“Well, then.” Hotchkiss cleared his throat. “If your editor’ll let you, give me a call tomorrow, just to tie up any loose ends. I’ll pass on what I know, and you can do the same.”

  “I’ll find a way to use a secure line.” He thought he ought to persuade Lord Broxton to let him use a secure line at Government House. “Or I’ll tell you if I can’t get one.”

  “Okay. Tell Bert when you call to connect you to line fifty-one.” He paused. “Take care of yourself, Fleming.”

  “I will,” said Fleming, glad now he had the knife as well as his revolver.

  “Tomorrow. Make sure you call. If you don’t, I’m putting in a call to your embassy in Washington.”

  “You think this is that serious?” Fleming said, surprised in spite of his own misgivings.

  “Yes. And frankly, I don’t want to stir up an international hornet’s nest. I’ll find myself assigned to Fargo or Sitka if I pull a stunt like that and can’t turn it to the Bureau’s credit.” He chuckled cynically. “Hoover’s got expectations. He doesn’t take disappointment well.”

  “So I’ve heard,” said Fleming, and prepared to hang up. “I’ll call you, one way or another. They’re boarding my flight.”

  “Okay. Get going. But be careful.” Hotchkiss lowered his voice. “Watch—”

  “—my back. I will. Thanks,” he said, and broke the connection, waiting for the operator to request the extra money. He paid in another dollar sixty, then left the telephone booth, bags in hand, documents in his jacket pocket, and made for the boarding gate where he was given his boarding pass and a Customs declaration statement for Jamaica.

  “Please fill this out before landing in Kingston,” said the gate attendant, sounding like an automaton.

  As he made his way to his seat—J4—Fleming couldn’t help but wonder who among these passengers had been set to follow him, if, indeed, any of them had. He put one of his bags on the shelf overhead, and the other under the seat ahead of him, and buckled in for the ride; his revolver was an uncomfortable presence against the small of his back, and the knife in his pocket felt unusually heavy. His window seat wouldn’t afford much of a view for another hour, so he slid the shade up and prepared for a cat-nap.

  “Do you want a pillow, sir?” the stewardess asked, making her first sally down the aisle.

  “That would be very welcome,” said Fleming, noticing how attractive she was, and how infuriatingly awake. Such a beautiful woman, and so useful, he thought.

  “Very good. I’ll bring it directly,” she said, and went on down the aisle.

  A man of middle years with a pronounced limp came along to take the aisle seat next to Fleming. He achieved an uneasy half-smile and sat down, giving Fleming a hint of a greeting. “Almost didn’t make it,” he said. His accent was British, but two class strata below Fleming.

  “Um,” said Fleming.

  “David Dunstan,” he said, holding out his hand with the air of one used to being friendly as part of his business. “Dunstan Marine Engineers. Family business, as you might guess. My uncle’s the boss right now. We do all sorts of marine installations—piers, platforms, bunkers, the lot.”

  Fleming gave his hand a perfunctory shake. “Ian Fleming. Journalist.”

  “Sounds exciting,” said Dunstan, then rattled on, “Been consulting with the Yanks about building locks against those terrible hurricanes that cause so much damage along the coast here in Texas. Don’t know if they’ll give us a contract, though. They like to keep their projects among their own.”

  “Can’t blame them for that,” said Fleming, conspicuously yawning.

  “I suppose not,” said Dunstan good-naturedly. “But a man has to try when opportunity presents itself, to make the most of it. Which is why I’m off to Jamaica, to put in a harbor expansion plan bid.” He frowned. “That French firm is putting in a bid, too, but I, for one, wouldn’t trust a French engineer to make a sandbox. Still, it’s their affair. The Texans are leaning our way, and that’s the bigger project. Jamaica is attractive but nowhere near as lucrative. Let them choose whom they like. I’ll make my presentation this coming weekend, along with the others, and we’ll have a decision in thirty days, or so we’ve been promised.” He finally noticed that Fleming wasn’t interested. “Sorry for nattering. I’ve spent the last four days in meetings, and I suppose it’s stuck to me.”

  “Happens to us all,” said Fleming, relenting a bit.

  “But that French firm has really got my back up,” said Dunstan apologetically. “They did work for the Nips before the War. Hardly seems right to give them contracts when they did that.”

  “They didn’t know there would be a war, or so they claim,” said Fleming, looking up as the stewardess arrived with a pillow. He accepted it gratefully, put it between the seat-back and the window, and prepared for a nap. “I’ve been up most of the night,” he said so he would not be too rude.

  “Oh. Yes. Sorry,” said Dunstan, and fell silent but twitchy. About twenty minutes later he said, “You see some bloody odd things along the shore these days.”

  Fleming, finding it difficult to sleep, cocked his head. “Bloody odd in what way?”

  “Well,” he said in his most confiding tone, as if he needed to tell someone—anyone—about what was troubling him, “I’ve seen a couple big harbors with underwater storage bunkers filled with explosives. This isn’t unexploded bombs, or surplus mines—I’ve seen my share of those, and I know the difference between them and these other devices. I don’t like the look of that, even if it is left over from the War. Things like that can be dangerous. Some of them are radioactive; they’ve got the mark on them. I’ve mentioned them where I’ve come across them, but no one seems to know anything about them. Or to care, for that matter, though I don’t like the look of them.”

  “Are you sure that’s what they are?” Fleming asked.

  “As sure as I can be. I was walking on the bottom of the mouth of—well, that isn’t important. But I found three cement bunkers. I told the Harbormaster and the Navy about them, but no one believed me, or they assumed I was mistaken, that I’d seen a sunken ship, or a portion of an old submarine net. Scared me right out of my wits, I can tell you. They say radioactivity can make you sterile.” He gulped and stared straight ahead.

  “Couldn’t the bunkers have been something left over from the War? Is that so impossible? The records are still sealed on some of those projects.” Fleming could see that David Dunstan was frightened.

  “Could be. But the damn things looked new. Seawater takes a heavy toll, and anything submerged for any length of time shows the effects. The things I’ve seen couldn’t have been down there much more than six or seven months.” He gave an abashed half-smile. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to carry on. Don’t let me disturb you.”

  The airplane had taken off on time, into a cloudy sky, and headed out toward Cuba and Jamaica beyond. Fleming had finally got to sleep when the stewardess roused him to offer him coffee or tea. He decided to take his chances with tea this time, and was brought a metal pot of moderately hot water and a tea-bag. There was a small breakfast pasty included with the rest, and Fleming ate it while he prepared a most unsatisfactory cup of tea. He moved his pillow over and put the shade down, seeing the apricot-and-peach streamers of dawn stretching up into the clouds.

  The flight remained largely uneventful except for occasional episodes of rough air that bounced them around and rattled nerves. Dunstan made occasional attempts at conversation that Fleming avoided by taking out his notebook and making an entry about Preussin, wondering where his murder fit into this. There was entirely too much murder going on, he thought, and felt a shudder go through him like a wind through a tree.

  “Something more?” the stewardess asked a short time later.

  “Not for me, thank you,” said Fleming, his appetite quite gone.

  Dunstan asked for another pasty, “If you’ve got one to spare. And a sherry, dry.”

  “With pleasure,” said the stewardess, addressing Dunstan but smiling at Fleming.

  “I don’t look forward to this coming presentation, I can tell you,” he said to Fleming out of nowhere. “Too private, too much like a party. That makes it difficult for anyone who isn’t on the inside, if you know what I mean. They hinted I should let well enough alone, but I have an invitation, so I’ll attend. You know how it is out there.”

  “None better,” Fleming said as he smiled back at the stewardess, glad to have something cheery in the midst of hazards and danger; that phrase let well enough alone sounded an alarm within him, which he told himself was only coincidence, that the phrase was not obscure, that anyone might use it. He saw that the stewardess was smirking, but upon a moment’s reflection, he decided this was nothing more than a tired professional smile. He dismissed the idea that she was his pursuer, for a woman in her occupation had her time accounted for, and could not easily deal with him beyond serving him drinks and coffee. He went back to his notebook and began to put together something he could hand to Merlin Powell.

  “Working?” Dunstan asked a bit later.

  “Nature of the job,” said Fleming.

  Dunstan did his best to look sympathetic. “You’re a dedicated fellow.”

  “I’m a journalist with a dead-line and an editor who gets his knickers in a twist when things are late.” Fleming continued to write, doing his best to keep in mind how much he had told Powell.

  “You seem to take the pressure well,” Dunstan observed. “Better than I do, that’s for sure.”

  “Nature of the job,” Fleming repeated. This mild exchange restored his equilibrium and lightened his mood enough that when Dunstan spoke to him again, he was able to answer with a semblance of interest that lasted until the pilot announced they were beginning their descent to Kingston.

  Chapter 30

  FLEMING MADE it through Customs without a hitch, then took off toward the car park to retrieve his Rapier. He paused to light up his last cigarette, then flung his bags into the boot, got into the auto, and started it up, taking satisfaction in the reliable sound of the motor. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how uncertain he had been about the Rapier, for other, more pressing concerns had occupied his thoughts. The note he had found in the Rapier that matched the one in the Packard had been relegated to minor irritations, but he was now keenly aware that he had feared for his auto as he had feared for the Packard. He knew he had been concerned about the auto, his house, and Cesar, for all of them were his responsibility. He swung onto the road and headed toward Kingston, planning to call upon Merlin Powell to hand in his accounting and turn back his remaining funds—minus ten pounds on general principles.

  The road was crowded and progress was slow, which troubled Fleming, who still felt he was being followed, and could not shake the apprehension no matter how much logical argument he offered himself. Uncomfortable thoughts traveled with him, unwelcome companions, and he had to fight off the impulse to give into the funk they engendered in him. For a couple of miles a taxi followed him, and this made him uneasy until the vehicle turned off and made for a cluster of hotels near the shore. With a sigh, Fleming finished his Players and tossed the butt into the road as he headed toward the building that housed the editorial offices. He wondered if there had been any word on Sir William, and tried to formulate a way to ask it without revealing that he had withheld information from Merlin Powell.

  He found a parking place a half-block away from his goal. He pulled the canvas over the cabin and secured it, then decided to take his luggage with him, for on the street this way, it struck him as very exposed. If only he had some kind of alarm that would frighten off anyone getting near his auto! Or, better yet, something that could identify and mark anyone attempting to damage the auto or rifle through its contents, or an auto that would recognize him and give access to no one else. He was still thinking of the various possibilities when he stepped into the little tobacconist’s shop across the street from Powell’s office where he purchased two packs of Players and a paper, which he tucked under his arm before he crossed the street, bags in hand, and went up to Powell’s office.

  Miss Butterly gave Fleming a wide smile. “So good to see you back again,” she told him.

  “Good to be back,” Fleming answered. “His nibs about?”

  “In his office. I’ll buzz you through. Just let me let him know you’re coming.” She fiddled with the interoffice communicator on her desk. “Mister Powell, Mister Fleming has just returned. Shall I send him in?”

  A growl came from the machine.

  “Go on in. You know the way.” She gestured grandly, and Fleming bowed slightly as he went past her desk.

  Merlin Powell was ruddy and exasperated today. He puffed and slapped his thick hands on the desk. “So. What have you to say for yourself?”

  “I’m back,” said Fleming at his most genial. “And I think there is something very rum going on.”

  Powell’s glower softened to a scowl. “How do you mean?”

  Without any extensive preamble, Fleming began, “I have the basic information here, and I found out that another of Krandall’s colleagues was murdered a short while ago. That strikes me as more than a nasty coincidence.” He put down the notes he had made during the last hour of the flight, notes that attempted to create order out of his thoughts and experiences. “Someone’s definitely trying to hide something; we’re being thrown off the track, deliberately so, which means that whoever is doing this is aware that he is being sought. I’ll say this for him: he’s infernally clever, and wants to put me off the scent, or confuse me so that I cannot recognize it amid the general chaos, like a fox running through a stream to elude the hounds. And so far, he’s doing an excellent job of it.”

  “Do you have sources to prove this?” Powell was sitting forward in his chair. “Anything we can use?”

  Fleming offered the file from Los Alamos. “There’s enough to ask questions. I can show a connection between Krandall and Preussin—both deceased recently and unnaturally. And there is a third man, a J. Cathcart, present location or condition unknown. The first two men were comrades of Cathcart’s, part of the same work during the War. I can’t point to a specific culprit or motive, but off-hand, I’d say someone is hunting them down; I’m not alone in that conviction, incidentally—there’s an FBI agent who concurs. Assuming this is an accurate assessment of circumstances, I wouldn’t want to be J. Cathcart right now.”

  Powell had picked up a magnifying glass to read the photostatic copies. “How did you get this?”

  “I asked for it at the press office at the Los Alamos Laboratories and military base,” said Fleming cheekily. “I spent the better part of a morning waiting for it. This is what I was given.”

  As he continued to read, Powell said, “We can publish some of this, but not all of it, of course. And we can cover the deaths of Krandall and Preussin from the perspective of men working on the same project who came to violent ends. It doesn’t say anything about Preussin’s death in this report.”

  “It doesn’t say anything about Krandall’s, either.” Fleming cleared his throat. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of this. I only just had the information from an FBI agent, who was reporting on what he had from the RCMP. I doubt whether it has drawn much attention in Canada.”

  “I can have the teletypist send an inquiry to Canada. Do you know which province the murder occurred in?”

  “Only that it was near Hudson’s Bay,” said Fleming, feeling slightly less harried than when he had come into the office. “I gather the location was fairly remote, but that’s not remarkable in that part of Canada.”

  “All right,” Powell sighed. “That will have to do. There can’t be too many horrible murders reported in that region, can there? What is the connection to Krandall again?—Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project? Is there anything more? With Krandall and this other chap killed within a short time, all commonality can be significant.”

  “Los Alamos, for a starting point,” said Fleming, thinking about what he had read in Sir William’s files. He could not use that material, of course, but he could try to find ways to confirm what he knew. “Anything more on the Krandall case?”

  “The lads are in England, and now they say they didn’t do it, that they only witnessed the killing, by accident, and that they wanted to get away, for fear of reprisals against them. They said they confessed to be safely in the hands of the police. It’s just the sort of desperate move a youngster in trouble might make.” He slapped his hands on the desk again. “Not a bad story, in its way, but under the circumstances, hardly convincing. Too pat. As if they cooked it up between them on the flight to London.”

  Fleming wasn’t so sure. “Who do they say killed him?”

  “A man they didn’t know-well-dressed, soft-spoken, good manners—until he took to cutting Krandall up. They say the man was known to Krandall, who welcomed him, albeit reluctantly, to Swan’s Way. Apparently he had business with Krandall, or so the young men insist, because Krandall was upset when the fellow arrived, saying he had nothing the man might want. They said he looked like an important person. He spoke some kind of French part of the time, but they couldn’t—or wouldn’t—remember what he said.” Powell shook his head portentously. “It’s an interesting tale.”

  “So it is,” said Fleming, growing more uneasy as he listened.

  “Tell me what you make of it,” said Powell sharply.

  “I don’t know,” said Fleming, frowning as he tried to sort out the increasing puzzles. “I’ll mull it over this afternoon, and tell you tonight, if you’ll come out to my place. I’ll try to give you an installation on my coverage by tomorrow morning.”

  “That will be satisfactory,” said Powell. “And we’ll discuss the whole of the story when I arrive. Have Cesar make some of that wonderful chowder of his. This could be a long evening.”

  “I’ll tell him you asked for it,” said Fleming, smiling slightly. “You’ll want a whole meal, I suppose. I’ll tell Cesar to be ready for you.” He paused in the act of turning toward the door. “Oh. I’m going to stop to have a word or two with Lord Broxton. I’m late with my report to him, and it may take me a while to soothe his ruffled feathers, as they say.”