Hood of Death

Chapter III

When the world stopped shaking and came into focus Nick found himself on the ground at the rear of the Bird. His wrists were roped to the car and probably Chick had shown Hans that he knew his knots by securing Nick for a long stay. There were clove hitches around his wrists, plus several bights to a square knot pinioning his arms together.

He heard the four men talking in low voices and only caught Hans remark, "…we'll find out. One way or another."

They climbed into their car, and as it passed under the floodlight closest to the drive Nick identified it as a '68 Ford, metallic green, four-door sedan. He was pinned at a wrong angle to get a decent look at the tag or quite identify the model, but it was not a compact.

He applied his tremendous strength on the rope, then sighed. Cotton line but not household grade, shipboard stuff and strong. He worked up ample saliva, tongued it onto a section at his wrists, and began to gnaw steadily with his strong white teeth. The stuff was tough. He was chewing monotonously with his eyeteeth at the tough, sodden mass when Ruth came out and found him.

She had donned her clothes, right down to her trim white high-heeled pumps, and she strolled across the blacktop and looked down at him. He felt that her stride was too steady, her stare too calm, for the situation. It was depressing to consider that she might be on the other team in spite of what had happened, and the men had left her to administer some sort of coup de grâce.

He turned on his widest smile. "Hi, I knew you'd get loose."

"No thanks to you, you sex maniac."

"Darling! What a thing to say. I risked my life to chase them off and really save your honor."

"You might have at least untied me."

"How did you get loose?"

"The way you did. Rolled off the bed and ripped skin off my arms scraping the rope on the bed frame." Nick felt a wave of relief. If she had been left behind to close his book she wouldn't have had to get herself loose. She continued with a frown, "Jerry Deming, I think I'll leave you right there."

Nick thought rapidly. What would a Deming say in a situation like this? He exploded, "Dammit, Ruthie, enough is enough! Get a knife and cut these ropes now. I'm not fooling. I left you on that bed for your own safety. The only reason I pretended to screw you was to start a noisy fuss. Now you get me loose right now or when I do get loose I'll paddle your pretty ass so that you won't sit down for a month and after that I'll forget I ever knew you. What kind of a crazy girl are you…"

He stopped when she laughed and bent down to show him a razor blade she held concealed in her hand. She sliced his fetters carefully. "There, my hero. You were brave. Did you actually attack them barehanded? They might have killed you instead of tying you up."

He rubbed his wrists and felt his jaw. That big fellow Hans packed a wallop! "I keep a pistol hidden in the garage because if the house is burgled I figure there's a chance of it not being found there. I got it and I bagged the three when a fourth one hidden in the bushes got me. Then the one called Hans clouted me. Those guys must be real pros. Imagine leaving a picket out? They fooled hell out of me."

"Be thankful they didn't do worse. I imagine your travels in the oil business have gotten you used to violence. You acted without fear, I think. But you can get hurt that way."

He thought, They train them with cool at Vassar, too, orthere's more to you than meets the eye. They walked to the house, the lovely girl holding the arm of the naked, powerfully built man. When Nick was stripped he made you think of an athlete in training, a pro footballer perhaps.

He noticed that she kept her eyes averted from his body, as a nice young lady should. Was it an act? He called as he climbed into a pair of plain white boxer shorts, "I'll phone the police. They never catch anybody out here but it'll cover my insurance and maybe they'll keep a closer eye on the joint."

"I called them, Jerry. I can't imagine where they are."

"Depends on where they were. They have three cars for about a hundred square miles. Another martini?…"

The officers were sympathetic. Ruth had garbled the call slightly and they had wasted time. They made comments about the large number of burglaries and holdups by city hoodlums. They wrote it up and borrowed his spare keys so that their BCI men could recheck the place in the morning. Nick thought it was a waste of time — and so it proved.

After they had gone he and Ruth had their swim and another drink and danced and cuddled a bit but the zing had gone out of the evening. In spite of her stiff-upper-lip in the pinch, he thought she seemed thoughtful — or nervous. As they swayed in tight embrace on the patio, in time with Armstrong's trumpet on a blue-and-easy number, he kissed her several times but the mood was gone. The lips didn't melt any more, they were flaccid. The beat of her heart and the tempo of her breathing did not accelerate as they did before.

She noticed the difference herself. She took her face away from his, but laid her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Jerry. I guess I'm really timid. I keep thinking about what might have happened. We could be — dead." She shuddered.

"We're not," he replied and squeezed her.

"Would you have really done it?" she asked.

"Done what?"

"On the bed. What the man called Hans — suggested."

"He was being a wise guy and it backfired."

"How?"

"Remember when Sammy yelled for him? He came in and then sent Sammy out for a few minutes to help the other guy. Then he left the room himself and that was my chance. Otherwise we'd still be tied on that bed, maybe, with them long gone. Or they'd be here sticking matches under my toes to make me tell where I hide money."

"Do you? Hide money?"

"Of course not. But didn't it look like they had a false tip that I do."

"Yes. I see."

If she saw, Nick thought, that's fine. At least she was puzzled. If she was on the other team, she would have to admit that Jerry Deming behaved and thought like a typical citizen. He bought her a fine steak at Perrault's Supper Club and took her home to the Moto residence in Georgetown. Not far from the lovely little house in which Herbert W. Tyson lay dead, waiting for the maid to find him in the morning and the hurried doctor to decide another abused heart had let its bearer down.

He did collect one small plus. Ruth invited him to be her escort at a dinner party at the Sherman Owen Cushings' on Friday week — their annual All Friends affair. The Cushings were rich, reserved and had begun accumulating real estate and money before the du Ponts began making gunpowder, and they had held onto most of it. There were plenty of Senators who wangled for a Cushing bid — and never got it. He told Ruth he was quite sure he could make it. He would confirm with a call on Wednesday. Where would Akito be? In Cairo — which was why Nick might fill his seat. He learned that Ruth had met Alice Cushing at Vassar.

The next day was a hot, sunny Thursday. Nick slept until nine, then enjoyed breakfast in the restaurant of "Jerry Deming's" apartment house — fresh orange juice, three scrambled eggs, bacon, one piece of toast and two cups of tea. When he could, he scheduled his living pattern like that of an athlete staying in condition.

His big body wouldn't stay in first-class shape by itself, especially when he enjoyed a certain amount of rich food and alcohol. Nor did he neglect his mind, especially where current affairs were concerned. His newspaper was The New York Times, and via AXE's cover-name subscriptions he read periodicals ranging from Scientific American to The Atlantic and Harper's. Not a month went by that his expense account didn't list four or five significant books.

His physical skills demanded a continual, although not regularly scheduled, program of practice. Twice a week unless "on location" — AXE vernacular for on a job — he practiced tumbling and judo, punched the bags and swam methodically underwater for long minutes. Also on regular schedule he talked into his recorders, polishing his excellent French and Spanish, improving his German and the three other languages in which, as he put it, I can "get a broad, get a bed, and get directions to the airport."

David Hawk, who was impressed by almost nothing, once told Nick that he thought his greatest asset was his acting ability."… the stage lost something when you came into our business."

Nick's father had been a character actor. One of the rare chameleons who slipped into any role and became it. The kind of a talent that smart producers search for. "See if you can get Carter," was said often enough to give Nick's father all the roles he chose to take.

Nick had actually grown up all over the United States. His education, split between tutors, studio and public schools, seemed to benefit by the variety. At the age of eight he was polishing his Spanish and crap-shooting backstage with the company playing Está el Doctor en Casa? By his tenth year — because Tea and Sympathy had a long run and the lead was a mathematical genius — he could do most algebra in his head, quote the odds on all poker and blackjack hands and do perfect Oxonian, Yorkshire and Cockney imitations.

Shortly after his twelfth birthday he wrote a one-act play which, revised slightly a few years later, is now in the books. and he discovered that the savate taught him by the French tumbler, Jean Benoist-Gironière, was as effective in an alley as on a mat.

It was after the night show, when he was headed home alone. Two would-be muggers had closed in on him in the lonely yellow glare of the deserted passageway from the stagedoor to street He stamped a toe, kicked a shin, dove on his hands and lashed out like a mule to connect with a groin and then cartwheeled for a grand coup and a chin-kick. Then he went back into the theatre and brought his father out to view the crumpled, moaning figures.

The senior Carter noted that his son spoke calmly and his breathing was perfectly normal. He said, "Nick, you did what you had to do. What'll we do with them?"

"I don't care."

"Want to see them arrested?"

"I don't think so," Nick had replied. They had gone back into the theatre and when they went home, an hour later, the men were gone.

A year later Carter senior discovered Nick in bed with Lily Greene, a luscious young actress who later did well in Hollywood. He just chuckled and went out, but after a later discussion Nick found himself passing college entrance exams under another name and entering Dartmouth. His father was killed in an automobile accident less than two years later.

Some of these memories — the best ones — marched through Nick's thoughts as he walked four blocks to the Health Club and changed to his swim trunks. In the sunny rooftop gym he exercised at an easy pace. Rested. Tumbled. Sunbathed. Worked out on the rings and trampoline. An hour later he worked up a sweat on the bags and then swam steadily for fifteen minutes in the big pool. He practiced Yoga breathing and checked his underwater time, grimacing when he noted that he was forty-eight seconds short of the official world's record. Well — you can't do everything.

Just after twelve Nick eased his way through luncheon-bound foot-traffic to his swank apartment house to keep his appointment with David Hawk. He found his senior officer in the apartment. They greeted each other with handshakes and silent, friendly nods; a blend of controlled warmth built on long association and mutual respect.

Hawk wore one of his quiet gray suits. When he slumped his shoulders and walked carelessly, instead of with his usual marching stride, he could be a major or minor Washington businessman, civil servant or a visiting taxpayer from West Fork. Average, undistinguished, not to be remembered.

Nick remained silent. Hawk said, "We can talk. I think the boilers are starting to be lit."

"Yes, sir. How about a cup of tea?"

"Excellent. Had lunch?"

"No. I skip it today. A counterbalance for all the canapes and seven-course dinners I'm getting on this assignment."

"Put the water on, my boy. We'll be very British. Maybe it will help. We're up against the kind of thing in which they specialize. Threads within threads and no beginning to the knot. How did it go last night?"

Nick told him. Hawk nodded occasionally and toyed carefully with an unwrapped cigar.

"Dangerous spot, that. No weapons and taken and tied. Let's not risk it again. I'm sure we're dealing with cold killers and it might come up your turn. Plans-and-Operations doesn't agree with me one hundred percent, but I think they will after we meet tomorrow."

"New facts?"

"New nothing. That's the beauty of it. Herbert Wheeldale Tyson was found dead in his home this morning. Ostensibly of natural causes. I'm beginning to like that phrase. Every time I hear it my suspicions double. And now with good reason. Or better reason. You recognize Tyson?"

"Nickname Wheel-and-Deal. A string-puller and greaser. One of fifteen hundred or so like him. I can name perhaps a hundred."

"Right. You know him because he was rising to the top of the smelly barrel. Now let me try and put the edges of the puzzle together. Tyson is the fourth man to die of natural causes and they all knew each other. They were all substantial holders in Mideast oil stocks and munitions complexes."

Hawk paused and Nick frowned. "You expect me to say this is not at all unusual in Washington."

"Quite right. Another piece. In the last week two important and very respectable men have received death threats. Senator Aaron Hockburn and Fritching at the Treasury."

"And they're tied in with the other four somehow?"

"Not at all. Neither of them would be caught having lunch with Tyson, for instance. But they both have tremendous key positions which can affect — Mideast oil and certain war contracts."

"They were only threatened? Not ordered to do anything?"

"I believe that will come later. I think the four deaths will be used as terrifying examples. But Hockburn and Fritching aren't the type to scare, although you never can tell. They called the FBI and they cross-fertilized with us. I told them AXE might have something."

Nick said carefully, "It doesn't look as if we have much — yet."

"That's where you come in. How about that tea?"

Nick got up, poured and brought in the cups with two teabags in each. They had been through this ritual before. Hawk said, "Your lack of faith in me is understandable, although after all these years I thought I deserved more…" He sipped tea, peered at Nick with the twinkling glint which always foreshadowed a satisfying revelation — like laying down a powerful hand for a partner who fears he has overbid.

"Show me that other piece of the puzzle you're hiding," Nick said. "The one that fits."

"Pieces, Nicholas. Pieces. Which you're going to fit into place, I'm sure. You're warm. You and I know that was no ordinary robbery last night Your visitors were looking and sounding out. Why? Let's guess they wanted to know more about Jerry Deming. Is it because Jerry Deming — Nick Carter — is close to something and we don't realize it yet?"

"… or Akito keeps a damn close check on his daughter?"

"… or the daughter is in on it and she played victim?"

Nick frowned. "I won't discount it. But she could have killed me when I was tied up. She had a razor. She could have gotten a butcher knife as easily and carved me like a roast."

"Perhaps they need a Jerry Demiog. You're an experienced oil man. Underpaid and probably greedy. You may be approached. That will be a lead."

"I searched her bag," Nick said reflectively. "How did they tail us? They couldn't have had those four riding around all day."

"Oh," Hawk pretended regret. "There is a beeper on your Bird. One of the old twenty-four-hour type. We left it in place in case they decide to pick it up."

"I knew that," Nick turned the tables — gently.

"You did?"

"I swept the frequencies with the house radio. I didn't find the beeper itself but I knew it had to be there."

"You might have told me. Now a more exotic subject. The mysterious East. You've noticed the plenitude of pretty girls with slanting eyes in the social swing?"

"Why not? Since 1938 we've been creating a new crop of Asian millionaires every year. Most of them arrive here sooner or later with the family and the loot."

"But they stay out of sight. There are others. We assembled the guest lists from over six hundred and fifty functions during the past two years and put them on the computer. Among Oriental females six charmers top the list for attendance at parties of international or lobbying importance. Here…" He handed Nick a memo form.

Nick said, "I've seen three of them plus Ruth. Probably just wasn't introduced to the others. The number of Eastern girls caught my attention but it hasn't seemed important until you showed me this pattern. Of course I've met about two hundred other people during the last six weeks, of every nationality in the world…"

"But not including other lovely flowers from the Orient."

"True."

Hawk tapped the slip of paper. "Others may be in the group or whatever it is but didn't show up in the computer pattern. Now for the nugget…

"One or more of these darlings was at least at one gathering where they could have met the dead men. The computer tells us that Tyson's garage man tells us he thinks he saw Tyson leave in his car about two weeks ago with an Oriental girl. He's not sure but it's an interesting piece for our puzzle. We're checking Tyson's habits. If he had a meal at any major restaurant or hotel or surfaced more than a few times with her, well find it out."

"Then we'll know we're on a possible track."

"Although we won't know where we're going. Keep your ears open for mention of the Confederation Oil Company of Latakia. They tried to do some business through Tyson and another of the dead men, Armbruster, who told his law firm to turn them down. They own two tankers and charter three more with a lot of Chinese in the crews. They are prohibited from carrying U.S. cargoes because they've made trips to Havana and Haiphong. We can't pressure them because there is high-level French money involved and they have tight Baalh connections in Syria. Confederation is the usual five corporations stacked one on the other and exquisitely tangled in Switzerland and Lebanon and London. But Harry Demarkin got word to us that something called the Baumann Ring is the center of power."

Nick repeated it "The Baumann Ring."

"You're on."

"Baumann. Bormann. Martin Bormann?"

"Possible."

Nick's hard-to-surprise pulse quickened. Bormann. The mysterious aged vulture. As elusive as smoke. One of the most wanted men on earth, or off it. It sometimes seemed as if he operated from outer space. His death had been reported dozens of times since his boss died in Berlin on April 29, 1945.

"Is Harry still probing?"

Hawk's face clouded. "Harry died yesterday. His car went over a cliff above Beirut."

"Genuine accident?" Nick felt a sharp pang of regret. AXEman Harry Demarkin had been his friend, and you didn't develop many in this business. Harry had been fearless but cautious.

"Perhaps."

It seemed to echo in the moment of silence — perhaps.

Hawk's thoughtful eyes were as bleak as Nick had ever seen them. "We're about to open a bag of big trouble, Nick. Don't underestimate them. Remember Harry."

"The worst of it is — we're not sure what the bag looks like, where it is or what's in it."

"Good description. Nasty situation all around. I feel as if I'm sitting you down at a piano with the seat full of dynamite that goes off when you hit a certain key. I've got to ask you to play and I'm unable to tell you which is the deadly key because I don't know either!"

"There's the chance it's less serious than it looks," Nick said, not believing it but as cheer for the older man. "I may discover that the deaths are astonishing coincidences, the girls a new play-for-pay group and Confederation the usual crowd of promoters and ten percenters."

"True. You're relying on the AXE maxim — only the stupid are sure, the intelligent are always in doubt. But for God's sake be very careful, the facts we have point in many directions and that's the worst kind of a case." Hawk sighed and took a folded paper from his pocket "I can give you a little more help. Here are dossiers on the six girls. We're still digging into their backgrounds, of course. And here…"

He held a small bright metal pellet, about twice the size of a baby lima bean, between his thumb and forefinger. "A new beeper from Stuart's department. You squeeze this green dot and it will activate for six hours. Range about three miles in the country. Depends on conditions in a city. Whether you're shielded by buildings and so on."

Nick examined it "They're getting better and better. Another suppository type?"

"Can be used that way. But the real idea is to swallow it A search reveals nothing. Of course if they have a monitor they know it's in you…"

"And they have up to six hours to cut you open and silence it," Nick added dryly. He put the device in his pocket "Thanks."

Hawk reached down behind his chair and brought up two bottles of scotch whisky, an expensive brand in rich-looking, dark-brown glass. He handed one to Nick. "Look that over."

Nick examined the seal, read the label, inspected the cap and base. "If it was a cork," he mused, "there could be almost anything hidden in it but this looks absolutely kosher. Is it really scotch in there?"

"If you ever pour yourself a drink of it, enjoy it. One of the finest blends." Hawk tipped the bottle he was holding up and down, watching the liquid form tiny bubbles with its own trapped air.

"See anything?" Hawk asked.

"Let me try." Nick watchfully turned his bottle over and over, and he got it. If your eyes were extremely sharp and you looked at the bottom of the bottle, you'd discover that the oily bubbles did not appear there when the bottle was upside down. "The bottom is wrong somehow."

"Right. There's a glass partition. Top half scotch. Bottom half one of Stuart's super-explosives that looks like scotch. You activate it by breaking the bottle and exposing it to air for two minutes. Then any flame will set it off. As it is now, under compression and airless, it is relatively safe, Stuart says."

Nick set his bottle down carefully. "They may come in handy."

"Yes," Hawk agreed, standing up and carefully brushing an ash from his jacket "In a tight spot you can always offer to buy a last drink."

At precisely 4:12 p.m. on Friday afternoon Nick's telephone rang. A girl said, "This is Miss Rice of the telephone company. Did you place a call to…" She quoted a number ending in seven, eight.

"Sorry, no," Nick answered. She excused the call sweetly and hung up.

Nick turned over his telephone, removed the two base screws and attached three wires from a small brown box to three terminals, including the 24-volt power input. Then he dialed a number. When Hawk answered he said, "Scrambler on code seventy-eight."

"Correct and clear. Report?"

"Nothing. I've been to three more boring parties. You know which girls were there. Very friendly. They had escorts and I couldn't pry them loose."

"Very well. Carry on at Cushing's tonight. We're in deep trouble. There are big leaks in the top company."

"Will do."

"Report please ten-o-nine a.m. via number six."

"Will do. Good-bye."

"Good-bye and good luck."

Nick hung up, removed the wires and replaced the phone base. The little brown portable scramblers were one of Stuart's most ingenious devices. Scrambler patterns are infinite. He designed the little brown boxes, with transistorized circuits packed into a package smaller than a pack of regular-size cigarettes, with a ten-contact switch. Unless both were set on "78" the audio modulation was gibberish. Just in case — every two months the boxes were exchanged for new ones with new scrambler patterns and ten new selections. Nick donned his dinner jacket and departed in the Bird to pick up Ruth.

The Cushing gathering — the annual All Friends party with cocktails, dinner, entertainment and dancing — was held at their two-hundred-acre estate in Virginia. The setting was magnificent.

As they drove up the long drive, colored lights sparkled in the dusk, music sounded from the conservatory to the left, and they had a short wait while substantial-looking people got out of their cars and the attendants took them away. Shiny limousines were popular — Cadillacs prominent.

Nick said, "I suppose you've been here before?"

"Many times. Alice and I used to play tennis all the time. Now I come down occasionally for a weekend."

"How many tennis courts?"

"Three, counting the one indoors."

"The good life. Spell it money."

"My father says that since most people are so stupid, there is no excuse for a person with brains not being rich."

"The Cushings have been rich for seven generations. All brains?"

"Daddy means that people are foolish to work for so much an hour. Selling themselves in hunks of time, he calls it. They love their slavery because freedom is terrifying. You must work for yourself. Grab opportunities."

"I'm never in the right place at the right time." Nick sighed. "I'm sent places ten years after the oil starts coming up."

He smiled at her as they ascended three broad steps. The lovely black eyes were studying him. As they followed the tunnel-like pathway of colored lights across the lawn she asked, "Would you like me to speak to Father?"

"I'm wide open. Especially when I see a bash like this. Just don't cause me to lose the job I've got."

"Jerry — you act conservative. That's not the way to get rich."

"It's the way they try to stay rich," he murmured, but she was greeting a tall blonde girl in the line of beautifully dressed people at the entrance to a giant tent. He was introduced to Alice Cushing and fourteen other people in the receiving line, six of them named Gushing. He memorized every name and face.

Past the line they strolled to the long bar — sixty feet of table covered with snowy linen. They exchanged greetings with a few people who knew Ruth or "that nice young oil man, Jerry Deming." Nick received two brandies on the rocks from a bartender who looked surprised at the order — but he had it. They drifted back from the bar a few feet and paused to sip their drinks.

The big tent could hold a two-ring circus, with room left over for two bocce games, and it handled just the overflow from the cut-stone conservatory which it adjoined. Through tall windows Nick saw another long bar inside the building and people dancing on the polished floors.

He noted that the hors d'oeuvres on the long tables opposite the bar in the tent were made on the spot. The roasts, fowl and bowls of caviar behind which the white-coated attendants deftly prepared your requested snack would have fed a Chinese village for a week. Among the guests he saw four American generals that he knew and six from other countries that he did not.

They paused to speak to Congressman Andrews and his niece — he introduced her everywhere as his niece but she had that haughty carriage of the dull girl who has it made-in-the-shade — and while Nick was being polite Ruth exchanged glances behind his back with a Chinese girl in another group. Their looks were swift, and because they were absolutely without expression, they were furtive.

We tend to classify Chinese as small, gentle, even obsequious. The girl who swapped quick recognition signals with Ruth was big, imperious, and the bold glance from her intelligent black eyes was shocking because it came from under brows deliberately plucked to accent the slants. "Oriental?" they seemed to issue a challenge. "You're damned right. Take ahold if you dare."

This was precisely Nick's impression a moment later as Ruth introduced him to Jeanyee Ahling. He had seen her at other parties, checked her name carefully into his mental list, but this was the first lime he had felt the impact of her glance — the almost molten heat from those sparkling eyes above the round cheeks whose softness was challenged by the clean, sharp planes of her face and the impudent curve of her red lips.

He said, "I'm especially pleased to meet you, Miss Ahling."

The glossy black brows rose a fraction of an inch. Nick thought, She's striking— beauty like that belongs on TV or in the movies. "Yes — because I saw you at the Pan American party two weeks ago. I hoped to meet you then."

"You're interested in the Orient? Or China itself? Or girls?"

"All three."

"Are you a diplomat, Mr. Deming?"

"No. Just a minor oil man."

"Like Mr. Murchison and Mr. Hunt?"

"No. There's about three billion dollars' difference. I work for Official."

She chuckled. Her tones were mellow and deep and her English was excellent, with just the trace of "too-perfection," as if she had learned it carefully, or spoke several languages and had been taught to round all vowels. "You're very honest. Most men one meets give themselves a little promotion. You could have just said, 'I'm with Official.'"

"You would have found out and my honesty rating would have dropped."

"You're an honest man?"

"I want to be known as an honest man."

"Why?"

"Because I promised my mother. And when I lie to you you'll believe it."

She laughed. He felt a pleasant tingle along his spine. They didn't make many like this one. Ruth had been chatting with Jeanyee's escort, a tall, slim, Latin-American type. She turned and said, "Jerry — have you met Patrick Valdez?"

"No."

Ruth moved and drew the quartet together, away from the group which Nick cataloged as politics, munitions and four nationalities. Congressman Creeks, already high as usual, was telling a story — his hearers pretended interest because he was old devil Creeks, with seniority, committees and the control of about thirty billion dollars in appropriations.

"Pat, this is Jerry Deming," Ruth said. "Pat is O.A.S. Jerry is oil. That's so you'll know you're not competitors."

Valdez showed handsome white teeth and shook hands. "We might be where beautiful girls are concerned," he said. "You two know that."

"What a nice way to slip in a compliment," Ruth said. "Jeanyee — Jerry — will you excuse us a second? Bob Quitlock wanted to meet Pat We'll join you in the conservatory in ten minutes. Near the band."

"Certainly," Nick answered, and watched the couple work their way through the increasing crowd. Ruth had a breathtaking figure, he mused, until you got a look at Jeanyee. He turned to her. "And you? A princess on leave?"

"Hardly, but thank you. I work for the Ling-Taiwan Export Company."

"I thought you might be a model. Frankly, Jeanyee, I've never seen a Chinese girl in the movies as pretty as you. Or as tall."

"Thank you. We're not all little flowers. My family came from north China. They grow big there. It's a lot like Sweden. Mountains and sea. Plenty of good food."

"How are they doing under Mao?"

He thought her eyes flickered, but the emotion was unreadable. "We came out with Chiang. I haven't heard much."

He guided her into the conservatory, brought her a drink, tried a few more gentle questions. He got gentle, uninformative answers. In her pale green gown, a perfect contrast for her sleek black hair and brilliant eyes, she was a standout. He watched other men stare.

She knew a lot of people who smiled and nodded or paused for a few remarks. She fended off some of the men who wanted to stay attached with a change of pace which set up a wall of frost until they wandered on. She never offend-

ed, she just went into a deep-freeze locker and came out the instant they departed.

He discovered that she danced expertly and they stayed on the floor because it was fun — and because Nick heartily enjoyed the feel of her in his arms and the aroma of her perfume and body. When Ruth and Valdez returned they exchanged dances, drank fairly steadily and gathered into a group in one corner of the big room comprised of some people Nick had met and some he hadn't.

During one pause Ruth said, standing beside Jeanyee, "Will you excuse us for a few moments? Dinner should be announced about now and we want to freshen up."

Nick was left with Pat They picked up fresh drinks and toasted each other with the usual cheers. He learned nothing new from the South American.

Alone together in the ladies' lounge Ruth said to Jeanyee, "What do you think of him after a close look?"

"I think you got the best of it this time. Isn't he a dream? Much more interesting than Pat."

"The Leader says if Deming joins, forget Pat."

"I know." Ruth sighed. "I'll take him off your hands as agreed. Anyway he's a good dancer. But you'll find Deming is really something else. So much charm to waste on the oil business. And he's all man. He nearly turned the tables on Leader. You'd have laughed. Of course Leader switched them right back — and he's not mad about it. I think he admires Deming for it. He recommended him to Command."

The girls were in one of the innumerable lounges available for ladies — complete dressing rooms and baths. Jeanyee looked at the expensive furnishings. "Should we talk here?"

"Safe," Ruth answered as she retouched her exquisite lips at one of the giant mirrors. "You know the military and political only spy on the outs. These are the ins. You can snoop on individuals and double-cross each other, but if you're caught spying on the group you're finished."

Jeanyee sighed. "You know so much more about politics than 1 do. But I know men. There's something about this Deming that bothers me. He's too — too strong. Have you ever noticed how the generals are made of brass, especially their heads? And the steel men are steel and the oil men oily? Well, Deming is hard and quick and you and Leader discovered he has courage. He doesn't fit the oil man pattern."

"I'll say you know men. I never thought of it that way. But those are the reasons Command is interested in Deming, I suppose. He's more than just a businessman. He's interested in money, like all of them. I checked that tonight. Offer him whatever you think will work. I suggested my father might have something for him, but he didn't snap at the bait."

"Cautious, too…"

"Sure. That's a plus. He likes girls, in case you were afraid you were getting another one like Karl Comstock."

"No. I told you I know Deming is all man. It's just — well maybe he's such a valuable type I'm not used to it. I felt he was wearing a mask some of the time, just as we are."

"I didn't get that impression, Jeanyee. But be alert. If he's a thief he's no use to us." Ruth sighed. "But what a body…"

"You're not jealous?"

"Of course not. Given a choice I'd pick him. Given an order, I take Pat and make the most of it."

What Ruth and Jeanyee did not discuss — never discussed — was their conditioned taste for Caucasian rather than Oriental men. Like most girls raised in a certain society, they had adopted its norms. Their ideal was a Gregory Peck or Lee Marvin. Their Leader knew this — he had been carefully briefed by Command One, who often discussed it with their psychologist, Lindhauer.

The girls closed their handbags. Ruth started to leave but Jeanyee hung back. "What shall I do," she asked thoughtfully, "if Deming is nor what he seems? I still have that strange feeling…"

"That he might be on the other team?"

"Yes."

"I see…" Ruth paused, her face expressionless for an instant, then stern. "I wouldn't want to be you if you're wrong, Jeanyee. But if you became sure, I suppose there would be only one thing to do."

"Rule seven?"

"Yes. Hood him."

"I never made that decision on my own."

"The Rule is clear. Hood him. Leave no traces."