Part 6 (2/2)

He was sitting behind his desk, scowling slightly at some papers on it when Houston stepped in.

”You wanted me to report straight to you, Mr. Reinhardt?”

Reinhardt looked up, his heavy face becoming expressionless. ”Ah, Houston. Yes; sit down. You did a fine job on that London affair; that's what I call coming through at the last moment.”

”How so?”

”Your orders to return,” he said, ”were cut before you found your man.

We have a much more important case for you than some petty pilfering Controller. We are after much more dangerous game.”

Houston nodded. ”I see.” Inwardly, he wondered. It was almost as if Reinhardt knew that Houston had found out that the recall had come early. Houston would have given his right arm at that moment to be able to probe Reinhardt's mind. But he held himself back. He had, in the past, sent tentative probes toward the Division Chief and found nothing, but he didn't know whether it would be safe now or not. It would be better to wait.

Reinhardt stood up, walked to the wall, and turned on a display screen.

He twisted a k.n.o.b to a certain setting, and a map of Manhattan Island sprang onto the screen in glowing color.

”As you know,” Reinhardt said pedantically, ”no Controller can do a perfect job of controlling a normal person. No matter how much he may want to make John Smith act naturally, some of the personality of the Controller will show up in the actions of John Smith. Am I correct?”

Houston nodded without saying anything. The question was purely rhetorical, and the statement was perfectly correct.

”Very well, then,” Reinhardt continued, ”by means of these peculiarities, our psychologists have found that there is widespread, but very subtle controlling going on right in the UN General a.s.sembly itself! The amazing thing is that they all bear the--shall we say--trademark of the same Controller. Whoever he is, he seems to have a long-range plan in mind; he wants to change, ever so slightly, certain international laws so that he will profit by them. Do you follow?”

”I follow,” said Houston.

”Good. It has taken painstaking research and a great deal of psychological statistical a.n.a.lysis, but we have found that one company--and one company only--benefits by these legal changes. Did you ever hear of La.s.ser & Sons?”

”Sure,” said Houston. ”They're in the import-export business, with a few fingers in s.h.i.+pping and air transport.”

”That's them,” said Reinhardt. ”Someone in that company, presumably someone at the top, is a Controller. And he's a very subtle, very dangerous man. Unlike the others, there is nothing hasty or overt in his plans. But within a few years, if this goes on, he will have more power than the others ever dreamed of.”

”And my job is to get him?” Houston asked.

Reinhardt nodded. ”That's it. Get him. One way or another. You're in charge; I don't care how you do it, but this one Controller is more dangerous than any other we've come across, so get him.”

Houston nodded slowly. ”Okay. Can you give me all the data you have so far?”

Reinhardt patted a heavy folder on his desk. ”It's all here.” Then he tapped the projected map on the screen. ”That's the La.s.ser Building--Church Street at Worth. Somewhere in there is the man we're looking for.”

David Houston spent the next six weeks gathering facts, trying to determine the ident.i.ty of the mysterious Controller at La.s.ser & Sons.

Slowly, the evidence began to pile up.

At the same time, he worried over his own problem. Who was betraying non-criminal Controllers to the PD Police?

In that six-week period, two more men and a woman were arrested--one in Spain, one in India, and one in Hawaii.

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