Ah, yes. Things were not going badly at all. The newspaper stories, the radio reports; all were gratifying. Only a day or two more, and it would be time for the final, softening blow before L-Day.
Thousands of miles away, another man was voicing similar thoughts. He wore a drab Army uniform and so did the men with him; but they represented the top military brains of their country.
“We are entering the semifinal phase,” General Kuo Hsi Tang said with quiet pride. “Our own forces are at their peak of readiness, and conditions on the other side are very nearly ripe. Judas has done well. The imperialist dogs are already yellow-livered with fear. He has only to choose the one right moment, our Judas, then he will make his move. It will be the final softening, the chaos. Then we move.”
“One begins to think our move will not even be necessary,” Li Tu Men grunted scornfully. “Perhaps fear alone will be enough to break the paper tiger. Then we can — ah — negotiate on our own terms.”
“Perhaps,” said Kuo Hsi Tang. “But we will see, we will see. True, fear and demoralization are our greatest allies. But when the total sum of all the fears is combined with widespread, inexplicable darkness… ah, what greater opportunity shall we ever have to use The Weapon! But, as I say, we will have to wait and see — wait only a very little while — to see how the war games, the dress rehearsal, turn out, Then we act accordingly. But it all depends on Judas.”
There was a babble of voices in his ears and his head felt like an overripe melon that had burst. Something sticky clung to his back and oozed down over his face. It tasted like blood and it smelled like blood.
So I guess it’s blood, Nick thought dazedly, and tried to open his eyes. But not a muscle in his face or body moved.
There was another smell besides the blood, a confusing mixture of plaster dust and molten metal and burned wood.
People were talking very loudly and excitedly and he wished that they would go away. Sound and pain pounded through his body. Blood, chaos and agony; those things he was aware of. But nothing more.
And then there was another odor in his nostrils, a fragrant perfume that was like a clean and cool, yet somehow seductive, breeze. Light fingers touched his face; a damp and icy cloth stroked gently at the blood.
Julia’s voice was murmuring at him.
Julia’s… He still could not make out separate words because of the babbling and the roaring in his ears, but his senses were coming slowly back to him — enough, now, for him to think disparagingly that all those people were raving like a bunch of idiots. Yet, still he did not even wonder where he was and his eyes stared into swirling, red-tinged darkness.
Then Julia’s voice was suddenly sharp and clear. It rose above the babble and cut it off as if her voice had been a switch.
“I want the hotel doctor and a taxicab,” she said incisively. “If you must call the police, go do it and stop gabbing. But you’d do a whole lot better to get a C.B.I, man in here quickly and let me explain it all to him. Otherwise, I shall call Washington directly, myself. Now all of you get out of here and bring me back that doctor and a cab. I mean it!
And whether you like it or not, I am in a position to give you orders, so kindly do as you’re told.”
Pretty high-handed of her, Nick thought hazily. She’s lying, too, the honey-bitch. But doing it well.
The room suddenly was silent but for the sound of Julia’s low murmuring. At first, he thought she was talking to him, but then he heard her say — “Baron to AXE H.Q. Urgent to Hawk, Baron to AXE H.Q. Urgent to Hawk”
And then his head swirled again and he sank deep into the reddish darkness.
He surfaced again, moments later, and memory flashed back like a darting pain. His eyes opened and saw Julia bending over him, and he struggled to sit up.
“Down, tiger,” she said warningly. “You’re not ready for your Yoga exercises yet.”
His eyes darted searchingly about the room. It was chaos. But the worst of it was the bloody-sheeted figure lying only feet away from him.
“Julia,” he croaked painfully, “Is that…?”
Julia nodded. “Your captive, yes. If you were saving him for conversation, you’re out of luck again. Something very sharp and heavy landed on him, and — goodbye, number three. Now shut up for a while. The hotel quack is on his way to patch you up and then we’re heading back to New York. Papa Hawk is —”
“Wait,” he said urgently. They have a cache somewhere. The radioactive material. They must keep it some place to call upon as needed. It could be here, somewhere in the hotel. We’ll have to make a Geiger-counter search — we’ll have to turn this whole town upside down —”
“Not you,” she said firmly. “You’re in no shape to turn anything upside down. I’ll put through word to Hawk and someone else can do it. But not you.”
Pain pierced his head and then there was another moment of blackness. Dimly, he heard a door open and heard footsteps coming down the hall. They brought voices with them, and the slight odor of antiseptics.
“What about the others?” he asked faintly. “Little Rock and Norfolk? Any word?”
“Too soon for Little Rock,” Julia murmured, as the doctor and the house detective came into the room. “But unless our bird has flown from Norfolk, we should be making contact just about right now.”
Mrs Harry Stephenson had had many strange experiences in her nine years as proprietress of the Skyline Motel, Norfolk, but this one looked to beat them all. She had never in her life seen such an odd-looking pair of detectives. Well, the one was pretty standard stuff, except that he seemed much trimmer and tougher than the slob-bellies who usually came on skip tracing calls, but the other —!
She tore her eyes away from them and looked again at the row of pictures spread out on her reception desk.
“Yes, I’m positive,” she chirruped in her birdlike voice. “It’s this one right here. Came in last night in a Hertz, went out this morning, came in late this afternoon, hasn’t been out since. Number Seven, to your right. You can see the car’s still there.”
“Back door or windows?” the huge man rumbled in his deep-toned, oddly accented voice.
She shook her head. “No door. Small bathroom window. There’s no way out — or in — except the front. And the big glass window in the front there doesn’t open because of the air conditioning. Here’s the key. You can pull your car in front of number six, if you like. There’s no one there.”
“Kind of you, madam,” the big man boomed. “And rest assured that if there is any damage, you will be amply compensated.”
“Well, I hope you won’t—” she began, but the big man and the lean, tough one were already on their way out of her office.
She watched them get into the waiting car and speak briefly to the driver and another man. How odd the two of them look together, she thought. Just like Nero Wolfe and Archie….
The car drew up outside Number Six. The big man and the lean one got out; the other two waited.
“You tap on the window,” the big man said softly to Charley Hammond. “I’ll use the key.”
Charley glided to the window and made a rhythmic tapping sound that might have been a cautious signal. There was a slight movement from within, and Charley went on tapping.
The lock turned with a tiny click and the big man pushed. Nothing happened. Pushed again. The door refused to budge.
“Zut!” said the big man irritably beneath his breath; stepped back two paces, plunged forward like an angry bull with one vast, immensely powerful shoulder aimed at the door, and rammed three hundred pounds of muscled weight against the flimsy wood.