Free Double Identity by Nick Carter Page A

him—the next moment he was alone, awakening in a daze and staring around. He felt cold and his nerves were jumping. There was the cup of yak’s milk by the bed and he was reaching for it when the brass monkey began to swing open.
    Nick raised the cup to his lips and was about to drink. He smiled at the dark oblong in the wall. “Dyla Lotti! I thought you would never come back. I—”
    Hafed came rapidly into the room. Before Nick could stop him he seized the cup and poured the yak’s milk on the floor. “Best not drink more, sar. You plenty doped now, I think. Much bad. Come—we go out of this place fast. Much danger here!”
    Nick sat on the bed, naked, scratching at the stubble on his face and grinning at the guide. Hafed was a good joe, a swell guy, but he was getting a little above himself. He shouldn’t have poured that milk out. Now he would have to ask the old crone to bring him some—
    Hafed handed him a small vial containing a greasy yellow liquid. “Drink, please. Is what you call antidote, I think. Kill drug. Drink fast, please. We not have much time, sar. Get out this place hubba— I think Chinese soldiers come. They be here now but for storm.”
    Nick Carter staggered erect. To please good old Hafed he drank the contents of the vial and began to retch—the stuff smelled like urine and probably tasted like it, too.
    “Ughhhh!” He wiped his mouth on his hand. “What in hell is that?”
    Hafed smiled briefly, “Yak piss, sar. And other things. You can walk now, yis? You come with me hubba? I show you important things.”
    “Walk? Of course I can walk. What do you think I—” Nick took a few steps and tottered, nearly falling. Damn! He was as weak as a kitten.
    Dismay registered for a moment on Hafed’s swart features. “I afraid of this,” he told Nick. “Sanga root do it—much bad if you have too much. And you already sick anyway—never should take sanga . ”
    N3 collapsed on the bed with an idiotic grin. “That’s just what my sainted old mother used to tell me, Hafed. ‘Never take sanga ,’ she said. A thousand times she said it— ‘Stay away from that sanga root, boy!’ ”
    Hafed scowled. “Not funny, sar! Chinese soldiers get here I get my head chopped off number one fast. Maybe not you, but me. You try hard to walk, yis?”
    Nick tumbled on the bed laughing. Suddenly everything was uproariously funny. “To hell with walking, Hafed! I’m never going to walk again! I’m never going to do anything again but stay in this bed and fornicate! That’s it, old buddy! I’m gonna stay right here and fornicate my stupid life away! Care to join me, old buddy?”
    Hafed unleashed a string of curses that ranged from Chinese to English through Tibetan and Hindustani. “Goddamn son bitch,” he said at last. “I maybe should run away and leave you, sar, but I not do. You good man.”
    Nick Carter put his head in his hands and began to weep softly. “You good man too, Hafed,” he sobbed. “A real buddy. I love you!”
    Hafed stepped close to the big AXE agent and slapped him hard across the face. “I sorry, sar. But must do! Not much time!”
    N3, who could have broken the little man in pieces with one hand, kept on crying. Hafed was not a friend after all— Hafed had come to invade his perfumed garden! Hafed was destroying his Paradise! Vaguely, as the antidote began to take hold, Nick saw Hafed as an emissary from the cruel world of reality. Come to remind him, Nick, of such wearisome matters as job, mission, duty! He hated Hafed! He would kill the interfering little b——
    The antidote struck his guts a hammer blow! He rolled off the bed and began to spew. Oh God—lie was sick! For ten minutes he lay in his own vomit, unable to lift his head, retching and spewing and devoutly wishing for death.
    Finally he was able to climb to his feet and don the coarse robe. He discovered, without surprise, that his weapons were missing. All of them gone—Wilhelmina, Hugo, Pierre!
    Nick