He was right. The Ford swung off the caravan trail and began to climb a winding drive. Gravel crunched beneath the tires. The darkness was total except for rain-filled tunnels of light cast by the car; Nick got a fleeting impression of stunted trees and dense undergrowth and a bald, flat-topped hill.
The little Ford toiled around the last spiral and stopped. The lights went out. Nick huddled in the rain, fighting a sneeze, and heard the door open and slam. She was not humming now.
Footsteps going away. Another door opened and shut. The moment he heard the door close Nick was off the car and running for a blob of shrubbery he had noted before the lights went out. He crouched in the wet bushes and waited.
Lights flicked on in the house. Nick saw a small stone patio, a water tank, metal awnings, a neat wooden fence. The Peace Corps lady lived pretty well! By reflected light he saw that the house was of stone, long and low and comfortable looking. Another light came on and he saw her move across a window. Bedroom? He crouched and ran softly through the pelting rain.
A damp raincoat lay across the bed. The girl was in the act of pulling her damp, rumpled dress over her head as N3 peered in the window.
He saw immediately why Mike Bannion had been so impressed. She was a stunning creature. Rather tall, with long legs and large hard breasts. She dropped the dress to the floor and stared at herself for a moment in the mirror over the vanity. She leaned to lipstick her wide mouth, then ran a strong, capable-looking hand through her damp blonde hair. She was wearing only long beige stockings, gartered nearly to her hips, and black bra and panties. N3 noted the play of the good muscles in her smooth pale back and shoulders. A big, strong girl. Fine body. Lovely face. Too bad she was a Red. A traitor. She wasn’t going to look so well in prison garb!
Nick decided not to kill her unless he absolutely must. A living corpse, wasting a life away behind bars, was a better warning and example than a dead body.
The woman swung toward the window and he ducked. She went to a closet and came back with heavy slacks, a fur-lined jacket, a sweater and an old Army fatigue cap. Nick watched as she donned these things, and put her slender feet in a pair of Wellington boots. The lady had business. He recalled the conversation in the parking lot — she had to see a certain Mohammed Cassim, the local Wali, — leader — and calm him down. The tribesmen were impatient.
That makes two of us at least, Nick thought grimly as he left the window and went back to his dripping bush. I’m impatient, too.
He had not long to wait. The lights went out and a door closed softly. He did not hear her lock it. It figured. If lover-boy came before she returned he could get in — probably into bed and wait for her. The idea flashed in his brain then but for the moment he stowed it away. First things first!
He lurked in the bushes until she passed him. He let her take a little lead. She was off guard, unaware, made no effort to conceal her passage. She went noisily, swacking at the bushes with a little stick. Nick followed her with the stealth of a tiger.
Thunder rumbled like distant cannon on the horizon and there was an occasional stroke of pale lightning. Nick blessed the lightning. It was blacker than Satan’s gut!
Beth Cravens never once looked back. She went steadily, surely, and the following AXE man thought that she must have made the trip many times. At last they climbed out of a valley — he saw her silhouetted for a moment on the ridge — and reached a wide plateau. Nick guessed that it would overlook the Khyber Pass at a narrow sector — probably it was one of the old forts built by the British in the last century. The Pathan tribesmen had always been trouble and the English had never really conquered them.
Nick came up a narrow path to the ridge too fast and was nearly caught. He heard the girl speak to someone and ducked behind a huge boulder just as lightning flashed again.
The girl said: “Ynfalla jehad!” If God wills a holy war.
A coarse male voice replied, “Lahewl. Pass, memsahib. They are waiting for you.”
N3 huddled behind his boulder and thought fast. Lightning had given him a glimpse of the huge crumbling old stone fort. And the Pathan guard. Big man. He would be well armed and tough. There would be many others in sound of his voice. This was going to be a little delicate. Nick flexed his right arm and the stiletto, Hugo, dropped into his hand.
The girl had vanished through a small postern in the old wall. N3 stepped from behind his rock and walked steadily toward the same spot. The challenge would come in a moment.
It came. “Who is that? Halt!” The Pathan’s voice was fierce and suspicious.
Nick Carter sauntered coolly onward. He had to get closer. There must be no sound. He gambled. “Comrade Carter,” he said in Chinese. “Comrade Nick Carter. Has the lady passed in yet?” He had no Pashto and was betting that his double hadn’t either. The Chinese should identify him, or at least confuse the guard.
The ruse worked. The Pathan hesitated long enough for Nick to get in close just as lightning tore the dark sky apart. The man sensed something wrong and stepped back. His rifle came up. Nick Carter sprang.
Nick got in close and put the stiletto into the man’s throat. The murderous blade tangled in the thick beard as it went deep into flesh. Nick ripped it across, severing the jugular and turned quickly aside to escape the spurting blood, leaving the blade in the throat to prevent an outcry. The man died quickly and Nick eased him to the wet ground. He yanked out the stiletto and wiped it on the man’s goatskin cloak. He pulled the body out of sight behind some boulders and went back to the postern gate and stood listening for a moment. From deep in the fort came the faint rise and fall of voices. It sounded like a heated discussion.
N3 went through the postern like a drifting shadow. Inside, to his right, a guttering oil torch was thrust into a rusty iron ringbolt. A stink of mutton oil was heavy in the narrow, bricked passage. To his left the floor sloped upward and he could see the reflection of another torch just around a bend. The voices came from that direction.
To his right the passage sloped downward. Nick followed it, guessing that it would lead to the old casemates, thick-walled and iron-doored cells where the British had stored their powder and shot. If what he was looking for was in the fort at all — it should be in the casemates.
The musty dank passage led down and down. Presently he saw another oil torch glimmering where the brick tunnel ended in a cross-passage. He went soft footed, hardly breathing, the Luger in his right hand with the safety off.
N3 peered around the corner into the cross-passage. To his left was a blank wall. To his right he could see tall iron doors on massive hinges. They were nearly closed, just the thickness of a man’s body separating the iron lips. From within the dungeon they guarded came a faint murmur of voices. N3 ran as lightly as a huge cat to the doors and flattened himself against them.
The men in the casemate kept murmuring in subdued tones. Nick could make out an odd slip-slapping sound. It was a moment before he caught on. Then it came — they were playing cards! He applied a furtive eye to the crack between the iron doors.
There were two of them, swarthy and bearded and turbaned. Both were burdened with heavy leather bandoliers and their riffles were standing against a packing case nearby. N3’s quick eye missed nothing. The rifles were old Krags — so the new arms had not yet been doled out? — and the stenciling on the packing case said GRENADES.