He was about to field strip the Luger again, for lack of something to do, when he heard the door being unlocked. Hastily he thrust the pistol beneath the covers. If this was Dyla Lotti he didn’t want to meet her with a gun in his hand. Might violate protocol or something.
It was only another old woman, one he had not seen before. She bowed and cackled and handed him a large bowl of warm milk. She made drinking motions and stood waiting. To get rid of her Nick drank the mixture. Warm yak’s milk to which something had been added, something he could not recognize, at once tart and sweet. A mildly pleasant taste.
The old crone smiled with approval as he finished the milk and handed her the cup. She thumped one withered breast, over her heart, and gummed words at him that sounded, vaguely, like “make well.” She left and Nick heard the door being barred and locked again.
Almost immediately he began to feel drowsy. A lovely warm euphoria stole over him. His heart, which on the final trip up the lamasery stairs had been about to burst his chest, slowed to a steady normal beat. N3 closed his eyes and sank into delicious deep contentment Whatever dope he had been given it was certainly effective. She Devil’s Own Home Remedy — maybe he should try to get the recipe and bottle it for sale in the States. It beat any six martinis he had ever drunk.
N3 had no idea how long he slept. He did not come awake instantly, alert and ready, his usual manner of wakening. Instead he drifted back to consciousness slowly on a pleasant pillow of dreams, only just aware of where he was and who he was. It was very quiet in the lamasery now. It must be late. Most of the butter lamps had gone out; the remaining few shed a thin tawny light that wavered fitfully. The charcoal in the brazier was a sullen red glow.
Flickering lamps! Strange. They had burned with a clear straight flame before. Nick pushed himself up on the bed, fighting off lethargy, and glanced across the room at the great statue of the brass monkey. It was moving away from the wall, swinging slowly around on a pivot. A chill little draft invaded the room, causing the butter lamps to flicker again. N3 felt for his weapons with a touch of panic.
Then he relaxed. They were all there — Luger, stiletto, and Pierre the gas bomb. He was not defenseless!
The brass monkey was still swinging out from the white brick wall. When it was at right angles to the wall it halted with a little click. Nick rubbed his eyes, trying to rid them of sleep. He still felt drugged and fuzzy, yet he did not mind. He felt good. Fine! As though he were neatly wrapped in some downy insulation, shielded from any impact of reality. He was aware, too, of one other thing — he was immensely ready for physical love! And that, some yet undrugged part of his mind told him, is just plain absurd. Ridiculous. At this moment in time and space, just beginning what could be the most chancy and dangerous mission of his life, that he should suddenly become a raging stud…
He saw her then. There was a black oblong in the brick wall, where the brass monkey had been, and a figure was standing there now. A waft of perfume came to Nick. More absurdity. No rare Tibetan perfume this — he recognized it immediately. Chanel No. 5!
The figure stepped out of the black shadows into the room. Had he not been drugged, N3 probably would have exclaimed. As it was he took the apparition in stride — nearly. Even the drug could not ward off entirely the sudden chill and feeling of evil present in the room.
Without speaking the figure came into the room and halted by the brazier. Behind it the brass monkey slid silently back into place. Some kind of automatic counter-weight, Nick told himself furiously. He was fighting the drug tooth and nail now, struggling to clear his mind. This must be Dyla Lotti. The High Priestess herself whom he had been instructed to contact. Why didn’t she take off that damned leering mask!
The devil mask was hideous enough to chill the blood of any man. The eyes were terrible red slits, the nose a purple hook, the mouth a grin of sheer horror. Serpents twined instead of hair. This was nightmare stuff!
Killmaster summoned all his will. He flipped a casual hand at the bed side. “Come and sit down. I’ve been expecting you. Sorry about the chairs, but you people don’t seem to run to them. You know who I am, of course? Why I’m here?”
From behind the mask a pair of narrow dark eyes regarded him. Still she did not speak. She wore the traditional orange robe, but it was of silk instead of rough homespun and was belted in at the waist. This revealed just enough of her body for Nick to guess that it was superb. On her feet were tiny yakskin boots with silver tassels on the curled-up toes. Around her neck, below the mask line, he saw a long string of wooden prayer beads.
By now Nick knew he was fighting a losing battle against the drug. God — that milk must have been loaded. He fought to keep the weird devil mask in focus. The white-washed walls kept folding and wrinkling and re-aligning themselves. And he was still aching, hurting, with the physical manifestations of love. And that, he thought dimly, is sure as hell not protocol. If I let myself get out of hand I’ll louse up the whole deal.
He fell back on a simple, inane remark. “Think you’ll know me again?”
Dark eyes flickered behind the devil mask. She had not moved. Now she took a single step toward him. Her voice was soft, well modulated, speaking English with hardly an accent — the good, grammatically pure English of one who has studied it assiduously as a second language. The soft tones, coming from behind the grotesque mask, gave Nick Carter a second shock.
“I must be very careful, Mr. Carter. As you must. Only a week ago another man lay on that same bed and assured me that he was Mr. Nicholas Carter. He looked exactly like you. He spoke exactly as you speak now.”
Nick swung his legs out of bed and pulled the orange robe about him, fighting off languor. Wilhelmina, the Luger, was snug in her plastic holster in the waistband of his shorts. Thank God the old crones had left him those.
Nick said: “This other man — this phony Nick Carter? You say he was exactly as I am? Think hard now, Miss — er— what do I call you?”
Had the dark eyes twinkled behind the mask? He couldn’t be sure. There was something familiar and reassuring about the Chanel No. 5 now. This was, after all, only a woman. And he was Nick Carter — the real one. He could handle it.
“Call me Dyla Lotti,” she said. “That is my name. And yes — he did look exactly like you. Except, possibly…” She took a step nearer the bed and peered at Nick. “Possibly the eyes — his were a little colder. But that is an emotional, a subjective judgment. But he was enough like you to pass any but the most severe test.”
“He fooled you? You thought he was the real Nick Carter? At the time?”
The devil mask moved in negation. “No. I was not fooled. I pretended to be, but I knew that he was really a Chinese agent posing as you, Mr. Carter. I had been warned, you see.”
Nick fumbled with his remaining cigarettes. “You mind?”
A tiny hand, daffodil yellow, appeared from the copious sleeve of the robe. It waved assent. Nick saw that her nails were long and curving and stained a blood red.
He lit a cigarette and arranged the robe again. He was a little more at ease, a bit less excited now that they were down to business, but desire still haunted him.
He exhaled blue smoke and said, “We’re a little blurry on that at AXE, you know. You’d better put me straight for the record — just how were you warned? This agent, this Chinese phony, killed our man Pei Ling in Kaitse— that’s in central Tibet. There are a h — a lot of mountains between here and there. How could you get word about Pei Ling’s murder so fast?”