Late July, and one of Slater’s roving agents caught up with and hastily reported on a high official of the British Foreign Office, who had been missing from his home since May. This man, along with one other, had vanished quite unexpectedly and mysteriously for no apparent reason and had succeeded in remaining under cover for months. General Boggs and his superior received the news, considered it, and then did nothing. Boggs because he wasn’t expected to, Slater because he did not care to. Within a few days the Briton again slipped from view.
Meanwhile there had been still another assassination, another cabinet fall, a banking crisis, and a king who had only recently returned from exile packed his bags to give up his throne a second time. His son succeeded him. His son had a very warm friendship with that personable young American from the embassy.
During the closing week of September, Russia tested a second atomic bomb. Encouraged by the authenticity of the first report, the White House reported it on the third day of October and almost immediately the far-flung monitoring stations looked to their screens for evidence. It came. Still another test, the third, followed shortly thereafter, but it was a strangely familiar activity in an entirely unexpected place which caught and held Slater’s astonished attention that autumn. Great Britain began showing the first outward, unmistakable signs of possessing such a bomb—or at least the manufacture of one. The signs were not easily read by the unpracticed eye, but Slater detected them. He assigned three special agents to widely separated British points, waiting and watching.
Paul also watched those three. He was unable to watch Slater directly, but by now he could calculate Slater’s intentions by studying his reactions to any given stimulus. Upon the receipt of confidential news, via Paul and Boggs, Slater would either act or not act according to some deeper purpose of his own; by watching what he did with the information received and the subsequent shifting of men to distant places, it was often possible to guess those intentions. Sometimes nothing more was ever heard of the matter; at other times a later news dispatch or radio broadcast would touch upon a foreign event which could only be an outgrowth of Paul’s receptivity and Slater’s meddling.
American efforts to mediate the oil dispute between Iran and Great Britain ended in complete failure; Paul was suspicious of that failure because Slater had followed the entire matter with close interest. And what possible concern could he have with a military coup in Damascus which ended with the overthrow and arrest of a premier and his ministers?
Christmas brought a halt to nearly all the activity. Paul held seventy men, and he bluntly warned General Boggs there could be no more. He underlined his warning by sketchy reports and frequent headaches; many days would go by while he reported nothing at all on some agents although the cabled reports from those observers continued to be received at the center. Again, in the midst of a briefing or reporting session, he would suddenly stop talking and complain of a headache. Boggs was fearful of a recurrence of the previous year’s illness and slacked off. Christmas leaves were granted to most of the center’s personnel and to Martha after she requested it. But because of her closeness to Paul, she was warned again of security rules before departing, and a man was assigned to shadow her after she passed through the gates.
“Watch your step,” Paul cautioned her. “Whatever you do will be talked about.” He stood at a third-floor window, watching her car moving along the black-top drive.
Martha had settled back in the seat and was chatting with a young officer en route home for the holidays. The officer was surprised and delighted to find her alone.
She smiled at the officer and flashed to Paul, “I will, darling. I want to spend a few days in Savannah for appearance’s sake. Be back soon—see you Christmas Day. And look what this goon is working up to!”
The officer made his opening bid, a brief attempt to convince her she should go home with him. “The folks will love you!”
“Beware the wages of sin,” Paul declared after her. “Somebody besides the folks will be loving you. Make him squirm—give him ants in the pants.”
“Oh, Paul, no!”
“I’m the jealous type,” Paul said. “If he drops that hand on your knee, he gets the works.”
As the car neared Washington the young officer gave a startled yelp of pain and surprise. He clutched his posterior and reddened. The chauffeur turned around.
“What’s the matter?”
“A bee bit me!”
“Bees? In December? You’re crazy.”
Paul remained at the third-floor window, whistling.
Christmas Day was quiet and cold with a stillness to the air that seemed to promise eternal peace. The trees beyond the far wall were blackly naked, holding their limbs against an overcast sky, and the soldiers beneath them shivered and cursed. Not until noon did a weak sun appear, but it did nothing to dispel the cold.
Paul had a late breakfast and wandered through the great house, marveling at its emptiness. It had not been so vacant since the spring day he had moved in, nearly two years before. He prowled around, exchanging “Good Mornings” and “Merry Christmases” with those who had to stay behind, and finally located the one man he was searching for. He knew the man was one of Slater’s inner agents, set to watch Paul and the others inhabiting the house, and so he had deliberately selected him for the errand to make it easier for the information to reach the chief.
“Did you get it?” Paul asked the officer.
“Right here.” He held out the small package. “And good luck to you.”
“Thanks, thanks for both.”
The delivery of the package implied that Slater had given his approval. It could have been stopped easily enough. Paul opened the package to display the engagement ring. “Think she’ll like it?”
“I would, in her shoes,” the officer declared. And then he laughed. “We paid plenty for it!”
Martha returned in the early afternoon. Paul had been watching for her for hours and located the automobile while it was still distant from the Maryland place. She was greatly excited.
“Paul. My brother was in Savannah!”
“You didn’t contact him—”
“No, of course not. He put up at the hotel and I had lunch in the dining room. Paid, he located Willis.”
“Tell me!”
“Look in, Paul. You will get it faster that way. I’ve memorized it all.” She put aside her barrier shield and her thoughts lay naked to him.
The silence between them was long and contemplative. The automobile left the highway and turned in at the road leading to the gates protecting the estate. It had reached the second gate before Paul spoke again.
“So that’s Willis!”
“Nasty, isn’t it? And Slater preaching patriotism!” She was bitter and bewildered. “Paul, what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. Yet. Nothing at all until we can find a way to bring him down.”
The car moved through the second gate and entered the drive leading to the house. After a minute Martha had a new thought, tinged with growing curiosity.
“Paul, what are you hiding?”
“Hiding? Me?”
“Don’t pretend to innocence! I can sense an evasion about something. What has happened?”
“Nothing’s happened, the way you mean.”
“Then what are you hiding from me?”
She felt his warm laughter. “Come home and find out!” He held the ring box in his hand, carefully concealing it from her prying mind.
XVI.
1953
“They’ll never catch me, Paul. I promise you that.”
He moved forward in the chair and pushed the girl to the edge of his lap. “I’m hungry. Please see what’s holding up dinner.”
She struggled to retain her seat on his lap, tried to kiss him once more, but he stood up, laughing. “Move! I’m starving.”
Martha gained her footing, winked a secret thought to him and crossed over to the apartment door. Her outstretched hand hesit
ated on the knob and she looked over her shoulder for a quick, fond glance. “I’m glad you love me, Paul.”
And opened the door.
She remained there for long frozen seconds with the door half open, staring into the corridor outside, staring at someone beyond his line of vision. Her hand flew to her mouth to shut off a scream and when she turned to him her face was flushed and frightened.
“Be careful,” he shot at her. “Know nothing!”
“Paul . . .”
“Yes?”
“It has been very lovely knowing you, darling,” she whispered. “Good-bye.”
And she was gone from the doorway, roughly shoved aside by a tall, ponderous man who seemed every inch the suave man of distinction. The newcomer was not in uniform, but he could not discard his military bearing. He stepped quickly into the room and shut the door behind him with a forceful positive action.
Paul did not move from his chair. “Colonel Johns?”
“Since you know my name already—yes.”
“Please come in.”
“I am in.” Briskly.
“Thank you. I’ve sent down for dinner. Will you join us?”
“No. And it will not come.”
“Oh?” Paul relaxed in the chair with one hand resting lightly on a volume of Robinson. “Now . . .?”
“Now,” the colonel echoed bluntly. He remained at the door, braced against it. “And I shall dispense with the formalities.” He pulled a service automatic from under his coat. “There will be none of this nonsense with last meals and last words. If you know my name, you also must know I have the same regard for you as I do for a snake. I hate snakes.” He raised the gun to eye level, taking careful sight on Paul.
Paul Breen still did not move from the chair. “There is nothing I can say?” he asked quietly.
“Nothing. It is decided.” The finger tightened on the trigger.
“Then I am sorry for you. Good-bye, Colonel Johns.”
The barrel of the gun flipped around in a quick and complete arc and exploded into flame. The walls were soundproofed, and not even the deadened microphones carried the sound of the booming shot.
The colonel’s stiff, military body collapsed on the floor, its face and most of its head blown away. The gun clattered noisily from his useless fingers, came to rest on the hardwood floor. The weapon had betrayed its owner in a most hideous manner, and the surprise in the man’s mind would now remain there for eternity. Paul left his chair and stood looking down at the body for no more than an instant, turned and walked softly toward the connecting door to Martha’s apartment. He touched the knob and quickly yanked the door open. A man’s startled face peered out at him.
“Come in, Slater. Join the party.”
Slater hesitated in the doorway, incredulously staring from Paul’s living body to the dead one across the room.
“He’s dead,” Paul assured him. “Close range.”
“What happened to him?” Slater demanded.
“He shot himself.”
“You’re lying!” Slater advanced a few steps into the room, an expression growing on his face.
“Look for yourself.”
Slater did. He crossed the room and slipped down to one knee, studying the fallen body. Carefully avoiding the widening pool of blood, he peered this way and that, making up his mind slowly and desperately.
“How did you do this?”
Paul smiled down at him, a cold, mocking gesture. “You should know. You questioned Roy and Grennell about telekinesis. You sent Carnell to question me. Take a long hard look, Slater.” He motioned to the body. “Telekinesis.”
“You made him shoot himself?”
“I caused the gun to turn. You’re next.”
“What!” Slater jumped hastily to his feet, backing away. “You can’t make me kill myself. You can’t.”
Paul said nothing. There was a brief movement glimpsed in the corner of the eye and Slater jerked his head around, glaring at the movement. The colonel’s fallen automatic was moving slowly across the floor, sliding its slow way toward Slater’s feet. He watched it in stunned disbelief, the sweat suddenly appearing on his face and neck. The gun inched up to the tips of his shoes, touched one and stopped. Slater leaped backward.
Paul told him harshly, “Telekinesis.”
“I’ll see you in hell first!” Slater made a sudden grab for his shoulder holster and when his hand reappeared it contained a twin to the automatic on the floor. He raised for aim, hesitated, and his face assumed a new pallor. Veins stood out on his neck and there was a wildness in his eyes. As he watched in mounting horror his hand turned on him, the barrel of the automatic swinging around to align with his eyes. It stopped, held steady.
He found himself staring into the deadly barrel, unable to move his hand, his body, his head. Only his lips would move and now they were begging in a hoarse whisper. “Take it away! Take it away!”
“Not yet—not until you hear what I have to say.”
“I’ll listen to anything. Take it away!”
“No.” Paul sank back in the chair, watching the man with a fixed, cold stare. “I don’t care for dramatics, Slater, and I don’t care for intrigue—especially your kind. I’m going to say what I have to say as quickly as I can, and then we’ll end this.”
“I’ll listen,” the chief pleaded desperately.
“You damned well can’t help yourself! I made one mistake years ago, Slater, and since then you’ve made all the rest of them. I allowed myself to be discovered for what I am, a freak in your world. Since that day I’ve been told many times that I shouldn’t have let it happen; if I had been older, wiser, it wouldn’t have happened. But it did, and I came to Washington, frankly eager to help you in any way I could. You knew that, and you were quick to take advantage of me. And you began making some mistakes that I’ll never forgive.
“You planted the sniper outside the embassy that night—you wanted me killed, but you had to get me away from the house to do it. Because you found out I was tracing a man named Willis, and because I would not knuckle down under your orders. I had refused to co-operate with Carnell. So you planted the sniper and hoped to eliminate me. You failed.” Paul leaned forward, tense. “You also planted Karen on me earlier, that night of the party in the hotel room. And afterward, years afterward when we had become close friends, you forced her to make a written report on our personal activities. You know what that did to her. That’s two I owe you, Slater.
“And then you robbed me of the few friends I did have. You were jealous or afraid of our friendship. You sent Peter Conklin to Russia—and then saw to it that a patrol found him, when he proved a better spy than you had expected. You hadn’t intended for him to get so close to their bombs, had you? You never liked the firm bond between us, did you? So Conklin was hunted down and shot, indirectly by your hand. Willis took care of that matter. Next, you ordered Carnell to Tokyo by plane, and an unexpected engine failure threw that plane into the Pacific. You were not willing to share the knowledge of me with a man of Carnell’s caliber. Two more gone, and that’s four I owe you.
“Conklin’s friend, Emily, had already disappeared, leaving only Karen. You packed Karen off to England, and she is still over there, slowly driving herself insane wondering when she can come back. Two more marks on the score. I owe you a lot, Slater, and the time has come to pay off!”
Slater whispered, “Take this away!”
“It stays there until I’m ready. I’m not finished. The next matter is this training center and the agents you’ve carefully spread over the world. A master spynet, efficiently directed and beautifully operated, the kind of spynet the world has never known before. A wonderful and patriotic idea, Slater, if only this country could have had full advantage of it. Unfortunately, they did not. Because you’ve consistently short-stopped information for your own purposes; that which you thought safe to pass along to Washington, Washington used, but that which you did not consider fit for them was given only to Willi
s. And Willis used it. Seventy good, intelligent men covering the world, seventy men reporting back to you and Willis the things that are hard to know.
“And so we come to your last mistake. Is the gun getting heavy? It won’t take so long now. You realized, finally, that I knew about Willis, knew your connection to him. Investigations came to light that could only have originated with me. Belatedly, you traced Conklin’s movements between planes at Shannon and found that he had done some prying; you’ve also watched Karen’s activities to see if she is spying for me. And now Willis has told you definitely that someone is after him, has been investigating him for several months. He found clear evidence of it. So the two of you decided it was far past time to kill me. And you sent Colonel Johns in here.” Paul stared at him with disgust. “Johns wasn’t supposed to live after shooting me. You had to silence his tongue, so you were waiting there in Martha’s room for him to finish the job.”
Paul arose from the chair and went to a closet to get his jacket. He checked the inner pocket to see if his wallet and credentials were there and came back to Slater.
“You’re sweating, Slater. I like that. Conklin didn’t have time to sweat—his happened too quickly. But Carnell did, as his plane went down. He had to sit there and watch himself fall. And Karen is now, sweating out a return ticket. Sweat just a little more, Slater, and we’ll go.” He stood before the man, cold and angry.
“There’s just one more thing to tell you, to make the rest of your short life miserable. You’re not alone in this—you aren’t the only one looking down the barrel of a gun tonight. Willis is sweating, too.”
The man’s eyes moved dully away from the automatic, glaring up at Paul. “Another. . . freak?” he whispered.
Paul nodded, liking the appellation. “Another freak. Like myself. And Slater—that isn’t all. There are more. I’m glad that hurts you, Slater.”
“Freak,” he tried to shout and failed.
“Sure,” Paul agreed without humor. “And Willis is meeting his—now. Another freak has been on his tail for months, another freak aroused his suspicions and turned you on me. That freak is doing to Willis what I’m doing to you now. Willis was your master, Slater, and you wanted to ape him. Willis has been in business for a long, long time and a lot of men had wanted to ape him. Willis worked for Germany in 1914, and offered his services to the world after that war. He worked for that country again in 1939, and turned to Russia when the second German attempt collapsed. But on the side he has sold his goods and services to the highest bidder, to all the highest bidders, at all times. Willis stayed in Ireland and spied on all the world, for all the world. People like you were his puppets. He owned you body and soul.
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