MFU Whitman - The Affair of the Gentle Saboteur Read Free Page A

color; his eyes and hair were jet black.
    "I'm wondering," Waverly said, "whether to tell you before dinner or after."
    "I don't quite understand," Montgomery said.
    "Hate to spoil your dinner." Their table was in an alcove, secluded from the other diners and out of earshot.
    "Nothing spoils my dinner when I'm hungry. And I'm hungry. By the way, I left the five-pound tin of your special mixture at the desk. All right now"—he laughed—"spoil my dinner. I challenge you."
    "Albert Stanley's in New York."
    The laughter ceased abruptly. The color fell away from his face like a dropped mask. From pale caverns his startled black eyes gleamed brilliantly. "No!"
    "Yes," Waverly said.
    Montgomery smiled sheepishly. "You win. I lose. Appetite's gone. Dinner's spoiled."
    "You asked for it, my friend."
    "That I did. Now please tell me about it, Alex."
    Now it was Waverly who was smiling. "I may be able to return some of that appetite to you, Doug. We've got him."
    "Pardon?"
    "My office called me here at the hotel. Right after you called me, as a matter of fact. My secretary, of course, couldn't give me all the details, not on an open-wire call to Dale Cunningham at Hotel Vesey. I got the facts in a kind of semi-code. Point is, we've got him—he's out of circulation. Solo and Kuryakin picked him up—at work, as it were—planting a nice neat bundle of explosives at the base of the Statue on Liberty Island. Caught him red-handed."
    "Albert Stanley," Montgomery mused, "the gentle saboteur." Then his brows knitted. "Did they get Burrows?"
    "Burrows?"
    Montgomery leaned forward. "Do tell me, Alex. All of it, if you please."
    Waverly recited the facts beginning with McNabb's sighting of Stanley at the airport. "I'll do the interrogation myself when I return tomorrow. Neither Solo nor Kuryakin knows yet that I know—nobody in my office does except my secretary—and I'll keep it that way. I'll start fresh, from scratch."
    "But—but why did you come here?" Montgomery asked.
    "He was still footloose. We had a large operation around him—but he was still footloose. You're British Intelligence. Certainly you would know more about him than I. I wanted all the information I could put together—in advance. I still do. Now what's this about Burrows?"
    "Eric Burrows."
    "What about Eric Burrows?"
    "If Albert Stanley's near, Eric Burrows can't be far behind. They work as a team. And, in my humble opinion, Burrows is far more deadly than Stanley. You know about the recent reorganization of the British Sector of THRUSH, don't you?"
    "I do."
    "Eric Burrows is now Number Two. Directly under the Chief. Second in command. The new Chief is Leslie Tudor. Burrows was entitled—"
    "Tell me about Tudor."
    "Burrows was entitled to the top slot. In the regular order of things—in the normal order of importance, growth, escalation—Eric Burrows was entitled to be and fully expected to be the new Chief of the British Sector of THRUSH. Any idea why he didn't get it?"
    "No," Waverly said.
    "Because he's a psychopath. He's deadly. He's like a venomous snake—a killer. A cold-blooded, sadistic killer. They simply wouldn't take a chance putting a killer like that on top of the heap. That much we know."
    "What do you know about the one who is on top of the heap now?"
    "Tudor?"
    "Tudor."
    "Not a great deal, I'm afraid."
    "Tell me, Doug."
    "We know Tudor's a skillful organizer, a planner, a schemer. A killer, perhaps—but not a cruel, vicious killer like Burrows."
    "Do you have a photo of Leslie Tudor?"
    "No."
    "Can you procure one?"
    "Tudor?" Montgomery's brief laugh was grim. "Not Tudor"
    "What's he look like?"
    "We don't know."
    " Any description?"
    "Nothing at all, Alex. But nothing. Be sure to pump Stanley on Tudor—as thoroughly as possible. Any bit we can glean, we'd appreciate. This new Chief has been a thorn—for that very reason. We know nothing, nothing visual; whatever we know, we've heard through roundabout methods or hearsay."
    "And what have you