sought seemed to stand out in letters of fire: "... three in the past five months...."

Again he caught up the telephone receiver, aware that his heart was pounding with excitement, and dialed a number.... "Bulletin? Hello; let me talk to Jerry Furness.... Jerry, this is Martin Kirk at Homicide. Look, do something for me. I want to find out how many top nuclear fission boys have died in the past four or five months.... No, no; nothing like that. Some of the boys down here were having an argument about.... Sure; I'll hold on."

He propped the receiver between his ear and shoulder and groped for a cigar. In the office beyond the partition of his cubbyhole a woman was sobbing. Chenowich went past his open door whistling a radio commercial.

The receiver against his ear began to vibrate. "Yeah, Jerry.... Four of 'em, hey? Let's have their names." He picked up a pencil and took down the information. "Uh-hunh! Three heart attacks and one murder. Check.... You mean all of them? Tough life, I guess.... Yeah, sure. Anytime. So long."

He replaced the receiver with slow care and leaned back to study the list of names. Not counting the last name—Gilmore's—three world-renowned men in the field of nuclear physics had dropped dead from heart failure within the designated span of months.

Coincidence? Maybe. But he was in no mood for coincidences. If the deaths of these four scientists was the result of some sinister plan, who was responsible? Some foreign power, concerned about this country's growing mastery of nuclear fission? Was it his duty to notify the FBI of his findings and let them take over from here?

He shook his head. Too early for anything like that. He needed more evidence—evidence not to be explained away as coincidence.

Once more Lieutenant Martin Kirk went back to analyzing the broken phrases Cordell had picked up while eavesdropping that October afternoon. Twelve times zero made no sense at all ... unless it could be the combination of a safe...? Hardly possible; no combination he'd ever heard of would read that way. The next one, then ... chained to two hundred thousand years.... Another blank; could mean anything or nothing. Next: A: ... sounded like the Professor said something like his colleges had no idea and he'd see they were warned right away.

Kirk bit thoughtfully down on a corner of his lip. Gilmore didn't own any colleges and how do you go about warning one? 

 Prev. P 26/57 next