Pulp Fiction | The Hollow Crown Affair by David McDaniel Read Online Free PDF Page A

arm of his black leather chair. "I think we can take this for tentative validation of part of Baldwin's story, at any rate. Uncommonly overt action is being taken against us." He picked up a film cartridge and inserted it into a slot on the side of the desk. The room lights dimmed and a slightly fuzzy picture sprang up in blues and grays, bearing a title and code number.
    "Right," said Napoleon. "That was just before we got the color VTR."
    They watched after that in silence for three or four minutes while distorted radio voices exchanged pre-firing data and orders and the countdown marched away to nothing. At zero the screen flared suddenly white for a long moment before the seared vidicon tube and spasmed circuitry began to recover. Out of the blind gray of stunned photoconductors a picture formed again—the figure of a man sprawled across the breech of the monstrous, coiled gun which now burned with a flickering dull flame and black smoke. As horns and buzzers sounded on the audio, Waverly reached over and stopped the film, shifting it to rewind.
    Only when the lights were all up did he speak, and his voice was bitter. "There it was. Simplest thing in the world, of course. Give us something sudden we don't understand—the flare of light—and follow it immediately with something we do. We forgot the first incident completely." He sucked on his pipe and made a face.
    Neither Napoleon nor Illya said a word for four minutes while Alexander Waverly cleaned his pipe in a total concentration that even forbade the telephone to ring.
    At last he finished and stuffed it about half full of the mixture from the humidor at the back of his desk. When he had it glowing to his satisfaction, he allowed a faint cloud of blue smoke to rise as he spoke slowly.
    "Let us suppose," he said, "that some time in 1964 Joseph King found or was supplied with an individual of little value to him save that his general physical condition, scars, build and dimensions were nearly identical to his own. Almost certainly with the help of Thrush, who were known to be experimenting with cryogenic methods of preservation even then, he killed this man with a precisely measured and directed burst of radio energy, and took steps to freeze the body moments after this had been done. He then carefully arranged his own apparent demise and during the moment of our blindness he switched the prepared and frozen body into his own place and departed by some prearranged route. A jeep could have removed him from the site, given King's knowledge of our security system, if it were waiting just outside the danger area. King had portable shielding there; he could have ducked behind it and gotten out the door without coming into range of the camera again."
    There was a moment's silence. Napoleon said, "You found out something else."
    "As a matter of fact I did. While you were out disturbing the peace and destroying city property, I took advantage of the lull to investigate Mr. King's personal data sheet." He gestured toward the table with his pipe. "I opened it and developed the paper for latent fingerprints." He drew on the pipe again and let a plume of smoke curl towards the air intake.
    "Then, when you were being repaired after your exploits, I called for and received the file of Carol Robinson, the only person authorized to handle the data records before they were sealed in plastic in 1961. The fingerprints," he said, "do not match. In any respect."
    Illya was the first to say something. "King was Lab Chief. He had unlimited access to any part of the building, any time. He could have..."
    "... Counterfeited a whole data packet," Napoleon finished the sentence for him. "Including sealing it in plastic and slipping it into his own file."
    "Which means the fingerprints just found on the paper are almost certainly those of Joseph King himself," said Waverly. "The computer is presently checking them against the rest of our file, but another answer seems unlikely."
    "But if he was