But somebody did.
The first to open his mouth was a talkative guard named Brown, Joe to his buddies — and he had plenty of them. When he reached his home after going off shift at two that morning he woke his wife and told her all about it. After all, she was his wife, and a wife is to be talked to, right?
Hazel Brown could scarcely wait until morning to call her very best friend. So what could hurt, telling just one very good friend? And who could keep such startling news to herself?
“Ginnie! You know what? There’s been the most shocking robbery at the plant. Not money. Uranium! Plutonium! Honey, do you realize that’s radioactive material and nobody knows where it went. And do you know what else….”
Joe woke late and took his car for a tune-up at his favorite service station. It was his favorite because it was run by an old pal of his, an ex-guard at West Valley, and he couldn’t see any harm in telling old Max about it as long as he swore him to secrecy….
Ginnie Nelson whispered something to her neighbor over the back fence….
Martha Ryan had a party line….
Max had a brother who ran a saloon….
None of them knew that several hours earlier, in California, a small boy had picked up a wooden box in a parking lot and played with it before his big brother came along and took it away from him and turned it over to the police, nor that the police had turned it over to experts who viewed it with great alarm.
Neither did they know about the tin box that had been planted in a Denver hospital, or about the patients who were slowly dying without knowing it themselves. The patients, and the doctors, and the nurses.
Nor did Nick know about any of that until much later.
At the first light of the morning after the events at West Valley he was driving back to New York at breakneck speed. Valentina slept soundly in the back seat; Julia and Charley Hammond talked together in low voices. There was an AXE car ahead, an AXE car in front, an AXE helicopter overhead and chaos back at the plant.
The signal on the dashboard beeped.
Nick flicked the switch. “Carter. Come in,” he said.
“Hawk, here,” said the answering voice. “Much of what I have to say to you will keep until you’re sufficiently rested. And I’ve got plenty to say to you, N3, believe me. But right now I have someone else with me who wants to talk to you. Go ahead, H19.”
H19? Nick thought. Now what the hell? There is no H19.
“Greetings, N3,” said a voice that sounded oddly familiar. “H19 here with a whole new batch of feelthy peectures. But perhaps you’re not in the mood for them right now, my friend.”
“Hakim!” Nick yelled. “You cross-eyed old son of a bitch!” And his face split into the kind of grin he had not worn in many hours. “What are you doing here — or there — or wherever you are? And what’s with the H19 routine?”
“I am now a Secret Agent,” Hakim said sepulchrally. “Mr. Hawk has given me a temporary assignment. I am especially sent for to unbotch your mistakes.” Then his voice changed; it was low and serious. “We will talk more later, Nicholas. But I have one bit of news that I think might interest you. It is this: I remembered who it was that I saw watching the surgeon von Kluge at that Cairo party. He left the country on the following day, destination unknown — many visas on his passport, including Canada. Not the U.S., but Canada is close enough. I described him to your Mr. Hawk, who was particularly interested in his artificial hands.”
“Artificial hands!” Nick sat bolt upright in the driver’s seat and Julia swung away from Hammond to stare at him.
“Yes, artificial hands. Two of them, and quite good ones. Apparently, he is much changed otherwise, but according to the description I was able to give, Hawk thinks he knows the man. His name was given to me as Martin Brown, his occupation, traveling salesman for some highly specialized equipment company which sent him often around the world. But it seems quite likely that his occupation is something entirely different, and that his name is not Martin Brown — but Judas.”
CHAPTER NINE
The Tenth Man
The finely shaped, so nearly natural fingers beat a metallic drum tattoo on the polished table top. Voices filled the room; raised voices of men engaged in heated business discussion. The tape, this time, had been especially chosen to drown out the live sounds, for now it was no longer possible to carry on the business of the day through scribbled notes and occasional brief whispers. There was too much to talk about.
“You must be sure of this, A.J., you must be sure!” the chairman cried, and his voice carried around the table like the singing whine of an angry mosquito. “We cannot permit ourselves to be deluded by rumours that may have been deliberately planted.”
“I am sure as I can be,” the can called A.J. murmured. “I heard the story first in Buffalo, and then again in the small township near West Valley. I then, as scheduled, made contact with L.M. He confirmed that, from his vantage point, he saw the craft go down and watched the search parties. Feng most certainly is dead. As for B.P. — no, I cannot be positive of that. But he did not contact me, as he was supposed to do. Perhaps, M.B., you have heard from him?”
“Don’t be a fool!” the mosquito sound whined furiously. “Would I be asking you these things if I knew the answers myself? Of course I would not, idiot! No, I have not heard from B.P. Nor have I heard anything intelligent from J.D. in New York. He has seen nothing, knows nothing, only that Carter and the Russian woman did not go back to their hotel. But I have heard from Cairo. Yes-s-s, I have heard from Cairo! And the Egyptian, Sadek, has slipped through the fingers of our people over there. The devil only knows what he has found out and what he is doing with his information.”
A.J. shrugged. “But what could he possibly have discovered? He will not know where to find us and he will not know us when he sees us. We were careful. Certainly he did not see us either before or after our — ah — operations. And von Kluge gave us back all the information and pictures from his files. He —”
“Ah, he gave us back the pictures, yes!” The man at the head of the table produced a smile that turned his face into a death’s head. “And I would have had him killed much sooner if it had not appeared that we might have further use for him — in which case I would have made very certain that he did not keep hidden copies. But, as it was, one had to work swiftly and without one’s customary care. Bah! those paid Egyptians turned out to be worse than useless. A careless killing and a careless search. Oh, yes, it is quite likely that the pig, von Kluge — my honored countryman, God rot him! — kept copies of the pictures for himself. And Sedek is not the fool he looks. If there were pictures, Sadek found them.”
“But pictures?” H.M. spoke for the first time. “That is all he could have found, and we have little to fear from them. These are big countries, and how is he to find us —?”
The metallic hand slapped down heavily on the table top.
“I tell you he is not a fool!” the thin voice snarled. “He will find good use for them. You can count on that. And it is not only pictures. He saw me! Me! He may not remember; he may not make anything of it. But he may. Certainly he will make something of those incredibly inept attempts to kill him. Hell’s teeth, I should have done the thing myself! But enough of that. He lives; he is a danger. Presumably the Russian woman also lives. Another danger. Therefore we must move quickly.” His burning slits of eyes sliced around the table like hot knives, biting into each man in turn. There were only four board members present, in addition to the chairman; three were attending to their business in the United States, and the other two…