They interrogated me on the scene — two quietly outraged men who headed the newest and tightest security branch of all the Washington agencies and two hard-looking field men who were curiously expressionless until I described the final killing of Vito Salvi without mentioning his last statement. Only then did they register the slightest sign of satisfaction, knowing damn well that the one who had killed their associates hadn’t died easily. They knew my reputation and it was too big and too real to let someone like Salvi take the big fall the quick way.

They let me finish, then Hal Randolph said, “Typical Tiger Mann trademark.”

I shrugged. “How would you like me to have done it?”

He looked at me closely, following the pattern the way I knew he would, then walked over to the body by the wall and stared at it a few seconds. “Let’s start from the beginning, Mann. Like from where you came into this.”

The others were watching me now and the two field men had black notebooks in their hands. When I spoke they took everything down verbatim in shorthand. “Sure,” I said. “The other dead guy is Doug Hamilton, one of ours. He runs a legitimate private investigation agency out of New York here...”

“Legitimate?”

“You can check it fast enough,” I told him. “Martin Grady had him on retainer for three years doing routine security work for Belt-Aire Electronics, a company he owns. Under his government contracts it was required, so...”

“We’re familiar with Belt-Aire. Where do you come in, Tiger?”

“A week ago Hamilton disappeared. I was on hand, so I got orders to look into it.” I nodded toward the room on the side. “I tracked him here.”

“How?”

“His car was missing. I reported it to the police and they recovered it. Inside was a notebook that had this address listed, among others. It was as simple as that.”

“What others?”

“Simple business addresses. I checked them all out.”

“I see,” Randolph finally mused. “So you came here and walked into—” he waved his hand around the room — “this. Just like that.”

“Not quite. I don’t stick my head into holes. Hamilton could have been involved in anything and I’m too old a pro in this business to take chances. I cased the place from all sides and came down from the roof.”

“Then how did you know what apartment to hit?”

“Somebody spent a lot of time and trouble sealing up one window on the side with brick. They weren’t very neat and left some pieces of material used in soundproofing rooms in the courtyard outside. This place is totally unoccupied like the ones beside it and no bum or scrounger holing up in here is throwing money into renovations like that.”

Both the young guys looked up from their notebooks with a small touch of respect in their faces. One said, “You could have called the police.”

“I didn’t think there was that much time. There weren’t mere than a half dozen lights showing along the entire block and it was doubtful any of those places had phones.”

“Wasn’t it foolish coming in alone?”

I grinned at him then and my mouth hurt from where the cut opened in the corner. “I wasn’t alone,” I told him and pointed to the .45 where they had laid it on the table under a handkerchief.

Hal Randolph turned abruptly, his hands clasped behind his back. He was a big guy, heavy-set, with a florid face that never seemed to lose its mad. He didn’t like me and his pet hate was Martin Grady, but now he was caught in the trap his own bureaucratic secrecy demanded of him. “You recognized Vito Salvi, then, didn’t you?”

I nodded and leaned back in the chair, trying to wipe the taste of blood out of my mouth. “We had met before,” I said, not committing myself any further.

“You knew who he was,” he insisted.

“Sure. So do you. That’s why I killed him. And don’t ask why I didn’t hold him. I was lucky as it was. I had just picked the lock and got into this room when he came out of the other and if you take a good look at that door you’d see it wasn’t going to be forced easily. Inside there was another exit he could have gotten through if he knew I was here. That bastard knew all the tricks of infighting with knives and guns...”

“Except one,” the field man said.

“What?”

“You nailed him,” he told me.

Randolph’s smile was tight around the edges. “I’m afraid you don’t know our friend very well, Courtney. This is Tiger Mann and when you see his package in the department files it will surprise you. Moscow has him on their ‘A’ list, which makes him a dead boy almost any time at all. He was with the O.S.S. during the war and likes to play spy so much he couldn’t leave well enough alone, so now with the backing of millionaire industrialists who don’t seem to trust their government’s authorized agencies to do a satisfactory job, he gets entangled in everything from espionage to two-bit street brawls for the sake of a buck. I don’t know what he calls himself, but he’s a professional killer with enough power behind him to clean his hands for him but someday he’s going to fall and when he does it will be heard on two continents.”

“Three,” I said. “And don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen.” I pushed myself out of the chair and got to my feet, the pain in my side giving me hell. “You’re talking too much, Randolph. I’ll be down in the morning to give you a detailed statement.”

“Where do you think you’re going?”

I found my hat and picked up my gun. “To see a doctor,” I said. “One who won’t report bullet wounds or knife slashes. Any objections?”

There was just a long moment of silence and Randolph shook his head. He knew I’d be in. I wanted some questions answered too. I got out, went down to the street and walked two blocks before a cab came by. I gave him the number of Rondine’s apartment and settled back against the cushions.

Hal Randolph had arranged the inquisition very neatly. I had gone this route too many times before with him to try intimidation. Now the props were staged to impress me. The head men from three agencies were there, faces I knew well, a pair of immaculately groomed court-reporter types perched behind their machines ready to note every word spoken so that they could be analyzed in detail later, and Randolph at the head of the conference table forcing an amiable smile designed to put me at ease. I caught Charlie Corbinet’s eyes from his corner position at the far end, the half-smile in them and winked in his direction.

I took the only empty chair at the table, pulled it out and sat down crookedly, feeling the bite in my side again. “Well, gentlemen?” I said.

Both stenographers took it down immediately.

Randolph cleared his throat and nodded absently before he gave me a second glance, and this time the almost amiable expression was gone. “I’ll come directly to the point. Mr. Corbinet has repeated your conversation to us. In view of the recent... situation, we would like to hear it firsthand.”

“Sure,” I told him. “In detail?”

“From the beginning.”

It didn’t take more than three minutes to lay it out. In three minutes something heavy seemed to hang over the room like a death shroud and the faces of the assembly were drawn tight. The stenographers had taken it down verbatim and were the only ones who didn’t seem to make much out of it. Maybe they had done it too often or heard too much and the lines were just another paragraph in the book of the fall of mankind.

When I finished Randolph sat there a moment, his breathing audible in the silence, then: “There was one thing you left out, Tiger.”

“Oh?”

“You indicated to Mr. Corbinet that you knew how to locate Louis Agrounsky.”

“Not quite, Randolph,” I said.

“What did you say then?”

“I said I thought I knew how to find him.”

“Perhaps you’d better be more explicit.”

“Not just yet buddy.” I twisted around in the chair and leaned back, grinning at him a little. “Like you told me some time ago, I’m walking a thin little line and one slip and over I go. If you can give me a push you’ll even help a little and the end results would be pleasing to a lot of people here and there. You’d like to see Martin Grady fall along with the rest of us and if that ever happens the political stock of a lot of boobs would soar. Right?”

I had all the eyes on me now and Randolph didn’t say a word. “Let me lay it on the line, gentlemen. My neck’s out as far as yours and probably a lot further. We’re in this together whether you like it or not and until this picture is cleared up we’d better start sleeping in the same bed or take the chance of being splashed all over what’s left of the U.S.A.”

The few coughs and quick looks that passed around the table meant that they got the point. The one closest to me, whose seemingly unimportant job in Washington was a cover for his internal security position, held up his hand for attention. “Mr. Mann... you’re suggesting a merger of forces in this case... or a hands-off attitude regarding your rather unique operation?”

“A merger, Mr. Delaney. We can’t afford to be at odds on this.”

“What makes you think we need your organization?”

“Because we can operate at levels you either can’t or won’t,” I told him bluntly. “You know damn well Martin Grady operates on an international basis and isn’t forced to work on a limited budget. Before you can get an appropriation to purchase certain necessities... like information... we can have it bought. We already have men inside legations and embassies and whatever news flows out of an enemy country filters through our hands as fast as it does yours. But that isn’t the end of it. We’re talking about Louis Agrounsky. He must be found. I think I can find him.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

Delaney stared at me hard, his forefinger tapping the edge of the table silently. “You can give us the benefit of your thought, Mr. Mann.”

“No. You’ll get the benefit of what I find out, but I’m keeping the edge. I want the heat off our group and the advantage of being able to draw from your man power and resources if necessary.”

“Where does that leave us?” Delaney asked softly.

“Stranded,” I said, “unless you do it my way.”

Hal Randolph had that florid look back again, the strain of what he was thinking making the muscles in his neck bulge. I was pushing them all the way and not leaving them open for a lot of empty discussion.

It was Charlie Corbinet who quieted the hum down when he said, “I would like to make a suggestion.”

Heads swiveled toward him and waited. Unlike most of them, Charlie was more than a desk supervisor. He worked in the field when he had to and had never lost his touch. He had been on the big hot ones with the best of them and was rarely outguessed.

Randolph said, “Well?”

“This won’t be the first... or last... time strange bed partners have come together. My association with Mr. Mann is nothing new to anybody present and the results have justified the arrangement. Whether we like it or not, we’ll have to go along with him or go without his services. If his capabilities are lost to us through lack of cooperation on our part it will be to our disadvantage.”

“If I get knocked off,” I interrupted.

“Exactly,” he replied. “I realize that if we do agree to a union with the Martin Grady forces certain political powers will lose their ability to censure or eliminate the Grady machine in the face of public opinion... if this ever reaches that stage. In effect, it’s a stalemate. I suggest we go along with Tiger here, on the agreement that no word of this merger leaks out. It won’t hurt to save face if we have to.”

Hal Randolph snorted at that, but lost the silent vote. It was over as quickly as it started. I had made my point the hard way. I stood up, wincing a little. “One more thing,” I told them. “I’d like two signed copies of this informal agreement. One to be delivered to Martin Grady himself. I’ll keep the other copy.”

Delaney smiled a little, his eyes sparkling. “Yes, I imagine you would. And we would like some protection too.”

“Name it.”

“On a previous occasion you operated in a reserve officer capacity for a short time. I suggest we renew that arrangement for a specified period in the event we want to pull the stops out on you. It might keep you on your toes to realize that a court-martial can always hang over your head if you get too far out of line.”

I put my hat on and shoved the chair back. “No trouble, gentlemen,” I said. “I was just going to make the same suggestion myself.”

Doug Hamilton had his office on Lexington Avenue, an efficient place staffed by a junior partner named James Miller, two secretaries and a receptionist. An earlier call to Virgil Adams at Newark Control cleared me to see the Belt-Aire employee files as a Martin Grady representative, and although Hamilton’s own secretary was still shaken by what had happened and a little apprehensive about the whole thing, she showed me into his office and pulled out the cabinet drawer and extracted the folder on the company.

I leafed through it, scanning the data quickly, but as far as I could see it was an identical set to the one I already had. “Has anyone else been here yet?” I asked her.

“Yes... the notice, naturally, and a Mr. Randolph from a Federal bureau. They saw this file too.”

“Anything removed from it?”

“Nothing. You can see each sheet is numbered and they’re all in sequence. I really don’t know what they were looking for and there was nothing I could tell them.”

I closed the folder and handed it back. “Been here long?”

“Five years, Mr. Mann.”

“Then you remember when Hamilton took on the Belt-Aire assignment.”

“I drew up all the contracts.”

“You type the reports too?”

“Yes, all of them.”

“Then Hamilton kept notes of his research?”

“Of course, but as in all confidential matters of this sort, they were destroyed after the reports were typed. There are none left at all.”

“He never did any of his own at all?”

“Well... a few, I believe. There was a time when we were rushed with other things and he did some personally to get the job done.”

“Remember which ones?”

“I... I’m afraid not. I wish I could help... but typing reports are such daily routine... and after hundreds...”

“I understand. Just one more thing... Hamilton moved into a pretty expensive apartment not too long ago. Know where he got the money?”

For a moment she hesitated, then: “Mr. Hamilton was a bachelor. He really never had a need for anything pretentious and consequently saved his money. I know his bank account was substantial. I... rather think he... simply wanted a change.”

“It was a pretty drastic one. Did he have a woman in mind?”

She blushed, dropping her eyes. “No. I’m afraid not. He wasn’t much... for marriage.”

When she glanced up again I caught that old, old look in her eyes. Office secretary in love with her boss. It was happening all over the city and most of it earmarked ahead of time with tragedy.

“Tough,” I said.

She knew what I was thinking and shrugged. “Life.”

“The office still goes on?”

“Mr. Miller will handle things. The arrangement was provided for when he became a junior partner. Mr. Hamilton has a sister somewhere in the Midwest and she will inherit according to the terms of his will. She’s already been notified by Mr. Hamilton’s lawyer.”

“Well, thanks for the help. If I need anything I’ll contact you.”

“Very well.”

“If you get the time see if you can locate the reports Hamilton did himself.”

“I’ll try. I can’t promise anything.”

“Good enough.”

Dead ends. The big nothing. Four men dead, one missing who held the secret of world calamity and no place to scratch the surface. There was still the probability that Doug Hamilton’s death was an accident that never should have happened, a coincidence that occurred because he inadvertently blundered into Vito Salvi’s world. It was probable too that the empty folder in his apartment had no real meaning at all, and was simply a place to file notes he later had retyped at his office.

I picked up my hat and let myself out of the office into the screaming roar of New York going home. It took ten minutes to find an unoccupied cab and a half hour to cross town to Charlie Corbinet’s apartment. He had the door open for me when the elevator reached his floor and waved me in.

“Drink?”

“A short one,” I said. “The night’s just started.”

He mixed a couple, handed me one and sat down opposite me. “Come up with anything?”

I ran down what I had for him and let him sift the facts for himself. I could see him arrive at the same probabilities I had, then he got up with the nervous impatience he never lost and paced the room deep in thought. Finally he said, “We’ve been backtracking Louis Agrounsky from the time he worked on the ICBM hot-line system. One team’s been going forward, the other back. Since Agrounsky originally had a security check run on him, going back wasn’t difficult. We merely repeated the process looking for flaws in the first investigation.”

“And?”

“Clean as a whistle. No criminal record, no unsavory associations, the best references... not a thing out of the way. Not even a political angle. He registered but didn’t bother voting. The only new fact added was an afterthought by his former college dean who mentioned that in his senior year Agrounsky came near a nervous breakdown that was attributed to overwork. The attending physician had died but his records were still available and showed Agrounsky to have been under his care two weeks before returning to school. Complete rest was prescribed and there were no aftereffects.”

“It could have been the beginning of something,” I suggested.

“Possibly. Had this ever been uncovered earlier it’s doubtful if he would have been put in charge of the project.”

“Any evidence that he covered it up?”

“None. Since it wasn’t a mental illness the dean never thought it important enough to mention. It seemed to be a common complaint of his best hard-working students who get overly dedicated.”

“Where do you lose him then?”

“After the hot-line installation he went into the second space project. If you remember, there were two failures before the technical difficulties were overcome and the shot successful. He was scheduled to begin work on the new booster engine the following week but had to be called off it when he had a minor car accident. The hospital reports stated minor lacerations, a broken thumb and a slight back injury. At that time he was living in a house he had bought in Eau Gallie, Florida, with about twenty thousand dollars in the bank. Apparently the back injury bothered him and he canceled out any future work and lived off his savings. It was here that contact was lost.

“Agrounsky had few friends. He was pretty much of a loner. He was seen occasionally in town making small purchases but it was the bank teller who saw him most often. He made steady and increasingly large withdrawals that were not commensurate with his usual spending habits. However, nobody questioned it. Later he closed out his account entirely, sold his house to an engineer working on the project, and hasn’t been seen since.”

“Woman involved?” I asked him.

“No. We checked that angle out thoroughly. He didn’t gamble or drink, either.”

“Everybody has one bad habit.”

“Agrounsky didn’t. None that we could find.”

“People like him just don’t disappear.”

Charlie turned, stared into his drink, and gulped it down with a quick motion. “He sold his house furnished, packed two suitcases in a five-year-old Ford and drove away. A month later he sold the car to a dealer in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for a hundred bucks and nothing more is known of him.”

“If he was broke he’d have to work or go on relief.”

“No Social Security has been paid. We’ve gone over all the relief rolls, queried every jail and hospital in the country... and still nothing. No passport was issued him and there’s no record of his having gone into Canada or Mexico.” He paused, mixed himself another drink, and shook his head. “Hal Randolph thinks he’s dead.”

“If he were, Vito Salvi wouldn’t have been looking for him,” I said.

“I know. I don’t think he’s dead either.” Charlie swirled the drink around letting the ice chink against the glass. “What do you think, Tiger?”

“The same thing you do,” I told him. “Someplace he’s holed up trying to make a decision and if we don’t get to him before he does, we’ve had it.”

“And you still think you know how to find him?”

“I have to, old buddy,” I said. “If the Soviets had their best man looking for him they’ll throw in their next best. We can’t cut it off. Vito Salvi had a big jump on us and could have been closing in when he found himself being tracked by your two men and nailed them. How Hamilton got into the act, I don’t know yet. Now... how far did those two agents get in locating Agrounsky?”

“Absolutely nowhere. That’s why they concentrated on finding Salvi... hoping he’d lead them to him. Their last report was that an unusual contact was made by a minor Soviet attaché they had been covering who was suspected of passing funds to their agents here. The general physical description matched that of Salvi except for facial characteristics which could easily have been part of a disguise. They followed him and nothing more was heard about them until you pulled the cork.”

“I suppose Randolph has a team going back on Salvi too.”

Charlie nodded. “They’re getting a big zero there too. Salvi was too much of a pro to leave trails. They’ll get to him eventually, detail by detail, but it will probably take weeks.”

“We haven’t got that long,” I reminded him.

“Come up with something then.”

I put my glass down and lit up a cigarette. “There’s a little hook in that picture of Agrounsky I can’t quite put my finger on.”

“Tiger, we haven’t missed a bet on him.”

“Just the same, I have that funny feeling.”

“Play it then... you’re on a fat salary. I don’t think you’ll get anywhere thinking he was employed by Belt-Aire though. He had no reason for falsifying his name or background and if he needed money he could have gone right into any one of the current government projects and made out a lot better.”

“So I’ll work on it until I’m satisfied.”

“Remember the time element.”

“How can I forget it?” I pushed myself out of the chair and reached for my hat. “Reach me at the Salem if you need me. The name is T. Martin. I want the latest photo of Agrounsky you can find.”

“You’ll get it. Good luck, Tiger.”

“Thanks,” I said, “we can all use some.”

Someday I was going to find out when Ernie Bentley slept. He had a wife at home but he never seemed to make it there. Something going on in his test tubes or under his microscope was always too fascinating for him to leave. Any industry in the world would be glad to give him a top-ranking position in their organization, but he preferred the setup Martin Grady offered him and the freedom of unlimited experimentation every scientist hoped to achieve.

He came out of the darkroom with copies of Louis Agrounsky’s pictures and handed me several. “I’ll mail copies to Newark and the other centers,” he said. “I may even have a few leads myself. A character like this one isn’t going after nominal employment with a background like his.”

“For instance?”

“Some of the places that deal with subminiaturization components. It’s been fairly well developed for the practical purposes of rocketry, but there’s no end to the field in sight. Eventually they’ll wind up with power units as big as the head of a pin. I know a few people who have put out papers on the subject and there might have been correspondence between them.”

“There’s only one catch, Ernie... Agrounsky deliberately left his field and disappeared. He hasn’t shown up.”

Ernie shook his head in disagreement. “He still won’t take anything small. His mind won’t work that way. No matter what he does, he’ll have to emerge.”

“That first breakdown he had could have been just that — the first,” I reminded him.

“Possibly. In that case, all his knowledge, his training would come out in a hobby. He couldn’t cover it up.”

“Like hell. If he broke completely everything could be shattered.”

Ernie gave me a little shrug, not really caring one way or another. That one motion said it was up to those in the field, not to him, to locate the guy and solve the problem. His was more immediate. He shoved his glasses back on his head and said, “Have you contacted Don Lavois yet?”

“No.”

“Then you’d better,” he told me. “He picked up something about a big buy in the narcotics market.”

“Damn,” I said and reached for one. I dialed his hotel, asked for his room, and let it ring a dozen times before I hung up. “Not there. Look, Ernie, I’m going back to my place and change. If Don calls, have him hop on over, otherwise I’ll call him from there.”

“Will do, buddy. Take care of yourself.”

I stuck the photos he had given me in my pocket and took the stairs down to the street, picked up the first cab and had him take me over to the Salem. It took ten minutes to shower and change and when I was ready I tried another call to Don. The desk said he still hadn’t come in and the message I left was to have him call on Mr. Martin as soon as possible.

While I made the call I fingered the employee list Doug Hamilton had checked out, tried to think it through without getting anywhere, then threw the papers back in my suitcase in disgust.

It was time again, all-important time. What was the next step? Which direction? You’d think that there were enough men in the field to come up with something, but so far there was nothing but blanks. Vito Salvi had a good reason for killing those Washington boys, but why Hamilton? Why him?

I kept remembering the bodies the way I had seen them last, remembering something I had almost forgotten. Of all the three, Hamilton had shown the signs of being there the longest. Salvi would never have involved himself with him if he hadn’t been important. Hamilton hadn’t walked in cold... he had been directly involved somehow. If he had stumbled on the deal accidentally he simply would have been killed and his body disposed of. But no... he did have that address book. He knew about Salvi and where he was. For some reason he had waded into the situation head first and had gotten trapped in something way over his head.

Doug Hamilton might have been stupid, but not that stupid. He wasn’t exactly new in investigative work and would have covered himself somehow. I looked at my watch, the time twenty minutes to ten, then slapped my hat on and went back downstairs. At the desk I left a not for Don to wait for me, told the clerk to let him have my key to get in and slipped him a buck for his trouble. I took the first cab in line outside the door and gave him the number of Hamilton’s apartment, sweated through the six-minute ride and paid him off in front of the building.

I met Dave Elroy at Newark Airport, told Mason Armstrong to stand by and took Dave into the lounge where I briefed him on events up to date. He was a tall, lean kind of guy, his face weatherbeaten out of season, a little older looking than the thirty-two years his staff card indicated. He wasn’t the talkative type, preferring to listen and to look, but every question was pointed and direct.

He knew most of those involved in the international narcotics cartel who lived out of reach of the law, but he enjoyed working on a local level where his attitude and personality could make his work profitable to the Grady organization. I didn’t have to ask for his record — he was fast with a gun and would go in anywhere low and quick, able to make snap decisions and make them right. In a way I envied him the plus ten years he had on me — he had that much longer to go before something gave out that made you want a quiet life with a place in the country.

Dave wrote nothing down, committing it all to memory, then said, “That big a buy of H Salvi made would leave some taking behind it. No pusher handles that much stuff so it probably was made direct with the importers.”

“Know who to contact?”

“For the kind of money I’m authorized to pay for information, I know a lot of them.”

“Okay then, take it from there. We’ll stay in touch through Newark Control. Adams will assign you quarters and you can handle it on your own.”

“How’re you going to play it?”

“From Hamilton’s end. He’s still the key.” I gave him a copy of the Agrounsky photos and let him study them. “Show them around and see what you come up with. If Salvi was after him and Salvi was involved in a narcotics transaction there might be a three-way connection. We can’t afford to pass up any possibilities. If you do get anything, contact me before moving in.”

“Suppose there isn’t time?”

“You know the answers then. Just make sure you leave a record behind in case you feel like keeping company with Don.”

“Hell, you’re a happy one,” he said sourly, hiding a grin.

“It’s happened before,” I told him.

“All right, Tiger. Good to see you again. Sorry Don caught one, but we all know the risks involved. Nice to be working with you.”

“Same here.”

We shook hands briefly and split up at the cashier’s counter. I started out to the cab stand, stopped just inside the door, then turned back to the telephone booths and called Charlie Corbinet. The police had already been notified about the body in my room, but I.A.T.S. had kept a lid on the news and Hal Randolph was raising hell about my involvement, threatening everything he could think of if I didn’t show.

I said, “Relax, Charlie, I’ll come in when I have something going for me. Look, I forgot to ask you something... Doug Hamilton filed reports on everyone he investigated including the unsatisfactory ones. Washington has copies of his information. You know what bureau handles that sort of thing?”

“I can find out.”

“Then get me the names of those not considered fit for jobs requiring security. I’d say hit the reports dated from the last two months. How long will it take?”

“If I call now and it’s available it will be in the mail tomorrow and here the day after.”

“Good. Suppose we meet at the Blue Ribbon for lunch then... twelve o’clock.”

“In the open? I have a feeling Hal Randolph is going to be watching me a little closely now.”

“So I’ll give you something to ease the pain. You know the shot that killed Don?”

“ .22 Magnum. Nobody heard it so the gun probably had a silencer.”

“Throw a net out for Niger Hoppes. That’s his trademark and he’s in this country now.”

“Hoppes!”

“You remember him, don’t you?”

“Certainly. He’s been suspected of being the gun in quite a few high-level political kills in Europe.”

“Check through ballistics. Interpol can get you a telephoto of the slugs they have there and if they match you know who to go after.”

“Nobody’s ever seen him.”

“Don Lavois did,” I said. “Somebody else will. I hope it’s me.”

“Okay, Tiger, if this matches out maybe some of the heat will come off you. Just do me one favor.”

“What?”

“Pass on any information. Don’t go into this alone.”

“That’s too big a favor to ask, Colonel. Don’t forget, I have an official position now.”

“And I outrank you.”

“So I’ll resign,” I laughed and hung up.

It had started to rain again, a dreary, slow rain that seemed to ooze out of the cloud cover overhead. There was a chill in the air too, but I couldn’t tell if it was the temperature or what I was thinking.

And what was I thinking?

An annoying little faraway thought that was always there because I was playing in a dangerous game where the stakes were beyond comprehension and the rules limitless. If there were any rules at all.

By now the committee in Moscow would know how Vito Salvi died. They had their own ways of finding out things just as we did and the orders would be out. No matter where I went I would be a target whether on assignment or not. They wouldn’t know just how I got involved... they wouldn’t know what Vito Salvi had told me in a vain attempt to stay alive. They’d figure I was in at the beginning the same as they were and an obstacle to be eliminated in the search for Agrounsky.

Unlike Niger Hoppes, my photos were on file. I wasn’t exactly unknown in the operational areas and until now could be reached without too much trouble. The only thing that slowed the process of elimination was that the Soviets had too much to lose by knocking me off as a direct project because they could expect the entire Martin Grady machine to grind into action and take their men out of play ten for one.

That was before. Now with the stakes what they were it would be worth the risk. Oh, they’d play their game well. It could be direct or insidious, but it would have a purpose. If they couldn’t get me directly, they’d get to me somehow and that was the little faraway thought that was always there like a snake waiting to strike from the shadows.

I hopped in a cab and gave the cabbie Rondine’s address and sat against the cushions while he threaded through the traffic to the Jersey Turnpike and in the Lincoln Tunnel. He cut right on Forty-second, turned north on Eighth Avenue, making the lights all the way, then eased across town and stopped outside her apartment.

The big doorman gave me a nod of recognition after I paid off the cab, his battered Irish face that had seen too many prelim fights in the Garden squinching up a little because he had lent a hand in a game before with me and knew the results. I asked, “Edith Caine at home?”

“Yes, sir,” he nodded. “Came in about an hour ago.”

“Alone?”

“Staff car from the U.N. brought her. Somebody was with her but didn’t get out,” he told me. “Everything all right?”

I knew what he was thinking. I said, “Anybody nosing around?”

He shrugged his heavy shoulders under his uniform, his mouth twisting into a thoughtful grimace. “Nothing I can say for sure.”

“You don’t have to be sure.”

“So I know the regulars in the buildin’, y’know?”

“So?”

“Like I know most of ’em who go up and down the street. People from the other apartments, tradesmen, the walkers from the other block... all that. Standin’ out here all day for a few years you get to know them things. So today I get a cruiser in a cab, like a guy looking for a street number.”

“What’s so unusual about that?”

“Hell, man, the cabbies do the lookin’ for you. They all know this number anyway. I see this guy just looking and the cabbie going straight ahead like he’s been told to do or somethin’ and it’s outa place. Later he does it again. Sometimes they cruise for broads that way but not on this block. No hookers work this section. The next time it’s the same face in a blue sedan.”

“Think you could recognize him?”

“Hell no. It was just a face. It was what he was doing, I saw. He was lookin’ only didn’t want to be seen.”

“When did he go by the last time?”

“Maybe a half hour ago.”

I reached in my pocket and took out a ten-spot, folded it and handed it to him. “Keep your eyes open. I’ll be upstairs if it happens again. Don’t let anybody into the building you don’t know and if one comes in supposedly asking for anybody else, call me right away. Watch the elevator pointer and tell me what floor it stops at.”

“Sure enough.” He put the bill in his pocket with a grin. “I could stop ’em here for you to look at if you want.”

“Don’t bother. Just make sure you’d be able to recognize them again.”

“Expecting trouble?”

“All the time, friend.”

“I’m on your side,” he said. “If you need help I can always get Bert from across the street or Herman from next door. They was both heavies a few years back. They owe me some favors.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I told him, then went inside and pushed the buzzer under Caine and waited impatiently for the series of clicks that would unlock the door.

When I reached her apartment I knocked on the panel, saw the light shoot through the thick glass of the peephole in the door, and heard her low, throaty chuckle behind it. She held it open, pleasure bathing her face, and reached out her arms for me. “Hello, my darling,” she said and let her lips tickle against mine in a teasing gesture before I grabbed her with all the hunger I had built up inside me.

I kicked the door closed with my foot and held her off with a grin. “Ummm,” I said.

“You Americans have barbarous reactions. Ummm indeed.” She took my hand and tucked it under her arm, nestling it against the firm rise of her breast unconsciously. “I didn’t expect you tonight.”

“I didn’t expect to be here, either.”

“Then...?”

“I don’t like the idea of you being alone,” I told her.

She turned and gave me a sober glance, the curious expression in her eyes telling me she had sensed the reason for my stopping by. “I see. This has to do with the Hamilton affair?”

“Make me a short drink, then sit down and I’ll tell you about it.”

“The usual?”

“Natch.” Once again, out of sheer habit, I checked through the rooms while she mixed the two drinks, making sure we were alone and all points of entry were locked. Not that it meant too much... anybody who really wanted to could force an entrance anyplace but at least a lock breaking or a window snapping gave you a little advance warning.

When I got back to the living room she handed me the drink and sat beside me on the arm of the big chair beside the record console and ran her hand over my hair. “Do you think you should break security by telling me?”

I tasted the drink and leaned back into the chair looking up at her. “I’ll pick my own security levels, Rondine. You’ve been trained in the British Intelligence Service and gone the route with me. Damn it, right now we need every experienced hand we can get.”

“But that isn’t the point you’re trying to make, is it?”

“No.”

“You rather think I might be a stumbling block for you, is that it?” she asked.

“In a way. I’d hate to have any heat put on me through you. Not now.”

“Oh?”

“This is too big, kid. It’s more than you or me. If someone got hold of you to force me into the open I might take up the challenge and land in their net. It’s a chance I can’t take.”

Her fingers stroked my forehead easily, then slipped down the back of my neck and kneaded me there gently. “I don’t think you would, Tiger. I really wouldn’t expect you to.”

The love was there in her eyes, bright and full, but knowledgeable love that realized the fullest extent of the job that had to be done. Before I could answer her she moved her hand and touched my mouth with her fingertips. “Don’t argue against it. We have both adopted an ideal that can’t be altered or destroyed no matter who has to fall. It’s the chance we know we all have to take.”

“You amaze me, doll.” I squeezed her hand, then kissed it.

“If you want to tell me, I’ll listen.”

And I gave her the picture all the way. If she was going to be in it she had a right to know. An informed agent can make a lot more progress than one working in the dark. If you were alerted to an attack you could prepare for it and reach the enemy before he reached you and I didn’t want her sticking her neck out any further than she had to. When I finished she took the empty glass from my hand, made another and curled up at my feet.

“What do you suggest I do then?” she finally asked me.

“Stay with me. If Hal Randolph puts a stakeout on you to reach me the operation can be slowed down if it works. If the Soviets corner you it puts a crimp in things because it diverts time and attention. I’d sooner have you within reach where nobody can screw things up.”

“I have time coming to me,” Rondine mused. “With this latest shakeup in the Kremlin our embassy will be holding fast awaiting developments before they set policy so there won’t be anything critical for me to do.” She leaned her head back against my legs and looked at me upside down. “So I await your command, master.” She gave me an impish little grin and added, “Just don’t yell at me again.”

“Only if you need it, baby.”

“Okay.”

“So pack a bag, make your call to your boss and let’s get out of here.”

Rondine spiraled up from the floor with a single, smooth motion and held a glass out to me. “One for the road. You make them. I’ll be ready in ten minutes. Do I leave a forwarding address?”

“No.”

She gave me another one of those grins again. “Your country has a thing called the Mann Act, remember?”

“That’s a different Mann, honey,” I said. “If I take you across a state line it won’t be for immoral purposes.”

“You mean you might even marry me?”

“One can never tell.”

She gave me a little laugh and said over her shoulder as she walked to the bedroom, “Either Mann sounds interesting. But I think I like your way better.”

Inside, she went about the business of emptying drawers into a suitcase while I made a pair of soft highballs for both of us. My watch read a little past seven and outside the sun was fading into a hazy twilight that had the look of rain again. I walked over to the window fronting on the street and held the curtain aside, watching the traffic below. The big doorman kept up a slow pace under the canopy, appearing on either side at regular intervals like a sentry on patrol, hands clasped behind his back while he watched each passing car. He wanted to really earn that ten bucks I gave him.

When I let the curtain fall back I crossed to the bedroom with the glasses and pushed the door open. And there are times when sudden movement just can’t be accomplished... like being upwind of a deer and watching him feed, unaware of your presence, or coming on a wild turkey, so normally given to flight they’re never seen at all.

That was the way Rondine was, beautifully half naked, skin glistening in the light, her breasts arrogantly thrusting out and upwards from the athletic grace of her body, their ruby-hued tips like tiny warheads capable of destroying a man on contact unless they were disarmed first with a gentle touch.

She stood there, one foot up on a hassock, smoothing a stocking over her thigh, then clasping it in the hook of a garter belt to match the other. When she was satisfied she stepped into a half slip, adjusted it, then went to the full-length mirror on the opposite wall to be sure of the fit.

Then she saw me silently laughing at her, spun around grabbing for her blouse, then realizing how silly it was, gave me an impatient stamp of her foot and said, “How long have you been there!”

“Long enough.”

“Well, it isn’t polite...”

“It isn’t polite to undress a guy and put him to bed, either,” I reminded her.

“That was different.”

“I hope so,” I said. I walked across the room and held out the drink. “You look better all the time, kid.”

She took the drink, shook her head in feigned annoyance, and reached for her bra. “You keep it up and there won’t be anything left for when we’re married.”

I gave her a long, long appreciative stare and grinned. “With you, honey,” I told her, “there’s always going to be plenty left over.” Then before she could throw something at me I went back outside.

When she finished dressing I heard her call the embassy and arrange for a short leave of absence, then she came out carrying a leather suitcase and white trenchcoat slung over her arm. She let me take it from her, checked the windows and the lights and checked the door lock behind her when we went out. Downstairs she remembered another call she had forgotten to make, stopped at the wall booth while I waited near the door and dialed her number.

That was when the doorman came in. He started toward the desk, saw me and waved me over. “He went by again. Same car. I was just gonna call you.”

“Get the number?”

“Damn right.” He handed me a slip of paper with the license number scrawled across it. “Last year’s Chevy, dark blue sedan and there’s a dent in the left rear fender.”

“Thanks, buddy. Can I use this phone?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

I caught Charlie Corbinet at his apartment, read the number off and hung up while I waited for him to check it through. His contacts were damn thorough. In ten minutes he was back to me with the information that it was a rental car operating out of Surfleet Corporation on Fifty-first Street and a check there said it had been taken out two days ago by a John Clark identified by his driver’s license. The same license had been reported stolen a month ago and reissued to John Clark with a Buffalo, New York, address.

Charlie let me note it all down, then said, “What’s it mean, Tiger?”

“I may have to move faster. Anything from Interpol on the .22?”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “You were right. Same gun used in those other kills. Hal Randolph is jumping all over the place. There isn’t an agency left who hasn’t been alerted. They’re going all out now.”

“And the by-pass control?”

“Nothing.” He paused, then: “Tiger...”

“What?”

“We can’t afford to miss.”

“I know it, buddy.”

“We can’t afford to let this thing leak, either,” he said. “One word and there will be a panic like we never saw before.”

“Hell, the papers will cooperate. Washington is big enough to demand that if somebody tries to break the story.”

“That isn’t the angle I mean. Supposing the Soviets let the story out themselves. There are enough left-wing and liberal-type publications that drool the Moscow line to get it started. All it takes is one — one lousy do-gooder, one-worlder garbage-eater to get the nitheads screaming in the streets.”

“Yeah, I know. All we have left is the element of time. If they’re sure Agrounsky pulled the trick off with the by-pass control they might try it, but they have to be sure or it will backfire on them and at this stage of the game they can’t afford adverse criticism.”

“And how much time have we got?” Charlie asked softly.

“Hardly any,” I said and hung up.

Rondine was watching over the doorman’s shoulder, keeping him out of earshot. I shoved the phone back, walked over and picked up her bag. “Where does that rear exit lead to?”

“Goes into the courtyard,” the doorman said.

“There’s a service alley that runs along the west side of the building behind this one?”

“You got to jump the fence.” He thought about it a second and added, “The garbage cans are back there. You could stand on them. That fence is about eight feet high.”

I took Rondine’s arm. “Show me,” I said.

With the doorman leading the way we turned left at the rear of the lobby, went through a fire door into a bare concrete corridor that had service rooms opening off it to the door at the back. At the far end was another metal plated fire door with a red exit bulb over it and a three foot horizontal latch handle stretched across its middle. Like all emergency doors, it opened out, but had an added safety lock of a length of two inch angle iron resting in arms attached to the door with the ends butted against the door jambs to keep it from being opened from the outside.

He pried out the bar easily, stood it on end, and pushed against the handle. The door swung out easily and he turned to me with a grin, half stepping outside to let us go past, and just as I reached for the bag the angle iron in his hand jerked back as if somebody had pulled a string and caught him flat across the forehead and he went down like a poleaxed steer, the door swinging shut until it hit his legs.

I gave Rondine a shove to one side, hit the floor and pulled the angle iron away from his face and checked the massive bruise that was beginning to show over one eye. His cap had saved him from cracking his skull on the floor but aside from the welt he was going to have when he woke up, he’d be all right.

Rondine stood there unmoving, then said softly, “What was it, Tiger?”

I pointed to the head high spot on the surface rust of the angle iron, a dimpled indentation the size of a nickel barely reflecting the dull gray color of freshly spattered lead. “We almost were suckered, kid. They pulled that cruising game out front to force us into a back exit. Somebody’s been planted across the way waiting for us to show. They couldn’t make a hit on the street without taking too many chances. We damn near fell for the bit.”

“Are you...?”

I shook my head. “Uh-uh, baby, I’m not going to do a thing. Whoever fired that shot expected to get me. He isn’t the kind who misses, either. In this light all he saw was a body fall and the feet are still there to prove it. This guy and me are both about the same size and for now he’ll think I was the one coming through the door. When our friend here comes around he’ll go back on duty with a little larger hat to cover his bump and a pocket full of dough to salve his pain and we’ll get out of here as nice as you please. If someone’s spotted around to watch the action we’ll make it nice and authentic for him.”

She got the picture fast enough. A simple sketch was all she needed and she grinned from her position against the wall and said something soundlessly that would not have gone with the common concept of a cultured British broad and I grinned back because I knew what she said and that she meant it.

It was fifteen minutes before the doorman let out his first feeble groan and reached for his head and massaged it gently, his eyes flicking open a moment before he squeezed them shut again.

“Can you read me, buddy?”

“Yeah, but not too loud. What the hell happened?”

“Don’t sweat it. I’ll explain later. Stay right like you are and you’ll get paid for the trouble.”

“Somebody’s gonna get his head in his hands for that one.”

“That’s not what you’re getting paid for. You ready?”

“Okay, okay, just not too loud. Damn, who busted me?”

“Just figure yourself lucky. You could’ve been killed.”

“So I’m lucky. Somebody else is going to be miserable. Wait.”

“Concentrate on a grand in your pocket. You’ll feel a lot better.”

He opened his eyes all the way and peered at me in the near dark. “I feel better already. Tell me more.”

“Later.” I looked up at Rondine. “Can you handle it?”

“Go ahead,” she said.

From the lobby phone I reached Wally Gibbons. He was still in his office at the paper and didn’t bother going through the futility of asking questions. He arranged for the private ambulance to get to the address and forwarded my call to Charlie Corbinet so the timing would be right and the cover set through I.A.T.S. They weren’t going to like it, but then, they didn’t have to. All they could do was go along and let it ride like that.

There wasn’t much time, but we worked it out. The ambulance got there first and before it was parked we had the doorman snaked out of his position. From outside all anybody could see was feet moving back through the door and that would have satisfied them. The doorman was back moving traffic along outside the apartment, keeping the curious away while they wheeled me out, face covered with a sheet on a stretcher, loaded me into the ambulance with a supposedly bereaved woman going along for the final ride at my side. We were making the turn at the corner when the first of the squad cars came screaming up the street and I sat up in the ambulance to look into the face of a completely cynical, white coated attendant who said, “What’s the gag, friend?”

All I did was reach in my pocket, lay two big bills in his hand and answer, “What difference does it make?”

He took the cash, held out a clipboard with a printed form on it that I could sign, and when I did said, “None at all, friend. The bill is paid. What’ll I do with the change?” he asked cautiously.

“Split it with the driver,” I told him.

“Call on us any time. Here’s our card. Now where to? We charge by the mile.”

I gave him the corner two blocks away from my new quarters and he relayed the information through the window to the driver. The guy at the wheel said nothing. He turned off the overhead light, fired up a cigarette and relaxed back against the seat to enjoy the ride. I had thought the cabbies in New York were blase, but they never came near these guys at all.

Rondine and I got out without attracting any attention at all, stopped at a deli to pick up some sandwiches long enough to make sure we weren’t being tailed, then walked down to the sign that said Shigley’s and went up to the apartment Martin Grady had so thoughtfully supplied.

In another couple of hours the evening papers would be carrying the story of the dead man shot in the classy residential district, identified by papers he carried as one T. Mann, an employee of the Martin Grady organization, the reason for his death unknown, but suspected of being caused by a prowler attempting to force an entrance into the building. I.A.T.S. had no choice but to go along, but the stuff was going to hit the fan when Hal Randolph and I got face to face.

We waited until we got to the Times Square station before calling in our report to Newark Control. Virgil Adams was calling in another team to probe the area to see if any of the Salvi buy had been peddled off and putting through an overseas query to try and run down the reason for the direct contact. Dave Elroy was to stay on Don’s original assignment of backtracking Salvi, and if possible, to pick up his source of financing. The Soviet network was tight enough to make it a tough job, but someplace there was always a hole you could sneak through if you found it.

At ten o’clock I angled over to Ernie Bentley’s lab and went upstairs to where he was buried among his reports and poured myself a steaming mug of coffee. When I gave him the rundown he nodded as if I were reading off the ball scores and finished what he was doing before deciding to answer me.

“Got yourself a lot of pieces, haven’t you?”

“Too damn many.”

“Nothing leading to Louis Agrounsky?”

“No.”

“Maybe I got something,” he said. He walked to his desk, pawed through some mail and came up with a dye-smeared envelope and pulled out the letter inside. “One of the suppliers of sub-mini parts Agrounsky corresponded with. A few years ago he submitted several pieces for inspection and the manufacturer was pretty interested. Agrounsky came up with a few unheard of ideas that had a big potential. He wrote several times and got no answer until I contacted him. Right now he’s pretty interested in re-establishing contact himself. In view of the new space developments Agrounsky’s ideas can come in handy.”

“No address?” I asked him.

“Just his Eau Gallie house.”

“Damn!”

“But there’s a lead. He apparently wrote his last letter on his friend’s stationery. Guy named Vincent Small, address, 37 Meadow Lane, Eau Gallie, Florida.”

“We’re back to there again.”

“It started down there, didn’t it?” Ernie said simply.

“They’ve gone all over that route, Ernie. I.A.T.S., the other bureaus, our own teams. We have to pick it up closer than that.”

“But you haven’t, Tiger buddy,” he reminded me.

I looked across the room at him, sipping at the coffee.

“Okay,” I finally said, “it might be worth a try. I’ll clean up the loose ends here first and see what I can pick up in that section.”

“Then keep the plane up here. If you need special equipment I’ll send it down.”

“Keep your toys to yourself,” I said.

“They saved your tail a few times.”

“I don’t like the instability factors involved.”

“So we all make mistakes. Besides, those details have been smoothed over. I have a new gadget here...”

“Save it,” I grinned at him. “I’ll stick with the old fashioned way.”

“You and that damn gun,” he said.

At noon I met Charlie Corbinet at the Blue Ribbon, took a table upstairs and waited until our order was taken before I gave him the latest developments. Charlie let me finish and said, “I’ll get with the Treasury Department on that heroin buy this afternoon.”

“Lay off my sources.”

“Don’t sweat it. You know me better than that.”

“What did you hear from Washington?”

Charlie reached down and laid a manila envelope on the table between us. “There’s all the UR’s from the security department. Doug Hamilton turned in thirty-four and half of them checked out with unsatisfactory reports from prior investigations. Several were known or suspected Commie agents and the rest we’re working on.”

“Any description fit Agrounsky?”

“None. But then, we haven’t checked them all out yet. A batch are itinerant workers who showed up for simple laboring jobs, but their associations were listed as n.g., so they were disqualified. All this went through Belt-Aire Electronics before it was submitted to Washington anyway.”

“That’s what Camille Hunt told me.”

Our waiter came along then, laid the lunch down with a flourish and went to get coffee. Charlie watched me across his plate, his eyes bright. “You two got along pretty well, didn’t you?”

“Why not?”

“Hal Randolph dug into Belt-Aire pretty thoroughly.”

“So?”

“You know they have top priority in the new space project?”

“Uh-huh.”

“To what extent?”

“That’s Martin Grady’s business.”

“Then let me fill you in... What they’re proposing can put the balance of power on our side. Mention Belt-Aire in Washington and you’re in for a security check no matter who you are. They want nobody poking around. This is getting pretty damn touchy. Even we don’t know the full extent of the operation. That’s a highly sensitive area and if anything goes haywire there will be hell to pay.”

“It can’t be any worse than it is,” I said.

“No, but now everybody is running scared. We haven’t got much time to break something loose. I get the feeling the Reds are closer than we are and if they let the cat out of the bag this is going to be one shook up country.”

“I don’t need any reminding, Charlie. I was there at the beginning, remember?”

“Then keep your memory refreshed. What do you plan to do with this information?”

“Exactly the same as you — check it out step by step, only from a different direction. Can I have these names?”

“They’re yours... all copies of the original.”

I took the folder and put it beside me. “How does Hal Randolph like me being dead?”

“He’d like it better if it were true. My advice is to stay in touch, Tiger. Daily reports... the works. He’s scared stiff you might do something that will trigger the works and I can’t blame him. Right now we can’t take any chances.”

“The chance was taken when they hired Agrounsky,” I said. “If he decides to use that by-pass control then we’ve had it.”

“Hasn’t everybody?” Charlie told me softly.

When we left I gave him a five minute start before I cleared out through the bar entrance. On Sixth Avenue I picked up a cab that was discharging a passenger on the corner, had the driver let me off a block away from my quarters, and walked the rest of the way.

I gave the bell the V signal, did the same thing with a tap on the door and let Rondine throw off the locks. Even then she was being careful, the little automatic in her hand being on full cock until she was certain it was me.

She shut the door, locked it securely and followed me inside. “I was beginning to get worried,” she said.

I grinned and pushed a chair up for her at the table. “Don’t waste time doing that,” I told her. “It takes away from other things.”

“There was an item in TV about the incident at my place again. The police are supposedly still investigating.”

“Eyewash. They’ll keep it up a couple of days and let it quiet down.”

“Weren’t you taking a chance going out in the daylight?”

I shook my head. “Not in this town, kid. People are like ants. You can’t tell one from the other unless an army is searching for you. I played it cool.”

“And your... meeting?”

Briefly, I gave her the details, then dumped the contents of the envelope out on the table. “I want you to do something for me. For a while you’ll be free to move around and since you’re not generally known it might work.”

“Oh?”

I looked up at her, knowing my face had that tight expression again. “You’ve been well trained for this work, baby. You have the background and experience and I need your help.”

She didn’t hesitate. She knew the implications as well as I did and her own future was involved with everyone else’s. “Just ask, Tiger.”

“Here is a list of people I want you to run down. I.A.T.S. ran a check already with no results, but there’s a lot of difference when they ask questions and a dame does. Even if these people aren’t available, I want background material on them, their associations, and angle for any possible Commie affiliations. You have people attached to your British Embassy you can call in if you need help... They’ll know how to proceed... and I’ll keep a constant contact with you here.”

“And where will you be?”

“Eau Gallie, Florida. I’m picking it up from there.” I wrote down two phone numbers, Ernie Bentley’s and that of Newark Control with an identification name that meant she was clear to use our lines of communication and be given limited information. I let her study the numbers until she had them memorized, then burned the slip they were written on. “Dave Elroy will be available and if anything turns tough, you duck out and let him take over. Just make sure you don’t stick your neck out. The ones we’re bucking play for keeps and being a woman won’t keep you alive. Understand?”

“I understand.”

I slid a sheaf of bills across the table and said, “This will keep you going until I get back. If you have to pay off for any information, contact the Newark number and it will be arranged. And don’t hesitate to buy what is up for sale. Money is the cheapest thing we have in our business.”

“Tiger...”

“What?”

Something had changed in her face. There was a seriousness there I hadn’t seen before and her eyes were those of others I had known before in bomb shelters, scanning the ceilings above them as though they could see through them to the hordes of death dealers flying high in the night above.

“Do you... really think you should have such a part in all this? Isn’t it better left to those... equipped to handle a... a situation of this sort?”

My teeth were together so hard they almost cracked. “Like who, baby?”

“Our governments. They...”

“They’re composed of great guys,” I almost hissed. “...mainly. But in the ranks are too damn many selling us out through sheer stupidity... or cupidity... or avariciousness... or because they got caught with their pants down and face public exposure through blackmail. No, kitten, guys like me belong here. We’ve been here a long time and are going to stay. When one goes another takes his place, but somebody is always there to make up for the tacky ones who masquerade under cute government titles. They’re not elected... the people can generally see through them if they try. But they’re appointed or assigned to critical posts and suddenly we have a new pseudo-government functioning on collegiate political philosophy or the theoretics of some obscure but red-tainted brain hoping that someday he’ll be holding the reins of a one world dictatorship. You want me to mention names? Hell, I can give you fifty offhand from your country and this one. I can make your hair curl with what I know and the public should know, but to protect themselves the biggies upstairs keep these babies under cover with a little pressure and promises here and there. So think it over. You’ve heard it all before from me. At least we’re a damned talented bunch in a strange way, but we get things done nobody else can do and we’re not hamstrung by niceties or afraid of losing our jobs... and we sure don’t worry about what anybody else thinks about us, either.”

Rondine absorbed it all, but the expression never left her face.

Age, I thought, she should have been there during the war. She was too young to know what it really meant, and unless you experienced the double dealing and the killing you could never really understand. You had to know the meaning of death and face it time after time before the calluses grew. You had to hold death in your hand and expose an enemy to it to stay alive yourself... then each time became easier and you became better at living and knowledgeable in the ways of this crazy world so that you became formidable as an opponent and could deal in extremes no matter the cost.

It was what I didn’t say that made the impression. Her eyes seemed to bore inside me and search my mind for the hidden answers and what she saw satisfied her, and very slowly her face relaxed into that classic beauty so much her own. I felt that warm turmoil start in my stomach again.

“I’m sorry,” she said simply.

“Forget it,” I grinned. “It’s a new game to you and I’m an old soldier.”

Her teeth showed a flash of white in a terse smile. “You’re forgetting, Tiger. In a way, I’m an old soldier too. Twice before...”

I could see the blinding sear of the explosion... remember the guns... picture her face... all when she was part of the deadly game the last time with me.

“Forget that too,” I said.

“Should I?”

I studied her face, my eyes going narrow again. “No... maybe it’s better you remember it after all. It might keep you on your toes.”

The police had a report on the .38 used last night. Ballistics had come up negative and nothing useful had been found in the grounds outside the shop. It was supposed the gun had been a revolver since no ejected shells had been located, and it made a front page story for the local paper with the intimation that it was another robbery attempt, interrupted this time, by Boster and a friend appearing in the doorway and startling the heister. There were squibs in the Miami sheets and a brief recap on the TV news broadcast, but that was as far as it went.

I drove back to the motel and parked the car in its original slot, right over the oscillator, put the gimmick back in its place under the gas tank, hooked the charge up under the hood and went into the office.

The manager gave me a big smile, waiting.

“Any calls?”

“None, sir.”

“Anyone looking for me?”

“No, sir, not a soul. Have a good day?”

“Profitable,” I said.

“Care to keep the other room for tonight too?”

I threw a bill down on the counter top. “Yeah, I might as well.”

He took the bill, stored it away and handed me my change and a receipt. “Just call me if you want anything.”

“I’ll do that.”

I went back outside and stood in the fading light and looked over at the car. They’d have to start wondering sometime, I thought. The bastards! I grinned to myself, thinking through their minds. That oscillator had been put in place with masking tape and it could have fallen off. There was always the chance that a wired charge wasn’t hooked up correctly too. I eased the oscillator down and let it lay in the sandy loam under the car, then rewired the charge myself from a different viewpoint. Up front, a convertible drove in with a young couple in the front and Just Married slogans chalked on the sides of their car. I checked the room on the other side of the car, went back to the office and registered that one in under my name too and paid for it. I was getting to be the best customer the guy had. The newlyweds took a room at the far end, giggling all the way, and the manager gave me a knowing wink and a laugh as I went out.

Maybe they’d have a night to remember, I thought. At least nobody could be in the area where they could get hurt. Only the world was reserved for destruction.

The phone was ringing when I got in my room. I recognized the voice but went through the coded check anyway and Dave Elroy gave me the right answers. “Got in an hour ago, Tiger. I’m at the Sea Cliff in room ten. Anything for me to do?”

“Yeah, probe this town and see if you can find any source of narcotics. Look for H primarily and try to find out if Agrounsky was a user.”

“Any indications?”

“All of them,” I told him. “Got hooked in a hospital, thought cured, but was under a severe mental strain and might have reverted. He took off periodically and it might have been to see his supplier. All I want to do is be sure. And see if he made any big buys.”

“Before he left?”

“Right. Try to date it.”

“Okay, will do.”

“You have an informant in this area?” I asked him.

“Not yet, but I know who can give me a lead. Tiger...”

“What?”

“Things are getting touchy. Hal Randolph is raising hell in New York. They want you on the scene up there.”

“Screw them.”

“They have technicians breaking down all the circuitry of the control system and they haven’t come up with anything yet. Some of the wheels are insisting that it couldn’t have been done and are yammering to call off the search.”

“The idiots.”

“They won’t do it, though,” he said. “They can’t take the chance.”

“How about Niger Hoppes?”

“Not a thing. Grady has called in everybody and is pulling all the plugs. He’s an unknown face. Johnson called from London again with another bit... There’s a possibility that he might have a slight limp now, but it wasn’t confirmed. It could have been faked to throw off anybody looking for him in the future. You got the angle about him being a sniffer, didn’t you?”

“Check.”

“Then you got the latest. Johnson said he used the Bolatrine variety but that isn’t sold in the U.S. at all. There are derivatives almost the same, so it wouldn’t make any difference at all. I checked with Ernie Bentley and he told me all the inhalers conformed to the Pure Food and Drug Act... no bennies sold over the counters... but the only similarity was the containers. One firm makes them all in different shapes and sizes.”

“Good enough. Call me back if you dig up anything.”

“Roger. Off now. Behave.”

I put the phone back and snapped on the television. I lay on the bed in the dark and watched the last segment of a western before the news came on, caught the news broadcast that mentioned that the sniper outside Claude Boster’s shop hadn’t been apprehended yet, then closed my eyes for a little while waiting for time to pass. Nobody was going to come near me until the night had quieted into that death-like quality that comes after a small town goes to sleep and the traffic has diminished to an occasional truck going up the highway.

But I was wrong.

Somebody had waited too long and couldn’t understand why the expected hadn’t happened. He didn’t want to have to make excuses and be responsible for a bungled job and he checked to make sure. He must have found the oscillator and taped it back thinking it had fallen off from the heat and the vibration, then looked again to make sure the dynamite sticks were in place where they should be and when he wiggled the wires he had so carefully installed the night before they all seemed secure until the final wiggle touched off the cross wiring I had rigged and he blew up into a gory mess of parts and liquid slop and was plastered all over the remnants of the rooms I had rented on either side of the car.

The noise of the explosion was a terrible, flat, roaring sound that spread light and heat into the compound like the midday sun for one instant, then died away without leaving a trace of an echo. Only little noises came then — things falling back to earth... other things slowly giving way to fall from the impact of the blast. The silence was a stunned hush, then a woman’s voice screamed incoherently, gaining in intensity until it was quieted from a lack of breath.

I was out of the door and on the scene before anyone else, standing there looking at the twisted wreckage when the manager came up, the expression on his face one of complete disbelief. “What... what happened?”

“Go call the cops. Shake it. Then come back and keep everybody away from here.”

He gaped at me absently, swallowed hard and shuffled off, glancing back nervously over his shoulder. But somebody had beaten him to it. The wail of a siren tickled the air, coming from the east side of town, then another joined it from another direction. Already, the curious had started forward at a half-run, converging on the scene while the dust and fumes still hung overhead like a small cloud.

There was little left of the car at all and practically nothing of the buildings that had squeezed it in and softened the blast from tearing up the rest of the place. Blood-wet fragments of flesh glistened on metallic parts and larger pieces of the body were scattered in the rubble to the left.

One piece was intact... a hand. It lay there palm upward, expressing a peculiar bewilderment as if it still had life and could think and wonder. A section of plate glass lay on the ground and I picked it up, polished it with a handkerchief, pressed it against the fingertips, slipped it into my pocket. Then I flipped the hand as far as I could into the bushes.

The manager was still incoherent, still fumbling with the phone when I got in the office. He never even saw me poke around behind the desk until I found a heavy packet of fold-out cards that gave a picturesque view of the Cape Kennedy area, slip the glass into the middle where I held it in place with tape, then address it to Ernie Bentley and stamp it to go out in the morning airmail.

He’d know what it meant.

I only had a minute to do what I had to do, but it was enough time. I got back to my original room, stripped off the .45 and the speed rig, got the extra box of shells and the two clips out of my suitcase and stuck them behind the air-conditioner grill vent at the top of the room. No matter what happened, I didn’t want anybody impounding my equipment for any reason.

Captain Hardecker got there in his own car, skidding into the drive ahead of the police cruiser and the two fire trucks that followed them. There weren’t enough people around to give him trouble with crowd control and he cleared out all those who didn’t belong in the motel area. The fire crew was quick and efficient, sizing up the situation immediately and checking for any unexploded dynamite sticks, standing by with the equipment to douse any flame that might occur. But like so many blasts of this intensity, combustible materials were disintegrated and the concussion blew out anything ignited before it could catch hold. Nevertheless, they dampened down the bedding remains and wooden splinters still showing, raking through the debris trying to separate the parts of the thing that had once been human.

We held the conference in the motel office, the manager out of it for the time being, trying to settle his nerves with a strong bourbon on the rocks. Hardecker sat back easily in a wicker rocker, scanning me through the blue smoke of a cigar while I told him I had rented both rooms and the car and couldn’t explain why anybody would want to get rid of me.

When I finished he said, “Now that sounds like a reasonable story, all right, but between you and me, it doesn’t make sense. You know what it sounds like from my direction?”

“Tell me.”

“Like you deliberately parked that car there and took the rooms on both sides so nobody would get hurt if the car did get blown.”

I agreed with a deliberate nod. “Except for one thing.”

“Oh?” he said. “Now what could that be?”

“When somebody rigs a car to blow up they wire it so that they nail the occupant when he turns the key. I didn’t turn the key, so either one of two things happened. The car was rigged and somebody tried to steal it or the guy rigging it blew himself up in the process.”

“I can think of something else,” Hardecker said.

This time I said, “Oh?”

“You rigged the car and waited for somebody to get in it.”

“That wouldn’t be very smart, would it? I’m still here.”

“All these stunts aren’t pulled by smart people. Nope, I don’t like your story. Besides, there’s something else.”

“Now what?”

“You aren’t scared enough, mister. You should be all shook and you’re not even sweating. You act like it happens every day around you.”

“I’m not the nervous type.”

He grinned slowly, then looked up as the mailman came in, dropped a few letters on the desk and picked up what was in the receptacle. I watched my card folder go into his bag and felt better. “Fun this morning?” the mailman asked Hardecker without looking up from his work.

“Every day,” the Captain told him. “If it isn’t one thing it’s another.”

When he went out the uniformed cop outside the door spoke to one of the firemen holding a small basket in his hand, stuck his head inside and said, “Captain, they may have some identifiable parts here... a denture anyway. No clothes or labels yet.”

Hardecker nodded solemnly and puffed on the cigar again. “Get the teeth to the lab and process it. We’ll find out who he was.” He looked at me deliberately and tapped his cigar out and dropped the stub in his pocket. “And now for you. I think we’ll print you up and find out all about you, mister. Mind?”

“Not at all.”

“Unless you’d like to talk about it.”

“I’ve said it all, Captain.”

“Let’s go then,” he said and got up with a sigh to move to the door and wait on me.

It was the driver of the other squad car who recognized me. Before I could get in beside Hardecker, he came over and leaned on the window and tapped my shoulder. “You were with Mr. Boster when somebody shot at him, weren’t you?”

There wasn’t any sense denying it. “That’s right.”

“I think you got a live one, Captain.”

Hardecker looked at me slowly, his mouth twisting into a small smile. “That true, mister?”

“I was there.”

“Maybe we got plenty to talk about after all, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not especially.”

The Captain looked across me and said, “Follow us, Pete, then go pick up Boster. Maybe together they’ll have something to say. You find anything in this guy’s room?”

“Nope. Just clothes. He’s clean.”

Hardecker gave me another one of those funny smiles. “You don’t happen to have a weapon on you, do you?”

“It’s a hell of a time to ask, but I don’t.”

His voice rumbled in a deep chuckle. “Don’t worry, I could have told if you had. I can smell ’em.”

Just so he wouldn’t feel too sure of himself I chuckled back and said, “I don’t really need them.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, but he gave me a peculiar look as though he were seeing me for the first time and his smile faded completely away. He switched the key on, pulled the lever into gear and dug out into the street.

I let them put me through the entire procedure, mugging me for their files, printing me, taking me into the office that served as an interrogation room, then being offered a chair and cigarettes across the table from Hardecker. The patrolman he had called Pete came in to report that Claude Boster was not at home, nor did he say where he was going. Hardecker told him to make periodic checks until he found him and get him down as soon as possible.

Only then did he sit back comfortably, his hands resting in his lap. After a minute of steady watching he said, “Now I know something is screwy here, Mr. er...”

“Mann is my right name.” I grinned at him.

“By now,” he told me, “most people would be screaming for a lawyer or wanting to make a phone call or yelling that we were violating their rights. That sort of thing, you know?”

“I know.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“What for?”

“You might have something to hide.”

“Maybe I don’t.”

“It’s more than that, isn’t it?”

“Possibly.”

“You know,” he said, “you could have squawked and we never would’ve been able to print you.” He leaned on his elbows and cupped his chin in his hands. “That isn’t natural, is it?”

“I’ve been printed before.”

“No doubt. So you’re playing for time. I’d like to know why.”

“It’s easier this way than explaining,” I said.

“Would it be easier if I locked you up until I found out what this was all about?”

“It wouldn’t matter,” I said easily. “Do what you like.”

“Let’s give it a try,” he said.

The jail was clean and modern, the cell he gave me freshly scrubbed with a window facing the south that let in a fat rectangle of striped sunlight. “Any time you want to talk,” Hardecker reminded me, “I’ll be upstairs. I’m looking forward to some interesting conversation, Mr. Mann. The reporters are too. There hasn’t been this much excitement around here in a long time. All kinds of speculation going on.”

“I’ll let you know,” I said and sat down on the cot and lit up a butt. The door clanged shut and they left.

I had to wait it out. It was all I could do. One thing going for me was that they couldn’t locate Claude Boster. If he got picked up before I got to him and brought Louis Agrounsky’s name into the deal, then everything could go to hell all at once. I looked at my watch. It was about two o’clock and I was hungry.

Maybe Agrounsky was hungry too. Not for food. For something more potent. For something he had to shoot into his veins to give him that thing he needed so badly. The pattern was beginning to make sense now. Dr. Carlson had nailed it down without knowing it, putting the lid on the kind of temperament Louis Agrounsky really had. Agrounsky was an addict. He couldn’t stay away from the stuff, even after he was thought to be cured, and found himself a source of supply to take care of his needs.

That was as much as it took. Under the influence of the big H all his fears and frustrations came out of the shadows and he thought he was big enough to wipe them out by himself. But somewhere along the line he talked to somebody, or was recognized, and his addiction was stored away in the memory bank of a Soviet dossier until it was needed. To satisfy his need for the stuff he wiped himself out financially, selling everything, until he had nothing left to sell... except one thing.

And the Soviets had the payoff means. One kilo of H properly cut could serve an addict for a long, long time. It was a very tempting arrangement. Now the big question — was it planned or did it happen accidentally?

They brought the evening paper with my supper and I had a chance to see pictures of the devastation at the motel and my name in the papers as T. Marvin, the one I had registered with. I grinned at that, because whatever Hardecker thought, he was too wary to play with something that didn’t smell right. There was always time later to correct a mistake like that... unless some reporter didn’t take it at face value and checked the police blotter. The story was descriptive rather than informative and gave out few pertinent details. The identity of the dead man hadn’t been established yet, nor his motive, and I was mentioned as simply being held for questioning.

At ten P.M. the guard came down the hall, turned the key in the lock and opened the door. “You got a visitor, Mann.”

“Who?”

“Says he’s a friend of yours. Dave Elroy.”

“Sure.” I got up and followed him down the corridor and up into the main building where I was waved into a room where Dave was sitting, a fat grin on his face. The guard left the door open and stood there unconcernedly, but taking it all in.

“Hi, Dave.”

“Wait till the boys at the plant hear about this. How you doing?”

“Great. Nice suite facing the water.” I looked around the room and spotted the two bugs without any trouble, letting my eyes deliberately point out the microphones. Dave nodded, having already seen them himself, and offered me a cigarette. I said, “What’re you doing here?”

“What’s a friend for? Want out?”

“Nope. I could have put up bail myself.”

“Only you’re the stubborn type. Who blew the car?”

“Beats me. Some nut.”

“World’s full of ’em. Anything you need?”

“Not a thing.”

“No sense sticking around then.”

“How you making out, Dave?” I asked casually.

“Fine. My old customers came through with some new contacts and it’s paid off. This is virgin territory for a good salesman. Half the time you don’t even have to sell... they look for you to buy from you. One guy was such a good customer he wiped out a stockpile in no time at all. Had to move on because he couldn’t get goods any more. Business squeeze that was... one of the big companies put the pressure on the little guys so he was cut off and had to deal with them, only they cut their own throats because he skipped and got his material from someplace else. Business is rough, sometimes. Even with the anti-trust and monopoly laws they still pull that stuff.”

I nodded. “Well, it doesn’t pay to grow too big,” I said.

Dave got up and stretched. “I’ll stop around again if you need anything. Give me a call sometime. I’ll speak to the Captain on the way out. He doesn’t seem too unfriendly.”

“Nice guy. Very patient.”

“He can afford to be,” Dave told me.

“So can I.”

When Dave left, the guard took me back to the cell, locked me in and ten minutes later the lights went out automatically. An hour later a couple of boisterous drunks were brought in, locked up several cells down, and before dawn a pair of bearded teenagers staging some kind of a demonstration outside the project area were hustled in and tossed half crying into the can. What those guys needed was a tour of duty in some damn jungle.

Breakfast came at six and Hardecker at eight. He came down alone, opened the cell himself and nodded me out. I picked up my coat and hat, automatically went to the desk to collect my belongings that were held in a brown manila envelope and signed the receipt for them.

Hardecker let me put everything back in my pocket before saying, “Let’s go into the office a minute.”

“Sure.”

He closed the door and sat down, his face tight and a wariness in his eyes. “You could have told me, Mann.”

“Told you what?”

“Just who you were. I could have checked instead of sticking my neck into a goddamn noose.”

“So?”

“There was a delay in getting a report back on your prints. Then the teletype started and I had to get on the phone to Washington. I had people crawling up my back wanting to know what the hell was going on and all I could give them was the details and that was enough. I got orders to lay off you and keep my big mouth shut and to play this your way no matter how you wanted it played.” He paused and pursed his lips. “Who the hell are you, buddy?”

“Just a citizen, Captain.”

“How big?”

“Big.”

“Why?” he asked me seriously.

“If I told you you’d never believe it.”

“And supposing I did?”

“Then you’d wish I had never told you so you could sleep at night without wondering when it was all going to end.”

“What end?”

I looked at the sunshine coming in the window. “That,” I said.

He waited a few seconds, tight lines drawing in around his eyes, before he said, “Crazy!” almost under his breath. “What do you want me to do?”

“Kill that story. As far as the press is concerned, the guy who pulled it was a mental case who had done the same thing before. He didn’t need a motive... something like a firebug.”

Hardecker looked down into his hands and nodded. “Okay, that’s easy as long as a real ID doesn’t show and the reporters don’t get it if it does. Do you know who he was?”

“No.”

“What else?”

“Forget Claude Boster. Don’t tie us together. They were not related affairs.”

“For my own information, were they?”

“I don’t know. My guess is that they were but I’m not sure.”

“Damn it,” he said, “what kind of a lash-up is this anyway?”

“An international one, Captain. Nothing’s being taken out of your hands. We’re just requesting your help. That’s why I preferred to spend the night in the cooler rather than spread the news around. Like I said, it’s easier that way.”

“Not on my nerves, Mann. Where will you be staying?... as long as you’re here... and not that I expect you to be around long the way people are going after your skin.”

“The same place,” I told him. “It’s as good as any now.”

Captain Hardecker was rolled back in his desk chair when I opened the door. His feet were propped on the window sill, the stub of a cigar clamped in his teeth while he looked at the telephoto in his hands. The look he gave me was hard, but not too unfriendly. “I’ve been expecting you,” he said.

“Henri Frank?”

“A missing person. Do I get an explanation?”

I took the picture he held out to me, a front and profile view of a guy who would always be missing. “You got it,” I said. “He’s disappeared.”

“Can I make a guess?”

“Go ahead.”

“Like blown to bits?”

I shrugged. “It’s a possibility.”

“How distinct?”

“Very.”

“I’m glad you admitted it.”

“Why?”

“Because some kid at the motel found a gun that had been blown fifty yards away and his old man turned it in to us. We checked the ballistics and the slugs matched those used out at Boster’s place.”

“It figures,” I said.

“Then why the picture?” he asked.

“To find out what’s known about him. I want some b.g. on the guy.”

“Nobody here knew him.”

“I didn’t think they would.”

“Since it came in on the printer as an m.p. I took the liberty of running off a few copies. Two of my men are asking around. Know where they might hit pay dirt?”

“Not the faintest.”

“And if we hit it anyway...?”

“Any cooperation would be appreciated.”

“You scare me,” he said bluntly. “You and that goddamn attitude, that look in your eyes. It’s not like I haven’t seen it before. I’ve been in this business a long time and I can classify types automatically. Like in the movies, there are good guys and bad guys and if I had to put you anywhere it would be the bad guy department, only bad guys don’t have your connections and that’s what scares me. This whole damn situation is unreal, and that’s what makes it too real for me. This town is a hotspot to start with and someplace the Soviets have an ICBM lined up to pop right down our throats like they have all their other primary targets. I don’t enjoy sitting on my thumbs having nothing to do while something is ready to claw me up.” He pulled the cigar out of his mouth and tossed it into the metal wastebasket where it hit with a wet plop. “How bad is it?”

“Bad,” I said simply.

“Then why are you alone on this?”

“I’m not. You just haven’t seen the others.”

“Publicity could blow something then?”

“All the way.”

“Okay, I’ll go along. I’ll be damned if I don’t dig something up on this guy.” He caught the look on my face and said, “Don’t worry. We know how to ask questions too. We have our own ways and our own people. I’ll give you a call if something turns up.”

“Thanks.” I flicked my finger against Henri Frank’s picture. “Mind if I keep this?”

“It’s yours.” I looked at it again, saw the face of the one who wasn’t any more, a partially bald-headed guy with a sallow face and eyes too close together. He had a mouth like he had just tasted something sour and the expression of those who had nothing but dislike for the rest of the world. Perhaps before he would have seemed ordinary, another guy out of step with himself, fighting everything because he was inadequate for survival unless he was handed it on a platter, but now, knowing what he was really like inside, the picture fitted him perfectly. I stuck it in my pocket, nodded to Hardecker and left.

Flight 804 was taxiing up to the ramp as I parked the car. Four men came down the anus-like stairs in the rear of the plane before I saw Camille Hunt. She had her suitcoat over her shoulders, leaning against the downpour with her head ducked into it. I ran over, took the briefcase from her hand and said, “Hi, spider.”

“You would drag me out into this.”

I grinned at her. “You don’t know how easy you have it. The car’s over here.”

She got in, shook the rain from her shoulders, and tossed the silly hat she had on in the back seat. “My goodness, Tiger, is this really necessary?”

“It was.”

She gave me an exasperated glance. “Was? You mean I made the trip for nothing?”

“I’m here.”

“That’s a consolation.”

“I’ll try my best.”

Camille nudged me with an elbow, her face still shining wetly from the rain. “Seriously, what is this all about?”

As I threaded my way out to the road I said, “I wanted you to make an identification. It isn’t important any more. Henri Frank is dead.”

“Dead? But... how?”

“He blew himself to bits trying to knock me off. It was a case of a guy who couldn’t understand his own failure and tried to check on it. I was there before him.”

“Tiger... this whole thing...”

I let it hang there. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get you back to Belt-Aire in the morning.”

She gave me a long, steady stare. “You just haven’t read the weather reports. My flight was the last one in. They expect everything to be grounded tomorrow. If it weren’t for some slight mechanical trouble we would have gone on into Miami.”

“So you got an unexpected vacation.”

“My foot,” Camille exploded. “With all the work piling up I can’t afford it. Do you know orders came in from Martin Grady himself this morning to arrange for an expansion program? The Belt-Aire project has been approved and goes into full production at once. I shouldn’t be here now.”

“Well, I’ll try to make your stay enjoyable.”

“Swell,” she said with a hint of sarcasm. “Where will we go?”

“First, to a whorehouse.”

She turned her head to see if I were joking or not, then decided I was serious and frowned with annoyance. “I don’t understand you.”

“That’s good. We’ll never have any trouble then.”

Louis Agrounsky had frequented a place that had all the earmarks of respectability if you didn’t know what it was. The house was a two story affair barely different from its neighbors; better kept, if anything. The lawn and hedgerow were trimmed, the siding freshly painted, and the two cars in the double garage were both late model Fords inconspicuous anywhere.

The woman who answered the bell was the full-blown type, tall and pleasant, with a ready smile under vivacious blue eyes and a pert tilt to her pretty blonde head. She started to say something, then saw Camille and divided her glance between us, as though we had come to the wrong house.

“Yes?”

“Lisa McCall.”

Her eyebrows went up questioningly. “Yes, I’m Miss McCall.”

“I’d like to speak to you about a friend of mine. Can we come in?”

The blonde nodded and opened the door wider, the smile curious now. She could smell the trouble, but rather than be frightened she was curious because of it. When she shut the door behind us she walked ahead and ushered us into a well appointed living room dominated by a masculine bar that was out of place among the obviously feminine decorations.

Out of routine, she went behind the bar, waited until I said I’d have a rye and ginger with Camille nodding for the same, then mixed the drinks and placed them in front of us.

“I know you,” she said quietly.

“Do you?”

“La Plata Bar in Rio. Four years ago. There was an attempted revolution and you killed two men who tried to take the one you were with. He was a General named Ortega Diaz.”

“You get around, kid.” Beside me I could feel Camille tense suddenly, then relax. In the mirror behind the bar I could see her eyes watching me as if I were something in a zoo.

“I don’t know your name.”

“Tiger Mann.”

“Yes. I have heard it mentioned. There were a lot of stories about you in Rio.”

“They were troubled times. But I don’t remember you and I don’t like that. I don’t generally forget faces.”

The girl made a sad motion with her hands, but smiled and said, “I was younger then, and pretty. Time and this business does things to one. I was twenty pounds lighter and my hair was black. A nose job to correct what a drunken seaman did to me makes a big difference.” She stopped smiling then and looked at me seriously. “But you came to see about a friend.”

“Louis Agrounsky. Hardecker gave me the tip and told me about bugging the room for information. Now I want your version.”

Her expression was bland a moment, then a furrow appeared between her eyes. “But what is there to tell?”

“Your reaction. I’m more interested in your opinion of the association. You’ve been with enough men to read through them.”

Lisa McCall dropped her head a moment, then peered up at me. “It probably was as professional as it can get.” She looked over at Camille and the corner of her mouth twisted in a funny smile. “Am I embarrassing you?”

“No... not at all.” I caught the implication in her tone of voice. Camille was quietly objective, observing every facet of a type she had never come into contact with before.

Lisa said, “There was little conversation. Mr. Agrounsky wasn’t given to talk and it was obvious that he was inexperienced with women. He called here and I immediately called Captain Hardecker who installed the tape recorder in the room. When he arrived he simply paid his... fee, then we left for the bedroom. He demanded nothing out of the ordinary, was quite incompetent sexually from lack of experience, thanked me when it was over and seemed a little bit shaken for having resorted to such an extreme.”

“He was here on six different occasions.”

“That’s right,” Lisa agreed readily. “Twice when I wasn’t here Marge attended to him. Each time Captain Hardecker was notified. There never was any change in his routine. If anything, it was very formal. I know why Captain Hardecker was interested... it wasn’t the first time this happened nor the last. Several times this... establishment has been useful to him.”

“So I understand. I’m not complaining. But I still want your opinion.”

“Of... the arrangement?” she asked me.

“No... just Agrounsky.”

Lisa let her eyes wander to the wall, then came back to me with a knowing expression. “For what it’s worth, I’d say we were substitutes.”

“For what?”

“Your friend wasn’t a forward type at all. Under all that reserve he still had masculine drives but didn’t know how to compensate for them. My guess is that he visited here after he had had some previous contact with a woman. She probably aroused him somewhat, but he was unable to approach her and came here as a last resort for... physical release.”

“Did he ever mention this?”

“No, but it was a very familiar attitude. It isn’t at all unusual.” She stopped a moment, touched her lips with her tongue and said, “I didn’t mention it to Captain Hardecker because it slipped my mind, but once after he left another... client saw him go and made a remark about it when he was with me. Something about Mr. Agrounsky being so aloof at the project when all the time he had the hots over some young technician in his laboratory. He used to blush whenever he saw her legs but never bothered looking away, either. It was sort of a joke with the men, I think.”

“This client...”

“No use, Mr. Mann. I told you what you asked me.”

“The girl?”

“Never mentioned her name. You can probably ask around.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks for your trouble.”

“My pleasure, Mr. Mann. I’ve been around enough to realize the possibilities in this sort of thing. I hope everything comes out all right.”

“So do I,” I told her. “If you think of anything else, I’m at the Sand Dunes Motel. Or you can call Hardecker.”

Lisa went ahead of us and opened the door, smiling politely at us both. As I went out she said, “Hurry back,” but before I could answer Camille gave me another short jab in the ribs and grimaced as the rain sliced into her face. She wanted to say something, but a sneeze stopped her short.

“Damn,” she told me as she climbed into the car, “if I get a cold out of this you’re a dead fly.”

“Mud dauber, remember?”

“All I remember is that I came down here without a thing to wear and I’m soaking wet. What are you going to do with me?”

“Get you in a motel and dry you out.”

“That’s the first exciting thing you’ve said to me today,” she chuckled.

The little old lady at the desk of the Sand Dunes gave me a knowing nod when I checked Camille in and asked if I wanted an adjoining room for her. Rather than shake her faith in her supposed powers of observation I tossed a bill down and said, “Why sure. I’m too old to be chasing around in the rain.”

Her mouth pursed with indignation and she didn’t know whether to believe me or not, so she just handed over the key, a late paper and asked if I wanted ice water in the room. I told her no and drove on down to the end of the row.

“Man and wife?” Camille asked with a small leer.

“That takes all the fun out of it,” I told her. “It’s better to have to kick your door down.”

“You would too, wouldn’t you?”

I shook my head. “I’m too handy at picking a lock.”

“Well, never mind either. I’ll leave the door open. I have my own way of handling you virile types.” She stifled another sneeze, shook her head with annoyance and got out of the car in front of her room.

It didn’t take her long to get in the shower. I heard the water run at full blast and a short yell as she found it too hot and settled it down to an even temperature.

I picked up the phone and called Ernie Bentley. I gave him the coded ID and said, “Tiger. Did you follow up my request?”

“Got it right here. Hit it with the second call and no protest. Louis Agrounsky sold two patented devices to D.L.W. Enterprises for a thousand dollars apiece. The deal was made by phone, confirmed and paid for by telegram sent and received out of Wilmington, North Carolina, with a following letter from the same city signed by Agrounsky assigning them all rights and residuals. The patents comprised mini components for TV transmitting cameras and were worth a hundred times that but all he wanted was immediate cash and a deal that could be made without going through lengthy legal maneuverings. D.L.W. was happy to go through with it and even took the chance on it being a phoney to wrap it up.”

“The telegraph office demanded identification?”

“They did... and he presented it. The check was cashed at the receiving office in small bills. The clerk remembered him well enough to describe him and there’s no doubt about it being Agrounsky. I passed the information on to Newark Control and they tried to pick it up without any luck. He never checked in at any of the local hotels or motels and the clerk didn’t remember him having a car.”

“He could travel a long way on two grand.”

“Or he could stick around and spend it,” Ernie said.

“That’s what I’m thinking too.”

It was making better sense now. Wilmington was a seaport and a possible drop for narcotics that flowed into the country. If Agrounsky drew a blank in the Myrtle Beach area after he sold his car he could have headed north by bus looking for another supplier and Wilmington was the next logical spot on the route to New York. If a source had been prearranged for him he’d know where to go, but he wouldn’t be taking any chances on being caught short again. Even though he was still an amateur in the business, a hophead could be crafty. He had to learn fast to stay on his kick and keep the monkey off his back. That was where the Soviets went wrong. They weren’t dealing with a rational person at all. Agrounsky the scientist they could deal with. Agrounsky the addict was unpredictable. He wasn’t taking any chances getting screwed with a cut deal any more. He had picked up his own bundle and was getting the H his own way now.

Ernie cut off my thought with, “Your package will be at the post office in General Delivery tomorrow morning. There’s still a check on all Bezex sales and one was reported at the Atlanta air terminal yesterday. If Hoppes is on his way down it’s along the route. Other sales were scattered. Miami reported several, but the salespeople knew the buyers.”

“What’s the life of the container?” I asked him.

“About two days of constant use. Built-in obsolescence, European style. Potent, but of short duration. A real sales gimmick. Scatter the batch down there and watch for a reaction.”

“Will do, Ernie.” I paused, thought a moment and said, “Has Rondine made contact yet?”

“No. Your message will go through when she calls. Virgil Adams said she and her friend Talbot went to Washington but haven’t been located yet. They may still be there or on the way back.”

“Right.”

“Now here’s one direct from H.Q. Grady wants action fast. You’re not getting through often enough and he’s hot. Word has leaked out of some of the ICBM installations that something big’s going on and the newspapers are yelling for official statements on what’s happening. A smart assed reporter dug out a history on Vito Salvi and wanted to release it but I.A.T.S. reached him in time and he’s been in protective custody since this morning. It’s gotten as far as overseas and there’s a storm brewing, Tiger. Nobody is going to be able to sit on this much longer.”

“But nothing’s been located?”

“Not as far as we know. They completely cut off the installation at the March Station and are rebuilding the system. Unless the by-pass is found they’ll eventually do it all over, but that will take a year anyway and will leave us in the cold. Technical crews went into the Nordic and Vesper Stations in California, but that’s only a drop in the bucket. All it takes is one and Agrounsky was involved in nine of the projects. Damn, this thing even has me shaking.”

“It should.”

Ernie’s voice changed then and he said almost quietly, “How does it look, Tiger?”

“Lousy,” I told him and put the phone back.

Next door the water was still running hard and I heard Camille’s voice half muted in some song. I lifted the phone again and gave the operator the number of Helen Lewis’ apartment in Sarasota I had picked up from Hardecker’s report sheet.

After a two minute wait I got the superintendent of the building who came on with a high flutey voice and told me who he was. I said, “Can you reach Helen Lewis for me?”

“Miss Lewis? Why, I don’t believe she has a phone.”

“Can you get her to this one?”

He giggled, then said, “I’m afraid not. Miss Lewis has been on vacation and isn’t expected back for some time. Can I take a message?”

“Do you know where I can reach her?”

“You might try Rome,” he giggled again. “That’s where she said she was going. She travels a lot, you know. In fact, if she weren’t paid up for a year in advance I’d be tempted to rent her apartment out.”

“Don’t do that,” I told him.

“No, of course not. I was only joking. Sorry I can’t be of help.”

“Tell me one thing... is her apartment furnished?”

“Naturally, all of our apartments are. Why, may I ask?”

“No reason. Thanks anyway.”

“Certainly,” he said, and broke the connection with another giggle.

And there it ended again. A short road with nothing around the bend. Everything petered out into a puff of dust. The whole world was sitting on the thin edge of destruction, never knowing how close to the edge it was, and every thread to the man upon whose whim annihilation or life depended was broken off short.

The trouble was that it wasn’t a planned arrangement. It was something totally accidental that was stumbled upon, and before an arrangement could be properly set up, circumstances became accidental again. Agrounsky’s condition was seized upon quickly enough. The importance of his defection from logical principles was recognized, but he couldn’t be handled in an ordinary manner, his susceptibility to narcotics was minimized, and he got out of the circle because of his immediate need for the big jolt.

He was fair game now, but above all, he was his own biggest target.

Next door the water stopped and I heard the shower doors open and shut as Camille Hunt stepped out to dry herself. I opened the bureau drawer, took out a blue oxford shirt and unfolded it, then stepped outside and knocked on her door.

When she called to come in I pushed the door open. She hadn’t bothered to lock it. The electric wall heater was going full blast with a chair drawn up in front of it, her clothes draped over the back to dry off. Tendrils of steam still came from the partially opened bathroom door and I walked over and stuck my hand in with the shirt in it.

“This is all I could find,” I said.

“Gee, thanks.”

“It ought to be long enough to cover up the goodies. Tie the tails between your legs and be glad I’m so thoughtful.”

She snatched it from me with a laugh and slammed the door shut just as I got my hand out of the way. A minute later it opened again and she came out. Camille hadn’t tied the tails like I told her, but it was long enough. She stood there smiling at me and said, “Damn you. It’s indecent.”

“I saw your picture in the office, remember?”

“That’s not the same,” she told me.

And she was right. Her body was still damp from the shower and the fabric clung to her skin, her breasts full and high, centered with emotional punctuation marks she couldn’t hide, rising pertly with each nervous breath she took.

The taper of the shirt was too big, blousy at the waist, but swelled out over hips that filled it and draped down across a flat stomach that arched outward gently from her navel before outlining the female beauty that lay beneath. The shirt ended at the middle of her thighs and somehow she seemed more naked than if she had been wearing nothing at all, and with the light from the bathroom behind her, filtering through the cloth, all the essence of the woman in the picture was magnified in front of me.

“This is all I could find,” I said.

“Yes, I know. With an oiled feather.”

“I’ll go dig up a chicken.”

“Don’t bother. Just help me get my clothes dry.”

The black half-slip, bra and bikini pants hung across the slats of the ladderback chair were barely damp, but the wool skirt and suitcoat were heavy with moisture, dripping on the floor while tufts of steam rose lazily upward. The room was beginning to have the feel of a Turkish bath.

“Those things’ll shrink,” I told her.

“And I’ll charge it all off to Martin Grady. Tomorrow, a new suit and you can pay for it.”

She had been smoothing the skirt out on the seat of the chair and stood up suddenly, turning around with a smile, close... too close, and my hands went around her waist. There was a startling warmth to her and under my fingers I felt her body tighten, tiny muscles responding to the unexpected touch. Her smile dissolved into a half-helpless look and the rich, ripe mouth that was about to say something parted wetly and her breath was like a stifled sob.

Camille Hunt had spent too many years being objective. She had been the watcher, not the doer — her reflexes were geared to the other person’s reactions and someplace she had forgotten about her own. She came to me with an instinctive gesture that had been inborn in women thousands of generations ago, yet conscious of the bewildering fact that she was capable of it and moved to its demands with a volition she couldn’t and didn’t want to control. Her eyes were sleepy things, knowing, yet pleading for it to happen quickly before the trained consciousness could reject the animal impulse that was activating her.

Her body began to press against me in a rolling motion, coming to me in a slow arc, her thighs touching first, then her belly in a timorous touch that changed to a powerful thrust as she ran her hands up my back and pulled me against her breasts that had stiffened into hard probing mounds of pure desire and when our mouths met it was with a fierce, driving contact like being sucked into a hungry vortex of violent passion. Her lips and tongue were lively things that worked to drain away the last reserve and with a mewing little cry her fingers tore open the shirt so that the buttons fell to the floor like raindrops and she crumpled slowly, pulling me down on top of her.

The reflected warmth of the heater was lost in the glow we created ourselves. Her hands were wild things working at me to expose flesh to flesh, her desire for satisfaction beyond belief, her imagination transcending that of any woman I had known before. Time after time we fulfilled ourselves until sheer physical limitations put an end to it and we lay there amidst scattered clothes in the exhaustion only pleasure can bring.

We would have stayed like that if I didn’t hear the muffled call of a phone from my room next door. I snaked myself loose from her arms, hearing a small, disappointed protest, and picked up the receiver from beside her bed and told the switchboard in the office to transfer the call there.

Dave Elroy caught the change in circuits and coded himself properly, then waited for my own proper ID before he said, “Tiger... what the hell’s going on? Trouble?”

“Everything’s fine,” I told him and he knew by my choice of simple words we were clear to speak. “What’s up?”

“This town’s crawling with Federal men. C.I.A., F.B.I. and I.A.T.S. are stationed all over the place. I spotted those who would know me and stayed out of sight. Charlie Corbinet’s in with them and they’ve shaken your other hotel room down, so they want you.”

“Where’s Corbinet at?”

“He checked into your old digs and is waiting around. As far as I can tell he’s the only one there.”

“Good. I’ll make the contact then.”

“Let it wait. I need you, old boy.”

“Why?”

“I found the guy you wanted found. Get over here now... and I mean now. I’m at 124 Pino Lane... and expedite.” That was all he said. He hung up on me.

“You have to leave?” Camille was looking at me through eyes half closed in sleep. Stretched out there naked with the reddish heat from the wall unit lighting her body, she looked like a big, lovely doll, languid in repose, the tiny smile showing the pleasant satisfaction of a woman who had enjoyed the completeness of her womanhood.

“I have to.”

“Don’t leave me here, Tiger.”

“Business, kid.”

“I don’t care. I just want to be with you for a little while longer.”

“Okay, get dressed,” I said, then finished buttoning my shirt. Camille wrinkled her nose at me, rolled into a ball for a second, then pushed onto her knees and stretched, holding a statuesque pose for a moment before getting to her feet.

“Turn around,” she told me.

“Now you get modest,” I said, laughing at her. “Great.” I checked the clip in the .45, jacked one in the chamber, put the hammer on half cock and slid it in the holster. By the time I had finished knotting my tie and getting into my coat she was almost finished. I looked at her, wondering why it was some women could come out of a rainstorm and a flurry of passion in a matter of minutes with nothing more than that look in their eyes and others couldn’t be budged for hours.

Evidently she knew what I was thinking because she smiled with those sleepy eyes and said, “Treat it like enthusiastic applause, my Tiger. The desire of a woman who has found her desire and wants to keep it as long as possible.” Her hands made a pass at her skirt and blouse for those small adjustments that build clothes onto a woman. “Neat but not gaudy. Can you stand me a little bit wrinkled?”

“As long as it isn’t deception.”

“Oh?” She glanced at me, eyebrows raised.

I said, “Isn’t it at this point the spider takes her victim? The male performs, the male satisfies, the male dies from a lethal bite.”

“Ah, but that’s only between spiders. You’re the wasp, the mud dauber. There seems to be something indecent about the relationship and we’ll probably breed a hybrid. However, this is one spider who knows when she’s well off despite the basic biological premises. I like you.”

“You’re weaving a web again.”

She laughed at me, a low, throaty chuckle, and said, “Well, let me try, anyway.”

The storm had taken on a new tone. Thunder rolled out over the ocean, lightning flashes illuminating the terrain briefly with a startlingly white brilliance. Rain drifted in front of the wind, angling sharply as the gusts increased momentarily, then came straight down to flatten out the ripples that disturbed the great puddles that ran from curb to curb.

Pino Lane was a dead-end street in a section that had started as a new development, then was discarded when progress stretched the city in another direction. Number 124 was the last house in the row, a small boxlike affair, never completed. Paint had weathered the siding and the path to the door was a line of two-by-eights laid from the curb to the house through the mud and weeds once intended for a lawn.

No lights were on behind the windows, but Dave’s car was parked fifty feet away in a turning area, nosed back for a quick move if he had to get away fast. I drove by slowly, looking for any sign of movement or fresh tracks laid in the muck, and seeing none, turned beside Dave’s car and drove back to the front of the house.

I didn’t like it at all. There were too many places for a quick gun to be crouched in the shadows, waiting. The thunder could cover the sound of a shot and a getaway would be an easy thing through the brush to a car parked on the next street. I sat there with the .45 in my hand and let the lightning brighten the area twice, scanning the spaces between the houses during the momentary daylight.

Nothing moved.

No dark blotches indicated a possible assassin.

I touched Camille’s arm and said, “I’m going in first. When I reach the door and wave you run for it.”

She nodded curtly, her tongue a nervous little thing that wet her lips. She was scared now, her voice stuck in her throat, but I knew she’d do as she was told so I opened the door, slid out and ran up the planking to the house, ready to dive into the mud if anything at all showed. I reached the two unfinished steps, flattened against the wall, turned and waved to her. She came out of the car running, hobbled by her heels and tight skirt, head down against the rain, but didn’t stop until she got to me. I grabbed her arm, pulled her behind me and waited.

Still nothing.

Then the door opened and I had Dave lined up on the end of the .45 when he said, “I was covering you all the way, Tiger. Come on in. No lights.”

I pushed Camille in first, closed the door and stood there listening.

“We’re clear, Tiger,” Dave said quietly. He flipped on the narrow beam of a pencil flash and pointed it across the room. “How about this?”

The shaft of light hit a worn mohair armchair in the comer of the room, then ran down until it traced the outline of a shapeless bundle sprawled on the floor. Nobody had to be told he was dead. There’s something special about the human body that has stopped functioning. There is a release from tension, an attitude of terrible finality in the way it can sag and drape itself in total relaxation as it kisses off the world and goes about the business of death. Even the terror and pain of dying disappear and it’s a thing in clothes that never fit over an incongruous posture impossible to attain in life.

“Beezo McCauley,” Dave said. “Puncture scars up both arms and legs. He was holding four caps of H and a new kit with two syringes in his pocket. The house has been leased to him three years; he’s got receipts showing a total disability pension from the Army, deposits in a checking account to match with occasional one-thousand-dollar discrepancies here and there, and the stubs show withdrawals that could mean a big blast off every so often.”

“What’s the rest?”

“I went through a few leads, got one that located him and came right here. Nobody answered the door so I came in a window. He had been dead about a half hour by then.”

“How?”

“Small calibre high-velocity steel slug through the heart. Damn good shot and close. The bullet penetrated his chest with a minimum exit hole, went through the chair and is still in the wall. My guess is a Magnum.”

“Niger Hoppes.”

“He’s caught up with you.”

“Not yet,” I said. “He’s just here.”

Behind me Camille let out a strangled gasp and turned her head, covering her mouth with one hand. “It’s... terrible.”

Dave lowered the flash to hit the floor at our feet. “I shook the place down as well as I could but there was nothing here. The door was unlocked and one light on by the chair that I switched off. It looks like the killer simply came up, opened the door and shot McCauley while he was sitting in the chair. No wet tracks on the inside... nothing. The rain would have obliterated all footprints outside anyway. Beezo has a fresh hole in his leg and one of the needles was still wet from being washed. Evidently he had mainlined one and was sitting back to enjoy the effects when he got hit. A nice clean wipe out.”

“Where are his papers?”

Dave reached in his pocket and took out a half-empty checkbook, a pack of receipts wrapped with a rubber band, a few folded papers and handed them to me. I didn’t bother looking at them then. Time for that later.

“You calling this one in or letting it stay this way?” Dave asked me.

“Nobody can help him now. Let’s leave him sit. If we stir things up now we’ll be doing too much explaining. If Hoppes is in the area it means he’s here to eliminate us or else he has a line on Agrounsky.”

“Hell, Tiger, with all the Feds around they ought to be able to run down a new face in the town. It isn’t that big. Hoppes has to hole up someplace.”

“He’s a pro, Dave,” I reminded him. “He won’t take a room where he has to register or be cooped up in a dead end. Either he’s moving around or he has himself a spot where he can stay buried until he wants to come out.”

“Still, it might be worth a try.”

“Let’s not scare him in deeper. If we curtail his activities he’ll be all the more careful. I’d rather give him latitude to pull something in.”

“Somebody else can die too.”

“Like the man said, you all got to go sometime. The picture’s bigger than just that.”

“Those thousand-dollar deposits...,” Dave started.

“McCauley’s payoff for his part in steering Agrounsky to the contacts up north. We’ll check out the dates and they’ll match. The nut never figures the final payoff would be bigger than he bargained for. The Soviets aren’t going to leave anybody alive who can mess up their play.”

“Then they wouldn’t run Hoppes in alone.”

“He won’t be alone. They’re screening every move down here. You can damn well bet the C.I.A. and I.A.T.S. have specialists on this operation that can identify all known Soviet operatives, so they’ll have people in they’ve been holding for an emergency. No... the faces will be new, all right.”

“That leaves us holding the bag.”

“Like hell it does,” I said.

In the semi-darkness of the room, lit by occasional strikes of white lightning from the outside, Dave watched my face and grinned. “What have you got going for you, boy?”

“Some thinking people whose memories need jolting,” I said.

“I’ll wait.”

“Won’t we all?”

Camille’s fingers plucked at my sleeve. “Tiger... can we go? I... feel sick.”

“Sure, kid.” I tapped Dave with my thumb. “Cover us going out. I doubt if anybody’s around, but no sense taking chances. We’ll run right after the next flash. You get to the motel and stay there until you hear from me. I’ll make all the contacts. Call Newark Control and give them a full report. Tell Virgil not to assign anybody else down here, but keep a team on tap if they’re needed.”

“Roger.”

I led Camille up to the door, waited until there was another sudden stroke of white from the rolling clouds overhead, then opened it and ran down the plank walk to the car and held the door open for her. Dave would make his own way out after making sure no prints or tracks were left to identify us. Camille slumped in the seat, her body heaving with an occasional convulsion of nausea, hands covering her face. I started the car, drove down to the intersection, then turned north up a road flooded from side to side.

Overhead, the world seemed to crash down in an exhibition of its own fury.

I left her at the motel still shaking, but better than she had been. She was wet from the rain again and her voice had gone hoarse, and although she grinned at me between a sneeze, I knew she was calming down after going through the experience of seeing violent death for the first time. She didn’t want me to leave, but knew better than to ask me to stay.

Her hand fell over mine and squeezed. “Will you be long?”

“No.”

“Tonight... you’ll stay with me?”

“Tonight,” I said.

“I’ll weave another web. You broke the first one.”

I kissed her lightly, then pushed her from the car. When she was inside I turned around in the gravel drive and cut back across the highway.

Dave Elroy picked up the package Ernie Bentley had sent me through General Delivery and dropped it off a little after eight. The cloud cover still obscured the sky, the rain falling monotonously, and even at that hour there was a dawnlike quality to the day. He handed me a container of coffee he had brought along, then sat down and listened to what I had to tell him about the night before.

When I finished he whistled through his teeth, grimacing. “You can’t leave those bodies out there.”

“I’m not going to get tied down making big explanations yet. That’s all we need to blow the act.”

“Okay, it’s your baby. Check their ID?”

“Nothing there. The usual assortment of junk that would have been faked. When the police get to them they’ll check out the specifics. At the moment they can’t help one way or another.”

“So who’s on the hook?”

I grinned at him slowly. “That’s where my ‘official’ status gives me a degree of immunity, buddy. Self defense in the line of duty. I’m not worrying about the future. You call in to Newark and let them sweat it out.”

“You sure like to take chances, kiddo,” Dave said.

“What’s it like in town?”

“Crowded,” he told me. “More are coming in all the time. They’re not the tourist types. It’s worse than Los Alamos when the Manhattan Project was in full swing. I hear a dozen people have been rounded up on general charges and are being held incommunicado in a government depot until the air clears. The hustlers saw them coming and cleared out overnight. You can’t even find a bookie in town.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What’s with the package?” Dave asked.

I opened the wrapping and took the top off the box inside. A pair of finger-length inhalers made of white plastic bearing the Bezex label were nestled inside with Ernie’s note on top of them. I looked at the addresses he delivered the real things to, then went over his explanation of how he had cut their effectiveness in half. If anybody used them they’d be needing another in a hurry. I peeled off the cellophane wrapper from one of the deadly little containers, remembering the way Ernie used to look when he read one of the reports, thinking we were the hard cases. Hell, he was in a class by himself. He invented death and we just pushed the buttons. What he didn’t invent was the way I could pull the switch on Niger Hoppes, hoping it was Hoppes who got the cyanide capsule and not some poor slob who didn’t deserve a killer’s death. The best idea he offered was spotting the samples around. I dropped the capsule in my coat pocket and put the other one in my shaving kit, then handed Dave the list of stores that would have the Bezex.

I said, “Check with the owners of these places and get a description of anyone who buys the things. As far as they’re concerned, you’re a follow-up representative for the company and make it look good.”

“And if there’s a contact?”

“Cover it. Stay with him out of sight and get to me through Charlie Corbinet. I won’t check in around here at all. It’s better if I keep moving. Just don’t close in on the guy unless you have help.”

“Hell, Tiger, I’ve handled them before.”

“This is a top gun, buddy. Your action has been investigative more than trigger jobs. If you get that close and you’re sure of your man, don’t take a chance. Kill him.”

“No talk?”

“No talk,” I repeated. “There isn’t time for it. We want Agrounsky, not Niger Hoppes. He’s only an obstacle.”

Dave lit a smoke and smiled at me across the room. “You guys are like fighter pilots during the war. One of you has to be eliminated so the bombers can either get through or be shot down.”

“So let’s keep the odds on our side,” I said. “What are you packing?”

“A .38 and a shiv on my leg.”

“Remember your training.”

“How could I ever forget it?” He laughed. “Take care, Tiger. You’re the real target.” He went out, shutting the door quietly, and I heard his car start up and drive off. I piled all my loose clothes into a laundry bag, threw them in the back seat of my own car and hung a Do Not Disturb sign on the door of my room. I didn’t want any cleaning woman coming in and finding that hole in the closet and the chipped brick from the wall just yet. There was time enough for that when somebody stumbled over the bodies in the palm grove.

I rapped on Camille’s door three times before I heard her stir. She came awake slowly, got out of bed and walked across to open the door and peer at me through the opening. I got a sleepy smile and stepped inside. She had my shirt on, clutching it shut at the middle.

“You left me,” she accused.

“The way you were sleeping I didn’t want to bother you.” She tucked her head against my shoulder a moment, then looked up at me. “It’s my fault, really,” she said. “After seeing... that man, well, I took a couple of sleeping pills and on top of the excitement I sort of faded out.” Her nose crinkled and she stifled a sneeze. Her eyes had a watery glaze and I could hear a wheezing as she talked.

“Forget it. You needed it.”

“Has... anything happened?”

“Plenty. You slept through it all.”

“Can you...?”

I knew what she was going to say and shook my head. “Get dressed. We’re moving out.”

Without another word she nodded and turned back to take her clothes off the hangers in the closet. Outside, the rain hammered down and from afar off there was a majestic rumble of thunder as the storm paraded by over the state.

Camille went into the bathroom to dress and I sat on the edge of the bed waiting for her to finish. Beside her handbag on the night table was a packet with the top torn off, a prescription issued to her from a New York pharmacy with the instructions to take one or two capsules before bedtime. Idly, I flicked the ten remaining from the original dozen back in the envelope and stuck it in her bag.

And outside the world churned in utter anxiety, stirred by contemptuous nature who laughed gleefully at the pitiful efforts being made to emulate her strength and fury.

Outside was a killer and a team behind him checking and double checking, following every lead, hard on each trail that would take them to the ultimate survival factor.

Someplace out there Agrounsky was still sitting, coming to his decision, and sooner or later something or someone was going to make it for him. With all the deviousness of a warped mind, he had chosen his place well. He had left no track, no trace. The hungry animal of embittered philosophy had commandeered a genius’ mind and guided it to where it could do the most damage. Now it just sat and ate away at the vital parts until it was self-consumed by its own destructiveness.

I picked up the phone and dialed Vincent Small’s number. It rang a half dozen times before a querulous voice said, “Hello?”

“Small?”

“Yes, this is he.”

“Mann, Vincent. You alone?”

“Quite. There are... policemen outside.”

“Everything all right?”

There was a hesitation before he said, “Yes. I’m all right.”

My voice felt tight and edgy. “Talk to me, friend.”

“There’s nothing really. It’s just that...”

“Well?”

He sounded tired, all the jubilance he’d had when we first met gone from him now. “I... you remember how we asked the realtors about Louis possibly buying a place somewhere?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“I don’t know. One of them called last night. He said there was another man asking the same thing.”

“Local?”

“No... a stranger. He only called because he wanted to locate Louis if he was interested in property. He had a few sites available.”

“Any description?”

“Very vague, that’s all. The man had on dark glasses and, well... it was raining out and he had on a slicker with a hat pulled down low so he really didn’t get a good look at him.”

“Then why are you scared?” I asked deliberately.

Vincent Small didn’t answer at first. He took a long time before he said, “I called some of the other real estate people. He was there too.”

“You’re not saying it all, Vince.”

I heard his swallow audibly, then he blurted out, “The first one told him we had been asking the same thing too. He didn’t mean anything. He just said it and...”

“Did you call Boster?”

“Yes.” His voice turned tinny as he said, “He... didn’t answer. It may not mean anything...”

As quietly as I could, trying not to scare him, I said, “You call in those cops and have them sit there beside you. Don’t you let anyone else in unless you know they’re from the police. You sit tight, understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

He was still talking when I held the button down long enough to break the connection, then dialed Claude Boster’s home.

Nobody answered the ring.

She came out as I put the phone back, saw my face and said, “What is it, Tiger?”

“It’s breaking.” I looked at her, debated the advisability of leaving her alone, realizing she could be used as a lever against me if it became necessary, then said, “Let’s go, kid. You stay with me.”

She didn’t argue and didn’t ask questions. She went out and got in the car, her eyes following me all the way as I went around and got in under the wheel.

I looked up at the sky and somehow I could feel the thing again. It was out there waiting. I cut by the spot where two men were still sprawled in the brush with sightless eyes open to the rain, bodies stiff in the penalty of death, waiting to be found and remembered, then angled up the drive and took the highway back to town.

The gas gauge was almost on empty, so I stopped at the nearest service station and told the attendant to fill up the tank. While he did I went inside to the pay phone and dropped a dime in the slot, then dialed Captain Hardecker’s number.

When the desk sergeant put me through I said, “Mann, Captain. I need a favor.”

“Naturally.” There was something funny about the way he said it.

“Okay, do I ask or not?”

“You’re sharp, Tiger.” I heard a pencil rap against the phone and he added, “They’ve removed your cooperation factor.”

“Nice of them.”

“My information on you gets wilder all the time. Nobody tells me anything except about you.”

“I’m available.”

“To me, but not to them. They’d like very much to have you out of the picture.”

“Sure, I know.”

“And what’s the favor?”

“Do I get it?”

“Why not? I have the feeling that if you’re forced to you could trade goodies with me.”

“If I have to,” I said.

“So ask.”

“Call your men outside of Claude Boster’s place. I want to see him.”

“Consider it done. You’re on the hot sheet and they’ve been given some pertinent instructions over my authority to nail you, old feller, but in this district I still pull a little weight. I may need some excuse to explain the move if the roof comes in though.”

“You have it then. Will you hold it?”

“Shoot.”

“Two dead men in the palms beside my hotel. I killed them both. The bullet hole in the room will fit the picture so use it as a diversion. I’ll give you the details later.”

It stopped him a second, then he told me, “That comes under county business.”

“The sheriff will be glad to have your help, Captain. Inform the boys pushing you of what happened and you’ll see some jumping after they identify the characters. It’ll make you look good.” I glanced at my watch. “Give me an hour first.”

“No more. If I had any sense I’d play this by the book and roll all over you.”

“There’s no job security in being dead,” I told him and put the receiver back.

The attendant had filled the tank, checked the oil and took the bill from my hand. He gave me back the change wishing I had never stopped there in the first place because he was soaking wet and tired of bothering with outsiders who didn’t know enough to stay out of the rain.

I got in the car and turned the key.

Camille laid her hand on top of mine. “Tiger?” she said tentatively.

“I’m scared, kid,” I told her.

The Mustang was chocked and tied on the ramp area at the end of a short line of private planes, its WWII fighter silhouette towering over the other craft, the menacing nose pointing skyward as if sniffing out an enemy hidden there.

Mason had pre-flighted the plane earlier, part of his normal routine, so we were ready for immediate take off barring any interference. The rain solved that problem nicely. The field was officially closed and anyone present was behind closed doors sipping coffee near electric heaters that took the bite out of the air.

I climbed in, strapped on the shoulder harness and seat belt while Mason pulled the chocks, then put on the headset and plugged it in while he was getting set. With the canopy closed and the rain obscuring us, no eyes caught the preparations until Mason flipped the starter switch and the four great paddle blades whipped into life.

No other sound in the world is like it. The twelve massive cylinders of the Merlin coughed once, then roared alive with a snarl of gratitude for being awakened, and as the radio suddenly took on life with the startled voice of the tower operator questioning us, Mason pulled out to the taxi strip, went downwind to the runway where he checked the mags, then kicked the tail around and gave the Mustang full take off power into the wind. He went on instruments fifty feet off the ground, broke out of traffic and started to climb, saying the things softly to himself all pilots say when they’re hoping there are no other chunks of metal in the sky ahead.

At thirty-five hundred feet we broke out into a bright, beautiful day that was like turning on a switch. Beneath us the rolling clouds that had been dangerously black from the inside took on the soft mounds and valleys of hilly country under a fresh snowfall. The shadow of the plane was encircled by a tight spectrum, a rainbow in full, that rode the crests and dipped into the recesses of the whiteness that capped the hell going on below.

Mason had estimated the time en route at an hour, forty minutes, carefully ignoring the fact of what we might find when he tried to let down. Those things he could think about when he got there. One bridge at a time. Somewhere up ahead another plane and other people were facing the same situation. Mason’s calculated voice told me the answers he had worked out on his computer. The Comanche’s start was a good one. There was a probability he could find a hole in the overcast and make the field. Maybe not. Leesville would have to be selected by dead reckoning and both planes would face the same difficulties. The best he could say was that it looked like a tie. We could overcome the time lag, but getting on the ground was going to be the big problem.

Time, always that time element, always pulling it up to the last impossible second. I closed my eyes and sat back, letting Mason do the worrying until the time came, and thought about Rondine.

What would she tell me she wouldn’t reveal to the others? What was so important? Her assignment was simple and could have given me a lead if the right answer hadn’t broken under my nose. She couldn’t have made contact with anyone out of the ordinary, but there was always that outside chance that it happened. The Soviets weren’t playing this one on a solo basis. Their teams were in there the way our own were, every man alerted, every possible phase of action being explored regardless of how remote it seemed. They had their own experts, their own killers ready to move when necessity demanded it and were forced to do what they had to do to win this crazy game.

Their philosophy for winning was better, too. It was the combat philosophy that the end justified the means and no matter how softly they talked or broadly they smiled in those conclaves at the U.N. they treated the play as war and geared their moves to fit it.

And now they found themselves right on the goal line because we had fumbled the ball through the fault of a player, and they were going to take every advantage of their position and try for the touchdown strategy even if they had to sacrifice their players to do it.

I was the safety man.

Great.

The wind was at their back and the dirt was in our eyes. We couldn’t afford to lose, but neither could they. In one sense, we could lose by winning, so if the laws of luck and circumstance turned back to us again it would all be a game played in front of a blindfolded audience. They’d only know the score if they won.

Twice, Mason let down through the overcast, feeling his way on the instruments. The second time he waved and pointed toward the ground and I saw the bleak rain-drenched expanse of a field, but there were no identifiable landmarks.

He switched to intercom and said, “The crosswind was stronger than I thought. We’re too far west.”

“What now?”

“We’ll turn east, pick up the ocean and beat up the coast until we locate ourselves. Ceiling here is too low to mess around in. Hundred feet tops and goes right down to the ground in places.”

“Let’s go then.”

It took another fifty minutes before he found a small summer resort nestled in the sand dunes and circled it, then, satisfied, picked a southwest heading and hugged the treetops at minimum altitude, tensed for anything that might jut up out of nowhere. Once he hurtled a power line, then followed it to a road, banked ten degrees away from it until he reached another highway and stayed with the dull white concrete ribbon several minutes before starting a slow turn to the left.

I looked down, following his glance. Directly below us was the outline of an airstrip, the tracks of three wheels gouged into it before slithering off to one side where the Comanche sat mired in the mud.

There was something else, too.

Face down beside it, half covered by a pool of water, was the body of a man.

Mason said, “They beat us, Tiger. That pilot knew the area too well.”

“Can you get in?”

“No chance in that slop. We’d do better grinding in on a paved road.”

“Any around?”

Mason shook his head. “None on the map. All dirt roads between here and Leesville.”

“Then let’s get as close as we can. Our boy would have gotten transportation one way or another. It’s ten miles between here and Leesville and he’s had the time to do it in. We haven’t.”

“Ever tried this before?” Mason asked me flatly.

“There’s always a first time for everything.”

“Sometimes it’s the last. It’s a good thing I’m a company man,” he said. “Damn.”

Leesville was only a cluster of stores, a gas station and a few houses at a crossroads. We went over it, flaps down at traffic pattern speed, looking for any cleared area that gave a reasonable chance of a landing, both of us trying to fight the restricted visibility that was turning the whole thing into a joke.

I saw Mason nod and his eyes met briefly with mine in the mirror. “Button up.”

I yanked the harness as tight as I could, set myself as he picked his spot, dumped full flaps and came in nose high over a grassy pasture that had taken on the appearance of a lake.

He made a beautiful job of it, the tail dragging first, then the fuselage pancaking down with a heavy thud as a crazy scream came from the engine as the prop bit into the earth and the blades bent back in despair. The roar of the Merlin was wiped out almost instantaneously, replaced by water and mud tearing at the metal, biting out pieces and spewing them back into our faces. The seemingly interminable slide came to an end at the rise of a drainage ditch embankment and both of us were out of the cockpit in a second, running for cover in case something blew.

We stopped fifty yards away and Mason looked back ruefully. “What a hell of a thing to do to a lovely airplane.”

“Grady’ll buy another,” I said.

Overhead the sky chuckled with a faint roll of thunder. Mason pointed the direction out and we started walking toward Leesville a half mile away.