by Nick Carter
I crept to the house, found a side window wide open, and swung myself inside. There was a moon outside and it gave a surprising amount of light through the windows. I made ray way past a living room, a kitchen, the comfortably furnished parlor. A large room, apparently turned into a study from a dining room, stood at the end of the hall at the foot of the stairs. I heard the sounds of snoring from beyond the stairs as I went into the study. A few chairs, a sturdy old desk and a collection of cases containing sea shells and marine objects lined the walls. The cases held a rare and magnificent collection. I spied a rare Melwardi Cowrie, a Marble Cone and two beautiful Cloth-of-Gold Cones. Giant sea-stars and huge bailer shells filled one of the big vases. A red-and-white reef octopus with its banded tentacles occupied another whole case. Sur hells, the little Warty Cowrie and hundreds of others made up the rest of the collection. On one wall I saw the top shell of a giant clam that must have once weighed in at about six hundred pounds. I turned my eyes from the collection to the desk. On top of it, in one corner, a woman's compact lay atop a note.
"Return this to her on next visit to town," the note read as I got enough moonlight on it to make out the scrawled handwriting. I let the compact lay in my hand, almost burning, as I stared at it. What woman did it belong to, I wondered? Someone who lived in town. Was that town Townsville? I hadn't expected this at all. Lynn Delba, with the sudden switch in her attitude? Had she been here, interrogated and let go? Or Judy? Did she know a lot more than she'd let on? Had she been working with them more closely than she'd revealed? Maybe her desire to get to the States was as much motivated by getting away from her friends as anything else. Or was it some woman I'd never met. Somehow, that didn't ring a bell. It was something I felt, not knew.
I was still thinking about it when the room exploded in light and I looked up into the barrel of a carbine and a service thirty-eight. The carbine was held by a tall, slender Chinese whose black eyes looked at me impassively. The thirty-eight belonged to a wiry-built man, sallow-faced with slicked-back hair and glittering, dark eyes.
"We didn't expect visitors," he said. "Rut look who's here. Put down the compact, please."
I did as he'd said. They had me covered very well and now I heard others approaching.
"We never post sentries," the sallow-faced man said. "But every entrance to the main house is wired electronically to a silent alarm. Any touch on the window frame or sill, or anyone opening a door, sets off the silent alarm."
The Chinese spoke up, his voice soft, almost tired.
"I will take the liberty of presuming you are the AXE agent who has been tracking down our contacts and attempting to find an answer to your suspicions," he said. "I suppose Raymond ran afoul of you in Townsville tonight."
"If Raymond is old hawk-nose, then you're right," I answered. "And as we're presuming things, I'll presume you are the one running the show."
The Chinese shook his head and smiled. "A wrong presumption," he said. "I am here only as an observer. Neither Bonard here nor myself are running the show, to use your quaint Americanism. You will never know who is. In fact, you have reached the end of the line, to use another of your American expressions. You have been most diligent in your pursuit, and very difficult to get rid of. Tonight, you were a little too diligent for your own good."
The way he said it told me he was telling the truth about being top man. Besides, he had no reason to lie about it. They had me in their hands. If he were top man, he might even be smugly pleased enough to tell me. He'd said he was an "observer." It didn't take a lot to guess for whom he was observing.
Suddenly the smell of the Chinese Communists had grown very strong. The dead Chinese scuba diver with the money and this impassive, tall Oriental were playing on the same team and engaged in the same effort. It was making more sense in its own way, too. It was no home grown effort, no bunch of zanies out to wreck the alliance, but a careful set of professionals, backed by the Chinese Communists. Perhaps they were more than merely backed. Maybe they were working for them, directly. I had already pretty much figured out how they operated — by buying dissatisfied men. And the ruthlessness that had marked this operation — The Executioner's savage touch — was also typically Chinese.
"Tell me, did you kill Lieutenant Dempster, too?" I asked, stalling for time.
"Ah, the lieutenant," the Chinese said. "An unfortunate problem. We had called him to tell him you would be after him. We told him exactly what to do. Of course, when he ejected you into the outback, we didn't expect you to survive. The lieutenant had been told to crash his plane at sea and a boat would be there to pick him up. Of course, the boat never did pick him up."
"So you were rid of us both," I smiled grimly. "Or you thought you were."
"This time we'll make sure of you," the sallow-faced one snarled. He went into the hallway, and I heard him giving orders to others while the Chinese held the carbine on me. He returned with two men — heavy-set hired killers by the look of them. They searched me, found Wilhelmina, and emptied the gun. They put the empty gun back in my pocket. They were professionals — they found Hugo too and, yanking my sleeve up, took the thin blade from its sheath. The one called Bonard grinned — a nasty, evil grin.
"Let him keep it," he laughed. That toothpick won't help him." One thug put Hugo back into the leather sheath on my arm and they grabbed me between them and hustled me out of the room.
"We don't like amateur work," Bonard said as I was taken outside. "We don't like bodies full of bullets we have to get rid of or that might be found and set off an investigation. So we're going to set you out in a ravine, where a lot of very big and very ugly steers are going to stomp you to death. Then it'll be simple for us to find you the next day and just turn you over to the authorities as someone who got caught in a stampede."
"Very neat," I commented. "Professional."
"I thought you'd appreciate it," he said. They were putting me into another jeep, the carbine was in my back, still held by the Chinese, with the two hoods on either side of me and Bonard at the wheel. I saw other men driving a herd of long-homed steers, similar to the Texas longhorns, out of the corral. The animals were bellowing and skittish, nervous and angry at being disturbed. They were ripe for a stampede. The ravine was only a half mile from the ranch. They drove into it, and I saw it was blocked off by sheer cliffs on each side. They drove halfway down into it, waited until they heard the sound of the herd approaching the entrance, and then, with a hard shove, I was sent flying from the jeep. I landed in the dirt and turned to see the jeep racing back up the ravine.
I got to my feet and looked at the sides again. There wasn't a ghost of a chance of climbing up those steep rock walls. I looked down toward the other end of the ravine. The steep sides went all the way down, farther than I could see. I knew that it came out someplace else but I didn't know how far. I was sure it was far enough so that I couldn't make it or they'd never have put me down there. But I'd sure as hell try.
I started to run and had only gone a hundred yards when I heard the lone shot go off. It was followed by a long, loud bellow and then 1 heard rumbling noise. They'd stampeded the steers. It could be done most effectively by one shot fired over the nervous, skittish animals and that's just what they had done. I turned on all my speed. There was no use looking hack — not yet, anyway. The herd would be funneling into the ravine, gathering speed. I heard another shot. The second one would set off any steer milling about.
I was running, looking at the rocks on either side, trying to see some spot to gain a foothold, some crevasse. But there were none. They knew their ravine, damn them. The low rumble suddenly grew louder, magnified by the walls of the ravine. I heard the steers and felt them in the trembling of the ground. My legs were almost cramping up with the fury of the pace I was setting. But the walls still loomed up and the end of the ravine was not yet in sight. But the longhorns were, now, and I cast a glance over my shoulder. They were coming fast, filling the ravine from wall to wall — a steady mass of thun
dering hoofs and horns, carried along by their own senseless frightened fury and the momentum of those behind them.
I understood now why Bonard had let the hood put the stiletto back in its sheath. Hugo would be useless against this mass of raging beef. Even Wilhelmina, loaded, would do little to stop them. A series of shots might have turned them aside, but even that was questionable. But I had neither the bullets to try it nor the time to speculate on it. They were nearly on me now, and the ground shook. I half stopped and looked at the onrushing steers. There was one in the lead, always one in the lead, pounding toward me. I couldn't bulldog him. I'd have to come in on the side of him to do that. And that would only spell death, anyway. We'd both go down, to be trampled by the rest. They couldn't stop if they wanted to. No, I wanted him running, leading the rest of them. I took another look, gauging my chances. They were almost on me.
I fell on one knee, muscles tensed, and the lead steer, a big, rangy longhorn, came thundering at me. I doubted that he even saw me as a man. He was just running — and about to run into and over anything in his way. His head was up, and I said a prayer of thanks.
I leaped just as he reached me, jumping up under his neck. I grabbed at the sides of his head and swung my legs up to clasp them around the big, thick neck. I grabbed a fist of skin at each side of the neck and held onto it with my hands. He shook his head and tried to slow down but the others, pressing behind him, kept him moving. He ran on, still shaking his head, still trying to dislodge whatever had lighted onto him. But I was clinging close to the underside of that huge neck, my legs wrapped around it tightly. Saliva and froth from his mouth flew into my face, and it was a helluva ride. I joggled and shook as he pounded along, the others pressing him. Every once in a while he'd try to shake loose whatever was clinging to his neck, but he hadn't time or chance to do much more than run. It was what I'd counted on and if I could hang on, it might just work. But my hands were cramped stiff and my legs were tiring fast. I'd locked my ankles around each other across the top of his neck and that was all that kept my legs from falling apart.
Then suddenly I was conscious of more air around me. We were out of the ravine and now I felt the stampede losing its steam. They were slowing down, spreading out. The steer I clung to no longer pounded, but had settled down to an aimless trot. He shook his head again to dislodge me and put his head down to the ground. But I was stuck into the hollow of the underside of his neck and I continued to cling there. Finally he stopped. I held on a minute more, just to make sure. Then I unclasped my legs and dropped to the ground, rolling out of the way of those sharp hoofs instantly. But the steers were just standing around now, all the fury gone out of them. They'd run themselves into calmness.
I crawled away, letting the feeling come back into my cramped hands. Then I got up and walked off slowly, making a wide circle around the high walls that contained the ravine. Bonard and the others would take their time going through the ravine to find me. Chances were they would wait until morning when they could round up the steers at the same time. I walked slowly, circling the area, skirting the distant houses of the ranch.
Finally I reached the spot where I'd left the jeep, started the engine and headed back to Townsville. I noticed that my shoes were covered with the same fine, powdery soil that was all over the wheels of the jeep. Anybody visiting the ranch would come away with the stuff. I knew that much of the Australian soil was rich in iron dioxide which gave it the distinctive red-brown color, and I looked forward to checking out the wardrobes of both Lynn Delba and Judy. I'd nearly cashed in my chips this night, but I was still alive and I knew a few things I hadn't known when the evening began.
The Chinese Communists were in with both feet and the ranch was a cover, but not the main cover. There had to be another one, maybe even two more, one closer to the coastline. The body of the dead scuba diver made that clear. Even if he were just a courier, the drop had to be somewhere along the coast. And Mr. Big would be at that second cover point. It was fairly clear that the ranch was an operating point for those engaged in recruiting their men, but this operation was too subtly planned, too carefully conceived, to operate with only one cover location. If Lynn Delba or Judy owned that compact I saw at the ranch, they'd talk and talk plenty. With the Chinese in it, the picture had changed — and I'd changed with it.
When I got back to town I picked up the little Anglia where I'd left it outside The Ruddy Jug and ditched the jeep. It was starting to get light, with the first pink smear of dawn across the sky. I decided on trying Lynn Delba first and I leaned on the bell until she opened it.
"Christ," she said, her eyes sleepy but surprised. "I thought you were going to call back last night."
"I got a little involved in something," I said, moving past her into the room. She wore only the top of a pajama outfit, her long, gorgeous legs enhanced by the sensuousness of it. I was sorry I'd not come for other reasons. But I hadn't and, grim-lipped, I yanked open the door of her bedroom closet. She was at my side instantly.
"What are you doing anyway?" she started to bluster. I looked at her hard and, even though she was still half-asleep, there was no mistaking what my eyes said. She moved back.
"Sit down and shut up," I growled. Six pairs of shoes lined the floor of the closet. I kicked them all out into the light of the room, squatting down on my haunches to examine them. A pair of thonged sandals, not much more than leather soles with crisscrossed straps, were covered with the fine, red-brown powdery dust along the thin sides and on the bottom of the soles. I stood up, one sandal in my hand, and looked at Lynn Delba. She was watching me with a frown, her light blue eyes revealing that she hadn't figured out what I was after as yet. The pajama top was down beneath her belly in front but the full length of her legs were facing me as she sat in the chair.
I walked over to her and, with lightning-like speed, reached out and grabbed one ankle and yanked, hard. She came flying off the chair to land on her back on the floor, the pajama top up around her neck. She didn't have a bad torso, her waistline small and her belly flat. I twisted her leg and she flipped over on her face. With the sandal, I smashed her across the buttocks. It wasn't a slap, but it carried plenty of weight and fury behind it and she screamed in pain. I let her leg drop and she scooted up to the chair, crab-wise, to turn toward me, her eyes wide with fright.
"Now suppose you start telling me about the Circle Three ranch," I said. "Every damn bit of it or you'll be on your way to meet Dawsey."
I waved the shoe at her and blew some of the red dust from it. She began to get the picture.
"You found out I was there," she said, pulling herself up on the chair, still fearful.
"I found out a lot of things. That was one of them."
"I was afraid to tell you that," she said. "I didn't want to get involved in whatever happened to John. I was there only once. Dawsey took me there."
"Why?" I asked, crisply.
"I told you he came to me and begged me to go back with him," she said. "I didn't much believe his story about having met some men who were going to make him a lot of money. In order to convince me, he arranged to take me with him when he went there to discuss business. They came in to get us with a jeep and drove us out. We had an outdoor barbecue and I met them and that's all there was to it,"
"Who did you meet?" I questioned.
"Four men, maybe five or six," she said. "I don't remember exactly. One had a big nose, bent like a beak. I remember him. Then there was a smaller one with slick black hair and a yellow kind of complexion. He seemed to be the boss. I don't recall much about the others."
She got up quickly and came over to me. "I'm telling you the truth," she said, taking my torn, rumpled shirt in her hands. "Really I am. I just never mentioned it because I didn't want to involve myself and it really wasn't much of anything."
"How come you were so frightened they might come after you last week, but you're so sure of yourself now?"
"Nobody came near me," she said simply, shrugging her sh
oulders. "I figured that meant they weren't going to bother me."
She hadn't mentioned the tall, slender Chinese and I decided not to either. Other than that, story was real enough, as much as she'd told me. I had a feeling there really was no more, but I still didn't mentioned the Chinese. It was possible he stayed out of sight altogether that night. She was still looking up into my eyes, waiting for some sign that I believed her.
"All they did was to back up Dawsey's story to me," she said. "They were going to pay him a lot of money for something he was going to do for them. That's all they told me."
"I'll be back," I said grimly. "I hope you've told me everything this time, for your sake." She shook her head, affirmatively, eyes wide. I left her there, shaken, afraid, and went down to the car. At least I'd found out she'd been at the ranch. I should have taken her compact back with me, I smiled grimly. I decided to see Judy before going to the cottage. I wanted to check out what the hawk-faced one had said to her before I took out after him.
Judy answered her bell and once more I found myself looking into sleep-filled eyes. She opened the door wide and I walked in. The silk robe was wrapped around her and her full, round breasts pushed it out beautifully. She yawned and leaned her head against my chest.
"Lord, what an hour to come calling," she said sleepily. "I work bloody late, you know."
My eyes, looking past her head, saw her purse on the end table. Everything was laid out alongside it — address book, loose change, comb, keys, billfold, lipstick, tissues, sunglasses. All the junk a girl carries in her purse. But I found myself frowning. One thing was missing. A compact But maybe she didn't carry one. Not all girls did.
"Been cleaning out your purse, I see," I said casually.
"Oh, that," she said, turning to glance back at the table. "I've been looking for my ruddy compact." I could feel my hands tighten. I looked down at her.
