companions. 'What's your favorite guzzle?' he said.
They looked at him in mild surprise for a moment, but then: 'Medium dry sherry,' Mary Ann said.
'Whiskey,' said Roy, who was also still swathed, but then, 'No. Make that Scotch.'
'Yeah, Scotch,' Ron said.
'Bourbon,' Dick said. 'Real hundred-proof sour mash.'
'Me, too,' Bill said.
'I'm a beer man—but none of this synthetic stuff,' Les said.
'Brandy,' Ferd said, running a small tongue over his fat lips. 'French cognac.'
'Cognac for me, too,' Forry said. And then, to the manager, 'Send up two cases each of sherry, Scotch, bourbon, and cognac, and ten cases of Pilsner Urquell. All of the best quality the hotel cellars provide.'
The manager gaped at him blankly. He said, 'But sir, the bar is automated, either for individual drinks or by the bottle…'
'Send up the cases,' Forry said. 'This penthouse has a kitchen, of course, and a large pantry, deep-freeze and all?'
'Of course, sir.'
'I want it completely stocked within a couple of hours, from your stocks on hand, with enough food to last us a month or more. The very best, mind you.'
Monsieur Boucherer was too taken aback to remember his fawning. He opened his mouth to protest, to declare the abilities of the hotel's chefs, but then closed it again. 'Yes, sir,' he fawned. 'And what else?'
Forry said, 'This room is going to be converted into, uh, something of an office. We'll want a half dozen desks and the standard equipment to go with them—TV phones, voco-typers, library boosters for the National Data Banks. All of this should be up here in the next couple of hours.'
The manager blinked. 'Yes, sir.'
Forry pressed on. 'I understand that there's a stairway, steel-doored at both ends, leading up here. I want the door at the other end kept closed and two hotel security men posted at it twenty-four hours a day. They are to pass no one.'
That, evidently, was not an unknown desire on the part of guests registered in the penthouse. Monsieur Boucherer was able to make with a fawn again. 'Certainly, sir.'
'Two guards are to be stationed at the elevator as well, twenty-four hours a day. No one outside this party is to be allowed to pass without my okay. My name is Brown.'
'Very good, Mr. Brown.'
'For the moment that's all. I'll see you in the morning about the credit transfer to cover all this. It will be on a Swiss International Numbered Account.'
'Of course, sir.'
When the manager was gone, the little ex-newsman sighed and unwrapped his scarf; Roy Cos did the same. Forry sent Ron and Dick to double check the doors. Les Bates made a beeline for the bar, calling over his shoulder for orders.
The others slumped into seats, all suddenly weary.
Roy said, 'What's the idea of ordering all that guzzle?'
'And all the food, for that matter?' Mary Ann nodded.
Forry said, 'Anything we order tonight is probably safe. It's unbelievable that the bogeymen know we're here. But after tomorrow morning, when we let it out where we are, nobody in this team is to drink or eat anything that doesn't come from our private stock. Don't dial for drinks on the autobar, don't have any food sent up from the kitchens. From now on, we're poison-conscious. Also conscious of the fact that a bottle can be gimmicked with explosives. Take off the cap and
'Yeah,' Roy said in resignation. 'From now on, we've got to assume that anything that could possibly kill us, will.'
Mary Ann glanced over at him, her eyes sad, but she said nothing.
Roy glanced at his diminutive manager. 'What was that about you asking the IABI for protection? And about the guns? I didn't know you'd requested gun permits for the boys.'
'I haven't,' Forry told him. 'But it sounded good over the air. Bring home to the viewers the toughness of the spot you're in. At that stage, it was just as well the IABI didn't know where we were, even if they did want to guard us. They're undoubtedly infiltrated by the Graf's organization, and we'd have put ourselves on the spot. And asking for gun permits for them would have revealed the fact that Ron, Billy, Les, and Rick were lined up with you and that might have led to tracking us down. If the IABI denied we'd asked for protection, nobody would believe them.'
'You're quite a Machiavelli, Forry,' Ferd wheezed.
Les had served them drinks and they settled back in satisfaction. They all felt the tensions of the past few days.
Forry said, taking out the last pack of cigarettes he had bought in Nassau, 'I hope that soapy manager can come up with tobacco as well. I'll have to order that, too, before the night is out. That's all I'd need, some doped cigarettes.'
He looked over at Ron. 'You know this place better than any of the rest of us. Go around and decide what rooms each of us should have. Give Roy the most strategically located one—you know, the one that's furthest from both of the elevator and staircase.'
Dick stood and walked over to the French windows that opened onto the hotel's roof. There was an extensive garden, largely of potted plants, a swimming pool, a sun deck, tables, and folding chairs. He said, 'What's to prevent a chopper from settling down out there with a few of the Grafs lads in it?'
'Nothing,' Forry growled. 'We're going to have to post a full-time guard outside.'
Dick turned and looked at him. 'There's only four of us.'
Forry nodded. 'I know.' He looked at Roy Cos. 'We're going to need another four of your Wobblies. Have you got four more like Ron, Les, Dick, and Billy?'
The Wobbly national organizer sighed. 'There aren't as many of us as all that, you know, and we're not all young, unattached, strongarm types. And probably a lot of the membership don't even agree with what I'm doing.'
'All right,' Forry said sourly. 'But we need at least four more guards, preferably familiar with guns.'
'Guns? What guns?' Dick said bitterly. 'Just one of the Graf's pros with a shooter could blow the asses off us all.'
Forry looked at him. 'By tomorrow we'll have guns. You can buy anything in this country if you have enough credit, and as of tomorrow, we'll be openly spending Roy's million a day. As an old-time crime reporter, I have a few contacts. Gyrojets all right?'
'Yes,' Dick said, happier now. 'Both handguns and assault rifles.'
Roy said, 'I'll get together with the boys and we'll try and pick four more guards.' He turned to Mary Ann and Ferd and said, 'How'd the broadcast go over?'
Mary Ann said, 'Well, good and bad.' She glanced over at Forry. 'For one thing, his presentation isn't too good. His appearance is, well, poor. A hero can't be pale and dumpy.'
Forry ran his eyes over the Wobbly organizer, who was grimacing, and nodded. 'I should've thought of that. There're injections these days that can darken his complexion, or we could use a sunlamp. And we can have him massaged and dieted down to the point where he doesn't look so lardy.'
'Hey,' Roy said in protest.
They ignored him.
'There's another thing,' Ferd Feldmeyer said. 'That first speech was good enough, perhaps. It summed up the Wobbly program. But we can't just repeat it over and over again. We've got to have fresh material.'
'Like what?' Dick asked, in rejection. 'I thought it was swell. Gave the movement's stand exactly. That's the point of the whole thing.'
The speechwriter shook his head. 'You can't just keep hitting the viewers over the head with a flat statement of what you want. You've got to come up with new, exciting stuff; something to keep them coming, wanting to listen in to future programs.'
Ron said, 'But we've got nothing else to say.'
Ferd took another pull at his cognac. 'Then we've gotta find some exciting details. Almost anything that's a
