Sidney Sheldon - The Doomsday Conspiracy

“It must have been a terrible shock.”

“It was.”

“Can you tell me anything about it?”

“It was … it was almost alive. There was a kind of shimmering light around it. Blue. No, maybe more of a grey. I … I’m not sure.”

He remembered Mandel’s description: It kept changing colours. It looked blue … then green.

“It had broken open, and I could see two bodies inside. Small … big eyes. They were wearing some kind of silver suit.”

“Is there anything you can tell me about your fellow passengers?”

“My fellow passengers on the bus?”

“Yes.”

The professor shrugged. “I know nothing of them. They were all strangers. I was concentrating on a lecture I was going to give the next morning, and I paid very little attention to the other passengers.”

Robert watched his face, waiting.

“If it will help you any,” the professor said, “I can tell you what countries some of them came from. I teach chemistry, but the study of phonetics is my hobby.”

“Anything you can remember would be appreciated.”

“There was an Italian priest, a Hungarian, an American with a Texan accent, an Englishman, a Russian girl …”

“Russian?”

“Yes. But she was not from Moscow. From her accent, I would say Kiev, or very near there.”

Robert waited, but there was only silence. “You didn’t hear any of them mention their names or talk about their professions?”

“I’m sorry. I told you, I was thinking about my lecture: it was difficult to concentrate. The Texan and the priest sat together. The Texan never stopped talking. It was very distracting. I don’t know how much the priest even understood.”

“The priest …”

“He had a Roman accent.”

“Can you tell me anything more about any of them?”

The professor shrugged. “I’m afraid not.” He took another puff of his pipe. “I’m sorry I can’t be of any help to you.”

A sudden thought came to Robert. “You said you’re a chemist?”

“Yes.”

“I wonder if you would mind taking a look at something, Professor.” Robert reached in his pocket and pulled out the piece of metal Beckerman had given him. “Can you tell me what this is?”

Professor Schmidt took the object in his hand, and as he examined it, his expression changed. “Where … where did you get this?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say. Do you know what it is?”

“It appears to be part of a transmitting device.”

“Are you sure?”

He turned it over in his hand. “The crystal is dilitheum. It’s very rare. See these notches here? They suggest that this fits into a larger unit. The metal itself is … My God, I’ve never seen anything like it!” His voice was charged with excitement. “Can you let me have this for a few days? I would like to do some spectrographic studies on it.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Robert said.

“But …”

“Sorry.” Robert took back the piece of metal.

The professor tried to conceal his disappointment. “Perhaps you can bring it back. Why don’t you give me your card? If I think of anything more, I’ll call you.”

Robert fumbled in his pockets for a moment. “I don’t seem to have any of my cards with me.”

Professor Schmidt said slowly, “Yes, I thought not.”

“Commander Bellamy is on the line.”

General Hilliard picked up the telephone. “Yes, Commander?”

“The latest witness’s name is Professor Schmidt. He lives at Plat-tenstrasse 5 in Munich.”

“Thank you, Commander. I’ll notify the German authorities immediately.”

Robert was on the verge of saying, “I’m afraid that’s the last witness I’ll be able to find,” but something held him back. He hated to admit failure. And yet, the trail had become cold. A Texan and a priest. The priest was from Rome. Period. Along with a million other priests. And there was no way to identify him. I have a choice, Robert thought. I can give up and go back to Washington, or I can go to Rome and give it one last try …

Bundesverfassungsschutzamt, the headquarters of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, is located in central Berlin on Neumarkterstrasse. It is a large, grey, nondescript building, indistinguishable from the buildings around it. Inside, on the second floor, in the conference room, the chief of the department, Inspector Otto Joachim, was studying a message. He read it twice, then reached for the red telephone on his desk.

DAY SIX

Munich, Germany

The following morning, as Otto Schmidt headed for his chemistry lab, he was thinking about the conversation he had had with the American the evening before. Where could that piece of metal have come from? It was astonishing, beyond anything in his experience. And the American puzzled him. He said he was interested in the passengers on the bus. Why? Because they had all been witnesses to the flying saucer? Were they going to be warned not to talk? If so, why had not the American warned him? There was something strange going on, the professor decided. He entered the laboratory and took off his jacket and hung it up. He put on an apron to keep his clothes from getting soiled and walked over to the table where he had been working for many weeks on a chemical experiment. If this works, he thought, it could mean a Nobel prize. He lifted the beaker of sterile water and started to pour it into a container filled with a yellow liquid. That’s strange. I don’t remember it being such a bright yellow. The roar of the explosion was tremendous. The laboratory erupted in a gigantic blast, and pieces of glass and human flesh spattered the walls.

FLASH MESSAGE

TOP SECRET ULTRA

BFV TO DEPUTY DIRECTOR NSA

EYES ONLY

COPY ONE OF (ONE) COPY

SUBJECT: OPERATION DOOMSDAY

4. OTTO SCHMIDT – TERMINATED

END OF MESSAGE

Robert missed the news of the professor’s death. He was aboard an Alitalia plane, on his way to Rome.

Dustin Thornton was getting restless. He had power now, and it was like a drug. He wanted more. His father-in-law, Willard Stone, kept promising to bring him into some mysterious inner circle, but so far, he had failed to fulfil that promise.

It was by pure chance that Thornton learned that his father-in-law disappeared every Friday. Thornton had called to have lunch with him.

“I’m sorry,” Willard Stone’s personal secretary said, “but Mr Stone is away for the day.”

“Oh, too bad. What about lunch next Friday?”

“I’m sorry, Mr Thornton. Mr Stone will be away next Friday, also.”

Strange. And it became even stranger, because when Thornton called two weeks later, he received the same reply. Where did the old man disappear to every Friday? He was not a golfer, or a man to indulge in any hobbies.

The obvious answer was a woman. Willard Stone’s wife was very social and very rich. She was an imperious woman, almost as strong in her way as her husband. She was not the sort of woman who would tolerate her husband having an affair. If he is having an affair, Thornton thought, I’ve got him by the balls. He knew he had to find out.

With all the facilities at his command, Dustin Thornton could have found out very quickly what his father-in-law was up to, but Thornton was no fool. He was well aware that if he made one misstep, he would be in big trouble. Willard Stone was not the kind of man to brook any interference in his life. Thornton decided to investigate the matter himself.

At five a.m., on the following Friday, Dustin Thornton was slumped behind the wheel of an inconspicuous Ford Taurus, half a block from Willard Stone’s imposing mansion. It was a cold, miserable dawn, and Thornton kept asking himself what he was doing there. There was probably some perfectly reasonable explanation for Stone’s odd behaviour. I’m wasting my time, Thornton thought. But something kept him there.