Prahd was working away, using a perpetual scowl mark to cover up the implanting of the bugs.
I looked at the library. Yes, he had been employing the language strips. But the things which showed wear were the psychiatric and psychological texts. Oh, I had been right! He had really been fascinated!
That was what gave me my biggest idea. I went into the false I.D. department and we got to work.
Using I. G. Barben drug-runner blanks, we gave him a passport declaring him to be "Dr. Phetus P. Crobe, M.D." We made a beautiful certificate, making him a doctor of medicine and psychiatry from the Vienna Institute of Psychiatry. Using other blanks, we made him a graduate of the People's Medical Institute of Poland as a neurosurgeon. And we gave him a membership in the Royal British Medical Association as a Fellow.
It was a stroke of genius because I could not be sure he could speak English at all and any strange accent would be accounted for by the different nationalities of certificates. But more than that, psychiatrists always have a funny accent and nobody seems to be able to understand what they are talking about. Pure genius on my part.
We worked hard, for I was going to get him on the morrow's morning plane, come whatever. Heller was out of hand! Crobe would finish him!
I recalled vividly that day when Crobe had positively slavered at the thought of shortening Heller's bones.
Heller could not help but be stopped completely in his tracks!
I sat at the viewer tensely.
All was going well.
At the Afyon airport I had given Crobe his final briefing. "You once wanted a chance to shorten a certain man's bones," I said. "He was too tall, remember?"
"Funny," said Crobe, "I can see right through you with my left eye. You must have altered the optical nerve."
"Yes, yes," I said impatiently. "Now listen with care. The Countess Krak is not to know why you are there. You will tell her you are helping the man with a spore formula. But the moment you get him alone, you will handle his bones."
"I can see right through that girl's dress," said Crobe. "She has nice boobs. Easy to alter them to squirt semen."
"Pay heed," I insisted. "The man is drawing attention to himself because he is too tall. Cut him down to size."
"On the other hand," said Crobe, "it might be more interesting to change her tongue to a penis. That would cure her penis envy."
"Do you hear what I am telling you?" I snarled.
"Very distinctly," he said. "Your stomach-rumbles indicate you want a woman. Wouldn't a little boy do? I could fix up his behind so it looked like a goat's."
"You must follow instructions!" I threatened.
"Oh, I intend to," said Doctor Crobe, scratching himself inside his restraint jacket as best he could. "Psychiatry is a wonderful subject."
I had to agree with that.
The viewer that had come with the set had only one face. But it had a set of electronic letters all across the bottom that registered the emotion of the person the bug was in. It was pretty hard for me to tell exactly where Crobe and the guards were as their flight progressed, because the viewer only registered the bugged eye that saw through things, according to what depth Doctor Crobe focused it.
Worn by a spy, it was supposed to be able to read through envelopes or enemy code-book covers and into gun breeches to identify the shell type. But Doctor Crobe wasn't using it for that.
By focus, he undressed every stewardess. The letters of emotion spelled:
DISSATISFACTION
I suppose when this unit was designed, it was thought that it would give a spy-master, ten thousand miles away, the opinion of the spy wearing it as to whether the spy thought the enemy invention was good or bad or to what degree. I wondered if it were just stuck on DISSATISFACTION. How could one visually undress stewardesses and not enjoy it? I know the sight of seeing them running up and down the aisles stark naked made it rather hard on me.
But when they changed planes at Istanbul, there was a shift. A fat man was sitting in a seat across the aisle and behind Crobe and the doctor began to examine the fat man's brain, seeing through the skin and bone. It sure was a weird-looking brain on my viewer!
Crobe seemed to have thought of some way to alter it. The letters flashed:
EXHILARATION EXCELLENT
Satisfied that the third bug was working, I went out and had breakfast.
Something else was mildly disturbing me. I had missed my appointment with a woman the previous night-which shows how devoted an Apparatus officer must be to duty-and yet Ahmed the taxi driver had left no message today saying how he had handled it.
I had Musef, who was standing guard, go find Ters and get the data.
Musef came back, "Ters said that Ahmed didn't appear yesterday evening."
"Tell Ters to call and make sure the taxi driver will be here tonight," I said.
"Ters," said Musef, "doesn't think he'll come."
"He didn't say why?"
"You can't get much out of him with that crazy laugh of his," said Musef.
That was true. I tried to call Ahmed on the phone. No answer.
Well, maybe he'd had trouble finding a woman to bring. Yes, that must be it. I'd get on to him later when things were less pressing.
Meal finished, I went back to my secret room and the viewer.
I must not miss any part of Crobe's arrival in New York. Too much depended upon it!
I hitched the two-way-response radio close to me, ready to give the guards coaching if anything went wrong.
If Crobe failed, my own life could be hanging by a thread. Heller must NOT succeed!
It was predawn dark in a February New York.
After a six-hour delay in Paris that pushed my nerves to their limit, Crobe had finally arrived.
I looked at my other two viewers. No visio. Slow breathing. Aha! Both Heller and Krak were sound asleep. Crobe would catch them totally off guard!
His two security escorts got Crobe into an elevator in the Empire State Building. They got out on the right floor. The hall was empty of people and dim. One of them was carrying a big case with operating tools in it. The other one scouted ahead, apparently found the right corridor and door and came back.
They pushed Crobe forward. Then, before they turned the last corner, they got blasticks ready, took the restraint coat off Crobe, and while one stood by, the other took him up to the door with the jet plane on it. He knocked very loudly and then skipped back.
Crobe focused on the jet plane. Then he focused on the inside office, seeing it through the door. He started to walk through it, bounced and recoiled. He probably would not have remained there if his eye had not focused on the cat. It had been asleep on Heller's desk but had awakened now and was looking at the door to see what all the knocking and bumping was about. Crobe had probably never seen a cat before. Through the door, he was studying it. The digital letters said:
MYSTIFICATION
One of my other viewers had flashed at the first knock. I couldn't tell which one it was, Krak's or Heller's, until I looked at the letter on it: K. The Countess Krak had awakened.
She turned on a bedside lamp. She looked at an alarm clock: 5:39. She looked at the window and saw snow on the pane and behind it the greenish glow of the predawn city.
She got up, slid into some slippers, got into a red silk bathrobe and glanced at Heller. He was peacefully asleep, facing the wall.
My plans were not going quite right.
She went out of the "thinking room," closed the door behind her, turned on a light in the main office, crossed the snowy rug and opened the door.
Crobe got his attention off the cat. As the door sprang open before him, he stared.