“Yes . . . but she comes alone,” Forrester said.
“You don’t plan to do her any harm?”
Forrester made a quick savage movement with his hand, slashing it up and down.
“Why should you care what I do with her?” he exclaimed, his voice rising. “You have said she is worthless. She and my formula are my property. You have until three o’clock tomorrow.” He went into the inner room, closed and locked the door.
Warren sat for some moments, motionless and badly shaken, feeling his face and hands turning damp. Then he got slowly to his feet and left the apartment.
He found Hamilton and Terrell waiting for him on the lower landing.
“Come with me,” he said to Hamilton. To Terrell, he went on, “Keep your men here, Captain. I want you to take the guards from Mrs. Forrester’s bungalow. Forrester can’t get away. I don’t want the press to find out we have been guarding Mrs. Forrester. Is that understood?”
“I’m working under your orders,” Terrell said. “Very well, I’ll get my two men back to headquarters.” His puzzled look of silent inquiry went unanswered.
The three men went down in the elevator. Seeing Warren’s white, set face, neither Terrell nor Hamilton asked how he had found Forrester.
“We’ll return to the hotel,” Warren said as he and Hamilton walked quickly to the waiting car.
As the car rushed them back to the Belevedere Hotel, Warren sat huddled up, staring bleakly at his hands. Hamilton, uneasy, looked out of the car’s window at the lights, the long promenade, at the people still bathing.
It wasn’t until the two men were in Warren’s suite at the hotel that Warren said, “Sit down, Jesse. We have one hell of a decision to make.” He began to pace the big sitting-room, his hands clenched behind his back. “Forrester tells me he will decode the formula, but only on one condition.” He paused to regard Hamilton, then went on, “I don’t know if I should tell you this condition . . .” He hesitated, then said, “It should be my responsibility and my decision, but frankly, I don’t feel able to cope with it.”
“I can guess what the condition is,” Hamilton said curtly. I’ve seen this coming. We are dealing with a nut who is in a perfect position to blackmail us. He undertakes to give us the decoded formula if we allow him to murder his wife . . . that’s it, isn’t it?”
Warren flinched.
“How could you have guessed that?” he asked and came to sit by Hamilton’s side.
“Oh, it jells. I have studied Forrester’s dossier. I have discussed his case with Hertz. The thread that kept his reason together snapped when he caught his Chief Assistant laying his wife. He killed the man. He was prevented from killing his wife. Hertz says that this unfinished job has been poisoning his mind. For the past months he has been brooding over his failure. If we want this formula, we must give him his wife.”
“We can’t possibly do that!” Warren said, shocked.
“I’ve checked on Thea Forrester. She is no better than a whore. No one would give a damn if she dropped dead right now. We should do this deal with Forrester.”
Warren stared at him.
“Now look, Jesse, we are discussing a human life . . . we’re not discussing some animal.”
Hamilton shrugged impatiently.
“That is a matter of opinion, sir. To me, Thea Forrester is an insult to any animal. She is a degenerate and no loss to anyone if she died.”
“I can’t listen to such talk!” Warren said without much conviction. “She is a human being . . . we just can’t . . .”
“Sir!” The sharp note in Hamilton’s voice stopped Warren. “May I remind you what you said at the start of this operation? You said we must have the formula. You said whatever Forrester’s terms were, we would have to go along with him. You said the President had given you a free hand.”
“Yes . . . I know I said that,” Warren returned, “but this . . .”
“You have been offered a deal,” Hamilton said. “We get the formula and the woman dies. If we protect her, we lose Forrester and the formula. If we go along with Forrester, this metal of his will give us an enormous lead over Russia’s rocket race. The life of a worthless woman just doesn’t balance up with the loss of this formula which will give us security for a hell of a long time.”
“There must be some other way to solve this,” Warren said, getting to his feet and beginning to pace the floor. “Suppose we get the capsule from Forrester . . . neutralize him?”
Hamilton contained his impatience with an effort.
“We can’t take the slightest risk, sir. Okay, there are ways to neutralize him if we are prepared to take a risk. We have a gun that shoots a splinter of ice, loaded with enough drug to knock a man out. But it is not instantaneous. There is a time lag of a second or so. Forrester would have time to bite down on the capsule and he would do exactly that . . . so that idea is out. But why bother our heads about his capsule? We can’t force him to give us the formula unless we are prepared to give him his wife. That’s the situation.”
“But we can’t let him murder this woman J’ Warren said. “I can’t allow it, Jesse.”
“I wish I could let you out of this, sir,” Hamilton said. “But I can’t. The C.I.A. are used to this kind of set-up. When someone becomes a danger to the State, it is our job to get rid of him. We are trained to put the State first. The individual means nothing to us. Please leave this to me. I’ll take care of all the details. But you will have to deal with Forrester. It would be too risky if you dropped out now and I took over. The real problem as I see it is how to get Mrs. Forrester to go to this apartment where Forrester is. She will know from the press and the radio that he is there. She won’t go. You will have to persuade Forrester to go to her.”
Warren stared at him.
“Even if I could persuade him to go to her, how could we explain to the press that he got past the cordon?”
“My men are guarding the back of the apartment block. There is a back exit. I’ll get him out. I will take the responsibility of letting him escape. This is too important to worry about details like that. We will have to be careful about Terrell. He won’t go along with this.”
“From the press angle, how does Forrester find out where his wife is?”
“She’s in the telephone book . . . I’ve checked. As you say, from the press angle, Forrester finds her name in the book, leaves by the back exit, avoiding my men, steals a car which I will have waiting for him, then drives to the bungalow.”
Hamilton paused, thought, then went on, “You and I, six, will have to be at the bungalow, watching. When he has done what he wants to do, we must go in with the coded formula and get him to decode it before he changes his mind.”
Warren grimaced.
“I don’t think I can do this . . .”
“It’s your duty to do it,” Hamilton said, his voice hard. “You must do it.”
“And then? What do we do with Forrester?”
“You will have the decoded formula. I’ll take care of Forrester,” Hamilton said. “Once you have the formula, you will leave. Then I will tie up the loose ends . . . it’s my job.” He sat forward, resting his hands on the table. “You will telephone Forrester tomorrow morning early and tell him you want to talk to him again.” Tapping on the table with his long, bony finger, he went on to tell Warren what he was to say to Forrester.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Captain Terrell arrived at Police Headquarters a little after nine o’clock the following morning. He had had only three hours’ sleep and he was feeling his age.
Instead of his usual cheery greeting, he only nodded to Charlie Tanner who was at his desk, and went on up the stairs to his office. Recognizing the symptoms, Tanner sent a patrolman, at a run, for a carton of coffee.
By the time Terrell had settled at his desk and had begun wearily to read the pile of reports that was waiting for him, the patrolman, hot and out of breath, put the carton of coffee within Terrell’s reach.
Terrell said gratefully, “Thank you, Jack,” and poured coffee into a paper cup.
Beigler and Lepski came in. Terrell put two more paper cups on his desk.
“Go ahead . . . help yourselves.” He sipped the coffee while Lepski filled the cups. He sighed, leaned back in his chair and looked at Beigler. “What’s new?”
“The guards are off Mrs. Forrester,” Beigler told him. “Tom has the important dope.”
“Go ahead, Tom . . . what have you got?”
“Here’s the detailed report, Chief,” Lepski said and laid a sheaf of papers on the desk. “Lindsey and Silk have blown. Lindsey took a fast boat, heading for Havana. Silk also took a fast boat; destination unknown. The boat’s owned by Alec Coogan. If and when Coogan returns, I’ll pick him up. It’s my bet both men are in Mexico by now. I’ve alerted the Mexican police, but you know what they are. I’ve talked to the Jacey girl. She says there was a doctor looking after Forrester and she’s given me a good description of him. It’s all in my report. Keegan’s dead. The girl who knocked him off is a junkie and out of her head. If we ever get her straightened out, she could nail Lindsey and Silk. Lindsey is well known at the Beleve-dere Hotel. He lived in the best suite rented by Herman Radnitz.”
Terrell knew all this wasn’t going to get him anywhere. The investigation was out of his hands. When the C.I.A. took over, he became merely a passer-on of reports.
“All right, Tom,” he said. “You take time off.”
When Lepski had gone, Terrell said wearily, “There’s something cooking, Joe, and I don’t like it. Why let this nut remain in this apartment? Why don’t they go in and get him? Why take our men off Mrs. Forrester?”
“Yeah,” Beigler said, “but this isn’t our funeral now. Right now, I can hear my telephone ringing. We’ve got other things to do.” He finished his coffee and stood up. Looking at Terrell’s worried face, he grinned. “Right, Chief?”
“I guess,” Terrell said, and picking up Lepski’s report, he began to read it.
While he was reading the report, Warren, at his hotel, asked for an outside line. When he got it, he called Forrester. There was some delay as every call on this number was screened. Hamilton had made sure that no one but Warren could talk to Forrester. Finally, Warren heard Forrester’s voice.
“This is Warren.”
“What is it?” Forrester sounded curt and irritable.
“I must see you again, Paul. May I come around in about an hour?”
“What do you want?”
“I can’t talk on the phone. I will come alone. In about an hour?”
“Very well, but don’t think you can change my mind. You have my terms.”
“Yes . . . all right, Paul, in about an hour.”
The line went dead and Warren grimaced. Hamilton, looking tired and jaded, got to his feet.
“Well, sir?”
“He sounds unco-operative,” Warren said, “but at least he will see me.” He went over to the table where the morning’s newspapers lay and looked down at the glaring headlines. “Life would be much simpler without the press, wouldn’t it?” He turned and shrugged wearily. “Where is Nona Jacey?”
“She’s with her boy-friend on a plane heading for Jamaica,” Hamilton said. “I packed them off at dawn this morning. I want them out of the way until we get through with what we have to do. They have been told not to talk. One of my men is with them, although they don’t know it. When the dust settles, they can come back, but not before.”
“And Mrs. Forrester?”
“I have one of my men watching her. She is doing nothing . . . staying put.”
Here, Hamilton was wrong. Thea Forrester was busy at that moment packing her clothes. She had listened to the radio, read the newspapers, knew now that her mad husband was holed up in some apartment, and she had decided to leave Paradise City.
She was shrewd enough to know that she no longer had any future in the City. When these numbskulls finally decided to capture her husband and put him back in his cell, the subsequent publicity would frighten away all her men friends. She had decided after some hesitation that she would return to New York. She had men friends there. She would miss the beach and the constant Florida sun, but sun and beach didn’t spell money, and Thea was money hungry.
But before she could leave Paradise City, she had to have a get-away stake. She had been told by Detective Jacoby that she was no longer under guard. He had assured her she would be safe to come and go as she pleased. She had spent hours trying to make up her mind how she could raise a substantial sum of money. She had finally decided that Wallace Marshall, President of the National Bank was her best bet. He was a fat old lecher with a battle-axe of a wife and he would be good for $10,000. She wondered if she should ask for more, but decided this sum wouldn’t make him squeal too much and it would be enough to get her started again in New York.
Around eleven o’clock, she finished dressing and surveyed herself in the long mirror on her bedroom wall. Even to her critical eyes, she looked pretty good. She left the bungalow, watched by Agent Mark Dodge of the C.I.A., a squat heavily built man who was sweating gently as he sat on the sand, behind a clump of shrubs. He held a walkie-talkie set in his hand.
He watched her walk to the garage and he grinned to himself. He had already removed the distributor head and was interested to see her reaction when she found the car wouldn’t start. He admired her figure, her swaying walk and he couldn’t imagine a girl built like that would walk to the highway which was a quarter of a mile away. He had to wait several minutes before Thea came out of the garage, her eyes blazing with fury and returned to the bungalow.
There was now a constant tap on her telephone so when she called the local garage, an Agent at the C.I .A. temporary headquarters promptly jammed the line so she only got the busy signal. After trying for some twenty minutes, she dialled a taxi hire service. Again the Agent at headquarters jammed the line. She then dialled the telephone engineers and the line promptly went dead.
She slammed down the receiver, reached for a cigarette, lit it and her emerald green eyes narrowed as she thought.
Car out of order . . . telephone out of order . . . the police guard removed.
She felt suddenly isolated and frightened.
She didn’t hesitate for more than few moments. The nearest bungalow was a quarter of a mile away along a rough sandy road. She decided to walk there and use their telephone. She kicked off her high heeled shoes, went into the bedroom and put on a pair of flat heeled, rubber soled shoes. Then she went to the front door, opened it and looked out at the vast stretch of deserted beach. She started down the path, then paused. Agent Dodge watched her with interest behind his screen of shrubs.