“That is not difficult for a flying man, sir,” said the special agent. “We are used to traveling light and on short notice.”
“Evidently,” remarked the secretary. “I am told you left San Francisco for Washington only yesterday morning.”
“Yes, sir. The usually prevailing winds from West to East were unusually strong and helped me quite a bit. I had to make only one stop at Omaha.”
“Then you will need sleep, Mr. Reading. I shall have your passports, letters, and funds ready so that you may take the midnight train to New York.”
“If there is nothing to prevent, I should prefer to fly over this evening,” said Reading.
The secretary smiled again. “There is nothing to prevent. All the instructions you will require before leaving I shall give you now, verbally. I imagine that nothing would prevent you from flying on to Europe if a proper plane were placed at your disposal.”
“No, sir. Nothing but exceptionally stormy weather over the Atlantic.”
The statesman’s smile became a thoughtful frown. “You flying men make me feel as if I belonged back in another age.”
Something very nearly like that had been suggested not long before by Senator Borden, in a speech attacking the Administration and the State Department for holding up diplomatic recognition of Soviet Russia.
“But now to the point,” said the secretary, who loved this phrase but seldom conformed to it. “It will be necessary for you to sail on the Leviathan, for there will be a passenger aboard whose movements it will be your duty to observe.
“You have been chosen for this mission for several reasons. One is that it will involve flying and that as an investigator you are at home in that field. Another reason is that we are assured of your discretion. It is necessary that you know in advance what is involved.”
The secretary carefully and slowly wiped an eyeglass. He continued: “Despite nearly a decade of subversive activity by agents of the Soviet Government operating in the United States and in the countries to the South, the American Government has recently seriously considered resumption of diplomatic relations with Russia.
“We had come to believe that at last Moscow realized the futility of preaching revolution in other countries, and was ready to resume rightful obligations in the family of nations.”
Reading, remembering that the secretary had been a Senator, hoped he was not in for a speech.
“We received solemn assurances from the Soviet government,” said the secretary, “that our conditions would be met, and that not only would communist propaganda cease in the United States, but also in the Latin-American countries, where the ascendency of communist doctrine would be a source of apprehension to us.
“Three days ago we learned that Manuel Perez, whose activities we know have involved at least two Central American revolutions, and who has been a frequent visitor at Moscow in recent years, is again on his way to the Russian capital. He is on the Leviathan’s passenger list, and is ostensibly going to Paris for a holiday.
“Of course we could find an excuse to hold him and deport him to the southern port from which he came to New York, but we are most interested in learning whether his present journey means that Moscow is still active in the Americas.
“It will be your task to find out. I need not remind you that it is a delicate one.”
Reading inclined his head slightly.
“Your connection with the Air Mail service is known to the ship news reporters. If you are asked as to your purpose abroad it will be best to say that you are on leave and interested in observing the development of commercial aviation in Europe.
“It will be best, of course, not to attempt to follow Perez too closely when you reach the other side. If our information is correct he is likely to remain in Moscow for a week or two.
“Our embassy at Berlin has sources of information there, and after you reach Europe and before you go to Moscow it will keep you informed of any unexpected development.
“For the sake of appearances it will be advisable for you to spend a few days on the continental airways before starting for Moscow.
“As it is, the motives of your journey abroad may possibly be suspected; but that will make little difference, as Moscow watches closely the movements of all Americans who enter Russia, and you would be under surveillance in any event.”
Reading listened carefully to further detailed instructions, mainly as to methods of communication with the State Department through the European embassies. The great man shook hands with him and he took his leave.
The sun had dropped below the horizon of a roseate summer sky, and a twilight breeze from the southwest was speeding Reading’s plane toward the Atlantic seaboard. As he passed over the suburbs of Baltimore and headed across upper Chesapeake Bay he switched on his lights.
Then, three thousand feet below, under a faint purpling haze, twinkled the lights of Wilmington — Philadelphia and Camden — the Delaware River and Trenton — the great airship hangar at Lakehurst, with the Los Angeles, which had flown across the Atlantic from Germany, floating idly from its tall mast — Hadley Field at New Brunswick, the eastern terminal of the Transcontinental Air Mail Line.
He was expected, and the flood lights of the field made his night landing as easy as one at noon. He had left Washington a little less than two hours before. Before midnight he was asleep in his hotel in New York.
II
Jim reading had returned from France a famous ace. His exploits in the Air Mail Service had added to his fame. He realized that it would be best not to dodge the ship news men, for if it became known after he sailed that he had made a mysterious departure, suspicion and conjecture might arise. This was, paradoxically, a secret mission which would have to be carried out largely in the open.
His replies to the reporters were truthful enough, so far as they went. The Secretary of State was pleased to observe, the morning after the Leviathan sailed, that Reading’s departure had been dismissed with a few paragraphs, and these buried under the news that Mary Garden had denied, before sailing for a grand opera star’s summer holiday abroad, that she had proposed marriage to Gene Tunney.
On the second afternoon at sea he was invited to make a fourth at shuffleboard and was introduced by a shipboard acquaintance to Manuel Perez as an opponent. There was none of the sinister spy about Perez. A handsome little Latin-American, his ivory smile well known in a hundred cafés in Central and South America and in Europe, he made friends easily.
Most of those who had met him on shipboard and in Paris, Madrid, London, Moscow, Berlin, New York and the Latin-American capitals probably classified him as one of the numerous wealthy Argentinians whose restless pleasure-loving take them everywhere.
He smiled engagingly as he bowed and shook hands with the wiry sandy-haired American. “Ah, I have often read of Captain Reading. I am glad we are opposed only at shuffleboard, rather than in the air.”
Reading’s squinty blue-gray eyes returned Perez’s smile. “You are a flyer, Mr. Perez?”
“Not an accomplished one, captain. I learned to love air travel on visits to Europe and recently I have been taking lessons in piloting.”
Reading was about to ask him whether he intended to do much air traveling in Europe on the present trip, but thought better, of it and decided not to.
“You will fly in Europe?” Perez asked Reading.
“I am not taking a plane with me, but I am interested in the development of commercial aviation in Europe, and while I am on leave I expect to use the opportunity to see something of it — riding as a passenger.”