The Mammoth Book of Short Spy Novels (Mammoth Books) Read online

  With increasing knowledge of the personalities of the three team leaders came a new awareness of the strain under which they worked. The strain made them sometimes irritable, sometimes childish. Dr. Cudahy supervised and coordinated the technical aspects of the lines of research, treading very gently so as not to offend. And it was Clint’s task to take the burden of all other routine matters off Cudahy’s shoulders, so that he could function at maximum efficiency at the technical supervision at which he excelled.

  It had been a very full month, with little time for relaxation. Francie sat on the porch of the cabin on the October Sunday afternoon, realizing how closely she had identified herself with the work of Unit 30 during the past month.

  With the Adirondack tour season over, most of the private camps were empty. There were only a few fishermen about. She heard the shrill keening of the reel long before the boat, following the shore line, came into view through the remaining lurid leaves of autumn.

  A young girl, her hair pale and blond, rowed the boat very slowly. She wore a heavy cardigan and a wool skirt. A man stood in the boat, casting a black-and-white plug toward the shallows, and reeling it in with hopeful twitches of the rod tip. The sun was low, the lake still, the air sharp with the threat of coming winter. It made a very pretty picture. Francie wondered if they’d had any luck.

  The boat moved slowly by, passing just ten feet or so from the end of the dock, not more than thirty feet from the small porch. The girl glanced up and smiled, and Francie instinctively waved. She remembered seeing them in Vanders in the store.

  “Any luck?” Francie asked.

  “One decent bass,” the man said. He had a pleasant weather-burned face.

  As he made the next cast Francie saw him slip. As the girl cried out he reached wildly at nothingness, and fell full length into the lake, inadvertently pushing the boat away from him. He came up quickly, looked toward the boat, then paddled toward the end of Francie’s dock. Francie ran down just as he climbed up onto the dock.

  “That must have been graceful to watch,” the man said ruefully, his teeth chattering.

  The girl bumped the end of the dock with the boat. “Are you all right, dear?” she asked nervously.

  “Oh, I’m just dandy,” the man said, flapping his arms. “Row me home quick.”

  The blond girl looked appealingly at Francie. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble. I could row home and bring dry clothes here and – ”

  “Of course!” Francie said. “I was going to suggest that.”

  “I don’t want to put you out,” the man said. “Darn fool stunt, falling in the lake.”

  “Come on in before you freeze solid,” Francie said.

  The girl rowed quickly down the lake shore. The man followed Francie in. The fire was all laid. She touched a match to the exposed corner of paper, handed him a folded blanket from the foot of the bunk.

  “That fireplace works fast,” she said. “Get those clothes off and wrap yourself up in the blanket. I’ll be on the porch. You holler when you’re ready.”

  She sat on the porch and waited. When the man called she went in. She put three fingers of whiskey in the bottom of a water tumbler and handed it to him. “Drink your medicine.”

  “I ought to fall in the lake oftener! Hey, don’t bother with those clothes!”

  “I’ll hang them out.”

  She put his shoes on the porch, hung the clothes on the line she had rigged from the porch corner to a small birch. Just as she finished she saw the girl coming back, rowing strongly. Francie went down and tied the bow line, and took the pile of clothes from her, so that she could get out of the boat more easily.

  “How is he?” the girl asked in a worried tone.

  “Warm on the inside and the outside, too.”

  “He wouldn’t want me to tell you this. He likes to pretend it isn’t so. But he isn’t well. That’s why I was so worried. You’re being more than kind.”

  “When I fall out of a boat near your place I’ll expect the same service.”

  “You’ll get it,” the girl said.

  Francie saw that she was older than she had looked from a distance. There were fine lines near her eyes, a bit of gray in the blond temples. Late twenties, possibly.

  The girl took the clothes, put out her free hand, “I’m Betty Jackson,” she said. “And my husband’s name is Stewart.”

  “I’m Francie Aintrell. I’m glad you – dropped in.”

  Francie waited on the porch again until Betty came out. “He’s dressed now,” Betty said. “If we could stay just a little longer – ”

  “Of course you can! Actually, I was sort of lonesome this afternoon.”

  They went in. Francie put another heavy piece of slabwood on the fire. Stewart Jackson said, “I think I’ve stopped shivering. We certainly thank you, Miss Aintrell.”

  “It’s Mrs. Aintrell. Francie Aintrell.”

  She saw Betty glance toward Bob’s picture. “Is that your husband, Francie?”

  “Yes, he – he was killed in Korea.” Never before had she been able to say it so flatly, so factually.

  Stewart Jackson looked down at his empty glass. “That’s tough. Sorry I – ”

  “You couldn’t have known. And I’m used to telling people.” She went on quickly, in an effort to cover the awkwardness. “Are you on vacation? I think I’ve seen you over in town.”

  “No, we’re not on vacation,” Betty said. “Stewart sort of semi-retired last year, and we bought a camp up here. It’s – let me see – the seventh one down the shore from you. Stew has always been interested in fishing, and now we’re making lures and trying to get a mail-order business started for them.”

  “I design ’em and test ’em and have a little firm down in Utica make up the wooden bodies of the plugs,” Stewart said. “Then we put them together and put on the paint job. Are you working up here or vacationing?”

  “I’m working for the Government,” Francie said, “in the new weather station.” That was the cover story which all employees were instructed to use – that Unit 30 was doing meteorological research.

  “We’ve heard about that place, of course,” Betty said. “Sounds rather dull to me. Do you like it?”

  “It’s a job,” Francie said. “I was working in Washington and after I heard about my husband, I asked for a transfer to some other place.”

  Jackson yawned. “Now I’m so comfortable, I’m getting sleepy. We better go.”

  “No,” Francie said meaning it. “Do stay. We’re neighbors. How about hamburgers over the fire?”

  She saw Betty and Stewart exchange glances. She liked them. There was something wholesome and comfortable about their relationship. And, because Stewart Jackson was obviously in his mid-forties, they did not give her the constant sense of loss that a younger couple might have caused.

  “We’ll stay if I can help,” Betty said, “and if you’ll return the visit. Soon.”

  “Signed and sealed,” Francie said.

  It was a pleasant evening. The Jacksons were relaxed, charming. Francie like the faint wryness of Stew’s humor. And both of them were perceptive enough to keep the conversation far away from any subject that might be related to Bob.

  Francie lent them a flashlight for the boat trip back to their camp. She heard the oars as Betty rowed away, heard the night voices calling, “Night, Francie! Good night!”

  Monday she came back from work too late to make the promised call. She found the flashlight on the porch near the door, along with a note that said, “Anytime at all, Francie. And we mean it. Betty and Stew.”

  Tuesday was another late night. On Wednesday, Clint Reese added up the hours she had worked and sent her home at three in the afternoon, saying, “Do you want us indicted by the Committee Investigating Abuses of Civil Service Secretaries?”

  “I’m not abused.”

  “Out, now! Scat!”

  At the cabin Francie Aintrell changed to jeans and a suede jacket and hiked down the trail by t
he empty camps to the one that the Jacksons had described. Stew was on the dock, casting with a spinning rod.

  “Hi!” he said, grinning. “Thought the bears got you. Go on in. I’ll be up soon as I find out why this little wooden monster won’t wiggle like a fish.”

  Betty Jackson flushed with pleasure when she saw Francie. “It’s nice of you to come. I’ll show you the workshop before Stew does. He gets all wound up and takes hours.”

  The large glass-enclosed porch smelled of paint and glue. There were labels for the little glassine boxes, and rows of gay, shining lures.

  “Here, it says in small print, is where we earn a living,” Betty said. “But actually it’s going pretty well.” She held up a yellow lure with black spots. “This one,” she said “is called – believe it or not – the Jackson Higgledy-Piggledy. A pickerel on every cast. It’s our latest achievement. Manufacturing costs twelve cents apiece, if you don’t count labor. Mail-order price, one dollar.”

  “It’s pretty,” Francie said dubiously.

  “Don’t admire it or Stew will put you to work addressing the new catalogues to our sucker list.”

  Stew came in and said, “I’ll bet if the sun was out it would be over the yardarm.”

  “Is a martini all right with you, Francie?” Betty asked.

  Francie nodded, smiling. The martinis were good. The dinner much later was even better. Stew made her an ex-officio director of the Jackson Lure Company, in charge of color schemes on bass plugs. Many times during dinner Francie felt a pang of guilt as she heard her own laughter ring out. Yet it was ridiculous to feel guilty. Bob would have wanted her to learn how to laugh all over again.

  She left at eleven, and as she had brought no flashlight, Betty walked home with her, carrying a gasoline lantern. They sat on the edge of Francie’s porch for a time, smoking and watching the moonlight on the lake.

  “It’s a pretty good life for us,” Betty said. “Quiet. Stew’s supposed to avoid strenuous exercise. And he’s really taking this business seriously. Probably a good thing, our money won’t last forever.”

  “I’m so glad you two people are going to be here all winter, Betty.”

  “And you don’t know how glad I am to see you, Francie. I needed some girl-talk. Say, how about a picnic soon?”

  “I adore picnics.”

  “There’s a place on the east shore where the afternoon sun keeps the rocks warm. But we can’t do it until Sunday. Stew wants to take a run down to New York to wind up some business things. I do the driving. Sunday, OK then?” Betty stood up.

  It was agreed and Francie stood on the small porch and watched the harsh lantern light bob along the trail until it finally disappeared beyond the trees.

  Sunday dawned brisk and clear. It would be pleasant enough in the sun. Francie went down the trail with her basket. When she got to the Jackson camp, Betty was loading the boat. She looked cute and young in khaki trousers, a fuzzy white sweater, a peaked ball-player’s cap.

  The girls took turns rowing against the wind as they went across the lake. Stewart trolled with a deep-running plug, without much success. He was grumbling about the lack of fish when they reached the far shore.

  They unloaded the boat, carrying the food up to a small natural glade beyond the rocks. Stew settled down comfortably, finding a rock that fitted his back. Betty sat on another rock. Francie sprawled on her stomach on the grass, chin on the back of her hand.

  Stew took a bit of soft pine out of his jacket pocket and a sharp-bladed knife. He began to carve carefully. He lifted the piece of pine up and squinted at it.

  “Francie, if I’m clever enough, I can now carve myself something that a fish will snap at,” he said. “A lure. A nice sparkly, dancy little thing that looks edible.”

  “With hooks in it,” Francie said.

  He looked down at her benignly. “Precisely. With hooks in it. You stop to think of it, an organization isn’t very different from a fish. Now, I’m eventually going to catch a fish on this, because it will have precisely the appeal that fish are looking for. Now, you take an organization. You can always find one person in it, if you look hard enough, that can be attracted. But then, it’s always better to use real bait instead of an artificial lure.”

  “Sounds cold-blooded,” Francie said sleepily.

  “I suppose it is. Now, let’s take for example, that super secret organization you work for, Francie.”

  She stared at him. “What?”

  “That so-called weather research outfit. Suppose we had to find bait to make somebody bite on a hook?”

  Francie sat up and tried to smile. “You know, I don’t like the way you’re talking, Stew.”

  “You’re among friends honey. Betty and I are very friendly people.”

  Francie, confused, turned and looked at Betty. Her face had lost its usual animation. There was nothing there but a catlike watchfulness.

  “What is this anyway?” Francie said, laughing. But her laughter sounded false.

  “We came over here,” Stew said, “because this is a nice, quiet place to settle down and make a deal. Now don’t be alarmed, Francie. A lot of time and effort has gone into making exactly the right sort of contact with you. Of course, if it hadn’t been you, it would have been somebody else in Unit Thirty. So this is the stroke of midnight at the fancy-dress ball. Everybody takes off their masks.”

  Slowly the incredible meaning behind his words penetrated to Francie’s mind. She looked at them. They had been friends – friends quickly made and yet dear to her. Now suddenly they had become strangers. Stew’s bland, open face seemed to hold all the guilelessness of the face of an evil child. And Betty’s features had sharpened, had become almost feral.

  “Is this some sort of a stupid test?” Francie demanded.

  “I’ll say it again. We are here to make a business deal. We give you something, you give us something. Everybody is satisfied.” Stewart Jackson smiled at her.

  Panic struck Francie Aintrell. She slipped as she scrambled to her feet. She ran as fast as she could toward the boat, heard the feet drumming behind her. As she bent to shove the boat off, Betty grabbed her, reached around her from behind, and with astonishing strength, twisted both of Francie’s arms until her hands were pinned between her shoulder blades.

  The pain doubled Francie over. “You’re hurting me,” she cried. There was an odd indignity in being hurt by another woman.

  “Come on back,” Betty said, her voice flat-calm.

  Stew hadn’t moved. He cut a long, paper-thin strip from the piece of pine. Betty shoved Francie toward him and released her.

  “Sit down, honey,” Stew said calmly. “No need to get all upset. You read the papers and magazines. I know that you’re a well-informed, intelligent young woman. Please sit down. You make me nervous.”

  Francie sat on the grass, hugged her knees. She felt cold all the way through.

  “I don’t know what you expect me to do. But you might as well know that I’ll never do it. You had better kill me or something, because just as fast as I can get to a phone I’m going to – ”

  “Please stop sounding like a suspense movie, Francie,” Stewart said patiently. “We don’t go around killing people. Just let me talk for a minute. Maybe you, as an intelligent young woman, have wondered why so many apparently loyal and responsible people have committed acts of treason against their country. To understand that, you have to have an appreciation of the painstaking care with which all trusted people are surveyed.

  “Sooner or later, Mrs. Aintrell, we usually find an avenue of approach to at least one person in each secret setup in which we interest ourselves. And, in the case of Unit Thirty, the Fates seem to have elected you to provide us with complete transcripts of all current progress reports dictated by Dr. Sherra, Dr. McKay, and Mr. Blajoviak.”

  Shock made Francie feel dull. She merely stared at him unbelievingly.

  Stewart Jackson smiled blandly: “I assure you our cover is perfect. And I believe you have hel
ped us along by casually mentioning your nice neighbors, the Jacksons.”

  “Yes, but – ”

  “We thought at first my boating accident might be too obvious, but then we remembered that there is nothing in your background to spoil your naiveté.”

  “You’re very clever and I’ve been very stupid. But I assure you that nothing you can say to me will make any difference.”

  “Being hasty, isn’t she?” Stewart said.

  With the warm, friendly manner of a man bestowing gifts, he reached into the inside pocket of his heavy tweed jacket and took out an envelope. He took a sheet of paper from the envelope, unfolded it, and handed it to her. It was the coarse, pulpy kind of paper.

  In the top right hand corner were Chinese ideographs, crudely printed. In the top left hand corner was a symbol of the hammer and sickle. But it was the scrawled pencil writing that tore her heart in two as she read.

  Baby, they say you will get this. Maybe it’s like their other promises. Anyway I hope you do get it. This is a crumb-bum outfit. I keep telling them I’m sick, but nobody seems to be interested. The holes healed pretty good, but now they don’t look so hot. Anything you can do to get me out of this, baby, do it. I can’t last too long here, for sure. I love you, baby, and I keep thinking of us in front of a fireplace – it gets cold here – and old Satchmo on the turntable and you in the green housecoat, and Willy on the mantel.

  Francie read it again and instinctively held it to her lips, her eyes so misted that Stewart and the rock he leaned against were merged in a gray-brown blur.

  Bob was alive! There could be no doubt of it. No one else would know about the green housecoat, about Bob’s delight in the zipper that went from throat to ankles. And they had all been wrong. All of them! Happiness made her feel dizzy, ill.

  Stewart Jackson’s voice came from remote distances: “. . . find it pretty interesting, at that. That piece of paper crossed Siberia and Russia and came to Washington by air in a diplomatic pouch – one that we don’t have to identify. When we reported your assignment to Unit Thirty, our Central Intelligence ordered an immediate check of all captive officer personnel. In that first retreat after the Chinese came into it, they picked up quite a lot of wounded American personnel.