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CHAPTER ONE 

A bullet chipped the peeling paint off the brickwork to one side of my head as I ran and slid along a narrow alleyway off the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. I ran on, my bare feet never feeling the rough cobblestones. Better a couple of bruises on my soles than a bullet hole in my skin. 

I slithered on a patch of mud—it had been raining for a change along the Cote d'Azur—and I hopped and jumped between the puddles to my rented Dauphine Gordini. I dove into the car and slammed the door behind me while I was switching on the ignition. 

Fifteen seconds later—the Gordini will accelerate to sixty miles an hour in that time—I was rolling down the Rue de la Republique. My would-be killers were half a mile behind me and fading fast. 

I took time out to breathe. My name is Eve Drum, I am a secret agent for L.U.S.T.—the League of Underground Spies and Terrorists—and I was on vacation. In a manner of speaking, of course. I was at Nice on the Riviera, and I was supposed to be enjoying a few weeks of well-earned rest. It was carnival time, that period before Lent when, as with Mardi Gras at New Orleans, the good people of southern France let down their hair and their morals, and have themselves a ball. 

Being a secret agent, however, was something else again. 

I had been sun-tanning on the beach in a Saint-Tropez bikini, in which the wires of the bra part come below the breasts so the nipples can be seen. The bottom part permits a view of the buttocks too, if you are lying flat on your tummy. 

I was lying on my front, getting my back done to a chocolate brown, when I heard the voices. They were speaking Russian. Most visitors to the Riviera do not include Russian among their linguistic achievements; I do, as a L.U.S.T. lady. 

"—threw it into the temple! A true capitalistic trick! Now we have to go and get it.” 

"And this is your job?" 

“Da! Word came today. I was just beginning to have a good time here, too. But that is not the worst part. There is some sort of curse on the temple." 

“What kind of curse?"

"Anybody who goes into it gets killed.”

"You can figure out a way, Comrade Stamskovich." 

I lifted my head. Two women were strolling past, deep in conversation. One of them looked vaguely familiar as I lowered my face and hid it with my arm. Where had I seen him before? He was young, not much older than I. His face was even more youthful. 

I gasped as memory flooded back. 

Babyface! The Cherub whose naked body I had whipped, much to his enjoyment, when he had been working as a waiter during the orgy which Serge Akinov and I had attended in Moscow. It had been my mission in Russia at that time to get Serge Akinov to defect, so he would give us the location of a lost Nazi treasure off the coast of Tunis. 

Actually, Serge had been playing a double game but enough of past history. Right now, I wanted to follow the Cherub and his friend to learn more about this cursed temple and what was in it that was so important the Russian KGB would send the Cherub after it. I got up and ran after them, pretending to be having trouble with my beach blanket so I could use it to hide my face. 

The Cherub or Comrade Stamskovich—looked like a youth from the back. Despite his crudely tailored Russian clothes, he seemed very graceful and walked along the gravelly beach like an athlete. His partner was more stocky, an older man, with a slightly bald head. Neither man was wearing a hat as a concession to the hot Riviera sun. 

I came as close as I dared. 

"—invasion plans for Thailand. We don't want them falling into capitalistic hands! It's bad enough they're there for the taking. So I've got to go and get them back.” 

"If the Red Chinese are behind this, why do we have to get their chestnuts out of the fire? I should think they'd send one of their own.” 

"The Laotians are very touchy, especially the Pathet Lao. They don't want to admit they're traitors. It will sound better if a Russian helps them free their people from the clutches of their ruler. While it is true that Red China will " 

The voice broke off just as I stepped on my blanket and went sprawling. My breasts came leaping up over the wired brassiere, bobbing gracefully as I took a header in the sand. The Cherub had spun around to see if anyone were near enough to overhear his words. His eyes got very big, his mouth fell open. 

There I lay, flat on my back, five feet away. 

My face was just as exposed as my size 38s. Babyface looked at my breasts first. Who can blame him? And then he looked at my face. 

"Bozhe moi! It's her!” 

Recognition was easy to read in his youthful face. And under the recognition was a sudden hardness that made me know that he would not have hesitated to whip out a gun and start shooting, if the beach had been only slightly less crowded. 

I scrambled to my feet, turned tail—and ran. 

At any moment I expected to feel a lead pellet ramming into my back. My feet raced back and forth on the gravelly beach, then on hot pavement, then on cobble stones. I could hear feet pounding after me as the Russian agents galloped along in my wake. 

I had parked my car not far away and I headed for it, saying my prayers mentally—I needed all my breath for running, so I didn't dare use my voice—at every step. I must have prayed enough because outside of that one shot they sent at me, which chipped the paint off the bricks, they didn't shoot any more... 

As I barreled along in my Dauphine Gordini, I thought about my vacation, now going up in gun-smoke. I could have wept with sheer feminine anger. The Cherub had spoiled it all. Now I didn't dare go out to have myself a fling. I would be looking for the baby faced KGB man or his pal every time I turned a corner. And how can anybody have fun with something like that on her back? 

I was staying at the Splendid, the first new hotel built in Nice since 1913. It is modern, with baths and balconies. I hungered to get inside my room, drop on the bed and get my nerves back. 

My foot braked the Dauphine along the Promenade des Anglais curbstone. I wagged fingers at a parking lot attendant and beat it for the hotel lobby, wrapping my beach blanket around me. I did not stop to ask if they allowed people in Riviera bikinis into the lobby, I just made tracks for the elevator. 

The elevator girl smiled at me. I smiled back, weakly. "Wolves?" she asked, eyebrows arching. "Yeah, honey—wolves!” 

I could have added they were wolves with guns, but I hesitated to tell her any more. Maybe she was taking KGB money to blab her brains out.

"Some of them play rough,” she admitted. I ran for 307. I fitted my key in the lock. 

The door opened before I could turn the key. My jaw dropped instinctively; I started to whirl and run some more. Damn those Opposition agents! I thought. They must be able to teleport themselves around. 

"Eve, honey—bonjour!” 

I stopped dead in my tracks. I turned my head. It was big David Anderjanian, my case officer, looming there in the doorway, looking as much like home as apple pie and cheese. 

"David!” I bawled, and fell into his arms. 

One thing I will say about David Anderjanian. He can be tough, he can be sarcastic, he can toss my girl girl bod around any way he likes—but he does have a certain understanding when a female needs consolation. 

His big arms went around me, he swung me off my feet and in through the doorway. My case officer is six feet of rock-hard muscle and bone. He looks like a Viking in modern-day garb, he is blonde and has a sun-tan that makes me envy his whole two hundred and ten pounds. 

"Eve, sweetie—what is it? You're shaking like an aspen in a Colorado gale! What happened?" 

I saw the other man, then, standing near my bed, with a drink of my scotch in his hand. I goggled at him, because he was everything David Anderjanian was not. He was short, maybe five feet four, fat and small, with dark skin and black hair parted in the middle. His huge white teeth were on view as he beamed at me through gold-framed glasses. 

"Oh—er—hello," I muttered. 

"Eve, let me present Lap Hai, a high government official from Thailand." 

"Oh, no," I sighed, sinking down on the edge of the mattress. I lifted both my hands, palms out. “Stop! 

Don't tell me any more. I can feel it in my feminine bones. My vacation is over. I'm going to Thailand to try and recover some important documents reposing in a cursed temple." 

Lap Hai laughed. David merely scowled. 

Lap Hai said, “Partly right, partly wrong, Miss Drum." 

David growled, "What documents? What temple?” 

I told them about the two Russian secret agents who had chased me off the Baie des Ange beach, and about the shot that one of them had snapped at me. 

"Somebody threw something into a temple with a curse on it—" 

“The Temple of the Thousand Deaths,” breathed Lap Hai, "in Laos!” 

"So that's what happened to Johnny Meadows," snarled David. 

I looked from one to the other, vaguely conscious that my beach blanket had slipped and that I was sitting there damn near naked. I guess I was too interested in their faces to bother about my modesty, however. 

David was a study in alarm, Lap Hai in quick terror. "This will change our plans," Lap Hai was saying. 

"No, no, no—I don't think so. Just give me a few minutes to sort all this out,” David muttered, beginning to walk up and down the hotel room. 

"You see, Eve," he said to me. "Lap Hai came to the General in L.U.S.T. headquarters and asked for help to prevent the killing of his Prince. There's some sort of plot afoot to assassinate him—probably at the same time that the Pathet Lao will rise up in strength—" 

"—and Red China will invade her borders!” I exclaimed, in a burst of sudden understanding. 

David nodded. “Something like that, yes. John Meadows was a good man. He stumbled on something big. He was on his way to the Laos border with his information when he disappeared. We haven't been able to find out what happened to him. 

“From what you say you overheard, he learned about the Red Chinese invasion plans. We've suspected that, but we had no proof. If we could lay our hands on those plans—we could take them to the United Nations, and hold Red China up for what it is, a power-grabbing nation in the hands of a madman. The invasion would be called off by united world opinion before it got started." 

Lap Hai smiled, "At the same time, you could save our Prince from the assassin's bullet, Miss Drum. I am positive the invasion waits on that event before it will begin." 

"Ohhh, no," I wailed. "I'm on vacation." 

"All leaves have been canceled in this emergency," David grinned. He has such a nice smile, you wouldn't think he'd use it when he's breaking a girl's heart. 

“There goes three weeks in the Riviera sunshine," I went on wailing. "I only got here day before yesterday." 

"I came as soon as I could,” David nodded. “Lap Hai walked with me out of the General's office and into a limousine that took us directly to the airport." 

"Very fast work," the Thailander smiled, nodding. 

I knew in my heart that my vacation was ruined, anyhow. The Cherub had seen to that, shooting at me. He and his pal would be scouring Nice for the hotel where I was staying. When they found me, they would find a way to kill me as an enemy agent. 

"When can I leave?" I asked. 

It was such an about-face that David Anderjanian got his what-are-you-trying-to-pull look. I blew him a kiss. This made him all the more suspicious. 

Then I dropped the bombshell. "A month off, David, darling—when the job is done. Those are my terms." 

"Fair enough, Eve," he nodded. The General must have been pretty emphatic about how much he wanted me on this job, I reflected. Otherwise, David would have hemmed and hawed about loyalty to Uncle Sam and L.U.S.T. and waved some other assorted flags, before giving in. 

I got to my feet and stretched. My breasts popped out of the bra top and quivered sensuously. Lap Hai and David gawked at them, their mouths open. I felt so good—after all, I'd wrangled another vacation from my case officer, with another week tossed in as a bonus—I let them look a few seconds before I folded my arms over my bobbing beauties. 

"What's my cover?” I asked David. “You'll be a pleasure girl—and hastini," he grinned. 

So what else is new? Every time I get a call from L.U.S.T.—where I am known affectionately as Double Oh Sex—it seems I am always playing the part of an hastini, of one sort or another. So long as I get my job done, who cares? I would rather be a live hastini than a dead virgin. 

Lap Hai offered, “Pleasure girl in Thailand much like geisha in Japan. Very much honored, very much sought after, very rich if she very good at it." 

His black eyes gleamed at my size 38s, telling me I would be very good at it, he would bet, but that he would like to try me out just to be sure. Lap Hai might be a little man, but he had a fire burning inside him. 

"Sorry, boys—no free samples. Besides, I have to pack. Now, shoo!" I made gestures with my hands. Sighing, Lap Hai went out the door into the hall. David lingered, patting my behind where the bikini bottom failed to cover me, making my soft flesh jiggle. 

"Well have to make plans, Eve darling," he whispered. 

"Get me a flight out of here on some jet going east," I hissed. “And tell me what I'm supposed to do once I get to Bangkok. I am going to Bangkok?”

“Right. That's where General Thak Parphon has his hideaway. Lap Hai suspects that Thak Parphon is the brains behind the threat to his Prince. Thak will flip over you, Eve. You'll be able to twist him around your little finger." 

“Yeah, hey. I'll bet he's just dying to tell me all about his plans." 

"You're smart, you can figure out a way to make him talk. Like you'd better, honey—the whole damn world may be depending on it.” 

"Beat it, buster. Come back when I'm dressed." I shut the door in his disappointed face. I locked it. I was in no mood for erotic exercises. 

In two hours I was packed, ready to take off for Thailand as soon as David made the necessary arrangements. If I knew my case officer, my flight would be scheduled for tomorrow about noon. This would give him the whole night to make love to me and the whole morning to rest up. The way he figures things, I could rest up on the plane. 

Room service brought me potage puree de pois casses, hot boeuf a la mode, a Romaine salad—and to top it all off, a creme caramel. I drank a fine claret wine with it. The thought touched my mind as I wolfed down the feast that I was eating the last meal of the condemned. 

David dropped by just as I was pouring coffee from the pot into a cup and lighting up a Virginia Slim. He had made all the arrangements, the darling. I was to fly BOAC to New York, San Francisco, Honolulu, Tokyo, to Hong Kong and then on to Bangkok. 

All in all, it was about a three-day trip. I said, “I'll be bored sick.” 

David brightened. "How about making your last few hours a—" 

“Forget it, David," I mumbled. 

I am honestly fond of David Anderjanian, having at times even entertained the rather bizarre notion of marrying him. I got to my feet, put my arms around his neck and gave him a nice, big, juicy kiss. For at least a couple of minutes. 

“There," I dimpled. "That's to remember me by.”

"Hey, we aren't going to stop there?” he protested.

"Sorry, honey-bun—we are. Mama needs her sleep."

"Mama is a tease.” 

On that note, I blew him a kiss and shoved him out the door. I felt a bit guilty; it had been quite a kiss. Promissory, if you know what I mean. But really, I was bushed. 

I slept like an angel. Maybe a naughty angel, but still, an angel. 

One thing about David, he holds no grudges. Next morning he was at my door with two bellhops, giving me a big smile and a kiss on the cheek so as not to spoil my make up. He had everything under control, he said with a big grin. 

I scowled, thinking about French girls and the Riviera and how my big Viking case officer would not have to look very hard to find the relaxation he needed after last night's great, big, juicy kiss. 

I wanted to kick his shins, but I smiled and took his arm. I was still feeling a bit guilty, I guess. 

Side by side, David and I walked through the lobby. Nobody was going to take any more pot shots at me with him striding along like a colossus beside little old me. Into the limousine, off to the airport. 

They gave me seat 5 in the big VC-10. Then it was off to Bangkok—and every girl for herself. 

Three boring days and nights later, the VC-10 lowered out of the clouds toward the ancient city that straddles the Chao Phraya river, to drop down onto one of the landing strips of Don Muang Airport. From the air, I had a glimpse of a big metropolis. Bangkok had grown in the past few years, a lot of its klongs or canals have been filled in to make roads that team with more than a million and a half people. There were tour barges and vegetable boats on its river and its remaining canals, great Buddhist temples rearing their spires to the sky, and modern hotels and office buildings. Kipling said that East and West shall never meet, but they do a pretty good job of it in Bangkok. 

As far as I was concerned, East met West when a slim young man in a chauffeur uniform bowed to me and asked if I was there as the personal guest of Lap Hai, the great diplomat. I admitted I was, and that I was visiting Bangkok at his express invitation. 

The young man nodded, asking me to follow him. "My bags,” I said protestingly, "my luggage.”

“They will be taken care of," he assured me. 

I was invited to step inside a black Mercedes. I was whisked away from Don Muang Airport and along Pet chaburi Road, then out of the city proper past a couple of roadside shrines until we came to a small park. He turned into the park with its carefully tended banyan and palm trees, and drove along a graveled road for about half a mile. 

Ahead, partially hidden by some shrubbery, was what appeared to be a Buddhist temple. I could see a couple of those spires they call chedis, and a number of large, grotesque statues, painted and gilded, that act as guardian spirits, in the courtyard before it. The Mercedes whisked me to a stone stairway between two marble railings. 

The chauffeur got out and opened the door. 

I put a nyloned leg through the doorway and stepped into the eighteenth century. I guess I just stood there staring, because the chauffeur chuckled. 

“Temple of the Curious Caresses," he chuckled. "Built for King Rama the First, the man who chose site of Bangkok and made it his capital. He called it Krung Theg, the city of the gods." 

"It's magnificent," I breathed. 

The chauffeur chuckled. "King Rama was a good Buddhist, but he believed in the satisfaction of the senses. He made this his private chapel. Only good friends—mostly women—were allowed to come here and worship Buddha with him. Rama was the Buddha, they say, in this temple.” 

"Yeah," I nodded. I didn't need a blueprint. I was being delivered to a whorehouse.