Assignment Afghan Dragon Read Online Free PDF Page B

relatively new and expensive, some of it from Abercrombie & Fitch, according to the labels. Either they had indulgent parents or their drug-smuggling operation was not as petty as it seemed.
    “It looks as if you’ve been making out pretty well,” he said finally.
    “We do okay,” Charley told him.
    “You said you were from Philly?”
    “Yes. Philadelphia.”
    “How long have you been out of the States?”
    “Only a couple of months. Mort, we’re coming up on it now.”
    “I know,” the fat man said.
    “It’s to the right, from this direction.”
    “I know,” Mort said impatiently.
    Durell said, “How were the Flyers making out when you last heard?”
    “They’ll never win the pennant,” Anderson said. “Just shut up, Durell. If you aren’t a cop, you’re the next thing to it. Snooping around, estimating what we make, looking at our equipment—” Anderson’s gun pushed again at Durell’s rib. “We had a job for a while. All three of us. Annie here majored in archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania. Mort was. interested in geology until his folks bugged him so much he got rid of them.”
    Durell turned his head to the driver. “How did you do that?”
    Mort Jones giggled. “I killed ’em.”
    Anderson said, “Cut the shit, Mortimer.”
    “Well, I did, in a way.”
    Anderson spoke to Durell. “We had a little job with the Berghetti expedition. Hunting old stuff here, and across the border in Afghanistan. I was straw boss for the gooks. You ever hear of Professor Berghetti? An Italian from the University of Milano. Pretty famous, I gather. Interested in Asian cultures, including China. You’re in with that stuff, too. We checked out your hotel room. Two -books in Chinese, Tao Te Ching, and all that stuff in ancient Chinese graphics. Surprised?”
    “No,” said Durell.
    “We were just curious about a guy who murders, that’s all.”
    “I haven’t killed anyone lately,” Durell said.
    Mortimer Jones snickered.
    Anderson went on, his voice pedantic, “The old caravan routes used to come out of China and across the Gobi and the mountains and then forked out, some going west, some south to Afghanistan and Iran, which was Persia in those days, and a pretty nifty empire, too. I had long talks with the professor about it. He was looking for the remains of a treasure caravan that belonged to Prince Chan Wei-li, the son of the illegitimate Emperor Shu. The Prince only ruled for eighteen months and tried to establish himself permanently with alliances to the kings of Khwarizm, who offered a few thousand mercenaries to the Emperor to fight the Mongols. Caravans took a long time to travel here, of course. By the time it got here, both the Khwarizm dynasty and the Emperor had been deposed by the Mongols and things were in a mess. The caravan vanished. Had some priceless treasures—jewels, art work, gold, so forth. Sounds like a talltale, doesn’t it?”
     “These things happened,” Durell said.
    “Anyway, the professor got some clues from some old Chinese scripts, detailing Prince Chan’s treasure, and more hints from some old Moslem scripts he studied in Meshed, and he was digging for the stuff. Annie, Mort and I helped him.”
    “Did you find anything?”
    “We’ll show you. Turn here, Mort.”
    Durell knew he was in deadly danger.

    Mort Jones turned suddenly toward an almost invisible goat track that led down through the barrens under the light of the moon. The fat man drove violently, and the turn shoved Durell hard against Charley. Anderson’s gun dug cruelly into his side again and the man smiled.
    “You know all about Berghetti, don’t you, Durell? Your friend—the one we found dead—did he know about the dragon, too?”
    Durell said flatly, “What dragon?”
    “Come, come, Mr. Durell. None of us are as innocent as we appear, are we?”
    The van jolted violently as Mortimer casually took it over sharp rocks and around a hairpin descent. The land here, which fell away to