A muscle twitched at the corner of her mouth. He poured the cognac into his coffee and pretended not to notice.
"Do you have any idea how I could find out who it was? I'd really like to help."
"I don't know," she said. "I'll think about it. I'll see what I can do."
Her face was without color or expression as she hurried back to the tiny galley. You're a damn fool, she told herself fiercely. Can't you make up your mind?
Nick Carter peered out of the port window. Not much time left, if there was going to be any action. He couldn't see it yet, but he knew that the Manhattan skyline was looming up as fast as the four engines could manage the balance of the distance into Idlewild. Mr. Hawk would be waiting to hear from him — Hawk, a voice on the telephone or a coldly impersonal face behind a cigar. A man he had never failed, and prayed he never would. An enigmatic yet dynamic personality, a man with his authoritative finger in every espionage pie indigestible to the United States Government.
He wondered about the stewardess.
Rita wondered about him. But Max Dillman, in London, had said he was all right. She eyed her watch and checked the windows. 10:35. ETA was 10:50. Time to tell the passengers to fasten their safety belts, put out the smokes — and all the rest of it. This was supposed to have been her last trip. Tears misted her eyes. Stop that and get moving, she told herself.
She made the announcement in her low, crisp voice, and began the necessary duty tour down the aisle.
"Fasten your seat belts, please. We'll be arriving at Idlewild in fifteen minutes. Please put out the cigarette, sir. Here, let me do that, Madame Monnet. Everything all right, Señor Valdez?"
The steel hand flapped confidently.
The gradual banking sweep of the 710 Jetstar was almost imperceptible. Nick felt it, and made a final visual check of his companions. Everybody in place and neatly buttoned down. Well, that was that.
Rita came down the aisle toward him.
The gigantic spire of the Empire State Building sliced into the morning sky.
Rita leaned over Nick, pretending to adjust his seat belt.
"You're cheating, Mr. Carter. You didn't have it fastened," she said laughingly. Barely moving her lips, she added: "Will you help me?"
"I'd be glad to. How, when, where? And, incidentally, who?"
He watched the piquant oval of her face and waited.
She straightened up and said, with mock severity, "Really, Mr. Carter. You know I can't do that. But there's nothing to stop you telephoning me." She lowered her voice again. "Try to be the last one off the plane. Otherwise — it's Rita Jameson, Hadway House. Call tonight at eight."
He nodded and she turned away.
A drum of belated warning sounded in his brain. He'd been so fascinated by the question of Who that he really hadn't given much thought to the possibility of a trap. And it was a possibility that a man in his profession could never overlook.
Well, he was glad he had finally thought of it. But he didn't think it was a trap, somehow. It wasn't only that Rita was so very lovely; she seemed to be afraid.
Idlewild in the sunlight, a vast, concrete playground with wide ribbons of runways waiting to receive the great metallic homing pigeons.
Flight 16 came down with a long glide of controlled power, wheels bumping easily and pneumatic air brakes making small choking sounds. The pressurized passenger cabin was, thought Nick, as silent as a churchyard after midnight.
And then the storm of passenger voices and departure activity began. The flight was over and everybody was home safe.
The airstair was disgorging passengers rapidly. Nick stretched lazily. Two or three passengers were still wrestling with their hand baggage, but there was no point in making himself conspicuous by hanging around doing nothing. He picked up his briefcase and ambled to the exit.
"Got a coat for me?" he asked Rita, who stood on the airstair.
"Oh, yes, that's right," she said, nodding brightly. "One moment."
He waited. Behind him, he could sense the presence of the man with the steel hand.
"Excuse me, please, señor. I am in a hurry." The English was perfect, barely tinged with accent.
Nick stepped out on to the airstair and stood aside. Rita turned from the coat rack.
"Goodbye, Señor Valdez." She was smiling politely at the man with the steel hand. "I hope you'll honor us with a flight again soon."
The Brynner skull was now hidden by a brand new Panama. Thin lips curved slightly and the squat body inclined forward in the barest of bows.
"Thank you. We will meet again, I am sure. Pardon me."
He edged past Nick on the stairway and made his way quickly down to the tarmac. Nick admired the agility of his movements. The crippled arm was held normally and swung easily at his side.
Rita came back with Nick's coat.
"Well, on my way, Miss Jameson." Nick smiled at her gently, like a man who appreciated what he was seeing. A soft yellow curl was trying to escape the confines of her cap, and the breeze ruffled the top of her blouse. "Walk me down?"
"It's a little unusual, but why not?"
She walked a step ahead of him and said quietly, "Can't talk much now, but I need your help with a murder."
"Committing one?" asked Nick, slightly startled.
"No, of course not," she answered crisply. "Solving one. A hideous, monstrous thing."
They stopped at the foot of the airstair.
"I'll try," said Nick. "May not be up my alley, but perhaps we can find that out over a late dinner."
"Perhaps we can. Thank you." She smiled briefly. "Hadway House, remember?"
Nick nodded and raised his hand in a wave. She turned toward the stair and he headed briskly after the stream of passengers wending erratically toward the Exit gate. He was ready for some strong coffee and possibly four or five eggs. Still, his interest was divided between Rita and the fat back of the Señor. Ahead, the blonde Panama gleamed in the sunlight.
Something, some sixth sense, made Nick look up at the observation deck. At that instant, there was a click of sound. A barely discernible cricket-chirp of a noise that should have been lost in the busy throb of Idlewild. But Carter heard it.
He stopped, braking on the balls of his feet, every sense of his finely-tuned body alerted. Nick had had this sensation of imminent danger before. Walking across a minefield in southern Germany just before a member of his reconnaissance patrol — a buddy — had tripped over a vicious S-2 device, a deadly Bouncing Betty which had blown Mike to nothingness. That moment in time was the same as now.
The sound came from in front of him. There was only time for a swift look that showed something inexplicable and eerie. Señor Valdez had checked himself in stride as if he, too, had heard the click of sound. And as if it meant something to him. For, what was even more bewildering, he had raised his steel hand as if to inspect it for mechanical defects.
And then there was no time at all.
A mighty roar blasted Nick's consciousness. The universe flipped over on its back, spilling the earth and the people on it into one boiling lake of confusion and tangled bodies.
Nick kicked over like a feather blown by a hurricane, burying his face in the sun-baked concrete of Idlewild field.
Passengers screamed in mindless terror. It was as if a lightning bolt had leapt from the heavens to strike down the straggly line of passengers leaving Flight 16.
The atmosphere rolled and thundered with explosion.
Nick pried his eyes open. A rain of flying fragments and concrete chips powdered the cover of his folded arms. His coat and the briefcase lay yards away, whipped from him by the force of the blast.
The scene before him was a carnage. Passengers lay sprawled in impossible positions, looking like discarded rag dolls tossed on some vast garbage heap. It was a montage of horror. Smoky dust rose from pits where, seconds ago, had walked the honeymoon couple, the blonde woman and her freckle-faced kid, the brunette with the book, the slight young man with the languid hands, and...