Operation Terror Part 14

"_Mr. Lockley!_" said the voice at the other end of the wire. It was startled and shocked. It became pompous. "_Mr. Lockley, what has been your training?_" The voice did not wait for an answer. "_Where have you become qualified to offer opinions contradicting all the information and all the decisions of scientists and military men alike? Where do you get the authority to make such statements? They are preposterous! You have wasted my time! You--_"

Lockley reached over and flipped back the switch he'd seen Jill flip over. He carefully put down the headset. He stood up.

The driver and the small man came back. They picked up the sleeping drunk and moved toward the door. Something fell out of the drunk's pocket. It was a wallet. They did not notice. They went out, carrying the drunk. Jill stooped and recovered it. She looked at Lockley's face.

"What--"

"I'm trying," said Lockley in a grating voice, "to figure out what to do next. That didn't work."

"I'll be right back," said Jill.

She went out to deliver the wallet to the driver, who had apparently been ordered to put the drunk in the trailer body and deliver him somewhere.

Lockley swore explosively when she was gone. He clenched and unclenched his hands. He paced the length of the room.

Jill came back, her face white.

"They opened the door of the trailer to pa.s.s him in," she said in a thin, strained voice. "And there were other men back there. Several of them! And machinery! Not cages for animals but engines--generators--electrical things! I'm frightened!"

"And I," said Lockley, "am a fool. I should have known it! Look here--"

The frosted-gla.s.s door opened. The driver came back. He had a revolver in his hand.

"Too bad!" he said calmly. "We should've been more careful. But the lady saw too much. Now--"

The revolver bore on Lockley. Jill flung herself upon it. Lockley swung, with every ounce of his strength. He connected with the driver's jaw. The driver went limp. Lockley had the revolver almost before he reached the floor.

"Quick!" he snapped. "Where was the machinery? Front or back part of the trailer?"

"All of it," panted Jill. "Mostly front. What--"

"The hall again," Lockley snapped. "Hunt for a back door!"

He thrust her out. She fumbled toward the back of the building while he went to the street entrance. The trailer-truck loomed huge. The driver's helper came out of it. Another man followed him. Still another....

Lockley fired from the doorway. One bullet through the front part of the truck. One near the middle. Then a third halfway between the first two. The three men dived to the ground, thinking themselves his targets. But Jill called inarticulately from the back of the dark hall. Lockley raced back to her. He saw starlight. She waited, s.h.i.+vering. They went out and he closed the door softly behind him.

He took her hand and they ran through the night. Overhead there was a luminous mistiness because of the street light, but here were abysmal darknesses between vague areas on which the starlight fell. Lockley said evenly, "We've got to be quiet. Maybe I hit some of the machinery. Maybe. If I didn't, it's all over!"

The back of a building. An alleyway. They ran down it. There was a street with trees, where the street lights cast utterly black shadows in between intolerable glare. They ran across the street. On the other side were residences--the business district was not large. Lockley found a gate, and opened it quietly and as quietly closed it behind them. They ran into a lane between two dead, dark, dreary structures in which people had lived but from which all life was now gone.

A back yard. A fence. Lockley helped Jill get over it. Another lane.

Another street. But this street was not crossed--not here, anyhow--by another which led back to the street of the telephone office. A man could not look from there and see them running under the lights.

The blessed irregularity of the streets continued. They ran and ran until Jill's breath came in pantings. Lockley was drenched in sweat because he expected at any instant to smell the most loathesome of all possible combinations of odors, and then to see flas.h.i.+ng lights originating in his own eyes, and sounds which would exist only in the nerves of his ears, and then to feel all his muscles knot in total and horrible paralysis.

They heard the truck motor rumble into life when they were many blocks away. They heard the clumsy vehicle move. It continued to growl, and they knew that it was moving about the streets with its occupants trying to sight fleeing figures under the darknesses which were trees.

"I hit--I hit the generator," panted Lockley. "I must have! Else they'd swing a beam on us!"

He stopped. Here they were in a district where many large homes pooled their lawns in block-long stretches of soft green. The street lights cast arbitrary patches of brightness against the houses, but their windows were blank and dark. This street, like most in this small town, was lined with trees on either side. There were the fragrances of flowers and gra.s.s.

"We aren't safe now," said Lockley, "but I just found out there may not be any safety anywhere."

Jill's teeth chattered.

"What will we do? What was that machinery? I felt--frightened because it wasn't what he said was back there. So I told you. But what was it?".

"At a guess," said Lockley, "a terror beam generator. The invaders must have human friends. To us they're spies. They're cooperating with the monsters. Apparently they're even trusted with terror beam projectors."

He stood still, thinking, while in the distance the trailer-truck ground and rumbled about the streets. It was not a very promising method for finding two fugitives. They could hide if it turned onto a street they used. It could not continue the search indefinitely. The most likely final course would be to leave some of the unknown number of men in its trailer to search the town on foot. Even that might not be successful. But it wouldn't be a good idea for Lockley and Jill to remain here, either.

"We look for two-car garages," said Lockley. "It's not a good chance, but it's all we've got. _If_ somebody had two cars, they might have left one behind when they evacuated. I can jump an ignition switch if necessary. Meanwhile we'll be moving out of town, which is a good idea even if we do it on foot!"

They ceased to use the streets with their dramatic contrast of vivid lights with total shadows. They moved behind a row of what would be considered mansions in Serena, Colorado. Sometimes they stumbled over flower beds, and once there was a hose over which Jill tripped, and once Lockley barked his s.h.i.+n on a garden wheelbarrow. Most of the garages were empty or contained only tools and garden equipment.

Then something made Lockley look up. A slender, truss-braced, mastlike tower rose skyward. It began on the lawn of a house with wide porches.

There was a two-car garage with one wide door open.

"A radio ham," said Lockley. "I wonder--"

But he looked first in the garage. There was a car. It looked all right. He climbed in and opened the door. The dome light came on. The key was still in the ignition. He turned it and the gauge showed that the gas tank was three-quarters full. This was unbelievable good fortune.

"They probably intended to use this and then changed their minds,"

said Lockley. "I'll get the door open and attempt a little burglary.

Just one burglary with a prayer that he used a storage battery for his power!"

Breaking in was simple. He tried the windows opening on the main wide porch. One window slid up. He went inside, Jill following.

The ham radio outfit was in the cellar. Like most radio hams, this one had battery-powered equipment as a matter of public responsibility. In case of storm or disaster when power lines are down, the ham operators of the United States can function as emergency communication systems, working without outside power. This operator was equipped as members.h.i.+p in the organization required.

Lockley warmed up the tubes. He tuned to a general call frequency. He began to say, "May Day! May Day! May Day!" in a level voice. This emergency call has precedence over all other calls but S.O.S., which has an identical meaning. But "May Day" is more distinct and unmistakable when heard faintly.

There were answers within minutes. Lockley snapped for them to stay tuned while he called for others. He had half a dozen hams waiting curiously when he began to broadcast what he wanted the world to know.

He told it as briefly and as convincingly as he could. Then he said, "Over" and threw the reception switch for questions.

There were no questions. His broadcast had been jammed. Some other station or stations were transmitting pure static with deafening volume, evidently from somewhere nearby. Lockley could not tell when it had begun. It could have been from the instant he began to speak.

It was very likely that not one really useful word had been heard anywhere.

But a direction finder could have betrayed his position.

CHAPTER 8