Free Agent Counter-Agent by Nick Carter Page A

jeered.
    The pain disappeared, and I felt only the sweet emptiness of physical comfort. The President was dead, and the world was saved from his tyranny.
    I hoped the session was over, but it wasn't. Another scene filled the room, with the President making a public speech. The pain came again, and I braced myself against it, coiled inside to steel myself against it. But it overwhelmed me. This time the awful pressure in my head was accompanied by stabbing chest pains, as if I were having a heart attack. I heard myself scream, but the pain didn't go away. A man pointed a pistol at the President and blew the back of his head off. The pain subsided immediately.
    But again the room filled with images, this time of the American Vice-President. He was riding in a black Cadillac in an official parade, and I knew that the Venezuelan President was in the car in front of him. The Vice-President was wearing an expensive pin-striped suit, gesturing to the crowd in an imperialistic manner. The pressure came again, but this time there was no tightening of the chest, just the terrible pain in the head. In a sudden explosion of smoke and debris, the Vice-President's car was demolished by an unseen bomb, and everybody in the automobile was killed. A second violent explosion reverberated in the room, and the Venezuelan President's car disintegrated. The pain was gone for good.
    I slumped in the chair as they unstrapped me and disengaged the apparatus. Dr. Kalinin was beside me, but I didn't see Tanya.
    "The worst is over," he said to me.
    When he was through prodding me with his stethoscope, he helped me out of the chair and walked me down a corridor to an ordinary projection room. The far wall had a screen built onto it, and there was a booth at the back of the room for the projector.
    Kalinin slapped a loaded Luger into my hand. I looked at it dully, still numb from the brutal session. It was the gun I'd been shooting in my nightmare.
    "The drug has worn off by now," Kalinin was saying to me, "and your reactions to the various stimuli during this part of the preparation will be quite natural. You will keep the gun, and you will do whatever you feel like doing."
    I just stared at the big automatic. It was a German gun, I knew, but somehow I associated it with the United States. While I was still trying to figure it out, the room darkened and the film began. These were real pictures, probably taken during the last couple of days at the preconference meetings. The film showed the President walking down the path in front of the Palacio de Miraflores, with the American Vice-President beside him. There were cameramen all around them, and the President was talking casually with his American visitor.
    As the figures on the screen appeared to move toward me, an overpowering feeling of hatred rose in my chest, and I became aware of an uneasy feeling in my head, a feeling of great discomfort. The pain increased with the feeling of complete revulsion. I didn't see the screen anymore. The men walking toward me became very real. I raised the gun in my right hand and pointed it at the two figures. I aimed at the President first. I was trembling with hatred and pain, and sweat was pouring down my forehead. I squeezed the trigger. The figures kept walking toward me, undisturbed. I was furious. I fired the gun over and over again, and black holes appeared in a tight pattern on the President's chest. In a minute I was pulling the trigger on an empty chamber. Still the two figures kept coming toward me. I hurled the automatic at them, and then in a fit of rage, lunged toward them. I hit something hard and fell heavily to the floor.
    The lights came on, Kalinin helped me to my feet. I was breathless and exhausted. Now that the film was over the pain and anger drained away from me.
    "Very good," Kalinin was saying in a sugary voice. "Excellent, as a matter of fact."
    "I want… out of here," I said to him.
    "All right," he said. "We shall not need you until later