The Weapon of Night (2 page)

He moved quickly toward the sound, lightly on the balls of his feet, cautiously in case of a trap.

The sound got louder and a door wrenched open.

He was swearing as he reached it. Stroebling was through the door and on his way and in the darkness he would get away . . . . But one corner of his mind nagged Nick with a question.

How come Stroebling had had to wrestle with the door? It had been open.

His answer came with the sound of something splintering and a breath of warm, greasy air and a scream, that began on a high, piercing note that crescendoed, echoing, lowering, thinning out like a wailing siren fast fading into the distance — and then ending.

He could not be sure, but he thought he heard a thud from very far below.

The warm, greasy air of the open elevator shaft blew gently into his face and he was suddenly damp with sweat.

He closed the door and turned away, shaken. So the blackout that had so nearly offered escape to Stroebling had taken him instead.

One blackout, one old building, one ancient and ill-guarded elevator housing, and the trail was ended.

There was a faint suggestion of light rising from the sky to the east. He made for it, treading carefully through the blackness until he came to a wall and looked over it to the city below.

Tiny threads of light flickered in several windows. Two low buildings — hospital and firehouse, he thought — were brightly lit. Headlights shone in the streets. Here and there, a flashlight poked its beam into the gloom.

That was all. The Loop was black. The shores of Lake Michigan lay under a dark shroud. To the south, west, north, east, all was darkness but for a rare pin point of light or small glowworm sparks that made the darkness even darker.

Another one, he thought. Another one of those blackouts that they said could never happen again.

But at the moment all it meant to him was the need to drag his tired body down twenty-three flights of stairs in search of a telephone, a drink, a bed and sleep. Ami it marked the close of the case of Heinrich Stroebling.

He did not know it at the time, but it marked the opening of another.

Jimmy Jones was too young to read the newspapers, not too young to understand the words, but too young to care. Batman was his speed. And Batman had not been in Chicago the night before last, so Jimmy didn’t know that all of Chicago and its suburbs and much of the state of Illinois and some parts of the neighboring states had been blacked out for five long hours before the lights had suddenly, inexplicably, come on again. Nor did he know that, a year ago almost to the day, a boy a little older than himself had walked along a road in New Hampshire doing exactly what Jimmy was doing now on this chilly night in Maine.

Jimmy was on his way home to supper and he was swinging a stick. The sun was down and he was cold and there were some funny flashing lights in the sky that made him feel a little bit scared. So he swung his stick to make himself feel tough, and he whacked it against the trees alongside the road, and he whacked it against the light poles.

He hit two light poles and nothing happened except for the satisfying sound of the stick going
thwack
against the poles.

When he hit the third pole the light went out.

“Oh, Kee-rist!” he said guiltily, and stared down the dark road leading home.

All the lights had gone out. All the lights along the road and all the lights in the town ahead.

“Jeeze!” he breathed. “Oh, Jeeze, I really done it now!”

He started to run in the darkness.

He forgot all about the weird flashing lights in the sky.

But the people in his darkened home town saw them when their own lights went out and some of those people were a little uneasy. And some of them were unashamedly afraid.

Three days later in the Rocky Mountains, Ranger Horace Smith got out of his jeep to stretch his legs and admire his second favorite piece of scenery. The first was Alice, and she was home in Boulder; the second was Elkhorn Reservoir, usually crusted over with ice at this time of year but so far still rippling and blue under the near-winter sky.

Kind of warm for this time of year, he told himself as he tramped between the tall trees and around the natural rock wall that cut the dam off from the sight of passing tourists. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if there wasn’t something in that idea that the Russians are interfering with our weather. Next thing you know, they’ll be melting the Arctic ice cap to turn Siberia into a blooming desert and flood the eastern seaboard.

Well, anyway, they couldn’t touch the Rockies and the cool blue stretch of water that he loved so much.

He climbed over a pile of rock and rounded the last big boulder. His dam lay ahead, calm and beautiful under the midday sun. He gazed at it lovingly.

And felt a sudden, awful sensation as though his mind had snapped.

He blinked, shook his head, looked again.

At sunset, sometimes, yes, but not at high noon,
never
at high noon.

For some reason he fell on his knees and crawled toward the water.

Nothing had changed by the time he reached it.

It was still blood-red.

And down below, in the valley, in the little town that had once been a mining camp, Mrs. Myrtle Houston turned on a kitchen faucet and a stream of reddish fluid poured out.

She was not the only housewife in Gold Gap who was late with lunch that day.

By dinnertime the strangeness of the red lake was being commented on throughout the state of Colorado. No one could explain it.

Next day in Pocatello, Idaho, Jake Crewe crawled out of bed at 6 a.m. as always but without his usual morning cheerfulness. He had not slept well. The night had been stifling, not so much from heat as from airlessness. Not a breath of air had stirred. The atmosphere had lain heavy like some vast sleeping animal.

Jake’s barrel chest expanded as he stood at the open window trying to suck in air. Sunrise wasn’t due for another fifty-six minutes but there ought to be some sign of morning glow by now.

There wasn’t any.

A haze lay low over the town, a dirty, rank-smelling fog the likes of which he had never seen before. Not a mist, not a rain fog; just a grubby blanket of filth.

He stared at it incredulously and sniffed. Chemical odors. Auto fumes. Smoke, Sulphur, or something like it. He muttered irritably and padded to the bathroom to splash his face with cold water and wash away the feeling of being a walking lump of grime.

The smell of the water was vile.

By eight o’clock that morning nearly all of Pocatello’s thirty thousand citizens were uncomfortably aware that their city’s cool, clean air and flowing fresh water had unaccountably become contaminated.

They were not the least bit reassured to discover, later in the day, that their capital city of Boise was similarly affected. Not reassured at all.

FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA, NOVEMBER 17 —
Eighty-seven people including three engineers, one medical doctor, two airline pilots, five teachers, several dozen students, eighteen tourists and four state troopers witnessed last night’s aerial display of UFO’s near Humphrey’s Peak. Trooper Michael counted twelve “fiery balls in the sky, with tails behind them that looked like jet streams of green fire.” Dr. Henry Matheson’s camera recorded three rapid pictures of them before they “made a sudden vertical ascent and vanished over the mountains.” Today, talking to this reporter, he commented: “I’d like to see them try to explain this lot away as marsh gas.

Over Arizona’s highest peak? Not likely. Especially after that thing a couple of days ago right out in the desert. I tell you, people are getting unnerved by this kind of thing, and it’s time we took some real action before we get a state of panic . . .

EDITORIAL, KANSAS CITY MORNING SUN, NOVEMBER
10 — “After nine hours and forty-seven minutes of chaos, the lights in the Plains States came on again this morning at five thirty-five. Fourteen people died in accidents caused directly or indirectly by the power failure. Hundreds of homes were without water throughout the night. Thousands of people were stranded in their offices, on the streets, in elevators. Hundreds of thousands of residents in these four states were suddenly deprived of heat, light, comfort — and an explanation. Why did this happen again? Are we never to know? Why are the power companies unable to explain why it happened and how the situation suddenly corrected itself? We have a right to know, and we demand . . .

“Howdy, howdy, howdy, folks, Swingin’ Sammy’s back with you again to bring you all the lastest recorded hits selected especially for you by your favorite radio station, good old WROT in Tul — Wha? One moment, folks. Got a bulletin here. Hey! Flash! From the City Water Supply Commission. Water! Me, I never touch the stuff. . . . Say, maybe you better not, too. Says here — and listen carefully folks — WARNING! DO NOT REPEAT — DO NOT DRINK THE WATER FROM YOUR HOME FAUCETS, DO NOT DRINK ANY CITY WATER, DO

NOT DRINK ANY WATER IN THE AREA SERVED BY THE TAPACONIC RESERVOIR. THERE IS EVIDENCE OF UNUSUAL POLLUTION, NOT NECESSARILY HARMFUL, BUT UNTIL FINAL TESTS ARE MADE IT IS STRONGLY URGED THAT ALL RESIDENTS USE BOTTLED WATER OR OTHER LIQUIDS FROM SEALED CONTAINERS. DO NOT BE ALARMED — REPEAT — DO NOT BE ALARMED. BUT PLEASE CO-OPERATE. FURTHER DETAILS WILL BE SUPPLIED AS SOON AS AVAILABLE. Say, I
thought
my toothbrush tasted kinda funny this morning.”

Nick Carter stubbed out his cigarette and fastened his seat belt. The lights of New York City’s fringes lay below him and his fellow passengers, and the Eastern Airlines Constellation was already nosing downward in a graceful curve.

He looked down. It was a clear, beautiful night, and he could see the lights of Brooklyn and Long Island and the Verrazano Bridge, and he was glad to be coming home after tying up all the loose ends in Chicago.

The lights gleamed and shimmered. The runway lay ahead, a bright, inviting path.

Then it was gone.

It vanished into the night along with Manhattan, most of Long Island, parts of Connecticut and New Jersey.

There was a babble of excited voices in the plane. The pilot banked and circled and thanked his lucky stars that there were stars in the clear night sky.

Three minutes later, to the second, the lights came on again.

Millions of people, Nick among them, breathed a deep sigh of relief. But their relief was tempered by the growing suspicion that it could happen again, by the near certainty that it would happen again.

And none of them knew why.

Nick was home in his upper West Side apartment a little more than an hour later after stopping at the letter drop near Columbia University. His own address was known to only his closest friends and most of his mail traveled a circuitous route before reaching him at the drop.

He opened the letter now, rolling smooth, icy bourbon over his tongue and wondering who could be writing him from Egypt.

The letter was signed Hakim Sadek. Hakim, of course! Hakim, the cross-eyed criminologist who had used his devious talents to such astonishing effect during that business in Africa.

The memory of Hakim’s tricks made Nick grin with pleasure.

But the letter was not very funny. He read it twice, carefully, and when he put it back into its envelope his face was grim.

CHAPTER TWO

Valentina The Great

“No,” said Hawk. “And take your elbows off the toast, if you please, and pass it to me. My God, you’d think some genius in this overpriced snob trap would find some way to keep toast warm.”

Nick passed the toast. True, it was cold and soggy, but that was not the fault of the Hotel Pierre. Hawk had been on the telephone almost continually since breakfast had been brought to his suite and Nick had arrived to greet the head of AXE on his return from a top-level meeting in Europe.

“No?” said Nick. “You’ve hardly been listening to me. Why No?”

“Of course I’ve been listening to you,” said Hawk, spreading marmalade with careful lavishness. He was unaccountably irritable but he had not lost the frontiersman’s appetite that somehow left him looking lean and wiry and leather-tough. “Anyway, I know all about it. Blackouts here, pollution there. Lakes that turn bright red and water that flows stinking from the faucets. Oh, even in Europe I heard all about it. Humph. I see by this morning’s papers that flying saucers were seen over Montauk again last night. Extremely sinister, without a doubt.” He attacked his scrambled eggs and concentrated on them for a while. Then he said, “Don’t think I haven’t been concerned. Discussed this with the Chief on the four-way system Wednesday night. Central thinks it’s mass hysteria due to Vietnam war nerves, precipitated by perfectly normal incidents that just happen, coincidentally, with rather more than normal frequency. People exaggerating things, putting two and two together and coming up with with forty-five. The Bureau says —”

“It’s more than two and two,” said Nick. “Even more than forty-five.”

“Die Bureau says,” Hawk repeated, giving Nick a beady stare, “that it is quite impossible for enemy agents to have been at work. All incidents may be ascribed to human error, mechanical malfunctioning, self-delusion and imagination. However, they warn us that we must not entirely overlook the possibility that Russian saboteurs are lurking in our midst. Witness the red lake, for one thing.” Hawk smiled a little sourly. “That one really hit J. Egbert where he lives. But he will be Alert, he said, and Ever-Watchful.”

He took a mouthful of coffee and made a face. “Pretty bad, at a dollar a cup. Pfui. Well. McCracken took a middle course between two middle courses, which is walking a fine line indeed. He subscribes to the theory that all these episodes can be easily explained, though he himself cannot explain them. Power failures have been common enough for decades. We all know that smog and pollution came to us with the machine age. And we also know, he says, that there is a psychological factor involved — that things of this sort come in waves, like suicides and airplane crashes and so on. It will pass, he says. Due to our national state of nerves — again, I quote him — the American people are lumping a whole lot of unrelated incidents together and inducing in themselves a state of semipanic. But just in
case
— and here he goes along with J. Egbert — we must maintain an attitude of vigilance. The Chief agreed. So. All state and local police will make extra efforts to investigate all such phenomena. Federal marshals will be sent wherever necessary and the National Guard has already been alerted in order that they may act in extreme cases. The FBI, as promised, will be Alert and Ever-Watchful. But we of AXE have been ordered to keep our noses out of it.
Out.
And that, Carter, is that.”