The Death Strain

IV

The Kurile Islands were given to Russia by the Yalta Agreement and are still a sore point with the Japanese. The Japanese still fish their rich waters despite the control of the Russians, and the small, hardy, independent fishermen are a constant problem to the Soviets. Stretching from the very tip of Japan to the long Sredinny finger pointing downward from Russia, the islands are swept by cold currents from the Bering Sea and spend many of their days in bone-chilling fog.

In one small, single-sailed fishing dory, three Japanese fishermen hauled in full nets and put out new ones, moving their little craft close to the island shores. One of them was an old man, stooped but still strong and able, the other his son, young and the mainstay of the boat. The third man was big for Japanese. Actually he was not even Japanese — he was me, Nick Carter.

I stayed hunched over like the others, clothed in the same oilskin work clothes under which I wore the long Japanese shirt with short, knee-length trousers. My eyes had the oriental fold, my skin was tinted a faint amber, and I knew I would easily pass for just another fisherman to anyone watching from shore. Major Nutashi had explained to the two fishermen that they were to go about their work as usual but to do whatever I ordered them to do, no matter how strange it sounded.

What we'd done for the first day was to get in the fish during the morning fogbound hours and then sail around listlessly while the sun burned through. When that happened, they'd repair nets and I'd scrounge down in the bottom of the dory and survey the islands as we moved in and around them. I thanked God there wasn't a helluva lot to survey on most of them or we'd still be surveying as time ran out.

It was late in the second afternoon and the sun's rays were moving low across the water as we steered past a small island with a screen of trees rising a hundred yards inshore. I caught the sudden flash of sun reflecting off field glasses.

"Just keep on sailing past," I said quietly from the bottom of the boat. The old man nodded as we moved on and then slowly circled as though heading back. As we passed the island again, I was sitting up piling one of the nets into the bow of the dory. Once more I caught the brief glint of the sunlight on the glasses. We moved on until night fell, and then I ordered the little dory to come around and head back. The two fishermen didn't ask any questions. When we were off the little island again it was pitch black. The moon hadn't come up high enough yet and I didn't wait around for it.

"Go back to your homes now," I said to the old man and his son as I lowered myself over the side of the dory, leaving the oilskins with them.

They nodded gravely and I heard the faint sound of the water hitting the sides of the dory as she swung around. I swam for the dark mound that was the island, my shoes tied onto my belt, my fancy socks stuck into a pocket. The tide was coming in and helped me along. Soon I felt the pebble bottom under my feet and I crawled out onto a stone beach. I waited a moment, moved further up from the beach and brushed my feet dry on the grass that rose up at the edge of the trees. Then I put on my socks and shoes. It wasn't the best of manners to go calling barefooted. I moved carefully through the trees. I'd gone about a hundred yards inland when I saw the flicker of light.

I crept forward in a crouch, moving closer to what turned out to be a crumbled mass of rock that had once been some kind of temple. But the decay had been arrested by new stone blocks placed in strategic positions and wooden planks filling up holes. The remains of the temple stretched back into a cleared area and I saw the roof had been well repaired with gutters and drains running along the edges. A figure emerged from a narrow, arched doorless entranceway — an old man, crippled and deformed. He lit a torch stuck in a wall holder and then moved along the side of the temple to disappear around the back. He was Japanese, or at least oriental. I waited and saw two men in monk-like robes emerge, gather some firewood and go back inside.

Through cracks in the stones and boards and by the reflected light of an open square that had once been a window, I saw the flicker of torchlight from inside and heard the sounds of chanting. If Carlsbad was here, I had to admit he'd picked a helluva spot to hide in. If his pals hadn't lost that identification locket we could have spent a decade searching for this place. If he was here, he had to feel pretty secure. Except for watching the fishing boat with glasses, they hadn't a guard posted anywhere.

I crossed the short space to the temple wall as the chanting stopped. My back pressed against the wall, I slipped into the dark of the arched doorway and then moved inside, into an area of deep shadows. The floor was plain dirt at the entrance, but a stone floor began just inside the arched area. Before moving farther inside the temple I placed the little relay power pack in the deep shadows of the doorway and flipped on the switch. I heard voices inside, women's voices, and I could hear the movement of people.

Instinctively my arm pressed against Wilhelmina, secure in her holster, the hard flatness of Hugo against my right forearm. Taking a deep breath, I started to move forward. I was doing fine until I stepped on the first stone past the arched doorway; it was a wide, flat stone and I found out why they didn't post guards. The damn thing was on some land of swivel — it flipped over and I felt myself being sent half-skidding forward to make a grand entrance.

Wilhelmina was in my hand as my knee hit the floor and I fell into a large, central room where figures came at me from all sides. I glimpsed one huge figure, stripped to the waist, off to the side, but I hadn't time to take inventory. Cursing the damn stone, I let go a fusillade of shots, scattering them, and I heard cries of pain and alarm as I saw three figures go down. The room was lighted by the flickering glow of wall torches and filled with moving shadows and nearly dark areas. As the others scattered, I whirled to head for the doorway, this time stepping over the stone. When I reached the outside, I saw that people had rum out of various side exits and were rushing at me. I fired again and saw two more go down. A shot pinged off the stone an inch from my head and I emptied Wilhelmina and ran back into the temple, again leaping over the moveable stone.

Men were coming toward me inside while I heard the rest rushing in through the doorway. I decided against using Hugo. There was a good chance that, as had often happened, he'd go unnoticed and be of more use later. Right now, he'd just remove a few and the remainder might still get me. Their people didn't seem afraid of being killed — they were coming in from all sides.

I streaked for the far wall as two shots rang out, whizzing past my ear and sounding like cannons in the cavernous interior of the temple. I dived, hit the floor and came up running again. Three men came in to cut me off and I bowled into them, feeling my blows striking flesh and bone. Two of them went down. The third clasped arms around my left leg and I kicked out hard with my right I felt my foot smash into his face and the arms let go. I changed course and tried for the other side of the big room.

Another shot rang out This one creased my forehead, and I felt the sharp pain of it as it seared the skin just below the hairline. I ducked, stumbled and fell as another shot crossed over me. I rolled over to avoid the third shot I was sure would follow. It did and so did a huge Japanese. I saw his bulk fill the space above me. The sonofabitch had a positive talent for getting to me when I was off my feet.

I rolled over to get away from him but he brought both arms down, hands held together, like a sledgehammer. The blow caught me between the shoulder blades with tremendous force and I spread-eagled against the floor. His foot followed, catching me alongside the temple, and I felt myself skitter two feet sideways. More hands had come up to rain blows on me. A sharp blow from something metal, probably a gun barrel, caught me on the top of the head. I saw purple flashes and then blackness closed down.

It could have been an eternity, or only five minutes, but I began to slowly struggle out of the blackness. As I started to come around, I felt the soft touch of a wet rag on my face, patting my eyes, being drawn across my forehead, then my cheeks. That's damn nice of them, I thought fuzzily. When I got my eyes to open I saw that they weren't being gentle but merely wiping away my makeup. An old, one-armed woman was doing the rubbing with a wet cloth.

I felt my arms tied around behind my back at the wrists. My ankles were also tied together, and I was propped up against a wall. Behind the old woman I saw faces and shapes as I started to focus. The eye picks out the biggest things first; in this case the huge form of Carlsbad's Japanese, his flesh in folds over his tremendous chest and stomach, truly a mountain of a man. Beside him, looking thinner than he actually was, stood a gray-haired man with intense blue eyes and next to him Rita Kenmore, now in black slacks and a yellow jersey top. I looked at Carlsbad. At least I knew he was really here.

One of the men standing behind Rita was holding Wilhelmina in his hand. I could feel Hugo still safely strapped to my forearm. The other people in the temple gathered in a semicircle to stare at me. Most of them were oriental but not all, and there was something strange about the whole lot of them. Mostly men, the group contained some women, and most had lined, old faces though there was a sprinkling of younger, well-built males. But all of them had a haunted expression in their eyes, an expression of inner pain. A number of them were crippled and deformed. The old woman finished wiping away my makeup and rose to step back.

Beyond the onlookers I saw corridors leading away from the main part of the temple. Against the far wall rows of candles burned at a kind of altar, a long, flat slab of rock with a peculiar sculpture hanging behind it — a sculpture of twisted, blackened metal and pieces of bone. Carlsbad's voice brought my attention back to him.

"This is the man who almost prevented your getting away with Rita?" he was saying to the large Japanese. The wrestler nodded.

"I'm impressed by your discovery of our little nest," Carlsbad said to me. "How did you manage that?"

"Clean living," I said and the Japanese started to reach one huge hand down to me.

Carlsbad stopped him. "No, let him alone. He can do us no harm. In fact, we can keep him here. He may be of value eventually."

The giant Japanese straightened up but his eyes, small in the folds of his huge head, glittered. He said nothing and I wondered if he was as subservient as Carlsbad seemed to think.

"Where is X–V77?" I asked Carlsbad.

"Here and quite safe, for the moment," the bacteriologist answered. I glanced at Rita and tried to read what was behind those china-blue eyes. I thought I saw uncertainty and I turned back to Carlsbad.

"You've already killed four men over this," I said and saw Rita quickly glance at him. Now I knew what I had seen in her eyes. Surprise, shock. Carlsbad directed his words to me, but he was answering her questioning look.

"A small price to pay to achieve what must be achieved."

"And what's that?" I questioned.

'To make the world's leaders stop their misuse of science," Carlsbad said.

He gestured to those standing by. "Everyone here is a victim of the immorality of present-day science and politics. Every individual here is a victim of one or another scientific advance which, by its use, is really injuring mankind."

"For instance?" I asked. "That big oaf looks healthy."

"Mr, Kiyishi, like many of the others, was a child in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing," Carlsbad explained. "He is sterile, unable to produce a child. Some of my people here are workmen, crippled externally or internally by constant exposure to radioactivity in the plants in which they worked. Some were soldiers, permanently disabled by exposure to nerve gases. Others were fishermen whose stomachs are largely gone due to eating fish contaminated by insecticides.

"There are fifteen families here, fifteen out of two hundred killed in the mountains of the Caucasus when a Russian plane accidentally dropped a container of bacteriological viruses. The incident was kept completely silent. In America, thousands of sheep were killed in a similar accident, sheep which could easily have been people."

As I listened to him, I realized with a chilling horror that Carlsbad had gone far beyond the role of a protesting man of science. He was setting up a kind of elite of the damned, with what sounded like political and moral overtones.

"I think we should kill him at once," said the big Japanese, gesturing at me, little eyes hard as stones.

"No," Carlsbad said sharply. "He is obviously a top agent. He may be able to help us in time, willingly or unwillingly."

Rita was still there, but her eyes were on the floor. I knew that if I had a chance to get out of here, it would depend on one slim girl and one slim stiletto. Carlsbad bad turned to his niece and put a hand on her arm.

"We are going now," he said. "You'll be safe here till we return. Your room is not the Grand Hotel but it will suffice. Time has passed without anything having been done by the American government, or any of the others. We are beginning the most critical phase of our mission now, my dear. But it will be worth it one day."

He kissed the girl tenderly on the cheek and turned to the giant by his side. The huge man's impassive face showed nothing, yet I had the distinct feeling he was standing apart, making his own decisions. Perhaps it was the way his little eyes took in everything, glittering and vicious.

"Who are you leaving in charge?" Carlsbad asked, and the mountainous man gestured to a robed figure that stepped forward.

"Tumo," the giant said, and Tumo bowed deferentially to Carlsbad then shifted his eyes quickly to the huge man. Something passed between the two men, unspoken, fleeting, but nonetheless there. Tumo was in his late twenties, well-built, with a hard line of a mouth and eyes that almost matched Carlsbad's in their dark intensity. On his chest, bared by the loose-fitting robe, he wore a silver medallion with the human bone in the center. They all wore the piece, some as ankle bracelets, others had them suspended from their wrists.

"Tumo and I have carefully gone over exactly what he is to do," Sumo Sam said. "If anything should happen to us, he will carry on."

"Nothing will happen to us." Carlsbad smiled. "So long as I have the strain in my possession, they must take extreme care in their moves. Come, let us go."

Carlsbad kissed the girl again, this time on the forehead, and walked toward the doorway. The giant and the other two Japanese that had been with him right along followed. I had to give it a final try.

"The whole world's alerted, Carlsbad," I yelled after him. "You can't win. Call it off."

He paused in the shadows of the archway and smiled back at me. "You are wrong," he said. "I can't lose."

I cursed inwardly, knowing the truth of what he'd answered. The minute he let that strain loose, he'd made his point. But he wasn't content with just making a point any longer. He was going to use X–V77 to bring the world down around itself. I glanced up to see the man Tumo watching me. He abruptly turned and hurried away. The others had begun to drift off and disappear into the numerous corridors that led from the central portion of the crumbled old temple.

Rita Kenmore still stood there. She was about to say something when the sound of an engine made the walls of the temple reverberate. It was a helicopter. I knew that distinctive sound and I listened as the chopper took off and finally faded from hearing. Only the girl was left looking at me.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I am, really."

"Get me out of here," I said to her quietly. "Now, while nobody's around. Quick!"

The china blue eyes grew even rounder, mirroring her shock that I should even think such a thing. She didn't move but I felt her draw back.

"I can't," she said, keeping her voice low. "I'm sorry but I just can't."

"Look, what if I said I think your uncle is right but I know he can't win," I suggested. "Let me out of here and I will help him."

"I wouldn't believe you," she said, her eyes serious. "You don't think anything like that. But he is right, you know. And what he's trying to do is right."

I gritted my teeth. I didn't have time for philosophical abstractions, but I had to get through to her.

"All right, I'll admit I don't know whether he's right or wrong. But I do know this. You can't do the right thing in the wrong way. When you do that, you destroy whatever lightness there is, and that's what your uncle's doing. Unfortunately, he's not only destroying concepts, he's going to destroy people, flesh and blood people."

She was looking at me, biting her lower lip with her teeth and I held my eyes steady on her. I knew I was finally getting to her. Suddenly Tumo reappeared and got to her first. He had two men and two women with him.

"Take her," he said quietly, and I groaned. Rita looked up as the men moved quickly to her, seizing her arms. She was frowning, not really comprehending. But I knew damn well what was happening. Carlsbad's idealistic movement had a few crosscurrents in it.

"What are you doing?" Rita gasped as they twisted her arms behind her back. "Let me go at once!"

Tumo's answer was a resounding slap across her face that made her pretty head swivel. I saw the tears come into her eyes. "I… I don't understand," she choked.

"I'll explain fast," I answered. "Tumo, here, is your large Oriental friend's man and has his own ideas about running things when your uncle is finished doing his bit."

Tumo smiled, a deadly, evil smile, and kicked me in the chest. As I saw his foot coming and he wore only sandals it merely hurt like hell. He turned to Rita and ran his hands down over her breasts. She tried to twist away, but the other two men were holding her immobile. The woman stood by watching.

"Your uncle is interested only in making the world understand" Tumo said. "We who have suffered and been victimized by the world's misuse of science are interested in making it pay.

He turned to the women. "Prepare the altar first and then her," he said. The men had already finished tying Rita's hands behind her back and her ankles together, just as I was tied. They flung her down beside me and I heard her cry out in pain as she hit the wall. When she finally looked at me, Tumo and the others had padded silently away and her face was tear-streaked.

"What are they going to do with us?" she asked, fear in her voice.

"Kill us," I said flatly. I didn't say anything about doing it the hard way. She'd find out soon enough. In fact, she found out sooner than I'd figured when the two women returned. One went to the altar and began rearranging the candles, bringing them closer to the stone slab and putting them in a semi-circle behind it. The other woman came over to Rita with a small pen-knife and began cutting away the girl's clothes until she was naked. Her eyes met mine, pained embarrassment and fear sharing room in them. The woman had gone over to the altar.

Embarrassment gave way to a gasp of terror as the two women returned, pulled her to her feet and dragged her to the stone slab of an altar. With a flood of sudden horror I saw what had been rigged over the altar slab. Rita's lovely young body was strapped onto the altar, her ankles untied, her legs spread and then secured by ankle straps. Her arms were tied at her sides. Over the stone slab, the candles had been arranged to drip their hot wax into long metal strips suspended from balanced wires. The two women saw my eyes roving over the arrangement as they finished with Rita.

"That is right," one said, turning to me. "The candles are made of a special wax — one that stays boiling hot for a long, long time. As the wax fills the metal strips they will tilt and pour down upon her. By morning, she will be coated with wax from head to foot."

I knew she was telling the truth. The network of metal funnels and strips over the stone slab looked like a diabolical mobile.

"She will die little by little," the woman said. "She will be our sacrifice to the spirit of pain. Others may pray to the symbols of love and peace and goodness, but we who have been injured beyond repair, we pray to our guiding spirit pain. It is pain which has guided our lives, physical pain, emotional pain."

The other woman was busy lighting the carefully arranged candles that were part of the whole mad contrivance. I saw Tumo enter at the head of a procession, walking slowly, murmuring chants. The two women joined the group as they all knelt in front of the stone slab. As the women kept up the chant, the men, led by Tumo, stood on both sides of the stone and rubbed their hands over the girl's naked form. It was more fear than pain that made Rita cry out. The pain would be coming soon enough. Finally they withdrew from the girl and joined the women in further chants. The candles continued to burn steadily and I could see the metal strips starting to fill up with hot, liquid wax.

I'd long since tested the wrist ropes and found them too tough to break. Hugo was still strapped to my forearm but, for the moment, of no help at all. Unless I found some way to get loose, Rita Kenmore would die and I'd be next. The wax would splash down on her little by little, with burning, scalding pain, finally covering the lovely lips and face until suffocation finished it off.

Unexpectedly the chanting stopped and the whole troupe rose and silently filed out of the main room. Rita's eyes were filled with tears as she turned her head and looked across at me.

I was busy figuring a way to get out of there. My eyes swept over the girl's naked form without regard for the utter loveliness of it I — was looking at her hands. They were free to open and close, even though her wrists were strapped to the stone. She could hold something in them, like Hugo! I didn't know how long we'd be alone, so it was now or never.

I started to propel myself across the floor, inch-worm fashion with ankles bound together. I was only halfway across when I realized my clothes were soaked with perspiration but I kept moving along, sometimes turning on my back and pushing myself forward, then scooting along on my side.

When I reached the edge of the stone slab, I had to stop for a moment to regain my breath. My chest was heaving and my mouth was dry, muscles strained and crying out for release. Sitting up, as straight as possible, I leaned my forehead against the edge of the stone slab and balanced myself as I managed to pull myself upright. It was precariously uncertain with ankles bound tightly together. But finally I was standing, hands still tight behind my back, leaning half across Rita's naked body to keep my balance enough to stay upright. My head came to rest on her right breast. In any other circumstances I'd have enjoyed it immensely.

My lips rubbed across one small pink tip.

Pulling myself along the edge of the slab, I stopped where her hand lay against the stone. Still bent forward, my head now resting on her thighs, I glanced up over the rise of the belly and the dark mound just in front of my eyes.

"Listen carefully to me" I said. "I'm going to turn around and I'll have a stiletto in my hand. I'm going to put it into your hand. You hold it tight, point up, and I'll shred these wrist ropes against it. Understand?"

"Yes," I heard her say, her voice strained, hoarse. I turned, carefully, fighting to stay upright and keep my balance. Pressing my forearm against the edge of the slab, I released Hugo and felt the stiletto drop from its sheath into my hand. Maneuvering cautiously, I felt Rita's open hand and put the stiletto into it. I held on until I felt her hand close around the hilt of the blade.

"Good girl," I said. "Now hold it tight." Slowly, taking care not to dislodge Hugo from her grip, I pressed the wrist ropes against the blade, moving them up and down against it, sometimes bringing them down onto the point. I had just gotten started when it happened, all at once. I knew rather than saw what had occurred. The first thing was Rita's scream of pure pain. Her hand opened involuntarily and I felt the stiletto fall from it and heard it land on the floor.

I lost my balance and fell forward, twisting my body to avoid a bashed face. As I did so I saw that the first funnel of molten hot wax had let go and the substance lay over the girl's abdomen, still emitting little wisps of steam.

Rita's scream of pain had turned into choking sobs now. As I lay on the floor beside the stone slab, looking up, I saw a second short length of metal reach its limit, tilt and send another stream of liquid wax down on the girl. This one landed just beside the first, a little above it at the edge of her ribs and once again she screamed in anguish.

I thought of picking Hugo up with my teeth as the stiletto lay within reach, pulling myself up again and placing it back into her hands. But I knew that was no good. I'd be painfully slow and her screams would shortly be bringing the others to enjoy her anguish from ringside. And then, even if I did get the blade in her hand again, another deluge of wax would bring the same results. I was running out of time and it galvanized me in angry desperation.

I rolled this time along the length of the stone slab to where a thick candle burned in a tall holder at the far end of the altar. Pulling myself up on my knees, I threw myself forward, hitting the tall, wrought-iron holder hard. It toppled, the candle still in place, and lay on the stone floor. Ignoring the bruised pain of my knees and my aching muscles, I inched forward to the candle on the floor. Gritting my teeth against the searing pain, I thrust my wrists into the flame, holding them as long as I could stand the pain, and then pulling away. But only for an instant. Taking another deep breath, I plunged the wrist-ropes into the flame of the candle again. The skin of my wrists grew raw and started to blister, and my stomach was nauseous from the pain. Then I felt the ropes burn through enough. I rolled away and pulled and my hands came free. I gave myself ten seconds to lie there and then I was sitting up, reaching over for Hugo and slicing through the ropes binding my ankles.

I got up, started to slide out the panel of my belt buckle when I saw another of the metal funnels starting to tip. I cut through Rita's ankle and wrist straps and yanked the girl from the stone slab just as another deluge of the hot wax splattered down. She was in my arms, clinging to me, shivering, her body wet with perspiration. I pushed her away and slid out the small sending unit at the back of my belt buckle.

"Operation DS," I called out. "Operation DS." I gave the call letters three times more, and then asked for gunfire. I gave them the description and position of the island and told them to destroy the temple on it. Ostrov had said that four of the S.O.I. Class sub chasers would be standing by. They each carried four 50mm guns in twin mountings, plus four five-barrel rocket launchers. All together, they could bring more than enough fire power to bear. If the power pack had done its job, they should have heard my call.

I'd just finished when Tumo appeared with three other men. Seeing Rita's naked form beside me, he knew at once something had gone wrong. He reached into his robe and pulled out a gun. The sound of the shot told me it was Wilhelmina. I pushed Rita to one side and hit the floor just as Tumo got off another shot. He was running toward me, and I rolled behind the stone slab of the altar just as the temple resounded to the reverberating clang of an ancient gong.

Tumo, joined by one of the other men, was approaching the stone slab. Crouched down on the other side of it, I heard their footsteps moving cautiously. The candle I'd used to burn off my wrist ropes still burned in its tall holder only a few inches from me. I reached out and pulled it toward me slowly, making no noise. I could hear the sound of others coming on the run. As I expected, Tumo waited, hanging back on one side of the stone slab while other men moved around the end.

Holding the bottom of the tall holder, I shoved the burning candle in one of my attackers' eyes as he rounded the end of the altar stone. He screamed and fell backwards. Tumo would be scrambling up over the top of the altar stone now for a clear shot at me. I lifted the long iron holder and flung it up into the delicately balanced candles and funnels over the stone. I rolled to one side as I heard Tumo scream. The hot wax came down on him from half-a-dozen of the metal strips. He was atop the altar stone, grabbing in pain at the back of his neck, when I let Hugo fly. It went into his right temple, just above the eye, with full force, penetrating all the way to the hilt I saw the man shudder and fall forward to lay limp across the altar stone, insensible to the hot wax still splattering down upon him.

I crossed the few steps in one quick bound, pulled Hugo free, wiped the blade on Tumo's shirt and scooped Wilhelmina up. At Rita's scream, I whirled and got off two shots. The two men holding her were flung backwards by the force of the big 9mm slugs at close range. Rita ran toward me and I met her halfway, firing at the others as they came rushing into the area from the surrounding corridors.

I fired at whatever moved across my line of vision, and I fired in short bursts, scattering them like so many leaves in the wind. I was moving backwards, pulling Rita along with me, when the first shot from the patrol boats exploded and the ancient temple trembled. More shots followed quickly, some landing outside in the trees, others direct hits. I knew that the Russian gunners were zeroing in on their target. Some of the men and women were trying to flee, others were gathering together to huddle in small groups, waiting for death to come. A full round of shots hit, and the walls of the old temple seemed to fall away like a child's cardboard house.

I clambered over the rubble and headed for daylight, pulling Rita along, pausing only to strip the robe from an inert form and give it to her.

She wrapped it around herself. We hit the ground, tumbling over a mound of rubble, as two shells whistled over our heads. Yanking her along, I got up and ran for the trees, falling again as another pair of shells whistled past to land amid the remains of the temple. They had really sighted their target now and almost every shell was hitting the mark. Rita and I stumbled from the thin line of trees onto the beach and I lay there, pulling out the sending set from my belt buckle.

"Operation DS," I called, hoping the shots hadn't killed the little power pack. "Operation DS. Hold fire. Pick me up on beach. Repeat. Pick me up on beach. Imperative."

We flattened ourselves on the beach as a trio of shells looped overhead. The little island was shaking from the fury of the barrage the four patrol cruisers were laying down, and I knew they were using their rocket launchers, too. Then, abruptly, the firing halted, and I breathed a sigh of relief. The power pack had still worked. I put my head up and saw, across the water, the white flash of spray from the prow of a fast-moving vessel heading directly toward us. Then the low lines of the patrol craft came into view, moving in as close as she dared.

"Let's go," I said, pulling Rita with me into the surf, "We've got to catch the bus."

The patrol craft slowed, turned and cut her engines not more than a few hundred yards off shore. Rita and I were swimming already, Rita having a rough time of it with the voluminous robe that soaked up water and lay on her like a dead weight I helped her until strong hands pulled us up onto the patrol cruiser. My mind had already left behind what had happened and was racing on, thinking about Carlsbad.

"Get the girl below decks, please," I said to the captain of the cruiser, a tall, square-faced Russian with short blond hair. "Some hot tea would help, too."

"Da," he nodded.

"And get me to your radio," I said. Once more he nodded and I followed him below decks. While they got a pair of dungarees and an old shirt for Rita, I was on the radio, making relay contact first with a big W Class Russian sub and then with the special frequency set up for this operation. I reported the bad news that Carlsbad had flown the coop and was moving forward with his plans elsewhere.

I heard Ostrov's voice, and then radio contact was temporarily broken off. When it came back, the Soviet intelligence commandant was giving me instructions which had been quickly cleared and agreed upon by himself, Hawk, Chung Li and Colonel Nutashi. We were going to be picked up by a big Soviet plane and flown to one of the United States carriers off Japan. Meanwhile, I was to prepare a full report to be given via the powerful carrier transmitter, Ostrov's rough, growling delivery was more pronounced than usual, and his final parting message sent my own hackles up.

"I'd expected something better, Carter. You had the man in your hands."

"Want to change places?" I asked, and he clicked off. I turned from the transmitter and went over to where Rita sat, clothed in a loose gray seaman's shirt and dungarees. Her hands found mine as I sat down beside her, close in the cramped quarters inside the patrol cruiser.

"I'll never be able to thank you," she said quietly.

"Ill let you try," I said. "In fact, you can start now. Think hard. Try to remember anything you may have heard your uncle or that large Japanese buddy of his say about where they were going. They left by chopper, which means that wherever it was, it wasn't too far away."

I watched a small furrow cut into her smooth forehead as she thought. "Uncle's visit to the temple was just to bring me there," she said. "The virus strain was never there. He said that if anything got out of hand, the temple would be the safest place to be, isolated by water and with a controlled population."

"So they stashed the strain somewhere else," I said. "Think hard — give me anything you can remember."

"Mostly they talked so low I couldn't hear them as we flew to the Kuriles," Rita answered. "But I heard enough to gather that the final phase of the plan would include a jet pilot who was to meet them, a man whose wife had been killed by a radioactive explosion."

I turned her words over in my mind. I knew they'd mean a helluva lot more if we could only fit them in with the missing parts. A jet pilot could mean they needed the use of a high-speed plane with a long range. And that even narrowed things down a little. A jet pilot with a wife killed in a radioactive explosion. I was starting to itch for that flying boat to get here. I had to get on that radio with Hawk. Rita's words brought me back.

"And there was something else," she said. "I heard Kiyishi use the phrase 'the tip of the three. He said the pilot knew to meet them at the tip of the three."

Rita sat back and moved her hands helplessly. "That's all I can remember, Nick. There was nothing else."

The tip of the three. I let the phrase roll around in my mind but it didn't trigger a damn thing, and then I heard the sound of the heavy engines of the flying boat approaching.

"Let's get topside," I said. "Every second counts." A week, Hawk had said. Now only a few days remained. I watched the big airplane taxi to a halt, and the patrol boat came up alongside the opened doorway. We transferred to the giant plane and within a few hours we were aboard the United States carrier in the misty coastal waters off northern Japan. The ship's nurses took Rita in hand and she was assigned one of the staterooms kept aside for visiting dignitaries. I got on the radio with Hawk and as always, he listened first. He didn't say anything till I'd completed a full report and then, his voice weary, he cut in.

"It's ironic, Carlsbad, calling us puppets. He isn't even master of his own plan. Maybe we're all mad, Nick, every last one of us."

He'd taken down the few things Rita had reported to me. I heard him put some crispness into his voice but it took effort. "Ill get everyone on this at once. You'll have to just stand by. It may take time, hours, if we come up with anything at all. Where's the girl now?"

"Resting in a stateroom," I answered.

"Get someone to stay with her constantly," he said. "Maybe she talks in her sleep. Maybe she's got something in her subconscious that'll come out when she's asleep."

"Roger," I said, and Hawk clicked off. I found myself smiling. After all, this was certainly nothing to entrust to just anyone. I went to the captain, told him that Rita Kenmore and I were to be disturbed only if Hawk radioed. We had vital plans to go over, I said. I think the captain may even have believed me. The boys in crew's quarters wouldn't have, showing the disadvantages of too much education.

I hurried to the stateroom, knocked and Rita opened the door. Her smile, the first real one I'd ever seen from her, lighted up the room.

"Oh, Nick, please come in," she said. She was wearing a deep red sweater and a cream skirt. She saw my eyes flick over the soft roundness of her breasts. "Thanks to the nursing staff aboard," she said, gesturing at her clothes.

"Do you talk in your sleep?" I grinned at her. "Because I'm supposed to find out."

"I don't know, I do know you've little chance of finding out. I'm exhausted but I'm too keyed-up to sleep."

"Maybe I can relax you," I said. Her eyes were dark and serious.

I moved close to her and my lips pressed on hers, opening her mouth and I found her tongue with mine. She quivered and clung to me, welcoming me with an eagerness that permeated every movement of her body. I thrust my hand up beneath the sweater and found that the nurses hadn't given her a bra. My hand closed around soft firmness and she gasped. I grasped the sweater and pulled it over her head. She was against me instantly, clinging, and I pressed her back upon the bed. Her breasts pointed up at me and I kissed them, tenderly first, then gently nibbling at each protruding tip. Her head strained backwards and she gasped again and again, her hands clutching at my back. Slowly, the nipples began to rise and harden. I pulled gently on them with my lips and Rita half-screamed. I was grateful for the soundproof walls of fleet ships.

"O-o-oooh!" she cried out and arched her back, thrusting her breasts upward deeper into my mouth. When I let them go she fell back on the bed. My lips moved down across her body, and she moaned passionately as I neared the place of all places.

Her lovely legs moved up and apart invitingly. I bore down upon her, into her moistness, feeling the welcome warmth of her closing around me, and now her body moved with a will of its own, apart from the moaning protestations of her lips. I knew she was protesting only the ecstasy that was beyond her reach at the moment. But she was trying for it with every thrusting muscle, with the warm moistness that flowed from her, with the wanting that wracked her magnificent body.

And then, as she reached passion's summit, she flung her legs out straight and her head reached up and backwards. Her hands were against my chest, pushing me from her while her legs clasped tighter around me, and then she was clinging to me, moving convulsively, a creature of pure passion. Finally she fell back, drained of everything but the shallow harshness of her breath. I lay beside her, my head cradled against her breast, lips touching her nipples.

In a while I felt her hands stroking my head. She snuggled against me, her soft breasts sweet cushions against my chest. "You know, I surprise myself," she said. "I never would have guessed that I could, well, function, in the tense atmosphere we're under. I think it must be you."

She rose on one elbow and traced imaginary little lines on my chest. "Are you sexually stimulated by stress?" she asked.

"Research or personal curiosity?" I grinned at her.

She chuckled softly. "A little of both, I guess."

"Frankly, it doesn't make any difference," I told her honestly. "Stress, no stress, I keep a fire going."

A few minutes later she was fast asleep against my chest, her breath soft and even.

I put my head back and dozed off myself. I got in somewhat more than an hour and a half when I heard the polite but firm knock on the door. Moving out from under Rita, who only gave a murmured, sleepy protest, I put on clothes and answered the door.

"AXE Headquarters calling you, sir," a sailor said, saluting. I closed the door softly behind me and followed him to the radio room. Hawk's voice crackled out at me as I put on the head phones.

"Has the girl said anything?" he asked.

"Nothing you'd be interested in, sir," I answered.

"That figures," the old fox replied. "But we've pieced together a few things for you that may help. Chung Li thinks that the jet pilot may be one of their men. He had to make a few admissions that must have hurt, but they confirmed past reports from our own sources. First, the Chinese had a bad explosion some while back testing their A-bomb warheads. A woman was killed. Her husband was a jet pilot by the name of Chan Hwa. Chung Li also had to admit that one of their special long-range jets has been missing for a week, along with pilot Chan Hwa."

"All right, a Chinese pilot with a stolen jet and his own set of gripes is going to help Carlsbad put his plan into effect," I said. "That doesn't tell us where to find him."

"I might have that, too," Hawk said. "That statement about the 'tip of the three, Nick, I gave it to our cryptanalysts. It's not code and not truly cryptography, but they've so much specialized training in solving riddles that I figured they'd be best and fastest. They came up with a possible answer. There's a spot, not too far from the Kuriles, where Soviet Russia, China and Korea meet. It could be reached by helicopter. All three countries touch only at the very tip of the area at Changkufeng."

"Ill get there right away," I said. "If we're not too late already."

"Do your best, Nick," Hawk said. "Chung Li is on his way with two hand-picked men. So is Ostrov. Chung Li is very worried. I think that's what made him so cooperative. He's afraid Carlsbad is going to set X–V77 loose on Chairman Mao and the Supreme Council. He wants Mao to leave for the United Nations World Leadership Conference ahead of schedule. Frankly, I'm afraid that might be Carlsbad's plan, too, and you know what that would trigger."

"I can get a Vigilante A-5A from the carrier here," I said. "That'd be the fastest way for me to make it."

"Ill certify clearance for you," Hawk said. "Take the girl. Maybe hell listen to her if you get to him."

"Will do," I said. "Over and out."

The carrier commander took over as I raced back to the stateroom. I woke Rita and her arms slid around my neck. Her half-opened eyes said only one thing.

"Not now, honey," I said. "There is too much to do."

She sat up, the sheet dropping from her breasts. She was into her clothes in moments. "Better say your prayers that well be in time," I said. "This could be our last chance."