“This reached me through the drop,” said Nick. “I always thought Hakim was a born AXEman and I left him with the means of getting in touch with me. I’ve had a couple of newsy letters in the past year or two. And now this. Thought it might intrigue you.”
Hawk took the letter. He frowned as he read.
It said:
Dear Nicholas,
A quick note before I go to the classroom and begin part seven of my course in the Seven Lively Arts. Details will follow at your request, but at this stage I do not wish to inflict upon you too much of what you may regard as trivia. Yet, I have encountered something which caused my crime-sniffing nose to twitch and my eyes to cross swords even more valiantly than usual, and I thought at once of you and your own talent for sniffing out the odd and apparently inexplicable.
Last night I attended a dreary off-campus party in honor of some even more dreary on-campus individual. I arrived late, deliberately, for I have no patience with those affairs, and when I got there the wine was flowing indiscriminately and tongues were flapping. To my great disgust I was buttonholed immediately by Doctor Wilhelm von Kluge of the College of Medicine, who proceeded at once to bore me with his miraculous exploits in the medical field. Then all at once he ceased to bore me. Soon he became almost as cross-eyed as I myself and the words spilled from his mouth. He is a surgeon, I must tell you, brought to Egypt by our estimable Nasser, and it was when he began talking of his recent carvings that I pricked up my ears and listened.
It seems that he is an expert in cosmetic surgery, a fact that he had not previously confided to me. It further seems that, over the course of the past few months, he has been doing a series of operations to alter the facial characteristics of a number of men who paid him vast sums of money for his skills. His greatest triumph, professionally speaking, was in the area around the eyes, and in the hormonal inducement of hair growth where hair was reluctant to appear before. In the course of his babblings it emerged that none of these men — some eight or nine in number, so far as I could gather — was disfigured in any way so that they actually required surgery. They merely wished to alter their appearance, and according to him he did so with unparalleled brilliance. I got the impression from him, though he did not say so directly, that they all knew each other and that the treatment of each was very similar. Some required more or less work on the nose; one or two demanded his greatest skill in the transformation of the cheekbones. But on the whole their requirements were the same.
I then asked him — as who would not? — exactly what they had looked like before. And then, my friend, he most regrettably clammed up, as you would say, and began talking very rapidly about something else. Nothing I could do or say would bring him back to discussion of his surgical brilliance. Yet, I thought I saw him glance around the room with a kind of nervousness, and, soon after that, he left.
I see that, as usual, my “quick note’ has become a chapter, and in it I have offered you nothing but intangibles. But I find they interest me strangely, and I shall pursue the matter. I see, too, that it approaches the hour for me to lecture to my budding crime-fighters, so I will leave you with this little puzzle.
The term will soon be over — Allah be praised for my criminologist’s holiday. You do not propose to vacation in Egypt this year? Alas, I thought not. But write me at your leisure and tell me what you think of von Kluge and his drunken ravings. In the meantime, my best greetings —
Forgive the interruption. A phone call from the Chief of Police. No class today; I am on call as a consultant.
Von Kluge was found dead in bed this morning. At first glance it looked like natural death. On investigation he was found to have been deliberately smothered.
I must go.
In haste,
Your friend, Hakim Sadek.
Hawk let the letter fall onto the table top and lit his cold cigar with great deliberation. He chewed it, puffed, leaned back and puffed again. At last, he spoke.
“You want me to assume that there is something more here than a criminal group at work in Egypt. Very well, I will dispense with a discussion of all such possibilities and make your assumption. And that is that this affair has international implications and might fall into the province of AXE. Am I right?”
Nick nodded. “It’s the nature —”
“Of the operations, of course,” Hawk cut in irritably. “Eyes, noses, cheekbones, hair. The eyes particularly, I’m sure you want me to notice. I have noticed. And the murder of the surgeon, presumably after he had finished his work. But immediately afterwards? Possibly not. No — after he was seen talking. Perhaps overheard. Oh, you’ve got me interested, no doubt about it. But we must know more — a great deal more — before I can take action.” He squinted thoughtfully and puffed again. “D5’s in Iraq,” he said finally. “He can make the hop to Cairo and do a little digging. That satisfy you?”
Nick smiled faintly. “You know it doesn’t. But it’s better than nothing. Only I don’t think he’s the one to make contact with Hakim. He’s not quite Hakim’s type.”
Hawk billowed smoke and squinted through it.
“And you are, I suppose? What do you want, Carter — to solve the blackout question, play host to Sichikova and fly to Egypt at the same time? I don’t recall that we’ve given you the title of Superman. You’re under orders. Mine. And you have been given your assignment.”
“Yes, sir,” said Nick, and scraped his chair away.
Hawk waved him back. “Sit down, Nick, sit down. Foul coffee always puts me in a foul mood. D5 can check, but there’s still something you can do. You trust this Hakim implicitly?”
“Unreservedly,” Nick said, straddling the chair.
“Then cable him. Use the regular public channels. Tell him that a good friend of yours will be in Cairo within the next day or two and will contact him to hear the latest news. Phrase it any way you like, but make it clear that you want all details that he is able to uncover and that your friend will pass them on to you. I’ll get the orders through to D5 myself and have him scramble Hakim’s report direct to me. How’s his doubletalk?
Hakim’s? He’s an expert.” Nick grinned, remembering. “So expert that sometimes I can barely make him out. But he catches on.”
“Fine. Then let him know, in your own best-guarded language, that we want him to find out — if remotely possible — when von Kluge finished his operations. The exact time and manner of his death. Who the men were or might have been. If eight or nine men have turned up missing recently in Cairo or vicinity. If von Kluge’s medical files are available for inspection. Who it was that might have seen or overheard him talking at that party. And so on. I leave it up to you to make clear to him exactly what we want to know. Now. Let’s get the Sichikova business out of the way.” Hawk pulled a slim file from his bulging briefcase. “Here is a list of the places she has asked to see in addition to the West Valley plant. Perhaps you can get one of your many female friends — AXE-approved, of course — to take her to Bergdorf’s and Macy’s and one or two other places that you might not care too much about. You’ll stay close at hand, naturally. Documents has a suggested itinerary for out-of-town sightseeing. You may use either your own car or one from the pool. Your expense account will be munificent, but I expect you to bring back some change. She will be arriving at Kennedy tomorrow morning at ten via Pan Am, and you will be there to meet her.”
“Pan Am? Not a special Russian flight?”
Hawk shook his head. “Nothing special. She’s traveling a roundabout route for her own pleasure and one of our men will be with her on the flight from London. None of her own. She’s an independent lady, it seems. And she’s traveling under her own name, without any attempt at disguise.”