Free The Betrayers by Donald Hamilton Page B

lights up with burning enthusiasm and he gets that fanatic look in his bright blue eyes… It’s one of his biggest assets. You should have seen him playing a dedicated Heil-Hitler boy some years back; he was damn convincing. What woke you up, Jill? What broke the hypnotic spell?”
    “Nothing broke the spell,” she said stiffly. “There wasn’t any spell. I wasn’t hypnotized. I’m not a child, Matt; I knew what I was doing. And I haven’t changedmy opinions in the least!” She hesitated. “I… I just didn’t realize how far he intended to go. In spite of what people seem to think, the fact that you’re opposed to your country’s foreign policy doesn’t necessarily mean… Well, I don’t like what’s being done in Washington, but that doesn’t mean I prefer Moscow or Peking, in this case Peking. And when I learned beyond any doubt that Monk was negotiating with them, and that they were sending a couple of specialists to help…”
    “Specialists in what? To help with what?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t know, Matt. I just haven’t been able to find out.”
    I was beginning to have an uneasy feeling she wasn’t ever going to find out anything Monk didn’t want her to find out. What worried me even more was the fact that I couldn’t help wondering if what she’d already found out was anything the Monk was actually trying to keep hidden. He was too smart and wary to conduct treasonable negotiations in such a way that a green kid could stumble on the evidence, unless he wanted that evidence stumbled on. Which indicated that he must be playing a much trickier game than anybody seemed willing to believe—or maybe I was giving him too much credit. I hoped so.
    “Do you know when these specialists are coming?”
    “They were supposed to arrive earlier in the week with something Monk needed. I don’t have any reason to believe they didn’t. Of course I couldn’t ask without attracting attention—I wasn’t even supposed to know about it—but nobody’s been acting as if anything’s gone wrong.”
    “If they did arrive, where would they be now?”
    “Well, he wouldn’t want them hanging around Oahu, I don’t suppose. He’d probably get them to K as soon as possible.” She went on quickly, forestalling my question. “It’s just something I’ve heard mentioned, Matt, a kind of base or hideout, I gather, where they’re getting things ready for what they’re going to do. They just refer to it as K. I haven’t been able to learn where it is.” She paused and went on, “I’m sorry to be so little help. I’ve been scared to ask questions about it. I can guess, if it’s any good.”
    “Try it and we’ll see how good it is.”
    “K has to be accessible by water, because they go there by boat and sometimes the weather holds them up for days. When the trades are blowing too hard, apparently, they can’t make it. Of course they may stop somewhere and switch to a car or a plane but I don’t think they do. And if the place is near the water, it probably isn’t on an island like this one, with a shore road clear around it. I mean, they wouldn’t want fishermen or picnickers stumbling on it by mistake, or seeing the boat coming or leaving. Do you know how the main islands go? There’s Kauai, farthest to the northwest, and Oahu, where we are. Then there are Molokai, Maui, and Hawaii, all strung out to the southeast beyond Diamond Head over there.” She started to lift her hand.
    “Don’t point!” I said sharply.
    “Sorry,” she said, abashed. “Anyway, Oahu itself is out because of roads, I think, and so are Maui and the Big Island, Hawaii. Well, there are some desolate placesalong the shoreline of Hawaii that might do, but it’s a long boat ride, too long to be really feasible, a couple hundred miles. Even if you wanted to risk it in the speedboats they use, they don’t have the cruising range, and I’ve never seen them take extra gas. Also, I’ve clocked them out and in, when