The Delta Factor

2

For a week they sweated me in the Montebahn Hotel, a crappy six-story building wedged between two similar ones in the upper forties. Maybe it was to condition me to the idea of what they wanted. Maybe it was to diagram the security arrangements they could use if they wanted to.

They had recruited types from somewhere who seemed just too damned innocuous to be carrying a badge until you spotted all the little things that marked them as being top guns who would as soon slice you up as say hello. The rooms opposite and flanking mine each held a pair, with each door cracked enough so they could see any passing movement in the hall outside. Nobody had to tell me there would be others. Every exit from the roof to the basement would be covered with a twenty-four-hour watch after a lot of heavy minds went into screening any possible escape route.

A half hour after I was in the room I spotted a couple of bugs they had planted but didn’t try to scramble them. In this age of electronics they didn’t need anything quite so obvious, so my guess was that they were deliberately left exposed enough to see what action I’d take. The mirror over the battered dresser was new enough to be a give-way. The Montebahn Hotel didn’t go to such extremes to make its guests happy, so the thing had to be a two-way job. The only amusement I had for a while was making faces into it, so if there was a psychiatrist back there trying to observe my actions for a possible stability factor, he was going to have a hell of a lot of notes to play with.

Oh, they were covering every angle, all right. The bathroom mirror was gimmicked the same way and that particular invasion of privacy I didn’t like at all.

So I had to teach them a lesson. And like the man said… the aggressor always has the initial advantage.

The first night I shut the venetian blinds, pulled the musty curtains across the windows and got into bed in total darkness. I gave myself another hour, then pulled the drawer out from the nightstand beside the bed, hauled it under the covers and bashed the back out of it with the heel of my hand, then put it back in position. Any sound they heard would have been interpreted as a normal sleeper’s movements and disregarded. And that was their tough luck.

Now all I could hope for was a habit pattern. I knew they were observing mine, so I could take advantage of theirs. The one thing they allowed me was room service from the grill downstairs and calling for a steak each night could damn near be expected. Something else could be expected too. In a place like this the steaks had to be tough, so the knife they supplied had to be sharp enough to compensate for it.

Then I began toilet training the great Federal agencies. Ten minutes after I finished I turned the news up on TV, went to the bathroom, draped a towel over the mirror there, knowing damn well they’d grin at my reluctance to be observed at what was my private affair, then I’d start to carve out the gun. Ten minutes was all I gave myself, then I flushed down the chips, shoved the chunk of wood well under the bathtub, went back and finished my coffee and called the waiter up to get the mess out of my room.

He was another one of them and his eyes neatly tabulated the dishes, the cutlery and everything else, then satisfied, he left. In the morning I’d use the john again properly so if they thought about it at all, I was just one of those regular types who never had any congestion of the lower tract.

The seventh day the flat little imitation automatic was finished. The only deviation from my habit pattern, and one they didn’t notice, was that when I used the bathroom this time I took the bottle of Worchestershire sauce with me and it made a handy dye to blacken the wood of the mock-up gun. When I got back the gimmick was stuck inside my shirt, the bottle replaced and I called for the waiter again.

It had to figure out. They’d give me credit for having spotted the waiter, so they wouldn’t take a chance of having me jump him and grab his rod, so he’d be unarmed. The door was always locked from the outside; the only time it was opened was when room service or the maid opened it. The maid was a scared hotel employee, so somebody would be waiting outside if I tried a break for it then. But when the waiter was there, the guard wouldn’t be quite so worried.

He came in on schedule, but used to his job now, a little more efficient and unconcerned. I had arranged his habit pattern too. When he was pushing the tray toward the door I crossed behind him, ostensibly to adjust the TV, whipped the Worcestershire sauce bottle from the table and laid it across his ear from the only position the two-way mirror couldn’t cover.

I was out the door with the wooden gun in my hand and the single guy there who turned around languidly expecting the waiter almost choked on his own spit and before instinct could make him react I shook my head and said, “Don’t try it, old buddy. Just turn around.”

It was all too fast. He did as I told him to. I fingered his gun from the belt holster, then pushed him toward the door of the room opposite mine. The other one inside got the same stricken look too. Without being told he went palms out on the tabletop he was playing cards on and let me take his gun too and all he did was look up at his partner and whisper hoarsely, “How the hell did it happen?”

“He had a gun,” his partner told him.

“But… where?”

“Shut up,” I said.

I used their own handcuffs around the radiator to keep them in place, gagged them both, tied their feet down with sheets so they couldn’t bang around too much, then blew them a good-night kiss. They were two pretty sad-looking characters right then. Tomorrow they were going to be a lot sadder like a lot of others.

Just as long as one of them wasn’t me, that was all right.

The rest was easy.

The elevator operator took me downstairs to the basement, after I pocketed his gun, held still while I tied and gagged him with his own clothes; the guy on the back exit did the same; the one roaming the small courtyard almost threw up with disgust, but submitted to the same procedure; then I was on my own. I was carrying a damn arsenal by then I didn’t want or need, so I piled up the weaponry beside the last one, laid my wooden model on top for an object lesson and took off over the fence.

This time I let them sweat for a week. I let them get it all out of their systems, knowing damn well what was going on behind a lot of closed doors, and every time I thought about it I’d start to grin, then break out into a laugh, and more than once people thought I was a little nuts or else they would grin back figuring I was nursing a secret joke.

But the week was working for them too and I didn’t realize it. Life gets too grim without its little challenges and they had thrown a big one at me. I made them eat it, but the big one I hadn’t bought yet and the thought of it became more interesting every day.

After six days I had enough. On Saturday I went back to the Montebahn Hotel, asked the startled clerk for the same room I had occupied the week before, went up and turned on the TV, flopped on the bed and waited for the clerk to call the boys.

It was one hell of a boy, all right. They don’t hardly make ’em like that any more. This agent was one of the loveliest women I had ever seen and if they had wanted a deterrent to an escape in the first place they should have sent her along earlier. Her hair was long and dark, sun-streaked in spots and tumbled around her shoulders in a carefully casual manner that almost made you stop looking at the rest of her. Except that was impossible. She never would have modeled for the women’s fashion magazines because there was too lovely much of her, but from a man’s point of view she was geometrical perfection. Even though she was agency trained, she didn’t try to conceal the full rise of her breasts, or the sweep of waist to hips and the concave tautness of her belly. But for that matter, she couldn’t. Like I said, there was just too lovely much of her. Her face was large dark eyes with a near-Oriental cast and a full-lipped mouth that had a damp sparkle, curved in a small, wry smile that studied me for a moment before she sat down.

“Kimberly Stacy,” she said. “B-4 Intelligence, Section A. So you’re the monster.”

“Damn!” was all I could manage.

She smiled a little bigger this time. “You embarrassed a lot of my colleagues, Morgan.”

“That’s why they didn’t come themselves.”

“No… they simply thought it would be a little less conspicuous this way. Why did you do it?”

I squirmed up on the bed and stared at her. “Because I don’t like people trying outthink me. They needed a damn lesson…”

“No,” she interrupted, “I didn’t mean that. Why did you come back?”

My mouth twitched back into a grin. “Things were getting dull. I was having fun. I hated to see it stop.”

She nodded as if she understood completely. “And when they stop being fun?”

I shrugged. “Then I’ll do something else.”

“You have only two choices,” she reminded me.

“Do I?”

“It’s a stop-action order now. You’ll be killed if you try it again. The rest are waiting. Nobody’s taking any chances this time.”

“Why did they sweat me for a week, kid?”

“They were getting things organized. They didn’t want any attention brought to this matter.”

“Be candid, sugar,” I said. “They had things organized before that.”

Her mouth opened in a quiet laugh and I could see the even edges of her teeth. “I think they were testing you. They put you under maximum security and wanted to see what you’d do. Apparently they didn’t think it could be done. You’ve compounded their embarrassment by coming back. They won’t try that routine again.”

“So?”

“Now you’ll go with me. Quietly, no fuss, no bother and we’ll help you make that decision.”

“And if I don’t?”

Her eyes twinkled at me. “I’ll have to hold your hand,” she said.

I let the laugh rumble out of my chest. “Okay, baby, after a threat like that I’m totally demoralized. There’s only one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Hold my hand. You’ll be safer that way too.”

“Don’t be so sure of yourself, Morgan,” she said. She meant it, too.

Something had changed in their faces. The aggressiveness was still there but a subtle respect had wiped out the antagonism. Only Jack Doherty remained untouched. The big cop still clamped a stub of a cigar in his teeth looking like he had eaten something sour, and eyed me impassively with no show of curiosity whatsoever.

Kimberly sat beside me and only then did I let go of her hand. We had left the others downstairs, the ones who had surrounded us on the street and squeezed into taxis fore and aft of our own. They had been a different bunch, their eyes frankly appraising me, hoping I would try something while their shift was on duty and looking disappointed when I didn’t.

Gavin Woolart took the seat at the head of the table and went through his paper-shuffling routine again. He’d have to break that habit or somebody would make something of it someday. Finally he said, “That was a very ingenious ruse you pulled, Mr. Morgan.”

I shrugged it off. “My pleasure. Maybe it’ll keep your boys on their toes the next time.”

“There won’t be a next time.”

“That’s what you said the last time.”

A flush of red crept into his face from his neckline. “There is one question… why you returned.”

I saw Kim’s head turn my way a fraction of a second and knew she was smiling. “I was bored,” I told him.

“No other reason?”

“What one could there be?”

“We were hoping it was more an act of patriotism.”

“Balls,” I said.

Somebody coughed. Carter, from the Treasury Department, said, “You are at your best when you’re bored, I assume?”

“I’ve never tried it any other way.”

“Then I hope we’re not making a mistake.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

For some reason they all turned and gave each other the briefest of glances. “We’ll get to that later,” he told me. “Now, Mr. Gavin…?”

Gavin Woolart nodded and cleared his throat. “Your return, I take it, means you’ll accept the terms of our… ah, proposal.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Then let us proceed directly to the heart of the matter. Time is an important element. We can’t afford to waste any of it. Every day, every hour impairs our national security that much more. We have a lot of briefing for you.”

“I’m a quick study, kid. Don’t you waste time with non-essentials.”

The red came back in his face again and he nodded. “Tell me, Morgan, have you ever heard of the Rose Castle?”

Tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood up and prickled my skin.

Yes, I knew the Rose Castle. At least I knew of it from a few who had been there and gotten out, a granite fortress built by the Spaniards in 1620, dedicated to death and destruction and used as a prison for political prisoners with a reputation of being absolutely impregnable and to tally escape-proof. The Spaniards hadn’t fooled around with modern conceptions of humane treatment for its inhabitants.

“So that’s where he is,” I said. “Yes, I know of it.”

Woolart studied my face and said pleasantly, “Yes, I can see that you have.” He paused, then, “Does the name Victor Sable mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“It shouldn’t. He is the one we want.” From the pile of papers he took three photographs and passed them down the line to me. They were front and profile shots of a man apparently in his sixties. He was partially bald, graying, his expression a curious mixture of seriousness and studiousness, and one I’d label as harmless. But for some reason he was pretty damn important.

“Background?”

“Nothing you need concern yourself with, Morgan.” From the papers he took several more and let me have them. “Detailed sketches of the Rose Castle as complete as we were able to get them. The top one is the original construction design we got from the archives in Madrid; the others contain modifications supplied by certain former inmates and a few bribed ex-guards. However, there has been some construction on modification of the interior which we can’t supply at this time.”

I took the diagrams and glanced at them. It took only a second to realize that an expert had laid out this crib. They were asking the impossible when they wanted a multiple break out of the joint. I handed them back but Woolart waved me off. “Keep them to study, Morgan.”

I grinned at him. “I already did, Woolart. I could duplicate them from memory right now.”

For the first time Mr. Rice spoke: “I hope you aren’t being facetious, Mr. Morgan.”

“It’s my life, friend; I hope not.”

“This isn’t a conventional operation. We don’t want to leave anything to chance.”

“Neither do I. Want me to show you my little memory trick?”

I was annoyed and they knew it. Treasury’s Carter said, “All right, Morgan. We’ll have to accept it.”

“Then get on with it.”

Woolart went through some more reshuffling before he looked up. “We’re basing your presence in that country on the fact that you are a fugitive from justice. They know of your forty-million-dollar coup and have always been willing to accept wealthy fugitives for as long as they could pay for the pleasure. There is no extradition act in effect between their country and ours, so whoever reaches their shores is safe… for a while anyway, that is.”

My mouth twisted in a funny grin. “They’ll be expecting me to pay for the privilege then. I’ll need financial backing.”

“Morgan…” Rice looked like he wanted to throw up.

I said, “If you were expecting me to dig into the forty million, you’re nuts. I’d be admitting guilt and leading you to the loot. No, buddy, your agency has funds earmarked for these stunts and it will be a pleasure to spend it.”

Rice nodded slowly, his eyes spitting animosity. “It will be forthcoming, Morgan.”

“But just to ease your minds,” I added, “keep in mind the premise that I might not have that loot.”

“For the moment, we’re not concerned with that.”

“The hell you’re not,” I laughed. “Now, when does the action start?”

There was a momentary lull in the conversation, the hesitation of a man about to go over the top into a place he might not come back from, then Woolart said, “Immediately. There will be nothing elaborate about the procedure at all. You will make all the arrangements for your own evacuation through sources you will personally locate. Our cooperation will be in keeping our heads turned while you accomplish this. For a person of your resources it should prove fairly simple. We will make no attempt to apprehend any of your, er, accomplices, so if you wish to make use of any friends, feel free to do so.”

“You mentioned a crime I was to commit.”

“An overt move against the government,” Woolart said.

“We’ll leave it to your discretion.”

“They shoot you for that down there, friend,” I reminded him.

“Not when they think you’re a person of extreme financial circumstance,” he smiled. “They’d much rather extract your fortune from you.”

“And when they do?”

“Then they shoot you,” he said.

“Nice people.”

“You should be used to them,” he said sarcastically. He picked up a printed sheet and scanned it. “A bank account containing twenty-five thousand dollars will be opened in the name of M. A. Winters.” He tossed two application cards across the table to me. “Sign those.”

I wrote in M. A. Winters in the signature space and shoved them back again.

“At the same time,” he continued, “in the Miami branch of the same bank we have taken out a safe-deposit box in the same name. You will retain the key. In the box there is a map that supposedly shows the location of your hidden money, but in reality shows one of our places. In the event you are forced to divulge the box and the key we will know you have failed the mission, but if someone else follows that map we at least will have our hands on one of their people who might be able to give us some information.”

“Ingenious.” I said.

He let my tone of voice pass. “Simple enough to be plausible. There really wouldn’t be much else for you to do. A man in your position either has to run or hide. Until now, you’ve been hiding. Now it’s time to run.”

“Why?”

There was another of those funny little halts in the sounds that a group of people make. Then Woolart said, “That’s simple too. You found a woman.”

It came on me like the dawn of a cloudy day, slowly at first, hardly taking shape until it was well established. I looked around at Kimberly Stacy, not quite believing what I had heard. But there wasn’t any denying it. That flat, professional, steely look in her eyes gave me the same answer, but I had to be sure. “Her? She’s the agent going in with me?”

“That’s right, Morgan.”

“You people are crazy!”

“We are?”

“How the hell could she contain me?”

Woolart’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Miss Stacy has had occasion to shoot five men, Morgan. She’s trained in all the skills demanded by her profession and is rated as one of our best operatives. I wouldn’t underestimate her.”

I was half on my feet, my voice grating in my throat. “Knock it off. You think those people aren’t on their toes! You think they couldn’t pick off a setup like that? They could spot a tail…”

Gavin Woolart shook his head, one corner of his mouth twisted into a wry grin. “I told you we were keeping it simple, Morgan. She won’t be tailing you. She’s going in as your wife.”

My mouth opened to say something, but he cut me off.

“Your legal wife,” he said, “in case somebody checks. You’re getting married by a J.P. in the State of Georgia.”

“Damn,” I said.

From her side of the room, Kim Stacy said, “It should be an interesting honeymoon, Morgan.”