Keith Laumer - A Plague of Demons

I picked a late-model heli with armorplast all around, and an inconspicuous battery of small-bore infinite repeaters mounted under the forward cooling grid. I tried the turbines; they whirred into life after half a minute’s cranking. I trundled the machine to the elevator, rode up, closed the garage behind me, and lifted off into the night sky.

Just after sunrise a small all-day-for-a-cee parking raft anchored two miles off Chicago accepted my heli with a reassuring sneer of indifference. I took the ski-way ashore, hailed a cab, and flitted across the vast sprawl of the city to drop into a tiny heli-park nestled like a concrete glade in the mighty forest of masonry all around.

I paid off the driver, and rode a walkway half a mile to the block-square cube of unwashed glass that housed the central offices and famous five-thousand-bed dormitory of the Young Men’s Nondenominational Association.

I left word for Joel, asked for and received one of the six-by-eight private cubicles. I dropped a half-cee in the slot for a breakfast-table edition pictonews, and settled down to wait.

Hours slipped by while I slept—a restless sleep, from which I awoke with a start, again and again, hearing the creak of the floor, the rattle of a latch along the corridor. I wasn’t hungry; the thought of food made my stomach knot. There was a taste in my mouth like old gym shoes, and a full set of nausea-and-headache symptoms hovered in the wings, ready to come on at the first hint of encouragement.

I shaved once, staring at a grim, hollow-cheeked face in the mirror. The plastic-surgery scars were pale lines now, but the shortened nose, lowered hairline, blue eyes, and pale crewcut still looked as unnatural to me as a Halloween false-face.

I tried to estimate how long it might be before Joel arrived—if he arrived. It had been five hours since I had given the order to the Monitor. A message would have gone out to Station Nine; the Monitor there would have connections with a telefax or visiscreen switchboard. The order would have gone to a legman—perhaps an ordinary messenger service, or a private detective agency. Someone would have followed the slim leads, checked out the habitual places where Joel spent his time between voyages. It was safe to assume that he was a creature of habit. Once the message—with funds, I hoped—was delivered, Joel would be steered to a tube or jet station. Allow two hours for the passage, another hour for him to discover the cross-town kwik-stop…

The arithmetic always gave me the same answer: he should have been here an hour or two after I arrived.

I called the desk again. Nothing. It had been nine hours now; if he didn’t show in another hour, I would have to go on without him. I thought of trying a special code call to the Ultimax Central Monitor, but I couldn’t quite classify the situation as a severe emergency—not yet.

The tenth hour came and went. I got off the bed, groaning; aches were beginning to creep through the armor of drugs. It was time to move, Joel or no Joel. I had a plan—not much of one, but the best I could do alone.

I dressed, went down to the vast, echoing lobby. It was as cheery as a gas chamber. A few hundred derelicts lounged in rump-sprung chairs parked on patches of dusty rug, islands in a sea of plastic flooring the color of dried mud. I crossed to the information desk, opened my mouth—and saw Joel stretched out in a chair like a battered boxer between rounds, eyes shut, mouth open, an electric-blue scarf knotted around his thick neck like a hangman’s noose.

I felt my face cracking into a wide grin. I went over to him, shook him gently, then a little harder. His eyes opened. He looked at me blankly for a moment—his eyes like the windows of an empty house. Then he smiled.

“Hi, Jones,” he said, sitting up. “Boy, you should’ve seen the train I rode in! It was all fancy, and there was this nice lady…” He told me all about it while we gripped hands, grinning. Suddenly, now, it was all right. Luck was still with me. The demons had tried—tried hard—but I was here, still alive, iron hands and all—and I wasn’t alone. I felt a hint of spring return to my muscles, the first twinge of hunger in days.

The British Consulate, perched on piles on the shore of Lake Michigan, was a weather-stained cube of stone filigree done in the sterilized Hindu style popular in the nineties. There were lights beyond the grillwork in the wide entry, and on the upper floors.

We walked past once, then turned, came back, went up the wide, shallow steps, past a steaming fountain of recirculated, heated water glimmering in a purple spotlight. I rattled the tall grille. A Royal Marine three-striper in traditional dress blues got up from a desk, came across the wide marble floor to the gate, fingering the hilt of a ceremonial saber.

“The Consulate opens at ten I.M.,” he said, looking me over through the grille.

“My name’s Jones,” I said. “Treasury. I’ve got to see the Duty Officer—now. It can’t wait until morning.”

“Let’s see a little identification, sir,” the marine said.

I showed him the blue class one I.D. He nodded, handed the card back through the grille. He opened up, stood back, and watched Joel follow me inside.

“Where does the Duty Officer stay?” I asked.

“That’s Mr. Phipps tonight. He’s got a room upstairs. He’s up there now.” The expression on the sergeant’s face suggested that this was a mixed blessing. “I’ll ring him,” he added. “You’ll ’ave to wite ’ere.”

I stood where I could see the approach to the building while the sergeant went to a desk, dialed, talked briefly. A second marine came along the corridor and took up a position opposite me. He was a solidly built redhead, not over eighteen. He looked at me with a face as expressionless as a courthouse clock.

“ ‘E’s coming down,” the sergeant said. He looked across at the other marine. “What do you want, Dyvis?”

The redhead kept his eyes on me. “Breff o’ fresh air,” he said shortly.

There was a sound of feet coming leisurely down the winding staircase on my left. A sad-looking tweed-suited man with thinning gray hair and pale blue eyes in wrinkled pockets came into view. He slowed when he saw me, glanced at the two marines.

“What’s this all about, Sergeant?” he said in a tired voice, like someone who has put up with a lot lately.

“Somebody to see you,” the sergeant said. “Sir,” he added. The newcomer looked at me suspiciously.

“I have some important information, Mr. Phipps,” I said.

“Just who are you, might I inquire?” Phipps asked. His expression indicated that whatever I said, he wouldn’t be pleased.

“U.S. Treasury.” I showed him the I.D.

He nodded and looked past me, out through the heavy grille-work. He waved toward the stair.

“You may as well come along to the office.” He turned and started back up; I followed him to the second floor, along a wide, still corridor of dark offices. We entered a lighted room with sexless furnishing in the international official medium-plush style.

Phipps sat down behind a cluttered desk, looked across at me glumly as I took a chair. Joel stood beside me, gaping at the picture of Queen Anne on the wall.

“I won’t bore you with details, Mr. Phipps,” I said. “I’ve seen some pretty odd goings-on lately.” I looked bashful. “It sounds funny, I know, but… well, it involves a kind of unusual dog…”

I watched his expression closely. He was eyeing me with a bored expression that suggested this was about what he’d expect from cranks who rattled the grille at an hour when civilized people were sipping the third drink of the evening in an embassy drawing-room somewhere.