Dragon Flame

by Nick Carter

  She came into his arms gracefully. An elfin smile touched the corner of her red mouth. "I think, Mr. Harrington, that you are a stubborn man. And you are new in Hong Kong."

  Her cheek was velvet against his. Nick said, "Right on the first count, Miss Hunt, but wrong on the second. I have been in Hong Kong many times. But I think I know what you mean, so let me reassure you. I like ice maidens."

  He glanced down at her. That flawless face was slowly turning pink.

  Chapter 3

  The Tender Buccaneer

  Being rebuffed by a woman was a new experience for Nick Carter. He was a fastidious man, where women were concerned, but once he had made his choice he had a natural expectation that matters would be followed through to a gratifying conclusion for both parties.

  Such, it seemed, would not be the case tonight. So far he had definitely been rebuffed, kept in his place with a cold smile and skillful evasive movement that bespoke long practice. Naturally this served to excite him even more. And Nick found that, for a man of vast experience and savoir faire, he was more than a little nettled. Amused, perhaps, but also growing a little angry. With himself. He must be fumbling it somehow! No creature as lovely as Miriam Hunt could be all ice. Be that cold.

  He had had such high hopes for the evening. After the dance she had readily consented to have a late supper with him. They had danced a lot and laughed a lot. She seemed to like him.

  He had taken her to the Pearl Restaurant, a tiny place on Wing On Street run by an ancient Chinese whom Nick had known for years. The food was the best in Hong Kong and you didn't have to endure tourists.

  In the taxi, on the way to the restaurant and then back to the waterfront, Nick had made no attempt to pierce her defenses. That they were defenses, barriers already firmly in place, he could not doubt. Her friendliness had a gelidity about it that spoke louder than words — do not touch!

  All this made him even more determined, in the gentle, persevering way he had with women he desired. They found a walla-walla and were sculled out to Corsair. If the girl was impressed by the yacht's magnificence she made no sign. Nick had not expected her to be. They had talked a lot and he knew that she was from a well-to-do Chicago family, had gone to Smith, and for a time had worked in New York as a social worker. She had been in Hong Kong less than a year, working for WRO, and she talked of little else. Nick, who had as much pity for orphans and refugees as any man, had begun to find it a little oppressive. Moreover, he suspected that the constant chatter about her work was only another of the barriers.

  They fingered on deck for a few minutes, smoking and watching the diminishing lights of Kowloon, then went below to Corsair's ornate saloon. Nick persuaded her to have a crème de menthe — she had explained that she rarely drank — and fixed a cognac and soda for himself. There was no sign of Boy. Presumably he was still ashore, looking for his parents, and the two Filipinos on watch were either asleep in their quarters or entertaining sampan girls from Shanghai Gai. None of Nick's affair.

  So time and the supply of trivia had run out at last and they were face to face in a situation which both knew, despite all the trappings of civilization, was a basic and primitive one. Nick still had high hopes that this lovely girl would prove amenable. She had, after all, come to Corsair with him. And she was anything but a fool.

  Miriam Hunt was seated on a low divan as far as possible from where Nick stood by the record player. She smoked one of his long gold-tipped cigarettes, her golden head tilted and her eyes narrowed against the smoke, and watched him coolly. Her long legs were crossed, the beautiful line of thigh revealed beneath the tight black gown, and the thrust of her full round breasts was enticing. The strapless gown clung to those creamy upper globes like a lover's caress and Nick felt a dryness in his throat as he selected a record and slipped it on the machine. He had drought to play Ravel, the Bolero, at first but had decided against it. This was an educated girl. She might very well know that Bolero had originally been called Danse Lascive. He settled on The Firebird Suite. It was not his personal choice in music — he was a jazz man himself — but he was betting that it would be hers.

  He was right. As the strains of Stravinsky's music filled the dimly lit saloon she appeared to relax. Nick found a chair and smoked, watching her. She settled deeper into the divan, leaning back and closing her eyes. She had, he thought, a magnificent bone structure. Her body flowed beneath the gown like liquid velvet. She was breathing deeply, her breasts rising and falling in a hurried rhythm, and her lips were half parted. He could see the tip of her tongue, as pink as a kitten's. He wondered if the music was exciting her. He needed no further excitation, he was already tense and filled with longing. Yet he restrained himself. He must know, first, just how much of the ice maiden bit was genuine. If she were genuine he would soon know. If the coldness was only a mask to conceal inner fire he would know that, too.

  The music halted. Miriam Hunt said: "That was lovely. And now, I suppose, the seduction begins?"

  The unexpected punch shook him, but N3 managed to keep his tanned features impassive. He even managed a crooked little smile that, he hoped, covered his momentary discomfiture. He crossed his long legs and took a cigarette from a jade box on a teakwood stand. He gave her a mild grin. "Touché, Miriam. I'll admit that I had, still have, something like that in mind. I think I can hardly be blamed. You're a very lovely girl. I — and I'll admit to a very healthy ego — I am not exactly a leper. Certainly the time and place couldn't be better."

  She leaned forward, put her perfect chin in her hand, and narrowed her eyes at him. "I know. That's one thing that bothers me. It's all much too perfect. You set a good stage, Clark. You have the professional touch. Excellent design — only it isn't going to work."

  Nick Carter recognized the gambit. He had encountered it many times. She was going to talk the evening to death. There was little he could do about it. The fact irritated him, but it was true. Probably Miriam Hunt had had great success with this gambit in the past, when she had been cornered. And yet he could not be positive. Was she only another no-sayer who really meant yes? He did not think so. She was, on the surface, much too intelligent for such games. Yet you never knew.

  So all he said now was, "It isn't — going to succeed?" And he gave her the smile that had melted so many feminine hearts. "May I ask why, Miriam? You find me unattractive?" The scene, he thought, was beginning to resemble a bad drawing room comedy. Yet he must let the lady set the pace.

  Miriam Hunt shivered. She hugged her arms across her breasts as if she were cold. "I find you devastating, Clark. That's the real trouble, I think. You're magnificent and I think you know it. I certainly do. I admit it freely. My legs kept turning to rubber all the time we danced. But that's just it, you see. You're just too much! If I give myself to you now, tonight, I'll fall in love with you. And I'll be ruined. My work will be ruined. Everything will be ruined."

  Nick regarded her. He had certainly not been prepared for anything like this, had thought of her as a sophisticated woman. At the moment she sounded like anything but. He had been on the verge of going to sit beside her on the divan, but now he relaxed in the chair. "Tell me one thing, Miriam?"

  She was relieved, he saw. She had gained a respite and knew it. She crossed her beautiful legs with a swish of nylon. "If I can."

  "Why did you come to Corsair with me tonight? You admit that you knew what I had in mind."

  "I was curious. And, as I say, fascinated by you. There's something very odd about you, Clark Harrington. You're supposed to be a playboy, just another useless human being with too much money, but somehow you don't quite fit the role. You don't even look like a playboy. You look more like a pirate, a buccaneer. You've got muscles like a galley slave — I felt them beneath your jacket. You seem to be made of iron. But it isn't just that. You just don't look like a playboy, an idler. I… I think you frighten me a little."

  Nick got up from his chair and went to the record player, thinking that he must give himself a de
merit or two. Obviously he was not playing his role well. He was displeased with himself. Hawk would have been displeased with him.

  He arranged a group of dance standards on the player and turned to her. "Dance? I promise no passes until you're ready for them."

  She let her tall softness sway against his hard body without reluctance. Her cheek was sweet smelling and tender against his lean jaw, her firmly muscled back like a camellia petal beneath his fingers. Her perfume was delicate, evanescent, with a strange headiness he could not identify.

  Gradually, as they danced, unspeaking, the lithe lines of her body melded closer to his. She whispered in his ear, "I'm terrible. I know it. I love this, even though I'm scared half to death. Maybe I want you to ravish me. Rape me. I just don't know. I don't think I do, but I'm terribly confused just now. Oh, Clark, please be gentle and understanding with me. Be tender and kind. Don't make me do anything that I don't really want to do."

  His native cynicism, gained in a tough school, told him that it was yet another ploy. She was playing on the tender part of him, forestalling and disarming him. She had probably learned that one at her mother's knee.

  They danced. Nick was silent. He made no attempt to kiss her. After a minute or so she pulled away a bit and looked up at him. Her face was pink. "I… I have a confession to make."

  "Yes?" By now nothing much would have surprised him.

  "You'll think I'm terrible. I am, I suppose. But it seemed like such a marvelous opportunity."

  Nick grinned slightly. "That's what I thought. Only I seem to have been wrong."

  The pink turned to crimson. "I didn't mean that! I… well, I thought I might be able to get some money out of you."

  Nick pretended to misunderstand her. He said, "Well, well. One never knows. I am surprised. You're the last girl in the world I would have thought of as a professional."

  She buried her face on his shoulder. "For my refugees and orphans, you silly man. I thought I might get a nice contribution out of you."

  With a wicked, teasing glint in his eye he said, "You might yet. If you play your cards right."

  She glued her cheek against his. "I suppose it does sort of make me sound like a prostitute, doesn't it?"

  "Not quite. Say just a sing-song girl. So you're on the make for a good cause. Nothing immoral about that. Not even illegal."

  She leaned back to look up at him again and he felt the liquid fire of her firm pelvis move against his. His body, he told himself, was getting a bit out of hand. It was paying less and less attention to the dictates of his mind. This was unusual for him, who had always been able to keep his mind and body under the sternest discipline. This girl was beginning to get under his skin in more ways than he liked to think.

  "You will, then?" The gentian eyes, amber flecked, were close to his. For a moment he was lost in those blue pools, wandering in a faery wilderness, torn between desire and tenderness.

  "Will what?"

  "Make a contribution to WRO? Oh, Clark, it's such a worthy cause. And you've got so much money. You'll never miss it."

  That, he thought a little wryly, was not quite true. He had a checking account in the name of Clark Harrington — it was part of his cover — but it was his own money and scant enough at the moment. AXE paid well, even generously, but Nick Carter was a man who liked high living when he wasn't working. Still…

  "Yes," he told her. "I will."

  Then his flesh could bear no more and he kissed her.

  She stiffened and gasped and tried to pull away from him. Nick held her gently but firmly and kept on kissing her. Her lips were scarlet honey. She ceased to struggle and sagged against him. Her lips moved on his own and she began to moan. "No. Oh my God, no! You mustn't. I can't… oh, don't… don't."

  The saloon was spinning now. It was as if a typhoon had struck them both. A torrent of desire washed over them like waves, battering away all inhibitions. Her mouth opened under his and their tongues met and entwined. Nick felt the hurried spasm of her breathing sweet in his nostrils. She had gone limp in his embrace, leaning back, her arms dangling limply by her side, her mouth and his the focal point of the universe. Her eyes were closed. He saw a blue vein beating in her white temple.

  Nick picked her up and carried her to the divan. She clung to him, her lips avid for his, and kept wailing: "No… no… you can't. We can't. Please, please…"

  He laid her gently on the divan. She lay inert, lovely legs flung wide and defenseless, passive and unresisting. The black gown had given up the struggle and slipped from her breasts and they were bared to his sight and touch, twin rounds of veined marble, the pink nipples taut in anticipation.

  Nick stood for a moment regarding this loveliness. It was a mistake to give her even a moment's respite, but at the moment he did not think of that. His sharp, oddly quirked mind, so fine and yet at times so coarse, was thinking that here indeed was Sleeping Beauty. The true symbolism of the old tale was never more apparent. Here was beauty about to be awakened. To stir at last. And he knew, with sure knowledge in that final moment, that she was indeed a virgin.

  He knelt beside the divan and kissed her warm breasts. Miriam Hunt muttered, "Darling, oh darling, you really mustn't. We mustn't."

  "But we must," Nick said gently. "We must." His hand sought beneath the black gown, encountered a long glissade of tender inner flesh, a tangle of elastic. The girl moaned as if in pain. Then she suddenly twisted away from him. Her thighs closed with a viselike grip on his questing hand. She sat up on the divan, brushing golden hair from her eyes, staring at him with an odd mixture of terror and desire. She sought under her skirt for his hand and thrust it away. "I can't," she said. "I just can't, Clark. I… I'm so sorry!"

  Nick Carter stood up. His anger was keen but well under control. A gentleman knows how to lose as well as win. And certainly he did not want a woman who did not want him.

  "I'm sorry, too," he told her with a faint smile. "More than you know. I think perhaps I had better take you home now."

  He saw a glint of moisture in her eyes and hoped to God she wasn't going to cry. That was all he needed.

  But the girl did not cry. She wiped her eyes and slid off the divan. Her blue eyes met his squarely. "I did want to, Clark. With you I wanted to. But I just can't — not this way. I know it's ridiculous and corny, but that's the way I am. I want the whole thing — one man, just one, and marriage and children and the forever-after bit. Can you understand?"

  "I can understand," said Nick. "Better hurry now. It's getting late and we have to find a walla-walla. While you're getting freshened up I'll make out that check."

  While she was in the bathroom he wrote a check on the account of Clark Harrington for a thousand dollars. It was all he could afford at the moment. He wished it could have been more.

  Miriam Hunt took the check, glanced at the amount, and then kissed his cheek. "You're such a nice person, Clark. I really wish I were the right girl for you."

  "If it is written," said Nick, "then it is written and nothing can change it. This is China, remember." He arranged her fight coat about her shoulders, understanding without bitterness that he had lost a lot tonight. A bit of Proust occurred to him: The only Paradises are the Paradises we have lost.

  Or have never known, one might add.

  Then he had to smile at himself. He had gotten only what he deserved — for choosing to be such a romantic tonight. Let it be a lesson to him.

  They hailed a passing walla-walla and were put ashore at the ferry landing. Miriam lived clear across the island, in a modern apartment overlooking Repulse Bay, and she now insisted that he not accompany her. He put her into a taxi and gave the driver instructions.

  She extended her hand from the taxi window and Nick shook it, though he did not particularly relish shaking hands with a woman. It was so often an admission of defeat. Not that he had known many defeats.

  "I'm really sorry," Miriam Hunt said again. "I know it would have been a marvelous experience. I guess I'm just a Midwe
stern virgin after all. Will I see you again, Clark?"

  A faint smile tilted one corner of Nick's mobile mouth. "Who knows? There seems little point in it — but who knows? We both might look in the I Ching."

  Her dubious smile said that she did not understand. Then she was gone and Nick walked across the ferry plaza to a phone kiosk. It would have to be Swee Lo after all. Certainly he was not going to go back to Corsair and try to sleep!

  As he searched in his wallet for the unlisted number that Swee Lo somehow always managed to retain, no matter how many times she moved, he wondered who her current protector was. Swee Lo always called them that — her "protectors." She had, Nick knew, had quite a string of them. Yet she was, and he always felt a little guilty at the thought, as much in love with Nick Carter as ever. As she had been when they had first met in this very Hong Kong, more years ago than he liked to remember.

  Chapter 4

  Blood on the Morning

  It was after four in the morning. Outside the old villa that clung to a raw crag overlooking Harlech Road, cloud cover was swirling in to mantle the peak, masking the stars and diminishing sound. The villa seemed to float in air, disembodied, alone and aloof in this rarefied stratum.

  Nick Carter rolled out of the huge Victorian fourposter, careful not awaken Swee Lo, and slipped into a heavy brocade robe. He thrust his feet into slippers. Both robe and slippers were the property of Swee Lo's present "protector," and Nick wondered now, with no real interest, who the man was.

  But whoever he was, he was loaded. This old villa, with its 30-odd rooms, had once been the property of the Cardine family. You couldn't get any more pukka than that. Now it was inhabited by Swee Lo, a Eurasian sing-song girl from Manchuria.

  She did not look her 26 years as she slumbered lightly beneath the scarlet silk sheet. She was an exquisite fragile doll, a beautiful miniature, her body perfection in small scale. Her Russian blood was predominant. Her eyes were nearly as round as his, her little nose as straight, with no trace of the Mongol in her cheekbones. Her skin was as white as lilies.