"Sir—"
"I warn you, don't anger me further," said Norris softly.
He waited. Norris turned his chair to look out the window, his method, Aubrey knew, of forcing himself to relax. "All right, then. No matter what, we've got to go ahead with the plan; the Allies need that shell. Vickery disapproved our changes, I assume."
"No, sir." He hoisted up his briefcase. "He liked everything but the message. His staff had some refinements to suggest. I have the amended plan here."
Norris took it and began leafing tbrough it. "I'll probably have some last-minute changes myself, although we've got to get this out — it's tonight, isn't it? That we have to carry out the interception?"
"Tomorrow morning, sir."
"I'd better hurry, then. Let's have a final briefing meeting at five today, to put the changes out verbally." He looked toward the door. "Dismissed."
"If I may ask about that, sir—"
"You may not. Obviously the only way to keep something secret around here is to keep it to myself. Accordingly, I'm not saying a word until five o'clock. Be there."
"Yes, sir." He saluted smartly.
Norris stared at him and sighed. "Do you like collies, Major?"
"Beg pardon, sir?"
"Collies. Because you know, Quidley, you're rather like one. Exquisite animals… but dumb. All the brains are bred out of them. No, don't bother to call me out. Even in this country, that's a little quixotic, isn't it?"
"I resent your personal remarks strongly, sir."
"Get out. Before you go — whatever became of that curfew violator you were examining? Herter?"
"Turner, sir. Ah, it turned out to be petty theft."
"Turn him over to the police?"
"He's been disposed of, sir."
"Right." Norris, to his intense relief, bent to his desk and did not pursue the subject. A moment later he looked up. "You still here?"
"No, sir." He saluted again, executed an about-face, and left. In the elevator, alone, he took the Leech & Rigdon out and aimed it at the wall and fantasized pumping seven rounds into the general's weaselly face. A collie! Maligning such a beautiful dog! But what did it have to do with him? He buttoned the holster down as the door slid open and wondered if he were being too hard on the man. Perhaps old Norris was losing interest, losing his grip.
Ten A.M. He sat at his desk in thought. After a time he shuffled through some papers. Jeannie brought him in a co-cola and that seemed to settle his stomach. He sat at the desk and looked out at the Bay and brooded over the affair of the message.
He'd typed it himself, on his own Twain here in the office. A triplicate message form. One had gone in his file. He rose and checked; it was still there, and only he had the combination to the cabinet. The original Jeannie had taken down to Norris. The intermediate pink copy he'd put in his own briefcase. He snapped it open and took out the slip of pink paper with the flimsy carbon sheet attached and stared at it. Gradually his eyes widened.
The middle copy. Hadn't there been two carbons attached when he slipped it into the case?
He pressed his forehead with his hands and then pulled cigarettes from the desk and lit one. There had been two carbons. He looked at the remaining one. The typed message, in reversed letters, was clearly visible on it.
Where had he gone that day? From the office he'd gone to the officer's mess for dinner with Sawyer. Then they'd parted and he'd gone to the house on Bute Street. He'd kept the briefcase with him even in the room with Vyry. After that, home, where Sharon Sue had been waiting outside. The next day he'd looked in on Turner and then taken the zep out to the Fleet. He remembered now that when he'd taken the message out to show Vickery there had been only one leaf attached. Sometime in between someone had opened his briefcase and taken the other.
A horrible feeling of doom, of treachery, was beginning to pervade him. He stubbed out the cigarette. It was unbearable.
It had to be Vyry.
Now that he thought about it, there'd been plenty of chances for her to take it. When he'd been in the bathroom. When they'd been walking he'd left the briefcase in her room. An accomplice could easily (well, not easily, but it was certainly possible) have finessed the lock and taken the document.
Why hadn't he been more careful! He saw it all now. Hadn't she said she'd been R&R'd for carrying Railroad literature? Why hadn't he thought? Instead he'd allowed himself to fall in love with her. Norris was right: He was a fool.
He jumped to his feet. There was only one way to salvage his career, but there was not a second to lose. He snatched at his phone. "Guard Section — this is Quidley, Port Security. Emergency One. Scout car and squad of troops at the main gate. On the double!"
He ran out. Sawyer was just stepping out of the elevator. He looked up in surprise as Quidley stormed down the hall. "Good Lord — what's up? That colored gal of yours got a hankerin'?"
"You armed? Good, come on. Earl, you were right."
"What about? Where we going?" Sawyer stared at him as the elevator purred downward.
"Going to the House."
"A li'l early, but long's we're back by five—"
"It's that woman. She's stolen classified material from me and passed it on to the Railroad."
Sawyer whistled.
They ran through the lobby. Roberts ran for the Bentley with the two officers on his heels. "To the gate, quick," Quidley shouted.
As they neared the main gate he noted with satisfaction that his telephone message was getting results. Two big Tredegar armored half-tracks were idling on the berm, emitting blue clouds of diesel haze, and armed troops were scrambling aboard. As Roberts braked a squad of motorcycle MPs arrived. Quidley leaned from the window and shouted to the driver of the lead half-track, "Follow me!"
The sound of engines built to a shattering roar as Roberts rolled onto 1he highway. He glanced back. "Major, sir — where we goin'?"
"CSAB. Bute Street. You know where it is."
"Yes, sir, where I been takin' you… but all these soldiers, the girls not goin' to—"
"Damn it man, step on it! And put your cap on!"
Two army cycles swept by them and settled into position ahead of the staff car, switching on their sirens. Looking back, he saw the Tredegars closing up. Gunners in the semienclosed top turrets were charging the machine guns. A light armored unit, by the silhouette a General Early, was emerging from the main gate as he lost sight of it. He turned forward again.
"You can move right smart when you want to," said Sawyer, a trace of admiration in his tone.
"Have to, sir. Only just realized it had to be her. We've got to get her and any accomplices before they disappear."
"Right."
The Bentley swayed as Roberts sent it hurtling over the Lafayette River Bridge. Colored folk, crabbing from the narrow sidewalks, leaped for safety as the motorcade screamed by, sirens wailing, engines roaring, flags flapping crisply. He reached for the Bentley's radio. "All units, this is Major Quidley. Our objective is the CSAB, Bute Street. Woman to be apprehended; possibly others. May be dangerous. I want a cordon thrown up on the lines York — Duke — Botetourt Streets. I'll go in alone."
Acknowledgments crackled and he signed off. "How'd you find out?" Sawyer asked him.
"Process of elimination. Only three people could have had access to the material in question. Two were obviously above suspicion. That left her. I should have seen it before, Earl, but…" He looked at Sawyer unhappily. "I thought that she — that I—"
"You loved her?"
"I thought I did."
"Listen to an older man, boy," said the colonel, slapping his beefy hand down on his shoulder. "Don't evuh get mixed up with the colored. We got to keep a pure race in this country or there just won't be nothing left in a hundred years. Mixin' your blood with theirs… that'll lead to no good end. My folks have always held with that down Mississippi, and I sincerely believe in it now."