He got down and out without mishap. Within an hour he had performed the same feat atop another building and again got away unchallenged. His next move was to purchase another typewriter, paper, envelopes, a small hand-printing set. It was still only mid-day when he returned to his room and set to work as fast as he could go. The task continued without abate all that day and most of the next day. When he had finished the hand-printer and typewriter slid silently into the lake.
The result was the placing in his case of two hundred and twenty letters for future use and the immediate mailing of another two hundred and twenty to those who had received his first warning. The recipients, he hoped, would be far from charmed by the arrival of a second letter with a third yet to come.
Hage-Ridarta was the second.
The list is long.
After lunch he consulted yesterday’s and today’s newspapers at which he’d been too busy to look before now. The item he sought was not there: not a word about the late lamented Butin Arhava. Momentarily he wondered whether anything had gone wrong, whether the Gurd-Skriva brothers had jibbed at his choice of a victim or whether they were merely being slow on the uptake.
The general news was much as usual. Victory still loomed nearer and nearer. Casualties in the real or mythical A. Centauri battle were now officially confirmed at eleven Sirian warships, ninety-four Terran ones. That data was given a front-page spread and a double column of editorial hallelujahs.
On an inner page, in an inconspicuous corner, it was announced that Sirian forces had abandoned the twin worlds of Fedira and Fedora, the forty-seventh and forty-eighth planets of the empire, “for strategic reasons.” It was also hinted that Gooma, the sixty-second planet, might soon be given up also, “in order to enable us to strengthen our positions elsewhere.”
So they were admitting something that could no longer be denied, namely, that two planets had gone down the drain with a third soon to follow. Although they had not said so it was pretty certain that what they had given up the Terrans had grabbed. Mowry grinned to himself as words uttered in the cake-shop came back to his mind.
“For months we have been making triumphant retreats before a demoralised enemy advancing in utter disorder.” He went along the road, called the Cafe Susun. “Did you collect?”
“We did,” said Skriva, “and the next consignment is overdue.”
“I’ve read nothing about it”
“You wouldn’t nothing having been written”
“Well, I told you before that I pay when I’ve had proof. Until I get it, nothing doing. No proof, no dough.”
“We’ve got the evidence. It’s up to you to take a look at it.”
Mowry thought swiftly. “Still got the dyno handy?”
“Yar.”
“Maybe you’d better meet me. Make it the ten-time hour. same road, Marker den-8”
The car arrived dead on time. Mowry stood by the marker, a dim figure in the darkness of night with only fields and trees around. The car rolled up, headlights glaring. Skriva got out, took a small sack from the trunk, opened its top and exhibited its contents in the blaze of the lights.
“God in heaven!” said Mowry, his stomach jumping.
“It’s a ragged job,” admitted Skriva. “He had a tough neck, the knife was blunt and Gurd was in a hurry. What’s the matter? You squeamish or something?”
“I’d have liked it less messy. A bullet would have been neater.”
“You’re not paying for neatness. If you want it done sweet and clean and tidy say so and jack up the offer.”
“I’m not complaining”
“You bet you’re not. Butin’s the boy who’s entitled to gripe.” He kicked the sack. “Aren’t you, Butin?”
“Get rid of it,” ordered Mowry. “It’s spoiling my appetite.”
Letting go a grim chuckle, Skriva tossed the sack into an adjacent ditch, put out a hand. “The money.”
Giving him the package, Mowry waited in silence while the other checked the contents inside the car with the help of Gurd. They thumbed the neat stack of notes lovingly, with much licking of lips and mutual congratulations.
When they had finished Skriva chuckled again. “That was twenty thousand for nothing. We couldn’t have got it easier.”
“What d’you mean, for nothing?” Mowry asked.
“We’d have done it anyway, whether you’d named him or not. Butin was making ready to talk. You could see it in the slimy soko’s eyes. What d’you say, Gurd?”
Gurd contented himself with a neck-wringing gesture.
Leaning on the car’s door, Mowry said, “I’ve got another and different kind of job for you. Feel like taking it on?”
Without waiting for response he exhibited another package.
“In here are ten small gadgets. They’re fitted with clips and have thin lengths of cable attached. I want these contraptions fastening, to telephone lines in or near the centre of Pertane. They’ve got to be set in place to that they aren’t visible from the street but the cables can be seen hanging down.”
“But,” objected Skriva, “if the cables can be seen it’s only a matter of time before somebody traces them up to the gadgets. Where’s the sense of hiding what is sure to be found?’”
“Where’s the sense of me giving you good money to do it?” Mowry riposted.
“How much?”
“Five thousand guilders apiece. That’s fifty thousand for the lot”
Skriva pursed his lips in a silent whistle.
“I can check whether you’ve actually fixed them,” Mowry went on, “so don’t try kidding me, see? We’re in business together. Better not kiss the partnership goodbye.”
Grabbing the package, Skriva rasped, “I think you’re crazy but who am I to complain?”
Headlights brightened, the car set up a shrill whine and rocked away. Mowry watched until it had gone from sight, then he tramped back into Radine, made for the public booths and phoned Kaitempi H.Q. He was careful to keep his scanner switched off and try give his voice the singsong tones of a native Jaimecan.
“Somebody’s been decapitated.”
“Hi?”
“There’s a head in a sack near Marker 8-den on the road to Pertane.”
“Whos’ that talking? Who—”
He cut off, leaving the voice to gargle futilely. They’d follow up the tip, no doubt of that. It was essential to his plans that authority should find the head and identify it. In this respect he was persuading the Kaitempi to help play his game and he got quite a bit of malicious satisfaction out of it. He went to his hotel, came out, mailed two hundred and twenty letters.
Butin Urhava was the third.
The list is long.
That done, he enjoyed an hour’s stroll before bedtime, pacing the streets and as usual pondering the day’s work. It would not be long, he thought, before someone became curious about hanging cables and an electrician or telephone engineer was called in to investigate. The inevitable result would be a hurried examination of Jaimec’s entire telephone system and the discovery of several more taps.
Authority would then find itself confronted with three unanswerable questions, all of them ominous: who’s been listening, for how long, and how much have they learned?
He did not envy those in precarious power who were being subjected to this mock build-up of treachery while elsewhere the allegedly defeated Terrans were gaining sanctuary by taking over Sirian planets one after another. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown—but infinitely more so when a wasp crawls into bed with it.