Once Departed

by Mack Reynolds

  Quint Jones liked the quality of the man’s handshake and also the quick penetrating manner he had of looking full into your face. It would be difficult to steer too far from the edge of truth with Professor Nicolas Ferencsik. Quint said, “I was listening rather than expressing my own ideas.”

  “And you found my opinions of interest?”

  “I found them all of interest,” Quint told him, guardedly. “But one of Marty’s cocktail parties was hardly the place to form views of my own.”

  “Oh, you,” Marty giggled. “It was quite a soiree, wasn’t it?”

  The Professor said to her, “Martha, my dear, why don’t you leave Mr. Jones and me and let us get to serious discussion? Perhaps we’ll join you later.”

  She fluttered archly, as she went, “Now don’t you boys say anything my ears shouldn’t hear.”

  They both looked after her, Quint thinking, what could it possibly be that Marty’s ears haven’t heard by this time in life ?

  The professor said absently, “When I first met Martha, I thought of her as a child, though I can be only a few years her senior. I am afraid even then that it was difficult for her to take the world seriously.”

  Quint wanted an opening. He said, making his own voice go musing, “I wonder if she and Ferd aren’t doing what a good many of the world’s population seems to be. That is, avoiding thinking of the problems that confront us all.”

  The feisty little Hungarian scientist shot him a quick piercing look. “I have long since come to that conclusion, sir. Won’t you have a chair? Take that one there, I can speak for it’s comfort. It is so also in my own country. In Budapest, even in intellectual circles, it is all but bad manners to discuss the dangers of nuclear war and the almost certainty of complete destruction of the race if such conflict ever develops.”

  They both took chairs, and Quint listened to the other as though with fascinated attention.

  Ferencsik went on, in his voice an element of passion. “But when I left Hungary and traveled to the West, I was more shocked still. If one is invited to dinner in London and brings up such subjects as the continuing development of international missiles and ever larger H-bombs, it is considered such a faux pas as almost to have your hostess order you from her home. I am gratified, Mr. Jones, to have a man of your capabilities express interest in my beliefs in this field.”

  So the old boy knew of Quint’s work as a columnist He was going to have to make this good, to get past the Hungarian’s defenses. If the man was leery of newspapermen, he’d be guarded against Quint. A bit of preliminary discussion was in order.

  Quint said, “Frankly, some of the rebuttal at the party also interested me. The fellow named Bart Digby who pointed out the difficulties in ever uniting the world’s more than one hundred sovereign governments. Take my own country, the United States. Our earliest tradition was to remain aloof from foreign affairs. More recently, of course, modern developments have forced our government into world leadership of the West.” He twisted his mouth wryly. “What we like to call the free-world, although it includes everything from the absolute monarchy of Saudi-Arabia, to a half dozen South American military dictatorships.” He shrugged in deprecation. “But the point is, trying to unite the United States with—well, eventually Russia, would be a hard nut to crack. Offhand, I can’t think of a single Senator or Congressman who would vote for such a merger, no matter what the terms.”

  But Ferencsik was shaking a finger at him negatively and already in some heat. “Your background in the history of your own country is faulty, sir. It was Benjamin Franklin, in the early days of the founding of your republic, who stated that one day he hoped to see every nation of the world represented with a star in the flag of the United States. It was his desire to work into the Constitution a method whereby all nations were free to admission.”

  That was new to Quint, but it was the sort of thing that Old Ben would have advocated, he had to admit.

  Ferencsik went on. “And I quite agree that today few Americans would vote to join a world state, and the same applies to most nations. However, this is a thing that shall come about only when and if the development of affairs forces the world into it. If we all, every living member of the race, came to see that it was the only alternative to destruction of us all, then perhaps the steps would be taken.”

  Quint didn’t want to antagonize the man, at least not at this stage of the game, so he pulled in his horns somewhat. He said, turning on the charm gently, knowing better than to arouse the suspicions of the other by being too agreeable, “You were discussing with the Russian, Nuriyev, the need of developing a leader to point out the way, a super-man who…”

  But at the mention of the former Soviet hachetman, Professor Ferencsik had made a grimace of distaste. Quint broke off his sentence in the middle and took advantage of the opening. He said, “I noticed the other night that you seemed to take particular exception to his opinions.”

  The Hungarian flicked a hand in quick disgust. “A butcher. I have met him before. At the war’s end, I worked for a time with Russian scientists. We were attempting to rescue from the debacle some of the work of German researchers and, for that matter, some of the better German scientists themselves.”

  Quint nodded, trying to look perceptive. “I understand the Americans, of course, did the same thing, in the areas we captured. In view of your own interests in surgery, you must have been particularly anxious to find if Doktor Stahlecker was still alive.”

  Nicolas Ferencsik began to say, “Yes. One of the reasons…” But then he stopped. His eyes pierced the expression of the American columnist, finding that below the surface which had been meant to be hidden. He came to his feet.

  His voice was cold. “I’m afraid, Mr. Jones, that my time is limited.”

  Quint stood too. He made a gamble, knowing he was doing this wrong even as he spoke. “You don’t deny, do you Professor, that you have come to Madrid in an attempt to find the Nazi refugee, Doktor Stahlecker?”

  The other was coming to a quick boil, but he snapped, “You are, so I understand, a friend of my host and hostess. I can hardly order you from the house. But I can request that you save me your presence, sir.”

  Quint flushed, but made one last attempt. “There are some deaths involved in this, Professor, and some mystery that you might help clear up. For instance, does this mean anything to you? It was a note left near Ronald Brett-Home’s body. It read: Why was it necessary to burn H’s body ?”

  The other hadn’t even heard him. Nicolas Ferencsik had spun on his heel and entered his bedroom, closing the door behind him.

  At least he hadn’t slammed it.

  Quint let himself out of the sitting room of the suite, and looked up Marty Dempsey, who was sitting in a sun chair on the terrace and looking vaguely out over the rooftops of Madrid. She was seldom quite completely alive this time of day.

  Quint looked at his wristwatch, through force of habit. It was slightly past twelve. “I’ll take that drink now,” he said. I’ve just had brought home to me a defect or so in my character.”

  “There’s the makin’s, dahling,” Marty waved in the general direction of a pushcart bar, on the top of which were several bottles, several glasses and a vacuum bottle of ice cubes. “You didn’t talk very long with Uncle Nick.”

  “Uncle Nick threw me out,” Quint said sourly. He poured some bourbon into the bottom of a glass and added an ice cube. There was gingerale and soda available, but one of the few opportunities Quint had these days to drink American whiskey was at the Dempseys, and he considered it a treat to be taken straight. In actuality, he could have afforded it himself, easily enough, but he rebelled against the price in Spain.

  Ferd came wandering out, evidently to replenish his glass. He was a square-set man going to pot. In his youth, when he had played college football, he must have been a beautiful specimen. Now he seldom played with anything but bottles and fast cars. The combination had turned out so incompatible that his series of accidents
had recently terminated in the revoking of his license by the Spanish authorities.

  He said, “Hello, hello, hi, Quint. Come to see the Professor eh? Hey, Marty, where’s Uncle Nick?”

  “I’ve already seen him,” Quint said. He found a chair and took down half the bourbon. It burned pleasantly. He remembered unhappily that he was lousing up his formula of two hot meals on the stomach after a drinking binge, before you started again.

  Marty was looking at Quint. “What do you mean he threw you out, Quint dahling? He seemed perfectly happy about talking to you.”

  Quint shrugged. “I suppose he was right. I got in to see him under false pretenses. Told him I was interested in his World Government ideas, where actually I wanted to get a line on what it was that Ronald Brett-Home had set up for your party.”

  Ferd, who had just finished making himself a stiff one at the little bar, turned and grumbled, “Let’s don’t get into that, damn it. There’s been cops all over the place. Asking lousy questions, bothering the maids. Everything. You’d think the guy was killed here.”

  Marty said, “I’ll never forgive Ronald for causing us so much trouble. Oh, yes, I know, dahling, speak only well of the dead. But really, he and his Gestapo friend might have picked some other…”

  “Who?” Quint snapped.

  Marty blinked at him. “What did I say?”

  “You said something about Ronald and his Gestapo friend. What Gestapo friend?”

  She giggled. “Oh, dear, I’d forgotten all about that.” She put a finger to her mouth, as though in thought. “I didn’t listen very well when Ronald was telling us how it was that the party would be a great success, very controversial, if we’d have Uncle Nick as guest of honor and spread the word it was open house. He said he had cooked something with a friend of his, a former Gestapo man.” She looked at Quint archly. “Didn’t I tell you it was all cloak and dagger and all that.”

  Ferd had dropped heavily into one of the deck chairs. “Stroehlein, or something, his name was. Some squarehead name.”

  Quint’s eyes went from Ferd to Marty. “Over the phone you said you’d never heard of Albrecht Stroehlein.”

  “Oh, did I, dahling? Well, I suppose I’d forgotten his name. I can’t remember foreign names. Why don’t they all have simple names like Smith and Dempsey and Jones? Do be a dahling and fill my glass. Scotch, with just a teeny weeny soda.”

  Quint got up and got her drink, his mind racing. So the weepy eyed ex-Nazi, Stroehlein, had been in on Brett-Home’s scheme. That would suggest that Stroehlein was working for West Germany, rather than East—always assuming that he was working at his old game of espionage-counter-espionage at all.

  He pulled himself to a halt suddenly. The hell with it. A few minutes ago he’d decided the whole thing was out of his realm. It wasn’t his business. Let Bart Digby handle it on the international politics level, or Mike Woolman on the news level, but let Quentin Jones leave it lay.

  He gave Marty her new drink and said, “I think I’ll get on home and see if I can knock out a column.”

  “See you later, dahling,” Marty told him vaguely. Her mind, such as it was, already off on some other tangent.

  Ferd waved his glass in Quint’s general direction, and honored him with a quatrain from the Rubaiyat: “Some for the Glories of This World, and some Yearn for the Prophet’s Paradise to come. Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!”

  “Man, you have said it,” Quint told him dryly. “So long Marty, thanks for the drink.”

  Chapter Six

  It has been decided by the best authorities that ESP is impossible. That Extra Sensory Perception just doesn’t fit into scientific knowledge. That telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, not to speak of telekinesis, psychokinesis and precognition, are beyond the realm of intelligence. However, some of them, at least, work.

  Thus it was that when Quint reached for the doorknob of his apartment, he suddenly knew there was somebody inside. Somebody who shouldn’t be inside. Not a maid, nor some other building employee. Someone who was there doing something inimical to the interests of Quentin Jones.

  He froze for a moment, hand on the knob. The other might be armed and Quint Jones didn’t think of himself as a hero, dashing in where angels feared to tread.

  But in the past two days he’d had enough in the way of frustration that a pressure had built up within. It was as though he welcomed this opportunity to let it out.

  He flung the door open and blurred into movement, dashing into his living room, keeping in motion. There was a figure there, bent over the mess of papers, notes and files that he had strewn over the table whilst working.

  The figure whirled, caught in the act, and a hand streaked for what was obviously a weapon.

  Quint Jones automatically flung into the Neko achidachin, cat leg position, both fists clenched, knuckles facing down and held slightly by the side at his waist. Without pause, he screamed, “Zut!” exhaling the entire contents of his lungs, and sprung at the other.

  Bart Digby—it was Bart Digby—was startled by the yell, but his hand was still emerging with the gun, even as he attempted to step back to avoid Quint’s charge.

  Quint banged the edge of his left hand against the former C.I.A. man’s right wrist, sending the gun a-spinning. He grabbed the outside of the wrist with his left hand, forcing the arm up high. He pulled the other’s arm upward as he brought his left foot directly in front of Digby’s right, then pivoted on his left foot to the left, slightly turning his body backward to his left. With the edge of his right hand he slugged the other’s left kidney, bringing forth a grunt of agony.

  He was now behind Bart Digby. With his right foot he stamped the other’s left knee pit, then released his left hand grip and allowed the man to drop to the floor.

  Quint leaped back, and went into the Shi kodachi, squat position, waiting for the other’s action.

  Bart Digby looked up at him. “You son of a bitch,” he said, “What’re you trying to do, kill me?”

  Quint relaxed, the heat of the fight leaving him. He twisted his face ruefully. “You shouldn’t have grabbed for that gun.”

  Digby began pushing himself to his feet. “You came in so fast, I didn’t know who it was.” He felt his kidney, and groaned again. “I took a little karate and kenpo when I was doing my training, but you must’ve spent years at it, damn it.”

  Quint said sourly, “Hobby.”

  “Some hobby,” Digby grumbled at him. “Remind me never to go through this routine with you again.”

  Quint said, “Want a drink?”

  “No,” Digby growled. He sat himself on the couch, put his two hands into his crew cut hair, and breathed deeply.

  Quint went to the bar and poured himself a stiff Fundador brandy. He knocked it back and returned to the other.

  “Listen,” he said. “What in the hell did you think you were looking for?”

  Bart Digby looked up at him defiantly. “I don’t know. Evidence.”

  “Evidence of what, foul it! What could you expect to find?”

  Bart said flatly, “We’re not getting anywhere fast, with this case. I got an order this morning to check on whether there was any possibility of you having connections with the enemy.”

  “The enemy?” Quint honestly had no idea what the other man was talking about.

  Bart Digby’s mouth twitched, not in humor. He said, an element of embarrassment there, “I made a full report on everything I picked up at the party at Dempsey’s, including what you said about the commies not being radical enough for you.”

  Quint rolled his eyes upward. “Oh, Lord, how long.”

  The C.I.A. man flushed. “A full report is a full report. I made it. This morning they wanted me to check to see if you were working with Nuriyev, or whoever.”

  “On trying to locate Bormann, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  Quint went back and got himself another drink. “Listen,” he said, “And make the
fullest report on it you can, to whoever you report to. I’ve decided I haven’t any interest in this. For a while I was silly enough to get romantic pictures of myself as a star reporter, or something, getting a scoop, I mean a beat. But now I’m over it. Maybe I’ve dug up an item or two you don’t know about. So I’ll tell you everything I know, and then, believe me, I’m through with it. I’ll find out the finish of the story by reading the newspapers. Assuming it ever gets into the newspapers.”

  He poured some water into his drink, to stretch it out further, and returned to his chair.

  “From all I can see, and I got most of this dope from you, there seems to be a lot of rumors tracing Martin Bormann and Hitler’s favorite doctor here to Madrid. If Bormann’s here, he’s obviously in hiding, his presence known only to fellow Nazi refugees and their friends. Doktor Stahlecker would be such a one. Great. Nicolas Ferencsik comes to Madrid looking for Doktor Stahlecker…”

  Digby leaned forward, “You’re sure of that, or just guessing?”

  “Just guessing, just as Brett-Home and you and Albrecht Stroehlein were just guessing. However, all the evidence supports it. Ferencsik has two great interests in life, World Government and organ transplanting and related surgery. Doktor Stahlecker was tops in that field in Germany. Professor Ferencsik let drop this morning that he had once searched for Stahlecker immediately after the collapse of Berlin to the Red Army.”

  Quint took another swallow of the drink. The nervousness which usually followed his being in physical combat was rapidly disappearing. “All right. There it is. That’s all I know. And I don’t want to know any more. I haven’t any contacts with anybody. Nuriyev or anyone else. Above all, I don’t work for the communists. I don’t think I even know any communists here in Madrid. So will you get out of my hair now?”

  Bartholomew Digby came to his feet. He ran a hand back through his crew cut. “I don’t know whether to believe you or not,” he grumbled. “Maybe I owe you an apology.”