A Korean Tiger

by Nick Carter

  It was time. Softly, in a conversational tone, Nick said: "Is that you, Mr. Bennett?"

  The splashing stopped. Silence broken only by the cry of the rain. Bennett was listening. Nick spoke again. "Is that you, Bennett? Speak up. Don't be afraid. I won't hurt you. I'm here to help you."

  As he finished speaking there was a new burst of firing from the train. The man who crouched on all fours in the ditch, like an animal, said in a tremulous voice: "Is that you, Jane? Help me, Jane. Please help me! I'm so cold."

  Jane? Jane — Nick racked his brain for a moment and it came. Jane Bennett! That had been the wife's name — the woman he had killed with an axe. Nick sighed aloud. This was all he needed — to find Bennett at last, to find him far around the bend and wandering in cuckoo land. But it did solve one problem — he wasn't going to execute a crazy man.

  "I'm not Jane," he told Bennett gently. "But she sent me to help you. I've come a long way to help you, Mr. Bennett. So we had better get started. I'm cold and hungry, too. The sooner we start the sooner we can get something to eat, and get nice and warm. Okay?"

  Bennett was at Nick's feet now, still on all fours. He reached out and tugged at Nick's sodden trousers. "I'm afraid. You won't make me go back there, will you? Back where all the noise is — I'm afraid of those bad people. They want to hurt me."

  "No. We won't go back there." Nick hauled the man to his feet. He ran expert hands quickly over the slight, shivering figure, not expecting to find weapons. He didn't. He wondered just when Bennett had gone over the line. It must have been some time since that night on the Ladenstrasse, when he had visited Helga — and he must have been a hell of a burden for the Yellow Widow. Now she was lying back there by the tracks, a wet bundle of nothing at all, and Carter had the problems.

  First thing — get the hell out of there!

  He threw away the Tommy gun, thrust the Luger back in his shoulder clip and took off his belt. Bennett stood docilely, not speaking, as Nick slipped his own belt through Bennett's and made a loop and a short tether. "Come on," Nick told him. "We have to get away from here."

  A stray bullet whined overhead and Bennett whimpered again. He might be pretty far gone, Nick thought, but he knows that bullets will hurt him.

  Nick began to climb the far side of the embankment, pulling Bennett up after him. The man came willingly enough, like a dog on a leash. Nick reached the top, pulled Bennett up level with him and started down the other side. Only one thing mattered at the moment — put as much distance as possible between them and the train. Find shelter, a safe spot, then think things out.

  Killmaster was feeling his way down the far side of the embankment. He lost his footing and fell, pulling Bennett along with him. The fall was a good fifteen feet, on a steep slant, and when he splashed into mud and water the smell told Nick where he was — in a rice paddy, face down in crap. He wiped the stuff from his face, cleared his eyes, and swore with great feeling. Bennett sat there quietly, waist deep in the filthy paddy water.

  "I am greatly tempted," said Nick through his teeth, "to kill you now and have it over with."

  "Don't hurt me," said Bennett in his child's whimper. "Don't hurt me. Jane wouldn't like it if you hurt me. Where is Jane? I want Jane." And Raymond Lee Bennett, there in the Korean wilds, rain sodden and stinking, began to cry.

  Nick Carter shrugged in resignation. He tugged at the belt. "Come on. Let's get out of this crap."

  Korean rice paddies are usually divided into cells, each cell separated from the others by tall dikes. An interlacing pattern of footpaths runs along the tops of the dikes, enabling each peasant to reach his paddy and work it. In total darkness it is like trying to find your way out of a box maze. After the fourth or fifth dive into the sludge Nick would have given his soul for a flashlight — and would have used it no matter what the risk.

  By now the danger from the train, from either set of guerrillas or the drunken soldiery, was minimal. Nick kept bearing steadily away from the sound of shooting and yelling. Once he paused atop a dike and took a backward glance. The train was still halted — they had probably killed the engineer and fireman — and all he could make out was a long line of rectangular yellow holes punched in the night. As he watched, one of the yellow rectangles vanished in a blossom of red. He heard the hollow crump of a grenade. They were really getting down to it now. Having themselves a real ball. There would be hell to pay come morning. The neighborhood would be crawling with American and ROK troops and Korean police. By that time the guerrillas would have vanished back into their mountains and he, Nick and his dotty captive, would have gone safely to ground. It was a fervent hope.

  It took him the better part of an hour to work his way out of the paddy. The rain stopped suddenly, as it does in Korea, and the sky cleared with amazing rapidity. A horned moon, as though in atonement, tried to shed a little light through the thick overcast. It wasn't much but it helped.

  They came out of the paddy onto a narrow road, deeply rutted by centuries of ox carts passing over it. Even a jeep would have found the going tough. Nick did not know Korea intimately, but he knew it well enough to know that when you got off the beaten track you could easily get lost. They did not call Korea the "dragon's back" land for nothing — this, the south central part, was an endless series of valleys and mountains.

  All of which suited Killmaster perfectly at the moment. He wanted to get lost, so thoroughly lost that no one could find him until he was ready to be found. He set out to follow the winding, climbing road, pulling Bennett along behind him on the leather tether. The man came docilely enough, without any complaint except his whimpering for Jane, but nevertheless Nick was alert for any sign of trouble. Bennett could be faking.

  They walked for two hours, always climbing. Bennett stopped whimpering and crooned to himself like a baby playing in its crib. Nick spoke only to give a command. Bennett fell a few times and would not get up until he had rested. After the last fall he refused to get up at all, to go any farther. Nick searched him again, this time with great thoroughness, and again found nothing. He slung the frail body around his shoulders in the fireman's carry, and slogged on. The rain began again, but more gently now, a cold silver curtain that blotted out the smudge of moon; Nick cursed to the even rhythm of his steps and plodded on.

  Along toward dawn, still carrying Bennett, who had gone off to sleep, he passed through a tiny gun, a collection of thatched mud huts. A mongrel came out to sniff at him but, surprisingly, did not bark. Nick stopped at the town well and dropped the sleeping Bennett in the mud. Nick stretched and rubbed his aching back. He was tempted, for a moment, to rout out the gun soo, the headman of the village, and find out where he was. Commandeer some food and a place to sleep out of the rain.

  He decided against it. Let sleeping villages lie. There was an uneasiness in him about the guerrillas who had attacked the train. They would have a lair someplace in these mountains. The people in the little guns, whether from inclination or terror, often aided the bandits. Best to get on. He kicked the recumbent Bennett gently in the side. "Come on, you. Hike!"

  Bennett leaped up with agility and said, lucidly enough, "Sure. Where arc we going?"

  Obviously the man had periods when his mind was relatively clear. Nick was no psychiatrist and he did not examine the miracle. He pointed up the road. "That way. You walk in front of me. We'll try to find a place to get out of this rain."

  Bennett stared around at the sleeping gun. "Why not here? There are plenty of huts."

  "Walk!"

  Bennett walked. As they left the gun he put his hands over his head like a prisoner of war. "I'll keep my hands up," he said over his shoulder. "That way you won't have to be afraid that I'll try and jump you. I could, you know. I could kill you with one judo chop. I'm strong — terribly strong."

  "Sure," Nick agreed. "I'll be very careful. Just keep walking."

  They left the gun behind. The road narrowed even more, to a mere path, always climbing. It wound between ragged stands of
bamboo and larch. The rain stopped again and a faint line of color lay along the eastern horizon. They walked on. A wild boar crossed the path a hundred yards ahead of them, stopped and caught their scent, stared with nearsighted eyes before it snorted and plunged back into the bamboo.

  The path dipped into a valley, ran for several hundred yards along a brook, then lifted to spiral tightly up the next mountain. The country was becoming more rugged and broken by the minute. Great wounds of red clay bled from the mountain side, and there were numerous rock ledges and jagged outcrops. Some of the rock faces were; covered with red lichen and wind-stunted trees clung precariously from the crevices.

  Killmaster noted, with sour amusement, that Bennett still had his hands up. The man had not spoken for a long time now, but he seemed determined to preserve his status of prisoner of war.

  Nick said: "You can put your hands down, Bennett. It is not necessary."

  Bennett obediently lowered his hands. "Thank you. I suppose you are going to observe tradition?"

  "What do you mean?"

  The man laughed and Nick could not repress a shudder. The sound was that of rats scuttling in a thatch. The man might be lucid enough now, but he was undoubtedly mad. Psycho, Hawk had said. Hawk had been right.

  "It is customary," Bennett said, "when one spy catches another and is going to kill him, to offer him a cigarette and a glass of wine before the fatal bullet is fired. Surely you are going to abide by that custom?"

  "Of course," said Nick. "Just as soon as we find some wine and some dry cigarettes. Keep walking."

  After a few moments Bennett spoke again. "Is this China?"

  "Yes. We're just outside Peking. We'll be there in a few minutes."

  "I'm glad," said Bennett. "That woman, that nice woman, kept saying we were going to China. She said I would be an honored guest — that I would get the key to the city. Do you think she told the truth? She was nice, that lady. She did good things to me — she made me feel good."

  "I'll bet." Killmaster could almost muster a little sympathy for the Yellow Widow. She must have had a rough time with this nut. Yet, even with a loony in tow, she had managed to evade the net until the last moment. Nick gave the Widow a reluctant tip of his professional hat. She had been good.

  She must have used sex to keep Bennett in line. Sex mixed with cajolery and maybe even some force. The guy still had sense enough to be afraid of a gun. She had been taking him back to China, instead of simply killing him, in the hope that the doctors in Peking could bring him out of it. That the mine of information he carried in that freak, now sick, brain could still be tapped. Nick wondered if Colonel Kalinski had known about Bennett's madness. Probably not.

  Bennett stopped so suddenly that Nick almost ran into him. It was just light enough now for him to make out the man's features — the dirty, stubbled face was a relief map of old acne scars. An equine face with a loose mouth and long jaw. The bald pate with its fringe of dry hair. Nick reached to rip the patch, sodden and dirty now, from the man's left eye. Even in the poor light it gleamed a bloodshot blue. The right eye was brown. Contact lens.

  Bennett smiled at Nick. "Before you kill me, sir, I would like to show you some pictures of my wife. Is that permitted? If possible I would like to be shot with her picture over my heart. I would like to die with my blood on her face. You will permit it?" He sounded anxious as he craned his scrawny neck at the AXEman. He fumbled in his coat pocket and brought out a roll of wet, crumpled, stuck-together snapshots. He handed them to Nick. "You see! Wasn't she beautiful?"

  Nick took the pictures. Humor the poor bastard. He riffled through the pack of snapshots while Bennett watched him anxiously. They were Polaroid prints. Some were of a fat woman, naked, taken in sprawling obscene poses. In the others he recognized Helga, or the woman who called herself Helga, from the Ladenstrasse in Cologne. Nick recognized the bed on which the pictures had been taken.

  "Very nice," Nick said. He was about to hand the pictures back to Bennett, who had seemingly lost interest and wandered a few feet away, when he noticed the single snapshot of the ceramic tiger. The tiger that must have been on the mantel in the secret room back in Laurel. Nick could recognize the mantel in the snapshot now. The tiger that had somehow gotten smashed in the Hotel Dom. Nick had taken the pieces back to Washington with him and the experts had put it together again — it was a valuable piece. Korean. Wang Dynasty. 14th Century. The little ceramic was well known to the scholars. But half of it was missing. There were, and Nick had been shown a picture of the original, two tigers fighting. Half was gone. The other tiger. Now, in a wet Korean dawn, Nick Carter rubbed his rumpled, weary head and stared at Raymond Lee Bennett. How the man had come into possession of half a masterpiece, and what it meant to him, might never be cleared up now. As long as he was insane Bennett probably couldn't come up with the answer; if he regained his sanity he would have to be killed.

  So who cared what the lousy tiger meant? Nick watched. Bennett wander a little way down the path toward a clump of pine. Why not just shoot the man here and now and have done with it? Nick took the Luger out of the clip and found a sodden handkerchief and began wiping it. He inspected the muzzle. It smelled like a rice paddy, but did not appear to be choked.

  Nick Carter jammed the Luger back in its holster. Why kid himself? He couldn't kill an insane man.

  Bennett screamed. He turned and ran back up the path toward Nick. "There's a dead man down there! In the trees. He's sitting there with a spear stuck through him!"

  And Raymond Lee Bennett began to cry again.

  Chapter 12

  Nick took off his belt again and passed it in front of Bennett's elbows, then jerked the man's arms back and tied them in the hangman's bind. He gave Bennett a push. "Show me."

  Bennett, still weeping, went down the path to the clump of pine. Here a much fainter path led off to the right. Bennett stopped at the divergence of paths. He nodded into the pine grove. "In — in there! Don't make me look again — please don't make me look!"

  "All right, goddammit, but I'm not going to have you wandering around." Nick backed the man against a pine sapling and retied the hangman's bind, this time bringing the belt around the sapling. Then he went down the diverging path.

  The impaled man had been dead for some time. The; birds had been at him. The eyes and the flesh around them were completely gone. Nick, Luger in hand, drew a bit closer. The pines thinned here and gave way to sparse bamboo growing right up to a cliff face.

  Nick advanced to within six feet of the dead man and stopped. Impalement was a form of death he had never: seen before. Not a pretty sight, nor a good way to go. Koreans, he knew, were a volatile people. They could be kindly and helpful — and they were the crudest of the Orientals.

  The man's hands had been cut off and placed at a little distance from him. This so he could not push himself off the sharpened bamboo stake, about four feet high, which had been set into the ground. He had been stripped naked. Then he had been picked up — it would have taken at least four men to hold the screaming, crazed creature — and set down with great force on the sharpened stake. The lethal stake would have pushed up into the bowels and, after a long interval of suffering during which the man would walk screaming around and around the stake inside him, would reach the heart and kill. Mercy at last.

  Killmaster could not help grimacing in disgust. Even his strong stomach was on the verge of rebelling. What had the man done to deserve such a death? And why this solitary place of execution? In this remote mountain hinterland? There must be a reason...

  Something moved and flapped at the edge of the little clearing where the impaled man hung on his stake, his head at a grotesque angle because the point had pushed through the side of his neck. Nick crossed swiftly, Luger alert, and picked up the moving thing. It was a piece of paper, thin cardboard, rain soaked and limp now. He saw the holes punched for twine, though the twine was missing now, and he knew it had been around the man's neck.

  Words were scrawled
on the cardboard in red brush strokes, so faded that he could barely discern them: Keisatsu inu. Police dog! Written in Japanese. Below was another word, Korean for dog. Kah!

  Nick tossed the paper away and looked back at the impaled man. A police spy. Left there as a warning. Or perhaps more — to frighten the simple peasants of the district? Keep them at a distance?

  He shot a glance back at Bennett. The man was standing patiently, his eyes downcast, talking rapidly to himself. Nick shrugged and turned back, past the dead man, and began to explore the bamboo leading to the cliff face. Bennett was on his last legs. He couldn't walk much farther. Nick himself was not exactly fresh. His hunch was growing stronger and he decided to ride along with it. That corpse on the stake was meant to keep intruders away from something and...

  Here it was. No great effort had been made to conceal the little opening in the cliff face. The bandits, guerrillas or whatever, must be pretty sure of themselves. Probably they didn't have to worry much as long as they paid off — the Korean provincial police were notoriously corrupt.

  A bamboo screen had been improvised by binding stalks together with slender twigs. Nick kicked it aside and entered the narrow crack in the cliff. It ran diagonally for a dozen feet through the cliff, then widened. He stood in the opening and surveyed a long, narrow valley that ended in more towering cliffs. It was like a box canyon, a dead end. This was the only way in, or out. It was a haven — or a trap.

  The left slope of the valley was less steep than the far side and heavily overgrown with bamboo. Nick saw a large hut, of the inevitable mud and thatch, at the edge of the bamboo. He moved back a little into the cliff opening and watched. Nothing moved around or in the hut. Killmaster's eyes roved up and down the valley, missing nothing. Not far from where he stood now, perhaps a hundred yards, was a jumble of rocks, a crude fort of boulders, on the side of the slope. It was about halfway to the hut. Nick sighted along his outstretched hand — from those rocks you could cover this opening with a deadly fire. If, he thought wryly, you had anything to cover it with! A Luger and a stiletto weren't going to do the job.