The Living Bomb by Michael Avallone

Author:Michael Avallone [Avallone, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Published: 2013-04-20T22:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

Life can be beautiful. Just like that soap opera has been telling everybody for years. It was beautiful now. Right now, aboard the Navy cutter chopping the waters smoothly back to its base with me and Ilona Dorn the star boarders.

It was great. A nice young sailor doctored her poor hands with all the care and skill of a great surgeon. They gave us dry clothes to put on and helped us both to start living again. Then came hot coffee, lots of it, and pretty soon the blood in our bodies was back where it belonged. John Smith, as efficient as ever, commandeered a bottle of brandy from the ship’s medicine cabinet and that really evened things out. The joy-juice never tasted better and never was more welcome. Then we were sitting in a small sort of stateroom below decks and John Smith brought out his cigarettes. I helped Ilona Dorn light hers because her hands were swathed in gauze.

John Smith’s clean-cut face studied me over his cigarette.

“I’d like to hear about your boat ride, Noon.”

I told him. All the details. I described Mr. Colombo and X.X. St. John with real relish. I was a kid again telling about the big bad man I’d met on my way to school. The men who wanted me to run away with them and be a pirate. I had to laugh at the childish excitement in my own voice. Ilona Dom could only shiver during the entire recital.

John Smith nodded. “Mr. Colombo. We expected him all right. But not so soon. St. John is his voice. Smart but not a genius like Colombo.” He squinted at me suspiciously. “Is that all that happened?”

I grinned. “You want more? Look—I ought to be mad but I’m not. I was a decoy, right? If they thought I looked like Renkov, the government must have thought so too. So you pushed me out where I was nosing around Ilona and they spotted me and made their move. Pretty cute. But you’ve still lost Colombo. He could be in Russia by now.”

“He could be but he isn’t.” John Smith chuckled. “You’re a smart boy, Noon. Now you know that you were assigned to this case because of your resemblance to a top secret agent, as well as your personal knowledge of Conroy. But you helped us find out something important too. Now, we also know that Mr. Colombo and St. John don’t have Conroy either like we thought they might.”

Ilona Dorn stirred, her eyes puzzled.

“Didn’t you hear what Ed told you? Before they threw us into the water, they received word from their shore radio that Conroy had been apprehended.”

John Smith nodded. “I heard him, Miss Dorn. And it means they’re on their way to picking him up now. But they didn’t have him until then. Which puts his disappearance in a different light entirely. Remember, he’s been missing for a week and they didn’t have anything to do with that. They thought Renkov was responsible. I don’t know, but that’s a very important fact to know.

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