The Sandler Inquiry Part 101

He shuddered.

Chapter 34 Thomas stood on the far end of the Eighty-sixth Street subway platform. He looked anxiously at his watch, seeing that it was ten minutes past five A.m. His eyes were !*inging with fatigue. Two subway trains had come and gone. He'looked up and down the platform and did not see the two men he awaited.

He'd been there half an hour. He'd reached them by telephone.

They were late. What, he wondered, was wrong? Nothing? Everything.

"Come on'" he addressed them in their absence.

"Arrive, d.a.m.n it, arrive!"

A downtown express train rumbled into the station. A pair of transit patrolmen watched Thomas from within the end car, idly wondering why, if he was standing in the station, he wasn't boarding the train.

The train began again. One of the patrolmen reached to a walkie talkie at his waist. The platform was clear again. A man dropped an early edition of the Daily News on a bench. Thomas glanced at a headline' A huge Soviet fis.h.i.+ng fleet was in the North Atlantic off Ma.s.sachusetts, it said. Thomas glanced away.

Hurry up, d.a.m.n it, he thought again.

He wandered toward the far end of the platform. Then he froze in thought. Footsteps approached and he looked up. He saw the tall, lean man first, then the shorter, stronger one, the one with the beard.

Whiteside and Hunter.

"You look surprised," said Hunter.

"Not at all." Thomas glanced at his watch.

"You're late. Punctuality is next to G.o.dliness. Didn't your keeper here ever teach you that?"

"Where's Sandler?" asked Hunter.

"And the girl?" asked Whiteside.

"Around."

"Don't be coy, Mr. Daniels," intoned Whiteside gently

"It doesn't become you." He s.h.i.+fted weight from one foot to another, c.o.c.ked his head, and glinted at Thomas.

"Why did you call us?"

"I told you " said Thomas, folding the newspaper beneath his arm.

"I'm going to give you the' new Leslie McAdam, the source of the bogus British pounds, and Sandler in the bargain. In return, I want the entire background story on Sandler. Everything" "I already agreed"

said Whiteside with cunning.

"I agreed an hour ago on the hone Hunter glared at Thomas, then looked around the platform, clearly unsure of his ground.

"I just wanted to be sure that we understood the ground rules,"

said Thomas.

"Obviously we do," Whiteside snorted with impatience.

"Otherwise I wouldn't be in this G.o.dforsaken place at a b.l.o.o.d.y hour like this. Where do we consummate our arrangement? Here?"

Thomas shook his head. He glanced to the tracks. "It's my turn to take you into the tunnel," he said.

"We wait for the next train to pa.s.s.

Then we go underground."

Fifteen minutes later, three men slipped onto the tracks and moved quickly northward, then westward beneath the streets of Manhattan. When they came to the narrow crawl way it was apparent that the older Whiteside would only navigate with a certain difficulty. And Hunter insisted that Whiteside travel first, followed by Thomas, then Hunter.

It took another fifteen minutes to arrive before the broken brick wall.

Whiteside and Hunter stepped through the pantry, Whiteside vainly trying to wipe the dirt from his clothing. Hunter's gaze was all around him, nervously antic.i.p.ating some sort of entrapment.

They pa.s.sed on to the dining room. There, in the room lit by flashlights and scented by the mustiness of furniture, Whiteside stopped short. His expression froze.

"Well, Whiteside?" asked Daniels.

"Yes or no?"

Hunter, in front of him, acting almost as a s.h.i.+eld, stepped to the side, glaring at Leslie, glancing back and forth between Hammond and Thomas Daniels as well as the woman. His own expression, shrouded by his beard, seemed to demand an explanation the explanation owed to his superior.

"It's yes, isn't it?" asked Daniels.

"Yes. Yes, of course it is" said Whiteside softly.

"h.e.l.lo, Peter," she said. She grinned.

"I guess you didn't get a good look on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade,"

she suggested.

"No" he said.

"You made sure we didn't. I sensed it was the real Leslie when you turned out to be so elusive." He thought back.

"That poor girl in London . We buried a girl who was the very image of you " "The very image' suggested Thomas, 'but not the original. That seems to be the type of game we're all involved in, isn't it? I may be slow sometimes, but I'm catching on."

"Sir?" asked Whiteside turning.

"A game of doubles," said Thomas.

"Or double doubles, if you prefer. One side can play the same game as the other. And every bit as well " "Perhaps' Whiteside said. He looked back to Leslie.

"I wish I could have' known what you were doing."

"There were leaks all over. By arrangement with the Americans, British security was to think I was dead."

Whiteside nodded pensively.