Бретт Холлидей - Count Backwards to Zero

“You’re drawing too many conclusions, but go on.”

“That’s Team A. Team B is Anne Blagden and at least two others, and anything you tell me about them will be more than I know now. Switching tanks was a logical move, but to execute it she needed somebody like me, with credentials. I had to get the captain’s permission, and access to the right kind of tools. Afterward, it wouldn’t be hard to get into the hold and find out which cars I’d been working on. I didn’t know I had to be careful. So instead of following the Bentley, they followed the Olds. And somehow they persuaded Little to take me to Brownsville on a very thin pretext. I don’t know how that was worked, but for a man with a doctor’s degree, Little was easy to fool. As you and Dessau found out in England.”

Diamond was listening intently. “You had somebody following the Olds? What happened to him?”

“He’s still alive. A few bruises.”

Diamond frowned. “Merely bruises?”

“Yeah, the same thought crossed my mind,” Shayne said. “Whatever the hell you people put in that gas tank, I know damn well it wasn’t watch movements. You’re right — don’t tell me, I don’t really want to know. I asked for twenty G’s and you hardly whimpered. Whatever it is, it’s either damn valuable or damn important. So why didn’t they hit the guy a little harder, and make sure? It must mean that they thought they only needed a few minutes.”

Diamond was sitting at the extreme front edge of his chair, ready to jump. “How long ago was this?”

“Three quarters of an hour. Too long.”

“And you still think you have something to sell?”

“I think so. I didn’t expect this kind of trouble, but I try not to take unnecessary chances. So I put a homing device in the Olds.”

“A what?”

“One of those miniaturized transmitters they carry in lifeboats, so the search planes can find them before the survivors start eating each other. It puts out a very good signal, up to a range of ten miles. Did you hear a helicopter a while ago? That was the Coast Guard.”

“We don’t want the Coast Guard!” Diamond said, appalled.

“All I asked them to do was pinpoint it for me. That’s the phone call I’m waiting for. As soon as we find it I’ll let you overpower me and take it away.”

“What if they turned the damn thing off so it wouldn’t transmit?”

“They’d have to cut the tank open to do that, and how would they know it was there? I didn’t tell anybody. But maybe the reason the choppers aren’t getting a signal is because the tank didn’t stay in the Olds.”

“You just said—”

“There’s still a lot I don’t know,” Shayne pointed out. “And you haven’t been too communicative so far. Last night when I went into the Queen Elizabeth’s hold somebody was already there. He popped a couple of shots at me and ducked out. Which team was he on? I don’t know, but there’s no rule that says there have to be only two teams.”

Diamond’s eyes were jumping. “I had nothing to do with that. Anne Blagden wouldn’t want to shoot you before you made the switch.”

He raised his coffee cup, stared into it for a moment and put it down without drinking.

“Somebody may be trying to milk this for more than his fair share,” he said finally. “I think you’re right. For the time being our interests are parallel. Now let me get it straight about this transmitter. If somebody pulled the tank, would it stop sending?”

“Not altogether. But I had it tied in to the car antenna, and the wire would break as it came out. There would still be a signal, but a weak one.”

Diamond nodded. “And if they pick up anything, they’ll call you here?”

Shayne grinned at him. “There’s that, and then the FBI is running your passport photo through the files. We hope to come out with an identification.”

Diamond looked startled. “The cops are involved?”

“We need all the help we can get. The Highway Patrol is looking for the Olds.”

Diamond seemed more and more unsettled. “How do you handle that if they find it?”

“Easily. They won’t look in the gas tank. Why should they?”

“Well, you’ve got a lot of plates in the air, Shayne, and let’s hope you don’t miss. Now you want to hear my side, right?”

“Any time.”

“I keep thinking there must be something else I ought to be doing, but OK. This was my idea to start with. They were my connections. I put up the financing, and it wasn’t cheap.”

“I believe it.”

“That’s how I make my living, I broker international deals. Most of them are legit. It’s one-of-a-kind stuff. When I go illegal, I get in fast and get out the same way. I don’t usually get involved in the day-to-day, but this time I went along to make sure nothing happened. And I like the Queen, you know? It’s a relaxing way to travel. All I thought I had to do was keep one eye on Little and see that he kept sucking down gimlets. And then this Blagden chick.”

“Was she new to you?”

“Brand new, Shayne. And she’s good at her job, very good. I wish I had her working for me. I tried to move in on her, but she liked Dr. Little better, and not that I want to sound conceited but that told me something. He was easy for her. This was movie stuff — in real life that kind of combination doesn’t happen. Inside of two days I’m sure he was telling her his secrets.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t do something about her.”

“I’ll come to that in a minute. First I went through her cabin. Everything in order there except for one tiny thing.” He brought out an oversize European wallet and produced from it a folded photograph, a glossy 2½-by-4 contact print showing an envelope addressed to Anne Blagden at the Hotel Carleton in London. It was postmarked Nice. Shayne squinted at the sender’s name in the left corner.

“Sam something.”

“Sam Geller,” Diamond said.

“It sounds familiar.”

“Sam wouldn’t like to hear you say that, because in his business if you stop being anonymous you stop making money. He sells surplus weapons, all the way from.22 sporting rifles to M-9 tanks. A kind of junkman, really, and he’s like me — if somebody brings him a proposition that means a five-hundred-percent profit in one turnover of capital, with no complications, he’s never too busy to listen. There’s a personal thing between Sam and me. I spoiled a deal for him once. I was within my rights, but Sam didn’t think so, and he’s been laying for me since. To find out about Dessau and Little he must have had detectives on me, and that gives me a chilly feeling.”

Shayne handed back the photograph. “Was there a letter in the envelope?”

“A note about theater tickets. I phoned a contact of mine in Nice and asked him to look into it, and I got the answer in Bermuda. Anne Blagden has been Sam’s girl for the last year.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Sam? Very relaxed. Nice tan, about six feet one. A good build, black hair, an up-and-down wrinkle on his forehead between his eyebrows.”

“Is this important enough to him so he might be here in Miami?”

Diamond reflected. “Ordinarily I’d say no. But I really stung him that time, and if he could lever me out of this, and make money on a zero investment, I’d say yeah, he might come over. He has the Hemingway virus. Flies his own plane, shoots lions in Kenya — that kind of schtick. Tell me why you ask.”

“He sounds like the guy who met Anne at the ship.”

“Then damn it, Shayne,” Diamond said excitedly, “why don’t we take him? There’s eighteen thousand in that package. I know you said twenty, but eighteen was all we could come up with. Get the tank back for me and I’ll multiply that by three. That’s a promise.”