Mission Earth 09 - Villainy Victorious

by Villainy Victorious [lit]

  Heller sketched it with a pen and took the map.

  He ran over to where Bang-Bang sat worriedly in the cab, looking distrustfully at the army, an organization which, as an ex-marine, he despised. Heller, arriving from behind, startled him.

  Hastily, Heller gave him some instructions and handed him the map. A soldier was wheeling up a des­patch rider's motorcycle.

  Bang-Bang got out of the cab. Heller took the des­patch rider's helmet and put it on Bang-Bang. Then Hel­ler reached into the cab and hung the satchel around Bang-Bang's neck.

  The soldier jiggled the carburetor primer. Bang-Bang stamped on the kick-start, gave Heller a look of mis­giving and then the motorcycle roared away, spreading terror amongst the troops it barely missed as it rocketed for the gate. Bang-Bang was gone.

  Heller climbed into the cab, which now looked like an army car, started up, and with a salute to the officer, sped down the drive and away.

  He had expected to catch up with Rockecenter by the time they had reached the Tappan Zee Bridge. But when he went through the tollgate, he could see no sign of the limousine or tank on the long span across the Hud­son. He hoped Bang-Bang was riding fast enough. Rocke­center was certainly revving it up.

  Heller roared across the two-and-a-half-mile span: the Hudson River sparkled blue below in the July noon sun, a vast waterway stretching to the distant sea.

  Reaching the New Jersey side, he turned south on Highland Avenue, actually a highway in its own right. Even though it was Sunday and he was entering the long series of parks which stretched sixteen miles or more along the river, there was no traffic to be seen anywhere: the U.S. was out of gas completely, except for the favored or those with foresight, and they weren't wasting it on picnicking.

  A few miles south of the bridge, the road turned through a rolling, grassy area, a deserted golf course. He was going very fast. The turn ahead was blind. He shot around it.

  THE LIMOUSINE AND THE TANK!

  They were stopped beside the road.

  Rockecenter was out of the car.

  One of the tank crew was evidently trying to fix the limousine's whip antenna.

  There was no time to brake or duck.

  Rockecenter looked straight into Heller's face! He raised his hand to point and yell.

  It all happened in the blur of three seconds. Heller shot past them at eighty miles an hour.

  There was another curve in the road coming right up. A park lay all along on Heller's right.

  He rounded the turn, saw in his rearview mirror that the tank was out of sight.

  There was an opening into the park right ahead.

  Heller stamped on his brakes.

  The old cab skidded sideways with a scream.

  He dived it into the trees, saw he was covered, and stopped.

  He could hear the tank engine roar.

  He opened the door and peered through the leafy cover at the road.

  He saw the tank. It was some old model, the kind of equipment they give reserve units when the regulars no longer want it. It had wheels, not treads, for fast highway travel. It might be old but it had a big gun in its turret and machine guns pointing out in front. The officer was riding with the hatch open, standing in it, goggled and helmeted and holding a drawn .45. That told Heller all he needed to know. They had orders to shoot him.

  The tank went by. Then, here came the limousine. He saw Rockecenter leaning forward and peering ahead, pushing at his driver's back.

  Heller recalled his map. For the next two miles, until they reached Palisades Interstate Parkway, the scenic route which ran along the high cliffs of the Hud­son, the road had few curves. He waited.

  When he felt sure he would not be spotted, he backed out onto the highway and proceeded south.

  There was no sign of Bang-Bang.

  Somehow, Heller knew, he had to get those patents back. What Rockecenter would do with them was just put them in a drawer, for he had done that with numer­ous Earth inventions which would have economized on or substituted for oil. He would order the microwave power units dismantled. He would close off the produc­tion of the carburetor and gasless cars. And he would con­tinue the profitable pollution of the planet.

  If Rockecenter succeeded in getting war declared, control of all the oil companies, which he had already, would come right back into his hands. And so would the other things he already controlled, such as banking. He still owned all the governments by way of international finance. The only thing Heller would have effected would have been the removal of the threat of nuclear war, by destroying Russia. And maybe Rockecenter would build that up again somehow so he could sell arms once more.

  Heller did not care what happened to Rockecenter himself now. The man had committed the cardinal sin of breaking his word and, to a Fleet officer, that ended off any mercy that Rockecenter might expect if it came to a final showdown. They had given him what was really a fair out: he had taken advantage of it like a thief, even to the point of stealing their wallets.

  Driving at a good speed, he opened the glove com­partment of the cab. No gun. He glanced into the back seat. No gun. Bang-Bang had probably put the regula­tion Colt .45 Heller had been issued in the shoulder satchel. If the tank stopped again, it left Heller with no weapons. All he could do was hope he wouldn't have to go bare-handed up against a tank.

  He turned several curves. Suddenly Entrance 4 of the Palisades Interstate Parkway loomed. He shot out onto its broad expanse.

  Too late, he saw the limousine and tank a mile ahead.

  The officer must have been looking back. Heller had been seen!

  The tank swerved out, let the limousine pass it and fell in behind the car.

  Heller was hastily checking his speed.

  He didn't check it fast enough.

  A burst of machine-gun fire slashed the trees to his right!

  The tank turret was coming around.

  Heller braked hard.

  BLAM!

  The tank shell hit the road in front of the cab and screamed over the top of it in a ricochet.

  Heller slued the cab over into the left-hand lanes.

  BLAM!

  Another shell hit where the cab had just been!

  Where the scenic highway made a close approach to the cliffs above the river, there was a turn. The tank and limousine passed around it.

  Heller straightened up the cab and proceeded. He recalled from the map that the parkway had more curves from that point on, closing with and drawing away from the cliffs.

  He glanced to his left. The Hudson stretched out majestically. It was bordered for the next nine miles by sandstone precipices, vertical down to the water, from 540 to 200 feet in height where the river had slashed through the lower Catskill Mountains. Across the river, a mile away, lay Yonkers, and to the south, thirteen miles from here, glistened the skyscrapers of Manhattan. The air seemed clearer today: the absence of cars and chim­ney smoke-plus, perhaps, the spores of Ochokeechokee now drifting around Earth were making some small change in the polluted atmosphere already. It was, in fact, a beautiful clear day. It made Heller cross: Rocke­center was bound and determined to destroy such gains.

  He was being alert now for some sign of Bang-Bang. He hoped his friend had gotten well ahead and wouldn't be spotted by that tank.

  He went another five miles. The parkway slid inland from the high cliffs now and was bordered by tall, im­pressive trees.

  Heller was afraid he'd lose them. He speeded up to eighty.

  A turn was just ahead where the broad highway twisted once more east, back to the Hudson.

  Heller took the turn.

  Too late, he saw the tank only a quarter of a mile ahead!

  They were only doing about forty!

  Heller was closing a lot too fast!

  BLAM!

  As he saw the turret gun flash, he veered left.

  The shell went by with a shriek.

  A spray of machine gun bullets hit his windshield, pocks of sudden white in
the bulletproof glass.

  He veered to the right.

  BLAM!

  A shell screamed by on his left.

  Suddenly he saw the motorcycle.

  It was lying tipped on its side in the left lane!

  Had Bang-Bang been caught up with?

  Suddenly Heller understood what that motorcycle meant.

  The limousine and tank were only a few hundred yards ahead. They were speeding around the turn where the parkway was directly above the Hudson three hun­dred feet straight down.

  Heller stamped on his brakes and spun the cab.

  It screeched in a full 360 degrees.

  Heller had it in reverse.

  He shot backwards.

  BOOOOOOOOM!

  Bright orange fire erupted from under the highway and bloomed hugely into the sky.

  A hundred-yard strip of highway was going up into the air!

  The tank was flung, as from a catapult, high out over the river!

  As it hit the zenith of its flight, it suddenly exploded as a bomb of its own. Its ammunition and gasoline ripped it into a balloon of fire.

  The concussion hit the cab and the tires screeched as it shot backwards.

  Then Heller saw the limousine.

  It was high in the air, turning over and over.

  It spun slowly and plummeted down into the Hud­son, hundreds of feet below.

  Chapter 3

  The debris was pattering down, hitting the highway all around and the cab.

  The column of smoke was puffing, like an expand­ing balloon, up into the summer sky.

  Heller sped the cab forward, avoiding massive lumps of concrete. He came close to the edge of the enor­mous gash that had been gouged out of the cliffside.

  He leaped out of the cab and raced to the edge of the precipice. Some pieces of debris were still strik­ing the water.

  The ocean tide apparently had been moving in, for the splashes were drifting a bit northward against the nor­mal current of the river.

  Heller was looking for any sign of the limousine three hundred feet below.

  Footsteps came running behind him.

  Bang-Bang Rimbombo. "I'm glad you saw the bike," he panted. "It was the only signal I could think of to tell you the road was mined ahead."

  "Holy Heavens," said Heller. "I didn't tell you to blow the whole highway and cliff down! You were only supposed to blast down a barricade."

  "Well, when I opened the satchel," said Bang-Bang, "those itty-bitty charges looked so small, I had misgiv­ings. I really stuffed them in. I never saw such compact dynamite in all my years in demolition. Jesus, Jet, I'm sorry. I guess I overdid it!"

  Heller didn't dare tell him he had been using Voltar explosives, a million times as powerful as Earth dyna­mite. He was looking anxiously for any sign of the lim­ousine.

  Suddenly, there it was!

  It surfaced from the depths, upside-down, buoyed by the quantities of air trapped by its air-conditioning seals. It must have gone clear to the bottom and come back.

  Bubbles were coming from it. It would sink again!

  Jet was stripping off his clothes.

  "No!" cried Bang-Bang. "You can't dive three hun­dred feet!"

  Heller, down to his underpants, grabbed the satchel off Bang-Bang's shoulder. He snatched out a short jimmy with a wrist strap. He reached in again and grabbed a round cylinder. It was smooth and bright but it had a dial on one end. He gave the dial a twitch with his thumb.

  "You're not seeing any of this," he yelled at Bang-Bang.

  The limousine was again beginning to sink. Heller marked it from spots on shore.

  Heller took a run and leaped off the top of the cliff. He went way out.

  HE DIDN'T FALL!

  Gaping, Bang-Bang saw him hanging by the cyl­inder in one hand. He did not know it was an antigravity coil and he couldn't register what he was looking at.

  With the thumb of his other hand, Heller gave the dial another twist. He swooped down a hundred feet. He thumbed the coil again and, using his body as a plane, dived in the direction of the bubbles still coming up from the sinking limousine.

  He hit the water. It was cold. Below the surface, he thumbed the coil to turn it off and then held it with his teeth.

  He swam to the bubble chain.

  He surfaced, took a deep breath around the cylinder and then dived.

  The limousine was sinking very slowly but it had already reached twenty feet.

  Heller looked along the metal hulk and peered in. Through the murky blue of the water he could only see some blobs inside. He found the edge of a door and inserted the jimmy. The thing did not want to open, held shut by water pressure. He couldn't break a win­dow: they were bulletproof glass.

  The limousine continued slowly down. If he let the air out, it would sink like a rock. He'd never be able to recover that heavy briefcase today: it would take divers and cranes and would be a lot too slow and a lot too public.

  The vehicle was still upside down, its buoyancy inverted, possibly, by the tires and a partially empty gas tank.

  Heller rose and got to one of the rear springs. He inserted the antigravity coil into it and used the jimmy to make it wedge tightly. He gave the dial a twist to maximum.

  The limousine ceased to sink. The rear of it began to rise.

  Heller was out of air. He battered his way to the sur­face and took a long gulp.

  The rear of the limousine came out of the water slowly, rose five feet above it and hung there. The anti-gravity coil had reached its limit.

  Heller went back to the rear door edge that was out of the water and attacked it with his jimmy. There was a snap as the lock broke. He opened the door.

  Water rushed in and the limousine began to sink.

  Heller pushed in. The driver's body was in the way. Heller pushed it aside. He spotted the case, half-buoy­ant. He grabbed its handle and pulled it. Moving back­wards, he got out of the limousine door.

  He found himself looking into the staring eyes of Rockecenter. The body had followed him, impelled by the current of water.

  Heller had an impulse to push it back. Then he didn't. He took it by the collar and hauled it out of the car.

  He only had two hands and he now had two objects, the case and the corpse. And he had to recover that coil! To leave it would be a Code break, for this car possibly would be recovered.

  With one hand, he held the case and the collar of dead Rockecenter. The car was level with the water now. With his thumb he turned the dial and, following quickly as the vehicle abruptly sank, pried it out of the spring.

  He surfaced with his burdens, treading water.

  The Jersey shore seemed some distance away.

  He took Rockecenter's coattail, pulled it up around the case and wedged it around his own arm. He slid the antigravity coil into his other hand and turned it on slightly. His burden buoyed.

  With his free hand, he began to paddle to the cliffs. At the foot of them, at the bottom of the slide, he saw Bang-Bang dancing up and down, waiting to help him out of the water.

  Heller, as he paddled, glanced around at the deserted landscape. These gasless days, they had the whole world to themselves. Americans, in a culture built around the automobile, could only stay home. Aside from a few birds, no witnesses.

  Chapter 4

  Two hours later, Heller stopped the cab at the front door of the Pokantickle house. Bang-Bang got off the bike and opened the cab's rear door. Heller reached in and picked Rockecenter's body off the floor.

  He turned and walked up the front steps. The National Guard major general was standing there star­ing, horrified, as he gazed at the drooping arms and lolling head of the corpse.

  Bang-Bang was following, carrying the heavy case. Bang-Bang looked with contempt at the general. "Lousy army," he said. "See what your delay caused! Maysa­bongo saboteurs blew up the tank and the road. You cost Rockecenter his life!"

  The general stared at the body, then at the pock­marked windshield.
"We'll get after them at once!"

  "They're all dead," said Bang-Bang. "Blown to bits. Weren't you responsible for Rockecenter's safety?"

  The general sagged. "They'll court-martial me!"

  Heller shook his head. "We don't want to end your career. We won't say anything if you don't."

  "God bless you, Lieutenant!" said the general. "Just tell me what I can do for you."

  "You can have them bring those two men you are holding back into the office. We weren't finished with them yet."

  The general sprinted off.

  Heller carried the body into the office and laid it on the couch.

  Bang-Bang swung the heavy case up and put it on the desk. Heller came over and put his ear against it, twiddling the combination. Presently there was a click. He opened the cover.

  The label said it was fireproof and waterproof and it must be true. The papers inside were all dry. Heller ruf­fled them to make sure they were all present.

  A dry, rasping voice sounded at the door. "I think that you will need me. I'm a lawyer without a client." Bury! His head was all swathed in bandages, his prune face very solemn.

  Heller stared at him. "You aren't dead then. You were even conscious when he fired you!"

  "Of course I was conscious. But you didn't think I was going to go up against you again, did you? Anybody who can live through J. Walter Madison is unkillable!"

  "So you're the one who put him on to me!" said Heller.

  "Worse than that," said Bury. "I'm the one that re­layed Rockecenter's orders to kill you when you were born."

  "You criminal!" said Heller.

  "Well, let me put it this way, Junior. I am a Wall Street lawyer. The client is dead: Long live the heirs."

  "You don't keep your word!" said Heller.

  "A Wall Street lawyer only keeps his word to his client, Junior. That's the legal profession. But you need me. You need my firm. The lines are intricate. For instance, I can handle Faustino."