Too Many Murders(40)
They sat down.
“Okay, espionage,” Carmine said. “To me, the word means the selling of official secrets to an enemy power or nation, and I daresay it could be extrapolated to include enemy individuals. If Cornucopia is involved, then I presume the espionage isn’t of a place nature—plans, routines, locations. I would guess the secrets are tangible—advances in atomic reactors, analytical apparatus, plastics—a whole slew of stuff. Am I right?”
Kelly was staring at him, stunned. “How did you work that out?” he asked.
“I would have thought it was obvious to anyone with half a brain, Ted. I know you—know of you, rather. It was only a question of time before I remembered that you’re an espionage agent. And why else would the FBI be here? A murder? No, no matter how important the victim. The sensitive nature of Cornucopia’s contracts? Not unless the firm was already under scrutiny and Skeps’s murder confirmed federal suspicions. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Oh, yes,” Kelly said grimly. “Someone here has been giving secrets to the Communists for two years.”
“How did you find out?”
“When a top-secret missile fuel governor was stolen from the Russians with great pain and some loss of life. It turned out that the governor was ours, invented by Cornucopia Research. The Reds hadn’t even bothered to modify it.”
“Someone at Cornucopia Research is the villain?”
“If he is, we can’t find a trace of him. It’s not Duncan MacDougall. He had the same kind of job at PetroBrit, and they’ve never lost the schematics of a pencil sharpener. The trouble is the same trouble we always have with private industry—people come and go anywhere they want if they’ve got the rank. Security? It’s a piece of paper you put in a safety deposit box.”
“You’re talking about the fat cats at the top?”
“Sure.”
“Why would they steal for the Reds? They don’t need money, and it’s hard to doubt their patriotism.”
“It’s hard to doubt anyone’s patriotism, Carmine, but treason happens. It’s ideological when money’s not the object of the game. I say ‘game’ because I’ve encountered two spies who did it to show how clever they were.”
“But they slipped up in the end. What else has gone?”
“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?”