I came out of the dunes to the flats that angled into the breakers, then inched along the sharply rising slopes toward the house. A dozen timid sandpipers watched me curiously, never breaking their endless run and peck as they followed the surge of the breakers that tongued at the beach.
The house was close now, looming there, a silent witness of the ominous present, glass eyes gaping at the scene expressionlessly. I stopped long enough to study the topography, trying to choose the exact spot he would have picked for the ambush.
There was only one, a peculiarly shaped dune that seemed to have a dish-shaped back that covered all fields of fire and could hide a man completely from anyone making an assault. I could feel the rain against my teeth, wetting my lips with a malicious kiss of death, wishing me luck.
I started up the incline.
Above me the low flying gull wheeled suddenly and made a startled ninety degree turn toward the water, flapping in to land beside the sandpipers.
It was enough. The gull had seen him first.
That dune was a clever trap too. It was the spot I’d look for. There was only one other left.
The waiting was over. I ran.
He was half buried in a hollow he had dug for himself, secure in the knowledge that he controlled the action. He lay there balled up, the long nose of the pistol aimed to his right and the grin gave his face the appearance of a skull. One hand held a Bezex inhaler screwed into a nostril. At any other time he could have passed for any face in any crowd, but with the kill look of pleasure tightening every muscle in his body he was like all the others I had seen before, typed down to the hard glint in his narrow eyes, the thin, bloodless mouth stretched tight in anticipation, and that strange tensed relaxation of a pure killer, highlighted by the facial scar.
He had it too, that feeling for the thing. He knew I was there when I came over the rise, and even in the fraction of time that I had to study him he had done the same and I knew he saw the same expression on my face that he wore on his own. His twisting motion was like that of a cat, swinging the gun and firing as he rolled toward the cover of a dune.
There seemed to be no separation of the two blasts. Both merged into one gigantic slam that split the air with their combined fury and I felt a tug at my side just below the rib cage, a hot dart that went right through tissue and out into the misty air over the sands.
But that damn .45 caught him beautifully. It took the Magnum out of his hand and left a bleeding stump with two fingers missing for the sand crabs to eat later and as he looked up at me with wild, unbelieving eyes, I lowered the hammer on the rod and laid it down beside me.
He knew I wanted him with my hands and didn’t wait. He came at me with a funny gait, blood streaming down his arm. I met him head on, knowing how he’d have the knife ready, grabbed his wrist when he lunged in a thrust that was intended to disembowel me and flipped him on his back with the shiny blade spinning out into the sand.
I expected him to go all the way. He should have been indoctrinated deeply enough to make the mission worth anything at all. He had been trained well and had perfected his technique through experience, always emerging the winner. The only thing he hadn’t been trained for was losing and facing it was too much for him. He broke and ran with a hoarsely mouthed yell in his mouth, going up over the dunes to the beach, legs pumping with a frenzied motion that scattered the sandpipers away from their feeding.
I brought him down with a vicious rolling block across the back of his legs that snapped him into the wet sand, lost him momentarily when I went right over him and turned just in time to grab his foot in my hands as he tried to kick my face in. He was a madman now, eyes bulging, every action one of pure reflex, slashing at me with desperation, bringing into play every trick of judo or karate he had ever mastered.
None of it was enough. I parried his jab to my throat, broke his jaw with a right cross that made him reel drunkenly, then threw another that caught him on the other side and he went face down into four inches of water that came in with a breaker.
He knew what I did. He was conscious of it a long time before he gave up and died. He felt my foot on the back of his neck, keeping his face pressed into the shallows at the edge of the tide, and he clawed futilely through a froth of blood from the remains of his fingers at the weight that was killing him.
When the last great shudder went through him I left him there and went back to the front of the house. I found Mason, bandaged the great gash along the side of his head and propped him up. He’d be a long while unconscious, but would live. He was another of the lucky ones.
CHAPTER 12
Behind the glass, heavy wire mesh had been nailed to the window frames, white metal venetian blinds drawn shut in back of that. Both front and rear doors were studded with carriage bolt heads where the interiors had been reinforced with some heavier material. It had been enough to slow down the killer who knew a forced entry could trigger the man inside into some unpredictable action and he had preferred to wait until he could gain entry at his leisure.
I took the pick out, inserted one in the keyhole of the lock and tried it. The tumblers didn’t budge. I went through four of them before getting a response from the mechanism. Then, by manipulating it easily, I forced the tumblers back one at a time.
Whoever had installed the chain hadn’t done it right. Enough slack was there so I was able to slip it out of position with a business card from my wallet. It swung down, clinking there as I pushed the door open. Inside a radio was playing softly, crackling with static as the storm moved between it and the station broadcasting.
The .45 was in my hand again, ready. I stepped in, closed the door and let my eyes become adjusted to the gray dusk in the room, picking out pieces of furniture, searching for the one I wanted so badly.
From the corner where the radio played was the barely perceptible glow of a dial, its circular face bisected by the back of a chair that faced the ocean. The crook of an elbow jutted out over the arm as the motionless figure there sat watching the sea through the partially opened slats of the blinds.
He never heard me. I had kicked off my shoes and sidled around to the side, each step calculated to take me into position for a clean winging shot if I had to.
And then I could see him, the odd box in his lap that had a pair of minute glowing red lights set in its side. He never turned his head, simply sitting there with the cigarette-sized control in his left hand, his thumb poised over one of the two buttons in its top.
I aimed the .45 at his head and said softly, “Louis ...”
There was no reaction ... no movement at all.
I took a step closer, ready for the slightest motion of his finger before I took his whole hand off. Only the slightest pressure now on the trigger would do it.
Sweat trickled down the center of my spine. Outside was the world. Here was its destruction.
“Louis Agrounsky,” I said again. I was almost on top of him by now. I could see his eyes, wide open, the weird smile on his face as if he were watching the greatest show of his life.
I could see something else too.
He was dead.
The syringe was lying beside him, the needle jabbed into the cushion. The rest of his kit was on the table beside the radio, the three empty capsules, the spoon with the bent handle and the stub of a candle on a saucer. Louis Agrounsky had made a decision, all right. He finally had reached it. He had been ready to carry it out, whatever it was, and mainlined himself for the event and mainlined himself right into the big black with an overdose of the heroin he had craved so badly.
I didn’t touch anything. That would be handled by the experts. I left him as he was, shoved the .45 back in the holster, the crazy relief turning my legs weak a second. I looked at my watch, saw the time and swore into the darkness.
The phone was on a side table and alive. I gave the operator the number of the apartment in New York and waited while it rang twice, then Rondine said simply, “Yes?”
“Tiger, kit
ten.”
Her voice echoed the relief I had felt moments ago, then came back with the fright real and imperative. “Tiger ... Ohl But ... where are you?”
“I found him, baby. You can wrap the world up again. It’s safe for a little while longer. You can come off it now.”
“No! No, Tiger ... listen. I found it ... the letter Doug Hamilton mailed. He sent it to an old address of his deliberately, knowing it would be rerouted through all of his other forwarding addresses before it was returned to him. He wrote it all down and ...”
“But it’s finished, kid.”
“Tiger ... it’s Camille Hunt!”
It was like having the wind blow out of the north and chill you to the bone.
“Camille?” I repeated tonelessly.
Her voice crackled in the phone. “This Henri Frank came to Belt-Aire supposedly to get a job, but what he was doing was making contact with Camille Hunt to tell her about Louis Agrounsky. Hamilton checked him out and found out he was an active Communist. Later he accidentally saw Camille and this Frank person together and suspected something, so he followed her to where she made contact with a man he described in detail ... it was Vito Salvi. The address was right there. He mentioned he was going to investigate Salvi further to see what the connection was.”
My voice sounded cold and far away. “Did he back it up with any evidence?”
“Henri Frank was from the Eau Gallie area and she made several trips there. He had photostats of the tickets enclosed in the letter.”
It all wrapped up beautifully. Wait until Martin Grady found out he had personally recommended a Soviet agent and planted her in his own critical organization. What had been her background? The publications field—a great spot where a trained operative could twist the printed word to meet the demands of the slave state. And she was invited into a supersensitive industry where she could be held in abeyance until the proper time came. The only things that stymied the effectiveness of more direct moves were the double checks put on everybody’s activities by government directive.
She’d have to be high in the organization, a liaison operative who could call into operation the full forces lying in wait if the grand moment came. And that it did. One man fell out of line with a momentous scheme to crush the world his tortured mind wouldn’t let him accept any longer, and she was ready. She had the cover identity of Helen Lewis prepared in advance as she would have several others in key places, ready for immediate use. She made sure of Agrounsky’s aberration with personal contact. She was trained to read people, analyze and judge them. It wouldn’t take much to alter her appearance ... makeup on a woman could make her almost anybody. When she was sure, the trap was built. Total narcotics addiction for Agrounsky, curtailing his supply, directing him to sources leading to New York where they could buy his will and his knowledge with heroin and pick his brains piece by piece.
“Camille Hunt,” I murmured absently.
I never heard Rondine’s reply because the voice behind me said, “That’s right, Tiger. I’m surprised you guessed. Put the phone up, please.” Her voice had a hoarse, nasal quality to it and I stopped seeing her in the soft red glow of the heater, her flesh white and lovely. Now it fitted the personality that was truly hers—the spider in the web, poised and deadly, one appetite sated, another about to be satisfied.
Slowly I dropped the receiver back and turned around, knowing she’d have the gun in her hand, an efficient Belgium Browning hammerless automatic, and the hole in the muzzle was staring directly into my eyes.
“You amaze me, Tiger. Where is ... the other one?”
“I drowned him.”
It didn’t seem to shock her at all. “I see. He was warned.”
“And he was ready. Just not ready enough.”
“Not as ready as I am.”
I nodded once. “How did you get here, Camille?”
“Money is something we find valuable too. There was a helicopter and a man willing to fly it here. If you’re interested, it wasn’t much of a task locating the right Leesville. It was only a matter of elimination and remembering the few things he mentioned. The ocean, for instance.”
“Your luck’s running high.”
“This time. There was a break in the clouds. We ... landed not far from here.” She smiled at me, but there was no humor in the twist of her mouth at all. “Your friendly aircraft cooperated nicely with all their noise.”
“The pilot?” I asked her.
She shrugged indifferently.
“He went like Doug Hamilton,” I suggested.
“Fortunately for him, much quicker.”
“Why Doug at all?”
She glared at me then, her eyes partially bloodshot and filled with hate. “That one knew too much. But he talked. Vito Salvi made sure he talked.” She stopped and frowned. “But he may have been lying. He said there was a report on me in his personal file. Oh, there was one, but simply a routine check.”
“He had another,” I said. “It turned up.”
“It doesn’t really matter now.”
I went to ask her something else but she shook her head. Quickly, her eyes roved through the room, caught sight of the figure in the chair and didn’t have to be given any explanations.
“No, Tiger, talk is needless. I don’t want to be distracted by anything from doing ... this.” The gun made a small up and down motion, never leaving a vital area of my body.
One way or another I was going to have to take her. I’d never make it ... the distance was too great between us. She’d get that single shot in and it would be enough, but I was going to have to make the try. It would have to be a fast draw from a bad position, the only chance I had.
Camille read my mind and said, “There’s a lamp on the table beside you. Light it. Only your hand moves and very, very slowly.”
So I lit the scene for my own death. Very, very slowly.
“Now your gun, Tiger. Just pick it out with your fingers and drop it. It means a few seconds more you can live and think.”
I felt for the gun, half turning, then realized that it was no use at all. The hole in my side from Hoppes’ .22 Magnum had numbed half my body and any motion at all sent a violent shiver of blinding pain right into my brain. I let the gun hit the floor and stay there.
“Now empty your pockets. Everything. Turn them inside out so I can see them. I’ve heard of the devices you have used, Tiger. They are methods we use ourselves and I don’t want any used against me.”
One by one I turned my pockets out and dumped their contents on the table top. She was going to be disappointed. A wallet, spare clips, change, a ring of picklocks, and a gimmick that was totally useless now, the Bezex inhaler that had been designed for Niger Hoppes.
Her eyes went up in mock astonishment.
I said, “Why delay, Camille?”
She smiled again, her watery eyes even more like a spider’s than ever behind the cold that had her in its grip. “I told you once. I enjoy studying people. I’m interested in their reactions. The dossier the committee has on you is so thick, the record of your actions so impressive that I want to see what you are like when you know you are the one dying.”
“I’ve faced it before.”
“Ah, but this time you can be sure!” she rasped at me. “Move back, one step at a time. Stay in the middle of the room.”
I did as she told me to. If I went near anything I could throw she wouldn’t wait. I’d die on the spot, and as she said, each moment was one for living and thinking.
She reached the table where I had been, the gun telling me to stop where I was. From there she had a clear view of the body of Louis Agrounsky, confirming all she thought. She could see the red dots of the control unit and knew it was operative. Later her own technicians could examine it and make use of its deadly potential.
“Why didn’t you move in on him faster, Camille?”
She coughed quietly and blinked, then said candidly, “Simply because we didn’t know the secret of the by-p
ass control. He had it well hidden. Perhaps even booby trapped. We needed the whole unit. We had hoped to get Agrounsky too, but I doubt if he’ll be missed now. Our engineers will know what to do, I assure you.”
“We’ll all be dead. You know that, don’t you?”
She shook her head, still smiling. “Only you for now. The rest we will control nicely. They will learn how to serve the state and there will be very little protest. After all, we’ve had a great deal of experience with what you people like to term ‘captive nations.’ This country will be no different.”
Camille held the gun in her left hand, the other idly toying with the things I had dumped on the table. I had to force myself to keep my eyes steady where they were, just looking at her and not about to plead or beg. She would have liked that. It would have made what she was planning even more enjoyable. She would have gloried in the spider role even more than ever.
She frowned, eyes squinting, wrinkling her nose against a sneeze, and fought it back. In a way it was even funny. “I’ve suffered because of you, Tiger, but it helped me weave a stronger web than ever.”
“Tough.”
“You thought it couldn’t be done. I was right in the first place ... you are a fly. A typical fly lured into a web and dying at the greatest moment of pleasure, isn’t that so?” “Is it?”
She frowned again and breathed in hard, the air making a small whistling sound in her nostrils and her eyes showed the annoyance she felt. Only for a second did she look away, then picked up the inhaler and unscrewed the cap. She held it with a derisive gesture and said, “Thank you, fly ... before you die, my thanks.”
And she breathed in to clear her head, one side first, then moved to the other and her hand stopped midway and for one long second her eyes seemed to clear and widen as the deadly cyanide gas she had activated by the simple motion of removing the cap flooded her lungs, and she knew she had lost it because she pulled the trigger of the automatic, only by then it was pointed at the floor and she went down to join the one outside in the great lonely cave of death.
The By-Pass Control Page 22