Free Operation Moon Rocket by Nick Carter Page A

Sollitz's visored cap blew off. He dashed after it, moving stiffly, awkwardly, grabbing for it with his left hand. "Atta boy, Duane. That's fielding them," chuckled McAlester.
    Gordon Nash laughed. He shielded his eyes against the sun and stared at the building. "Gives you a good idea of how small a part the space program plays in GKI's business," he said.
    Nick stopped and turned. Something had begun to itch deep down in his mind. Something, some small detail, had raised a tiny question mark.
    "Maybe so," said Ray Finney as they started walking, "but all of GKI's Defense Department contracts are up for review this year. And word is the government won't give them any new ones until the Cooper Committee's CPA's have been over their books."
    McAlester snorted contemptuously. "Bluff," he said. "It would take ten accountants working ten hours a day at least ten years to unravel Simian's financial empire. The man is richer than any half-dozen small countries you'd want to name, and from what I hear about him, he carries it all in his head. What would the Defense Department do for jet fighters, submarines and missiles while they waited? Get Lionel Toys to build them?"
    Major Sollitz fell in step beside Nick. "There's something I've been meaning to ask you, Colonel."
    Nick eyed him warily. "Yes?"
    Sollitz brushed his cap off carefully before replacing it. "It's about your memory, actually. Ray Finney told me about your dizzy spell on the moonscape this morning..."
    "And?"
    "Well, as you know, dizziness is one of the after-effects of Amine poisoning." Sollitz glanced at him, choosing his words carefully. "The other one is memory lapses."
    Nick stopped and turned to face him. "Get to the point, Major."
    "All right. I'll be frank. Have you noticed any trouble of that sort, Colonel? The time area in which I'm specifically interested is just before you entered the capsule prototype. If possible, I'd like a second-by-second breakdown of events leading up to it. For instance, chances are you caught a glimpse of someone adjusting the controls outside. It would be a great help if you could recall a few details..."
    Nick was relieved to hear General McAlester calling them. "Duane, Glenn, hurry up. I want to present Simian with a solid front"
    Nick turned, saying, "Bits and pieces of it are beginning to come back, Major. Why don't I give you a full report — in writing — tomorrow?"
    Sollitz nodded. "I think that would be advisable, Colonel."
    Simian was standing just inside the entryway of the small building, talking to a group of men. He glanced up as they approached. "Gentlemen," he said, "I'm sorry we have to meet under these circumstances."
    He was a big, bony man with hunched shoulders, a long-nosed face and loose limbs. His head was shaven clean as a billiard ball, reinforcing the already strong resemblance to an eagle (gossip columnists hinted that he preferred this to a receding hairline). He had the high cheekbones and ruddy complexion of a Cossack, and his Sulka tie and expensive Pierre Cardin suit only emphasized it. Nick put his age at somewhere between forty-five and fifty.
    Quickly he reviewed what he knew about the man — and was surprised to find that it was all conjecture, gossip column stuff. There was nothing really solid. His true name (it was said): Alexander Leonovitch Simianski. Birthplace: Khabarovsk, in Siberia's Far East — but once again it was largely conjecture. Federal investigators could neither prove nor disprove this, any more than they could document his story that he was a White Russian, born the son of a general in the Czarist army. The truth was that no documents existed that showed anything about Alexander Simian before he turned up in the 1930's in Tsingtao, one of the treaty ports of China before the war.
    The financier shook hands with each of them, greeting them by name and exchanging a few brief words. He had a deep, deliberate voice with no trace of an accent. Neither foreign nor regional. It was