ONE
The chair was custom-made, reinforced to take its
wner's weight. It could swivel to cover degrees of the
nique room, and tilt to act as a temporary for a man
ho seldom left that room.
He sat, his huge buttocks filling the oversize chair to
ver-flowing, his meaty hands working at switches and
yboards, his eyes never leaving the countless monitors
at watched over his empire twenty-four hours a day.
The watching had become an obsession. His conglomer-
te of banks, shipping lines, warehousing, and the long list
companies in illicit trade, had tEcome too
oversee in person, and he had tEcome too fat to move
und.
The table was octagonal, the chair in its center. No
reak in the table and its array of controls allowed for the
it of the gargantuan man. For the few hours a day he left
e room, the chair and the floor around it sank slowly to
2
1
NICK CARTER



2
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NICK CARTER
the floor below, controlled smoothly by hydraulic cylin-
ders.
Arthur Cecil Chen, a name given to him by Occiden
foster parents, sat in the huge swivel chair. Fat Chen, as h
was known to his enemies, patiently moved beady blac
eyes, set well back in a huge, dome of a skull,
he watched one monitor after the other. Ears, small an
almost concealed by the rolls of fat, listened to countles
conversations. Cameras were set up in every office of an
importance in his vast empire. His key people wore con
cealed cameras designed by an electronics genius under hi
control. He could hear every conversation by merely fli
ping a switch. He could, and did, record and file hundred
of thousands of feet of video tape to use as a lever agains
his enemies. He could interrupt and countermand th
orders of his subordinates in his booming voice, a soun
that filled the room and matched, in decitEIs, the almos
seven hundred m»unds of his weight.
A half dozen of the countless monitors followed robo
sentries as they patrolled the perimeter fence around hi
five-acre estate off Lady Hill Road just north of the Pakis
tani embassy, Chen was a fanatic about security but woul
have no human agents in the house. Human wa
his only fear. He was paranoid about other humans comin
near him. One man served his every need, a small Malay
who had been with Chen for so long he could usually antic
ipate the big man's every wish.
Just as he was about to shake the walls with a bellow f
food, a huge tray descended from the ceiling, covered wi
a multitude of dishes. It stopped a couple of inches abov
the array of keyboards, the aroma from steaming plate
filling the room.
Heu Choy, his man, was an accomplished cook, but h
SINGAPORE SLING
3




3
often sent out for native dishes. Feeding the monster who
was his master, with all his other duties, was sometimes an
overwhelming task. The tray held a cauldron of soup,
overflowing platters of smoked Szechuan duck on a bed of
fried rice, minced pork with bean curd, lamb in brown
sauce with scallions, steamed chicken in lotus leaves, fried
eel in garlic sauce, plates of stir-fried vegetables, baskets
of fruit.
Fat Chen tied a huge bib around his nonexistent neck to
cover the front of the long loose gown he invariably wore.
While he moved both hands from the dishes to his mouth,
each hand adept at the use of chopsticks, small shovels that
kept a steady stream of food going in one direction, the
man's dark eyes focused on the monitors that were de-
signed for the guarding of his house. A dozen robots
moved in their inexorable patterns, some inside the
grounds, others in the double width of fencing surrounding
the five acres. The two fences, twelve feet apart, were
crisscrossed with laser beams programmed to stop any in-
truder yet allow passage of the wheeled robots on a very
precise computerized program.
Each robot was a marvel—invented by Chen's elec-
tronics genius—impersonal, mobile, and deadly. They
were about four feet tall, traveled on four wheels over any
terrain, and were armed with both laser trams and conven-
tional small arms in domed, rotating heads: four lasers,
three 40mm machine guns. No one had attempted to pene-
trate the fortress. The twin fences were deterrent enough,
but the robots, highly visible, made it impossible to ap-
proach the house by land or air.
fie food was gone in minutes. The tray ascended to the
room above while another descended, providing finger
bowls and a roll of towels.
4




4
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NICK CARTER
Finished with his snack, Chen flipped a switch and
broke into a conversation in one of his warehouses. "You
procrastinate," he charged the three men sitting in a corner
office. g 'The two are obviously foreign agents, probably
American, Have you no plans?"
"Kill them, Excellency," one man said.
Chen fumed behind his desk. "You have no imagina-
tion. We want no foreign deaths traced back to us. Fools! I
have fools working for me!"
"What do you propose, Excellency?" another of the men
asked. They were obviously afraid of their employer, of the
hold he had over them. He could have them killed in a
dozen ways, or a few words in the right ear and they would
be jailed for life.
"Set them up. Lead them to Kuala Lumpur. Get them
far from our operation and let the local police there deal
with them," the booming voice attacked their ears.
"If we have your we could lose a kilo, plant
it on them. Do we have your IRI-mission?" the third man
asked, a haunting fear evident in his voice.
"Must it be a whole kilo?"
"Insurance, Excellency. nat much leaves no doubt. Ca-
sual users don't carry a whole kilo."
'Good. What is one kilo if we get them off our backs?
Just do it and make it fast," Chen said, his voice menacing.
"And remember, I am watching you. I won't tolerate fail-
ure in this. They have to go and it Aust be clean. I don't
want this coming back to my doorstep."
"Yes, Excellency," they said, in unison.
Fat Chen cut them off with a flick of a chubby finger,
then flipped another switch. ' 'Farben. Come to the cam-
era."
A thin face appeared on a screen. The man's teeth were
SINGAPORE SLING
5




5
discolored and stained from cigarettes, and the sparse mus-
tache beneath a long, narrow nose was yellow. His slanted
eyes were rheumy, wet at the corners, bloodshot. Behind
him, a giant of a man, also Chinese, stood mute, his face
dull and expressionless, a human robot, limited but useful
in his own way:
"l want you two observing our operation at the Neil
Road warehouse. My people there have a disposal job. I
don't want any foul-ups. Keep an eye on them."
"Do you have information that will help?" the thin man
asked.
'They will be ridding us of a couple of agents who have
been nosing around. Make sure they do a clean job for us.
Keep out of sight. If it appears they are going to bungle it,
move in and clean up."
The thin man, Farben, needed no further instructions.
He knew what "clean up" meant. Fat Chen, an
the small man never used except within his own thoughts,
had given such orders before. If the Neil Road team blew
it, it was his job to kill them and their quarry. The bodies
would never be found. Ihat had been Chen's way from the
time he had first am:rared in Singapore twenty years ear-
lier, weighing a mere two hundred pounds, filled with a
burning ambition to the richest man in the Far East. It
was still his way and always would be. No loose ends. No
leads back to him.
The two agents sat on separate cots in a cell, isolated
from the other prisoners in the dank sub-basement of the
Justice Building. One was of middle height, well muscled,
his face squared off like a block of granite chiseled to form
facial features. The other was the exact oppsite, slim,
wiry, the smooth face almost txyish.
6




6
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NICK CARTER
"I can't remember ever being so stupid," the young-
looking one said. "We walked right into it. We've had as-
signments like this before and never came close to blowing
it. What the hell
"Don't know," Muscles answered, his elbows on his
knees, his hands holding his head dejectedly. "It's as if
they'd had a camera on our operation from the first. I feel
like we've been orchestrated, you know? We didn't even
have a chance to report back to Bangkok. They won't have
a clue what happened to us."
"Well, in a couple of weeks it won't matter. The judge
made that clear enough. Drug convictions carry the death
here. That's it."
"Did you understand all of it?" Muscles asked. "I'm not
sure our lawyer translated it the way it went down. He
made it sound too damn simple. They found a kilo of her-
oin in our car. They couldn't connect us to any drug ring."
"Didn't matter," the other agent, who sat cross-legged
on the cot like a small Buddha, replied. "Possession was
enough. They've got some kind of law here like the new
'zero tolerance' law being used back home. You're found
with the stuff, you're guilty. Having some in our car was as
bad as if we'd been peddling the stuff for years."
"You know what makes me feel worst?" Muscles said.
"It was being taken so easily, led into a trap like a couple
of rookies, drugged-and left in the car."
"Chen's people. How did they get es to Kuala Lumpur,
do you suppose?"
"In the back seat of our own car, I imagine. They just
drove up here and left us in the front seat. Called the local
police. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out."
"Did the judge say 'hanged by the neck'?"
S mat's what the little bastard said," Muscles re-
SINGAPORE SLING
7



7
sponded, the cords of his neck standing out as his venom
spilled out. "He was a cold one. No extenuating circum-
stances. I wonder what he'd have done if it had hapB2ned
to his son or a brother"
lhe boyish one sat, small hands folded, head bent as if
in supplication. "Ihe AXE agent blinked rapidly, as if on
the brink of tears. "So it's over." The words were barely
audible, the voice full of emotion, almost choking. "I've
been all over the world for Hawk, done every kind of job
that he asked short of killing. And this is where it ends."
"Jesus! That's all I need," Muscles said, disgusted.
"Don't be so goddamned maudlin. Let's spend our time
figuring out how the hell to get out of here. I don't want to
die in some fuckin' Malaysian prison at the end of a rope!"
"Face it, Barney. Hawk know where we are.
What've we got? Two weeks? Less? No one knows where
we are."
"But he'll make a try at it. No one abducts Hawk's
agents without paying. Someday, some way, Hawk'll fig-
ure it out."
"Let's he figures it out in the next few days." The
dejected agent formed the words without expression. "I
don't want to die."
lhe big man had worn the miniature camera not because
he was intelligent or talented. In fact he was just the oppo-
site. Farben, his narrow-faced boss, moved around too
much, checking his back, watching his surroundings. But
when you told the big man to watch someone, he watched,
immobile, like a rock.
Chen sat in his electronic room and saw his carry
the two agents out to their own car and plant the heroin in
the trunk. He'd watched now and then as they left Singa-
8




8
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
pore across the Johor Causeway and drove the two hundred
miles into the middle of the peninsula, passing through the
towns of Segamat and Seremban en route to the big city,
Kuala Lumpur.
Farben's partner sat in the courtroom, detached, as the
camera hidden in his clothes ground on, telling the whole
story. Chen had been confident of the outcome. The Ma-
laysians had tunnel vision as far as drugs were concerned.
If you wanted to commit murder in Malaysia today, all you
had to do was plant some drugs on your intended victim,
call the police, and sit back. Bureaucracy took care of the
rest.
Fat Chen switched off when the sentence had been
passed and the two were led away. It was a closed issue
and he had other fish to fry.











Two
*Ihe woman raised herself on one elbow and looked
down at the dark-haired man beside her. They were both
naked. Before they had gone to bed, he had turned the air
conditioning off and opened the sliding doors to the night
air. The moonlight reflected off the Gulf of Mexico into the
room.
She looked at him for tong minutes as if she couldn't get
enough of him. He seemed taller than his six-feet-one
frame as he stretched out tBide her. His face in rem)se
seemed softer when he was asleep. Awake, the strong fea-
tures came alive with vitality and the dark eyes ICM)ked at
her, sometimes with intensity, sometimes with laughter, all
crinkled at the edges.
His body was tanned, but the collection of scars he'd
picked up over the years showed through, slightly less
brown, shiny in places, slightly puckered in others.
She had not asked him about them. She guessed he'd been
10
9




10
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NICK CARTER
a soldier, perhaps a mercenary, but that didn't fit the pat-
tern of their few days together. He dressed well, looked
better than most men in a tuxedo, played cards with her
men friends with an expertise she'd seldom seen, and fasci-
nated her female friends with a knowledge of subjects that
seemed endless.
They'd made love often and the ecstasy she'd felt
seemed to grow with each encounter. He was an expert
lover. He seemed to know all the right places to touch her,
and knew how to bring her along at a pace that maximized
her pleasure. nen, as if his instincts were perfect, he
knew when to take her to the peak of passion and hold her
there for long minutes while she felt sensations rush
through her she had never felt before.
It was the kind of treatment that made slaves of women.
She knew that. But she also realized that he was the kind of
man she couldn't keep with her much longer. Still, she had
to try, to travel with him to the heights as many times as
possible before he left her. And when he did leave, she
would follow if it were at all
Eloise Harper was an individual of many talents. She
was the only woman who had txen acceptted into the
closed society of the frontons. Jai alai was her game. She'd
played it as hard as any man and was rated as one of thé
best. Her father, a Longboat Key real estate developer who
could afford to indulge her every whim, built a structure
resembling a jai alai fronton for her next to the tennis
courts on their estate on Florida's Gulf Coast. It was con-
structed of cement, rectangular, open on one side and with
no roof. It seemed to be half again as long as a tennis
court.
Nick Carter had been a natural pupil. In the few days he
had been with her, she had fitted him with a cesta, the
SINGAPORE SLING
11





11
player's catching and throwing basket. It was strapped to
his right arm and extended in a graceful curve. like an
oversize bread basket shagrd like a quarter moon. It ex-
tended about thirty inches his wrist. She taught him
many of the complicated moves of the best players. The
skills he quickly seemed to center around accu-
racy and pace. He could place the small rcw•k-hard ball
anywhere he wanted and with the exact to either
blow past his opponent or set her up with a soft shot. The
long, curved basket strapc:ui to his right arm seemed a part
of him already. Given time, she knew she could make him
one of the best.
Caner his eyes. The woman's face was close to
his, her long blond hair sweeping across his torso, her
breath a whisper of air that moved the hair on his chest.
She was lovely, her body perfect, her breasts jutting and
proud, her legs long and muscular without detracting from
her femininity. She was strong, stronger than most women
he met, but it was not evident until she needed the strength
to challenge him in bed or on the fronton court.
lhe ha7ßl eyes looked into his and the message was
plain. She was insatiable. He didn't know how long he'd
slept, but she was ready for him again. He felt relaxed for
the first time in weeks, able to close his eyes and let sleep
take him without fear of an enemy attack. It was exactly
what he'd needed.
He raised his head and kissed her softly on the lips.
"Relax," he said, reaching to the night table for his ciga-
rettes. He flipped two from the pack, lit them with his gold
lighter, and slipped one between her lips. "We should have
plenty of time."
He knew the statement was more of a vain hope than a
certainty. He could be called at any moment and their brief
12




12
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
encounter would be over. No sooner had the thought oc-
curred...
"Don't answer it," she said, as the phone rang insis-
tently. She seemed to sense, as he did, that it was the signal
for parting.
Carter reached for the receiver and recognized the simu-
lated voice of the computer that Hawk had installed a cou-
ple of years earlier. Recently some clown at the agency had
programmed the damned thing to track him down and pass
along orders. He'd have preferred the warm voice of
Ginger Bateman, David Hawk's right hand, even if her
calls usually took him away from pleasure to the games of
silent war that his agency fought.
"Nick Carter, please," the synthesized voice said.
' 'What do you want?"
"We have need of your presence," the complicated as
sembly of chips and wires communicated.
"Where is he?"
"In his office. The message seemed urgent."
Carter hung up. He didn't feel the need to say good2bye
to a machine. He sometimes wondered if he had been in
the business too long. More and more, in the assignments
Hawk gave him, he encountered computer-controlled bar-
riers. He was flesh and blood. He derE11ded on his wits,
his knife, and his gun to get the job done. He was skilled in
the use of most modern weapons and could fly almost any
aircraft to a reasonable level of skillÄ)ut he was weary of
the opposition gearing up with state-of-the-art electronics
to run their operations. More and more, he wondered if one
of the computers, particularly after artificial intelligence
was perfected, would be the death of him.
"Who was that?" Eloise asked, crushing out her ciga-
rette and coming to him, holding him close.






13
(27 of 212)
+ 110%
SINGAPORE SLING
"You wouldn't trlieve me if I told you."
• 'Try me."
13
He smiled to himself at the two words, having tried her
many times in the past few days. "A computer."
"You're putting me on."
"l wish I were. When my work calls, they sometimes
turn a computer to find me. It's like getting in an
elevator and hearing a mechanical voice telling you what to
do, how to move, when to get off," he said, taking the last
drag of his cigarette and reaching for her. "I hate it."
"Well, you don't have to go this vet)' minute," she
covering his mouth with hers. She pressed
against him from chest to t(E, willing him to take her one
more time, to leave with her a final memory that would be
indelible.
When she let him up for air, he chuckled. "Let the
damned computer wait."
When he pulled her him and entered her, his
passion mounting, the phone rang again.
Viciously, he swept up the receiver and he could
answer, the electronic voice announced: "I have an Eastern
flight out of Sarasota in one hour that connects with Delta
in Atlanta for Washington with only a forty-minute
layover. The tickets are at the Eastem counter in the name
of Jack Clifford."
"Ihe connection was broken as he smashed down the
receiver.
The Delta flight took him into Washington's National
Airport. Carter took a cab to his brownstone in George-
town, showered, packed a suitcase with fresh clothes, and
ve his beautifully restored Jaguar XKE across the Theo-
dore Roosevelt Bridge and up New Hampshire Avenue to
14





14
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
Dupont Circle. He drove around the circle, past AXE
headquarters in the Amalgamated Press and Wire Services
building, to a small side street a couple of blocks to the
north. Miraculously, he found a parking spot in the con-
gested neighborhood.
Amalgamated Press and Wire Services was the front for
a highly secret intelligence agency, AXE, run by David
Hawk, his boss, probably the keenest mind in the Western
intelligence community. But that fact was known by very
few people. Hawk had been one of the best fieldmen for
years he took to his desk. It was reputed that he'd
been with "Wild Bill" Donovan, the founder of the OSS,
the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. Carter
had never brought the subject up. Hawk would have to
have a very young man if the rumor was tme and a lot
older now than he looked.
AXE had been formed at the request of the president
after too many leaks in the other clandestine services had
caused too many unnecessary deaths. Hawk was a friend
and the most logical man to be given the task. Carter was
Hawk's tkSt agent, but there was more to their relationship
than mere professional respect. While the older man's
manner was brusque and commanding, his feelings for
Carter were almost fatherly, although he rarely allow
overt expressions of concern to surface.
The walk back to Dupont Circle was a ritual with
Carter. He never approached directl»any location where h
was expected. He had too many enemies. Too many opera
tives in rival agencies knew him by sight. So it was his
caution, an obsession with him, that kept him alive whe
others he had known were long dead.
This time his sharply honed senses told him he wm
being observed. He walked around Dupont Circle on th
SINGAPORE SLING
15





15
west side without looking directly at AXE headquarters.
He stopped frequently, once to light a cigarette, once to tie
a shoe, and his eyes covered the ground all around him
without seeing anything out of place. Still it was there—
the feeling persisted.
Instead of going to the Amalgamated Press offices,
Carter stepped into a phone booth and called Hawk's pri-
vate nurntEr.
"Yes," the gruff voice barked at the mouthpiece.
Carter could imagine his boss sitting in the high-backed
swivel chair, a foul-smelling cigar in his mouth, smoke
circling to the ceiling. Hawk was of middle height, stocky,
and usually wore dark blue or gray suits. He had a full
head of startlingly white hair.
' 'Carter," he announced. "I'm at a pay phone near the
circle. I think I'm being followed."
"Lose them. Meet at the safe house on Vermont
Avenue."
Carter hailed a cab and asked the driver to take him to
the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He flipped a twenty
beside the driver a block before they amved and was out of
the taxi and into the FBI monolith before anyone following
could react.
He knew the ground floor well. He took a back en-
trance, hailed another cab, and was heading back north-
west again in seconds. He slipped out of the cab at the
Washington Plaza Hotel, entered the lobby, and headed for
the side and another taxi stand. By the time he stood a
block away from the safe house, he knew he had lost his
pursuer.
The old brownstone on Vermont Avenue was in the
middle of the block, one of several refurbished in a block
community project. A couple, low-level agents of AXE,
16




16
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
fronted the house for Hawk, attended local community
meetings, shopped, cut the grass, and looked like any other
retired couple.
Hawk was in the second-floor-front sanctuary he some-
times used when he wanted to get away from the demands
of his office. He stood at the front window, his mouth
pulling on the inevitable foul cigar, his hands clasped be-
hind his back. He turned when Carter entered.
"Who was on you?" he demanded impatiently. Never a
man with an abundance of tolerance for intermptions to his
plans, his attitude was almost hostile.
"I don't know, sir. I lost them."
"Sit down. I'd like you on a plane to Singapore as soon
as possible. We've got a lot to cover."
Carter looked across a glass table at the older man. By
keeping up with world news, he frequently was able to
guess why he was being summoned. Totally relaxed in
Florida, he hadn't opened a single copy of the Sarasota
Herald Tribune that had been delivered to his room every
day for more than a week.
"Two of our agents are missing in Singapore. One of
our junior people in the area sent back word that they've
been taken by the Malaysian authorities for drug posses-
sion. Apparently a kilo of heroin was found in their car.
*Ihey're in a jail in Kuala Lumpur."
"Who set them up?"
"I don't know. I want them out ofxthere. Drug posses-
Sion is a hanging offense in Malaysia."
"Can't you use your contacts?"
"Not this time. 'Ihe local are adamant. Some-
thing like our zero tolerance policy on drugs. They make
no exceptions."
SINGAPORE SLING
17




17
"A little out of my tine, isn't it?" Carter asked, taking a
cigarette from a gold case and tapping the end tkfore he lit
it.
'On the surface, Hawk said, blowing smoke to
the ceiling and getting up to pace in front of the window.
"There's a lot going on in Singapore right now. Two CIA
agents disappeared while working on the kidnapping of the
brothers. We sent in two of our people to find out what
haplk.ned to them and they end up tring framed. Stupid!"
"Aren't the Soos the brothers who were the snake oil
kings of the Far East?" Carter asked.
"They started with Ginseng Essence Balm and built it
•nto a conglomerate. Billionaires. Someone—some group
we haven't identified—has taken them."
"But they're from Singapore. Our E*ople are in Kuala
Lumpur."
"l want you to find out what the hell's going on over
there. The prime minister of Singapore is about to retire.
Our information on his probable successor is not encourag-
mg—the man has marked Soviet leanings."
"*lhe prime minister's in px)wer since the sixties.
e changed the place from an immwerished colony to an
economic miracle, one of the trading leaders of the Far
East," Carter mused. "He created an almost perfect scxi-
ety."
'SMaybe too perfect. You know the place as well as I do.
Squeaky clean. Fines for dropping a candy on the
treets. Banners on almost every block extolling the value
f work and thrift. Everyone is a money-crazed stock mar-
et fanatic. The children all wear uniforms to school and
t like well-trained robots."
"It could be worse. It may seem artificial to us, but it's
18





18
+ 110%
NICK CARTER
better than guns everywhere, neighborhods held hostage
to crack, and homeless sleeping on the sidewalks."
"Could Hawk said, continuing to pace. He seemed
to have boundless energy and had to work it off. "But the
prime minister—what's his name?—Peter Hue Yen—has
too many enemies. It's a valuable pie and one hell of a lot
of people want a piece of it."
"Have you set up a cover?"
"No. Fly in as as possible. Go first class all the
way. Stay at the Shangri-la, play the tables, nose around.
Ginger has already made your reservations."
"What about our people in Kuala Lumpur?"
"You'll have to be in two places at the same time,
Nick," Hawk said. "Maintain the rich tourist cover but get
our people out of jail. Don't let anyone connect the two
roles."
"And nose around to find out who took the Soo brothers
and why," Carter finished for him. "Take a good look at
the prime minister's successor. Find out who is backing
him and his intent—
"And if it goes against our interests, put a stop sign on
it," Hawk interrupted.
"That it?"
"No. I've had word that someone in Singapore with in-
credible power may be pulling strings that affect your as
signment."
"What do you know about him?'k
"Not as much as I'd like. He's very powerful and ve
private. I've got a feeling you'll learn more from our peo
ple when you get them out."
"What do you want me to do with them? Send the
home? Use them to help?"
SINGAPORE SLING
19




19
'They could be a problem for you. Use your judgment.
If you can't use them, send them to the Bangkok chief of
station. I'll talk to him. He'll reassign them. If you want
local help, call on him."
"Joe Wright still our man?"
"He's still there."
"Is Howard in town?"
Howard Schmidt wa.s AXE's man of all trades—archi-
vist, identifications chief, master of electronic gadgets.
"He's in his basement lair as usual. You can get him
through the computer."
"I've been meaning to to you about that com-
puter—-" Carter started to say.
"No changes to the computer," Hawk cut him off, rais-
ing one hand like a stop signal. The computer was a sensi-
tive issue they had discussed before. "You've got to go
with the times, Nick. We're programming it to do more
every day."
Carter mumbled something under his breath. Hawk
caught the word "progress" arxl some profanity: He almost
cracked a smile.
"Forget about the computer, Nick," the older man said
as Carter rose to leave. "Some things you just have to live
with."
Back at his car, Carter sensed he was being watched
again. It didn't really matter now. He was on his own, a
condition that was second nature to him. He'd been operat-
ing alone for so long it might not natural to feel safe and
secure all the time. The vacations, like the one he'd had
with Eloise, had been great, just what he needed between
demanding jobs, but the action was the thing. He had an
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assignment, one that was open-ended, and that had the po-
tential to take him in almost any direction.
So he had to forget about the Eloises of this world and
concentrate on the job at hand. *Ihe first thing he had to do
was find out who had him under surveillance.










THREE
Pan American flight I took Carter from New York to
Los Angeles, to Hawaii, and finally to Hong Kong. With
only an hour in Hong Kong, he boarded Singapore Airlines
flight 146 for the remaining leg of the journey. The service
on both flights had been luxurious, the crisp efficiency of
the American flight attendants in sharp contrast to the fluid
movements of the Malaysian crew who wore colorful long
gowns in native batiks, their concern total for the comfort
of the people in their charge.
But something had nagged at Caner. The short hairs at
the back of his neck wouldn't permit him to fully relax
during the flight. And it wasn't just the usual signals he
was getting. They seemed to be coming from all directions,
as if he had enemies everywhere.
lhe taxi driver at Changi Airport in Singapore tossed
Carter's bag in the back of the cab and held the door for
him.
22
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"The American embassy," the man from AXE an-
nounced.
His last contact at AXE headquarters had been Howard
Schmidt. The big man had pressed a new set of toys on
him, or he'd tried. He'd designed an attaché case that held
not only Carter's three favorite weapons, but a small
leather case of syringes and drugs. This trip, Schmidt had
included some new items.
Tis cylinder contains a nerve gas," Schmidt had ex-
plained. "Released in an air duct, it will fill a building the
size of our headquarters in seconds. No aftereffects, just a
couple of hours of sleep and a mild headache."
"You know I like to travel light, Howard," Carter said,
remembering the countless times he'd through some-
thing like this with the gadgets man. "You'll have to send
this by diplomatic courier. I'll just have to find a place to
conceal them when I get there."
' 'They could be helpful. What about the Soo kidnap-
ping? The gas could be useful in neutralizing their ene-
mies."
"You've been reading too many spy novels, Howard.
What are all these things, the balls? They look like gre-
nades," Carter asked, hefting one of the plum-sized metal
balls in one hand. "Are you turning me into a mercenary?"
"You don't have to use them. Just something new. Four
times the power of a regulation grenade. They're equipped
with timers you can set quickly, fromsfive to twenty sec-
onds. The pins pull out more easily than those of conven-
tional grenades. But you've got to be careful with these
babies. Each one is capable of blowing up a small building
or totally demolishing a car."
"Leave the gas in the case, but I'll be damned if I'm
going to carry around a bunch of those things."
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"Aw, Nick—
23
24
"Just take them out. I'm not declaring war on anyone."
He had to humor his friend Howard once in a while, but
the compromise was the best he was about to make. The
big man spent too much time alone in the confines of his
basement kingdom dreaming up weird contraptions for
AXE agents to use. He knew that Carter wouldn't use
some of his truly outlandish inventions and Carter had
never talked to the other agents about them.
Now in the S 'Lion City," the taxi driver, a small, chain-
smoking native, drove sedately, unlike his He
cruised along the East Coast Parkway pointing out the
Swimming Center, the Tennis Center, the golf dnving
range, the Big Splash, a winding tubular affair populated
by hundreds of kids sliding down the tubes amid a rush of
white water: His voice was melodious, a singsong of
sound, but his English was almost impossible to follow.
Carter was getting the fuli tourist treatment. At that
point in time, he didn't really care. He'd probably get the
full tour of Chinatown before they headed for Hill Street
and the embassy.
Carter was familiar with Singapore, as he was with most
major cities in the world. lhey passed the beautiful Arme-
nian Church before pulling up in front of the embassy In
bright sunlight, the church was as white as a newly white-
washed fence. It looked like a typical New England village
church. The fact that they'd paqsed it confirmed that he'd
been taken for a "tourist ride." The church was at Coleman
and Hill streets. ney should have come in from the north,
past Stamford Road, not from the south.
It took him no more than five minutes at the embassy to
retrieve Howard's case, but not before he'd received the
usual warnings from the ambassador's chargé d'affaires.
NICK CARTER





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NICK CARTER
Why were the desk jockeys all so damn pompous? Why
did they all feel obliged to tell him to keep out of trouble?
He had a job to do and they knew it. Bureaucrats. He could
survive quite well without them.
Back in the cab, he spoke to the driver in Mandarin,
knowing it was probably the man's native tongue. "The
Shangri-la Hotel. Take Stamford Road, Orchard Road, and
Orange Grove Road. No detours this time. I don't feel like
another tour, old father."
As they circled to the right up the incline of Orange
Grove Road, the Shangri-la loomed at them out of the
trees. He'd been there before and knew it well, one of the
ten highest-rated hotels in the world,
His suite was magnificent, three rooms with every lux-
ury and convenience a man could desire. His balcony, one
of a hundred in an annex building, seemed like part of a
giant staircase leading down to the pool area. The whole
series of balconies was covered with clinging vines, all in
bloom, their fragrance almost overpowering, their orange,
red, and yellow blossoms adding to the incredible beauty
of the place.
To his right, a man-made fountain flowed noisily down
a hundred-foot drop to the side of a poolside restaurant that
was well placed between the luxury annex and the towering
main building. In the near distance, the lush grass of a golf
course on the grounds added to the view.
But Carter hadn't come here for pl• He flipped open
the attaché case, withdrew Wilhelmina, his 9mm Luger,
and strapped the holster on so she rested under his left
armpit. Hugo, his needle-sharp stiletto, he strapped to his
right forearm under his jacket. Sitting loosely in its cham-
Ois sheath, he could easily flip it into the palm of his hand
SINGAPORE SLING





25
with the simple flick of his wrist. The weapons were famil-
iar. With them he felt complete. Ihey had saved his life
more times than he could count. When he'd been younger
and less jaded, he'd named them as he might old friends
and the names had stuck.
He had one more familiar wearx)n, a small gas bomb the
size of a large walnut that he wore taped to his inner thigh
when on assignment. He called the bomb Pierre. He could
reach for it in an emergency, twist the two halves, and,
holding his breath, render others in the same room uncon-
scious. Sometimes Pierre contained lethal gas. This Pierre,
the last of many he'd left behind in life and death situa-
tions, was lethal. The case also contained the cylinder of
nerve gas Schmidt had pressed on him in Washington.
The last item he brought out was a black leather case
small enough to fit into a pocket. It held a half-dozen min-
iature syringes and three vials of liquid, ail of different
colors. The green liquid rendered a victim unconscious.
The orange liquid was a truth senam. The red was lethal. A
few drops of any of the three were highly effective, Carter
had used them in the past and found the assortment to be
extremely helpful in a variety of situations.
He opened a closet and was about to toss the attaché
case on a shelf when he stopped, totally surprised. A jai
alai cesta was on the shelf. He took it down and examined
it. It was the one Eloise had loaned him in Florida. No note
was attached, but none was necessary. With the discovery,
a lot of things were falling into place.
It was her way of saying she wanted to be with him. It
explained the eyes on him in Washington and all the way to
Singapore. If you had enough money you could buy men
who could find out anything for you, could track anyone
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NICK CARTER
without detection. The problem was real. If she was just
trying to be with him, that was one thing. If she'd been a
plant from a foreign agency all along, that was another.
Carter searched the room as thoroughly as he could
without the assistance of electronic gadgetry. He found two
listening devices. The screws holding the huge mirror in
the bathroom had been tampered with recently. He was
probably looking at a one-way mirror. It was obvious that
he was under intense scrutiny. Was it the caprice of a smit-
ten woman, or something else? Either way he didn't like it.
Carter's suite was at the end of the hall next to the wa-
terfall. He walked silently to the door of the neighboring
suite, swiftly picked the lock, and moved into the sun-
drenched quarters with Wilhelmina in his right hand.
A man was sitting at a desk, earphones
clamped to his head.
Carter placed the cold muzzle of his Luger behind the
man's ear. "Don't make any stupid moves," he said. "Take
off the earphones, put your hands in the air, and turn
around slowly."
The man was dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, his tie
expensive, his shoes custom-made. He was clean-cut, not
too different in appearance from the average FBI man, but
with more expensive tastes. He appeared to be American.
"Who are you?" Carter snapped.
'*My pocket?" the man asked, pointing.
Carter nodded.
The man reached into an inner pocket carefully and
brought out his wallet. He flipped it open. The card was
embossed in gold. The man's picture, in color, took up half
the space.
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TAMPA CONFIDENTIAL
Jeff Bridgetown
27
'Get your hands in the air," Carter ordered. "You're a
long way from Tampa, Bridgetown. Did Eloise Harper
send you?"
"I don't reveal the identity of my clients."
"You don't have any idea what you're dealing with,"
Caner said menacingly. "If Eloise is being foolish, trying
to stretch out something that's over, that's one thing and no
threat to me. But if our meeting was planned and she's not
what she seems, then you could end up very stiff and cold
a long way from home." While he spoke, he flipped Hugo
into his palm, held the point just the man's right ear,
and holstered his gun.
Bridgetown was quiet for a moment or two. Carter
traced a thin line with Hugo from Bridgetown's ear to his
throat. Small drops of blood ran to the edge of the man's
collar The two were almost nose to nose. "What will it
be?" Carter demanded. "Are you willing to die for a
woman with an overactive libido?"
"I sometimes work for her father," the man said calmly.
"She called me."
"What for?"
'To keep track of you, to find out who you really are
and what you do."
"You didn't get this far alone. No one is that good."
"No. I've got a team."
"Too bad you didn't cover your back," Carter said.
"Where are they?"
Bridgetown glanced at a walkie-talkie next to him. "I
can call them. They'd be here in seconds."
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NICK CARTER
"Never mind," Carter said, slipping Hugo back into its
sheath. He was satisfied that the team was harmless, that
Eloise was just a woman with too much money and a father
who was too indulgent. "I'm just going to say this once.
You're in way over your head. You might be good, but
you're a dead man if you don't pack up and go home. You
and your team."
"She told me about the scars on your body. I figured you
weren't your average citizen."
"So why didn't you advise her to leave me alone?"
"A buck's a buck. You don't get plum assignments like
this every day," Bridgetown said, moving out of Carter's
space and lowering his hands.
'Then consider it a vacation," Carter said. "You were
very lucky, Bridgetown, you and your people."
"So what do I tell my client?"
"You'll think of something, I'm sure. Tell her to let me
go and to look elsewhere for company. Make it stick. I
don't want her mooning around here. She could end up
dead." The expression on his face told the story. He was
serious and no one could mistake the fact.
"I'll do that," Bridgetown said. "We're out of here.
Okay?"
"Make it fast. I've got work to do," Carter said. "Eloise
is spoiled. She made a bad mistake."
"I was beginning to think the same thing," Bridgetown
said. "You're more than a businessmarA»r a tourist, Carter
No one's ever taken me like this."
"What's your background?"
"CIA. Too much conflict in the Company. It's better to
work for yourself."
"You've seen enough to know you'd better pack up?"
Carter asked, buying the man's story
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29




29
"You bet. What are you, Carter? Some kind of super-
spook?"
"You know better than to ask," Carter said. "When you
report back, make damn sure she gets a very bland picture
of me. If she gets in the way ... well."
'61 get the message."
Carter made him assume the position and relieved him
of a .357 magnum. "Why so much firepower?" he asked.
"Some of my work gets tcx) close to the bone."
"I'll hang on to this. Just clear out and get the message
across. It's in your best interests. If you don't, you'll have
more than you can handle."
"Whatever. You want me to take back the jai alai thing-
umajig?"
Carter pushed the private investigator to the door. "No.
Just make a fast exit and don't look back," he said.
"Again, think of it as a short exotic vacation."
When he'd gone, Caner coded a series of numbers into
one of the phones he'd checked for bugs in his own suite.
He was annoyed that Eloise would be so stupid, so self-
centered. It meant he'd have to check on her, make sure
she was just a foolish, overly romantic woman and not a
threat.
Hawk was not in. He spoke to Ginger, and told her to
have someone check out Eloise Harper. He hung up and
gave all his attention to the job at hand. He'd wasted
enough time on nonessentials.
He called the desk and asked them to order a rental car,
something powerful but plain, preferably black. Kuala
Lumpur was obviously the first point of attack, but he
wanted to make some impression in Singapore first.
Carter dressed in a lightweight safari suit, short-sleeved,
and headed for the counter: He picked up the keys to the
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NICK CARTER
rental and headed for the docks. No one followed. He sat
at an open-air bar next to the dock where tourists were
lined up for a tour of the harbor in an old Chinese junk
with red sails. While they boarded, he watched the people
around him. No one seemed suspicious. No one was inter-
ested in his movements ... as far as he could tell.
So much for establishing his baee. He returned to the
room and prepared for the trip inland. He packed a small
bag that contained an outfit all in black—jumpsuit,
sneakers, and stevedore cap—and as an afterthought,
tossed in the cylinder Schmidt had sent along.
ne Justice Building in Kuala Lumpur was in the mid-
die of the city, in an old section, surrounded by other old
red brick buildings. It was three stories high. Carter sat in
the rental in his black outfit. He had kept clear of the few
streetlights, changed from his safari suit in the car, and
blackened his face. His familiar weapons were in place.
Before heading for the old building, he had eaten his
evening meal in a café run by an aged Chinese. The man
had been attracted to an American who could speak his
tongue.
"What brings you to our city, younger brother?" the an-
cient gentleman asked, keeping his eyes on his help while
he rested his tired feet.
"I'm an architect back home. I spend my vacations
looking at old buildings."
"We have many old buildings. What do you want to
see?" the old man asked. He was small, very thin, but very
bright. Nothing escaped him. He knew what was happen-
ing in every corner of his establishment while talking to the
stranger.
"I design penal institutions back home."
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31
The old man rolled his tongue around the literal transla-
tion. "l know not the word."
"Prisons. I design jails."
"Ah. We have many jails. Much theft. Too much
trading. Bad. Very bad."
Carter smiled to himself at the hypocrisy. The old man
was an opium user himself. He had all the signs. He even
smelled of the last pirE he'd smoked. "l hear that drug
smuggling is a hanging offense."
The old man was wary. As a user, he could pulled in
and sent to the scaffold. His only safety lay in the number
of his people who were as addicted as he. The police could
not take them all, so they left the users and went after the
dealers. "You have beard right, younger brother," he fi-
nally said. "You look more like a policeman than an archi-
tect. How do I know you are not trying to trap an old
man
"l have no traps, older brother. I simply observe. Where
is the jail they keep the condemned?" He tossed in the
question casually.
"Not many condemned right now. The dealers are lying
low. If anyone is awaiting the hangman, he will be in the
Justice Building." The old man smiled for the first time,
revealing teeth blackened by the smoke of many pipes.
'Ihey were mostly stumps, most uneven, some missing.
The parchment skin of his face wrinkled as he went on.
"Poor devils. What are they to do? We have used the
powder and paste for hundreds of years. Smugglers are
fourth and fifth generation. Are they to become fishermen
or panderers?"
"l hear even foreigners are condemned to death," Carter
added as he finished off the last of his coffee.
"I am told that two are in the basement cells of the
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NICK CARTER
Justice Building now." the old man said. He suddenly
looked weary. A frown creased his ancient face. "But you
will excuse me. Business is a tireless master."
had been a couple of hours earlier Caner had been
watching the building since then. Police cars had brought
in prisoners. He had seen no one leave who was not in
uniform. It was late, too late for court appearances and the
work of lawyers.
Carter had mulled over the situation carefully He
couldn•t go in blasting. The operation had to be as clean as
he could make it. Howard Schmidt's latest invention rested
on the seat beside him. The nerve gas was obviously the
answer, but it, too. presented problems. He could hold his
breath longer than most people, at least four minutes. That
was all right for him. but what about the prisoners? How
big were they? Could he carry them both out? He decided
on a soft probe first.
Carter circled the building quietly. Fortunately. it stood
alone with an empty lot between it and its neighbors on
both sides. The weed-coveled lots were being prepared for
an expansion to the old building.
A small parking lot at the back held only three cars. A
dim bulb shone over a small door, the only at the
rear. Carter it a crack and peered down the length
of a deserted hall.
With the agility of a night-stalking creature, he slipped
inside and descended to the first baserqent, taking the nar-
row stairway two steps at a time.
"What are you doing ... ?" a voice behind him started to
say:
Carter swung without hesitation and the lone
guard on the side of the neck. The man went down hard.
Carter dragged him to a door nearby and shoved him in
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among the brooms and A mobile laundry hamper
took up the rest of the space.
Carter found no cells on that but he did find a
small elevator at the end of the hall, There was no way he
was going to use the elevator now, but it might be useful
later.
He took the stairs to the next lower level, making a
mental note of every detail as he went, including the vent-
ing system.
The second basement contained a group of small storage
offices, a closet identical to the one on the floor above, and
one long row of cells. A guard was watching television, his
back to Carter.
The Killma.ster crept up slowly, his black sneakers mak-
ing no noise on the painted cement floor. He the
guard in a choke hold and held him immobile. Since most
of the population was Chinese, he whispered in the man's
ear in Mandarin, '*Where are the two Americans?"
. understand," the man choked out in Canton-
"J don't .
ese.
Carter repeated the question in the guard's language.
'They are in the last cell to the nght. lhey—
he
started to say as Carter cut him off, rendering him uncon-
scious.
The man from AXE deposited the unconscious guard in
the closet directly below the one he'd used upstairs. The
guard had no keys. Despite the decrepit of the
jail, all doors were controlled electronically from a control
room.
He ran along the hall to the last cell. "Where is the
control he asked the two dejected Americans with-
out preliminaries.
He must have looked like an apparition. "Hawk sent
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NICK CARTER
me," he hissed at them. g 'You know the layout of this
"Part of the job," the smaller of the two said.
"Where the hell's the control room for the cell doors?"
"Main floor. Second door to the right."
"I'm going to take you out. Stay as close to the cell door
as you can," Carter said, taking off at a run, not waiting for
an answer. There was no point in telling them he might
have to use the gas. He had the lay of the land now. He
could handle it.
The two flights of stairs to the back door were scaled in
seconds. He slipped around to the front, keeping to the
shadows.
The cylinder would be useful after all. He took it from
the car and clipped it to his belt. He unraveled a long thin
wire from around his waist and attached a grappling hook
that he unfolded from a pocketknife that resembled a
Swedish army knife.
It took him two attempts and more noise than he in-
tended before thc small grappling hook caught and held.
He donned gloves and pulled himself up the wire, hand
over hand.
The roof was flat. A relatively modern rooftop air con-
ditioner hummed quietly to one side. One of the two large
fans alongside the unit was circulating air down below.
The simplest task was releasing the gas and leaving the
cylinder propped up beside the air The more diffi-
cult one was to get in and then escape detection while
transporting two inert bodies.
Carter decided not to waste time trying to find a way in
from the roof. He rappelled down the side of the building
in seconds and was at the front door ready to move in when
two officers entered in front of him, reporting for duty.
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35
Too many variables, he said to himself. He hadn't
checked on the time factors for the nerve gas. Schmidt said
it would last for several hours, but how long would it take
for it to take effect? He couldn't allow for entering
the building. His best txt was to get in fast, then use the
elevator and the back door on his way out. He took two
minutes to move his car to the rear parking lot, then glided,
catlike, around to the front door.
No one was in sight. Carter took in several lungsful of
air, expelling each, building up a high concentration of
oxygen in his blood. Through long practice and the use of
yoga techniques, he was capable of holding his breath for
four minutes. Once, trapped in a submarine, fighting for
his life, he had extended his limit to five minutes but had
blacked out at that point. lhere was no way he could allow
himself to black out today.
Carter crept in past the brightly lit front entrance and
down the hall to the control room. On the way he passed
the two officers he'd seen enter. They had made it only a
few feet inside the He didn't stop. Every fraction of a
second was precious.
Two men were slumped over the control panel. lhe
panel's instructions were in German. The guards had du-
plicated them using Chinese characters. German was no
problem for the Killmaster. He pulled the guards aside and
found a switch that controlled the cells in the second base-
ment and threw it. He left one of the guard's bodies
drooped over it.
He the elevator to the second basement. It was
painfully slow. He checked his Rolex. A minute and a half
had passed already. The door slid open to reveal two more
guards on the floor, one toppled over on the other. Carter
found the closet where he'd left the guard earlier, pulled
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' NICK CARTER
out the laundry basket, a canvas affair with a metal frame
over four sturdy casters, and wheeled it down the hall to
the last cell.
Two and a half minutes.
As he worked, he thought the agents were an unlikely
team, one so much smaller than the other, almost like a
boy. He tossed the inert frame of the big man on the bottom
and eased the smaller one on top of him. He covered them
both with a soiled sheet, a precaution that was more pre-
vention than necessity, and had them to the elevator before
the third minute was up.
The elevator crawled to the main floor slowly. Carter
was beginning to feel uncomfortable, small black and
green spots floating before his eyes from time to time.
At last the elevator opened on the main floor. He pushed
the cart toward the rear of the building, the casters playing
tricks with him, the cart bouncing off the walls, first one
side, then the other.
He came to the end of the hall and found a hallway
crossing like a T. Which way? He turned left and soon
found himself trapped at a dead end. Three times he had to
stop and shove bodies out of the way:
Carter reversed his path and took the other end of the T.
Aftter twenty feet it turned sharply to the right and he was
faced with a set of double doors. They were locked. He
whipped out his Luger and shattered the lock. It took three
rounds before the door gave way to aspowerful kick from
his right foot.
Four and a half minutes.
Carter was feeling the pressure build, threatening to pop
his ears if he didn't release it. He exhaled, careful not to
take in any of the gas. His vision was blurred and his ac-
tions slowed.
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37
He reached the door and pushed the cart out into the
night air just as his knees stared to buckle. As the door
closed behind them, he took a long breath, drawing the
fresh air deep within his lungs.
He still wasn't out of danger He struggled to his feet on
rubbery knees and pushed the cart to his car. He opened the
car door, threw aside the sheet, and lifed out the first AXE
agent.
He had just placed the smaller body on the back seat
when someone shouted from the other side of the lot. He
grabbed for the other agent and had him half in the car
when he felt two slugs tear into the flesh of his burden,
followed by the sound of two shots.
Carter dromEd the agent, whipiEd out his own gun, and
crouched beside the car, offering as little target as possible.
Two officers appeared out of the darkness, their guns
raised. The Killmaster one with a leg shot. lhe
other spun around and droprxd, a 9mm bullet in one
shoulder.
Carter kicked their guns to one side in the darkness as
they lay moaning on the asphalt. He clubbed them sense-
less and left them to be found. There was no need to kill
officers doing their duty, but he couldn't afford to be rec-
ognized or have them register the license of his car as he
sped away.
The big agent was dead. Carter left him, with regrets,
and scrambled into the car. Within seconds he was blocks
from the Justice Building headed for the highway back to
Singapore, two hundred miles away.









FOUR
In the rear parking lot, Carter changed to his street
clothes. The annex for the luxury suites offered the
kind of privacy not available for patrons who had to enter
through the lobby to get to their rooms.
A parking lot entrance }Ermitted Carter to hoist the
small agent on his shoulder and get up to the suite by way
of the back stairs. In minutes he was in the suite, breathing
hard, the agent on the floor at his feet, without anyone
seeing them.
In the light of the luxury suite, the crumpled form at his
feet looked more like a street beggar than one of AXE's
best people. Hawk had said little about the team except for
their value to him. They had been working the Far East for
years with great success. It was a real coincidence that his
path had not crossed with theirs before.
How long had it been since the gas took effect? Carter
asked himself. About four hours. This one could be out for
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40
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NICK CARTER
another hour yet. He really didn't know. Carter lifted the
inert form and deposited the agent carefully in thc spare
bedroom. The stevedore cap the operative had been wear-
ing slipped off revealing a head of closely cropped chestnut
hair. The agent was filthy and Carter guessed probably in-
fested with lice from the other inmates of the jail. The
Killmaster decided to strip the body and get rid of the
clothes.
Carter slipped off the agent's running shoes, unbuttoned
and unzipped the dirt-encrusted jeans and pulled them off,
tossing them on a sheet he'd laid out on the floor. The bare
legs were dirty. They were well formed but not muscular.
And they were hairless.
*Ihe jacket was easier to take off, and Carter threw it on
top of the pants. The shirt was buttoned to the neck. He
made short work of the buttons but stopped as he peeled
the material back from the bare torso. Small rosebuds of
breasts jutted from the chest. They were a mystery, either
the fashion-model-sized breasts of a woman, or the drug-
induced breasts of a man who preferred the role of a
woman.
Carter was puzzled. Why dress and act as a man if you
really wanted to be a woman? he wondered. Well, he could
always try for the acid test. He peeled the boxer shorts
from the inert form to reveal a flat, satin-smooth belly end-
ing in a soft triangle that matched the chestnut hair of her
head.
He cursed aloud. Carter was annoyed not only at him-
self for feeling like a voyeur, but at Hawk for not filling
him in. There was no way this woman could have passed
herself off as a man for years without Hawk knowing.
He looked down at the slim form and couldn't help an
appraisal, even under the strange circumstances. This was
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a beautiful woman, boyishly slim, but somehow very de-
sirable.
But she was in desperate need of a bath. He decided he
might as well go the whole route. He IEeled off the rest of
the shirt and the grimy scxks. He tossed them onto the
sheet, tied it into a bundle, and left her on the bed while he
ran a bath.
'Ihe bathroom was all black tiles, mirrors, smoked plas-
tic partitions, and gold faucets. The tub was raised about
twenty inches above the flcx»r: To start the tub, Carter had
to climb two carpeted stairs. The toilet and bidet were in
separately partitioned sections of the rcx»rn, but the divi-
sions were of smoked plastic. One whole wall was mir-
He returned to the bedroom to find her curled up on one
side. He slid his arms under her, feeling more patemal than
anything else, and carried her into the luxurious bathroom.
He made sure the water level was just enough to cover her,
rested her head securely in a special sponge sling provided
for the purpose, then headed for the living room and a
phone.
Carter punched in a series of numbers that would give
him entry into the AXE computer. He wasn't worried about
the hotel switchboard. It had been installed originally as
one of the first totally electronic services in the Far East.
No one would be monitoring him.
"Nick. How is the job going?" the electronic voice
asked.
His codes had given the computer instant recognition.
Its circuits would know about his assignment and Hawk's
whereabouts. While he had to admit it saved time, Carter
still felt some resentment at the lack of human contact. He
and Ginger Bateman had something going a long time ago
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NICK CARTER
and still had a strong bond between them. He missed the
small asides and jibes that no whiz kid could build into the
computer's memory banks.
"Just connect me with Hawk," he said.
"What is it, N3?" Hawk asked. He seemed to be preoc-
cupied. The use of Carter's official designation said some-
thing about his mood.
"I lost one of our people," Carter reported. "I'm sorry.
Maybe I could have avoided it. I wasn't in very good shape
at the time."
"l'm sure you did your best, Nick," Hawk said, his tone
now solicitous. "Who was it?"
"We didn't talk about names at my briefing. It was the
big one."
"Barney: Damn! We can't afford to lose any agents. Let
me rephrase that I hate to lose any agent, a rcx)kie or
someone like Barney. Jesus! How's Sam?"
"Don't you mean Samantha?"
"Yes. What's your problem? I detect a note of belliger-
ence there."
"I had to find out her sex a piece at a time. I brought her
back to my hotel unconscious, and she was filthy from the
jail. I thought she could use a delousing."
"And, I'm sure she'll express her appreciation at youi
concern for her well-txing."
Carter sighed. "I just don't like that kind of shock, sir.
Sorry about Barney. I didn't know hiq."
"A good man. He'll be missed. I'll get Joe Wright to
claim the body. How did Sam take it?"
"I had to use Howard's new gas. She hasn't come out of
it yet. I left her soaking in a tub. She'll •probably be out for
another hour. What's her full name? Tell me about her."
"Samantha Trail. Her partner was Bamey Feldman. We
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recruited her from the CIA, him from the Mossad."
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"What about the woman? I asked Ginger to
check on her."
"Harrnless. If you'd leam to keep your pants—
"Let's not go into my private life," Carter interrupted
his boss. "What about Sam? You want me to send her
home or to Joe Wright in Bangkok?"
"Keep her with you, Nick. She'll miss Barney. It'll be a
hell of a shock," Hawk said. "She knows Singapore like
the back of her hand and she's got an organization there.
Keep her busy. You'll learn a lot about the place."
"I don't need a partner on this, particularly a grieving
woman. "
"You bastard!" a woman's voice screamed at him from
the door.
"That her?" Hawk asked.
Carter turned to see her standing, dripping, a towel
wrapped around her. "That's her. I'll talk to you later."
He hung up and moved toward her. She backed away.
"Don't you remember me? I pulled you out of the Jus-
tice Building."
"So where's Bamey? He wouldn't leave me alone with
someone like you."
"l was the one in black who told you I'd get you out.
Barney didn't make it. I'm sorry."
"Barney ... didn't.. v" Her hand went to her mouth and
she gradually sank to her knees.
He went to her and scooped her up in his arms. As he
carried her to the bed she flailed at him harmlessly and
moaned her loss.
"Barney Bamey .1 can't believe he's gone. How
did it happen?"
Carter poured a brandy from a small flask he usually
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NICK CARTER
carried. He held her head and made her slide most of it
down her throat. She choked on it but got it down.
She smelled of the expensive soap provided by the
hotel. Despite her surprise at finding herself in a strange
tub, she must have taken time to soap herself. The towel
had slipped down. She looked beautiful, vulnerable, and
desirable all at the same time. Carter no longer felt pater-
nal.
"I know you. I know who you are," she blurted out as
the brandy glass slipped from her hand. She pulled up the
towel and moved away from him. "You're Carter. You're
the Nick Carter. Jesus! I don't know what to say."
Carter had experienced similar reactions before when
confronted by new recruits, but never with a seasoned
agent, and one who was probably the best in the Far East.
He pulled back the sheet, fluffed up the pillow, and mo-
tioned her to slip between the sheets. He poured her an-
other brandy, moved to the other side of the bed, and lit a
cigarette.
"Can I have one, please?" she asked.
He gave her one, and she held it out to be lit. "You
didn't answer my question." Her voice was low and her
hand shook. It was obvious to Carter that she'd been
through one of the worst ordeals of her career.
"I'm truly sorry about Barney. Hawk told me he was
one hell of a guy," Carter started. "I had to feed a knockout
gas into the ventilation system. I to«k you both out in a
laundry hamper, Barney on the bottom. In the parking lot,
I'd just dumped you in the back seat of my car and was
hoisting Barney on my back when officers fired on us.
They hit Barney," he went on, his voice expressionless. "I
put them out of action and checked on Barney. He was
gone. I got the hell out of there and brought you here."
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She put the brandy glass on the night table, the cigarette
in an ashtray, and started to sob uncontrollably, turning
toward him, grabbing at another human being to help her
through her pain.
"He was good, you know? He was.. .Oh, hell ... he
was a good guy, the best partner... eWe didn't have any-
thing going ... you know ... nothing like that. But he was
afriend. He saved my ass more than once. Jesus! I can't
believe he's gone."
She clung to Carter until the sobs stopped. She wiped
her eyes with the edge of the sheet, sat up against the back
of the bed, holding the towel in one hand, and reached for
her cigarette again. It had burned down. Carter lit another
for her.
"Tell me about your case," he said, looking into the
brown eyes that seemed as big as golf balls at that moment.
She had a beautiful face, a long oval, tanned to a deep
brown. Her eyelashes were long. At that moment if seemed
impossible he'd ever mistaken her for a man.
"Are you going to take over?" she asked, moving away
from him again.
"Yes. But Hawk left orders for you to help me. There
are a lot of holes in this one. You should have some of the
answers."
"So I get to work with the famous Nick Carter, the great
Killmaster," she said, her voice flat, perhaps on the edge of
sarcasm.
Carter decided to ignore the hostility. He knew she was
hurting inside. "I'm just a man with a job to do. I'd like
our help."
She managed a wan smile. "I'm sorry. You're right. But
might not be myself for a while."
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NICK CARTER
"That's okay Tell me what you know. What about the
Soo brothers?"
"Clowns who made it big. Two crazy Chinese with an
idea for an elixir and they parlayed it into billions. They
couldn't read or write, but they sure knew how to make
money. Have you ever seen Ginseng Essense Balm Park?"
"No."
"A tourist attraction. Filled with figures from Chinese
mythology and and I suspect, some of their
fantasies. The place is filled with characters undergoing
various forms of torture, bodies ripped apart, children in
bondage—that kind of thing. It's fascinating in a horrible
sort of way," she said, pulling on her cigarette. "but the
tourists eat it up."
The brandy had taken effect. She slid down in the bed
and snuggled against him, under one arm. She talked up at
him, her voice dulled at times, animated at others. He
could feel the heat of her. Involuntarily he thought of her
as he'd seen her before her bath. She'd been beautiful even
when she'd been filthy: He forced his mind back to the job
at hand.
"So who took them?" he asked.
"We don't have conclusive proof, but I'm fairly sure it
was Fat Chen."
Carter's mind slipped back to his friends in Hong Kong,
the Chen clan and his old friend Two Toe Chen, now long
dead. The name Chen was like Smith.Jäat Chen, wherever
he came from, was probably no relation. 'Tell me about
him," he said.
"Arthur Cecil Chen. Adopted by missionaries and chris-
tened with names they gave him. They were killed by hill
bandits in northern Thailand. Fat Chen came here as a
teen-ager, worked the docks as a peddler, got into the drug
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trade, and built it into a billion-dollar business."
"An entrepreneur?"
47
"No. More of a robber baron. Ruthless. He controls
most of the vice in Singapore, and rules by fear and tor-
ture. Hundreds of thugs work for him."
"Why the Soo kidnapping?" he asked, his right arm
going to sleep under her. He shiftted her weight to his
shoulder.
"Another grab for pwer. They were competitors in the
drug trade," she said, moving next to him as she talked,
her skin hot and soft. "Barney and I learned that the
brothers had turned all their assets into cash, enough
money to eliminate the deficit of most developing coun-
tries."
"And Chen planned to siphon it off."
"He probably already has," she said, shifting her weight
against his shoulder, her head resting against his chest, her
clean fragrance drifting up to his nostrils.
"Do you think the Soo brothers are dead?"
"Fairly sure. Barney had contacts in the financial com-
munity. The Soo money has probably been transferred to a
series of dummy companies. Exrvts Barney knew figured
that hundreds of businessmen would present bank drafts in
the name of the brothers and the money would find its way
into a labyrinth of paper companies. It's probably all been
funneled back to Fat Chen by now."
"Are you sure of this?"
"No. But it's the best scenario. It's not the first like this
we've seen. Bamey knew of three other cases like this. He
traced them back to Chen, but he couldn't make any of
them stick. The Soo brothers were the big prize. The others
were probably exercises to sharpen up Chen's people and
set the plan."
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"Where do I find Chen?"
"You don't. He doesn't operate in the open. There are
lots of rumors about him."
"Like what?" he asked.
"Promise not to laugh. I'm dead serious. Okay?"
'Go ahead."
"Some say he's a monster controlling his empire
through state-of-the-art technology. Everything he does is
by video cameras and monitors. If he wants one group
disciplined, he calls on another to do his dirty work. He
has a tape file on everyone in his organization."
"Blackmail."
"Probably. I've heard he has video cameras in the of-
fices of all his executives. If he has so many cameras out in
the open, how many do you suppose he's got hidden?"
"What did you mean by executives?"
"He's got a huge legitimate conglomerate. He owns half
of Singapore."
"Like what?"
She thought about it for a moment. "Take Chinatown
alone. He owns fifteen to twenty of the most modern build-
ings: Hong Guan, Far East Financing, Asia Insurance
Building, Chaing Hong Building. The list goes on and on.
Half the junks plying the China Sea are his, most of the
sampans in the harbor, a quarter of the freighters doing
business out of the Lion City."
"Impressive. Where are his headquaqers?"
"I've had a dozen answers on that one. Barney had it
narrowed down."
"How?"
"He figured if Chen wanted total privacy to
he'd use a remote estate. He owns three. One on Telok
Blangah Road near the Ginseng Essense Park, one on Pio-
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neer Road near the Jurong Bird Park, and one on Lady Hill
Road not a quarter mile from here."
"Did Bamey have any hunches?"
"Barney was a pragmatist. I had the hunches, Carter At
first I thought it was•the Lady Hill Road house of
the incredible security. But I checked the other two houses
and found they had the same tight security."
"Example."
"Double fences with laser beams between. The fences
are electrified and the lasers deadly."
"They can be circumvented," Carter thought to himself,
but voiced the thought.
"There's more. He has rotY)ts like small tanks that patrol
inside the fence. The lasers don't seem to restrict the
movement of the robots."
"He probably has the lasers programmed to shut off
momentarily as the robots pass."
"And he has robots inside the fence patrolling the
grounds."
'On all three estates?"
"Yes."
"No matter. We'll find a weakness. What about the
prime minister, Peter Hue Yen?" Carter asked.
"You're well informed. Yes," she said as if thinking
ahead, "Hue Yen. He's been the salvation of Singapore."
"I know the place is a model of economic efficiency,"
Carter said, "but the people are like clones. You can go too
far. The place is too rigidly controlled. Big Brother tells
you how to live your life."
"I can only go by my experience, Carter. This place was
a cesspool when the Japanese were driven out. Now it's a
model for the world. So what if the people are regimented?
They have the best standard of living in Southeast Asia."
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"l didn't come here to argue politics. What are his poli-
tics, by the way?"
"Hue Yen is straight line. He controls his party and has
one objective: to make Singapore the best."
"His assistant, Robert Quang," Carter persisted. "W
think he's got Communist leanings."
"It goes much deeper than that," Samantha said, her
voice stronger. She was more in control of herself now.
"Robert Quang's influence stretches throughout the Mala
Peninsula. He was the one who took over the Soo brothers'
share of the drug trade before Chen got to them. It was
means of weakening the opposition and filling his w
chest. He's the 'behind the scenes' leader of the People'
Enlightenment Party, PEP. The party has climbed in popu
larity after long years of hard-fisted rule by the prime min
ister and his Independent Party.
"But that's all a closely guarded secret," she went on
"Quang has been Hue Yen's assistant for the last
years and now he's the logical man to succeed him, You'
right about his real beliefs. We figured he's a deep plant o
the KGB. Barney and I got too close, so he set us up.
Chen did the dirty work for him."
"That expands on what Hawk told me. He said th
prime minister and the U.S. secretary of state fear tha
someone was controlling the Soo fortune and could begin
dump of Singapore dollars on world markets. That coul
cause a crash in Singapore's econoyv and an open fo
PER They also suspect that PEP is masterminded by some
one privileged to the secrets of the prime minister's inn
cabinet. Hawk didn't know it was Quang."
"We couldn't report to Hawk soon enough. Everythin
went down too fast at the end."
"So Quang is our first target."
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"He could be the worst problem out here. I don't trust
Quang. I know he's been trained at the Lumumba Institute
in the USSR."
Carter whistled. "That piece of information is enough to
get you killed."
"No one knows I have that juicy bit. I'm not doing
anything about it, not now, but it could be useful in the
long run."
"You think he's tied in with Chen?"
"It's a strong probability. That's what we were trying to
check out when we were drugged and set up," she said,
squirming into a more comfortable position beside him. '*If
Chen's usual plan was directed at Quang, he could be con-
trolling him."
"But we already know that Quang is KGB," Carter
noted.
"So he goes both ways," Samantha said, "But who has
his loyalty? I'd bet on Chen's blackmail over the KGB."
"Did you see your abductors?"
"l saw them and I know who they are. But that doesn't
do us one damned bit of good."
"No, but we could set up some surveillance, have some-
one on them at all times," Carter said. "We've got to find
out for sure if Quang is. connected with Chen. And we've
got to find out if his real masters are the Russians."
"So we need someone on Quang as well?"
"I don't want to bring anyone else in on it if we can help
it. it's up to you and me. We'll get what we want by our-
selves and then close them down."
"Is that a promise?"
"No promises," Carter said, and laughed. "Now. What
about clothes? I'll go down to the hotel boutiques when
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