Pete picked up his fresh bottle of beer and followed the other to a table.
Bruce said, “I got the damnedest feeling that our girl didn’t like the idea of you talking to that guy.”
“Oh?” Pete said, surprised. “Why not?”
“Damned if I know. What were you talking about?”
Pete laughed and poured half of his bottle into the pilsen glass with less than the finesse the bartender had displayed earlier. He said, “What seems to be the inevitable topic in Island One? What’s wrong with it and why the whole L5 Project is going down the drain.”
Bruce squinted at him. “Oh, you’ve been getting that song and dance too, eh?”
“Yeah. To hear them talk, I’m surprised that they’ve gotten this far.”
“For that matter,” Bruce said wryly, “I can’t seem to find out just how far they have gotten. When I left Earth, I had the impression from Lagrange Five Corporation publicity that Island One was practically finished and that some ten thousand space colonists were already happily established.”
The coffee came, brought from the dining room by one of the inevitably cute waitresses.
After she was gone and Bruce had stirred sweetener into his beverage, he said, “Where in the hell do they get them all? You’d have your work cut out judging a beauty contest up here. They’d all deserve to win. I haven’t seen a plain-looking mopsy since I arrived, unless it was a couple of these women scientists last night.”
Pete said sarcastically, “They work a double shift. Waitresses or whatever during the day and public relations all night. And for that kind of public relations work, you can’t have second-rate bimbos.”
Bruce raised his eyebrows. “I’ll be damned. I assume you’re speaking from experience.”
Pete drank some of his beer. He was feeling better by the minute.
Bruce said nonchalantly, “Why don’t you pick up Rocks Weil, Pete?”
The other took him in indignantly. “I just got here yesterday. Who do you think I am, Nero Wolfe or Charlie Chan?”
The freelance writer said, “Come off it, Pete. I’ve seen you work before. Appearances to the contrary, you’re a damned good operative. If you were really looking for Rocks Weil, you would have disappeared into the wallpaper after him long before this.”
Pete Kapitz was indignant still. “What in the hell are you talking about?” he said. “Long before this. We got here yesterday. I’ve just started to go through the dossiers, checking out the photos of every male in Lagrange Five. I’ll start on the Luna base next.”
“Bullshit,” Bruce said earnestly. “You could have arrested him in the Goddard. Rick Venner is Rocks Weil.”
The IABI man bug-eyed him.
The freelancer was taken aback. He said, in surprise, “You can’t be acting. You’re really flabbergasted, aren’t you. I’ll be damned.” His eyes went thoughtful. “You know, I don’t think you’re really looking for Rocks at all. There’s probably a story in this. What in the name of hell are you doing in Island One, Pete?”
Pete Kapitz said, “Why do you think Rick Venner is Rocks Weil?”
“I’m not absolutely certain,” Bruce told him. “But it adds up. If Rocks is in Island One, then he’s Rick Venner. Check it out. According to what you told us on the Goddard, when we were waiting for the passenger freighter to bring us out here, Rocks pulled his most recent romp in London, taking a very nice score, as the grifters call it, in diamonds. About six weeks later, a forger in Mexico named Pavel Meer was found murdered and in his possession was equipment that indicated that he’d been involved in forging papers that would allow an ordinarily unqualified person to get into the Lagrange Five Project. Wizard. A new contract man has to spend one month at the New Albuquerque space shuttleport getting checked out, going through simulated space experience, learning Esperanto, and so forth. So, figure it out. If Rocks pulled his romp in London six weeks ago and immediately headed for Lagrange Five, he would have had to spend a month in New Albuquerque.”
“So what?” Pete said.
“That means he had to arrive here within the past couple of weeks and, most likely, even less time than that.”
“Even given that,” Pete said skeptically, “it doesn’t mean that Venner is…”
“All right, here’s more,” Bruce told him. “On the way up, Rick tried to take me at poker. Stacking the deck. A real pro card sharp. Last night, he crashed the party, evidently after getting his hands on some formal clothing. In short, he’s a fast operator without a conscience. So, just because I’m nosy by trade, I made a call for his dossier in the National Data Banks down in the States. The dossier seemed to be on the up and up. I suspect that it’s genuine and that Rocks Weil’s real name is Rick Venner. But there was one thing offbeat. He was educated as an electrical engineer, but there was no record of his ever working at the profession. In fact, there was practically no record of him after his graduation. He had no criminal record, not even a traffic violation. He never applied for Negative Income Tax. He seemingly just disappeared.”
“That’s still not evidence that Venner’s…”
Bruce went on. “Intrigued, I checked and found out that yesterday Rick was taken out into space. He became deathly space sick. That’s pretty rare, these days. The doctors down in New Albuquerque, at the Goddard, and even on the way over in the passenger freighter checked us all for proneness to space sickness, but especially the three who came up to be construction workers because that’d take them in space, while you and I and Mary Beth would remain solely inside the island. It was very handy, Rick getting sick that way because now the L5 people will never know if he’s really an experienced construction engineer or not; they’ll have to find some other job for him here, inside.”
Pete was eyeing him. “What else?”
“I did some research into Rocks Weil once, thinking I might do an article on him. I had to scrap the idea because there wasn’t enough authentic information. However, I went through Interpol’s files and Rick is in the right age group and physically resembles Rocks Weil from the admittedly inadequate descriptions given by some of his victims.”
Pete finished his beer with one long gulp. “Damn it,” he said, meaninglessly.
“So,” Bruce said smoothly, “he’s one of the very few new contract men to come up in the past two weeks. And if Rocks is in Island One, he would have had to come up during that period. So why don’t you snag Rick and grill him? Surely, Security would cooperate. Obviously, they’re collaborating with you, or you wouldn’t be up here.”
Pete gritted his teeth. “Damn it,” he said again.
“Yeah,” Bruce said, looking at him over the rim of his cup as he sipped his coffee.
“Look, Bruce,” Pete said looking the other full in the face. “Off the record, you’ve got it right. I wasn’t even looking for Rocks Weil. It made a good cover story, but I didn’t really think he was up here. I can’t even legally arrest him. If I tried my supposed reason for coming to Lagrange Five would be accomplished and they’d send me back on the next passenger freighter, maybe along with Weil.”
“So why’d you really come up?”
“I can’t tell you, damn it.”
Bruce sighed. “That’s a helluva thing to say to a writer, Pete. Now I’m really curious. So suppose we tell the story this way. Suppose that I expose the infamous Rocks Weil myself. It’d make a damn fine article for me: Bruce Carter, fearless muckraking author, shows up Interpol, the IABI, Scotland Yard, and the Surete by making a citizen’s arrest of the notorious international jewel thief.”
“Holy smog, Bruce,” the other said in protest. “That’d end in my having to go back too. My supposed reason for being here would be over.” “Yeah,” Bruce said. “So what’re you really doing up here, Pete?”
“Now, look, Bruce,” the IABI operative said earnestly. “You’re an American. You have certain responsibilities as a citizen.”
“Stop it, stop it, you’re striking sparks off my heart.”
> “Look, Bruce. I’m on an assignment working directly under President Paul Corcoran. It’s very hush-hush.”
“Tell me more.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I don’t believe you,” Bruce told him reasonably. “And in exactly two minutes I’m going to get up out of this chair and start steps to arrest Rocks Weil. I’ll teach that sonofabitch to stack a deck on me. I take my poker seriously.”
The nondescript agent registered despair. “Look,” he said. “This has to be off the record. It can’t get out. Certainly not for the time being.”
“You’ll have to leave that up to me, Pete. But I’m cooperative. You know that. What are you up here for?”
“I’m on an assignment for Roy Thomas, for Christ’s sake.”
Bruce whistled softly. “I’ve met Thomas. He’s a good man,” he said. “Doing what?”
Pete groaned in despair. “Digging into what’s going on in the Lagrange Five Project.”
It was Bruce’s turn to boggle. “What in the hell are you talking about?” he said.
Pete groaned again. “The President’s brain trust thinks that something stinks about the Lagrange Five Corporation. He evidently thinks it’s some sort of a rip-off.”
“Some sort of a rip-off! Holy jumping Zoroaster, you cloddy, if there’s anything off-color about the LFC, it’s the biggest news and the biggest world disaster since the flood.”
“I didn’t say I thought there was something wrong,” the other said defensively. “Hell, I own stock in the corporation. I said that Roy Thomas thinks he smells a rat. He’s working on it Earthside. He sent me up here to root out anything I could. I came, not expecting to find anything to root.” He swallowed the last of his beer. “But now I’m not so sure.”
Bruce Carter’s eyes narrowed. “Why? I came up to do some stories about the project, maybe a book. I had an upbeat viewpoint, but now I have a few second thoughts, too. Roy Thomas is no dizzard. In fact, he’s the smartest man in Washington. If he thinks something’s wrong about the LFC, it’s four chances out of five that he’s right.”
Pete shook his head in misery. “It’s a lot of the little things about the place that I’ve noticed. This island, for instance, is a far cry from what we see on Tri-Di and TV down Earthside.”
“It sure as hell is,” Bruce said grimly. “See here, Pete, what do you say we continue on the present basis? I continue to gather my material for my articles or book, you continue to supposedly look for Rocks. We’ll get together and exchange notes periodically. All we can do at this stage of the game is play it by ear.”
Pete stood. “Wizard, Bruce. God only knows what we’ll eventually come up with. Meanwhile, I’ll get down into the Security files, pretending to look up Rocks, but actually checking out anything I can think of.”
“Right-o,” the freelancer told him.
Pete Kapitz went on out to the lounge and turned to head for the Security offices, but then came up abruptly. On the far side of the lobby, he spotted someone he knew. Someone wearing the dark green coveralls of a Security man. He scowled, not having expected to meet anyone in Island One that he was acquainted with. But who was the man?
Then it came to him. Natale Lucchese. In the old days, Pete supposed, they probably would have called him a caporegime, of the Biamco family of Philadelphia. Pete vaguely remembered the man as disappearing a couple of years ago, for unknown reasons. But here he was, seemingly hiding out in Lagrange Five. Well, if a criminal talent like Rocks Weil could pick a remote place like Island One to go to ground, there was no reason why a minor cog in what they used to call the Syndicate, such as Natale Lucchese, couldn’t.
The other hadn’t spotted Pete. In fact, the IABI man rather doubted that Lucchese would recognize him. They hadn’t ever really come face to face. The other had been pointed out to him a couple of times back Earthside. Pete continued on his way to the files. Seated at the same desk he had used the day before, he first checked out the personnel files of the Security department. He was surprised to find the number of them, more than two hundred. What in the world did they need with that many police on a project like Island One? And, yes, here was the less than handsome face of Natale Lucchese. Only his name was listed as Nat Luke. And, of all surprises, he had a master’s degree from New Kingston University and in, of all things, the humanities. Well, he supposed that would have helped the other to secure a job with Security in the Lagrange Five Project.
One by one, he checked out all the other persons he had thus far met in Lagrange City, not excluding Al Moore or even Annette Casey. Moore, he discovered, held a doctorate in the social sciences, and the young woman one in physics. As a matter of fact, she had an impressive list of accomplishments. She certainly didn’t look the double-dome she obviously was.
When he had finished his checking, he left the Security offices, arousing no more attention than had his arrival, and returned to the lobby. The Syndicate man was no longer present. Pete took to the stairs and continued upward until he had reached the roof.
It provided an excellent view out over the town and, indeed, the whole cylinder, since the L5 Hilton was the tallest building in the island. Some of what he had been hearing was borne out. The interior, at least, of Island One was far from being completed. He could see considerable numbers of workers in the distance and assumed that they were landscaping. They seemed to have some small land movers, and some trucks, but larger equipment wasn’t in view. He imagined that there’d be problems involved in bringing really king-sized vehicles to Lagrange Five.
He walked to one corner of the roof and sat on the parapet, facing the door so that he could see anyone emerging. He brought from one of the coverall pockets his specially issued transceiver, flicked both the scrambled and muffled studs, and then dialed the high-priority number Roy Thomas had given him in Greater Washington. He was surprised at the clarity of the other’s voice when it came through. Somehow, he’d had the feeling that communication would be difficult in view of the distance involved.
He said, “Kapitz here.”
The delays in their messages were barely noticeable, and Roy Thomas’s brisk voice was…brisk. “Very well. What have you to report, Kapitz?”
Pete gave it all to him concisely, including the fact that Rocks Weil was evidently really in the island and that he’d had to come to terms with Bruce Carter. That irritated the Presidential advisor, but there was nothing for it.
Thomas said, “Give me that about Prince Abel again. This simply doesn’t make sense. He’s high in the finances of the Arab Union.”
Pete said, “I thought it was funny he should be seeing Ryan, so at the party I planted a bug in his sash. Then I went into the men’s room and sat in a booth and tuned in on it. I wasn’t able to listen long before somebody found the bug. The big news was that the Arab Union was willing to continue to subsidize the L5 Project at the rate of five billion a year.”
“He said to continue? Implying that they’ve been doing it already for some years?” “Yes, sir.”
The voice of the faraway governmental troubleshooter was puzzled. “That simply doesn’t make sense at all. If there’s anything the Arab Union wouldn’t want to see, it’s a successful Lagrange Five Project. Given solar power, the value of their oil would drop disastrously.”
“Yes, sir. That’s what I thought.”
“Anything else, Kapitz?”
“Nothing much definite. However, I’ve only been here two days, but I can already see that this thing isn’t coming along as fast as the L5 Corporation would want the public to believe. There seem to be more bugs than they figured on.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, one thing. Evidently, Rocks Weil isn’t the only one to pick Island One for a hideaway. Last night I met a call girl who’s wanted in the Bahamas for homicide. And today I spotted a, uh, Syndicate member. Natale Lucchese, who’s hiding under the name Nat Luke. He’s even got a job in the Security force.”
“Syndicate?”
&
nbsp; “Yeah, what they used to call the Mob, the Cosa Nostra.”
“See here, Kapitz, aren’t you being a little romantic? There is no Syndicate these days. The era of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano is as gone as those of Blackbeard and Henry Morgan.”
“Not quite, sir. Of course, they don’t rob banks or bootleg guzzle any more, but there are still remnants of the organization in such unions as are left and in gambling and resorts. Even when you do run into them, they’re usually legit. This one even has a college degree in humanities.”
“Not of a great deal of importance, I suppose. Look, Kapitz, there’s one thing you might look into. In my investigations at this end, I have been surprised that I haven’t been able to locate any construction workers who formerly worked at Lagrange Five. I’ve had to proceed very cautiously, of course, but I’ve found none at all. Check about and see if you can find a reason for this.”
“Yes, sir. Oh, just one other thing. Probably has no significance, but I’ve checked out in the Security archives everybody I’ve met so far, mostly top executives, scientists, and engineers. What strikes me is that it’s not just Doctor Solomon Ryan that comes from New Kingston University; so do practically all the rest of them. They’ve all taken their degrees at New Kingston except a few like Academician Leonard Suvorov, from the University of Leningrad, and Doctor Rudi Koplin from the University of Warsaw. They’re both defectors, of course.”
There was a pause while the President’s right-hand man thought about it. He said, “I suppose it’s understandable. This whole project originated at New Kingston, and most of the research goes on there. Obviously, they’d put their own people in. It’s one of the most prestigious schools in the country. I would think they could supply as many competent men and women as are needed. That’ll be all, then. Continue to report every time something comes up. Down here, we’re beating our heads against a stone wall trying to find out anything about the inner workings of the Lagrange Five Corporation in Tangier. It’s worse than trying to get inside banking information in Switzerland.” The other’s voice hesitated. “And, Kapitz, ah, take care of yourself. There are some aspects of this that make me nervous.”
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