The Hamlet Warning

by Leonard Sanders

  By dividing the words, he came to the message:

  PROCEED LISBON SOONEST AVAILABLE CARRIER. ASSUME GROUNDHOG. CONTACT BROADSWORD EFBAHID TO ESTABLISH RENDEZVOUS SAFEHOUSE RUA JOSE VIANA F. UTMOST CAUTION ADVISED. DANGER IMMINENT.

  The “groundhog” gave him pause until a vague memory stirred that the name was his own deep cover. He’d never used it, and he’d almost forgotten it. The “EFBAHID” was a puzzler, until he recalled that numbers often were given simple letter count — A= 1, B = 2, C = 3, etc. This translated into a phone number, 562-1894. Similarly, the “F” after Rua Jose Viana translated into house number 6.

  The “danger imminent” advisory aroused all of Elliott’s latent paranoia. He’d always assumed there were certain risks involved in his line of work. Caution was standard operating procedure, deemed too obvious for comment. He’d never seen, or heard of, a similar warning encoded with instructions. Did Langley know something? Was the blonde involved?

  He remembered how readily she’d agreed to a date.

  Had he been set up?

  He forced himself to quit thinking of such vague possibilities. That was the route to insanity.

  Instead, he immediately phoned the airport and put himself on standby for the first flight to Lisbon. To make certain a seat would become available, he switched to his role of travel agent and phoned four of his clients, informing them that they’d been bumped from their overnight flight to Lisbon. The clients — two women schoolteachers from Ohio and an elderly farm couple from Nebraska — were not surprised. Most American tourists are aware of the airline practice of overbooking flights. They also know that American tourists are the first to be bumped. Elliott’s CIA self had no qualms over the trick, but his travel agent’s conscience bothered him. He phoned the airport and booked them for a later flight.

  He then called the blonde and cancelled the date, explaining that his home office in New York had scheduled three flights of important conventioneers into Paris, the Paris manager was down with the flu, and they’d called on him to take up the slack. From the tone of her voice, Elliott judged that she didn’t buy the story. But he was too disturbed to be concerned. Let her think he had found a bigger, better blonde.

  He packed carefully but rapidly, wishing he could carry more in the way of weapons. Electronic surveillance at airports posed a problem for clandestine warriors. His .38 pen would set off alarms, but at least it seemed innocent to outward appearances. He could carry it in his hand going through the gate. But his 7.65 autoloading cigarette lighter was too much of a curiosity to risk taking along.

  On the night flight to Lisbon, he had trouble sleeping. The “utmost caution, danger imminent” phrase kept ringing in his mind. His seatmate was a German auto parts specialist. Or at least the man said that’s what he was; he did seem to know a great deal about the anatomy of Volkswagens. Across the aisle were two American schoolteachers, almost exact replicas of the two Elliott had bumped from the flight. They had spent the day in Frogner Park and were discussing the wonders of the Vigeland statuary. Or at least they said they had spent the day in Frogner Park.

  The flight arrived on time. Elliott managed his way through customs in less than forty minutes, switched a hundred kroner into escudos, and found a public telephone. Inserting a coin, he held the receiver to his ear while he monitored the lobby. Then he dialed Broadsword’s number, hoping he could remember the crazy doubletalk they had taught him at Langley.

  He let the phone ring twice, hung up, waited a moment, then dialed again. Someone at the other end picked up the receiver.

  “Hello. Is this 562-1894?” Elliott asked.

  “It is,” a flat voice answered. “With whom do you wish to speak?” (“The meeting is on; give me the right response, and I’ll tell you when.”)

  “Arthur, please.” (King Arthur handled a mean broadsword, let us both remember.)

  “Arthur isn’t here, right at the moment. But you might try reaching him at 562-0030.” (“Be here at 0030 — thirty minutes after midnight.”)

  “Thank you, I will,” Elliott said. He hung up the phone and glanced at his watch. He had less than two hours; he was thankful that he knew Lisbon well from many visits while serving out of the Madrid station.

  With another coin he dialed the Infante Santo. All four of his bumped clients had been booked into the colorful old hotel down by the Tagus. Rooms in Lisbon were at a premium in season, and with four reservations lapsing, Elliott figured the Infante Santo would be his best bet. He was right. A room was available. He asked them to hold it for him. He knew that the place was noisy from nearby rail and highway traffic, but he was in no position to choose.

  He went to the hotel by taxi, carefully watching his back trail. As far as he could determine he was alone, but he wanted to make certain before heading to the safehouse.

  After a quick shower and change of clothes, he asked the hotel doorman to summon a taxi — a minor precaution to make certain a special taxi wasn’t waiting for him. He gave the driver the address of A’Cave on Avenida Antonio de Aquilar.

  On arrival, he quickly walked down into the noisy cellar and moved through the crowd to the bar. A teen-aged prostitute joined him, and he ordered drinks, keeping a careful watch on the entry. While the girl whispered into his ear the delights she had readily available, Elliott concentrated on the doorway so intently that he almost overlooked the fat German at the far end of the bar. Elliott couldn’t put a name to the face, but he knew he’d seen that round moon countenance before, either in the company files, or in a briefing somewhere. Langley had taught Elliott an elaborate system of identification, but he had devised his own, based on movie stars. And he had the man pegged. Sydney Greenstreet.

  Elliott put his drink on the bar. “Let’s go,” he said to the girl.

  He rushed her through the crowd, up the stairs, and into a taxi waiting at the curb. As they pulled away, bound for the girl’s flat, Elliott turned to watch the German emerge from the club.

  Single tail?

  He had no way of knowing.

  “You not like me?” the girl asked, puzzled over his distraction.

  Aware that she had moved her hand into provocative territory, Elliott really looked at her for the first time. A Latin Lolita, not more than fourteen or fifteen. Thin, waiflike, and strangely appealing. Back home, her delights would bring a ten-year stretch in the slammer. Here, she was available and a veteran.

  “I like fine,” Elliott said, patting her thigh affectionately. “But tonight, I want you to entertain a friend. It’s his birthday.”

  “Pardon?”

  Elliott reached into his pocket and gave her thirty escudos. “When we turn the next corner, I’ll jump out,” he said. “You go on to your flat, and wait in the doorway, hidden. My friend is in the Fiat behind us. When he walks up to your door, tell him you are my birthday gift to him.”

  The girl didn’t know whether to be insulted or flattered. Elliott didn’t give her time to decide. As they turned the corner, he gave the driver a handful of escudos and instructions. When the taxi slowed, he jumped to the pavement and sprinted for a doorway as the taxi roared away. He reached the shadows just before the Fiat rounded the corner. He watched it disappear after the taxi.

  Elliott waited in the doorway five minutes, but nothing stirred. He walked two blocks to a main thoroughfare and hailed a passing cab. He reached the safehouse on time.

  “I was tailed,” he told Broadsword.

  “At this point, I’d be surprised if you weren’t,” Broadsword said. “This has turned into one hell of a hot operation.”

  Elliott appreciated the fact that Broadsword didn’t bother to ask if he’d lost the tail. Broadsword wasn’t a worrier. He trusted his men to carry out their assignments as true professionals.

  Elliott had known Broadsword at Langley by the name of Brad Jordan. Always stocky, Jordan had gained weight but still seemed solid. And the new patches of gray at his temples added a look of maturity.

  “We’re all h
ere,” Broadsword said. “Come join the party.”

  He led Elliott into a large, dimly lit room, lined with shelves and workbenches that gleamed curiously white. As they moved nearer, Elliott saw the reason. The shelves were filled with row upon row of false teeth, hundreds, perhaps thousands. The safehouse was a dental laboratory. Elliott forced his eyes away from the macabre array. Six men were waiting at a long table.

  “This is Groundhog, surfaced at last,” Broadsword said. “If today were February second, we’d have six more weeks of winter. Groundhog saw his shadow on the way here.”

  Broadsword introduced the group. Elliott knew three of them. One was the pseudo junkie operative assigned to monitor the youth-drug culture around Torremolinos on the Costa Brava. He was known as Peter Rabbit. Dr. Thomas Segal was a bona fide medical doctor attached at various times to various embassies and who doubled in brass as a company man. The third, Ralph Webb, dated back to the early years of the CIA. As a cover he’d launched an import-export business that soon, even without his help, doubled and tripled his company salary. Webb ostensibly resigned. But he remained available for special assignments. He was known as Tycoon.

  The other three were introduced as Archer, Bowman, and Shield. Elliott didn’t know them. He shook hands, and sat down facing them.

  Broadsword glanced at his watch. “We’re on a tight schedule,” he said. “Please pay attention.”

  He paused to light a cigarette. “Briefly, here’s the situation: the company needs to search a tanker somewhere in the Caribbean. Where, and for what, I don’t know. But to make the search feasible, we will plant in a Lisbon hospital, within twenty-four hours, an authentic case of bubonic plague. This case will provide the raison d’état for seizure and search.”

  “Far out, man,” Peter Rabbit said.

  Elliott was aware of the intensified interest around the table. Company operatives for the most part lead relatively dull lives. They dote on challenge. Elliott knew this assignment might become a part of company legend. Every company man had his repertoire of wild assignments. Elliott once flew to Rio to take a leak. As he stood before the designated urinal in Rio, he was jostled, and a deft hand planted a small packet in his coat pocket. He zipped up and flew back to Oslo, stopping only briefly for another leak at Heathrow. He’d tossed the packet into a designated dustbin without ever knowing what it contained. He’d had other unusual assignments. But as far as he knew, no one had ever been ordered to hunt up a case of plague.

  “We have found a case,” Broadsword said. “A black male, forty-two years of age, at a Protestant mission in Zaire, Africa. Our job is to transport the patient discreetly into Lisbon and into a hospital. The mission is complicated by the fact that efforts are being made to monitor, and presumably to stop, our every move.”

  “Russians?” Archer asked.

  “No,” Broadsword said. “At this point, we don’t know who. We have reason to believe it isn’t a nation, but some sort of international cartel.”

  “Why don’t we pick one up and see how he bounces?” Peter Rabbit asked.

  “That’s being taken care of,” Broadsword said. “Our job is to concentrate on the mission.”

  “This plague,” said Peter Rabbit. “Aren’t we apt to waste a lot of people? Ourselves included?”

  “Negative,” Broadsword said. “But I think we should all have our minds put at ease on that. Doctor, would you please explain?”

  Dr. Segal swung his horn-rim glasses idly by one earpiece and smiled benignly at Peter Rabbit. “Contrary to popular belief, the plague isn’t readily communicable,” he said. “And man is incidental, even accidental, to the natural cycle of the disease. Normally, the cycle goes from rats to fleas to rats. It’s only when the rat population dies that the fleas turn to other hosts — squirrels, gerbils, and humans. The disease is not transmitted from human to human without the right species of flea.”

  “What about your garden-variety Torremolinos sand flea?” Peter Rabbit asked, scratching himself ostentatiously.

  “Only about a hundred of the fifteen hundred known species of rodent fleas are able to transmit plague,” Dr. Segal said. “But to be on the safe side, we’ll disinfect you along with the patient and the plane.”

  “If the disease is so difficult to transmit, why all the panic over it?” Elliott asked.

  “Partly psychological — a holdover from the Middle Ages,” Dr. Segal said. “But medically, the plague is a persistent disease, indigenous to many areas, only awaiting the right conditions to emerge. The bacillus remains alive in dried sputum for three months and may exist indefinitely in certain soils. It can survive in dry flea feces for five weeks at room temperature.”

  “I’m home free,” Peter Rabbit said. “I keep my flea shit in the refrigerator.”

  “How ill is the patient?” Tycoon asked. “Is he apt to crap out on us?”

  “Possibly,” the doctor said. “Actually, bubonic is a misnomer in this case. There are three types — bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. Our patient is septicemic. Recovery is rare. The patient may die within twenty-four hours, but more commonly on the second or third day.”

  Broadsword again looked impatiently at his watch. “You can continue this seminar on the plane, Doctor,” he said. “We have to get moving. Here are your assignments: Groundhog, Peter Rabbit, Tycoon, and the Doctor will fly to Zaire to return the patient. Dr. Segal holds credentials as the director of a drug research team. He has been briefed and will handle all negotiations with the mission hospital. Tycoon has prevailed upon his African connections to facilitate transportation, and the mission will be flown in his Lear jet. He is in charge of logistics. Groundhog and Peter Rabbit will, under the Doctor’s supervision, prepare the patient for passing as a businessman of Moorish ethnic origin. Archer, Bowman, and Shield will assume charge of surface transportation here and — last but by no means least — security of the operation. Any questions?”

  “Arms?” Elliott asked.

  “I’ve managed a Walther P-38 for each of you,” Broadsword said. “But please bleed a little before you use them.”

  “I gather we’re not traveling on passport,” Elliott said.

  “Definitely negative on that. This is a covert action, all the way.” He stood up and handed out the pistols. Each contained a full clip. More ammo was placed on the table. Elliott pocketed a handful of cartridges.

  “Have a pleasant flight,” Broadsword said. “I’ll be expecting you back here sometime early tomorrow night.”

  “One thing,” Peter Rabbit said. “What if that black cat does croak on us?”

  “Bring him back anyway,” Broadsword said. “We’ll just play like he’s alive long enough to see the mission through.”

  Chapter 16

  Minus 5 Days, 12:50 Hours

  Four hours later, they landed at Yundum Airport outside Banjul, the Gambia, on Africa’s west coast. Elliott had slept most of the way, and he awoke vaguely disturbed by a dream. The motion, the physical confinement of air travel, often tended to inflict him with erections and erotic thoughts. Although he couldn’t remember all the details of the dream, he had the impression he’d been with the girl in Lisbon. Her presence lingered. Fully awake, he could conjure up a vivid mental picture of her face. That was unusual. He seldom could remember women so well. Experimentally, he thought of the girl he’d spent hours with yesterday in Oslo Fjord. He could form only a faint image of a large build and blond hair. He switched to the waif in Lisbon. She came into his mind as clear as television, all on the basis of that brief glimpse in the taxi.

  Strange.

  Only twenty minutes were allocated in Banjul for refueling. Tycoon left the plane, but everyone else remained aboard. Elliott glanced out at the whitewashed, bougainvillea-covered cottage that served as the terminal, then rolled over and returned to sleep. When he awoke three hours later, they were over water, flying into a brilliant red dawn. Elliott moved forward to find out where they were.

  “Just nearing the coast
of Gabon,” Tycoon said. He had the plane on autopilot and was half-turned in the seat. “In another hour, or little more, we’ll land in Kinshasa for clearance. I’ll have to pull a few strings.”

  The Doctor was reading Homer. In Greek. Peter Rabbit was studying Elliott with amusement. “Hey, man. You always sleep with a hard-on?” he asked. “A thousand miles. You might make the Guinness Book of Records.”

  Elliott grinned, mildly embarrassed. He’d never served in the military. He always felt unsure of himself around barracks humor.

  “I was supposed to spend the night with a girl in Oslo,” he said. “And I wake up in Africa. What a crazy life.”

  Peter Rabbit nodded agreement. “You should see the two chicks who rolled into Torremolinos last week in a Volks camper. Coeds from Louisiana State. They’re living on the beach. I don’t think they’ve got a complete dress between them. I’d just been invited to move in when word of this thing came. If they’re gone when I get back, I think I’ll cut my throat.”

  “I feel for you both,” Tycoon said. “But I can’t reach you.”

  “Rough to be over the hill, huh?” Peter Rabbit asked.

  Tycoon laughed, but said nothing. The Doctor looked up from Homer, irritated. Peter Rabbit turned in his seat to face Tycoon.

  “What do you suppose this thing’s all about?” he asked. “What’s aboard that tanker, anyway?”

  Tycoon shrugged. “I assume that if they thought we had a need to know, they’d have told us.”

  “At least they could tell us who these people are we’re up against,” Peter Rabbit said.

  “I really believe they don’t know,” Tycoon said. “I’ve never been involved in anything like this before. Broadsword was upset. He tried to hide it. But I know him well. I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t a small war going on back in Lisbon right now.”

  “You think there may be a reception committee waiting when we get back?” Peter Rabbit asked.