Dragon Flame

by Nick Carter

  N3 regarded her with affection as he fumbled in the pocket of the robe for cigarettes. The sheet had fallen away from her breasts, small and firm and not much larger than lemons. He bent and lightly kissed one breast, Swee Lo moved and moaned in her sleep. Nick stroked the sleek black hair for a moment, wondering at the ambivalence of his feelings toward her. At times she was still the winsome, wise beyond her years Oriental child he had helped so many years ago; in many respects she reminded him of Boy. Both had been introduced to the rawest side of life at an early age.

  Nick found that he had no cigarettes and went toward the door of the bedroom. Swee Lo, he thought, was luckier than Boy. At least so far. She had been given something far more in demand in this sinful world than anything Boy could offer.

  He went down a long, lushly carpeted hall and into a great living room. Black arching crossbeams supported the high ceiling. At one end a huge picture window was draped in golden Thai silk. There were Chinese glass paintings on the walls and an ancient Peking screen where the living room — Swee Lo had called it a drawing room — flowed beneath an arch into a long dining room. The thick carpet was Tien Sin.

  Yes, thought Nick, Swee Lo has come a long way from Mukden. Shenyang, as the Chinese called it. And, if the stories she had told him after their lovemaking were true, she was going even farther. Her protector was going to make a movie star of her!

  Nick smiled faintly. It was quite possible. A lot of movies were made in Hong Kong and not many of the stars were real actresses. Lo could certainly rival any of them in beauty and intelligence.

  He had, very carefully, not switched on any lights. He found a teakwood table with a marble top and fumbled in a Ming jar. He had noticed cigarettes there earlier. He put several cigarettes in his pocket and crossed the room to the draped picture window, moving without sound on the thick carpet.

  N3 paused at the edge of the picture windows and stood listening. Really listening. Each one of his senses, honed to an edge far surpassing the average man's, was alert. He did not think the danger was great. Not yet. But it was there.

  When he had left the kiosk and hailed a taxi in the ferry plaza his tail had been clear. But Nick Carter was too old a hand to take anything for granted. He kept a careful watch as the taxi ground up the narrow winding road to the peak. At the hairpin curve on Robinson Road be had spotted a ricksha following him. At that distance, in the bad light, it was impossible to discern the color, but he would have bet a million Hong Kong dollars that it was red.

  Nick did not let the fact that he was being dogged change his plans. He had more than half expected it. Bob Ludwell had been wrong, he hadn't lost his tail. So in a way it was guilt by association, he supposed. Whoever was interested in Ludwell was now also interested in Nick Carter. Or — and here Nick was really concerned — in Clark Harrington. He had no reason to think his own cover was blown, even if Ludwell's was, and if someone chose to be interested in the fact that Clark Harrington and Bob Ludwell were old friends, let them.

  So he had thought earlier. Then he had reached the villa and Lo, ravishing in mandarin coat and high slit cheongsam which revealed a lot of perfect small leg, had thrown herself at him. After the first excited burble of greeting, Nick and Lo wasted no time. They were old and experienced lovers who had been apart a long time. Her protector was away on business. By some miracle of timing her servants, all six of them, were taking advantage of the master's absence to visit their families.

  Nick, primed to the point where he must find surcease or explode, guided Lo gently toward the nearest bedroom. She went without demur — it was what she expected — shedding her clothing as they went. Even so, the acquisitive strain in her babbled on about her new position, her villa, her possessions, her prospects. In the bedroom Nick listened patiently as he finished undressing her. She had always been a covetous little wench and you could not fault her for it. Life for her had been hard.

  While she was kissing him and pointing out the Chagall, the Dufy and the Braque — on the bedroom walls, of all places! — Nick was slipping off her silver gossamer panties.

  Then, his patience at an end, he stopped her mouth with a lass and carried her to the big Victorian bed. They made love with a tender fury.

  Now N3, his cigarette still unlit, pulled aside the drape a half inch and peered out. Nothing. A gray fluff of moist cloud was pasted to the glass. Tiny beads of water lazed down the pane. It was practically zero visibility out there.

  This needed a bit of thinking over. Nick went into a large foyer, shielded and windowless. He sank down on an opium bed strewn with pillows and pondered as he smoked the cigarettes.

  By the third cigarette he had made up his mind. He wanted to know what was going on. It was probably none of his business, but he still wanted to know. It must be somehow tied in with Ludwell and his mission, and N3 wanted no part of that. But he himself was being dogged, and he was beginning not to like it. It would be cold and wet out there now for the watcher, or watchers, and Nick enjoyed the thought. Let them be cold and miserable for a time; very soon he was going to heat it up for them.

  He went to the bedroom for his clothes. Swee Lo was sleeping on her belly now, her round little behind exposed. Nick pulled the coverlet over her.

  He dressed in the ornate bathroom. The fixtures were of gold plate and the tub a vast swan. Nick again found himself wondering who the man was. White man or Chinese? English? Portuguese, Jap, or Russian? You could find them all in Hong Kong. Nick shrugged. What matter? Lo was doing all right, and he was glad for her. Now to business!

  He had to chuckle at his image in the long mirror. White dinner jacket, maroon bow tie, maroon cummerbund and dark trousers. Just the outfit to go stalking in the fog. The spy, whoever he was, might be too astounded to put up much of a fight.

  He checked Hugo, the stiletto, flexing it in and out of the sheath. The perfect weapon for close work in a fog.

  N3 went soft-footed down a long corridor leading into the kitchen and butler's pantry at the rear of the house. He was not, actually, expecting much trouble. If the watcher was still out there — and Nick was sure he was — then it was only as a watcher. A reporter. A spy. Someone was interested enough in Nick's movements to keep tab. That was all, or so Nick reasoned. If the man were an assassin, a hired killer, he would certainly have struck before now.

  But who would want to kill Clark Harrington, playboy?

  He felt his way through what must have been a vast kitchen and found a back door. He twisted the Yale and the lock tongue chunked oilily. For a moment Nick hesitated, wishing he had Lo with him. He knew nothing of the layout of the grounds. His unknown opponent, waiting outside, would have the advantage there.

  Nick tried to recall what he knew of the old peak villas. He had been in many in his time. There was usually a large patio behind the house, with a pool. Perhaps an arching bridge. Even a grotto, a pagoda or two?

  He cursed under his breath. He just didn't know! To hell with it, then.

  On his hands and knees now, he cautiously pushed the door open. The mist was chill and steamy against his face. The visibility, he reckoned, was about three or four feet. He saw that he was indeed on a patio floored with large tiles inlaid with mosaic. He could see a rattan chair and part of a table. Beyond that, nothing.

  He let the door swing noiselessly to behind him. He waited for five minutes, scarcely breathing, taking air with his mouth when he must. A man's nostrils can be loud in total silence.

  Nothing stirred in the bleak, gray, wet wilderness. Nick sighed inwardly. Okay. They had a good man on this job. He would have to initiate matters. Put down a little bait.

  He flexed the stiletto down into his palm and rapped sharply with the hilt on the tile. At the same instant he moved swiftly and silently a couple of yards to his right. This brought him up against the rattan chair and he crouched behind it, listening. Nothing but the sleepy cheep of a nesting bird. A smart bastard, Nick thought. He wasn't going to fall for any amateur tricks.

>   His roaming fingers found a small chunk of broken tile, a corner that had been dislodged. He tossed the shard into the opacity before him, throwing it in a high arc. He had counted five when he heard a slight splash. So there was a pool of some sort! That probably meant a bridge, a lotus and lily pond, a pagoda.

  Nick lay on his belly and listened and thought. If there was a pagoda it was the logical place for the watcher to hide. It would afford some slight shelter from the weather and a raised vantage point, though that wasn't much good in this soup.

  Nick slithered toward the pool, using his elbows, as silent as a snake. He reached a tile coping and put his hand out and down. His fingers brushed cold water.

  A man coughed somewhere in the steaming mist. It was a painful, racking cough that persisted in spite of desperate efforts to silence it. Finally it was choked off and Nick heard a long rattling sigh. He lay as still as death, because he had just heard death, and it was time to think again.

  His mind raced in re-assessment of the situation. The man was in a pagoda — probably it was built in the center of the bridge overlooking the pool or pond — and he must have been dozing. Certainly he had not heard Nick strike the ground or toss the shard of tile. Had he been fully awake, and heard, he would not have coughed. Nick had heard that kind of coughing before; there was a lot of ТВ in Hong Kong. So the man was sick, not too alert, and probably only a simple coolie paid to do a job. If it was the same ricksha man, he must be very tired by now.

  It also meant that there must be more than one watcher. They would never leave the front of the villa unguarded. But in all likelihood that watcher would be on the road, down a way from a tall iron gate barring the short drive that led up to the villa's porte-cochere. He would be, no doubt, near the red ricksha and hidden in trees or a thicket.

  First things first. Nick began to worm his way around the pool, the tiles clammy and slippery beneath his hands. He had to find the bridge leading out over the pool.

  He moved steadily, silently, alert for obstacles, brushing the area before him carefully with his hands before he moved. Like feeling for mines in the dark. He wasn't expecting mines, but Swee Lo had a lot of servants, and servants had kids, and kids left a lot of junk around. The man in the pagoda was awake now.

  Nick wanted to get him alive and in shape to talk. His grin was hard, and in the mist his lean face had tautened into an oddly skull-like appearance. He was Killmaster now and he was on a stalk and everything but the work at hand was forgotten.

  He found the damp wood of the bridge. Iron stanchions and duckboarding leading up at a gentle slant. He eased his big body onto the bridge an inch at a time, afraid it might creak or sway beneath his 200 plus. But it was a solid structure, well anchored.

  A faint salt breeze began to stab through the fog. Nick felt it cold on his left cheek. That way lay high cliffs and then the harbor. Nick increased his pace of crawl as much as he dared. He was so near the pagoda now that he could hear the man breathing. Any good gust of wind would shred the fog away and reveal him.

  A moment later the fickle breeze did just that. It puffed strongly around the pagoda and swept away the mist. Nick Carter swore and flattened himself on the bridge, trying to hide the maroon tie and cummerbund. He was a fool to have worn them. But the white dinner jacket, in the white swirl of fog, might just get him by. If it didn't, the stalk was over. He was within ten feet of the watcher.

  It didn't work. The man saw him. He came to his feet with a strangled "Hai yii!" He was in silhouette against the mist, a thin angular man in blues wearing a straw rain hat. Nick, still hoping to take him alive, leaped up the last incline of bridge. The stiletto was in his hand, ready for throwing, but he did not want to use it. One chop across the neck should do for this one.

  It was not to be. He saw the big black automatic in the man's hand. It was a Colt.45 — enough gun to tear his guts out. The hand came up and the Colt spat a blossom of orange flame. The booming report tore the silent mist into a million tatters.

  It was kill now or be killed. Nick flicked the stiletto from a point just before his ear. Hugo sang his little whirring death song as he turned over twice and went home over the heart. The man dropped the automatic, his eyes wide with terror and pain, and squealed as he picked at the hilt of the stiletto. He swayed and began to topple. Nick sprang to catch him, already thinking far ahead. The body must be gotten rid of and he didn't want to have to fish it out of the pond.

  He caught the man and eased him to the floor of the pagoda. He was dying fast, blood running from the gaping mouth and staining his brown stubs of teeth. It was no use, and Nick knew it, but he had to try. He bent over the dying man and spoke in rapid Cantonese.

  "Who are you? Why do you follow me? You are going to mount the dragon, so it will be well to speak truth."

  The man's muddy eyes fluttered open. His wispy beard was stained with blood. There was a vast disinterest in the dying eyes as he looked at Nick and spoke, also in Cantonese.

  "Not the dragon," said the man, his words strangely distinct through the burble of blood. "I ride the tiger!" He died.

  Nick straightened up with a soft curse. No time to worry about it now. He had to move fast. That shot…

  His eyes saved him again — those keen eyes with the marvelous extraperipheral vision that enabled him to see very near to a right angle. He was facing the villa when, to his right, he saw the ghost of a figure in the mist, halfway up the other side of the bridge. He saw the grotesque figure raise its arm and hurl something.

  There was no time to duck. Death came hissing out of the white smoke with incredible speed. Nick had time only to turn away, to begin his fall, when the object struck him over the heart. He grunted and staggered back, clutching at the rail of the pagoda for support. The ghostly figure turned and ran into the mist. Nick could hear it crashing through the thick undergrowth and shrubbery.

  Breathing hard, conscious of sweat on his brow and trickling into his eyes, Nick Carter gazed down at his chest, at the weight still pendant there. It was a hatchet, short handled and razor sharp. It clung to the white dinner jacket like a limpet, embedded there. Embedded in the thick envelope Ludwell had given him. Nick had intended to leave it on the yacht, had forgotten it, and now it had saved his life.

  He had a few moments. He doubted that the other man would come back, or lurk about. It would be better if he did, but Nick knew he could hope for no such luck. The man was on his way by now with his news. Nick cursed as he reached for the hatchet and pulled it out. He seemed to be getting in deeper and deeper.

  It was a tong hatchet. He had seen enough of them to know. The handle was short, scarcely the breadth of a man's hand, and the head was broad, with a razor edge. The hammer head had been sharpened to a spike point. It was a vicious weapon, perfectly balanced for throwing.

  Nick scooped up the.45 automatic and put it in his jacket pocket. He dropped the hatchet beside the body and, kneeling, stripped down the blue singlet the man wore. The man had been a skeleton even before he died — the arms like sticks, emaciated ribs, the chest hollow and covered with gray fuzz.

  Nick picked up one of the matchstick arms and peered at it. Yes. Just over the elbow on the right arm was a red tong mark. A crude stencil of a tiger. The Tiger Tong? Nick had never heard of it, and he knew a little about the tongs.

  He did not dress the man again, but wrapped the blue singlet around the skinny torso in such a way as to prevent the blood from dripping. The stiletto didn't make much of a hole, but Nick didn't want blood on his dress skirt. God knew what would happen next! He might even run afoul of the police, which would make everybody unhappy. Especially his boss, Hawk.

  He picked up the body, which weighed nothing at all, and slung it over his shoulder. With the Colt in his hand, he felt his way around the villa to the porte-cochere, walking on grass when he could, and very alert. He only thought the other watcher had run away.

  The mist was patchy now. Thick in spots, nearly vanished in others. Nick tried
to stay in the thick patches as he made his way down the drive to the high iron gate. He was playing a bit of a hunch.

  He was right. He found the red ricksha just outside the gate. It had been thrust into a thick growth of pink heather beneath dwarf pines. As Nick dropped the body in the seat he looked at the scrawny legs and thought: these Chinese are stronger than they look, all of them. It must have been quite a drag, following me all the way up the peak.

  He wiped the Colt carefully with his handkerchief and put it in the seat with the body. Likewise the hatchet. As he dropped the latter he conceded that there was a bit of irony concealed somewhere here if one had time to pursue it. The hatchet was very like the miniature tattoo he carried on his own arm, above the elbow. In a gesture that was typical of him he patted the dead man on the head. They both, in a way, belonged to tongs!

  "I'm kind of sorry," he told the corpse. "Too bad. But you were small fry — and the small fry always catch the worst of the hell."

  It was a fact he had always regretted. The little people, the small timers, petty crooks, usually got the dirtiest end of the stick. The big fish frequently got away. Nick deplored that. He didn't like to kill the little people.

  The mist was still holding over the roadway and immediate vicinity. He pushed the ricksha across the road, opposite the gate, and went along cautiously until the ground began to fall away. There were cliffs here, he knew, but just where?

  The wheels of the ricksha slipped off into emptiness. Just here was the cliff. Nick let go the shafts and the ricksha plunged down into a sea of billowing mist. He stood near the edge, head cocked, listening to the sound of its fall. The noise continued for a long time and he could visualize the ricksha, and the corpse, bouncing from rock to rock. There were squatters down there, in their tin and tarpaper shacks, and Nick sincerely hoped he wasn't disturbing anybody's breakfast.

  He went back to the house, stopping in a downstairs bathroom to check himself for blood. There was one tiny fleck on the dress shirt, but there was nothing he could do about it. He went up to the bedroom. As he went he glanced at the AXE watch on his wrist. Barely half an hour had passed.