The Vulcan Disaster

Hawk looked at me through those beetling brows. The look was bland as cream of mushroom soup. “Yes,” he said. “His name was Walter Corbin.”

“Corbin?” I said, incredulously. “But...”

“Yes,” Hawk said. “And the big job Corbin had to do was to... Well, Komaroff had been breaking out in a furious flurry of activity lately. Buggering up the entire world balance-of-power situation, as a matter of fact. Overloading several of the little OPEC countries with arms, allowing for a buildup in the continuing war against Israel that exceeds anything we consider safe or manageable. Beefing up tiny little African banana republics’ stores of arms just as the ‘republic’ parts of the places were tottering and falling into the hands of people like Idi Amin and company. That southern tip of Africa is ready to explode right now, Nick, and if there isn’t a major Vietnam-type incident there before the year’s out it’ll surprise me plenty.”

“But Corbin?”

“We smuggled him aboard as a Diesel mechanic,” Hawk said. “He wasn’t a reliable type in the first place, you know, but he was the only free agent we knew who had the requisite skills. We had to take the chance.”

“And his job?”

“To bust into Komaroff’s files and microfilm the whole damned thing. Records of everyone he’s doing business with, times, places, amounts, type of armaments, so on.”

“And what went wrong?”

“We’re not absolutely sure. We just got a tip that Corbin had sold us out. We weren’t sure to whom. But with him disappearing on us and then turning up in Saigon like that all we could think was that he wanted the info for sale to the Cong. Now, I’d lay odds against it. It had something to do with Meyer as a middle man, and the thing we now have to do — well, one of the things we have to do — is find out who the outfit was that grabbed it. The Israelis, for instance? The guys who killed Fredericks, and almost got you? The strange new crowd that killed Will? Somebody we don’t know anything at all about? Well, that’s where we’re at, Nick. That’s your job — finding it all out. Well, part of your job, anyhow.”

“Okay,” I said. “Now how about dropping that other shoe, sir?”

“Oh, yes. You’re to finish the job Corbin was hired to do.”

“The whole thing? The mircrofilm? Get it back... or replace it?”

“Right.” Hawk opened his desk and got out one of those awful cigars. “Play it by ear. Komaroff’s thing has to be stopped. He seems to be operating out of some sort of panic these days. These moves of his... they don’t seem to make any sense. Beforehand, Komaroff’s sales pattern had one dominating factor: money. Money we can understand. But now? There seems to be some sort of ideological tinge in there. He’s backing one side at the expense of the other and the only people who really stand to gain are those nice fellows who vote in blocs against us in the U.N.”

“You said play it by ear.”

“Yes. Get the intelligence covertly, if you can. If you can’t, do whatever’s necessary to foul things up. The files? Film them if you can, bum them if you can’t, but memorize everything you can get in your head before you burn it. Cover your tracks as much as possible.”

“Couple of unanswered questions,” I said.

“Yes?”

“That arms shipment to Vietnam, for one.”

“We’re working on that. Maybe you’ll find out where it went before we do. If so, you know how to get the news to us.”

“Right. Meanwhile, the Israelis.”

“Got Tel Aviv working on that. Matter of fact, they’ll be sending you one of their boys to work with you.”

“And I’m supposed to be working my way aboard Komaroff’s boat covertly?”

“That’s all right. Their man’s already aboard, from what I understand. May even be some help. Their agents tend to be pretty good.”

“Yeah,” I said grudgingly. “And my cover?”

“You’re in luck there. Know anything about astrology? Komaroff’s daughter — she’s one of these freaked-out jet-set types from all reports — just fired her resident gum.”

“I’ll bone up.”

“You better. Your application’s already being processed.”

“Hey,” I said. “How do I recognize the Tel Aviv agent? The one that’s supposed to meet me on the boat?”

“He’ll contact you.”

“And the... uh... password? He’ll be wearing a red carnation?”

Hawk frowned. “He’ll slip you that handshake of Will’s.” The corners of his mouth turned down even more. “It was all I could think of offhand.”

Going out onto the Circle again I ran into Bob Franks again. “Say,” he said before I had a chance to open my mouth, “haven’t changed your mind about the weekend, have you? Damn. Hmmm. Too bad. I could have used a ride. Say, you’ve got a pensive look about you, today. What’s the matter?”

“What do you know about astrology?”

“Astro... Hmmm. From what angle?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean are we proceeding on a basis of logical and rational discussion, in which case sorry, Nick, it’s a lot of hog-wash, or are we proceeding under the assumption that...”