I went in. The air was foul from vomit. On a cot lay a twitching form, whose features became suddenly visible in the rays of the lantern Chetzisky held up behind me. I gasped. The face was puffed into fiery welts and the eyes, sunken deep in their sockets, glowed fiercely in a savage agony.
"The poor devil," I exclaimed; "it would almost be better to shoot him."
Chetzisky was shocked. "For a dog, yes. But for a man, Mr. Carlson, that is murder."
What a sardonic jest. The man who planned to wipe out two billion people rebuking an unintended suggestion of mercy killing. I was so choked with anger that I could barely answer. "Just a figure of speech, Doctor."
Outside in the other room a door slammed. Someone rushed in shouting, "Soldiers, soldiers dropping from the skies." It was the other Indian.
Chetzisky kept his rifle aimed at my belly as the Indian poured out the details. Two planes had dropped paratroopers just outside the crater. He told the Indian to go back outside and watch and tell him when the soldiers got inside the crater.
"So you are looking for Professor MacRoberts, a private investigator," Chetzisky chuckled softly. "There is something familiar about you; I should have paid more attention to my suspicions in the beginning. You're someone I met once. That beard confuses me."
He waited for me to answer. I had to keep him talking; the paranoiac loves it. All Armstrong's men needed now was time. They were at the doorstep. "I'm Doctor Arnold Bailey of Atlantic University."
Chetzisky wrinkled his forehead.