Fear is the Key

"Indeed? This is most interesting." I sat down on a bench without as much as a by-your-leave and lit a cigarette. Some such gesture would be expected from me. "Then what precisely do you want with me?"

For the first time in our brief acquaintance Vyland looked embarrassed. After a few seconds he scowled and said harshly: "We can't get the damned engines to start."

I took a deep draw on my cigarette and tried to blow a smoke-ring. It didn't come off — with me it never came off.

"Well, well, well," I murmured. "How most inconvenient, For you, that is. For me, it couldn't be more convenient. All you've got to do is to start those two little engines and hey presto! you pick up a fortune for the asking. I assume that you aren't playing for peanuts — not operating on this scale. And you can't start them up without me. As I said, how convenient — for me."

"You know how to make that machine run?" he asked coldly.

"I might. Should be simple enough — they're just battery-powered electric motors." I smiled. "But the electric circuits and switches and fuse boxes are pretty complicated. Surely they're listed in the maintenance instructions?"

"They are." The smooth polished veneer was showing a distinct crack and his voice was almost a snarl. "They're coded for a key. We haven't got a key."

"Wonderful, just wonderful." I rose leisurely to my feet and stood in front of Vyland. "Without me you're lost, is that it?"

He made no answer.

"Then I have my price, Vyland. A guarantee of my life." This angle didn't worry me at all but I knew I had to make the play or he'd have been as suspicious as hell. "What guarantee do you offer, Vyland?"

"Good God, man, you don't need any guarantee." The general was indignant, astonished. "Why would anyone want to kill you?'"

"Look, General," I said patiently. "You may be a big, big tiger when you're prowling along the jungles of Wall Street, but as far as the other side of the legal divide is concerned you're not even in the kitten class. Anyone not in your friend Vyland's employ who knows too much will always come to the same sticky end — when he can no longer be of any use to him, of course. Vyland likes his money's worth, even when it costs him nothing."

"You're suggesting, by inference, that I might also come to the same end?" Ruthven inquired.

"Not you, General. You're safe. I don't know what the stinking tie-up between you and Vyland is and I don't care. He may have a hold on you or you may be up to the ears in cahoots with him but either way it makes no difference. You're safe. The disappearance of the richest man in the country would touch off the biggest man-hunt of the decade. Sorry to appear cynical, General, but there it is. An awful lot of money buys an awful lot of police activity. There would be an awful lot of pressure, General, and snowbirds like our hopped-up young friend here " — I jerked a finger over my shoulder in the general direction of Larry — " are very apt indeed to talk under pressure. Vyland knows it. You're safe, and when it's al over, if you're not really Vyland's ever-loving partner, he'll find ways to ensure your silence. There would be nothing you could prove against him, it would only be your word against his and many others and I don't suppose even your own daughter knows what's going on. And then, of course, there's Royale — the knowledge that Royale is prowling around on the loose waiting for a man to make just one slip is enough to guarantee that man putting on an act that would make a clam seem positively garrulous." I turned from him and smiled at Vyland. "But I'm expendable, am I not?" I snapped my fingers. "The guarantee, Vyland, the guarantee."

"I'll guarantee it, Talbot," General Ruthven said quietly. "I know who you are. I know you're a killer. But I won't have even a killer murdered out of hand. If anything happens to you 111 talk, regardless of the consequences. Vyland is first and foremost a business man. Killing you wouldn't even begin to be compensation for the millions he'd lose. You need have no fear."

Millions. It was the first time there had been any mention of the amounts involved. Millions. And I was to get it for them.

"Thanks, General, that puts you on the side of the angels," I murmured. I stubbed out my cigarette, turned and smiled at Vyland. "Bring along the bag of tools, friend, and we'll go and have a look at your new toy."

CHAPTER IX