A Korean Tiger (10 page)

The man he had kicked in the crotch stayed down, moaning and grabbing at himself, but the second man was up and in again, swinging a sap. Nick took the sap on his left forearm — it hurt — and backhanded the man in the throat with the edge of his right hand. Too hard, damn it! The man folded with harsh animal grunts of pain. Nick cursed again. These characters were too easy! It began to look as though he would have to get the sap and knock himself out.

The man he had kicked in the face rolled in the alley, found the sap his companion had dropped, and came at Nick from behind. Nick pretended not to see him. He concentrated on kneeing one of the men in the face as he was trying to rise. He tensed, steeling himself. It was never easy to take!

The sap got him just over the right ear, an expert blow. Between the time of impact, and the opening of the dark hole beneath his feet, Nick managed to break the nose of the man before him. He felt the bone crunch and was glad about it and then the long spiral into bright gloom began. He was going down the longest laundry chute in the world. Clear to the Gates of Hell.

Someone was talking. On and on the words flowed. Never ceasing. Incessant chatter.
Yackety-yac-yackety-yac...
Where in hell was he? Crucified on the Tower of Babel? Certainly he was bound hand and foot, and he was lying on something very hard. That wasn't so bad — it was the talking that was getting him down, bugging him. Didn't they ever shut up? It was like a convention of howler monkeys and myna birds and stuck auto horns — all mixed into one sickening blast of sound. And none of it made sense. The words were all blurred together in a weird electronic screaming. It sounded like the tape on a code machine...

Wait a minute! That voice — that one voice in there? Where had he heard that voice before? Hmmmm — it was very, very familiar.
Too
familiar!

Nick Carter kept his eyes tightly closed. His massive brain, only beginning to shake off the effects of the drug, just emerging into lucidity, took over. Not a muscle moved in his face, stark in the harsh hot cone of brilliant white light. In his brain the circuits moved and clicked and the little lights went on and off and the questions were shot at the central board and the answers came back — all in less time that it took him to draw a single breath.

The Russians had him. Good. He had planned it that way. He was tied down, under a hot light. Probably a cellar or an old warehouse. It didn't matter much. What did matter was that he had been talking! How long? How much? What had he told them so far? And he was still talking. Only now he was conscious of it, knew what he was saying. Coolly, calmly, the recovered segment of his brain stood apart and listened to the reflexive, automatic flow of words. But now his brain was editing the flow.

A woman's voice, soft and persuasive, was hanging in a little balloon just over his head. Like the speech balloons in the comic strips. With a great effort Nick restrained a muscular twitch — he still wasn't all the way back. His mind was still playing tricks. The lettering in the balloon, the voice, was in capitals, all caps, and in bold black Bodoni.

"You will tell us," said the voice, "all you know about the Yellow Widow. Everything. Every little detail is important. We know that you have a file on the Yellow Widow in Washington. You must have seen that file. You will tell us everything — everything!"

The Yellow Widow? Ktilmaster's brain came a little more back to normal as the drug wore itself out. Who in blazes was the Yellow Widow? Never heard of her. Not in the AXE files. Maybe she belonged to the CIA or FBI — in any case it wouldn't hurt to make up a few lies, kill time until he was completely himself again.

He kept his eyes closed, his face relaxed. He said: "Yes. I know of the Yellow Widow. She is a Chinese agent. She had been married three times and is believed to have murdered her husbands, though this had never been proved. She operates a string of laundries and chop suey joints in the States. She uses them for drops and meeting places."

Another voice, male, said: "He is lying. Colonel. Pulling our leg, now. The drug is beginning to wear off — I told you it was not good to administer it while he was unconscious. To be fully effective it must be..."

"Be quiet, Doctor!" The voice was now harsh and crackling, loaded with authority, very nearly a neuter. Yet it was that of a woman. Nick let his eyes crack open ever so slightly. She was bending over him, her face close to his, her eyes a hard and washed-out blue. Her hot breath was laden with tobacco. She was going slightly bald in front. Nick closed his eyes again. A bald woman? Maybe he
was
still drugged.

Then his amazing brain, fully recovered now, reached back into a memory file and came up with a possible answer. Colonel? The man had just called her that. A picture formed in his brain. A picture of a half-bald woman. A real horror of a woman. Her name was Zoe Kalinski and she held the rank of Colonel in MGB. AXE might not know about the Yellow Widow, whoever she was, but they had a very thick file on Kalinski. Efficient — dedicated — sadistic — bisexual. Ugly!

A hand smashed across his face. It rocked and stung him. The woman said, "You are right for once, Doctor. All right, Mr. Carter! You may stop shamming now. Let us have no nonsense. Time is short and we have much to talk about."

He couldn't have told them much of value about Raymond Lee Bennett and the woman, Nick thought before he opened his eyes. He really didn't know anything! What else he might have said he had no way of knowing — he could only hope they had been too much in a hurry, too interested in Bennett, to question him in depth about AXE secrets. He decided on brashness.

He stared up at the woman. She was going bald, by God! Her mouse-colored hair was swept back and caught in a careless bun at the back of a thick neck. Her face was broad, the nose flat, her lips a thin incision in gray flesh. The blue eyes were watery, weak, but somehow very hard. Bleak. She was thick shouldered and massive around the waist. She must, Nick thought, have an enormous behind.

Nick winked at her. "Colonel Kalinski, I believe? How's it going, Colonel? Doing any wrestling these days?"

For perhaps five seconds the blue eyes blinked at him. Her lashes were scant, almost colorless. She took a deep breath, thrusting out breasts as large as basketballs, then slapped him again. And again. And yet again. She did it with the back of her open hand, hurting him with her knuckles.

"That," she said evenly, "is just to let you know your position, Mr. Carter. To show you who is boss here. You are, believe me, in no position to make wisecracks!"

"Can't help it," said Nick. "I'm just a fun-loving kid at heart. But I'll try to control it — for the sake of my jaw if nothing else. You pack a pretty good wallop there, Colonel." And yet her hands, he noted, were small and soft and somehow did not go with the rest of her.

The woman made an impatient gesture. "Enough of this! You will answer my last question, please. What do you know of this woman called the Yellow Widow? No lies."

Killmaster nodded. "Okay, Colonel. No lies. I never heard of her. Is she the one that got Bennett away?" He sneaked it in fast, hoping to catch her off balance, but having no great hope. The Socratic method was all right in its place; against a top agent of MGB he hadn't much hope. Yet he had to try to get something started. It was the whole reason for being here, for taking that clout on the head. He was stymied. And in this business you took help wherever you found it.

Colonel Zoe Kalinski stroked a flabby chin with an incongruously beautiful hand. "I will ask the questions," she said. "But I begin to think I am wasting my time with you, Carter."

Nick grinned at her. "A minute ago it was
Mr.
Carter. What happened to make me lose face?"

The blue eyes studied him. "Lose face? That is an odd expression for you to use. But never mind — I repeat, what do you know of this Yellow Widow?"

Nick scowled. "And I repeat — nothing! You must know I'm telling the truth. You questioned me under the drug, didn't you? What was it — sodium pentathol?"

"Yes. But it was administered wrongly! I told you, Colonel..."

The speaker was a tall, emaciated man who had been standing a little back of the woman. He was little more than a rack of bones wearing a cheap tweed suit. He wore a battered trilby hat. His face was gaunt, his eyes haunted, and there was dope addict written all over him. On the floor near his feet was a small black medical bag.

The woman turned on the man in a fury. Her voice crackled like a shorted electric cable. "Keep quiet, you! Do not speak again! Not unless you have my permission. We are not dealing with a fool here, with an underling! This man is Nicholas Carter. He is the top agent for AXE, the American murder organization! Keep that in mind, all of you. I, and only I, will do the talking to this man. Understood?"

The thin man's cowardice was abject. He passed a trembling hand over his face. "Yes — yes, my Colonel! I understand. I... I will not offend again."

"See that you do not. I have enough trouble now without having to cope with fools."

Nick Carter had used this brief altercation to survey the physical situation. His eyes missed nothing; his brain stored it for future use.

He was in a warehouse of some kind. It appeared to be very much in use. Everywhere he looked he saw stacks of what seemed to be heavy rolls of paper. Probably newsprint. From somewhere near came the muted bellow of a tug. They were still near the river, then. The long table on which he was bound stood in a little clearing in the stacks of paper. The single light was a 300-watter at least, dangling over him in a large green shade. It was hard to see back into the shadows, but he heard them move and cough, saw a match flare, heard the whispering. The muscle boys. He counted the shadows as best he could. Must be at least six of them. Fresh ones, no doubt, and not the ones he had worked over. This, he told himself, could get a little nasty before it's over. But then he had known that all along.

The Colonel was back. Her thin lips parted to reveal where all the yellow had gone. "Now, Carter, once more. You know the Yellow Widow is a Chinese agent, no? You said as much. You must know more about her. Her friends, her mode of working, her safe houses where she would take — where she would hide out? You must know all these things — and you are going to tell me!"

Nick shook his head. "I don't. I tell you I never heard of her. I made all that up just as I was coming out of the drug. Look, Colonel Kalinski, maybe we can make a deal, eh? At least I can, if you want to play. I have carte blanche from my government. Have you?"

Again the long slow look. The thin lips twitched against was more of a gurgle than a chuckle, but the Colonel was definitely amused. "I am glad we met, Carter. You are all that I have heard — insouciant and arrogant. You are also not without courage — either that or you are a complete fool! That I-cannot believe."

Nick assumed a slightly idiotic expression. "Gee, Colonel. Thanks a lot. We don't get many kind words in our profession and..."

She slammed her knuckles across his face again. "Enough. You still maintain that you know nothing of the Yellow Widow?"

It was hard work, but Nick managed to keep his grin. "I do. That's why you'd better consider a deal. Colonel, And fast! They're getting farther away all the time — Bennett and this Chinese lady. Why don't you put your cards on the table? I will. I'm after Bennett. I admit it. I want to kill him. You're after Bennett, too. But you don't want to kill him. Not yet. Not until you've used him, pumped him dry. Face it, Colonel. You people have goofed badly on this Bennett thing. So have we. We're going to have to fight it out between us later, I know, but right now
neither
of us has Bennett! This Yellow Widow has got him and she's running for China. If we put our heads together, if we exchange information, work together, we might be able to stop her."

It was a monumental bluff. He didn't think it had a prayer. He could offer to exchange information because he didn't have any. This Colonel Five-by-Five might just have a smattering — the Russians, after all, had been on the trail just ahead of him.

The blue eyes were like two marbles looking down at him. He got the impression that she was wearing contact lens and he wondered about it, but only briefly. She smacked him across the face again. "I think I am right about you, Carter. You don't know anything. You have, as you say, bungled it. So have we, this I admit, but your bungling is much worse. Were it not for your reputation I would be inclined to think that you are nothing but another American fool." Again her knuckles raked his face.

Nick felt a trickle of blood on his lips. He smiled, feeling the torn skin pull and stretch. "When you've finished getting your jollies, Colonel, I suggest that you get in touch with your people and ask them what they think. Get your boss in the Kremlin on the short wave and ask him! You might be a little surprised."

The woman turned from him and walked a few steps into the shadows. Nick saw that he had been right — her behind was enormous. Her legs would have been stout even on a piano. She was about two hundred pounds of feminine nastiness. His gut churned and he felt a moment of near panic. Sweat crawled on his skin like moist little snakes. Had he miscalculated? Was he going to be able to get himself out of this?

He could hear her giving orders to someone in the gloom. After a moment the man said,
"Da,"
and left immediately. The Colonel came back to stare down at Nick. "I have followed your advice in part, Carter. I have sent a message to my superiors informing them of your capture, and of what you suggest. It will be an hour or more before we can expect an answer — in the meantime we shall get back to the real business. What do you know of this Yellow Widow?"

Nick groaned aloud. "You, Colonel Kalinski, have got a one-track mind."

"Yes. That is so. I find it a great asset in my work. What do you know of the old Roman law, Carter?"