Operation Moon Rocket (3 page)

Don Lee arrived with a fresh martini. "Would you like to order now?"

"Perhaps my young friend would," said Hawk, speaking with exaggerated care. "I'm fine." He glanced at the menu that Lee held in front of him. "It's all glorified chop suey to me, Lee. You know that."

"I can have a steak ready for you in five minutes, Mr. Byrd."

"That sounds good to me," said Nick. "Make it rare."

"All right, two," Hawk snapped testily. When Lee had gone, he asked suddenly, "Of what earthly use is the moon?" Nick noticed that his S's were beginning to slur. Hawk drunk? Unheard of — yet he gave every indication. Martinis weren't his drink. One scotch and water before dinner was his usual fare. Had the deaths of the three astronauts somehow gotten under that grizzled old skin?

"The Russians know," Hawk said, without waiting for an answer. "They know minerals will be found there unknown to students of this planet's rocks. They know that if nuclear war destroys our technology, it will never recover because the raw materials that would enable a new civilization to evolve have been exhausted. But the moon — its a great floating ball of raw, unknown resources. And mark my words," space treaty or no, the first power to land there will eventually control all of it!"

Nick sipped his drink. Had he been dragged away from his vacation to attend a lecture on the importance of the moon program? When Hawk finally paused, Nick said quickly, "Where do we fit into all of this?"

Hawk glanced up, surprised. Then he said, "You've been on vacation. I forgot. When was your last briefing?"

"Eight days ago."

"Then you haven't heard that the Cape Kennedy fire was sabotage?"

"No, the radio reports didn't mention that."

Hawk shook his head. "The public doesn't know yet Perhaps they never will. There's been no final decision on that as yet."

"Any idea who did it?"

"It's quite definite. Man named Patrick Hammer. He was the gantry-crew chief..."

Nick's eyebrows rose. "The news reports are still touting him as the hero of the whole affair."

Hawk nodded. "The investigators narrowed it down to him in a matter of hours. He asked for police protection. But before they could get to his house he killed his wife and three children and put his head in the oven." Hawk took a long swig of his martini. "Very messy," he muttered. "He slit their throats, then wrote a confession on the wall with their blood. Said he'd planned the whole thing so he could be a hero, but that he couldn't live with himself and didn't want his family to live with the shame of it, either."

"Very thoughtful of him," said Nick dryly.

They were silent while the waiter served their steaks. When he had gone away Nick said, "I still don't see where we enter the picture. Or is there more?"

"There is," said Hawk. "There's the airplane crash that killed the Gemini 9 crew a few years ago, the first Apollo disaster, the loss of the SV-5D re-entry vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base last June. There's the explosion of the J2A rocket test facility in the Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tennessee in February, and there are the dozens of other accidents that have been logged in since the project began. The FBI, NASA Security, and now even the CIA, have been investigating each of them and they've reached the conclusion that most, perhaps all, are the result of sabotage."

Nick picked silently at his steak, mulling it over. "Hammer couldn't have been in all those places at once," he said finally.

"Exactly. And that last message he scrawled — strictly a red herring. Hammer used the hurricane shelter of his bungalow as a workshop. Before killing himself, he soaked the place in gasoline. He apparently hoped a spark from the doorbell would ignite the escaping gas and blow the whole house up. It didn't, though, and certain incriminating evidence has been found. Microdots with instructions from someone using the code name
Sol,
photographs, scale models of the capsule's life-support system with the pipe he was to cut painted in red. And — interestingly enough — a card from this restaurant with a notation on the back that read:
Sol, midnight, 3/21."

Nick glanced up, surprised. In that case, what in hell were they doing here, dining so placidly, talking so openly? He had assumed they were in a "safe house" or, at the very least, in a carefully "neutralized" zone.

Hawk watched him impassively. "The Bali Hai's cards are not given out lightly," he said. "You have to ask for one, and if you're someone of little importance, chances are you won't get it. So how did a $15,000-a-year space technician end up with one?"

Nick looked past him, seeing the restaurant through new eyes. Alert, professional eyes that missed nothing, that probed for the elusive element in the pattern round him, something disturbing, not quite within reach. He had noticed it earlier but thinking they were in a safe house, he had dismissed it from his mind.

Hawk signaled the waiter. "Have the
maitre d'
step over here a minute, please," he said. He took a photograph from his pocket and showed it to Nick. "This is our friend Pat Hammer," he said. Don Lee appeared and Hawk handed the photo to him. "Recognize this man?" he asked.

Lee studied it a moment. "Sure, Mr. Byrd, I remember him. He was in here about a month ago. With a gorgeous Chinese chick." He winked broadly. "That's how I remember him."

"I take it he got in with no difficulty. Is that because he had a card?"

"No. Because of the girl," said Lee. "Joy Sun. She's been here before. She's an old friend, as a matter of fact. She's some kind of scientist up at Cape Kennedy."

"Thanks, Lee. I won't detain you."

Nick stared at Hawk in amazement. The controlling hand of AXE, troubleshooting arm of the American security forces — a man responsible only to the National Security Council, the Secretary of Defense and the President of the United States — had just conducted that interrogation with all the subtlety of a third-rate divorce detective!

Had Hawk turned into a security risk? Nick's mind suddenly tensed with alarm — was the man opposite him actually Hawk? When the waiter brought them their coffee, Nick said casually, "Could we have more light here?" The waiter nodded, pressing a hidden button on the wall. Soft light fell across them. Nick glanced at his superior. "They ought to give out miners' lamps when you come in," he smiled.

The leathery old man chuckled. A match flickered, casting a brief glow across his face. It was Hawk, all right. The pungent smoke from the malodorous cigar settled
that
with finality. "Dr. Sun is already a prime suspect," Hawk said, blowing out the match. "You'll be filled in on her background by the CIA investigator with whom you'll be working..."

Nick wasn't listening. A tiny glow had gone out with the match. A glow that hadn't been there earlier. He glanced down, to his left. It was faintly visible now that they had extra light — a spider-thin wire running along the edge of the banquette. Nick's eye quickly followed it, searching for the obvious outlet. The wrought-iron pineapple. He tugged at it. It wouldn't give. It was bolted to the center of the table. He dipped his right index finger into the bottom half, felt the cold metal grating under the fake candle wax.
A remote pickup mike.

He scribbled two words —
We're bugged
— on the inside cover of his matches and pushed them across the table. Hawk read the message and nodded blandly. "Now the thing is," he said, "we absolutely
have
to get one of our people into the moon program. So far we've been unsuccessful. But I have an idea..."

Nick stared at him. He was still staring in disbelief ten minutes later when Hawk glanced at his watch and said, "Well, that about covers it I've got to be going. Why don't you stay awhile and enjoy yourself? You're going to be pretty busy for the next few days." He stood up and nodded in the direction of the discotheque. "Things are beginning to warm up in there. Looks rather interesting — if I were a younger man, of course."

Nick felt something slide under his fingertips. It was a card. He glanced up. Hawk had turned away and was moving toward the entrance, waving goodbye to Don Lee. "More coffee, sir?" asked the waiter.

"No, I think I'll have a drink at the bar." Nick lifted the edge of his hand slightly as the waiter retreated. The message was in Hawk's handwriting.
CIA operative will contact you here,
it read.
Recogphrase: ''What are you doing here in May? The season's over." Reply: "Social, maybe. Not hunting." Counter-reply: "Mind if I join you
—
for the hunting, that is?"
Beneath this, Hawk had written:
Card water-soluble. Make contact with Wash. h.q. no later than midnight tonight.

Nick slipped the card into his water glass, watched it dissolve, then got up and sauntered into the bar area. He ordered a double scotch. Through the glass partition he could see the cream of Palm Beach's youth writhing spasmodically to the distant roar of drums, electric bass and guitar.

Suddenly the music grew louder. A girl had just come though the glass door from the discotheque. She was a blonde — pretty, fresh-looking, slightly out of breath from dancing. She had that special look about her that spelled money and breeding. She wore olive-green hip-huggers, a midriff blouse and sandals, and she had a glass in her hand.

"I just
know
you're going to forget Daddy's orders and slip some real rum into my cola this time," she said to the bartender. Then she noticed Nick at the end of the bar and did an elaborate double-take. "Why, hello there!" she smiled brightly. "I didn't recognize you at first. What are you doing here in May? The season's practically over..."

Her name was Candace Weatherall Sweet — Candy for short — and she completed the recognition exchange with breezy self-confidence.

Now they sat facing each other across a table the size of a top hat in the bar area. "Daddy wouldn't be a certain General Sweet, would he?" Nick asked grimly. "Member of the Belle Glade Club, who likes his martinis extra dry?"

She laughed. "A perfect description." She had a beautiful face, with wide-apart, deep-blue eyes under lashes paled by the sun. "They call him General, but he's really retired," she added. "He's a high muckamuck in the CIA now. He was in the OSS during the war, didn't know what to do with himself afterwards. The Sweets don't go into business, of course — just government or public service."

"Of course." Nick was seething inside. He'd been saddled with an amateur, a debutante looking for excitement on her summer vacation. Not just any debutante, either — but Candy Sweet, who'd made headlines two summers earlier when a party she'd thrown at her parents' East Hampton home had degenerated into an orgy of drugs, sex and vandalism.

"How old are you, anyway?" he asked.

"Almost twenty."

"And you're still not allowed to drink?"

She flashed him a quick smile. "Us Sweets are kind of allergic to the stuff."

Nick looked at her glass. It was empty, and he'd seen the bartender pour her a substantial slug. "I get the picture," he said, and added abruptly, "shall we go?"

He didn't know where, but he wanted out. Out of the Bali Hai, out of the whole case. It stank. It was dangerous. It had no shape. Nothing you could grab it by. And here he was in the middle of it without even a decent cover — and with a flighty, cotton-headed young deb in tow.

Outside, on the sidewalk, she said, "Let's walk." Nick told the parking attendant to hold off on the car and they started down Worth. "The beach is lovely at dusk," she said enthusiastically.

As soon as they were past the Colony Hotel's mustard yellow awning, they both spoke at once — "The place was bugged." She laughed and said, "Do you want to see the setup?" Her eyes were shining with excitement. She looked like a kid who'd just stumbled on a secret passageway. He nodded, wondering what he was in for now.

She turned down a cute yellow-brick alleyway lined with even cuter antique shops, then made another quick right into a patio hung with plastic grapes and bananas, picking her way through a shadowy maze of upended tables to a grillwork gate. Quietly she swung it open and pointed to a man standing in front of a short length of cyclone fence. He was facing the other way, studying his nails. "The rear of the Bali Hai's parking lot," she whispered. "He's on duty until morning."

Without a word of warning she was off, her sandaled feet making no sound as she moved swiftly across the open stretch of palazzo tiles. It was too late to stop her. All Nick could do was follow. She moved in toward the fence, edging along it, her back flat against it. When she was six feet away the man suddenly turned, looked up.

She moved with blurred, catlike speed, one foot hooking behind his ankle, the other driving for his knee. He went down flat on his back as if snatched backwards by a coiled spring. As the breath exploded from his lungs her sandaled foot swung with controlled force to the side of his head.

Nick watched with awe. A perfect
coup de savate.
He kneeled beside the man, felt his pulse. Irregular but strong. He'd live, but he would be out for at least half an hour.

Candy had already dodged through the fence-gate and was halfway across the parking lot. Nick followed her, She stopped in front of a metal-surfaced access door at the rear of the Bali Hai, reached into the back pocket of her hip-huggers and pulled out a plastic credit card. Gripping the door handle, she pushed it hard toward the hinges and slid the card in until it caught the curve of the spring-loaded lock. It clicked back with a sharp metallic snap. She opened the door and stepped in, grinning mischievously over her shoulder as she said, "Daddy's money will get you in anywhere."

They were in the back hallway of the discotheque. Nick could hear the distant thunder of amplified drums and guitars. They tiptoed past an open doorway. He glanced in, saw a gleaming kitchen with a couple of undershirted Chinese sweating at the clipper. The next door they came to was marked "Little Boys." Farther back was a door marked "Little Girls." She pushed this one open and stepped in. Nick hesitated. "Come
on!"
she hissed. "Don't be an exhaust. It's empty."