by Philip Wylie
Grove studied the setup for a while and decided these very effective means would not be used again. They would expect him to defend against such burglarious schemes immediately, with some diabolic counter, probably. So he could let that matter slide.
He stood on the lanai for some time, however, taking deep breaths of the air that came in through the opened plastic panel. Then he walked to the front of the porch and stared out to sea, wondering how Solentor and his men would be picked up—on the far shore of Rabbit Island, beyond doubt. He decided they would transfer to one of the Soviet “fishing boats” and head away on a course calculated to keep the island between their ship and the shore-based radar beyond the park. They could even transfer to one of the Soviet subs that frequently dogged warships coming out of Pearl Harbor.
He returned to the living room, then, shutting the lanai doors. He switched off the air conditioning and, feeling a need for comfort, lighted kindling under logs in his fireplace. He rarely used it and never had had an excuse of this sort. What sort? To calm my damn nerves, he admitted. Sitting in his chair again, he reviewed the visit and pondered the effects on his situation.
The next communication from his friend, Elias Foth, the tree-watcher, wasn’t due for some days: ample time, then, to change the delivery system.
Grove was still humiliated at not having discovered he was being tailed, by other men than Oddie’s. Of course, he had expected the latter; but he should also have suspected others might conduct a similar surveillance; he ought, in any case, to have caught onto it. A point for the enemy, then, and a point to keep in mind.
The visit had confirmed Project Neptune, a great gain. The importance of the visitor, together with various inferences drawn during the conversation, made Grove almost certain that Neptune involved Oahu; but what it was or where remained unguessable as before.
Solentor now knew Grove had heard the code name. He realized, too, that Grove was playing some game—the appearance of the cobra would prove it: an unpredictable move of a kind Grove, alone, would dream up. But, since the Communists also knew that Grove was not acting for any established American intelligence group, they would still be perplexed. Further, and Grove was ironically amused at the thought, Communists were easily led to believe the most preposterous things about Americans—as long as such things were vicious, infamous, crooked and ignoble. Solentor would doubtless be convinced that, whether Grove was effectively engaged in anything else or not, he was busy with “industrial espionage.”
Neither had learned very much more of positive value. It was a compliment of sorts to be held up and interrogated by the alleged chief of a recently formed special cadre, the PPPG. The visit suggested, furthermore, that Neptune was an operation not only planned for and in preparation, here, but one that could not be easily moved elsewhere. Otherwise, why not transfer it instead of spending so much effort to try to find out the intentions of a middle-aged, onetime agent? That was a valuable assumption.
But when Grove tried to regard his part in the evening with some satisfaction his relish diminished in step with the effort. He wanted to tell himself he had come off well but increasingly felt that somewhere he had dropped a stitch, missed a point, failed to do or else to think of an item that he couldn’t place. It made him restless and he walked around the room for a while, deciding to go to bed and then not to, since he was far from sleepy. A log slid from the dogs, smoking, and Grove went to the fireplace.
He set the screen aside and, with a wooden-handled fire tool that hung on a thong, replaced the log. Just after he had put the heavy instrument back on its hook Grove knew what had caused his vague sense of unfinished business.
He perceived it with surprise, and thought, as he often did, that his tardy recognition was a sign of age, of rustiness, of his folly in trying to do what he had undertaken. If his oversight was belated, however, the time lapse between Solentor’s charge through the window to the present made it pardonable in a way.
Still, after setting the screen back and glancing around the room, he felt depressed.
His hands remained cold. He pressed them against the warm screen, remembering other times and places when, at other hearths, he had made fires for solace: fires of straw and of unknown wood, fires in a cabin during an arctic winter in occupied Norway, fires of peat and of camel dung, fires in a tropical village hut on the thatched roof of which monsoon rain hammered.
Ring Grove had always been a very lonely man.
9
Hostage?
Grove was still squatting at his hearth when he knew suddenly his tantalizing and ultimately perceived oversight ought not to have been dismissed. He had caught a soft sound of footsteps. What had nagged him was the need to search his house to make sure Solentor had not left anything behind, or anybody. His rustiness was real and his position hopeless. He waited, not trying to move, for the command or the bullet he deserved. Quiet footsteps came close and halted.
A voice ordered, “Don’t move.”
He didn’t. The voice was a woman’s and husky; a little nervous, as if its owner was the one in danger. “Turn around slowly.”
He did. She was young, in Grove’s view, very beautiful—and stark naked. She walked forward till she stood in front of him. Her arms were lifted high, as if in surrender, which set Grove’s mind stuttering. Was this Solentor’s idea of—an ace in a sleeve? She had a fine figure and was tall; blonde hair curled down her back, very lovely hair; her eyes were deep brown and almost as wide-set as Grove’s; a rather pert tilt of nose, a broad but not shapeless mouth, legs that, as he rose slowly and staring, brought the word “Ziegfeld” to his mind. A living houri, a personified odalisque. Her expression was intent but unreadable. The over-all result, in the word his gang of kids used, was kook.
That, finally, prompted Grove to say, “It doesn’t make any sense at all!”
The naked girl relaxed a little, with that. She was, he thought, in her late twenties or early thirties but a girl to him.
“I am keeping up my hands so you will not shoot.”
“Shoot?” That left Grove more puzzled then ever. “What in hell with? My cigar?”
“And so,” she added, “you will know I’m not able to kill you.”
“How’d you get in?”
“The way The Lever did. His men came with me ahead of him.”
“I see. Well?”
“I need to explain.”
“So help me Moses, you do!”
“I heard it all.” She smiled briefly. “That cobra! It terrified him. I never knew he could be afraid, till then.”
Grove gazed at her with a careful speculation unrelated to her sex or its complete exposure and excessive allure. “So you stripped before you showed up—to make me happy. Didn’t you realize I know of women, as bare as you are, who have killed men?”
She kept her hands high and slowly turned in a complete circle. Grove reflected that all elevations were delightful; one expected that of Solentor’s female colleagues. Facing him again, she said, “You must make sure I cannot do any such thing.”
He nodded. “Don’t think I won’t!”
He rose and stepped up to her. His examination was professional, thorough, and conducted with no regard for modesty. Satisfied, he grunted and stepped away. “You can put your hands down,” he said. She did so. The lady had not been in any way surprised or, apparently, embarrassed by his search.
If he had needed more confirmation of her background, that lack of reaction would have been ample. The first thing to do would be to get her dressed—rather, Grove decided, the second thing; the first would be to examine her garments before she put them on. He had made mistakes enough for one night.
“What’s your name?”
“Esther Wilson—my real one.”
“Well then, where are your clothes?”
The answer startled Grove: “On the boat.”
There had been only one boat. He shook his head. “Solentor must have lost his mind! You came in—like this?�
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“I was taken to your bedroom. There was a quilt—”
“I don’t get it! Your boss never intended me to go to bed again, above the ground, anyway.”
“No.” She was silent.
“If you’ll walk ahead, I’ll get you a gown.”
She did; when they returned, the woman wore a robe. She sat opposite Grove when he motioned her to do so. She said, “It isn’t very hard to understand: me being here, naked.”
“Suppose you try to enlighten a man who is evidently stupid, then.”
“Will you listen? I mean—to the whole thing? From the start, for my sake?”
“Go ahead. I’ll listen.”
“I was a—well—a pretty crazy kid. I’m an American, incidentally.” She looked at him with a sort of hope; he simply shrugged. “My mother died when I was nine. Dad paid me no attention. I ran around in my teens with the jet set’s kids and went to Bennington, too. It’s supposed to be—was supposed to be—the farthest-out girl’s college anywhere. I was bored. I had an affair with a professor, finally, just to see how it was. When I found out about that—how it was—I broke it off. She committed suicide.”
The words stopped; but Grove showed no reaction. His bizarre guest continued. “The lady prof left a note. I never had any idea even men could get that—intense—because of mere sex! And everybody acted afterward as if I was an absolute nothing. I went home. Dad lived in New York, when he wasn’t with some woman or other. I was already fed up with the Park Avenue bit. I wanted excitement and that’s how, finally, it occurred to me I could at least do one good deed in my life—even if it involved doing what was anything but.”
Grove began to see ahead: “So you flew down to Washington and offered to be—”
“Father knew everybody. Including Admiral Ball. So I got to him and in a couple of weeks I was in the training camp. My God, I had no idea anything could be that rough! Not then. I stuck it out, partly because most volunteers didn’t—and partly because some of the—work—was exciting—and promised to be more so, besides.”
“When did you—graduate?”
“Almost six years ago. I was twenty-two. I had some special features to offer, after all. I’d been in school in France—a convent. Father had hoped it would ‘discipline’ me.” She laughed derisively. “So I spoke perfect French. In the training camp I learned Russian and German. You know what else, I gathered.” Grove nodded coldly and she went on. “At first my assignments weren’t much. An English physicist who worked in their A-bomb plants—a real dope. I was in Paris for a while. Hong Kong came later. And it was after I’d been in Hong Kong—I was an American buyer, according to my papers—I dated a cute guy, on my own, and against orders, of course. Well, I woke up once, in Macao—and the next time, on the trans-Siberian railroad. I was taken to Moscow and later met—your recent visitor. I had the two choices that you should be able to imagine.”
Grove could, easily. It made him slightly sick. “So you chose to work for them.”
“Who wants to die?” she asked quickly.
“A lot of people, men and women, don’t want to. But do.”
She twisted a strand of heavy, shining hair. “Sure. And later in their retraining center—I nearly did die. But I had the idea that, someday, while playing for them, I’d get a chance—” She gave him a pitiful look.
“Some people rationalize that way—under those circumstances.” Grove shook his head as if at a disappointing daughter. “It never works.”
Her dark eyes blazed. “It did work!”
A very pretty act, a very solid-sounding tale, he thought. But he said, “Meaning what, exactly?”
Her voice dropped as if she feared being overheard. “How did you hear about Project Neptune?”
That shook Grove. The information, such as it was, had come through what Eaper called one of “Ball’s bints,” women inherited from the admiral’s administration. “Bint” suggested a type very different from the beauty sitting here. She seemed intelligent and she also seemed the kind of female who would be a bad risk as a wife: and why? Witchy, Grove decided.
“So you sent the code name?”
She nodded thoughtfully. “And that was found out.”
“Oh.”
They looked at each other for a full minute, a psychologically brutal encounter the woman lost. “And so,” he prompted, “you went back to Moscow. Then what?”
“They told me all the way there the punishments I could be given after Solentor decided which ones.”
“I see.” Grove did. She went on in slow, horrified recollection:
“The Lever got everything he could from me, of course. About my work before they caught me. Most all of what I’d learned and transmitted about them. Nothing very damaging, I can tell you—whether you believe it or not. And then I was sent for more training.” She could not go on.
He waited while she tried and said at last, “Okay. You betrayed them, and so on. How did you get here? And why?”
“When I was taken away to come here I had no notion of the purpose.” This came out readily. “Just, I wouldn’t likely last long, of that I was sure. I was flown—with some Russian agents—to Vladivostok. And sent on with them by ship to near here—they rowed, this evening—to your beach. I had no idea where I was, who you were, anything. I guessed it was Hawaii when I saw the shore from the fishing boat in which we crossed the Pacific—I presume you know about them?—but not much else. A while before The Lever ordered us in here, his men stripped me and brought me ashore. I was taken to your bedroom and told to stay there. You were in your kitchen. That was all I had from them. I left the bedroom when I found I could and tried to listen. I got cold and went back for that quilt. I did listen—and pretty soon I began to understand about you. See?”
“I think I do.” Grove’s mouth was dry. “You had no chance of getting out of the house. Borrie left no possibility of your running away. You were nude. He was going to use you to make me talk. He’d do that, by using you first. His boys would go into their act on you while I’d have to—”
“Yes.”
Grove looked at her, looked away. “Typical,” he said quietly. Then his voice became stern. “Just how badly will he want you back? How much, I mean, do you know that you can tell me?”
“Nothing important.” Her tone was dreary.
“What about Project Neptune?”
“I wish I did have something more.” She thought a moment. “Almost two years ago they sent me back to Hong Kong on an assignment. One night my contact there—a man—ordered me to his apartment. He got drunker than apes—I didn’t keep up—and he started boasting about his inside status. He said that something very big, very absolute was being set up to take over America. An operation called Project Neptune. He was sure it would make the commies top dog. I felt he believed that. But he couldn’t add a damned bit. And I am sure he didn’t know more to add—I can about guarantee it because I’m a girl, after all, and I know a good deal about when men are putting it on. So I took the trouble, a few days later, to get in touch with one of my former CIA contacts. Another woman—with about my rank, before I was snatched. We met in the dark and I don’t think they even knew whether I talked to a man or woman—though I told them it had been a woman, when they—I mean—later. Anyhow, she didn’t speak—I’d signaled her not to—and they don’t know what I told her. We thought we were safe and alone, that night. She went, soon, and I stuck around and—that’s all.”
Grove stretched. “Like a drink?” He rose.
“Please.” Her eyes shone briefly. Their light died out as he crossed the room and poured the drinks without noticing her. She raised her glass slightly. “To the liar you think I am, that I’m not.”
Grove drank part of his whisky and stared at her thoughtfully. “Whether you’ve lied or not isn’t important. What’s important to me is, what the devil to do about you.”
“I have a suggestion,” she said—and stopped at his reaction. “Anyhow, it was an idea. Somet
imes it works—I’m fun.” She gave up. “They won’t come back till they figure out some new gambit.”
“No.” He began thinking hard, paying no attention to her. It made her somewhat ashamed of herself. He seemed a nice guy and not all that old, she was sure. It was difficult for her to believe what she’d gathered from the overheard conversation: that this man had been an agent, too, and might be one still. One even Solentor feared—and for cause, she had found. She couldn’t tell about him now and thought Solentor couldn’t figure Mr. Grove either. Finally he did look at her, smiling a little. “What should I do, from your point of view?”
“I haven’t any idea. When The Lever ran, I knew I was here alone. I knew nobody would likely take swift action—oh—blow the whole place up, for instance, just because I’d been left here. And I can see you don’t think much of my kind of woman. Neither do I. So I haven’t any real reason to care what’s done to me.”
“You’re very beautiful,” he replied mildly.
She raised her drink in another sad mock toast. “Thank you, sir.” She reflected afterward and went on, “I worked for Admiral Ball of course—till they got me in Hong Kong. When I was sent back there I did try to get the word to CIA, as I said and how I said. By then, I knew the admiral had retired. I could tell you a good deal about what the Soviets know of CIA, and our other operations. But not much about how they know.”
“You can do just that, later.” Grove nodded. “But if you don’t know who, what isn’t very important. It would help, though. My problem is present tense. I can’t just turn you loose—”
“Obviously.”
“Why ‘obviously’?”
“I’d have nothing to wear, for instance.”
That made him laugh. “But I can’t keep you here long either.”