# The Doomsday Spore

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ONE

I STOPPED ON the top step, the fiddle case under

my arm, feeling like an idiot. "Terence, my boy," I

said, "what if somebody asks me to play this

Terry Considine stood beside me staring up at

the huge double doors of the Italian Embassy.

Chuckling, he turned to me and said, "Then

you're in big trouble, Nick old pal. Haven't you

looked inside the case?"

"No," I snapped, embarrassed that I let some-

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thing get by me. "What's there?"

"Just a few sandwiches. The word is, the Em-

bassy doesn't have the best cooks this season. His

Excellency seems to be well-known for tight

pockets and a numb palate. I heard he called some

agency for a cheap short-order cook."

"Jesus," I mumbled, becoming irritated, "ring

the bell."

As Terry pressed on the small black buzzer, he

gestured at the case in his right hand. "I suppose I

didn't tell you about my two years at the New

England Conservatory. I can actually play .

"Sh-sh! Sounds like someone's coming."

Just then one of large doors cracked open

slightly. "Musicians,"

I said, peering into the

darkness. It was then that I noticed Terry was still

babbling.

The unfortunate thing is that I only

learned the scale in one key, and I only picked up

one tune; then I had to give the damned horn

back."

Now both doors swung open and—

interestingly—we were greeted by a Spaniard! He

shooed us in, making sure we took the service door

to the right. I gave him the expected "yassuh" and

scuttled out of sight to wait for Terry.

"So far, so good," he said as he looked around.

"Now what?"

"Take this goddamn fiddle case,"

I ordered,

"and give the backstage area a once-over. Check

for everything. Shake down everybody."

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"For what?"

"Didn't you get to talk to Hawk?"

3

"No. The phone line where he caught me wasn't

secure."

I looked him up and down quickly. Terry was

big, redheaded, second-generation Irish, and as

tough a customer as AXE had ever thrown me as a

backup man. Sizing him up, I applauded David

Hawk's judgment in sending him along. Terry

could do everything ... except fold four cards to

an inside straight. He had every strength God had

ever given the Irish, and damn few of the weak-

nesses.

I "Shake 'em down," I said, "for anything that

Could kill anybody. Because if we don't find who-

ever the hell it is and disarm him in " I looked at

Y watch.

He groaned.

In fifteen minutes."

"You've got it," I said. g VA major assassination.

riple priority. Hawk said the call came from ..

"From Sixteen Hundred Pennsylvania Avenue.

esus, Mary an' Joseph. And who is going to get

he honor of being sent to the Saints?"

' 'Nobody has the slightest idea. All we know is

hat it's serious as hell."

"God almighty. Any idea of how it's going to be

done?"

"We don't know another thing. It could be an

repick up somebody's ass or it could be a satchel-

ful of something that'll blow up everything, and

everybody, between the National Geographic

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Building and the Maryland line."

"l knew I should have taken that job playing

tight end for the Redskins. And we have how long

to stop it?"

"Fourteen—no thirteen minutes."

I started to add the wry comment to speed the

parting guest, but he was way ahead of me. All

saw was his broad back disappearing around

corner.

I did my own bit of groaning when I walked intc

the big reception room of the Embassy. The plac€

was crawling with people. And as I looked around

identifying one face after another, my heart sank a:

the task.

They weren't the sort of faces you'd know un

less you were pretty well plugged into the Capital

Nobody knows the diplomats, for the most part

except people who have reason to know them

But—damn it to hell—every ambassador of even

country outside the Third World crowd was there

I ticked them off: France . . .

Germany .

thi

Soviet Union ... Canada... Australia ... Swedel

. and, of course, His Excellency Sir Frederic]

Thornton, K.C.B.E., Ambassador of Great Bri

tain. Guest of Honor at the party. An elder states

man who was celebrating his thirtieth year in th

British foreign service. Yeah, there he was, jawin

with the Cultural Attache from West Germany

Someone in the room was scheduled to get him

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self jerked up to Jesus in eleven minutes. And we

had no idea who. Or why. Or how.

I was just about to go backstage and help Terry

when I spotted a familiar face heading my way.

Red-haired, red-bearded; wearing—even in these

circumstances, with soup and fish de rigueur on all

sides—a suit that looked like he'd slept in it. And

sporting a wry and sharp-eyed variety of the well-

known coprophagous grin.

"Robert Franks,"

I said.

"Howdy." The voice was low and didn't carry

as Bob Franks slipped up to my side. "I'm

alarmed. You wouldn't be here," he said, "unless

some sort ofshit were about to hit some sort of fan."

Bob's status had never been quite so clearly

defined as I'd have liked. He'd had a very high

clearance once. For all we knew he might well

have one now. He worked whenever he chose as a

sort of free-lance consultant to anyone and

everyone in the Capital. We'd found out we could

trust him with the damned little we approved of

having him find out. The rest . . . well, he had a

sharp eye and there wasn't much time.

"You got it," I said. "In ten minutes the clock is

going to run out for somebody here. If you've seen

anything .

"Hmmmm." He fiddled with his beard. "I'll

think about that. You've got somebody

backstage?"

"Yeah. But who's there?"

"The entertainment. Which consists of the

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twelve stalwart strings of the Miniver Cheevy So

ciety's Baroque orchestra, courtesy of your hum

ble servant. . e"

"Yeah. And?"

"And, of course, the main attraction. The openiru

program of the first American tour of The Grea

Marconi, Master of Mystery. He's an illusionis

and escape artist. The high spot of his program wil

be a stunt he's performed at every court in Europe

He bought it from the Houdini estate. They loci

him inside an iron cylinder—padlocks, chains,

works. Then they suspend the cylinder in the air

frozen inside a giant cake of ice. The cylinde

remains in full view the whole time. And by God i

the son of a bitch doesn't. . . . Hey, Nick."

"The president was supposed to be at this thim

Have you seen him?"

"No. They've warned him off. But I just spotte

the Secretary of Defense."

"Jesus."

"You're sure you haven't seen anything?"

"No, I—hey, wait."

"The new paparazzo."

"New what?"

"There's a news photographer here I don't re

ognize."

Bob hung out with television photographer

they were regulars at a bar on Connecticut whe

he had a friendly arrangement with tl

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bartender—who just happened to play the viola in

Bob's band when he was off duty.

"Can you point him out?" I asked with some

interest.

"Hmmm I don't see him right now," Franks

said as he scanned the crowded room. "He may

have gone backstage to get a shot of our magician

friend."

'What does he look like?"

"Sort of a little, pushfaced guy. Looks like a

young version of .

aw, goddamn . . .

you re-

member Jimmy Gleason? The actor? Used to play

prizefight managers?"

"Yeah. Hey, if you see him find me. Don't tackle

him yourself."

"Nick, I

"I'm not kidding. God knows what's in his cam-

era. We don't know anything about the method. It

may be loaded with gelignite. Or .

"Oh, wow. Well, there goes my string or-

chestra. "

"There goes international relations. Everybody

in the whole damn diplomatic world is here. India

Israel . . . "Iürkey . . Iran. . .

'You're a little bundle of joy. I'll keep an eye

out."

"You do that." I slipped through the curtain at

the end of the big room, trying to look musical.

There was a sort of hall between the green room

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and auditorium, and in it Bob's fiddlers walked

back and forth, playing scales, playing Kreutzer,

warming up the fingers. A lone cellist sat, instru-

ment between his knees, abstractedly playing a

boogie-woogie bass pattern pizzicato on his cello.

Behind the players, burly roughies were moving

the illusionist's gear into place. This was block-

and-tackle equipment, weighing hundreds of

pounds. It looked as though they were getting

ready to drill an oil well in the middle of the ball-

room, and all they had to do was roll the damned

derrick inside.

I pushed past a fiddler playing Joe Venuti licks

and went into the green room. Terry looked up

from the frisk he was giving the second of two

roughies who had been helping move the equip-

ment. The first regarded him with the sort of look

you give somebody you're thinking of giving a fat

lip.

"Nick," he said, looking over at me. "No soap

so far. These guys are clean. I

"Now," said a voice from behind a screen in the

corner. A dapper little man stepped out from be-

hind the shoji. He wore the traditional magician's

tailcoat and red-lined black cape, white gloves,

and an amused smile. The black wig and Mandrake

moustache were patently phony, and probably

weren't meant to look any other way. "Now if you

gentlemen are through."

"You're Marconi?" I said.

w 'At your service, signore."

"Oh, cut out the signore stuff, hey?" Terry told

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him with a grin. "Nick, the Great Marconi is a

Mick from County Kerry. His father had a feud

once with a great uncle of mine, he says. Not that

I'd know the Blarney Stone from Plymouth Rock

unless I had money bet on it."

"Nice to meet you," I said. I held out my hand.

Marconi winced and pulled his hand away.

"I—I never shake hands," he said. "I'm sorry.

Some parts of my act . .

they require a great

delicacy with the fingers . . .

you understand the

precautions I have to take. They are, after all, my

living."

"Sure," I said. I turned to Terry. "Five god-

damn minutes. No, four. You've frisked Mar-

"Yeah. And I checked the equipment. Nothing

there."

"I got a tip from out front. Somebody's spotted

a news photographer who doesn't seem to be-

long .

"Little guy with a rot more chin than nose?

Balding on top? Wearing a coat that looks a couple

sizes too large?"

"Could be. You've seen him?"

"He just went out the door. Heading for the

john, he said .

I didn't wait for him to finish. I was gone, at a

run. There was a big guy, apparently one of the

roughies, coming my way.

'Hey," I said. "Did you see a little guy with a

"Camera?" he asked.

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I didn't see what was in his hand as I ran past.

Whatever it was knocked me to my knees, then my

face. As I tried to rise somebody hit me again.

I shook my head.

Music was playing. Tchaikovsky's Serenade For

Strings.

Music!

I was too late! The performance had started. I

got my hands under me and shoved to get up,

trying to shake the cobwebs out of my eyes, my

brain.

Up ahead of me in the dim hallway some people

were fighting. Wrestling. I could hear groans.

Someone was hit and went down. And now I could

see two others bending over him, hitting him

again.

I got my feet under me and charged. I hit the

bigger of the two amidships and tackled him. He

went down, rolling.

"Nick!" Terry said. I wanted to answer, but the

man I'd tackled caught me a good one over thc

eye. I blinked—there wasn't time for anything ir

the way of subtlety. I bulled into him as he tried tc

rise. He slammed against the wall and came bacl

at me. fists going. I ducked one, barely slippec

another, and gave him a nice one in the short ribs. ,

thought I felt something give. He groaned anc

swung again, grunting in pain as he did.

"Come back here, you little bastard." Tern

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said behind me. I could hear feet pounding down

the hall, toward the side door. TWO pairs of feet.

The photographer's small ones—and those big

brogans of Terence Considine, AXE Agent N21.

Then the guy I was waltzing with missed a

roundhouse aimed at my chin. As he did so he left

himself wide open. I snapped a left hook across a

few inches of space. He went down as if he'd run

into a train.

My own head went up.

Down the hall Terry caught the Jimmy Gleason

look-alike. They grappled in a pool of light near the

side door. Terry pulled the guy's coat open; it tore

away.

His chest was covered with sticks. Fused sticks

of dynamite.

There was a sudden flash.

In that marble hall it sounded like bloody hell.

And the shock wave knocked me for a loop as the

ceiling caved in. The side door—they told me

later—landed half a block away on Columbia

Road. What was left of it.

I sat up slowly. And then clawed wildly at my

coat.

It was covered with flecks of blood ... and little

pieces of flesh.

Pieces of the guy who looked like Jimmy

Gleason.

Pieces of Terry Considine.


TWO

I BRUSHED SOME of the gore off me; there was

something solid there, something black. Absently,

I shoved it in my shirt pocket.

Down the hall there was a gaping hole, letting

out the stale air of the Embassy, letting in the stale

air of the District. Something had caught fire from

the blast and was smoldering.

There wasn't much left of either guy. And now,

as I looked, the clothing of one of them began to

burn. I couldn't tell which one of them it was.

Wake up, Carter. You've got a concussion, and

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yes, that is blood from your nose running down

your upper lip into your mouth.

I looked around. There was the guy I'd creamed

with the sucker punch only moments before, try-

ing to struggle to his feet.

"No, you don't," I said. I scrambled after him,

grabbed one foot as he rose, twisted, and dumped

him on his nose. "Hey," I said. "You stay put. I

need you .

He was nice and quick on the draw. The leg I'd

pulled drew back and caught me one over the eye

as I moved forward, and I went end over end. It

bought him enough time to scramble to his feet just

as the door opened and people started pouring out

into the hall.

He was a quick thinker, this one. "Help!" he

said. "That man there ... he's the one ... he's the

man who did it

"Stop him!" I said. "Somebody stop him!" But

damn it, they chose him to believe. He had the

advantage of looking like everybody else. Soup

and fish, most of it clean. Me, I was all over gore. A

couple of burly lads from the Embassy staff bore

down on me. Our little friend—all two hundred

pounds of him—disappeared into the crowd.

"Hey, damn it," I said. "You're letting him get

away

i 'Cuidado," said the one on the left. "Creo que

tiene una pistola." He and his friend advanced on

me one step at a time. The hall was full of people by

now, and the noise was considerable.

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I didn't have time to show my credentials as the

man on the right moved in. I swept his hand down,

spun him around, twisted his arm high behind his

back, and literally threw him at the other guy.

Then I made a rush for it.

A few of them had the good sense to get out of

my way. The rest I bowled over, and without the

smallest twinge of conscience. And damned if the

guy I'd tackled in the hall wasn't still in there,

trying to look like somebody who had a right to be

there. I looked around. "Bob! Bob Franks! Close

that goddamn door! Don't let him out .

The guy was making a break for it right then and

there. Bob was up front trying to swing the door

shut. He looked around in time to dive for the floor

as the big guy pulled a snubnosed revolver and

squeezed off a round in his direction. Franks—a

lot more agile than I'd have given him credit for—

rolled deftly behind a huge overstuffed chair and

was safe for the moment. But me? Our friend

turned and let one go at me ... and then I broke my

rule about showing iron on the sacred diplomatic

ground. I reached inside my coat for

Wilhelmina—a factory-perfect 9mm Luger

slightly older than I was, and just as deadly.

"Drop it!" I commanded.

Just as I was about to put him on ice until the

authorities could arrive, a young blonde came

through the door. He grabbed her by the neck

immediately, and she let out a frightened, ear-

piercing scream.

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"All right," he yelped, a tremor in his voice, his

eyes focused directly on me. He had a slight ac-

cent, but one I couldn't readily distinguish. Some

part of England or Canada that I didn't know,

perhaps.

"All right," he said again. "If anybody so much

as moves a muscle , the lady gets it in the head. Just

like that .

The room was suddenly very empty of people.

Apparently they assumed he meant they weren't

supposed to move any direction but backward. My

fingers itched on Wilhelmina' grip.

"You, Carter." he said, his voice becoming

more steady.

How the hell did he know me?

Inside my head an alarm buzzer went off and

rang like blazes.

"Drop the gun straight down. Don't try any-

thing. Just let it go, and then I'll back right out of

here . . ."

"Leave the lady behind," I said. "She hasn't

done anything."

"Sorry," he said. The lady began to scream

again. A big hand went over her mouth. "Not a

chance," he told me. "Insurance.'

My hand was still on the gun. My fingers were

loose, though. "Not a chance indeed," I said.

"Let her go right now . or I'll shoot right over

her—and accurately. If you know me well enough

to know my name you know that much about me.

She's not big enough for you to hide behind.

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There'll always be some part of you I can hit—and

from which you can bleed to death. An artery in

the leg, for instance. I

There was a commotion outside in the foyer. A

bullhorn bellowed: "All right, come on out. The

place is surrounded. "

"That's the SWAT team," I said. "Special

Weapons and Tactics. Any one of them can disarm

you and cut you in little pieces with his bare hands.

The only thing that's keeping me from doing it

myself is the passing thought that the lady might

get her hairdo mussed in the process. And that

isn't going to happen. You're going to go quietly.

You remember the SLA shootout in Los Angeles?

Well, these guys are six times as tough."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bob Franks

edging to the near side of the huge chair he was

hiding behind. He had a heavy glass ashtray in one

hand. I kept my eyes on the gunman, but when I

shook my head I had Franks in my mind. "No," I

said. "Don't do it. It's too dangerous . . . ."

But there was Franks, damn it, chewing on his

red moustache, edging into place. I knew just what

he was going to do. He was as deadly in a dart

game as I was at the small-arms range. "No," I

said, my voice aimed at the gunman but my words

aimed at Franks. ' 'It isn't worth it. You'll just get

killed."

Behind the gunman a battering ram banged

heavily at the door. His hand went to his mouth.

The cops broke down the door, and I was just in

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time to grab the lady as she fell to the floor in a

faint. Behind her her assailant slumped into a

heap. Behind his inert body the cops kicked in the

door and jumped into the room, brandishing M16s.

I sighed, dropped Wilhelmina to the floor, and put

my hands up.

Of course, he was dead when they got to him.

Whatever he'd taken, it was quick and final. And

there went our chance of finding out who he was,

and who he represented. The cops put the frisk on

me netting three good friends of mine: Wilhelmina,

the Luger; Pierre, my little gas bomb; and Hugo,

the peerless long-bladed shiv I keep up one sleeve.

They were about to put the cuffs on me when the

ambassador came to my rescue.

"No, no," he said. "Please. This man . . . he

saved my wife. . . : '

Well, that was some entree. It took some more

explaining, and finally it took having the cop in

charge of the SWAT unit call a certain number

down on the Mall. I watched as his eyebrows went

up and the tone of his voice became quiet and

respectful. He hung up at last and looked over at

me with new eyes. "Sorry," he said. "Under

the circumstances we couldn't take any chances.

1.

understand,"

I said, and I did. Special

firepower or no, he was just the cop on the spot,

unable to tell the home team from the bad guys

without a program.

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time to grab the lady as she fell to the floor in a

faint. Behind her her assailant slumped into a

heap. Behind his inert body the cops kicked in the

door and jumped into the room, brandishing M16s.

I sighed, dropped Wilhelmina to the floor, and put

my hands up.

Of course, he was dead when they got to him.

Whatever he'd taken, it was quick and final. And

there went our chance of finding out who he was,

and who he represented. The cops put the frisk on

me netting three good friends of mine: Wilhelmina,

the Luger; Pierre, my little gas bomb; and Hugo,

the peerless long-bladed shiv I keep up one sleeve.

They were about to put the cuffs on me when the

ambassador came to my rescue.

"No, no," he said. "Please. This man . . . he

saved my wife. . . : '

Well, that was some entree. It took some more

explaining, and finally it took having the cop in

charge of the SWAT unit call a certain number

down on the Mall. I watched as his eyebrows went

up and the tone of his voice became quiet and

respectful. He hung up at last and looked over at

me with new eyes. "Sorry," he said. "Under

the circumstances we couldn't take any chances.

1.

understand,"

I said, and I did. Special

firepower or no, he was just the cop on the spot,

unable to tell the home team from the bad guys

without a program.

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We set up a roll call in the foyer, lining every-body up, checking credentials. Then we ran another on the servants. After we got the list done the lieutenant started checking it against the guest list. I went back into the other room, having liber-ated my three lethal little friends and stowed them. Bob Franks was arguing with a cop. The cop wanted to know just what Franks was doing here. He wasn't conducting the band, was he? "He's okay. I said. "Ask Lt. Agnelli, up front. He'll vouch for me. I'll vouch for Franks." "Well . ." Keeping one eye on us, he sidled back to the open door where Agnelli, the SWAT leader, was calling off names. "flanks," Bob Franks said. "I think I'm going to stick to booking the band as live classical Muzak behind art-show openings. I'm getting a little long in the tooth for all this razzle-dazzle." "You damn fool, you almost got yourself killed. Didn't you hear me warning you off? If the cops hadn't busted down the door just then . . . ." "On the other hand, that so-and-so took a pot-shot at me. Nobody does that to ..." Franks's face had suddenly turned stark white. "What is it?" I asked. "You look like you've just seen a ghost." The color came back to his ruddy face a little at a time. "It's not the ghosts I'm seeing but the ones I ain't. That goddamn magician. He's been up there on that derrick, locked inside that steel cylinder, frozen inside that cake of ice for thirty-five min-

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utes. With enough air for about ten .

He beat me to the winch. The apparatus was

secured with a mean-looking knot; I whipped out

Hugo and sliced through the heart of it like Ale-

xander the Great at Gordium. Bob went to work on

the block-and-tackle arrangement that held the

dripping cake of ice high above its tank in the

middle of the big auditorium. "The ice." he said.

"There's a big sledge over there .

The sledge was one of those big-headed wooden

monsters you see at carnivals; people used them to

pound in the tent stakes. I hefted it and took a big

backswing. The sledge went way up ... then down

. and the ice smashed into a million pieces!

I said, "The damn

"Well, for God's sake,"

thing's hollow."

"Of course it is," Franks said. "I saw the re-

hearsal. There's no time to actually freeze him in

there. They used a hollowed-out cake of ice, made

by freezing big blocks together in an igloo pattern.

It's still a pretty spectacular stunt."

"I'll bet. Where are those damn keys?"

"That must be them over here. Here, catch."

"Okay," I grabbed them in midair and went to

work on the locks that held the cylinder shut.

"No," he said. "Roll the thing over on its side

so we can get the poor devil out. Not that I think

it's going to make much difference by now. He

can't still be alive, Houdini trick or no. The air ran

out inside that thing a long time back, I'm sure."

In a moment we had him. We rolled him out on

his back. The face was familiar and the guy behind

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it was dead. Only he hadn't died from asphyxia-

tion. That conclusion had something to do with the

eight-inch dagger protruding from the middle of his

chest. The blood stained his evening clothes and

soaked through to the black-and-red magician's

cloak he wore over them.

It also stained the back of the white paper

through which the dagger had been thrust into his

chest. I read it through just as the cops hove into

view, telling me to be careful not to touch any-

thing.

The blood soaking through the paper brought

out a shamrock watermark—and the following

message:

And will Ireland then be free?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;

Will Ireland then be free?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;

Yes! Ireland shall be free.

From the centre to the sea;

Then hurrah for Liberty!

Says the Shan Van Vocht.

UNION OR DEATH

Captain Moonlight

Only the gent whose chest it was decorating

wasn't the dapper little magician I'd met

backstage. But I knew the face. It belonged to Sir

Frederick Thornton, K.C.B.E., Ambassador of

Great Britain to the United States.

The magician? Not a sign of him anywhere!


THREE

Two DAYS LATER David Hawk and I stood on a

hillside in Arlington watching the man in the

turned-around collar say the last words over Terry

Considine. It was a gray day, with low clouds that

had National Airport socked in, and as the priest

got off the last few Latin words it started to rain.

I looked around, feeling a sudden chill. There

weren't many of us: Hawk and myself, and a girl

Terry'd dated, but who had broken off their en-

gagement when she found out something of what

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he did for a living. I wondered what she was think-

ing now. Her face was somber and drawn. Maybe

she'd lost something she hadn't known the value

of until now.

There weren't any other AXE people there. The

business doesn't stop just because one of us buys

the farm.

I looked at Hawk. "I think," I said, "that in the

best of all possible worlds I'd skip the part where

they start shoveling the dirt on him. If you don't

mind." I thought a moment and then added,

"Sir."

Hawk looked around at me. His gaze landed on

my tie first, then worked its way up to my face.

"Yeah," he said in that gruff voice. "Let's go."

His face looked a little odd without a stogie in it,

being worried the way a pit bull worries a rat.

There was a sour note there that made his usual

less-than-enthusiastic tone sound like the tinkling

of Christmas bells beside it. He jammed his hands

into his pockets and strolled away. I caught up.

Hawk had actually had a suit pressed for the fu-

neral, and here it was getting sticky with one of

those greasy Potomac drizzles.

We followed the path down the hill. Neither of

us said anything, all the way to Hawk's car—a

ten-year-old bucket of bolts that looked like disas-

ter on wheels and would do a hundred and forty on

the roughest roads rural Virginia could devise. He

took out the keys and looked at them with disgust.

"Here," he said handing them to me. "You're the

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active agent—you drive."

25

I took us down the hill to the turnaround and we

went across the bridge past the Lincoln Memorial.

Hawk suggested that I turn there and cut over by

the Tidal Basin. The drizzle was knocking the last

of the cherry blossoms off the trees. The city

looked dismal, and the cold Potomac fog was get-

ting into my bones. Some spring I thought!

'Pull over," Hawk said, his tone indicating

something was on his mind.

I stopped under a stand of wilted-looking cherry

trees and parked the car. As I turned off the igni-

tion, the car made such rumbling sounds I ex-

pected it would collapse any minute. Yet, as I was

driving it, I could feel the damn thing purr; it was

amazing. I was still puzzling over the car when

Hawk finally spoke.

Looking straight ahead, he said curtly, "Okay,

you have something to say. Say it!"

"Yes, sir."

I got out one of my custom-made

cigarettes and lit it, giving Hawk a light for the

cigar that had miraculously appeared between his

back teeth. "I ... let's say I'm pissed off. I've been

led up the garden path by someone and faked out

of position, and it has cost me not only a mission,

but a good friend as well. I want to finish this

I blew smoke out into the already

assignment. "

I added be-

polluted air of Washington. "Sir,"

tween clenched teeth.

"Okay," Hawk said matter-of-factly. "You've

got it."

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I was just ready to argue with him, and there hc

was, giving in without a struggle.

"But," he added, imperatively, "This won't bc

a vendetta. You get the job because you're the mar

for it. But you won*t be if you plan to play thc

Count of Monte Cristo. If you can't tackle the jot

as if it were just a bunch of goddamn statistics yot

dug out of a vault somewhere, you'd better let mc

know about it right now. By the way ... this mar

Franks ... he gets around a little too much for m:

comfort. "

"He's okay," I said. "And he's got a little morc

guts than he knows. He was ready to cream tha

guy with an ashtray."

checked him out. He seems to have had

very high clearance. He'll have one again if he get

the consultancy he's applied for. I think I migh

pull a string and get him the job. It has nothing

do with us. It's a liaison in the Executive Offic•

Building. Foreign trade. But you seem to have thi

key that turns him on, and he doesn't leak informa

tion to anybody but you."

C You've been doing some dossier work."

'SJust as a matter of course. His contacts—am

that crazy orchestra he plays the impresari

for—get him into some interesting places. And h

knows when to keep quiet."

"That's something," I quipped, "in a nonstoi

talker like Bob."

"Okay," Hawk said. "I'm going to get him th

job. And that'll mean we have ears inside a coupl

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27

of trade missions who have .. ." He looked at me

sourly. "Who have choked off a lot of useful in-

formation lately that might otherwise have wound

up in our files."

"All's fair in love and war," I said.

"Nothing's fair in AXE, but I'm not running a

den of Cub Scouts. And meanwhile, there's the

present business at hand."

' 'I was wondering when we were going to get

back to that,"

I said.

"Here," he said. He reached under the dash on

the right side, pushed—or maybe pulled—

something, and a compartment slid down. In it was

a file folder. "This is your bedtime story for the

evening. It'll bring you far enough up to date for

the meeting tomorrow."

I said. "What meeting?"

"Fine,"

Hawk gnawed on the cigar. It looked like the

remains of an old bedroom slipper that had been

savaged by a Doberman. ' 'Big Stuff." The words

had audible capital letters. "We will have partners

in this one. You realize I'm saying this just to cheer

you up."

"Can't be helped. It's international and it busted

in our turf. The good people in charge of this are,

quite definitely, going to strike again. More than

once. That is, unless we can pull a rabbit or two out

of a hat in one hell of a hurry."

"Yeah," I sighed. "But

"Yes, I know. You prefer playing Paganini fiddle

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solos, and it seems like I'm handing you a dul

viola part in a Haydn quartet. Well, it won't bc

quite that way. But you will be working in tan

dem."

"With how many people?"

"At last count, two." He spat a fragment o

mangled tobacco leaf out into the rain.

It was back to anonymous bureaucratic mun

the next day as I walked up the steps to the 01'

Georgetown mansion. There is a way to dress il

Washington that makes you look precisely liki

everybody else in the whole damn town—and tha

includes Arlington, Alexandria, Silver Spring ani

Bethesda. At least everybody who works for o

with Uncle Sam at a certain level. It's a handy thin

to know if you want to disappear utterly. Even th

ladies look right through you, even if they'd do

Jerry Lewis double-take if they saw you in T-shir

and jeans; all they can see in that outfit is Execu

tive Paper Shuffler, and they want no part of you

You're not where the action is. You don't contrc

contracts, money, power. Not directly anyhov

The hell with you.

It's a good disguise.

It bought me a snotty sneer from the servar

who answered the door. He showed me into

room where I was obviously expected to sit on m

ass and wait, and without the usual solace of ou

dated copies of National Geographic. Ther

wasn't the smallest hint of any kind of deference i

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his manner. Anywhere.

29

Well, that was Georgetown. They didn't invent

the techniques, but they had them down all right.

Sitting there gave me some time to think. I used

it to review what I'd learned from Hawk's dossier.

It wasn't much. The slug on the front had said:

RED SWINEHERD

It seemed that there'd been a recent split-up in

the ranks of the Provisional Wing of the Irish Re-

publican Army. The break had been over the re-

curring dispute between the conservative mem-

bers and the mpre fanatical element. The conser-

vatives only wanted to murder every Englishman

and every Protestant on the island in their beds,

and take over the management of Ulster at gun-

point, enforcing a Catholic rule so repressive and

reactionary that even the Vatican frowned on it.

The fanatic element wanted increased terrorist

activity, and all the wraps taken off the escalating

war. They wanted an assassination a minute. They

wanted bombs in hospitals and kindergartens.

They wanted tactics that would really horrify the

British, and not in Whitehall either—in the little

constituencies around the country where, in an

age that was tired unto the death of bombs and

blood, nobody knew what to think any more. Ex-

cept that, if this was the way they were going to be,

let them have Ulster, and good riddance.

Of course, the conservative element wanted the

same results. But there was a glimmer of common

sense in their view of the situation, and it said that

after you'd won the war you'd have to be living

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with your neighbors. And you'd do a bit bettel

with them at the bargaining and trading tables ij

you hadn't turned their stomachs for good be

forehand.

That was the problem, in short. The new grouc

had spun off, in a sanguine snit, from the conserva-

tives who promptly denounced it and read it out 03

Ireland. The fanatics' reply had been to kidnap

leading Provisional Wing spokesman—an experl

incendiary and gunman with a record of thirty

personal kills—and torture him to death's dool

before leaving him, tarred and feathered anc

nailed to a crude cross, in the middle of a majol

intersection in downtown Dublin at dawn. He

already in a deep coma when the police found him

and he died before anyone could question him, or

a speeding ambulance in the streets of the city b)

the Liffey.

There hadn't been any doubt about the groul

that had done this. The nail that had gone througt

the kidnap victim's right palm had impaled a piecc

of paper on the way. It read:

Oh, where's the slave so lowly,

Condemned to chains unholy,

Who could he burst

His bonds accurst,

Would pine beneath them slowly!

UNION OR DEATH

Ron O'More

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The quotation, as it turned out, had been from

the poet Thomas Moore, and it had been a favorite

of Daniel O'Connell's during the great Repeal fight

in 1843, when he had brought a crowd of four

hundred thousand to their feet at a mass rally in

Mallow by reciting the verse and declaiming af-

terward, "I'm not that slave!"

The pseudonym of the writer went back even

farther—to the TUdor days—to a revolt against the

English commander of the garrisons in Counties

Leix and Offaly, Sir Francis Cosby, who had

sequestered the lands of the O'Conors and the

O'Mores. The Irish leader in six bloody years of

guerrilla warfare had been a boy named Rory

O' More. He spelled it, according to records, Ruari

Og O'More; but the Irish, in the decline of the Erse

tongue,•have traditionally used the shorter form.

Rory was finally killed in battle—his partisans

killed also, some of the children hanged in their

mothers' long hair—but the Irish never forgot

him. A refrain that still echoed in the country was

"God, and Our Lady, and Rory O' More!"

The name of the new organization didn't surface

until a week later. It was then that a schoolboy on

his way home stumbled across a mutilated body in

the streets of Belfast. The body—barely identifi-

able by now—was naked underneath the tarpaulin

in which it had been wrapped. It turned out to be

that of Seumas McCarty, a Catholic born and

raised, but one of the few voices raised in recent

years to ask for conciliation between the warring

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factions in the Orange Free State. He'd been gut-

ted, castrated, his tongue cut off and his eyelids

slit. And then someone had sat him down on the

business end ofa fine Toledo sword stolen a week

earlier from a museum, slowly, letting his weight

do the work, until the sword entered his heart. He

had bitten through his lips before he died.

Also impaled on the same sword was another

verse:

I shall go to Phelim O'Neill with my

sorrowful tale, and crave

A blue-bright blade of Spain, in the ranks

of soldiers brave.

And God grant me the strength to

wield that shining avenger well—

When the Gael shall sweep his foe

through the yawning gates of Hell.

UNION OR DEATH

Brian Boy Magee

But this time someone couldn't resist claiming

credit for the deed. He called the police station in

Belfast and crowed about it. His last words were:

'*Beware the Red Swineherd!"

Everybody knew the references.

"Brian Boy Magee" was the name ofa poem by

Ethna Carbery-—a stirring call to bloody revenge

for the punitive action mounted by Scottish troops

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in 1641, when a Scots force from Carrickfergus

drove a band of no less than a thousand Irish

women and children-over the cliffs on the rocky

peninsula called Island Magee.

And the Red Swineherd?

' 'A gigantic preternatural figure in Irish Myth, "

said my anonymous, but diligent, compiler of dos-

siers. ' 'Where it passes, where it lays its foot,

smoke and flames and blood and death and de-

struction are there. It comes out of some antique

past, some dread forgotten ritual


FOUR

"WILL YOU COME in, please?"

The servant who showed me in was the type

whom I might be able to impress if I were to flap

my arms and fly through the door. As I followed

him, I absently stuck my hands in my pockets and

fingered a funny, hard rubber object I'd been car-

rying around for a day or so.

David Hawk nodded at me from a big armchair

without getting up. The man behind the desk,

however, did get up. He gave me a curt Mittel-

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Europa nod. He was a burly-looking man with a

thick neck and he didn't smile. "Mr. Carter," he

' He turned

said. "I want to talk to you alone . ...

to Hawk. "In your company, of course, David.

Before our two collaborators are shown in I

thought it prudent to see you first. Some of what I

have to say is for their ears. Some is not." He sat

down again. We didn't shake hands.

"Yes, sir," I said. "I understand."

"Then you will perceive the problem here. Be-

yond the door are agents, working in services

much like your own of both the Republic of Ireland

and the Irish Free State. We. . i" He noticed my

surprise. "Oh, yes," he said. "Both sides. I

should perhaps have segregated them while they

waited to enter. I don't think they get along with

each other."

"I don't understand."

"May I, Mr. Secretary?" Hawk said. He pulled

out a cigar and bit into it. He did not light it. The

thick-set man leaned back a trifle in his chair and

nodded. "Nick. As you can imagine, the activities

of the Red Swineherd are not only disturbing in the

extreme to the Free State government, they're

also profoundly embarrassing to the government

of the Republic as well. This time the two govern-

ments, convinced of the danger to peace if the

present terrorist activities continue have a bounty

on the head of any and all members of the organi-

zation. In a sense, the agents on the other side of

the door are bounty hunters. Their missions are

THE DOOMSDAY SPORE

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37

identical and unequivocal: stop the Red

Swineherd by any means necessary. There are

matters of protocol we can't go into here. At any

rate, you're to maintain liaison with them. We've

been assured that both of them are excellent

agents—tough, resourceful, discreet. I know

neither government would send us anyone but

their best." He shot lightning bolts at me between

well-chosen words. They said: One outburst and

you wind up playing bodyguard for some visiting

fireman for a month.

"Okay," I said. "Sir. Uh

but I think you

were going to tell me some things first

"Right," the man behind the desk broke in. "Of

course, we do not want a diplomatic flap. Particu-

larly if your work leads you, as it may, to foreign

parts. We have no idea where they will strike next,

or at whom. Or where their headquarters is. In

short, you are to be discreet

' 'I'm sure he will," Hawk said. "One thing,

Nick. The printout we gave you the other day

wasn't quite up to date. 'Captain Moonlight'... ."

'SI was going to ask about him," I said.

' SA phrase from a speech by Charles Stewart

Parnell," the burly man offered. 'S After an oration

Parnell was asked who would replace him if he

were arrested. Captain Moonlight,' said Parnell.

He referred to the 'moonlighters'—a popular

name for any Irishman willing to strike back at the

British, but particularly to strike in stealth, from

cover, at night if possible."

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"An odd choice of a name for our magician

friend," I said, "considering the brassy stunt he

pulled off here. Do we have anything on him?"

"Yes," Hawk said in that guttural voice. "He's a

real magician as you may have guessed. He is, as

Terry said, from Cork, and his name is Daniel

O'Grady. He's not the brains of the outfit—that

seems to be the one called 'Red Hugh' although

that one fact is virtually all we know about their

boss. But O'Grady did indeed travel until quite

recently as 'The Great Marconi' and he did have a

considerable name in Europe, working circuses

mostly. Interpol tells us that a few months ago he

confided to a friend that he was sick and had only a

year to live, and that he was going to go out in

style. It seems to have been from that point that he

began trying to contact the Red Swineherd organi-

zation and offer his considerable services. Well,"

he continued, "you've seen him, and that's a

lead. .

"I'm not completely sure I have," I said. "He

was heavily made up. But I did see his eyes. And

his ears. Those are identifying areas. Nobody

makes up his ears, or tries to cover up their distinc-

tive shape."

"And you've seen his hands ... w" Hawk said.

"No, sir. I haven't. He wore gloves. He

wouldn't even shake hands with me."

"I see. Well, he's a new and dangerous one.

You'll have to watch for him. But what we want

right now, besides, of course, the destruction of

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39

the entire Red Swineherd gang, is the identity of

'Red Hugh.' We're totally stumped, both about

that and about their HQ. If only

"If only you had a lead?" I said. "Well, I may

have something." I reached in my pocket and

pulled out the thing I'd been fingering. I put it on

the desk.

"What's that?" Hawk said, leaning forward.

The man behind the desk picked it up and turned it

around in his hands.

"Virtually all that's left of the guy with the

dynamite vest Terry Considine chased down the

hall. It got thrown my way in the blast, and I

picked it up and stuffed it in my pocket at the time.

The cops, incidentally, wouldn't like to hear I'd

done that."

"Quite all right," the man with the accent said.

"Go on."

"Well," I continued, "just for the hell of it I sent

it to the lab for a rundown. They informed me that

it's just what you thought it was, a rubber heel from

his shoe. And that it isn't anything currently in use

in shoe repair shops in America, or England, or

Canada, or either northern or southern Ireland."

"Hmm." David Hawk scowled at the man be-

hind the desk. "I wonder. Rhodesia, perhaps?

South Africa?" He took that pitiful cigar out of his

mouth, frowned and dropped it into a wastebasket

near his knee. "Have you any ideas, sir?"

The man with the accent looked at him. It wasn't

a glare; it just appeared that way because of his

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thick glasses. Anyone but David Hawk would

have shriveled up and died under that heat.

"None. Except to say that the people we are talk-

ing about have no home or country. They set up

housekeeping, always temporarily, in any place

where they intend to do business."

"And the business they do in this case is?" I

asked.

the man said

"Terrorism, pure and simple,"

"I should say that when you find out

flatly.

where that piece of rubber comes from, we

may have some idea of one of the places

where they intend to strike next. Unless of

course they have already struck there by

then."

"Let's try another tack," I said. "Can you

get us up-to-date information on the planned

itineraries of all the British ministers, the

royal family—anyone who's likely to be a fu-

ture target?"

Hawk inspected a new cigar. "Already got

it, Nick. But that's the problem. These

people tend not to kick you on the same

shin twice running. That's an angle we have

to cover, of course, but it's just as likely to

be a hijacking next time. Or what have

you."

"Well, that about does it, I guess. Except

that I should meet my new friends. I gather

they've had the same orientation already."

"Correct,"

the burly man said. "And

well, Mr. Carter, I have explained to David

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THE

that we deplore

you with these . .

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41

the necessity for saddling

"That's okay, sir,"

I said. "As long as it's

okay for me to give them the shake now and

then whenever I need to do some real

work. "

Hawk's glare grew posilively poisonous.

"I understand,'

the man told me, "but

keep up appearances when you can. We ac-

tually do need all the help we can get."

"Yes, sir. But there's one thing I don't un-

derstand. "

"What's that?"

"Our percentage in this?"

"Nick!" Hawk's scolded. He meant it. Lay

off.

'*No, David, that's all right,"

the man said.

"He's quite right. He should know. Mr. Car-

ter,"

he said, turning back to me,

"three

hours ago our Embassy in Ottawa received a

note in the mail. It listed several names of

officials high in the United States government

at the present time. The text said one of

these would die within the week. It didn't

say which. The note was signed with one of

those dreadful poems these people seem to

favor, and the pseudonymous identity of the

writer was 'Owen Roe'—another hero of the

continuing Irish war against the British. And,

Mr. Carter, one of the names on the list was

my own."

42

I said. I looked at Hawk. He

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looked back. He jammed the new cigar back

between the molars on the left side of his

face. I could see the muscles in his jaw

working. "That means here. In D.C. again."

"Or in San Francisco, where I speak be-

fore the Bohemian Club tomorrow night. 01

in Atlanta, where I address the convention oi

the Knights of Columbus the night afterward.

Or in any one of three other cities I'll visil

during the week. Or in any one of a dozer

cities where other names on the list have ap

pointments in the next few days."

"And we can't call anyone else in on this

The secretary' '—Hawk's head jerked toward

host—Ohas

expressly forbidden that

Which leaves you and me. And our youni

friends from Ireland."

"We have another problem as well,"

said. "They know me."

"Know you? How do you know that?"

"The guy at the Embassy—the one

committed suicide—called me Carter."

The look on Hawk's face said That's no

good. But let's get out of here and compan

notes in private. "Well, we-II deal with that.'

He turned to the man at the desk, who wa

getting up. S'AII right, sir. We'll get right 01

it. "

"Do that, please,"

the man said. "You wil

appreciate the personal interest I take in this

Your secretary has, by now, a list of th

THE DOOMSDAY SPORE

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43

other names, plus a complete itinerary for all

of them. All, even the ones not normally ac-

corded such treatment, have 24-hour Secret

Service protection on a high-priority basis

from this moment."

"Right, sir." Hawk stood up and I fol-

lowed suit. The man in the neat gray suit

shook hands with us—one little short pump,

Central European style, and the smallest sort

of bow of the head—and went out.

Hawk looked at me, made a sour face, and

shifted the cigar to the other side of his face.

"Okay i damn it,"

he said. "They're over

here in the side room. That is, if they

haven't blown each other's brains out by

now. I suppose we'd better get this over

with."

Hawk let me open the door and I fol-

lowed. The two were sitting on opposite

sides of the room, and it was a hell of a big

room, but if it had been the Houston As-

trodome it would have been too small for the

two of them. They stood up when they saw

Hawk, though, and something in their manner

changed a bit.

said Hawk around

"This is Mr. Carter,"

the cigar. His voice was raspy and sounded

irritated under his professional politeness.

"He's the agent you'll be working with in

this. Nick, this is Miss Sinead Geoghegan of

the Republic of Ireland. And Mr. Sean Mul-

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I shook hands with each of

rae of Belfast."

them and we exchanged greetings.

Sean Mulrae was the one who looked Irish.

He was redheaded and round-faced and had

the same green eyes you'd expect if you'd

sent out to Central Casting. His grip was

strong as a gorilla's, and made you takc

another look at him with, perhaps, an eye.

brow raised. He simply didn't look heft)

enough—he was perhaps five-feet-eight, anc

might come in at a hundred fifty—to have

that kind of fist on him. His eye was clew

and looked as though, in other circumstances

there might have been a gleam of humor ir

it.

Sinead Geoghegan was what they called

"black Irish."

The hair was bright, glossy

gleamy black, squeaky clean, and had

fetching wave in it at shoulder length. Thi

skin was Byronically pale. The eyes werf

dark, with bright flashes in them. She wa:

mad as hell about something, and I was glac

it wasn't at me. She wore a tweed skirt aru

a bulky Irish sweater, and the body tha

showed through was the kind that takes you

breath away. She'd have looked sexy am

half-dressed in a diving suit.

She pressed my hand warmly—and her gril

wasn't as strong as his, but it had a lot o

muscle behind it in its own way.

you'll have to forgive us, please,'

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45

she said, trying to smile through the rage

that was running through her. ' 'We

we've been after having a bit of a row."

"Damned right, too," Sean muttered, stuffing

his hands into capacious pockets of his

Irish-cut suit. "Bloody papist bitch."

"You dare!"

she said in a voice suddenly

gone huffy.

"You pro-British

you. . . ."

I stepped

back and looked

brows were

furrowed and his

of disbelief.

It was going to

week!

. you quisling,

at Hawk. His

expression full

be a hell of a


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FIVE

"WE DO HAVE something of a dossier on this

O'Grady, but .. Hawk was talking as he tried to

find a parking place on Massachusetts Avenue

near Dupont Circle.

It had taken several minutes and quite a bit of

diplomacy to calm down our two collaborators and

get them out to the car. I never did find out what

their heated argument was about; it didn't matter,

it seems it was only a preliminary bout.

"Oh, yes, sir." Sean Mulrae offered enthusias-

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tically. "I'm having our files on him sent to you.

We've quite a bit of information. Odd, though, that

the bloody bastard should choose a knife this time.

With a knife in the chest you have to face your

victim. O'Grady will usually stick with something

nice and safe, like plastic bombs on a postbox,

where even a schoolchild can set it off and lose an

arm."

Sinead Geoghegan was in a huff now, the anger

showing hot in her eyes. "Coward he may be, and

murderer, but our own dossier on the man includes

devil a word about him raping or tarring and feath-

ering innocent Catholic convent girls in the streets

of Londonderry like—

"Oh, if it's atrocities we'll be talking about,"

Sean cut her off," we could always mention .. .

Hawk exchanged a knowing glance with me and

spoke above both their voices. "Nick, Bialek's has

a book I ordered a month ago. I think I'll drop b)

and pick it up. You can take Sean and SineaC

upstairs, and I'll meet you there in about twenty

minutes. "

"Oh, sure," I said through gritted teeth. "Anc

thanks I stared at him before he pulled away. HC

caught my look and knew that he owed me one

"But if your people hadn't . .. " It was Sinead

"And for the love of Jesus, why shouldn'

they?" Sean countered.

For Christ's sake, they were still bickering

They didn't even notice that Hawk had left. I triec

to interrupt, but they were really at it this time

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"Oh, sure to God you're not going to bring up

that poppycock about Bango and Ballymena,"

Sinead was saying. "British propaganda even a

child could see through in a moment .

"I do beg your pardon," said Sean sarcastically.

"I've only just got through having a look at eight

by ten glossy photographs by the dozen: mangled

bodies, women, children .

"Oh, and splendid photos they are too," Sinead

said angrily. "They were made in a film studio

in Yugoslavia, using the finest modern tech-

niques—

I'd had enough. "For the love of God, you

two." I almost screeched the words, so that

Sinead stopped talking in midsentence and they

both turned to glare at me. I realized then that I

handled the situation unwisely. Calming down, I

said to Sean, "There's a cafeteria on the ground

floor. Would you mind bringing up four coffees?

It's Room Number—-

"Oh, I know the room," Sean said. "I'll be glad

to bring them; be right up."

I didn't bother to speculate as to how the hell he

knew which room. I sure hadn't told him, and

neither had David, and I'd have put money on the

notion that the secretary hadn't told him before he

ducked out. All I knew was that AXE would prob-

ably have another damned faceless office within a

couples of days. Hawk had a thing about people

knowing where he was. He didn't like it! I'm not

talking about the front—Amalgamated Press—

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but the real office, the one with the files.

Now, however, the atmosphere changed appre-

ciably, and as we waited for the elevator I turned

around and got another look at Sinead Geoghegan.

The flush in her cheeks, red as rouge on her pale

skin, was attractive as all hell. And she knew she

was attractive; women, no matter how young,

have an infallible instinct about such things.

. it's an all but

"I'm sorry," she said. g VI

insoluble problem we have, and it's a blessed small

island to be locked up in with it. You have to

understand the provocations come daily, some-

times oftener . . .

"Yeah," I said. I looked at the dark eyes and the

full lips curving in an ironic smile. There was a lot

of intelligence in her look, and no coquetry at all.

That suited me just fine. I like a woman who looks

you in the eye and makes up her own mind. And

she had a kind of natural grace that made every-

thing she did look sexy.

Well, everything she did when she was out of

earshot from Sean Mulrae, anyhow.

I sighed and opened the elevator door.

We were barely inside when I felt something

wrong. And the minute the elevator started I knew

something was wrong.

It was an old elevator—an Otis, with the old-

fashioned fancy logo mounted on several sides. It

reminded me of David Hawk's car; old and cranky,

but serviceable.

Now, all of a sudden, it began jerking its way

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upward in wild lurches. One of them sent Sinead

to her knees and damn near knocked me over

too.

It passed our floor and kept going. Seven, eight,

nine. I hit the emergency button but nothing hap-

pened. I grabbed at the door. Usually if you can get

the door open a bit it'll jam the car and stop it. Now

the damn thing wouldn't give. "Here," I said.

"Give me a hand. Get your fingers in here ... now

when I say heave . . . . "

We pulled hard and the car shuddered to a stop.

We were stuck between floors. You could see

about six inches of the door above and below us.

There wasn't room to crawl through even if you

could get the door open.

I took one very tentative step toward the middle

of the car.

Thc car shivered, the motor growled, the car

dropped four inches.

I looked at Sinead Geoghegan. Her eyes were

excited, her face still wearing that fetching flush. It

wasn't fear, whatever else it may have been. I had

to give her. that.

"Maybe," I said, "I could give you a leg up and

you could get through the door."

don't think so," she said. "It'll take time to

pry the door open. I don't think we have that kind

of time. The lift's ready to fall."

"I think you're right. Okay. The only way out is

through the roof. Come here." She slipped out of

her sensible Irish shoes and put one stockinged

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foot in my cupped hands. When she stepped up

those nice legs nestled against my cheeks—and

the car dropped another six inches.

"These lifts," she said, "usually have a door.

Yes, here . .1 think I can lift it out of the way .. ."

The car shook like a six-point earthquake. I

damn near dropped her.

"Ah, yes," she said. "That's the brake. It's old

oh, Jesus, Mary and

and it's slipping. And .

Joseph. You should see the dinky strand of cable

that's holding this thing up. It's been cut through,

Nick. Cut right down to one strand

"Yeah," I said. "All the more reason to get the

hell out of here."

She got the picture and crawled up and through

that little door with a lot less fuss than I would have

done considering that broken and slipping brake.

She was agile and strong and moved like a cat.

In a moment she was up on top of the car looking

down at me through the little door. "Here, Nick, "

she said. "Take my hand

"I can get out by myself," I said. "Sinead, for

the love of God get the hell out of here. You ought

to be able to reach the door from there. Get

through it. Damn it, go

As if to underline what I was saying, the car took

another sickening lurch. It dropped a foot this

time.

"Nick," she said. Her voice had an edge on it.

"Come along. The shoe on that brake .

I took that pretty hand she was holding out to

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me, intending just to use it to steady myself as I

climbed up. Instead she pulled hard and steady,

and lifted me off my feet.

"Okay," I said when I had both hands on the

sill. "I've got it. Now clear out." She backed off,

but stood ready to give me a hand.

The car slipped, slowly, down another inch or

so. There was a smell of scorched rubber from that

badly frayed brake shoe. As I climbed I could

see the cable above me. And that single strand

they'd left uncut was unwinding at the edges . . .

slowly. .

I slipped through the door and sat on the car. It

took another ghastly lurch. She tottered, but held

on. 'SAII right," she said. "I tried the door a mo-

ment ago. I can't move it. You'll have to do it for

me."

"Okay." I stepped past her. Damned if she

didn't smile at me. It was a mildly worried smile,

but it was a good Irish smile nonetheless. She had a

bit of sand in her, no doubt about that. "Hey,

damn it," I said. "Why don't you get up on that

crossbeam?" I gestured at a big "I" beam. "And

get behind the beam, too. When that last strand

pops the cable's going to lash around like blue

blazes. You don't want it to catch you and knock

you off."

for God's sake get the

"Nick, if it breaks . .

door open. You're still standing on the car, re-

member?"

How could I forget? But there wasn't anyplace

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else to stand while I clawed at that goddamned

door. It didn't want to move; for a moment I

thought I had it, and then the brake squealed, and

the motor roared, and the car dropped another

four inches.

The next time the thing slipped it would either go

just far enough to keep me from being able to reach

. . or it would drop me ten floors into the

the door .

basement.

I threw caution to the winds and heaved.

The door opened ... just a crack ... then a little

The car beneath me shuddered and

more .

threatened. I could feel it give, little by little. I

looked up and watched tiny flecks of rubber fly

from the brake as it dragged precariously at the

rail.

I yanked at the door again and the car fell out

from underneath me completely.

As I started to fall I got one hand on the door,

good and solid. Straining for it saved my life. By

ducking I kept the broken end of the cable, flailing

about like crazy, from taking my head off. Even

so, the single strand—the one that hadn't wanted

to give—lashed past me and neatly stit my coat

right up the back without even touching the shirt I

wore underneath.

Hanging by one hand, I watched the elevator

below me get smaller and smaller and land with

a crash that was deafening in the echoing shaft.

I swung around, facing the wall again, and

reached desperately up for that door. And as I did

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the first hand lost a little more purchase. My legs

dangled aimlessly ... my other hand was slipping.

I looked up. Sinead stood inside the door. She

was ripping her stocking off, peeling it off her leg.

As I watched, she braced herself, both hands on

the rail outside in the corridor, and reached one

bare foot and ankle down for me to grab. ' 'Hurry, "

she said. "Your hand would slip on nylons. Here,

grab hold, Nick. Quick!"

I grabbed.

First one hand, then the other. She braced her-

self and gave another tug, again surprisingly

strong. She held on to that railing with an iron grip

and backed one millimeter at a time into the cor-

ridor, dragging my 180-pound weight behind her.

She backed against the wall, looking at me. Her

eyes closed for a long blink, and opened again to

look at me some more. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph,"

she said. She was all relieved tension for a mo-

ment, then she looked around her, getting her

bearings. "My God," she said. "That should have

waked the dead. And there's not a person at all in

the hall here. Hasn't anyone any curiosity here?"

"Sorry about that," I said. "That's the kind of

building this is. Hey, you looked pretty good in

there, pal,"

I said.

"Ah, God," she said, Her face was drawn. "I'm

usually all right while these things are happening.

its afterward that I'm a coward." She was

blushing and it looked nice as hell on that pale skin.

To cover her embarrassment she pulled off the

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I suppose that's it for my

other stocking. "l .

shoes," she said.

"Don't worry," I said, getting up. "This is

Dupont Circle, after all. Nobody wears shoes

around Dupont Circle. I'll tell everybody you're in

training to be a hippie."

That drew one of those nice smiles. "l I've

she said

got another pair at the apartment,"

lamely.

"Come on," I said. "Forget about that. We've

got to get downstairs

I didn't finish the sentence. '%Vick!" a familiar

voice bellowed. I wheeled and went back to the

shaft and looked down. Four floors below David

Hawk, standing in the sixth floor, stared-

up the shaft at me. "What the hell is going on? Is

Miss. . . ."

"Yeah," I said. "This Irish ladyfriend of yours

saved my neck. Hang on. We'll be right down. And

David. Don't touch your door until I get there."

It took us a whole minute and a half to make it

there. Well, maybe two minutes. I bounced down

the stairs two and three at a time, Sinead close

behind me, silent on her bare feet.

When we got to the sixth-floor landing we ran

into Sean Mulrae. "What the devil?" he said.

"The lift .

. it isn't working

He held a

cardboard box bearing four coffees. His expres-

Sion was puzzled, but his eye on us was sharp and

took everything in—her bare feet, my filthy suit

and slashed coat, the grease all over both of us.

"Something's happened," he said.

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'Brilliant."

the girl said.

57

" Don't either one of you start anything. " I said.

"Come along." I shoved the door open to face

David Hawk. He was standing there waiting for an

explanation. His glare wouldn't settle for anything

half-baked.

"What's this about my door?" he said.

s 'I meant it. Don't touch it until I've had a look. I

know you know about these things. I know you

can give me lessons any day in the week in

demolition-squad techniques. But I'm not taking

any chances."

I looked at him. "You know what

I'm talking about."

"Oh?" he said. He reached for a cigar.

"I didn't see that list of names in the secretary's

office," I said, "and you did. But I know that that

cable was cut. And I know .

"Then you know," Hawk said, "that one of the

names on the list was my own."


59

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SIX

"AH," SAID SEAN Mulrae. Then he did a sort of

double take as the implications hit him. "Ah, now.

That is unfortunate, isn't it? Complicates things

terribly." His sharp young eye caught mine, and a

wry expression twisted one side of his mouth.

"I don't understand," Sinead said. "What

"The list the secretary got in the mail not five

hours ago. In Ottawa. The one he didn't tell us

about in the interview."

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"Oh?" I said. "Tell me more." I folded my arms

over my chest and looked at him with new eyes.

"If he didn't tell you about it I'm a little curious as

to how you .

"Come inside," Hawk said. He took a hard look

at the door and opened it as if I hadn't warned him.

"Don't worry, Nick. I've got that door bugged. If

anybody messes with it while I'm out I can tell."

"I should have known." We went in. Hawk sat

down and pointed the three of us at chairs. Sean,

shutting the door behind him, looked both ways in

the hall first. "Now, Mr. Mulrae. You were say-

ing. "

'Oh, yes. The list was delivered to your Em-

bassy in Canada. It wasn't exactly Foreign Papers

Please Copy, and it wasn't routinely released to

Reuters, but we have a way of hearing about these

things fairly quickly."

"You sure as hell do." I dug out one of my

monogrammed smokes and looked at it. I can't

make up my mind whether or not to quit smoking.

Maybe I don't want to. Every time the tailormades

run out I reorder as a matter of course. "Go on. '

"Yes," Sinead said. "And it would help if you'd

be getting to the point."

And of course I made a quick phone call while I

was out getting cof—God almighty, I forgot the

coffee. Here. They're all black. There's cream and

sugar if anyone wants. Saccharine," he said with a

quick glance at Sinead•s tweedy, but trim, bottom,

"for any of us as is on a diet at the moment. " The

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glance she shot back at him would have killed

anyone but an Irishman. "Now," he said, ignoring

her, "our people tell me the list contains several

names of interest. And it stands to reason, doesn't

it, that if all these names are of people marked for

death

"Please," said Sinead impatiently, "get to the

point."

"Exactly," he said. "And if one of the names

your dear friend 'Owen Roe' intends to murder

during the coming week

"He's no friend of mine,"

she snapped.

"You couldn't prove it by me. But as I say, ifone

ofthem was Mr. Hawk here s .. why, that means a

serious compromise of security in your agency,

doesn't it? And that means . . .

ah, Christ, we

might as well all wear name tags, and take out ads

telling where we are and what we're doing ... ."

'Tes?" Hawk cut in, glaring at young Mulrae.

"And I'm sure you have some alternative sugges-

Mulrae looked at Hawk; caught that ice-cold

eye of his for a moment; and blinked. 'SAh

sorry, sir. I didn't mean to be flip. It's just that this

changes the situation a bit, now, doesn't it? I mean

if AXE's security has been blown .

"Nick," Hawk said. I took my cue. I was out of

the chair in a second and I jumped him. He got one

arm between my fist and his jaw, but it didn't do

much more than deflect a blow that would have

taken his head off if it had landed squarely. As it

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was it spun him over the back of his chair, scatter-

ing hot coffee every which way.

He was strong and agile. He spun in the air and

landed with his feet under him. He reached for his

coat pocket, but stopped. Wilhelmina was out and

cocked, her twin sights zeroing in on his chest

before he could move another muscle.

"Okay," I said. "Spread-eagle against the wall.

Support yourself with your fingertips, feet about

four feet back. The Luger is going in your ear. One

false move while Miss Geoghegan pats you down

and cleans out your pockets and believe me, bus-

ter, you've got yourself a problem."

'Mind telling me e" he asked, "what all this is

about?" His voice was a little strained. There was

blood running down his jaw from a split lip.

"Just taking no chanceS," Hawk said, watching

Sinead pat him down expertly and remove a pri-

vate arsenal before dumping the other contents of

his pockets on the floor.

"I have only the secre-

tary's word that you're Sean Mulrae. And you

were the only person besides myself who wasn't

on that elevator when it went down. And you

know too goddamn much." He bent over and

picked up the wallet. He looked over wallet and

papers; grunted. *'Nick. See if he's got a scar on

the outside of the right calf, size ofa quarter; deep;

white scar tissue."

"Yeah," I said, checking, "it's real. And it's not

new from the look of it."

"Okay. Let him up." He watched as Mulrae got

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63

to his feet, looking hard at all of us. Not mad, hard.

Appraising us. "Sorry," Hawk told him, but his

tone wasn't apologetic. "You know the rules of the

game."

"Sure," Mulrae said. "Sure I do. And I—I sup-

pose I'd have done the same." He looked at me

and wiggled his jaw, testing it. "Jesus Christ," he

said. "You throw a mean punch." He shook his

head and grinned that Irish grin. Heredity doesn't

ask you which side of the border you come from.

"However," Hawk said, "the problem you

brought up remains a problem. It's true. I'll have to

move. We're on red alert within AXE from this

moment. That's all you two," he nodded at Sean

and Sinead, "need to know. Except that looking

out for me is not part of your job. Nor yours, Nick.

Your job is to stop these people. Now sit down

here, all of you. The secretary had to leave before

he could finish his orientation. I'll finish the job

right now. If you have anything to add to what we

know, don't keep it to yourselves."

We broke up an hour later. David had dropped a

hint to me in the conversation to call in at nine

using the "B" Code phone number. Nobody but

me seemed to have caught it. He showed us out. I

knew that shortly the Amalgamated Press and

Wire Services would be on their way to temporary

relocation in the National Press Building and

David Hawk's office would be as vacant as if it had

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never been occupied at all.

Sean Mulrae gave us a jaunty grin and begged

off when I invited the two of them to dinner. He'd

see us in the morning, he said; we were to get

together at the AXE lab in McLean and have a

look at the analysis of the damned little our

bomber friends had left to trace them by. As he

turned to leave he flexed his jaw again, using one

hand. "Christ," he said, "some right hand there

And he went out.

I turned to Sinead. "You're not going to turn me

down too? I kind of owe you a meal. I don'l

know whether that pays you back for my still

having a whole skin, but

She smiled up at me with those dark eyes.

love to go to dinner with you, Nick."

We caught a cab and went down to Chez Fran-

qois. It's not as tony as the Rive Gauche, and you'll

never run into Jackie Onassis or Walter Cronkite

there, but it's a lot more real for my dough.

We stopped at Sinead's hotel room on the way to

get her shoes and let her change. I thought about

my ripped coat, my dirty face ... and for a moment

I thought of going back to my apartment to change.

Then I said the hell with it, and when she was done

with the bathroom I went in to wash up. The coat I

stuffed down the garbage disposal after I'd re-

moved all my valuables. I stowed Wilhelmina's

little holster inside my shirt and borrowed a scarf

from Sinead to improvise myself an ascot. Chez

Frangois isn't all that snooty about dress.

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She was quiet and subdued during the cab ride

and throughout most of the meal. I tried to get her

talking several times, but she was unresponsive.

She ate her Chateaubriand with a surprising hear-

tiness, though, considering her trim frame and thin

bones.

Finally she looked up and said, "My God. I

can't eat another bite." Smiling, she pushed the

plate away. "Nick, it was mafvelous. And .

she put her hand on mine "thanks ever so much for

putting up with me. I—I don't know how to ex-

plain it. I just didn't feel like talking."

"Happens,"

I said. I picked up the bottle of

wine and poured the dark red liquid into her glass.

"Don't think any more of it."

"No," she said. The hand tightened on mine.

"I—I must explain. I mean, why I was so terrible

about Mulrae today. I mean .

"Terrible?" I shook my head and took a drink.

"No. Edgy, maybe, I understand things are bad

over there."

"No, it's not just that." Her mouth trembled,

just once, and the dark eyes dipped to the table-

cloth. Then she was under control again. "Nick,

I—I'm not Miss Geoghegan. I was 'Miss" Mac-

Manus .. . oh, a year ago. But I married another

agent in our service, Hugh Geoghegan. He was a

handsome young widower, oh, I'd guess about

your age .

"You can't imagine how I like the juxtaposition

of 'young' and 'your age', " I said.

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shc said, smiling—but the smile

"Ah, right,"

was a thing that turned dark and bitter in spite of

her. "1——1 was saying ... Hugh had two children

from his first marriage, a boy and a girl, seven and

five years old. Lovely children, both of them, and

a month after the marriage I already had begun to

think of them as my own. I loved them, I .

Here she faltered a bit, and I could see tears glint-

ing in the dark eyes by the soft candlelight. "Nick.

O'Grady. He played a benefit performance, in that

'Marconi' getup of his, at a street fair in Dublin.

Hugh was well known to the Red Swineherd or-

ganization as a man who was after them. We

weren't on to O'Grady then. And he came into the

audience at the end, and picked our . . . our chil-

. to help him demonstrate his act . . e"

dren .

"Sinead," I said. I put my other hand on hers.

"And—and he was supposed to leave this

empty opera hat on the edge of the stage ... and to

show he had nothing to do with it, he'd back away ,

away off into the wings ... and little Seamus was

to reach inside, and there'd be a rabbit or what-

ever. And Hugh edged closer with little Brigid in

his—his arms, and

"Hey," I said. "Here."

She was sobbing now, very quietly, as if her

heartbreak could never be cured. "Nick .

. the

bomb went off... thirty children killed ... sixteen

more injured ... and all my three ... Hugh and the

babies the only people I had left to care for in all

the world

"Jesus," I said. I wanted to say something like

yeah, honey, I know how you feel. But I didn't. All

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