She stopped speaking. He said, "It's like what, baby?"
"Never mind. You get some sleep, darling. You're the one that has to do all the real work."
"One of us has to stay awake."
"I will. I can't sleep anyway. Go on, now. Sleep."
They checked their watches. "We've got three hundred feet of line to knot," he said. A few moments later he was sleeping. He would, she thought fondly, be able to sleep if he faced a firing squad in an hour. What a man he was!
Fan Su stroked his face with her fingers. It was his dear face still, beneath the stain and the blacking and the stubble. He badly needed a shave. She knew now, really knew, that she loved him. Why had she never told him in so many words? Because of the lack of tenderness between them, perhaps? They had not had much tenderness. But she did love him. She would always love him.
She shivered and pressed closer to him as the smell came back. Thick and cloying, unspeakable. She had almost told him what the smell meant to her — it was the odor of Death…
* * *
The last of the light went just as they reached the far rim of the table between their valley and the Chumbi. They had made the ascent without too much difficulty, roped together, and crawled over a quarter of a mile of rock and snow.
Nick was on the very rim, craning up and down the valley below. He twisted a dial on the binoculars, converting them to night glasses, and began a thorough search of the dark slot beneath them. The generator hum, louder now, was coming from their left. He waited patiently, shielding his face from the bite of the wind. Slowly twisting snow fell past him into the gorge below. The fall was light so far, and the wind not too bad. If the storm held off for a few hours longer it would work for them.
Everything was go. Now it was a question of patience. He planned to wait an hour or so, not more than two hours, for some clue from below. If it didn't come he would have to go down anyway and start searching.
Nearly an hour passed. Nothing. They lay side by side on the rocks, snow covering them, and spoke very little.
Then a spark in the night. A single yellow flash from the direction of the generator sound. Someone had opened and closed a door.
"That's it," he said. He ran the maps, the satellite pictures, through his head like a film. There would be a half-moon carved out of the rock, a car park off to one side, Nissen huts nearby. This was an open stretch, a narrow macadam road connecting sections of the tunnel. Somewhere in that half-moon was a door, an entrance of some sort, into the cliffs forming the other side of the Chumbi Pass. Find it.
Three hundred feet of nylon line had been knotted and belayed through ring pitons hammered into the rock close to the rim. Nick picked up the coil and tossed it down into the pit. Should be more than enough. He stood up, chafing his hands and stomping on half-frozen feet. He ran a last-minute check on himself: explosive pouch, Luger and stiletto in their usual places, the trench knife in his belt, the sawed-off shotgun dangling from a lanyard down his back. He took off his mittens and tossed them on the snow, his hands protected now by only thin inner gloves. Mittens were too clumsy.
The girl was keeping both rifles, with sniperscopes on both for night shooting. She wasn't going to hit much, he knew, but if he ran into trouble on the way out she could put up a diversion, make the ChiComs think they were being attacked in some force.
Nick cradled her chin in his big hand. "If you have to shoot, keep moving up and down the rim. Blast away. Throw all the lead you can, give me a chance to get back up the line."
She clung to his hand. "Nick! Oh, Nick…"
He patted her cheek. "Steady now. You know what to do. We've worked it all out. Do it. I'm depending on you. See you."
Killmaster picked up the line, braced his feet on the rim, and dropped out of sight. He walked his way down a few feet, until the line was clear over him; then he let his legs dangle free and went down swiftly, using the knots. There were no overhangs and the line fell free to the floor of the pass. He counted the knots as he went. When his toes struck solid earth he had come a little over two hundred feet.
He gathered in the extra line and coiled it. From his pocket he took a small cylinder with a rubber suction cup on one end. The other end was recessed. Nick pressed a small switch and a tiny red light glowed in the recess. He jammed the suction cup against the rock face where the line dangled. The red light could be seen only from direct front. He reached into another pocket and took out a black metal box the size of a cigarette case and held it to his ear. The beep-beep-beep came loud and clear, nearly deafening him. He would be able to find the line again. He put the metal box back in his pocket.
The darkness was total. He got his bearings by facing the cliff, the glimmer of red light, then turning right. The road bent a little here. He made his way cautiously until he felt the macadam beneath his feet, under the snow. He took off a glove and thrust a finger into the white film to make sure. He was on the road.
As he went cautiously forward he reconstructed the terrain from the maps, and as he had seen it from above in last light. The half-moon carved in the mountain was about five hundred yards from where he now was. He should, before much longer, encounter a counterweighted drop barrier. It should be down now. He snapped the stiletto down into his right hand and with his left drew the trench knife from its scabbard. The killing — there was sure to be killing — must be silent!
He walked now with the trench knife extended before him. The wind, in the narrow mouth of the pass, took on new force and shrieked at him. It gusted a mixture of sleet and snow into his face that stung like BB pellets.
The barrier was down, as it should be. There had been no traffic on the road all the time they had watched from above. No guard on the barrier.
Killmaster slogged on for another hundred yards, then stopped abruptly. He sniffed at the air and smiled. What he had been looking for, expecting. The fresh pungent odor of wood smoke. There was a guard hut up somewhere ahead and the guard was keeping warm. He hoped there was only one man. He could kill two easily enough, but that was tricky and always dangerous. Always the chance that one of them could shout or fire a shot.
The smoke got thicker, the wind slapping it into his face. He fell to his hands and knees and began to crawl. And now, because his keen eyes were perfectly adjusted, he spotted the little shack a dozen yards away. A faint reddish glow was leaking from it. A window, and a stove going in there.
But how many? He crawled toward the glow, a black-faced silent thing in the snow. How many?
One man. One shadow in the hut, hunched over the red-hot Sibley stove. Killmaster dropped below the window. Wind howled at him. His face was a slab of cold marble, his hands stiff and congealing rapidly. That fire would feel good.
He tapped gently on the door with the trench knife. Movement in the hut. The guard called in a querulous voice, a young voice. "Who?" The voice of a kid, Killmaster thought. Unlucky kid, to be on duty this night. He rapped on the door again.
Nick got him from behind, one arm choking off his yell, the other hand slashing down at the rifle. The soldier dropped the rifle and squirmed helplessly in the AXEman's grip. Nick put the point of the stiletto to the man's throat and whispered in soft Chinese: "Be quiet. If you obey and are quiet I will not kill you." You had to lie sometimes.
He hauled the man inside. He had been right, he was little more than a boy. A shivering boy gazing with distended eyes at this black-faced demon out of the night. Nick dragged him to the red-hot stove and thrust him to his knees, his face six inches from the scarlet metal. A little closer. The odor of scorching hair began to fill the little shack.
Killmaster held him as easily as he would hold a newborn babe. He asked questions. He got answers. Truthful answers born of abject terror.
It was time to kill him then and get on with the job. He had all the information he needed. He could not do it. The stiletto would not fall. The AXEman cursed himself. Why couldn't it have been a man? But a kid, a beardless kid! He couldn't do it.
In the end he sent the boy into the darkness with a karate chop and bound him with rope from a coil hanging on a nail. Weak, maybe. Even dangerous, maybe. He couldn't kill the kid.
Time was now more important than ever. He had gagged the boy, but gags could be spit out and ropes broken. Get on with it.
He came to where the road scalloped out to the right to form the half-circle. Dim lights glowed in the Nissen huts and he saw the silhouettes of trucks in the car park. He was halfway around the circle, approaching the entrance cut into the rock, when the door of one of the Nissen huts opened. Nick froze against a rock.
A man came a few steps outside the door and relieved himself. Past him Nick could see lights, smoke writhing in the air, and a huddle of soldiers around a card game. When the man had finished he went back into the hut. The door slammed. Nick breathed again and went on.
He found it easily enough, the iron door set back into the rock front. To the right, the kid had said. Nick felt and his fingers touched the panel. They found a button. He pressed it. Now for the big bluff.
A loudspeaker rasped somewhere over his head. It demanded his name and business. Nick put his mouth close to the panel, his fingers had found the fine mesh, and answered. He made himself a general in the People's Army, a very impatient and profane general. There was big trouble. He demanded entrance and if the turtle in there was slow about it there would be a firing squad.
The iron door began to slide back. Nick was through the opening and into the anteroom before the surprised lieutenant had taken his finger off the button.
The black-faced devil frightened the lieutenant just long enough. Nick got him in the heart with the stiletto. He hauled the body out of the chair, the heart still beating, and hauled it back into a gloomy corner. No one else around. A corridor led from the anteroom back into the bowels of the mountain. Back there, somewhere, was Prop B. He wasn't going to look for it. If the iron door closed behind him while he was back there he was a gone duck. He had other plans, better plans.
Nick ran back to the desk. He had the little grenade out now, a handful of hell. He fitted the timing device into a slot, twisted it, then pulled the pin. It was lethal now. Ticking. At twelve-thirty, half an hour after they were picked up, this mountain was going by-by forever. The mountain and everything within a radius of ten miles.
He got on his knees and crawled into the kneehole of the desk. He taped the ticking grenade to the wood far back in a corner where no one was likely to touch it with his leg or knee.
Five minutes had passed. Nick took a fast look at the buttons on the desk. Three of them. One to open, one to close, one undoubtedly an alarm. His finger hovered. They were all black buttons, no way of telling. He glanced at the iron door. It was still open, letting light seep out into the falling snow. If one of the soldiers in the huts saw it and got curious…
He dared not risk it. He turned and ran down the corridor, pulling things out of the explosives pouch as he ran. Decoys had to be planted. He began to roll out fuse as he ran. Let them find one decoy, let them find two, so long as they did not find the grenade under the desk.
The corridor opened on a deep circular pit drilled into the living rock. And there it was. Prop B! It dangled from a high tripod of steel beams, an outsize torpedo. Part of it was openwork and he could see light shining from the far side. The thing had no guts as yet. Fine. It wasn't likely to have any after twelve-thirty.
There was an iron-railed gallery around the pit with corridors leading off from it. To the labs, no doubt. A steep iron ladder led down to the floor of the pit. Nick was tempted. A ball of plastique in the thing itself would make a splendid decoy. If they found it in time they would stop looking, think they were home free.
No deal. He heard voices from the pit. Two men, both wearing white coats, had emerged from a passage somewhere below and were walking toward the huge tripod.
Nick had a wad of plastique the size of a tennis ball. He retreated into the shadows and considered for a micro-second. His nerves were beginning to hum now. Time to get out — get out.
He crept forward to the iron railing of the gallery. The men were standing directly beneath the tripod, staring up at the torpedo-shaped shell, talking and gesticulating. Nick glanced over his shoulder. Corridor empty, iron door still open. This kind of luck couldn't last much longer. Something had to break soon.
He rammed a detonator into the plastique, twisted the timer, then pasted it gently on one of the rail stanchions down near the floor. Maybe they would find it, maybe not. No harm if they did. If they didn't — well, the plastique was set for the same time as the atomic grenade.
One of the men under the tripod looked up and saw Nick. There was a shout, an excited babble. Nick walked into the full light and stood grinning horribly down at them, his teeth flashing like a shark's in the black face. He held up a stick of dynamite, let them see it, then flung it down into the pit. It wouldn't explode. It wasn't prepared. He didn't want it to explode. It just might jar the thing under the desk.
The men had turned and fled, shouting and falling over each other. Frantic. Buttons were going to be pushed, and soon. Nick ran.
As he sprinted past the iron door, an alarm began to clang somewhere inside the mountain. Nick flung the explosives pouch away and ran. He hit the road, the small metal box to his ear now, and he ran. The beeps, faint at first began to come in stronger. He followed them, sliding and skidding in the snow, and running as fast as ever in his life.
Behind him lights came on and a siren began to moan. Nick ran. He forgot about the barrier and slammed into it, slid off, fell on his face, got up and kept running. The beep-beeping was strong now. He was nearly there.
He slowed, searching anxiously to his right for the tiny red dot that would lead him to the line. There it was, a little beacon of safety in the windy night.
"Baby," said Nick Carter into the wind. "Baby, am I glad to see you!"
Five seconds of groping, and his fingers brushed the line. He tossed away the sawed-off shotgun, threw the trench knife into a snow bank. He tested the line. It was good and taut, just as he had left it. Fan Su was up there, waiting. This should settle her nerves, he thought. It was just a sweet piece of cake. Nothing to it. He plucked off the red light and crushed it underfoot.
He began to climb hand over hand, legs dangling, going up the line like Tarzan after Jane.
He was halfway up when he heard the first shot. He recognized the pettish snap of the Mannlicher. Then another shot. Then silence.
Chapter 11
Killmaster hung on the line, just below the cliff rim, and listened. Nothing but the howl of the wind, rising now and buffeting him back and forth on the fragile nylon. After the last shot, absolutely nothing. He pulled himself over the rim, belly-flopped and rolled over a few paces, came up with the Luger in his hand. Still nothing. The wind brought him the wail of the siren from below; up here there was only the sob of wind and dark emptiness. He called out, "Fan Su?" The wind answered.
Futile. In this rising gale she would not hear him. What in hell was going on? She would never have fired without good cause.
He decided to risk the flashlight. He flicked it, still on his belly, holding it at arm's length, and drew a semicircle with the beam on the snow.
The rifle. One of the Mannlichers lying in the snow. He turned off the light, crawled to the rifle and picked it up, trying to fight down a first touch of crazy panic. The Goddamned rifle had been bent! The barrel twisted, bent, into almost a full circle.
Nick didn't, couldn't, quite believe it. Yet there it was, the black metal cold under his fingers. What in God's name could have done that?
He dropped the ruined weapon and crawled a few paces away. He used the light again, casting it back over their trail across the tableland. The way they had come. He saw the first blood splotch, staining the snow a gaudy crimson. It was fast being covered by new snow. Fan Su had wounded the enemy, at least. Or had she? Was it her blood or his? His? Nick fought a
gainst the insane thoughts that were rapping at his mind. There had to be a rational explanation for all this.
He crawled to the blood splotch, using the flashlight sparingly. A blood trail ran away from the dark gout, running back over the plateau toward the valley.
The old General had said: The place is known as the Valley of the Yeti."
Cut it out, Killmaster told himself. Cut it out now! You'll be as crazy as the General.
He stood up, careless now, fighting against the mad, unspeakable thoughts beginning to batter at him. He cupped his hands and called into the wind: "Fan Su — Fan Su…"
Only the wind answered. Snow spit in his face. And he saw the other rifle.
Nick followed the beam of the flashlight and picked up the rifle. It was undamaged, lying a great distance from the blood splotch, as though it had been flung with tremendous force. He checked the gun, jacked a cartridge into the chamber, put away the Luger. He let the flashlight prowl around the area. No one had shot at him yet. He did not admit it, even then, to himself, but he had a sick feeling that nobody was going to shoot at him!
He saw the track. He bent over it, the flesh crawling on his neck and his backbone turning cold. He had seen the track of a gorilla once, and this was something like it Yet not quite. A snow bear? The single print was a foot wide and a little more than that long. It lay in the shelter of a boulder overhang or he would not have found it at all — the wind was scouring the snow like a fine brush.
Using the flashlight at random, he began to backtrack across the flat tableland. There was blood here and there, and one of the grotesque tracks now and then where the wind had not gotten at it. It took him a minute or so to realize where the thing was heading — back to the stairs leading up the valley wall.
The thing. Something! By now he admitted it was not human, at least not completely so. And, whatever it was, it had Fan Su.
The Red Guard Page 14