by Gil Brewer
“Get out,” Chevard said.
Baron opened the door and climbed out and stood beside the car. He glanced to the right and left, up the hillside and down, along the line of steel fence. The top of the fence jutted both inward and outward with a wild tangle of barbed wire and thrusting spikes. He noticed that the wire of the fence was nearly as thick as a pencil. It would be difficult material to cut through. No wonder Gorssmann had been stopped. The fence running up and down the hillside was camouflaged carefully, blending in with the woods and brush, and it had all obviously been erected with care. None of the smallest bushes or saplings near the fence had been broken or trampled in any way and the fenceline veered and curled and circled and zigzagged, following the natural inclination of the ground itself. It was not easy to follow the fence with the eye, or even to see it there in the woods. It was painted a dull green and he realized right away that he was being admitted to a place few even knew existed.
Beyond the gate, the road turned suddenly uphill and vanished from sight.
“Come,” Chevard said. He walked on ahead into the building. Inside there was a desk, a typewriter, and a single chair. There was nothing else save a mounted .30-caliber machine gun sitting in the corner, with boxes of ammunition beside it. Under the desk was a wooden box with the top slats ripped off. Baron looked and saw that it contained grenades.
Chevard spoke to the one guard that had entered with them.
The guard sat quickly behind the typewriter and typed on a small card. He did not speak. He was a close-lipped young man, with eyes the color of shallow water beneath the black bill of his cap.
“This is an identification card,” Chevard said. He handed it to Baron. Baron read it, reread it. It made no sense. The whole thing was in some kind of code. “It will admit you at any time,” Chevard said. “Take good care of it. Only one such may be issued. Without that card, you cannot get inside the gate. Not even I could enter. Watch.”
He walked on out of the building and Baron followed him. Chevard moved up to the gate and told the guard to open the gate.
The guard just looked at him. He did not move, nor did the other guard move. The one in the building came outside and stood there with his thumbs hooked into the brown leather belt that held his holster. Baron noticed that the man had cultivated a fine Western slouch.
“Come,” Chevard said to the guards. “Open up. You know me, I’m in a hurry!” He spoke loudly, ordering them.
Still none of them moved or spoke.
“You see what I mean?” Chevard said. He drew his wallet from an inside coat pocket, flashed the card, then folded the wallet and put it away. Still nobody moved. He grinned then, withdrew the card from the wallet, and handed it over. One of the guards accepted it, seemed to feel of it between thumb and index finger, returned it to Chevard with a slight grin.
“Back to the car.”
They climbed into the Fiat and Chevard put his wallet away as the gate swung open.
Baron was impressed, but for the first time this morning he began to perspire again. It had seemed almost too easy for Chevard to arrange with the guards about a card for him.
He questioned Chevard about this. There was no sense in letting it get by. He had to know everything there was to know.
Chevard grinned like a death’s-head above the almost perpendicular steering wheel. “I was waiting for you to ask that, Frank. Good thing you did too,—you would have worried me if you hadn’t asked.” He shook his head. “I called in from home. A card was arranged for you and sent to the gate. That accounted for the third guard. He was guarding your identity card.”
Baron looked straight ahead at the rushing dirt road. Yes, it was plain now why Gorssmann had found trouble. Nobody could get in there. He was coming in because of old friendship, and because Chevard trusted him; really trusted him.
“You notice nothing?” Chevard said suddenly.
At the instant he asked the question, Baron had noticed something. To the right, sunken into the hillside, shielded well by a large stand of pine, was the entrance to a cave, large enough to admit a full-grown battleship. Across the mouth of the cave, completely hidden from the air, and practically out of sight from the road, was another wire gate with two guards standing beside it. Through the gate, Baron saw a white stretch of concrete road, or street, stretching into the cave.
He craned his neck, peering back as they flashed by. Abruptly Chevard swung the Fiat off the road onto what resembled a bed of brown pine needles. The tires purred softly over solid-surfaced road, headed directly into a thrusting fall of greening forest that swung low, vine-clotted, to the surface of the road. He drove the car full tilt at the foliage.
“Look out,” Baron said softly, realizing what it was even as he spoke.
Chevard chuckled quietly as the Fiat nosed into the mass of foliage at fifty miles an hour. Baron braced himself. It lifted away and the car zoomed into a yellow-lighted, low-ceilinged space that was immense. The floor was macadam, black and smooth. It was the parking area, and Baron sat tightly watching, his heart hammering, as he saw what he faced. It was a tremendous garage. Cars were ranked three deep along the far wall. Chevard circled the interior, swung into line with a grand old Lagonda-Bugatti black-top convertible, and the tires yipped impolitely as they stopped.
“What do you think of it?” Chevard said.
Baron saw another young uniformed guard clipping toward them across the floor. He seemed to have a long way to walk, his hard heels echoing. He walked with one hand on his holster, the other wrapped around the balance of a Garand M1 rifle.
“It’s terrific.” That was all Baron could manage to say.
Chevard climbed out of the car and met the guard. They spoke rapidly in French for a moment. The guard turned and waved and a jeep roared out of a far dark passage in the wall and veered toward them, tires squealing on the macadam. The first guard waited, watching Baron closely as he stepped over by Chevard. The other guard halted the jeep, waved at Chevard, and joined the first guard, and they started walking slowly back across the floor.
“Come,” Chevard said.
He guided Baron over to the jeep and they got in. Baron saw that Chevard had not forgotten the brown leather brief case.
They headed for the dark passage and roared through, and Baron caught a glimpse of still another office, dimly lighted, with somebody seated at a desk behind a large glass window. Suddenly his head snapped around and his breath choked off.
“What’s the matter?” Chevard said.
Baron turned back and stared over the hood of the speeding jeep. They took a turn in what was now a tunnel, lighted with orange bulbs set into the cement walls.
“Nothing,” Baron said. “Nothing at all.” But there was still a brassy taste in his mouth. A man had been standing beside the desk in that office as they passed. Baron could have sworn it was Louis Follet. And yet, as he thought back, trying to reconstruct in his mind the exact picture of what he had seen, he told himself he was mistaken. The man had been wearing overalls, he was sure. Yet he could not get it out of his mind. There had been something about the man’s rigid stance, the way he held himself. What would Follet be doing here? But, he thought, it could not be Follet.
The tunnel went abruptly dark and Chevard switched on the jeep’s headlights. Baron stared across the hood into the brilliant white splash of light with everything crowding at his chest, choking him into a kind of breathlessness inside.
Where was Bette right now? What was she thinking? What had Gorssmann told her of her father? How much did she believe? He wondered if she knew that he was a paid enemy agent, an international spy, already in the camp of the enemy because he had lied to the one friend in the world who believed in him.
Baron glanced over at Chevard. He knew that just as sure as he was going to keep hunting until he got his hands on the man who had sabotaged his Stateside plants, so was he going to do Hugo Gorssmann’s bidding. He knew now that he would never renege, never fail.
&
nbsp; Bette was worth that much. She was worth more. But right now, this was all he could afford to give her. He knew too that it well might be all he would ever be able to give her.
What was it Louis Follet had said behind the shredding tobacco and pale smoke of his cigarette? That there was only death to look forward to, when Gorssmann was finished.
“Everything is underground,” Chevard said.
Baron snapped himself back to the present.
“The large entrance we passed,” Chevard said, “is for the planes to take off from, in case of emergency—in case we have to clear the plant quickly.”
“You mean to say the whole business is down here?”
“All, Frank. It was originally a natural cave. I purchased the land and built a home on it. I even have a few small vineyards. Just to make everything seem right. Meanwhile, we installed the plant. Good, eh?”
Chevard drove the car off the main tunnel onto a narrower artery, dimly lighted again, and parked in a small space beside a blank wall.
“Outside.”
They got out and Baron stood there waiting. Chevard stepped up to the wall beside the jeep and pulled a chain that hung beneath a gleaming orange bulb. The wall swung open. The door was not concealed, but until it had opened, Baron could not see it. They walked into a well-lighted, efficient-looking office. Two desks behind a wooden barricade faced each other, and at each desk sat a girl. One was typing, the other reading a sheaf of papers and checking things with a pencil. Both girls were extremely good-looking, Baron noted. One was an ash blonde, the other brunette. They smiled and waved at Chevard.
“This is where you keep them?” Baron said.
“This is it. Aren’t they beauties?” He grinned at Baron. “Which do you prefer?”
“The blonde,” Baron said.
“That’s Lucinda. Lucinda,” he called, “Mr. Baron wishes to say he admires you greatly.”
The girl smiled. The other one looked up, smiled at Lucinda, then returned to her machine-gun-like typing.
Lucinda was extremely chesty, and wore a form-fitting, light tan dress with a big gold buckle under her chin. Every time she breathed the buckle seemed to bend. She turned in her chair, crossed her legs, and looked straight at Baron. Her legs were very long and the skirt hissed up over the knees as she crossed them.
“Lucinda,” Chevard said, “show Mr. Baron that you like him.” Chevard gave Baron a light push toward the wooden gate that led through the barrier. “Go ahead, Frank—meet Lucinda.”
Baron strode through the gate. Lucinda’s hand came up. Her hand held a big black automatic. Baron stopped, stared at the large, dark hole in the muzzle, then at Lucinda’s pale smile. She waggled the gun barrel slightly.
“Don’t go any farther,” Chevard said abruptly. “They have orders to shoot. If you had come in here without me, they would already have shot.”
“Magnifique,” Baron said. He came back to the other side of the gate. He looked back at Lucinda. She tossed him a heavy, round-lipped kiss off the barrel of the automatic and dropped the gun into the desk drawer just over her lap. It clanked against something.
The other girl laughed shortly, and Lucinda returned to her sheaf of papers.
“The dark one is Georgette. She also packs a rod, Frank, as they say in America.” Chevard cleared his throat, opened a door leading from the outer office into a smaller room. “They are my girls,” Chevard said. “I think Georgette likes you, Frank.”
“How?”
“Lucinda seldom tosses kisses that freely and Georgette dislikes Lucinda. You understand?”
Baron grinned, then his face sagged as he stepped into the smaller room, and Chevard chuckled again beside him as the door closed.
“Something, eh?”
Baron looked across the room. The far wall was made of glass, opening into a vast cavern. He had never seen anything like it. Rank upon rank of sleek-bodied planes were strung out, leading from near the window to a dimly lighted distance. Baron could not see the end of them. They were jet jobs, he saw, with the most extreme delta-type wings he had yet seen. They were almost like row upon row of torpedoes, squatting on three spindly legs. They looked nasty. They looked mean. The tricolor of France was stamped on the dull crimson side of each plane, beneath the cockpit. Those wings were like the folded wings of an insect, narrow and frightening. They were thicker than any he had ever seen, the trailing edges stepped once, deeply. Beyond the cork-lined walls of the office, he heard the high tight whine of machinery, the staccato sock of a riveting machine, and far down at the end of the cavern, white sparks showered brilliantly in streaming arcs. Men walked around, hurrying like ants among the planes, crawling over them like ants.
He hadn’t expected anything like this. A single plane, yes—other types, perhaps—but countless jet jobs, never.
“Now, you see why all the secrecy?”
Baron glanced at his friend. “No,” he said. “I don’t.”
“I have told you this is a fast plane,” Chevard said.
“So?”
Chevard looked out across the ranks of planes, his eyes brooding. His voice was mellow when he spoke, and Baron sensed the strain of excitement in the man.
“It is the most fabulous plane in all the world, Frank,” Chevard said. “The fastest man has yet seen. I do not mean by a few miles per hour. I don’t mean the sort of advancement of speed we are conditioned to reading about in the newspapers, seeing in the newsreels. This plane is amazing.” He went on talking, telling Baron many of the things he knew and suspected, other things that he hadn’t known. But as yet he did not mention the breather. “It has more hours of flying time than you could imagine. Refueling has been reduced to a negligible worry.”
“Atomic power?” Baron asked quietly.
“Ah,” Chevard said.
Baron was half listening, and half thinking of the cruel mess he was in. There had never been anything like this mess, either. The Secret Police would nail him if he made a slip. The guards—yes, even the women secretaries here at the plant—would kill him at the drop of an eyelash. He supposed those girls in the outer office went to target practice twice a week, packing their big black automatics. Gorssmann would remove him and Bette as lightly as he would squash a bug on his desk blotter if he slipped up. Paul Chevard would quite possibly turn on him and shoot him between the eyes with the gun Baron was certain he must carry. Suddenly he wanted very much to get out into the fresh air again. He wished he were drunk. He wished he could be with the billy-goat girl.
Suddenly a door at the other end of the office opened. A uniformed guard stepped halfway out into the room, peered at Chevard, seemed to shrink in embarrassment. “I am sorry,” the guard said. “I expected my relief.”
Baron saw Chevard frown and the man’s mouth twisted. But he said, “It’s all right. Close the door.”
But Baron had seen what he wanted to see. Beyond the open door was still another room. He saw a desk, chairs, and against the far wall a gray metal safe. Somehow he did not have to be told that that was where he would have to go. That was where his journey would end—and begin….
The guard closed the door. There was no lock on it that Baron could see. Chevard turned his back, then slowly whirled again and frowned at Baron. He began to speak, then waved his hand and grinned. He said nothing at all.
* * * *
“Would you care to stay on with us?” Chevard asked.
He and Baron stood in the parking area beside the Fiat. Chevard had shown him around the plant some, but Baron had begged off any further tour, because of his still pressing hangover. He did not give the true reason, that he had seen all he needed to see. He wanted to see nothing else. He wanted to get away from Chevard. He could no longer stand before his friend and lie. He tried to find something about Chevard that he could hate, but failed. The man was too trusting. Yet Baron did have to smile inside. Chevard had never mentioned the breather.
“What would I do?” Baron asked.
Chev
ard shrugged. “There’s plenty to do. For a few days, suppose you nose around here at the plant, get the lay of the land, as they say. Then I will put you to work.” He paused, watching Baron carefully. “If that is what you want.”
“You know I do.”
Chevard clapped him on the shoulder. “You take my car, then. I have another here at the plant. Go home and get some rest. Come around whenever you care to. You are welcome, and trusted, Frank.”
“Thanks.” He looked across the parking area. “I don’t like taking your car, though.”
“How else will you get around?”
“All right. I will. Will I always find you here?”
Chevard smiled. “I practically live here, Frank. And as for Georgette and Lucinda, so long as you don’t cross the line, you’ll be all right.”
Baron wanted to ask him about the little room off his office, but he refrained.
“I don’t have to remind you about what you have seen, and how much it means, do I?”
Baron shook his head. “No, Paul,” he said. “You don’t have to remind me.” He looked sharply away, stepped over to the Fiat, climbed in behind the wheel.
“Tomorrow?” Chevard asked.
Baron nodded. “I’ll call you.” His nerves shrieked for him to leave, yet Chevard stood there watching him almost casually.
“Call my house, then—at night. This phone’s not listed, here at the plant.”
“All right.” Baron stared at the spokes of the steering wheel. They seemed to spin before his eyes.
Chevard banged the side of the door with his fist, turned sharply, and walked off across the parking area. The sound of his ringing heels burned into Baron’s mind. He started the engine quickly, swung the car out into the immense area, wanting to obliterate everything.
