by The Cool War
“I understand,” Hake nodded, “and will comply, provided you cut out the chickenshit. Don’t give me any more missions where I don’t know the score. Not any. Otherwise I make a lot of trouble. Do you understand?”
“Now, listen—’”
“Not yet. First take a look at my face. I’ll grant you that half of it is my own fault, but the other half isn’t. I got these lumps because the Team let me down. That’s not going to happen again, and the way we’re going to keep it from happening is I’rii going to get a full briefing before I ever lift another finger for you. More than that. I’m going to have the right to accept or decline, whatever it is.” He stopped and leaned back. “I hope you understand and will comply,” he added mildly.
Curmudgeon glowered silently for a moment, one hand combing its fingers through his dense beard while the other hovered nervously near the butt of his.45. Then, surprisingly, he shrugged and relaxed. “Maybe Jasper Medina’s right about you,” he said.
“Depends on what he says.”
Curmudgeon said thoughtfully, “Says you’re a lot tougher than you look. Well, that’s what we need. But that doesn’t mean you can pull a stunt like this again! Once, maybe. Twice and you’ve had it, Hake, you really have!”
“I understand and will comply,” Hake said, “provided some dummy doesn’t do something that leaves me no choice. Now, what I came down here for. I’ve ordered some stuff for myself—a car, a computer terminal, some odds and ends for the church—”
“Computer! Not a chance, Hake. Grade Three field agents don’t rate personal computer terminals, do you have any idea what those things cost?”
“Charge it to KLM.”
“No computer! It isn’t just a question of the money. You’ll make yourself too conspicuous. No.”
Hake scowled, then decided to pass it. If he decided he really needed one he would get it anyhow, and figure out how to pay for it with the skills learned Under the Wire. ‘Then one last thing. I want Team help to get Leota Pauket out of that sheik’s harem.”
Curmudgeon grinned. “There you went too far. You go near him, or her, and you’re dead, Hake.”
“But I’m responsible for her being there!”
“Why, sure you are. What’s that got to do with it? No way. Sheik Hassabou’s a significant contact and not to be endangered. Don’t knock it, Hake. Outside of Jasper Medina’s commendation, about the only thing you’ve got going for you is that you facilitated making that contact. You didn’t plan it that way, but we hit lucky.”
“Him? What’s he good for? He’s a played-out oil sheik, nothing left but money.”
Curmudgeon shook his head. “That far you can’t push me. I’ll tell you this much. The Team has a major objective, and we needed someone to help. He’s it. When Medina contacted him to drop the charges against you it gave a chance for certain other topics to be raised—and they were. That’s it, Hake. You can have all your other toys.”
“But Leota—”
“Knock it off, Hake! We’ve got no reason to do that woman any favors. I’ll tell you what,” he said, relenting slightly. “She’s only got thirty days to do there. Then I’ll see. Maybe we can clean her slate for her.”
Hake had a sudden preview of what Leota would say if he told her the Team had offered to clean her slate. Still, he had found out more than he had known when he got here, and the most he had really expected was a crumb or two of information.
“I’m waiting, Hake.”
There was such a thing as pressing your luck too far. Unwillingly, Hake said, “I understand and will comply, but—”
“No but. No more conversation,” said Curmudgeon. “Good-by, Hake.”
When Hake got back to Long Branch his new car was waiting at the curb. It was a Tata three-wheeler, hydrbgen propelled, and Jessie Tunman came out on the porch to get a look at it. “Why yellow?” she sniffed.
“It was what they had in stock,” Hake said.
She shook her head disapprovingly. “After all the things you’ve said about power-piggery,” she remarked. “And with the balance of payments going crazy with these new hydrogen imports—well, it’s your life. Are you going to be able to take care of any business now, Horny?”
“What kind of business?”
“Well, some parishioners want to talk to you—”
“No counseling until my face heals up.”
“All right, but Alys’s husbands have been on the phone, twice each.”
“I don’t want to hear.”
“And that windmill makes a terrible racket sometimes, Horny. I’ve called the construction people three times but they never do anything about it.”
“Tell them,” he said, “that if they don’t get a man down here today I’m going to rip it out and buy a new one from someone else.”
“Horny!”
“Tell them. Now I’m going to take my new car for a spin.”
“Drive it in good health,” she sniffed.
That was far from certain, he thought, wincing at the pain of unfamiliar muscles as he stepped on the unfamiliar accelerator and clutch and brake. But this was not a joy ride. It might even be rather essential to his life. It had occurred to Hake in Curmudgeon’s office that it might be easy to overplay his hand, with possibly very unhappy results. On the other side, there was a way to improve the cards he had been dealt. What he was after now was a new hole card; so he drove down to Asbury Park, stopping at a discount store along the highway to buy a new cassette recorder and tapes.
The beach was full of bathers, of course, but only a few surf-casters were out on the rock jetties; there was not much to be caught any more in the sludgy New Jersey Atlantic. Painfully Hake climbed the rocks past them, to a place where wind and surf and distance blanketed his voice. He sat down, put a new tape in the machine and began to speak.
“My name is H. Hornswell Hake, pastor of the Unitarian Church in Long Branch. I was first contacted by the spy and sabotage group called ‘The Team’ on March 16th, when a person I suppose to have been a Team agent, representing himself to my secretary as an IRS man and to me as a senator’s administrative assistant, came to my house to order me to active duty…”
By the fourth day after his return Hake did not look much better, but some of the aches were dwindling. In a way, the beatings were an asset They had made Jessie Tunman willing to keep everyone away from him, though she expressed herself baffled that he was continually inventing excuses to go out: to the supermarket, to get a morning paper, to mail a letter, to drive his new car for fun and practice. “I can do all that for you, Horny,” she protested. “All but drive that silly yellow car, anyway, and that’s wasting power!” When he replied that he needed the exercise or wanted the fresh air she gave up, unsatisfied and unreconciled. It didn’t matter. He had to get out to do what he needed to do.
And when at last, on the twentieth try, each one from a different public phone, he finally found The Incredible Art at home, he cried, “Thank God!”
“Who is this? Horny? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter, Art—well, it’s complicated. Are you alone in the house? Good. I’ll be over to see you in five minutes.” And actually he made it in three. The tapes he had made on the jetty in Asbury Park were burning holes in his pocket.
The home of The Incredible Art was almost invisible from the street—not much less so when you walked up to the front door, for Art had built it into the side of a hill. A concrete casting in the shape of a magician’s peaked hat was beside the door, and when Hake pressed the bell it lit up and croaked, “Who dares approach the sacred cave of The Incredible Art?” Hake didn’t have to answer. The door was open before the tape recording finished, and Art’s skinny, blond face was peering worriedly out. “My God, Horny,” he said.
“I had an accident,” Hake said. “I’ve been thinking about printing up cards to give out.”
“I never thought you’d turn into a brawler at your age. How about a cup of tea?”
&nb
sp; “Maybe later.” Hake pushed past Art into the house and closed the door. He reached into his shirt and pulled out the sealed packet of tape cassettes; he had not wanted to be seen carrying them inside. “I want a big favor, please, Art.”
The magician pursed his lips, looked at the sealed packet. “I bet that isn’t home-made cookies.”
“It’s something I want you to keep for me. In a really safe place. If you hear I’m dead, or if I don’t come back and ask for them in thirty days, then open up these tapes and play them. And please don’t say anything about this, don’t even say you saw me, to anybody at all.”
“Oh, wow.” Art sat down, tugging at his blond beard. He looked at the package of tapes without taking them. “Horny, what are you into?”
“I just can’t tell you, Art. Of course—” stiffly—“if you’re afraid of trouble—”
“It ain’t the trouble, Horny, it’s the curiosity.” The magician leaned forward to take the package from Hake’s hand. He shook it, listened to it, then tossed it back and forth from hand to hand, watching Hake’s face. “You know,” he mentioned, “you’re an amateur at sealing up packages. I could get into this and reseal it and you’d never know the difference.”
“Just please don’t, Art.”
The magician nodded. “One question. Why me?”
“Because I trust you. Also because you’re always doing TV and radio appearances; you’ll know how to use the tapes if you have to. I should tell you that it might not be—” He hesitated. He had been going to say “easy.” Candor made him finish, “safe.”
Art whistled thoughtfully. He stood up and began to walk around the room, juggling the packet. “What about that cup of tea?” he asked over his shoulder.
“All right, but please don’t drop them.”
Art put a kettle on the stove and then turned around, spreading empty hands. “Drop what?” he grinned.
“Where—”
“They’re where they’ll be okay for a while. I’ll find a better place, but even you won’t know where it is. Are you sure you can’t give me even the teensiest hint?”
“I’m sure, Art. And I’m not finished, I’m sorry to say. I need to find somebody, and I’m hoping you can help me with your computer.”
“Oh?”
“It’s a woman. Her name’s Leota Pauket. P-A-U-K-E-T.”
“Uh-huh. Of course you can’t tell me much about her?”
“Well, last I saw of her she was in Rome, but she’s an American. From somewhere in the midwest. I think.”
“Splendid, Horny!” Art thought for a minute. “As I see it, you have two ways to go. First we could try telephone listings. I can start a search program to query every exchange in the midwest for a listing for this Leota Pauket. Figure fifteen seconds a directory, maybe a couple thousand directories—you could complete it in a day or so. Wouldn’t cost anything, which is a big advantage—information queries are free. But it doesn’t work if she doesn’t have a phone.”
“What’s the other way?”
“That’s harder. You have to get into the memories for Social Security or the Bureau of the Census, something like that. I can’t do that, but I’ve got some slippery friends. They might help.”
“As far as that’s concerned,” Hake said cautiously, “I think I could handle that part.”
“You what?”
Hake said defensively, “I’m sorry, Art, but that’s part of what I can’t talk about. However. I’m not real sure she’s anywhere near America; last I heard she was in the, uh, entourage of a sheik named Hassabou.”
Hake’s expression cleared. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? AH you need is celebrity service—come on, I’ll set it up.” Hake followed into another room, where Art sat before his computer terminal, typed rapidly for a second and then sat back. “How much of this stuff do you want?” he asked. “Here, sit down. Slow it down with this thing here if it’s going too fast for you.” And it was; the machine was racing through line after line of printout, far more information than he could actually use. The sheik’s name was Sheik Badawey Al-Nadim Abd Hassabou, and every directory of the rich and the famous had something about him. The sheik’s wealth was estimated at more than three hundred million dollars, exclusive of family holdings. The sheik’s home was in Rome, Wad Madani, Beverly Hills, Edinburgh, a place called Abu Magnah or his yacht— depending on the season, and on the sheik’s mood. The sheik’s interests seemed to be the three S’s: sex, surfing and isports cars. The sheik’s family, like the families of most of the oil Arabs, had long since left the Persian Gulf, no longer held the worthless oil leases, had their money in Argentine cattle ranches and Chicago real estate, but saw no reason to spend much time in those places when the fleshpots of Europe and California were so much more fun. The sheik was fifty-one years old, but in astonishingly good health. Hake gloomily accepted the truth of that part of it. The man in the auction room had obviously kept fit.
The information came from gossip columns, financial reports and various who’s-who directories. None of it mentioned an acquisition of the sheik’s named Leota Pauket, of course. Hake had not expected it would.
He sat back. “Enough,” he said. “Does it mention where he is right now?”
“Hold on.” Art punched out orders, and the machine typed out: Presently in Abu Magnah.
“Abu Magnah?” Hake tried to place the town and couldn’t. He got down the old red atlas and looked for Abu Magnah. It was not on the map. It took Art inquiries to the information services of three Arab consulates, the National Geographic Society and the cartographical division of the public library before he was able to locate it. Armed with latitude and longitude Hake carefully marked a cross on the map and sat back to regard it. Squarely in the Empty Quarter. Hundreds of miles from anything more metropolitan than a flock of sheep. Hassabou liked his privacy.
“You want that cup of tea, Horny? You wouldn’t want to tell me what this is all about?”
“Well—she’s a girl I know, Art. I’m a little worried about her.”
“I can see that you might be.”
“You mean because she’s in this guy’s harem? Well, sure.” He grinned suddenly. “Sometimes I think I should’ve married somebody like Jessie—younger, of course—when I was still in the wheelchair. Then I might not have these problems.”
He peered around the room, wondering where Art had managed to hide the tapes. Then he said, with some embarrassment, “Art, I can’t tell you how grateful I am—”
“Why should that worry you? You can’t tell me anything else, either, right?” The magician was smiling, but the smile leaked away as he said, “Look, Horny. You’re into some kind of spy thing, aren’t you?”
“Would it make a difference, Art?”
“Not to whether I do what you want, no. But it would make a difference.” Art hesitated. “No offense, Horny,” he said, “but spies are a sad lot. They’re not only immoral, they’re incompetent.”
“Oh, I don’t know if I agree with—”
“I’m not talking about you personally, Horny. I mean the whole industry. Look. I’ll give you a quick test question. Name three cases where any nation in modern times gained anything by spying.”
“Are you serious? Come on, Art! I could name hundreds!”
“Oh? All right. Go ahead.”
Hake frowned. After a moment, he said, “Well, I’ve never taken any special interest in the subject of spying…”
“All right, let me suggest a couple of examples to help you out. For instance, what about World War II? Russian spies told Stalin when Hitler was going to attack. British intelligence learned a panzer division had moved into Arn-hem just before they jumped. Hitler had the time and place for D-Day. The British broke the Luftwaffe code, so they knew their bombing targets twenty-four hours ahead. The Americans broke the Japanese Code Purple, so they had three days’ warning of Pearl Harbor—”
‘There you are!”
The magician shook his head. “Uh-
uh. Not one of them used that information! Sometimes they just didn’t believe it, like Hitler and Stalin and Montgomery. Sometimes they believed it, all right, but they were afraid if they acted on it they’d give away their sources. That’s why the Americans got creamed at Pearl, and that’s why Churchill let Coventry burn. So tell me this, Horny. What’s the use of having spies in the first place?”
“Well, there must be other examples!”
“If you come across very many, please be sure to tell me, all right? And that’s only talking about plain spying. If you get into the cloak-and-dagger stuff, the CIA sort of thing, bumping off one foreign politician and starting a revolution against another one, it gets even worse.”
Horny flushed and changed the subject; it was getting a little too close to his own private space. “You keep on surprising me, Art,” he said. “I didn’t know espionage was one of your interests.”
“The totality of human experience is my interest,” the magician said seriously. “Especially when it affects friends of mine.”
“I do appreciate that,” Hake said awkwardly, “but—”
“But you can’t talk about it. Right. So what else is new? Have you had a chance to look over that stuff I gave you a couple months ago?”
“What stuff? Oh,” Hake said, remembering the fiches and cassettes that had been rattling around his bag all over the world, “you mean on hypnotism. No, I’m sorry. I just haven’t had a chance.”
“That I can believe,” Art grinned. “No matter. They’re copies, take your time. More tea?”
It was still daylight, but there was not so much of it left that Jessie wouldn’t notice how long he had been away. Given any choice at all, Hake did not like to lie. He decided to make it possible to tell a misleading and incomplete truth instead by stopping by his church. It wasn’t just for the sake of the cover story. The church was important to Horny, was very close to being his whole life. Being in it gave him a welcome feeling of refuge.
On a hot July afternoon the church was of course empty. The grass needed cutting and the windows were dusty, but there was enough activity in the pizzeria next door to make the whole block seem alive. Cars were whining in and out of the drive-in, and dozens of others were parked—a lot containing couples, one that seemed to contain a birdwatcher, or at least someone who was studying everything around, Hake included, through field glasses.