She grabbed the hilt of the knife and rushed off, heading for the police station just below.
Another flick of movement in the shadows down the hall. Had I been observed?
Well, who cared? It would do them no good. I had the riding helmet on and the black visor down. I sped to the window. Nobody followed.
I went down the wall like an agile insect, I mounted the speedwheel.
A call for an arrest van blasted out at the police station. To Hells with them. I silently rolled the speed-wheel to the other end of the alley, into another street. I made no noises with the vehicle. It was two blocks away when I opened it up to a roar.
They would arrest the woman, of course. The police principle of "the least work consists of arresting the handiest person" would be in full play. It was a solved crime on their books. Be neat, I always say. Leave no loose ends.
I dropped the speedwheel at the den, putting it exactly where it had been before. I even locked it up again.
Shortly after, I slipped into the airbus. My changing clothes woke my driver up. We flew away on quiet wings. As we passed over the River Wiel, I dropped the suit and helmet into the raging water below.
That night I lay in my room. I planned and planned. What would happen to Heller and Krak now was all their own doing. I had never felt so deadly before in my whole life. I told myself, Hells have no Demon as full of hate as a man covertly hypnotized. And no Demon would have dared make up such ugly and varied plans as I made that night.
Heller was totally at my mercy now and I intended to make the very vengeful most of it!
Chapter 6
I was up with the dawn. I loftily did not comment on my driver's petty tribulations about the costume refund – Heller, it seems, had forgiven him but the driver, of all things, felt guilty!I swept into the office where the early arriving Bawtch was sucking his early morning jolt: I took it right out of his hand and finished it! I didn't even stand there to enjoy his surprise.
Climbing down the stairs into the hidden rooms in the basement, I made my way to the secret forgery unit.
Every Apparatus section has its own forgery unit – one couldn't run without one. Such actions are usually reserved for the framing of resistive or dissident citizens: few would be brave enough to make forgeries of the type I planned.
But, under the shadow of Lombar, forced to it by his orders – and even, I must admit in this case, enjoying the vindictive flavor of it – I swept aside assorted pens and stamps and sat down to compose my masterpieces.
It took me quite a while, what with scratch-outs and additions, but I was finished by the time the two forgers arrived.
They sat down at their tables and I put the rough drafts before them. It made me smile to see them flinch.
"I don't think we have the right paper," said the senior.
"Get it," I said. "Right now. Get it!" He fished around for a time, going through materials in the cases. He finally found two sheets of what he needed.
The other forger said, "I don't think we have the right seals."
"I think you have," I said.
He raked about in some old boxes and finally located some that could be converted.
They were both a bit white and terrified, as well they might be. Because I have enough on both of them, material not even in the master data files, and they elected to commit the present crime on the basis that it was less painful than the revelation of old crimes.
Forgers are very funny people. There is a streak of artist in them and, along with it, artistic pride, and soon they were both deeply immersed in concentration and ink. I did not have to tell them to do the best possible job. Their own tradecraft was a matter of self-respect. But, more than that, if these two forgeries had the tiniest detectable flaw in them, and if they were prematurely exposed, half the Domestic Police Division would be on their trail. Necessity breeds precision!
I sat down on a case full of unused execution orders and waited. The tongues of the forgers suffered the clenching of teeth, the pens drew out, with painful slowness, the flowing swirls and ornate convolutions these documents required. Two hours was not too long to wait for they were making absolutely undetectable masterpieces.
Finally they came to the stamps. Only one of the documents required the final affixations of seals.
At last, sweating, sort of proud and terrified at the same time, they were blowing the waxes dry.
The junior looked at them for any flaw. The senior compared them critically to a book containing facsimiles of the real thing.
"Gods," said the junior. "They look realer than the real thing!" There was some pride in it. "I do think that the only way they could be detected as artificial would be by inspecting the Royal Issue Log itself! And no one outside of Palace City has access to that. These are masterpieces!" The senior forger got down a pair of official covers and then a thin, waterproof envelope with body tapes.
As he was assembling them, he said to me, "You know, of course, that possession of a forgery of the Royal signature and seals gets immediate torture and execution. These will never be traced to us. We have forgotten we ever heard of them. But just carrying these on your person, Officer Gris, if found and detected, would be the finish of you. With embellishments." He handed over the packet but didn't let go of it. "Open your tunic so I can tape this to your chest." And as he worked at it, "It is clever, of course, as these would never appear in the master data files. But they wouldappear in the Royal log in Palace City. If anyone ever tried to present them there, the first thing that would happen would be a check and verification of the Royal Issue Log. It would show that these two documents had never been issued. The result would be immediate seizure of the presenting person, torture and execution." He had finished up and, as I rebuttoned my tunic, looked at me gravely. "I hope you know what you are doing. Be very careful to whom you show these. Keep the matter folded in the deepest secrecy. Even if you gave them to somebody, that person could implicate you as well." As I opened the door to leave, the senior forger shook his head. "My Gods, Officer Gris, you must be awfully mad at those people." That, from a forger who routinely forged things that got people imprisoned and executed, was quite a compliment.
I didn't even bother to stop by my desk. I had places to go.
I had lots of time, really: it was only ten o'clock. But I said to the driver, "Open that throttle!" He was doing two hundred in the thick, midmorning traffic. "Who the Hells do you think I am?" he said crossly. "I can't drive like Heller and you know it!" He was getting awfully insolent lately. I was about to reach forward and bat him one when I realized that if we were to have a crash and live through it, this packet might be found on me. I forcefully checked my impatience and let him bumble along.
The Great Desert fled beneath us. There were more sun-dancers today but I spent no time watching them.
My eyes were fixed on the ugly hulk of Spiteos, swelling in size as we closed the distance to it. This was going to be very sweet.
Chapter 7
The training room, when I came in, was in its usual turmoil. It had been cleaned again and stank of army disinfectant. The assistant trainers were putting various people through their paces: here a special agent getting skilled in the use of electronic needle bombs blown from a tube; there, two claw fighters learning how to look like they were tearing each other apart without suffering the slightest injury beyond the stain of fake blood; over there, an act with a magician and a primate who seemed to be exchanging roles in making each other disappear.
And there was the Countess Krak, my quarry.She wasn't doing any training: apparently she had turned all that over to assistants now. She was wearing a powder blue, one-piece exercise suit; she had her silky hair bound back with a powder blue band; her sparkling ankle boots were twinkling as she worked upon a pair of rings. She was shooting herself up in the air, her toes moving rapidly in cross-uncross twitches, and then at the top she would flip upside down and catch herself with her heels in the rings. She was very graceful.