The Tide Can't Wait (3 page)

“Bluntly put,” she admitted. “I risk my life, degrade myself at the very least, or I face prosecution for treason against my country.”

He said dryly, “The answer is ‘yes'”

“And it makes no difference that I swear I did not know what you've just told me about Leon?”

“It makes no difference.” He took his cigar from his mouth and worked a fleck of tobacco from his tongue with a finger.

“How did you come to meet Roget?”

“Isn't that in your record on me?”

He said equably, “I know that you're twenty-five years old, unmarried, that you were raised to money, and that you studied in New York and Toronto, as well as in San Francisco. I know that now you have no money and so you're teaching in a junior college near San Francisco and studying nights to improve your situation. I know that you are genuinely interested in the history of architecture and that you plan to go to England to finish a book that you've been writing on early Norman churches.

“I know that you prefer strong tea to coffee for breakfast, that you like steak medium-well-done and that you swim and play tennis and perform other sports very well, just as most people in California seem to do. I know the size of your shoes and hose, of your slips and brassieres, Miss Corey. I can even tell you what kind of bath soap you prefer. But I don't know precisely how you met Leon Roget.” He took another puff at his cigar. “I don't mean when you first saw him. I have that information. You went to San Francisco and enrolled in his night-school French class. I mean how you met in the sense that you found one another attractive, how you got to know him well.”

She said without hesitation, “Perhaps we became interested in each other because I was the only person in the class who made any pretense of being really interested.” She flushed a little, uncomfortable because she was thinking that if he knew so many petty but intimate details about her, he might know even more intimate ones, far less petty to her mind. “I had a French governess when I was a child and I still spoke some French when I joined his class and spoke it with a fair accent. But I wanted more fluency.”

“And you think that's why he chose to display his interest toward you rather than toward any of the bored, giggling females who went there to sigh over him?”

She had to smile. “I didn't sigh over Leon for some time, I assure you.”

“No,” he agreed frankly. “It was over six months before you became his mistress.”

“I suppose it was.” She was fighting him with indifference.

“Was he the first man with whom you had that kind of relation?”

Anger heightened the color in her cheeks. “Is that your business?”

“Everything about you is my business.” He made himself sound bored, implying that he didn't give a hang about her private life except as it related to his work. And, actually, he didn't. The peccadilloes of humanity had ceased either to surprise him or, for the most part, interest him. “And you haven't answered my question.”

She looked at him with her gray eyes contemptuous. “When I was thirteen I received my first kiss. It was a boy who lived in the same apartment building. Then when I was sixteen, I had my first experience at walking home. I—”

“That will do, Miss Corey!” The lash in his voice made her wince. He scarcely softened his tone as he continued, “I'll be more specific. Have you ever had an affair with a man—any man—the consequences of which might endanger the work you're going to do for us?”

“No. My
few
experiences were all minor, college-girl things. Before Leon,” she added pointedly.

He seemed relieved. “And it was after your relationship with Leon began that you started helping him?”

“I helped
him,
“ she admitted. He could feel her defiance again. “I wasn't going against my country. You know that as well as you know all these other things about me. I was helping Leon help his country.

“Because you loved him?”

She met his gaze squarely. “Because I love him,” she corrected.

He sighed. This was what he had feared. He said, “Leon Roget is a dangerous man, Miss Corey. He is not only personally dangerous, but he is politically dangerous—not just to us but to a number of other countries.”

She thought,
Leon told me that he would be persecuted in the future as he had been in the past.
And here was evidence of that persecution. She resented this man.

“I don't believe you,” she said calmly.

He shrugged. “Roget is a contradiction,” he said. “He is a political fanatic—and in that he is sincere. He is also a greedy man, and there are times when his greed overcomes his patriotism. That is the case at present. The information you helped him gather is of vital interest to the exiled political party he represents. If he gets it to them and they act on it, then they have a very good chance of getting back into power. Because of the nature of what may happen, other countries will help those opposing Roget's party. A Latin-American revolution is one thing; war is another.”

“Leon's country needs something,” she said.

He said coldly, “You require a good deal of convincing, don't you, Miss Corey?”

“Yes,” she answered boldly. “Especially if you expect me to believe that my helping Leon gather news stories from various sources could help bring about a major war.”

“I expect you to believe exactly that,” he said grimly. “I'll be as open as I can, Miss Corey. The information Roget compiled—partly with your help, partly on his own—integrated with Roget's knowledge of the world situation and the situation in his country is as dangerous to the peace of the world as anything put on paper in many years.”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I simply cannot see that.”

He held up a hand and ticked down one finger. “First, Roget now has a complete file of every commerical ship's captain who runs to Latin-American ports. Out of this list he has taken the names of those skippers who are willing to look the other way so far as their cargo is concerned—provided they're paid enough. He has, in other words, a rogues' gallery of freighter captains.

“Two,” he went on, lowering another finger, “Roget has compiled a file of every place where he can obtain guns and ammunition—in quantity and illegally. Three, with your help Roget charted the courses of certain international stocks. He and his friends in Europe followed that information as far as they could and came up with another list of names, those financiers who work on the edge of the law—and usually outside it.

“In other words, Miss Corey, Roget's information tells where to get guns and ammunition, who will finance their purchase, and who will carry them to his country. Through a study of Latin-American sources, he also knows who are the weak men in the present government, not only of his own country but of neighboring countries. That means he knows which men will—for gain or other reasons—help him get the guns and ammunition across borders and into the hands of the men who will use them.”

“There have been Latin-American revolutions before,” Lenny said. “I never heard that any threatened to shake the world to its roots.”

“No,” he admitted. He looked steadily at her. Finally, he said, “You know, of course, that there is a good deal of atomic research going on all over the world today.”

“I know.”

“Roget never had you gather information on any aspect of that research?”

“No.”

“Of course not,” he said. “Miss Corey, the most important information Roget has in his possession concerns venal men whom those financing Roget's party can buy. Britain and the United States are not alone in atomic research. Enough countries are doing work in the field so that Roget's backers are going to be able to buy parts and ingredients for small bombs—here and there. And be able not only to buy the men to sell them this material but men to put them together.”

Lenny stared at him open-mouthed. It seemed so absurd, so impossible … yet he was wholly serious. And she had to fight to keep from believing him.

“Do you really care if his country blows itself up?” It was a poor defense but the best she could muster at the moment.

“I care that thousands of innocents will suffer and be maimed—women and children among them. I care,” he went on with sudden, frightening savagery, “that Roget's party claims pieces of neighboring countries. And that part of their plan of revolt is not simply to take over their own country but with the use of the bombs, dropped without warning, to force other countries to give them what they claim is rightfully theirs.”

He made an abrupt move as though to drain some of the tension from his body. “Can you see now? If that were to happen, the whole of Latin America would rise up in protest and self-defense. We would have to act. European nations with a stake in Latin America would have to act as well.”

“I should think the parties opposing Leon would have done something by now,” Lenny said.

“You'll just have to take my word for it that they are in no position to realize the seriousness of this. And I'm not here to go into the political merits of one party over another. I'll say just this: the present government is a party that put itself in by force. It receives no sympathy from us. Of the two out parties, one would be favorable to a policy of progress and peace—that party we would help. Unofficially,” he added dryly. “The other party, together, is antithetical to our interests and to the interests of the countries surrounding Roget's. We cannot support either the party in power or Roget's party. Especially now, we cannot support Roget's party.”

“You ask me to believe a group of financiers would go to such trouble and expense to gain control of a small country such as Leon's?”

“With the natural resources from surrounding areas—it would no longer be just a small country, Miss Corey…. So, you see, we must stop Roget. But it is not such a simple matter as that, or we could merely have him shot. We must know the details of his information and, especially, his contacts. We must know who his contacts are.”

“With your superior knowledge, you should have no difficulty,” she said.

He ignored her sarcasm. “Unfortunately, we do not have any information on his contacts. Two nights ago we thought we had. But Roget is clever, Miss Corey.”

“I'm glad.”

“We were lucky,” he continued. “The man he sent to kill our—our representative was taken ill and failed.”

“I'm glad of that, too.”

“But if Roget's plan had succeeded and our man shot, you would accept that?”

“I can't believe you about Leon's wanting to kill anyone.”

The Chief stood up. He looked down at her and the coldness of his expression, the iciness of his voice, came from deep inside him. Anger for her deliberate blindness.

“Miss Corey,” he said, “when you reach England, you will contact Roget as you had planned. You will proceed along whatever lines you think best in order to gain his confidence. Your task is to find out who are his contacts, where they are to be made, and when they are to be made. You will pass this information on to our operative.”

She tried to fight against his frightening quietness. “I don't know your operative.”

“You will be contacted at an appropriate time.”

“I see. And what if I should decide to join Leon? To become the traitor you already think me. What then?”

His intensity struck at her like a blow to the face. He took a deep breath, steadying himself. “You are never out of my jurisdiction, Miss Corey. If you should show any signs of defaulting to Roget, the
least
that will happen to you will be arrest and deportation back here. You will then be charged and, I assure you, convicted—of treason.”

She reached for another cigarette and her hand trembled.

Engine trouble delayed Lenny's flight at Gander, and so she arrived at the London airport at an awkwardly early hour by English standards. She had wired Leon her arrival time from Shannon, but even so, she did not really expect him to meet her. Seven
a.m
. was his time for getting his best sleep.

Still, she looked for him as she directed the porter who was marshaling her bags after her clearance by customs and immigration. A glance around the waiting room showed her no familiar face.

“Taxi this way, Miss,” the porter said.

Lenny followed, continuing to look as she went through the doors. Maybe Leon hadn't received her wire—if the man who called himself the Chief was right, the address she had for Leon was no more than a receiving point. But, she thought stubbornly, it was more likely that he could not imagine rising at six, as he would have to if he were to meet her at this hour.

“Damn!” she said aloud.

The porter turned his head. “Miss?”

“I didn't mean you,” she said awkwardly. She was looking beyond the porter. An imposing Bentley sports coupé had slithered to a stop only a few feet away, and jumping from it was the last person she wanted to see at this moment.

But there was no hope for it. Tommy Price had seen her and was coming at his ambling but ground-consuming walk toward her, the usual fatuous grin on his face. He was hatless and the light breeze ruffled his unruly butter-colored hair.

“Lenny! Lenny, my love! It's old T. Price to the rescue. Here, Porter, put the bags there.” He was facing her, his hands outstretched in greeting.

She was suddenly very glad to see Tommy Price. Taking his hands, she rose on tiptoe, giving him a quick kiss. “I should have known,” she said. “You never fail to show up.”

“And usually at the wrong time.” His tone was rueful, but his pale eyes were dancing with obvious pleasure at seeing her. His somewhat rugged countenance lighted with a grin.

A last quick glance around told her that there was no sign of Leon. “Not the wrong time,” she corrected. “I was beginning to feel marooned.”