Julia drew a comb through her mane of raven hair.
“All right, so he’s not an accomplice then,” she said agree-ably “but the master planner himself. Yet, I wonder why he didn’t go with Valentina.” Her cat’s eyes narrowed and darkened. “You don’t think she’s dead?”
Nick was silent for a moment. Wilhelmina the Luger slid into her usual holster. Hugo the stiletto slipped into his chamois sheath on Nick’s forearm. Pierre the gas pellet nestled innocently in Nick’s jacket pocket.
“I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “Hughes could easily have killed her and left her body in the cage. No, there’s a more elaborate pattern here. Too elaborate to take at face value. I think they must have decided she’s more valuable to them alive than dead, so they hijacked her instead. For… questioning.”
“Questioning,” Julia repeated with a little shudder. “But where? And who, and how?”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I think,” said Nick, “and I’ll tell you why I think so.”
He told her, briefly. Julia’s eyes widened as she listened.
“So I think you’d best come with me this time,” he finished. “And if I get caught napping again I want you to run like hell and scream your lungs out. You ready?”
“For anything,” she said, and her lovely lips were grim.
The lights in the main work area were blazing. The watchtower cage moved slowly up and down and the duty guards on floor and platforms patrolled in double force, but no one stopped them. Parry had given orders.
“We’ll use the stairs,” said Nick, and they walked unchal-lenged down the spiral stairway to the sublevel. Guards greeted them with nods as they entered the wide corridor that housed the workshops and the power-control room, and again they were not stopped.
Two men were on duty outside the closed door nearest the elevator shaft. They stood to either side of it, alert and armed and ready. And they looked surprised. One of them looked at his watch.
“Two hours to go before your shift, sir,” he said helpfully.
“I know — I’ve urgent news for Parry,” said Nick. “He’s inside?”
“Yes, sir. With his finger on the red button just in case he needs us.” The man smiled faintly. “But he won’t. We searched first, no one’s hiding. And no one can get past us.”
“I can,” said Nick. “I hope he told you that.”
“Well, he did say that you’d be coming on at two, sir, but—”
“But I’m here now, right?” said Nick. “And the lady and I have business with him. So open up, will you? You can come in with us, if you like.”
The guard shrugged. “Okay, you’re the boss. But we gotta stay out here according to orders. Like he told us, we been checking on him at twenty-minute intervals — we just done one check — and like he told us we stay outside the rest of the time until he calls us. So he ain’t gonna like —”
“He will like,” said Nick. “You’re in the clear. Orders from Uncle Sam. So open.”
“Yes, sir. Jerry — key.”
The second guard nodded and thrust a key into the lock. Then the chatty one took his own key and performed a second maneuver.
“For safety,” he explained. “Gotta use two keys, separate ones, kind of tricky, you have to know just how — Hey, wait a minute! Something’s jammed.” He pushed at the door and wiggled his key. “Jerry, you turn that key of yours again.”
Jerry tried again. “Mine’s okay,” he said.
“Well, Goddamn!” said the talkative guard. “Something’s stuck here, for Chrissake!”
“All right, quit that,” Nick said urgently. “And keep your voices down now. Lock all right last time you tried?” The laser pistol came out of its hiding place as he spoke.
“Sure it was — what the hell are you doing?”
“I’m getting in there. With the lady. And you two are going to stick to your posts no matter what happens.”
Metal spat and melted. The door around the lock curled like burning paper. A thin rim of light shone out at them through the opening, then a circle, then a sphere as the thick metal piece containing the lock dribbled into nothingness.
“The Chief won’t like this,” the chatty guard said nervously.
“No? But you’ll notice he’s said nothing yet. Now keep quiet and stay here. Julia — come with me. But stay a few paces behind.”
The door swung inward at Nick’s touch. He kicked it as far back as it would go and stared into the room.
The bent switches had been straightened and repaired. A sharp light bathed every corner of the room.
“No, Goddamn, that’s impossible!” blurted the guard. “Why, we were here —”
“Shut up!” Nick said furiously. “You’re supposed to be on guard at this door, so guard it and keep quiet!”
He stepped into the room and his gaze swept through it.
Like Valentina’s elevator cage after the gassing —
It was empty.
Chief of Security J. Baldwin Parry had disappeared.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nine Minus Two Leaves — Eight
And there was no sign of violence.
Julia closed the door and leaned against it.
“I suppose this room has its own little elevator cage,” she murmured.
“Something of the sort,” Nick muttered. “It has to.”
And he knew it must be a fairly simple device or there would not have been time for what had to have been done.
Yet, there was no escape hatch through the floor or ceiling. He had checked before and now he checked again. And still found nothing.
“If we just wait…?” Julia mouthed at him.
He shook his head. “Can’t leave him any loopholes. Got to find him where he is.”
There was a row of storage cabinets across the room from him, set against the wall. These, too, he had looked into with the guards earlier in the evening, and they had told him nothing but that the plant kept plenty of spare parts. The cabinets were wide but shallow and their shelves were neatly stacked with tools and labeled boxes.
Now he scrutinized them with care. Especially their locks. The cabinets were kept unlocked during the day, and when he had last seen them two or three had stood slightly ajar. He had inspected them all, opening those that had not already been open, and it was obvious that only a very small midget could have wedged himself between any of the shelves. And even then he would have had to push aside the contents. Yet, none of the shelves had been disturbed, and there was no midget in sight. But Nick had been interested in the width of the shallow cabinets — a width that brought to mind another less capacious opening.
Now all the doors were closed and locked.
And he saw something that he had not noticed before. Maybe he had missed it because the doors had already been unlocked and some of them open, or maybe because he had been so busy peering inside looking for an assailant he had not really expected to find; maybe because his mind had not really been on locks at all.
But now it was, and now he saw it.
The lock and handle of one of the doors bulged outward slightly, as if the door had been dented from the inside. And the outer plating of the lock was absolutely new. It gleamed, it shone. AH the others had the dullness, almost rustiness of several years of use.
Julia arched her eyebrows and looked questioningly at Nick.
He clamped his ear against the sturdy metal of the cabinet door and reached for his lockpicker as he listened.
There was no sound from within. He had not really expected that there would be. And yet there was a suggestion of sound from somewhere through the door, as if the cabinet itself were a listening ear or a conductor of a very distant, hollow thread of noise. Not loud enough even to be heard within the power-control room; certainly not loud enough to be heard through the virtually soundproof doors into the corridor.