Dimension Of Horror Part 17

"If you're quite finished with your disasters, I'd like to tell you mine."

"No, not more . . "

"Yes, more. The good Doctor Leonard Ferguson, he of the atrocious Hawaiian sport shirts, has come down with a fit of terminal patriotism, trotted over to Downing Street, and told all."

"Then the PM knows . . ."

"About the Ngaa? Yes."

"Oh my G.o.d."

"There you go again, J. You're beginning to worry me."

"The Prime Minister, Leighton! How did he react?"

"As we expected. He's shutting down the project, and please spare me your habitual blasphemies. You can forget about that deadline. You can forget the entire matter. In slightly more than twenty-four hours the PM's bully boys will be here with sledgehammers to smash KALI and everything else in the underground laboratory into very small bits. And what do I intend to do about it? Absolutely nothing. I am drinking, J. I am drinking the most excellent brandy. When the PM's men arrive, I venture to predict that I will be either unconscious or dead or, at worst, in an advanced and dignified state of delirious inebriation. I highly recommend to you, sir, a similar course of action. As to our friend Richard Blade, I suggest you quite simply call the police and whatever other local sheriffs, deputies, U.S. marshals and unwashed vigilantes, who are entrusted with the administration of justice out there on the western frontier. Let them turn their hounds to the chase! I'm sure they'll run Richard to ground in no time."

"But the question of security."

Leighton laughed outright. "Security? Why my dear old friend, security a.s.sumes we have some secret left to keep!" J clearly heard the scientist sip and swallow.

"Yes, yes, you're quite right, of course." J suddenly felt weary and incredibly old. He thought, With the project dead, how long will Leighton live?

Leighton demanded, "Have you anymore nasty news to disturb an old man's well-earned retirement?"

"Well, no."

"Then with your permission I'll ring off."

Abruptly the phone went dead.

Numbly J held the receiver until it began to make impolite noises, then he hung up.

He thought, Leighton's right. I should call the police. An all-points bulletin would probably lead to Richard's arrest within hours. After all, Richard could not leave the country without a pa.s.sport or money, and in that absurd white T-shirt and white slacks he would be highly conspicuous anywhere outside of Berkeley. True, Richard was armed, but only with an air-powered tranquilizer dart pistol that couldn't hit anything more than fifteen or twenty feet away. Richard could not get far. In fact, he was probably still skulking somewhere in the neighborhood.

For a moment J considered the notion that Richard might somehow get back to London. But how? And if he did manage to reach London, there was no way he could get into the underground project, and if he did get into the underground project, it would be too late. He'd find nothing there but wreckage.

Still, if Richard thought the Ngaa had taken Zoe back to its own dimension . . . J shrugged and thrust the thought from his mind. It returned, stronger than before. Yes, Richard might very well try to get back to London, and . . .

Suddenly J realized that there was one way Richard might succeed.

He closed his eyes, reaching far back in his mind for a telephone number he had not called in fifteen years.

Hoping he had it right, he dialed.

The voice came, "Tomcat Skip Tracer Service."

"This is J of MI6. Could you patch me through to Ordway?"

The man took it in his stride. "Right away, sir."

J heaved a sigh of relief, congratulating himself on a good memory. There were several clicks, then the sound of a telephone being rung. Ordway, of course, would not be in the same building with the Skip Tracer Service. Ordway could be literally anywhere in the world.

"Yes?" The voice on the other end was familiar, a soft, almost gentle baritone, with a hint of a Southern accent.

"Is this Ordway?"

"Ordway speaking."

"This is J of MI6. "

"Yes. I recognized your voice. I had a report you were in the Bay Area. You're up at Saxton Colby's shabby excuse for a sanitarium, aren't you?"

"Why yes, that's right." Ordway always had been a showoff, like most of those CIA b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. A British agent would never have revealed that he knew J was in the region. A British agent would have made sure the flow of information was all one way.

"I thought you'd phone when you had time. Want to have supper with me? Talk over old times?" Ordway was charming as always. Charming, charming, charming! Yet somehow never quite a gentleman.

"No," J answered, trying to be even more charming. "I'm calling about a bit of a problem we're having."

"A problem?"

"You remember Richard Blade? The chap who was with me when I was here last?"

"I'll never forget him. He was some kind of agent."

"Yes. Quite. We've had him here at Colby's for examination and-er-treatment "

"You don't say. Hey, that sounds bad."

"It's nothing serious. We were doing some deprogramming. I should say, we were treating some-er-battle fatigue." J felt a flush of embarra.s.sment. He did not like lying about Blade, but was fairly sure the whole truth would not be believed. His compromise lacked the conviction of either sincerity or a well-crafted fabrication.

"I'm sorry, but I don't . . ."

"The long and short of it, Ordway, is that he has broken out and we have to get him back. He might hurt someone or himself. He's not altogether right in the head, you know."

"I see."

"It struck me that since he was an old friend of yours, so to speak, he might try to contact you."

"That seems reasonable."

"Well, has he?"

"No."

"If he does, will you call me?"

"Of course."

"I'll give you my number."

"I have it already, if you're still at the sanitarium"

"Yes, I am, and could you put out the word? Could you get your men to dig around for him? I have his picture and fingerprints."

"So do I."

J thought, d.a.m.n showoff. Always was a d.a.m.n showoff. But J's voice, when he spoke, was nothing but charming. "Don't hurt him, Ordway, but bring him in as soon as you can."

"You can count on me."

"Thank you, sir."

"Think nothing of it, J old buddy. I'm happy to be working with you again."

After hanging up, J stood a while in thought before gathering the moral force to dial.

"Information," chirped the operator.

"Give me the number of the Berkeley police department."

Glen Ordway of the CIA turned pensively away from the phone and regarded his guest, who lounged in a black leather-upholstered overstuffed chair under a Pica.s.so cubist painting.

"What'll you have?" Ordway smiled broadly.

"Brandy and soda," answered Richard Blade.

Chapter 12.

Glen Ordway was a small, wiry mulatto, an ideal racial mix for intelligence work in a world where, increasingly, almost all the serious action was in the so-called Third World. Ordway could be an African among Africans, an Arab among Arabs, a moorish Spaniard among Spaniards, a South American among South Americans, even an Oriental among Orientals or an Italian among Italians. He needed no makeup, only a change of language and mannerisms, and he spoke, Richard knew, twenty-seven languages and acted with virtuoso aplomb in all of them. He was now in the United States, and therefore spoke, acted and looked exactly like an American ghetto Black, at least when out on the streets of East Oakland where he maintained this apartment near the Bay Area Rapid Transit line.

His neighbors, if they noticed him at all, must have taken him for a rhythm-and-blues musician, or perhaps a successful pimp, in his light-blue slacks, dark-blue blazer, white silk shirt, platform shoes and cat's-eye sungla.s.ses.

"Your drink, Mr. Blade," Ordway said, and his accent was shifting, becoming British. As usual, almost unconsciously, Ordway was absorbing the speech and mannerisms of the person he was with.

"Thank you, Glen." Blade accepted the gla.s.s. "And not just for the drink." He glanced at the white pushb.u.t.ton phone on Ordway's modern black steel desk.

"You did not wish to be found, therefore you will not be found." Ordway had mixed himself a whiskey sour. He raised it in a toast. "To the confusion of MI6."

They clinked gla.s.ses and sipped.

"I hope this won't cause trouble for you," Blade said.

"No trouble. There's no love lost between the CIA and The Old Firm." The Old Firm was standard jargon for the British Secret Intelligence Services. "My station chief will probably award me ten brownie points when he hears about this. He and I agree on many things, including the opinion that your boss is a pompous a.s.s long overdue to be taken down a peg. Besides, I owe you a favor."

"For what?"

"You remember that night in the North Beach district of San Francisco? You remember that dude who was dressed up as a woman that you were after?"

Richard nodded. "I remember."

Glen chuckled and went on. "We tracked him into the ladies john in Miss Prisford's Tea Room. Good old Miss Prisford's! You could buy anything there, animal, vegetable or mineral, except tea. I busted in and looked around and didn't see anybody right away, and you followed me in and-blam blam blam-shot that fruit right through the wall of his toilet stall. When he fell out on the cement this cute little pistol went bouncing across the floor. It was a Baretta, wasn't it?" Glen's accent became more American.

"That's right."

"I knew it! I forget names and faces, but I never forget a gun. Well, that fruit could very easily have canceled my pension, if you know what I mean. I didn't see the b.a.s.t.a.r.d! I still to this day don't understand how you spotted him."

"I heard him."

"Sure, but how did you know he wasn't a genuine lady in there?"

"A true lady does not stand on the toilet seat in order to prevent her feet from showing."

Glen drained his gla.s.s and went over to the black-upholstered bar for a refill. "I remember the gun you used. It was a German job, wasn't it? A big Walther PPK pistol with an eagle and swastika embossed on the handle. A n.a.z.i gun! I've always wondered where you got it."

"I picked it up from its original owner when he had no more use for it. I still own the thing, though I haven't had occasion to use it for years."

"A beautiful weapon," Glen murmured reverently.

"A cla.s.sic," Richard agreed, raising his gla.s.s.

Silently they toasted the Walther PPK.

"So you see," Glen went on, after wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist, "I might very well owe my life to you. You were there at the right time doing the right thing."

"I remember." Richard had to smile.

"So as I said, I owe you a favor. I a.s.sume you're planning on dropping out of sight for a while. Fine! I can get you a new pa.s.sport and papers with a new name and a new past. Our plastic surgeons can give you a new face, if you need one. And if you're job hunting, the Company can use a man like you. Where would you like to surface? South America? Europe? Africa?"

Blade looked up at him, still smiling, and said softly, "England."

"England? Are you crazy, man?" Glen's accent went pure ghetto Black. "I mean, like, you gotta be puttin' me on!"

Richard said quietly, "Yes, England, as close to London as can be arranged."

"You know, I believe you. It's just crazy enough . . ."

"I can understand your misgivings, but I a.s.sure you I know exactly what I'm doing."

"You're walking like a lamb right into the mouth of the British lion."

"It can't be helped. There's something I must do."