The Tide Can't Wait (2 page)

The man got slowly to his knees, his head hanging, his breath coming out in painful gasps.

“Your name?”

“I have no information—to give you.”

Barr doubted if there was anything he could do to the man to make him talk. There was little he could do that others had not already done. He said, “Let me give you a hand,” and reached down to help the man to his feet.

He cringed away.

Pity rose in Barr. “I'm not tricking you,” he said. “You're hurt. Come on now.”

He got an arm. The man rose shakily to his feet. Together they walked along the pier and onto the launch. Barr led him into the wheelhouse. “I'll have to tie you up,” he said.

“Yes, of course.”

Barr turned on a small lamp, hoping it would not attract an Irish patrol, and quickly and neatly tied the man at the wrists and ankles. Dousing the light, he returned to the pier.

He climbed the path, armed with a flashlight, and walked to the center of the flat area, seeking some sign of Snyder's plane. There was nothing, no fresh ruts in the turf, nothing at all to indicate that anyone had been here. Barr checked his watch. Snyder was long overdue.

It was not like Snyder to foul things up. The only reason he would not come would be for something as unavoidable as arrest or death. The thought of Snyder dead or badly injured frightened him. Roget had seen the trap or this man would not be here in his stead. And if Roget had tricked him, he could well have tricked Snyder, too.

Barr hurried back to the boat and into the wheelhouse. “Where is Snyder?”

“I know no such name.”

“The man with the airplane?”

“I do not know. I was told that there would be an airplane for me.”

Barr untied, started the motor and eased away from the pier. “They've tricked you,” he said. When the man did not ask who “they” might be, he went on, “Roget had no intention of letting you meet anyone. Your reward for killing me would have been arrest by an Irish patrol.”

The man swore in his strange language.

Barr said, “Where is Roget?”

“I have never heard the name.”

Barr idled the launch, lashed the wheel, and went to where the man lay. He cleaned out his pockets and took his loot to the wheel to examine it by the binnacle light. There wasn't much—a wallet containing a few pounds and, interestingly enough, Mexican peso notes of high denomination. So Roget had promised him refuge in Mexico!

Besides the wallet, there was a passport, made out to one Vasily Helgos, a British subject. Barr threw the wallet and passport aside and took the launch out to the open sea.

The sea had quieted somewhat, but there was still a brisk wind and the launch moved with a strong pitch and chop. Barr turned his head. “Your name is Helgos?”

“Yes.”

The first big waves caught the launch. Helgos groaned. Barr said, “That's your right name?”

The man retched. It was a vain effort. His stomach was empty. He retched again. He was, as Barr suspected from his previous performance, one of those people who, once they started retching, continued until they were exhausted or unconscious.

“I can give you something to quiet your stomach,” Barr said. “You might kill yourself doing that.”

“Please!”

“What is your name?”

“Vasily Helgos. I swear it.”

“Where are you from?”

“Czechoslovakia—Austria—Rumania—Greece.”

It did not really matter. Many men were from many places these days. “Where is Roget?”

“I do not know the name. Please!”

“How did you get here? Who hired you to kill me?”

“I was not—hired. It was to be an exchange.”

It came out slowly, but it came. He had placed himself in a position where he was forced to leave England, and he made the fact known in the right quarters. He was contacted, but in darkness and very carefully. He only knew that his contact was a man about his own size and with a soft, persuasive voice. He spoke English well but with an accent. He spoke French much better, and so they talked in French.

Helgos was to be provided with transportation to Mexico and enough money to live there until he could establish himself. In exchange, he was to shoot the pilot of the launch and also the pilot of the plane after he had been flown to his destination.

Barr snorted. The plan was ridiculous on the face of it. Helgos was either too desperate to care or too stupid to see the faults.

Barr believed him. It was Roget's technique, this using a tool while he himself remained safe. He was a lone wolf in a way, always hiring men who, if caught, knew too little to help those who caught them.

Barr got the man a seasick pill and fed it to him with rum and coffee. Then he settled down to drive the launch back to where he had started. He hoped to beat the daylight, but if he did not, he really didn't care. There was to be someone waiting at daylight. He would turn Helgos over to the man waiting for the launch and then he would go.

First he had to find Snyder and then he had to find Roget.

And if he did not find Snyder first, alive and well, then he was through playing footsy with Roget. To the devil with the man's contacts, to what he might lead them to. If anything had happened to Snyder, the Chief would get only what was left of Roget.

Barr swore as he guided the launch through the choppy, heaving sea.

At six
p.m
. New York time, two days after Barr had docked on the Welsh coast, the Chief entered the lobby of a small, unimposing middle-class hotel and ignoring the desk, took an elevator to the seventh floor. From there he went with his rapid, long-legged stride to the end door and rapped.

A young woman who came within scant inches of being as tall as he opened the door. “Miss Lenore Corey?”

“Yes. You're …”

“That's right.” He showed her the card he took from his wallet, a card showing the seal of the United States. She took the card and examined it carefully, turning it over, comparing the picture on it with the face of the man in the doorway.

She smiled rather stiffly. “According to this, I'm going to be questioned about my income tax.”

“That will do,” the Chief agreed. He put the card away.
She's cool,
he thought,
but she's frightened, too.

She stepped back rather awkwardly. “Come in, please.”

The Chief entered, looking around quickly and thoroughly, but with an air that did not make a point of it. He nodded toward the couch, suggesting that she sit there, and took an easy chair for himself. She sat quite primly, almost on the edge of the couch, and tugged her skirt down over her knees. She had very nicely shaped legs, although a little too long for the Chief's taste.

He sat silently for some moments. He had never had a case quite like Lenore Corey—Lenny, he remembered she was usually called. He said suddenly, “Shall we begin, Miss Corey? You know why you were summoned here. You know why I'm here.”

He could see her stiffen up. The abrupt approach was definitely not the one—yet.

Before she had formed an answer, he said, “Or perhaps you really don't know.” Now he lounged back, appearing relaxed, almost negligent. He could feel her relax, too.

“I'm really not sure,” she admitted. “I thought I was in New York because I have a plane to catch tomorrow.” She tried smiling again; it was still stiff and awkward. “Then, after your telephone call, I—well, I don't know.”

“But you have an idea,” he said. “You couldn't help thinking about Leon Roget.”

Her voice was very low. “No, I couldn't help thinking about him.”

“You're going to meet Roget when you go to England.”

“I had hoped so, yes.” She did not seem to realize that he had made a statement rather than a question of the words.

“You will—definitely,” he informed her. He smiled blandly. “And, of course, you will do everything exactly as we wish you to do it.”

He had chosen the words carefully, hoping for a certain kind of reaction from her. And he was pleased when he got that reaction.

“I don't know who ‘we' is,” she said with quick anger, “nor what it is ‘we' expect me to do. But I'm going to England because I received a study grant. I intend to use my time for that purpose—study.”

“Partly, of course,” he said in an agreeable tone.

She rose to the bait again. “I presume that you're a Government official. That doesn't give you the right to bully a citizen. And I am a citizen.”

He said with deadly quietness, “That's true—at the moment, Miss Corey. It may not be true for long, however.” He chose a cigar from the case in his pocket and sat looking at it.

It took a moment before she could speak. She said, “It's blackmail,” in a remarkably controlled voice.

She was doing very well, he thought. He was glad that she had this much backbone. He had been afraid she wouldn't, considering the way she had let Roget handle her. But this was good; this meant that she might be able to hand Roget back as good as he had given her. And she was pretty. Perhaps “attractive” would be a better word. To the Chief “pretty” designated a certain softness, and there was little of that softness visible at the moment about Lenore Corey.

He studied her from partly closed eyes. She was tall for a woman, long-legged. Her face was broad, with well-balanced if not outstanding features—the gray eyes longish, hinting at a tilt in the corners, the nose straight and the mouth large and full, but without any looseness. The kind of mouth men liked to think of as indicating passion. And the kind of mouth, he thought, that would smile beautifully when the smile was not forced but came from down inside her.

She had hair that reminded him of wheat ripening in the summertime. Very nice. She wore it in natural, easy-to-care-for curls so that he could see the fine shape of her head and ears. Nice hair, nice features, nice figure. Even in the somewhat prim green dress she wore, with lace at the collar and cuffs, she showed a slender waist, good woman's hips, and well-molded if slightly large breasts.

Her personality struck him as rather reserved, prim, but he doubted the truth of the impression. He was not seeing her under normal circumstances, and if the dossier he had memorized had any meaning, she was anything but reserved or prim.

He said, “Miss Corey, blackmail is a word usually applied to an illegal situation. This is hardly in that category.”

“Aren't we splitting hairs? To me, blackmail is forcing a person to do something against his will on threat of reprisal.”

He shrugged, letting her see how unimportant her opinion was to him. “The point remains that you are to do as we ask.”

“I can't accept that,” she said firmly. “Not just out of thin air. I'm sorry.”

The Chief took out his lighter. “May I smoke?”

She nodded, taking a cigarette for herself from the pack on the arm of the couch.

He said, “Please don't interrupt for a few moments, Miss Corey. Just listen.”

She listened. He talked for ten minutes, carefully, telling her no more than was necessary but enough to make his points clear. And as he spoke, he saw the stiffness go from her expression and the first true emotion she had displayed come through. There was a minimum of the reactions he would normally get in a situation of this kind—fear and terror and finally a sort of dull resignation. The thing that struck him most forcibly about Lenore Corey was her indignation. Before he was through, she was on her feet, taking long strides to the window and back.

He said finally, “So you see.”

She stopped and faced him. “I see that I've been made a fool of.” Her voice rose. “I see that my private life has become something for a lot of so-called Intelligence experts to snicker over and get a vicarious thrill from. I see that because I chose Leon Roget to fall in love with, I'm being made to pay for it!”

He shut his eyes.

She burst out, “Did I win my study fellowship honestly, or did you arrange that, too—like you've arranged the rest of my life for me?”

He opened his eyes and looked at her again, and now his eyes were like blue chips of cold stone.

“Miss Corey, you won the fellowship. I simply took advantage of your winning it. You made what you call a mistake by falling in love with Leon Roget. I've taken advantage of that, too. As for your being made to pay—again that's a matter of terminology. Would you rather I weren't so blunt? I could appeal to your patriotism, instead.”

“Do you think I have any?” she flung at him. “You've as good as accused me of spying against my country.”

“No, only of helping someone else spy against it.”

“The help I gave Leon had nothing to do with this country. It was all for—his own.”

“Leon Roget has no country, not in the sense that we have,” he said. He waved his cigar, brushing the matter aside as irrelevant. “Come, Miss Corey, let's be honest. You placed yourself in a position where I could use you. Up until yesterday I wasn't sure that I would need to. But now I'm forced into it. I have no other choice at the moment.” He let his voice lash at her. “Do you think I would choose an inexperienced person, no matter how attractive, how levelheaded, no matter how qualified otherwise? And you are all of these things. But you are still a complete novice in the work facing you. Do you think I would choose you for such a job if I could use anyone else?”

Lenore Corey sat down. She took another cigarette and lighted it, this time smoking more calmly. “I'm sorry. Let's not shout at each other.”

He said, “Miss Corey, what I'm asking you to do can be as dangerous as what I'm asking my regular men to do. It may be that at this very moment I am condemning you to death by violence. Yet I have no other choice than to order you to do as I ask.”

“Why?” she asked reasonably.

“Because I would prefer one death—or a half-dozen deaths—to the possible slaughter of thousands, or to a war which could involve this country.”