Jim Phelps whittled away the wee hours of the morning and the afternoon in a montage of work.
He labored in the still isolation of his hotel room. He would sit, rise, prowl like a restless panther, his eyes reflecting an almost intolerable mental concentration. He focused his uncanny genius upon every known detail of the situation. Bit by bit, he mapped a counterattack. Now and then he would stop tautly at the writing desk, make notes, study them, rip them to pieces. Twice he used long-distance telephone to requisition necessary equipment and supplies with coded messages, and to communicate with Captain Crane and Admiral Nelson.612Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMqxkeLzbVX
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Lee Crane, captain of the submarine Seaview, sat up and looked at the clock and saw it was 3:00 A.M. He wondered why the alarm had gone off at that time. Then he realized it wasn't the alarm. It was the telephone. He muttered sleepingly and irritably to himself and got up to answer it. Admiral Harry Nelson was calling.
"Stand and unfold yourself," said the Admiral.
"Bernardo," replied Crane. "Long live the King!"
"Bernardo?" asked the Admiral.
"He," replied Crane. "I'm coming. I'll be there in twenty minutes."
Crane's irritation had vanished upon his recognition of the sign/countersign. It meant that the IMF had requested Seaview for an assignment. Supplies were being loaded, the NIMR staff calling the crew, and the submarine was expected to set sail one hour ago!612Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJCGNDzmcdL
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At 5:13 P.M. a parcel delivery service courier arrived with a piece of aircraft luggage. Jim signed the delivery receipt, shut the door quickly, and crossed to the desk where he opened up the case.
He looked at the contents, a compact motion picture projector and a reel of film. He closed the case slowly, his mind projecting scenes of its own, scenes of the future and alternative futures. In lightning-fast thrusts, his mind ripped his plans apart, questioned, probed, then reassembled them:
His ruggedly handsome face betrayed none of the urgent, crushing sense of responsibility he felt. One thing was forever certain: IMF operatives never enjoyed the privilege of hindsight, trial runs, or second chances.
He started slightly as the ringing of the phone drilled into his awareness. He reached out and lifted the phone. "Yes?"
"Jim Phelps?"
"This is he."
"The Great Paris is here, old friend." Paris's theatrical delivery was resonant in the receiver.
Jim felt a warmth that burst into a quick smile. "How was the California vacation?"
"Beautiful."
"Good. Keep it as a memory while your lift gets just a little bit loused up."
"You and your fiendish friendship," Paris sighed. "We're ready for some fishing?"
Jim glanced at the pad upon which he'd scribbled so many hard-thought notes during the bygone hours. "Tackle, bait and boat are ready."
"Excellent! I'll split from this delightful airport as soon as I can hail a taxi."
Jim and Paris barely had time to shake hands and slap each other's backs before Willy Armitage was looming large in the doorway.
"Is this where I buy a ticket to nowhere?" Willy grumbled.
"Well, well." Paris's eyes twinkled. "The captain of the college wrestling team."
"Jim, who's the Shakespearean villain?" Willy laughed. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "I found an absentminded young professor wandering around Washington. I hope you don't mind me bringing him along."
Barney Collier's lean, dark form was revealed as Willy barged forward. Holding back a smile, Barney gave Willy a charitable glance. "He needed help finding the way to the airport."
There was a burst of good-natured laughter, a crowding about each other, a warm moment of shoulder-thumping, and inquiries as to what each had been doing since they'd last been together.
A light tapping of slim knuckles on the jamb of the open door drew Jim's glance. Molly was a framed vision of loveliness.
"Gentlemen!" Jim commanded.
They snapped to instant attention, made little bows. Paris swept forward, offering his arm. "In truth, the best was saved for last!"
"Oh, no, no," Molly laughed. "JFK just happened to be the most crowded of airports."
The easy camaraderie continued through dinner, a cover for the electric anticipation each was feeling. Dining at the table Jim had reserved, they drew little attention, although Molly was bound to be the focus of a few admiring glances wherever she went.
A perceptible air of seriousness began to envelop the group upon returning to Jim's room. Talk died away. A hint of tension could be sensed. Molly eased down on a large hassock, clasping her knees. Willy half sat on the windowsill, arms folded. Paris and Barney chose the raw-silk-covered armchairs. Paris slouched a little bit. Barney rested his elbows on the chair's arms and let this fingers form a steeple. All eyes were now focused upon Jim.
"Now, has anyone here been to San Gonzalo before?" Phelps asked.
"I was there briefly, three years ago," Barney said, "with an inter-American geological team studying the volcanic structure of the country. We did field work in the time allotted us."
"Good," Jim nodded. "We'll need the on-scene knowledge."
Paris was studying Phelps keenly. "What's with that country, Jim? I thought they finally managed an election and were getting their house in order."
"Democratic order," Jim said, "and that's the problem."
"Always some dictatorial cats abusing freedom so they can put a foot on everybody else's neck," Willy growled. "What's their problem in San Gonzalo?"
"Money," Jim said. "Same as everywhere else in Latin America."
Molly shook her head. "From all I've read and heard about President Fulco Rodriguez, he'll be a tough one to bribe."
"They know they can't bribe him," Jim said. "So they plan to drown him---in a flood of money."
"A flood of---what?" Willy's brows drew together. "Let's back up and flatten the curve."
"The other side plans to smuggle in millions of peotacas---perfectly counterfeited---and distribute them wholesale," Jim said.
"And if there's a rush of innocent peons, well-heeled for the first time in their lives, all at once out to buy...." Willy's teeth clicked, his jaw muscles bunching. "It'll wreck that little country!"
"You bet it will," Jim said, "and guess who'll be running the show when the smoke clears."
Molly's usually gentled brown/green eyes flashed. "It's the----the meanest scheme I've ever heard of!"
"I'll second the nomination," Jim said. He knew the way Molly's mind and emotions worked. She thought in terms of people, not things.
Right now, Jim suspected, Molly was reducing the experience of the tiny nation to a lone peon.
In his tattered pantaloons and straw sandals, the stringy, careworn man rushes his house of adobe and thatch.
"Mamacita, look! It is dinero! Mucho dinero!" He waves his upraised fists, the money sprouting like lettuce leaves from between his fingers.
Wan, tired, his wife approaches. A flicker of hope struggles in her eyes, but she is more cautious than her husband. "Julio, how can that be? Is it real?"
"Si, mamacita, you are not dreaming. Look at it, touch it, feel it! A man in the village is giving it to everyone."
"I don't understand, Julio. How can such a thing be?"
"Must you count the teeth of every gift horse, mujer?! The man says it is a new government program, and my hands are warmed by this money, which is enough for me!"
"But the children, Julio...."
"Si, mamacita, clothing, food, maybe even a toy for the muchachas. And---who knows---maybe a new dress for you!"
"To dupe them that way...." Molly voiced the thought in a husky undertone. "To build them to the height of false hopes just to yank the rug right out from under their feet!"
Feeling the silence that followed her words, she glanced into the eyes of the other members of the team. "Okay." She smiled. "I'm a square---with an allergy. I'm allergic to the idea of ragged, hungry people being used as tools to bury their own future."
"Ditto," Paris said, his voice devoid of any hint of humor or theatrics.
"Our job," Phelps said, "is to cook up a remedy for this flu."
He crossed to the bedside table, where he had set up the compact move projector. Resting his thumb on the switch, he said, "We've got some news film clips that'll interest you." He made a small motion with his head. 'Willy, please draw the drapes. The white wall over there should provide us with a satisfactory projection surface. Barney, will you please hit the lights so we can get on with the show?"
The room darkened. Jim switched on the projector. A test pattern formed on the wall. Phelps made a slight adjustment in focus, sharpening the smallest detail.
The square grayed out as the projector sprocket whirred the trailer through. A scene flashed to life, a dusty town square thronged with people. A motorcade was entering, wending its way slowly toward the flag-decorated platform that had been erected near the weather-worn obelisk and stone balustrades that marked the middle of the square.
It was a short procession consisting of six government cars. In the lead was a black limousine, with green and white San Gonzalan flags fluttering from little fender mats and a pair of security policemen perched on the running boards. A man stood in the open rear, smiling and waving to the cheering crowds.
"Tocutal Square," Jim said, "the day after the San Gonzalan presidential vote was counted."
The presidential car stopped, and the cordon of police strained to hold back the exultant mass of dusty, ill-clothed peons.
The man alighted from the car, shaking off the assisting hands of his bodyguards, and mounted the wooden steps of the temporary rostrum with a bearish agility. He stood at a speaker's table, which was banked with microphones, and while flashbulbs flared all around him, he turned slowly. His arms were thrust up to form a V. His movement continued through a full circle, so that all his people might have a direct, face-on look at him.
The camera zoomed in as the man completed the turn. Jim switched the projector to hold, and the life-size image was frozen, timeless, on the hotel room wall.
Jim heard the rustle of movement as the team leaned forward to study the picture with trained observers' eyes.
Fulco Rodriguez was not at all remarkable in appearance. He wore a rumpled dark suit carelessly and was bareheaded. He was tall but had a look of stockiness. His features were blunt, earthy, almost ugly, but his smile, with his deep brown eyes folded in suntanned creases, lent warmth to the face and gave it character. He was sweating heavily. Stray brown locks were plastered to his ridged forehead. Squeezed about his short neck, his shirt collar was limp and stained with moisture.
"Fulco Rodriguez," Jim intoned. "Age, 42. Born to a peon family. Got himself an education at the University of Miami, Florida, by working as a construction hand during the summers and saving his money. The fall he was ready to begin his junior year, he came down with an attack of acute appendicitis. The medical costs depleted his summer's savings, and he missed a semester. Missed others in order to send money home when critical needs arose. It took him seven years---but he did get his degree.
"At age 25 he returned to San Gonzalo and went into journalism. He became the managing editor of Moderación when he was 30 and he built the paper into a strong opposition voice. Unfortunately, it got him nothing but being beaten and jailed by the old Sanhueza junta. When Cidd Menendez's counterrevolution toppled Sanhueza, Rodriguez escaped and went into the hills.
"Deprived of a paper in which he could voice the conscience of his people, Rodriguez turned to active politics. He began this phase of his life as little more than a wandering teacher with six devoted disciples. Gradually he built a party among the peons. The country began to take notice of him, and democratic-thinking elements of the upper class gravitated towards him.
"At last he had the strength to demand a free election. He risked assassination every time the clock ticked, and the election wasn't entirely free---the entrenched opposition used every coercive measure short of murder to swing the vote. But the more stonehearted among the people elected Rodriguez by a narrow margin. And there you see him, the day after he squeaked into office."
Jim touched the projector control. The shift of scene brought into view a white, Spanish-style villa overlooking the sea. The angle cut to the courtyard, resplendent with lush, tropical gardens. Near the marble fountain two men sat at a wrought iron table. A portico of the house could be seen behind them.
"That's Cidd Menendez facing the camera," Jim said. "The other man is the CBS News correspondent who interviewed him after the elections ousted Menendez from the presidential offices."
The angle shifted, and Jim again touched the control for the "still" projection. In closeup, Menendez loomed on the wall, his thin lips parted on a word, his hand half raised in a gesture of emphasis.
"He's living proof of the old adage about appearances being deceiving," Jim said on a note of dry humor.
The observation was well taken. In 2-D, Menendez was a veneer of refinement. His trim figure was impeccable in a cream-colored suit. His face was lean, with high cheekbones and even brows above large, dark eyes. Over his high forehead, his wealth of black hair was "mullet" styled---the bangs and the longer hair fringe surrounded his face without being overwhelming. Splashes of silver at his temples gave him an aristocratic effect.
There was nothing sweaty, dusty, or rumpled about Cidd Menendez. But the trained observers who were studying him at this moment didn't miss the carefully masked arrogance in the eyes or the lurking shadows of willfulness and cruelty about the mouth.
"Menendez, naturally, assured the CBS correspondent that he was accepting the will of the people and retiring gracefully," Jim said.
Paris's brow stirred. "I happened to catch the documentary on the San Gonzalan elections when CBS aired it. Menendez brought off his segment beautifully. The guy's a terrific actor; you've got to give him that. He made it sound genuine, his promise to cooperate with the new government, to advise or assist in any way if he were called upon."
"But you can bet the election didn't teach him any lessons about humility," Molly Stewart said. Her face was a pale square in the darkened room. "Just the opposite. He knows he's preparing for a last-ditch effort this time."
"And for all his dedication and toil, Fulco Rodriguez will be painted villain, the man responsible for economic wreckage and misery." Barney Collier had spoken so softly that the others turned to look at him. They knew the signs. The softer Barney talked, the bigger the stick he was carrying. "There'll be nobody left but Menendez to fill the void, seize control, declare himself supreme leader on the pretext that it's necessary in order to stabilize the country. And this time there'll be no Fulco Rodriguez, Menendez will see to that. As Molly said, the man has learned his lesson."
"Too bad Rodriguez couldn't send a couple of bayonets to tickle Menendez out of the country," Willie lamented.
Nobody replied, knowing that Willie knew the score as well as any of them. Menendez, for now, was a citizen in a free and democratic country. Until there was evidence that he had violated a law or plotted treason, he enjoyed the same privileges as all other citizens. Police-state tactics would violate the principles for which Fulco Rodriguez had struggled all his life and undo everything he had accomplished thus far.
"Next," Jim said, "we have a reproduction of a snapshot. Not very good, but the only thing that the Secretary could order up on such short notice."
The images of a man and a woman splashed across the wall, against a background of junglelike growth.
The man was about the size of Paris, bearded, dark-complexioned, his stance and the tilt of his head suggesting a reckless belligerence. He wore a deluxe sombrero, a sleeveless white shirt, and a poncho. A bandolier of ammunition crisscrossed his chest. A rifle was slung carelessly over his shoulder, and he was wearing six-shooters on each hip.
"That's Pau Saldaña," Jim said. "Leader of the communist guerillas Menendez secretly organized when it dawned on him that Fulco Rodriguez was not just another voice complaining in the back country. These fellows had to hole up in the hills after the elections, but they remain a dangerous strike force."
"Hey!" Molly said suddenly. "The girl who's standing beside Pau Saldana----I remember now where I've seen her before. Menendez came to Washington when he was riding high and tried to finagle foreign aid from Uncle Sam. His daughter---Angela---accompanied him. I met her at a reception."
"Yes." Jim grinned. "I know. It was one of the reasons you were tagged for this mission. You and Angela are about the same size. Thanks to the colorization, there's a general resemblance. You've had a chance to hear her voice and see her mannerisms. A few deft touches by Paris, and we might palm you off briefly as Angela."
"It's been a while...." Molly lapsed into a brief, memory-straining silence. Then she went on. "I hadn't much chance to get to know her. But I recall that she struck me as being moody, withdrawn."
"I guess she was maturing and beginning to see through her father's double-talk," Jim said. "She continued to support him---as a cold-blooded young cynic. I suspect she went off into the jungle and married Pau Saldana partly to show her father how well she had learned the lessons he'd taught her by example."
"Sounds like a beautiful girl with some very ugly hangups," Paris suggested.
"She and her husband make a pair," Jim agreed.
The images faded as the projector obeyed the touch of Jim's fingers.
"Final item," Jim said. "Key item. This footage was shot from a window in Hanoi nearly a year ago. One of our agents there used a telescopic lens and risked his neck in order to add a face to our files to a name that had begun cropping up with deadly regularity."
The upper stories of an old and weathered stone building came into focus. The eye of the camera centered on a certain window.
"It took three days of watching and waiting to get this few minutes of film," Jim said, the upflare from the projector lighting up his strong features. "So meet Law Zongxian."
A man had come to the window across the way. Instantly the camera zoomed in with a dizzying sweep.
The window framed a young man in a neat, dark suit. His face was boyish, his hair so black it was almost like a thick blob of oil on his head. He looked as if he hadn't a problem in the world but was merely wondering where, in the city below, he and an attractive local girl might spend a pleasant evening.
"No wonder he's had it so easy," Barney murmured. "That wide-eyed look of youth and inexperience would fool a lot of people."
The image of Law Zongxian turned and vanished from the window. Jim turned off the movie projector.
Barney got up and turned on the room lights; the sudden brightness made them all blink a little.
Paris thoughtfully rubbed the lobe of his ear. "The smaller the country, the bigger the risk of detection of strangers going in," he said in singsong, as if quoting from an undercover agent's manual. He turned slightly in his chair, watching Phelps pack up the projector. "Just how do we pull it off, Jim?"
"There are two ways to get into a place like that," Willy said, "fly or swim. A plane or boat is bound to be spotted. It's too bad we can't teleport in. You know---vanish, then reappear whenever we chose."
"A good idea, Willy." Phelps snapped the case on projector and film. "Admiral Nelson and Captain Crane are going to help us do just that, in a manner of speaking."
Jim looked at their faces. They were beginning to think and act like a team.
"Admiral Nelson has personally chartered a plane to take us from here," Jim said. "Everything's being readied for us aboard the Seaview. She's en route to the Ybytecto Trench right now. Nobody aboard except Crane and Nelson know what's cooking; the orders have been sent out from top echelon. We'll quietly disappear---to reappear at a point of our own choosing."
Willy grinned. "In the Seaview," he said with decision. Then he sobered up, with a pretense of shock in his wide-eyed stare. "What the hell am I saying?! I actually have to ride a big tin fish along the bottom of the ocean with two hundred men? And all those tons of water....."
"Like caterpillars in a stuffy cocoon," Barney razed.
"With my luck they'll probably ram the damn sub into a coral reef," Willy shot back.
"Unless the torpedoes get us first," Jim said, winking at Barney.
"Torpedoes?" Willy echoed.
"I've read the dossier containing everything we know about the Haigui," Jim said. "They're not kidding about the size of that thing. It could swallow the Seaview like the whale did Jonah. The gargantuan size of the Haigui is caused by the huge need for power for her big arsenal. And because of her size she needs greater power to run through the sea."
"How about that? Torpedoes. And I thought we'd already run every risk in the book." Willy shoved up from his window seat. A grin split his face. "Who's for a little spice in life? Let's get going!"612Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRkaLtYWDnE
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The tension-easing byplay returned hauntingly to Jim's thoughts some hours later.
He and Barney Collier stood at the huge, square observation ports in the bow of the Seaview as the great submarine slipped beneath the surface of Bahia La Junares less than 20 miles off the San Gonzalan coast. Daylight dimmed and the ports darkened as the Seaview submerged and began to course silently through the depths. From somewhere in the ship, a crewmember had switched on the powerful searchlights in the bow of the ship. Schools of brightly colored fish darted in terror from the sudden intrusion.
Barney Collier had descended to the depths of bathyspheres and diving bells. But he had never quite experienced the view that the great bowports of the Seaview had offered.
From the rear of the observation room a figure arose and approached Jim and Barney. Red-haired and beady eyed Admiral Harriman Nelson, owner and commander of the Seaview---and IMForce operative extraordinaire.
Jim glanced anxiously now at the broad, transparent ports. "I can't help feeling uneasy," he said, "about whether or not those windows are going to hold. I can't imagine a plastic or glass that would keep out the tons and tons of water which are now above us."
Nelson laughed. "There's never been a leak even around the joints, Jim. Actually those windows are neither plastic nor glass. They're made of X-hardened Herculite, one of my minor inventions."
"A major one, I'd say!" Barney said as he moved closer and peered out in fascination at the sea world illuminated by the lights. A large grouper fish drifted lazily by and peered in at them.. In the distance Jim thought he saw the outline of a blue shark.
Up in the control room, Molly, Paris, Willy and Lee Crane, the Seaview's captain, became frozen figures around the plotting table where they had been memorizing details of a San Gonzalan map.
Jim crossed over to Admiral Nelson. "I take it we're thinking the same things?"
"Absolutely. The mission might well be lost before it's begun. Zongxian's monster sub is 15 fathoms above us right now. If his sonar locks onto us before we can make it to the harbor, he's got us cold!"
Jim's face tensed with concentration. His photographic memory unrolled a detailed chart of the San Gonzalan harbor they were headed for.
A sudden glitter flickered in his eyes. He strained forward, peering through the curving transparent port. At this depth, the water was a dark, murky green, washing like slime over the vision ports.
Ahead---nothing but a green wall. The Seaview's powerful spotlight revealed nothing in the green murk.
The helmsman called out over the intercom: "Depth, one hundred thirty fathoms. Fifteen fathoms to bottom. Range is closing fast on an unknown object."
A small breath burst from Jim as he gazed out of the viewport to starboard.
An old wreck rested on the silvery sand of the bottom a few degrees off the course of the drifting Seaview.
"I'd say we're looking at a Spanish galleon that had been the victim four centuries ago of a British or French broadside," said Nelson.
She lay now barely recognizable as a once-proud ship ferrying Incan gold to Spain. Barnacles had encrusted her. Sand had washed through holes in her rotten timbers. What was left of her seemed to be held together by tentacles of seaweed that floated about the stumps of her masts.
"As close as we are to the bottom, she'll be a real hazard to Seaview," Nelson said.
"Can we risk a spurt of power to avoid her?" asked Barney.
"No, that's not the question," said Nelson. "The real question is whether or not we've already shown up as a moving blip of light on the sonar screen aboard Zongxian's sub.
Nelson was right, and Jim knew it. A sonar probe was undoubtedly S.O.P. anywhere the Haigui made harbor. It took no brains to figure that out. The phony research sub had been watched by too many American and British submarines for her to omit the measure.
Somewhere up there, a watchful Hangui crewman might right now be at his sonar set, reacting sharply to the alien ponging sound that would be Seaview's signature. He might very well snatch up a hand mike and speak into it: "Comrade Captain, Unknown craft, possibly a submarine, bearing one-one-three!"
Admiral Nelson was already putting into action the slender remaining chance, grasping the microphone and signaling the turbine room. "Quarter speed!" To the helmsman he ordered, "Diving planes, Mr. Riddle. Down three degrees. Full rudder, right!"
"Down three, full rudder right!" came Mr. Riddle's reply.
The return of power seemed like an explosion through the hull. Strands of seaweed and chains of algae washed in a rush across the Seaview's viewports as the submarine spurted forward.
Jim, Barney and Admiral Nelson watched the fuzzy outlines of the wreck grow in size as it seemed to swim toward the prow of the sub. A vagrant thought flitted through Jim's mind: Too bad the old boys with cannon and cutlass, aboard a doomed ship, couldn't guess how handy she might be a few hundred years in the future.
Still holding the microphone, Nelson signaled the control room: "Cut the searchlight and turn off the power!" And the dark green nothingness closed in.
"All hands stand by," Nelson barked into the mike. "We will be drifting in beside the wreck any second now."
The admiral had barely finished speaking when a soft whump reverberated throughout Seaview. She had settled to the bottom with a gentle rocking motion, stirring up a small cloud of silt, nestling as close to the ancient wreck as a kitten against its mother.
Jim, Barney and Nelson leaned back in some padded chairs at the rear of the observation room. All three men looked at each other, a shared sentiment in their eyes. They had come a long way together. And nobody lived forever. But the company had been good, and the trips worthwhile. If this was the end....
Then the first eerie, cicada -like bing went through the Seaview. To the IMF team and the crew of the Seaview, crouched and whatever was to follow, the sound had a quality like the ringing of an executioner's ax.
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