The Doomsday Formula (1969)

  (The 50th book in the Killmaster series)

  Version 0.9

  Dedicated to The Men of the Secret Services of the United States of America

  Chapter I

  The American Museum of Natural History nudges Central Park on the east and the somewhat rundown buildings of Columbus Avenue on the west. Outside, it is a colossus, a neo-Gothic structure onto which newer, Romanesque additions have been grafted with the usual architecturally absurd results. Inside, though, it is a place of wonders, a testimonial to all things natural in this and other worlds, a tribute to man’s attempts to understand himself and his environment, a record of the world since it began. As I walked through the high-domed halls I recalled how many enchanted hours I’d spent there as a kid. I made a mental note to return someday soon for a leisurely trip through its wonders.

  I let my eyes wander to the shapely legs striding just ahead of me now, culminating in a squeezable little rear encased in a mini-kilt. Unfortunately, they turned off at the Mammals Hall while I was on my way to the new Hall of Earth History on the fourth floor. That’s where he had said to meet him, and that’s where I was headed.

  Inside the Hall of Earth History I sauntered past the display cases. Just beyond them, in a corner of the hall, I spied the tall, lean man standing in front of one of the geological exhibits, his rimless glasses perched atop a thin, sharp nose. His face, leathery and tanned, turned as I approached and then returned to the exhibit. He could well have been a geologist, a botanist or naturalist doing research. But he wasn’t. He was Hawk, Chief of Operations of AXE, the most secret counterespionage arm of the United States; he was shrewd, canny, erudite, a part-time gourmet, cigar enthusiast, home gardener and my boss. He was studying a large exhibit illustrating the origins of a volcano, stage by stage. As I came up to stand beside him he spoke without turning his head, eyes fixed on the exhibit.

  “Are you aware,” he said, “that the scientific community in some areas maintains a constant volcano watch just as they do with earthquakes?” He went on without waiting for an answer. “Many experts believe there is no such thing as a really dead volcano,” he said. “Our fiftieth state, Hawaii, is actually a series of huge volcanoes created by volcanic activity rising out of the sea.”

  “Very informative,” I said as he lapsed into silence for a moment. I decided to outwait him. He was using his manner of sliding sideways into the heart of it.

  “Do you know what a spatter cone is?” he asked.

  “A new Howard Johnson flavor?” I volunteered. A faint flicker of his eyelids was my only reward for that one.

  “A spatter cone is a minor opening near the major crater of a volcano,” he went on. “Something like a side vent that spatters out globs of lava which fall back, congeal and create anthills of stone. They sometimes continue to erupt with minor volcanic activity.”

  “I’ll make a point of remembering that,” I said.

  “The important eruptions occur in Hawaii at least every three to five years,” Hawk droned on. “However, in the past six months there have been six eruptions, small cones in minor craters long dormant. That is an unheard-of amount of volcanic activity. What do you think of that?”

  “Now, you don’t really expect me to answer, do you?” I asked.

  “On the contrary,” he said, turning and flashing a brief smile. “I’m hoping you will.”

  I knew that remark meant something, but I decided to wait and see what.

  “Since when have you been so interested in geology?” I asked affably, trying to keep the note of suspicion out of my voice.

  “Always have been, my boy,” Hawk said. “But there are other things on my mind, too.

  “There’s a plane leaving Kennedy at seven tonight for San Francisco,” he went on. “You’re booked on it. It connects with Northeast Orient flight 667 to Hawaii.”

  “Hawaii!” I said. “I’ve got a date tonight with a chick I’ve been trying to score with for six months. Can’t I get an early flight in the morning?”

  “Art is long and time is fleeting,” he said in answer. “I believe you’ll find that’s Longfellow.”

  I winced. Hawk disliked to flatly say no. Instead, he preferred to make his points through epigrammatic kernels of wisdom, such as the one he’d just tossed me. The meaning was the same, however—no.

  “All right,” I sighed. “What takes me to the land of the hula? What’s this about volcanoes and since when am I a geologist?”

  “You’re not, but it’s a very disturbing thing about the volcanoes,” he said. “I’ve been closeted all morning with the geologists here at the museum trying to discover some pattern, and they’re terribly disturbed, too. One of the people I want you to look up when you get to the islands is Dr. John Plank, Chief Volcanologist at the Observatory.”

  I’d worked with Hawk too long not to know when I had half a story.

  “Who else am I looking up, Chief?” I asked. “All this geological apprehension may be valid, but it’s not our cup of tea. What brings AXE into it?”

  “Cato Inura,” he said and I felt my eyebrows go ixp.

  “The head of Japanese Intelligence?” I asked. “That Cato Inura?”

  Hawk nodded. “We talked by phone yesterday,” he answered. “He called me. Naturally, on an open transpacific line we didn’t say very much but he’s disturbed. In guarded words he informed me that he felt the Japanese Communist Party was planning to pull off something really big.”

  I searched my mental storehouse for what I knew on the Japanese Communists. They were a sizable group and, as usual, troublemakers. They cleverly played on three themes, juggling each one to fit the mood of the moment. One was international communism and its benefits, the second was a latent anti-Americanism still virulent in Japan and the third was the usual appeal to the disenfranchised and disgruntled.

  “The Japanese Communist Party has been at a standstill for some years,” Hawk said. “They need something really big and dramatic to capture the attention and the applause of the Japanese people. Lately they’ve been making big noises about how the United States is going to be forced to pull back out of the Pacific. They’ve been intimating, rather unsubtly, that they can accomplish what the Emperor’s military might couldn’t do. And Hawaii is supposed to be the jumping-off point. In fact, incredible as it may sound, they’re boasting about pushing the islands to the bottom of the sea.”

  “How does this tie in with volcanoes that erupt?” I asked.

  “Maybe it doesn’t,” Hawk said. “Maybe they’ve got hold of some geological secrets we don’t know about and intend to capitalize on them. But Inura was disturbed and if he’s disturbed, I’m disturbed. Anyway, you pay attention when someone threatens to sink one of the states in America.”

  I had never met Cato Inura, but he was highly regarded in intelligence circles as one of the better men on the scene. Moreover, in his own sphere, he knew his people and the emotional and political climate.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Hawk asked. “You don’t have a lot of time to make the plane. I’m staying here a while, till they close. I love this place.”

  I turned and started to leave. “Anything else, sir?” I asked in parting.

  “Bring me back some volcanic cinder,” he said. “It makes great mulch for the garden.”

  I went off grumbling to myself. I knew Hawk never sent a top agent on anything he didn’t feel strongly about and, let’s face it, I was one of his very top operatives. Modesty has its place but so does truth. Hawk knew it and so did I, and it made our relationship what it was, a thing of respect often masquerading in a kind of intellectual fencing. He had his uncanny radar for spotting trouble, and he knew if it was really there, I’d uncover it and wrestle with the results.

  I walked through the museum unmindful of its treasures now, my mind on Hawk. When I reached the street, the sky had turned an ugly brown and I felt a drop of rain on my face. A cab pulled up and I slammed in. The weather wasn’t helping my disposition.

  I gave the cabbie my address and he took off smoothly, rounding a neat curve at the next comer. I closed my eyes and concentrated on Dottie Thompson, the blonde who still thought she was going to see me tonight. I wasn’t looking forward to canceling that date.

  The taxi was a big old-fashioned one and I stretched my legs out and sank deeper into the seat. The car hit a pothole and my head jerked forward suddenly. My eyes focused on the door and I noticed that the door handle on my side had got lost somewhere. I shifted around. All the handles seemed to be missing, on both the doors and the windows.

  I came wide awake. Maybe it was just a broken-down old taxi that nobody had bothered to keep up. But without a single exit in sight, I began to doubt it. I took out my gun, resting it on my lap. I leaned forward to speak to the driver but a glass partition, installed in all New York cabs of late to stall would-be holdup men, prevented me from reaching him.

  I rapped on the partition but the driver seemed oblivious of me. He turned another corner and I saw where he was heading—uptown, to a desolate stretch of roadway near the Hudson River where whatever was going to happen would happen without too much interference from traffic.

  A strange, acrid smell began to fill the cab and the driver put on more speed. I couldn’t see or hear anything but the smell was getting stronger all the time. My head was feeling curiously light and my lids weighed about a hundred pounds each; I wasn’t going to be able to keep them open much longe

r.

  I aimed a shot at the cab driver’s beefy neck but it bounced harmlessly off the bullet-proof glass partition between us. And the acrid gas that was filling the inside of the cab was not letting up.

  My head was swimming and I was barely able to focus on the red fight looming ahead. The cabbie shot past it at top speed and from a great distance I could hear the wail of a siren. Somehow I twisted around and thought I saw a police car zooming after us. I tried to smile but I don’t think my muscles were cooperating. Sonofabitch, I thought fuzzily, ran through a red light and now the New York cops were going to get him and incidentally save me.

  The cab pulled sharply over to the curb and the driver took off at top speed just as the cops arrived. I was too weak and groggy to follow the next couple of moves but the sharp whine of a gun pulled me back. A ruddy face was peering into mine and strong fingers were opening my shirt and tie. “Wha … what happened?” I said to the cop trying to help me. “That’s what we would like to know,” he said. “Why was that cabbie running like that?”

  I shook my head trying to clear it. “You okay, buddy?” the policeman said. “I think my partner could use some help finding that driver. Suppose I leave you here for a while, huh? Just don’t move, I’ll be back and I want to talk to you.”

  I nodded and watched him double time up the street. I staggered to my feet and took off in the opposite direction.

  I got another cab a couple of blocks away and finally made it home. When I reached my place, the blue telephone in the desk drawer was ringing and I picked it up to hear Hawk’s voice.”

  “It might help if you knew where to meet Inura,” he said with some asperity. “I had other things on my mind,” I answered and could hear the sharpness in my own voice. It brought Hawk up short; he knew something had happened as I usually hold on to my cool.

  “What is it, Nick?” he asked. “I had company, right after I left you this afternoon,” I said and described my recent cab ride. “I think you’ll have to explain some things to the New York City Police Department,” I told Hawk.

  “We’ll take it care of it,” he said. “In the meantime you better concentrate on Inura. He’s in a small cottage fronting Waikiki; cottage number twelve, got it?”

  I had it and hung up. I changed, strapped Wilhelmina, my faithful 9mm Luger, in her shoulder holster again and slipped on my jacket. Wilhelmina was as much a part of me as my skin; she hadn’t been much help in the cab but, while great, she was not a miracle worker. Still, her only rival was Hugo, strapped onto my forearm, in his pencil-thin sheath. The stilleto was a perfectly balanced, finely tempered steel, an instrument of silent death. Together, they had often been worth six men to me.

  I didn’t spend any more time on the taxi, not even to wonder how they got to me or if it had anything to do with my new assignment. The office boys at AXE would follow up on all the details. I needed all my energy and intellect for what was coming up, not for what had passed. You quickly learn not to dwell on the past in this business.

  I called Dottie Thompson from the airport, deciding that the sound of aircraft engines and flight announcements would add a note of urgency to the whole thing. She listened to my profuse apologies and said only three words: “Don’t hurry back.” I crossed her name out of my little black book as I strolled to the flight ramp.

  The flight to San Francisco was uneventful, but there was a wait between planes. While I waited, the fog rolled in, and everyone sat around watching the terminal buildings and the hangars disappear one by one. Finally they announced that flight 667 would not leave for two hours.

  Two hours—hah! This soup would be just settling down in two hours. There was no wind and not even the hint of one on its way. I hate sitting around airport terminals so I took a walk along the edge of the field, savoring the damp wetness of the fog, pulling my jacket collar up around my neck. In the fog, the brilliant fluorescent runway approach lights were huge mushrooms of bluish mist. As I moved along the edge of the field, skirting one of the diffused, fluorescent fungi, I saw the girl appear at the other side of the light. I couldn’t see her face but from the frightened-deer way she ran, casting glances behind her, I smelled trouble. She saw me just as I saw the shadowy shape of other figures running after her in the fog. She headed for me, crying out. She wore a trench coat and a floppy rain hat, and I couldn’t see much else except dark hair falling to her shoulders.

  “Please,” she gasped. “Which way is the terminal building? I’ve got to get on flight 667.”

  I saw wide eyes and a pretty nose but the floppy rain-hat cast a big shadow down over her face. Looking past her I saw first two figures, then a third, move into the blue haze of the runway fight. She glanced around, saw them, and looked up at me.

  “Please help me,” she said. “I’ll explain later. Please.”

  The first two men had come up now, and one of them grabbed at her arm, yanking her back. She leaned down and sunk her teeth into his hand. He yelled and let go. She tried to run, but the second one grabbed her while the other slapped her hard across the face. “Bitch,” he growled. “Knock it off or you’ll get hurt.”

  “Let me go,” she yelled, kicking him in the shins. “I’m taking that plane.”

  I decided I’d seen enough and moved forward. “Hold it right there,” I said quietly. “What’s all this about?”

  The first one fastened me with a hard look. I sized them up quickly, noting the heavy-set, immobile expressions of hired strong-arm boys.

  “Buzz off, Mac,” the first one growled.

  “Why are you trying to stop her from taking the plane she wants to take?” I asked.

  “Butt out, stupid,” the nearest one said, starting to advance menacingly. “None of your damn business.”

  “It’s become my business,” I said evenly. “Question of situation ethics.”

  The first one frowned in bewilderment. “Don’t waste time with the creep,” the second one said. “Get rid of him.”

  But the girl took advantage of their momentary inattention and brought the heel of her shoe down hard onto the instep of the one holding her. He yelled in pain, cursing, as she tore away and started to race out onto the airfield. I saw her figure start to vanish in the fog, running toward the twinkling red and yellow wing lights of an airliner. I looked again and saw the lights moving. The big plane was being slowly taxied across the field in the fog, and I heard the sound of the engine. It was a prop jet and the propellers would be whirring, not at top speed of course, but enough to slice a man in halves, quarters and eighths. I started after the girl, and the three hoods took after us both.

  She had vanished in the fog, but I could hear the sound of her heels on the runway. She was heading for the plane, hoping to find help, no doubt. I put on more speed. I was catching up to her and saw the end of her trench coat flying behind her. But the airliner was nearly atop her, moving slowly, its searchlights cutting a white haze through the fog far over her head. They would never see her. They wouldn’t figure anyone to be out on the field, in the first place, and certainly not in this pea-souper. A heavy bank of fog rolled over us just as I caught up to her, yanking her back by the arm.

  “Hold it, dammit!” I said, yelling now over the roar of the props. “It’s me.”

  She turned and I could see relief in the deep pools of her eyes. I couldn’t see the wing of the airliner now, but I could feel the movement of the air being stirred.

  “Drop!” I yelled, yanking her off her feet. I hit the ground holding her on top of me and I felt, more than saw, the giant wing slowly move over us. The fog churned away enough in the wind of the prop to give us a glimpse of the whirring blades as they passed overhead. I couldn’t hear the footsteps of our pursuers but suddenly I heard a scream, high-pitched, only a brief-instant long, and then it was cut off in the noise of the engine. I slid the girl from atop me and put one hand over her mouth in a gesture of silence. She lay without making a sound. As the airliner moved off in the fog, the noise of the engines being quickly absorbed by the dense atmosphere, I heard an awestruck voice.

  “Jesus,” it gasped. “It was Charley. He ran into it.”

  “Where is he?” another shaken voice asked.

  “I don’t know, somewhere around here. Where’s the dame?”

 

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