The Death Strain (9 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Has the girl said anything?" he asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rita and I jammed into one of the Vigilante's two seats, our pilot in the other. They'd come up with a pair of jeans and a zippered jacket that fit Rita. It would have been cozy except for the bulk of our chute packs made it uncomfortable. The two J79 turbojets had the plane up to near its 1400 mph speed in not much more than a long minute. In a little over an hour we were winging over Sosura on the Korean coast and then, at the tip of the land where the three countries came together, we saw the village of Changkufeng inside the Manchurian border. Just beyond it lay the Russian border and the village of Podgornaya. We flew a tight circle around Changkufeng and then across thatched-roof-and-clay farmhouses and hilly land dotted with scrub brush and stunted trees. I saw no sign of a field large enough to land a jet.

As we flew along the narrow pointed finger of land where the three countries touched at the tip, moving into Manchurian territory, the pilot dipped low over the fields and houses. I saw his arm point down and he banked. Below, outside a clay-walled house, a figure waved and I recognized the portly shape of Chung Li. The Red Chinese espionage chief was holding a rifle in one hand and waving with it. He had reached here first, as Hawk suspected he might. As the pilot sent the Vigilante A5-A up in a steep climb I wondered what Chung Li had found.

When we got enough altitude, the pilot pressed the ejector button and I felt myself flung out and upward, hurtling through the sky to stop suddenly as the chute billowed open. I caught a glimpse of Rita's chute, a round shape against the sky, mushrooming up behind me and then I was drifting down, guiding myself as best I could by pulling on the chute lines. I hit the ground a few hundred yards from the farmhouse, unsnapped my chute and ran over to where Rita was struggling with hers. I had just unsnapped her chute when I heard the roar of the MIG-19s coming in, three of them, out of the north. They wheeled and banked and shot up for altitude. That would be Ostrov, coming in from Yakutsk.

With Rita beside me, I started for the farmhouse. Chung Li had gone back inside, and as I entered my eyes swept the room in a glance, passed the two uniformed Chinese on the floor to the narrow bed where Carlsbad lay, a deep, red-stained hole creasing his temple. I heard Rita gasp beside me and she pushed past and ran to the bed. The room itself, simple clay walls with a wooden roof, branched off to two other rooms I could only glimpse. I nodded toward Carlsbad.

"Is he dead?" I asked.

Chung Li shook his head slowly. "Not yet anyway. But a bullet passed through his temple. He's in a coma. There was a battle, as you can see. We found the house and were attacked."

He gestured to the two dead soldiers on the floor, one with a field transmitter beside him. "My two men were killed," he said. "I fought back from the adjoining room. When a bullet struck Carlsbad, the others fled."

"The others? You mean the huge Japanese and the jet pilot?" I questioned.

Chung Li nodded. "And two other men," he said. "In a Land-rover. The jet must have been hidden a few miles inland at one of the larger meadows. But our immediate problems are over at least"

I saw something in Chung Li's eyes that I couldn't read. But it had triumph in it, a Cheshire cat feel. I didn't like it but I put it down as satisfaction at having gotten to Carlsbad first.

"How do you mean, our immediate problems are over?" I asked slowly. The Chinese espionage chief gestured to the inert form of the bacteriologist. "He
is
finished," he said. "I've seen men with that kind of wound live for months, paralyzed and in a coma as he is now. Whatever his plan, it's ended. All we need now
is
to have a platoon make an inch-by-inch search of the area to recover the X–V77."

I watched Chung Li lean back against the rough clay wall, very much at ease, bland satisfaction on his face. That wasn't the way I was feeling, and I turned as Ostrov and three men burst in through the open doorway. The Russian chief's eyes took in the situation at a glance and focused their ice-blue hardness on Chung Li. The Chinese again told him what had happened, and when he was finished I saw Ostrov's tensed face lose a little of its grimness.

"I agree with the general," he said. "Carlsbad's men can run but they'll be found. Meanwhile, the greatest danger is over. Carlsbad is in no condition to carry out whatever he planned or even to direct others in carrying it out."

"I can't call it over until the X–V77 is found and in our hands," I said. "What if that big Japanese knows where it is and tries to come back for it?"

"Without their brains, their leader, they will do nothing. Except hide in terror." Chung Li smiled at me.

"I agree again," Ostrov said gruffly. "The jackals run. That is always the way." I didn't answer, but I was thinking of those people back in the old temple in the Kuriles. They were all dedicated zealots in their own way and Carlsbad's missing helpers were part of that. Chung Li smiled at me again, a deprecating, condescending smile.

"Your concern is understandable, seeing as the entire problem was caused by your government's stockpiling of inhuman methods of warfare," he said. "But a careful search of the area is certain to uncover the virus."

I felt Rita move to my side and I glanced from the Chinese espionage chief to the Russian and back again. Chung Li's position was logical enough. With Carlsbad captive, nearly dead, and the others fleeing, it seemed the primary danger was over. Carlsbad was certainly in no state to carry out anything further. So why was I so damned uneasy? Ostrov's gruff, unfriendly voice gave words to something else in the back of all our minds.

"There is no need for me to stay any longer," he said. "My men and I will cross the border into Kraskino. It is safe to say that this period of cooperation is at an end. We shall not meet again under these circumstances, gentlemen."

I knew he was damned right about that but I was still thinking about the missing bacteria strain. I never liked things unfinished. Loose ends caused trouble.

"I want to get Dr. Carlsbad to America and have our doctors work on him," I said. "He's still alive. Maybe he can be brought around enough to tell us where the X–V77 is hidden."

"It is pointless," Chung Li said through the mask of his bland smile. "My men will find it, given time for a thorough search, I assure you."

I looked at Ostrov and waited for him to offer to help me get Carlsbad the short distance to Kraskino across the border. He merely shrugged, saluted smartly and turned on his heel. "It is over," he flung back. "I have important things to get back to." He stalked out with his three aides. I followed his broad back with my eyes, but he kept going until he was out of my sight. Cooperation was shattering so fast, I could hear the pieces falling.

I turned to Chung Li whose quick little eyes were watching me narrowly. Gesturing to the radio transmitter beside one of his slain soldiers, I said, "I should like to contact my people." Chung Li hesitated for a brief moment and then smiled again.

"Of course. I wish to speak to your Hawk myself." He disentangled the straps of the transmitter from the dead man's shoulders and handed the set to me. I called the carrier, using the agreed-upon code name. When I heard them answer, I asked for a relay hook-up to Hawk in Washington and told my boss what had happened. When Chung Li gestured, I turned the set over to him. He spelled out his thinking persuasively, and it almost convinced me as I listened to him. Almost. But I still had that gnawing inside me. Chung Li handed the set back to me, and I heard Hawk's faint voice.

"I'll take this up with the others who were at the meeting," he said. "But I'm afraid they'll see it Chung Li's way, too. And frankly, Nick, I can't see where his analysis is wrong. Without the brains, without Carlsbad, the others will just keep running."

I couldn't say what I was thinking with the Red Chinese chief standing within arm's length of me but, as I'd learned long ago, even silences spoke to Hawk.

"I know what's bothering you," I heard him say. "You don't trust the sonofabitch, to phrase it in your inimitable way."

"I guess that's about it," I admitted.

"I don't trust him any more than you do," Hawk said. "But look at it this way. If, as is in the back of your mind, Carlsbad's friends left with the X–V77, Chung Li would be anxious as all hell to get it back. It'd mean the same kind of big trouble for him as it originally meant. The only reason he cooperated at all was because he feared Carlsbad might strike at his boss. I can't see Chung Li being casual about this if he wasn't sure that the danger was past."