We came screaming into the passenger terminal of John F. Kennedy Airport. I looked anxiously on the back trail. They still might come. I paid the cabby. I then had only eighteen dollars left!
"What airline?" said a black porter with a cart.
"I don't know," I said.
He was loading my baggage on his small truck. "Well, you c'n take yo' choice, then. They's Pan Am. They's TWA. But if'n it's TWA, we bettah git anothah cab 'cause this is Pan Am. Now, me, f'um mah study of the crashes..."
I thought fast. Four o'clock. Maybe only one plane left at four. "What goes to Rome or London or someplace at four?"
"Well, ah thinks they is one fo' Rome at fo'. But if you ain't too partickler, me, I'd go to Trinydad wheh it is mo' wahm."
"Rome. Take me to that counter."
He did. It was long, long before plane time.
"Inkswitch?" said the clerk. "We don't have any reservation in that name. I will call central..."
I wasn't listening. I had been casting glances back toward the door.
THERE THEY WERE!
I hysterically threw three one-dollar bills at the porter. "Take care of my baggage!"
I fled.
Darting through a troop of Girl Scouts, colliding with a woman carrying a Pekingese who gave me a shove, I was propelled into the midst of an Olympic ski team. It was a lifesaver. They gave me such a vigorous rejection that I went like a bowling ball into a crowd of priests. The confusion was so great, all I had to do was keep rolling and I was in through the door of a men's washroom.
I hastily got a coin out and with an agonized sigh of relief I was safely inside a john.
I sat there for a bit. I hurt so much, I forgot to pull my feet up. Then I remembered the technique and did so. It was just in time.
Two pairs of heavy boots!
The two tough men were coming down the line of locked toilets, looking under the doors!
They didn't see me.
They were in a hurry.
They went on.
Only then could I permit myself to suffer. The bruises were just one big general pain from the cab ride. I was sure the cuts were bleeding again from the bowling-ball trip. What one had to go through just to execute his simple duties!
Stifling a sneeze, I abruptly remembered that I had forgotten to phone the New York office and get Raht to turn on the 831 Relayer. Without it, I would be blind about Heller.
I had lots of time before four o'clock. The problem was how to get out of this place and to a phone without being spotted.
Getting brave, I left the john cubicle.
There was a man, a very big man, over by a wash bowl. He had a rather extensive kit spread out and he was shaving with an old blade razor.
He was facing sideways to the entrance door. He had hung his hat—a sort of hunting hat with two bills front and back—and his coat—a black and white checkered mackinaw—on a hook quite close to the door.
Being of a cunning frame of mind, I knew that he would shortly wash his face. He would have soap in his eyes for a moment. I waited. Sure enough, over he bent.
Quick as a flash, I had the hat and coat. Quicker, I slid out of the washroom, expertly getting them on at the same moment.
The odd, red cap was awfully big. It fitted easily over my own hat. The loud-checked mackinaw was huge, more like an overcoat on me. Adequate disguise!
I peered cautiously about. Yes! There they were, the two tough men! But they were facing the other way, looking along lines of people.
I got to a coin-change machine and converted ten dollars to change. I certainly was low on cash.
Adequately masked by the hat and coat, I slid into a glass-enclosed phone kiosk. I dialled the New York office.
"Put Raht on the phone," I said.
They had some idiot clerk from Flisten on their reception: I could tell by the crazy way he had of pronouncing his S's: He made them into Z's. "I am zorry. The poor Raht iz in the hozpital ztill. Complicationz. The pneumonia iz not rezponding to the penizillin. Hiz condition iz critical. Whom zhall I zay called?"
I was furious! I was zo zizzling, I znapped ztraight over into gutter Flizten. An idiot like that couldn't hope to understand Standard Voltarian, much less plain English. "Vacations! Vacations! That's all you people ever think about!"
"O Demons of the green abyss!" he said in Flisten. "This must be Officer Gris!" He sounded scared. That was better!
"Now listen to me," I snarled at him in Flisten. "You order Raht to stop faking and handle the Empire State and make him report in or I'll have him filled full of red Tabasco Signal Corps! And listen, you idiot, if I ever catch you speaking Flisten again on an Earth phone line I'll make you listen to A Night on Bare Mountain with rolling pins! Got it?"
He had it. It was the most terrible curse I could think of. He was gibbering!
I hung up, feeling a bit better.
Madison! I ought to call Madison and tell him what a magnificent job he had done. A PR triumph! And also that I was leaving. Then Bury wouldn't know where to send the snakes.
I inserted the coins and hit the buttons. Amazing! It was Madison himself who answered. "Thank you for calling right back, Mr. Underslung. What progress have you made in getting the Whiz Kid an Oscar for underhanded driving?"
"No, no," I sneezed. "This is Tabasco Smith, I mean Mr. Smith. Madison, I absolutely had to call and tell you what a magnificent job you have done. You are a wonder. Thank Gods for PR and please tell Mr. Bury I have gone off on a long trip to spy on the Signal Corps for Miss Agnes."
"Job done?" he said, sounding mystified. "But this campaign isn't over, Smith, far from it! It has a long, long way to go yet to achieve lasting image. Wait until you see tomorrow's papers! They will say that he made so much money betting against himself in the race that he will give the bribe in full to the Kansas farmers."
There it was again, the thing which I hadn't understood before. "What's all this about Kansas farmers?"
"You don't get that?" he said, amazed. "Good heavens, you surely are a long way from professional. My orders are to make his name a household word and to make him immortal. Since the image of 'the man who started World War III' was ruined, I have had to take a different tack. The one I am working on now is 'Jesse James.' He was a famous outlaw who fought the railroads in Kansas by robbing trains and gave the loot to the farmers. He is one of the great American folk heroes. Deathless. So if I can give Wister a Jesse James-type image, all will be well. It can change, though. PR is a fluid subject, Inkswitch, and above all we've got to keep that front page no matter how many natural cataclysms get in the way. If I try very hard and stay with the fundamentals of professional PR, the Whiz Kid will make it, but it will take time. Now if you will get off my phone, I'd appreciate it. I'm shorthanded today since Hoodward was shot at the airport by Faustino's men and Ted Tramp's wife is having a baby. I'm expecting calls from various racing associations to get the Whiz Kid debarred from every track in America so we can come back the next day and claim they are just terrified to race against him. And for the day after that, I have to get riots organized by those who lost bets and riots take a lot of advance time. So I need all my phones!"
Yes, I sure could see he was beautifully busy. "Please tell Mr. Bury," I sneezed, "that both the Signal Corps and Miss Agnes have snake detectors. Good-bye."
I hung up. Well, that was out of the road. Did I need to call the Security Chief at Octopus and tell him I would not be around? Then I remembered that anything connected with me came up blank on the computer and they couldn't tell whether I was working or not. And Miss Pinch might have a bug on that line. Also, IRS might trace the call. In fact, they might be tracing me right now....
SCRAPE!
The door of the phone kiosk flew open.
I cowered back, but not in time!
It was the owner of the hat and coat!
He loomed like a mountain!
A huge paw seized me!
I was yanked ferociously out of the kiosk.
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I saw a fist cocked in midair.
WHAM!
An anvil seemed to hit me in the eye!
Down I went on the floor. THUD went my head against the edge of the phone booth!
PLOWIE!
Into the air around me went a cloud of stars.
The sound wasn't from the stars. It was from a boot in my side.
He tore the mackinaw off of me. He grabbed the hat.
THUNK!
He kicked me again in the side.
I shut my eyes tight. I was waiting for the next kick. It didn't come. I opened my eyes.
TWO PAIRS OF HEAVY BOOTS! Right by my face!
The two tough men had caught up with me!
I was done for!
I looked up. One bent over and yanked me to my feet.
The other was reaching into his pocket. Gun? Handcuffs?
The first one said, "Are you Achmed Ben Nutti?"
Oh, my Gods. At Pan Am I had asked for reservations in the name of Inkswitch. Achmed Ben Nutti was the United Arab League name I had been travelling under and had passports for.
I was too weak to fight. Chinning was in order. "Yes, I am Achmed Ben Nutti and I have diplomatic status! You can't arrest me!"
"Arrest you?" he said. "No, no, Comrade. We are from the Bolshoi Travel Agency. We have been trying hard to catch you and give you your ticket!"
He was dusting me off and it made a cloud of mustard-pepper-Tabasco odors fly into the air. We both sneezed.
"Here are all your flight papers," said the other tough-looking man. "We have already found and checked your baggage aboard. You had better hurry, Comrade. That's your flight they're calling now."
"He doesn't seem to be able to walk," said the other, sneezing again. "Let's carry him over to the first-class gate and get them to let us through. We can dump him aboard."
We went through the rat maze of detectors, past the cooperative attendants, down a gangway and into the side of a ship. We were the last ones aboard. I had almost missed the plane! It evidently was an earlier one!
They dumped me in a first-class seat.
Utanc! She was caped and hooded and veiled, sitting right there!
"Darling!" I cried.
Utanc grabbed a passing blue sleeve. "Purser," she said, "I see you have a lot of empty seats at the back. Could you please dump my owner into one of them? He is making me feel like I'm going to sneeze!"
He gave a snappy salute. "Pan Am service, ma'am."
The purser snapped his fingers for a stewardess and in no time the two of them had me clear at the back of the first-class compartment and were covering my clothes with a plastic sheet and buckling me in.
I sank back. Surrounded with the posh luxury of a first-class superjet, complete with classic Greek temples in the murals, I sighed a sigh, somewhat interrupted with a sneeze, as anxiety ebbed out.
And so, gratefully, I saw the landing strip race by and presently, bending sideways without too much pain, watched the smoggy skyline of New York grow small and fade away.
Thank Gods, I had made it.
Later, the dinner being served from carts on the aisle was delicious. But a glass of wine, no matter if served with great ceremony in first class, aloft, does not substitute for a good crystal ball.
With its usual evil grin, fiendish Fate had been busy, just ahead, sorting out available disasters. The one it chose to first serve up for me was horrible. The very memory of it makes me wince.
PART THIRTY-FOUR
Chapter 1
The THY (Turkish Airlines) plane slid down toward Afyon. The snow-capped peaks lined up to point at Afyonkarahisar's wintry finger. It was a striking view of a bleak terrain: how could any human beings possibly survive in the villages which dotted the hostile mountains and the plain? A scene of utter desolation, it had one saving grace: I was home! The optical illusion, which made a mountaintop and marked the Voltar base, was still in place—suitably wintry now—so I was not only home, I was still connected to Voltar, my real native land.
And I was still alive!
What a relief!
We landed and while we waited for the landing stage to roll up and the door to open, Utanc stepped close to me. She put her dainty hand upon my sleeve, a favor I so seldom enjoyed. She looked at me, her eyes large and dark and pleading above her veil.
"O my master," she whispered, "we still have a little money left." She was holding her purse open now. It was absolutely stuffed with money. "May I keep it?"
"Oh, dear Utanc, what a manager you are! Of course you may keep it." I was quite touched. Imagine doing that whole trip on much less than a hundred thousand dollars! Besides, I still had millions in the gold I had brought from Voltar.
She closed the purse with a snap and was first down the plane steps.
Some people were at the airport gate. The taxi driver, Karagoz and, ah yes, Utanc's two little servant boys!
Cloak pressed against her by the wintry wind, Utanc raced toward the gate!
The two little boys burst through and, crowing with delight, sped across the tarmac to meet her!
She gathered them up, hugging them.
Both of them had their arms around her neck and she was kissing their cheeks through her veil. What a bundle of welcome! They were trying to tell her everything that had happened since she had been gone and trying to find out what she had brought for them all at the same time.
They ignored me as I limped painfully by them.
Karagoz ignored me. The taxi driver ignored me. I went through the terminal to the parking area. Karagoz had evidently brought the boys in Utanc's BMW for there it sat alongside the taxi driver's taxi.
The wind was very dry and cold and a bit gritty. I was getting chilled and it wasn't doing my unhealed wounds any good.
Finally they came through the parking lot door, the two small boys chattering and excited, eyes glowing. They did look somewhat like Rudolph Valentino and James Cagney as they must have looked as children. That surely had been a successful present!
Utanc was saying to the taxi driver, "Now, here are the shipping manifests for the trunks. They couldn't come on this plane but when they do, you be sure to hire a truck to pick them up. Now we will go home."
Karagoz stepped close to her and whispered something in her ear.
Utanc said, "Ice cream! How would you two dear little boys like some ice cream over in town?"
They shrieked their approval of the plan.
Karagoz, Utanc and the two little boys got in her BMW, and with veiled Utanc behind the wheel, it rocketed out of the parking lot, screeched its tires as it turned into the road to Afyon and was gone.
The taxi driver loaded his taxi with the bags we had checked through on this plane and shortly we were headed for the villa.
"Well, how is she working out?" he flung back at me as he dodged through the camels and donkey carts.
"She is absolutely amazing," I said. "Not only is she a great slave but she also happens to be the best (bleeped) money manager you ever saw! She handled all our funds on that very expensive trip and just now when we got off the plane she must have had nearly all of the original money left. Amazing! I don't know how she did it!"
"Yeah, she was sure a bargain," said the taxi driver. "Cheap, too. They don't make slaves like that anymore. Her turn-in value would be almost as high as the original price. You want I should ever trade her in on a new model?"
"Never!" I said firmly. "Not even if they come out with a new rear end."
We were drawing close to the villa. There seemed to be a number of cars parked on the road outside it. The taxi driver found a place to stop.
Creakily, I got out. I went through the gate.
The yard was full of men!
My reflexes, after all I had been through, were not very quick. I didn't get any chance to retreat.
A hulking brute stepped behind me!
Another hulking brute stalked up to me and used my Turkish Earth-name. "You Sultan Bey?"
; "That's him," said another. "I know him!"
Another jumped in front of me. "I'm from the American Oppress Company! Here is your bill. It's overdue!"
Another shouldered through. "I'm from the Dunner's Club. Here is your bill."
Yet another shouldered through. "I'm from Masker-Charge! What are you going to do about this bill?"
Still another crowded up. "I'm from the Squeeza Credit Card Corporation. One month interest on your first month's purchases is already more than the original amount!"
In chorus, a very menacing one, they yelled, "When are we going to get paid?"
I staggered back. I couldn't stagger very far as they were hemming me in. They were all waving bills!
It hit me! Utanc had gotten credit cards on my apparently affluent name and position before we left. She had done the whole trip on CREDIT CARDS!
Chapter 2
I saw some of the amounts they were waving. HUGE! The best hotels, all first-class travel, all the best shops...
Weak as I was, I still had some wits to gather about me. My gold! Painful though it might be, I would have to part with some gold.
I held up a bandaged hand. "Enough!" I cried. "You will be paid!" I would save the old homestead!
I rushed across the yard, across the house patio, into my bedroom, into the closet and through the secret door.
There it was, the stack of boxes in the corner of my secret room, all marked as "dangerously radioactive" to keep people away.
Ignoring the pain to my hands and the agony it caused to bend over, I ripped the lid off a box. Glittering yellow! I picked up a fifty-pound bar. It would weigh 41.6+ pounds on Earth. At twelve ounces Troy to the pound, that was 499.99+ ounces. Gold was above $700 when I last looked. This bar should be worth more than $349,999.99! That should hold them!
I struggled out with it. They gaped when I reappeared on the lawn. I dropped it in front of them. "This gold, if you cash it in, should take care of everything. And be sure to credit me with the difference."
They fought their way to it. One hulking brute got possession. He took out a pen knife and cut into the bar.
He stared.
He showed the others.