Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 334 - Destination Moon

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BELMONT BOOKS
NEW YORK CITY
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THE SHADOW DESTINATION: MOON
A BELMONT BOOK-March 1967
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Moon Down
The great rocket stood tall in the dawn sky. A giant white pillar that towered up into the morning
haze of the desert that was already burning off with the growing heat of the sun. The sun itself
was still hidden below the distant flat-topped mesas. Only the top of the giant white rocket
glowed in the sun. On the ground below, the group of tense officials stood in the dawn shadows.
The officials, civilian and military, stared up at the great white rocket with its space capsule
blended into the nose far above. They were quiet, almost grim. The sun had almost reached them
when a man in military uniform looked at his watch and spoke quietly. The officials all filed to
waiting vehicles. The vehicles drove off toward the distant control building set like a pillbox on
the flat surface of the desert.
At the launching pad itself nothing moved now. The area around the giant rocket and its
gantry was unusually cleared. Nothing blocked a clear view of the rocket, pad, and giant gantry
from all sides. Nothing and no one came near the great rocket with its capsule pointed up into the
now bright sunny sky above the desert. All was silent in the growing heat.
Then the rocket began to smoke--clouds of white vapor rose as its oxygen-fueled engines
began to fire.
The umbilical dropped. The gantry moved away.
Clouds of white vapor wreathed the slim white cylinder with its large spaceship capsule on
the nose.
Majestically, incredibly slowly, the giant rocket began to lift.
Like some toy lifted straight up by the hand of an unseen giant, the rocket rose slowly into the
air, reached a point above its gantry. It went twice as high, three times, gathered speed, began to
tilt ever so slightly on its path to the stars.
The rocket never reached the stars.
Less than six hundred yards above the Earth the rocket suddenly seemed to lurch, to falter, to
hesitate.
Like a silent pantomime in suspended time, the rocket seemed to stop in mid-air.
It tilted.
With a sudden lurch it tilted all the way over and fell onto its side.
Soundless, the giant rocket fell back to Earth. It struck on its side.
There was a mighty explosion. Fire and flame shot into the hot and sunny sky. Great clouds of
smoke and vapor ascended into the air. The gantry toppled from the force of the mammoth
explosion. The distant control buildings shook. Windows smashed. Vehicles parked in front of
the buildings were hurled over.
The great rocket lay in a twisted heap of destroyed rubble, the cloud of smoke and vapor
towering into the sky.
For a time nothing moved on the base.
Then men in asbestos suits, and other men in military uniforms, began to emerge from the
buildings. They righted vehicles and checked to find ones still operable. When they had found
vehicles that could be used, they climbed in and began to move out toward the wreckage of the
rocket.
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One of the vehicles suddenly stopped. A man in the uniform of a high-ranking officer in the
United States Army pointed to his left. Everyone in the vehicle looked toward where he pointed.
They saw a cluster of low concrete buildings that bordered a series of low sand hills and a gully.
But it was not the buildings they stared at.
Beside one of the buildings there was a figure.
A strange, weird figure all in black.
The figure seemed to be staring toward the destroyed rocket. Even at the distance the
occupants of the stopped vehicle could see that the figure wore a wide-brimmed black slouch hat.
Something glowed red in the sun from the figure. Even as they watched, the figure began to turn
and float away--a shapeless figure in black that seemed to glide without feet or arms.
Two men jumped from the vehicle and raced back toward the main control building. The
vehicle itself turned and drove as fast as it could toward the row of buildings where the figure
had been. When they got there the figure was gone. They spread out to search the buildings and
the hills and gully beyond. Those with weapons drew them. They found nothing. There was no
trace of the strange black-shrouded figure.
In the control building the alarm was sent out.
For some fifteen minutes nothing more happened. The search of the hills and gully continued.
The entire security apparatus of the NASA Base was alerted. Still there was no report and no sign
of the black figure.
Then a guard was found unconscious near the tall, electrified fence of the base. The guard
could remember nothing but a sudden blackout. That, and a shape vanishing over the fence.
"Whoever he is, he's out," one of the military men said.
The Colonel who had first seen the figure looked up at the high, electric fence. "How? How
did he get over that?"
The others all stared at the towering fence.
5
1
ON A BACK dirt road in the desert not far from the high fence of the NASA Base, at a time just
before the discovery of the unconscious guard, a black Rolls-Royce suddenly emerged from
behind a low mesa where it had been completely hidden. The car drove quickly along the road in
the sun and dust. It had only one occupant--the driver who wore the grey uniform of a
chauffeur.
The chauffeur drove with his eyes studying both sides of the dusty road--and a large
automatic pistol on the seat beside him where he could pick it up in an instant. He drove slowly.
He saw ahead a depression in the ground and a heavy clump of dry desert vegetation. The Rolls
passed the clump of tough, wiry growth that masked the sloping entry into a gully.
The chauffeur did not look around. The Rolls-Royce did not slow down further from its
20 mph pace. The clump of wiry and dry bushes passed behind--and a figure sat in the back seat
of the Rolls. A figure all in black who had appeared as if by some kind of eerie magic. The figure
was The Shadow, and he had not appeared by magic, but by the swift and silent skills learned so
long ago in the Orient.
"Drive to the highway, Stanley," The Shadow said sharply. "I must be on the Base within five
minutes."
The chauffeur, Stanley, nodded. One of the chief agents of The Shadow, Number Two in the
far-flung organization of the cloaked Avenger, Stanley did not ask questions. What The Shadow
ordered was done instantly. The chauffeur-bodyguard-agent was always prepared, always
efficient. He now asked only one question.
"It failed again?"
"Yes, Stanley," The Shadow intoned. "It failed again. There was no one, nothing. I could see
no reason. I was observed in my escape, but neither I nor any of the officials saw anything!"
Where he sat in the back seat of the now speeding Rolls, the eyes of The Shadow blazed an
angry fire. He had seen no reason for the failure of the great rocket--which meant that whatever
sabotage had been done had been done long before! And The Shadow had little doubt that it had
been sabotage.
"Did you observe anything, Stanley?" The Avenger asked. "No, Chief, nothing."
"Make the complete check now," The Shadow commanded. The cloaked Avenger sat silent in
the back seat as Stanley touched a button on the dashboard. One by one the voices of The
Shadow's agents reported from their posts all around the NASA Base. The piercing eyes of the
Avenger were fiery as he listened. A red fire-opal girasol glowed red in a ring on his long finger.
The wide brim of the slouch hat hid all but his blazing eyes and the long, sharp hawk nose. His
great black cloak seemed to blend into the interior of the car.
The reports ended. No one had seen anything. Then The Shadow leaned forward.
"Harry Vincent has not reported!"
Stanley shook his head. "I get no answer from Harry."
The Shadow passed his glowing fire-opal girasol in front of a tiny instrument in the back of
the front seat that looked like no more than a small tape recorder. The instrument glowed. It was
the private communication system used only by The Shadow himself to call his agents. Instantly
a voice seemed to be in the back seat.
"Agent Vincent. Is that you, Chief?"
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"Report, Harry!"
"I've got a staff car." Vincent's voice was low. "It is parked just outside the Base. There's a
Colonel in the back, and two sergeants in the front. It arrived about fifteen minutes ago. Nothing
has happened, it just sits there. I'm in my truck out of sight."
"They made no attempt to enter the base?" The Shadow asked.
"No, they just seemed to sit here," Harry 'Vincent said. "They . . . They're starting up! They're
turning around!"
"Follow them!" The Shadow commanded.
"Roger. Over and out. Report later!"
The voice was silent. The Shadow sat alone in the rear seat of the speeding Rolls-Royce.
Moments later the big car reached the highway and turned toward the gate of the NASA Base
where the rocket had so recently crashed. Stanley turned to be sure that The Shadow wanted to
go straight to the gate. But the Shadow was no longer in the back seat.
A stranger sat in the back seat now.
He was a smaller man, stockier and shorter than The Shadow. The new man's eyes were
hooded and impassive. Quiet eyes without the fire of The Shadow. A thoughtful face without
anger or any other emotion. The man wore a neat and expensive business suit, his hair was grey
and close-cropped, and he had all the other aspects of a successful business man--which was
exactly what he was. The man was Lamont Cranston, wealthy socialite and successful
international business man who headed the wide interests of Lamont Cranston Enterprises, Inc.
He was also The Shadow!
The guise of Lamont Cranston was the major alter-ego the black-cloaked Avenger presented
to the world to disguise his activities in the never-ending war against all evil. There were other
alter-egos, many of them, but it was as Cranston, the close friend and fellow member of the
Cobalt Club with Police Commissioner Weston of New York, that The Shadow was best known.
But there were few who knew that the passive face of the amateur criminologist, Lamont
Cranston, hid the power of The Shadow!
Only the members of the black-garbed Avenger's far-flung secret organization, the small but
powerful army of dedicated fighters for right and justice and peace, knew that their Chief and
Lamont Cranston were one and the same. There was no one on earth who knew the true identity
of The Shadow--who the Avenger had been before he became The Shadow. Only two people
had ever known this--The Shadow himself and his master Chen T'a Tze; the great Master who
had taught the Avenger all that he knew, all his skills and powers--including the ultimate power
to cloud the minds of men. A power known only to one man in each generation, and given by
Chen T'a Tze before he died to The Shadow.
Now, where the quiet Lamont Cranston sat in the back seat of the Rolls-Royce approaching
the gate of the NASA Base, his impassive face covered all the powers of The Shadow--except the
ultimate power. The power to cloud men's minds was of the mind, but it could only be exercised
when The Shadow was The Shadow--when he wore the great black cloak, the slouch hat, the
fire-opal girasol ring. The garments, passed on to The Shadow by Chen T'a Tze with the secret
known only to the Master and now only to The Shadow, were hidden in their secret pockets
inside the simple business suit of Cranston. No search could disclose them--and they were there
ready to be used at any instant. Now they would not be used. It was Lamont Cranston who would
enter the Base.
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"Drive straight to the gate, Stanley," Lamont Cranston said. "They'll wonder why I am late.
We will tell them that we had an unfortunate breakdown on the road. You might make some
simple defect and have it checked at the Base motor pool in case they check."
"Right, Boss," Stanley said, assuming instantly his role of chauffeur and body-guard to
Lamont Cranston. "Do you think that car Harry is following has something to do with all this?"
"I don't know, Stanley, but it was outside the Base for some reason. The question is, what
reason, and what could it do outside the Base?"
"Maybe some remote control," Stanley said.
Cranston was thoughtful. "I doubt it, Stanley. That truck of Harry's is equipped to detect any
remote control units. No, if they were there for any reason, it is some reason we cannot yet
determine."
"Maybe they just stayed off the Base for the firing. Maybe it was just some curious Colonel,"
Stanley said.
"Possibly, Stanley," Cranston said. The wealthy socialite leaned forward now as the car
rounded a curve and the gate was ahead. "All right, Stanley, we should have no trouble. I want
you to observe everyone closely. Very closely. Be discreet, but while I'm with the officials, look
around the Base as much as you can."
"Right, Boss," Stanley said as he slowed the big car at the gate where two Military Policemen
held up their hands. Out of sight, visible only to The Shadow, there were two more MP's, both
armed. There was also an X-ray scanner and other electronic detection equipment. Cranston
studied all the security. It was not possible for anyone to get into the Base unauthorized, and yet
the rocket had exploded!
Harry Vincent drove his delivery truck close enough to the staff car ahead to not lose it, but not
so close as to be observed. Harry bent close over the wheel of the truck, his eves fixed ahead to
keep the staff car in sight. The staff car was driving at normal speed, neither hurrying nor going
too slow. So far Harry had no reason to suspect anything but a Colonel out with his sergeant
driver and another sergeant--and yet!
There was something about the staff car.
Something Harry could not pin down, but felt. It was the Colonel. The way the Colonel sat in
the staff car. Harry could not put it into words, but there was something wrong. The Colonel did
not sit right. Somehow, the Colonel did not sit quite the way a Colonel should in his own staff
car with two sergeants. It was in the manner of the Colonel, something not quite right in the way
the Colonel had talked to the two sergeants in the front seat while Harry watched from hiding
when they had all been parked near the fence of the NASA Base. Harry could not have explained
what he felt, he simply felt it, and it made him alert and careful as he followed the staff car
across the desert of Utah.
The staff car acted suspiciously in no way. It drove steadily from the Base in the direction of
Salt Lake City to the north and west. The highway stretched straight as an arrow, a white road
with white dotted lines that cut across the glaring yellow clay of the desert and shimmered in the
heat as if it were under water. There was little traffic, which made Harry worry that he would be
spotted, but he kept a truck and a car between him and the staff car. With an occasional vehicle
from the opposite direction, the four vehicles were the only traffic on the highway.
Harry was aware that the staff car up ahead could make a sudden speed-up and probably
elude him before he could get around the truck and car between--but he also knew that to follow
too closely was to risk almost certainly alarming them. He had to trust to luck. So far he felt he
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had succeeded. The staff car maintained its steady pace and its position in front of the two
vehicles ahead of Harry's delivery truck. It gave no indication of any alarm; or made any attempt
to evade pursuit. The chase went on, and the staff car continued straight toward Salt Lake City.
It happened when there were twenty miles to go until they reached Salt Lake City.
The long chase had lulled Harry. The road, coming now into the foothills of the Wasatch
Mountains, had begun to wind more. The procession passed through a small town set deep in a
valley of the Wasatch. Harry came alert at the sight of more traffic, houses and people. Nothing
happened. They passed out of the town. Then the car between Harry and the staff car turned off
into a right side road. The staff car continued on its way toward Salt Lake City, with only the
truck between it and Harry's delivery truck now. Just outside the small town the highway made a
sudden sharp curve--so sharp that there were warning signs. Harry saw the staff car slow
properly for the dangerous curve. He prepared to slow down in turn.
The truck between him and the staff car failed to slow.
As Harry watched the staff car slow for the curve, and prepared to slow himself, he saw
almost too late the danger ahead. The truck between him and the staff car took the curve too fast,
swayed, swerved, skidded as the driver braked to keep from going off the road, and came to a
shuddering stop slowed across the highway directly in Harry's path.
Harry jammed his brakes and lurched to a halt inches from the truck. The driver of the truck
looked pale and shaken. He, the truck driver, looked down from his cab at Harry and shrugged,
waved his shaking hand in a motion of apology. Harry backed off as quickly as possible, threw
the truck into forward gear, and drove around the truck. Once more the truck driver waved
apology, and bent to restart his stalled engine. Harry neither took notice of the apologetic wave,
nor hesitated. He jammed his accelerator down to the floor and roared around the curve after the
staff car. The curve wound for a quarter of a mile and then suddenly debouched onto a long
straightaway. Harry smiled and peered ahead--the staff car could not have escaped out of sight
yet. Harry searched the long straight road with his eyes.
The staff car was not in sight.
Harry raced on and stared ahead.
The road was deserted except for a car coming toward him and a trailer truck plodding along
a mile ahead.
Harry blinked and stared as he drove.
It was not possible.
The staff car had vanished into thin air. Harry slowed now and looked for side roads. There
were none. Far ahead the trailer truck moved steadily on its way and the rest of the shimmering
road was empty in the heat.
Harry turned back and drove very slowly observing the edge of the highway. There was no
sign of any tire marks, and tire marks would have shown clearly in the soft dust of the shoulder
of the highway.
There were no side roads all the way back to the curve.
Harry realized that, somehow, he had been outwitted. The staff car, must have spotted him
after all, and had its escape all set up. Harry turned back again. He had noticed that the truck that
had had the "accident" had not reappeared. Now he was sure he had been fooled. But how? He
drove all the way to Salt Lake City without seeing anything more than a few trailer trucks and
cars he had no interest in. He reached the city and stopped on the outskirts. It was only then that
he saw in his mind the empty road and the lone trailer truck--and knew how he had been fooled.
9
Lamont Cranston, admitted to the Utah Base of NASA without trouble on his special pass, left his
Rolls-Royce and Stanley outside the heavily-guarded main control building. The quiet and
impassive socialite and industrialist entered the building and was conducted along the
windowless halls. The hum of the air-conditioning conflicted with a steady hubub of voices that
seemed to fill the corridors. Men walked quickly and with grim faces. There was an air of
disaster, and yet not the kind of stunned aura that would have greeted a disaster so large had it
been totally unexpected. No, the grim men of NASA moved with the purpose of men who had not
been totally unprepared for what had happened.
Cranston watched and listened behind his impassive eyes. His guide brought him at last to an
unmarked door where two gimlet-eyed MP's were stationed outside. Cranston waited while his
guide handed his credentials to the two guards. The MP's inspected the documents with great
care. Then they stepped aside and one of them opened the door. Cranston went in alone--his
guide, and the two guards, were not authorized to enter this room! Cranston stood for a moment
inside the door and surveyed the scene. He studied the faces of the men in the room seated
around the long conference table. Men with worried eyes and faces that showed the evidence of
little sleep and less sleep to come. Cranston knew them all--every man of them deeply involved
in the entire project. But he knew one man in particular--a tall, distinguished man who now
looked up and saw Cranston. The man jumped up and came toward Cranston. It was
Commissioner Ralph Weston of the New York City Police.
"Lamont! Where the devil have you been! Have you . . . . ." Weston began, his handsome face
pale and drawn now.
"We had a breakdown," Cranston said quietly. "I apologize."
Weston waved a fine hand. "But you heard?"
Cranston nodded. "I heard. I heard the explosion. I guessed what had happened,
Commissioner."
"Again!" a tall, thin man dressed in the uniform of an Air Force General said.
"Sabotage!" a civilian said. "It has to be sabotage. There is no other possible explanation!"
"Damn it, but how?" A short, heavy civilian cried. "How?"
One man, a lantern-jawed and taciturn man in civilian clothes but with a distinct military
bearing, had said nothing as yet. He had sat in his seat half way down the long table and watched
Cranston. Now his grey eyes narrowed to steel points. He spoke to Cranston.
"A breakdown? On the road? In your Rolls, Cranston?"
Cranston nodded. "I'm afraid so. My chauffeur is having it checked now."
The man continued to watch Cranston. "Unfortunate. Strange that you were the only invited
observer not here at the time."
"You can check me, Major Oates," Cranston said evenly. "I quite understand your concern.
It's your job to check. Feel free. As a matter of fact, I wonder about a Rolls breaking down
myself. My chauffeur is abnormally efficient."
The tall civilian rose to Cranston's bait. "Sabotage? Why not. Cranston is a trained observer
and an industrialist! He might have seen something."
Cranston smiled. "I doubt it, Doctor Cassill, but I am a supplier of the Project, or my
companies are, and I should have been here to check out my products for you."
It was at this point that the giant man at the head of the long table spoke for the first time. He
wore the uniform of an Army Major General, and his voice was low and rough.
"Cranston is here. Now I suggest we get back to the point. Project Full Moon has failed again!
We have lost three of our best astronauts! Gentlemen, we must find the cause--and the reason!
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We must be first to the Moon, and there is damned little time! What happened out there today--
and why?"
The silence in the room was as deathly as the silence of the final grave.
11
2
CRANSTON WALKED quietly to his chair and sat down. In the thick silence his hooded eyes
continued to study the men in the room. He ran them down in his mind. First the giant man in the
uniform of a Major General. Cranston knew him well: Major General George Broyard,
commandant of the NASA Utah Base for Special Project Full Moon. The General was a famed
soldier, a well-known man of science, and a capable administrator.
The tall civilian to the right of General Broyard was known to Cranston by sight: Doctor J. P.
Cassill, Senior NASA Scientist at the Utah Base. Cassill was a nervous man, quick to jump to
conclusions outside his field of science. But the Senior Scientist was a first rate man of science
and a fair administrator.
The lantern-jawed man with the grey and cold eyes Cranston had met twice before. Dressed
now in civilian clothes as befitted his work, he was nevertheless an Army Major--Major John
Oates of the Central Intelligence Agency, assigned to the problems at the Utah Base. A man who
now had his hands full and did not seem to have had much sleep in recent weeks. Cranston could
well understand that. Oates was still watching the socialite. The CIA man was now seeing
saboteurs under every rock.
The tall man in Air Force blue was Brigadier General Calvin Rogers. Cranston knew Rogers
only slightly--a soldier who had made a hard record in his early flying days in the Korean War,
later in Viet Nam, but who was a poor administrator and something of a fish out of water as a
General. Rogers owed his present position to one accidental fact, he was a crony of the President
ever since Korean days. Now he was a special military assistant, and was at the Utah Base as the
personal representative of the President. Cranston did not like Rogers. The General had a way of
calling for immediate action when thought was really needed.
Finally, not including Commissioner Weston and Cranston himself, there was the civilian
who had first used the word--sabotage. A small, heavy man with deep-set eyes, this was
Professor Stanley Farina the world-famed American rocket expert. It was Farina who had
mothered the entire rocket project, and the Professor was not about to admit that there could be
anything wrong with his baby, hence it had to be sabotage.
That was the company in the locked and guarded room of the Utah Base, with Weston and
Cranston himself, and now they all sat in the grim silence that had settled on the room after the
blunt speech of General Broyard. It was Professor Farina who first found his voice.
"Why, I can't guess, General," the small, heavy Professor said, "but I do know that it must be
sabotage of some kind. I have tested every piece of equipment, there could be no failure of a type
to cause the rocket to abort so completely."
"Security was total, absolute," Major Oates said. "This time there could have been no
sabotage on the Base."
"There had to be," Farina said.
"No," Oates said.
Broyard growled. The General seemed ready to explode as he listened to the bickering. But
General Rogers beat him to it.
"Yeh? What about that guy in black? I saw him, I chased him with Colonel Ames. He got on
the Base," Rogers said.
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"Maybe," Oates said, "but not near the rocket."
"Hell, how do you know? What are you, a computer? I say security was lax and all we have to
do is tighten up!" Rogers said belligerently.
Cassill soothed. "Now, now, gentlemen. The question is not who was lax, if anyone, but what
happened and how do we stop it! This is the fourth failure! And this time. . . ."
The Senior Scientist stopped. Everyone was silent. General Broyard said the tragic words.
"This time we lost three men." The General's eyes flashed in his giant frame. "We should not
have sent men knowing there had been trouble. Yet we had to! We must be first on the Moon,
and we know, too well that the Reds are close to us. We can't wait! Wait! We must know what
happened out there today, and what happened the other three times we failed!"
"Security was total," Major Oates said.
"The rocket was perfect," Professor Farina said.
"The Base personnel are above suspicion," Dr. Cassill said. "Checked and triple checked."
General Broyard roared. "Something happened, damn it!"
They all looked like small boys caught in some forbidden act. This was the fourth time. What
could they say? Even the confident General Rogers had nothing to say now. He chewed on a
long, thin cigar and looked uncomfortable. Cassill sighed sadly. Professor Farina was red-faced,
his beloved rockets had failed him somehow. Major Oates showed nothing, but the corners of his
steely grey eyes twitched faintly. The Major clearly knew that he was the one under principal
attack; he was Security. Commissioner Weston, who had taken no part in the talk, looked at
Cranston. Behind his impassive eyes Cranston was thinking.
"What puzzled me," Cranston said slowly, "is that I was under the impression that the Moon
landing was still at least three years away. You all seem to be very imperative about the need for
speed."
Cassill looked at Broyard. Major Oates narrowed his nostrils. Only Professor Farina seemed
pleased. Broyard nodded to Cassill.
"Tell him, we got him here," the General snapped.
Cassill faced Cranston. "The Moon landing was at least two years away--until six months
ago." The Senior Scientist of the Full Moon Project leaned forward, his eyes bright. "Then, six
months ago, we got a remarkable new fuel control system. It was just developed, it's top secret. I
can't reveal any details, you understand, but it advanced us by two years or more! That was why
we shifted to this Base and started the Special Project Full Moon. As you know, the regular
project is still going down at Cape Kennedy. We wanted Full Moon to be absolutely secret, a
little surprise for our Soviet friends and the world."
Cassill stopped, looked around, sighed. "All went well at first. We thought we were ready.
We launched our first unmanned shot--it failed. We tried two more unmanned, all failed. But
everything was ready and seemed perfect. So we took a gamble and today was to have been the
actual first landing on the Moon by men. And. . . ."
"It failed," Cranston said quietly. Cassill nodded.
"And now?" Cranston said.
There was a silence again. Broyard was grim.
"Now we try again," the General said. "We have to."
General Rogers snorted. "After this? You'll try without knowing what happened? I say we
hold off until we know more. I'm going to advise the President just that way."
Cranston said quietly, "What do we know about the four failures so far?"
"Nothing," General Broyard said.
13
"The rockets were totally destroyed," Professor Farina said. "I am still trying to trace the
failure of the last three."
"The theory checks out absolutely perfectly," Dr. Cassill said.
Cranston looked at Major Oates.
"Security was impenetrable the last two times, Cranston," the CIA Major said. "There is only
one possibility--sabotage at one of our suppliers. As you know, I'm checking that out with a
fine-toothed comb."
Cranston nodded. "I know, my plants are riddled with CIA men. So far nothing?"
Oates shook his head. "Nothing except one little oddity. We checked back on everything.
Absolutely nothing is out of order except for one small mistake that was corrected."
"A mistake?" Weston said quickly. The Commissioner was a trained law officer, he knew the
value of any deviation from normal no matter how small.
"Just a slip, Commissioner," Oates explained. "One shipment of control parts from Federal
Cybernetics, Inc. came late. It had been mislabeled for some town in Idaho. It had not been
opened or tampered with in any way."
"Federal Cybernetics?" Cranston said. "That's Wesley Bryan's company."
"Do you know him, Cranston?" Cassill said.
"I've met him. Once, before his accident," Cranston said.
"A genius," Cassill said.
Cranston nodded. "Yes, a genius. Is his material very vital?"
"Some of it," Professor Farina said.
"The mislabeled shipment was routine though," Oates said. "Still, I'm checking it closely. So
far it seems to be a simple clerical error."
Cranston nodded. But behind his impassive eyes his brain was working with the speed of the
mind of The Shadow. He, too, knew the importance of the smallest deviation.
General Calvin Rogers was not a man who cared about small deviations. The tall Air Force
Brigadier and friend of the President waved his thin cigar like some weapon.
"Clerical errors! Damn it, man, we've got to get to the Moon! And we won't do a damned bit
of good sitting here chewing our cud! I'm going to report to the President and we'll throw a
whole division around this base if we have to. That man in black, there's our villain! Why search
for the needle when it's all as clear as the nose on your face? We saw an intruder, the rocket
failed. Just add them up, two and two, and you've got your answer."
摘要：

BELMONTBOOKSNEWYORKCITY2THESHADOWDESTINATION:MOONABELMONTBOOK-March19673MoonDownThegreatrocketstoodtallinthedawnsky.Agiantwhitepillarthattoweredupintothemorninghazeofthedesertthatwasalreadyburningoffwiththegrowingheatofthesun.Thesunitselfwasstillhiddenbelowthedistantflat-toppedmesas.Onlythetopoftheg...

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