Vigilante 21st Century, page 12
“Nonsense!” Bright said. “She’s on our side.” As he was speaking, Bright was releasing the brakes. “Did she see you?”
“Sure,” Rebel answered. “But she acted as if she didn’t know me.”
Before Bright could speak again, the police radio had come on again, calling him on his own police-department code number. Bright gave a quick go-ahead to the dispatcher. “Kick on your scrambler,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” The voice of the announcer came through the static rattle of the scrambler. “We had man lying in the street. The squad car investigating reports the man to be dead—and covered with a red rash. On this red rash, our computer fed back your code number for you to be informed.”
“Thank you. Out.” Bright said. He turned to Rebel. “A dead man covered with a red rash. What does that remind you of?”
“Nothing I want to remember,” his aide answered.
“Nor I. Get into the back and see where Mrs. Kether is.”
“She’s same place, Mr. Bright,” Mr. Marcus answered for himself. “She’s a stopped.”
Bright slowed the truck again. In his mind was the thought that if he went back to the drive-in, he might have a chance to talk to Carole.
Brrrt!
Before Bright could turn the truck, one of the little compacts he had seen in the drive-in went past the truck. In the front seat, beside the driver, he caught a glimpse of Carole.
Brrrrrrrt!
The second compact went past the truck.
“Are they following us?” Rebel asked.
“Not any more, they’re not,” Bright said. “They were both doing seventy miles per hour when they passed.”
“How do they keep from getting tickets?”
“A lot they care for tickets! If they get a ticket, it will either vanish from the files or some high-priced lawyer will appear in court to plead not guilty. The chances are the citation will be dismissed right there.”
“We can’t beat them in court?”
“Not much chance of it, in our corrupt courts. All we can do is bet our lives—and leave the decision to a higher court,” the vigilante leader said. “Tell Mr. Marcus I am going to move in closer on the target.”
The tires of the truck made soft noises on the asphalt. The smog seemed to be growing thicker. At the ground level, it was a tangible something that you could see and smell, a foulness that set off alarm signals in your lungs. Widening, the street became a boulevard divided by a broad parkway in the center. Stately houses kept carefully away from the curb here, mansions of many rooms, homes where those who had made it big in real estate, oil, or the market found expression of their exalted status. Many of these homes preceded the jet age and went back to the earlier gasoline period when the automobile was new. The parkway in the center of the boulevard had once held cinder paths where horsemen and horsewomen might canter in the early mornings and late afternoons. The big houses on either side had been remodeled to fit the tastes of the changing times.
The boulevard ended in a set of iron gates—locked now—rising out of stone buttresses on either side of the street. An unobstrusive sign said,
THIS IS A PRIVATE PLACE.
PLEASE, NO TRESSPASSING.
Beyond the iron gates a single house as big as many European castles was dimly visible in the night.
“Which way now, Mr. Marcus?”
“Is maybe two blocks to our right—and standing still.” Rebel stuck his head into the cab of the truck. “I remember this private place,” he said, nodding toward the iron gates. “One huge sprawling house on five acres of land!”
Turning the truck, Bright began to search for a cross street that would take him nearer the target they were seeking.
“How is Mr. Marcus doing?” Bright asked.
“He’s like a hunting dog sniffing the wind,” Rebel answered.
“Is very close,” Mr. Marcus said, answering for himself.
Ahead, Bright saw the cross street,
Brrrrrt!
Motor wide open, the powerful little compact car came in from the side street. As if the truck was exactly what was being sought the young woman at the wheel swung the little car directly in front of the bigger vehicle. Brakes squealed as the vigilante leader swung the truck toward the curb, just barely managing to stop in time to avert a collision.
“Trouble?” Rebel said from the rear.
With the truck stopped, the young woman stepped out of the little compact car. With meaningful strides she moved toward the stalled vehicle.
Out of the window of the truck, Bright put three needles into her before she had taken four strides toward him. She flinched at the impact, winced, started to fall, caught herself—and lifted her index finger to point toward Bright.
Lifting her hand took more strength than the fastacting anaesthetic had left in her. Just at the edge of the lights of the truck, she slumped to the asphalt, where she lay like a wan doll in ultraexpensive clothes, a doll with the slenderest of legs, the flattest of tummies, the highest of breasts.
“Is there anybody else in that little car?” Rebel whispered.
“I don’t think so,” Bright said. The vigilante leader went out the left door of the truck, his aide went out the right. Bright lifted the wan doll in his arms, to the alarm of his aide.
“Boss, what if that bomb in her back explodes?”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t,” Bright answered. He set the limp body behind the steering wheel of the little car. Together, he and Rebel shoved the little compact into the driveway of the nearest house.
The whole operation took perhaps four minutes. When they were finished and were back in the truck, it looked as if somebody who lived there had forgotten one of his cars and had left it out for the night. If anyone caught a glimpse of the figure behind the wheel, he would assume that some teenager had returned home late.
In the truck, Rebel had questions. “Was she looking for us or was she willing to kill just anybody in this vicinity?”
“Let’s hope it was the latter,” Bright said. Thoughts of Carole twisted through his mind. He swung the truck into the cross street, went one block, and turned left again. Here the neighborhood changed and became more middle-class. The people who lived here were minor executives. Many of them were servants of those who lived in the larger houses. Small apartment houses were on this street, a drugstore, a corner grocery store—and even an all-night service station.
“Is getting closer!” Mr. Marcus whispered from the rear. As the truck passed the all-night service station, his voice rose in a squeak.
“Is there! Is there! Is in service station!”
Bright pulled the truck into the service station. An old-model sedan was parked near the entrance to the restrooms. A small green truck of the type used by painters and paperhangers was parked beside the sedan. Inside the station, an attendant was asleep in a chair leaned back against the wall. As the big truck went over the tripper hose, a bell clanged and the attendant awakened and came sleepily to pull the cover from the meter panel and to begin checking the amount of stored electricity in the vehicle. As he was doing this, a woman wearing a shawl over a long black dress that reached the ground came out of the restroom. On her head was a big hat with feathers in it. In her hand she carried a big knitted bag that resembled the tote bags carried by Negro servants in the old South. She limped to the green truck and, standing beside it, talked to the driver behind the wheel.
“You’ve got ninety percent charge,” the attendant said.
Bright watched the woman. Behind him, in the truck, he could hear Mr. Marcus hissing for attention.
“Is oh so close, Mr. Bright!” Mr. Marcus was saying.
The woman left the truck. Walking with a slight limp, she crossed the street. There a high stone wall shut off the huge mansion that occupied the private place from the sight of those passing along the street. The top of the wall had three barbed wires—probably charged—running along it. In the wall was a single iron gate, obviously the servants’ entrance.
“Do you want me to put in another jolt of juice?” the attendant asked.
“No, I guess not,” Bright said. “I didn’t know I was ninety percent high. Here’s a buck for your trouble.”
“Thanks, mister.” The attendant trudged back into the station to resume his interrupted nap.
“Where is she now?” Bright asked.
“She’sa right behind the truck!” Mr. Marcus answered.
“Ah!” Bright said. In the side mirror of the truck, he watched the woman limp along the sidewalk that ran beside the high stone wall. The shawl, the long black dress, the big knitted bag, and the flowers in the hat all gave the impression that this was a downstairs maid who had come to mop up the kitchen and the downstairs prior to the arrival of the cook. The cook might live in or live out, the cook might be a man or a woman, but he was certain to be temperamental and difficult. Perhaps the master would rise by nine, perhaps he would sleep through to noon. Unless the madam had ordered the breakfast menu in advance, the cook would have to wait for her descent before preparing breakfast. This made the cook fidgety and he in turn made life difficult for so low a creature on the servant order as the mop-up maid.
On the other hand, the master might be one of those tyrants who have breakfast at six every morning, in which case the household would have to be functioning early.
Watching in the mirror, Bright saw the woman approach the iron gate in the high stone wall. From the tote bag she took what appeared to be a key for the lock in the gate.
“Ow!” Rebel said. He grabbed his head with both hands. “Boss! The R effect!”
“Where?”
“Right here in my head!” Rebel took his head out of his hands. A startled expression was on his face. “It’s gone!” he whispered. “It flipped in, slid that black film over my brain, then flipped out.”
Bright turned back into the truck to examine his aide. Rebel was startled, no mistake about that.
“Didn’t you feel it, boss?”
“No. Mr. Marcus, did you feel anything?”
“How can I feel anything when I’m watching my screen?” Mr. Marcus demanded.
“It just hit like that, then was gone,” Rebel repeated. He snapped his fingers to indicate his meaning. “Maybe it only lasted a couple of microseconds.”
Bright’s eyes went back to the truck mirror. Across the street, the iron gate was closed. The woman with the tote bag was gone. “Did the R effect hit at just the instant she put the key into the lock?” the vigilante leader asked.
“I don’t know,” Rebel answered.
“I wonder if that gate is booby-trapped,” Bright said aloud. “The R effect turns on the instant you touch the gate. Then, if you have a key—which proves you have a reason to be there—the R effect turns off!”
“Boss, if that’s true . . .” Rebel said.
“If it’s true, then the rumors that the big blowup is scheduled for tonight is also true.” Bright said. He eased the truck off the service-station driveway and into the street, letting it creep slowly past the iron gate in the high stone wall.
“She’sa behind us now!” Mr. Marcus gulped from the rear.
“Then that was Mrs. Kether who entered that gate!” Bright said. “And the man who lives in that sprawling castle behind the stone wall, whatever his real name may be, is almost certainly her deadly enemy—and the general! Rebel!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring all our men in close, within four or five blocks, and have them ready for action at any time!”
“Yes, sir,” Rebel said.
In the late hours of the night, the scar-faced man was a scrambled voice talking through the smog of twenty-first-century Los Angeles, calling men together to fight again the battle that men have fought since they first became human, the battle that is fought in the dawn between darkness and light, and in the minds of men between progress and stagnation, between moving forward and standing still.
chapter
THIRTEEN
THE MAN KNOWN furtively throughout the underworld as the general slept easily in the quiet night, alone, in his own private sleeping quarters, where no one else was allowed to enter without special permission. His bed was emperor-size, with mattresses specially designed to provide firm support for the body weight but also to give under it. Both bed and mattresses were guaranteed to give forth no sound or squeak if the body moved on them during the night.
For this man, sleep came hard. Once interrupted by the slightest sound—sometimes by no sound at all—it might not return again during the night, possibly not for several nights.
Commenting on such insomnia, psychologists have talked of guilt complexes hidden below the surface of the mind and threatening to erupt into consciousness if the watchful guard of the conscious ego is loosened in sleep. Finding the meaning of the guilt complex in broken laws, in rape, in murder, in the dark night of Oedipus, and in the grim day of Cain, psychologists have talked of retribution and of a need to be punished. Religious leaders have talked of penance, of sin and suffering, of purification, and of atonement, thundering the law of karma, “As ye have sowed, so shall ye reap!”
Not being able to find much concrete evidence for the law of karma—though finding much evidence for the law of cause and effect—most scientists have kept their fingers crossed—and have wondered.
The big man in the supersoft bed did not wonder. All he knew was that if he was not extra-cautious, extracareful, he was certain to die, probably unexpectedly, certainly horribly if his enemies could manage it.
He did not intend to make his death easy for his enemies. Around the sprawling property were alarms and booby-traps. Subtle and silent, they waited in the night for anyone who tried to enter without the key to the system. Enemies had tried to find their way into this castle. Some had been found wandering in the city, their minds gone. Others, luckier, had been found dead in other parts of the city.
The room in which this man slept was actually a super bomb shelter. It was not only under the house, but it was under the basement beneath the house. Sheathed on all sides and on top and bottom with seven inches of armorplate steel imbedded in concrete, this bedroom was bombproof. Escape tunnels led from it upward to the rooms in the basement, also to the all-night service station across the back street. Branching off from this tunnel was another that led to the big garage where cars were always ready, one being the fastest little electric car that could be built, another being an armor-plated limousine with bulletproof glass, a third being a small armor-plated truck with four-wheel drive. Built into the walls of the tunnel just outside the bedroom were cabinets that contained all the hand weapons ever invented by man, plus ammunition for them, plus explosive and gas hand grenades.
Inside the bedroom itself, also in cabinets, were controls for the more subtle weapons—and for the more secret defenses.
If the Big Bomb came—and this man was certain it would come, in time—nothing less than a direct hit would destroy this shelter. In the tunnels, in deepfreeze cabinets, were food supplies adequate for one year. There was also a small electrical generating plant, with fuel for a year.
In a huge closet inside the bedroom itself this man’s chief treasure was kept. This consisted of uniforms. An absolutely correct uniform for general of the army was here, complete with five stars and glittering decorations. The same was true for the navy, the marines, and the new space force. Uniforms for field marshals for foreign countries were here, each one perfectly done.
When he was a boy, this man had been given a set of toy soldiers, complete with self-propelled guns, with bombers and fighter planes, with tanks, and with carriers for use at sea. This had been an elaborate set, including hydrogen bombs, Laser beams, and even space ships. As a boy, he had loved this set of war games as he had never loved anything else since. With dreams of future glory rising in his mind, he had played with the toys by the hour. Then he had grown up and had taken the West Point examinations. With dreams of future glory on the battlefields of the world rising in his mind, he had gone in to learn the result of the tests—only to learn that he had failed them.
Only the glittering uniforms in the closet remained as mute reminders of the dreams of a boy. However, the dreams had not been lost. They had gone underground and had emerged in another form—as the resolve to become the richest, most powerful man on earth.
It would have been better for the human race if this man had passed the West Point examinations. In one way or another, he had collected tribute from millions of people who did not even know he existed. He elected senators and congressmen and governors. He owned banks and insurance companies and oil outfits and department stores all over the world. Always, with each passing day, he grew wealthier. So secretly did he work that nobody really knew how much power he had, not even the men he placed in public office.
For all these reasons—and for one other reason—his sleep was never sound.
Suddenly, in the quiet night, he was wide-awake. His first startled thought was that one of his alarm systems had awakened him. A quick inspection of the complicated switchboard at the left side of his bed revealed that all systems were intact. Then why had he awakened?
He knew the true answer as quickly as he knew the question, the true answer plus all the rationalized evasions of the truth. He told himself that inside him somewhere, as was inside many animals, was an alarm system that detected the slightest intrusion of anyone trying to enter the house. He knew this to be a lie, just as he knew the real origin of the warning that had awakened him.
Oh, to hell with it! he thought. Nobody can get in here. Irritation at being awakened was strong in him. He lay back down. So strong was his desire for sleep that he actually dozed—only to come again to instant wakefulness.
Checking the-alarm system again, he saw that it was still quiet. But something was wrong. Now he was sure of it. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he pulled on slippers and a robe. Leaving the room, he paused long enough at one of the weapons cabinets in the tunnel to select a needle gun. Going up a flight of steps, he stopped in front of a window that enabled him to see into the next room without being observed himself. Beyond the peacock glass, a soft light burned.
