Part 21 (1/2)

Major Holt said coldly: ”Of course I see! It would need only one tank of doctored fuel to be delivered to the airfield, and it need not be used for weeks. And there would be no trace in the wreckage, after the fire!

You are telling me there is one underground storage tank in which the fuel is highly explosive. It is plausible. I will have it checked immediately.”

He hung up, and Joe went back to his meal. He felt uneasy. There couldn't be any way to make a jet motor explode unless you fed it explosive fuel. Then there couldn't be any way to stop it. And then--after the wreck had burned--there couldn't be any way to prove it was really sabotage. But the feeling of having reported only a guess was not too satisfying. Joe ate gloomily. He didn't pay much attention to Talley. He had that dogged, uncomfortable feeling a man has when he knows he doesn't qualify as an expert, but feels that he's. .h.i.t on something the experts have missed.

Half an hour after the evening mess--near sunset--a security officer wearing a uniform hunted up Joe at the airfield.

”Major Holt sent me over to bring you back to the Shed,” he said politely.

”If you don't mind,” said Joe with equal politeness, ”I'll check that.”

He went to the phone booth in the barracks. He got Major Holt on the wire. And Major Holt hadn't sent anybody to get him.

So Joe stayed in the telephone booth--on orders--while the Major did some fast telephoning. It was comforting to know he had a pistol in his pocket, and it was frustrating not to be allowed to try to capture the fake security officer himself. The idea of murdering Joe had not been given up, and he'd have liked to take part personally in protecting himself. But it was much more important for the fake security man to be captured than for Joe to have the satisfaction of attempting it himself.

As a matter of fact, the fake officer started his getaway the instant Joe went to check on his orders. The officer knew they'd be found faked.

It had not been practical for him to shoot Joe down where he was. There were too many people around for this murderer to have a chance at a getaway.

But he didn't get away, at that. Twenty minutes later, while Joe still waited fretfully in the phone booth, the phone bell rang and Major Holt was again on the wire. And this time Joe was instructed to come back to the Shed. He had exact orders whom to come with, and they had orders which identified them to Joe.

Some eight miles from the airfield--it was just dusk--Joe came upon a wrecked car with motorcycle security guards working on it. They stopped Joe's escort. Joe's phone call had set off an alarm. A plane had spotted this car tearing away from the airfield, and motorcyclists were guided in pursuit by the plane. When it wouldn't stop--when the fake Security officer in it tried to shoot his way clear--the plane strafed him. So he was dead and his car was a wreck, and the motorcycle men were trying to get some useful information from his body and the car.

Joe went to the Major's house in the officers'-quarters area. The Major looked even more tired than before, but he nodded approvingly at Joe.

Sally was there too, and she regarded Joe with a look which was a good deal warmer than her father's.

”You did very well,” said the Major detachedly. ”I don't have too high an opinion of the brains of anybody your age, Joe. When you are my age, you won't either. But whether you have brains or simply luck, you are turning out to be very useful.”

Joe said: ”I'm getting security conscious, sir. I want to stay alive.”

The Major regarded him with irony.

”I was thinking of the fact that when you worked out the matter of the doctored pushpot fuel, you did not try to be a hero and prove it yourself. You referred it to me. That was the proper procedure. You could have been killed, investigating--it's clear that the saboteurs would be pleased to have a good chance to murder you--and your suspicions might never have reached me. They were correct, by the way.

One storage tank underground was half-full of doctored fuel. Rather more important, another _was_ full, not yet drawn on.”

The Major went on, without apparent cordiality: ”It seems probable that if this particular sabotage trick had not been detected--it seems likely that on the Platform's take-off, all or most of the pushpots would have been fueled to explode at some time after the Platform was aloft, and before it could possibly get out to s.p.a.ce.”

Joe felt queer. The Major was telling him, in effect, that he might have kept the Platform from cras.h.i.+ng on take-off. It was a good but upsetting sensation. It was still more important to Joe that the Platform get out to s.p.a.ce than that he be credited with saving it. And it was not rea.s.suring to hear that it might have been wrecked.

”Your reasoning,” added the Major coldly, ”was soundly based. It seems certain that there is not one central authority directing all the sabotage against the Platform. There are probably several sabotage organizations, all acting independently and probably hating each other, but all hating the Platform more.”

Joe blinked. He hadn't thought of that. It was disheartening.

”It will really be bad,” said the Major, ”if they ever co-operate!”

”Yes, sir,” said Joe.

”But I called you back from the airfield,” the Major told him without warmth, ”to say that you have done a good job. I have talked to Was.h.i.+ngton. Naturally, you deserve a reward.”

”I'm doing all right, sir,” said Joe awkwardly. ”I want to see the Platform go up and stay up!”