Mission: Earth "Voyage of Vengeance" (39 page)

I grinned with glee from ear to ear. That was one round trip that wouldn't be used.

The Countess Krak was never going back!

She wrote a brief note to Heller and gave it to Balmor. She gave instructions about the cat. And then she began to pack.

Suddenly, I got to worrying. Supposing the assassin missed on Heller?

If the Countess was killed outright, I would have no bargaining power.

Suddenly, INSPIRATION!

I knew exactly what I had to do and I did not have much time.

I rushed through the tunnel door, across the hangar and to the room of Captain Stabb.

"How fast can you get the line-jumper in the air?" I said.

"Ten minutes," he said. "What's up?"

I realized I would have to be very clever to get this pirate to cooperate.

"We're laying the stage to rob a chain of banks," I said.

"Well, it's about time," said Captain Stabb.

"Now, on this planet, bank robbers have to have hostages."

"Really?" he said.

"Yes sir," I said. "They have to have hostages. But I've got a new wrinkle. We're going to take the hostage in advance."

"Hey," he said. "That saves trying to find somebody alive after you've picked up the whole building."

"Right," I said. "So we're going to take a hostage who is connected to billions. And then we are going to do a series of actions that will make us all rich beyond belief."

"Hey, wonderful," he said. "It's been pretty dull around here. Without you to order it, that Faht Bey wouldn't let us take off."

"Well, he will now. Tell me quick, which one of your men can best impersonate an Earthman?"

"Jeeb, the second engineer."

"And he has no compunctions about stabbing somebody in the back?"

"Let's not make jokes," said Captain Stabb. "Piracy is a serious business. Of course he can do a little thing like that."

"Then get aloft at once," I said, "put him down just north of the international airport in Rome, have him buy a ticket and, without fail, be on this flight."

I gave Stabb the rest of the instructions. I gave him the necessary money and equipment the man would take.

"When you have done that," I said, "come back here for me. We will leave again tomorrow night. So, on your way!"

I called Faht Bey and told him it was at the orders of Lombar Hisst. They cleared the line-jumper out and it was gone through the mountaintop illusion and into the night sky.

I went back to the viewer.

There must be no mistakes!

I watched her as she finished packing her grip.

COUNTESS KRAK, I'VE REALLY GOT YOU THIS TIME!

And Heller would never blame me if I missed on him.

But I wouldn't miss on him either.

They would both pay, and dearly, for all the trouble they had caused me!

And I toasted myself in
sira
as the new Chief of the Apparatus!

I had the heady sensation one has when he knows he is going to win for sure!

I consulted the base tables and references.

I did my calculation very precisely.

She would leave New York at 2200 hours Eastern Standard Time tonight. That was 0500 tomorrow, my time. She would arrive in Paris, Charles de Gaulle Airport, 1100 Paris time the next day. That was noon, my time.

She would arrive in Rome, Leonardo da Vinci Airport, 1510 Rome time, 1610 my time.

She would leave Rome at 2100 hours tomorrow night. That was 2200 hours, my time.

She would never arrive in Istanbul.

The flight from Rome was on a Mediterranean Airlines plane. It would be Flight 931. The plane was a DC-9 Series 10. It had a wingspan of 89.4 feet, a height of 27.5 feet, a length of 104.4 feet. It was powered with two Pratt and Whitney jet engines mounted on either side of the fuselage in the rear under the tail. The speed was maximum 560 mph. The weight of the plane was 98,500 pounds plus a payload of 19,200 pounds.

It would probably have a pilot and copilot, possibly a navigator as it would be flying over water. It would probably have three flight attendants. It would be carrying up to ninety passengers.

Captain Stabb and the line-jumper returned before dawn and I hurried to the hangar with my figures.

Stabb was climbing down from the cabin of the bell-shaped ship. He was all smiles. He came over to me. "Got him landed. And we also got him on this two-way-response radio and this viewer. He's carrying the Mark V camera as a lapel button." He handed me the viewer.

Yes, there was a view of the waiting room of the Leonardo da Vinci Airport lobby in Rome. It was off vertical. Jeeb was evidently taking a snooze on a waiting room seat.

I gave Stabb my figures. "These jet engines have a thrust of 14,000 pounds each. That's a total of 56,000 horsepower. Seems like quite a lot."

"No problem," he said.

"All right," I said. "Get some sleep. We'll be leaving here tonight as soon as it is dark."

"I can't wait," he said, grinning.

I raced back to my room. I had to make sure the Countess Krak was boarding that New York plane.

Yes, there she was, checking in. And sure enough, she had her shopping bag. I knew what it contained.

"Your flight will be called in half an hour, ma'am," said the clerk. "Have a pleasant trip."

I grinned. Oh, this was wonderful. Time and again I had tried to nail the deadly Countess Krak and each time she had gotten the best of me. But this time I would not fail!

Some little kids were tearing around the lobby. One of them bumped into her. She put out her hand and patted him on the head and he looked up and smiled.

I sat there tensely and watched. I had to make sure she actually got on that plane and didn't try to reach Heller in Washington, for I knew he would scream his head off saying "NO!"

She bought some candy and some magazines.

Then her flight was called.

I eagerly watched her board.

She settled herself in the reclining seat and fastened her belt.

The engines muttered. The plane was taxiing to take off.

With a blasting roar, runway lights flashing by, it sped into the air.

I let out a sigh of relief.

But still I watched just to make sure.

After twenty minutes my screen began to dim. Then it went out.

She had gone beyond the two-hundred-mile range of the activator-responder which had remained on the Empire State Building.

All my viewers were inactive now. With Crobe well on his way to Voltar, with Heller out of range in Washington and with the Countess Krak winging over the Atlantic, there were no images for me to watch.

She would be eight hours and fifty-five minutes actual time in the air before she arrived in Paris. She had a two-hour-and-fifteen-minute layover in the French capital. In eleven hours and ten minutes actual time she would be landing in Rome. Five hours and fifty minutes after that she would be taking off on Mediterranean Airlines Flight 931 from Rome. Well before it left, I would be taking off from Afyon.

It would be twelve hours now before I had a chance to pick her up on Jeeb's camera in Rome about a thousand miles away. And it would be nearly sixteen hours before I left.

I lay down in my bed and tried to sleep. I couldn't. All my dreams were coming true.

The Countess Krak was winging straight into my spider web. And soon there would be one less foolish butterfly in the universe.

And all my problems would soon be solved.

At about six o'clock that evening, my time, she came on the screen of Jeeb's lapel camera.

I was sitting at dinner, too excited to eat, the viewer parked on the table before me, the two-way-response radio beside it.

She was walking along a row of shops in the Rome airport arcade. She was dressed in a dark blue tailored suit. Her hair was a fluffy gold beneath a wide-brimmed floppy hat. A couple of young Italian men stood suddenly stock-still and watched her pass them.

She was window shopping and the Italian wares as always were quite ornate: model cannon, silk scarves, tapestry wall hangings.

Jeeb must be lounging inconspicuously on the concourse. He had spotted her, for as she passed him, he turned and kept her centered. I had given him a passport photograph which wasn't very good and I had had some qualms that he might not recognize her. Those qualms were now at rest. Good man, Jeeb.

Two young boys rushed up to the Countess Krak. They had notebooks open. They wanted her autograph, obviously thinking she was a movie star. She laughed and signed them.

They passed Jeeb, marvelling, looking at their books. "Cristo," said one in Italian, "I thought Lauren Bacall was dead."

"Naw, you don't know nothing. That's her daughter."

The first one looked back. "Oh, yes. I remember now. But she's prettier than her mother."

The radio came live. "Officer Gris?"

"Right here," I said.

"Have I got the right woman? She's prettier than the photograph and she signed some funny name for those kids."

"That's the woman," I said.

"Good. Had me blinking for a minute."

"Carry on," I said. "But be very careful. She's deadly and very deceptive."

"I'll watch my step," he said. He clicked off.

She had gone in a shop and Jeeb moved so as to keep her in direct view through the door.

I could faintly hear her voice above the concourse clatter and chatter. I turned up the volume.

She was buying silk scarves. I hadn't realized she could speak Italian now. She must have gotten coaching from Heller.

She had a green one and was holding it up to the light. It was a very elegant scarf. "I will take it," she said, "it matches his eye color. Put it in a nice box. It's a present for a doctor friend of mine."

Prahd. She was buying a present for him.

She was looking at other scarves. Then she found a long cravat that was light tan. It had a pattern of antiques guns. It was pre-tied. "And I'll take this one for another friend so wrap that as a present, too."

She meant it for me. I shuddered. Guns to shoot me and a noose to hang myself. Oh, the implication was very plain. It was a good thing I was acting!

When she had her wrapped gifts, she went to a restaurant and ordered and began to eat her dinner.

Jeeb, clear across the airport cafe, was eating his and

keeping an eye on her. He annoyed me a little bit by choosing such a fancy dinner for himself with my money. I would speak to him about it when this was done.

Right now it was coming up to deadline for my own departure.

I went to my room and dressed in a warm, electric-heated ski suit and boots and hood. It can get pretty cold at thirty thousand feet.

I looked at myself in the mirror. The jet black of the costume would minimize me as a target in case there was shooting.

I buckled on some guns. I put some other items in my pockets I might need. This time I didn't forget the control star which would bring the Antimancos to heel if they got out of line.

I picked up the radio and viewer.

I went down into the underground hangar.

The line-jumper crew was all ready and eager to go.

I clambered up the ladder to the cabin.

COUNTESS KRAK, I'LL GET YOU THIS TIME!

The line-jumper leaped up through the illusion of the mountaintop and out into the inky night.

The two Antimanco pilots were hunched silhouettes in the glow of their instruments and screens.

Captain Stabb sat beside me on the crew bench. Behind us the other engineer crouched.

We were swiftly at seventy thousand feet and racing at two thousand miles an hour through the night, westbound for Rome.

Through Jeeb's camera viewer came the call, "Flight 931, Mediterranean Airlines for Istanbul, boarding now at Gate Five."

Captain Stabb looked at me, his beady eyes glittering in the reflection from the viewer that lay between us. "I wonder if there's anything in her cargo hold."

"It's the woman we want," I said. "The banks come afterwards."

"We might just be lucky," he said.

"That's the hostage there," I said, pointing at the Countess Krak standing in the line to board. "The one with the two gold wrapped packages under her arm."

"Is there anything valuable in them?" he said.

"I'll leave it to you to find out," I said. "But getting the hostage is the thing."

"Don't worry," he said, "we're experts at this sort of thing. I could tell you some tales that would curl your hair."

I was not interested in having my hair curled. All I wanted in my hands was Krak!

We flew and very shortly, far below, with the aid of the viewscreen, I could see the lights of Rome.

Stabb was looking at his watch. He stood up on the seat to see over the pilot's shoulders. "Got the airport runway on their screens."

He looked back at the viewer. The passengers were boarding. Now we would see if our luck was still holding.

The passengers were taking their seats. Jeeb was holding back. The Countess Krak put her presents in an overhead rack and sank down into a window seat on the left of the aisle. She was about at the center of the plane.

There were not all that many passengers. I tried to count them and estimated forty. The night flight to Istanbul, scheduled to arrive there at dawn, must not be all that popular. They were businessmen and tourists and women and kids. A coach flight.

LUCK!

The seat directly behind Krak was empty!

The lapel camera moved. Jeeb was settling himself just behind the Countess Krak.

"That's wonderful!" I said.