“Lots of luck.”
He ignored the crack. “Tucker Stacy told you something else. You’re still thinking about it. I want to be around when you find out what it is.”
Jones and Del Reed got up then, but Smith didn’t move. They weren’t kidding anymore. They said good night pleasantly, opened the door and left. I looked at Smith and he grinned, then switched on the TV. A newscaster appeared. Hurricane Ingrid was a blaster. All ships were being warned out of the area and the local citizens were being warned to batten down. Ingrid was over Cuba, still on course, picking up speed and increasing in wind velocity.
I walked to the phone, told the switchboard operator to get me a direct line and take time and charges, then I dialed through to George Conway up in Jersey. I asked him if he had seen Whitey Thompson about his old squadron pictures.
“Got right to him, Cat. Look, we went over everything, but he couldn’t remember anybody named Cristy and Verdo. He wanted to know, could it’ve been a squadron call name or anythin’? He remembers the names, but not who they belonged to.”
“We were all color and animal calls, George. Red three and four. Tiger Two... you know.”
“I’ll keep working on it. You’ll call me back?”
“Roger.”
I hung up and went back to watching television. Verdo and Cristy! Who were they? What were they? They hung there in the past of 20 years ago, meaning something Tucker thought I’d understand without any trouble at all. Why? What made him think I’d get the angle? So we were fighter pilots. We flew Mustangs and escorted B-17s and B-24s in and out of Germany. We did some low-level strafing, a little photo-recon work, covered the invasion and horsed around London. What else? I couldn’t figure it. I squatted down on the edge of the bed and gave up.
Lois Hays was due in. It was going to be a long night.
Maybe. The little gust of air on my neck turned me around.
Smith turned, too, and died before he ever saw who it was. The bullet from the silenced gun caught him right in the middle of his forehead.
Andre Marcel said, “You have been speaking to the wrong people, my friend. Now you will come with us. You will speak with us, too, and if you will speak well you will die quickly like your government friend there not slowly like so many others have died before him.”
Chapter 7
It was a small room filled with the smell of the sea, and I could hear the waves lashing at pilings beneath my feet. The wind was alternately shrill and sorrowful, building in strength.
They had me on a table, stripped to the skin, an overhead light blazing in my eyes. The hypo had worn off and I was fully awake. I could feel my heart pounding inside my chest. Andre stood above me, the two goons on either side. Very delicately he ran a finger over two scars on my body. “I’ve seen these marks before, Mr. Fallon. They were professionally inflicted.”
“Algiers,” I said. “I’m still here.”
“Quite. They never had a chance to finish, did they?”
A shudder ran through me, I wasn’t as brave as I thought. I strained at the ropes that held me spread-eagled. I was lucky the last time in Algiers. The French had come just in time. And I couldn’t have talked because I had nothing to say. Still, the Wogs would have gone ahead with the job. It was that way now, too.
“You are familiar with Arab torture?”
I didn’t answer him.
“Ah, I see you are. In that case, let us forego a few of the more basic steps and come quickly to those appliances that seem to guarantee results.” He reached for something attached to the table and brought up a pair of insulated wires. On the end of each one was a battery clip that could carry a lot of amperage.
“In case you have forgotten, this is an unusual instrument. One end we attach like so...” Andre Marcel snagged the clip in my earlobe. I winced, but it was nothing compared to what was to come.
“The other end,” he said, “will be attached to your testicles. At given intervals, a switch will be thrown and... ah, I see you realize what will happen. Not only is it most painful, but totally destructive. You would no longer be a man if you lived. You would never again know a woman or even want to. Most probably, however, you would die right here after hours of living with the pain centered in your vitals. Unpleasant to contemplate, isn’t it, Fallon.”
“You haven’t got long to live, Marcel.”
“So! You did catch my name.” He looked at the guy beside him. “You see?”
The one he addressed twitched nervously. Mistakes could be fatal in his business.
“Still,” Andre said with a humorless smile, “like you, I am still alive, but my chances of survival are better. Now, shall we proceed?”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
“We shall see. First, what did you tell the government police?”
Sweat ran into my eyes and started to burn. I played it cagey and gave him facts. He would know them anyway. “They know Stacy was killed because he was trying to get information back about the nuclear warhead on the ship.”
“What ship?”
“You call it Banana.”
Marcel nodded slowly. “Good. You are telling the truth. Where is that ship going?”
“I don’t know.”
He reached out and jammed the clip up between my legs and the teeth bit into me. I started to yell when he said, “The switch, please,” and the yell rose into a wild scream that didn’t sound like my own voice at all. When it stopped, the sweat poured down my face and my whole body jerked spasmodically for a moment before the pain came.
Marcel let me taste it fully, let me realize that it was only that of a second’s duration, let me imagine what it would be like if it had continued longer. “Who are Verdo and Cristy, Mr. Fallon?”
I shook my head. I saw his nod toward the one at the switch and I tried to tell him that I didn’t know anything — but my tongue seemed to bloat suddenly at the incredible sweep of pain that came over me like a tidal wave of liquid fire.
When I tried to talk, my lips couldn’t form the words and my chest heaved convulsively. The sticky warmth of blood trickled down my wrists and ankles from where the ropes bit in when I strained against them. The sheer terror of knowing that there was nothing I could say turned my brain into a mad thing.
“You will have a minute to speculate, Fallon. Time to recover, time to reconsider, then we will begin again.”
My mind raced with something to tell him. Verdo and Cristy, Verdo and Cristy. They alone could break me loose from this. Who the hell were they? Who? WHO!
“Very well, Fallon, once again, who are Verdo and Cristy?”
He was ready to nod again. Then I had it. I had Verdo and Cristy. Not who, what!
And I was going to tell him. The hell with them all. He could have it.
The blast from Sharon Ortiz’ gun caught the guy at the switch full in the face. His head came apart in pieces, and before they could hit the floor she nailed the other one in the chest. He fell into Andre Marcel enough to ruin his aim and tumble him to the floor on one knee. I could see his expression as he looked up at her, the almost simpering grin of an idiot not knowing what to do yet knowing too what was coming. He started to make an imploring gesture when Sharon smiled back at him and almost casually pulled the trigger of the .38.
The first bullet hit Marcel in the stomach and he grabbed his gut as he doubled over. He looked up imploringly, holding his hand out, and the next one went through his palm into his chest. It slammed him back into the table where he coughed once and said something foul in Spanish. Then Sharon took deliberate aim and planted one right between the horns.