Mission: Earth "Voyage of Vengeance" (34 page)

The latch which should have clicked over at the end of the time limit had not moved to connect and fire it!

Something had blocked it from thrusting home. It must be being held suspended by a piece of dirt or lint!

I had been bouncing over rotten roads all night sitting on a defective bomb that could go off any minute!

A thin scream surged into my throat.

I picked it up.

I could not toss it out the window. It had enough explosive to blow this car to bits.

I slowly backed out of the car holding it, not knowing if the last thing I would see in this universe would be its lethal flash.

"A BOMB!" cried Prahd. "Run for your lives! He's going to blow us all up!"

There was the wind of sudden passage as the crowd fled. The thunder of feet died away.

I kept backing. Oh, Gods, I better not stumble. The time delay was all run out. There was just that little lever left to fall in place. It could not be reversed.

I did not know what to do with it. The standard action would be to throw it into a bunker and run.

I didn't have a bunker.

Yes, I did!

The mosque door was open. Its walls were thick.

I backed toward the door.

Carefully I turned.

I measured the width of the door.

I threw with all my might!

The bomb flew into the door.

I turned to sprint away.

My lacerated feet betrayed me. I only ran ten paces before I fell.

The walls of the mosque flew outward like a suddenly inflated balloon!

The minaret toppled sideways and fell.

Rubble started to patter down as clouds of smoke rose into the sky.

I had been skidded by concussion another twenty feet.

Finally, a voice. Prahd's. He was picking me up. "I don't know why you have to do these things," he said. "It's good nobody was in there. They could have been killed. I thought when I gave you new equipment you would get too interested in other things to have time to blow things up. But I see I was wrong."

People were coming back, staring at the ruin and glaring at me. Then I noticed something very odd. The
khoja
was smiling broadly. It alarmed me.

"What's he so happy about?" I said. "I just blew up his mosque!"

Prahd was getting me over to the car which Ahmed seemed to have moved some distance away before the blast. "You see," said Prahd, "they know you here. When I arranged this and said who the husband would be, he wouldn't let you enter the holy place. He said the roof would fall in. But I persuaded him that if it did, you would build him a new mosque. And sure enough, the roof fell in. He's happy because he has been wanting to build a much more ornate one for years."

The world was spinning. What did a mosque cost?

I got into the car. Nurse Bildirjin pulled her white silk cape sideways away from me. I wondered why. I looked down. My feet!

"I'm bleeding," I told Prahd. "You'll have to take me to the hospital."

"That's right where we're going," said Prahd.

We drove off and came at length to the World United Charities Mercy and Benevolent Hospital. It was amazingly groomed up: it was all landscaped and even now volunteer peasants were at work cutting the grass of
their
establishment. They saw who it was and stopped work to stare at me as I got out and limped up the steps. They were completely silent. What ingrates! If it hadn't been for my brilliant idea to alter the identities of criminals these peasants would have no hospital at all! Riffraff!

I went through the lobby, thinking I was going to an operating room. But Prahd was simply taking me to his office.

I sank down in a chair. "I'm in terribly bad shape," I said. "This horizontal scar on my forehead needs attention, too."

He looked at it. Then he got out a bottle of antiseptic and swabbed my feet. It really stung! He picked up some rolls of Earth-type bandage, sprinkled some reddish powder on them and wound them around my lacerations. He evidently was not going to do anything extensive. When he had finished that he stood back.

"Hey," I said, "what about this forehead scar?"

"It makes you look like you have a ferocious scowl," he said.

"I know," I said.

"Well, people need some kind of warning. I think we'll just leave it that way."

I was about to protest. He could get rid of it without half trying. The door opened. Nurse Bildirjin walked in. I blinked.

She was dressed in her usual hospital uniform, let out a bit to accommodate the swollen belly.

"You just married me," I said. "Aren't you going home with me?"

"And break up the beautiful relationship I have with Doktor Muhammed?" she said. "Don't be silly. We were just making sure the baby had a legal father."

"And a million bucks," I grated.

"Of course," she said, smiling sweetly.

It was really from that moment that I began to suspect that I was being had by the young Doctor Prahd Bittlestiffender.

"I am going home," I said.

Little did I know that my travail had barely begun!

The villa was sitting there against the mountain in the spring sun. It was a sort of shock to see it so peaceful and serene. But then, in its history it had witnessed three thousand years of the agonies of men. From Phrygia, through Rome and up to now, more than one pair of bloody feet had walked through its gate.

Madison and I got out. I looked around. I saw that Utanc had a new car: an awesome red Ferrari, a vehicle that represented an awful lot of bucks, at least a hundred thousand.

The staff was peering timidly from around corners, very nervous.

Musef waddled forward. Gods, he was fat on all this good food-he must be three hundred and fifty pounds! Torgut was right beside him, swinging a hefty club. They were both grinning like a couple of apes.

"Welcome home!" they both cried.

At least my bodyguards were glad to see me. They might not be in wrestling shape but they could certainly make the staff step. Torgut had only to point his club and three staff dived to grab Madison's bag.

Well! This was more like it!

I limped across the yard into the patio. The fountain was plinking away.

Utanc's door was open.

Her eye was applied to the crack.

The two little boys had evidently been caught in the open. They rushed feverishly to her door. She let them in and then closed it.

"You want anything, you just yell," said Musef. "It won't take us any time at all to beat it out of these people. We got lots of practice."

"Who's he?" said Torgut, pointing at Madison with his club.

"This fellow won't be with us long," I said. "But he's not to know it. I'm disposing of him later. Don't let him wander around or get into things and don't let him reach a phone."

"We hear and obey," said Musef, grinning.

"What are they talking about?" said Madison. "I don't speak this lingo."

"They're telling me that the Mafia has been prowling around," I said in English. "There's lots of them in this valley. You can hear them howling at night."

"They didn't seem very serious about it," said Madison.

"Oh, that's because they enjoy killing them. These two men are my bodyguards. They're the champion wrestlers of this province. I told them to look after your safety and not let you go wandering about getting yourself shot." I pointed to a guest room. "So why don't you just go in there and have a bath and get some sleep. The staff will see that you get fed. And don't be alarmed if we keep the door locked. We don't want the Mafia to get you."

"Got it," said Madison. He went into the room. Two staff carried his grip in. I winked at Musef and he locked the door.

Well, things were going much better. Maybe I could work this out after all. At least I wasn't going to be stoned to death and I could probably even wriggle out of paying the
kaffarah
to the violated wives.

I went into my room. I handed the American International machine gun to Musef and told him to clean it and its magazines before it rusted to pieces. I got out of my clothes and gave them to Karagoz and told him to go out and burn them.

I shaved with a proper spin razor.

I got into a shower and scrubbed the goat stink off.

The careless bandages Prahd had thrown on my feet got wet so I took them off. I scrubbed the lacerations with soap. I wondered if I would get lockjaw from the goat droppings. Well, I had my own medical kit now. When I had dried myself I worked proper Voltar antiseptic into the wounds-ouch, but it stung! I covered the open ones with false skin.

I dressed in black pants and a poinsettia-pattern sport shirt. But I couldn't stand the tightness of boots and got into some curl-toed slippers that were loose.

The waiter served me some ice-cold
sira
and the fermented grape juice was the first thing that had scaled my throat in weeks. It was followed with some
iskembe corbasi,
a soup of tripe and eggs. I began to feel better.

But just as I was beginning to believe that things would work out all right, the axe fell.

Karagoz came into the dining room. "There's a very polite fellow at the gate. He says he wants a word with you that will make you very happy."

In that mood of feeling things would now work out, I said carelessly, "All right. I'll go out and see him." I didn't even pick up a gun!

I limped in my curl-toed slippers out to the twin pillars. I didn't see anyone. I stepped further toward the road, looking up and down. Nobody.

I turned around to go back in the gate.

He was standing beside the left-hand pillar.

THE BLACK-JOWLED MAN!

Unarmed, in the open and helpless, I stared. Then I said, "How did you know I was here?"

He moved forward, blocking my escape back through the gate. "Oh, we've been in communication with your friends. About dawn yesterday, I got a radio from Doktor Muhammed Ataturk that you'd be here today for sure. That's why we thought it wiser not to look for you in all that underbrush. Besides, you had a machine gun then. I see you don't now."

Prahd! He'd been helping these people to round me up!

"I know who you are," I said. "You're acting for Mudur Zengin of the Piastre National Bank of Istanbul!"

"No, no," he said. "Mudur Zengin is a friend of yours, though I can't understand why. When your concubine bought the yacht in New York, he helped execute the purchase with a mortgage by his bank. And he's been advancing money for its bills to Squeeza credit. Of course, we've seized the yacht now that it is in Istanbul and Mudur Zengin is quite cross."

"Then who the Hells ARE you?" I demanded.

"Perhaps I better introduce myself," he said, taking out a card from his wallet.

I looked at it.

"Hold it," I said. "I don't owe you anything. I don't have a mortgage with you on anything. You have gone crazy."

"Oh, I am afraid you do," he said.

I decided to let him have it. "Grabbe-Manhattan Bank is owned by Rockecenter! I don't think you know who you're talking to!" I assumed a very haughty mien. "I am a Rockecenter family spi!"

He smiled. "Change it to you
were.
The City of Miami suddenly stopped ordering fuel oil. Octopus instantly investigated and found that they were getting an unlimited supply of electricity from Ochokeechokee, Florida. They showed some photographs around and identified Wister as the engineer. Mr. Rockecenter couldn't believe it! You can't have inexpensive energy flying around wrecking things! He sent Mr. Bury to find why the cheap fuel man had not been stopped and Bury found that you had kidnapped Madison, closed his office and gone on a happy yachting cruise. Mr. Bury even confirmed it by travelling himself personally to Elba to see with his own eyes. And there you and Madison were, thousands of miles off the job. Obviously you had both been bought: a yacht like that costs a fortune. So, no, Mr. Inkswitch/Sultan Bey, you are no longer a Rockecenter family spy. You've been fired with malice aforethought and I'm afraid you have no protection there. Quite the contrary. You could be charged with taking bribes if you ever set foot in America again."

I was reeling under these blows. The secret sign tattooed on my chest was worthless. But I rallied: "That doesn't explain this silly nonsense about a mortgage!"

"Well, oddly enough," said Closure, "when this mortgage thing occurred, we did not know Sultan Bey and Inkswitch were the same person. All that we were led to believe was that one Sultan Bey owned a villa, the total land of a mountain and thousands of acres of prime, arable, poppy soil. And when you had us approached to mortgage it for a mere two million dollars, we, of course, leaped at the chance. So we rushed it right through and granted you the mortgage."

"Hold it!" I said. "I didn't take out any mortgage like that."

"Oh, I am afraid you did," said Closure. And he displayed the papers.

I gripped them. My Gods, the land involved comprised not only the thousands of acres of prime opium land Voltar held but THE ENTIRE EARTH BASE!

And right there at the bottom was my SIGNATURE.

Oh, Gods, I could be vaporized for this!

Black Jowl was still talking. "You see there is an embarrassing point in all this. For you. The amount was so trifling and the security so huge that we trusted you and never gave it a second thought. And then we found out that you didn't own it!"

Of course I didn't own it. It belonged to the government of Voltar!

"Now really," said Closure, "we are being very nice to you. If we had exposed this crime we could have had you and your yacht rounded up wherever you were because you were still under the Turkish flag even if you were at sea. The state would throw you in prison and I need not call to your attention that a Turkish prison means death."