“Ernesto! Come here with the nails. You, you lying swine, stretch out your hands.”
Hell! No time to stall. Pierre would have to do his bit at once. Nick moaned and surreptitiously slid his fingers around the little pellet. Hector reached down and made a savage grab for Nick’s fumbling hands. Nick tore them from Hector’s grasp, balled them into one iron-hard double fist that still enclosed Pierre, and struck viciously upward at the Cuban’s windpipe. Hector lurched backward with an oddly high-pitched yelp and Nick scrambled to his feet. Ernesto was coming at him with the hammer poised to strike.
Nick leapt sideways and ducked the flying blow. His fingers twisted at the gas pellet’s smooth surface and a tiny mechanism clicked. He took one deep breath as Felix slammed his way between the other two and kicked his feet out from under him, and as he fell he gave one more twist to the tiny capsule and threw it straight at Hector.
It bounced off the dull green-gray fatigues and clattered to the floor.
"Ho, what is that?” roared Hector. “Felix, pick it up. Ernesto, bring more cord. We’ll truss this fellow like the pig he is!” He threw himself at Nick and caught him in a bearhug that clamped his arms tight against his body and almost squeezed the breath from him. Nick held grimly onto the life source in his lungs. He knew he could last for up to four minutes without inhaling, but the bearhug made it difficult.
“There is no more cord,” said Ernesto. “I will have to go back to the supply room.”
“Go then, and hurry!” Hector snarled.
Nick’s heart sank. If Ernesto left now he, at least, would be safe, maybe even well enough to help the others.
“Pah, this is nothing but a little metal,” said Felix holding Pierre up and sniffing at him.
One down for sure, thought Nick.
“Hurry, I said!”
“I cannot find the key. You must have it in your pocket.”
“Bah! Everything is always left for me to do.” Hector released Nick momentarily and fumbled in his pocket. “Here—”
A look of vast surprise crossed Hector’s face. “It is — very close in here.” He rocked back on his haunches and stared at his two men. They stood swaying like trees that had been axed but had yet to fall. The silent tableau lasted for seconds that seemed like aeons to Nick. He rolled away from Hector and saw the man make a clumsy move toward him. The move was useless; Hector gasped suddenly and clawed his throat. Felix gave a strangled cry and sprawled on top of him.
Nick bounced to his feet and hopped awkwardly toward the table where Hugo and Wilhelmina lay. Two minutes left, he thought. Maybe a little more. His lungs already felt uncomfortably full. Ernesto stared at him, astonished, and reached slow-motion for his shoulder holster. Then his knees melted and he dropped.
Pierre had done his job.
Nick bounded clumsily to a stop, like the winner of a sack race, and grasped his stiletto by its slender haft. Awkwardly, he brought the blade between his wrists and worked it back and forth in a series of swift, sawing jerks. The long seconds passed. Then a thick strand parted and Nick wrenched mightily. His body begged for breath; but his hands, at least were free. He bent swiftly and slashed at the cords binding his feet.
Less than a minute to go — much less. He was slow after the physical abuse of the last two days and his staying power wasn’t up to par, and he began to doubt whether he could make it. The hell with this! he told himself. Just get the key and go!
The cords parted suddenly. He kicked them aside and dived for Hector’s body. The key — God, where was the Key? He was almost gasping when he found it, and he could not afford to gasp. The gas was thick and heavy in the air.
He grabbed the key and ran toward the door. His clothes! He glanced frantically around, saw them, grabbed them, saw his back pack, scooped it up, suddenly remembered Wilhelmina, ran back for her, and then realized through the red, bursting haze in his head that he was acting like a maniac. He fought for control and made himself put the key into the lock with all the care of a drunk who knows his wife is waiting up for him, and to his enormous relief it clicked back easily. He tore the door open, flung himself out, and slammed it shut behind him.
An explosive rush of sound burst from his lungs as he caromed against a wall and staggered back, rubber-legged and dazed. Red haze still swam before his eyes as he drew in huge gulps of air and peered shortsightedly around him. His vision cleared a little and he saw that he was in a dimly lit passage, so dimly lit that he could see a crack of light coming from beneath the door. A crack of light! He forced his frantic breathing to slow down, and he quickly knelt to stuff his shirt and trousers into the gap to entrap Pierre’s seeping fumes. Then he rose, trotted unsteadily to the end of the passage and the head of a stairway, and really breathed.
The Chinese Dragon was closed for the night, but it was not quite empty, nor was it quite unguarded. A pencil flashlight probed into its dark corners, and a jeep stood parked in the back alley outside; its driver armed and alert.
Nick prowled quietly through the shabby rooms above the restaurant and headed for the snuffling sound of a sleeping man. Of the three tiny rooms only one was occupied, and the first two held nothing of interest. If there was anything to be found it had to be in there with the sleeper. He flitted shadowlike toward the half-open door of the third room and paused outside.
It was now almost three hours since he had heard the muffled thumping noise in the house of The Terrible Ones and forced open a door to find Paula hopping mad and on the point of freeing herself. Together they had released the rest of the women, all of whom were simmering with anger and almost totally without fear, and then they had held a conference with Luz as its star performer. When she had told her story Nick took over and spelled out his plans for the disposal of Alonzo’s lifeless comrades.
Now he stood at an open doorway on the upper floor of Tsing-fu’s Chinese restaurant, listening. There was no change in the heavy breathing, and a sweet, smoky smell hung in the air. An opium sleep, thought Nick. Maybe the dreamer would dream on and live through this nighttime visit.
Nick stepped across the threshold, and three things happened almost simultaneously. An alarm bell rang, the room was suddenly flooded with brilliant light, and a half-dressed Chinese started up from a low camp-bed with a cry of surprise. Nick’s hand moved like lightning and came up with Wilhelmina.
“Get your hands above your head and show me where that thing turns off or I’ll blow your brains out,” he rapped in quick Chinese. “Move!”
The man swore and rose slowly. The alarm kept up a steady whine.
“Faster. And just show me — I’ll do it.”
The man plodded to a wall beside a file cabinet and bent down.
“No tricks,” Nick growled. “Just show me, I said.”
The fellow shuffled back and pointed to a switch on the wall.
“Step aside!”
He stepped aside and watched sideways as Nick approached, watched very carefully as Nick trained the silenced Luger on him and toed the wall. The switch clicked upward.
The alarm whined to a stop and the brilliant light cut out abruptly.
There was a sudden snarling movement in the inky darkness and Nick pivoted swiftly and fired point-blank at the movement twice in rapid succession. Once would have done it. The man dropped instantaneously with a thud that made the floor tremble.
Nick flicked the light on him and grimaced at the sight. Two close-up bites from Wilhelmina’s hungry mouth were enough to nearly blow a man apart.
He knew he ought to leave, but he also knew he must see what was in that cabinet. According to the beam of his flash light it was the only thing in the room worth guarding with an alarm.