Double Identity

Chapter 3 The She Devil

The chamber, even though the massive, nail-studded door was barred on the outside, could hardly be called a cell. It was much too comfortable, of white-washed brick, high and spacious and hung with priceless rugs. There were also rugs on the hard-packed, earthen floor. Nick, who was no rug merchant, recognized one of them as a Samarkand worth at least a thousand.

His bed was on the floor, consisting of half a dozen thin mats piled atop each other. The sheets were of purple silk and the coverlet of rich brocade. A large brazier in the center of the room sent out waves of charcoal heat. Beyond the brazier, set against the far wall, brooded an enormous brass statue of a monkey. The beast was sitting on its haunches, the hand-like forepaws raised as in supplication to strange gods. It was an enormous idol, reaching nearly to the ceiling, and Nick had taken an immediate dislike to it. The eyes, for one thing. They were hollow and once or twice, in the weak yellow light of the butter lamps, he had seen a glitter of white in the empty brass eyes.

So he was being spied on occasionally. So what? It wasn’t the first time. Nick arranged the wooden block pillow beneath his head — it was covered with felt and rather comfortable — and wished the High Priestess, Dyla Lotti, would get on with things. He really had no time for the usual Tibetan amenities — yet he recognized that they must be observed. Protocol must be observed, especially in this place of women. N3 grinned in resignation and lit a cigarette from the one pack he had been permitted to keep.

He blew smoke at the brass monkey and thought back over the events of the day. It had been a long and hectic one…

He had emerged from the yoga trance to find Hafed there with the inevitable cup of tea. Nick was feeling slightly better, stronger, and after a breakfast of tea and biscuit and pressed beef they packed the two remaining ponies and plunged eastward into the pass. The blizzard was in full fury by now.

There was no time for talk and no need for it. Hated did not have to explain — either they made the Lamasery of the She Devils before their strength gave out or they died in the rugged confines of the pass. N3, head lowered into the icy wind, was content to slog along behind Kaswa. The pony knew what it was about, and stuck close to Hafed and the other pony. The trail narrowed steadily until, at one point, it was a bare twelve inches wide with an overhanging cliff to Nick’s right and a mile fall-away to his left. The one factor that saved them, that made the trail passable, was the savage scouring of the wind that kept it free of snow. The going was unmitigated hell. Nick clung to Kaswa’s shaggy tail and hoped for the best — one slip and the mission was all over.

By mid-afternoon they were past the worst of it. About four, as early darkness was clamping down, Hafed stopped and pointed up through the swirling snow. “There, sar! The lamasery. You see all the lights — they are expecting us.”

Nick leaned on Kaswa and caught his breath. Now and again the snow curtain lifted enough for him to catch a glance of the lamasery. It was perched precariously on a great flat shelf of rock jutting out from the cliff. A clutter of low buildings built of stone and brick, all of which were a dull red-earth color. Ahead of them, perhaps a quarter of a mile, stairs cut into the living stone of the cliff twined upward.

The lamasery was indeed ablaze with light. Must be a thousand butter lamps going, Nick thought.

He went forward to where Hafed was resting by his pony.

He noted that even the guide was blowing hard. Nick gave him a cigarette which Hafed accepted gratefully and lit skillfully in the wind with his glowing punk-cord.

“How could they see us coming in this gale?” Nick asked. “Most of the time I can’t see five feet in front of me.”

Hafed cupped his cigarette against the wind and puffed. “They know, sar. They are She Devils, remember? Much powerful magic!”

Nick only stared at him, saying nothing. He was tempted to tell Hafed that he could drop the simple Tibetan act, now that they were alone, but he kept silent. Let the man play it his own way.

Hafed, with a hint of sheepishness, went on to say, “Anyway they always keep lookouts, the She Devils. They say they look for stray and lost travelers, to help them.” Hafed grinned at Nick, showing black stumps of teeth. “This I do not believe — I think they look for men. I think they would let a woman traveler freeze to death in this pass. Listen, sar!”

The wind brought them a braying of great horns and the resonant clangor of a single huge gong. The myriads of butter lamps flickered through the storm like beckoning candles in the windows of home. Hafed gave Nick an odd glance.

“We better get on, sar. They not like to be kept waiting, the She Devils. Very impatient people.”

As Nick started back to his pony he chuckled. “I’m impatient, too. For a hot bath and a clean bed and some sleep.”

Hafed’s laugh was borne to him on the wind. “Not count on it, sar. Bath and bed okay yes. Sleep I doubt I hope you are feeling stronger, sar. You will need all strength tonight! Also me!”

They found crude stables cut into the rock at the foot of the stairs and left the ponies there. The attendants were all old women in coarse robes of a dirty orange color. Their heads were shaven and they glistened with a pungent oil. They stared at the two men and chittered like monkeys among themselves in some strange Tibetan dialect.

They began the long climb up the rock stairs. High overhead someone was clashing cymbals. It was fully dark now and the stairs were poorly lighted by butter lamps set in niches.

As they climbed Hafed explained. “Most of hard work is done by the old devils. Young devils spend all time keeping pretty and making love.”

“I thought you said there were no men?”

Hafed gave him what Nick could only construe as a pitying look. “Not always need men,” the guide said curtly. “Other ways!”

Nick saved his breath for the climb. It had been a foolish question, he admitted. Naive. Lesbianism was bound to be rampant in a place like this. Probably as second best, he thought. After all, these priestesses, or She Devils, had been sent to this place because they had transgressed with men.

N3 thought he could detect a certain impatience in Hafed’s manner now. Either that or the guide was in incredible shape — he was fairly leaping up the steep stairs. Nick grinned a little sourly. Why not? Hafed carried no dablam with a wife spirit in it. He was looking forward, it seemed, to a hot time in the old lamasery tonight! Nick sighed and struggled upward. Judging by the women he had seen thus far— Hafed could have them.

Their entry into the Lamasery of the She Devils was a triumph played to farce. They were met at the top by a throng of priestesses carrying torches and beating cymbals. They were escorted through a huge gate to an inner courtyard of hard-packed earth. The women stared at them and waved their torches and giggled amongst themselves. Several of them pointed and made suggestive motions with their bodies, but none of them ventured close. They all wore orange robes and tight-fitting yakskin boots with curled-up toes. Their heads were shaven, but nevertheless Nick saw some beauties among them. Mostly, however, he noted the odor that permeated the courtyard and the remote crevices of the lamasery. The smell of a thousand women living in close quarters. At first it bothered him, but in a matter of minutes he found it not unpleasant — a compound of oiled hair and perfumed bodies and a natural femala musk.

Hafed and Nick were immediately separated. Hafed appeared to find this natural. After a short discourse with an elderly priestess who was built like a Sumo wrestler, in a language that seemed to consist of squeals and grunts, Hafed turned to Nick. “You are to go with this old one, sar. She speaks only their dialect, so you will not be able to talk with her. Maybe planned so, I think. Anyway she take care of you and later maybe you will be permitted to see the High Priestess— Dyla Lotti.”

“Permitted, hell!” Nick was tart. “I’ve got to see her — right away. This is no goddamned pleasure jaunt, Hafed.

Hafed leaned close to whisper. Around them the circle of orange-robed women watched and whispered among themselves.

“Better do just like say,” Hafed muttered. “Remember I tell you, sar? Can be dangerous if not handle right. She Devils are own law here. You see big ones around — those with clubs and knives?”

Nick had noticed them, muscular women with red arm brassards and carrying spike-studded clubs and long knives thrust into their girdles. He nodded. “Yes. What are they? MPs?”

Hafed grinned. “Sort of, sar. Much tough. You go now do like they tell — we not want trouble. I think Dyla Lotti come and see you maybe tonight soon!”

So Killmaster followed the fat old priestess down a series of long cold corridors lit by butter lamps. Finally they entered a room where it was actually warm and a great cauldron of water boiled. Here more old women were in attendance. Overcoming his initial resistance with deft skill and much chatter, they had given Nick a bath. Eventually he relaxed and enjoyed it. They bathed his private parts with no more ado than if he had been a piece of meat on a butcher’s hook, though one old crone did tickle him and cackle something that made the others laugh. Nick thought it was probably uncomplimentary.

He managed to retain his weapons, but only after a fierce struggle and much altercation. One of the old priestesses was sent to check — presumably with the High Priestess herself — and came back with word that the weapons were permitted. At least they gave up trying to snatch them from him.

On the lighter side was the awe with which the elderly priestesses regarded Pierre, the little gas bomb he carried between his legs in a metal cylinder. This occasioned as much cackle as a fox in a chicken run! They stared at him and spun prayer wheels at a great rate. Here was a foreign devil with three balls — and one of them of metal! N3 could almost hear the rumors starting, and visualize the clack that would run through the lamasery that night…

Now, as he fretted on the soft bed, he wondered about the barred door. Was he a prisoner, as he had thought at first, or was the barred and locked door to keep the younger She Devils out? He grinned. Once they had heard about his third testicle they might come looking, if only out of curiosity.

He lit another cigarette from his butt, stubbing the butt out on a couple of thousand dollars worth of rug. There were no ashtrays. He stared at the monkey again. Was that a glint of white behind the brass eyes? A watcher? Nick yawned and hitched the orange robe closer around his big frame. It was coarse and scratchy, but it was clean. God only knew what they had done with his clothes. All he had left was the robe and a pair of yakskin boots and his weapons.

He was about to field strip the Luger again, for lack of something to do, when he heard the door being unlocked. Hastily he thrust the pistol beneath the covers. If this was Dyla Lotti he didn’t want to meet her with a gun in his hand. Might violate protocol or something.

It was only another old woman, one he had not seen before. She bowed and cackled and handed him a large bowl of warm milk. She made drinking motions and stood waiting. To get rid of her Nick drank the mixture. Warm yak’s milk to which something had been added, something he could not recognize, at once tart and sweet. A mildly pleasant taste.

The old crone smiled with approval as he finished the milk and handed her the cup. She thumped one withered breast, over her heart, and gummed words at him that sounded, vaguely, like “make well.” She left and Nick heard the door being barred and locked again.

Almost immediately he began to feel drowsy. A lovely warm euphoria stole over him. His heart, which on the final trip up the lamasery stairs had been about to burst his chest, slowed to a steady normal beat. N3 closed his eyes and sank into delicious deep contentment Whatever dope he had been given it was certainly effective. She Devil’s Own Home Remedy — maybe he should try to get the recipe and bottle it for sale in the States. It beat any six martinis he had ever drunk.

N3 had no idea how long he slept. He did not come awake instantly, alert and ready, his usual manner of wakening. Instead he drifted back to consciousness slowly on a pleasant pillow of dreams, only just aware of where he was and who he was. It was very quiet in the lamasery now. It must be late. Most of the butter lamps had gone out; the remaining few shed a thin tawny light that wavered fitfully. The charcoal in the brazier was a sullen red glow.

Flickering lamps! Strange. They had burned with a clear straight flame before. Nick pushed himself up on the bed, fighting off lethargy, and glanced across the room at the great statue of the brass monkey. It was moving away from the wall, swinging slowly around on a pivot. A chill little draft invaded the room, causing the butter lamps to flicker again. N3 felt for his weapons with a touch of panic.

Then he relaxed. They were all there — Luger, stiletto, and Pierre the gas bomb. He was not defenseless!

The brass monkey was still swinging out from the white brick wall. When it was at right angles to the wall it halted with a little click. Nick rubbed his eyes, trying to rid them of sleep. He still felt drugged and fuzzy, yet he did not mind. He felt good. Fine! As though he were neatly wrapped in some downy insulation, shielded from any impact of reality. He was aware, too, of one other thing — he was immensely ready for physical love! And that, some yet undrugged part of his mind told him, is just plain absurd. Ridiculous. At this moment in time and space, just beginning what could be the most chancy and dangerous mission of his life, that he should suddenly become a raging stud…

He saw her then. There was a black oblong in the brick wall, where the brass monkey had been, and a figure was standing there now. A waft of perfume came to Nick. More absurdity. No rare Tibetan perfume this — he recognized it immediately. Chanel No. 5!

The figure stepped out of the black shadows into the room. Had he not been drugged, N3 probably would have exclaimed. As it was he took the apparition in stride — nearly. Even the drug could not ward off entirely the sudden chill and feeling of evil present in the room.

Without speaking the figure came into the room and halted by the brazier. Behind it the brass monkey slid silently back into place. Some kind of automatic counter-weight, Nick told himself furiously. He was fighting the drug tooth and nail now, struggling to clear his mind. This must be Dyla Lotti. The High Priestess herself whom he had been instructed to contact. Why didn’t she take off that damned leering mask!

The devil mask was hideous enough to chill the blood of any man. The eyes were terrible red slits, the nose a purple hook, the mouth a grin of sheer horror. Serpents twined instead of hair. This was nightmare stuff!

Killmaster summoned all his will. He flipped a casual hand at the bed side. “Come and sit down. I’ve been expecting you. Sorry about the chairs, but you people don’t seem to run to them. You know who I am, of course? Why I’m here?”

From behind the mask a pair of narrow dark eyes regarded him. Still she did not speak. She wore the traditional orange robe, but it was of silk instead of rough homespun and was belted in at the waist. This revealed just enough of her body for Nick to guess that it was superb. On her feet were tiny yakskin boots with silver tassels on the curled-up toes. Around her neck, below the mask line, he saw a long string of wooden prayer beads.

By now Nick knew he was fighting a losing battle against the drug. God — that milk must have been loaded. He fought to keep the weird devil mask in focus. The white-washed walls kept folding and wrinkling and re-aligning themselves. And he was still aching, hurting, with the physical manifestations of love. And that, he thought dimly, is sure as hell not protocol. If I let myself get out of hand I’ll louse up the whole deal.

He fell back on a simple, inane remark. “Think you’ll know me again?”

Dark eyes flickered behind the devil mask. She had not moved. Now she took a single step toward him. Her voice was soft, well modulated, speaking English with hardly an accent — the good, grammatically pure English of one who has studied it assiduously as a second language. The soft tones, coming from behind the grotesque mask, gave Nick Carter a second shock.

“I must be very careful, Mr. Carter. As you must. Only a week ago another man lay on that same bed and assured me that he was Mr. Nicholas Carter. He looked exactly like you. He spoke exactly as you speak now.”

Nick swung his legs out of bed and pulled the orange robe about him, fighting off languor. Wilhelmina, the Luger, was snug in her plastic holster in the waistband of his shorts. Thank God the old crones had left him those.

Nick said: “This other man — this phony Nick Carter? You say he was exactly as I am? Think hard now, Miss — er— what do I call you?”

Had the dark eyes twinkled behind the mask? He couldn’t be sure. There was something familiar and reassuring about the Chanel No. 5 now. This was, after all, only a woman. And he was Nick Carter — the real one. He could handle it.

“Call me Dyla Lotti,” she said. “That is my name. And yes — he did look exactly like you. Except, possibly…” She took a step nearer the bed and peered at Nick. “Possibly the eyes — his were a little colder. But that is an emotional, a subjective judgment. But he was enough like you to pass any but the most severe test.”

“He fooled you? You thought he was the real Nick Carter? At the time?”

The devil mask moved in negation. “No. I was not fooled. I pretended to be, but I knew that he was really a Chinese agent posing as you, Mr. Carter. I had been warned, you see.”

Nick fumbled with his remaining cigarettes. “You mind?”

A tiny hand, daffodil yellow, appeared from the copious sleeve of the robe. It waved assent. Nick saw that her nails were long and curving and stained a blood red.

He lit a cigarette and arranged the robe again. He was a little more at ease, a bit less excited now that they were down to business, but desire still haunted him.

He exhaled blue smoke and said, “We’re a little blurry on that at AXE, you know. You’d better put me straight for the record — just how were you warned? This agent, this Chinese phony, killed our man Pei Ling in Kaitse— that’s in central Tibet. There are a h — a lot of mountains between here and there. How could you get word about Pei Ling’s murder so fast?”

He saw the dark eyes widen behind the mask. She approached another step, her arms crossed now over her breast. Firm, full breasts, Nick guessed. Must be strapped down now. The scent of Chanel was stronger.

“You sound as though you do not entirely trust me, Mr. Carter.” Was there a hint of mockery in the voice?

“It isn’t a question of trust, Dyla Lotti. Just a matter of mechanics. I want to know how it could happen. I want, I’ve got to know, as much about this thing as possible. Some little matter, something you think of no importance, might be vital. You understand?”

“I understand, Mr. Carter. You will have to excuse me — I am very new at this sort of thing. I am a High Priestess, not a spy. I only agreed to work for you, for your people, because the Chinese are in our country and I want them out. It is against our creed to hate, Mr. Carter, or to preach hatred — but I am a sinner. I hate the Chinese! They are swine. Dogs!”

N3 felt more relaxed. The drug was still working in him, but now he felt his urgent desire for a woman, any woman, fading away. His mind was clearing; the room, the woman in the mask, everything was coming through clear and sharp again.

Somewhat to his surprise Dyla Lotti went to the opposite side of the bed and sat down. Primly, he thought. He twisted to face her, grinning. “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable if you took that thing off — the Halloween bit, I mean? It looks heavy.”

The mask swayed toward him and he was aware of the close scrutiny of the dark eyes. There was an odd note in her reply. “I prefer to keep it on for the time being, Mr. Carter. Perhaps — later? You must sleep again, and drink more medicine — and then I will return to see you. Then I will take off the mask. You agree?”

The formality had lightened. Nick smiled and lit another cigarette. “I agree — but I don’t know about the medicine bit. That last blast of yak’s milk was loaded! What did she put in it, anyway?” He glanced furtively down at his now quiescent loins. “It — er — It has some weird effects.”

If Dyla Lotti knew what he meant she made no sign. Yet her voice was warmer, more friendly, when she said, “It is sanga root — a sort of wild mushroom that grows on the mountain tops. Very rare. You must take it, Mr. Carter. I know. I have had the altitude sickness myself. The sanga root eases the strain on your heart — otherwise it will wear itself out in this thin air.”

N3 eyed the devil mask. “It has certain side effects,” he said with an innocent expression.

There was no doubt about it this time — the dark eyes flashed and twinkled. “Perhaps,” Dyla Lotti admitted. “And perhaps the side effects are beneficial also. But we must get back to business, Mr. Carter. Soon I must go. I have my duties, you know.”

Nick wondered what those duties could be, well after midnight in a lonely and storm-besieged lamasery, but he did not ask. He listened, interrupting only now and then to ask a question.

A week before, one day before the fake Nick Carter had arrived, a runner had reached the lamasery. He bore a chit of paper in a cleft stick and he died from exhaustion half an hour later. But he had been a Sherpa, with incredible lungs, and he had come all the way from another lamasery at Kaitse. The message he bore was scrawled in blood — a dying man’s blood. The Chinese agent had made another mistake — after shooting Pei Ling he had not checked to see that the Lama was quite dead.

Nick asked, “You still have the message?”

Dyla Lotti took a coarse sheet of paper from her wide sleeve and handed it across the bed to him. Their fingers touched for a moment and Nick felt as though an electric current had jolted him. He raised the note to eye level with fingers that trembled faintly. God — he must be careful! The yearning was coming back!

He could make nothing of the note. It did seem to be written in blood, by a dying man, a wobbly scrawled mess of chicken tracks. He got the impression that it was meant to be read from right to left. He handed it back to Dyla Lotti with a baffled expression. “Afraid you’ll have to read it to me.”

He could not see her smile behind the devil mask, but he sensed it. “It is in Urdu,” she explained. “A high form of Hindustani — educated priests use it at times. It does not say much — he had no time left. Just that he was killed by a man posing as you, Mr. Carter. A Chinese agent. He asks me to communicate this to your people — to AXE — and warns me that the Chinese agent would probably stop here on his way through the pass into Kashmir. He also suggests that I pretend ignorance and, how do you say it—?”

“Play along — go with the gag.”

Her nod was doubtful. “Yes— I suppose something like that. I did so. In due time the imposter arrived, looking exactly like you, Mr. Carter. I, er, played along. He asked many questions. So did I. I think he trusted me — he did not suspect that I knew the truth — but I do not think he told me anything of importance. Neither did I tell him anything that he did not already know, or could easily find out. My reason was simple— I did not know anything that would have been of interest to him. As I told you I am a High Priestess, not a spy or a secret agent. My role was to be secondary, passive — I was to pass on information from time to time if I thought it important. That is all. But Pei Ling was dying and had no one else to turn to — so he sent the runner to me.”

“And you sent it out to us — that means you’ve got a transmitter here in the lamasery!”

The devil mask nodded. Her voice sounded reluctant. “Yes — there is a transmitter. Well hidden. I was warned never to use it except in case of grave emergency — there are always Chinese patrols around and some of them have machines — whatever it is that they use to locate hidden transmitters?”

“DF — directional finding equipment,” said Nick. “Yes, the b — they would have those. But you seem to have gotten away with it, Dyla Lotti. You haven’t had any Chinese callers?”

“Not yet. I hope I never do. And I will be glad when this is all over— I am not well equipped for this work. I am a woman and I am afraid!”

“You’ve done fine so far,” N3 told her. “Great — we’d have been lost without you, Dyla Lotti. Really in a mess. We wouldn’t have known anything about this fake agent but for you — at least not until he had done a lot of damage;. As it is I’m not too far behind him.”

“He left four days ago.”

“Through the pass into Kashmir?”

She nodded. “Yes. He had a guide and ponies and five or six men. They did not stay here at the lamasery — the weather was good then and they camped in the gorge. I think they were Chinese soldiers without their uniforms. But that is only a guess — they kept to themselves. They would not even have anything to do with my girls, which is most unusual for soldiers.” Dyla Lotti permitted herself the slightest chuckle. Nick also thought he detected a note of slyness in her voice, but he ignored the opening — if it was that — and kept determinedly to the business at hand.

He rubbed his eyes; he was feeling drowsy again. Then he said: “So you didn’t tell him anything — you couldn’t. But what did he tell you? I’ve got to know that.”

“Not much. Only that he was going from here to Karachi on a highly secret mission. He did not say what it was, naturally. I pretended to believe him and I did not ask too many questions — I was afraid he would become suspicious and I did not wish to join Pei Ling.”

Karachi! Pakistan! N3 remembered Hawk’s words now. The Chinese Reds might attempt to put a finger into the India-Pakistan pie. Keep the pot boiling. It began to look as though Hawk had guessed right. Unless, of course, it was a deliberate plant, a feint, to draw Nick out of the way while the real monkey business was consummated elsewhere.

Somehow he thought not. Admittedly he wasn’t thinking too clearly at the moment, drugged as he was, but he agreed with Hawk that part of this business, at least, was a trap to draw him within killing distance. If that were true the phony agent would leave a clear trail. Another thing was that the agent, and his bosses in Peking, wouldn’t have expected their subterfuge to be discovered so soon. They would know that the CIA, and AXE, apparatus in Tibet was crude and primitive at this stage. They must have been gambling a little, depending on luck, and it had failed them.

Aloud Nick said: “I’m only four days behind him. I’ll get him. Thanks to you, Dyla Lotti.”

She rose and came around the bed to stand beside him. Her fragile red-tipped hand reached to touch his and lingered for a moment. Her skin was cool.

“I hope so, Mr. Carter. Now I must go. And you — you must take your medicine again and remain quiet.”

Nick found that he was clinging to her hand. “You said you would come back, Dyla Lotti. And can’t you stop calling me Mr. Carter? Nick would be better — more friendly.”

The long dark eyes regarded him through the slits in the devil mask. “I keep my word— Nick. I will come back. In an hour or so. But only if you are obedient and take your medicine — you will never catch this Chinese devil if you are ill.”

Nick grinned and let go of her hand. “Okay — I’ll take it. But I warn you — that potion of yours is pretty deadly. You may be sorry you made me drink it!”

She was at the opening in the wall now. She turned and again he could sense a smile beneath the mask. “I will not be sorry,” she said softly. “I know about the sanga root. And you must not forget, Nick, that if I am a High Priestess I am also a woman. I will return to you.”

As she was disappearing into the wall Nick said, “How about my guide, Hafed? I hope you’re taking good care of him.”

She laughed and the sound was like silver bells in the chamber, thin but resonant.

“I am not taking good care of your guide, Nick — but my priestesses are. I do not forbid it — they are also women. Young women. They drew lots and there were ten lucky winners.”

She disappeared. There was a faint grind of machinery and the brass monkey began to swing back into place.

N3 lay back on the bed and contemplated the ceiling. Ten lucky winners! Good God! He hoped Hafed was in form.

Minutes later the old crone came to him with another large mug of yak’s milk. Nick drank it down without dissent. Might as well play along, go the whole route. He knew, now, that sanga root, whatever else it was, was also an erotic drug. An aphrodisiac. Probably they had fed Hafed some of the same stuff. No wonder the girls were lining up.

He examined his professional conscience — the only sort he ever bothered about — and found it clear. He had done everything he could do for the moment. He had made his contact. He knew what there was to know. Not even Hawk would expect him to push through Karakoram Pass in a blizzard.

So bring on the music and the dancing girls, N3 told himself as he relaxed and watched the old priestess heap more charcoal on the brazier. He had nothing to lose but his virtue and that was more than a little tattered as it was. Yes — it looked like quite a night ahead. He never doubted for an instant that Dyla Lotti would return — the promise had been in her voice.

One tiny itch remained in his brain. She had shown him no sort of identification and had asked for none. She could not be expected, of course, to know about the Golden Number, but still—

He dismissed the thought. Dyla Lotti was an amateur, a novice, who had been pulled in in an emergency. Not to worry about it. Anyway he had his weapons and his wits—

Or did he have his wits? He found that he was laughing and rolling on the bed. The old priestess looked at him and smiled benignly and left, locking him in again.

Nick was aware of a high hyena sound in the chamber. His own laughter. If only Hawk could see him now! Probably he would get a lecture on morals and the dereliction of duty! Nick went off into another peal of laughter. His head was a feather pillow floating on his shoulders. The room was soft and fleecy and warm and snug — and what was the world outside to do with him?

“I might just decide to stay here forever,” he told the room. “Never leave! A thousand man-hungry women!” Ye Gods! He and old Hafed could have the ball of their lives!

It occurred to him that he had no idea what Dyla Lotti looked like. He couldn’t have cared less. She was a woman, soft and curved and perfumed. Maybe that hadn’t been a mask after all — maybe it was her real face! He still didn’t care. A man could learn to love a face like that in time — and the way he felt right now it wouldn’t take long!

Nick Carter stuffed one of the covers in his mouth to stifle his giggles. He felt so good — good — good…