The gun in the pocket poked warningly. Seven shrugged and set his hands on the first carton. Miles Running Bear Farmer selected another one. In no time at all, they were each attacking their job with some industry.
But it wasn’t as easy as the gun-bearing man had suggested. The cartons contained magazines, books, file folders and assorted office materiel. They had been packed to the fullest. They were crammed and jammed, bursting as it were. Yet it was as the man had said. Baroda would have had to place the microfilm close to the top of the right carton or box or container.
Ten boxes down, Seven paused to wipe a hand across his sweaty forehead. It was hot work. The office was close, there was no air conditioner and it was a hot July day. Farmer was puffing now, too.
“Don’t palm the item should you find it,” the man said. “The sooner it turns up the better for both of you.”
“Sure,” Seven agreed, “and then you’ll thank us and let us waltz on out of here. My foot.”
“David,” Farmer mocked, “you’ll make him angry with us.”
“I will? That’s nice.”
The man with the Henry Higgins hat and the dark pistol suddenly laughed. The sound was guttural and ugly in the golden gloom of the office.
“Continue,” he said. “Be as foolish as you like. But find the microfilm. That is all that interests me.”
David Seven nodded. “Righto, Governor. How about playing that radio while we’re busy? I could do with a spot of music.”
There was a tiny portable on the rather empty desk. Miles Running Bear Farmer looked at it as if he was seeing it for the first time. His brown face was almost startled. Then a dawning comprehension lit up his eyes.
“Yeah. The radio. That’s a swell idea.” Almost gleefully, he ripped open another carton, exploring the top with his big hands.
Seven approached another box. The man with the gun made not a move toward the radio. Seven shrugged.
“No music to soothe the savage beast?”
“No, my friends. No music. Please continue. Time is running out.” The man was emphatic in his denial.
The men of INTREX quietly and with sudden resolution went on with their unpacking. Their captor sat down on one corner of the desk, blocking the radio, his back to the window. He had produced the gun once more. It seemed more menacing then ever.
Time didn’t run. It crawled.
The only noises were the unsuccessful efforts of David Seven and Miles Running Bear Farmer to find the precious microfilm.
Suddenly, rather inexplicably, the radio began to play. It had to be the radio. What else could abruptly emit such a caterwaul of sounds, a jumble of voices and a high-pitched current of static?
There was a garbled, frightening squall of noise. The man on the desk jumped a foot as if his position on the corner of the desk had become a hot seat. He shot to the floor, whirling, his eyes blinking rapidly.
Just as he did so, Seven and Farmer stopped what they were doing and descended upon him from their vantage points close by. They formed an incredible flying wedge of muscle and co-ordinated movement. Calculated training does have its ultimate purpose.
The man in the Henry Higgins hat squeaked in fear and surprise, the dark gun thrusting upward. His pitted face came apart with fright and anger combined. His eyes popped.
The gun barked, the fast explosions it began to make rushing around the carton-stuffed office like the echoes of a bad argument.
And still the strange and curious radio sound continued to splutter and squawk. A medley of voices. Indistinguishable and parroty.
Like an LP record might sound, played at the wrong speed.
No one would have paid any attention to the taxicab shooting down Fifth Avenue. No one save a person looking for a cab on a hot day. But this one was full up and of no use even to the most frantic New Yorker. A steady, choking stream of traffic flowed South toward Fourteenth Street.
The three men sitting closely in the rear seat seemed very congenial friends. The man crushed in the middle, a jaunty Henry Higgins hat clamped down over his forehead, was smiling. Flanking him was a quiet-faced handsome man and a solemn, unsmiling Indian sort of a fellow. The Indian’s face was classic and proud.
“One word, dear heart,” David Seven smiled, “and I’ll blow you right out of this cab.” For emphasis, he prodded the middle man with the buried nose of his own gun. “Now, tell us your name, please.”
“Foreman. Peter Foreman.”
“That’s nice. Hear that, Miles? This is the Foreman of the operation.”
Miles Running Bear Farmer winced but he held a roll of microfilm up to the light, squinted at it, and then restored it to a safe place on his person. “No puns, please. Ask him if he has any friends.”
Seven complied. “Do you have any friends, Mr. Foreman?”
“I will tell you nothing,” growled Foreman, staring ahead in a surly manner.
“No friends. That’s sad. But it makes me happy. I don’t like you, Mr. Foreman. I don’t like your Mr. Baroda either. In fact, I dislike all spies.”
The taxicab driver’s face was a mask of wonder, reflected in the rear-view mirror. But there was no mistaking what he was. The face he bore could only have been achieved in a decade of driving a taxi. Grinding away, making decisions every five seconds, fighting for a place in the crowded New York streets.
“Dave,” Miles said warningly. “The driver.”
Seven smiled, raising his voice. “Him? We’re actors, buddy. Rehearsing for TV. Don’t mind us. Just running through our lines.”
“It’s your cab,” the driver said, his eyes wary. But a mild smile played on his face. He was interested, in spite of his native cynicism.
“Now, Mr. Foreman. We have the film, we have you. And your partner. If you cooperate, things will go easier on you. Wow, isn’t that a corny line, I ask you.”
Peter Foreman colored. “Stop. You have made a fool of me twice over. That business with the tape recorder. But I do not have to listen to this insufferable nonsense, do I? I will say no more.” He folded his arms determinedly and scowled ahead. Miles Running Bear Farmer chuckled.
“Don’t feel too bad. It’s fooled better men than you. Coming on loud like that, at the wrong speed, it would tend to startle a person.” He was too pleased with the efficacy of the stunt to quibble. Fast-thinking Seven had tipped him to it by asking about the radio and he had set the button on the tiny cigarette package tape recorder in his side pocket; the one he had used in the Mayflower. The sounds of his own voice and Seven’s, badly scrambled, had unified into a good effect.
“All right, Foreman,” Seven said, all the banter gone from his voice. “Here’s how it poses. For what you’ve done, or tried to do, the government would be interested in your spending a great deal of time behind bars. Maybe, with a war on, they could even have you shot. I don’t really know. But I’m a lawyer — an experienced one — I can tell you that things would go pretty much better for you if you turn state’s evidence.”
“You mean government’s evidence,” Farmer chipped in.
“Is that what I mean? Okay. How about it, Mr. Foreman?”
“No, for the last time,” Foreman said. “Do your worst. I will say nothing. I have failed.”
“You sure have,” Seven agreed. “And you won’t get another chance. This microfilm business is serious espionage, old boy. You may get life.”
He abandoned the subject and settled back against the cushions. He kept the nose of his gun jammed into Peter Foreman’s middle. The cab was air-conditioned, fortunately. Outside the windows, struggling, hot and weary human beings, reeled along the sidewalks and pavements. The flood tide of progress.