Houston and Meredith were a good thirty feet from each other, and
neither looked at the other. Unless a bystander had equipment to tune in
on the special scrambled wavelength they were using, that bystander
would never know they were holding a conversation.
"... nine-fifty, nine-sixty, nine-seventy, nine-eighty, nine-ninety, a
thousand pounds," said the clerk who was taking care of Sir Lewis's
check. "Would you count that to make sure, sir?"
"Certainly. Ten, twenty, thirty, ..."
While the baronet was double-checking the amount, David Houston glanced
at him. Sir Lewis looked perfectly calm and unhurried, as though he were
doing something perfectly legal--which, in a way, he was. And, in
another way, he most definitely was not, if George Meredith's suspicions
were correct.
"Your receipt, sir." It was the teller at Houston's own window.
Houston took the receipt, thanked the teller, and walked toward the
broad front doors of the bank.
"George," he whispered into the throat mike, "has Sir Lewis noticed me?"
"Hasn't so much as looked at you," Meredith answered. "Good hunting."
"Thanks."
* * * * *
As Houston stepped outside the bank, he casually dropped one hand into a
coat pocket and turned a small knob on his radio control box. "Houston
to HQ," he whispered.
"London HQ; what is it, Houston?" asked the earpiece.
"Leadenhall Street Post. Meredith thinks he's spotted one. Sir Lewis
Huntley."
"Righto. We've got men in that part of the city now. We'll have a
network posted within five minutes. Can you hold onto him that long?"
Houston looked around. Leadenhall Street was full of people, and the
visibility was low. "I'll have to tail him pretty closely," Houston
said. "Your damned English fogs don't give a man much chance to see
anything."
There was a chuckle from the earphone. "Cheer up, Yank; you should have
seen it back before 1968. When atomic power replaced coal and oil, our
fogs became a devil of a lot cleaner."
The voice was quite clear; at the London headquarters of the UN
Psychodeviant Police, there was no need to wear a throat mike, which had
a tendency to make the voice sound muffled in spite of the Statistical
Information-Bit Samplers which were supposed to clarify the speech
coming through them.
"What do you know about 1968?" Houston asked sardonically. "Your mother
was still pushing you around in a baby-carriage then."
"In a pram," corrected the Headquarters operator. "That is true, but my
dear Aunt Jennifer told me all about it. She was--"
"The hell with your Aunt Jennifer," Houston interrupted suddenly. "Here
comes Sir Lewis. Get me cover--fast!"
"Right. Keep us posted."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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