"If you'll get clearance for me at the gate," said Nick. Dr. Sun said she would and he hung up. "Better put the radio away," he told Peterson, "and wait here for me. I won't be long."
"It's one of the guidance engineers," Dr. Sun said as she led Nick along the antiseptic corridor of the Medical Building. "He was brought in this morning, babbling incoherently about the Phoenix One being fitted with a special device that will place it under outside control the moment it's launched. Everyone here has been treating him like a lunatic, but I thought you should see him, talk to him… just in case."
She opened a door and stood aside. Nick entered. The shades had been drawn and a nurse stood beside the bed, taking the patient's pulse. Nick looked at the man. He was in his forties, prematurely gray. There were marks on the bridge of his nose where a pair of glasses had pinched. The nurse said, "He's resting now. Dr. Dunlap gave him an injection."
Joy Sun said, "That will be all." And as the door closed behind the nurse, she muttered, "Damn," and bent over the man, forcing his eyelids open. The pupils swam in them, unfocused. "He won't be able to tell us anything now."
Nick pushed past her. "This is an emergency." He pressed his finger against a nerve in the man's temple. The pain forced his eyes open. It seemed to momentarily revive him. "What's this about the Phoenix One's guidance system?" Nick demanded.
"My wife…" the man muttered. "They got my… wife and kids… I know they'll die… but I can't go on doing what they want me to…"
The wife and kids again. Nick glanced around the room, saw the wall phone and quickly crossed over to it. He dialed the Gemini Inn's number. There was something Peterson had told him on the way up from Riviera Beach, something about that busload of NASA dependents that had crashed… He'd been so busy trying to figure out Simian's financial situation that he'd only half-listened "Room Twelve-o-nine, please." After a dozen rings the call was shifted to the desk. "Would you check Room Twelve-o-nine," said Nick. "There should be an answer." Anxiety had begun to gnaw at him. He had told Peterson to wait there.
"Is this Mr. Harmon?" The desk clerk used the name Nick had registered under. Nick said it was. "You're looking for Mr. Pierce?" That was Peterson's cover name. Nick said he was. "I'm afraid you just missed him," said the clerk. "He left a few minutes ago with two policemen."
"Green uniforms, white crash helmets?" said Nick, his voice tense.
"That's right. The GKI force. He didn't say when he'd be back. Can I take a?.."
Nick slammed the receiver down. They had grabbed him.
Through Nick's own carelessness, too. He should have shifted his headquarters after the Candy Sweet angle had blown up in his face. In his haste to follow through, though, he'd forgotten to do it. She had pinpointed its location for the adversary and they had sent a mop-up team. Result: they had Peterson and maybe the radio link to AXE, too.
Joy Sun was watching him. "That was the GKI force you just described," she said. "They've been keeping close tabs on me for the last few days, following me to and from work. I was just talking to them. They want me to stop by headquarters on my way home. They said they have some questions they want to ask me. Should I go? Are they working with you on this case?"
Nick shook his head. "They're on the other side."
Alarm flickered across her features. She pointed to the man in the bed. "I told them about him," she whispered. "I couldn't get you at first, so I called them. I wanted to find out about his wife and children…"
"And they told you that they were all right," Nick finished the sentence for her, feeling the ice suddenly run down his shoulders and into his fingertips. "They said they were at the GKI Medical Institute in Miami and therefore perfectly safe."
"Yes, that's exactly…"
"Now listen carefully," he broke in, and began to describe the large room filled with computers and space testing devices in which he had been tortured. "Have you ever seen, or been in, a place like that?"
"Yes, it's the top floor of the GKI Medical Institute," she said. "The Aerospace Research Section."
He was careful to let nothing show in his face. He didn't want the girl to panic. "You'd better come along with me," he said.
She looked surprised. "Where to?"
"Miami. I think we ought to investigate that Medical Institute. You know your way around inside. You can help me."
"Can we stop by my place first? I want to get some things."
"There's no time," he replied. They would be waiting for them there. Cocoa Beach was in the enemy's hands.
"I'll have to speak to the Project Director." She was beginning to look doubtful. "I'm on standby duty now that the countdown has begun."
"I wouldn't do that," he said evenly. The enemy had infiltrated NASA, too. "You'll have to trust my judgment," he added, "when I say that the fate of Phoenix One depends on what we do in the next few hours."
The fate of more than the mooncraft — but he didn't want to go into that. Peterson's message had come back to him: it involved the women and children injured in that bus crash, the ones now being held hostage in the GKI Medical Center. Peterson had checked out their husbands' jobs at NASA and found that they all worked for the same division — electronic guidance control.
The heat was stifling in the closed room, but it was a stray image that made the sweat spring suddenly to Nick's brow. An image of the three-stage Saturn 5 lifting off, then wavering slightly as outside control took over, directing its six-million-gallon payload of highly inflammable kerosene and liquid oxygen toward a new target — Miami.
Chapter 14
The attendant stood by the Lamborghini's open door, waiting for a nod from the maitre d'.
He didn't get it.
Don Lee's face had a "no reservation" look on it as Nick Carter advanced from the shadows into the circle of light beneath the Bali Hai's sidewalk canopy. Nick turned, linking his arm with Joy Sun's, letting Lee get a good look at her. The maneuver had the desired effect. Lee's eyes faltered, were momentarily uncertain.
The two of them advanced on him. N3's face was his own tonight and so were the accoutrements of death he carried on his person — Wilhelmina in a snug holster at his waist, Hugo, sheathed inches above his right wrist, and Pierre, with several of his nearest relatives, nestled in a waistband pocket.
Lee glanced at the clipboard he held. "Name, sir?" It was an unnecessary piece of business. He knew perfectly well the name wasn't on his list.
"Harmon," said Nick. "Sam Harmon."
The answer came instantly. "I don't believe I see…" Hugo snaked out of his hiding place, the tip of his vicious ice-pick blade probing Lee's belly. "Ah, yes, here it is," gasped the maitre d', struggling to suppress the quaver in his voice. "Mr. and Mrs. Hannon." The attendant slid behind the wheel of the Lamborghini and swung it around into the parking lot.
"Let's go to your office," rasped Nick.
"This way, sir." He led them through the foyer, past the coatroom, snapping his fingers at the assistant captain. "Lundy, take over the door."
As they moved down along the leopard-striped banquettes, Nick murmured in Lee's ear, "I know about the two-way mirrors, friend, so don't try anything. Act natural — like you're showing us to a table."
The office was all the way to the rear, near the service entrance. Lee unlocked the door and stood aside. Nick shook his head. "You first." The maitre d' shrugged and went in, and they followed. Nick's eyes swept the room, looking for other entrances, anything suspicious or potentially dangerous.