“Judas,” Nick answered at once. It had to be Judas. It was his land of operation. Yes, only one man, Judas, that personification of evil, that Satan in human form. Merely thinking of the man set Nick’s teeth on edge and his anger soaring.

  “In his note to the President,” Hawk explained, “Judas referred to the disappearance of the other subs during his practice experiments. The X-88 he now has is practically a working blueprint of our newest weaponry, our latest electronic defensive and offensive gear, our most secret nuclear power-plant structures. And, of course, there’s the entire crew.”

  “If we don’t pay, he’ll sell elsewhere,” Nick finished. “And if we do pay, that’s no guarantee of anything. He might decide to hold us up for more and still make a deal with someone else.”

  “True enough,” Hawk admitted. “That’s why these gentlemen have been pooling what little information they have with us.”

  “And it is very little, indeed,” the Israeli added. “While your country is now being held up at gunpoint, so to speak, if this lunatic succeeds he will do the same to all of us. Perhaps his demands will grow even larger. The world could be at his mercy in time. We have given your Chief here what little information we had on the disappearances of our submarines. I understand we are trying to put scraps together to see if they can help draw a picture for you to work from.”

  “One thing is certain,” Hawk chimed in. “If we don’t pay in five days, he will take more subs, more crews— and demand more money. His note makes that clear.”

  “How, dammit?” Nick shot out. “You don’t just tuck a submarine under your arm and swim off with it. All these craft have radar, sonar, radio transmission, alarm systems and all kinds of very sophisticated protective devices. What happened to all that hardware?”

  “Whatever he’s using must have a neutralizing element,” Hawk shrugged. “Something which completely knocks out every detection and alarm system. We don’t have any idea what to look for, but we can be fairly certain that something powerful and massive enough to capture a submarine intact must operate from a base somewhere. The X-88 and its crew are probably being held at the same base. You have five days in which to find that base, destroy the operation—whatever it is— and rescue the sub and its crew.”

  Nick flashed one of his boyish grins and looked wide-eyed and innocent. “No sooner said than done,” he said, cheerfully. He cast a quick look at the other three. They were serious, eager to believe him. Hawk shot him a steely cut-it-out-not-in-front-of-company glance.

  “We do have a few pieces of fairly solid information,” he coughed. “Though I admit they’re very few.”

  Nick saw the Frenchman’s eyes shoot skyward at this. He seemed to be saying they were not very solid, either.

  “We’ll give you what we have, step by step, N3,” Hawk continued. “First, we know that Judas, while he would take on masterminding this kind of thing, doesn’t have the technical and scientific knowledge to devise whatever it is they are using. Here I’ll let M’sieu Debol take over.”

  “It is very little I can give you,” the Frenchman shrugged, helplessly. “You have no doubt heard of the renowned French marine biologist, Francois Sangue and his work in the field of underwater exploration and man’s ability to live under the sea. About a year and a half ago, Professor Sangue was approached by a man, whom he casually knew, who claimed he could construct an undersea device that would control the world. The man was not French. His name was Harold Fratke. Professor Sangue knew of him, however, as a most brilliant mind, an absolutely fantastic marine biologist. But he also knew this Harold Fratke to be a very strange, unstable person. In fact, the man seemed to have an obsession about women. He was arrested for drugging young girls, molesting them. And one summer at the Sorbonne he was dismissed as a lecturer for keeping a young girl imprisoned in his room. Professor Sangue sent this Harold Fratke away, of course, and he was going to forget the entire affair but then he thought he should report the strange offer to the Surete. They attempted to contact the man, but he had vanished.”

  Hawk gestured with a hand toward Aran Kuhl, the Israeli Security man.

  “Over a year ago,” the Israeli began, “a slave-trader was slain on the Israel-Jordan border. This man had specialized in supplying young girls to wealthy buyers, mostly in the Arab and Far Eastern world, of course. However, among his papers was found the name Harold Fratke. He had been a—er—client of this slave trader who suddenly went out of business.”

  “I see,” Nick mused aloud. “And maybe he found a new supplier—Judas—in exchange for what he offered. This is all beautiful conjecture, gentlemen, but it isn’t worth a damn in helping me find Judas. If that’s all you’ve got I’d say we’ve absolutely nothing to go on, and five days and nothing don’t add up to much hope.”

  “All right, N3,” Hawk cut in. “We have a few more facts which we fed into our new Master Computer. As you know, a computer can only answer from what information you feed into it. We fed it all the hard-core info we have, which consisted of these few things. First, the ransom letter was mailed from Washington, D.C., naturally, to avoid any telltale postmarks. But every ink, whether it comes from a pen or a typewriter ribbon, has an evaporation factor. Also, laboratory analysis can determine with fair accuracy how recently that ink has been applied to the paper. We determined that this letter had been written not more than three days ago. So we fed the computer the evaporation factor of the ink, where the letter was mailed from, the area in which the submarine X-88 last reported in by radio, the six areas in the world containing the greatest number of uncharted islands and atolls, and the depth of the water in those areas.”

  “That last one, old boy,” Commander Hotchkins broke in, “is because all three of the lost subs had been operating in fairly deep water Whatever is being used requires depth and room to operate.”

  “From these bits and pieces we asked the computer to give us a probable location or an area for search,” Hawk said.

  “I’d say it came up with the Caribbean,” Nick said. “Around the Lesser Antilles, probably the strip fronting on Venezuela.”

  Hawk at least kept his mouth closed. The other three sat there with jaws hanging slack. A sly smile of respectful commendation flickered over Hawk’s face. It was the Frenchman who found his voice first.

  “Formidable!” he said. “Beyond belief.”

  “You don’t need your computer,” the Israeli added in awe. “The man’s phenomenal.”

  “It wasn’t all that tough,” Nick said. “A lucky guess.” As a momentary hum of conversation broke out among the others, Nick’s mind flashed on a large map of the Caribbean. The Lesser Antilles formed a large half-moon running along the eastern part of the Caribbean. The good, deep water in that area would be from the Antilles out, along the Los Roques Trench and beyond. He would eliminate the main islands at the western end of the chain—Aruba, Curasao, Bonaire. There was too much normal activity and traffic around them. It would be the smaller ones outside the Curasao Ridge, perhaps, and those to the east. Hawk’s voice snapped him back to attention.

  “The kind of searching you’ll need to do will require a special kind of cover. A legitimate oceanography expedition has been set up there, headed by one Dr. D. Fraser. It was a bit of luck on our part. This Dr. Fraser had applied for a government grant for an oceanography unit in that area. We had a big allocation shot through for the doctor, a base vessel, a small Aero Commander outfitted with pontoons and tons of oceanographic equipment, more than he asked for. The good doctor’s no doubt so astounded he hasn’t recovered from the shock of it all. But it’s all down there already.”

  “And where do I fit in with the doctor’s oceanography unit?”

  “You’re doing special research on underwater problems for the Navy,” Hawk answered. “You’ve been assigned to work from his unit on this very hush-hush job. It was a condition we attached to the grant.”

  “If I read you right, Chief, the good doctor doesn’t even know he’s being used as a cover.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Isn’t that dirty pool, really?” Nick commented. “Maybe he wouldn’t have grabbed at the grant if he knew he was putting himself in danger of being blown to bits.”

  “He isn’t in danger,” Hawk said. “That’s the beauty of it. The good doctor is legitimate, and the cover is legitimate. There’s no reason for anything to happen to him and his people.”

  Baloney and you know it, Nick said under his breath. The unexpected can always happen. But it was the kind of unswerving ruthlessness one got to expect from Hawk. Not that he treated human life lightly. It was merely that if people had to be used to get the job done, then he used them. The doctor gets his oceanography grant and Hawk gets his cover. Neat. If all went well, the good doctor would never know the difference. If it didn’t, he’d damned well know.

  “You’ve an hour less to find Judas and the X-88,” Hawk said, standing up to signify the briefing was at an end.

  “Sorry I’m such a chatterbox,” Nick commented, acidly.

  “That’s all right, N3,” Hawk replied with a smile. “Stop in at Special Effects. Stewart has a new skindiving outfit for you that might come in rather handy. He’ll fill you in on the details.”

  Nick waved a hand at the other three who had also gotten to their feet. They were solemn-faced, looking like pallbearers at a funeral. Maybe they were, in a way. He had five days—no, he corrected himself as per Hawk’s last remark—four days and twenty-three hours, to find something someone else had been spending the past year or more hiding. Not too encouraging a prospect, to say the least. But as Nick walked toward Special Effects, he thought about what had happened so far. The French, Israeli and American subs that had disappeared each carried about 100 men. That meant Judas had killed some 300 men thus far, not to mention the subs, and he now held another 100 men captive. Nick felt his jaw muscles clench. If he found Judas this time he’d make certain there would be no escape. The man had more fives than a cat but, by Nick’s count, he had used up more than his share by now. This would be it, a final accounting.

  At Special Effects, Nick found Stewart waiting, happy as always as a kid with a set of new toys. The skindiving outfit he gave Nick was replete with a variety of hidden flaps and pockets, each one carrying its own fascinating exercise in destructive thinking. Nick listened attentively. The Special Effects man knew his business and on this job—an excursion into the unknown if there ever was one—he would need all the technical help he could get.

  “Now, N3,” the man finished, “you’ll go to Puerto Rico by regular airliner. The Aero Commander from the oceanography unit will pick you up there. The Chief wants it all handled very casually. At the oceanography vessel they’re all involved in their own little academic world and they’ve probably never heard of AXE, to say nothing of you. You’ll be Commander Carter, Naval Research. I think you’ve got it all, now. Good luck.”

  Nick nodded, picked up the special gear and left. He locked his car, sent the keys back upstairs and headed for the airport. The shuttle to New York was fast enough and there he boarded the plane to Puerto Rico. The faint ticking of his watch was a constant reminder that the business of just getting there was robbing him of precious hours of time, but there was little he could do about it. The airliner was jam-packed with the usual crowd of happy vacationers on their way to the islands, families going back to visit relatives, and a scattering of businessmen. Nick found himself in an aisle seat, across from a girl who had already strapped on her seatbelt. She was young, brown-haired and apple-cheeked, and she radiated a country freshness, a feeling of farms and pastures and haylofts. Her breasts were round and full under an orange jacket over a dark blue skirt. Her legs were a shade too heavy, but their youthfulness and firm skin made them attractive. She wore no stockings and flat shoes. She was pleasant and fresh and at the moment very apprehensive as she watched more and more people crowd into the airliner.

  “Don’t worry,” Nick said, quietly. “It’ll take off.”

  She looked at him and then laughed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know it showed so much. I’m not an experienced flyer and you are.”

  “How do you know I’m an experienced flyer?” Nick asked with a half smile.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, appraising him again. “A something about you, a certain look. You look like you’re an experienced everything.”

  Nick smiled broadly at her. It wouldn’t be a long flight, but it might be a pleasant one. She was thoroughly open and likeable. The usual take-off bustle interrupted them, but once airborne, after two cocktails, he had learned a lot about her. Betty Lou Rawlings was her name and she was bom among the cornfields of Nebraska, had come to the big city about a year ago, and had found some fun, some disappointments and a lot more struggle than she had anticipated. When she questioned him he told her he was engaged in underwater research for the Navy, giving her the oceanographic expedition explanation. But he decided to give her the name of Ted Malone. The airliner had too many pairs of ears aboard. Betty Lou was properly impressed. What might have been aggressive or forward in other girls was nothing more than a kind of puppy-dog uninhibitedness about her that was very warm and appealing. He found himself liking this spontaneous straightforward farm girl.

  “You going to Puerto Rico for a vacation?” he queried.

  “Oh, no,” she cried, suddenly becoming very animated and excited. “I’m going there to be met and taken to my new job. I’m really so thrilled and excited. Maybe I’m a little afraid, too. They’re sending a special private plane to meet me—and all that!”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m to be a secretary-companion to a wealthy old man, a recluse who lives on his own island. There’ll be only a few other people beside myself, I’m told. A handyman, a few servants. Imagine that, I’ll practically have a whole island to myself. I’m told the work is really very easy.”

  How did you come by this?”

  “An advertisement in the newspaper,” Betty Lou said. “The Walton Employment Agency. God, are they thorough. I’ve never been so thoroughly checked, rechecked, interviewed and examined in my life. I had to tell them my life’s history, whether I had any boyfriends, close relatives, living parents, everything. They explained to me that I’d be on my own, away from everyone for months at a time. If I were going to get homesick for a relative or boyfriend it wouldn’t work out. Luckily, I’ve been on my own since I was eighteen and my folks died. My only aunt passed away last year and that’s when I came to New York. They checked everything out at Walton and I got the job.”

  Walton Employment Agency. Nick found himself inscribing the name in his mind and he wondered, briefly, why. There was no earthly reason why he should make a mental note of the Walton Employment Agency, but he did. Something in his subconscious was ticking away, he knew. In time, it would make itself known. The pilot switched on his speaker system and his voice came into the cabin loud and clear—

  “A heavy fogbank is blanketing Puerto Rico, ladies and gentlemen. We will land in a few minutes, but we are no doubt the last plane to be cleared for landing. All smaller aircraft have been diverted some hours ago. Please fasten seatbelts, and it’s been nice having you aboard.”

  Nick smiled reassuringly at Betty Lou who was genuinely grateful for it. The airliner dropped down through the fog—a moist, vaporous blanket. It would be an instrument landing, but this pilot knew what he was doing. If you were aware, all sorts of little things could tell you that—the way the huge airliner settled down, the controlled feel of the plane, the steadiness of the descent. Betty Lou’s knuckles were white where she clutched the end of the arm rest, Nick saw. He was relaxed as a well-fed tomcat, on the outside, at least. Inside, he was grimly angry. Puerto Rico wasn’t subject to heavy fogs, but every island had to have its share of them. It was rotten luck he had to hit one.

  He felt the plane touch ground, and now diffused airport lights struggled through the fog. In a little while he was beside Betty Lou inside the terminal. Both of them checked on the arrival of private planes to meet them, though his check was a mere formality. It was obvious no small birds would be checking in in this soup unless they’d put in hours ago before it closed down. Nick asked weather advice and was told the fog was expected to last through the night. There was nothing to do but hole up at a hotel for the night. He looked at Betty Lou. She was disappointed, her face reflecting that disappointment. Nick’s face reflected only a bland cheerfulness, but inside he was angry—mad as hell, in fact. There was little enough time without losing another twelve hours. Judas was getting all the breaks so far. He looked at the girl again and felt sorry for her.

  “Don’t take it so hard,” he said. “I shall devote the evening to keeping you amused.”

  She took his arm, impulsively. She was all warm softness, the side of her breast pressing into his arm producing a softly exciting sensation.

  “Thank you, Ted,” she said. “I hate waiting, it’s one of the worst things for me. I got my courage all up and ready for this moment and now—more waiting.”

  “Come on, honey,” Nick said, pulling her along with him. “Let’s check in at the hotel and then we’ll go out to dinner. We’ll make the most of it, okay?”

  She nodded happily and fell in beside him with a half-skip of a stride, trying to match his long legs as they marched from the terminal. The nearest hotel had a fine small combo and a good restaurant. They had cocktails, danced, ate dinner, danced some more, and drank some more. As the evening crept on into the small hours, Nick noticed an increasing quietness about Betty Lou. As they finally walked to her room, on the floor beneath Nick’s, he pulled her closer to him.

  “Something’s bothering you,” he said, gently. “What is it? Come on, tell me. Imagine me as your friendly family minister.”

  “Nobody has that good an imagination,” she laughed. “I guess I’ve just been thinking that this is the nicest evening I’ve spent in a long time and tomorrow I’m going to go to an island with a recluse to spend months there. Now, suddenly I don’t want to go. I want to see you again, Ted.”