The Vulcan Disaster

I tried, too, not to think of Will. I knew just what had happened. He’d been ready for them — as ready as anyone ever gets — and, gutsy old devil that he was, he’d almost been looking forward to having the first of them burst through that door. Then the pain in his head had hit him, right when he needed it least, right when...

I shuddered. And Tatiana? Would she survive him for long? I doubted it. Not after they’d sicked those kung fu types on us back in Temple Street. No; they wouldn’t let her live, to tell what little she knew.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. I wanted a hundred percent lucidity right now, so that I could take it all in and catalogue it and crossfile it and index it so thoroughly that I’d never have the chance to forget it. I wanted it all clear as crystal in my mind, for the future.

Some day, somewhere, I was going to bring it all together. And I was going to make use of it. And when I did, the axe was going to fall on somebody. Hard.

I promised myself that much. For all of them.

I was still thinking all these things when Basil Morse turned up, a few minutes late again, but, I noticed, in no particular hurry this time. I didn’t get mad; I hadn’t expected him even to give me this much in the way of speed and despatch. I filed it away.

He walked in, looked down, and said, “Good lord.” He looked away quickly; I wasn’t sure whether or not he’d recognized the man on the floor. I filed that away too. “You... you’ve left no prints of your own?” he said.

“No,” I said. I didn’t know whether I was lying or not. I didn’t give a damn. I didn’t care whether or not somebody took out a billboard saying Nick Carter was in the room that day. I was feeling old and tired and stove-in, and I’d about had it with Hong Kong for now. “That’s the file cabinet over there,” I said. “I’ve been through it, but I was looking for my stuff. You know, riding my own hobbyhorse. There may be things in there that would concern you that wouldn’t me.” He made no move to examine it. He was staring at the wall, biting his lip. “Basil,” I said. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Oh, I... was thinking. You... well, nothing that would concern you...”

I was wondering what he could find to think about right now that wouldn’t concern me. “Basil,” I said. “Did you send a man out to that address I gave you?”

“Addr...? Oh, yes. Yes. Griffin. He said he’d drop by on his way to...”

“Drop by? Drop by? Goddamit, Basil, you...”

“Well, he was down in Aberdeen, and it’d take him a bit to get up to Victoria, but I asked him if he’d...”

“Asked? Didn’t you have anyone closer?”

“Well, yes; Kennedy. But he was busy with some work for the Chief of Operations, and I couldn’t very well...”

“Look,” I said. I stood up all the way, pushing off from the wall I’d been leaning on. My ribs either didn’t hurt anymore or I couldn’t feel any pain of any kind. There was a tightness in the back of my throat. It showed when I said, “Goddamit, Basil, I said hurry. That was a matter of life and death, and there wasn’t any...”

“Carter, there’s such a thing as procedure. You door-to-door salesman types never seem to recognize that, but those of us who have to stay behind and do the work...”

I sat down and glared at him. My own temples were ready to burst.

“That fool Fredericks. God, what an ugly thing to... Oh, the damned idiot. What a stupid thing to do, coming blundering in here like that. Well, that’s the British for you. How they got the reputation they have in the intelligence game I’ll never know. I wonder what the devil he thought he was going to find...”

I stood up. My palms were sweaty; my head was swimming. “Well, buster, you can find out for yourself. I...”

“What? What’s that?”

“You can have the whole stinking case. You can have everything that happens in Hong Kong. I drop it all in your lap. I’m heading back to Washington. I...”

“Back to...? What the devil are you talking about? You’re not going anywhere. You’re on detail to me, Carter. You’d better not forget that. You’ll leave when I say you...”

I hit him.

It must have been the sucker punch to end all sucker punches. The minute I threw it, I knew it’d connect. It just felt right. I knew, the minute I swung, that it’d contact that aristocratic chin of Basil Morse’s right at the maximum point of power, with plenty of English on it and plenty of meat and bones behind it. I also knew that the minute it clicked, and hit him right on the button like that, it would lay him out to sleep. And it did. Just the way I’d figured it. On the way down he knocked over a lamp and a chair. Nighty-night, Basil.

I stood there for a moment, rubbing my hand. It wasn’t enough. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to break bones. And then I wanted to throw him out the window, and set the room on fire, and then go out the front door and shoot the first three people I ran into.