Double Identity (9 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hold it a minute!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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