The Death Dealers (2 page)

My hand was tight on the gun now. One wrong word and she was going to be dead on the spot. “Say it, Lily.”

I eased the hammer down on the .45, held it at half-cock and snugged it back in the holster.

You know the meaning of death in this business. You can make it happen and when it comes your turn you’re ready to accept it. You know the odds and the meaning of an assignment or you’re not part of the group at all. You don’t call for help outside your own control unit unless the situation is so critical your own death is relatively unimportant in view of what could happen to the free world. To give a Skyline signal meant that it had already happened.

“How long have you been looking for me?”

“I arrived B.O.A.C. yesterday. The State Department office here in New York passed me to I.A.T.S. and they gave me several probable locations. This evening I narrowed down the area without finding you until your former O.S.S. commander, Colonel Charles Corbinet, reached me with the names of several hotels.”

“You have a big in, honey. Does I.A.T.S. know what this is all about?”

“I don’t know. There are some lapses in communications between your agencies, as you well realize.”

“Bureaucracy, the evil thereof,” I said. “Do
you
know?”

“At this point, no. My orders were simply to reach you with the message. Interpol is checking out the situation now. By tomorrow morning I will be notified.”

“Tomorrow may be too late.” I stood there watching her, debating how far I should go. All it would take for me was one single, lousy mistake and I was on the dead list.

Remember the old days, Tiger? You were young and fast and strong. Full of piss and vinegar. Now the vinegar is all gone and all that’s left is the piss. If there’s still enough left maybe you could drown somebody in it. Twenty years plus since the chute drops into Germany. Twenty years plus since it had all been fun and one big game. Now you survived because time had let you and all the professional techniques had developed into an instinct that made you raise a gun faster and pull the trigger without question and gave you a subtle insight into the innermost workings of another mind. Describe yourself and it came out killer. Describe yourself and it came out like she said: ruthless. Nice word. You could face down the other pros and know that you could do it sooner and more accurately than they could and the twenty years plus added up to number one on the Commie “A” list ... the Vegolt ... the one they wanted eliminated more than anybody.

So why expose yourself now, Tiger? The game was almost over. You won your damn letter a long time ago. Money? Sure ... it was big ... you were part of Martin Grady’s team, subsidized by millions that could buy anything under the sun. Almost. Maybe. The other side couldn’t buy you, so it had to be almost.

A few city blocks away Rondine was waiting for you to call. The wedding date was set and the woman you loved, but almost killed once, was there waiting for you to call.

Rondine, lovely, lovely Rondine of the auburn hair and beautiful thighs with a flat belly and breasts that made you gasp at first sight and whom no other could touch, she was waiting for you. Rondine of the wet mouth and fierce desires who wanted you and the soft life where you could live and love without the guns and the fat sound of a bullet plowing into soft flesh.

She was waiting now while you prowled the streets of the city wondering how you were going to tell her that there was no stopping point, no ending to the life you had lived because the original Rondine was just like you.

Dead now. A Nazi spy and dead somewhere in Europe. Confirmed.

Rondine, the oldest of the Caine family, whose ancestry dated back to the nobles who forced the hand of King John on the Magna Carta. Rondine, who defected to the Nazis in ’41, was never to live as a Caine again, but simply as Rondine. We had met as enemies and loved with the intensity only enemies can have, but we had loved.

Or rather, I had. She finally shot me twice to kill me quick so she could save her own precious hide and for twenty years I had searched her out. I thought I had found her and she was inches away from death when I knew it wasn’t Rondine after all, but her youngest sister, Edith Caine. But she was still Rondine to me and I loved this one even more.

And now she’d have to keep on waiting for me.

I said, “Where are you staying?”

“The Taft.”

“For how long?”

“I expect to be recalled in a few days. My assignment ends with reporting my contact with you.”

“Get back to the hotel and stay put. I’ll check with you in a couple of hours.”

“I see no reason ...”

“And I’m not asking. Interpol might be interested in further information. I’m sure they’ll appreciate the gesture.”

She hesitated, thinking over the possible ramifications, then nodded. “Very well, I’ll be at the Taft.” She held out her hand. “May I have my gun back.”

I pulled out the Beretta, dumped the shells out of the clip, jacked the one out of the chamber and handed them over separately. Without bothering to reload the piece, she dropped everything into her handbag. “I don’t think there’s any need to be that careful now.”

“You’re only allowed one mistake in the business, baby. I made mine a long time ago. After a while survival gets to be a matter of habit and routine.”

“And killing,” she said. “I made a point of looking into your background. Every department seems to have a file on you, though the details seem rather sketchy. There are more suppositions than facts. In one case you apparently were in two places a thousand miles apart at the same time.”

“I’m a crafty bastard.”

“You are more than that. You are important because you can be destructive. The power behind you exceeds that of many small governments. One day you are going to be stopped and it will be a beneficial thing. Whoever does it will get many medals, some visible, others in the form of a sigh of relief.”

I grinned at her, feeling what was behind her words. She didn’t have to say it, but when the type gets wound up it shows around the edges and sometimes it’s fun to make them scratch a little. “You don’t like men, do you?”

A little flash of fire came into her eyes. “I am not queer, if that’s what you mean.”

“I didn’t ask that.”

Her lips seemed to tighten then. “Outside of a simple function I often fail to see what purpose men really serve.”

“Maybe if I have time I’ll show you,” I told her.

“You won’t touch me!”

“It’s polite to wait till you’re asked, kiddo. Now let’s cut out.”

I left Phil’s key at the desk, grabbed a cab outside the Forty-ninth Street entrance of the Garden and rode Lily up to the Taft. She never said a word, just sitting there staring out the window. When I dropped her off I had the driver cruise back to my place, checked out of the hotel and moved downtown seven blocks to the Barnes House and signed in under T. Mann, Los Angeles, California.

It was exactly a quarter to ten.

I called the desk, gave the operator Rondine’s number, and heard her lift the phone. The simple word “Hello” was said with the velvety tone that only generations of culture and good breeding can achieve.

“Tiger, sugar.”

She felt the tightness in my voice instinctively. “You’ve found trouble again.” It was a statement, not a question.

“It found me.”

After a moment she sought her voice again. There was no sting in it now, no recrimination, just that same touch of sadness that had been there the last time it happened like this. “We should have gone away, Tiger. In two more days we would have been married. The trouble couldn’t have found you then.”

“This one would.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, “I rather imagine it would.”

“Can I see you?”

“It’s ... late.”

“Not that late.”

“Tomorrow, Tiger.” I let her hang up, then eased the phone back on the cradle.

So now I was a slob again, a person who didn’t belong in the world. I’d have to go up there and explain. I’d have to look into those purple eyes of hers and lie because she wouldn’t understand the truth. She’d be waiting. So was Teddy.

Who came first? Why ask when I knew the answer already.

The National flight out of Washington dropped the new man into La Guardia a few minutes after two A.M. Martin Grady had cleared the contact personally and I was able to recognize him by the bag he carried, a slightly built young guy about twenty-five who could have passed for a travel-weary junior executive about to make a suburban pad for the weekend, kiss an anxious wife and kids hello and have a couple of large belts before going into his routine.

But I knew better when I saw the way he walked and knew that under the gray suit he was one of those stringy types that was all trained muscle and ready to prove he could earn his keep in the organization.

I let him get loaded into the cab and give the driver a destination before I hopped in behind him and said, “Hi, kid, you flying?”

The cabbie started to turn it on, then the guy said, “Low down, man. Keep going, friend.” He grinned at me. “Lennie Byrnes.”

We shook hands briefly after the identification and I knew he had heard too damn much about me because his eyes were shiny with excitement and he tried too hard to put a squeeze into the grip.

“You got the poop?”

He nodded. “Ears only. When we’re in the hotel.”

“Your first time out?”

“I’ve been on office detail until now.”

“Stay loose,” I told him. “You’re just a courier. Maybe later you’ll see the big stuff.”

“Okay, so I’m anxious. I’m hoping something will happen. After the delivery it’s up to you what I do. Until you release me I take orders from you.”

“How far has your training gone?”

“The committee had me for six months, after that another six with the lab and three in the field. I was on the Cosmos bit and did the legwork for Hollendale in Formosa.”

“Good job. Who was your instructor?”

“Bradley.” He grinned at me crookedly. “Seems like you were his. He filled me in on a lot of wild stories.”

“He talks too much. Don’t let him scare you.”

Central had arranged quarters for him at the Calvin, a tenth-floor rear two-room suite, designating him as a representative for one of Martin Grady’s various companies. Just the same, we checked the place out completely to make sure it hadn’t been bugged. Any of Grady’s or his associates’ companies were under constant surveillance by Washington teams since the striped pants boys instigated an investigation a few months back, and they could be as instrumental in stopping our action as the Reds could if we let them get that close.

I let him get unpacked, turned the TV up loud enough to squelch our talk, and sat back in the armchair. “Let’s have it, Lennie.”

He didn’t waste words, getting right to the point. “We got the
Skyline
signal through London, but the transmission was slow and we don’t know what has elapsed since it was received. Tedesco can be dead by now or not. There’s no word on his activity coming through at all. Central thinks that it’s a deliberate cover-up. Teddy was there illegally and there’s no way of proving he ever entered or came out. Our State Department isn’t talking and neither is the bunch over there. We can’t squawk and they aren’t offering any information. It’s as if the entire situation doesn’t exist at all.”

“That’s what I thought,” I said.

“Did you know anything about his mission?”

“No.”

Lennie nodded. “It was pretty tight, even with us.”

“It’s always like that, kid.”

“Maybe you’re familiar with the topography of Selachin.”

“Half desert, half mountain range. I’ve flown over it, that’s about all.”

“Then you have it right. Anyway, like a lot of those undeveloped areas that are hot spots in the political war these days, they keep gaining importance. About two years ago an enterprising engineer from Indiana uncovered a vast oil reserve in the foothills of the east range of hills. However, it wasn’t the usual type of thing. The oil has to be extracted by a new process that one of our major companies has been experimenting with for about ten years.

“Briefly, if this oil field proves out, it puts this previously small principality in a position of equality with Saudi Arabia. That means both the U.S. and the Commie group will be fighting to get control of the field.

“Luckily for us, we had the jump. It was one of our men who found it and our experimental processing is years ahead of anybody else’s. To be sure of what we had, Washington sent in two military technicians and began courting Teish El Abin, the King of Selachin, and suddenly this little creep gets off his donkey and blossoms out in Cadillacs. Naturally, the Reds caught the move and scouted around till they found out why. Now it looks like they’re romancing Teish, putting the hook into our men until they can gain the time to develop their own process for the oil recovery.”

“What happened to the two technicians?”

“Dead,” Lennie said. “What else? They were caught in an apparent landslide. Teddy’s last report said it wasn’t an accident at all. Those boys were murdered.”

“Any complaints from State?”

“There couldn’t be without revealing their hand. They have to play this one cute. If they accuse the Soviets it will bounce back in a fine propaganda move throughout the Middle East of how we’re trying to exploit the poor, poor peasants. Meanwhile, the Reds gain time. They’re closer to the operation than we are and have more latitude of action. What Washington is doing is wooing Teish. He’s due here in two days for some big festivities and comes in with his hand out like all the rest.”