The Executioners

VI

I showered, shaved and got a few hours of sleep. My body ached and groaned and I'd decided that bulldogging steers was no career for me. I awoke refreshed and one fact emerged out of the welter of slipping, sliding deceptions. I had done enough shadow-boxing. There was a leader to this operation and I had to make him come forward. One of the three girls had lied from the very start but short of torture, I'd no way to find out which one it was. But if I could move them into a position where they'd have to show their hands, I'd find out all the answers I needed to know. I dressed slowly, letting the plans gather in my mind. I had to move carefully all around now. After what I'd learned about Mona this morning, there were no more islands of safety. This operation could have penetrated far up. When I finished dressing, I drove to Ayr.

I went to the Major's office and closed the door behind me. I'd rehearsed what 1 wanted to say and how I was going to put it.

"I'm afraid I've gotten a lot of suspicious leads, Major," I said. "But nothing really concrete. But there are a few last questions I'd like answered."

"Anything you wish, Carter," the Major said. "I can't say I'm too surprised that you've come up with nothing concrete. I'm afraid that perhaps there just isn't anything."

"Perhaps," I smiled, putting some sadness into it. "But I have a question on your own personnel. How thoroughly do you check them out? Take Mona, for example. I presume she's been carefully screened."

"Oh, thoroughly," Major Rothwell said. "We have her whole background on file. You may see it if you like. She was born in Hong Kong, lived a good number of years in Peking with her father, who was with the British Army. She was actually hired by us in London. Oh, everybody's thoroughly screened, you can be sure of that."

I nodded. I didn't tell him that I'd seen thoroughly screened personnel before who turned out to be enemy agents.

"One last thing," I said. "Is there any other major maneuver or venture taking place soon that, if it went wrong, would strain Australia's relations with her friends to the breaking point?"

Major Rothwell pursed his lips and thought, gazing up at the ceiling. "Well, there is one thing," he said. "A huge dam is being built just south of here. It's being done by an American firm using Australian workmen. This has already caused some friction and hard feelings. A lot of our blokes couldn't understand why it had to be a Yank firm. Our firms were much higher in their cost estimates, but people don't pay attention to those things when they want an emotional issue. And, as you know, the Australian people are pretty angry at the charges that have been leveled at us, rightly or wrongly. If something were to go wrong with that dam, and people were to be killed because of it, I bloody well think it would put the icing on the cake. There's considerable support for a movement to withdraw from the whole alliance, mostly out of hurt feelings, but there nonetheless."

The Major was more than right, I knew. I had no more questions, so I left. Before returning to the cottage I made two stops in downtown Townsville, one at a novelty store, the other at a drugstore. Then I closeted myself for the rest of the day. In the morning, I reported in to the Major. I'd planned what I would say carefully. If Mona was the one involved, she'd be my problem. She'd know I'd been at the ranch and had escaped the stampede. She'd know I had latched onto something, so I couldn't just bow out claiming lack of success. If she were the one, that is.

"I'm afraid I've some bad news," I announced. "I have to return to the States — an emergency has come up and they've called me back. I spoke to Hawk last night."

"That's a rotten shame," the Major said. "But you have to follow orders like the rest of us, I know."

"Hawk sends you his apologies," I lied blandly. "He said I could come back if you still feel you need me. I was just getting into some solid leads, too."

"Perhaps this emergency will pass in a day or two," the Major said. 'They sometimes do. Good luck, Carter. Thanks for everything so far."

A phone call for the Major ended our conversation and I paused at Mona's desk. "I want to come back." I grinned at her. "I don't have to toll you why, honey."

"Can we spend tonight together?" she asked. I shook my head. "Booked on the afternoon flight already," I said. "I'll be back. Save some for me till then." She gave me a narrow look and smiled. I walked, out, on my way back to the United States — at least so far as they were concerned. My next stop was Judy. I gave her the same story about being called back on orders. Her eyes held mine with a steady look.

"It figures," she said, bitterly. "I didn't think it would really come true, anyway."

"You mean about my helping you get to the States?" I said. "Maybe it will, yet. I may be back."

"Rot," she said. "And even if you do come back, you don't believe me any more."

I just smiled at her. You're so right, honey, I told myself. That scuba gear of yours in the closet could be used for a lot more than fun and games underwater. She was pouting when I left, her round face was set, and her eyes on me were accusing. Damn her hide, if she were the one, she was the best actress of them all. I left quickly and stopped at Lynn Delba's place. I added one thing to my story for her.

"I gave Australian Intelligence your name and put down everything you told me," I said.

"I guess I can expect them pestering me every day now," she said crossly. She looked up at me and her eyes roamed up and down quickly. "Well, if they all look like you, Yank, I guess I can stand it," she said. She was true to form at least. I smiled inwardly. She still didn't wear a bra either.

It had been my last stop. Nick Carter was on his way back to America.

That night, The Ruddy Jug had a new customer. He was red-haired, with a freckled face wide, red-brown moustache turned down at the edges. He had a ruddy complexion underneath his freckles and a loud, grating voice. Wearing a workman's shirt, pants and heavy shoes, he sat down and waved a hand at Judy. He watched her come over and her smile was forced — an imposition on her strained, grim face — a mockery of her troubled eyes.

"Lunatic soup, girlie," he yelled at her. "Shout me a seven, willya?" Judy turned to the bar and called out for a seven-ounce glass of beer. She fetched it and put it on the man's table. "Welcome to The Ruddy Jug." She smiled again.

"I'm a bit done up, lass," he said, his Aussie speech pattern as natural as his drinking the beer. "Workin' on that dam under those blasted Yank engineers would do up a saint, I tell you."

"You can always relax at The Ruddy Jug," Judy said as she started to move on.

"Good on you," the man called. "Shout me another when you go by the bar. It's a hot, dinkum night, it is."

The girl went on without a backward glance and I smiled inwardly. I'd passed inspection. I'd worked on the disguise all afternoon, remembering the various little tricks of using make-up that Stewart in Special Effects had taught me. The moustache from the novelty store was a good one and between it, my dyed hair combed back differently and the freckles, I was a new man — Tim Anderson, worker at the big dam south of Ayr. I managed to get into a loud conversation with two men at a nearby table and the more I drank the more I told them about how rotten it was working for the damned Yank engineers. I complained about their pay, the way they treated me, the kind of work they demanded, everything and anything I could think of.

I left that first night fairly early. The next night I stayed later, and the night after still later. Each night was a repetition of the others, and I made certain that Judy heard me loud and clear. It was on the fourth night that the sallow faced Bonard came in and I had to conceal a smile. He mightn't be top dog, but he was top level, and here he was out recruiting. It was a backhanded testimonial to the dent I'd already put in their operation.

I watched, out of the corner of my eye, as he paused to talk to Judy. She didn't smile at him. In fact, she was downright sullen. But she did nod, finally, in my direction. Bonard stood at the bar, waiting for a moment when I wasn't involved talking to somebody else. I let him wait while I made loud noises about the blasted Yanks and their "bloody uppity manners." Finally, I sat back and knocked off a whiskey and a beer.

"Mind if I sit down?" I heard Bonard's voice and looked up, my eyes heavy lidded. I gestured to the empty chair at the table. His approach was smooth and unhurried. I played him along like a fisherman plays a trout, only he thought he was the fisherman. I let him know that I was in debt up to my ears and one particular debt was really sitting on my back. He showed up the next night, and the night after, and we got to be great drinking pals.

"I could help you out of that jam you're in, Tim," he said to me finally. "You said a few hundred quid would do it. Here, take it. It's a loan."

I acted properly grateful and impressed. "You can do something for me in return." Bonard said. "We'll talk about it tomorrow night."

I pocketed the cash and left. But I was there early the next night and so was he.

"How'd you like to make some really big money, Tim?" he asked me. "And do yourself and your country a favor at the same time?"

"I'd love that, I would," I answered.

"I'm connected with some men who don't want that dam you're building to stay up," he said in low, confidential tones. "They feel just like you do about the bloody Yanks coming over here and lording it all over us. They want to see that it doesn't happen again and there's only one way to do that."

"What way's that?" I asked, a little thickly.

"Let the thing break after they've got it up," he said. "Some people might get hurt, and some property damaged, but there'll be no more calling in Yanks to work over here. It'd be sweet revenge for you, Tim, for all the things you've told me about."

"It would at that, wouldn't it?" I smiled, leaning back. "I'd bloody well love to see their dam collapse on them."

"My people are prepared to give you twenty-five thousand dollars if you do what they want," he said quietly. I let my eyes grow wide and my jaw drop.

"Lord luv a duck, that's more money than I'd ever hoped to see in one place," I stammered.

"It'll be all in your pocket, Tim," Bonard said. "How about it?"

It was time for me to get cagey. I started to backwater.

"Now, not so fast," I said. "The money's good and all that, but people don't give it away for nothin'. What am I supposed to do for this? If it gets me in jail, I won't be around to collect or to spend the twenty-five thousand."

"There's no risk to you," he said. "You'll get the details later. It's just that we need someone inside the working area who can do what we want done."

I shifted into second gear. "Suppose I was to agree to help you. How do I know you'll keep your end of the bargain?"

"We'll put the money in a bank account in your name," he said. "It will be marked for release on a certain date to you. That date will be two days after you've finished your end of the deal. All you'll have to do is go in and claim it."

I smiled to myself. So that was their system for paying off. The whole thing had been couched in just the right terms to appeal to me — the dissatisfied, angry man. Now it was time to shift into high.

"I'll do it," I said. "But not until I conclude the deal with the top man. This is a big thing and I want to be sure of where I stand."

"I'm the top man," Bonard smiled reassuringly. I gave him a hard, beady look back.

"I wasn't born yesterday, digger," I said. The top man wouldn't be out making contacts. Not with an outfit like you've got behind you. Who are they, some big Australian construction company?"

"Maybe." He smiled again, allowing me to run with that thought if it made me happy. Then he tried once more.

"But I am top man," he said. "You can deal safely with me."

I shook my head stubbornly. "No top man, no Tim Anderson," I said. Bonard got up and excused himself. I watched him go to the phone and make a call. He came back a few minutes later and gave me an expansive grin, his sallow face crinkling up.

"You drive a hard bargain, Tim," he said. "The top man will see you. Tomorrow night. I'll meet you here."

"You should've told me you were going to make that call," I said. "There's something else I want. I want a good woman, something different, no ordinary street wench. I want somebody I can take out and not be afraid to be seen with. And I want her tomorrow night. 1 want to celebrate concluding our deal with a good, hot woman.

Bonard was having trouble keeping his smile going but he managed it. "I understand," he said. "I'll meet you here tomorrow night."

We left together, he getting into the jeep and I walking off down the street. The top man would show, I was certain. They wanted this to go through. I wasn't so certain if the part about the woman would work out. Naturally I was hoping they'd call on whoever they'd been using right along — Mona, Lynn Delba or Judy.

I went back, not to the cottage, but to a little one-room flat I'd rented in the low rent district. In my room, I pulled out the map of the area around the dam and studied it again. Some four villages were close under the dam, another eight a litde distance away. If the dam were to give way after it was up a while, the torrent of waters would wipe out all the nearest villages and most of the others. The farms and property would be totally destroyed, of course. The loss of life could only be guessed at, but it would be plenty. It would, as the Major had said, certainly put the icing on the cake, starting a two-way bitterness that would rend the working alliance for good. And I knew they wouldn't stop there. They'd find more dissatisfied souls to wreak more damage until the alliance was blasted apart once and for all and Australia isolated in sullen hostility. The effect this would have on the perimeter power was even more frightening as they saw a cooperative western effort fall apart before their very own eyes. I put the map away and turned off the light. I was looking forward to a very instructive night coming up.

Bonard was waiting in the jeep outside the door of The Ruddy Jug as I appeared. "Get in," he said. "It's quite a drive."

I sat beside him, not talking much, as we headed for the ranch. I smiled inwardly as we passed the place I'd stopped to ask directions. This time, as we approached the Circle Three, the yard was floodlighted and the place was active. I felt the tenseness of my muscles as we wheeled into the yard and I took a deep breath. This is no time to get stage fright, old boy, I told myself. I got out and Bonard led me into the ranch, past the parlor until I was, once again, inside the study with the big cases of marine objects lining the walls. Behind the big desk, green eyes looked out at me from under auburn hair — cool eyes, that took in every detail of the man that stood before her. Mona Star got up.

"None of the others who've worked with us has ever met me," she said coolly. "You expected a man, of course."

I didn't have to fake the amazement in my eyes. Not because it was Mona, but because of her role. I was primed to see her, or Lynn or Judy, but in their womanly roles, not as top man. And I couldn't fit her basic feminine sensuality with The Executioners.

"I guess I am surprised, ma'am," I said sheepishly.

"Now that you've met me," Mona said crisply, "let's get the details worked out at once." She was eyeing me with a very penetrating stare and I was tensed, ready to make a break for it if the whole bit came unglued. But it stayed together as I passed her inspection. The somewhat oafish, slouching brute standing before her would not be her cup of tea, I knew.

"You wanted a woman to celebrate with," she said to me, coldly. "Business before pleasure, Mr. Anderson. You can do your celebrating after the job is done. Who knows, I might even celebrate with you."

She threw me a fast smile. The gorgeous bitch. She was tossing a little added incentive to the poor, dumb bastard before her so he'd do his damnedest to get the job done right I smiled back eagerly, and let my tongue roll across my lips. I let my eyes devour her big, deep breasts hungrily. It was a good act, and that part of it wasn't hard.

"Now here are the details of your job, Mr. Anderson," she said. "We know that they've begun to pour the dam. Today, they did the whole bottom section. Tomorrow they'll pour the center section, going horizontally across from left to right. Now, of course, the cement is held in place by the wooden molds until it hardens, which will take days yet. There's no night shift at the dam, except perhaps one or two watchmen. You'll be driven there at once and a half hour after you're there, a truck will drive up. The truck will be carrying bags of clay and limestone, exactly like those they're using to make the cement for the dam. But the mixture in these bags is very special. When it's poured into the cement mixture it will look like what they are using and act like what they are using. But it contains a powerful disintegrating agent When the cement is set, with this material in it, it will begin to disintegrate from inside. Our calculations are that within two weeks after the dam is scheduled to be opened, a major section will collapse and cause a tremendous flood."

"And you want me to see to it that these special bags are mixed in with the regular mixture of ordinary clay and limestone," I finished for her.

"Exactly," she said. "You will take the bags from the truck and intermingle them with those other sacks waiting to be made into cement. It's as simple as that, Mr. Anderson. Twenty-five thousand dollars for a night's work is pretty good pay, don't you think?"

"Yes, madam," I said humbly. "Yes, indeed."

"Now please go with Mr. Bonard," she said. "This must work like clockwork. We want the bags in your hands so you can mix them in with the others."

I nodded to her and started after Bonard who led me to the jeep. I sat quietly during the ride to dam. The whole operation was so simple and so neat it was foolproof. But I was making plans of my own as the jeep roared through the night. I had two things to do and I couldn't fail at any or I'd fail in all. I had to stop the operation and nab some of them as proof in order to nail Mona. I didn't dare try to grab Bonard and pump more information from him. It would be only one more piecemeal victory and I needed a total victory now.

As I rode two very disparate thoughts crossed my mind. One, that the tall Chinese I'd seen during my first visit to the ranch had stayed out of sight, although he was very much around, I felt sure. Second, that I was glad the eyes I'd seen when I entered the study at the ranch had not been smoke-gray. Nobody, but nobody, had ever called me a sentimentalist, yet I was glad. Damn her smoke-gray eyes and young-wise face, I said to myself. They got to you — to me.

The jeep had crested the top of a hill and I found myself looking at the tall outlines of the scaffolding of the dam. Bonard drove through the litter of construction work — pipe and boards and steel plates and small hand trucks. Finally he halted before a tall scaffolding that extended from the wooden molds into which the concrete would be poured.

"You can wait here," he said. "You know what to do when the truck gets here." I wished to hell I did know what to do, I said to myself as I nodded and he drove away. The network of scaffolding loomed up above me and I made a fast survey of the area in the little time I had. Sledge hammers, saws, shovels and boards lay around the place. At the end of the dam scaffolding, two huge machines stood on top of double rails. They were moveable cement mixers and I saw the conveyer belt stacked with bags leading up to the machine. On the top, where the belt turned back on itself, there was a platform large enough for two men to stand on, open the bags as they came up and pour their contents into the huge mixer. The conveyer belt was where I was to intermingle the identically marked bags with the special mixture.

But I couldn't let those bags get near that conveyer belt. It would be a grim joke indeed if I cracked the operation, but they had their disaster anyway, as their disintegrating mixture found its way in with the regular mix. I examined the huge mixers and saw the rollers they were on led left and right along the dam. Moreover, I found the set of levers that controlled their operation electrically. One moved the machines along the double tracks, the other controlled the direction of the long, funnel-like opening out of which the cement poured. An idea formed in my mind as I saw the headlights approaching. A small open-side truck emerged from behind the headlights and I stayed beside the levers. Stepping into the beam of the headlights, I waved them to stop under the huge cement mixer at the right.

The driver stuck his head out of the truck window. "Want them unloaded right here?" he asked gruffly.

"In a minute," I said. I stepped back into the shadows and yanked the first lever marked "Release." The grinding noise of the cement mixer as it turned over inside the huge framework split the night and I said a quick prayer. I was counting on the mixer having a fair amount of unpoured cement still inside it. I pulled the other lever and swung the long funnel over the truck and in relief I saw the rush of thick, heavy, gray substance pour down the funnel, looking like some giant's morning porridge. It began to cascade over the truck and its bags of the special mixture. With a bellow, the driver leaped out of the cab, getting a load of wet cement on his head. I stepped forward, Wilhelmina in hand.

"Hold it right there," I said. But then, too late, I saw he was wearing a walkie-talkie. Then I heard the other two who had leaped from the other side of the truck. They were also equipped with walkie-talkies and I heard them shouting into their sets.

"Its your man, Anderson," the one shouted. "He's a ringer."

I heard the sound of two car engines roar into life. One pulled away in a fast take-off with screaming tires, the other moved forward and I saw its headlights bouncing as it raced into the dam area. The driver of the truck tried to get tricky. He whirled and dove for the undercarriage, figuring to get under and out the other side. I fired once, through the splashing gobs of cement, and he lay still. In a few minutes he'd be the truck, a mass of sliding, gray cement covering it and running down on all sides. But the car doors were opening and I heard Bonard's voice yelling orders. I stood still to listen. I counted four sets of footsteps on the run, besides Bonard. That made the two from the truck, four others and Bonard, seven altogether. And they were spreading out to move toward me on both sides of the truck. I started to run, down along the lower edge of the dam, past the tall scaffolding. I heard them meet around the truck and come after me. Suddenly I paused, picked up a big sledge hammer lying on the ground, and looked up at the tall array of scaffolding. Bonard and the others were racing toward me. I swung, with all my might, smashing the heavy hammer against the joint of the scaffold. It gave way with a splintering noise and I leaped to one side as one entire section of the scaffolding came down. I heard one man's cry of gasping pain, but most of them managed to fall back in time to avoid the lengths of wood and steel that cascaded down on them. But the curtain of debris had given me another moment's jump on them. I saw a ladder leading up and I leaped for it and started to climb. It led up into the scaffolding and on further, all the way to the top of the dam where a wooden ledge simulated the gentle curve that the concrete would take when it was finished.

Suddenly I felt the ladder tremble and I saw them coming up after me. Looking beyond, I saw others moving up another ladder, some hundred feet away but paralleling the one I was on. I had no way to go but up, so I kept climbing, to the very top of the dam, or what would someday be the top of the dam. Then I glanced to my left. Two others were moving up another of the long, scaffold ladders which I realized now were placed every hundred feet or so apart for the workmen. I was nearly at the top, but so were they, on my left and on my right and just behind me on the same ladder. I was trapped, with no place to hide and nowhere to run. As you can't shoot in two directions at once, blasting my way out was also impossible. I stopped, poised at the top of the curving wood ledge. Bonard was on the ledge already, walking toward me, gun in hand. One of his men was coming in from the other direction.

"Give me your gun," he said. "Slowly and carefully. One false move and you're dead."

I wasn't in any position to argue. I needed to play for time. I handed Wilhelmina to him, slowly and carefully, just the way he wanted it done.

"Now start back down, slowly," he said. "We'll be on either side of you, watching."

I began the long, slow climb down, with guns from three sides trained on me — from the left, the right, and underneath. They were waiting for me when I reached the ground and they hustled me toward Bonard's car. We were just passing the spot where I'd hit the scaffold joint with the sledge hammer. Pieces of that section hung loosely and I saw that one of the adjoining sections was buckled at the bottom joint. It wouldn't take much to snap it. Bonard, in his anger and frustration, had forgotten about Hugo. I tensed my muscles, bulged them out against the leather sheath and the stiletto dropped into my palm.

The man to the right of me was walking a half step behind, his gun held loosely in his hand, pointed at the ground. I waited, calculating every second's move and then, as we passed the buckled scaffolding joint, I whirled, slashing out with Hugo. The man's cry was cut short as the stiletto severed his jugular in one swipe. The others, startled for a moment, grabbed for me but I was already leaping to the side, slamming my shoulder into the scaffolding joint. It snapped — and the second section of scaffolding came down onto their heads. Only this time I was under it, too.

A length of wood caught me in the back and knocked the wind out of me for a second. I flattened myself against the wooden molds of the newly poured concrete base of the dam as more aluminum rods and wood hurtled down. I ran along the edge of the dam, hurdling the scaffolding, and shots cracked around my ears as they recovered from their second rain of scaffolding.

I changed course and streaked across a work area with piles of steel girders and rolls of wire cable lying along the ground. A big tractor stood in the midst of all the construction materials and; clusters of hydraulic gas in tall cylinders dotted the area. I dove behind one cluster of the tall tanks. An acetylene torch lay on the ground. I picked it up as a prospector picks up a gold nugget.

"Spread out," I heard Bonard say. "The bastard's in here someplace."

I stayed huddled behind the tanks, peering out through the opening where their nozzles didn't meet at the top. The men had moved out and were picking their way amid the litter of girders and cables. Two of them were circling the big tractor, one from each side. Then I heard footsteps nearby and saw the figure moving toward the tanks. I waited. The torch would go on with a whooshing sound and I had to time it just right or he'd be forewarned.

I crouched low. As be peered carefully around the tanks, I turned on die torch and shoved it in his face. He let out a scream that split the night apart, falling backwards with both hands to his face. His gun was on the ground where he'd dropped it. I scooped it up, fired one shot at the others who were coming on the run, and took off. They were professionals. They left the man screaming and writhing on the ground and kept on after me. I was leaping girders and coils of cable like a hundred-yard hurdler. I saw the small shack painted bright red with the one word emblazoned in white across its sides: "Explosives."

I yanked the door of the shack open, pretty certain of what I'd find. The sticks of dynamite were packed in cartons. One box on top had been made up six in a cluster, already fused. I grabbed one cluster and ran out as Bonard, leading the others, came running up. I ducked around the side of the shack and streaked for a straight passageway between six-foot-high stacks of steel girders. They came pounding after me. Not breaking my pace, I fished my cigarette lighter from my pocket, lit the fuse on the dynamite and then whirled and tossed it at them. Bonard, in the lead, saw the object hurtling through the air. As I ran I saw him skid to a halt, falling as he did so, get to his feet and dive toward one of the rows of steel girders. It was too late for the others, following just far enough behind him. The dynamite exploded right in their faces with a gargantuan blast.

I was knocked forward, maybe ten yards, I guessed, hitting the ground in a rolling, spinning cartwheel. But I'd been prepared for it and I let myself go, falling loosely onto the shaking ground. I stayed there quietly, until the earth stopped trembling. Then I got up.

Two were already accounted for, the one I'd knifed at the- scaffold and the one who got the acetylene torch. I was moving forward through the acrid haze of smoke, stepping over one of the bodies with enough life in it to moan, when the shot rang out at close range. I felt the sharp pain as it tore through my shoulder and out the other side, ripping muscle and tendon as it went.

I dropped instantly and Bonard's body flew over me in a headlong tackle from the right. I took his shoe in the jaw and saw pinwheels. My gun had fallen from my hand — I saw him, hazily, starting to raise his gnn arm again. As 1 kicked out and knocked his arm up, the shot went wild. But my head had cleared, I kicked out again, getting one foot behind his leg. He went down, another shot going wild I was on him, wrestling for the gun, when I heard the hammer click on the empty chamber. I smashed a blow at his face but he was quick and wiry. He rolled just enough to make it a grazing blow and then kicked free of my grip. Hulling across the ground, he came up on his feet with something in his hand. It was a length of wire cable and he sent it snapping, whiplike, through the air. I turned away from it, but it landed on my back and I felt it cut in like a knife. It was almost as bad as the burning, searing pain in my shoulder when the bullet had torn into me.

He sent the wire cable zinging through the air again but 1 half fell, half leaned backwards, hitting the ground hard. My hand, outstretched, felt something cold and metal, it was a saw — a big, heavy-duty saw. Bonard was coming in with the slashing cable again. I winked the saw over and, using it as a shield, deflected the blow that whipped down at me. Scrambling to my feet, I held the saw before me and moved in on him. He struck with the cable again, and once more I took it on the flat of the saw.

Then he got smart. Dropping low, he lashed out with the cable and I felt it curl around my leg with searing pain. But before he could pull the vicious weapon free, I brought the heavy saw around in a long arc. The jagged metal teeth caught him on the side of the neck and blood gushed from him like a fountain. He staggered back, clutching at his neck. I dived and tackled him, bringing him down hard. His sallow face now white, he was a dying rat still fighting furiously. His hands clawed at my face and I put my head down and butted him with it. I heard his head fall backwards and hit the ground with a dull thud. I got an elbow up and smashed it against his neck, holding him still. The blood flowed from the severed arteries of his neck in a steady, red flow.

"That was Mona who got away in the other car," I yelled at him. "Mona and the Chinese Commie. Where did she go?"

His eyes were beginning to turn glassy and his face was ghastly white, but still strained in hate and fury.

"You'll never find them," he gasped. "Never."

"Do something good in your last goddamn minutes," I yelled at him. "Where did she go?"

"Never find them… never," he gasped again, his lips pulled back in the snarl of death. "She's too smart… too smart. She's put a great barrier between you… too smart."

I shook him again but I was shaking a dead man. I lay there atop him for a minute, gathering myself and fighting the pain in my shoulder. And then slowly, painfully, I pulled myself up. I readied down and took Wilhelmina from his pocket. Kneeling down, I searched him, but he had nothing on him that would tell me anything I wanted to know. I got up again and walked slowly back to where the panel truck stood, a hardly recognizable shape with a thick covering of wet cement almost obliterating it. I stumbled into Bollard's car, a black Mercedes. My shoulder was paining me like the tortures of hell. The bullet must have hit a nerve. And Mona was gone, off and running. I had to find her.

I put the car in gear slowly, backed out and headed for Townsville. My shoulder continued to throb and burn — it hurt so much I could hardly keep my thoughts straightened out. Mona, Mona, Mona, I repeated to myself, I had to find Mona. She was going for her second cover, I was sure, and equally sure it had to be on the coast. She was a pro, that one, and she'd never return to the ranch or the apartment. She'd figure I'd have both of them covered sooner or later. Damn, but that shoulder was about to fall off, I thought, grimacing.

It was a long, painful drive back to Townsville, seeming to last longer that it actually did, and by time I stopped the car I was feeling lightheaded from the constant searing pain. I stumbled from the car and up the stairs, the first light of day following me into the hallway. I leased on the bell and finally the door opened a crack and smoke-gray eyes peered out at me, frowning at my swaying figure in the hallway. Then the eyes widened in recognition and the door was flung open.

"Yank!" she gasped. "What in bloody hell's happened to you?"

I stumbled past her and fell against the couch and she saw the blood-stained smear at my shoulder. She was on her knees with scissors at once, cutting away the shirt. She helped me up and into the bedroom. I sank down on the bed and gritted my teeth as she stripped me down to shorts. Her voice made little cries of dismay as she saw the deep slashes on my back and legs from the cable. She handed me a bottle of whiskey and I took a long gulp. It helped, but only a little. The cold compresses she put on the shoulder finally brought some relief. Then, with a skin-diving first-aid kit, she applied antiseptic lotion to my slashes.

"This is getting to be a habit, isn't it?" I grinned at her. The robe, loose at the top, let her round breasts peek out at me as if they were offering an incentive to heal up quickly. I talked to her as she worked on me, telling her the main points of what had happened. She wouldn't have believed that I was loud-mouth, freckled Tim Anderson if I hadn't still had some of the make-up on and my hair wasn't still red.

"Lord, almighty," she said. "And to think you had me sized up as a part of all that."

"Well, dammit, you were part of it," I said, "And I noticed that you kept on finding people for them after I left. You steered them to Tim Anderson."

I sat up and saw her lips grow tight. "Yes, that's bloody well right," she said. "After you left, I was damned mad at everything and everyone. If they wanted to keep giving me money, that was fine with me. It's always been scratch for me, and I expect it always will be. There's no one looks out for little Judy except herself."

"And when I pulled out suddenly like that you went right back to the old stand," I accused.

"Maybe that's how it was," she said, her chin thrust forward defiantly. "Nobody's shown me a better stand to go back to."

She finished taping my shoulder and stepped back. The burning had stopped and I saw her looking at me.

"Lord, you're a dinkum lad," she said. "Even all banged up the way you are now."

She turned away, gathering up the bandages and tapes, while I took another pull at the whiskey. I put my head back and gazed up at the ceiling. In the white expanse I saw Mona Star — deadly, gorgeous, lying Mona — and tried to figure out where she could be holed up. Without Mona in my hands, I had nothing, really. I'd only stopped them temporarily. She was smart, luscious and vicious. She could and would start up again if she were left running around loose- I was convinced now that she was a direct agent for the Chinese. There were still a lot of empty holes that needed explaining about her, especially how she got to be Major Rothwell's top assistant with full security clearance. But I didn't wonder about that now. I was wracking my brain for some load, some small, remembered thing or incident or object that might clue me into her new hideout. But I was drawing a blank. I needed something or someone to open a door that might trigger my mind. Just then Judy came back into the room and did it, literally as well as figuratively. She opened the closet door and I saw all the scuba-diving gear she had stacked in there. It was the trigger that set my mind off on a fast series of leaps — skin-diving, underwater, marine objects, the collection in the large cases at the Circle Three ranch — Some of the rare things in that collection were found in one place only, the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Queensland! The giant clam shell was one example. These large bivalves grow that size in the waters of the reef, one of the most fantastic collections of marine life found in the world.

Now I was hearing Bonard's last mocking words, "You'll never find her… she's put a great barrier between you." It fitted perfectly with the operation which had to be supplied with money for the payoffs from the Chinese. The pieces were suddenly coming together by themselves. The operation's second cover was an underwater station somewhere along the Great Barrier Reef!

I swung out of the bed, ignoring the sharp pain in my shoulder. Judy had taken a dress from the closet, gone into the next room and changed. She was just zipping it up, a bright yellow and violet print that blended together in a vibrancy that was also subdued. I walked to where she'd hung my trousers over the back of a chair and fished out two small keys on a separate ring.

"You want to knock off thinking just about Judy?" I said to her. "You want to help me?"

"Maybe," she said, eyeing me cautiously. I shook my head.

"Maybe isn't good enough," I said. "I'm going to need help and right now you're the only safe person I know around here. I can't trust anyone else — not yet anyway."

"That's nice to hear for a change," she said. "About being trusted. What do I have to do?"

"Go to the public lockers at the airport at Ayr," I told her. "Here are the keys. Take the bag out of the locker and bring it here at once. There's a car downstairs you can use. You can drive, can't you?"

"Lord, yes," she said, taking the keys from me.

"And while you're doing that, I'll be making a phone call. To America," I added. Her eyebrows shot skyward.

"Blimey, mate," she said. "Make it collect."