He blinked, shook his head, looked again.
At sunset, sometimes, yes, but not at high noon, never at high noon.
For some reason he fell on his knees and crawled toward the water.
Nothing had changed by the time he reached it.
It was still blood-red.
And down below, in the valley, in the little town that had once been a mining camp, Mrs. Myrtle Houston turned on a kitchen faucet and a stream of reddish fluid poured out.
She was not the only housewife in Gold Gap who was late with lunch that day.
By dinnertime the strangeness of the red lake was being commented on throughout the state of Colorado. No one could explain it.
Next day in Pocatello, Idaho, Jake Crewe crawled out of bed at 6 a.m. as always but without his usual morning cheerfulness. He had not slept well. The night had been stifling, not so much from heat as from airlessness. Not a breath of air had stirred. The atmosphere had lain heavy like some vast sleeping animal.
Jake’s barrel chest expanded as he stood at the open window trying to suck in air. Sunrise wasn’t due for another fifty-six minutes but there ought to be some sign of morning glow by now.
There wasn’t any.
A haze lay low over the town, a dirty, rank-smelling fog the likes of which he had never seen before. Not a mist, not a rain fog; just a grubby blanket of filth.
He stared at it incredulously and sniffed. Chemical odors. Auto fumes. Smoke, Sulphur, or something like it. He muttered irritably and padded to the bathroom to splash his face with cold water and wash away the feeling of being a walking lump of grime.
The smell of the water was vile.
By eight o’clock that morning nearly all of Pocatello’s thirty thousand citizens were uncomfortably aware that their city’s cool, clean air and flowing fresh water had unaccountably become contaminated.
They were not the least bit reassured to discover, later in the day, that their capital city of Boise was similarly affected. Not reassured at all.
FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA, NOVEMBER 17 — Eighty-seven people including three engineers, one medical doctor, two airline pilots, five teachers, several dozen students, eighteen tourists and four state troopers witnessed last night’s aerial display of UFO’s near Humphrey’s Peak. Trooper Michael counted twelve “fiery balls in the sky, with tails behind them that looked like jet streams of green fire.” Dr. Henry Matheson’s camera recorded three rapid pictures of them before they “made a sudden vertical ascent and vanished over the mountains.” Today, talking to this reporter, he commented: “I’d like to see them try to explain this lot away as marsh gas.
Over Arizona’s highest peak? Not likely. Especially after that thing a couple of days ago right out in the desert. I tell you, people are getting unnerved by this kind of thing, and it’s time we took some real action before we get a state of panic…
EDITORIAL, KANSAS CITY MORNING SUN, NOVEMBER 10 — “After nine hours and forty-seven minutes of chaos, the lights in the Plains States came on again this morning at five thirty-five. Fourteen people died in accidents caused directly or indirectly by the power failure. Hundreds of homes were without water throughout the night. Thousands of people were stranded in their offices, on the streets, in elevators. Hundreds of thousands of residents in these four states were suddenly deprived of heat, light, comfort — and an explanation. Why did this happen again? Are we never to know? Why are the power companies unable to explain why it happened and how the situation suddenly corrected itself? We have a right to know, and we demand…
“Howdy, howdy, howdy, folks, Swingin’ Sammy’s back with you again to bring you all the lastest recorded hits selected especially for you by your favorite radio station, good old WROT in Tul — Wha? One moment, folks. Got a bulletin here. Hey! Flash! From the City Water Supply Commission. Water! Me, I never touch the stuff… Say, maybe you better not, too. Says here — and listen carefully folks — WARNING! DO NOT REPEAT — DO NOT DRINK THE WATER FROM YOUR HOME FAUCETS, DO NOT DRINK ANY CITY WATER, DO NOT DRINK ANY WATER IN THE AREA SERVED BY THE TAPACONIC RESERVOIR. THERE IS EVIDENCE OF UNUSUAL POLLUTION, NOT NECESSARILY HARMFUL, BUT UNTIL FINAL TESTS ARE MADE IT IS STRONGLY URGED THAT ALL RESIDENTS USE BOTTLED WATER OR OTHER LIQUIDS FROM SEALED CONTAINERS. DO NOT BE ALARMED — REPEAT — DO NOT BE ALARMED. BUT PLEASE CO-OPERATE. FURTHER DETAILS WILL BE SUPPLIED AS SOON AS AVAILABLE. Say, I thought my toothbrush tasted kinda funny this morning.”
Nick Carter stubbed out his cigarette and fastened his seat belt. The lights of New York City’s fringes lay below him and his fellow passengers, and the Eastern Airlines Constellation was already nosing downward in a graceful curve.
He looked down. It was a clear, beautiful night, and he could see the lights of Brooklyn and Long Island and the Verrazano Bridge, and he was glad to be coming home after tying up all the loose ends in Chicago.
The lights gleamed and shimmered. The runway lay ahead, a bright, inviting path.
Then it was gone.
It vanished into the night along with Manhattan, most of Long Island, parts of Connecticut and New Jersey.
There was a babble of excited voices in the plane. The pilot banked and circled and thanked his lucky stars that there were stars in the clear night sky.
Three minutes later, to the second, the lights came on again.
Millions of people, Nick among them, breathed a deep sigh of relief. But their relief was tempered by the growing suspicion that it could happen again, by the near certainty that it would happen again.
And none of them knew why.
Nick was home in his upper West Side apartment a little more than an hour later after stopping at the letter drop near Columbia University. His own address was known to only his closest friends and most of his mail traveled a circuitous route before reaching him at the drop.
He opened the letter now, rolling smooth, icy bourbon over his tongue and wondering who could be writing him from Egypt.
The letter was signed Hakim Sadek. Hakim, of course! Hakim, the cross-eyed criminologist who had used his devious talents to such astonishing effect during that business in Africa.
The memory of Hakim’s tricks made Nick grin with pleasure.
But the letter was not very funny. He read it twice, carefully, and when he put it back into its envelope his face was grim.
CHAPTER TWO
Valentina The Great
“No,” said Hawk. “And take your elbows off the toast, if you please, and pass it to me. My God, you’d think some genius in this overpriced snob trap would find some way to keep toast warm.”
Nick passed the toast. True, it was cold and soggy, but that was not the fault of the Hotel Pierre. Hawk had been on the telephone almost continually since breakfast had been brought to his suite and Nick had arrived to greet the head of AXE on his return from a top-level meeting in Europe.
“No?” said Nick. “You’ve hardly been listening to me. Why No?”
“Of course I’ve been listening to you,” said Hawk, spreading marmalade with careful lavishness. He was unaccountably irritable but he had not lost the frontiersman’s appetite that somehow left him looking lean and wiry and leather-tough. “Anyway, I know all about it. Blackouts here, pollution there. Lakes that turn bright red and water that flows stinking from the faucets. Oh, even in Europe I heard all about it. Humph. I see by this morning’s papers that flying saucers were seen over Montauk again last night. Extremely sinister, without a doubt.” He attacked his scrambled eggs and concentrated on them for a while. Then he said, “Don’t think I haven’t been concerned. Discussed this with the Chief on the four-way system Wednesday night. Central thinks it’s mass hysteria due to Vietnam war nerves, precipitated by perfectly normal incidents that just happen, coincidentally, with rather more than normal frequency. People exaggerating things, putting two and two together and coming up with with forty-five. The Bureau says —”