Part 2 (1/2)

The search came nearer, and pa.s.sed. A cursory spotlight swept beneath the truck but failed to find his back. Soon they would return more warily and search more thoroughly. If escape was possible it was now or never.

He dropped to the ground cautiously, the fall of his feet cus.h.i.+oned by the thick, dried oil-patch underneath. Swiftly crossing between one line of trucks and then another, he worked his way towards a large express truck. As he reached the cab a shout went ringing from the further side of the hall and feet came running. He prayed silently as he felt the little key beneath his fingers. For a second the engine failed to start, then coughed twice and broke into life with the noise of vibrant thunder.

Dalroi urged the vehicle into lumbering life and charged it across the intervening s.p.a.ce straight at the steel-shuttered doors. With the engine warming rapidly he felt his luck returning. Then impact! The truck was doing fifty when it hit the shutters, and the slam and the scream of tortured metal would have made a fitting prelude to the last days of the universe. The b.u.mper grid took most of the force, but the cab ripped open at the top and the safety-gla.s.s dissolved around him in a hail of patterned diamonds.

Then he was out of the building, the shutter torn and twisted like a cardboard mock-up. Only the gates now stood between him and the road. The gatekeeper stood square in the approach, dutiful anger pa.s.sing to screaming hysteria as he realised Dalroi's intention. Instinctively Dalroi swerved slightly to avoid the creature in his path. The manoeuvre stripped the gla.s.s canopy off the front of the gatehouse and centred the truck on a brick column between two gates. Too late to brake or change direction, Dalroi gritted his teeth and charged the vehicle forward.

The brick column went down like straw before a scythe, and the heavy gates disintegrated in a hail of fractured castings. The rear wheel bucked frenziedly over the debris, and the battered dreadnought churned a crazy corner and hurtled into the sleeping street.

Abruptly he realised his mistake. A vehicle the size of his could never pa.s.s except by the regular trucking route. The way down which he was moving was flanked by warehouses, with low interconnecting bridges across the street. He pa.s.sed under two granary conveyors without mishap before his frenzied braking fetched the truck up short with its load jammed under a narrow tunnel. With difficulty he forced open the door and dropped to the ground. He was greeted by the heated richness of leaking fuel from a fractured pipe. A car was shrieking up behind, the bullets whined and riccochetted off the tunnel walls.

He had scarcely started running when the truck burst into sheets of flame, effectively sealing the route behind him.

He cleared out of the district fast. The flame-watch circuits lacing the town had fire-tenders sounding in the distance within seconds. But no matter how swift the wheels of officialdom, the local population would always beat them to it, eager for the morbid excitement of a fire and perhaps a little looting on the side.

Dalroi stuck to the shadows and fly-paths, for his face was well known in the river district and he had no intention of being picked up on a relatively minor charge of arson and illegal entry. His car was still wherehe had left it, but he wandered watchfully about the area for many minutes before he was satisfied that no one was watching. Then he swung out fast.

A quarter of a mile away a group of cowled figures in an instrumented trailer bent over the displays which told the tale of his leaving, and nodded in dark unison. Dalroi was shaping neatly - in fact, very neatly indeed. There was n.o.body in the world quite like Ivan Dalroi.

The hills around Pa.s.sfields were bright after the morning showers. In the cutting the damp shadows clung heavily under the trees and the air was heavy-scented with fern and the blued wood-smoke from the cabin fire.

The ap.r.o.n in front of the cabin was occupied with Zdenka's car, so Dalroi turned his own car at the foot of the slope to a point where years of usage had worn a partial track amidst the silver birch. As he alighted he stopped in sudden dismay, for the track never used except by himself, was marked with fresh tyre tracks in the damp forest loam. He stooped to the ground for a careful examination. A medium-heavy vehicle had come and gone again, and footprints trailed up the hill in the direction of the cabin. Again the sweet smell of trouble.

He turned away into the trees and made a broad circuit to the rear of the cabin. Against the cabin wall he listened, hoping for some slight sound to confirm or reject his fears, but he heard nothing save for the wildlife in the brush beyond.

The blue wood-smoke rising gave him an idea. Silently he climbed the outhouse wall. A piece of flas.h.i.+ng, left from an old repair, enabled him to stop the flue completely. Then he dropped to the ground and waited, gun in hand, for the opening of the door.

Nothing happened. In twenty minutes he knew the hut was untenable. Smoke issued thickly from the gaps under the eaves and round the windows. Finally he kicked open the door, gun raised, and peered into the smoky dimness of the room.

Harry Dever's body was on the bed, a wide wound where his forehead ought to be. Dalroi entered cautiously, fearful for Zdenka, but the rest of the cabin was empty and disordered. Of Zdenka there was no sign at all. The smoke, salty and acrid, drove him out again with smarting eyes and nostrils.

He broke some windows to clear the air and went back to Dever. The man was a rat and had been one all his life, but he had also been a mine of off-beat information. Dalroi felt the body, not yet cold. Perhaps two hours ago the murderers had struck. That was the last piece of information that Dever had to give.

No clues as to who or why.

Dalroi swore and kicked the sullen stove from its moorings, toppling it to the floor and scattering the hot embers. Paper rekindled the flame and the fire had gained irrevocable hold of timbers as he paid his last respects. Only as he turned did he notice on the door, scratched hastily in the paint, a single word: Gormalu. But this was the mystery rather than the answer, for Gormalu was blind and no more capable of committing this atrocity than of flying.

He was about to leave when he remembered the recorder in Zdenka's car. It was standard practice to record the transportation of clients and informers, and sometimes provided that little extra information which was forgotten at an interview. He reached in and pocketed the recorder then drove out of the woods as fast as he could.

A mile away he drew into a side track and started the recorder.

”h.e.l.l of a time to call a fellow out,” said Dever's voice complainingly. ”The streets aren't dry till aftereleven.”

”Don't fret,” Zdenka said. ”All we need is a little cooperation. This is an information job and we pay well.

What do you know about the Cronstadt committee?”

”Are you mixed up with them?”

”No comment. Suppose you tell me about Cronstadt?”

”Ah! A pointed question. Cronstadt is a warrior of the old school, pig-headed and utterly ruthless. He made a bid for the Failway monopoly when it was first formed. Rumour has it that he's trying to stage a comeback.”

”That sounds relevant. What about Presley?”

”A nut of the first order. Preached h.e.l.l-fire to his wife until she killed herself, then got even with her by refusing to sanction her burial in a churchyard. To h.e.l.l with your body, it's your soul he's after.”

”Hildebrand?”

”A bit of an unknown quant.i.ty. Some queer rumours about the mental asylum he runs.”

”And our old friend Gormalu?”

”Are you sure he's on your side?”

”I'm asking the questions. What do you know about Gormalu?”

”Enough to know how dangerous such information is. If you really want to know you'll have to make it worth the risk.”

”You can discuss that with Dalroi. He should be following fairly soon. If the information's any good, he'll pay.”

”And that's another thing,” said Dever. ”I never could understand how you could go on working for Dalroi. Too d.a.m.ned unhealthy. He's a professional trouble-man. If ever there's trouble you can bet your life he's in it somewhere - usually underneath. Even the government agents were asking questions about him a little while ago, and anyone who attracts that sort of attention from the Black Knights is usually on the short list for ... ”

The tape came to an end and flapped uselessly around the spool. Dalroi cursed. The Black Knights were the top-level government security agents. They only handled a.s.signments from high-treason upward.

Then what had they wanted with Dalroi?

The scream of a police siren roused him from this line of speculation and vaguely through the bushes he saw the patrol cars jet past. It did not take much to work out the odds. Whoever had killed Dever had also tipped off the police. With a dead body in his burning cabin Dalroi would have a lot of explaining to do. Sufficient to keep him out of the way for a reasonable period - say fifteen or twenty years. The heat was really on.

He absorbed this information quietly, trying to restrain the burning fury which welled up inside him. He was trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. From the scrawled word on the cabin door and from the fragment of taped conversation there was a reasonable supposition that Gormalu was the weak link in the Cronstadt committee. The Black Knights' interest was a little difficult to see. Dever must have givenmore information than was recorded, for Zdenka would not have allowed a lead like that to die. He had to find Zdenka.

On his way through town Dalroi parked his car in an alley near the central station and hastened into a public telephone kiosk. He dialled his own number and coded the auto-sec which stored incoming messages. The message store was empty and a polite taped voice invited him to leave a short message.

Dalroi cut the connection swiftly. A low-pitched blurr from the auto-sec warned him that a line-tap was operating. It would take about five seconds for the call to be traced. Zdenka had not phoned in and that was a sure sign that she was not a free agent. Then he called Brian Regis.

”Dalroi? You're certainly in the news tonight.”

”Don't rub it in,” Dalroi said. ”I'm in trouble up to my ears right now. Look, I want you to do something for me. Zdenka's missing, and I don't think she went of her own free will. It's my guess she's been kidnapped and I need to know by whom. I'll pay well for the information.”

”It's a deal! If she's within fifty miles of the city I'll know by the morning. Where can I call you?”

”Don't try,” said Dalroi. ”My phone is being tapped. I'll call you.”

”Right! If you want some advice, don't stay in one place too long. There's a whole lot of people looking for you.”