He took them in and said slowly, “Now here are your instructions. Get out and locate some of these people, however you can. Find out the details of just what it is they want. Find out how they expect to obtain their goals. Find out the names of the top leaders, their theoreticians and so forth. You’ll have to be my legmen. I don’t dare leave the embassy grounds. I might be spotted. We can put off, for a time, undoubtedly, my having to go through the red tape of accreditation, but when this does come up, undoubtedly they will be upon me and refuse my presence in the country.”
After they had left, Ilya Simonov sat there for a long moment. Finally, he looked up a number and dialed it on the phone. The screen didn’t light up, but he had expected that.
A heavy Teutonic voice said, “Ah, Colonel Simonov, I had heard that you were in the country. Rather bold of you, wouldn’t you say?”
Simonov growled, “Don’t try to impress me with your efficiency, Herr Distelmayer. You know very well that you didn’t know I was here in America.”
The German chuckled without humor. “You entered by supersonic from England. You have a diplomatic passport under the name Alex, rather than Ilya. You are supposedly a new military attache for your embassy.”
Ilya Simonov didn’t like it. If Distelmayer’s organization had already cracked his cover, there was no reason why the Americans couldn’t as well, and he needed time.
He said, “And why am I really here?”
For once, the German spy master’s voice was puzzled. “That I don’t know, my friend. Tell me, why?”
Ilya Simonov said, obviously reluctantly, “Ordinarily, we don’t like to use your services, Hans Distelmayer, but on this occasion I am afraid time might be of the essence, and you have a large organization.”
“Yours to command,” the other said jovially.
Ilya Simonov told him the purpose of his visit, mentioning the fact that neither the ambassador nor his three KGB men had ever heard of the organization in which Minister Blagonravov was interested.
“Where did Blagonravov hear about it?” the German spy master said interestedly.
“I don’t know. The Minister has a good many irons in the fire.”
When Simonov had finished the German held silence for a moment, then said, “Interesting situation. That is, your government’s involvement. Very well, I shall have a report for you shortly. If you have been apprehended by then, or have flown the country by that time, where shall I send it?”
“Directly to the Ministry in Moscow.”
“Very well. And payment, Colonel?”
“The usual. In gold, from Moscow, to your offices in Basel, Switzerland, immediately upon the receipt of your bill. But speed is important, Distelmayer.”
“It usually is,” the other chuckled.
X
Steve Hackett rubbed the end of his pug nose irritably. He looked up and down the street, before going into the underground. He couldn’t see anyone he knew, so down he went into the public transit system. Like Larry Woolford, he knew it wasn’t the thing to do in this status-conscious town, but he had left his car with Ruth that morning, her own being in the garage.
He took the subway to Alexandria and stared morosely out the window, though there was nothing to see in the tunnel. Steve Hackett was very unhappy.
He had done everything he could think of to do, and had assigned half a dozen others to assist him.
They had checked out every stoolpigeon within a fifty mile radius, men who had fingered pushers for them before. The world of the counterfeiter is small and its inhabitants even more prone to be susceptible to official pressure than other criminal elements. You caught a lower echelon pusher, made a deal with him to escape prosecution, freed him and then for the rest of all time you could twist his arm when you needed information. It was a dirty way to handle the business, perhaps, but no one had ever figured out another way.
His men had brought in a score of these contemptable informers. They had been worthless.
He remembered the first one. A stoolie who would probably wind up dead one of these days. He had been informing on his colleagues for some ten years now. It was a typical case. The other was still pushing himself; he probably knew no other manner of making a living, had probably been doing it from youth—whatever kind of youth he might have had. Steve took it easy on him. It was much better to have a pusher netting possibly a hundred dollars a week in your pocket and to have an informer who might finger for you the next echelon up, or two echelons, than to have him in prison. Hell, you could always throw him into prison if he became worthless to you so far as seeking out his superiors was concerned.
When the informer had entered his office, Steve had been even colder than usual. He had ignored the hand the other had hesitantly extended. Steve’s ugliness was an attribute in his trade. He wasn’t, but he had the reputation of being the most vicious, cold-blooded agent in Secret Service. People were afraid of him.
“Sit down,” he said.
“Yeah, sure.” The other’s name was Mike Edmonds. Steve had caught him, initially. The fool had been spending some of the crudest five dollar bills Steve had ever seen. The only reason he had survived at all was that he made a practice of passing the bills only in a very dim atmosphere—bars, dimly-lit restaurants, taxi-cabs, whorehouses; or sometimes in markets, at stands owned by immigrants, those less acquainted with the currency than the average.
More recently, Steve knew, Edmonds had been trying a new angle. He was pushing tens. He’d start off at about one o’clock in the morning and made the round of the cheaper bars down in the port area. He’d strike up an acquaintance, buy the other a drink, fish into his wallet and say, “Hey, you wouldn’t have two fives for a ten would you? I got this broad I’m screwing regular and always slip her a fiver, but if I didn’t have a five, I’d have to wind up giving her a ten.”
It usually didn’t occur to the sucker to suggest that Edmonds ask the bartender for the change, at this time of the morning he was too far gone. If he had two fives, they usually were passed on for the phoney ten. There were so many bars of this type in the area that Edmonds could keep on operating indefinitely.
But Steve wasn’t basically interested in Mike Edmonds. Not at this stage, at least. He knew where Edmonds stood. On the lowest rungs of the ladder. If the other—who wasn’t completely bright, or he wouldn’t be in this sucker game—graduated to the higher counterfeit echelons, then Steve would move in on him. But now? He was of more value as a stoolie than he would be in jail, where he belonged.
Steve eyed him now, very coldly.
Edmonds said nervously, “What’s up… Steve?”
“Mr. Hackett.”
“Oh, yeah, well, sure. But the last time I seen you we was calling each other by first names.”
Steve Hackett eyed him coldly for a long, long moment, and the other became increasingly nervous.
Steve said finally, “I gave you a break ten years ago, Edmonds. I’ve given you more than one other break, down through the years. How much time have you spent in the slammer, since I’ve been cooperating with you, giving you breaks you don’t deserve?”
Mike Edmonds licked nervous lips. “Only a year or so… Mr. Hackett.”
“Right. And now that something big has come up, you lay low.”
“Something big… Mr. Hackett?”
“Don’t give me that crap, Edmonds. If anybody in the racket would know, you would. There’s not a man in this town who knows more about pushing green goods than you do.”
The other wiped a moist hand over his mouth nervously. He knew very well that the man across the desk could send him over for as much as twenty years.
He stuttered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Hackett. You know I’ve always cooperated with you, like. I got a hard time these days. The old lady’s sick and all, and—”