Mission: Earth "Disaster" (34 page)

There was a sound of footsteps approaching and Babe looked up alertly. She slid her window down and a face appeared, half seen. "Mia capa?" It was Signore Saggezza, consigliere of the Corleone family.

"All set?" said Babe.

"Mia capa," said Saggezza, "can I not caution you against this thing and call it off before it is too late? Even 'Holy Joe' would have thought a thousand times before he attempted it."

"I know it is your duty, signore, to guide us safely through the storms of life," said Babe, "but can the chatter and answer my question. All set?"

"The good God watches over the completely mad with a special providence," said Signore Saggezza. "I just hope he isn't looking the other way tonight. Here's your report: The only power they've got is emergency on one elevator. It's a hot night and there's no air conditioning, so they've got windows open. See that glow up there on the thirty-fifth floor? They're using candles in the banquet room. The city officials are all there; the last one just went in five minutes ago. Our units are all in position. But I must warn you that you are not the only one who sees that this power blackout is an opportunity: Faustino has every soldat in his mob inside and watching every door. There's also an army tank unit parked in Tompkins Square about a mile and a half from here and they're likely to come running if there's any firing. The police station is only a quarter of a mile south of here."

"Fix their police cars," said Babe.

"All handled, mia capa, but police have feet. This whole thing is quite mad. I also ordered your jet to stand by at Newark in case you have to run for it. Are you still determined?"

"Signore, an opportunity like this comes once in a lifetime," said Babe. "The curtain is going to go up."

"Then here's your radio," said Saggezza, "and may the good God have mercy on our souls." He handed the FM walkie-talkie through and vanished in the dark.

Heller reached over and handed her a two-way-response radio. He showed her where the button was.

"I'm in business," said Babe. "Bring on your war!"

Heller said, "Zero your stopwatch. Now start it." He pushed his own.

He got out of the limousine, got his satchel straps on his shoulders and lifted the spacetrooper sled.

"Good luck," said Babe.

With a wave of his hand he trotted off into the darkness of the park.

Working rapidly and unseen, he assembled the sled. He lay down on it, making sure he did not squash the cat hi its satchel. He wrapped his fingers around the rod controls. Up into the night he soared.

Delicately manipulating the controls, he edged sideways to the building as he climbed. It was a fifty-five-story building and it was so dark he almost missed the top.

The gleam of chrome was to his hand. He made the sled hover. He reached into his bag and brought out a handful of round objects. Working with one hand, he looked at their numbers. He found one that said 1 in a glowing numeral. He pushed it against the chrome. He glanced at his watch. He gave the blob a twist.

So much for the top floor.

He dropped down two floors. He found a blob that said 2. He pressed it against the chrome building side.

Lower he went, two more floors. He fixed a number 3.

Down and down he went, pausing each time, pushing in another one.

Finally he planted a number 10.

He glanced at his glowing watch.

The ground was absolutely black below, more than thirty-five stories down.

He edged the sled along at the same level and then found what he was looking for: the window of Faustino's office.

A single candle was burning on a table, hardly enough to show up the murals of Sicily all along the walls. There was a steel canopy, a dome like a sunshade, over a chair. The chair was empty. Beyond, the door to the banquet hall was closed.

Heller, hovering on the sled before the window, reached into the satchel and took out a disintegrator gun. He threw its switches to ON, carefully keeping it away from the sled. It buzzed with a quiet hum.

Flying the sled with one hand and holding the gun on the window, he played the energy on the glass. The edges curled away. In a workmanlike fashion, he made the glass vanish without disturbing the visible alarm cables all around the frame.

The candle on the table guttered from the admitted current of night air.

Heller flew the sled through.

He turned it off and laid it to one side.

He took quick steps over to the door and listened. He could hear the laughter and the clink of the night supper in progress.

With the flick of a switch, he narrowed the beam of the disintegrator gun to a pinpoint. He made a hole through the door and put the gun away.

Heller looked into the hall. Despite the narrowness of the aperture he could see quite well.

The city officials of New York were sitting at a U-shaped table, half a hundred of them. The whole center expanse of the floor was empty.

Then he received his first setback.

The head of the table was NOT backed to this door. It was all the way at the other side of the room!

Faustino was sitting clear over there! A hundred and more feet away! The U of the table was open to the office door!

Somehow he had to get to the other side of that room! He couldn't just open this door as he thought might be possible and grab Faustino by the collar. To do that he had to get across more than a hundred feet of open floor!

By the light of candles, Faustino was making a speech. Something about the great success of the Civic Betterment League. What he was saying was getting guffaws and applause every few words. He was enormously fat, better than three hundred pounds. His face was so puffy he didn't even seem to have eyes: a balloon with a hole in it that opened and closed for a mouth.

Heller glanced at his watch. Time would be critical.

He took the cat out of the satchel and fixed the tiny radio in its ear. He made the other preparations with it. He put the tiny cat transmitter between his teeth and, talking with his mouth barely open, told the cat what to do.

He laid his hat down on a chair. He took off his satchels and put them by the sled. He neated up his tuxedo and bow tie. He blew out the office candle and opened the door a crack.

Then he went to the office hall door and looked out.

Two guards were standing at the banquet door with riot guns. There was no route in that way.

Heller went back to the door that led to the banquet room. There was nothing for it. He would have to take a chance.

He gripped the office door and slowly pulled it open. Then he pushed it with a ferocious rush. He blocked it from slamming with his foot

The blast of air burst like a gale into the room!

All but one candle went out!

Heller, low down, was on his hands and knees and through the door like a black shadow.

Startled curses rang through the dark.

Lighters shortly began to flash. The candles were getting relit.

But Heller, on his hands and knees, was well around the back of the U-table. Speedily be crawled until he came silently back of Faustino.

Somebody got up to stare at the office door and made as if to approach it.

Faustino was still on his feet. "Naw, naw," he said. "Sit down. It was just the wind. Be calm, be calm. I was saying, gentlemen, that this week, we have never had such a high sale of street drugs. The nervous tensions of the coming war have upped consumption immeasurably. And now, thanks to your splendid cooperation, I must announce a DOUBLE BONUS to you all!"

Faustino bowed to the applause. Then he was holding up an envelope, "To the Mayor, a princely reward this Saturday! Behold . . ."

"Now, march!" Heller whispered into the transmitter, mouth dosed.

There was a sizzle of sputtering at the other end of the room. Instead of beholding the uplifted envelope, all eyes turned to the office door!

The cat walked into the banquet hall.

He was towing a black, round sphere which slid along behind him.

He was dragging it by holding the fuse in his mouth.

The end of the fuse was throwing sparks!

A startled gasp of horror went through the assemblage.

Sedately the cat marched forward toward the middle of the U.

Its eyes were pale green orbs in the candlelight.

The sparks trailed across the floor. 

"A BOMB!" came the concerted scream.

Faustino snapped a hand into his coat, grabbing for a bolstered gun in some insane effort to shoot the cat.

But Heller's hand darted and had the gun.

Heller's other hand had Faustino by the collar. *

"IT'S GOING TO EXPLODE!" screamed Heller.

Some officials had been trying to leap over the table to get at the fuse. But at Heller's yell, they abandoned it.

There was a crush and a rush at the door.

All were leaving but Faustino—and Heller held him firm.

The cat stood in the middle of the floor, still holding the cord. It was only a sparkle cord that ignited at the end when it was squeezed and it was stuck into the mouth of a black ball.

Heller dragged Faustino's hands behind his back and looped a tie cord around his wrists. He boosted the man over the table and from behind him, gave him a shove toward the office.

"Drop it now," said Heller to the cat. "Come on!"

They banged through the office door. Faustino seemed to stumble. He fell beside the steel canopy.

"Guard him!" shouted Heller to the cat. He turned to bolt the door to the banquet room. He turned on a small pocket light so he could see.

There was a yowling from the cat. Heller whirled.

Faustino had rolled himself under the canopy!

The cat was on top of him, clawing. Heller started to move.

CRASH!

The steel canopy came down!

Faustino had triggered something! The man and cat were obscured!

Heller grabbed at the canopy edge. He tried to lift it. It would not budge!

He dived for his satchel. 

He could hear men coming up the hall.

He dived for the hall door and bolted it from within.

Heller raced back and got the satchel open. Palming the disintegrator gun, he leaped to the canopy. Working at an angle so as not to hit the cat, who might be underneath, he tried to make a hole in the steel.

A voice in the banquet hall. "It's not a bomb! It's a fake!"

There were now men at both office doors! Shoulders and boots were thudding at them!

The steel was armor alloy and very resistant. Heller stepped up the beam strength of the gun. He had made only a little hole!

A shotgun blasted at the hall door lock!

Heller banged a shot at it with Faustino's gun!

He glanced at his watch. The glow told him he was almost out of time.

He wasn't making progress fast enough getting through the canopy. He shined his light through the slot he had cut.

EMPTINESS!

No Faustino! No cat! No floor!

He could make out the outlines of a spiral chute going down!

A shotgun blasted again at the door.

Heller grabbed his satchels.

He threw himself on the spacetrooper sled.

The shotgun roared again!

Heller hit the controls.

The sound of the door bursting in.

The sled started out the window.

Another shotgun blast!

Something tugged at his heel!

He shot out into the dark night!

THE FIRST EXPLOSION WENT!

It sounded just like lightning had struck dose to hand, a blasting, cracking roar that filled the night!

The sled bucked and twisted.

It plummeted earthward from thirty-five stories high.

THE SECOND EXPLOSION WENT!

Convulsively, Heller gripped the sled controls. The ground was coming up, unseen, but it must be very near!

He got the sled into a climb.

THE THIRD EXPLOSION WENT!

The sled slewed.

Heller got it straightened out.

A tree straight ahead! , Heller zoomed over it.

At least he knew where the ground was now. He settled the sled vertically and played his light down.

He landed.

THE FOURTH EXPLOSION WENT!

He was behind Babe's lines, half a block from the building.

Quickly he collapsed the sled and lashed it to his satchel.

He started to run forward, toward the building.

"Stand where you are!"

A flashlight hit him in the face.

"It's the kid!" said somebody else. "Don't shoot him." Corleone men, part of the ring around the building.

Heller was worried about the cat. "Let me through! I've got to get back there!"

"Naw, naw, kid. You stay here! They're pouring out of there like rats from a sinking ship."

THE FIFTH EXPLOSION WENT!

It was like a nearby crack of lightning but no flash or flame. The explosions were coming from the building top, progressing down where he had planted each of them.

A rush of running feet from the building. A crash and a yell.

Three more Narcotici men had slammed into the fishnets strung across the streets.

Corleones gathered them up, disarmed them and shunted them over to a group where they were quickly tied.

THE SIXTH EXPLOSION WENT!

"Jesus, what are those things?" said a Corleone to Jet. "There ain't any flame or debris. Sounds like a whole God (bleep) floor goes up each time."

Heller could have told him that they were matter-vibration-intensifying bombs used by Voltar combat engineers to create diversions at point B when they were really quietly blowing up point A. They did not transmit their sound directly into the air but only through matter molecules. They didn't destroy anything except perhaps an eardrum if you were inside the place. But Heller said, in Italian, "Who knows? The wrath of Gods, perhaps."