“You sure you want me to?”
“I’ve seen you kill too,” I reminded her. “This one will take more than me alone.” She nodded, then moved to an armchair and sat down.
On the third ring the phone was picked up, but as was usual, no voice answered. I gave the signal words and the other person said, “Go ahead, Tiger.”
Martin Grady was as casual as if he were discussing a simple stock merger, knowing I would never make this call unless it was a total emergency.
“Who’s in this area?” I asked.
“Don Lavois and Tony Williams.”
“Scrub Williams and send Don in.”
“Can you talk?”
“Ears only. We’re sitting on a big one. Take any of our top men out of projects you can shelve for the time being and have them on alert. Have them stand by at the usual place until I make contact. We’ll need one liaison man and a fast plane handy. You’ll be directly involved in this and will have to be ready to move fast.”
“The F-51 Mustang will be in from Sarasota tonight then. It will land at Newark.” There was a slight edge to his voice now, anticipation rather than nervousness. “You all right?”
“I’ll live.”
“Serious?”
“Doc Kirkland will send the bill and the details. Meanwhile scratch Vito Salvi. He’s had it.”
Grady hesitated, his voice cautious. “You sure?”
“Positive ID.”
“This will get you very special attention in certain quarters, Tiger. They won’t like their best trigger man being rubbed out.”
“What choice have they got?”
“But you have a choice,” he said.
“Like a nice vacation in the Andes or that sleepy village in Baja California?”
“I’m thinking along those lines. We can’t afford to lose you.”
“You can’t afford to hold me off this one either. I’m the one Vito talked to before I killed him and a vacation will get you nothing but silence, so now the choice is back to you.”
I could almost hear the silent evaluation he was giving my statement, then he said, “You’re asking for it. Take it.”
“I got it.”
“Need anything?”
“So far, no. Be ready for anything though. This is bigger than anything we ever touched.”
“I’ll wait for the report. Tonight?”
“As soon as the plane gets in. Others will have to know about it too.”
“Use your own discretion. Will they cooperate?”
“They’ll have to,” I told him and grinned a little. They had no choice either. I hung up, waited until Rondine took the phone away and sipped at the last of my drink. Just as I finished it the doorbell rang, two short, impatient notes on the buzzer. the raunchy, hard-bitten type he had been when he was our colonel and twenty years hadn’t softened him any. Ostensibly, he headed up a small but important industry, but I.A.T.S. had recruited him back into their new organization for the simple reason that they needed his type, his brains and his foresight.
A few of his superiors knew about his connection with me and hated his guts for it but they couldn’t do without his guts either and they let our association alone.
Now he stood there in the middle of the room, tall and rangy, the hard planes of his face still an indication of his true profession, his eyes scrutinizing me while his mouth twisted into a wry smile, knowing the yeast had started bubbling in the batter again.
I said, “Hi, Colonel.”
“Someday you’ll remember they made me a General on my retirement.”
“Habit. Sorry.” I smiled back at him. “What kind of pay you pulling?”
“I do all right.”
“A hundred says I make five times as much.”
“You’re just greedy.”
“Damn right. I work for it too. It isn’t enough.”
“Ever think one of the right agencies might take you on in spite of your record?”
“Screw them. They don’t pay enough. This way I do the same work and make a lot more bucks. I like compensation for the chances I take.”
“There’s a chance you can wind up in the pokey, too.”
“Not as long as I know where the bodies are buried... and Martin Grady can bail me out.”
Rondine handed Charlie Corbinet a drink, reserving a small one for herself. “Don’t bother arguing with him,” she said quietly.
Charlie nodded. “I couldn’t be bothered.” He took a quick taste of his drink, nodded with satisfaction and looked at me again. “I had a phoned report on the Vito Salvi fracas. You sure can stir things up.”
“Randolph?”
“Yes. They had been after him for two years.”
“When was their last contact?”
“Eighteen months ago.”
“Then they’re lucky. They had their work done for them.” I let it go through his mind, then added, “He had two of your men in that back room. How he nailed them I won’t worry about, but what was he after?”
“Classified, Tiger.”
I shrugged, making a real production out of it. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever they told him won’t go any further. It’s over with.”
“Is it?”
He could see the edges of my teeth in the grin. “Not quite. You see, we had a little talk too... before I killed him.”
“That’s what I thought.” Charlie turned, walked to a chair and sat down with a sigh of relief. “Want to come out with it?”
“Sure, Charlie. Tell me why Salvi wanted those men and I’ll tell you what he told me. Maybe.”
“One of your men was dead too.”
“Nobody that counted.”
“He was in Martin Grady’s employ.”
I nodded. “In a minor capacity by government directive.
Grady owns pieces of many essential industries that come under the identical setup.”
Slowly, Charlie Corbinet turned the glass around in his hand, studied it before he took a drink, then decided. “You really want me to get my head chopped off,” he said.
“Not really. I’d just like to see you draw a full General’s pay with bonus for the work you do ... and some real authority to back you up instead of handing it to guys like Randolph.”
“Tell me, Tiger... why don’t you like the way Washington runs things?”
“Because I don’t like to be classified with the patsies. I don’t like the stupidity that went behind the Bay of Pigs invasion... or the Panama crap... or the way they can knock us off in Viet Nam while we sit on our thumbs and get laughed at by the real pigs on the other side of the Berlin Wall. Someday they’re going to find out a few people in this country got the message a long time ago and are doing something about it—using their time, money and talent to protect what they have. Funny, but it’s fun too. It’s a real pleasure to shove it up and break it off in Moscow’s tail. We’re not any better than the Washington boys. We just have more latitude to operate in and can buy what they can’t, and have that nice, juicy knowledge that we can’t be pushed too far because whatever we do, we’re protected, and in that respect we can use the Soviet’s own cute techniques to slam back at them.”
“I’ve heard that speech before.”
“And I never get tired of giving it, buddy.”
“So what did Vito Salvi tell you?”
“Let’s start from the beginning. You first,” I said.
As usual, he waited, digesting his thoughts, but as usual, he came across. He had to and I knew it so I just sat there until he was ready. “Tiger... those two men...”
“Go on.”
“One came from Poland. He brought the story in.”
“What story?”
“There was a man named Louis Agrounsky, an engineer.”
He looked at me carefully, but I shook my head. “Never heard of him.”
“Very few ever did. He was an electronics engineer employed on our ICBM projects. In fact, the chief technician, in charge of the project. Som
ehow or other he has disappeared.”
“When?”
“About a year ago.”
“What makes him important?”
“Only one thing.”
I waited. Charlie Corbinet was watching me carefully, the drink in his hand forgotten.
“What?”
“The simple fact that Moscow’s top agent was assigned to locate him.”
“So?”
“Those two men were assigned to find him too, just to uncover why the Soviets wanted him so badly. They were narrowing down the search when they disappeared and you showed up in time to really scramble things.”
Rondine came up with another drink and shook one of the capsules from the bottle and handed them both to me silently. I didn’t really notice it, but my side was hurting like hell.
“Now you tell me,” Charlie said and I knew he had spilled all he knew.
When I swallowed the capsule and washed it down with the Four Roses and ginger ale I said, “Vito Salvi was ready to do anything to stay alive. He tried to make a deal.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll give you something to feed on, Charlie. I want you to go home and think on it hard and you’ll know what I have to do. There can’t be any cross purposes or interference because on this one we’ll need everybody we can get our hands on and have to pull out all the stops.”
“I’m waiting, Tiger.”
“You know how the hot line works?”
Charlie Corbinet nodded, waiting.
“You know about the other one?”
“Suppose you detail it for me,” he said.
“Sure.” I leaned back and closed my eyes, feeling the capsule beginning to take hold. “Moscow has one like it too. All over the country we have ICBM’s buried and waiting to fly off to predesignated enemy targets. All we need is a blip on a radar screen or early warning to alert the right person who is the only one who can push the button and start the retaliation in motion. Of course, we’ll all be dead, but revenge will be sweet and before the enemy birds can hit, our own will be on the way.”
He didn’t argue, he only murmured, “True,” and listened.
“All the birds are tied into an electronic system activated by one push of a single button after the emergencies and fail-safes are off. When they’re gone they’re gone and an enemy is totally washed out.”
“But so are we by then.”
“One man installed the system, or was responsible for it, at least. Let’s take a premise now. Supposing the one man who installed the system wasn’t as clean as you thought he was. Supposing that somewhere along the line his thinking got screwed up and he didn’t want to see all that power and control go into the hands of someone who in his opinion shouldn’t have that control. Supposing that one man, to satisfy his own desires and warped judgment, installed a system that could by-pass the original pushbutton device and could activate the ICBM system any time he chose to.”
The room was so still you could hear the breathing from all three of us. “A by-pass control,” Charlie said quietly. “Louis Agrounsky?”
“That’s your boy.”
“If he touches it the Reds will detect the ICBM’s in flight and let their own birds go. Everybody’s had it.”
“That’s not the worst part,” I told him. I opened my eyes and saw his hands tighten on his glass until the knuckles showed white. “In his circuits he installed a device that can negate our own original system. If the Reds fire first with our system out then we have no comeback at all. And there isn’t time to run down the by-pass control.”
“That leaves them sitting on all the eggs. If they find the by-pass first they can deactivate us in a second and leave them calling all the shots in a hurry... or else.”
“Or else,” I repeated sleepily.
I heard him come out of the chair and knew he was standing close to me now. He said, “Do you know where Louis Agrounsky is?”
After a long while I squeezed my eyes open just a little. Even the dim yellow light from the lamp hurt them. “No.”
Charlie’s soft, “Damn!” was like an explosion.
I knew I was grinning and couldn’t help it. I knew that if I opened my eyes both he and Rondine would be standing there in stunned silence, realizing the wild import of what they had just been told, knowing how close we all stood to the edge of sudden annihilation that would be triggered the minute they knew they had the edge.
Slowly, I pulled myself back from the limbo the capsule was sending me into and said, “But I think I know how I can find him.”
CHAPTER 2
The shade was drawn, but it was a bright yellow patch in the room with the sun beating down on it from a high angle and I knew I had been sleeping a long time. I looked at my wrist, but the watch was gone and the rest of me was naked under a single sheet in Rondine’s bed. I glanced around quickly, saw the watch on the nightstand, stopped at five forty-five because it hadn’t been wound. I picked up the extension phone, dialed the time-check number and found out that it was almost four-thirty in the afternoon, then hung up and started to push the covers off me.
Rondine came in then, having heard the sound of my dialing. “Why didn’t you get me up, kid?” My voice sounded hard and cracked.
“Whatever the doctor gave you was supposed to keep you that way.”
“Who put me to bed?”
She gave me a funny smile.
“You could have left my shorts on,” I said.
“That wouldn’t have been any fun.” She sat on the edge of the bed looking at me. “You moan even when you’re unconscious.”
“Oh, shut up.” I grinned at her. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“No? Why not?”
“You’re too prim and proper.”
“But you’ve trained me well.”
I didn’t know whether to believe her or not. “Get my clothes,” I finally said.
“No. I checked with the doctor and you’re to stay in bed.”
“Who else told you that too? Charlie? Hal Randolph?”
Her eyes gave me the answer fast enough and she nodded. “They went through my own superiors. I guess they know what you’d want to do so they put the pressure on me. I had to let you stay there. Tiger... it was for the best.”
“Damn it, they were thinking of themselves.”
“But I was thinking of you.” She wasn’t trying to be cagey about it.
“One day, when we’re married, you’ll get your orders directly from me. Nobody will supersede me and if they try they get clipped, and if you listen, you get your tail burned.”
“When will that be?” she probed.
“I’ll tell you when.”
“You seem to like long engagements, Tiger.” She wasn’t smiling now.
I said, “When it’s over. When we can walk and breathe without smelling death all the time or knowing the world is sitting on the lip of disaster. I don’t want you a widow before you’re married.”
“How do you know what I want, darling?”
“Oh sure, you’ll take me now because you’re a broad and all broads want it now regardless of the consequences, but I’m not letting you stick your neck out in the middle of a mess like this. Crazy broad.”
“I despise that word.”
“You do? Well wear it well, baby. It’s a sign that you’re more than a woman. You’re a doll with everything going for her from a beautiful face to a wild body with a mind to match and I love you like hell. You have capabilities only I can appreciate and I want them all.”
“So I’m a broad,” she said, losing the British accent momentarily and dropping into pure Brooklynese.
“Damn, where’d you pick that up?”
“From you.” She walked to the closet, took my clothes out and laid them down beside me, the gun to one side. “Now get dressed. Want me to watch?”
I gave her a small push. “Get out of here. Some things I can do by myself.”
“But in some things you need help, right?”
; I gave her a nasty grin. “Right. Now scram.”
With a slow unwinding motion she eased off the bed, stood there looking at me, then started for the door. Her hesitation was deliberate and she didn’t mind me knowing it. She turned around slowly, her hand on the knob, and asked, “Do you really know where he is?”
“Who?”
“Louis Agrounsky?”
I had my pants on and the holster hooked up, then I shoved the .45 into the speed rig before I even reached for my shirt. “No, but like I said, I think I know how to find him.”
“Can I help?”
“Maybe, but not at this point.”
“The other agencies ... ?” she started hopefully.
“Screw them, I told you. Later I’ll tell you why.”
“Can you tell me where you’re going now?”
“Sure. Downtown to the New York offices of I.A.T.S. and tender Hal Randolph and Company a report, after which they’ll either put up or shut up.”
“Do you always have to be like this?”
I paused in the middle of tucking my shirttail in. “You want me any other way?”
“Sometimes I think so.”
“Then screw you too, baby.”
Her face went flat, the pain of my words knocking the expression from it. “You didn’t have to say that.”
“No? Then keep out of my business. Otherwise you stop being a broad and become a dame. I’ll do what I want to do and sometimes what I have to do. One thing I won’t do is succumb to sentimentality or the wishful thinking of a woman. When I’m working, stay off my back. You know my business so don’t try to steer me clear. The woman isn’t born and her mother’s already dead who can do that trick. I’ll run things my own way and if you don’t give me credit for being an old soldier type with twenty years over your fair head, then regroup your forces, kid, and find another guy who will bow and scrape and do it when you tell him to go potty. Clear, doll?”
Rondine studied me a moment, smiled, and her shoulders moved in a gesture of resignation. But her eyes were hard. In her own way she was a pro too—a young pro, but she had kills behind her and they had to start somewhere. “Clear, Tiger.” She turned the knob, opened the door and glanced over her shoulder. “Still love me?”
The By-Pass Control Page 2