Free Mission: Earth "Fortune of Fear" by Ron L. Hubbard Page A

you any details now but it is a haul that will make pirate history!"
    "It's about time," he said.
    "Oh, but you're going to see a big change now," I said. "Move fast. We have to undertake a preparatory action. There's an epidemic raging in the area where we are going to make the first move. Get your whole crew over to the hospital at once to be inoculated. The taxi is waiting outside!"
    "What is this plan?" he said.
    "I will give you the details when you come back," I said. "Get going now."
    He got them up and got them dressed. I got them out to the taxi and, in the cold dawn, packed them in.
    "Deliver them to Doktor Muhammed only," I ordered him. "And then come back and see me."
    Away they went.
    I rushed back to the crew's berthing. I found the room and bed of the base construction superintendent.
    Cost was no object now. I woke him by waving three one-hundred-dollar bills under his snoring nose. He swatted at them. He clutched them. He looked at them and sat up quite alert.
    "There are two more of those," I said, "if you will do exactly what I want you to do."
    "If it's murder, ask the guards. If it's another redesign of the base you've done, let me go back to sleep."
    Oh, there were going to be some changes made!"Neither," I snapped. "It's a simple construction job."
    He got interested. We turned up the glowplates and in a rapid, if somewhat imperfect scrawl, I showed him what I wanted.
    "Huh," he said. "That's easy. There'll be two more of these?"
    "Only if you finish by midafternoon," I said.
    "That's easy, too. I'll rouse out the workers."
    Hah! How easy that had been!
    I raced out. I flashed into the Blixo. I pounded on the cabin door of the mate who had been left in charge.
    I told his tousled head what I wanted.
    "Why wake me now?" he said.
    "Because I wanted to give you this," I said. I pushed a hundred-dollar bill into his hand. "And if you do a smart job when you get the signal this afternoon, there's another one."
    His hand closed over it like a sun grabbing a spaceship at magna-speed.
    It was all in train, now. It must not fail!
    I went down and opened the storeroom door and crooned for three hours over that precious gold! I would not have it long. I would have to make this joy of communion last. It saddened me that after today I would never see it again.
    But if all went well today, I would have the MONEY!
    TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS!
    Money is POWER!
    Given that much, I could ruin whomever I chose. At will! Including Heller and Krak!
Chapter 4
    The urgency of undone things at last wrenched me away. I must not leave the slightest detail to chance. I knew I was engaged in one of the most desperate ventures of my whole life. I was going to get five murderous pirates to move 12 1/2tons of pure gold. Rogues who would kill for ounces of it, let alone tons!
    I scrambled down out of the Blixo.
    The flash of electronic fire was filling the whole hangar with fitful light. The construction crew was working like mad. I surveyed it with interest. They were making good progress.
    I ticked off on my quivering fingers the vital items that were left.
    Guns. Clothes. Passport. Anything else?
    Yes. The locket. I had to get the locket back.
    I checked to make sure. Yes, I still had it in my pocket. I couldn't quite figure out how to give it back, unsuspected. If I died in this desperate venture, I still wanted a few tears on my grave.
    I went up the tunnel. I entered my secret room.
    Guns. I opened my gun case. I looked them over. I liked the looks of one. It was an FIE double-barrelled 12-gauge called "The Brute." It looked it. I had had the barrel sawed off to twenty-two inches. It had no hammer to catch on anything. I had had it fitted with a sling. One glance down those twin tunnels would scare a man to death. I was going to ride shotgun on a gold shipment, and I had better do it in style. So "The Brute" was the baby. No Wells Fargo guard had ever had a more impressive weapon. Nor bandits like I had, for that