“Stretch out,” he said. “The longer you do it the easier it gets. You’ll see. The muscles work themselves out.”

  “Da,” Anya breathed but she didn’t sound convinced. Nick closed his eyes and timed his inner alarm clock for twenty minutes. The grass moved gently in an occasional soft breeze and the sun burned down on them. Nick didn’t know how long it had been but he knew it hadn’t been twenty minutes when his eyes blinked open. It wasn’t his built-in alarm clock but the sixth sense of danger, of being watched, that had brought him to wakefulness. He sat up and saw the small figure standing about six feet away, looking at them. A boy, somewhere from ten to twelve years old, Nick guessed. As Nick sat up the boy broke and ran like a fleeing hare.

  “Dammit!” Nick cursed as he sprang to his feet. The girls were on theirs in an instant.

  “A kid!” he rasped out. “Spread out. He mustn’t get away.”

  They fanned out and quickly covered the little hollow, but without results. The boy was gone.

  “The little bastard’s got to be around here someplace and we’ve got to find him. Come on,” Nick said, angry at the world. “He’s probably on the other side of the ridge now.”

  Nick ran up over the small ridge and looked about, his eyes searching the brush and the trees for any sign of moving leaves or sudden motion but there was none. Where had he suddenly appeared from and where had he gone? The little devil knew the area, that was for sure, by the way he vanished. Alexi had moved almost out of sight along the left crest of the ridge when Nick heard her whistle softly. She was crouched on the ridge when he reached her and, following her gaze, he saw a small farmhouse nestled close beside a large Chinese elm. Behind the house was a fair-sized pigpen with a herd of small brown pigs in it.

  “That must be it, all right,” Nick grunted. “Let’s go find out.”

  “Wait,” Anya said. “What if he did see us? He was probably just as frightened as we were annoyed. Why don’t we just go on?”

  “No dice,” Nick said, his eyes cold and hard. “The government has turned everybody into an informer in this paradise. By hightailing it to some local official and telling him he saw three foreigners, the kid’ll probably get as much money as his old man will make out of that flea-bitten farm in six months.”

  Nick didn’t wait for comment. He was sliding and racing down the ridge toward the farmhouse. He heard Anya and Alexi following. He didn’t waste time on caution as he burst through the door of the house and found himself inside a large all-purpose room with beds, table and fireplace kitchen all in one. Ony a woman stood there, impassive, revealing nothing in her face or eyes.

  “Watch her,” Nick said to the girls as he brushed by her and searched the rest of the house. The two small adjoining rooms held nothing, but there was a back door in one and Nick spied a small woodshed outside. In a minute he was back, pushing before him the small, sullen-faced boy.

  “Who else lives here?” he asked in Cantonese.

  “Nobody,” the kid spit back at him. Nick slapped him hard enough to send him spinning into a corner. Picking the boy up by the shirt, Nick raised his huge hand again.

  “You’re a little liar,” he said. “I saw the clothing of a man in the other room. Answer me or I’ll knock your little head off.”

  “Let him go, please.”

  It was the woman talking. Nick let the boy slump to the floor.

  “My husband lives here,” she said.

  “Where is he?” Nick asked, brusquely.

  “Don’t tell him,” the boy screamed.

  Nick picked him up by the hair and he let out a cry of pain.

  “He has left,” the woman quickly said. “For the village.”

  “When?” Nick asked, placing the kid on the floor.

  “A few minutes ago,” she said.

  “The boy told you he had seen us and your husband’s off and running to report it, right?” Nick said.

  “He is a good man,” the woman said. “The boy goes to the government school. They tell him he must report everything he sees. My husband did not want to go but the boy would tell it to his teachers if he did not.”

  “Nice kid,” Nick commented. He wasn’t completely buying the woman’s story. The part about the kid was undoubtedly true enough but her husband might be just as hungry for a little information money.

  “How far is the village?” he questioned.

  “Two miles down the road.”

  “Watch them,” Nick commanded Alexi and Anya. “Tie them up, especially that little bastard.”

  Two miles, Nick thought as he raced out onto the road. It should give him plenty of time to catch the man. Chances were he wouldn’t figure he was being followed and would take his time. The road was dry dust and Nick felt his lungs filling up with it. He shifted to the edge by the brush. It was a little slower but he wanted his lungs clear for what lay ahead yet. He came upon the farmer just over a small rise in the road, about a half mile ahead. The man turned as he heard Nick’s footsteps and Nick saw he was heavy-set, thick of shoulder and, more important, carried an ugly long-bladed scythe in one hand.

  The farmer moved toward Nick, scythe upraised. Calling on all his sketchy knowledge of the Cantonese dialect, Nick tried to reason with the man. He managed to convey that he wanted to talk and not to bring harm. But the farmer’s solid, flat, peasant face did not change expression as he continued to move forward. It was rapidly becoming clear that the man was thinking of the reward he would receive for bringing in one of the foreigners. With surprising lightness of foot the farmer leaped forward and sent the scythe slashing through the air. Nick just managed to fall backward as the blade grazed his shoulder. With the quickness of a cat he rolled over once and was back on his feet. Stolidly the farmer pressed forward as Nick circled, moving backward slowly.

  He didn’t dare end it with a shot from his Luger. God knows what the sound of a shot might bring down on them. The scythe whirled again and Nick felt the swoosh of air as the blade passed a hair’s breadth from his face. Now the farmer was sweeping the long blade back and forth without stop, as though he were cutting grass, and Nick gave ground. The scythe was turning out to be an ugly weapon, its rapid back-and-forth motion giving him no chance to leap in. The farmer had deftly circled so that Nick suddenly realized he was being forced back off the road into a clump of trees. Once there, he would be an easy target. He needed something to interrupt the slashing movement of the scythe. A second would do it, just enough to give him time to get under the blade.

  Suddenly he dropped to one knee and his fingers scooped up a handful of dirt from the loose surface of the road. As the man leaped forward, Nick flung the dirt. For an instant the farmer’s eyes closed, the relentless swish of the scythe faltered. That was all Nick needed. He dived under the blade, catching the man at the knees and toppling him like a fallen redwood. The scythe had fallen from the farmer’s hands as he was knocked to the ground and now the man tried to roll over to retrieve it but Nick was upon him like a panther. The man was strong though, his shoulders thickly muscled from years of hard work, and Nick found himself flung backward.

  On his feet but without the scythe, the farmer was no more than a big, strong, slow-witted brute of a kind Nick had tangled with many times before. Killmaster moved in quickly, feinted, avoided a crude roundhouse swing and caught the man flush on the jaw with a perfect right cross. It spun the farmer around twice as he went crashing to the ground. Nick, in surprise, saw the man shake his head, raise himself on one elbow and make a dive for where the scythe lay. He was a rugged customer. As he started to roll back again, the scythe in his hands, Nick stepped in and brought his foot down hard against the handle of the scythe. The blade flipped up and backward, somewhat like the steel rod of a mousetrap springing shut. Only there was no mouse, just the man’s neck, and the blade cutting into it. Small gurgling sounds came from the man for a moment and then it was over. It was just as well, Nick knew as he pulled the inert form, the blade still imbedded, off the road and deep into the underbrush. He would have had to kill him anyway. Nick turned and headed back for the farmhouse.

  Alexi and Anya had tied the woman’s hands behind her back and bound the boy hand and foot. There were no questions asked as Nick entered, only a small, shuddered sob from the woman as she saw his tall frame fill the doorway.

  “We can’t leave them to tell, either,” he said flatly.

  “Nick!” It was Alexi, but he saw the same thoughts mirrored in Anya’s eyes. They looked at the boy and back to Nick and he knew exactly what they were thinking. Spare the boy, at least. He was only a child. A hundred million lives depended on the success of their mission and this little bastard had almost ruined their chances. And he’d do it again if he got the opportunity. Yet to them he was but a child. Their maternal instinct had come bursting forth. Damn the maternal instinct, Nick thought. He’d always heard it could never be completely eliminated from the normal woman, but this was a helluva time for it to crop up.

  Hell, he didn’t like the idea of killing the woman and the kid either, but if there was another way it had to be a foolproof one. And one that wouldn’t take a lot of time. They were far behind schedule now. Nick’s mind searched for an answer. There was one possibility that might do. If he could be sure, if he got the right answers, he’d risk it. Otherwise, he knew he would finish the job efficiently and ruthlessly. There was no other way.

  Turning to the girls, he took them aside and told them to interrogate the woman. Then he picked the boy up by his shirtfront and carried him outside. Holding the kid up in midair, Nick’s tone left no room for doubt.

  “Your mother is answering the same questions inside,” he told the boy. “If your answers don’t agree with hers, you’ll both be dead in two minutes. Do you understand?”

  The boy nodded his understanding and there was no more sullen defiance in his eyes but only naked fear. In political science class in school they had told him the Americans were a weak, degenerate people. If this cold-eyed giant were an example he would have a few things to tell the teacher when he went back to school.

  “Remember, only the truth can save your ratty little hide,” Nick barked. “Who comes by here to visit you?”

  “The man from the village market,” the boy said.

  “When does he come next?”

  “Three days from now, to buy some pigs.”

  “Anybody else before then? Your friends?”

  “No, my friends do not come until Saturday. I swear it.”

  “Your parents’ friends?”

  “They come only on Sundays.”

  Nick lowered the boy and carried him back into the house. Anya and Alexi were waiting.

  “The woman says they will have only one visitor,” Alexi said. “The man from the village market.”

  “When?”

  “In three days from now. The boy will have friends coming Saturday and they will have visitors Sunday. And there is a cellar to the house.”

  Their stories checked. Nick weighed it for a moment and made his decision.

  “Okay,” he grimaced. “We’ll risk it. Gag them properly, tie them well, and dump them in the cellar. In three days we’ll have made it or it won’t make any difference to anybody what they can tell. Even if they’re not found for a week all they’ll be is a little hungrier.”

  Nick waited while the girls put the boy and the woman into the cellar. Maybe someday when he grew up the kid would remember that an American could have killed him and didn’t. Maybe it would teach him something about mercy. Maybe.

  Chapter VII

  Nick set a blistering pace now. He was angry and worried. Damn, he told himself, there had been one delay after another. Nothing had gone right yet, and he wondered how long their luck would hold out. Was it a bad omen, all these delays and narrow escapes? He wasn’t superstitious, but he had been on jobs like this where things went from bad to worse. Not that this one needed to go worse. How much worse than impossible can you get? But one thing disturbed him most of all. Not only were they now far behind schedule, but what if Hu Tsan was getting nervous? He clearly knew something was in the wind. What if he decided to advance his own timetable? His missiles could be leaving their pads this very second. The free world could be nearing its end within minutes. Nick increased his pace. There was nothing else to do but go on and hope for time.

  In his breakneck pace through the wooded terrain, staying off traveled roadways, he almost burst through the brush onto the dirt road before he knew it. He dropped flat behind the bushes just in time. Before them, halted beside a low-roofed building, was a ten-truck convoy of Chinese regular army trucks. The building was some kind of food supply station; soldiers entered to re-emerge in moments with flat, pancake-like objects in their hands. Probably dried bean cakes, Nick surmised. There were only two soldiers to each truck, a driver and a helper. They were obviously either going to pick up men or had just transported them. The lead trucks were starting to pull out already.

  “That last truck,” Nick whispered. “By the time he starts to pull out the others will have gone around that curve up ahead. It’s pretty nervy but it might just work. Besides, we’ve run out of time for being careful.”

  Both girls nodded, eyes bright. Danger really animated the little hellions, Nick noted grimly. That and something else! The roar of departing trucks filled the air and the last one waited as the two soldiers walked from the building, hands loaded with bean cakes. Nick and Alexi struck swiftly and silently, dashing from the bushes. The men never knew what hit them. Anya had gone into the building to check if there was anyone inside it. There wasn’t and she came out with more bean cakes as Nick dumped the two soldiers into the rear of the truck. Anya stayed in the rear while Alexi got into the cab with him and they roared off after the convoy. Anya passed them bean cakes through the opening at the rear of the cab.

  “How long do we stay with them?” Alexi asked, munching on her bean cake, eyes shining.

  “As long as they’re going in the right direction for us. If they stay on it we’ll be getting a break. It’s about time too.”

  “This is fun,” Alexi laughed. “Sort of like holding a tiger by the tail.”

  Nick had to laugh in agreement and was happy that the tiger held its southbound course for most of the day. The afternoon shadows were lengthening when Nick saw the sign: Tintongwai. That would mean they were only a few miles from the Canton-Kowloon rail line. Suddenly the convoy swung onto a fork in the road and began to move northward.

  “It’s time for us to let go of the tiger’s tail,” Nick said. “But if we just take off by ourselves we’ll have them back looking all over the country for us.”

  Peering ahead at the lead truck, Nick saw they were climbing a steep, narrow road that leveled off over the edge of a sharp drop. At the bottom of the drop was a narrow lake.

  “That’s us,” he said. “I’m going to slow down and fall back. When I say so, you two jump. Ready now … ready… okay, go!”

  As the girls cleared the truck, Nick spun the wheel viciously to the right, waiting till he felt the front wheels go over the edge of the road before he half fell, half jumped out of the cab. As the splash of the truck hitting the water echoed in the hills, the convoy screeched to a halt. But Nick and the twins were running, cutting through a small gulley. They were safely away when they paused to rest near a low hill which rose up before them.

  “We could have been two days getting here,” Nick said. “Now that we’ve made up some time, let’s not louse it up by getting careless. The rail line should be just over that hill. The main freight runs twice daily—morning and early evening. If our calculations are correct, Hu Tsan’s men should be picking up supplies from it somewhere in this area. All we can do is wait and see.”

  Crawling to the ridge of the hill, Nick couldn’t avoid a certain smug satisfaction at seeing the double row of gleaming tracks that stretched out before him. They moved down from the ridge to a formation of rocks almost at the level of the tracks but affording both cover and a vantage point. They had hardly settled themselves when the staccato roar of motorcycles resounded and three cyclists raced from a road in the hills and skidded to a dusty halt. They wore uniforms not unlike those of the Chinese reguIar army tunics, but the colors were different—blue-gray trousers with cream-white tunics and visored helmets to match. On their tunic collars and helmets an orange rocket insignia was emblazoned. Hu Tsan’s special forces, Nick guessed. Lips tight, he watched the cyclists as they dismounted, unfolded portable metal detectors and began a systematic inspection of the tracks.

  “Ehto mne nie nrahvista,” he heard Anya whisper to Alexi.

  “I don’t like it either,” Nick answered. “It means Hu Tsan has definitely learned I’ve slipped through his men. He’s taking no chances on anything. Obviously, he’s expecting supplies and he doesn’t want them sabotaged.”

  Nick felt his hands wet with perspiration and he rubbed them against his trousers. It wasn’t the tension of the moment but his thoughts of what lay ahead. Once again he was seeing more than there was to be seen, calculating the future before it happened, trying to prepare for anything that might come. The cyclists indicated the caution Hu Tsan was exercising. That meant his one ace in the hole was gone, Nick knew—the element of complete surprise. To get into the compound it might be necessary to sacrifice one or both of his lovely helpers. Nick’s jaw muscles tightened. If it had to come to that, he knew what the answer would be. They were expendable. He was expendable. An unsuspecting world depended on that unpleasant fact.

  It had grown dark as the cyclists completed their inspection. Two of them set a trail of flares neatly alongside the tracks while the third one called in on a walkie-talkie. In the distance Nick heard the sound of truck engines coming to life and within minutes six heavy-duty panel lorries swept into view, circled and backed up to the tracks. As they cut their engines, Nick heard another sound in the night, the steady puffing of a locomotive drawing near. In the unsteady light of the flares the train came into view, its yellow headlight the single eye of a dark, winding snake. As it neared, Nick saw the locomotive take shape, a Chinese version of a big 2-10-2 Santa Fe, higher of cab and with more front overhang.