Free Operation Fireball by Dan J. Marlowe

won’t need to burden yourself with half the cash.” Erikson started to say something, but I pitched my voice above his. “I told you before I want to make sure it’s not only my money that gets to Cuba.” I separated forty fifty-dollar bills from one end of the semicircle on the table and stacked them together. “Can you spend more than two thousand on the radio?”
    Erikson was holding his temper with difficulty. “I’ll need sophisticated calibration and testing equipment,” he said after a moment in which he had plainly considered saying something else.
    I added twenty more bills to the stack, then handed it to him. “Will that get you to Key West with the gear?”
    He nodded again, but his lips were a thin line. He wasn’t used to having his decisions questioned. “I still think—”
    “See you at The Castaways,” I interrupted him. I separated ten more bills from the half moon and handed them to Slater. “You, too. Never mind planning on hitchhiking to save the cash.”
    “Never crossed my mind,” he protested. He thumbed the bills before placing them carefully in his wallet. “Damn near forgot how that size denomination feels. Well, we all set?”
    Erikson spoke before I could. “Don’t get carried away,” he said to Slater. His tone was dry. “Keep thinking of the bill-size denomination you’ll be feeling in Havana.”
    “No problem,” Slater said. “See you both in Key West.” He cocked an eyebrow. “When?”
    “No later than a week from today,” I said. I intended to be there sooner than that myself.
    “A week it is.” Slater started for the door. “Confusion to the enemy, boys.”
    “Keep your nose clean!” Erikson called after him. It was delivered in a quarterdeck type of voice.
    The door closed behind Slater with no further word from him. “There’s a problem?” I asked Erikson, who wouldn’t be leaving the room until Slater had a five-minute start.
    “He drinks. Not when I’m around, though.”
    “Plan on being around,” I invited him. “That kind of situation we don’t need.”
    There was a moment’s silence while Erikson debated his next words. I felt I knew what was coming. “Granted that you’re taking a financial risk none of the rest of us are, Drake,” he began smoothly; “you’ll get your share along with the rest of us. Distrust will get us nowhere. The project needs a leader whose decisions should be unquestioned.”
    “And you should be the leader?”
    “Yes.” It was said without hesitation.
    “I don’t see it that way,” I replied. “Slater and the fishing boat captain may be under your thumb, but I do my own thinking. You can lead in the areas where you’re qualified, like communications. Otherwise, don’t crowd me.”
    He didn’t like it, but he didn’t have a ready answer to it. Now that I’d made my point, I didn’t want him any madder than necessary. “How about a drink to the success of the expedition?” I proposed.
    For a second I thought he was going to refuse. Then he must have decided that it would look too ungracious. “A small one,” he said.
    I went to the bureau and removed a three-quarters-filled bottle of bourbon from a drawer. Bent over the drawer, I could feel the impression of my holstered revolver against my rib cage. I’d put the holster on before I spread the $50,000 on the card table. I took two glasses from the plastic tray on the bureau top, splashed booze liberally into them, then carried them into the bathroom to add tap water.
    Above the sound of the running water I heard a knock at the corridor door. Slater’s come back to try to talk me out of a little more cash, I thought. Then I realized that Slater would have double-checked to make sure that Erikson had left. I turned off the water and listened.
    In the same second I heard the sound of the door opening I had a mental image of fifty-dollar bills spread out on the card table. I put down the glasses and moved quickly to the partly closed bathroom