The Bright Blue Death (1967)

  (Book 30 in the Killmaster series)

  0.9

  Dedicated to The Men of the Secret Services of the United States of America

  CHAPTER 1

  TO THE NORTH the sky flickered weirdly like a menacing storm that threatened to come down with all its fury. This flickering was like no other storm; it seemed magnified many, many times over. It was as if the cosmos had ignited of its own gases and was blowing itself out on this remote shore of the universe. As the great sheets of neon-colored flames licked the night sky in terrible silence, they struck some atavistic chord in the minds of the men in the boat, making them uneasy and stirring buried recollections of a forgotten era. These were the northern lights in an unusually colorful display for this late in the season.

  The chord it struck in the mind of the big American who stood on the plunging bow of the sloop was pure anger. Twenty minutes ago the aurora had been blotted from sight by a blanket of fog and things had been as they should. Weather reports, the best money could buy from analysis of the Tiros satellite photographs and a special U2 flight from an American base in Spain, had guaranteed thick fog on this date blanketing Northern Europe and the Southern Scandinavian countries all night long. On the strength of those reports the ancient wooden sloop had beat down the choppy, tide-wracked waters of the Kattegat for two days and nights and was finishing its clandestine trip toward its destination off the Swedish coast. The fog had been so thick you could heat and serve it to the crew. But now to the south the stars were clearly visible and in the northern sky so were the lights. Even the Swedish coast was visible, a darker line against the sky and water. Well, so much for technology in weather prediction.

  Now he stood with one hand lightly on a stay, balancing’ easily against the chop while he calculated the effects of this latest development as coldly as a riverboat gambler watching the dealer bust his flush. Finally he decided not to abort the mission. And at that moment above the sound of the waves and the keening wind in the rigging, he heard the harsh voice of the old man at the wheel.

  “I tank we coom far enough now, Mister,” he said.

  The American looked toward his companion, a younger man standing in the shadows, and shook his head negatively.

  “Espionage,” the big American said, “is just one God damned thing after another.” Them he went back to the captain.

  “Another five miles, Lars,” he said, “that was the deal. It’s a long cold swim and our air won’t hold out forever.”

  The old captain shook his head.

  “Fog is blown off, yar? No goot to come closer for me. Inside dis forbitten zone they shoot first. Yar, then talk afterwards—maybe.”

  The American could only see the lower half of the old man’s face. Lit by the light.of the binnacle compass it was seamed and grizzled by years of hardship. And at the moment it was set with the stubbornness of a man who has found a truth. The American stared at him a moment and then shrugged.

  “All right, Lars, hold her steady as she goes. We’ll need a few minutes to get into the gear.”

  “Yar,”. the Swede said noncommittly. The big American beckoned to his younger companion and they both went below. Together they checked the gear laid out neatly in the cabin. It had, of course, been checked out half a dozen times before but the big American went over it again as carefully as if he had bought it at dockside-from a particularly untrustworthy merchant. Eventually he appeared satisfied. The young crew-cut American watched the actions of the bigger one carefully, almost with awe.

  The dim light of the single cabin lamp illuminated the older man’s features with the harsh contrasts of an old woodcut. It showed a face that might have belonged to a Renaissance princeling. In the shadows the stronger features flourished. Courage, strength, resolution and intelligence dominated. A suggestion of humor about the eyes, a sensual mouth and a grace and quickness were also there. The face belonged to a man named Nick Carter, better known to the secret services of the world as N3, Killmaster.

  “One thing, N3,” the young American said. “We’re still outside the sub nets at the channel mouth.”

  The older man nodded as if the problem were trifling. He wasn’t really much older than his crew-cut companion but his face made the difference. The face seemed about a thousand years Older and had a strength of character that the younger one might never acquire.

  “We’ll go under them, Chet,” he said finally. “You’ve made a lot deeper dives than that. We don’t have much choice. Old Lars is getting scared and I don’t much blame him. Without the fog to cover him he’s a sitting duck.” The young man nodded.

  For some time afterwards there was silence as they donned the complex diving gear. Then they mounted the companionway, balancing between steps against the sway and surge of the old sloop. Outside the night was clear but rough, with the Wind blowing the tops of waves into a driving spray. As soon as they emerged on deck the old Swedish skipper brought the sloop up into the wind as a sign that he wasn’t going another cable length further into the forbidden zone. The boat lost way, bobbing and rolling in the heavy chop, the sails cracking like rifle fire.

  “Good luck, lads,” Lars said. He watched them make their final preparations without much curiosity.

  “Same to you, old-timer,” the big man said. “Don’t spend all those dollars on one woman.”

  “Har, har,” the Swede laughed.. “I tank I too old for dat now.”

  “Never too old,” the American said cheerfully. “I wouldn’t put it past you an inch. And another thing. Don’t try to sell those anti-radar boxes for another couple of months or you’ll end up in jail for sure.”

  The younger American shuffled impatiently. All this fooling around when there was a mission under way. Nick Carter concealed a smile. He’ll learn, Nick thought.

  “I bane in jail before,” the Swede laughed. “I tank I rather go to jail than go with you. Dey put you on top of atomic bomb and shoot you off to da moon, I’m tinking, har, har.”

  He laughed as if he’d made a great joke. He was still laughing when the Americans hit the water. A few seconds later the sail of the sloop filled and the old man’s laughter was drowned by the hissing of the wind and the Americans were alone in the water.

  It took them a minute or two to adjust themselves to the big battery-driven sea scooters that would pull them through the water much faster than they could swim. The young American watched the sky and spoke in a queer flat voice.

  “Geez, they oughata label this ‘Operation Science Fiction’ instead of ‘Operation Bernadotte’ or whatever it is. First this weird mission and then take a look at those lights,” he said, pointing at the. sky. “It’s kinda like a preview of the last day or something.”

  Nick answered with a short, kindly obscenity. He understood the younger man’s reaction to the strangeness of the night and the mission but it would be a great deal better for both of them if they kept their minds strictly on the details of the work ahead without complicating it with psychological factors. Nick gave the go sign and without any further words the two men dived and set out on the last leg of their long trip toward the forbidden island.

  Musko, Sweden, an island of granite, was one of thousands of such granite skerries, islands and peninsulas along Sweden’s ragged south coast On the island was a city! And the city had everything other cities had and a bit more-—garages, theatres, hotels, offices, manufacturing plants, etc., and even an air base with army and navy installations. The only difference was that everything was underground, buried beneath the granite’of the island, safe from anything but a direct hit with a hydrogen warhead and perhaps even from that.

  While other nations spent their millions searching for the biggest bombs for their bucks or rambles for their rubles, the men who guided Sweden’s affairs had set newly developed, high-speed drills to work after World War II and had turned the rock wilderness of their south coast into a haven where a whole population might find refuge from the terrible realities of the nuclear age. It was estimated that in the event of holocaust and if the new experiment worked, as many as ninety per cent of Sweden’s people would find refuge in the vast underground cities, of which this was the first, and that after waiting months until the air was again clean, Sweden would emerge with its people, prosperity and technology still intact.

  Of course other nations had “hardened” command posts and missile sites; but nothing for civilians. Only the Swedes had solved the vast psychological problems, the ventilation problems, the storage problems and a million others to make the network of under-rock cities a reality.

  And then, suddenly, betrayal. A high-ranking Swedish officer, one Colonel Wennerstrom, had defected to the Russians with vital information concerning Musko and its defenses. The relocation of the defenses had cost millions. And for the first time, the Swedes were uneasy with their underground refuge; they realized that it had an Achilles heel.

  Since then sophisticated jet fighter planes on constant alert could be scrambled from the bowels of the earth in a matter of seconds to investigate or blast an intruder. A dozen different radar systems scanned the surrounding sea and sky, and the pine-clad slopes could open like something out of science fiction to release destroyers that lurked in underground harbors, cleared for action against any vessel that ventured inside the well-marked “Forbidden Zones.”

  Since the Wennerstrom affair, the Swedes were playing for keeps.

  Nick Carter was well aware of all this
as he moved smoothly through the black water off Musko. It was impossible for anyone to get inside the zone by accident. If they did—well, the results might be regrettable but what was one life compared with the future of a nation, perhaps of mankind. So reasoned the Swedes.

  Nevertheless, Nick had laid his bet as follows: He would undertake to infiltrate the subterranean island fortress despite the best efforts of Swedish security and military forces to stop him. All Nick asked was a free hand to operate, certain equipment and another agent of his own choosing.

  To Hawk, the lean, tough old man who was head of AXE, the United States’ highest and most secret intelligence agency, Nick had remarked, “Man has built nothing that another good man can’t get into or out of if he wants to badly enough. At least that’s my experience.” And his experience was considerable.

  Hawk. had looked thoughtfully at his top agent, the man they called Killmaster, and chomped down hard on the end of the dead cigar that hung from his thin lips, saying, “Change it to a good man stands a chance of getting in or out and I’ll buy it. Still,” he added dryly, “I’d hate to lose a man of your ability and experience just trying to prove a point. The Explorers Club is down the street if it’s adventure you seek. If the Swedes have security problems, why not let them solve them themselves?”

  “How about NORAD?” Nick asked softly.

  “Mmmmm,” said Hawk and shifted the cigar from one Side of his mouth to the other. “How about NORAD is right.” He thought it over. Both men were aware that the North American Air Defense headquarters, the nerve center of America’s air defense umbrella, was cut into a mountain in Colorado similar to the Musko setup. If Musko could be infiltrated, the same technique could be “used to infiltrate and eventually neutralize NORAD, leaving America utterly defenseless from attack by air. The thought was chilling.

  “Give me a list of what you’ll need and pick the agent you want to go with you,” Hawk had said finally.

  Nick had picked Chet, a seasoned agent with an engineering degree and expertise in speleology and underground navigation. Separately they had arrived in a small Swedish. fishing village and set up headquarters. Then Nick had set out to learn everything there was to know about the military civil defense establishment at Musko. Both were expert intelligence men. As they worked and talked and studied, a picture of the Musko base began to take shape.

  Among the other things they learned was that their mission wasn’t as theoretical as it had appeared when first proposed by the Swedish military attache in Washington. There were rumors. … As professionals the AXEmen put Utile stock in unconfirmed rumors but at embassy cocktail parties and informal gatherings of newsmen one was given to understand that top Swedish security was worried that a certain nameless Asian country, bordered by Russia and the China Sea, had a deep and active interest in Musko and its sister cities under rock. Some officials even suspected that infiltration was going on right now….

  Far below the tormented surface of the Baltic, the sea scooter drew the two AXEmen steadily toward Musko. From time to time as he swam, Nick flashed the beam of a powerful electric torch ahead of him. There was a chance that a patrolling aircraft might spot the light but it was one that he had to take. Presently the submarine net appeared in the beam like a strange undersea spider-Web.

  Nick signaled the other AXEman. Of course he could cut the net, that would be the quickest way, but when the strands parted they would activate a light on a control board ashore that would reveal their positions exactly. Much the same would happen if they swam over the tops of the nets—they would break a photo-electric beam. Killmaster had thoroughly researched modern basic security setups. Nick knew the only way into the city unobserved was through the net.

  The two AXE agents surfaced briefly to talk things over.

  “How are you doing, Chet?” Nick asked.

  “It ain’t Bahamas waters but then we’ve done ten times harder than this in the old Purge tank.”

  He was referring to the so-called torture survival school that each AXE agent endured periodically in order to ready himself for the rigors of upcoming missions.

  “Okay,” Nick nodded approval. “This will be deep and tiring but as you say we’ve done lots tougher.” He checked the radium dial of his watch. “There’s no need to hurry but let’s not waste any time either. Take it easy and steady and in twenty minutes we’ll be knocking at the Swedes’ back door.”

  The younger man grinned in the darkness and then they started down, using the web of the sub nets to guide them. The water became steadily colder as they descended through the inky blackness, fathom after fathom. Nick kept an eye on his depth indicator. Just over two hundred feet down the edge of the net was waiting… . deeper, deeper … what was that?

  A golden stiletto, its blade bright and the handle embossed with the finest of ancient workmanship. It didn’t say “For the bravest” or have his initials on it but Nick knew it was for him. Then a hand reached out to take the dagger. Nick recognized the face behind it. Others reached out and these faces too were familiar.

  Popes and kings and generals from the bloody pages of history strove for the enchanted stiletto but a great presence forbid them; the dagger was for Nick Carter, Killmaster. Nick seized the weapon and was delighted with its perfect balance and fine workmanship. A fierce joy enveloped him, an electric excitement ran through him. Suddenly, an aurora dazzled his eyes, a great flashing jewel in the murky depths. Out of it appeared women, all the women of the world, whose bodies undulated just beyond his reach and they cried out to him with murmurs of passion—all the women he had ever known from sultry nights at the edge of hot Caribbean breakers to cool evenings with lovely white bodies that served his pleasure with sobs of joy in European cities. Nick was wild with happiness. Everything in the world seemed to come roaring together to center in him. He wanted more than anything else to swim immediately to the surface with the magic stiletto and make off with the secret of its power.

  A man nearby laughed sardonically. The man pointed out that to do so would mean a lingering and sublimely agonizing death from the bends of drowning—odds of six to five, you pick ‘em. Nick was mildly surprised to see that the laughing man was himself. His own mind, cold and detached, was telling him that he was showing exaggerated symptoms of nitrogen narcosis, les ivresses des grandes profondeurs as the French called it. It had happened to him on every deep dive he had ever made and would on every one he ever would make. The deep dive affected the composition of his blood and the blood affected his brain. The second man told him the rapture of the depths would pass shortly and he would once again be a hardnosed AXE operative instead of some strange submarine mystic. Even now the giddiness and delusions were wearing off, and although Nick had experienced the symptoms many times, he had never felt them as strongly as this before. With a rueful grin at the glimpse of his subconscious that the nitrogen narcosis had produced, Nick turned to check out the other AXEman’s reaction to the depths. What he saw jolted him into action. Nick saw the pale, exultant face of a madman. Death was written on the young AXEman’s gaping face.

  Chet was still deep within the grips of the nitrogen narcosis. His mask was off and a trail of bubbles led from his mouth toward the surface. His sea scooter cut elaborate arabesques through the blackness, weaving up and down and around. As the light from Nick’s beam fell on him a sly, taunting look came into Chet’s eyes. Before Nick could catch him and jam the air tubes back into his mouth he dodged and shot out of range, tearing out of Nick’s clutching grasp to stop a short distance away.

  Nick tried again, tried desperately, edging up closer, hoping the momentarily deranged AXEman would hold still for a few seconds longer so Nick might save his life. But some drunken impulse in the other man’s mind jolted him to his doom—the sea scooter turned and sped away into the darkness. The sleds were identical models, evenly matched for speed. The man was surely dead by now. Nick could only watch the sea scooter with its macabre burden as it bore steadily away into the black vault of the Baltic.

  A shiver that had little to do with the cold of the water chilled the spine of the surviving American. It was a well-known phenomenon that divers under the grip of the delirium of the depths had an urge to take off their masks. It usually passed and was always controllable. Almost always, Nick amended grimly. Chet’s remark just after going into the water had indicated his. state of mind. Perhaps he should have foreseen…