Mission: Earth "Voyage of Vengeance" (41 page)

I would order Raht to kill him. Crushed like that, Heller would be an easy target.

With him dead, I could wipe out Chrysler, Ochokeechokee and the Empire State Building. Rockecenter would be jubilant. Then I could release Black Jowl and tell him to get lost. I would then kill the Countess Krak.

I would put Faht Bey in his place with the information that I would shortly be his supreme chief. I would threaten his life if he didn't keep the opium and heroin and amphetamines coming. And then I would go home. How proud Lombar would be of me!

Heller's viewer stayed blank.

I had dinner.

The viewer was still blank. Heller was overdue in New York. Maybe that fool Raht had made a mistake and shipped me the wrong unit.

I called him on the radio. "My viewer is blank!" I said angrily. "Can't you ever do anything right? You shipped me the wrong unit!"

"I shipped you the one with
K
on it. It went out on International Spurt at 3:00 A. M. You should have it tomorrow. His is still on the antenna."

"Then you turned his 831 Relayer off. My unit here is as blank as a piece of clear glass!"

"If his relayer is off, you can't get a picture?"

"That's right. So it's off. Now get down there and check it!"

I tossed the radio aside. Oh, when I was Apparatus Chief, I'd get rid of an awful lot of riffraff!

An hour later he called back. "The 831 Relayer is on. If he's in New York you ought to be getting a picture."

My screen was blank. A riffle of unease went through me. Where was Heller?

Then I remembered something. "You told me you had him bugged."

"I do. But it's just a locational bug, not an audio and visio bug."

"Well, (bleep) you to Hells, if you've got a bug on him, why are you denying me the information about where he is?"

"My bug receiver must be busted."

I groaned. Oh, Gods, why was I served by such riffraff? "How do you know it's busted, you idiot?" I said.

"Have you tried to repair it by fiddling with it and banging it? Turning its switches on and off?" Cripes, I had to think of everything!

"I know it must be busted because when I looked at it a few minutes ago it said he was over the North Pole. Before that it said he was in Chicago."

"That's impossible!" I snapped. "Now listen carefully and do what you're told for once. Go to his condo or down to his offices at the Empire State and hobnob with or bribe some of his staff and find out where Heller is! My life may depend on it. Get going!"

I found, when he clicked off, that I had begun to sweat. It would be like Heller to take it into his head to simply come kill me to pass the time.

Two awful hours went by. Then suddenly the radio went live.

"Hey," said Raht, "all Hells have erupted around his office. I didn't even have to bribe anybody. The staff is standing around in the halls crying and wringing their hands. The airline called the condo and the butler, Balmor, phoned Epstein. You told me you wouldn't hurt the woman. She's dead!"

I was thinking coolly. "How?" I said.

"Flight 931 out of Rome for Istanbul crashed with everybody lost. It's in the papers. What did you do?"

"How could a plane crash possibly have anything to do with me? I don't build these flimsy primitive deathtraps they use. How would I know it would crash?"

"Are you sure you didn't blow it up or something?"

"What nonsense!" I said. "These jets fall out of the sky all over the place. It practically rains planes."

"Well, all right," he said.

"Now, listen. It's not our job to worry about what happened to one of their flying coffins. You've GOT to find the man. I have orders for you."

"What now?" he said.

"You are to kill him."

"WHAT? A Royal officer? You must be out of your mind! That carries a death penalty just to threaten it, much less do it!"

"You have no slightest choice," I said. "Kill him or I'll kill you, if I have to blow up all of New York City to do it!"

"Gods!" said Raht, impressed.

"You'll look silly praying to them with your head blown off," I said. "So find that man! Where is he on your location bug now?"

"I told you it was broken."

"Look at it, (bleep) you!"

"See? It's totally out of whack. It says he is over Scotland."

My blood congealed. Chicago, North Pole, Scotland... Heller was airborne. He might be en route to Turkey!

I swallowed my heart. Then I made myself be calm enough to think and speak. "You get next to some of those people. You find out what flight he's on. We may have to waylay him. Report to me every hour."

I clicked off. Water was actually dripping from my palms.

After an agonized hour, my radio went live again.

"I got it," said Raht. "His butler, Balmor, phoned him in Chicago before he phoned the office. The Royal officer chartered a jet at the Chicago O'Hare International Airport and took off immediately for Italy to begin salvage operations in the Palagruza Islands in the

Adriatic Sea. The crash was spotted just off one. He is going to try to recover his girl's body."

My hair stood on end. What else might he discover?

"Listen," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "Grab a plane at once. Get to that area. And at your first chance, kill him!"

Raht clicked off.

Only Heller's death stood between me and total victory.

I did not have much time. Black Jowl might be missed. At best I only had another five days.

I prayed that my prayers be heard.

Heller had to die!

I went to bed. I tried to sleep. It was no use. Something was nagging at me. Then I had it!

I grabbed the two-way-response radio. I buzzed it.

"What's up now?" Raht's voice, irritated.

"When you go to the salvage area, take the Royal officer's activator-receiver and 831 Relayer with you."

"Do you know where I am?"

"How in all the Hells could I know where you are? I can't work this funny locator rig on top of this radio and you know it."

"You want me to turn around and go back?"

"Yes!"

"Then you'll have to talk to the pilot of this commercial jet. I'm halfway over the Atlantic on my way to Italy."

"You're being impudent."

"I'm trying to carry out the order you gave me. Listen, would you mind clicking off? The little kid in the next seat is listening in."

I clicked off. Well, at least he was on his way to kill Heller.

Somehow I sweated through the night. Somehow I managed to live through the next day. Tenseness and anxiety were my lot. By late that night, I was a rag.

My radio went live, startling me half out of my wits.

"I'm at the Italian naval base in Taranto," said Raht.

"Have you done it?" I said.

"How can I have done it? He isn't here."

"Then what are you doing there, you idiot?"

"I'm calling you to report progress. Don't you want reports? I assure you, it would be a great pleasure not to talk to you at all, Officer Gris."

"Keep a civil tongue in your head. If he isn't there, what are you doing there?"

Raht said, "I traced him down from Rome. I just missed him. He's working with the airline company and the Italian government. He came down here to get them to take a naval tug and crane and divers to the site of the crash. They have to go around the heel of the boot of Italy and north up the Adriatic Sea. It's a trip of about 300 miles. I just missed them."

"Well, get after them!"

"That's what I'm trying to do. I've got to go back to a town called Termoli on the Italian coast that's near to the Palagruza Islands and rent a fish boat to get out there."

"What weapons do you have?"

"Well, you can't carry guns on a plane but I have a blastick."

"That will do just fine. Get on it!"

"It's about 160 miles to Termoli. I'll have to drive all night."

"Then drive all night!" I said angrily. "Radio me back when you have done it."

He clicked off.

I tried to go to sleep. Heller was about 700 miles away. It was too close. I rolled and tossed and sweated.

I suffered through the next day. No word from Raht.

Krak's activator-receiver had come in on the morning plane but for some reason wasn't handed to me until near evening. Nervously, I set it up and turned it on.

For a moment, I didn't know what I was looking at. It was simply a page of print.

Then I remembered that I had furnished Crobe a whole library in waterproof bookshelves to get him interested in psychology and psychiatry. I had also given him forty other books, a set entitled
Voltar Confederacy Combined Compendium Complete, including Space Codes, Penal Codes, Domestic Codes, Royal Proclamations, Royal Orders, Royal Procedures, Royal Precedence, Royal Successions Complete with Tables and Biographies, Court Customs, Court History, Royal Land Grants, Rights of Aristocracy, Planetary Districts of 110 Planets, Local Laws, Local Customs, Aristocratic Privileges and Various Other Matters.

The Countess Krak had found these books, obviously.

I came out of my daze. I thought, well, it would do her plenty of good to study up on psychology and psychiatry. It would bring her into a realization of how wonderful they were.

The viewer was out of focus. I sharpened the image. I began to read what she seemed to be studying.

A scream surged in my throat. I choked it back. Her finger had appeared on the page. It was travelling down the fine print.

(c)
.
..

The viewer began to swim before my gaze. Her finger had gone back to
(a).
I had not realized that the officers of this base could put me on trial. I had always been a little shaky on these regulations and depended on the fact that nobody else knew them well either. If Faht Bey and officers here took it into their heads to try me, they could also execute me for such things as flagrant Code breaks.

She was now onto another part of the section.

(2)
.
..

The room swam around me. Raht had mentioned it but I had thought he was just talking! There it was in the Penal Codes!

Her finger was travelling on:

(34)
Kidnapping...

A scream rose in my throat and got out.

I reeled away from the viewer.

Gods, that woman was dangerous!

She was sitting in there trying to find legal ways to bring about my death!

I raced down to the hangar. I found the guard captain. "Don't go near that prisoner in the special cell! Don't even look in! She has a dreadful disease that blinds you if you even glance at her."

"Oh, have you got a prisoner in there? You didn't log her into the detention cells if you have. When you came back a few nights ago, you must have bypassed the guard office. That's irregular, Officer Gris. What's her name?"

"Incognito," I blurted.

He was making a note. "Miss or Mrs.? I wish you wouldn't keep messing up procedures. We can't keep our files straight if you just keep rushing people into cells without logging them."

Then I had an inspiration. "The person I put in there can't be logged. She is a nonperson, executed years ago. She has no legal rights of any kind."

"Oh, one of those," he said. He lost interest. But I knew he would report it to Faht Bey.

I sighed, because my injured feet remained unhealed. I resented walking.

I went through the long tunnels and finally came into Faht Bey's office. He looked up from his desk and flinched when he saw me. I resented being flinched at.

"The other night when I returned in the line-jumper," I said, "I put a prisoner in the special cell. She is not to be looked at or communicated with. She is a non-person without rights. She is actually a menace to the State."

He grunted and made a note. "What about the other one you have locked up? He's not a nonperson. I have his card here. He's Forrest Closure of the Grabbe-Manhattan Bank."

My pulse skipped several beats. "Have you talked to him?"

"No. Should I talk to him?"

"NO!" I said. Oh, Gods, if Faht Bey found out his whole base was mortgaged, maybe they would convene an officers' conference on me!

"Why are you holding him?" said Faht Bey.

"Reasons of state!" I said emphatically. "I can't tell you any more than that."

"Are you sure?" said Faht Bey.

"Of course I'm sure!"

"I think you're up to something, Officer Gris. Raping women, blowing up mosques. We're supposed to lie quietly here and do what we're supposed to do. You know, of course, that heroin supplies continue to vanish. We inventoried two days after you came back, just to be careful. And we're out a lot of kilos. If I had any proof, Officer Gris, I'd convene an officers' conference on somebody I am looking at."

"What would I do with heroin?" I yelled.

"Run a drug ring on the side," said Faht Bey. "You seem to have quite a bit of money we didn't give you."

"Special funds came in on the
Blixo,"
I lied.

He raised his eyebrows and shifted in his chair. "This Forrest Closure," said Faht Bey, "could be a messy thing. Grabbe-Manhattan is connected to I. G. Barben Pharmaceutical. They could cut off our amphetamines. I can't make heads or tails of why you would order him put in a cell. In fact, I haven't the least idea of what you are up to. I am responsible for this base. Now let me tell you this: If I find any evidence that you are cooking up another catastrophe for us, I will convene a conference on you and take my chances with authorities on Voltar. My guess is that they are as sick of you as we are. Have I made myself clear?"