Night Probe! - Cussler Clive (онлайн книги бесплатно полные txt) 📗

Shaw got the picture. "When does my plane leave and where am I going?"

"You depart for Los Angeles in forty minutes. Here is your ticket and boarding pass."

"Shall we discuss it?"

"Of course." Burton-Angus took Shaw by the arm. "I suggest we talk while mingling with the crowd. Makes it difficult for an eavesdropper, human or electronic."

Shaw nodded in understanding. "Been in the service long?"

"General Simms recruited me six years ago." Burton-Angus steered him to the book section of a gift shop. "You know of my involvement with your job."

"I read the report. You're the chap who discovered the first clue to the treaty from the Senate historian."

"Jack Murphy." Burton-Angus nodded.

"Were you able to get any more information out of him?" Shaw asked.

"General Simms thought it best not to press him. I told Murphy London had no record of the treaty."

"He bought it?"

"He had no reason not to."

"So we write Murphy off and begin somewhere else," said Shaw.

"The reason you're going to Los Angeles," Burton-Angus told him. "Murphy became aware of the treaty when a naval officer, a woman, made an inquiry. He found an old photograph and made her a copy. One of our people burglarized his office and scanned the file on research requests. The only female naval officer whose name appeared was a Lieutenant Commander Heidi Milligan."

"Any chance of reaching her?"

"Commander Milligan is communications officer on board an amphibious landing transport vessel bound for the Indian Ocean. It sailed from San Diego two hours ago."

Shaw stopped. "With Milligan out of reach, where does that leave us?"

"Fortunately, her ship, the U.S. S. Arvada, is under orders to lay over in Los Angeles harbor for three days. Something to do with modifications to the automated steering system."

They walked on. Shaw looked at the lieutenant with a growing respect. "You're very well informed."

"Part of the job." Burton-Angus shrugged modestly. "The Americans have few secrets from the British."

"That's a comforting thought."

Burton- Angus flushed slightly. "We better move along to the concourse. Your plane departs at gate twenty-two."

"Since there's been a change of plan," said Shaw, "I'd be interested in learning my new instructions."

"I thought it obvious," Burton-Angus replied. "You have approximately seventy-two hours to find out what Commander Milligan knows."

"I'll need help."

"After you've settled into your hotel, you'll be contacted by a Mr. Graham Humberly, a rather well-heeled Rolls-Royce dealer. He'll arrange for you to meet Commander Milligan."

"He'll arrange for me to meet Commander Milligan," Shaw repeated, his tone sarcastic.

"Why, yes," said Burton-Angus, momentarily taken back by Shaw's evident skepticism. "Humberly is a former British subject. The man cultivates an enormous channel of important contacts, particularly in the U.S. Navy."

"And he and I are going to march up the gangplank of an American naval vessel, waving the Union Jack and whistling "Brittania rules the waves," and demand to interrogate a ship's officer."

"If anybody can do it, Humberly can," Burton-Angus said resolutely.

Shaw drew deeply on his cigarette and stared at the lieutenant.

"Why me?" he asked stonily.

"The way I understand it, Mr. Shaw, you were once the most able operative in the service. You know your way around Americans. Also, Humberly is planning on introducing you as a British businessman, an old friend from his Royal Navy days who also achieved fleet rank. Naturally, you're the right age."

"Sounds logical."

"General Simms is not expecting miracles. But we've got to go through the motions. The best we can hope from Milligan is that she proves to be a stepping-stone."

"One more time," Shaw said. "Why me?"

Burton- Angus stopped and looked up at the televised departure schedules. "Your plane is on time. Here are your tickets. Don't worry about the luggage. It's been taken care of."

"I assumed as much."

"Well I guess what it came down to was your past record of ah…... shall we say, successful dealings with members of the opposite sex. General Simms thought it an asset. Of course, the fact that Commander Milligan recently had an intimate affair with an admiral twice her age rolled the dice in your favor."

Shaw gave him a withering stare. "Just goes to show what you've got to look forward to someday, laddy."

"Nothing personal." Burton-Angus smiled wanly. "You say you've been in the service six years?"

"And four months, to be more precise."

"Did they teach you how to detect a surveillance blind?"

Burton- Angus' eyes narrowed questioningly. "The class was mandatory. Why do you ask?"

"Because you flunked," Shaw said. He let it sink in a moment and then tilted his head to the left. "The man with the metal attachd case, staring innocently at his watch. He's been glued to us since we left the customs exit. Also, the stewardess in the Pan American uniform about twenty feet behind. Her airline is on another concourse. She's his backup. They'll have a third eye lurking ahead of us. I haven't fixed him yet."

Burton- Angus visibly paled. "Not possible," he muttered. "They can't be on to us."

Shaw turned and showed his ticket and passed it to the girl at the boarding entrance. Then he refaced the lieutenant.

"It would seem," he said in his best sardonic voice, "that the British have few secrets from the Americans."

He left Burton-Angus standing there looking like a drowning man.

Shaw sat back in his seat, relaxed, and felt in the mood for champagne. The stewardess brought him two small bottles with plastic glasses. The labels said California. He would have preferred a Tattinger, brut reserve vintage. California bubbly and plastic glasses, he mused. Would the Americans ever become civilized?

After he had polished off one bottle, he took stock. The CIA had put the finger on him the instant he boarded the plane in England, just as he knew General Simms knew they would.

Shaw was worried not at all. He operated better when things were out in the open. Skulking around alleys like an unperson was never to his liking. He felt exhilarated to be doing what he had once done so well. His senses had not left him-a shade slower perhaps, but still sharp enough. He Was playing his kind of game and he reveled in it.

The dingy gas station stood on a corner in the industrial outskirts of Ottawa. Erected soon after the Second World War, it was a square steel structure with one island containing three gas pumps that were scarred from years of hard use and badly in need of new paint. Inside the office, cans of oil and mummified flies littered dusty shelves while the windows, streaked with grime, displayed faded signs advertising some long forgotten tire sale.

Henri Villon turned his Mercedes-Benz sedan in over the driveway and stopped at the pumps. An attendant in grease stained coveralls stepped out from under a car on the lube rack and approached, wiping his hands on a rag. "What'll it be?" he asked with a bored expression.

"Fill it, please," answered Villon.

The attendant eyed an elderly man and woman sitting on a nearby bus bench, and then spoke in a tone they could not fail to overhear. "Five gallons is the government limit, you know, the oil shortage being what it is."