Peking & The Tulip Affair Read Online Free PDF Page A

he's hard to kill. I've tried."
    "I must try," she insisted. "I must get the chance. I loved my father, and now he is dead."
    "Don't fall to pieces on me, Lotus. That won't help matters."
    "I'm sorry."
    "If you're a good girl," he said. "I'll let you go to the window and listen to the young couple downstairs."
    She laughed.

Chapter 5
    Back in his hotel room, Nick thought about what Lotus had told him. The man with the frozen face. The man who was the leader. The man whose followers feared him.
    It had to be Bormann.
    But what was the thing with the frozen face? Was Bormann wearing a mask? No, that wasn't the answer. Anyone could spot a mask. There would be no guesswork. Lotus would have said if it was a mask. That meant just one thing. Plastic surgery. Bormann had had plastic surgery done.
    And who was Captain Stryker? That was a new name for Nick's memory bank. There was never a shortage of henchmen for Bormann.
    Nick strode to the window and looked down at the street teeming with people. It was early morning, and the streets were mobbed. The sun was climbing slowly, already a hot yellow ball. He had a whole day to kill Part of it would be spent sleeping.
    He stripped and lay back on the bed. He absentmindedly fingered a scar somewhere on his body and tried to remember where and when he had won that souvenir. His trained mind remembered and he chuckled. It would have been funny if he couldn't remember something like that. He thought of all the places he had been and all the places he
hadn't
been. The former far outweighed the latter.
    He realized he was thinking too much, and that wouldn't do. He turned on his side and went to sleep.
* * *
    Captain Gunther Stryker hated his uniform. It was too plain. He missed the little swastika and the wide leather belt and the shiny boots. The uniform he was forced to wear now was so damn plain and ordinary. But orders were orders.
    He laid his uniform out on his bed and took off his pajamas. He looked at his inside wrist and saw the liver spot where once there had been two small bolts of lightning. The mark of the SS. The sign of his fraternity had been scraped off and pig skin grafted on. Many of his comrades had gone through it because the Americans were particularly looking for SS men.
    Captain Stryker had been one of the first German soldiers of his generation to see action. Not in any of the bloody invasions but with the Blue Division in Spain. Hitler's personal contribution to Franco. He had killed and he had loved it. It became second nature to him.
    The defeat of Germany had been a bitter pill to swallow. But there had been promises of revenge, and he had bided his time with many of his comrades. He had spent many years in Switzerland and Portugal, keeping in touch, and finally the word came.
    He was fifty-three and still fit. His belly was lean and hard without any fat. He ate the proper foods and did the proper exercises. It was funny how the Leader insisted on doing the Canadian Air Force exercises. But that didn't bother Stryker. The only thing that bothered him now was inaction.
    He put on the plain uniform that he despised and went to see the Leader. He walked down the hall, stopped at the wooden door and knocked.
"Eintreten,"
he heard the familiar voice call out. He turned the knob and walked in. He almost saluted in the old Nazi style but caught himself. The Chinese hosts frowned on such displays. And the Leader was eager to please their hosts — till the proper time.
    The Leader was already dressed. "Have you had breakfast yet?"
    "No. I had just awakened when your message arrived."
    "We'll have breakfast together. But first we must talk. Do sit down. Captain Stryker."
    Captain Stryker sat down on a plain wooden chair and watched the bulky figure pace up and down. He saw the face that wasn't a face. He saw the black gloves and knew what was inside those gloves. It was remarkable how the Leader used those claws. He could even shoot with them. Yet there was something about