“I once killed a bird, accidently with my car. It took me three days to get over it. I do not want to destroy or be a party to destruction. I am old, tired, and wish to enjoy the few years I have left.”
“Professor, there are foreign agents on your tail at this very moment. They’ll stop at nothing to get that formula.”
“That is a chance I will have to take, Mr. Stone.”
Malcolm knew the old man could be obdurate. He wasn’t going back.
“I’ll have to call my superiors.”
The professor pointed to the telephone on a table near the door. “It comes with the flat. I asked the owner to have it removed. But it is still working.”
Malcolm crossed the room and dialed the operator. He asked for a number in Valencia and waited. The answer came, “Regan here.”
“It’s Stone. No good, Regan. The professor refuses to budge.”
“We figured that,” Regan said. “Okay, you know what’s next.”
“Isn’t there another way?”
“See you later.” Regan hung up.
“Well?”
Malcolm returned to the chair. He lit another cigarette. “If you’re not coming back, then I’ll have to stay with you.”
“You have no right—”
“Better get used to it, Professor. From here on out, I’m your shadow.”
The professor protested while Malcolm sat calmly in the chair, his hand resting on the bulge of a thirty-eight beneath his coat. But Malcolm was pleased when the old man tired and mumbled himself to sleep. Malcolm Stone remained awake.
It was that half dark, half light before dawn when the two men burst into the room. Malcolm started out of the chair, his thirty-eight already in his hand, but a heavy fist caught him behind the ear and the floor slammed into his face.
He was groggy and weak and he could hear the old man scuffling with the intruders. Then a muffled cry for help, footsteps fading. Malcolm crawled to the window, pulled himself up in time to see the blurred form of a black sedan, tires screeching as it tore off down the road along the coast.
His neck ached as he applied cold water to his face. Then he hurried out of the room, down the stone steps to the street and up the two blocks where he had parked his Jaguar. He slipped behind the wheel, slammed the car into gear and raced off in the same direction as the black sedan.
Three kilometers later, he observed the cut-off leading down into a small cove. There, half hidden by several empty boat houses, he saw the tail end of the black sedan.
He braked and shoved the lever into neutral, leaving the motor running. Then he made his way down the winding road to the boat houses. He heard voices and followed them to the source, his thirty-eight ready.
“The formula, Professor Muntz. We want it now or my friend will slit your scrawny throat.”
The boat house had no glass in the window and it was doorless except for the opening at the front. Malcolm eased his head around the window frame. It was dark inside but he could make out the professor’s form, his hands lashed to a post. The two men stood at his side. One held a knife.
“I swear I know of no formula I am not the man you want.”
Malcolm felt the old man wasn’t very convincing.
“Kill him then,” the man said and the other one placed his knife against the professor’s face.
“Please,” the old man wailed.
Malcolm Stone hurried around to the front of the boat house. They saw him enter and started, his way. Malcolm fired twice and the two men slumped to the floor.
The professor trembled and sobbed as Malcolm cut him loose. He half carried the speechless old man back to the Jaguar.
They were nearing the village when the professor managed to speak.
“Who were—”
“Foreign agents,” Malcolm finished. “I warned you.”
The professor lowered his head, his body trembling violently. Malcolm reached for the glove compartment and handed the old man a bottle of bianco wine. “Have a good swallow of this.”
The professor obeyed gladly.
“Where... where are we going?”
“Back to your flat,” Malcolm said. “Then I’m getting out of here.”
“But I do not understand. You said you would—”
“Yeah, I know what I said, but that was before I almost got myself killed.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I did my duty. I followed them and saved you, but if they think I’m going to go on risking my life so you can enjoy the simple way of living, they’re crazy.”
“But—”
“You wanted to be left alone, didn’t you?”
The professor didn’t answer, but Malcolm knew he was thinking a lot and by the time they arrived at the flat, he was certain of what would follow.
“Wait here, Mr. Stone.”
The professor disappeared into his flat, reappeared later, carrying a traveling bag. He placed the bag in the rear seat and climbed in beside Malcolm.
“Does this mean you’re going back to West Germany?”
“Yes.”
Malcolm turned the Jaguar and pointed it toward Valencia. As they drove through the early morning light, the grey-brown countryside with olive groves and palm trees whizzing by, Malcolm’s eyes drifted occasionally from the road to the professor and back again. The old man appeared sad and in deep thought.
“I’m really sorry it had to turn out this way,” Malcolm said. “I know what it’s like to yearn for something you can’t have, or be or do. I get sick of this back alley stuff and I get sick of some of the things I have to do. But I do them because somebody’s got to do them and because I’m better qualified than the chap who takes his girl to the movies on a Saturday night, or the guy who’s happy drinking beer and watching a baseball game. I’m not very good with words, Professor, but what I’m trying to say is that I am—”
“I understand exactly, Mr. Stone.”
After a short silence, Malcolm asked, “Will you work on the formula again?”
“Yes,” the professor sighed. “It still frightens me, but after what happened this morning, I know that such a bomb is a necessary evil. I had been locked up in a laboratory and had lost touch with reality. Those two men who would have killed me, they were reality, Mr. Stone.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “It will be hard work. I had destroyed all my notes along with the formula, but I will find the formula again and—”
“And maybe by just having it, we’ll never have to use it,” Malcolm said hopefully.
Regan was waiting at the airport. Another man helped the professor out of the Jaguar and started to lead him away toward a small aircraft on the field. He halted the man and motioned to Malcolm. Malcolm got out of the car and went to him.
“Would you have left me alone back there, Mr. Stone, really?”
Malcolm smiled and for the first time he saw the faint trace of a smile on the professor’s wrinkled face.
“Good luck to you, Mr. Stone.”
Malcolm watched after the professor until he disappeared inside the aircraft.
Regan came up and said, “Good work.”
“It was a lousy trick,” he said. He turned and stared at the aircraft.
“You sound as if it was all my doing. The first time you called to tell me where the professor was we discussed the theory that the old man was another one of those conscience-stricken scientists. Using the two men as an act of persuasion was your idea, not mine. When you called the second time and confirmed our—”
“All right, all right, it was say doing,” Stone said angrily.
“Was anyone hurt?”
“Just my neck, but I suppose they had to make if look good. It was dark in the boat house and the old fellow was probably too frightened to notice that I was shooting at the floor anyway. Nobody was hurt, except maybe—”