3
never know they were holding a conversation.
"... nine-fifty, nine-sixty, nine-seventy, nine-eighty, nine-ninety, a thousand pounds," said the clerk who was taking care of Sir Lewis's check. "Would you count that to make sure, sir?"
"Certainly. Ten, twenty, thirty, ..."
While the baronet was double-checking the amount, David Houston glanced at him. Sir Lewis looked perfectly calm and unhurried, as though he were doing something perfectly legal--which, in a way, he was. And, in another way, he most definitely was not, if George Meredith's suspicions were correct.
"Your receipt, sir." It was the teller at Houston's own window.
Houston took the receipt, thanked the teller, and walked toward the broad front doors of the bank.
"George," he whispered into the throat mike, "has Sir Lewis noticed me?"
"Hasn't so much as looked at you," Meredith answered. "Good hunting."
"Thanks."
* * * * *
As Houston stepped outside the bank, he casually dropped one hand into a coat pocket and turned a small knob on his radio control box. "Houston to HQ," he whispered.
"London HQ; what is it, Houston?" asked the earpiece.
"Leadenhall Street Post. Meredith thinks he's spotted one. Sir Lewis Huntley."
"Righto. We've got men in that part of the city now. We'll have a network posted within five minutes. Can you hold onto him that long?"
Houston looked around. Leadenhall Street was full of people, and the visibility was low. "I'll have to tail him pretty closely," Houston said. "Your damned English fogs don't give a man much chance to see anything."
There was a chuckle from the earphone. "Cheer up, Yank; you should have seen it back before 1968. When atomic power replaced coal and oil, our fogs became a devil of a lot cleaner."
The voice was quite clear; at the London headquarters of the UN Psychodeviant Police, there was no need to wear a throat mike, which had a tendency to make the voice sound muffled in spite of the Statistical