Bahr pushed into the room. On the drab iron bed someone ducked quickly under the covers.
“Get your credits from him,” Bahr said in a harsh tone.
“I didn’t know, Julie, I didn’t know you’d want me tonight. I’ll get it back.” The high-pitched voice was whining, cowed. Bahr looked at the lump on the bed again. Kocek had been booted from the 801st for that trouble; he had always been such a mixture of fear, viciousness, guilt and hatred that Bahr could never have gotten him a rating to work as a janitor in DIA. Kocek was a mess, but Bahr had enough dossier on his sundry illegal addictions to get him recooped any hour of the day or night. Kocek lived in mortal terror of Bahr, so Bahr could trust him. At least, he could trust him while he watched him. “What have you got? Burps?”
“No, a couple of Wessons. With silencers. And some concussion grenades. You think we’ll need them? I only got a couple.”
“Bring them,” Bahr said. “And step on it. I’ve got a Volta outside.”
“Let’s go, let’s go.” Kocek grabbed a trenchcoat off the chair, zipped his tailored coveralls with the flashy, overdone jumptrooper look. He picked up his briefcase arsenal, and dimmed the light, ignoring the lump on the bed.
Outside in the hall Kocek paused, in the habit of long military discipline, to let Bahr go ahead, then remembered Bahr’s aversion to letting people walk behind him, and resignedly started down the stairs.
“Two Wessons and a stunner,” Bahr growled disgustedly. “And God knows what they’ve got!”
It was two-forty, and Bahr rubbed the side of his face impatiently, looking out of the phone booth at Kocek, who was sprawled indifferently on one of the benches in the Red Bank Ground Terminal, and then up at the clock.
Two-forty, and there had been no sign of Carmine, nor of the double who was supposed to have arrived at the terminal by monorail ten minutes before. Bahr wondered, in sudden angry reflection, if his whole DIA organization had been infiltrated and seduced into an anti-Bahr putsch. Unconsciously his hand went to his stunner as he considered the prospects that even Chard and Kocek might be part of the enemy. But the motivation—that was the puzzle to him. He could not credit Carmine—small, sad-faced, balding Carmine—with the drive, the personality, the political ambition or the money to mount a secession against him.
It didn’t wash. Carmine was an order-taker, not an order-giver. Someone was behind Carmine, someone with drive, money, and a ruthless desire to get him, Bahr, out of the way.
He saw Chard, across the lobby, throw down a cup of coffee at the vendor and hurry across the nearly deserted station, his stocky body almost bouncing, heels smacking down on the concrete floor.
“What’s wrong, Chief? I thought Carm w?s going to show.”
“Something got fouled. There should have been a mono in here ten minutes ago. Check with the station officer and find out what went wrong.”
Chard hurried off. He returned a moment later, almost running. “Crackup,” he panted. “The mono jumped off the L-ramp just north of the station, went through a guard rail. Eighty foot fall. They haven’t even put out the fire yet.”
So that was the way it was, Bahr thought. And if he knew Carmine, he would be right there in the throng of onlookers, waiting to make sure that Bahr had really been on that train. “All right, fine,” Bahr said. “It’ll take Carmine a while to get back to the DIA HQ here to smooth out an alibi.” He looked at Chard and Kocek. “Carmine’s got a surprise coming, I think.”
Back in the Volta, Bahr sat knotted in anger, boiling slowly while Chard drove. “We may find they have a prisoner there,” he said. “Keep him alive. The rest are yours, except Carmine. He’s mine.”
Chard nodded and swung the wheel harshly. Kocek was half-smiling, his eyes shut, humming to himself, his mind obviously still back in the rooming house. Finally Bahr turned and smashed him across the mouth with the back of his hand. “Stop thinking about that stuff,” he said as Kocek blinked, uncomprehending. “If you can’t get your mind on killing people, I’m better off without you.”
Kocek’s face turned white with fear and rejection and hate, his thin lips trembling. Behind the mask of anger Bahr felt a surge of bitter satisfaction.
Loyalty was unpredictable, but fear and hate he knew how to handle.
Three A.M., and from the cruising Volta, Bahr saw there were lights on the second floor of the three-story building that housed the local DIA HQ. The first floor was a launderette, a notoriously good group-gossip center, and also useful for stoolies as a cover destination. The building was on a corner, but there was an apartment building next to it one floor higher. The small dweller-town was silent, partly obscured in the low wet mist the East wind brought in, building eaves dripping, streets glistening under the dim streetlamps.
Chard drove around behind the apartment so they could get in the service entrance. Bahr checked his watch. “Wait for my signal, then get the wires,” he said to Chard. He waited with Kocek until the Volta moved off into darkness. Then they started up the stairs for the apartment roof.
Two minutes later they had slid down the fire-escape poles onto the roof of the DIA building, and with Kocek’s skeleton key let themselves into the roof kiosk.
It was dark and silent on the third floor. Light came from the stairs at the end of the corridor; downstaus there were voices, talking in the clipped monotone of bored, sleepy underlings. Bahr could pick out three voices. There was a certain amount of cover-noise: a humming and clack-clack-clack that Bahr identified as one of the card machines running a job. The noise of the cardos and the sporadic rattle of the teletype seemed loud enough to have covered any noise they might have made forcing the trap door.
But then, suddenly, Bahr wasn’t listening to the sounds below. It was a long corridor, with doors opening off it on either side, and its familiarity slammed into his mind with sledge-hammer force. He had never been in Red Bank before, yet this hallway, lined with its closed, silent doors was familiar, horribly familiar. A chill went through him; suddenly he felt sweat trickle down his back, and the sound of his breathing was harsh in his ears. He clenched his right hand with the still-bruised knuckles . . . .
There should be something at the end of the hall . . . .
With a violent effort of will he shrugged, trying to throw off the overpowering feeling of fear. There was nothing. There was the present, only the present. Somewhere below was Frank Carmine. He had to kill Carmine.
But something was screaming out in his mind that it was he, not Carmine, who was being killed!
“Check the rooms on that side,” he whispered to Kocek, his throat so tight his voice came in a croak. Kocek nodded and faded into one of the curious angular patches of shadow. Bahr, crouching, moved to a door and put his hand softly on the knob.
He whirled, stunner out, but the hall was empty. There was nothing behind him.
He slid the stunner knob down, almost to the inactive point. At that level it would not hit very hard, but the usual ripping sound was effectively muffled. He did not want to alert the men downstairs if he had to shoot.
The door opened silently, no click, no alarm jangling, the room dark, shades drawn. Bahr stood absolutely still for two minutes, listening to hear if there were any breathing sounds, letting his eyes adjust to the deeper unexplored darkness of the room.
The room was empty. There was a couch, a table and a few chairs. Obviously a sleeping room for DIA personnel on alert. He turned on the power on his infrascope, scanned the room with a fluid spot of light.