Peking & The Tulip Affair

Peking & The Tulip Affair Read Free Page B

Book: Peking & The Tulip Affair Read Free
Author: Nick Carter
Tags: det_action
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away the newspaper and sighed. Well, Hawk had been right. He and the other passengers had been searched after landing at the airport. A grinning Chinese with buck teeth had explained that much gold and silver was being smuggled into China, so it was essential that all visitors be searched. He apologized profusely for the inconvenience.
    It was a good thing he had left his weapons behind. He would have been hard put to explain away a stiletto and a Luger.
    When it was getting dark he changed to a dark-blue suit and stuffed his pockets with yuan notes that had been given him in exchange for Canadian money. Five fen coins jangled in his pants pocket as he went down to the street. He spied a small restaurant across the street He dined on lamb and rice and drank two cups of hot green tea.
    It was dark when he left the restaurant. The moon was a mottled lead color. It hung low over the city.
    He lit a Canadian cigarette from his pack, caught a bus, and sat behind a middle-aged couple who discussed the bus strike in Canton.
    Nick got off and found himself in a practically deserted part of the city. He walked through winding streets till he came to a small curio shop. He hesitated, looked around, and saw a figure standing in a nearby doorway. It was a girl. She looked at him, then looked away.
    Probably a prostitute, he figured. But that didn't make sense. It was a deserted street; business would be bad. He didn't think any more of it and approached the door of the shop. There was a button in the jamb. He knew his contact lived in back of the shop. Nick was about to thumb the button when a sharp crack sounded — a gunshot. And it came from within the store.
    He tried the knob and the door opened. As he walked in, another shot was fired.

Chapter 4
    Nick hurried through the store toward the back, where he could see a yellowish light seeping through the gaping door. He flung the door open, and a man craned his neck to look at Nick. The man was squatting near the body of a middle-aged Chinese. The man, also a Chinese, was dressed in western-style clothes and held a gun in his right hand. He started to rise, at the same time shifting his gun hand to cover Nick.
    Nick dived at the rising figure, and they both toppled over, rolling against an old-fashioned rolltop desk. Nick brought his knee up sharply against the man's groin. There was a cry of pain and outrage. Nick gripped the man's right wrist and twisted it sharply. The gun dropped from paralyzed fingers.
    Nick grabbed the gun, rolled the man over, pressed the gun against the man's back, and squeezed off a shot. The bullet shattered the aorta, and Nick got to his feet.
    He started for the middle-aged Chinese and stopped, his back as rigid as plaster. A girl had materialized in the doorway — the girl who had been partly hidden in the shadowy doorway outside.
    She ignored the gun Nick trained on her and ran to the middle-aged Chinese. She knelt by the man's side and started to weep. If it was an act, it was a good one.
    Nick walked to the doorway and peered into the shop. There was no one else in the store. He leaned against the wall, watching the girl.
    She finally stood up and faced him. She was young and good-looking. She was wearing a peasant-type pajamalike costume. Nick decided she would have looked good in a
cheongsam,
the dress that was so tight there had to be slits at both sides to enable the wearer to walk. But the
cheongsam
was forbidden in Red China because it was an example of bourgeois bad taste.
    Nick nodded at the dead man who had been his contact. "You know him?" he asked the girl.
    "He… he was my father." Her chin trembled and he was afraid she was going to cry again. "I am a coward. I am so ashamed."
    "Why do you brand yourself a coward?"
    She twisted her head to stare at the man Nick had killed. "I was outside when I saw Lum Fen enter my father's store. I recognized him. He is a well-known assassin. I couldn't do anything. I was paralyzed with fear. Then you

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