Free The Fellowship of the Hand by Edward D. Hoch

his broken ribs. Finally, after another quarter hour, he slowly propped himself up on one arm and used the bed to pull himself up the rest of the way. He felt like hell, but no further damage seemed to have been done to his ribs.
    He started to phone New York, and then realized the office would be closed now. The best thing he could do would be to warn the prison where Axman was being held, and then hop the next jetliner back home. He placed a call to the warden at the Federal Correctional Institute in Kansas City. The deputy warden was on duty at that hour, and his face on the vision-phone screen was bored and disinterested. He noted the information and promised Jazine that no one would be escaping from his prison that night or any other night.
    Feeling that he’d done all he could, Jazine checked out of the hotel and flew back to New York.
    The next day was Friday, and he found Carl Crader in the office quite early, running over some reports with Sabin and a new man from the commerce unit. Jazine chatted with Judy until he was free, and then ran rapidly through his experiences since leaving the hospital.
    Crader listened in silence, and only spoke at the end. “Do you have the pictures?”
    “Pictures?” Jazine had almost forgotten about them. “Oh, sure—you mean of Stanley Ambrose and his letter to Milly Norris.”
    Crader took the prints and spread them out on his desk. He seemed to be searching for something, but Jazine couldn’t imagine what. Finally he said, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
    “What, chief?”
    “Much of what you’ve told me jibes with my own experiences with Jason Blunt. He admitted the existence of a secret organization, and even admitted the election part of it. He flew me to Utah to inspect an underground computer complex that would make your mouth water. But the way Blunt tells it, his group is a benefit to the nation, not a threat.”
    “Was it a benefit when they kidnapped me and tried to kill me in that salt mine?”
    “That’s just the trouble,” Crader said.
    “What trouble?”
    “These pictures.”
    “What about them?” Jazine walked to the desk and peered down at the prints.
    “Well, you had the camera in your pocket when you were imprisoned in the radioactive salt mine, right?”
    “Yes, but …”
    “Earl, if that salt mine had been radioactive, it would have fogged the film in your camera. Since the prints show no fogging, it means there was no radioactivity. You were never in danger in that salt mine. Euler Frost rescued you from nothing at all. The whole kidnapping and rescue was an elaborate HAND plot.”

8 CARL CRADER
    J AZINE SAT DOWN. “I can’t believe it, chief.”
    “The facts speak for themselves, Earl. Euler Frost lied about following you there. He lied about rescuing you. If you stop to think about it, why should these masked men kidnap you, drive you an hour away, talk about a trial, and then send you down the chute into a salt mine? It sounds more like one of those old lodge initiations than a serious attempt at murder. True assassins would have finished the job when they had you naked in that woman’s bed.”
    “I knew I shouldn’t have told you that part!” Jazine complained.
    “He used you, Earl. Frost used you.”
    “For what?”
    “To get into that Chicago office building. And to spring Axman from jail. When he saw you wouldn’t go that far, he used his stunner on you.”
    “Yeah.”
    “What I don’t know is where that leaves us. Since Frost lied to you about one thing, did he lie to you about everything? Did I get the straight story from Jason Blunt after all?”
    “What about the attack on me at the zooitorium? That was no joke!”
    “True enough. Nor was the murder of Rogers. But which side is the tattooed man on?” Crader thought for a moment and then answered his own question. “Not HAND’s, certainly, because if they were so anxious to kill you a few days ago, they’d have finished the job when they had you a