The remaining Kurds broke and spurred across to the Turkish side of the Kardu!
There was to be no respite. The camel stampede was coming straight at the ford, the frantic animals being beaten and driven by the angry Kurds. Nick caught a glimpse of the Basque. The man was driving the vehicle himself. Behind him came the other half track and the Land Rover with the trailer. The two Chinese were riding the Land Rover. On they came, all of them in a frantic rush. The camels, more than a hundred gaunt angry beasts, were pounding along with long strides, squealing and grunting and snapping at everything in sight with their long teeth.
They were going to smash him! Crush him and grind him and mangle him!
Nick reached down into the baggy Kurdish trousers and came up with his one remaining weapon. Tiny Tim! He twisted a dial on the lemon-sized bomb and drew his arm back and tossed it far and high into the oncoming stampede. Then N3 dove for his shallow hole and burrowed deep into it. He pressed his face against cool dirt and wondered if this was it? He had lived through one such blast — could he manage it again?
The ground rocked under him! There was a tremendous growing, incessant, blasting roar! Near him a boulder weighing thousands of pounds leaped into the air, hovered a moment, then crashed down within a foot of his head. The world let go a great sigh that became a rushing, gusting, blasting wind! All the cymbals in the world crashed in the AXE man's ears. A great hand picked him up and flung him hard against stones that seemed to melt. He felt scarlet darkness close in for a moment — then it was over. The blast had tossed him a good thirty feet into the waters of the Kardu.
Very slowly, N3 turned over. He drank deeply, he drank as though he had never seen water before and never would again. Finally he managed to stand up and survey the charnel scene around him.
Nothing moved. Nothing lived. Here were only bits and pieces of Death! Men and horses and camels were fused in one great horrible jig-saw puzzle of arms, legs, heads and snake-like pinkish entrails.
He saw that both half tracks were upended. The Land Rover was on its nose and burning. The trailer, oddly enough, appeared to have suffered little damage. His weapons! Maybe he could recover them!
As he got to his feet he noticed movement near the trailer. Someone else was alive!
It was the Basque! As Nick stared, hardly believing, the man staggered from the trailer. He was carrying something in a bag. Nick moved after the man as he went wobbling off toward the rocks around the mouth of the pass. He did not once look around, just trudged doggedly along, stumbling and falling, always getting up again, always holding tight to the bag he carried.
Money, thought Nick. Money! Even when they're half dead they'll try to salvage money!
N3 yelled at the Basque. An insane and most incautious thing, but at the moment he was so near insane himself that it did not seem to matter.
"Hey — Basque! Basque! Wait for me, you sonofabitch! I'm going to kill you!"
Nick went toward the Basque. He could walk a little straighter now, almost normally. Nick began to gain on him.
The Basque reached the foot of an overhanging cliff and suddenly collapsed. He lay prone, clutching the bag to him. He went to where the Basque lay. Nick reached with an unsteady foot and turned the man over. The Basque rolled over with a groan.
Half his face was burnt away. The remainder was a great black blister. Nick stared down at him. The bastard was still alive, somehow. He flexed his hands, felt strength returning to them. He would strangle the bastard with his bare hands! He would take care of the Basque once and for all!
The Basque opened his eyes. He stared up at Nick and recognition flickered in the piggy little orbs surrounded by raw flesh. He fought for breath, fought to speak. He made a little motion toward the bag beside him. "I… not my orders… I… they…" A long, long pause. Nick waited. What was the man trying to say, to tell him?
He pushed the bag toward Nick with a feeble motion. "You… you take! Bury. I not responsible for… my Kurds, wild men. I did not order… I…"
Nick's granite strength was flooding back now. He reached for the bag. As he pulled it from the Basque's grasp the neck of the bag opened and something rolled out. It came to rest at Nick's feet.
It was the head of Mija Gialellis!
N3 felt his breath hiss inward and gather and clot in his lungs. He could not expell it for a long time. He simply stood and stared down at the head.
Mija was still wearing the red beret on the sleek, dark and now bloody cap of hair. The little silver pin Nick had given her glinted at him in the sunlight. The eyes were closed, at peace, but her red mouth was drawn down in a grimace of — terror at the last second?
The Basque was mumbling something, drooling and slobbering. His ruined hands scrabbled at the dirt. "I… not…" he said painfully. "I not order… Kurds, you know Kurds, wild and crazy, I not…"
Nick did not look at the head again. He fell to his knees beside the Basque and put his hands around the man's throat. Not quite understanding why, not even caring why, just knowing that he must somehow avenge Mija, Nick began to squeeze. His fingers cramped. He kept on squeezing. The Basque still breathed. Nick cursed his fingers for their weakness.
The rock overhang, weakened by the blast, began to shift and fall. He let go of the Basque and, with his sure instinct for danger, began to roll away. He rolled like a barrel, over and over. Behind him he heard a crunching, grinding roar as the cliff came down.
When it was quiet he got to his feet and walked back to the cliff. Mija's head had been buried under the fall of rock. Nick saw the Basque's feet sticking out. He pulled the body out. It too was headless. A huge boulder had ground off the man's head! Nick left it and went to the Basque's trailer. Someone had told him that atomic blasts were freakish. He believed it now. The trailer had hardly been touched.
He found his Luger and stiletto and the gas pellet where they had been tossed into a corner by the tilting desk. He stowed the weapons away, wondering how long it would be before a patrol came and what sort of cover story he could give them. It would have to be a good one if he wasn't to rot in a Syrian or Turkish jail for a long time. It wasn't hard to imagine the reaction of the authorities to a single survivor of what must have been an atomic blast — a survivor who was clad in bloody, ragged Kurdish clothes and yet was not a Kurd. A solitary man amidst all the ruin — and millions of dollars worth of raw opium, by now splattered over a great many acres. Yes — the story would have to be a doozy!
The trouble was he still couldn't think very well!
As Nick emerged from the trailer he heard the far off buzz of a plane again. So — finally! Possibly the plane would be able, and ready, to land this time. A patrol wouldn't be far behind.
One of the Kurds was not dead. He lay on the island where Nick had fought so valiantly. Now he pulled his blasted body up and peered over the rocks at the fearful sight. The work of Shaitan no doubt! Allah had indeed forsaken his tribe!
But one lived! One moved! Near the trailer of the one they called the Basque! It was the infidel dog! He lived!
Praise Allah, thought the Kurd as he rolled painfully to his long rifle which lay nearby. He was one of the few who preferred the rifle to the devil guns. He leveled the piece across the rocks and took careful aim. He asked Allah to make his aim good, for surely he was dying and would soon be with the houris in Paradise, but first he must send this infidel to Hell. He pulled the trigger.