Nick Carter - Double Identity

None of this seemed in any way strange to Nick Carter. He knew he was drugged, admitted it. Loved it! Desired it! lively thing— sanga root. He could never get enough of it! He had been born again — he was free and swinging on top of the world, had long ago passed Cloud Nine and was approaching Cloud Ninety-Nine!

N3 never quite knew when the She Devils left him. One moment they were straining on the bed with him — the next moment he was alone, awakening in a daze and staring around. He felt cold and his nerves were jumping. There was the cup of yak’s milk by the bed and he was reaching for it when the brass monkey began to swing open.

Nick raised the cup to his lips and was about to drink. He smiled at the dark oblong in the wall. “Dyla Lotti! I thought you would never come back. I—”

Hafed came rapidly into the room. Before Nick could stop him he seized the cup and poured the yak’s milk on the floor. “Best not drink more, sar. You plenty doped now, I think. Much bad. Come — we go out of this place fast. Much danger here!”

Nick sat on the bed, naked, scratching at the stubble on his face and grinning at the guide. Hafed was a good joe, a swell guy, but he was getting a little above himself. He shouldn’t have poured that milk out. Now he would have to ask the old crone to bring him some—

Hafed handed him a small vial containing a greasy yellow liquid. “Drink, please. Is what you call antidote, I think. Kill drug. Drink fast, please. We not have much time, sar. Get out this place hubba— I think Chinese soldiers come. They be here now but for storm.”

Nick Carter staggered erect. To please good old Hafed he drank the contents of the vial and began to retch — the stuff smelled like urine and probably tasted like it, too.

“Ughhhh!” He wiped his mouth on his hand. “What in hell is that?”

Hafed smiled briefly, “Yak piss, sar. And other things. You can walk now, yis? You come with me hubba? I show you important things.”

“Walk? Of course I can walk. What do you think I—” Nick took a few steps and tottered, nearly falling. Damn! He was as weak as a kitten.

Dismay registered for a moment on Hafed’s swart features. “I afraid of this,” he told Nick. “Sanga root do it — much bad if you have too much. And you already sick anyway — never should take sanga.”

N3 collapsed on the bed with an idiotic grin. “That’s just what my sainted old mother used to tell me, Hafed. ‘Never take sanga ,’ she said. A thousand times she said it— ‘Stay away from that sanga root, boy!’ ”

Hafed scowled. “Not funny, sar! Chinese soldiers get here I get my head chopped off number one fast. Maybe not you, but me. You try hard to walk, yis?”

Nick tumbled on the bed laughing. Suddenly everything was uproariously funny. “To hell with walking, Hafed! I’m never going to walk again! I’m never going to do anything again but stay in this bed and fornicate! That’s it, old buddy! I’m gonna stay right here and fornicate my stupid life away! Care to join me, old buddy?”

Hafed unleashed a string of curses that ranged from Chinese to English through Tibetan and Hindustani. “Goddamn son bitch,” he said at last. “I maybe should run away and leave you, sar, but I not do. You good man.”

Nick Carter put his head in his hands and began to weep softly. “You good man too, Hafed,” he sobbed. “A real buddy. I love you!”

Hafed stepped close to the big AXE agent and slapped him hard across the face. “I sorry, sar. But must do! Not much time!”

N3, who could have broken the little man in pieces with one hand, kept on crying. Hafed was not a friend after all— Hafed had come to invade his perfumed garden! Hafed was destroying his Paradise! Vaguely, as the antidote began to take hold, Nick saw Hafed as an emissary from the cruel world of reality. Come to remind him, Nick, of such wearisome matters as job, mission, duty! He hated Hafed! He would kill the interfering little b—

The antidote struck his guts a hammer blow! He rolled off the bed and began to spew. Oh God — lie was sick! For ten minutes he lay in his own vomit, unable to lift his head, retching and spewing and devoutly wishing for death.

Finally he was able to climb to his feet and don the coarse robe. He discovered, without surprise, that his weapons were missing. All of them gone — Wilhelmina, Hugo, Pierre!

Nick sat on the bed and rubbed his forehead. His eyes were pits of flame and an anvil was bouncing about in his skull. He looked sheepishly at Hafed. “Sorry — guess I’ve been away for awhile. What time is it? What day? And weren’t you saying something about Chinese soldiers?”

Hafed plucked at his sleeve. “You come now. Make fast! I show you what I find — we talk then.”

Nick followed Hafed through the wall behind the brass monkey. The passage was narrow and high and surprisingly warm. It led steadily downward. Butter lamps in iron sconces showed them the way.

“I sleep with many She Devils,” Hafed explained as they went. “Some talk, some not. One talk a lot. After she go to sleep — sleep now. She take sanga root, I do not. I not need root. While she sleep I think what she talk — some very funny business go on. Is good time for looking— so I look. All She Devils at prayers and meditation now, you see. I find this place.”

“Good for you,” grunted Nick. He sounded surly, was, and instantly regretted it. This loyal little guy had gotten him out of a hell of a jam! Was trying to, at any rate. They weren’t out of it yet! N3 was coming back fast now and the enormity of his lapse was growing on him. He had been sick as hell, of course, but that was no excuse. Not in an AXE man. He cursed himself briefly, then his jaw took the familiar jut and he moved back into command. What was done was past repairing. Now he must salvage what he could — forget everything but the future and the mission.

They rounded a sharp turn in the passage and came to an iron door. It was half open. Hafed pointed to the door. “In there, sar. Most interesting.”

It was a small room well lit by butter lamps. There was a table and chairs. On the table lay Nick’s weapons. He inspected them. They seemed intact, in working order. As he was checking the Luger Hafed said, “Maybe you look in that door, sar. Also most of interest.” He pointed to another iron door set into the far wall of the little room. Nick went to it and pulled it open. Instantly the sickening odor of decaying flesh smote his nostrils.

N3 took a step backward, grimacing. He had seen too much of death for it to hold any terrors for him, but this was nasty! Over his shoulder he said, “Who is she?”

Hafed’s voice was soft in the little room. “I think maybe the real Dyla Lotti, sar.”

The open door revealed a space not much bigger than a closet. Chained to the wall was the near skeleton of a woman. Leathery shreds of flesh still clung to the fragile bones and her hair was white. The eyes had rotted, and most of the nose, and the flesh around the mouth had fallen away to reveal long yellow teeth fixed in an eternal grin. Nick closed the door, remembering the youthful perfection of Dyla Lotti’s body. Dyla Lotti? But Hafed had just said—

Nick dropped his robe and began to strap the chamois sheath on his right forearm. His face was rigid, hard beneath the stubble. “Tell me,” he ordered Hafed. “What’s your idea about all this — what makes you think that”—he nodded toward the closet—”is the real Dyla Lotti?”

Hafed squatted, his back to the open door leading into the corridor. He produced a murderous looking knife and began to whet it on a calloused palm.

“I hear many thing while making love to She Devils,” he explained. “I already tell that. Last one I have, she now sleeping, hates Dyla Lotti. Talk about her a lot. But she talk of old woman!”