The First Team

22

Admiral Haymarket was still in bed when the first word of Zalinsky’s illness reached the headquarters of Thomas Jefferson. Major Pappas received the message on behalf of the First Team; as soon as he had read it he made an immediate decision that despite the strain the admiral had been under he should be awakened and advised at once. The unexpected event would obviously throw the entire timetable off and was bound to have a material effect on the very careful plans which Ed Higbee had drawn up for the next phase of Operation Low Blow.

His long years in the service had taught Haymarket how to wake up from a sound sleep and be alert enough to make a major decision within a few seconds after that. He had carried a great load of responsibility for many years and because of that he had been forced to condition himself to being on duty twenty-four hours of every day. It took the admiral little time, therefore, after he was given the news, to digest it and then to call an emergency meeting of his staff to be held in thirty minutes’ time. That done he got out of bed, allowed himself the luxury of a full shower, shaved, dressed, and made his way to the boardroom where a breakfast to his liking was awaiting him at his place at the head of the table.

Major Pappas was already there. Stanley Cumberland came in, his usual long, lean composed self, and sat down with the general air of a man who listens to a problem and then routinely disposes of it. Walter Wagner and Colonel Prichard arrived together, closely followed by General Gifford with a thick folio under his arm. The last to come in was Ed Higbee, who took his place silently and prepared to listen with the ears of a trained reporter before he would have anything to say. Backing them up there were others of the support framework who also headquartered at the underground complex. Dr. Heise, who had prepared the supposed corpse of Admiral Haymarket, was present, as was the helicopter pilot who passed so well as a hunting guide.

The admiral was handed two more messages which he read before he convened the meeting. “Gentlemen,” he began, “up to now things have been running so smoothly I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop — something had to go haywire somewhere. Well, it has.” Then he told the news and filled them in with the details he had just learned.

“What are his chances of survival?” Colonel Prichard asked.

“Dr. Heise?”

The white-haired physician answered without hesitation. “Barring complications of which I am not aware, very good. He is very much overweight, but in this situation that shouldn’t be too material. There is an element of risk, if he has surgery, but I would assess it at less than ten per cent at this juncture.”

“But he will be out of circulation for a while.”

“Yes, admiral, for the next week count him out of everything. After that he will still be recuperating, but he will be able to make some decisions — if he is still in a position to.”

“Precisely.” The admiral looked around the table. “All of the intelligence that we have been getting indicates that Rostovitch has been closing in on him; if I know that man he will lose no time whatever in taking over in Zalinsky’s place. As of right now, I would guess that Feodor Zalinsky has a damn sight better chance of recovering his health than his job.”

General Gifford responded. “I’ll support that fully, especially in view of the information flow we’ve been getting from the White House. Zalinsky isn’t hacking it, no one man could, and this is undoubtedly his out. The question now is: how can we exploit this to our advantage?” He looked at Ed Higbee for an answer.

Higbee took his time. “As of this moment that will be hard to do — finding an advantage, I mean. I believe it would be a safe assumption to go on the basis that the ball has passed to Rostovitch as of right now. I’ve been over this with Ted Pappas and we have a plan ready; it was drafted to meet the unlikely event that Zalinsky was assassinated, clobbered in traffic, or otherwise taken out of the picture. That is just what has happened now. You tell them, Ted.” Major Pappas was as inhumanly efficient as always. “Assuming that Colonel Rostovitch is in the driver’s seat, then the whole formula of attack must be changed to fit his known characteristics and personality. First, we must have confirmation; I don’t see much room for doubt, but I don’t want to shoot in the dark.”

“I agree with that completely,” the admiral said.

“Thank you, sir. To continue: as soon as we are certain that Rostovitch has taken over the show we will immediately tighten the security around our White House people; depending on the exact circumstances, we may want to take some of them out of there. When that has been done, then I propose that we mount Operation Counterweight at once. It will be rough and we may lose some people, but it will send the colonel a message in language he can understand.”

“Can we do Counterweight?” the admiral asked. “Does the situation still permit?”

“Yes, sir, as of two days ago it does and there is a very high probability that there has been no change. The operational team can be positioned very rapidly. They have been keeping current on any developments and they have reported none.”

“They are fully prepared as to exact targets?”

“Chapter and verse.”

“Go ahead, Ted.”

“Sir, if I could be excused for a moment, I’d like to get my file on this. I don’t want to trust to memory.” As he turned in his chair a member of his staff handed him the wanted folder.

Pappas opened it and wasted no time on unnecessary comments. “To handle Rostovitch we will have to bear down. In the case of Zalinsky, the potential that the Magsaysay represents was judged to be enough. With Rostovitch it is a different matter; he will know immediately that if we succeed he will have had it and he will therefore gamble with everything that he’s got and go the limit.” “She may have to fire, then.”

“I would be prepared for that, sir; it may be the only means we have of putting enough pressure on him to make him yield. He takes to defeat very unkindly; Walt can tell you about that.”

Walter Wagner nodded his head in agreement.

The major continued, as coldly factual as before. “Now as to the White House: w£ have two units operating on the inside, each entirely independent and neither aware of the other. They report through different channels, and if one is blown the other has a good chance of remaining intact.”

“Is Mark aware of all this?” General Gifford asked.

“Yes, sir, he is. You know the level of confidence we have in him and there was no question of his need to know. He is in the field and will direct any operations that we may have to stage.”

“I have some ideas on that,” the admiral interjected, “but go ahead.”

“Yes, sir. Now as to the people in the primary or A cell within the White House. It is headed by Captain Barbara Stoneham of the Air Force, who has top marks for discretion and a Cattell Scale IQ of 146. She has been attached to intelligence for some time. In addition, she is reported as unusually attractive and quite spectacular in her physical assets.”

There was a general murmur of appreciation at that; few of the men present had seen their wives, or other female associates, for some time.

The major continued. “Captain Stoneham is backed by Captain Mary Mulligan, Army Intelligence, who for some time has been on TDY with the Agency. Her outward personality is quiet and self-effacing; she passes as the typical government virgin in her early thirties. She has a brain, too, and knows how to use it.

“The third critical individual in the group is Raleigh Hewlitt, originally a language specialist who is now acting more or less as Zalinsky’s appointment secretary. He has a top rating for the careful handling and translation of classified material. We don’t have an IQ readout on him, but Captain Stoneham has had him under close observation for some time and she reports that he has been underrated. Which is good to know. When our safe house that this cell has been using was raided, he covered by leaping into bed with Barbara and conducted himself admirably.”

“In line of duty of course,” Admiral Haymarket quipped.

Pappas actually allowed himself to smile. “Someday, sir, I’d like one of these desirable field assignments. The relationship between those two is continuing, and I can understand that too.”

The joking over, he became serious once more. “In the case of Zalinsky, an independent report from the other cell we have operating in the White House proper confirms that fact that Hewlitt has a certain working relationship with him, a rapport which could have been very useful to us. With Rostovitch that’s entirely out the window — far out.”

“Wait a minute,” General Gifford cut in, “if Rostovitch does take over and Hewlitt tries to carry on as directed with him, he won’t last ten minutes. I mean that literally.”

The admiral drummed his fingertips against the tabletop. That was a sign they all knew and they waited for him to speak. “If Hewlitt strictly followed his orders,” he said finally, “and talked to Zalinsky on the basis that it was privileged information for him alone, and assuming that Zalinsky isn’t stupid — which I’ll buy — everything will be at a standstill while he’s recuperating, if it’s rapid.”

He stopped when another message was passed to him. He read it and then looked up. “All bets are off. Zalinsky’s having his gallbladder out; that’s definite. Things won’t hold still while he gets over that.”

“That means Rostovitch,” Wagner said.

“Has Hewlitt encountered him yet?”

“We don’t know, sir, not yet.”

“All right,” the admiral declared. “I want the closest possible watch over the White House and our people there. Get Mark in there on the double, I don’t care what else he’s doing. Set up the machinery immediately to pull out as many of our people as we have to to protect their safety; God knows they’ve earned that. Ted, keep Counterweight on the ready, but don’t trigger it until Ed gives the word; that’s in his department.”

“Yes, sir,” Pappas replied.

“Carl,” Haymarket continued, “do we have enough people in Washington to set up a diversion on a considerable scale if we have to?”

“How considerable?”

“A White House demonstration large enough to commit most or all of the security people that Barlov has. I realize the danger, but it may have to be done anyway.”

“If you want it, you’ll get it,” General Gifford said. “In answer to your question, yes we can do it. It’ll take a few hours to set things up; after that we’ll be able to go anytime on short notice.”

“Good, do that. Issue strict orders that the demonstration is to be * angry but peaceful. No one is to throw any rocks or start anything that would give them an excuse to shoot.”

“Right.”

“One more thing, try to scale it so that Barlov will apparently have his hands full, but not to the point where Rostovitch will think it necessary to commit any of his own people. We don’t want that.”

Higbee raised his hand. “I want in on this,” he said. “They’ll need a cause, something which will apparently trigger them, then all of the slogans — things like that. It’s got to look just right; the spontaneous overflow of emotion by people who are badly frustrated, but who can’t really do anything about it.”

“You guys set it up,” the admiral declared. “Anything else?” Higbee continued. “Barney, I think we need to note that our timing, which was entirely designed to keep Zalinsky off balance, has gone up the flue. Now we’ve got a whole new ball game.”

The admiral nodded sharply. “True. My thinking right now is that we shouldn’t pull Counterweight until we’ve gotten our exposed people out first. They know Mark, don’t they?”

“As Percival, yes.”

“Then go batten down the hatches and as soon as that’s done we’ll hit Rostovitch where it will hurt. Keep me up to date on this by the minute.”

“The people we take, shall we hide them out?”

The admiral weighed that for three seconds. “No, bring them in here. If Hewlitt is the interpreter he is reputed to be, there may be work for him to do.”

Pappas was already on his feet. “Under way, sir. I just hope now that we’re in time.”

It was all that Hewlitt could do to hold himself together as he walked out of the Oval Office; he could almost feel Rostovitch’s eyes burning the middle of his back. His mind and his body urged him to flee, to escape while there was still life in him, but to do that at once would be an overt confession — and death. He sat down at his desk and fought to think, to clear his mind. He had gone one short round with Rostovitch and had won a temporary reprieve which could expire at any moment; he would stay alive only while Rostovitch checked on whether he had deceived him or not. When the answer came in, there was no doubt whatever what would happen then.

The answer — get out and get out fast.

He hardly heard the phone when it rang; he picked it up by reflex action as much as anything else. Then he heard Barbara’s voice. “Hew, I don’t feel well at all. I’ve got to go home.”

She knew!

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Would you?”

“Right now. Can you come here or shall I…”

“Wait.” That was all.

Then in a flash he saw it — Rostovitch had ordered him to deliver a message. He seized the phone and called Major Barlov. “Colonel Rostovitch has given me an errand to do,” he reported.

“Then attend to it at once.”

“I intend to, major; I wanted to inform you that I will be gone until it’s carried out.”

“Waste no more time.”

God was with him, it couldn’t be anything else. But he could not abandon Barbara. He got into his topcoat in seconds, picked up his briefcase, and looked for her with desperate anxiety. The seconds tortured him until she appeared, actually looking thoroughly ill. He took her arm and led her out, every precious moment the answer to an unspoken prayer.

The cool fresh air of the portico reminded him how sweet it was to live, every step now had in it part of the ingredients of life. The gate was visible ahead of them, if only the phone…

They were passed through with a casual wave of the sentry’s arm; it had never been so simple. By the will of merciful fate there was a cruising cab just pulling in; there were fewer and fewer available each day. Hewlitt had thought first of going to his apartment, but he knew at once that it would be wrong; he gave the address of the safe house — there might be help there. Then he realized that he had to go there anyway since he had Barbara with him.

During the ride she sat close to him, holding his hands and saying nothing. She still kept up the pretense of being ill, so much so that he began to wonder if any part of it was real. If that was the case…

He was losing his grip, and that he could not allow! He took a new hold on himself and once more tried to focus his mind onto a decision as to what he should do next. He had found no definite answer by the time that they reached the house. He helped Barbara out, paid hurriedly, and then guided her carefully inside.

Davy Jones was sitting at the bar talking to someone. There were two glasses and a bottle. A bottle. He remembered and read the warning. “Barbara is sick, Davy,” he said, “can you give me a hand?”

“Of course, Mr. Hewlitt, right now.” As he got up he spoke to his guest. “Sorry.”

“I was just going,” the man said.

With a proper combination of solicitude and respect Davy followed behind Hewlitt as he led Barbara upstairs; he maintained that pose until the front door was shut behind him and he saw that the guest had gone. Then Barbara turned. “I had to get you out,” she said. “You’re blown.”

“Into Barbara’s room — now,” Davy said. “I’ve got orders for you.”

They obeyed him; the moment she was inside Barbara pulled out [342] a suitcase and began to throw things inside with a speed that Hewlitt had to admire; she didn’t waste a motion. He knew better than to offer to help her; she was doing it better alone.

“Percival’s coming,” Davy said. “He’ll be here any moment. Hew — you, Barbara, and Mary are being pulled out right now. We’ve already got the essential stuff from your apartment for you — forget the rest.”

Hewlitt was still trying to think. “I bluffed Rostovitch,” he said, “but it won’t last for long. It may be gone already.” He turned quickly to Barbara. “You are all right, aren’t you?” he asked.

She didn’t even pause to glance at him. “Of course. Slightly pregnant, but that’s nothing at the moment.”

The door opened without a knock and Percival was there. “Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes,” Hewlitt answered for them both, “but Mary isn’t here.” He remembered that he had only a few dollars in his wallet, but that could not be helped. Barbara snapped her case shut and waved help aside. “Where to?” she asked.

Downstairs the front door opened once more; Davy turned quickly, then relaxed when he heard Mary’s quick steps on the staircase. She was with them seconds later. “Two minutes,” she asked.

“No more,” Percival warned.

Davy went with her as she literally ran to her room.

“Let’s get started,” Percival said.

“The others?” Hewlitt asked.

Percival nodded quickly. “Cedric is all right, so far at least. And the rest. But we’ve got to get you out as fast as possible.” He glanced at his watch, then stood waiting for agonizing seconds to pass by. The house remained quiet, which was all that Hewlitt dared to hope for. After a half minute of eternity Percival started out the door. Barbara followed, carrying her own case; they were halfway down the back staircase when Mary came running after them, followed by Davy who had her case in his hand; apparently they had scooped everything into it in a matter of a few seconds.

When they reached the first floor Percival swung open the door to the basement staircase. Hewlitt remembered then that there was another way out of the safe house and he was desperately grateful for it. He followed Barbara down, being careful not to stumble in the semi-darkness. The feeling of being the hunted was strong in him now, and the urge to flee was fighting for possession of him.

It was victory when his feet touched the floor of the basement, even though he did not know where he was going. As he turned to follow Barbara toward the rear of the building, he heard a sudden noise from upstairs; he analyzed it instinctively and knew that the front door had been flung open. Then he heard a commanding voice and identified it as Major Barlov’s. One glance behind him told him that Davy had shut the cellar door and was more than halfway down the steps with Mary still ahead of him. He gulped in air and resolved to move as swiftly and as silently as he humanly could. It was a matter of seconds now.

Percival barely paused before the door to a small partitioned-off storeroom; it was heavily padlocked with a chain wound around two posts; even with a key it would take precious time to open. As Hewlitt watched, Percival reached to the other side of the door, touched a hidden latch, and swung it open from what had appeared to be the hinged side. Barbara passed quickly through the opening; without thinking Hewlitt stepped aside to let Mary go next. At that moment he heard the door at the top of the basement stairs yanked open and the sound of someone running down the steps.

Hewlitt did what his primitive instincts demanded; he whipped his body around to do battle, and to buy time for Barbara to get away. Then he felt the ramming force of Davy’s hand against his chest pushing him backward. As he yielded, because he could not help it, he saw the face of Major Barlov and knew that they were trapped. He stumbled backward, Davy crowding him hard, and realized that Percival was closing the trick door. For a bare moment Barlov was at the opening, then as the door came shut he heard the words, “Get going, you chaps.”

His brain told him to obey the voice, the voice of Major Barlov. But it had been a different voice, one he had only partially recognized. He lowered his head and passed through an opening protected by a metal door and into some sort of tunnel as Percival thrust him against the side in order to get past. Then the metal door closed behind him. A flashlight beam cut ahead and he could see the two girls, Percival leading them, then a tunnel intersection.

They turned at a right angle to the left and were in some sort of an underground utility passageway; overhead and on the sidewalls there were multiple pipes and conduits. After a short distance Percival halted and pulled open what appeared to be an electrical junction box. From it he quickly took out several compact handguns, passing the first to Barbara and the second to Mary. “Can you shoot?” he asked Hewlitt.

“I’ll learn damn fast.”

Percival handed him a gun. “Keep the safety on,” he directed. “Mary will show you.”

“Can she use a gun?”

“She can drop a running man at sixty yards,” he answered. “She has.” Then he slapped a gun into Davy’s free hand, took one himself, and was in the lead once more.

At a niche in the concrete sidewall there was a steel ladder going up; after the brief climb another door and they were inside a small garage. Without hesitation Davy opened the trunk of a common-place-appearing sedan and stepped onto a couch which had been prepared on the inside. Percival waved Hewlitt toward the rear seat as he shut the lid of Davy’s compartment. Obediently Hewlitt climbed in and was grateful when Barbara followed. Mary took the front seat as Percival slid behind the wheel. At the touch of a button on the dash the door began to lift open as Percival started the engine. Moments later the car came out into the sudden brightness of daylight, the door of the garage slowly closing automatically behind it. They came down a short driveway, turned into the thin traffic stream, and everything was suddenly commonplace.

Percival drove through the city with apparent unconcern. He held to a westerly direction until the last of the new housing developments finally had been passed and they were in the beginning of the open country. He turned once or twice onto semi-thoroughfares with the familiarity of a man driving from his office back to his own home and no one, so far as Hewlitt could tell, took the least notice of them. He looked up at the gas gauge and saw, as he had expected, that the tank was full. He sat back next to Barbara, holding the gun he had been given concealed inside his coat, and deliberately relaxed. When he had done that he said to Barbara, “I’m glad you’re here.”

She pressed his hand; it was eloquent enough for him and he was satisfied. They drove on, the car running smoothly, the day beautiful and clear. They continued for more than an hour and then at last Percival spoke. “We should be in the clear now,” he said. “We know all of their emergency roadblock locations and they’re behind us now as far as the city is concerned. They don’t have any description of this car and they’re still short of people; they can’t make an exhaustive search.”

Hewlitt swallowed. “What happens now?” he asked.

Percival kept his eyes on the road. “Things are all set up for us,” he answered. “If nothing goes wrong, in a day or two you’ll meet the First Team.”

As soon as the preliminary information was all in, Ed Higbee saw the admiral. He sat down and waved away the inevitable cup of coffee, refreshment was not on his mind at the moment. “Barney,” he began, “we’ve got a bear by the tail.”

“Let’s have it.”

“I’ll start with the good part first: Mark got there in time and pulled out four of our people who were in a critical position. It was touch and go, but they made it.”

“That includes Hewlitt, the interpreter.”

“Yes, sir, plus two of our best girls and the electronics man who was in charge of the safe house. The house is blown, but our people all have whole skins. Speaking of that, Hewlitt was called in to face Rostovitch and somehow he bluffed him out. God knows how he did it.”

“God knows, and I intend to find out. Go on.”

“Rostovitch is running the show, as we already knew, but there’s a new angle. He told Hewlitt that Magsaysay has been sunk. According to Hewlitt, whom Mark considers to be thoroughly creditable, he was almost triumphantly factual about it.”

Admiral Haymarket pursed his lips and leaned back in his chair to think that one over. The possibility of a bluff was immediately obvious to both men; so also was the fact that Rostovitch would be unlikely to volunteer a statement from which he might have to back down later on. Both men also knew that despite Canada’s official neutrality, the enemy had been conducting intensive search activities by air over much of the northern Arctic under the guise of weather reconnaissance. And there were remarkable detection devices still highly classified in what had been the American arsenal, devices which could well have been independently developed or, more likely, compromised by espionage.

The admiral sent for General Gifford, Colonel Prichard, and Major Pappas.

“We have a new can of worms,” he told them when they had assembled. He painted the picture exactly as Ed Higbee had given it to him. When he had done so, he turned to Pappas first. “When are we due for a communication from Commander Nakamura?” Pappas shook his head. “In order to insure minimum risk, sir, no contacts whatever are scheduled. But we can query.”

The general shook his head at that. “Precisely what they would like to have us do, I suspect,” he said. “That is, if Rostovitch is bluffing.”

The admiral passed a hand across his face, blinked his eyes to dispel his sustained fatigue, “Quote the odds,” he invited.

Pappas, the human calculator, was the one to answer that and he responded. “Sixty per cent bluff, forty per cent truth based on present data.”

“Hank?”

Colonel Prichard was ready. “I’ll concur with that for the time being. It’s close enough to an even split to cause us concern, that’s for sure.”

“Which opens the possibility that Hewlitt was fed the information and then allowed to break loose,” the admiral said. “That would explain his supposedly outmaneuvering Rostovitch. To the best of my knowledge Walt Wagner is the only man who has ever taken his measure before, and it wasn’t easy.”

“Make it sixty-five, thirty-five on the strength of that,” Pappas contributed. “I have one recommendation, sir. Whatever we do, no request for a report from Magsaysay. I’ll give you one hundred per cent that they’ve got every detection and listening device that they have trained continuously, waiting for her to break silence. And they’ll read her out, position and all.”

“Agreed,” the general added.

“Do we gamble?” the admiral asked.

When it was silent for a few moments Ed Higbee realized that the question was mainly for him. He had his answer ready. “If we don’t, we’re dead.”

“What about Counterweight?”

Higbee had to think before he was ready to commit himself on that. It took him a good fifteen seconds. “I think, Barney,” he said at last, “messy as it may be, we’ve got to do it. We’ve just landed a punch; it’s time for another.”

“How soon?”

“Right now. We’re still cocked?”

Admiral Haymarket smiled grimly. “We are. I concur. Pass the word to activate. How long will it take?”

Pappas, as usual, had the answer where scheduling was concerned. “It should be all over in two hours, sir.” The words were plain enough, but there was a grim decisiveness behind them.

The admiral drummed his fingers for two or three seconds on his desk. “Tell Colonel Durham,” he directed. “This is one time I want the chaplain in; we can use all of the help we can get.”

The man who called himself Carlo was blessed with his own form of protective coloration. He was short and dumpy. His face was undistinguished except for his eyes, which were small and hyperactive; he was always looking about him to detect what was going on, like an animal forced to exist in a hostile environment. Constant suspicion was part of his stock in trade; he could trust no one and by keeping that fact constantly in his mind he continued to survive. The only joy he found in life was in his work; he was a professional assassin and he liked to kill.

As he sat in his security office he waited, as he had waited more or less patiently for weeks, for his next assignment. The same lack of normal emotion which made him an efficient death machine kept him from being bored; he did what he was told and collected his pay — if he had any other concerns he kept them to himself. He had managed to make himself comfortable in the United States of America because his needs were few and public approbation was not one of them. He had enough men assigned to him to meet his requirements and, although he did not trust them, he knew that they were competent. He did not practice because his skills had long ago been developed to a very high point and they remained there. He would respond when called upon; until then he was content.

His working room had a simple desk which he did not need, but it was a status symbol and he made use of it in a casual way. He was seated behind it, looking about the room he had carefully inspected thousands of times before, when the door was violently flung open and he found himself looking directly into the barrel of a gun.

Like a cat awakened from sleep, he was transformed into combat tension within the fraction of a second. Then he saw the face of the man who held the gun and he saw death. It was a face that belonged to someone as unyielding and trained as himself — the eyes told him that.

Carlo did not move; it was the first step of his counterattack. If he tried for his own weapon it would trigger the tense man in the doorway, but doing nothing might throw him a hair off-stride. His own eyes were fixed now, for a hair was all that he needed — he had seen the ends of guns before.

The man with the weapon motioned him to rise. Carefully Carlo did so. He knew every angle of the room, the exact position of every object that it contained; his opponent did not. He stood by his desk, deliberately looking helpless, as lethal as a poised cobra.

The man motioned him to come forward. He responded at exactly the right pace, and recalculated when the man with the gun retreated a step or two to keep him at a safe distance. He entered the hallway and turned right as he was silently directed. Then he walked slowly ahead, listening intently to the sounds behind him. There was a corner coming, and that would be his first point of defense.

When he reached it and turned, another man, and another gun confronted him. No one man armed with a single weapon could take him out of a building, but two, one in front and one behind, was another matter. But when they were in a single straight line, neither of the men opposing him could fire without the risk of hitting his partner. Like a computer he continuously remeasured the odds and every step that he took was a conscious decision.

The silent men who had taken possession of him were trained too — highly trained. Carlo obeyed them, second by second, and kept up the appearance of a bewildered, middle-aged man of no athletic capability whatsoever. In the past that deceptive demeanor had cost several other men their lives.

Then he became aware that there were more and he knew that they were a team. They were skilled and they had been sent, as he had been many times sent, and he knew that it was not all for him. His men were together in one room and there was no way that he could warn them — not without paying with his own life, and he had no intention whatever of doing that. His best hope now was that he was wanted for questioning, that they would try and detain him, keeping him alive in the meanwhile. That had been tried before, too, by people who had not known Carlo and by one or two who had, but the result had been the same in every case: they had not been able to hold him and he had left dead behind him when he had made his escape.

There was only one door to the room where his men were gathered, waiting as he had been himself for something to happen. Carlo could not see as it was burst open and two alert men charged in. He heard the shots that were fired and from their sound and number reconstructed what was taking place; his men were good and not enough challengers could get through the doorway to prevent some of his people from opening fire. That meant casualties on both sides, and possible confusion. He watched with concealed intensity for the first hint of diverted attention on the part of the two men who had him in possession, but their eyes did not move from him and their pace did not change.

In the rear yard of the building he and his men had been occupying Carlo felt thg texture of the soil underneath his feet and appraised the strength and exact angle of the sunlight. He hoped that there would be enough brilliance to cause the men who had captured him to react to it, but if they did, they did not show it. He was backed against the wall and then his opponents stood one on each side of him, well away and where they could watch him directly while he would have to view them at an angle.

Things were not looking too good.

Then others began to come out of the building, men of the opposing team and his own men, for the moment overpowered and two of them visibly bleeding. One of the attackers had been shot in the arm, but he appeared to be ignoring that. It was his left arm, which meant that the procedure had been correct, but the aim too hasty.

There were nine men in the attacking team; himself and twelve of those assigned to him opposed. The morale of his own men was bad; they were confused and not as alert as he was. But there were enough of them to provide confusing targets, and he still had three potent weapons concealed on his body.

The man with the wounded arm was the leader of the attackers. With a single gesture, he signaled that the seized men were to be lined up against the wall, on the opposite side of the doorway from Carlo himself. They were turned face inward, forced to spread their feet, and to lean forward until they depended for their balance on their hands resting against the brickwork. In that position they were expertly searched; Carlo turned his head and watched in the hope that his own captors would do the same, but the maneuver was not successful. He saw his men disarmed and sensed what was about to happen. He had no plan yet, but his racing brain was still weighing every possible factor, seeking, searching for the slightest opportunity.

When his men were all disarmed, they were turned and inspected, one at a time. One man from the capturing team looked into their faces and motioned three of them aside. Then Carlo knew: two of his men had been replaced since the day that he had disposed of the student underground cell; the three who had just been picked out had not been with him on that small operation. This was the revenge squad, not purely for that, of course, but to reply to Colonel Rostovitch. He, Carlo, was to be sacrificed to make good a simple power play. The futility of it hit him and for a bare instant his alertness was clouded.

He had himself back in hand almost instantly — that was the kind of mistake he was waiting for his captors to make. He could not afford to relax for the tiniest fraction of a second or he would pay with his life for a lost opportunity.

Then he heard the first words that had been spoken since he had been surprised in his office three minutes before. In his own language, or in one which he spoke fluently, he heard the death sentence pronounced. “This is for the students you killed. You will now die exactly as they did.”

He saw the fright on the faces of his men, the despair, and the dull acceptance of the inevitable. Then the guns began to speak. The first of his men screamed and hit the ground. The scream had been training, but it did not for a moment divert the attention of the men who held their guns trained on him. Time was growing short now and he would have to make his move within the next several seconds.

Six of his men died before he could think of a thing; he knew that no bluff, no fake would work with his captors — they were not amateurs.

The seventh man dropped, his face a sudden mask of blood. Damning sweat broke out on Carlo’s brow.

The eighth man died with his face twisted in agony and hate. The ninth was his best torturer, who preferred to vary the manner of his killings. As Carlo watched he was seized by the arms and held hard against the wall. Then the leader of the attacking team drew his own pistol, turned it around, and measured the butt end against the man’s skull. Carlo did not care how his men died, but that showed that these men had unexpectedly good intelligence, for that was exactly how his man had chosen to kill the student turned over to him. The gun rose, the arm that held it was cocked back, then it crashed down with concentrated power. The man’s head did not crack with the first blow and the movement had to be repeated. When the execution was over, only Carlo himself was left.

And then his concentration broke. The ability to maintain a razor edge in the face of every desperate emergency had saved him time and again, but he suddenly could not stand the sight of death. He turned to face the men who held him at gunpoint and knew that his own weakness was in his eyes. For fear was beginning to build inside him, sickening, debilitating fear he could not control.

Sweat stood out on his forehead, and his lips began to move. He had killed so many times himself he knew every aspect of men facing sudden violent death and he found them all within himself. His brain, his expertly trained reflexes, betrayed him, fear took command of him.

“And now you.” He heard the words and he opened his mouth to protest. But it was dry and his tongue would not move. In one last, frenzied effort to regain control of himself he snapped his arm inside his coat to get his own weapon, but he was too late. He felt the bullets as they tattooed his abdomen, but the pain was nothing beside the fear that seized him, and in the grip of that fear he died.