Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,7

Ach, there is Grant."

He pushed toward the young agent. "Grant!" he held out his hand, "Good-bye. Thank you. Thank you very much. I will see you again, not so?"

"Could be," said Grant. "I'm an easy man to see. Just look for the nearest rotten job, and I'll be right there on top of it."

"I'm glad you took this rotten one."

Grant reddened. "This rotten one had an important point to it, professor. Glad to be of help. I mean that."

"I know. Good-bye! Good-bye!" Benes waved, stepped back toward the limousine.

Grant turned to the colonel, "Will I be breaking security if I knock off now, chief?"

"Go ahead . . . And by the way, Grant ..."

"Yes, sir?"

"Good work!"

"The expression, sir, is: `Jolly good show.' I don't answer to anything else." He touched a sardonic forefinger to his temple and walked off.

Exit Grant, he thought; then: Enter Good Old Charlie?

The colonel turned to Owens. "Get in with Benes and talk to him. I'll be in the car ahead. And then when we get to headquarters, I want you to be ready with a firm identification, if you have one; or a firm denial, if you have one. I don't want anything else."

"He remembered that drinking episode," said Owens. "Exactly," said the colonel, discontentedly, "he remembered it a little too quickly and a little too well. Talk to him."

They were all in, and the cavalcade moved off, picking up speed. From a distance, Grant watched, waved blindly at no one in particular, then moved off again.

He had free time coming and he knew exactly how he planned spending it, after one night's sleep. He smiled in cheerful anticipation.

The cavalcade picked its route carefully. The pattern of bustle and calm in the city varied from section to section and from hour to hour, and that which pertained to this section and this hour was known.

The cars rumbled down empty, streets through rundown neighborhoods of darkened warehouses. The motorcycles jounced on before and the colonel in the first limousine tried once again to estimate how the others would react to the successful coup.

Sabotage at headquarters was always a possibility. He couldn't imagine what precautions remained to be taken but it was an axiom in his business that no precautions were ever sufficient.

A light?

For just a moment, it had seemed to him that a light had flashed and dimmed in one of the hulks they were approaching.. His hand flew .to the car telephone to alert the motorcycle escort.

He spoke quickly and fiercely. From behind, a motorcycle raced forward.

Even as it did so, an automobile engine, ahead and to one side, roared into loud life (muffled and nearly drowned by the multiple clatter of the oncoming cavalcade) and the automobile itself came hurtling out of an alley.

Its headlights were off and in the shock of its sudden approach, nothing registered with anyone. No one, afterward, could recall a clear picture of events.

The car-projectile, aimed squarely at the middle limousine containing Benes, met the motorcycle coming forward. In the crash that ensued, the motorcycle was demolished, its rider hurled many feet to one side and left broken and dead. The car-projectile itself was deflected so that it merely struck the rear of the limousine.

There were multiple collisions. The limousine, spinning out of control, smashed into a telephone pole and jolted to a stop. The kamikaze car, also out of control, hit a brick wall and burst into flame.

The colonel's limousine ground to a halt. The motorcycles screeched, veering and turning.

Gonder was out of his limousine, racing for the wrecked car, wrenching at the door.

Owens, shaken, a reddened scrape on one cheekbone said, "What happened?"

"Never mind that. How is Benes?"

"He's hurt."

"Is he alive?"

"Yes. Help me."

Together, they half lifted, half pulled Benes from the car. His eyes were open but glazed, and he made only incoherent little sounds.

"How are you, professor?"

Owens said in a quick, low voice. "His head cracked hard against the door handle. Concussion, probably. But he is Benes. That's certain."

Gonder shouted, "We know that now, you ..." He swallowed the last word with difficulty.

The door to the first limousine was opened. Together they lifted Benes in as a rifle shot cracked from somewhere above. Gonder threw himself into the car on top of Benes.

"Let's get the show out of here," he yelled.

The car and half the motorcycle escort moved on. The remainder stayed behind. Policemen ran for the building from which the rifle shot had sounded. The dying light of the burning kamikaze car cast a hellish