Dedicated to The Men of the Secret Service of the United States of America
I
The U.S.N. Paycock was the latest of the guided missile heavy cruisers in the South Pacific Joint Defense Fleet. It held fourteen hundred men, weighed twelve thousand tons, had six 8-inch guns and two twin missile launchers equipped with the «Terrier» S/A supersonic missile. The twin launchers were capable of firing two missiles per launcher every thirty seconds. They could fire four missiles in eight-tenths of a second. The U.S.N. Paycock was a magnificent piece of fighting equipment and cost 225 million dollars to build.
On the night of June 4, 1969, she was knifing through the blackness of an almost moonless night in the South Pacific. The men on the shrouded bridge could occasionally glimpse the dark bulk of the other vessels taking part in the joint Australian-American naval maneuvers. Captain Wilbur Foreman was on the bridge, watching as his helmsman began a slow turn to port, as called for, at precisely zero hours and fifteen minutes. All ships were sailing without lights, under battle conditions, as the radarman, peering into his green screen, frowned.
"Vessel bearing in on us on the port side, sir," he called out Captain Foreman looked out the port window and saw the huge bulk of the Australian aircraft carrier Downing, one of the Australian «Majestic» class carriers, twenty thousand tons loaded. She might be swinging a little wide, he concluded.
"Hold your course," he said to the helmsman, who did so. Then, with the sudden totality of disasters that happen at sea, the huge bulk of the aircraft carrier struck the U.S.N. Paycock amidships, moving through her the way a knife moves through butter. Men screamed, engines exploded, sailors dived into the sea in an effort to douse the flames that engulfed their bodies. The blow had destroyed the ship's electrical system, and it was impossible to close all the bulkheads by hand. The U.S.N. Paycock went down quickly. There were survivors, but not many.
Aboard the Australian carrier the thick bow had taken the brunt of the crash, and her bulkheads were quickly closed. On the bridge, the radarman leaned his head against the screen of his instrument, trying to shut out the sounds of those dying outside. His name was Burton Comford and at the naval inquiry he testified that his radar screen showed plenty of distance between the ships. It was concluded that radar could be misread, that electronic eyes could malfunction, and outright negligence could not be sustained. But Burton Comford had been the man assigned to operate and interpret the signals of the electronic eyes that were to guide the giant carrier.
It was a month later, almost to the day, that the joint military maneuvers of the combined Pacific Defense Alliance took place along the lovely white beaches of Papua. The White forces, the "attackers," had established a beachhead. The Blue defending forces, commanded by Australian Major Ronald Singleton, were over the ridge, waiting for an air strike by their defense planes. On the right of the beaches were the New Zealand and Philippine troops; to the left, the Americans with British support. The Australian Air Force planes were equipped with live bombs which they would drop offshore at pre-set targets. If the targets were struck, each hit would be equated with a predetermined number of «attacking» troops knocked out and credited to the defenders.
It was a fairly typical war-games exercise. Major Ronald Singleton, commanding the Australian defense forces, scanned the sky for his planes and suddenly saw them come swooping in. The squadron leader, coming in high, gave the command to drop bombs, and the squadron followed suit. Major Singleton looked up and saw the tiny objects, growing larger by the split-second, hurtle down upon the beach. Their thunder was pierced by the screams of the totally unprepared and unprotected men on the beaches.
"Not here, you bloody fools!" the Major screamed into his radio. "Stop them, dammit!" he yelled at the radio command post. "Stop them! They've released bombs too soon!"
But no giant hand could hold back the deadly bombs hurtling through the air, no magic command could call them back. The ambulances carried away the bodies for hours and hours-shattered bodies, dead bodies. There were New Zealand bodies, English bodies, Philippine bodies and American bodies.
The name of the Australian squadron leader was Lieutenant Dodd Dempster, and in the investigation that followed he showed that his computer had erred in time, distance and ground speed computations and that the malfunctioning of the instrument was to blame for his premature «release-bombs» order. Lieutenant Dempster said his visual observation of the beach had been unclear. No further formal charges were brought, pending continued investigation. But angry accusations flew through the air, mostly of casual attitudes and inefficient operations on the part of Australian Command. There was a lot more highly charged talk behind the scenes than found its way into the record. A number of our people were growing disenchanted with the Aussies.
The third incident occurred in September, during the Australian-British field maneuvers that had been planned six months back. The exercise concerned the defense of fixed installations — in this case an ammunition plant just north of Clermont in Queensland. The British had been assigned the defending role, and a line of Australian tanks advanced toward the defenders grouped in front of and behind a major supply of live ammunition inside a low-roofed building. They were using new, big, fast tanks, and at a pre-set point the tanks were to turn and withdraw, having either accomplished their simulated objectives or having failed to do so.
The line of clanking dragons started to wheel, all except the one on the right flank, the last of the line. Those watching waited for the driver to turn his metal monster. Instead, they saw the top hatch open and the man leap from the tank, falling in a rolling somersault and, gaining his feet, streak for safety. So did most of the onlookers as the big tank headed straight for the ammunition depot.
The bulk of the British forces, grouped on the other side of the building, didn't realize what was happening until the tank smashed into the stockpile of live ammunition. The earth erupted in a fireworks display straight from hell. And once again, the ambulances worked overtime to carry away the dead and injured. Once again, the voices of anger grew louder and more demanding.
The driver of the tank said his steering mechanism had jammed. There was no evidence left to check his story. He was dismissed from the service for having lost his head and panicked when he should have tried to halt his tank in time. His name was John Dawsey. But his dismissal didn't still the angry voices. Nor did it bring back the dead English soldiers.
Three tragedies — and I saw them again as they happened — just as I had during those days at AXE offices after Hawk called me. Every detail was imprinted on my mind. I'd seen the film clips that were available in some instances. I'd read the accounts of hundreds of eyewitnesses and participants. I'd digested thousands of pages of reports, accounts and testimony. Through the eyes and words of others, I felt as though I'd been at each one of them.
The big BOAC airliner was nosing down to land at Brisbane now, and I saw the twinkling lights of the Australian capital. But as we dipped lower, my mind again flashed back to AXE headquarters at DuPont Circle, Washington, D.C. I'd finished all that Hawk had given me on the three tragedies, and we sat in his small, neat office, his steel-gray eyes snapping at me — his leathery, New England minister's face belying his role as Operations Chief of AXE.
"It would seem that the Aussies are out to wreck the whole damn South Pacific Defense Alliance," he said.
"That's asinine," I commented. "It's their chief defense against the Chinese Communists."
"Whether they're out to wreck it or they're suffering from a gargantuan attack of inefficiency, the same end is being reached," Hawk snapped. "You read the confidential reports attached to the stuff I gave you. The whole working alliance is about to fall apart. But still the Aussies haven't stopped this kind of thing and they haven't come up with any satisfactory answers to why the mistakes happened. All the effort, time, work and millions the United States spent on establishing this secure working defense is about to blow up in our faces. I want you to get over there fast and find out what's going on."
"Anything else?" I had questioned. Years of working with Hawk had made me know certain things. He didn't send me, or any AXE top agent, on vaguely defined missions. There was always something concrete, no matter how seemingly insignificant, that took it out of the «suppose» category. I sat back while he gazed up at the ceiling and unwrapped a fresh cigar, which he would chew rather than smoke.
"Two months ago, the body of a Chinese was washed ashore at a point near Hinchinbrook Island along the Great Barrier Reef. He was wearing scuba gear, and an autopsy showed he'd died of an embolism."
"Which indicates he was operating from a submarine and they hadn't properly decompressed him from his last time out," I commented, musing aloud.
"He had fifty thousand dollars in Australian pounds in a money belt under his scuba suit," he said. He just let it lie there and watched me pick it up and chew on it.
"Opens up a whole Pandora's box of possibilities, doesn't it?" I said finally. "Any follow-up to it?"
"Not a damned thing, unless you want to use your imagination and go anywhere with it," he had answered. Like the three sudden tragic accidents, he meant, without saying so. "Major Rothwell of Australian Intelligence has been told you're on your way. He's headquartered at Ayr on the coast. He's happy to have you come, so you'll have no problem there. I'm sure he'll fill you in on any details you want. The whole thing' so barbaric, the aumeiode-named our mutually mysterious enemy. The Executioners'."
I stood up. "What if it's nothing but damned inefficiency?" I asked.
Hawk had gazed up at me, his eyes expressionless, his face stone. "I'll be surprised," he said. "And I haven't been surprised in a long time."
I turned off the mental reruns as the big airliner touched down at Brisbane, but I was still thinking about the import of the three tragic events. Three accidents — each of them involving Australia's allies in death and bitter resentment. I couldn't completely rule out the inefficiency possibility, but it seemed, as Hawk had pointed out, a sudden attack of the disease. If it wasn't that, there was the long arm of coincidence to be considered.
Now there was a word I'd never thought much of. Experience had taught me that there were very few coincidences in life — real, honest ones — and in the espionage game there were just about none. But if it wasn't inefficiency and if it wasn't coincidence, then it also wasn't amateur night. Only the professionals, the good ones, the top layer of espionage people, can set up and handle an operation of real subtlety and complexity. Not that the pros don't make mistakes. It's just that even their mistakes have a certain touch to them.
But the stewardess was bidding everyone goodbye, and I stopped musing and got off the giant airliner to change to a smaller, twin-engined turbo-prop job for the last leg of the trip to Ayr. That part of the flight was short. At the Ayr airport I took my two bags — one more than I usually carry — and got a key to the public lockers. I took the larger bag, the one carrying the equipment Stewart at Special Effects had given me, and put it into the locker.
"I don't have any idea what problems you might meet," he'd told me when he gave me the stuff. "But Australia is an island and you might find yourself at sea, literally. What I have here requires a helper to operate, but you might find it coming in handy. It's a new development, of course."
After he briefed me on the stuff, I'd put it in a special bag and gone off with it, and now, here in Ayr, I'd decided not to carry it along with mo. I hadn't any idea what I might run into, and the stuff would be safer here.
A famous New York jeweler once shipped one of the world's most priceless diamonds to himself in an ordinary package through the U.S. mails. Instead of a lot of elaborate precautions which in themselves would have attracted attention, it was a master example of using the very ordinary to cloak the very unordinary. It stuck with me. I closed the public locker and slipped the key into my pocket. Later, I'd transfer it into the small hollow inside the heel of my shoe.
I went outside, hailed a cab and gave him the address of Australian Intelligence. I spent the ride watching the Australian girls on the streets as we went by them. They had a quality of their own, I quickly decided, a forthright directness. They walked with their heads up and they smiled quickly. They were dressed in mini skirts and had strong, well-formed legs, beautiful bustlines and good, clear skins. But mostly it was that heads-up quality that made them stand out.
The cab slowed and then stopped outside a small, gray building and I went inside. Security guards halted me at once and I presented my credentials. The picture changed immediately. Major Alan Rothwell, K.C.B., shook hands vigorously. A thin man in civilian clothes, he had quick, bright eyes and a small moustache. I had some difficulty keeping my eyes on the Major. There were two desks in his office, and behind the second one was as eye-filling a dish as I'd ever seen anywhere, any time. I was grateful for the Major's quick introduction.
"This is Mona Star," he said. "Mona is my right hand. She knows as much, perhaps more about this office than I do. She's one of our civilian security employees. In fact, you'll be working more with Mona, actually, than with me."
I tried not to smile too happily at that prospect But Mona Star had been quick to read the pleasure in my eyes, and her own glance was unabashedly interested. She was tall, red haired and green eyed, and as she stood up to shake hands, I saw the gorgeous line of her legs, long and firm and curving gently to wide, rounded hips. Her breasts must have put a terrible strain on the Australian brassiere industry.
"I've been terribly excited since I heard you were coming over." She smiled at me.
"I confess we all have been, Carter," Major Rothwell added. "Hawk and I've been friends for a good long while, you know, and when we talked about the problems here, and I asked if he could help us, he generously agreed. Sending an agent of your reputation was more than I expected of him. Fine chap, Hawk."
I smiled. The Aussies were an open, direct lot. I didn't tell him that Hawk's interest was motivated by something more than purity of heart and good fellowship.
"Of course, I don't really think the problem is anything more than our own internal inefficiency," the Major went on. "But if it is, we're just not up to coping with it. The English have been in the intrigue game for generations, and of course the Europeans live with the stuff all the time. And you fellows seem to have developed a knack for it. But we just haven't got the know-how yet. Not against anything like The Executioner."
I nodded, accepting his honest admission, and caught Mona Star's speculative appraisal of me. Her eyes held open interest and something else, almost anticipation. I smiled inwardly. I never let play interfere with work, but a little play in between work was good for the soul. I returned my attention to Major Rothwell.
"Three key men were involved in the tragedies," I said. "I presume you have their military files and have studied them thoroughly."
"I sent three of my investigators directly to their base commanders to examine the men's records," he said. "I have the reports my men turned in right here."
I grimaced. That wouldn't do for me. Reading the reports of three separate investigators left too many open spaces. Each man would make his own interpretation of what was significant in the record of the man he was investigating. I wanted direct comparisons of the actual files on each man.
"Sorry." I smiled at the Major. "No good. Please have each man's complete file here in the morning. I want to study them together, at one time, in one place. I'm not going to look for the big things. It's the little things that count in this business, Major, because suddenly you find out they're not really little things."
Major Rothwell turned to Mona, and I saw she had already picked up the phone and was dialing. He smiled at me.
"See what I mean, Carter?" he commented. "She's thoroughly efficient." He glanced at his watch. "Normally, we re not here anywhere near this late, but we had everybody put on overtime to wait for you. We've rented a small cottage for you at the edge of town. It's roomier and a bit nicer than the hotels. And closer to our offices, too. A car is outside for your use."
"Much obliged," I said. Mona's cool, crisp voice cut into the conversation.
"All the files you want will be delivered here in the morning, Mr. Carter," she said. Major Rothwell stood up.
"I suggest we call it a night and get a fresh start in the morning," he said. "Mona will show you to the car and to the cottage. I'm expected at my club. See you tomorrow, Carter."
Much of the British style was still part of the Australian military, I realized. I waited as Mona gathered her things and then she was beside me, smiling up at me.
"No one told me you were so bloody big and good looking," she said as we went outside to where a cream-colored Anglia stood at the back of the building in a small parking lot. Mona handed me the keys to it and went around to the other side.
"No one told me the Major had an assistant that looked like you," I countered as I slid into the driver's seat, filling up the front of the small English Ford. Mona was nestled in the opposite corner of the seat, the mini skirt revealing the slow, lovely curve of her thigh. Her very large and very deep breasts were, in their way, as direct and frank as the openly interested expression of her eves.
I followed her directions and headed the little English Ford down a broad street through light traffic.
"I try to leave the office behind when I walk out the door, Yank," Mona said. "But I think there's something I should tell you. From what I've seen, I'm convinced that all this is nothing more than our rotten, blundering incompetence and inefficiency. It's just taken till now to start erupting all over the bloody place."
I smiled at her. She was echoing Major Rothwell's thoughts with greater conviction. Perhaps one of their troubles was that they'd rather blame themselves than face the unpleasant and unnerving fact that outside forces were at work under their very noses. I held back comment and she didn't say any more about the matter. We had reached a cluster of neat, small wooden cottages, freshly painted, and Mona told me to stop. She handed me another key.
"Number five," she said. "You'll find it nice enough, Mr. Carter."
"Try Nick," I suggested and she smiled.
"All right, Nick," she said. "Now how about driving me to my place? Just go straight and you'll run right into the Castle Apartments. It's a development just outside of Townsville."
We reached the apartments, the typical angular cluster of apartment buildings, not as tall as the ones in American cities but otherwise very much the same.
"I hope you won't be too busy to come up for dinner some evening, Nick," Mona said. The green of her eyes glowed softly, almost like a traffic fight telling me to move ahead.
"I'll see to it," I said quietly, obeying traffic signals.
Before turning in that night, behind the locked door of the small but neatly furnished cottage, I took Wilhelmina out of her special shoulder holster with the watertight flap. Of all the girls I'd ever known, Wilhelmina had always been the most reliable. Her 9 mm. slugs spoke with total authority, her fast, hair-trigger firing action a reassuring item to have working for me. When I'd put a drop of oil on the takedown latch and the recoil spring, I put the Luger back into its holster. Taking off my shirt, I unstrapped the thin leather sheath from my right forearm. From the narrow casing I drew Hugo out, the pencil-thin stiletto of tempered steel lying in my palm, a beautiful and deadly friend. Razor sharp on both edges that tapered to a perfect point, the blade had both balance and weight for unerring accuracy when properly thrown. Both weapons were more than just tools of the trade. They were a part of me. I wiped the blade off with a drop of oil and strapped the sheath back onto my arm, point upwards. At the proper pressure, Hugo would drop into my palm for instant use. Like all old friends, they were good to have around.
II
Part of this business is to know how to dig. Hawk was fond of saying that a good AXE agent had to have the strength of a bull, the courage of a lion, the cunning of a fox and the ability to dig like a mole. I was at the mole part with the pile of records Mona Star placed in front of me the next morning at the Australian Intelligence offices. They'd given me a small side office where I could be isolated and unbothered. Mona, wearing a white skirt with leather buttons and leather loops, topped by a black blouse, set all the files in front of me and started for the door. She paused, one hand on the knob, and noted the expression in my eyes as I watched her.
"What are you wondering about?" she asked.
"How the hell the Major gets any work done with you around," I said. She laughed and closed the door behind her. It had been a fair question. She was one helluva distraction. But I closed off that part of my mind and concentrated on the thick folders in front of me.
I worked through lunch without stopping and late into the afternoon. I read every damn sheet and evaluation and report first — then I went back over them and started to pick out certain items. I made a list of questionable factors for myself on a notepad, under each man's name, and when I'd finished I had a few hardline items that were of more than passing interest. I sat back and examined what I'd noted.
First the Navy man, Burton Comford. He was a chronic troublemaker. He had been involved in numerous scrapes in bars. He was known to run down the service whenever he got a few drinks too many. He had received various punishments for his on-leave behavior and been bailed out of civilian jails three times.
The driver of the tank that malfunctioned and blew up the ammo dump had also been involved in numerous scrapes. He had been up for several disciplinary actions by his superiors. A dissatisfied personality, he harbored aggressive hostility toward almost everyone, resenting their lives, their jobs. I'd also noted with great interest that John Dawsey and Burton Comford had both been involved in incidents at the same bar, a place called The Ruddy Jug.
The third man, the Air Force lieutenant, had nothing on his record to connect him with The Ruddy Jug, but he had exhibited the same dissatisfied personality as the other two — on his own level, of course. His record showed that he had twice applied for permission to leave the service, and his application had been denied each time. Then he'd requested extended leave which was turned down. Following that, he had taken sick leave for unusually long and frequent periods. According to evaluation reports, his general rating had gone down steadily.
I found my fingers tapping the top of the desk. Three tragic «accidents» and three men, each one of them a confirmed complainer, dissatisfied with his lot in life — each one of them ripe for trouble. It was a thought that stayed quietly on the mind, like an unhatched egg — and led to numerous possibilities. I got up and opened the door of the little office to see Mona putting on lipstick.
"Coming out of your cocoon?" she smiled.
"Don't tell me it's that late," I said.
"You've been in there all day," she answered. "How about telling me what you've come up with while you drop me off at my place?"
Major Rothwell had apparently already left. I shrugged and started for the door with Mona at my side. Her breasts brushed against me as I opened the door.
"Ever hear of a bar called The Ruddy Jug?" I asked as we drove toward her apartment. "It's in Townsville."
"Yes, it's a rough kind of place, mostly used by servicemen and working blokes," she said. "Townsville is about fifteen miles past my place. It's a copper town — copper refining and smelting, fabrication — even some copper jewelry."
"I might drop in and do a little checking around there tonight," I said. "But first I'm going to drop in on John Dawsey."
"The chap in the tank," she said quickly. "Don't think you'll get far, but good luck."
We halted in front of the Castle Apartments and Mona got out and leaned back into the car, her firm breasts jutting forward temptingly.
"Don't suppose you have time for drinks and something to eat," she offered. I gave her a slow smile that said something on its own. She was quick to get the message.
"I suppose you're right," she said. "I'm not much for doing things in a hurry, either. Be careful, I've a dinner date coming up."
"How could I forget?" I grinned at her and drove off.
* * *
Though John Dawsey had been dismissed from the service, his file showed an address to which they sent pay still due him. It was a Townsville address. As I entered the city I saw rows of dingy, gray houses, not unlike those in the mining cities of Wales. Though Townsville was Queensland's second largest city, there was a roughhewn air to it — an unfinished feel — the kind of a place where you feel that it's moving on to another chapter in its life. The address I had for John Dawsey turned out to be a house in the center of a staggered row of narrow houses — dull, dreary, and needing paint. A woman wielding a broom on the steps outside quickly told me that John Dawsey no longer lived there.
"He's gotten fancy," she said, emphasizing the broad «a» of the British upper-class speech. She gave me his new address, 12 Chester Lane, which she described as being in the "new part of town." Armed with directions from her, I found it after getting lost only once. It was indeed very new, very suburban and very reminiscent of the more expensive American suburban developments. I located number 12, a low, ranch-style brick and frame house, just as darkness started to close in. I rang the bell. The man who answered smelled of beer. A flattened nose sat in the center of the heavy face, and his eyebrows were thickened with scar-tissue. He'd spent some years in the ring — a kind of constant belligerency was a part of his countenance. It turned to open hostility when I told him I was there to get some more information on the tank incident.
"I'm out, digger," he growled at me. "They tossed me out and glad of it, and I don't have to answer a bloody question."
I wanted information, not trouble, and I tried the honeyed approach first.
"You're absolutely right, Dawsey," I smiled. "I happen to be making a check for the American government. We had a few people involved, and I just need a few minor points cleared up."
He glowered at me but let me move inside. The place was furnished not tastefully but expensively. A bottle of stout was on the coffee table, along with a half-dozen catalogs for sleek motor cruisers. I glanced quickly at them and figured the least expensive to cost about eighteen thousand. On the page of one of the catalogs I saw a column of figures noted in pen. Dawsey poured himself another beer, pointedly ignoring me.
"Let's get on with it," he muttered. "I'm busy."
"Thinking of buying one of these?" I asked casually, picking up a catalog.
"None of yer bloody business," he snarled, yanking the catalog out of my hands. I smiled pleasantly at him. "If you've any questions you better be fast with them," he said. "I'm busy."
"Yes, picking out your new boat." I smiled. "Pretty expensive stuff for a man just out of the service, I'd say."
Dawsey's eyes narrowed at once. He was a square man, not as tall as I and with a belt of fat around the middle. But I knew the type. He could be an ugly customer.
"Get out of here," he growled.
"New house," I said, looking around. "Expensive new house. Fancy boat catalogs. New furniture. You saved an awful lot of your service pay, didn't you, Dawsey? In fact, I'd say you saved more than you earned."
"Maybe I was left a bloomin' fortune by an old uncle," he snarled. He was blustering now, but behind his angry eyes there was sudden alarm. I was quick to press the point.
"Maybe you'd like to tell me his name," I said. "Or where he lived."
"You get the bloody hell out of here," Dawsey yelled, the bottle of beer in his hand.
"Not yet," I answered. "Not till you tell me the secret of how to leave the service and make a bundle overnight."
I saw his hand come down fast, smashing the bottle against the edge of the coffee table. His face was deep red, his eyes small and mean as he started around the edge of the table toward me, the jagged bottle in his hand still dripping beer.
"Goddamn you," he snarled. "I'll teach you to come around here with your smart questions."
He lunged and I twisted away from the jagged edge of the bottle as he thrust it at my face. I moved back carefully. I could have ended it with one shot from Wilhelmina, but I wanted him alive. No, not just alive, alive and worried and scared. He moved forward, and I saw he was on the balls of his feet, moving the way a fighter does in the ring. I'd made it a rule never to underestimate anyone. John Dawsey was not the man to violate that rule with, I knew. I let him move in again, swing with a wide blow and then catch himself. I saw he hooked with the bottle as he swung. I moved forward and he countered at once, hooking with the jagged glass weapon again. This time I shot a hard right under the hook. It hit him under the heart and I heard him gasp in pain. He automatically brought his right hand down and I caught him with a looping left high on the head. It opened up the old scar tissue with a thin, red line. He tried an uppercut with the bottle, coming up viciously with it. I sidestepped it, getting a fleck of beer foam in my face as it whistled past, and crossed a perfect right to the point of his jaw. He went back, over the coffee table, and sprawled across the sofa, the bottle falling to the floor. I knicked it out of the way and saw him start to shake his head. I waited a few seconds till his eyes cleared and he focused on me.
"I'll be back," I said to him. "You better start getting the right answers together, pal."
I slammed the door behind me, got into the Anglia and drove off. He didn't hear me humming to myself. I drove around the corner, stopped and hurried out of the car. I crossed the street, keeping clear of the beam of light from another house, and settled down at the foot of a young oak tree.
Right now I figured he was throwing cold water in his face, straightening himself up, putting a dab of ointment on the opened scar tissue — and worrying. I gave him another minute. I glanced at my watch. Exactly fifty-one seconds later he came bursting out of the house to rush around to a small, attached garage. I did a fast fade, crouching low, and returned to where I'd left the car. I let him start his engine, move out of his garage and go past the corner before I turned the engine over.
He was driving a little Sunbeam and I swung in behind him, letting his tail lights lead me as we moved through the surburban streets. When he moved into Townsville traffic, I switched on the headlights. He was an easy tail. He hadn't the faintest idea I was behind him and I was tempted to make bet as to where he was headed. When he pulled up in front of The Ruddy Jug, I paid myself off.
I eased the car in between a number of others in a small parking lot and let him go inside first. Overhead, a red neon sign outlined the form of a large beer mug. Inside the place there was sawdust on the floor, booths at the sides and a number of round tables in the center of the floor. A bored pianist divided the music chores with a garish jukebox that stood at one side. A long bar took up one entire end of the place. It was large enough and crowded enough for me to stay out of sight while watching him at the same time. I slid into an empty booth and saw him make his way toward the bar and toward a girl, a hostess, at the end of it. She was pretty in an unpolished way, wearing a dress that was too blue, too tight and too shiny. But it was low-cut enough for the customers and her round, high breasts spilled out generously over the top.
I saw a good sprinkling of sailors and soldiers among the customers — mostly, as Mona had said, hard-working men. Dawsey waited as the girl went to show a couple to one of the booths. When she returned, he immediately started talking to her, his red face strained and agitated. The girl listened while she looked out across the tables, smiling at customers she knew, waving at others. A waiter appeared at my elbow, and I sent him off with an order for whiskey and water.
I could see the girl's lips moving guardedly, as she answered Dawsey. Suddenly finished, he turned abruptly and walked away from her, moving to the door through the crowded tables. My eyes swung back to the girl, but she had left the bar and I saw her against the wall, putting a coin into a wall telephone. She waited a moment, then spoke into the phone — hardly more than two or three sentences — and hung up. I leaned back and watched her move out to circle amid the customers.
It had been easy to understand what I'd just seen. The girl was some sort of contact or intermediary. Dawsey had told her he wanted to make a contact and she had relayed his message. Now, I had to fill in the details. She was starting to make her rounds of the booths and I waited till she neared mine. She was good at her job. She was both adept and firm at eluding and turning aside eager hands and overzealous fans. She was friendly, welcoming, yet distant without being standoffish — altogether a neat job. I heard a number of steady customers call her by the name "Judy." Her manufactured gaiety was less contrived than that of most girls in her job, and under the makeup was a face that might once have been sweet. Now it showed the hardness of life in a certain tightness around the jaw. Her eyes, smoke-gray, were the eyes of one who had seen too much too young. But they were eyes that smoldered. She reached the booth where I sat and gave me a big smile.
"Hello, digger" she said. "Welcome to The Ruddy Jug."
"Thanks, Judy," I grinned at her. "Got a minute to talk?"
"You're a Yank," she said, her eyes lighting with interest. "Sure. What do you want to talk about? What are you doing here in Queensland — vacation?"
"In a way," I said. "What do you know about John Dawsey?"
I saw astonishment leap into her smoke-gray eyes, but she made a quick recovery.
"I think you've made some kind of mistake, Yank," she frowned at me. "I don't know any John Dawsey."
"You always make phone calls for people you don't know?" I said casually.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she snapped. She started to get up but I shot a hand out and grabbed her wrist.
"Stop playing games, Judy," I said quietly. "Talk."
"You ruddy cop?" she asked, warily.
"I'm a friend of Dawsey's." I said.
"Hell you are," she said, yanking her wrist away. She was on her feet, signalling across the floor. I saw two long-armed, heavy-set characters detach themselves from a corner table and head toward me. Judy was looking at me as I stood up, her eyes apprehensive.
"He won't take no for an answer," she said to the two goons as they came up, and I smiled. She'd given me one of my answers without realizing it. She was strictly on her own insofar as Dawsey was concerned. If the two goons or the bar had been involved, she wouldn't have given them a phony story. They got on each side of me and I let them lead me off. I'd get back to little Judy.
"Stay out of here," one of the goons growled at me.
"I'll try and remember." I grinned at him. I saw him trying to decide whether he ought to give me something to help my memory. Maybe it was the fact that I towered over him, or maybe my complete acquiescence had thrown him off stride. Anyway, he decided against it and he and his buddy walked back into the bar.
I was already on my way to the car. Dawsey hadn't waited around for the results of Judy's phone call, which meant he expected to make contact somewhere else — home, probably. I turned the little Anglia back toward number 12 Chester Lane. I found myself frowning as I drove past the house. It was completely dark and I remembered Dawsey had left the living room light on as he dashed out.
Parking around the corner again, I walked back to the house. Moving carefully, I saw the door was ajar. I pushed it open slowly, listening. I heard nothing. Stepping into the doorway, I reached my hand around the door to grope for the light switch. My fingers had just touched the metal plate around it when the blow struck me, glancing but plenty hard. My head rang, but I twisted and dived to the floor, in the direction the blow had come from. I got my arms around a leg and pulled. A body came down, hard, on my back and a foot smashed into my ribs. I kicked out, fighting more by instinct than anything else, my head still spinning. It stopped as the second blow landed, this time full on the back of my skull. Groggy as I was, I knew a lead-weighted sap when I felt one. Then everything stopped and the blackness grew blacker until there was nothing.
I had no way of even estimating how much time had gone by before I started to come around. I only knew that I was alive by the sensation of heat against my cheeks. Dead men don't feel anything. I kept my eyes closed and let my mind start to work. Long ago I'd mastered the art of staying apparently unconscious while I came around. It was a matter of control, of holding back all the normal reactions of groaning, stretching, opening the eyes, moving. I was being dragged along a metal flooring by both my arms and I heard an occasional loud hiss of steam and the clank of metal. I was in some kind of factory or plant. My mouth felt funny — I realized I was gagged. My ankles were bound together, too. I opened my eyes, just slits, but enough to see through. Two pairs of legs were walking in front of me, dragging me along on my belly. Suddenly, they halted and I was dropped onto the floor. I heard voices call to a third man, who answered from a distance.
"Put the gun back in his pocket," I heard one of them say. "Nothing is to be left around. Hell just disappear and they'll spend time and effort hunting him down."
I felt myself being turned on my side and I let my body roll limply. One of them leaned down and put Wilhelmina into my pocket. Through slitted eyes I saw that my arms, still stretched over my head, were tied at the wrists with handkerchiefs. And I saw something else. I was on some sort of catwalk — beyond it I could see the orange glow of a huge, fiery smelting oven. I was inside one of Townsville's copper-smelting refineries. A foot turned me over on my stomach again, and I could see down over the edge of the catwalk. A long, wide conveyer belt paralleled the catwalk, about four feet below it, carrying ore to the mouth of the huge furnace. The plant was obviously on half-shift, perhaps even less, with maybe a few workmen on call through the night. Many of these plants were automated and ran by themselves. I suddenly knew what they intended to do. I heard one man call again to the third one, and I saw his figure at the far end of the conveyor belt. They were going to make me into a copper teapot.
"Now," the third man called. I was grabbed by rough hands and pushed off the edge of the catwalk. I twisted my body and managed to land on the rough, sharp ore on my side. My ribs felt as though a hundred spears had been plunged into them, and I lay there, fighting down the waves of pain. I rolled over and felt the speed with which the conveyer belt was moving. Glancing back over my shoulder, the furnace looked hotter and bigger with every passing second.
"Look! He's come to," I heard one of the men shout. The other one laughed. I looked up quickly. The laughing one was the tallest; he had a hard face and was dressed in rancher's clothes, as was the other one.
I lay there, my ribs still paining me sharply, as I felt myself moving along the conveyer belt with the helpless feeling of a man facing inexorable death. The tall man was laughing again, obviously enjoying the sight of his victim being alive and conscious as he went into the furnace. I drew my legs up and tried to move forward along the conveyer belt, but with my ankles bound together it was a pitiful, wasted effort. In seconds, my knees were torn and bleeding from the sharp edges of the ore which was mostly cuprite and chrysocolla, edged with quartz. I glanced down the conveyer and saw the orange glow of the furnace drawing nearer, the roar of its bowels a terrible cry of welcome. I drew my knees up again and crawled forward, recapturing perhaps sixty seconds of life before my bound ankles made me fall to the side.
Desperately, I looked back at the furnace again. Steeling myself against the pain, moving on the sudden burst of hope I'd found, I crawled forward on the conveyer to gain a little more precious time. Now I began to work the handkerchiefs around my wrists against the sharp edges of the ore. I muttered a prayer of gratitude that all they'd been able to find were handkerchiefs and not strong rope. The material began to shred and I renewed my efforts. There wasn't time to crawl forward again and I ran my bound wrists hard along the sharp edges of the ore. Glancing down the belt, I saw that I was perhaps seventy seconds from the furnace.
The tall man was laughing harder now, as the inexorable conveyer continued to bring me to the edge of the furnace. The heat was scaring my body. Once I reached the edge of the conveyer, every bit of me would be consumed in the heat of the molten copper. There'd be some imperfections in the copper ore which would be filtered out in the system, but nothing else. The conveyer was beginning to edge downward, and the heat was unbearable as my wrist bonds shredded and tore apart I pulled myself up on the sharp ore, putting back fifteen seconds of my borrowed time. I swung around with a sharp lump of ore in my hand, hacked the handkerchiefs on my ankles off with frantic desperation. I rolled sideways, off the edge of the conveyer, just as I felt myself going over with the ore. My hands caught the moving edge, just for a second, just enough to give me a split-second to straighten out and drop to the floor below.
I landed on my feet and sank to my haunches, drawing my breath in deep draughts in the shadows of the huge furnace. I could see the three men, the third one having come up to join his cohorts. They were scrambling down from the catwalk and would be after me at once. But I gathered myself. I'd come within a second of being burned to death, and I figured I owed myself the added moment's rest.
The three men had reached the floor, and I saw them separate, two starting to go around the big furnace on one side, the tall one who had laughed so hard taking the other side. I started to move in the direction he'd taken. I intended doing something about his sense of humor. I raced around the furnace and saw that on the other side the plant widened into the molding area. There, rivers of molten copper flowed in steplike arrangement from one short length of iron funnel to another, forming waterfalls of brilliant orange as it flowed from funnel to funnel. At the base, a huge casting wheel slowly revolved, bordered all around its edges by the glowing, orange squares of molten copper that flowed into the molds from the iron tracks. Some of the large copper molds, when cooled, would be refined and remelted still further for use in various ways.
I was starting to race around the outer perimeter of the right side of the huge casting wheel when the tall, hard-faced man came into view, running at an angle to block me off. He whirled to face me as I came toward him. He swung at me, but I'd figured that to be his first move and I dived low, catching him at the knees. I lifted him up and threw him up and out, the way a Scotsman tosses the caber. He arched through the air and landed in one of the molds of molten copper. His scream seemed to shake the very walls, a horrible paean to death. He didn't laugh once, and I continued to run around the outer edge of the huge iron wheel.
The other two would have heard, of course, and know what had happened, so as I saw a doorway leading into another part of the refinery, I ran for it. I saw them appear just as I disappeared through the door and heard their footsteps chasing after me. I found myself in a narrow passageway of large pipes and conduits and raced for an exit at the far end. A shot echoed in the narrow passage, reverberating from the tubes and pipes. I hit the floor and rolled out of the exit door, regaining my feet in what seemed to be a large storage area for fabricated material. I saw thin sheets of copper, heavy bars and thick slabs as I ran past them. The area was almost dark, one or two lone lightbulbs high in the ceiling casting a dim glow. I saw another doorway and ran through it to find myself in a room with one end filled with huge wooden spools of heavy copper wire, each spool standing eight feet high. The spools were held in place by wooden chocks under the forward edges of the first row of them. I ran forward and squeezed myself into the darkness of the spaces between the huge spools. Dropping to my knees, I braced my hands on the floor and, as the two men came into the room, I kicked hard against the chock holding the spool to my right, then the one to my left. The wooden chocks, knocked sideways, released the giant spools, and they started to roll, gathering momentum instantly. Another kick released the first of three more giant spools of copper wire on the left.
I turned to see the two men frantically trying to dodge the huge spools as they rolled at them with amazing speed. They were too busy dodging, trying not to be crushed to death, to pay attention to me. I pulled Wilhelmina from my pocket, rested myself on one knee and drew a bead on the dodging figures. I only needed to take care of one. I caught him with a clean shot as he halted between two of the spools. His friend, startled by the shot, turned to see what had happened. One of the spools hit him, knocking him down and running over him with a thousand pounds of crushing, killing weight. He didn't scream. Only a low, choking gasp escaped him.
I saw a sign that said EXIT. It was over a steel firedoor. I took it and went out into the cool night air. The few night workmen had called the cops by now, and as I started away I could hear the sound of sirens approaching.
I'd had a lucky break and I knew it. I also began to appreciate the code name of The Executioner. Well. I wasn't going to be a victim.
I found myself a little pub that was just closing and asked directions. It turned out I was a good distance from the new suburban development, and transportation was damned hard to find at that hour. I fell back on man's oldest known transportation system — his own two feet — and started out, setting a steady, ground-consuming pace. But it still gave me plenty of time to go over what had happened. I was heading back to John Dawsey's place, but I had a strong feeling he wouldn't be talking to me. The three men hadn't been waiting for my appearance when I walked in on them. They had no way of knowing I would turn up.
By the time I'd reached the suburban development I'd broken into a trot. At Dawsey's house, still pitch black, I went around to the back door. It was open and I entered, flicking on the kitchen light. The house was empty, or it seemed empty. I knew better.
I started to go through the closets, and I'd reached the hall closet when I found what I thought I would. The late John Dawsey, recently with the Australian Army Tank Corps, fell out on me as I opened the door. He'd been neatly garotted and his eyes stared accusingly at me, as though if it weren't for me, he'd still be alive and kicking. He was probably right, at that, I admitted. Whoever they were, they'd taken the sure way of seeing to it that I didn't pull anything out of John Dawsey. Dead men don't talk, as someone found out a long, long time ago.
I was beginning to feel grimly angry as I went out the back door. A good lead had blown up in my face. I'd damn near been immortalized in copper, and I hurt like hell all over, especially my cut knees. A little hostess named Judy loomed big in my mind. I was going to have a long and fruitful talk with her — right now.
I retrieved the car and drove to The Ruddy Jug. It was, as I'd figured, closed by now, but there was a narrow alleyway alongside it with a small window on the alley. A garbage can stood beside it; I picked up the lid, waited till a passing truck filled the night with its roar, and smashed the window. Reaching in, I unlocked it and opened it carefully. I'd had enough of jagged objects for one night.
Once inside, I found the office — a little cubbyhole at the rear of the place. A small desk lamp gave me all the light I needed. There had to be some employee files and finally I found them — too damned many of them in a dusty cabinet — small cards for apparently everyone who'd ever worked in the place. I didn't even have a last name, so the alphabetical filing didn't do me a bit of good. I had to go over every stinking card and look for the name Judy on it. Finally I found it — Judy Henniker, age twenty-four, born in Cloncurry, present address Twenty Wallaby Street. It was a street name I'd casually noted as I drove out there and not too far away. I put the file back in its place and left the way I'd come.
Twenty Wallaby Street was an ordinary, brick building of six stories. Judy Henniker's name was on a neat card stuck in the doorbell name slot. It wasn't a proper hour for formal visiting, so I decided to make it a surprise party. Her apartment was on the second floor, 2E, obviously on the east side of the building. I saw a fire escape running conveniently up the outside wall and leaped up to catch the bottom rung of the ladder. The window of the apartment on the second floor was open, just enough for me to get through by flattening myself out.
I moved very slowly and quietly. It was a bedroom window and I could see the girl's sleeping form in the bed, the steady rhythmic sound of her breathing loud in the silence. I walked softly over to the bed and looked down at her. The make-up was off her face and her brown hair cascaded onto the pillow around her head. Her face, asleep, had taken on the softness that must once have been there, and she looked quite pretty, almost sweet. She was also sleeping in the nude and one breast, beautifully round and high, rosy-tipped with a small, neat point, had freed itself from the sheet that covered her. I placed my hand firmly over her mouth and held it there. Her eyes snapped open, took a moment to focus and then went wide with fright.
"Don't start screaming and you won't get hurt," I said. "I just want to take up where we left off."
She was just lying there, staring up at me, terror in her eyes. I reached over and snapped on a lamp by her bedside, still keeping one hand over her mouth.
"Now, I'm going to take my hand away from your mouth," I said. "One scream and you've had it. Cooperate with me and well have a nice little visit.
I stepped back and she sat up, instantly pulling the sheet up to cover herself. I smiled as I thought of how incongruous women were about modesty. There was a silk bathrobe across the back of an upholstered chair near the bed. I tossed it to her.
"Put it on, Judy," I said. "I don't want anything to inhibit your memory."
She managed to get the robe on while keeping the bedsheet up in front of her — then she swung herself out of the bed.
"I told you before, Yank," she said, "I don't know anything about any John Dawsey." Her smoke-gray eyes had returned to their normal size now, and the fear was gone from them. Her figure, under the clinging folds of the silk robe, was firm and compact and her youth was somehow much more a part of her now than it had been at The Ruddy Jug. Only the smoldering eyes gave away her worldly wisdom. She had gone over to perch on the arm of the upholstered chair.
"Now, listen, Judy," I began very quietly, with a deadliness in my voice that was not there for effect. "I was almost burned to death not very long ago. And your pal Dawsey won't be coming to you to make any more phone calls for him. He's dead. Very dead."
I watched her eyes as they steadily widened. They began to protest before her lips did.
"Now, wait a minute, Yank," she said. "I don't know anything about any killings. I'm not going to get caught up in any muck like that."
"You're already caught up in it," I said. "Dawsey was killed by the same gents who tried to give me a course in copper smelting the hard way. Who were they, dammit? You made that call for Dawsey. Start talking or I'll wring your neck like a chicken's."
I reached out and grabbed her by the front of the robe. I yanked her from the chair and dangled her with one hand, as the terror leaped into those smoky eyes.
"I don't know their names," she stammered. "Only their first names."
"You knew where to reach them," I said. "You had a phone number. Whose was it? Where was it, damn you."
"It was just a number," she gasped out. "I called and a recording took down my message. Sometimes I left word to call someone, sometimes to call me back."
"And tonight you left word that they were to contact Dawsey," I concluded. She nodded and I pushed her back into the chair. A phone stood on the end table beside the bed.
"Make that call again," I said. She reached over and dialed, straightening her robe first. When she'd finished dialing. I grabbed the phone from her hand and put it to my ear. The voice on the other end, constricted and flat with the unmistakable tone of a recording, instructed me to leave my message when the buzzer sounded. I put the phone down. She'd been telling the truth about that much, anyway.
"Now let's have the rest of it," I said. "Let's start with where and how you fit into this setup."
"They started to talk to me a long time ago, at The Ruddy Jug," she said. "They said they were businessmen looking for people they could use. They were especially interested in servicemen who seemed to be unhappy or were having a hard time of it. They said they could do a lot of good for the right man. They asked me to let them know if I heard of a sailor or soldier who might like to talk to them."
"And of course dissatisfied servicemen were y to come by at a place like The Ruddy Jug. And when you found one you contacted your friends, right?"
She nodded.
"You put them in contact with John Dawsey," I said, and again she nodded, her lips tightening.
"Did you put them in contact with a lot of servicemen?" I asked and she nodded again. That much figured, too. They'd have to make numerous contacts until they found one that would do.
"Do you remember the names of everybody you put in contact with them?" I questioned further.
"Lord, no," she answered.
"Does Burton Comford mean anything?" I pressed, and she frowned as she thought back. "Can't say it does," she finally answered.
"What about an Air Force lieutenant?" I prodded. "Name of Dempster."
"I do seem to remember an Air Force chap," she said. "Came in a few times and I got to talking with him. He was an officer, that I remember."
I grimaced and the girl frowned again. "I didn't pay all that much attention to them," she said. "I just made the introductions and that was that. I thought I was doing them pretty much of a favor."
"Just an angel of good will," I said and saw her eyes flash with anger.
"That's right," she snapped back, tossing her head defiantly. "And everybody seemed happy about it too, so I didn't see a bloody thing wrong with what I was doing."
"John Dawsey's not happy," I said drily. "He's dead."
Her eyes clouded over at once and her lips became a tight line. She got to her feet and came over to me.
"Lord help me, Yank," she said. "I'm not a part of anything like that. I don't know a fair thing about it or why he was done in or who might have done it."
"What did you get for being this angel of glad tidings?" I asked. She colored and looked up at me with sudden tears flooding her eyes, dimming the smokiness of them.
"Stop rubbing it in, damn you," she said. "Yes, they paid me for my trouble. Just a little bit, a few pounds, but every little bit helps. I've been trying to save for a trip to the States. I've a cousin living there."
She shook the tears from her eyes and turned away. I tabled what she'd said about wanting to go to the States for later use. Her hands were nervously clenching and unclenching, and there was a frightened rabbit quality to her now, a sincerity I wanted to believe in. Suddenly she was a little lost girl and very appealing. I caught her eyes looking at me, at the dried and caked blood on my wrists and arms. I'd even forgotten it was there.
"You need some tending to," she said. "You've had a rough go of it."
"I can wait," I said. "What else do you know about the men who contacted you? They never mentioned where they came from or where they lived?"
From the way this thing was shaping up, I didn't expect they had. This was a careful, clever operation. But they might have dropped something I could use. Judy hesitated, seemed to be thinking and then she finally answered.
"They came from a ranch in the outback," she said. "That's all I know. All four of them came from there."
"Four?" I said in surprise. "I only met three. What did they look like?"
Judy's description fitted the three hoods who'd killed Dawsey. The fourth man wasn't one of them. She described him as hawk-faced, with burning eyes "that made you shiver." Her description of the other three was damn good, and I stored that of the fourth in a corner of my mind.
I got up and opened the closet that ran along one wall. There was nothing out of the ordinary in it. A second closet near the bed held more girl stuff, but it also revealed a large collection of scuba diving equipment.
"It's my hobby," Judy Henniker said defensively. "I've been doing it for years, ever since a bloke I once went with got me started."
I examined the stuff. It was all good but all ordinary. There was nothing there to cast doubt on her story and I knew that scuba diving was big in Australia. They had the underwater life for it and the wide, uncrowded stretches of beach and reef. I eyed her and tried to read her face. There was defensiveness in it and fear and honesty. I wanted her working for me if she could be trusted. There was a fourth man, and it was a better than good guess he'd be contacting Judy again. But the body of the Chinese with the fifty thousand in Australian pounds stuck in my mind. He'd been wearing scuba-diving gear too, when they found him. Suddenly the girl came over to me and I saw she had been watching my face as I turned one thought after another over in my mind. Her eyes looked levelly at me.
"Look, I'm scared out of my ruddy mind after what you've told me," she said. "If those blokes killed poor Dawsey to keep him quiet about something, then they might come after me — especially if they knew I'd been talking to you."
"If all you were was a contact girl, then you don't know anything worth killing you for," I answered. "They won't bother you, but I will. Right now you're an accessory to murder. I could forget that. I might even see to it that you get that visit to the States that you want."
Her eyebrows went up. "Could you?" she asked. There was a strange ingenuousness to her, despite her hard knocks background. There was still enough of the little girl in her to be trusting. But it only came out in brief spurts, to be immediately replaced by the wariness of learned distrust.
"And what's all that going to cost me?" she asked, looking sideways at me.
"Cooperation," I said. "I'll give you a phone number where you can reach me. If this fourth man shows, you call me. Or if anything else comes up, or if you think of anything, you call me at this number and leave your name if I'm not there. You play ball with me, Judy, and I'll get you a nice long visa for a visit to the States."
I wrote Major Rothwell's number down on a piece of paper and handed it to her. "Ask for Nick Carter," I said.
"All right," she said. "I'll do it. That's fair enough."
I started to turn but her hands grabbed my shirt.
"Wait," she said. "You're a bloody mess. You can't go about like that. Sit down a minute."
The tension and pace of the night had come to an end, and with it the pain in my ribs and the cuts on my wrists and arms and knees started to cry out to be heard. Judy returned with a basin of warm water and washrags. I took off my shirt and saw her eyes pause at Hugo as I unstrapped the sheath from my arm, and at the gun in the shoulder holster. She bathed the dried blood from my wrists and arms and knees. My ribs were more bruised than cut and there was little to do about them. Then she brought some antiseptic ointment and gently massaged it over the cuts. She had a gentle touch and she concentrated on what she was doing with a little frown creasing her forehead. The silk robe fell open enough for me to see the roundness of her breasts, very high and full.
"I was watching you at the Jug," I said. "You walk a pretty good tightrope."
"You mean staying out of reach of those hamhanded blokes?" she said. "It's not hard, once you get the hang of it. I don't go for anyone's hands on me, not unless I want them there."
"Kind of tough to hold to in that business, isn't it?" I asked quietly.
"Maybe, but I hold to it," she snapped back, a note of stubborn pride in her voice. She finished rubbing in the ointment and let her hands travel across my chest and shoulders for a moment. Her eyes met mine for an instant and then dropped away. She stood up and I reached out and caught her by the shoulder. She didn't turn but stood there, the wash basin in her hands.
"Thanks," I said. "I hope you've told me the truth about everything, Judy. Maybe this will all end up in something better for you."
"Maybe," she said, not looking up. "Maybe."
* * *
I left Judy Henniker with a strange mixture of feelings. It had been an alarming night in many ways. They'd silenced John Dawsey, but Burton Comford or the Air Force lieutenant would talk, I promised myself. There was damn little doubt left in my mind that the three «accidents» had actually been that. But most alarming of all was the growing certainty that I was dealing with very thorough, very competent and very dangerous professionals. If my suspicions about the operation were right, it was of itself a devilishly clever piece of work. And when I showed up and a possible crack appeared in the form of John Dawsey, they'd moved swiftly and efficiently to take care of it. And so, as of now, I had a stack of neat theories and suppositions but nothing I could take to anyone to convince them that the Australians were not to blame for the tragedies. The strains on the South Pacific Defense Alliance were continuing to deepen and I had nothing to change that.
It was dawn when I reached the cottage. I fell asleep hoping that Judy was no more involved than she'd said. I always hated to see something essentially good go downhill.
III
My bruised, battered body needed sleep, and it drank up the hours the way parched soil drinks up the rain. I don't usually dream, but I had brief moments of seeing molten rivers of copper cascading after me as I ran down an endless passage. By mid-morning I forced myself to get up. Aching plenty and steeling myself against the pain, I limbered up my stiffened muscles until I could at least move them freely. If I wasn't awake when I reached Major Rothwell's office, Mona took care of that. In a dress of shimmering light green jersey, with her red hair, she was as gorgeous as a sunburst. Her breasts thrust forward, a proclamation of their own. The Major was stuffing some papers in a brief case and paused to greet me effusively.
"Glad you've come, Carter," he said. "I have to attend a meeting in Victoria. Be back in a day or two — maybe three. Mona will see that you get whatever you want."
I kept a straight face as I watched the smile whisk across Mona's lips and disappear instantly. "Did you find anything in the records yesterday?"
"Kind of," I said. "I had a full evening last night." I sat down and briefed him on what had taken place, telling him about Judy's part as an apparent contact girl, but leaving out her agreement with me. I wasn't being protective. All those humanitarian instincts had been discarded a long time ago. Being a good Joe and staying alive are very often diametrically opposed, in this game. But Judy Henniker was my own private lead, and it was a rule of mine, learned the hard way, that you always kept your leads to yourself until you were positive of everybody and every place. You always held back a little — and I was holding back Judy's private understanding with me.
When I'd finished my story, the Major was gray and shaken, but he left wishing me the best of luck in my investigation. His eyes were tired, mirroring the heaviness inside him, and I knew what he was feeling. He was deeply disturbed by the thought that his country could be so thoroughly infiltrated by enemies. I didn't tell him not to take it too hard. Perhaps it was good for them all to be shaken up. But I knew that a top espionage outfit could infiltrate anything. It was your counterespionage work that determined how far they got. I turned to Mona after the Major left and found her eyes were playing a cool obbligato to her questions.
Isn't it possible that John Dawsey was killed for very personal reasons?" she asked. "Suppose he had gotten involved with narcotic smuggling or crooked gambling?"
I had to admit that there were those possibilities and they weren't that far out either. Dawsey could have gotten into some big money in underground operations and he was afraid my snooping might uncover it. When he called his pals they decided to play it safe and shut him up altogether. Of course, they had to do the same with me when I stumbled onto them. It was perfectly plausible. I just wasn't buying it. But I had to go along with her. Besides, I didn't want to skewer that national pride which made Mona, even more than the Major, unwilling to admit any weaknesses.
"Get me Lieutenant Dempster's base commander," I said. "I want Dempster at the base for an interview. Maybe I'll be able to answer some of your questions better afterwards."
But I was out of luck. After nearly an hour of phone calls and red tape, Mona told me that Dempster was away on leave. He was due back in two days.
"Have the base commander call me the minute they know Dempster will be arriving," I said. "Then get your Naval Operations Chief on the wire. I want to question Burton Comford."
"Look, Nick," Mona said. "You had a bloody rough night and you're damn well banged up now. Why not knock off on this a bit? Just come up to my place for drinks and dinner and relax. You need it, I'd say."
"The naval base, gorgeous," I said. "I couldn't relax now, not until I get a few more answers."
She sighed and made the call, going through the various channels of Navy red tape — poised, efficient, one helluva beautiful woman. I watched her, hearing half the conversations she held and then, finally, she put down the phone, and there was expression of triumph in her eyes.
"The man you want, this Burton Comford, was reassigned to the harbor patrol operating out of Innisfail," she said. "Innisfail is just up the coastline, perhaps hour's drive from Townsville or a bit more. The harbor patrol is really a coastal watch, small vessels that see to all kinds of coast-wise problems. Comford is on duty now. He'll be coming in at the end of the shift, midnight tonight. I left word that he is to report to the commander's office and that you'd be there."
"Midnight, eh?" I grunted. "I guess that's it, then."
"That's it." She smiled smugly. "And now as there's nothing you can do but wait, you can have cocktails and dinner at my place while you're waiting. You can leave in plenty of time. The coastal is a fast one and leads right into harbor patrol base."
I grinned at her. "You're not only beautiful, you're persistent," I said. "And you're not only persistent, you have the luck of the gods on your side. Let's go."
I watched Mona get her things and then she was beside me, her arms linked into mine, the side of her breast brushing lightly against my arm as we walked out to where the little Anglia was parked. I was feeling on edge and itchy and I knew why. I hated delays and I'd had two of them, one on top of the other. Something unexpected could always happen with delays, and the fact that there wasn't a damn thing I could do about these two didn't really help. I was anxious as hell to pump questions into the Air Force lieutenant and the radarman. I didn't want to wait two days, or even five hours. But I had to, dammit. I swore under my breath.
As I looked at Mona walking beside me, I knew that the restless fire inside me would erupt to engulf her if she played games. She was one gorgeous piece of woman, and her eyes were provocative as hell, but she was Major Rothwell's assistant and I didn't want to start something sticky. But, I mumbled to myself, this is no night to play with matches.
Mona's apartment was comfortably furnished, with a nice long sofa and uniquely shaped coffee table. The decor was white and red, with matching red sofa and draperies, two large white stuffed chairs offering contrast. Mona showed me her liquor cabinet and asked me to make drinks while she changed. 1 had martinis ready, very cold and very dry, when she came out in black slacks with a white jersey top that caressed her breasts. She started dinner during the first martini and came out to sit with me during the second.
"Were you born here in Queensland?" I asked her.
"I was born in Hong Kong," she answered. "Daddy was a major in the British army, and we were stationed in Peking for a while too. Of course, that was all before the Communists took over."
"What is someone as beautiful as you doing unmarried?" I asked, and quickly apologized for the question. "I don't mean to be crude but hell, I thought the Aussies were good judges of women."
She laughed and had me make us another round. "I've only been here for three years," she said. "Until I got here I was in England, mostly, and all those narrow-hipped, thin English girls made me feel out of place. I kept to myself a lot. But I like it better here."
It was an answer that didn't really answer my question, but I didn't press further. Mona's eyes were roving over me as she paused to drain her martini.
"Do you believe in instant attraction, Nick?" she asked, leaning back on the sofa.
"You mean some kind of immediate chemical interaction between two people?" I queried. "I believe in it. I've had it happen to me."
She sat up and leaned forward, her face only inches from mine. "So have I," she said. "The first moment I saw you." Her lips, full and moist, sent out their own invitation as she stayed there, in front of me, not making a move, just sending out heat waves. I leaned forward and my lips found hers — I felt her mouth open at once, her tongue at the ege of her teeth, waiting to leap forward. We kissed without touching bodies, arms at our sides, like two serpents moving together in a swaying rhythm. Suddenly she pulled away.
"I smell something burning," she said and dashed into the kitchen.
"You sure do, honey," I muttered quietly to myself. "And it's me." A clock struck, soft chimes, and I watched its pendulum swing hypnotically. It was an old-fashioned piece, painted white, which rested on the mantle with a vase of red roses on each side.