The Vulcan Disaster

I called downstairs again and gave Operator Two a number. “It should take another couple of minutes to get through again, right? Okay. I’ll be making one brief local call in the meantime. I’ll keep the wire open after that. Okay?”

“Splendid, sir. May I have the local number?”

I had the Hong Kong book open and had a finger on it. I gave it to him. I didn’t have long to wait this time.

“Hermann Meyer,” the voice said. “Import-Export.”

I sat up fast. It’d been just a wild idea, and I hadn’t expected to find anyone home. “Uh... Mr. Meyer, please.” There was a pause at the other end. The accent had been British public school, but the speaker definitely had English for a second language, not a first “Who shall I say is calling, please?”

“Mr. Cowles. He’ll remember me, I’m sure,” I lied. “We met last year in San Francisco, on the ferry to Oakland.”

There was another pause, then another voice came on: “Ah, Mr. Cowles. Hermann Meyer. What can I do for you, please?”

I blundered onward: “I... well, sir, I remembered the fine time we had in San Francisco, and how you said to look you up the next time business brought me to Hong Kong...”

“Certainly, certainly. Where are you staying? I can have a car sent over for you.”

No thanks, I thought. “I’m staying at the Gloucester, on the Island, but I’ll be out for the rest of the day. I was wondering if we might get together tomorrow sometime.”

“Splendid. I’ll send my chauffeur in the morning. No, I won’t take no for an answer. We’ll have a holiday of it. I’ll show you the town, as you might say.”

“Fine. I’ll look forward to that.”

“Splendid, Mr. Cowles. Shall we say ten? Time for elevenses, perhaps, at my place?”

“Okay. Fine.”

“See you then.” He hung up.

I looked at the wall.

Well, first off, there wasn’t any Hermann Meyer. Hermann Meyer was dead many miles to the south in Saigon. And if he’d been alive he’d have spoken with a German accent, not with this old-school-tie British accent with something oddly out of place in the middle of it. Then, too, there wasn’t any Mr. Cowles for anyone to remember, and he hadn’t met anybody named Hermann Meyer — neither the real one nor the phony one — on any ferry from Frisco to Oakland last year, because the ferry had been discontinued fifteen years before. Interesting, I thought. I’d have to pay Mr. Meyer a call, but not at any morning tea at his place. Any call I’d pay on him in the near future would be done in the wee hours, with a jimmy in one hand and Hugo up one sleeve. Damn, I thought suddenly; I’d have to see about digging up a replacement for Wilhelmina...

The phone rang again.

I picked it up. “Carter here.”

“Mr. Carter?” It was Operator Two again, and his voice registered perplexity once again in that subdued British way of his. “I... this seems not to be our day, sir.”

“Why?”

“Well, sir, the second number is an answering service number, sir, as you said. But the name of the client seems to have changed.”

“The client? You mean the reference for the service?”

“Yes, sir. It seems no longer to be Westinghouse Repair Department, as you thought. And this is odd. It’s still a refrigerator repair service, it appears. But the name of the company has changed.”

“Changed to what?”

“Maytag. Shall I keep trying, sir?”

“No,” I said. “Thank you. That’ll be all.” I hung up, and my hand was shaking. There wasn’t any mistaking what had happened.

AXE had had its cover blown. Hawk had flown the coop and he’d covered his tracks. The message he’d left me — in German — was as clear as if he’d left it in English.

Maytag — with the original German pronunciation was the international distress signal, and Hawk had chosen this way of tipping all the AXE agents off whenever they called in for progress reports, and further instructions. I whistled, long and low, and the words formed silently on my lips:

Mayday! Mayday!

Chapter Five

Okay, Carter, I told myself, it’s time to get your stuff together.

The first impulse was to grab the phone again and book a flight back to D.C. as fast as I could manage it. This didn’t stand up under sober reflection, though. I did have unfinished business, and if I came home empty-handed, and without having given it the old college try, it wouldn’t matter if Hawk had been evicted, desk and typewriter and all, right into the middle of Connecticut Avenue. When I pulled up he’d still be sitting there behind the desk, munching on one of those phosgene cigars of his, and the minute I came within earshot he’d start letting me have it.

And he’d be so right.

The work, right now, seemed to be here, whatever it turned out to be. I could always drop in at the Embassy and slip a discreet query back to the States in the diplomatic bag. Or something like that.