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her. He parked the car, took one of the bayoneted rifles and got out. Dust was already rolling up along the other road.
    “They come,” said Varinka with a cat smile.

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    Lin Wang
     
    K URT thrust the rifle through a loophole and slid off the safety catch. Varinka was standing beside him with the other weapon.
    “I aim for the tires,” said Varinka. “You aim for the driver. And don’t let them get by!”
    Kurt, although he did not understand the move, was quite ready to fix up any number of Japanese. The car was traveling straight toward them. The road bent around the old tower like an ox yoke.
    Varinka fired and flipped out the smoking cartridge. Kurt aimed at the base of the windshield. His first and Varinka’s second sounded as one explosion.
    The machine yawed wildly. A pair of mustard-colored arms were flung out to one side. Dust and motion blurred the scene. The car seemed to trip over itself. It slid sideways toward a ditch, struck the embankment and went over, rolling, strewing men down the slope.
    Kurt ran out, arriving at the top of the bank before any of the spilled occupants could move. The men were five in number, all of them Japanese.
    But wait! A man-mountain was moving sluggishly to his feet. He turned and looked up and then bellowed a curse. Captain Yang Ch’ieu sent wild fingers into his tunic for his automatic.
    Dropping to one knee, Kurt leveled the rifle and sighted with the battle sight. He fired at Yang’s chest. Yang roared and, waving his gun, began to run up the slope.
    Kurt fired a second time and worked the bolt. Yang still came on, his flat face twisted with hate.
    A third time Kurt sent a slug into the charging body, but he might as well have fired at the stones. Yang would not be stopped. With a sudden sense of panic, Kurt sent bullets four and five into the towering hulk.
    Yang was a yard away from him. Yang was setting himself to fire and Kurt’s magazine was empty.
    Swinging the rifle about his head like a club, Kurt leaped up. The automatic flamed in his face, searing him with burning grains of powder.
    Kurt dodged. He was off balance and falling. Yang, with a loud cry, depressed the muzzle of the automatic for the coup de grâce . Kurt cried out and rolled away, but there was no escaping that muzzle.
    Suddenly Yang folded into himself. His tremendous body plunged rigid into the dust, sending up a swirling cloud. His fingers clawed at the ground. A look of surprise came over his face.
    Wheeling, Kurt saw that Varinka was holding the three live Japanese motionless with the threat of her rifle. Her face was very strained. She had not dared deflect her attention from those armed men even for an instant.
    Kurt looked back at Yang. The man was riddled. Every bullet had plowed through the man mountain, three hitting vital spots. But the great vitality of the Chinese captain had scorned the mailed fist of death until the last. An ordinary man would have dropped under the first bullet.
    “Tie them,” said Varinka.
    Kurt found cord and belts and laid the three Japanese in a neat row beside their smoking car. When he was finished, he saw that Varinka had fished a black satchel from the wreckage and was now holding it triumphantly.
    “Come along,” said Varinka, “I think, perhaps, that we have done a good job here.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said, “Wait. I think you had better take that officer’s boots and cloak and cap.”
    Kurt did so without question. He pulled off his own shoes, tucked his pants into the boots, donned the cloak and the red-banded cap. “Now what?”
    “I have one thing which they do not know,” said Varinka. She pulled a telegraph blank from her tunic and showed it to him. “Lin Wang is waiting for us. The copy was brought to me by one of my men. Come, let us be going. It would be a crime to keep Lin Wang waiting.”
    Kurt began to have some vague idea of what this was all about. He slid in under the wheel and drove at