The Lazarus Plot Read Online Free

inside. From behind them the voice said, "Please do not turn around to look at me, unless you want a rifle barrel smashed into your face. Instead take a look around you. This building is unique. It was originally built ninety years ago by an eccentric millionaire, who later went bankrupt. It was converted into a mental clinic sixty years later by an even more eccentric psychologist, who went bankrupt in turn. It is now perfect for my organization to use. Not only did we buy it dirt cheap, but we are assured of privacy here. Our work demands a great deal of privacy."
    "Pretty sloppy of you to leave your front gate unlocked then," said Frank. He got the answer he half-expected.
    "It was no accident that the gate was unlocked-for you," said the voice. "Rest assured, it is locked now."
    "So we walked into a trap," said Frank. "And Iola was the bait."
    "I was told you were an intelligent young man," the voice said.
    "So it was Iola!" Joe exclaimed. "She is here! Tell me where she - " Forgetting himself, he wheeled around to question his captor.
    He didn't get to finish his question-or see who was doing the talking. All he saw was Fritz's rifle barrel slashing toward his face, while in "the background, a figure darted out of sight behind a high-backed chair.
    At the same time, the lightning reflexes that made Joe an ace athlete went 'into action. Before the rifle barrel could touch his face, he grabbed it and pulled it, letting Fritz set himself off balance by his own forward momentum. Then he viciously shoved it away, sending Fritz sprawling" backward into Hugo's rifle.
    "Run for it!" Joe shouted to Frank while he himself dashed through a nearby doorway and down a corridor. Behind him he heard shouts and running footsteps.
    At the end of the corridor was a winding stair way. Joe went up it three steps at a time. On the second floor; he raced down another corridor, rounded a sharp turn, and found himself facing a closed door. The door was metal, in sharp contrast to the old wood of the house and the faded floral carpeting on the floor.
    Joe heard the-footsteps of his pursuers. He hesitated for just a moment before grabbing the door knob and giving it a turn.
    The door opened easily. Joe stepped inside and felt his knees go weak. Stunned, he could only gasp, "Iola."
    She was sitting in a chair facing him, looking exactly the way she did when Joe had last seen her-her face, her hair, even the clothes she was wearing. But now there were electrodes fastened to both sides of her head. Leather straps bound her wrists to the arms of the chair. And her eyes stared blankly at Joe.
    Iola wasn't alone. Four men were in the room. There were a distinguished-looking elderly man with a thick white crew cut and a livid scar across his pale forehead; a short, stout, middle-aged Oriental; a tall, thin youth in his twenties with a freckled face and horn-rimmed glasses; and a massively built man with a shaved skull. All wore white lab coats and the same startled expression as Joe barged in.
    Joe, though, had eyes only for Iola. "What are you doing to her?" he cried. He clenched his hands into fists and moved forward menacingly. "Take those electrodes off her head! Get those straps off her wrists!" He didn't know what he was going to do if they refused-and he never got to find out. Too late he heard a sound behind him. Before he could turn, an arm snaked around his neck.
    Then he felt a jabbing pain in his arm.
    A needle was all he managed to think before the room and Iola's face blurred as Joe slid down the chute to oblivion.
    Oblivion, Joe decided, was like a sleep without dreams. There was no way of telling how long he was out. It might have been a minute or a day later that he opened his eyes and saw Frank's face looking down at him with concern.
    "I was hoping you had gotten away," said Frank. "No luck, huh?"
    "I was hoping you'd made it, too," said Joe, putting his hand to his forehead, which was aching from the aftereffect of whatever drug had