Dr. Nyet

CHAPTER SIX

There seemed no sense in waiting around for the answer, which would undoubtedly be a killer. Lagula's hut had been fingered, and Ilona's corpse said it was no longer a safe place to hide out. I said as much to my pigmy friend, and he agreed. We left everything as it was and headed back into the center of Salisbury.

"You can't go back to your hotel," Lagula advised. "They'll be waiting for a chance to kill you there."

"Then where can we go?"

"I don't know. I'm trying to think. I'd take you into the native district with me, but your skin would make you too conspicuous there."

"Maybe we shold split up," I suggested. "You'd be safer among your people."

"My people?" Lagula chuckled. "You think that because my skin and theirs are black that they are my people. Do you always deal in appearances, Mr. Victor?"

"What do you mean?" I was nettled because he seemed to be laughing at my naivete.

"While my sympathies are with them, the black men of Salisbury are not my people," Lagula explained. "We African pigmys are not Negroids as other native Africans are. We are Negrillos, smaller in stature and lighter in color than the average African. The Negrillos originally migrated to Africa from South Asia. But when you speak of 'my people' in that would-be definite way, not even all Negrillos share such a kinship. The two largest pigmy tribes are the Batwas who settled in the great bend of the Congo and the Akkas who live along the banks of the upper Nile. Neither group considers the other 'their people'. And I bear no relationship to either. 'My people' were the Balulwa tribe, a small and select group who lived for centuries in the Rhodesian bush."

"Were?" I fastened on the word. "What happened to them?"

"They are almost extinct by now. Earthquakes destroyed our village and nearly all the inhabitants some twenty years ago. Only two families survived. Mine and one other. Since then the old people have died off. The only ones left are myself – unfortunately an only child – and the offspring of the other family. And the other family had no sons. Only five daughters. Thus it fell to me to see to it that the Balulwa were perpetuated. Since the five girls are all attractive, that wasn't hard to do at first. But their sexual demands grew insatiable and eventually I was forced to flee from them. That's when I came to Salisbury and then went from there to

England for my education. But those five girls of the Bulalwa tribe are still waiting there for my return."

"And will you go back?"

"Eventually. It is my duty. And my pleasure, I admit. But when I go back it will be to die. The five of them will kill me with their lust."

"There are worse ways to go," I told him.

Amen! It came in the form of a sudden burst of tommygun fire, a rat-a-tat demonstration of one of those "worse ways". We'd been cruising up a long avenue and traffic was light when the limousine shot out of a side street and the fusillade was loosed at us. Only our hairpin-triggered reflexes kept Lagula and I from proving the point with our lives. Only by diving for the floorboards of the car did we avoid instant corpsedom.

With Lagula no longer at the wheel, the car spun out of control. It mounted the sidewalk, cut a neat swath across a wide lawn, and kept going to shear down a row of low bushes. Throughout, the other car paralleled our erratic route in the gutter and continued to spray us with bullets.

"Jump!" Lagula yelled as we kept going toward the brick wall of a house. "And run in different directions," he added.

It made sense. If we separated, the gunman would have to split his fire between two moving targets. We'd each have a better chance of getting away that way, too, since the car couldn't follow us both.

As it turned out, fortunately, it couldn't follow either one of us. I dived out and turned a somersault. As I came up, I saw Lagula skidding across the turf on his belly. He sprang up and kept going in a crouching run, bullets kicking up the dirt at his heels, but not catching up with him before he'd gained the shelter of a hedgerow. By the time he vanished behind the hedges, I was sprinting around the side of the house our car had rammed. The killer car was unable to stay with either of us and it roared off in frustration.

I kept running, cutting through backyards and alleys, avoiding the streets. After a half-hour or so of this, I was pretty winded. I slowed and cautiously went down a long driveway leading to another avenue. As I neared the mouth of it, I saw something that made me flatten myself against the garage wall and stare across the street.

A car was just easing into the curb there. I recognized the car. It was the same one which had just been spewing hot lead at me.

It stopped and a man got out of the back. He was carrying – so help me! – a violin case. I didn't have to think back to Jimmy Cagney movies to know this was no Heifetz toting a Stradivarius to Carnegie Hall. It was corny, but there it was. Chicago had shipped a reincarnation of Al Capone to sunny, fun-filled Salisbury.

The man stepped aside and another man emerged from the rear of the car. He too was carrying something, a large package of some sort; I couldn't tell what it was. The first man climbed back inside and the car pulled away. The other, left standing on the sidewalk, turned to watch it go, and I saw his face clearly for the first time.

It was Peter Highman!

My mind was still absorbing this as Highman hefted his package and strolled up the walk to the building entrance opposite which the car had dropped him. It was a small building, and when I approached it myself after he'd gone inside, I saw that it housed a sort of combination museum and art gallery. A group of five or six well- dressed people entered it after Highman, and I fell in close behind him.

I followed them as they moved slowly through a series of cubicles with paintings, sculptures, and other art objects arranged in them. There was no sign of Highman. Off one of the cubicles, I noticed a staircase leading to the second floor of the gallery. I broke away from the group and mounted it.

I found myself in a large lecture hall. It was empty. At the far end was another door like the one leading from the staircase. I crossed over and opened it. Now I was in a narrow hallway. There were two or three doors leading off it, and from the open transom above one of them I heard voices. One of the voices was Highman's.

"Make sure it doesn't get to the airport until the last possible moment," Highman was saying. "But remember that it must be on that midnight plane."

"But where will I keep it until then?" the other voice asked. "It's too big for the safe. And I can't have a thing like this just lying around."

In Salisbury, the doors are old-fashioned – conveniently old-fashioned. They have keyholes – nice, big keyholes. This door outside which I was eavesdropping was no exception. So I made the most of it, squashing my nose against the door as I stooped to peer into the room.

The object they were discussing was on the desk directly opposite the keyhole. I had a perfect view of it. I recognized it immediately, although I'd never seen it before. I would have known it anywhere from Singh Huy-eva's description. It was the gold-encrusted, multi-jeweled phallus which had been hacked off the Nepalese god-idol!

I could appreciate that they had a problem. Four feet of jeweled genitals isn't exactly an easy thing to hide. I mean, they couldn't exactly play "Purloined Letter" with it, or anything like that. And it was too valuable to just shove in a drawer or a closet somewhere.

But Highman had an answer. "There's a lock on the door of that refrigerator down in the basement, isn't there? Well, put it in there. And don't let the key out of your possession."

I jumped away from the door and flattened myself against the wall as they came out. They didn't see me. When they'd passed through the door leading to the lecture auditorium at the end of the hallway, I slipped into the room they'd left.

I thought I'd have a fast look around and see what I could see. I saw nothing. It was a perfectly ordinary office with nothing incriminating around. Its interest had dimmed with the departure of the jeweled phallus in Highman's arms.

I glanced out the window just in time to see Highman leave the building. My face broke into a grin as I saw Vlankov, the Russian agent, step out of a doorway and start to tail Highman down the street. The grin grew wider – if a bit puzzled – as I spotted a third man fall in all too casually behind Vlankov and start to tail him.

I didn't waste any time trying to figure this third man's angle. I figured I'd better get out of the office before Highman's playmate returned. But what should my next move be?

On the spur of the moment, I came up with an answer. I decided to have a try at retrieving that jeweled phallus. If I succeeded, I'd be doing Singh a favor, I'd be bugging S.M.U.T., and I'd be forcing Highman to come to me – which just might be a step in the direction of finding Dr. Nyet.

I found my way down to the basement without any trouble. The refrigerator unit was right there, in plain sight, a large steel box that looked impregnable. It was fastened with a stout chain and a heavy lock.

What now? I might have been able to blow it with nitro, but – wouldn't you know it? – I'd left my nitro in my other suit or someplace. If I'd had the skill, maybe I could have picked the lock. But, despite my checkered background, that was one knack I hadn't picked up. Well then, there was always muscle.

I found a poker hanging beside the furnace. Made of iron, it was a natural crowbar. It was too thick to work into the lock itself, but I just managed to wedge it between the links of the chain. Teeth gritting, muscles bulging, adrenal glands pumping, I strained with all my might. Finally, something gave. Me.

I stood back and looked at the goddamn chain. All my prying hadn't opened it so much as a centimeter. I cursed and smacked the crowbar against its linky teeth. That would teach it to kick sand in my face! But it only grinned back at me, undented by the blow.

My money-back guarantee from Charles Atlas having run out, I decided there was no point in my continuing to rail against my physical shortcomings. I faced the fact that I wasn't going to be able to bust the chain. And I put my brain to work to find another way of getting at the refrigerated genitalia. The thing to do, I finally decided, was to find the man with the key, wave my gun under his schnozzola, and make him unlock the freezebox. I decided to wait for nightfall when the gallery would presumably be closed and there wouldn't be anybody around to get in my way. So I curled up behind the unlit furnace and dozed the afternoon away.

When I woke up, the small cellar window told me it was night. I went upstairs and found the gallery closed and darkened as I had figured it would be. I guessed the man with the key was probably in his office on the second floor, and so I kept going up the stairs. But I was in for a surprise as I came out the stairway door and into the auditorium.

The lecture hall was filled with people. The man I was seeking wasn't hard to find. He was put on the platform with two other speakers. I stuck my gun back inside my jacket and took a seat in the rear of the hall. Obviously I couldn't deal with him until whatever was going on was over.

It seemed to be some sort of a debate on art. My target was evidently the moderator. The audience was all-white, well-dressed, and definitely upper-crust Rhodesian. The first speaker went to some lengths, citing all sorts of arbitrary classical standards, to prove that primitive art isn't art at all. His point seemed to me to be more politically racist than artistically valid. Summed up, he was trying to prove that only Caucasians were capable of producing real art. The rhetorical convolutions he went through in attempting to place all African and Oriental art beyond the pale were worthy of a Governor Wallace. But the audience was obviously with him. It was the time for rationales from every area of white Rhodesian life to justify the steps being inaugurated by the government to insure that black Rhodesians were kept barred from all those lily-white provinces – the art world included – which the whites had earmarked for their own.

Loud applause greeted the end of this diatribe. Then the moderator introduced the second speaker. Right off the bat it was obvious that he was licked.

First of all, he had a decidedly English university accent which wasn't calculated to please a crowd which so obviously identified with the slurred Rhodesian speech pattern of the previous speaker. Second, his voice was unfortunately high-pitched, an easy target for laughter. And third of all, the audience was in no mood to listen to any point of view, no matter how moderately presented, which might suggest that the native art of the land was a cultural asset to be treasured. Still, they didn't resort to catcalls to shut him up.

They didn't have to. It only took two men and a trick that carried me back to my high school days to accomplish that. It's a trick that depends on the speaker using a p.a. system, which was the case here. Two people sitting in opposite corners of the room take ordinary, half-filled water glasses and make sure the inner parts of the rims are thoroughly wet. Then they each run the tip of one finger around this inner rim. The result is a crossfire of unheard high-frequency sound-waves which are picked up by the microphone. Then, when the speaker talks into the mike, his voice is transmitted as a garbled series of high beeps and his words are lost in a senseless caterwaul. As a kid, I'd been involved in pulling off this stunt once or twice when a high-school assembly speaker had been particularly dull. Now two grown men were doing it to drown out a speaker pleading for artistic appreciation and tolerance.

Watching the speaker turn red and start to stutter, I had a vague intuition about this business of using sound as a weapon. Somehow it seemed to tie in with all the gadgets which were activated by sound back in Highman's apartment in New York. I couldn't pin the connection down, but I sensed that the tactic somehow tied Highman in with what was happening in the lecture hall. Could it also have something to do, I wondered hazily, with the murders of Ilona Tabori and Prudence Highman?

The thought skipped away from the fringe of my mind as the speaker stopped trying to fight the interference. Angrily, but with dignity, he left the platform and strode down the center aisle toward the exit. The moderator hurried after him as if to apologize for what had happened.

I kept my eye on the moderator. He was the one I was after. He was the man with the key.

As he followed the speaker out the door, I got to my feet. But two men beat me to the exit. They were the same two men who'd pulled off the water-glass trick. I was right on their heels as they followed the speaker and the moderator down the stairs.

Talking in low, soothing tones which I couldn't overhear, the moderator led the speaker to a side door and opened it for him. He escorted him outside, to a narrow alley running alongside the building. Then he stood aside with a small smile on his face as the two men caught up with the speaker and stopped him.

The moderator was still standing there, a sort of disinterested observer, when I got outside. The two men were giving the speaker a silent, thorough going-over. I figured I'd get to them in a minute. First things first, and I wanted that key. So I shoved my gun against the moderator's belly and politely asked him to hand it over.

It happened so fast that he must have drawn at the same instant. The muzzle of his gun prodded me in the ribs even as I spoke. Only he didn't waste words as I had. He pulled the trigger.

The split-second realization that he'd do just that was all that saved me. Even as his finger tightened on the trigger, my hand was coming down with a karate chop to his wrist that sent the gun spinning from his grasp. The bullet grazed my hip, the pain searing but momentary. Still, it was just enough to give him the opportunity to make a grab for my gun.

We struggled for it. We sank to our knees, then rolled in the dust, neither of us able to make the other relinquish his grip on the revolver. Then one of the other men left off beating the speaker to come to my opponent's aid.

He stomped hard on my wrist, and the gun went flying. He started to dive after it, but I managed to stick out my foot and trip him up. The moderator was on top of me now, but I slammed my elbow into his throat and he fell back gasping.

The other bully-boy lunged to get into the act. But the gutsy speaker still had enough strength left to hinder him by sinking his teeth into the calf of his leg. I spotted the other gun lying on the ground where the moderator had dropped it. The first hoodlum saw it at the same moment. He dived for the gun and I dived for his groin. My head slammed into it, and I grabbed the gun. Now the moderator grabbed me from behind and we were again struggling for possession of a weapon. Only this time the gun went off.

The fight continued, but the sound of the shot drew footsteps both from inside the gallery and from the street beyond the alley. Before they reached us, one of the muscle-men clipped me from behind and the moderator wrenched the gun from my grasp. The speaker made a dive for him, and the moderator drilled a neat little hole right in the center of his forehead. Then he turned the gun on me and coolly drew a bead. From the sound of their footsteps, the crowd from both directions was almost on us now. Obviously he intended to finish me off before any more witnesses appeared on the scene.

Then, suddenly, his jaw dropped open in agonized surprise and he pitched forward on his face. In the moonlight I saw a small dart sticking out of the back of his neck. Immediately, there were people thronging around.

I wanted to elbow through them to his body. I wanted to get that key. But the two hoods had kept their heads in the sudden confusion, and now they were steadfastly flanking the corpse. They seemed to be known to many in the crowd, and they were explaining that I was a murderer and urging the others to grab me before I escaped.

Getting the key was out. I'd be lucky to get away with my skin. I could sense the building of a lynching fervor. I spotted one of the guns on the ground and swooped down to pick it up. Holding it on the crowd, I backed away from them. A sudden tug at my elbow almost gave me a heart attack, but then I looked down and saw that it was Lagula. He grinned up at me, and I grinned back my thanks for his once again having saved my life.

"This way," he told me.

I followed him into the bushes and then paced him as he started to run. Once again I found myself fleeing through backyards, over fences, and through alleys. Our route took us finally across the color line and into the native section of the city. Lagula paused at the rear of a rundown house and led me inside through a cellar window. A tall Negro boy of about sixteen was waiting for us in a back bin of the cellar. There was a single candle on the table in front of him and he was bent over a book. As we entered, I made out the title. It was H. G. Wells' Outline of History.

"This is Manzu." Lagula introduced the boy. "And this is Mr. Steve Victor from America," he told him.

We exchanged greetings.

"Manzu is the great-grandson of a famous Bantu emperor," Lagula added. "He is a leader in the fight against white oppression."

"A fight which is as old as history," the boy said, tapping the book.

"A fight which has to end," I said, suddenly very conscious of being white.

"Or to be won," the boy said meaningfully. Then he took off his glasses and his face relaxed into a smile. "But please don't misunderstand, Mr. Victor. I don't want black supremacy any more than white. It's simply that we are being forced into a corner where the battle may have to be joined by just such absolutes. Only by the white man's voluntarily relinquishing his immoral hold over the black man can such harsh terms of battle be avoided. In Rhodesia, the Negro has nothing to relinquish, and so no position from which to compromise. Thus it is the white man who must give if he wishes to avoid total race war. Perhaps in your country it is different, but here-"

"It is different," I interrupted him. "But there are similarities as well. The problem isn't as clearcut, since non-whites are only ten percent of our population. The danger of forcing them into a rigid anti-white position may not be great, but it is present."

"I should have warned you about Manzu," Lagula said, laughing. "He is a living discussion trap. Sometimes I think he would like to talk the white Rhodesians into giving back the country."

"If only that were possible," Manzu sighed.

"So young, and so serious." Lagula laughed again.

"Freedom" – Manzu pointed to the book again – "has always been a young man's battle throughout history."

"And the young men of Rhodesia are engaged in it constantly," Lagula said, turning to me. "It is they who saved your life on two occasions, Mr. Victor. The first time it was Manzu himself."

"What do you mean?"

"It was nothing." Manzu looked embarrassed. "I work as an attendant in the men's room of the hotel to which you came. Shortly before your arrival, I overheard two members of T.U.M.S. making plans to assassinate you in your bed. The Liberation Front for which I work still maintains some contacts with British agents. I alerted them, and they arranged for Lagula here to warn and protect you."

"He also arranged to smuggle me into your room before you got there," Lagula added. "And the second time it was a confederate of Manzu's, a waiter at the hotel where Miss Tabori was staying, who eavesdropped on a conversation and learned that T.U.M.S. expected you to contact her and had a man waiting to throw a bomb into her room when he was sure that you were there."

"Unfortunately," Manzu said with genuine regret, "we didn't find out that Lagula's house was to be a target until it was too late to save the lady."

"How is it," I wondered, "that the T.U.M.S. people allow themselves to be heard in the presence of African natives? You'd think they'd be more cautious."

"You have to understand their idiotic premises," Manzu said. "To the white man we are virtually invisible. He never looks at us, and so he never sees us. We are simply servants – no, less than servants – more a part of a decor. One doesn't hesitate to speak in the presence of a chair or a drapery. Not only has prejudice conditioned the white man to think of us as mindless, but as without senses, incapable of hearing, or at least of assimilating what we hear. It is a paradox. It is this very thing which we are fighting, and yet it is the same thing which is one of our greatest weapons in the fight. That a men's room attendant – a mere boy who will still be a boy when he is sixty – might have the mentality to even think of freedom is inconceivable to the self-brainwashed segregationists. That he might fight for it is completely beyond their ken. 'Good niggers' like that aren't the ones making the trouble, they say. It's only the savage, criminal types who dope themselves up and go berserk who cause the trouble."

"And yet they are beginning to wake up," Lagula pointed out. "Recently, I begin to see fear in their eyes. A black man who walks six blocks in a white neighborhood will be stopped six times by six separate patrols and searched for weapons. And I have heard whites warning each other not to turn their backs on their houseboys."

"Yes, that is true," Manzu granted. "It is a period of transition from the complete lack of awareness of contempt to fear. But the old habits are still strong with the whites. When they're not confronted by the situation directly, they forget themselves. They forget the threat. They forget us. And they speak freely when common sense ought to dictate otherwise because we are not yet really thinking human beings in their estimation."

"And so Manzu is dedicated to opening their eyes," Lagula told me. "To a limited extent the British endorse his objectives, and-"

"It's far too limited an extent!" Manzu said with some anger. "Why don't they send us guns? Why?"

"And so," Lagula continued, smiling at Manzu fondly as he overrode his interruption, "as a British agent, I frequently find Manzu's cooperation invaluable. His comrades are the source of much of my information."

"Were they responsible for your timely arrival tonight?" I asked.

"No. That was sheer chance. I was in the area looking for you when I heard the gunshot. I arrived just in time to see your predicament and end it with my blowpipe."

"Again, my thanks," I said. "To both of you," I added.

"You are welcome, Mr. Victor." Lagula glanced at his wristwatch. "But it is time for us to end discussion and consider some information which should interest you, Mr. Victor. It concerns the Russian agent, Vlankov. An agent of British Intelligence has been keeping him under surveillance."

"I should have guessed," I laughed. So that was who the third man was in the espionage procession led by Highman when I spotted him leaving the art gallery.

"This afternoon Vlankov followed a man who was in the car that tried to kill us," Lagula, continued, not knowing that I already knew this. "Vlankov followed the man to his hotel. When the man went down to dinner, Vlankov sneaked into his room. He didn't stay too long, but when he came out he abandoned his watch on the man and went to an airline office where he purchased a ticket. British Intelligence believes that he found something in the man's room which pointed to the girl we are all seeking. They think there's a possibility that he may have stumbled on something telling him where the girl is. They thought you might want to follow up on this and be on the plane with Vlankov. And so they took the liberty of arranging it." Lagula handed me an airline ticket.

I looked at it. It was for the weekly flight from Salisbury to Ankara, in Turkey. It was stamped for a twelve o'clock departure that night.

I remembered then how insistent Highman had been that the jeweled phallus go out on a midnight flight. It must be the same plane. But Vlankov wasn't interested in the phallus. What could he have discovered in Highman's room to make him take that plane? Might he really have found a hot lead to the whereabouts of Dr. Nyet?

"Yes," I told Lagula. "I definitely want to be on that plane."

"I thought you would. But there are problems. The two men you fought with back at the art gallery are both staunch members of T.U.M.S. I recognized them. Our paths have crossed before. By now their organization must be scouring the town to find you – and probably me as well. And they've probably convinced the authorities that you're a murderer, so the police will be after us, too." Lagula glanced at his watch again. "We have an hour to get you to the airport. It's only a half-hour ride, but we have to allow for interference. However, I scheduled our departure for now so that you wouldn't get there too early. Hanging around there would only increase your chances of being picked up."

While Lagula was speaking, Manzu had crossed the cellar to a window looking out on the street. Now he pulled aside the curtains and peered out, "It is there," he announced.

"Manzu arranged for a car for us," Lagula told me.

"It is a stolen car," Manzu apologized. "But it's the best I could do on such short, notice and it shouldn't be missed before morning."

I thanked Manzu once again for everything he had done, wished him luck, and followed Lagula out to the car. "I'll drive," he said, getting in behind the wheel. "I know the back streets to take us into the vicinity of the airport. That way we'll avoid the highway patrols. If we're lucky, we may not run into any of the street patrols."

We were lucky – right up until almost the end of our ride. Then, with the lights of the airport in sight, sirens sounded from an intersection ahead of us and two official-looking lorries pulled up in such a way as to block the road. As uniformed men poured out of the lorries, a third siren sounded from behind us.

Lagula hit the brake, and a moment later we were pedestrians again. Shouts to halt were followed by bullets as we plunged into the underbrush fringing the road. Lagula pulled me down behind some bushes almost immediately, and we stayed absolutely quiet as the searchers thrashed the brush around us.

After a while they moved off and Lagula whispered in my ear. "They won't give up," he said. "They've got the area staked out now, probably cordoned off, and pretty soon they'll start a systematic search. We have to act before they do. And we have to act fast if you're going to catch that plane."

"What should we do?" I whispered back.

"I'm going to draw them off. When I do, you climb over that fence across the road. There's a landing strip there, and if you follow it you'll come to the main part of the airfield."

"But what about you?" I asked, genuinely concerned for this little man I'd come to like so much and value so highly.

"I'm going to lead them right back that way," Lagula whispered, pointing behind him.

"What's there?"

"Nothing." He grinned. "And everything," he added. "It's jungle. The nice thing about being a savage," he said sardonically, "is that I'm much more capable of coping with the jungle than our so-called civilized playmates out there. Once I've distracted them from you, I'll have no trouble losing them."

"And then what will you do?"

"Head straight back to the Bulalwa country. I've become too prominent in Salisbury. My usefulness as an agent there is over. So I'll just go home to my five brides. If you should encounter British Intelligence in your travels, you might convey my resignation."

"Will do," I promised. "But I hate to see you taking a chance like this for me."

"The real danger comes later." He rolled his eyes. "Surviving the white Rhodesians is as nothing compared with the problem of surviving the greetings of five frustrated Bulalwa ladies." The pigmy clasped my hand. "Goodbye, Mr. Victor," he said.

"Goodbye, Lagula." I watched him crawl off, thinking to myself that there went the biggest man I'd ever met. I'd have bet my right arm that he was more than enough of a man to satisfy the quintet awaiting his return. And even if I was wrong, I knew he'd die trying.

Five minutes passed, and there were shouts and gunfire off to my right. I waited for the running footsteps to pass my hiding place, and then I dashed across the road and started climbing the fence. I was almost to the top when I heard Lagula's mocking laugh. There were loud curses then, and more gunfire, but as I dropped down to the ground on the other side, that indomitable, nose-thumbing laugh sounded again and I was reassured. If Lagula had gotten this far, I was sure he'd make it all right.

I trotted down the airstrip, past the hangars, and to the back of the main terminal building. I peered through the window. There were Rhodesian cops checking people's papers at all the entrances and exits. I looked at my watch – 11:55. I ducked around to the other side of the terminal building and spotted a plane loading there. I was just in time to see Vlankov boarding it. A moment later one of the uniformed cargo attendants climbed into the belly of the plane with a large package. From the shape and size of the package, I guessed the last-minute delivery of the Nepalese phallus had been accomplished despite the demise of the man originally entrusted to see to it. Highman must have managed to make other arrangements.

I waited until I saw the ground crew start to remove the wheeled staircase from the side of the plane before I dashed up to it. "You're late, sir," the stewardess chided me as she checked my ticket. "You almost

missed your flight."

"Sorry. I was unavoidably detained," I told her.

"That's all right." She smiled pleasantly. "Seat number eight in the back, please."

Vlankov's face was a study in astonishment as he saw me coming down the aisle. I gave him a jaunty wave, and the astonishment changed to a snarl. I didn't see what he had to be miffed about. He'd been tailing me, and now it looked like I was tailing him. Turnabout is fair play, isn't it?

I half-dozed through most of the flight to Ankara. When we landed, I didn't even try to pretend I wasn't following Vlankov. I didn't have to follow him far. He never left the airport terminal.

When he first sat down there, I strolled over to the window looking out on the field and divided my attention between the plane from which we'd just disembarked and Vlankov. The package I'd spotted before was unloaded and placed to one side of the field with some other cargo. But most of the cargo was loaded on hand trucks and wheeled around to the back of the terminal. I guessed that the package was slated to be transferred to another plane.

I was right. About two hours later Vlankov got up, and at the same moment a baggage handler fetched the package and loaded it into another plane which had just taxied up to pick up passengers. Vlankov was now standing at the line-up waiting for a gate to open. The sign above the gate said Flight 317-0slo.

I was lucky. There was plenty of space available on the plane. I bought a ticket without any trouble and followed Vlankov aboard.

When we landed in Oslo, I began to think that Vlankov and I might be involved in a game of tag on a global scale. Again he didn't leave the airport. Again the package I thought contained the phallus was held with other cargo waiting to be loaded on other planes.

A half-hour in the Oslo airport, and then Vlankov got up abruptly. A flight for Stockholm had just been announced. He joined the queue at the gate where it was loading. Why hadn't he gone directly from Ankara to Stockholm, I wondered. There were more flights out of there to Stockholm than there were to Oslo. Still, I didn't have time to figure it out. I hurried to buy a ticket on the Stockholm flight.

Standing at the ticket counter, I watched Vlankov pass through the gate and board the plane. With my ticket in my hand, I started to follow him. But as I came through the gate, I spotted the package I'd been watching still sitting off to one side of the field.

"Has all the cargo been loaded on this plane?" I asked the stewardess.

"Yes, sir." She looked at me curiously.

"Thanks. I've changed my mind." I turned away and went back into the airport terminal. There was no sign of Vlankov.

That being the case, there was nothing else to do but watch the package. So I watched it for about a half-hour. Then it was plucked up by a hand truck and loaded onto an old four-motor, bucket-seat plane that had just wheeled up alongside the building.

I inquired at the information desk and found out that the plane was bound for Hammerfest, a seaport on the Barents Sea at the northern tip of Norway. It was mainly used for cargo, I was told, but it did carry passengers when the need arose. At most only a few people took advantage of this during any one flight. And tonight, my informant believed, there was only one ticket sold for the flight.

I made it two. I boarded the rickety crate and strapped myself into a bucket seat facing the door. It was almost take-off time when Vlankov finally showed. The look on his face was priceless when he saw me sitting there waiting for him.

"Do you play gin rummy?" I asked.

"Da."

"Then it's a pity we don't have any cards," I sighed.

"I do." He produced a deck and riffled the cards in my face challengingly.

"Deal," I told him as the plane taxied down the runway and into the air.

"Why are you following me?" he asked as I dealt.

"Why were you following me back in Salisbury?" I countered.

"I asked you first."

"Shut up and play cards," I advised him.

He was silent for a few moments, but then he spoke again. "We will bury you!" he quoted, sneering.

"Gin." I smiled at him pleasantly.

He scored it, bared his teeth, and re-dealt the pasteboards. "Look," he took a different tone. "We are together in this. No matter what our feelings about the struggle between Russia and America, can't we put them aside and cooperate for the good of both our countries? Why shouldn't we share what we know?"

"Great idea. You first," I told him.

"But since you are following me," he said smoothly, "it is you who should speak first. That will prove your good intentions."

"All right." I readily agreed. "The fact is that I've stumbled on something which should really be of vital interest to you."

"Da? Da?"

"It's just this," I told him conspiratorially. "Russians are the world's lousiest gin rummy players."

"Capitalist imperial pig!" he sputtered.

"Gin." I proved my point.

"You American's don't really want world peace," he muttered, dealing again.

"And you Russians do?" I picked up my cards and discarded one.

"Da! We do want peace."

"Sure you do." I picked up his discard and fitted it neatly into my hand. "A piece of Europe, a piece of Southeast Asia, a piece here, and a piece there."

"That is your whole trouble. You are not serious peoples" He was angry now and pounding the table. "How can we cooperate if you won't be serious? What are you doing?" he asked as I spread my cards out face up on the table once again.

"Gin."

"Nyet!" he protested.

"Da," I assured him. "And schneider."

By the time we bumped down in Hammerfest, I'd taken him three more games. The last two were played in total silence. He'd run out of both propositions and insults, and I'd run out of wisecracks. Still, his parting rationale as we disembarked from the plane is worth noting as an interesting example of typical Commie doublethink.

"Gin is a bourgeois game,"' he sneered. "Chess is the only pastime really worthy of the intellect. And we Russians are traditionally the chess champions of the world."

"That's because you have so many Russian pawns," I told him.

Vlankov snorted and walked on ahead of me across the small airstrip to the shedlike structure which served as the airport terminal for Hammerfest. Evidently, as far as he was concerned, our brief – and on the whole rather unsatisfactory – rapport was at an end. He wasn't going to resign himself to my company; he was back on the job and about to do his best to lose me.

He went straight to the men's room and entered it. When I started to follow him in, I discovered he'd locked the door behind him. It figured the men's room would have a window and Vlankov might attempt to shake me that way. I found a window farther along the same wall and stuck my head out so I'd be able to see him if he did.

My view also took in a cargo receiving platform. I spotted a female figure in a parka standing in front of it, waiting to pick up something. Then, as I watched, she was handed a package and started to walk back toward the entrance to the terminal. The package was the same one I'd been tailing since Salisbury.

Just as the female figure entered the building, Vlankov started to hoist himself out the window of the men's room. I pulled my head back in so he wouldn't see me watching him. He scurried around the side of the building to the front.

The girl stopped to talk to the porter, and for the first time I got a good look at her face. Right then I decided to let Vlankov go. I guessed that we'd meet later, he and I; the trails we were following were merging, only now I judged myself to be one jump ahead of him. You see, I recognized the girl who'd claimed the package.

I didn't know her name, but I'd have known that pixie-face and Bardot-style bosom anywhere. The last time I'd seen her she'd been crawling out of a pile of garbage at the bottom of a dumb-waiter shaft in that brothel back in New York. She was the second of the S.M.U.T. girls I'd helped escape that night, and she might well be Dr. Nyet.

As a matter of fact, there seemed a better than fifty-fifty chance that she might be the elusive Russian scientist. Her short-cropped black hair, her age and general appearance all tallied with the description – inadequate as it was – given me by Putnam back in London. And the fact that she and the priceless jeweled phallus should both be in this remote corner of the world seemed to indicate that S.M.U.T. valued her highly.

I approached her before she reached the exit. "Hello," I greeted her.

Her eyes widened with surprise as she recognized me. "What are you doing here?" she exclaimed.

"Meeting you," I told her. "Highman sent me," I added, improvising.

"He did? But why?"

"To be your bodyguard." I went on to embellish the lie. "You've got a Russian agent on your back. Highman sent me to deal with him for you. You're pretty important to Highman, you know."

"What you mean is that I'm pretty important to S.M.U.T.," she corrected me. "Well then, I guess you'd better come along and guard the body, Mr.-?"

"Victor. Steve Victor. And I've never seen a body more worth guarding." I added gallantly.

"That doesn't sound like S.M.U.T. talk."

"Well, it certainly wasn't meant to be," I said indignantly.

"I mean it isn't the sort of talk that seems to reflect the attitude of our organization."

"Sorry. I forget myself sometimes. But I'm really very dedicated to our cause."

"Oh, I'm sure you must be. Highman wouldn't have sent you unless he was absolutely sure of your loyalty."

"Let me carry that." I took the package from her and followed her out to a line of horse-drawn sleds waiting in front of the building. As she was climbing into one of them and giving the driver an address, I stole a look at the address on the label of the package. It was addressed to "Olga Duval, General Delivery, Hammerfest Airport, Hammerfest, Norway."

Olga! It was a good Russian name, even if the last name was French. As I climbed into the cab of the sled after her, it occurred to me that I might very well have found both the missing phallus and Dr. Nyet!

It was a long drive on a short day. The days are always short in Norway. My watch said it was only four o'clock, but it was dark when we reached our destination. I followed Olga out of the sled into the darkness.

There was a house, but she bypassed it. I followed her across a strand of beach, ducking my head against the bitingly cold sea wind. She led the way to a dock with a rowboat tied to it. She indicated for me to take the oars and then guided me on the course she wanted to take.

I didn't have to row far. It was only about fifteen minutes later that we reached a fishing sloop rocking at anchor. Olga tied up alongside a rope ladder and climbed aboard the vessel. I followed her.

She led the way across the deck and down a dark gangway to a cabin. She closed the door behind us. The room was pitch black. Olga lit a match and held it to the wick of a kerosene lamp. The lamp flared up and the room took on a shadowy substance. Olga screamed!

Loud! It was a scream filled with both shock and fear. I pushed around from behind her to see what had caused it.

There was my old buddy Vlankov again. He was sitting in an armchair facing us. There was a sort of half-smile on his face, as if he were greeting someone. And neatly embedded in the center of his forehead was a small hatchet. He was dead as dead could be.

Who'll bury whom? I thought to myself as I crossed over to the corpse. I reached out and pulled the hatchet free. I studied it for a moment.

I'd seen a hatchet like this only once before in my life. A friend of mine on the San Francisco police force had shown it to me. It was a souvenir from the Chinatown Tong Wars of the early 1900s. It had the same sort of carefully honed blade, expertly carved hilt and delicate balance as this one. The balance was important because, as my friend had explained, such hatchets were made to be thrown. And from the split in Vlankov's skull, this one had been thrown with deadly accuracy.

"Are there any Chinese aboard this boat?" I asked Olga.

"No." She was still shaking, and it seemed hard for her to get even the one word out.

Despite her denial, I was sure that there had been a Chinese aboard. He'd eliminated the Russians from the search for Dr. Nyet at what might have been the very moment before Vlankov found her. And if Olga was Dr. Nyet, he'd sure as hell eliminate the American competition as soon as he could.

Which meant, kiddies, that I was the most likely guy to get the axe!