The Death Strain

II

I left Sherry half-awake in bed, murmuring for me to stay. "Can't, darling, I said in her ear. Her soft breasts were outside the sheet and I covered her up. She pulled the sheet down again without opening her eyes. "Still no go, doll," I chuckled. I brushed her body with my lips and left her grumbling. I'd checked out Wilhelmina, the 9mm Luger in the shoulder holster under my jacket, and I'd strapped Hugo, the pencil-thin stiletto, in its leather sheath on my forearm. Pressure at the right spot and the tempered steel blade dropped into my palm, silently, deadly.

I paused in the study downstairs and called Hawk. He was still harried, a man juggling more than he could safely handle. He told me they'd confiscated the only copy of the speech Carlsbad had sent to the symposium chairman to have read for him.

"It was rambling, threatening in vague ways," the Chief said. "It had Dr. Cook, the chairman, thoroughly confused and he was happy to see us take it off his hands."

"I'm on my way now to see the niece," I said.

"She's in scientific research herself, Nick," Hawk told me. "The two men watching the front and back of the house are FBI, I'm in walkie-talkie contact with them. I'll tell them you're on your way."

I was about to hang up when he spoke again. "And Nick, bear down. Time is short."

I went outside to the little blue Cougar parked near the Nestor house. I drove to the edge of Washington proper and found the Carlsbad house in the run-down area, the last house on a long street. A thick wall of woods was about twenty yards behind the house and there was heavy shrubbery in a vacant lot across the street from it. The house itself was run-down and decrepit-looking. I was frankly surprised. After all, Carlsbad wasn't drawing peanuts in his position as Director of the Cumberland Operation. Certainly he could afford something better than this.

I parked and walked to the weathered, cracked door and rang the bell. My next surprise was the girl who answered the door. I saw china-blue eyes, big and round, under a shock of short, brown hair set in a round, saucy face with a pert nose and full lips. A blue jersey blouse, almost the color of her eyes, tightened itself over full, upturned, thrusting breasts and a deep blue miniskirt revealed young, smoothly firm legs. Rita Kenmore was, to say the least, an eye-filling bit of fluff.

"Dr. Carlsbad, please," I said. The china-blue eyes stayed the same, but in this business you learn to catch the little things, and I saw the tiny line of tension tighten in her pretty jaw. I also noted that her fist was clenched white around the doorknob.

"He's not here," she said flatly. I smiled pleasantly and moved into the house in one quick step. I flashed an identity card that she hardly had time to read. "Then I'll wait," I said. "Carter, Nick Carter."

"Dr. Carlsbad won't be back," she said nervously.

"How do you know?" I asked quickly. "Have you heard from him?"

"No, no," she said too quickly. "I don't think he'll be back, that's all."

Little Miss Blue-eyes was lying. Either that or she damned well knew what had happened and expected to hear from Carlsbad and didn't want me around when she did. My eyes scanned the room and its worn furniture. I stepped to a doorway and peered into an adjoining room, a bedroom. A woman's traveling bag was open on the bed.

"Going someplace, Miss Kenmore?" I asked. I saw her china-blue eyes flare and seem to grow smaller as she tried an indignant act.

"Get out of this house, whoever you represent," she cried. "You've no right to come in here and question me. I'll call the police."

"Go ahead," I told her, deciding to sail with it. "Your uncle's got no right to steal vital government material."

I saw some of the bluster go out of her eyes, and she moved away. From the side, her breasts turned up sharply in a saucy, piquant line. "I don't know what you're talking about," she snapped, not looking at me. I had to admit that there was absolute conviction in her voice. But then maybe she was merely a good actress, a natural feminine talent. She turned toward me, and the round, china-blue eyes were a mixture of defensive righteousness and worry.

"He hasn't done anything wrong," she said. "My uncle is a sincere, dedicated man. Whatever he does is done only to make the world listen. Somebody's got to make it listen."

"And Dr. Carlsbad is the one, eh?" I offered. She took a deep breath in an obvious effort to compose herself. It may have helped compose her but the way it thrust her breasts out against the blue blouse didn't help my composure. It was damned hard to imagine her in some stuffy laboratory.

She glared at me. "I told you I don't know anything about anything," she said. When she looked at me again her eyes were misty. "I wish you'd tell me what's happened," she said.

Suddenly I had the distinct feeling that she was telling me a half-truth at least, that Carlsbad had not really taken her into his confidence. But she was waiting for someone or something and packing to go some place. I decided not to enlighten her. This way her anxiety would stay high. It might trip her up into revealing something. I merely smiled at her, and she turned away and began pacing up and down the room. I casually folded myself into an overstuffed chair and pretended not to catch her furtive glances out the windows. Good. She was expecting people, not phone calls. Maybe even Carlsbad himself. It would be nice to wrap this one up so quickly, I mused.

"Are you a bacteriologist, too?" I asked casually. "Or can't you stop pacing long enough to answer."

She glared at me and forced herself to sit down on the sofa across from me.

"I'm in the field of sexual research," she said, keeping her voice frosted. My eyebrows shot upward. I could feel them go, and I grinned at her.

"Now that sounds like a fun topic."

Her eyes were as icy as her voice. "I've been doing work on the effects of stress, strain and anxiety on human sexual response."

I turned that one over in my mind as I grinned at her. It was a subject I could tell her a few things about.

"All interview stuff?" I asked.

"Interviews, detailed reports from selected subjects and observation, also of selected subjects." She was trying to sound terribly detached and scientific.

"Oh?" My grin widened. "That's a pretty large field — and an interesting one."

Her eyes flashed and she started to answer, then thought better of it. But the proud lift of her chin as she turned away said it all — she was a scientist with ideals and high purpose, and I was a government agent with a dirty mind.

I had my doubts about the scientific detachment of anybody, no matter how idealistic, who stood around taking notes and «observing» while people made love, but I wasn't about to argue the point She was too pretty to argue with. Besides, I was beginning to think that my presence was keeping her from making any moves. Maybe if I left, she would try to join Carlsbad, in which case I could tail her.

I turned and started for the door. Pausing, I took a piece of paper from my pocket and wrote on it before handing it to her. I wanted to make it look good.

"Don't leave town, and if you see or hear from Dr. Carlsbad, call this number," I said. She took the slip of paper without looking at it.

"I'll be back," I grinned at her, letting my eyes linger on the tips of her breasts. "For one reason or another."

Her china-blue eyes registered nothing, but I saw the faint tightening of her lips and I knew she was watching me through the small hall window as I walked to the car, got in and drove away. I looked back at the house as I turned the corner and again wondered why in hell Carlsbad wanted to live in such a run-down old antique.

I drove around the block and then stopped. Moving quickly and silently, I crossed to the edge of the woods behind the house where Hawk said one of the FBI boys was watching the place. He'd said he was staying in constant touch with them via walkie-talkie; contacting them would be the fastest way for me to get hold of him.

Once at the edge of the woods I moved slowly. I didn't want a bullet in my gut. Chances were the FBI boys would be cautious before shooting, but you couldn't be sure. I crawled on my hands and knees through the underbrush and cast a look at the house. I was directly behind it now.

"N3… AXE," I said in a hoarse whisper, pausing to wait. There was no answer. I moved forward and called out again in a half-whisper. I saw an arm raise from behind a cluster of brush. The arm beckoned to me. I went toward it and a man moved into view, young, even-featured, his eyes on me steady. He held a regulation.38 in one hand. I put Wilhelmina into my holster.

"Nick Carter, AXE," I said. I gave him an identifying code and mentioned Hawk. He relaxed and I halted beside him. He nodded past me and I turned to see another agent, a carbine in his hands, move toward us from behind a tree. He had had me covered too.

"Got any more around?" I grinned at my man.

"Just us two," he smiled. "That's enough." In most cases he would have been right. Nothing, as I was to learn, was enough in this one. "I need to contact Hawk on your electronic smoke-signal," I said. He handed it to me. They were both staying low, and I followed their example. With the walkie-talkie in my hand, I turned abruptly and moved down on my right elbow.

I was lucky. The first shot hit the walkie-talkie where my head had just been, exploding it in a blast of metal. I whirled, turning my face away, but not before I caught some of the metal and felt small rivulets of blood erupt on my face. It seemed as though the whole damn wooded area exploded next in a hail of automatic weapon shots combined with rifle fire.

The agent with the carbine rose up, shuddered and fell dead. I'd landed behind a cluster of shrubs and saw figures — two, four, six of them — coming at us through the trees, all carrying weapons. I swore. Damn them, they'd figured the house would be watched and the woods behind it was the most likely spot. So they watched the watchers, surprising the surprisers.

The agent nearest to me was firing, and the figures darted from behind trees, spreading out fan-like. If he fired at one or two, the others stepped out to pour lead in his direction and he had to keep firing and rolling, firing and rolling. It was a technique marked for doom, and the slugs from the automatic weapons were tearing up the ground at his head. I lay silent, Wilhelmina in my hand. I saw the FBI agent getting close to the clear ground at the edge of the wooded area and realized what he was going to try to do.

"You haven't a chance that way," I whispered hoarsely at him. But he was out of earshot. He avoided two more bursts of automatic weapon fire, reached the clear ground and leaped to his feet to run. He took maybe five steps before the hail of bullets caught him and he went down.

I lay still and glanced toward the house. A black Chevy sedan was at the curb in front of the place. It had pulled up as the FBI men were being cut down. Men were entering the house to get the girl while the field men took care of things out back. I caught a glimpse of Rita Kenmore's light blue blouse through the rear window of the house.

Looking back into the woods I saw the line of killers, not more than dark shapes, fanned out and moving carefully, slowly, searching for me. They'd seen me when they opened fire, and knew there had been three men. So far they'd only accounted for two. I had to be in there someplace, and they moved in wide-apart lanes to trap me. No matter how fast I fired, I couldn't get more than half of them before the others would zero in on me. And running for it would only bring the same fate as had caught the FBI agent.

I estimated the distance to the house. One step into the clearing and I was a perfect target. But the distance wasn't that great to the rear windows. Forty-five seconds might do it, running at top speed. It was time to call on Special Effects and I reached a hand into my jacket pocket.

I always made it a practice to have something of Stewart's on me. One never knew when the products of his remarkable Advanced Weapons Lab could come in handy. The AXE Special Effects branch pioneered in esoteric weaponry, its devices always specialized, always effective, frequently lifesaving. For those that used them, that is. Others took it differently. Stewart, who ran the place, had the physician's benign attitude toward the AXE agents he served, looking on his products like cold tablets or warm gloves, good to have around. "I always like the boys to keep something of mine on them, just in case," he was fond of saying. I usually carried his stuff only when I intended using them for specific purposes on a mission. But he'd insisted one day not so long ago and now I was thanking him for it.

The line of killers with their automatic weapons was coming closer. I opened the small and very ordinary-looking box of aspirin, clearly marked as such on the metal cover. I took out two of the «aspirin» and couldn't resist a smile. He had told me that if I had to take them for a headache they'd be of some effect and no harm. But now I was going to use them for a headache of a different land.

I squeezed hard with my fingernails on the center of each pill, holding the pressure tight for thirty seconds. I could feel the soft centers give under the pressure. Inside the innocuous little pills, a triggering mechanism was activated by the pressure and a chemical process exploded into action. I waited another fifteen seconds and then tossed the two pills into the air, one to the right and one to the left as the killers drew close.

Pressing myself flat to the ground, I waited, ticking off the seconds in my mind. In precisely ten seconds the pills exploded in a twin cascade of thick, gagging blue-black smoke-like substance. The cloud of choking smoky material mushroomed up and down but not out, forming a kind of curtain.

I leaped to my feet and streaked across the clear space toward the house, safely hidden from view by the thick curtain. The stuff was choking and delaying, but not lethal, a smoke-screen in the form of a thick curtain of a heavy chemical. Once they made their way through it they'd be all right in moments except for some tearing eyes, so I didn't slow any. A rear window loomed ahead. Putting my arms across my face, I dived for it, smashing through the glass with a shattering impact, landing on the floor and somersaulting at once.

I came up on my feet with Wilhelmina in hand, but a smallish man was holding Rita Kenmore in front of him, and I pulled my finger from the trigger a fraction of a second before it would have been too late. He was backing toward the door of the living room, and I saw that I'd landed in a ground floor bedroom. I moved toward him, half-crouched, looking for a chance for a clear shot. He kept the girl well in front of him. I watched for him to come up with a gun and start blazing away from behind her, but he had both hands holding her shoulders.

Rita was wide-eyed, but more apprehensive than frightened and moving back with him without a struggle of any sort. It was clear she didn't fear him, and I swore under my breath. She had probably expected company. She was getting help in disappearing. More help than I realized. I moved after them, stepping into the living room, and the blows came at me from two sides just as I moved past the doorway.

I caught the slight movement on my right and twisted away, but the guy on the left came down with a gun butt. It grazed my temple and I saw purple pinwheels for a moment. As I slid to the floor I yanked at his legs and he went over backwards. The other one leaped on me and I tossed him over my head. I'd managed to keep hold of Wilhelmina and I fired once, at point-blank range. The first man leaped convulsively and collapsed. The second one tried to scramble away and get his own gun up. My shot caught him in the chest, and the big 9mm slug bounced him against the wall.

I'd started to turn when the blow descended. I caught a glimpse of the huge leg coming at me and half-turned away, but the kick caught me in the back of the neck. It would have torn my neck muscles apart had I not been on my knees. I went flying across the room to land on top of the dead man against the wall. Wilhelmina skidded from my hand and under a table and through glazed eyes I saw a huge form, a mountain of a man, the giant Sumo wrestler who had figured in the theft from Cumberland. He was moving toward me, a house with legs, and my own legs were definitely unsteady.

I tensed my muscles, feeling them respond sluggishly as my head rang like a gong, my neck afire with pain. I came up from the floor at him, swinging out with a left, but my timing was way off as I still reeled dizzily. The blow landed high on his cheekbone, and he brushed it aside as though it were a gnat's bite. Huge hands grabbed me and I stretched out to find his face, but I felt myself being lifted and flung into the wall. I hit it so hard the plaster cracked. I sank to the floor, shaking my head, clinging desperately to consciousness and expecting another blow that would tear my head off. Dimly I heard the girl's voice calling.

"Ready," I heard her say and the answering grunt from the wrestler. His footsteps receded, and I pushed myself from against the wall, rolled over and gazed with wavy focus across the floor. I spied Wilhelmina under the table, reached out and closed my hand around the Luger. Stumbling only once, my head still ringing and my neck fierce with pain, I lurched to the front door in time to see Rita Kenmore disappear into the back seat of the Chevy.

Sumo Sam on the other side of the car saw me stumble from the house and aim a shot at him. He ducked as the slug tore a line across the roof of the car where he'd towered over it. A shot answered mine, and I hit the ground, rolled over and came up to see the black Chevy roaring away from the curb. I pegged another shot at it but only hit the trunk.

Swearing, I was on my feet, running for the blue Cougar I'd parked around the block. As I reached the end of the house I remembered the killers in the woods and dived to the ground. Peering back to the woods, I saw the column of smoke still holding at the very edge. Three of the killers had come through it, but they were turning to go back into the woods. They'd seen the black Chevy take off, and their job was over. I hadn't time to chase them. The black Chevy held all the important pieces.

I dove into the Cougar and sent it roaring in a tight circle. I caught a glimpse of the Chevy's rear as they turned a corner ahead, and I put the gas pedal on the floor. Reaching the corner, I took it on two wheels, listening to the screech. I saw their tail careen around another corner and I took after them. I could see them ahead now; they were turning onto a paved service road that paralleled the more crowded expressway. Driving with one hand, I switched on the walkie-talkie and heard Hawk's voice crackle through.

"It's me, Nick," I said. "No time to explain. Call alarm to stop black Chevy sedan, heading north on service road alongside expressway." I pressed the «off» switch.

"Got it," Hawk said. I switched on again. The Chevy had caromed around a sharp curve.

"Hold it," I said, dropping the instrument onto the seat beside me to grab the wheel with both hands as I skidded the car around the corner. The rear end drifted wide but I managed to miss the street lamp.

"Norbert Road," I yelled back into the walkie-talkie. "West on Norbert Road. Stay on the ready. Over and out."

I pressed my foot on the accelerator and felt the car leap forward. The black Chevy was hitting ninety and Norbert Road was a succession of curves. Half the time I'd lose them and knew they were there only by the scream of their tires as they took a curve. Then I'd catch sight of them for a moment, until the next curve.

The Chevy had the giant Jap, old Sumo Sam, plus the two smaller men and Rita Kenmore — over seven hundred pounds of weight to hold it down against my one-ninety. They gained a little bit at each curve because of it. I roared around a sharp one and almost went into a spin, the wheel fighting me furiously. When I pulled out of it and onto the straightaway, they weren't in sight and I frowned. But there was another curve, an easy one just ahead and I cut it beautifully hitting the straight section beyond without slowing down. The black Chevy was still nowhere in sight. I went on a few hundred yards more and hit the brakes, skidding to a halt. Reversing, I made a fast turnabout and headed back the way I'd come, cursing into the wind.

The opening was on my right, a small entranceway in a long, wooden fence which I'd shot past before without even seeing. It was the only possible spot. They must have gone in there. I turned into the entranceway and found myself going down a steep dirt grade. The car hit the bottom bouncing like a baby buggy and I burst out of the door with the walkie-talkie in my hand. I was inside a huge construction area, with big stacks of culvert pipe and steel beams, huge generators still on their wooden skids, the steel framework of a half-dozen structures and dirt roads and paths in all directions. But there was no black Chevy. They had plenty of places to hide in here.

I lifted the walkie-talkie to talk with control when the fusillade of shots rang out from three different directions. I felt the wind of the slugs tearing through the air and slamming into the metal of the Cougar. I half-slipped, half-dove for the ground just as one bullet struck the walkie-talkie in my hand. It shattered the instrument, and I closed my eyes and turned away as small slivers of metal flew into my face.

I felt the tiny trickles of blood running down my right cheek, but that wasn't anything. It was my arm, numb and tingling as though I'd been sleeping on it for hours. The walkie-talkie slipped from my numbed fingers as the second cluster of shots echoed in the recessed area. I rolled under the car and felt a bullet crease my leg. I wanted to yank out Wilhelmina and return their fire but my hand and arm were still numb. I couldn't have held a water pistol. From beneath the car I heard the sound of feet running on the earth and then I saw them, coming toward the car from both sides.

I rolled on my back and, twisting my arm, pulled at the Luger with my left hand. I'd just gotten it free when one pair of footsteps vaulted into the car and I heard the sound of the engine roar into life. Dropping the Luger, I rolled over on my stomach as the car backed up, the transmission scraping my temple. The driver twisted the wheel and I saw the frame move to the right and the rear tires dig into the earth and race at me.

I flung myself to the left and the right rear tire scraped my shoulder as it hurtled past, and then the car was no longer on top of me, but I heard the screech of brakes and the clash of gears as the driver shot it into reverse. I'd half-lifted myself from the ground as the Cougar shot at me. I dived again, flattening myself, pressing into the earth, and I cried out in pain as the transmission shaft scraped over my shoulder blades. The driver stopped before he'd gone all the way past me, shot the gears into forward again and spurted ahead. I stayed flattened and once more the car shot out from above me. This time I gathered myself and dove forward, rolling in a somersault. I'd just reached the end of it when I felt the huge hands grab my shoulders and lift me up.

I managed to plant one foot firmly enough, and half-spun around to see the giant Japanese and beyond him, my Cougar with the man getting out of it. I tried a backward blow at the huge man but he flung me down like a sack of potatoes and I landed half over a wooden crate. For all his size, the Japanese was quick as a cat, and he was on me as I hit the crate. I swung but he brushed the blow aside with an oak-like arm, and his counter-punch sent me sailing through the air.

I landed on the back of my neck, did a reverse flip and saw pretty lights of pink and yellow and red. I shook my head and pulled myself upright to find that, in reflex action, Hugo was in my hand and I was lashing out in short, vicious arcs. But I was slicing only thin air, and I heard the sound of a car engine starting up, a familiar sound.

Shaking my head to clear it further, I saw my blue Cougar starting up the dirt ramp. I ran around the edge of the crate and fell to the ground where Wilhelmina lay. I got one shot off at them, more in frustration than anything else, as they disappeared out the exit ramp. I heard the sound of the car receding, and I put the Luger back in its holster.

They were off and running, and Hawk had the cops out looking for a black Chevy. I decided to do the same and found their car behind a long generator. They'd left the keys in it. I drove it out of the construction site and down Norbert Road. A police helicopter appeared overhead and I waved at it. Minutes later I was surrounded by flashing yellow and red lights and a cordon of police cruisers. I climbed out, talked fast, and they let me contact Hawk via their radio. I straightened things out and gave them the new description of the blue Cougar.

"Hell, friend," one cop grimaced. "They could have taken off in any damn direction by now."

"Seek and ye shall find," I said. He gave me a disgusted look as he closed the door of his patrol car. I got back in the black Chevy and headed for the Carlsbad house. I'd go over every damn inch of it and see if it yielded anything. So far Rita Kenmore's idealistic, sincere, dedicated uncle, out to make the world listen, had been responsible for four deaths — the two guards at the Cumberland operation and now the two FBI agents. But that figured, too. I'd long since learned that there was nothing so calloused as the idealist who thinks he's got his hand on the true light. Nothing matters except his quest.

I was thinking about the girl as I approached the Carlsbad house, fairly certain she didn't know how deeply her uncle had dug himself in. Maybe she wouldn't really find out until it was too late. Or maybe she'd find out and look the other way.

I pulled up in front of the house and got out slowly. My body cried out in protest, every muscle of it. It made me remember that I not only had a deadly virus to find but a score to settle. The front door was open and I started with the girl's bedroom where I'd seen the open traveling bag on the bed. She'd obviously just tossed a few things into it because most of her clothes were still in the closet with a few pieces lying on the floor. I was about to leave the room when my eye caught a glitter of silver, and I reached down to pick up a small object, not unlike something from a locket or a key chain. A few links hung loosely from the circular piece of silver. Set into the metal was a piece of something that looked like either ivory or bone. Someone had torn it loose and dropped it in the haste to get Rita Kenmore's stuff together. I put it in my pocket and started through the rest of the house.

It revealed absolutely nothing until I reached a little room, hardly more than a cubbyhole, with a tiny, desk in it and a few shelves. On the shelves were large, fastened-together bundles of check stubs; in the desk drawer I found a checkbook of the three-hole business variety. As I pored over the check stubs, it suddenly became clear why Carlsbad had been living in this ramshackle old house.

His monthly pay was carefully entered each time and following the entry came a random assortment of checks in varying amounts all made out to an account in a bank in Hokkaido, Japan. Some of the stubs bore cryptic notes: payment; cars; food. Most of them bore no explanation whatever. But as I did a rapid count, I saw that over the past few years it had involved a helluva lot of money. To say he'd merely been salting it away was too simple an explanation. The whole thing smelled of preparation, funds sent to someone or someplace to be used for a certain event or time.

I'd just gathered all the stubs under my arm to take them and dump them in Hawk's lap when it happened. The whole goddamned house blew up under me. It's funny, when things like that happen, what you remember and note first I heard the roar of the explosion, like a volcano erupting, and I heard myself swearing as I was catapulted upwards and out of the little room.

"The bastards!" I yelled as I hit the side of the doorjamb and went sailing across the hallway. "They left a time bomb." I was conscious enough to recognize that one thing for a brief, flashing moment, and then the stairs rose up to meet me as I landed on them. There was a second explosion as the furnace blew. I felt my lungs closing down as the rush of turbulent, poisoned air hit me. I half-recall large chunks of plaster and wood descending on me and trying to cover my head with my arms, and then the blackness closed in on me as a sharp pain flashed through my head.

I came to, probably not more than a few minutes later, and my blurred eyes finally focused on a scene of wreckage and debris. But worse than that, as I lay there, my mind slowly orienting itself as to who I was and why I was lying amid all this rubble, I felt the hot air and saw the orange flaring of the flames. It was very hot, terribly hot, and as I pulled myself up to my hands and knees I saw that the place was a sheet of flame. I'd fallen down to the first floor as the second floor collapsed, which had saved my life. The roof was now the second floor with tongues of fire licking out through openings in the debris. I was surrounded by towering flames, which were working their way toward the middle of the rubble and me.

I tied my handkerchief around my face as I started to cough. It was a small, almost useless gesture, but seconds become terribly precious when life seems to be slipping away. A wind from somewhere, probably created by the vacuum of the fire itself, shot a long tongue of flame across the rubble directly at me. I scrambled backward and felt myself crashing through the shattered floorboards. I grabbed at them, caught one splintered edge for a moment and then it gave way, too. But it had held long enough to break my fall and I landed unhurt on the cellar floor.

The place was choking with smoke and dust from the exploded furnace, but I managed to glimpse light in a far corner. I climbed over twisted pipes and blocks of concrete toward it and felt a movement in the air. It was like the sight of water to a parched man and I pressed on, tearing my leg on a piece of jagged metal. It was suddenly before me, sunlight and air, still filled with the choking dust, but nonetheless air from a back cellar entrance, and I stumbled out into the open, still feeling the heat of the flames behind me. I fell down on the grass and lay there, gasping in great gobs of air as I heard the fire truck sirens approaching. I was getting to my feet with the handkerchief still hanging from my face when they rolled up to the front of the house, now nothing but a roaring tower of flames.

"There's nobody inside," I told the men, erasing the fear in their eyes. As they started to hose water on the inferno I climbed into the Chevy, torn and aching and bleeding from dozens of cuts and bruises and mad as all hell.

I stopped to phone Hawk from a roadside phone booth. He told me to go to my place, get feed up and then come to the office.

"I'll be here," he said. "I've had a cot brought in and I'm staying here until everything is over and done with, this World Leadership Conference and now this blasted business."

I hung up and drove slowly back to my apartment A long, hot bath followed by a long, cold martini did wonders for the body and the soul. It was just after dinner time when I reached Hawk's office at AXE headquarters. He was standing by the bay window, looking down on the circling lines of traffic below and he gestured to me as I entered. I went over to stand beside him, glancing at the deep, tired lines etched in his face.

"We're like that traffic down there, Nick," he said. "Going around in circles, with no end, only more and more circles." He turned and sat down. I took the chair across from him. "You wouldn't believe the stuff we've been into involving the World Leadership Conference. We've uncovered plots against six different presidents and world figures to prevent their attending the Conference. The Conference has triggered every crackpot and professional group into action. And now this Carlsbad and his damned deadly strain. That's the topper of them all, Nick, because it involves the whole world and it was our virus, from our stockpile"

"Anyone dig up anything on the checkstub information I gave you over the phone?" I asked.

"Our people in Tokyo got on it," he said. "The account was closed out three days ago. It had been used by a Mr. Kiyishi — described as a huge man."

"That figures," I muttered.

"As Carlsbad has been planning this with international contacts and may be planning to strike anyone anywhere, the President has ordered me to make certain contacts. I've made them, but I can only keep my fingers crossed."

"You've lost me, Chief," I admitted.

"We've opened this up to the top people of every major intelligence service on the basis of international cooperation and enlightened self-interest" Hawk said. "I want you at a meeting scheduled for eight A.M. at the White House tomorrow morning. Ardsley of British Intelligence is coming. Nutashi of Japan will be there. Claude Mainon of the French Service des Renseignements, Manouchi of Italian Counter-intelligence, Adams of Canadian Security and, get this, the Russians are sending Ostrov of Soviet Special Intelligence."

"Quite an imposing array," I commented. "I've saved the best of all," Hawk said. "The Chinese Reds are sending Chung Li."

I whistled through my teeth. "How the hell did you work that?"

"With Chairman Mao attending the World Conference at the United Nations, they can't afford to have something go wrong," Hawk said. "They don't know, and neither do we, that Carlsbad might not try to loose X–V77 against the Chinese leadership. If his plan is to put America on a spot, that'd sure be the way to do it."

"And so crafty old Mr. Big of the Chinese Reds is stepping out of his hole and into the daylight," I mused aloud. "This must be some kind of first." I'd met and beaten many of Chung Li's specialists, but the grand master of Red Chinese intelligence was always a shadowy figure in the background, unreachable, almost invisible it seemed.

"Do you think it will work?" I asked Hawk. "Do you think we can all cooperate, with everybody suspicious and on guard about letting his own classified stuff slip out?"

"On this one thing, I think yes," Hawk said. "Chung Li has already taken steps to protect himself. We've learned that our Consul in Hong Kong has been taken into protective custody at some hidden estate. Of course they've said nothing to us, but they know we got the message."

I reached into my pocket and brought out the little object I'd found at Carlsbad house before the explosion. I tossed it to Hawk.

"Let's see if any of them can help us with that," I said.

Hawk examined it. "Looks like a fragment of bone to me," he said of the material imbedded in the silver circle. "Well see if they can clue us in on it tomorrow."

I stood up. "Eight a.m., the White House," I said and the old fox nodded, his eyes weary.

"And no trace of Carlsbad and the others?" I asked, starting toward the door. "They've just up and vanished into thin air."

"By God, it seems like it," Hawk said crisply, angrily. "We've got every major highway watched, every train and bus depot, every major airport. Maybe they're holed up somewhere. If not, they've slipped through. Either way, it spells trouble."