«I don't know. I don't know. Listen, Leighton. «
«You sound upset, J old boy. Has there been some new disaster over there?»
J drew out his pocket handkerchief and clumsily mopped his glistening brow. «Exactly. Two new disasters in fact.»
«Give them to me one at a time, and pause in between. Let me savor the first to the full before I proceed to the second.»
J noted with annoyance that Leighton's dry sense of humor, normally dormant, was becoming active under stress. «The first is Zoe. She has vanished.»
«Run off somewhere, no doubt, to have a bit of fun.»
«No, literally vanished-poof-before the eyes of witnesses.»
«Some sort of shabby stage legerdemain, I'll wager. A cheap magic trick to make a fool out of you!»
«The magician, in this case, was the Ngaa.»
«I see. That puts a different face on it, doesn't it? Has the Ngaa been up to any other tricks?»
«No, but isn't that enough?»
«You mentioned two disasters. What's the second?»
«Richard Blade has vanished, too.»
«Poof? In front of witnesses?»
«No. He escaped.»
Leighton began to chuckle. «Really? Right out from under the noses of the head of MI6 and a squad of our best cloak and dagger boys? Out of a high-security sanitarium? Tut tut!»
«It's not our fault. This place was never intended to hold someone like Blade. Damn! If only I'd insisted on a decent door on his room!»
«He would have gotten out anyway. You know that. It might have taken him ten minutes instead of five, or whatever it did take. Richard has never stayed very long anywhere he didn't want to stay, no matter how decent or indecent the doors.»
«I suppose you're right, but you see, I'm sure, that this means a change of plans. We can't have those examiners from the Prime Minister's office coming here to examine Richard now.»
«What do you expect me to do about it?»
«Stop them! Stall them somehow!»
«My dear boy, they're already on their way. I'll wager they're halfway across the Atlantic by now.»
«Oh my God.» J slumped against the wall.
«Are you turning religious on me? They say there are no atheists in the front lines, and we're in the front lines in a sense, aren't we?»
«Damn you, Leighton! How can you be so calm?»
«I've given up all hope. You should try it. Does wonders for the nerves.»
«Given up? But. «
«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 God.»
«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 assumes 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 passport 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 bastards. 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 embarrassment. 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.»