Voyage of Vengeance

  I shaved with a proper spin razor.

  I got into a shower and scrubbed the goat stink off.

  The careless bandages Prahd had thrown on my feet got wet so I took them off. I scrubbed the lacerations with soap. I wondered if I would get lockjaw from the goat droppings. Well, I had my own medical kit now. When I had dried myself I worked proper Voltar antiseptic into the wounds—ouch, but it stung! I covered the open ones with false skin.

  I dressed in black pants and a poinsettia-pattern sport shirt. But I couldn’t stand the tightness of boots and got into some curl-toed slippers that were loose.

  The waiter served me some ice-cold sira and the fermented grape juice was the first thing that had scaled my throat in weeks. It was followed with some iskembe corbasi, a soup of tripe and eggs. I began to feel better.

  But just as I was beginning to believe that things would work out all right, the axe fell.

  Karagoz came into the dining room. “There’s a very polite fellow at the gate. He says he wants a word with you that will make you very happy.”

  In that mood of feeling things would now work out, I said carelessly, “All right. I’ll go out and see him.” I didn’t even pick up a gun!

  I limped in my curl-toed slippers out to the twin pillars. I didn’t see anyone. I stepped further toward the road, looking up and down. Nobody.

  I turned around to go back in the gate.

  He was standing beside the left-hand pillar.

  THE BLACK-JOWLED MAN!

  Unarmed, in the open and helpless, I stared. Then I said, “How did you know I was here?”

  He moved forward, blocking my escape back through the gate. “Oh, we’ve been in communication with your friends. About dawn yesterday, I got a radio from Doktor Muhammed Ataturk that you’d be here today for sure. That’s why we thought it wiser not to look for you in all that underbrush. Besides, you had a machine gun then. I see you don’t now.”

  Prahd! He’d been helping these people to round me up!

  “I know who you are,” I said. “You’re acting for Mudur Zengin of the Piastre National Bank of Istanbul!”

  “No, no,” he said. “Mudur Zengin is a friend of yours, though I can’t understand why. When your concubine bought the yacht in New York, he helped execute the purchase with a mortgage by his bank. And he’s been advancing money for its bills to Squeeza credit. Of course, we’ve seized the yacht now that it is in Istanbul and Mudur Zengin is quite cross.”

  “Then who the hells ARE you?” I demanded.

  “Perhaps I better introduce myself,” he said, taking out a card from his wallet.

  I looked at it.

  FORREST CLOSURE

  International Mortgage Division

  GRABBE-MANHATTAN BANK

  “Hold it,” I said. “I don’t owe you anything. I don’t have a mortgage with you on anything. You have gone crazy.”

  “Oh, I am afraid you do,” he said.

  I decided to let him have it. “Grabbe-Manhattan Bank is owned by Rockecenter! I don’t think you know who you’re talking to!” I assumed a very haughty mien. “I am a Rockecenter family spi!”

  He smiled. “Change it to you were. The City of Miami suddenly stopped ordering fuel oil. Octopus instantly investigated and found that they were getting an unlimited supply of electricity from Ochokeechokee, Florida. They showed some photographs around and identified Wister as the engineer. Mr. Rockecenter couldn’t believe it! You can’t have inexpensive energy flying around wrecking things! He sent Mr. Bury to find why the cheap fuel man had not been stopped and Bury found that you had kidnapped Madison, closed his office and gone on a happy yachting cruise. Mr. Bury even confirmed it by traveling himself personally to Elba to see with his own eyes. And there you and Madison were, thousands of miles off the job. Obviously you had both been bought: a yacht like that costs a fortune. So, no, Mr. Inkswitch/Sultan Bey, you are no longer a Rockecenter family spi. You’ve been fired with malice aforethought and I’m afraid you have no protection there. Quite the contrary. You could be charged with taking bribes if you ever set foot in America again.”

  I was reeling under these blows. The secret sign tattooed on my chest was worthless. But I rallied: “That doesn’t explain this silly nonsense about a mortgage!”

  “Well, oddly enough,” said Closure, “when this mortgage thing occurred, we did not know Sultan Bey and Inkswitch were the same person. All that we were led to believe was that one Sultan Bey owned a villa, the total land of a mountain and thousands of acres of prime, arable, poppy soil. And when you had us approached to mortgage it for a mere two million dollars, we, of course, leaped at the chance. So we rushed it right through and granted you the mortgage.”

  “Hold it!” I said. “I didn’t take out any mortgage like that.”

  “Oh, I am afraid you did,” said Closure. And he displayed the papers.

  I gripped them. My Gods, the land involved comprised not only the thousands of acres of prime opium land Voltar held but THE ENTIRE EARTH BASE!

  And right there at the bottom was my SIGNATURE.

  Oh, Gods, I could be vaporized for this!

  Black Jowl was still talking. “You see there is an embarrassing point in all this. For you. The amount was so trifling and the security so huge that we trusted you and never gave it a second thought. And then we found out that you didn’t own it!”

  Of course, I didn’t own it. It belonged to the government of Voltar!

  “Now really,” said Closure, “we are being very nice to you. If we had exposed this crime we could have had you and your yacht rounded up wherever you were because you were still under the Turkish flag even if you were at sea. The state would throw you in prison and I need not call to your attention that a Turkish prison means death.”

  Oh, how well I understood that!

  “And we are really a very humane institution and we didn’t want you to have to suffer that.”

  I blinked. This was the first time I had ever heard of Grabbe-Manhattan being humane! I became wary.

  “So we contented ourselves with simply hounding you homeward. The young woman was cooperative, within the limits of her own greed.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “That yacht was worth more than two million! If you seized it, that cancels the debt.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid not. It was mortgaged and you had very little equity in it. And this land mortgage is overdue. You made no payments on this mortgage. You are overlooking something. If we got the Turkish government to cooperate in this, they could prefer charges. They would have no choice but send you to prison for mortgaging a property you did not own. But don’t be so disturbed. We have a perfect out for you. Now that you are here and in reach of funds and friends, you can get out of this entirely.”

  “How?” I said in desperation.

  “Why, all you have to do is buy these lands and villa and mountain out of your own money and turn them over to us and we will stamp this document paid and you will be in the clear.”

  So that was why they had hounded me home. They had not dared kick up a fuss or they would lose these properties. But my position was completely impossible. I could not tell these bloodsuckers that the property in question belonged to the Voltar Confederacy. It would be a Code break beyond all Code breaks. There was no possible way to acquire it for them even if I would. The doors of the Turkish prisons yawned.

  But he was dealing with an officer of the Apparatus. He was threatening the Code break of all time! If they ever found out what was underneath that mountain . . . Yikes! Voltar would execute me. Even a temporary solution was better than none!

  I looked up at the secret spot on the gate where I had installed the alarm bell that would alert the staff.

  In a steady voice I said, “I know when I am beaten. Come in and I will make the final arrangements.”

  Under cover of steadying myself, I pushed the bell.

  Black Jowl, all smiles now, walked forward through the gate.

  I led him across the
yard toward the patio.

  Cat-footed, Musef and Torgut came behind him.

  A flurry.

  HONK! went Torgut’s lead pipe.

  Black Jowl crumpled without a sound.

  I whispered to Musef, “There is an old Phrygian tomb under my bedroom floor. Dump him in my sleeping quarters, tie him up and leave him. I will do the rest.”

  They carried him in there and lashed him up. They left.

  How incautious I had been to go around unarmed! I put a Beretta and a gas bomb in my pockets. Then I approached him.

  I went through his pockets. I found his office phone.

  I carried him through the closet into my secret room.

  I opened the tunnel door and dragged him by the heels down the passage to the hangar.

  A security officer came up. “Throw him in a detention cell,” I said. “And do not let him speak to anyone.”

  He made a motion to two guards. They bore Black Jowl off. I heard the cell door clang.

  I went back up the tunnel, through my secret room and out into the yard.

  I gave the card to Musef. “Call this number,” I said. “Tell them that you have a message from Mr. Forrest Closure. Say that things are proceeding very well but that it may take another week or two to finish things off.”

  He touched his shoulders and nose in a sign of obedience. He went away. He came back shortly. “They accepted that,” he said.

  I had bought time. I did not know exactly what I was going to do. I had a week or so to handle this. I must think of something.

  I was halfway down the chute to the very worst of hells, but actually, at that moment, didn’t know it.

  PART FIFTY-NINE

  Chapter 7

  The beauties of spring were on the villa garden: appearances are so deceptive. The shrubs and flower beds were all in bloom, the songs of birds filled the air, the fountains plashed in a peaceful undertone.

  The raucous snarl of a jeep blasted through the calm. Faht Bey, the base commander, came roaring through the gate. He sprang out, his over poundage quivering with rage down to the last ounce. He saw me.

  “Bombed mosques!” he roared. “A stranger dragged into detention! WHAT NEXT?”

  He came to stand before me. He raised his hands in supplication to the sky. “Oh, Gods, we were doing so great without him!”

  It was irritating. He hadn’t said “Hello” or “Did you have a nice trip?” I was not his senior, exactly, but I was his Section Chief and Inspector-General Overlord for Voltar’s Earth base here at Afyon. I decided to put him in his place. I used the name the police knew him by on the planet Flisten. “As you were, Timyjo Faht. You forget to whom you are speaking! Have a care!”

  “Listen,” he said, “the space freighter Blixo is arriving tomorrow night. Is there any chance of your going home on it?”

  He had opened a new vista of horror. Suppose I returned to Voltar and they then discovered the Earth base had been foreclosed on over my signature? Faht Bey obviously didn’t know about it yet but unless I handled it, he would soon enough. And then he’d have every possible weapon he needed to bring an abrupt end to my career. I decided to be polite. “I am sorry for the commotion. It was all in the line of duty.”

  He glared at me. “Your idea of duty can get too (bleeped) confused with your personal appetites! I would give a year’s pay to get something on you that would end your career forever, Officer Gris. And the next insane idea you get that threatens this operation is going to be reported to Lombar Hisst in the most painful detail. There isn’t a single person in this area that would befriend you. And I have had too much more than enough!”

  He stomped away to his jeep and drove off.

  If he only knew it, he already had adequate grounds to put me under arrest. His crack about my having no friends left bit deep.

  Mournfully, I wandered back in to the patio. I was getting depressed.

  Utanc’s door opened. There was a rush of slippered feet. As I started to walk around the fountain to my room, my way was barred.

  Utanc was on her knees before me.

  She raised her beautiful black eyes to me. “Master, I have sinned. I was by the gate and could not help but overhear what that man said. When I signed your name to that paper, I had no idea what I was doing.”

  “You forged that mortgage?” I roared.

  She nodded. “When you cut off all my credit cards, I did not know which way to turn. I had some small expenses I could not meet. And when I asked their advice at the Grabbe-Manhattan branch in Istanbul, they told me I should ask you to sign a mortgage paper. I was far too frightened of you to ask you to do so and I signed your name to it. I did not understand it would bring disaster upon you.”

  Suddenly I realized that Grabbe-Manhattan had taken advantage of this shy desert girl from the Kara Kum in Russia.

  From her side she drew a curved knife. Reaching up, she extended the hilt. “Kill me.”

  I looked at her, stunned. The idea of those beautiful black eyes going dead made my own blood run cold. I cried, “NO!” and thrust the knife aside.

  She dropped it to the patio pavement. She seized my hand in both of her own. “O master, do you forgive your slave?”

  I looked down at her. Suddenly all the love I had ever felt for her surged up in me. I thought of her dances, the joy I had taken in her. “Yes,” I said.

  “O master, I do not deserve it. I have been thoughtless and wanton. I value your love. I will, I vow, mend my ways and try to be worthy of you.”

  Gently, I lifted her to her feet.

  I heard a car door slam, but at that tender moment I only had attention for the beautiful Utanc.

  There was someone at the patio door. A voice, “Who is this?”

  I turned.

  TEENIE!

  Behind her, in the yard, staff was unloading a small truck full of baggage.

  In the door she stood holding two grips. Her oversized eyes were round with surprise and her too-big mouth agape.

  She dropped a grip.

  She pointed at Utanc. “WHO is this?” she repeated.

  I stood very tall. “This,” I said, “is the woman I love. The only true love I have ever had. The only woman I will ever love.”

  Teenie’s eyes got rounder. She looked from Utanc to me. “You mean . . . you mean you don’t love me even a little bit?”

  I looked at her, this scrawny traitor with her silly ponytail. With all the contempt I could muster, I spat upon the floor!

  Teenie seemed to deflate. She dropped the other grip. She groped forward and clutched the fountain rim for support. She sank down on it. Unaccountably, she began to cry.

  I glared at her. Her tears were plashing into the fountain pool. Brokenly, she said, “I guess I made a mistake.”

  I really snarled at her. “You’re (bleeped) right you made a mistake, you little (bleepch)! You sold me out!”

  She looked at me bewildered. Then she shook her head. “Oh, you poor, dumb jerk. You’re the one that blew it. You skipped out just when I had it all handled.”

  “You were delivering me into their hands!” I raged. “I heard you with my own ears.”

  “Oh, you dumb (bleepard),” said Teenie. “The trouble with you is nobody dares tell you anything. If they did you’d find some way to mess it up!

  “When Grabbe-Manhattan approached me in Bermuda, they told me they also owned the Squeeza credit card company and even though the Piastre National Bank was paying the bills, Grabbe-Manhattan could end our credit in ports at any time and leave us high and dry unless I brought you home to Turkey.

  “So I took all the time we could while I tried to sell the yacht. The Crown Prince of Saudi-Yemen had seen it in Atlantic City and when I found him on the radio, he agreed to buy it. We were delivering it to him in Alexandria. The price was five times what you paid for it. It would have cleared off all your debts with Mudur Zengin.

  “Captain Bitts thinks you’re insane. He tried to tell you about the deal and he al
so tried to tell you we were just outside Turkish waters and the storm would take you, not to Greek Chios, but straight in toward Izmir. And you knocked him out! He’s got a terrible cut on his head.

  “When he realized he didn’t have an owner aboard to sign the papers, he radioed Mudur Zengin. And Zengin didn’t know about the Grabbe-Manhattan mortgage and he thought we’d be seized as pirates if you were not aboard so he told us to come into Istanbul.