Nick Carter - Double Identity

Bannion broke off what he was doing and stared at Nick. “Hey! That arms shipment! You don’t suppose?”

Nick did not look at the little man. He shook his head. “No. I don’t suppose. That shipment is headed for Lahore. Under guard. You just told me that, remember? Half a company of the Pakistani Army!”

Bannion shook his head. “That wouldn’t stop the Pathans if they wanted the guns. My God! A jehad is all we need now around here. A holy war!”

All the relevant facts were sparking through Nick’s computer mind now and he didn’t like the mental cards he was pulling. Bannion could be right. Could have stumbled on the key to this whole complicated intrigue. But why— why would the Chinese Reds want to aid the Pathans, the Afghan tribesmen, in launching a jehad? What could they gain? The Reds were, nominally at least, on the side of the Pakistanis.

And yet they always enjoyed fishing in troubled waters, the Reds. What had his boss, Hawk, said — that they must keep the pot boiling. The Chinese had been losing a lot of face lately and they were getting desperate. They were in trouble in Africa and Cuba and Indonesia and in Vietnam. The United States tiger had turned out not to be paper after all!

But a jehad! A war in the name of Allah against all infidels! What in hell could the Chinese hope to gain out of that? Unless, of course, they could control the jehad. Bend it to their own uses. But how?

Nick gave it up for the moment. He started to dress. He was dark enough to pass for a Eurasian and he would think of a cover name when it came time. A name wasn’t too important anyway — they had no papers to support a name. They would have to slide through on luck, if at all.

Two hours later they were chugging up the Indus in an ancient freight boat that had never decided whether it was a dhow or a felucca. There was no wind and the big lateen sail was furled, but the rusty, two-cylinder engine was taking them up the broad shallow river at a steady four miles an hour.

The boat was covered amidships with matting which concealed the jeep. The old vehicle was loaded to the collapsing point with their gear. Nick and Mike Bannion remained out of sight as much as possible, stretched out on jute mats near the jeep. They had blankets in the jeep but neither bothered with them. Mike had gotten them a heavy sheepskin coat each, and a bush hat with the wide brim pinned up in the Australian fashion.

They dozed, silent, watching the tiny spark of the boatman’s cigarette at the stern. Nick had elected to bring the owner of the boat along, though he knew he might regret it. Yet he had to risk it. The man, a dirty fat fellow in a red felt hat and long shirt and baggy pants, was deckhand and engineer and sailor and cook all in one. Neither Nick nor Bannion knew much about dhows or whatever this old tub was. There was always the possibility that he would have to kill the man later, to shut him up, but N3 did not allow himself to dwell on the thought now.

So far Mike Bannion had kept his promise. He was drinking slowly. His bottle was still more than half full and it was after midnight.

Nick was checking his weapons, Wilhelmina, Hugo, and Pierre, when he heard the gurgle of the bottle in the dark smelly hold. The boat’s last cargo apparently had been fertilizer.

Mike said: “I said in for a penny, in for a pound, and I meant it — just the same I hope we don’t have to tie up with any Pathans. They’re a lot of bloodthirsty bastards!”

Nick smiled in the gloom. “I think you’re worrying about nothing. I remember my Kipling and Talbot Mundy— aren’t the mullahs always preaching a holy war? Just part of their routine — down with the infidels!”

A match flared as Bannion lit a cigarette. He was not grinning. Nick realized that the little alcoholic was really worried.

“They’re devils from Hell!” said Bannion. “They torture their prisoners. Jesus — the stories I’ve heard! I’ve seen pictures, too, of what they’ve done to patrols they’ve ambushed on the frontier. Only a couple of months ago there were some pictures in The Hindi Times —the tribesmen ambushed a Pakistani patrol in the Khyber Pass. They didn’t kill all of them — the survivors they impaled on bamboo stakes. Ugh! It made me sick. They take off the poor bastards’ pants and then lift them and slam them down hard on a sharp stake! There was one picture of this guy with the stake all the way through him, coming out of his neck!”

The bottle gurgled again. To soothe him Nick said, “You sure that was a Pakistani patrol? Not Indian? The Pathans are Moslems, aren’t they?”

More gurgling sounds. “That don’t make a damned bit of difference to the tribesmen,” Bannion whispered. “Especially when some mullah had got them all heated up. All they care about then is blood and loot! I don’t mind admitting it, Nick— I get the crap in my blood when I think about the Pathans!”

“Take it easy on that bottle,” Nick warned. “And let’s try to get some sleep. I don’t think we’re going to meet any tribesmen. I’m a hell of a lot more worried about Pakistani patrols than I am Pathans. Good night.”

Three days later he found out how wrong even Nick Carter could be!

The kites and vultures gave the first warning. They were soaring in great circles over a bend in the river. It was a desolate, barren stretch halfway between Kot Addu and Leiah. The boatman saw the vulturous diners first. He pointed and sniffed at the air. “Something dead there. Many, I think. Many birds — cannot all eat at once.”

Nick and Mike Bannion ran to the prow. The river was shallow here, curving in a great bend from west to northeast. There was a long sandbar in the middle of the bend. On the bar they saw the gutted, blackened, still smoking wreck of a small river steamer. An old rear-paddle wheeler. It was covered with a wriggling, flapping, obscenely moving mass of vultures. As their boat approached the wreck the cloud of birds rose in a multi-colored swarm, croaking harsh complaints. Some of them were barely able to get airborne because of sagging, heavy bellies.

Nick got the odor then. A battlefield smell. He was familiar with it. Beside him Bannion cursed and took a huge revolver from his pocket. It was an old Webley he had somehow managed to buy in Karachi.

“Put it away,” Nick told him. “There’s nothing alive there.”

Mike Bannion peered beyond the wreck to the westerly shore of the river. The barren land sloped sharply up to rounded, blunt-topped khaki hills. “Maybe they’re still up there, watching. I told you, Nick. I had a feeling. It’s those sonofabitching Pathans — they ambushed the steamer and grabbed the arms shipment. Jesus — that old mullah wasn’t kidding! They are starting a jehad!”

“Calm down,” Nick told him. “You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions. Anyway we’ve got to check it out — if it was the tribesmen we’ll soon know.”

They soon knew. They beached on the sand bar. The boatman would not accompany them. He was in a state of terror. Nick and Bannion made their way through the stink and the sprawled bodies to the steamer. It was a shambles. Blood and brains and decaying guts everywhere. Many of the Pakistani soldiers had been beheaded.

Mike Bannion turned a corpse over with his foot. The face had been shot away, but the turban and dirty singlet, the baggy trousers, were enough to identify it.

Bannion cursed. “Pathan, all right. Stripped, too. Took his bandoliers, rifle, knife, everything. Even his shoes. That’s Pathan for you — they never leave anything behind but stiffs! So what do we do now, Nick?”

N3 covered his nose with a handkerchief and explored the gutted steamer thoroughly. It had been a massacre, all right. The Pakistanis had somehow been caught napping and had been wiped out. The arms were gone. Where? To start a jehad? Probably, he admitted. Bannion was right. The tribesmen were off and running, screaming bloody Allah. They would have their jehad. They would have it— but who would own it?