The Martian Pendant (17 page)

“Wow,” Dan said, “This place is spooky! I have to hand it to you, Di, for your courage. Don’t you agree, Crowley? Look at those stalactites, from water that's been dripping down over a million years.”

Shining the light up the stairs, Diana warned them, “On the deck up there the water is about a foot and a half deep. That’s where I first saw that crocodile. Are you guys ready to shoot him? Don’t forget, aim low, and for God’s sake, don’t miss, or it’ll be like a pinball game in here, only using bullets instead of marbles.”

Cautiously, the men took the lead, flashlights taped to their rifles. But there was little more to be seen except more water and more stalactites, most of them broken off in that area. They did find a few shreds of tan fur.

They explored forward, where mounds of concretions suggested the presence of cargo or something bulky beneath.

“We’re going to need a jackhammer in here to get through the covering layers of limestone, or whatever this rock is,” she said, as they again reached the limit of their electrical line.

“Dan, ya stay and protect Diana while ah take a look aft,” Chet called, “Ah think my light is adequate in case that big reptile shows.”

After she and the CIA operative had stood for five minutes on the landing, shining the lights around, Chet returned.

“Nothin’ more back that way. Mounds and mounds, just like up front.”

“Okay,” she said, “let’s go. We now know that we need to thoroughly comb through this ship. More electrical cable, a jackhammer, and people from the dig with hammers and chisels.”

At supper, they drew up the list of tools and equipment that would be needed for further investigation of the hulk, and afterward they made plans to sneak into Dragunov’s tent to steal the rolls of film, including the one in his camera. Chet was to hot-wire the Minister’s truck as a diversion so that he would have to leave the tent in haste, without his jacket. He probably was a very light sleeper--most of such operatives were--so he would have to be lured away at the right time. But their plans for that night were frustrated by one of the young grad students, Adina, who had seemed so taken with him at lunch. She entered his tent and didn’t emerge, even after the light was extinguished. Disappointed, they all turned in, contemplating a busy and exciting day.

When Adina didn’t show up for breakfast, Diana and Dan visited the tent where the remaining three female grad students were quartered. Loud sobbing was heard as she parted the mosquito net. Adina was on her cot, attended by the other two, who acknowledged Diana as she entered and knelt next to the distraught woman.

“What happened?” Diana asked, “I thought you had, in fact, found the love of your life the way you’ve been fawning over that chap.”

“Oh,” she cried, “I thought so too, but once I was in his tent, he came on so strong that I had second thoughts. Fool that I was, I accepted a glass of something, probably vodka. I think the so-and-so made a Mickey Finn of it. The next thing I knew, I was in our tent here on the ground.”

As the other two gravely shook their heads in sympathy, Diana asked, “How do you feel physically? Any bleeding, that sort of thing?”

“Well,” she replied,  “I
am
a little sore, and I think I’m getting a pinchy feeling emptying my bladder now.”

“Well,” Diana advised, “Ask Myra to give you a couple of sulfa tablets, which, with plenty of water, should take care of that.”

“But look,” Dan interjected, “We need you to help us with this guy. He’s not what he seems. He’s more interested in spying on us than in governmental oversight. We need to get the films of all the shots he took yesterday before he can get them out. That’s where we hope you can help.”

Looking imploringly up at Diana, Adina asked, “You mean you want me to forgive and forget last night? Go through the same thing again?”

“That’s what we need,” Diana answered, “But just don’t let him put anything into your drink. Instead, I’ll get some phenobarbital from our medical kit. Slip a couple into his. How’s that for revenge?”

Liz, Adina’s buddy, said, “I’ll get the medicine and the capsules for you. Chris and I will be just outside the tent tonight in case he gets rough.”

“No,” Diana cautioned, “the two of you are still nowhere near a match for him. We’ll have men there, armed and ready to cuff him if he threatens you. We have a legal right to police our camp; it’s in our government permit. Of course, that applies principally to predatory animals.”

“Well,” Adina laughed through her tears, “that’s exactly what he is.”

“Then you’ll help us with this?” Diana asked with anticipation.

“Sure,” she replied, “as long as you and Security will all be right there.”

That evening in the mess tent, Adina sat down next to Dragunov as if nothing untoward had happened. He seemed surprised but flattered to be sought after by the pretty little Adina. It wasn’t long before the two of them left, hand-in-hand, well before dessert.

“Okay, this is it,” Diana whispered to Chet, who had been briefed on the plan and from the beginning hated the man they knew as Krueger. With Dan, he picked up weapons and a pair of handcuffs, and joined her outside the bogus Minister’s tent. And there they waited.

Inside, Dragunov and Adina sat on his cot sipping vodka, and talked for a while. It was apparent he was interrogating her about the discoveries. Hardly words of seduction, but then, her obvious adulation seemingly made such words unnecessary.

Pointing to the little battery-powered short-wave radio, he said, “Find some music, will you, while I get us some more drink.”

While fiddling with the radio, she saw him produce a small silver cigarette case from his pack and open it, intently looking at the contents. She noticed that he took something out, snapped the case shut, and replaced it somewhere in his pack. Just then, she tuned into a station playing, of all things,
The
Red Army Song.
This momentarily flustered him so much that he dropped the capsule on the canvas floor. The expletive he muttered wasn’t English. And it wasn’t anything that sounded like Afrikaans either.

While he was searching the floor, she quickly took out two of the red capsules she had been given, and pulled each one open, emptying the powder into his glass. By the time he found what he was hunting for, the barbiturate had dissolved in his vodka.

Smiling at her, he said, “Let me freshen your drink, while you try to find something more romantic on the wireless.”

Crouched over, again adjusting the dial of the radio, out of the corner of her eye she could see that he was doing something besides pouring. As he turned to hand the glass to her, she stood up under his outstretched arm, knocking the drink to the floor.

“Oh, my God,” she exclaimed, “I’m so sorry! Give me a refill, Willem honey, won’t you?” What could he do but comply, all the while thinking,
how could such a witless little woman do this?

After accepting the refill from him, she sat down on the cot again, smiling seductively up at him, invitingly patting the spot on the cot next to her.

With her other hand, she raised her glass to his, toasting, “To us!”

As she tipped her glass to her mouth while gazing adoringly at him, he forgot his plan to drug her. Enough alcohol will serve almost as well, he decided. Then he too drank up.

When he sat down, she took another gulp of the booze and then rested her head on his chest, caressing his thigh. He felt confident that she would soon drink herself into a stupor, even without the knockout capsule. But as he emptied his glass, he felt the first of the effect of the barbiturate. The sedative dulled his brain enough so that he failed to realize that his own method had been used on him. He felt a serene sense of comfort, something like his head sinking into a feather pillow and floating there.

When the combination of vodka and phenobarbital had taken full effect, Adina gently laid him back on the cot.
Christ,
she thought,
he’s beautiful, a blond Nordic God. What might have happened, had he also been a gentleman!
Sighing, she lifted the mosquito net at the entrance, and called to her accomplices outside.

“It’s OK, he out like a light. Those capsules and the liquor really did the job. Here’s his jacket with the exposed film and his camera. His Mickey Finn kit is in his pack somewhere. It’s silver and looks like a cigarette case.”

“Ya did great, gal,” Chet said as he cautiously entered, his Colt .45 at the ready. Diana and Dan followed him inside. Then Chet said, “Get those films, and put these in the jacket pocket instead. They’re the same thirty-five millimeter Agfa rolls he uses. His camera probably has exposed film also, so empty it and put this new roll in ta replace it.”

“What about his cache of knockout pills? Shouldn’t we empty that too?” Adina asked, as they went about the exchange.

“We should leave that,” Chet said. “If we fool with it, he’ll immediately know he’s been had, and that might create complications. Security around the spaceship will have ta block photography in sensitive areas. If that don’t work, only then should we confiscate his camera.”

Dan, looking at the camera, offered, “From what we know about Eastern Bloc operatives, they usually have a tiny hidden camera on them somewhere. There’s no way to neutralize this guy unless we jail him.”

Diana added, “You’re right. We have to blow the whistle on him with the British. I have to fly to Dar tomorrow anyway. His assistant is the man to see. I think he’ll go along with us and investigate.”

“But that could take weeks,”
said Chet. “What do we do with him in the meantime?”

“It’s your department, Crowley,” Dan replied, “You and your men will have to stick to him like glue.”

The next day, Diana took off for Dar, and her hoped-for meeting with Kindred to initiate the investigation of Dragonov, who, even Max was now certain, was a Communist espionage agent. The flight was uneventful, as she picked up the railroad tracks below and followed them to her destination. The air was somewhat bumpy, due to the thermals of the particularly glorious dry season that year. After landing, she hurried to the Ministry. It was near the end of the day, but she counted on finding the Assistant Minister working late.

When she reached his office, he was there, and greeted her in his friendly manner. “Hello, Miss Howard,” he called out when he saw her at the door. “Do come in. What brings you here? I hope not a problem?”

She asked, “Do you have time for a very important discussion? It’s about your Chief’s activities at the exploration site.”

He looked at her quizzically, saying, “Please sit down, that does sound important. Unfortunately, he is, in fact, known to favor the ladies. I hope, my dear, that he has behaved himself with you.”

“With me, yes, but that’s not the real problem.”

With a solemn glance, Kindred took out a file, evidently that of Krueger, studying it a minute. “Well,” he finally said, “everything seems to check out. This includes credentials from the Mining Institute, and a copy of his birth certificate from the Union of South Africa. We also have his letter of appointment to this Ministry from the British Colonial Office, signed by the Head of that office himself.”

She asked, “What of his university education? His accent would suggest he could have been educated in Britain, and for that, there should be a transcript. But my opinion is that he learned English listening to the BBC.”

Kindred, almost aghast, looked at her in disbelief. “See here, young lady, what evidence can you produce to support your suspicions?”

“Do I have your promise of strict secrecy, that this information will remain only between us?”

“Of course,” he answered immediately, with a solemn nod.

Diana told him of their discovery, and Krueger’s obsession with photographing it as well as their secret equipment, rather than inspecting the oil exploration and the archeological part of the dig itself. She described Adina’s experience with him, his apparent shock at the playing of
The
Red Army Song
that caused him to curse, leading Adina, whose mother was from the Netherlands, to believe that the language he used sounded more like Russian than either Afrikaans or its parent, Dutch.

Kindred looked seriously at Diana for a full minute before speaking. “Your accusation is rather serious, Miss Howard. But for the fact that Tanganyika at the present time appears to be the target of Chinese Communists, I’d be inclined to disbelieve you. But with your amazing discovery, the espionage agencies of the entire world will soon be sending operatives here, if they haven’t already. I have connections with MI6, British Intelligence, which is always happy indeed to expose any subversive activity. I’ll cable them immediately. They certainly will want to send someone to your camp, you know. Shall you be able to permit that?” He smiled as Diana nodded assent. He then called in his secretary to take a message to be cabled.

*    *    *

Max gave up the painstaking dig on the port side of the ship, delegating that to his male grad students, and took over direction of the work within the hulk itself. Using Diana’s notes mapping the underground water she had located by dowsing on the port side, he directed Steve Short, the senior of the students, to dig down into that. He correctly envisioned that the inflow of water on the starboard side indicated that its exit would be where her witching portside had detected it. All were rightly concerned with crocodiles, considering the failure to find the monster inside the spaceship yet. They hadn’t penetrated to the upper decks, so some uncertainty remained. Just to be safe, Crowley was asked to have an armed Pinkerton guard posted with the diggers for their protection.