As he was spinning die chair around, I sprang for his back and hooked an arm around his neck. The wheelchair was still racing forward, carrying me with it. With my free hand, I dug my fingers deep into Von Alder’s neck until I reached the nerve I was seeking. I applied pressure and temporarily paralyzed him. Now he couldn’t move, even a muscle to try to slow his vehicle. Using all my weight, I swung the speeding wheelchair around and aimed it straight at the wall of glass.
The wheelchair raced full speed toward its target. I hung on, watching the wall come closer and closer until, when the wheelchair crashed through the glass, I dropped to the floor. The chair, with Von Alder’s body in it, shattered through the glass and tumbled end-over-end into the valley below.
Suzanne Henley rushed over to me and helped me to my feet. I looked at her. “You saved me, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she answered, clinging to me. “I’ll explain it later.”
The two of us stood wordlessly at the edge of the room, looking down into the deep chasm below. There, hundreds of feet below, lay Von Alder’s body on the glacier ice with the smashed wheelchair next to it. From the height, the body looked like a tiny broken doll whose arms and legs had been torn off. Suzanne shuddered, and I pulled her away from the window.
“The computer,” she said, suddenly remembering. “I have to shut it down.”
She hurried across the room and pushed the buttons. The rows of lights went out, and the buzzing slowed to a low hum. With a final shudder, the machine stopped altogether and stood silent.
Suzanne looked at me. “It’s all right now,” she said. “The computer’s deactivated. None of die transistors will work, and all of Dr. Von Alder’s victims will resume their normal identities. In time the micro-dot transistors — including the one in your brain — will simply dissolve.” I nodded. It was over.
Eighteen
After the computer was stopped, I put in a call to Hawk in the States. I gave him a terse, complete account of what had happened. When I finished, he instructed me to stay at the spa. He would make a full report to the President and to representatives of other governments. Then they would all come to Switzerland to witness the final destruction of the computer.
While Suzanne and I waited, she told me her story. She had worked for Von Alder for two years. She was British, had gotten to him through a classified help-wanted ad in a London newspaper. She had been a lab assistant in London and the spa offered something different to do.
She’d been a virtual prisoner from the day she arrived. Escape was impossible. Even on the night she came to my hotel room, if she hadn’t knocked me out, somebody with her — one of Von Alder’s goons — would have finished the job.
A combination of hate and despair drove her to take that wild gamble at the computer. She hoped, she prayed, that freeing me would help free her.
Within a few hours, Hawk and his group began to arrive. They were incredulous when I related the full details of Von Alder’s story. I think if Suzanne hadn’t been there to back roe up — and if I didn’t have such a solid reputation in the field — I’d have been dismissed as a crank. And of course there was also the computer to provide proof.
Acting on the orders of the President, Hawk had the Swiss authorities rope off the giant machine. On the following day, the spa was cleared of people. Then experts were called in to dismantle the computer. All evidence of Dr. Von Alder’s scheme to rule the world — the computer and the spa — was destroyed. The doctor’s body was flown to Berlin and placed in the Von Alder family plot in the dead of night. Only Ursula was informed of his death, and she requested that her daughters never know of their father’s existence after World War II.
The people of Berne were told by the authorities that the spa had to be destroyed because the structure had been found unsafe. Now that the case was closed and everything accounted for, Hawk, Suzanne, and I met at the chalet, where I still had a room, for a farewell drink. Hawk was flying back that night, but he had generously suggested I might like to stay over another day.
“Well, Nick,” he said, clinking glasses with me, “We can score another one for AXE.” That was the closest Hawk would ever come to giving me a compliment.
Later, after Hawk’s plane had left, Suzanne and I lay in bed in my room. We had made love again, and I pulled her close to me and said, “You know, I feel like I could go on for the rest of my life making love to you. A dangerous feeling.”
She raised up on one elbow, leaned over me, and smiled softly. “Maybe, Dumplink,” she whispered, “that’s just what will happen to you. Don’t forget, you still have a transistor embedded in your brain, and I know almost as much as Dr. Von Alder did about controlling people. I might just decide to make a small computer and program you so that you’ll have to make love to me day and night.”
“You think that scares me?” I asked as I kissed her.