by Nick Carter
The helicopter whirled its way into a gentle mist that thickened as they proceeded north. Jake stopped singing. The Perspex canopy became blurred with rain.
Nick closed his eyes and made himself relax. He dozed, and dreamed of Toni lying wet and dead on a lonely beach.
"Wet," said a voice. "A dead drop in the wet."
He came awake instantly. The mist was thick, steaming fog swirling around them. Jake was looking over his shoulder, his young face creased with worry.
"If this doesn't clear up in a half hour or so, I don't know what we're going to do. I can't see a thing down there. God knows what I'll be dropping you into."
Nick stared downward into a blanket of white. "We can't get any lower?"
"Not a chance. I'm low as I can go right now without nicking the trees. That stuff could be right down on the forest floor and we wouldn't know it until we hit."
Nick thought it over, sparing a bitter mental comment for the weather forecaster. "Okay. Nothing we can do but keep on going. You'll know when we get there?"
"Sure, that I'll know. But I don't know what it's going to be like underneath."
"Well, don't worry about that now. If necessary you'll have to drop us blind."
"Ha!" Jake snorted. "You won't stand a chance in hell…"
"I think we will, if we don't try to take it too fast. Of course, there's bound to be some risk to you…"
"Me!" Jake scowled at him. "So what's with me, dad? Mine not to reason why, mine but to drop you and bugger off. You just give the orders and I'll drop you where you want to go. I don't give a damn about the risk to me, you — sir."
"Hold your horses, Jake," Nick said mildly. "You may not care, but I do. Now this is what I think we might try to do…"
He told him. It was a fragile plan, but the best he could come up with until they knew what waited for them at Point B.
Half an hour later they were less than three miles from their drop-off point and forty-one miles from the La Farge plantation. And the rain fog was thicker than ever. The rotor blades churned slowly through the soupy air.
"It's low here," Jake said quietly. "Not what we think of as jungle, with tall trees and all. Scrub and vines — stuff like that. Can't see it yet, but I know that's what it's like. You ready?"
"We're ready."
The craft hovered like a bee above a flower.
"Okay. Out you go."
The ladder snaked out and dropped into the fog. Nick went out with it; Saito followed several rungs behind him.
Nick knew that the sun was still somewhere above the horizon because he could see gray light through the blanketing fog, but that was all he could see. He felt himself swinging slowly through the warm, wet air, and then he saw the dim, roughly rounded shapes below him. Bushes.
Then there were no more shapes. He sensed rather than saw the bare space beneath him. This was it! His hand tugged gently at Saito's trouser leg and…
A sound like that of a wooden bridge collapsing, its timbers cracking and splintering under a wall of water, exploded through the fog. His body jerked as something bit into the ladder and ripped away a portion of the sturdy cord. The fingers of his left hand burned as though he had dipped them into fire. Then his whole world was filled with the ugly chattering sound and the hideous lurching movement that seemed to be tearing him apart.
* * *
"They're ours! They're ours! Give them the signal, you blind, you blazing fools!" Lin Tong screamed. "Can't you see they're ours!"
The horn of the jeep spoke sharply. One two three four One two three four One two three — Four. And out.
The chattering, splintering sounds stopped as suddenly as they had begun. The jeep rolled over once and lay in the wet ditch with its wheels spinning uselessly in the air. Lin Tong picked himself up and scrambled out. The hard nose of a rifle stared him in the face. Behind it he saw a small man in ragged uniform. Beyond the man stood another with a smoking machine gun.
Lin Tong's hands went above his head… and clasped into a gesture known to every Chinese spy in Vietnam and every Viet Cong guerrilla. It meant: Hold your fire. Our cause is one.
They lowered their weapons and watched him impassively.
"In my left pocket there is money and a letter," Lin Tong said quickly. "The money is yours and the letter contains hidden identification which I will show to you when I lower my hands. You will see that I am on a mission of extreme importance." His voice was trembling, and he knew it. But he must get these devils' help or everything was lost.
One of them reached into his pocket and leafed through the folding money. Then he peered at the letter. "This I do not understand," the man said gutturally. "You will have to come with me to the Commandant." Lin Tong choked back a curse and followed him. He did not know that he was twenty-five miles south and some miles east of the American named Carter and the Japanese called Saito. He would have cursed out loud if he had known. But, on the other hand, he would have been immensely cheered if he could have seen them dangling with their heads in dribbling, blinding fog and their feet in hell.
Claire Has Company
"So sorry, Madame. We have found nothing. It is regrettable that my sources of information appear to be so faulty." General Ho Van Minh felt very suave and sure of himself. His sources might not have been completely accurate, but he was quite sure that they were essentially correct. Corpus delicti be damned; corpses were much too easy to come by for him to be bothered by such details as digging up old ones. "Perhaps you would care to correct my wrong impression by answering a few questions. And it may be convenient for us to do our talking in the wine cellar."
"The wine cellar!" Claire's eyes flickered over him and to the stocky aide blocking the door. If she could be alone with the General she might have some chance of — well, stalling somehow, until help arrived. But the cellar seemed like a most uncomfortable place for discussion. "If it's refreshment you require, General, I can easily have it sent up here."
The General laughed. "So can I, my lady; so can I. But I am thinking not so much of refreshment as of privacy. You will be so good as to lead the way. Sergeant!" The aide snapped to attention. "Come with us."
"General Minh." Claire stood her ground and looked him firmly in the eye. "You have practically admitted that there is nothing to this wild story of yours. Now what is this nonsense of going down to the cellar — of all places — to talk about something that doesn't even exist?"
"Oh, it exists, Madame; it most certainly exists."
"Only in your twisted mind, General Minh," Claire said through her teeth.
Twin points of bright light from his eyes stared at her face and his lips twitched.
"General, sir!" The aide clicked his heels. A second man now stood beside him, bright-eyed with excitement. "Forgive insignificant interruption, but Corporal reporting, sir."
"Well, what is it, what is it?"
The newcomer spoke rapidly in the dialect of the northwestern villages. Claire's heart turned over and seemed to drop slowly through the floor.
The General turned to her. A little red spot had appeared on each of his fleshy cheeks. "So, Madame. A body has been found. It exists, Madame — and not only in my twisted mind!"
His hand lashed out and struck her sharply across the face.
* * *
Nick's legs jackknifed upward reflexively to dodge the spitting hail of bullets. The torn ladder swung wildly beneath the lurching helicopter, and above him Nick heard Saito's startled "Gah!" of sound. For one blessed moment the deadly rattle from below stopped as if for breath, and in that moment the wobbling machine steadied and soared off at a high, sharp tangent. The next burst bit into empty sky.
The rotor arms whirred briskly overhead as Jake zigzagged the small craft toward the north. Nick felt something warm and wet trickling down his hand. He knew it wasn't water.
"You all right, Saito?" The rushing air caught at his breath, blowing his words away. But Saito heard and answered. His words whipped past Nick's ear.
"All right, sir. But this flying is for birds."
But Jake was in his element. His expert hands guided the humming craft well above the treetops and yet low enough so that his outside passengers could take quick advantage of any break.
And, after fifteen minutes of breathless clutching at his flying trapeze, Nick knew the break had come. The rain had stopped. The early evening sun was burning into the blanket of fog… burning so hard that it melted the thick camouflage into thin, drifting wisps.
The misty wisps below them drifted languidly over an open clearing, encircled by low trees and invitingly covered with soft fern and moss.
"Geronimo!" yelled Nick.
The helicopter gave a small, burp-like lurch and circled once over the clearing. Then it wobbled gently downward, edging toward the trees rather than toward the center, and trembled to a mid-air stop. Nick jumped toward the trees, his arms reaching for — and clutching — a sodden, mossy trunk. He turned his head to watch how Saito fared; saw him leap lightly, land — lose his footing as the earth opened up beneath him, and heard him yell out in alarm. Nick flung himself toward him, face down on the moss, and shot out both arms to grab at Saito's disappearing figure. He seized a shoulder and a clawing hand and pulled with all his strength. The big body slowly came upward and toward him, its face a twisted mask of surprise and pain, the coolie hat flung far back on the head at a crazy angle.
"A devil's trap!" gasped Saito, heaving his muscular hindquarters out of the partly exposed pit. Nick gave one last mighty pull and Saito landed beside him, swearing angrily. There was a jagged hole on the inside of the big man's left calf, just beginning to ooze out the rich red blood. But at least, thank God, the man was safe — and living.
The helicopter's engine coughed. Nick looked up and saw Jake's anxious face peering down at them. He waved back reassuringly, a saluting sort of gesture meaning Thanks, We're fine, Goodbye, Good Luck. Jake's face split into its usual cheerful grin and he waved back. The craft tilted slightly and then rose, trembling at first and then with gathering strength. Saito looked up and raised his arm in a farewell salutation.
Then the two men left on land glanced involuntarily at the thing that had been lying in wait for them. Only a small section was exposed, but that was enough to give them the whole picture. Beneath the shallow covering of moss and branches was a deep pit studded with long bamboo stakes sharpened to narrow, razor-sharp points. What would have happened to Saito if he had landed directly on the pit was… unthinkable. Nick shuddered and thought fleetingly of another pit, much like this except that it had been in Africa and it had claimed a victim.
He pushed the thought aside and motioned Saito further back among the trees while he thrust a hand into his small first-aid kit and watched the helicopter clear the top of the leaves, veering west to make a sweeping turn back to its home base in the south. Nick opened the small container he had taken from the kit and turned his attention to Saito's bleeding leg. The chopping sounds above them began a gradual fade.
"Hold still. Let me put some of this on." Nick smeared the antibiotic over the open wound and then started to tear a strip off his shirt. Saito stopped him. "No, sir. My shirt. You will need yours for your hand!"
The sound of tearing shirts suddenly became magnified incredibly into a whining, screaming crash that filled the clearing and — it seemed — the entire sky. It came from high above and a couple of miles away, and there was a blazing ball of fire in the sky. It seemed to hang there for a moment, burning with a terrible brightness, and then it fell. There was another tearing sound. A shattering, reverberating explosion. Then there was silence.
Saito's hands dropped away from his torn shirt. "May the gods give him rest," he said reverently.
There was no encore to the dreadful sound; no suggestion of a search party, no machetes thwacking at the bush. Nick and Saito eased their way deeper into the green tangle and finished their bandaging under cover of a heavy thicket. Then they padded cautiously into the snarled mess of reeds and stalks and sticky leaves that lay between them and the border.
Because their intended drop had proved to be impossible they were now some miles further north than they had hoped to be at this time. It was an advantage paid for with one helicopter and one life. The time was now a little more than thirty minutes past seven and there were approximately twenty-eight miles to go.
On foot.
* * *
Lin Tong was no longer choking on his curses. The guerrilla Commandant had been very helpful indeed. It had taken him a few brief moments to recognize the importance of Lin Tong and assume some vital meeting with Intelligence Headquarters in the north. Lin Tong had let him think whatever he liked, so long as he thought in terms of being useful to the special Chinese emissary whose noble efforts were doing so much to promote the cause of the free peoples of Vietnam against the American imperialists and their valets…
He talked rather a lot, but he made up for it.
The Chinese agent went triumphantly on his way, secure in his knowledge that the Viet Cong held this part of the southland as firmly as they held the sector north of the partition line, and that the border crossing would be as simple as stepping from one friendly province into another. After that, in North Vietnam, the sailing would be even smoother. Any local fool would be able to lead him straight to the plantation.
It was a little after seven-thirty in the evening, and he had some sixty-three miles still to go.
By high-powered vehicle.
* * *
The mosquitoes were singing their maddening chorus and the matted jungle floor steamed and squelched beneath their feet. Sharp, blade-like leaves and thorny branches snatched at their faces; ticks crawled, ants bit and tickled; sweat saturated their torn clothes. Every yard was a new hazard; every fallen trunk and pile of matted branches was a possible booby trap. And it was getting darker by the minute.
They stopped and ate, and then went on. Lights began to flicker here and there among the trees. Patrols. Saito took the lead. He was getting into territory that he knew. It also happened to be territory that the guerrillas regarded as their own backyard… They glided on, the two big men, silent as the shadows.
"Halt!" Nick froze where he was. There had been no suspicion of movement or a presence up ahead, and now, out of the soft blackness, this — the low guttural accent of the north. A light suddenly blazed across his face and blinded him. Saito muttered an oath and broke into a low rumble of Vietnamese which Nick could barely follow. The answer was a harsh laugh and a brusque command. By now Nick could see the outlines of their challenger, a stocky, ill-dressed man barring their way with a single rifle. The rifle jerked menacingly and the figure stepped aside with another bark of words.
Saito marched ahead, grumbling something about being a loyal partisan who had other things to do besides being dragged off to see Commandants by suspicious guards — and as he passed the man he lashed out two brawny arms in a lightning-swift attack. One jerked savagely at the rifle and the other, its hand hard as an oaken board, slammed against the man's windpipe. There was one muffled grunt and the light went flying. Saito bent to grab the rifle and a second figure leapt out of the darkness to land heavily on his back, snarling like an animal and raising an evil-looking machete for the killing slash.
Nick's feet left the soft undergrowth as if propelled by powerful springs and his body soared forward like a rocket in flight. His steely fingers caught at the machete-wielding arm and twisted viciously. Saito rolled free and leapt to his feet to meet the third grunting figure that came hurtling at the flailing group. Nick slid back the tiny safety catch on his right index finger and jabbed at the straining neck beneath him. There was a moment of wild convulsion and then the body was still.
Saito's great hands were balled into a double fist that came down like a sledgehammer on the third attacker. The man fell like a shattered rock as a shot, from somewhere behind the bushes, slammed into a thick bamboo stalk behind Nick's ear and split it l
ike a matchstick. Wilhelmina came into his hand and spat her lethal answer back into the bushes. There was a yell, the sound of feet crashing through the undergrowth away from them, and three swift shots aimed at God knows what.
"A signal," Nick said quietly. "There'll be more of them. Double around that canebrake and let's get the hell out of here."
"Yes, sir!" Saito grabbed the fallen rifle and trotted toward a narrow passage between the tangled trees and the tall cane. It meant a loss of valuable yardage, but at least it wouldn't lead them right into the arms of the pursuers who would almost certainly come.
They did come, within minutes. The first sign of them was the cracking of a branch. Then there was a series of scattered rustlings that might have been no more than rats scuttling through the undergrowth. But these rats were men, fully-armed and searching. And the sounds were fanning out.
Their best hope lay in keeping absolutely still.
And that meant another waste of precious time.
* * *
She had hit him! She had actually dared to hit him! But she wouldn't hit him again. General Minh wiped away the little trickle of blood that kept dribbling down to soil his impeccable tunic. Her ring had cut him badly. The devil's bitch! If it had not been for that snickering aide of his, she might even have gotten away.
But now she was tied to a heavy, up-ended table, secured with thick cord from her own kitchen, and she no longer looked quite so beautiful and full of scorn. She still had her clothes on, of course; there was nothing particularly entrancing about the feminine form and he had no immediate desire to play with it. Later, perhaps, his men might like a little diversion.
"You will see that I have had certain tools brought down here, Madame," he said conversationally. "Reflect a while. Consider how you will look, not to mention feel, when your fingernails are pulled. And perhaps your teeth. Think of this, and ask yourself if it is worth it. I have time, Madame. I can keep this up for days. But — can you?" His lips twisted cruelly. "It would be so much easier if you will tell me what message Moreau brought you before he so unfortunately died."