"The window is behind us on the right wall," he said tensely. Later on, Sergeant Hanford was to report that Dr. Carlsbad's usually bright eyes had seemed extremely intense and burning, the eyes of a man on a holy mission.
The windowpane was found later, cut out silently with a plastic-handled, diamond-tipped glass cutter which had gone through the electronic eye at the main gate undetected. It was left behind with a note. The four men were last observed walking casually across the grounds to the rear of the compound where the cottages stood. Private Wendell Holcomb, on sentry duty near the side fence, saw the quartet. He had no reason to question them inside the compound, knowing that they had to have passed all previous checkpoints of the security system. Besides, he recognized Dr. Carlsbad at once.
In his windowless office, Red MacGowan was feeling more restless. He wasn't worried about Dr. Carlsbad, not really, but he had permitted him to take in three people not cleared for restricted area. In twenty years Red MacGowan had never violated a rule, and it ate into him that he'd done so in this instance. He picked up the blue telephone and rang Sergeant Hanford downstairs. When the sergeant told Colonel MacGowan that the doctor hadn't come out yet, MacGowan slammed down the phone and took the short flight of steps three at a time.
Hanford and Haynes still wore their expressionless stone faces, but there was worry in their eyes. It grew when the Colonel didn't get an answer as he called through the slot in the Repository door. Suddenly feeling very cold, MacGowan took out a set of keys and opened the slotted door. The body of the nearest interior security guard half-blocked the door as it swung open. The colonel didn't have to see any more.
"Red Alarm!" he shouted. "Hit that button, dammit!" In three seconds he heard the high-pitched intermittent horn as it echoed from one end of the compound to the other. The colonel and the two soldiers entered the repository. When they saw the empty slot, their eyes met, communicating confused astonishment, anger — and more than a little plain everyday fear.
That's how it began, the start of a tapestry of terror that was to threaten the world itself.
Exactly one hour later David Hawk, Director and Chief of Operations of AXE, U.S. Special Espionage Agency, heard the phone ring in his living room. He'd just finished pruning the trellised roses around tie small arbor near the door of his modest frame house outside the capital. It was his Sunday afternoon labor of love. Flowers were soothing to him. A little sun and water and they grew. Uncomplicated, and so unlike the rest of his world. He took off his thick gardener s gloves and picked up the phone. It was the President of the United States.
The events of that quiet Sunday afternoon were reaching out for me, too, only I didn't know it then. I was busy doing my own reaching. I'd just finished the third very cold dry martini at the end of a lazy Sunday in an elegant town house in the charming Washington suburb of Georgetown. Across the way from me, also very gracious and elegant, was Sherry Nestor, daughter of the billionaire shipping combine owner, Harry Nestor. Sherry, very tall, very langorous and very passionate, reclined on the couch in an ice-blue hostess gown cut extremely low. Her breasts, rounded and softly curved, peeked out around the edges of the deep V-necked gown. I'd met Sherry when I was on a job for AXE involving a lot of "Daddy's boats" — said boats being a fleet of some fifty oil tankers. Sherry had taken a liking to me, something I never discouraged. It was a happy coincidence that on the weekend Hawk had ordered me to attend the dry symposium on bacteriological warfare, the town house was all Sherry's, except for the servants, of course.
Now Sherry drained her martini and looked at me from under half-drawn eyelids. She spoke slowly. Sherry did everything slowly, until she got in bed. I was still wondering how such a relaxed, slow-moving, almost diffident girl could generate so much energy when it came to sex. Maybe it was just a case of saving up. Anyway, Sherry speared me with her gray-green eyes and her lips pursed, edging out into a half-pout.
"Dinner won't be until eight and Paul and Cynthia Ford are coming," she said. "They're night owls and I'm not waiting that long. I'm hungry now!"
I knew what she meant. We were in her rooms on the top floor, and as I stood up, Sherry ticked off the tiny latch holding the top of the gown together. It fell open and her rounded breasts came out like two pink-tipped buds blossoming in the morning sun. Some girls' breasts thrust out, some point up piquantly. Sherry's breasts were all soft roundness and I found them with my lips, caressing them, reveling in their softness.
"Like last night, Nick," she breathed. "Like last night" It had been the first time for Sherry and me, and I'd promised her more and better. "Oh, God, it couldn't be," she had said in my ear. I was about to show her. I lifted her up and put her down on the bed, and her legs, moving up and down, kicked off the gown and searched for my body. I traced my lips down her body, between her breasts, over her abdomen, down across the curving line of her belly.
I was glad the doors of the old house were thick oak. Sherry screamed in ecstasy, her cries growing louder as I made love to her. With each new sensation she'd gasp long, lingering cries, sometimes ending in a laugh of pure pleasure.
"Oh, God, God," she cried, and her long legs circled my waist as she thrust herself up at me. Faster and faster went the rhythm and suddenly she buried her head against my chest and cried out in the eternal rapturous cry of fulfillment. Her body quivered for a long moment before she fell back and her legs fell limply apart. I stayed with her and she moaned, little sounds of pleasure. I moved to her side. She didn't say anything for a long time, and we lay with bodies touching as I took in the beauty of her figure. Finally she turned her head toward me and opened her eyes.
"Don't you want to go into the shipping business, Nick?"
I grinned at her. "I might someday. Can I think about it?"
"Please do," she murmured. "I'm going to nap till dinner. I want to restore my energies… for later on."
I cradled her against me and we both slept.
We were halfway through dinner when the butler announced that I had a phone call. I took it in the study, knowing damn well who it would be. Hawk was the only one who knew where I was. Leaving word of one's whereabouts was a strict rule for all AXE agents. The tight, strained flatness of Hawk's voice told me there was trouble before he'd said half-a-dozen words.
"Who's there besides the Nestor girl?" he asked. I told him about Paul and Cynthia Ford and that we were midway through dinner. Usually Hawk didn't care what I was midway through. This time I heard him pause.
"All right, finish dinner," he said. "I don't want you dashing out of there because I called. After dinner, be casual and say that I want to talk to you for a little while and that you'll be back. Tell them it's nothing important. Then excuse yourself and get the hell over here at once."
"To your place?" I asked.
"No, the office. I'm there now."
He hung up and I went back to eat, just as the man had said to do. But during the remainder of dinner my mind was racing, consumed with curiosity. Hawk's insistence on my being unhurriedly casual was a tip-off. It meant that whatever was happening, it was anything but casual. I kept my cool through coffee in the Nestors' antique-gold drawing room and then through some small talk. Finally, glancing at my watch, I excused myself for an hour or so. Sherry went to the door with me, her shrewd gray-green eyes studying me.
"Are you really coming back?" she asked. "Or is this one of your little ploys. I know you, Nickie boy."