"I told you it was broken."
"Look at it, (bleep) you!"
"See? It's totally out of whack. It says he is over Scotland."
My blood congealed. Chicago, North Pole, Scotland... Heller was airborne. He might be en route to Turkey!
I swallowed my heart. Then I made myself be calm enough to think and speak. "You get next to some of those people. You find out what flight he's on. We may have to waylay him. Report to me every hour."
I clicked off. Water was actually dripping from my palms.
After an agonized hour, my radio went live again.
"I got it," said Raht. "His butler, Balmor, phoned him in Chicago before he phoned the office. The Royal officer chartered a jet at the Chicago O'Hare International Airport and took off immediately for Italy to begin salvage operations in the Palagruza Islands in the
Adriatic Sea. The crash was spotted just off one. He is going to try to recover his girl's body."
My hair stood on end. What else might he discover?
"Listen," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "Grab a plane at once. Get to that area. And at your first chance, kill him!"
Raht clicked off.
Only Heller's death stood between me and total victory.
I did not have much time. Black Jowl might be missed. At best I only had another five days.
I prayed that my prayers be heard.
Heller had to die!
I went to bed. I tried to sleep. It was no use. Something was nagging at me. Then I had it!
I grabbed the two-way-response radio. I buzzed it.
"What's up now?" Raht's voice, irritated.
"When you go to the salvage area, take the Royal officer's activator-receiver and 831 Relayer with you."
"Do you know where I am?"
"How in all the Hells could I know where you are? I can't work this funny locator rig on top of this radio and you know it."
"You want me to turn around and go back?"
"Yes!"
"Then you'll have to talk to the pilot of this commercial jet. I'm halfway over the Atlantic on my way to Italy."
"You're being impudent."
"I'm trying to carry out the order you gave me. Listen, would you mind clicking off? The little kid in the next seat is listening in."
I clicked off. Well, at least he was on his way to kill Heller.
Somehow I sweated through the night. Somehow I managed to live through the next day. Tenseness and anxiety were my lot. By late that night, I was a rag.
My radio went live, startling me half out of my wits.
"I'm at the Italian naval base in Taranto," said Raht.
"Have you done it?" I said.
"How can I have done it? He isn't here."
"Then what are you doing there, you idiot?"
"I'm calling you to report progress. Don't you want reports? I assure you, it would be a great pleasure not to talk to you at all, Officer Gris."
"Keep a civil tongue in your head. If he isn't there, what are you doing there?"
Raht said, "I traced him down from Rome. I just missed him. He's working with the airline company and the Italian government. He came down here to get them to take a naval tug and crane and divers to the site of the crash. They have to go around the heel of the boot of Italy and north up the Adriatic Sea. It's a trip of about 300 miles. I just missed them."
"Well, get after them!"
"That's what I'm trying to do. I've got to go back to a town called Termoli on the Italian coast that's near to the Palagruza Islands and rent a fish boat to get out there."
"What weapons do you have?"
"Well, you can't carry guns on a plane but I have a blastick."
"That will do just fine. Get on it!"
"It's about 160 miles to Termoli. I'll have to drive all night."
"Then drive all night!" I said angrily. "Radio me back when you have done it."
He clicked off.
I tried to go to sleep. Heller was about 700 miles away. It was too close. I rolled and tossed and sweated.
I suffered through the next day. No word from Raht.
Krak's activator-receiver had come in on the morning plane but for some reason wasn't handed to me until near evening. Nervously, I set it up and turned it on.
For a moment, I didn't know what I was looking at. It was simply a page of print.
Then I remembered that I had furnished Crobe a whole library in waterproof bookshelves to get him interested in psychology and psychiatry. I had also given him forty other books, a set entitled Voltar Confederacy Combined Compendium Complete, including Space Codes, Penal Codes, Domestic Codes, Royal Proclamations, Royal Orders, Royal Procedures, Royal Precedence, Royal Successions Complete with Tables and Biographies, Court Customs, Court History, Royal Land Grants, Rights of Aristocracy, Planetary Districts of 110 Planets, Local Laws, Local Customs, Aristocratic Privileges and Various Other Matters.
The Countess Krak had found these books, obviously.
I came out of my daze. I thought, well, it would do her plenty of good to study up on psychology and psychiatry. It would bring her into a realization of how wonderful they were.
The viewer was out of focus. I sharpened the image. I began to read what she seemed to be studying.
SECTION 835-932-N
PROCEDURES REGULATING TRIALS AND
EXECUTIONS OF GENERAL SERVICE
OFFICERS
A scream surged in my throat. I choked it back. Her finger had appeared on the page. It was travelling down the fine print.
(1) Executions in the field
(a)By duly constituted conference of officers
(b)By a senior when it is not feasible to return culprit to a base for trial
(c)...
The viewer began to swim before my gaze. Her finger had gone back to (a). I had not realized that the officers of this base could put me on trial. I had always been a little shaky on these regulations and depended on the fact that nobody else knew them well either. If Faht Bey and officers here took it into their heads to try me, they could also execute me for such things as flagrant Code breaks.
She was now onto another part of the section.
OFFENSES CARRYING DEATH PENALTIES
(a) Capital Crimes under military statutes:
(1)Threatening to kill, murder or ordering the murder of a Royal officer.
(2)...
The room swam around me. Raht had mentioned it but I had thought he was just talking! There it was in the Penal Codes!
Her finger was travelling on:
(34) Kidnapping...
A scream rose in my throat and got out.
I reeled away from the viewer.
Gods, that woman was dangerous!
She was sitting in there trying to find legal ways to bring about my death!
I raced down to the hangar. I found the guard captain. "Don't go near that prisoner in the special cell! Don't even look in! She has a dreadful disease that blinds you if you even glance at her."
"Oh, have you got a prisoner in there? You didn't log her into the detention cells if you have. When you came back a few nights ago, you must have bypassed the guard office. That's irregular, Officer Gris. What's her name?"
"Incognito," I blurted.
He was making a note. "Miss or Mrs.? I wish you wouldn't keep messing up procedures. We can't keep our files straight if you just keep rushing people into cells without logging them."
Then I had an inspiration. "The person I put in there can't be logged. She is a nonperson, executed years ago. She has no legal rights of any kind."
"Oh, one of those," he said. He lost interest. But I knew he would report it to Faht Bey.
I sighed, because my injured feet remained unhealed. I resented walking.
I went through the long tunnels and finally came into Faht Bey's office. He looked up from his desk and flinched when he saw me. I resented being flinched at.