Double Identity

Chapter 5 Rude Awakening

When N3 awoke some hours later he was alone. All the butter lamps had been replenished and the chamber was a blaze of tawny light. He lay for a moment, trying to fight the drug, trying to get clear in his mind who he was, and where, and why. It was useless. He could think of but one thing — women! Dyla Lotti if possible — if not then any woman.

Nick had no concept of time — BO idea how long he had been in the lamasery. It could have been minutes, hours, days, months, years — it was not important. There was a cup of the familiar yak’s milk beside the bed and he drank it down to quench a gnawing thirst — knowing it was drugged and not caring. He paced the narrow confines of the chamber, as naked as the day he was born. The drug was goading him. He must have relief.

It soon came. Half an hour later the old crone ushered in three giggling young priestesses. They were washed and perfumed and pretty enough in their Mongol way — and as avid for relief as he was. They wasted no time. They surrounded Nick and bore him down on the bed under a smother of thrashing brown limbs and firm young breasts. They spoke not a word of English and the man from AXE had no Tibetan, scholarly or otherwise. It mattered nothing. The four of them invented their own language, a lingua franca of laughter and giggles.

When Nick flagged, as he did eventually even with the drug in him, the youngest of the priestesses — she couldn’t have been much over sixteen — produced one of the famous silver clasps from a pocket of her robe and, with many giggles, instructed Nick in its proper use. It made, literally, a new man of him! Later he was anointed with a strange red powder, well rubbed in, which drove him into a new frenzy. Young, isolated, confined in a wilderness, yet these She Devils appeared to know every artifice of love. The orgy, though Nick did think of it as such, went on for hours. There was no food or drink and no one disturbed them. At times two of the little priestesses would leave Nick alone with the third, while they made love together, all sharing the same bed.

None of this seemed in any way strange to Nick Carter. He knew he was drugged, admitted it. Loved it! Desired it! lively thing—sanga root. He could never get enough of it! He had been born again — he was free and swinging on top of the world, had long ago passed Cloud Nine and was approaching Cloud Ninety-Nine!

N3 never quite knew when the She Devils left him. One moment they were straining on the bed with him — the next moment he was alone, awakening in a daze and staring around. He felt cold and his nerves were jumping. There was the cup of yak’s milk by the bed and he was reaching for it when the brass monkey began to swing open.

Nick raised the cup to his lips and was about to drink. He smiled at the dark oblong in the wall. “Dyla Lotti! I thought you would never come back. I—”

Hafed came rapidly into the room. Before Nick could stop him he seized the cup and poured the yak’s milk on the floor. “Best not drink more, sar. You plenty doped now, I think. Much bad. Come — we go out of this place fast. Much danger here!”

Nick sat on the bed, naked, scratching at the stubble on his face and grinning at the guide. Hafed was a good joe, a swell guy, but he was getting a little above himself. He shouldn’t have poured that milk out. Now he would have to ask the old crone to bring him some—

Hafed handed him a small vial containing a greasy yellow liquid. “Drink, please. Is what you call antidote, I think. Kill drug. Drink fast, please. We not have much time, sar. Get out this place hubba— I think Chinese soldiers come. They be here now but for storm.”

Nick Carter staggered erect. To please good old Hafed he drank the contents of the vial and began to retch — the stuff smelled like urine and probably tasted like it, too.

“Ughhhh!” He wiped his mouth on his hand. “What in hell is that?”

Hafed smiled briefly, “Yak piss, sar. And other things. You can walk now, yis? You come with me hubba? I show you important things.”

“Walk? Of course I can walk. What do you think I—” Nick took a few steps and tottered, nearly falling. Damn! He was as weak as a kitten.

Dismay registered for a moment on Hafed’s swart features. “I afraid of this,” he told Nick. “Sanga root do it — much bad if you have too much. And you already sick anyway — never should take sanga.”

N3 collapsed on the bed with an idiotic grin. “That’s just what my sainted old mother used to tell me, Hafed. ‘Never take sanga,’ she said. A thousand times she said it— ‘Stay away from that sanga root, boy!’ ”

Hafed scowled. “Not funny, sar! Chinese soldiers get here I get my head chopped off number one fast. Maybe not you, but me. You try hard to walk, yis?”

Nick tumbled on the bed laughing. Suddenly everything was uproariously funny. “To hell with walking, Hafed! I’m never going to walk again! I’m never going to do anything again but stay in this bed and fornicate! That’s it, old buddy! I’m gonna stay right here and fornicate my stupid life away! Care to join me, old buddy?”

Hafed unleashed a string of curses that ranged from Chinese to English through Tibetan and Hindustani. “Goddamn son bitch,” he said at last. “I maybe should run away and leave you, sar, but I not do. You good man.”

Nick Carter put his head in his hands and began to weep softly. “You good man too, Hafed,” he sobbed. “A real buddy. I love you!”

Hafed stepped close to the big AXE agent and slapped him hard across the face. “I sorry, sar. But must do! Not much time!”

N3, who could have broken the little man in pieces with one hand, kept on crying. Hafed was not a friend after all— Hafed had come to invade his perfumed garden! Hafed was destroying his Paradise! Vaguely, as the antidote began to take hold, Nick saw Hafed as an emissary from the cruel world of reality. Come to remind him, Nick, of such wearisome matters as job, mission, duty! He hated Hafed! He would kill the interfering little b—

The antidote struck his guts a hammer blow! He rolled off the bed and began to spew. Oh God — lie was sick! For ten minutes he lay in his own vomit, unable to lift his head, retching and spewing and devoutly wishing for death.

Finally he was able to climb to his feet and don the coarse robe. He discovered, without surprise, that his weapons were missing. All of them gone — Wilhelmina, Hugo, Pierre!

Nick sat on the bed and rubbed his forehead. His eyes were pits of flame and an anvil was bouncing about in his skull. He looked sheepishly at Hafed. “Sorry — guess I’ve been away for awhile. What time is it? What day? And weren’t you saying something about Chinese soldiers?”

Hafed plucked at his sleeve. “You come now. Make fast! I show you what I find — we talk then.”

Nick followed Hafed through the wall behind the brass monkey. The passage was narrow and high and surprisingly warm. It led steadily downward. Butter lamps in iron sconces showed them the way.

“I sleep with many She Devils,” Hafed explained as they went. “Some talk, some not. One talk a lot. After she go to sleep — sleep now. She take sanga root, I do not. I not need root. While she sleep I think what she talk — some very funny business go on. Is good time for looking— so I look. All She Devils at prayers and meditation now, you see. I find this place.”

“Good for you,” grunted Nick. He sounded surly, was, and instantly regretted it. This loyal little guy had gotten him out of a hell of a jam! Was trying to, at any rate. They weren’t out of it yet! N3 was coming back fast now and the enormity of his lapse was growing on him. He had been sick as hell, of course, but that was no excuse. Not in an AXE man. He cursed himself briefly, then his jaw took the familiar jut and he moved back into command. What was done was past repairing. Now he must salvage what he could — forget everything but the future and the mission.

They rounded a sharp turn in the passage and came to an iron door. It was half open. Hafed pointed to the door. “In there, sar. Most interesting.”

It was a small room well lit by butter lamps. There was a table and chairs. On the table lay Nick’s weapons. He inspected them. They seemed intact, in working order. As he was checking the Luger Hafed said, “Maybe you look in that door, sar. Also most of interest.” He pointed to another iron door set into the far wall of the little room. Nick went to it and pulled it open. Instantly the sickening odor of decaying flesh smote his nostrils.

N3 took a step backward, grimacing. He had seen too much of death for it to hold any terrors for him, but this was nasty! Over his shoulder he said, “Who is she?”

Hafed’s voice was soft in the little room. “I think maybe the real Dyla Lotti, sar.”

The open door revealed a space not much bigger than a closet. Chained to the wall was the near skeleton of a woman. Leathery shreds of flesh still clung to the fragile bones and her hair was white. The eyes had rotted, and most of the nose, and the flesh around the mouth had fallen away to reveal long yellow teeth fixed in an eternal grin. Nick closed the door, remembering the youthful perfection of Dyla Lotti’s body. Dyla Lotti? But Hafed had just said—

Nick dropped his robe and began to strap the chamois sheath on his right forearm. His face was rigid, hard beneath the stubble. “Tell me,” he ordered Hafed. “What’s your idea about all this — what makes you think that”—he nodded toward the closet—”is the real Dyla Lotti?”

Hafed squatted, his back to the open door leading into the corridor. He produced a murderous looking knife and began to whet it on a calloused palm.

“I hear many thing while making love to She Devils,” he explained. “I already tell that. Last one I have, she now sleeping, hates Dyla Lotti. Talk about her a lot. But she talk of old woman!”

Hafed pointed to the closet. “She old! And all She Devils say have not seen Dyla Lotti in long time— she much sick and stay in her own rooms. Lamasery is run by Number Two She Devil — name of Yang Kwei! That Chinese name, I think. I ask — find that Number Two Abbess is half Chinese. Not here long. My She Devil say that real Dyla Lotti get much sick as soon as Yang Kwei come — they never see her again. Stay room. Yang Kwei fix all meals, take care of old woman.”

Hafed jabbed his knife into the floor. “You see, sar?”

“I see.” N3’s face was grim. What a dope he had been— in more ways than he cared to think. Yang Kwei had posed as the real Dyla Lotti. It had been easy enough. He was a stranger, following a most tenuous lead, and he had been secluded. He spoke no Tibetan, had no means of communication with the other She Devils even if they had been permitted to speak with him.

Nick pointed to the door which concealed the dead old woman. “Poisoned her, eh? Anyway weakened her and then brought her down here and chained her in there to die. Nice girl!”

“Chinese,” said Hafed. As if that explained everything.

Nick, rearmed now, shrugged back into the orange robe. He must find his clothes. And get to hell out of the Lamasery of the She Devils — but not before he had another little talk with the phony Dyla Lotti!

“We’ve got to get her,” he told Hafed. “Get her and make her talk! So lets—”

The guide’s answer died in a little hissing sound. Nick swung to face the door. Dyla Lotti, or Yang Kwei, was pointing a small automatic pistol at them.

“Put your hands up,” she said in her lilting, soft, too perfect English. “Carefully, Nick. I do not wish to kill you now. After all the trouble I have gone to — to keep you for my friends. They will be here soon to collect you, AXE man!”

Nick put up his hands. Wait and see what developed. He had a little time and he was too far away to grab her gun. He glanced at Hafed. The guide was still sitting on the floor, his knife sticking in the floor before him. He had raised his hands.

The girl also glanced at Hafed. Her red lips curled in a snarl. “You, animal, have been too lucky! I will not mind killing you, so be very careful. I would prefer to have the soldiers cut off your head, in public as an example, but I would not mind killing you. So keep your hands high! Try nothing!”

Hafed nodded humbly. He kept his hands high. “Yes, High Priestess. I obey. I will do anything — anything! Only do not kill me! Please do not kill me!” Hafed’s voice fell into an abject whine. He spat toward Nick. “I only helped the foreign devil because he pays well, High Priestess. I would be most glad to work for you instead. Only give me a chance! I know much of this fool’s private business!” Hafed squirmed and groveled on the filthy floor.

Yang Kwei regarded the guide with contempt. “You are a Turtle!” she snapped. “And a stupid Turtle at that. Do you think you can fool me with such idiot’s talk? I know that you have worked for the Americans, for the CIA. But you will not again. Now be quiet, Turtle!” She turned her attention to Nick.

“They will be very pleased with me in Peking,” she told him. “And very glad to see you — they will ask you many questions, Nick. All of which you will answer — in time!”

“Maybe,” said N3 quietly. “They do say that no man can stand up to torture for long. And I don’t carry a cyanide pill, either.”

The girl regarded him with a mean smile on her rosebud mouth. “I thought not. I searched you while you slept and I did not find one. You are the big, brave, murdering American gangster type, Nick. I have heard all about you. But you will not be so brave when they finish with you in Peking.”

Nick risked a glance at Hafed from the corner of his eye. What was the man up to? He was easing one foot from a yakskin boot. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Hafed was drawing his foot out of the boot. The knife was still jutting from the floor in front of him. His hands were stretched high over his head. What the hell? What did the man think he could accomplish with one bare foot?

Hafed’s right eye, the one with a slight cast in it, caught Nick’s and the AXE man saw the faintest of winks. Keep her busy, Hafed seemed to say.

Nick Carter nodded toward the closet behind him. “You kill her?”

Yang Kwei showed her pearly teeth in an unpleasant smile. “I had to. She was taking much too long to die and I had to have her out of the way before you arrived. We were expecting you, but not quite so soon.” She shifted the little automatic from her right hand to her left, as though her hand was tiring. Nick shot another glance at Hafed. His foot was nearly out of the boot now. Absurdly, considering the moment, Nick noted that Hafed had had a bath.

His eyes roamed back to Yang Kwei. She was wearing the same orange robe of silk, belted in between her slim hips and the hill-pointed breasts. She was wearing boots again instead of the red slippers. Her head, without the black wig, was closely shaven. Somehow the absence of hair in no way detracted from her beauty. Her eyes were narrow and dark, sparkling dangerously now, and her nose was delicate. Her skin had the sheen of slightly aged porcelain. Not a wrinkle marred it. Nick studied that small vivid mouth and remembered what it had done to his body. It was really going to be a shame to kill her— she was, after all, only fighting for her country as he was for his. Then he remembered the thing in the closet behind him! In that fleeting moment he became both judge and jury and tried her and found her guilty. He sentenced her to death — after she talked! Something of his composure, his confidence, communicated itself to the woman. She frowned at him and her finger tightened on the trigger of the pistol. She scowled at him. “You are thinking that you will win after all. You goddamned Americans are all so superior! Like the British bastards used to be.” The profanity had an odd sound, coming from that small red mouth. Nick grinned, relaxed and contemptuous, trying to anger her further. Distract her. Hafed had the boot off now.

She caught Hafed’s motion and whirled, the pistol jutting at the guide, her trigger finger whitening with pressure. A hair trigger would have killed Hafed then.

“What are you doing? Remain quiet, dog, or I'll kill you!”

Hafed shrank from the lash of words. He rubbed his bare toes and whined, “I am sorry, High Priestess. I did not mean — it is that my feet hurt so badly. They ache. I must rub them. I—”

“Quiet, fool!” She spat at Hafed. “You are an idiot! You and your stupid feet! Annoy me again and it will be the last time!” She turned back to Nick. He had nearly jumped her gun while she berated Hafed, but had decided against it. Hafed was working toward something. Wait and see.

He saw. Hafed’s toes were long and slender and nearly prehensile. Nick got it then. The man had a foot like a monkey! And Hafed, while scratching and groveling on the floor, was working his bare foot nearer the knife. So that was it. N3 readied himself.

The small black eye of the pistol was steady on his belly. In a soft interrogative tone Yang Kwei said, “I wonder why I do not shoot you now, Nick? Shoot you in the stomach and watch you suffer for a long time.”

“Your natural kindness of heart,” said Nick. “You couldn’t hurt a fly — maybe an old helpless lady, but not a fly. It might bite you back.” He watched Hafed from the corner of his eye. Now!

Hafed slid his long toes around the upright knife. He rolled backward on his shoulders, his leg coming high, the knife flashing in an arc. He spun the knife at Yang Kwei, screaming, “Get her!”

She tried to duck and fire at the same time. The instinctive movement ruined her aim. The little gun flashed and spat. Hafed grabbed his arm with a curse. Nick was across the room like quicksilver. He smashed at the pistol with a thick forearm. It flew from Yang Kwei’s hand to the floor. Hafed scrabbled for it.

The girl writhed and twisted in Nick’s grasp, squirming and fighting like a demon. A knife appeared from the pocket of the robe and she slashed at him. He crunched her wrist in a great hand and she screamed and dropped the knife. Her hot sweet-smelling body slumped against his big frame. Nick pushed her against the wall and held her pinioned with one hand around her throat. He looked at Hafed. “You all right?”

Hafed was already binding up his shoulder. “Is flesh wound, I think. Not much. What we do now, sar? I say get out this place hubba-hubba! I think she not lie about Chinese soldiers.”

Nick looked at the girl. Her lips were drawn back in a defiant snarl and he was reminded of the devil mask. “Maybe not about the soldiers,” Nick agreed. “But I think she lied about certain other things — like a certain phony going to Karachi?”

He watched her expression closely. She spat in his face. He slapped her hard with his open hand. She spat again, saliva dribbling down her chin.

Hafed said, “Not make her talk that way. I do! But we must hurry — I by damn not want head chopped off! Come — I show you something else I find.”

Nick pushed Yang Kwei ahead of him down the passage, following Hafed. A few steps and they came to another room. It was larger and a brazier glowed in the center. In one corner was the green steel console of a radio transmitter and receiver. Hafed opened the door of a closet very similar to the one that had concealed the skeleton of the real Dyla Lotti. Nick whistled softly. This closet contained stacked rifles, half a dozen tommy guns with clips of ammo, musette bags filled with grenades. There was even an old Browning Automatic Rifle.

N3 pushed her against a wall. “No lamasery’s complete without an arms cache, eh?”

Yang Kwei stared at the floor, her face sullen. She did not answer. Nick turned to watch Hafed make his preparations. He knew immediately that he wasn’t going to like it — but he would go through with it if he must. The sooner Yang Kwei talked the sooner they could be on their way. He hoped she wouldn’t prove too stubborn. He had no desire to see that lovely body torn apart. Killing was one thing — torture was quite another. But the matter was in Hafed’s hands now and he would have to go along with it The guide, as an Oriental, would have different ideas about such matters.

A long black beam supported the low ceiling. From it dangled rusty chains and manacles. Hafed wasted no time. He was obviously thinking of his own head and he was in a tearing hurry.

He laid his long knife in the coals glowing in the brazier. Nick, watching Yang Kwei closely, saw her begin to tremble. A smell of heated metal began to fill the room. Hafed looked at Nick. “Let me have her, sar.”

Nick pushed the girl toward him. She stumbled and half fell and Hafed caught her. In two seconds he had her in the chains, strung to the rafter, her toes barely touching the floor. Hafed ripped off the orange robe and flung it aside. The girl swayed naked before them, clutching at the floor with her toes. Her splendid breasts rippled and jounced with the movement. Her small brown nipples were erect and hard, as though she were expecting a lover’s kiss instead of the searing metal. Nick, watching her intently, thought he detected a hint of tears in the narrow black eyes. Could he let Hafed go through with this?

Hafed took his knife from the coals. The tip was white and smoking. He stepped toward the girl. “She talk now, sar. Damn quick you bet.”

“Hold it a minute!”

Nick went close to Yang Kwei. He stared into her eyes as they lifted to meet his gaze. She was trembling and tiny beads of sweat were greasing her body, but the dark eyes were defiant. Nick felt sad and helpless. Yet he had to try.

“I don’t want to do this, Yang Kwei. Don’t make me. All I want is a straight answer to one question — where was my double, the phony Nick Carter, really going from here?”

Her eyes dared him. “Karachi,” she said. “I told you the truth. Karachi! He wanted you to know!”

Instinct told Nick she was telling the truth. It figured. If it was a lure, a death trap for himself, it figured. The impostor would want him to follow. But he couldn’t take any chances — he had to know, to be absolutely sure. He was already four days behind the man — five by now, due to his own drugged insanity, and he couldn’t afford to lose more time.

Hafed was waiting with the glowing knife. “This is the last time I’ll ask,” Nick told the girl. “Is it still Karachi?”

She nodded. “Karachi— I swear it! That’s all he told me. Karachi.”

Nick stepped back and motioned to Hafed. So be it. If she still said Karachi under torture—

Hafed was very businesslike. He jammed the flaming knife against the girl’s left nipple and twisted it There was a tiny flash and a hiss and a smell of roasting flesh filled the little room. The girl screamed in a high-pitched agony that ripped at N3’s guts. He caught at Hafed’s arm. He confronted the girl again, the question in his eyes. She tried to spit at him, but had no saliva. Her eyes hated him even through their daze of pain. Her left nipple was a seared red scar.

“Karachi—” It was a bare whisper. “I–I can’t — he went — Karachi!” She fainted.

Hafed stepped forward again, the knife newly heated, and was about to apply it to her right nipple when Nick stopped him. It must be Karachi, then. In any event he couldn’t stand any more of this — if she had been a man, if she could have fought back, it would have been different.

“That’ll do,” he snapped to the guide. “Now we get the hell out of here. Get two of those tommy guns and plenty of ammo! Then I’ve got to find my clothes— I suppose our ponies are all right down in the stables?”

Hafed said that the ponies would be waiting. No one in the lamasery knew what really went on. Nick’s clothes would undoubtedly be in the wash room or the laundry — and now couldn’t they get the hell out before the Chinese soldiers came?

Nick rubbed his chin and stared at the limp form of Yang Kwei dangling in the chains. “What’ll we do with her?”

He knew he should kill her, but at the moment, in cold blood, he could not summon the resolution. He excused himself. He was still pretty weak and sick.

Hafed solved that problem also. “I fix,” he said. Rapidly he took the girl down and carried her out of the room. Nick heard vague sounds coming from the passage. Meantime he busied himself. He took the steel front plate off the transmitter and kicked the set into small bits. He smashed the rifle butts to pieces on the floor.

Hafed came back and picked up two of the tommy guns and as much ammo as he could carry. Nick did not ask him what he had done with Yang Kwei. He thought he knew.

Nick tossed the remaining tommy guns into the brazier and watched the wooden stocks begin to burn. He thrust four of the grenades into the pockets of his robe. Hafed fretted at the door. “Hurry, sar! Hurry!” Nick could see that the man was afraid. Couldn’t blame him for that. Hafed was torture minded — he knew what the Chinese would do to him if they caught him!

As they passed the iron door Nick glanced in. Something lay in one corner, covered by the silk robe Yang Kwei had worn. Nick caught a glimpse of brittle white hair on a yellow skull. The door to the little closet was closed and locked.

“Maybe Chinese find her,” said Hafed as they hurried down the passage. “Maybe not. Is Karma, yis? She get same as she give old woman, yis? Is justice, no?”

Nick Carter had to admit that it was. He put Yang Kwei out of his mind. He found his clothes freshly laundered and got dressed. Then he and Hafed left the Lamasery of the She Devils. No one paid them much attention, except for a sly glance now and then. One of the She Devils stared at Hafed and made an obscene gesture and laughed, but for the most part the life of the lamasery was proceeding much as usual. It was true, apparently, that the rank and file did not suspect what went on. They took orders and asked no questions and waited patiently for men. They had no inkling that, at the moment, they were without a leader. They would find out eventually. The Chinese would see to that. They would undoubtedly install another of their sympathizers as the new High Priestess. Nick filed that little tidbit away for later use— Hawk and the CIA would appreciate the tip.

As they hurried down the steep stairs in the cliff he was surprised to see it growing dark again. He had been more than twenty-four hours in the lamasery. So Hafed informed him. Otherwise, N3 thought grimly, it could have been twenty-four days! Even twenty-four years! He had been in a hell of a state there for a time. Someday, when he had the time and inclination, he would investigate that chaos of diseased memories.

Right now they had new trouble. Bad trouble. Chinese trouble!

The ponies, fed and rested, were being led out of the stables. Hafed grabbed Nick’s arm and pointed. “Look, sar. She not lie okay — soldiers come now! Better we make fast, I think.”

“I think you’re right,” Nick agreed. “Damn it!” He glanced to the east along the snow-choked pass. “You think the ponies can make it through that?”

Hafed, with a choice assortment of Oriental curses, said that the ponies would. They’d better or he and Nick had had it. He did not phrase it exactly so, but it was the gist He was speedily packing his pony. Nick did likewise, wasting no time. It was growing darker by the second — that might save their lives.

He took a pair of binoculars from his pack and trained them on the soldiers. There were about fifty of them in the patrol with twenty or so heavily laden ponies. Metal sparked in the dying sunlight. Several of the ponies were carrying long tubes. Mountain guns! Mortars!

Hafed saw the mortars too, with his naked eye, and swore again.

“Is very bad place we must pass — much narrow. Good for big guns. They know, too. Come, sar! Not time to waste!” He was already kicking his laden pony east into the pass.

Nick lingered for half a minute. He caught a flash of sun on lenses and saw a Chinese officer watching them through binoculars. On impulse he put his thumb to his nose and waggled his fingers. He saw the officer snap a command and soldiers were running to the ponies bearing the mortars. Nick made a rapid estimate of the distance — a little over half a mile. He smiled. They should be safe enough. The mortars could range it easily enough, but they weren’t likely to be accurate in this poor light. He kicked Kaswa and took off after Hafed, already vanished around a bend in the pass.

N3 couldn’t have been more wrong. He had forgotten that the Chinese were familiar with this country. In all probability they had the narrowest section’ of the gorge zeroed in, had firing stakes planted along the way.

It was his lagging behind that saved N3. He was three hundred yards behind Hafed when the first mortar shells came in. Sssshhhhhhss— shssssss— shsssssss— shsssssss— a clutch of four whispered into the narrow waist of the gorge and exploded with a whanging bang. Nick grabbed the pony’s bridle and led it into the shelter of an overhang. Four more mortars exploded. Rock chips whined through the air, mineral shrapnel as deadly as metal.

The trail crooked just ahead. He could not see Hafed. More mortars poured into the gorge. Nick crouched and cursed and waited for the deadly fire to cease. They must have this spot zeroed in — they were firing blind and yet pinpointing the narrow gut with devastating precision.

It grew darker. The mortars ceased to whisper in the chilling air. Nick waited ten minutes, then kicked Kaswa into life. He doubted the Chinese would come after them in the dark, but he could take no chances. And Hafed would be waiting, impatient and afraid, crouching in some hole just as Nick was.

Hafed would wait a long time on this desolate slope of the Himalayas. Nick found him lying in a great splotch of blood on the snow. The same burst had gotten both Hafed and his pony. The pony was gutted, its pink entrails smoking in the crisp air. Half the guide’s head was missing.

Kaswa nosed at the dead pony and whinnied, a plaintive sound. Nick tugged him out of the way and began heaping snow over the blood and bodies. There was no time to do more. The snow would protect Hafed’s corpse from the wolves at least until spring — then perhaps the She Devils would find him and bury him. Or the Chinese. It did not really matter.

Yang Kwei had taken her revenge after all. Part of it! She had held them just minutes too long. Nick gazed into the darkness of the pass leading east — he still had a far piece to go. He was alone now. Five days behind his quarry.

His face began to stiffen in the wind and he pulled the yaks kin cover over it and chucked to the pony. He would make it He had to make it Death was in the wind that was rising, but not for him. Not yet He had a job to do first.

He had lost the first round. But there would be a second— and it would begin in Karachi.

Karachi was blacked out!

The sprawling city on the Arabian Sea was as black as the future of Operation Deuce. Nick Carter had talked to Hawk from the airstrip at Ladakh and had learned, along with a great many other things, that his mission now had a name. DEUCE. It was a great help! N3 couldn’t see just how — his mood was exceedingly bitter at the moment — but it only proved that even in AXE red tape and bureaucracy sometimes prevailed. Right now Nick would have settled for something more practical than a mission tag — say some first class diplomatic immunity!

He was wanted for murder!

Now, in what was even for him a new low in harbor joints, he skulked in a dirty corner and buried his face in a tattered copy of The Hindi Times. It helped not at all that his own picture — blurred but fully recognizable — was on the front page of the paper.

His Hindustani was not fluent, but he could make out the gist of the caption: Nicholas Carter, murderer and suspected secret agent, wanted for murder and escape!