by Nick Carter
N3 tiptoed carefully across the parking lot. The car was still swaying gently and he could hear the low mumble of voices. They wouldn’t have heard the Trump of Doom!
Carefully, slowly, with each movement carefully gauged in advance, he climbed on top of the Ford and flattened himself. He accomplished it in utmost silence, as stealthy as Death creeping. Not once did the couple within break their lubricious rhythm.
It was pitch dark now and rain was slanting down in black wet ropes. In such visibility Nick thought he had a good chance of going undetected as they drove through the streets of Peshawar. The rain would drive people inside.
The test came sooner than expected. The scrabbling within the car ceased and Nick heard them talking. In Chinese! His last doubts about the woman, about Beth Cravens, vanished. She was a traitor.
The door opened and the man got out. He stopped to kiss the woman and said, still in Chinese, “I’ll see you later, Beth. At your place. I want to check with my people who are watching that bastard’s camp.”
“All right, my love. Oh, Nick, how marvelous you are! I am so happy. You will be careful? This man is dangerous. Even for you, Nick. He may be in Peshawar right now!”
“Maybe,” said the man. “Maybe, but I doubt it. These Chinese agents are stupid. He’ll run pretty true to form, I think Anyway my men are watching the camp and the jeep is still there, I hear. This fake Nick and the redhead will have to go back for it, and to make their plans. That’s one reason why I want to stay around the hotel for a time—he may even have the gall to come in and register as me. As Nick Carter! I hope not, it would cause complications, but at least I would like to study him for awhile. Figure out how best to kill him.”
There was an odd note of command in the woman’s voice as she spoke, “You’re forgetting again, darling! You’re not going to kill him. The plans were changed, remember? You’re going to take him prisoner, take him back to the States for questioning. Try to remember, my love.”
For a moment the man hesitated. He appeared to be thinking, to be struggling to get something clear in his mind. Then, “Of course. I did forget. Capture, not kill! New orders from Washington. All right, then—I’ll see you at your place later. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, sweetheart, I’ll be counting the minutes. If I’m not there wait for me. I must go to the fort and talk to Mohammed Cassim. He says the tribesmen are becoming impatient for action.”
“Handle him gently,” said the man. “Remember he’s Number One with all the tribes, the Wali. We need him right now. Later it won’t matter.”
“I will, love. I know what to say. But now that they’ve got the guns they’re fighting the bit. I’ll be so glad, Nick, when this is all over and we can go back to the States and get married.”
“And me, Beth, love! Goodbye now.”
The big man, Nick Carter’s double, stalked away into the rain without looking up or glancing back. Nick kept his face against the roof of the car. The man turned the corner and was gone. Rain still slatted down.
Nick could hear the swish and rustle of feminine garments being adjusted. A faint curse. An impatient tug. When she got out of the back and climbed behind the wheel N3 noted a briskness, an alertness, about her actions which belied the dreamy after-love mood she was supposed to be in. She was humming to herself. When the Saints Come Marching In. It hardly seemed to fit the occasion.
The car started with a lurch. She was a poor driver. Nick clung precariously to the rails of the luggage rack.
She found a narrow alley, deep in mud, and slid the car through it onto a deserted street. Good. She was not going through the main part of town after all. She appeared to be avoiding it as much as possible.
Nick Carter wondered, for just a fraction of a second, about his own sanity. Or at least his hearing. Then he smiled in the rain and shook his head—he was all right. The man had said those things and the woman—playing along with the gag?—had been right with him.
Nick Carter. Chinese agent. The bastard’s camp. New orders from Washington. Not kill but capture. Back to the States and get married.
The car hit a nasty bump and Nick hung on for life. He let the whole conversation he had just heard swirl about in his brain. One thing he was beginning to understand— this phony didn’t know he was a phony. Not at the moment, anyway. The guy thought he really was Nick Carter.
Somebody, thought the man from AXE, is crazy. And it isn’t me. But wait a minute! Just a minute—maybe not so crazy after all. He recalled the odd moment when the man had been confused and the woman’s voice had changed, had been both wheedling and hard.
Nick grinned in the rain. It could be. It just could be. You had to hand it to the clever rat bastards!
The man was hypnotized!
Chapter 10
The Fort
Today there are three routes through the Khyber Pass, a modern blacktop road with two lanes, a railroad, and the caravan trail which has been there for thousands of years. Shortly after Beth Cravens left Peshawar she swung off the blacktop and down a steep, rutted decline to the ancient trail. The going was rugged and Nick Carter’s big frame was battered unmercifully. He comforted himself with the thought that the lady couldn’t be going far.
He was right. The Ford swung off the caravan trail and began to climb a winding drive. Gravel crunched beneath the tires. The darkness was total except for rain-filled tunnels of light cast by the car; Nick got a fleeting impression of stunted trees and dense undergrowth and a bald, flat-topped hill.
The little Ford toiled around the last spiral and stopped. The lights went out. Nick huddled in the rain, fighting a sneeze, and heard the door open and slam. She was not humming now.
Footsteps going away. Another door opened and shut. The moment he heard the door close Nick was off the car and running for a blob of shrubbery he had noted before the lights went out. He crouched in the wet bushes and waited.
Lights flicked on in the house. Nick saw a small stone patio, a water tank, metal awnings, a neat wooden fence. The Peace Corps lady lived pretty well! By reflected light he saw that the house was of stone, long and low and comfortable looking. Another light came on and he saw her move across a window. Bedroom? He crouched and ran softly through the pelting rain.
A damp raincoat lay across the bed. The girl was in the act of pulling her damp, rumpled dress over her head as N3 peered in the window.
He saw immediately why Mike Bannion had been so impressed. She was a stunning creature. Rather tall, with long legs and large hard breasts. She dropped the dress to the floor and stared at herself for a moment in the mirror over the vanity. She leaned to lipstick her wide mouth, then ran a strong, capable-looking hand through her damp blonde hair. She was wearing only long beige stockings, gartered nearly to her hips, and black bra and panties. N3 noted the play of the good muscles in her smooth pale back and shoulders. A big, strong girl. Fine body. Lovely face. Too bad she was a Red. A traitor. She wasn’t going to look so well in prison garb!
Nick decided not to kill her unless he absolutely must. A living corpse, wasting a life away behind bars, was a better warning and example than a dead body.
The woman swung toward the window and he ducked. She went to a closet and came back with heavy slacks, a fur-lined jacket, a sweater and an old Army fatigue cap. Nick watched as she donned these things, and put her slender feet in a pair of Wellington boots. The lady had business. He recalled the conversation in the parking lot—she had to see a certain Mohammed Cassim, the local Wali, —leader—and calm him down. The tribesmen were impatient.
That makes two of us at least, Nick thought grimly as he left the window and went back to his dripping bush. I’m impatient, too.
He had not long to wait. The lights went out and a door closed softly. He did not hear her lock it. It figured. If lover-boy came before she returned he could get in—probably into bed and wait for her. The idea flashed in his brain then but for the moment he stowed it away. First things first!
He lurked
in the bushes until she passed him. He let her take a little lead. She was off guard, unaware, made no effort to conceal her passage. She went noisily, swacking at the bushes with a little stick. Nick followed her with the stealth of a tiger.
Thunder rumbled like distant cannon on the horizon and there was an occasional stroke of pale lightning. Nick blessed the lightning. It was blacker than Satan’s gut!
Beth Cravens never once looked back. She went steadily, surely, and the following AXE man thought that she must have made the trip many times. At last they climbed out of a valley—he saw her silhouetted for a moment on the ridge —and reached a wide plateau. Nick guessed that it would overlook the Khyber Pass at a narrow sector—probably it was one of the old forts built by the British in the last century. The Pathan tribesmen had always been trouble and the English had never really conquered them.
Nick came up a narrow path to the ridge too fast and was nearly caught. He heard the girl speak to someone and ducked behind a huge boulder just as lightning flashed again.
The girl said: “Ynfalla jehad!” If God wills a holy war.
A coarse male voice replied, “Lahewl. Pass, memsahib. They are waiting for you.”
N3 huddled behind his boulder and thought fast. Lightning had given him a glimpse of the huge crumbling old stone fort. And the Pathan guard. Big man. He would be well armed and tough. There would be many others in sound of his voice. This was going to be a little delicate. Nick flexed his right arm and the stiletto, Hugo, dropped into his hand.
The girl had vanished through a small postern in the old wall. N3 stepped from behind his rock and walked steadily toward the same spot. The challenge would come in a moment.
It came. “Who is that? Halt!” The Pathan’s voice was fierce and suspicious.
Nick Carter sauntered coolly onward. He had to get closer. There must be no sound. He gambled. “Comrade Carter,” he said in Chinese. “Comrade Nick Carter. Has the lady passed in yet?” He had no Pashto and was betting that his double hadn’t either. The Chinese should identify him, or at least confuse the guard.
The ruse worked. The Pathan hesitated long enough for Nick to get in close just as lightning tore the dark sky apart. The man sensed something wrong and stepped back. His rifle came up. Nick Carter sprang.
Nick got in close and put the stiletto into the man’s throat. The murderous blade tangled in the thick beard as it went deep into flesh. Nick ripped it across, severing the jugular and turned quickly aside to escape the spurting blood, leaving the blade in the throat to prevent an outcry. The man died quickly and Nick eased him to the wet ground. He yanked out the stiletto and wiped it on the man’s goatskin cloak. He pulled the body out of sight behind some boulders and went back to the postern gate and stood listening for a moment. From deep in the fort came the faint rise and fall of voices. It sounded like a heated discussion.
N3 went through the postern like a drifting shadow. Inside, to his right, a guttering oil torch was thrust into a rusty iron ringbolt. A stink of mutton oil was heavy in the narrow, bricked passage. To his left the floor sloped upward and he could see the reflection of another torch just around a bend. The voices came from that direction.
To his right the passage sloped downward. Nick followed it, guessing that it would lead to the old casemates, thick-walled and iron-doored cells where the British had stored their powder and shot. If what he was looking for was in the fort at all—it should be in the casemates.
The musty dank passage led down and down. Presently he saw another oil torch glimmering where the brick tunnel ended in a cross-passage. He went soft footed, hardly breathing, the Luger in his right hand with the safety off.
N3 peered around the corner into the cross-passage. To his left was a blank wall. To his right he could see tall iron doors on massive hinges. They were nearly closed, just the thickness of a man’s body separating the iron lips. From within the dungeon they guarded came a faint murmur of voices. N3 ran as lightly as a huge cat to the doors and flattened himself against them.
The men in the casemate kept murmuring in subdued tones. Nick could make out an odd slip-slapping sound. It was a moment before he caught on. Then it came—they were playing cards! He applied a furtive eye to the crack between the iron doors.
There were two of them, swarthy and bearded and turbaned. Both were burdened with heavy leather bandoliers and their riffles were standing against a packing case nearby. N3’s quick eye missed nothing. The rifles were old Krags—so the new arms had not yet been doled out?— and the stenciling on the packing case said GRENADES.
This was it. The end of the arms trail.
One of the sentries laughed harshly and slapped down a card. “Rona, fool! Weep! I win! And is it not time for our relief? Where is that misbegotten son of a sick camel? My belly gapes!”
The other man flung his cards away with a curse. “You have the luck of Shaitan himself! Wait, Omar—wait! Smell that? Is it not—”
Nick Carter cursed softly and fumbled with his trouser. Pierre, the terrible little gas pellet, slipped from his fingers and tinkled on the brick floor. Blood had made his fingers slippery. And blood had given him away to the Pathans. They could smell blood a mile away!
Both men leaped for their rifles. Nick scooped up the gas pellet, twisted the dial, and flung it into the casemate all in one fluid motion. He threw his weight against the great iron doors and strained with every muscle in his powerful body. God—they were heavy! Immense! But they were moving. Slowly. Very slowly.
The guards had time for one shot apiece before they died. The slugs flattened themselves against the iron doors and whined back around the chamber. N3 stood with his back to the massive doors and breathed a silent little prayer—if those shots had been heard—
Five nervous minutes passed and no one came to investigate. Nick breathed a little easier, but not much. A relief was due soon. And soon enough the body of the other guard would be found. There was not a minute to lose. He had made his move now, launched his attack, and he was off and running for his life. Hesitation, a single mistake, a goof of any kind, and he was a dead man. If he was lucky he would die quickly. If not—well, he remembered the buried Pakistanis. N3 shrugged his big shoulders and pried the doors open again. Karma—Kismet—Inshallah! You name it. It all added up to Fate and luck and it never did any good to worry once the battle had started.
He took a deep breath and plunged into the casemate. From that moment on he was too busy to worry.
The Pathans lay on the brick floor, mouths open and eyes staring. Both had ripped at the clothing about their throats as they died. Pierre was not a kindly death.
Nick, still holding his breath, picked up the lantern and went rapidly around the huge brick chamber. Stacks of boxes and crates reached to the ceiling, each one neatly stenciled. It was the arms shipment that his double had tricked out of Karachi. No doubt of that.
Nick dared to breathe now. The fumes of the gas pellet had dissipated, gone. And with them one of his chief weapons. He had no spare. He had only the Luger and the stiletto—and his wits. Nick gazed around at the room crammed with deadly weapons and grinned. They wouldn’t do him any good. Brute force wasn’t going to win for him against half the Khyber tribes. And a couple of shrewd operators like the woman and the impostor. He had to out-think them or he was finished—this little romp was just beginning.
In a corner of the chamber he found open boxes of uniforms. He pulled a couple out onto the floor and part of the puzzle fell into place. Became clear as sunlight. Indian uniforms! And Pakistani uniforms! Both sides. Change at will. Raid into India and then raid into Pakistan. Keep the pot boiling and the war going.
Clever, these Chinese!
Nick picked up one of the old Krag rifles and smashed open a box of grenades. As he worked his lean face was as taut and grim as a death’s head. Nasty folk he was dealing with! His double and the woman were arranging a jehad —once it got started the Indians would retaliate with their own version of a holy war—dhar
mayudha. Anyone who had ever cracked a history book knew about religious wars—the most bestial of all. And the Chinese were ready to unloose that on the world to gain their ends.
N3 worked now with fury and frenzy. The relief was due any minute. He tore a dozen uniforms to shreds and twisted them into a long thick fuse leading from the doors back into the center of the chamber. He cursed softly as he sweated. Usually AXE agents were the best equipped in the world. He had nothing. It was improvise and hope.
He wiped his hands on a uniform to get the blood and sweat off and took the detonators from a dozen grenades. His fingers were rock steady but sweat streamed down into his eyes. One mistake here and—
Nick emptied the explosive from the grenades around the end of the fuse that led into a packing case of Ml ammunition Along the edges of the fuse he laid more uniforms, ripped and torn so they would burn more readily. He wanted a good hot fire in here—and maybe even then it wouldn’t work. Might not explode. It was not as easy to set off properly packed ammo as some TV writers depicted.
By the end of the fuse near the doors he placed the oil lantern. It was, he thanked God, a fairly modern version. An old railroad lantern. He placed it solidly on a box and turned up the wick as far as it would go. There was only about half an inch remaining. It would have to do.
Now for the really dangerous part. Nick Carter twisted the pin from a grenade and held it tightly. If he released it now the lever would fly off and the place would go skyward. He gripped the grenade in one big hand and fished for his shoe lace with the other. He had already loosened it and it came out readily. He wrapped it twice around the grenade to hold the firing lever in place and knotted it with his teeth and the fingers of one hand. He was breathing hard when, satisfied it would hold, he put the grenade gingerly down a foot from the lantern. He admitted, grudgingly and for the first time, some respect for generals who went around with taped grenades all over them.
