the man from O.R.G.Y.

Now she straightened up and I saw the reason behind her posture. She was evidently in the process of getting dressed. She had been putting on her bra, and bending over to deposit her succulent melons in its cups. She had lost a few hairpins in the process and I had awakened to the sight of her picking them up. Thus the naked haunches on which I'd focused my eyes.

She pulled a pair of panties over them now, and I removed my eyes to the window. Sand and sun. We must have crossed the Zagros Mountains while I'd been sleeping and now we were somewhere in the desert wastelands of Iran. There wasn't so much as a palm tree to break the monotony of the dunes.

Vickie finished dressing. “l’m going to the dining car for a bite," she said. “Can I bring you anything?"

“A cup of coffee and a pair of pants.”

“Yes to the beverage; no to the trousers.”

“You mean you're going to leave me all alone here?" I asked as she opened the door to the compartment. “Aren't you afraid I'll escape?"

"Where to? If you feel like wandering around the train stark naked, go ahead. Some people just have to work out their exhibitionist tendencies."

"I could jump out the window."

“Go ahead. The nearest oasis is 300 miles. Without any clothes, you ought to get quite a suntan by the time you reach it. Except that you never would reach it; you'd be sure to die of thirst first.”

She was right and I knew it. I stayed in the compartment until she carne back with some coffee and a sandwich for me. I wolfed it down and by that time it was turning dark. We swapped innuendos through the evening and around midnight she went to sleep. There was nothing better to do, so I followed her example.

The last thing I saw before I dozed off was the glint of the Luger clutched in the hand lying on top of one of her breasts. When I woke up, I couldn't even see that. It was pitch-black in the compartment. I pulled up the window-shade, but that was no help. It was just as dark outside as inside, no moon, no stars in the sky. There mighty just as well have been a black curtain drawn down over the window.

I lit a match and picked up Vickie's wristwatch from on top of her suitcase where she'd left it. It said six-thirty. Yet it was still night outside. I did a little quick figuring. We must be well into Afghanistan by now. Somewhere in the Koh-i-Baba Mountain Range, paralleling the Helmana River and soon to cross it, only a few hours out of Kabul itself.

The hiss of the radiator in the compartment and the sharp chill in the air which it couldn't quite overcome seemed to confirm my guess. If I was right, we were almost 17,000 feet above sea level. It’s a topographical oddity that desert heat turns so quickly to mountain cold in this part of the world and the regions around Kabul are frequently snowbound with temperatures hovering around twelve to fifteen degrees Fahrenheit⁷ .

Interesting, but my geographical meanderings weren't solving my predicament. I turned my mind to the problem at hand. If Vickie was really asleep, I might make a grab for the Luger. The thing was that awake or asleep, her reaction was bound to be to pull the trigger. She was a trained agent, after all. The slightest touch on the hand holding the Luger and she'd fire it by reflex.

And what then? Supposing I did succeed in overwhelming her? I'd still be stuck on this train without any clothes. And she'd probably get an army of help in Kabul while I was still trying to steal a pair of BVDs. Even if I tied her up, I'd still have the problem of getting off the train naked. And I suspected that there must be one or more other agents scheduled to meet her when the train arrived. I'd have one hell of a time shaking them with my bodkin still bare.

I didn’t have much time to think, so when a hazy plan occurred to me, I decided to act on it and worry about how harebrained it was later. A wire coat-hanger Vickie had left on top of her suitcase started me off. I straightened it out and delicately manipulated it so that the end was between the trigger and stock of the Luger, without touching either the gun or Vickie’s hand. Then I reached for the gun itself. As I'd expected, as soon as my fingers grazed hers, she tightened on the trigger. But the hanger was just thick enough to impede the firing mechanism. I wrenched the gun away from her before she could try it again.

She shot up in bed wide awake, those green eyes flashing at me, too intent to care that her nightie had fallen away from one of her breasts. It rose and fell quickly, the scarlet nipple quivering as though with indignation as she spoke. “Very clever, Mr. Victor! Quick and unexpected! The mark of a man of action. But it won't do you any good. You may have the gun, but you still don't have any clothes."

I stared at her bare breast and my passion rose. “You're pretty proud of yourself for getting rid of my clothing, aren't you?"

“I think it was a good idea, yes." Her eyes dropped and she blushed as she raised them again. "It has its drawbacks, though. I do wish that under the circumstances, you'd try to control yourself, Mr. Victor. Or at least take one of my garments and cover yourself."

“Sorry. You're an exciting girl, Vickie. And, under the circumstances, I wish you'd stop calling me ‘Mr. Victor’ in that formal English way of yours. My name is Steve -- particularly when I'm naked."

“All right, Steve. What do you think you're going to do now?" she asked with a smugness that was downright annoying.

“I’m not going to do anything for a little while," I told her. “You are. You’re going to do just what I tell you. Vickie, you're about to find out that two can play at your little game of strip poker. Open the window." I waved the Luger at her.

She opened the window.

“Now throw out your suitcase.”

She threw her suitcase out the window.

“Now your clothes."

She gathered up her clothes and tossed them from the window.

“Underwear too."

Her bra and panties followed, despite her obvious reluctance.

"Now take off your nightgown."

She pulled it off.

“Out the window."

She threw it out.

I sat back and chuckled. “Now we’re even," I told her.

"It’s cold." She hugged herself with her arms.

“I'll keep you warm." I sat down next to her and put my arms around her.

She raised her lips to be kissed.

I kissed her.

She made a grab for the gun.

I slapped her hand hard and went back to my bunk. “Some other time, honey, when Little Johnny Luger isn't standing between us.” I looked outside. The sky was turning to gray dawn. I leaned briefly out the window, still keeping a careful eye on Vickie. We were running parallel to the river all right. And up ahead I could see the tracks curving to cross it. I perched on the sill, getting ready to jump when we crossed the trestle. “I’ll be leaving in a minute," I told Vickie. "I do hope we meet again in similarly naked circumstances."

"You're going to jump out the window and leave me alone here without any clothes? What will I do?"

“That's your problem, sweetie. Unless you'd care to join me for a swim, that is."

“I don't know how to swim."

"In that case, farewell my love." I poised and dived from the train, careful to clear the side of the trestle. Luckily, the river wasn't frozen over. But there were chunks of ice in the water. The shock of hitting it was indescribable. It was like a glacial knife slicing through my body. I fought my way to the surface and began swimming for the shore before the numbness sweeping from my brain to my limbs sent me to the bottom again. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? I don't know how long that harrowing swim took. But finally I felt solid ground under my feet and began to wade from the river.

As the freezing air hit my skin, I was overcome by a fit of shivering. I felt like the proverbial brass monkey and as I emerged from the water the cold hit me in the same place. I literally fell onto the shore, and to this day I don't know whether I would have been capable of any further movement or not.

Luckily, I didn't have to find out. Just as I collapsed, a figure emerged from the snow-covered bushes along the riverbank and ran toward me. A moment later my head was resting in a lap and my eyes were looking up at the doll-face of an Afghan girl.

She was chattering away and I gathered she was trying to tell me it was very foolish indeed to go skindiving at this time of year. Well, I agreed with that. But while I got her meaning, I couldn't really understand the dialect she was speaking. Later I found out it was Pushtu, a sort of mixture of pidgin Persian and Mongolian Chinese.

This lingo gives some indication of the origins of the people who live in the Koh-i-Baba Mountains. Called Hazaras, they are tall, broad-headed and yellow-skinned, akin in features to the Mongols. They are said to be the descendants of the armies of Jenghiz Khan, which once conquered Afghanistan. In my own field, the Hazaras are known for the sadism they bring to sex and for their practice of sharing one woman among as many as half a dozen men. Goat-herders, they are looked down on by the other Afghans and frequently discriminated against when they leave their native mountains. For this reason, they usually stay put. In the hills of the Koh-i-Baba they are kings of the land and frequently hostile to strangers.

The girl, however, did not have the characteristics of the Hazaras. She was small, her features were delicate and her skin was pale and tinged with pink, rather than golden. I guessed that she wasn't really a Hazaras at all, but probably a Tajik maiden stolen perhaps while still an infant from her village on the Pakistan border. The Tajiks are Caucasians, of Semitic descent, which is true of most Afghans. The rather vague history of Afghanistan dates its settlement from the time of Nebuchadnezzar, an Arab conqueror who carried away whole tribes from Palestine and settled them as agrarian slave laborers in Afghanistan.

Her probable Tajik background was fortunate for me. A Hazaras maiden would most likely have left me to freeze to death. This girl opened her thick, fur cloak—it was like an opera cape, voluminous and sleeveless -- and wrapped it around my naked body.

We huddled together and my chills subsided as I felt the warmth of her flesh against my own. She urged me over to an outcropping of rocks and we wedged ourselves into a narrow niche out of the wind. There was a rock shelf over us, and this too was lucky, for it began to snow.

Even through the thick fur robe, I could feel the cold. She could too, for she was trembling in my arms. The storm was growing too strong to allow us to move from our haven, but if we didn't manage some sort of movement, we would surely fall victim to frostbite. The girl's eyes, looking at me with a liquid sort of fatalistic pleading, told me that she too was aware of this.

Then her hands moving over my body told me that she too had come to the conclusion that there was only one thing we could do about it. It wasn't a matter of sex; it was a matter of survival. And yet, in a strange way, that made it all the more thrilling.

I could feel my body warming to her caresses. And my lips felt the heat of her small, uptilted breasts as I kissed them. She was much shorter than I and managed to get her feet between my legs. They were very cold. I rubbed my calves together to warm them.

Oddly, this seemed to excite her greatly. Her nails dug into my shoulders and her tongue was a flame flickering over my ears and neck. Then her hands slid down to my naked buttocks and she squeezed them rhythmically, grinding her hips so that our flesh would bump together in the same tempo. Finally she raised one of her legs quite high and dug her nails deep in the cleft between my cheeks so that I was jolted forward and we were locked together.

Momentarily, I was disappointed. She was quite large and there was no sensation of being gripped by her sex. Later I was to learn the reason for this. Now, however, I quickly forgot it as she made up in expert circular movements for what she lacked in tightness. It was like a ritual dance, spurred on by the now-blazing heat of her body. She ground against me with movements that more than anything else were like swallowing. I could feel her sensitive flesh spreading over me, enveloping me. And then she began to bounce, slowly, than faster, then in a frenzy as though she were striking blows. I struck back and a cry of excitement tore from her lips.

We thrashed about like that for I don’t know how long. Then we struck at the same moment, and her hands dug into my rear to hold me tight. It was a longdrawn, ecstatic moment and we both rose from the ground to prolong it. We exploded then, together, and with a force that tossed the fur robe off us and set us rolling in the snow.

It was a moment before either of us even began to feel the cold. When we did, we scurried back to our niche and pulled the fur around us. The girl leaned away from me for a moment and pointed at herself. “Farah," she said.

It seemed a hell of a time for introductions, but I went along with it. “Steve,” I said, jerking a thumb at my face.

"Steve," she repeated and kissed me.

“Farah.” I kissed her back.

We fought off the cold for another half-hour. It was even better than the first time. By the time it was over, the storm was letting up. Farah wrapped the coat around us both and guided me into the mountains.

It was a steep trail, but we didn't have far to go. It was only twenty minutes or so when we reached a small village of thatched huts with furs draped over the rooftops and outside walls. Farah led me inside one of them.

She rummaged around and came up with a pair of sandals, fur-lined pants, a shirt, a coat and a hat for me. Then she lit a fire. I laid the Luger and my wallet— both of which I'd somehow managed to hold onto throughout my ordeal—near the fire to dry out. A while later, I checked the contents of the wallet and found that while the river had messed them up pretty badly, my identification papers and passport were still legible. The paper money I had could be dried out. And, perhaps most important of all, the letter of introduction from BenKavir, Sheikh Taj-ed el Atassi's deceased harim-keeper, was still readable.

Farah prepared some kind of a meat stew—goat, I suspected—and I wolfed it down. I was mopping up my plate with a crust of bread when I looked up and saw the three Hazaras staring at me from the doorway. They were big men, close to seven feet tall, each of them, and well over 250 pounds of muscle apiece, I would have bet.

“Hello," I said inanely, not knowing what else to say.

They ignored me. One of them grunted something harsh and guttural to Farah. He spoke the same Pushtu dialect she did. Her answer to whatever he’d said evidently pleased neither him nor his two companions. The three of them glowered at Farah, and then at me.

They pulled off their fur robes and tossed them to Farah. Then they turned back to stare at me some more. After a moment, one of them reached for a scabbard at his waist and withdrew a large, curved scythe. It wasn't a scimitar, or any other kind of weapon, but a tool these people use to cut the long grasses of the region during the short springtime season. Nevertheless, it looked quite large and sharp enough to lop off my head with no trouble at all.

Evidently that was his intention, for he started straight for me. At the same moment, I started for where I'd left the Luger. Before either of us reached our destinations, Farah intervened. She stepped between us with a steaming dish of the stew she'd made in each hand. Woman-like, she waved one of the dishes under the Hazaras’ nose. He stopped cold, sniffed a moment, shot me a look that said “Eat now; kill later!" and took the plate from her hand.

The other two followed his example and the three of them squatted down across the hut from me to eat their dinner. Farah shot me a nervous smile. I managed to grin back, wondering what would happen once they'd filled their bellies.

What happened was they belched. Not any of your squelched belches, either. These boys burped loud and strong and clear, first in unison, and then taking off on solos. I got the feeling there was some kind of competition going on, with each of them trying to outdo the other in loudness, tonal quality and frequency.

Finally, the symphony grepsed to a close. They turned their attention back to me. They muttered among themselves for a moment and then one of them got to his feet, heading for me with the scythe again. I pointed the Luger at him and he stopped.

I don't know how long we would have stayed frozen in this impasse if Farah hadn't stepped in again. She stood directly in front of him, positioning herself so that the other two could see as well, and spread her robes wide apart: Naked underneath it, she went into a dance then, opening and closing the robe, rolling her hips and belly, rotating her breasts, bumping her pelvis with a technique that Elvis himself might have envied.

The other two Hazaras were on their feet now, standing beside the one with the scythe in his hand to get a better look. Farah swayed to and fro before them, faster and faster, reaching up with her hands to graze the tops of their shaved heads, then reaching low for a more intimate caress. She shed the coat altogether and seemingly at a signal from her all three of them fell to their knees in unison. Farah whirled like a dervish now, naked and brazen, pushing her breasts at the lips of one and then another of the three men, thrusting her bristling womanhood in their very faces.

What followed, as on that wild desert ride with Teska, made me think once again of Lord George Herbert's A Night in a Moorish Harem. I was a long way from the Moorish coast, but the scene I watched was a ringer for the one Herbert describes as having occurred in a Turkish seraglio at Erzurum between a Circassian houri and three Muslim males. The only difference was that at one point Farah tried to go the houri one better by ringing me in on the proceedings.

Yes, she managed—and seemingly with both ease and pleasure-—to take on the three of them simultaneously. And not exactly in the manner you might envisage. One of the men lay flat on his back so that she might squat and impale herself. The second knelt facing her, straddling the first man, and presenting a target for her greedy lips. The third man knelt low behind her, be- tween the legs of the first man, and plunged home to the very same spot where the first man was already lodged. From this position, he was capable of long, deep, piercing thrusts, although the man in possession of the tunnel first obviously couldn't move at all. He didn't seem to mind, and I gathered he was getting his main thrill from the vigor with which the third man was striking against him.

Farah's hindquarters were thrust high in the air and she paused a moment to look at me and point to them with her hand. There was one orifice still unstoppered and it was obvious that she wished me to correct this condition. When I shook my head, she shrugged and went back to the enjoyment of what she was doing. I watched fascinated; now I knew why Farah had seemed so large when I'd made love to her during the blizzard. Obviously, a girl used to accommodating two men in the same place at the same time would be stretched a little wide for the pleasure of only one man. My ego was relieved.

Still watching, my mind veered off to consider the reading. I'd done on the sex customs of this region. In the light of it, what I was seeing wasn't really so unusual. There was a tremendous shortage of women here and it was common among the Hazaras for many men to share one woman. So common, indeed, that the Afghans embraced the Anangaranga (Code of Cupid) of Pandit Kalyanamalla, the Indian sex pundit who had spelled out the ways in which many men may enjoy a woman simultaneously. Today, the Anangaranga has been all but forgotten in India, where the Kama Sutra has replaced it as a sex guide for most of the population. But in Afghanistan, with its woman shortage, the Anangaranga still rates tops on the best-seller list for sex manuals.

Finally, the orgy was over. Farah fell back exhausted but ecstatic, the juices of love still glistening around the parts of her person which had drawn them. Her three lovers likewise crumpled to the dirt floor of the hut. For the moment, at least, they were too fagged out by sex to go after me again. Soon the sound of their snoring filled the air. Nevertheless, I kept a tight grip on the Luger and struggled to keep my eyes open.

I lost the fight. I don't know how long I slept, but the sky outside was still dark when I was awakened by Farah's touch. I sprang to a sitting position and looked at her intently. She put her fingers to her lips and motioned for me to follow her outside.

There, on the ground, was a pack she'd made up for me with some food and wine in it. A heavy fur robe and sandals stood beside it. She pointed to the hut and then drew her hand across my throat like a knife. I understood that she was telling me that if I was still there when her boy friends awoke, they would kill me. From what I'd seen, I judged she was right.

“Kabul?” I asked her, hoping the name of the city would ring a bell.

It did. She nodded to show she comprehended that Kabul was where I wanted to go. She pointed to the trail going up the mountain. Then she knelt and drew a map for me in the snow. First she drew the mountain, pointing to the trail to show me it would take me to the top. She drew two lines to indicate that there were two trails going down the other side of the mountain. She pointed at me and then at one of the lines and I understood I was to take the left-hand trail. She pointed at the foot of the mountain she'd drawn and scratched three lines from it in the snow. Once again she made me understand that I must bear left. Finally, she gouged out a deep wide groove that I took to be a highway intercepted by the trail she'd indicated I should take. She drew an arrow to the right alongside it and then piled up a snowball at the end of the line. "Kabul," she said.

I nodded to show I understood. I stared at her diagram for a long time to be sure it was firmly imprinted on my mind. Then I gave her a quick kiss good-bye, hefted the pack to my shoulders and started up the trail. She was still standing there waving to me as I rounded the first bend.

Quite a girl, I thought to myself as I trudged onward. I knew wives back in America who never stopped griping about having to put up with one husband. Yet Farah was a girl who had three and I'd bet she never complained at all.

It was something to think about during the long climb ahead.

007

YOU PUT one foot in front of the other and hope against frostbite. That’s how you get to Kabul, That's how I got there. It took about a day and a half.

I treated myself to another half-day of soaking in a steaming tub, arranging for a tailor to come up and fit me for some clothes, wiring the foundation in the States to arrange for funds, and packing away a hot meal fit for a Maharajah. I'd bribed the tailor to run up one of the suits immediately and he delivered it while I was finishing my steak. I got dressed and went down to the hotel bar for a scotch and soda. It was all I needed to make me feel human again.

I was on my second, sitting at the bar, when that familiar English perfume hit me before I saw her. But I didn't turn around until the softness of her voice murmured close to my ear. "Hello, Steve, I see you found your way here.”

“Hello, Vickie. Can I buy you a drink?"

“Thank you. A very dry Rob Roy, please."

“Are you alone?"

"Yes."

"I'm in room three-one-seven," I told her. “Why don't you call and tell your associate not to bother rifling it? He won't find anything.”

“He wouldn't answer," she said, calmly acknowledging that I'd guessed right. “And anyway, he needs the practice."

“Still, you should know better. After all, you took care of getting rid of everything I had. I haven't been in Kabul long enough to acquire anything new in the way of incriminating evidence."

“But then there's no telling what you might have picked up on your travels," Vickie pointed out.

“That's for sure." I thought of Farah briefly and smiled.

"And anyway,” Vickie added, “you shouldn't be bitter about what I did to you. You more than got even. Leaving me naked and stranded in that train compartment that way. Do you call that gentlemanly?"

“No. just expedient. By the way, how did you manage to disembark?"

"In style." She giggled. “I took the sheet from the bunk and fashioned a sort of toga from it. Off-the-shoulder and with a real daring slit up the side. It was a very narrow sheet. I stopped traffic just getting from the train to a cab."

“I'll bet you did! I wish I'd been there to see it. It must have been a red-letter day for Anglo-Afghan relations.”

"Judging from the number of pinches and the stares I drew, I'd say you were right."

"You must have really enjoyed it," I observed.

“What makes you say that?"

“The change in your appearance." I let my eyes rove meaningfully up and down the strapless evening gown she was wearing. It was one of those skin-tight numbers that defies the laws of gravity, the kind that leaves no room for a bra underneath it—not that Vickie needed one. “This new image of yours is a far cry from the tweedy virgin of Albion I met on the train,” I added.

“Do you like it?" Her eyes sparkled at me seductively. "I’m so glad. I really bought it with you in mind.” She cocked her head flirtatiously and her red curls swished enticingly over her bare shoulders. "I do feel this sort of animal magnetism between us," she said.

I burst out laughing. "I’ll just bet you do. What next, Vickie? Are you going to lure me up to your room so we can make love?"

“Would you like that?"

“Very much. But once bitten by the chastity of a British agent, twice shy. Somehow I suspect that just about the time I was doffing my pants, Her Majesty's royal espionage service would pop out of the woodwork to safeguard your virginity—and spirit me away to London for an encore. I can't imagine why, but I just can't help feeling that you don't really want me for my virile self."

“Oh, dear," she sighed comically. “How will I ever convince you?"

“You won’t."

“But it would have made things so simple."

“Sorry. I guess you'll just have to think of some other way of getting me into the clutches of British Intelligence."

"Don't worry, I will," she told me sweetly, rising to leave. “Thanks for the drink."

“You're welcome. I'll be seeing you."

“You can be sure of that,” she called over her shoulder as she left the cocktail lounge.

I watched her go. So did every other man sitting in the bar. She had some shape! In motion, it was as erotic as just about anything an Oriental seraglio might have to offer. I wondered if she really was as pure as she made herself out to be. If she was, it sure was one hell of a waste of nature's bounties.

I finished my drink and went out to the desk clerk in the hotel lobby. "What’s the fanciest brothel in Kabul?" I asked, palming a bill to him.

“Mama Macri's is much favored by Europeans."

“How do I find it?"

“Any cab driver will take you there."

Twenty minutes later I was standing in the vestibule of Mama Macri's establishment. “I'd like to see Mama Macri," I told the burly Afghan who let me in.

“Of course." He bent his head so that his bald pate caught the light and the large golden rings piercing his ears tinkled slightly. "If you will be so good as to wait in the parlor." He pointed out a curtained doorway.

I went into what he'd called the parlor and sat down on a low Persian divan that ran the length of the wall. There were eight other men there before me, all avidly watching the show in progress. Despite my eagerness to see Mama Macri and get on with my search for Anna Kirkov, I too studied the performer, aware from my Oriental sex researches that what I was seeing was indeed something rare and special.

The girl was naked, except for a veil about the size of a handkerchief which she used as a prop in her dance. Her body glistened with some sort of heavily scented oil. The perfume she gave off was extremely erotic. The tips of her breasts had been rouged with some sort of scarlet dye, as had her mouth and the lips of her clean-shaven “Mound of Venus." “Whatever this dye was, it didn't come off easily, for although she moved the veil between her legs briskly, there was no sign of it smearing.

This rhythmic use of the veil was what alerted me to what the girl was. That, and the unseeing ecstasy on her face which testified that she had transported herself to another world, a world of pure sexual sensation, told me that I was being privileged to watch the fabled performance of a ghaziyeh. Not an ordinary ghaziyeh, either -- although they are rare enough—but an ultra-special ghaziyeh who had been in the hands of a mubetzrat, as the effects on the quivering gateway to her womanhood by the manipulation of the veil soon showed me.

The ghaziyeh is a much renowned character in Middle Eastern folklore, although very few men are ever lucky enough to actually see her in action. The only scientific research done on her is the work of the famous French Dr. Jacobus done back in the early 1930s. The space he devotes to her in his five-volume treatise L'Ethnlogie du Sens Génital presents the sole authenticated report on the ghaziyeh in print⁸ .

The ghaziyehs are girls born into the only bona fide Gypsy tribe in the Middle East. They may originally have come from Spain, or from the Balkans; nobody knows for sure. In appearance they are Latin-looking, olive-skinned and aquiline of feature. Dr. Jacobus somehow managed to ingratiate himself with these Gypsies and was made privy to their customs and allowed to examine their women to study the physical effects of those customs on them.

The women he examined, however, were either extremely young, or extremely ugly. This is because the Gypsy band is a small one, and the more beautiful of its women are sold into brothels as ghaziyehs as soon as they mature. Even so, there are perhaps no more than a dozen ghaziyehs to be found in the Middle East today. Most of these would be in Egypt, Turkey and Arabia—the usual wandering route followed criss-cross fashion and with much backtracking by the Gypsies—and I would guess that the ghaziyeh I encountered in Kabul was a resale passed on by a white slaver in that area.

The ghaziyeh is intended from birth to be a dancing girl-prostitute. She is carefully trained to stimulate men with her dancing and to satisfy them with her body. And, once every generation or so, a ghaziyeh is judged by the elders of the Gypsy band to be so superior in both beauty and artistry as to merit the ritual operation of a mubetzrat.

The mubetzrat, usually an old woman, is the skilled surgeon of the tribe. It is her job to declitorize the extra-special ghaziyeh. But the operation the mubetzrat performs, and the post-operative training she gives the ghaziyeh, is quite different from the tebtzir performed on female Druze infants which Teska had described to me back in Damascus.

For one thing, the Druze girl is an infant and her sex organs haven't developed yet when she is put to the knife. The ghaziyeh is full-grown, usually at least sixteen years old, and her sex organs are not only developed, they are highly trained from many years of use. For another thing, the Druze girl is not deprived of her clitoris; on the contrary, the flesh around it is removed so that it will be rendered more sensitive and capable of unhindered growth. But with the ghaziyeh, the amputation is complete.

The mubetzrat removes its very roots. And when the operation has healed, she sets about training the ghaziyeh to compensate for the missing organ. Indeed, it is the purpose of this training—-which consists of daily manipulative exercises and the application of an herb mixture designed to sensitize the lips of the labia -- to enable the ghaziyeh to attain an even more heightened thrill of sexual satisfaction than her unmaimed sisters.

Whether this is successful or not, only the declitorized ghaziyeh knows for sure. However, the one thing that Dr. Jacobus did determine was that such girls require a long period of stimulation before being able to attain their release. This period, he points out, is one in which the ghaziyeh is plunged into an actual coma-—akin to a hypnotic trance in which her eyes remain wide open, but she is unaware of anything except her own body - and his description of this coma is remarkably similar to the moments of climax described by Kinsey's female subjects, although it lasts much longer. That she achieves sexual release from this coma is observable, since the release is explosive, gushing, and sometimes messy.

Thus, her renowned dance is no act of pretense designed to fool the customers. Naked, she takes her veil in her two hands and rubs it back and forth between her breasts until the nipples strain erect. Then she runs it down her belly and between her legs, pulling it through so tightly that it is lost in the cleft of her derriere cheeks and only reappears as she flips it up her spine and over her shoulders. Then her dance grows faster, her eyes begin to stare vacantly, and the veil is drawn back and forth between her legs so rapidly that it becomes a gauzy blur. Her breathing becomes rapid; her body—hips, buttocks, breasts—jerks spasmodically. A little rivulet of perspiration runs between her breasts to her belly. Her belly begins to roll and she bends her legs at the knee, moving her feet wide apart and continuing the friction with the veil until it seems that the sparks of her lust must ignite it. Her sighs become moans, then a long, drawn-out groan as she falls over on her back and thrusts her feet, impossibly widespread, at the ceiling. One last motion, as though determined to saw herself in half with the veil lengthwise, her passion spurts forth, and she collapses in a heap, satisfied at last.

Watching the ghaziyeh at Mama Macri's reach this point, I could almost physically feel the explosive force of the release she attained. So too, I realized a moment later, could the other spectators. As soon as the dance was ended, a large Afghan came out to stand over the prostrate body of the ghaziyeh to auction off her services for the remainder of the evening. The bidding was spirited. I was saved from the temptation of participating in it by the re-appearance of the Afghan who had admitted me.

"Mama Macri will see you now," he told me. "Come this way.” He led me to a small office, very businesslike, very un-Oriental. “Please be seated." He indicated a leather armchair facing the desk. "Mama Macri will be with you in a moment." He exited by the door behind me.

A moment later Mama Macri entered. She was a tall Afghan woman in her forties, dressed in a simple black gown, devoid of jewelry and make-up. “You wished to see me?" Tight golden skin stretched over the prominent bones of her face in a fleeting smile.

"Yes." I was on my feet. “My name is Steve Victor."

"What can I do for you, Mr. Victor?"

"I have a letter—" I fished out the introduction written for me by Ben-Kavir. I was only guessing that it would mean something to Mama Macri, only hoping that she would have some connection with the syndicate Sheikh Tajed el Atassi was reputed to head.

She took the paper from me. Her face remained impassive as she read it. “I see," she said noncommittally. “Would you wait just a moment, Mr. Victor? There is something I must attend to and then we shall discuss just exactly what it is you wish." She went out again, motioning to me not to bother getting up.

I settled in the armchair and waited for her to return. A moment later I felt a little breeze on the back of my neck as the door opened again. Presuming it to be Mama Macri returning, I started to get to my feet. I never made it. My skull exploded into a million colored lights, which were quickly doused by the blackness into which I plunged.

I opened my eyes. It didn't make a hell of a lot of difference. Except for the dot of a small candle-flame, it was just as black in front of the lids as it had been behind them. I closed my eyes. It seemed more sporting to look for my head with them shut.

I found it. Easy. It was attached to that great big lump of pain under my groping fingers. I ran my hand down over my scalp and face to my neck. Everything there? Check. Everything attached? Check. Everything all fouled up? Check and double-check!

I touched the lump again. The hair was sticky with blood around it, but it wasn't bleeding any more. It was the size of an egg, more tender than a soft-boiled yolk. I wondered what the hell had hit me. Then I wondered where the hell I was.

I opened my eyes again. Still just the light from that lone candle across from me, I got up on rubber legs and hobbled toward it. As I got closer, I could make out that it was perched on a shelf over what looked like a long, oblong box with the lid removed. I reached across the box for the candle. Pulling it back towards me, I glanced down into the box.

I jumped so hard I almost dropped the candle. The sudden movement almost made the flame go out. I was damn glad it didn't. That box was no ordinary box at all. It was a coffin!

And there was a corpse in it!

I made myself look again. Dead eyes stared back at me unblinkingly. The body was Chinese, male, and, I judged, middle-aged. It was naked and smelled of em-balming fluid. The dead skin gave off an eerie green glow in the candlelight.

Tearing myself away from the macabre sight, I set out to investigate my surroundings. There wasn't much to investigate. It was a small chamber about twelve by twelve. The walls, the floor, and what I could make out of the ceiling were concrete. There were no windows. The door on one wall was made of steel. I tried it. It was locked from the outside. I guessed it was some sort of cell, probably below ground level: a dungeon, stark, dank and cold.

There was nothing in the chamber except the coffin, its occupant and me. Irresistibly, I was drawn back to peer at him. I stood over the coffin, staring into that impassive mask of death, thinking that even if he was alive he might not have been able to give me the answers to the questions tumbling over one another in my mind. I stared at him for a long, long time.

"Do you recognize him, Mr. Victor?"

This time I spun around so fast that the candle did go out. The echo of the voice, vaguely familiar, permeated the blackness like some ominous other-worldly sound. The door hadn’t opened. I was sure of that. Then where had the voice come from? The hair crept over the back of my neck as I groped for a match.

The candle re-lit, I held it carefully as I turned slowly around and studied the cell. Everything was the same as before. Still only me and my embalmed friend, For a crazy moment I believed it was really the corpse that had spoken.

“You seem distraught, Mr. Victor.” The voice again. But this time I was more reassured than frightened. It definitely hadn’t come from the cadaver. It was coming from that steel door. I strode over to it and investigated. Yes, there was a grill high up near the top of it. That's where the voice was coming from.

It sounded again. “But you haven’t answered my question, Mr. Victor. Do you recognize the deceased gentleman?"

“No. I don't."

“He is Dr. Suno Wong of the People's Republic of China. Ahh, I see from your face that the identification is indeed meaningful to you."

“Dirty pool," I said with a flippancy I didn't really feel. “You can see my face, but I can't see yours.”

“True enough, Mr. Victor. I had hoped that the element of the unexpected might make you panic and divulge something of what it is you are up to. However, I can see that is not going to be. Therefore, I shall join you."

There was a moment's silence and then the door creaked open. My jaw dropped as Sheikh Taj-ed el Atassi strode into the room. He motioned to two burly guards to wait outside.

“I have looked forward to our meeting again, Mr. Victor.”

“You must have. You went to a lot of trouble to see that we wouldn’t miss each other." I rubbed the lump on my head ruefully.

“I am sorry about that, Mr. Victor. It was necessary that you have no opportunity to exercise reluctance concerning such a meeting."

“Why should I be reluctant to meet with you?"

“I am not sure, Mr. Victor. However, your actions in relation to me present many puzzling questions."

"All you had to do was call me at my hotel and I would have met you any place you suggested."

“Perhaps. And then again, perhaps not. In any case, I did not wish to contact you directly for the reason that I do not wish it known that I am in Kabul. There are reasons for this, but they needn't concern you. Arranging our meeting in this fashion was easier. The clerk at your hotel is paid to steer any Europeans seeking sexual entertainment to Mama Macri’s. She had already been alerted to watch for a man bearing a letter from Ben-Kavir. Since there are all sorts of people taking an interest in, your movements, I didn't want you traced from Mama Macri's establishment to this one. It was more expedient to have you simply disappear from her premises."

“Then you know about the letter Ben-Kavir gave me requesting cooperation in your name."

“Yes. What I don't know is the use to which you intended putting it.”

“I'm a sex researcher investigating Oriental practices. I'm from O.R.G.Y. I told you that back at your palace outside Damascus."

“So you did. And I believed you then. But I no longer believe you. You shall have to do better than that, Mr. Victor."

I let that pass. “Do you know Ben-Kavir is dead?" I asked him.

“Of course. It is one of the two reasons which brought me to Kabul. You see, there was some feeling among those at that disastrous banquet you attended with Ben-Kavir that you had—to use the American vernacular— 'fingered' him for the gunman.”

“But why would I do that?"

"I’m not sure, Mr. Victor. Many reasons occur to me. I do not know which is the correct one."

“How did you know I was coming to Kabul?”

“Simple. A man was found tied up in your room in Baghdad. The police were summoned. The personnel were questioned and the hotel desk clerk revealed that you had made inquiries regarding transportation to Kabul. It is interesting to note, incidentally, that the man found in your room was an agent of the American C.I.A. But let that pass for the moment. To complete my answer to your question, in my business it is necessary to maintain many contacts with the police in the various cities in which my organization operates. It was they who informed me of your probable destination."

"I see." I was struck by a sudden thought. “I suppose you also have police contacts back in Damascus?"

“Of course. The chief is most cooperative. It was his information regarding your contact with both Russian and American agents that first aroused my suspicions concerning you.”

"That Egyptian fink must send out a newsletter," I murmured, thinking of Potemchenko.

“I beg pardon?"

"Nothing. It's not important. But if you were alerted then, why didn't you pick me up back in Damascus?"

“I found out too late. You had already gone on to Baghdad. And by the time I found that out, I had already dispatched Ben-Kavir to Baghdad on business. I wired him a warning concerning you, but it arrived too late to save him."

“You don't really believe I had anything to do with having Ben-Kavir killed."

“I’m not sure. From all accounts, the gunman may actually have been trying to murder you and hit Ben-Kavir by mistake. At any rate, I wished to speak with you about it. So I flew to Kabul to meet your train. I was most disappointed when you weren't on it. The only thing my men found in your compartment was a British girl dressed in a sheet. You do leave the oddest things in your wake, Mr. Victor. I have learned that this British girl is also a secret agent. You have been involved with the American, Russian and English secret services. Now wouldn't you say that was an odd series of coincidences for one who claims to be a private citizen engaging in scientific researches?"

“I guess I'm just spy-prone." I remembered something he'd said before. “You told me you had two reasons for coming to Kabul. Do you mind telling me what the other one is?"

He looked at me a long moment and shrugged. “Why not? Without going into the details, I have learned that one whom I looked upon as an old friend has been perverting that friendship, using me to the point where I regard it as a betrayal. This friend was in Kabul."

“Was? You mean he isn't here any more?"

"He fled the city just before my arrival."

I took a deep breath and decided to gamble on a certain amount of frankness. I was, after all, the sheikh's prisoner. Somehow I had to get him on my side if I was going to get on with the search for Anna Kirkov. “This friend of whom you speak," I said carefully, “am I correct in surmising that he is an Egyptian named Mustafa Ben Narouz?"

Sheikh el Atassi’s eyebrows shot up. “You are full of surprises, aren't you, Mr. Victor? What do you know of Mustafa Ben Narouz?"

"1 know that he’s mixed up with a Russian girl named Anna Kirkov. I know he brought her to your palace outside Damascus. I suspect that you have been instrumental in transporting her from there to Baghdad and then to Kabul.”

“Your surmises are very interesting, Mr. Victor. And, in a strange way, they both confirm and disprove my suspicions about you."

"I'm afraid you'll have to explain that."

“I shall. Considering your activities, Mr. Victor, I asked myself these questions: What could a man be up to who both fought and worked with the agents of nations antipathetic towards each other? Why would such a man be so interested in harims and brothels? What could be the purpose of such a man? The more I thought about it, the more I realized there could only be one answer."

"And what's that?"

"Simply that you must be acting for a higher authority than a national one, Mr. Victor. The answer I came up with is that you must be an agent for the United Nations. And a U.N. agent acting in the fashion in which you have been acting in this part of the world could only be after one thing, Mr. Victor."

“What's that?" I was beginning to feel dizzy, like a man going down for the third time in a pea-soup plot.

“You are collecting evidence for the U.N. Anti-Slavery Commission."

Slowly, it dawned on me what he was talking about. The U.N. had established a commission to investigate the white slavery going on in the world. This trade, extensive in the Middle East, frequently consisted of the kidnapping of young girls, the forcing of them into prostitution and the distributing of them to brothels all over the world. The U.N. Anti-Slavery Commission was dedicated to ending involuntary prostitution of this sort. From what I new of Sheikh el Atassi, his interests would make him take a dim view of such a campaign. Looking at it from his point of view, it was easy to see how he'd arrived at the conclusion that I was in the employ of this agency. The question was how to convince him that he was wrong.

“Assuming you're right," I said cautiously, “what possible interest would I have had in having Ben-Kavir killed?”

“There are many things I do not understand, Mr. Victor. I told you that before. I am willing to listen to any explanation you may care to impart."

"All right." I took a deep breath. “First of all, I have nothing to do with the U.N. I couldn't care less about your white slavery involvements. My sole interest is similar to yours. I want to catch up with Mustafa Ben Narouz and through him to find Anna Kirkov."

“Why?”

“I can't tell you that."

“You’re in no position to be reticent, Mr. Victor. One word from me and you will join our friend in the cofffin over there."

“It would be a little crowded.”

The sheikh smiled. "1 should see to it that you had one all to yourself."

“But why kill me?” I argued. "Even if you're right about what I’m doing, what would you gain? The U.N. would only send another investigator. You might not be able to spot this one until it was too late. Wouldn’t it be to your advantage to keep me under surveillance and play along with me until I can prove you're mistaken? After all, if you're not, you can always have me killed."

“There is some logic to what you say, Mr. Victor. But I should still like to know what you want with Mustafa and the Russian girl."

“And I still can't tell you. But maybe you can tell me why you've suddenly got it in for Mustafa Ben Narouz. I thought he was a buddy of yours.”

“I have learned that in the matter of the girl he has been using me as a dupe of the Red Chinese. He told me nothing of their involvement with the Russian woman. He lied and led me to believe that she was just another girl slated for a harem in Pakistan. I put my transportation facilities and my brothels at his disposal. Now I find that I have been actually helping him cooperate with an organization in direct rivalry to mine, an organization run from Peking."

"Is that why you had Dr. Suno Wong killed?" I jerked my thumb at the body of the Chinese scientist.

“I didn't have him killed, Mr. Victor. One of your fellow conspirators took care of that."

"One of my fellow conspirators?"

“Yes. The Russian agent, Potemchenko had him assassinated at the very time he was about to lead my men to the place where Mustafa was hiding Anna Kirkov.”

“That trigger-happy Russian ape!" I said disgustedly.

"Quite. If he too is seeking Anna Kirkov, he could not have done anything more stupid. Less than an hour after his bullet killed Wong, my rivals had spirited Mustafa and the Kirkov girl from the city."

"Do you know where they were taken?"

"I suspect Karachi The Chinese Reds have a strong organization operating there. It works to arouse the Pakistanis against the Indians. Also, it serves as a distribution point for the opium Red China surreptitiously exports to the rest of the world. Plus the fact that they control the prostitution of the city. This used to be the province of my syndicate, but the Red Chinese drove us out. This is another reason for my bitterness towards Mustafa. The friend of my enemies is my enemy." He quoted the old Persian proverb grimly.

“Will you go to Karachi?"

"Perhaps. Why do you ask?"

“Because I'd like to go with you. We might be of help to each other.”

“And you might betray me as Mustafa did. Still, it might be worth a gamble. Very well, Mr. Victor, We shall go to Karachi together. But in my plane, with my guards in attendance."

"It beats dying," I told him with a grin.

"Then know that your life is a tribute to your persuasiveness, Mr. Victor. And know that should I fail to remain persuaded, your life will be forfeited.”

On that cheerful note, he conducted me from the cell and led me up a long flight of stairs. We came out in a large room containing row on row of open coffins. Four or five Afghans wandered among them, examining the bodies they contained. Observing them in the gloom, my puzzlement must have showed on my face.

“This is a mortuary of sorts, Mr. Victor," the sheikh explained. “But I imagine it is different from any other you might chance to encounter in your travels."

"Different how?"

“This one is dedicated to catering to the tastes of the living. That's why I had Dr. Wong’s body brought here. It appealed to my sense of the macabre. What sort of necrophile do you suppose will find him appealing?"

"You mean that necrophiles come here to shop for sex partners?"

“Exactly. Don't look so shocked, Mr. Victor. Such a taste really hurts no one. The victims, after all, are dead. And if they can provide joy to the living in death, why should it not be so? Surely it is the most harmless of perversions."

"Maybe." I shuddered. “I didn’t know such practices were prevalent in Afghanistan. Or anywhere else in the East, for that matter."

“They're not prevalent. But they do exist. There is no taste to which my organization does not cater. That’s our business. Come, Mr. Victor. Stop staring, or I shall suspect you of being a voyeur.”

Chuckling, he led me outside to a waiting car. A brief stop at my hotel to pick up my things and we were on our way to the airport. The sheikh’s private plane was all revved up and waiting.

As it taxied down the runway, I looked out a side window and saw a limousine racing to a sudden stop at the edge of the field. Almost immediately, another car pulled up about three hundred yards downfield from it. The sheikh courteously handed me a pair of binoculars and I focused them on the first car as two figures emerged from it.

I zeroed right in on an unmistakably familiar pair of breasts half-covered by black velvet. Raising the glasses, I looked straight into those sexy bedroom eyes of Vickie Winters. Beside her stood Alan Foster, the American C.I.A. agent I'd last seen in Baghdad. It looked like he'd picked up my trail all right. And joined forces with Vickie, too. Cozy!

I left off envying him to focus the glasses on the other car. Yep! Potemchenko! I stifled a laugh. It looked like everybody was keeping up nicely.

The motor roared then and we jetted down the field and up toward the early morning clouds. I leaned back in my seat and smiled at Sheikh Taj-ed el Atassi. “Next stop Karachi," I observed.

“Next stop Karachi," he agreed, returning my smile. It froze on his face for a moment and I studied it. It was far from reassuring. It was the kind of smile a hangman bestows on his victim before he springs the trap.

I could almost feel that noose tightening around my neck!

008

THE NAKED bodies of the two girls entwined like passionate snakes. Their hairless flesh glittered with some sort of phosphorescent paint which made it seem all the more as though they were melting into one another. Their ritually prescribed erotic movements were fascinating, but my mind was lagging behind them, still committing to memory the rites which had opened this Pakistani bathhouse ‘exhibition’.

"We will go to the Ranjit Bathhouse," Sheikh el Atassi had told me after we'd bathed and eaten at the house maintained for his use in Karachi. "It is neutral ground, an independent establishment owing no allegiance to either my organization or to the vice network maintained by the Chinese Reds. However, the owner is friendly to me and has produced useful information in the past."

“Sort of a non-aligned cat-house, hey?" I said flippantly.

"It is not a brothel at all in the usual sense," he replied. "True, sex is a bathhouse commodity, but there are delicate differences."

The “delicate differences" had been immediately apparent. The Ranjit Bathhouse catered to two types of clientele: female homosexuals and male voyeurs. The latter category, thanks to my occupation, was one to which I was used, and I had no inhibitions about the peekaboo setup through which the sheikh led me.

It began with a box seat-—literally——overlooking the baths. These consisted of eight sunken pools four or five times the size of a normal bathtub. There were perhaps ten boxes set in alcoves in the walls and raised well above the baths. Each of the boxes was curtained and angled to provide a full view of a specific bath. The viewer simply arranged the curtain to his individual taste and he could see all without being seen.

We settled ourselves in the box just in time to watch the bellaneh, or female bathhouse attendant, greet a young female patron. This bellaneh was a large girl, over six feet tall and muscular, albeit quite feminine. Her skin was a darkish brown. She wore only a loincloth. A large, snow-white towel hung over one shoulder, covering one breast. The other breast was bare, large and proud. Her face was sculptured arrogance, her hair cropped short against a well-molded skull.

The girl was dressed in a traditional sari, which the bellaneh began to remove. She was a slender girl, petite and golden-skinned. Her eyes were dark black and flashing impishly beneath a wealth of ebony tresses which came tumbling down as the bellaneh removed the diadem which had been holding it in place. She stood stock still as the bellaneh undressed her.

When she was completely nude, the customer stretched out full-length on the tiles beside the pool. The bellaneh hefted an ornamented watering jug and poured its steaming contents over the prostrate girl from head to toe. The girl turned over on her stomach and the bellaneh repeated the process until every inch of the girl's lovely torso had been baptized.

The girl turned again so that she was lying face-up, and a second phase of the bathhouse ritual began. She remained perfectly still as the bellaneh took the towel over her shoulder, twirled it into one long strand, knotted it at one end, and then began flicking it expertly at the girl's outstretched body. The tip striking against the girl's flesh was wet, and it must have stung, but the recipient of this mild whipping held herself rigid and gave no sign of feeling any pain.

There were signs, however, that this ritualistic horseplay was having an effect on her. The bellaneh’s main targets, expertly pinged so many times that I soon lost count, were the tips of the girl's breasts and the cleft of the plump, shaven rise below her belly. The first of these areas, soft, wide roseates before the towel took its teasing rips, now deepened from delicate pink to scarlet and hardened visibly, soon jutting out from the girlish circles to sharp, half-inch long points. The second target widened and dampened with a first quivering and then rhythmic response to the flagellation it received. Finally, with the only motion she made throughout, the girl's hips thrust into the air, her buttocks clearing the floor, and a loud exclamation of joy reached my ears.

Almost immediately, she turned over again, both her hands lost to view beneath her lower body. The bellaneh stood atop her, one of her feet balanced carefully on each of the girls buttocks, forcing them wide apart. I should have thought the girl would find this weight quite uncomfortable, but such was obviously not the case. The bellaneh flicked the towel again now, with deadly accuracy so that it struck deep in the target she had arranged. More quickly than the first time, the girl's little cry of pleasure sounded out.

Now she got to her feet and the bellaneh poured still more steaming water over her until the perspiration was washed from the girl's body. Then the bellaneh approached her with a large vessel filled with soap bubbles and began to sponge her body. This process too became an erotic game.

Rubbing soap between her fingers, the bellaneh manipulated the tips of the girl's breasts until the sensation became so exquisite that the girl grasped her hand and thrust it against her for another rapid journey to the satisfaction of her desire. This was repeated in different ways until, standing behind the girl, the bellaneh reached around her to wash her innermost bodily regions and in the process flipped her breech-cloth up so that her own quivering sex was pressed tightly between the girl's buttocks. The girl used this portion of her body like hands, and this time the cry of ecstasy was a double one.

The bellaneh lifted the girl in her arms and carried her to the sunken bath, depositing her gently in the water. The two of them in the water now, they played and frolicked and splashed for all the world like innocent children. When they were cleansed of the suds, they emerged and the bellaneh once again resumed her role of servant.

Stretching the girl out once again, she proceeded to lather her legs and belly with a thick froth and shaved them clean. This done, she applied some sort of lotion to the shaved surfaces. This must have been astringent, for when she rubbed it over the plump mound at the juncture of the girl's legs, the girl began to moan and move about so that the flesh there rubbed together. Quickly, the bellaneh used a finger to once again provide the release the insatiable patron sought. Then the two of them rose and disappeared through a curtained archway off to one side of the baths.

“Turn your chair around," the sheikh instructed.

Following his example, I reversed my chair so that we now faced another curtain. The sheikh reached out and parted it. I found myself looking down into a small room with a long, narrow massage table in the middle of it.

The bellaneh and the girl we'd been watching had just entered. The girl lay face-down on the table with a pillow under her head. The bellaneh began to knead the girl's flesh gently. After a while, the gentleness gave way to more vigorous rubbing, and was finally replaced by a series of rather harsh blows. The girl on the table rose to her knees, crouching as the bellaneh administered a spanking which left her hindquarters a bright, glowing red.

Following this, the girl turned around so that she was sitting at the very end of the massage table, one of her legs dangling over each side. The bellaneh picked up a long feather and knelt in front of her. What followed would have been worth an entire chapter on sado-masochism in my report on Oriental love customs. It was impossible to tell where the girl's giggles left off and her sobs began. The bellaneh’s use of the feather was devastating, and the final result it achieved was as much hysterical as erotic.

The experience left the girl limp and drained -- but only temporarily. She remained passive as the bellaneh combed and brushed her hair and anointed the tresses with a light oil. Nor did she respond to the caress of the bellaneh's fingers as they massaged scented oil into her body and then coated her flesh with a phosphorescent balm. Indeed, by the time this process was finished, the girl had dozed off. The bellaneh smiled down at her once, and left the chamber.

“Show over?" I asked the sheikh as the girl continued to nap.

“Not at all, Mr. Victor. It is only just beginning. Watch."

Attendants appeared and arranged a large, wide, ornately slip-covered mattress in the center of the room. As they carried the girl from the massage table to it and deposited her there, she scarcely seemed to stir. The table was then removed from the room. Several incense burners were distributed around the chamber and lit. The heady aroma they gave off readied my nostrils and I found it both sweet and strangely stirring. One of the attendants pulled a silken cord in the corner of the room and four yellow, transparent gauze curtains fell to encircle the area of the room where the girl lay sleeping on the mattress. The attendants disappeared as quickly as they'd come. A moment later, a female figure entered and slipped between the transparent draperies.

"Ahh," observed the sheikh, “the sehhiqeh!"

The label clicked in my mind. I was familiar with the sehhiqeh from my work in the field of Eastern sexology. She was a peculiarly Pakistani product and illustrates better than anything else the strange ramifications of the Eastern mixture of sex and religion.

To understand some of these ramifications, it must be remembered that historically Pakistan is the land where the Muslims of Arabia evolved into the Moslems of the Orient. A downtrodden minority in Hindu India, they ghetto-ized themselves and soon became as strange to their Arab-Muslim origins as they were to the teachings of Buddha. Sexually, they rejected the Kama Sutra be- cause of its Hindu orientation and ostensibly governed their love lives by the Sura of the Koran. But this is a highly complex doctrine, beyond the ken of most of the poverty-stricken Moslems of Pakistan, and it wasn't long before they had shelved it in favor of The Perfumed Garden⁹ , a Muslim love-guide written by the Sheikh Nafzaoui some time in the late l390s. This breezy and practical sex manual—whose author, oddly enough, came from Tunis on the coast of North Africa, was considered a heretic by the followers of Mohammed, not only during his own time but for centuries afterwards, and had not the slightest knowledge of the Orient-—became the bible by which Pakistan Moslems lived their sex lives. And parts of The Perfumed Garden still call the shots for the love-makers of Pakistan even today.

That part which relates to the sehhiqeh is known as the zewaj-el-mut’ah, which literally means “union of pleasure system." According to this "system," the sehhiqeh is a girl who has been trained since childhood in the specifics of providing other women with sexual pleasure. She is taught the arts of erotic dancing and stripping and her sexuality is encouraged to the outer-most limits of nymphomania. She regularly doses herself with cantharides (Spanish fly) and frequently ends up in the jails of Karachi because of her frenzied assaults in broad daylight on female children. The result of the constant sex frenzy which is the life of the sehhiqeh is that the great percentage of them die of uterine cancer at an early age. Indisputably, she deserves the dubious title of “The World's Most Accomplished Lesbian."

Now, I watched as the sehhiqeh approached the sleeping beauty. Like the customer, her body was nude and glowed with phosphorescent oils. In loveliness, this sehhiqeh confirmed the fact that only the most superbly formed specimens of her breed are allowed to practice their lust in the bathhouses of Karachi. Allowed, not employed, for the sehhiqeh isn't paid for her services; she performs them for the sheer pleasure it provides her.

Tall and shimmering, her breasts swaying as though alive with eagerness, she crossed to the sleeping girl and gently woke her with a long, deep kiss on the mouth. The girl's eyes opened and she began to languidly caress the flanks of the sehhiqeh. Only a moment, and this produced a visible discharge of pleasure. As if in gratitude, the sehhiqeh knelt over the girl and bestowed a long, drawn-out series of suckling-kisses on her breasts. These were punctuated by the teasing flicking of her tongue and delicate little sharp bites.

The pair moved as if performing a familiar dance to which they each knew all the steps. Their every embrace seemed a part of this dance. The postures were varied and intricate, yet they each had in common the fact that the purpose was more and more heightened stimulation. Finally they stretched out facing each other, each with one leg under the other's body so that the quivering fulcrums of their sex were fused. They joined hands and began rocking back and forth in a seesaw motion. I recognized the position as one recommended in The Perfumed Garden, but the recommendation as I recalled had been made for male-female relations.

No matter!—-at least to them. Quickly, they fell on their shoulders, dropping the handclasp, and both of their lower bodies rose high in the air as the fruits of their mutual delight washed over their limbs and bellies. They held the position for a long moment, straining to savor the last dregs of pleasure.

Just as they sank, exhausted, to the mattress, one of the curtains to our booth opened and a servant signaled to the sheikh. “Ranjit Bey will see us now," Sheikh el Atassi told me, motioning me to follow him.

“Oh well, I guess they were finished anyway," I remarked as we strode down the hallway. .

“You are naive, Mr. Victor. The young ladies were only just beginning. They have many hours of pleasure yet before them."

“You're right, I am naive," I had to admit, awestruck despite all my book knowledge of sexual lore.

The servant led us to an outer chamber and indicated that Ranjit Bey would summon us to the inner room in a moment.

"I think it would be more fruitful if I saw him alone," Sheikh el Atassi suggested. "Do you mind waiting out here, Mr. Victor?"

"Aren't you afraid I’ll run away?"

"1 wouldn't advise it. My men would soon find you. And I'm afraid I should be so irked as to inflict some terrible punishment on your person by way of retribution.

Not only his threat, but also curiosity as to what he might find out from Ranjit Bey regarding the whereabouts of Anna Kirkov and Mustafa Ben Narouz, kept me there. It was about half an hour later that he emerged.

“Well?” I asked him as we left the premises and started for his waiting car.

“They are in Karachi. He isn't sure where. But definitely in the hands of the Chinese."

“Nice of Ranjit Bey to tell you.”

"Nice? No, Mr. Victor. It is just that, with a man like Ranjit Bey, every bit of information he accumulates has its price. I did not dicker with him, I merely paid it. I would wager he is already on the telephone to the Chinese negotiating to see what it is worth to them to be informed of my interest and of the identity of my companion. They too will pay. What he tells them may prove dangerous for us, but the peril is unavoidable."

How right Sheikh el Atassi was in this prognostication was proved to us that very night. We were seated at the dinner table, facing each other. The sheikh was opposite a pair of French doors opening on the garden, and my image was reflected in a large mirror hanging behind his back. Glancing into that mirror as I raised a spoonful of soup to my lips, I spied Death with its cheeks sucked in, poised to strike!

My reaction was quick. I lunged across the table and gave the sheikh a violent shove which spun him from his chair. Just in time. The dart intended for his throat whistled past his right ear, smacked into the mirror and dropped to the carpet, where it stuck.

The sheikh’s two bodyguards made a false start for me, comprehended what had happened, reversed themselves and dove for the French doors. They vanished outside. A moment later they returned with a scurvy-looking Hindu wearing a turban and a dirty white robe in tow. This character was driven to his knees before the sheikh.

One of the guards handed the sheikh a blowpipe. He looked at it for a moment and then passed it to me. There was another dart lodged in it, ready to be fired. "Be careful. You may be sure that it is poisoned," the sheikh told me.

He took the blowgun back and turned to the wretch cringing before him on the carpet. “Who sent you?" he asked. “The Chinese? Of course! Where have they taken the Russian girl? Speak!" He punctuated each query with a sharp slap across the would-be assassin’s face.

The Hindu merely kept pulling his head back and stretching his jaws apart, evidently trying to show us something. Finally, the sheikh noticed and bent low to peer at the gaping mouth. “He can tell us nothing," he said disgustedly, straightening up. “His tongue has been cut out!”

"By who? The Chinese? And why?" I asked.

“More likely the Moslems. Some religious fracas, no doubt. Such things are frequent, as you know. The Sikhs have done worse to Moslems. No doubt this filth deserved it. But in any case he is of no use to us. He can tell us nothing."

"Perhaps he can write it.”

"No. He can't write. He is low-caste. Fit only for his trade of assassin." Sheikh el Atassi picked up the blow-gun and motioned to the guards. They pried the Hindu's mouth open and the sheikh shoved the end of the blowgun down his throat. With a grimace, he put his own lips to the mouthpiece and blew the poison dart down the assassin's windpipe. Within moments, the victim turned a bright and unmistakable shade of blue. Clutching at his throat in agony, he died. The guards carried the corpse out and the sheikh motioned to me to sit back down at the table so that we might resume our dinner.

Bon apetite eluded me. Not so the sheikh. He ate with gusto and punctuated the meal with the series of belches which proved him a master of Arab etiquette. Briefly, I was reminded of my stay with the Hazaras of Afghanistan. His voice brought me back to the present.

"You saved my life, Mr. Victor. I am grateful."

“How grateful?"

"Very grateful." He smiled understandingly. “Suppose you tell me just exactly what it is you want of me, Mr. Victor. If it is in my power, I will try to see that you get it.”

“Mainly my freedom, I guess. I don't like being a prisoner.”

"You have it. From now on, I hope that you will consider yourself my guest, free to come and go as you please." Sheikh el Atassi noticed that one of the guards had returned and was hovering in the doorway, waiting to attract his attention. “Yes? What is it?" the sheikh asked.

“This was found on the person of the dead man, effendi." He handed the sheikh a rnatchbook.

He examined it and passed it across to me. The name of the Cafe Jirgha was imprinted on the front in Pashtu, the language of Pakistan. There was an artist's rendition of a veiled dancing girl in what looked like a quite un-characteristic can-can pose. Underneath this was an advertising blurb which was beyond my meager understanding of Pashtu. I opened the matchbook. On the inside of the cover a circle had been drawn with dots spaced around the inside of it and two lines radiating from the center. Obviously it was meant to indicate a clock. The lines indicating the hands set the time at one o'clock.

“Morning, or afternoon, and what day?" I put the question to Sheikh el Atassi.

"If the Jirgha was to be the meeting place, morning. It would not be open in the afternoon. Also, I think it a good surmise that our assailant was to have reported to whoever hired him following the attack. Therefore, tonight -- or, rather, early tomorrow morning-—would seem a logical time. Probably he had been paid something in advance to kill me, and was to pick up the balance at the Jirgha after the job was done. If we go there at the appointed time, we should be able to determine who employed the Hindu dung to murder me."

“Sounds like a good bet," I agreed.

So, promptly at one a.m., Sheikh el Atassi and I arrived at the Cafe Jirgha. It was a dive, small, dimly lit, and smoke-filled. We stood off to one side of the entry-way and studied the occupants. Suddenly, I felt Sheikh el Atassi stiffen beside me. I looked at his face. It was a study in hatred and the desire for quick vengeance.

“What is it?" I asked.

“Mustafa Ben Narouz! The friend of my youth! My adopted brother!" He pointed to a tall, good-looking young Egyptian sitting alone at a table toward the rear of the nitery. He was set apart from the other patrons by the well-tailored, typically European business suit he wore. The fingers of one hand drumming the table, while the other stroked his carefully clipped moustache, gave away his impatience. He looked like a man who was waiting for someone and getting annoyed because that someone hadn’t materialized.

"So it was really he who arranged for my death," Sheikh el Atassi said bitterly.

“But why?"

“I had served my purpose. I could be of no further use to him. And now I was somehow getting in his way, probably because I was asking questions he did not wish answered. I don't understand fully what his reasons are. But I do understand that I have been betrayed. That is enough. For that there is swift justice. Come." He turned sharp on his heel and led me out of the Cafe Jirgha to the limousine which had been standing by for us.

The sheikh took the seat by the window facing the entrance of the night spot. He pulled out a revolver and checked it carefully. Then he opened the window and sat back to wait.

“Don't kill him now," I said.

“Why not?”

“Because he's the only one who can lead me to Anna Kirkov. If you kill him now, the trail we've picked up becomes a dead end."

"That is of no importance to me. If I don't kill him, who knows when he will arrange to have me slain? It is a matter of survival. One of us must die and I prefer it to be him."

"Understandably. However, I must ask you not to do it. You said earlier that you would do anything to show your gratitude for my saving your life. If you meant that, I must tell you that you can best show it by not killing Ben Narouz before he has led us to the Russian girl."

“Very well, Mr. Victor. I am a man of honor. It shall be as you wish." He put the gun away. “I presume you wish to follow him when he emerges?”

“Yes.”

“Then we shall do so."

Less than an hour later Ben Narouz emerged and climbed behind the wheel of a jazzy sports car. We tailed him through the narrow streets of Karachi until he reached the outskirts of the city. Here he got onto a surprisingly modern highway and stepped on the gas. Headlights out, we stayed behind him.

After about twenty minutes of this, the intercom buzzed, signifying that the chauffeur had something to communicate to Sheikh el Atassi. The sheikh picked up the earphone, listened, murmured something into the mouthpiece and hung up. “He wishes to warn us that we are proceeding into very dangerous territory,” the sheikh told me. "I instructed him to proceed anyway.”

“Dangerous how?"

“There is a band of Sikh terrorists in these hills who prey on the Moslem natives. Recently, some of the young Moslems have formed themselves into a sort of vigilante band to combat them. The two groups have been fighting pitched battles. Also, the Moslem band has proven just as apt to attack and rob traveling strangers as the Sikhs. This is indeed dangerous country Ben Narouz has chosen to transverse in the middle of the night; “

“Well isn't that just ginger-peachy?" I said wryly. As if things weren't complicated enough!"

But I didn't know just how complicated they could get. About ten minutes later I got a hint of the potential. The buzzer sounded again and Sheikh el Atassi answered it.

“The driver tells me we are being followed," he announced calmly after he'd hung up. “He advises that if we watch carefully after we go around this next hairpin turn we will be able to see the vehicle following us on the road below."

We followed the driver's advice. We looked.

"I'll be damned!" The words exploded in surprise from my lips. There was a car following us all right. But that wasn’t all. There was also a car cautiously tailing the car that was following us! Now there were four of us sled-dogging, up the winding highway, with all but the lead dog hanging back with headlights out and trying not to be noticed! “Everybody loves a parade," I started to add philosophically. But before I could finish the sentence, the night was exploding with bullets all around us.

Crackling volleys of rifle fire were followed by the chatter of at least two machine guns. The sounds were coming both from up in front -- from the hills on both sides of the patch of road Ben Narouz had reached-—and from behind the fourth car in our little parade. My guess, confirmed later, was that the Sikhs had let all four of us drive into the ambush and were now closing in on us.

A roadblock in front of him forced Ben Narouz from the road. He had no choice but to drive his sports car off to a field where the hills gave way to flat ground. This too, I suspected, had been planned in advance. Especially since we had no choice but to follow him.

Ben Narouz leaped from his sports car, gun in hand, and took shelter underneath it. It seemed a good idea, and as our limousine braked to a halt, I reached for the door, bent on following his example. Sheikh el Atassi stopped me.

"We're safer inside," he told me. “This car is completely bulletproof."

“Looks like we've got a ringside seat," I said, sitting back. The third and fourth cars were pulling onto the field now and soon people were tumbling out of them and diving for shelter underneath them. Figures with guns appeared around the fringes of the field and started closing in on the four vehicles.

“Sikh terrorists.” Sheikh el Atassi identified them as they drew closer. “Be prepared to battle, Mr. Victor. It will be better to die fighting them off than to be taken prisoner. Torture is a great sport to them. It can go on for days before the release of death."

“Cheerful alternatives." I checked my pistol. From under the other cars, a flurry of bullets was already flying back at the Sikhs.

This defense couldn't have been effective in the long run, but as things turned out, it lasted just long enough to change all our prospects for living through the ambush. Suddenly, from behind the Sikhs came a heavy volley of fire and they were forced to regroup to meet it.

“Ah,” said the sheikh, “the Moslems!"

“That’s a stroke of luck."

“You are optimistic, Mr. Victor. Actually, we will fare no better at their hands than we would with the Sikhs.” He picked up a pair of field glasses and zero’d in on the heat of the battle. "But wait a moment! What is this?" he exclaimed.

“Let me see." He passed me the glasses. The Sikhs and Moslems were tangling in hand-to-hand fighting on one side of the field. The rest of the battle was a swapping of sniper shots between them. I raised the glasses and saw what it was that had so startled the sheikh. Down the road from which we'd come, a large truck was parked. The tailgate had been lowered to provide a ramp of the sort used on tank-carriers. And an armored tank was indeed rolling up the road toward the battle. "Chinese," I told the sheikh positively.

“But how can you be sure?"

“I’ve seen many like it. During the Korean War, the Russians manufactured them for the Red Chinese."

“But what is it doing in Pakistan?"

"The same thing Ben Narouz is, I'd imagine. With all the interests the Red Chinese seem to have in this area, why wouldn't they keep some weapons around to protect themselves? Right now. I'd say that tank is bent on rescuing our Egyptian friend from his predicament."

The tank now opened fire on Sikhs and Moslems alike, trying to clear a path to Ben Narouz. They returned the fire while continuing to shoot at each other. They also found time to send a few slugs toward the four cars. Some of this fire was likewise being returned.

I returned the binoculars to the sheikh. He surveyed the scene a moment and then exclaimed once again. "Mr. Victor! Look at this! The people under the cars are shooting at one another!"

I took the glasses back and saw that he was right. A moment later I saw why. Under the car which had been tailing us, I spotted Potemchenko and five of his Russian bully-boys. And beneath the car which had been following them, I spied Victoria Winters and Alan Foster. I laughed to myself. It figured. It all figured.

I tried to explain it to the sheikh. “Over there"—I pointed --“are a British Intelligence agent and an American C.I.A. man. And over there is a sextet of Russian NKVD boys. At times like this it's part of their job to shoot at each other. Now, the Russians are shooting at Ben Narouz because he kidnapped Anna Kirkov and they are too stupid to see that by killing him they may lose all chance of getting her back. The American and the British girl are probably shooting at him because from what I've seen he is a lousy marksman and in returning the Russians fire he hit their car by mistake. Or, Ben Narouz may have thought that the rest of us are all together in this on the side opposed to him. Which isn't so far from the truth—-but that's another story. Anyway, he's returning their fire now, so all three cars are swapping bullets and shooting at the Sikhs who are shooting back and who are shooting at the Moslems who are returning their fire and also shooting at the three cars indiscriminately. And both the Sikhs andthe Moslems are shooting at the Chinese tank which is likewise returning the compliment. Is everything clear now?"

The sheikh didn't seem to care whether it was or not. Only one thing that I said had stuck in his mind. "Those Russians over there-—are they the ones you told me about on the plane? Are they the ones you said had Ben-Kavir killed?"

“That stupid-looking ape with the Van Dyke is the one responsible." I pointed Potemchenko out to him.

The sheikh rolled down the window and sighted his revolver past Ben Narouz towards Potemchenko. As the shot whined past Ben Narouz, he snapped one back at our car. Potemchenko also returned the fire.

That made it unanimous. It was a small-scale war with representatives of all nations participating. A U.N. commission couldn't have straightened out all the misunderstandings, let alone gotten people to stop shooting long enough to try. I seemed to be alone in that fray in having no particular desire to murder anybody.

I was strictly neutral. Just an innocent bystander. Let them all kill each other off. I couldn't care less. I had everything to gain by the slaughter and nothing to lose.

Nothing but my life!

009

THE BATTLE continued. Umpteen ways—and more. Two ways more, the first of which Sheikh Taj-ed el Atassi called to my attention as the Red Chinese tank drew closer.

“The armor of our car will never withstand a shell from that tank,” he said, his voice worried.

"Why should they want to shell us?” I asked.

“It is quite possible that they might recognize this car, or even recognize me with the help of binoculars. In my particular business, the Red Chinese are direct competitors. And in this part of the world, the competition between us has been bitter. You see, their white slavery activities are inextricably tied up with their marketing of opium and their political aims. The existence of well-organized competition isn't just a business matter, it's a threat to their national goals. I am a thorn in their side and they would be happy to remove the thorn. If, in the confusion and heat of all this battle, they can accomplish that with a calculated shell, they would not hesitate for a moment. So, if they have recognized me, the danger we are in has been greatly increased."

"Well," I said drily, surveying the raging fight around us, “I guess if they want to kill us they'll just have to get in line and wait their turn."

"You are a philosopher, Mr. Victor." He snapped off a couple of shots in the general direction of Ben Narouz and Potemchenko, then swung his arm around to fire at the Sikhs who in retreating from the Moslems (who were retreating from the Chinese tank) were advancing towards us.

It was only a matter of moments before the retreating Sikhs must overwhelm us. I thought about diving from the car and making a run for it. The idea vanished as a bugle call sounded a cavalry charge -- so help me!-—and announced one more complication for an already impossibly mixed-up situation. I squinted toward where the sound had come from and there was just enough light from the beginning sunrise for me to make out squads of uniformed horsemen galloping in formation toward the plain we were on from the hills above.

“Pakistan government troops," the sheikh observed.

"You're sure it's not the United States Marines? Or the Cold Stream Guards? Or the Sinn Fein? Or the Irgun? Or maybe the Canadian Royal Mounted Police? I mean, I wouldn't want to see anybody miss out on the fun here!"

“No. It is the Pakistani Army cavalry, Mr. Victor.”

“Shucks! And we hardly had time to get the wagons in a circle."

“I beg your pardon?"

“Nothing. Just being funny. Tell me, just whose side are they going to be on?"

“Nobody’s. Their function is to keep the peace," the sheikh explained, seeming not to see the humor of the statement. “They should be acting to protect us and to drive off Sikhs and Moslems alike. However, my guess is that they will concentrate on destroying that Chinese tank since it represents another nation mixing in Pakistan's internal disorders.”

The cavalry was indeed converging on the tank, which had swiveled away from the guerilla bands to meet it. Nevertheless, the cavalry charge had served to frighten the Sikhs and the Moslems. Both groups were in flight now, and neither was pausing to harass the occupants of the four cars any further. I started to breath easier, as the danger seemed to be dissipating, but I was premature.

Suddenly, a figure sprang up beside our limousine, a gun-barrel poked through the quarter-opened window from which the sheikh had been shooting, and two careful shots sounded in my eardrums. The first bullet blew apart the sheikh's face; the second separated the chauffeur from the top of his head. Splattered with bloody bits and pieces of Sheikh Tajed el Atassi, I dived to the floor of the car and waited for the inevitable third bullet to ferry me over the River Styx.

It never came. . .

I un-chickened sufficiently to angle around and identify the sudden killer. I found myself looking into the ominously grinning face of Vladimir Potemchenko. His still-smoking gun was waving in my direction, but he didn't look like he was about to use it on me right away. He looked, rather, like a man who had just scored at his favorite sport and was enjoying a time-out.

Slowly, his smile faded under the expression of disgust on my face. “Mr. Victor, you don't look very grateful that I have rescued you.”

“Rescued me from what?" I asked, looking at the hectic turmoil still going on around us.

"From your captor." He indicated what was left of the sheikh.

"1 wasn't his prisoner."

“You weren't? But I thought-—"

“That's your trouble, Potemchenko, you thought! You really shouldn't think! Every time you do, you bump someone off. And you have a positive talent for killing the wrong people! First Ben-Kavir, who was helping me, and Basra, that poor innocent cab driver. Then Dr. Suno Wong, the Red Chinese scientist, just at the time when he might have led to the recovery of Anna Kirkov. And now Sheikh el Atassi, without whose help I would never have picked up her trail again. You’re supposed to be cooperating with me, Potemchenko, not making a hobby out of slaughtering the very people who are most useful to me. If Moscow knew how you were fouling me up, it would be good-bye Potemchenko And if you don’t stay out of my way, I'm liable to tell them. So get off my back, Potemchenko! And stay off!"

“You dare to talk to me like that, Yankee pig! I am not afraid of you! When Moscow learns how right I am in judging you an imperialist double agent, they will reward me for keeping you under surveillance!" Still, my words must have worried him more than his reply indicated. After he'd spit his answer out, he dropped to his belly and crawled back towards the shelter of his car. Watching his snakelike progress, I could see why we hadn't spotted him coming before. His brown suit merged into the earth and by the time he was a few feet away he was invisible.

But the evening clothes of Mustafa Ben Narouz provided no such camouflage. Because they showed up so well, I spotted him immediately as he crawled off at an angle from Potemchenko’s path. He had picked his time well, and in all the Moslem-Sikh-Chinese-Pakistani confusion, nobody noticed him trying to make his escape except me. I opened the door of the car, crawled over Sheikh el Atassi’s corpse, and inched my way along the ground after Ben Narouz.

It soon became obvious that he was trying to reach the tank-carrier parked down the road. He pursued a circular route, skirting the edges of the battle, and I followed about fifty feet behind him. When he reached the road he bolted for the truck and I trotted behind him, keeping to the shadows.

Ben Narouz ran past the tailgate and pulled himself into the cab alongside the driver. I took a chance that the rear of the van was empty and raced up the tail-ramp to hide in the darkest comer I could find. The chance paid off. There was no one there. I could hear the muffled voices of Ben Narouz and the driver through the partition separating the van from the cab.

I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I guessed from the tones of their voices that the Egyptian was ordering the Chinese driver to take off and that the driver wanted to wait until the tank fought free of the Pakistani cavalry and returned. Ben Narouz’s authority must have won out, because after a short while the driver climbed out of the cab to come around back to flip the tailgate ramp inside the truck and close the doors on it. A moment later, the tank-carrier took off up the road with a roar.

There was a peephole slot in the metal tail-doors, and I made use of it. As we shot past where the battle was still raging, the elements of a surrealist Keystone Cops chase scene began falling into line. First the tank itself, almost wistfully, fled from the Pakistanis and chased after the carrier like a fledgling bird trying to catch up with a mobile nest. Behind the tank came the horsemen, their sabres bouncing uselessly off the armor, charging again and again in a frenzy of frustration born of their obsolescence in these days of mechanized warfare. Like- wise, many of them were frustrated in their attempts to whip their horses to a fast enough gallop to catch the now speeding carrier. Then, coming in at an angle, two cars—Potemchenko's, and the one being used by Alan Foster and Vickie Winters—bypassed the tank and the horsemen to pull onto the road and chase after the speeding carrier. The two cars were well-matched, maintaining a fast-paced race, side-by-side, while the occupants lobbed hot lead from auto to auto. The road curved sharply and I couldn't see any more until another curve showed me the Pakistani cavalry cutting across the fields in an evident attempt to intercept the tank-carrier. A. moment later I saw the objective from which they were trying to cut off Ben Narouz.

It was a large military transport plane, a reconverted bomber, a four-motor job of the type used by the Red Chinese in the Korean War before the Russkys started supplying them with jets. We screeched to a halt beside it just before the Pakistanis converged on the plane. Ben Narouz and the driver scuttled up a ramp and through the plane's door. A moment later the ramp was shoved away and the door closed and locked.

The Pakistanis were galloping toward the front of the plane, but were still a short distance away. I let myself out of the truck and scuttled under the mid-section of the plane for cover. I was in luck. They must have been loading the plane when all the excitement started. The bomb-bay doors were still open. As I was pulling myself up and through them, I saw the two cars pull up, one a short distance behind the other, and vague figures started running from them.

Inside the plane's belly, I found a hiding place between two crates and settled myself. There was the sound of a machine gun chattering from up front. A moment later there was the cough of a motor as the pilot started revving the engines. A female shadow blocked the dim light from the bomb-bay opening and a moment later a male shadow pulled itself up alongside it. They disappeared in the darkness of the interior as rifle slugs began bouncing off the fuselage near where I was hiding. A third figure followed them after a while, poised in a silhouetted crouch for a moment and then also vanished into the blackness. Then a hand reached up through the bomb-bay, followed by an arm covered with the sleeve of a Pakistan uniform. But before the soldier could pull himself inside, an auxiliary motor whirred and the bomb-bay doors started to snap shut. He dropped to the ground before his arm could be pinched off by them.

Now it was pitch-black inside the plane. The sounds of battle lasted a while, but subsided soon after the plane began to move. They abated even more, and finally dropped out of earshot as the plane rose from the ground and gained altitude.

"You okay, Vickie?” I could barely hear the whisper over the noise of the engines.

“I'm all right," answered the voice of Victoria Winters. "But you'd better light a match, Alan. We don't know how soon this plane is going to land and we'd better find ourselves a good hiding place and try to figure a way of getting out without being seen."

A cigarette lighter illuminated the face of Alan Foster, the C.I.A. agent, and then, as he raised it higher, Vickie’s face as well. “I suppose you're right," he said. “But you know, if we're headed for China, we're as good as dead now." So he'd spotted that Chinese tank for what it was, too; it figured. “Anyway, I'm not even too sure what the hell we're doing here. I think we've dived right out of the Russian frying pan into the Chinese fire."

“We had no choice," said Vickie. “It all happened too fast. There was no time to discuss the pros and cons. If we didn't want to lose Steve Victor, we had to get on this plane before it took off."

“I don't know. We aren't even sure that he’s on. board."

"He must be. They wouldn't have taken off without him. He's obviously too important to the Chinese Reds to be left behind. If he wasn't, why would they have gone to all this trouble to get him out of Karachi?"

“I hope you're right," said Foster. "You know, it's still hard to believe it's the Chinese Reds he's working for. All the leads I had pointed to him working for the Russkys."

“Maybe he's playing footsie with both of them."

“I wouldn't put it past him. You can say what you want, but that Steve Victor is the shrewdest Red agent I've ever come across."

Thanks for the compliment, Foster, I thought to myself wryly. Any further reflections I might have had on their opinion of me were forestalled by the sudden sound of the voice of Vladimir Potemchenko. “Drop your gun," he said from the darkness somewhere near Alan and Vickie. “I have you both covered."

Instead, Alan doused the lighter and the two of them dived to the floor. Fortunately, for once Potemchenko didn't shoot. But he did come up with a small flashlight. The beam searched the blackness for the couple—and came up with me as a substitute.

“Steve Victor!" The three of them spoke my name in chorus.

“And his performing troupe of international seals," I added as the beam from Potemchenko’s flashlight bounced from me to the couple and back. It ended up midway between us, hovering with Potemchenko’s indecision.

The brief glimpse of Vickie and Alan had been enough to show me that they both had their guns drawn. So did Potemchenko. So did I. But none of us dared shoot for fear of alerting the Chinese Reds in the front of the plane to our presence.

It was a predicament, and a frozen one at that. Hours went by and it remained the same. Potemchenko kept bouncing the light from them to me and aiming his gun accordingly. Alan Foster kept his gun leveled just above the source of the beam. Beside him, Vickie aimed at me, realigning her revolver each time Potemchenko’s light hit me. At first, I played the game of aiming first at Potemchenko and then at them, but finally I just sat back and got a little shut-eye. Whatever was going to happen would happen—-but not before the plane landed. Let them cover each other for me. Neither was likely to let the other jump me.

Finally, my stomach dropped with the plane and my eyes opened. Nothing had changed. It was still the same three-way game of cat-and-mouse. As Potemchenko’s beam hit me, I gave them my toothiest smile and was rewarded by a giggle from Vickie. The plane settled in on a glide-path for landing, and I thought to myself that it was a hell of a predicament. The three of them obviously all believed now that I was an agent for the Chinese Reds. Besides the problems that presented, there was also the question of how I was going to avoid the Chinese Reds and get off the plane. The only bright note was that the other three had the same problem.

As the wheels touched the ground, Potemchenko made his move. He must have figured that the crew would be too busy with the landing to check immediately on the sound of a shot. He swung the light-beam directly into my eyes and fired.

Only the lousy judgment of the Chinese pilot saved me. Just as Potemchenko shot, the plane bounced up and then down again hard, jarring his hand just enough so that the bullet whizzed past my ear. He got no chance for a second shot. Alan Foster was on him immediately and the light went spinning from his hand as the butt of Foster's gun crunched in Potemchenko’s skull.

I tried to scurry for a new hiding place, but I couldn't move fast enough. Vickie had grabbed Potemchenko's flashlight and the beam caught me in mid-dash. She had the drop on me also, so there was nothing to do but freeze as she instructed while Alan finished off Potemchenko. She motioned me to drop my gun and I did. Then she indicated that I should join their little group and I obeyed that order as well.

When the muzzle of her gun was pressed securely against my spine, she took the light off me and pointed it down at Potemchenko. Foster's second blow had killed him all right. The top of his skull looked like something inching its way out of a meat-grinder. I looked at his staring dead eyes for a moment with satisfaction. Ben-Kavir. Basra. Dr. Suno Wong. Sheikh Taj-ed el Atassi. And who knew how many more? If ever anybody had it coming to him, it was Potemchenko. He was dead now, and I'd have bet they'd have a hard time finding even one mourner for him.

But even if one of us had been so inclined, we hadn't the time for crocodile tears. “That shot's liable to have them back here before the plane stops moving," Alan pointed out correctly. "We’ve got to get out of here."

"But how?" Vickie asked.

"The bomb-bay is the only way. We'll have to force it open."

“You can't force it," I said. “It's electrically operated."

"And maybe you don't want us to, hey, Victor?" Alan said. “Maybe you'd just like the Reds to catch us."

“No,” I said honestly. “That’s the last thing I want. I'm as anxious to get out of here as you are. The only difference is that I know how we can open those doors."

"All right. How?"

“By short-circuiting the wires leading to it. I can do it for you.”

"Why should we trust you?" .

“Because you have no choice," I told him.

He saw the logic of that. “Go ahead,” he agreed.

They both kept their guns on me as I pried loose the wires and manipulated them. It worked. The plane was just coming to a stop as the bomb-bay doors fell open. And we were just steeling ourselves to jump from it as the door to the front opened and light flooded over us. The two Chinese framed in the door asked no questions. Even as we jumped, they started shooting. Alan's arm was around my neck and his gun was pressed to my ear as we hit the ground and the plane passed over us. Victoria was with us and we all three got to our feet together.

We were on an open field fringed by woods. We started for them at a trot and Alan's gun nuzzled my back as we ran. It stayed there for the next hour or so as we purposely tried to lose ourselves in the jungle-like undergrowth. Finally, we emerged in a sheltered clearing and Alan called a halt.

“Where are we?" Vickie asked. Her blouse was torn, her face smudged with dirt and her breasts straining for air after the exertion of our flight. But, somehow, she still looked as desirable as ever.

“My guess is some place in India,” Alan said. “But I'm not sure just what part."

“Well, I hope we're near some large city so I can notify my people that I've taken Victor prisoner," she said.

"I’m sorry, Vickie," Alan said. “But he's my prisoner, not yours.”

“I'm afraid I'll have to dispute that, A1an," Vickie insisted politely, but firmly. “He is my prisoner. We have proof that he's involved with a white slavery operation that extends into British territory."

“He's an American. And I have proof that he's been working with the Russians. That makes him a defector. A traitor to his country. And his country's the U.S.A. Not England. So you see, it’s logical that we should bring him to justice."

“I don't see it that way, Alan. And neither will British Intelligence. I say he's my prisoner!”

“And I still say he's mine!"

They stared at each other stubbornly, stalemated.

“It's great to be wanted," I said. “I’m all choked up." The guns of both of them swiveled towards me at the sound of my voice. “But this is no time for sentiment," I added, “as flattering as it is. Right now, I'd suggest we find some kind of civilization before those Reds track us down."

“Victor, I can't figure you out," Alan said.

“And neither can I," Vickie concurred.

“I'm a deep one," I told them. “But what do you say we get moving?”

We got moving. And we kept moving through most of that day. For a long time, the jungle kept getting denser and denser. Then, in late afternoon, we came out of it and into an area of fields under cultivation. We saw an occasional peasant between then and nightfall, but we avoided them. It must have been around midnight when we finally saw the glow of city lights in the distance.

Calcutta. It was almost dawn when we entered the city proper and found out that's where we were. Both Alan and Vickie were happy that it turned out to be Calcutta. Both of them had contacts with their organizations in the city. Alan made a phone call from a restaurant we stopped at and within an hour a man arrived with some money for him. Then the three of us crowded into one room at a fleabag hotel. I rested while they made further contacts with their respective outfits and then continued the wrangling over whose prisoner I was. Each of them assured the other that the top men of their secret services would soon arrive to claim me—and to make the claim stick.

They arrived together. An Englishman with marbles in his mouth and the respectable look of a tea-leaf exporter. And an American, the sight of whom gladdened me tremendously. It was Charles Putnam, the hard-as nails espionage boss who had recruited me for this assignment back in Damascus a million years or so ago.

He didn't stay long. He didn't have to. A few words to Alan Foster turned him into my unquestioning ally. A few more to Vickie’s boss and she was instructed to cooperate with me fully no matter where such cooperation might lead. Then both men departed and the two of them looked at me with awe and respect. “What do you want us to do?" Vickie put the new feeling into words.

“Call room service and order a bottle of scotch and three of the thickest steaks they can find. After that, we'll see," I told them.

What I saw when we'd finished eating was that Vickie was exhausted. I sent her off to bed. Alan, however, like myself, wasn't tired. We decided on a stroll through the slums of Calcutta.

Really, at this point I didn't have an idea in the world. And when one came to me, it really had nothing to do with finding Anna Kirkov. Rather it was the inspiration for the paying of a recent debt.

The main thing that strikes a visitor to Calcutta-—once he gets away from the tourist traps and into the old section of the city—-is the visible proof of the lack of toilet facilities. Every inch of street -- -sidewalk and gutter alike-—is fair territory for use as an outhouse. And the people, conditioned to a lack of the niceties, use them that way publicly, following the Hindu custom of as signing specific tasks to specific hands.

Spotting one such ragged creature so engaged, paused. “Can we be sure that he's a Hindu?" I asked Alan,

“Sure he's a Hindu. Why?"

I ignored the question and approached the squatting figure. I took out my wallet and carefully counted out some money. He looked at me in amazementas I handed it to him and made some rather obscene gestures by way of showing what I wanted him to do with it. He caught on and did what the gestures suggested. I walked on with a speechless Alan, feeling quite satisfied with what I'd done.

I'd made good on the dying wish of Basra, the Baghdad cab driver. His sister would never see the money now. It had been disposed of as Basra had wished. His fee had been paid in full.

I could almost hear him chuckling in the fetid air of Calcutta. I suspected that he'd known all along that's all money is really good for. It was the game he'd appreciated, not the money itself. And I hadn't spoiled his record of winning that game.

I’d seen to it that Basra collected on his final job!

010

POLITICS MAKE bedfellows strange. That was one lesson learned during my short stay in Calcutta. Auparis’taka¹⁰ . That was another. And allies gained are quickly lost. Still another.

The last-mentioned was the first learned. It was conveyed to me by Charles Putnam. A hand-delivered message summoned me to a meeting with him the following morning. In his usual terse way, he filled me in on decisions reached and plans to be followed.

"Alan Foster and Miss Winters will be gone by the time you return to your hotel,” he told me. “Arrangements have been made for them to leave on the noon plane for Tokyo."

"Why?"

“Our information is that the Chinese may have identified both of them as agents. If this is true, we don’t want to impair your effectiveness by having you connected with either of them. So far, there is no reason to think the association has been noticed. But if it continued, it would only be a matter of time before your position was compromised."

"I see."

"Now, things have also been arranged so that you needn't return to the hotel at which the three of you were staying. A suite has been taken for you at the Regal House—one of the swankiest international hotels in Calcutta—and luggage, clothing and other appurtenance have already been installed there. You will live in a style fitting to an American scientific investigator."

“Sounds great."

“It is luxurious. However, you shan't enjoy it for long."

“How come?"

“This evening, after dinner, you will return to your quarters. At eight-thirty, you will receive a telephone call from Abhira Jayasana. He is a wealthy export merchant who ranks high in the society of Calcutta and who frequently entertains foreign dignitaries. He will invite you to spend the weekend at his estate on the outskirts of Calcutta. You will accept. Arrangements will be made for a car to pick you up and transport you there the following morning."

“And the reason for my accepting?" I asked.

“Mustafa Ben Narouz is also a house guest there."

“I see. That sounds cozy. Is there anything else I should know?"

"No. I'm sorry, but we have no information to make your task any easier."

“What about this Jayasana? Will he be on my side? How far can I count on him?"

“You can't. He is as determinedly neutral as his government has been. All he knows is that you are a prominent American scientist and it's a social feather in his cap to play host to you. One of our embassy gadabouts tipped him off to your presence in Calcutta and the invitation will be automatic with him. He was also told that you always nap after dinner, so make sure that you're in your room at eight-thirty to receive his call."

"Check.”

I left Putnam and followed instructions. The Regal House was posh. The call from Jayasana came right on schedule. And just before noon the next day I was stepping out of a chauffeured Rolls Royce and following a white-robed servant inside Jayasana's ivory-white, Oriental-style mansion.

My host greeted me in the library. Italian-cut sports clothes, Indian turban, Oxford accent, wealthy and warm —that was Abhira Jayasana. He made me feel right at home, discussed my specialty briefly, but with surprising knowledgeableness, then suggested I might like to retire to my room until luncheon, which would be at one o'clock.

There were four of us at lunch. Jayasana, myself, his daughter Samantha and an Englishman named Wilfred Cunningham. Mustafa Ben Narouz wasn't present and I gathered from the conversation that he planned to spend the afternoon in his room “writing letters," but would join us at dinner.

Samantha Jayasana was a tall, gracefully attractive girl of about twenty years or so. Her voice was soft and cultivated, her conversation literary and impersonal—an impersonality belied by the decided flirtatiousness of her sparkling dark eyes. Her skin was a reddish-brown and she wore a multi-colored sari which covered but didn't conceal the ample curves of her Junoesque body.

She didn't like Cunningham and had difficulty concealing her dislike. I didn't blame her. He was a stock caricature of the imperialist and imperious Englishman left behind in “Ind-ja" after the British gave it back to the Indians. Red-faced, with bogus Empire breeding shellacked to contemptuous hardness for the “bloody heathens" blood-line strictly Colonel Blimp out of Nigel Bruce with a C. Aubrey Smith whiplash to his whine; a clinger to Kipling values, but the unsureness of his watery blue eyes gave him away and labeled him as a man out of his time, a relic left mystified by a land which had surpassed even his disdain. His presence was more a matter of business than social, and the politeness with which Jayasana countered his thinly-veiled prejudices towards modern India and Indians was actually the most devastating of rebukes.

After lunch, Samantha and I left the other two to their business and she saw to it that the afternoon passed most pleasantly. She showed me the gardens, jasmine-scented and magnificent in a riot of carefully landscaped colors. We went horseback riding and later took a swim in the lavish pool sprawling behind the tennis courts. Then we parted to dress for dinner. Soup-and-fish all around, with Samantha a knockout in a strapless evening gown of gold lamé that hinted of Paris and set off her bronze complexion to perfection. There were cocktails first, and the rest of us were already sipping them when Mustafa Ben Narouz made his entrance. As it happened, the moment he picked to arrive was inadvertently designed to give me an unexpected insight into Ben Narouz.

Jayasana was patiently listening to Cunningham outlining some interminable business proposition to him, and Samantha and I had drifted over to the other side of the room to resume the bantering flirtation we'd begun that afternoon. This consisted of swapping vaguely sexual innuendoes, mots and often outrageous puns. “Sex is just a number after five," was my not too original reply to some remark of hers and it struck her as being quite funny. Her eyes sparkled and she punctuated her laughter with an impulsive caress, her hand lingering tinglingly along the side of my face. It was at that precise moment that I looked up and saw Mustafa Ben Narouz poised in the doorway.

His face gave him away. There was no mistaking the expression of jealousy written on it. The full upper lip under the pencil-line moustache was drawn back over his even white teeth. A paleness had erased the natural ruddiness of his cheeks. His eyes, narrowed, were twin pools of jealous rage.

It only lasted a split moment. Then the impression dissolved as he continued into the room. There was no sign of his jealousy, no strain to his easy composure, as Samantha introduced us. The change was so complete that I wondered if my first impression had been right

It had been. A second such moment and a frank acknowledgement from Samantha confirmed it. Both followed dinner, during which Ben Narouz dominated the conversation in a manner that was both urbane and witty. He spoke well on a wide variety of topics and I, as well as the others, found him quite entertaining. For a youth in his early twenties, Ben Narouz had the personable sophistication usually found only in an older man.

Nevertheless, it collapsed into that expression of petulance and youthful jealousy when, after coffee, Samantha neglected to include him in her invitation to show me the gardens by moonlight. I could almost feel his eyes shooting darts into my back as we left by the doors leading onto the patio. And the note of agitation in his voice was audible as he continued the conversation with Jayasana and Cunningham .

"Our young friend seems a little miffed at our pairing off this way," I observed to Samantha.

“You noticed? You are very observant, Mr. Victor. And you are right. Where I am concerned, Mustafa sometimes behaves like a schoolboy.”

“Then there is something between you?"

"Something. Just how much, I am not sure myself.”

"I shouldn't want my attentions to you to cause you any embarrassment," I said, putting it diplomatically. Actually, it was her attentions to me which had roused the Egyptian's dander.

“But I enjoy them!" she protested. “If they annoy Mustafa, that's his concern. I am not his property. No understanding has been reached between us. He has not spoken to my father of his feelings."

“Has he spoken to you?"

"Yes. And he has made love to me politely, but far from completely. In one way, his circumspect treatment of me, that sort of exaggerated respect that makes me feel more like a piece of delicate china than a flesh-and-blood woman, is more of an obstacle standing between his ardor and me than you are, Mr. Victor.”

“Strange for a man who seems to be so well-traveled." I was fishing.

"Yes. But many a man with a wide experience of women has forgotten all he knows when confronted by one for whom he has genuine feeling."

“And do you return that feeling?"

“I don't know, Mr. Victor. I am young. I have had little experience with love myself. I do not want to tie myself down to one man until I have had some knowledge of others. And besides, I have not known Mustafa long enough to judge him, or how I feel about him."

“How long have you known him?"

“About two years. But the period is misleading. I first met him about two years ago, but this is really only the second time I have seen him during that period. We established quite a rapport during his first visit. He evidently feels that we should automatically resume it now. But I am woman enough to resent his taking me for granted all this time. People change, and if he wishes to pick up where he left off, then he must woo me anew, start from scratch, as you Americans say."

“How did you meet?" I was wondering to myself what Samantha's reaction would be if she knew that Mustafa had acquired a Russian wife during the two-year hiatus in their relationship.

“My Father met him at a party at the U.A.R. embassy and invited him to stay with us while he was in Calcutta. He was on his way to Peking at the time and Father also invited him to visit us on the return trip. He accepted, but after he left, we got a note that he wouldn’t be stopping over in Calcutta on his way back to Cairo. Father wrote back extending him a blanket invitation for whenever his travels should bring him this way again. Two days ago he called to say that he had just arrived in Calcutta and Father once again extended our hospitality, which he accepted."

Interesting! So Mustafa had been in China before going as an exchange student to the Soviet Union. I wondered why he'd stopped off in Calcutta en route that first time. And I wondered what he was doing here now. His feeling for Samantha might have been reason enough ordinarily, but not at this time when he was so involved with delivering Anna Kirkov to the Chinese.

I left the various questions this posed for later consideration and turned back to Samantha, We were deep in the gardens now and her face was alternately lost in the shadows and spotlighted by the moonrays. Her arm locked in mine had pressed her breast tight against me and I was much aware of its softness and warmth and I knew that she was conscious of my awareness. It showed in her eyes as she turned to me after I'd asked a question implying that the attention she was lavishing on me might be designed to make Mustafa even more jealous.

“That's not true!" She denied the insinuation indignantly. “And I shouldn't have thought you a man with so little ego, Mr. Victor. Why should I not be interested in you for yourself?”

Her lips were very close to mine as she posed the query, and it seemed natural to kiss her, rather than answer. Her response to the kiss took me by surprise. Her mouth clung to mine hungrily and all the curiosity of an aroused young virgin was evident in the way her body seemed to open itself as though seeking more intimate caresses. I was quick to grant them, aroused even more than she by the fever-heat of her flesh straining against the flimsy gown she wore.

She leaned back, the upper part of her body away from me, her legs squeezed tightly together so that the point of their juncture thrust forward, a burning mound as probing for contact through our clothing as that region of my own body was. My hand slid down behind her and her buttocks were flexed tightly under the thin material. Her hips rotated in response to the caress and I found myself falling in with her rhythm. She pushed down one side of the top of her evening gown and the gold and ivory of one perfect breast—lighter in color than the rest of her bronze complexion—swelled in the moonglow. The tip was light pink and a single telltale drop of moisture glistened at the sharp point of its quivering surface. The roseate circling it was dark brown, contrasting with both the nipple and the breast itself. Her hand pushed at the back of my neck and I bent low to cover the plump sweetness with my mouth.

Her breast trembled under my lips and tongue. An eager moan escaped her. Our bodies continued their circling movements and the heat at the point of contact grew until it seemed an actual flame, rather than a manifestation of our wildly increasing desire. I reached down and grasped her thigh, tugging at the material of her gown until I had enough of it in my grasp to pull the rest of the skirt up over her hips. Her derriére muscles relaxed and her thighs opened to admit my searching hand. Quickly, I pushed aside her silken panties and plunged deep into the-dampness of her eagerly pulsating womanhood. Just as quickly, before I could reach my objective, she pushed me away.

“No, Mr. Victor," she said firmly. "1 am a virgin and I must remain so until my marriage. So it is written.” And then, arranging her clothing, she quoted the Kama Sutra of Vatsayana—the world-famous and much-banned sex manual which has through the centuries been absorbed into the Hindu creed itself. “It is a sin to love a woman who has already been enjoyed by another man," she quoted. “I should not like, Mr. Victor, to be responsible for forcing such a sin upon my husband to be."

“Call me Steve, will you please?” I said. “Under the circumstances, ‘Mr. Victor’ seems more than a little too formal." That out of the way, I registered a protest. “Ringing in the Kama Sutm at this point is unfair, Samantha. And besides, I'm familiar enough with it to supply an answer for this sudden virtue.”

“What answer?”

“He who neglects a woman because she appears too timid receives only her scorn because she looks on him as an uncivilized savage who does not know how to conquer and govern a woman."

The passage was verbatim from the Kama Sutra, and her eyes widened with surprise that a Westerner should know the Hindu classic so well. "The Kama Sutra also provides alternatives, Steve," she said with a slight tremble in her voice. "Would you think me immodest if I were to suggest that I might come to your room tonight so that we may together explore one of these alternatives?"

“No, Samantha, I wouldn't think you immodest. Rather, I would be honored and gratified at such a visit."

“Then I would suggest that we rejoin the others now and I will come to you later."

Mustafa’s nose was well out of joint when we returned to the house. I joined in the conversation for a decent interval, then confessed myself weary and went to my room. I gathered that both Mustafa and Samantha retired shortly after I did, because as I lay in my bed waiting for Samantha, only the voices of her father and Cunningham reached me from the terrace below my window. Jayasana’s words were soft and I couldn't make them out, but Cunningham bombasted loudly and the drone of his loud harumphs was clearly audible, although of little interest to me. I stopped listening altogether when Samantha slipped into my room.

She wore a loose nightgown, white and sheer. It reached from her shoulders to her ankles, but really covered nothing in-between. She carried a small incense burner and the first thing she did was to kneel in a corner of the room, set it down and light it. Then she turned to me and stood perfectly still as one of her hands worked at the tie at the throat of the garment. Undone, the garment seemed to float down her body and settle at her feet. She continued standing still so that my eyes might have ample opportunity to drink in her nude beauty.

The first thing that struck me was how well Samantha epitomized the one notable characteristic which sets Hindu girls apart from the other women of the world. This difference is seen in all Hindu art and sculpture and came in for a great deal of comment in the Sanskrit texts upon which Vatsayana based his writing of the Kama Sutra around 450 A.D. Since some of these texts go back almost to the brink of pre-history, the physiological difference of the Hindu woman would seem to be innate, rather than developed. Indeed, Indian temple sculpture confirms its having been noted and recorded well before the advent of the written word of Sanskrit.

Quite simply, this difference is summed up in the Sanskrit classification of the ideal female as a hastini, which literally means "elephant girl." If that sounds rather unflattering to a Westerner, it doesn't strike the Indian female that way. She takes it as a compliment because it means that her gudha (Mound of Venus) is plump, rides high on her pubis and has a deep cleft reaching towards her belly. Another idealization labels her a padmini, or “lotus woman," which means that her madanachhatri is set high in the cleft and large enough to be visible between the "lotus petals” of her yoni. All Hindu women have the qualifications of a hastini or a padmini to a much more marked extent than the other women of the world. Samantha presented the Hindu ideal, with a beautifully round and plump gudha riding high and a well-developed madanachhatri thrusting boldly and redly from its delicate folds. This placement would prove highly practical when she positioned herself astride my foot and contrived to get her kicks without sacrificing her virginity during the interlude which followed.

Now, still posing for me, she told me what she had in mind. “From your study of the Kama Sutra, do you remember the chapter on Auparishtaka, Steve?" she asked me.

“Of course.”

"Have you ever experienced it?"

"Not in its ritualized fashion. No.”

“Then you have never enjoyed the eight steps proscribed for Auparishtaka by the Kama Sutra?"

"No."

“Then I shall perform them on you now." She turned away from me a moment to make sure the incense was burning. Her long black hair, a loose cascade down her back, played hide-and-seek with the firm, rippling flesh of her round, golden-tan buttocks. Then she turned to walk towards me and I was once again struck by the high-etched splendor of her lightly curl-covered gudha. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, and she knelt in front of me and bent, her head so that her tresses fanned out over my naked thighs. She arranged it so that she straddled one of my feet and her weight rested just above the ankle.

"The first step is jhuthamethuna," she reminded me. Her hands slid up my thigh and grasped me firmly. Her lips encircled only the tip of my lingam and moved in the proscribed circular churning manner. After a moment of this, she paused to look up at me questioningly.

I remembered then that Auparishtaka involves a rite of conversational disputation, as well as the physical steps. According to the Kama Sutra, after each of the eight actions, the one performing them must refuse to go on and “will only finally consent to do so after she has been begged and bribed." I played the game. “Don't stop," I moaned. “Please go on. Please! Please!"

Samantha smiled slightly in acknowledgment of my sportsmanship and, simulating reluctance, allowed herself to be "forced" to go on to the second phase which is called baharadantakarma. This literally translates as “biting the sides," and it involves exterior nibbling and kissing while the lingam is grasped by the tips of the fingers and thumb at its base.

It was stimulating as hell, and when Samantha stopped with the called-for feigned recalcitrance to go on to the third step, my urgings to her to continue were more genuine than they had been before. In the same fashion of pretended indifference and coolness on her part and ardor-filled pleading on mine, she continued on through baharatipa (a close-lipped sipping at the head of the lingam), bhitaratipa (literally "inside pressing" of the same area with the lips forming a loose O so that the tongue-tip may press it), and chuma (a series of long, drawn-out kisses which cover the entire exterior surface of the lingam with great suction as it rests in the palm of the oparishtaka’s hand) .

Samantha had embarked on the sixth step, chata (prolonged licking with the flat of the tongue over the entire surface of the lingam), when she interrupted herself with an annoyance that wasn't a part of the process of Auparishtaka. The cause of the annoyance was the loud voice of Cunningham sounding through the open windows of my bedroom from the terrace just below.

“The whole bloody country would still be running around in breech-cloths if we English hadn't shown you beggars how to be civilized," he was pontificating.

“India,” Samantha's father pointed out quietly, “was possessed of an ancient and honorable civilization when the British were still painting their bodies blue and living in tribal savagery."

I lost Cunningham's retort in the explosion of Samantha's indignation. "Do you wonder that the Sikhs slaughtered the English with feelings of such inspired righteousness?" she asked. “That man down there is typical of the incredibly blind snobbery which Englishmen brought to their imperialist rule over my country. If you've ever wondered why we stay so determinedly neutral in the face of Communism, there is your answer. To us, Western democracy has historically consisted of that sort of insufferable and insulting paternalism.”

“And do you think Communism has anything better to offer?" I asked.

"Of course not. But why should we subject ourselves to either?"

Answers occurred to me, but I must admit that my patriotism faltered at the idea of sacrificing the completion of Auparishtaka to the argument. Instead, I merely pressed down gently at the back of Samantha's head, urging her to continue what she had started. From chata, she proceeded to the seventh step so effectively that the pounding of my heart was audible in my ears and I had diffficulty in breathing.

This seventh step is called amvarchusa. The word means “sucking a mango fruit.” It involves a sort of halfway enveloprnent by the mouth which proves both teasing and frustrating at the same time since the pressure always stops and the lips retreat as soon as the throbbing response shows signs of becoming so uncontrollable as to thrust towards ultimate fruition.

It's followed—after a peak of reluctance has been eaten away by a torrent of pleading—by the final step, lingabhakosa. This step is defined by the Kama Sutra as “devouring the lingam" and is also known by the Sanskrit word for “absorption.” The poetic truth in both descriptions lies in the complete oral envelopment of the lingam to its base (and further to include the sac beneath it if the oparishtaka is expert enough, which Samantha was) and the eager swallowing to the last drop of the “juice of the mango."

We were deeply involved in lingabhakosa when Cunningham’s booming voice once again distracted Samantha. “You had the resources, but the English had the brains to develop them for you," he boasted. “Ind-ja would still be starving to death if it wasn't for us."

“India still is starving," Samantha stopped to tell me angrily. “If that fool knew anything at all, he would know that most of our economic problems today stem from the fact that the English have been milking our country of its resources for a hundred years and more.”

“Yes. Yes, of course," I agreed soothingly. "The man is a prejudiced boor. But he's not worth our attention. Come now, let's go on with what we were doing." Thus I gently urged her face back to my lap.

In the grip of those suction-valve lips, caressed by that expert tongue, I forgot about Cunningham and gave myself up to pure sensation. But not Samantha! Cunningham had aroused her ire and she couldn't forget about him.

“British imperialist!" she lifted her head to mutter.

I pushed it back down.

But a moment later it sprang up again. “Superior colonialist!"

This time I grabbed her by the ears and held on for a moment after she resumed the lingabhakosa.

However, as soon as I let go, up it came again. “Anglo-Saxon barbarian! How dare he—?"

This time I held it firmly in place until I felt her body moving up and down against my shin. When I was sure she was as erotically involved as I was, I eased up on the pressure against the back of her neck. This time she stayed with it.

My eruption was ecstatic and lasted for a long, draining moment during which I truly felt "devoured." Towards the end of that moment, I felt the hot, sweet flow which told me that Samantha too had crossed into a temporary Nirvana. Exhausted, she fell away from me, crumpling to the floor. I lay back on the bed, wondering if my "mango" would ever be the same.

We stayed that way a long time until, at last, Samantha spoke. “Not only are they barbaric boots," she said bitterly, “but also the English-—male and female alike-— are a frigid people!”

I thought fleetingly of Victoria Winters. I wondered if Samantha was right. And then I was struck by another thought, one which formulated the lesson which Calcutta taught me, the lesson I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter:

Indeed, politics do make bedfellows strange!

011

Auparishtaka, as dictated by the Kama Sutra, had spiced up my first night with Samantha Jayasana. The spice of the second night turned out to be a quite different kettle of curry. It was a dish that damn near finished me for good.

I got my first taste of it in the morning when Mustafa intercepted an intimate look between Samantha and me at the breakfast table. The cloud of Egyptian wrath which swept over his face stayed there throughout the day. He also seemed preoccupied that day, but I laid that also to his jealousy.

I was wrong. There was another reason. I got my first hint of it after dinner.

Samantha and Mustafa had gone for a stroll after coffee while I remained behind to chat with Abhira Jayasana and Wilfred Cunningham. When they returned, Mustafa was obviously distraught. After a few moments he excused himself and went to his room. Shortly, Samantha motioned to me to follow her out to the terrace where we might be alone.

“Mustafa is leaving," she told me without preliminary.

“Oh?” I tried to keep my voice calm to hide my interest. "Where's he going?”

“I don't know. He wouldn't tell me. But he wishes me to accompany him, to elope with him and become his wife."

"And are you going to, Samantha?”

“No. I told him I wouldn't. Not like that. Not sneaking off in the middle of the night. My father would never forgive me. I couldn't do that to him. But Mustafa says he must go anyway. He is very angry with me, very disappointed."

“When is he leaving?" I asked.

“Soon after midnight. He kept begging me to change my mind and meet him."

“Meet him where?"

“A boathouse on the beach. It's a place we used to go to during his first visit."

“Can you tell me how to find it?" My mind was working fast. There was no time to mince words with Samantha. If it was necessary to reveal my interest in Mustafa Ben Narouz to her, then I'd just have to chance it.

“Why, Steve? Why should you want to go there?" she asked.

“I can't explain. I can only tell you it's very important and beg you to trust me. Please, Samantha! Please tell me where this boathouse is."

“You would never find it. It's in a sort of hidden cove. I would have to take you there."

“Will you, Samantha?"

She looked at me a long moment before replying. “Yes, Steve. Since it matters so much to you, I will."

It was a little before midnight when we got to the cove. A large yacht—a pleasure cruiser that looked like it would easily sleep eight plus the crew-—was anchored offshore. The beach-house itself stood at the edge of the water and the sands around it were flat. I looked in vain for any high dunes behind which I might take cover.

"You are looking for a place to hide?” Samantha guessed my need.

“Yes. But it doesn't look too promising."

“Follow me." She took my hand and led me toward the beach-house. “But hurry, please, Steve. If Mustafa finds me here, he will think I have changed my mind about running off with him."

I hurried. She led me around to the dock-side of the beach-house. We passed a small dinghy tied up to the wharf and went under the dock itself. I found a dry patch of sand beside one of the poles supporting the dock and settled myself.

“I must go now, Steve,” Samantha said, her voice worried. She kissed me quickly and went back the way we'd come.

It was only a moment later that I heard the babble of voices. It quickly died down to a muted dialogue in which I could recognize the tones of Mustafa Ben Narouz and Samantha, but couldn't make out the words they were exchanging. There was a sudden break in the conversation, a dash punctuated by an exclamation: "Steve, help! Steve! Steve!”

I was wracked by a split moment of indecision. If I went to Samantha’s aid, the jig might very well be up as far as finding and rescuing Anna Kirkov. If I didn’t, judging by the note of panic in her voice, Ben Narouz would take Samantha with him by force. And it was really my fault she was in this predicament.

Things happened so fast then that I didn’t have to decide between playing Galahad or Nathan Hale. The decision was taken out of my hands by the sudden appearance beneath the dock of four husky Chinese hoods. They came for me like a quartet of dive-bombers. I was still throwing my first punch when the lights went out.

They went on again with the rising sun. I could just make it out through the porthole high up in the bulk-head of the ship's hold where I was lying. I blinked at it a while as my wits scrambled back into place.

When they had, I stared at that rising sun with more awareness and made some calculations. We were in the Bay of Bengal on a course that was roughly southeast by east southeast. I tried to judge our speed and made a vague guess that we were near the Andaman Islands. On our present course, this meant that we'd soon be in the Andaman Sea itself, paralleling the coasts of Burma, Thailand and, eventually, Malaya, which meant we'd be passing through the Straits of Malacca, the narrow channel which separates Malaya from Sumatra.

This course puzzled me. My guess would have been that at this stage of the game Ben Narouz would have been making a beeline for China with Anna Kirkov. But we were actually heading in the opposite direction. Even if we doubled back after passing the Singapore peninsula, the only way to get to China would be to sail the South China Sea. With the U. S. Seventh Fleet patrolling those waters, it struck me that Ben Narouz was taking unnecessary chances. I wondered why. I couldn't have guessed that the answer was stuffed into one of the very sacks upon which I was lying.

As the sun rose higher, I could make out the details of my prison. It was the hold of the ship and it was stacked with gunnysacks filled with something that felt soft and loose like tobacco. Peering through the gloom, I made out two other figures lying on these sacks. Pale, grayish sunbeams etched a profile and I made out Samantha's features. Dust-swirled, the rays brightened and I could see the other face. Eyes closed, seemingly asleep as Samantha was asleep, the face of this second girl was strangely familiar to me.

Delicate white skin, classically straight nose, deep hollows under high, Slavic cheekbones, strong chin -- all combined in a facial beauty best summed up as aristocratic. She wore a silken, Chinese-styled kimono. In her sleep, it had hiked up over her thighs to reveal long, slim, lightly-muscled legs. The rest of the flowered material clung to a body that was large-breasted and ample of hip without being in any way overblown. It was a good, sturdy body which curved where a female body should curve. Exotic -- Patrician-— Sexy-— And familiar as hell!

Anna Kirkov! It hit me. I fumbled the photo of her that Potemchenko had given me back in Damascus out of my wallet. It was dingy and didn't do her justice, but there could be no mistaking that it was the same girl. I'd found her at last. Anna Kirkov!

I got up and started for the two girls. A menacing snarl stopped me in my tracks. Then I saw it. All fangs and a yard wide. Sleek death crouching at the foot of the ladder leading up from the hold. A giant wolfhound, razor-teeth bared, a growl of warning in its throat to back up the bulging muscles poised to pounce. Pale eyes tore the last bits of flesh from the bones of my courage.

I sat back down, a dog yummy trying hard not to be noticed. The monster relaxed, but those eyes continued to contemplate me through half-closed lids, a reminder not to make any more sudden movements. They made me feel creepy and after a while I stopped looking back to glance over at the-two girls.

I saw that the dog's growl had awakened Samantha. Focusing through the grayness, she recognized me and shot me a wan smile. “How do you feel?" she asked. “Does your head hurt very much?"

“It doesn't bother me. I seem to be missing a few hours though. Fill me in on what happened."

“First, what I was afraid would happen. Mustafa saw me on the beach just after I left you and assumed that I had changed my mind about running off with him. When I tried to tell him that wasn't so, he became very angry and started to use force. He had several Chinese sailors with him and when I screamed for you, they guessed that you were under the dock and went in after you. When they brought you out, you were unconscious."

“But why did Mustafa bother bringing me along?" I wondered. “'Why didn’t he just leave me there? Or kill me, if I was in his way?"

“I think I know why. He didn't want you found-— dead or alive. With you and I both missing, my father might think we ran off together. It isn't fair, I know, but since you are a Caucasian and Mustafa is an Egyptian, my father might be much more likely to suspect you of foul play than Mustafa. And Mustafa knows my father well enough to understand this. By abducting you along with me, Mustafa was laying down a false trail for my father to follow."

Samantha’s explanation sounded reasonable. But, as I was to find out later, there was another reason behind Mustafa’s wanting me alive and a prisoner.

"Mustafa took me to his cabin after we came aboard," she continued. “l guess they must have just dumped you down here. I don't know. To tell the truth, I was too busy fighting Mustafa off to notice. He kept trying to make love to me and I kept screaming and clawing him. Finally, he'd had enough and gave up. He called a couple of the Chinese and they dumped me down here."

"Was she here then?" I pointed to the still-sleeping figure of Anna Kirkov.

“Yes. And that beast over there as well. I was very frightened of him. But after a while, exhausted as I was, I managed to forget about him and doze off."

We fell silent for a few moments. There didn't seem to be anything else to say. Then I noticed that Samantha was within easy reach of Anna Kirkov. “Can you reach over and wake her up without disturbing the dog?" I asked.

Looking nervous, Samantha did as I asked. She touched Anna Kirkov gently, then shook her more vigorously. The Russian girl didn’t stir. “She seems to be in a trance, as if she were drugged," Samantha commented.

“She probably is. Might as well let her be."

A long, silent time went by then and the sun rose high in the sky. Its rays were streaming through the porthole when I heard the sound of footsteps above us and then saw a man's figure descending the ladder. The dog whined a greeting, a hand reached out to pet it, the figure turned around, gun in hand, and I saw the suave features of Mustafa Ben Narouz.

“Ahh, Mr. Victor, you are awake."

“If you mean conscious, yes, I am. The question is, what the devil am I doing here?”

“No, Mr. Victor. The question is what the devil were you doing spying on me at the beach-house. But let us not play games. You see, I already know the answer. I received a message just before my departure from the Jayasana house regarding you. The contents of this message were so interesting that I went looking for you at once. You see, the idea of your accompanying me on this voyage was not born on the spur of the moment. Imagine my disappointment when you were nowhere to be found. And imagine my pleasure in finding you awaiting me at the beach."

“What was in the message?” I asked.

“Information about your activities as an American intelligence agent. Observations as to your connections with a certain Victoria Winters of British Intelligence. Suspicions that you may be working with the Russians as well, although it is felt that you may have lost contact with them since the death of one Vladimir Potemchenko. A warning to beware of another agent with whom you are known to work, one Alan Foster. Indeed, Mr. Victor, from the information in that message, I begin to understand some of my own recent difficulties and to see you as the cause of them."

“If all this is true, why didn't you just kill me back there on the beach? Or, if you didn't want my body found, kill me later and dump my body overboard?"

“Yes, Mr. Victor, that would have been simplest. And it may yet prove the most feasible way to dispose of you. However, for now, I have decided against it. You see, as an American agent, I'm sure you have much knowledge which will be of interest to us. Actually, to deliver you to my superiors when we reach our destination will be a double feather in my cap."

The first "feather," I knew without his telling me, was Anna Kirkov. Still, his smugness annoyed me. “In the first place," I told him, “I have absolutely no information that could possibly interest your people. And in the second place, if I did, I wouldn't be likely to divulge it."

“You are naive in thinking I am so naive as to believe your first disclaimer, Mr. Victor. As to the second, all agents refuse to talk—-at first. But we have most effective ways of making them change their minds."

“I’ve heard about those ways. Torture. Brainwashing."

“Don't sound so disapproving, Mr. Victor. Espionage is no place for morality. Our methods work—as you shall find out for yourself—-and that's what counts."

"They won't work on me," I told him flatly, “for the simple reason that I have nothing to tell."

"We shall see if you are as brave as you are clever, Mr. Victor.“

"You're pretty clever yourself." I slung a little of his oil back at him. “But for such a clever man, Ben Narouz, I don't see why you're taking this roundabout route to China. Wouldn't it have been easier to make for Rangoon, or some other spot on the Burma coast, and then go overland to China? Why risk the South China Sea?"

“What makes you think we shall, Mr. Victor?"

“Well, unless my figuring's way off, we're almost to the Straits of Malacca now. Unless you're planning to continue to Indonesia or maybe Australia, we should be altering course after we pass through the Straits and doubling back toward China.“

“You are very observant, Mr. Victor and your surmise is quite close to being correct. However, while China is our destination, we will first make a brief stop near Point Ca Mau in South Vietnam."

“South Vietnam!" He'd meant to startle me and he’d succeeded. “But aren’t you afraid of running head-on into Uncle Sam?”

“Your army -- or your ‘observers,’ as you so hypocritically call them-—never ventures that far south. They are concerned with the Viet Cong in the north and leave the southern peninsula to the Vietnamese. And arrangements have been made to assure that the soldiers in that area will give us no trouble."

“But what about our Seventh Fleet? It’s no secret that they’re patrolling those waters in force."

"It’s no secret, Mr. Victor. However, due to circumstances only faintly related to our mission, your Seventh Fleet will be occupied elsewhere. My information is that even now they are steaming into the Gulf of Tonkin and that they will be kept quite busy there for the next day or two."

And that was the first I heard of the famous Gulf of Tonkin incident which led America and China to the brink of war¹¹ . I'm probably the only American not directly concerned with the action who had some hint of it before it took place. But all it meant to me at that moment was that the Seventh Fleet would be somewhere between the shorelines of China and North Vietnam while Ben Narouz would be up to his dirty work at the southernmost tip of the Vietnam peninsula. I still didn't know just what dirty work it was that he was up to, and, having nothing to lose, I decided to ask him. "Why the stopover?" I put the question to him directly.

I guess he figured he had nothing to lose by telling me. “The reason for detouring to Vietnam," he told me, packed in those sacks upon which you are lying." He bent down, took out a penknife, and cut the corner from one of the sacks. A coarse powder ran into the palm of his hand.

"Opium!" I exclaimed.

“Exactly. You see, Mr. Victor, this boat was bound for Vietnam in the first place. It was detoured off its course by orders from Peking to pick me up. Thus it will make its delivery on the way back to China. This delivery is important, you see, because opium is our greatest ally when it comes to neutralizing the South Vietnamese in their foolish struggle against their Communist brothers. A man with his head full of opium dreams is not apt to be troubled by misguided patriotism. Indeed, not only will the recipients pay highly for our cargo, but they will also be extremely grateful to Mother China for providing it."

“Don't you have any conscience at all, Ben Narouz?" I couldn't help asking him. "After all, you're an Egyptian, not a Chinese."

"I am first of all a Communist. Communism offers the only hope to the South Vietnamese. And the end justifies the means!"

“Communism offers them pipe dreams and more poverty, you mean,” I told him. “And the means, as usual, perverts the end. Think that over, sonny-boy.”

His face reddened at the insult to his youth. "That will be enough of dialectics, Mr. Victor." He spat the words out at me. "Just remember that you are my prisoner. I have the means, and your end is strictly up to me."

He had me there. I shut up.

Mustafa Ben Narouz turned his attention to Samantha. “You can't be very comfortable here my dear," he said unctuously. “Are you sure you wouldn't like to reconsider and join me in my cabin?"

“I'm sure!" she told him shortly.

“Sooner or later, you will have to make your peace with me."

“If you mean go to bed with you, I'll never do so willingly. The only way you'll ever make love to me is if you rape me!"

“I have considered that possibility. It could be very painful, you know."

“Then don't do it."

“I won't, if you will only change your attitude.” He put his arms around her and tried to kiss her. Then he sprang back with a curse. Samantha must have bit him hard. His lower lip was bleeding freely. "Bitch!" he cursed again. He reached out with one hand and slapped her face back and forth with great force.

I jumped up and started for him. Two things stopped me: the gun pointed at my belly; and the wolfhound’s fangs at my throat.

“Hold, Kai!" Mustafa’s voice stopped those canine tusks from closing over my jugular. “Don’t interfere again, Mr. Victor. Kai has been trained to kill anyone who tries to attack me.”

“Big man!" I said bitterly. “Slapping a helpless girl around!"

Ben Narouz ignored me. Samantha crouched aways from him, trying to stop sobbing. Anna Kirkov stirred slightly and moaned in her sleep. It was the first sound she'd made.

The Egyptian glanced down at Anna. His face filled with a sadistic excitement; he’d been struck by a cruel idea. “So you will not change your mind!" He almost purred the words at Samantha.

She shook her head. It was easy to see that his expression frightened her even more than his slaps had.

“You talk of rape, but you have no real conception of it," he told her. “I shall have a demonstration put on for your edification. When it is over, perhaps you will change your mind about receiving my attentions willingly."

He disappeared up the ladder for a few moments. When he returned, four of the Chinese sailors came down behind him. He spouted some orders at them in Chinese and they converged on Samantha, and then me.

They trussed us up expertly and then set us side by side across the hold from Anna Kirkov. Mustafa spoke again and the faces of the sailors broke into hungry srnirks. They started for Anna Kirkov as his last two words still hung in the stale air.

I recognized those two words. They weren't Chinese. They were Japanese. “Enza-bobo!” Words of terror from the Japanese occupation of China during the second world war. Enza-bobo! The horror of Chinese women; the shame of Chinese men. But a shame mixed with envy, for when the Red Chinese picked up where the Japanese had left off, enza-bobo became as common a sport with them as it had been with the invaders. And the Japanese words became a part of the Chinese language. Enza-bobo! Translation: “rotation rape"!

Samantha and I watched, tied up and helpless, as one of the sailors stooped over Anna Kirkov and slapped her face until the eyes flickered open to a sort of semi-awareness. Mustafa Ben Narouz issued another order and a large jug, gurgling, with a tube leading from it and a pipe on the end of the tube, was brought. I recognized the water-pipe apparatus used by opium smokers in Chinese joss houses. Anna's eyes grew bright and her hands trembled as she grabbed for the stem and thrust it in her mouth. She took deep, sucking breaths; it was like an asthmatic inhaling life-giving oxygen, the gasps of the newly- and truly-hooked.

A little color came into her face. The trembling stopped and her eyes became serene. Her body grew visibly limp as she continued sucking like a baby with a pacifier. Finally, they took it away from her. She protested automatically, but she was too far gone to let even this disturb the cloud of tranquility upon which she now floated.

Anna remained passive as the Chinese sailors stripped off her clothes. They talked among themselves as they undressed her. I caught the Chinese phrase,“a-fu-yung” and realized that it meant that the opium was about to be spiked, for the benefit of the men, with an aphrodisiac. They passed the pipe among themselves and the a-fu-yung mixture soon had them tearing off their own clothes and displaying its visible effects.

What followed was a scene right out of the Chin P’ing Mei (The Golden Lotus) of Wang Shih-Cheng. Turning Anna over on her stomach, they spreadeagled her legs and tied the ankles to the ladder and to a pipe running up the hold a few feet from the ladder. They tied her ankles high enough so that she was forced to support her weight on her hands and knees and her nude body was squeezed into a crouch. Like a beast of the field, the first man mounted her for a violent session of what Porphyry, the hero of The Golden Lotus, expounds upon as the joys of "back-door blossom beating."

The four Chinese men followed one another with not one of them attempting so much as a stab at the more “normal” target. The reason for this, I recalled, is summed up repeatedly in Islamic folklore by the sneer of Arab females at "the narrowness of China." Scientifically, there is more accuracy in this insult than in the popular Westem misconception which asks “Is it true what they say about Chinese women?" with a wink which implies that the slant of the eyes is paralleled by the angle of the feminine orifice.

That question is a canard, but observable differences, both male and female, do exist. The organ of the Chinese male is far more slender than that of other men around the world. Fortunately for him, the Chinese female is noteworthy for her vaginal tightness. At that, he's better off than the Japanese male, whose member is not only thin, but ranks among the shortest in the world under the most aroused circumstances. He too is fortunate, for the Japanese female is small in all ways.

The under-endowment of Orientals has had two results. First, in the best observable example of the workings of the inferiority complex, all of their sculpture and art back to ancient times stresses the sex organs and portrays them in Herculean proportions to the rest of the body. Thus Chinese and Japanese art is the world's most forthright expression of wishful thinking. Second, it has made Oriental men a laughing stock among the prostitutes of the East and many of them refuse to serve the Orientals no matter what the bonus offered.

To compensate for this, when making love to non-Oriental women, the Oriental man has come to prefer “back-door blossom beating" to normal intercourse. In many parts of China, this has led the men to a preference for homosexuality. The reason for this, as Wang Shib-Cheng explains, is that “as with horseback riding, when the lover is in the saddle, he prefers the sort of livery which affords a pommel to be gripped throughout the ride."

Now, the four Chinese sailors were making do without such a “pommel." They assaulted Anna repeatedly and, although she didn't protest, I judged that their fierce and repeated attacks must have been quite painful. Under the influence of a-fu-yung, their lust was insatiable. However, they soon embarked on a new variation which demonstrated yet another Japanese trick learned from their erstwhile conquerors.

They turned Anna over on her back and proceeded to assail the tunnel of her femaleness. But "normality" was eluded by the instrument they each employed in turn. Called a “haligata," this is a Japanese tube which is fitted around the male organ and gives it both added width and length. It's made of bamboo and its outer surface is coated with peppery irritants which are supposed to enhance the erotic response of the woman. Judging by Anna's wildly thrashing body, the harigata was very effective.

This might have gone on all day and night if Ben Narouz hadn't finally ordered the a-fu-yang-inspired Chinese sailors away from Anna. He turned to Samantha, his eyes glittering savagely. "After such an experience as you have just witnessed," he asked her, “do you still think you would refuse to make love with me willingly?"

“You're a foul pig!” And that's all she'd say.

"Very well! I see that you need more convincing." He turned to the Chinese and gave them some further orders.

Once again they tethered Anna as they had the first time. Ben Narouz called the wolfhound, Kai, over to him and reached under the beast’s belly. He manipulated the animal for a few moments and then led him over to Anna. At another command from Ben Narouz, the slavering beast mounted her. His aim was more "accurate" than that of the Chinese sailors.

Drugged as she was, Anna screamed her protests. But they were to no avail. The wolfhound, gone wild, ravished her quickly. Then the monster investigated her thoroughly with its tongue. Shortly, this aroused him anew and he mounted her again. It lasted longer this time and when it was over the bestiality of the assault was testified to by the trickle of blood running down her naked thighs.

"Think over what you have seen," Ben Narouz. told Samantha. “I will leave Kai here as a reminder of what can happen to you if you persist in your stubbornness." And with that, he and his Chinese henchmen left us.

I lost track of the time after that. Exhausted, I slept, woke and slept again. Hours went by, perhaps a day, or even two. And then I was awakened by the sound of the anchor chain being released and I knew we must be lying off the beach of Point Ca Mau.

The Chinese came down to the hold. They ignored us as they removed the opium-filled gunnysacks to the deck above. This stevedoring lasted a long time and they were still at it when darkness fell. They brought down a few candles, lit them and positioned them around the hold while they continued. Realizing that the wolfhound, Kai, was no longer standing guard, I had a glimmering of hope.

I worked my way over to one of these candles and managed to hold my rope-tied hands to the flame. It felt like I was searing as much flesh off as rope, but after what seemed an interminable time, my hands were finally free. I untied my feet and then, as the Chinese sailors made their last trip up the ladder, freed the two girls.

They must have forgotten about the candles, for they left them behind. Using one of them, I found a crate that would enable us to reach the porthole I judged it would be just big enough for us to squeeze through one by one. Trying to move that crate, I found it damn heavy. Wondering what could be in it, I took a closer look.

I saw immediately that I'd been damn lucky. Dragging it as I'd been doing, I might have blown us all sky-high. That crate was filled with vials of nitro-glycerine! There was enough there to bring down a good-sized mountain!

I guessed it was meant for the Viet Cong. And if my guess was right, that meant the Chinese bully-boys might soon be back for it. Gingerly, I worked the crate under the porthole.

I gave Samantha a leg up first and a moment later there was a splash as she hit the water. Anna quickly followed. Just as quickly, I opened one of the vials and angled it on top of the crate. I broke off the candle so that there was nothing but the flame, a little wick and less wax left, and positioned it alongside the nitro. Then I went through the porthole fast.

It went up just as my body was hitting the briny. They must have heard the roar in Saigon. And the blast was a physical blow jet-propelling me to the bottom. My lungs were bursting, but I kept going down. It felt like I'd never come up again!

012

BUT I did.

I came bouncing back up to the surface with half the South China Sea exploding around me. There must have been more than one case of nitro on the boat because there was a series of blasts sending geysers towards the stars. In the wake of each, whirlpools sprang up around me and it took all my strength just to keep from being sucked back down to the bottom again.

Finally things quieted down enough for me to get my bearing . The shore was maybe a quarter-mile off. Not too far from me, Samantha had already started swimming for it. She had Anna Kirkov in tow and it was obvious that the Russian girl wasn't able to swim. I went for the pair of them as fast as I could

“The explosion dazed her," Samantha told me when I reached them.

“Is she unconscious?"

“Not any more. She was. She was almost drowning by the time I managed to get a hold on her Now she just seems to be dazed. I'd guess she swallowed a lot of water."

"Let me take her." I relieved Samantha of her burden and started dog-paddling for shore with Anna in tow. Samantha swam easily beside me, pacing herself.

We were lucky. Carried by the tide, we washed up down the beach from the torch-carrying natives gathered to receive the opium from the now defunct boat. Hoping they hadn't seen us, I picked Anna up and made for the shelter of the bushes up the beach. Samantha trotted alongside me. Soon we were in the underbrush and after awhile we came to a clearing. I set my burden down and tried to figure out what to do next. Anna had come to and was sobbing. Samantha held her in her arms and tried to comfort her.

I studied the sky, picking out the stars I knew and trying to orient myself. Our best bet would be to follow the coastline and then cut inland a bit to Saigon. It was rough terrain, and it sure wasn't going to be any pleasure jaunt.

We started out, keeping to the underbrush and paralleling the beach. I forced the girls to keep up a fast pace. By the time an hour had gone by, they were exhausted. We reached another clearing and I called a halt so that they might rest.

It was a mistake. A bad mistake.

Silent as death, our pursuers had been behind us all the way. Now, close enough so that there was no further need for silence, they crashed through the jungle and were upon us. I was on my feet and moving at the first sound, but it was too late for the girls. They were still reacting when the wolfhound, Kai, bounded into the clearing. Mustafa Ben Narouz was right behind him, the Luger in his hand at the ready.

I dived for the bushes as he fired. He pumped the trigger fast and slugs caromed off the trunk of the tree behind which I'd plunged. I counted, and when I knew he had to pause to reload, I scampered up the tree itself as quietly as I could. I figured his next move would be to set Kai after me and I was right. The beast charged into the jungle at the point at which I'd vanished.

He immediately began sniffing, trying to pick up my trail. But my tree-climbing maneuver confused the dumb mutt. No matter how he tried, my scent eluded him. Finally he gave up and ran whining back to Ben Narouz.

Gun reloaded, the Egyptian stood over the two girls. "You don't look pleased to see me," he said to Samantha sarcastically.

“I thought you were dead. I was happy to think it.”

“How sad for you then that I was on the shore at the time that Mr. Victor blew up the boat. But believe me, your sentiments are merely fleeting. Believe me, they will change. You shall see." His unctuous tone changed to one of command. “Kai! Guard!"

I crawled out on a sturdy limb of the tree until I was directly over the clearing, looking down on them. Anna was sitting propped against a tree, the wolfhound directly in front of her with his lips drawn back in a warning snarl. Her face was a mask of terror and she didn't dare move. Across from her, Samantha sat on the ground. Ben Narouz loomed over her, the loaded Luger clenched in his hand.

He stooped down and grabbed the blouse she wore by the throat. It was still wet from her swim and clung tightly to her body. The outline of her breasts was clear and their tips were pointed circles, pinkly visible under the sopping material. Ben Narouz yanked savagely at the garment and it tore easily. When he took his hand away, the breasts were naked except for a few soggy strips clinging to their sides.

He knelt and reached out with his free hand to caress them. Samantha's face shot forward and she buried her teeth in his wrist. Ben Narouz screamed a curse and slapped the side of her face with the Luger.

That was the instant I picked to jump him. It seemed an opportune time, with him distracted by Samantha. But his reactions were quicker than I'd thought they would be and my misjudgment nearly proved my undoing.

As soon as my weight hit his back, his muscles countered the shock as if by reflex. He rolled forward with it in an unexpected somersault that sent us both flying. Ben Narouz was up first and I found myself looking into the muzzle of that Luger with his finger tensed on the trigger, about to shoot.

Samantha saved me. She jumped him from behind and the impact threw him off just enough so that the bullet went winging past my ribcage. What happened after that was a blur and only when it was all over was I able to sort it out.

Kai must have pulled Samantha off Ben Narouz just as I went for the Egyptian again. I hit his wrist first with I calculated karate blow and the gun went spinning from his grasp. He ducked the punch I threw and dived for where the Luger had fallen. I was right behind him and we hit the ground together, his arm outstretched, fingers groping for the gun.

They fastened on it and we thrashed about the ground together as he tried to get it in position to shoot me. I was on top of him then, trying to choke him with one hand, trying to ward off that gun inching into position with the other. It was no good. I had to roll off him fast or take a slug right in my back.

But the sudden releasing of my grip on his throat made Ben Narouz over-confident. This time his fast reaction worked against him. As he shoved the gun up and toward my retreating belly, my hand zoomed down, grabbed his wrist and turned it. At that same moment his finger tightened on the trigger. The slug tore the right side of his chest off. What was left of him fell back to the ground, lifeless.

I grabbed the gun from the dead hand. I swiveled fast and pumped lead into the dog, Kai. He had Samantha pinned to the ground and his fangs were already red with her blood as he tore at her flesh. The impact of the first bullet sent him spinning, yelping with pain. The next three put an end to him and his dead body, fur matted with his own blood, finally settled in the sanddust at the edge of the clearing.

I knelt beside Samantha. It was too late. The beast had literally ripped out her throat. Her once-pretty face was an ugly mess of raw, torn, still bleeding flesh. One of her breasts had been half-torn from her body. Her eyes were wide-open, staring, still filled with the horror of her death.

I closed the lids gently and turned away. Anna still leaned frozen against the tree. I pulled her to her feet. “Come on,” I said brusquely. Once more we plunged into the jungle.

Two days later we reached the outskirts of Saigon. The first sounds we heard of the city were the sounds of shooting. Some welcome! The first sight we had of it was the sight of a riot; That’s Saigon!

What was happening was reconstructed for me later by a friendly American officer. The fuel for the bonfire which had first drawn our eyes had been human. A Buddhist monk, a crowd of his followers thronging around him, had doused his robes with gasoline and struck a match to himself. The gasoline was American, part of the “aid" the United States pours regularly into Vietnam.

The crowd of Buddhists had gone berserk, venting their rage on passersby and nearby shops. The rest of the citizenry had responded by giving battle. Local gendarmes had come flooding onto the scene, pumping bullets into the crowd, shooting Buddhists and non-Buddhists indiscriminately.

While this was going on, the Viet Cong, taking advantage of the melee had attacked an ammunition store-house on the other side of the city. A handful of American “observers," outnumbered but valiant, were fighting them off. And at roughly the same time, the American Seventh Fleet, in the Gulf of Tonkin, was retaliating against a North Vietnamese attack by shelling shore installations. Such was my impression of the “war of containment" in Vietnam!

Caught up in the stampede of the crowd, Anna Kirkov and I were swept back the way we'd come.When the throng thinned out, and things began simmering down, I made inquiries as to where the American HQ might be. A Vietnamese lad with a smattering of English finally guided us there.

Our reception was a mixture of annoyance and amazement. A Colonel Elkins finally received us in his offce. The interview was constantly interrupted by the ringing of his phone to announce some new crisis requiring an immediate snap decision from him. Thus he heard my story in bits and pieces with his mind of necessity occupied with other, more pressing matters.

“You say you’re Americans, but it sounds pretty unlikely," he said. “How the devil could you have gotten here if that's true? Don't you know there's a war on? I tell you, it all sounds pretty suspicious."

“I'm American,” I tried to explain. “The lady's Russian and--"

“Russian! That's all the hell I needed! Viet Cong guerillas! Chinese Reds! And now a Russian! Why don't we just give this lousy country back to the Commies? They deserve it! I tell you—-" He was interrupted by the phone. He listened a moment, shouted some orders and hung it up. "Even if you're telling the truth," he said, “what do you want from me? I've got my hands full enough without worrying about an American civilian and a Russian broad!"

“All I want from you is transportation to Tokyo," I said.

“Oh, that's all, is it?" His voice dripped sarcasm. “Do you happen to know what transportation is, Mr.— What did you say your name was anyway?"

“Victor. Steve Victor."

"Well, Mr. Victor, let me tell you about transportation in Vietnam. It's the most essential thing to this so-called war, that's what it is! We're short of everything in this hellhole! And you know why? Not because there isn't more than enough for our needs back home in the land of plenty, but because there's no damn transportation to get it to us!"

"I'm travelling the other way,” I reminded him mildly.

“Oh, you are, are you?" Colonel Elkins was turning purple and I feared for his blood pressure. “Well, for your information, so are more than a hundred American boys down in the base hospital. They've been waiting two weeks to be flown to Tokyo so that they can get some decent medical attention. And you know why they haven't been flown out? Because it's too damn dangerous, that’s why! The skies between here and Japan are lousy with Chinese MIGs, that's why! And if you think I'm going to give up a place on a plane for one of those kids to you, you’re—" The phone rang again, and again Elkins' frustration was apparent in the orders he snapped into the mouthpiece.

“Look, Colonel Elkins, what are you going to do with us?" I asked after he hung up.

“I don't know, damn it! I haven't decided yet. You come in here out of the blue with some cockamamie story about having sailed from Calcutta on a Chinese dope-smuggler run by an Egyptian who kidnapped the daughter of a Russian atomic scientist and you expect me to swallow it. What the hell kind of nincompoop do you think I am?"

"Doesn't the fact that I know our fleet's in action in the Gulf of Tonkin tend to prove my story?”

“I don't know that they are in action. As far as I know, you might just be making it up. The bloody admirals don't exactly take me into their confidence, you know!"

“But maybe you can check it out. Maybe—"

The phone again. Colonel Elkins picked it up and listened. His face underwent a reluctant change of expression.

“You found out I was right about the Gulf of Tonkin," I guessed after he'd hung up.

“Okay! But that still doesn't prove anything. I’m just going to have to hold you here, Mr. Victor, until I can check you out."

“Make it fast,” I urged him. “It really is important. I have to get this girl to Tokyo. Check with the highest authority you can find. They’ll confirm the legitimacy of my mission."

“I’ll do what I can,” he said sourly. He was still annoyed at my interrupting his war. Considering the mishsmosh he had on his hands, I didn't blame him. In Vietnam, often, it’s hard for an American to remember just who he's supposed to be fighting.

Still, in the end, Colonel Elkins didn't do badly by us. It was only a matter of hours before we were in a plane winging towards Tokyo. And if the flight was more eventful than I would have liked, it certainly wasn't the Colonel's fault.

The first excitement came just after takeoff. Glancing out the window, I suddenly became aware of bursts of flak perilously near our wings. I rushed up front to tell the pilot.

“What the hell's going on?” I asked him. "You don't have to fly over enemy territory to get to Tokyo!"

"We’re not over enemy territory, Mr. Victor." He spun the plane into a sharp bank, away from the flak.

“Then what the hell do you call that?" I exclaimed as a shell fragment shattered the window and passed between us, narrowly missing the end of my nose.

"That’s South Vietnamese anti-aircraft,” he explained drily. “You see, a while back we trained some pilots for South Vietnam. They were real eager-beavers and their first time out they strafed some of their own troops by mistake. Ever since, the ack-ack gunners shoot at anything that moves. They just aren't taking any chances."

"Some allies!" I observed.

“You can say that again, Mr. Victor|” He pushed the plane into a steep climb, racing for the point where we'd be out of range of the flak. “You can say that again!"

I went back to Anna Kirkov and watched the flak bursting beneath us. It made pretty patterns in the night sky. After a while, it died out and there was nothing to see but blackness.

An hour went by. Maybe less. I sat back and half-dozed, secure in the fact that my mission was accomplished. The sureness was premature. The sudden whoosh of a jet engine and machine-gun bullets pinging around the cabin had me diving for the floor.

"MIG at four o'clock! MIG at four o’clock!” It was the waist-gunner sitting in the blister a few feet away from me calling out over the intercom to the pilot. The MIG made another pass, its guns chattered once, and our gunner was silenced.

I crawled over to him. He was dead. I pushed his body out of the way and grabbed the machine gun. The MIG pulled out of its dive, circled and came in for another pass at our tail. Our pilot was fast. He turned sharp, ninety degrees. The maneuver put the plunging MIG right in my sights. I squeezed the trigger and kept squeezing it. I was rewarded by the sight of the MIG bursting into flames. A moment later bits and pieces of it were hurtling toward the ground in our wake. I sat back and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“Good work, Joe." It was the pilot's voice in the gunner's earphones lying beside me.

I flicked on the speaker. "Joe’s dead," I, told him shortly. “The MIG got him at the same time he got it.” Let the gunner have the credit. He deserved it. Lord knew how many times he'd risked his neck before he caught it.

“Oh. I see." That was all the pilot answered.

The rest of the flight was uneventful. A few hours later we set down in Tokyo. There was a car waiting for Anna Kirkov and myself.

A short ride, and I was once again face-to-face with Charles Putnam. "Congratulations, Mr. Victor." His gangster face shot me what I supposed was meant to be a smile. “You have performed your mission well."

“I’m damn glad it's over," I told him honestly.

“It's never over, Mr. Victor. It's always only just beginning. One mission accomplished at great risk, and the result--" He spread his hands. “Still, your part of it is over, Mr. Victor. And my thanks to you is for the nation, for the world which will never know of your courage and the service you tried to perform.”

His words struck me as ambiguous, but I let them pass for the moment. “What will happen to Anna Kirkov now?" I asked him instead.

“She will be returned to the Russians. A car will take her to their embassy tonight. By tomorrow she’ll be on a plane to Moscow."

“What will they do to her?"

“I don’t know, Mr. Victor." He shrugged. “Unfortunately, that's not our business. I appreciate that you have sympathy for her, Mr. Victor. But you in turn must appreciate that she would not be worth an incident with the Russians. They know we have her and good faith requires that we turn her over to them."

“Good faith!" I remembered Potemchenko and his senseless killings and my voice was filled with bitterness. That bitterness would grow when I learned what else Putnam had to tell me. For now, however, it wasn't yet strong enough to keep me from grasping for a silver-lined straw. "Perhaps her father will intercede in her behalf,” I hoped aloud. “After all, he's an eminent scientist. The Reds might go easy on her if he asked them to."

“I'm afraid not Mr. Victor.” Putnam's voice was very tired. You see, Josef Kirkov is no longer in Russia.”

“What do you mean? Where is he?" He shut his eyes as if in pain. "In Peking."

“In Peking? But what—?"

“Josef Kirkov defected to the Chinese Reds,” Putnam told me wearily.

“But why?”

“We can’t be sure. He was an old-line Bolshevik, you know, an ardent Stalinist. Our best guess is that the senseless killing by Russian agents of the eminent Chinese scientist Dr. Suno Wong may have turned him against the Moscow regime. In any case, he was smuggled out of Russia with the help of Chinese embassy officials. The Russians know this, but they don't dare do anything about it."

"But doesn't this mean that he'll give China the secret of the atom bomb?"

“I'm afraid it does, Mr. Victor. And more besides. It's being very carefully kept under wraps, but our information is that the defection of Dr. Kirkov has shaken the Krushchev regime to its foundations. There are murmurs of inefficiency in high places. The treachery of Dr. Kirkov is being laid at the door of Nikita himself and it is being whispered that only a man too old and soft to rule would have let such a thing happen. Indeed, Mr. Victor, we can only guess at the possible repercussions this may have in the future."

As things turned out, we only had to guess for a couple of months. By the end of that time, the whole world knew the results of Josef Kirkov’s treachery-—-if not the bizarre events leading up to it. By the end of that time, two shocks hit the world in rapid succession. First, Nikita Krushchev was deposed. Second, following two days later, the Chinese exploded their first atomic device. That the first event was the result of the imminence of the second is a judgment few will share with me. But then few know the facts as I do.

At the time I heard them from Charles Putnam, my reaction was to become even more bitter. “Then it was all for nothing," I said. “All the killing. All the innocent people dead. A harmless cab driver. A young girl. The sheikh. The waist-gunner. All died in vain!"

“I’m afraid so, Mr. Victor." Charles Putnam was sympathetic, but he wasn't about to offer me any false hope. "I'm afraid so. We do what we can, but we don't always succeed. Events escape our grasp. And frustration is perhaps the most common penalty we pay in our work. When all the shooting's over and the adventure's a thing of the past, too often we're left with nothing but a sense of our own futility. I'm sorry, Mr. Victor, but that's the way it is."

“That's the way it is," I echoed, sighing. I stood up and shook hands with him then, getting ready to leave.

“Is there anything I can do to make your stay in Tokyo more pleasant, Mr. Victor?" Putnam asked.

“No. I don't think-— Wait a minute. Yes, there is. Do you happen to know where I might find Victoria Winters?"

“Hotel Togura.” He smiled slightly. “Room three-oh-nine."

"Thanks." I left him then. "Hotel Togura," I told the cab driver. I had some unfinished business with the Iron Virgin of Albion. Thinking on it, I began to feel a lot better.

At the hotel, the spy-games of my recent past proved to have given me a certain slyness. After I checked in, I had a talk with the head bellhop. Money changed hands. For my yen I got the key to another yen-—which is to say the key to Vickie Winters’ room. I wanted to surprise her; it was part of my plan for taking the Iron Virgin of Albion by storm.

So, fortified with a bottle of champagne under one arm and two dozen roses under the other, I let myself into room three-oh-nine. It was past midnight and I figured Vickie would be asleep. The idea was to wake her with a fervent kiss, ply her with champagne and eventually break down her British cold-wall. It was a good idea, but—-

In the first place, when I let myself into her suite, she wasn't asleep. She was awake, curled up on a sofa in the sitting room with the ceiling light blazing over her. She was wearing a transparent black nightie that contrasted seductively with her disarrayed red hair and sparkling green eyes. She sprang to her feet when I let myself in, her body was magnificently taught against the gauze of the nightgown. I stared for a long moment at the silhouette of those magnificent legs-—now planted firm and wide apart—-at the revealed flesh-curve of her hips, at the full, straining bust with its quivering dark red tips made even darker by the sleazy black stretching over them.

In the second place, she didn't come across as exactly delighted to see me. Her eyes were indignant and her body quivered in a way I found very exciting at the intrusion. “Steve! What do you think you're doing here?" was the way she put it, not what you'd describe as overwhelming me with the pleasure of her greeting.

“I have come to conquer Albion!" I said grandiosely, reaching for a lightness which somehow eluded me.

"You might call a girl first! And besides, it's the middle of the night. Anyway, wait a minute. I want to get a robe." She vanished into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

Impulsiveness brought me to the third place. I followed her. I flung open the door and my dream of conquering the Iron Virgin of Albion was shattered. I was too late. The walls had been scaled, the ramparts breached even as I'd been formulating my battle-plan. There, in her non-virgin bed, naked as a jaybird and smiling a weak smile of greeting, was none other than Alan Foster of the C.I.A.!

I tossed him the flowers. I tossed him the champagne. “With my compliments!" I said, determined to be the good sport to the bitter end. I didn't wait for them to thank me. I left.

I went to my room and dressed. I went downstairs and cornered the room clerk. “How do I get to the Yoshiwara?” I asked him bluntly. The Yoshiwara—translation: "whores' quarters"-—is the world famous Red Light district of Tokyo. He gave me directions.

I hadn't saved the world. I hadn't gotten the one girl I'd wanted. But I still had my work. The business of O.R.G.Y. had to go on.

O.R.G.Y. The Organization for the Rational Guidance of Youth. As I said, many people are disturbed when they learn the full name, possibly because I deliberately chose it to obscure the real subject of my research as much as possible. After all, some people do find it hard to think of sex as a scholarly subject, and I didn't want to have doors slammed in my face. And my researches will provide rational guidance when they are published—-rational guidance to sex, that is.

Also, O.R.G.Y. has a more personal, private meaning. To me, it means Obtaining Research Grants, which was the original idea. And the Y? Y is the Fourth of July. A childish joke, but also my birthday, remember?

Anyway, I still had my sex survey to finish. So I picked out a girl to my liking and followed her to her room. I stripped off my clothes and soon I was clad in nothing but my working uniform. I took the girl in my arms and started to make love to her.

It was good to be back on the job again.

Notes

[←1 ]

LGBT, or GLBT, is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the term is an adaptation of the initialism LGB, which was used to replace the term gay in reference to the LGBT community beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s.

[←2 ]

The Ring of the Dove (Arabic: Ṭawq al-Ḥamāmah) is a treatise on love written ca. 1022 by Ibn Hazm. Normally a writer of theology and law, Hazm produced his only work of literature with The Ring of the Dove. Although the human aspects of affection are the primary concern, the book was still written from the perspective of a devout Muslim, and as such chastity and restraint were common themes. The book provides a glimpse into Ibn Hazm's own psychology. Ibn Hazm's teenage infatuation with one of his family's maids is often quoted as an example of the sort of chaste, unrequited love about which the author wrote.

[←3 ]

The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian Hindu text written by Vātsyāyana, believed to have been composed between 400 BCE and 200 CE. It is widely considered to be the standard work on human sexual behaviour in Sanskrit literature. A portion of the work consists of practical advice on sexual intercourse. It is largely in prose, with many inserted anustubh poetry verses. "Kāma" which is one of the four goals of Hindu life, means desire including sexual desire, the latter being the subject of the textbook, and "sūtra" literally means a thread or line that holds things together, and more metaphorically refers to an aphorism (or line, rule, formula), or a collection of such aphorisms in the form of a manual. Contrary to western popular perception, the Kama Sutra is not exclusively a sex manual; it presents itself as a guide to a virtuous and gracious living that discusses the nature of love, family life, and other aspects pertaining to pleasure-oriented faculties of human life. The Kama Sutra, in parts of the world, is presumed or depicted as a synonym for creative sexual positions; in reality, only 20% of the Kama Sutra is about sexual positions. The majority of the book, notes Jacob Levy,^] is about the philosophy and theory of love, what triggers desire, what sustains it, and how and when it is good or bad.