The Code (6 page)

When I heard the noise, I wheeled away from her. I hit the switch on the wall and threw on the light at the back door. The yard lay silent. I stepped outside with the Luger ready and listened, testing the air like a hound on the hunt. Something was wrong. I felt it. Sheila had rented a house on a dead end street. Her nearest neighbors were too far away to hear anything less than an explosion. Their lighted windows formed small orange squares in the dense shadows far down the street. Sheila had wanted privacy, but privacy could be a trap. I thought of how easy it would be for someone to corner us here.

The telephone jangled inside. I backed to the door and bolted it, then moved quickly through the kitchen and into the living room. I snatched the receiver off the cradle.

A crisp, efficient female voice said, "Hold the line, N3. Mr. Hawk is coming on."

"What's up, Nick?" he asked.

"I have that package you sent me to pick up. I'm ready to deliver it."

"You got results fast."

"I had some help. Is the Denver location okay?"

"Take her there. I'll call ahead and make the arrangements for you. What's the nature of your opposition, Nick?"

"I can t give you a clear rundown on that yet. But the heat is intense. I believe we may be dealing with two different groups," I said. "Meredith has dropped out."

"Then we shouldn't be wasting time talking. Get out of there." He slammed his receiver down.

"If you want to take any belongings with you, pack them," I told Sheila. "We're leaving. Everything is going to be A-Okay."

"You really believe that, Ned?"

"Of course I do. And I'm a damn good prophet." I was trying to bolster her nerve. Actually, I wouldn't fee! safe until we were surrounded by people I trusted.

"There was another question you should have asked me. When are you going to get around to it?"

"I thought I'd let you tell me your own way," I said.

"All right. Maybe you've wondering why Abruze's killers want me alive? The answer is, they think I have the $200,000."

While she packed, I stood at a front window and watched the dark street through a crack in the blinds. I saw no cars, no lights, no movement. The sound I'd heard earlier could have been a stray dog or cat, a motor coughing in the distance, a dozen things. But my uneasiness persisted.

Sheila stayed in the bedroom too long. I clicked the blind shut and crossed to the bedroom door. I turned the knob and opened the door on darkness.

Wondering why she had turned off the light, I shoved the door wider with my foot. "Sheila?"

"I'm waiting for you, Ned."

Light from the room behind me fell across the bed where she lay. Her nude body was a white blur against the bed's blue cover.

"There's one more thing to be attended to," she said. "Come here and make love to me, darling."

She was beautiful, a work of art.

"It won't take long, sweetheart," she said, her voice low and husky. "I'm so hot I'm burning on a short fuse."

She was blonde all the way, the genuine article. One sleek leg curled and she turned on her side and held out her arms. The light coming through the open door caressed her full breasts.

"For God's sake, Ned, put that gun down and come here."

I took two steps toward her, walking the band of light like an alley cat walking a fence. I could make out only the vague shapes of furniture in shadowed corners of the room. The bathroom door to my left was closed, the windows curtains drawn. Some women liked to make love in pitch black, but I didn't think Sheila would be one of them. A warning was ticking steadily at the back of my mind as I reached the bed.

"I told you this could wait," I said.

"Later may be too late."

Her voice could have changed slightly, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was only imagining there was a message in her words.

I stood over her. I could hear her breathing. Harsh, excited. I ran one hand over her breasts and there was perspiration on them. I touched her lean belly with my fingertips and I could feel her trembling. I realized how tightly she was holding herself in.

"Yeah," I said, still touching her. "I guess we should do it now."

I felt the muscles in her belly leap in tension as she pulled in a deep, frightened breath. That, too, was a warning, as much as she could give me.

In less time than it would have required to turn around and take a step back toward the door, I thought it out. Sheila was playing a role and she was playing it well because her life depended on it. There was an intruder in the dark bedroom.

Wondering where he was, I glanced around. At the same time, for the benefit of my hidden audience, I said, "You're very persuasive, baby. Tell me again how much you want me to come to bed with you."

"You know how much, Ned." She tried to make her voice playful.

There was a lamp on the bedside table near me, but if I tugged the cord, the sudden burst of light might blind me long enough to get me killed. I ruled that out.

"Shed your clothes, darling," Sheila purred. "Then I'll tell you all sorts of things you'll like."

"I'll bet," I said.

She had been told to get me undressed, and that was not bad thinking on the part of my hidden adversary. A man seldom hangs onto a firearm while he's peeling off his drawers.

Reaching down to Sheila, I slid my hand under the small of her back and raised her off the bed, sank my mouth into the pit of her throat. My lips grazed up to her ear and I whispered, "Where is he?"

He was so close that he heard even the whisper. He rose up from a crouch on the other side of the bed.

I threw the naked girl aside and plucked the Luger from its holster, but I didn't get a chance to fire. A second man sprang on me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides.

I hadn't counted on doing battle with a team.

"Hold him," the big man on the other side of the bed grunted to his friend.

Driving my heel back, I caught the man behind me on the shin and he cursed, but I failed to break his hold. He knew what he was doing.

The big man scrambled across the bed and hit me in the face with a .357 Magnum. He was strong. The blow tore my lip, loosened teeth, laced a cut in my cheek.

I brought up my foot, lashing for the big man's groin, but he anticipated the move and danced away. He was as fast on his feet as a boxer.

To my surprise, he laughed. "Looks like we got us a handful, Jake."

Jake was grunting, trying to hold me. I spun around and slammed him into the bedside table. The lamp crashed to the floor, but Jake hung on.

The big man moved in and hit me again. I felt as though I'd collided with a wall.

"Don't kill him," I heard Sheila crying. "Please don't kill him."

The bathroom door opened and another man entered the bedroom. My knees had sagged under me when the big man hit me the second time. My head was ringing. I gulped air and lunged backward driving Jake into the bedpost. He grunted in pain and I snapped his hold and brought my Luger up.

The third man came in on me from the side and cracked a gun barrel against my head. I staggered sideways, dropped the Luger, and would have fallen if my hands hadn't encountered the big man's coat. I felt cloth tear as I caught hold.

"Damn it, that's the limit," he said. He hit me so hard with his fist that I left my feet, landed on the floor on my shoulders, and skidded against the wall.

I tried to get up and couldn't. I was losing consciousness.

Fighting out of a pit of black, I slitted my eyes. I couldn't guess how long I had been out cold, but I was still in the bedroom, lying on my belly on the floor.

The intruders had pulled my jacket off my shoulders and down my arms to bind them and then they had tied my wrists behind me with strips of sheet. My feet were tied in the same manner. I moved my hands enough to determine that they had done a thorough job. I wouldn't be slipping out of my bonds.

"You got yourself a tough cookie here, doll," the big man said. I recognized his gravel voice. He padded toward me and prodded a foot in my side to see if I was still unconscious. I let him think I was.

"Leave him alone," Sheila said. "It isn't his fault he happened to be here when you came."

The big man laughed. He had a weird sense of humor. Cracking my eyes again, I watched him turn away from me. Without moving my head and giving myself away, I could see only his feet and legs. The legs, clad in dark cotton trousers, looked the size of railroad ties. He was wearing sneakers on his feet.

"We had a hard time finding you, doll, but now that we're back together again, it's going to be fun and games. Do you still love me?" From the scuffle of feet and the sound of Sheila spitting like a cat, I guessed that the man had touched her. Laughing, he said, "You'll get friendlier. Before the night's over, you'll be a lot friendlier."

It sounded like a threat.

"I helped you to surprise him. Doesn't that count for something?" Sheila asked.

"Don't con me, doll. You played that sexy little scene to perfection because you knew any slip-up would have got your boyfriend a big hole in the gut." His voice grew more serious. "You hung up on him? You dig the citizen, doll?"

"No. I just don't want him killed for nothing."

She was still playing a role, gambling for my life.

Cautiously I shifted my narrowed gaze, trying to locate the big man's companions. I spotted one of them to my right, squatting on the floor. Like the big man, he wore dark clothing and sneakers. A stocking was drawn over his head, distorting his features. I remembered that Hawk had said the killers I was looking for were cold, efficient professionals. This man and the giant with the gravel voice certainly warranted the description.

They had come to the house prepared to enter it without alarming the occupants. Except for the one faint sound I'd heard, the sound I'd been unable to pin down, they had succeeded. I assumed they'd come in through the bathroom window, probably slitting the screen and lifting it out. They'd seized Sheila when she entered the bedroom and then they'd forced her to strip off her clothing, and ordered her to lure me into the bed and off guard.

The man squatting nearby had searched my pockets and dumped their contents on the floor. He combed through them with his hand, pushing aside what failed to interest him. He looked my AXE lighter over and shoved it into his trousers pocket. Flipping open my wallet, he examined my identification. He appropriated the money and tossed the wallet over his shoulder. "Hey, Moose, catch."

"Ned Harper," the big man said, reading my driver's license. He chuckled. "According to this, he's a truck driver. How many truck drivers pack Lugers in shoulder holsters?"

I analyzed the conversation. These men didn't know I was an AXE agent, so they weren't associated with the assassin at the hotel. For the same reason, they probably weren't responsible for Meredith's murder. That confirmed my theory that I was dealing with two different sets of antagonists.

Sheila said, "I can't tell you why he carried a gun. I only met him today. He talked to me in the restaurant. I liked his style, so I let him bring me home."

"Needed a little sex, did you?"

"I haven't had any lately," she told Moose defiantly. "I've been too busy running from you to live a normal life."

I wriggled my arm furtively, seeing if I could disengage the stiletto up my sleeve. No chance. They hadn't pulled my jacket down far enough to reveal the knife's hiding place, but they had accidentally succeeded in blocking its use.

"This bird's no truck driver," said the man squatted near me. "All this stuff says he is, but 111 lay you odds he's not. You saw how he handled himself."

"Maybe the Mob sent him. That would be a laugh." The big man walked over to me and leaned down. He turned me over and rocked my face with slaps.

Gasping as though I was just regaining consciousness, I opened my eyes wide. I saw a face masked by a stocking, wide shoulders, a neck like a bull's. The hand that grasped my shirt front would have made two of mine and mine weren't small.

The stocking bit had puzzled me at first. Why did they conceal their features when Sheila obviously knew them well? Then I'd realized that they hadn't known who else they would encounter when they broke into the house. The masks were another precaution that labeled them as experts at their trade.

"How you feeling, stud?" the big man asked me.

My hair was damp with blood seeping from a cut near my ear and my head was throbbing with pain. When I spoke, my swelling lip made my voice sound as though I wore a boxer's mouthpiece. "I feel great."

The big man reached inside his coat, pulled his gun out of his belt, and rammed it against my Adam's apple, causing me to gasp. "I've got a crowded schedule and I can only spare you a minute. Are you a hit man? Did the Mob send you here with a contract on the blonde?"

Struggling to draw an even breath, I glanced toward Sheila, who was huddled in a chair, still nude but with the remains of a ripped sheet clutched to her, partly concealing her body. Her fragile face was pale, the dark eyes filled with fright. She was worried not only about herself but about me.

"Speak up or you've had it," Moose told me.

"Yes," I said hoarsely.

Moose nodded and released my shirt front, let me fall. "Hear that, Sheila? You're in trouble with the Mafia."

"You're the one who murdered Abruze."

"But they don't know that. They only know you were there and you didn't get killed, so you must have fingered him." Moose laughed loudly.

The third man appeared in the bedroom doorway. He was dressed like the others. "I pulled all the blinds and made a quick check of the house. The money doesn't seem to be here."

"If it is, she hid it well. Sheila's a bright girl. Aren't you, doll?"