Nick Carter - Rhodesia

From the mezzanine of New York's East Side Air Terminal Nick looked down, following Hawk's murmured directions. "At the left of the second pillar. The one with the painting of a stagecoach on it. The energetic lad in gray tweeds with the four girls."

"I see them."

"That's Gus Boyd. Watch them for a while. We may see something interesting." They settled back in the green, two-seater lounge facing the rail.

A very attractive blonde in a yellow knit suit that she filled beautifully was talking with Boyd. Nick reviewed the pictures and names he had studied. She would be Booty DeLong, three months out of Texas State, and according to the smug intimation of the CIF Consolidated Intelligence File prone to support radical causes. Nick placed little credence in such data. The snoopery network was so swollen and uncritical that the files of half the college students in the country contained misinformation raw, misleading, and useless. Booty's father was H. F. DeLong, who had high-jumped in his lifetime from a dump truck to unrecorded millions in construction, oil, and finance. Someday men like H. F. would hear about the files and the explosion would be memorable.

Hawk said, "Your appreciative eye is caught, Nicholas. Which one?"

"They all look like fine young Americans."

"I'm sure the eight more who join you in Frankfurt are just as charming. You're a lucky man. Thirty days to get well acquainted."

"I had other plans," Nick answered. "You can't pretend this is a vacation." Some of the grouch left his voice. It was always this way when he walked into a case. His senses sharpened, his reflexes alerted like a fencer en garde, he felt obligated and committed.

Yesterday David Hawk had played his cards cleverly asking instead of ordering. "If you protest overwork or bad nerves, N3, I'll accept it. You're not the only man I have. You are the best."

The adamant protests Nick had formed in his mind on his way to the Bard Art Galleries an AXE cover operation melted. He had listened and Hawk went on, the wise, kindly eyes under the gray brows grimly firm. "It's Rhodesia. One of the few places you've never been. You know about the sanctions. They're not working. The Rhodesians are shipping copper, chromite, asbestos, and other materials by the shipload out of Portuguese Beira with odd bills of lading. Four shiploads of copper reached Japan last month. We protested. The Japanese said, The bills of lading say South African. It is South African.' By now some of that copper is in mainland China.

"The Rhodesians are smart. Valiant. I've been there. They're outnumbered by the blacks twenty to one but they claim they've done more for the natives than they could ever have done for themselves. That led to the rupture with Britain and the sanctions. I'll leave the moral right or wrong of it to the economists and sociologists. But now we come to gold and big China."

He had Nick and he knew it He went on, "The country has produced gold almost since the day Cecil Rhodes opened it up. Now we hear of tremendous new strikes extending under some of their famous gold reefs. Veins perhaps hidden by the ancient Zimbabwe workings or new discoveries, I don't know. You'll find out."

Caught and fascinated, Nick had observed, "King Solomon's Mines? I remember was it Rider Haggard? The lost cities and mines..."

"The Queen of Sheba's treasure house? Perhaps." Then Hawk revealed the real depth of his knowledge. "What does the Bible say? I Kings, 9:26, 28. 'And King Solomon made a navy of ships... and they came to Ophir and fetched from thence gold and brought it to King Solomon.' The African words Sabi and Aufur may be the ancient Sheba and Ophir. We'll leave that to the archaeologists. We know gold has poured out of the region ever since, and suddenly we hear there's a great deal more in the reserves. You realize what this means in the current world situation. Especially if big China can accumulate a handsome pile."

Nick frowned. "But the free world will buy it as fast as they mine it. We have the exchange. The manufacturing economies have the leverage."

"Ordinarily, yes." Hawk handed Nick a plump file and he knew he was hooked. "But we mustn't, in the first place, discount the production wealth of eight hundred million Chinese. Or the possibility that after they stockpile the price shoots up from thirty-five dollars an ounce. Or the way Chinese influence is surrounding Rhodesia like tendrils from a giant banyan tree. Or Judas."

"Judas! Is he in there?"

"Perhaps. There has been talk of a strange organization of assassins, headed by a man with claws for hands. Read that file when you have time, Nicholas. And you won't have much. As I mentioned, the Rhodesians are shrewd. They've tossed out most of the British agents. They read James Bond and all that over there. Four of ours have been ejected without fanfare and the two men our big firm has in there are evidently watched. So if Judas is behind the problem, we're in trouble. Especially since his associate seems to be Si C'sian Kalgan."

"Si Kalgan!" Nick had exclaimed. "I was sure he was dead when he wasn't involved in those Indonesian kidnappings."

"We think Si is with Judas, and probably Heinrich Muller too if he's alive after that shooting in the Java Sea. China allegedly has backed Judas again and he's weaving his web in Rhodesia. His cover companies and front men are wonderfully organized, as usual. He must be providing Odessa with a fortune. Somebody is a lot of the old Nazis we're watching are financially well again. Incidentally, several good copper men in their club have dropped out of sight in Chile. They may have joined Judas. Their histories and pictures are in the file but it's not part of your objective to look for them. You just look and listen. Get proof if you can that Judas is developing a grip on the Rhodesian export traffic, but if you can't get proof your word is good enough. Of course, Nick, if you get a clean chance the order is still the same on Judas. Use your own judgment..."

Hawk's voice had trailed off. Nick knew that he was thinking of the scarred and battered Judas, who had lived ten lives in one and evaded death more than that. It was whispered that his name was once Martin Bormann, and it was possible. If so the holocaust through which he had lived in 19441945 had tempered his hard iron to steel, sharpened his cunning, and made him oblivious to pain and death in wholesale quantities. Nick would not credit him with courage. Experience had taught him that the bravest are usually the kindest. The cruel and ruthless are yellow Jell-O underneath. Rut of Judas' ingenious generalship, lightning tactical judgment, and swift skill in combat there was no question.

Nick had said, "I'll read the file. What's my cover?"

Hawk's firm, thin mouth had softened for a moment. The crinkly lines at the corners of his keen eyes relaxed, looked less like a cluster of deep V's on edge. "Thank you, Nicholas. I won't forget. We'll arrange that vacation for you when you get back. You'll travel as Andrew Grant, an assistant tour escort with an Edman Educational Tour. You'll help conduct twelve young ladies around the country. Isn't it the most interesting cover you've ever had? The senior escort is an experienced man named Gus Boyd. He and the girls think you're an Edman official surveying a new tour. Manning Edman has told them about you."

"What does he know?"

"He thinks you're CIA but he's actually been told nothing. He's helped before."

"Boyd may catch on."

"It won't make much difference. Odd types often travel as escorts. Junkets are part of the travel business. Free trips with low pay."