Free Agent in Place by Helen MacInnes Page A

had no sense of exultation. No excitement: not even relief that the job was over. He pulled the last page out of the machine, separated it from its carbon copy.
    “Twenty minutes past ten,” Rick said. “Not bad at all.” He placed the carbon copy with the others, studied the page for any errors. “Clean. Except for these damn letters.” The m and n were ink-blocked, the t thickened. “Pity you didn’t have any type-cleaner around. Still, it’s legible. Quite professional. I’d hire you as a secretary any day.”
    Chuck said nothing at all. He gathered up the NATO Memorandum, Part I, and opened his desk drawer. Carefully, he placed all three parts together, and began fastening them into one complete document.
    Rick spoke again. “Can’t I have a look at the two last sections?”
    Chuck went on with his job, finished it, and replaced the NATO folder in the drawer. “I’d rather we didn’t handle it any more than necessary.”
    And Rick, who had been congratulating himself on his display of complete innocence in that last question, looked suddenly startled. I didn’t wear gloves, he remembered, and his face went rigid.
    “You’d better ’phone Holzheimer.”
    Rick tried to recall whether he had really grasped the sheets of the Memorandum between thumb and forefinger: he had lifted them gingerly by the tips of his fingers, but there had been speed and pressure. No, he decided, he hadn’t left any identifiable traces of his work. But he ought to have gone downstairs to Katie and got the gloves he kept there: then he would have made sure that there were no fingerprints. He was almost certain now: what he was really nervous about was the expression on Mischa’s face if he ever heard of this carelessness. Mischa...
    “Holzheimer,” Chuck repeated sharply. “You said he would be waiting until ten thirty. It’s almost that now.”
    Rick nodded and reached for the telephone. And there went a perfectly natural excuse, he thought as he concealed his annoyance. Ten thirty had been a time that he had pulled out of the air: he hadn’t expected Chuck to finish the typing job until eleven o’clock at the earliest. Too late, he would have explained, to get in touch tonight; better leave it till tomorrow. And tomorrow could have another tomorrow...any pretence to let him delay and postpone and delay. But now he could feel Chuck’s eye on his fingers as he dialled the number, so he kept it accurate. When he got through, there was enough background noise in the news-room to give him a second chance at an excuse. “No go. I don’t think he’s at his desk. Gone home, perhaps. Or out on the town. There’s so much damned racket—”
    “But someone answered you—”
    “Sure. And left the ’phone off the hook.”
    “Keep trying.”
    “It’s the wrong time to call him. Obviously.”
    Chuck reached out and seized the receiver as Rick was about to replace it.
    “What the hell—” Rick began.
    “We’ll wait this out.” And simultaneously, a voice was saying angrily into Chuck’s ear, “Who’s this? Do you want to talk with me—or not?”
    “Martin Holzheimer?”
    “Speaking.”
    “Here’s Nealey. Hold the line.” Chuck handed the receiver back to Rick. “Tell him you’ll meet him in Katie’s apartment, as soon after eleven o’clock as possible.”
    “What?”
    “Downstairs. Apartment 5-A.”
    “But—”
    “Tell him.”
    Rick did all that. He ended his call, and smothered his anger as he turned to face Chuck. “Just what do you think you are doing? This was my end of the business—to meet him some place where it would be safe and quiet—”
    “Katie’s apartment will be very quiet. She’s out until dawn, isn’t she?”
    “But why her place?”
    “Because it’s handy. I’ll be there, too.”
    Rick was nettled. “I thought you were going to keep clear of—”
    “I want to see this man, get a kind of feeling about him,” Chuck said.
    “Totally irrational behaviour.”
    “Possibly.