Seek and Destroy Page 5

  This Drug Is Dangerous!

  “You seem to have the ability to attract trouble like a flypaper attracts flies.” The man behind the wheel turned his head slightly, grinned in the darkness, the faint flash of his teeth just showing in the shadow of his face. “You should really be more careful in your choice of friends.”

  Carradine set his teeth closely together, gave a tight smile. “And how do you know I’m not making the same mistake again?”

  The other laughed. “With me, you mean? You couldn't be safer, my friend.” A moment later, the bantering tone vanished and he became deadly serious. “I was ordered to contact you as soon as possible, Carradine. The name is Merton, Paul Merton. Does the name mean anything to you?”

  “Merton, of course.” Carradine nodded. The FBI agent he had been detailed to work with in South America! “You must have come along in the nick of time back there. They certainly meant to finish me.”

  “No doubt about that,” agreed the other. He swung the car around in a tight, side-sweeping curve, left the bright lights of the main street behind and plunged them into the semi-darkness of one of the smaller streets leading out to the suburbs. “I think it would be best if we had a talk, just to put you in the picture. Things have been happening pretty fast down here in the past week or so, ever since they managed to snatch Henkel right from under our very noses. We had more or less got him lined up to go back to Washington with us. There was a job waiting for him at Cape Kennedy.”

  “Surely any knowledge of rocketry that he may have had must have been really out of date by now. What could he possibly know that would interest you?”

  “Probably very little. I guess But the main idea behind it all was, I reckon, to make sure he was working for nobody else. So long as he was with us, we would be able to keep an eye on him.”

  Was there a certain defensiveness in the other’s voice? Pushing himself upright in the seat, Carradine glanced sideways. The throbbing in his head had eased a little now, had subsided into a dull ache The other’s face was just visible at intervals in the light that came from the street lamps.

  “Did you see either of those men back there?”

  “Only their backs,” said the other softly. He pressed down lightly on the brake, thrust the clutch deftly to the floor, bringing the car to a halt outside a tall building. At the moment it was in complete darkness.

  Carradine followed Merton up the wide, stone steps, through the door which the other unlocked, along a hall, up a flight of stairs, and into the room at the end of the corridor. Merton pulled off his coat and dropped it casually over the back of a chair He went over to the comer of the room and poured a couple of drinks. “Scotch?” he asked.

  “With ice if you have any,” Carradine replied.

  “Sure thing.” There was the soft, familiar chink of ice hitting glass, settling slowly down through the amber liquid.

  Merton brought the drinks over as Carradine lowered himself on to the couch. He seated himself beside the other, one leg over the other, his left hand around his ankle in a completely relaxed pose. He seemed completely at home here.

  “Now,” said Carradine, sipping the drink. “Suppose you tell me your side of this case. I must confess, at the very beginning, that 1 have very little information to go on. We’ve been informed of what the Reds are supposed to be doing five hundred miles or so from here.”

  “You can accept all of that as the truth, and a lot more besides,” nodded the other. He took a quick, almost nervous gulp of his drink. “These people are really playing for keeps. So far, everything seems to have fallen into their laps They’ve had the most fantastic luck you could possibly imagine.”

  “Not luck, my friend,” Carradine corrected. “As far as the M.G.B. is concerned, luck does not enter into their calculations. Everything is planned down to the last detail in Moscow before they even put anything into action. I happen to know a little about our friends of the M.G.B. and the N.K.V.D., which might even surprise them if they learned of it. For example, this kidnapping of Gunther Henkel, that would have been planned and arranged as much as two, maybe even ten, years ago. Their network of agents is so wide that they can call on a man to carry out even the tiniest, most trivial, act at a moment’s notice anywhere in the world, just so that a kidnapping might take place without a hitch here in Montevideo.”

  Merton stared at him over the rim of his glass. “I expect you’re right,” he said finally. “Certainly as far as that part of the trouble is concerned, we’ve drawn almost a complete blank. Not quite the blank they wanted us to have drawn though.”

  Now it was Carradine’s turn to stare. “Then you do have something to go on?”

  “Henkel’s daughter Her name is Gerda. She lived with her father and a single manservant in this house in the suburbs It seems that even the best laid plans of mice and the M.G B. went wrong on that occasion.”

  Carradine permitted himself a slight lift of his brows. He finished the whisky, felt a warm glow begin to work its way through his stomach, expanding outward into his body. “In what way?”

  “The girl returned earlier than they had anticipated. They must have been watching the house for weeks, possibly months, making notes of everyone’s movements so that they could plan the best time for the kidnapping, when Henkel was alone in the house and likely to be for some time. The last thing they wanted was to be disturbed in the act. They killed two dogs with curare. Very ingenious men these.” For a second there was a faint smile on the other’s face, but it slipped instantly as he noticed the grim expression on Carradine’s tight features.

  “Go on,” said the other.

  “Apparently, Gerda Henkel drove back to the house an hour or so before she had intended. The rehearsals of a play in which she was appearing had had to be cancelled owing to the illness of two of the cast. As she turned the corner of the road leading into the plaza, she almost ran into this car coming in the opposite direction, without any lights. Her own headlights swept over the windscreen of the other car, and she was able to make out the two men in it. One man, she felt sure, was holding a gun in his hand.”

  “And the descriptions of these two men?”

  “Unfortunately, we have both little to go on there, and no chance of getting anything more out of her.”

  “She’s dead then.” Carradine spoke quite casually, almost unconcernedly. In his profession he came face to face with death so often that it had become an everyday occurrence, something no longer treated with surprise or even reverence. The dead men and women he had seen had not looked noble as others would have liked to portray them. Death, whenever it touched anyone close to him, had always seemed such a messy thing.

  “Not dead,” Merton corrected, “although as far as helping us at all, she might just as well be dead.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” The other seemed to be talking in riddles most of the time, a thing which always tended to exasperate him.

  “An attempt was made on her life the day before yesterday. Someone tried to kill her on the road. Her car must have somersaulted three or four times after it left the road. How the petrol failed to ignite is nothing short of a miracle.” He got to his feet, took Carradine’s glass from him and walked back to the decanter, pouring two more drinks. Without turning his head, he went on: “By the time the ambulance got to the scene, she had been dragged from the wreckage and laid out by the side of the road. Curiously, she suffered little more than concussion and a couple of scratches on her arm. The crash had not even marred her features.”

  “Have you seen her since the accident?”

  “Sure, I called in at the hospital yesterday, told the doctor in charge of the case that this was an emergency and that he could get on to the FBI Headquarters in Washington if he wanted to verify my credentials. He didn’t, and he turned out to be extremely helpful, gave me all of the details of her case. Seems she may be up and about in a couple of weeks’ time, but that the knock she got when that car turned over, has given her amnesi
a. It’s as complete and total a case as any he’s seen. She remembers nothing prior to wakening up in hospital.”

  “I see.” Carradine accepted the glass which the other thrust into his hand. He held it between his hands, looking down through the amber liquid, turning the glass gently in his hands so that the light from the bulb beneath the ceiling flashed into his eyes, reflected by the curved glass. “Maybe if I was to see her.”

  Merton looked momentarily surprised, then shook his head. “What could you possibly do?” he asked.

  “Perhaps nothing.” Carradine shrugged. “On the other hand, I have a friend in Vienna who is an acknowledged world authority on amnesia, particularly that which is brought on by a blow on the head.” He lit a cigarette, drained his glass. “There are certain drugs which can now be used to cure these cases.”

  Merton looked dubious. “The doctor at the hospital did not seem to have heard of them.”

  Carradine smiled easily. “Perhaps not. But I can assure you, and him, that they do exist. Naturally, there are certain dangers associated with their use, and they have not been released to doctors or hospitals. This work is purely of an experimental nature.”

  “And you’re suggesting that one of these drugs should be used on the girl?”

  “I think that the seriousness of this trouble warrants it.” Merton was looking at him, a curious expression in his eyes. A moment later his gaze fell before the direct, penetrating stare that seemed to bore into his skull. “Don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure. After all, if anything happened to her there would be a lot of terribly awkward questions that would have to be answered.”

  “If we don’t find a way of making her tell us everything we need to know, a lot more awkward questions are going to be asked on both sides of the Atlantic. 1 think we should pay a visit to this hospital as soon as possible.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes, if that can be arranged.”

  Merton pursed his lips for a moment, then nodded abruptly, got to his feet and went over to the telephone in the corner. Carradine sat back on the couch and listened to the other dialling a number. A moment later he heard the other speaking quickly to someone at the other end of the wire. When he came back a few moments later, he said: “Doctor Vandrio is on duty tonight. He will see us in fifteen minutes at the hospital. I’ve impressed on him the urgency of this case”

  “Good.” Carradine got to his feet. “Then I suggest that we get there right away” Merton made a face, then nodded in agreement, finishing his drink in three gulps.

  Thirteen minutes later, with Carradine glancing through the glass window that looked out along the whole length of the ward, Merton said: “Here comes Vandrio now.”

  Carradine turned, pivoting on his heels, saw the tall, thin-faced man who came into the ward, the light of the corridor behind him for a moment as he opened the door. Then he closed it softly, walked over to the small office and came in His glance fell appraisingly on Carradine, then flickered to Merton.

  “Your call sounded extremely urgent,” he said softly. “May I ask the object of this visit at this time of night? Surely, whatever it is, it could have waited until the morning.”

  Merton shrugged. “I’m afraid this was my colleague’s idea. I think he can explain.”

  “Then I shall be pleased to hear the explanation, Señor Carradine. That was the name mentioned over the telephone, was it not?”

  “That’s right.” Carradine nodded. “I must apologize for this urgent call. Doctor. I realize that you are an extremely busy man and I would not have asked for this meeting if there had not been other, tremendous, issues at stake.”

  Vandrio wrinkled his brows a little. “I am afraid that 1 do not quite understand,” he said, looking from one man to the other. “You ask to see me here, and also to make sure that the Night Sister is not present in this office, which is, after all, hers when she is on duty.”

  “Bear with me for just a little while and I shall try to make everything clear to you, Doctor.” Carradine sat down in one of the chairs. “No doubt you know who the girl is that we are interested in.”

  “Certainly. Gerda de Silva. Her father is an extremely wealthy man.”

  “Her father was kidnapped over a week ago by men we believe are Russian agents. We believe that Gerda saw them as they were driving away from the house with her father, probably unconscious, in the back seat out of sight. Because she might be able to recognize them again, or give an accurate description of them to the police, it was essential that she should not talk. I think that the man who had been ordered to kill her before she could cause any trouble, bungled the job. He should have carried it out within hours of the kidnapping. But instead, for some reason, it was several days later. He forced her car off the road, hoping that it would look like an accident and that Gerda would then be out of the way permanently. Unfortunately for them, he only succeeded in injuring her. Unfortunately for us, that injury brought on total amnesia.”

  “I see.” Vandrio looked serious. “As far as her medical history is concerned, you are correct in what you say. 1 know nothing about the rest. I can indeed see no earthly reason why her father should have been kidnapped by Russian agents as you would have me believe.”

  “I’m afraid that this is one piece of information you will simply have to take on trust,” said Carradine stiffly. “It would take me far too long to justify, even if I were in a position to do so.”

  “Very well, I accept that.” Vandrio nodded. He spread his hands wide in a futile, resigned gesture. “But that being the case, what do you expect me to do about it? Amnesia is one disease which cannot be cured at a moment’s notice. In Gerda’s case, I seriously doubt if she will ever recover her memory.” He looked up at Carradine, suddenly thoughtful “That was the thing uppermost in your minds, wasn’t it? Whether her memory will come back so that she can tell you exactly what happened that night?”

  “Not exactly. We’re asking for something more than that, something more than mere information. We want her to tell us what happened this very minute.”

  “That is quite out of the question. Utterly impossible,” retorted the other.

  “Is it?” murmured Carradine mildly. “On the contrary, I think that it is something which can be done, which must be done.”

  Vandrio stared at him incredulously. “May I ask how you propose to do it?”

  “Have you ever heard of a drug called Valudrine, Doctor?”

  “Valudrine?” Vandrio’s teeth snapped shut. “I have read a paper on this drug which was presented to the recent medical congress in Vienna, three months ago. But this is a purely experimental drug. It has never been given through clinical trials to examine any side effects which may occur with its use.”

  “I agree. It is entirely possible that there may be side effects which we cannot control. On the other hand, it has been known quite conclusively, to jerk a patient out of even total amnesia in a remarkable short time.”

  “I’m afraid that I must discuss this matter no further with you, Mister Carradine. It is obvious that you are not a doctor, otherwise you would never suggest using such a drug on one of my patients. I cannot allow it, of course.”

  Carradine’s tone was deceptively mild and soft, as he said: “I don’t think you fully recognize your position in this, doctor. Gerda de Silva’s proper name is Gerda Henkel. Her father was a rocket expert, working for Hitler during the war. He came here to Uruguay less than two months after the fall of Germany, and he has been in hiding ever since. Your Government may be extremely embarrassed should this information get into the wrong hands and be published. Whether there would have been any requests for extradition. I do not know. Certainly, the police are in trouble enough with this kidnapping. I think it would be far wiser and more discreet to do as I ask.”

  Vandrio sucked in his cheeks, drawing the flesh down on to the prominent bone structure. He seemed to be debating within himself what to do for the best. Carradine said nothing. He continu
ed to watch the other from beneath lowered lids. The man was obviously swayed by the argument he had put forward. He was not sure of the position of doctors in this country. Perhaps there was a lot of political influence behind them, and their future promotion, if that was the case, then he had a strong hold over the other and meant to use this to his greatest advantage.

  Finally, Vandrio said harshly: “This is a terrible thing that you are asking of me, Señor Carradine. If I accede to your request, then you must realize that I do so only under strong protest. It is against medical ethics to use a drug as dangerous as this, as untried as Valudrine, on a patient. She is in my care and if anything were to happen, it might be utterly impossible for me to explain it away. You realize that, of course.”

  “Naturally,” said Carradine softly.

  The other seemed to be considering that single word. His face was a study of mixed emotions. Then he shrugged, rubbed his hands together as if symbolically washing his hands of the whole affair.

  “I will arrange for you to be taken to her ward,” he said shortly. “And this drug which you propose to use on her. How do you intend to obtain it?”

  “A plane has already been laid on to bring it from Vienna,” Carradine told him briefly. “It will arrive here within the next twenty-four hours. Then it will be administered to her.”

  Vandrio sighed. He threw a quick glance at Merton, a glowering look. “I hope that when all of this is over you will be satisfied with what you have done,” he said tightly. “Not that it will be of any comfort to the girl if she is dead.” He did not wait for either of them to answer, but turned quickly on his heel and walked out of the office. Carradine stared at his retreating back, caught the other briefly silhouetted against the open doorway. Then the door of the ward was closed and there was only the light from two dim bulbs, one at each end of the ward, set close to the ceiling.

  A small packet, doubly sealed, was waiting for Carradine at the office the next morning as Carradine, accompanied by Merton, arrived at the hospital. He opened the wrappings as he followed the nurse along the white, antiseptic-smelling corridor, to Doctor Vandrio’s office on the second floor. There was a white, cardboard box, also sealed, inside the wrappings Breaking the seals, he lifted the lid and glanced inside. The tiny ampoule of liquid rested in cotton-wool. Taking it out between his thumb and forefinger, Carradine held it up in front of him. The faintly yellow liquid inside the glass ampoule caught the light which streamed through the open windows, threw golden flashes into his eyes as he turned it slowly in his lingers.