TRIPLE CROSS



CHAPTER ONE
It was one of those little fishing on the Ae-
gean Sea, some eighty kilometers east of Athens. Un-
der a high noon sun, I walked into it along the dusty
main road.
I wore the clothes of a Greek fisherman, smoked a
blackened pipe, and felt the eyæ on me as I reached
the cafe. Four local fishermen sat at table under the
awning of the cafe that faced the narrow harbor in
the hot sun.
"A bad day for walking," one of them said.
He spoke Greek in the local
Tor walking," I said, ewhat day is good?
I spoke Greek in the Inral dialect. They an
laughed, and didn't look at me again a.s I Walked on
into the cafe. But if I hadn't answered in the dialect
that went with my disguise, they wouldn't have
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laughed, and I wouldn't have walked past them—
rd have been dead.
Call it talent, or training, but give me a few bours
and I ran speak any dialect in any language I know,
and I know most languages. I have to.
Inside, the cafe owuds hands were out of sight
under the narrow Anc bar. I was a stranger. I laid
an ancient Cretan coin on the bar. The owner
glanced at it and waited. He wanted to hear me
speak. I used the dialect.
"If he's not here, Ill have an ouzo. Even if he is
here."
Vln the back," the owner said and poured the
ouzo.
"Let the foreigner wait. One glass is for women."
ITe owner and poured my second oUzo. I
carried it with me down a narrow passage toward
the back room of the cafe.
rd passed the test. Languages are as much a tool
of my trade as Wilhelmina, Hugo, and the miniature
gas bomb strapped to my leg under the baggy fisher-
man's pants. Wilhelmina is my Luger, Hugo is the
stiletto up my sleeve, and I'm Nick Carter, Killmas-
ter for AXE.
I stepped into the back room. Ille man waiting
was tall, blond, and wore an elegant pin-su•ipe suit.
He looked like an English diplomat. He was. A dip-
Iomat, and something else.
"You're late," he snapped fn Greek
'The Chinese are worried your people might bave
you followed," I said, still in the dialect the English-
man expected to bear.
ÜMI-5 couldn't follow me here. No one could who
doesn't speak your dialect." The Englishman smiled.
•without such small precautions I wouldn't
long, would I?"
TRIPLE CROSS
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*Not 1 said.
9
I took out Wilhelmina. The silencer was oq it. I
shot him twice.
I holstered the Luger, got his car keys, and
walked out through the cafe. The English double-
agent's Bentley was just up the bot street. I walked
to it, got in, started the engine, and pulled away as
the shouting began behind me.
I didn't look back
The secluded resort hotel was twenty kilometers
down the coast. I left the Bentley in the garage and
went up to the room rd taken earlier. I stripped
down to my bikini swim trunks, picked up the tele-
phone and called an Athens number.
The English sale is bagged," I said.
"Check,- the anonymous voice answered. "You
may rßume your normal itinerary."
My report was on its way through channels
hown to few people that ended in a Washington of-
fice where David Hawk sat lean and stringy plan-
ning the work of AXE. Hawk's the boss and I report
to him He reports to no one lower than the red
phone.
I left the room the instant rd hung up. The En-
glishman had been a side job, a little favor for MI-5.
I had a real job to get back to and it was one job I
wanted to get back to.
Five minutes after I'd pulled in with the Bentley,
I pulled out of the resort hotel in a fast, red Maser-
ati and beaded on down the rugged coast to a hid-
den cove where jagged cliffs around a nar-
row bench.
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Ntcx CARTER: KILT-MASTER
I dropped down on the sand beside the girl
"Now," I said. "YVhere were we?'
Small, dark and delicate, she wore a bikini whose
pants were smaller than mine and the top was off.
Her breasts were small and high, with large dark
nipples, and were almost covered by the loose sweep
of her long black hair that hung like a shawl on her
bare shoulders.
Tou were gone over an hour!" she said, angy.
'You know Pentagon red tape," I said. I kissed her
breasts. First one, then the other. "I'm here now, Di-
ana."
"Oh, damn you, Nick Carter!" She reached and
pulled down my trunks. 'Miis is where we were."
Naked to the cool sea air, and hot in the Mediter-
ranean sun, I rose high and hard. She took me in
both her hands. Hot hands that seemed to tremble
as I swelled to bursting. I ripped off ber bikini. The
black hair curled between her thighs as full and rich
as the mane that flowed down over her breasts, wet
where my hand searched her body, probed deep.
I was ready. So was she. More than ready, but she
held to me, to it, almost desperately, as if afraid to
let go, to lose her hold. Afraid of what would hap-
pen, of what must happen.
I tore her hands away, spread her flat and wide
on the hot sand, and slid down over her.
"Ohhhhhhhh-"
The single cry echoed from the towering rocks
that closed in the hidden cove. Her eyes closed, her
mouth opened wide and wet, and she thrashed and
twisted and thrust up between me and the sand.
On the silent, hidden beach, the sea and sky all
around, we moved hot and slippery to the rhythm of
the slow waves, to the motion of the earth itself. ITe
soft, liquid sand seemed to move with us, with ber
TRIPLE CROSS
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11
small, straining body drawing me down and down
deeper and deeper and deeper....
It was some time before she opened her eyes ané
stopped lying motionless half-buried in the hot sand
drawing deep, slow breaths as if she would nevet
get enough air into her lungs under the small, ful
breasts that rose and fell in long swells. I smoked
and watched the blue sea that thrust into the nar-
row cove, sliding softly almost up to our bare feet.
When she did open her eyes, they were smoky
and distant.
"Did you have to show up again?
"You want me to go away, Diana? Another five
years?
"No!" Louder than her cry of passion, the sharp
word filled the closed-in cove like a whole flight of
wild birds. Sbe stretched flat on the burning sand,
her legs spread wide, her arms flung out, as exposed
to the hot sun and cool sea air and open sky as she
could get. Tm an animal!"
"Aren't we all, Diana?" I said.
ÜNo,» she said, staring up at the sky. "Not all of
Tou mean Mike?" I asked lightly. "Mike's not an
animal?"
She said nothing. r smoked, watched her face.
'Troubles, Diana? You and Mike? Something
wrong with him?"
"He's not you, Nick."
Tat could be something good," I laughed,
smoked. •tWhat is it? He been acting odd? Anything
funny?"
"Only busy as usual."
"Leaves you alone much? Trips be takes
alone?"
"What government man doesn't do that? Even
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CARTER: KILLMASTER
you Pentagon desk jocks do that. But I've got my
own work, at least, and I don't want to talk about
Mike. Not with you, Nick."
I tensed. What did she know? Something tbat had
told her I wasn't the Pentagon desk man she'd
thought I was all these years? Or something that
made her suspicious of why I was with her?"
"I love, Mike, Nick," she said, turning on her side
to look at me. "You and I are just passion, lust, ani.
mal. We have nothing to do with Mike."
"No," I agreed and breathed normally again. She
knew nothing bad. I smoked. "I hope we don't. He's
safe somewhere?"
"At a meeting as usual. nessaloniki. He won't get
home tonight." Her eyes yew deep, hot. "He's all
business."
"What am 1?" 1
"You know what you are," she said and leaned
over and bit my leg.
She bit hard, almost drew blood, and I reached
out and took her again.








CHAPTER Two
Yugoslavia and Albania meet In a land of
high mountains—dry, bare and To the north
are Lakes Prespa and Obrid, the dazzling white
peak of the Korab range, and Yugoslavia. Greece is
south and east. To the west is Albania. It is a remote
area of bare, forbidding mountains, few trees, fewer
animals, and even less people.
Those who do live there are a fierce people, moun-
taineers, and to most of them, roaming among their
barren crags, this country is neither Greece, Yugosla-
via nor Albania. It is Macedonia, trampled and
swept by invaders for thousands of years, yet still
proud and hostile, and where the people care little
for borders or politics, but a lot for their fierce land
and themselves.
Isolated from Athens, Belgrade or Tirana, it is an
empty land, where anything that moves could be
danger, an enemy. And the solitary man who moved
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CARTER:
high on a mountain slope near the Albanian-Creek
border between Kastoria twenty kilometers back in
Greece, and Korgé twenty-five kilometers ahead in
Albania, slipped into the shadows of a crag a.s men
approached along the valley below.
man lay prone and silent as a column of men
moved in soundless single file through the valley.
Bearded, mustached and hawk-nosed, they wore
loose peasant clothes and parts of uniforms from ev-
ery army that had passed that way in recent years:
Yugoslav, Greek Albanian, Russian, German, Italian
and British. Bent under heavy packs, they carried
weapons from the same armies, from old German
Mausers to modern semi-automatics. They neither
paused nor looked up, and vanished going east.
Under the crag, the solitary man waited some ten
minutes. Nothing more moved in the heat of the
high valley below him. He stood, adjusted his light
pack, and continued west through the silent moun-
tains. He walked steadily, keeping to steep,
shadowed slopes instead of to the easier valleys until
be reached the Albanian border.
Crouched, he took a pair of binoculars and a small
notebook from his pack. He opened the notebook,
studied it briefly, then turned his binoculars toward
the north. Barely visible to a naked eye that didn't
know it was there, the top Of a guard tower jutted
up at the edge of a bare cliff. The man. swept his bin-
oculars in a slow arc from the almost hidden watch-
tower across the entire area in front of him.
Satisfied, he studied his notebook again, examined
the slope below him through the binoculars, put ev-
erything back into his pack, and began to work his
way carefully downward through the hot afternoon
sunlight. He crossed the sunny open areas bent low
•rRIPLE
and moving quickly. and advanced down
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and moving quickly, and advanced downward more
slowly in the shadows.
At the bottom he stopped for a time, crouching
low and listening. The silent mountains stretched
bare and hot under a pale, burnished sky. Once, far
off, metal rang faintly against metal, but that was
all. The solitary man stood, then walked into the
narrow opening of a dry stream bed. Moments later
he was across the invisible border and moving care-
fully along the stream bed deeper into Albania.
The sun moved down the sky, covering the steam
bed and mountain valleys with shadow, and the
man walked on. He left the stream bed some Hlo-
meters inside Albania and struck directly west,
again keeping to the shadowed slopes rather than
the valleys. He circled fivice to avoid small stone
houses and outbuildings of some outlying farm.
Once he lay flat against the bank of a mshing moun-
tain stream as a five-man patrol of Albanian border
guards passed on a narrow dirt track
Then, toward evening, he came over a low ridge
and saw the mountain town of Korcé spread out be-
low. He lay on the ridge and watched the people
moving through the narrow old streets. He saw the
fezes and small turbans of the older men, the
voluminous peasant dresses of the older women, the
workers' caps, and the Russian-style uniforms of a
few wandering soldiers. Two minarets of abandoned
mosques towered above the solid stone houses and a
paved highway led north toward Elbasan and the
capital city of Tirana.
ne man on the ridge stripped off his mountain
garb to reveal a neat, dark business suit. He readjust-
ed the straps of his pack until it became a simple
canvas satchel that could be carried in one hand,
then he walked dovm out of the mountains into the
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CARTER:
narrow back streets of the town. He walked quletly
but firmly through the small streets, neither skulking
nor calling attention to himself, until he reached the
northern edge of the town and turned from a side
street onto the main highway north.
Just as two motorcycles roared out of the opposite
side street directly toward him!
The cyclists, riding ahead of a large limousine,
saw the man and battled to control their machinæ,
skidding and swerving across the main r(nd directly
at him. The man dove headlong out of the
and lay stunned in the late evening light.
ne two pale cyclists and a running IN)liceman
reached the fallen man at the same moment. ney
bent over him, jabbering in frantic Albanian. A
small crowd soon gathered on the street, looking
down sympathetically at the stunned man, glaring
at the apologetic cyclists.
Then they all began to smile. The man had
opened his eyes and was looHng up at all the faces.
He scrambled quickly to his feet, smiled to the
clucking crowd, brushed at his stained suit, and
looked around for his canvas satchel
The policeman spoke urgently in Albanian.
Nodding and smiling to show that he was fine, the
man found his satchel and started to walk away
with a quick wave.
ne policeman spoke again, some question. The
man with the satchel stopped, turned slowly, and
spoke—in German :
"I do not speak Albanian. Does someone speak
German?"
A buzz ran through the crowd. The two motorcy-
clists stared. "fie eyes of the policeman became off-
cial, stern.
TRIPLE CROSS
17
speak some," the policeman said in halting





17
"I speak some," the policeman said in halting
German. "You are a foreigner? You have papers?"
"Of course," the man said, giving the policeman a
small pack of documents and a West German pass-
port. "I am with a trade mission in Tirana, bere to
sell road-building equipment. I am walking the
highway to study—h
'ITe policeman stared at the papers, unable to
read enough German. He frowned uncertainly, then
said something to the two motorcyclists and nodded
to where the limousine they had been escorting
'aited up the road. One cyclist walked to the car,
saluted, and spoke in through the window.
A short, heavy man in civilian clothes stepped out
of the rear door of the limousine. Annoyed, he
walked toward the policeman and the man with the
satchel. He stopped and stared.
The man with the satchel turned and ran!
The policeman shouted.
The fleeing man ran on.
The policeman fired three times. fie man fell. Hit
In the leg, he reached to pull a small wire on his
satchel. The crowd swarmed over him. The man
from the limousine stared down at him.
€You?D he said. "What are you doing here? In Al-
The fallen man said nothing.
ne Maior sat in the dim room of Korqö police
headquarters facing the wounded man. The Major
shook his head, then spoke in English:
#What bad luck, eh? A freak accident, and it's our
Peputy Trade Commissar who had met you only a
month ago." The Major shook his head again and
Studied his prisoner. "What are you doing here?"




18
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Nicr CARTER: KILLMA.STER
EA bandit column captured me in Greece. I es-
caped bere.¯
"With German papers, and forged Albanian docu-
ments?"
€1 stole them from the bandits. ney use such
things.-
"Even the Major said. He the
canvas satchel the man had tried to destroy with a
wired destruct, out the disassembled parts of a
sniper rifle and the man's small notebk. "A rifle,
notes of our border territory and its guard locations,
and a list of our offcials with a check against the
name of Otr Defense Minister. For use in Greece,
ne man was silent, then said, "I demand to tan
to my government. Through the British Ambassa-
Talk? Oh, you can talk. Soon you can talk to the
whole world," the Major said. øyou can tell the
world what Mr. Michael Rush of the United State:
State Department was doing in Albania!"









CHAPTER THREE
After the third time r lay there on Diana breathing
hard and saying nothing. Under me, she lay silent,
almost rigid, her eyes closed, her cheek against the
sand, breathing slowly. I rolled off her and looked
up at the blue sky—except that it wasn't blue. It was
black
Night bad come over the bidden beach and nei-
ther of us had noticed. A night full of stars. Greek
stars, watched a long time ago by gods and nymphs
and satyrs. Thefd have liked Diana and me. The
world was young then.
"Nick?" Diana said from beside me on the dark
sand. "Let's not lose touch again. Lose this."
I played with her small breasts. I'd always won-
dered where such a delicate girl found so much pas-
Sion inside her.
'What about Mike?" I said. 'The marriage gone
sour?"
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NICX CARTER:
-you already asked me that."
arm asking again." I lit a cigarette, gave her one.
something wrong, Diana? With Mike?"
She smoked, her delicate face dim in the night.
were all going to do so much for the world,
weren't we, Nick? Mike, me, the others starting out
in Washington five years ago when we met you. The
experienced Pentagon man telling us not to expazt
too much to be too ect too soon. Good advice—
and you gave me a more than advice, but that's
our problem."
tried to help out," I said. "Has Mike—r
"You helped," she said. ¯You help a woman eg
well. Too well, damn you. All I want to do
now is sleep."
I watched her profile as she put the cigarette out
and closed her eyes in the dark night of the empty
beach. She was talking, but she wasn't saying much.
Maybe I was too damned good; all she had on her
mind was sex. At least, that seemed to be all she
wanted to talk about. Not Mike Rush.
My shoulder burned sharply.
A stab of heat—and a signal. Implanted under my
skin, the heat signl is the final emergency contact
when Hawk has failed to reach me any other way,
or when his summons must be totally undetectable
by anyone I might be with. A signal known only to
Hawk and myself.
I smoked casually and glanced at Diana Rush.
She seemed to be asleep, her full nipples rising and
falling in the slow, soft rhythm of sleep. I stubbed
my cigarette the sand, got up, stretched, and
looked out toward the dark sea for a moment. Diana
didn't react, motionless with her eyes closed.
I got into my trunks, slipped Wilhelmina into the
waistband, and walked quickly up the beach toward
TRIPI..E CROSS
21




21
where my Maserati was parked in a rocky culvert. I
had a telephone in the car for emergency use. I
. burled backwards and sideways, reached for
Wilhelmina, flipped over in the air and hit the rocky
ground prone with the Luger aimed straight at the
red car.
My body had reacted before my brain even hew
what it had seen—call it survival.
Someone was in the back seat of the Maserati!
«you!" I called coldly, Wilhelmina in both hands
aimed at the car. gout. Now!"
In the car the figure moved—to strike a match and
apply it to a stumpy cigar. The flat, nasal voice
drawled:
"Reaction under a second after I moved in here.
Not too bad, N3."
I stood up. gone in a thousand could shoot at me
in that time, no more, and not accurately. Itll do
for a reaction."
'That's one too many," Hawk drawled. "But I
suppose no one is quite perfect."
David Hawk, head of AXE, and my boss, is the
only man on earth who hows for sure both what I
do and what I like. A lot of people know what
look like, and a few others how what I really do,
but only Hawk knows both. At that, he knows more
about me than I know about him. The small man in
a gray steel Washington office can commandeer a
nuclear carrier or a SAC bomber with a nod. If he
has a life outside that offce and his missions no one
knows it except the President, and probably not
even he's got all the details. Presidents come and go,
but Hawk goes on in that unknown offce.
"1'11 try harder," I said, and got into the car.
"Promises," he said, then laughed. The laugh is
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CARTER: KILT-MASTER
like a backfire, and his grin is sardonic—when he
He grinned now, puffing on the foul-smelling cigar,
but it was a different kind of gin. In his old tweed
jacket and gray slacks he sat in the dark car grin-
ning at me—a strange grin, showing teeth—and
watching me in silence.
"I got the signal," I said. -Make it good; you're
risking my cover."
gAm I?" His flat voice was as deadly as a shark.
Elt's going well then?
I didn't like the tone of his voice, or the nasty
grin. Something was up. I saw the foul-weather gear
on the back seat beside him, and far out at sea
yond the high cliffs a faint shape low in the water in
the moonlight just rising—a Sixth Fleet submarine!
Hawk had come on a mission.
evVell enough," I said. "I finished the sale on that
MI-5 double-agent. No slips.-
"A little favor for the General," he said drily.
The General was General F.E.A. Wyndham, head
of MI-5, British Military Intelligence, and almost as
unknown a man as Hawk himself. If I didn't carry
an Admirars rating and clearance, Hawk would
never have mentioned the General.
"A favor," he said, "and yesterday. Unimportant.
Today is important. What about Michael Rush of
the State DepartT1ent?'
I'm working on it. Nothing unusual so far. You
still haven't told me why I'm working on Mike Rush
or what the problem is."
Tou're working on Rush now?"
Through Mrs. Rush," I said and ginned. €1 know
her better."
"YVhy do you think I gave you the job?" Hawk
said. He re-lit his cigar, puff.ng slowly. "I expect the
CR