The Sword and the Net полностью

“And why in hell,” said Altinger, recovering control, “they ever let women muddle with men’s work, I don’t know!” He tried to laugh away his outburst of a moment before, but found it difficult. He came out from behind the desk to the clear centre of the room and began to pace up and down, his powerful shoulders hunched forward, his hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets.

He had been talked away from the desk and the Lüger, and Otto, behind a mask-like face, was jubilant. He moved away from the desk himself, standing between it and Altinger. Now the campaign could begin. He said:

“That was strange—to ask me about Plan Six! But it was not so strange as the second matter.”

Altinger, who had ceased his pacing near the window and was staring out of it, wheeled about as if a knife had pricked him.

“What was it?” he said. The words came through unopened teeth, and his whole blunt face was twisted in a peculiar, snarling grimace which might have been mistaken for a smile if the eyes had been hidden.

Otto said: “She asked me to find out . . . to calculate for her how long a time would have to be taken, in an acute emergency, to evacuate all the officers of all the units under the Staff Council!”

“What?” said Altinger in a whisper. He came closer to Otto and stared into his face.

Otto said: “To . . . to get them all safely out of this country.” He took pains to sound as well as seem bewildered. “I could not believe what I was hearing. So I asked her questions—and she repeated. It did not matter, she said, where they arrived, so long as it was in some place not under American or British jur . . . jur-is-diction. The very fastest method: I was to find out, and report to her within three days at Santa Barbara. She told me a telephone number.” He made a convincing little gesture towards his pocket, as if to bring forth a book or paper on which this number was written.

But Altinger was not looking at him. Altinger was lost in deep and utterly concentrated thought.

Otto reached past him and quietly pulled down the windowshade and shut off any possible view into the room. The bowl-light in the centre of the ceiling jumped into sharpened life and the walls pulled closer together.

Altinger whispered: “What in hell is this?” He was speaking to himself and not to Otto.

Otto said: “I did not know what to do. I considered—and I saw that the only thing was to tell you.”

“Quite right. Absolutely right!” Altinger was aware of him again.

Otto said: “Perhaps she meant that I should ask you. And I am not exceeding her orders by asking you. Because I think you are the person who would know, or would be able to . . . to calculate.”

Altinger smiled at him. “Quite correct, young Jorgensen; hundred per cent!”

Otto said: “It is very curious!” He was not happy: the man must tell him; must be made to tell him. “Do you think perhaps that there is some trouble that we do not know? And that we must be ready to . . . to evacuate? I have thought that it would take long—too long if there were real trouble—three weeks or perhaps more.”

Altinger laughed. “You’re crazy, son. I got out a scheme twelve months ago—on higher orders than Madame Van Teller’s, too! Ten days is the maximum!” The self-laudatory smile went from his face and he frowned. “But what does . . .”

He got no further. An astounding, impossible, bewildering thing happened to him then. Young Jorgensen laughed—and shot out a hand and gripped him by the front of his shirt. The grip hurt—and the laugh had been a strange, harsh sound.

Otto tightened the grip. His heart was pounding in his ears and there was a racing surge of excitement through him. It had worked. The first, essential step of his plan had been made. He ordered himself to be cold and calm. He said:

“Ten days! That is what I wished to know!”

Rudolph Altinger, the first stunning shock of his amazement past, was staring up into the unknown face of this known man with eyes again bright and shrewd and calculating. He said:

“What’s the matter with you!” in too smooth a tone, and Otto saw the muscles tighten across the heavy shoulders.

Otto said sharply: “Do not move!” But he was too late—for Altinger, with a sudden explosion of force almost unbelievable in a man of his age, broke loose from the grip and left a shred of silk in Otto’s right hand and swung a tremendously powerful underarm blow for the pit of Otto’s stomach.

He was quick, but not quick enough—for Otto’s right arm struck away the advancing blow while his own left fist, moving in a flashing six-inch arc, cracked against the point of the heavy out-thrust chin.

A strange little snarling sound broke from Altinger’s mouth, and he twisted a little and fell forwards, pitching on to his face upon the thick pile of the carpet. . . .