Icommunicated the data to the manufacturers by telepathy, and theyprinted it on the cigarette papers in invisible ink."
"Maybe not. Maybe you opened the pack, and then resealed it," Katosuggested. "A heated spatula under the cellophane; like this."
He used the point of his knife to illustrate. The cellophane cameunsealed with surprising ease: so did the revenue stamp. He dumped outthe contents of the pack: sixteen cigarettes, four cigarette tip-ends,four bits snapped from the other ends--and a small aluminum microfilmcapsule.
Lowiewski's face twitched. For an instant, he tried vainly to breakloose from the men who held him. Then he slumped into a chair. Heymben-Hillel gasped in shocked surprise. Suzanne Maillard gave a short,felinelike cry. Sir Neville Lawton looked at the capsule curiously andsaid: "Well, my sainted Aunt Agatha!"
"That's the capsule I gave him, at noon," Farida Khouroglu exclaimed,picking it up. She opened it and pulled out a roll of colloidexprojection film. There was also a bit of cigarette paper in the capsule,upon which a notation had been made in Kyrilic characters.
Rudolf von Heldenfeld could read Russian. "'Data on new development ofphoton-neutrino-electron interchange. 22 July, '65. Vladmir.' Vladmir, Isuppose, is this _schweinhund's_ code name," he added.
The film and the paper passed from hand to hand. The other members ofthe Team sat down; there was a tendency to move away from the chairoccupied by Adam Lowiewski. He noticed this and sneered.
"Afraid of contamination from the moral leper?" he asked. "You were gladenough to have me correct your stupid mathematical errors."
Kato Sugihara picked up the capsule, took a final glance at thecigarette pack, and said to MacLeod: "I'll be back as soon as this isdone." With that, he left the room, followed by Bertie Wooster and theGreek.
* * * * *
Heym ben-Hillel turned to the others: his eyes had the hurt and puzzledlook of a dog that has been kicked for no reason. "But why did he dothis?" he asked.
"He just told you," MacLeod replied. "He's the great Adam Lowiewski.Checking math for a physics-research team is beneath his dignity. Isuppose the Komintern offered him a professorship at Stalin University."He was watching Lowiewski's face keenly. "No," he continued. "It wasprobably the mathematics chair of the Soviet Academy of Sciences."
"But who was this person who could smuggle microfilm out of thereservation?" Suzanne Maillard wanted to know. "Somebody has inventedteleportation, then?"
MacLeod shook his head. "It was General Nayland's chauffeur. It had tobe. General Nayland's car is the only thing that gets out of herewithout being searched. The car itself is serviced at Army vehiclespool; nobody could hide anything in it for a confederate to pick upoutside. Nayland is a stuffed shirt of the first stuffing, and a tinpotHitler to boot, but he is fanatically and incorruptibly patriotic. Thatleaves the chauffeur. When Nayland's in the car, nobody even sees him;he might as well be a robot steering-device. Old case of Father Brown'sInvisible Man. So, since he had to be the courier, all I did was haveAhmed Abd-el-Rahman shadow him, and at the same time tap our phones.When he contacted Lowiewski, I knew Lowiewski was our traitor."
Sir Neville Lawton gave a strangling laugh. "Oh, my dear Aunt Fanny! AndNayland goes positively crackers on security. He gets goose pimplesevery time he hears somebody saying 'E = mc^{2}', for fear a Kominternspy might hear him. It's a wonder he hasn't put the value of Planck'sConstant on the classified list. He sets up all these fantastic searchrooms and barriers, and then he drives through the gate, honking hisbloody horn, with his chauffeur's pockets full of top secrets. Now I'veseen everything!"
"Not quite everything," MacLeod said. "Kato's going to put that capsulein another cigarette pack, and he'll send one of his lab girls toOppenheimer Village with it, with a message from Lowiewski to the effectthat he couldn't get away. And when this chauffeur takes it out, he'llrun into a Counter Espionage road-block on the way to town. They'llshoot him, of course, and they'll probably transfer Nayland to theMississippi Valley Flood Control Project, where he can't do any moredamage. At least, we'll have him out of our hair."
"If we have any hair left," Heym ben-Hillel gloomed. "You've got Naylandinto trouble, but you haven't got us out of it."
"What do you mean?" Suzanne Maillard demanded. "He's found the traitorand stopped the leak."
"Yes, but we're still responsible, as a team, for this betrayal," theIsraeli pointed out. "This Nayland is only a symptom of the enmity whichpoliticians and militarists feel toward the Free Scientists, and oftheir opposition to the research-contract system. Now they have ascandal to use. Our part in stopping the leak will be ignored; thepublicity will be about the treason of a Free Scientist."
"That's right," Sir Neville Lawton agreed. "And that brings up anotherpoint. We simply can't hand this fellow over to the authorities. If wedo, we establish a precedent that may wreck the whole system under whichwe operate."
"Yes: it would be a fine thing if governments start putting FreeScientists on trial and shooting them," Farida Khouroglu supported him."In a few years, none of us would be safe."
"But," Suzanne cried, "you are not arguing that this species of ananimal be allowed to betray us unpunished?"
"Look," Rudolf von Heldenfeld said. "Let us give him his pistol, and onecartridge, and let him remove himself like a gentleman. He will sparehimself the humiliation of trial and execution, and us all theembarrassment of having a fellow scientist pilloried as a traitor."
"Now there's a typical Prussian suggestion," Lowiewski said.
* * * * *
Kato Sugihara, returning alone, looked around the table. "Did I misssomething interesting?" he asked.
"Oh, very," Lowiewski told him. "Your Junker friend thinks I shouldperform _seppuku_."
Kato nodded quickly. "Excellent idea!" he congratulated von Heldenfeld."If he does, he'll save everybody a lot of trouble. Himself included."He nodded again. "If he does that, we can protect his reputation, afterhe's dead."
"I don't really see how," Sir Neville objected. "When the CounterEspionage people were brought into this, the thing went out of ourcontrol."
"Why, this chauffeur was the spy, as well as the spy-courier," MacLeodsaid. "The information he transmitted was picked up piecemeal fromdifferent indiscreet lab-workers and students attached to our team. Ofcourse, we are investigating, mumble-mumble. Naturally, no one willadmit, mumble-mumble. No stone will be left unturned, mumble-mumble.Disciplinary action, mumble-mumble."
"And I suppose he got that microfilm piecemeal, too?" Lowiewski asked.
"Oh, that?" MacLeod shrugged. "That was planted on him. One of our girlsarranged an opportunity for him to steal it from her, after we began tosuspect him. Of course, Kato falsified everything he put into thatreport. As information, it's worthless."
"Worthless? It's better than that," Kato grinned. "I'm really sorry theKomintern won't get it. They'd try some of that stuff out with the bigbetatron at Smolensk, and a microsecond after they'd throw the switch,Smolensk would look worse than Hiroshima did."
"Well, why would our esteemed colleague commit suicide, just at thistime?" Karen Hilquist asked.
"Maybe plutonium poisoning." Farida suggested. "He was doing somethingin the radiation-lab and got some Pu in him, and of course, shooting'snot as painful as that. So--"
"Oh, my dear!" Suzanne protested. "That but stinks! The great AdamLowiewski, descending from his pinnacle of pure mathematics, to performa vulgar experiment? With actual _things_?" The Frenchwoman gave anexaggerated shudder. "Horrors!"
"Besides, if our people began getting radioactive, somebody would besure to claim we were endangering the safely of the whole establishment,and the national-security clause would be invoked, and some nosy personwould put a geiger on the dear departed," Sir Neville added.
"Nervous collapse." Karen said. "According to the laity, all scientistsare crazy. Crazy people kill themselves. Adam Lowiewski was a scientist.Ergo Adam Lowiewski killed himself. Besides, a nervo
us collapse isn'tinstrumentally detectable."
Heym ben-Hillel looked at MacLeod, his eyes troubled.
"But, Dunc; have we the right to put him to death, either by his ownhand or by an Army firing squad?" he asked. "Remember he is not only atraitor; he is one of the world's greatest mathematical minds. Have we aright to destroy that mind?"
Von
The Mercenaries Page 4
