*
When the telephone rang on Terry Terrasino’s desk it was Harry Maclaren. He sounded very tired and nervous.
‘Terry,’ he said, using Terrasino’s first name, something he had never done before. ‘Terry, can you get in here right away?’
Terrasino gave an affirmative and left his office, taking the elevator to the top floor of the administrative building. He smiled at Jean, Maclaren’s secretary, who waved him through into the project manager’s office. Maclaren was bent over his desk, head cradled in his hands. He started a little guiltily as Terrasino entered.
‘Trouble?’ Terrasino knew all the signs.
‘Yeah, trouble,’ returned Maclaren. He pointed to a sheet of paper and an envelope on the desk in front of him. ‘Don’t pick it up … it might be important to get fingerprints or something. I’ve just telephoned the FBI man, Hayes, to get over here.’
Terrasino walked around the desk and peered over Maclaren’s shoulder.
The paper was an ordinary piece of white typing paper. On it were a few short sentences, neatly printed in black ink. Terrasino noticed how precise the printing was, each letter carefully formed, almost perfect.
‘Anglo-American you have been warned. I am sorry about Westbrook and Budmeyer. I did not mean to kill Mr. and Mrs. Westbrook, only demonstrate my power. However, my previous warnings were ignored. I had to demonstrate my strength. Cease making this infernal machine or you will be punished. God’s will is paramount. Max Prüss.’
Terrasino scratched his brow.
‘A nutter?’
‘A nutter with some knowledge, Terry,’ replied Maclaren.
‘What makes you say that?’ asked the security chief, peering at the letter again.
‘The news and speculation about Westbrook’s death was common knowledge. But no one, apart from a few people on the project site, knew about the attack on Budmeyer.’
‘Okay. I’ll buy that. But it doesn’t make it conclusive that the letter-writer and the saboteur are one and the same. It could be a weirdo who picked up some gossip. Or it could be someone trying to put us off the scent. It would take a lunatic to sign his name to the note. Max Prüss? Does the name mean anything to you?’
Maclaren shook his head, frowning.
‘It seems familiar from somewhere but … no, I’m sure we don’t have a Max Prüss working for us.’
The intercom buzzed on his desk.
‘Mr. Hayes is here, sir,’ came Jean’s voice.
‘Send him in.’
Agent Hayes came in looking a little excited.
He peered at the letter and then, producing a pair of tweezers from his pocket and a polythene envelope, he dropped the letter and its envelope in it and sealed it.
‘I’ll get our lab boys onto this right away.’
Maclaren pointed out the reference to Budmeyer.
‘If this letter is genuine, it will help support Terrasino’s theory that the saboteur is someone connected with the project site,’ said Hayes.
‘How’s that?’ demanded Maclaren.
‘It was mailed in Scarboro … that’s not far away and I guess a number of your men live there.’
Terrasino pursed his lips.
‘If it is genuine, I can’t see our saboteur being that dumb. He’s not going to pull such a crude boner as to mail his letters from a mail-box near his home. Anyhow, how about the signature — Max Prüss?’
‘I would imagine it is a false name,’ replied the FBI man. ‘I take it that you have started a check through your personnel files?’
Maclaren looked guilty.
‘I’ll get on to it right away but I certainly can’t recall a Max Prüss on our payroll, and I’ve a good memory for names.’
‘The writer also says that he has given previous warnings to Anglo-American.’ Hayes turned to Terrasino. ‘Is the letter, the paper, the printing and style, in any way familiar? Such letters would have come to you.’
Terrasino shook his head a little defensively.
‘We had a whole batch of nutcases writing in over the last couple of years since the project has been developing. My office has passed over the file of letters to you for examination.’
Hayes smiled.
‘In that case, we should be able to find Mr. Max Prüss’s previous warnings. This might be the break-through we wanted. In the meantime, let my office have a list of the names and addresses of all employees who live in the Scarboro’ area … just in case,’ he added with a disarming smile at Terrasino.
*
Carson dialled Tom Saxon’s number. Saxon answered almost immediately.
‘Tom! Have you come to a decision about the job?’
Saxon’s laugh rang a little hollowly on the line.
‘As Seneca once said, old boy: Fate leads the willing and drags the reluctant. I shall be led.’
Carson frowned.
‘Is that an affirmative or a negative?’
‘Affirmative. I’ll give it a try but with one condition.’
‘What’s that, Tom?’
‘That your company advance me five thousand pounds to clear up some financial embarrassments here.’
Carson did a few mental calculations.
‘That’s about ten thousand bucks, eh? Well, I’m sure we can agree on that. When can you come to our London offices to sign the contracts?’
Saxon chuckled on the other end of the line.
‘Any bloody time you like.’
Chapter Twelve
Terrasino drove his battered Ford convertible down Moulton Avenue and into the waterfront area across the Canadian National Railway Company’s trackways. He found a parking space on Custom House Wharf. He wondered why Hayes had asked him to meet him at Boone’s Restaurant on the waterfront. Why not? Maybe Hayes was a seafood addict. He grinned at the thought. He entered the restaurant and saw Hayes immediately. The FBI man was sitting deep in conversation with Vambrace. Hayes glanced up and spotted Terrasino before the waiter had time to go across to him, and he waved him over to the table.
‘Glad you could join us, Terrasino.’
Terrasino exchanged greetings with both men.
‘Want a drink?’ asked Hayes.
A waiter materialised to take his order and he asked for a Cinzano, with ice and lemon. He looked at the two men curiously.
‘You said it was important when you rang me,’ he prompted.
The FBI agent inclined his head.
He reached down to a leather case by his chair and drew out a folder of stiff see-through plastic sheets. Inside were three letters. The last one Terrasino recognised immediately as the threatening letter which had arrived in Maclaren’s office the previous day.
‘The letter-writer, Max Prüss, was right,’ Hayes began grimly. ‘He has written two previous warnings.’
He handed the folder to Terrasino.
Like the other letter the first two were written on plain white typing paper and were neatly printed in the same careful, precise style. Terrasino read the first one.
‘Anglo-American: desist from making these machines of death and destruction. Airships have been responsible for much unhappiness. They have taken happiness from me. Look to history and know that God Himself frowns on these machines and destroys them in fire. Make no more. You have been warned. Max Prüss.’
Luckily, when Terrasino’s office had filed the hundreds of letters from various screwballs, the envelopes had also been filed. The datestamp bore a Scarboro’ postmark some eighteen months previously. Terrasino could not recall the letter. He turned to the next one.
‘You have ignored my warning. I shall now have to demonstrate my power and my serious intention. I shall act within seven days of you receiving this. If you are worried — I am sorry. But you have ignored my warning. Max Prüss.’
Terrasino put the folder down.
‘Someone’s got to be kidding. The quaint English! The phraseology! You can’t take these seriously!’
Vambrace leant forward and jabbed
at the second letter.
‘Check the datestamp on that.’
Terrasino squinted at the envelope.
It was posted in Scarboro’ again, exactly seven days before Alec and Jane Westbrook had been killed. Terrasino raised his eyebrows.
‘Exactly,’ said Hayes emphatically. ‘That, coupled with the writer’s knowledge about Budmeyer, makes me want to meet up with our Max Prüss.’
‘So you believe they are genuine?’
‘Yes. Vambrace and I are going to act on that assumption.’
‘Did any prints show up?’
‘A few,’ Hayes said. ‘But so few that they could only be those of whoever handled them after they were posted. We are onto a smart cookie, probably wrote them wearing rubber gloves or something. Anyway, we’ll check those out — there’s always the odd chance.’
‘How about the name, Max Prüss?’ asked Vambrace of Terrasino. ‘I don’t suppose it’s on your personnel list?’
Terrasino shook his head.
‘So the name is just a phoney,’ sighed Hayes.
‘Not necessarily,’ Terrasino suddenly said, turning the letters over in his hands. ‘The name Max Prüss must have some sort of significance for the writer. Look, if we are taking these letters as genuine then we’d do well to consider them carefully … the style, threats and so on. If the writer of these is our man then we are dealing with someone who has a grudge against airships. A paranoiac.’
Hayes and Vambrace exchanged glances.
‘You mean we have a screwball on our hands who is doing this because he doesn’t like airships?’ Vambrace gave a wan smile.
‘That’s about the size of it,’ admitted Terrasino, ignoring the levity of the question. ‘Take those letters to a psychiatrist and get them analysed and I am sure he will diagnose a paranoid condition — a man who has a complex that airships have been responsible for hurting him or someone close to him.’
Hayes looked at the security chief in surprise.
‘You seem to be pretty sure, Terrasino. How come you know about paranoiacs?’
‘I did a degree in criminal psychology before I went into Air Force intelligence,’ Terrasino admitted.
‘You are pretty sure that it is a “him” rather than a “her”?’ intervened Vambrace.
Terrasino shrugged.
‘Okay, him or her. But the odds are that it’s a male. Women don’t usually develop this sort of psychosis.’
‘So if Max Prüss is a paranoiac, how do you read them?’ pressed Hayes. ‘Who are we looking for?’
Terrasino sat back and sipped his drink thoughtfully.
‘You want the textbook definition of a paranoiac? Paranoia is a chronic disorder of insidious development, characterised by persistent, unalterable, systematised, logically constructed delusions.’
Vambrace looked blank.
‘Suppose you translate that into plain English for us?’ he asked.
‘Okay. Our saboteur’s motivation is vengeance; he believes that he is on a crusade. Airships are, to quote his phrase, “machines of death and destruction”. He must rid the world of them because God does not like them. Also, he believes he is seeking justice for a wrong done to him, allegedly caused by an airship. So the symptoms are almost classic. Also, it tells us a lot about him.’
‘Such as?’ demanded Hayes.
‘Such as the fact that his problem was caused by some incident relating to an airship. There can’t be many such incidents.’
‘What time scale are you suggesting?’ enquired Vambrace, making a note.
Terrasino shrugged.
‘In paranoia the disorder develops slowly and steadily. The incident could have happened years ago. I’d say the man must be in his middle age at least.’
‘How do you figure that?’ Vambrace frowned.
‘I’ve just said that the disorder develops slowly. Of course you can get young paranoids but it doesn’t usually erupt in full force much before a person is in their mid-thirties. On the other hand, he may be considerably older. The disorder can last a long while — often a lifetime.’
Hayes drummed his fingers on the table-top.
‘We’ll have to get our own shrink to check out what you say. Even supposing you are right, you have nearly two thousand workers on the project site. From the list your personnel people supplied us with there are two hundred and thirteen of them living in the Scarboro’ area. It will be like looking for a needle in a haystack.’
‘Even if the saboteur lives in Scarboro’, which I doubt,’ replied Terrasino. ‘My guess is that he mails the letters there because it is pretty safe for him to do so. Why, he might live anywhere … Cape Elizabeth, even Gorham.’
Hayes grimaced.
‘We have to start somewhere. We have to work on the evidence that he has supplied us with.’
‘And the important fact is that he’s very knowledgeable about aeronautical engineering, especially electronics,’ added Terrasino.
‘So far as our investigation on Westbrook’s Mitsubishi goes, you’re dead right. Whoever messed with those control cables knew what they were doing,’ agreed Vambrace.
‘So we narrow our field to those people who have a knowledge of such things,’ Hayes said. ‘How many suspects would that leave us with?’
Terrasino made some mental calculations.
‘About three hundred, at a rough guess.’
Hayes whistled.
‘When does this airship of yours start its test flights?’
‘The original schedule was for next week but with Westbrook’s death … ‘ Terrasino shrugged. ‘There’s some scuttlebutt about an English pilot joining the team and Garry Carson, who’s now our chief test pilot, is over in England at the moment. If the man does join our project he would have to go through simulator training … I’d say the test flights are still a month off.’
‘Well, we can do a lot in a month,’ said Vambrace.
Hayes nodded agreement.
‘We’ll start on the spadework first. I’ll get another couple of agents on the case and we can start checking through personnel files, trying to eliminate people.’ He paused and frowned. ‘Tell me, Terrasino … if this guy is a screwball, wouldn’t it be noticeable? Wouldn’t he be easy to spot?’
Terrasino grinned.
‘You obviously haven’t worked with scientists — most of them are screwballs anyway.’ Then he looked serious. ‘No, I wouldn’t think so. The ordinary paranoiac doesn’t get into trouble. His delusions of persecution and his search for revenge can often be expressed in a socially acceptable fashion. Contrary to popular belief, the typical paranoiac is not criminally inclined. It is only as a last resort that he turns to law-breaking, that is, only when other attempts to seek a redress of his imagined grievances have failed. Our Max Prüss is probably a very neat and proper man. It is a classical but often true picture. He would probably bend over backwards to avoid any appearance of flaw or fault. I expect he shows up for work each morning, neatly dressed, neatly shaven, lives a model life, never goes on a binge or gets involved with women and his professional life is probably exemplary.’
‘Yeah, that’s the thing which has been bothering me,’ commented Vambrace. ‘If the guy hates airships and wants to destroy the Albatross — then why is he working on the project and, from what you say, in a fairly senior position on it?’
Terrasino leant back.
‘That’s part of his problem. He has a schizoid personality. When working on the project, he gives his very best to it. One would assess him as a thoroughly reliable member of the Albatross team.’
‘Surely the type of man you have described would stand out like a sore thumb anyway?’ Vambrace smiled.
‘Well, it certainly gives us something to work on,’ agreed Hayes. He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Jesus! Let’s order some food … ’
‘One thing is sure,’ Vambrace suddenly articulated Terrasino’s thoughts, ‘we’d better catch this screwball pretty soon. If he is someone in an executive p
osition on the Albatross project, then he’s going to infiltrate any security we can put up and when that big baby takes to the skies …
He pursed his lips and made a popping sound.
*
‘You’re looking tired, Charles,’ observed Tanya Le Solliec as she brought a tray of crisp bread, pâté, a bottle of wine and two glasses in from the kitchen and set them on the table.
Charles Renard sprawled back on the chaise-longue, loosening his tie and unbuttoning the collar of his shirt.
‘Tired isn’t the word for it,’ he replied. ‘It’s been one hell of a week. Old man Dubray came to have dinner with us the other night. He kept looking at me very oddly. I have a suspicion that Janine has been complaining to him.’
Tanya poured the wine and handed him a glass, making a sympathetic clucking noise with her tongue.
‘Poor chéri. The business does not go well either?’
Tanya had an unerring ability to go straight to those things that were truly important for Renard. His wife and domestic life could be an irritant but there was only one thing which really worried him.
‘Things could be better. We are still awaiting the delivery of the helium gas to inflate the Charles de Gaulle for our test trials. I hear the Americans have another test pilot, some Englishman. That means they could be back on schedule again. They could be starting their tests before we do.’
Tanya pouted, perplexed.
‘Why does it mean so much to you to be first across the Atlantic? Surely the days of Alcock and Brown and Lindberg are over? No one cares who crosses the Atlantic first.’
Renard regarded Tanya with a sense of pride and satisfaction, like a proud parent or owner. Tanya had been his mistress for eighteen months. A tall, willowy, red-haired girl from Rennes, she had been twenty-four when they first met. She had been entertaining as a folk-singer in a small Breton café near Montparnasse Station. It was strange how they had been drawn together. It seemed to have been a natural drift, two people oddly attracted by opposing characteristics. Renard, the hard, self-made opportunist, the hustler, the materialist, the man of little emotion. Tanya, full of the Celtic mysticism of her native Brittany, unmaterialistic, drifting through life like an untrammelled spirit; a butterfly, floating from one flower of experience to another. Calm, unflappable and highly intelligent. Had they ever bothered to analyse what had brought them together, and kept them together, they would have been unable to do so.
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