Mind Brothers 1: The Mind Brothers

by Peter Heath

  It was still pitch-black when he came to. He was lying on the sand, and his chest felt like it had been operated on with a baseball bat. Groaning, he sat up. Then he heard something in the darkness, something very familiar.

  It was a throaty purr.

  Somehow he found the lighter. The scene that met his eyes was ridiculous. It was also unbelievable. The big cat was lying on its side, its chest heaving in and out, its tail swishing and its head resting in Cyber’s lap. Cyber was stroking it absent-mindedly as if it were an ordinary house kitten that had decided it needed a little attention. Jason felt like laughing. Instead he got up—slowly and carefully, just in case. But the big tiger ignored him. It was enjoying itself too much.

  “How in hell’s name did you do that?” asked Jason.

  “The animal has been mistreated,” said Cyber, tickling his ears. “Left without food, beaten and intimidated to do violence by its human masters. I—communicated—with it. It will obey.”

  That still didn’t explain how Cyber had “communicated” with it, but Jason decided to wait for further explanations. It was time to figure a way out of Otto Krupt’s trap.

  The little door through which the beast had entered to devour them was still open. Apparently Krupt or his men had assured themselves that the feast was under way and then had left. Probably to sample the fruits of the orgy still taking place, Jason thought.

  The passage was long and low. It ended inside a cage that occupied one corner of a large room. There were other cages. The occupants snarled a vicious greeting. One whole wall was barred across, and Jason could see why. A huge bull elephant paced nervously back and forth inside, its trunk as thick as a man’s body, its eyes red-rimmed with hate and misery. There was a simple gate barring the tiger’s lair, and Jason raised it and stepped down. Cyber and the tranquilized beast followed.

  He approached the elephant’s prison and was rewarded with a baleful glare and a dangerous swipe from the creature’s hairy trunk. Whoever had tortured the tiger had done an even better job on the elephant. Deep red welts ran down its sides, and its tender and sensitive ears had been run through with sharp-pointed instruments. It was further evidence of the kind of cruelty that is practiced by a totally perverted mind. Jason felt the anger rising up within him. He let it. It would be useful for what he planned to do next.

  “Adam,” he said, “you seem to have quite a way with angry animals. See what you can do about calming our disturbed friend down, will you?”

  Whatever Adam did, it worked. In a few minutes the elephant was practically crooning to itself and its trunk was waving good-naturedly through the bars at both Adam and Jason. When they opened the door, it came out as quietly as a lamb and stood, hulking over them, a four-ton bundle of friendliness and good will.

  “Let’s get started,” said Adam. “I have a feeling that our friends are about to stop enjoying the evening.”

  Jason was wrong for the second time in two hours. The night’s entertainment was just getting started for Otto Krupt. It was a private entertainment and it was taking place in a different part of the ancient building. A part that Jason, Adam and their two animal companions located by the screams issuing from the balcony-circled room where twenty-five members of the inner council of the Brotherhood were seated in old-fashioned leather chairs, facing a dais with a lectern, a surgeon’s table, and an ordinary wicker basket. By the time Jason and his companions had arrived the screaming stopped.

  Both the patient and the lecturing doctor were already familiar to Jason. From his vantage point behind the curtained balcony, he was looking at the top of the close-cropped red hair of Otto Krupt’s head. He was also looking into the luminously terrified eyes of Mr. Chatterji, who was belted firmly to the surgeon’s table with heavy leather straps.

  Krupt even had a form of pointer. It was a swagger stick. He rapped it twice across the lectern, and the room grew silent.

  “Members of the Brotherhood,” he began, “you have just witnessed the treatment we reserve for our enemies. Now you will see a further demonstration—a demonstration that the good Dr. Lau, our Chinese ally, has suggested as most fitting in dealing with informers,” he said. Krupt’s swagger stick tapped Mr. Chatterji across the forehead lightly. Mr. Chatterji winced.

  Jason thought swiftly. So the Brotherhood had overheard everything that the taxi-driver-hatchet-man had bleated out in the Bombay hotel room. Now he was paying the price. Then Jason’s blood ran cold. Krupt had referred to his “enemies.” This was the second of two demonstrations—the screams he had heard—suddenly he knew why they had been so high-pitched. Kumindani had been the first victim for the Nazi doctor’s torture table. So she had not told the German anything, and she was now probably dead. Jason’s hand found the .38. He had it lined up with fat folds on the back of the redhead’s neck and his finger was moving back relentlessly on the trigger before he stopped. The girl was almost certainly dead. Somehow, she had given herself away and had paid the penalty. But he still needed the answers. He put the gun back into the dhoti and listened.

  “Members, we have done well today,” Krupt’s cold, sneering voice swept through the room. “Following the instructions given me by the great leadership of the Chinese People’s Republic, I have succeeded in destroying the two Americans. Succeeded, I might add, where you had failed. At this moment their corpses are being digested by one of my hunting tigers.” Krupt smiled malignantly.

  “It was extremely important that these two be eliminated,” he continued. “One of them, the man called Jason Starr, was responsible for the device that we are now perfecting. A device that will make the great people of China the benevolent masters of the world!” Krupt’s voice echoed hollowly across the chamber. Mad, thought Jason. Mad like all the other mad dogs who played the roles of Third Reich supermen.

  “And now—” Krupt’s voice modulated into a deadly little whisper “—the demonstration.” Krupt bent over and picked up the wicker basket. He was very careful with it, handling it like a basketful of eggs. He set it down for a second in order to reach inside the lectern and take out a pair of goggles. He put the goggles on and then he spoke:

  “Gentlemen, inside this basket an extremely rare snake is waiting to strike its victim. The results should be both amusing and worthy of our scientific curiosity. The snake is fangless, a spitting cobra, found only in certain parts of Africa. It spits its venom in the victim’s eye. The victim is completely safe so long as he makes no attempt to rub the irritant away. If he should do so, his itching will break the tiny capillaries that supply blood to his eyeball. Death follows swiftly, so I am told.” Krupt moved behind the table and looked down at Mr. Chatterji. Suddenly his hand darted into the basket. It came up with the writhing, dun-colored body of an angry snake.

  “You see that the victim’s hands are secured,” said Krupt, holding the snake over his head. “This is simply to immobilize him during the snake’s attack. Afterwards, we will release the victim’s hands to see if his will power can sustain him against the quite severe irritation caused by the venom.”

  Jason had had enough. He watched the doctor wave the snake around in the air above Mr. Chatterji’s head for a moment longer. Then he crawled back through the curtains and rejoined his friend. Thank god for high old hallways, he thought. The elephant was clearing the roof by several feet. The tiger paced nervously back and forth. Both animals were nervous, apparently smelling the snake.

  It was now or never. In spite of Mr. Chatterji’s guilt, Jason couldn’t stand idly by and watch the man murdered.

  “Tell your friends their keeper is waiting, Adam,” Jason said, motioning forward.

  As Mr. Chatterji’s first scream bubbled up from the table below, Jason ripped down the heavy hangings that concealed his perch. He had just time enough to catch a glimpse of Krupt, holding the open-mouthed snake’s head over Mr. Chatterji’s face, when a blur of crimson swept by him, knocking him back against the stonework.

  Snarling with rage, the tiger launche
d itself into space. It hit in the middle of the Brotherhood and went immediately to work. As the first unbelieving cries reached his ears, Jason felt something else. It was the elephant, coming through the low arch, dragging half of it with him onto the flimsy wooden balcony. The beast won the contest. The woodwork gave way and fell slowly to the floor below, cushioning its arrival with the smashed bodies of several members of the Brotherhood. Jason clung to the stone ledge that remained and watched the trumpeting cyclone of flesh go to work.

  It was all over in a few minutes. Apparently, the Brotherhood had checked its weapons at the door. The tiger and the pachyderm stood, panting, in the middle of a bloody shambles. An occasional low groan could be heard from the pile of twisted, torn bodies. Hoping that Adam’s control was still effective, Jason dropped to the floor. The tiger turned its blood-dripping jaws toward him, then looked away. The elephant ignored him entirely.

  “The man with the red hair is not among the dead.” It was Adam, who had followed him in his descent.

  Jason walked toward the dais. Mr. Chatterji was still tied to his table. There was no sign of Krupt or the snake. The little Hindu’s eyes were covered with yellowish fluid and he was still alive. Krupt had never had a chance to release his hands. The hands were drumming wildly and the body was jerking.

  “Kill me, master, kill me before I go mad!” his voice implored.

  “Listen to me,” Jason whispered. “The girl, Kumindani. Where is she?”

  “Please. Have mercy. Kill me!” the little Indian babbled.

  “Not until you tell me about the girl,” said Jason. He hated himself for withholding the raving man’s final release, but it was necessary. His words cut through Mr. Chatterji’s insanity long enough for him to give Jason the answer.

  “The operating theater—behind the curtain,” the Hindu croaked. “We were kept there . . .”

  “Adam!” Jason whirled around. His friend was soothing the animals. “Come on, there isn’t much time.” Krupt was away safely and probably alerting the rest of his forces. “Wait,” he said, noticing the double doors at the far end of the room. “Let them out through there.” With the animals loose, they might gain a few precious minutes on the Brotherhood.

  When Adam had let his charges through the doors opening on the arched hall leading toward the main part of the palace, Jason had one last thing to do; he undid the heavy buckle on the strap binding Mr. Chatterji’s right hand. Then he and Cyber slipped through the curtained doorway and ran down the silent passageway toward the operating theater.

  Kumindani’s eyes looked up at Jason. She tried to smile, but the smile changed into a long cough that brought arterial blood frothing up to her lips. The girl still lay on the wheeled cart that Krupt had used during his first demonstration. She was naked. Her body was covered with hundreds of pin-sized holes. An icepick-like blade lay beside her head. Krupt had lectured pleasantly, his blade rising and falling, never destroying a vital part completely, in a horrible display of cool anatomical virtuosity, his voice soothing, demanding, demonstrating. A red hatred filled Jason’s eyes. He snapped himself out of it. The girl was obviously dying. But she was still conscious.

  “Kumindani, can you talk?” Jason’s fingers stroked her blood-spattered hair. The girl nodded feebly, slightly.

  “Dr. Lau . . . he pretended to desire me . . . it was his trick . . . he knew I was looking for information . . . he allowed me into his chambers . . . and—then—I found the papers . . . his work. He had intended to trap me. They took me here . . .” Kumindani’s voice faded. She coughed more blood. Jason felt her pulse. It was almost gone.

  “Adam, can you help her?” he asked quickly.

  “She is past even my assistance,” the man from the future said somberly. “If the repair facility were here, it could repair her.” But Jason knew that the facility was now fifty thousand years away in the future.

  “Did you find the location of his laboratories?” His question brought the half-conscious girl back from the shadows of death that were clouding her pale, still face.

  “Yes . . . in Bhotiyal . . . Tibet as you call it . . . in the land of the high hills . . . near a lake known as Manasarovar. . . .” The girl’s voice faltered. “Go to the monastery in Simla . . . there you will find a hill man to lead you . . . Da Tenzing, of the Sherpas. Go now before they . . .” Kumindani’s eyes flickered rapidly. Her mouth opened as if she wanted to say something more. Then it stretched into the final taut grin of death.

  Cyber’s hand on his arm brought him back to his senses. He heard shouting and the sound of running feet. Then a gun was discharged somewhere in the distance. It was time to go. The girl was dead, another swift sacrifice in the game of life and death. Not in vain . . . I hope not in vain, Jason breathed, turning away.

  The rampaging animals seemed to have created enough confusion to make their departure as easy as their entrance. The sounds of gunfire and screams faded as Jason and Adam worked their way through the deserted grounds until they again reached the network of twisting city streets.

  Now what, thought Jason, looking at the pale, gleaming face of his companion? Both of them looked like half-crazy Hindus in their bloodstained dhotis, and Krupt would soon have his men scouring the city, bribing, threatening and demanding information from every frightened Indian who had seen them. Then Jason remembered what the girl Kumindani had said, “. . . in India those who wish to remain themselves dress according to the blindness of others.” The tension passed out of Jason, and for the first time in many days he smiled.

  “Adam, I think we have to hop a free train ride.”

  * * *

  Chapter †

  THIRTEEN

  WITH THE HIGHEST RANGE of mountains in the world forming a dizzying ice-curtained backdrop, the wiry, sunburned Sherpa knelt on the rock-strewn brown earth and prostrated himself before the wayside shrine. The late afternoon sun cast superb patterns of red and gold across the incredible jagged fist of the mountain that rose up in front of him. It was Nanda Devi, the sacred mountain, and Da Tenzing, the leader of the Sherpas, was asking for its protection.

  The small group of men waited until Da Tenzing had made his offerings to the gods. Heavily dressed in quilted jackets and fur hats and boots, they were Sherpas—men of the high mountains—and they knew that in days and nights ahead they would need divine protection.

  Jason Starr followed the ceremonies with interest. Until the great expeditions to conquer Everest had been mounted, the Sherpas had been practically a lost tribe—living on the rugged border between Nepal and Tibet in isolated valleys and practicing a form of Buddhism and demon worship thousands of years old. The Himalayas are mystical, he thought, gazing up at the 25,000-foot finger of Nanda Devi. They were also a perfect place for the Chinese to hide a secret complex of laboratories.

  It had taken them two weeks to climb up through the verdant lowlands into the high hills. Two weeks of the most arduous walking that Jason had ever experienced. The trail led through mist-covered gorges, along knife-edged ridges . . . up and down and up again . . . until his lungs burned fire and his legs turned to jelly. Now, after several days of it, he was keeping up with the squat little men who raced up narrow trails like mountain goats and who had offered him their lives with a savage abandon and a great laugh . . . as if it was a perfectly normal thing to do.

  Da Tenzing rose. His eyes were snapping with merriment as he approached Jason.

  “This night we will cross the border,” he said. “The dogs of China will feel our bite.”

  Nanda Devi marked the division between Communist-controlled Tibet and Indian Kashmir. It was a border without agreement, a shifting no-man’s land patrolled by both the Reds and the Indians, the site of so many “incidents” . . . incidents of sudden violence and mysterious silence. Through it lay Jason’s and Adam’s route to the shores of Lake Manasarovar.

  Jason glanced at his friend, Adam, and chuckled. The man from the future looked more like a Sherpa, with his keen eyes and h
igh-cheekboned features, than some of the Sherpas did themselves. He thought of the ride up from New Delhi to Simla. They had slipped aboard the slow-moving passenger train on the outskirts of the city. The ride had been an endless excursion across the hot plains, with Adam chattering endlessly in Hindi or whatever language he needed to use with their fellow sufferers in the third-class compartment. Jason remained silent, a dirty young northern Indian, who, Adam explained, was suffering from a mental disorder.

  As Da Tenzing motioned the group forward again, Jason thought about his first meeting with the little Sherpa in the monastery at Simla. As soon as Jason had told him about Kumindani, Da Tenzing’s face had twisted with rage and hatred. Apparently the Sherpa had worked with both Blake and the girl in their effort to uncover the activities of the Brotherhood. The mountain man grew very excited when Jason told him his plan to cross the border into Tibet. Before the Chinese had invaded and communized the “roof of the world,” the Sherpas had played the role of middlemen in the thriving Tibetan-Indian trade routes. Now the border was closed and their Tibetan brothers were groaning under the yoke of Chinese rule. Da Tenzing had demanded that he and he alone lead the expedition. He was out for a double-edged vendetta. Jason thought of Otto Krupt—still free and probably murdering people by the score in his search for the two Americans. Someday, somehow he would find the German. He would give him a very fast death instead of the slow death which he deserved.

  “We approach the frontier.” Tenzing’s voice floated back along the single column of men now moving behind the protective cover of a high, snow-covered ridge. He issued a staccato series of instructions, and the rest of the Sherpas deployed themselves behind rocks and boulders. Jason crept forward and had a look down over the cornice of ice and snow.