“They exist. The Far Eastern Trading Corporation is run by a guy called Takamori, who represents a big industrial group in Japan. He has bought three million dollars’ worth of industrial diamonds. He has got government permission to release the diamonds and he is shipping them to Tokyo from San Francisco. This is the consignment Green is talking about. The diamonds are there all right. It depends on Green if you get them or not.”
“What about the three guys who are to help him?”
“I've got them fixed, Joe Franks and Marty Lewin will ride with him. Sam Meeks will handle the car.”
Ben frowned.
“Who are they? They're not our men, are they?”
Borg shook his head. Ben could almost hear the thick fat around Borg's neck creak as he moved his head.
“We don't want our guys on this job. These three will be seen by the crew and the passengers. They could be identified. We don't want to give the cops any trouble. I picked them from San Francisco. They go back as soon as the job is done. We don't want the cops to hook us to the job, do we?”
“That's right. They're okay?”
“They're okay.”
“So you think we're going to get away with this job?”
Borg lifted his black, heavy eyebrows.
“It depends on Green. If he isn't a bluffer as well as a phoney, we will get away with it.”
Ben nodded.
“He may be a phoney, but I'll stake my life he isn't a bluffer. He's just as keen on this job as I am. I think he'll pull it off.”
Berg's fat, puffy face remained expressionless, but there was an edge to his breathless voice as he said, “He'd better pull it off.”
“You've been over his plan with him?”
“Sure. He's certainly got it figured out. The guy's smart. He's taken care of everything I can see. It depends if he can bring the plane down without a smash-up. He says he can, but if it's dark, he'll have a job. He's picked a good spot. I've been out there. The sand's hard and flat. It's about thirty miles from Sky Ranch airport. I'll meet him at the airport and collect the diamonds. Our three guys will fly from there to San Francisco. I've fixed for them to go in an air taxi. Green says he's arranged his own transport.”
Ben grunted, brooded for a long moment, then asked, “Did you get anywhere with Glorie Dane?”
“She's skipped.” Berg's eyebrows came down in a frown. “She never went back to her apartment after seeing you. Want me to take it further?”
Ben shook his head.
“No: to hell with her. I don't think she's hooked up in this. Forget it.” He opened a drawer and took out two pink slips of paper and pushed them across the desk to Borg. “That's Green's pay-off. What's to stop him jumping the gun as soon as he's got the money?”
“I’ll stop him,” Borg said. “I've talked to Lewin and Franks. They know the setup. They'll watch him. If he looks like trying a double cross, they'll put a slug into him. I'll stick with him until he's on the aircraft. Lewin and Franks will take care of him until they get to Sky Ranch airport. They're good boys. He won't pull anything on them.”
Ben nodded.
“Okay. Looks like I'm going to make me some money,” he said and got to his feet.
Borg looked at him from out of his ebony, hooded eyes.
“That's what it looks like,” he said.
chapter three
I
Fifty minutes before the scheduled take-off, they arrived at the airport in an old Roadmaster Buick. Borg was at the wheel; Harry sat beside him. Lewin and Franks were at the back.
“Over to your right,” Harry said, as Borg drove through the gates into the parking lot. “Far end. We'll be able to see the aircraft from there.”
Borg drove down the tarmac, lined on either side by parked cars, and manoeuvred the car into a space by a white wooden fence that cut the parking lot off from the airfield.
Under a battery of lights, a hundred yards away, stood a twin-engined Moonbeam. Five men in white coveralls were checking the plane. A girl in the C.A.T.A. uniform was supervising the loading of a number of canisters from a four-wheel truck into the plane. Harry recognized the girl. Her name was Hetty Collins.
He had flown with her two or three times, and knew her to be a smart and efficient hostess. He wondered who the crew captain was going to be, and if he would be anyone he knew.
He was feeling cold, and there was a tight band across his chest that made breathing difficult. His hands sweated and his mouth was dry.
This was it, he kept telling himself. In another hour I'll be at the controls, bringing her down in the desert. That is if the crew don't act heroic and start a fight. His stomach tightened at the thought. The two sitting behind him were killers. If anyone started trouble they would shoot. He had no doubt about that.
Lewin was a small guy, around thirty. His face was thin, granite hard, his eyes restless. Franks was over fifty, tall, bulky, with a coarse, brutal face, small pig's eyes and a disconcerting twitch that kept jerking his head.
But they were as nothing compared to Borg.
Borg unnerved Harry. He had never encountered anyone like him before. He felt the menace in him as one feels the menace in a sleeping tiger. He knew this man was deadly. Whereas Lewin and Franks were brainless thugs who killed because they were paid to kill, Harry had a feeling that Borg would kill because it would please him to kill. It made him fed slightly sick to be sitting next to him, to listen to his short, wheezing breathing and to the disgusting bubbling sound he made with his thick lips from time to time.
“Is that it?” Borg asked, pointing a thick finger at the aircraft.
“That's her,” Harry said. “When they have fuelled and checked her, they'll run her over to those sheds over there to the right. We have plenty of time.”
Borg grunted, fumbled for a cigarette, lit it and slumped back in his seat.
While they waited, Harry thought back over the past four days. He had taken care of everything. By now Harry Green was a notorious character. He wasn't likely to be forgotten. When his description appeared in the newspapers, there would be at least a dozen people to come forward and claim that they knew him.
He thought of Glorie and wondered what she was doing at this moment. He had written to her, giving her his final arrangements. He had told her he was handing the diamonds to Borg at the Sky Ranch airport As soon as Borg had gone, he intended to get rid of his disguise, and then take a bus to Lone Pine. He had asked her to rent a cabin at the motel there under the name Mrs. Harrison. She was to buy a second-hand car and wait for him. They would remain at the motel the whole of the next day.
When they were sure nothing had gone wrong and it was safe to move, they would drive to Carson City. They would stay there for a day and again see what progress the police were making.
If it seemed safe to go, they would sell the car and go to New York. From there they would go to England and begin their European trip.
Harry had made arrangements with the managers of the Los Angeles Bank and the Bank of California to transfer the two sums of twenty-five thousand dollars to the National Finance Bank of New York as soon as the cheques had been paid in. He had paid them in that afternoon, and he knew the money would be waiting for him when he reached New York.
He had spent the rest of the day in Berg's company, aware that two men had followed them to the banks, and had remained in a car outside Lamson's, and had followed them to the gates of the airport.
The sudden sound of motorcycle engines broke in on Harry's thoughts. He looked up sharply.
Out of the darkness, across the airfield, came four motorcycle cops, escorting an armoured truck. The trade pulled up close to the aircraft and the cops dismounted.