Or the World Will Die

IX

After breakfast we picked up Karl on the curb near his cabin and drove the fifty-eight miles to junction. The three of us sat in the front seat and, as I saw the way the people were dressed, I realized that my dark suit made me not only conspicuus, but uncomfortable. I have spent enough time in the tropics so that, even at the end of a New York winter my face never quite achieves that mealy whiteness so typical of a northern spring when the people come out once again into the sun like white worms crawling out from under rocks. Alice’s face was slightly tanned with the early Washington spring, and Karl was a rich red from his first day alone in Kerrville.

We stopped at a small store in Ingram seven miles from Kerrville and I bought myself a sport shirt and a pair of light trousers. At the first convenient spot I stopped and changed behind a tall clump of brush. I transferred the Kolibri to the watch pocket of the new trousers.

I put my clothes in the back end and climbed behind the wheel. Alice looked at me and said, “You look like a shoe clerk at Rye Beach. Did you have to get a shirt with palm trees on the pockets?”

We turned right just beyond junction and drove ten miles up Route 83 at Karl’s direction. I pulled the car off the road and cut the motor.

“Now,” Karl said, “if my guess is right, you could cut directly across country here, heading due west for about four miles. That would leave you on the top of a ridge of low hills. From there you should be able to look down on the Project Area two miles away. The country is rough. If we went the other way and turned up the road to Camp Allison, somebody would take an unhealthy interest in us. When Lessault is driven out, he goes right through Junction and on down to Kerrville over the road we followed. If anybody wanted to get into the Project Area, this would be the spot to start from. But, there’s that fence to consider, plus the other alarm systems. There may be some that I don’t know about.”

“How many are in the Area beside the thirty guards and Lessault?” I asked.

“Maybe fifty. This is also a radar development station under Signal Corps jurisdiction. Some of the technicians keep their own cars in there. They’re free to come and go, to a limited extent.”

“What’s the move, boss?” Alice asked.

“I don’t think security is quite as good as Karl assumes it is,” I said. “It stands to reason that with fifty people coming and going all the time, the guards are prone to get careless. I’d wager that I could get in there in the trunk of one of the cars of the Signal Corps technicians, but we don’t know enough about the layout to make it worth the chance. If one of us poses a little and goes in on a fake reason, we compromise ourselves. From where I sit, the best angle is to try to intercept Lessault. That means following him when he comes into town. And it may mean taking him away from his guardian angels.”

Two days went by before Lessault came into Kerrville, and then we nearly missed him. Karl was on watch in the Buick in Ingram, seven miles out and I was sitting in the front window of a small cafe just inside Kerrville. Alice was in the lobby of the Blue Bonnet Hotel four blocks from me.

The arrangement was that when Karl saw the government car go by, he was to pass it between Ingram and Kerrville and give me a blast on the horn as he went by the cafe. He was to continue on to the hotel and get Alice. Then, with the three of us at different spots along the main drag, one of us would be certain to be within a reasonable distance of wherever the government car parked.

The catch was that, when the car with Lessault in the back seat came through Ingram, it was late afternoon and the government chauffeur was traveling about sixty-five. Karl stalled the Buick, and by the time he got it started again, he couldn’t catch Lessault until they entered Kerrville. I heard the horn blast and walked out of the cafe, confident that I had at least three minutes to get to my station. I didn’t know that the government car was ahead of Karl. Karl didn’t dare park close to the car, and he had trouble locating a convenient parking place near the hotel.

He saw that there wasn’t time to alert Alice, so he sauntered up the sidewalk and saw Lessault and one of the guards buy tickets and go into the better of the town’s two movie houses. The other guard, who had driven the car, stayed in it, and, when Karl passed, one of the town cops was standing chatting with the driver.

Karl met me a block beyond the theater and we stood in front of a drugstore. He told me what had happened. I sent him after Alice and, at dusk, by the time the movie let out, we were properly placed. We had no idea of trying anything premature. It was merely a question of watching the moves made and determining later what might be the weak point in the guard structure.

Lessault came out with his guard and stood in the theater entrance as he lit a cigarette. Because I was the least likely to be recognized by either of the guards, I was the closest. The other guard started the motor in the government car, but the guard with Lessault, a beefy man with a red mottled face, made a chopping motion with the edge of his hand and the motor cut off again.

The two of them sauntered past me. I watched them cautiously and saw them turn into a brightly lighted magazine stand, liquor store and shoeshine place called The Hut. The small building was equipped with sliding doors which had been pushed back leaving the front open to the sidewalk. I followed them in, pushed by them and went back to the liquor counter. A group of big hatted Texans were playing the two pinball machines, putting hexes on each other in their rich soft voices, pleading with the lights and the balls and bumpers to give them big scores.

I bought a fifth of tequila, and, as it was being wrapped, I turned and watched Lessault and his guard. I had a good look at Lessault’s face, and added each feature to my mental file index. I knew that no matter how many years passed, or how the years changed his face, no matter what the circumstances, I would always know him. Karl’s description of him had been, as always, very good.

The guard leaned against the counter, inspecting his fingernails. The black pistol on his right hip was shiny with the grease from his palm. Doctor Lessault, wearing a crumpled linen suit, stood in front of the magazine rack, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets, his head lowered, staring at the gay, brash covers. The magazines were in a rack built very much like a flight of stairs. Coiled wire springs held the magazines in place. They were not in order. Obviously the patrons of the place pulled them out and read them during leisure moments, shoved them back behind the springs carelessly.

My liquor was wrapped and I became absorbed in reading the labels on the other bottles until the clerk at last wandered off. Lessault picked up a magazine and leafed through it quickly. A loose card fluttered out of it and fell to the floor. I saw that it was one of those printed subscription forms that are inserted in so many magazines. He picked it up hastily and put it back in the magazine. He turned, threw a quarter onto the counter and walked out, the guard following him closely. When I sauntered to the door they were climbing into the car. In a few moments the car backed out, turned and roared away. Further up the street our Buick turned out behind it. I strolled back in and picked up a duplicate of the magazine Lessault had purchased. It also contained the subscription cards, two of them, joined together, inserted firmly into the binding of the magazine itself — one just inside the front cover and one at the back.

I put the magazine back in the rack and looked slowly around. No one was paying any attention to me. I walked out and turned to the left, caught up with Alice within two blocks and we walked on together.

Karl was back in twenty minutes and he joined us at our cabin. We walked out and sat together at the table by the river bank.

“What do you think, Tony?” Karl asked.

“Bad. Very bad. They stick to him. We could get him, but it would be dangerous. The guard that was with him, he has sharp eyes and he moves lightly on his feet. He seems indolent, but he isn’t. An ex-cop I’m afraid.”

“A lot of them are,” Karl said.

“Did you notice anything about him, Karl, that struck you as odd?” Alice asked.

“Odd? I... I don’t think so. I saw him in the Washington office, even though he didn’t see me. He looks about the same. What do you mean?”

Alice turned to me, her face a white shadow in the blackness of the night. “Did you, Tony?”

“I didn’t until you asked me just now, Alice. I know what you mean. He has an air about him — I don’t know how to describe it — rather self-confident. Smug you might say. Not at all the worrying father, losing sleep over what might be happening to his daughter. His eyes are bright and his flesh is firm on his cheeks and around his eyes. He seems to be in top shape. I must be out of practice. I didn’t recognize that as an inconsistency until you brought up the question. That is what you mean, isn’t it?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t want my father to look like that, if I happened to be kidnapped. He looks like a lean dark cat full of creamy canary.”

The three of us were silent for long minutes. Karl coughed softly and said, “That opens up a very interesting line of conjecture, especially...”

“Yes,” I interrupted, “especially in view of Hurz’s comment to his wife that he had received a phone call from a man who should know better. It’s a fair assumption that Hurz and Lessault are acquainted.”

“I know they are.” Alice said.

“Thus,” Karl said, “there is the possibility that Lessault knows where his daughter is and sent her away so as to give him a surface excuse to destroy his notes and the physical results of his work.”

“It would fit,” I added, “except for one thing. Possibly Lessault disliked his daughter, has no fear about her ability to take care of herself, and is, on the whole, relieved that she is out of his hair.”

“Could be,” Alice said, “considering what I’ve heard about Madamoiselle Lessault.”

“That’s a possibility but far from a probability,” Karl suggested. “With the French sense of family, our best probability is that he knows where she is, arguing the point on the basis of the supposition that he would be a haggard wreck if he was in the dark.”

“I’ll go along with that.” Alice said.

“And I. Now let’s take it a step further. We will assume that he knows where she is, and we will further assume that her disappearance was arranged by him, or by someone close to him so as to be a blind for his refusal to work on the Lessault Device. That still leaves a hole in the argument. Say that he has this powerful sense of family that Karl suggests. Wouldn’t it be logical that he would be much more at ease if he received periodic word about her health and about the general progress of the plot? If we make the assumption that Lessault has faked his concern over his daughter’s disappearance, we must further assume that he is in the know on the other details — the death of Brinker, the disappearance of Wing and the attempted murder of Hurz. Naturally he would wish to be advised as to whether things were going well, or were being endangered.”

Alice said, her tone puzzled, “So what if he does get word from someone?”

I explained, “The point isn’t that he does get word. The point is how he gets word. If I were in his boots I certainly wouldn’t take a chance on getting information in the mail or over the phone. Too much risk. He’s in a bad spot. He is living in the camp of the enemy — that is, assuming that he is one of the opposition.”

She said slowly, “I see what you mean.”

I told them exactly what had happened in the store, the purchase of the magazine.

Karl said quickly, “Don’t tell me. Item one — the average guy buying a magazine wouldn’t take the trouble to pick up one of those subscription blanks... provided it fell on the floor. Item two — the blanks in the magazine you looked at were firmly anchored in place, so we must assume that someone tore the blank out and replaced it in the magazine.”

“There a bug in that,” Alice said. “What happens if somebody else buys the magazine with the loose subscription blank? I’m assuming that you’re leading up to the idea of a message written on the blank somehow. Also, magazines don’t insert those blanks every month, you know. It would have to be a different magazine each time.”

“I can talk down those two bugs,” Karl said. “In the first place, the message would have to be placed there at the last possible moment. Probably just before Lessault came out of the show. In the second place, if what Tony says is right, those magazines are arranged in a very casual manner. The position of the magazine on the rack might indicate to Lessault which one it is.”

We thought that over. Alice was the one who said, “Then, my thickheaded male friends, if Lessault merely took the proper magazine, there may be a chance that the positional clue still remains. Possibly a little observation...”

Karl jumped up. “Can I take a look, Tony?”

“Go ahead. Alice and I’ll sample the tequila.”

Nearly twenty minutes later the tires of the Buick crunched on the gravel and the door slammed. Karl dropped into the vacant chair with a sigh. He said, “Maybe yes and maybe no. We may be making too many assumptions. In order for it to be a positional factor, the whole stack of magazines would have to be shifted. That would appear to be too suspicious a move for anyone to make unless he worked there. For my money, the odds are against the arranger being one of the help in that place. Thus, I assume that it may be an alteration to the face of the magazine containing the card with the information for Lessault. Or, it could be something on the stand, something which could be readily moved so as to indicate which magazine Lessault is supposed to buy. I looked at the magazines you mentioned. There is only one thing near them that I could see. A small length of white thread, that might have come from a shirt sleeve. It was caught in the wire spring that holds the magazines back, and it was directly over the stack from which Lessault took his magazine.”

“Then we can be wrong. That thread could very possibly be coincidental,” I said.

“And we have no way of finding out,” Alice remarked.

“But we do,” I said. “All we have to do is wait until Lessault’s next trip to town. As soon as we know he is coming, and that can probably be handled by a phone call from Junction when his car passes through there, we put the shop under observation and see what happens. If that is the method of communication, we may get a chance to intercept it — the message, I mean. If all our guesses are wrong, we’ll just look like plain damn fools, which won’t be a new experience for me.”

And so it was agreed. We made the necessary plans, which placed Karl and the automobile in Junction each day from twelve noon until seven in the evening, placed Alice in the hotel lobby and left me free to maintain intermittent contact with Alice.

It wasn’t a good plan, as it called attention to all three of us, and had we been amateurs, we would have definitely aroused the suspicions of some indignant citizen who would have pointed us out to the police.

But Karl bought one of those little counting gimmicks, took a stand near a garage in Junction and informed the curious that he was making a traffic count for a big chain of restaurants who wanted to know if there was enough business, enough cars going through Junction to warrant a new, big restaurant.

Alice told the assistant manager of the hotel that her brother was seriously ill in Kansas City and that, since there was no phone in her cabin, she had sent the family the number of a booth in the hotel lobby where they could phone her when he had either passed the crisis or taken a turn for the worse. I became her husband, the busy and dignified Mr. Smithson who came in frequently to ask her if she had gotten any word yet.

The long days went by and no Lessault. Karl came back each night, sunburned and weary and stopped in the cabin for a game of chess before going to his own place. Alice griped mildly about spending her lovely vacation in a dark hotel lobby, and I made occasional inspections of The Hut to determine, each time, that the thread was still tangled in the wire spring, a symbol of our complete stalemate.

I was beginning to grow discouraged, but I let neither Alice nor Karl sense it. On their faces, in repose, gradually grew a look of dejection plus a certain tension, the tension of nerves being strained to the breaking point. We were playing the game of ‘heavy, heavy, hangs o’er your head’, but the scale of the game was too vast to contemplate. When we were alone we took refuge in misshapen puns, horrible insults and what was supposed to be laughter.

It was awkward to think of the past and impossible to think of the future.

We waited for Lessault.