Voyage of Vengeance

  “Grabbe-Manhattan put a lien on the ship, grabbed it, sold it themselves to the Crown Prince and pocketed the profit.

  “You dumb jerk! You blew it!”

  I knew how she lied. I snarled, “You’re the one that blew it! You didn’t have to come near Turkey!”

  “Oh, Jesus!” she said. “You don’t understand anything! The sale of the yacht would only have cleared off your debts to Mudur Zengin. We wouldn’t have had a dime to operate. When we landed in Alexandria, we would have to have capital to buy a whorehouse and get a new start in life.

  “That dumb fishboat Closure had could only make half the speed of the yacht. As soon as I got back with the dough, we would have told Grabbe-Manhattan to go to hell and split at twenty knots!”

  “You expect me to believe that!” I snarled, getting madder by the second.

  “You better believe it,” she said. “We’re two of a kind, you dumb jerk. Both of us are rotten to the core. We’re so screwed up with psychology and crime we got no idea which end is up. But at least we can stick together! There ain’t any hope otherwise. And you blew!

  “I had a hell of a time getting the dough out of them. And I didn’t blow. I came back here for you!”

  Utanc spoke unexpectedly. “You can’t have him! He’s mine!”

  Teenie suddenly looked at her. Then her lip raised with scorn and she looked at me. “Where the hell did you find that thing, Inky? Some garbage can?”

  Utanc drew herself up. She let out a woof of disgust. She went to her room, went in and slammed the door.

  I glared at Teenie, my rage mounting. “Now look what you have done, you (bleepch). Why don’t you get the hells out of my life? I would kill you slow, slow, slow if I could. I’ve hated you from the first moment I ever laid eyes on you! I should have slaughtered you ages ago. And now you’ve wrecked my life and sold me for a lousy ten thousand bucks. I hate you!”

  She went white. She reached into her purse and pulled out a wad of bills. “It was for you! Take it, you (bleep)!” And she threw them at me with all her might.

  It was too much. I hauled off and slapped her with all my might.

  Her feet went off the floor. She hurtled sideways, slammed against the wall and went down. She lay there for a moment, then she raised her head. Blood was running from the side of her mouth. Pure hatred burned in her eyes.

  “You’ll be sorry for that, you (bleepard),” she said. “I’m going to leave here and get back to New York and then you’ll wish to God you had never been born!”

  Fear hit me. She could make that rape of a minor charge stick. Extradition would follow.

  I had to get rid of her. I didn’t dare kill her. If I failed to produce her in a reasonable time I could also be hit for murder because of that injunction.

  Inspiration! There was a way I could put her on ice and yet return her if they tried to say I had killed her. She did not speak the language and could do me no harm.

  I WOULD SEND TEENIE TO VOLTAR!

  The Blixo was coming in. Madison was going.

  I glanced around. There were no witnesses.

  “If you want to cry on somebody’s shoulder,” I said, “Madison is in there.” And I pointed to my own bedroom.

  She glanced in that direction. Then she got to her feet unsteadily and went through the door.

  I was right behind her. With my heel I kicked the door shut. At the same moment, I pulled the gas bomb out of my pocket.

  She didn’t see Madison. She turned.

  I pushed the gas bomb into her face.

  She crumpled.

  Working rapidly, using heavy cord, I tied her feet and hands together.

  I went out into the patio. The truck was gone but they had piled her baggage by the door. Working quickly, I dragged it into my room and out of sight. There was quite a bit of it.

  Two big black suitcases looked like the ones that had been in my closet on the ship. I opened them. My clothes and guns and viewers! She had packed up and brought my things. I left them there.

  I picked her up and took her through my secret room and down the tunnel. I dropped her and made four more trips to get all of her baggage and so leave no evidence.

  I called the security captain.

  “Put this girl in a detention cell with her baggage. Hold her with no communication. She is a passenger for the Blixo.”

  They hauled her away and, down the corridor, the cell door clanged shut.

  I went back to the patio.

  The money was still lying on the pavement. I gathered it up and put it in my wallet.

  Having no crystal ball or ways to read the horrible future to hand, I thought, with satisfaction, that that was the end of Teenie.

  PART SIXTY

  Chapter 1

  I paced in the yard of the villa in Afyon, Turkey, for hours, trying to take stock of my situation.

  Actually, it was pretty desperate. In a week or two Grabbe-Manhattan Bank was going to wake up to the fact that its Chief of International Mortgage Division, Forrest Closure, alias Black Jowl, was not being heard from.

  As I had been fired as a Rockecenter family spi I could expect no help from that quarter. They even wanted to charge me with taking bribes!

  The mortgage papers he had had on him were not the originals. Those were still on file at the bank. They could still tell the Turkish government to charge me with mortgaging land I didn’t own.

  Rockecenter had seen a chance to acquire enormous tracts of prime opium land that the base usually leased out to Turkish tenants. He had no inkling that in this usual bank tactic he had also gotten his hands on the Voltar base.

  If Faht Bey found this out, he could have me seized and shipped home for execution as the author of the Code break of all time.

  Lombar would never forgive me for messing up Rockecenter, for it would cut off the IG Barben Pharmaceutical drug supplies that were vital to undermining Voltar.

  Oh, Gods, how was I going to get out of this?

  My professors at the Apparatus school always used to say, “Take care of the details and the big problems will take care of themselves.” It was good advice.

  I would take care of details.

  It was, I suddenly realized, dusk. A chill wind had begun to blow.

  Musef approached. “Master, that man you put in the guest room has been asking if it’s safe for him to walk around. I think he’s getting suspicious that you mean to rub him out.”

  Ah, that was one detail I could take care of.

  I went to my room and located a small bottle. I called on an intercom to the kitchen and had them bring me a large pitcher of sira on a tray with two glasses. Into one glass I put a heavy dose from the bottle. It was liquid chloral hydrate, the time-honored knockout drops bartenders use. I filled the glasses.

  I went to Madison’s door and unlocked it and, bearing the tray, went in.

  He was standing at the barred window which looked out on the room’s private garden. “Oh, hello, Smith,” he said. “What’s the chances of getting out of here and walking around? I feel pretty depressed and some exercise will do me good.”

  “Well, well,” I said heartily. “I was thinking the same thing. All that riding isn’t good for one. Tell you what. I’ve ordered us some dinner and afterwards I’ll take you out of here and you’ll see some country that will knock your eyes out. So just sit down while they get it ready and have an appetizer.”

  I gave him the glass of sira. He sat down in a comfortable chair and took a sip of it. “What is this stuff? It tastes kind of bitter.”

  “Fermented grape juice,” I said. “The ancestor of real wine. Not even intoxicating. So drink up. Down the hatch.” I set him an example and drained my glass.

  He swallowed half of his. “You know, Smith or Gris or whatever your name is, I’ve been thinking. I maybe didn’t do all I could have done. I really hate to let Mr. Bury down. He’s a fine man, Mr. Bury, and I owe him an awful lot. I’ve got strong employer loyalty, you know. I never give up on
a job until I’m actually fired. And you know, he didn’t fire me. He didn’t tell you I was fired, did he?”

  “I had to get you out to save your life,” I reminded him severely.

  “Well, yes,” said Madison, drinking the rest of the sira. “But I’m not at all sure I did all I could have done for that client, Wister. For instance, I had one grand idea I never got around to carrying out. I was going to get him to rob the US Treasury in Washington and pull the whole FBI in pursuit. A blow-by-blow escape. But I didn’t have the time. Then there was the idea where he stole Alaska and sold it back to the Russ—”

  His head slumped. His glass fell from nerveless fingers.

  I moved like a cat. I packed all his clothes and things into his grip.

  I threw him over my shoulder and grabbed the suitcase with my free hand.

  I sped to my secret room and down the tunnel. I called the guard captain.

  “Another one for transshipment,” I said.

  “You been busy,” said the guard captain.

  I ignored the compliment. “Hold him in a detention cell. Ship him and that girl to Voltar on the Blixo.” I dropped Madison. I raced back to my room.

  I got out some dispatch paper. I wrote:

  Lombar Hisst

  Chief Executive of the Apparatus

  I am sending you an extremely valuable man as a personal present.

  His name is J. Walter Madison.

  You will be utterly amazed what he can do.

  Soltan Gris

  Section Chief 451

  I marked it URGENT and IMPORTANT and put it with outgoing dispatches.

  Little did I know that when I sealed that envelope, I also sealed my own doom.

  Foolishly, I thought, that is the last I’ll see of J. Walter Madison.

  PART SIXTY

  Chapter 2

  Details. I was taking care of details all right. But by the following afternoon I had made no real progress on the real problem I faced.

  The night before I had conned Musef and Torgut into believing the three people that had entered were now buried somewhere in the countryside. Late at night I had had them back up the old Ford Station Wagon to the patio door and I had carried out, with many a grunt and groan of effort, three big sacks I had blown full of air. I had put them in the back and driven off. Then an hour later I had returned with the sacks deflated and told them, “I’ve dumped those corpses where nobody will ever find them. So you just forget you ever saw those people.”

  They grinned delightedly. “We hear and obey, Master. You sure are a smart chief.”

  But sitting here the following afternoon, I did not feel very smart. How in the name of all the Gods was I ever going to get out of this mess?

  I glanced at my watch. It would be early morning in New York. Possibly Heller and the Countess Krak were up to something I could exploit by wrecking it.

  I got out the viewers Teenie had brought back and was rather surprised that old splotches of dried sira and such had been cleaned off of them.

  Their batteries were fine.

  I looked at Crobe’s. He was simply sitting in a detention cell right here, waiting shipment out on the Blixo.

  Heller’s was blank. He was still asleep.

  Only the Countess Krak’s was live and interesting. She was pouring together Bavarian Mocha powder and hot water. Then she got some chilled tomato juice and put some Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco in it.

  She put it all on a tray and went to a bedroom. She set it down and opened the shutters. A flood of dawn light struck through horizontally, almost flaring my viewer out.

  She turned and approached the huge pillared Etruscan bed. “Wake up, lazybones,” she said. “You told me to be dressed for hiking today and be up before dawn and here you are still snoring.”

  “Ouch,” said Heller, putting an arm across his eyes. “Can’t you even let me recover from a hangover?”

  “Your graduation party is over. The guests all went home. You’re a working man, remember?”

  He took the tomato juice and sipped it.

  “I told you you shouldn’t let Bang-Bang talk you into trying Scotch.”

  “The cat drinks it,” said Heller.

  “Well, Mister Calico is a very industrious cat. And speaking of industry, when are we going to get busy and get off this planet and go home?”

  “I’ve got a right to take it easy. After all, that whole year in college about wore me out!”

  “Oh, nonsense. You never even went to class. And now that you have this precious degree of Bachelor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, what are you going to do with it? They’d laugh at it at home. I never saw so many errors as their science has. Can’t exceed the speed of light indeed! They ought to ride in a real spaceship.”

  “My, you seem bitey this morning.”

  “Well, you would be, too. I leave you at twelve midnight singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ with fifteen students you never met before that party. You told me to be up at dawn in hiking clothes without fail and then, to my recollection, you never even came to bed!”

  “Did I say that?” said Heller.

  “You certainly did. And you made a big point of it. ‘Without fail,’ you said.”

  “I must have been drunk,” said Heller.

  “Those girls were drunk enough,” said the Countess.

  “Oh, is that what this is all about,” he said, drinking his coffee.

  “No, that’s not what this is all about. I’m not jealous anymore except sometimes. I’m just peeved that you wasted so much time getting a degree you don’t need. The best-looking and most competent combat engineer of the Voltar Fleet getting a diploma as a Bachelor of Nuclear Science and Engineering is just plain ridiculous. Being a bachelor is what I’m trying to get you home and cure you of.”

  “I need the degree so I can sign articles on fuel for professional magazines. They won’t listen to you unless you have a degree.”

  “So when are you ever going to get time to write any articles swinging by your heels from a chandelier and leading the band?”

  “I don’t need any more time now,” said Heller. “I finished them.”

  “When?” she challenged.

  “Last night after the party.” He was pointing.

  She looked at a table that was set up. It was piled high with half a dozen manuscripts.

  “Oh!” she said in a very cross way.

  She walked out of the room.

  Heller took a shower and got dressed in hiking clothes. He packed a little bag, putting in some keys, papers and a book. He went out on the terrace and found her.

  “Don’t be cross,” he said.

  “You tricked me into getting cross with you. You led me on.”

  “It was just a joke,” said Heller. “I’m sorry.”

  “Getting off this planet is NO joke,” said the Countess Krak. “It is psychotic. It scares me half to death.”

  “It’s also a pretty planet,” said Heller. “Now come along like a good girl. I have something you will find fascinating.”

  He went to the elevator. She picked up the cat and followed him.

  They got into the Porsche.

  He sped up the ramp. He began nudging the Porsche cross-town.

  Krak was sitting there a bit gloomily. She said, “I’m sorry I was cross with you, Jettero. But you did lead me on. I’m just so anxious to get home. I have such wonderful news waiting for us.”

  There she was, pushing, pushing, pushing. The one thing she mustn’t do. If they succeeded, they would get me executed for sure.

  Heller was steering through the early morning streets. He reached sideways into his bag and handed her a book.

  “It was my fault,” he said. “Jokes don’t go too well with breakfast hot jolt. But cheer up. That book will interest you. It’s about Prince Caucalsia.”

  She looked at the book. It said The Devil’s Triangle on the cover. She looked through the index. “Is this another joke? I don’t see his name here.”
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  “Well, no,” said Heller. “Their history doesn’t really go back twelve thousand years. But if you will open the map in the front you will find some islands off the Florida coast called the Bahamas. They have electronic and radio phenomena there. Also electromagnetic disturbances. And their fathometers record a pyramid on the sea floor.”