The Vivero Letter

by Desmond Bagley

  I pointed to the scuba harness I had brought down. 'Show me that you can use that thing.'

  I watched her as she put it on and made no attempt to help her. She seemed familiar enough with it and chose the belt weights with care, and when she went into the water she did it the right way without any fuss. I put on my own gear and followed her and we drifted around the bottom of the pool while I tested her on the international signals which she seemed to understand. When we came out, I said, 'You're hired.'

  She looked puzzled. 'Hired for what?'

  'As second string diver on the Uaxuanoc Expedition.'

  Her face lit up. 'You really mean that?'

  'Fallen told me to hire someone -- -and you can't come along as a passenger. I'll tell him the bad news.'

  He blew up as predicted, but I argued him into it by saying that Katherine at least knew something about archeology and that he wouldn't get an archeological diver this side of the Mediterranean.

  She must have worked on her husband because he didn't object, but I caught him looking at me speculatively. I think it was then that he was bitten by the bug of jealousy and began to have the idea that I was up to no good. Not that I cared what he thought; I was too busy drilling his wife into the routine of learning how to use the air compressor and the recompression chamber. We got pretty matey and soon we were on first name terms. Up to then I'd always called her Mrs. Halstead, but you can hardly stick to that kind of thing when you're both ducking in and out of a pool. But I never laid a finger on her.

  Halstead never called me anything but Wheale.

  III

  I liked Pat Harris. As a person he was slow and easy-going, no matter how mistrustful and devious he was when on the job. Just before we were due to leave for Quintana Roo he seemed to be spending more time at the house and we got into the 'habit of having a noggin together late at night. Once I asked him, 'What exactly is your job, Pat?'

  He ran his finger down the outside of his beer glass. 'I suppose you could call me Fallen's trouble-shooter. When you have as much dough as he's got you find an awful lot of people trying to part you from it. I run checks on guys like that to see if everything is on the up and up.'

  'Did you run a check on me?'

  He grinned, and said easily, 'Sure! I know more about you than your own mother did.' He drank some cold beer. Then one of his corporations sometimes has security trouble and I go and see what's going on.'

  'Industrial espionage?' I queried.

  'I guess you'd call it that,' he agreed. 'But only from the security angle. Fallon doesn't play dirty pool, so I stick to counter-espionage.'

  I said, 'If you investigated me, then you must have done the same with Halstead. He seems a pretty odd type.'

  Pat smiled into his beer. 'You can say that again. He's a guy who thought he had genius and who has now found out that all he has is talent. That really disappoints a man -- settling for second best. The trouble with Halstead is that he hasn't come to terms with it yet; it's really griping him.'

  'You'll have to spell it out for me,' I said.

  Pat sighed. 'Well, it's like this. Halstead started out as a boy wonder -- voted the graduate most likely to succeed and all that kind of crap. You know, it's funny how wrong guys can be about other guys; every corporation is stuffed full to the brim with men who were voted most likely to succeed, and they're all holding down second-rate jobs. The men at the top -- the guys who really have the power -- got there the hard way by clawing their way up and wielding a pretty sharp knife. There are a hell of a lot of corporation presidents who never went to college. Or you have guys like Fallon -- he started at the top.'

  'In his business,' I said. 'But not in archeology.'

  'I'll give you that,' said Pat. 'Fallon would succeed in anything he put his hand to. But Halstead is a second-rater; he knows it but he won't admit it, even to himself, and it's sticking in his craw. He's eaten up with ambition -- that's why he was going solo on this Uaxuanoc thing. He wanted to be the man who discovered Uaxuanoc; it would make his name and he'd salvage his self-respect. But you twisted his arm and forced him in with Fallon and he doesn't like that. He doesn't want to share the glory.'

  I contemplated that, then said cautiously, 'Both Fallon and Halstead were free in throwing accusations at each other. Halstead accused Fallon of stealing the Vivero letter. Well, we seem to have cleared up that one, and Fallon is in the clear. But what about Fallen's charge that Halstead pinched the file he'd built up?'

  'I think Halstead is guilty of that,' said Pat frankly. 'Look at the timetable. Fallon, out of interest's sake, built up a dossier of references to the Vivero secret; Halstead knew about it because Fallon told him -- there wasn't any need to keep it under wraps because it didn't seem all that important. Fallon and Halstead came back to civilization after a dig, and Halstead found the Vivero letter. He bought it up in Durango for two hundred dollars from an old guy who didn't know its value. But Halstead did -- he knew it could be the key to the Vivero secret, whatever that was. And apart from that it was archeological dynamite -- a city no one had even heard of.'

  He reached out and opened another bottle of beer. 'I checked on the date he bought it. A month later he picked a quarrel with Fallon and went off in a huff, and Fallen's Vivero dossier disappeared. Fallon didn't think much of it at the time. As I say, the Vivero file didn't seem so important, and he thought Halstead might have made a genuine error and mixed up some of Fallon's papers with his own. And he didn't think it worth his while to add to the grief that Halstead was stirring up just about that time. He thinks differently now.'

  I said slowly, 'It's all very circumstantial.'

  'Most evidence is,' said Pat. 'Crimes are usually committed without witnesses. Another thing that inclines me to think he did it is his general reputation in the profession.'

  'Not good?'

  'A bit smelly. He's under suspicion of faking some of his results. Nothing that anyone can pin on him, and certainly not enough to justify him being drummed out of the profession publicly. But certainly enough for anything he produces in the future to be inspected mighty carefully. There's nothing new in that, of course; it's been done before. You had a case in England, didn't you?'

  'That was in anthropology,' I said. 'The Piltdown man. Everyone wondered why it didn't fit in to the main sequence and there was a lot of theory-twisting to jam it in. Then science caught up with it when they developed radio-carbon date testing and discovered it was a fake.'

  Pat nodded. 'Some guys do that kind of thing. If they can't make a reputation the straight way, they'll make it the crooked way. And they're usually like Halstead -- second-raters who want to make a quick name.'

  'But it's still circumstantial,' I said stubbornly. I didn't want to believe this. To me, science was equated with truth, and I didn't want to believe that any scientist would stoop to 'fraud And maybe I didn't want to believe that Katherine Halstead was the kind of woman who would marry a man like that.

  'Oh, he hasn't been found with dirty hands,' said Pat. 'But I guess it's just a matter of time.'

  I said, 'How long have they been married?'

  Three years.' The hand holding his glass suddenly hovered halfway to his lips. 'If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, my advice is -- don't! I know she's quite a dish, but keep your hands off. Fallen wouldn't like it.'

  'Quite a thought-reader, aren't you?' I said sarcastically. 'Mrs. Halstead is safe from me, I assure you.' Even as I said it I wondered how far that was true. I was also amused at the way Harris had put it -- Fallon wouldn't like it. Pat's first loyalty was to his boss and he didn't give a damn about how Halstead might react. I said, 'Do you think she knows what you've told me -- about her husband's reputation?'

  'Probably not,' said Pat. 'I Can't see anyone going up to her and saying, "Mrs. Halstead, I have to tell you your husband's reputation is lousy." She'd be the last person to find out.' He regarded me with interest. 'What made you push her on to Fallen in this diving caper? That's twi
ce you've made the boss eat crow. Your credit's running out fast."

  I said slowly, 'She can control her husband where other people can't. You know the foul temper he has. I've no intention of spending my time in Quintana Roo keeping those two from assaulting each other. I'll need some help.'

  Pat cocked his head on one side, then nodded abruptly. 'You just might be right. Trouble won't come from Fallon, but Halstead might stir something up. I'm not saying he's nuts, but he's very unstable. You know what I think? I think if he gets a fraction too much pressure on him one of two things will happen -- either he'll split right open like a rotten egg, or hell blow up like a bomb. Now, if you're in a pressure situation, either way brings you grief. I wouldn't rely on him in a "jam, and I'd trust him as far as I could throw the Empire State Building.'

  'Quite a recommendation. I'd hate to have yon write out a testimonial for me, Pat.'

  He grinned. 'Yours might be a bit better. All you have to do, Jemmy, to get a hundred per cent score is to stop being so goddamn unobtrusive and neutral. I know you English have a reputation for being quiet, but you push it too far. Do you mind if I speak frankly?'

  'Can I stop you?'

  He snorted with laughter. 'Probably not.' He lifted his glass. 'I'm probably just cut enough to tell the truth -- it's a failing of mine which has earned me a couple of black eyes in my time.'

  'You'd better go ahead and tell me the worst. I promise not to sock you.'

  'Okay. You've got some iron in you somewhere, or you wouldn't have been able to strongarm Fallon the way you have. He can be a tough guy to handle. But what have you done since? Fallon and Halstead are running things now and you're sitting on the sidelines. You've twisted Fallen's arm again over Mrs. Halstead -- something that doesn't matter a damn, and he'll remember it. What the hell are you doing on this jaunt, anyway?'

  'I had a crazy idea I might be able to do something about my brother.'

  That you can forget,' said Pat briefly.

  'So I've found out,' I said gloomily.

  'I'm glad you realize it,' he said. 'Gatt would swat you like a fly and never give it another thought. Why don't you quit and go home, Jemmy; go back to that little farm of yours? You've found out there's no treasure to be hunted, and you don't give two cents for all the lost cities in Latin America, do you? Why stick around?'

  'I'll stick around as long as Gatt does,' I said. 'He might leave himself open long enough for me to get at him.'

  'Then you'll wait until hell freezes over. Look, Jemmy: I've got fifteen operatives on to him now, and I'm no nearer finding out what he's up to than when I started. He's a smart cookie and he doesn't make mistakes -- not those kind of mistakes. He keeps himself covered all the time -- it's a reflex with him.'

  'You'll agree he'll be interested in what we'll be doing in Quintana Roo?'

  'Apparently so,' said Pat. 'He's certainly keeping tabs on this operation.'

  Then he'll have to follow us there,' I said. 'He can't do anything from Mexico City. If he's so bloody interested in hypothetical treasure in Uaxuanoc, he'll have to go to Uaxuanoc to pick up the loot. Do you agree with that?'

  'It's feasible,' said Pat judiciously. 'I can't see Jack being so trusting as to send anyone else -- not with what he thinks is at stake.'

  'He won't be on his home ground, Pat. He's a civilized city type -- he'll be out of his depth. From what I can gather Quintana Roo is as unlike New York City as Mars is. He might make a mistake.'

  Pat looked at me in astonishment. 'And what makes you think you're any different? I grant you that Gatt is a city type, but civilized he is not. Whereas you are a city type and civilized. Jemmy, you're a London accountant; you'll be just as much out of your depth in the Quintana Roo as Gatt.'

  'Exactly,' I said. 'We'll be on equal terms -- which is more than can be said right now.'

  He drained his glass and slammed it down on to the table with a bang. 'I think you're nuts,' he said disgustedly. 'You talk a weird kind of sense, but I still think you're nuts. You're as batty as Halstead.' He looked up. Tell me, can you handle a gun?'

  'I've never tried,' I said. 'So I don't know.'

  'For Christ's sake!' he said. 'What are you going to do if you do come up against Gatt on even terms, as you call it? Kiss him to death?'

  'I don't know,' I said. 'I'll see when the time comes. I believe in handling situations as they happen.'

  He passed his hand over his face in a bemused way and looked at me for a long time without saying anything. He took a deep breath. 'Let me outline a hypothetical situation,' he said mildly. 'Let us suppose that you've managed to separate Jack from his bodyguards, and that's a pretty foolish supposition in the first place, And let us suppose that there the two of you are, a pair of city slickers, babes in the wood.' He stuck out a rigid finger. The first -- and last -- thing you'd know was that Jack had bush-whacked you with a lupara, and you'd be in no condition to handle any situation.'

  'Has Gatt ever killed anyone himself?' I asked.

  'I'd guess so. He came up through the ranks in the Organization. Served his apprenticeship, you might say. Hell have done a killing or two in his younger days.'

  'That's a long time ago,' I observed. 'Maybe he's out of practice.'

  'Agh, there's no talking to you,' said Pat in a choked voice. 'If you have any brains you'll go back where you came from. I have to stick around, but at least I know what the score is. and I get paid for it. But you're the kind of guy that Kipling wrote about -- "If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, then maybe you don't know what the hell is going on."'

  I laughed. 'You have quite a talent for parody.'

  'I'm not as good as Fallon,' he said gloomily. 'He's turned this whole operation into a parody of security. I used the bug Gatt planted on us to feed him a queer line, and what does Fallon do? He stages a goddamn TV spectacular, for God's sake! I wouldn't be surprised, when you fly down to that airstrip he's built, if you don't find the CBS cameras already rolling and hooked up into a coast-to-coast broadcast -- and a line of Rockettes from Radio City to give added interest. Every paisano in Mexico knows what's going on. Gatt doesn't have to bug us to find out what we're doing; all he has to do is to ask at any street corner.'

  'It's a tough life,' I said sympathetically. 'Does Fallon usually behave like this?'

  Harris shook his head. 'I don't know what's got into him. He's turned over control of his affairs to his brother -- given him power of attorney. His brother's a nice enough guy, but I wouldn't trust anyone that far with a hundred million bucks. He's thinking of nothing else but finding this city.'

  'I don't know about that,' I said thoughtfully. 'He seems to be worried about something else. He goes a bit dreamy at unexpected moments.'

  'I've noticed that, too. Something's bugging him, but he hasn't let me in on it.' Harris seemed resentful at the idea that something was being kept from him. He rose to his feet and stretched. 'I'm going to bed -- there's work to do tomorrow.'

  IV

  So there it was again!

  First Sheila, and now Pat Harris. He hadn't said it as bluntly as Sheila, but he'd said it nevertheless. Apparently, my exterior appearance and mannerisms gave a good imitation of Caspar Milquetoast -- the nine-to-fiver, the commuter par excellence. The trouble was that I wasn't at all sure that the interior didn't match the exterior.

  Gatt, from Pat's description, was lethal. Maybe he wouldn't shoot anyone just to make bets on which way he'd fall, but lie might if there was a dollar profit in it. I began to feel queasy at the thought of going up against him, but I knew I couldn't turn back now.

  Pat's assessment of Halstead was quite interesting, too, and I wondered how much Katherine knew about her husband. I think she loved him -- in fact, I was sure of it. No woman in her right mind would tolerate such a man otherwise, but maybe I was prejudiced. At any rate, she consistently took his side in any argument he had with Fallon, The very picture of a faithful wife. I went to sleep thinking about her.


  Six

  We went to Camp One in Fallon's flying office -- a Lear executive jet. Pat Harris didn't come with us -- his job was to keep tabs on Gatt -- so there were just four passengers, Fallon, the Halsteads and myself. Fallon and Halstead engaged in another of their interminable professional discussions, and Katherine Halstead read a magazine. Halstead had done a bit of manoeuvring when we entered the plane and Katherine was sitting on the other side of him and as far from me as it was possible to get. I couldn't talk to her without shouting across a technical argument so I turned my attention to the ground.