Day After Tomorrow

XIX

Finally he said softly, only a murmur, “When Steve Hackett and I were questioning Susan, there was only one other person who knew that we’d picked her up. There was, hence, only one person who could have warned Ernest Self to make a getaway. Later on, there was only one person who could have warned Frank Nostrand so that he and the Professor could find a new hideout.”

She said sleepily, “How long have you known about that, darling?”

“A while,” Larry said, his own voice kept deliberately low. “Partly, I figured it out when I also decided how Susan Self was spirited out of the Greater Washington Hilton before we had the time to question her further. Somebody who had access to tapes of me cut out a section and dubbed in a voice so that the Secret Service matron who was watching Susan was fooled into believing it was I ordering the girl to be turned over to the two Movement members.”

LaVerne stirred comfortably and let her head sink onto his shoulder. “You’re so warm and… comfortable,” she said.

Larry said softly, “What does the Movement expect to do with all that counterfeit money, LaVerne?”

She stirred against his shoulder, as though bothered by the need to talk. “Give it all away,” she said.

Inwardly he froze.

She went on sleepily. “Distribute it all over the country and destroy the nation’s social currency.”

It took him a long, unbelieving moment to assimilate that at all.

He said carefully, “What have the rockets to do with it? Where do they come in?”

She stirred once again, as though wishing he’d be silent and said sleepily, “That’s how the money will be distributed. About twenty rockets, strategically placed, each with a warhead of a couple of tons of money. Fired to an altitude of a couple of hundred miles and then the money is spewed out. In falling, it will be distributed over cities and countryside, everywhere. Billions upon billions of dollars worth.”

Larry said, so softly as hardly to be heard, “What will that accomplish?”

“Money is the greatest social-label of them all. The Professor believes that through this step the Movement will have accomplished its purpose. That people will be forced to utilize their judgement, rather than depend upon social-labels.”

Larry didn’t follow that, but he had no time to go further now. He said, still evenly soft, “And when is the Movement going to do this?”

LaVerne moved comfortably, sleepily, “The trucks go out to distribute the money tonight. The rockets are waiting. The firing will take place in a few days.”

“And where is the Professor now?” Larry was doing his best to keep urgency from his voice.

“Where the money and trucks are hidden, darling. What difference does it make?”

“And where is that?”

“At the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation. It’s owned by one of the Movement’s members.”

He said, “Undoubtedly, there’s a password. What is it?”

“Judgement.”

Larry Woolford bounced to his feet. He looked down at her, then over at the phone. In three quick steps he was over to it. He grasped its wires and yanked them from the wall, silencing it. He slipped into the tiny elevator, locking the door to the den behind him.

As the door slid closed, her voice wailed, still sleepily husky, “Larry, darling, where are you…”

He ran down the walk of the house, vaulted into the car and snapped on its key. He slammed down the lift lever, kicked the thrust pedal and was thrown back against the seat by the acceleration.

Even while he was climbing, he flicked on the radio-phone, called Personal Service for the location of the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation.

Fifteen minutes later, he parked a block away from his destination, noting with satisfaction that it was still an hour or more to go until dark. His intuition, working doubletime now, told him that they’d probably wait until nightfall to start their money-laden trucks rolling.

He hesitated momentarily before turning on the phone and dialing the Boss’ home address.

When the other’s face faded in, it failed to display pleasure when the caller’s identity was established. His superior growled, “Confound it, Woolford, you know my privacy is to be respected. This phone is to be used only in extreme emergency.”

“Yes, Sir,” Larry said briskly. “It’s the Movement. They’re moving again.”

The other’s face darkened still further. “You’re not on that assignment any longer, Woolford. Walter Foster has taken over and I’m sympathetic to his complaints that you’ve proven more of a hinderance than anything else.”

Larry ignored his words. “Sir, I’ve tracked them down. Professor Voss is at the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation here in the Alexandria section of town. Any moment now, they’re going to start distributing all of that counterfeit money on some scatterbrained plan to disrupt the country’s exchange system.”

Suddenly alert, the department chief snapped, “Where are you, Woolford?”

“Outside the garages, Sir. But I’m going in now.”

“You stay where you are,” the other snapped. “I’ll have every department man and every Secret Service man in town over there within twenty minutes. You hang on. Those people are lunatics and probably desperate.”

Inwardly, Larry Woolford grinned. He wasn’t going to lose this opportunity to finish up the job with him on top. He said, flatly, “Sir, we can’t chance it. They might escape. I’m going in!”

He flicked off the set, dialed again and raised Sam Sokolski.

“Sam,” he said, his voice clipped. “I’ve cornered the Movement’s leader and am going in for the finish. Maybe some of you journalist boys better get over here. Tri-Di, too.” He gave the other the address and flicked off before there were any questions.