Double Identity (5 page)

In a moment or two Hafed was snoring. Nick lay and listened to the menacing voice of the wind and knew that he had been right—he would not sleep much tonight. To pass time he checked over his weapons, working by feel in the dark—he could field strip and reassemble the 9mm Luger in just under thirty seconds, working by touch alone. He did so now, patting the weapon affectionately. Wilhelmina, as he called the Luger, had been living a quiet life of late. As he slipped the pistol back into the plastic holster on his belt Nick thought that perhaps things would liven up soon. Certainly, when he caught up with the impostor, there would be work for the Luger.

Or maybe he would kill his double with the stiletto, Hugo. He shook the needle-sharp little weapon from the chamois sheath on his right forearm down into his hand. The hilt was smooth and as cold as death. As N3 hefted the deadly little weapon in his palm his mind grasped at a curious irony— Chinese Intelligence was most thorough— suppose they had outfitted his double with the same weapons he himself carried. Nick’s grin was sour. It would make for a most interesting showdown— Luger against Luger, stiletto against stiletto!

But there was one weapon the impostor would not have — Nick unbuttoned the quilted trousers and fumbled for Pierre, the little gas bomb which he carried in a metal case between his legs like a third testicle. Pierre was as deadly as a viper—and much faster. One inhalation of the gas and you knew instant death! Nick doubted that the Chinese had tumbled to Pierre—and even if they knew about the bomb they wouldn’t be able to reproduce it The gas was a well-guarded secret of the AXE labs.

Nick replaced the little gas bomb carefully and adjusted his pants. Pierre might just give him the edge over his opponent.

By now the whisky had worn off and he was beginning to feel very ill again. He yearned for more alcohol but did not reach for the bottle. He wanted to be as bright as possible when he met this Dyla Lotti on the morrow— a hangover would never do.

N3 lay for a time, suffering and listening to Hafed snore. He left the tent to relieve himself and was nearly knocked down by the force of the wind. The narrow gorge where they had camped was a blinding whorl of snow. The ponies, their shaggy hides white, stood patiently with their rumps into the wind. Two snow-covered mounds marked the tents where the Sherpas slept. N3 lingered for a moment behind the stalactites of the frozen waterfall, staring into the snow-dervish haunted gloom. It was easy to imagine things out there. Chinese soldiers creeping up. His double, as anxious to kill as he was himself. The women from the lamasery, perhaps, raiding the camp and carrying away the screaming men—a ludicrous reversal of the Sabine bit.

Nick forced himself to laugh at the pictures blurring through his aching head. He was sick, that was all. Nevertheless he found that he had to fight and to hang on to reality. Things were fuzzy and limpid and unreal—like one of Dali’s canvas fantasies.

It was only the altitude, he told himself. He was sick, after all. Yet he felt the cold clamp of an alien hand reaching for him out of the darkness of this place, so near the top of the world, where She Devils lived and magic was commonplace.

Nick shook himself and went back to the tent. Nerves. Better watch it or he would be seeing the
yeti
next—the Abominable Snowman! Sherpa mothers used the image of the
yeti
to frighten their children into being good. Nick grinned to himself as he re-entered the tent. It would be fun, at that, to catch a
yeti
and send it to Hawk. Maybe he could train it to become an AXE agent!

Hafed was still snoring gently. Nick envied the guide his slumber. The night ahead would be long and cold.

Suddenly the words of his old
guru,
Rammurta, who had taught yoga at the AXE Special School, came back to him.

“The mind can conquer the body always,” old Rammurta had taught, “if only it knows the technique.”

As N3 began his breathing exercises he thought how strange it was that yoga had not occurred to him before. It had stood him in good stead so many times. And here he was, not many miles from the birthplace of yoga, India, and only belatedly did he come to it. The altitude sickness again, he thought. There was no ignoring the brutal fact— he was not his usual self. And that could be extremely dangerous—for him. He
had
to snap out of it.

N3 squatted on his sleeping bag and assumed
Sidd-hasana,
the perfect pose. He sat staring straight ahead, his eyes open but growing gradually opaque as his senses turned inward. He no longer felt the cold. His breathing slackened and flattened out to a mere whisper. His chest barely stirred. Slowly, imperceptibly, he slipped into the state of
pratyahara.
It was a complete withdrawal of consciousness. Nick Carter sat like an image, an idol. He might have been one of the bronze effigies which decorate every Tibetan temple.

The guide Hafed snored on, blissfully unaware of what he would have regarded as an
avatar
crouched beside him. The guide did not awaken, nor did Nick Carter stir, when the Sherpas awoke early and stealthily departed down the gorge. They were going back to their homes and away from the Lamasery of the She Devils, the spirits of their good wives still safe and dominant in the leather
dablams.
Going softly, the tinkle of pony bells muffled by the wind, the Sherpas faded away into the blowing snow. They took only what was theirs. Hafed had paid them in advance.

Chapter 3

The She Devil

The chamber, even though the massive, nail-studded door was barred on the outside, could hardly be called a cell. It was much too comfortable, of white-washed brick, high and spacious and hung with priceless rugs. There were also rugs on the hard-packed, earthen floor. Nick, who was no rug merchant, recognized one of them as a Samarkand worth at least a thousand.

His bed was on the floor, consisting of half a dozen thin mats piled atop each other. The sheets were of purple silk and the coverlet of rich brocade. A large brazier in the center of the room sent out waves of charcoal heat. Beyond the brazier, set against the far wall, brooded an enormous brass statue of a monkey. The beast was sitting on its haunches, the hand-like forepaws raised as in supplication to strange gods. It was an enormous idol, reaching nearly to the ceiling, and Nick had taken an immediate dislike to it. The eyes, for one thing. They were hollow and once or twice, in the weak yellow light of the butter lamps, he had seen a glitter of white in the empty brass eyes.

So he was being spied on occasionally. So what? It wasn’t the first time. Nick arranged the wooden block pillow beneath his head—it was covered with felt and rather comfortable—and wished the High Priestess, Dyla Lotti, would get on with things. He really had no time for the usual Tibetan amenities—yet he recognized that they must be observed. Protocol must be observed, especially in this place of women. N3 grinned in resignation and lit a cigarette from the one pack he had been permitted to keep.

He blew smoke at the brass monkey and thought back over the events of the day. It had been a long and hectic one . . .

He had emerged from the yoga trance to find Hafed there with the inevitable cup of tea. Nick was feeling slightly better, stronger, and after a breakfast of tea and biscuit and pressed beef they packed the two remaining ponies and plunged eastward into the pass. The blizzard was in full fury by now.

There was no time for talk and no need for it. Hated did not have to explain—either they made the Lamasery of the She Devils before their strength gave out or they died in the rugged confines of the pass. N3, head lowered into the icy wind, was content to slog along behind Kaswa. The pony knew what it was about, and stuck close to Hafed and the other pony. The trail narrowed steadily until, at one point, it was a bare twelve inches wide with an overhanging cliff to Nick’s right and a mile fall-away to his left. The one factor that saved them, that made the trail passable, was the savage scouring of the wind that kept it free of snow. The going was unmitigated hell. Nick clung to Kaswa’s shaggy tail and hoped for the best—one slip and the mission was all over.

By mid-afternoon they were past the worst of it. About four, as early darkness was clamping down, Hafed stopped and pointed up through the swirling snow. “There, sar! The lamasery. You see all the lights—they are expecting us.”

Nick leaned on Kaswa and caught his breath. Now and again the snow curtain lifted enough for him to catch a glance of the lamasery. It was perched precariously on a great flat shelf of rock jutting out from the cliff. A clutter of low buildings built of stone and brick, all of which were a dull red-earth color. Ahead of them, perhaps a quarter of a mile, stairs cut into the living stone of the cliff twined upward.

The lamasery was indeed ablaze with light. Must be a thousand butter lamps going, Nick thought.

He went forward to where Hafed was resting by his pony.

He noted that even the guide was blowing hard. Nick gave him a cigarette which Hafed accepted gratefully and lit skillfully in the wind with his glowing punk-cord.

“How could they see us coming in this gale?” Nick asked. “Most of the time I can’t see five feet in front of me.”

Hafed cupped his cigarette against the wind and puffed. “They know, sar. They are She Devils, remember? Much powerful magic!”

Nick only stared at him, saying nothing. He was tempted to tell Hafed that he could drop the simple Tibetan act, now that they were alone, but he kept silent. Let the man play it his own way.

Hafed, with a hint of sheepishness, went on to say, “Anyway they always keep lookouts, the She Devils. They say they look for stray and lost travelers, to help them.” Hafed grinned at Nick, showing black stumps of teeth. “This I do not believe—I think they look for men. I think they would let a woman traveler freeze to death in this pass. Listen, sar!”

The wind brought them a braying of great horns and the resonant clangor of a single huge gong. The myriads of butter lamps flickered through the storm like beckoning candles in the windows of home. Hafed gave Nick an odd glance.

“We better get on, sar. They not like to be kept waiting, the She Devils. Very impatient people.”

As Nick started back to his pony he chuckled. “I’m impatient, too. For a hot bath and a clean bed and some sleep.”

Hafed’s laugh was borne to him on the wind. “Not count on it, sar. Bath and bed okay yes. Sleep I doubt I hope you are feeling stronger, sar. You will need all strength tonight! Also me!”

They found crude stables cut into the rock at the foot of the stairs and left the ponies there. The attendants were all old women in coarse robes of a dirty orange color. Their heads were shaven and they glistened with a pungent oil. They stared at the two men and chittered like monkeys among themselves in some strange Tibetan dialect.

They began the long climb up the rock stairs. High overhead someone was clashing cymbals. It was fully dark now and the stairs were poorly lighted by butter lamps set in niches.

As they climbed Hafed explained. “Most of hard work is done by the old devils. Young devils spend all time keeping pretty and making love.”

“I thought you said there were no men?”

Hafed gave him what Nick could only construe as a pitying look. “Not always need men,” the guide said curtly. “Other ways!”

Nick saved his breath for the climb. It had been a foolish question, he admitted. Naive. Lesbianism was bound to be rampant in a place like this. Probably as second best, he thought. After all, these priestesses, or She Devils, had been sent to this place because they had transgressed with men.

N3 thought he could detect a certain impatience in Hafed’s manner now. Either that or the guide was in incredible shape—he was fairly leaping up the steep stairs. Nick grinned a little sourly. Why not? Hafed carried no
dablam
with a wife spirit in it. He was looking forward, it seemed, to a hot time in the old lamasery tonight! Nick sighed and struggled upward. Judging by the women he had seen thus far— Hafed could have them.

Their entry into the Lamasery of the She Devils was a triumph played to farce. They were met at the top by a throng of priestesses carrying torches and beating cymbals. They were escorted through a huge gate to an inner courtyard of hard-packed earth. The women stared at them and waved their torches and giggled amongst themselves. Several of them pointed and made suggestive motions with their bodies, but none of them ventured close. They all wore orange robes and tight-fitting yakskin boots with curled-up toes. Their heads were shaven, but nevertheless Nick saw some beauties among them. Mostly, however, he noted the odor that permeated the courtyard and the remote crevices of the lamasery. The smell of a thousand women living in close quarters. At first it bothered him, but in a matter of minutes he found it not unpleasant—a compound of oiled hair and perfumed bodies and a natural femala musk.

Hafed and Nick were immediately separated. Hafed appeared to find this natural. After a short discourse with an elderly priestess who was built like a Sumo wrestler, in a language that seemed to consist of squeals and grunts, Hafed turned to Nick. “You are to go with this old one, sar. She speaks only their dialect, so you will not be able to talk with her. Maybe planned so, I think. Anyway she take care of you and later maybe you will be permitted to see the High Priestess— Dyla Lotti.”

“Permitted, hell!” Nick was tart. “I’ve
got
to see her—right away. This is no goddamned pleasure jaunt, Hafed.

Hafed leaned close to whisper. Around them the circle of orange-robed women watched and whispered among themselves.

“Better do just like say,” Hafed muttered. “Remember I tell you, sar? Can be dangerous if not handle right. She Devils are own law here. You see big ones around—those with clubs and knives?”

Nick had noticed them, muscular women with red arm brassards and carrying spike-studded clubs and long knives thrust into their girdles. He nodded. “Yes. What are they? MPs?”