20 Must-Read Thriller Novels

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"They could be anywhere," Burris said, with an expression which

bordered on exasperated horror. "They could be all around us.

Heaven only knows."

He pushed his chair back from his desk and stood up, a chunky

little man with bright blue eyes and large hands. He paced to the

window and looked out at Washington, and then he came back to the

desk. A persistent office rumor held that he had become head of the

FBI purely because he happened to have an initial J in his

name, but in his case the J stood for Jeremiah. And, at the moment,

his tone expressed all the hopelessness of that Old Testament

prophet's lamentations.

"We're helpless," he said, looking at the young man with the

crisp brown hair who was sitting across the desk. "That's what it

is, we're helpless."

Kenneth Malone tried to look dependable. "Just tell me what to

do," he said.

"You're a good agent, Kenneth," Burris said. "You're one of the

best. That's why you've been picked for this job. And I want to say

that I picked you personally. Believe me, there's never been

anything like it before."

"I'll do my best," Malone said at random. He was twenty-six, and

he had been an FBI agent for three years. In that time, he had,

among other things, managed to break up a g**g of smugglers, track

down a counterfeiting ring, and capture three kidnappers. For

reasons which he could neither understand nor explain, no one

seemed willing to attribute his record to luck.

"I know you will," Burris said. "And if anybody can c***k this

case, Malone, you're the man. It's just that—everything sounds so

impossible. Even after all the conferences we've had."

"Conferences?" Malone said vaguely. He wished the Chief would

get to the point. Any point. He smiled gently across the desk and

tried to look competent and dependable and reassuring. Burris'

expression didn't change.

"You'll get the conference tapes later," Burris said. "You can

study them before you leave. I suggest you study them very

carefully, Malone. Don't be like me. Don't get confused." He buried

his face in his hands. Malone waited patiently. After a few

seconds, Burris looked up. "Did you read books when you were a

child?" he asked.

Malone said: "What?"

"Books," Burris said. "When you were a child. Read them."

"Sure I did," Malone said. "Bomba the Jungle Boy, and

Doctor Doolittle, and Lucky Starr, and Little

Women—"

"Little Women?"

"When Beth died," Malone said, "I wanted to cry. But I didn't.

My father said big boys don't cry."

"And your father was right," Burris said. "Why, when I was

a—never mind. Forget about Beth and your father. Think about Lucky

Starr for a minute. Remember him?"

"Sure," Malone said. "I liked those books. You know it's funny,

but the books you read when you're a kid, they kind of stay with

you. Know what I mean? I can still remember that one about Venus,

for instance. Gee, that was—"

"Never mind about Venus, too," Burris said sharply. "Keep your

mind on the problem."

"Yes, sir," Malone said. He paused. "What problem, sir?" he

added.

"The problem we're discussing," Burris said. He gave Malone a

bright, blank stare. "My God," he said. "Just listen to me."

"Yes, sir."

"All right, then." Burris took a deep breath. He seemed nervous.

Once again he stood up and went to the window. This time, he spoke

without turning. "Remember how everybody used to laugh about

spaceships, and orbital satellites, and life on other planets? That

was just in those Lucky Starr books. That was all just for kids,

wasn't it?"

"Well, I don't know," Malone said slowly.

"Sure it was all for kids," Burris said. "It was laughable.

Nobody took it seriously."

"Well, somebody must—"

"You just keep quiet and listen," Burris said.

"Yes, sir," Malone said.

Burris nodded. His hands were clasped behind his back. "We're

not laughing any more, are we, Malone?" he said without moving.

There was silence.

"Well, are we?"

"Did you want me to answer, sir?"

"Of course I did!" Burris snapped.

"You told me to keep quiet and—"

"Never mind what I told you," Burris said. "Just do what I told

you."

"Yes, sir," Malone said. "No, sir," he added after a second.

"No, sir, what?" Burris asked softly.

"No, sir, we're not laughing any more," Malone said.

"Ah," Burris said. "And why aren't we laughing any more?"

There was a little pause. Malone said, tentatively: "Because

there's nothing to laugh about, sir?"

Burris whirled. "On the head!" he said happily. "You've hit the

nail on the head, Kenneth. I knew I could depend on you." His voice

grew serious again, and thoughtful. "We're not laughing any more

because there's nothing to laugh about. We have orbital satellites,

and we've landed on the Moon with an atomic rocket. The planets are

the next step, and after that the stars. Man's heritage, Kenneth.

The stars. And the stars, Kenneth, belong to Man—not to the

Russians!"

"Yes, sir," Malone said soberly.

"So," Burris said, "we should learn not to laugh any more. But

have we?"

"I don't know, sir."

"We haven't," Burris said with decision. "Can you read my

mind?"

"No, sir," Malone said. "Can I read your mind?"

Malone hesitated. At last he said: "Not that I know of,

sir."

"Well, I can't," Burris snapped. "And can any of us read each

other's mind?"

Malone shook his head. "No, sir," he said.

Burris nodded. "That's the problem," he said. "That's the case

I'm sending you out to crack."

This time, the silence was a long one.

At last, Malone said: "What problem, sir?"

"Mind reading," Burris said. "There's a spy at work in the

Nevada plant, Kenneth. And the spy is a telepath."

The video tapes were very clear and very complete. There were a

great many of them, and it was long after nine o'clock when Kenneth

Malone decided to take a break and get some fresh air. Washington

was a good city for walking, even at night, and Malone liked to

walk. Sometimes he pretended, even to himself, that he got his best

ideas while walking, but he knew perfectly well that wasn't true.

His best ideas just seemed to come to him, out of nowhere,

precisely as the situation demanded them.

He was just lucky, that was all. He had a talent for being

lucky. But nobody would ever believe that. A record like his was

spectacular, even in the annals of the FBI, and Burris himself

believed that the record showed some kind of superior ability.

Malone knew that wasn't true, but what could he do about it?

After all, he didn't want to resign, did he? It was kind of

romantic and exciting to be an FBI agent, even after three years. A

man got a chance to travel around a lot and see things, and it was

interesting. The pay was pretty good, too.

The only trouble was that, if he didn't quit, he was going to

have to find a telepath.

The notion of telepathic spies just didn't sound right to

Malone. It bothered him in a remote sort of way. Not that the idea

of telepathy itself was alien to him—after all, he was even more

aware than the average citizen that research had been going on in

that field for something over a quarter of a century, and that the

research was even speeding up.

But the cold fact that a telepathy-detecting device had been

invented somehow shocked his sense of propriety, and his notions of

privacy. It wasn't decent, that was all.

There ought to be something sacred, he told himself angrily.

He stopped walking and looked up. He was on Pennsylvania Avenue,

heading toward the White House.

That was no good. He went to the corner and turned off, down the

block. He had, he told himself, nothing at all to see the President

about.

Not yet, anyhow.

The streets were dark and very peaceful. I get my best ideas

while walking, Malone said without convincing himself. He

thought back to the video tapes.

The report on the original use of the machine itself had been on

one of the first tapes, and Malone could still see and hear it.

That was one thing he did have, he reflected; his memory was pretty

good.

Burris had been the first speaker on the tapes, and he'd given

the serial and reference number in a cold, matter-of-fact voice.

His face had been perfectly blank, and he looked just like the head

of the FBI people were accustomed to seeing on their TV and

newsreel screens. Malone wondered what had happened to him between

the time the tapes had been made and the time he'd sent for

Malone.

Maybe the whole notion of telepathy was beginning to get him,

Malone thought.

Burris recited the standard tape-opening in a rapid mumble, like

a priest involved in the formula of the Mass: "Any person or agent

unauthorized for this tape please refrain from viewing further,

under penalties as prescribed by law." Then he looked off, out past

the screen to the left, and said: "Dr. Thomas O'Connor, of

Westinghouse Laboratories. Will you come here, Dr. O'Connor?"

Dr. O'Connor came into the lighted square of screen slowly,

looking all around him. "This is very fascinating," he said,

blinking in the lamplight. "I hadn't realized that you people took

so many precautions—"

He was, Malone thought, somewhere between fifty and sixty, tall

and thin with skin so transparent that he nearly looked like a

living X- ray. He had pale blue eyes and pale white hair, and,

Malone thought, if there ever were a contest for the best-looking

ghost, Dr. Thomas O'Connor would win it hands (or phalanges)

down.

"This is all necessary for the national security," Burris said,

a little sternly.

"Oh," Dr. O'Connor said quickly. "I realize that, of course.

Naturally. I can certainly see that."

"Let's go ahead, shall we?" Burris said.

O'Connor nodded. "Certainly. Certainly."

Burris said: "Well, then," and paused. After a second he started

again: "Now, Dr. O'Connor, would you please give us a sort of

verbal rundown on this for our records?"

"Of course," Dr. O'Connor said. He smiled into the video cameras

and cleared his throat. "I take it you don't want an explanation of

how this machine works. I mean: you don't want a technical

exposition, do you?"

"No," Burris said, and added: "Not by any means. Just tell us

what it does."

Dr. O'Connor suddenly reminded Malone of a professor he'd had in

college for one of the law courses. He had, Malone thought, the

same smiling gravity of demeanor, the same condescending attitude

of absolute authority. It was clear that Dr. O'Connor lived in a

world of his own, a world that was not even touched by the common

run of men.

"Well," he began, "to put it very simply, the device indicates

whether or not a man's mental—ah—processes are being influenced by

outside— by outside influences." He gave the cameras another little

smile. "If you will allow me, I will demonstrate on the machine

itself."

He took two steps that carried him out of camera range, and

returned wheeling a large heavy-looking box. Dangling from the

metal covering were a number of wires and attachments. A long cord

led from the box to the floor and snaked out of sight to the

left.

"Now," Dr. O'Connor said. He selected a single lead, apparently,

Malone thought, at random. "This electrode—"

"Just a moment, Doctor," Burris said. He was eyeing the machine

with a combination of suspicion and awe. "A while back you

mentioned something about 'outside influences.' Just what,

specifically, does that mean?"

With some regret, Dr. O'Connor dropped the lead. "Telepathy," he

said. "By outside influences, I meant influences on the mind, such

as telepathy or mind-reading of some nature."

"I see," Burris said. "You can detect a telepath with this

machine."

"I'm afraid—"

"Well, some kind of a mind-reader anyhow," Burris said. "We

won't quarrel about terms."

"Certainly not," Dr. O'Connor said. The smile he turned on

Burris was as cold and empty as the inside of Orbital Station One.

"What I meant was—if you will permit me to continue—that we cannot

detect any sort of telepathy or mind-reader with this device. To be

frank, I very much wish that we could; it would make everything a

great deal simpler. However, the laws of psionics don't seem to

operate that way."

"Well, then," Burris said, "what does the thing do?" His face

wore a mask of confusion. Momentarily, Malone felt sorry for his

chief. He could remember how he'd felt, himself, when that law

professor had come up with a particularly baffling question in

class.

"This machine," Dr. O'Connor said with authority, "detects the

slight variations in mental activity that occur when a person's

mind is being read."

"You mean, if my mind were being read right now—"

"Not right now," Dr. O'Connor said. "You see, the bulk of this

machine is in Nevada; the structure is both too heavy and too

delicate for transport. And there are other qualifications—"

"I meant theoretically," Burris said.

"Theoretically—" Dr. O'Connor began, and smiled

again—"Theoretically, if your mind were being read, this machine

would detect it, supposing that the machine were in operating

condition and all of the other qualifications had been met. You

see, Mr. Burris, no matter how poor a telepath a man may be, he has

some slight ability—even if only very slight—to detect the fact

that his mind is being read."

"You mean, if somebody was reading my mind, I'd know it?" Burris

said. His face showed, Malone realized, that he plainly disbelieved

this statement.

"You would know it," Dr. O'Connor said, "but you would never

know you knew it. To elucidate: in a normal person—like you, for

instance, or even like myself—the state of having one's mind read

merely results in a vague, almost sub-conscious feeling of

irritation, something that could easily be attributed to minor

worries, or fluctuations in one's hormonal balance. The hormonal

balance, Mr. Burris, is—"

"Thank you," Burris said with a trace of irritation. "I know

what hormones are."

"Ah. Good," Dr. O'Connor said equably. "In any case, to

continue: this machine interprets those specific feelings as

indications that the mind is being—ah—'eavesdropped' upon."

You could almost see the quotation marks around what Dr.

O'Connor considered slang dropping into place, Malone thought.

"I see," Burris said with a disappointed air. "But what do you

mean, it won't detect a telepath? Have you ever actually worked

with a telepath?"

"Certainly we have," Dr. O'Connor said. "If we hadn't, how would

we be able to tell that the machine was, in fact, indicating the

presence of telepathy? The theoretical state of the art is not, at

present, sufficiently developed to enable us to—"

"I see," Burris said hurriedly. "Only wait a minute."

"Yes?"

"You mean you've actually got a real mind-reader? You've found

one? One that works?"

Dr. O'Connor shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid I should have

said, Mr. Burris, that we did once have one," he admitted. "He was,

unfortunately, an imbecile, with a mental age between five and six,

as nearly as we were ever able to judge."

"An imbecile?" Burris said. "But how were you able to—"

"He could repeat a person's thoughts word for word," Dr.

O'Connor said. "Of course, he was utterly incapable of

understanding the meaning behind them. That didn't matter; he

simply repeated whatever you were thinking. Rather

disconcerting."

"I'm sure," Burris said. "But he was really an imbecile? There

wasn't any chance of—"

"Of curing him?" Dr. O'Connor said. "None, I'm afraid. We did at

one time feel that there had been a mental breakdown early in the

boy's life, and, indeed, it's perfectly possible that he was normal

for the first year or so. The records we did manage to get on that

period, however, were very much confused, and there was never any

way of telling anything at all, for certain. It's easy to see what

caused the confusion, of course: telepathy in an imbecile is rather

an oddity— and any normal adult would probably be rather hesitant

about admitting that he was capable of it. That's why we have not

found another subject; we must merely sit back and wait for

lightning to strike."

Burris sighed. "I see your problem," he said. "But what happened

to this imbecile boy of yours?"

"Very sad," Dr. O'Connor said. "Six months ago, at the age of

fifteen, the boy simply died. He simply—gave up, and died."

"Gave up?"

"That was as good an explanation as our medical department was

able to provide, Mr. Burris. There was some malfunction—but—we like

to say that he simply gave up. Living became too difficult for

him."

"All right," Burris said after a pause. "This telepath of yours

is dead, and there aren't any more where he came from. Or if there

are, you don't know how to look for them. All right. But to get

back to this machine of yours: it couldn't detect the boy's

ability?"

Dr. O'Connor shook his head. "No, I'm afraid not. We've worked

hard on that problem at Westinghouse, Mr. Burris, but we haven't

yet been able to find a method of actually detecting

telepaths."

"But you can detect—"

"That's right," Dr. O'Connor said. "We can detect the fact that

a man's mind is being read." He stopped, and his face became

suddenly morose. When he spoke again, he sounded guilty, as if he

were making an admission that pained him. "Of course, Mr. Burris,

there's nothing we can do about a man's mind being read. Nothing

whatever." He essayed a grin that didn't look very healthy. "But at

least," he said, "you know you're being spied on."

Burris grimaced. There was a little silence while Dr. O'Connor

stroked the metal box meditatively, as if it were the head of his

beloved.

At last, Burris said: "Dr. O'Connor, how sure can you be of all

this?"

The look he received made all the previous conversation seem as

warm and friendly as a Christmas party by comparison. It was a look

that froze the air of the room into a solid chunk, Malone thought,

a chunk you could have chipped pieces from, for souvenirs, later,

when Dr. O'Connor had gone and you could get into the room without

any danger of being quick-frozen by the man's unfriendly eye.

"Mr. Burris," Dr. O'Connor said in a voice that matched the

temperature of his gaze, "please. Remember our slogan."

Malone sighed. He fished in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes,

found one, and extracted a single cigarette. He stuck it in his

mouth and started fishing in various pockets for his lighter.

He sighed again. Perfectly honestly, he preferred cigars, a

habit he'd acquired from the days when he'd filched them from his

father's cigar- case. But his mental picture of a fearless and

alert young FBI agent didn't include a cigar. Somehow, remembering

his father as neither fearless nor, exactly, alert—anyway, not the

way the movies and the TV screens liked to picture the words—he had

the impression that cigars looked out of place on FBI agents.

And it was, in any case, a small sacrifice to make. He found his

lighter and shielded it from the brisk wind. He looked out over

water at the Jefferson Memorial, and was surprised that he'd

managed to walk as far as he had. Then he stopped thinking about

walking, and took a puff of his cigarette, and forced himself to

think about the job in hand.

Naturally, the Westinghouse gadget had been declared Ultra Top

Secret as soon as it had been worked out. Virtually everything was,

these days. And the whole group involved in the machine and its

workings had been transferred without delay to the United States

Laboratories out in Yucca Flats, Nevada.

Out there in the desert, there just wasn't much to do, Malone

supposed, except to play with the machine. And, of course, look at

the scenery. But when you've seen one desert, Malone thought

confusedly, you've seen them all.

So, the scientists ran experiments on the machine, and they made

a discovery of a kind they hadn't been looking for.

Somebody, they discovered, was picking the brains of the

scientists there.

Not the brains of the people working with the telepathy

machine.

And not the brains of the people working on the several other

Earth- limited projects at Yucca Flats.

They'd been reading the minds of some of the scientists working

on the new and highly classified non-rocket space drive.

In other words, the Yucca Flats plant was infested with a

telepathic spy. And how do you go about finding a telepath? Malone

sighed. Spies that got information in any of the usual ways were

tough enough to locate. A telepathic spy was a lot tougher

proposition.

Well, one thing about Andrew J. Burris. He had an answer for

everything. Malone thought of what his chief had said: "It takes a

thief to catch a thief. And if the Westinghouse machine won't

locate a telepathic spy, I know what will."

"What?" Malone had asked.

"It's simple," Burris had said. "Another telepath. There has to

be one around somewhere. Westinghouse did have one, after all, and

the Russians still have one. Malone, that's your job: go

out and find me a telepath."

Burris had an answer for everything, all right, Malone thought.

But he couldn't see where the answer did him very much good. After

all, if it takes a telepath to catch a telepath, how do you catch

the telepath you're going to use to catch the first telepath?

Malone ran that through his mind again, and then gave it up. It

sounded as if it should have made sense, somehow, but it just

didn't, and that was all there was to that.

He dropped his cigarette to the ground and mashed it out with

the toe of his shoe. Then he looked up.

Out there, over the water, was the Jefferson Memorial. It stood,

white in the floodlights, beautiful and untouchable in the

darkness. Malone stared at it. What would Thomas Jefferson have

done in a crisis like this?

Jefferson, he told himself without much conviction, would have

been just as confused as he was.

But he'd have had to find a telepath, Malone thought. Malone

determined that he would do likewise, If Thomas Jefferson could do

it, the least he, Malone, could do was to give it a good try.

There was only one little problem:

Where, Malone thought, do I start looking?