The Spy in a Box Read online

  THE SPY IN

  A BOX

  RALPH DENNIS

  Copyright © 2019 Adventures in Television, Inc. All rights reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 1941298893

  ISBN-13: 978-1-941298-89-3

  Published by

  Brash Books, LLC

  12120 State Line #253

  Leawood, Kansas 66209

  www.brash-books.com

  Also by Ralph Dennis

  The War Heist

  A Talent for Killing

  The Broken Fixer

  Dust in the Heart

  The Hardman Series

  Atlanta Deathwatch

  The Charleston Knife is Back in Town

  Golden Girl And All

  Pimp For The Dead

  Down Among The Jocks

  Murder Is Not An Odd Job

  Working For The Man

  Deadly Cotton Heart

  The One Dollar Rip-Off

  Hump’s First Case

  The Last Of The Armageddon Wars

  The Buy Back Blues

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  Author Ralph Dennis is best known for his ground-breaking Hardman series, twelve crime novels set in Atlanta in the 1970s. He died in 1988, leaving behind several unpublished manuscripts. The Spy in a Box is one of those manuscripts.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  December, 1980

  It was not as easy as it had once been, setting up the meeting with Paul Marcos. San Nicolas, the capitol city of Costa Verde, was bubbling, near the boiling point and the top of the pot was about to blow away. The city was full of watchers, the “eyes” of a dozen organizations that wanted control of Costa Verde when the promised free elections were held in January, hardly a month away. A man in Will Hall’s position, the Company Man in shallow cover as a cultural attaché, had to prejudge every move he made. He knew that each faction in Costa Verde would understand or misunderstand that move in terms of their own goals.

  For the past month, Will Hall had used the coded wires and the diplomatic pouches to argue that the U.S. should support the moderate wing. Otherwise, he said, wins by either of the extremes, the rebels backed by Cuba or the right wing supported by the old landowners and the mining interests, would lead to a bloodbath and terrible repression.

  The moderate faction, headed by Paul Marcos, had assured him that his party would accomodate elements from both extremes in his government. Terror and repression would be avoided, Marcos promised Hall.

  It was the only solution, Hall believed. For a time, he even thought he might have influenced the Company. But this morning, while Hall ate a late breakfast, the message was received from Washington. It was delivered to Hall by a Marine guard while he sat over a third cup of coffee and a cigarette.

  Enough about Paul M.

  Reports noted and studied. Contact Valdez.

  Shiner

  It was difficult, on short notice, to set up a secret meeting with Marcos. Now it was necessary. The order that he contact Valdez, second in command of the right-wing element, placed Hall in a bad position. He owed Marcos an explanation. Otherwise the meeting with Valdez might be misunderstood. Even the moderate wing had their “eyes” about the city.

  In another time, or another city, he might have used the phone. In Costa Verde, the state controlled the phone system. The Embassy phones were definitely not secure. And it was a thousand to one bet that Paul’s home phone and the one at the moderate party offices were bugged as well.

  It would have to be an unscheduled meeting with Marcos. That was the only way. Once that was decided, Will Hall shuffled papers in his office on the third floor of the Embassy until 11:30 and then he rode the elevator to the Embassy lobby and walked past the Marine guards and stood looking down Embassy Row.

  In other parts of San Nicolas, in any area except Embassy Row, William Keith Hall might have been mistaken for a native Costa Verdean. He was a fraction of an inch over six feet tall. He had dark thick hair, not like the blond hair of the usual North American or the brown or the red. The tan acquired during his four years in South America, the last year and a half in Costa Verde, was just the right tint. It seemed to point to Spanish blood, the aristocratic blend that was never more than one-eighth native stock and the rest that of the Spanish colonists that ruled Costa Verde until the waves of revolution swept through South America. The nose was right also. It was narrow and the bone was like a knife blade.

  The language school at the Company’s farm in Virginia had given him a good base. Now he spoke almost flawless Spanish with the dips and turns and the slang that stamped it as Costa Verdean. His eyes were as dark as the lumps of coal still buried a mile deep in the mine.

  He stood on the sidewalk that ran down Embassy Row and had his slow, long look in both directions. It was approaching noon, the rest and lunch time, and he saw few Costa Verdeans. That was as he wanted it. He stepped down from the curb and crossed the wide avenue and entered the new arcade of shops that had been built in the last year to accomodate the needs of the Embassy Row staffs. The arcade was a maze and tangle of clothing shops and wine stores, jewelry stalls and specialty food markets.

  The first shop to the right, after he entered, sold wine. The owner, a dry little man in a gray business suit, recognized Hall because of the expensive purchases he had made over the last year. He smiled and nodded and left Hall to browse among the tilted racks. Five minutes passed. Hall moved from rack to rack, reading a label here and there. His eyes reached beyond the wine bottles. He watched the arcade entrance. Another five minutes passed. When Hall was ninety percent certain that he was not being followed, he selected two bottles of 1977 white Bordeaux and carried them to the counter. After he paid, and the bottles were wrapped, Hall scrawled his name on the parcel. He asked the owner to hold the wine for him until he had made other purchases in the far end of the arcade. The owner said that it would please him to serve the gentleman in any way that he could.

  After a slow walk through the arcade, Hall left by the far entrance that led to the Plaza. A battered Ford taxi was at the curb. Will entered it and gave the driver an address on the Avenue Boliver. It was a part of town Hall knew well. On the north side of that block of Boliver were the small inexpensive cafes where the workers and the tradespeople had their lunches. On the south side of that same block was the Union Nationale cooperative store, an American-style department center for members of the union and their families.

  It was a short ride. Will left the taxi and stood in front of one of the cafes until he was sure that the taxi had gone a distance and had been swallowed up in the rush of noon traffic. He found a slot in the traffic and crossed the Avenue to the Union Nationale store. He entered and passed through a men’s clothing section and a boot shop. There was an elevator at the rear of the first floor. Wh
en the doors opened, he entered it and rode it to the first stop, the second floor. Only a woman and two children exited with him. He stopped long enough to see the woman and the children enter a children’s clothing area. Then he located the down stairs. He pushed through the door and stood there for a count of sixty. Satisfied, he walked down the stairs to the first floor and found the exit to his left. That exit led to an alley lined with trash barrels and waste receptacles. Beyond that alley, seventy-five yards away, he could see the buildings on the Avenue San Martin.

  He checked his watch as he walked down the alley. Almost noon. On time or about on time. Usually Paul Marcos left his office a few minutes after twelve and ate in a small café around the corner. Hall reached the mouth of the alley and waited. He was on the north side of San Martin. Almost directly across the Avenue, at a right angle, was the old gray building that housed the offices of the moderate party. A single white door without glass led to four steps. Wrought iron railings bordered the steps.

  One minute passed. Then five. Just when Hall was about to decide that he’d missed Marcos the white door opened and Paul stood in the doorway. A tall thin man in his late forties, with the paler tint of the aristocrat. Graying hair cut short. A pencil line of a mustache on his upper lip. He held a white hat in one hand.

  Will Hall pushed away from the alley wall. He took one step. At that moment, Paul turned aside and allowed a young woman to step through the doorway ahead of him. It wasn’t a girl Hall knew and he hesitated and backed away. He was undecided, not sure that he could approach Paul while he was accompanied by someone he didn’t know. Across the street, Paul took the girl’s arm and they started down the stairs. Hall decided that he would have to take the risk. He stepped away from the alley and moved toward the curb. He stopped there and lifted an arm, about to wave toward Paul and try to get his attention.

  That was when the first shot was fired.

  The first round struck Paul in the chest and slammed him back against the closed door. He sat there, stunned, his hands coming up slowly and clasping across his chest. The girl with Paul turned and screamed.

  Then the second shot was fired. It was so close that it could have been an echo of the first shot. This time a part of Paul’s chin disappeared and a huge hole appeared in his throat.

  A third shot struck the girl in the back as she leaned down toward Paul. It was like a fist rammed her in the back and tumbled her across Paul.

  A squat dark man in peasant clothing and wearing a stained white hat ran down the street from Hall’s right and stopped on the bottom step and stared down at Paul and the girl.

  A gawker, Will Hall thought.

  The dark man’s hand went under his loose white shirt. There was a pistol in that hand when it cleared the shirt. The man stepped up two stairs and emptied the pistol into the two forms. The man turned and leaped down to the sidewalk. A dark sedan pulled level, the door on the curb side swung open, and the man with the pistol jumped headfirst into the back of the car. The sedan roared away in a cloud of black smoke.

  Odd. The street was suddenly empty. Blood pooled under the two bodies. Yes, bodies, Will told himself. He knew there was nothing he could do for them. He backed into the alley and walked quickly to the doorway and entered the Union Nationale cooperative store.

  Five minutes later he left the taxi at the Plaza side of the arcade. On his way through the arcade, he stopped at the wine shop and retrieved his parcel. He crossed to the American Embassy and entered past the Marine guards. He rode the elevator to the third floor. There had been no calls for him while he was gone. He sat behind his desk and waited. He knew the phone would ring within the hour.

  The call from Valdez came twenty minutes later.

  On the drive to the apartment Valdez kept in the city, Hall turned on the car radio and listened to the state-owned and controlled news. News interrupted music about every five minutes. Paul Marcos and a secretary who worked at the moderate party headquarters had been murdered by suspected elements of the leftist rebel forces. That and little else. The government had ordered a state funeral for Senor Marcos and there would be other honors as well.

  The apartment house was guarded by soldiers of the Republic. Four outside on the street, two in the lobby and two more in the hallway outside the penthouse apartment where Valdez lived. Hall was passed from guard unit to guard unit and, after a final search and frisk, he was allowed to enter the apartment where Valdez waited for him.

  There was indio blood in Valdez. All of it was indio, Hall thought. The dark skin and the flat forehead. And, as it was with some of them, the cunning and the incredible streak of cruelty. He had started as a soldier in the province army and he had worked his way into the state secret police. With a special determination, and a cruelty that fascinated those around him, he had moved beyond the military into a position as the private security chief for the mining interests in the northern province. Now, in the struggle for control of his country, he spoke for the right-wing interests. He was a front man. A native who stood in for the secretive people, the U.S. mining interests and the rich aristocrats.

  Will Hall had seen pictures of him taken ten years ago. He’d been a strong man then, with the shoulders of a peasant worker and the body of a wrestler. Soft living had put weight on him and inactivity, sloth, had turned that weight into layers and layers of fat.

  “A drink, Mr. Hall?”

  “Gin and tonic.”

  While Valdez mixed the drink, Hall looked around the large living room. It was decorated with the best of the native art, wood and stone carvings, and the walls were draped with the finest native weaving. The total effect was that of money and taste. But the room said nothing about Valdez. Whips and racks and razor blades and knives, that was the real Valdez. He moved well for a man his size. Valdez crossed to Hall and handed him the gin and tonic. “You Americans act rapidly,” he said.

  They were speaking English. It was a choice Valdez made. He was proud, he said, of his “gift of tongues.” It was, Hall thought, a limited gift and he was not certain what Valdez meant.

  Hall looked at his watch. “I’m on time.”

  “No, no.” Valdez’s huge body shook with laughter. “I meant the other matter.” Valdez sat heavily on the sofa and lifted his large stem glass of red wine. His eyes closed and he smiled. “But we will pretend it is what I meant. I will compliment you on your promptness.”

  Hall knew better than to push at Valdez. The indio cunning would see through him. He took the chair Valdez indicated and sipped his drink and let the huge man tell him what the purpose of the meeting was.

  An unwilling informant had told Valdez that a shipment of Cuban weapons was expected by the rebels within the next week. Valdez had heard of the marvels of the Company’s spy in the sky, the satellite orbit. Would it be possible for the spy in the sky to locate the mother ship as it approached the coast of Costa Verde? Would it be possible for him to be warned when the offloading took place?

  Hall said he would pass on the request to the Company in Washington.

  He finished his drink. Valdez led him to the door. He was laughing again. “Such promptitude,” Valdez said. Still laughing, he closed the door behind Hall.

  Near the elevator, the two guards held and fondled a frightened young girl. The girl wore the uniform of a cleaning woman. Tearful as the girl was, she did not cry out or protest. Her eyes begged for help from Hall. He looked away and got into the elevator when it reached the floor. Riding down to the lobby, he told himself once again that this was the way Costa Verde was and would always be. The animals ran the country. Especially now that Paul Marcos was dead.

  It was a hunch, a guess on his part.

  His Company credentials got him past the gate of the military air base to the north of the city. His name was on the authorized list kept in the guard booth. After he entered, he drove along the road that led to the control tower. Finally, when he was near it, he avoided the V.I.P. parking and took a left turn and parked in the lot a di
stance away. He parked with the nose of the car forward, facing the runway. From there he could see the executive Lear jet that had been towed into position in the shade of the tower. The pilot was already at the controls, doing his checkout of the engines and the instruments.

  Along the side of the Lear was the logo and the bold lettering: United Mining, Ltd.

  Hall didn’t have long to wait. What they called a “mule”, a tow tractor that was used to pull aircraft around the parking areas and the hangers, rumbled around the side of the tower and braked beside the Lear. The driver wore the green coveralls of an airport crewman. Two men sat in the back of the “mule”. Even before they left the tractor, Hall knew who they were. He recognized the flat elongated face of Stoddard and beside him, on his left, the round Irish face of Higgins. It was The Team. What they joked about around the Company as The Bug Squad.

  Stoddard was out of the “mule” first. He whipped one leg over the side of the tractor and stepped away. Higgins was next, slower, limping on what appeared to be a bruised right leg. Both men moved to the back of the “mule” and lifted a shiny, metallic footlocker from the back seat. They carried it, sharing the weight of it, to the door of the Lear. The footlocker was heavy and the strain showed in the faces of the two men. Good reason why it should be, Hall knew. It probably had enough armaments and weapons in it to start a small war.

  Foolishness. Later he would tell himself it was foolishness and pride and anger. Hall opened the door of the car and stepped out. There was a raised concrete barrier in front of the car and he stepped forward and stood on it and stared at the two men.

  Higgins saw him first. They had turned the footlocker, narrow side first, and pushed it into the Lear. Higgins backed away and turned to wave at the driver of the tow tractor. The hand stopped halfway to his shoulder when he saw Hall. Higgins reached behind him and touched Stoddard on the back. His lips moved but Hall did not know what he said.

  Stoddard did a slow spin and faced the parking lot. His face was like gray stone. The narrow mouth was like a knife slash. Then the lips curled into a smile. Stoddard did a slow bow, almost like a performer. When he straightened up, he nodded at Higgins and they boarded the plane and closed the cabin door behind them. A couple of minutes later, the wheel chocks were pulled and the Lear taxied away from the tower and headed for one of the runways.