The By-Pass Control

Chapter 3

The factory was a new one, erected on reclaimed land between La Guardia and Kennedy Airport, completely surrounded by heavy wire fencing and patrolled by armed guards. There was a good reason for all the security checks. Inside, this single Martin Grady firm was engaged in a top priority project of a missile guidance system that could pick a flea out of the stratosphere, and when the system was completed it would put us hands-down ahead of any potential enemy.

I had to wait twelve minutes at the gate before I was cleared through to the main office where the plant manager introduced himself as Henry Stanton and gave me a nervous wave toward a leather chair facing his desk.

“Mr. Grady seems to have the utmost confidence in you, Mr. Mann,” he told me.

I nodded while he offered me a smoke and held a lighter out to me.

“We don’t often get visitors. That is, those not in an official capacity.”

“Oh?”

“You understand our operation here?”

“Completely,” I said.

“Yes.” He licked his lips, then walked behind the desk and sat down with a resigned sigh. “Now, what can I do for you?”

“How much did you hear about Doug Hamilton?”

“I was notified immediately that he had died. Nothing more. Mr. Grady said that there would be an investigation including one by his own, ah... people. I was to cooperate fully.”

“Has anyone else been here?”

“You are the first. Now...”

“Hamilton filed reports on the personnel employed here. Where are they?”

“Locked in our vaults. However, another copy of each report was submitted to the proper authorities in Washington. Those people engaged in any portion of the project considered secret have been given a separate security clearance by the proper agency while those in lesser categories were investigated by us and approved by Washington.”

“I’d like to see the files.”

“They’re quite extensive.”

“Only the ones Hamilton processed.”

“Well, that’s comparatively simple then.” Stanton flipped a button on the desk intercom and said, “Miss Hays, will you come in please.”

His secretary was one out of the old school, in her mid-fifties, starched and stiff with gray hair wound in a bun on the top of her head. She didn’t even glance my way until Stanton acknowledged me with a nod. “Miss Hays, this is Mr. Mann, a representative of Martin Grady’s. Will you show him to Miss Hunt’s office and instruct her to let him go through our personnel files.”

“Certainly, sir. This way, Mr. Mann.”

“Will there be anything else?” Stanton asked me.

“I’ll let you know if there is. Meanwhile you’d better get me cleared to get around this place on my own. Do you know Hal Randolph of I.A.T.S.?”

His eyebrows went up a little at that. “Quite well.”

“He can expedite matters if there’s any trouble,” I said. “Let’s go, Miss Hays.”

I followed her into the outer office where we picked up another security guard who trailed us from five feet back, down a good hundred yards of softly lit, air-conditioned corridor to a door marked CAMILLE HUNT, PERSONNEL. My guide touched a button on the wall and when the buzzer sounded, pushed the door open and led me in while the guard waited outside.

Miss Hays’ instructions went to the secretary at the desk, passed through the desk phone to someone behind a door marked Private and I was told to wait. Miss Hays’ curt nod told me she didn’t like me a bit, but she was at my command. She swept out like a dowager queen, her nose sniffing the delicately perfumed air of the office with obvious distaste.

I didn’t have long to wait. The desk phone rang, the chubby little secretary in the thick-framed glasses listened briefly, then crooked a finger my way. “You may go in now,” she said.

Camille Hunt was a strategist. She was the personnel director and was there to see what people were made of before they were hired. It wasn’t just an office she had; it was a camouflaged command post and she was the acting C.O. Come in smiling and you’d stop; come in grim and you’d smile. Somehow you could drop your guard and any stories you had ready would bobble out and if they were off-beat she’d have you.

The walls were a dark green, decorated with large color plates of every plane our Air Force had ever operated, interspersed with violent, surrealistic oils and an oversized recumbent nude done with such detail it seemed to dominate the entire room, Air Force and all. The desk was placed in front of curtained false windows and was so skillfully lit and shadowed by a pair of lamps that you couldn’t quite tell if anyone was sitting there behind them or not.

She wasn’t. She was sitting far to the left scrutinizing me carefully, ready to catch any reaction, but making the mistake of letting enough light bounce off the sheen of her nylons so that I saw her without letting her know it. I could have told her I had seen the act pulled before and could play it as well as she could, but that would have spoiled the fun. Instead, I walked up to the nude, looked over all its good points without turning around and said, “Remarkable likeness. A little on the fat side though.”

Then I went around, sat in her chair behind the desk, swung both lamps around to catch her squarely in their beams and felt my grin stop before it started.

Camille Hunt was the nude in the picture. And she wasn’t on the fat side either. That part was just uncalled-for license on the part of the artist.

She sat there with one leg crossed over the other, the idle motion of one foot the only part of her that seemed alive for the moment. Her chin rested in the fingers of one arm propped on the chair, the scarlet of her nails matching that of her mouth. Eyes black as midnight only reflected the denser black of her hair that seemed to flow and meld with a dress of the same space-night color. But even in that colorless void there was no mistaking the exquisite shape of her body or the beauty of her face.

Yes, she could make quite an interrogator. If you fell into her trap.

“Hello, spider,” I said.

“Hello, fly,” she smiled.

“This one got away.”

“I expected it to. Mr. Grady had already briefed me on you.

I’m glad you didn’t disappoint me.”

“Never let it be said.”

“Do you mind turning the lights off?”

“I like to look at you.”

“You’ll get more out of the picture.”

“Vicarious pleasures don’t interest me that much. Walk over here.”

Watching her move was like seeing a ballet. Every movement was fluid, purely feminine, as deliberately provocative as a woman could make it. The game was over, but she was still insisting on playing it.

I followed her with the lights, then bent the goosenecks down so we could both see each other in the reflected rays and when she let her eyes meet mine she stopped with a sudden filling motion of her chest. “So you’re the great one.”

“How much did Martin Grady tell you?”

“Now I rather think he was warning me.” Very casually she pulled out a straight-backed chair and sat down beside the desk.

“Would you ever hire me?”

“What for... stud services?”

“Hell,” I grinned at her, “Grady never mentioned that department.”

“But I can see it,” she teased. “It’s my job, reading people. I’m expert at it. You’d probably perform very well.”

“I come with the best references.”

“No doubt, but that isn’t getting to why you are here. Do you mind?”

I leaned back in the chair, hooking a drawer out with a toe to prop my feet on. “Doug Hamilton submitted reports on personnel he checked out. Did they clear through you?”

“Yes, all of them. He investigated their backgrounds, former employers, associates, credit arrangements — the usual thing where top security wasn’t involved. I had the final say as to their ability or personality requirements.”

“What about top security?”

“All handled directly by Washington through Mr. Grady. I only handle the lower echelon of employees, but even then it is necessary to look for people absolutely qualified. I don’t think there is any need to brief you on the nature of the project here.”

“There isn’t. Can I see his files?”

“If I may have my phone,” she smiled again. I pushed the instrument to the edge of the desk and watched the graceful sweep of her body as she leaned forward to pick it up. “Linda,” she said, “please bring in all the A-20’s from the vault.”

“Who else ever got to see those files, Camille?”

She cocked her head, her grin impish. “No one...”

“Tiger. It’s my name. My old man gave it to me.”

“...Tiger. Another copy went to Washington and if there was no protest and I was satisfied, the person was eligible for employment here. It was simply background material. Any advancement was predicated upon results shown us and not upon previous achievement... or lack of it. There were specific clearance requirements for everyone from janitorial to shop positions and they all followed the same form.”

The secretary came in then, laid down a single folder on the desk and left. I picked it up, hefted it and scanned the contents. It was thicker than the one in Hamilton’s private file, but probably because his copies were on onionskin while these had been submitted on printed bonded forms. Each one was numbered and there were eighty-four persons involved.

“How long a period of time does this represent?” I asked her.

“Three years. Those are only reports from Hamilton himself.”

“Not much of a turnover, is there?”

“Very little. Mr. Grady pays top salaries in every department with greater benefits than anyone else. It’s his policy.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“The Hamilton reports came in during the time of expansion. If you note the dates you’ll see that we reached peak employment about four months ago and have been static since, having fulfilled our needs. However, we never know what our complete capabilities really are. Further expansion may be necessary.”

I was going through the file, looking at names and places, scanning the reports without seeing anything that looked familiar. “Hamilton ever come up with any negative endorsements?”

“Generally about one out of three. Copies were sent on to Washington in the event those persons tried for positions that required security. Most of it was information of criminal records or subversive activities or associations.”

“How many have been fired?”

“None. Several were transferred to other projects at Mr. Grady’s request and subsequently replaced, but our system has been very efficient in enabling us to choose dependable employees.”

I looked up at her and gave her a crooked smile. “No doubt. How about rejects after they were cleared by Hamilton?”

“A few, but all were unsatisfactory because of not being technically qualified. Are you thinking they might have held some sort of... animosity for Mr. Hamilton?”

I laid the folder down and leaned back in the chair. “In that case they would have taken it out on you, wouldn’t they? Hamilton cleared them... you didn’t.”

“True,” she nodded, “but unlikely. You see, the ones I’m referring to were machine-shop technicians who realized they didn’t have the necessary skills and more or less disqualified themselves. They were all readily employable by other firms who demanded less than we.”

I nodded, then, “I’ll take these along and get some stats made, okay?”

“Certainly. Just take care of them.”

“You have an alphabetical list of all employees?”

“Naturally.”

“Can I see it?”

“Top drawer on your right. Directly above your feet. You’ll have to put them down to open it.” Her lips were parted and I could see the white even edges of her teeth. This time it was her eyes that were laughing at me.

I opened the drawer, flipped through the “A” file looking for Louis Agrounsky and found nothing even close.

“Can I help you with something?”

“Nope, just curious.” I pushed the drawer shut and stood up. “You don’t mind, then, if I take this file along with me?”

Camille Hunt tossed her hair in a vague gesture. “No... but remember that it is confidential information.”

“We’re both working for the same person, remember? I’ll get it back to you.”

Both of us stood up together. I hadn’t realized how tall she was until she faced me, a peculiar expression playing across her face. Her tantalizing little game was still going on, still trying to find a chink in my armor plate. I got a good picture of what everybody else had to go through, and if she couldn’t make a man sweat nobody could.

I turned my head and looked at the picture on the wall. The likeness was amazing. “I’d like to paint you,” I told her.

She followed my glance. “Oh? Do you have the talent?”

“No. None at all. I’d just like to paint you.”

“But why?”

I let out a short laugh. “Because it would be fun, kitten. I’d do it with an oiled feather.”

The corners of her eyes crinkled. “It might be an experience at that.”

“They say it can be very exhilarating.”

“I doubt it.”

“Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.” I walked to the door and opened it. My armed guard was still waiting in the outside office.

“So long, spider,” I said.

“So long, fly,” she told me. “Come back to the web any time.”

Doug Hamilton had his office on Lexington Avenue, an efficient place staffed by a junior partner named James Miller, two secretaries and a receptionist. An earlier call to Virgil Adams at Newark Control cleared me to see the Belt-Aire employee files as a Martin Grady representative, and although Hamilton’s own secretary was still shaken by what had happened and a little apprehensive about the whole thing, she showed me into his office and pulled out the cabinet drawer and extracted the folder on the company.

I leafed through it, scanning the data quickly, but as far as I could see it was an identical set to the one I already had. “Has anyone else been here yet?” I asked her.

“Yes... the notice, naturally, and a Mr. Randolph from a Federal bureau. They saw this file too.”

“Anything removed from it?”

“Nothing. You can see each sheet is numbered and they’re all in sequence. I really don’t know what they were looking for and there was nothing I could tell them.”

I closed the folder and handed it back. “Been here long?”

“Five years, Mr. Mann.”

“Then you remember when Hamilton took on the Belt-Aire assignment.”

“I drew up all the contracts.”

“You type the reports too?”

“Yes, all of them.”

“Then Hamilton kept notes of his research?”

“Of course, but as in all confidential matters of this sort, they were destroyed after the reports were typed. There are none left at all.”

“He never did any of his own at all?”

“Well... a few, I believe. There was a time when we were rushed with other things and he did some personally to get the job done.”

“Remember which ones?”

“I... I’m afraid not. I wish I could help... but typing reports are such daily routine... and after hundreds...”

“I understand. Just one more thing... Hamilton moved into a pretty expensive apartment not too long ago. Know where he got the money?”

For a moment she hesitated, then: “Mr. Hamilton was a bachelor. He really never had a need for anything pretentious and consequently saved his money. I know his bank account was substantial. I... rather think he... simply wanted a change.”

“It was a pretty drastic one. Did he have a woman in mind?”

She blushed, dropping her eyes. “No. I’m afraid not. He wasn’t much... for marriage.”

When she glanced up again I caught that old, old look in her eyes. Office secretary in love with her boss. It was happening all over the city and most of it earmarked ahead of time with tragedy.

“Tough,” I said.

She knew what I was thinking and shrugged. “Life.”

“The office still goes on?”

“Mr. Miller will handle things. The arrangement was provided for when he became a junior partner. Mr. Hamilton has a sister somewhere in the Midwest and she will inherit according to the terms of his will. She’s already been notified by Mr. Hamilton’s lawyer.”

“Well, thanks for the help. If I need anything I’ll contact you.”

“Very well.”

“If you get the time see if you can locate the reports Hamilton did himself.”

“I’ll try. I can’t promise anything.”

“Good enough.”

Dead ends. The big nothing. Four men dead, one missing who held the secret of world calamity and no place to scratch the surface. There was still the probability that Doug Hamilton’s death was an accident that never should have happened, a coincidence that occurred because he inadvertently blundered into Vito Salvi’s world. It was probable too that the empty folder in his apartment had no real meaning at all, and was simply a place to file notes he later had retyped at his office.

I picked up my hat and let myself out of the office into the screaming roar of New York going home. It took ten minutes to find an unoccupied cab and a half hour to cross town to Charlie Corbinet’s apartment. He had the door open for me when the elevator reached his floor and waved me in.

“Drink?”

“A short one,” I said. “The night’s just started.”

He mixed a couple, handed me one and sat down opposite me. “Come up with anything?”

I ran down what I had for him and let him sift the facts for himself. I could see him arrive at the same probabilities I had, then he got up with the nervous impatience he never lost and paced the room deep in thought. Finally he said, “We’ve been backtracking Louis Agrounsky from the time he worked on the ICBM hot-line system. One team’s been going forward, the other back. Since Agrounsky originally had a security check run on him, going back wasn’t difficult. We merely repeated the process looking for flaws in the first investigation.”

“And?”

“Clean as a whistle. No criminal record, no unsavory associations, the best references... not a thing out of the way. Not even a political angle. He registered but didn’t bother voting. The only new fact added was an afterthought by his former college dean who mentioned that in his senior year Agrounsky came near a nervous breakdown that was attributed to overwork. The attending physician had died but his records were still available and showed Agrounsky to have been under his care two weeks before returning to school. Complete rest was prescribed and there were no aftereffects.”

“It could have been the beginning of something,” I suggested.

“Possibly. Had this ever been uncovered earlier it’s doubtful if he would have been put in charge of the project.”

“Any evidence that he covered it up?”

“None. Since it wasn’t a mental illness the dean never thought it important enough to mention. It seemed to be a common complaint of his best hard-working students who get overly dedicated.”

“Where do you lose him then?”

“After the hot-line installation he went into the second space project. If you remember, there were two failures before the technical difficulties were overcome and the shot successful. He was scheduled to begin work on the new booster engine the following week but had to be called off it when he had a minor car accident. The hospital reports stated minor lacerations, a broken thumb and a slight back injury. At that time he was living in a house he had bought in Eau Gallie, Florida, with about twenty thousand dollars in the bank. Apparently the back injury bothered him and he canceled out any future work and lived off his savings. It was here that contact was lost.

“Agrounsky had few friends. He was pretty much of a loner. He was seen occasionally in town making small purchases but it was the bank teller who saw him most often. He made steady and increasingly large withdrawals that were not commensurate with his usual spending habits. However, nobody questioned it. Later he closed out his account entirely, sold his house to an engineer working on the project, and hasn’t been seen since.”

“Woman involved?” I asked him.

“No. We checked that angle out thoroughly. He didn’t gamble or drink, either.”

“Everybody has one bad habit.”

“Agrounsky didn’t. None that we could find.”

“People like him just don’t disappear.”

Charlie turned, stared into his drink, and gulped it down with a quick motion. “He sold his house furnished, packed two suitcases in a five-year-old Ford and drove away. A month later he sold the car to a dealer in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for a hundred bucks and nothing more is known of him.”

“If he was broke he’d have to work or go on relief.”

“No Social Security has been paid. We’ve gone over all the relief rolls, queried every jail and hospital in the country... and still nothing. No passport was issued him and there’s no record of his having gone into Canada or Mexico.” He paused, mixed himself another drink, and shook his head. “Hal Randolph thinks he’s dead.”

“If he were, Vito Salvi wouldn’t have been looking for him,” I said.

“I know. I don’t think he’s dead either.” Charlie swirled the drink around letting the ice chink against the glass. “What do you think, Tiger?”

“The same thing you do,” I told him. “Someplace he’s holed up trying to make a decision and if we don’t get to him before he does, we’ve had it.”

“And you still think you know how to find him?”

“I have to, old buddy,” I said. “If the Soviets had their best man looking for him they’ll throw in their next best. We can’t cut it off. Vito Salvi had a big jump on us and could have been closing in when he found himself being tracked by your two men and nailed them. How Hamilton got into the act, I don’t know yet. Now... how far did those two agents get in locating Agrounsky?”

“Absolutely nowhere. That’s why they concentrated on finding Salvi... hoping he’d lead them to him. Their last report was that an unusual contact was made by a minor Soviet attaché they had been covering who was suspected of passing funds to their agents here. The general physical description matched that of Salvi except for facial characteristics which could easily have been part of a disguise. They followed him and nothing more was heard about them until you pulled the cork.”

“I suppose Randolph has a team going back on Salvi too.”

Charlie nodded. “They’re getting a big zero there too. Salvi was too much of a pro to leave trails. They’ll get to him eventually, detail by detail, but it will probably take weeks.”

“We haven’t got that long,” I reminded him.

“Come up with something then.”

I put my glass down and lit up a cigarette. “There’s a little hook in that picture of Agrounsky I can’t quite put my finger on.”

“Tiger, we haven’t missed a bet on him.”

“Just the same, I have that funny feeling.”

“Play it then... you’re on a fat salary. I don’t think you’ll get anywhere thinking he was employed by Belt-Aire though. He had no reason for falsifying his name or background and if he needed money he could have gone right into any one of the current government projects and made out a lot better.”

“So I’ll work on it until I’m satisfied.”

“Remember the time element.”

“How can I forget it?” I pushed myself out of the chair and reached for my hat. “Reach me at the Salem if you need me. The name is T. Martin. I want the latest photo of Agrounsky you can find.”

“You’ll get it. Good luck, Tiger.”

“Thanks,” I said, “we can all use some.”

Ernie Bentley had left an envelope of photostats at the desk for me with a note to contact Newark Control as soon as possible. I picked up my key, found a pay booth in the lobby and gave the operator the Newark number.

Virgil Adams answered and as soon as I coded my ID he said, “London just called, Tiger. Moscow’s assigned a replacement for Vito Salvi.”

“They’re working fast. Who is it?”

“No positive identification yet. Our sources picked it up from the embassy in Paris and passed it on. We’ll keep trying to get a make on him but since they reorganized their operation it may take a while. One thing we know — he isn’t being sent... he’s already here. They’ve surrounded this deal with the utmost security and it won’t be easy to break. Getting that much was just luck.”

“Grady’s money can buy almost anything.”

“If it’s available,” Virgil said. “We do know they’ve been holding a couple of top operatives somewhere in the country for any emergency ever since the Sokolov and Butenko spy trial bit in ’64. Right now there are some interesting developments overseas. The Kremlin’s big strategic planners who were in Bonn were recalled to Moscow for an emergency session with the brass and it had to do with the situation here.”

“You set the feed lines yet?”

“Grady’s authorized twenty-five thousand for a definite lead. He’ll go higher if he has to. We’ve spread the word so anything can break, but we’re not counting on it. Frankly, my friend, it’s up to you.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

“Do you want anybody else in the field with you?”

“Don Lavois is enough right now. Everybody is cooperating at this point and as long as it lasts we’ll be enough.”

“It’s your game, Tiger,” he said, then added, “Oh, one more thing... you might find it interesting.”

“What?”

“Our informant in Prague mentioned that the price on your head has now gone up. You not only top the ‘A’ list, but are a project in itself.”

“How much am I worth?”

Virgil chuckled humorlessly and said, “Enough to buy a villa on the Black Sea, a new Ziv, a dozen servants, endless ration cards and political recognition.”

“How about that? Why don’t you collect?”

“I like my vacations in Florida,” he said before he hung up.

When I put the phone back I was grinning. Someday I’d have to show him the four pages from the book I had taken from Marcus Pietri’s pocket after I killed him. Virgil didn’t know it, but he was on the “A” list too. Down near the bottom, but on it nevertheless.

Up in the room I dropped the stats in my bag, sealed the originals in the envelope for mailing back to Belt-Aire and put in the call to Don Lavois. He picked up the phone, took my recognition signal, answered it, and said, “Something a little odd on Salvi, Tiger.”

“Like what?”

“The Feds swarmed over the neighborhood where he was holed up and took that building apart. They got nothing at all out of it but a lot of trouble. I dogged them for a while, but as long as they were doing the work there was no use butting in. I went in after they left just for a look around but didn’t turn anything up until I reached the bathroom. One of the cops must have used the john and didn’t check it after he flushed. It had backed up a little.”

“Lousy toilet training.”

“Habit,” he said. “Whoever looks back? Anyway, I got a coat hanger and probed down the well. There was a cute little gimmick there — a thin spring wire across the toilet trap out of sight under the water level with a six-foot length of nylon cord tied to its middle and on the other end, flushed partly down the drain, a rubber prophylactic with a quarter pound of heroin in it. A neat trick, but not exactly an old one. It never would have been noticed if somebody hadn’t been pretty constipated.”

“Hell, Salvi couldn’t have been a hophead.”

“It was there, buddy. It adds some interesting sidelines.”

“Good enough. I’ll get a look at the autopsy report on his body. Think it could have been left there by an earlier tenant?”

“Nope. The spring was simple steel and the surface rust indicated recent installation.”

“What did you do with it?”

“Left it right where it was.”

“Good enough. How you going to play it from here?”

“As far as anyone knows in the neighborhood, Salvi never even existed. His cover was beautiful. He rented that place by phone, paid by cash in advance, probably bought everything in scattered places and transported it himself. But he did have to buy that H from some source. It’s the only lead we have.”

I said, “Then get Ernie to give you the latest list on narcotics suppliers he has. Keep in touch through Newark Control.”

“Roger. Any direct contact with you?”

“As little as possible. And watch yourself. The Reds have a new man in on the play.”

“So I heard... only it’s not me they’re after.”

When I cradled the receiver I walked over and sat on the window sill and looked at the city at night. There was a funny light feeling in my stomach that I never had before. I had been in on the chase and been in on the kill. Often, I had been the rabbit and felt the hot breath of the dogs on my back and smelled the saliva they oozed in the fury of the pursuit, but this rabbit had gotten away every time.

So far.

It wasn’t the dogs that gave me the feeling. It was the thought of the lights of the city going out all at once in the wild terror of an even greater light that would hang in the air like a gigantic mushroom in a field of mushrooms that would all blossom simultaneously if given the opportunity.

I double-locked the door, chained it, stretched out on the bed with the Belt-Aire employee list and ran over each page, detail by detail. Most of the information was a one-or-two-word answer to specific questions, but the end of each page contained a short summary, a personal observation that included notations of “occasional drinker” and “periodic low stake card games.” One even suggested a rather full sex life. Apparently none of these affected the employable qualities of the person because they were all on the payroll now. Evidently Hamilton had done most of his investigative work during the first half of the year because each page had a month typed in the lower left-hand corner. Except for one, it didn’t match the date of the report, so probably marked the date the investigation began.

After an hour of it I put the sheets down, the .45 on half cock beside my hand and fell asleep.