The Living Death

III

Vicky was still there, neatly trussed up. I left her that way while I shed my watersoaked clothes, letting her watch as I stripped, enjoying the appreciative look in her eyes. After I dried and changed into a fresh suit, I untied her. From the condition of the stocking, I saw she hadn't just sat there quietly.

"Blimey, I hurt," she said, rubbing her wrists. "And my mouth feels like it's full of cotton."

"Go into the bathroom and freshen up," I told her. "Run some cold water over your wrists. It'll bring back the circulation. Then we're going to visit your boyfriend, Teddy."

"He'll be asleep at this hour," she protested. "Teddy always sleeps in the mornings."

"This morning will be different," I said laconically.

She stood up and I watched her unzip the red dress, tossing it over her head with a quick motion. She had the round, young figure I'd expected, with that unvarnished sexiness to it, round breasts pushed high by her bra, rounded belly and a short waist. She walked toward the bathroom, throwing me a glance that asked if I were more interested. I smiled and watched her as she reached the bathroom door. She saw the smile was both hard and cold and the beckoning look in her eyes faded. She closed the bathroom door.

I sat down and stretched out in the stuffed chair, moving my muscles in cat-like fashion, using a system of muscular relaxation I'd come upon years ago in India. There was a knock on the door. It was probably room service but my hand was positioned to draw Wilhelmina as I opened. It wasn't room service. It was a tall girl with deep red hair, a gorgeous face and body to match, a girl called Denny Robertson. She wore a sheepish half-smile that would have melted an iceberg in seconds.

"I was on my way to work but I had to stop by and apologize for last night," she said, entering the room. "You told me you were here on business but I guess I just saw red, that's all. You know that damned temper of mine."

Her arms were around my neck and she was hugging me, her body soft, her breasts, even through the tweed jacket she wore, excitingly sensuous against my chest.

"Oh, Nick. It's unbelievably wonderful to see you," she breathed in my ear. That's when Vicky decided to walk out of the bathroom in bra and panties. I didn't have to see her. I knew it by the way Denny stiffened. When she stepped back her eyes were blazing pinpoints of dark fire.

"I can explain," I said quickly. She swung, fast, hard and on target. My cheek stung but she was already out the door. "Bahstad!" she flung back at me, making it sound as only the English can make it sound. I thought of going after her but I cast a glance at Vicky. She had the dress on and I knew she'd take off at the first chance. Once again I knew what I had to do and what I wanted to do. I swore under my breath at Vicky, at Denny, at bad timing, at everything in general.

I took Vicky by the arm and pushed her out the door.

"Let's move," I growled. "Let's get the show on the road." Once again that fleeting expression of smug satisfaction crossed her face but this time I got the impression that it was my discomfort she was enjoying. Her smugness did a fast fade as, some twenty minutes later, we neared her boyfriend's flat in the Soho district. She was back to the nervous, hand-twisting stage as we entered the narrow streets of Soho. Behind the night glitter, behind the strip joints, the betting shops, the mod centers, nightclubs and pubs, Soho was a grimy district of one-room flats and transient boarding houses.

"Can't we wait?" Vicky asked nervously. "Teddy's a sound sleeper and he doesn't like his mornings disturbed. He'll be smashingly mad, you know."

"I'm all upset," I answered, catching the flash of anger in her eyes. I knew damn well what Teddy would be smashingly mad about; her fingering him, that's what. It turned out that Teddy lived on the third floor of a run-down tenement, a dingy, gray building.

"You knock and you answer," I said to the girl as we stood outside the door of his flat. She was right about him being a sound sleeper. She was practically pounding on the door when a sleepy male voice answered.

"It's me, Teddy," she said, casting nervous glances up at me. I remained impassive. "It's Vicky."

I heard the lock being turned and the door opened. I shoved, pulling Vicky along with me into the room. Teddy was wearing pajama bottoms only, his hair long, curly and disarranged. There was a surly handsomeness to him and a cruel set to his mouth. He was pretty much what I'd expected him to be.

"What's all this?" he demanded, looking at Vicky.

"He made me come," she said, gesturing to me. "He made me bring him here, that's what." The alley cat in her was coming out quickly. The glower which I suspected was a part of Teddy grew deeper. A little sleep was still clinging to him but he was trying to shake it.

"What the hell's this all about?" he growled. "Who's this bloke?"

"I'll ask the questions, Teddy," I cut in.

"You'll get the hell out, that's what you'll do," he said.

"Careful, Teddy," I said evenly. "I just want a few answers and I'll leave. Be smart and you won't get hurt."

"I told him you'd be smashingly mad, Teddy," Vicky threw in, still bent on protecting herself.

A practiced glance had taken in the dingy room. The large double bed took up most of it There was also a dresser, with a porcelain dish, a water pitcher and an empty ale bottle on top of it. Teddy's clothes were carefully hung over the straight back of a wooden chair that stood beside the dresser.

"You get the hell out," Teddy said directly to me, an ugly note in his voice. It wasn't his fault that I didn't scare easily.

"The men you introduced Vicky to last night," I said, "who were they?"

A subtle change came over Teddy's eyes, a dangerous glint, immediately masked. He began to back away from me, at the same time snarling defiance.

"You've got three seconds to get out," he said. He was up against the dresser and I watched him reach back and pick up the porcelain dish. Though I was watching him, he still surprised me as with one quick motion he sent the dish skimming across the room. The dish became a wicked missile, skimming through the air viciously and accurately. I just managed to duck away, the hard, flat edge of it grazing my head to smash into the wall behind me. Teddy followed the dish with his body, diving across the room at me, leaping like a jaguar. The skimmed dish was a good, unexpected move that almost paid off. The follow-up was a mistake. I was in a crouch and he expected to take advantage of that. Instead, I came up on fast on my legs to meet his leap with a hard right. I heard the crack of his jaw, his cry of pain, and he arched backwards to land atop the big, double bed. I reached for him but he rolled off the other side.

Vicky had pressed herself into a corner of the room, but I kept one eye on her. Self-centered little alleycat that she was, I couldn't be sure how deep her loyalties ran. Teddy was on his feet again, his jaw swelling like a balloon. The knowledge of it seemed to infuriate him and he came at me like a windmill. He fought out of a crouch and he was quick, cat-like in his movements. Speed was his greatest asset and even that wasn't too great. I parried his blows, sneaked a hard left in that rocked him and brought through a sharp right to the gut. He doubled over but managed to half avoid a chopping right that nonetheless caught him hard enough to send him crashing into the dresser. Clinging to the dresser, blood trickling from his mouth, his face now swollen and misshapen, he looked back at me, eyes dark with hatred.

"All I want is some answers, Teddy," I said quietly. "Are you ready to give them to me?"

"Sure, cousin," he gasped, breathing hard for someone as young as he was. "I'll give you yer bloody answers." He grabbed the empty ale bottle from the dresser top, smashed the end of it against the wall and came at me, the jagged half in his hand. It was an old barroom brawl technique and made one of the deadliest of weapons, far worse than the ordinary knife. The jagged glass could slash equally well in any direction, leaving a much uglier wound than the sharpest knife.

"Put that down, Teddy," I said quietly. "Put it down or I'll cut your damned head off with it."

He was grinning, or trying to anyway, and his eyes were cold and cruel. His willingness to kill told me one thing, at least. He was more than casually involved. I backed away as he slowly came toward me. I could blow his head off with one shot, I knew, but I didn't want that. I wanted him alive, or alive enough to answer questions. But I was trying to walk a very dangerous road. I didn't want to kill him but he sure wanted to kill me. He swiped out at me in an arc, fast, almost too fast for the eye to see. I jumped backwards and felt my legs hit the edge of the bed. He laughed and drove forward with the bottle. I did a back-flip onto the bed, somersaulted and landed on my feet on the other side. I yanked the top sheet off the bed and held it before me, quickly pressing it into three folds. As he came around the end of the bed, I met him, tossing the sheet over his hand and the bottle. He ripped upwards and the sheet tore apart. I jumped back in time to avoid my stomach taking part.

I could have skewered him with Hugo, and my hand itched to let the pencil-thin shaft of the stiletto drop into my palm. I resisted the impulse. I still wanted the bastard alive, though it was beginning to look more and more like an impossible goal. Teddy feinted to the left, once, twice, and then slashed out from the right. The jagged glass ripped the button from my jacket. I grabbed for his arm at the end of its arc but he swung the bottle backhanded and I had to twist away again. This time I retreated fast to put some air between myself and the wicked, slashing weapon. The wooden chair with Teddy's carefully draped mod outfit on it stood in the corner. I grabbed it, dumping his clothes on the floor. I saw him stop in the center of the room as I advanced with the chair upraised.

"That's it, mate," he breathed. "Come on, now. Sock it to me." Of course the sonofabitch wanted me to swing the chair at him. One swing and I'd be ripped apart. He'd duck from the swing and come in on me before I could recover position. I let him think that was just what I was going to do. I moved toward him, the chair upraised, holding it with both hands. He waited on the balls of his feet, ready to duck away and counter. I came at him, and then, dropping the chair halfway, I drove forward, using it as a battering ram, putting all my strength and weight behind it. The four legs hit Teddy full face, driving him halfway across the room and into the wall with such force the whole flat shook. I had lowered my head, putting my shoulder behind the seat of the chair. When we hit the wall I looked up to see the blood spurting from Teddy s mouth. One leg of the chair had driven halfway into his throat. I pulled back and he slumped to the floor, his eyes open in the staring sight of the dead.

"Damn the luck," I growled. I was conscious of Vicky moving over, one hand on her mouth, eyes wide in horror.

"He… he's dead," she breathed. "Teddy's dead. You killed him."

"Self-defense," I said automatically. While she stood there transfixed, looking down at Teddy's lifeless form slumped on the floor, propped up against the wall, I went through the pockets of his clothes. They contained the usual trivia, money clip, loose change, driver's license, credit cards. Inside the inner jacket pocket I came upon a small, white card with a single name handwritten on it: Professor Enrico Caldone. It rang an immediate bell. Professor Caldone was an Italian, an expert on space biology. He'd recently gotten some award, I recalled, for his work on protecting astronauts from possible microorganisms in space and the possibilities of man contaminating other planets. What was a two-bit punk like Teddy doing with Professor Caldone's name on a card — handwritten, yet? I held it out to Vicky, who had finally torn her eyes from Teddy's inert form.

"What do you know about this?" I asked sharply. "Who was he dealing with? If you're holding out on me I'll find out, honey. I've had it with you."

"I don't know anything more… hardly," she said.

"What's 'hardly' mean?"

"Teddy told me about being paid to take messages back and forth," she half-sobbed. "He was paid real well by these people. He said there was someone else on the other end and that's all he ever told me. Teddy wasn't a bad sort."

"A matter of opinion," I said. I pocketed the card and opened the door. She called after me.

"What do I do now, Yank?"

"Get lost and find a new boyfriend," I flung back at her as I took the stairs three at a time. The little card with the name on it burned in my pocket. Maybe I had something at last. Maybe I had nothing, but I'd reached the end of the line here. It was time to dump this collection of bits and pieces into Hawk's lap. A woman with an important message to deliver. I had her name, Maria Doshtavenko. That much was to the good. I also knew that someone didn't want that message delivered. The last thing was a cheap punk with the name of an important scientist on a card in his pocket, handwritten by someone. Maybe Hawk had something that could make a picture out of the pieces.

I called Denny from the airport but there was no answer and I felt really sorry about that. The unfinished symphony would stay that way for us, for a while longer at least. I boarded the airliner and sat back. It had been a frustrating two days with bad luck and bad timing all around but I was onto something damned important. Too many people had taken too much effort for it to be anything else but important.

Not too many hours later I sat across the desk from Hawk, watching those steel-gray eyes as he listened to my briefing. He was digesting what I'd laid out before him, his face impassive. He hunched low in his chair, studying the little slips of paper on which he'd noted each item separately. He shifted them around as one shifts the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. He had already called Vital Statistics for a check of the woman's name, Maria Doshtavenko. Vital Statistics kept a fantastic file of names on all known personnel employed by foreign governments in any capacity. Most of the major intelligence outfits keep a similar one on us. On some people, of course, they have quite a dossier of information. On others, nothing more than a name. As I watched, Hawk picked up the index card I'd taken from Teddy's pocket.

This could be the key item, Nick," he said. "This could be a light in the dark, a connection we'd never have made otherwise."

"Light it up a little more," I said. "I'm still in the dark."

"We don't know what this Maria Doshtavenko wanted to tell us," he answered. "But from this, we might deduce what it was about."

"From just that name?"

"This, my boy, is not an ordinary name, as you know. Take a look at these names."

He took a sheet of paper from the top drawer of the desk and pushed it at me. There were seven names on it, each one that of a leading scientist who I recognized at once. These were men whose contributions to the world covered a vast area, medicine, physics, metallurgy, abstract theory and applied science. Hawk's tone was grave, almost sad.

"The whole thing's been kept semi-quiet for obvious reasons but each one of these men is, today, nothing but a vegetable," he said. "A mysterious and terrible illness has hit each one of them during the past year, resulting in a complete mental deterioration. They exist today in a kind of living death, vegetables, their minds lost to mankind."

"Medical research hasn't come up with an explanation?" I asked. "A brilliant scientist doesn't become a vegetable without some reason, to say nothing of seven of them."

"The neurological reason is that their minds have absolutely disintegrated," Hawk said. "They are in the total mental collapse that comes only with congenital retardation or massive brain damage. The scientific community is terribly concerned, of course. Scientists like the rest of us, are human and subject to the same fears and alarms as everyone else. A team of leading neurologists and psychiatrists have examined each of these men. They're completely baffled."

"No theories at all?"

"Well, they've come up with a couple of theories, which, as they've admitted to me, are more conjecture than anything else. However, they support these theories with the kind of scientific reasoning which fills the vacuum. In other words, what they have to say holds up because that's all we have."

"What are they saying?" I asked.

"Two things; one of them presupposes tie existence of a form of virus unknown and undetected as yet. The other is based on the development of an electrical ray capable of inflicting enormous physical harm. They theorize that the mind is essentially like any other organ in the body. When it is harmed in some manner — either through so-called natural means, that is, by a virus, or man-made means, such as, for example, the electric ray — it can be drastically weakened or even destroyed. A hitherto unknown virus of a specialized strain could theoretically bring on such a neurological collapse. So could an electrical ray, if you think of it as an extra-strong X-ray mechanism."

I found myself grimacing. "I suppose they're possibilities," I said. "But I don't buy them. Maybe I'm out of my depth here."

"We do know one fact," Hawk added. "They have all been stricken right after a monthly meeting of the International Science Scholars."

The International Science Scholars was, I knew, a worldwide scientific association of very advanced scientific thinkers from every country on the globe.

"The fact that these men have collapsed after the meetings does lend credence to the virus theory," Hawk said. "Something picked up at the meetings, just as all viruses are picked up. At least it did lend credence to it."

I picked up the inflection at once. He was being cute.

"What do you mean by that?" I questioned. "What are you driving at?"

"Look at the list again," Hawk said. I studied the names again. For a while they were just names, but then my years of training in suspicion, in perceiving things differently than anyone else sees them, came to the fore. Two highly interesting facts took shape and grew like a genie coming out of a bottle. There was not a Russian or a Chinese scientist among the seven names. Nor was there even one who had associated himself politically with the leftist position. Secondly, every one of the seven men had been in some manner associated with the Western powers. The ISS was a worldwide group. Their monthly meetings involved heavy thinkers from almost every country. How come, if it were a virus or a weirdo X-ray, none of the leftist eggheads have been affected?

"I get it," I nodded to Hawk. "It seems to be a highly selective mode of destruction."

He smiled thinly. "Every one of those seven men had contributed or had been working closely with scientific development in the Western powers," Hawk said. "Dunton had developed the electronic advances we use in the latest military hardware. Doctor Ferris, the advanced method of treating battlefield injuries. Horton had worked on the new molecular theories. I could go on but you've got the picture, Nick. Frankly, I had sniffed around at this fact but until this card with Professor Caldone's name and the statements the woman made to you, I hadn't come up with enough to satisfy me. But now, I believe we're putting together a picture here."

The intercom sounded with a message from Vital Statistics. They had done their usual fast, efficient job, and it made the picture even clearer. Maria Doshtavenko was an office worker in the Russian Information Bureau in London, a cover, we knew, for all kinds of Russian activities, including the NKVD.

"Most interesting, I'd say," Hawk said, chomping down on a cold cigar. I was recalling how disturbed and tormented Maria Doshtavenko had been about not being considered a traitor. Yet something disturbed her even more, something she wanted to tell us. I kept thinking of one line she had uttered. "These men have a value to the world that comes before anything else." It tied in more than neatly.

"You think the Soviets are causing these men to become vegetables?" I asked Hawk directly. "How the hell could they do it?"

"I wish I knew the answer to both of those, Nick," the Chief admitted. "But I am convinced there's a connection and something is very rotten here. We are being robbed of our most valuable men — the Soviets are stealing the minds of our scientists before our eyes. Professor Caldone must not be the next victim."

He picked up the index card again and gazed at it. "This card is very disturbing, Nick," he said. "If this living death is man-made, Professor Caldone may be next on the list. He's working on an advanced space-biology grant from the NASA people and the next ISS meeting is in a few days on the Italian Riveria — Portofino. You'll go there and stick with the professor. We'll contact him and you'll be given a firm list of instructions but they'll all add up to one thing — see that nothing happens to him."

I stood up and Hawk also rose. "We've stumbled onto something," he said. "Up to now we, and the world, have lost seven brilliant minds. That's a loss beyond measuring. Whatever this is, Nick, we've got to get at it and get at it fast. I want you here tomorrow morning. We'll have a session with Tom Dettinger and our plans will be formulated then."

I left, feeling that this whole business was something apart from anything I'd ever faced before. There was a quality of latent horror to it, of something shadowy and unreal yet all too real. I knew Hawk would have me on a plane as soon as our briefing was ended in the morning so I spent some time packing and then got off a cable to Denny Robertson. I told her I'd be in Portofino on business for a few days but I'd try my damnedest to come back via London and see her. I had a lot of explaining to do and was still feeling lousy about the whole business with Vicky. As I sent the cable mentioning the Italian Riveria visit, I couldn't help thinking that the ISS held their meetings at very «in» spots.

Outside of a call from a girl I knew just outside Washington, Linda Smythe, the rest of the day was quiet, and I appreciated the opportunity to do nothing and do it slowly. Linda had wanted to do the town, and under other circumstances I would have leaped at the chance. But I couldn't shake the picture of seven brilliant men becoming vegetables practically overnight. It was a chilling, flesh-crawling thought. Our meager facts certainly pointed to the Soviets being involved but the nature of it didn't even fit their operations. When you've been in this game long enough you learn that every outfit has its own character to its operations. This one, in fact, didn't really fit into any niche, unless possibly the Chinese Communists. While the Russians could be ruthlessly cruel, they were esoterically diabolic. Perhaps the Russians were involved, but not the way we were thinking. I was still wondering about it when I went to sleep.

Tom Dettinger was the AXE expert on procedures and techniques for protecting important people. I listened carefully to him, making mental notes as he went on. Hawk sat by, seemingly lost in his own thoughts but, I knew, not missing a word.

"This is a little unusual, Nick," Tom said. "There's really nothing to guard against in a specific way. There's no direct threat of assassination, for example, or no known groups to watch for. We're working against something which we don't know even exists, or if it does, in what form or shape. Therefore, the only approach is the one we call the blanket approach where you become more than a bodyguard. You become glue. I'll detail it for you."

As he went on, I was tempted to ask how you protect someone against a virus, or an invisible X-ray, but I held back. They weren't theories I had bought and neither had Hawk, which just proves that people in different professions see things in very different ways.

What really made the difference about this affair was that Hawk and I usually could indulge in a fine exchange of thinly veiled jabs and banter. Neither of us felt like it this time. When Tom finished, he gave me a few routine protective devices to take along, and Hawk walked to the elevator with me.

"You'll be dealing with something completely unknown and frankly, rather horrible, Nick," he said. "Exercise as much personal caution as possible within the framework of duty."

"You mean I should be careful," I grinned. He coughed nervously. His essential concern broke through that mask every so often. I maintained my casual air. Anything else would have added to his embarrassment.

"I'll watch it," I told him. "I'm not so crazy about vegetables that I want to become one."

His eyes found a twinkle. "Really?" he said. "It seems to me that you're very fond of tomatoes."

I grinned. This was more like it. It gave me a good feeling, a lift I'd been missing.