Free The Devastators by Donald Hamilton

played tic-tac-toe on my chest with a hot soldering iron.”
    She said, quite undisturbed, “It was a misunderstanding. Poor Max.”
    “Poor Max, hell,” I said. “After that little branding session, what made him think I wouldn’t shoot when he tried to pull a gun on me next day? Well, I guess you could call that a misunderstanding, too.” I grimaced. “Are you serious? Do you really expect me to believe you were sent here officially to renew our old acquaintance?”
    She said, “Don’t be so clever and suspicious, my friend. Remember that sometimes the direct approach is the best. Anyway, it is the one I have been instructed to use. You see, we know why you are here in England.”
    I said, poker-faced, “And why am I here?”
    “You are here because there is a crazy man at large, an American scientist named McRow. This man is working on a fantastic biological weapon with which he apparently intends to blackmail the world, my country included. At least that is the intelligence we have received. Well, there are many crazy men with big ideas about getting rich, and this one would not worry us, were it not for the fact that he has acquired strong backing somewhere. McRow’s motives seem to be simple and financial, but we are not sure of the motives of his backers. They could be military, and there are certain countries eastward that, while they boast of their ancient civilizations, are not, we feel, advanced enough politically to be trusted with a weapon such as this.”
    “You mean they don’t have quite the right Communist slant on things?”
    “Don’t be sarcastic, Matthew. They don’t have quite the right democratic slant on things, either. There is also a certain racial factor. I do not believe many would weep, out there in the East, if all white men were to get very sick and die. There are even some irresponsible leaders out there, we feel, who would willingly sacrifice large parts of their own populations to achieve this purpose—as long as a loyal elite was assured of survival. That could be achieved by a serum or vaccine; and we think that is what McRow is now working to perfect, since he has already shown that he can produce super-virulent forms of several common diseases. He will presumably select the one for which he can most easily produce an effective antidote.” She drew a long breath. “You see, I am being absolutely frank; I am describing the problem to you exactly as it was described to me. Naturally, we would like this development for our own, but although they have tried hard, our people have failed to get it. So have yours.”
    “What makes you think so?”
    “The fact that you are here makes us think so, for one thing,” said Vadya. She laughed softly. “We are specialists, darling, you and I. We are not called upon to capture men alive, or bring home their nasty little secrets. When we are summoned everyone knows what it means. It means that all other methods have failed, and time is getting short, and there is only one thing left to do.” She looked at me earnestly across the table. “I am instructed to cooperate with you in any reasonable way, Matthew, until this international threat is removed. Until this man is killed and his laboratory destroyed.”
    There was a little silence. Presently I said in a tentative way, “You know, the funny thing is, I really am on my honeymoon.” She didn’t say anything to this, and after a moment I went on: “Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m out of the business entirely.”
    She smiled faintly. “I thought not.”
    “I’ll have to know a little more before I get in touch with Washington. Suppose we have dinner together and you tell me exactly what you have in mind.”
    “Yes, of course. Do you want to eat here?”
    I threw a look toward the impressively formal dining room opening off the lounge, and said, “These Claridge waiters give a poor country boy from New Mexico a raging inferiority complex. I seem to remember a little place