He strapped a wide leather belt with a holster about his waist He made sure his Luger was loaded and went out.
With the laboratory gone, work on Agent Z would have to start all over again, from the very beginning. He wondered why Kerner hadn't called himself. The caller had been rather vague. There had been something about a white man attempting to invade the compound, of being captured, and then being put to death. Shortly after that, the laboratory had caught fire. The caller had been one of the Chinese officers assigned to the compound.
Bormann walked into his office to find Sim Chan sitting calmly in a leather-backed chair, her legs crossed, smoking a cigarette. She had on a short leather jacket over a tight-fitting dress. He bowed stiffly and sat down behind his desk.
Sim Chan looked with distaste at the masklike face. "My thought, as I drove to Peking from the laboratory, was to confront you with your treachery, Herr Bormann, and loll you." She let her cigarette drop, and ground it out with the sole of her shoe. Her right hand slipped into the pocket of her leather jacket.
"Treachery?"
Was the man mocking her? "Yes, treachery," she hissed. "You have no intention of turning Agent Z over to my people."
"Where did you learn this nonsense?"
"From Kerner himself. He gave himself away." Then she smirked. "It was just before I killed him."
Bormann s back grew rigid as plaster. "Walther Kerner is dead? Then Agent Z has died with him."
"What are you talking about?" she snapped.
"The laboratory has burned to the ground," he informed the Chinese girl. "It is no more. No laboratory, no papers, no Agent Z."
"The formulas we used are in my head," she said.
Bormann stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. "Just who are you, Sim Chan?"
"Are you that stupid?" she spat. "I am an Intelligence agent as well as a scientist. I became Kerner's mistress only to keep an eye on him."
Bormann seemed to relax on the swivel chair. "Then we have need for each other, Sim Chan. You are wrong about me. Perhaps Kerner had his own ideas about Agent Z. I don't know. I never tried to crawl into his mind to find out what he was thinking. I, too, believed he was loyal to our cause. If he betrayed you, he also betrayed me."
"You are too clever, Herr Bormann." Sim Chan studied the man with thoughtful eyes. "You may be telling the truth, but I doubt it. Time will tell."
"We must trust each other if we are to accomplish our main objective," he told her patronizingly. "You are an intelligent woman. If we fight each other we accomplish nothing except, perhaps, our own destruction." He took a cigarette from an ivory box on his desk and lit it with a heavy silver lighter. "Who was this white man who was captured last night?"
"An American. He didn't give his name. We used Agent Z on him for experimental purposes, and he died. There is still something wrong with the formula. Before Kerner injected the American with Agent Z he gave out with a pretty speech about how he and his German friends were going to take over Germany. When the American's body was taken away, I confronted Kerner. The fool tried to kill me, thinking all women are weak. It was he who ended up dead."
"You know nothing of the fire?"
"No, nothing. I ordered my car and drove here to… talk to you."
"That fire couldn't have been an accident," Bormann decided. "It had to be the American."
"He was dead," Sim Chan insisted.
"Was he?" Bormann spewed out blue-gray smoke. "Describe the American."
Sim Chan described the man she and Kerner had used the drug on, and Bormann was convinced it was Nick Carter.
"Whoever he was," Sim Chan argued, "he's now dead."
"It wasn't his ghost who burned the laboratory to the ground," Bormann said patiently.
Sim Chan stubbornly stuck to her guns. Hadn't she herself seen the American die? He couldn't have faked the death. Bormann had to be wrong. Well, if he was going to insist that dead men could live and start fires, she certainly wasn't going to argue with him. She had always questioned the man's sanity. She knew that there had been plastic surgery done on his face. She knew that his hands were not hands but stainless-steel claws. No man could go through all that and still keep his sanity. She knew about humoring the insane. Well, she would humor this man who was so sure of himself. He was supposed to be an ally of her people, but she doubted this very much. She was used to playing games in her chosen profession. She knew that Bormann couldn't touch her. With Kerner dead only she could start the experiments again to perfect Agent Z.
"You chase your Nick Carter," she said. "It is your problem, not mine."
Bormann nodded his head in agreement. "Yes. Let me worry about Carter. We'll find a new location for the lab, but it doesn't pay to start the experiments again till Carter is dead."
"And what do I do till then?" she asked with sarcasm. "Twiddle my thumbs?"
"You may remain here as my guest," he invited graciously.
Sim Chan agreed that would be a good idea. "That way we can keep an eye on each other."
Bormann met Captain Stryker in the courtyard. He told Stryker about the laboratory being burned to ashes and of the death of Walther Kerner. He saw the look of despair on Stryker's face and quickly added that Sim Chan would be able to perfect Agent Z.
"But when?" Stryker asked.
"Nothing can be done till Carter is dead. It had to be Carter who set fire to the laboratory. I want you to go to Tsin Then and find out what you can. He may have gotten help from the villagers, but I doubt it. See what you can find out Visit the compound, talk to the soldiers there. Somebody must have seen something."
"I'll go at once."
"What about the guards who were on duty the night Carter slipped through and killed two of our men? Have you found out anything?"
"Not yet. I have three of our men still working at it."
"Good. And phone me once you find out anything."
Stryker heeled about and took off.
Things were going badly, Bormann knew. He had been so close, so damn close, and then Carter had showed up. With Kerner gone, things would be difficult He knew Sim Chan didn't trust him. But she was his only hope. Once Agent Z was perfected he would kill her and then leave China as quickly as possible.
But Carter was his first concern. Where the devil was the man?
Chapter 14
Nick had been ready to go back to Peking when Lotus discovered he had been shot in the side. Nick explained that it was only a crease. She had made him wait in the car while she went to the village for bandages and medicine. Nick's protests had been in vain.
It was dawn when she had returned, and they had decided to stay there till nightfall. She bandaged him neatly, like a professional nurse.
He tucked his shirt inside his pants. The sun was overhead, hot and yellow. "Don't tell me nobody's suspicious."
"The village doctor supplied the medicine and bandages. I gave him all our cigarettes. He didn't ask questions."
"You trust him?"
"No," she said simply. "But there wasn't much choice. I didn't want you to get an infection."
"We can't stay here," Nick told her. "When the boys at the compound find those two bodies in the mess hall they'll start thinking and this whole countryside will be crawling with soldiers."
"You agreed that we can't travel by daylight. We have to stay here till it gets dark."
"Too dangerous. If they question the doctor, and he talks, we're in for it."
Lotus saw the sense to his reasoning, but they were well hidden here in the foliage. Unless Nick wanted to stay in the village.