“About a year ago.”
“What makes him important?”
“Only one thing.”
I waited. Charlie Corbinet was watching me carefully, the drink in his hand forgotten.
“What?”
“The simple fact that Moscow’s top agent was assigned to locate him.”
“So?”
“Those two men were assigned to find him too, just to uncover why the Soviets wanted him so badly. They were narrowing down the search when they disappeared and you showed up in time to really scramble things.”
Rondine came up with another drink and shook one of the capsules from the bottle and handed them both to me silently. I didn’t really notice it, but my side was hurting like hell.
“Now you tell me,” Charlie said and I knew he had spilled all he knew.
When I swallowed the capsule and washed it down with the Four Roses and ginger ale I said, “Vito Salvi was ready to do anything to stay alive. He tried to make a deal.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll give you something to feed on, Charlie. I want you to go home and think on it hard and you’ll know what I have to do. There can’t be any cross purposes or interference because on this one we’ll need everybody we can get our hands on and have to pull out all the stops.”
“I’m waiting, Tiger.”
“You know how the hot line works?”
Charlie Corbinet nodded, waiting.
“You know about the other one?”
“Suppose you detail it for me,” he said.
“Sure.” I leaned back and closed my eyes, feeling the capsule beginning to take hold. “Moscow has one like it too. All over the country we have ICBM’s buried and waiting to fly off to predesignated enemy targets. All we need is a blip on a radar screen or early warning to alert the right person who is the only one who can push the button and start the retaliation in motion. Of course, we’ll all be dead, but revenge will be sweet and before the enemy birds can hit, our own will be on the way.”
He didn’t argue, he only murmured, “True,” and listened.
“All the birds are tied into an electronic system activated by one push of a single button after the emergencies and fail-safes are off. When they’re gone they’re gone and an enemy is totally washed out.”
“But so are we by then.”
“One man installed the system, or was responsible for it, at least. Let’s take a premise now. Supposing the one man who installed the system wasn’t as clean as you thought he was. Supposing that somewhere along the line his thinking got screwed up and he didn’t want to see all that power and control go into the hands of someone who in his opinion shouldn’t have that control. Supposing that one man, to satisfy his own desires and warped judgment, installed a system that could by-pass the original pushbutton device and could activate the ICBM system any time he chose to.”
The room was so still you could hear the breathing from all three of us. “A by-pass control,” Charlie said quietly. “Louis Agrounsky?”
“That’s your boy.”
“If he touches it the Reds will detect the ICBM’s in flight and let their own birds go. Everybody’s had it.”
“That’s not the worst part,” I told him. I opened my eyes and saw his hands tighten on his glass until the knuckles showed white. “In his circuits he installed a device that can negate our own original system. If the Reds fire first with our system out then we have no comeback at all. And there isn’t time to run down the by-pass control.”
“That leaves them sitting on all the eggs. If they find the by-pass first they can deactivate us in a second and leave them calling all the shots in a hurry... or else.”
“Or else,” I repeated sleepily.
I heard him come out of the chair and knew he was standing close to me now. He said, “Do you know where Louis Agrounsky is?”
After a long while I squeezed my eyes open just a little. Even the dim yellow light from the lamp hurt them. “No.”
Charlie’s soft, “Damn!” was like an explosion.
I knew I was grinning and couldn’t help it. I knew that if I opened my eyes both he and Rondine would be standing there in stunned silence, realizing the wild import of what they had just been told, knowing how close we all stood to the edge of sudden annihilation that would be triggered the minute they knew they had the edge.
Slowly, I pulled myself back from the limbo the capsule was sending me into and said, “But I think I know how I can find him.”
Chapter 2
The shade was drawn, but it was a bright yellow patch in the room with the sun beating down on it from a high angle and I knew I had been sleeping a long time. I looked at my wrist, but the watch was gone and the rest of me was naked under a single sheet in Rondine’s bed. I glanced around quickly, saw the watch on the nightstand, stopped at five forty-five because it hadn’t been wound. I picked up the extension phone, dialed the time-check number and found out that it was almost four-thirty in the afternoon, then hung up and started to push the covers off me.
Rondine came in then, having heard the sound of my dialing. “Why didn’t you get me up, kid?” My voice sounded hard and cracked.
“Whatever the doctor gave you was supposed to keep you that way.”
“Who put me to bed?”
She gave me a funny smile.
“You could have left my shorts on,” I said.
“That wouldn’t have been any fun.” She sat on the edge of the bed looking at me. “You moan even when you’re unconscious.”
“Oh, shut up.” I grinned at her. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“No? Why not?”
“You’re too prim and proper.”
“But you’ve trained me well.”
I didn’t know whether to believe her or not. “Get my clothes,” I finally said.
“No. I checked with the doctor and you’re to stay in bed.”
“Who else told you that too? Charlie? Hal Randolph?”
Her eyes gave me the answer fast enough and she nodded. “They went through my own superiors. I guess they know what you’d want to do so they put the pressure on me. I had to let you stay there. Tiger... it was for the best.”
“Damn it, they were thinking of themselves.”
“But I was thinking of you.” She wasn’t trying to be cagey about it.
“One day, when we’re married, you’ll get your orders directly from me. Nobody will supersede me and if they try they get clipped, and if you listen, you get your tail burned.”
“When will that be?” she probed.
“I’ll tell you when.”
“You seem to like long engagements, Tiger.” She wasn’t smiling now.
I said, “When it’s over. When we can walk and breathe without smelling death all the time or knowing the world is sitting on the lip of disaster. I don’t want you a widow before you’re married.”
“How do you know what I want, darling?”
“Oh sure, you’ll take me now because you’re a broad and all broads want it now regardless of the consequences, but I’m not letting you stick your neck out in the middle of a mess like this. Crazy broad.”
“I despise that word.”
“You do? Well wear it well, baby. It’s a sign that you’re more than a woman. You’re a doll with everything going for her from a beautiful face to a wild body with a mind to match and I love you like hell. You have capabilities only I can appreciate and I want them all.”
“So I’m a broad,” she said, losing the British accent momentarily and dropping into pure Brooklynese.
“Damn, where’d you pick that up?”
“From you.” She walked to the closet, took my clothes out and laid them down beside me, the gun to one side. “Now get dressed. Want me to watch?”
I gave her a small push. “Get out of here. Some things I can do by myself.”