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  A scientist in Switzerland had perfected a synthetic fuel that was cheaper and cleaner than oil … and everyone wanted to get their hands on it. Some wanted to make it available to the world. Others wanted to make sure the formula never saw the light of day again.

  The key to finding it lay with private eye Larry Kent, who was pressed back into service by his old masters at the CIA. And yet he soon defected to the cause of a power-hungry billionaire recluse who wanted to rule the world.

  What was he doing? He was supposed to be one of the good guys … wasn’t he? And yet he seemed to be playing both ends against middle – for his own gain!

  LARRY KENT: SCORPIO

  #797

  First Published by The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd

  Copyright © Piccadilly Publishing

  First Digital Edition: June 2019

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Series Editor: David Whitehead

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd.

  1 ... assassin ...

  It was just after midnight. I’d had a hard day with my accountant. The Government had decided to disallow some deductions that had been perfectly legal the year before when I’d been in the fifty percent bracket. Now I was working seven months for the big spenders in Washington, DC, and five months for myself. I was so annoyed that I almost didn’t look for the brown circle of paper that I wedge into my apartment door before leaving the building. It was in place. I took out my keys and started to use them on the three locks that have to be worked in a certain order with a special twist for each key. I went through the routine and there was a sharp click.

  The moment I opened the door I smelled the cologne. Only one man in the world uses it that I know of, and he was seated in my favorite chair.

  Horatio Q. Moon, Eastern Regional Director, CIA.

  “You’re not looking too well,” he said.

  “You can thank your friends in Washington for that,” I said.

  “My friends?”

  “The little darlings of the Internal Revenue Service.”

  “Oh. Well, as you know, Mr. Kent—”

  “No platitudes about all of us doing our part to pay to run this magnificent republic of ours,” I cut in. Then I crossed the living room to the bar and poured a hefty scotch on the rocks. I also lit a cigarette. Moon frowned darkly. The fat little man disapproves of smoking, drinking, womanizing and just about everything else that makes life worth living. I raised the glass. “Here’s to you.”

  He sniffed.

  I said, “You had another man.”

  One almost hairless eyebrow lifted. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The brown circle of paper was still wedged in the door.”

  “Oh,” Moon said. “Yes, I was accompanied by one of my operatives.” His pale blue eyes looked at me accusingly. “You changed your locks again.”

  “One of these days I’ll get locks that’ll fool you.”

  His round little face dimpled at the cheeks and his Cupid’s-bow of a mouth stretched fractionally. “I doubt that, Mr. Kent.”

  I downed my drink and poured more scotch over the reduced ice cubes. This time Moon didn’t bother to make a face. Which meant he had something nasty for me to do.

  “All right,” I said. “What is it?”

  “You remember Otto Bleir, of course.”

  Bleir and I had worked together on two operations in Europe when I was with the CIA some years back. Bleir, a freelance agent, had been connected with the KGB at the time. Not many people know it, but the KGB and the CIA are rarely at each other’s throats. Otto Bleir wasn’t his real name.

  “I remember him,” I said. “It’s hard to forget a man who saved your life.”

  Moon waved a pink little hand as though this was of no consequence. “Bleir is now employed by an Arab organization, MUFA.”

  “Terrorists.”

  “Bleir is a lone assassin. We believe he killed Alfrontono in Rome and Hartman in Oslo. Our intelligence sources in the Middle East and Europe tell us that Bleir is here in New York City to—”

  “He’s here?”

  “… to assassinate LeRoy Milton.”

  LeRoy Milton was a black, a leader of TAB, True American Blacks, an organization whose political stance was far to the right of center. Milton was anti-Moslem because his younger sister and brother had been killed, along with more than a hundred others, in an Arab terrorist raid at Tel Aviv Airport. Milton’s was by far the loudest voice, white or black, against the Arab countries.

  “As you know,” Moon said, “we have not been closely involved with any Arab nation since the abdication of the late Shah of Iran. However, despite the fact that Iran is now holding hostage fifty-one Americans, ostensibly for spying—”

  “How many were spying?” I interrupted.

  Moon let out a tiny sigh. “Everyone spies to a certain extent, as you well know. If you are in a foreign country and something happens that you know will be of interest to your own country, you pass the information along. If you wish to be technical about the matter, Mr. Kent, every Iranian student in this country who protests against the United States Government is a troublemaker who should be deported. Put the shoe on the other foot. If American students were studying in Iranian universities and began to hold protest meetings against the Ayatollah Khomeini, they would be thrown into jail as subversives.”

  I had no argument on that.

  Moon went on. “At the present time we need Arab oil. Therefore it is in our best interests to maintain friendly relations where possible in the Middle East. At the same time, however, we are not prepared to lose face again. The rest of the world is watching us. If LeRoy Milton is assassinated, everyone will know that MUFA was behind it. We are determined that this will not happen.

  “So we protect LeRoy Milton,” I said.

  “He has refused all offers of protection. It is my personal opinion that LeRoy Milton looks forward to the prospect of being a martyr. He is arriving in New York City tomorrow afternoon to take part in the Free America Rally at Madison Square Garden tomorrow night. He is scheduled to make a series of public appearances in Harlem before the rally. Hundreds of FBI men and plainclothes detectives will be doing their best to protect Milton, but Otto Bleir is a resourceful man and will find a way to kill him.”

  “Do you know where Bleir is right now?” I asked.

  “He is staying at the Windsor Hotel.”

  “Registered as Otto Bleir?”

  “Yes.”

  “So arrest him,” I said.

  “On what charge?”

  “Undesirable alien.”

  “Mr. Kent, there is something about Otto Bleir that you apparently do not know. He is a citizen of Algiers, where he is held in high regard by the Algerian government as the employer of some seven hundred men and women in various industries.”

  “Don’t the Algerian authorities know he’s acted as an agent for six or seven different countries?”

  “He is one of their best agents. If we arrested him as an undesirable alien, every American in Algiers would probably be thrown into jail in retaliation. We do not want another Tehran situation. No, Mr. Kent, that is not the way to handle our Mr. Bleir. He must die ... of natural causes.”

>   “Now just wait a minute,” I said, knowing what was coming next.

  “Mr. Kent, let me remind you that, technically, you are still a member of the Central Intelligence Agency. Your resignation was never accepted.”

  “Let’s not go through that routine again.” I poured myself another scotch, a bigger one this time. And I produced a strong Mexican cigar and set it alight, knowing the smoke would bother Moon’s sinuses. “You’re asking me to kill Bleir,” I said.

  “Otto Bleir will die of a heart attack.” Moon reached into his breast pocket and brought out a Meerschaum pipe with a yellow bowl and a black stem. “You give the stem one full turn to the left, Mr. Kent. A slight click will tell you that the gun—the pipe—is ready to be fired.” He turned the stem and I heard a click. “The projectile is fired merely by pressing the silver ring between the stem and bowl.” He turned the stem to the off position and handed the pipe to me.

  I looked at the end of the stem. “You said ‘projectile’, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. A marvel of engineering. A tiny metal ball that is perforated. Stainless steel, I believe.”

  “It was recently used to kill a diplomat in London,” I said. “A Bulgarian.”

  “True.”

  “But it was fired through the end of an umbrella.”

  “The weather bureau predicts at least another few days of sunshine, Mr. Kent.” A tiny sound like dry leaves rustling together came from Moon’s throat. It was his version of a chuckle. “Besides, you are hardly the umbrella-carrying type, even in the rain.”

  “It took the Bulgarian three days to die,” I said. “They found the flechette during the autopsy. That’s what they call the projectile, don’t they? A flechette?”

  “Yes. But the metal ball used in London was twice as large as the one this smoking pipe will fire. Death will come within three hours.”

  “And the coroner will be on the government payroll?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will Otto Bleir feel any pain?”

  “No more than he would from the bite of a fly.”

  I turned the stem to the left, heard the click, turned it back and looked at Moon. “I have a question that you probably won’t think is important.”

  “Yes, Mr. Kent?”

  “Why me?”

  “You were—are—an ‘A’ agent. Only an ‘A’ agent can be given the order to ... eliminate.”

  “I’m also a private investigator. Why not bring in an ‘A’ agent who isn’t known in New York?”

  “You are the only ‘A’ agent available.”

  “Then why not use a freelance hit man? You have enough of them.”

  “This particular assignment has to be kept inside the Company.”

  “I’m not ‘inside the Company’. I left the Company about thirteen years ago.” Moon opened his little mouth to speak but I beat him to it. “Don’t, Mr. Moon! Don’t remind me that my resignation wasn’t formally accepted. If I hear it one more time ...”

  The click from the Meerschaum pipe sounded unnaturally loud as I twisted the stem. The pipe was only a few feet from Moon’s pink cheek. He looked me in the eye and nodded.

  “That is just about the right range, Mr. Kent. However ...” He raised a pudgy finger to the pipe stem and moved it a few inches to the left. “ ... I suggest that you aim for the side of the neck, just above the collar. Using a smoking pipe, by the way, was my idea. You can point it at Otto Bleir just as though you’re making a point in conversation. The projectile is fired by spring action that is all but silent. Anyone watching will see Otto Bleir slap a hand to the side of the neck as though an insect has bitten him. There is a slight possibility that a tiny amount of blood will be drawn. If Bleir sees blood on one of his fingers he’ll think he killed the offending insect.”

  “Brilliant,” I said drily.

  He continued to look into my eyes. I twisted the pipe stem to the right. Nothing showed in those pale blue eyes.

  “I tried to think of everything,” Moon went on. “You will do your best to make it look like anything but an assassination because there will probably be people all around you in the lobby of the Windsor Hotel.”

  “How do you know Otto Bleir will be in the lobby?”

  “He is supposed to meet someone there at ten in the morning. She will be late.”

  “She?”

  “Yes. I suggest that you feign surprise when you see Bleir in the lobby. Engage him in a conversation. You’re old comrades. Besides, as you mentioned, he once saved your life. It’s only natural that you’d be glad to see the man.”

  I shook my head. “Bleir isn’t stupid. He’ll be on his guard. On top of that, there’s something you’ve forgotten.”

  “Oh?”

  “My face.”

  “Yes?”

  “The last time Otto Bleir and I worked together I wasn’t wearing the face you’re looking at right now. Five years ago—”

  “Mr. Kent.” Moon clucked his tongue. “What makes you think I’d forget something as important as that? And what makes you think Bleir doesn’t know about the plastic surgery operations on your face?”

  “He may know about the operations but there’s no chance that he’ll recognize me. Your plastic surgeons did too good a job of making me look like someone else.”

  There was a suggestion of wry amusement in Moon’s pale eyes. “Are you complaining, Mr. Kent? Those plastic surgeons made you appear at least fifteen years younger.”

  “Not because the Company loves me.”

  “Admittedly, it was to our advantage that your face be completely altered. Oh the other hand, when I saw you at Mercy Hospital after that madman was finished with you, you didn’t have much of a face left; most of it was on a steel-wire fence in a parking lot.”

  “That was the face Otto Bleir knew—the one left on that steel-wire fence.”

  “Your present face, Mr. Kent, is well known to every intelligence organization in the world. It’s not a secret that you’ve been a valuable asset to us in several important operations. How many times do you think you’ve been secretly photographed during the last four or five years? Dozens of times, Mr. Kent, and the best of those photographs were widely circulated. The world becomes a very small place when you’re a famous agent.”

  “Forget the compliments,” I said, annoyed.

  Moon shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I am merely stating a fact. Otto Bleir will recognize you, I guarantee it.”

  I downed my scotch, placed the Meerschaum pipe on the table and crossed the room to pour another drink.

  “I suggest that you arrive in the lobby of the Windsor Hotel a few minutes before ten in the morning,” Moon said.

  I swirled the ice cubes around in the glass. “All right,” I said. “Once again I’m with the Company. But let me remind you of something, Mr. Moon ...”

  “Yes?”

  “The CIA isn’t supposed to operate inside the United States.”

  Moon looked down as he pressed the tips of his meticulously manicured fingers together. Finally he said, “If you perform adequately, Mr. Kent, no one will learn about our little transgression.”

  “A little transgression? Killing a man?”

  “Otto Bleir will die of natural causes. He has already suffered two heart attacks. When the third proves to be fatal, no one will be surprised.”

  “MUFA won’t be fooled.”

  “The people behind MUFA are realists, Mr. Kent. They will accept Otto Bleir’s death for what it is: a small victory for us, a small defeat for them.” Moon heaved himself to his feet. There wasn’t a rumple in his black suit, which was his uniform along with a white shirt, a red-and-blue striped tie, black shoes with a high shine, and a gray homburg. He waddled to the table and picked up his homburg, then turned to me. “You will be hearing from me.”

  “There’s just one more thing, Mr. Moon ...”

  “Yes?”

  “What if I refuse to carry out this assignment?”

  Moon stared down at the c
rown of his homburg. “I am quite certain that you will do your duty, Mr. Kent.” And with that he let himself out.

  I walked around the table and picked up the Meerschaum pipe. Business as usual. I killed Otto Bleir or another ‘A’ agent would be sent after me. I went to the bathroom, found a box of cotton wool swabs and crammed them into a smaller box. I placed the latter on the table in the living room and gave the stem of the pipe a full turn to the left. It clicked. I held the stem a foot above the firmly packed cotton wool and pressed the silver ring. There was hardly any recoil and no sound, but the box jumped. I pressed again. Nothing happened. A one-shot “gun”.

  I took the pipe apart, then I went into the kitchen and put on a pot of water to boil before returning to the living room. It took me almost five minutes to find the tiny flechette in the cotton wool.

  I had no intention of killing Otto Bleir.

  2 … the deadly sting …

  I entered the vast, marble-floored lobby of the Windsor Hotel at two minutes before ten a.m. I scanned the place. Twenty people or so. Otto Bleir sat in a leather chair, his legs crossed. He hadn’t changed much in ten years. Sandy hair, high cheekbones, deep-set brown eyes, a broad mouth, a firm jaw. No lines in his face. He could be thirty or fifty, depending on how old he wanted you to think he was. At the moment, in his sober gray suit, he looked to be about forty.

  I walked straight to him. His gaze went to me when I was about twenty feet away. He smiled when I was ten feet away.

  “Larry?”

  I stopped two or three feet from him. “I didn’t think you’d recognize me.”

  He rose. “I wasn’t sure, but I am now that I’ve heard your voice.” He spoke English like a well-educated mid westerner. “They did a wonderful job on you. The plastic surgeons, I mean.” His eyes dropped to the bowl of the Meerschaum pipe sticking out of my handkerchief pocket. “Have you given up cigarettes?”

  “No.” Something was wrong here. Otto was making it easy for me to take out the pipe. “And it’s not just for show,” I added. “In fact, it’s a deadly bastard.”