I'd been listening to the argument for over an hour, and the admiral was getting nowhere. They'd come with their minds made up and it looked as if they were going to leave the same way. I just wish they'd get on with it.
"It's all very well for you to talk like a brave Boy Scout, Hank." The voice had a hint of a Southern accent and belonged to a distinguished gent whose name I'd recognized when it was mentioned, who'd emerged as spokesman for the opposition. "The lady doesn't seem to have anything on you. Well, she has something on me. You don't stay in politics thirty years without cutting a few corners. Somehow she knows them all. It's different with you. Politically speaking, you're new and clean, if you'll pardon the description."
"You're wrong there, Senator." Priest's voice was crisp. "How do you think I learned what was going on? I have exactly the same problem as everyone else."
"Such as?"
"I haven't asked you to dump your garbage in public, have I, Senator? But very well, if it will make a difference… It involves this damned real estate development next door. All I knew when I sold to them was that I needed campaign money and had some land, and the company needed land and had some money. I'd just retired from the Navy, I was busy running for office, and I didn't take time to investigate as closely as I might have. Now it turns out that a few political palms were greased here and there; there's even a possibility that my name was used without my permission. If they fire that at me, come election time, I'll have a choice between looking stupid, which I was, or crooked, which I wasn't. So we're all in the same boat; she's got something on all of us. But if we refuse to yield to extortion…"
The senator said dryly, "Then there'll just be a lot of new faces in Washington next year."
"But one of them won't be a harpy named Love, damn it! Not if we all stick together and work to see that she doesn't succeed in blackmailing her way into the highest office in the nation."
"I still say you talk like a Boy Scout, Hank. Maybe you think that's worth your political career. I don't think it's worth mine."
Another voice broke in: "How the devil does she do it, anyway? She's dug up dirt so old I'd even forgotten it myself. She must have an intelligence system that puts the CIA to shame, not that that's so hard to do…
It took him another half-hour to get rid of them. I glanced at my watch, but stayed on the porch sofa where I was. At last, the door to the kitchen opened and the admiral emerged with a glass in each hand.
"I figured you could use a drink about now, son," he said, passing one over.
"Thank you, sir."
"You heard?"
"Yes, sir."
"She must have an intelligence system that puts the CIA to shame!" he mimicked savagely. "Hell, if she hasn't got the CIA, it's about the only intelligence, security, and investigating agency in the country she hasn't got. At least she's got access to their files-and it looks as if just about all of them have been spending less time and money defending the country from danger than snooping into the private affairs of a lot of private, and public, citizens. All the damned woman has to do is call up her tame chief of national security, or whatever he calls himself, Leonard, and tell him to get her something quick on Senator Snodgrass or Congressman Cartwheel-"
"Or Congressman Priest," I said.
He grimaced. "That's right. I was a damned fool, a preoccupied damned fool; and all she had to do was turn Leonard and his computers loose on me and there it was, all neatly stored in one of his agencies' memory banks or whatever you call them! And if you want to know some thing ironical, son, I voted for the damned reorganization bill that put him into power. I thought it was time for a little efficiency. Efficiency!" He shrugged grimly. "Of course I should have checked with Arthur, but it seemed like an innocuous and straightforward proposal, just a little streamlining of a lot of overlapping undercover empires wasting the taxpayers' money by doing the same thing twice…
When he stopped, I asked, "What does Mrs. Love want you to do?"
"Support her nomination at the convention next week, naturally. After she's got that-and the way she's going, she'll get it, all right-she'll undoubtedly think of other little political chores for us to do, if she isn't stopped and stopped soon." He drew a long breath, remembered something, and looked around. "Jarrel said you brought Marty along to listen. I don't know as that was such a good idea, considering that there are some doubts as to the young lady's reliability."
"No, sir," I said.
"What?"
"There are no doubts," I said. "Not any longer."
He regarded me sharply. "What do you mean?"
"You can rest easy, sir. She didn't stay long enough to hear anything interesting," I said. "I think she wanted to, but apparently she was running short of time, so she just stuck me with my own hypodermic, stole your little boat, and disappeared."
His first concern, not surprisingly, was for his boat rather than my health. He looked quickly towards the dock. "She took the Whaler?" Then he frowned quickly. "If she was going to steal a boat, why didn't she take yours? It's bigger and faster."
I said, "You don't see it down there, do you, sir? I didn't bring it. I didn't figure I wanted to lose it, after hauling it clear across the country, so I came by car."
He started to speak angrily. Then he checked himself and drew another long breath. "Arthur said you were clever. And conscienceless."
"I had a good teacher in both subjects, sir."
"You seem to be in reasonable shape for a man who's had a hypodermic needle poked into his hide."
"There was plain water in the hypo," I said. "I emptied the vial yesterday-there wasn't much left-and put in half a cc, enough for one dose, from the tap. One clear, colorless liquid looks pretty much like another."
He said rather grimly, "You had it all figured out, did you, Helm?"
"Pretty, close, I hope. She's a fairly predictable girl in some respects," I said. "She had three problems. The first was obtaining a certain vital piece of information. Well, we fed her that this morning, according to instructions. Your timing was very good, sir, and she couldn't possibly have missed overhearing our little discussion over the chart, although of course she had to go through the motions of pretending that she still had no idea where her daddy was hiding and it was mean and suspicious of me not to tell her. Her second problem was how to slip away from me so she could convey this information to her new friends."
"You're certain she's in touch with Leonard?"
"Yes, sir," I said. "She called a certain number in Washington a few days ago. Obviously, she made some kind of deal with Herbie, and obviously he told her to stick with me and play it cagey until she'd learned exactly where the hideout was located down here. Having got the information this morning, she then had to keep me happy and unsuspicious until she could put me out of action long enough to give herself a good running start. I was sticking too close for her just to walk out the door; I'd have been on the trail too soon."
"How did you know she'd use the drug on you, instead of something more drastic and permanent?"
I shrugged. "I've just been through a crash course in Martha Borden, sir. I ought to be able to guess her reactions by this time. She could have tried to steal my gun or borrow one from Leonard, of course, but she doesn't believe in shooting people, and guns are pretty noisy, anyway. She could have got the billy I've been using in the boat to keep big fish from flopping all over the cockpit, but knocking a man on the head would be, I figured, another act of violence against her principles. She'd seen me use the drug kit twice. She'd seen me put it away in a secret compartment in my suitcase. There really wasn't much doubt about what weapon she'd pick if 1 made it easy for her. Her final problem was transportation. I gave her a choice between my car and your boat. She picked the boat. That means her rendezvous with Leonard is close to the water or on it; perhaps another boat. Unless she sinks the Whaler-"
"She'd have to fill it with rocks. They're practically unsinkable."
"Then by this time-she's been gone a couple of hours already-it's probably drifting or anchored or pulled up on shore somewhere not too far away. You shouldn't have too much trouble finding it."
"And Marty? Does your crystal ball tell you where she is, Helm?"
He wasn't liking me much; he wasn't calling me "son" any more. I said, "I'd guess she's with Leonard and his undercover army-well, navy-on the way to Cutlass Key, sir."
"Not in the dark. She knows these waters pretty well, but not well enough to run them at night."
"If you're sure of that, sir, we've got more time than I figured. I was worried that they were getting too much of a start on us."
"Well, she's been in there, but not recently, and it's not an easy area to navigate from memory. In daylight, she should be able to make it if she takes her time and kind of feels her way, but at night she'll run them aground for sure, or get them good and lost in that labyrinth of islands. I think she's smart enough to know it." Priest hesitated. "Do you really believe she'll take them there, son?"
I was back in favor again. "Yes, sir," I said.
"I can't believe she'd betray her own father!"
I said, "You don't understand idealism as practiced currently, sir. Personal loyalties and relationships simply don't count, when you're saving humanity as a whole from evil men like Mac and me and from the callous and ruthless philosophy of violence we represent."
"What about Leonard's callous and ruthless philosophy?"
"That's the big flaw in their idealistic reasoning," I said grimly. "They invariably seem to figure that if one side is bad, the other must be good. Well, we'll have to see if we can't demonstrate to Miss Borden that we're all equally dreadful in this horrible world." I drew a long breath. "Where's Jarrel White, and what kind of equipment have you got for me?"
Priest said, "There's a rifle, some cartridges, and an aerosol can of insect repellant. I can lend you a flashlight if you need it."
"There's one on the boat. Is the rifle more or less sighted in, I hope? Never mind, it's bound to be. Mac would know I wouldn't be able to do any last-minute target shooting around here." I grimaced. "There's nothing I love like taking off on a job in the dark, with a strange guide, and an unfamiliar weapon that's been adjusted by somebody else!"
"I can tell you one thing, son; no matter how much shooting you do with the gun, you'll do more with the spray can. At night, the bugs will eat you alive. I'll get Jarrell and the gear."