The Mercenaries | Page 8

released it and went to the
communicator and punched the all-outlets button.
"Dr. Maillard; Dr. Sir Neville Lawton; Dr. ben-Hillel; Dr. von Heldenfeld; Mlle.
Khouroglu," he called. "Dr. MacLeod speaking. Come at once, repeat at once, to the
round table--Dr. Maillard; Dr. Sir Neville Lawton--"
* * * * *
Karen said something to the Japanese and went outside. For a while, nobody spoke. Kato
came over and lit a cigarette in the bowl of MacLeod's pipe. Then the other Team
members entered in a body. Evidently Karen had intercepted them in the hallway and
warned them that they would find some unusual situation inside; even so, there was a
burst of surprised exclamations when they found Adam Lowiewski under detention.
"Ladies and gentlemen," MacLeod said, "I regret to tell you that I have placed our
colleague, Dr. Lowiewski, under arrest. He is suspected of betraying confidential data to
agents of the Fourth Komintern. Yesterday, I learned that data on all our work here,
including Team-secret data on the Sugihara Effect, had got into the hands of the
Komintern and was being used in research at the Smolensk laboratories. I also learned
that General Nayland blames this Team as a whole with double-dealing and selling this
data to the Komintern. I don't need to go into any lengthy exposition of General
Nayland's attitude toward this Team, or toward Free Scientists as a class, or toward the
research-contract system. Nor do I need to point out that if he pressed these charges
against us, some of us could easily suffer death or imprisonment."
"So he had to have a victim in a hurry, and pulled my name out of the hat," Lowiewski
sneered.
"I appreciate the gravity of the situation," Sir Neville Lawton said. "And if the Sugihara
Effect was among the data betrayed, I can understand that nobody but one of us could
have betrayed it. But why, necessarily, should it be Adam? We all have unlimited access
to all records and theoretical data."
"Exactly. But collecting information is the smallest and easiest part of espionage. Almost
anybody can collect information. Where the spy really earns his pay is in transmitting of

information. Now, think of the almost fantastic security measures in force here, and
consider how you would get such information, including masses of mathematical data
beyond any human power of memorization, out of this reservation."
"Ha, nobody can take anything out," Suzanne Maillard said. "Not even one's breakfast. Is
Adam accused of sorcery, too?"
"The only material things that are allowed to leave this reservation are sealed cases of
models and data shipped to the different development plants. And the Sugihara Effect
never was reported, and wouldn't go out that way," Heym ben-Hillel objected.
"But the data on the Sugihara Effect reached Smolensk," MacLeod replied. "And don't
talk about Darwin and Wallace: it wasn't a coincidence. This stuff was taken out of the
Tonto Basin Reservation by the only person who could have done so, in the only way that
anything could leave the reservation without search. So I had that person shadowed, and
at the same time I had our telephone lines tapped, and eavesdropped on all calls entering
or leaving this center. And the person who had to be the spy-courier called Adam
Lowiewski, and Lowiewski made an appointment to meet him at the Oppenheimer
Village Recreation House to play chess."
"Very suspicious, very suspicious," Lowiewski derided. "I receive a call from a friend at
the same time that some anonymous suspect is using the phone. There are only five
hundred telephone conversations a minute on this reservation."
"Immediately, Dr. Lowiewski attempted to leave this building," MacLeod went on.
"When I intercepted him, he tried to draw a pistol. This one." He exhibited the Beretta. "I
am now going to have Dr. Lowiewski searched, in the presence of all of you." He nodded
to Alex and the Englishman.
* * * * *
They did their work thoroughly. A pile of Lowiewski's pocket effects was made on the
table; as each item was added to it, the Pole made some sarcastic comment.
"And that pack of cigarettes: unopened," he jeered. "I suppose I communicated the data to
the manufacturers by telepathy, and they printed it on the cigarette papers in invisible
ink."
"Maybe not. Maybe you opened the pack, and then resealed it," Kato suggested. "A
heated spatula under the cellophane; like this."
He used the point of his knife to illustrate. The cellophane came unsealed with surprising
ease: so did the revenue stamp. He dumped out the contents of the pack: sixteen
cigarettes, four cigarette tip-ends, four bits snapped from the other ends--and a small
aluminum microfilm capsule.
Lowiewski's face twitched. For an instant, he tried vainly to break loose from the men
who held him.