Mind Brothers 1: The Mind Brothers

by Peter Heath

  “Lay down your weapon, Mr. Starr . . . there is a small chance that I may decide to save your life. I admire your courage—perhaps I shall be able to use it in more interesting ways.”

  Lau was playing for time, and Jason knew it. But what the Chinese didn’t know was that his armed guards were being kept busy with Da Tenzihg and his band of Sherpas. Still, the Sherpas couldn’t hold off the Chinese forever, and Jason had to move quickly.

  “Forget the compliments, Doctor, just put your arms up as high as they can reach or I’ll arrange a nice little amputation ceremony for them.” Jason gestured with the Thompson. The doctor obeyed with a tight-lipped smile. Covering him and the two dazed assistants, Jason moved down the steel steps to the main floor.

  “Yes, this is quite a hospital you have here, doctor,” Jason said, looking at the cages with their contents of human misery. “It rivals the best that the Gestapo ever created. But, then, you have Dr. Krupt to give you special advice in matters of torture.”

  “Torture, Mr. Starr?” Lau’s smile changed into a frown. “The individuals you see are quartered inside security cells for their own protection. They are decrepit products of inbreeding among the ignorant tribes in the Tibetan Himalayas. Suitable subjects for my experiments—otherwise—” the doctor’s voice rose shrilly—“unsuitable for anything but simple labor on the People’s Communes.”

  “But suitable for experiments.” Jason’s voice held a deadly calm.

  “Exactly. Thanks to your initial research.” The doctor’s head nodded at a table and, out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw the burnt remnants of the original equipment that had crashed with him in the jungles of South Viet Nam. “Yes, because of your brilliant discoveries, Mr. Starr, we have been able to improve and increase the strength of the thought-generator to one thousand times its original capacity. When broadcast over thousands of miles it will cast a net of confusion over entire continents. All that remains for us to do is to reduce the size of the equipment so that it can be encapsuled inside of a small orbiting satellite.”

  The man was mad. He was also full of deadly intelligence . . . the kind of intelligence that considered mass murder or mass mind-destruction a simple means to an end.

  “Yes, that’s a very bright idea,” said Jason. “Too bad the world isn’t quite ready for it. Now, Doctor, if you don’t mind—just turn around—nice and slowly—that’s it—press your hands up against that wall—and don’t move a muscle or I’ll feel an urgent need to shoot your backside off.” Jason snapped out the words. The doctor’s face changed into a mask of hatred. For a second, Jason thought the madman was going to spring at him. His finger tightened on the trigger. Then, with a shrug of his thin shoulders, Lau followed the instructions.

  “You are a fool. You will die slowly and terribly.” His cultured voice filtered through the hum of the machinery.

  The doctor had a point, thought Jason. Time was running out. But it no longer mattered whether he lived or died . . . died for the second time, this time permanently. The important thing was to destroy the mind-control equipment. What to do with Lau could wait for later.

  Motioning to Cyber, who was still standing on the platform, Jason told him to bring the rucksack with the demolition charges. Working swiftly, Jason placed them, attached the radio detonators, and returned to take over the job of guarding Lau and his fellow workers.

  “Take my black boxes up into the outside hall; they might come in handy as proof . . . if we get out of here alive,” Jason told his companion. Cyber collected them from their table and started toward the exit. Before he had taken three steps, the sound of machine guns firing outside the building vibrated through the walls of the laboratory. The gun crews had finally seen through the practical joke. The explosions set off a chain reaction of gibbering growls from the inside of the cages.

  “You see, Mr. Starr, your resistance is pointless.” The doctor’s cool, taunting voice rose over the intermittent firing.

  Jason ignored him. Time had run out at last. They would never leave the building alive. But, then, neither would Lau. It was probably better that way. As much as he was disgusted by the contents of the cages, slaughtering humans—completely deformed physically and mentally as they were—was not a pleasant idea. It would be a quick and merciful act to do the job, and if he had to he would share the death at the same time. Jason’s finger caressed the button on the small detonating transmitter. He looked at his friend, the man from the future. Cyber understood. He smiled his acknowledgment and his head nodded.

  Then two things happened so quickly that Jason could only stand numbly and watch.

  The door to the laboratory burst open, and a man who looked as if he had been put through a meat-cutter plunged into the room. His face streaming with hundreds of tiny cuts, his clothes in tatters, and holding a Sten gun at the ready, Otto Krupt stood, glaring at the shambles below.

  At the same instant Dr. Lau moved.

  With snakelike speed the Chinese launched himself across the five feet that separated him from the barred doors of the cage. Before Jason could react, the doctor had flipped the crossbar up and pulled back the heavy mesh screen. Then it was too late to do anything at all. Krupt was covering them, and the howling horde of half-men were springing out of the open prison to the floor.

  “The detonating device, and your weapon, Mr. Starr,” Krupt’s hoarse voice was full of triumph. “I will blow you to shreds before your finger moves enough to set off the charge. Put them down. Gently, please.”

  Jason put the box on the floor. He looked at Cyber. His friend’s eyes were closed and his head was swaying slightly. It was hopeless. A feeling of despair welled in Jason’s throat. He should have destroyed the laboratory without bothering to battle his conscience. Now it was too late.

  “Move toward me, Mr. Starr,” Krupt ordered. “And your sly friend. Hein!” he snapped.

  As he started to walk toward the platform, Jason could hear Dr. Lau behind him, opening the rack of hunting rifles. Then he heard a sound that made his head snap around quickly. It was a low growl followed by the scream of an enraged animal on the attack.

  Lau was crouching in front of the wall, his hands working feverishly over the jammed mechanism of a high-powered rifle. Five naked, hairy men were moving in on him, their throats rumbling with savage sounds as old as the jungle. A small hope started to build in Jason’s mind. He swung around again and looked up at the German.

  Krupt was showing signs of confusion. It had been a long day for the leader of the Brotherhood. His hand came up and wiped the blood streaming from the cuts on his forehead out of his eyes. The Sten wavered, trying to cover both Jason and Adam as well as the brain-washed Tibetans who were now closing in on the frantic Chinese.

  Events made his decision for him. It was the wrong decision.

  As Dr. Lau’s first terrified scream welled up from behind Jason, the German raised his gun and fired a long burst into the group of snarling creatures who were in the process of repaying their master’s cruelty. It was the chance that Jason had been waiting for.

  As the German fired his second burst into the struggling, snapping mass of half-men, he launched himself in a low dive toward the still-sputtering high-voltage electric cable . . . the cable that had been carried to within ten feet of his former perch on the steel platform by a group of now-dead Chinese.

  It had to be well-timed, and it was. Jason’s dive carried him to within three feet of the exposed end. As his shoulder hit the floor, one hand closed on the thick wire four inches below the live tip. Then he was rolling over and coming up, legs churning toward the closest support of the platform.

  A half-second before the tip slapped against the steel girder, the firing stopped. Krupt must have seen it, Jason thought, as his body hurtled by under the overhead and his arm slapped the wire against the steel. Then he slammed into the concrete wall, shoulder first, and lay dazed for a long moment, hearing the crackle and smelling the acrid odor of the ozone generated by 20,000 volts
coursing through the metal platform.

  He lay there until his head stopped trying to explode. Then he crawled back out and stood up. His eyes flicked over to the opposite side of the room. It wasn’t a very pleasant sight. The half-men had taken what was left of Dr. Lau back inside their cage. They were now busily distributing portions of it to the other members of the group. Cyber was still standing where he had been moments before. His eyes were open again, and his face looked white. It was the first time Jason had seen the man from the future react so obviously to violence.

  “We’d better try to get out of here,” he said. Then he ripped the sputtering cable from its contact with the steel platform. He looked up.

  The platform was empty.

  Somehow, Krupt had managed to jump back through the door in time. Swiftly Jason retrieved his weapon and the detonator. With Cyber behind him, he raced up the steps. If Krupt was waiting in the hall, the German would have his Sten gun zeroed in on the doorway. Jason took a chance. He stuck his head around the corner and took a quick look.

  The hallway was empty. Both Krupt and the guard had fled. The firing outside the building had stopped. It was mysteriously quiet. As he and Cyber rounded the second corner in the hospital’s hall, they were met by a familiar sound. It was the happy laughter of Da Tenzing, booming through the vacant building.

  The Sherpa chief was at the head of the hall with three of his companions. His face was covered with powder burns and he looked a bit wobbly. But his good humor was still keeping his bruised exterior from seeking rest.

  “Ah, my friend, we are temporarily the winners,” he boomed. “The Chinese dogs have been driven into the network of trenches. My men can hold them for perhaps a half-hour. Have you found that which you search for?”

  Jason explained quickly. When he finished, the Sherpa nodded his understanding.

  “Then we shall begin to organize a path of retreat,” he said. “The sons of devils have maintained control of their radio, and it will not be easy to recross the border.”

  “Wait!” Jason cut in. “The airstrip—is it still in our hands?” An idea was beginning to take shape in his mind. A crazy idea, but with the Chinese alerting their border forces and reserve elements, one that he felt worth the risk.

  “Yes, at least for the moment. And the aircraft is undamaged. If we but had the skills to operate it, our escape would be simple.”

  The old DC-3. A simple machine . . . that is if you knew anything about flying two-engined aircraft. Jason didn’t. His only experience had been a few hours of flying lessons at the controls of a Piper Cub in his days at the RAND Corporation. He had never even found the time to get his license. Yet, if he could get her into the air, he could probably fly her. The DC-3 was the most forgiving aircraft ever built. Landing again was something there was no time to worry about.

  “Da Tenzing, get your men ready for a quick exit.” He decided it. “I’ve just elected myself a member of the airline pilots’ association.”

  Telling the Sherpa to get his men to the airstrip, Jason and Adam stayed inside the empty hospital for a few more minutes. Now that he had the proof he needed to convince the CIA, there was something else . . . something almost as important, and Jason decided that the delay was worth the risk.

  Cyber found the safe. It was in plain sight, inside the most luxurious office. Probably Dr. Lau’s, thought Jason, watching his friend’s fingers swirl through the intricate combination as if it were a child’s penny puzzle. The door swung open and Jason went to work on the contents of heavy, sealed folders. He discarded right and left. It was mostly records of day-to-day experiments, interesting and valuable but not what he was looking for. When he found what he was looking for, a cloth-covered file marked Property of the People’s Secret Service, there was no time to examine its contents. The firing was beginning again, and it was time to leave.

  When they emerged from the building, Jason was surprised to see that it was growing light. The night had been short and full of violence. When they were clear of the camouflage and running toward the dim outlines of the airstrip and the parked plane, Jason did what he had regretted doing just a half-hour previously.

  He pressed the detonator. A flash and a roar followed. Then a series of hollow explosions. The acrid smell of burning fuel oil reached Jason’s nose. Diesel-fuel storage tanks for the electrical generating plant, he thought.

  His thoughts turned toward the red-haired German. Otto Krupt was somewhere near and, now, there was no time to settle old accounts. Perhaps in the future, thought Jason.

  He ran on, clutching the heavy file and stumbling over the rocky ground. He didn’t bother to look back.

  * * *

  Chapter †

  FIFTEEN

  AS THE REMAINING Chinese launched an all-out assault against the last machine-gun emplacement that stood between them and the escaping aircraft, Jason heard the number-two engine sputter and stall for the third time. He frantically punched the priming button, moved the mixture to full-rich and tried again. The old crate had been sitting all night and the oil was half-frozen. Beside him, Cyber looked out into the dawn-bright sky. There wasn’t much for him to do—getting the DC-3 airborne was essentially a one-man operation, so far not much more complicated than a modem single-engined procedure.

  As Da Tenzing’s two volunteers in the machine-gun emplacement sprayed a stream of tracers toward the attacking Chinese, the engine finally caught and blew a cloud of flame out of its rusty manifold. There was no time for a warm-up. Hoping she wouldn’t stall again, Jason released the emergency brake and gave number one the gun, and the old bird lurched around and moved down the taxiway toward the runway. Behind his shoulder the Sherpa leader grunted in satisfaction. His men were strapped in along the sides of the cabin.

  By the time Jason had turned onto the short strip and was heading down to turn around for the takeoff, the two brave men who had elected to stay behind were dead and the distant figures running toward the field were the first of the Chinese. Trying to remember what came next, Jason glanced at the manifold pressure gauges. They seemed to be somewhere near the proper readings. Temperature looked okay. Flaps at fifteen degrees. Prop-pitch full, mixture—too rich—his hand fiddled with the knobs until the engine smoothed out. There was supposed to be a tail-wheel lock somewhere. He had once heard an RAF pilot complaining about its tendency to stay locked. The hell with it, he decided. It was time to get moving. His hand moved across the dual throttles and shoved them all the way forward. He let his toes relax across the brakes, and the old airplane shuddered slowly forward, its engines drumming through the thin walls of the cockpit.

  Steer with your brakes until you can control her with the tail surfaces . . . wheel in neutral . . . she’ll fishtail a little . . . don’t worry about it . . . now you’re picking up speed . . . wheel forward to bring her nose level . . . hold it there . . . don’t let her get off the ground until she can fly . . . keep your eyes down the middle of the runway . . . let the view take care of itself. Jason heard the voice of his old instructor, coaching, encouraging, explaining.

  . . . now you’re close . . . now ease back . . . just a little . . . that’s all it takes . . . she’ll lift herself like a bird . . . you’re doing fine . . . relax . . . relax . . .

  They were five feet, ten feet . . . fifty feet off the runway, the ground whizzing past his window. They were in the sky, and Jason let his breathing return to a half-normal state. Slowly and carefully he retracted the landing gear, the flaps, and then he powered back and thinned out the fuel mixture. They were climbing up toward the knife-edged ridges of Nanda Devi, now outlined in the morning sunlight, with the lake down below on their left and a rising column of black oil smoke marking the secret laboratory.

  Jason swung the nose away from the menacing peaks of the sacred mountain and headed northwest, following the wide gorge that had been carved out by the headwaters of the Indus river. The old DC-3 was unpressurized and had no superchargers; it would never make it over t
he tops of the 25,000-foot peaks that enclosed the valley.

  Their present course was free of obstacles for a few miles, and he had some map reading to do.

  “Adam,” he said, “just hold her where she is . . . it’s like driving a car.” By the time he remembered that Adam had never driven a car, it was too late—his friend was flying the airplane, smoothly and naturally . . . as if it was another primitive toy with which he could amuse himself for a few moments.

  Jason had a look at the Chinese pilot’s map case. The course they were following would take them out of the mountains into the disputed territory of Kashmir. Another hundred miles would put them inside the Pakistani border. Since there was no choice—in the other direction lay the really high mountains and China—he decided.

  “Da Tenzing,” he said to the Sherpa who was peering curiously over his shoulder, “if we land in Indian-held Kashmir, the plane and everything in it will be confiscated. The Indians don’t want any trouble with their Chinese neighbors . . . at least not this kind of trouble. On the other hand, the Pakistanis have had it up to here as far as their Chinese friends are concerned. If we’re lucky we can make Peshawar and leave the explanations to the U.S. government.”

  “That is true,” the Sherpa said, without his characteristic smile. “However, we are Indians, we will be detained—perhaps imprisoned by the Pakistanis. Such is the way of governments in opposition to each other.”