The Mercenaries | Page 5

words, there's been no loss of
mass, but the mass had contracted. And that's only been the first test."
"Well, write up everything you have on it, and we'll lay out further experimental work,"
MacLeod said. He glanced around the table. "So far, we can't be entirely sure. The
shrinkage may be all in the crystalline lattice: the atomic structure may be unchanged.
What we need is matter that is really collapsed."
"I'll do that," Kato said. "Barida, I'll have all my data available for you before noon
tomorrow: you can make up copies for all Team members."
"Make mine on microfilm, for projection," von Heldenfeld said.
"Mine, too," Sir Neville Lawton added.
"Better make microfilm copies for everybody," Heym ben-Hillel suggested. "They're
handier than type-script."
MacLeod rose silently and tiptoed around behind his wife and Rudolf von Heldenfeld, to
touch Kato Sugihara on the shoulder.
"Come on outside, Kato," he whispered. "I want to talk to you."
* * * * *
The Japanese nodded and rose, following him outside onto the roof above the laboratories.
They walked over to the edge and stopped at the balustrade.
"Kato, when you write up your stuff, I want you to falsify everything you can. Put it in
such form that the data will be absolutely worthless, but also in such form that nobody,
not even Team members, will know it has been falsified. Can you do that?"
Kato's almond-shaped eyes widened. "Of course I can, Dunc," he replied. "But why--?"
"I hate to say this, but we have a traitor in the Team. One of those people back in the
dining room is selling us out to the Fourth Komintern. I know it's not Karen, and I know
it's not you, and that's as much as I do know, now."
The Japanese sucked in his breath in a sharp hiss. "You wouldn't say that unless you were
sure, Dunc," he said.

"No. At about 1000 this morning, Dr. Weissberg, the civilian director, called me to his
office. I found him very much upset. He told me that General Nayland is accusing us--by
which he meant this Team--of furnishing secret information on our subproject to
Komintern agents. He said that British Intelligence agents at Smolensk had learned that
the Red Triumph laboratories there were working along lines of research originated at
MacLeod Team Center here. They relayed the information to Western Union Central
Intelligence, and WU passed it on to United States Central Intelligence, and now Counter
Espionage is riding Nayland about it, and he's trying to make us the goat."
"He would love to get some of us shot," Kato said. "And that could happen. They took a
long time getting tough about espionage in this country, but when Americans get tough
about something, they get tough right. But look here; we handed in our progress-reports
to Felix Weissberg, and he passed them on to Nayland. Couldn't the leak be right in
Nayland's own HQ?"
"That's what I thought, at first," MacLeod replied. "Just wishful thinking, though. Fact is,
I went up to Nayland's HQ and had it out with him; accused him of just that. I think I
threw enough of a scare into him to hold him for a couple of days. I wanted to know just
what it was the Komintern was supposed to have got from us, but he wouldn't tell me.
That, of course, was classified-stuff."
"Well?"
"Well then, Karen and I got our digestive tracts emptied and went in to town, where I
could use a phone that didn't go through a military switch-board, and I put through a call
to Allan Hartley, President Hartley's son. He owes us a break, after the work we did in
Puerto Rico. I told him all I wanted was some information to help clear ourselves, and he
told me to wait a half an hour and then call Counter Espionage Office in Washington and
talk to General Hammond."
"Ha! If Allan Hartley's for us, what are we worried about?" Kato asked. "I always knew
he was the power back of Associated Enterprises and his father was the front-man: I'll bet
it's the same with the Government."
"Allan Hartley's for us as long as our nose is clean. If we let it get dirty, we get it
bloodied, too. We have to clean it ourselves," MacLeod told him. "But here's what
Hammond gave me: The Komintern knows all about our collapsed-matter experiments
with zinc, titanium and nickel. They know about our theoretical work on cosmic rays,
including Suzanne's work up to about a month ago. They know about that effect Sir
Neville and Heym discovered two months ago." He paused. "And they know about the
photon-neutrino-electron interchange."
Kato responded to this with a gruesome double-take that gave his face the