by Nick Carter
"No more foolishness, Mr. Carter. I have a pressing engagement in Albuquerque, and the time allotted to removing you is gone. Stand, please, and allow my men to manacle you."
I had no choice. I could die then with a lead slug in my belly or I could prolong my life a few more minutes by allowing them to chain me. They fastened iron cuffs around both my wrists, the long chain connecting them fastened to a ring high over my head. A quick loop of chain held my feet to the platform to prevent me from climbing the links around my wrists.
"Bring the woman."
"Marta!" I cried. She looked disheveled, her hair matted and dirty. The wound on her forehead had opened again, and blood ran into her left eye. She had an ugly bruise on one cheek, and her arm hung limp and useless at her side.
"Nick, they got you, too? I was afraid they had," She turned angry eyes at Madame Lin and some of the woman's spirit flared out. "I hope you burn in hell."
"No, my dear," said Madame Lin mockingly. "It is you who will burn. Here. Now. When the sun rises above the horizon, the forest of lenses and mirrors below will concentrate a heat beam on this very spot." She tapped the stainless steel plate with the muzzle of her small pistol. "And you will both vanish from the earth. A neat, elegant solution to the disposal of unwanted corpses." Turning to me, Madame Lin said, a sneer marring her lovely face, "I can't say it has been a pleasure, N3, but your death will enhance my prestige greatly."
"I'm glad someone will gain from my death," I replied. "But you can't possibly profit from her death. "I glanced over at Marta. She had been chained in the same fashion as I.
"She is an annoyance, nothing more. I admire your gallantry, Mr. Carter, but it will not save her."
Madame Lin clapped her hands. The thugs she had surrounding her all ran for the elevator around the side of the power tower. She bowed low, her hands clasped in front of her body.
"May your ancestors smile at your presence, Mr. Carter."
"May you choke on your words!"
She laughed gently and went to the elevator, which whisked her to the ground twelve stories below my feet.
"Is what she said the truth, Nick?" asked Marta. "Will all those mirrors fry us?"
"Just as soon as the sun comes up," I said, swallowing hard. I imagined I could see the leading edge of the sun poking over the distant mountaintop. I had always greeted the new day with enthusiasm and hope. That didn't happen now. I desperately wished night would hang on a few minutes longer. "Don't worry. I'll get us free."
Hugo jumped into my hand, but I knew how impossible it was to force the locks on my manacles with the point of the knife. As long as I was bound in this fashion, I couldn't get the proper leverage. I needed a slender, flexible piece of metal to use as a picklock. Dragging the edge of the stiletto along the stainless steel plate of the boiler behind me produced a long, jagged metal burr. I cut my fingers as it came loose from the boiler.
"I can get us free in a couple minutes with this," I said, already slipping the metal strip into the lock and working it around against the tumblers.
But I didn't have a couple minutes. The sun rose in the east, and a hot blast from the focusing mirrors below blistered my face.
Chapter Seven
I worked frantically, my fingers turning slick with sweat, but the loud snick of the lock on ray left wrist told me I was almost there. Another searing blast of heat singed my eyebrows. Panicked, I got free, but there wasn't time to free Marta. The disk of the sun was already halfway over the horizon.
When I saw the thin, wispy clouds dragging their tendrils across the face of the sun, I almost decided to believe in luck. Their presence gave me the precious seconds I needed to kick free of the chains on my feet and get to Marta. Knowing the cloud cover wouldn't last long, I undid her leg irons and used her like a football tackling dummy.
She screamed as we swung free, supported only by her arms. But I was in time. The eye-searing lance of finely tuned light hammered into the stainless steel plate just inches away from us. The radiation caused my shirt to smoulder as I held Marta to one side like some human pendulum. The stainless steel sliver snapped in one lock as I used it. I had to get a better grip on the remaining portion and tend to the other lock. It opened reluctantly, and I carried the woman away from the heat ray, her freed chain racing up and over the beam before crashing to the platform behind us.
The falling chain passed through the heat ray and turned into a viscous puddle, but we were safely away from the boiler. That's what counted.
"I never thought that kiddie rhyme worked," I said, wiping the sweat from my forehead and swatting at the smouldering spots on my shirt.
"What kiddie rhyme?"
"Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day. I don't know if those clouds mean rain, but they certainly came back on the right day. Couldn't have delayed the power beam at a better time."
The sun rested on the horizon, a perfect sight-picture for a gunsight. The fleecy strands of clouds boiled away in its fiery presence. Just a few short feet away the stainless steel plate began to glow cherry red. In a little while, I knew it would turn white hot, almost to its melting point.
"Let's get out of here," I said. "Unless you have some marshmallows to roast."
"Don't joke, Nick," she said weakly, clinging to me for support. I held her for a minute, then gently guided her toward the elevator. Madame Lin's tinkering with the elevator kept it on the ground refusing to answer the call button. Maintenance rungs descended just inside the shaft. Not as elegant as riding, perhaps, but just as sure. The heat boiling off the top of the power tower lent speed to our descent to the ground.
"Do you really want to do this, Nick?" Marta asked, concern in her eyes. She had the head wound stitched up and a large gauze patch covered the bruise one of Madame Lin's henchmen had given her. It amazed me how good she looked, in spite of the sundry cuts and abrasions.
"I'm on the right track, Marta. I've got to push this to the limit. Only returning to the project disguised as your husband will betray the man responsible for Richard's death. I'm sure Madame Lin has had time to tip off her spy that I'm dead. The innocent ones won't react to seeing me again — her spy will."
"You still think it's Sutter?"
I shook my head. "It's possible. I admit he's been acting suspiciously, but the entire desert chase felt wrong. I was too caught up in the fight at the time to analyze why it didn't seem right. The scene outside Sutter's house was too pat. Madame Lin admitted she had worked hard to set me up in that trap. Who passed the envelope? I didn't see anyone, but at the time I thought they might be in the shadows. The possibility exists that there wasn't anyone at all, that it was nothing more than another piece of cheese in the rat trap."
"Was it Sutter?"
"I never saw the man's face. I thought it was Sutter because I wanted to believe I'd solved all the problems and wrapped this case up with a nice, neat bow. It could have been anyone who got into Sutter's car and led us for a merry chase into that ambush. It's hard to believe Sutter could have driven like that," I finished with some asperity.
"Wouldn't Sutter report his car missing, if it hadn't been him?"
"He did," I said. "I checked, but chances are good that he would have reported it stolen even if he had used it himself. A convenient way of covering his tracks. No," I said glumly, "I'll have to be more clever, but the shock of seeing me should tip the guilty party's hand."
"You hope. It might get you killed."
"Doll," I said, taking her into the circle of my arm, "in this business anything can get you killed." I kissed her and then pushed her away reluctantly, adding, "You rest now. I'll try to be back early this evening."
"I'll be waiting, Nick."
The look burning in her eyes told me what she meant. I hurried out, got into the car, and drove expertly to the laboratory. Wishing I had the souped-up car that had been wrecked the night before, I chafed and cursed as car after car passed me on the freeway. Still, I arrived at the laboratory's main gate in
record time, produced my security badge, went through the rigmarole with the voiceprints and the handwriting analysis, and went in.
This time I knew where to go. The brief sightseeing tour with Anne Roxbury had allowed me to completely map out the inside of the compound. I went straight to «my» lab, finding Anne hunched over a remote terminal, inputting data to the main computer hidden in the bowels of its very own building a half mile distant.
"Hi, Anne," I said, the words muffled by the bandages again in place over my face. I had pulled the gauze back from my fingers leaving them free. If anyone noticed these weren't the fingers of Richard Burlison, they would probably discount it — they certainly wouldn't mention it to a man who'd nearly lost his life in a fire.
The blond woman looked up and smiled. "How are you, Richard?"
"Good enough." She betrayed none of the tenseness I expected from a person told I'd been fried alive on the power tower. Anne Roxbury got crossed off my list of suspects.
"We've got the big test on line for tonight. Want to stay around and watch?"
"Big test? Which one's that?"
"Which one, he says. The firing from Green River, of course."
I worked through the sparse data and finally decided the laser cannon was to be tested on a real rocket coming through the atmosphere. The Green River, Utah, launch site usually impacted its rockets on White Sands Proving Grounds to the south. Even if the laser failed to knock down the missile, nothing of importance could be damaged on the vast desert test range.
"When'll it go up?"
"1830 hours. I've already alerted the State Police to be on the lookout for it and to discount any UFO sightings around that time. If Eighth Card connects, that baby'll make quite a flash overhead. The mock warhead is loaded with magnesium filings to make it apparent if we hit dead-on or not." The woman gloated over the efficiency of the weapon she had helped design and build. I put another checkmark beside her name as being trustworthy. People who engross themselves so totally in the success of a project don't sell out. It would be like selling out a part of themselves.
"I want to talk to Sutter."
Anne turned and looked at me while her teletype chattered wildly, digesting data and requesting more. She frowned and finally said, "He'll be by any second. Why not wait?"
"Okay." I settled down in a swivel chair just as Sutter and Edward George came into the lab. Sutter's eyebrows shot up and he stopped dead in his tracks causing George to blunder into him.
"Hey, Harold, watch it, will you?" said George. "How's it going, Richard?"
"Not so bad. How are you today, Dr. Sutter?"
"I… I'm fine."
"You appear a little distraught," I pressed.
"Nothing, just the pressure of this test. I didn't expect to see you today, that's all."
"Why not? Yesterday, I was tired when I left but felt good. Why shouldn't I be back today?"
"No reason. Your accident, the problems yesterday at the bunker. You're in better shape than I figured. Nothing. Come along, Rich. I want to discuss the test with you this evening. You, too, Ed."
Edward George had stood by quietly, studying both Sutter and me. The byplay caused him to wrinkle his forehead, but he said nothing. When Sutter spun around and abruptly walked out, George fell in beside me, following.
"The bums bother you at all, Rich?" he asked. "I've heard they can be some of the most painful of any type injury. Worse even than bad sunburn."
"The burn and trauma unit at the University is the best this side of Brook Army Hospital," I said. "They fixed me up pretty good. Even have the use of my fingers back. Hardly burned." I didn't want to get into a long discussion with the man. I'd never heard Richard Burlison speak and knew nothing about the tempo of his speech, the way he phrased his thoughts, the all-important rhythm that becomes the hallmark of a person.
"I don't know how a place like the University of New Mexico ever got such good stuff," he replied. "The funding for the important projects seldom gets out of committee up in Santa Fe."
I nodded sagely, wondering if local politics was identical in all fifty states. It always sounded that way, to hear the gripes of the local citizens. But I had more pressing matters on my mind. Sutter nervously fluttered and primped as he went into a small lecture room. Getting him to break down and confess looked easier now than at any time in the past, but one discrepancy kept bothering me.
I couldn't place this nervous, middle-aged, rotund man behind the wheel of that expertly driven car last night. He didn't have the steely nerves to drive like a Formula One racer.
"This is the setup," he said, his voice calming down as he swung into a role that suited him. "Green River fires a Titan II missile, which arcs up to a height of 200 kilometers. As the missile reenters and the first touch of friction glow is observed by our sensors, the laser will lock in and begin tracking."
"Heat-tracked?" I asked. "Why not radar?"
Sutter looked at me curiously. "We don't have the satellite system up yet. You ought to know that."
Edward George came to my rescue. "I think Richard means why not use a patch-through microlink from White Sands." He turned to me and explained. "The infrared sensor system is the best we could do for this test. The microwave linkage might break apart at a crucial moment. When the satellite-based radar units are put into orbit, we'll be able to maintain a continuous watch and pinpoint to fractions of a millimeter. And, of course, the military wouldn't spring for a ground-based unit here for just one test. The infrared tracker is part of Kring's experiment. He's giving it a try, and we get a tracking unit for free. Worked out nicely."
I nodded my thanks, not wanting to talk more than necessary. Sutter rushed on with his own explanations.
"We've got the laser set to cycle five times. If the first shot doesn't take out the incoming bird, the computer will recalculate and shoot four more times in a bracketing pattern like this." He used chalk on the board to trace out an X pattern. "This time the duration of the laser beam will triple. This will slice through the missile if it hits, rather than just punching a hole."
"With the beam the size of a man's head, I find it hard to believe any contact with the missile won't bring it down."
"True, but I think the two meter slashing motion might prove more effective in the long run, even though it requires larger capacitor storage." Gone was all of Sutter's nervous behavior. On familiar ground now, he lectured an interested audience. I frowned, wondering if I wasn't missing something important. Sutter obviously felt uncomfortable around me, and I attributed that to guilty knowledge of my "death." Now I wondered. I felt the same indefinable pride in this project that Anne Roxbury radiated. Harold Sutter lived and breathed for Eighth Card. Still, the alcoholism and the heavy gambling might compromise him.
"Impact is at White Sands and recovery will be accomplished as quickly as possible. We should have the pieces for metallurgical study within a week. The crystallization of the metal near the beam entry point is going to be the most interesting."
"Will you be able to do the material characterization works, Richard?" asked George. "Or would you rather I did it?"
"I can do it okay," I said, not even knowing what he was asking. "If I have any trouble that Anne can't help me out with, I'll get you in to help finish it off."
George nodded, pursed his lips, and settled back in his chair. He crossed his arms and said, "Harold, one last question. The turbulence in the upper atmosphere will attenuate the beam. I wanted to…" He launched into a highly abstruse discussion on the effect of the atmosphere on the laser beam as it licked outward to its target. I simply sat and listened, not understanding a single word and hoping neither man would ask for my opinion.
I was rescued by Anne Roxbury. She entered the side door, saying, "Excuse me, Dr. Sutter. Could I talk with Dr. Burlison for a moment? It won't take long."
Sutter was only too happy to get rid of me. Both George and Sutter began scribbling long, complicated mathematical formulas on the chalkboard. I qui
ckly exited and stood in the hall next to the trim blond lab assistant.
"Did you get the full course?" she asked. She pressed back against one of the thin metal partitions, fear in her eyes.
"Let's go back to my office. I don't want to talk in the hallway." If I could spy through these walls, so could others. Only when we were in my office and the door had closed did I say, "Something's on your mind, Anne. Spill it."
"You're not Richard Burlison."
"An interesting speculation," I said slowly. "How did you come to that conclusion?"
"Your hands."
"They're not burned. I was lucky to escape with only slight blistering. They healed faster than my face."
"That's not what I mean. You don't have the right scars."
I held up my hands and studied them. Strong hands, hands capable of crushing the life from an unwanted sentry or breaking a stack of bricks. Feathery scars crisscrossed the backs of both hands from numerous knife cuts I'd received in more battles than I cared to remember.
"Explain."
"Rich and I were working on the X-ray generator in the next lab several months ago. It had a three-phase line, 220 volts. Instead of unplugging it, he just depended on the safety disconnect. It only disconnected one side of the power line, leaving the entire circuit alive with 110 volts. He shorted the line out with the edge of an aluminum plate."
"So?"
"So the backs of his hands were spattered with molten aluminum. He had tiny pockmark scars you don't have. At first I just pushed it out of my mind, but then I decided I couldn't just let it ride."
"Have you told anyone else?"
Anne shook her head, a shimmer of blond hair dancing around her oval face. "I guessed that you must be a government agent come here to check for some secrecy violation."
"Why a government agent? I might be a spy trying to unravel all the secrets of Project Eighth Card. This is a golden opportunity to send in a ringer."
"I thought about that. You have to be a government agent," she said positively. "Our government. The entry restrictions are too tough for a spy to get in by pretending to be a man wrapped up in a bandage. The voiceprint alone would trip you up — unless the different readings had been authorized by somebody high up."