The Diving Dames Affair Page 2

  "What exactly do you want me to do?"

  "Be discreet above all. Try to find out what these girls were doing and why; find out where they are based and if there are any more of them. And don't declare yourself: you're strictly on your own. As I say, there's probably nothing in it, but I daresay it's worth a couple of days of your time."

  "I can't go officially to the Rio police?"

  "No."

  "Well, the first thing, obviously, is to see the injured parties. Any objection if I present myself to the hospital - and to the police if necessary - as an American lawyer acting for them?"

  "I don't think so. Just so long as nobody is involved officially before you find out what's going on. If in fact it turns out to be merely a police matter, you can simply report back to me and we'll hand the facts over to the proper authorities. If, on the other hand, this affair is the tip of some – ah - international iceberg of wrong-doing, then we shall probably have to state our case and ask for Brazilian cooperation."

  Solo rose to his feet. "All right, then," he said. "I'll be on my way. If I hurry, I should be able to make the afternoon plane."

  Waverly nodded. "I'll have Miss Tanimotu telephone for your ticket now," he said. "You can pick up a few notes I've made from Operations, and I'll send Geddes to meet you at the airport with a suitable passport, papers, cover story and so on."

  "I'll be in touch by radio," Solo said. And he walked briskly out.

  ---

  During the lunch hour, one of the switchboard girls from the vast U.N.C.L.E. communications center on the second floor of the headquarters went to a drugstore. After she had eaten, she went to the telephone booth in the back and dialed a number. She spoke rapidly and concisely for half a minute and then returned to her seat for coffee.

  The fat man to whom she had been speaking replaced the receiver on its cradle in the Park Avenue penthouse. He sat for a few moments drumming ringed fingers on a Sheraton occasional table. Then he reached for the instrument again.

  "Hello, operator?" he said. "Will you give me Long Distance, International? I want to make a call to Rio de Janeiro."

  Chapter 2

  The Man On The Mule

  PALM TREES LINED the private road leading to the hospital and punctuated the green verandas surrounding the low, white building. From the steps leading to the entrance, a bright crescent of sand and surf marking the distant waterfront was visible between two soaring apartment buildings further down the hill. Away to the right, above a colony of flat-roofed villas, the Sugarloaf humped itself into the sky at the seaward end of the chain of tree-covered mountains encircling the city.

  Napoleon Solo braked the hired Buick to a halt on the graveled circle and ran up the steps to the foyer. His oatmeal-colored lightweight suit clung uncomfortably to shoulders and thighs. After the long flight and a sleepless night in a hotel room, he was exhausted by the unaccustomed heat.

  A large pendant fan revolved slowly in the shadowy entrance hall. Beneath it, a uniformed police officer was speaking to the dark girl at the reception desk. Under her starched cap, the girl flashed a professionally inquiring smile at Solo. The agent placed his brief case on the desk and leaned forwards. "My name is Williams," he said. "I'm a New York attorney delegated to represent two patients you have here: Miss Rosenthal and Miss Sciotto - the two Americans injured in the auto crash. Have they regained consciousness, do you know; and, if so, may I see them?"

  The police officer had swung around and was staring curiously at Solo. His sallow, moustached face was tired. As the receptionist was about to speak he interrupted.

  "Captain Garcia at your service, Mr. Williams," he said, holding out his hand. "Evidently you have not heard."

  "Heard?" Solo repeated, taking the hand. "Heard what, Captain?"

  "Both the ladies are dead, senhor," the girl said.

  "Dead?" Solo echoed. "Both of them? But I thought -"

  "They were both improving, though it is true that neither had recovered consciousness. But then something happened." The girl glanced at Garcia.

  "Regrettably - most regrettably - there seems to have been somebody with an interest in seeing that they never did recover consciousness," the policeman supplied.

  "Do you mean that they were killed? Murdered?"

  "Unfortunately. We might very well have accepted that they had succumbed to their injuries, were it not for the fact that the intruder left open a window that should have been closed. But once we were suspicious, we were able to ask the post-mortem doctor to - how do you say? - keep the open eye. He found that, beyond all doubt, they had been killed by that simplest of all methods: the air bubble injected straight into a vein by a hypodermic syringe..."

  ---

  "I have no wish to be obtrusive, Captain," Solo said later in Garcia's office, "and as a lawyer, of course, I have no right at all to question you - but as a matter of interest, do you have any idea why these girls were killed, or who killed them?"

  "None, Mr. Williams. At the same time - purely as a matter of interest, of course - I am curious to know how these ladies managed to instruct an attorney to come all the way from New York to represent them, when in fact they had never recovered consciousness after the accident. An accident they presumably never knew had occurred."

  Solo smiled. "I confess my Portuguese at fault in expressing myself poorly," he lied easily. "I said delegated to represent them. I am not of course instructed by victims. That would, as you say, have been impossible. I was asked to come by the organization to which they falsely claimed to belong, the D.A.M.E.S. The directors naturally wish to know why they are being thus misrepresented I had hoped to find out for them by questioning the ladies."

  "Ah. You were to hold what is called, I believe, a watching brief?"

  "Exactly. Any information you are permitted to give me will therefore be of the greatest assistance."

  "There is very little," Garcia said wearily. "The car was rented on behalf of the organization and they gave, at the time, no names. It was paid for in advance and the papers and indemnities they produced seemed to be in order."

  "Was the accident itself... engineered?"

  "We think not. At the time there were no direct witnesses - only passersby on the lower road who saw the car tumble down the slope. But after putting out a radio message, we pulled in a truck driver who seems to have been the unwitting cause of the affair. He had taken the wrong road and was making an illegal turn just before a sharp bend. The sports car hit the wall and went over in attempting to avoid him."

  "'He did not come forward at the time?"

  "No. He drove away because he was frightened he would be blamed."

  "I see. Then it looks very much as though… You have not found out where the women were based? Where they came from?"

  "Not yet, senhor. It is a big country with many states. We shall find out."

  "Of course. It looks, then, as though they may have been killed to delay that investigation?

  "Yes," Garcia said with a sigh. "I suppose it does."

  ---

  Solo found the site of the accident without any trouble. He had not liked to ask the policeman any further details: as a lawyer, he could have no possible interest in viewing the place. But from local newspaper reports, he was able to identify the highway - and once there, the evidence was all too plain. The brushwood was still scarred and flattened where the breakdown cranes had penetrated to haul away the wrecked car. Above, a trail of stones fanned out from the breached wall of the side road curving up around the flank of the mountain.

  The agent took the minor road and left his car a hundred yards below the hairpin. There was nothing to see, really - just the broken parapet and the remains of chalk marks made by the police investigators on the scorching macadam. Nearer the corner, where the foliage on the mountainside shimmered in the heat haze rising from the road, four black skid marks angled across the surface. The car had obviously been out of alignment, going partially sideways, when the driver braked. She mus
t have taken the bend too fast, seen the truck, clamped on the anchors when she had already lost the back end, and then released them and tried to get through, Solo thought to himself.

  He walked around the curve and crouched down to the height the driver of a sports car would have been.

  As he had thought, the road beyond the hairpin was invisible.

  There was not much traffic. An ancient bus full of Negro women in bright headscarves rattled down to wards the main road in low gear; a tan Chevrolet hissed past on its way up into the mountains. He walked slowly back to his car, fanning his face with a newspaper. By the Buick, an old man with a wide-brimmed straw hat and a blanket over one shoulder had halted his mule. Solo gave him good-day politely.

  "Good day, senhor," the old man replied. "And a good route to you. It is a good day for those who travel prudently. But no day is good for those who would arrive before their time... the yanqui ladies whose haste brought them only to the disaster you have been investigating, for example."

  "You saw the accident?"

  "Naturally. I am always on this road at this time."

  "But... you did not come forward in answer to the police radio message?"

  "The senhor will forgive me - but he is perhaps of the police himself?"

  "No, no. My name is Williams; I am an attorney. I am trying to find out what caused the accident. I represent the ladies."

  "So. A lawyer. Miguel Oliveira at your service," the old man said courteously, holding out a seamed hand. "As to the matter of the police, when you reach my age you learn that is wisest to avoid any unnecessary contact with them. I have seen many different police forces – and today's friend may be tomorrow's enemy. Also I do not possess a radio."

  "But you did see the accident," Solo said, shaking the hand. "Can you advance any… Why do you think it happened?"

  "They were going too fast. There was a truck. But then they always went too fast. Man is not intended for such speeds."

  "Always? You had seen the girls before?"

  "Many times, senhor. In different cars. Perhaps three times each month, perhaps five. They could not have been here more often for they lived so far away."

  "You know where they came from?" Solo asked in astonishment.

  "Si, senhor. From far, from very far away, as I have said."

  "Do you know what place, what town?"

  "That I cannot tell you. But it was very far. Many hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles. Beyond the mountains, across the plain, beyond the great forests, beyond Belo Horizonte, beyond Goiania, somewhere in the hills of the interior before the great new city that men say rises like white towers into the sky."

  "You mean Brasilia?"

  "I believe that is what it is called," Miguel Oliveira admitted graciously.

  "But… but... how in the world - you will forgive me, senhor? - how can you know this?"

  "Simply," the old man said. He extended an arm up towards the tree-covered crests piercing the aching blue of the sky. On the road somewhere above, an automobile windshield flashed fiercely in the sun. "Below the pass, Pedro Gonzales keeps a small shack where he sells trinkets and refreshing drinks to the tourists who stop to admire the view. Each day, I pause to bid him good day and to drink a little wine with him. On two occasions, I have heard the American women make a telephone call from there. They also drink there - and I understand some American, although I do not speak it very well."

  "You heard what they said? You heard the exchange they called?"

  "I cannot recall the name. But on each occasion, it seemed to be a name unknown to the operator. The lady telephoning insisted, and said, yes, it was the correct name - it was a place in the mountains before that city, where they make a new lake."

  "A small place in the mountains behind Brasilia where they're building an artificial lake - probably a dam," Solo said. "Senhor Oliveira, you have been more than helpful. I cannot thank you enough."

  "It is nothing, senhor."

  "One more question I must ask you. If you could see both the car and the truck, you must have been some way further up the hill. Did you see anything else - anything at all - which might have had anything to do with the accident? Was there anyone else around, near the scene of the disaster?"

  "No, there was nothing. Just the car and the truck. If there had been anything, I would have seen it."

  "Thank you again," Solo said - and he ran back to the Buick, turned, and headed for the main road and Rio.

  "God go with you," the old man replied, urging his mule to resume its laborious climb.

  ---

  The driver of the tan Chevrolet, who had been following Napoleon Solo ever since he had left the airport, put away his binoculars and opened the trunk of the car. He propped open the lid of a small short-wave transceiver and fiddled with switches and dials. Then he held a single can to one ear and spoke softly into a hand microphone.

  "Greerson," he said. "The subject visited the hospital this morning and left with Garcia, the police captain. He stayed some time in Garcia's office, called on the rental company, a couple of newspaper offices, and then drove out to the place where the girls left the road... He's just spent a quarter of an hour searching the area and yacking to some peasant on a mule. Then he turned and headed back for the city… Okay, Schwarz had better pick him up at the next intersection: he saw me pass while he was on the road... What's that?... Oh, him. Sure I will. Right away..."

  He swung the Chevrolet around and went slowly back down the hill. After the third hairpin, he saw Miguel Oliveira jogging slowly towards him on the mule.

  The man called Greerson drove a few yards past and braked. He got out of the car and called after the old man: "Hey! You!"

  The mule continued its upward plod. The old man did not turn his head. Swearing, the driver of the Chevrolet dropped his cigarette to the ground, swiveled his heel on the butt, and shouted again: "Hey, old man! Are you deaf?"

  This time, Oliveira turned his head. He spoke without checking the pace of the mule. "Are you addressing me, senhor?"

  "Of course I'm addressing you, you old fool," Greerson snapped in his bad Portuguese. "Do you see anyone else around?"

  The old man halted the beast and sat waiting patiently while Greerson strode up to him. "What do you want with me, senhor?" he said.

  "First, I want to teach you to speak when you're spoken to, peasant. Get off that mule."

  Oliveira sat silent and regarded him impassively.

  "I said get off!" Greerson shouted. He raised his right forearm across his chest and struck the old man viciously, backhanded, on the face. Oliveira's broad-brimmed hat fell to the ground. His leathery cheek had flushed a dull red with the blow. And still he stared unwinkingly at his attacker.

  Greerson hit him again: a wicked right to the solar plexus. The old man gave a choking grunt, folded for wards over the neck of the mule, and slid to the ground.

  The driver of the Chevrolet drew back a foot with a pointed shoe and kicked him, once on the side of the head and twice in the kidneys. After a while, Oliveira rolled slowly over and tried to sit up, supporting himself on gnarled hands. "Why… why do you do this to me, senhor?" he croaked. A thin thread of scarlet ran from one side of his bruised mouth.

  Measuring his distance carefully, Greerson drew back his foot for the fourth time. He caught the old man full on the chin with the iron-studded heel. This time, he did not get up.

  The rasping of a cicada in a tree across the road shivered the hot silence as Greerson, panting, straightened his tie, smoothed down the front of his jacket, and looked cautiously around. The stretch of road between the hairpins lay empty in the sun. Neither human beings nor vehicles broke the succession of wooded undulations rising to the brassy sky. The mule stood motionless in a patch of shadow cast by a stunted oak, its head hanging low.

  Bending down, Greerson seized the unconscious figure of Miguel Oliveira by the shoulders, hauling it into the roadway not too far from the spots of blood that were already darkly conge
aling in the dust of the roadside.

  After a final look up and down, he lit a cigarette, walked quickly to the Chevrolet and backed it a hundred yards up the road.

  Then, steering carefully, he accelerated down towards the recumbent figure in the dust.

  Chapter 3

  Up-Country Girls

  AFTER THE COMFORTABLE red earth of the coffee country and the alternating woods and escarpments of Minas Gerais state, the plateau on which Brasilia is built seemed almost indecently bare. Solo leaned his forehead against the cool double glass and scanned the bleak terrain sliding past below the plane's wing. Threads of silver splashed the ravines here and there, and way off to the northeast a wide, shallow river coiled itself between trees. But there was nothing he could see that suggested in any way the building of a new dam or an artificial lake.

  The smart young corporation lawyer in the government office, his Bahia university degree framed on the peeled sycamore wall behind him, was equally discouraging.

  "I cannot imagine how you can have been so misinformed, Senhor Williams," he said with a frown. "Every hydroelectric project connected with Brasilia was completed before life in the town began, naturally. If such a supplementary scheme existed, and if there were options to acquire, be sure that we should know of them. This is a new town, hardly five years old, and there is little here yet but civic and municipal buildings: physically, there is no place for any undercover dealing to go!"

  "I understand," Solo said. "I should explain that of course I did not come to Brazil only to explore these options - if they exist - but on another matter entirely. It was just that I heard of them in a roundabout way and thought it might conceivably be worth investigating."

  "Quite. You will forgive me - but you are sure that you have the right city?'

  The agent grinned suddenly, disarmingly. "No," he said frankly, "to tell you the truth, I'm not, and that's the hell of it!"

  "Well, in that case…"

  "I heard of it from an old man, a countryman - and I was the one who first mentioned Brasilia, thinking this must be the city he meant from his description. You know, white towers rising against a blue sky, the whole modem city bit. But of course he may have agreed just to be polite - the courtesy of your peasants can be exhausting!"