Nick Carter - The Weapon of Night

“But what the hell!” he said suddenly. “Why should I be dragged back to New York? What’s the action there?”

“None, so far as I know.” Julia stared at him speculatively. “It’s just that Papa Hawk wants to see you and —”

Nick slammed his fist suddenly into his open palm. “Goddamn! He sent the Geiger-counter men up to Montreal, did he?”

“Sure he did,” said Julia. “Pappy always follows your advice. There’s a new radioman on duty there by this time, too, with a new transmitter — just in case.”

The plane was circling now, maintaining a steady holding pattern.

“But Canada!” said Nick. “I’m a blind fool. Just because they had their meeting place up there doesn’t mean that’s where they keep the stuff stolen from the plant. Why not in the States, where they could get at it so much easier? My God, it’s the U.S. we should be searching!”

“Well, we are,” Julia said reasonably. “I’ll bet you there isn’t a Geiger counter in the States that isn’t being used right now to track down little boxes —”

“Little boxes!” Nick snorted. “What about the source of supply? Unless, God help us, it’s all been scattered by now. Say — what about the AXE “copter?”

“AXE ‘copter?” Julia raised her eyebrows at him. “Didn’t know AXE had one. What’s that got to do with it?”

“Plenty,” said Nick shortly. “It’s equipped with the same sort of devices scientists use to measure radioactive fallout after nuclear explosions and a whole lab full of detection gadgets.”

“Well, that’s just dandy,” Julia said, “but it would take weeks to scour the whole country looking for a cache that may not even exist any more.”

“Why the whole country?” asked Nick. “It must be in a place that has some meaning; it must be in some sort of focal point.”

“Sure. Montreal,” said Julia.

“No, I don’t think so any more. Handy enough for meetings, but what about between meetings? Not practical. Damn this plane! Why doesn’t it land?”

It was still maintaining the steady holding pattern. Nick glanced automatically at his watch. “Wait here,” he said abruptly. “Got to use the pilot’s radio to get through to Hawk.”

He was talking to Hawk moments later in the AXE code that sounded like English and was English but made no sense except to those who knew the key.

“You got ten minutes at least,” the pilot had assured him, and Nick used only a couple of them. Hawk had news for him.

“Good and bad. Four down so far; prospect caught in Norfolk. Concussed, unfortunately, but will recover. Also, all other personnel at West Valley have been completely cleared. Both Hughes and Parry had vacations some three-four months ago, and that is no doubt when the substitutions were made. Clever planners, these bastards. Both fellows indisputably of Chinese origin. Bad news: radiation sickness being felt in several parts of the U.S., containers not yet discovered. We are searching. Part of Pennsylvania an New Jersey are in a state of blackout at this moment. Evidence of pollution in a Wyoming dam. No further leads. Nothing yet from Little Rock. And you? I thought your head had been blown off. Report.”

Nick reported briefly and then made his request.

There was silence for a moment. “Very well,” said Hawk, at last. “I’ll have it there. But you’ll have to go alone”

Hundreds, thousands, millions of radios and telegraphic devices were operating throughout the United States at that moment.

One of them was very different from all but its nine brothers, special units designed to communicate only with the others.

Which was why the AXEman stationed in the shattered hotel boardroom received no incoming messages.

“M.B. to H.M. M.B. to H.M. M.B. to H.M. Come in, H.M Come in, H.M. Come in, H.M.!”

Judas waited. Tried again. Still no reply. The parchment-like skin of his domed forehead wrinkled.

“M.B. to L.M. M.B. to L.M. M.B. to L.M. Come in, L.M. come in L.M….”

No reply.

The skull-face beneath the thatch of transplanted human hair twisted hideously.

“M.B. to T.S. M.B. to T.S. Come in, T.S. Come in, T.S.”

“T.S. Little Rock, to M.B. Come in, M.B. Awaiting instructions. Why no answer, H.M., Montreal? Over.”

“Would like to know myself,” Judas tapped out savagely. “Leave present headquarters at once, using all possible care. Abandon equipment in concealed place, if possible. Will concentrate now on final phase. Go immediately to railroad station men’s room and await me there. Will meet you soonest. Over.”

The unease in Little Rock was almost palpable.

The tall, good-looking man with the oddly darting walk could feel it as he walked down Orval Street. It seemed to him that people were watching him as he passed the seedy shops and paused in front of doorways; it also seemed to him that there were an inordinate number of rundown hotels and boarding houses on this city-back-yard street.

It was a cool evening but Hakim Sadek was sweating beneath his flesh-toned plastic face mask. He had used all his charm and all his carefully faked papers to make his inquiries, but he had drawn a dozen blanks. No one had recognized the faces in the pictures he had shown them. Now, he could see that the residential section stretched only a couple of blocks more before deteriorating into an area of gas stations and used-car lots.

He stopped outside a bar, lit a cigarette, and thought longingly of cold Egyptian beer. The voices from the bar were loud and truculent, and he could hear the note of hysteria in them as an argument raged.

“You listen ta me! It’s the Commies right here in our own country, and don’t you believe nothin’ else. We shoulda fried the whole stinkin’ lot o’ them, all them party members an’ the whole lot —

“Yer crazy! They came from outside, boy! They got us infiltrated. You know how? Trawlers, that’s how. And sub-marines. And some of them refugees from Cuba, you betcha life. Scum, the lot o’ them. Gonna take us over, that’s what. Russians and their buddies.”

“It’s the bomb. It’s been like this since the bomb. Little boxes — who believes in them? Weather changes — heat waves here, droughts there, floods where they don’t need no more water, stinks in the air — don’t tell me it ain’t got nothing to do with all that atomic experimental stuff. You know damn well —”

“Oh, yeah, atomic bomb. Well let me tell you there’s a lot of things happening you can’t explain by bombs or Russians or any of that kind of crap. You ain’t seen them flying saucers? Well, I have. This whole thing happening here, the blackouts and the red water and those people dying, it’s from space, fella, it’s from space. Sure, we’re infiltrated. I tell you, I saw that burned-out place where that thing had landed, and that was nothing from this earth, boy —”

“Oh, you and your Martians, Billy Joe! It’s people! People right here in our midst. Maybe you. Maybe Dewey. Maybe Chuck. Maybe —” “Maybe, you, you —!”

Hakim threw away his half-finished cigarette. This will burst soon, he thought. It cannot go on. If this is what They were trying to do, They were succeeding admirably. He started to walk on in his darting stride. It was then that he saw the man coming down the steps of the shabby building and passing under the street light so that the glow fell on his face. The man turned toward Hakim. His walk was unhurried but somehow tense, and although he was still too far off for positive identification, there was a chunkiness about his body and slight curvature of the legs that augmented Hakim’s first startling impression of his face.