I knew Tom Mitchell when he was a Marine guard at the Consulate in Hong Kong. He was an old gunnery sergeant, transferred to diplomatic duty, and we had shared a few brawls and done each other a few favors. I’d had one letter from him since he opted out and invested his life savings in the marina.
The kid was still with me. I pointed to the little brick building just ahead. “That the office?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thanks. I know Tom and I won’t be needing you any more. A little private business.” I gave him a five dollar bill. “That’s for your trouble. Good night.”
“Good night, sir. If there is anything else I—”
“There isn’t. Good night.”
The door was half open. Tom Mitchell sat at his desk with his back to me. He was getting bald and there were fat bulges on his neck. He was working on a tax form with a ball point and he didn’t look happy.
I rapped on the door and waited. Tom swung around in his chair and stared at me.
“Jesus Christ!”
“Nope,” I said. “You flatter me, but nope. Nicholas Hunting Carter, in the flesh, come to spend a little money in this poor-looking marina. And ask a few favors.”
“I’ll be a son of a bitch!” Tom pulled himself out of the chair and charged at me and grabbed my hand and tried to tear it off. He was getting fat but he was still as powerful as ever. His plain shanty-Irish face lit up like a beacon as he steered me to a chair and opened a drawer and took out a bottle of Old Pile Driver. He went into a lavatory and came back with two dirty glasses. This was the Tom Mitchell I remembered. No talking until the drinking started.
He poured my glass half full and I shuddered and took a little of it and said: “Good to see you, Tom. And I’m glad that you’re glad to see me, but let’s get one thing straight— this isn’t going to be any booze bout. I’m working. I need a little help, mostly negative help, like I’m not here and you never saw me and can you handle that kid out there? He never saw me either.”
“Wayne? Sure. Be right back.”
I lit a cigarette and took another sip of the cheap booze. I could hear Tom talking to the kid somewhere out on the docks. Tom didn’t know I was AXE, but he did know that I did some very special jobs. I didn’t talk and he didn’t ask and that was the way we both wanted it. I figured that he thought I was CIA and I let it go at that.
He came back into the office and closed the door behind him. “It’s okay now. Wayne won’t talk — he likes this job, and he needs it, and he don’t want his neck broke. Jesus H. Christ, Nick, but it’s good to see you.”
I grinned at him. “Fine. Now cut it out. We’ll have the reunion another time when we can let our hair down and tie one on. Now — who belongs to those other craft out there?”
Tom sank into his chair and picked up his glass. “Local people. I know them. Nothing to worry there, Nick. The yawl belongs to an insurance man and the cruisers, well, just locals like I said.” He stared at me over the glass. “You need any sort of physical help, Nick?” He sounded wistful.
I shook my head. “No. You should have stayed in the Corps, gunner, if you want the physical bit.”
“I know. But I got old, Nick. Too damned old.”
I wasted a tenth of a second in feeling sorry for the old war horse, then I picked up the phone on his desk.
“All I want from you is discretion,” I told him. “Silence. Forget I was here. And keep everybody, but everybody, away from that 57-footer out there as long as I’m here. I can’t say how long that will be.”
Tom Mitchell nodded. He reached into another drawer and came out with a Colt .45 automatic, the 1911 model, so old that the bluing was worn off the barrel so it sparkled like silver in the light.
I dialed Operator. Tom said: “You want me to leave? I can take a little walk, make sure that Wayne isn’t still hanging around.”
It was a good idea. I had trusted Tom Mitchell with my life more than once, but this was no affair of his and it is only routine, SOP, to keep secret matters secret.
I nodded at him. “You do that. See you in a few minutes.”
The girl put me through to the AXE office in Washington. I got the night duty officer, identified myself, and after a code check the night man told me that Hawk was flying to New York to see me.
“He left about nine, sir. He should be there by now. He left word that if you called here he would be at your place.”
I thanked him and hung up. The old man at my penthouse? All the way from Washington just to see his number one boy? All hell must be popping!
My house boy, Pok, answered the phone in the penthouse. When he recognized my voice he said, “Is ancient gentleman here to see you, Missa Nick.”
I liked that. I hoped Hawk was listening in. Ancient gentleman!
“Good,” I told Pok. “Put the venerable gentleman on, Pok.”
“Yes, sir. Is here now.”
Hawk came on like a tiger with a sore throat: “N3? Good — remember no scrambler. This is plaintalk. Clearcode. Got it?”
I said I had it. Hawk can be irritating at times. He thinks everybody but himself is still in kindergarten.
“There is a lot of Hades over the SB thing,” Hawk said. “The spooks are covering and we haven’t surfaced yet. What occurred and where is the tinsel in the crackerjack?”
Hell was being raised over Steve Bennett’s murder and AXE was not connected with it, and where was the girl?
“I’ve got the prize,” I told him. “A toy swan. The SB thing was straight waylay — Papa’s boys trying to make Papa proud. Surprise achieved. I caught two, then track meet seemed advisable.”
I had the girl and I had run like a thief.
I could hear the relief in his voice as he said, “You’ve got the prize?”
“Yes. And a gunboat.”
“Hmmmmm — safe?”
“For now safe. But tempus fugit and things change. Anything from HQ for me?”
I was asking for orders.
I got them. For fifteen minutes I got them. A lot of info had come into the hopper, a lot of cards popped out of the computers, since I last talked to Hawk. I listened with what is commonly known as a sinking sensation in my gut.
At last he let me say something.
“Just me?” I asked. “All alone by my lonesome? Maybe the deal is too big, H. Maybe I can’t swing it.”
“You’ve got to swing it,” Hawk said. “There is no one else. The spooks are dead in subject, and so are we for the moment. You have to do it alone.”
The CIA was well blown in Haiti — I had known that already — and there were no AXE men on the island who could help me. That I hadn’t known. Nick Carter. One-man invasion force.
“It could be complicated,” I said. “The prize is axe grinding. Own ideas about matter at hand. Unreliable.”
“Understood,” the old man said. “Cope.”
Sure. Just like that. Cope.
I sighed and said okay. Then, because I had to know and I had to hear it from Hawk, I asked: “Ultimate on V?”
Final decision on Dr. Romera Valdez, the bone of contention, the guy who was causing all the trouble. The character I was supposed to bring out of Haiti.
Hawk cleared his throat. “Final is kill or cure. Cleared with White.”
If I couldn’t get Valdez out I was to kill him. Decision made by The Man.
“Tempus does fugit,” said Hawk. “No waste. I’ll do the best I can on CG. Make first landfall KW and take on new supplies, if any. Okay?”
Get with it as of right now. Hawk would fix it with the Coast Guard and I was to check in at Key West for new orders. If any.
“Okay,” I said. I sounded like a man going to his own hanging. “I’ll have a voucher here,” I added. “Honor it, eh?”