"Sure. Bring her into it, too," I said. Boy, did he have me taped.
"I could use some help," Janie said. She looked right at me, not trying to turn on anything special, just asking for help, all blue eyes and blonde hair and an expression that said I could do anything if I'd just try.
"What kind of help?" I asked her, ignoring Shearing.
"With your ex-wife's record, it isn't hard to make you look like you hate the United States." Shearing didn't seem to notice that I was ignoring him. He never noticed anything he didn't like. "At least we can show that you don't care about espionage. And you have known Dr. Hoorne for a long time, they can check that easily, but it's very hard for them to find out you weren't close friends. You add a lot of authenticity to the setup."
"You need some authenticity, Steen?" I asked.
He looked up from his pipe, fiddled with the catch on my knife and finally passed it back still open. "It would help. Like you I went to the wild parties when I was in school, but unlike you I did not marry one of the local commissars."
"Now just a blooming—uh, look, Lois was a screwball, but she was no traitor. You're making it sound like she ran the CP or something."
"She did have some rather interesting friends," Shearing observed. "And luckily you are temperamentally the kind of man who never argues politics. So . . . we're not trying to convince anyone that you've been converted to communism, Paul, only that you're broke and hungry enough to sell to the highest bidder."
"Yeah. Make me a complete bastard. You can get up a little sympathy for an ideological convert, but . . . oh, all right, you don't need to give me the pep talk. I've got no use for Chinese spies, and I am broke. Just how does this work?"
Shearing took a file folder from a briefcase by the desk. "Here, this is a list of the times you've been out of town on projects. There's no way anybody can check on where you really went, and you don't make a habit of telling people, do you?"
I shook my head, and he went on. "So, we've changed your employers a little. You can hang on to this, just remember what's in it."
I looked over the list, discovering that I had been involved with the construction of missile bases for the last couple of years. It made sense, I might have been, although as it happened all my out-of-town projects had more to do with soil drainage and access roads than missiles. "OK, so what is all this supposed to mean?"
He took another document out of the briefcase. This one was gray with a bright red cover sheet stamped TOP SECRET. In small letters below it told me that "this document contains information affecting the national defense of the United States within the meaning of the espionage laws, transmission or revelation of which to unauthorized persons is punishable by law." It's the standard marking for a classified document, but I hadn't read it for a while. The title said Minuteman Base Location and Configuration. There were more documents in the briefcase.
"That's what you're selling," Shearing told me. "Oh, it's authentic all right. They already have it, but they don't know we know that. I don't mind giving it to them again, their local man won't know they have it. Of course, you wouldn't want the FBI to see you hand it over . . ."
"Good lord! But they're in on this, aren't they?"
Shearing grinned. "Not all of them, that's for sure. This has to look good, Paul. There are amateurs in the free enterprise outfit, but the Chinese top people will be in this. Wait until you hear what we have in mind for Dr. Hoorne if you think yours is good."
"Yeah. Look, if I get caught at this . . . ."
"We'll bail you out," Shearing said heartily. "But don't say a word, just wait for us."
"Wait about twenty years," I grunted. I looked at Janie. Her I trusted, and I was glad she was listening to all this. Of course that's what Shearing thought of before he invited her. It wasn't that I didn't trust Shearing, he wouldn't go out of his way to shaft me, but when he was on the trail he sometimes tended to overlook the problems of the troops. I thought about getting out while I could, but Janie was still there and still looking pleased with me. Damn it, why is it that men have to put on the big brave act for girls? And why couldn't I find one who'd be impressed with my skill at hunting or something?
"All right. I've got this document for sale. Anything else?"
"A few other things. You'll get them before you go. Now let's turn to the rest of the program." Shearing was talking faster now, no pretense of consulting me about the project. Not that he was ever consulting me in the first place, but once I was roped in he could make with the orders. He had a way of explaining things to himself, thinking it through again on the spot even though he'd planned it before, that reminded me of a math professor I'd once had. He lit another Camel and plunged on.
"Dr. Hoorne is also in possession of information, information that is somewhat more important than yours," Shearing told us. "In fact, his is so important that his disappearance with certain documents has brought in the FBI who, after judicious consideration, will put out an all-points wanted bulletin on him. That will be in the papers tomorrow morning, by the way. We've had to work fast, Janie's contact seems to be going out of town and we can't be certain these people won't slip up and let the FBI get them before we spot their buyer. Besides, we need to locate the Chinese agent before they get the real information they're expecting."
"But—but," I protested, breaking in on his monologue, "aren't you working with the FBI on this? Hell, they want the Chinese more than they want these free enterprisers, don't they? They won't grab them."
"It would depend on what they wanted them for," Shearing said carefully. He traced another diagram on the scratch pad in front of him. "You must understand, Paul, this whole operation is intended to identify the Chinese contact. Under no circumstances must he be arrested, made suspicious, put out of action, interfered with . . . that's vital. In fact, if you have to, you are to protect him from the Bureau, the local police, or anyone else you do not know for certain is working for me. Is that clear?"
"It's clear, but I don't know why."
"You don't have to know why." His voice had an edge to it. "You do not need to know why, but you will remember it." He looked around at all of us, his face an intent mask. "All of you remember it. This is an identification only, and you will not interfere with the Chinese agent once he is found."
He caught himself, relaxed visibly, but the tension was still in his eyes. There was something he wasn't telling us, but there'd be no way in the world to find out what it was. "Not that I expect you to find the Chinese agent. We've got a lot of lines out, chances are one of the other operations will spot him first. But this one has one sure thing going for it. We might not get to the ChiCom, but you will be contacted by the information brokers. The story Janie will tell them makes that absolutely certain. After that, you may or may not make contact with our real target, but if you do, it is extremely important that this works the way I want it to."
"Yes, sir. Find them but don't spook them. Protect them from the Bureau." I banged my pipe against the big cut-glass ashtray. It rang harder than I wanted it to. "Just how do I do that?"
"Oh, hell, you won't have to," Shearing said. "Look, I don't have a lot of time this afternoon. I'd like to turn this over to somebody else but temperamental people like you have to . . . anyway, look, let me run through it and you ask questions afterwards, OK?"
"OK." I'd worn his patience a little thin, and for no purpose. He wasn't telling anything he hadn't planned to give me. I wondered what it would be like to really have to work for that character instead of being a part-timer who could quit. I also wondered if I could keep my semipro standing after this. He must have heard me thinking.
"By the way, you'll be paid your standard consulting fee for this through Hefflinger Analysis Corporation. I hope you can collect it back from the other side, but you'll get your money."
"Thanks." Well, at least I'd make the payments on the TR without hitting my savings.
"Yes. Now. Tomorrow morning the papers will have a story on th
e possible defection of Dr. Hoorne, local Seattle boy known to be unhappy with the government about being laid off. It will say that he applied for positions at the universities, but because they have dropped their military research, the government would not allow him to continue the work he was doing. There will be hints that there were some questionable security aspects to his layoff. And he is wanted for questioning by the FBI."
I looked around at Hoorne, but he seemed to be taking it all right. "He's going to come to you for help. You will hide him, Janie will discover he is at your place. That's reasonable, she's been there often enough. She'll let the secret sellers know about Hoorne, they will approach him, and the two of you will dicker over the price. Dicker hard. Eventually Paul will turn over this document to them as a gesture of good faith. They'll be able to sell it for a reasonable price, nothing spectacular but they ought to get five thousand dollars for it. I'd say you ought to hold out for at least half that. Paul will have other documents, all for sale. You'll have established that you have genuine information for sale, and now you ask for really big money. Hoorne will make himself available to their source, will answer questions, accompany them to any location to assist them in gaining knowledge of his specialty. He is not interested in defecting and has no ideological love for them. The two of you are purely interested in money, and you are suspicious, afraid of being caught and afraid of being kidnapped by the enemy. You want to be sure that your information will be paid for, which means in the case of the important secrets, money in advance."
"I see," I told him. It was getting clearer by the minute. "The ChiComs aren't likely to give this amateur outfit that much dough on speculation, are they?"
"No. It would not be reasonable, you are asking for a lot of money, at least one hundred thousand dollars, cash, small unmarked bills. Hold out for more if possible. You can start with an asking price of a million and come down. There are not many people the Chinese trust with that kind of money."
Janie laughed. "Would you trust one of us with it?"
Shearing looked serious for a second, his eyes burning through the cloud of smoke around him. "I'd have less trouble finding you than they would, you know. Unless you wanted to defect to the Iron Curtain or the Rice Workers' Paradise . . . that would be punishment enough." He got his grin back. "But I am trusting you with that kind of money. You can't keep it all even if you collect it. I'll give you a bonus if you can help bankrupt them, though."
"Thanks," I told him. "Well, it sounds easy enough. The only real danger is from our side. The Bureau's not stupid, what if they catch Steen? They'll really be looking for him, you say."
"Oh, yes. As far as they're concerned he's a genuinely wanted man about to give vital secrets to the enemies of the United States. We can't trust every agent, the other side must have some people in the Bureau by now. That's one reason for you, Paul. Except for your story there's really no reason why Dr. Hoorne should come to you for help. You weren't actually good friends, and the Bureau will never think of you. I hope. Keep him out of sight, though; he's known in the district."
"Yeah. Steen, how does this sit with, you?" I asked.
"Fine. You're the boss, tell me what to do."
"Me? Come on, you must be an old pro at this."
He laughed. "No, I am a laser-beam warfare expert. A little out of date, perhaps, but stuffed full of secret information, it is my specialty."
"Well for God's sake," I protested. "There's nothing but amateurs in this show. Including most especially me. Why don't you at least put one of your . . .oh."
"Oh is right," Shearing agreed. "Just how long do you think it would take one of my agents to learn enough about lasers to keep these people happy? Remember, we want them to go away unsuspicious. If you actually make contact with the Chinese we will arrange an interruption before Steen gives away any real secrets, but it will be a most delicate interruption indeed. Well, are you happy with it?"
"How should I know?" I asked. "He says I'm in charge. You mean Janie, don't you?"
"No." Janie answered before Shearing could say anything. "In the first place, I may be out of it as soon as you make contact with them. Secondly, I can't have you working under me. It wouldn't—well, it just wouldn't work, that's all."
"What she means is that her emotional involvement with you is such that she can't give you orders on her own initiative," Shearing told us. "Sorry to discuss this out in the open but we better get it understood. Children, this is not a teen-age dating game. One of these days, damn it, I'll manage to recruit some agents like the ones in the books. The hard cynical characters who never let human emotions get in their way. Then I'll probably have them shot because I can't control them. Right now, I have to use what I've got, God help me." He grinned with the last sentence to soften it a little, but I got the impression he could have used somebody a little less temperamental than Janie and me. Of course, he probably had people like that working another side of the game. I thought about it, decided that Harry Shearing must be a genius. He'd figured out how to take people like me and get his job done.
A couple of hours later I drove Janie back to my place. By arrangement the doorbell rang a few minutes after we got there, and a chap with a thick leather attaché case was on the porch. He looked like a tired salesman, which he might have been; there were enough of them coming around lately. To anybody watching us he might even have been a prospective client with his rumpled brown suit and thin topcoat. He wore rubbers, which wasn't altogether usual in Seattle although newcomers to the city often try them before deciding that if you live in a city where it's always wet, you're a sucker to keep putting the damn things on and then having to worry about them when you get where you're going.
"Paul Crane?" he asked. I agreed it was me, and he added, "Bill Dykeman, Consolidated Network Engineering. Want a couple of hours of your time."
"Sure, come on in." I led him down the hall, past the big sliding doors that connect to my living-room office, around through to the dining room where he was out of sight. He sat down and put the leather case on the table, took out a couple of boxes that looked like radios. "We have a complete line of optical and electronic equipment for surveying, and we were wondering if you'd test some of it," he said as he connected earphones to one of the boxes and put them on. In the other room Janie put a record, Beethoven's Fifth, on the stereo, turning it up but not very loud, and the guy fiddled with the box for about ten minutes. Every now and then he'd make another remark about the mythical surveying equipment he was demonstrating, and I'd make some appropriate response. When he finished he wandered around to my telephone, asked if he could use it, made a call and proceeded to take it apart while it was still off the hook. Then he carefully put it back together again.
"If there's anybody listening to you, he's using something so damn sophisticated that he knows you'll have a check made," he announced. "But after today you're on your own. I'll put plugs on the phone, you disconnect it when you want a conversation you're sure is private. A phone can be bugged to pick up any conversation in the room with it, remember that."
I nodded. I seemed to remember reading that somewhere anyway. "Now, Miss Youngs, you have your standard kit here?" he asked Janie. She indicated a little overnight bag she'd brought from the colonel's place. I was disappointed until I saw it was only half full of electronics and junk. Dykeman ignored the various feminine things, concentrating on little electronic gadgets. "Everything seems to be in order," he told us. "You can keep this receiver, I've shown you how it works. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to catch an airplane. I'm due back home for dinner, which I'll never make. My wife is going to kill me one of these days." I showed him to the door, watched him trudge off down the street, his feet squishing in the pools on the sidewalk. As he turned the corner he sneezed.
"What a friendly chap," Janie grinned when I got back in. "I'm glad Mr. Shearing arranged for him. For once we're just us, with nobody listening at all." She moved against me and I held her a long minute, remembering
the lingerie in her overnight bag and wondering how to be delicate in making sure she'd stay.
"Yeah." I kept remembering something else. This out-of-town expert, this man who flew in so that there would be no way to connect me with a CIA type in case they had the local debugger spotted—this guy had to have been arranged for some time ago. Boy, did Shearing have me taped.
We couldn't go out. Shearing had made it clear that from the time Dykeman left the house was not to be unguarded. It only takes a couple of minutes to put a bug in, and if somebody did we wanted to know who. Janie and I were able to go over our plan, flattening out the rest of the details while I cooked dinner. I had enough red snapper and redfish in the house to make a New Orleans bouillabaisse, the real thing, not some newspaper recipe imitation. It takes hours of concentration to do it right, but the result is worth it. I put Janie to pounding herbs and rubbing them into the fish.
Red Dragon Page 3