Nick Carter - Double Identity

Very clever, he admitted. Trick the arms out of Karachi and have your boys waiting in ambush. He ticked the list of arms through his mind again, the list he had read in the murdered Sam Shelton’s office.

Rifles — light machine guns — heavy machine guns — grenades — bazookas — anti-tank guns! Five million rounds of ammo!

Nick Carter’s smile was grim. You could have yourself quite a jehad with all that!

Mike Bannion joined him. He was carrying the giant revolver in his right hand and frowning. “They took some prisoners, Nick. I’m sure of it. At least I counted the dead Paks and they don’t make half a company. They must have taken prisoners. I don’t understand it. They never do!”

N3 glanced across the river to the western shore. Even at that distance he could see the broad trail the tribesmen had left leading up into the stubby hills. Pretty sure of themselves. Not afraid of retribution. That figured — the Pakistani Army was busy fighting India at the moment.

An idea moved in his brain. Could there be another reason for that broad trail? An invitation, perhaps?

He turned to Bannion. “Let’s get unloaded. Better hurry before our friend there loses his nerve entirely and shoves off and leaves us.”

Mike Bannion avoided Nick’s eyes. He said: “You’re going to follow them?”

“Yes. I’ve got to. No way out for me. You don’t have to go — you can go back to Karachi with the boatman. But I’ll have to take the jeep and the supplies. Well?”

Bannion took his bottle of Scotch from the deep pocket of his sheepskin coat and tilted it. He drank for a long time, then put the bottle down and wiped his mouth with his hand. “I’ll go with you. I’m a damned fool, but I’ll go. Just one thing!”

Mike’s grin was a little sheepish. “If anything happens— to me — and you get out of it okay, will you see if you can ~get a little of Uncle Sugar’s dough for my wife and kids? They got nothing.”

Nick smiled. “I’ll try. I think I can swing it. Now let’s get cracking — that character is going to shove off any minute!”

It took the Luger to persuade the boatman to put them ashore on the western side. They unloaded the jeep and supplies where the Pathan trail left the river.

Bannion nodded to the boatman and looked at Nick, the question plain in his eyes. The man would talk, of course, as soon as he got back to Karachi.

Nick hesitated a moment, then shook his head. Why kill the poor devil? By the time he got back to Karachi it would be too late for anyone to stop them. It occurred to him that by that time he might be glad, overjoyed, to see Pakistani troops.

Nick watched the craft disappear back downriver as Mike Bannion checked over the jeep. The vultures had returned to their meal.

“Come on,” Bannion told him. “If we’re going let’s go. This old heap is as ready as she’ll ever be.”

A mile inland they found the first Pakistani soldier buried in earth up to his neck. He was dead, his throat slit, and his eyelids had been cut off. Something white glimmered in the gaping dead mouth.

Mike Bannion took one look and was sick over the side of the jeep. He would not go close to the dead man. Nick walked to the grotesque bloody head sticking out of the sandy soil and studied it. He leaned down and took a bit of paper from the mouth. Something was scrawled on it— Chinese ideographs!

His Chinese was rusty but in a moment he made out the message.

Follow me. The way is plain. You will find one of these markers every few miles. I look forward to meeting you. Again!

It was signed: Nick Carter.

A limpid warm rain was falling on Peshawar, that ancient and historic city in the narrow mouth of the bloodstained Khyber Pass. It was a weekend and many of the tribesmen, Afghans, Pathans, and Turkomans, had brought their women into town to shop in the bazaars. While the women gossiped and did their trading the men gathered in the teahouses and kept the samovars boiling. Most of the men were lean and fierce, each with a cruel knife thrust into a colorful sash. The subject of conversation, when police or strangers were not around was — jehid! Holy war! The time was coming!

It was not a monsoon rain — they were over for the year— and Nick Carter found the moisture pleasant on his face as he peered from a dark archway in the Street of the Story Tellers. It was a narrow, cobbled lane stinking of garbage and human filth, but N3 was too impatient and anxious to pay heed to the smells. Mike Bannion had been gone a long time. Too long!

Nick fidgeted. He had already been twice noticed by whores, one who hadn’t been a day over twelve, and he knew he’d better move on. The luck had been incredible so far — if it was luck — and he didn’t want to spoil it now.

To his left, at the end of the street, he could see the looming mass of Mahabat Khan mosque. Directly across from him was a well-lighted shop where leather workers were busy — Nick could see sandals and cartridge belts on display. The belts were of the old-style bandolier type, worn crossed over the shoulders, and N3 wondered, rather grimly, if Ml ammo would fit them.

He retreated back into the dark arch and lit a cigarette. He leaned against a rough stone wall and pondered, covering the cigarette with a big hand and frowning. He didn’t like the setup. Not at all. But he had to play it — play the cards the way they fell. He, and the ever more reluctant Bannion, had come boldly into Peshawar that afternoon. Four days from the Indus. The old jeep had somehow made it — and the trail had been clearly marked as promised. There had been no more notes — only the milestones, the corpses of Pakistani soldiers buried in earth to their necks. Throats cut. Eyelids gone. Noses cut off in some cases.

Nick inhaled deeply and held it. This was a real weird, kooky setup. They’d left the jeep in the camp on the outskirts of Peshawar and walked in. The rain had started about then. No one paid them much attention, which in itself was not unusual — from ancient times the Khyber Pass had served as a gateway, and invasion route, between east and west Asia. Strangers were no novelty in Peshawar. At first the only ones to pay any attention to the two men in their cocky bush hats and sheepskin coats were the beggars and the kids, and the shopkeepers — and, of course, the inevitable prostitutes.

They had been in Peshawar only half an hour when Nick Carter spotted his double. It was still light, the rain gentle, and he had seen the impostor in the Street of the Potters. There was a woman with him. An American girl. A beauty!

It was all incredible and too easy, and N3 knew it, but he took it in stride. He ducked into a spice shop and whispered a few hurried commands to Mike Bannion. Mike was to follow the couple and report back when he could do so without losing them.

Mike had come back once to say that they were now in the Street of the Coppersmiths. The girl had purchased some Benares brass and gotten into a hassle with the merchant. Nick and Bannion had left the spice shop and had walked to his present place of concealment. Then he had sent Mike back to spy some more. That had been over an hour ago.

A bullock cart creaked past the archway, its dry axles squealing like stuck pigs. Nick Carter flipped his butt away in disgust. He’d better go find Mike. It meant breaking cover and the possibility of being spotted by the man he was after, but it couldn’t be helped. Yet he was reluctant. He had a feeling about this one — they were expecting him, they knew he must come, and his double was not likely to be caught off guard. So be it. Yet this was a tactical situation at the moment, not strategic, and he thought he had a little advantage. They — his man would not be alone, this time— they did not know Mike Bannion! Nick could use the little drunk as his eyes and ears for a time — or so he had hoped. But now? Mike was running scared and admitted it. He was keeping his promise, drinking only one bottle a day, but now that the pressure was getting heavy? Nick smiled wryly and prepared to leave his shelter. Mike might have decided to toss in the towel — might be taking cover in a brothel or a hashish den.