Nick Carter - A Korean Tiger

Killmaster could not help grimacing in disgust. Even his strong stomach was on the verge of rebelling. What had the man done to deserve such a death? And why this solitary place of execution? In this remote mountain hinterland? There must be a reason…

Something moved and flapped at the edge of the little clearing where the impaled man hung on his stake, his head at a grotesque angle because the point had pushed through the side of his neck. Nick crossed swiftly, Luger alert, and picked up the moving thing. It was a piece of paper, thin cardboard, rain soaked and limp now. He saw the holes punched for twine, though the twine was missing now, and he knew it had been around the man's neck.

Words were scrawled on the cardboard in red brush strokes, so faded that he could barely discern them: Keisatsu inu. Police dog! Written in Japanese. Below was another word, Korean for dog. Kah!

Nick tossed the paper away and looked back at the impaled man. A police spy. Left there as a warning. Or perhaps more — to frighten the simple peasants of the district? Keep them at a distance?

He shot a glance back at Bennett. The man was standing patiently, his eyes downcast, talking rapidly to himself. Nick shrugged and turned back, past the dead man, and began to explore the bamboo leading to the cliff face. Bennett was on his last legs. He couldn't walk much farther. Nick himself was not exactly fresh. His hunch was growing stronger and he decided to ride along with it. That corpse on the stake was meant to keep intruders away from something and…

Here it was. No great effort had been made to conceal the little opening in the cliff face. The bandits, guerrillas or whatever, must be pretty sure of themselves. Probably they didn't have to worry much as long as they paid off — the Korean provincial police were notoriously corrupt.

A bamboo screen had been improvised by binding stalks together with slender twigs. Nick kicked it aside and entered the narrow crack in the cliff. It ran diagonally for a dozen feet through the cliff, then widened. He stood in the opening and surveyed a long, narrow valley that ended in more towering cliffs. It was like a box canyon, a dead end. This was the only way in, or out. It was a haven — or a trap.

The left slope of the valley was less steep than the far side and heavily overgrown with bamboo. Nick saw a large hut, of the inevitable mud and thatch, at the edge of the bamboo. He moved back a little into the cliff opening and watched. Nothing moved around or in the hut. Killmaster's eyes roved up and down the valley, missing nothing. Not far from where he stood now, perhaps a hundred yards, was a jumble of rocks, a crude fort of boulders, on the side of the slope. It was about halfway to the hut. Nick sighted along his outstretched hand — from those rocks you could cover this opening with a deadly fire. If, he thought wryly, you had anything to cover it with! A Luger and a stiletto weren't going to do the job.

It was the far-off distant hum of a plane that decided him. He searched the gray overcast without hope, but the idea came. That plane was miles away but there might be others. It had stopped raining now and the skies might clear suddenly, the sun come out. It did that in Korea.

He went back for Bennett, thinking that he must have at least an hour of grace. He was betting that the guerrillas who had attacked the train, at least some of them, had come from this place. They would return. They would get a hot reception if Nick could arrange it. Beyond that he did not think at the moment. He had to go to ground somewhere, had to get his back against a wall, and this was as good a place as any. A lot depended on what he found in that hut.

As he passed the impaled man he thought that he could expect the same if the guerrillas took him alive. It was unlikely they would harm an insane man. Bennett might come out best in this deal after all.

Bennett was Still babbling to himself as Nick released him from the sapling and pushed him along the path. The man was on a real talking jag. He moved slowly now, jerkily and with reluctance. He was in a near catatonic state. Nick had read enough to know what to expect — alternate periods of stupor and activity, of babble and incoherence broken by an occasional period of lucidity. He hurried the man along down the path and through the cliff face. There were a lot of big ifs looming on the horizon and Bennett was only one of them.

Nick replaced the bamboo screen after him. No use warning them too soon. If he could catch them off guard, and punish them sufficiently with the first few bursts, they might just leave him alone. If he found the cache of arms he was counting on — if… if… if…

The hut was disappointingly barren. Large for its type, it had a trodden earth floor. There was a large earthenware water jar in one corner, half full. A rusty tin cup with Made in Japan on it floated in the water. He and Bennett drank. He found a coil of straw rope in a corner and made Bennett lie down, then he tied his legs. All this time the man was babbling on and on and on…

"I want my little tiger," he said. "My little tiger — I want it. Gimme it. It's my tiger. They gave it to me a long time ago only it was two tigers then and the man said wait and someday they would come and match the tigers and they would pay me and I loved my tiger and the man never came — he never came at all and I waited so long and I listened and listened and I waited but they never came and I never got paid they owe me such a lot…"

Nick, listening with only half an ear, wished he had a tape recorder. If you could slow down the man's babble and play it over and over you might get something out of it. The tiger bit, for instance, was coming clear. The thing had been a talisman of sorts, given to Bennett when he was recruited by some astute Russky who had known the sort of kook he was dealing with. Meet me at midnight in the cemetery! Bring your half of the tiger! Match them up and begin plotting! That sort of thing — Bennett's poor brain was a mishmash of it, of all the thousands of bad books, and the way-out TV programs, that he had seen and believed in over the years.

There was a large brazier in the exact middle of the hut. Nick picked up a lump of charcoal, found it still faintly warm. Overhead huge Norway rats rustled and slithered in the thatch. Bennett babbled on wildly in his corner. Nick stood looking around the barren hut and swore. There must be something around here! Guerrillas were kept well supplied by their employers. Yet — nothing. Rats. A little water. A brazier. A crazy man. Nick kicked the brazier in an excess of disgust.

"I didn't mean to kill Jane I didn't really but then she was so boring and so fat and ugly and so boring and they never got in touch with me like they promised and sent the beautiful girls like they promised and I had my own little place where I could sit and pretend and it was all right but you can't pretend all the time and I took pictures of Jane and she wouldn't do it any more and I know it was wrong but I killed her and waited and they never got in touch with me…"

The brazier tipped over on its side. Nick Carter stared at the earthen floor beneath it. It looked a little different, somehow disturbed. He fell to his knees and began to claw the dirt aside. Almost immediately he ran a long splinter into his finger. Boards. Planks. Under the earth.

He pried up three planks in as many minutes. As he removed the last one a faint ray of sun slanted in through a window. It was clearing.

The hole was a large one. Nick leaped down into it and stood shoulder level with the floor. He began hauling out the goodies. Machine guns, Russian made. Plenty of ammo in clips, drums and bandoliers. Stick grenades made in Germany, probably captured in World War II and carefully stored. Half a dozen huge revolvers still wrapped in brown paper and cosmoline. A large stock of rice and dried fish, the latter stacked like kindling. A couple of earthenware jugs containing ginseng booze, real popskull, about 175 proof. Nick took a solid belt and winced and shuddered, then felt the fire running through him. Just what the troops needed.