Run, Spy, Run

Hawk allowed himself an inspection. "Not enough. Crew. You're going to be the young college type."

Nick groaned. "What next?"

"Next you'll do the talking. What else do you have for me?"

Carter told him about his conversation with Hadway House while his eyes searched for a hot dog man. This morning he had been to the barber and then called Max Dillman in London. Max had confirmed everything Rita had said, adding that she was a damn fine girl and that it was a bloody awful thing, about Steve. He had met them both through the travel business and she had come to him with her heartbreak after the explosion that took Steve's life. Certainly, it had been an explosion. They'd tried to pin a drunk charge on him at the hearing but it didn't wash. Not with the people who knew him. Sure, she'd been pestering the eyeballs off the authorities, and then she'd had the letter to lay off. And then it turned out that no one in authority had sent the letter.

"What does she mean about the baggage tag?" Carter had asked him.

"Didn't she tell you herself?"

"I didn't want to press her any more, just yet." Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to tell Max that she was dead. "Thought if I checked with you first I might just make it easier for her."

"You could be right. Well, the point about the baggage tag was that he never — and I mean never— carried a bag with him. It was a kind of thing with him, pilots have these bugs. He had a clean shirt in every port — used a locker and he wouldn't carry a bag. So it raised an ugly thought. Strange bag, strange explosion. That was no crash, boy, no pilot error. I know these kids."

"You knew them, you mean.

"Okay, Max. I don't suppose the letter was ever traced?"

"Not a chance. It did one good thing, though. It made 'em start taking her seriously. But they still didn't buy the tag story."

They had talked a little more, around the edges of the subject.

"Good to hear from you, Nick," Max had finished. "Help her, will you?"

"I'll try," Nick had said woodenly. "Thanks, Max."

A hot dog vendor wandered down the runway, hoarsely touting his wares. Nick beckoned and ordered two. Hawk grunted and took a frank carefully.

Mickey Mantle stepped up to the plate with two out and Tresh parked on second base. The stadium erupted into cheers.

"I checked London, too," said Hawk. "It's a cover-up. They don't think there was any pilot error."

"My God, they could have told her that." Nick bit savagely into his hot dog.

"They didn't think it wise. Someone had gone to so much trouble to plant false evidence that they thought they'd better bite."

Nick finished his hot dog in silence.

" 'Get the girl at any price'," Nick muttered. "A pair of killers for her and a pair for me. They wanted her, I gather, because she was getting too nosey about the bombings. And me? Because they knew somehow, she'd come to me for help. Silence us both, d'you reckon?"

"I reckon." Hawk wiped mustard off his fingers.

"Anything more on Steel Hand?"

"Some. Dossier in your package."

They watched for a moment. Foul ball.

Nick stirred. "But it looks as though we've got Killer No. I, doesn't it? Seersucker, the man who got his orders from 'overseas'?"

"That's one little goodie I've been saving for you," said Hawk. "It appears that the cablegram was not addressed to him."

"But you said…"

"I didn't. The cable was sent to an A. Brown at 432A East 86th. More on that later. Underneath the printed message there was a penciled note. It said: Re above. Meet me 9:30 a.m. Idlewild Cobb's Coffee Shop. Alert all hands. Destroy at once. It was initialed A.B."

The low murmur of the crowd broke into a roar. Mickey Mantle had swung his bat and the ball landed four rows back in the right center field bleachers.

"Good grief, why didn't the fool destroy it?"

"Tucked it away in a hurry, probably, and forgot about it. To err is human, after all," Hawk said complacently.

"Yes, but why in the world did A.B. send the original…"

Hawk cut in with some impatience.

"A.B. did send it and Seersucker kept it. We have to draw a winning card once in a while."

"The second murderer was wrong then, huh? Seersucker didn't get his orders directly from overseas. And we have another enemy to contend with. God, they're roaming around in veritable packs." He lit a cigarette, and flicked away the match, instinctively making another quick survey of the nearby seats and aisles. It was at that point that the tall young woman in the smart gray-and-red cotton knit dress and black picture hat stepped gracefully down the stone stairway and took an end seat in the row directly behind Hawk and Carter.

The woman was as out of place in the ballpark as Hawk was in.