Deadly in New York (16 page)

“Not at all, dear boy. Much thanks.” He began to walk toward the house. “Now let's go save Jacob's life.”

There were about twenty yards of open lawn between the house and the wood. They knelt at the edge of the foliage, peering out. Two more guards stood at the door: men in gray uniforms, holding machine pistols. Hawker could tell by the way their heads vectored back and forth that they were wondering what had happened to the other two guards.

“Any ideas?” Hendricks whispered.

“Yeah. We could blow them away from here with the Thompsons—but they'll probably kill Jake or try to sneak him out the moment they realize they're under attack.”

“Exactly.”

Hawker wiped the sweat off his chin and flung it at the ground. “So I want you to start moaning—”

“What?”

“You heard me, Hank. Moan, damn it. Like you're hurt. And make it convincing.”

As the Englishman began dutifully to groan, Hawker slipped off into the shadows.

When the guards heard the noise, they hesitated, then came in single file, their automatic weapons moving back and forth. Hawker waited until they were both among the trees before he jumped them—hitting them both at once and knocking them to the ground. He jammed the survival knife through the spinal column of the first guard, then swung around in one motion and clubbed the second guard flush in the face with his right fist. But, as the guard stiffened from the blow, his finger contracted on the trigger of his machine pistol, releasing a deafening spray of bullets.

“Shit!”
hissed Hawker.

Immediately more lights began to flash on in the house. “We've got to charge them,” called Hawker as he sprinted off toward the front door. “Just keep my tail covered, Hank!”

As Hawker reached the steps, the door swung open to reveal another man wearing the same gray uniform. Hawker lifted the Thompson and squeezed off three fast shots. The slow .45 slugs splattered the man's chest open, like a five iron through a tomato. Hawker hurdled the corpse and dove through the open door.

A half-dozen more guards in various states of undress were running down a massive winding stairway.

A gigantic red, white, and black swastika flag was draped from the domed ceiling.

As Hawker sprayed the guards with fire, they tumbled backward, spilling over the railing. One of the men grabbed the flag in his death throes, pulling it down with him.

The pale tile floor began to pool with red.

Behind him, Hawker heard more automatic fire. A moment later Hendricks stepped through the door. He surveyed the corpses coldly and said, “There are three more outside.”

Hawker made no comment. He went from body to body, until he finally found a man who was not quite dead. Hawker grabbed his hair and yanked his head up so that he was eye-to-barrel with the Thompson. “Where is he?” Hawker snapped hoarsely. “Where's Jake Hayes?”

“He's … he's above. The top floor …”

Hawker and Hendricks didn't wait to ask any more questions. They ran up the marble stairway, two steps at a time. Hawker was well in the lead when he reached the third level of the house—so the lone guard standing there brought his weapon to bear on him.

The marble railing shattered beside him as Hawker lunged belly-first into the hall, skidding on the slick floor. Hawker twisted as he skidded, and the Thompson belched out a pattern of .45 slugs that ripped through the guard's chest.

The guard screamed bearishly and fell dead.

Hendricks arrived a moment later. “That was the door he was guarding?” he asked, nodding toward a double door midway down the hall.

Hawker got quickly to his feet. “Yeah. Let's go.”

When they were both ready, Hawker nodded and they swung open both doors at once—then froze at what they saw.

The room was large, done in white marble, like a shrine. One whole wall was covered by another gigantic swastika. On either side of the flag were large oil portraits. One, plainly, was Adolf Hitler. Hawker didn't recognize the other—but Hendricks did. It was Martin Bormann.

But the Nazi paraphernalia was not what arrested their attention.

In the middle of the room, Jacob Montgomery Hayes was strapped naked to a stainless-steel table. A man in a white smock stood over him—an older man, in his mid-sixties. His greased black hair protruded from the white surgical cap. He had a pinched, meaty face, a mole above his left cheek, and searing blue eyes. The scalpel in his hand was pressed against Hayes's neck.

“Unless you drop your weapons immediately,” the man said calmly, “I will kill him.”

Hawker looked at Hendricks incredulously. “Who in the hell
are
these guys?”

Hendricks did not answer. “If you kill our friend, Herr Fisterbaur,” Hendricks snapped, “I will take great personal pleasure in seeing that both you and your superior, Martin Bormann, die very slow and painful deaths.”

“Bormann?” echoed Hawker in disbelief. “As in the Third Reich—”

“So,” interrupted Fisterbaur, “you know something of us?” He smiled, still holding the surgical knife to the neck of the unconscious Hayes. “Unfortunately, your threat carries little weight as far as Chancellor Bormann is concerned. He died eleven years ago in Nicaragua. Of natural causes, I might add—though I doubt that is of any interest to you.”

“And that's when Hitler's fortune was passed on to you?”

Fisterbaur's smile broadened. “Not just the Fuehrer's fortune. The Fuehrer's
legacy
. And, in my American role of financier Blake Fister, I have handled that stewardship quite well, I think. The fortune has tripled—but that is nothing compared to the great strides I have made in politics. In El Salvador, Argentina, France—yes, even in America and the Fatherland, people are rising up again to shoulder the great cause.”

“Until now,” cut in Hendricks. “Your secret is out, thanks to that man on the table—a far better man than you and the other animals who ‘shoulder' your cause, I might add.”

The stainless-steel scalpel flashed in Fisterbaur's gloved hands. “I will not argue the point,” he said, bristling. “We will not be stopped here. We have come too far, worked too hard.” He paused, then added, “You English pride yourselves on holding steadfast to the gentlemanly code. We of the Reich also embrace that code. Now, as an officer and a gentleman, I promise that if you drop your weapons, your lives, and the life of your friend, will be spared. All I ask in return is the safe delivery of the financial records on Fister Corporation that you have stolen.”

When the two men did not react immediately, Fisterbaur pressed the knife against Hayes's neck. A thin red line of blood appeared. “I promise you,” Fisterbaur hissed, “that I would gladly give my life to take his—now, drop your weapons!”

“We have your word as a gentleman?” Hendricks asked, his face a cold mask.

“Yes!”

Hendricks held out his submachine gun and dropped it heavily on the floor. “You have our word as well,” he said without emotion.

“Right,” said Hawker without conviction. He looked at Hendricks, looked at the gun on the floor, then held out his Thompson as if to drop it—but didn't. Instead, he mashed the trigger down on automatic fire, pouring a steady stream of .45 slugs into Fisterbaur's chest.

The surprise impact knocked the scalpel high into the air as the German backpedaled across the room, his velocity surging as each new slug cut through his body. His back crashed into the window behind him, and he exploded through the glass, screaming a high, agonized wail as he fell the fifty feet to the wave-cleansed rocks of Hell.

In the fresh silence, Hawker punched out the spent clip of the Thompson.

The cheap metal clattered on the floor.

He looked at Hendricks and shrugged. “I'm no gentleman,” he said.

Hayes stirred slightly on the table. His face was corpse-white, and his body logged the horrors he had suffered during his captivity. He was covered with cuts and bone-deep bruises.

Hendricks checked his pulse while Hawker sprinted to the phone and called an ambulance. He returned carrying a sheet.

As he covered Hayes, he whispered in his friend's ear, “You're going to be okay, Jake. We're going to get you out of here.”

Hayes's face twitched and his eyelids fluttered open. He focused on Hendricks, then Hawker. “I've been to a wonderful place,” he whispered. “A wonderful land …” Then with a shudder, he lapsed once again into unconsciousness.

Hawker looked anxiously at the Englishman. “I think we both ought to ride to the hospital with him. He doesn't look good, Hank. I think we should both be there.”

The grief was plain on Hendricks's face. Even so, he shook his head. “No,” he said. “You go. I have to stay.”

“But why, for God's sake?” Hawker demanded. “Damn it, we've killed them all. I don't understand what in the hell was going on yet, but I do know that Fister Corporation no longer exists.”

“Sometime soon I have an appointment with an old friend,” Hendricks explained simply. “It's an appointment long overdue.”

In the distance, there was the anxious wail of sirens. Hawker tugged the sheet snugly around Jacob Montgomery Hayes who, near death, seemed bathed in the soft, cool light of peace.

“Hank,” Hawker said again, “I hate it when you're cryptic.”

Epilogue

The Druid's limousine went down the winding drive toward Fisterbaur's mansion at 9
A
.
M
.

Hendricks sat on the steps, feeling older and wearier than he had ever felt in his life.

In his right hand he held a freshly loaded German Luger, model PO8, he had found while going through the stacks of books, diaries, and microfilm that were Adolf Hitler's legacy to the future.

When he saw the dark Cadillac, with its tinted windows, coming down the lane, he slid a shell into the breech, covered the automatic with his derby, stood, and checked his pocket watch.

The last bodywagon had pulled out only two hours before; the last policeman, only forty-five minutes ago.

Hendricks had not slept in nearly thirty hours.

The Englishman waited calmly while the car drew slowly to a halt in front of the house and the door on the driver's side swung open. He was not surprised to see who got out.

“Good morning, Laggy,” he said as Sir Blair Laggan of London stepped from the car. “Or rather should I say, ‘Good morning, Herr Druid'?”

Sir Blair was dressed in a light-blue sea-worsted three-piece suit that was still rumpled from his all-night flight. His heavy face was flushed, and his expression seemed a mixture of confusion and anxiety.

“Druid?” He sputtered. “For God's sake, Halton, what are you talking about? My secretary told me your message said to come immediately, that it was a matter of life and death—”

“Your
secretary?”
Hendricks whispered as the sudden confusion he felt slowly dawned into the shock of realization. “How could she have possibly—”

“How could I have read a message that only the Druid could have decoded?” asked a woman's voice from the inside of the limousine. The long, perfect legs of Mary Kay Mooney speared out the door as she slid across the seat and stood behind Sir Blair, straightening her skirt. She wore a white blouse and a rust-color jacket that matched her auburn hair perfectly.

In the soft tropical light, her beauty would have been dazzling—were it not for the lethal-looking Browning Hi-Power automatic she held.

Blair Laggan looked at the gun incredulously. “My God, Mary Kay, what do you think you're
doing?
You have absolutely no reason to carry—”

She swung the gun toward Sir Blair's head and, without warning, fired. Laggan's head burst into a fountain of red as he was slammed to the ground, his last words unspoken.

Then she swung the gun back toward Hendricks. The expression on her face was cold and unemotional. “Actually, Sir Halton, I'm quite impressed by you. I thought Chancellor Fisterbaur would certainly kill you and your associates.” She looked at the drying bloodstains on the steps of the mansion meaningfully. “Obviously I was wrong.”

“Your
father
,” whispered Hendricks. “Your father, Sir Blair's orderly—
he
was the Druid. All those years, and he was right under our very noses.”

“Yes.” She smiled. “And, during all those years, he told me what fools you were. What fools, with your nauseating honor and your hypocritical standards, using brave Irish lads to fight the Germans while starving their families through your brutal system of peonage. That's why he made a pact with the Third Reich and became the Druid. And that's why I took up the cause after his death. Working at Sir Blair's data center was no accident, you see. It offered double benefits: I had access to the world's computers, and I could keep a close watch on you old fogies from MI-5 as well. Laggy did so like to stay informed about his old mates.”

She chuckled, but the gun did not waver. “When a telegram arrived addressed to Sir Blair—a telegram supposedly written in code by Herr Fisterbaur—I knew, of course, it was really from you. We had done away with that code long ago.” Her smile broadened. “But it was the perfect opportunity for me to eliminate the only two remaining men on this earth who even knew about the Druid.”

“You forget about Reggie Collins,” Hendricks stalled. “You may have fixed the records well enough to have him convicted of treason, but Reggie is far from dead.”

“Yes, but he
is
going quite completely insane. Anything he may have to say about the Druid will be dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic.” She motioned with the Browning. “Enough talk,” she said. “You are holding a weapon behind your derby. I want you to drop it. Now.”

“That would be rather silly,” Hendricks said calmly, “since I clearly intend to use it to kill you.”