by A. W. Mykel
They were the only two people in the parking lot. He was far enough away that he didn’t have to worry about the other man seeing what he was doing. He put his attention back on the case and opened it.
He withdrew three short pieces of metal tubing and screwed them together into one longer piece of about seven inches. Its diameter was about one half inch. The end section held a tiny 1.5-volt battery, which powered the silent-acting detonator in the middle section. Instead of a bullet, it discharged the contents of an ampoule contained in the tip segment. The ampoule contained deadly prussic acid, a colorless, odorless poison. With the activation of the detonator, the prussic acid would vaporize as it passed through the tiny opening in the tip of the weapon. Anyone breathing in the gas at close range would be dead within seconds. All traces of the acid would be gone within a few hours before any autopsy could be performed. Only water vapor was left behind, which quickly evaporated. The cause of death was then determined to be heart failure. It was not a new method, but it was an effective one.
Next, he opened a small metal box and removed two sodium thiosulfate tablets and two amyl nitrate ampoules. These provided the user of the weapon with an antidote, in case he should inadvertently inhale some of the acid vapors. The tablet was to be taken prior to the firing of the gun. The ampoule was to be crushed immediately following the discharge, its amyl nitrate vapors inhaled deeply.
He then pulled out the metal capsule that was to hold the other microfilm cartridge. It was sealed in a small plastic bag.
“Excuse me,” a voice came from beside him. The owner of the other car was standing there. Ten Braak turned to face the voice, moving to put himself between the man and the case in the trunk.
“I was wondering if I could borrow your jack?” the man asked. “I seem to be having some difficulty with mine. Can’t get it to stay under the bumper,” the fellow said.
Ten Braak’s dark eyes narrowed onto the round, wrinkled face of the man. He was an elderly chap, in his sixties, or thereabouts.
The man had gotten an eyeful of Ten Braak’s face. Ten Braak knew what had to be done.
“I will assist you,” Ten Braak said, in his thick, guttural accent.
“Thank you, that’s very kind,” the old man said. “I think it’s broken. It won’t stay under the bumper. Maybe a piece is missing,” he said as they walked.
Ten Braak followed the old man back to the car. As he walked, his hand came to rest on the smooth custom-shaped wooden handle in his pocket.
They stopped at the car. “Try once again,” Ten Braak said. He watched the man’s efforts.
The old man bent forward and tried putting the jack under the bumper again.
Ten Braak looked around the parking lot. They were still alone. He withdrew the wooden handle. Extending out perpendicularly from the center of the handle was a four-inch metal shaft, covered with a thick leather sheath. The shaft rested between the index and middle fingers of his fist. He removed the sheath, exposing the narrow, ice-picklike shaft. He moved closer to the man.
“See, I just can’t get it to stay under there,” the old man said.
Ten Braak brought the sharpened tip of the thin shaft to within an inch of the man’s head, just behind the left ear. With a quick, even thrust, he jammed it home, right into the man’s skull, all the way up to the fingers. There was a faint groan as the man’s eyes crossed and his face tightened. He was dead instantly.
In a second the man’s body was in the trunk. The jack was thrown in and the trunk lid closed. Ten Braak returned to his car. He sheathed the weapon and put it back into his pocket.
He closed the black case and slammed the trunk shut, checked the parking lot once more, and then returned to Bridges’s door.
Bridges had just finished telling Kuradin what to expect from SENTINEL when the knock sounded at the door. He let Ten Braak in and double-locked the door again.
Inside the room, Ten Braak removed the intestinal capsule from the plastic bag. He placed the film cartridge in it, after unscrewing the capsule into two separate pieces. Bridges watched him carefully. The thing seemed huge after it was back together.
“I suggest that you try to have a bowel movement now,” Kuradin said. “Even if you don’t feel the need to have one, you must try. Once the capsule is in place, you will not be able to have another one until it is removed. And that won’t be for another six hours. By that time, you will be on a plane headed safely for the Soviet Union,” Kuradin lied.
Bridges retired to the bathroom.
As soon as Bridges had closed the door, Ten Braak took out the tablets and ampoules. He gave one of each to Kuradin. Both men took the sodium thiosulfate tablets. Kuradin kept the amyl nitrate ampoule in the palm of his hand, closing his fist over it.
A few moments later, the toilet flushed, and Bridges emerged from the bathroom. Ten Braak was standing between the two double beds.
“Stand here,” Ten Braak said, holding the film capsule.
Bridges moved to where he was instructed.
“I can do this myself,” he protested. “Just give it to me, and I’ll put it up.”
“It must be inserted properly, Dr. Bridges, or it will not stay in position,” Kuradin said.
This is embarrassing, Bridges thought to himself.
Bridges and Ten Braak were only about eighteen inches apart, facing one another. Bridges looked down into the big black eyes. He was wrong about this man, he did look dangerous. The eyes were dark and menacing. He suddenly felt uncomfortable. He began to say something.
Before the first word came out, Ten Braak’s hand flashed upward with the deadly tube. He detonated it, hitting Bridges squarely in the face with the deadly prussic acid vapors.
Bridges’s eyes bulged suddenly, he gagged and retched, his face turning a deep red. Coughing and sputtering, he staggered a half step forward toward Ten Braak. He made a horrible choking gurgle, his eyes popping and beginning to run. The moment before he collapsed, Ten Braak shoved him backward onto the bed.
Ten Braak quickly crushed the amyl nitrate capsule and breathed in the vapors deeply. Kuradin did so at the same time. Bridges twitched once or twice, then stopped moving.
Ten Braak undid his belt, lowered his pants and underwear. He bent forward, in a wide-stance squat, and inserted the aluminum capsule into his rectum, pushing it well up into the lower colon. Then he pulled up his pants and secured them.
The two men left the room and got into their car. As they began to pull away from the rear parking lot, a helicopter appeared overhead.
The helicopter was unusual in design. It looked like a normal helicopter, but made very little sound. The engine could barely be heard above the sweeping sounds of the rotors.
“There’s a car leaving down there, Ted,” Justin said. “From the same general area as Bridges’s room. See if you can get a look at its tags with the glasses.”
Fanning raised the binoculars. “Illinois registration—LC eight-five-eight-nine. Blue Dodge Monaco, four-door sedan. Can’t make out the driver.”
“SENTINEL, can you run that through Illinois DMV?” Justin asked. “L as in lucky, C as in Charlie, eight-five-eight-nine. Late-model blue Dodge Monaco,” he repeated.
“Working,” the soft voice said.
“Are you able to track visually?” Justin asked.
“Negative,” SENTINEL replied. “Cloud cover is too dense.”
South Beloit was farm country. Huge open fields abounded everywhere. There was such a field behind the Holiday Inn. The pilot of the copter put down in it.
Justin turned to the pilot. “Take it back up, and see if you can follow that car for just a little bit. I want to see if it heads out on US Seventy-five toward I-Ninety. If it does, let us know, and we’ll tell you what to do,” he instructed.
The pilot nodded.
The two men climbed out of the chopper. Fanning was carrying a large metal case, like a big tool box. The chopper lifted off as they moved away.
BEEP!
&
nbsp; SENTINEL was signaling for transmission.
“Blue Dodge Monaco, Illinois registration LC eight-five-eight-nine is owned and operated by the National Rent-A-Car agency. It is currently contracted to one David R. Fromme of Baltimore, Maryland. It has been contracted since last Thursday morning, from O’Hare Airport. Mr. Fromme has been registered at the Holiday Inn, South Beloit, since Thursday afternoon sixteen forty-six hours. Reservations extend through Wednesday of next week. Room number one-fifty-five. It is three doors away from Dr. Bridges’s room,” SENTINEL reported.
“Thank you, SENTINEL,” Justin said.
The two men approached well up from Bridges’s room. The chopper had put them down where they could not be seen easily from Bridges’s window. Both men passed completely by Bridges’s door, then stopped. Normally, they would have taken positions on both sides of the door, but one side was all glass. Bridges’s window extended right up to the door. Glass was poor at stopping bullets.
Fanning put down the heavy case and took a position behind Bridges’s rental car, which was right in front of his door. From his position, just behind the right side of the trunk, he could get a clear shot into the room. The lights on inside would make the visibility excellent.
Justin’s left hand was in his coat pocket, as he moved to the door. The inside of the pocket had been ripped away, leaving access directly through the inside lining of the coat. His hand cradled the Mauser.
He knocked at the door.
There was no reply.
He knocked again. If the contact hadn’t already been made, then Bridges would expect Justin to be the contact. If it had been made, it wouldn’t matter anymore. He’d either be dead, or gone.
There was still no answer.
Justin backed away from the door. He looked at the lock. The little pinlike button below it was in. That meant that the dead bolt hadn’t been engaged, but the chain lock could be. He felt the door. It was metal and very sturdy. The frame around it was also metal. Chances were good that one kick wouldn’t open it. He decided to pick it.
He pulled out a pocket knife and selected a specially shaped blade. He inserted the blade into the lock, giving up his hold on the Mauser to grasp the doorknob with the left hand.
As quietly as possible, he wiggled the blade artfully, inserting it deeper, as the tumblers moved. Then he turned the doorknob, praying that there wasn’t a gun aimed at the other side of the door. He opened the door only a crack, just enough to see that the chain lock wasn’t engaged. Things looked bad.
He backed away and put the Mauser back into his hand. He looked at Fanning, who had crouched low into a firing position, well behind the car.
Fanning nodded.
Justin kicked the door in and twisted back and away to cover.
Nothing happened.
Fanning leaned out a little bit and saw Bridges on the bed. He motioned with his head to Justin.
The Mauser came into the doorway first, followed by Justin’s head peeking around. He could see the bathroom door open. The closet was an open space. There were no other hiding places. He entered slowly, looking at Bridges on the bed. He knew immediately that the man was dead. He was careful not to step further into the room until he looked cautiously around for any evidence, so as to avoid disturbing it when he was ready to approach the body.
The room was very clean, no traces of foul play, nothing on the floor. He stepped further in, then took the most direct route to the body. He motioned Fanning with an arm.
Fanning went to the heavy case and picked it up. He entered the room and used the point of his elbow to close the door most of the way, until it was open just a crack.
Justin stood right over the body lying face up and across the bed. “Looks like he choked on something,” he said. He bent down to the distorted face and touched the big fleshy cheeks. They were soft and warm. He touched the toes. “No rigor mortis yet.”
BEEP!
“What is the coloring of the face?” the soft voice asked.
Justin looked down into it. “Dark red. There’s considerable distortion. Moisture around the eyes, nose, and mouth,” he said. “No bruises or wounds are readily visible anywhere on the body,” he added.
“Is the tongue extended or pinched between the teeth?” SENTINEL asked.
Justin checked. “No.”
“Information’s here on the dresser,” Fanning said.
“Touch nothing,” SENTINEL advised. “Take the blue bottle and a sterile forceps out of the case,” SENTINEL instructed.
Justin picked the items out of the case. “I’ve got them.”
“Go to the head. With the sterile forceps, pull out several hairs from the nose. Drop them into the solution in the blue bottle,” the voice directed.
Justin followed the instructions. “I’ve done it.”
“Now take out the small paper bags and carefully secure two of them over the hands. Then, place the larger one over the head, securing it gently and loosely, so as not to cause any marks or bruises.”
After several moments that was completed. SENTINEL then instructed them to take samples of the contents of the glass and bottle. Fanning did this, putting the samples into special jars.
“Now go to the schematics. Describe what you see,” SENTINEL instructed.
“There’s a packet of sheets with a plain white cover sheet. They’re bound in the upper left corner by a fastener clip. It’s lying on a formica topped dresser,” Justin described.
“Using a pen or pencil, turn the packet of papers by sliding them until the bound corner is extending just over the edge of the dresser top,” SENTINEL said.
Justin did this. “Done.”
“Now, count the number of pages at the bound corner without touching any of them.”
Justin began counting. He counted twenty-six, including the cover sheet.
“There should be twenty-four sheets,” SENTINEL said.
“I miscounted,” Justin said. He counted them again.
“Goddamn it,” he cursed under his breath. He kept counting twenty-six sheets. He ducked down, looked up at the underside of the clip, and saw the torn fragment held under it. It was big enough to look like a sheet from the angle he had counted them. “Okay, I count twenty-four, twenty-five with the cover sheet,” he said.
“Now take out one of the boxes from the case and unfold it,” SENTINEL instructed. “Use the pencil again to slide the packet into the box, being careful not to touch the sheets in any way. Then bind the box with string.”
“I’m gonna look around outside,” Fanning said. He carefully opened the door, using a pencil put into the opening. He went out and closed the door by using the pencil up under the doorknob, again leaving it open just a crack. The doorknob would be important evidence to the Division Two team coming in.
Justin unfolded the bottom half of the box and was about to unfold the cover when his eyes caught sight of two small scraps of paper on the floor just under the round table near the windows. He went over to them and looked at them closely. He took an envelope from the case and used the pencil to push the pieces into it. He went back over to the packet and ducked down again, holding one of the scraps to the piece under the clip. They looked the same. There had been another sheet. It was of a lighter bond than the schematics, as was the cover sheet. Maybe it was part of a back cover sheet, he thought. But why would it have been torn away?
He took the tweezer he had used to pull the hairs out of Bridges’s nose and removed the scrap from under the clip and put it into the envelope along with the others. He sealed the envelope, folded it, and put it in his pocket. Then he finished unfolding the boxtop, slid the packet into the box, covered it, and secured it with string.
“Information is in the box,” he said.
“A Division Two team will be there shortly. Touch nothing and leave the room,” SENTINEL told him.
Just then the door inched open. Fanning leaned in. “Are you done in here yet?” he asked.
Justin nodded.
Justin followed him out, carefully pulling the door to within a fraction of closing, as his partner had done before.
“What did you find?” Justin asked.
“Found this over by that car,” Fanning said. He held up a key ring on the pencil. “Car’s got a flat tire. The base of the jack was still behind the car, and these keys were just under the trunk area,” he said.
They walked over to the car.
“I know I shouldn’t have touched the keys, but I had a feeling.” He lifted the trunk lid which he had unlocked just moments before. “I found this.”
Justin looked in at the body and inspected the small hole in the head. “That’s no bullet,” he said.
Fanning shook his head. “They’ve been here, all right. This poor sucker probably saw something he shouldn’t have,” he said.
“Cracker Jack to Pilgrim,” their implants suddenly jumped. It was the copter pilot.
“Go ahead, Cracker Jack,” Justin said.
“Subject car, blue Dodge Monaco, had gone into Beloit. Lost sight of it for a while. It’s on its way back your direction now. Want me to stay with him?”
“Affirmative, Cracker Jack. It may be heading for US Seventy-five now. Stay out of the driver’s field of view. If he comes back here, wait about five minutes before setting down.”
“Roger.”
Justin thought for a few moments. “This was a nice neat job,” he said finally.
“Yeah, and we’ll have a devil of a time finding them now. That Division Two team won’t be here for a while,” Fanning said, looking into Justin’s eyes.
They were reading each other clearly.
“Fromme?” Justin asked.
“Fromme,” Fanning returned.
“That was room one fifty-five, wasn’t it?”
Fanning nodded.
“Cracker Jack to Pilgrim,” the pilot’s voice began. “Subject car returning your position.”
“Thank you, Cracker Jack,” Justin said.
“Let’s pay this David Fromme a little visit, shall we?” Justin said. “He may have seen something that can help us.”
