“And he’ll send his telegram, and then he’ll hurry back to the cave where everything is ready and waiting; including the vials of toxin. In other words, chose to hit him when he’s not carrying anything quite so deadly on his person.”
Fenrek said sourly: “You’ve just lost us every chance we ever had of taking that man.”
Well, that was an attitude I’d expected, and I told him so as gently as possible. I said: “I didn’t think you’d go along with my reasoning, or I’d have invited you in on the deal. But take my word for it, a man like Loveless, a man whose fight is against everything you and I stand for...we’ve got to take him when he’s defenseless, or we’ll all go down in flames together.”
“You’re working on assumptions instead of certainties.”
“On likelihoods instead of facts, they’re always better propositions.”
He looked worried and said: “I hate everything about it. Its so...so dammed...”
“Tenuous?”
“The only word for it. Histermann said he had four ounces of that toxin. Suppose he’s got more cached away, that no one else knows about? We get Loveless with the stuff he’s carrying, and unknown to us there’s another little store of it somewhere. Then, one day, a child finds a hidden bottle and opens it, what then? It could be five years from now, Or fifty, even.”
“Yes, I know that. That’s the one hole left that’s got to be plugged. At whatever the cost.”
“And no doubt you know just how to plug it?” Thinking ahead of me again, he stared at me, shocked. He said quietly: “No. It would never work, not once in a million years.”
I said: “It will. I’ve got to make it work, somehow. I’m going to talk to Loveless, undisturbed by a hundred policemen crowding the beaches and giving the game away.”
Estrilla was toying with the stem of her glass, smiling quietly. I could feel Astrid’s pale eyes on me.
Fenrek said brusquely: “Out of the question, Cain.”
“I’m going to talk with him and find out exactly that—if there’s any more of it lying around. It’s something we’ve got to know because, if we don’t...the whole thing, all the trouble we’ve gone to...it can all fall apart at the seams and put us back where we started, only more so. And this is the only way to do it.”
For a long time Fenrek said nothing. I could hear the wheels turning over and over in his mind, agreeing with this, discarding that, checking something else, and finally coming up with undeniable truth that there was no other way about it. But he made a half-hearted attempt, none the less. He said:
“When we get him, sodium pentothal would give us the truth about that.”
“Perhaps. But unhappily, pentothal is not absolutely infallible. Under the influence of any of the so-called truth drugs, there’s one chance in a hundred that he’d be able to hold back just a little bit. His subconscious fighting against his conscious will and winning out. I really wouldn’t like to take even that small chance. If he said: no, there’s no more, while in a pentothal-induced coma, you know damn well that we’d never be absolutely sure, not as long as we live. We’d be worrying forever about that child reaching out for that bottle. But if he says it while he’s wide awake and at his most alert, I’ll know whether to believe him or not.”
“And if you don’t?”
“If I don’t...then we’re back to square one. But let’s take one thing at a time. The stakes are too damned high for anything else. One careful step at a time.”
“All right,” he sighed. “Just one man on the beach to make sure you come out of there alive.”
“No.”
He pleaded with me. “On the top of the cliff then.”
“No.”
“God dammit, my men aren’t going to show themselves, you know that!”
“To Loveless? To an animal from the bush? He’ll smell them if they get within a hundred miles of him.”
“No he won’t, he’s cooped up in a cave a hundred feet below the road. If I’m to take all your goddamn likelihoods for truths.”
“And there’ll be a man on the beach, or at the top, just where you want to put your man, with a walkie-talkie, in contact with his commanding officer. We’ve got one of his men, but he’s still got Van Reck, remember? And that’s all he needs. He’ll have Van Beck posted outside the cave to keep watch, he’s bound to. He’ll see me go in, but I’m damned if want him to see anything else.”
“And Loveless will be waiting with a shotgun blast.”
“No. He’ll have to find out what I’m up to. He’ll have to.”
He was about to argue some more, but he gave up. The Maître came over and whispered in his ear, and Fenrek excused himself. I wondered if he had a couple of cards up his sleeve too, but I merely looked at him.
He said briefly: “The telephone.”
“Do me a favor while you’re on your feet. Check the wind for me, will you? It should be dying down about now.”
He nodded and was gone.
Astrid said quietly: “If he really is down there, he’ll never let you get away alive. He tried to kill us once, remember? Both of us.”
“I remember. And he’ll probably try again. But it’s the third time that’s always lucky, not the second.”
Estrilla said somberly: “I hope you know what you’re doing, Mr. Cain. I hope you’ve got a way picked out, a way to get out of there when the time comes.”
I said glumly: “I haven’t, as a matter of fact. But there’s not really an alternative, is there?”
And there wasn’t. I’d have to play it off the cuff again, but that’s not as messy a business as some people think. If you keep your wits about you, you’d be surprised at the unexpected advantages which are liable to show themselves. And if your plan’s too tight, you can’t make those advantages pay off, because they’re not part of the pre-arranged pattern.
Astrid looked at me unhappily and said: “He’ll put you down among the lobsters again, and this time I won’t be there to get you out.”
Fenrek hurried back to the table, livid with suppressed fury. He said grimly: “Two more deaths at Loveless’ door, Cain!” When I said nothing, he exploded: “Histermann. He’s escaped. Two men guarding him, and he killed both of them. God damn their eyes, I told them...”
