Desiree rode the elevator down to the vast lobby. She knew three things about the caller. He had a coarse voice, he had information he was not suppose to have, and he did not know Doctor Sam Herchenfelder was a man.
She got out of the cab at 9th and Crowly to walk the final block. The city shimmered in lake fog and she was now filled with the sensation that she had been duped. Desiree’s inclination was to return to the hotel as quickly as possible, but the cab was gone.
She hunched deeper inside the short coat and walked on quick steps. Motorists and pedestrians had bowed to the fog. A single car crawled along the shrouded street and disappeared and she did not meet anyone on foot. The heels of her loafers seemed to click unusually loud against the silence of the night.
She traveled the block quickly, to stand just outside the dull light of an intersection street lamp. She looked around. She attempted to pierce the mist. She seemed alone.
“Doctor?”
The high-pitched voice came out of the whitish swirl to her left. Reflexively, she whirled and went down to the concrete fast. A gun boomed against the wet night. Desiree heard the whistle of the slug. She rolled, her right hand digging for the tiny gun in the shoulder holster under the short coat.
The big gun boomed again and this time the slug chewed concrete near her head. She rolled into a wall and cried out. In the fog, she’d rolled in the wrong direction.
She’d meant to roll into the gutter, into a storm sewer with luck, anywhere to gain an ounce of protection. But now she was plastered against a wall and exposed. She thought herself a huge target and she desperately fired a shot wildly from the tiny gun. She expected a return shot, a slug crashing into the top of her skull.
The lone sound was the pounding of fleeing footsteps.
A rattle escaped Desiree. She came off the wall and sat up on the wet sidewalk. The night was abruptly quiet again, but she knew that within seconds the intersection would become cluttered. Someone somewhere had heard the shots, and someone somewhere would call the police.
Desiree Fleming scrambled to her feet and ran. She had passed an alley entrance midway back in the block. She wanted that alley.
A wide-shouldered citizen loomed out of the fog ahead of her and jerked to a stop. “Hey, lady, I heard—”
It was all he got out before Desiree shoved him aside, out of her path. She heard a string of oaths as he spun out toward the street.
The alley was a black cavern when she turned into it. The fog seemed thicker. It pressed in. Desiree stopped, then moved deeper into the blackness cautiously She had no desire to tumble over a trash barrel; she didn’t want noise. A faint glow of light ahead lifted her. She dog-trotted toward it, found it to be a middle-of-the-block street lamp that ordinarily would have illuminated the intersecting alleys.
The light became her salvation. She caught the glimmer in the corner of her eye and knew it was reflection from metal. An iron ladder dangled invitingly from the tiers of the fire escape on the side of the building.
She leaped up, caught the bottom rung of the ladder and hoisted herself until she had a foothold. She went up fast to the first tier and crouched. There was only the fog. She couldn’t see the alley. But she heard the wail of a siren and she went on up the tiers, past the lighted windows to roll over the parapet of the building and onto the roof. She crouched. She couldn’t afford police interference. Her eyes searched. Nothing moved. She heard the siren die. Finally she let out a long breath and attempted to relax. There was only one course of action left for her now. Desiree had to get word to her boss Holly in Washington. The Bureau chief would be upset and he would demand that the meeting of the great minds be cancelled.
“Six men,” he had said in briefing her and the other five agents. “Three egghead scientists and three of this country’s most brilliant military minds. Each of you has been assigned to a man. You’ll be incognito, of course, and you have just one assignment — keep your man alive at any cost.”
“What’s the pitch?” one of the agents had asked.
“A project known as TX. It’s a new weapon. That’s all I can tell you. The eggheads, each skilled in a phase of the weapon, have been working on this thing for four years. They’ve worked separately, in three different sections of the country, with only an occasional meeting to coordinate their progress. Now the project is completed and to be put before the military. Thus, the meeting of the minds. It’s top secret.”
“And where is this powwow to be held?” another agent had asked.
“Sixty-six,” Holly had said, using the code number of a northern city. I don’t know exactly when, but within the week. Doctor Herchenfelder is the coordinator, and your man, Desiree. He’s here in Washington. You’ll travel with him as his wife.
“Each of the minds will go to Sixty-Six on his own with one of you people as a sidekick. Each has a code color. Herchenfelder is Black, the other two eggheads Blue and Gray. The military men are Red, Orange and Yellow. In Sixty-Six, they’ll check in with Herchenfelder. He’ll set up the exact time and place for the meeting.”
Then Holly had repeated his warning: “This will be a collection of great minds, ladies and gentlemen. The loss of even one would be a tremendous blow to the United States. The outside dangers, of course, are Moscow, Peking, Hanoi — you name it. The entire Red bloc.”
“My understanding is the TX project, put into use, could bring a quick end to the Vietnam scrap and prevent others from flaring. Desiree, your man will be double trouble. Herchenfelder doesn’t like the idea of us being assigned. He especially doesn’t like the notion of suddenly acquiring a wife.”
The attractive girl agent had found Doctor Samuel Herchenfelder to be a remarkably ordinary-looking man somewhere in his mid-thirties, a man totally dedicated to his work and holding complete disdain for her presence.
“Cloak and dagger, Miss Fleming,” he had snorted, “is for writers, not for scientists. What kind of a person are you?”
“A girl,” she had said simply because she had not been sure he had noticed. “And equally dedicated, bud, to keeping you healthy.”
“Phooie!”
But he had tolerated her because he had had no choice, and they had arrived in Sixty-Six by train and had claimed the reservation at the midtown hotel. Desiree Fleming had been surprised at the size and the luxury of the suite, and she had noticed immediately that someone had been discreet in selecting a suite with bedrooms at the opposite ends of the main room. The discretion had amused her and had brought Doctor Herchenfelder to a crossroad.
“Your choice, Miss Fleming,” he had said stiffly as he stood surveying the main room. “Right or left?”
Desiree had taken the bedroom on the left.
“You too?” she had asked, unable to curb the barb:
He had colored slightly, but he had maintained his dignity and had turned into the bedroom to his right. She had laughed softly. He had closed his door.
And then the calls had come in and the meeting had been scheduled for two the following afternoon in the Herchenfelder suite.
Doctor Herchenfelder had gone into a shower. She had sat curled in a deep chair in the main room, sipping a weak highball she had finally managed to talk him into preparing. And a sixth call had come in. The voice on the line had been coarse. The voice that had called to her out of the fog on a deserted street corner had been shrill. It had been her only warning. And now...
Doctor Samuel Herchenfelder was the epitome of indignation and disbelief when Desiree awakened him. He clamped a top sheet tight against his Adam’s apple.
“You!” he burst. “What are you doing in my bedroom?”
She rammed his black-rimmed glasses on his nose. He snapped his head away. Then it snapped back, and he goggled. “What — happened to you?”