The Man From Uncle 02 - The Doomsday Affair - Whittington Harry (читать книги онлайн без .txt) 📗

"What's that got to do with me? I'm just trying to make a buck—and stay alive."

"A lot of other people want to stay alive, too, Barbry. Their lives may depend on what you can tell me—if you will."

"Why do you think I know anything at all?" Her voice rose and she shook her head wildly. He saw the shadows of hysteria swirling in the depths of her violet eyes.

"You know the man who killed Ursula—who ordered her death."

"No! I don't!"

"You know him. And you know why he wanted Ursula killed. And you've lived in terror since the moment you heard she was dead—"

"Let me alone!" Her voice lifted, shaking.

Solo caught her arms, gripping her gently and yet firmly. Her lips quivering, the hysteria building in her, she tried to break free. She could not.

She burst into tears, crying suddenly in hurting sobs. "Oh, please let me alone."

"I'm sorry, I can't do that. And I don't believe you want me to."

"You're crazy!" She screamed it at him. "I never saw you before you walked in here. I never heard of you. That's the way I want it."

"No. You don't know me. But you know—inside—that

I'm trying to fight whoever it was who killed Ursula. And you know that whatever chance you have of staying alive depends on your working with me, helping me. Maybe the odds against you are bad. I tried to help Ursula. I couldn't do it. But I'll try to help you—and you know that your chances are better with me than without me."

She shook her head, her mouth trembling, her body shaking. "No. I'm afraid. I only want to stay alive, that's all I want. I haven't seen Ursula—not for years. That's the truth. What could I know? Don't drag me into it. Please don't."

"Am I dragging you into it, Barbry? You knew Ursula was frightened—and I believe you know why. Ursula's death was decided a long time before she arranged to meet me in Hawaii."

The girl sobbed openly now, almost lost in mindless hysteria. She repeated over and over, "I'm so afraid. I'm so afraid."

"Why, Barbry, why?"

"No. I don't know. Let me alone."

Solo sighed and dropped his hands to his side. "What if I do let you alone, Barbry, what then?"

"I'll be all right." But she pressed her trembling hands over her face.

"No. When you walked in here and saw me in that chair, you almost fainted. Why? Because you were afraid I had come—from whom, Barbry? From the man who had killed Ursula?"

"No. I don't want to talk about it."

"You know something else, too, Barbry. If you even suspect the identity of the man who sentenced Ursula to death, you must realize that you, too, are in the same danger that she was. You've got to have help to stay alive. I can walk out—or I can stay. That's up to you. Either way, you've got to face it. Alone. Or with what-ever help I'm able to give you. There's a big organization behind me, Barbry, and I can offer you whatever power they possess to help you."

"I'm so alone. I'm so afraid."

"You've been alone and you've been afraid ever since Ursula died. It doesn't have to be that way any more."

Barbry straightened slightly. "What can I do?"

Solo sighed. "I want whatever information you have on Ursula. You won't be adding anything by telling me that she worked as a spy for Thrush. We know that. We know she was trying to break away. That's why she was killed. What we need are the people she worked with in the immediate past inside Thrush. Anything you know about them, any of them. Maybe you even know the reason why she wanted to quit the conspiracy. Whatever you tell me I promise to keep in strictest confidence. But it might be the key that will open up this whole affair."

Barbry Coast stood immobile and stared up at him for some seconds. He saw that she was looking at him for the first time. She had been until this moment so wrapped up in the ball of fear that her life had become that she'd been incapable of turning her attention outside her own confused, terrorized mind.

Her face was rigid, pallid. She walked away from him, moving woodenly, her thoughts spinning. She appeared hardly aware of what she was doing. She went behind a screen, dropped the robe and dressed in that same abstracted way.

At last she said, "I don't know why I trust you. Maybe like you say I've got no choice. I've got you or nobody… Ursula trusted you, and she died… but maybe at least she wasn't alone when it happened. Maybe the way things are with me right now that's all that matters."

Barbry Coast sat across the white-linen covered table in a restaurant booth. She turned the daiquiri slowly in her fingers. "You're right. I am scared. I've been out of my mind. Since Ursula was killed, it's as though I've been sitting around waiting for them—to come for me. I knew they'd find me sometime. I changed my name, my act, everything about me—and all the time I knew it wasn't any good."

"I got to you first. You're going to be all right."

She drew little comfort from his reassurance. She'd lived too long with her desperate terror to have it easily allayed. "It's not much of a life being a goldfish in a San Francisco night-joint, but it's all the action they gave me, and I'm stuck with it—and I'm honest enough to tell you I'm scared to die."

"Do you know how Ursula got mixed up with Thrush in the first place?"

She was silent for some seconds. At last she looked up. "We were doing this act. We were free—and dating a lot. We didn't even realize that most of our dates were with military men. They were alone, had money and were looking for fun. We just got together. Then this man came along—he was a Chinese-American, a truly ugly man, though I've met a lot of ugly men who were nicer than the handsome ones. But not him. He told us what a high percent of our dates were with men involved in top-secret military and missile matters. He said he could get us booked only into fine clubs near these missile and military centers and that we could make more money than we'd ever dreamed of making simply by repeating to his men anything that our dates said to us. I didn't want to do it, and I told him those men never talked about secret matters. But Ursula laughed at me, and he knew better anyhow. He said all men boasted when they drank too much, especially with women.

"Ursula went for it, right from the first. She warned me that I might get in trouble unless I agreed. When this man came back for our answer, we both said we'd agree to his deal. But he said he only wanted to hire Ursula at that time. The reason—well, he said he could contact me later.

"I got ill then, seeing that Ursula had joined this man's - organization. Suddenly we got a complete new set of bookings. But I was too nervous. I was getting ulcers worrying about Ursula and what was going to happen to us. We broke up the act. She went on working for them, and I tried to change my name and lose them. I was afraid—even then.

"Once Ursula and I met, accidentally, for a little while. She was thin, pale, nervous, tense, scared. She wanted out, but didn't know how to get free—and stay alive.

"We had a silly code made up of hip words, and I wrote to Ursula in our secret code begging her to make a break, to get away and to turn herself in to the C.I.A., the government, anyone who could help her."

Solo handed her the letter he had found along with the silver whip in Ursula's suitcase. "Is this the letter?"

Barbry smiled wanly. "Yes. That's it. It's just a jumble of zero-cool words. The only way you can understand it is to know what the other person is talking about. Ursula knew. I never heard from her again. After I wrote her, I got frightened again. I dyed my hair again, I left Chicago suddenly, and turned up out here with my new act and my new name. But I know they'll find me. They can find anybody they want to find."