My son the double agent

Each of the docks is unionized—-after a fashion. Unlike the U. S., these unions don’t bother giving themselves fancy names. They are known simply as the “South Dock Gang” and the “North Dock Gang.” And the rivalry between them is extreme.

The “South Dock Gang” gets the government labor contracts. The “North Dock Gang” provides the labor for commercial shipping. This much of the harbor pie they’ve managed to split. But there’s a lot more apples in that pie, and that’s where the trouble comes in.

Both gangs claim jurisdiction over the additional commercial shipping that frequently must be handled on the south dock. Both gangs claim the right to unload military supplies from private shippers on the north dock. Add to this that both gangs consider all the black-market shipping that flows through Manila harbor to be rightfully theirs, and you get some idea of why so much violence arises over the whipped cream on the pie.

This violence is ever-present. Each gang stakes out its side of the dock with armed sentries. There are actually makeshift bunkers with machine guns in them. Rival gang members wandering onto the other gang’s turf are shot on sight. The reason is that the feuds which have sprung up between individual members of each of the gangs have resulted in such individuals occasionally sneaking into rival territory and silently knifing the one who may have offended them. Rare indeed is the Manila morning which doesn’t turn up at least one corpse with a bola or baling-hook sticking out from between the shoulderblades. And total strangers, nonparticipants, have frequently been shot down for innocently wandering across the invisible line from one side of the dock to the other.

At this particular time, the “North Dock Gang” wasin the ascendancy. They were the ones who controlled most of the lucrative smuggling operations. Their leader was a pint-sized but murderous man known as ‘Baby Torres.

This was one “Baby” diapered by death. Not too long before I hit Manila, he’d been involved in a gun battle in one of the many honky-tonks that line Dewey Boulevard. It was a labor dispute, in a way, but it had nothing to do with shipping. It involved the hourly rate of a “hostess” in the joint, a “hostess” to whom Baby had taken a fancy.

She claimed she got $7.50 an hour for going upstairs with a customer. He wanted the courtesy of a professional discount and offered her five bucks. The hustler told him she had another customer anyway, and cold-shouldered him.

“Baby” wasn’t used to that kind of treatment. He was the big man on the docks. The hustler should have known better than to treat him that way. But the story is that she was new to the game and didn’t know who “Baby” was.

Anyway, he slugged her. Then, when one of the bouncers in the joint came up to remonstrate with him and suggest that perhaps that was no way to treat a lady -- even a lady-0’-the-night -- “Baby” pulled out a pistol and shot off the top of the bouncer’s head. A second bouncer who approached was likewise blasted. A third dropped behind a table and killed two of Torres’ men before “Baby” decided he’d had enough entertainment and left the joint.

Following his departure, the smoke cleared and the pride of the Philippines, the Philippine National Constabulary, arrived. They immediately arrested the one bouncer left alive and charged him with murder. Didn’t they arrest “Baby”? Not on our life! More than any other police force in the world, the Philippine National Constabulary knows which side their daily bread soaks up the butter from. Why, taking in the “Baby” would be the equivalent of cutting their incomes in half!

Such reactions on the part of the Philipine National Constabulary are instantaneous. Not a night goes by but what there’s a gunfight between members of the “North Dock Gang” and members of the “South Dock Gang” in one or another of the Dewey Boulevard clubs. And if a cop wants to get ahead in Manila, he’s damn careful who he arrests in these fracases. The safest thing is to prefer the charges against the dead man—no matter which side he was on. That way no toes get stepped on and the cop doesn’t find himself transferred to a jungle patrol.

All this was to concern me directly. It was to have an almost immediate effect upon the circumstances of my arrest. And, although I was never to meet “Baby” Torres, he was to be the instrument of that change in circumstances.

It seems that in addition to his other activities, “Baby” was a gambling man. While the cops had been taking me into custody, “Baby” had been making a substantial wager on the outcome of a balut-eating contest. The contest was being held in a small, quarter-block park area on the city side of Dewey Boulevard. It was already well under way when “Baby” placed his bet on which of the two competing eaters could cram more baluts down his throat than the other without upchucking.

A balut, I should explain, is a half-formed duck embryo. For some reason which remains incomprehensible to me, baluts are considered quite a delicacy in the Philippines. Also, there are frequently contests to see who can consume more of the raw baluts. The championship is held by a U. S. Marine who got some seventy of the slimy things down his gullet.

The trick is in swallowing the balut without stopping to taste or chew it. Sort of a cross between the egg and the chick, it has the consistency of melted vaseline. The expert balut-eater slides the foetus down his throat directly by throwing his head way back and dropping it in without letting it touch either his lips, his tongue, or the roof of his mouth. When experts compete, as was the case now, it rarely ends with either of them admitting he’d had enough. They just go on gulping baluts until one vomits. Then the other is declared the Winner.

What happened in this particular contest was that both men threw up at the same time. When the judges declared it a draw, “Baby” Torres protested vehemently. He claimed that his man had eaten one more balut than the other before the upchucking. The dispute was reaching riot-like proportions when the paddy wagon I was in drew abreast of the park on Dewey Boulevard.

There were already cops on the scene. Typically, they were trying to prevail on the judges to change their decision before “Baby” Torres’ wrath exploded and the hoods he had with him began shooting up the street. Meanwhile, “Baby’s” men were closing in on the bookie who’d taken his bet. But the bookie wasn’t alone, and when those with him started flashing guns, the “North Side Gang” displayed its arsenal in turn. A crowd had gathered and was watching with interest. It was this crowd that blocked the way of the paddy wagon and forced it to stop.

One of the cops on the street called to the three in the paddy wagon to come and help dispel the crowd. From the slit in the rear door of the van, I watched. The cops in the front of the paddy wagon drew their guns as they climbed down to the street. The way the tension was mounting, I couldn’t blame them. But just as they hit the pavement, one of the bystanders shot another a sly grin and stuck out his foot. The last cop out of the wagon tripped and sprawled forward flat on his face. As he fell, he must have tightened his grip on his pistol by reflex. It went off.

Across the park, an onlooker standing a little behind “Baby” Torres began spurring blood from a large hole that suddenly appeared in his throat. Immediately, Torres’ men opened fire and began clearing a path to remove their leader from danger. Some of the gamblers answered the fire, and they were soon joined by some members of the “South Dock Gang.” More “North Dock Gang” members also came up on the run.

In an effort to break it up, the cops made too hasty a judgment. They’d spotted Torres and kept in mind the payoffs he made to them. So they began trying to round up some of those opposing him. They were partially successful. After a few moments, the rear door to the van was opened and three “South Dock Gang” members were tossed inside to join me.

But not for long. Their confederates, enraged at this police bias, attacked the paddy wagon. Swarming over the cops, first they tipped it over and then they forced the door open with a crowbar. However, just as the three emerged, Torres’ men opened fire and all three went down, their blood soaking the pavement. I shrank back in the van and waited.

I didn’t have to wait too long. It was only a few moments when the scene of the action shifted away from the paddy wagon and toward where “Baby” stood surrounded by his men. The “South Dock Gang” was attacking now, and once again the cops moved in to help "Baby".

That was my chance, and I took it. I leaped from the wagon and started running. I dived across the street and into the first available doorway. Behind me, the cloak of night was shrouding the battle. I had to squint to make out the lettering on the door in front of me. It read: LEGASPI HEALTH CLUB – MEN -WOMEN. I pushed through the door.

There was a cashier’s booth between me and the swinging doors on the other side of the entrance hall. Behind its bars sat a skinny, middle-aged Filipino woman with black teeth. They got even blacker as she shot me what I supposed was meant to be a smile.

“Are you a member?” she asked me in English.

I shook my head.

“Then admission to all facilities will be twenty pesos,” she informed me.

“What’s that in American money?”

“Five dollar.”

I handed her the five dollars and went through the swinging doors. There was a small sign on the wall there with an arrow underneath it. The sign said: Men’s Locker Room. I followed the arrow.

The attendant it led me to fixed me up with a locker for my clothes, a pair of swimming trunks, and a towel. I tipped him in American money, gathered from his smug response that I’d given him the best of the dollar-peso exchange, and followed his directions to the steam room. Once I’d closed the frosted glass door to it behind me, I went to the very back and climbed up on a bench so my face would be close to the ceiling where the steam was the thickest.

I stayed there a long time working the red beard and moustache off. Then I massaged my face until I was sure the steam had melted away all of the gummy substance which had held the beard in place. The Philippine National Constabulary might be looking for Steve Victor, but if they sent out a description based on my disguise, I was damn well going to see that it didn’t bear any fruit. That red beard would have been like waving a cape in those bulls’ faces.

The same was true of my red-dyed hair. So when I was through in the steam room. I headed for the men’s showers. I waited until it emptied out, and when I thought I’d have it all to myself, I turned on one of the showers full blast and began rinsing the red gook out of my hair. But I didn’t have it to myself for long. Just as the spray hit me, a naked man entered the shower room and chose the shower alongside the one I was using. His eyebrows shot up as he saw the color wash out of my hair.

“I don’t know that you’re right,” he said peremptorily, almost as though we were old friends. “It’s really a very pretty color. You should keep it. Touch it up, perhaps.”

“I’m tired of it,” I told him, keeping my distance.

“Is it that it doesn’t match?” he asked, soaping himself intimately and lingeringly.

“Beg pardon?”

“Are you embarrassed that it doesn’t match? You know-—below.” He was lathering up a storm now, and his eyes were rooted to my swimming trunks.

“I never thought about it.” I scrubbed at my head impatiently. This creep was making me nervous. I wanted to get out of there.

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed, you know. The contrast could be very interesting.”

“Could be,” I said non-committally.

“Is it?”

“Is what?”

“Is it interesting? The contrast. Is there a contrast?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

“Oh!” He clapped his hands. “Aren’t you the coy one? Come on. Don’t be like that. Drop your trunks and let’s see. After all, there’s only us boys here.”

“I’m not so damn sure of that!” I told him. I shut off the water and started out of the shower room.

“I’ll see you around, dearie,” he called after me.

“Not if I see you first!” I called back.

I was feeling pretty tired, and I decided that what I needed to do was sit down some place quiet where I could think things over and plan a course of action. I passed a door labeled Sauna, and that sounded like just the spot. Underneath the sign there was a notation to remove swimming trunks before entering. Obediently, I took mine off and hung them on a peg outside the door with my towel. Then I went inside.

It was a large room and there were perhaps a dozen naked guys sitting around. From the scenery, I could appreciate those people who were howling for penal reform. But the air was hot and dry and refreshing, and I felt the tension leaving my body as I perched on a bench and soaked up the heat. I sat there for about twenty minutes, unscrambling my thoughts.

Then the door opened and four men entered. I recognized one of them immediately. I still didn’t know him by name then, of course, but I knew he was important by the way I’d seen the cops trying to protect him during the riot before. It was “Baby” Torres.

The four took a seat across-the sauna room from me. After a few minutes one of them looked up, focused on me, and started. He turned to “Baby” and said something in a low voice. His manner said he was excited. “Baby” shrugged, and the man kept nodding his head as if he was insisting on something. Then all four of them had their heads together. I heard the words “South Dock” very distinctly, and then they were all staring at me and glowering.

“Baby” nodded his head in my direction and then stared at the ceiling. Two of the hoods stood up and started walking slowly toward me. Crazily, I noticed that one of them had at some time in his life been the victim of a very bad job of circumcision. The other had long, flowing black moustaches in the Spanish style. Still not comprehending what was happening, I wondered for a mixed-up minute if he was about to correct the sloppy work done on the other. What made me wonder was the fact that he’d reached into the slippers he was wearing, come up with a pushbutton knife, and snapped it open. There was a sudden mass exodus from the sauna room, and that’s when it finally percolated that he meant to use the knife on me!

“Now, wait just a minute!” I exclaimed, jumping up and automatically clasping my hands in front of me to protect my most vulnerable parts. “We have no quarrel."

“That’s right, Senor South Dock,” the moustache hissed. “Sing for your life! When I get through with you, then you will be singing soprano!”

“I have nothing to do with the South Dock, or any other dock,” I tried to explain, backing away.

“Then why did the police have you in custody?” he asked, closing in with his buddy.

“For murder. Just plain old-fashioned non-maritime murder. I’m apolitical, believe me. I only kill when I’m mad.”

“One should never murder in anger,” the moustache chided me. “It’s unprofessional.”

It was a point of view worth considering. I considered it. By his logic, if I made him mad, he should stop trying to kill me. Okay then! I’d make him mad. Action followed the thought. I shot one foot out and kicked him square in the groin.

It made him mad, all right. Very mad. But the so-and-so turned out to be a hypocrite. For all his talk about not murdering in anger, he tried to kill me twice as hard after the kick. He dived for my gut with the switchblade, and I had to slam my elbow into his Adam’s apple to remind him that he was behaving unprofessionally.

Then, quickly, I slammed his buddy in the jaw with a roundhouse right and dived for the exit from the sauna room. “Baby” was still staring at the ceiling, above it all. But his third disciple was moving fast to get to the door before I did. He made it, and I found myself facing another pig-sticker.

I brought my heel down hard on his bare foot as he lunged at me with the knife. It threw him off balance. I jumped sideways and helped him along with a hard kick to the butt. Then I was out the door and running without bothering to stop for my swimsuit or towel.

I knew they’d be right behind me. What I needed was a place to hide. Nor did I have much time to weigh possibilities. As I spotted the door from the sauna room opening over my shoulder, I dived back into the steam room. I went all the way to the back and huddled in the corner.

Almost immediately, a hazy figure sat down close beside me and a voice sounded chummily in my ear.

“Well, hello there. How nice to meet you again.”

“Hi.” I edged away as best I could.

“I see there really was a contrast. You’re not a natural redhead at all."

I felt a nose graze my thigh and crossed my legs primly. “Now cut that out!” I warned him. “I don’t swing that way! ”

“Well, you don’t have to act so bitchy about it,” he said in a hurt tone, picking up his head and leaning back on the bench beside us. “We can’t any of us help being what we are.”

“What you are is your business. What I am is mine. Let’s keep it that way.” I was trying to see through the steam to the door. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel the draft each time it opened. It had opened three times since I’d come inside. I was too far away to make out faces, and I could only hope that the plug-uglies hadn’t tracked me down.

“Well, if you’re going to be that way about it.” he said huffily, starting to get up and move away.

“Wait a minute!” I’d known my voice would be enough to make him sit back down, and it was. There was a reason why I’d wanted to stop him. I’d just spotted two shadows moving back-to-back down the center of the steam room. They were pausing and bending to peer into each face as they passed it. I realized it had to be my two sauna playmates looking for me. “You see those two?” I asked the oddball beside me. “The two standing up? ”

“I can just about make them out.”

“Well, they should be right up your alley. See how they’re propositioning every guy in the place?”

“But why don’t they just go with each other?”

“They’re lovers,” I improvised. “But they’ve had a spat. Now they’re sort of trying to make each other jealous. It’s like a contest to see who can pick up another man first.”

“Then you think if I approached them—?”

“Absolutely! ”

“Well, I don’t know. I have my esthetic standards, you know. I can’t really see them from here. What do they look like?”

“The one on the left is built like an Adonis,” I assured him. “The other one is dark and mustachioed like a Spanish cavalier. He likes to dress up,” I threw in for added incentive.

“Oh! That’s for me! What would be the best way to approach them?”

“Aggressively. Just make a grab. And immediately.” I gave him a shove. They were getting too close for comfort. “Don’t be shy. Grab first and talk later,” I called after him.

“Caramba!”

He must have grabbed. The response confirmed my judgment of my adversary’s Spanish strain. I didn’t dwell on it. As his buddy turned to help him cope with the sudden indignity, I took advantage of the resulting hubbub to bolt past them and out o the steam room.

I shot straight down the long hallway. As I reached the stairway at the end of it, I saw the gay-boy come hurtling out of the steam room. I didn’t wait for my pursuers to follow him out. I took the stairs two at a time and dived through the door at the bottom.

I kept right on diving as I came through it. You see, I’d emerged in the swimming pool. And, as my first look told me, the swimming pool was co-ed. Naked as I was, I would have looked somewhat ostentatious sitting around the edge of the pool. So, as I said, I kept right on diving over the side and into the water.

I carried it off so fast that nobody noticed. When I came up to the surface and looked around, I realized that this was so from the lack of attention anybody was paying to me. I dived down into the depths again and swam the length of the pool.

When I came up, I realized it was riskier here. The water was shallower, and if anybody took a good look, my lack of a suit would be evident. I dived down again and swam for the middle.

I swam underwater with my eyes open. A girl in a bikini swam toward me. Her eyes were open, too. They opened even wider as we passed each. other. A moment later we both rose to the surface. She was staring at me with a startled expression on her face. I stared back as blandly as I could. She shook her head as if to say she must have been seeing things, and then swam away.

It was then that all three of the hoods entered the swimming pool area. I saw them before they could see me and dived again. I came up close to the side of the pool, the same side they were standing on, so that I was temporarily out of their range of vision. That’s when I saw the bathing cap and terrycloth robe one of the women must have parked at the edge of the pool.

I grabbed the cap and put it on, snapping the strap under my chin. Then, as my adversaries turned their attention elsewhere for a moment, I quickly pulled myself over the edge of the pool and donned the robe. With my shoulders bent and my chin stuck under my neck, I fell in behind another woman who was dressed much the same as I. Aping her walk, I followed her to the staircase at the other end of the pool from the one I’d entered by. I followed her up the stairs and found myself in the women’s section of the club.

It would only be a matter of time before someone spotted my deception. Realizing this, I looked around frantically for some place to hide. Standing as I was between the women’s shower and the women’s locker room, it seemed that every place I looked, all I saw was female pulchritude. I felt like an Alpine climber surrounded by mountains of breasts. Then I spotted the entrance to the women’s steam room and once again the darkness of such a place seemed to offer the best possibilities for concealment. I Went inside and found a corner where the steam seemed thickest.

I hadn’t seen the figure sitting there, and I almost sat down in her lap. I didn’t apglogize, though. I was afraid my voice would give me away. It was she who spoke first.

“That you, Samara?” she whispered.

“Uh-uh.” I tried to make the sound as high-pitched and feminine as I could. The unfortunate result was that it came out “uh-huh”-—affirmative instead of negative.

“I thought you’d never get here, sweetie.” Her hand touched the robe just over my knees. “Why are you wearing that, honey?” she asked. “You can’t get the full benefit of the steam if you wear it in here.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Let me help you off with it.” She grasped my shoulders.

“No!” I squeaked. I quickly took the robe off myself.

“Do you have a cold, Samara? You sound so hoarse.”

I shook my head.

“You have to take better care of yourself, baby.” She patted my bare knee and left her hand there. “You’re lucky you have me to take care of you.”

I nodded enthusiastically.

Her hand moved higher. “Oh, Samara, you naughty girl, you’ve been forgetting again. You really must remember to shave your legs at least once a week.” She squeezed my thigh.

I hung my head and sighed an apology .

“You do have a cold?! I can tell by the way you’re breathing. Oh, you poor baby. You just suck that steam right into your lungs now. And when you’ve had enough, do you know what I’m going to do for you, darling?”

I shook my head.

“I’m going to take you right home, and ‘put you straight to bed.” The hand moved still higher. “You’ll like that, sweetheart, won't you?”

I bobbed my head again.

“Of course you will.” Her hand shot all the way up, groped, stopped groping abruptly, and then just stayed suspended. “You’re not Samara!” she said.

I shook my head sadly.

“You’re not even a Woman! ”

I nodded again.

“You’re a man! ”

Another nod.

“A man! ”

And then she screamed.

Following which, all female hell broke loose!

chapter nine

THE STEAM grew thick with outraged cries. Breasts flapped indignantly in the breeze I made bolting for the door. Legs leaped and haunches bounced as the open-pored ladies scrambled furiously to get out of my way. It was a sweating babble of pure female hysteria, that I left behind me.

Still, it was nothing compared to the hysteria which broke loose when I emerged naked in the ladies’ locker room. Some of the ladies were every bit as nude as I was, so I really didn’t see what they were making such a fuss about. I didn’t hang around to find out, either. With undressed and half-dressed ladies of every creed, color, and national origin dropping into faints in my wake, I zoomed through the locker room and out the door on the other side.

I was in a hallway with another door facing me. There was a sign on it saying: DO NOT ENTER. So, naturally, I entered. I was in luck. I found myself in the men’s locker room. I’d come in the back way. Making my way toward the front, I found my friend the attendant.

“Will you unlock my locker, please?” I asked him. “I’m in a hurry.”

“Of course, sir. Will you be returning your suit and towel now? ”

“I’m afraid not."

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“I can’t return them. I don’t have them.”

“But what happened to them, sir?”

“It’s a long story. And you’d never believe it, anyway.”

“Then I shall have to charge you for them, sir.”

“All right. I’ll pay you as soon as I get dressed.”

I didn’t pay him, though. What stopped me was the fact that just as I was putting on my suit jacket, “Baby” Torres and his three chasers appeared in the locker room. All four were naked and still wet from the showers, their bathing suits dripping from their hands. “Baby” pointed, and the chase was on again.

The three naked hoods leaped like gazelles, but I was one leap ahead of them. I raced for the exit, the bare-bodkin trio behind me, the angry locker room attendant close behind them. “Stop, thief!” the attendant shouted.

He was still shouting it as I sprinted through the swinging door and ran up Dewey Boulevard into the night. That swinging door had stopped the three toughie Adams, though. They were too shy to come out on the street and play in the buff. So I dived in and out of a series of alleys to shake the attendant, and finally I lost him.

But I was afraid to just wander the streets. There were too many people who might be looking for me. The cops, the “North Dock Gang,” the crew from the Luzona Maru, members of S.M.U.T., Mavis, the guy who was knocking people off in my name—I didn’t want to risk bumping into any of them until I’d taken a breather and figured out a course of action. I was hot as a firecracker, and I had to park somewhere until the heat died down.

I stuck my nose out on Dewey Boulevard again. I could barely make out the front of the U. S. Embassy far down the street. I thought about going there and decided it would be useless. They wouldn’t know who I was, and even by some chance they did they couldn't jeopardize their diplomatic status by acknowledging it. Certainly they couldn't afford to grant me sanctuary. Not with the Philippine National Constabulary after me for murder!

The Embassy was out. I looked closer at hand. Only a few feet away there was a brightly lit sign and an extremely dark doorway. The sign said: CAFE INTERNATIONAL-Maganda Dalaga.

“Maganda Dalaga” means “beautiful girl” in Tagalog, the main dialect lingo of the Philippines. There were bulbs to make it plural, but they’d been popped out -- probably in one of the shooting fracases between the dock gangs. I crossed over to the sign and went through the doorway.

Its blackness was a promise that only a few colored lights kept from being carried through inside. These lights marked either end of a long bar and both sides of a small stage. A native stripper was just getting out of her sarong on the stage as I entered. Another native girl materialized out of the darkness and asked if I wanted to sit at the bar, or if I preferred a table.

I told her I’d rather have a table. She led me deeper into the blackness, moving with the sure agility of a seeing-eye dog. I felt rather than saw the chair she’d pulled out for me, and sat down. A moment later another sarong appeared at my elbow to ask for my order. I told her Scotch and water. She was back quickly with water and watered Scotch. I downed it, grimaced, and ordered another.

The on-stage sarong was working its way down over impressive Filipino hips. A small but equally impressive bosom gleamed nakedly in the colored lights. The breasts had the tilting shape of twin bananas.

It figured, because the place was a veritable tropical fruit market. Two melons had overflowed the top of the sarong worn by the girl who'd greeted me when I entered. The waitress bobbled firm mangoes in my face as she bent to put my drink on the table. And as she departed to bring me a second, ripe coconuts rolled onto the table beside me and nudged my arm.

The coconuts were wrapped in thin white cotton which etched the outline of the sharp ruby tipping each. I knew this, because as they came to rest, a hand placed a candle on the table between them. It was as appealing an advertising display as I’ve seen.

“Want company, sweetheart?” A face appeared over the candle flame. It was a striking face— female, French and Polynesian at the same time, smouldering with invitation. A cloud of dark black hair almost completely encircled it like a nimbus around a tropical sun.

“I’m' not in the—” I started to say, planning to get rid of her diplomatically. But the situation was taken out of my hands. The waitress returned with my drink and with one for my new companion. I couldn’t chance a scene. I shrugged and paid for both drinks.

“My name is Jana,” she told me. “What’s yours?”

“Steve.”

“You are a Yankee, yes?”

“Yes. How did you know? ”

“You paid the waitress in American dollars. That is very foolish. You will lose on the exchange.”

She had a point there. But it wasn’t the bilking I’d take that bothered, me as much as the fact that the money immediately labeled me an American. If I had Philippine currency, it would be a lot easier to lose myself in the European community. “I really should change my money over, “ I agreed with Jana. “Do you know anyone who can make the exchange for me?’

“How much money? ”

“About five hundred American dollars.” I had some English pounds from Malta, too, but I decided not to bother with them.

“I know someone who can accommodate you at three and a half pesos to a dollar.”

The going rate was four pesos to a dollar, and I knew it. I decided there was no point in letting Jana think I was that much of a patsy. “It’s worth ten centavos to the dollar to me,” I told her firmly. There are a hundred centavos to a peso, so I was offering her forty centavos less than she’d wanted to charge me as her commission.

“Twenty-five,” she bargained, cutting her original gluttonous offer in half.

We settled at fifteen. Then Jana held out her hand for the money. I took it in mine, patted it understandingly, and laughed in her face. “You bring the man with the pesos to me,” I told her. “Somehow I don’t see myself handing over five hundred dollars to you. It’s so dark in here you might not be able to find your way back.”

“You are too suspicious.” Jana said with an injured air. She went off to find the money-changer.

Just as she left, the dancer on stage finished her act. A third spot joined the two which had been highlighting her bosom and pinpointed her shaved charms. Everything went black for a moment, and then the lights came up. The joint was lighter than before, although still pretty shadowy. I was deep in these shadows, and pretty much concealed from view. Across the room from me, the outer line of tables was more clearly illuminated under the vari-colored overhead lights which had just been activated. At one of these tables, I suddenly spotted a familiar face.

It was the Lorre-ringer, the sneaky steward from the Luzona Maru. He was seated at ringside, one of his hands inside the blouse of a plumpish blonde. He was squeezing her breast with an almost detached air, the way a housewife squeezes vegetables to test their consistency before buying. With his other hand he was wiping the beer-suds from his chin.

I watched him, safely concealed by the shadows, until Jana returned. The man she brought with her was a tall, middle-aged Oriental in an immaculate ice-cream suit. He was all business. He made the exchange quickly, didn’t try to conceal it when he gave Jana her cut, and left us.

“Thanks for the favor,” I said drily as Jana tucked the bills he’d handed her deep down in her bodice with the coconuts.

“You’re welcome, Steve.” Her smile said I really shouldn’t mind, that it was only business and a poor girl had to get along as best she could.

I let it pass. I had other things on my mind. I squinted across the room again to see if the steward was still there. He was.

“What are you looking at? ” Jana asked.

“I thought I saw someone I knew.”

She followed my glance. “You mean Otto? I know him too. How nice that we have friends in common. Shall I ask him and Bertha to join us?”

“No! No, don’t do that!”

Jana got the wrong idea from my hasty refusal. “Ah! You would rather be alone with me,” she said. “I understand. And it is so very sweet, Steve. But perhaps you would prefer more privacy than this? It can be easily arranged, you know. Only one hundred pesos, and we can have a room in the back all to ourselves.”

“Not just yet,” I told her. She was determined, I realized, to separate me from as much of my moola as she could. In this setup, that was understandable, of course. But I wanted something for my money, and the something wasn’t sex. I wanted information. There was a chance that Jana might be able to supply some of it. I took that chance. “Tell me what you know about this Otto,” I suggested, sliding a few peso notes across the table.

They quickly disappeared between the coconuts. “He’s a sailor on a Portuguese cargo ship,” she told me. “I believe he’s the steward.”

“Thanks for nothing. I know that. Now what else can you tell me? ”

She gazed at the ceiling as though trying to dispel a mental block.

I dispelled it for her. This time I tucked the pesos deep in the quivering palm-fruit myself. Immediately, Janas memory improved.

“I have seen him with ‘Baby’ Torres a few times.”

“Who’s ‘Baby’ Torres?”

She told me.

“I think our paths may have crossed,” I said. “Describe him.”

Jana described him.

“Does he travel around with three hoods? One a Spanish type with a Jerry Colonna moustache?”

“Who’s Jerry Colonna⁸ ? ”

“A handlebar moustache,” I amended.

“Yes. That sounds like one of ‘Baby’s’ men.”

“Now I’m sure our paths have crossed. What would Otto have to do with him?”

Jana shrugged. I watered her coconuts with some more pesos. Still she didn’t say anything.

“Come on! Tell me what you know,” I threatened, “or I’ll begin retrieving my investment.”

“It’s dangerous to talk too much. It might be better for me to give you back your money.”

“You don’t want to do that.” I banked on her avarice.

“No.” She sighed. “Very well, then,” she said in a very quiet voice. “Otto is mixed up with ‘Baby’ in some sort of smuggling operation. Bertha, the girl over there with Otto, is a friend of mine. She says that Otto brags that he will get a lot of money for this trip he has just finished. It has to do with a cargo that the “North Dock Gang” will hijack from the Luzona Maru tonight. It has to be tonight because the authorities are supposed to check the cargo in the morning. It will be put aboard trucks and taken out of Manila.”

“Where is it going?”

“I don’t know that. Otto didn’t tell Bertha. It may be that he doesn’t know himself. Probably only ‘Baby’ and his top men know. Otto was only the in-between man between somebody on the Luzona Maru -- perhaps the Captain himself -- and ‘Baby.’ But it must be big because Otto expects to be paid very well for his service.”

“Then Otto won’t take part in the hijacking itself,” I mused.

“I don’t think so.”

“What time is the hijacking supposed to come off?”

“I’m not sure. Sometime after midnight, probably.”

I glanced at my watch. It was eleven-thirty. “Jana,” I said, “you're a pretty chick. Working here, you must know the docks pretty well. How can I get to the Luzona Maru without being spotted? ”

“That would be very dangerous to try. Probably the simplest way from here would be to cross over from the south dock. But you’d run the risk of being gunned down by either gang. And Torres probably already has guards around the pier where the Luzona Maru is anchored if he’s planning to hijack it. I don’t know what your involvement is, Steve, but I’d advise you to stay out of it."

“I can’t do that.”

“Then please forget where you got the information. If Torres ever found out I’d told anybody about one of his operations, he’d have me killed like that!”

“Jana, how would you like to make a hundred pesos?”

Her dark eyes got every wide. “That’s a lot of money, Steve. What do I have to do for it?”

“Help me reach the Luzona Maru tonight.”

“That’s a lot of money, but it’s not enough to die for.”

“Two hundred pesos. And I don’t intend for either one of us to die.”

“Two hundred and fifty.” She looked frightened, but she wasn’t too frightened to haggle.

“Done.”

“All right,” she sighed worriedly. “I’ll meet you outside. I’ll leave now. You wait about ten minutes and then follow. Go through that hallway to the men’s room.” She pointed. “There’s an exit door at the end of it. I’ll be waiting outside it.”

I dig as she said and found myself in back of the International Club at the rear of the south dock. Jana took my hand and led me into the darkness. It swallowed us up as we picked our way between rows of packing cases and hand-trucks.

The breeze off the Philippine Sea grew stronger as we emerged from between the rows of crates into a clear space. At the other end of the clearing a man casually pointed a tommygun at us. “Stop right there!” he warned.

“South Dock Gang,” Jana whispered. “Let me handle him.”

She put her hands up, smiled teasingly, and moved toward the guard, wriggling her hips as she went. “Surely” you aren’t going to shoot me, Manuel, are you?” she asked in a throaty voice.

“Jana, my pigeon. It’s you. Shoot you? Never, my dove! Hasn’t our noble president said we must conserve our natural resources? And what girl has such natural resources as yours? What girl is so generous with them, I ask you?” He punctuated the question with an appreciative grab at Jana’s haunches.

“You are such a flatterer, Manuel.” She let him keep his grip as she patted his cheek. “But I can’t relieve your vigil tonight, I’m afraid. I am occupied with a friend.”

“What friend?”

“Steve, come here,” Jana called. “Come here and meet Manuel, the greatest lover of the south dock.”

“Hi.” I held out my hand.

“Any friend of Jana’s is a friend of mine,” He assured me. “But Jana, why do you bring him here?” he asked. “Are all the beds broken at the International?”

“A special,” she told him. “I don’t want to split the fee. You know how it is. I thought we might find a nice quiet place. . . . ”

“Ah!” Manuel chuckled. “You’re a very lucky man. ” he told me. “Jana really knows how to make a man happy.”

“And I'll make you happy another time, Manuel,” she told him, “if you’ll let us find a place where we can be alone.”

“How can I refuse?” He turned his back to us ostentatiously. “Enjoy yourselves.” He winked at me over his shoulder.

Once again Jana took my hand and led me through the darkness. We moved slowly, and it was about ten minutes later when the flashlight hit us in the eyes. It stayed there as someone silently moved behind us. A hand with a baling-hook reached from the rear and wavered between us, nudging each of our bellies by turn.

“Wait!” Jana spoke quickly, trying to shield her eyes against the light. “Let there be no blood. Please! ”

“Please!” I echoed fervently.

“Should I stick them, Raoul?” the voice from behind us asked.

“A minute.” The flashlight moved closer. “What are you doing here? ” the second voice demanded.

“Manuel said it would be all right,” Jana replied. “He said we should take care of you.”

“Well, then?” A hand materialized in front of the flashlight, and the fingers were rubbed together in a money-hungry gesture.

“Give him two hundred pesos,” Jana whispered to me.

“Why not kill them and take it all?” asked the voice behind us. The baling-hook twirled lightly and slashed my shirt. “

The hand in front of the flashlight swallowed up the two hundred pesos. Then it reappeared and made the same gesture as before. “Do it again.”

I didn’t argue. I handed over another two hundred.

“You’re too bloodthirsty,” Raoul told the baling-hook. “They are just young lovers. Let them go.”

“And you’re too sentimental,” the voice grumbled behind us. But the baling-hook disappeared obediently.

A few seconds later the light was doused, and Jana and I were alone again. My breath came whooshing out in a sigh of relief. But Jana was still worried as she led me farther through the darkness.

“The most dangerous is to come,” she told me. “Now we have to cross the boundary between the south and north docks. If we’re seen, the ‘North Dock Gang may shoot first and ask questions later.”

How right she was! No sooner did we emerge into the no-man’s-land between the two territories than a volley of pistol shots nipped at our heels. I grabbed Jana and dived back into the shadows.

“We’ll never make it!” she said, shaking. “We’d better turn back.”

“We’ve come this far. We’ll make it,” I assured her. “You just stay here quietly while I take care of the sentry.” I patted her arm and moved off on my belly.

I crawled in a wide half-circle that brought me to the right of the guard and a bit in front of him. I was pretty much out in the open now, and if he looked in my direction, I’d be a sitting duck. I latched onto a few rusty nails lying on the dock. When his head changed angles to peer into the darkness in the direction from which I’d come, I threw the nails so that they hit on the other side of him. He jumped forward in that direction, firing as he went.

The movement put me behind him. I’d banked on that. As he moved, I dived, slamming into his back and wrapping an arm around his throat. I wrenched his pistol from him and clubbed him over the head with it. I held onto the pistol and let his body sag silently to the pier.

Jana had seen the whole thing. Now she joined me. We reached the dock alongside the Luzona Maru without further incident. Getting onto the pier itself was another matter. It was crawling with men. They were loading the large cans I’d seen in the hold onto waiting trucks which had been lined up parallel to the ship. The operation was going forward smoothly and quietly, with half a dozen armed men patrolling the perimeter of the pier to see that it stayed that way.

“Look.” Jana pointed. “There’s ‘Baby’ Torres.”

I looked and saw the man the cops had been so concerned about during the balut-eating melee before, the same man who’d sicced his henchmen on me in the sauna. He was talking to the ferocious Spanish moustache. Now he moved off with a wave of his hand and climbed into a waiting car. A moment later the car pulled away. The moustache began hissing orders and otherwise making like a foreman. I gathered that “Baby” must have left him in charge of the unloading gang.

The line of waiting trucks extended beyond the dock. I decided that my only chance of following the cargo to its destination would be to get aboard one of those trucks and hide before it was loaded. With Jana at my side, I circled the area until we were fairly close to the next-to-last truck in the line.

“Hey! Who’s that!”

The voice came from behind us. I didn’t wait for it to get an answer. I grabbed Jana’s hand and plunged into the shadows of the trucks. We crawled under the length of the last truck and then I pulled her over the tailgate of the one in front of it. At the very back there were some quilts of the type used by moving men lying on the floor in a tangle. We crawled under them and arranged them so they’d conceal us.

Perhaps half an hour passed, and then our otherwise empty van moved up to the head of the loading line. Some thirty of the large containers were put aboard, and then the back of the truck was closed and locked. The truck started moving slowly, and then picked up speed. It was about three-thirty in the morning when it came to a halt again. I judged we’d ‘gone some fifty miles-— maybe more. Throughout most of the journey Jana had been complaining in bitter whispers about having been forced to make the trip.

“It wasn’t part of our bargain,” she protested. “I only promised to get you to the ship. Now who knows what sort of trouble you’ve got me into? ”

“I’m sorry. It couldn’t be helped,” I told her. “It was either crawl in here or get nabbed by the guards.”

“They’ll get us anyway when we stop,” she pointed out. “And these north dock boys don’t play games. They won’t think anything of killing us for sneaking onto one of their trucks when they’re pulling a job.”

She’d kept on like that throughout the ride, but now, as the truck stopped, she quieted down. I could hear her heart beating loudly, though. She was scared. I couldn’t blame her. I was pretty scared myself.

After a while the truck’s back door was opened and the tailgate lowered again. Men began moving the large metal containers onto hand-trucks. They were taking them up a ramp into a large building. I could barely make out the looming structure in the darkness. With the palm trees surrounding it, I guessed it was some sort of plantation shed.

“You stay here,” I whispered to Jana as the last of the containers were removed. “You can probably sneak off when they get back to Manila.”

“What are you going to do?”

“This is where I get off.”

The unloading gang had moved to the next truck now. The coast looked as clear as it would ever be. I crawled out from under the quilts to the tailgate. Silently, I dropped off into the darkness.

“Son-of-a-pig! ”

One of the men had been goofing off. He’d been squatting under the tailgate. As I’d swung down, I’d landed smack in his lap. He followed up the curse by pulling a gun and sticking it in my gut. I froze, still straddling him, and put up my hands. There wasn’t much else I could do.

He motioned with the gun. I backed off on my hands and knees. We both stood up. He barked into the darkness. A moment later there were other men surrounding us. Then the group parted and I found myself face to face with the moustache.

When he was told that I’d dropped off the truck, he sent a pair of men to search the inside. They returned with Jana between them. “I warned you this would happen, Steve,” she sobbed.

The moustache picked up his head as he heard the name and gave me a hard look. For a split second he seemed like one of those cartoon characters with an electric light bulb coming to life over its head.

“Should we kill them?” one of the men asked.

“No.” The moustache surprised me by not being as bloodthirsty as I had good reason to expect him to be. “I think our clients may have some special interest in this man. If he is who I think he is, there may be a bonus in it for us. And they’ll want him alive—so they can question him—not dead.”

“What should we do with them, then?”

“Take them inside.” He gestured toward the storage shed. “Tie them up securely and leave them there. I’m going over to the main house to see what they’ll bring us. If they’re not interested, we can always dispose of them on the trip back to Manila.”

Jana and I were hustled inside the shed. It was an immense room. The containers from the Luzona Maru didn’t begin to fill it. There were cables hanging from the ceiling with hooks on the ends of them. Sides of beef hung from some of the hooks.

It was chillier in here than it had been outside. I guessed that the place must be refrigerated. But the temperature hadn’t been turned too far down. It wasn’t near to freezing. Probably it had been adjusted at just the proper level for the goats’ milk. From the way some of the meat was thawing, I figured it must have been much colder before.

One of our captors said something I didn’t hear to the others. They laughed and nodded their heads as if in agreement. Then, still guffawing, they fell on Jana and myself.

They tied my ankles together, then Jana’s. My hands were pulled over my head and the wrists tied together. The same was done to Jana. Then I was picked up bodily, and the rope around my wrists was looped over one of the hooks hanging from the ceiling beams.

The cable attached to the hook was tightened, and I was pulled off the floor a few feet. Then the boys down below got playful. Laughing and chattering, they began jumping for me. The object of the game seemed to be to see who could pull my pants off. Finally one of them succeeded, removing my underwear as well in the process. With my shirttails flapping under my suit jacket, I was pulled up the rest of the way to the ceiling beam. I dangled there, the chill air raising goose pimples on my bare derriere. A moment later Jana was pulled up opposite me, hanging about two feet away.

Down below, the jokers were dancing around and pointing up at her and making dirty cracks. I gathered from what they were saying that Jana wasn’t wearing any underwear. They made the most of their unobstructed view up her skirt.

After a while, their interest palled. The rest of the containers were brought into the shed. Then our captors waved goodbye and the huge sliding doors slammed shut behind them. Slowly, the air began to get cooler and cooler. The steady hum of the refrigeration machinery was the only sound in the shed.

Jana didn’t say anything. Neither did I. There didn’t seem to be much to talk about. Our activities being somewhat limited, there seemed nothing to do but hang around and see what would develop. So that’s what we did.

We just hung!

chapter ten

JANA, however, was not the kind of girl to let herself be left hung up. The Eurasian beauty was a swinger by nature. So, after a few moments of solitude and silence, she began to swing.

It was boredom, or maybe fear, that started her off. But as I watched her pick up speed at the end of her cable, I had an idea. If only we could get together, then somehow we might be able to help each other get loose. I started to swing with her.

Our bodies bumped, and we ricocheted off each other. With out ankles tied the way they were, we couldn’t even hook a leg around each other. I began jerking my body violently to pick up speed. I figured that if I could swing past her and then snap back just right, I might be able to snarl the cables so we could stay together. Then maybe I could work on the ropes around her wrists with my teeth.

But it couldn’t be done. The cables were too stiff to wind around each other. No matter how I tried to snarl them they kept whipping me back the way I’d come. Each new try threw me into a faster spin, and I was getting dizzy from the whirling.

“Wait a minute,” Jana said. “Let’s try it slower. Much slower. I think maybe I can spread my knees apart a little and get a grip on your hips that way.”

So we swung slowly and gently until we were bouncing off each other with soft, regular contacts. Then Jana did manage to open her legs and grab onto my hips from the side. But the tension this caused on the ropes binding her ankles was too much for her. They cut in cruelly and she had to let go. She tried again, but she lost the grip. A third attempt ended the same way.

The Il tried grabbing her with my knees. But they’d tethered my ankles even more securely than they had hers. After a few tries they were bleeding, and I knew I’d never be able to maintain the proximity long enough to chew away the knots holding her hands.

We looked at each other helplessly. The tendons of my arms were killing me from supporting my full hanging weight. I knew it must be just as bad for Jana.

“We have to stay together somehow,” I told her.

“But how? We have nothing to hold onto each other with.”

Looking at her was what gave me the answer. The strain of hanging by her arms had made her breasts pop up over the top of her low-cut white linen dress. Also, the breeze from the refrigeration unit was whipping her skirt around her naked legs. For a moment, as she twirled slowly, her back was to me and her naked buttocks flashed into view.

Despite the situation, I couldn’t help realizing that Jana was quite a succulent siren. Freed of the dress, her breasts were indeed the size of small coconuts. The ruby tips I’d guessed at back in the honky-tonk turned out to be a very dark red. The lighter red of the roseates around them covered an area which was roughly the size of a half-dollar. The breasts were losing a game of hide-and-seek with the cloud of her long black hair hanging in front of them.

The rest of Jana was just as sexy. Her legs were long and well-tanned. The glimpse I’d had of her posterior had been enough to tell me it was well-rounded, plump and firm. Even her olive-skinned face, with its dark, slanting eyes and high cheekbones, had a decidedly erotic appeal.

“How are we going to maintain contact?” I repeated Jana’s question, and then answered it. “There’s only one possible way.” I explained what it was.

“I’ve had lots of strange propositions in my career,” Jana said when I finished. “But this one really beats them all.”

“It’s our only chance.”

“All right, lover.” Her eyes dropped below my shirt-tails. “But do you think you re up to it? ”

“I will be,” I assured her. “Come on. Let’s give it a try.”

We, started swinging gently until our bodies were making contact again. I ducked my head and fastened my lips over Jana’s breasts. I managed to hold the contact for a long moment until our weight forced us apart again. Swinging away, I left her nipple longer, quivering and distended.

I repeated the maneuver a few times, switching breasts. It had its effect. Jana was swinging against me harder now, more eagerly. “Oh, yes,” she said as we paused a moment. “You’re up to it.”‘ Her dark eyes really smoldered now as she stared beneath my flapping shirt-tails.

“Okay. One. Two. Three. Now!”

We swung together, and I stabbed eagerly. My aim was off. I missed. By a mile. I gouged the cleft of Jana’s navel. But she wasn’t able to hold me there.

“If at first you don’t succeed . . .” I panted. I swung again. This time I was too low. I damn near compromised her knees.

We tried again. It was a near-miss. Jana managed a squeezing grab with her upper thighs. For a minute it seemed as if she was trying to break it off. But strong as her thigh muscles were, she finally had to let go. Again we swung free.

“We’d have to be contortionists,” she gasped.

“One more try,” I insisted.

This time I was right on target.

“Ahh! ” Jana sighed. “Now just hold onto it,” I cautioned her.

“Oh, yes!” She bounced up and down cautiously, and I could feel her getting a firmer grip.

I stretched my head up and fastened my teeth on the rope binding her wrists. I started nibbling as best I could. “Stop moving like that,” I mumbled after a moment.

“I m not moving! You are!’

“I am not! Control yourself! Can’t you?”

“There! You did it again!”

“I was only responding,” I insisted, still biting at the ropes.

“Well, that’s all I’m doing. I can’t help it if I get excited. I mean, after all!”

“But when you get excited, I get excited. Now cut it out! ” I told her.

"You're certainly not very romantic!”

“Well, this isn’t exactly a romantic situation.”

“Still, considering our intimacy, you could treat me more like a woman and less like an object.” Jana’s pulsing grip punctuated her words.

I treated her more like a woman. I reacted to her grip by slamming against her hard. “But that’s all,” I told her. “Because if I get too cooperative, I won’t be able to control myself, and then there won’t be anything left to keep us together.”

“Then you do like me a little bit, don’t you?” she sighed. “I knew you did. It’s not just because it’s necessary.”

“I think you’re terrific,” I assured her. “Some other time or place, I’d really enjoy this.”

“You mean you’re not enjoying it now?” She altered her rotary movement, and the effect was a suction that sent a tingle up the length of my body.

It was too much. I reacted with an automatic lunge. Our bodies bounced apart, and the contact was broken.

“Damn!” Jana exclaimed as we swung apart.

“We need a more secure grip,” I decided. I made Jana turn around, and then swung for her from the rear. It was a bigger target, and I pinned it on the second try. Her skirt hung down over my thighs, tickling them, but otherwise the position was much more practical.

Jana, however, didn’t like it as well. As I began chewing the ropes again, she made her distaste known. “It’s all very well for you,” she said, “but what about me?”

“It’s tighter,” I pointed out. “And you’ve got a much better grip on me.”

“Yes. Ouch.”

“Sorry. Does it hurt you?”

“No. You bit my wrist. . . . It might not be so bad if you could move up just a little,” she said after a moment.

I obliged. “How’s that?”

“Ooh! That’s the spot. Yes!” Her derriere began moving like a frenzied eggbeater. “Yes! Yes! Yes!

“I’m going to be through the rope in a minute,” I told her, my voice cool, but my body hotly explosive. “When you feel your hands freed, grab onto the cable. Otherwise you’ll fall.”

"Now?"

“Now!”

“Now! Now! Now!”

Several things happened simultaneously then. Jana slammed back against me as spasm after spasm shook her body. Unable to hold off any longer, I joined her with a mighty surge of passion. At the same moment the rope parted under my teeth. Jana grabbed the cable, but not before she had slid down an inch or so. This movement virtually engulfed me as I exploded.

“Wow!” Jana said finally.

“Yeah. Wow! ” I agreed. “But we’ve got no time for evaluations. Hold on with one hand and untie my hands with the others.”

She did as I said. Then I swung down and untied Jana’s ankles. She untied mine, and I pulled myself up to the ceiling beam. I pulled her up alongside me. We crawled over to a cable that had been lowered almost to the floor. I started down it, and Jana followed. Gazing up at her, I saw that her chubby cushions were still flushed from our recent activity.

Down on the floor again, I crossed over to the sliding door and tried it. It was locked from the outside. We searched for another exit in vain.

We were still searching when we heard the noise of the sliding door being unbolted. I grabbed Jana and pulled her behind a couple of the containers to one side of it. A moment later the door slid open, and two men stepped inside.

One of them was the moustache. The other I’d never seen before. I waited until they’d walked a few paces into the shed, and then Jana and I silently slipped out behind them.

The trucks were gone. There was one car still parked a short distance away from the shed. I figured it must belong to the moustache. Jana and I crawled into the bushes behind it and held a consultation.

She wanted to steal the car and return to Manila. I told her I wasn’t going back to Manila just yet. I wanted to scout this place, find out what it was, see what its connection with S.M.U.T. was-—if any. But of course I didn’t fill Jana in on my reasons.

“You’re nuts,” she told me succinctly. “If ‘Baby’s’ boys find you around here, they’ll kill you for sure now.”

I was still telling her to go on without me when the two men emerged from the shed. I couldn’t see his face, but from his tone of voice I guessed the moustache must have a pretty red visage. He was telling the other man that his cohorts had assured him they left the prisoners in the shed and he couldn’t understand how they’d managed to escape.

The second fellow was pretty annoyed. “Unforgivable!” he pronounced judgment. “If you really had Steve Victor and allowed him to escape, your stupidity is unforgivable! Rest assured that Torres will hear about this.”

The moustache was still calling out apologies as he got into his car and drove away. The second man started walking down the trail toward the big house in the distance. Jana and I stayed quiet until he was out of sight.

Then Jana exploded. “Now see what you’ve done! The car is gone. Now we’ll have to walk back to Manila.”

“You'll have to walk, you mean,” I told her. “Like I said before, I’m going to hang around here. But once you hit the road, you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting a lift.” I handed her the balance of the money I owed her. “Thanks and good luck,” I said. “I hope we’ll meet again.”

“All right. Goodbye, then.” She started off the way the car had gone.

I watched her hips swing as she went. I’d really meant my parting remark. Jana was a swinger I’d not soon forget. And some day I’d like to meet her when we weren't both all tied up.

When she was out of sight, I started out for the house. I kept to the underbrush until I reached the lawn surrounding it. It was a large, sprawling mansion in the Spanish style typical of older plantation houses in the Philippines.

My brush-beating walk had brought me around to the front of the place. It was well-lit, but somehow I couldn’t see myself marching in the front door. Still keeping to the bushes, I worked my way around to the back.

There was a large verandah there. Despite the late hour, a group of people was congregated there. Some of them were in evening dress, some not. Most of them were familiar to me.

Most familiar was Mavis. With her hair done and wearing an elaborate pale green evening gown, she looked younger and softer than when she’d been playing her school-teacherish widow role aboard the Luzona Maru. She was talking more animatedly than I’d ever seen her talk before.

The man she was talking to was wearing a uniform that had seen better days. I knew him, too. It was the Captain of the Luzona Maru.

The Mate was also there. He looked ill at ease chatting with a vivaciously beautiful redhead. From the fleeting expressions which crossed his face, I guessed that she must be teasing him and he was unsure of how to take the teasing.

The redhead wore a low-cut dress of gold lamé-—very stylish, very expensive. Looking from her to Mavis and back again, I guessed she must be the sister Mavis had mentioned. She was younger, more voluptuous, and generally more alluring than Mavis, but there was a facial resemblance that couldn’t be mistaken.

There were four other people present, all dressed in evening clothes. I only recognized one of them. He was the man I’d seen back in the shed. Youngish and swarthy, he sported a jet-black beard below clean-shaven cheeks which gave his sharp-featured face a Satanic cast.

Of the two men he was talking to, one was also young —no more than thirty, I judged. He was one of the handsomest men I’ve ever seen. Tall and slim, his skin was the color of polished black mahogany, and his features were those of some Adonis from an ancient Greek sculpture. When he smiled, as he did now at something that was said, his teeth were as white as the dinner jacket he was wearing and the contrast with his ebony skin was impressive.

The other man was much older than the Negro and the man with the beard. He was quite bald, and his face was round and pudgy. The most noticeable thing about him was the hump on his back which had-trapped him into a perpetual stoop.

Off to one side, by himself, and seemingly content to be alone, the fourth person sat sipping at a tall drink. A man’s tuxedo fit well over bulges that seemed more female than male. The hair was worn long, somewhat reminiscent of the Beatles. But the curved, feminine face featured a thick, dark, well-trimmed moustache. I looked a long time, and I still couldn’t decide whether it was a man or a woman.

Giving up the attempt, I inched right up to the bushes framing the verandah and settled there. From this vantage point I could hear the conversations with no difficulty. One of the first things I heard was the group greeting a familiar face that arrived on the scene.

Color the new face green. It belonged to the Lorre-like steward of the Luzona Maru. He must have ditched his blonde playmate back at the honky-tonk, and now here he was to complete the cast of characters.

“I just left Torres,” he opened. “He assured me that the trucks took the stuff off the boat without a hitch.”

“He was mistaken,” the man with the beard replied, an edge to his voice. “There was a hitch. A big hitch. A hitch named Steve Victor. And he had a girl with him. Local talent, according to what Torres’ man told me.”

“But how--?” the steward turned first to the Captain and then to the Mate for an explanation.

But neither of them answered him. Instead, the man with the beard spoke again, his voice heavy with authority. “How isn’t important,” he said. “What matters is that you fools have contrived to lead him straight to us. Now he’s running around loose here someplace. And he has to be found before he pieces together enough information to destroy S.M.U.T.”

“Darling, don’t get so excited. It isn’t good for your blood pressure.” The redhead crossed over to him and patted his cheek. “He takes his responsibilities so seriously,” she added, turning to Mavis.

“And so he should, Leslie,” replied Mavis. “After all, Hanson has to run the machine. The rest of us are only cogs, but Without him. S.M.U.T.’s ultimate function will never be performed.”

“Such admiration!” Leslie retorted with a tone of mock awe. “You see, Hanson, I always said you married the wrong sister. It should have been Mavis instead of me.”

“Such a delightful choice,” the Negro observed. “You’re a lucky man, Hanson.”

“Thank you, Bruce.” The man called Hanson inclined his head, his beard bobbing ironically. “But this is no time for small talk. This Victor came close to destroying S.M.U.T. before. This time he might succeed.

“The question is, sir,” the Captain said respectfully, “which Victor is it? There seem to be two.”

“Or possibly three,” Mavis chimed in. “There’s the Steve Victor who murdered our man here in Manila. There’s the Steve Victor who turned out to be a Russian agent named Karenkov who was jailed by the British in Malta. And there’s the Steve Victor who disguised himself as a red-bearded Irishman aboard the Luzona Maru. But I suppose we don’t-have to worry about that one. I turned him over to the Manila police myself.”

“Wrong,” Hanson corrected her. “We do have to worry about him. From what Torres’ man told me, he escaped. Indeed, he may be the Steve Victor who’s on the premises right now. He was last seen in an athletic club on Dewey Boulevard not far from the Luzona Maru. Also, the Russian one is still a possibility. There’s a feeling in Malta that the British may have let him escape for some obscure reason of their own. They might even be working with the Russians on this, you know. The British, the Russians, the Americans—they’re all out to destroy S.M.U.T.”

“Perhaps the basic plan should be re-examined.” The hunchbacked man spoke for the first time.

“I don’t think so,” Bruce said firmly. “It would be fatal to start altering things now.”

“But so much has gone wrong. First losing that shipment of contraceptives in Malta. Then the killing here in Manila. And now more trouble from this Steve Victor.”

“It’s been arranged with Torres to load another shipment of contraceptives aboard the Luzona Maru tonight. The right palms have been smeared, and we should be able to sail by afternoon. This time arrangements have been made to insure delivery and subsequent European distribution. The last time was unfortunate, but it won’t happen again. You just keep growing the rubber and processing it and getting it here so Hanson can run our little punctured safety devices off the assembly line, and I’ll see that they get put on the market.”

“But not in Malta,” Hanson reminded him. “Things are too hot there now. Mavis was lucky to be able to get out at all.”

“I wish we didn’t have to deal with Torres,” Bruce interrupted. “I don’t trust him.”

“You can leave Torres to me, sir," the steward said. “He’ll ask no questions as long as he’s paid.”

“I’d feel a lot surer of that,” Bruce told him levelly, “if I knew just exactly how much of a kickback you were getting from the ‘North Dock Gang’.”

“You do me an injustice, sir.” The steward’s green skin took on a red flush. “Like all of us, my concern is only for the welfare of S.M.U.T.” .

“Your concern is for lining your own pockets,” Hanson said. “And S.M.U.T. will go along with that as long as it doesn’t interfere with the operation.” He turned to the Captain. “But I’m holding you responsible for your money-hungry henchman here,” he told him.

“You needn’t worry about him sir,” the Captain answered. “He’s avaricious, but trustworthy.” He got to his feet. “I think now we’d best return to the ship,” he said. “I have some final arrangements to make with Torres, and we want to get an early start tomorrow.”

The Mate and the Steward followed him into the house. Hanson walked beside the Captain, evidently delivering some last-minute instructions. A few minutes later I heard a car engine starting from the direction of the front of the house. As it droned away, Hanson returned.

“Hanson, you’re having a busy night tonight,” Mavis greeted him. “If you’re always this busy, I wonder that you don’t get confused sometimes.”

“What do you mean?”

“What with poking holes in contraceptives so they’re useless, and dipping birth-control pills in the milk of Maltese goats so the users will get Malta Fever, you’re really sending the European birth-rate soaring. If Malta is any example, you’re very successful. But aren’t you ever afraid it might backfire with you and my baby sister here? Don’t you ever worry that you might fall victim to one of your own diabolical devices? Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that you might make me an aunt unintentionally?”

“Bite your tongue!” Leslie told her, green eyes flashing under red curls. “I’m no fertile Myrtle. I’m going to be part of S.M.U.T., not one of its slaves.”

“Speaking of slaves—” The mild voice spoke for the first time. It was high-pitched, but there was no telling whether it was a man’s voice or a woman’s. “—What about the Pacific operation? That’s where our first labor force must come from. I do hope there aren’t as many snags there as there seem to be in the Western scheme of things.”

“No worry there,” Bruce said confidently. “We’re ahead of schedule. The idea of smuggling the goats to Hanson here and having him breed them was a stroke of genius. As soon as Cronin catches up, the distribution is all set up to see that every man, woman and child from Australia and Micronesia clear to Tahiti will be drinking Maltese goat’s milk.”

“It’s not my fault,” the hunchback whined resentfully. “I’m trying to get coordinated. But my plantation is set up to grow rubber and process it, not for bottling milk. I still think that part should have been done here.”

“Too risky, Cronin,” Hanson told him. “We’re too close to Manila. And that’s all been decided. You just see that you do your part.”

“Yes,” Bruce added. “Make sure that you do, Hanson.”

“All right. I will. I will,” Cronin the hunchback assured them.

“We all will,” the male-female voice said in a conciliatory tone, “And now, if there is nothing else, I trust you gentlemen won’t mind if I retire.”

“Of course,” Hanson said, reverting to his role of host. “I hope you sleep well, Dr. Palaro.”

“I trust we all will,” Dr. Palaro replied. “Good night, all.”

“We should all turn in,” Bruce said. “It’s been a long day.” He didn’t look tired, though. He looked as fresh and crisp as if the evening were just starting.

“Yes, I too am tired,” Cronin agreed. He stretched as if to prove the point, and his hump swelled almost obscenely with the gesture.

Hanson started to follow Bruce and Cronin into the house. “Are you coming, Leslie?” he asked, pausing in the doorway.

“In a few minutes,” she answered. “I want to chat with Mavis a while first. After all, it’s an occasion when one gets to see one’s only sister for the first time in three years.”

“Very well." Hanson turned on his heel and left.

“I envy you your husband,” Mavis said frankly when she and Leslie were alone on the verandah. “He’s such an admirable man compared to the milksop I married.”

“Well, you’re pretty much rid of him now,” Leslie told her. “Just see that your envy doesn’t become too ambitious. Hanson may be admirable, but he is a man with a man’s weaknesses.”

“Is that true?” Mavis sounded interested. “Oh, don’t worry,” she added quickly. “I haven’t any designs on him -— none that need concern you immediately, anyway. It’s just that I’ve always wondered about Hanson.”

“Wondered?”

“Yes. About his role in S.M.U.T. He gives the orders, and everybody accepts them unquestioningly. Could he really be the head of S.M.U.T. Is he, Leslie? You can tell me. I’ll respect your confidence.”

“I don’t know,” Leslie answered.

“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re his wife, aren’t you? Surely you’d know something like that.”

“But I wouldn’t!” Leslie insisted. “Hanson never confides in me. Sometimes he makes decisions and acts on them so quickly that I’m sure he must be the mysterious head man. But other times I’m not so sure. The truth is that I’m as curious and as in the dark about who the real head is as you are.”

“But if it isn’t Hanson, who else could it be? I mean, he passed on some very high policy decisions tonight. Nobody questioned them. Surely if he wasn’t the man behind S.M.U.T., the others wouldn’t accept what he says so readily.”

“Unless it’s one of the others who tells him what to say and who’s really the power,” Leslie mused.

“But surely you’d know that. Who does he talk to?”

“All of them. And I wouldn’t know it. Hanson treats me like a child where S.M.U.T. is concerned.”

“But if not Hanson, then it must be one of the others,” Mavis insisted. “There is nobody else.”

“That’s true,” Leslie agreed. She thought a moment. “Maybe it’s Bruce,” she said. “He commands as much respect as Hanson does from the rest.”

“Do you really think a Negro could be the power behind S.M.U.T.?”

“Why not?” Leslie shrugged. “He certainly has the brains and the culture and the personality to command men. And in a world that’s three-quarters colored, his being a Negro could be an asset.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Mavis granted. “Well, if he decided to start a royal succession, I’d be all too happy to cooperate with him in the endeavor.”

“He certainly is handsome, isn’t he? But just how willing would you be to cooperate if Cronin turned out to be the head man?”

“Impossible!” Mavis shuddered. “That hunchback could never be the one.”

“Why not? He’s a very brilliant man, you know. And his kowtowing attitude might just be a blind to throw people off. From listening to him speak, I know he has a great thirst for power. He has just the sort of shrewd mind that might conceive and execute an idea like S.M.U.T.”

“Well, you know him better than I do,” Mavis acknowledged. “But I’d still find it hard to believe.” She thought a moment. “What about Dr. What’s-his-name?” she asked finally.

“Perhaps. It’s a possibility.”

“ ‘It,’ ” Mavis repeated. “That sort of says it for the doctor, doesn’t it? All night long I’ve been trying to decide if ‘it’s’ a man, or a woman.”

“I’ve been trying to decide for over a year,” Leslie told her, “and I still couldn’t say.”

“Did you ever ask Hanson?”

“Yes. But he only laughed. He said Dr. Palaro was both, or neither, depending on how you looked at it.”

“A hermaphrodite? ”

“I think that’s what he meant.”

“A true hermaphrodite is very rare,” Mavis mused. “But has it occurred to you that it would fit in with the whole anti-sex, pro-population explosion idea behind S.M.U.T.?”

“I suppose it would.”

“And if Dr. Palaro isn’t the head, then just what is his function with S.M.U.T.?”

“He’s a scientist, a bio-chemist. From what I can gather, he’s got something to do with this Maltese goat milk business.”

“Yes, that would explain his function,” Mavis said. “He must be the one who refined the germ culture for Malta Fever.”

“What do you mean? Refined it how? Tell me, Mavis. I’m so sick of not knowing anything. Hanson just clams up if I ask questions.”

“Well, the latest outbreaks of Malta Fever are different than before S.M.U.T. began spreading it deliberately. Now there are two new factors. One is a symptom. S.M.U.T.-induced victims of Malta Fever are now also sexually stimulated by the disease. This germ culture your Dr. Palaro developed must also have some aphrodisiac qualities. The second factor is that female victims have become much more fertile and the males with Malta Fever are producing much more live sperm.”

“It all fits in, doesn’t it?” Leslie said. “All except who the real power behind S.M.U.T. is. I guess we’ll just have to go on guessing about that.”

“I guess so,” Mavis agreed, leading the way as they drifted into the house.

I guessed so, too. With the verandah empty now, I stayed in the bushes for a few moments as my mind tried to sort out all I’d heard. There seemed no doubt that I’d stumbled onto S.M.U.T.’s headquarters. There seemed no doubt that the head of the organization was somewhere in the house before me. But who was it?

Was it the bearded, diabolical-looking Hanson? Was it Bruce, the handsome Negro? Was it the hunchbacked Cronin? Was it Dr. Palaro, the he-she? Or was it none of them?

True, the girls had seemed sure that the head of S.M.U.T. was one of the four. But they could be mistaken. The top dog might not even be on the premises at all.

There was no way I could settle that right now. And it didn’t look like there was going to be much opportunity for further eavesdropping. I decided that the most useful thing I could do at the moment would be to case the rest of this plantation, or whatever it was, and see what else I might be able to learn about the workings of S.M.U.T.

Quietly, I headed away from the house and made for a small hillock I’d spotted. From this bit of raised ground, I had a pretty good view of my surroundings. The early morning moon cooperated by slipping out from behind the clouds and illuminating the terrain.

The house was behind me. Off to my left the moon rays glinted off the roof of the large shed Jana and I had been hung up in before. I saw now that there were several smaller storehouses surrounding it. In front of me a grove of trees—rubber trees, I guessed—stretched out to the road. It wasn’t much of a road, just a single car-wide dirt line stretching into the distance with what looked like thick jungle on the other side of it.

It was the view to my right which I found particularly interesting. There was a long, low building there that was different from the other structures around. It looked new and modern and was shaped like an L. At one end of the long part there was a series of fences like those which might set off animal pens with each one leading into a larger area than the one preceding it. The smallest of these pens narrowed to a ramp leading into the building itself. I could make out a door on the side of the building which closed off the ramp. At the bottom of the L, the roof had sprouted a series of pipes. They looked like small chimneys, and I guessed that each must serve as an exhaust outlet for some sort of apparatus to which it was connected. It crossed my mind that if Dr. Palaro had a laboratory, this might be it.

If it was, I very much wanted to have a look at it. I scrambled down the hillock and started for the L-shaped building. It was farther away than it had seemed, and it was some ten minutes before I came to a stop in the under-brush fringing the pens at the top end of the L. There was a guard dozing outside the door shutting off the ramp. He held a carbine across his knees.

I circled the structure, studying it. There were other guards spaced around the entire perimeter. None of them were sleeping. There were more of them, and they were particularly alert, where the pipes were sprouting from the building. I completed the circle and was back at the top of the L once again.

I considered the sleeping guard. Was that large door behind him locked? Was he sleeping soundly enough for me to sneak past him and find out? The only way to find out was to try it. So I tried it.

Taking off my shoes and leaving them in the bushes behind me, I tiptoed up to him. I kept a tight grip on my shirt-tails so no casual breeze would stir them. I was afraid they might suddenly flap and wake him up. My rear end felt cold where my knuckles grazed it. I wished Torres’ men had at least left me my underpants. The night was turning chillier, and my exposed parts would be one helluva place to catch a cold.

The guard stirred as I drew abreast of him, and my health worries went out of my mind. He was sprawled right across the ramp, and the only way to reach the door was to jump over him. I couldn’t simply step over him; the way the gun was sticking up at an angle made it impossible. I could easily have bushwhacked him, of course, but I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t know when the guards might be changed, or checked up on, and I didn’t want to risk alerting the others to my presence inside.

So I backed off and hurdled the sentry. The boards of the ramp gave a loud creak as I landed. I crouched there a moment to see if the guard had been awakened. He stirred and patted his carbine, but his eyes didn’t open. I straightened up and turned away from him to the door.

It was a large, high door, made of aluminum. There was a handle at the bottom of it which told me that it was the kind of door which had to be raised and lowered. I pulled at the handle gently—then harder. It was no use. It was securely locked.

I was about to give up and re-hurdle the guard when I noticed something else about the door. On the right side, at the very bottom, there was sort of a flap about three feet wide and four feet high. It was the kind of flap you see on the doors of suburban homes, the sort of arrangement that allows the family dog to get in and out without bothering anybody. But when I examined it, I saw that this one was designed so that it was an entrance from the ramp into the building, but not an exit from the building to the ramp because of a frame on the outside which overlapped the metal of the door itself.

Pushing against it, I could feel a spring give slightly. But it only gave enough to open the flap about a quarter of an inch. There was some sort of bolt on the other side that kept it from being pushed in any farther. I managed to get my pinky in far enough to feel the bolt, but the finger wasn’t long enough to manipulate it. I needed something long and thin like a coat-hanger to jimmy the lock.

I had nothing like that, but the sleeping guard did. There was a long, thin strip of metal running down the center of each of the suspenders holding up his pants. It was just the springy kind of thing I needed.

I crawled over to him and edged my hand slowly between where he was holding the rifle and the waistband of his pants. He stirred in his sleep as I undid the button holding the suspender there. The carbine wasn’t in the way of the other front button, and I thought it would be easier to undo. Perversely, he proved me wrong. He stirred again as I fumbled with it and my knuckles grazed his belly.

“Not again, Luana,” he groaned in his sleep. “I’m too tired.” His hand patted mine wearily, and then held it loosely.

It’s not that I’m particular, but he wasn’t my type. Not for hand-holding—-or anything else, for that matter. Sol squeezed his hand once and removed mine from it.

“That's a good girl,” he sighed again. “Go to sleep. There’ll be plenty of time in the morning.”

I quickly unbuttoned the second suspender and reached behind him to get at the back button. The first one in back was no problem the way he was curled up. But the suspenders were joined, and I had to get that last button to get them off altogether. That one was underneath him, with his weight full on it.

I reached under him boldly.

“No! I said no, Luana,” he responded. He was still half-asleep, but there was more annoyance in his voice now and I was afraid that being annoyed might wake him up.

I undid the button quickly and pulled the suspenders out from under him. He jerked away, and I was afraid I really had waked him up. I Waited a full minute beside him without stirring until he began breathing heavily again and I was sure he was asleep. Only then did I back off until I felt the door against my haunches.

I used my teeth to tear the metal loose from one of the suspenders. Then I bent down, inserted it in the crack made by the partition, and began working it back and forth against the bolt I could feel there. It was tricky. I guess it was about twenty minutes before I managed to spring the lock.

Then I got down on my belly and poked my head through the flap. It was pitch black in there. I couldn’t see a thing. I pulled my head out and stuck my hand through to see if I could get a hold on anything that I could tug against while trying to squeeze through. I couldn’t find anything.

The only way to do it, I decided, was to go in feet first. I lay down on my stomach and pushed my feet through the flap. Pushing with my hands against the ramp for leverage, I got my legs through all right, but my hips became wedged. I must have scraped off about an inch of skin on each side of my naked backside before I managed to angle through. The waist and chest went easily though, and the next bottleneck I hit was when I tried to push my shoulders through.

I had my arms straight out in front of me with just my head and shoulders protruding from the aperture behind them. I braced my hands as hard as I could and shoved. By reflex, my feet kicked out, and something went crashing to the floor in the darkness inside. Immediately there was a loud caterwauling of many tongues bleating.

The guard shot to his feet and pointed his carbine at me. There was no doubt that he was about to pull the trigger. Only one thing saved me.

His pants fell down!

I think that must have surprised him even more than seeing my head sticking out of the hole in the door. Pure reflex made him drop the carbine and dive for his descending trousers with both hands. Before he could retrieve his gun, I’d given one more mighty shove and propelled myself through the slot to the floor inside. I landed with a crash followed by a loud squeal.

I’d landed smack on top of a Maltese goat. I didn’t blame him for squealing. Even for a goat, being waked up by 190 pounds landing on the ribcage is pretty much of an indignity.

I didn’t stop to apologize. The guard was making loud noises outside, and I could hear footsteps running up. Inside, the goats were bleating again. As I ran from pen to pen through the black interior, I realized this must be the goat-breeding setup I’d heard mentioned before. I began to appreciate Hanson’s devotion to S.M.U.T. It was the worst-smelling place I’d ever encountered.

It was so bad that I actually held my nose as I ran. Over the bleating, I could hear doors being opened now. A moment later lights blazed up overhead and I dived for cover.

I landed behind a pile of feedbags. It had evidently been placed there to block off the entrance to one of the stalls. Behind me I could hear the bleating of a very young kid—a goat-type kid, that is. I balanced on my knees and peered through an opening in the sacks so I might get an idea of how close those searching for me were getting.

They were close. Too close. Too close for comfort. Three of them walked right up to the feedbags and stopped to confer about what the cause of the disturbance might be. One of them leaned on the sacks, no more than the width of a grainsack from my hiding place. If he bent forward just a little and dropped his eyes, he couldn’t help seeing me.

I didn’t dare move-—not a muscle. I stopped breathing, too. And I cursed my heart for beating so loudly, sure that they must hear it any second.

That was the situation when the kid came sniffing up at me from the rear. I felt his nose nuzzle my shirt-tail, and then it was cold against my posterior. I didn’t even dare reach behind me to push him away. He whimpered softly, a whining, hungry baa-baa.

“It’s just that suckling kid,” one of the guards assured the other two when they looked around for the noise. “I told Jorge he was too young to be taken from his mother. He isn’t ready for weaning yet.”

How right he was! The nursing goat stuck its snout into the juncture of the V made by my upper legs and searched with its tongue. I had all I could do to keep balanced on my knees. It found its mark, fastened onto it, and began making gurgling sounds deep in its throat. The sweat poured off me, but I didn’t dare push the kid away .

Go find your mother, kid, I thought to myself fervently as the goat nursed at me more and more eagerly. Please, kid, go find your mother!

Pub-lease!!!

chapter eleven

I HAVE NOTHING against motherhood, even for goats, but it’s not for me. The three S.M.U.T. hirelings were still goofing off and making conversation in front of the pile of feedsacks shielding me from discovery. One of them was still leaning on his elbow, his hand dangling over behind the sacks just a few inches from my nose. The baby goat was getting more aggressive as his attempts to draw sustenance were frustrated. I was caught between the devils and the deep blue suckling instinct.

Finally I couldn’t stand it any more. I had to move. I took the chance. I slid my hand down and pushed the goat’s snout away from the pacifier it had picked.

The movement went undetected, but it didn’t help much, either. The kid whimpered at the rejection, but a moment later it was right back on target again. Again I pushed him away, but again he came right back.

After three or four attempts, I realized that no mere shove would get rid of him. All I’d succeed in doing would be to eventually draw the attention of the thugs searching for me. Still, I had to do something. Then I had a sudden inspiration.

I remembered the fountain pen I’d filled with a sample of goat’s milk back on the Luzona Mam. It was still in my inside jacket pocket. Cautiously, I inched my hand up and managed to get it out.

It seemed like a slow and excruciating process, but I finally got the pen unscrewed and removed the rubber cartridge inside it. The cartridge was filled with milk. With the point of the pen, I poked a small hole in it. I reached down and pushed the kid away again. When he immediately bounced back, as I’d known he would, I shoved the rubber nipple I’d improvised into his mouth. When he realized he was getting milk from it, he sucked away greedily and forgot all about his first target. Eat, baby, eat, I thought to myself, but remember that I draw the line at changing diapers.

At last the three bozos stirred themselves. They drifted away from the pile of feed sacks and joined the other searchers with a little more enthusiasm. The bleating of the goats penned up there grew louder, providing music to search by.

“Suppose he got into the lab?” one of the searchers asked after a while.

It brought the guy who seemed to be in charge up short. “We’d better check and make damn well sure he didn’t,” he said. He started out at a trot, and the others followed behind him.

Finally the last straggler was gone, and I was alone. Just me and the goats. There was a loft across from me. I walked over and climbed up into it. I had to plan my next move, and I didn’t want to be distracted by any other kids trying to take advantage of my pantsless state.

After due consideration, I decided on that next move. I crawled as far back in the loft as I could and went to sleep. It was the most sensible thing to do. Right now the place was crawling with people looking for me. They’d already searched the loft. The chances were against their searching it again, and so it seemed the most sensible place to hide until the furor caused by my entrance died down. Besides, I was damn tired.

The sound of the big door to the ramp being pulled up awoke me. That, and the bleating of the goats, Was the first thing I heard. The first thing I saw was bright sunlight flooding through the opening and filling up my eyes. The first thing I touched was my bare rear end, sore and tender from sleeping on the hard wood floor of the loft. And the first thing I smelled was goat and goat excrement, a heady aroma which wafted through the air and fell somewhat short of Chanel Number Five. So far short that I nearly gagged at the thick odor.

I actually did fasten my fingers over my nose clothes-pin fashion. Then I blinked the sunlight out of my eyes and cautiously peered down over the edge of the loft. The last of the goats was just straggling out to the ramp. The very last one received a kick from the goatherd bringing up the rear, and then the man pulled the door down behind him as he left.

I was alone again, and I’d have to take the chance that the heat was off. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life in this goat-heaven of a loft. My nose would never hold out. So, if I was going to get down to some serious snooping, now was the time.

I climbed down from the loft and went to a door set in the back wall of the goat stables. The door was ajar. I stuck my head out. There was nobody in sight. I kept going down a long, brightly lighted hallway. There were other doors leading off it on either side of me. I didn’t dare try any of them, but then I had no choice. I heard footsteps coming toward me from around the bend at the end of the hall.

I was just opposite a door, and it opened at my touch. I slipped inside, crossing my fingers that no one would be there. I was lucky. Nobody was.

It was some sort of supply room. There were bins along the walls and standing shelves in the center. Small cartons were in some of the bins. There were stationery items on some of the shelves-—pencils, typewriter ribbons, cans of mimeo machine⁹ fluid, stuff like that. I opened one of the cartons at random. It contained a dozen test-tubes, each in its own individual corrugated cardboard unit. I tried another. This one had packets of very thin wire, the kind used in transistor circuits.

Crossing back over to the door, I eased it open and peeked out. Through the crack, I had a side view of Bruce standing in the open doorway opposite. He had his back to me. He was talking to somebody inside the room.

“. . . when you raise Tahiti,” he was saying. “And then you can leave while I talk to them.”

The voice which replied was surly and had some sort of foreign accent that I couldn’t place. “I take my orders from the boss,” it said. “He didn’t say nothing about taking them from you.” His tone was insolent with an umnistakable dislike of Negroes. There was no effort to hide it.

Bruce didn’t deign to notice. He spoke evenly and with the kind of authority that takes itself for granted. “Hanson—-your boss, that is—obviously has a better understanding of discipline than you do. He would never question my authority in this matter. If you really wish to question it for him, then go ahead. I assure you that he will not be pleased. And let me add,” Bruce closed firmly and pointedly, “that the reason he will not be pleased is that I am not pleased.”

I guessed that Bruce was staring him down. There was a long pause, and then I heard the dit-dah sound of a wireless key tapping¹⁰ . Another pause, and then the voice inside announced that it had made contact with Papeete.

“Tell them to wait,” Bruce instructed. “Now you may leave. I’ll communicate with them myself.”

“You know how to work this thing?”

“Yes, thank you. It’s one of my small accomplishments. Now please go. And let me give you a piece of advice. If you wish to remain with S.M.U.T., don’t ever question my authority again.”

“I’m sorry.” He sounded as if he meant it. Or, rather, he sounded as if he was afraid he might have stepped on some important toes. The fact that they were black toes had him confused as well as apprehensive. He’d spoken just the two words, but his tone delineated the perfect pattern of a bigot turned servile.

Bruce stood back to let him exit from the room. I ducked back behind the door so he wouldn’t see me. I caught a glimpse of him, though. He was a youngish man of indeterminate nationality with blonde hair and a perplexed expression. He was still scratching his head as he walked down the hallway.

Bruce went into the room opposite and closed the door behind him. I opened my door and peered down the hall- way in both directions. It was empty. I tiptoed over to the other door and examined it. No keyhole. I guessed that it latched from the inside. The guess was confirmed when I heard Bruce turn the lock.

I noticed that there was a transom over the door. It was half open. I looked around. There was still nobody in sight. I chinned myself up to the transom and looked inside.

There was a large table against one wall with a radio transmitting setup and a Morse code key. On the wall abutting it there was a large, framed Gauguin print of Tahiti. As I peered inside, Bruce was just in the act of removing the picture from the wall. He set it down on the floor. As he bent, the safe which the picture had concealed was revealed.

Bruce turned the tumblers of the safe with fingers that were light and nimble. Only a moment, and then the door swung open. He removed a small, bound notebook. Thumbing through it, he seemed to find what he was seeking. He studied one of the pages carefully and then nodded to himself. He sat down in front of the telegraph key and propped the book open at the page he wanted. Then he started to transmit.

I understand Morse code, and I was able to comprehend the click-clack, communication which followed¹¹ :

“ARE YOU READY TO RECEIVE, PAPEETE, TAHITI?”

“READY TO RECEIVE.”

“I WILL TRANSMIT NOW. ALL SOUTH PACIFIC UNITS S.M.U.T. TO BE NOTIFIED THAT EMERGENCY PLAN B IS IN IMMEDIATE EFFECT. REPEAT. EMERGENCY PLAN B TO BE CARRIED OUT IMMEDIATELY.”

There was a long pause; then came the answer.

“EMERGENCY PLAN B EFFECTIVE IMMEDI-ATELY. UNDERSTAND AND ACKNOWLEDGE. QUESTION. WHAT AUTHORITY? PLAN B REQUIRES UTMOST HIGHEST S.M.U.T. COMMAND.”

“ACKNOWLEDGED.” Bruce glanced at the book in front of him, and a small smile crossed his lips. “6-9, 9-6, 6-9. ACKNOWLEDGE S.M.U.T. AUTHORITY CONFIRMED AND CARRY OUT PLAN B.”

“AUTHORITY ACKNOWLEDGED. APOLOGIES FOR QUESTIONING. PLAN B TO BE EFFECTED IMMEDIATELY.”

“GOOD. OVER AND OUT.” Bruce switched off the key .

Afraid that he might be coming out at any moment, I dropped silently down from the transom and slipped back into the supply room across the hall. I leaned against the door, listening for him to come out, and pondered the import of the messages exchanged. There was a lot to ponder.

What was “Plan B”? Judging from the hesitation and insistence on “utmost, highest” authority from the other end, it must be something pretty important. “Utmost, highest S.M.U.T. command”-—that was the only authorization they would accept. Did the designation fit Bruce? Was he the real head of S.M.U.T.? I remembered how sure he’d seemed of his right to override Hanson’s standing instructions with the wireless operator before. His tone had almost seemed to suggest that Hanson took his orders from him. “Utmost, highest . . .” And they’d accepted him as such in Papeete. It just might be that at long last I was only a few feet away from the real leader of S.M.U.T.

Bruce hadn’t come out yet. I took a chance, slipped back across the hall, and chinned myself up to the transom again. There was only time for the briefest glimpse inside when I again heard footsteps coming from around the bend in the corridor. I dashed back to my hiding place. For a minute my mind tried to glean the meaning of what I’d seen. Bruce had been turning the pages of the book and photographing each one individually with a miniature camera!

There was no time to dwell on it, though, because events started moving more speedily just about then. Peeping through the crack in the door, I saw the wireless operator striding rapidly back down the hall. Cronin, the hunchback, was at his side. Both men held pistols in their hands. Both looked ready to use them on the instant.

They flung open the door to the wireless room. My crack in the door provided a ringside seat for what followed. Bruce had good reflexes. He moved like quick- silver in response to the sudden violent intrusion.

Instead of leaping backward, he charged straight ahead, which took them by surprise. They were still shooting at where he had been standing when he plunged right past them and into the hallway. He might have made a dash for it and succeeded in getting away then, but he didn’t. There was something he wanted to take care of first. He stood with his back to the wall just outside the door from which I was peeking and took careful aim.

But he didn’t shoot at Cronin and the lackey. They were just swiveling around to shoot at him, but when he fired, it was straight at the wireless transmitter. He emptied his revolver at it rapidly. It made quite a mess.

With one motion, he threw his gun in their faces and dived into the room in which I was hiding. One of their shots must have connected, because he was bleeding from the shoulder as he slammed the door behind him. He looked at me and threw off his surprise quickly. There was no time for talk. He motioned toward some bins in the back, and I realized he meant for me to hide there. It was as if he was saying that he knew he couldn’t escape capture, but there was no point in my getting caught as well. Which, considering that he couldn’t have had the foggiest notion of who I was, was damn decent of him.

I took his silent advice. Hidden, but able to see, I watched as Bruce angled his body so he could brace his feet against the bins on the wall and put his full weight on the door. They were crashing against it with their shoulders from the outside, but he managed to delay them long enough to do what he wanted to do.

First he opened his camera and exposed the film. Then he struck a match and set fire to the book he’d taken from the safe. It flamed up as he held the door. By the time it was slammed open and he went sprawling, there was nothing left of it but ashes.

Now there were four underlings who charged into the room and yanked him to his feet. The hunchbacked Cronin entered behind them. His eyes quickly took in the ashes which had been the book and the exposed film. His expression didn’t change, but his face turned a mottled purple.

“What did you tell Papeete?” he asked Bruce.

Bruce merely smiled pleasantly.

Cronin nodded at one of the men. The man slammed his fist into Bruce’s groin. “What did you tell Papeete?” Cronin repeated.

Bruce straightened up and managed another smile.

One of the men grabbed his hand and held it. A second grasped the thumb and bent it back until even from where I was I could hear the bone snap. Bruce sagged for a moment from the pain, but then he managed to straight- en up again. He couldn’t quite manage another smile, but his sneer was heroic.

“American?” Cronin asked, trying another tack. He nodded to one of the men to punctuate the question with a smash that broke the bridge of Bruce’s nose.

No answer.

“British?”

The fist hit him in the gut, but still he didn’t answer.

“Russian? South American? Chinese?”

Three rapid kidney punches. The only sound Bruce made was his lungs sucking for air.

“I’ll make him talk!” The wireless operator came for- ward, tucking his gun in his belt as he approached Bruce. He pulled a switchblade knife from his pocket and switched it open. He grabbed Bruce’s belt and yanked down his pants. “Now you tell this man what he wants to know, crumb,” he said in an eager voice, “or I’m going to slice it right off.”

Bruce moved his lips. For a moment I thought he was going to speak. I wouldn’t have blamed him. But I was wrong. He didn’t speak. He just spit neatly and accurately straight into his tormentor’s eye.

With a howl of rage, the wireless operator wiped his eye and fell to his knees in front of Bruce. He reached out and grabbed him, the knife poised!

“No! ” Cronin’s voice cracked out in a sharp command. “That won’t make him talk. Nothing will. Some men can’t be broken with ordinary torture. Put your knife away. Turn him over to Hanson. He’ll have facilities for dealing with him.”

Cronin’s words were quickly obeyed. Bruce was allowed to pull up his pants—which put him one up on me —and they marched him out. Cronin remained behind for a moment, studying the camera that Bruce had dropped. I guessed he was looking to see if it might give some hint of Bruce’s nationality.

He was still standing there when Leslie appeared in the doorway. The red-haired beauty was distraught. “What happened to Bruce?” she demanded. “What did they do to him? Where are they taking him?”

“It doesn’t concern you,” Cronin told her brusquely.

“What do you mean? How dare you take that tone with me? You wouldn’t talk to me that way if Hanson were here.”

“Now you listen to me, my pretty,” Cronin said very quietly, sounding very sure of himself. “You tell Hanson what I said. You tell him that I said I don’t want you interfering with S.M.U.T. You tell him I, Cronin, said it.”

“Wh-what? ”

“I do not repeat myself. Tell your husband that those are the orders for now and for later.”

Leslie’s eyes were very wide as she started backing out of the doorway.

“Where are you going?” the hunchback asked as she turned.

“I-—I was going to say hello to Dr. Palaro.”

“No. I don’t wish Dr. Palaro disturbed. Stay out of his laboratory.”

“I don’t have to take orders from you,” Leslie protested. But she couldn’t keep the quaver out of her voice.

“Yes, you do. You have to do exactly as I wish. And do you know why? Because you belong to S.M.U.T., that’s why. Your mind, your soul—-” Cronin paused and seemed to draw himself up so that his hump became more prominent. “— and your body!” he finished. On the Word “body,” he reached out deliberately and closed his hand over the sunsuit halter Leslie was wearing. He squeezed her breast hard until he saw pain reflected in her face. Only then did he let go. “Do you understand?” he asked.

“Yes.” She was staring at him with her eyes very wide. I could guess what lay behind the stare. Leslie was wondering if Cronin was the head of S.M.U.T. Snug in my hiding-place, his manner had me wondering the same thing.

Leslie left then. A moment later Cronin followed her out. I waited until I figured the coast was clear, and then I ventured over to the door. I still wanted to get a look at that laboratory if I could.

I was too ambitious. I sneaked around the bend in the hall, and now I was in the lower part of the L formed by the building. There was a door directly in front of me with a sign that said: NO ADMITTANCE WHEN RED LIGHT IS LIT. The red light over the door was lit. I tried the knob anyway. It was locked from the inside. I turned away, intending to retrace my steps. And that’s when my ambitions caught up with me.

Just as I turned my back to it, the door opened. I wheeled around to find myself looking down the barrel of the gun. Above it, Cronin’s face regarded me calmly. “Another visitor,” he sighed. “Well, step inside.”

He stood aside and I preceded him into the room. It was a large laboratory, and it looked very well-equipped. Against the far wall was a bank of cages with guinea pigs in them. Dr. Palaro was standing in front of them, holding a guinea pig in one hand and injecting some sort of fluid into its hindquarters with a hypo held in the other. He didn’t look up as we entered.

“Aren’t you cold running around that way?” the hunchback asked, his eyes dropping to my naked legs and then shooting up to my face again.

“Yes,” I admitted. “I am.”

“You must be Steve Victor,” he guessed. “You lost your pants in the shed last night.”

“At your service,” I acknowledged the introduction.

“Hanson will be very glad to see you. He’s been up all nigh: worrying about your whereabouts.”

"Gee, I'm all choked up.”

“Which Steve Victor are you?” the hunchback wanted to know. “Are you the murderer? The Russian agent? The Irishman?”

“Well, to tell the truth—” I paused.

“That’s what I want you to do. It would be wisest. I have you at a disadvantage.” He leveled the gun at where my underpants should have been. “Go on. You were about to say—”

“That I have this identity problem,” I finished my thought for him. “Sometimes I just can’t be sure who I am. It really bothers me in the morning when I’m shaving. I mean, first thing in the morning to look in the mirror and not be quite sure who’s looking back at you-— Well, it’s disconcerting. Know what I mean?”

“Exactly.” He lifted the gun almost casually and cracked it across the side of my head.

It wasn’t hard enough to knock me unconscious, but it knocked me off my feet. I sprawled on the floor and looked up at him, dazed,

“They say that a blow on the head may help restore the sense of identity,” he told me.

I was still trying to merge his three heads into one, so I didn’t answer. I just kept staring.

“Now then,” he said. “Will the real Steve Victor please stand up?” He slammed his toe into my ribs so I’d be sure to get the idea.

But the idea the toe gave me wasn’t the one he’d been trying to get across. It was a different idea entirely that I grabbed onto along with the toe. And the tug I gave was filled with fury and resentment.

It took the hunchback by surprise. He was just enough off balance so the sudden yank sent him sprawling. I dived for the hand holding the gun as he fell. However, Cronin managed to keep a tight grip on it as we wrestled.

Grappling, we struggled to our feet in each other’s embrace. Cronin worked the gun around so the barrel was pressed against my chest. His finger tightened on the trigger. I lurched and twisted his wrist desperately. The gun went off. Sudden shock filled the hunchback’s eyes. He crumpled to the floor, a red stain spreading over his shirtfront. He fell on his back, wobbling from side to side on his deformity. The last breath escaped his throat with a rasping sound, but still his body rocked.

I took the gun from the corpse’s still clutching hand. I turned to Dr. Palaro. “Turn around,” I instructed the lab-coated figure.

Dr. Palaro put the guinea pig back in its cage. The small wire door was shut and the latch slipped into place. Only then did the doctor deign to obey. The he-she figure turned to face me, the eyes regarding me calmly, levelly.

“Doesn’t it bother you that I’ve just killed your boss?” I asked, taking a wild stab and watching carefully for some response.

But I didn’t get any. The doctor just kept looking at me with that same steady, inscrutable glance.

“Cronin was the big cheese in S.M.U.T., wasn’t he?” I tried again.

Dr. Palaro merely shrugged.

“Answer me!” I clicked the safety on and then off the gun pointedly. “Wasn’t Cronin the one who gave you orders?”

“He was one.” The high-pitched voice was emotionless. “One of many.”

“Which was the real boss, the ultimate authority?”

“I don’t know. I’m only an underling. I didn’t concern myself with the question. It didn’t interest me, nor does it now. Only pure science interests me.”

“Who rated higher?” I persisted. “Cronin, or Hanson, or perhaps Bruce?”

“All were superior to me.”

“But which is-—or was-—superior to the other two?”

“I don’t know.”

It figured that Palaro was lying, but I saw no way of forcing truth from those firm, feminine lips with the well-trimmed masculine moustache above them. “Maybe you’re the head of S.M.U.T. yourself,” I suggested.

Dr. Palaro merely smiled in a self-deprecating way and didn’t answer.

The sound of footsteps outside reached my ears. Probably they had been attracted by the noise of the shot. I realized that I’d better get out of the lab before it was too late. “Come on.” I waved the gun at the doctor. “We’re leaving now.”

“I’m afraid I can’t accompany you. I must remain and check the results of the injections I’ve just administered.”

“That’s tough. But you’re coming anyway. You’re my life insurance. If they want me, they have to sacrifice you. They try for me, and I’ll see that you get yours first.”

“You overestimate my importance.”

“We’ll see. Come on.”

“No.”

“No? What do you mean, no?”

“Just that. No.” The doctor was quite firm.

“If you don’t start moving, I’ll shoot you.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“I don’t believe that you’ll kill me in cold blood. My pragmatic judgment tells me that you are not capable of such an act.”

“Your pragmatic judgment, my Aunt Fanny! I just killed one man. What makes you think I’ll stop at another murder? ”

“That wasn’t in cold blood.” Dr. Palaro turned away. There was contempt in the maneuver. The back of the white lab coat presented an easy target. “The sentimentalism—squeamishness, even—of most people is one of S.M.U.T.’s greatest asset.” The observation was an over-the-shoulder taunt at me.

For a moment the flaunting almost did tempt me to shoot. But the so-and-so had me pegged right. I couldn’t shoot another human being in the back, in cold blood. “I’ll see you again!” I assured the enigmatic back. I ran from the lab and back around the bend in the hallway I’d rounded before.

I waited there until the door opened from outside and the footsteps went into the lab. Then I bolted past the lab door and out of the building altogether. Somebody yelled as I emerged, but I didn’t stop to say hello. I just dived into the underbrush and kept on going. I didn’t plan it that way, but after a while my flight brought me back into the vicinity of the main house again.

Behind me, I’d again picked up some pursuers. They were beating the bush for me. But there wasn’t a soul stirring in front of me, where the house was. Not seeing any other choice, I sprinted for the verandah and slipped inside through the French doors.

Opposite me there was a staircase leading to the upper rooms of the house. Two factors prompted me to go up it. First, I thought that a search of either Hanson’s or Cronin’s bedroom might turn up something indicating who the real head of S.M.U.T. was. Second, I was tired of running around without any pants, and I thought I might steal a pair from one of the men.

Cautiously, I eased open the door of the first room I came to at the top of the stairs. I was lucky. It was empty. There was a door leading off one wall that looked like it might be a clothing closet. I tried it. It wasn’t. It led to a small bathroom adjoining the next room. The door joining them was open. I had a clear view inside.

A breakfast table had been set up in front of the window. Hanson and Mavis were seated at it over coffee. She wore a negligee, he a dressing gown. They were chatting cozily.

“This is such a nice idea,” Mavis was saying. “Do you and Leslie have breakfast up here every morning?”

“No. Just once in a while. And even then I usually end up by myself. Leslie’s an early riser. She likes to grab a cup of coffee and get out of the house. I like to linger over my breakfast,” Hanson answered.

“So do I. And this is particularly nice since it gives me a chance to get to know my brother-in-law. It’s a shame we haven’t seen more of each other. Leslie’s been a very naughty girl keeping us apart.”

“With such an attractive sister,” Hanson said gallantly, “it was probably the course of wisdom.”

“Thank you.”

At that moment the door from the hallway opened and Leslie entered the room. I was right in her line of vision, and I quickly ducked down. I found myself looking straight under the table at which Mavis and Hanson were Seated. It was quite an interesting view.

Mavis was evidently up to her old tricks. Her hand had brushed aside the folds of Hanson’s robe, and it circled him firmly. Their arms were crisscrossed. His hand was trapped somewhere under the silk of her negligee. I couldn’t see it, but I could see the rise and fall of the folds of material where it must be. Neither hand ceased its activity as Leslie pulled a chair over to the table and sat down.

She was still wearing the brief shorts and halter she’d had on when I’d seen her back in the supply room earlier. Her vibrant red hair descending over the creamy white mounds of her breasts rising from the halter made her seem very sensual. Also, I couldn’t help admiring her long, lithe legs under the table.

Leslie poured herself a cup of coffee and then neatly spread a napkin over her lap. The conversation, inconsequential now, was continuing, and she joined in it. Shifting position, she started to cross her legs, and the napkin fell to the floor under the table. Leslie bent to pick it up.

I heard her gasp and realized she must have taken in the hanky-panky that was going on between her husband and sister. A second later she straightened in her chair and the contempt flashing from her green eyes confirmed it. “You haven’t changed, Mavis!” she said scathingly. “You’re still a sneak and a tramp, aren’t you? And as for you, Hanson—” She bit her lip, evidently too filled with fury to continue speaking. Then she jumped up from her chair and strode from the room, slamming the door behind her.

“My, isn’t Leslie touchy this morning?” Mavis observed calmly.

“She’ll, get over it.”

“Yes. I suppose she will. But then maybe not. Leslie has always been such a prude.”

Under the table, neither hand had missed a stroke. Nor did they as the conversation took a new turn.

“Leslie doesn’t realize how lucky she is to have you as a husband,” Mavis said. “I married such a milksop myself. And she doesn’t appreciate being married to a man who wields real power.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Hanson puffed up a bit.

“Tell me something, Hanson. I’ll promise to keep it confidential. Who is the man behind S.M.U.T.?”

Hanson didn’t answer. He merely smiled knowingly.

“Is it you? ”

“If it was, I couldn’t admit it. Not even to you, Mavis. It’s a very carefully guarded secret, as you know.”

“But why should it be such a secret?”

“It’s necessary,” Hanson said authoritatively. “You’ll just have to accept that.”

“It is you, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

“You’re playing with me!” Mavis objected.

“Isn’t that the mutual truth?” Hanson murmured.

“It must be!” she insisted. “I just can’t see you taking orders from any of the others.”

She had a point there, I thought to myself. But it wasn’t a point I had any opportunity to dwell upon because just then a figure appeared in the bathroom door behind me. I turned fast, still holding the gun I’d taken from Cronin. But the figure was neither armed itself nor alarmed at my weapon.

It was Leslie. She held up a finger to her lips and indicated that I should join her in the bedroom through which she’d entered. I did as she wanted and closed the bathroom door noiselessly behind us.

“You must be Steve Victor,” she said when we were alone.

“Check.” I kept pointing the gun at her.

“I saw you from under the table before,” she told me.

“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you alert the others?”

“Because I was damn mad. You saw what they were doing. My husband and my sister-—right under my nose. If that’s how they take advantage of me, why should I care what happens to them and their old S.M.U.T.?”

“I see your point.”

“I just can’t understand Hanson,” she continued. I’m prettier than Mavis. Aren’t I?” She preened herself and turned slowly to give me an opportunity to Judge.

“Yeah!”

“I’m younger.”

“True.”

“I have a better figure.” She ran her hands down her sides, over her ample hips, and along her satiny thighs.

“Without a doubt!”

“I’ll show him!” she said bitterly. “I’ll show the both of them!”

“Sure you will.”

“And you’ll help me!”

“I will?”

“You will.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning this.” She sidled over to me, brushed the gun aside as if it was no more than an annoying object barring her way, and wrapped her arms around me.

“Gee, I’d love to oblige,” I told her, “but my schedule’s a little overcrowded at the moment. Like, the first thing on it is getting out of here alive. So I’m afraid I just don t have the time to cooperate.”

“Don’t you want to find out about S.M.U.T.?” she wheedled. “I can tell you lots of things you want to know.”

“Can you tell me who the head man is? You couldn’t tell Mavis last night.”

“Maybe I couldn’t. Or maybe I just wouldn’t. I know a lot more than she thinks I do. You’d better take advantage of the opportunity, Mr. Victor.” Leslie pushed at the shorts covering her hips, and they slid down to the floor. She stepped out of them daintily. “Now we re evenly matched,” she pointed out, her smouldering green eyes wandering upwards over my naked legs to the space between the shirt-tails. “First make love to me,” she said in a husky voice. “Then I’ll tell you anything you want to now.”

There are times when sewing one’s country as a secret agent can be a real pleasure. This was one of them. Leslie leaned her head back to be kissed. I kissed her.

“That gun feels so cold against my back,” she murmured when the kiss was over. “Can’t you put it down for a little while? ”

“No.” I reached one finger around the trigger to loose the clasp of her sunsuit halter.

“No?” The halter fell away, and her breasts trembled nakedly like white doves with pink noses.

“No. Sorry.” I palmed one of them. It felt like the softest satin with a hardening button in the center.

“Why not?” Her lips explored my ear with the whispered question.

“Tradition,” I murmured back, stroking the hot flesh of her thigh. “It’s part of the spy mystique. A well-trained agent never relinquishes his gun in a seduction situation.”

“Never?” Her fingers were under my shirt, trailing up my spine.

“Never. Statistically it’s been proven that such neglect invariably precipitates a crisis.” My free hand was burning now with the touch of her throbbing womanhood.

“Who says so?” she panted.

“All my predecessors from Mr. Moto on up through James Bond,” I panted back. “It’s a formula. Hero puts down weapon to make love to beautiful girl. Seduction time lapse. Heavy breathing while they relate erotically. And then, while he’s still filled with gratitude for the experience, beautiful girl picks up the gun, points it at him, and regretfully tells him why she has to kill him.”

“But I don’t want to kill you.” Leslie’s nails were digging into my back, and her hips were describing little writhing circles on the bed. “I just want you to use both hands.”

“Sorry. I have to use one for the gun.” I kissed her again, a long, deep kiss.

“Oh, all right,” she murmured. “I don’t care. Just don’t stop. That’s it! Oh, yes! There! There! There!” Her red hair was a rippling flame on the white pillow as she tossed her head from side to side. Then she scrambled over me, one of her breasts grazing my lips as she lowered herself.

Both my hands were on her back then, and she didn’t seem to mind the coldness of the gun any more. I too forgot about it as I was caught up in the frenetic rhythm she’d established. I’d made sure that the gun was propped with the stock against her back and the muzzle pointing away from her, and then I didn’t give it another thought. I didn’t think of anything. I just went soaring up with Leslie on the rising wave of passion.

“Now! Now! Now!” she cried, slamming down hard and crushing her breasts to my face.

I thrust back with all my might.

She went off, I went off, and the pistol went off—all at the same moment. It was a very loud shot. And that’s the way it ended—with a bang!

The circumstances being what they were, the noise startled me so much that I dropped the gun. Before I could retrieve it, Dr. Palaro had entered the room. A moment later, Hanson and Mavis came through the bathroom and joined us.

“Leslie! What are you doing?” Hanson exclaimed.

“Getting revenge,” she said calmly. She didn’t budge from her intimate perch.

“I’m ashamed of you,” Mavis told her. “My own sister! Right in front of everybody!”

“I didn’t invite you in here,” Leslie pointed out. “But even if I had, at least I’m not sneaky the way you two are. Who are you to moralize with your under-the-table fun and games?”

“You’re getting a little heavy, dear,” I said mildly.

“Would you mind shifting position?”

“I think perhaps you’d better relinquish it altogether,” Dr. Palaro told Leslie. “While I admire Mr. Victor’s performance in the midst of such a dangerous situation, I’m afraid that I must ask you all to leave us alone now. He and I have things to settle.”

“I don’t want to move.” Leslie pouted.

“Hanson!” Dr. Palaro’s voice was still high-pitched, but very firm now. “Remove your wife!”

“Yes, Doctor.”_Hanson grabbed Leslie under the arms and pulled her off me.

“Now take both ladies out of here,” Palaro ordered.

Hanson pulled Leslie from the room, and Mavis followed. Palaro and I were alone now. The doctor picked up the gun from where I’d dropped it and stuck it in the pocket of the lab coat. Palaro’s gun remained trained on me.

“You are an amazing man, Mr. Victor,” he said conversationally. “Not only do you elect to invade S.M.U.T’s headquarters, but then you seduce the wife of my right hand man under his very nose. And to compound the insult, you choose my room for the seduction.”

“I didn’t know it was your room. I was just looking for a pair of pants.”

“Indeed?” Dr. Palaro backed over to the wardrobe closet running the length of one of the walls and threw open the sliding doors. “Then surely there should be something to your taste here.”

It was quite a selection. There were trousers and knickers and pantaloons and even kilts from just about every period of European history from Louis XIV up through the present. There were uniforms in different colors and styles, togas and loincloths. There were bikini trunks and jeweled jockstraps and leather harnesses.

“What the well-dressed man will wear,” I commented.

“Or the well-dressed woman.”

The doctor was right. There were also period gowns and black-stocking outfits right out of the Marquis de Sade. There were lingerie and transparent nighties and bejeweled G-strings. Yes, and cocktail dresses and tennis outfits and even the short skirts and white caps worn by French maids. There was something to suit every whim — male or female.

“Cronin was wrong before,” I said. “You’re the one with the identity problem.”

“It is not a problem. I have adapted to it very well.”

“But as a man, or as a woman?” I asked, honestly curious.

“As the head of S.M.U.T., what difference does it make? Very soon now I shall have the power to live up to whatever casual desire possesses me at any given moment. And I shall have the subject people to cater to such desires.”

“Then you are the one behind S.M.U.T.?”

“I am. I don’t mind your knowing now, Mr. Victor. In a very little while you will be dead, anyway.”

“You lied to me before,” I chided him.

“I’m so sorry. It was necessary. Then you had the gun.”

“And now I have it!”

Dr. Palaro spun around quickly at the voice from the doorway. He fired as he turned. The figure framed there ducked to one side and returned the fire. One of his shots caught Palaro, and the doctor went sprawling to the floor and lay motionless. The intruder approached the body. It was a mistake. Palaro was faking. He fired from the floor, and his adversary had to duck quickly behind a chair to avoid being hit. By the time he dared to poke his head out from behind the chair again, the doctor was gone. He’d fled into the bathroom and scampered out through the other room. The man behind the chair stood up and pointed his gun at me.

“So we meet at last, Mr. Victor,” he said.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Throughout the gunfight I’d been lying on the bed and staring at the intruder’s face, too stunned to even take cover. You see, the face was my face. It was like looking in a mirror. The fellow was a dead ringer for me. The only difference between us at the moment was that he was wearing pants. And he had the gun. Aside from those factors, we were identical twins.

Talk about identity problems!

chapter twelve

“OH, brother. I exclaimed finally.

“If you mean in the sense that all men are brothers, you may have a point,” my double told me. “But if you’re implying some actual relationship, I can only caution you not to be carried away by the resemblance.” He held the gun steadily, still pointed at my chest.

“I only meant that it’s a helluva coincidence.”

“But it’s not a coincidence at all.”

“It’s not?”

“No. I wasn’t born. I was created.”

“You mean -?”

“Yes. Plastic surgery.” He shot me one of my most typical grins. “A good job, wouldn’t you say?”

“Perfect. I’m flattered. But I can’t help wondering why you took the trouble.”

“Orders.”

“Orders? Orders from who?”

He thought about that one for a moment. Finally he shrugged and answered. “You might as well know now,” he said. “We’ve reached the point where we have to cooperate for a little while, anyway. I’m a Russian agent.”

It was too much. When S.M.U.T. had been torturing me for information back in Malta, I’d passed myself off as a Russian double impersonating myself. And now here I was with a Russian ringer really impersonating me. “Plagiarist! ” I accused him resentfully.

“I beg your pardon?” He looked genuinely puzzled.

“Never mind. Would you mind telling me just why the Soviets should go to all this bother to create another me? I’m hardly that important in the scheme of things.”

“But you are. You are an American agent who has tangled with S.M.U.T. even before the incidents in Malta. You are known to S.M.U.T. as an American agent. By impersonating you, I threw up a smokescreen which directed S.M.U.T.’s attention to the Americans and the British. Thus they were distracted from anti-S.M.U.T. espionage activity on the part of my government. We Russians have as much at stake in stamping out S.M.U.T. as you do. But you could hardly expect us to depend on your inept methods to do the job.”

“You could have cooperated with us,” I pointed out.

“If we could trust you, perhaps. And if you would only realize that you can trust us.”

That seemed to sum up the state of the world, all right. And the fact that he continued to keep the gun trained on me wrapped up the nutshell nicely. But I’m no Geneva arbitrator, and so I let it go. I had other things on my mind.

“They were very curious back in Malta about the man I killed in Manila,” I told him. “The man you killed in my name, that is.”

“It was a necessary murder and very carefully planned,” he informed me. “The man who was killed was the S.M.U.T. agent in charge of activities in Russia. It was he who manipulated the smuggling of useless contraceptives and foodstuffs prepared with diseased goats’ milk into Poland and Hungary and Russia itself. Indeed, he was the reason that I was created in your image. It was a stroke of genius. We didn’t want his death to look deliberate. That would have alerted his cohorts in the Communist countries. They would have gone underground, and it would have been very difficult to punish them. By making it look as if an American agent murdered him, attention was diverted from us. You, Steve Victor, were the culprit they were seeking. Even the Philippine police are looking for you for the murder. And S.M.U.T. has no idea that we have infiltrated their very headquarters.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said drily.

“Don’t be bitter. As I said before, the time has come for us to work together. Now that we know who the real head is, we can destroy S.M.U.T. once and for all.”

“How? We’re slightly outnumbered, aren’t we?”

“Yes. But I’ve made certain arrangements. Made them thanks to you, by the way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Last night while you were unwittingly creating a diversion for me by drawing off the guards with your presence in the goat pen, I stole some explosives S.M.U.T. had stored in one of the other sheds and planted them where they’ll do the most good. All that remains to destroy this place thoroughly—-this house, the lab, all of the buildings—is to detonate them. The mechanism for that is in the cellar of this house. That’s where I’ve been hiding. Now, will you cooperate?”

“With you pointing that gun at me, I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“Please don’t let that disturb you. It’s just a precaution. No more than a habit, really.”

“Why not try to break it?”

“Later perhaps. We’ll see.” He motioned me out of the room and toward the stairs. “Lead the way, Mr. Victor.”

“You have the advantage over me,” I remembered. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“In our business, a man may have many names. Don’t you find it so?”

“Maybe. But what do I call you? Hey, you?”

“You can call me by the name I go by in this particular operation.” There was a jeering note in his voice.

“What’s that? ”

“Stevkovsky. Viktor Stevkovsky.”

“Oh, that’s very cute,” I reacted. “Did you think it up all by yourself? ”

“No. I had help. But why are you annoyed?”

“Who steals my face steals trash,” I paraphrased, “but who Bolshevizes my good name—”

“You’re too sensitive.” He prodded me through the door and down the steps to the cellar.

We were in for a surprise. As we turned left at the bottom of the stairs, a figure started for us from the right. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a gun raised. I gave Stevkovsky a hard shove to one side and jumped the other way myself. The bullet from the rifle whistled between us.

Stevkovsky reacted so fast that for a split second I thought he was going to shoot me. But he didn’t. He was right on target as he fired. The man with the rifle pitched forward on his face.

Still keeping me covered, Stevkovsky led the way over to the fallen body. He stuck his toes under it and flipped it over. The man was dead.

I recognized him as one of S.M.U.T.’s Filipino guards. I’d seen him rummaging among the goats the night before.

“Why would they post a guard down here?” Stevkovsky was puzzled.

“Search me.”

“He wasn’t here last night, or earlier this morning. I was hiding out here all that time, and I know.”

“He came from over that way.” I pointed across the cellar. “Let’s have a look.”

Stevkovsky nodded assent. We strode toward the far wall. There was a section that was partitioned off there, probably a coal bin or something like that. There was a door on it with a chain across it. A stout lock held the chain in place. Stevkovsky motioned me to stand back. He fired two shots and the lock fell apart.

He wasn’t taking any chances. He indicated that I should go through the door first. A man stood up from the floor where he’d been huddled as I entered. He was a bloody mess. It was Bruce.

“I’m glad to see you.” He greeted me, smiling around the marks of the beating he’d taken.

“Who is this?” Stevkovsky demanded.

“I’m not sure,” I answered honestly. “But he’s on our side. I’m sure of that much.”

Bruce was looking from one to the other of us in confusion. “I know one of you is Steve Victor,” he said. “But which one? ”

“I am,” I told him. “My companion here is a Russian agent who also happens to be fighting S.M.U.T.”

“No kidding?” Bruce grinned. “Well, this is a real, all-out international effort, isn’t it? You’re an American. He’s a Russian. And I’m an Ethiopian.”

“You are an Ethiopian agent?” Stevkovsky asked.

“Check.”

“How do we know you’re telling the truth? Why should Ethiopia be interested in S.M.U.T.?”

“Because S.M.U.T. is too damned interested in Ethiopia,” Bruce told him. “They’ve been spreading their damned Malta Fever there with foreign aid products made from goats’ milk. You think only Russia and the U.S. have something to fear from S.M.U.T.? You’re wrong. Every country in the world—large and small—is threatened.”

“I can’t think of any good reason why I should trust you,” Stevkovsky told him.

“I can,” I interjected quickly. “He damn near got killed fouling up some of S.M.U.T.’s plans before. And then he didn’t give me away when he could have.”

“How did he foul up their pans?” Stevkovsky asked skeptically.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Just what did you do?” I asked Bruce.

“I radioed Tahiti to put Plan B into effect.” He grinned.

“What is Plan B?” Stevkovsky asked.

“That’s the emergency plan by which S.M.U.T. scuttles itself,” Bruce explained. “By activating it, I brought all other programs to a halt in the Pacific area. A whole shipment of food containing Malta Fever germs will be jettisoned en route to Australia. All S.M.U.T. personnel from Manila to Easter Island will cease their activities and disperse. All equipment and codes will be destroyed. The whole operation will be disbanded. As a matter of fact, by this time it probably already is.”

“But why would they accept such an order from you?” Stevkovksy wanted to know.

“Because they didn’t know it was from me. They think it was authorized by Dr. Palaro. I used the code designation of the head of S.M.U.T. And then I destroyed the radio transmitter so they couldn’t countermand the order even if they found out I issued it. What’s more, I destroyed their code book, too.”

“That’s true,” I assured Stevkovsky. “I saw it. He did everything he says he did. He’s on our side.”

“Very well. But it is of no use to destroy the legs without destroying the head as well. So let us do it.” He waved with his gun toward the other side of the cellar.

“Why is he holding a gun on us?” Bruce whispered as we crossed the basement. "

“He’s got a very suspicious nature,” I told him.

A few moments later we emerged into the outside air, Bruce and I carrying the detonation equipment, Stevkovsky following behind. “Is this what you Commies call sharing the labor?” Bruce wisecracked as he struggled with the heavy detonator.

Stevkovsky ignored him. “We’ll have to do this in three stages,” he explained. “First the building with the lab and the goat pens, because that’s most important. Then the sheds. Then the main house.”

He’d strung his wire out to the rise overlooking the shed. We crawled up to it without being seen, then stopped to get our breath. Peering down at the L-shaped structure, I saw something and pointed it out for my two companions. Dr. Palaro, Leslie, Mavis, and Hanson were all just entering the door leading to the lab section of the building.

“Good.” Stevkovsky rubbed his palms together. “We’ll kill all the birds with one blast.” ..

“Bloodthirsty so-and-so, aren’t you?” I said. “Why can’t we wait until the women come out, at least?”

“Just such decadent sentimentalism is the reason I am still holding this gun on you, Mr. Victor. Left to your American soft-heartedness, S.M.U.T. would succeed in conquering the world.” He weighed the gun in his hand contemptuously. “Now get busy and connect up those wires,” he instructed us.

We did as we were told. Then Stevkovsky motioned us to stand aside as he put his free hand on the plunger. He pushed it down.

The roar was horrendous. The building seemed to come apart and fly into the air before our very eyes. The stench of goat-flesh being torn asunder by the blast reached our nostrils. There was human flesh mixed with it, I knew. With an effort, I didn’t let myself think of Leslie or Mavis.

“That should take care of Palaro and his organization, Stevkovsky said, surveying the rubble with the clouds of smoke still rising from it.

I could see that he was right. He’d mined the place with twice as much dynamite as would have been needed to destroy it. There was no possibility that anyone anywhere near it would have survived the explosion.

“Now the sheds,” Stevkovsky said.

Once again Bruce and I hefted the equipment and brought it where he told us. He’d left the lead wire hidden in a clump of bushes about 200 yards from the sheds. Another blast, and the S.M.U.T. storehouses were completely destroyed.

We moved fast now. Those of the S.M.U.T. underlings who were left were thrashing about the woods in confusion. Somehow we managed to avoid them and get back to the main house. To my surprise, Stevkovsky had us cross the verandah and go inside the house itself.

“I need a little more wire,” he explained. “It’s in the basement.”

But he changed his tune when he had Bruce and myself down in the cellar. “Get in there!” He pointed toward the bin where we’d found Bruce before.

“What’s the big idea?”

“The big idea is simple, Mr. Victor,” he explained smugly. “When the Philippine Constabulary arrive to investigate the destruction of S.M.U.T.-—for which Russia shall get full credit, I assure you—-they will find the bodies of an American agent and an Ethiopian agent in the ruins. This will prove to the World that the capitalist governments of the United States and Ethiopia were the ones who were really behind S.M.U.T.’s plot to take over the world. Ingenious, isn’t it?”

“It might be if it was original,” I told him indignantly. “But it’s not. That’s exactly the story that I made up for S.M.U.T. back in Malta. I insist on full credit.”

“You won’t be alive to insist on anything,” Stevkovsky assured me as he closed the door on Bruce and myself.

“Copycat!” I yelled after him.

The only answer was the sound of the chain being drawn across the door. Then there was the sound of a furnace poker being wedged into the chain to hold it fast.

“What now?” Bruce asked.

“I guess we can’t do anything but give it the old college try,” I told him.

The two of us got back as far as we could, and then slammed into the door as hard as we were able. It didn’t budge. We gave it a half-dozen more tries, but still it showed no signs of giving.

“We’re running out of time,” Bruce reminded me as we paused for breath. “And this is getting us nowhere. We’d better think of something else before he sets off his powder-keg.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Let’s have a look around. Maybe there’s something we can jimmy the door with.”

We looked, but there wasn’t. I was just about resigned to our fate when Bruce called something to my attention. “Hey! Look at this.”

I looked. It was a thin wire cable running through a tiny knothole in one of the walls. We traced it along the base of the wall to the corner. It went up to the ceiling there. Bruce gave me a boost and I found three sticks of dynamite there. The wire continued through another small hole in the ceiling.

“He didn’t miss a trick, did he?” I said.

“Nope. Yank it, will you? While there’s still time.”

I yanked it. Getting the dynamite sticks disconnected was nothing. But the wire was another matter. As thorough as Stevkovsky was, those three sticks probably didn’t make much difference. We’d still be dead pigeons if I couldn’t sever the wire conductor set up to ignite all the other dynamite he’d stashed around.

“What are you doing?” Bruce asked, his shoulders sagging under my weight.

“I’m trying to bite through the damned wire. But I can’t do it. It’s too strong.”

“Wait a minute.” Bruce let me down. He crossed over to the opposite wall, stooped down, and ran his finger along the floor. “Here it is.” He stood up with a bent and rusty nail in his hand. “I spotted it before,“ he explained. “Maybe I can work through the wire with it.”

Now it was my turn to boost him up. The seconds ticked by like years. Any minute I expected the explosion to go off before Bruce cut the wire. The sweat poured off me as I stood there with my feet braced and his weight on my shoulders.

“Got it!” Bruce announced jubilantly.

His announcement was all but lost in the sound of the blast which followed it. Three quarters of the house blew sky-high. But Bruce had saved us. The dynamite planted in the section of the house where we were imprisoned was deactivated. It didn’t explode.

The door to our makeshift prison was still shaking as the sound of the series of blasts subsided. Bruce and I tried ramming it again. On the third try it gave way and we went hurtling into the cellar. We picked our way through the debris and emerged outside.

We figured Stevkovsky might still be in the neighborhood, so we quickly took to the cover of the woods. We stayed in the brush even after we’d made our way to the road. Only after we’d put a couple of miles between the devastation and ourselves did we emerge from the under-brush and begin trekking up the road itself. Bruce assured me that we were heading in the general direction of Manila.

We’d been on the road about an hour when the patrol car pulled up alongside us. Two members of the Philippine National Constabulary got out and came up to us with their guns drawn. They seemed very angry about something. Both of them were gesticulating and shouting in Tagalog.

“What are they saying?” I asked Bruce.

“As near as I can make out, they say that you’re under arrest,” he told me.

“Under arrest? What for?” I figured they’d identified me as the Steve Victor who was wanted for murder. I figured wrong.

“For indecent exposure,” Bruce told me. He was fighting hard not to laugh and losing the battle. “They say you must be some kind of pervert walking down a public road with your private parts exposed this way. They want you to get into their car so they can take you to jail.”

“Tell them I’m an American citizen.”

He told them. If they’d seemed angry before, that only made them more furious. One of them stuck a billy in my ribs and prodded me toward the car.

“Call the American consul!” I yelled over my shoulder to Bruce.

He could only nod that he would. He was laughing too hard to get the words out. He was still sitting in the middle of the road doubled over with laughter as the cops drove me off to the calaboose.

I stayed there two days. It took that long before a representative from the Embassy found the village where I was jailed and arranged for my release. He came to my cell with a distasteful expression on his face and a pair of pants over one arm.

“There is someone waiting to see you in Manila,” he told me as I put on the pants. And that was all he said from the time we left the jail until the car deposited us at the Embassy. Evidently he disapproved of me thoroughly.

The “somebody” turned out to be Charles Putnam. He greeted me with his usual icy politeness. “Hello, Mr. Victor. How do you like Manila?”

“I prefer chocolate,” I told him. That took care of the small talk.

“I have been conferring with the gentleman from Ethiopia,” Putnam told me. “You will be happy to know that S.M.U.T. is completely destroyed. The ruins of the laboratory have been examined and the bodies of the S.M.U.T. mastermind, Dr. Palaro, and his major confederates have been found and identified.”

“Both Mavis and Leslie are dead, then?”

“Yes. Also, Ethiopia’s man has given us all the information to round up the S.M.U.T. operators in this part of the world. The crew of the Luzona Maru has been apprehended. The Malta operation has been shut down. S.M.U.T. people are being picked up all over the world. Even those in the Iron Curtain countries are being apprehended.”

“That figures.” I thought bitterly of Stevkovsky.

“What about the plantation the hunchback Cronin was running?” I remembered.

“That’s been taken care of, too.”

“And ‘Baby’ Torres?”

“His gang had no direct connection with S.M.U.T. There’s nothing we can do about them. That’s a matter for the Philippine Constabulary. And they seem disinclined to do anything about it.”

“Sure. It’s their bread and butter.”

“Probably. But it’s no concern of ours.”

“Well, then, I guess my job is over,” I said.

“This job, yes.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that we shall have to call on you again. You’re needed in Washington right away.”

“Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes.” Putnam said firmly.

“What for?”

“You’ll be told when we get there. We leave tonight.”

“Not tonight.” I stared him down. “I demand one night in Manila. I have some unfinished business.”

Putnam thought about it a moment. “All right,” he agreed finally. “Tomorrow night, then.”

I got out of there before he could change his mind. I went to the hotel room he’d booked for me, took a shower, put on some fresh clothes, and made a beeline for the Cafe International. The unfinished business I’d mentioned was named Jana.

She wasn’t there. I spread some pesos around and got her home address. I found it without too much trouble. I knocked at the door a long time before she finally answered.

Jana looked bleary-eyed with sleep. Her whole luscious body sagged as if from some great weariness. She clutched a robe around her and looked at me with eyes that were pleading.

“Oh, no!” she sobbed. “Please! Not again! I can’t! I just don’t have the energy left! Go away! Please go away! Enough is enough, Steve!”

“What are you talking about?” I tried to push past her and into the room, but she kept barring the doorway. “I thought it might be nice to see how it was in a real bed for a change,” I told her. “After all, that time on the ropes can’t exactly be called ideal conditions. Don’t you want to—? ”

“No! I don’t want to! You are a satyr! That’s what you are! You are insatiable! How can you come back here again after last night? Nine times! Where do you get the energy? Last night was it!” She slammed the door in my face.

Last night? Last night I’d been sitting in that jail up in the hills. What the hell was she talking about? How could I have made love to her last night? Who—-?

Viktor Stevkovsky! That was who! It had to have been him! My Russian double! He’d pretended he was me and made love to Jana all night! Those lousy, bestial, inhuman, dirty, atrocity-committing Reds! I thought to myself. This was carrying espionage too far—even for a Commie!

Wait until I got my hands on him! Our paths would cross again! I knew they would! And I’d get even then! My Russian double and I hadn’t seen the last of each other!

It was when I arrived back at my hotel that I found the letter waiting for me. The envelope was covered with forwarding addresses—there must have been dozens. But even through all the scribblings and rubber-stampings, I could recognize the handwriting of the original name and address. Mom. Good old Mom. Even before I opened it, I knew exactly what the letter would say. It never varied by more than a comma or so.

And then I started thinking—thinking of something Mom had told me long ago, and which had lain buried in my subconscious for a long time. Something, strangely, involving another kind of identity problem. And suddenly, I knew that for once Mom was going to get an answer to her letter. . . .

Notes

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As related in Dr. Nyet.

[←2 ]

This is the epoch of the Vietnam War.

[←3 ]

Reference to “The Maltese Falcon”, a 1941 movie masterwork by John Huston, featuring Humphrey Bogart as a private eye and Peter Lorre as a gangster. Peter Lorre was an actor with a facial physique that doomed him to play psychopath and gangster roles.

[←4 ]

Peter Lorre (died 1964)

[←5 ]

Series of B movies (1935 – 1957) starring Peter Lorre

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The Marquess of Queensberry Rules are a code of generally accepted rules in the sport of boxing. Drafted in London in 1865 and published in 1867, they were named so as John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry publicly endorsed the code, although they were written by a Welsh sportsman named John Graham Chambers. The code of rules on which modern boxing is based, the Queensberry rules were the first to mandate the use of gloves in boxing

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Sydney Hughes Greenstreet (27 December 1879 – 18 January 1954) was a British actor who enjoyed a run of notable hits in a Hollywood career lasting just eight years. He is best remembered for his Warner Bros. films with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, which include such masterworks as The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), and Passage to Marseille (1944).

[←8 ]

Gerardo Luigi "Jerry" Colonna (September 17, 1904 – November 22, 1986) was an American musician, actor, comedian, singer, songwriter and trombonist best remembered as the zaniest of Bob Hope's sidekicks in Hope's popular radio shows and films of the 1940s and 1950s. With his pop-eyed facial expressions and walrus-sized handlebar moustache, Colonna was known for his catchphrase, "Who's Yehudi ?"

[←9 ]

The stencil duplicator or mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. A stencil is usually a thin sheet of material, such as paper, plastic, wood or metal, with letters or a design cut from it (by means of a typewriter or stylus), used to produce the letters or design on an underlying surface by applying pigment through the cut-out holes in the material. Mimeographs were a common technology in printing small quantities, as in office work, classroom materials, and church bulletins. Early fanzines were printed with this technology, because it was widespread and cheap. In the late 1960s, mimeographs began to be gradually displaced by photocopying.

[←10 ]

Reference to the telegraph, a long distance communication means for textual messages, in use since the beginning of the 19th century with varying technology. Since the late 1930’s the generalized technology used Morse code and an electromechanical key allowing the operator to key the message. Though the official telegraph services used landlines, wireless operation was also available, using radio equipment. The addressee of the message was either a receiving telegraph terminal, a radio receiver or a person who would get the telegram delivered by a carrier, as transcopied on paper at the receiving telegraph office. Telegraph services were available throughout the world till the late 20th century, to be replaced by faxes and then e-mail.

[←11 ]

Morse code is a method of transmitting text information (using the telegraph or wireless radio equipment) as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment. The International Morse Code encodes the standard Latin alphabet, some extra Latin letters, the Arabic numerals and a small set of punctuation and procedural signals as standardized sequences of short and long signals called "dots" and "dashes", or "dits" and "dahs". Morse code speed is measured in words per minute (wpm). Operators skilled in Morse code can often listen to and understand Morse code in their heads at rates in excess of 40 wpm.

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