I didn't argue but drank some more of the bitter tea. It burned in my stomach, but it was not an unpleasant sensation. I laughed suddenly, without humor. "I can't believe I'm sitting here with the Secretary General of the United Nations, who has just assisted in the planning of a break-in at the Russian consulate, a plan to be personally carried out by his top assistant."
Thaag shrugged. "It's true that it's a risky venture."
"Then why involve yourself? I told you that Lippitt has a plan of his own."
Thaag looked at me a long time, as if I'd said something stupid and he were searching for a way to be polite. "I do not make a practice of depending on American agents," he said at last. "We must all, on occasion, take risks, and responsibility."
"Tal could be killed. If we're discovered in there, it will be the end of your tenure."
"Being Secretary General means nothing to me in itself, Dr. Frederickson; not unless I can be effective. I have a lovely home and a profitable business in my native country; I can always return to those. As far as Ronald is concerned, I believe he can guarantee your safety while you're inside the consulate."
"I don't follow you."
"If Ronald is killed inside the consulate, I will take steps to make certain he's regarded as a martyr. I will get up in the General Assembly and tell all I know. And I will be believed. I will admit my role in trying to rescue the Fosters, and then I will resign. Every investigative reporter in the United States will be digging for information about Victor Rafferty. That would not please any of the parties involved. I think the Russians, if they should catch you, will let both of you go."
"If they stop long enough to ask questions," I said.
"That's a risk we'll have to take."
"You could speak up now."
"I am not prepared to resign unless it is necessary," Thaag said forcefully. "And I cannot make charges without proof unless I am prepared to leave. What I say must have impact. If you and Ronald are able to rescue the Fosters without publicity, so much the better. I am hoping the Russians will dump you in the street, if you are caught."
Not Kaznakov, I thought, but I didn't say anything. I was surprised to find that I was getting sleepy. I shook my head and it felt as though my brain was sloshing around inside my skull. I mumbled something, closed my eyes, and breathed deeply, launching myself into sleep. Kaznakov came calling, riding in on a black dream. Suddenly I was reliving the torture session.
I knew I was dreaming, tried to wake up, and couldn't. The giant with the smashed nose was hanging me up by the elbows, wiring me to the telephone. I was strangling, writhing on the bar; waves of excruciating pain coursed through every nerve in my body. As before, I thought I heard a door open; someone was with me in the farmhouse cellar.
Then it started all over again: Kaznakov killing the British agents, chasing after me, stringing me up. However, this time there was a difference, however slight: The pain was not quite as bad. It was almost as though I were no longer a direct participant; I was floating outside myself, watching a man who looked like me suffering on an iron bar. I could heartily sympathize with him, but his pain was no longer my own.
The second show ended, then promptly began again. And again. It went on and on until finally I was quite bored with it all.
When I woke up, sweat was pouring down my face and my clothes were pasted to my body. I sat bolt upright in the chair. It was dark and I was sopping wet. But something was different, and it took me a long time to figure out exactly what it was.
Suddenly it came to me that I was no longer afraid.
The burning ball of fear that had taken up residence in my belly had cooled, leaving me weak and warm but unafraid. I could think of Kaznakov and the telephone and the electricity and it had no more emotional impact than the last run-through of the dream. The fever in my mind had broken, and I was whole again.
A telephone rang out in the darkness. I had no emotional reaction; now it was no more than just a phone ringing. A door opened somewhere in the outer suite of offices and I heard the muffled sound of footsteps in a carpeted hallway. The door to the office I'd been sleeping in suddenly opened and the room flooded with light.
Tal moved quickly across the room and picked up the phone on the desk. He was dressed all in black, from his shoes to the seaman's cap he wore on his head. He spoke a few curt words into the telephone, then hung up and turned toward me. "Wrong number," he said. "Wouldn't you know? I'm sorry it woke you." He paused, came closer. "You look terrible. You must have been dreaming."
"I feel better," I said. My voice was weak but steady. I stood up and experienced a sudden wave of dizziness, but it passed. "Where's the bathroom, and when do we go?"
Tal smiled. I thought he still looked pale. "The bathroom's out the door to your left, and we leave soon. I was going to wake you up in half an hour. I've prepared some food."
"Good. I can use something to eat." In fact I was ravenously hungry, and I knew the hunger was the result of the long journey I'd taken during the night, from sickness to health, from nowhere to now.
I went into the bathroom and sponged myself off. There was a surprise waiting for me when I went back into the office; the surprise had pale eyes and a bald head.
"Jesus," I said.
"Hello, Frederickson," Lippitt replied softly.
I looked at Tal as I jerked a thumb in Lippitt's direction. "What's he doing here?"
"An extra hand," Tal said wryly.
"Do you object, Mongo?" Tal asked.
"Who, me? I'm just along for the ride."
"You're the key to the plan," Lippitt said tightly.
"It seems Mr. Lippitt has been industriously following me," Tal said, an easy smile playing around the corners of his mouth. "Since he seems to have come up with a similar plan, it seemed a good idea to pool our resources."
Lippitt laughed; it was a sharp, harsh sound. "What resources?"
"If you don't think this is going to work, why did you approach me in the first place?" I asked.
"Masochism, and the fact that I wanted you to start paying some dues."
"I don't think so. The Fosters-or Mrs. Foster-is very important to you, Lippitt: so much so that you'd risk your own life, not to mention mine, to save her. Why?"
"It's none of your business," Lippitt said simply.
"Do you have Rafferty?" I persisted.
Lippitt heaved a deep sigh. "Rafferty's dead. I killed him. At least, I thought I did."
I repeated his words. "Thought you did?"
"You look like hell, Frederickson," Lippitt said, his eyes suddenly cold. "I'm beginning to wonder if this is such a good idea. You're going to get yourself killed, and I'm not as mad now as I was in the hospital."
I stood up straight, "Lippitt, I've never felt better in my life." I looked at Tal. "Where's the Secretary General?"
"In his own apartment, sleeping."
"You mentioned something about food."
Tal nodded. "Steak, eggs, and coffee. We'll go over the plan in detail while we eat."
18
The luminous dial on my watch read four fifteen as Tal pulled his car up to the curb a half block away from the consulate. The street was deserted except for an occasional taxi that sped past, ferrying the night people.
Tal and Lippitt immediately went to the locked glass door of the office building next to the consulate. I followed and waited in the shadows. Lippitt reached into his pocket and withdrew a length of stiff wire; within seconds he'd picked the lock. In a few minutes we were on top of the building and looking down on the roof of the consulate. Across the way, I could see the upside-down Ls of the ventilator shafts glinting in the moonlight. It was a good twenty-five feet across, with a downward angle of about thirty degrees. I would have to clear a two-foot parapet; if I missed, it was eighteen stories to the ground.
"Check your equipment," Lippitt said curtly.
For the third time that evening I opened the canvas flight bag Tal had given me and checked its contents:
a small acetylene torch with self-contained gas supply, a bottle of olive oil, flashlight, gun, magnet, and grenade-type incendiary bomb.
"Everything's here," I said, zipping up the bag and rising.
"Once again," Tal said. "You'll keep track of the floors by counting the intersections of horizontal and vertical ducts. When you get to the third floor, you'll go to your left. Count ten sections-you'll feel the seams-and cut through in the middle of the tenth section. You should find yourself on a stairwell landing. Go through the door and down to the end of the corridor. That's where you plant the incendiary bomb; it has only an eight-second fuse, so don't waste time after you pull the pin; get down the stairs as fast as you can. At the bottom, you'll find an exit door with a steel bolt. It leads to a service alley. That's where Lippitt and I will be."
"Give me about forty minutes," I said, flinging the canvas bag out into the darkness. It landed with a dull thud on the consulate roof. Before I could give myself time to think about it, I backed up a few paces, ran forward, and threw myself into the yawning, empty night between the buildings. Wind whistled in my ears as the parapet rushed up at me. I cleared it by no more than an inch, tucked and rolled when I hit the tarmac. Using my shoulders and upper back to absorb the force of my landing, I rolled a second time and came up on my feet.
Across the way, Tal and Lippitt gave me a thumbs-up sign, then melted back into the shadows. I picked up the canvas bag and walked to the ventilator shafts.
Both shafts were covered with steel grates. I took out the torch and went to work on the one on the right. The torch sputtered a few times, but finally cut through the bolts holding the grille in place. The shaft looked awfully narrow, and I was going to have to squirm down fifteen stories in it.
I smeared my body and clothes with olive oil, then clambered into the duct feet first, scraping the skin on my elbow. I rolled over on my stomach and, dragging the bag after me, worked my way over the angle of the L. Darkness closed over my head.
The duct sloped slightly, but it was still steep. At one point I began to slide too quickly; I flexed my shoulders and thighs and braked to a stop. The friction had burned through my shirt and pants, and my flesh throbbed. I manipulated the bottle over my head and poured more oil down over my body. I wondered how long the oil would last; if I got stuck, it would take a team of plumbers a week to get me out.
I reached the first horizontal section. Fourteen more floors to go; I lay in the wider section of the duct and panted. There was a slight draft coming down from the top; I waited until the sweat dried, then started down again.
It cost me a lot of pain, not a little anxiety, and a lot of skin when I ran out of oil on the eighth floor. But I made it to the intersection of ducts on the third floor. In the middle of the tenth section, I took out the torch and magnet. I was already considerably behind schedule, and it took ten minutes to get the torch working properly. The fact that I could barely breathe didn't help.
I adjusted the tiny blue-white flame of the torch and went to work on the metal. It quickly became a question of what would burn out first, the metal or me. Within moments the metal under my knees became red hot; I could smell my clothing burning, and I was breathing in quick, nervous gasps.
With about an inch to go, I removed the magnet from the bag, draped the attached leather thong around my neck, and placed the magnet in the center of the circle I'd circumscribed with the cutting flame. Then I cut the rest of the way through the metal and pulled the hot circle up and out.
I waited a few minutes for the metal to cool, then poked my head down through the hole in the duct. Tal and Lippitt had been right on target: my nose was a few inches away from a glowing EXIT sign. A well-lighted stairway led down and up from the landing. I dropped to the stairwell, dragging the canvas bag after me. I immediately took out the automatic, checked the full magazine, then crouched by the door to listen. When I heard nothing, I pushed through.
According to plan, I found myself at one end of a long, carpeted corridor. I had to plant the bomb at the opposite end of the corridor where it would do the most damage, then get down the stairs to let in Lippitt and Tal. I hurried down the corridor, knelt in a corner at the end, and unzipped the bag.
At the sound of a door opening directly behind me, I rose and spun. There was no place to run or hide, so I whipped the gun out of my waistband and aimed it at a point in space where the man's chest would appear in another split second. The door opened and my finger froze on the trigger. Big as death, dressed in the uniform of a Russian major, stood Kaznakov. He looked to me like an ogre from some half-remembered childhood dream.
I looked to him like a dwarf he'd seen before.
He thought and moved faster than I did. While I was still waving my pistol around in space, he reached out and swatted it from my hand as easily as a grizzly smashing fish out of a stream.
That woke me up; I crouched down and started to back up in the few feet I had between Kaznakov and the wall. He didn't even bother to draw his revolver from its holster; he just grinned crookedly and lumbered forward, arms outstretched to cut off any possible avenue of escape.
I wasn't about to let the scabby-faced Russian carry me off gently into the good night of one of the darkened rooms off the corridor. A few hours earlier, I'd have been paralyzed by the mere sight of the man in front of me. Now, thanks to Rolfe Thaag's Miracle Tea and Sleep Cure, I was ready to do a little battle.
When I was backed to the wall, Kaznakov crouched and leaped at me. I ducked under his outstretched arms, spun around, and landed the point of my shoe on his elbow. I'd been aiming for the base of his spine, but the kick on the elbow did some good; there was a crunching sound. Kaznakov grunted with surprise and pain as the arm I'd kicked convulsed, then flopped to the side of his body. I pivoted again and dived for my gun, gripped it, rolled over on my back, and pointed it at a thoroughly surprised Kaznakov. I giggled in hysterical relief and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened; the force of Kaznakov's knocking the gun against the wall had jammed the firing mechanism. I threw the gun at his huge globe head-and missed.
Kaznakov, satisfied that I couldn't get through a door before he shot me, was taking a breather. He cursed in Russian and spat, cradling his broken elbow and leaning against the wall. He looked at me through eyes glazed with pain and hatred. "I am going to tear your arms and legs from sockets."
Slowly, I got to my feet. We stood a few feet apart, panting and staring at each other.
The huge moon eyes slowly blinked. "How did you get out of the farmhouse?"
"Magic, pig!" I shouted, adrenaline bubbling through my bloodstream. "Didn't your pig mother ever tell you any fairy tales about dwarfs?"
Maybe he didn't like my insulting his mother; more likely, he was just tired. He reached across his body for his gun, and I showed him another move.
In the circus I'd leaped over barriers a lot higher than Kaznakov, but I'd had considerably more room to get up a head of steam. As it was, I made it to about the level of his neck, twisted in the air, and kicked at the area of his bandaged nose. The Russian reached out and plucked me out of the air like a fielder snaring an easy pop-up. He immediately began to squeeze.
I came down hard on both his ears with my palms. He screamed and dropped me as he reached for his head. I fell to the floor; as luck would have it, Kaznakov tripped and fell on top of me. I groped in front of me for the canvas bag that was only inches away from my fingertips, but it was no good. Kaznakov had me. Instantly on his feet, he picked me up and hurled me against the wall. I instinctively- relaxed to try to prevent broken bones, but it felt as though I'd been hit by a freight train. I bounced off the wall and hit the floor. Everything went dark, as if someone had tripped a wire inside my brain. Huge black waves pounded over my head as I clung frantically to the cliff edge of consciousness, knowing that if I went over that drop I was a dead man.
Some of my vision was coming back, but it was blurred. I heard the Russian's breathing, heavy with hate. Iron fingers wrap
ped around my ankles and twisted, pulling my legs in opposite directions. Kaznakov intended to literally split me up the middle with his bare hands.
Still blind, I groped for something to use as a weapon, and my fingers found the canvas bag. Pain shot up through my groin to my belly; in a few seconds, ligaments would start to tear. But I was getting more of my vision back. Kaznakov's leering face was very close to mine; he was watching me with a kind of detached interest, waiting for me to start screaming.
Trying to forget the pain for just a moment, I tensed, focusing all my energy into the palms of my hands for one more blow. When I could stand the pain no longer, I screamed at the top of my lungs and again brought my hands around on Kaznakov's ears.
He yelled and released my ankles. I swung at his head with the sack, then somehow managed to get my feet under me; the only problem was that my legs weren't working right. I tried to run, tripped and stumbled, got up, then stumbled again. I needed a time-out; I had my eyes back, but I needed a decent set of legs to go with them. Kaznakov, of course, wasn't inclined to be obliging. He either had forgotten about his gun, or had lost interest in doing anything short of tearing me apart with his hands. He was coming at me full tilt.
I got up and tried to run again, with only slightly more success. Kaznakov was gaining on me fast. There was only one thing left to try, and it was going to take some exquisite timing-not to mention luck. I tried to judge from the sound of his footsteps just where he was. When I felt his arms reach out for me, I dropped like a stone. Kaznakov went sailing through the air over my head.
I leaped onto the backs of his knees and drove my thumbs as hard as I could into his kidneys. He gargled with rage and pain and started to get up on his hands and knees. I wrapped my legs around his middle and hung on as he started to buck. At the same time, I unzipped the bag and searched inside for the incendiary grenade; I found it and wrapped my fingers around the hard metal.
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