“Nevertheless, I want to know. I want to be absolutely certain in my mind.”
“Very well, sir. Mr. Zalinsky said that if you didn’t stop, it might be necessary to take your toys away from you.”
“In those exact words.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”
A pause hung in the air, then the senator found his dignity. “Thank you for coming to see me, Mr. Hewlitt.”
Hewlitt rose to his feet. “Thank you for receiving me, senator.” That was not the moment to say anything more and he knew it. He shook hands formally and left. As he walked down the nearly empty corridor toward the exit, his relief at having the unpleasant interview behind him was overshadowed by a new opinion of Fitz-hugh. Politically he still considered the senator a near disaster, but he had taken a tough one right on the chin and he had taken it like a man.
Walter Wagner was the finest athlete that his Pennsylvania high school had ever known. He was not particularly tall, but he had a phenomenal physique, extraordinary reflexes, and an agile brain. For three years he was a superb principal quarterback on the football team; he displayed an almost unerring ability to call the right play in a crucial situation and to scramble for yardage with dazzling changes of direction that kept the opposing linebackers in a state of sustained frustration. He was too short for basketball, but in the pole vault he took the state championship with a display of form that attracted the attention of the Olympic Committee. As his graduation neared, college athletic scouts descended en masse; he could have had a scholarship at almost any school he chose. Unfortunately he was not able to accept any of these offers; a critical situation at home complicated by a drawn-out final illness of his father forced him to abandon his plans for a higher education and go to work.
His first job after graduation was as a lifeguard. He had excelled at that, so much so that the manager of the pool where he worked had conceived the idea of featuring him in a diving exhibition every weekend as a means of attracting more patrons. After a few weeks he received an offer to join a water circus troupe in Atlantic City. The salary offered was not a great deal more than he was already making, but after the season closed, there was a possible tour of South America in the offing. That was tempting, because he had had a sustained interest in seeing the world for as long as he could remember.
Three weeks after he arrived in Atlantic City the featured high diver with the troupe was injured in an automobile accident, not seriously but badly enough so that he could not perform for at least two weeks. Walter Wagner had climbed his rigging on the day that the news had come in and had looked down at the tiny-appear-ing circle of water in the eight-foot-deep tank. Having watched the diver many times, he knew exactly how he let his body turn in the air and how he hit the water to avoid injury. Coming down the ladder to the twenty-foot level he had made a practice dive and found it easy. He dove several more times that same day from ever greater heights, but he was still far short of the tiny platform at the very top.
The manager of the troupe had warned him not to hurt himself; then with his conscience properly salved he waited and watched. It took three days for Walter Wagner to work his way up to the top, but he did not falter at any point along the way. Each time he knew that he was ready he went a little higher and tried it again; when he had mastered that step he moved up once more.
Three years after that the Great Cordova had become one of the standard and dependable attractions throughout much of the free world. He had added many features to his act to give it more color; he dove with lighted torches in either hand at night, he dove in a cape in the daytime which he discarded halfway down in his plunge. He had lighted rings installed on the side of his rigging and timed his revolving falls to pass through them with apparently almost no space to spare.
He had also discovered a new talent — a remarkable ear for languages. He learned with great speed and almost flawless accent. He found it fascinating, and delighted in learning the reactions of people around him by listening to their scraps of conversation.
One day he heard something that could have been meaningless, but on the other hand, perhaps not. He had stopped in at the American consulate that same afternoon where he was listened to with care. He left with the feeling that he might have made a fool of himself. Subsequent events established the fact that his call had been of some importance.
Two weeks after that he had visitors. The Central Intelligence Agency had done a fast and efficient job of checking his background, and the possibility that the information he had supplied had been deliberately planted had been considered and discarded. The visitors talked to him a little and thanked him for his cooperation. When they had done their homework a little more thoroughly they came back, this time with a proposition. They were well aware that a circus performer could travel almost anywhere that his bookings took him without arousing suspicion, and few people ever saw or took note of the face of a high diver.
He had handled relatively minor matters after that for some time, the Agency arranging bookings for him as it became necessary. Then a big one had turned up and he had been assigned the job. The problem at hand concerned the United States Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Before that one was over he had had a fight to the finish in a cul-de-sac in Port Said and had left a dead man behind him who would be sorely missed by an unfriendly foreign government. It had also brought him to the attention of the then commander of the Sixth Fleet, Vice-Admiral Barney Haymarket.
The fertile brain that he had displayed in high school had developed additional resourcefulness: at his request the Agency had located the high diver whom he had replaced in Atlantic City. Usually it was Walter Wagner who dove, but from time to time his invisible partner became the Great Cordova and thereby provided him with an unquestioned alibi. That had worked for almost two years before someone had finally stumbled onto the stunt. After that there had been other devices, but the cover had been exceptionally well maintained so that not more than a handful of men in Europe and Africa were aware that the Great Cordova was one of the CIA’s most reliable operators. Since it had been a suspicious British agent who had unmasked the two-diver gambit, and since he had kept his discovery strictly within the home team, certain hostile forces had remained unenlightened despite the fact that the fearsome Colonel Rostovitch had devoted himself for weeks to trying to penetrate the identity of the man who had outwitted him in a particularly critical operation. He had been told only that his enemy was an Israeli agent, which was of no help to him because there were too many Jews and as it happened Walter Wagner was not one of them.
Knowing all of this, and in addition the highly restricted details of many other operations in which the Great Cordova had been concerned, Admiral Haymarket had tapped him very early in the game as one of the men he most wanted. From the outset Wagner had proved his value and the admiral had the utmost confidence in him. Therefore when the word reached him that Wagner had some ideas concerning Low Blow, the admiral was more than ready to hear them. All members of the First Team had access to him at all times, and when they came, he listened.
Wagner sat down in the admiral’s office and asked, “How much have we got in photo coverage of the area where the Magsaysay is docked?”
“Plenty,” the admiral answered. “We had this one cooked up quite a while ago and we did all that we could to prepare for it.”
“In that case, I’d like to see the best detail shots you have of the immediate dock area, the sheds, and the access routes in particular. I might have an alternate idea that would spare the crane operator. We can’t let Ted sacrifice himself, obviously, or anyone else if we can help it. I think that maybe we can.”