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قراءة كتاب Double Take

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‏اللغة: English
Double Take

Double Take

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 3

the adhesive from his back. There was an instant of pain as the plaster came free. He wadded up the sticky package, dropped it to the floor and kicked it under the desk.

Then he took off his coat, tie and shirt.

"You can turn around now," he said.

"A more modest spy I've never seen. Okay," she said, "now you turn around."

"As you see," he said, "there are no plans—no papers."

"No—not now. But there is a red mark on your back. What is it?"

"Oh," he said. "Oh—that's a birthmark."

She spun him around to face her. Her face was harsh. She slapped his cheek. "Where is the sticking plaster? Don't trifle with me."

Her eyes bored into his. He returned the gaze, then shrugged.

"Under the desk," he said. "I tore it off and kicked it under the desk."

"You are sensible to confess," she said.

She bent down, unwisely.

Paul Asher felt the familiar tightening in his chest as he leaned forward. The click was barely heard.

He raised his hand and brought the edge of it down hard on the back of her neck.

She crumpled and fell to the metal floor. He noticed that a smear of her freshly-applied lipstick came off on it.

He pushed the unconscious body aside and fished the packet out from under the desk. He searched the room for another hiding place.

But it was too late. A section of wall opened and Hafitz, the fat man in the wheelchair, sped in.

He wheeled past the young man, looked briefly at the unconscious girl, then whisked himself around.

"You will pay for this, my friend," he said. "But first we will have the plans for the way-station. Where are they?"

"I don't know anything about any plans and I don't know anything about a way-station. I tried to tell the girl: it's all a crazy mistake."

"We will see," said Hafitz. He pressed a button on the arm of his wheelchair and two bruisers appeared through the walls, in the abrupt way people had of materializing here. Bruisers was the only way they could be described. They were human brutes, all muscle and malevolence.

"Take them," said Hafitz, indicating the unconscious girl and the young man. "Take them and search them for a small packet. If you do not find it, search this room. If you do not find it still, hurt the male animal. They persuade well with pain here, I understand. But do not kill him. I will be in the communications room."

He sped off, through a wall opening.

One of the bruisers picked up the girl, roughly, and disappeared with her. The other grabbed the young man and hauled him off in a third direction. The young man hastily snatched up his coat, shirt and tie en route.

They ended up in a cell of a room, about seven feet in all directions, in which the bruiser stripped him, methodically went through each piece of clothing, and then satisfied himself that he didn't have the packet anywhere on his body.

The muscle-man then raised a fist.

"Wait," his prospective victim said. He thought back quickly. "Hafitz didn't say you could bat me around till you searched the room, too."

The other spoke for the first time. "You say the truth." He put his arm down.

The young man watched intently as the bruiser went through the wall of the cell-like room.

He dressed fast. By placing his fingers in exactly the same position as the other had done, was able to make the wall open for him.

The silver-metal corridor had two directions. He went to the right. After many turnings, at each of which he reconnoitered carefully, he came to a passageway that was damp. Why it was damp he couldn't tell, but there in the wetness were tracks which could have been made by a wheelchair.

He followed them, feeling the throb of giant engines underfoot.


The wheelchair tracks abruptly made a ninety-degree turn and ended at a blank wall. Somewhere beyond it must be the communications room.

He retreated and waited.

In time the

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