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At the bottom of the mall, I turned to head across the
toward the speedboat, but I lost my footing and
féll down, my face smashing into the concrete. Pat im-
mediately scrambled away from me.
J jumped up as one of Seidelman's men raced across
the dock directly at me. I had just enough time to
sidestep his charge and drive my fist into his solar plex-
us.
He doubled over, and as he started to go down, I
hammered both fists into the back of his neck.
Six of Seidelman's goons were on me then, their fists
smashing at my face, neck and chest.
Before I went down I managed to kick one of them in
the groin, but then a fist the size of a side of beef seemed
to materialize out of nowhere. It hammered me in the
face and everything went dark. I heard Pat scream some-
where off to my right. .




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A Killmaster Spy Chiller
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A OIVISION Of CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS INC.
A c,eosser COMPANY
51 Madison Avenue
New York. New York 10010





ONE
At ten thousand feet the Maryland countryside
looked like a relief map, with toy houses and toy
cars, a smudge on the horizon to the south, the toy
city of Washington, D.C.
The wind tore at the open door as I stood oh the
edge, looking down.
Overhead, on the bulkhead, the light turned
from red to amber, and I made sure my timer was
set to zero and my altimeter agreed with the
overhead dial.
The light winked green, and I stepped out,
pushing myself slightly forward, and I was falling.
For just a moment I went unstable, heading for
a tumbling fall, but then I was gliding, spread
eagle, with little or no feeling of speed, only the
wind buffeting my body.
It was mid-winter and very cold so that my face
began to go numb, and my fingers in the thin
gloves were stiffening up. But I loved it, and when
Hap Thurmond, our Washington-based training
coordinator had asked if I wanted to participate in
the exercise, I had immediately agreed.
I was between assignments at the moment, and
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in fact, David Hawk, the director of AXE, had told
me three days ago to take a vacation.
Working as the nightside duty station chief,
when little or nothing was going on, was boring,
and I had decided to head south somewhere for a
couple of weeks as soon as this exercise was com-
pleted.
For two days now, flying out of the CIA's field
in Langley, we had run exercises, jumping from as
low as one thousand feet, to as high as twenty
thousand on oxygen.
Today's jump, according to Thurmond, was
going to be a bit of a surprise.
I was just about to glance down at my timer,
when something slammed into my back, knocking
the wind out of me, and flipping me totally out of
balance, so that for a wild second or two I was
tumbling completely out of control.
I caught a glimpse of at least three figures above
and beside me, before I had flipped back into a
stable position, and then someone from far above
hit me like an eagle swooping down on its prey,
and the two of us were out of control.
Whoever it was on top of me, had one arm
around my throat and his legs wrapped around my
waist.
I tried to twist around to break his grip, but then
there was a cold rush of air on my back, and he
released me and pushed away, with my main and
emergency parachute packs.
The straps around my legs and shoulders came
loose in my hands from where he had cut them,
and when I looked up and around, I could see that
I was surrounded by four men in dark flight suits,
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3
all of them in freefall with me, but all of them
equipped with chutes.
One of them broke away from the others,
tightened up his body position and began to ac-
celerate down and to the east, away from me. In his
right hand he carried a spare chute.
The panorama of the Maryland countryside,
which seconds before had seemed so lovely and in-
viting, now seemed terribly close and threatening.
I tightened up my body position and glided
down toward the rapidly retreating figure of the
diver with the spare chute as the other four grinned
and waved wildly at me.
Thurmond, it was rumored around AXE head-
quarters, was totally insane. At one time, he had
held a killmaster designation just like mine, for the
super secret action-intelligence agency. Although
Hawk would never talk about it, confirming or de-
nying any of the rumors, most of us believed-that
Thurmond had gone around the bend on an assign-
ment in China, nearly bringing the entire world
into a nuclear confrontation.
He had supposedly been pulled off operational
status, but because he knew too much, he had not
been put out to pasture; instead he had been given
the job of keeping operational field men, such as
myself, in top physical and mental shape.
But this now, was too much, even by Thur-
mond's standards.
My altimeter and timer pack had been stripped
away with my parachutes, but I didn't need them
to know that I was coming dangerously close to an
altitude where even with a parachute it would be
too late.
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The diver was expecting me, and as I began
matching speeds with him, he looked up, grinned,
and released my parachute pack. He peeled off to
the west, popped his own chute, and was gone
above me.
I concentrated, then, only on reaching the falling
parachute pack. Moments later I reached it and
quickly pulled it on, tightened the straps, and
yanked the ripcord.
But nothing happened. I looked up in time to see
the other three divers coming down fast toward me
as I clawed open the pilot chute's cover, grabbed a
handful of the silk and fed it out.
For a maddening second nothing happened, but
then the wind caught the chute, it spun up and out,
dragging the main chute with it, and I was jerked
violently upright, the ground only a few hundred
feet below me.
Just before I hit, I looked up. One chute was a
few hundred yards to the east, and the other three
were almost directly above me.
I hit hard, rolling with it, and instantly I leaped
up and popped the quick release on my harness. I
raced across the farm field toward where the other
diver was going to land.
It usually takes a very long time for me to lose
my temper, but the quickest way to cause me to is
for someone to do something very stupid and very
dangerous.
The other diver, coming down now for his land-
ing, had qualified in spades on both accounts.
He landed near the edge of the farm field while I
was still about fifty yards away, and by the time I
reached him, he had popped his own quick release
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5
and was standing there calmly waiting for me.
It was Thurmond himself. I hadn't realized he
was in the aircraft.
S' What the hell was that all about?" I shouted.
He was laughing. ' 'That was a good job, Nick.
You did just fine."
'VI did just fine?" I couldn't believe what I was
hearing. "Why, for Christ's sake?"
"l thought you might have been going a little
soft. You haven't been out on an operation in near-
ly four months."
I stepped a little closer to him. "Training for a
specific operation is one thing," I said. "We're
geared for it. But this now, today, was sheer insani-
ty."
"What? Nick Carter is going soft on me—
Thurmond started to say, when I bunched up my
right fist and hit him in the mouth with everything
I had.
His head snapped back, and he went down, but
just for a moment, before he jumped back up with
a razor-sharp parachute rigger's knife in his right
hand.
I backed up a step. Thurmond was about ten
years older than me, but the man was as hard as
nails, and a world-ranking expert in several martial
arts, including the use of a knife. Besides, he tech-
nically was on our side.
"Hap!" shouted one of the other divers, as he
approached us running across the field. The others
were right behind him.
"Stay back!" Thurmond screamed.
"For God's sake, man!" one of the other train-
ing officers shouted.
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I
"I'll kill you all!" Thurmond screamed, spittle
flying from his mouth.
I held out my right hand. "All right, Hap, the
game is over now," I said. "Put down the knife."
He lunged at me, and I had to quickly sidestep to
avoid the slash of his knife. I knew what was com-
ing then. I had been in enough hand-to-hand com-
bat with the man; so I feinted to the left, as I had
been taught to do, but instead of following through
with the classic maneuver as I had been taught, and
pulling back to the right, I continued to the left,
falling to the ground and tumbling away, as
Thurmond swung the blade right.
He realized his mistake, and started to pivot to-
ward me, when one of his officers came up behind
him and clipped him neatly behind the right ear
with the butt of his pistol.
Thurmond went down like a felled ox, and he lay
there unconscious.
"Jesus Christ," one of the officers swore, "what
the hell happened?"
"I hit him," I said.
"No, I mean up there with the parachute?"
I turned to him. "You tell me what happened,
Don," I snapped.
"It wasn't part of the training scenario. I swear
it, Nick."
One of the other officers was shaking his head.
"I didn't know what the hell the crazy bastard was
up to," he said. "He was supposed to hit you, grab
your chute, back off until you stabilized, and then
hand you the spare he was carrying."
"We didn't know what the hell to think when he
took off like that," Don said.
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7
I glanced down at Thurmond who was still un-
conscious. 'VHow far from the target zone are we?"
Don looked around to get his bearings. ' 'Just
past the line of trees over there to the west."
He
said. 'SA mile, maybe."
"All right, give me a hand with him then," I said.
"This training exercise is over with."
' 'Yes, sir," Don said wholeheartedly.
It was late, well after six P.M., by the time we got
Thurmond back to the dispensary at Langley,
where the doctor said he probably had a mild con-
cussion and would be out through the night at
least. And it was well after eight by the time I had
changed my clothes, retrieved my car and drove
back into Washington, to AXE headquarters on
DuPont Circle.
I parked in the sub-basement garage of the
Amalgamated Press and Wire Services Building.
AXE's worldwide operational front, and took the
elevator up to the duty room on the third floor.
AXE, as a separate entity from the Central In-
telligence Agency, and from all the other similar
services within the U.S. government and military
establishment, has been in existance since the fif-
ties. It came about during the McCarthy witch
hunts, when the CIA suddenly found itself
hamstrung for lack of autonomy. There were too
many watchdogs on what the service was doing.
Things got much worse as time went on, and in the
sixties and seventies when the CIA came under
even harsher fire, AXE thrived.
Answerable only to the President and his council
of security advisers, AXE has no charter as such,
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like the CIA. Instead, our job is to be always ready,
willing and able to handle anything that needs to
be done, at any time and in any place.
There is, as far as we're aware, no other govern-
ment in the world that fields such a service.
The nightside crew was well into its shift as I
stepped off the elevator and crossed the large room
to my office in a glass-enclosed cubicle.
Rudolph Schmidt, the foreign desk analyst,
looked up as I passed.
"Your phone's been ringing off the hook all af-
ternoon," he said.
I went back to his desk and took the pile of tele-
phone message slips from him. They were all from
the same person, Pat Staley. I hadn't seen her in a
couple of years. At one time we had been pretty
close, when she had worked for us as a low-level
cryptographer. She had quit the agency when her
parents were killed in an airplane accident and had
gone to work for the Staley Foundation, managing
her parents' huge estate.
"She sounded a little anxious," Schmidt said, sit-
ting back. He was grinning.
"Did she say she was in town?" I asked. She
lived now in New York City.
"There's a number there. I think it might be the
Marriott. "
"Okay, thanks, Schmidty," I said. "Is Hawk still
here?"
"No, he left an hour ago, but he told me to tell
you if you came in that he would take care of
Thurmond, whatever that means."
"Thanks," said. "Anything happening around
here tonight?"
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"Nothing much," he said.
9
J nodded and went the rest of the way across the
room and into my office where I sat down behind
my desk, lit myself a cigarette, and then dialed the
number Pat had left for me.
It was answered on the second ring. "Good eve-
ning, Twin Bridges Mariott."
"I'd like to speak with a Miss Pat Staley," I said.
"I believe she's registered there."
"One moment please," the operator said.
Pat had to be about thirty now, and I had always
thought she was one of the more beautiful women
I had ever known. She was bright and fiercely inde-
pendent, and yet she had never been one of those
strident women liberationists. She knew who she
was, what her abilities were, and she had never felt
the need to go out and prove anything to anyone.
"Hello," her voice came on the line moments lat-
er.
"Pat?" I said. "This is Nick Carter."
"Thank God you've called, Nick," she said in a
rush. She definitely sounded worried.
"What's the matter, Pat?" I asked.
"I really need your help, Nick," she said. "Can
you come over right away?"
"I can be there in fifteen minutes. How about
dinner right there?"
"Fine, fine, I don't care, just get here, Nick," she
said, obviously very upset.
"Can you tell me now what's wrong?" I asked.
"No," she said tersely. "Just get over here. I'll
meet you at the bar."
"I'll be there," I said, and she hung up.
I slowly put the phone back on the cradle and sat
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i
back in my chair for a moment. Something was
wrong. She had sounded nearly hysterical, as if she
was on the verge of a breakdown.
She had taken her parents' deaths pretty hard,
and for a time she had seen a psychiatrist. But there
had been nothing wrong with her. Just normal
grief.
Up in New York City, from what I had heard,
she had done well with her parents' foundation,
which financed development projects for under-
privileged people all over the world. And between
the foundation and her younger brother, Donald,
her world was complete. She had no longer needed
the kind of relationship we had had. And we had
simply drifted apart.
But now it seemed as if she had come unglued. It
either had something to do with the foundation or
with her brother. I didn't have the faintest idea
what I could do to help her with either.
I made it across town, over the Arlington Me-
morial Bridge, then down the Washington
Parkway to the large hotel complex just across
from the Pentagon, within half an hour. When I
went inside, Pat Staley was waiting for me at the
bar. She didn't see me at first, and I stood just
within the doorway and watched her for a few sec-
onds. She was still as beautiful as I remembered
her, perhaps even a little morc so, although her
hair was done up in a bun, and she wore a very
conservative business suit.
She spotted me when I was halfway across the
bar, and she jumped off her stool, taking her drink,
and met me, pecking me on the cheek.
'SThank God you've come," she said, looking
around. "Let us sit over there," she said, motion-
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11
ing toward an empty booth near the rear of the
room.
I guided her over, and when we were settled, and
I had ordered a bourbon and water, she reached
out for my hands, squeezing them hard.
"It's Don," she said. "He's gone."
"Your brother?" I asked.
She nodded shakily. "He's been gone for an en-
tire month now, and I don't know what to do any-
more. "
"Gone where?"
"With that group. It's a religious cult. And Stew-
art called just this morning to tell me that Don had
signed everything away. That's why I came down
here. You have to help me. Please." She said all
that in a breathless rush.
"Hold on a minute, Pat," I said. "You have to
slow down. Start at the beginning, and tell me
everything. "
The cocktail waitress came with my drink, and
when she was gone, I looked deeply into Pat's eyes.
"Now start at the beginning," I repeated.
She shook her head, looking away for a moment.
"There isn't much for me to tell you, Nick," she
said. "Because I simply don't know much of the
story."
"Tell me what you know then," I said. ' 'You
asked for my help. Well I'm here now."
She nodded and took a sip of her drink. "About
six months ago, Don met some people out on the
west coast. He was looking into the conditions in
the bario in Los Angeles for us."
"Don is working for the foundation now?" I
asked.
"Yes. He graduated from college last year. Top
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I
honors. According to our parents' will, when he
graduated he was to be made a full director of the
foundation."
"Go on," I prompted.
"Everything was fine for the first month or so
after he got back from California, but then he
started getting these weird telephone calls at all
hours of the day and night."
"From who?"
"l don't know. I don't even know what they
were all about. But Don became very secretive all
of a sudden. " She looked at me, and she seemed so
helpless at that moment. "Don and I were always
close, but suddenly he clammed up."
"Then what happened?"
"He took a trip out to Chicago, and ten days
later, when he came back, he had totally changed.
He was like a zombie."
"So what happened in Chicago?"
"I don't know. He just told me that he finally
understood everything. But I had our attorney,
Stewart Atterbury, hire someone to follow Don.
And within a week the detectives reported back
that Don had joined a religious cult whose head-
quarters are in Chicago. Something called The
Church of the Final Reward."
"All right, so your brother finally got religion.
What then?"
"He just got weirder and weirder. He wouldn't
talk to me; he stopped doing all his work. And
then .
she stopped a moment. "And then we
think he started giving money to the crazy cult he
had joined."
"His money, or the foundation's?"
"His money," she said, hanging her head. "But I
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13
had to have Stewart check it out. I was frightened
of what he had become."
"There's more?" I asked. "You said he had dis-
appeared?"
She nodded, tears coming to her eyes now.
"Four weeks ago he went to Chicago, and we
haven't had a word from him since. No letters, no
postcards, no phone calls, nothing."
"Did you try calling the church's headquarters. "
"Yes, and they said they never heard of him."
She opened her purse and withdrew a document.
"Yesterday, Stewart got this in the mail. He
showed it to me this morning."
I took the document and held it up to the light so
that I could read it.
"It's legal," she said.
At first I couldn't quite make any sense of it, but
finally I understood. It was a letter drawn up by
Donald Staley, and signed by him, willing every-
thing he owned to The Church of the Final Re-
ward, on the event of his death.
When I was finished reading, I looked up at Pat,
the tears were streaming down her cheeks. ' 'You
have to help me, Nick."
"How much of the foundation belongs to
"l don't know. I guess around fifty million. But
that's not it, Nick. I think those crazies out there in
Chicago have brainwashed him into signing this,
and now I think they plan to kill him."










TWO
left Pat in her room at the motel around eleven-
thirty, first making her promise me that she would
remain there until morning. I didn't think this was
going to turn out to be anything more than a
younger brother going a little crazy. Yet when fifty
million dollars was involved, ånything could hap-
pen.
She had seemed a lot calmer than at dinner, and
I told her that I would be back around eight in the
morning to pick her up for breakfast, and then get
her out to the airport. She was due back in New
York by noon.
It was a Friday night, so there was a lot of traffic
as I headed back into town, but I really didn't pay
much attention to it, as I tried to piece together
what little Pat had been able to tell me.
From what little I had known about Donald
Staley, and from what Pat had added, it brought to
mind the image of a very bright young man, with
an even brighter future.
Pat had never really wanted to become involved
in the Foundation. She had merely taken the job
because there was no one else for it. Within a few
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years, it had been her plan to let her brother take
on more and more of the responsibilities.
She had wanted to move south somewhere. She
had toyed with the idea of the Sarasota, Florida
area. Perhaps she would choose one of the Keys,
where she would settle down in a beachfront home
and write, something she had always wanted to do.
The change she had described in her brother's
behavior over the past months had come about too
suddenly for me to believe it was merely another
stage in his development.
Someone had meddled with Don's mind. There
was little doubt about that. And there was even less
doubt as to why they had done it. They wanted his
money.
But, and it was a very large but, was the cult
religion Don had become connected with ruthless
enough to consider murder?
Fifty million dollars was at stake here. A tremen-
dous amount of money. A fortune by any account.
And money made people do extreme things.
Murder among them.
I parked again in the basement garage beneath
the Amalgamated Press and Wire Services Build-
ing, signed in with the night guard, and took the
elevator up to the duty room.
Schmidt was there, briefing the mid-shift duty
crew, and they all looked up as I came in.
"How was your date, Nick?" Schmidt quipped
as I came across to him.
"Have you got something going tonight,
Schmidty, or can you hang around awhile and give
me a hand?"
The on-coming duty officer looked sharply at
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NICK CARTER
me. "If this is official, Nick, we can handle it for
you."
I shook my head. "Strictly personal for now, Pe-
ter. "
Schmidt nodded. "I'll stick around for awhile,"
he said, and he followed me across to my office.
I took off my jacket, loosened my tie and rolled
up my sleeves before I sat down behind my desk.
"Something wrong with Pat Staley?" Schmidt
asked.
"With her brother," I said. "And for now I want
this kept quiet. Just between you and me. If we
come up with anything, anything at all tonight, I'll
talk to Hawk about it in the morning."
"It's all right by me. What do you need help
Quickly I told Schmidt everything I knew about
Don Staley and the Staley Foundation, as well as
what Pat had told me at the Marriott.
"The Church of the Final Reward," Schmidt
said thoughtfully. "Something like the Moon cult?
Or Jonestown?"
"I have no idea, but it's a possibility," I said.
"Get yourself down to archives. I want a computer
search on the church, especially its directors. Then
you'd better dig out Pat Staley's file. She used to be
a low-grade cryptographer here. There may be
something in her jacket on her brother that came
up on the background investigation. "
"Anything else?"
"You'd better see if we have anything at all on
the Staley Foundation, and exactly when and how
Pat's parents were killed. -It was an airplane acci-
dent a couple of years ago," I said. "Oh yes, and
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17
check to see if we have anything on the
Foundation's attorney, Stewart Atterbury."
"l doubt if we're going to find much here or over
at the agency," Schmidt said. "It sounds more like
something the FBI would have."
"That's what I'm going to be doing. I have a
friend over in the bureau. I'm going to roust him
out, and see what he can come up with."
"All right," Schmidt said. "When I come up
with anything, I'll pump it up here."
I was flipping through my telephone index as
Schmidt was going out the door. Within a second
or two I had found the number I was looking for,
and I had the nightside operator dial it for me.
John Carver had been a young CIA o!ficer in
Korea during the conflict, and had remained in the
Middle and Far East well into the sixties before he
finally got out of the agency and went to work with
the bureau.
I had first met him in Vietnam in 1964, and had
worked with him again on an assignment in New
York City in the mid-seventies.
The first time we had met, my cover was as a
CIA operative. Carver had never learned any dif-
ferently. He still believed I was with the company.
I had saved his life, through a chain of lucky cir-
cumstances, and he had never forgotten it. From
time to time now we would have lunch and a cou-
ple of drinks together, and he always picked up the
tab.
' 'If there's ever anything I can do for you, Nick,
I want you to call me. Day or night. I mean it," he
had told me on more than one occasion.
I was going to take him up on it now.
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I
He answered his phone on the third ring.
"John, Nick Carter," I said.
"Nick, you old bastard, I was just thinking
about you," Carver boomed. He was a large,
boisterous man. "l was going to give you a ring in
the next day or so to see if you wanted to get to-
gether for lunch."
"Possibly next week," I said. "But listen, John, I
need a big favor."
"Now? Tonight?"
"If possible, John."
"Absolutely. What do you need?"
"I want you to go down to the bureau and look
through your computer files for some information
for me."
"Official or personal?" he asked, his voice
guarded.
"Personal. But if you can't . . ."
"Bullshit," Carver said. "Tell me what you need,
and you'll have it, if I can get to it."
Once again I repeated the story Pat had told me,
ending up with the fact that I had someone helping
with the records at this end.
"Sounds like something we might have, if they've
done anything wrong," Carver said. "I'll be down-
town within twenty minutes. Give me a couple of
hours to run a preliminary search and I'll get back
to you. Where can I reach you?"
I gave him my home phone number, and he
agreed to call as soon as possible.
When we had hung up, I instructed our operator
to monitor my home phone, and transfer any calls,
in the blind, up here to my office.
J sat back for a moment then. I had set a couple
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19
of wheels in motion. If there was any information
to be had about The Church of the Final Reward,
between Schmidt and Carver we would come up
with it.
But after that, I was going to have to bring it to
Hawk and get his blessings to continue. Although
I technically was on vacation now, as a holder of
the killmaster N3 designation, I was theoretically
under constant control by AXE, and therefore
David Hawk. Everything I said or did could possi-
bly have an effect on the service and therefore on
the United States.
After a while I went out into the duty room
where I got myself a cup of coffee. Back in my of-
fice I had our operator check to see if there was a
listing for the church in Chicago.
She called back a minute or two later with a tele-
phone number and an address on the Loop, down-
town Chicago.
Schmidt was the first in with his report, around
three o'clock. He had pulled Pat Staley's file and
had brought it with him, along with a single sheet
of computer runoff.
He laid them both down on my desk. "There
wasn't much here or over at the agency," he said.
"Give it to me from the top," I said.
"Pat Staley is clean. So is her brother, at least
according to our files and Pat's background in-
vestigation. Their parents died in the crash of their
Lear jet on takeoff from LaGuardia. National
Transportation and Safety Board gave the incident
a clean bill of health. Unforseen clear air tur-
bulence. The pilot lost it and couldn't recover be-
fore they hit the ground."
20



20
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NICK CARTER
"How about the church?" I asked.
"There's the printout," Schmidt said pointing to
the sheet he had laid on my desk. "In 1974 they
negotiated with the government of Brazil for the
purchase of a fairly large tract of land, ten thou-
sand acres, somewhere up the Amazon from the
town of Manaus."
"And?" I prompted.
"And that's it, Nick. There was absolutely noth-
ing else about the church, about Pat or her brother
or their parents or the foundation or their at-
torney. "
"You cross-indexed everything?"
"l checked and rechecked, Nick. Honestly, there
is nothing else in our files, or the agency's files on
any of this."
I had feared as much. "Thanks anyway, Schmid-
ty."
"Anything else you need tonight?"
"Not a thing. Go on home to bed."
"Anything from the Bureau yet?"
I shook my head, and Schmidt got to his feet.
"See you tomorrow?"
"Probably," I said absently, and I didn't hear
Schmidt leave. What the hell did the church want
with ten thousand acres of jungle along the Ama-
zon? From what I could recall of my geography,
Manaus had to be at least a thousand miles inland.
Was it another Jonestown? And had Don been
taken there?
Carver called half an hour later, apologizing for
taking so much time and for coming back to me
nearly empty handed.
"You had nothing on the church?" I asked.
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21



21
('We did have a file, but from what I was told it
was a very small one."
"Where is it now?"
"It's over at the Justice Department. Stewart At-
terbury, the Staley Foundation's attorney, filed a
complaint against the church over Donald Staley's
will. "
I hadn't thought of that possibility. Atterbury
was just doing his job, trying to protect Don and
the foundation, but I was going to have to tell Pat
to call him off for the moment until I could look a
little closer into this.
"Do you have any idea what the file contained,
John?"
"No specifics. But it had something to do with a
complaint lodged by the daughter of an elderly
couple. In their eighties, from what I could gather,
At any rate, it seems as if they joined the church,
willed everything they owned to it, and then a
month later committed suicide."
"Jesus," I swore half under my breath.
"Nick? Is it what you needed?"
"Just fine, John, just fine. I've got to run now,
but I'll call you next week, and we can have lunch
together. This time I'm going to buy."
"Sure thing . . Carver said, and I hung up.
Christ. The will first, and then suicide. The
Church of the Final Reward.
Pat was definitely correct. Her brother was in
danger. Very serious danger.
I grabbed my coat and left my office. Across the
duty room I had the nightside officer book me on
the ten-thirty A.M. flight from National Airport to
Chicago's O'Hare, and told them to leave a
22




22
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
message for Hawk that I would check in before I
left, to explain everything.
Downstairs I got my car and drove quickly back
across town to the Marriott. There was very little
traffic at this time of night, and I made it there in
something under fifteen minutes.
Fifty million dollars. The figure kept running
through my head. A little old couple had com-
mitted suicide, willing everything they owned to
the church. The daughter's objections had ac-
complished nothing.
If the church had been behind that, and had
somehow caused the suicides, the church would
certainly do everything within its power to get its
hands on Donald Staley's fortune.
Killing him or forcing him into suicide was only
a part of it. For that kind of money, I was sure that
the church would allow no one to interfere. Cer-
tainly not his sister.
But little old couples, idealistic young men, and
helpless women were one thing. I was something
completely diffeJ ent.
Pat had evidently not been sleeping because she
answered my knock almost immediately. When she
was certain it was me, she opened the door and let
me in.
"What is it?" she cried. "Did you find him?"
' 'Not yet, Pat, but you're going to pack your
things and come with me now."
"What's wrong?" she said, alarmed.
c 'I'll explain on the way. Get dressed and get
your things together. We're getting out of here."
She was wearing a nightgown, and she went into
the bathroom, coming out a minute later dressed in
RETREAT FOR DEATH
23



23
slacks and a sweater. Together we threw her things
in her suitcase and makeup bag, grabbed her coat,
and went down to my car.
"What about my bill?"
"Send it to them," I said. "Your're staying at my
place for the rest of the night."
"Why? What did you find out, Nick?"
I explained only part of what I had found out,
leaving out the business about the old couple. But
I told her that the church was probably looking for
her right now. If and when they caught up with her,
they would try to pressure her into calling off her
investigation into her brother's disappearance.
"They'll do anything to protect their hold on
Donald and his will," I told her. "For now I don't
want you to do anything to force their hand."
"But I have to be back in New York by noon."
"And you will be," I said. "It's just that you'll
stay the rest of the night at my place, and tomor-
row you'll take a different flight on a different air-
line up to New York."
"But what about Don? What in God's name are
they doing with him?"
"I'm going to find that out for you, but in the
meantime, Pat, is there anyone you can stay with
up in New York? I don't want you going to your
apartment."
. . ." she started to say.
"Stewart
' 'Not him," I said. "Anyone else?"
She shook her head. "There's no one."
"How soon will you be finished with your
work?"
"Four maybe five o'clock."
"Fine, then I want you to come back down here.
24




24
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
I
Drive your own car. Stay at my apartment until I
get back."
"Where are you going?"
"Chicago. But I'll be back later tonight, or Sun-
day at the latest."
She was worked up again, almost at wit's end. I
reached out and caressed her cheek. "It'll all work
out in the end, Pat, you'll see," I said with more
conviction than I felt.
Don had been gone a month, and only two days
ago his will came in the mail. They had presumably
worked on him all that time. Even if I could get
him away, didn't know how much of him—the
real Don Staley—would be left intact.
Pat was booked on a nine o'clock flight, and be-
fore I left I made sure she was in a cab heading for
the airport. Then I went back to AXE head-
quarters, where I went directly up to Hawk's office
on the fifth floor.
His secretary seemed harried, but when I came
in, a look of relief flashed across her eyes.
"He's been waiting for you," she said. She
buzzed Hawk. "Mr. Carter is here," she said.
"Send him in," Hawk's voice came over the in-
tercom.
She buzzed the thickly padded door for me, and
I went in, crossed the room and sat down in front
of Hawk's desk.
He was a man in damn good shape with a thick
shock of white hair. No one within AXE knew his
correct age although guesses ranged from a low of
the mid-fifties, to a high of the early eighties.
To me, David Hawk was ageless. He was just
RETREAT FOR DEATH
25




25
Hawkt The hardbitten, cigar-smoking director of
AXE, my boss, and the closest thing to being my
father that he could be without actually being just
that.
"Chicago is not exactly the best place this time
of year for a vacation, Nick," he growled.
"No, sir," I said.
"All right, what the hell have you gotten yourself
involved with now?" he said. He picked up a cigar
and lit it, as I went through the entire story for the
third time. This go around, however, I left
absolutely nothiné out. Including the fact that at
one time Pat and I had had a relationship.
When I was finished, Hawk seemed to think a
moment. 'You think this kid is in danger?"
: 'Yes, sir," I said.
He thought a moment longer. "Should the agen-
cy become involved in this?"
"Not yet, sir. But I'll need some of our re-
sources. If it turns out to be purely personal, I can
reimburse the agency out of my own pocket."
"All right," he said. He sat forward. "I tele-
phoned a friend over at the Justice Department this
morning. He tells me they've started their own pre-
liminary investigation into this church."
"Yes, sir," I said. "Stewart Atterbury contacted
them."
"It's not Atterbury, although they have his com-
plaint as well."
"Not Atterbury?"
"It's the Brazilian government. They're begin-
ning to get worried about what's happening in their
own jungles,"
"Why don't they do something about it?"
26




26
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NICK CARTER
"There's too much money involved, from what I
was told," Hawk said. "Thc Church of the Final
Reward has known assets in excess of one billion
dollars in this country alone. They have more in
Brazil."
"Good Lord," I said softly.
"Good Lord, exactly," Hawk said. "Religion, or
at least this cult's brand of religion, is big business.
And when that kind of money is involved, people
who interfere can get hurt."
"Yes, sir."
' 'Be careful, Nick. Be very careful. Technically
we have no business being in this investigation.
Justice is handling it for now. But I'm giving you
my go ahead on this. And you'll have AXE's back-
ing. Unofficially, of course."
"Yes, sir,"
I said again, getting to my feet.
leave for Chicago this morning."
"I know," Hawk said. "Good hunting."
"Thank you, sir," I said, and I headed toward
the door, but Hawk stopped me.
"Thurmond said you handled yourself pretty
well out there yesterday."
I didn't turn around. "Is he all right?"
"Mild concussion," Hawk said. "He'll be back
to work within a week."
I couldn't believe it. ' 'Yes .
I started to
say, but Hawk interrupted me.
"We're setting him up down in Phoenix. He's
going to be rewriting all our field-training man-
uals. "
I turned around and looked at Hawk. There was
a stern expression on his face.
"Good luck, Nicholas,"
I nodded and left his office.








THREE
My flight touched down at Chicago's O'Hare
Airport a couple of minutes after noon. I had my
overnight case sent over to the Airport Hyatt Re-
gency Hotel, then had a quick sandwich at one of
the terminal restaurants, and finally took a cab
downtown.
The weather was cold and blustery, snow blow-
ing down the long, traffic-clogged streets.
It was just one-thirty when the cabby dropped
me off in front of a large building marked with
nothing but the number 809 in large brass figures
above the revolving doors.
The first floor was taken up with a bank of
elevators and several. dozen small shops, most of
them selling religious books and items.
There were uniformed guards at the elevators
and an information booth where many of the peo-
ple coming and going stopped to get passes.
A pleasant young woman was seated at the
booth and when I stepped up, she smiled.
"May I help you, sir?"
"I hope so," I said. "J was told that The Church
of the Final Reward is headquartered in this build-
ing."
28
27



28
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
€ s Yes, Sir?"
"I'd like to talk to a representative of thc church,
if you can direct me to the proper office."
"What is this in regard to, sir?" the woman
asked.
' 'A friend of mine joined a few months ago, and
I'm trying to locate him."
"l don't think there's anyone here who could
help you . .
' she started.
"His name is Don Staley, and I've come from
the Foundation with some new financial informa-
tion. It's very important that I speak to someone
who might know where he is."
A tall, distinguished looking, well-dressed man
in his early fifties was just passing, and he stopped
and came back to the booth.
"It's all right, Cindy," he said to the girl, and he
turned to me. "You say you've come from the
Staley Foundation?"
"Perhaps," I said. "It's very important that I get
in contact with Don Staley. Financially very im-
portant. If you could be of some help?" I let it trail
off.
"Be glad to do what I can for you, Mr. . 0"
"Carter,"
I said. "Nick Carter." We shook
hands.
"Michael Seidelman," he said. "Why don't you
come up with me, and we'll see if we can do some-
thing for you, Mr. Carter."
I followed him through the gate and to one of
the open elevators. As I passed the building direc-
tory, I glanced up at it. The only listings were for
the first five floors, and all the names consisted of
attorneys at law. There were no listings for any of
RETREAT FOR DEATH
29





29
the floors above the fifth, although this had to be at
least a twenty-story building.
As the elevator doors closed, Seidelman inserted
a key in a slot, twisted it to the right, and punched
the button for the nineteenth floor. There were
only two floors above that one.
When the elevator began to rise, he removed the
key and looked at me and smiled.
"You say you work for the Staley Foundation?"
"Not exactly," I said. "I'm a friend of the fami-
ly."
"Then you know Patricia," he said. ' 'How is she
doing these days?"
"Just fine. A little busy ever since Donald .
ever since Donald decided to branch out on his
own. "
Seidelman said nothing else until we were de-
posited on the nineteenth floor.
The elevator opened onto a reception area.
There was an older woman seated behind a huge
desk and a wide carpeted corridor running to the
left and right.
"Hold my calls for a bit, would you dear?"
Seidelman told the woman. "And have Larry come
down to my office if he's not tied up."
"Yes, Mr. Seidelman," the woman said.
I followed him to the left, down the corridor,
and into a large, very plush office, dominated by a
floor-to-ceiling glass wall that afforded a magnif-
icent view of the city, and beyond to the east, Lake
Michigan.
Seidelman was smiling. "On a clear day, during
the summer, I spend entirely too much of my time
atching the sailboat regattas out on the lake," he
30




30
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
1
chuckled. "l swear, one of these days rm going to
have the window boarded up."
Someone knocked on the door.
"Come in," Seidelman called out.
Another tall, very distinguished looking man,
impeccably dressed, stepped in. "You had a good
trip, MichaeP" he said.
"Excellent," Seidelman beamed. "Mr. Nick
Carter here has come to talk with us about young
Donald Staley. Mr. Carter is a friend of the Staley
family."
"Larry Karsten," the man said, coming across
the room and shaking my hand. "But I'm afraid
we're not going to be of very much help to you."
He glanced at Seidelman. "Have you explained to
Mr. Carter yet?"
Seidelman shook his head. "I thought I'd let you
explain everything to him. But Mr. Carter says he
must get in contact with Donald. Something about
a Foundation financial matter?" he asked, turning
back to me.
"Don has been missing for the past month," I
said ignoring the question. "His sister is frankly
worried about him."
"Missing, you say?" Karsten said. "l can well
understand why she would be upset. How can we
"The Foundation's attorney, Mr. Atterbury, re-
cently received a copy of Donald's will, leaving his
fortune to your church."
Seidelman and Karsten both beamed. "It's won-
derful," Karsten said.
"A magnificent gesture ," Seidelman agreed.
' 'So we naturally assumed that you have been in
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31
contact with Donald, and perhaps would know his
whereabouts."
Seidelman started to say something but Karsten
cut him off. "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Carter, but
none of us has seen Don in more than two weeks.
From what I understood, he had returned to his
home in New York City. But now you say he is
missing. Very puzzling."
"Perhaps someone else on your staff might know
where he went. Perhaps he made a friend or two
while he was here?"
"He made many friends. Donald is a wonder-
fully bright young man."
"A heart as good as gold," Seidelman agreed.
He took my elbow and guided me toward the door.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Carter, that we could be of no
help. But be sure to let us know when you find
him."
I shrugged out of his light grasp. "Since both of
you gentlemen know Donald so well, then perhaps
you would like to testify at his competency hear-
ing."
"What?" Karsten said sharply.
I smiléd. "It was his parents' death, you see, that
initially unhinged him. And then when he found
out that his sister was a lesbian, it brought him to
the edge, Vm afraid."
"Competency hearing, you say," Karsten mum-
bled.
"I'm afraid it's my fault," I said. "I saw the signs
of his breakup three years ago. I discussed it with
Stewart Atterbury, the Foundation's
Stewart . . .
as well as his sister. We've all agreed
attorney . . .
that Donald is just not responsible enough to man-
32



32
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
age his own fortune. It's been placed in trust until
after his competency hearing. But if we can't find
I shook my head. "Well, I just don't
him .
know how the hearing could go in his favor if he's
missing. I'm going to have to be honest with the
court. I mean, we are talking about more than fifty
million dollars here."
Both men were speechless.
I smiled again. "Please contact me through the
Foundation if you should hear from Donald," I
said, and I left the office, ambled nonchalantly
down the corridor, nodded pleasantly at the recep-
tionist and rang for the elevator.
It wouldn't take them very long to find out that
I had been lying. Meanwhile, if they had plans of
doing anything to Don, they would have to hold
up. I was also hoping that since they now believed
that I would present major testimony against Don
at a competency hearing, they might even make a
try on me.
If they did, it would certainly prove what I al-
ready suspected. Or at least it would prove it to me.
The elevator came and I stepped inside and
punched the buttons for every floor from the eigh-
teenth all the way down to the ground floor.
The doors closed, and the elevator started down,
stopping at the eighteenth, the doors coming open
onto a similar scene. A reception area, a woman
seated behind a desk, corridors running right and
left.
The woman looked up, startled. I smiled,
shrugged, and the elevator doors closed and went
down to the seventeenth.
This floor contained no reception room, just cor-
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+ 110%
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ridors running right and left. I held the doors open
as I stepped halfway out and looked both ways
down the corridors. Unmarked doors, nothing
else.
Stepping back into the elevator, I let the doors
close and went down to the sixteenth. This time
when the doors opened, I was looking out across a
large room filled with computers and terminals,
dozens of people busy at work.
For several long seconds I stood there watching
the activity until a large, burly man, his coat off,
his tie loose, happened to look up and see me
standing there.
"What the hell are you doing?" he shouted, and
he started across the room toward me as the
elevator doors closed, and I started down.
The fifteenth floor was another deserted corridor
with unmarked doors. I stepped half out of the
elevator, holding the door open with my right hand
and looked both ways down the corridor. The
elevator doors started to close even though I was
holding the safety switch.
Someone had hit an override. Probably upstairs
in the computer room.
If I remained on the elevator I would be stuck. I
wanted them to come after me, but on my terms,
and certainly not here in this building at this mo-
ment.
I quickly stepped off the elevator, the doors
closed, and the elevator started down, not stopping
at any of the floors I had punched buttons for.
Hurrying down the corridor to the left, I found
the emergency stairwell and took the stairs down
two at a time.
34




34
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
Once they discovered I had gotten off the
elevator, they would be coming up the stairs for
me.
J had just reached the eighth floor, when I heard
a commotion far below. They were already starting
up.
Making as little noise as I possibly could, I hur-
ried down three more flights to the fifth floor, the
others below me coming up fast.
Opening the exit door just a crack, I looked out
into the corridor. Two men stood in front of an
open office door at the far end of the corridor.
They were talking and not looking in my direction.
I stepped into the corridor, making sure the door
was closed, then catching my breath, strode pur-
posefully down the corridor to the bank of
elevators that came only as high as this floor.
The building directory in the lobby had listed the
occupants of the first five floors as attorney's.
Many of them, no doubt, worked for the church,
but others were probably in private practice, only
renting this space.
The two men looked up as I approached the
elevators. I smiled and nodded, and they nodded
back.
I punched the button for an elevator, and almost
immediately one of the doors opened, several peo-
ple got out, and I got in, hitting the button for the
ground floor.
It only took a few seconds to reach the lobby,
and when the elevator doors opened I tensed, ready
to be challenged.
There were several men standing around the
elevator that Seidelman and I had gone up in, and
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35
others at the end of the wide lobby corridor, stand-
ing at the stairwell door, but no one paid me the
slightest attention as I crossed in front of the
guards, passed the information booth, and then I
was outside.
Dodging traffic, I hurried across the wide street,
walked down about a half a block, and then
stopped to look in a storefront window.
Every now and then I glanced across the
street, and five minutes later a group of men
emerged from the church's headquarters building.
They looked around, then fanned out, three of
them crossing the street.
They were after me. There was no doubt about
it. And it was all I needed to know. The Church of
the Final Reward wanted a fight with me, and they
were going to get it.
I turned away from the window and headed
down the street. At the corner I turned to the right
and glanced back. There were two of them behind
me. I hesitated for a couple of seconds, in plain
view, and they spotted me and sped up.
I stepped around the corner and hurried down
the block, looking for just the right place.
A block and a half later, with my two tails still a
hundred yards behind me, I spotted an overfull
parking lot tucked between two buildings across
the street.
I had to wait for a couple of seconds for a break
in traffic before I was able to get across, and the
two men were almost on top of me by the time I
reached the parking lot and threaded my way
through the cars toward the back.
Tucked in one corner was a Volkswagen van. I
36




36
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
stepped around it, then spun around.
A couple of seconds later both men came around
the rear of the van.
I stepped forward, driving my knee into the
groin of the lead man, and as he went down, and
the other one was reaching inside his coat, I ham-
mered three quick rights to his face, and he went
down as well.
No one on the street or in the parking lot
attendant's booth had seen what had happened
back here, and I quickly pulled the two men the
rest of the way behind the van.
They were both armed with .38 snub-nosed re-
volvers, which I took and tossed under the next car
over.
The one I had hit in the face was unconscious,
but the one I had kneed was looking up at me with
pure hate in his eyes.
"l don't like being followed," I said, as I flipped
open his coat and reached for his wallet.
He tried to struggle up, and I hit his forehead
with the heel of my hand, causing his head to
bounce off the pavement.
His eyes glazed for a moment, and I took out his
wallet. An identification card marked with THE
CHURCH OF THE FINAL REWARD—SECURITY,
identified him as Walter Fordham.
I took the card out and slipped it into my pocket,
then tossed the wallet down on the pavement, and
bent low over the man.
"l want you to listen to me very closely, Walter,"
I said.
He blinked but said nothing, nor did he make
any move to struggle up again.
RETREAT FOR DEATH




37
"Like I said before, I don't like being followed.
You can tell your bosses that the next time they
send someone after me , they won't be so lucky. The
next time I won't just bust their balls. I'll break
them into little pieces."
I smiled and patted the
man on the cheek. "You understand what I'm
saying, Walter?"
The man nodded.
"Sometimes when I start working people over, I
go a little crazy, you know? Sometimes I go too
far.
I stood up and glanced out toward the street. We
still hadn't attracted any attention.
When I looked back, Fordham was looking up
at me, and his partner was starting to come
around. "I hope to hell I don't run into you again,
Walter. I hope not—for your sake."
I straightened my tie, stepped around the van,
and left the parking lot.
Two blocks away I hailed a passing cab and di-
rected the driver to take me out to the Hyatt Re-
gency near the airport, then settled back for the
twenty-minute ride through traffic.
The directors of the church had to be worried
about me by now. Besides the story I had told
them, they had caught me snooping around the
building, and then I had beat up a couple of the
goons they had sent out to bring me back.
Their next move, when it came, would be a little
better thought out, and probably done with a lot
more finesse.
I would have to be very careful from this
moment on. I wasn't dealing with some five and
dime outfit. The Church of the Final Reward's as-
38




38
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
sets amounted to more than a billion dollars. In
order to amass that kind of a fortune so quickly,
and still attract as little attention as the church had,
its directors had to be sharp, and certainly not used
to anyone standing in their way.
At the hotel, which was just off the freeway by
the airport, I signed in with the clerk, retrieved my
overnight bag and went up to my room.
I changed shirts, and sportcoats, then retrieved
my weapons from the specially designed radio-
cassette player I use to get them through airport
security measures.
The tiny, but effective, AXE-designed gas bomb
in a special pouch high up on my inner thigh, my
stiletto in its chamois sheath beneath my coat and
strapped to my arm, and my 9 mm Luger in its
shoulder holster on my left side, had been with me
since the beginning. They were like old, trusted
friends. Back at the church building I had felt
almost naked without them. But then I hadn't real-
ly expected to run into so much trouble so soon.
It was just three P.M. here in Chicago, which
meant it was four P.M. in New York. Before I had
put Pat in the cab for the airport, I had promised to
telephone her at the Foundation at five-thirty. She
figured she would be done with her board meeting
by then, and she wanted to know what I had found
out before she headed back down to my apartment
in Washington.
I left my room and went down to the hotel's
cocktail lounge where rsat at the nearly-empty bar.
After I had ordered myself a bourbon and water, I
asked to use the bar phone. The barman set it up in
front of me.
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39





39
If someone from the church had already traced
me out here, which was entirely possible consider-
ing their resources, I did not want them monitoring
my telephone calls from my room, another distinct
possibility.
When I had the outside operator, I placed a col-
lect call to Amalgamated Press and Wire Services
in Washington, D.C., giving a special code that
would identify me to the AXE operator.
I got Hawk on the line almost immediately and
explained everything that had happened so far.
"I'll contact Carver over at the Bureau for you
and have him run down this Walter Fordham.
They might have something on him for you,"
Hawk said.
"Thank you, sir," I said. "Meanwhile I'll need
two other favors."
*'Go ahead."
C 'First of all, see if you can contact someone in
the Justice Department and get a complete copy of
everything they have on the church, and if possible
its directors, including Karsten and Seidelman.
Also see what you can come up with on this piece
of property they purchased in Brazil. "
"That shouldn't be too terribly difficult, Nick,
but from what I gather, no one has very much in-
formation on the church."
"Anything will help at this point, sir."
' 'The second favor?" he asked.
"It's Pat Staley. Have we anyone up in New
York who could keep a loose watch on her?"
"Frankly no, Nick. Do you think she's in any
danger?"
"She might be," I said.
Hawk was silent a moment. "I'll see what I can
40





40
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
1
do from this end," he said. ' 'How long do you
think you'll be staying in Chicago."
"Probably overnight. I'd like to take a closer
look at that computer room."
' e Yg/ith care, Nicholas," Hawk cautioned. "And
keep in touch."
"Yes, sir." I said, and I hung up.
I didn't think it would be too difficult to get into
the building later tonight, probably sometime after
midnight. They would have a pretty stiff security
set up, I imagined, especially after my little jaunt
through the floors this afternoon. But I've seen
tougher setups before.
The barman came down to my end of the bar a
few minutes later. "Are you Mr. Carter by any
chance?" he asked.
"Who wants to know?" I asked.
"There is a message at the desk for you, sir," he
said. "They tried your room but there was no an-
swer. They checked here."
"Thanks," I said, and I picked up the phone and
dialed for the desk. "Nick Carter," I said.
"Yes, sir," the operator said. "There is an urgent
mcssage that you immediately contact a Miss Pat
Staley in New York." She gave me the number,
and I asked her to ring it for me,
Something was wrong. She should have still been
in her board meeting.
It seemed to take forever for the call to go
through, and when it did, I had the Foundation's
operator on the line.
"Pat Staley," I said. "Nick Carter calling."
"One moment, sir."
Pat was on the line a second later. ' 'Nick? Is that
you?" she shouted.
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41





41
"It's Don .
. oh God, it's Don. He called here
twenty minutes ago. He sounded crazy. He said he
was going to kill himself and that it was the only
honorable thing for him to do."
"Calm down, Pat. Did he say where he was call-
ing from?"
"No," she wailed.
"Was it long distance? Could you tell?"
. I don't know," she cried. "Wait. It was
here in the city, I'm sure of it."
"Have you called his apartment?"
"There's no answer there," she said.
"His friends? A girl friend?"
"l don't know," she said. "l don't know any of
his friends. He's got a girl friend, I think. Or at
least he did."
"All right, listen to me. I want you to go over to
his apartment right now, but take Stewart At-
terbury with you. Get in there somehow and look
through your brother's things. See if you can find
anything that might indicate where he might have
gone. Also look for an address book or a telephone
index to see if you can find out who his friends are.
Start calling around."
"What about you?" she asked.
"I'm on my way. I'll be in New York on the first
plane. Just hang on, Pat. I'll be there."









FOUR
It was well after nine P.M. by the time I landed at
LaGuardia and got my overnight bag from incom-
ing luggage.
Up in the terminal I stopped at a pay phone and
dialed Don Staley's number. It was answered on
the first ring by a man.
"Hello?" he said guardedly.
"Stewart Atterbury?" I asked.
"Who's calling?"
"Nick Carter. Is Pat there?"
"This is Stewart Atterbury," he said. He
sounded relieved. "Yes, Pat's right here. We've
been waiting for you."
"Have you found Don?"
"No," Atterbury said. ' 'We've gone through his
apartment with a fine toothed comb. We found an
address book, and we called all the names, but no
one has seen or heard from him in the last four or
five weeks."
"Were there any signs that he had been there at
his apartment recently?"
"None that we could see," Atterbury said.
"There was some stale food in the fridge, and half
42
RETREAT FOR DEATH
43




43
a loaf of moldy bread in the cupboard. I'd guess he
hadn't been here in several weeks."
"How's Pat holding up?" I asked.
Atterbury hesitated a moment. "Not well," he
said.
"Tell her we'll find her brother," I said. "I'll be
there in twenty minutes."
"We'll be here," Atterbury said, and I hung up,
crossed the terminal, and got a cab immediately.
I was tired. I hadn't slept the night before, nor
had I been able to get much rest on the plane back
to Washington, D.C. or up to New York. As the
cab sped from LaGuardia Airport into the city and
Don's apartment on Park Avenue South, I let my
head rest back on the seat and closed my eyes.
Don had disappeared one month ago, and no
one had heard a thing from him. I started poking
around in Chicago, and suddenly he calls his sister
and tells her he's going to commit suicide. It didn't
really make much sense. Either the timing was
coincidental, which I didn't believe was the case, or
the Church of the Final Reward was more efficient
than I had anticipated.
It was possible that they had somehow found out
I was lying, and then had sent out the word for
Don to die.
I didn't put any of that past them. But there was
one major hitch to that line of thinking.
The church officials now knew that Don's will,
leaving his fortune to the church, was being ques-
tioned. In the face of that it didn't make much
sense that they would force his suicide. I would
have thought it would have been a lot smarter of
them to hold off for a while. Let the dust settle, and




44
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
1
either arrange an accident for him, or make his sui-
cide seem a little less forced.
Perhaps I was missing something. Some vital ele-
ment that would explain it all. Riding into the city
now, however, I couldn't think of a thing.
Atterbury cleared my entrance with the
doorman on the ground floor, and he was waiting
by Don's apartment door when I stepped off the
elevator.
He was a small man, not over five-feet-five, very
thin, with only whisps of white hair on his head,
and thick, wire-rimmed glasses. He appeared to be
in his late sixties or early seventies, and he looked
haggard.
"I'm glad you could get here, Mr. Carter," he
said shaking my hand and then leading me into the
apartment.
"Still no word?" I asked.
"Not a thing."
Don's apartment was large and tastefully deco-
rated. The stereo was playing softly, and only one
light was on in the living room.
"Where's Pat?" I asked him.
"Sleeping," Atterbury said. "I had her doctor up
here at around five. He gave her a powerful
sedative. She should be out for awhile yet."
"Have you telephoned the police?"
Atterbury shook his head. "I wanted to, but Pat
made me promise not to say anything to anyone
until after you had arrived."
I went across the room, opened the drapes, then
unlocked the balcony door and stepped outside.
It was just as cold here as it had been in Chicago.
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45




45
Don's apartment was on the twenty-fifth floor, and
far below the traffic was light. He could have com-
mitted suicide here.
Atterbury had come to the open door. "Can I
offer you a drink, Mr. Carter?" he said.
"Bourbon and water,"
I said turning back.
Something small and dark hanging from the back
of the drape caught my eye and I stepped closer.
"What is it?" Atterbury asked.
I knew exactly what I was looking at. "Plenty of
ice in that drink," I said, and then I motioned for
him to keep quiet.
We both stepped back inside the apartment, and
I motioned for him to go ahead and fix my drink.
He gave me a strange look, then went across the
room to the portable bar as I went to the far end
of the drapes and carefully pulled back one edge.
A thin wire led down the back of the drapes from.
the tiny microphone and disappeared into the thick
carpeting.
Following the baseboard around the room, I
came to a telephone jack. Coming up from the
carpet, and leading into the terminal, was the thin
wire.
Someone had bugged Don's apartment.
Atterbury had mixed my drink, and I went
across to him and took it. "This room is bugged,"
I whispered close to him. He flinched. "I'm going
to leave, but I'll be right back. Don't say any-
thing."
His eyes were wide, but he nodded.
I took a deep drink of the bourbon, then set the
glass down, crossed the apartment and softly let
myself out.
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46
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
At the elevator I punched the button for the
basement, and on the way down I pulled out my
Luger, levered a round into the chamber, and
stuffed the gun in my jacket pocket.
The bug could have been placed in Don's apart-
ment months ago. But simply hiding the micro-
phone on the back of the drapes was sloppy. The
church did not use amateurs, or at least I didn't
think they would, which meant that the bugging
operation had been a hurry-up job. Like sometime
this afternoon before Pat and Atterbury showed
up. And probably in direct reaction to my snoop-
ing around in Chicago.
The elevator doors opened on the basement
storage area, mostly empty except for a few crates
to the left.
The lights toward the rear of the huge area were
out, and as I started forward, I pulled out my
Luger and snapped the safety off.
I angled off to the right out of the illuminated
area, and then very carefully followed the concrete
wall back.
The electric and telephone service entered the
building from the floor, near the back of the main
room.
I pocketed my Luger, pulled out my penlight and
shined it up on the large telephone terminal cabi-
net. It was locked, of course, but it didn't matter.
Just barely visible, along a seam in the concrete, a
thin wire emerged from the terminal cabinet and
disappeared through the back wall.
Unless I had been specifically looking for it, I
would have never spotted the wire. Although it had
been hastily installed, it was well done.
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47



47
I clicked my penlight off, and once again pulled
out my Luger as I followed the back wall away
from the terminal cabinet, coming finally to a steel
door.
I put my ear to it. There was the sound of ma-
chinery running on the other side. The room prob-
ably contained the heating plant for the building.
Softly, I opened the door a crack, and immedi-
ately I could smell cigarette smoke. Someone was
seated at a small table to the right, earphones on
his head, hunched over a tape recorder.
I yanked the door all the way open and stepped
inside, bringing my Luger up.
The man half turned, and when he saw me just
inside the door, he reached out toward his equip-
ment, and the lights went out.
I leaped to the left, crouching down, and a sec-
ond later the man fired two shots in my direction,
the bullets whining off the metal door.
Crawling on my hands and knees, I scrambled
behind the heating equipment. A third shot ri-
cochetted off the machinery just above my head.
And then the room was still, except for the
sounds of the heating equipment. Across the room
I could see a dim light coming from an indicator
dial on the tape recorder.
Whoever had bugged Don's apartment did not
want this confrontation, I was certain of it. But he
would not leave without the tape recorder.
I continued to watch the light. But then it went
out, or was blocked!
I fired three shots in quick succession , one direct-
ly where the light had been, one to the left and the
last to the right.
48




48
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
The man cried out and then crashed to the floor.
I leaped up and was across the room in a couple
of strides, my Luger in my right hand and my
penlight in my left. I flicked on the light.
One of my shots had caught him in the right
shoulder; the other had blown the back of his head
off.
I holstered my Luger and quickly went through
his pockets, coming up with a wallet that contained
a security identification card from the Church of
the Final Reward. His name had been Robert
Biggs, and he had a New York address.
For a moment I stared at the card. A New York
address! That meant the church probably had of-
fices here in the city.
Christ! I slipped the ID card out of the man's
wallet, then replaced the wallet in his pocket. Next
I grabbed the tape recorder, ripping the wire out of
the wall, and left the furnace room, racing across to
the elevator.
The elevator car had not gone up. and the door
opened as soon as I punched the button.
Atterbury answered the apartment door on my
first knock, and when I came in with the tape
recorder he looked incredulous.
"Where did you find that?" he asked, following
me into the living room where I set the machine
down on the coffee table.
"In the basement," I said. "Call the information
operator and ask for the telephone number and ad-
dress of the Church of the Final Reward's office
here in New York."
"They have an office here?"
"Yes," I snapped. '"Now hurry!"
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536