The Vulcan Disaster

“Why shoot Corbin?” I said. “I didn’t understand that at first. Because he stole the film? To shut him up once he’d run past you in his panic and slipped you the thing in the hall of the Grand-Bretagne, hoping it would buy you off?”

“Neither of these, of course,” he said. “Corbin did indeed know too much... but not that. That wasn’t important. Your people sent first Corbin, and then you, to steal the records of Komaroff’s — well, Globalarms’s — secret transactions in recent months, to see what the pattern was, to see if some idea as to the nature of Globalarms activities could be derived from them.” He sneered delicately. “Worthless, worthless. The thing Corbin knew, and which alone made him worth silencing, was the fact that Komaroff himself was lying here, a vegetable, unable either to halt or to influence any of the activities which his daughter and I had been carrying on in his name. He was the only person not in our confidence who knew this. This alone made it worth my while to follow him around the world and silence him before you — or anyone else — could get to him. He hoped to finance his escape from both of us — me and you — by acting as a sort of go-between in the disposal of the arms shipment Herr Meyer was meddling with. Unfortunately for that theory, we had already made our plans for that arms shipment — plans which we implemented well out to sea. With, I might add, the covert connivance of a former assistant of your friend the General’s, who double-crossed him neatly and delivered the arms to us instead. Now, if things are on schedule, the arms are being delivered” — he looked at his watch — “no, have already been delivered to the P.L.O., not off Rhodes — Alexandra got so many things wrong — but in Egyptian waters. The attack will take place precisely as planned.”

“One thing I don’t understand,” I said. “Now that the plan for the Syrian-border attack is operational, why kill Alexandra? Why not continue to use her?”

“Who needs her? You forget, I have the microfilm. Worthless to you as intelligence, but priceless to me as a list of business contacts. I have all Komaroff’s — Globalarms’s — suppliers and distributors. And, with the present deal, I have proved my ability to deliver — proved it to the satisfaction of anyone in the arms business in the world. I am, as you say, back in business again.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said. “You’re out of business as of right now.”

“You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man. Besides, I saved your life. I...”

“And you murdered two of my friends right after that. I owe you something, all right...”

“Two of your...? Oh, yes. Oh, I see. And now I remember the strange telephone call I got right afterward. Yes. Yes, Mr. Carter, I underrated you, I think. My apologies. My...”

He dived for the door. I went after him and as I reached the frame he slammed it on me and sent Wilhelmina flying. There wasn’t time to go chasing her. I kicked the door open and followed him in.

He was armed; strangely so. He held one of the two Toledo swords he’d yanked from the wall. The other lay at his feet. With a thin smile he kicked it my way. “Here,” he said. “I have saved your life and killed your friends. Perhaps that means we are square.”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “This is your last day on earth, whatever you may think.” I picked up the second sword.

“Very well,” he said. “As you wish. But in the meantime, a bit of sport? The only kind of fair fight you can have with a man with one arm?”

“Sure,” I said. “Cutting your guts out will be more fun than shooting you anyhow. I...”

He attacked. And from the first I knew my bravado action was not going to get me far. I hadn’t fenced in years, and these things were a lot heavier than epees.

His attack was tough stuff: strong, vicious, expert. I was in trouble almost immediately. Bad trouble. The kind you die from...

Chapter Twenty-Three

We engaged in quarte; he immediately changed the engagement to tierce, the better to show me how fast he was. That wrist of his, well, he’d had to develop that one hand to make up for the loss of the other. I’d made allowance for that. I just hadn’t made allowance for how much he’d develop it. It was strong, quick, supple. The point was a blur.

He beat and disengaged, showing me how strong that hand was; then he raised the wrist, joining his forte to my foible, and lunged strongly. I parried in sixte and retreated, giving him some room. He followed, feinting, the arm in perfect form, the hand in supination. We engaged, again in tierce; he cut over the point with a sure and supple move and damn near got me in the throat. I parried and retreated again.

“You were,” he said, “going to cut my guts out.”

“Right,” I said. The sweat was pouring down my temples. Don’t try fencing in a wet suit. What you get in padding doesn’t make up for what you lose in agility — and in body water.

I wasn’t going to win this one in a fair fight. That was becoming evident.