Asia, a piece here, and a piece there.'
'That is your whole trouble. You are not serious peoples' He was angry now and pounding the table. 'How can we cooperate if you won't be serious? What are you doing?' he asked as I spread my cards out face up on the table once again.
'Gin.'
By the time we bumped down in Hammerfest, I'd taken him three more games. The last two were played in total silence. He'd run out of both propositions and insults, and I'd run out of wisecracks. Still, his parting rationale as we disembarked from the plane is worth noting as an interesting example of typical Commie doublethink.
'Gin is a bourgeois game,'' he sneered. 'Chess is the only pastime really worthy of the intellect. And we Russians are traditionally the chess champions of the world.'
'That's because you have so many Russian pawns,' I told him.
Vlankov snorted and walked on ahead of me across the small airstrip to the shedlike structure which served as the airport terminal for Hammerfest. Evidently, as far as he was concerned, our brief – and on the whole rather unsatisfactory – rapport was at an end. He wasn't going to resign himself to my company; he was back on the job and about to do his best to lose me.
He went straight to the men's room and entered it. When I started to follow him in, I discovered he'd locked the door behind him. It figured the men's room would have a window and Vlankov might attempt to shake me that way. I found a window farther along the same wall and stuck my head out so I'd be able to see him if he did.
My view also took in a cargo receiving platform. I spotted a female figure in a parka standing in front of it, waiting to pick up something. Then, as I watched, she was handed a package and started to walk back toward the entrance to the terminal. The package was the same one I'd been tailing since Salisbury.
Just as the female figure entered the building, Vlankov started to hoist himself out the window of the men's room. I pulled my head back in so he wouldn't see me watching him. He scurried around the side of the building to the front.
The girl stopped to talk to the porter, and for the first time I got a good look at her face. Right then I decided to let Vlankov go. I guessed that we'd meet later, he and I; the trails we were following were merging, only now I judged myself to be one jump ahead of him. You see, I recognized the girl who'd claimed the package.
I didn't know her name, but I'd have known that pixie-face and Bardot-style bosom anywhere. The last time I'd seen her she'd been crawling out of a pile of garbage at the bottom of a dumb-waiter shaft in that brothel back in New York. She was the second of the S.M.U.T. girls I'd helped escape that night, and she might well be Dr. Nyet.
As a matter of fact, there seemed a better than fifty-fifty chance that she might be the elusive Russian scientist. Her short-cropped black hair, her age and general appearance all tallied with the description – inadequate as it was – given me by Putnam back in London. And the fact that she and the priceless jeweled phallus should both be in this remote corner of the world seemed to indicate that S.M.U.T. valued her highly.
I approached her before she reached the exit. 'Hello,' I greeted her.
Her eyes widened with surprise as she recognized me. 'What are you doing here?' she exclaimed.
'Meeting you,' I told her. 'Highman sent me,' I added, improvising.
'He did? But why?'
'To be your bodyguard.' I went on to embellish the lie. 'You've got a Russian agent on your back. Highman sent me to deal with him for you. You're pretty important to Highman, you know.'
'What you mean is that I'm pretty important to S.M.U.T.,' she corrected me. 'Well then, I guess you'd better come along and guard the body, Mr.-?'
'Victor. Steve Victor. And I've never seen a body more worth guarding.' I added gallantly.
'That doesn't sound like S.M.U.T. talk.'
'Well, it certainly wasn't meant to be,' I said indignantly.
'I mean it isn't the sort of talk that seems to reflect the attitude of our organization.'
'Sorry. I forget myself sometimes. But I'm really very dedicated to our cause.'
'Oh, I'm sure you must be. Highman wouldn't have sent you unless he was absolutely sure of your loyalty.'
'Let me carry that.' I took the package from her and followed her out to a line of horse-drawn sleds waiting in front of the building. As she was climbing into one of them and giving the driver an address, I stole a look at the address on the label of the package. It was addressed to 'Olga Duval, General Delivery, Hammerfest Airport, Hammerfest, Norway.'
Olga! It was a good Russian name, even if the last name was French. As I climbed into the cab of the sled after her, it occurred to me that I might very well have found both the missing phallus and Dr. Nyet!
It was a long drive on a short day. The days are always short in Norway. My watch said it was only four o'clock, but it was dark when we reached our destination. I followed Olga out of the sled into the darkness.
There was a house, but she bypassed it. I followed her across a strand of beach, ducking my head against the bitingly cold sea wind. She led the way to a dock with a rowboat tied to it. She indicated for me to take the oars and then guided me on the course she wanted to take.
I didn't have to row far. It was only about fifteen minutes later that we reached a fishing sloop rocking at anchor. Olga tied up alongside a rope ladder and climbed aboard the vessel. I followed her.
She led the way across the deck and down a dark gangway to a cabin. She closed the door behind us. The room was pitch black. Olga lit a match and held it to the wick of a kerosene lamp. The lamp flared up and the room took on a shadowy substance. Olga screamed!
Loud! It was a scream filled with both shock and fear. I pushed around from behind her to see what had caused it.
There was my old buddy Vlankov again. He was sitting in an armchair facing us. There was a sort of half-smile on his face, as if he were greeting someone. And neatly embedded in the center of his forehead was a small hatchet. He was dead as dead could be.
Who'll bury whom? I thought to myself as I crossed over to the corpse. I reached out and pulled the hatchet free. I studied it for a moment.
I'd seen a hatchet like this only once before in my life. A friend of mine on the San Francisco police force had shown it to me. It was a souvenir from the Chinatown Tong Wars of the early 1900s. It had the same sort of carefully honed blade, expertly carved hilt and delicate balance as this one. The balance was important because, as my friend had explained, such hatchets were made to be thrown. And from the split in Vlankov's skull, this one had been thrown with deadly accuracy.
'Are there any Chinese aboard this boat?' I asked Olga.
'No.' She was still shaking, and it seemed hard for her to get even the one word out.
Despite her denial, I was sure that there had been a Chinese aboard. He'd eliminated the Russians from the search for Dr. Nyet at what might have been the very moment before Vlankov found her. And if Olga was Dr. Nyet, he'd sure as hell eliminate the American competition as soon as he could.
Which meant, kiddies, that I was the most likely guy to get the axe!
CHAPTER SEVEN
Was Olga really Dr. Nyet? How could I find out for sure without giving my hand away? If she was, just how much control over her secret anti-birth control pill formula had she already turned over to S.M.U.T.?
These were the problems I pondered while drifting off to sleep that first night on the boat. When I awoke the next morning, the ship was already under way and I had no choice but to be carried along and hope for developments to provide some of the answers.
The captain and crew were Norwegian. As far as I could tell, there were no Chinese aboard. Not wanting to arouse Olga's suspicions by asking questions, I nosed around among the crew to see if I could find out our destination.
