Part 2

After a barely perceptible hesitation Oliver nodded in agreement.

For the rest of the day Buckmaster improvised a simulated course of action to let seep through to Wagner whenever he felt a probe. He kept his mind blank otherwise and was quite certain that he carried on the deception well. He caught nothing from Wagner in return that was not deliberately let through. He suspected that his own control was as good. Though he had not had the practice at this that Wagner had.

Toward evening he improvised a crisis. The Underground was plotting something big, he transmitted. He made the need for action imperative and asked for a personal interview. At first Wagner demurred. He wanted Buckmaster to stay on and give first hand reports. Buckmaster gave hints in return that he was suspected by the other members, and indicated that he must leave while still able to. Finally Wagner agreed.

"You realize the risk you're taking, coming with me, Cecil?" Buckmaster asked.

"I do," Cuff said with his unchangeable reserve. "But you'll need my help."

Buckmaster wished he himself could remain as cool. His own nerves felt like wires that had been drawn too tightly.

Cuff was tall and robust, with a pessimistic outlook on life. He seemed to sit back and watch life and its peoples as a spectator, willing to fight ruthlessly for what he believed was right, but never expecting to discover anything fine enough in his fellow men to hope for anything better from them. He had touched the borders of an existence that was mean and hard and dirty and he had long ago despaired of finding anything else. Yet there was nothing apathetic about his personality. Life's illusions were gone, but its fascination remained.

* * * * *

"I didn't think you trusted me too much," Buckmaster said. Cuff acknowledged the statement by nodding his head. "I believed that you might be under Wagner's power. Wagner is a brute trying to break us. On this trip you're going to make your own heaven or hell, and if you've got the courage to face it, I'll back you up."

In the Administration Building the girl at the information desk told them, "The Director will see you in a moment." She led them into a waiting room.

Three hard-faced men, all wearing black shirts, came in. They had the mark of killers about them.

"Stand up."

They checked Buckmaster and Cuff for weapons. None was found. All five took the elevator to the sixth floor.

Wagner was seated at his desk waiting for them when they walked into his office. He smiled his mirthless smile. "I see you brought company," he said. "We'll get two birds with one stone."

Buckmaster knew then that there was little use trying any further deception. Wagner knew. If he were able to squeeze through just a short ten seconds the job could still be done. The three bodyguards stood a few yards behind them.

"I have something here that will interest you," Buckmaster said. Slowly, unhurriedly, but wasting no motion, he unbuttoned one flap on his shirt and reached a hand inside.

He peeled back the long strip of adhesive tape covering the cavity below his ribs. He pulled out the small single-shot derringer concealed there. He aimed from the waist and put the bullet into the middle of Wagner's smile.

The smile cracked, and the crack became a shatter, spreading in all directions. Buckmaster saw the trap then. He had shot at a reflection of Wagner. It had been a cleverly arranged mirror deception.

Cuff turned to run through the door they had entered. But Buckmaster was so certain any attempt to escape would be in vain that he did not even move. Cuff found the three guards blocking the doorway.

Buckmaster watched Wagner enter from opposite the cracked mirror. There were two more of his bodyguards with him.

When the guards closed in Cuff struggled until they spun him back against the wall where his head crashed with a dull crunch. All the fight went out of him and he slumped in the arms of the men who held him.

Two of the guards held Buckmaster's arms.

"A couple of fine birds," Wagner said as he stood in front of them.

Cuff straightened with an effort of will and shook his head until his vision cleared. He leveled his glance at Wagner. "You're a mongrel cur," he said unemotionally, "licking at the General's boots. He'll throw you another scrap for this day's work." Both he and Buckmaster knew that he sealed his own fate with the words. The one thing Wagner could not tolerate was ridicule, worse in the presence of his own men.

Buckmaster caught the hard flat explosion in his face and pain in his eardrums as the gun that appeared in Wagner's hand went off.

As he watched Cuff slump he knew the man was beyond torture. He suspected that this was what Cuff had wanted. He had taken the easy way out.

Buckmaster leaned his shoulders back and then with sudden violence pulled his arms free from the guards' grip. He slapped Wagner across the mouth with his left hand and brought his right fist around in a short arc that crushed the bone in Wagner's nose.

He made no resistance as the guards grabbed him and twisted his arm cruelly behind his back. The hurt from Wagner's shattered nose brought a bright glisten of pain into his eyes.

"That was a mistake," Wagner said, the depth of his anger making his voice soft and husky, "I'm going to make you whine like a dog."

* * * * *

The general was suffering the tragedy of a strong man whose mind was turning senile--and who realized it. Only the two alternative objectives remained virile; the Campaign and, that failing, the Weapon. The Weapon gave him his only solace in times of trouble. Now, going down into the basement of his house, he sought it out again. Letting himself through two thick concrete doors, which he opened with a key that he wore about his neck at all times, he entered the room that held his potentially terrible secret.

The outer contour of the Weapon was a rectangular frame of rough lumber. Inside was a metal box, and in this reposed a semi-glutinous mass of liquid. Nothing more. On the shelf above rested a bottle of aqua fortis. Quite simple substances--apart. Together they could spell the destruction of a world.

The Dictator himself, had given Koski his instructions long before, back in the homeland.

"General," you are being sent with an army, but its purpose is to protect your Weapon, and to bring it into a position of maximum effectiveness, rather than to fight. You fully understand, I hope, that if you ever have to use it, your mission will certainly be fatal to yourself?"

"I understand, Sire," Koski answered. "I am thankful for the honor you have done me."

"Your mission is to carry the Weapon to a central location on the North American continent. I believe you have the force necessary to accomplish that."

Koski nodded but said nothing.

"The component ingredients of the Weapon I know no better than you yourself. It was developed at the Institute. Its special faculty is its ability to free hydrogen from the moisture in the air, and to start a chain reaction. The physicists tell me that it will sear most of the continent once it starts reacting. About the only spot that would be spared are the dry regions, and maybe not even those. Just one thing you must remember--do not use it unless you are certain that the war is definitely lost. Do you understand the importance of that command?"

"I do," Koski answered. "But wouldn't it be better to use it as soon as possible? The lives of my men and myself would be a small price to pay for victory."

"True, except for one big question," the Dictator replied. "The explosive is so deadly that it was impossible to experiment. There is no such thing as a little bit of it. Consequently we are not certain of its effects. We expect, and hope, that it will dissipate itself as it spreads too far from its initial explosion point, but we cannot be certain. It is possible that, once released, it will devastate the entire world. You see now why it must be used only as a last resort?"

Many times since Koski had gone over that conversation in his mind. Had the war been lost? Neither side had come through with functioning governments. Therefore, what course should he take? Perhaps the invaders even now ruled the homeland. Would he gain, or would he lose the last chance for ultimate victory by setting off the explosive?

During the rare moments when his mind cleared, Koski realized the small chance the Campaign would have. At such times the Weapon beckoned. He knew then that the Campaign would never be completed in his lifetime. Wagner, however, was a very good man, with all the ideals of his country. He would carry on.

It needed only a slight variation in the trend of events, to tip that scale one way or the other. Even now the General held the bottle of aqua fortis in his hand--undecided. The fate of the world teetered.

* * * * *

"You aren't so pretty anymore," Wagner said.

"Neither are you," Buckmaster answered through battered, bloody lips. He wondered where he found the strength to keep taunting Wagner. He could feel that his face was a lumpy mess. One eye was closed and blood, running down into the other, kept blinding him. Every muscle in his body ached from the pounding it had taken, and he suspected that his left arm was broken. He sagged in his bonds.

Wagner, he knew, was deliberately gauging the punishment. He meant to torture him to the verge of death, but he did not intend to let him die without further torment. Buckmaster wondered how much more he could stand.

Long ago he had despaired of any help from the Force. He had felt nothing since the torture started. It was evident that it couldn't do anything, or would not, to stop this orgy of sadism. And he knew that any subtle attempts to divert Wagner from his sadistic pleasure would be useless.

Wagner had all the instruments required for refined torture here. It was evident that he had used them many times in the past. He strapped Buckmaster's wrists to a waist-high wooden rack.

"You'll be pleased to know that I have made a thorough study of the human anatomy," Wagner said. "Therefore, when I begin cutting off your limbs, one joint at a time, you won't have to worry. I'll see that you do not die--and also that you retain consciousness. I wouldn't want you to miss the exquisite delicacy with which I perform the operations. You'll be a basket case when I get through."

Wagner picked up a short scalpel with an edge honed to a fine, razor sharpness. "This is a delicate little experiment that I find very effective," he said.

He lifted Buckmaster's right index finger and cut deeply through the flesh of its tip. The intense acuteness of the sensitive nerves made the agony unbearable. Wave after wave of shock sensations struck at his nerve fibers as the blade traced a raw red path through another finger-tip.

Sickness gathered in his stomach and retched up into his throat to gag him. He sucked in great gulps of air until at last he could stand no more pain and welcome oblivion blanked him out.

He returned to consciousness to find Wagner still there--waiting.

"Tsk, tsk," Wagner chided. "So you're not so tough, after all? And just when it was getting interesting."

This time Buckmaster did not have the strength to defy him. He was beaten. He prayed that Wagner would tire of his pleasure before he had to stand any more. He wanted to go out still a man, and not a broken hulk, tearful, pleading, begging for mercy.

"I think you're ready for something a bit more subtle," Wagner said. He concentrated his gaze on Buckmaster's eyes and slowly, cruelly built up a mental strain. The mind contact still held. Buckmaster realized that Wagner had been keeping this until he was too mentally whipped to fight back.

He was surprised then to feel that he fought off the pressure with little strain to himself. Still lurking there in his mind, was the Force, quiet, hardly felt, but virile, with a sense of dynamic quiescence potency! Hope came where all hope had been dead.

Something within him throbbed like electricity, and he sent a bolt of mental energy at Wagner's head.

The shock of the emotional concussion brought blood bursting from Wagner's nostrils and eye sockets. A red tide poured from his lips. His head dropped loosely and Buckmaster knew that Wagner was dead even before he fell from his chair.

Buckmaster sat astounded at the demonstration of power. He sat for a moment listening to the inner voice that sent up its answers to his silent questions. No, it hadn't been able to help him before. Its power was not physical. No, it could not help him escape. From here he was on his own. The only satisfaction he received was the closer entity he had found between himself and the Force. It seemed to him now that it did not come from the outside. Rather it was an essential part of himself. Or, more exactly, he was a part of that Force.

Buckmaster worked his wrists backwards in their thongs until he forced the leather straps over the bases of his hands. Thus he was able to bend his wrists. Slowly, painfully, he brought up his right leg until his foot rested next to his right hand. The left foot next. Once he almost lost his balance. But at last he stood with his feet straddling his hands.

He exerted all the strength of his leg, arm, and trunk muscles. The pain from his broken arm was a sickening thing but slowly the leather bands began to tear loose from the rivets that held them. A last mighty exertion and he was free.

Wagner had a private elevator. Buckmaster entered and went to a ground floor. He walked out of the building through a tradesmen's entrance into a dusky alley.

Keeping his good arm in front of his face he staggered around the corner and into a drugstore and reached a phone booth without being observed. He put in a call and crouched in the phone booth for the ten long minutes it took Oliver to come for him.

"Two weeks aren't very long to get you well, Clifford," Oliver said, "but I'm afraid it's all the time we have. I'm sorry."

"You did your best," Buckmaster answered, "At least you've got me pretty well patched up."

"The last reports were that the police have drawn a ring around this district, and that they're closing in."

"Do we have any way out?"

"I hate to have to say this," Oliver said slowly. "But the rest of us can get out--if we don't take you with us."

* * * * *

Buckmaster had expected this. It seemed that he had known from the beginning that he would never live to see the end of this adventure.

"It's all right. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No. They won't stop us if you aren't along. You're the man they're after. If there were any way I could help you by staying, I'd never leave. But I'd only be captured with you, and nothing gained."

"Of course I understand." Buckmaster rested his hand for a moment on the old leader's shoulder. "Don't feel badly about it, Lester. The men need you. You owe it to them to get out if you can."

Oliver gripped his hand. "Before I go I want you to know how grateful we are for the help you've given us. Without Wagner the General won't be nearly as hard to handle. And one other thing: I don't want you to hope too much, but there's still a chance we may be able to get you out. I'm trying a long shot. So if someone comes for you, go with him. In the meantime, keep your chin up."

They shook hands again. Buckmaster surmised that Oliver was trying to give him something to cling to while he waited for the end. Then he was alone.

Three hours later Buckmaster spotted the first of his executioners: One of the Ruskies that walked with studied unconcern across the street.

Almost at the same time he heard a rap on the rear door of the apartment. He drew the gun Oliver had left with him and walked slowly to the door. "Who is it?"

"Oliver sent me for you," the voice on the other side of the door answered.

"Come in with your hands up." Buckmaster flattened himself against a side wall and shoved his gun into the ribs of a tall young man.

"Who are you?"

"My name is August Gamoll," the man said. Somehow the name was familiar. He should recognize it, Buckmaster thought. Abruptly he did.

"What are you trying to do?" Buckmaster asked harshly. "Make a small-time hero of yourself with this grandstand play?"

"Not at all," Gamoll answered. "I'm the long shot Oliver mentioned."

"You're lying."

"Then how would I know what Oliver said?"

"It may be a lucky guess. Why should I trust you?"

"Mainly because you have no choice. What have you got to lose?" He was a cool character.

Buckmaster shrugged. He hated this playing it blind, but the fellow was right. "O.K.," he said. "You might as well take your hands down. Let's go."

They went down the stairs. At the rear exit Gamoll looked out. He wore no hat. The wind from the alley fluffed the hair on the side of his head.

"All clear," Gamoll said. "Make a dash for it. When you get in the carriage lie low. Now!"

The die was cast, Buckmaster decided. He'd play it to the hilt now, all or nothing. He sprinted across the dirt of the alley and jerked open a door of the carriage. He threw himself inside and hugged the floor.

Soon the carriage began to roll. When they had travelled about a half block it stopped. Buckmaster drew in his breath. This was the critical point. If Gamoll could bluff his way through now the rest would be comparatively easy.

"Give me an escort, Captain," he heard Gamoll say. "I don't want to get tied up here. I understand there's going to be some shooting soon."

"That's right, sir," a crisp military voice answered. "It's best that you get out fast. I'll send one of my men with you."

The carriage started forward again. A half-hour later it stopped once more.

"You may get up now," Gamoll said. "We're going inside. Stay close to me."

* * * * *

"Buckmaster was not surprised when he alighted and found himself near a side door to the General's private residence.

"I don't get all this," Buckmaster said. "You've had me here for six days now, and I've only seen you twice. Why should the General's son be hiding me?"

"Quite simple. I don't like his methods, or his government, any more than you do. Oliver knew that when he sent his message to me asking for help."

"Do you mean to say that you'd help us kill your own father?"

"As to that," Gamoll said, "if you'll notice, my hair and eyes are brown.

"So?"

"Koski's eyes and my mother's are blue. You probably know that it is genetically impossible for two-blue-eyed people to have a brown-eyed son."

"Then you're not his son?" Buckmaster was silent for a minute. "That's why you took the name of your mother's other husband," he mused.

"If you remember, when the law was passed that each woman must have two husbands, the General set the example by marrying a woman who already had a husband. He knows that I am not his son biologically, but I am legally, and I have full inheritance rights. He was too smart--as well as legally exact--to disown me."

"That means you'd automatically become the government head if the General died?"

"Yes. But you're wrong if you think that I am doing this from any selfish motive. If I succeed, I'll institute a democratic form of government at my first opportunity."

"I'll wait until I see it," Buckmaster answered cynically. "But if it's true, are your ideals strong enough to help us kill him?"

For the first time Gamoll seemed uncertain of himself. "Why is it necessary to kill him, especially now that Wagner is dead? We both know that Wagner did the actual ruling. And the General is an old man, without much longer to live. We'll win if we do no more than stand by."

"He must die--and soon!" Buckmaster exclaimed, surprised at the vehemence of the words. So vital had been the command, that he knew what he had said was true: Koski _must_ die, in the very near future. Though he himself was not certain of the need for such urgency.

"I suppose I understand," Gamoll said, a trifle uneasily. "You have to act in self-defense. If you don't kill him, he will probably be able to kill many more of your men before he dies. But try to see his side. He is the representative of a Cause that is just--to his way of reasoning; so right and so just that he will do anything to advance it. Whatever we may think of him, his conscience is clear. I only ask you this: If you can see your way clear to attain your ends without killing him, will you let him live?"

For another nine days Buckmaster stayed with Gamoll. He had nothing to occupy his time. In idle curiosity he went through the books in Gamoll's library. The young man owned many good books.

Before long Buckmaster's idle browsing turned to an intent search. For the first time he began finding clues to the mystery that rode within him.

His first clue, he thought, was a passage he read in a physics book entitled, "The Limitations of Science," by Sullivan: _Research has changed our whole conception of matter. The first step was the experimental demonstration that there exist little electrified bodies, very much smaller than a hydrogen atom, called electrons. Measurement was made with the result that the "whole" mass of the electron was found to be due to its electric charge. This was the first indication that the material universe is not the substantial, objective thing we had always taken it to be. Matter began to thin away into the completely spectral thing it has now become. The notion of "substance" had to be replaced by the notion of "behavior"._

He passed readily from physics to the more fertile field of philosophy with the groping statement of Voltaire: _I have seen that which is called matter, both as the star Sirius, and as the smallest atom which can be perceived with the microscope; and I do not know what this matter is._

He pursued this quest readily with the philosopher Schopenhauer and passed almost imperceptibly into metaphysics: _I will never believe that even the simplest chemical combination will ever admit of mechanical explanation; much less the properties of light, heat, and electricity. These will always require a dynamical explanation._

_If we can ferret out the ultimate nature of our own minds we shall perhaps have the key to the external world._

_Let us say, then, that repulsion and attraction, combination and decomposition, magnetism and electricity, gravity and crystallization, are Will._

_Will, then, is the essence of man. Now what if it is also the essence of life in all its forms, and even of "inanimate" matter? What if Will is the long-sought-for, the long-despaired-of, "the thing-in-itself"--the ultimate inner reality and secret essence of all things?_

Buckmaster perceived that these men were catching glimpses of something which they called Will, Order, Thing, Absolute, and other names but which were all very probably the same thing--and also that which he sought. Eagerly he read on.

His next clue came from Bergson: _Thought may begin with its object, and at last, in consistency, be driven, by the apparent necessities of logic, to conceive all things as forms and creatures of mind_.

Quickly he passed on to Spinoza where he found a wealth of food for thought. _Is the body merely an idea?_

_Is all the mentality that is scattered over space and time, a diffused consciousness that animates the world?_

_There is but one entity, seen now inwardly as mind, now outwardly as matter, but in reality an inextricable mixture and unity of both._

_Eternal order ... that betokens the very structure of existence, underlying all events and things, and constituting the essence of the world._

_Substance is insubstantial, that it is form and not matter, that it had nothing to do with that mongrel and neuter composite of matter._

Bruno said: _All reality is one in substance, one in cause, one in origin; mind and matter are one._