“But—” I started to protest.
“Throw them out, Mr. Victor." She flourished the Luger at me.
I threw my clothes out the window.
“Now your luggage, please."
I threw my luggage out the window.
“And your briefcase. The one with your gun in it."
“My passport and money are in it, too.”
"Hand it here, please." She removed my passport and wallet, tossed them to me and threw the briefcase out the window. "Now if you'll be so good as to close the window, please, Mr. Victor."
I closed the window.
"All right, Mr. Victor. You can relax now. You are my prisoner until we reach Kabul."
“And just who are you?" I asked.
“Victoria Winters. I told you."
“And why, Miss Winters, are you holding me prisoner?"
"Because I am an agent of British Intelligence, Mr. Victor. And you, I feel reasonably sure, are an American who has defected to the Russians."
“Miss Winters," I said with a philosophic sigh, “has it ever occurred to you that if the other nations of the world ever ceased their espionage activities, the Arab countries might lose their entire tourist trade?"
“I suppose there is a lot of espionage activity in this part of the world.”
“That, Miss Winters, is putting it mildly. The parasitic way in which we agents prey on each other is in danger of- making the once-honorable profession of spying a downright incestuous business."
“Then you admit that you're an agent."
“I admit nothing,” I said morosely. “Except that which I can't conceal. And at the moment, the most unconcealable thing about me is the lust I feel for you in that enticing nightgown. Would you either cover yourself up, Miss Winters, or give me a handkerchief to cover myself?"
“I think you need a blanket," she giggled. “Sorry, Mr. Victor." She slipped under the covers, one hand on top to point the Luger at me.
“It could have been so nice," I sighed.
“Let it be a lesson to you, Mr. Victor. Never let your lust blind you to the need for precautions.”
“I’m just a prisoner of love," I hummed aloud. "Tell me, Miss Winters, are you really from Albion?"
"Yes."
"And have you really never seen a man nude before?”
“You won’t believe it, but I really never have.”
"I believe it. I believe it." I lapsed into silence. It was a hell of a predicament. Here I was the prisoner of a beautiful British agent. Here I was stuck on a train, stark naked, with one of the sexiest women I'd ever met. And probably the most virtuous, I sighed. Her and her proper Albion upbringing!
Albion be damned!
006
I OPENED MY eyes to a derrière of sculptured perfection. I blinked as the twin, firm roundness rippled ever so slightly. It took me a moment to orient myself to the fact that the satiny pink-and-white posterior thrusting towards me belonged to Vickie Winters, girl gunsel and virgin seductress extraordinary of British Intelligence. The afternoon sun was high in the sky. Vickie was bent low toward the floor. I was somewhere between the two, horizontal on my berth. Except for a certain perpendicular remnant of sleep. It must have been quite a dream. Probably about Vickie.
Now she straightened up and I saw the reason behind her posture. She was evidently in the process of getting dressed. She had been putting on her bra, and bending over to deposit her succulent melons in its cups. She had lost a few hairpins in the process and I had awakened to the sight of her picking them up. Thus the naked haunches on which I'd focused my eyes.
She pulled a pair of panties over them now, and I removed my eyes to the window. Sand and sun. We must have crossed the Zagros Mountains while I'd been sleeping and now we were somewhere in the desert wastelands of Iran. There wasn't so much as a palm tree to break the monotony of the dunes.
Vickie finished dressing. “l’m going to the dining car for a bite," she said. “Can I bring you anything?"
“A cup of coffee and a pair of pants.”
“Yes to the beverage; no to the trousers.”
“You mean you're going to leave me all alone here?" I asked as she opened the door to the compartment. “Aren't you afraid I'll escape?"
"Where to? If you feel like wandering around the train stark naked, go ahead. Some people just have to work out their exhibitionist tendencies."
"I could jump out the window."
“Go ahead. The nearest oasis is 300 miles. Without any clothes, you ought to get quite a suntan by the time you reach it. Except that you never would reach it; you'd be sure to die of thirst first.”
She was right and I knew it. I stayed in the compartment until she carne back with some coffee and a sandwich for me. I wolfed it down and by that time it was turning dark. We swapped innuendos through the evening and around midnight she went to sleep. There was nothing better to do, so I followed her example.
The last thing I saw before I dozed off was the glint of the Luger clutched in the hand lying on top of one of her breasts. When I woke up, I couldn't even see that. It was pitch-black in the compartment. I pulled up the window-shade, but that was no help. It was just as dark outside as inside, no moon, no stars in the sky. There mighty just as well have been a black curtain drawn down over the window.
I lit a match and picked up Vickie's wristwatch from on top of her suitcase where she'd left it. It said six-thirty. Yet it was still night outside. I did a little quick figuring. We must be well into Afghanistan by now. Somewhere in the Koh-i-Baba Mountain Range, paralleling the Helmana River and soon to cross it, only a few hours out of Kabul itself.
The hiss of the radiator in the compartment and the sharp chill in the air which it couldn't quite overcome seemed to confirm my guess. If I was right, we were almost 17,000 feet above sea level. It’s a topographical oddity that desert heat turns so quickly to mountain cold in this part of the world and the regions around Kabul are frequently snowbound with temperatures hovering around twelve to fifteen degrees Fahrenheit7 .
Interesting, but my geographical meanderings weren't solving my predicament. I turned my mind to the problem at hand. If Vickie was really asleep, I might make a grab for the Luger. The thing was that awake or asleep, her reaction was bound to be to pull the trigger. She was a trained agent, after all. The slightest touch on the hand holding the Luger and she'd fire it by reflex.
And what then? Supposing I did succeed in overwhelming her? I'd still be stuck on this train without any clothes. And she'd probably get an army of help in Kabul while I was still trying to steal a pair of BVDs. Even if I tied her up, I'd still have the problem of getting off the train naked. And I suspected that there must be one or more other agents scheduled to meet her when the train arrived. I'd have one hell of a time shaking them with my bodkin still bare.
I didn’t have much time to think, so when a hazy plan occurred to me, I decided to act on it and worry about how harebrained it was later. A wire coat-hanger Vickie had left on top of her suitcase started me off. I straightened it out and delicately manipulated it so that the end was between the trigger and stock of the Luger, without touching either the gun or Vickie’s hand. Then I reached for the gun itself. As I'd expected, as soon as my fingers grazed hers, she tightened on the trigger. But the hanger was just thick enough to impede the firing mechanism. I wrenched the gun away from her before she could try it again.
She shot up in bed wide awake, those green eyes flashing at me, too intent to care that her nightie had fallen away from one of her breasts. It rose and fell quickly, the scarlet nipple quivering as though with indignation as she spoke. “Very clever, Mr. Victor! Quick and unexpected! The mark of a man of action. But it won't do you any good. You may have the gun, but you still don't have any clothes."