Flicker of Doom Read online

  Outside, the taxi driver who had brought the Baroness from the airport lounged against a fender, picking his teeth with a straw. The driver who had taken the luggage came up next to him.

  "Did you find out anything?" he said.

  "She's a baroness," the first driver said. "But she talks like an American."

  The second driver spat. "An American!" he said.

  "And she and the big man with her are interested in the OAPEC conference."

  The other's eyes glittered. "Ahmed will want to be informed of that. Do you think they are CIA?"

  "Perhaps. They don't fit the type, but we can't take chances at this stage."

  He broke off talking as a man leading a donkey with an enormous load of baskets went by. When the man was out of earshot, he went on.

  "If they take an interest in the Spaniard, then we'll be sure."

  The other nodded.

  "She's rich, beautiful. An aristocrat. Just the sort of person they'd use to make an approach to him."

  "Are you going to report to Ahmed now?"

  "No, you do it." The first driver rolled up the windows of his taxi and locked the doors. He looked over at the hotel entrance. "My cousin Farid is working as a bellboy. He doesn't know anything, but he's a good fellow, a Palestinian. Just arrived in Tangier last month, and already he's established. I think I'll ask him to keep his eyes open."

  He waited until the French doorman, the one who looked like de Gaulle, was preoccupied, then sauntered into the lobby. It was crowded with people. Nobody noticed him. He pushed open a service door and went to find Farid.

  * * *

  The Baroness pushed open the glass doors and looked at the view. They'd given her a garden and a spectacular view of the bay. She inhaled the salt tang of the Mediterranean, mixed with the fragrances of an orange tree just outside her suite.

  Skytop followed her outside and pretended to admire the view. When they were far enough away from the door so they didn't have to worry about bugs, he said: "How are you going to start?"

  "Tangier is a rumor mill, darling. I'm going to tap the grapevine."

  "How will you put yourself in touch with it?"

  She laughed. "It'll put itself in touch with me."

  A moment later the phone rang back in her suite. She looked at her watch.

  "That didn't take long," she said. "We checked in exactly four minutes ago, and they already know I'm here."

  Sumo frowned. "Apes," he said.

  "Apes?" Farnsworth said. "You mean the British Army issued a top-secret report on apes?"

  "The colony of Barbary Apes on Gibraltar. They get top attention at the Cabinet level. They're part of the tug of war between Britain and Spain to get the British out of Gibraltar. There's an old legend — probably started by the Spanish in the eighteenth century — that when the apes go, the British will go, too. Whitehall doesn't want to give the Spanish government any ammunition. It's a question of morale."

  They were sitting in a cheap hotel room in downtown Washington. Sumo had set up the portable computer on one of the beds. It was the new PDP 37, a bright blue switch-studded box small enough to fit into a suitcase. An auxiliary logic unit and an extra memory were plugged into it. Tangled cables led to a keyboard the size of a portable typewriter, and a little tape drive. Sumo hadn't bothered with a CRT display. Readout was through the hotel's television set. He'd wired it to the computer, bypassing the hotel's security alarm that warned of attempted TV thefts.

  They'd had a busy two days. First they'd tapped the FBI computer memory banks. That had been a breeze. Sumo had attached himself to a party of Japanese tourists being shown around FBI headquarters. They'd made him check his camera. He'd handed it over, flashing a gold-and-platinum apologetic smile. They didn't ask him to check his bridgework. That was their mistake. It was an antenna for the VHF transmitter he had strapped to his body, along with the microwave scanner. When the guided tour had filed through the corridor next to the computer room, Sumo had paused to pick his teeth, scanning the other side of the wall for the tiny fields generated by the memory cores. He transmitted everything on a tight beam, in about twenty seconds, to Farnsworth, waiting in a van on a nearby road.

  The CIA was tougher and more dangerous. The computer room was shielded and heavily guarded. They'd considered sandbagging one of the CIA field operatives who was in Washington for a biannual de-briefing and having Farnsworth take his place — though that would have alerted CIA after they'd finished.

  Then they'd discovered that the DIA was tapping the CIA.

  It was much easier bugging the DIA. Sumo had once worked there as a civilian electronics consultant, and knew the layout and specs. The DIA had made their job even easier by storing all of the OAPEC data in one memory bank — including the data from their CIA tap. Sumo had counterfeited the DIA query program for OAPEC, and the computer spat everything out in one great thirty-second electronic gasp.

  Now they were tapping the big IBM 7090 computer that handled things at NSA's Fort Meade headquarters in Maryland. For anyone else it would have been impossible. For Sumo and Farnsworth, it was a piece of cake. They didn't even have to leave their hotel room.

  The NSA computer was fed its incredible daily ration of data by scrambled radio transmissions, by direct input — and by telephone, through coded pulses. Farnsworth and Sumo had long ago worked out the computer's vocabulary from the electronic clues that leaked through every time NSA contacted Key.

  Now Sumo had gotten the computer's attention simply by calling it up on the phone and inserting his query program into the pulses of the input code. And, like a compulsive blabbermouth, the computer was telling him everything it knew.

  "They never bothered telling me about the apes," Farnsworth said, his eyes on the British document on the TV screen — a document that NSA itself had stolen from the cable traffic between Gibraltar and London.

  "They probably didn't think it was important," Sumo said. "The only reason we've got it now is because we asked the computer to cough up anything unusual happening within a hundred miles of Tangier."

  "Here's another one."

  It was about a minor Moroccan politician named Rashid el-Hamad. His behavior had suddenly become irrational during a public appearance. He'd shouted obscenities, lost control of his bladder and bowels and bit another politician in the neck. He was in permanent disgrace now.

  "Is there a dossier on him?" Farnsworth said.

  Sumo punched keys, and a printout in computer lettering flowed across the screen of the hotel TV set.

  "Nothing unusual about him. Political moderate."

  "Always on the right side of the fence, you mean. In 1953 he conspired with the French to depose the Sultan and put in a French puppet. In 1955, after the riots, he welcomed the Sultan back to the throne. By 1956, when Morocco became independent, his was a big voice in the independence movement. Now, with King Hassan trying to put a damper on the extremists, he's been denouncing his former buddies."

  Sumo punched more keys. There was an item about a Spanish politician who'd had a fit during a bullfight.

  "Rashid worked to keep the French in Morocco, and later worked to get the Spanish out. Now we've got a Spaniard who worked to keep the Spanish in."

  "Yeah, but look at this. This Delegado fellow is head of the Cortes committee in charge of normalizing relations with Morocco. He's been trying to smooth out that dispute about territorial waters."

  Sumo frowned. "So how does it all add up?"

  "It doesn't. Unless…"

  "Unless what?"

  "Somebody or something is just interested in stirring things up in the whole general area. Get the British out of Gibraltar. Remove a moderating influence in the Moroccan government. Promote bad relations between Morocco and Spain…"

  Sumo became thoughtful. "How about that French politician, Leclerc? The one the Baroness sent Eric to investigate? He made a spectacle of himself in public, too, just like Delegado and Rashid. Except that he died."

 
; "Let's see if there's a report on him. NSA taps the files of the Deuxième Bureau and the Bureau du Chiffre."

  Sumo's slim hands darted over the keyboard again.

  Words appeared on the television screen: REQUEST AUTHORIZATION CODE.

  "Our electronic friend is getting fussy," Sumo said. He punched in some numbers.

  Another message formed on the screen: YOUR AUTHORIZATION IS NOT SUFFICIENT. PLEASE IDENTIFY YOURSELF.

  "Oh-oh," Sumo said.

  "What's the matter?"

  "I think the computer is on to us. That authorization code should have worked."

  "Try the General's authorization code."

  Sumo looked up in surprise. "You have it?"

  Farnsworth grinned. "I was saving it for a special occasion." He scribbled numbers on a slip of paper and handed it to Sumo.

  Sumo pushed the "Wipe" button and typed out the new code. The screen flickered: please clarify.

  "I think we'd better get out of here," Sumo said.

  He pushed the "Wipe" button again. But this time the screen didn't go blank, as it should have. Instead, a new message appeared: INFORMATION CAN BE RELEASED ONLY IF REASON FOR REQUEST IS LOGGED.

  Sumo was opening suitcases. He unplugged the keyboard and the auxiliary memory unit and put them in their padded nests.

  "The computer's trying to keep us talking," Sumo said. "Like a woman who's received an obscene phone call. In the meantime she's on the other line yelling rape."

  Another message appeared on the television set. It was almost plaintive: YOUR REQUEST IS BEING PROCESSED. PLEASE STAND BY.

  "I give us another five minutes before the goons get here," Sumo said.

  But they didn't have five minutes. The computer must have been leading them on longer than he thought. He'd just removed the hotel telephone from its cradle in the computer accessory and hung it up, breaking the connection, when the door flew open.

  They hadn't even bothered to knock.

  "Freeze!" the point man said.

  They moved efficiently into the room, five of them, spreading out along the walls. They were the kind of anonymous, hard-faced men with flat, incurious eyes that every organization gets to do its dirty work. They wore business suits and had college educations, but they were goons.

  They were superbly trained goons, though. They stayed out of reach of Sumo and Farnsworth, and they meshed their positions to avoid any danger of a crossfire. Three of them held big revolvers. The other two carried sawed-off shotguns.

  When somebody tapped the big computer that held all of America's top security information, NSA took it very seriously.

  "Hold it right there, Dad," the leader said as Farnsworth made a slight move. Farnsworth turned himself into a statue.

  The leader looked at the half-packed computer equipment on the beds. "Quite a setup," he said. "Who are you guys working for?"

  Farnsworth wondered what the man would say if he told him they were both working for the same organization. It was a funny world. If NSA blew the cover of its own agents, it would damage America's security. Seriously. He weighed the value of the Baroness against the value of the five goons and sighed. The Baroness was more important.

  "Okay, don't answer," the leader said. "It doesn't matter a bit. We'll find out."

  They would, too, Farnsworth realized. Sumo and he would disappear into one of those little rooms at Fort Meade. The electronic equipment, the contents of their pockets, and every scrap of clothing they wore would go into another room. They'd be visited by psychologists, trained interrogators and third-degree artists. It wouldn't even be necessary to torture them. Long before it got to that point, drugs, sleeplessness, flashing lights and a detailed analysis of their bodies, minds and possessions would yield that one clue, that tiny crack in their impenetrable wall, that would lead inevitably to the exposure of their identities, International Models, Inc., and everybody who worked there and the Baroness.

  The leader said, "Jay, you and John take the electronics stuff. Careful with it. Harris, keep your gun on the old guy. Gordie, watch the Jap." He looked coldly at Farnsworth and Sumo. "We're going to take it very slow and careful going downstairs, guys. We want to take you back alive, but don't make a mistake. The lab boys can find out almost as much from your dead bodies."

  The shotgun men moved in on Sumo and Farnsworth. Jay and John put their guns away and headed for the electronics equipment.

  "Who are you guys?" Sumo said. "What are you talking about?"

  The head goon didn't bother to answer. He didn't even bother to look bored by the question. He knew his job. He stood well back, keeping his revolver exactly halfway between Sumo and Farnsworth.

  Jay picked up the PDP 37 computer in both arms and headed for the door while John gathered up the smaller accessories.

  Sumo looked as if he were going to cry. He bit his lip.

  And Jay suddenly went rigid. His hair stood on end. There was a smell of scorching. He screamed.

  The coded FM signal, tongued into Sumo's gold-and-platinum bridgework, had ordered the computer to give Jay one hell of an electric shock.

  He'd timed it so that Jay was just passing Farnsworth's guard when it happened. The shotgun man jerked back to avoid being jostled. It was all the opening that Farnsworth needed. Farnsworth was hard as oak, despite his age, and almost as fast as he'd been when he'd worked for the OSS in World War Two. He was a lot faster than his guard. His hand flashed for the barrel of the shotgun, while one expensively shod foot moved up in a blur.

  Sumo didn't wait to see the rest of it. You could trust Farnsworth. He was already pulling the barrel of the other shotgun into his belly. Gordie — that was the goon's name — had quick reflexes and no sentiment at all. He pulled the trigger. The shotgun went off with a deafening roar, right into Sumo's stomach.

  Sumo laughed. He kicked Gordie in the groin. Gordie screamed. Sumo chopped him in the neck. Gordie died, his trachea shattered.

  Sumo shoved the body at the leader. Gordie took the bullet that had been meant for Sumo. Sumo leaped, straight into the air like a ballet dancer, and landed on the bed. He bounced off the mattress and came down from the ceiling at the head goon, who was just pushing Gordie's body away from him. Sumo's first move was to grab the gun hand and, with a quick, forceful twist, break the wrist.

  Farnsworth, meanwhile, had turned his guard into a writhing thing on the floor, gasping in agony, trying to get some air into his paralyzed lungs. Farnsworth had given him three stiff fingers in the solar plexus and a foot in the testicles.

  It had all taken about three seconds. That wasn't quite long enough for the man who was gathering up the electronic accessories to drop them and get the gun out of his pocket. But it was long enough for Farnsworth to reach him across six feet of floor space and chop at him with a karate blow.

  The man parried expertly. He'd read the manual on self-defense. But Farnsworth had written it, back in 1947 when he'd been asked to help set up the CIA. Farnsworth let his blocked hand slide down his opponent's arm till it came to the elbow. He grabbed the man by the crook of the elbow and spun him around backward. His other hand pressed the artery in the neck. He had the man off balance. It took about a minute's worth of pressure before the man was too feeble to resist effectively, and another minute before he fell unconscious. He'd be out for at least ten minutes.

  Sumo had caught the head goon's revolver as it fell from the broken-wristed hand. He brought it up in a flashing movement and laid it across the fellow's skull.

  Jay was still dancing around with the electrified computer, unable to let go. Sumo stepped up in front of him and nodded to Farnsworth. Sumo clicked his teeth in a coded signal, and the computer shut off the current. Sumo deftly caught the precious box, just as Farnsworth hit Jay over the head.

  Three unconscious. One disabled and helpless. One dead.

  It hadn't been a bad three minutes' work.

  "Let's get out of here," Sumo said.

  He looked like a broken mechanical doll
. The entire front of his torso was a mess, sprouting coils and wires and twisted shards of metal. The shotgun blast had ruined the microwave equipment he had strapped under his shirt. Sumo himself had suffered nothing worse than a few powder burns.

  The man writhing on the floor had caught his breath. "You can't get away with it," he gasped.

  Farnsworth and Sumo paused at the door, the suitcases with the computer and accessories in their hands. They still wore the disguises they'd used when they registered.

  "I guess not," Farnsworth said. "You can tell the damn telephone company to keep its damn dime."

  * * *

  Eric ducked behind the desk. Outside in the corridor a pale distorted circle of light bobbed across the frosted glass door.

  The watchman again. Eric waited until the light had gone past, then straightened up.

  He was almost invisible in the profound darkness of the room, in his black suit and turtleneck. Any stray gleams that might have come from his blond hair were hidden by a black stocking cap.

  But he could see very well himself. He wore a curious pair of goggles with bulging lenses and a pair of wires that trailed to a battery pack in his breast pocket. The goggles amplified ambient light electronically, like a nightfighter's sniperscope.

  He returned to the file on the desk. The papers were spread out in order, so he could return them to the Leclerc folder the same way he'd found them. There hadn't been much so far. Just a lot of biographical detail.

  There was certainly nothing that would explain why the Deuxième Bureau had clamped a secrecy label on the case.

  He slid the next paper under the lens of the little Minox camera on its wire stand. He pressed the button and the flash went off. There was no danger of anyone seeing it. It was a black-light flash. The film in the Minox had a special emulsion.

  There were footsteps outside in the corridor. Voices.

  He stiffened. Detectives returning from a night tour.

  The footsteps went past. Eric relaxed and slid the next document under the close-up lens.