The Judas Spy by Nick Carter

Author:Nick Carter [Carter, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: det_espionage
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Three hundred miles north-northwest a strange ship sliced smoothly through the long purple swells of the Java Sea. She had two tall masts, with the big mizzenmast set forward of the rudderpost, and both rigged with topsails. Even an old salt would have to take a second look before saying, "Looks schooner-rigged, but that's a Portagee ketch — see?"

You should forgive the old deepwater man for being half-wrong. The Oporto could pass as a Portagee ketch, a handy trader easily maneuverable in tight quarters; given an hour she could be changed into a high-pooped prau, the Bataka out of Surabaja; and in another thirty minutes you would blink if you raised your binoculars again and saw a high bow and overhanging stem and odd quadrangular sails. Hail her and you would be told she was the junk Butterfly Wind out of Keelung in Taiwan.

You might be told any of these things, depending on how she was disguised — or you might be blown out of the water by a thunder of unexpected firepower from her 40-millimeter gun and two 20mms. Mounted midships, they had 140-degree fields of fire to either side; on her bow and stern recoilless rifles, the new Russian models with handy homemade mounts, filled in the gaps.

In any of her suits of sails she handled well — or she could do eleven knots with her unsuspected Swedish diesels. She was an astonishingly fine Q-ship, built in Port Arthur with Chinese funds for the man called Judas. Her construction had been supervised by Heinrich Muller and naval architect Berthold Geitsch, but it was Judas who conned the financing out of Peking.

A beautiful ship on a peaceful sea — with a devil's disciple as master.

Under a tan canvas awning on the poop deck lounged the man called Judas, enjoying the gentle cottony breeze with Heinrich Muller, Bert Geitsch, and a strange, bitter-faced young man from Mindanao called Nife. If you saw this group and knew something of their individual histories, you would flee, vomit, or grab a weapon and attack them, depending on circumstances and your own background.

Lounging in his deck chair, Judas looked healthy and tanned; he wore a leather and nickel hook device in place of a missing hand, scars laced his limbs, and a vicious wound had left one side of his face askew.

As he fed bits of banana to the pet chimpanzee attached to his chair by a chain, he looked like a genial veteran of half-forgotten wars, a scarred bulldog still good for the pit in a pinch. Those who knew more about him could correct this opinion. Judas was blessed with a brilliant brain and the psyche of a rabid weasel. His monumental ego was a selfishness so pure that to Judas there was only one person in the world — himself. His tenderness to the chimpanzee would last only as long as he felt self-satisfaction. When the animal ceased to please him he would toss it overboard or cut it in two — and explain his actions with warped logic.

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