Space Visitor (UC), page 10
Mary Lou said promptly, "H-420."
Brett-James nodded. He set one of the dials and flicked a switch. The antenna slowly turned.
"Here we go," he muttered, when the small arrow mounted on it settled down.
Zimmerman started up the vehicle. "I'm not checked out on that gadget," he said. "Have you any idea of how far off he is?"
"About twenty kilometers, I shouldn't wonder."
"So," the Israeli said with satisfaction, "they brought him out on this side of the city. It'll make finding him a damn sight quicker."
"It would seem so. He's somewhere in the country, I should say, Kike. We would have had our work cut out finding him in the center of Greater Washington, even with this device."
From time to time, as they proceeded, Brett-James fiddled with his dials. Since they had to keep to the roads, they couldn't follow the arrow as the bird flies, but slowly they zeroed in on the area indicated.
Mary Lou said suddenly, "What do we do when we get there? Those men were all armed."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Nobody answered her.
Brett-James said, more excitement in his voice than was his wont, "I think that's it, by George! That rather large house up on the hill."
Zimmerman came to a halt immediately and the five of them contemplated the building.
"I wouldn't be surprised," Li Ching said. "The way it's situated, anyone approaching can be seen. It's an ideal setting for a hideout."
Zimmerman asked Brett-James, "Have you had any experience in house-to-house fighting, door-to-door combat? You know, when you're flushing out the enemy who's gone to ground in a building and has probably fortified it."
The Englishman looked a bit startled. "Well, no, old chap. I was in the air force before I got into the space force, you know."
Zimmerman took a deep breath. "Well, this is how it works. Speed is everything. You've got to keep on the move. You break in fast, and you come in shooting. You shoot at anything that moves. We're at a disadvantage here, because the Kraut is in there too and we don't want to cut him down. But there's at least four men in there with him and they're all armed. Don't hesitate for a minute, and don't try to take prisoners. They're kidnappers, and a kidnapper is a potential killer. In fact, they've already killed one man. Shoot first."
"I say…" Brett-James began.
"This is what we'll do. The front door is undoubtedly guarded. It will also be the strongest door, and I doubt if we'd have the chance to cut it open with our guns before they were prepared for us. What we'll do is slam up that hill as fast as this thing will take us, and then around to the back. The back door is usually the weakest one in a house. You blast the lock away and then stand to one side and I'll rush in and pop to the right—shooting, if anyone's there. Then you pop in behind me and jump to the left."
"And then?"
"And then we play it by ear," Zimmerman said. "They nabbed the Boche at two o'clock. They were probably up all night. It's now well past noon. Most likely some of them will be sleeping."
"What do we three do?" Azikiwe asked.
"The moment I'm out of the car, you scramble up here to the driver's seat and be all set to go. We might have to come out shooting and possibly one of us, or the Kraut, will have taken a hit. As soon as we get back into the car, move like a bat out of hell. If we don't come out within a few minutes, take off anyway, particularly if you come under fire. Return to this spot and get on the car phone and call the police and anybody else you can think of."
"I'm going in too," Mary Lou said. "He's my man."
"Like hell you are," Zimmerman told her. "We don't want to have to be worrying about you. If we had another gun, I'd say okay to Azikiwe, since she says she can handle a laser pistol. Since we haven't, she stays out here too."
"My father was a Nigerian paramount chief, and I was raised in a military atmosphere. I'm going in too. Mary Lou or Li Ching can drive the car."
"I am a member of the Party and three of my grandparents were on the Long March with Chairman Mao. I would be disgraced if I did not do all I could for my comrades. Besides, I know kempo. I'm going in too."
"What is this, a picnic?" Zimmerman protested. "Those men are armed. And desperate. Now shut up and obey orders."
Nothing went the way Max Zimmerman had planned it. Absolutely nothing.
They sped up the hill dramatically. Since it was a hover car, they were able to ignore the driveway and stuck to the lawns. They whipped around the house and the Israeli slammed on the brakes. He and Brett-James zipped out of the vehicle on either side, laser pistols in hand, and raced for the back porch.
The Englishman had brought up his gun to blast the lock off the door when they noticed it was slightly ajar.
Zimmerman gestured for his companion to stand to one side. He slammed the door open and jumped in and to the right, his gun ready at chest level.
He was in the kitchen, and there was no one else there.
Brett-James rushed in and flew to the left, as ordered. He was also taken aback to find no one to shoot at.
"What now?" he whispered.
Zimmerman was disconcerted. He could hear no sound in the house. Someone should have heard the banging of the door, at least, and come to investigate.
He gestured toward the interior of the house, then moved quietly toward the kitchen door.
He stood to one side and opened it slightly to peer through. There was no one in the hall beyond. Five doors opened off it, two at each side and one at the end. All but one were closed.
When they reached the first door, Zimmerman gestured to Brett-James to cover the others. He twisted the knob, flung open the door, and bounded inside.
He was back in the hall a split second later. "Empty bedroom," he whispered. Then, "Are you sure this is the house that he's in?"
Brett-James merely nodded.
They crossed the hall and repeated their performance, with the same result.
The next door was the one that was open. Zimmerman cautiously peered in.
L"Jesus Christ," he muttered softly. Werner Brecht was spread-eagled on the bed. 1M
On both wrists were old-fashioned handcuffs attached to the steel springs of the bed. He wasn't gagged. His eyes widened at their entrance.
While Brett-James carefully burnt through the steel manacles with his laser ray, Zimmerman bent down so that his lips were near Brecht's ear and whispered, "Where are they?"
Brecht whispered back, "I think one of them left in the car. I heard it start up about a half hour ago. I think the other three are in the front of the house, in the living room. They're armed, Kike."
He was free now, though the handcuffs were still about his wrists like bracelets.
Zimmerman shook his head. "I wonder why they didn't spot us when we drove up the hill. Lucky for us, otherwise they'd be in action by now. Well, one thing's for sure: when we start down that hill again, we'll be sitting ducks. We've got to finish them off. You stay here, Kraut. Better still, go on out and back and get into the car with the women. You're not armed."
"I'm coming," Brecht whispered back.
Zimmerman rolled his eyes upward in protest but they had no time to argue.
They tiptoed down the hall toward the door at the far end. The Israeli motioned Brecht to open it.
The two armed men rushed in, guns at the ready.
A table held cards and poker chips. The chairs knocked to the floor in their haste to rise, three men were standing, wide-eyed, staring in the direction of the French windows that had just banged open to allow Azikiwe Awolowo to come flying into the room. She went for the one nearest the window, going into the twenty-second Kata and screaming, "ZLT!" In an automatic defensive reaction, the enemy threw a left punch at her. She rushed in quickly with her left hand, came up and under the other's armpit and shoved him to the right with his arm held high. Now she was behind him. She jumped up and with her right foot kicked him heavily in the kidney. He groaned and fell forward.
The other two women had not been inactive during the performance.
Li Ching had come in running, straight for the one in the middle. Even as he desperately reached for his gun, she left the floor completely; one of her feet lanced into his solar plexus, the other into his groin. He shrieked in agony and clutched his scrotum,
The other had better luck, being on the far side of the table from the invading women. He had his gun out by the time Mary Lou had begun to round the furniture. The fallen chairs impeded her. The man wasn't slow. The gun came up fast.
Azikiwe had taken the time to kick her man in the side of the head, by way of insurance that he wouldn't get back into the action.
Li Ching, seeing the situation out of the corner of her eye, moved quickly in the direction of the gunman. But she was too late.
Zimmerman cut the man down with his laser pistol from the doorway.
Brett-James murmured, "I say, where did you people come from?"
Mary Lou stared down at the dead man. "We
… we got worried when you didn't come back and we didn't hear any sounds of a fight. We circled around the house and peeked in the windows and saw these three nonchalantly playing cards. So we thought we had better come in and help you fellows out, whatever you were doing."
Brecht shook his head in wonder. Zimmerman and Brett-James reversed their pistols and slugged the two fallen but still conscious men over the head.
"What did you think you were going to do to him when you came charging around the table?" Brecht asked Mary Lou.
"I was going to use my left hook on him."
While the other two women were brushing their pant suits clean, Zimmerman looked around at the carnage.
"We better get out of here," he said. "We know of at least one more of them and he might come back with friends." He added, "Take their guns."
They netted another laser pistol, a .44 Magnum, and, of all things, an old-time Luger. Brecht didn't understand the workings of the laser, so he took the .44 Magnum. Azikiwe took the laser and Li Ching, who had had military training on the commune on which she had been brought up, got the Luger. Only Mary Lou remained unarmed.
Brecht searched the men for the keys to his handcuffs. In moments he had the remnants of the manacles off his wrists.
Zimmerman looked down at the corpse, then at the other two. "We ought to finish them off," he muttered. "Just to play safe."
"No," Brecht said.
"They killed one of the watchmen in the Reunited Nations Building."
"I know. I saw it. But there's been too much violence already. Let's just get out of here."
They retraced their path through the house and exited by the kitchen door. They piled into the car, the three men in the front, the girls in the rear seat. Azikiwe kept a lookout through the rear window.
Brecht asked, "How'd you find me, and especially so soon?"
Brett-James told him.
"I'll be damned! I'd forgotten I was wearing it."
Zimmerman was driving. "Who were they?" he asked. "Soviets, American, Common———"
Brecht was shaking his head. "It was an old-fashioned kidnapping. Those guys were the Mafia, or Cosa Nostra, the Syndicate, the Mob—whatever they used to call them. If I got the story right, they were thinking of charging some enormous amount for me from the highest bidder."
Mary Lou said, "It would have been the biggest kidnapping of all time."
"Well, the damn fools didn't know their business. Imagine sitting around playing cards rather than guarding the house," Zimmerman muttered.
"They were supremely confident," Brecht said. "Everything they had planned went off like clockwork. They zigzagged all over the countryside before finally going to that house. Nobody was following. They were sure that they had it made. The one who left had gone off to make the preliminary arrangements to get in touch with the four space powers and offer them my fair body. By the way, where are we going now?"
"Where can we go?" Brett-James said. "Back to the Reunited Nations Building, I should say."
Li Ching said unhappily, "This is just the first attempt on the Kraut. There will be others."
"Yes, there will be others. And the next one might not be of this type. These people had to keep you alive for their purposes. The next one might be a pure and simple assassination."
"Such as by whom?" Brett-James asked.
"Such as some religious crackpot. Somebody possibly willing to give his life in order to suppress this blasphemer. It's hard to defend yourself against a man who is willing to die. There are others… those people interested in political economy are all out against the space programs. They think the money and scientific effort should be spent here on Earth relieving poverty and so forth. If the Kraut ever reveals the location of that extraterrestrial ship, there's a good chance the expenditures for space exploration will increase tenfold. For that matter," the Nigerian continued, "it could be some government, or governments, that would be left out, either one of the nations without a space program, or possibly one of those with one who felt they had no chance to get an exclusive."
Zimmerman said, "The People's Republic, for instance."
Li Ching flared, "China does not commit assassinations."
Zimmerman said very softly, "Chink, all coun-will commit assassination, or just about anything else, if it is felt to be necessary enough. Offhand, I can't think of an exception in history."
"Look here, this is a fascinating conversation, very cheering, but I haven't eaten since dinner last night. What do you say we stop at one of the automated cafeterias along the route here and get a sandwich or something?"
Brett-James said, "You might be recognized, Brecht."
"I suspect we could find one practically empty at this time of day."
Mary Lou said, "I could go in first and case the joint. If it's empty, or if there's some sort of alcove, then we can all go in."
They were speeding along the highway in the direction of the city.
Azikiwe asked, "Why not wait until we get back to the Reunited Nations Building?"
Brecht replied, "Because when we do we're going to be ass-deep in newspapermen and everybody else, and we won't get a chance to eat."
Brett-James said, "There's one now, and no cars are parked in front."
Zimmerman pulled up and Mary Lou got out and went into the roadside auto-cafeteria. She came out shortly and reported, "Nobody inside at all."
They entered. Just to be sure, they selected the most remote table in the restaurant and Brecht sat so that his back faced the other tables.
Before he could sit down, Mary Lou put her arms around him. "Darling… you have no idea how relieved I am to have you back."
He kissed her, smiling. "Thanks, Yawl. It's a bit relieving to me, as well."
They scanned the menus set into the table tops.
Zimmerman said sourly, "Do you think that food will ever come back?"
"I say, what in the hell do you expect, old chap—pastrami?''
"Pastrami, ah," Zimmerman said wistfully. "I guess I'll have this whaleburger. Imagine them herding those poor whales now as though they were cows."
"I think I'll have the pseudo-shrimp," Azikiwe sighed. "Does anybody remember when they had real shrimp last?"
"At twenty pseudo-dollars a serving?" Brecht grunted.
When they had all punched their orders, they sat back almost contentedly, their ordeal behind them. Then Li Ching said, "Somebody mentioned a while back that the only place to go is the Reunited Nations Building penthouse. But is it? The Kraut is a sitting duck there. I do not admit that the People's Republic would attempt his life, under any circumstances, but there are all of the others."
Brett-James looked at her. "Chink, Chink… I say, let's not be silly. Where else could we go? At least in the penthouse we have guards."
"Yes,'.' Azikiwe said. "And one of them might be the potential assassin. People have been assassinated by their guards before. Or how about somebody posing as a newspaper photographer with a concealed gun in his camera?"
"Jesus Christ," Zimmerman said accusingly to
Brecht, "why in the hell did you ever find that damn thing?"
"Not on purpose," Brecht told him wearily.
Brett-James said, even as the table top began to descend to bring up their orders, "Well, all I can say, my dear chap, is when you did you should have taken a quick pee on it and then collapsed that shelf over it and never told anybody."
Mary Lou said glumly, "And then some day the extraterrestrials would come back and we wouldn't be prepared for them. We wouldn't even know they existed."
Brecht stood. "Pardon me for a moment. Those characters not only didn't give a damn about my eating, but about other bodily functions either."
"Hurry back," Zimmerman said, reaching for the dishes he had ordered.
When he was gone, the five of them looked at each other.
Azikiwe said, "Somebody's going to get to him. We've been back no time at all, and look—the Soviets worked the Amazon into our suite, and then the Mafia turned up. It's only been a matter of hours, and each of us, except Mary Lou, has been approached with a scheme to wriggle the secret out of him."
"We can't take him back to that place," Mary Lou said.
Zimmerman picked up his knife and fork. "And where can we take him, Yawl?"
Brett-James said, "Maybe out of the country, somewhere."
"Where?" Li Ching said. "There's no place in the whole world where he's safe. How can you hide out in this age? You need your universal credit card to eat, to sleep, for transportation—for everything. And we're as vulnerable as he is. That is, they'd track him down through us if we tried to hide him out. We could hardly breath without our credit cards."
"Where in the hell is he?" Brett-James said suddenly.
Li Ching looked at him. "Why, he's in the men's room."
"Doing what? Taking a bath, by George?" The Englishman tossed his napkin to the table and left.
They stared after him.
He returned in moments, opened his hand, and showed them its contents. He was extremely upset.
"His electronic I.D. tag," he said. "Somebody's got to him again."
