Istanbul by Nick Carter Page B

sound of leather in mud behind him and whirled. They had planted a man back there!
    Steel glistened as the figure came out of the dark at him. Nick went to his knees, the stiletto already in his hand for the upward disemboweling thrust.
    The single remaining light splashed on the running man. He flung up an arm, as though to ward off the light — and the bullets that trailed it. Nick heard someone scream a command, but it was too late. The man was blown backward in the hail of lead — running backward with his hands clutching his belly, he fell, still backward, splayed in the mud.
    Sirens again. Much closer now. Nick slipped the new clip into the Luger and began firing at random at the alley mouth. The last light fell and rolled into the streaming gutter, still burning. Nick kept firing. They would be going now, without saying goodbye.
    Silence. Then, somewhere down the street, came the nervous rasp of a starter. An engine roared. Tires screamed.
    More silence. Nick reloaded the Luger a third time and stepped carefully out from behind the shredded Opel run, do not walk, to the nearest exit!
    Too late! Two police cars, one from each direction, squealed to a halt at the entrance to the
cul-de-sac.
The scene was bathed in garish white light. Nick saw a body lying in a gutter, washed around by dirty foaming water. Good! At least one. And a body would keep the cops occupied for a time. As would the Opel and the other body behind him, the man who had been shot by mistake.
    Now all he had to do was get out of this bag he was in. Sooner or later, probably sooner, the cops would stop gabbling among themselves and start searching. Nick darted to a wall of the alley and started working his way back. Farther and farther into the trap that might have an escape hatch — and might not.
    The Turkish police acted with speed and efficiency and Nick Carter found himself cursing them for it. They had gotten a blazing high-powered spot light into operation and it opened up the black throat of the alley like a white lancet. N3's luck was in. He had stumbled and fallen over a pile of debris just as the light went on. Now he lay and cursed fervently, pressing his face into some particularly noisome garbage, while the long bright finger poked around him.
    For once Nick found himself not damning his suit, which up to now he had considered the work of a demented Turk tailor. It was of a crappy brown color and, when smeared with garbage as it now was, it provided perfect camouflage. He lay unmoving, his face buried in filth, and the light passed over him without any hesitation. When it passed Nick cocked one eye and followed the white beam as it traversed on down the alley. What he saw did not bring any great joy to his heart. It was a dead end, all right. The alley ended in a short flight of shallow wide stairs leading up to houses — at least he counted three or four doors before the light went out.
    Nick waited five minutes or so, listening to the shouts and commands as the police worked around the shot up Opel. They would get around to searching the alley, but he had a few minutes grace. What to do with it? He could think of only one way out — so that would have to be it. It would mean laying a fresh trail, perhaps starting the chase all over again, but there was no choice. He would have to go through one of those houses. Whether the residents liked it or not!
    N3 carefully began to crawl on his hands and knees up that sewer of an alley, that reeking cloaca of old Istanbul. He plodded on —
squish
—
squash
— shaking his hand out of a nasty mess of something, thinking that at least he couldn't get any cruddier than he now was. No man could.
    At last he reached the stairs. The very end of the dead end. He judged it safe to stand erect now. The cops were still clustered around the Ope! at the far end.
    Nick reached the top of the stairs. Three doors were set into a blank facing brick wall. No windows. He moved lightly, testing and feeling.