Assignment Star Stealers

by Edward S. Aarons

  "So am I. You say there really was no money in the case?"

  "Just blank paper, cut to size."

  "So they killed him?"

  "Very badly."

  "Money," said McFee.

  "The ineluctable lure of a million in cash."

  "It will be very embarrassing to explain it to Budget in Washington, Samuel."

  "Tell them about Dodd, sir."

  A waitress came and brought them schnitzel and dumplings, a mound of mashed potatoes, a plate of pickled tomatoes, and a pot of hot coffee. McFee paid no attention to his food, but Durell ate with a surprising appetite.

  McFee said quietly, "OUiver checks out. We ran a quick spec, in depth, on Jimmy Dodd. We don't think he tried to steal the money. Why would he have taken a lot of blank paper into the desert? Just to get himself killed?"

  "Then who's got it?"

  "I am sure," said McFee, "that you will find out."

  "Someone switched cash for worthless paper in his attache case. Someone else, therefore, had an HV-4 key. It certainly annoyed the sellers."

  "But you will find the answer, Samuel."

  *'Such faith,'' Durell said.

  ''Boundless."

  "And Gary Stephenson?"

  General Dickinson McFee began to eat as if it were a difficult task. His spare gray face was an enigma, and Durell reflected that no one really knew this man.

  "Stephenson is untouchable," McFee said. "We made a quick preliminary probe and hit sensitive areas at once. He's single, U. of P. Wharton School, and has an intimate acquaintance with the White House, as well as close friends on the Hill who are more than anxious to accom- j modate him in any way. It looked like a blank wall until' noon. Not that we really obtained anything. Very clean gentleman, Mr. Stephenson. Worth a few score million, in his own right. Since Hannibal Coppitt's death, he has, taken over HCI completely—a very ruthless, tidy, efficient man."

  "He wants Amanda Coppitt. The whole bundle," Durell said.

  "Quite so. Why not? It is the nature of the beast. In , any case, Stephenson has received top priority clearance, of course, since his electronics subdivisions provide much of the vital equipment used in our Vela, the Icarus, and now our new Vega spy satellites."

  "I wouldn't give him top clearance," said Durell. "He sent Amanda some security data on Richard's request."

  "Yes, I am aware of that."

  Durell looked at the little gray man. "If you gave it your okay, you could have told me."

  "You don't have to be advised of everything, Samuel. How did you leave Colonel Cesar Skoll?"

  Durell laughed. "He's playing the part of a very worried rabbit. The suit doesn't fit, even if he does have big ears. He pretends to want to come over the wire."

  "Can he be serious?"

  "I'd give it a negative probability."

  Some people came into the restaurant, shaking black umbrellas and bringing with them a blast of cold, damp air from the nearby lake. It was growing dusky outside, although it wasn't quite three in the afternoon. The wet air made the side of Durell's face ache.

  McFee poked at his potato. "They intercepted two of our tapes last night," he said quietly. "A Model 770 and a new 920. The 770 satellite orbits for three or four weeks; the 920 satellite for only five days. We launch one from the new PASS Base about every eighteen days, you know. I Up to now, we've lost data from Ferrets, which monitor radar and radio signals from Russia and China and transmit their electronic snoop stuff on signal from our United States continental bases and Hawaii. The tapes came through blank, completely wiped out, sponged, erased. The previous satellites that were stolen, in a sense,, were 823's and a couple of Midas jobs. The 823 used to be called the Vela. Not to be confused with our ultrasophisti-cated Icarus IV's and the Vega. The Vela measures ultraviolet and X rays over the USSR and China, to check on nuclear explosions, if any."

  McFee sighed. "The problem is that the 770B5 and the 920E were recently made more sophisticated. Used to be they would parachute wide-angle and close-up high-resolution cameras that photographed remarkable pictures of Red installations, such as launch pads. They used to be picked up by a special C-130 jet over the Pacific."

  "Not any more?" Durell asked.

  McFee fondled the knobby head of his blackthorn stick. "The laboratory boys—particularly the division subcontracted by HCI—Hannibal Coppitt Industries— outsmarted themselves and built new versions. Now the photographs, all the camera reels, are televised to PASS Base prior to the landing of the cameras, as insurance. But the TV tapes were also wiped clean, when they were signaled to transmit their data home."

  "So we've spent hundreds of millions," Durell said, reaching for his coffee, "for sky spies, inteUigence stars. And they've been milked steadily for the past months— and so have the Russian and Chinese spy satellites, if we can believe Skoll."

  "You can believe him," said McFee.

  Wind and rain rattled the restaurant window. Durell watched several diners get up and leave. He had a headache, where he had been hit by the gun butt, and he wished he had some aspirin.

  McFee said, ''So far, even the new 969 satellite, supposed to use radar, infrared and X rays for collecting data on coded tape, has been milked. It was supposed to be foolproof. Of course, the other side knows when we launch, from their own satellite observations, and they can figure our orbits easily and plot Vega's moment-to-moment position. The electronic shield was supposed to be foolproof, but it isn't. The whole point is that the tapes are stolen and decoded, and that must be some of Richard Coppitt's work."

  "Or the point may be a question," Durell said, "of who is fooling whom? Are we buying information that the Soviets and Chinese buy, too? Has some clever lad set up a pool to simultaneously sell Chinese, Soviet and United States data to one and all?"

  "It is an impossible situation," McFee observed.

  "Are the tapes we've bought really genuine?"

  "Quite. It's our own stuff. And the Russian spy data that we've purchased is remarkable. Their new Cosmos 307's have photographed just about every inch of the States, and they've even gotten shadow-traces of the positions of our Poseidon submarines under water—which put the Navy in a flap because we haven't been able to do that to their atomic subs. Not yet, at any rate." McFee's gray eyes were unfathomable. "We have spent millions, yes, and State thinks we will have to grant them immunity."

  "Immunity?" asked DureU. "These free-lance thieves won't get away with it forever, even if we have to wait years. We're not the only ones after them. The Russian KGB and the Chinese Black House won't ever let it rest. The thieves are playing a fool's game."

  "No, you are wrong, Samuel. Because we will need their brains," McFee said quietly. "Just as we took in all the Nazi rocket scientists after World War 11. It will be a pragmatic, sensible gesture. SkoU wants them alive, too. He'd like to have Richard Coppitt working for the Kremlin, don't you think? Meanwhile, they're growing very, very rich from us, the Russians, and Peking."

  "Richard Coppitt isn't interested in money."

  "No. Perhaps he works for some lofty, world peace ideal. But Dr. Alonso Von Handel likes our cash."

  "Handel? The PASS Base blowhard who always mugs into the TV news cameras?"

  "A very clever, brilliant man, Samuel. He's gone, too. Quite some time before young Richard vanished from PASS. We think Von Handel is actually running this outfit. Even though we've had to make payments in just about every quarter of the globe, we've narrowed down his headquarters to somewhere south of Morocco in the Sahara. A few million square miles. We've scanned it with infrared and sent up counter-spy spy satellites with heat sensors and radar. They've turned up a few clues—a brief radio pulse south of the Anti Atlas, but it was too short to pinpoint. It's a big place, Samuel. And now Washington suddenly asks me to cease and desist. Washington wants Von Handel and Richard Coppitt back—and any other astronautic-electronic people they may have recruited."

  "Your bosses work in wondrous and mysterious ways."

 
"As with you, Samuel, I have a certain amount of professional pride."

  "Meaning?"

  "You will break this for me, perhaps through Amanda, but I had another thought in mind. We have received another request—a demand, rather—for another million dollars to buy new data that is rightfully our own. The payment is to be made here in Zurich, according to the instructions, and you are selected to make that payment."

  Durell thought of Jimmy Dodd. "Yes, sir."

  "That is, you will go through the motions.^But you will insist on turning over the money only to the courier's superiors. Somewhere in Morocco."

  "They won't like it."

  "You will have to be most cautious." McFee paid the dinner check and stood up. He waggled his blackthorn stick at Durell, which made him nervous. "It is a lot of money, Samuel. Does it tempt you?"

  "Yes."

  "Do take care of yourself. That's a rather nasty bump on the side of your head."

  "It's because I've fallen in love," Durell said.

  14

  The Swiss banker's name was Kohlnar. His English was as impeccable as his banker's gray. He led the way down some marble stairs and along a wide corridor paneled in rare wood. Durell thought it was like entering a temple or a mausoleum, and from the banker's view, it was both. The money stored here was often dead money; but it was venerated and coddled. K Section's Special Funds for Western Europe, for a dozen Central offices and a small army of agents, informers, clerks and equipment, was paid for from this Zurich bank.

  "This way, please."

  He was led into a large, mahogany-paneled office containing an oval desk, a wide table covered with green leather, a photograph of a stout and solid Swiss, and several green leather chairs.

  "Please be seated, sir. Your credentials must be checked, according to the agreement."

  The banker took Durell's ID card and studied it and smiled politely, looked at him with utterly impersonal eyes, then took a small machine from his desk and put the card in it and punched a button. He folded his hands on the desk and sighed patiently while the machine hummed, made several clicking sounds, and then spit out the card with a small whimper.

  "Yes. Fine. You are Samuel Durell. At least, this is the gentleman's identification card."

  "I am he."

  "In a moment, su*. This way. You understand the precautions. They are the terms by which we hold the funds deposited for your corporation."

  He was made to stand in front of a plate like a chest X-ray machine. A tiny sample of his blood was taken with a needle that pricked his right middle fingertip. A hght flashed. Another light glowed red. He endured it stolidly. When it was over, he took the small black attache case that McFee had given to him, put it on the desk, opened the locks and fixed the HV-4 lock and chain to it. He was careful not to close the tempered steel bracelets.

  He was not supposed to have a key. Once closed, only the man to whom he delivered the money could detach the case from his wrist. But inside his shirt collar, sewn within the tab, was a duplicate.

  The banker was gone only a few minutes. A blonde woman, very cool and elBScient, came in guiding a uniformed guard who carried a large steel box on a tray. Kohlnar, the banker, almost smacked his lips as if getting ready for a banquet.

  "Herr Kohlnar, I'll dispense with the formal counting of the money."

  "The rules require it, sir."

  The blonde woman had a face like an axe as she counted the bundles of hundred-dollar bills. She might have been shelling peas at her kitchen sink.

  An air-conditioner hummed. The overhead lights were bright and clear, and Durell thought of the antiseptic impersonahty of a surgical room. No one made any small talk. After all, it was a million dollars.

  "Herr Durell, the money is counted. We must have a receipt, of course."

  ^'Of course, Herr Kohlnar."

  He signed the paper that the banker shoved over to him and carefully arranged the money in the black case. Under the leather covering, the case was made of high-tempered stainless steel. A torch might have cut it open, but it would certainly ruin the paper currency inside. The only way to get at it would be to open the HV-4 lock. Under the banker's eyes, Durell fixed the chain to his wrist and then to the case handle. He felt like Sinbad with the Old Man of the Sea on his back. He hoped McFee had set up the operation properly.

  "Thank you, Herr Kohlnar."

  "It is our pleasure to serve you, sir."

  He walked out of the bank with the million dollars.

  15

  "It's all here, sir," Durell said.

  McFee leaned forward a little in the back seat of his Mercedes-Benz. His walking stick was held upright between his gray-clad knees.

  "You siened the receipt?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Be sure to let Olliver know about this."

  "How long do I go around with this ball and chain?"

  "Do you object to all that cash, Samuel?"

  "It makes me nervous. It arouses my gambler's sense of larceny."

  "Control it, please. We would like to have our Vega data. And anything else from the Soviet and Chinese satellites. They'll probably make a bid for it, too. I hear Mr. Chu Li is in town."

  "From Peking?"

  "The Black House, yes. Assistant Commissar for the Chinese L-5 intelligence apparatus. The Lotus Group again." McFee tapped his driver's shoulder. "Go on, John."

  The sedan slid smoothly forward into the traflfic to Burkli Platz. The rain was still coming down. It would be dark in half an hour. They swung left over the Alpen Quai Bridge. The lake was dark, dimpled, and splashed by the icy downpour.

  "Do you share Olliver's cupidity, Samuel?"

  "My salary isn't much more than Ollie's. I think I'll hit you for a raise when my contract comes up for renewal next January."

  "It will be considered."

  The heavy car stopped at the entrance to a small, somewhat shabby hotel a short distance from the lake. McFee rested both hands on the head of his walking stick. Inside the stick Durell knew there were explosive devices, thermite capsules, a spring-loaded poison-tipped dart in the ferrule.

  "We are up against men of no country," McFee said. "But they are very good at their work, very good and careful and clever. We've lost Dodd. You have renewed authority to proceed with extreme discretion—and prejudice."

  ^'Murder may not be necessary, sir. If this courier I'm to meet is simply an innocent employee picked up for the occasion—"

  "Is anyone innocent in this world of ours?"

  "We created this world," said Durell. "It's dirty and dangerous, but we needn't make it worse."

  "Do you object to the assignment?"

  "No, sir. But I don't have to like it."

  "Everyone likes money," McFee said. He caressed his deadly stick. "Well, good luck, Samuel. Please take care."

  "Of my personal safety?"

  "That, of course." McFee's gray eyes were bland. "But I was thinking of the money."

  16

  His grandpa Jonathan once said, "If you do the unexpected, son, whether it's with a handful of cards in stud poker or hunting a fox in these bayous, you will gain a useful advantage. Always take 'em by surprise, my boy."

  He remembered Amanda Coppitt with her burnished red pigtails, playing at the Peche Rouge landing. He remembered her in the desert, a grown woman, filled with a surprising passion, a release from tension and suppression of normal instincts for too many months of mourning. Splashing through the bayous with a shotgun too heavy for him, following the slim, white-haired figure of his grandfather, Durell had learned the ways of the hunted and the tactics of the hunter.

  His room at the Fahnbokhaus was small, overheated, comfortably furnished. A single window opened on a narrow canyon of rain and gave a view of the steeply slanted slate roof of a church next door. The rain gurgled and hissed in the leaded gutters, spouted from a gargoyle to splash on the cobblestones below. The colored glass lampshade over his table would have brought ecstacy to Tiffany glass lovers.<
br />
  The attache case locked to his wrist was a nuisance.

  He waited for half an hour. Once he thought he heard footsteps pause at his door in the hall. Again, when he tried to doze on the bed, the telephone rang. He picked it up. There was no sound in the receiver. He did not speak. He waited and listened; and there was a soft click and the line went dead again.

  At 4:30 P.M., when lights shone all over the cup of land that nestled Zurich against its lake, he got up and went down to the street and found a taxi that took him into the center of town. His destination was one of those modem glass-and-steel office buildings that sometimes make Zurich seem an extension of Manhattan, except that it was much, much cleaner. The Swiss were one of the few civilized nations in the world, he thought. A discreet insigne in a blue circle read HCI—Hannibal Coppitt Industries—over the door.

  Some of the secretaries, trimly coiffed and miniskirted, hurried through the high lobby, opening umbrellas and chattering in French and Schweitzerdeutsch. Escalators lifted him to a mezzanine of marble and paneled woods, and a directory beyond a row of smart, fashionable shops told him where the executive offices might be. The top floor, naturally. An elevator took him smoothly upward to face a receptionist's desk where an unbelievably pretty Japanese girl looked at him, considered the piece of white tape on his temple, and addressed him in English.

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Mr. Gary Stephenson, please."

  Her black eyes touched his attache case, his necktie, his face again. "One moment, sir. I believe he is not in town—he may have gone back to New York—"

  "Just say it's Herr Durell, from Fez."

  "Fez?"

  "Hai," he said, in Japanese.

  She did not smile. There was some business with a complicated, push-button intercom. A bevy of typists, all with exceedingly white blonde hair, came out of a glass-paneled doorway and swung past them, calling goodnight. A few of them looked twice at Durell. Two smiled directly at him.

  The Japanese girl said, "One moment, sir."

  A tall German woman who might have been a guard at a Nazi concentration camp came out, nodded, looked hard at Durell, and nodded again, accepting him.

  "This way, Herr Durell," she said briskly. "You are fortunate. Herr Stephenson has just returned."