by Philip Wylie
Grove wondered.
He bought some new clothing, took a room in the Sherman-Demoiselle and slept well, that night.
In the morning he found Jerry looking great—but confined to bed for another few days.
Grove decided it was high time to deactivate his windward side premises, granting certain facts.
He took a regular plane and rented another car at the Honolulu airport.
Honolulu seemed in its ordinary state of tourist-native, slaphappy chaos.
The drive over the pali was, as usual, gorgeous, and, as usual, refreshingly cool.
Waimanalo was tranquil also. No public signs of whatever it might have been.
And when he parked outside his garage things were quiet there too.
He had expected anything but that—armed guards, a burned-out ruin, not the silent shapes of two empty and adjacent houses. He took out keys and made his way in by the tunnel. He noticed that a couple of lights were burning and, by that, gratefully assumed that Hawaiian Electric had restored his lines. His regular phone, when he listened, also buzzed invitingly. He would make some calls as soon as he attended to even more urgent matters.
That effort required the best part of an hour. He was sweaty and dusty when he finished and he sat down, sniffing. But his house was now innocent of novel props no longer necessary. He’d had breakfast at the hotel and a free snack on Aloha Airlines, so he wasn’t hungry.
He was ready now for a cigar.
He reflected, as he smoked it, that there would be—remnants, say—of the Solentor group, people not yet able to arrange transport. They might, conceivably, come snooping here, in hopes of tardy revenge.
Very well; he had another leather case ready and he procured it upon that thought.
His gate bell chimed.
He went out, crossed the bridge and lawn to open the gate. An Air Force major stood there, at attention.
“Mr. Grove?”
“Yes, I’m Grove.”
The major extended an envelope, quite a thick one. “To be delivered by hand, sir.”
Grove gawped.
The major saluted and left.
Grove locked the gate, then the doors, and examined the envelope. It bore no markings except for his name. He took it to his metal shop, using the outdoor stairs, and opened it with routine precautions. Nothing blew. So he looked at the last page for a signature. He found one.
Steve
He read the lines just above:
My gratitude is beyond expression. The world should know that one man saved freedom, all alone. What I have asked may be too much. If it is, say so. I shall call you as soon as I am able but after you have received this.
Yours,
Steve
Grove carried the letter upstairs, lighted a fresh cigar and turned to the first page. When he had finished he walked to his lanai and stared toward the sea; his emotions and thoughts shifted behind his wide-set, gray eyes much as the ocean at which he looked unseeing. He arranged the points in the letter neatly to achieve calm:
One. Tack Abbott had gotten word to the President. So the ordeals of Grove and Jerry had not been necessary. Or had they? Grove saw a value in their long race, Solentor prevented from a desperate act. And dead.
Two. The lava tube had been blasted open by picked men from Hank Balcom’s command. The flooding that followed had wrecked the interior and drowned its occupants. Divers had found fifteen tow-submarines, two larger subs rigged for towing, enormous workshops and storage areas, all wrecked. The enemy’s plan was vulnerable if discovered, which was why such ingenious and extensive efforts had been made to prevent discovery.
Project Neptune, in sum, was drowned, wiped out, finished.
Three. Eaper was on his way back to Washington.
Axe never gave up his theory that Neptune was happening elsewhere. When Tack Abbott blew the whistle I told Eaper enough to get him on his way by supersonic plane to Oahu. Owing to the efforts of the late Pilford Oddie, they did get on Solentor’s trail and, thank God, in time.
I shall ask Art Eaper to resign. He’ll be only too happy when he learns that I know about his books … and also “hers.” Thanks for that! What do you think about Bernie Bergman as director?
Grove thought it was a great idea.
Four.
I believe it is feasible to sit on what we know about Neptune. The whole area was blocked off on the night of the blast and flooding and for most of the day following. The park, highway and so on went back to normal late that day and all further recovery efforts will proceed from the sea end of the tube, behind a very tight screen of ships. The news media have no information of any definite sort. Our cover story looks to be satisfactory: an explosive but minor quake, and hinted to be due to the need to recover some nuclear weapons lost because of the quake. The sort of affair that happened in and off Spain years back.
Five.
If we can keep the actual nature of Neptune a secret we will have a tremendous lever against Mainland China and the Communists who covertly assisted in that horrifying effort. The Reds aren’t going to bring their devilish scheme to world attention. But they will know that we can, with absolute proof, whenever America chooses. It will be a very useful lever although both governments will play innocent and blame each other, whatever the facts.
Six.
This means you two would have to agree to a silence of indeterminate length. The Abbotts and Foth have done so. But you have a right to demand that the whole Neptune Project be given immediate release and, with that, the honor and acknowledgment you, especially, deserve.
It was up to Grove and Jerry Gong. At that, Grove smiled a little: the President knew what their answer would be. If Neptune could be kept secret for such use—and Grove began to think that was possible—neither he nor Jerry would demur.
Seven. The President had come to a next point he found very difficult. Grove riffled through the pages for the exact words:
I asked you, up in Buffalo, to undertake a mission for me that proved vital beyond imagining. You carried out that mission. I have just asked you if you will waive a richly earned public honor. Now I ask more, with a feeling close to shame, one certainly of humbleness. Would you, Ring, for the rest of my term and another, if I am re-elected, be willing to act for me again on any similar matter—or one dissimilar—should an occasion arise when I needed you?
Grove sighed. He would, of course. As Jerry would, and the Abbotts would too.
The eighth item was simply Steve’s statement that all costs of Grove’s operation would be repaid from a special fund, including a reward to Jerry and another to the tree man. After that came the paragraph that began, My gratitude…
He returned to the red chair and sat for a time. In view of the plan to keep secret the uncovering and ruin of Project Neptune, certain loose ends ought to be caught up as quickly as possible.
Jenny came in, at that point, and started cleaning up what she called “this shambles.” Grove wondered what she would have thought if she’d seen the whole house and all it had contained before he “defused” it.
The phone rang. Grove took it, hoping it would be Steve. It was not.
Bob Barker was angry, almost incoherent. “Where the hell have you and Jerry been? For the last two days I kept buzzing every number I could think of …”
When he had the chance, Grove broke in. “We’ve been away.”
“I know that! In my chopper. Where is it?”
“Where’s Ivan?”
That stopped Bob for several seconds. “He got loose from where I stashed him on Molokai. I didn’t think it was possible. Anyhow.” Bob’s swallow was audible. “He tried to climb down a cliff to the sea, or, maybe, jumped. I dunno. The Molokai police have the body and don’t know where it came from.”
“I see. Look, Bob, no sweat. I’ll get to you on that tomorrow. Meantime, have you talked to anybody else about—anything?”
“Of course not. Jerry made that clear enough. What is it all about?”
>
“That’s the point.”
“Anything to do with the big uproar around the park?”
“I don’t know what that’s about, myself,” Grove lied calmly. “But I do know the man you took to Molokai had nothing to do with it. And he’s no loss. I’ll tell you a bit about him, tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
Jerry had said Bob was a very solid man and it sounded that way now. His next question was unemotional. “Where do I pick up the chopper?”
“We lost that.”
“What?”
“Let me know what it costs to get another, a new one. And how much business you will lose till a new craft is delivered. It was my fault and I’ll send you a check the minute you give me the figures.”
Bob asked how his helicopter had been lost and presently realized that, too, was something to be kept under wraps. “Incidentally,” he told Grove when his protests and queries ended, “your station wagon is still out on that empty development.”
“Thanks. I’ll pick it up later.”
Grove was glad the police hadn’t done anything about the station wagon standing amid the dormant construction machines. He’d be able to dismantle it too. If anyone had tried to tamper with it a fire would have started and in a short time it would have become so intense that such a person or persons would have to back away while the vehicle melted.
He sorted the accumulated mail.
A many-times-forwarded letter from Warsaw, New York, about the plant; everything fine there. Appeals for funds. A note about a boy in his gang from a grateful mother. Some advertisements. And another note that startled him. It had been mailed on the previous afternoon and read:
Some friends of that big, dangerous man through whom we met showed up at Hana, and I decided to move. Cy got me a job in the park where I thought you had recognized me. Wrong? An Arab sheik who closely resembles our friend (oddly!) has twice visited the place and met a girl I once knew when she was in my trade but worked for the competition. Very exotic. The other day she set fire to a slip of paper that I snitched by taking her ash tray. It said “Polonia Hills Motel, Falls Church, Va.” Where she’ll be, later? Also, our big acquaintance is rumored to be working, maybe without the knowledge of his bosses, on some oriental thing. I tried phoning but no luck. Came by and will again but meanwhile this note in case you are interested. We didn’t have much time for me to tell you all I knew, when we met that once, did we? Incidentally, about that dame in my former trade but for the opposition. She always wears a lei of flowers I don’t know. Sample enclosed that fell off in the restaurant. Hope this is useful and that it wasn’t a mistake to mail it. I’ve been worrying. Because you know I owe you my life. I wish I could spend the rest of it thanking you. I haven’t known many kind people, I guess. With love. Me.
The gate chimes sounded again and Jenny hurried over the little bridge and through the gardens to answer. She came back to find Grove holding a single, dead blossom in his hand and shaking his head in a bemused way.
“It’s your girl friend,” Jenny reported. “Very beautiful. She hopes you’ll see her.”
He looked up. “I have no girl friend.”
“No? How would you describe the lady you had here one night, quite a while ago? In the guest room. Where she left a long gold hair which this girl’s matches exactly?”
Grove flushed as Jenny showed amusement.
“I found it, yes,” Jenny laughed. “It did not belong to either of your two teachers. One has black hair. The other is a blonde but with shorter hair.” Jenny described the girl waiting on the garden bench; beyond question, it was Esther Wilson. He half rose and sat down again. He wanted to go out and welcome Esther. He thought of the hackneyed bit about old fools being the worst sort. He told himself he wasn’t that old.
Jenny watched his indecision with disapproval. “You know what you are?” she finally said.
“What?”
He was stunned at her reply. “You’re a coward.”
Grove’s eyes began to twinkle as he weighed alternatives.
A hostage to fortune and, if that, no coward to Jenny?
Or the lonely bachelor’s ways that would certify his status with her as a coward, which he even might be, or at least have been.
Which?
His smile told Jenny which.
About the Author
Philip Wylie (1902–1971) was a prolific writer whose work spanned a range of genres from men’s adventure and detective stories to science fiction and social criticism. Several of his novels, including When Worlds Collide, Night Unto Night, and Los Angeles: A.D. 2017, as well as the Crunch & Des stories, were adapted as movies and television shows, and his novel Gladiator is considered one of the inspirations for the iconic character Superman.
Wylie was also a commentator on American society. In 1942 he published Generation of Vipers, a bestselling book of essays that attacked the complacencies of the American way of life. His novel The Disappearance presents a dystopia in which men and women vanish from the perception of the opposite sex, allowing Wylie to explore the issues of women’s rights and homosexuality. Wylie recognized early the potentially catastrophic effects of pollution and climate change and wrote both fiction and nonfiction on those topics.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1969 by Philip Wylie
Cover design by Jesse Hayes
ISBN: 978-1-4532-0229-6
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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