Temple of Fear (4 page)

Nick Carter shook his head to clear it. Okay. He had had that much brandy! But this he had to see for himself. The chain was latched. He opened the door a crack, keeping to one side, and peered cautiously out into the corridor. "Girl Scouts?"

"Yis. Have very good cookies for sale. You buy, prease?"

She bowed. The other three bowed. Nick damned near bowed. Because damned if they weren't Girl Scouts. Japanese Girl Scouts.

Four of them. As pretty as though they had stepped right out of a silk print. Demure. Shapely little Japanese dolls in Girl Scout uniforms, with pert tarns worn jauntily on sleek dark heads, Mini-skirts and knee socks. Four pairs of luminous slant eyes watched him in anticipation. Four sets of perfect teeth flashed the old Oriental con at him. Buy our cookies. They were as cute as a litter of speckled pups.

Nick Carter began to laugh. He couldn't help it. Wait until he told Hawk about this — or should he tell the old man? Nick Carter, top man in AXE, Killmaster himself, being very much alert and tippy-toeing to the door to confront — a bunch of Girl Scouts selling cookies. Nick made a gallant effort to stop laughing, to keep a straight face, but it was too much. He broke up again.

The girl who had spoken — she was closest to the door and was carrying a stack of cooky boxes which she gripped with her chin, stared at the AXEman in .puzzlement. The other three girls, all carrying boxes of cookies, also stared in polite wonderment.

The girl said: "We do not understand, sar. We are make something funny? If so we are solly. Not come to make joke — come to sell cookies for our fare back to Japan. You buy, prease. Help very much. We love your United States very much, have been here for Cherry Festival, but now with much sorrow must return to our own country. You buy cookies, prease?"

He was being rude again. As he had been with Murial Milholland. Nick wiped his eyes on the back of his dressing gown sleeve and slipped the chain. "I'm sorry, girls. Very sorry. It isn't you. It's me. This is one of my nutty mornings."

He sought for the Japanese word, tapping his temple with his finger. "Kichigai. That's me. Kichigai!"

The girls looked at each other, then back at him. None of them spoke. Nick pushed the door open. "It's all right, I promise. I'm harmless. Come in. Bring the cookies. I'll buy all of them. How much are they?" He would give Hawk a dozen boxes. Let the old man ponder that.

"One dolla box."

"That's cheap enough." He stood back as they trooped in, bringing the fragile odor of cherry blossoms with them. They were, he thought, all about fourteen or fifteen. Pretty. Nubile. All well developed for teeners, with their little breasts and buttocks bouncing and jouncing under the immaculate green uniform. The skirts, he thought as he watched them stack the cookies on a coffee table, appeared to be just a little mini for Girl Scouts. But maybe in Japan...

They were cute. So was the little Nambu pistol that suddenly appeared in the hand of the girl who had spoken. She pointed it directly at Nick Carter's flat, hard stomach.

"Put up your hands, please. Stand perfectly still. I do not wish to harm you. Kato — the door!"

One of the girls glided around Nick, keeping well away from him. The door closed softly, the lock clicked, the safety was slithered into the groove.

Well and truly conned, Nick thought. Taken. His professional admiration was genuine. It had been a masterful piece of workmanship.

"Mato — close all the drapes. Sato — you search the rest of the apartment. The bedroom especially. He may have a lady here."

"Not this morning," said Nick. "But thanks for the compliment, anyway."

The Nambu winked at him. It was a wicked little eye. "Sit down," the leader said coldly. "Sit down, please, and remain silent until you are told to speak. And do not try any tricks, Mr. Nick Carter. I know all about you. A great deal about you."

Nick went to the indicated chair. "Even to my ravenous appetite for Girl Scout cookies — at eight o'clock in the morning?"

"I said quiet! You will be permitted to talk all you like — after you have heard what I have to say."

Nick sat down. Under his breath he muttered, "Banzai!" He crossed his long legs, realized that the dressing gown was gaping and hastily closed it. The girl with the pistol noted it and smiled faintly. "No false modesty is necessary with us, Mr. Carter. We are not
really
Girl Scouts."

"If I were permitted to talk — I'd say that was beginning to dawn on me."

"Quiet!"

He shut up. He nodded wistfully toward a box of cigarettes and a lighter on a nearby taboret.

"No!"

He watched in silence. They were a most efficient little group. The door was checked again, the drapes, the room flooded with light. Kato came back to report that there was no back door. And that, Nick thought with some bitterness, had been to provide additional security. Well — nobody could win 'em all. But, if he got out of this one alive, his biggest problem was going to be keeping it quiet. Nick Carter taken in his own apartment by a bunch of Girl Scouts!

Things were quiet now. The girl with the Nambu sat opposite Nick on a sofa with the other three seated primly nearby. They were all staring at him gravely. Four little maids from school. This was a real weird
Mikado.

Nick said: "Tea, anyone?"

She didn't tell him to keep quiet and she didn't shoot him. She crossed her legs, showing a fringe of pink panty under the mini-skirt. Her legs, all their legs — now that he really noticed — were a bit more developed and shapely than those usually found on Girl Scouts. He suspected they were wearing pretty tight bras, too.

'I am Tonaka," said the girl with the Nambu pistol.

He nodded gravely. "Pleased."

"And these," she indicated the others, "are..."

"I know. Mato, Sato and Kato. The cherry blossom sisters. Glad to know you, girls."

All three of them smiled. Kato giggled.

Tonaka frowned. "It pleases you to be facetious, Mr. Carter. I wish you would not. This is a very serious matter."

Nick knew that. He could tell by the way she held the little pistol. Most professional. But he needed time. Badinage got you time — sometimes. He was trying to figure the angles. Who were they? What did they want with him? He hadn't been in Japan for over a year and as far as he knew he was clean. What then? He kept drawing blanks.

"I know," he told her. "I know it's serious. Believe me I do. It's just that I have this gallant manner in the face of certain death, and..."

The girl called Tonaka spat like a wildcat. Her eyes narrowed and she was not at all pretty. She pointed the Nambu at him like an accusing finger.

"You will be quiet again, please! I have not come all this way to make stupid jokes."

Nick sighed. Flunked again. He wondered what had ever happened to "prease?"

Tonaka fumbled in a pocket of her Girl Scout blouse. It concealed what the AXEman could see,
now
he could see, was a very well-developed left breast.

She spun a coin-like object at him, "Do you recognize that, Mr. Carter?"

He did. Instantly. He should. He had had it made in London. Had it made by an expert workman in an East End curio shop. He had given it to a man who had saved his life in an alley fight in that same East End. Carter had been very near to cashing in that night in Limehouse.

He hefted the heavy medallion in his hand. It was of gold, the size of an old-fashioned silver dollar, and inset with jade. The jade was worked into letters, forming a scroll beneath a tiny green hatchet. AXE.

The letters were:
Esto Perpetua.
Let it endure forever. The
it
had been his friendship for Kunizo Matu, his old friend and long time judo-karate teacher. Nick frowned at the medallion. That had been a long time ago. Kunizo had returned to Japan long ago. He would be an old man now.

Tonaka was watching him narrowly. The Nambu was doing the same.

Nick tossed the medallion and caught it. "Where did you get this?"

"My father gave it to me."

"Kunizo Matu is your father?"

"He is, Mr. Carter. He has spoken of you often. Since I am a child I have heard the name of the great Nick Carter. Now I come to you to ask for help. Or rather my father sends for help. He has great faith and trust in you. He is sure that you will come to help us."

Suddenly he needed a cigarette. Badly needed it. The girl permitted him to light up. The other three, solemn as owls now, stared at him with unblinking dark eyes.

Nick said: "I owe your father a debt. And we were friends. Of course I will help. I will do anything I can. But how? When? Is your father in the States?"

"He is in Japan. In Tokyo. He is old and sick now and cannot travel. That is why you must come with us at once."

He closed his eyes and squinted against the smoke, trying to get the thing straight in his mind. Ghosts from the past could be disconcerting. But a debt was a debt. He owed his life to Kunizo Matu. He would have to do everything he could. But first...

"All right, Tonaka. But first things first. One thing at a time. The first thing you can do is put away that gun. If you're Kunizo's daughter you don't need it..."

She kept the gun on him. "I think maybe I do, Mr. Carter. We will see. I will put it away when I have your promise to come to Japan to help my father. And Japan."

"But I've already told you! I will help. That's a solemn promise. Now let's stop playing cops and robbers. Put that gun away and tell me all about the trouble your father's in. I'll figure out what to do and do it as soon as I possibly can. I..."

The gun remained on his belly. Tonaka was looking not pretty again. And most impatient.

"You still do not understand, Mr. Carter. You are coming to Japan now. This minute — or at least very soon. My father's trouble will not wait. There is no time for channels or for officials to confer for the various services to consult on steps to be taken. You see that I understand something of these-matters. So does my father. He has long been in the Secret Service of my country and he knows that red tape is the same everywhere. That is why he gave me the medallion and told me to find you. To ask you to come at once. This I intend to do."

The little Nambu winked at Nick again. He was beginning to tire of the flirtation. The unholy thing about it was — she meant it. She meant every damned word of it! Now!

Nick had a thought. He and Hawk had a voice code which they sometimes used. Maybe he could warn the old man. Then they could get these Japanese cowgirls under control, get them to talk and make sense, and start the ball rolling to help his friend. Nick sighed deeply. He would just have to admit to Hawk that he had been captured by a band of nutty Girl Scouts and ask his compatriots in AXE to get him out of it. Maybe they couldn't do it. It might take the CIA. Or the FBI. Maybe the Army and Navy and Marines. He just didn't know...

He said: "All right, Tonaka. Have it your way. At once. As soon as I can get dressed and pack a suitcase. And make a phone call."

"No phone calls."

For the first time he considered taking the gun away from her. This was getting ridiculous. Killmaster should be able to take a gun away from a Girl Scout! That was the trouble — she wasn't a Girl Scout. None of them were. Because now each of the others, Kato, Sato and Mato, had reached under those trim skirts and come up with Nambu pistols. All pointed insistently at Carter.

"What's the name of your troop, girls? Death's Angels?"

Tonaka wiggled the pistol at him. "My father told me that you would have many tricks, Mr. Carter. He is sure that you will honor your promise, your friendship to him, but he warned me that you would insist on doing it in your own way. This cannot be done. It must be done
our
way — in absolute secrecy."

"But it can be," said Nick. "I have a great organization at my command. Many such, If, I need them. I did not know that Kunizo was in your Secret Service — my felicitations to him for a well-kept secret — but then he surely must know the value of organization and cooperation. They can do the work of a thousand men — and security is no problem and..."

The pistol halted him. "You are very eloquent, Mr. Carter.. And very wrong. My father understands all those things, naturally, and they are exactly what he does
not
want. Or need. As for channels — you know as well as I that you are always watched, even if routinely, and so is your organization. You cannot make a single move without someone observing and passing it on. No, Mr. Carter. No phone calls. No official help. This is a job for one man, a friend who can be trusted and who will do as my father asks without asking too many questions. You are the perfect man for the thing that must be done — and you owe a life to my father. May I have the medallion back, please."

He tossed her the medallion. "All right," he conceded. "You seem determined and you have the gun. All of you have the guns. So it looks like I go to Japan with you. Right now. I drop everything, just like that, and take off. You realize, of course, that if I just disappear there will be a worldwide alert in a matter of hours?"

Tonaka allowed herself a tiny smile. He noticed that she was almost beautiful when she smiled. "We will worry about that later, Mr. Carter."

"What about passports? Customs?"

"No problem, Mr. Carter. Our passports are in perfect order. I'm sure that you have many passports — my father assured .me that you would have. Most certainly you have a diplomatic passport that will suffice for this. Any other objections?"

"Passage? There are such things as tickets and reservations."

"All taken care of, Mr. Carter. Everything is arranged. We will be in Tokyo in a very few hours."

He was beginning to believe it. Really believe it. They probably had a space ship waiting out on the Mall. Oh, brother! Hawk was going to love this. A big mission upcoming — Nick knew the signs — and Hawk keeping him on tap until the thing was ripe and now this. There was also the minor matter of the lady, Muriel Milholland. He had a date with her tonight. The least a gentleman could do was call and...