Dr. Death (4 page)

Akhmed screamed. Only he couldn't manage a real scream anymore. Only those gurgling, inhuman sounds of pain beyond pain.

His wife had been luckier. She lay a few feet away. Her throat had been slit so deeply and widely that her head was nearly severed from her neck.

The cigar-tip was applied to Akhmed's flesh again. His body twitched convulsively. I tried not to hear the sounds that came from his mouth, or see the bubbling blood that came out at the same time.

"You are still being foolish, Akhmed," the man with the cigar said. "You think that if you still refuse to speak, we will let you die. But I assure you, you will remain alive — and be sorry that you are alive — for as long as we wish you to — until you tell us what we wish to know."

Akhmed said nothing. I doubt if he even heard the man's words. He was a lot closer to death than these men realized.

"Alors,
Henri," said the other, in the drawling French of one born in Marseilles, "shall we castrate this filth?"

I'd seen enough. I took one step backward, concentrated all my energies, and kicked. The door exploded from its hinges and hurtled forward into the room. I was right behind it. Even as the two men turned, my finger was gently squeezing Wilhelmina's trigger. A bright circle of red appeared in the forehead of the man with the cigar. He spun around, then plummeted forward. He was a corpse before he hit the floor. I could have disposed of the other man a split second later with another bullet, but I had other plans for him. Before his hand could reach the.38 revolver holstered under his left arm, Wilhelmina had disappeared, and Hugo was sliding into my hand. There was a bright flash of steel blade flickering through the air, and Hugo's point sliced neatly through the tendons of the second man's gun arm. He screamed, clawing at his arm. But he was no coward. Even with his right arm hanging bloodied and useless, he hurled himself at me. I deliberately waited until he was only inches away before I stepped aside. My elbow tapped his skull as his body, now totally out of control, hurtled past me. His head snapped up as the rest of his body slammed point blank to the floor. He was hardly down before I had rolled him over, face up, and pressed two fingers on the exposed sciatic nerve of his bloodied arm. The scream that came from his throat almost deafened me.

"Who do you work for?" I gritted. "Who sent you?"

He stared up at me, his eyes wide with pain.

"Who sent you?" I demanded again.

The terror in his eyes was overwhelming, but he said nothing. I pressed the sciatic nerve again. He shrieked, and his eyes rolled upward.

"Talk, damn you," I gritted. "What Akhmed felt was pleasure compared to what's going to happen to you if you don't talk. And just remember, Akhmed was my friend."

For an instant he simply stared up at me. Then, before I realized what he was doing, his jaws moved swiftly and violently. I heard a faint splintering sound. The man's body stiffened, and his mouth stretched into a rictus of a smile. Then
the
body slumped, inert. A faint smell of bitter almonds came to my nostrils.

A suicide capsule, hidden in his teeth. Die before you talk, they had told him — whoever
they
were — and he had done just that.

I pushed his body aside. The faint moans I could still hear coming from Akhmed were tearing at my guts. I retrieved Hugo from the floor, and, cradling his body in my left arm, cut my friend's bonds. I laid him on the floor as gently as possible. His breathing was shallow, weak.

"Akhmed," I said softly. "Akhmed, my friend."

He stirred. One hand fumbled for and found my arm. Incredibly, something like a smile appeared on the tortured, bloodied mouth.

"Carter," he said. "My… friend."

"Akhmed, who were they?"

"Thought… sent by St. Pierre… opened gate for them after bar closed. Carter… listen…"

His voice was getting weaker. I bent my head to his mouth.

"Trying to reach you for two weeks… something going on here… our old friends…"

He coughed. A trickle of blood slid from his lips.

"Akhmed," I said. "Tell me."

"My wife," he whispered. "Is she all right?"

There was no point in telling him.

"She's okay," I said. "Just knocked unconscious."

"Good… woman," he whispered. "Fought like hell. Carter… listen…"

I bent closer.

"…tried… contact you, then St. Pierre. Our old friends… the bastards… heard they'd kidnapped somebody…"

"Kidnapped who?"

"Don't know… but… brought him first here, Tangier, then…"

I could hardly distinguish the words.

"Then where, Akhmed?" I asked urgently. "Where did they take him after Tangier?"

A spasm seized his body. His hand scrabbled along my arm. The mutilated mouth made a last desperate effort to speak.

"…leopards…" he seemed to say."…leopards… pearl…"

Then: "The volcano, Carter… volcano…"

His head fell to one side, and his body relaxed.

Akhmed Djoulibi, my friend, was dead.

He had repaid my favors. And then some.

And he'd left me with a legacy. An enigmatic set of words.

Leopards.

Pearl.

And, the same word that Remy St. Pierre had last spoken on this earth:

Volcano.

When I brought the girl through the dummy wine barrel and into the cellar, she was shivering. I could tell from her eyes that it was as much from fear as from cold.

"What happened?" she pleaded, pulling at my arm. "I heard shots. Is anyone hurt?"

"Four," I said. "All dead. Two were my friends. The others were scum. Scum of a particular kind."

"A particular kind?"

I guided her down the hall, to the room where Akhmed and his wife lay dead alongside their torturers, their murderers. I wanted her to see what kind of people we were dealing with — just in case she hadn't been sufficiently educated by the massacre in the club.

"Look," I said grimly.

She looked inside. Her mouth fell open and she went white. An instant later she was halfway down the hall, bent over, gagging.

"See what I mean?" I said.

"Who… who are they? Why…"

"The two Moroccans are my friends, Akhmed and his wife. The other two are the men who tortured and killed them."

"But why?" she asked, her face still white with shock. "Who are they? What did they want?"

"Just before he died, Akhmed told me that he'd been trying to get in touch with me for several weeks. He'd gotten wind of something going on here in Tangier. Somebody had been kidnapped, and brought here. Ring any bells?"

Her eyes widened.

"Kidnapped? You mean — it might be my father?"

"Remy St. Pierre must have thought so. Because when Akhmed couldn't contact me, he got in touch with St. Pierre. Which is undoubtedly why Remy brought you and me here."

"To talk to Akhmed?"

I nodded.

"But before Akhmed could talk to anybody, these two men got to him. They posed as being messengers from St. Pierre, which means they knew Akhmed had been trying to contact Remy. They wanted to find out how much Akhmed knew, and what — if anything — he'd passed on."

"But who were they?"

I took her by the arm and guided her down the hall. We started up the stairs that led to the bar.

"Akhmed referred to them as 'our old friends, " I said. "But he didn't mean friendly friends. Just before he was killed, Remy St. Pierre used those same words to refer to the people who might be behind the disappearance of your father. He also said something about these people being in a position to infiltrate RENARD, and to know enough about your father to kidnap him at the right moment."

The girl stopped. "They also were able to find St. Pierre and kill him," she said slowly. "Kill him at a time when they might have been able to kill the two of us also."

I nodded. "Inside information from a lot of sources in the French government. What, and who, does that suggest?"

Our gazes met.

"OAS," she said simply.

"Right. The Secret Army Organization that had led a revolt against President De Gaulle and tried several times to assassinate him. Remy and I worked against them together. Akhmed had a son working as bodyguard for De Gaulle, a son who was killed in one of the assassination attempts. We foiled those attempts, but we didn't destroy the OAS. We've always known that. It's very much alive…"

"And still has highly placed sympathizers," she finished forme.

"Right again."

"But what would they want with my father?"

"That," I said, "is one of the things we're going to find out."

I climbed the rest of the stairs, went through the bar, and opened the door to Akhmed's living quarters in the rear.

"But — how?" said the girl, in back of me. "What information do we have? Did your friend tell you anything before he died?"

I stopped in front of a bedroom.

"He told me several things. I'm not going to tell you any of them. Not for now, anyway."

"What? But why?" Her tone grew indignant. "It's my father who has been kidnapped, isn't it? I should certainly think…"

"I've seen no real proof that you are Duroche's daughter." I threw open the door to the bedroom. "I'm sure that you need a shower and a change of clothes just as much as I do. Akhmed has a daughter, going to school in Paris. You should find some of her clothes in the closet. They might even fit. Not that I don't like what you're wearing."

She flushed.

"The water should be hot," I said. "Akhmed has the only modern plumbing in the medina. So have fun. I'll be back in a few minutes."

She went inside and closed the door without a word. I'd hit her where she lived — her feminine vanity. I went back into the bar and picked up the telephone. Five minutes later, I'd made three calls: One to France, one to an airline, and one to Hawk. When I got back to the bedroom, the bathroom door was still closed and I could hear the shower running. I grabbed one of Akhmed's robes and, kicking off my shoes and socks, padded down the hall to the other bathroom. The hot sting of the shower almost made me feel human again. When I got back to the bedroom this time, the bathroom door was open. The girl had found one of Akhmed's daughter's robes and was wearing it. There wasn't much to wear, and what there was merely emphasized what wasn't covered. What wasn't covered was nice.

"Nick," she said, "what do we do now? Shouldn't we get out of here before someone comes and finds those bodies?"

She was sitting on the bed, combing out her long, thick black hair. I sat down beside her.

"Not yet," I said. "I'm waiting for something."

"How long will we have to wait?"

"Not long."

She shot a sidelong glance at me. "I hate waiting," she said. "Perhaps we can find a way to make the time go more quickly," she said. There was a peculiar tone in her voice, a husky, languorous tone. A tone of pure sensuality. I could smell the freshness of her white, soft flesh.

"How would you like to pass the time?" I asked.

She raised her arms above her head, pushing forward the voluptuous outlines of her breasts.

She said nothing, but looked at me from under her lowered eyelids. Then, in one fluid movement, she brushed aside her robe and slowly ran her palm down the velvety skin of her inner thigh, down to her knee. She dropped her eyes to follow her hand as she repeated the movement. "Nick Carter," she said softly. "Surely a man such as you allows himself some pleasures in life."

"Such as?" I asked. I ran one finger down the back of her neck. She shivered.

"Such as…" her voice was husky now, her eyes closing as she leaned heavily against me, turning her face toward mine. "Such as this…"

Slowly, with excruciating sensuality, her sharp nails lightly scratched upward along the skin of my legs. Her mouth darted forward and her white teeth nipped at my lips. Then her tongue curled outward, toward mine. Her breath was hot, fast. I pressed her backwards onto the bed, and the heavy, full curves of her body molded to mine as she writhed underneath me. Impatiently, she pushed off her robe as I slid from mine, and our bodies came together.

"Oh Nick!" she gasped. "My God! Nick!"

Secret female places of her body opened to me. I tasted her flesh, rode on her crest. She was moist all over. Her mouth was as hot as her flesh. She was burning, everywhere — merging with me. We came together like a whirlwind, her body arching and tossing in rhythm to mine. If her dancing had been torrid, her lovemaking was enough to burn down most of Tangier. I didn't mind being burned this way. And minutes after the fire had died down, it sprang up again. And again. She was a total woman, and totally abandoned. Screaming with desire then fulfillment.

It was, all things considered, one hell of a nice way to wait for a telephone call.

The call came with dawn. I disentangled myself from eager, still-demanding limbs and walked along the cold stone floor into the bar. The conversation took less than two minutes. Then I went back into the bedroom. She watched me come in with drowsy, but still hungry eyes. She held out her arms to me, her luscious body inviting me to continue the feast.

"No," I said. "Playtime is over. I have three questions for you to answer. Answer them correctly, and I'll know you're Michelle Duroche."

She blinked, then sat up straight.

"Ask," she said, her tone suddenly all business.

"One: What was the color of your first childhood pet?"

"Brown." she said promptly. "It was a hamster."

"Two: What gift did your father give you on your fifteenth birthday?"

"None. He forgot. The next day, he brought me a motorbike to make up for it."

I nodded.

"Correct so far. One more. What was the nickname of your best friend at boarding school when you were twelve?"