“We wish you luck. You want us to collapse dramatically in front of all your guests?”
“That’s the trouble with you young people of today. No get-up-and-go.” When the occasion arose Brady could conveniently forget that his associates and himself were of the same generation. “No stamina. Not fit.” He seemed totally unaware of how preposterous he sounded, but they knew he wasn’t.
“We’d like to talk to you in the morning.”
“You would?” He eyed them both suspiciously. “When?”
“When you’re fit, unlimited stamina, the lark singing.”
“Damn it all, when?”
“Noon.”
Brady relaxed. “In that case, why don’t you stay?”
Dermott went and kissed Jean good night, Mackenzie did the same. They made the rounds with good nights and left.
They got to bed just after one in the morning. The previous two hours had been spent on the telephone.
Dermott awoke at seven-thirty. By eight, he was showered, shaved, eating off his breakfast tray and busy on the telephone. At nine he was joined by Mackenzie. At ten they were both closeted with Willoughby. At noon, they joined Brady at his breakfast table and explained what they had in mind. Brady chewed through the last of his ham omelette, which had originally been the size of a soup plate, then shook his head in a decisive fashion.
“It’s out of the question. It’s all over. Okay, there are a few stray threads in Alaska, but who am I to devote my time to that sort of small potatoes?”
“So it is in order if Donald and I resign?”
Fortunately for Brady he was neither eating nor drinking at the moment, so he had nothing to choke over. “Resign? What the hell do you mean?”
“It’s Donald’s fault, really. Half Scots, you know. He hates to see good money being thrown away.”
“Money being thrown away?” Momentarily, Brady looked almost appalled, but his recovery was swift. “What’s this nonsense?”
“How much are you charging Sanmobil for our services?”
“Well, I’m not one to prey on the misfortunes of others. A half million I guess. Plus expenses, of course.”
“In that case, I reckon Donald and I would rate a quarter of a million for picking up stray threads and small potatoes.” Brady was silent, his eyes fixed on something beyond infinity. “With your name,” Dermott persisted, “one can see no reason why the Prudhoe Bay oil companies shouldn’t also come up with a half million. Plus, of course, expenses.”
Brady brought his gaze back from outer space to the dining-room table. “It’s not, as you may think, that I’m not at my best in the morning. It’s just that I have so much on my mind. What time is this meeting tonight?”
Sixteen
The meeting was held that evening in the Sanmobil canteen, which was drably lit and decorated in dingy cream and pea-green. Nevertheless, the room had much to recommend it for such a gathering, not least the fact that it was large and warm and a place from which the public could easily be excluded.
The tables and chairs had been rearranged so that the men conducting the proceedings sat in a line — on stage, as it were — facing down the long room. The rest of the seats had been set out in two blocks, divided by a gangway.
In the middle of the top table sat Willoughby, acting as host in his own parish. On his right was Hamish Black, general manager of BP/Sohio, Alaska, who had flown down from Prudhoe Bay to be present. On Willoughby’s left sat Brady, overflowing a rickety wooden chair, and beside him were his two trusty henchmen.
Down on the floor, the home team was represented by Bill Reynolds, Jay Shore and a handful of others. On the Alaskan side there were eight men, among them Dr. Blake, gaunt and cadaverous as
ever; Ffoulkes, the Anchorage police chief; and Parker, the police forensic surgeon. Morrison of the FBI had come on the same plane, and behind him sat four of his agents. At the back of the room were nearly thirty other men from Sanmobil brought in so that they could hear the full report of what had been happening. Finally, in an unobtrusive position at one side, John Carmody and a couple of fellow policemen occupied a flat bench, with their backs against the wall; and sandwiched between them was Corinne Delorme, looking small and wan and rather scared.
Willoughby stood up to open the proceedings.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. As the senior representative of the law here in Alberta, and as your nominal host, I would like to thank all you people who’ve been good enough to come from places as far afield as Prudhoe Bay, Anchorage and even New York.”
A murmur went around the room.
“That’s right,” Willoughby confirmed. “Two gentlemen at least have come all the way from New York. Now, the purpose of this meeting is to explain to the senior employees of Sanmobil and BP/Sohio just what’s been going on these past few days, and, if possible, to clear up the few final questions to which we don’t yet have the answers. I call on Mr. Hamish Black, general manager of BP/Sohio, Alaska, to put “you in the picture.”
Black rose to his feet, all disapproval and severity. Yet when he began to speak, he seemed to acquire a stature and authority that thoroughly surprised Brady and his associates.
– “I hardly need tell you,” he began, “that both the Alaskan pipeline and the Sanmobil tar-sands complex here at Athabasca have recently been subjected to deadly and intensive industrial sabotage.
The action effectively closed down the flow of oil from both centers, and in the process of the sabotage at least four innocent people have been murdered, while several others have been gravely injured.
“We devoutly hope that the savage and brutal attacks are at an end. They certainly seem to be so in Alberta — and for this the sole credit goes to the investigation team of Brady Enterprises, headed by Mr. Jim Brady himself and his two senior assistants, Mr. Dermott and Mr. Mackenzie.”
With the ghost of a smile softening the line of his pencil moustache, Black indicated the Brady team. To his dismay, Brady found himself blushing for the first time in years. He ground his teeth and contrived to look sideways at Dermott without moving his head. The guy they’d treated like dirt was praising them!
“Unfortunately,” Black went on, “no such happy conclusion has been reached in Alaska. Up there, we have no positive guarantee that the sabotage is at an end, for the simple reason that the individuals responsible for the criminal activity have not yet been brought to justice.
“Brady Enterprises have been as deeply involved in making inquiries in Alaska as they have here, and since they are the only people with an overall view of the present position, I should like to call upon Mr. Brady himself to give us a report.” •
Brady heaved himself upright and cleared his throat.
“Thank you, Mr. Black. Ladies and gentlemen, I promise to be as brief as possible, and to waste none of your time. First I will ask for a word from Mr. John Young, who is director of City Services, a Federally backed investigative agency in New York. One of its functions is to oversee and regulate the conduct of private detective and investigative agencies in the state of New York. Mr. Young?”
In the front row of the Sanmobil team seats, a lean, bald-headed man with thick-rimmed glasses rose to his feet. He looked at the papers in his hand, smiled at Brady, and turning to face the body of the hall, he began.
“City Services was asked by Brady Enterprises — this was with governmental consent — to investigate the background of a private security agency owned and run by one Samuel Bronowski, who later became head of security on the Alaskan pipeline,
“Apart from the fact that an unusually large percentage of valuables entrusted to the firm’s safekeeping had been missing — for readily explainable reasons — we found no evidence of any outright misconduct. But I was further asked to find out the names and identities of any of Bronowski’s associates who left the firm at about the same time as he did — that is to say, within six months either side of his departure date. We came up with ten names — not a particularly high wastage rate in such an agency — but Brady Enterprises were particularly interested in four of them.” Here Young consulted the notes in his right hand. “Their names are Houston, Brinckman, Jorgensen and Napier.”
Young sat down and Brady rose again to thank him. “Well,” he continued, “for those of you who do not already know, three of the four just mentioned are already in jail, charged with various crimes from murder downward. The other man, and Bronowski, you can now see for yourselves.”