Flicker of Doom

by Paul Kenyon

  He punched keys again. The words changed: TEST PULSE SATISFACTORY.

  Penelope caught her breath. Don Alejandro had already plugged into the television studio lights. The computer was telling him that it was able to make them blink, as planned.

  Don Alejandro's bony fingers asked the console another question. Another set of glowing letters marched across the screen: burnout margin ample by factor of 18:1.

  The computer was telling him that the filaments of the studio lights would hold out until the President had gone mad and died.

  She could rush across the room and smash the console. But, of course, that wouldn't do a bit of good. He was only watching the action in comfort, here under the eyes of his ancestral portraits. The real work was being done elsewhere, in his main computer room.

  Where would it be?

  The computer she'd seen in the dungeon was a small laboratory computer, not powerful enough for a program as complicated as this one. He'd have a major installation elsewhere, controlling the optical maze and able to handle tonight's assassination.

  The tower! It had to be in the tower!

  Her eyes took in the slender cable stapled to the wall and disappearing through the ceiling. He must have installed the remote terminal only recently, without a chance to plaster over it.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," said John Chancellor's voice, "the President of the United States."

  She was racing up the tower steps, her feet padding silently on stone. There was a stout door there with an iron ring. She tugged at the ring, but the door wouldn't give. With a curse, she shoved a little cylinder of thermite into the lock. There was a brief intense flare, like an ogre's eye in the keyhole, and then she was able to push through.

  The computer was watching television. She recognized the tubes of an optical scanning device pointing at the big color screen. A close-up of the President showed there.

  "…this journey for peace…" he was saying.

  Feverishly, she traced connections. There was a row of tape drives against the wall, tall cabinets with twitching reels. She pulled open glass covers and spilled computer tape over the floor.

  She didn't seem to have interfered with the main program. A teletype chattered. She grabbed at the paper that gushed out and caught the words: program reroute.

  On the television screen, the President seemed to have a tic in his eye. He frowned slightly, and plowed on through his speech.

  "…and while there are differences between us, let me say that with goodwill on both sides…"

  Penelope ripped at wires frantically. There were sparks and little puffs of smoke. But the damned computer seemed to have a hell of a lot of reserve capacity.

  The President was acting nervous. He stumbled over a word or two. There were beads of sweat on his forehead, clearly visible on the color screen.

  She picked the computer cabinet that had connections leading to the optical device and put her shoulder to it. She heaved, and the massive cabinet toppled over. There was a shower of sparks and a sizzling sound.

  On the screen, the President seemed suddenly to relax. Penelope watched anxiously, but he was talking smoothly, confidently, now. He was himself again. The camera zoomed in for a big, smiling close-up.

  The Baroness put a foot right through the President's face. The television tube shattered. It was better to play safe. What the computer couldn't see, it couldn't use as feedback.

  There was a sound behind her. She turned and saw Don Alejandro in the doorway, shaking with fury. He was pointing an odd device at her. It looked something like a long-barreled zoom lens with a pistol grip.

  "You!" he choked. "You again!"

  "I had so much fun the first time, I thought I'd come back," she said.

  His long face was mottled with rage. "You killed Esteban and Sancho. You killed Dr. Funke. And now you have ruined my equipment!"

  "You left out what I did to your PAFF thugs at Bandar Abbas."

  "Who are you?"

  "I'm an antidote, Don Alejandro. An antidote for madness like yours."

  She took a step forward. His hand with the odd weapon in it moved threateningly. She stopped.

  The protective bowl that had gotten her through the optical maze was downstairs by the door, where she'd left it. She hadn't thought she'd need it again.

  "Madness?" he said. He laughed hoarsely. "That's something you'll be well acquainted with shortly."

  He thumbed a switch. Penelope looked into the end of the tube. She couldn't see anything. But, of course, she wouldn't.

  He was watching her with narrowed eyes. She smiled serenely back at him.

  By now she should have been writhing and twitching on the floor, having the series of convulsions that would end in her death.

  "You're not a very observant man, Don Alejandro," she said, "for all your talk about painting and light and vision. I bet you haven't even noticed the color of my eyes."

  He had no idea what she was talking about. Her eyes were brown. Of course, anyone who was familiar with that marvelous face — one of the most photographed faces in the world — would have known that the Baroness Penelope St. John-Orsini had green eyes.

  The contact lenses that Sumo had made up for her had light-emitting phosphors embedded in the plastic. The phosphors were stimulated by the dime-size transmitter pinned under her neckline. The computer circuitry that comprised her form-fitting garment told the phosphors what to do.

  It was telling them to flicker.

  Her eyes flashed. Even Don Alejandro could see them now, like great luminous fireflies. They were flickering at a rate that exactly counteracted the flickers from his weapon. The pinpoint flashes were programmed to average out the intensity of the light that reached her optic nerve, just as white sound counteracts noise and cancels it out.

  Don Alejandro stared at those sparking eyes and gave a cry. He dropped his weapon and fled from the room.

  She didn't chase him immediately. She took the time to make a big, doughy ball of the plastic explosive she had in her pouches and shove a time-delay fuse into it. There was no telling how much damage she'd done to his apparatus. She couldn't take the chance of anyone repairing it in the future.

  She plastered her bomb against the wall of the tower room and hurled herself through the door after him. She couldn't let him get away. He was too dangerous to remain alive.

  Two burly servants were coming up the stairs. They'd been alerted by the commotion. She lashed out with a foot and kicked one of them down the stairs. The other reached out. She evaded his grasp and threw him over the banister.

  She made it outside without meeting anyone else. Behind her, in the dark bulk of the castle, lights were going on. She caught sight of a running figure ahead.

  It was Don Alejandro. He was running across the open expanse of the optical maze.

  She ran after him, her eyes shooting sparks in the darkness. That meant that something was activating the phosphors. The optical maze was still operating, despite the damage she'd done to the computer.

  Up ahead, she saw Don Alejandro darting madly back and forth. He was like a bug on a griddle. She wondered what he thought he was seeing.

  The little black spotlights kept him pinpointed. Some of them were turning in her direction. The contact lenses protected her, but the damaged computers must have been going berserk. Don Alejandro was dancing crazily around, jerking and twisting like a puppet.

  She caught up with him as he fell to the ground. He was frothing at the mouth. His eyes stared past her at some unimaginable vision.

  "Keep away, keep away!" he raved.

  She bent closer. "What are you seeing, Don Alejandro?" she said softly.

  He responded to the sound of her voice. He seemed to look at her for a moment.

  "Darkness," he said.

  His body arched like a bow and all the cords stood out in his neck and face so that he looked like an anatomical drawing. He gave a great piercing cry and died.

  There was the sound of an explosio
n. The Baroness looked up at the castle. The tower was bulging out, bursting. Slowly, as in a dream, it toppled to the ground.

  15

  They all stood up when he entered the room. He nodded at them individually, an amiable smile on his face.

  "Mr. President!" the director of the CIA said. "We didn't expect to see you here!"

  "I almost didn't get in," the President laughed. "That Marine sentry outside told me I didn't have the proper identification."

  The men standing around the conference table laughed politely, except for the General.

  "And he was right," the General said. "You don't. He'll have to be reprimanded."

  "Don't be too hard on the boy," the President said. "He had a tough decision to make. After all, I'm his Commander-in-Chief."

  The CIA director said, "Sam tends to go overboard on security."

  "Well, I won't complain about that," the President said. "Or about your own security measures. After all, I'm still healthy."

  "How was the conference, sir?" the man from State said.

  "It went off without a hitch," the President said. "But I must have been more tense than I thought. I don't mind telling you that for a few minutes there, when I started to make my speech, I began to feel jittery."

  "Nothing showed on the screen, sir," the man from State assured him. "You came through just fine."

  The President gave the General a jovial look. "Don't look so glum, Sam," he said. "I appreciate your sending your agent Coin to check out Tangier, even if you were duplicating the efforts of the CIA and the Secret Service. I gather that nothing turned up, but it never hurts to play it safe."

  The General started to say something, then changed his mind. He smiled. "I guess Tangier was sewn up pretty tight, between our people and King Hassan's security force. I don't think any known terrorist could have gotten within a mile of that studio."

  The CIA director gave a satisfied nod. "If there were any assassins, they must have stayed home and watched your speech on television."

  * * *

  The Baroness entered the gallery, the guidebook in her hand. The Spanish government was proud of the new collection it had just acquired. The Prado had put it on special display.

  There was a scattering of tourists in the big room. A middle-aged American was saying importantly to a young blonde girl, "This portrait of the Inquisitor is going to rank as one of the major El Grecos now that it's back in circulation. It wasn't listed in any of the catalogues. There's a reference to it in a seventeenth-century source. Notice that extraordinary color, that flickering form, as if the face were a candle flame! Believe me, when the critics have had a chance to assess…"

  Penelope moved past them to the paintings at the far wall. The one she was interested in was centered among a number of smaller oils. It dominated the grouping in its twelve-foot gold frame.

  She smiled up at the Duchess of Quimera. "How do you like living at the Prado?" she said.

  The Duchess smiled gravely back at her. "It's convenient," she said. "Up until now there was no direct contact point here in Madrid."

  The Velazquez portrait stopped moving its lips and waited with a composed expression. It was Penelope herself who had managed to substitute the plastic shield with its light-emitting phosphors and transparent electrodes, before the de Otero y Quimera collection had been crated for shipment to Madrid. She'd offered to help sort the collection out, along with Marietta and a couple of Don Alejandro's other neighbors, and the Prado's chief curator had been delighted to accept.

  She touched the dark glasses that let her see the picture move and hear the voice, and thought of John Farnsworth, thousands of miles away, sitting in front of his transmitter.

  "Why did you drag me here, John, darling? Do you have a job for me?"

  "Just a little job," the Duchess said.

  "Spare me your little jobs," she groaned. "Is it urgent?"

  "Oh, no, not at all urgent. You don't have to start till tomorrow morning."

  She listened to the details for the next minute, striking a pensive pose in front of the painting like any other tourist, her guidebook open in her hand. Someone came and stood beside her. It didn't matter; Farnsworth's voice was inaudible to anyone but her. He finished his briefing, and she shut the guidebook.

  "What's she telling you?" the man beside her said.

  She turned. It was Rex Dole, looking tall and handsome in a white linen suit.

  "Rex! What are you doing in Madrid?"

  "Change of pace," he said. "Thought I'd get out of Tangier and have a vacation before I started my next book."

  "Marvelous," she said. "We'll have dinner together tonight."

  "Delighted. But you haven't answered my question. You looked as if you were listening to the Duchess. I'd almost believe she could talk. Extraordinarily life-like portrait! What dark secrets was it telling you?"

  "Why, darling, she was telling me how it felt to be split in two."

  He laughed. "So you know that old story?" He became sober. "Too bad about Don Alejandro. Strange old duffer, living in the past. They found him in his garden. Died of some kind of fit, they think. The police are still investigating that explosion in the tower of his villa. They think he was storing chemicals there."

  "Oh, darling, let's not talk about anything depressing!" "Sorry. I forgot you liked the old bastard. It was nice of you to help catalogue and crate his collection."

  "It was the least I could do," she said.

  * * *

  Later, in his room at the Villa Magna, she propped herself up on one elbow and gazed affectionately at his tanned, ropy figure. "Thank you, darling," she said. "That was very nice."

  He put a hand lazily on her breast. "It was nice for me, too," he said. "Historic, in fact. It was like making love to the Duchess of Quimera."

  "Rex, darling," she laughed, "you don't think I look like that picture, too?"

  "You put the Duchess to shame," he said.

  She ran a finger along his thigh. He began to show immediate signs of life again. "Good," she said. "I don't fancy being split in two."

  "Depends on how you go about it," he said, rolling over on top of her.

  It did.