by Troy Conway
I woke out of what seemed to be a drugged sleep to find Lucy in a thin nylon nightgown standing over me, shaking my arm. “It’s the boss-man, it’s the boss-man,” she kept saying. “Rod, wake up.”
My wristwatch told me it was three minutes past seven.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” I mumbled to the phone.
“Cheer up, Professor. I’m sending you to the Caribbean. You can loaf in the sun, you can ogle the girls, you only have to do one thing for me.”
He sounded too damn cheerful. My heart sank.
“Midge is catching the four o’clock flight to Freeport on Grand Bahama Island by way of Eastern Airlines. You can be on the five o’clock flight to the same place.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, “ I snarled. “All I have with me is a chauffeur’s uniform.”
“Tsk, tsk! Such unfaith in the Foundation. Your luggage will be aboard Flight 436. A man is on his way to your suite now with clothes for you to wear. Oh, by the way, you’re to be a rich playboy. The man with your clothes will hand you fifty thousand dollars in cash. Have fun, Professor—and find out what the hell is going on!”
He hung up. I oozed back onto the couch.
I agreed with Walrus-moustache about one thing. What the hell was going on? I had nearly been killed; I had made love to three different women; I’d saved Wanda Weaver’s life; I’d watched a girl shoot Lucy Wells in the back. For what reason?
Neither the Chief nor I knew why I was going through all this. Wanda Weaver Yule couldn’t help us. The only way I could learn the answers was by flying to the Bahamas. I was so intrigued by the mystery of it all that I even gave up grumbling about my new assignment, as is my habit when Walrus-moustache calls me to put me on the spy spot.
I was even more anxious to go when a young man knocked on the door and handed me a new valise containing my traveling clothes and an envelope stuffed with fifty thousand dollars in spendable cash.
The clothes were something else again. One thing I give the boss-man, he never hedges when he sets out to spend money. I was to act the part of playboy and by God I was going to be a playboy, in his book. Saying goodbye to the girls, the playboy was on his way.
At Grand Bahama Island, the big jet tires down on the tarmac of Freeport Airport. It braked, its great jet engines throbbing. Then it began the taxi toward Customs.
A Foundation agent met me at Customs, issued me and my luggage through to a waiting taxi. He climbed into the taxi with me and brought me up to date as we drove along.
“Miss Priest has checked into the Beach hotel. We reserved a room for you, as well. We have three agents, two girls and a young man, to keep us informed of her every move. When they report in, you will be contacted.”
“As I understand it, Miss Priest knows you. We don’t want to give away the game by having her see you and get the wind up. You stay in your room until you hear from us. When she leaves the hotel, you can come out of your room.”
“Some playboy I’m going to make,” I groused.
His smile was sympathetic. “That was just old Walrus-moustache conning you. Part of his sales pitch. The only thing that keeps you going is that sometimes he tells the truth and you do have a good time. Best of luck on this one.”
So I registered at the hotel, with a redhead who works for the Coxe Foundation assuring me that Miss Priest was already in her room. The telephone rang a short while later while I was shaving.
“The quarry is dining in the Crystal Room, Professor,” said the redhead.
“I’ll eat in my room,“ I promised. “Keep in touch.”
There were no more phone calls until next morning. Then the bell jangled as I was studying my reflection in a mirror.
“The quarry is eating breakfast in the Waffle Bar,” the redhead said.
“I’m getting tired of eating alone. Why don’t you come up and share a platter of ham and eggs with me?”
A giggle, then: “No can do, Professor. Duty calls.”
I sighed and hung up.
Midge Priest permitted me a little freedom an hour later when she left the hotel. I descended on the gambling hall attached to the hotel. I figured to try my luck a little, just to see what I could do with a hundred dollars.
I doubled my money at the blackjack table, and I took it as a good omen. I slid away from the gaming table.
A bellboy at the other side of the casino was yelling, “Professor Rod Damon, calling Professor Rod Damon.”
I tipped him a buck and followed him to a phone booth. The redhead was on the other line.
“The quarry has been buying underwater swimming gear, Professor. She’s heading for Shark Point. May I suggest you do the same? You’ll find a blue Marcos 1600 in the hotel parking lot. Its yours for the duration. There is special gear in the trunk, including a face-mask, aqualung and flippers. Bon Voyage.”
I just had to meet redhead. She was so efficient!
The Marcos 1600 is a British-built car in the sporty category, with fancy, sleek lines. Mine was a real honey, with buttons instead of door handles, wire wheels, the works. I slid onto the black leather seat with a sigh of comfort. I was positive Redhead would have put a map of the island into the glove compartment. The map was there.
The Marcos 1600 will do a hundred and twenty miles an hour. I just eased her up to eighty on the straights and let her slip around the curves at a mild forty. She held to the road as if there was leech blood in her paint.
I found Shark Point without too much trouble.
A gorgeous girl with skin the color of light mahogany decorated a beach blanket in a bikini bathing suit that hid only the absolute essentials of her curving body. As I braked the blue bolt which the automotive industry calls a car, she rose to her feet and came running toward me. She had red hair.
I met her halfway, caught her in my arms and kissed her soft red lips. She was startled, but she gave back the caress after a moment of hesitation. Her mouth tasted like honey, her properly curved body gave to my squeeze.
“Well!” she sort of gasped.
“Well? Hell, it was perfect. Let’s do it again.”
She giggled as her eyebrows tried to frown. “I didn’t come here for hanky-panky, Professor. The quarry’s on its way—out there.”
Reluctantly I pried my eyes away from the twin brown mounds half in and half out of the cups of her bikini halter to follow her pointing finger. She seemed to be showing me the entire Atlantic Ocean, all the way to the United States mainland.
“Don’t tell me she’s on her way to keep a date in Florida,” I murmured.
“Your job is to find out exactly where she’s going.”
“Yeah,” I assented glumly. The sunlight felt so good and the female flesh against me was so exciting that I was in no mood for a swim. I should have remembered Redhead was very efficient. She freed herself gently, as if to remind me that Uncle Sam needed me more than she did at this moment. She even gave me a pinch over my belt, hard, to bring me back from my thoughts.
I went over to the Marcos and opened the trunk. Redhead was right. Gear of all kinds—swimming apparatus, harpoon guns, a couple of revolvers, powerful binoculars—met my stare. If a spy needed it on a job, it was in that trunk.
With Redhead helping me, I grabbed a Healthways dive mask, a Scubaire 300 regulator that Redhead attached to a twin tank assembly for me while I was shucking off my clothes.
I stripped down to my skin. We were all alone out here. Shark Point is a kind of lonely spot, which was why Midge Priest chose it, I imagine. There was nobody around but Redhead and me.
Her long-lashed eyes grew big as they took my manhood in at a quick glance. The bare mounds under her bikini cups lifted upward as she drew a deep breath.
“Well!” she breathed, then added quickly, “I mean perfect.”
I grinned as I stuffed my male ornaments into the wet-suit. Redhead sighed, knelt down and slipped a pair of fins on my feet.
She fitted the assembly tanks to my back, tightened its harness. I g
rabbed the goggles and was ready for business. Redhead walked me to the water’s edge.
“Anything special I need to know?” I wondered.
“I’m your date, if anyone comes down here before you’re back. You love underwater swimming. You’re going out to examine the coral growths on this section of the Grand Bahama banks.”
“Okay, date.” I smiled as I leaned to kiss her cheek. When she looked a little puzzled, I added, “In case anybody’s watching through field glasses. We secret agents must be on guard at all times.”
I waded out and submerged.
For half an hour I swam in the general direction in which the redhead had pointed. The thought touched my mind from time to time that Midge Priest could be within thirty feet of me, and I’d never know it. Needles in haystacks had nothing on me.
Then I saw a pale light up ahead.
I swam toward it. Up close, I found this was a battery-powered submarine lamp, very low in candlewatts so that it would not be visible from the surface. I made out a number on it: 3.
I was in the middle of a vast forest of elkhorn coral, great jutting spines that resembled the huge horns of the
Canadian elk. Seaweeds of varying colors swayed back and forth near them, and moving lazily through those fronds came the torpedo body of a trumpet fish. To one side, I glimpsed convoluted brain corals.
I realized I was somewhere in an underwater maze that was Midge Priest’s destination. Whoever she worked for apparently had money to spend on fripperies such as this, to insure safe meeting places.
I swam on, hunting for light number 4.
There is an Underwater Trail much like this one in the waters off the Virgin Islands. You get into your snorkel and your swimsuit, and you start where a blue and white sign reads BEGIN UNDERWATER TRAIL. You soon find yourself in a fantasy of brain coral and sea anemone, where plastic-sealed plaques set into rocks act as guides, telling you that you are observing antler coral or a school of parrot fish that live in the lagoon.
The trail I was following was not for the public. It was a labyrinth of bright scarlet fire sponges, golden coral, branching stalks of club coral, beds of brilliantly colored sponges and clusters of stinging coral. And at any moment a member of the Opposition might decide to use my body as a bull’s-eye for an underwater harpoon.
The wet-suit kept me warm, but there was an annoying tingle down my spine as I swam like a ghost through the greenish light. I could see reasonably well in the clear waters, and I was sure the Other Side was able to do the same.
The little lamps came and went. I noticed the lamps were leading inward into a forest of antler coral, where the going got tight. I scraped my sides half a dozen times on razorsharp edges, and thanked my lucky stars the Coxe Foundation had not made me take this route in just a pair of swim trunks.
Deeper into the maze I went.
It was dark down there. Number 9 light had faded into invisibility and I was forced to use my hands to guide me through the narrow apertures between the coral prongs.
Then it all opened up.
Midge Priest was in an open space between towering coral formations, holding what appeared to be a slip of paper to a greenish lamp. I waited, suspended in the water, watching her.
She gave a little nod with her head and ripped the paper into four pieces. She cast it to the undersea currents, then looked up. There was an opening in the hedge of elkhorns above her. With a kick of her flippered feet she rose upward, swimming gracefully.
I waited until her swimsuited body had vanished before I moved from my hiding place into the hollow. My eyes saw two of the torn pieces settling to the bottom; I went for them, caught them and rolled them up.
The first touch of those torn bits told me this was not paper, but thin rubber. I found the third piece caught on a branch of the elkhorn coral; I removed it very gingerly. I was afraid the ink on the thin rubber membranes would run in the sea water after exposure, so I tucked the pieces inside my belt. Then I began my hunt for the last section.
It could not have gone far. Midge had made no attempt to hide it, she had just cast it away. I spent five minutes searching before I felt a faint submarine current moving between the coral growths. I followed it into a crevice and there was the missing piece.
I rose up through the hole as Midge had done. I did not go to the surface for fear she would be there, swimming ahead of me. I leveled off about five yards below and started stroking.
Naturally, I didn’t want to go up onto the beach just yet Midge would be there ahead of me, and it was no part of my plan to show myself at this stage of the game.
Fifty yards from shore, I stopped, treading water. I removed the goggles and let my head rise just above the surface. I swept the beach with my eyes. Redhead was sitting alone on her blanket, clasping her arms. Midge was nowhere in sight. I went in with a brisk Australian crawl stroke.
Redhead came to meet me, walking with a strut that swung her hips. I told myself I had to have some of that before my stay in the Bahamas was over.
When I was half out of the swimsuit, she asked, “How’d it go?”
“Good. What about Midge? You see her?“
“She didn’t show here. You don’t think she swam the other way, do you? To meet a boat? ”
“I hope the hell not. Here, let’s see.“
I got out the thin rubber strips, I patched them together with the girl leaning over my left shoulder as we knelt together on her blanket.
The note read: Tomorrow night, the Albatross. Ten, Twenty-seven. Seventy-nine.
It was that simple.
“What’s it mean?” asked the redhead.
My shoulders shrugged, brushing her right breast with my left. She moved back a little. “Who knows?” I asked. “Maybe it’s some sort of secret dating service. But all kidding aside, I’ve got to be there. Ten is probably the time. The other numbers probably represent the latitude and longitude. I’ve got to get hold of a nautical map.”
“The one thing I didn’t put in the trunk,” Redhead nodded.
I got up, lifting her to her feet “We’ll go back to the hotel. You get that map and join me in my room. We’ll study it together.”
“What, no etchings?“ she murmured. “Sorry about that, Professor. I do have a job, which doesn’t include shenanigans in a fellow worker’s room.”
“Even if he needs your company very much?”
She laughed, shaking her red hair.
So I went by my lonesome back to my room. I wondered why Midge Priest was going out to twenty-seven by seventy-nine. She had murdered Wanda Weaver Yule—or so she thought—so it might just be she was going to join her companions in the Opposition. I had no way of knowing. It was all guesswork.
Redhead knocked on the door at ten minutes past four. She slipped into the opening I made when I opened the door, with a furtive air. Over her shoulder she wore a bag.
The map was in the bag, she showed me, lifting it out. She was a chic chick in a black and white tunic dress in which a big rhinestone pin was fastened. Her red hair was coiffeured into a dazzling upsweep holding dozens of tiny pearls on long hairpins.
“You changed your mind,“ I said. “You’ve come to share dinner in my room.”
“Uh-uh. No. I came to hand you the map.”
She slammed the map into my palm.
“Hey,” I exclaimed as she opened the door. “What about our next contact? I have to make plans. You damn well don’t expect me to swim out to twenty-seven seventy-nine!”
She halted, then closed the door, not wanting to be seen standing in my open doorway talking to me for fear the Opposition might get suspicious.
“You do have a point there,” she murmured.
Her eyes questioned me. I went to the night table, spread out the map. I sat down on the bed to study it, turning on the bed lamp. My forefinger went to a point about fifteen miles north of the westernmost point of Grand Bahama Island.
“Is there a boat rental place around here?”
&nb
sp; She nodded. “Just outside Freeport.”
“I’ve got to rent a small submarine, if it’s possible. One of those two-man jobs.“ I grinned. “Love to have you come along, Red.”
“Uh-uh. I don’t think you’ll be able to rent a sub. There is one, it’s true, a second-hand job the Harbor Rental Company bought when the United States Navy auctioned off some of its surplus stock. I’ve seen it docked at the quay, but I’ve never known anyone who was able to rent it.”
“They just didn’t offer enough money. You watch. I’ll go rent it right now, while Midge is still in her room. She is in her room, isn’t she?”
“Taking a nap.”
“How do you find out things like that?”
She smiled. “Disguised as a cleaning lady.” There was no more reason for her to stay, she told me, so she would leave. I sighed and stared at her hips pressing into the white stuff of her tunic dress. The door opened and closed. I sighed again.
I drove to Freeport in the blue Marcos. After asking directions from a policeman, I moved down to the harbor road and the smell of salt water. A dozen cabin cruisers swung to the lift and swell of the tide on their anchor chains. Further out was a big Diesel-engine yacht, all white with polished brass fittings. Its name read: Albatross.
With a sense of accomplishment, I sauntered around the docks and pilings. In a little while Midge Priest would be keeping a date with that big yacht. I marveled at the care the Opposition took not to make contacts when there was any chance of being seen, and wondered at the se-cretiveness of the head man.
Whoever he was, he took no risks.
My study of the Albatross complete, I turned to enter the boat rental company offices, a squat white building with buoys, with some lobster pots thrown in for good measure.
Midge Priest was standing at the counter.
CHAPTER SIX
She was too busy yakking with the wizened old man behind the counter to see me. I ducked sideways into the nettings, out of sight of the doorway. My heart was slamming away; it had been a near thing.
I walked down onto one of the quays projecting out into the harbor. I sat down on a pile of rope so I could watch the little Sprite parked a dozen yards from my Marcos 1600. It was the only other car in the lot, so it must belong to Midge. I smoked a cigarette, slowly.
