Too Many Murders

“It’s hard to know, but once you know there’s a leak, you look for any Russian or Chinese device that takes a sudden leap ahead. Other firms have lost secrets too, but in things they share with Cornucopia.”

“I’m surprised you continue to use Cornucopia.”

“Oh, come, Captain, you’re nobody’s fool! Industries that produce esoteric items are thin on the ground! And whoever the traitor is-our code name for him is Ulysses-he takes fine care to confine his thefts to articles or parts that Defense can’t obtain elsewhere. There’s also the onus of proof. Cornucopia Legal has argued most persuasively that the leaks happen in Washington elsewhere than at the Pentagon, like consultants, and they’re hard to refute. The most telling point against Cornucopia is that they can be connected to everything we know or suspect has been stolen.”

“And do you think that Desmond Skeps’s filing cabinet will reveal the answers, Ted?”

“No, I don’t. Skeps’s murder suggests to me that he found out who Ulysses is.”

“Well, under ordinary circumstances I’d tell you to stick around and watch a murder expert in action, but you probably know that Holloman is snowed under with murders, and you’ve got your work cut out finding a spy. I’m not helpless, but Skeps is just one of eleven corpses, and I can’t be sure any of the deaths are related to Ulysses. Including Skeps’s.”

“You can keep your murders,” Ted Kelly said with a grin. “How about we meet again for coffee here tomorrow, ten-ish?”

“Suits me,” said Carmine.

And down seven floors, to Polycorn Plastics and Frederick H. Collins, its managing director.

Who was like Philip Smith, yet unlike him. The suit was wool from Savile Row, the tie that same silk Chubb edition, the links on his French-cuffed shirt platinum-and-enamel replicas of his old college coat of arms, the shoes custom-made in London. He looked fiftyish too, impeccably shaved and manicured, but he lacked Smith’s air of the weary aristocrat. In fact, thought Carmine, his face would have suited a butcher, and his black eyes found it hard to settle, not because they hunted for a mirror, but because they had things to hide.

“Terrible, awful!” he said, squirming in his chair.

“Were you and Mr. Skeps friends, sir?”

“Oh, yes. Very close. All of us on the Board are. We’re a trifle older than Des-there was no one in his graduating class with whom he formed a close attachment, you see.”

“Why do you think that was?”

“I have no idea, though I heard his classmates didn’t like him. He drank heavily back then, and when he was drunk he could be-er-abrasive. Desmond Skeps Senior died a week after Des graduated, so Des stepped into Cornucopia as Chairman of the Board and owner of the majority of the shares. No experience whatsoever! Three of us already worked here as junior executives-Gus Purvey, Wal Grierson and me. Chubbers all! Phil Smith was thrust on us by Des as his cousin. I think he admired how Phil looked and talked. Since the word ‘work’ is as alien to Phil as the word ‘fuck,’ we got used to his being around as decoration. He’s sixty if he’s a day, so he knew Des’s dad well. Chubb, but before us.”

“How many are on the Board, Mr. Collins?”

“Phil Smith, Gus Purvey, Wal Grierson, Erica Davenport and yours truly, with Des in the chair and Phil as his deputy.”

“That’s a very small board, surely?”

“There’s no law regulating a board’s size, Captain.”

“What about the external shareholders?”

“They’re the four of us and hundreds of thousands of strays. Erica represents the strays.”

“Does that mean she’s at loggerheads with the rest of you?”

Collins laughed. “Lord, no! Think of us as like IBM-to own twenty shares is a small fortune, but peanuts all the same.”

“How much top-secret work do you discuss?”

“The lot,” said Frederick H. Collins, looking surprised.

“You’re the head of Polycorn Plastics. Where do you make your cutting-edge advances, sir? At your factory?”

The big butcher’s face crumpled into another bout of mirth. “No, sir! All I do is manufacture tried and true plastics. The research is where it should be-at Cornucopia Research.”

“So you have no top-secret formulae lying around?”

“No, I do not! By the time I see a new plastic, it’s been thoroughly tested and looks to anyone at Polycorn to be no different from everything else. I don’t broadcast advances.”

“What makes a new plastic so desirable to the Reds?”

“Do you have security clearances, Captain?” Collins demanded.

Carmine handed over the typed contents of a wallet.

After a thorough inspection, Collins shrugged. “Super-hard plastics that will prove suitable for the manufacture of hand and shoulder weapons,” he said. “Also different super-hard plastics for armor plating, engine blocks. Enough?”

“Thank you, more than enough. Has any of your research been leaked to the Communists?”

Collins gasped, pressed his hands against his eyes. “Oh, Jesus! Not as far as I’m aware. The first breakthrough since we knew about Ulysses came not much more than a month ago, and I refused to accept the formulae. In fact, I ordered Dr. MacDougall to put them and every last vestige of the test pieces including the shavings into his vault under seal. The Reds aren’t dumb, Captain, they do research too. But I will not see the Communists profit from my research! No new plastics will go into production until Ulysses is caught.”

Okay, thought Carmine, I believe he’s sincere. Not a very likeable guy, but I pick him as a genuine patriot.

“What does Special Agent Kelly say?” he asked.

“Not a fucking thing,” said Frederick H. Collins bitterly.

Time to change horses. “Are you married, sir?”

“Yes,” said Collins, looking blank.

“For how long?”

“Two years, this time. I’ve had three previous wives.”

“Any of them last longer than two years?”

“My first, Aki. We were married twenty-one years.”

“Do you have a family?”

“Two boys by Aki, a boy by Michelle, a boy by Debbie, and another boy by Candy, my present wife.”

“Lots of alimony.”

“I can afford it.”

He’s into bimbos, thought Carmine, wondering what had sent him off the rails after twenty-one years. Man, won’t there be a squabble after he dies, with all those boys! Obviously he had the money to hire professional killers, but it wouldn’t be in the service of Uncle Joe Stalin’s heirs. With nothing to suggest the espionage and the murder were connected, Frederick H. Collins’s name would remain written on the list stored inside Carmine’s mind.

Then it was down two more floors to the offices of Landmark Machines, whose managing director was Mr. Augustus Barraclough Purvey. Not like the other pair, Smith and Collins. Purvey was Brooks Brothers from head to foot, wore a polka-dot bow tie and very expensive loafers. His thick, waving hair was greying, his smooth-skinned face was attractive, and his dark blue eyes looked directly into those seeking his. Carmine liked him much better than he had Smith or Collins.

The only top-secret modification Landmark had lost to the Communists was a new gunsight, Purvey said.

“Our real aim,” he went on, “is years away-namely, to link artillery fire to computers able to calculate the target precisely. It’s colossally complicated, and will require our sending up satellites whose function is to plot the globe. So it’s not exclusively Cornucopia. In fact, we only have a little corner of it. Everyone’s involved, from NASA on down.”

“What effect would concrete knowledge of the project have on Russian or Chinese defense plans?” Carmine asked.

“Serious, very serious. They smell something, but there are just too many cheeses on the board.”

“What if Ulysses knows?”