He was taking a mass of bone cells out of the test tube he had catalyzed. Like a plasterer, he was pasting it into the hole he had made.
At every touch it felt like he was yanking on every nerve!
“You see,” said Nurse Bildirjin, “I am a young girl. I am just starting out. All this is new and wonderful to me. I had heard, but I never knew it could be so good, so good, so good!”
He was tugging scalp down now. It hurt like blazes. Stung!
“You should be very careful of young girls who have never had any before,” said Nurse Bildirjin. “It is their most delightful time of life!”
Prahd was smearing something around the edges of the scalp wound. It was agony at every stroke!
“You don’t stop young girls halfway,” said Nurse Bildirjin. “You go right on and let them finish! Young girls have tender feelings, and don’t you forget it!”
Prahd had a light he was shining on my skull. It was so hot I could hear my hair sizzling.
He stepped back. “You can let him up now, Nurse Bildirjin,” he said professionally.
She got off me. I hurt so bad elsewhere, I didn’t even feel her knees gouging me, leaving bruises.
She picked up a lancet, apparently just to have it handy in case she had any afterthoughts. She undid my throat strap so I could breath again. She unfastened the rest.
“Well,” said Prahd. “You’re bugged. Does my pay start now?”
I got the roll of bandage out of my mouth. “Get out of here!” I yelled.
They were very obedient. As she left, Nurse Bildirjin was already unbuttoning her uniform. She was looking adoringly up at Prahd.
“Oh, I just love practicing medicine, don’t you, Doctor? It’s SO stimulating!”
I got off the table somehow. The room was spinning.
I didn’t know if I’d been (bleeped) or operated on!
PART TWENTY-FOUR
Chapter 4
The taxi driver woke up as I approached the cab. He stared at me. In a shocked tone, he said, “Gee, did that swarthy Sicilian catch up with you?”
I made him drive me to the barracks: I couldn’t confront more whining by Faht Bey. I went through the hangar. The guard officer said, “A gang beat up on you?”
I went up the tunnel to my secret room. I fumbled through the closet entrance to my bedroom.
I collapsed. I didn’t really go to sleep—I just went unconscious.
The following morning I awoke very late. My sweater collar had blood on it. My hair was caked. It called for extreme measures. I took a shower. I was surprised when I found my head didn’t gush further blood. I was even more surprised when I touched the spot: it almost killed me.
However, getting into a shirt I didn’t have to pull over my head, I began to savor what I had accomplished. None of the hypnohelmets would work on me. There would be no more nightmares complete with Manco spike-tailed Devils. I was safe from Krak. And nobody on this planet was safe from me. It was a nice feeling.
The waiter brought me in some hot kahve sade—without sugar. I drank it in sips between great gulps of water. That is the proper way to drink it, though I seldom did it. But the wounded get thirsty. I ignored utterly the baklava sweet pastry.
As the waiter seemed to have gotten in and out without being blown apart by a double-barreled leopard, I tiptoed across the patio to the yard door: I wanted to plan from where I would get a guard to shoot the paralysis dart at the intruder. I put my eye to the peephole.
My Gods!
Utanc was just leaving in her BMW.
And sitting right beside her in the front seat, chummy as you please, was GUNSALMO SILVA!
The car vanished from the gate.
I stepped out into the yard.
Karagoz was helping the gardener plant a flower bed. I beckoned and then pointed mutely at the gate—I was speechless.
“Oh, him?” said Karagoz. “He was waiting for you.”
I nodded numbly.
Karagoz said, “There were some strange men in town the last couple days. They scared Utanc. So this morning she hired Silva as a bodyguard.”
Worse and worse! Not only was he gunning for me, he was stealing my darling dancing girl! And who knows but what they’d both plot against me!
It was a good thing I had it all planned out with the hypnohelmets.
Karagoz said, “He’s broke, you know. The American consul took away all the cash he got off the dead gangster—said it was a consular fee. We been feeding him.”
Even the staff were in league on this!
I started to go to the gate. Then I realized that I stupidly had come out here unarmed. I turned to go back to my room.
There was a rush and a roar!
Utanc slammed the BMW into the yard!
It stopped in its usual place in a scream of tires.
I froze.
I looked at the car like a snake-fixated bird.
This was the end.
Gunsalmo Silva was getting out. He had the leopard in his hand.
Utanc, hooded, cloaked and veiled, swept by me without even a flick of eyes in my direction, as though I didn’t exist. She had obviously written me off. In a moment her room door slammed behind her and the metal bars clanged into place.
Silva was just standing there, half in and half out of the car. He was looking at me.
I have never felt quite so naked. No gun to draw. And he would have plenty of time to shoot me before I could draw it if I had one. And he was Apparatus hypnotrained now, capable of anything.
He was walking toward me slowly, leopard in hand. He was squat, muscular, very Sicilian, terrible. He was frowning.
He stopped five feet from me. He raised the leopard. He scratched his head with the muzzle.
“Now, where the (bleep) have I seen you before?” he said.
I said nothing.
He frowned harder. Then his face brightened up to a dark cloud. “Oh, I know. It’s that god (bleeped) nightmare I get. You’re the guy in it! I’m standing there in a barn full of flying saucers!”
Silva looked me up and down and nodded. “Well, that clears that up. Can we go someplace private and sit down? It’s kind of public here.”
Tricky. Just what you’d expect after Apparatus training. He didn’t want the execution to be public.
My bedroom was closer to my guns.
I found my voice. “Come with me,” I said and led the way to the bedroom. Then I got even more clever. “You want something to drink first? Some Scotch?”
“Never touch it,” he said. “God (bleep) ulcers.”
Well, try again, my old professors used to say. If you’re not dead yet, there’s always a slim chance you won’t be right away.
I got him into my bedroom. I sat him down in a chair. I toyed with the idea of going in the secret room and stepping on the floorplate with a twist, which would assemble the whole crew in the hangar. Then I thought, they’d be in the hangar, not here where they are needed.
I tried a ploy. I said, “I understand Utanc hired you as a bodyguard.”
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“This is pretty wild country. Are you qualified? How’d you kill Tavilnasty?”
He gave a short, barking laugh. “Child’s play. When them two (bleepers) took me to that god (bleeped) room I come to and I said, ‘This is a setup for a god (bleeped) hit.’ You get me? That’s what I said—‘A setup for a god (bleeped) hit.’ You unnerstan’ me?”
I understood him. This was his threat to me.
“So, when they put me in the god (bleeped) bed, I said, ‘Some god (bleeped) (bleeper) is going to be in here in a couple minutes to rub me out.’ So soon as these (bleepers) left, I just balled up the blankets like it was a body and rolled under the bed. Child’s play.
“Couple minutes later I’ll be god (bleeped) if I wasn’t right. The (bleeper) comes quiet in through the window. He walks over cat-foot to the god (bleeped) bed. He’s got a god (bleeped) stiletto in his hand. He’s also got this leopard i
n a holster inside his god (bleeped) left leg.
“He jams the stiletto into the god (bleeped) roll of blankets like he’s god (bleeped) upset. So I just reached out and grabbed the god (bleeped) leopard off his god (bleeped) leg.
“Before he could bend down to see what was under the god (bleeped) bed, I blew his god (bleeped) left leg off. And then he fell down, so I blew his crotch apart.
“He wasn’t so god (bleeped) interested in killing anybody then, so I got out from under the god (bleeped) bed. I seen he had a crappy .38 Saturday night special so I took it and though it was a awful god (bleeped) risk to shoot the god (bleeped) thing—they blow up—I put a bullet in the blankets and wiped the god (bleeped) gun off and put it back in his god (bleeped) hand that had stopped twitchin’.
“I frisked him for his god (bleeped) money and I found four extra loads. So I dumped the leopard and the loads for it in the god (bleeped) toilet trap.
“The god (bleeped) police come. They thought the guy had tried to use a bomb and it had gone off too god (bleeped) quick. But seein’ I was American they put me in the jug.
“Like a god (bleeped) fool, I yelled for the god (bleeped) American consul and he come down the next day and demanded they give me life but they said to hell with you, go (bleep) yourself. And that’s the last god (bleeped) time I ever call for an American consul. He took all my dough.
“So I went back to the hotel the next day and fished this leopard out of the toilet trap.” He sat pensive for a moment. “I dimly remember in a nightmare I was calling for an American consul. I’m a dumb (bleepard). But I somehow feel I’m a lot smarter about business these days. I seem to know what to do just like that. Which brings us to you.”
“Just a minute,” I said. “You seem to be qualified. But this is pretty wild country. If you’re going to be a bodyguard, you’ll need this.”
I had left a hypnohelmet out. I picked it up. I put it on his head and turned the switch. The front light glowed brightly.
I waited.
He just sat there.
I waited for his eyes to glaze and close.
He just sat there.
Bright awake!
“Hell,” he said, “I don’t need no helmet.” He reached up and took it off. “It don’t look bulletproof anyway.” He put it on his lap.
My Gods! It wasn’t working! The helmet wasn’t working!
I reached over and took it away. I was thinking awfully fast. I had a hypnotrained Apparatus hit man sitting right here!
“I got this strange idea,” he said, “that I’m supposed to see the god (bleeped) head man in Turkey, and people tell me you are it. I got this god (bleeped) fool notion that you got something for me to do.”
My pent breath wheezed out. So that was what they had told him under hypnosis after he’d been hypnotrained!
“This dame you got here—what’s her name, Utanc? Funny name. Anyway, she offered me a job. But I don’t think it’s what I’m supposed to do and I don’t think it’s permanent.
“Just a few minutes ago, we started up the god (bleeped) road for town. And she told me how scared she’d been with all the non-Turks in town last couple days but she didn’t want no hassle with heaters. And then she asked me . . .”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You don’t talk Turkish.”
“Oh, I know. God (bleeped) lousy language. Her English has got a funny accent.”
Oh, the darling had been studying English. Maybe to please me! I saw her with lots of textbooks being carried in. How sweet of her.
“She’s god (bleeped) hard to unnerstan’ sometimes. She uses too many god (bleep) big words. But anyway we’re driving up the road to town just a while ago and she wants to know who I thought these birds was. She didn’t call them birds. She said . . . oh yes. She said ‘foreign intruders.’ And I knew, of course, and I told her those god (bleeped) (bleepards) was the American consul from Ankara and three, four other CIA men. And bang, she turns right around—one hell of a U-turn—and she come back here. I don’t think she thinks she’s safe.”
Well, of course, she didn’t. Poor little wild desert girl.
“And she must have changed her mind,” he continued. “’Cause first she’s talkin’ about no god (bleeped) hassle and then she wants to know how much hits cost. Women!” he added disgustedly. “Always changin’ their (bleeping) minds!”
Yes, women were a trial. I could agree with that.
“Now,” he said, “hitting the American consul from Ankara is awful god (bleeped) close to home!”
Desperation is often father to inspiration. I had to get rid of this Silva. He was not only a menace to the base, he was also a threat to my continued possession of Utanc. He might persuade her to run off with him!
What was the most dangerous thing I could ask him to do? One that would be sure to get him killed. Who was the best-protected person on the planet?
“How about hitting the president of the US?” I suggested.
He shook his head. “Hell, I don’t want to be no hero like Oswald.”
Then I had it. This would surely get Silva killed! “How about the director of the CIA?”
He thought about it. He scratched his chin with the muzzle of the leopard. “Has its points. (Bleepards) and their American consuls. Has its points.” Then he fixed me with his opaque eyes. “All right,” he said. “I’ll do it for a hunnert big ones.” Then he added, “And expenses.”
I did a rapid calculation. I was slightly hazy on whether “big one” meant one hundred or one thousand. But let’s say it did mean one thousand. One hundred thousand Turkish lira was probably only about a thousand dollars US. And besides, he’d never make it. They’d shoot him to Swiss cheese.
“It’s a deal,” I said. Anything to get him away from Utanc. Even money. I reached into my pocket and got out a fistful of lira. I handed it to him. “You go get a room in town. And stay away from here so as not to compromise the plan. Sign in at the Castle Hotel: we haven’t shot the place up lately. Tomorrow you’ll receive money and a ticket to the United States.”
“You got some loads for this leopard?” he said. “I think the loads got wet in that god (bleeped) toilet bowl.”
I had some number-twelve-shot shotgun shells that would fit his gun. A dealer had been selling them cheap because number twelve shot is so tiny a pellet it is useful for nothing, not even canaries. I told him to go out in the yard. I got to my gun racks. I found the box. I even put a piece of lead in the side of it to make sure it showed up on aircraft detectors.
I went out. I gave him the box. I shook him by the hand. “Good luck,” I said fervently. But I did not say good luck to whom.
I told Karagoz to drive him to town.
Good riddance! Trying to steal Utanc!
I went into my office and wrote the order for the money and ticket to Faht Bey. I knew he’d squeal but this was an emergency. GOODBYE GUNSALMO SILVA!
PART TWENTY-FOUR
Chapter 5
WHY hadn’t that helmet worked?
I examined it. I put the stolen meter under it. Sure enough, it was dead! The light went on but no waves went through the helmet itself.
Just as I was about to call the technician, Flip, I remembered he’d been given a posthypnotic suggestion to forget it.
Something was definitely wrong here. But if I am good at languages, circuit diagrams and such are gibberish to me.
I laboriously got out all the other helmets. I tested each one with a meter.
They were all dead! The lights went on but they didn’t work!
My roseate dreams of controlling everybody on this planet with hypnotism were at stake.
Carefully, I went back over what had been done to them. They had all worked when he first fixed them.
Aha! I still had the cartons and boxes for the switches. I got one out. It said Mutual-Proximity Breaker Switch. Wait. It had some small print: Yippee-Zip Manufacturing Co., Industrial City, Voltar. No, no. Not that. The other side of the box. More small
print. It said:
Warning:
Minimum-Range Model. For Use Only in Spacevessels Operating in Formation. Active range: 2 miles.
The world fell in. Spacevessels travel so fast that a two-mile warning zone was nothing. Probably these switches were here in such abundance because they used a longer range switch normally—maybe a thousand miles.
But two miles!
Anytime I was within two miles of one of these helmets it wouldn’t work!
Forlornly, I tried to figure out how to put a helmet on somebody and then drive more than two miles away. . . . No, it was quite impossible.
Get the thing taken out of my head?
Oh, no, never! Not with Nurse Bildirjin sitting on my chest! Not any of that agony again! That Part B was in my skull from here on out!
Sadly, I put the helmets back in the vault.
And then, being of an optimistic temperament, I brightened. There was one thing very sure.
Krak would never be able to use a hypnohelmet on me again.
No more Manco devils!
It had all turned out successfully after all!
The Blixo was gone. Gunsalmo Silva was gone. Bawtch and the forgers would be dead. Heller had been set up to get his brains bashed in by Krak.
Maybe I could take a long snooze. And maybe go hunting. I had done splendidly well, really. The Apparatus would be proud of me. I had really earned a rest!
If only I could think of something that would please Utanc and bring her once again into my lonely bed.
PART TWENTY-FIVE
Chapter 1
In an optimistic mood, I conceived of a plan to make things even more all right.
My nights were pretty lonely and miserable without Utanc. I was certain I knew of something that would appeal to her.
I was planning a nice, quiet hunting trip. I had bought a Franchi Deluxe Automatic Shotgun during my last visit—twelve-gauge, thirty-two-inch barrel, full choke, three-inch magnum loads, five-shot magazine. I had never fired it. With No. 00 buckshot, each one .33 inches in diameter, it was the very thing for songbirds.
That shooting songbirds is illegal in Turkey goes without saying. They have odd ideas. But it is open season all year round for wolf, lynx and wild boar. And the season was open now for wildcat, fox, hare, rabbit, duck, partridge, woodcock and quail. The trick is to pretend you are hunting one of these and then, turning quick, shoot a songbird and say it got in the road.
Mission Earth Volume 3: The Enemy Within Page 20
