Just a tiny voice that seemed hardly a voice at all, it seemed at once
to come from far away and yet from very near. The voice, with an edge of
coldness on it, was one he never would forget.
He cowered in his seat, whimpering.
The voice came again: "Didn't I tell you that you couldn't run away?
That no matter where you went, I'd find you?"
"Go away," Wilson whispered huskily. "Leave me alone. Haven't you
hounded me enough?"
"No," answered the voice, "not enough. Not yet. You sold us out. You
warned Chambers about our energy and now Chambers is sending men to kill
us. But they won't succeed, Wilson."
"You can't hurt me," said Wilson defiantly. "You can't do anything but
talk to me. You're trying to drive me mad, but you can't. I won't let
you. I'm not going to pay any more attention to you."
The whisper chuckled.
"You can't," argued Wilson wildly. "All you can do is talk to me. You've
never done anything but that. You drove me out of New York and out of
London and now you're driving me out of Paris. But Berlin is as far as I
will go. I won't listen to you any more."
"Wilson," whispered the voice, "look inside your bag. The bag, Wilson,
where you are carrying that money. That stack of credit certificates.
Almost eleven thousand dollars, what is left of the twenty thousand
Chambers paid you."
With a wild cry Wilson clawed at his bag, snapped it open, pawed through
it.
* * * * *
The credit certificates were gone!
"You took my money," he shrieked. "You took everything I had. I haven't
got a cent. Nothing except a few dollars in my pocket."
"You haven't got that either, Wilson," whispered the voice.
There was a sound of ripping cloth as something like a great, powerful
hand flung aside Wilson's coat, tore away the inside pocket. There was a
brief flash of a wallet and a bundle of papers, which vanished.
The hostess was hurrying toward him.
"Is there something wrong?"
"They took ..." Wilson began and stopped.
What could he tell her? Could he say that a man half way across the
world had robbed him?
The three traveling men were looking at him.
"I'm sorry, miss," he stammered. "I really am. I fell asleep and
dreamed."
He sat down again, shaken. Shivering, he huddled back into the corner of
his seat. His hands explored the torn coat pocket. He was stranded, high
in the air, somewhere between Paris and Berlin ... stranded without
money, without a passport, with nothing but the clothes he wore and the
few personal effects in his bag.
Fighting to calm himself, he tried to reason out his plight. The plane
was entering the Central European Federation and that, definitely, was
no place to be without a passport or without visible means of support. A
thousand possibilities flashed through his mind. They might think he was
a spy. He might be cited for illegal entry. He might be framed by secret
police.
Terror perched on his shoulder and whispered to him. He shivered
violently and drew farther back into the corner of the seat. He clasped
his hands, beat them against his huddled knees.
He would cable friends back in America and have them identify him and
vouch for his character. He would borrow some money from them, just
enough to get back to America. But whom would he cable? And with aching
bitterness in his breast, Harry Wilson came face to face with the
horrible realization that nowhere in the world, nowhere in the Solar
System, was there a single person who was his friend. There was no one
to help him.
He bowed his head in his hands and sobbed, his shoulders jerking
spasmodically, the sobs racking his body.
The traveling men stared at him unable to understand. The hostess looked
briskly helpless. Wilson knew he looked like a scared fool and he didn't
care.
He _was_ scared.
* * * * *
Gregory Manning riffled the sheaf of credit certificates, the wallet,
the passport and pile of other papers that lay upon the desk in front of
him.
"That closes one little incident," he said grimly. "That takes care of
our friend Wilson."
"Maybe you were a bit too harsh with him, Greg," suggested Russell Page.
Greg shook his head. "He was a traitor, the lowest thing alive. He sold
the confidence we placed in him. He traded something that was not his to
trade. He did it for money and now I've taken that money from him."
He shoved the pile of certificates to one side.
"Now I've got this stuff," he said, "I don't know what to do with it. We
don't want to keep it."
"Why not send it to Chambers?" suggested Russ. "He will find the
passport and the money on his desk in the morning. Give him something to
think about tomorrow."
_CHAPTER TWELVE_
Scorio snarled at the four men: "I want you to get the thing done right.
I don't want bungling. Understand?"
The bulky, flat-faced man with the scar across his cheek shuffled
uneasily. "We went over it a dozen times. We know just what to do."
He grinned at Scorio, but the grin was lopsided, more like a sneering
grimace. At one time the man had failed to side-step a heat ray and it
had left a neat red line drawn across the right cheek, nipped the end of
the ear.
"All right, Pete," said Scorio, glaring at the man, "your job is the
heavy work, so just keep your mind on it. You've got the two heaters and
the kit."
Pete grinned lopsidedly again. "Yeah, my own kit. I can open anything
hollow with this rig."
"You got a real job tonight," snarled Scorio. "Two doors and a safe.
Sure you can do it?"
"Just leave it to me," Pete growled.
"Chizzy, you're to pilot," Scorio snapped. "Know the coordinates?"
"Sure," said Chizzy, "know them by heart. Do it with my eyes shut."
"Keep your eyes open. We can't have anything go wrong. This is too
important. You swoop in at top speed and land on the roof. Stand by the
controls and keep a hand on the big heater just in case of trouble.
Pete, Max and Reg will go to the lockdoor. Reg will stay there with the
buzzer and three drums of ammunition."