Mission: Earth "Fortune of Fear" (31 page)

I nodded weakly.

The first man pushed a ticket in my hand.

I tottered into a lounge bar and unpried my sticky hand from the gun butt in my pocket. I looked at my palm, thinking it had never been that sweaty before. It was not sweat. It was blood from broken blisters formed in packing that (bleeped) grip. So I wasn't as nervous as I had thought.

I got into a corner seat where I could keep the whole room under surveillance. One part of me dreaded the moment the ship would sail, the other part of me couldn't wait to get it away from the dock. Was I turning into a schizophrenic, torn asunder by a split personality?

I began to itch. The itching got worse. I began to itch in several places at once. Nervous hives. According to psychology, when one is under an enormous strain, he tends to itch. If psychology said so, it must be totally true. But I didn't think I was nervous to the point of a nervous breakdown. I wondered how the crew would cope with me if I did have a nervous breakdown. I was sure a ferry didn't carry a doctor.

The itching grew worse and worse. Yes, it must be true that I was coming apart with a nervous breakdown.

Then something small and black was moving on my hand. I looked at it. Bubonic plague? Was I breaking out with bubonic plague spots? Oh, I hoped not. They would put me in quarantine and hold me until the Turkish women could find enough stones!

But wait. Bubonic plague spots don't move. They also don't jump.

I looked closely at the speck, which had leaped to my knee.

A FLEA!

Oh, Gods, the old man was getting his ghostly revenge! Associating daily with those two (bleeped) dogs, his clothes were full of fleas!

The things I was having to suffer because of Heller!

Only the grim determination to get him at the end of this tortured trail kept me going.

The ship had moved away from the dock. It began to pitch.

My stomach decided the old man's biscuits were too much.

I was shortly at the rail.

And each time I threw up again, I repeated my sacred vow.

Heller was going to pay for this. He was going to pay for it all!

It was the only reason now that I cared to bear all this and live.

VENGEANCE!

HELLER WOULD PAY!

I repeated it in every lull between the times that I threw up.

At least I knew who was responsible for my woe. And I was on my way to do something about it!

It was all that got me through that dreadful voyage.

At Piraievs, where we arrived after an agonizing day and night, I found, with a shock, that I was out of bombs. I could not blow up the ship. It made me very nervous.

I would have to be more cunning and crafty than ever. Now that the ship was no longer moving, I had time to squeeze my brains for every scrap of Apparatus technique that I would need to get through this. At least I was out from under the Prophet in the clouds. The Greek Gods live at Mount Olympus and that was far to the north. So there was some hope they wouldn't notice me passing through.

Mingle with the crowd: that is an Apparatus must. The instant I started to do so and go down the gangplank I was accosted by someone rushing up.

He spotted me! I flinched. Due to the disembarking people I could not back up. I cringed as he reached out his hand.

He was holding a sack. He jabbered something as he shoved it into my hands. Expecting a bomb, I still thought it would look better if I glanced into the sack before I threw it in his face and ran.

I looked.

Drachmas!
A huge paper sack full of drachmas, all in small bills. It was my change.

I rushed off the ship.

A bus carried me to Athens. But this was no time for cultural walks around the Parthenon. I had had quite enough history. What I needed was a change of clothes. It would help me to cover my trail.

A main street in Athens was very modern with shops. My purchases were very swift. A raincoat, a suit, socks, shirt, tie, hat. I paid for it all with drachmas. It hardly made a dent in the bulk of the money. They were not expensive clothes.

I did not dare go to a hotel. They take your passport number and name. I took a cab to the airport. I bought a one-way to New York. I used drachmas. It was a coach cut-rate fare. I still had plenty of drachmas left.

The airport building provided a washroom. I went into a toilet. I put my suitcase on the seat. I got out of the old man's clothes. I didn't have any way to destroy them. I put them in my suitcase.

I brushed a couple of fleas off my skin and got dressed in the new clothes. I took off the bandage and removed the very saturated wad of cotton from my jaw.

I put my guns in the suitcase. It was too full now to put any of the money in. I had ninety-eight thousand U. S. dollars, ninety-one thousand Turkish lira, all in small bills, and twenty-nine thousand drachmas left, also in small bills. What a wad! Enough to stuff a mattress.

My newly purchased clothes had been in a couple of large sacks. I stuffed the money in those. I would carry this money, my ticket and my diplomatic passport, and leave everything else in the grip. I strapped it up.

Back at the counter, I flashed my phony United Arab League passport and had them put diplomatic tags on the bag to check it straight through to New York.

I had an hour to wait for my flight. As I crept across the airport waiting room, trying to be inconspicuous, one of the tattered sacks the money was in broke. I hastily snatched at it before it could reach the floor. A narrow escape! Turkish lira could have spilled out all over the waiting room. I shuddered at how that would open my trail.

With some drachmas, I bought an oversized flight bag. I was cunning. It had
Air Israel
all over it. Nobody would expect anyone from the United Arab League to be travelling Air Israel. "Confuse the trail" is an Apparatus motto.

In a phone booth, I stuffed the money into the new flight bag. I crammed and crammed. It was awfully hard to get it in. When I finished, the zipper would only partly close. It was the best I could do.

With what relief did I hear my flight called!

And shortly I was aloft, leaving historic Asia, Troy, Athens and Olympus behind me. When you are in an airplane, you know who is overhead: Rockecenter. He owns most of the controlling stock in most of the world's airlines, and his bank, Grabbe-Manhattan, holds their mortgages, ready to foreclose if they even dare get out of line. As a Rockecenter family "spi," I was secure in my entrance to that Heaven.

But all told, it was a nerve-wracking trip. People on the plane around kept darting their hands this way and that, and for a bit I was sure they were reaching for guns.

Even the stewardess began to make these sudden moves.

I studied them carefully. They were scratching themselves.

THE FLEAS!

Oh, I was so relieved to find it was only that. Because it seemed to be the growing fashion, I was even able to scratch myself without embarrassment.

There was only one other incident of note on the plane. The man in the seat beside me, scratching away, began to look at me suspiciously. I felt naked without my guns and no more bombs.

When they served a snack, I secretly stole a plastic fork off the tray. It was quite sharp. I hoped they did not detect the theft for it helped my morale enormously, there in my breast pocket, ready to stab if he recognized me and called the captain.

These one-way coach fares, economy, don't always get you there very fast. With long delays while they let the first-class planes go by, I finally arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.

On my diplomatic passport, I went through with a swish. The customs man for hand luggage-who sits just beyond the cooled corpse at Immigration-looked at me and then at the Air Israel bag a little oddly. But he pushed me through. I glanced back to see if the Federal police were massing up for a baton charge to grab me. But behind me the embalmed officials were only scratching.

I had made it to U. S. soil!

The God over the U. S. is also Rockecenter. So I was safe.

Now to begin my retribution trail with a vengeance!

I went out to the cab rank, followed by a porter carrying my grip.

The first cab in the line had a very squat and crumpled-looking driver, who actually got out to open the door for me. He didn't have any forehead and his eyebrows covered his eyes.

The porter threw the bag on the floor in back and stood there with his hand out. I knew I was in America.

I tried to get in the cab. The porter was in my road. I saw I was not going to make it. Not unless I bought him off. He could still call the airport police. They stay in constant communication through the Nazi Gestapo headquarters in Strasbourg, which operates under the name of Interpol. They have a huge radio station down in South America and use the lines of CIA to radio on ahead of planes and grab people they don't like or who aren't criminal enough to join their ranks. So I was not out of danger so long as I was on airport ground. I decided to tip him.

Because it would have been a dead giveaway to try to change the lira and drachmas at the Grabbe-Manhattan airport-lobby bank, I had decided I would get driven into town to the Times Square area where they have lots of money-changing companies. That would be where I paid off the cab. So I didn't have any small dollars and I certainly wasn't going to tip him a thousand U. S. bucks-not for grabbing a grip out of my hand and tagging me out.

I gave him a drachma.

He pretended he didn't know what it was.

I gave him a lira.

He pretended he didn't know what that was.

I pretended to rummage around in the flight-bag money. I said, "I don't have anything else."

The taxi driver verified it. He tumbled the money about. He spotted the thousand-dollar U. S. notes at the bottom. But he kept his mouth shut. He turned to the porter and said, "That's all he's got in here. Buzz off."

The porter said something nasty and left.

We had a lot of trouble zipping the bag back up. With the taxi driver's help I finally made it.

"Take me to Times Square," I said.

I got in the cab. He drove a few feet out of the rank and stopped. "Just a minute," he said. "My radio is busted and I have to phone in to the dispatcher."

He was gone for five minutes. He came back. His radio came on, asking for Car 73. That was the number on the card hanging on the back of the driver's seat. "Dumb (bleepch)," he said. "I just told her my radio was busted." He shut the receiver off.

At a leisurely pace he drove out of the airport. He turned left. Some signs said Brooklyn and Floyd Bennett Field. We tooled along. Cold wind was blowing in the open window. I looked to my left and saw the ocean, or at least a bay.

"Hey," I called to the driver, "aren't you going the wrong way?"

"I'm taking you the scenic route," he said. "You being a foreigner, I thought you'd like to see the sights.

I'm not even charging you an extra dime. See? The meter is off."

Some sights. Cold winter had not yet turned into spring. The gray, gray water was only visible from time to time.

We were on the Shore Parkway, according to the signs. We certainly were not moving very fast. Another sign said Spring Creek Park, Next Left. We came to a turnoff marked 14. The taxi turned.

It sure wasn't very scenic; the trees all dead with winter. There was even a sign that said Park Closed. But the taxi driver drove along the deserted winding roads. To the right and left were only desolation and leafless trees.

Suddenly a log came crashing across the road, dead in front of the cab!

The driver braked frantically.

There was a roar!

Three motorcycles leaped into view and stopped, two in front and one behind the cab!

The riders wore bandanas tied across their faces!

They had guns pointed at the cab!

"Throw down your guns!" the nearest rider said. "All passengers out! And don't try nothin' funny! We got the drop on you!" A stagecoach holdup! I knew! I had seen them in the films. The next order would be to throw down the Wells Fargo box! And I had no gun handy!

Gingerly, I moved out of the cab, holding my hands high.

The nearest rider stepped out of his saddle. He walked up to me. He gave me a push back. He reached into the cab and picked up the flight bag full of money!

He glanced into it.

He backed out and threw it to another rider. Then he turned to me. He reached into my pockets and got my wallet. He took it. He reached into another pocket and started to pull out my diplomatic passport. It was stuck crosswise.

"I will give it to you," I said. I reached up. But I didn't reach for the passport. I reached for my breast pocket.

Quick as a flash, I pulled out the plastic fork.

I jabbed it into the back of his hand with all my might!

"He's armed!" he screamed.

I dived under the cab.

A gun exploded!

Something hit the cab.

Three bike motors were roaring.

They were gone!

The taxi driver was holding his shoulder. "The dirty (bleepards)!" he said.

Hastily, I dived back into the cab. I unstrapped my grip. I got out the Beretta.

The cab driver stared at it wide-eyed. It was pointed straight at him.

"Get after them!" I gritted. "And quick!"

"I can't drive!" he moaned. "I'm wounded!"

I leaped out and opened his door. I booted him sideways and got under the wheel.

All set to drive, I had no place to go. There was no motor sound anywhere. Only the wind.

"Where are they going?" I grated at the driver.

He crouched on the floor in the empty place they usually put luggage, beside the driver's seat. "I don't know," he moaned. And then he passed out.