Thin Air (36 page)

The phone rang again and it was Gault's secretary. "You're wanted for a meeting in Mr. Smith's office at 1100, Commander."

Hammond decided they wanted a report on his activities last night. Fine. He would take Yablonski along and hit the Navy Yard afterwards.

Hammond didn't wait around for Jan to wake up. He and Yablonski had to get rolling fast. It was Saturday morning and the traffic on the Dulles Access Highway would be heavy. At the door, Mrs. Yablonski straightened her husband's bomber jacket, took his face in both her hands, and kissed him warmly on the lips before she let him go.

Hammond followed him to the car and took the wheel. As they pulled out of Merlin's Way, Yablonski seemed uncommonly determined.

"What is this, Cas
, Commandoes Die at Dawn
? Why are you and your wife so solemn?"

Yablonski was silent a moment, then he said, "I had a dream last night...."

Hammond stiffened. "About the
Sturman?
Yablonski nodded. "Same dream as always?"

"No. Some of it was. Becoming invisible, being frightened, the blackness...."
      

"What was different about it?"

"I kept seeing McCarthy everywhere I looked." He shivered convulsively.

"That sounds like a normal paranoid nightmare."

"We're going to meet them today, Hammond," Yablonski said quickly. "We're going to be right in the middle, just you and me."

"Part of your dream?"

Yablonski shook his head. "It's going to happen. I don't know how, but it's going to be today."

Hammond drove silently, then asked, "How many of them do you figure there are?"

"I don't know."

"Take a guess. I'd like to know how many bad guys we'll be fighting off."

Yablonski's mouth clamped shut and he looked away.

"Bloch could have minions by the carload. What do you think?" Hammond persisted.

Yablonski shrugged.

"Personally, I think it's a small organization. Bloch, Traben, Coogan, McCarthy, and a handful of others—maybe a dozen at most in on the whole plot. Everybody else, including Admiral Corso and that international gang of scientists at MTL, knows only what they need to know."

He glanced over and saw Yablonski looking at him again. "Engineers work on projects in bits and pieces, like at an automobile assembly plant. Except at MTL I doubt if they get to see the final product. It's just a matter of Traben telling his crew they're developing a top-secret project for the Navy,
so
secret they can't even be told what it is."

"Are you telling me everybody out there is innocent except the top dogs?"

"Probably."

"What makes you so sure?"

Hammond concentrated on passing a truck, then said, "From 1955 on, these guys have been jzery busy trying to Emit the number of people who knew what was going on. I can't see them risking that knowledge today in the hands of a large, far-flung organization. These are not supers villains with a thousand men at their command, all wearing neatly pressed space-age uniforms and carrying advanced laser weapons. That's comic-book time. This is a close-knit band of very determined, very vicious, and, I suspect, very greedy human beings. Why else did they send McCarthy out to get me? Your fucking
psychiatrist,
for God's sake! Why was
he
the hatchet man?"

Yablonski swallowed. "Because they couldn't risk sending anybody else?"

"Exactly. With their unique mode of transportation, they can minimize the risk of exposure by having their key people do everything. Since they can teleport anywhere there's a receiving station, they only need one or two assassins—at the most."

"What about the two creeps who tried to get us?"

"Paid muscle. Those two and a few others make up the inner circle."

"Paid and ignorant, Hammond? Good guess, but—"

"Damned right it's a good guess. But do you see the implication? If we flush those four key people out in the open, force them to tip their hand—!" He calmed down. "You're right," he said quietly. "We will be in the middle—very soon. But it might not be today."

Yablonski gazed out the window at the traffic whizzing by.

"Yes, it will," he said.

When they arrived at the Pentagon, it became clear that the conference with Smitty wasn't going to be any ordinary staff meeting. Ensign Just-Ducky came right to the point: "Admiral Corso, Admiral Gault, and Mr. Smith are waiting for you."

Hammond hurried back to his cubicle with Yablonski. He closed the door and uneasily changed into a fresh uniform.

Yablonski watched him from his chair. "Are they gonna bite your head off?"

"Funny," grumbled Hammond. "That's the feeling I always get when, I'm called to a meeting with no agenda." He grabbed his tie and fumbled with it, heading for the door.

"Knock 'em dead, kid," Yablonski said casually.

Hammond threw him some papers from a stack on his file cabinet. "Reading matter. Enjoy yourself."

"What is this?"

"Re-enlistment forms."

Yablonski was tearing them in half as Hammond banged out the door. He found Andrews in the coffee room and asked him to watch Yablonski. "And don't let anyone near him," he added.

Two minutes later, Hammond was standing in Smitty's waiting room, pacing in apprehension. The door opened and Admiral Gault stepped out, closing it partially behind him.

"Nicky," he whispered, "we may have to act for a while as if you're on the spot, okay?"

Hammond blinked.
"Act?"

Gault smiled, then set his face into a properly somber expression and propelled Hammond into the office.

Smitty didn't rise. He sat behind his desk walruslike, benign and inscrutable. But Admiral Lawrence J. Corso, USN Retired, bounced up from the leather sofa and stood at parade rest. Hammond looked at him carefully. He was an older man, well dressed in a tweed suit and brown bow tie. He seemed powerful. His head was shorn to an iron-gray crewcut. His eyes were blue and piercing, set in a face of uncompromising strength; the tight flesh seemed to stretch back to his ears, giving him a stern, masklike expression. He was an Airedale: a tiny set of Naval Aviator's wings were pinned to his lapel. His eyes flicked to Hammond's wings in a moment of silent reproach. If the Navy permitted, undoubtedly he would have worn his uniform.

The introductions were carried out by Gault, who quickly took the chair on Smitty's left, consigning Hammond to the one in the center of the room, allowing Corso to circle him like a prosecutor stalking his witness.

"All right, Admiral, it's your show," said Smitty.

Corso wasted no time getting to the point "Commander Hammond," he said, "I made what I felt was a legitimate request of Admiral Gault with respect to your investigations into MTL. Yesterday, your superior assured me you would comply with my request. Now, to my dismay, I find that you are continuing to badger and accuse innocent parties without cause. Mr. Bloch was quite upset about the direction your conversation took last night, and very much so by the fact that you searched his house without permission. He resents your intrusions and, I must say, so do I."

"Admiral—" Hammond cleared his throat. "I resent the attempts on my life."

Gault said nothing. He was watching Corso. Smitty made a low, noncommittal noise in his throat but sat with his hands pyramided.

Corso stopped pacing and stood in front of Hammond, his back to Smitty. "Let's get one thing straight, mister, the people I represent have no connection whatsoever with any attempts at foul play. They simply would not use those methods! Why in the world do you think
I'm
here?"

"Because
they
failed three times."

Corso went off like a skyrocket. "How dare you make such unsupported accusations? How dare you!"

Hammond was quiet for a moment. Then, in as calm a voice as he could muster, he listed his reasons: "I have the assassin's .45 in my possession. I have his phony ID. There's an Air Force staff car in New Mexico filled with bullet holes. A former associate of Dr. Traben got himself charcoal-broiled because he talked to me. There's a man in my office who was attacked along with me by two goons in a phony mugging. The FBI stopped a housebreaking in Los Angeles before
it
became a murder. And the person responsible for most of this was seen at Bloch's house last night, fifteen minutes after he tried to kill me!"

Hammond looked to Gault for support, but the admiral was motionless. Hammond stiffened. Was this going to be the final head-chopping party? Had he gone too far?

"That's impossible!" bellowed Corso, beginning to circle Hammond. "You're paranoid, Commander. Where is your proof? This assassin—can you prove he works for Mr. Bloch or Dr. Traben?"

Hammond quietly informed him about Coogan and his secret warning system at BUPERS.

Corso laughed at him. "Are Joe Coogan's fingerprints on those files?"

Hammond hesitated.

"Did you fingerprint the files?"

Hammond shook his head. Corso clucked with contempt "You fail to employ ordinary police methods in your investigation. You would rather depend on your own leaps in judgment!"

"It doesn't take much leaping to know when you're being shot at," said Hammond.

"Or unfairly accused of doing the shooting!" Corso shouted in Hammond's face. Then he walked around behind the chair. "On the face of it, Commander, I think you're the worst investigator I've ever met in my life," Corso concluded, flinging sympathetic looks at Smitty and Gault.

Neither of them denied his statement.

"Commander Hammond," he said, circling again, "the people you are so bent on persecuting are developing something for the Navy that you will one day be extremely grateful for—"

"That may be, sir, but what I think they're developing isn't what
you
think they're developing."

"It's vital!" Corso yelled. "And you're a damned fool for trying to jeopardize it!" He whirled to Smitty. "This whole discussion is of course unofficial. I don't want to have to carry it any higher." He glanced at Hammond. "Don't make me."

The next move was Smitty's. He didn't budge from his chair. He simply turned a bit to face Corso. His voice rolled out quiet and relaxed. "Larry," he said, "I'm afraid I don't share your assessment of Commander Hammond's capabilities. All told, I think he's handled himself fairly well. As for the persecution of innocent parties, Commander Hammond entered this case on a perfectly legitimate basis and, whether or not the attempts on his life really occurred in the manner he says, the fact remains that several people have died in the course of his investigation—"
      

"All the more reason—!"

"May I finish?"
 

Corso turned red, then nodded.

"Now, Larry," said Smitty, "you were in the Navy long enough to know that we don't take kindly to threats, real or implied. If anything should happen to my good friend Nicky here—if he should fall up a flight of stairs or step in front of a bullet—I'll know the first place to look. And you know how embarrassing it can get to be hauled up in front of your peers to explain yourself. By the way, my contribution to this discussion is
strictly
official. And I don't
have
to carry it any higher."

Corso stared at him, paralyzed with disbelief. "I see," he said finally. With a dirty glance at Gault, he walked out.

The door closed and Hammond sagged in relief. "Thanks for the support," he said to Smitty."

"He's not entirely out of order, Nick. You haven't any proof that Bloch and Traben are behind these murder attempts."

Hammond stood up. "Well, sir, am I supposed to get killed before we...?" He spread his hands.

"Nick," said Gault, "they
are
working on a top-secret Navy project. If we blow them wide open before they finish it, it will throw a cloud over everything and it certainly won't advance our careers."

Hammond frowned. "Has it occurred to either of you that Bloch and Traben may have sold the Navy a bill of goods? Has anybody seen this secret guidance system?"

"Not yet" said Smitty.

"And I'll bet you never will. They need the time and the money to complete something else!"

Smitty grunted and got to his feet. "They are scheduled to deliver a satellite package containing the guidance system to Vandenburg Air Force Base in exactly four weeks. If we disrupt their forward momentum, they'll flush it down the toilet along with whatever hanky-panky they're up to."

"Well, what are we going to do?" asked Hammond. "Sit back and let them have their way?"

"We'll do what's best for the Navy," said Smitty.

"Sir, they've got assassins capable of. disappearing
at will! Is that good for the Navy? Last night, Dr. McCarthy attacked me at home. He got away by pressing something on the back of his neck and vanishing right in front of my eyes! You want to talk about weapons systems? This guy is a one-man task force! All he has to do is get into a place—he's got a built-in getaway! Do you want
that
in private hands?"