Don Pendleton - Civil War II by Don Pendleton Page A

cautiously moved his head across the dividing arm, then quickly jerked it back. God, what sounds! An electronic insulator, he presumed, kept the noise confined to the personal dimension.
    His curiosity aroused, Winston explored his own area and found another card slot just beneath the first one. He pondered a moment, then slipped the card in. Immediately Winston had a color wheel and sounds of his own—and it was too much, too much. He felt himself slipping into some sort of mindless abyss and quickly lurched to his feet. Thank God he had not taken the Expando!
    He left the New Age of religion where he had found it and made a casual exit. The two men from Christian Traditional were nowhere in evidence. Winston had his own personal pipeline to that thing some people called God, and he quietly thanked it for a minor miracle neatly worked.
    He moved cautiously around the building, hoping he'd just been feeling persecuted. His ankle still hurt. He leaned against the wall, pulled the ankle up into his hands, and rubbed it some more. His head came into contact with a harsh metallic object. He reared off and stared at it. AMERICAN CHURCH, it sneered at him.
    Winston sneered right back. This must have been at least the second place where Charlie got screwed!
    If God were truly dead, Winston decided, then this was the place where they buried him.
    CHAPTER 2
    Bettina Fairchild glanced anxiously toward the window of her Alexandria mansionette and tried to disentangle herself from the amorous grasp of her husband's young disciple, Jimmy Royal. "Listen," she warned him in a purring voice, "if he is coming home, this is about the time for it."
    Royal chuckled and massaged her hip with a manicured hand. "I told you, Betts, he's supping with the old man tonight. Won't be along for hours yet." He lowered his mouth onto hers, sighed into the warm reception, and gyrated Ms midsection for her benefit. She gyrated back, whimpering and pressing close against him.
    "Not out here," she moaned. "Take me to bed."
    The young federal agent, easily ten years the woman's junior, grinned and told her, "Say, you're in Mgh prime tomght."
    "Don't talk that way, Jimmy," she gently cMded him. "Don't talk period. Let's—"
    A bright light swept across the windows, immediately followed by the screech of tires on the driveway. The woman flung herself out of the embrace of her paramour and gasped, "It's Tom!"
    "Hell, take it easy," Royal growled. He smoothed Ms hair and inspected Ms face in the wall mirror, glanced at the woman, grinned, and walked toward the door.
    He froze there in mid-stride as a glassy-eyed Tom ? Fairchild threw the door wide open and lurched inside. An angry welt seeped with congealed blood traversed the handsome forehead. Two men had come in on his heels and were standing quietly behind him as the FPB Chief swayed drunkenly just inside the doorway.
    One of the men was quite young, younger than Royal, and he seemed to be holding something to the back of Fairchild's neck. The other was considerably older, heavily put together. The door closed as violently as it had opened, and the older man moved immediately to the windows. He drew the blinds, snapped his fingers toward the younger man, and walked rapidly toward die rear of the house.
    Not a word had passed. Bettina Fairchild was staring at her husband's face, and she was obviously wondering if she should run to him or away from him. Jimmy Royal, an inane grin plastered stiffly to his face, was watching the disappearing back of the older stranger. The young man who had entered just behind Fairchild cleared his throat and pushed the swaying man forward, one hand remaining close to the back of his neck.
    Fairchild staggered toward the center of the room. His wife raised a hand to her mouth and uttered a stifled little scream as the nation's chief cop lurched into a side view, revealing the snub-nosed pistol pressed firmly against the base of his skull.
    A startled yelp crossed Jimmy Royal's lips.