use his knife, blood would spoil the uniform, so he had to throttle the man from behind. The sentry died hard and Nick was puffing a little as he went back to the water line and rapped the hilt of his trench knife three times on a rock. The Prince and the girl came out of the sea.
Nick did not linger. “Up there,” he told the Prince. “The uniform is in prime shape. No blood or mud on it. Check your watch with mine, then I’ll be on my way.”
It was half past ten. Half an hour until the Hour of the Rat. Nick Carter smiled in the blustering dark wind as he trotted past the old Ma Kok Miu temple and found a path that would lead him in turn to asphalted Harbor Road and into the heart of the city. He trotted along in a coolie’s shuffle, his rubber shoes scuffing the dirt. He and the girl had had their faces stained yellow. That and the coolie clothes should be enough disguise in a city made uneasy by riots, and with a storm coming up. He hunched his big shoulders a little more. No one was going to pay much attention to a solitary coolie on a night like this—even if he was a bit bigger than most.
He had never intended to keep the rendezvous at the Sign of the Golden Tiger on Rua Das Lorchas. Colonel Chun Li knew he would not keep it. The Colonel had never intended that he keep it. The phone call had merely been an opening gambit, a way of establishing that Carter was actually in Hong Kong with the girl.
