Double Identity
Page 12
“Put it away,” Nick told him. “There’s nothing alive there.”
Mike Bannion peered beyond the wreck to the westerly shore of the river. The barren land sloped sharply up to rounded, blunt-topped khaki hills. “Maybe they’re still up there, watching. I told you, Nick. I had a feeling. It’s those sonofabitching Pathans—they ambushed the steamer and grabbed the arms shipment. Jesus—that old mullah wasn’t kidding! They are starting a jehad!”
“Calm down,” Nick told him. “You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions. Anyway we’ve got to check it out—if it was the tribesmen we’ll soon know.”
They soon knew. They beached on the sand bar. The boatman would not accompany them. He was in a state of terror. Nick and Bannion made their way through the stink and the sprawled bodies to the steamer. It was a shambles. Blood and brains and decaying guts everywhere. Many of the Pakistani soldiers had been beheaded.
Mike Bannion turned a corpse over with his foot. The face had been shot away, but the turban and dirty singlet, the baggy trousers, were enough to identify it.
Bannion cursed. “Pathan, all right. Stripped, too. Took his bandoliers, rifle, knife, everything. Even his shoes. That’s Pathan for you—they never leave anything behind but stiffs! So what do we do now, Nick?”
N3 covered his nose with a handkerchief and explored the gutted steamer thoroughly. It had been a massacre, all right. The Pakistanis had somehow been caught napping and had been wiped out. The arms were gone. Where? To start a jehad? Probably, he admitted. Bannion was right. The tribesmen were off and running, screaming bloody Allah. They would have their jehad. They would have it— but who would own it?
Very clever, he admitted. Trick the arms out of Karachi and have your boys waiting in ambush. He ticked the list of arms through his mind again, the list he had read in the murdered Sam Shelton’s office.
Rifles—light machine guns—heavy machine guns—grenades—bazookas—anti-tank guns! Five million rounds of ammo!
Nick Carter’s smile was grim. You could have yourself quite a jehad with all that!
Mike Bannion joined him. He was carrying the giant revolver in his right hand and frowning. “They took some prisoners, Nick. I’m sure of it. At least I counted the dead Paks and they don’t make half a company. They must have taken prisoners. I don’t understand it. They never do!”
N3 glanced across the river to the western shore. Even at that distance he could see the broad trail the tribesmen had left leading up into the stubby hills. Pretty sure of themselves. Not afraid of retribution. That figured—the Pakistani Army was busy fighting India at the moment.
An idea moved in his brain. Could there be another reason for that broad trail? An invitation, perhaps?
He turned to Bannion. “Let’s get unloaded. Better hurry before our friend there loses his nerve entirely and shoves off and leaves us.”
Mike Bannion avoided Nick’s eyes. He said: “You’re going to follow them?”
“Yes. I’ve got to. No way out for me. You don’t have to go—you can go back to Karachi with the boatman. But I’ll have to take the jeep and the supplies. Well?”
Bannion took his bottle of Scotch from the deep pocket of his sheepskin coat and tilted it. He drank for a long time, then put the bottle down and wiped his mouth with his hand. “I’ll go with you. I’m a damned fool, but I’ll go. Just one thing!”
Mike’s grin was a little sheepish. “If anything happens— to me—and you get out of it okay, will you see if you can ~get a little of Uncle Sugar’s dough for my wife and kids? They got nothing.”
Nick smiled. “I’ll try. I think I can swing it. Now let’s get cracking—that character is going to shove off any minute!”
It took the Luger to persuade the boatman to put them ashore on the western side. They unloaded the jeep and supplies where the Pathan trail left the river.
Bannion nodded to the boatman and looked at Nick, the question plain in his eyes. The man would talk, of course, as soon as he got back to Karachi.
Nick hesitated a moment, then shook his head. Why kill the poor devil? By the time he got back to Karachi it would be too late for anyone to stop them. It occurred to him that by that time he might be glad, overjoyed, to see Pakistani troops.
Nick watched the craft disappear back downriver as Mike Bannion checked over the jeep. The vultures had returned to their meal.
“Come on,” Bannion told him. “If we’re going let’s go. This old heap is as ready as she’ll ever be.”
A mile inland they found the first Pakistani soldier buried in earth up to his neck. He was dead, his throat slit, and his eyelids had been cut off. Something white glimmered in the gaping dead mouth.
Mike Bannion took one look and was sick over the side of the jeep. He would not go close to the dead man. Nick walked to the grotesque bloody head sticking out of the sandy soil and studied it. He leaned down and took a bit of paper from the mouth. Something was scrawled on it— Chinese ideographs!
His Chinese was rusty but in a moment he made out the message.
Follow me. The way is plain. You will find one of these markers every few miles. I look forward to meeting you. Again!
It was signed: Nick Carter.
Chapter 9
Khyber
A limpid warm rain was falling on Peshawar, that ancient and historic city in the narrow mouth of the bloodstained Khyber Pass. It was a weekend and many of the tribesmen, Afghans, Pathans, and Turkomans, had brought their women into town to shop in the bazaars. While the women gossiped and did their trading the men gathered in the teahouses and kept the samovars boiling. Most of the men were lean and fierce, each with a cruel knife thrust into a colorful sash. The subject of conversation, when police or strangers were not around was—jehid! Holy war! The time was coming!
It was not a monsoon rain—they were over for the year— and Nick Carter found the moisture pleasant on his face as he peered from a dark archway in the Street of the Story Tellers. It was a narrow, cobbled lane stinking of garbage and human filth, but N3 was too impatient and anxious to pay heed to the smells. Mike Bannion had been gone a long time. Too long!
Nick fidgeted. He had already been twice noticed by whores, one who hadn’t been a day over twelve, and he knew he’d better move on. The luck had been incredible so far—if it was luck—and he didn’t want to spoil it now.
To his left, at the end of the street, he could see the looming mass of Mahabat Khan mosque. Directly across from him was a well-lighted shop where leather workers were busy—Nick could see sandals and cartridge belts on display. The belts were of the old-style bandolier type, worn crossed over the shoulders, and N3 wondered, rather grimly, if Ml ammo would fit them.
He retreated back into the dark arch and lit a cigarette. He leaned against a rough stone wall and pondered, covering the cigarette with a big hand and frowning. He didn’t like the setup. Not at all. But he had to play it—play the cards the way they fell. He, and the ever more reluctant Bannion, had come boldly into Peshawar that afternoon. Four days from the Indus. The old jeep had somehow made it—and the trail had been clearly marked as promised. There had been no more notes—only the milestones, the corpses of Pakistani soldiers buried in earth to their necks. Throats cut. Eyelids gone. Noses cut off in some cases.
Nick inhaled deeply and held it. This was a real weird, kooky setup. They’d left the jeep in the camp on the outskirts of Peshawar and walked in. The rain had started about then. No one paid them much attention, which in itself was not unusual—from ancient times the Khyber Pass had served as a gateway, and invasion route, between east and west Asia. Strangers were no novelty in Peshawar. At first the only ones to pay any attention to the two men in their cocky bush hats and sheepskin coats were the beggars and the kids, and the shopkeepers—and, of course, the inevitable prostitutes.
They had been in Peshawar only half an hour when Nick Carter spotted his double. It was still light, the rain gentle, and he had seen the impostor in the Street of the Potters.
There was a woman with him. An American girl. A beauty!
It was all incredible and too easy, and N3 knew it, but he took it in stride. He ducked into a spice shop and whispered a few hurried commands to Mike Bannion. Mike was to follow the couple and report back when he could do so without losing them.
Mike had come back once to say that they were now in the Street of the Coppersmiths. The girl had purchased some Benares brass and gotten into a hassle with the merchant. Nick and Bannion had left the spice shop and had walked to his present place of concealment. Then he had sent Mike back to spy some more. That had been over an hour ago.
A bullock cart creaked past the archway, its dry axles squealing like stuck pigs. Nick Carter flipped his butt away in disgust. He’d better go find Mike. It meant breaking cover and the possibility of being spotted by the man he was after, but it couldn’t be helped. Yet he was reluctant. He had a feeling about this one—they were expecting him, they knew he must come, and his double was not likely to be caught off guard. So be it. Yet this was a tactical situation at the moment, not strategic, and he thought he had a little advantage. They—his man would not be alone, this time— they did not know Mike Bannion! Nick could use the little drunk as his eyes and ears for a time—or so he had hoped. But now? Mike was running scared and admitted it. He was keeping his promise, drinking only one bottle a day, but now that the pressure was getting heavy? Nick smiled wryly and prepared to leave his shelter. Mike might have decided to toss in the towel—might be taking cover in a brothel or a hashish den.
He heard the footsteps then. A moment later Mike Bannion paused at the arch and peered in. “Nick?”
“Yeah. Where are they?”
Bannion stepped into the gloom. “At the Peshawar Hotel right now. In the bar. They looked like they were settling in for a time, so I took a chance.”
“Good man,” said Nick. “I was just doing you an injustice in my thoughts.”
He heard Bannion tug at the bottle in his coat pocket Then the gurgle. He couldn’t see the impish grin, but he knew it was there. Mike Bannion was afraid—Nick Carter knew fear when he saw it;—but so far the guy was bearing up well.
Mike said: “You think I’d taken off for the boondocks?”
“It occurred to me.”
Gurgle.
“I won’t let you down,” Bannion said. “I’ll try hard not to—but I wish the hell I knew what went on. That guy I was following—I damned near soiled myself when I got a closeup of him. That’s you!”
“I know,” said Nick. “It’s a little confusing. Don’t try to figure it out, Mike. If we get out of this maybe I’ll tell you about it.”
“If we get out of it?”
Gurgle.
“I warned you it might be dangerous,” snapped Nick. “Now lay off the booze! We’ve got work to do. I think things are going to break tonight—and break fast. We mustn’t lose them, whatever happens. What do you know about the woman with him?”
Mike Bannion lit a cigarette. He was letting his red beard grow again. “Only that she’s a doll, a real dish. Blonde, in her late twenties—maybe thirty—swell legs and a pair of knockers that makes a man ashamed of his thoughts. Beautiful face, too!”
“You didn’t miss much,” said N3 dryly. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask her for her autograph.”
“I did better than that! I found out her name.” Bannion paused to gloat a moment. He was, Nick considered, as drunk as he’d been since they started. But as yet he was holding it well enough.
“Fine work,” he praised. He tried to sound enthusiastic. “How’d you do that?”
“I told you I knew a little Pashto. When they left the coppersmith’s stall they went to a tobacco shop. The guy— you—got to looking through some magazines, Russian and Chinese, and I had a little time. I cut back to the coppersmith and slipped him some baksheesh. The woman’s name is Beth Cravens, as near as I could make out. She’s an American. Works for the Peace Corps here—helps with the schools. The old guy was a talker but that was all I had time for. I didn’t want to lose them.”
“Amen to that! Let’s get back to the Peshawar Hotel. They have a car?”
“She does. An English Ford. It was in the lot behind the hotel when I left.”
“Come on!” N3 was curt. “And lay off that sauce from now on—until I tell you different!”
“Yes, sahib.”
“It’s for your own good,” Nick told him dourly. “There’s nothing funny about a shiv in the back!”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Bannion. “Don’t worry. Every time I feel the urge to get blotto I think of those Paks buried in the ground with their eyes and noses gone. It’s a real soberer-up!”
It was getting close to eight as they made their way through the narrow crowded streets toward the Peshawar Hotel. As they skirted the spacious square in which the mosque Mahabat Khan stood, Nick said: “I want you to give me your impressions of the man, Bannion. Right off the top of your head. Don’t think, don’t embroider it. Suppose you didn’t know me. Didn’t know I had a double. What would you think of him then?”
Bannion scratched at his red stubble. He was nearly running to keep up with Nick’s long strides.
“Impressive,” he said at last. “Damned impressive. Good-looking bastard. Handsome without being pretty, if you know what I mean. Big, tall, lean. Looks like he’s made of concrete. Looks tough, too. Like he could be very mean. Graceful. Moves like a tiger.”
“You’re a good observer,” N3 admitted. He was a little flattered and admitted it. He also admitted the Chinese had done a good job—a number one, excellent, first-rate professional job. His double was so near like himself it was a little frightening.
“I can tell you something else about him,” said Bannion. He snickered. “The guy is a real heller with the women. At least with this one—she’s all over him! When I left she was playing with him under the table in the bar!”
N3 said nothing during the rest of the walk. His thoughts were busy with the girl. Beth Cravens. The Peace Corps! Jesus—where would the rats gnaw into next?
It had already occurred to him that the woman might be an innocent dupe. It was quite possible. The Chinese agent had fooled Pei Ling in Tibet and Sam Shelton in Karachi. Fooled them at first—for some reason both of them had had second thoughts—and doubts. They had been killed.
So this Beth Cravens could be innocent. The man had introduced himself as Nick Carter and she had believed him. But why? What in hell was Nick Carter, the real AXE man, supposed to be doing in Peshawar?
His heart, his intuition, whispered the truth. The woman was a Red agent. Another American who had sold out! A spark of anger moved in N3—another lousy traitor! Somehow it seemed worse because the treason came wrapped in a lovely package.
From a doorway across from the Peshawar Hotel they could see into the little bar. The quarry was still there. No monkey business under the table now—they were openly holding hands and the girl was gazing at the big man with adoration. If it’s phony she’s a good actress, Nick Carter admitted.
A sudden thought struck him. A hunch so overpowering that he would have almost bet his life on it. He turned to Bannion. “You sober enough to go into the hotel and act like a gentleman? Like you’re looking for an old friend?”
“Sober as a judge,” averred Bannion. “Some judges I’ve known. Why?”
“Go in and throw your Pashto around and see if you can get a look at the register. I think he’s staying there. Just look at the last half-dozen names.”
Bannion was back in five minutes. “You’re so right. You’re staying there! Big as life—signed in as Nicholas Carter. On business.”
“Dirty business.”
Nick pulled the collar of his sheepskin coat up against the rain. He pulled down the Aussie type hat. Now that the phony had established himself, he mustn’t be seen. Especially by cops or the military. It would only engender confusion and he wanted no more of that. Get the thing over with and get out.
“Yes. It’s black. Nearly brand new.”
When Bannion had gone trotting off Nick went around the hotel to the parking lot. The Ford was there, shiny with rain. The only other car was an ancient Chrysler with a flat tire.
N3 stood in deep shadow and let the rain soak him. It was coming down a bit harder now. He studied the Ford—it had a luggage rack on top. If worst came to worst, and Bannion didn’t return in time with the jeep, maybe he could—
A moment later the decision was forced on him. The woman and the false Nick Carter came around the corner of the hotel and headed for the Ford. Nick retreated a bit more into the shadows. Damn! What now? He just couldn’t afford to lose them. For the moment he had just the faint edge of advantage and he didn’t want to lose that, either. But unless he took them now—too early for his liking—he would have to let them drive away. Nick automatically checked his weapons. The Luger was ready to snarl. Hugo lurked in his sheath. Pierre, the gas bomb, was as lethal as ever. But to what purpose? He could kill the man, certainly, and maybe make the woman talk. Maybe! But he had no time to fool around. That arms shipment had come into Peshawar, or through it, and then vanished. Nick had to find it With the guns and ammo as his ace he could go to the Pakistani Government and start clearing matters up. Without it—
As it turned out he needn’t have worried. They weren’t going anywhere for the moment. He watched them climb into the car. The back seat! Curtains were pulled. The English still put curtains or shades in some of their cars!
In a few moments the little car began to rock gently. N3 could hear the faintest whisper of springs. Just like the good old States, he told himself with a hard little smile. Every car a traveling boudoir!
He made his decision without hesitation, praying that Bannion would not show up now with the noisy jeep. It would spoil everything. What they were doing in there shouldn’t take them long—then they would be off to somewhere, perhaps to the arms cache, and Nick Carter was going to be with them. Bannion would just have to look out for himself.