"The mess hall's four flights down. Take the escalator at the end of
the hall. It closes in half an hour, so you'd better step on it. And
if you're smart, you won't go wandering around. These boys in gray you
see here and there don't like us very much." His face creased into a
sardonic grin as he started for the door. "And you'd be smart to change
before you come down. The faster people stop thinking you're new here,
the happier you'll be." With that, he turned and disappeared down the
hall.
Jeff gave a sigh, and prowled the room. One of the foot lockers held
an amazing assortment of clean and dirty clothes. On the floor of it
lay a large heap of dirty shirts and trousers, and nested squarely in
the center of the pile was a heap of gold rings and wrist watches.
Jeff blinked, not quite believing his eyes. He hadn't thought to ask
about his room-mate, but apparently he had one who had not yet made his
appearance.
Apparently everyone wore similar clothing. He found the other locker
filled with clean shirts and dungarees. Swiftly he started to change,
his mind racing. His body was sore all over and he felt a dry, hot
feeling around his ears from lack of sleep. His arm ached miserably
every time he moved it. If only he could sleep for a little while. But
he knew there was no time to be wasted. In the mess hall there would
still be people. Somewhere among them he would find the girl....
Carefully he considered the problem. The girl was the key. He had to
find her, to make certain that Conroe was here. And he had to find her
quickly, catch her unawares, before she had a chance to alibi or hide.
Conroe would be hidden; he would never come into the open until he was
sure that he had not been followed. He too must be taken unawares. Jeff
had seen Conroe slip out of too many traps in the past. A blunder now
could be the last. And if Conroe had time to plan, there would be many,
many blunders.
A car buzzed down the hall as he stood in the room and stopped a little
way from the door. There were voices, subdued, yet carrying a sharp
note of frantic excitement. Jeff paused, listening to the combination
of unfamiliar sounds: a grunt, a low curse, a rustle of whispered
conversation, a low whistle. Then the door to the next room banged open
and a rumble and squeak of wheels came to his ears.
"Jeez, what a job!"
"Yeah, looks bad. Did the doc see him?"
"He said he'd be down--"
"--gotta let it wear off before you can tell. This was the works, this
time."
Jeff walked quietly to the door of the connecting lavatory, his nerves
tingling. A new sound was apparent, an unearthly sound of labored,
gurgling breathing. Jeff shivered. He had heard a sound like that only
once before in his life: in a rocket during the Asian war, when a man
had been struck in the throat with a chunk of shrapnel. Carefully, he
pushed the door open an inch, peered through....
There were three men standing in the room, maneuvering a man--if it
was a man--from the four-wheeled cart onto the bed. The man's head was
covered to the shoulders with bandage. A patch of fresh blood showed
near the temple, and a rubber tube emerged where the mouth should have
been.
"Got him down? Better cover him closer. Restrainers--he may jump
around. Doc said three weeks for shock to wear off, if he makes it
through the night."
"Yeah--and this is the Big Cash for Tinker too. Harpo nearly beat him
to the job, but Schiml had promised him--"
Jeff shuddered. This, then, was one of the Mercy Men, finished with a
"job." The gurgling sound grew louder, measuring itself with the man's
breathing--short, shallow, a measure of death. An experiment had been
completed.
Jeff closed the door silently. His face in the mirror was pasty white
and his hands were shaking. Here was the factor that had been plaguing
him from the start, finally breaking through to the surface. The road
he was traveling was a one-way road. He had to find Conroe and get off
the road quickly, while he could. _Because he dared not travel the road
too far...._
* * * * *
The air in the corridor seemed fresher as Jeff started for the
escalator. It was almost two o'clock and he hurried, anxious to reach
the mess hall before it closed. He consciously fought the picture
of the man on the bed out of his mind. With effort he focused his
attention once again on the girl. At the end of the corridor he stepped
onto the creaky, down-going escalator.
If only he could check with Ted Bahr, make certain that the trail
had really ended at the Hoffman Center, make sure that Conroe was
not really somewhere outside, still hiding, still running. One thing
seemed certain: if Conroe were really here, he too would be faced with
the testing and classification; he too would be traveling the same
grim road as Jeff himself. And as a newcomer, he too would be under
suspicion and scrutiny.
Jeff stopped short on a landing. He was suddenly aware that he had
lost count of the flights he had gone down. He looked back to check
his bearings, then moved around to the stairs moving up. The escalator
creaked and groaned, as if every turn would be its last, and Jeff
stared dreamily at the moving wall, waiting--until he passed the open
well to the opposite stairs.
He froze, his mind screaming. Unable to move, he stared at the pale,
frightened face of the man on the down-going stairway. In the brief
seconds while they passed, he stood rooted, paralyzed, unable to cry
out. Then with a hoarse yell he turned. Half-stumbling, half-falling,
he ran down the up-going stairs until he reached the opening.
Then he vaulted across the barrier, crashing his shoulder against the
wall as he went through. He caught a glimpse of the tall, slender
figure running from the bottom of the stairs into the corridor at the
bottom, and he shouted again in a burst of blinding rage. He took the
steps three at a time, his mind numb to the pain as his foot struck
the solid floor and twisted, sending him sprawling on his face. In an
instant he was on his feet again, running, frantically, blindly, to the
end of the corridor.
It broke into two hallways, going off in a Y. Both were dark and both
were empty. Jeff stood panting, almost screaming out in rage, his
whole body trembling. He started blindly down one corridor, jerked
open a door and stared in at the small, empty office. He tried another
door and another. Then he turned and ran back to the Y, spun around
the corner and ran pell-mell down the second corridor. Only his own
desperate footfalls echoed back to him in the darkness.
Back at the Y, he sank to the floor. Still panting, he sobbed aloud
in his rage, clenching his fists as he tried to regain control of his
spinning mind. Rage there was--yes, and hatred and bitter frustration.
But also, tumbling through his mind in a wild, elated cadence, was a
cry of sheer, incoherent savage joy. Because he knew now, beyond any
shadow of doubt, that Paul Conroe was among the Mercy Men.
He looked up suddenly at the two figures approaching him from the
lighted corridor. One of them held a tiny, deadly scorcher pistol
trained on his chest. The other, a huge, burly man, reached down and
jerked Jeff's face up into the light. "What's your unit?" the harsh
voice grated.
Jeff glimpsed the gray cloth of the man's jacket, the official-looking
black belt over his shoulder. "C unit," he panted.
The blow caught him full on the chin, twisting his head around with a
jolt. "Wise guy, wandering around without a pass," the voice growled.
"You goddam scabs think you run the place, don't you?" Another blow
struck him behind the ear, and a fist caught him hard in the pit of the
stomach. As he doubled over retching, a smashing blow caught his chin,
and he tasted blood in his mouth as his knees buckled under him.
* * * * *
He felt them, vaguely, half-carrying, half-dragging him down the
corridor. He heard a door open and fell face down on the floor. A harsh
voice said, "Here's your room-mate, scut. Keep him home from now on."
And the door slammed behind him.
Painfully, he raised himself on his hands, shook his head dazedly.
"You look like you're sick or something." The voice from the bed was
hard and insolent.
Painfully, Jeff jerked his head up and stared. The girl blinked coldly
and pulled a frazzled cigarette from her blue cotton shirt. She flicked
a match with her thumb and touched off the smoke. Then she stared down
at Jeff mockingly. "Sorry, Jack," said the girl called Blackie. "But
it looks like we're roomies. So you might as well get used to the idea."