Gloria drew back, her eyes round with concern. “But… but why?” she wanted to know. “Why would anyone want to kill you?”
Ambrose shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe because of the Lostcreek deal. Or it could be, of course, that someone is just trying to frighten me.”
“Well, let’s hope it’s that!” said Gloria. “Now that I’ve come this close to getting you, I don’t want to lose you!”
“Chief Weber and his boys are working on the thing. They may come up with something soon. But I must admit that the threats have unnerved me to the point where I scarcely know that I’m doing half the time, I’m so absent-minded.”
On Friday morning Ambrose drove the black sedan to his downtown office and spent several hours with two young architects. At two o’clock that afternoon he drove out to the Lostcreek development, as usual, and entered the field office where he spent an hour with Bartel, going over construction progress and a few plan changes.
“If anyone comes around to look at houses or lots this afternoon,” he told Bartel when they had finished, “you show them around. I’ve got to take the two-door to a garage and get a window replaced. Probably won’t be back the rest of the afternoon.”
Bartel nodded, picked up his sheaf of papers, and left.
Ambrose waited a while, then took the brief case from the bottom drawer and placed it carefully on the desk. He opened it and checked his wrist watch. Four o’clock. He set the timer so that it would detonate the charge in exactly two hours and fifteen minutes. 6:15. Alice would be midway between Newton and Plainsville. And he, Ambrose, would be just arriving home.
He carried the brief case to the sedan and placed it unobtrusively on the floor directly against the back of the driver’s seat, then got in and drove away.
He had gone over his plan step by step many times during the past few weeks and could find no flaw. Certainly Chief Weber would never suspect that he, the hard-hitting Ambrose, would send himself those childish letters and shoot a hole through the window of the two-door. Neither would Weber have reason to suspect that he, Ambrose, had been exposed to a short course in demolitions in the Army a few years back. It would seem quite natural to everyone — including Gloria — that whoever had been threatening his life had placed the bomb in his brief case during his lunch hour or during the afternoon — or had switched brief cases during the time his car had been unlocked and unguarded — and had set the device to go off at the time he usually was driving home from work.
Ambrose felt certain that before this day was over his troubles would be ended. He had taken out life insurance on both Alice and himself shortly after their marriage, and the $25,000 he would collect after her accidental demise would be enough to tide him through the few months he would wait before marrying Gloria. After that — clear sailing.
As he brought the sedan into the driveway beside the house, Alice came out the back door, surprised that he had arrived home at this unaccustomed hour.
“Anything wrong?” she called to him from the porch.
“No. I just came home to pick up the two-door to have the window replaced. I don’t know how long it will take, but if I’m not home by the time you’re ready to go to Plainsville, take the sedan.”
“I don’t have to go,” she said. “If you’d rather I didn’t—”
“You go ahead. And don’t fix dinner for me. I’m swamped with work.” He got into the two-door and drove off.
It was nearly six o’clock when Ambrose, the window in the car replaced, began his leisurely drive homeward, a tight little smile tugging at the comers of his lips. It was only natural that he should take the damaged car to the garage that afternoon and leave the sedan for his wife’s use. It was only natural that, considering his state of confusion concerning the threats on his life, that he should forget to transfer the brief case from the sedan to the two-door or take it into the house. He had very carefully let both Weber and Gloria know how forgetful and nervous he had been lately.
Again he could see no flaw in his plan.
As he pulled into the driveway he noted with satisfaction that the sedan was gone. He consulted his watch. 6:12. In just a few minutes now he would be getting a frantic phone call — probably from Weber himself — informing him of the terrible tragedy.
The telephone was already ringing when he entered the house. He hurried to his desk and picked it up, his hand trembling. Maybe the mechanism had gained a few minutes. Maybe the blast had already gone off! Not that a minute or two, one way or the other, would make any difference.
“Ambrose speaking,” he said, trying to hold his voice level.
“I tried to reach you before I left but I didn’t know which garage you had gone to—”
“Alice! Where… where are you?”
“I’m in a telephone booth. I wanted to let you know, dear—”
Damn! The thing was set to go off any second now! And there she was — away from the car and safe in a telephone booth! Ambrose felt beads of perspiration pop out of his forehead. He had visions of all his plans going sky-high in one big bang!
“—that I cleaned out the sedan this afternoon and found your brief case. And knowing how absent-minded you have been lately and how swamped with work and how you would be needing it, I put the brief case right there beside your desk so you could—”
Ambrose didn’t hear the last part of the sentence.
He did hear the first part of the explo
Milk Run
by Robert Edward Eckels[4]
Averill, the CIA chief for southern Germany, pooh-poohed the risk; the assignment was only a milk run — all the retiring agent had to do, on his way home to the United States, was pick up a small package in Munich, catch a plane, and deliver the package 24 hours later in New York. Simple. No risk. A milk run. But, ah, “there is many a slip ’twixt the lip and the cup.”
Another of Robert Edward Eckels’ low-keyed, thoroughly convincing spy stories...
I glanced into the rearview mirror again. The headlights were still there. They’d been there for the last half hour, maybe longer. And it was past time for me to find out why. Gradually I eased up on the gas pedal. The lights in the mirror grew larger, then diminished as the car dropped back to its original distance behind me.
No question about it now — somebody was following me. And was either being very stupid or didn’t care if I knew. Probably the latter, because with only the long stretch of autobahn ahead of me there was very little I could do about it.
I cursed silently. That’s supposed to help, but of course it didn’t. Mainly, I supposed, because I had no one to blame but myself. I’d let Averill talk me into this assignment against my better judgment.
“No,” I had said when he’d broached it, “I’ve been working this area too long. Too many people know my face.” Averill was the CIA controller for southern Germany and had been my boss for five years. Five years is a long time to maintain a cover.
“But,” Averill had protested, “this is no more than a milk run. You pick up a small package in Munich, catch a plane, and deliver the package twenty-four hours later in New York. Simplicity itself.” Averill didn’t mention what the package was and I didn’t ask. In this business, lack of curiosity is a positive virtue.
“And,” he had added slyly, “you’re planning to go back to the. States anyway. Here’s your chance to let Uncle Sam pick up the tab”…
So now I found myself rolling down the night-darkened autobahn with a confident tail wagging behind me. Too confident. I’d remembered something that my tail might not have taken into account.