Dragon Flame

by Nick Carter

  His mouth was against Fan Su's small soft ear. "If your general wanders outside now he's had it."

  He could barely hear her reply above the blatting of the rotor blades. "He won't. He's badly hurt. Probably in a coma, or even dead. Anyway he's in a cave in back of the temple. Even if they search they might not find him."

  The helicopter's engine increased its beat. Nick caught a glimpse of the craft as it tilted upward and veered away. It continued on to the north. Might be a good sign, he pondered. They were going on with the search. But then he didn't know where their command post was — and they would be in radio communication. It meant nothing. They had the temple spotted now and Nick did not like that. It gave him a cold and uncomfortable feeling.

  When the helicopter was out of sight to the north he pulled the girl erect. "Hubba," he ordered. "Let's get down there and under cover."

  They were startled only once on the way to the temple. There was a grunting and rustling in some bamboo and Nick caught a glimpse of rusty brown hide. He drew the Luger, but Fan Su merely whispered, "Wild boar," and kept going.

  They entered the temple under a decaying arch. It was small, filthy, and smelled of time and rat dung. Sharp red eyes watched their entrance and they heard warning squeaks.

  Fan Su went directly to the rear of the temple. Here was a large boulder, its top chipped off to form sort of an altar. The girl looked at Nick. "I hope you can move it. It took all the strength of four men to put it there. There is no counterweight, no trick."

  She had made no mention of such men before and Nick realized, without surprise, that she still wasn't telling him everything. He approved. She might make a good agent yet, if she lived long enough.

  He put both hands against the giant stone and leaned into it, testing. It did not budge. Must weigh five or six hundred pounds. He glanced around for help, for anything that might serve as fulcrum and lever. Nothing. It would have to be sheer muscle, then.

  N3 put his big hands against the rock, took a deep breath, and pushed. He attacked with fury, with every ounce of strength he had, the veins traced in purple relief on his forehead and cheeks. The stone moved an inch or two, no more.

  Nick stopped, gasping for breath. "Those were four strong men," he told her. "Stand back. I'll have to use my legs."

  The girl was watching quietly, admiration and awe in her eyes. "We should have brought a lever," she said. "I didn't think."

  "Never mind. I'll get it. But get back now — it might roll."

  She retreated nearly to the entrance. Nick stood with his back against the hill face, really the rear of the temple, and braced himself. He flattened his massive shoulders, leaped and put both feet against the stone. The long muscles in his thighs knotted and moved under the flesh, like snakes in the act of striking. Slowly the boulder began to move. It halted, moved again as Nick strained in agony, halted and moved again and began to sway. It fell away with a crash, rolled a few feet and stopped.

  Nick mopped his brow with the back of his hand and grinned at Fan Su. "I must be a little out of condition."

  She was already past him and crawling into a small black hole which the rock had concealed. Nick went after her on his hands and knees. She stopped abruptly and he rammed his head into her small hard buttocks. Her voice, muffled by the close black confines of the little cave, came back to him.

  "He's alive! I can hear him breathing."

  "Okay. Let's get him out of this hole. He can't be getting much air."

  "In a moment. There are matches in here somewhere." He heard her fumble and swear under her breath. Then a match flared yellow. He watched her light a stub of candle. The tiny flame revealed a low-ceilinged round hole dug out of the hillside. It couldn't have been more than ten by ten. In the middle of the earth room a man lay on a pallet of dirty straw. Near the pallet was a broken pot half full of water and something that might have been a packet of books wrapped in torn and stained newspapers.

  "Go back to the entrance and keep watch," Nick commanded. "Ill bring him out. He's alive now, all right, but I don't know for how long."

  When she had scuttled back past him he took the candle and held it for a better look at the old man on the pallet. His heart sank. General Sung Yo Chan, late of the Chinese General Staff, didn't look as though he were going to make it.

  The general was a scrawny, lemon-colored skeleton. His head appeared much too big for his fragile old body. He wore a pair of dirty white baggy trousers secured to his skinny middle with a twist of straw rope. His feet were bare. His only other clothing was a torn T-shirt and a gray quilted jacket from which all the buttons had been torn. He lay all askew on the pallet, his huge head too heavy for the stalklike withered neck, and his eyes were closed. N3 did not like the sound of the heavy breathing, a rasping congested sound that came too seldom.

  Most of all Nick did not like the irregular plaque of blood and pus on the general's chest, just below the emaciated ribs on the right side. A gut wound! Plus, no doubt, pneumonia. If they saved the general it would be a miracle. A hint of wry smile flitted across Nick's face. If they got out at all it was going to take a miracle! Well, he was pretty good at miracles. Had brought a lot of them off.

  He knelt beside the old man and lifted him gently, making a cradle of his big biceps. He would guess about 90 pounds. Fan Su would weigh more than that.

  He laid the general near the entrance where he could get as much light and air as possible. They had no food and no water except that in the broken pot, but it did not matter. Gut wounds couldn't eat or drink. The water could be used to bathe the wound, though by now it might be septic.

  Fan Su got the water and the first aid kit and squatted by him as Nick sniffed at the wound. The old man had not opened his eyes or spoken.

  Fan Su knew what he was doing. Wide eyed, she asked, "Gangrene?"

  "I don't know. I'm not doctor enough to be sure. It doesn't smell too bad. But it is bad — a gut wound and the slug's still in him. If we can get him over the border and into a hospital he might make it. Might not. I…"

  The general opened his eyes and stared up at them. They were very dark small eyes, murky and feverish now, but with a light of intelligence in them. He said something that Nick could not understand. The girl replied and nodded, smiling down at the old man. He closed his eyes again.

  Nick had taken a square of gauze from the kit. He decided against using the water. "What was that all about?"

  Still squatting, she picked up the general's dirty, fragile, long-fingered hand and held it. "Mandarin. He understands a little English but does not speak it. He said that if the long road beckons he must follow it. And he asks a favor of you."

  "What favor?" Nick taped the gauze into place over the wound, after sprinkling sulfa on the torn and festering flesh. It was all he had, all he could do. The first aid kid was an old one, probably black market, and had never been meant to combat gut wounds or gangrene.

  "He wants you to kill him if we are taken," the girl said. "Shoot him. He would regard it as a great favor. He is afraid of being dragged in the public square in Peking, of being stripped and humiliated before he is executed."

  Nick nodded. "If he can't save his body he wants to save his face, eh?"

  "He is a Taoist. That is why he has survived so long, I suppose. Lao-tsze preached that — survival at almost any cost. It would explain why he has played along with the Chicoms for so long." Fan Su shrugged. "We in Undertong know much of this man. We have been watching him. He is old now, in his seventies, I think, and he is ready to make his peace. He was a boyhood friend of Chiang, you know. And he has been on the General Staff for years."

  Nick regarded the corpselike figure of the old general. In the distance a jet seared past. Somewhere out in the ravine a dove mourned.

  "He's a prize," Nick admitted. "I just hope we can keep him alive. There must be a lot of secrets stored away in that bald old skull." He remembered the packet that had been beside the pallet in the hiding-hole. He sent her for it. S
he was smiling when she returned. She tossed the packet to him. "I think this is very important. Feel the weight!"

  He nearly dropped the package. He ripped away the newspapers and found three books in lead covers. He stared at Fan Su. "Code books. Naval code, or at least they belonged to the Navy. The lead is to sink them in an emergency. This is important, almost as important as he is, unless they're missed and the Chinese know they're compromised. In that case they'll never use them again."

  The general opened his eyes again. This time he stared up at Nick. There was more life in the old eyes now. He spoke rapidly to the girl in Mandarin. She listened and nodded, and Nick noted that she seemed amused.

  "What's so funny?"

  "Excuse me. I do not mean to be rude. But I think it is good to laugh at a time like this."

  Nick smiled and patted the general's frail shoulder. "I agree. But let me in on it. What's the joke?"

  "No joke, really. But he says that you are not the man he was supposed to meet. He is a little suspicious."

  "I suppose he means Ludwell? Explain it to him, then."

  Before Fan Su could explain, however, the general put one of his bony hands into the top of his filthy white trousers. He brought out a small square of paper and handed it to the girl with a trembling hand. Nick reached for it.

  It was a faded snapshot of Bob Ludwell. Taken a few years before, Nick thought, because Ludwell was not so bald. For a moment his thoughts were somber, seeing the dead man's picture and remembering the backed body on the autopsy table. Then he handed the snapshot back to the girl. "Explain it to him."

  The girl spoke rapidly in Mandarin. The old man looked a long time at Nick, then nodded and replied.

  "He asks if the dead man was a friend of yours."

  "Tell him yes. Tell him I am doing the job my friend can no longer do. And tell him he's talking too much. He must save his strength."

  Fan Su translated. But the old man spoke again, rapidly, his eyes rolling and his thin claws twitching. Fan Su laughed. She looked at Nick. "He wants his money!"

  Killmaster scratched the itching stubble on his lean jaw. "He wants his money! A hundred thousand dollars, just like that? He's a greedy old character, isn't he? Nervy, too. A real Chinese. He's practically dying and he's worrying about money."

  Fan Su was still laughing. "I know. I think his mind is wandering a little. He says that even if he dies the money can be buried with him."

  "Washington would love that," Nick muttered.

  She put a hand on Nick's arm. "Can't we tell him something, do something, to put his mind at ease about the money? It just might help keep him alive, you know. He's such a fragile old thing — all mind and spirit. Not much body. He is very serious about it. He does not want to live and then have to beg on the streets in the United States."

  "I doubt it will come to that," Nick said dryly. "But I'll see what I can do — I've just had a horrible idea. At least my boss will think so. Back in a minute."

  He went to a dark corner of the temple, opened his trouser front and took out the little metal capsule containing Pierre, the gas bomb. Wrapped around the bomb was a single AXE seal, an inch square of gummed paper. It bore the AXE symbol and the legend: KILLMASTER. In a way, Nick thought as he replaced the metal capsule, the seal was his chop, just as the Tigers had their chop. The seals, of course, had been planned with an eye to effective psychological warfare. A flagrant taunting of the enemy. Killmaster came, saw, conquered! That was the message of the seals. This one would be put to a different use. Nick couldn't help chuckling as he went back to where Fan Su squatted by the general. Hawk was going to blow his top!

  He showed her the seal. "You got anything to write with?"

  She produced a Hong Kong ball point. They cost a penny and no beggar would be caught without one. "I bought it from a guard at the border," she explained. "Part of my friendly act. But what…"

  "You'll see. Anything to keep the old boy happy." In minuscule script he wrote on the seal: In the name of The U.S. Government I. O. U. $100,000, — signed, Nicholas H. Carter.

  Fan Su looked doubtful. "Will they honor it?"

  Nick grinned at her. "They'd better! If they don't, and we make it, I'll be paying off for the rest of my life. Here, give it to him and explain what it is."

  Fan Su handed the seal to the general. He took it in one prehensile yellow claw, studied it, nodded at Nick and then appeared to fall asleep, the seal clutched tightly in his hand.

  Nick inspected the bandage again, then told the girl, "That's all I can do. From now on it's your job to keep him alive, my job to get us out of here. I think we should have a plan in case the soldiers come — and here it is. There would be no point in trying to run for it, not with him." He pointed to the general.

  "We should have a little warning if they come. You and the general will get back in the hiding-hole and I'll push the rock back. Then I'll make a break for it, start a fire fight, and draw them off. They may take the bait and forget to search the temple. Even if they do search it they might miss the hole. Anyway, it will give you a second chance. You understand all that? There won't be any time for rehearsals."

  "I understand." She did not look at him. "You will be killed. You know that!"

  Nick Carter shrugged. "Don't worry. I will meet my death when I meet it. I do not speculate about it. We will do it my way." He lay back and stared at the ceiling of aged hand-worked beams.

  "You talk like a Chinese," Fan Su said.

  "Perhaps. What is that hole in the ceiling?"

  "It leads to the bell tower. Not a tower, really. Just open work. A platform where there used to be a big gong. The priests struck it with wooden mallets."

  Nick got up. "I'm going to take a look. Stay with him. Call me if anything goes wrong."

  He leaped for a beam and swung himself easily up into the dark rectangle cut in the ceiling. He found a narrow catwalk leading the width of the temple. It led to a shuttered window overlooking the valley. Beyond the window was a platform. Nick, squinting through the shutters, could see a stout A-frame made to hold a gong. He could also see the tiny village at the far end of the valley. It was, as the girl had pointed out, nothing more than a cluster of squalid houses. Most were built of mud bricks with a thatch of straw. One house, bigger and more substantial than the others, stood a little apart in a thick growth of juniper and camphor. Behind the house was a large meadow slanting down to a stream.

  The big house, Nick mused, must be the tavern and brothel the girl had mentioned. A house of pleasure. He grimaced. He could imagine what the girls would be like in a village like this. And yet it might prove useful. If soldiers did come they would inevitably be attracted to the inn, to the house of pleasure. Soldiers were the same in any army, all over the world.

  He went below again. The general was still sleeping. Nick thought he looked a little better. There seemed to be more color in the old saffron flesh. Nick took a position as near the door as he dared and stretched out on the dirt floor. A rat ran along a rafter. Nick said: "I'd give half of that money I promised him for a cigarette."

  She did not smile. "It is a small hardship."

  "Yes." Nick took Wilhelmina, the Luger, from his belt holster and began to check it over. "Tell me about this Jim Pok," he said. "You've seen him?"

  "Twice. When I was working in Hong Kong. Working for Undertong. Then I saw him only at a distance — he is hard to get close to. His Tigers are always with him."

  "What does he look like?" Nick rubbed the Luger with the sleeve of his jacket. It would have to be reblued one day.

  Fan Su said that Jim Pok looked the perfect image of an American-Chinese businessman. A very successful one. Short, slim, always impeccably dressed. His English was also beyond reproach.

  "He went to Harvard," she said. "His family is very wealthy and respectable in the States. Dry-cleaning shops, I think, and importing. He has an uncle who was once Mayor of Chinatown in New York. Most respectable and good, his people."

 
Nick Carter slitted his eyes against the sun that was creeping in the doorway, a butter-colored bar alive with motes, and the girl thought there was something weirdly catlike about the big AXEman.

  Nick said, "You know a lot about him."

  "We keep a file. Undertong has marked him for extermination when the time comes. When we are strong enough."

  There was something cruel about his smile. For just an instant she thought of a skull, a grinning skull. "Don't wait too long," he told her softly. "He might not be around."

  "You plan to kill him, Nick?"

  He only stared at her. His eyes seemed to change color as she watched. "Maybe," he said shortly. "Go on. How did he get started in Hong Kong? What makes him so tough, so powerful?"

  "Money. What else?"

  Nick yawned. Along with a cigarette he could have used a nice soft bed. "Where did he get his money?"

  "That we do not know. No one seems to know. It has been said that he was originally financed by a syndicate in the States. He came to Hong Kong about five years ago and took over Tiger Tong. The old leaders were found floating in the harbor. Since then Jim Pok has never stopped. He is like an octopus. His tentacles are everywhere."

  "And now he works for the Chicoms. He's good, too. I give him that. No wonder Chinese Counterintelligence uses him."

  Nick nodded at the sleeping general. "When he defected the Chicoms got panicky. But good old Jim Pok was right on the ball. He must have spotted Ludwell as CIA — either that or the Chinese tipped him — and he went right to work. He knew Ludwell was the logical one to go in and bring the general out, so he cut that off at the source. Got himself a nice little bonus, too. And that isn't all. I'll bet the real reason Pok went on his visit to Red China was to set up things, to coordinate, in case the general did get over the border. They won't give up. Jim Pok and his Tigers will get the job of killing the general in Hong Kong."

  Her dark eyes met his. "I had thought of that. But you won't let them."