"So far," Nick said. The girl nodded and studied the tip of the cigarette she had lit.
"Very well. These two pieces of luggage are yours, Cane. Miss Baron has her own. And, as I indicated earlier, I shall expect her to tone down her appearance. Appropriately sober clothes have been provided. A somewhat less apparent aura of sophistication would be in order. In other words, Miss Baron," the old man finished crisply, "I want you to look a little less like Mata Hari."
Julia raised her eyebrows and stretched languidly.
"Dragon Lady, they used to call me in Peking." She laughed with genuine pleasure, and took off her hat. Nick noticed that her front teeth were slightly crooked. The lady of mystery was transformed into a gamin. Dark hair fell over her forehead, released from hat and pins, and she swept it back with a toss of the head and a slender hand. The earrings came off, revealing small, delectably shaped ears. Nick watched with growing approval. Hmmm. Perhaps this wouldn't be bad after all.
"That's better," Hawk grunted. "All right, Miss Baron — enough."
"What about Miss Baron's information, sir?" Nick prodded.
Hawk took a slow puff on his cigar. "As I said, it was a scrap, not a hard-and-fast fact. But it ties together with what we've begun to suspect. We think we know who we're dealing with now. Do you remember the old files on Mr. Judas?"
"Judas!" Nick was caught by surprise.
"Yes," Hawk said grimly, and tasted the name. "Mr. Judas. Our old friend of the European wars. Miss Baron's duties on the other side led her frequently — and quite dangerously, I might add — into high places. On several occasions she caught fragments of conversation, and even of action, that led her to conclude that a man named Judas was working, in some capacity, for the Red Chinese. Now, am I right, Miss Baron: you had never heard of Judas before?"
"That's right," she said seriously. "The name meant nothing to me. Until I checked with Washington and they sent a courier with the background information. Then I thought I'd better fly in at once."
"So it wasn't just an assumption on your part that the man they were talking about was Mr. Judas?"
"No, it wasn't. I wasn't even sure I had the name right, at first."
"It ties in, Cane. While you were away AXE and the CIA were adding to their trouble-pattern files. It looks as though Judas is still trying to play all countries against each other, still selling to the highest bidder. It would appear that he has found a market for his wares with the Chinese Reds. Just as he did with the Italian Fascists, the Nazis and the Communists during the war. The man has a genius for the subversive, for anything aimed at the perpetuation of world strife. We believe he's shown his hand again; this thing has his stamp on it."
Nick frowned. "It does. It's just the bastard's style. But I thought he was dead?"
Hawk nodded. "We did too. That last touch-and-go in the Alps should have been his sign-off. But his body was never recovered in the wreckage of the Chalet Internationale. So, even though we thought we detected his hand in that business at Puerto Blanco and the revolution in Hidalgo, we couldn't very well pin it on him. But things have been boiling in the last day or two. Interpol and the combined security services have finally managed to put together enough data to convince Washington that we have a target. Miss Baron's story turned the trick. And your accidental involvement in the last explosion, Cane, brought everything to a head. Lucky you were there. Of course, we still can't be positive that it's Judas we're after, but everything points to it."
"Red!" said Nick suddenly.
"What?" Hawk stared at him.
"The cable from 'Red.' Judas-colored. The first Judas is supposed to have had red hair."
"You're not suggesting..."
"No, I haven't the faintest idea what Judas looks like. Maybe he's bald, I don't know. But for a code name meaning Judas, it's not bad. Especially for someone working for the Reds."
"Perhaps that's all it means. No, I think you're right." Hawk frowned thoughtfully. " 'Red' for 'Communist' is just a bit too pat. 'Red' for 'Judas,' though... I like that Yes, I like that. Judas is back, all right, and we have to get him."
Julia reached silently for another cigarette.
"Let's recap," Hawk went on. "Someone, almost certainly Judas, has now manufactured four aeronautical coups, under cover of accidental occurrence, to eliminate four powerful enemies of Red China." He ticked them off on his leathery fingers. "Burns, Tal Barin, La Dilda and Valdez. Four staunch allies of the U.S. and all peace-loving countries, at least one of which is now in turmoil. But the accident theory doesn't wash any more. The CIA has come through with information unavailable to CAB and local officials. Those disasters were not crashes. All four were almost certainly deliberate explosions. On that premise, we can move ahead. Four planes were somehow bombed, and there may be more."
"Three planes," Nick reminded. "Valdez blew up. Not the plane."
Hawk's eyes hardened. "I was coming to that. Who bombs a man if he's the prime target? Suppose you take it from there."
"Well, if we begin with the premise that all the so-called accidents were caused by planted explosives, and that three took place on planes and one took place after a passenger debarked, we could assume that passengers have been used to take explosives aboard. Probably unknowingly, and certainly unknowingly in the case of Valdez. What a wicked bit that would be! Having your victim carry his own death around with him." He was silent for a moment as he sorted out the facts. "On the other hand, Rita Jameson's story would indicate that, in one case at least, explosives were sent on board, not carried. Who uses bombs on airplanes? Somebody who doesn't give a damn about human life as long as he gets his own victim. Why make an exception in the case of Valdez? It wasn't supposed to be an exception. He was also supposed to take the plane with him. And why — to kill everybody with him? I don't think so. To destroy the plane and, with it, evidence that the explosion was aimed at any particular individual."
"I think you've got it there, Cane. The break from the pattern is the very thing that made us certain there is a pattern." Hawk started pacing. "We only suspected foul play in the other three crashes. Valdez's ill-timed death takes the accident out and puts the design in. The fact of your presence on the scene helped, too." He shook his head and made a futile gesture. "I'm sorry about that girl, I really am. I wish she could know that she's helped us. Because her story to you about her pilot friend and the unexplained baggage tag helped us extract some information from London that they hadn't realized was important. Then we were sure of two deliberate, wholesale murders. And the attacks on you, because of your association with the girl, perhaps because of your mere presence on the scene, have been of inestimable help."
"Glad to be of service," murmured Nick ironically.
Hawk ignored that. "But it looks as though Valdez is the main key. He has to be. If we know how that bomb was secreted on his person, and how it was possible to do that without his knowledge, then we'd know a lot. It might be, as you say, that he was tricked in some way. Still, your account of the explosion does seem to indicate the blast originated in that steel hand..."
Nick shook his head slowly.
"I could be mistaken, sir. It happened pretty fast. Perhaps it had something else to do with his hand. Maybe when he raised it, the movement acted as some sort of signal to — well, perhaps to Seersucker on the observation deck. Or maybe it activated some land of remote control device."
Hawk thought it over. "I wonder what 'A. Brown' was doing at the time. Seersucker strikes me as more of a gun-and-grenade killer. No, I can't buy that. It has to fit the plane bombings."