This was all very well, but Nick was after a paymaster, the man who made the worldwide empire work. What he had gone to so much expense and trouble to get seemed to have turned out to be nothing more than a routine courier’s bag. He turned his attention to the first microfilm, the one that had only the written number. It was too short to be a meaningful cipher; Nick was ready to bet on that. It was a damned shame that Via Veneto hippie hadn’t led him to the rest of the outfit.

  He lay stripped bare on the bed and concentrated. No one had told him it was going to be easy. Unless Hawk and his slide-rule battalion were all wrong, the man Nick had seen putting the bag into the locker at Rome Airport was a paymaster, not a courier. The bag should have been stuffed with yen or gold doubloons. But on the way back from Ostia with the key to the locker Nick had found the locker open and empty, a new key in the slot, and the locker ready for occupancy.

  That hadn’t surprised him much. The bag man might well have been watched. Or when he didn’t arrive on time, the organization, knowing that there was an American agent on the scene, had gone back to the airport and cleared out the locker of the incriminating evidence. So Nick was left only with the puzzle of the numbered microfilm.

  He stuck it up under the corner of the mirror and stared at it. What were numbers good for? Checking accounts? The treasury balance? A parlay that would win the daily double? That was out, it was too paranoiac. It would mean that half of Italy was helping the Chicom conspiracy—jockeys, trainers, race officials—it had to be something more sophisticated.

  In the end it was the thought of his friend Durand at the Swiss Bank that turned Nick’s mind toward the answer. A numbered account in an ever-so-discreet Swiss bank. No questions were asked about deposits or withdrawals as long as you knew the number. The method had many advantages over any other way of paying off spies. There was no currency to be carried around, with its attendant risks; no checking accounts that could be discreetly looked into by government authorities; and, if you were in the business of buying government officials, your official wouldn’t need to show a huge and unaccountable jump in his bank balance. He could pick it up from the Swiss bank at any time in the future when the heat was off.

  You discreetly reward your informants with a number. What could be simpler? That was why the paymaster made the trip himself instead of calling or writing—two notoriously insecure methods of communication, since the number might be intercepted.

  Now that he knew the plan all Nick had to do was find out who the paymaster was. If he were lucky he might catch him at the next airport or the one after that. Of course if he were unlucky the paymaster would kill him first.

  Greatly cheered, Nick went to dinner alone and afterward sat out on the Via Veneto where he Was almost sure to be discovered by some member of the party. Within fifteen minutes he was hailed by the stubby sunburned figure of Pecos Smith, striding bowlegged in a tweed suit and keeping an ancient eye fixed on the pasta-fed behinds that slid so smoothly under silk dresses and tight slacks. With him-was his friend Fairbanks and Frank Baxter—Captain Smiley—whom Nick could hardly think of without a grin.

  “Amigo,” Pecos said in an amiable roar, “Godalmighty ah’m glad to see you. We all thought you might a’ been kidnapped in one o’ those dens up in Paree. Yuh can’t tell what’ll happen next with all these furriners around.”

  It turned out that the old desert rat had been carried away by his memories of the good times in Paris ‘after the Armistice in ‘18 and had stood champagne for the bar in the Crazy Horse in Paris and later had gone home with two twenty-year-old blondes from the chorus. There had been quite a party which Pecos did not remember the end of and then a sad morning when he woke up to find his wallet empty beside him on the floor and the revelers vanished.

  “If you hate foreigners so much,” Nick asked Pecos, “why did you come on this trip in the first place? You’ve been unhappy about everything since we took off from Kennedy.”

  Pecos gave him a friendly wink.

  “I’ll tell you why, son. This trip is a memorial to mah partner Coyote, dead and gone these twenty-five years or more. Ah never knew whether to believe the little runt or not, but he alius claimed to be the illegitimate son of Diamond Jim Brady. He had his heart set on making a strike bigger ‘n anything his paw ever made and tourin’ the capitals o’ the world puttin’ his father’s splendor to shame, so that in the end the old man would admit that Coyote was his rightful son and heir. Wal, Coyote never made that strike and ah didn’t neither. But the chance come along to take this trip and ah recollected all those nights we’d he awake with a bottle o’ red eye up in the high Sierras or in the sultry heat of the South American jungle and ah just up and said to myself…

  “That’s a touching story, Pecos,” Nick laughed. “You won’t mind if I don’t believe a word of it.”

  “Son, ah swear if it warn’t for old Coyote I’d be wild-cattin’ yet. An’ that’s what you oughta be doin’ too, son. This sellin’ bonds or whatever you do ain’t fit work for a husky fellow like you. Go out West where a man can tear a fortune from the earth with his bare hands… .”

  “Like you did, Pecos,” said Baxter. His tone was joshing but there was an unpleasant look in his eyes.

  “Wal, at least ah never made ma livin’ wearin’ funny hats and lettin’ sticky-fingered little tots snap mah false beard against mah chin,” Pecos snapped.

  “Hey, how about that beard?” Baxter mumbled. He was very drunk. He leaned over, reaching out for the white glory of Pecos’ mustache. “Le’s jus’ see if it snaps too… .”

  “Ah wouldn’t do that, friend. There’s men on Boot Hill who tried less than that.”

  Despite the theatricality of the statement, for one moment in the liquid Roman night the bronzed little old-timer in the odd tweed suit was no longer a charming anachronism. His voice carried authority and his ice-blue eyes glittered. Nick realized that in another world not so long ago, Pecos would have been a very good man to have on your side and an ugly customer to go against.

  Baxter caught the seriousness of Pecos’ voice and dropped the idea.

  “Perhaps Pecos will have better luck tonight than he did at the Crazy Horse,” Kirby Fairbanks put in placatingly. “As you probably know, we’ve all been invited to a party at the villa of the Contessa Fabiani. Let’s hope that Pecos’ native charm will prevail upon the decadent Roman women and they will let him keep his wallet for himself.”

  Mick looked curiously at the tall, redheaded man. He was an odd companion for the exuberant Pecos. For that matter the whole group came close to being the oddest bunch of Americans who had ever gathered on the Via Veneto.

  There was a stop at Michael’s Irish Pub to collect other guests, including Tracy Vanderlake, whose surprise and relief at seeing Nick in one piece was concealed by a heavily feigned sarcasm.

  “How was your day at the office, dear gruesome?”

  “Trading was light to moderate,” Nick grinned, “with a certain key issue advancing several points.”

  “Small arms and ammunition among the leaders, I’ll bet,” she said. “I suppose you know I’ve been worried sick about you.”

  “Don’t worry about the old firm—it weathers all storms,” Nick said, kissing her tempting cheek. “Let’s just have fun tonight.”

  “Oh, dear, who are you going to stab now?”

  “That,” he said, firmly taking her arm and leading her off into a corner, “was not what I meant by fun.” He leered dramatically and was rewarded by seeing her flush to the roots of her blonde hair.

  The contessa’s villa sat high on a hill overlooking the still Mediterranean a couple of miles from where Nick had run the blue Renault off the road. If anyone had seen him or recognized the Ford, Nick could have been in for trouble. But after fifteen minutes among the embassy types, minor European nobility, and well-connected tourists who filled the contessa’s garden, Nick decided that it would be hard to pick him out as the driver of the American car.

  Waiters bearing trays of spumante passed through a garden lit with Japanese lanterns. Couples danced on the board floor. Sometime later he heard a feminine voice say, “It’s a sad thing about the contessa’s nephew. But of course everybody knew he was involved in the rackets.”

  Nick wasn’t very interested in the contessa’s black sheep nephew but the next remark made him strain his ears. “Still,” a masculine voice replied, “it’s very gallant of her not to have canceled this party, with her favorite nephew rubbed out by gangsters this very afternoon and practically on her own beach.”

  The girl laughed. “Oh, she wouldn’t miss her birthday parties even if she knew she were going to be murdered herself. All the same, it is very sad.” The couple, moved off. Maybe the contessa wouldn’t miss the party, but Nick Carter damn well would. Where the hell had Tracy gotten to? It was time to find her and get out of here. He wanted no part of this family that was involved somehow in the Chinese Global Espionage Network. Chance had landed him right in the hornet’s nest. Or was it chance? He made a note to find out who had arranged for the International Studies Group to be invited to this bacchanal. He worked his way through the party and caught sight of her svelte figure among a group of people surrounding an old lady in a wheelchair. Damn, Nick thought. The contessa. Tracy called Nick before he could catch her eye. He had no choice but to go over. The. contessa sat in a wheelchair attended by a muscular nurse in evening dress. She was well past eighty. Her pale sunken face was offset by eyes that burned feverishly out of sunken sockets. The evening gown she wore on her flat desiccated chest was worth a small fortune, Nick noted automatically. It seemed odd, because he had heard that the contessa was not particularly well to do. These birthday parties she threw were her one social effort for the year and a great burden to the family.

  “Darling,” Tracy bubbled, “the contessa is telling fortunes. She says that soon I am to be made marvelously happy by a mysterious dark-haired man.”

  Nick turned to see the old woman with the burning eyes staring directly at him with a look so intense that Nick had the feeling she somehow knew that he was the man Who had shot her favorite nephew that afternoon,

  “Come, signore,” she barked imperiously, “yours is the only hand which I have not read. Give me your hand.” The cracked old voice made it sound as if she were asking for his head instead of his hand.

  “Scusi, signora,” Nick said, smiling, “I am in a terrible hurry. Perhaps another time….” The old eyes continued to regard him, steadily and a small smile curled the thin lips.

  “Give me your hand, dottore, and I will tell you what makes you hurry so earnestly.” It was a request but there seemed to be scorn there too. The people around the contessa stopped laughing. To refuse would have drawn more attention that Nick wanted. Hopefully the old bitch would run through her mumbo jumbo quickly and he could get out of there. She took his hand in her dry old claw and bent her burning eyes on it in silence. The silence lingered. Nick kept a fixed smile on his face while the old woman pretended to read bis palm.

  “Your hand speaks well for you, dottore,” the old lady said at last. “It is not the hand of the young men of today. It is the hand of a man of action, an intelligent, forceful man, a man of violence. But perhaps you don’t understand Italy or Italians. You don’t understand their grief, their suffering.”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, Nick said under his breath. Spit it out, lady, I don’t have all night. If she was so broken up about her nephew, what was she . doing here passing out expensive booze to all these freeloaders?

  “. . you hurry now,” she said, “but where? Where do we all hurry in this, world… .” Her voice had adopted a chanting, whiny quality. She was still talking when the lights went out. Girls shrieked with surprise. Men’s voices “what-the-helled.” Nick automatically pulled his hand away and was surprised to find that the old woman resisted his effort with amazing strength. He pulled again and this time his hand came free. He heard Tracy shout and then her voice was choked off.

  Strong arms enclosed his shoulders. As he struggled to get away, something hard caught him low on the back of the skull. The blow sent colored lights skyrocketing into his brain, but he had been moving away when it hit him and it dazed rather than stunned him. He let himself go limp in his captor’s arms, then suddenly exploded with all the strength in his battle-hardened body. The man holding him was taken by surprise as Nick turned from an unconscious dead weight into over two hundred pounds of well-conditioned fury. In a second he was free.

  “Marco, you fool,” he heard the contessa snap. “Fetch the others.”

  To the people at the party it would sound as if she were overseeing the restoration of the fights, but to Nick it was a deadly threat. A pistol went off with a loud report. The women began to scream in earnest.

  “Take me to the house, quickly,” the contessa rasped.

  Nick hit the man who had been holding him hard in the stomach. The man grunted. Nick followed up with two more swift, piledriving blows that destroyed any further resistance. The man went down and Nick let him have a final tranquilizer in the form, of a right cross that shattered bones. In a moment Nick’s eyes adjusted themselves to the dark. He saw the contessa being wheeled up the path toward the ramshackle old villa and another form, a man, carrying something over his shoulder; Tracy? In a moment they were all lost among the trees.

  Nick sprinted across the lawn after them and ran into a big man directly blocking his path. The big man struck first, a right hand that bounced off Nick’s head. Then Nick shrugged off the punch and slipped underneath his guard, slamming in mankilling punches with the deadly speed of a striking cobra. The man gasped and collapsed in front of him. It was big Jack Johnson, the ex-All American and sports announcer.

  Nick had only a moment to make note of this fact. Then he raced up the path to the villa. Lights went on— the villa was ablaze with light. Nick took the steps at a bound and found himself in the main hall. Somewhere above him footsteps pounded and a door slammed. Nick made for the stairs, gun in hand, and rushed up past dark canvases by Tintoretto and other old masters, black with age. Ahead of him on the landing he saw more high-ceilinged rooms, doors disappearing into doors.

  A man appeared in one of the rooms, an athletic, Stocky figure with a shaved bullet head and a criminal’s face. He caught sight of Nick rushing toward him and a revolver appeared from the waistband of his slacks. Then it clattered to the floor as Nick’s Luger spoke harshly in the dim light. The man sagged in death. Nick sprinted past the dead man without breaking his stride.

  Tracy was in one of the anterooms on an ancient couch, her hands and feet hastily bound with lengths of curtain. Nick reached her in two quick steps. His stiletto slashed her free of her bonds, and she followed him on bare feet as he went to the edge of the room to reconnoiter.

  “What happened, darling, or shouldn’t I ask right now? Did we stumble into a branch office of the Mafia?” she gasped.

  “I made a mistake,” Nick said curtly. “Right now we’re getting out of here.”

  Together they ran down the dimly lit pictured galleries, the shadows seemingly reaching out for them or luring them toward an ambush. At each corner there was a choice of routes. They heard the raised voices of their pursuers in another wing of the villa. At the end of the last staircase, after innumerable wrong turns, Nick and Tracy emerged in a courtyard. By the light of a single carriage lamp Nick could see cracked walls overgrown with vines and a single gate leading off to the darkness of a crumbling archway. The gate seemed to lure them on toward its menacing darkness of interlacing trees. But Nick was reluctant. He paused on the step. He had never liked blind alleys. Tracy ran ahead, her white legs flashing down the cracked marble steps. She was halfway across the old courtyard before she turned to Nick, her eyes frightened and inquiring.

  Mck heard a rustle of leaves over his head and spun on his heels, bringing his Luger up. His shot shattered the sultry night and a pistol dropped from among the vines on the cracked marble rail of the balcony. Immediately afterward a small man in a black suit fell like a sack of old clothes to smash his head .on the concrete.

  Tracy screamed and grabbed Nick. Nick had no choice now. The hunt was up, he’d have to chance the alley of trees. With Tracy behind him he plunged through the ruined gate just as he heard the clatter of shoes on the steps behind him. Together they ran down the hard-packed path while the men behind followed, egging each other on with shouts of bravado. Nick spun and fired toward the gate entrance at a figure backlighted by the carriage lamp. The silhouetted man spun sideways and screamed in a high, almost female voice, and they heard him whimpering for help all the way down the path.

  At the end of the trees they came out on a mossy pool with a summerhouse at its head. Nick turned Tracy by the elbow and then sprinted for the protection of the gazebo. Inside the house Nick sprawled on the floor and covered the alley of trees with the Luger. Beside him Tracy sat panting with her back to the heavy cement wall. Nick waited, hard-eyed.

  A minute later three men burst out into the clearing from the alley of trees. Nick opened lire at once. The Luger made a harsh shattering roar as Nick shot at rapid fire. Only one of the men got his gun into action. The first two dropped dead into the pool with loud splashes and sank at once. The third man’s gun winked twice in the darkness before Nick hit him as he ran. He took three more wildly staggering steps before plunging headlong into the grass to he still.

  Nick took Tracy by the hand and pulled her to her. feet. Her eyes were large and terrified in the darkness.

  “No, Nick,” she whispered. “I can’t … this nightmare… .”

  “Sure you can,” he said, half brutally, half tenderly. “One more time, baby, and we’re home free,”

  She demurred again and Nick wasted no more time. He scooped her up in his arms and started along the far side of the pool, away from the villa. Halfway across he let her down..