Dragon Flame

by Nick Carter

  Nick crawled forward until he was beneath the long jutting gun. He could see the shorter nozzle of the flamethrower. The painted dragon leered down at him.

  It was dark beneath the tank. Too dark. He could see the face of only one of the three sleeping men. Only three. Damn it! But there was no help for that. The fourth tanker was probably up at the tavern. Very likely it would be the sergeant in charge — and he would be sure to give the alarm when he heard the tank move out. Unless he was drunk. Passed out. Nick could only hope.

  He studied the face he could see in the moonlight. Only a kid. A thin young face framed by a fur hood. These were not local troops, not even local regulars. They had cold-weather equipment. They must have been sent down from the north to aid in catching the general.

  Nick put the stiletto between his teeth and crawled a little nearer the sleeping boy. The pale brown face was bland, guileless, in the mellow moonlight. Now, as Nick watched and made his decision, the boy smiled in his sleep.

  N3 decided to let the boy live. No sentiment or pity influenced his decision, only pure reason and self-interest. A kid would be easier to handle. Easier to frighten — especially after he saw what Nick was going to show him.

  Nick skirted the boy and crawled farther in under the tank. His very acute vision divided the two sleeping men into distinct and separate packets of shadow. Now for it — and very, very quiet about it.

  Working by touch as much as sight, he located the first man's throat, felt gently with his fingers for the jugular. The man stirred restively beneath Nick's feather touch. A long burbling snore came from his parted lips.

  Now!

  Nick put the stiletto deep into the flesh beneath the left ear and drew it rapidly across the throat to the right ear. At the same time he clamped his big hand over the man's nose and mouth with tremendous force. He felt the hot gush on his hand. The man moved, strained, twisted for only a second. Then he went limp, air bubbling and sighing through the rent in his throat.

  Nick lay quietly for a moment. Then he killed the other tanker in the same silent fashion. The boy was still sleeping peacefully, though now he frowned at something in his dreams.

  N3 pondered for a short moment. He crawled back to where the girl and the general waited. He didn't think the kid would wake — the tank must have come a long way today. And he needed Fan Su. If the boy was from the north he wouldn't speak Cantonese.

  Rapidly he explained to the girl. He picked up the general. "Hurry," he snapped. "Walk to the tank. Slowly, but don't make a noise. Keep an eye out for anyone coming this way from the tavern." The fourth tanker bothered Nick. He could spoil everything if he came on the scene now.

  The old man was still wrapped in a coma. Nick put him gently down near the tank, then motioned to the girl. The stiletto was in his hand and he saw her staring down at it. The blood looked black in the moonlight.

  "I'm going to wake him now. You'll probably have to talk to him. But he's only a kid and I think we can scare him into playing along. You ready?"

  Her eyes were still on the stiletto. "Y-yes. Go on; wake him."

  Nick bent over the sleeping boy. He put the point of the stiletto into the tender flesh of the throat, then pressed it harder, deeper, until the slant eyes opened. The boy stared up at him in terror, the whites of his eyes flashing in the moonlight.

  Nick put a finger to his own lips and pressed the stiletto a bit harder. After a moment the boy nodded, screwing his eyes downward, trying to see the thing that was hurting him.

  Nick whispered to Fan Su, "Quickly now. Ask him if he wants to live. Try a Peking dialect."

  She spoke rapidly, using the harsh twang of the north. The boy rolled his eyes and nodded again and again.

  "He says that he wishes to five very much. He will do anything the foreign devil says. He's spotted you already."

  "No matter now. Ask him if he can drive the tank."

  "He says that he is not the regular driver. He is a gunner. But he knows how."

  "Good. Hold this on him a minute." Nick handed her the Luger. He ducked beneath the tank and hauled out the two dead tankers, one by each leg. Their slit throats gaped black in the limpid moonlight. He heard Fan Su gasp. He stared at the boy and pointed to the bodies.

  "Tell him he'll be like that if he makes a sound, or tried to cross us in any way."

  Fan Su translated to the trembling tanker. He kept glancing at his dead comrades, then back again to Nick. Looking for my tail and horns, Nick thought.

  The girl turned back to Nick, but kept the Luger leveled at the young tanker's head. "He's scared to death. He'll obey. I told him that we are going to Hong Kong and if he gives us no trouble he can go also. He seems to think it's a good idea. He says that he has wanted to desert for a long time."

  Nick laughed harshly. "This is his big chance, then. Now let's get out of here."

  Five minutes later the tank rumbled out of the meadow and past the tavern. The general had been tied into one of the gunners' seats. Nick sat next to the driver, the Luger covering him, while he figured out the trigger mechanism of the big gun and the flamethrower. Both, he discovered, were simple enough.

  Fan Su, in the dead officer's uniform, sat in the open turret. Her rubber shoes were on the driver's shoulders to give commands. The tank was going as slowly as possible to hold down the noise, though even so the iron dragon was clanking and rumbling like a boiler factory.

  They passed the tavern without incident. Nick was beginning to breathe a little easier when he saw the tavern door open. A flood of yellow light poured out. Nick, peering through a slit in the turret, saw the stocky figure of a man appear in the doorway and peer after the tank. The man swayed and clung to the doorjamb and Nick knew he was drunk. For a moment the man came outside, lurching and nearly falling. Then he turned and plunged back into the tavern.

  Nick cursed under his breath. The stuff was due to hit the fan now. That must have been the tanker sergeant — it was he who was missing — and he would not be so drunk that he wouldn't know something was wrong. He would first look for his officer, and he would find only the dead whore. Then he would run to the meadow, no doubt, to see what there was to see. He would find two of his men with cut throats. He would have to be pretty damned drunk, Nick told himself, if that didn't sober him up and goad him into action.

  He jammed the Luger into the kid driver's back, pointed to the throttle, and made a rapid motion with his fist. "Full speed ahead, buster!"

  The big engine roared as the tank leaped ahead. The driver flicked a switch and a powerful beam of light lanced down the narrow road. The light would attract planes like moths, Nick knew, but it had to be risked. If they ditched or got stuck they were finished. And maybe the Chicoms didn't have any night fighters around here.

  Fan Su's face appeared in the hatch. She cupped her hands and yelled at Nick, "We're coming to the main road now. We turn left. It's a little over four miles to the Sham Chun. But the bridge there…"

  Nick held up his hand. "I know," he yelled back. "Only one bridge, and it's a railroad bridge, and narrow. So what? We go over it, that's all. Just hold tight and pray, Su, to any gods you believe in. Any sign of a checkpoint yet? That's going to be our first real trouble."

  She leaned farther down into the hatch, her pale lemon face livid now. "Not yet, but I saw lights a moment ago. We're bound to hit one soon. What do we do, Nick? Try to bluff our way through — or crash it?"

  "Do you think you can bluff it? Are there any girl tank commanders in the Chinese Army?"

  Fan Su had ducked back to guide the driver. She thrust her face into the hatch again. "I don't know. I doubt it. Anyway they're bound to be suspicious, the Chinese don't move much at night. They may want to see our papers, with the tight security in force." She glanced back at the general, who was rolling and swaying in the gunner's seat, held only by the straw rope. "How is he?"

  "He was breathing the last time I looked. We can't worry about him now. If we don't get through he's a dead man any
way. We all are."

  Fan Su straightened up. She shouted down the hatch: "We'll have to run for it, Nick! They've been warned. Trucks are blocking the road."

  "Get down here and button up the tank," he commanded. "Hurry. Tell this guy to slow down until I give the word, then to go all out."

  The girl clambered down into the tank and slammed the turret hatch shut. Nick pushed her into a gunner's seat and handed her the Luger. "Keep this on him. And use those machine guns. You know how?"

  She nodded.

  "Shoot at anything that gets in our way. But keep an eye on the driver. I'm going to be busy with the big gun and the flamethrower." He gave her knee a squeeze. "We're going to make it, honey."

  Fan Su exchanged a few sharp words with the driver. He replied in a firm voice and his dark stare met Nick's without fear.

  "I don't think we need to worry about him now," the girl told Nick. "He wants to make it as much as we do. He says they will kill him now, no matter what. He has not been a good soldier of China."

  Nick Carter's smile was grim. "He'd be dead if he had been. All right — tell him to open her up. Full speed. Everything she's got, right at the barrier!"

  Nick jammed a shell into the breech of the big gun. He peered down the road. The checkpoint was a blaze of light. Trucks had been moved into the center of the road, at least half a dozen of them, two deep.

  The tank was picking up speed now. These T 54's could do about 40 at top speed. The tank began to bounce and yaw as the tracks slammed into holes in the rough dirt road.

  From a sandbagged revetment Nick saw a machine gun winking blue-orange flame. There was a pock-pock-pock-pocking on the steel turret. Nick grinned. Boys with sling shots! He swiveled the gun in the direction of the revetment, shooting point blank without aim, and let her go. There was a wham-blam roar and flash. The gun bucked and leaped back and the stink of high explosive mingled with the familiar tank smell of grease and hot oil and stale breath. Part of the revetment went sailing upward.

  Not a had shot for an amateur!

  Nick swiveled the flame nozzle around and aimed it into dead center of the trucks blocking the road. He pulled the release trigger. Come on, Dragon!

  A hundred feet of fire lanced ahead of the tank and into the center of the trucks. Flaming dragon's breath. The oily flame curled and crackled and incinerated everything it touched. Gas tanks in the trucks ignited and went up with a scarlet leaping whoooosh. The trucks were already burning like kindling.

  Beside him, Nick heard the steady rattle of the machine guns. Fan Su was firing first one, then the other. He saw men running and screaming and beating at their flaming clothes. They would stop running and bend, sprawl, claw the flaming earth as the hose of lead cut them down.

  They smashed into the center of the truck pyre. The big tank jolted, leaped, ground its tracks into the earth, then bulldozed ahead. Nick felt a sudden blast of searing heat through the turret. They had scooped up one of the binning trucks and were carrying it along with them.

  They were through. The truck fell away. Nick swiveled the gun around and pumped five fast shells into the blazing chaos behind them. He wanted to disrupt their communication as much as possible. Not that it mattered much now; the cat was completely out of the bag.

  The guns fell silent. He looked at Fan Su. Her face was grimy and oily and a few locks of black hair had stolen from the cap down over her eyes. She flashed her white teeth at him. Her eyes were wide and had a strange look that Nick recognized. Battle fever. "That was good," she said quietly. "Oh, God, that was so good. Killing some of them!"

  The driver spoke sharply. The girl told Nick, "The light has been shot out. It's hard to see through the driver's slit at night. Someone has to go up and direct. I will go." She started to climb into the turret again.

  Nick pulled her down. "You will stay! I will go. I almost trust him now, but keep an eye on him anyway. Use the machine guns or the big gun when you can. I'll yell as loud as I can."

  She reached for his hand and squeezed it. She slammed a shell into the breech of the big gun and went about feeding new belts into the machine guns. Nick patted the driver on the shoulder and smiled at him. The boy gave him a quick smile in return.

  Nick opened the turret and got his feet firmly on the driver's shoulders. The night air was fresh and sweet after the stinking closeness of the tank. He took a deep breath and glanced back. Long yellow tongues of flame were lancing up into the sky from the checkpoint.

  Less than a mile ahead he could see the lights of Lo Wu just across the narrow Sham Chun. The lights of Paradise. Freedom. So it must seem to the hundreds of thousands of Chinese who tried to make it every year. So it seemed to him now.

  Less than a mile. The tank was racketing downhill now, getting into the outskirts of the village of Sham Chun. Most of the houses were dark. When there was trouble in the streets the villagers stayed inside. That was all to the good. No use killing innocent people.

  They reached a cobbled street and the tank began a long downward glissade. This street ran right into the bridge across the river. The tank began to pick up speed on the downgrade. Nick felt sweat run on him. A straight shot now — if nothing happened. But it couldn't be this easy. It just couldn't.

  He saw the lights of the bridge, saw running figures on the Chicom side. A cold wind blew through him. If they had had time to blow the bridge! If they thought of it. That would cook them for good.

  Flame shot from the Chicom end of the bridge. They had set up a barrier and fired it. Wood, piles of straw, anything that would burn. There was nothing to worry about in that. They couldn't burn the bridge in time, the fools. If only they didn't blow it! But it took time to plant explosive and lay wires and…

  Nick saw it. The snout of another tank poking from a side street. It was coming out to block the narrow road. His mind raced even as he jammed his feet down on the driver's shoulders. More speed! Full ahead! If that damned tank got squarely across the narrow street, they were finished. It would not be moved as easily as the trucks.

  The Chicom tank fired. Nick saw the ugly blast of muzzle flame. The shell screamed like a banshee within a foot of his head. The air concussion nearly rocked his head from his big shoulders. The tank edged farther into the street.

  The big T 54 hit the other tank at an angle. There was a clanging and grinding of metal. The smaller tank was slewed around and flung back, but the progress of the T 54 was stopped for a moment. Soldiers ran yelling from the shadows and pelted the bigger tank with small-arms fire. Nick fired back with the Luger, and saw men fall. The air around him was alive with lead bees. One stung his arm. He heard the machine guns in the tank raving as the girl poured it on.

  Two soldiers leaped on the tank. A burp gun exploded in Nick's face, but the man was off balance and missed. Nick shot him in the belly and then turned and saw the other soldier tossing a grenade into the hatch. Nick lunged without thinking — if he failed they were all dead in the tank — and caught the grenade. He fumbled it, for a horrifying moment thought he was going to drop it, then flung it away with a backhand motion. It fell into another knot of soldiers trying to climb on the tank. Flesh pelted in all directions as it blew.

  The man who had flung the grenade leaped at Nick with his bare hands. Nick snapped the Luger at him, heard it click empty. He caught the man by the throat and flung him away.

  From the window of a nearby shop another machine gun went into action. Nick dropped into the hatch and slammed the turret shut just as the tank began to move again. Nick took over one of the machine guns and razed the line of shops and small homes. The smoke haze in the tank was so thick he could barely see the others.

  The big tank lurched forward and picked up speed. The driver was doing the best he could with very limited vision. He took out an entire line of shops and houses before he could get the tank back on the road. They went down like bowling pins before the iron juggernaut.

  They were close to the bridge now. The near end was a single great s
heet of flame. They would just have to go through it, risk being roasted to death if the tank stalled.

  Nick spotted a staff car racing ahead, filled with screaming and gesticulating officers. He pressed the trigger of the flame nozzle. Shhhhhhhhhoo — the greasy tongue of the dragon licked ahead. The staff car exploded in a ball of livid flame and turned over. Nick saw one officer land on his feet and begin to run, his back a mass of flame.

  Lead was hailing against the sides of the tank now. Mostly small arms. Then a crumping thud and the tank lurched sideways, shuddering. Another. The Chicoms had an anti-tank gun in action, but the caliber was too small. The shells were bouncing off.

  The tank slammed through the wall of flame and into clear air at the far end of the bridge. They were over the Sham Chun.

  Nick kicked the driver to slow. They coasted 500 yards into British territory before he kicked him to stop. Strangely enough, he found himself almost reluctant to open the turret and get out and start explaining. God, what explaining! Miles of red tape. But there was the general — he must be gotten to a hospital as soon as possible. Sooner. Then on a hospital plane and to Washington. Along with the precious code books.

  Nick opened the hatch and peered out cautiously. The Limeys were going to be as confused and riled as the Chinese. He was simply exchanging one chaos for another.

  He was totally unprepared for the reception he got. A British armored car raced toward the tank, its guns spitting flame. Bullets bounced and slammed off the turret.

  "Goddamn!" Nick ducked below again. They weren't taking any chances with a dragon tank. Shoot first and inquire afterward seemed to be the order of the day.

  Nick looked at Fan Su. "As I recall, your panties are white?"

  Her red mouth opened wide and she stared. "M — my panties?"

  "Yes. I need a flag of truce. Hurry up, will you? I'd hate to get shot by our friends at this late date."

  "Must you have them, Nick? T — They're dirty."