The Vulcan Disaster

“He’s okay,” Hawk said. “We’ve checked him out. Somebody talked to him a while back. He’s just one of these Washington types, cutting across one agency or discipline after another. He used to have quite a high security clearance back between Korea and Vietnam: a consultancy. He knows the score, and when to clam up.”

“Oh,” I said. I should have assumed he’d have given everybody on the floor the once-over before moving in. “Anyhow...”

“Anyhow, you did pretty well out there, all in all. You lost the film, maybe, but it led to a couple of discoveries. Never mind the film. I said it couldn’t be replaced, but maybe it can. Matter of fact, that’s precisely what you’re going to be doing on your little vacation, among other things.”

“I don’t understand.”

Hawk held that palm up again. “All in good time. Anyhow, everything seems to have worked out all right...”

“It worked out lousy,” I said bitterly. “Will and Tatiana are dead. And Fred. And the trail’s cold. All I have to go on is...”

“You have plenty to go on. You’ll see. And don’t take it to heart so much. The only way you could have saved Fredericks would have been to rub out Shimon and Zvy, the Israelis, back in the warehouse the first time. And much as I hate to hear about Fredericks — he was a good man, and both we and the British will miss him — I’m glad those two are still alive. Alive, they may lead us to something. Frankly, they’re a new wrinkle, and as soon as I’m done talking to you I’m alerting Tel Aviv. They need to know — if they don’t already — that there’s a new pair of wild cards in the deck.”

“You don’t know who they are?”

“No. But I will, and so will you. By the time we’re done with this little operation we’re going to know everything anybody needs to know. Including what happened to that shipment of arms, and where it’s gone, and who, right now, is going around thinking he’ll be getting a chance to use it. And how, too. Nick, if we can head the stuff off — well, I don’t need to tell you how much damage that much in the way of new firepower can do to the world balance-of-power situation, whether or not it’s used in the Middle East...”

“Excuse me, sir. Is that the place you’re expecting it to wind up? For sure?”

“I was going to get to that. Yes, that’s a distinct possibility, and one we didn’t know about until you turned up with our friends Mr. Zvy and Mr. Shimon. There’s another possibility, another powder keg around the world just waiting for the spark to touch it off — and a whole damned shipload of arms, dropped into a seller’s market, might turn out to be just the kind of spark we’re talking about.”

“Where’s that?”

“Angola. With Portugal getting out, we can expect another Congo all over again. This time, if our information is correct, with Russian fingerprints all over one side of the conflict — and, we suspect with some kind of intervention from Cuba as well.”

“But... why Angola?”

“Why the Russians? Well, we’re on the brink of a new colonial era in southern Africa. Only this time better than half the world — three quarters of the U.N. — is going to be calling the colonialism of the Soviet bloc ‘self-determination.’ ”

“Black is white, huh? ‘War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength?’ ” I said, quoting 1984.

“You’ve got it. And Angola’s in a nice strategic position in the new oil-oriented geopolitical picture, Nick. It will also make a nice hiding place for guerrilla raids across the South African border and for eventual invasion of the Cape. And our friendship with our Boer friends may be strained at times, but they are our allies. Well, you see the problem.”

“Okay,” I said. “In the meantime...”

“In the meantime you’re going to work on the middle men in these wildcat arms deals that have been going on. You...”

“Middle men?” I said. “You mean the two Israelis? Or the guys Will broke in on?”

“Will...” Hawk sighed. The sides of his mouth turned down. “I don’t feel any too good about that, either. I... well, he told you. We were pretty close once. I thought he was dead.”

“Yes,” I said. “He wanted it that way. He was a real trouper.” I didn’t want to talk about Will or Tatiana. I didn’t want to think about them. Not until all this was over. “Anyhow...”

“Anyhow,” David Hawk said, catching my mood, “it isn’t Shimon and Zvy you’re going after. You forgot that all-important name, Nick.” He decided to light that cigar. He had it going, spewing billows of smoke, before he spoke again. “Komaroff,” he said, dropping that other shoe at last.

“I’d been meaning to ask. Who the devil is Komaroff?”