The Death Strain (5 page)

"There's nobody inside," I told the men, erasing the fear in their eyes. As they started to hose water on the inferno I climbed into the Chevy, torn and aching and bleeding from dozens of cuts and bruises and mad as all hell.

I stopped to phone Hawk from a roadside phone booth. He told me to go to my place, get feed up and then come to the office.

"I'll be here," he said. "I've had a cot brought in and I'm staying here until everything
is
over and done with, this World Leadership Conference and now this blasted business."

I hung up and drove slowly back to my apartment A long, hot bath followed by a long, cold martini did wonders for the body and the soul. It was just after dinner time when I reached Hawk's office at AXE headquarters. He was standing by the bay window, looking down on the circling lines of traffic below and he gestured to me as I entered. I went over to stand beside him, glancing at the deep, tired lines etched in his face.

"We're like that traffic down there, Nick," he said. "Going around in circles, with no end, only more and more circles." He turned and sat down. I took the chair across from him. "You wouldn't believe the stuff we've been into involving the World Leadership Conference. We've uncovered plots against six different presidents and world figures to prevent their attending the Conference. The Conference has triggered every crackpot and professional group into action. And now this Carlsbad and his damned deadly strain. That's the topper of them all, Nick, because it involves the whole world and it was
our
virus, from
our
stockpile"

"Anyone dig up anything on the checkstub information I gave you over the phone?" I asked.

"Our people in Tokyo got on it," he said. "The account was closed out three days ago. It had been used by a Mr. Kiyishi — described as a huge man."

"That figures," I muttered.

"As Carlsbad has been planning this with international contacts and may be planning to strike anyone anywhere, the President has ordered me to make certain contacts. I've made them, but I can only keep my fingers crossed."

"You've lost me, Chief," I admitted.

"We've opened this up to the top people of every major intelligence service on the basis of international cooperation and enlightened self-interest" Hawk said. "I want you at a meeting scheduled for eight A.M. at the White House tomorrow morning. Ardsley of British Intelligence is coming. Nutashi of Japan will be there. Claude Mainon of the French
Service des Renseignements,
Manouchi of Italian Counter-intelligence, Adams of Canadian Security and, get this, the Russians are sending Ostrov of Soviet Special Intelligence."

"Quite an imposing array," I commented. "I've saved the best of all," Hawk said. "The Chinese Reds are sending Chung Li."

I whistled through my teeth. "How the hell did you work that?"

"With Chairman Mao attending the World Conference at the United Nations, they can't afford to have something go wrong," Hawk said. "They don't know, and neither do we, that Carlsbad might not try to loose X–V77 against the Chinese leadership. If his plan is to put America on a spot, that'd sure be the way to do it."

"And so crafty old Mr. Big of the Chinese Reds is stepping out of his hole and into the daylight," I mused aloud. "This must be some kind of first." I'd met and beaten many of Chung Li's specialists, but the grand master of Red Chinese intelligence was always a shadowy figure in the background, unreachable, almost invisible it seemed.

"Do you think it will work?" I asked Hawk. "Do you think we can all cooperate, with everybody suspicious and on guard about letting his own classified stuff slip out?"

"On this one thing, I think yes," Hawk said. "Chung Li has already taken steps to protect himself. We've learned that our Consul in Hong Kong has been taken into protective custody at some hidden estate. Of course they've said nothing to us, but they know we got the message."

I reached into my pocket and brought out the little object I'd found at Carlsbad house before the explosion. I tossed it to Hawk.

"Let's see if any of them can help us with that," I said.

Hawk examined it. "Looks like a fragment of bone to me," he said of the material imbedded in the silver circle. "Well see if they can clue us in on it tomorrow."

I stood up. "Eight a.m., the White House," I said and the old fox nodded, his eyes weary.

"And no trace of Carlsbad and the others?" I asked, starting toward the door. "They've just up and vanished into thin air."

"By God, it seems like it," Hawk said crisply, angrily. "We've got every major highway watched, every train and bus depot, every major airport. Maybe they're holed up somewhere. If not, they've slipped through. Either way, it spells trouble."

All during the night and into the dawn they came winging toward the shores of the continental United States. Each one was monitored constantly by radio-radar contact and given clearance at pre-arranged check points. Each one was met by a U.S. Phantom jet and escorted to Andrews Field outside Washington.

The first to come was Ardsley, of Britain, in a Lightning F.MK-3, moving in low and fast but picked up by our boys about four hundred miles east of Nova Scotia. Mainon, the Frenchman, came in on a Dassault Mystere-4A and was met some three hundred miles over the Atlantic proper. The Japanese came into Hawaii on a Fuji Jet Trainer T1F2 and was transferred to a big Boeing Jet for the rest of the trip.

Ostrov, the Russian, made a series of short hops in an MIG-19, specially built for him and a pilot, and was escorted most of the way by Russian long-distance fighters. We picked him up after he'd been cleared for landing at Goose Bay, Newfoundland. The Chinese Red, Chung Li, was cleared through
to
land at Fairbanks, Alaska, in a big Russian Ilyushin transport. From there we escorted his big plane to Andrews.

Me, I took a cab and got stuck in traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue. They were all there when I arrived, and the climate was something all its own, sort of polite distaste. Ostrov I'd seen before, burly, thick-necked with hard, blue-quartz eyes. He was known as a tough man in every respect and he looked the part. My glance swept over the others: Ardsley relaxed, casual as only the British can be and yet appear crisp; Claude Mainon, the Frenchman, foxy, with quick-moving eyes; our two men from Army Intelligence. I zeroed in on Chung Li.

The Chinese Red seemed to be waiting to meet my glance, and he nodded to me. He had a round, bland face, almost pudgy, very much like that of his boss, Mao Tse-tung. He didn't look the part of a wily, clever espionage chief but then, as I thought about it, neither did Hawk, standing to one side with his New England Baptist minister's countenance. Hawk had made a blanket introduction as I entered the room, but it was only Chung Li who spoke.

"My pleasure indeed, Carter," he said, his voice soft, almost with a hiss in it. "I have often wondered what you looked like. One wonders about a man who has given one so much trouble."

He smiled a Buddha-like smile, charming yet deadly.

"I hope you're not disappointed," I said, returning his charm. "Not in the slightest," Chung Li answered and I saw his small, dark eyes take in every facet of my face. As he looked at me I had the feeling I was being visually computerized and catalogued. The soft roundness of his own face was, I knew, a natural mask for the brutal hardness behind it.

"Gentlemen," Hawk said, "I'll be brief. There is no point in pretending we all meet here as friends. We are here only because, in this instance, our interests happen to dovetail."

"We are here because of the danger your apparently very poor security measures have put the world in," Ostrov growled. Hawk didn't bat an eye.

"I'm sure you have often wished they were poorer than they are," he said blandly. Ostrov's blue-quartz eyes grew even colder.

"The vial from our Bacteriological Warfare stockpile known as X–V77," Hawk went on, "is a deadly strain derived from a series of botulisms. It will infect by air and grow in any kind of climatic conditions, needing only a host organism to attach itself to. Therefore merely preventive measures around your country's top men will not suffice.

"Agent N3, here, has been given the task of finding Dr. Carlsbad and the virus. I think you'll all agree there is no better field agent in the world. But time is all-important. Any help you can give will help us all. Until X–V77 is returned intact to us, we are all in this together. No one here expects anyone else to give away secrets, yet within that framework, we must cooperate. I will tell you all that we know up to now."

As Hawk briefed the room I thought to myself what a concentration of high-powered espionage information was gathered here in this room in the White House. When Hawk finished, he picked up a sheet of notepaper.

"This was received by the President of the United States this morning," he said. He glanced at me for a moment. "It was postmarked in a small town in Iowa." I nodded and he returned to the letter.

"Mr. President," he read, "by now I hope you have contacted the leaders of every major power and told them that together you must destroy all stocks of bacteriological warfare. If you have not done so, you only have a short time before I will demonstrate the full effect of the horror you would inflict upon the world. I will expect action and I will listen to the public communication systems and the press for your answer. Joseph Carlsbad."

Hawk passed the letter around, handing it first to Manouchi, the Italian, standing nearest to him.

"Perhaps we ought to make a public show of doing what he says," Ardsley of British Intelligence volunteered. "All our governments announce that we're destroying our germ warfare branches and materials."

"He is no fool, this Carlsbad " Ostrov said. "He will want more than words."

"I'm afraid I agree with General Ostrov on that," Hawk said. "He's obviously planned carefully and with help. He can probably stay wherever he's holed up and wait for us to furnish proof."

"And showing him proof would be impossible for you gentlemen, eh?" Claude Mainon said, a sly smile on his face. "That would mean actually doing away with your bacteriological warfare weapons."

Nobody said anything, neither Hawk nor Ostrov. I couldn't help smiling inwardly. The Frenchman had touched on one of the tender spots.

"For the moment let us concentrate on recovering X–V77," Hawk said finally. He tossed the little round silver object with the ivory or bone set into it on the table.

"This is the one material lead Agent N3 has found," he said. "Can any of you help us with it?"

I watched the men move closer to the table and look at the piece. Ardsley, Mainon, the Italian and Ostrov shook their heads. Nutashi, the Japanese, picked it up and studied it closely. I saw Chung Li watching him through mere slits of eyes, a patient, almost amused expression on his face.

"It is an identification piece," Nutashi said. "Used by a small secret society, semireligious, practicing human sacrifices, we understand. The material in the center
is
human bone from a victim of the Hiroshima bombing, no doubt still slightly radioactive. The religious aspects of the society center around the Hiroshima catastrophe."

"Certainly the land of a group Carlsbad could get material help from," I said. "Such as a place to hide."

Nutashi laid the silver piece back on the table and Chung Li reached out and picked it up, dangling it from the few remaining links attached to it. "Major Nutashi
is
generally correct about this group," he said in his soft, sibilant voice. "We had contacted them once to evaluate their possible use for our own purposes."

I saw Nutashi's jaw muscles flex, but he maintained his outer calm. Chung Li went on, his soft, gentle tones clear in the silence of the room. "However we found them too few in number and badly disorganized. But during the past year we have heard that their numbers have increased and that they seem to have taken on a new strength. Strangely enough, this has resulted in their going deeper underground."

I saw all those check stubs of Carlsbad's in my mind. If this group had got themselves new strength, at least part of it was due to Carlsbad's funds.

"You say they've gone deeper underground?" I asked. "Do you mean you don't know where they are anymore?"

"Only that they are somewhere in the Kurile Islands," Chung Li answered. "In some ancient Buddhist temple»

"Then that's our next move," Hawk said. "Carter will go there and try to find them. Everything points to Carlsbad working with this group. Anyway, it's all we've got and so well run with it."

"We will make you into one of the Japanese fishermen who fish off the Kuriles every day," Nutashi volunteered. "That will ensure your entry without suspicion."

"And if I do get Carlsbad and need some backup muscle?" I asked.

Ostrov cleared his throat, and I could see it took some effort for him to say his piece. "We have a… er… number of undersea craft in that area," he admitted. "We could have them standing by for action upon instruction from you."

Hawk was actually beaming. "That sounds very good, gentlemen." He smiled. "Of course, we agree that everyone shall be given immediate reports of any and all developments. We shall work out procedural operations. Meanwhile, Nick, you'd best get over to Special Effects. Stewart is waiting for you."

I took them all in with a nod and paused for a moment to meet Chung Li's eyes. Perhaps he was thinking of the number of times I'd wrecked his schemes and destroyed his top men. Perhaps he was thinking of how he'd like to get rid of me right then and there. In any case, his small, dark eyes held an air of deadly amusement, and I knew that to Chung Li, this cooperation was no more than a passing moment. His eyes seemed to say that he was looking forward to a speedy resumption of our running battle. Anytime you're ready, I let my own eyes reply, and turned on my heel.