The line went dead. In one smooth movement Shaw replaced the handset and got out of bed. At once he dragged on his trousers. Pullman had said come right over, and Pullman meant exactly what he said. There wouldn’t be any bath or breakfast now.
Pullman’s face was quite grey with worry and fatigue and the eyebrows were moving up and down fast as he gave Shaw the details. He said, ‘We don’t know who in heck they were and no one in any of the other apartments saw anything, or even heard anything. But whoever they were, they made a darn good job of it. The apartment looked as if a bomb had hit it.’
Shaw asked, ‘How did you get to hear about it, sir?’
Pullman gave him a sharp look. ‘If you mean does anyone know of her occasional connexion with this office, the answer’s no. It was sheer chance, just one of those things. She’d taken some work home from her office. There was a rush on, and some of the staff were working through the night to produce some report or other for a senator who wanted to use it today. Well, she’d taken a file which was needed back in the office, harmless non-classified stuff but they couldn’t get along without it. So they rang her — and there was only a dead line, because it had been cut. They sent a clerk round but he couldn’t make her hear. When he got back to the office, the man in charge got the wind up and rang my duty officer… the Pentagon’s like that, no one takes any chances. My man got worried because I’d asked for the file on her before I went home — and he called me. I went right along.’ He paused, ran a hand through his hair. ‘Don’t know what those bastards were looking for in her apartment, or whether they found it, but they left this.’
He passed a sheet of cheap, lined notepaper across to Shaw. Shaw picked it up, looked automatically for a watermark. As he had expected, there was none. A pencilled message was written on it in capitals. It read; Shaw lay off or the girl gets it where it hurts most.
Shaw read it in silence, then handed it back. He said, ‘A trifle corney. But they evidently know I’m here. That’s not so good. Where’s the leak, sir?’
Pullman shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me. Maybe it was back in Britain. Let’s just say their intelligence service seems to work — whoever “they” are.’
‘How much does Patricia O’Malley know, sir?’
‘About Warmaster? Nothing, of course. Other things maybe — but not that.’
‘So she won’t be all that much use to them?’
‘None at all, I’d say, but…’ he spread his hands.
‘But they won’t know that?’
‘Precisely, Commander.’
Shaw’s lips tightened. ‘What’ll they do to her?’
‘Your guess,’ Pullman answered heavily, ‘is just as good as mine. We’ve got to get her back quick, that’s all. And,’ he emphasized, ‘there’s just one thing I don’t want and won’t have: the police. They don’t come into this. How d’you feel about that?’
Shaw said, ‘Pretty badly, for the girl’s sake. But I realize you’re dead right, sir. Will you let me handle it?’
‘That’s just what I was going to suggest, Commander. How d’you propose to go about it?’
‘I’d like to see Miss O’Malley’s apartment first, if you can fix that, then I’m heading for New York right away. She mentioned a man, a German called Fleck, in New York. Rudolf Fleck.’ He told Pullman what Patricia had said. ‘I think it could be worth following up, in the absence of any other lead.’
Pullman said, ‘Rudolf Fleck. I’ll have a check made right away, see if we know of him. As you say — a German would fit, with that dock in mind. While that’s being done, I’ll come to Rainbow Boulevard with you.’ He picked up a telephone and spoke to an aide, ordering an immediate check on the German. The he got up and came round the desk and put a hand on Shaw’s shoulder. Looking up into the British agent’s face, he said quietly, ‘Anything you want, call on me personally. I’ll keep right behind the scenes but I’ll see you get all you need — so far as I can. I guess it really gets me to have women involved in this kind of dirt.’
The girl’s apartment yielded precisely nothing.
As Pullman had said, it was a shambles. It looked pathetic, Shaw thought, when compared with the way it had looked so short a time before, when everything had been warm and comfortable. Now, every drawer, every cupboard, was turned right out, its contents scattered all over the floor. Ornaments lay broken, jars of face-cream, even, had been smashed and gouged out; the upholstery of the chairs, the mattress in the bedroom, the very wallpaper and the drapes, had all been ripped up with knives. It had a look of wanton savagery with no purpose behind it. There was nothing left intact. Pullman insisted on nothing being touched, but Shaw guessed there wouldn’t be any fingerprints anywhere; whoever had done this job would have worn gloves. There were drops of blood on the carpet in the sitting-room, leading towards the door and then along the hall, though they ceased some three feet inside the outer door as if someone had suddenly realized that blood outside the apartment might be a premature give-away and had put a bandage on to stop the drip. So there had been a struggle and someone, almost certainly the girl, had got hurt. Over by an upturned chair lay Patricia’s ball of wool and the piece of knitting. The latter had been pulled to shreds and it, too, carried bloodstains.
Before they left a messenger came with a sealed envelope for Pullman. He ripped it open, read the contents, grunted and said briefly, ‘Nothing on Fleck. You’ll be working in the dark, Commander. Right in the dark.’
‘I’m quite used to that. What about this apartment, sir?’
Pullman said, ‘I’ll lock it and take the key. I’ll find a way of spreading the word around that Miss O’Malley’s gone away for a week or so. I’ve already been on to Personnel and no one’ll talk there, but if you don’t get results I’ll have to eat my words and go to the police, of course. Can’t leave the girl to those bastards… but I hope to hell it doesn’t happen that way, Commander, or my reputation’ll be in a worse state than this apartment is right now. The Navy won’t be able to get rid of me fast enough. Not that I’m letting that make my decisions for me,’ he added. ‘It’s the security aspect.’
Shaw nodded. He said, ‘Perhaps, if the story looks like breaking, the Navy Department won’t want the police in any more than you do.’
‘I reckon you may be dead right at that,’ Pullman snapped, ‘and that doesn’t help Patricia O’Malley any, or me.’ He looked at his watch. ‘If there’s nothing else you want here, Commander, we’ll get back to the Pentagon. I’ll give you a car, and by the time you get to the airfield I’ll have fixed a seat for you on the next flight out for New York. I’ll make it priority, so you’ll be okay even if some unlucky businessman has to be shifted to hell out. I’ll have an apartment booked for you in case you’re staying, in the Hotel New Yorker on 34th and 8th.’
‘No.’ Shaw shook his head as they moved to the door. ‘Not the New Yorker, sir! Nothing so posh… I’d like you to book me in at a place called the Shamrock, on West 104th.’
Pullman stared, his eyebrows twitching. ‘I don’t know West 104th personally, but it sounds as if it could be a pretty lousy sort of joint.’
‘Check! I’ve a nodding acquaintance with New York City myself. But I’ve a feeling it might be a good jumping-off ground all the same. You see, Rosemary Houston stayed there — with Fleck.’
Chapter Nine
New York was as cold as he had left it only the day before. The city lay under a thin powdering of snow, with more to come in the metallic grey sky, a threatening sky, which seemed to fit the dangerous and uncertain nature of Shaw’s job. All the way in the plane, and then in the cab which he took to West 104th Street, he had been thinking about that test and wondering just why Pullman had been so worried about it, why there had been that curious air of tension in the Pentagon. Pullman’s worry, he felt, went way beyond a very natural anxiety to get the U.S test over before Russia was ready with her missile. He hoped the American wasn’t holding back on anything; he didn’t really think that could be the case, in the circumstances… Pullman wouldn’t have revealed so much without going all the way, surely.