Strange Prey

by Chesbro, George C. ;

  The lock clicked.

  Physically exhausted, Victor slumped to the floor. He sucked greedily at the cool draughts of air wafting in beneath the door as he waited for the fire in his head to cool. At last he rose and opened the door far enough to look out into the corridor. Empty; Mr. Lippitt had thought the locked door would be enough.

  The policeman was beginning to stir. Victor hurriedly found the man’s wallet and took out the money he needed. Then, summoning up his last reserves of strength, he stepped out into the hallway and headed for the emergency exit.

  Pat Rafferty opened her eyes and stared into the darkness. She did not have to look at the luminous dial on the alarm clock to know it was the middle of the night; and there was someone in the room with her.

  “Victor?” She said it like a prayer.

  “Yes,” came the whispered reply. “Don’t be frightened and don’t turn on the light. I want to make love to you.”

  Pat felt a shiver run through her body. The voice was Victor’s but it was different, somehow, flat and sad. Resigned. His hand was on her body.

  “Victor, I can’t—”

  “Don’t think that, darling. Please love me. I need you now.”

  She felt her desire mount as Victor pressed his mouth against hers; his closeness and the need of her own body swept away her fears and she reached out to pull him down alongside her. In a few minutes they lay, spent and exhausted, in each other’s arms; but Victor rose almost immediately and began dressing.

  “Victor, please come and lie down again.”

  “I can’t, darling. There isn’t much time. I have to go.”

  Pat rubbed her eyes. Everything seemed so unreal. “How did you get in? There are men all around the house.”

  “I have my own built-in radar system,” Victor said. “I can tell where they are.” He moved closer to the bed so that Pat could just make out his shape in the darkness. She raised her arms but Victor moved back out of her reach. “I had to take the chance,” he continued. “I had to see you to tell you I’ve always loved you. You see, I have to do something … terrible. There’s no way to make you understand. I had to see you this one last time to say goodbye.”

  “Good-bye? Victor, I don’t understand. Why…?” She was suddenly aware of a numb, thick sensation in her forehead. Her ears were buzzing. “Victor,” Pat murmured, “I feel so strange…”

  “I know, darling,” Victor said. His voice was halting as if he were choking on tears. “I know. Goodbye.”

  He stood in the darkness for a long moment, staring at the still figure on the bed. Once he started to walk toward her and then stopped. Finally he turned and went back the way he had come.

  Mr. Lippitt sat at his desk in the specially heated office. His feet were propped up on his desk and he held a steaming glass of tea in his hand. His frail body was enclosed in a thick, bulky sweater buttoned to the mid-point of his chest. He sipped at his tea and stared off into space. He regretted the fact that the order had gone out to kill Victor Rafferty.

  But what else could one do with such a man save kill him? Lippitt thought Rafferty could read thoughts, move objects and he could kill, all without lifting a finger. The military potential of such a man was too great ever to risk its possible use by a foreign power. Unlike the atom, there was only one Victor Rafferty, and whoever commanded his allegiance possessed a terrible weapon, a deadly skill that was silent and could be used over and over again undetected, with virtually no risk to its user. He had always prided myself as a good judge of character. He would have sworn to Rafferty’s decency and patriotism. Then why had the man run?

  Mr. Lippitt was interrupted in his thoughts by the buzz of the intercom. “Yes?”

  “There’s a message on an outside line, sir. I’ve already scrambled the circuit. Should I put him through?”

  Mr. Lippitt’s feet came down hard on the floor, jarring the desk and its contents, spilling the tea over a stack of multicolored, cross-indexed documents Lippitt had spent the day ignoring. He waited until he was sure he had regained control of himself and then picked up the receiver. “All right,” Mr. Lippitt said, “patch him through.”

  There was a soft, whirring sound in the line, an automatic signaling device signifying that the scrambling device had been activated. “Lippitt here.”

  “He’s in New York City,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “He has a research lab in the Mason Foundry. He’s hiding there. What are your instructions?”

  Mr. Lippitt bent over and picked up the overturned glass. “What’s your code name?”

  “Vector Three,” came the easy reply.

  “Of course,” Mr. Lippitt said, fingering the glass. “And I suppose that’s where you are? The Mason Foundry?”

  “Of course.”

  “All right, now you listen carefully,” Lippitt said, opening a drawer and removing a small, snub-nosed revolver. He opened a box of shells and carefully loaded each chamber as he spoke. “I’ll be in New York in an hour. Mason Foundry. You’ll wait for me, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Mr. Lippitt hung up and shoved the revolver beneath his sweater, inside his waistband along the hard ridge of his spine. He jabbed at the intercom.

  “Yes, sir?” came the quick reply.

  “I want a jet to New York, now,” Mr. Lippitt barked at the startled secretary. “Arrange for helicopter and limousine connections. All top priority.”

  Mr. Lippitt was not surprised to find no agent waiting for him outside the building; neither was he surprised to find Victor Rafferty waiting for him inside.

  “Come in,” Victor said, leveling a pistol at Mr. Lippitt’s forehead and motioning him to a chair across the book-lined executive office. “You look as if you expected me.”

  Mr. Lippitt shrugged. “You picked the wrong man’s brain. Vector Three left for France two days ago.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  “May I have a cigarette?” Victor threw a pack of cigarettes across the room and Mr. Lippitt purposely let them fall to the carpet. He bent over, freeing the revolver. He was certain his speed was sufficient to draw and kill Rafferty before the other man could even pull the trigger. He sat back up in the chair and lighted the cigarette. “I was curious,” Mr. Lippitt continued casually. “I don’t think you meant to kill that man. If I did, I’d have had this place surrounded with troops. Why did you run?”

  “I don’t think I could make you understand.”

  “That’s too bad. You see, having you around is like living with an H-bomb; whether it’s ticking or not, it still makes you uncomfortable.”

  “Now you…re beginning to understand.”

  Mr. Lippitt glanced around the room, fascinated by the many models of buildings Victor had designed, relying on the properties of the high-tension steel alloy developed by the foundry. Strange, he thought, how buildings had never interested me before. He rose and walked across the room to examine one of the models more closely; he could feel the gun aimed at the back of his neck.

  “So, what are you going to do?” Mr. Lippitt asked.

  “I’ve already been contacted and all the arrangements have been made. I leave for another country tonight.”

  “That means you’ll have to kill me.”

  “Yes.”

  Mr. Lippitt turned to face Victor. “Why? I mean, why defect?” He no longer made any effort to hide the emotion in his voice. “I wouldn’t have thought you were a traitor.”

  Anger flickered in Victor’s eyes, and then quickly faded. “You forced me to do what I’m doing,” Victor said. “An H-bomb! That’s what you compared me to, right? To you and your people—”

  “They’re your people, too.”

  “All right, people! To people, I’m nothing more than a weapon! Did it ever occur to you I might want to lead my own life?”

  “We’ve already been over that. Without us, you and your wife would either be killed or kidnapped. We wouldn’t want you to be killed; we couldn’t allow
you to be kidnapped.”

  “Exactly. So it boils down to this: since my life is no longer my own anyway, the only thing I can do is choose the side which can best provide protection for Pat and myself. By definition, a police state can provide more protection than a non-police state. Since I wouldn’t be free in either country, I have to pick the country where I would be safe. Their very lack of freedom guarantees my life and Pat’s.”

  “Very logical.”

  “Oh, there’s money, too. I won’t deny that. As long as I have to live out my life in virtual captivity, I may as well be comfortable. I’ve been assured of … many things. You don’t operate that way, do you?”

  Mr. Lippitt ground out his cigarette and immediately lighted another. He regretted not killing Rafferty when he’d had the chance. “No, we don’t. Unfortunately, our budget forces us to rely on patriotism.”

  Victor said nothing. Mr. Lippitt watched the other man rise and walk toward him. He tensed, waiting for exactly the right moment to drop to the floor and grab for his gun. He knew it would be very difficult now, for Rafferty was close and the element of surprise was gone. Yet, he knew he must not fail; he was the only remaining barrier between Rafferty and a foreign power or terrorists.

  “Out the door,” Victor said, prodding Mr. Lippitt with the gun. “Left and up the stairs. Walk slowly.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic. Why not just shoot me here?”

  “I want to show you something. If you prefer, I’ll shoot you now.”

  There was something strange in the other man’s voice, Mr. Lippitt noted, an element that he could not identify. In any event, he realized he would stand little chance if he made his move now. He walked ahead and through the door. The barrel of Rafferty’s pistol was pressed against his spine, no more than an inch above the stock of Lippitt’s revolver.

  The stairway led to a long, narrow corridor. Mr. Lippitt walked slowly, the echo of his footsteps out of phase with those of the man behind him. He said, “It’s quiet. Where is everybody?”

  “There’s no shift on Saturday,” Victor said tightly. “There’s only the watchman. I put him to sleep.”

  “You can do that?”

  “You know I can.”

  “Just making conversation.” Mr. Lippitt hesitated. “There is such a thing as lesser evil in the world, Rafferty. We need you on our side. Think about it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Victor said. He reached out and grabbed Mr. Lippitt’s shoulder. “In there.”

  Mr. Lippitt pushed through the door on his left marked Restricted. He found himself on a very narrow catwalk overlooking a row of smelting furnaces. The cover hatches of the furnaces were open and Mr. Lippitt looked down into a liquid, metal sea that moved with a life of its own, its silver-brown crust buckling and bursting, belching huge bubbles of hot, acrid gas. The air was thick, heavy with its burden of heat.

  “You wanted to show me where you were going to dump my body,” Mr. Lippitt said.

  “Yes.”

  Mr. Lippitt watched Victor’s eyes. He could not understand why the other man had not been able to probe his thoughts and discover the existence of the gun. Perhaps he had not felt the need; the reports had mentioned the pain linked with the act. In any case, Mr. Lippitt thought, Rafferty would be dead the moment he blinked or looked away for even a fraction of a second. “You’re going to do very well in your chosen profession,” Mr. Lippitt said, steeling himself for the move he knew he would have only one chance to make. “People tend to trust you, give you the benefit of the doubt. You have a very disarming air about you.”

  “That’s not all I wanted to show you,” Victor said.

  Lippitt’s muscles tensed but his hand remained perfectly still. When he did go for the gun it would be in one fluid, incredibly explosive motion.

  “I want to show you what might have been if things were different,” Victor said.

  Mr. Lippitt said nothing. It seemed to him that Rafferty was relaxing, letting down his guard. Also, he judged that the angle of the gun would allow him to get off at least one shot, even if he were hit, and one shot was all he needed. Still, he waited.

  “You’re cold,” Victor said suddenly. “You can’t even feel the heat from those furnaces.”

  “What?”

  “I said, you’re cold. You’re always cold. You’ve been cold for the past twenty years. That’s why your mind is so strong. You can’t block out the memories so you control and discipline yourself to the point where they no longer make any difference, but still you can’t feel any warmth.”

  “Don’t,” Mr. Lippitt said, his voice scarcely a whisper.

  “You can’t forget your torturers and their ice baths. They put you in the water and they left you there for hours. You shook so much you thought your bones would break. You remember how they laughed at you when you cried; you remember how they laughed at you when you begged them to kill you.”

  “You stay out of my mind! Stop it!” Mr. Lippitt’s voice was quivering with rage.

  “It takes enormous courage to keep going in the face of memories like that,” Victor continued easily. “All those coats, all those overheated rooms; none of it does any good. We’re alike, you and I. Both of us suffer agony others can’t begin to understand. That’s why you broke all the rules and came here alone, even when you knew I’d be waiting for you; you were reluctant to see them kill me.”

  “You devil,” Mr. Lippitt said in a hoarse whisper. “You play with people, don’t you?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your body, you know. That healed long ago. The torturers are gone. You don’t have to be cold anymore.”

  There was something soothing and hypnotic about Rafferty’s voice. Mr. Lippitt struggled to clear his mind as he fought against the pervading warmth spreading through his body, fought it and yet embraced it as a father his dead child returned to life.

  “It’s a trick,” the thin man said, startled to find his eyes brimming with tears.

  “No,” Victor said quietly, insistently. “I’m not putting the warmth in your body; it was always there. I’m simply helping you to feel it. Forget the water. All that happened a long time ago. You can be warm. Let yourself be warm.”

  “No!”

  “Yes! Let me into your mind, Lippitt. Trust me. Let me convince you.”

  Mr. Lippitt closed his eyes, surrendering to the strange, golden warmth lighting the dark, frozen recesses of his soul. He thought of all the years he had spent in the prison of his memory, immersed in the water that was sucking away his life …

  “You don’t feel cold anymore.”

  “No,” Mr. Lippitt whispered. Now the tears were flowing freely down his cheeks. “I don’t feel cold anymore.”

  “Why don’t you test it? Take off your coat.”

  Mr. Lippitt slowly removed his heavy overcoat. Now the revolver was within easy reach. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m grateful to you, but no man should have that kind of power.”

  “Not unless he can use it wisely,” Victor replied, raising the hand with the gun. The hammer clicked back with the soft, assured sound of finely tooled metal. “The demonstration is over.”

  Mr. Lippitt dropped to his knees and rolled over on his side, clawing for the gun in his waistband. Years of experience and training had transformed him into a precision killing instrument, the movements of which must be measured in milliseconds. Still, inside Mr. Lippitt’s mind, it was all slow motion, as in a nightmare; he drifted through the air and bounced on the concrete, the gun in his hand and aimed at Victor Rafferty’s heart, but there was something pulling at the gun, an invisible force that he could feel writhing like a snake in the metal. Steel bands had wrapped about his head and were squeezing, crushing his brain. He pulled the trigger twice, then peered through a mist of pain as Victor Rafferty toppled over the guard rail and plummeted through space to land with a grotesquely muffled, crackling splash in the liquid inferno below. It was the last thing Mr. Lippitt saw before sinking down into a black void laced
with the smell of gun smoke.

  The barrel of the revolver was still warm, leading Mr. Lippitt to conclude that he couldn’t have been unconscious more than a few minutes. He lurched to his feet and, supporting himself on the guardrail, stared down into the pit where Victor had fallen; the slag continued to belch and bubble. There was no trace of the other man, not even the smell of burnt flesh. So, he reflected, he had killed the man who had cured him. No matter that there was no choice; for the rest of his life, even as he savored the warmth of the sun on his body, he would remember this day and welcome his own approaching death; he had simply traded one nightmare for another.

  He paused at the foot of the stairs and, after a moment’s hesitation, entered one of the offices. He picked up a telephone and dialed one of the outside lines to the agency.

  “Good afternoon,” came the cheery voice, “this is—”

  “This is Mr. Lippitt. The fox is dead.”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line. When the woman spoke again, her voice was punctuated by heavy breathing. “Sir, this is an outside line. If you’ll wait for just a moment—”

  “This is an emergency,” Lippitt said slowly. “Fox is dead. Fox is dead.”

  He hung up before the frightened woman had time to reply. He reasoned that the others would be suspicious at first, at least until they’d had time to check their sources for the code words. Besides, he’d make sure that certain information was leaked. That, he decided, should keep them away from the woman. He lighted a cigarette, and then picked up the phone again to call the Rafferty home.

  I’m here to see Mr. Thaag.

  The Civilized and the Savage. He’d been a guest of the United Nations the day Senior Thaag had made that speech. He’d never met the man. That should make things easier.

  Some men would kill for a tattered tribal banner. Their imagination sets with the sun, their world ends at the horizon. Others travel the planet, whisper many tongues, and find only the face of their brother.

  The Civilized and the Savage. How does one tell the difference? He could tell the difference.