Twelve Hours To Destiny (11 page)

“Tai Fan will take care of the guards,” said Ts’ai Luan in a soft murmur.

“What about the dogs?”

“Don’t worry about them. We have something which will stop them in their tracks.” She nodded towards one of the other men who placed a hand inside the voluminous folds of his tunic and drew out a long, bamboo pipe. Holding out his left hand he showed the three tiny, feathered darts to Carradine. “These are tipped with a quick-acting poison which completely paralyses the muscular system,” Ts’ai Luan explained. “It works within two seconds.”

“You seem to have thought of everything,” he said in admiration. “The more I know about you, Ts’ai Luan, the more I’m certain that London should have put you in command of the station.”

She flashed him a quick smile, lowered her head to peer through the windscreen, then caught his arm, her fingers tightening convulsively. “The guards have just gone around the rear of the corner. We have less than three minutes to get into position. Quickly!”

Carradine slid out of the truck and followed her across the empty street, onto the rough stretch of ground which separated the Red Dragon Headquarters from the road. The other men were vaguely seen shadows, flitting soundlessly forward, the huge form of Tai Fan easily discernible until he had melted from sight among the bushes. Within two minutes of leaving the truck, they had all crept out of sight. Carradine held his breath in his lungs. The haft of the knife was hard against his palm as he steadied himself.

The moon-flooded silence held for what seemed an eternity. Then it was broken by the sound of heavy footsteps approaching from the front of the building. The guards were returning on their monotonous circuit. Cautiously, Carradine lifted his head. He felt a tiny prickle of sweat on his forehead. There came the faint hiss of breath near his right ear. “They’re coming! Just keep out of sight and leave this to the others.”

The dark shapes of the men emerged from the corner of the building. The dogs were just visible a little distance behind them. They continued forward at the same steady pace, oblivious of the fact that both would be dead before they had drawn another five breaths into their lungs. Carradine tensed himself. Death, when it came, was swift and sudden and unexpected. There was a twin flash of quicksilver in the pale moonlight. The two guards jerked as though struck by invisible fists. Swaying, they put up their hands towards their throats where the hafts of the knives protruded from the exposed flesh. Then they went down on to their knees, almost in unison, toppling on to their faces without a moan.

Now for the dogs, thought Carradine tensely. Get those dammed dogs! Now that the long chains had been released from the dead fingers of the guards, the hounds leapt forward, sprinting across the open stretch of ground, ears lying back on their heads, teeth showing whitely in the gaping jaws.

Get them, his mind screamed. They’ll scent us within seconds and then it will all be over. Even as the thought crossed his mind, the nearest of the three brutes suddenly swerved, came bounding directly towards him. Instinctively, he cringed back, gripped the knife tightly in his fist, the blade thrust out, his legs twisted beneath him in the hope that he might get in a death thrust before those bared fangs sank into his throat.

From somewhere close at hand there came a faint hiss, a half-heard sound above the thumping of his heart and the pounding of the blood through his temples. Then the dog lurched sideways, clawed ineffectually at the air for a moment before collapsing on to its side. The claws scrabbled feebly for a second. Then it lay absolutely still.

Carradine looked away from the sprawling animal on to the dirt. The other two dogs had been stretched out near at hand and the girl had caught his arm, was half-dragging him towards the sheer wall at the back of the building. Hell, but that solitary, small window seemed a long way up from the ground. The others came running in from all sides. Tai Fan stood against the wall, legs braced apart, his hands pressed hard against stone. Carradine saw then how they were going to reach the window.

Within moments, there was a human ladder against the wall. “I will go up first,” said Ts’ai Luan. “Then you must follow quickly. The window will not be locked.”

Before he could ask any further questions, the girl had shinned up the tower of men until she stood balanced on top, some five feet below the window. Damn, thought Carradine, what was he expected to do now? Tai Fan grunted hoarsely, jerked his head slightly. Drawing a deep breath into his lungs, Carradine took a tight grip on himself and began to climb, pulling himself up with his hands, trying to shut his mind to the strain these men must surely be under. Eventually, he was standing on the shoulders of the topmost man, immediately behind Ts’ai Luan, holding on to her shoulders to steady himself.

“What now?” he asked through tightly-clenched teeth.

“The window,” she said harshly. “You must reach it. Hurry!”

“But how—?”

“Climb on to my shoulders.” There was a note of urgency in her voice.

Carradine hesitated for only a fraction of a second. The girl bent her knees slightly, took his weight on her shoulders, then straightened up until his fingertips hooked around the ledge of the window. Carradine tried not to think of the human ladder beneath, concentrated all of his energies on opening the window. The breath was harsh and painful in his throat. By using all of his strength, he succeeded in levering it open and hauling himself inside, dropping lightly on the balls of his feet into the dim corridor. Reaching down, he caught the girl’s wrists and pulled her inside. Seconds later, the rope which Tai Fan carried coiled about his middle came snaking up towards the window. On the second attempt, he caught it, drew it in. There was an iron grille set in the far wall. Working swiftly, he looped the rope through it, knotted it firmly, then held on to it as the others came climbing up the sheer wall, the mountainous bulk of Tai Fan bringing up the rear.

CHAPTER 6

THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES

The knife held loosely in his right hand, only dimly aware of the feel of cold metal against his fingers, Carradine padded softly forward. Slowly, but not with the ultra-cautious movements of a man anticipating trouble, more with the dream-like slowness, the half-belief of having accomplished something he had never thought possible. Here they were, in the stronghold of the Red Dragon and somewhere here was Chao Lin, the man he had come to find. The building was not silent. There was a strange subdued murmur of sound which seemed to come from all around them. Carradine recognised it as a blend of humming dynamos providing the lighting and heating, the muffled clatter of typewriters from the floor below, and other indefinable noises which went to make up the heartbeat of this dreadful place.

The train of thought was lost abruptly. Tai Fan took his arm, motioned with his head towards the far end of the corridor, then moved one finger across his throat in a universal gesture. There might be guards. If so, they would have to be killed silently. He nodded to indicate that he understood.

They started moving again. Carradine’s face grim at the prospect of what lay ahead. Ten yards from the end of the corridor, the girl paused, caught his arm. There came the sound of voices from somewhere around the corner. The clatter of booted heels on the stairs came a moment later. Long dancing shadows, thrown by the light behind the men appeared across the floor of the passage. Carradine closed his fingers around the hilt of the knife. There were three shadows, grotesquely elongated; first the bodies and then the long legs.

The men were talking loudly among themselves, totally oblivious of their danger. Carradine tensed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the others ranged along one wall, pressing their bodies close to it, the pale light glittering off the blades of the drawn daggers. The three men approached the top of the stairs. An instant later, they appeared less than ten yards away. For a moment there was a taut, stunned silence as they stared at each other. Then Tai Fan drew back one huge arm, flicked it forward and one of the men died instantly with a knife in the jugular, a dark red stain pouring down his neck and into the collar of his tunic. Another man died a moment later as he made a futile attempt to unsling the rifle over his shoulder. The third man, a trifle more quick-witted than his companions, hurled himself to one side and the thrown knife missed his shoulder by less than an inch and clattered metallically against the wall behind him. As Carradine watched, fascinated, the Chinese suddenly hurled himself forward, the butt of the rifle lifted as he began the downward swing which would bring it crashing against the side of Carradine’s head.

Everything had happened so quickly that only instinct saved him at that moment. Dropping to his knees, he dived for the man’s legs. As he whirled sideways at the same time, he expected to feel the impact of the gun on his skull. But the move had taken the man completely by surprise. He stumbled. A knee thudded into the back of Carradine’s neck as he scrambled on to one knee, he saw the other struggling to regain his balance, one hand thrust out against the wall in an effort to steady himself, the other still gripping the butt of the gun as he reversed it, fingers moving down the stock towards the trigger guard.

Carradine’s muscles tightened. In a violent corkscrew of motion, he forced himself upward. His left shoulder caught the man under the leg and exerting all of his strength, he threw him completely off-balance. The long steel blade sliced into the guard’s stomach with a sickening feel as if it was sliding into lard. He pushed with all of the force in his arm and shoulder, until the knuckles felt the rough cloth of the uniform, then twisted hard with his wrist. A thin bleat of sound came from the other’s lips, the flailing arms sought to catch him around the neck.

Drawing a harsh gasp of air into his heaving lungs, Carradine pulled himself upright, stared down into the terrible face that sank slowly to the floor, the lips drawn back from stained, broken teeth, the eyes wide and fixed, with the life ebbing swiftly from them. Slowly, agonisingly, the dying man strove to lift the rifle, to bring it to bear on him, to press the trigger with the last ounce of strength left in him. Then the sweating yellow face dropped back with a sharp, abrupt movement. The peaked cap fell off the shaven skull as the head struck the ground.

Carradine swayed and panted hoarsely through his clenched teeth. There was sweat on his forehead, trickling into his eyes, stinging them as he blinked several times. In the steady, ringing silence, he heard Ts’ai Luan say urgently: “Are you all right, Steve?”

With an effort, he nodded his head, struggled to clear it of the grey fog that swirled within his brain. Tai Fan moved purposefully forward, grasped two of the bodies by the high collars, lifted them clear of the ground as if they were little more than children and hauled them back down the corridor to where Ts’ai Luan had moved away towards one of the doors. She opened it cautiously, peered inside, then nodded. Less than a minute later, all three bodies were out of sight and there was no sign in the passage that death had struck three times.

There was no one on the stairs as they made their way down to the second floor and the long corridor, with the powerful lights set close to the ceiling, was also empty. Carradine gave it only a quick, cursory glance then followed the others down towards the lower floors. The muted humming of machines from behind the closed doors reached their ears as they progressed towards the basement. This was going to be the most dangerous part of the job, he thought grimly. And they were working against time now. Sooner or later those two guards on the grounds are going to be missed and once their bodies were discovered, the fat would really be in the fire; the entire building would be searched, every entrance and exit sealed. There was the feel of inexorable time breathing down the back of his neck.

A few more seconds. A few more yards. Then they were at the bottom of the stairs. Ahead of them, the long corridor, with soldiers on the other floors, stretched away into the distance. But here there was one big difference. There were no brilliant lights set against the ceiling. The passage was in almost total darkness, except for a few beams of light which slanted out from the doors on either side.

“Better than we had hoped,” murmured Ts’ai Luan. “At least we have the advantage of darkness.”

Carradine paused, then nodded. There were likely to be several prisoners down here and there would be an inevitable delay until they discovered the cell which housed Chao Lin. But there was nothing to be done about that. Leaving Tai Fan at the end of the corridor, close to the bottom stairs to keep watch, they inched their way along the darkened passage. As they moved forward, Carradine noticed that at intervals, there were long recesses set in the walls between certain of the doors. It was not until he was less than five feet from the nearest that it came to him why they were there. Yes, damn it! There was a small table set back into the wall and a man seated at it, a snub-nosed machine-gun resting beside his chair within easy reach of his right hand. He straightened himself, touched the girl on the shoulder, nodding towards the recess, placing a finger to his lips.

Flattening his body against the wall, he inched along for a couple of feet and then warily edged his head around the corner. He took a single, all-embracing look and then drew back, waiting for the flooding of his heart to settle back to normal. The guard was half-asleep, his head nodding forward on to his arms, any thought of danger so far from his thoughts that he was completely relaxed.

Carradine stood quite still, tensing himself, measuring in his mind’s eye, the distance to the other. Then he thrust the knife back into his belt, grinned tightly at the girl as she looked at him in momentary surprise, motioned her to stay where she was. Inching an eye around the corner again, he saw that the man had not changed his position. He still leaned forward in his chair, the back of the neck exposed in the faint light which filtered through a nearby door. Stiffening the fingers of his right hand, he sucked in a gust of air, then took the three quick, silent steps which brought him immediately behind the unsuspecting man. The edge of his hand smashed against the nape of the proffered neck. Without a sound the other jerked forward. Before the man’s face could hit the table, Carradine had swung the palm of his other hand beneath the chin, jerking it back. There was a faintly audible snap, then the Chinese slumped sideways in the chair. The eyes were open as if in stunned surprise, but they were rolled up so that only the whites showed and when he felt the flaccid wrist, there was no detectable pulse.

Ts’ai Luan moved swiftly past him, scarcely pausing to give the dead guard a second glance. She reached the closed door, stretched up on tiptoe and peered through the iron grille set in the stout wood. Turning, she shook her head, moved quickly on to the next. Carefully, Carradine bent, hooked his hands under the man’s armpits and drew him silently out of the chair, pulling him around the table where he laid him on the floor, out of sight of anyone walking along the corridor. It would not allay suspicion for long, but at the moment, seconds were precious and vital.

Ts’ai Luan uttered a faint sound as the breath gushed from her lips. He glanced up quickly. She motioned him forward.

“My uncle,” she said breathlessly. “He is in there!”

“Then the guard must have the keys with him.” He went back to the inert body, rolled it over on to its back. There was a small bunch of keys attached to the man’s belt. Swiftly, he pulled them off, went back to the girl. The first three keys did not fit, but the fourth turned easily in the lock and he swung the door open, praying that no one further along the corridor would hear the sound or notice the faint beam of yellow light which spilled out into the passage.

The room was bare except for a table in the middle and a low bunk against one wall. The man who lay on the bunk lifted his head weakly as they burst in. For a moment, there was a look of loathing and resignation on the lined face, an expression which changed quickly to one of relief and stunned surprise.

“Ts’ai Luan!” The voice was a dry, husky whisper which scarcely carried across the room.

The girl said something urgently, in rapid Chinese that Carradine could not understand, saw the other nod. The old man’s gaze flickered in his direction. In faultless English, he said softly: “So you are the agent from London?” As Carradine nodded wordlessly, he went on: “I knew they would send someone but I never thought to see you here, my friend.”

“There were times when I didn’t expect to make it myself,” Carradine said dryly. “But there is no time now to talk. That will come later. We have to get you out of here before the alarm is raised. There are enough dead men lying around to make that a certainty within the next few minutes.” Even as he spoke, he noticed the heavy chain around the man’s ankle, a chain which was securely fastened to a shackle in the wall. One glance at the padlock near Chao Lin’s ankle told Carradine, with a sinking feeling in his chest, that none of the keys he had taken from the dead card would fit. What now? Desperately, he forced himself to think clearly. This was something they had not foreseen.

There was no time to hang about. Any moment now and one of the guards would be missed. Were they going to be foiled at the very last minute after coming so far?

Again it was a girl whose quick-witted mind supplied the answer. She turned quickly on her heel, moved like a wraith into the passage. Less than ten seconds later, she was back, with Tai Fan close on her heels. The huge Chinese took one swift look at the chain, then grasped it in both hands close to the point where it encircled the other’s ankle. Slowly, inexorably, the other began to pull. Sweat showed in tiny beads on his face and the great muscles under the tunic bulged as he exerted tremendous pressure. God, but the man was terrifically strong. Incredibly, the metal began to bend. Then, with an explosive snap, one of the links burst.

Dropping the length of chain on to the bare mattress, Tai Fan bent, caught Chao Lin around the waist and hoisted him over his shoulders, taking the other’s weight without any effort.

Now to get out of this fearful place! As they made their way silently up the steep stairs to the third floor the building continued to hum and throb all about them. It seemed incredible, he thought to himself, that less than seven minutes had passed since he had swung in through that window. Yet even in that short space of time, someone could have discovered that rope in the corridor and there could be a party of guards waiting for them.

But miraculously, the corridor, when they finally reached it, was empty. The rope was where they had left it, snaking down through the half-open window. Swiftly, without speaking, the men climbed over the ledge and were gone from sight. Carradine waited while Tai Fan, still carrying Chao Lin with one hand clasped tightly around the other’s middle, lowered himself to the ground, then followed, ignoring the burns on the palms of his hands as he slid down. He held the end of the rope while Ts’ai Luan descended, then they were running over the open ground, into the deserted street and across to where the truck waited in the mouth of the narrow alley.

Still no sound came from the building a hundred yards away, nothing to indicate that there was any pursuit. But their luck would only hold for so long, Carradine thought grimly. It would not be long before all hell erupted. Carefully, Tai Fan placed Chao Lin in the back of the vehicle. The girl climbed in and as Carradine ran around to the front and slid into the seat, Tai Fan squeezed his huge bulk beneath the wheel. There was a broad smile on his moon face. He’s actually enjoying this, thought Carradine. God, he must hate the Communists. Sooner or later, there would be a price on this man’s head once the finger of suspicion was pointed at him. Not that Tai Fan would mind overmuch. In many countries there were men like him, men who lived and died by violence, fighting for lost causes. Outwardly, a gentle giant, he killed viciously and expertly, without asking questions, without a qualm on his conscience, whenever the situation dictated.