by Greg Cox
Turning his attention from Roberta and Isis to their companions, Seven recognized Viktor Lozinak right away, despite the lowered brim of the man's fedora. The missing scientist limped slowly beside his fellow travelers, pausing occasionally to catch his breath. Walter Takagi, whose boyish face matched the photos Roberta had retrieved from the Beta 5's copious database, helped the older gentleman with his luggage, carrying a suitcase in one hand and a black valise in the other. The third man, who carried the remainder of their bags, was unfamiliar to Seven, although he accepted Roberta's initial assessment of this large, muscular individual as some variety of professional spy or mercenary. He repressed a knowing smile at the sight of the parallel claw marks streaking the man's left cheek. Good girl, Isis, he thought, assuming she had her reasons.
None of the party, including Roberta, appeared to be carrying any of Ralph Offenhouse's scientific contraband, which was presumably still residing in the aircraft's cargo hold. Very well, he thought, as Roberta and the others were quickly swallowed up by the crowd. I'll follow the merchandise while the women stick with our suspects. He waited for the plane's flight crew to depart, then surveyed the layout of the surrounding terminal. How to get down to the plane? The jetway was tempting, but probably not stealthy enough. A more roundabout route was called for; fortunately, Seven knew just where to go.
Past experience had taught him that the food service and catering personnel tended to be the weak link in airport security systems. Arriving and departing passengers might be checked out thoroughly, but cooks, bartenders, waitresses, and busboys often had the run of the place, simply because they served a necessary function in keeping impatient flyers happy. Consequently, Seven circled the nearest, conveniently closed cafeteria until he found an inconspicuous rear entrance, then used the servo to let himself in.
Still hours away from opening, the restaurant was empty and cloaked in shadows. Seven weaved past silent booths and tables, taking care not to attract attention from anyone who might be walking by outside. He slipped behind the serving counter, then made his way into the rear storage area, where, as expected, he found an elevator next to a stack of empty tanks of soft drinks. He smiled knowingly. Going down, he thought.
In an ideal world, of course, he could have transported directly to the tarmac below; sadly, though, he couldn't risk having the powerful matter-transmission beam interfere with the fragile electronics in the nearby planes and air traffic control towers. Hence he had needed to materialize in a parking garage safely outside the airport itself. Yet another small concession to the primitive technology of the time—and the need to maintain a low profile while going about one's business on a precivilized planet.
The elevator took him down to a loading dock only a short flight of steps above the actual airfield. Stepping out of the air-conditioned environment of the airport, he was struck immediately by the sweltering heat and smog of the Indian night. Hours before sunrise, the temperature had to be at least eighty degrees Fahrenheit, while the humid air smelled of dust and diesel fumes. Apparently the monsoon season hasn't arrived yet, Seven concluded. Probably just as well. Torrential rainfall would only make this mission even more uncomfortable than it already was.
He ducked behind a large, rusty Dumpster while he surveyed the scene. Several yards away, airport baggage handlers were unloading numerous large wooden crates from the orange-and-blue jetliner and onto the back of an unmarked black jeep pickup. Large, stern-faced men in dark suits stood by, supervising the procedure. Hired thugs, undoubtedly, or goondas as they were known in these parts. Seven wondered briefly how Chrysalis expected to get all that expensive equipment ( and disguised uranium) past the Indian customs authorities.
Smog obscured the moon and stars, but elevated floodlights illuminated the airfield. Diverting his gaze from the black pickup and its cargo, Seven aimed his servo at the nearest lambent white orbs. One by one, in a matter of seconds, the lights went out, casting the area immediately around the parked plane into murky darkness. Startled voices cried out or cursed angrily, sounding more irritated than alarmed. From the weary tone of some of the grumbling baggage handlers, Seven guessed that power outages and blown bulbs were not entirely unheard-of at this airport. All the better , he thought with satisfaction.
Moving swiftly to take advantage of the blackout, he dropped silently from the loading dock onto the tarmac and scurried toward the rear of the plane. Some of the more alert baggage handlers had already retrieved personal flashlights, but Seven ducked low to avoid their searching beams. If he was lucky, the airport workers and their watchful supervisors might not even realize that there was an intruder among them.
His eyes, operating at the peak of human capability, adjusted to the darkness almost instantly, guiding him toward the waiting pickup and through the gang of disoriented workers. A solitary light shone from the interior of the jet, several feet above the airfield, but Seven was careful to stay clear of its limited radiance. Reaching the rear of the truck, he nimbly climbed into the already cramped confines of its open bed. He squeezed himself into the space between two heavy crates, then crouched down and pulled a protective canvas tarp over his head and shoulders. Not exactly the most comfortable seat he had ever assumed on a primitive twentieth-century vehicle, but hardly the worst either; once, on one of his earliest missions on Earth, he and Isis had needed to hide themselves in the trunk of a white Plymouth sedan in order to reach a launch gantry at McKinley Rocket Base. Now, that had been claustrophobic. Isis had squawked about it for weeks thereafter.
A door opened noisily on the passenger side of the pickup and Seven heard a familiar British accent. “What the devil?” Williams exclaimed, clearly agitated. “What happened to the bloody lights?” He paced nervously upon the tarmac, only a few feet from where Seven listened intently. “This is all Offenhouse's fault, I know it! How could he possibly compromise our security like this?”
Flashlight beams bounced off the concealing tarp as the baggage handlers got back to the interrupted task of transferring Chrysalis's precious cargo from the plane to the truck. Seven waited expectantly, impatient to discover the uranium's ultimate destination. Then, without warning, the canvas was yanked away forcefully, exposing him to the harsh glare of multiple flashlights. The incandescent beams struck him in the face, forcing him to blink and raise a hand to shield his eyes. Seconds later, brawny hands dragged him out of the bed of the truck and onto the pavement. Scowling goondas drew their guns, placing Seven squarely in their sights. “Don't even twitch,” one of them growled redundantly.
Williams himself, who turned out to be a balding, pear-shaped Englishman with ferret-like features and yellowing teeth, frisked Seven roughly. He dressed like a remnant of the British Raj, complete with pith helmet and khaki-colored safari garb. Although coming away with the other man's wallet, the nervous, middle-aged Brit seemed surprised not to discover any obvious weapons on Seven's person; he looked at the wary gunmen and shrugged his shoulders. Borrowing a flashlight from one of the baggage handlers, most of whom looked extremely confused at this point, he turned the beam on Seven's ID. Fearful eyes widened with amazement as he read the name on his prisoner's phony passport, visa, and driver's license.
“Seven?” he blurted. “ The Gary Seven, the one from America?” He glanced quickly at his wristwatch, looking extremely puzzled. “ Offenhouse and his men were looking out for you at Kennedy Airport . . . how in blazes did you get to Delhi before our plane?”
“How do you know that I wasn't on the plane all along?” Seven replied, aiming to nudge Williams's imagination in the wrong direction. He saw no reason to advertise his access to a mattertransmission chamber.
Upset by the violent confrontation unfolding before their eyes, the alarmed baggage handlers began speaking loudly among themselves, while peppering Williams and his hired guns with shouted questions in at least three different languages. The clamor got to Williams, who already looked overwhelmed by events. “Somebody take care of these jabbering coolies,” he barked at one
of the gunmen. His shiny cranium glistened with perspiration and he swabbed at his brow with a crumpled handkerchief. A vein pulsed angrily against his temple. “Pay them whatever you have to shut them up. Get their names, too, just in case we need to offer further persuasion later on.”
Giving Seven one last parting sneer, one of the goondas, who looked more Indian in appearance than his colleagues, turned away to deal with the distressed workers. Unhappily, that still left Seven at the wrong end of two loaded firearms. “What do you want us to do with him?” another of the gunmen asked, nodding brusquely at Seven. Although somewhat Germanic-looking, he spoke in Hindi, perhaps assuming ( incorrectly) that their American captive would not understand what he was saying.
“I don't know. Let me think!” Williams looked even more nervous and apprehensive than he had sounded on the phone hours before. He chewed on his lower lip and dabbed compulsively at his sweaty face and neck. “Who are you?” he demanded of Seven. At least a foot shorter than his prisoner, he had to tilt his head backward to look Seven in the face. “Who sent you? Whom are you working for?”
You wouldn't believe me if I told you, Seven mused, keeping his thoughts to himself. Not that I'm about to do anything like that.
His silence enraged Williams, who slapped Seven with the back of his hand . . . hard. The sound of angry flesh smacking against Seven's face rang out in the night like a gunshot. “Talk to me!” Williams practically screeched. “Whom do you work for? How much do you know about us?”
“Quite a lot,” Seven said ominously. His cheek stung where Williams had slapped it, yet he maintained an even tone and stoic expression. “However, now seems neither the time nor the place to continue this discussion.”
The latter observation appeared to have an effect on Williams, who glanced around the darkened airfield with anxious eyes, as though suddenly remembering that he and his men were in the middle of smuggling radioactive contraband into India's busiest airport. His face twitched and his foot tapped restlessly against the pavement as he struggled visibly to reach a decision. Seven kept quiet, not wanting to push the stressed-out scientist too far. Despite the guns aimed at his person, and the torrid heat, he was sweating significantly less than Williams.
“The director will have to handle this,” Williams announced finally, after several seconds of indecision. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as his subordinates. “Besides, there are drugs back at the base. Those might help get him talking.” He stepped away from Seven and headed back toward the front of the truck. “Right, tie him up. He's coming with us.”
Seven repressed an urge to smile. So far, everything was going more or less as planned, ever since he'd let himself be recorded back at Offenhouse's office in Brooklyn. Next stop: Chrysalis.
He was looking forward to meeting the project's mysterious director.
CHAPTER NINE
BALAM INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
DELHI, INDIA
MAY 17, 1974
ROBERTA HAD HEARD HORROR STORIES ABOUT THE SLOW, BUREAUcratic ordeal that was Indian customs, but, to her surprise and relief, she and the rest of her party whizzed right past the long lines and mobbed airport checkpoints, drawing indignant glares from many of the other new arrivals crowding the terminal. No one even asked to see her admittedly bogus passport. She figured she ought to feel a little guilty about cutting in line this way, but, then again, she was here to save the world after all.
The overpowering Indian heat hit her the minute she stepped outside the air-conditioned terminal onto the pavement beside the pickup lanes. If it's this hot at four - forty in the mor ning, she thought, what in the world are the afternoons like? She prayed that, wherever they were going, Chrysalis had plenty of air-conditioning. Born and raised in the damp coolness of the Pacific Northwest, she tended to wilt in extreme heat. Her sweaty fingers clenched the handle above Isis's dangling carrier, and she couldn't help wondering how the caged cat was coping with the oppressively torrid temperature. Who knew what kind of planet the alien feline was from?
Like the packed terminal, the sidewalk was a scene of clamor and confusion, with dozens of overeager porters and taxi drivers competing for the attention of many harried, jet-lagged travelers. “Please, sir, miss, boss, over here! Very cheap!” the drivers, known locally as taxiwallahs, hollered at every potential fare, grabbing at their bags and tugging the arms of every new arrival. Miles-weary men in long white shirts, accompanied by women in brightly colored saris, looked almost as overwhelmed as the more Westernized tourists by the daunting challenge of navigating their bags and persons through the shouting, jostling mob. “No, no, you don't want him, boss!” a taxi-wallah shouted, trying to steal customers from the competition. “A very bad driver . . . unsafe! Over here! Come with me!” The insulted taxi driver responded in kind, provoking many angry words and a brief scuffle before airport security guards intervened, but not before a third taxiwallah managed to make off with their understandably shell-shocked fares. I'll never complain about Penn Station again, Roberta vowed, taken aback by the sheer noise and tumult outside the airport.
Carlos used his considerable bulk to bulldoze a path for the rest of their party, and his intimidating, gorilla-like proportions also seemed to keep most of the horde at bay, so that they were not swarmed nearly as badly as the other newcomers, who looked practically under siege by the rapacious throng of would-be helpers. “Over here! Over here! Very cheap!”
Even still, one particularly fearless young porter ran forward and snatched at the handle of Isis's carrier, and Roberta had to tighten her grip to keep from being physically separated from her unwanted partner-in-espionage. “Back off!” she called out, jerking the carrier back from the overly aggressive baggage handler. “The furball's with me.”
The air was hot and moist and smelled of gasoline. Although they had to travel less than a hundred yards by foot, Roberta was a gasping, perspiring mess by the time they reached the waiting limousine. The chauffeur, a serious-looking Indian man wearing a clean, short-sleeved shirt and brown trousers, held open the door as she slid into the backseat between the Drs. Lozinak and Takagi. She balanced Isis's carrier on her lap as Carlos joined the chauffeur up front. The bodyguard looked back over the seat at Roberta. “Here,” he said brusquely, thrusting a rolled swath of black fabric at her. “Put this on.”
She unrolled the cloth, which turned out to be about the size of a large handkerchief. A blindfold? “You've got to be joking,” she said.
“No,” Carlos grunted, scowling. The claw marks on his face made him look positively villainous. “Put it on. Now.”
As before, she appealed directly to the elderly scientist now sitting beside her. “Look, this is ridiculous. It's pretty obvious that we're in India somewhere. The Delhi airport, if I read the signs correctly. You don't have to tell me where we're going next if you don't want to, but there's no reason to keep me sitting in the dark the whole way. Even if we're stopped at the first intersection by the DNA Police, what am I supposed to tell them? That the project is somewhere on the Indian subcontinent? That's all I know, and, last I heard, India was a pretty big place.”
Lozinak sighed and rubbed his eyes beneath his spectacles. Even though he had napped most of the flight, the all-night journey still seemed to have taken a lot out of the old man. His breathing was labored and his face was pale and drawn. “I don't know,” he wheezed uncertainly. “Perhaps there would be no harm . . .”
“The director wouldn't like it,” Carlos warned. He glowered at Roberta. “She knows too much already.”
Says Mr. Breaking-and-Entering, Roberta thought huffily. Not even bothering to respond to the sullen bodyguard directly, she looked to Takagi for assistance. “Heck, I probably won't even know where we are when we get there. I've never been to India before, and wouldn't know the Punjab from the Taj Mahal.”
This much was true; the present assignment was her first trip to India, although Seven had 'ported some maps and background material over to h
er the night before, which she had carefully read and reviewed before incinerating the incriminating papers in the wastebasket in her hotel bathroom. I wish I'd had more time to prepare, she thought. Despite her crash course in Rome, most of what she knew about modern India still came from childhood memories of Kipling and the occasional Satyajit Ray movie. In other words, not much at all.
“She has a good point,” Takagi said, much to Roberta's satisfaction.
The Japanese biochemist had emerged from the flight in better condition than his aged mentor, but still looked fatigued from the trip. His tweedy jacket was more crumpled-looking than usual, and he yawned as he spoke. “She's not going to be out of our sight until we reach the base.”
“That's right,” Roberta argued, glad to have Takagi on her side. “Who am I supposed to squeal to anyway, the chauffeur?”
Carlos wouldn't let the matter drop. “We should not take any chances,” he insisted. “There's already that problem in New York, someone snooping around where he shouldn't.”
Er, that would be my boss, Roberta thought, choosing to keep that observation to herself. Neither did she mention spotting Seven in the terminal as they disembarked from the plane, resorting to sarcasm instead: “C'mon, next you'll be asking me to put blinders on the kitty-cat.”
Isis protested loudly at the mere suggestion. “Perhaps, there would be no harm,” Lozinak announced wearily. “We have a long drive ahead, and it would indeed be inhospitable to keep Dr. Neary blindfolded the whole way.”
How long a drive? Roberta wondered apprehensively, hoping that Chrysalis's secret headquarters was not tucked away on top of the Himalayas or something. I'm not dressed for mountain-climbing.
“Let me have that, if you please,” Lozinak said, taking the blindfold from Roberta and handing it back to Carlos. Despite his exhaustion, he made it clear the discussion was over. “You are a valued colleague, not a captive.”