There were no attendants about. No one at all. This seemed strange and Nick asked Mousy about it.
"They're around all right. But AXE dough buys a lot of discretion from these people. Backsheesh. Anyway they don't give a damn. None of their business what crazy foreigners do as long as they can pay for it. Inshallah! You know — if Allah wills it! I've got so I feel that way myself. Everything is — Inshallah!"
There was a single screw-in coat hook set into the wooden back wall of the primitive toilet they entered. Mousy twisted it and the wall turned enough to let them slip through into darkness. Immediately a new smell hit Nick's long suffering nostrils.
"Bones," said Mousy as he took out his pen flash and led Nick down a narrow stone floored incline. It was pitch dark in the shaft, except for Mousy's flash, and Nick put his own into use. The first thing he saw was a tremendous rat staring at him from a ledge, its little eyes red and feral and unafraid.
"Bones," the little man said again as they went deeper by the moment. "That's all we got down here, N3. Bones and skulls and rats. This used to be a catacombs, built under an old Christian church. They didn't bury them in those days, I guess. At least not all of them. They just took 'em down to the basement and stacked them up.
An odd thought struck Nick. The little guy seemed a lot more cheerful down here in this place of bones and rats. Probably felt safer.
Nick poked Mousy with his flash and chuckled, "Never mind the guided tour, kid. How much farther, for God's sake? And that girl — whatever her name was — you say you've got her down here in this place?"
Mousy actually laughed. "A lot farther, chief! All down — and down! And I've got the girl, yes. Mija — that's Mee-Juh— Gialellis. And wait 'till you see her! Nothing bony about this kid! A doll. Sweet! Beautiful in spite of all she's been through — I mean being hooked on the stuff and all. Hold it now…"
Mousy poked around with his flash until it rested on a small pile of skulls lying in the middle of the passage. He bent closer and peered, finally cursed and picked up one of the skulls. Nick saw that it had a small red cross marked between the staring empty eyes.
Mousy grunted in satisfaction. "Yeah — this is old Hector, all right. We got so many down here that I had to mark him to tell." He put Hector down and kicked away the rest of the pile of skulls. Nick saw the outline of a trapdoor. The little agent lifted it easily and swung it to one side, revealing a black oblong about three by three. Worn stone stairs circled down.
Mousy gestured with his flash. "Be my guest. Down about two hundred of those steps the girl is waiting. She must be getting stir crazy by now. But I suppose when she sees you, N3, her big brown eyes will light up like beacons!" Mousy gave a phony sigh. "Sometimes I wish I was handsome and big instead of intelligent."
Nick followed Mousy down into the hole. "You said you left someone with the girl? An Albanian?"
"Yeah. Old Bid. Selman Bid, I think." Mousy chuckled. "But he's a mute — can hear but can't talk. So he hasn't been much company!"
Nick said nothing as he followed Mousy down into the dark spiraling pit. He was thinking that he had been right in his diagnosis of Morgan — the little guy had had it. He was probably a candidate for the AXE head-shrinkers back in the States. They were good, the AXE skull-doctors, and sometimes they could salvage a good agent and send him back to duty after he'd cracked up. Sometimes.
Goddammit! Nick thought savagely. Everything has gone wrong on this mission so far. Todhunter gone and Mousy losing his guts and moving the station to this hellhole, and now the girl. Probably wouldn't be any help! None at all. Might still be on the dope — Mousy wasn't very reliable just now.
Might even be a plant! A beautiful little dope addict who had somehow managed to con everyone — the Turkish police, Narcotics, and now Mousy himself?
It seemed most improbable, but you never knew. Nick's smile vanished — how ironical if she were a plant! Working for them, for the enemy! Mousy had panicked and run from the Pera station — and he had brought the girl along. Right into the new station!
N3 took a deep breath, then sighed. He hoped she wasn't a plant. He had no real aversion to killing women, but he didn't like it.
They were so much more fun alive!
Chapter 5
Council of War
They had spent all day talking and planning, Nick and Mousy and the girl, Mija Gialellis, and Nick had not yet begun to form an opinion about her. She had not been out of the Hole since Mousy brought her there, so that was no danger. They hadn't been tailed there, or probably hadn't, because the enemy would have hit them before now. These scum didn't fool around — as witnessed by the attack by the cruiser that morning.
N3 was relating all this now to Hawk on the scrambler phone. His boss, like Queen Victoria, had not been amused. He had, in fact, been most upset.
"I just wish to hell you hadn't dropped Tiny Tim in their Golden Horn," he said in the chipped ice voice he used for anger. "Especially right now! The Turks are a little testy with us right now as it is — the Cyprus thing, you know. I just got the poop this morning from State — one of their cookie pushers called and asked us please not to antagonize the Turks in any way. Not just us, of course — everybody is being warned — but anyway the striped pants boys are flapping about it. Seems the Turks are going to the second Bandung Conference pretty soon and they'll be our only friend there — if that. Orders are that everybody handles them with kid gloves — and now you drop a miniature atom bomb in their harbor! Did you have to?"
Nick was glad his chief could not see his expression of disgust. "You ever try to fight a thirty-eight-foot cruiser with a stiletto, sir?"
After a long moment Hawk sighed. "Well, I suppose you had to. But State isn't kidding! In their powder-puff fumbling way they usually know what they're doing — and if the Turks grab you I'm afraid it would be a long time before we could get you out of the clink. Unofficially, of course. Officially we never heard of you."
"No need to remind me of that, sir." Nick was dry. "I know the rules."
"Just thought I'd remind you. The Turks are a little on edge just now. Of course they've got Ivan to worry about, as usual, and now they seem to think the Red Chinese are trying to stir up trouble in the Balkans. Probably are, too, but that's not our worry."
"I hope not," Nick said. "I've got about all I can handle now, what with Mousy going bad and not being sure of the girl and Todhunter was the last Narcotics man on the spot! I…"
Hawk broke in. "About Todhunter again — you think they were after him? Not you or Mousy? Let me have that again."
Nick repeated what he had said earlier. "Mousy came up with this, and I think he's right. One of the other Narcotics men that was killed was Pete Todhunter, Jim's brother! They were very close, Mousy says. And Mousy thought Jim had been getting careless. I think I know why — Jim had forgotten his job and gone into the vengeance business! That's why he fought the cruiser this morning instead of going over the side."
Coldly, Nick added, "Too bad about him, sir, but be had only himself to blame. And he damned near got Mousy and me killed. Anyway Mousy is through — his nerves have gone. I'll have to use him tonight on this deal, but after that, no more. Better get him out as fast as you can, sir."