The Weapon of Night (19 page)

Shots skimmed past Nick’s head and searing flame burned through his shoulder but he hardly felt it through the blaze of his own rage and frustration. Yards ahead of him the motor picked up speed and the wake of the boat rocked what was left of the rotting pier.

There was still a chance — one desperate chance. Nick plunged into the water and began swimming furiously. The motor coughed and surged and the wake rolled over him in billowing waves. He buried his face in the water and kicked mightily, pounding his way powerfully through the darkness like an avenging torpedo. For a moment it seemed that he was gaining. And then the engine roared triumphantly; the boat shook and heaved and sped away from him as if jet-propelled, and left him in a maelstrom of seething waves and spray. He trod water, grimacing as he watched it go. It skimmed away with incredible speed, and through the exultant sound of its departure he thought he could hear the peal of high-pitched laughter.

For a moment longer he watched it shrinking into the distance. And then, seething with anger, he churned his way across the inlet in his waterlogged clothes and dragged himself, dripping onto the shore.

Nine down, and one to go.

The morning brought with it a gruesome story of an ancient cabin cruiser abandoned on the Canadian side of Lake Erie with two dead men in its tiny cabin. But of the man who must have piloted the vessel there was no sign even through the search for him had started very soon after his escape across the lake.

“But he can’t have gotten far,” said Nick, staring sightlessly at the bluish smoke rings wafting toward the ceiling of his motel room. The AXE “copter was hangared at Buffalo airport nearby and he was ready to use it again at a moment’s notice. Police had cordoned off the lake inlet and radiation experts were working busily in the boathouse where they had found much of West Valley’s missing material. “He wouldn’t want to go far. If he’s got something set up for tonight — the final panic push, in whatever form it may take — he must be planning to do it in this general area. Or why else gather his men at the lake? No, sir. My best bet, as long as you’ve got everything else set up, is to wait right here and be ready to pounce. He’s somewhere in the New York-Ontario region, and I’d stake my life on that.”

“Hope you don’t have to,” Hawk said grimly, chewing savagely at the end of his cigar. “And I hope you’re right. Oh, I have everything set up, all right. Takes time, but by dusk the whole country’ll be ready to swing into action. Hope to God tonight will see the end of this thing. You heard about the radiation riots in Berkeley, in L.A.? Yes — people killing each other in the streets, for God’s sake! I can only pray that the President’s speech will calm things down. Heaven knows it’s true that the worst is over, but will they believe it?”

“They’ve got to,” Nick said harshly. “But if we don’t stop this thing tonight — they won’t.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

And Then There Were . . .?

Julia sighed luxuriously and stretched out on the bed beside him like a waking kitten. Her tanned fingers stroked the length of his body and her breasts rose and fell voluptuously as if they had just been treated to a delicious experience. Which, indeed, they had.

“Sinful,” she murmured huskily. “Fiddling while Rome burns. Why are we so sinful, Carter?”

“Because we like it,” Nick said cheerfully. He grinned at her and tousled her hair, and then rolled lightly off the bed to land on his feet on the thick carpeting of the motel room. “But sin time’s over for a while, sweetheart.” He flicked a switch and flooded the room with light. “Tune in to AXE H.Q., will you? And find out what’s going on in the world. I’m going to take a shower. My bones tell me we’re going to see some action soon.”

She watched the rippling muscles of his athlete’s body as he padded nakedly into the bathroom, and gave a little sigh as she turned on the AXE radio. His head was still heavily bandaged from the Montreal explosion and now he had a new thick patch of adhesive on his shoulder. Another day, another scar. And each new assignment brought another duel with death. Some day — maybe on this job, maybe on some other — death was bound to win. Those were the odds. And he had been playing this deadly game for far too long already.

So, for that matter, had she.

Julia pulled her flimsy robe slowly about her tawny shoulders and the crackling voices of AXE’s general wave length told her of LSD in a Jersey reservoir and air pollution in Springfield. Here, a radiation scare, there, a little hot box found; somewhere else, an angry citizens’ meeting that degenerated into a riot. All day long the news services had been spreading the word that the situation was under control. But the word was vague and unconvincing . . . because it was not quite true. There was still one shadowy figure unaccounted for. And still unanswered were the basic questions: Who
is
doing this to us, and why? To what end? Was this a war of nerves, or a prelude to attack?

She, Julia Baron, knew more about the who and what and why than any woman in the United States, with the possible exception of Valentina Sichikova, and even she, Julia, was uneasy about what she did not know. How much worse, she thought, shivering slightly and pulling the robe more closely around her, not to know anything at all — to be looking out into the night and wondering what unknown menace waited there.

Nick was singing in the shower. She smiled faintly to herself and rose from the bed to gaze through the window. It was dark outside with the darkness of early evening in late fall, but splashed with brightness from a million lights in homes and along the highways. She found herself praying that they would
stay
lit.

The hissing splash of the shower stopped and only the voices of AXE communicators filled the room. Nick padded in, wrapping a towel around his waist, and squatted on the floor with a soulful look on his face.

“Dear God,” Julia said resignedly. “Breathing exercises at a time like this?”

“Your fault,” he said cheerfully. “You take my breath away.”

He concentrated for long moments and she watched him in silence, admiring the masculine beauty of his body and loving every line of it.

At last he rose and flicked two switches on the AXE radio, one to kill the voices and the other to open the channel through which his own messages were to come.

“Enough of that,” he said, toweling himself briskly. “It’s depressing to listen to, and pointless. Sorry I asked for it.”

“That’s the least of what you’ve asked for, Nick,” she said quietly. “Are you ever going to get out of this business?”

“There’s only one way out of it,” he said shortly, and began to dress.

He glanced at his watch as he strapped it on. “About time for the President’s speech,” he said. “Let us sincerely hope that he can produce both soothing and effective words for “mah fella countrymen.” Too bad we can’t tell the truth about what we already know.”

“Proof,” she said shortly, and snapped on the television set.

“Yeah, proof,” he added bitterly. “Chinese bodies all over the lot, and we still need proof!”

“—live from Washington,” the announcer’s voice boomed loudly. Julia turned the volume down. Then she began to dress in her usual brisk way as the voice from the handsome face on the screen went over the events of the past few days.

“And now — the President of the United States.”

There was a flurry of activity on the rostrum as mikes were adjusted, cameras moved in closer.

Nick and Julia sat side by side upon the bed.

The familiar figure filled the screen and solemnly gazed out upon his audience of millions.

“Mah fella Amurricans,” the well-known voice began, and there was benevolence and confidence in its calm tones, “a great man of our own times and our own country once told us that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. I am here to tell you tonight that we in this great country of ours
have nothing to fear,
not even fear itself—” The voice abruptly died.

The lips went on moving but now no sound came from them.

“God, what’s happening!” Julia cried, as the light in the room became a weird yellow glow. The image on the screen slowly faded and disappeared, and the yellow glow became pitch-blackness.

Nick was on his feet, grabbing the AXE radio.

“This is it!” he rapped. “Don’t move from here. Let you know if I need you. Look after yourself.”

His lips brushed her cheek in the darkness and the radio beeped at him.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I brought candles. You come back. Please, Nick — come back.”

“I always come back,” he said, and then he was gone.

Julia turned on her own transistor radio and the two battery-powered lamps they had brought with them. Then she opened the curtains and let the light play out across the grounds of the motel. Already she could hear the chop of the approaching helicopter. Headlights from the cars parked outside the cabin doors began to turn on, two by two, and in the glow of their light she could see Nick racing past them toward the wide oval lawn in front of the motel.

The town of Buffalo was in total darkness. Wherever Julia turned there was darkness, a frightening, eerie blackness broken only intermittently by shafts of light from ears.

Nick ran with the radio to his car and his eyes on the sky. The winking lights were already lowering toward him.

Hawk’s voice pounded at his ear . . . extremely serious power drain over the same area last November,
plus
Washington this time. Standby crews ready, started immediate instrumentation check. Nothing definite, as yet. Parts of Canada out, most of New York, Michigan, Massachusetts. Pennsylvania, part of
Texas,
for the love of—! Hold it a minute.”

Nick held, positioning the radio inside his jacket as he waited and pulled the miniature flare gun from his pocket. It spewed light over the lawn and the “copter chugged down toward him with its sling ladder swinging.

“Report from Washington,” said Hawk, and now his voice held an odd kind of excitement. “Blackout there nothing to do with the rest. Device found near local power station: electronic timer. Could have been set at any time. Likely the same with Texas, too. We’re checking. That leaves the Northeastern chain, as before. State police, national guards-men, et cetera, all in operation as you suggested. Emergency systems — Wait!”

Nick used the waiting time to swing himself into the sling seat of the ladder and wave upward. The ladder rose rapidly.

“Carter!” Hawk’s voice roared in his ear. It sounded exultant. “Instrument check indicates tremendous flow of current to the north, as before. Not finely pinpointed as yet, but odds are great that the trouble started within the area of the Falls. Seems that the Green Point power plant was the first to go. Happens to be a major link in the chain
and
only too easily accessible from outside though proof against remote devices. It looks as though your hunch was right. Get moving!”

“I’m moving,” said Nick, swinging himself into the chopper.

“Where to, old buddy?” asked AXEman pilot AI Fisher.

Nick told him.

Al stared at him as if he had lost his mind.

“You crazy, Nick? What makes you think that’s where he’ll go? And how in the hell are we going to find him if he does?”

“Not we — just me,” said Nick. “You’ll drop me. Now get the lead out of your pants and let me see you fly this thing.”

He busied himself with a few small preparations as they gained speed and altitude. When he was through with them he looked down at the darkness below.

Already, it was less oppressive than before. The airport was awash with light. Great beams of brightness cut through the city streets, and several buildings gave off a cheerful glow. Banks of moving lights trailed solidly through the streets. And even as he watched, new patches of brightness sprang into brilliant life.

He allowed himself a momentary flash of satisfaction. At least this time they had been ready for it. Every resource in the country had been mobilized ahead of time, every available man in uniform alerted, every cop, every fireman, every guardsman, every training unit, warned to stand by and man emergency lighting systems in cities and villages and along the nation’s highways; every responsible state official briefed, every sound truck put on a standby basis, every capability of an enormously capable nation called to a state of readiness in a few short hours — except the millions of private citizens who had been living off rumors all day. They had not been warned — in case of false alarm, in case Judas had decided to postpone his curtain scene.

But apparently he had not.

Nick’s brief glow of satisfaction cooled into a cool appraisal of the situation. He had no more idea than anyone else where Judas was and where he would head. He only had a hunch, based on the flimsiest of evidence that easily could turn to dust in his hands as the night wore on.

When he had boarded the ancient cruiser at the rotting wharf he had seen a set of oilskins neatly folded on the wheelhouse shelf. Afterwards when the boat had been discovered abandoned with its dead, the oilskins no longer were there.

“Does a man need oilskins to go swimming?” he had asked himself.

No, he had decided, that isn’t what he does with them.

The sound of the falls drowned out the gentle chopping of the helicopter as Nick lowered himself to the ground and waved the ladder away. He was across the Canadian border and the Green Point power plant lay exact 2.2 miles away from him. A man could walk it. And even if the man used a car for part of that short distance he would still have to walk for a
good
ten to twelve minutes from there to reach the one short strip along the roaring river from which he could make his getaway.

It had been short, quick ride from Buffalo by AXE-powered helicopter.

Nick scrambled down the Slope, glad of the boots and slicker that guarded him against the cool night wind and the icy spray. It was a cold, dark November night, and the lights of Ontario were few and far between. Niagara Falls was still in total darkness, but for the dim glow of auxiliary lighting from the other side.