"Yes, sir."
"More on Bennett, son. It's even worse than we thought. Everyone is really digging now and the stuff is flooding in — Bennett was a steno-reporter at some meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Quite recently, I take it. Just before he came to us."
"That does make it nice," said Nick grimly. "That freak brain of his knows the thinking, the bias and prejudice, the likes and dislikes, of every one of our top brass. Damn — that sort of information can be as valuable to the Ivans as any 'hard' stuff he might have picked up."
"I know," said Hawk. "How I know! The bastards might as well have had a bug in the White House. Anyway, I just got the flash and the FBI suggested I pass it on to — to whoever is doing the job for us. They don't know about you, of course. Actually they're just trying to nail home the tremendous urgency of finding Bennett — as though we didn't know it. They now presuppose him to be carrying, somewhere in his crazy skull, information about atomic weaponry, missiles and anti-missile missiles, plans for the defense of Europe, estimates of comparative military capabilities, military intelligence reports and analyses — I'm reading this from a flimsy they sent me — information pertaining to troop movements, retaliation plans of the United States Strategic Air Command and, hold your hat, boy, a tentative extrapolation of the war in Vietnam! Whether or not Bennett realizes he knows all these things — he does! And when the Russians realize he does — if they don't already — they will build the biggest suction pump in the world to dredge our man dry. They won't care how long it takes, either."
"I'd better get cracking, sir. The car must be downstairs by now."
"Right, son. Goodbye again. Good luck. And, Nick — there's a penciled notation on this flimsy. From J.E.H. in person. He suggests that the best solution of our problem is a few ounces of lead in the soft tissues of the Bennett brain. As soon as possible."
"I couldn't agree more," said Nick Carter.
Chapter 4
The old name for the street, for the entire district, had been the Kammachgasse. But that had been in the days before the First World War, when the sordid, poverty-stricken neighborhood had attracted prostitutes as naturally as it collected coal grime. Since that time the city of Cologne had been bombed heavily, devastated and rebuilt. Along with the rest of the Rhineland city, the Kammachgasse was also refurbished, shined and polished and given a new image. But, like a palimpsest, the old image could still be seen glowing faintly through the new, like a ghost in a television set. The prostitutes were still there. But where they had been furtive under the Kaiser, and hardly less so under Hitler, in the new Germany they were blatant.
The women now had a street of their very own. It was called Ladenstrasse. Store street! This because the girls sat in little, well-lighted store fronts, behind panes of clear glass, and displayed themselves to the shoppers, not all of | whom were male.
The women in the small glass cages were very patient. They rocked and smoked, knitted and read magazines, and waited for whoever chose to wander in from the street and use their bodies for a few minutes. Die Ladenstrasse was the last stop for these women, a fact of which even the dullest was aware. It is doubtful that many of them thought about it, or cared very much.
It was a little after midnight when the big, rough- looking man entered Ladenstrasse. There was still considerable traffic on the street, though a few of the windows were dark — the girls either having gone to bed or out for a bite and a drink with their pimps — but no one paid any attention to the big man. Not even the bored policeman who yawned now and then, and removed his shiny patent leather helmet to scratch his balding head. Gross Gott! Heinrich was late again tonight. Silly young schwein. Probably mooning around his Katte again and had forgotten the time. Oh, his feet! It would be good to get home to Anna and his supper, and to soak his poor feet in a tub of hot water.
The policeman gazed idly after the big man who had just shambled past him into Ladenstrasse. A huge one, that. Look at the shoulders on him. And a late one, too. He would be just in time. No doubt he had been drinking in some stube and had decided at the last minute to have a woman tonight. The policeman yawned again. Poor devil. He always felt a little sorry for the men who came to Ladenstrasse. They had no Kattes, no Annas.
The big man shambled down the street, his hands in his pockets, his huge shoulders hunched in the dirty leather jacket. He wore a leather workman's cap and a filthy magenta neckcloth to conceal the absence of a collar. His corduroys were limp and frayed, and he wore a pair of old German Army shoes with hobnails. The street had been resurfaced since the last war, but here and there was an island of the original cobbles. When the hobnails struck the cobbles a spark or two would orbit briefly in the night, like fireflies lost and out of season.
The man stopped before Number 9. The window was dark. The big man cursed softly. His luck was souring fast. Ever since Hamburg, where he had been delivered by the bomber. He had changed clothes, gotten an AXE car from the depot there, and driven like mad to Cologne. He had been stopped three times for speeding, twice by the Germans and once by the British, and the English had damned near jailed him. It had taken a lot of the old hands across the sea malarkey to get him out of that one — plus a sizable bribe for the corporal in charge!
Now Number 9 was dark. Closed up tight as a drum. Hell! Killmaster scratched at his chin stubble and pondered. The Berlin man had been supposed to meet him in the Hohestrasse, at the Cafe of the Two Clowns. The man hadn't shown. Nick, after hanging about for hours, had finally decided to contact the woman on his own. It wasn't good. It might not even work. The woman was the Berlin man's contact, not his. Well — when the devil drove…
Nick Carter glanced up and down Ladenstrasse. Some of the other girls were closing up shop now. The cop on the corner was scratching his head and leaning against a lamppost. The street was fast becoming deserted. He'd best get the hell off it before he became conspicuous. He rapped hard on the glass store front with his knuckles. He stopped and waited a moment. Nothing happened. He rapped again, harder this time, the impatient tattoo of a lustful, drunken man who was determined to have Number 9 and no other. That would be the story if the cop got nosey.
After five minutes a light flicked on behind a dark curtain at the rear of the little platform. Now he could make out a rocking chair and a pile of magazines. A pair of black high-heeled shoes beside the rocker, the spikes about six inches high. Nick thought of that cabinet back in the peaceful little town of Laurel, Maryland, and he grimaced. Raymond Lee Bennett, if it was indeed he, seemed to be running true to form. If, again, it wasn't all wild goose! Nick was not in a very sanguine mood at the moment.
A woman was peering at him through a slit in the curtain. The light was bad, but she appeared blonde and incredibly young to be on Ladenstrasse. Now she clutched a robe about her breasts and leaned toward him and shook her head. Her mouth was wide and red and he could read her lips as she said: "Nein— nein— geschlossen!"
Nick shot a glance at the corner. Hell! The cop was beginning to saunter this way, his attention caught by the rapping on the glass. Nick swayed a bit, as though very drunk, and jammed his face against the glass and shouted in German. "Closed hell, Bertha! Don't give me that stuff. Let me in, I say. I've got money. Plenty of money. Lemme in!"
The cop was closer now. Nick moved his lips against the glass silently and prayed that this one wasn't as dumb as most prostitutes. He mouthed a word: "Reltih— reltih!" Hitler spelled backward. A grim little joke the Berlin man had dreamed up.