Nick fired once to show that he was still in there pitching. Then flame seared his thigh and he rolled over once again with a loud and agonized shout — and he slid into the water with the loudest splash he could manage. He ducked his head and waited.
And waited…
He started edging his way through the churning water alongside the catwalk. Wilhelmina was soaking-wet and useless, but that did not matter any more. Judas was on his way. Judas had bought Nick’s little death scene with shout and splash, and now Judas was doing his monkey trick across the rope.
Nick knew he was right by the time he had worked his way to the end of the catwalk. Judas was gone, and the rope was still taut and quivering.
Deep in the water, Nick drew Hugo from his sheath. He stared through the spray and caught one brief, dim glimpse of a monkeylike figure swinging high behind the crashing screen of water, well on its way to the catwalk on the American side. Then the vision vanished.
Hugo’s razor-edged blade bit deep into the rope.
Nick raised himself in the water and drew a deep breath.
“Goodbye, Judas!” he yelled exultantly, and the last strand parted at Hugo’s biting touch.
The end of the rope whiplashed back at Nick, but he scarcely felt it. Through the rushing roar of the water he heard a high-pitched scream, and he thought he heard a louder splash above the bubbling din. And then there was nothing to be heard but the thundering of the falls. The rope was limp in his hands.
“It is not, you understand, my favorite pastime,” Valentina Sichikova said apologetically. “But at least I did not have to hurt the man — apart from that small concussion I gave him in that motor cabin. Oh, motel, yes? So. Motel. I play soft music to him, one note, one note, one note, and I use a little drug. That one note, you see, is like the dripping water of the Chinese torture. Too much of that no man can stand. I could not listen myself. Until he talked.”
“Until he talked,” Hawk echoed. “And then you got the one key we were looking for. Your health, Madam Sichikova.” He raised his glass.
“Your friendship, Comrade,” she said quietly. “Long life and good companionship for all of us.”
“Long life, indeed,” said Hakim warmly. “Although how that may be possible in your line of buiness I cannot begin to understand.” He clutched his bound ribs with a theatrical gesture and made a hideous grimace. “My good mother warned me against taking up with dubious company. And see how right she was!”
“Your good mother should have warned me,” said Nick, patting Julia’s knee and ignoring Hawk’s reproving stare. “Her little boy’s a troublemaker from way back. Why, if it hadn’t been for you —”
“We wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” Hawk interrupted. “Heaven only knows what we would have been doing. Crawling out of some bomb shelter, perhaps, and staring at the ruins. Yes, this could have been L-Day. But it isn’t. So let’s run this fellow through to the end and then get out of here to celebrate in style.” He waved his glass around the comfortable lounge of AXE’s brownstone branch office near Columbus Circle and said, with unaccustomed bonhomie, “Office parties are all right in their place, but this occasion deserves the very best. A real old-fashioned, rip-roaring, capitalistic celebration!” His usually cold eyes were warm and he was smiling for the first time in many days.
Nick grinned at him and clinked glasses with Julia. The face on the TV monitor against the wall was bland and expressionless, almost trancelike, but the words burbled unrestrained through the pale, thin lips. Once Kwong Yu Shu had started to talk it had been difficult to stop him.
“… to use the natural resources of the country,” he gabbled. “Not necessary bring very much equipment, always find what we need wherever we go. Very efficient, very economical scheme. So we have small group, ten men…” He had told them that before, describing in great detail the clever departure of the nine from Moscow, their meeting with Judas in Egypt, the brilliance of their plan for changing their looks and quietly infiltrating the United States. Valentina’s little drug-and-music therapy, combined with the knowledge that he was very much alone in an unfriendly world, had brought Kwong to a state of uncontrollable volubility.
“It was plan by Judas and General Kuo Hsi Tang,” he sang enthusiastically. “First, campaign of terror to demoralize imperialistic dogs. At the peak of this, a vast blackout as final shattering blow and also as what you call a “dry-run.” If we succeed, then we ready to go ahead with plan for L-Day. L-Day may be two, three days after dress rehearsal. L-Day is landing day, day for landing with secret weapon under cover of darkness and terror. How to resist when panic is in streets, friend fighting friend, families dying from inexplicable dis-ease? Impossible! Oh, good scheme; very good scheme. And some day…”
“That’s it,” said Hawk, flicking the remote switch and fading Kwong Yu Shu back into oblivion. “My one regret is that he genuinely doesn’t seem to know anything about that secret weapon. But it does look as though we’re safe from it for a while at least, and we know a little something now about preparing ourselves for emergencies. Yes, I think we’ve nipped this thing fairly neatly in the bud. Shall we go?”
They rose, the five of them, and drained their glasses.
To the ten who couldn’t make it to the party,” said Julia wryly, still holding out her glass. “And to the five of us who nearly didn’t. They picked themselves an unlucky number, didn’t they? Ten, as in Indian boys, biting the dust one after the other until—”
“Until D-Day,” Hakim said quietly. “Death Day. And then there were none.”
Hawk chomped thoughtfully on his dead cigar.
“That right, Carter?” he said quizzically. “And then there were none?”
Nick stared back at him. “That’s right,” he said firmly. “None. But…” He shrugged. “Strange things have been known to happen.”
“Ah, come now, Nickska!” Valentina boomed. “You were sure at first. Why do you doubt now? It is impossible that the man could have survived that plunge.”
“Maybe,” said Nick. “But you never know, with Judas.”