Smith heard the guard shouting. "Inside, he's inside!" the guard was saying.
Then there was only a clattering noise. The guard's phone had been dropped. Suddenly.
Dimly the sounds of squealing tires, ragged gunshots, and angry shouting men filtered in through the walls and were echoed through the phone. Smith hung up, getting to his feet.
A loud knocking came at his door. "Yes?"
"Hastings, Dr. Smith. We have a problem out here."
"I know," Smith told the guard. "I think we have an intruder."
"Orders, sir?"
"Keep him out at all costs. And shoot on sight. To wound if possible. To kill if necessary."
"Yes, sir," called the guard. Smith heard his footsteps fade away. He extinguished the lights in his office. Bitter moonlight poured through the spacious picture window. There would be no danger from that quarter. The glass was bulletproof, unshatterable.
Standing behind his desk, Smith was a resolute, ragged figure. Men who had stood and fought at Lexington and Concord looked as he did, simple Yankee stock fighting for their farms and their families. Smith, despite his high-tech resources and his awesome international responsibilities, was at heart a Vermont Yankee who firmly believed in his country and its principles and was willing to lay down his life for both.
The automatic felt cool in his moist palm.
Who? he thought for the thousandth time. Who was this man who knew only his name and age and with a murderous, obsessive single-mindedness had killed and killed in a blind brutal pattern designed to eradicate him? Why had the killer waited so long to seek him out?
"He's in the elevator!" Hastings' voice called faintly. The moon went behind a cloud, plunging the room into abject darkness. Smith gripped his weapon more tightly. He cut the video terminal, its greenish wash of light distracting him at this crucial moment.
More gunshots came, too many. It was a firefight. It had to be. However, the intruder did not sound as if he were heavily armed. No rapid firing from a machine pistol or other high-velocity weapons ricocheted in the corridors. There was only the ragged bark of handguns.
"Here he comes," a voice yelled. "The elevator door's opening. Take him now."
Bullets stormed in the outer hall. Then there was silence.
"Did you get him?" Smith called. He was not leaving the room. Not that he was afraid. But there was only one way into his office. That one door would give him a clear shot. And one clear shot was all that Harold Smith wanted. Or needed.
"Did you get him?" Smith repeated.
"He musta tricked us," Hastings called through the door. "He's not in the elevator."
And suddenly Hastings howled in fright.
"There he is! There he is!" The bullet sounds began again. Briefly.
They stopped one by one, until Smith could hear only the nervous clicking of a gun hammer dropping on empty chambers.
"Don't hurt me!" a guard screeched. "Don't hurt me." And his voice choked off. Smith heard the mushy thud of a body falling to the floor.
Smith swallowed hard. One clear shot, that was all. Light footsteps approached. The door was outlined in yeilow light from the foyer. At the bottom crack, the light was intercepted by moving feet. It seemed like one man. One man, one bullet. Smith was ready.
"The door is unlocked, whoever you are," Smith called out.
The door whipped open. A lean shadow stood framed in the doorway. Smith fired once coolly.
And missed.
The lean shadow faded off to one side, and the door slammed shut, returning the room to darkness.
Smith listened for footsteps, his gun held two-handed before him. He swept the room with its muzzle, one eye on the big window, made faintly visible by cloud-screened moonlight. If he passed in front of the window, Smith had him.
The intruder did not pass before the window. He came the other way.
Suddenly Smith felt a vise clamp around his weapon. It was no longer in his fingers.
He was helpless, and for the first time, a sob racked his throat. It was all over. He would never see his wife again.
"I just want to see your face before I die," Smith said chokingly.
Light blazed suddenly in the room and Smith looked into a pair of the coldest, deadliest eyes he had ever seen.
"Don't break up, Smitty," Remo Williams said. "I missed you too."
Chapter 16
Boyce Barlow wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.
He had been outwitted the first time, he and his cousins Luke and Bud. He admitted it. He told the Fuhrer Blutsturz straight out, "I screwed up."
Konrad Blutsturz' voice crackled over the receiver. "I know. It is all over the evening news. What happened?"
"Me and Luke and Bud snuck in that building, like you said. We asked at the door for Ferris Wheel."
"D'Orr. Ferris D'Orr."
"Ferris Door. That's a funny name, Door. We asked if the guy was working late. It was late on account of we took a wrong turn outside of Roanoke and lost three hours. It's hard getting good directions from folks out here. They all talk funny."
"Go on," said Konrad Blutsturz.
"Well, when the guard fella said that Ferris guy was inside, we asked real polite if we could see him. We said we were big admirers of his. When the guard said no, we weren't sure what to do so we shot him."
"You shot him. Good."
"We couldn't get the door open, though. It was locked, but there wasn't no keyhole. The guard had a bunch of keys, but there was no keyhole in the door. Can you beat that?"
"Then what?"
"We busted a window."
"Which set off an alarm."