Double Identity (8 page)

“Breathe deeply,” the woman whispered. “Breathe deeply—it will aid your pleasure.”

Nick obeyed. Somehow he knew that he would always obey her now. Dyla Lotti was the High Priestess—
his
Priestess! He would always obey her. He must! In return for obedience she would lead him into the perfumed garden and show him such pleasures! It was really all rather cut and dried, he thought. Fated! Karma! He was fulfilling his destiny at last—why else had he come so many weary miles to this place to do—to do what? He had quite forgotten.

Dyla Lotti settled herself at his feet. He could feel her slim buttocks against his feet, feel her slender fingers tracing up his thighs. Higher and higher—fingers that were skilled and patient and evoking. Nick felt himself begin to tremble ever so slightly.

It was a war between his sensual being, now being so exquisitely stimulated, and his intellect. And his instinct. The tiniest of bronze gongs was beating somewhere in the back of his brain, warning him. Against what? He did not know and, almost to the point of peril, he did not care.

He began to feel a strange tenderness, mixed with an — unexplained enmity, for this woman who was ravaging him. For the moment, he thought, no matter how it turns out, we are lovers! It was a caught instant of time when all else was forgotten and there were only the two of them in the world. It was the drug, of course. The drug working to destroy the will and intellect of Killmaster, he who was a masterpiece among agents, who was as near perfection in mind, body, and will as a secret agent can be and still remain human.

And Killmaster was very, very human.

He also sensed that, for the moment at least, he was losing this battle. Perhaps this time he had taken on more than he could handle. The drug was so powerful and, at the moment, he was so weak. Yet he must somehow retain his sanity, even in this sweet ordeal through which she was now putting him. He heard her moan for the first time then, and sensed that she shared some of his feeling of passion.

He could not move. Could not speak. For the moment he was a floating island of tranquillity
sans
all desire. He was alone in the universe. He was nothing. Did not exist. He had at last achieved the Hindu goal of perfection—Nirvana. Nothingness!

Chapter 5

Rude Awakening

When N3 awoke some hours later he was alone. All the butter lamps had been replenished and the chamber was a blaze of tawny light. He lay for a moment, trying to fight the drug, trying to get clear in his mind who he was, and where, and why. It was useless. He could think of but one thing—women! Dyla Lotti if possible—if not then any woman.

Nick had no concept of time—BO idea how long he had been in the lamasery. It could have been minutes, hours, days, months, years—it was not important. There was a cup of the familiar yak’s milk beside the bed and he drank it down to quench a gnawing thirst—knowing it was drugged and not caring. He paced the narrow confines of the chamber, as naked as the day he was born. The drug was goading him. He must have relief.

It soon came. Half an hour later the old crone ushered in three giggling young priestesses. They were washed and perfumed and pretty enough in their Mongol way—and as avid for relief as he was. They wasted no time. They surrounded Nick and bore him down on the bed under a smother of thrashing brown limbs and firm young breasts. They spoke not a word of English and the man from AXE had no Tibetan, scholarly or otherwise. It mattered nothing. The four of them invented their own language, a
lingua franca
of laughter and giggles.

When Nick flagged, as he did eventually even with the drug in him, the youngest of the priestesses—she couldn’t have been much over sixteen—produced one of the famous silver clasps from a pocket of her robe and, with many giggles, instructed Nick in its proper use. It made, literally, a new man of him! Later he was anointed with a strange red powder, well rubbed in, which drove him into a new frenzy. Young, isolated, confined in a wilderness, yet these She Devils appeared to know every artifice of love. The orgy, though Nick did think of it as such, went on for hours. There was no food or drink and no one disturbed them. At times two of the little priestesses would leave Nick alone with the third, while they made love together, all sharing the same bed.

None of this seemed in any way strange to Nick Carter. He knew he was drugged, admitted it. Loved it! Desired it! lively thing—
sanga
root. He could never get enough of it! He had been born again—he was free and swinging on top of the world, had long ago passed Cloud Nine and was approaching Cloud Ninety-Nine!

N3 never quite knew when the She Devils left him. One moment they were straining on the bed with him—the next moment he was alone, awakening in a daze and staring around. He felt cold and his nerves were jumping. There was the cup of yak’s milk by the bed and he was reaching for it when the brass monkey began to swing open.

Nick raised the cup to his lips and was about to drink. He smiled at the dark oblong in the wall. “Dyla Lotti! I thought you would never come back. I—”

Hafed came rapidly into the room. Before Nick could stop him he seized the cup and poured the yak’s milk on the floor. “Best not drink more, sar. You plenty doped now, I think. Much bad. Come—we go out of this place fast. Much danger here!”

Nick sat on the bed, naked, scratching at the stubble on his face and grinning at the guide. Hafed was a good joe, a swell guy, but he was getting a little above himself. He shouldn’t have poured that milk out. Now he would have to ask the old crone to bring him some—

Hafed handed him a small vial containing a greasy yellow liquid. “Drink, please. Is what you call antidote, I think. Kill drug. Drink fast, please. We not have much time, sar. Get out this place hubba— I think Chinese soldiers come. They be here now but for storm.”

Nick Carter staggered erect. To please good old Hafed he drank the contents of the vial and began to retch—the stuff smelled like urine and probably tasted like it, too.

“Ughhhh!” He wiped his mouth on his hand. “What in hell is that?”

Hafed smiled briefly, “Yak piss, sar. And other things. You can walk now, yis? You come with me hubba? I show you important things.”

“Walk? Of course I can walk. What do you think I—” Nick took a few steps and tottered, nearly falling. Damn! He was as weak as a kitten.

Dismay registered for a moment on Hafed’s swart features. “I afraid of this,” he told Nick.
“Sanga
root do it—much bad if you have too much. And you already sick anyway—never should take
sanga
.
”

N3 collapsed on the bed with an idiotic grin. “That’s just what my sainted old mother used to tell me, Hafed. ‘Never take
sanga
,’ she said. A thousand times she said it— ‘Stay away from that
sanga
root, boy!’ ”

Hafed scowled. “Not funny, sar! Chinese soldiers get here I get my head chopped off number one fast. Maybe not you, but me. You try hard to walk, yis?”

Nick tumbled on the bed laughing. Suddenly everything was uproariously funny. “To hell with walking, Hafed! I’m never going to walk again! I’m never going to do anything again but stay in this bed and fornicate! That’s it, old buddy! I’m gonna stay right here and fornicate my stupid life away! Care to join me, old buddy?”

Hafed unleashed a string of curses that ranged from Chinese to English through Tibetan and Hindustani. “Goddamn son bitch,” he said at last. “I maybe should run away and leave you, sar, but I not do. You good man.”

Nick Carter put his head in his hands and began to weep softly. “You good man too, Hafed,” he sobbed. “A real buddy. I love you!”

Hafed stepped close to the big AXE agent and slapped him hard across the face. “I sorry, sar. But must do! Not much time!”

N3, who could have broken the little man in pieces with one hand, kept on crying. Hafed was not a friend after all— Hafed had come to invade his perfumed garden! Hafed was destroying his Paradise! Vaguely, as the antidote began to take hold, Nick saw Hafed as an emissary from the cruel world of reality. Come to remind him, Nick, of such wearisome matters as job, mission, duty! He hated Hafed! He would kill the interfering little b——

The antidote struck his guts a hammer blow! He rolled off the bed and began to spew. Oh God—lie was sick! For ten minutes he lay in his own vomit, unable to lift his head, retching and spewing and devoutly wishing for death.

Finally he was able to climb to his feet and don the coarse robe. He discovered, without surprise, that his weapons were missing. All of them gone—Wilhelmina, Hugo, Pierre!

Nick sat on the bed and rubbed his forehead. His eyes were pits of flame and an anvil was bouncing about in his skull. He looked sheepishly at Hafed. “Sorry—guess I’ve been away for awhile. What time is it? What day? And weren’t you saying something about Chinese soldiers?”

Hafed plucked at his sleeve. “You come now. Make fast! I show you what I find—we talk then.”

Nick followed Hafed through the wall behind the brass monkey. The passage was narrow and high and surprisingly warm. It led steadily downward. Butter lamps in iron sconces showed them the way.

“I sleep with many She Devils,” Hafed explained as they went. “Some talk, some not. One talk a lot. After she go to sleep—sleep now. She take
sanga
root, I do not. I not need root. While she sleep I think what she talk—some very funny business go on. Is good time for looking— so I look. All She Devils at prayers and meditation now, you see. I find this place.”

“Good for you,” grunted Nick. He sounded surly, was, and instantly regretted it. This loyal little guy had gotten him out of a hell of a jam! Was trying to, at any rate. They weren’t out of it yet! N3 was coming back fast now and the enormity of his lapse was growing on him. He had been sick as hell, of course, but that was no excuse. Not in an AXE man. He cursed himself briefly, then his jaw took the familiar jut and he moved back into command. What was done was past repairing. Now he must salvage what he could—forget everything but the future and the mission.

They rounded a sharp turn in the passage and came to an iron door. It was half open. Hafed pointed to the door. “In there, sar. Most interesting.”

It was a small room well lit by butter lamps. There was a table and chairs. On the table lay Nick’s weapons. He inspected them. They seemed intact, in working order. As he was checking the Luger Hafed said, “Maybe you look in that door, sar. Also most of interest.” He pointed to another iron door set into the far wall of the little room. Nick went to it and pulled it open. Instantly the sickening odor of decaying flesh smote his nostrils.

N3 took a step backward, grimacing. He had seen too much of death for it to hold any terrors for him, but this was nasty! Over his shoulder he said, “Who is she?”

Hafed’s voice was soft in the little room. “I think maybe the real Dyla Lotti, sar.”

The open door revealed a space not much bigger than a closet. Chained to the wall was the near skeleton of a woman. Leathery shreds of flesh still clung to the fragile bones and her hair was white. The eyes had rotted, and most of the nose, and the flesh around the mouth had fallen away to reveal long yellow teeth fixed in an eternal grin. Nick closed the door, remembering the youthful perfection of Dyla Lotti’s body. Dyla Lotti? But Hafed had just said—

Nick dropped his robe and began to strap the chamois sheath on his right forearm. His face was rigid, hard beneath the stubble. “Tell me,” he ordered Hafed. “What’s your idea about all this—what makes you think that”—he nodded toward the closet—”is the real Dyla Lotti?”

Hafed squatted, his back to the open door leading into the corridor. He produced a murderous looking knife and began to whet it on a calloused palm.

“I hear many thing while making love to She Devils,” he explained. “I already tell that. Last one I have, she now sleeping, hates Dyla Lotti. Talk about her a lot. But she talk of
old
woman!”

Hafed pointed to the closet. “She old! And all She Devils say have not seen Dyla Lotti in long time— she much sick and stay in her own rooms. Lamasery is run by Number Two She Devil—name of Yang Kwei! That Chinese name, I think. I ask—find that Number Two Abbess is half Chinese. Not here long. My She Devil say that real Dyla Lotti get much sick as soon as Yang Kwei come—they never see her again. Stay room. Yang Kwei fix all meals, take care of old woman.”

Hafed jabbed his knife into the floor. “You see, sar?”

“I see.” N3’s face was grim. What a dope he had been— in more ways than he cared to think. Yang Kwei had posed as the real Dyla Lotti. It had been easy enough. He was a stranger, following a most tenuous lead, and he had been secluded. He spoke no Tibetan, had no means of communication with the other She Devils even if they had been permitted to speak with him.

Nick pointed to the door which concealed the dead old woman. “Poisoned her, eh? Anyway weakened her and then brought her down here and chained her in there to die. Nice girl!”

“Chinese,” said Hafed. As if that explained everything.

Nick, rearmed now, shrugged back into the orange robe. He must find his clothes. And get to hell out of the Lamasery of the She Devils—but not before he had another little talk with the phony Dyla Lotti!

“We’ve got to get her,” he told Hafed. “Get her and make her talk! So lets—”

The guide’s answer died in a little hissing sound. Nick swung to face the door. Dyla Lotti, or Yang Kwei, was pointing a small automatic pistol at them.

“Put your hands up,” she said in her lilting, soft, too perfect English. “Carefully, Nick. I do not wish to kill you now. After all the trouble I have gone to—to keep you for my friends. They will be here soon to collect you, AXE man!”

Nick put up his hands. Wait and see what developed. He had a little time and he was too far away to grab her gun. He glanced at Hafed. The guide was still sitting on the floor, his knife sticking in the floor before him. He had raised his hands.

The girl also glanced at Hafed. Her red lips curled in a snarl. “You, animal, have been too lucky! I will not mind killing
you,
so be very careful. I would prefer to have the soldiers cut off your head, in public as an example, but I would not mind killing you. So keep your hands high! Try nothing!”