My bag was one of the first to show up on the luggage carousel. I snatched it up and headed for the nearest men’s room. The quarter spent for the privacy of a pay toilet was a typical operational expense. Inside the cubicle, I removed my jacket and hung it on the hook on the inside of the locked door.
I unzipped the side compartment of my bag and took out the soft chamois holster which held Wilhelmina, my, sleek, 9 mm Luger. I secured the holster around my chest so the weapon fit snugly under my left armpit. It’s such a familiar adjunct to my person that I feel undressed without it.
Next I strapped a flat, leather scabbard containing Hugo, a modified British World War II commando knife, to my right forearm. In practiced hands, it’s one of the deadliest weapons ever devised. Mine had its tapered blade shortened to four inches. Four inches is more than enough. Both heart and jugular vein are buried less than three inches inside a man’s body. The reduced blade length altered the original balance, but didn’t hinder my ability to put the gnarled handle instantly in my fingers by a supinating flip of my wrist.
The final weapon of my three-part arsenal was Pierre, a spherical, compact gas bomb which is kept concealed between my legs. It nestles high in my crotch, much like a displaced third testicle, a special, lightweight carrying harness making it both inconspicuous and comfortable.
After pulling up and belting my trousers, I rolled down my loose-cuffed shirt sleeve and put on my jacket. I was much more confident emerging from the stall, but the sight of a uniformed security guard standing just inside the rest room door still triggered a mild warning. I crossed over to the row of wash basins and turned on the water, unobtrusively using the looking glass in front of me as a rearview mirror.
I watched as the armed guard licked his lips then stuffed a hand inside his jacket. The holstered revolver at his side was in plain sight. It could be a decoy to make me incautious while he drew out some devilish device from his coat. Before he could reverse his hand movement, Wilhelmina was in my hand, the safety off, and finger pressure easing back on the trigger.
The man froze, his fingers as well as his eyes opened wide. “Don’t!” was all he could get out of his mouth before it remained silent and gaping. I drew back my pistol so it was concealed behind the flap of my jacket. The muzzle pointed at the belly of the open-mouthed guard.
“Over here!” I ordered. “Now, before someone comes in and gets in my line of fire.”
He stammered as he shuffled forward cautiously. His voice was high-pitched. “You got me wrong, mister,” he whined. His prominent Adam’s apple bobbed as he talked. “You don’t understand. What I got for you is just an envelope. Came by special messenger. It’s here, in my pocket.” He was wise enough not to point to it.
He could be telling the truth. Before I accepted him, or any envelope, I had to have some answers. “Why didn’t you have me called to a courtesy phone so I’d know what you were up to?”
“Hell, man, I don’t know who you are. I wasn’t given a name. Jeez... I don’t think I want to know who you are. Just let me give you the envelope and get out of here.”
“Then how were you able to identify me?”
“Not you. Your luggage. Look, I don’t know who your friends are, but they were able to get all incoming baggage off of Flight 131 passed through the X-ray scanner. Then your bag came out on the carousel with a strip of green tape pasted on both sides of your baggage tag. That’s what I was to look for. There must be something in your bag that showed up special. Something no one else would be carrying.”
There was: Wilhelmina, Hugo and Pierre. Hawk would know that, of course. Normal AXE procedures for contacting an agent in the field would preclude any use of the public address system. I looked down at my bag. The narrow strip of colored tape on the tag had escaped me. I reholstered my pistol. “You were taking a chance, cornering me in here like this.”
The young, perspiring man was breathing easier. “I know that now. I didn’t expect to run into anybody who’d be so uptight. I wasn’t supposed to pass the packet to you in the open. This was the first chance I had. Can I give it to you now?”
The kid was probably straight, but I remained leery. I backed up two steps. “All right. Take it out. Slowly... real slow. Keep it in plain sight. Place it face up here on the basin counter. Then back away, turn around and go out. I don’t want to see you anywhere in sight when I come out. Got that?”
The relieved man did exactly as he was told.
The sealed envelope was fat. I picked it up by pinching a corner between two fingers. The guard hadn’t exercised that much care, so it probably was exactly what he said it was. Only he wasn’t planning to open it. I held it up against the lights above the mirrors. No interior wires. The name typed on the front — Amalgamated Press & Wire Service — was reassuring. When I read the additional words: Department N3, any lingering doubts faded.
It contained a xeroxed copy of the findings of a team of psychiatrists stationed at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver. The subject of the report was Colonel Keith Martin. The routing indicated that the results had not been sent back to Letterman General Hospital, although Keith Martin was. Marginal comments in Hawk’s peculiar scribble revealed that the report had been taken out of normal channels to be pigeonholed by the army surgeon general. It became a special controlled case kept in locked, classified files.
During the eleven mile ride on the Bayshore Freeway, I seldom looked outside. My head was buried in the strange report. Hawk must have employed some fast-fingered techniques to get his hands on it. Long distance telephone facsimile transmission had brought the five-page analysis to San Francisco well ahead of me. I finished reading and looked out to orient myself. Candlestick Park was on the right. So was the bay. The water was gray and choppy. I refolded the sheets of the report and stuffed them back into the envelope.
They told me a lot about Keith Martin that few people knew. The summary was detailed, interesting... and a little scary.
At Fitzsimons, Martin had been given numerous tests which included injections of sodium Pentothal, hypnosis, word association techniques and extensive sessions with psychologists and psychiatrists. He was judged to be reasonably cooperative at first. Later he showed resentment and exhibited marked instability. Periods of deep depression were noted. At times he reached the threshold of unpredictable violence. He had deep-seated frustrations while awake and disturbing nightmares when asleep.
Despite the many negative aspects of the evaluations, the final prognosis was noticeably upbeat. With one exception, the doctors at Fitzsimons were unanimous in predicting that Martin’s volatile behavior tendencies would diminish as he adjusted to a normal, peace-time environment. Prolonged out-patient treatment was recommended.
An appendage to the report showed that treatment was given over a considerable period. It also contained stipulation that Martin not be assigned to duty with a combat command. He could not serve with combat-ready troops or be allowed to observe any realistic battle maneuvers. The surgeon general concurred. He restricted Martin to limited duty on a quiet staff job where all undue pressure would be avoided.
The report supplied me with useful insight into the character of the man I would be seeking in the Bay Area. One warning came through loud and clear: Keith Martin had to be approached with care. If I did get a tag on him, I certainly would not push him. My translation of the technical jargon used by the psychiatrists impressed upon me that Martin, if overexcited, could react in an erratic, dangerous manner.
With my head together once again, and the report on Martin digested, I tried to fit in the actions of Layton and Wyler. The treatment they gave me seemed inconsistent with what they hoped to achieve. It was mild compared to what they could have done. If they wanted me out of circulation, why not haul me off somewhere and keep me incommunicado until Martin reappeared in Washington?