The Spy in the Ointment

28

“Sun! I cried. “Listen to me, Sun!” And all the while hacking, coughing, burping, eyes watering, feet stumbling along as two of Sun’s tong war trainees hustled me across the attic toward the stairs. “Listen to me!” I cried, but in vain.

Angela, being hustled along behind me, was clogging the airwaves with a lot of useless helps and let-me-gos. My throat smarting, my eyes burning, my stomach spinning, I did my best to shout above her: “Sun! Listen to me or you’ll be next!”

That stopped him, right at the head of the stairs. He turned a cold eye on me and said, “Next? What do you mean, next?”

“Everybody’s dead,” I gasped. “From that meeting, everybody’s either dead or set up to die. Bodkin, Baba, Mulligan, the Whelps— There’s two more going up with the UN Building.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You set that timer yourself, you wouldn’t let Zlott near it. When Armstrong pushes that switch Tuesday, there won’t be any five-minute wait and you know it.”

He brushed it aside. “Armstrong and Labotski are amateurs. One job and they’re used up.”

“You, too,” I said. “You’re next.”

“I am no amateur,” he said stiffly; I think his pride was hurt. “Besides, Eyck has no reason to kill me.”

“He’s got two. You’ve seen his face. And your dead body is the evidence, the frameup on Red China.”

Something odd crossed his face then, and he said, “What was that?”

“I didn’t think he’d told you the Red China story,” I said. “Or why he picked Marcellus Ten Eyck to kidnap.”

“We’re kidnaping him for the ransom,” he said, but somehow there was something wrong with the way he said it. And he was glaring at me in a funny way I didn’t understand. “That’s enough now,” he said, and to his henchmen added, “Bring them along.” He turned away.

“Wait! Sun! He’s Tyrone Ten Eyck!”

That stopped him again. He looked back, frowned at me as though seeing me for the first time. “Ridiculous,” he said, but in a thoughtful tone of voice, as though he meant to say “interesting.”

Sun himself must have realized Leon Eyck was an assumed name, but he hadn’t cared. It was enough that Eyck and Eustaly were setting up an organization to do more efficiently and on a grander scale the things Sun wanted to do anyway. (That he’d been willing to overlook the presence in the group of the Stalinist, Meyerberg, was proof enough of his single-mindedness.)

But now, with so much having happened, with a dead girl and an arch-conspirator (that’s me, I mean) suddenly an enemy of some sort (though he couldn’t have any clear understanding why he was looking for me), Sun’s single-mindedness was beginning to crack.

Did he even know who Angela was? There was a chance he didn’t, so I said, “Do you recognize the girl?”

It broke into his thoughts. He said, irritably, “What?” Then glanced at her and away again. “No.”

“Look again,” I said. “You saw her with me once before.”

“I did?” This time he looked more closely, and I saw it hit him. “The meeting!”

“She’s Angela Ten Eyck.”

He stared at both of us. “You killed her,” he said.

“Ask her,” I said. “Ask her who Leon Eyck is.”

Angela volunteered without being asked. “He’s my brother,” she said. “My brother Tyrone.”

Sun started to shake his head, like a man bedeviled by a million little flies.

I said, “He identified her at the meeting.”

“He had seen her before,” Sun said, obviously repeating what Ten Eyck had told him, “knew she was a CIA agent.”

“Are you kidding? She’s Marcellus Ten Eyck’s daughter!”

“That only makes it worse,” he said, but without complete conviction.

“Why did he want Marcellus Ten Eyck doped before he went in,” I asked, and answered my own question: “Because the old man would have taken one look at him and shouted Tyrone!”

“He’s my brother,” said Angela.

“With me dead,” I said, “and with Armstrong and Labotski already set to kill themselves, you’re the last one alive from that meeting. You and your boys are the only ones who’ve seen Leon Eyck’s face. So he’s got two reasons to kill you. To protect himself, and to set up the frame on—”

“That’s enough of that!”

“I just—”

“Shut up!”

Sun looked around, like a man with too many decisions to make all at once. And then I got it.

Every time I tried to talk about Red China he shut me up, but anything else I wanted to talk about he was willing to hear. But the head of the Eurasian Relief Corps ought to be interested most of all in an accusation about somebody trying to frame Red China.

As though we didn’t have confusion enough, Sun was a double agent!

He had to be, it was the only way that made sense. The ransom story might keep the rank and file satisfied, but Sun knew too much about the financing and timing of everything else. He had to know why we were here, or at least that particular reason.

To check out my theory I said, quietly, “How many ways do you cut, Sun,”

“What was that?”

“I won’t spoil the pitch,” I said. “Just remember, Tyrone Ten Eyck thought his sister was dead. All he has to do is frame you for killing the old man, and Tyrone inherits free and clear. But only if there’s nobody around to prove he’s been in the States the last few days.”

He said, “I must talk to him about this.” Then he frowned at me and said, “I’m not sure I understood you before.”

“You understood me,” I said. “And I understand you.” He smiled thinly, saying, “I wonder if you do.” To his troops he said, “We’ll put these two somewhere safe, then we’ll go talk to Mister... Eyck.”

“All together,” I suggested.

“All together,” he agreed.