The By-Pass Control (11 page)

“You Americans have barbarous reactions. Ummm indeed.” She took my hand and tucked it under her arm, nestling it against the firm rise of her breast unconsciously. “I didn’t expect you tonight.”

“I didn’t expect to be here, either.”

“Then ... ?”

“I don’t like the idea of you being alone,” I told her.

She turned and gave me a sober glance, the curious expression in her eyes telling me she had sensed the reason for my stopping by. “I see. This has to do with the Hamilton affair?”

“Make me a short drink, then sit down and I’ll tell you about it.”

“The usual?”

“Natch.” Once again, out of sheer habit, I checked through the rooms while she mixed the two drinks, making sure we were alone and all points of entry were locked. Not that it meant too much ... anybody who really wanted to could force an entrance anyplace but at least a lock breaking or a window snapping gave you a little advance warning.

When I got back to the living room she handed me the drink and sat beside me on the arm of the big chair beside the record console and ran her hand over my hair. “Do you think you should break security by telling me?”

I tasted the drink and leaned back into the chair looking up at her. “I’ll pick my own security levels, Rondine. You’ve been trained in the British Intelligence Service and gone the route with me. Damn it, right now we need every experienced hand we can get.”

“But that isn’t the point you’re trying to make, is it?”

“No.”

“You rather think I might be a stumbling block for you, is that it?” she asked.

“In a way. I’d hate to have any heat put on me through you. Not now.”

“Oh?”

“This is too big, kid. It’s more than you or me. If someone got hold of you to force me into the open I might take up the challenge and land in their net. It’s a chance I can’t take.”

Her fingers stroked my forehead easily, then slipped down the back of my neck and kneaded me there gently. “I don’t think you would, Tiger. I really wouldn’t expect you to.”

The love was there in her eyes, bright and full, but knowledgeable love that realized the fullest extent of the job that had to be done. Before I could answer her she moved her hand and touched my mouth with her fingertips. “Don’t argue against it. We have both adopted an ideal that can’t be altered or destroyed no matter who has to fall. It’s the chance we know we all have to take.”

“You amaze me, doll.” I squeezed her hand, then kissed it.

“If you want to tell me, I’ll listen.”

And I gave her the picture all the way. If she was going to be in it she had a right to know. An informed agent can make a lot more progress than one working in the dark. If you were alerted to an attack you could prepare for it and reach the enemy before he reached you and I didn’t want her sticking her neck out any further than she had to. When I finished she took the empty glass from my hand, made another and curled up at my feet.

“What do you suggest I do then?” she finally asked me.

“Stay with me. If Hal Randolph puts a stakeout on you to reach me the operation can be slowed down if it works. If the Soviets corner you it puts a crimp in things because it diverts time and attention. I’d sooner have you within reach where nobody can screw things up.”

“I have time coming to me,” Rondine mused. “With this latest shakeup in the Kremlin our embassy will be holding fast awaiting developments before they set policy so there won’t be anything critical for me to do.” She leaned her head back against my legs and looked at me upside down. “So I await your command, master.” She gave me an impish little grin and added, “Just don’t yell at me again.”

“Only if you need it, baby.”

“Okay.”

“So pack a bag, make your call to your boss and let’s get out of here.”

Rondine spiraled up from the floor with a single, smooth motion and held a glass out to me. “One for the road. You make them. I’ll be ready in ten minutes. Do I leave a forwarding address?”

“No.”

She gave me another one of those grins again. “Your country has a thing called the Mann Act, remember?”

“That’s a different
Mann,
honey,” I said. “If I take you across a state line it won’t be for immoral purposes.”

“You mean you might even marry me?”

“One can never tell.”

She gave me a little laugh and said over her shoulder as she walked to the bedroom, “Either
Mann
sounds interesting. But I think I like your way better.”

Inside, she went about the business of emptying drawers into a suitcase while I made a pair of soft highballs for both of us. My watch read a little past seven and outside the sun was fading into a hazy twilight that had the look of rain again. I walked over to the window fronting on the street and held the curtain aside, watching the traffic below. The big doorman kept up a slow pace under the canopy, appearing on either side at regular intervals like a sentry on patrol, hands clasped behind his back while he watched each passing car. He wanted to really earn that ten bucks I gave him.

When I let the curtain fall back I crossed to the bedroom with the glasses and pushed the door open. And there are times when sudden movement just can’t be accomplished ... like being upwind of a deer and watching him feed, unaware of your presence, or coming on a wild turkey, so normally given to flight they’re never seen at all.

That was the way Rondine was, beautifully half naked, skin glistening in the light, her breasts arrogantly thrusting out and upwards from the athletic grace of her body, their ruby-hued tips like tiny warheads capable of destroying a man on contact unless they were disarmed first with a gentle touch.

She stood there, one foot up on a hassock, smoothing a stocking over her thigh, then clasping it in the hook of a garter belt to match the other. When she was satisfied she stepped into a half slip, adjusted it, then went to the full-length mirror on the opposite wall to be sure of the fit.

Then she saw me silently laughing at her, spun around grabbing for her blouse, then realizing how silly it was, gave me an impatient stamp of her foot and said, “How long have
you
been there!”

“Long enough.”

“Well, it isn’t polite....”

“It isn’t polite to undress a guy and put him to bed, either,” I reminded her.

“That was different.”

“I hope so,” I said. I walked across the room and held out the drink. “You look better all the time, kid.”

She took the drink, shook her head in feigned annoyance, and reached for her bra. “You keep it up and there won’t be anything left for when we’re married.”

I gave her a long, long appreciative stare and grinned. “With you, honey,” I told her, “there’s always going to be plenty left over.” Then before she could throw something at me I went back outside.

When she finished dressing I heard her call the embassy and arrange for a short leave of absence, then she came out carrying a leather suitcase and white trenchcoat slung over her arm. She let me take it from her, checked the windows and the lights and checked the door lock behind her when we went out. Downstairs she remembered another call she had forgotten to make, stopped at the wall booth while I waited near the door and dialed her number.

That was when the doorman came in. He started toward the desk, saw me and waved me over. “He went by again. Same car. I was just gonna call you.”

“Get the number?”

“Damn right.” He handed me a slip of paper with the license number scrawled across it. “Last year’s Chevy, dark blue sedan and there’s a dent in the left rear fender.”

“Thanks, buddy. Can I use this phone?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

I caught Charlie Corbinet at his apartment, read the number off and hung up while I waited for him to check it through. His contacts were damn thorough. In ten minutes he was back to me with the information that it was a rental car operating out of Surfleet Corporation on Fifty-first Street and a check there said it had been taken out two days ago by a John Clark identified by his driver’s license. The same license had been reported stolen a month ago and reissued to John Clark with a Buffalo, New York, address.

Charlie let me note it all down, then said, “What’s it mean, Tiger?”

“I may have to move faster. Anything from Interpol on the .22?”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “You were right. Same gun used in those other kills. Hal Randolph is jumping all over the place. There isn’t an agency left who hasn’t been alerted. They’re going all out now.”

“And the by-pass control?”

“Nothing.” He paused, then: “Tiger ...”

“What?”

“We can’t afford to miss.”

“I know it, buddy.”

“We can’t afford to let this thing leak, either,” he said. “One word and there will be a panic like we never saw before.”

“Hell, the papers will cooperate. Washington is big enough to demand that if somebody tries to break the story.”

“That isn’t the angle I mean. Supposing the Soviets let the story out themselves. There are enough left-wing and liberal-type publications that drool the Moscow line to get it started. All it takes is one—one lousy do-gooder, one-worlder garbage-eater to get the nitheads screaming in the streets.”

“Yeah, I know. All we have left is the element of time. If they’re sure Agrounsky pulled the trick off with the by-pass control they might try it, but they have to be sure or it will backfire on them and at this stage of the game they can’t afford adverse criticism.”

“And how much time have we got?” Charlie asked softly.

“Hardly any,” I said and hung up.

Rondine was watching over the doorman’s shoulder, keeping him out of earshot. I shoved the phone back, walked over and picked up her bag. “Where does that rear exit lead to?”

“Goes into the courtyard,” the doorman said.

“There’s a service alley that runs along the west side of the building behind this one?”

“You got to jump the fence.” He thought about it a second and added, “The garbage cans are back there. You could stand on them. That fence is about eight feet high.”

I took Rondine’s arm. “Show me,” I said.

With the doorman leading the way we turned left at the rear of the lobby, went through a fire door into a bare concrete corridor that had service rooms opening off it to the door at the back. At the far end was another metal plated fire door with a red exit bulb over it and a three foot horizontal latch handle stretched across its middle. Like all emergency doors, it opened out, but had an added safety lock of a length of two inch angle iron resting in arms attached to the door with the ends butted against the door jambs to keep it from being opened from the outside.

He pried out the bar easily, stood it on end, and pushed against the handle. The door swung out easily and he turned to me with a grin, half stepping outside to let us go past, and just as I reached for the bag the angle iron in his hand jerked back as if somebody had pulled a string and caught him flat across the forehead and he went down like a poleaxed steer, the door swinging shut until it hit his legs.

I gave Rondine a shove to one side, hit the floor and pulled the angle iron away from his face and checked the massive bruise that was beginning to show over one eye. His cap had saved him from cracking his skull on the floor but aside from the welt he was going to have when he woke up, he’d be all right.

Rondine stood there unmoving, then said softly, “What was it, Tiger?”

I pointed to the head high spot on the surface rust of the angle iron, a dimpled indentation the size of a nickel barely reflecting the dull gray color of freshly spattered lead. “We almost were suckered, kid. They pulled that cruising game out front to force us into a back exit. Somebody’s been planted across the way waiting for us to show. They couldn’t make a hit on the street without taking too many chances. We damn near fell for the bit.”

“Are you ... ?”

I shook my head. “Uh-uh, baby, I’m not going to do a thing. Whoever fired that shot expected to get me. He isn’t the kind who misses, either. In this light all he saw was a body fall and the feet are still there to prove it. This guy and me are both about the same size and for now he’ll think I was the one coming through the door. When our friend here comes around he’ll go back on duty with a little larger hat to cover his bump and a pocket full of dough to salve his pain and we’ll get out of here as nice as you please. If someone’s spotted around to watch the action we’ll make it nice and authentic for him.”

She got the picture fast enough. A simple sketch was all she needed and she grinned from her position against the wall and said something soundlessly that would not have gone with the common concept of a cultured British broad and I grinned back because I knew what she said and that she meant it.

It was fifteen minutes before the doorman let out his first feeble groan and reached for his head and massaged it gently, his eyes flicking open a moment before he squeezed them shut again.

“Can you read me, buddy?”

“Yeah, but not too loud. What the hell happened?”

“Don’t sweat it. I’ll explain later. Stay right like you are and you’ll get paid for the trouble.”

“Somebody’s gonna get his head in his hands for that one.”

“That’s not what you’re getting paid for. You ready?”

“Okay, okay, just not too loud. Damn, who busted me?”

“Just figure yourself lucky. You could’ve been killed.”

“So I’m lucky. Somebody else is going to be miserable. Wait.”

“Concentrate on a grand in your pocket. You’ll feel a lot better.”

He opened his eyes all the way and peered at me in the near dark. “I feel better already. Tell me more.”

“Later.” I looked up at Rondine. “Can you handle it?”

“Go ahead,” she said.

From the lobby phone I reached Wally Gibbons. He was still in his office at the paper and didn’t bother going through the futility of asking questions. He arranged for the private ambulance to get to the address and forwarded my call to Charlie Corbinet so the timing would be right and the cover set through I.A.T.S. They weren’t going to like it, but then, they didn’t have to. All they could do was go along and let it ride like that.