No one should have been surprised, Durell thought. In this world of geometric progression in technological growth, almost anything seemed possible. Kevin Kendall had put it most bluntly, when he had addressed Homer Carboyd.
"I don't care how much you bluster and fume, Homer. We have absolutely no clue to who perpetrated this act. It may be that we are dealing with a madman. If so, it is with one who has access to a number of national territories— access with a freedom to plant, sow, or irradiate specific areas for his damned demonstration. Our photo satellite CP-242 has spotted all of the affected places, as far as we can tell. We've been in touch with various heads of state. Some of them, of course, promptly denied everything. But when we admitted George's Fields, the Kremlin discussed their collective at Drashnaya Kolvetzniya. Peking allowed as how something had gone wrong with their showcase commune at Shantze. The Egyptians refused to discuss Al Gharam. The Israelis are bitter about their kibbutz at Tefanya. West Germany, England, France are amenable to open discussion. Frankly, we're all frightened. The African nation of Pakuru, headed by Prince Tim Atimboku, refused to discuss anything, promptly blaming the nation to the north to which they refer simply as the 'Neighbors.' Japan is withholding comment."
Carboyd made a grunting sound as he relit his Cuban cigar. "Damned foolery. Together, the whole world can't be hijacked!" He hesitated. "Can it?"
"Yes," Kendall said softly. "It can be. It is. Because there's no answer in sight to what has been done to George's Fields."
"The President feels that by international cooperation—a joint refusal to pay ransom, so to speak—"
"Then there will be other, bigger, worse demonstrations. Perhaps whole cities will be sterilized. Perhaps your state of Kansas, with all its wheat. Life could end, sir, in this generation."
"It's a holdup," Carboyd said angrily. "A damned game. Somebody is laughing at us, all right."
"Yes. And the terms are most peculiar." Kevin Kendall turned to Durell. "You see, the messages delivered to the world's heads of state have stipulated an auction."
Durell stared at him. "The Zero Formula is up for grabs to the highest bidder?"
"Not only that, Sam. Each nation is to send an emissary to an as yet undesignated place, where the Zero Formula will be put up on the auction block and sold to whoever is willing to pay the highest price."
"As I said," Carboyd grated. "It's a holdup."
"What's money?" Kendall asked. "Can you compare it to the potential consequences? Can we allow anyone else to bid higher for this horror? We simply cannot allow any man to perpetrate this sort of thing on the entire world."
"It can't be one man," Durell said. "It must be an organization. The demonstrations took place simultaneously. That demands a lot of men, trained to distribute the formula. It could be the Russians, or the Chinese, covering up a hijack."
"The instructions," Kendall said, "specify that an intelligence agent be sent. The same orders went to our—ah— competitors. Israel and Egypt, being too volatile, have not been invited to the bidding. A nice touch, that. The Japanese, Swiss, the West German Bundesnachrichtendienst— the BND—have declined to participate. Sadly, some countries have decided to play it close to the vest and will not give out their intentions."
"How much is the asking price?" Durell inquired.
Kendall laughed. "The sky is the limit. It's been stipulated that an unlimited credit letter on a Swiss bank, with the payee's name left blank, be given the agent-bidder. It's pretty foolproof. The point is, everyone will try to stop the competition from getting in a bid. Just arriving at the auction—wherever it's to be—will take a miracle for any man. The Soviets and the Chinese will surely send their best people. McFee thinks you're our best choice. Think you can do it?"
Durell said, "How much time do we have?"
"We've been given two weeks. On the 27th of the month. But we don't know where the auction is to be, as yet."
Durell said, "But suppose I make it? Suppose I succeed in buying the Zero Formula and then live through the return trip. Every other agent will be after me and the formula. The top people, the best assassins. The setup shows a rather warped mind, to devise this thing. Someone wants to be amused, in a peculiar way. It won't be easy. But I want to be assured about the disposition of the Zero Formula when—if I get back."
"The President will decide all that. Obviously, we all feel it must not fall into irresponsible hands. You must succeed, Sam."
"How do I get to the auction block?"
Kendall spoke quietly. "Each step of the way will be marked by new instructions, we are told. Your first leg is to come to Geneva with me and set up the financial arrangements. You'll be responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars. Really, unlimited funding. At the Chantilly Hotel, you will be told where to go next." Kendall paused. "There are no stipulations that you proceed alone. You can pick your own men."
Durell had thought. Why me?
He should have been flattered that the three most powerful men under the President had chosen him. He had been in the business for a long time, longer than he cared to remember. Nothing like this had ever happened before. A collection of the world's deadliest, most efficient, most dedicated agents were to compete with each other for a technological freak device, a device that could be used by any ambitious, violent nation against the rest of the world. Several things bothered him about it. He thought it showed a macabre sense of humor. He felt as if someone was playing with him. And he was not at all sure that the end would be what Homer Carboyd, General McFee, and Kevin Kendall expected.
2
The Jet d'Eau sparkled and splashed in Lac Leman under the cool sun of Switzerland. From the balcony of their small suite in the Chantilly, Durell watched a lake steamer from Ouchy-Lausanne head for the docks to his right. Across the bright water, the hills and spires of the Old Town lifted against a flawless sky. The distant Alps to the south were heavy with snow.
Inside the suite, Durell had turned the radio up loud. On the balcony, Kevin Kendall shivered. His silver hair gleamed in the pale sunlight.
"It's cold out here."
"It's safest," Durell said.
"Why do you think the hotel rooms are bugged?"
"They must be. We were directed to stay here, even told what suite to take. It had been reserved for us by cable from Madrid, and prepaid." Durell had gone through the baroque rooms with the proverbial fine-tooth comb. The faded settees and cushioned chairs yielded nothing. He had turned up the carpets, taken the beds apart, checked the heavy draperies with their tarnished gilt tassels, making certain that each hanging, each picture frame was clean. It was a tedious job, but he was patient about it. It took an hour before he discovered the loose plaster angel among the others in the ceiling corners. It yielded slightly to the pressure of his finger. The others were fixed solidly. He took a chair and stood on it to reach the height of the ceiling, and then noted impressions on the carpet where someone else had placed a chair similarly. Very carefully, he moved the winged cupid, which had had its nose chipped off and regilded sometime in the past. The plaster casting was hollow. Inside, he saw the bugging device, small and gleaming, a complete tape recorder that was self-contained on long-life batteries, voice-sound activated. He did not disturb it. He replaced the cupid and put the chair back where it belonged, then turned on the radio and took Kevin Kendall out on the iron-railed balcony.
"Why did you leave it there?" Kevin asked curiously. "It can't do us harm, as long as we know about it. We might want to feedback some misleading data, too."
"Yes. Well. I am not aware of the refinements of your profession, Sam." Kevin took the envelope he had returned from the bank with. He had gone to a private banker, an unincorporated firm named Bank Bloch, which had been set up by K Section with a Swiss, a M. Bloch, as a front. Kevin's face was solemn. "You can bid up to two hundred million, to start with. More funds will be available, if necessary." The Bostonian hesitated. "It's a lot of money. A clever man, with an open letter of credit lik
e this, working within the rules of the Swiss banking system, could dispose of these funds throughout the world and never leave a trace. You understand that, Sam?"
Durell's smile was thin. "Don't you trust me yet? Do you think I'm about to abscond with it?"
"It's a great responsibility. I don't know that I'd care to be trusted with it." Kevin shivered slightly in the cool wind that blew off Lac Leman. "I wouldn't trust myself. No man knows what he may do, under unforeseen circumstances. How will we be able to communicate with you?"
"Part of our job setup is to have Centrals all over the world," Durell said. "I have a GK-12 transceiver, as well. It's small, but powerful. It still may not carry far enough, depending on our ultimate destination, but it's the best we've got. I'll try to report regularly."
"You have only eleven days left," Kevin reminded him.
"Yes."
"You must be very careful. Where will you keep the letter of credit?"
"It will be on my person."
"Isn't that—ah—risky?"
"The whole thing is a risk. If I'm taken, or if our competitors stop me, the whole thing blows up for us, anyway. It's a race for the fittest, and our opposition will send in their best people."
"But all that money—"
Durell said drily, "Rest assured, Mr. Kendall, I'll guard it with my life."
3
He waited quietly through that evening, dining at the hotel, taking a split of wine from the lake vineyards. Kevin left on a 1600 Pan Am plane from Cointrin Airport at Geneva. The hotel dining room was not particularly crowded at this season of the year. The winter economy tourists had left and the summer invasion of hippies and college kids had not yet begun. There was an air of leisure and relaxation at the Chantilly.
Andy Weyer arrived first.
He had flown in from West Berlin, where he had been working with the West German BfV, the equivalent of the FBI, on internal security. Weyer looked like a youthful college professor, his light brown hair rather longish, his sneakers dirty and scuffed, his sack suit rumpled. He seemed uncomfortable in a shirt and necktie. He had an engaging smile—a smile that never touched his eyes, if you looked closely. He had been recruited by K Section during a semester's sabbatical and had given up his chair in ancient history at Wesleyan to devote all his time to the business. He took to work for the agency with a sense of relief, as if he had found his niche in life. He was a natural. He was tall, but not as tall as Durell, with a lithe body as lean as a whip. He had trained himself diligently and applied his scholar's mind to work at hand with enormous success. He wore horn-rimmed glasses, which gave him a professorial look at odds with his beard and long hair.
"Yo, Cajun."
Durell liked him. "Good to see you, Andy."
"This is a tough one, they tell me. A kind of paper chase, they said."
"Yes, that's the phrase. It's a no-limit, hands-off assignment," Durell told him. "I don't know much more about it than you, Andy. I've sent for Tony Belmont from Syria. And we'll pick up Willie Wells and Agosto, who's in Lisbon, wherever we go next. For the moment, we sit here and wait for instructions. How are you armed?"
Andy Weyer shrugged. "Knife, gun, thermite bomb, a bit of plastique. Is it in Europe?"
"We don't know where we'll go, until we're told. That will be whenever they get around to it. You're not to leave me, Andy. If I go down, you're to get the letter that's in my zippered belt. Get it, no matter what. Understood?"
"Yo," Weyer said. "Do I know what's in it?"
"An unlimited letter of credit on Bank Bloch, with the payee's name left blank."
Weyer laughed. He had good white teeth. He liked to eat organic food, and looked with distaste at the remains of Durell's dinner. "I'll watch you like I was glued to you, Cajun. Like we were Siamese twins, right?"
"Right on," Durell said.
They waited in the suite through the long hours of evening. Andy said, "Certain aspects of this thing get to look curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said."
"Yes.”
"There has to be an organization," Weyer decided. "A very good one. Headed by a top man."
"Yes."
"I know I'm covering ground you've already considered, Cajun. Just let me consider it aloud. Whoever devised the Zero Formula is a scientist, an academic brain. That sort of mind doesn't normally go on to develop such an elaborate, whimsical scheme as this auction-to-be. We're in Alice in Wonderland, I think. Or maybe following a thread through the fabled Minotaur's labyrinth, like Theseus. We should be so lucky as Theseus was in ancient Crete, long ago. It suggests a certain modus operandi, I'd say."
"I have Charley Weintraub working on the m.o.'s of every top intelligence agent for the past thirty years. No farther back. This one wouldn't be that old. It's somebody who has retired, defected, quit, or simply vanished. So I have Weintraub going through the dead files, too. The computers have not come up with anything yet."
Andy Weyer crunched raw nuts with his strong teeth. He ate them by the handful. From his baggy coat pocket, he took out a packet of raisins and began eating them, too. His eyes were thoughtful behind his horn-rimmed glasses.
"Suppose Charley doesn't find anything?"
"He must. Whoever developed the Zero Formula has a partner, an agency man like ourselves, but a top one, who knew enough to demand that only operatives of first-class stature be assigned to this auction. It's a rather macabre game," Durell said. He had ordered a bottle of bourbon from the Chantilly's bar, and he poured some deliberately, aware of Andy Weyer's disapproval. "It's somebody who knows our names, our dossiers. Not just K Section people, either. From every intelligence department in the world. Even the Shin Bet, in Israel."
"How many bidders will there be?"
"At least a dozen. Perhaps more," Durell said. "Every one an expert, every one deadly. And each of them anxious to stop any or all of the others from getting to the auction."
"And afterward?" Weyer asked mildly.
"Even if we're successful in bidding high enough to get the thing—and making certain there are no duplicates and that the inventor comes back with us—there will be the problem of getting safely back to Washington. The competition will be after us like a pack of hounds. We'll be going into a nest of snakes, Andy. There won't be any rules. No gentlemen's agreements, either, afterward."
"It's a sticky one," Weyer agreed, "Maybe I should have borrowed one of our new tanks."
4
The telephone rang.
The voice was a tape recording, deliberately distorted by mechanical filters so its true identity was impossible to guess. Durell thought it was a man's voice; Andy Weyer thought it to be a middle-aged woman's husky contralto.
This message will not be repeated. You are to go to Rome on Alitalia Flight 202 leaving Cointrin Airport at 0600. At the Leonardo da Vinci Airport you will go to the Antiquita Tour Agency on the upper level and receive tickets for your next destination. No more than four of you, including Mr. Durell and Mr. Weyer, will be permitted to travel farther. The schedule is tight, gentlemen. We wish you a safe journey. For the moment, you are in no danger. The other travelers who will also bid are proceeding to our mutual destination by various routes. You should not cross their paths until the end. Good luck. And take good care of the money!
Andy Weyer blew air out from between thinned lips. "They know everything. Even about me."
"Which confirms my idea," Durell said, "that there is an intelligence apparatus at work in this."
"I swear, nobody followed me from Berlin."
"They didn't have to."
"You mean there's a leak in our own group?"
"Not necessarily. Just that we're under surveillance, very good, very professional."
"Doesn't that bother you, Cajun?"
"Not yet," Durell said.
"It bothers me," Weyer said. "Like a goldfish in a bowl. We're also like monkeys on a string."
"We'll snap the string when I'm ready. Let's get some sleep."
Tony Belmont
joined them in Rome, coming in from Beirut. The cadaverous man, who had continuous Q clearance, had a peculiar affinity for Andy Weyer. Belmont was older, quiet, and had on his record six official kills for K Section. He was a professional assassin whose genius was directed against enemy counteragents and double agents from Peking's Black House and twice from the KGB, his victims being men whose sole job was to disrupt, terrorize, or eliminate anyone who stood in the way of enemy expansionist and subversive policies. His attitude toward Andy was that of an older brother, quietly protective. Andy would have resented it if it had been too overt. The two men were close friends. In a sense, Durell envied them. He had never permitted himself the luxury of a close attachment that might cause hesitation at a critical moment, a delay or a shading of perspective on the job.
Their next flight was to Addis Ababa on an Air Ethiopia 707. The ticket agent at the Rome airport knew nothing about the purchaser of their tickets.
"They came yesterday, signor. Is all paid for, all reservations confirmed."
"Where did they come from?" Durell asked the man.
"Please. I know nothing. It is not my purpose to question such things, is it? They came by mail, cash included."
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