Nick Carter - Killmaster 002 - The China Doll, page 4
part #2 of Killmaster Series
Nick laughed at Julie's idea of not arguing. She had probably torn strips off this fellow Guren by the time she was through.
"Nevertheless, he agreed that such an organization would undoubtedly turn its attention to the U.S.A. when it was ready, and made it clear that his government was extremely concerned by its anti-Russian activities. He has instructions to locate its headquarters and build up a file of information on it, possibly with a view to its later destruction.
"So far he has very little to go on. All he admits to knowing is that its headquarters are probably right here in Peking, that it is very closely allied to the Chinese crime lords, and that it is known by the name of CLAW.
"Since all of Peking is virtually locked against the foreigner and information is very hard to come by, he is going to Tokyo. Pro-Red Chinese agitators have become very active in that city in an attempt to unite what I might call the 'Yellow East' against all other interests or cultures. Guren believes that in a friendly, westernized city such as Tokyo he may be able to operate more freely. He also believes that Tokyo is so riddled with Chinese spies that he is bound to run into one who will be only too glad to hand him the secret of CLAW."
The body of the report ended on this gently derisive note. Nick gathered that Julie hadn't been too crazy about Comrade Guren. His own immediate impression was that Guren had found Peking a little too hot and had gone chasing off to Tokyo to sit safely on the sidelines.
But his impression was wrong.
Someone in the Records section of AXE's Washington office had prepared a brief synopsis of Red Chinese subversive activities in the East. One significant paragraph dealt with the rash of disappearances of western agents visiting Tokyo, either on assignment or passing through between cases. Several of them had vanished after entering Japanese bathhouses.
Funny, Nick thought. After the first couple, why don't agents just stay away from bathhouses?
But, as an agent himself, he knew the answer. In the first place, they would want to find out why the others had disappeared; and in the second place, they were probably on the same hot leads themselves.
It all boiled down to a new menace from the East: an extremely active and unscrupulous organization dedicated to sowing hatred, murder, and the seeds of war.
And its name was CLAW.
* * *
The traveling bags supplied by Documents (the department in charge of passports, identities, and specialized travel gear) were equipped with a number of special features. The bags were light but sturdy and well-constructed. Even trained eyes would fail to see the carefully concealed compartments.
The smaller bag contained clothes, toilet supplies, and some books and brochures extolling the holiday attractions of the mysterious East.
Nick checked in at the Towers and browsed through the books. He was beginning to feel the need of food and drink when a bellhop tapped on the door and delivered an envelope containing a note and a key. The note gave instructions for a meeting with Hawk on the following day. The key opened a locker in Grand Central Station.
Back in his hotel room after a quick trip across town, Nick opened his packages.
He poured himself a drink from the first and went to work on the second.
Within the next day or two he was to transform himself into Henry Stewart of Detroit, a young businessman who had made a small pile out of dealing in auto parts and was returning to Japan — which he had last seen in wartime — for a look-around and business survey. It was to be largely a vacation trip, but naturally Mr. Stewart would take a bit of a busman's holiday and interest himself in Japan's tremendous economic recovery. He would call on businessmen, eat at the best restaurants (and the small ones not often visited by the ordinary tourist) and revisit the scenes of his days as a soldier.
And he would take a special delight in the bathhouses.
Nick sighed happily and drank. He loved Japan, and he hadn't been there for some years.
As always, Hawk and the backroom boys of AXE had done a thorough job. When they supplied him with a cover story and new identity, he knew that if any enquiries were made about Henry Stewart or Detroit, the answers would check out.
Stewart's passport showed a lean, handsome man with a touch of gray at his temples. His biography revealed that he was recently widowed, that his only living relatives were a brother and sister and their families…
Nick immersed himself in his new identity.
By the time he met Hawk at Vesuvio's for lunch the next day, he was Henry Stewart, complete with gray temples.
Hawk was waiting at a quiet side table reading the Wall Street Journal. He and Nick greeted each other like a pair of business acquaintances with a minor deal to discuss. A waiter brought one very dry martini and one Bourbon Old Fashioned. Hawk frowned, and sipped.
"I think I like this," Nick announced. "Lunching on your expense account is infinitely preferable to skulking around in museums and ballparks. It makes me feel quite human."
"Don't let it go to your head," said Hawk caustically. "Now. I assume that you're familiar with all the details."
Nick nodded. "All available details. I take it that you expect me to get mugged in a Tokyo bathhouse and find out all about CLAW. Then what?"
"Next," said Hawk, "I expect you to locate CLAW headquarters and neutralize their operations."
"Neutralize it? It doesn't sound like the kind of operation that will lend itself to reason. Do you want me to join them?"
"Not exactly. I want you to wreck them. The best way is to constantly outguess them. Our best bet would be to plant someone with them. But not yourself. It'll be your job to create the apparatus that'll eventually bring them down. But it could be a very long-term operation and I need you for other things. Find out about them. Set up the scheme of attack. And then come back."
"Just like that. It's so simple, it's practically done."
They talked about the price of steel while the waiter made room for green salads and two orders of the daily special.
"Are we sure that the disappearances in Tokyo have something to do with CLAW?" Nick buttered a roll lavishly.
"We're not sure of anything. But we think it's likely. You have to start somewhere. May as well be Tokyo. It's the only lead we have. Peking's a big, strange city. It could take you months to get to first base there. No, it has to be Tokyo."
"Well, that suits me. Who are my contacts there — and in Peking?"
"In Tokyo, no contacts as of now. We'll arrange to have you contacted, if necessary. In case of emergency, use the Tokyo drop. Miss Baron will be your Peking contact. For the sake of her cover, you should not approach her in person at any time. Nor can you address her directly. You'll have to use a drop in Peking, too, so the coded address which I'll give you will ensure that she gets any messages. Code instructions for specific occasions, and the two drop addresses, will be given to you with your final instructions. You yourself will be staying at the Hotel Diplomat in Tokyo, quite openly. Within reason, of course. Now. Can you think of anything else you'll want?"
"One dozen lovely dancing girls," Nick said cheerfully.
"Hmmph." Hawk applied himself to his salad.
Oddly enough, Nick's wish would be granted.
Kill Him with Karate
Thus it was that Nick Carter's troubles with Peking began in a Japanese bathhouse in the heart of Tokyo. It seemed an innocuous enough place for danger to catch up with him.
He had been to bathhouses until his lithe body had felt stripped of skin, until he thought his bones must surely show. He had toured and re-toured the strangely garish Oriental city which, since World War II, had picked up as much of a Times Square atmosphere as Manhattan itself. Lotus blossoms and willow trees were an almost incongruous leftover from Tokyo's legendary past.
And yet he saw lotus blossoms and willow trees. He visited graceful pagodas and bulging Buddhas, big business houses and backstreet restaurants. And he visited bathhouses: Typical Japanese bathhouses, where one of the most traditional of Oriental customs was pursued in old-time style and comfort in spite of the encroachments of the Western way of life.
He was just beginning to wonder if the whole thing was worth it when he got the message. It was waiting for him in the pigeonhole under his room number when he came in after a long day of sightseeing and two bathhouse visits.
Nick went into the small bar behind an alcove of beaded drapes and ordered a Vodka martini.
Mr. Stewart looked at his message.
It was a Western Union cablegram from Detroit. It was signed "Bird," and it read:
SEVERE BUSINESS SETBACKS CAUSED BY ILLEGAL COMPETITION INDICATE THIRD AND FINAL CRISIS ALMOST INEVITABLE UNLESS CONSOLIDATE RSS CORPORATION TO FACILITATE MATTERS HAVE ARRANGED THEIR TOP REPRESENTATIVE CONTACT YOU ESSENTIAL WE COOPERATE IN CUTTING COSTS BY CONSULTATION AND MUTUAL ASSISTANCE UNTIL MEETING REDOUBLE NEGOTIATIONS YOUR END JOHNSON WILL RELAY RESULTS BOARD MEETING TOMORROW FIVE.
Nick's blood ran cold.
A new series of manufactured incidents had put the U.S. in really bad trouble, so bad that World War III appeared almost inevitable. Somehow Hawk had managed to persuade his Russian counterpart to cooperate in an action against the common enemy. A member of the Russian Secret Service — AXE code name "RSS Corporation" — was to contact Nick and they were to work together. "Cutting costs" was merely a code phrase used in all cables to authenticate the message.
"Redouble negotiations" meant that he was to proceed as before until contacted by the RSS representative. And "Johnson" was a short wave radio.
It was an appalling situation. Good God. Cooperate with a Russian agent? It was unthinkable. But so was the prospect of a nuclear war.
Nick swallowed his drink and ordered a second.
No fresh instructions until tomorrow at five. Well, back to the bathhouses.
This time he tried one close to the busy mainstream of Tokyo.
Carter San found a quiet stall, paid the appropriate sum of yen for the privilege of privacy, and surrendered his over-bathed body to an almond-eyed beauty who murmured that her name was Taka.
Nick got into a vat of crystal clear water and closed his eyes. Taka moved about him like a silent shadow, her slender, high-busted body neatly encased in a terrycloth towel knotted expertly around her. The feathery touch of her fingers was Oriental magic of the most subtle sort.
It was the homeliest occupation in the world raised to art of the highest order. Muscles and nerves that Nick felt had been relaxed to the point of torpor during the last few days reacted now in sweet surrender. A delightful euphoria stole through his mind and body.
Taka worked quietly, kneading her cool fingers into the rippling crevices of his muscles, appreciating the masculine strength of the finely tuned Carter body. She said nothing, but her almond eyes betrayed ungrudging admiration.
"San like?" she asked, finally.
"San like very much." Nick sighed happily.
She worked on, finding and disintegrating Utile areas of tension that Nick hadn't known to exist. Then his thoughts turned to the ominous cable from Hawk. My God, and here he was lying around in a bathhouse, with the world on the edge of disaster. His euphoria left him. His muscles tensed.
"San has thoughts?" Taka's gentle, voice broke in upon his reverie.
Nick was surprised. "Once in a while. Why?"
"I felt a tightness come upon your body."
"You have observant fingers."
"I am sorry, San. I did not mean to intrude."
"Nothing to be sorry about," said Nick easily. But he was still surprised.
His experience with Orientals, both male and female, told him that Taka's behavior had a touch of the unusual about it, even for a bathhouse. It was, somehow, emancipated. Of course, times had changed. The Japanese woman was gradually, slowly, coming into her own. That she should ask a question that revealed her awareness of him was something that set her apart. For the Japanese female knows her place — the place accorded her by the Japanese male — and speaks when spoken to. Hence the usual air of subservience, the custom of the Geisha, and the walking ten paces to the rear.
But she was a beauty. Slender but delicately rounded, smooth as ivory, jet black hair worn in a softly knotted bun, eyes lively and glowing. Her mouth was full-lipped, and tempting. It looked passionate, yet yielding. And she spoke English in very cultured tones.
Come now, Carter. She's gabby. She's the only one of the bathhouse ladies who ever said a word to you outside of Hello, Thank you, and Goodbye.
"A Utile lower, please, Taka. And harder, if you like. Ouch! That's fine."
It was an interesting experience. His own nudity and her proximity were all completely acceptable things. Taka, brought up in this ancient, "backward" land that still denied the equality of the sexes, was centuries ahead of her enlightened American sisters. There was no false shame in her. He appreciated the matter-of-fact way she massaged his thighs and hips, the efficiency of the tiny, competent hands.
She worked on him for nearly an hour, until the water grew still and cloudy with the soap. He felt completely relaxed. Only his acutely developed sixth sense was on the alert, the one that reminded him, wherever he was and whatever he was doing: YOU ARE AN AXE AGENT FIRST, LAST AND ALWAYS. BE ON YOUR GUARD.
"Now the cool water," Taka said.
He sat like an obedient child as she showered him — gently, lovingly — with a dipper-shaped device which water-failed over his lithe body.
Nick murmured contentedly. Even the old shrapnel wound on his thigh felt nerveless and well. The stall of the bathhouse was heavenly contentment. So why was the sixth sense shooting little needles into his brain?
"San?"
"Mmmmm?"
"What is this, please?"
Her delicate forefinger was pointing to the tiny tattoo on his inner right elbow — the design of a little blue axe — the insignia worn by the highly specialized operatives who formed the upper echelon of the secret agency called AXE. The little tattoo was a trademark, proof that its wearer was an agent extraordinary, a member of an elite corps dedicated to the defense of the United States against subversion, sabotage and sneak attack. Impossibilities were the stock in trade of AXE.
The name AXE, and the significance of the tattoo, were known to very few people anywhere.
"Oh, it's just a tattoo," said Nick. "Had it done when I was a kid during the war. Everybody was doing it." He grinned. "Some of 'em had naked ladies on their chests and hearts and flowers dripping off their hairy arms. Not me.
Taka's eyes had narrowed as if she couldn't quite believe him. But she smiled.
"Hatchet," she cooed. "As with Chinese Tong. Small hatchet."
Hatchet worn by hatchet man. She was very close to the truth. Nick Carter had been a hatchetman for AXE for more than seven years. In the line of duty he had killed, by actual count… To his horror, he found that he'd lost count.
"Yeah," he agreed. "Small hatchet. You don't mean to say you've never seen a tattoo before?"
"Tattoos, yes. But no hatchets. Hearts and flowers." And she laughed, a little tinkling sound. "Wait, please. I will be back soon."
She flashed him a little smile and bobbed her head.
The swinging bat's wing door behind him swept open as her trim figure darted through. Nick wondered what her errand was. After this would come the brisk toweling, and then the piéce de resistance: a really manipulative massage, followed by a pedicure if he wanted the full treatment. He didn't.
Small hatchet. So what?
Nick gazed at the neat pile of his clothes. He had broken house rules by refusing to check his personal belongings. It would have been uncomfortable — and foolish — to be naked in a tub while all his weapons were somewhere else. He could never allow his vigilance to slacken. The espionage agent who relaxed was risking relaxation forever. Once was all it took to die.
So Wilhelmina the Luger, Hugo the stiletto and Pierre the gas pellet were close to hand, concealed in the pile of his garments. And Nick's mind was wide awake.
Taka was taking a little too long.
Nick stepped from the tub to his bundle of clothes. He took the six-foot bath towel off its hook, toweled himself briskly and wrapped himself in it. Then he sat down on the wooden bench, lit a Players and kept a wary eye on the door.
It was a high-hanging door that topped head-height but permitted a view of the lower part of anybody standing on the other side.
Nick sucked smoke into his lungs and waited.
Nice Japanese girls, serving the male in some capacity, did not speak until spoken to. Nice Japanese girls did not ask personal questions. With any luck, nice Japanese girls did sometimes have lush lips and bedroom eyes, but very few were to be found working in bathhouses. They were usually some rich man's pleasure, especially if their fingers held gentle, soothing magic and their intelligence made conversation possible. And nice Japanese girls did not show so much interest in a hatchet that was really an axe, and then disappear.
Nick Carter stubbed out his cigarette and pulled on his shorts under the towel.
Taka's lovely legs appeared beneath the door. Nick admired them. She had softly dimpled knees, well-formed, rounded calves, trim ankles and little feet. But the legs alongside hers were infinitely less alluring. The trousers tapered down to a shiny pair of black patent leather shoes encasing uncommonly large feet.
Nick slid Wilhelmina from her leather bed in his jacket and placed her under a fold of the towel encircling him.
Taka's legs vanished from beneath the door, swiftly and silently. The bat's wing door angled inward; a brown, no-knuckled hand appeared in the opening. The newcomer came in as advertised. Assassin.
For a second he showed surprise that Nick seemed to be waiting for him. Then a humorless grin split his face. It was a wide, flat caricature of a Japanese face, with flaring nostrils and a cruelly-lipped mouth.
