The Devastators Read Online Free

wasn’t very funny. She said curtly, “Description?”
    “Forty-seven, five-seven, one-ninety.”
    “A middle-aged butterball,” she murmured.
    “That’s right. Short and chubby. Round face. Dark hair combed to cover a bald patch. Brown eyes, somewhat myopic, corrected with gold-rimmed glasses. Small hands and feet. Clean-shaven when he bothers to shave, but he’s apt to neglect such minor details when in the grip of scientific enthusiasm, and I gather he gets gripped fairly often. Clothes generally shabby, adorned with acid burns and other chemical decorations. Lots of brains and a terrible character, they say. He can’t get along with anybody, and nobody can get along with him. He sees himself as the only intelligent person in a world full of morons, all of whom are trying to take advantage of his genius.”
    “Are they?”
    “Well, sure. Isn’t that what genius is for?” I asked. “He worked for a big drug company first. They made a mint off one of his discoveries—some fancy antibiotic—and he just got his salary and a small bonus. That was the way his contract read. Then he got himself a new contract and dug up some other stuff that was interesting and potentially lucrative, only without knowing it he’d kind of crossed the fence into fields that were being cultivated by the government for military purposes. Suddenly he found himself working for the biological warfare boys under very strict security, still making no more than a lousy four-figure salary—well, maybe five by this time—and he’s a man, we’re told, who likes to dream in millions. Don’t for a minute get Archie mixed up with your idealistic, scientific dreamers, doll. His fantasies, sleeping or waking, seem to deal mainly with dough.”
    “Go on.”
    “With this attitude, it was only natural,” I said, “that when somebody came along and waved some real cash under his nose, he grabbed it and vanished. He left behind a note saying that the Fourteenth Amendment had abolished slavery and nobody had the right to tell him where to work or for how much. He also intimated that there was no need for the U.S. authorities to worry about his compromising their silly security in any way, since neither he nor his new sponsors had the slightest interest in the childish and obsolete stuff the government people had had him on. He had much more fascinating projects in mind. Under the circumstances, he wrote, he saw no reason why his departure should be the subject of any official concern whatever, and he would resent, strongly, any further interference in his affairs.” I shrugged. “In a way, you can see his point. After all, it’s his brain and it seems to be a pretty good one. You can hardly blame him for wanting to cash in on it.”
    Winnie said coolly, “It isn’t our business to see people’s points, Mr. Helm.”
    I glanced at her sideways, and moved my shoulders slightly. There had been a few moments when we’d been practically human together; perhaps it was just as well we were getting away from that. If she wanted to take a tough and humorless attitude toward the work—well, it’s generally considered pretty tough and humorless work.
    I said, “You may call me Matt. Incredible though it may seem, wives do address their husbands with such disrespectful familiarity these decadent days.”
    She said, still unsmiling, “I don’t suppose the government paid much attention to Dr. McRow’s warning, Matt.”
    I said, “Hell, you know those Washington bureaucrats, Winnie. They didn’t even realize it was a serious warning. They were so impressed with their own importance that it simply didn’t occur to them that one chubby little man with glasses would have the nerve to warn them off—them, and the United States of America. They went after him.” I grimaced. “That is to say, they sent people after him. Despite the note, they decided that he was endangering the national security, or something.”
    “What happened?”
    “Nothing