Run, Spy, Run

Something, some sixth sense, made Nick look up at the observation deck. At that instant, there was a click of sound. A barely discernible cricket-chirp of a noise that should have been lost in the busy throb of Idlewild. But Carter heard it.

He stopped, braking on the balls of his feet, every sense of his finely-tuned body alerted. Nick had had this sensation of imminent danger before. Walking across a minefield in southern Germany just before a member of his reconnaissance patrol — a buddy — had tripped over a vicious S-2 device, a deadly Bouncing Betty which had blown Mike to nothingness. That moment in time was the same as now.

The sound came from in front of him. There was only time for a swift look that showed something inexplicable and eerie. Señor Valdez had checked himself in stride as if he, too, had heard the click of sound. And as if it meant something to him. For, what was even more bewildering, he had raised his steel hand as if to inspect it for mechanical defects.

And then there was no time at all.

A mighty roar blasted Nick's consciousness. The universe flipped over on its back, spilling the earth and the people on it into one boiling lake of confusion and tangled bodies.

Nick kicked over like a feather blown by a hurricane, burying his face in the sun-baked concrete of Idlewild field.

Passengers screamed in mindless terror. It was as if a lightning bolt had leapt from the heavens to strike down the straggly line of passengers leaving Flight 16.

The atmosphere rolled and thundered with explosion.

Nick pried his eyes open. A rain of flying fragments and concrete chips powdered the cover of his folded arms. His coat and the briefcase lay yards away, whipped from him by the force of the blast.

The scene before him was a carnage. Passengers lay sprawled in impossible positions, looking like discarded rag dolls tossed on some vast garbage heap. It was a montage of horror. Smoky dust rose from pits where, seconds ago, had walked the honeymoon couple, the blonde woman and her freckle-faced kid, the brunette with the book, the slight young man with the languid hands, and…

A huge, smoking hole was visible where Señor Valdez had stood and looked at his hand.

There was no sign of Señor Valdez.

A wave of wailing, high-pitched human sound came from the airport building and the observation deck.

Nick staggered to his feet, dazed and bleeding, his ears full of the scream of a siren and the animal cries of people in misery and fear, his senses chilled with the immediacy of sudden, hideous death.

Behind him, he could hear a woman crying bitterly, in short, frantic gasps of terror.

It sounded like Rita Jameson.

He turned swiftly and saw her at the top of the airstair, clutching the slightly buckled rail and sobbing. A swift glance around the field convinced him that there was nothing he could do for anyone. An ambulance screamed on to the concrete beyond the pit and its siren moaned to a stop. Nick ran toward the plane and sprang up the steps. Pilot and engineer brushed past him to gasp at the nightmare scene on the field.

Nick took Rita by the shoulders.

"Stop that, now. Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm all right, I'm all right, but oh God, how horrible!" She choked out the words. "The people. All the people!"

"Did you see anything out of the way before this happened?" Nick shook her gently.

She brushed the hair out of her eyes and drew her hand across her tear-stained face. It was an oddly endearing, childlike gesture.

"No, but… Señor Valdez. I thought — I thought he blew up!" She raised her hand in unconscious imitation of Valdez' final action.

"That's what I thought," said Nick. "Look, take hold of yourself. We're going to be questioned, all of us. No need to tell anyone you've talked to me — about anything. Call you tonight."

But a figure on the observation deck had seen them talking, had seen Rita's gesture with her hand, had seen them look, immediately afterwards, at the frightful hole where Valdez had once stood.

A calculating mind asked itself, "Why take a chance?" and answered its own question.

Mr. Hawk

The airfield was a madhouse for the next two hours.

A barrage of officials, police, fire trucks, ambulances and clamoring personnel crowded the strip of runway where the strange man with the even stranger hand had vanished in a puff of terrible smoke. Nick Carter, as a passenger returning from business in Jamaica, could do nothing but look properly horrified and render a baffled eyewitness account. This was no time to be the private eye he usually called himself or even the top secret agent for AXE, which he now was. This time he was strictly on the sidelines, truly as shaken as any passenger. There were no conclusions to be drawn until he had consulted with Mr. Hawk.