Istanbul (15 page)

Nick was boiling with rage and frustration. To be taken so easily! By such a simple trick! The Basque had been as fiendishly clever as a child. At the last moment, just before the caravan began to trek, he had marked every tribesman with a red crescent mark. An hour later he had halted the caravan for an inspection. Nick had never had a chance. He had tried to sidle away, to vanish in the shadows, but the outer circle of horsemen had hemmed him in. The evasive attempt had called attention to him, and he had known the futility of resistance when three or four of the Kurds seized him. They had dragged him back to the Basque's sumptuously furnished little trailer. There he had been searched and his weapons taken: the Luger, the stiletto, the gas pellet and four fragmentation grenades he had had taped to his belt. They missed the big one — his sole remaining Tiny Tim — which he wore in a bag between his legs like a third testicle. This oversight seemed of small moment at the time — N3 had never been more helpless. The Kurds had been rough and now he stood before the Basque disheveled and bleeding from a dozen cuts, his hands bound painfully behind him.

The Basque regarded him from behind a small field desk. He picked up a pencil and tapped with it on the desk for a moment before he spoke. Behind him sat two neat little Chinese. They regarded Nick with bland dark eyes in which he read only curiosity. He meant nothing to them. Not at this stage. They were dressed in neat padded uniforms. Each wore a round peaked cap bearing a single red star.

The Basque had piggy little eyes surrounded by heavy scar tissue. He spoke in a matter of fact voice. He might have been interviewing Nick for a position.

"Your name?"

"John R. Thomson. No P." It was a name he used for such occasions.

The Basque smiled faintly. "That's a lie, but it doesn't matter. Not in the least. You're an AXE man?"

"AXE?" Nick shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about."

At the word AXE one of the little Chinese said something to his companion. They whispered for a moment, then one of them spoke to the Basque.

"AXE? This man is of that organization? The American murder society?"

The Basque nodded. "Right. Watch. I'll prove it." He made a sign to the two huge Kurds who were guarding the door of the trailer. They seized Nick from behind. He did not struggle. He
might
get a chance, one chance, to get out of this, but the time was not yet.

The Basque came around his desk and rolled up Nick's sleeve. He grunted in satisfaction and pointed to the tiny AXE symbol tattooed on the left arm just above the elbow. "You see," said the Basque in triumph. "I have seen that mark before. Once before. I killed that sonofabitch!"

N3 did not flicker an eyelash. But he filed it away. That might be Matthews, he thought, who had never come back from a mission in Iran.

The two Chinese were hissing and buzzing now. They stared at Nick with narrowed cold eyes, as though they were looking at the Devil himself. One of them said: "Our government would very much like to have this man when you are through with him, Mr. Gonzalez. Perhaps that could be arranged?"

The Basque went back to his desk. He frowned. "I doubt it. My — some people in Istanbul are anxious to talk to him, too. You people will have to wait your turn. Anyway this is still
my
operation. Don't forget that! You people haven't moved in yet. I've got my own plans for our friend here, Mr... er... Mr. Thomson? No P?"

The Basque smiled cruelly at Nick. "I hear you've been raising a lot of hell in Istanbul?"

Nick returned a smile of derision. "A little, maybe. I try to kill rats whenever I find them."

The Basque ignored that. He said, "You're alone, of course?"

"Of course. I always work alone."

"Probably another lie. But I'll find out. I sent a party back along our trail to check."

Those six tribesmen he had seen pulling out and backtracking! Nick found himself praying that Mija would obey orders. Would stay in the cave until six hours had elapsed. If she did the chances were good the Kurds would miss her. If not —
Inshallah!

The Basque made a mistake then. As simple — and deadly — a mistake as Nick had made about the red marks. The Basque turned to the two Chinese and began to discuss his plans — in fluent Chinese. It was such a complete fool's error that at first Nick was suspicious. Then, as he listened with a blank face of ignorance, he realized that the Basque and the Chinese were simply assuming, without much thought, that their prisoner could not speak or understand Chinese. Nick listened avidly, careful not to betray his comprehension.

The Basque, ignoring Nick for the moment, was pointing out something on a map. His Chinese was of the south, a Cantonese dialect, but the two little men appeared to understand him perfectly. So did N3.

"This is the Kardu River," the Basque explained. "A tributary of the Tigris. We have never used this ford before and probably it is not mined or guarded. It forms the border between Turkey and Syria. If we get across there — good! If we run into trouble we'll go a mile west, where there is another ford, and cross there while the trouble is going on here!" He stabbed the map with a thick forefinger. "They've got over five hundred miles of border to patrol, the Turks and Syrians, and not much to do it with! I don't expect any trouble. They won't have more than one patrol to fifty miles — they're spread too thin. So we use the goats and half a dozen Kurds as a decoy, see what happens, and then I'll take it from here."

One of the Chinese hissed and looked worried. "You say there are sometimes mines?"

The Basque shrugged. "Sometimes. Not often, but now and then we run into a mine field. I use goats." The Basque folded the map and turned to look at Nick. In English he said: "I said that they want you back in Istanbul — and I suppose I should follow orders, but I'm running things down here. Something they forget at times! And Fm a man that likes a little fun — a little amusement. I think you're going to provide it, AXE man! Would you like me to explain?"

Nick kept his face expressionless. He was sure he knew what was coming. There was nothing he could do about it at the moment. He said, "Go ahead. Coming from you it's sure to be nasty."

The Basque showed his tobacco stained teeth. "Not as nasty as it might be. I'm going to give you a chance. I could turn you over to my Kurds, you know. You wouldn't like that, AXE man! Believe me. But well make a little game of chance out of it — a gamble. Fm going to tie you on a camel and let you be a mine detector for me."

N3 gave him a hard grin. "And if there are no mines, if I get over the border safely, then you'll let me go free?"

The Basque broke into laughter. He shoved a long brown cigar into his flattened face. "Oh, yes! I'll let you go — right back to Istanbul! I told you — they're real anxious to see you there! So anxious they're sending a plane first thing in the morning. But maybe you'd better hope you're not around! There's a certain surgical gentleman who likes to experiment with people." The Basque laughed. He fit his cigar and puffed blue smoke, squinting his little eyes at Nick. "And when
he
gets through with you, AXE man, the Chinese here want you. You're quite in demand. If I were you, I'd
pray
that the camel steps on a mine!"

The back wall of the trailer was lined with green steel consoles. Now one of them began to buzz and a speaker rasped metallically.

The Basque knocked ash from his cigar. "That'll be Istanbul now, wanting to know what goes on." He grinned at Nick. "I'll have to lie a little. Fm afraid. Istanbul's not going to approve of our little game of chance."

The Basque pave a harsh order in Kurdish and the two guards took Nick outside and bound him to a camel. They bound him with leather thongs, tightly and without mercy, and drove the camel into the midst of the herd of sacrificial goats.

Now, as Nick waited for the Kurds to finish their prayers, he tested his bonds. Even his tremendous strength could not break them, not even gain an inch of slack. They had soaked the leather thongs in water before they bound him — now the thongs were drying and shrinking! Nick could feel them cutting into his flesh like sharp wire.

The camel was unhappy. It did not like goats. It did not like Nick, and repeatedly reached back with long yellow teeth to snap at the rider's legs.

They approached the ford of the Kardu. It was still dark, but a faint line of pearl was slowly appearing over the mountains to the east. Half a mile back the Basque was following with the rest of the caravan, waiting to see what would happen at the ford.

N3 figured his chances. If the camel stepped on a mine he would be blown to hell. If the Turks, or the Syrians, were waiting in ambush they would probably shoot him dead before he could identify himself. // he could identify himself.

Nick found himself hoping that the Syrians and Turks would be very much absent! Then, if there were no mines and he got over safely, the Basque would send him back to Istanbul. To the tender mercies of Dr. Six, with his exclusive sanitarium on the Bosphorus, where the good doctor ran such a fine clinic for the poor! There would be as Nick had once thought while in the Hole, the little sharp knives and the truth serums!

But there would also be time! At least a little time to plan, to watch and wait, perhaps to act. Time!

The camel smelled water and began to run, forcing its way through the herd of goats, snapping and biting, trying to break into a long legged, splaying run. Nick lurched and bounced, tossed about brutally, held on the ungainly beast only by the torturing leather thongs. The Kurdish guards swung in closer, urging the goats on with shrill curses. Each of the half dozen Kurds, Nick had noted, was armed with a Russian made submachine gun. No old fashioned
jebel
rifles here! Probably the gift of the Chinese.

The camel stepped on a mine!

Had it been a high explosive mine it would have blown N3 to instant hell. It was not high explosive. It was an anti-personnel mine. A daisy cutter! A ball bouncer! So designed that when the mine was tripped a canister of shrapnel leaped into a man's crotch and tore out his balls and guts in a savage explosion.

The camel's racing stride carried it exactly over the canister as it exploded. The blasting shrapnel ripped the beast's belly apart, tearing out the entrails and lacerating Nick's ankles at the same time it severed the thongs binding them. Nick went flying into the terrified herd of goats as the camel stumbled and fell with a last bloody dying bellow.

Nick came down into the smother of tightly packed and frightened goats. As he fell he heard another mine explode, saw bits of goat flying about him. He landed on the head of a big ram and his wrists, bound behind him with the leather thong, slipped over the ram's horns. He found himself literally suspended from the goat's head by his thonged wrists. The goat was plunging and lunging in a frenzy of terror, shaking its head and tearing at the unknown weight that was bowing it down.

It was a large and powerful goat and its long curving horns did what Nick had been unable to do. It broke the thong binding his wrists. Nick felt his wrists come free. He fell away from the plunging goat. He rolled under the hooves of a dozen or so of the beasts as they charged over him, protecting his face and head as best he could.

He heard the rattle of a machine gun and knew the Kurdish guards were firing into the mass of goats. Nick fought to his feet, surprised and gratified to find that he could move freely — that meant no bones broken, a miracle — and bending low he ran with the herd of goats. He risked a glance and saw one of the Kurds spurring his horse into the mass of stampeding animals.

Another Kurd loosed a burst into the herd, spray-firing in the hope of hitting Nick. He ducked again and hooked his arm around the neck of a large goat, swung in under it with his legs wrapped around its belly. The goat charged along with the mob of its frightened fellows. The Kurds fired another burst, and the goats changed direction and charged at the Kurd riding into their midst.

Nick saw the stirrup and the Kurd's felt boot and knew it was the only chance he would have. He grabbed for the foot and pulled the surprised and yelling Kurd from the saddle. As he fell toward N3 the AXE man plucked the man's curved dagger from its scabbard. So swift was the motion that the Kurd fell on his own dagger, impaling himself just below the breast-bone. Blood gushed over his beard and he fell into the goat herd, the machine gun skittering from dead hands.

Nick reached for the tommy gun and the horse's bridle in the same lightning motion. His heart was full of battle and he felt like whooping aloud his joy and hate and rage. He was free! If he went down now it would be fighting — taking a lot of the others with him!

Possibly the remaining Kurds expected him to run for it, to make for the Kardu and across to the Syrian side. All of them must have been for a moment bemused by the swiftness with which N3 acted. He put his heels into the horse and charged them, the tommy gun spitting red flame and lead in a hail of retribution.

Two of the Kurds went down immediately. Two more turned and fled, back toward where the Basque waited with the main caravan. The remaining Kurd, screaming prayers to Allah, charged. Nick went at him in an all out gallop. They were like two knights of old in a life or death tournament.

They came together with a great crash. Nick's mount went down. He fell free. The Kurd shrieked in triumph, pointed the tommy gun at Nick and squeezed the trigger. The gun jammed. Nick shot the Kurd off the horse with a tearing burst that nearly cut the man in two.

Nick staggered to his feet amid dust, blood, gunsmoke and the reeking smell of cordite. Dawn was nearly upon him now. The two Kurds would be reporting to the Basque.

There was not much time — for any of them. If there was a Turkish or Syrian patrol within twenty miles it would be on the way by now. The Basque would have to act fast. So would the man from AXE.