think we’re pretty well tagged.”
“Cooky’s very handy with a gun,” I said. “Show him.”
Padillo looked at him thoughtfully. “Go ahead, Cook.”
Cooky stood up. “Give me a count, Mac.”
I counted once more by thousands. Cooky dropped his shoulder, rolled his hip again, and made the draw in a swift circular motion.
“You’re fast,” Padillo said. “What are you wearing—a Berns-Martin?”
Cooky nodded and reholstered his gun.
“You’d have to be sober for what I have in mind. Or nearly so,” Padillo said. “How hard would that be?”
“Hard enough,” Cooky said, “but I can cut it.”
“You don’t know what it is yet.”
“Look, either you recruit me or you don’t. I thought you needed some help and I volunteered. Now you sound as if you’re trying to steer me off.”
“I just want to make it plain that you can’t change your mind at the last minute because you think you’re coming down with a bad case of the nasties. And if something happens, something sticky, just remember that you volunteered. I still don’t know why you want in. Did Mac sell you?”
“Nobody sold me,” Cooky said. “I thought you were in trouble and might need some help.”
“I’ve known lots of guys in trouble,” Padillo said, “but damn few that I’d run the chance of getting shot at for. I’m not in your best-buddy classification, Cook. And if Mac is, that’s brand new, too.”
I waved a hand. “Tell him what you have in mind, Mike. Maybe he won’t want any part of it.”
Padillo took a sip of his vodka and studied Cooky over the rim of the glass. “After I tell him, he’s in,” he said. “What about it, Cook?”
“I told you,” he said, and tried his half-joke smile, “I’m a volunteer.” The smile didn’t come off too well.
“O.K.,” Padillo said. “You’re in.”
“One thing more,” I said to Padillo. “I ran into our fat friend Maas again. He said the main purpose of his trip to Bonn was to sell you the information about the trade,”
“He give you any details?”
Quite a few. He also has a way out: a tunnel under the wall, which he’ll sell for five thousand. That’s how Cooky got involved. He brought me the five thousand from Bonn.”
“You know how to get in touch with him?”
“He gave me his phone number,” I said. “But if he knows about this swap, how many others know—and how did you tumble to it?”
Padillo lighted another cigarette. “They were a little too casual, a little too pleasant when they told me about it. It was their offhand attitude. Sort of ‘Why don’t you drop over and pick up these two because the Russians are tired of them?’ It wasn’t my kind of a job, and so I started checking with Weatherby’s outfit. They found out that the opposition was expecting a new prize for its zoo: the kind of agent that the States keeps denying exists. It all added up to a swap: me for the NSA pair.”
“Maas says you’re an amortized agent. They can write you off as a tax loss.”
Padillo nodded. “The Soviets haven’t had anyone big since Powers. They could use a full-scale public trial if they plan to resurrect Stalin. Our side wants the two NSA guys back without any fanfare, and I was offered up—a little long in the tooth and creaky in the joints perhaps, but serviceable.”
Padillo told us that he had crossed over into East Berlin with a spare passport after flying from Frankfurt to Hamburg to Tempelhof. I told him about Lieutenant Wentzel and Maas and the visit from Burmser and Hatcher at the saloon. I went through my chats with Bill-Wilhelm, Maas, and Weatherby, and finally the story seemed to dribble away and my mouth was dry and leathery. “I’m hungry,” I said.
Marta rose from her chair. “I’ll prepare something. It will have to be from a tin.” She walked over to the hot plate and began to open a couple of cans.
“She doesn’t talk much,” I said.
“I suppose she doesn’t feel like it,” said Padillo. “She was Weatherby’s girl.” He got up and walked over to her. They talked briefly in tones so low that I couldn’t hear. As Padillo talked the girl shook her head vigorously. Padillo patted her on the shoulder and came back. “She wants to stick with it,” he said. “And we can use her. With you two and Max, we may be able to bring it off.”
“Bring what off?” Cooky asked.
“A daylight snatch. The two NSA defectors.” He looked at each of us carefully. His eyebrows were arched in a quizzical fashion; a wide grin was on his face.
I sighed. “Why not?”
Cooky licked his lips.
“How about it, Cook?” Padillo demanded.
“It sounds like an interesting proposition.”
“What happens after we kidnap the two from NSA?” I said.
“We get them over the wall. They buy up my contract for me. And I’m out—finished. I can go back to running a saloon.”
