The Vulcan Disaster

He looked back at the pile on the bed now. “Damn,” he said at last. “This isn’t much of a haul. Of course we’re going through his rooms and well be having a look at that H. and S. bank account, too. There may be some leads there. Not much here, though.”

“Hey,” I said, pouring myself another stiff one and sitting down carefully. “Maybe you might tell me what this is all about?” He stared at me, the corners of his mouth turned delicately downward. “All right,” I said. “I understand. Your turf. Me first.” I gave it to him in capsule form, not leaving out very much. There were a couple of little facts I did withhold, matters of unfinished business I wanted to deal with before I left Hong Kong. At the end I said, “That’s it. I’m still in the dark on most of it. I know a few whats and whens and no whys and wherefores at all. Your turn.”

He rolled the General’s effects up in an oilskin pouch and stuffed it in his coat pocket. As he did, something dropped out of the pile and fluttered to the floor. I didn’t call it to his attention. “Well,” he said. “It is something rather big — the part we know about, anyhow. You see, the South Vietnamese Government claims that President Nixon sold them out, that he’d promised a shipload of arms and then failed to deliver at a crucial time in the last days of the defense of Saigon.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I heard about that.”

“Well, the official version we give out on that is that the vessel never left port — that it was held up by an order from Congress. This will have been what you read in the papers. Well, we know better than to believe what we read in the papers. The vessel went to sea, but it never got to Saigon. Until just now we didn’t have the faintest clue as to what happened to it. Now it appears the matter was fixed as far back as the Port of San Francisco. On the basis of what you’ve been telling me, the ship’s registry and papers must have been changed en route, and the ship itself diverted to a new destination, all at the behest of our friend the General. We’d guessed some of this, but had no evidence to support what was only a wild theory until now. Now we know the port to which it was diverted was very likely Hong Kong, and we know that the cargo has been unloaded and the ship sent on its merry way. Obviously the case of rifles came from the shipment. Precisely which warehouse contains it now, in a city full of warehouses, is the problematic matter of the moment.”

“It wasn’t the warehouse they took me to,” I said. “It was empty.” I thought about that over a sip of scotch. “Besides, the General wouldn’t meet them at the site. He’d pick neutral ground for making the deal. He was just bringing samples. He’d be afraid of being ripped off.”

“Precisely,” Basil said and stood up. His shoe rested on the vagrant piece of paper. I hoped, somehow, that it wouldn’t stick to his sole. “Another factor: who are these mysterious Israelis? Frankly, we have no idea. They seem to be some sort of link between your original mission — whatever it was — and the matter of the ship.”

“Hey,” I said, sitting up. “That reminds me. What do you know about AXE? What the hell’s happening back there? Where’s Hawk?”

“Mum’s the word on most of it,” he said. His face was cold and distant-looking. “All I know is that all agents are on frozen status as of now. You’re to report in to... ah, to ‘us,’ as it were” — his fingers made quotation marks around the word — “and, ah, make yourselves available as you are needed.”

I scowled up at him. “And do you need me? I gather I’m not really wanted back in Washington right now? Do I detect that delicate little wisp of a nuance? Ah, good. If I’m not wanted in D.C., I want to see what I can find out about this business. The Israelis are still at large, for one thing.”

He chewed on his overhanging upper lip. “Mmmm... yes, perhaps. Perhaps...”

“There’s not much I can do about the General’s end of this matter that you guys can’t do better in the clear. But, working under cover, I might be able to find out something about this other group. I think I’ll muck about in that area and see what turns up.”

“Yes,” he said at last. “Yes, I think that might be best after all, in spite of everything.” Thanks, I thought. Thanks loads. “One does hate a lot of wild cards in the deck. These new factors make things a little messier than one might wish. We don’t know, for instance, that the Israelis don’t have a lead on the new wherabouts of the shipment. We can assume that, but we don’t know for sure. You could find out for us?” Just like that, moving me about like a damned pawn. Well, I’d fool the hell out of him.

That was that, though: he’d dismissed me, and was heading for the door. The one afterthought he allowed me was to turn and remind me to call in daily.