The same political angle also tied up with events in Macau and Hong Kong, where it seemed that drug peddling was now the thing which really mattered and that the gold-smuggling racket was only a front for things more sinister in the long term. All of which had led to discovering that communist Asia wanted more mystique to worship than a commissar, and that it might be possible to develop a new religion which would appeal to idealistic youngsters in all continents, not forgetting the hippie and flower power people who might find in the new religion a permissive attitude to drugs, sex and personal behaviour which could be carried right up into government circles: and finally that if certain governments could be sold on this idea, or were brought to power on a wave of acid-sponsored idealism, that a new Eurasia or Amer-Asia might be created with both communism and left-wing socialism museum-pieces of the past, both having been replaced by a Cosa-Mafia internationalism using drugs and fear to control most of the so-called civilised world.
The whole review had flickered through Grant’s mind in a few seconds, but even as he tried to grasp the broad picture of the situation he still appreciated that Lu was somehow smiling at him behind a mask of formal politeness, and again he recapped on detail. Harmony had come to Nepal to deal with Coia and discover his contact men both in America and locally: to meet the Mother Goddess and remove supplies of dope worth millions sterling, but which had been collected in order to buy loyalty from the select few who would matter in promoting world revolution; eleven top-grade U.S. pilots were on tap and already hooked; aspiring politicians in several countries were preparing for a take-over; and Lu was working towards an independent Mongolia free of both China and Russia.
And then it clicked. Harmony! For whom was she working? Her glib explanation that she operated on behalf of some obscure organisation linking America with Asia needed clarification. Was it S.E.A.T.O.? And, if not, what was it? What were her own motivations? Had she become engaged to the prince out of sheer professional altruism when he had been pin-pointed as a top brass mafiosa? How did the timing of her engagement relate to the programme which had been outlined? And he remembered that she must have been engaged to the man before there had been any hippie-Cosa-Mafia talk or rumour at all. But what man in his senses could even visualise a free or independent united Mongolia! It was a pipe-dream.
He drew a deep breath and bluffed to the limit. ‘Before we say good night, Mr. Lu, there are still one or two points. Would you, by any chance, be figuring to use me for your own purposes and have you been playing all this by ear after finding that I had unexpectedly arrived in Nepal? Did you perhaps feel that I might be working against you, or be up here on business? Is there anything on your conscience which makes me an unwelcome guest, but one which might be bluffed into being used as a tool?’ He lit another cigarette and smiled through the smoke. ‘Just a few thoughts. But suppose you tell me?’
Harmony was now sitting on the arm of his chair and he sensed that she had stiffened as he spoke. ‘Suppose we now have the truth, honey chile. For whom do you both really work?’
The girl looked at him with reluctant admiration. ‘So you play your hunches.’
He nodded briefly. ‘And generally strike oil. But if you want my help in this mess you’ll quit lying and put me finally into the picture.’
‘Or else?’ Lu sounded apologetic, but Grant saw that he was poised for action.
‘Or else I get on with my vacation.’
Harmony laid a firm tanned hand on Grant’s arm. ‘How would you know that anything else we said was true, David? Or are your hunches fool-proof?’
He took a deep breath. Lu had spent a long time in the States. Harmony had disappeared for two critical years during her late teens. It was possible that she had been approached by someone during that time and co-opted into some set-up which had later trained her in sophisticated counter-espionage. And only one organisation really fitted the bill. ‘Try me and see,’ he said dryly.
A momentary tick-tack flickered between Lu and the girl at his side. It seemed to Grant that Lu was now leaving her to play all the cards and he sensed that at last he would strike truth. ‘Two words should cover it,’ he said. ‘Or are you too shy to speak?’
She lit still another cigarillo. ‘You mean the Pentagon?’
‘And why not have said that the first time?’ he added gently. ‘Or were you too well indoctrinated?’
Lu once more stepped forward. ‘You are shrewd, Doctor. We both work for Washington. And Miss Dove is probably our most important agent. The Pentagon has colossal resources, but you can understand that Central Asia presents special problems. It’s not so easy to build up an intelligence network in China, for example. But for what it is worth I am head of the section dealing with Central Asiatic counter-intelligence and Miss Dove is our most informed operator. So now you have the full truth and we congratulate you on winning the last hand tonight. If you had failed to rise to the occasion we would have graded you as something less efficient than we had hoped. But as matters stand we can work together as equals.’
‘Under whom?’ asked Grant dryly.
Harmony smiled sourly. ‘I like being on top, David. But maybe unless things change we can operate off the cuff. Okay?’
He smiled and slowly nodded. When he next looked round Lu had disappeared and Harmony Dove had allowed the house-coat to drop from her shoulders. ‘You like a taste of that honey now, David?’ she said quietly.
Her eyes were clear and warmly mischievous. But they were giving him the once-over with a new respect, and he sensed that she too now rated him as an equal. ‘Okay, honey chile,’ he said quietly.
And as he carried her towards the now-tepid bath he felt her tense with anticipation. It was the beginning of another chapter, but he knew that in this also he would have to make the grade before she took him fully into her confidence. ‘Tonight,’ he whispered as he turned on the hot tap and lowered her into the water, ‘I’ll see you. You like being on top, so I’ll play it your way. But afterwards!’ He splashed her with water and stroked his hands down her long gleaming hair. ‘Tomorrow you get the Grant treatment—and like it.’
She studied him carefully and then giggled. ‘I can rise to any occasion. Especially if it’s big enough. So don’t worry—I’ll like it.’
Two hours later, when dawn was almost breaking over distant snow mountains, she ordered tea from her night bearer. All tensions between them had subsided and Grant felt a glow of warmth steal over him as she snuggled on a thick rug at his feet and nestled against his legs while his fingers still played with her long, gleaming hair. It was a time to say nothing; a time to remember; and a time to thank his fortune that once again he found himself linked with a girl who ticked as he did, and who would see this project through to the bitter end.
She suddenly looked up towards him. ‘You thought of something nasty just now, David. What was it?’
He shook his head. ‘Just a passing feeling that we would see this through together to the end.’
She shivered slightly. ‘Some ends can be bitter, David. But I’ve a hunch that maybe you’ll help me to stay alive.’
He kissed the back of her neck and nibbled the lobe of her right ear. ‘Together we can do anything. So relax.’
‘Not anything,’ she said after a long pause. ‘Just most things.’
She was asleep when he carried her to bed, and the sun was cresting a gleaming white horizon of mountains when he himself at last dropped off.
Neither heard Lu stretch himself outside the door and walk stiffly along the corridor to his own room, his gun still held lightly by the trigger guard on his right forefinger and his eyes heavy with thought while he undressed. For him it was also the beginning of another day. But this time a day which would matter more than most.
Chapter Six – ‘Prepare for a little surprise’
Grant left his taxi near the Park restaurant and walked inside knowing that Harmony Dove, equipped with a telelens, would photograph everyone who followed him. She was oper
ating from a side street entering old Katmandu just behind the police box, and her host was still one more of Charlie’s many alleged friends, but this time one who ran a camera service located in an ideal address.
Lu was gossiping with acquaintances in a neighbouring airline office while Charlie himself had blended with the crowds and was now passing as a trishaw boy at a nearby parking lot.
He was sipping a glass of Tsin-Tao beer between courses when a tall, gangling Caucasian wearing a two-piece light-weight tropical blue suit ambled over and joined him. The man was between thirty-five and forty, his face creased with laughter lines. He carried a crocodile-leather briefcase under one arm. ‘Mind if I join you, sir?’ His voice as he sat down without waiting for reply was a deep basso-profundo, and he moved with the ease of one at peace with all his surroundings.
Grant tended to like him at sight, but only nodded briefly as the newcomer eased himself against the table and leaned forward. ‘You American, sir?’
Grant dropped naturally into the drawl which he had trained himself to use at the drop of a hat. ‘Sure. Having a ten-day vacation to see the snow mountains.’
The man’s eyes were suddenly wary. ‘That voice reminds me of home. New England?’
‘Boston, Mass,’ said Grant briefly. ‘But I get around.’
The newcomer suddenly thrust a lean hand across the table. ‘Then shake. Was born there myself. But reared in New York City.’
Grant could recognise a cue when he heard it. ‘Been in New Jersey myself for over twenty years. Nowhere like it. And right now I wish I was crossing the Hudson Bridge. Kinda homesick after weeks on the move. Around the world, this time.’ He flashed a passport and pointed to page after page of visas, glad that Coia had also been a travel addict. ‘Honolulu, Samoa, Fiji, Tokyo and Hong Kong, a look at Bankok and then a fast hop through Calcutta to Kat.’
The newcomer smiled broadly. ‘Next time try a slow boat to the Inland Sea, a hop down to Macau and join the trans-Siberian. After that it’s only a few hours to the south and Teheran, where the world’s your oyster.’ He looked at Grant’s passport photograph for a brief second. ‘Flatters you, boy. Sure does. Taken five years ago or something?’
Grant shrugged his shoulders. ‘Two.’ He paused. ‘And my name’s Coia. Call me Sam.’
The man grinned. ‘And call me Lofty.’
Grant laughed. ‘Okay. But what are you drinking?’
Lofty glanced at Grant’s bottle. ‘Any good?’
‘So so. But bitter. Chinese.’
‘Then I’ll swing along. I like China.’ He gave a crisp order and when the waiter poured a glass he suddenly felt for his wallet. ‘For crissake,’ he said at last, ‘I’m cleaned out. Not even a dime.’
‘Then take this. As one American citizen to another it’s the least I can do. Five bucks see you?’
Lofty was almost blushing with embarrassment. ‘But you’re a stranger! Guess I must have a trustworthy personality or something.’
Grant smiled broadly. ‘Or something. But I’ll take an IOU if it makes you any more comfortable.’
The man fumbled in a pocket and then produced a crumpled piece of paper. ‘If you don’t mind a bit of old-fashioned Yankee dirt I’ll scribble acknowledgement of what I take to be a very handsome service to a complete stranger.’
‘You do that,’ said Grant gently. ‘But make it good and clear. I’m a millionaire, and I made my first hundred grand by never forgetting when a guy owed me five bucks. It’s a good habit to get into and now I can’t break it.’
Lofty glanced at him curiously. ‘Then see you. S’long’s you don’t lose the flimsy, that is. But if you forget try the International Club, Hotel Royal, Kat.’ He again thrust forward his powerful hand. ‘Shake. And have the next one on me.’ He thrust a dollar into the hand of a passing waiter and spoke rapidly in Nepalese while Grant looked at him with a new respect.
‘Showin’ off—huh?’
Lofty beamed. ‘You got it, Sammy. I like showing off. Learned the lingo a year or two back when I was advising at a Co-operative in Juddha Road. Comes in handy.’
Grant watched him amble across to the staircase and stride down. He gave an impression of almost overwhelming vitality, but Grant had seen the same type of eyes only twice before, once in a sadistic mass-murderer who had been executed in the States ten years earlier and the other in a little Glaswegian hanged for multiple calculated murder during the ’fifties. Lofty’s laughter lines were a trick of nature to disguise what Grant sensed as a quality of ruthlessness which would stop at nothing.
He squared his luncheon bill and quit the building. Lofty was dangerous.
Charlie was still outside and eased his trishaw towards the kerb. ‘Take you somewhere, mister?’
The seat sloped downwards and was thoroughly uncomfortable, while an embroidered cloth lying on the floor was flea-ridden. Grant cautiously eased it over the side with his foot, half-closed the hood and then slipped Lofty’s IOU from his pockey. An address was scribbled on the back.
He memorised the few words and returned the paper to his hip pocket. The names meant nothing, but he guessed that Lu would put everything into focus.
The Mongolian was waiting for him and smiling with satisfaction. ‘Miss Dove has got some perfect shots with a polaroid camera. Your contact man has been traced back to an address near Patan and we have already been able to identify him as a member of a trade mission which frequently comes here to buy leather goods and wool. He is Australian by birth, a naturalised American and educated in England. So far as I know he has never been identified with Mafia, but Interpol once investigated a link he had with speculative builders in Hong Kong.’
‘And you discovered all that in less than an hour,’ said Grant curiously. ‘You must be a walking encyclopaedia.’
Lu bowed with mock politeness. ‘Only in some things, Doctor. And I suggest that we now move with minimal delay.’
‘Why?’ Grant detected a note of urgency and guessed that Lu knew or suspected more than he was prepared to say.
‘Prepare for a little surprise,’ said Lu. ‘But Miss Dove came back by car, which is considerably faster than Charlie’s trishaw, and your case has now been packed since we must leave at once for your Mother Goddess.’
Grant concealed his surprise. ‘Why?’
‘Because,’ said Lu, ‘the address you showed me doesn’t exist. So one must suppose that your man put his finger on something which didn’t add up. Maybe he had already seen a photograph of Coia. But the important thing to remember is that there is no such street in Patan. Nor indeed in any other town that I know of in Nepal. It doesn’t even have a Nepalese name. Which means that you have been marked as a phoney. And since we both know how the Mafia deals with this sort of situation it follows that you are due to be destroyed in the immediate future. In fact I’m half-surprised that you got here without incident. Men like this Lofty person move fast, so we must move just that bit faster.’ He waved his hands apologetically. ‘Forgive my talking so much, but there are a few other points. We are also leaving because two charter-plane loads of hippies touched down a little while ago and rumour says that at least some expect to go almost at once to Chagra where this goddess woman lives. They are likely to make the trip during the night in order to avoid being picked up by police if they have no passes, so it seems sensible to get there before them.’
‘And Lofty?’ asked Grant.
Lu shook his head expressively. ‘No idea. But it is possible that he may be tied up with them or laid on to do some drug deal with at least a few of a party who could well be hippies only in disguise.’
Grant sat down and stared curiously towards Lu. The situation was one of the most complicated he had ever known, and he was certain of only one thing, that for reasons best known to themselves both Lu and Harmony Dove wished his help. But he would have taken a heavy bet that to secure it they had invented a complex of inter-weaving situations which would be difficult to disprove. He trusted neither of them but
whether or not they would turn out, in the end, to be goodies or baddies remained to be seen. ‘How do we get there?’ he asked.
‘By car and helicopter,’ said Lu briefly. ‘Car to near a place called Nepalgani on the edge of India from where we join a chopper. We then go north-west over the snow mountains, or at least along the foothills, to near Bantadi, which we shall by-pass and then veer further north to a valley lying in the shadow of Nanda Devi and some distance away from Almora in India. The place is shut in by twenty-five-thousand-foot peaks, but the valley itself is rather like Hunza, a sort of subtropical garden with lush crops. The frontier is anyone’s bet unless one is an expert cartographer but it probably runs through Chagra itself—which is the name of the Goddess’s valley—and altogether it is very inaccessible.’
‘Then how do hippies get there?’ asked Grant.
‘Hippies,’ said Lu curtly, ‘are quite enterprising when their own interests are involved. Some go by mule from Almora area, others make it by Land Rover, a few have been known to walk, while others hitch a lift by helicopter from politicals and the like who tick on the same wavelength.’
A bearer arrived while he was speaking and Lu pointed towards the car. ‘Ready, Doctor. Miss Dove will be waiting for us in the town. She’s putting a phone call through.’
Grant filed the fact in memory, and then followed Lu to a ramshackle taxi, vaguely mud-coloured but characteristically striped like a zebra. He smiled to find Charlie now at the wheel and approved the efficiency of Lu’s organisation when he heard the engine slip into gear. The thing had been souped up and he suspected that there was even a four-wheel drive. The car paused for a second or two at an intersection and Harmony slipped into the rear seat beside Grant. ‘Hi,’ she said briefly. ‘Lu wise you up?’
‘Yes,’ said Grant. ‘But not in detail.’
The girl shrugged her shoulders impatiently. ‘No time. But here’s a news flash. Your contact man, whatever he’s called . . .’
Goddesses Never Die Page 8
