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Show 1,4 CARIBBEAN v llf CONSPIRACYSi illlllll kBRENDA CONRAD I '1 she hadn't shelled out the well-known well-known plans." "Then that's that," Anne said. He grinned at her again. "That's that," he said not very steadily. He stood looking at the ashen tip of his cigarette a moment, his face sober and intent. "And there's one other thing I'd like to say, Annie. I was all wet about Valera. I'd heard they might send somebody down like that, but I didn't get hep to it until he turned all the papers over to me up at the coffee finca. I'd just like to say roared full speed; the propellers were a glancing whirring light "So that's the game?" Pete said. "Not on your life, Valera! I've got Taussig's charts and I'm getting him." Pete tore loose, leaped to the gallery gal-lery rail and over. Anne moved slowly forward, all the strength gone out of her. Miguel caught her in his arms and held her for a moment. mo-ment. He kept his arm around her, steadying her, as they went to the gallery. The great motors of the black and yellow plane roared. Diego Di-ego Gongaro was climbing in. Mr. THE STORY SO FAR: Anne Heywood, leantlful daughter of a wealthy New fork newspaper publisher, goes to Puerto Puer-to Rico on an assignment for her father's paper. Also on the island are Pete Wil-tox, Wil-tox, a reporter on her father'! paper. Bow a U. S. Army intelligence officer; Miguel Valera, a Puerto Rican educated In the United States who is a secret U. S. tgent; Richard Taussig, an engineer whose Identity as a German agent is about to be proved; and Russell Porter, a young American engineer, and his wife, 6ue, who has misguidedly given Mr. Taussig some valuable plans. Sue appeals ap-peals to Anne for help. Anne goes with Taussig to a remote villa. Outside Pete and Valera are waiting. Taussig, running 'doggedly and with surprising pace, was fifty yards off, far ahead of Pete Wilcox. Miguel's arm tightened around her waist. He was watching silently, his lips compressed and his face grave. Then suddenly she felt the violent forward lurch of his body. Her eyes flashed open. The field was alive with soldiers, coming from everywhere, every-where, it seemed to her . . . and Pete Wilcox was running down it again. And the plane . . . Something Some-thing had happened. It was losing what little altitude It had, careening careen-ing heavily, swaying back arid forth. Anne felt her heart had stopped beating altogether. It leveled off, dangerously close to the hillside, the roar of the motors dying out Anne closed her eyes as it nosed up for one last time, and crashed down, CHAPTER XVIII The palms of Anne's hands were eoldly moist. " Where are we going?" go-ing?" "I am going to Brazil," Mr. Taussig Taus-sig replied. "Here is some paper. Please don't try to be either funny or resourceful It's quite useless, I assure you." Anne sat without moving for an Instant What was the use? Then ghe thought quickly. It would be quite easy to leave some kind of a . . . story. She nicked up the pen. ; " TJear Pete,' " Mr. Taussig said. I believe that is what you call him? 'I have decided to go away with Richard Taussig.' " Anne looked at him steadily. "Couldn't you spare me that humili- I'm sorry. He s a swell guy. He tossed his cigarette over the balustrade into the surf. "So I take it all back, Annie. I hope you'll be awfully happy. Because Be-cause you're a swell guy too." "Oh, don't Pete," she said. "You'll break my heart." "I wish I could," he said. "So long. I suppose " He stopped. Miguel Valera was coming through the arcade. He came on over. "Am I " "I was just going," Pete said. "You did a swell job, Valera." He held out his hand. Miguel grasped it Neither of them spoke for an instant. "Good luck," Pete said. "I hope you'll keep her out of trouble. So long. So long, Annie." Don Alvaro Valera's party for his son's home-coming had been sched- ation, Mr. Taussig? He won t believe be-lieve it, I assure you. I must have told him already that I think you're unbelievably repulsive." Mr. Taussig's face hardened into the mottled oyster-gray. "Continue. 'I know It will be a ihock after everything I have said, but that's the way it is. I want you to tell Mother and' . . . Dad or Father, whichever you say . . ." She wrote "Father." Pete would know she'd never say that. " Tell them they are not to try to find me, because they couldn't Tm sick of the kind of sheltered life I've always had and this is a chance I'll never get again. We're flying to Costa Rica. I'll write to you some time. Lots' ... or do you ay loads ... 'of love.' " "I . . . might as well say loads, I guess," she said. She tried to keep her hand on the pen from shaking. All she ever said really was "Yours," or "All the best, angel." i It seemed funny, writing to him. Everything inside her had gone a little numb, all of a sudden. She pulled herself sharply together. togeth-er. "Where am I going?" she asked. "You are going half-way to Sao Paolo, with me, in the plane out there." "Not all the way?" Mr. Taussig shook his head. "Furthermore, "Fur-thermore, it is a non-stop flight, if you're interested." She looked at him calmly. "You mean, I'm getting out half-way uled for Sunday. "He sees no reason for postponing postpon-ing it," Miguel told Anne. They were lunching at the JVlallorquina. "It's a brave face to the world, I suppose. I'm reporting for duty next week, by the way." He looked at her anxiously. "My father wants to talk to you, Anne." "Have you told him?" He nodded. "He thinks you're i splendid." She hesitated for a moment. "Miguel," "Mig-uel," she said. "There's one thing I must ask you. Who is the girl I asked you about before?" He looked at her for a long time before he spoke. "She is . . . nobody, no-body, Anne." "That's . . . not true," Anne said. "She's somebody. She followed me around, and she wrote me a note." He looked down at his glass. Then he pushed his chair back and leaned forward. "Look, my dear," he said. "She is largely responsible for both you and Wilcox not getting killed yesterday. yester-day. She is ... a friend of my uncle Diego Gongaro. She has been listening to their talk . . ." Anne hesitated on the doorstep of the Valera home. Miguel took her arm reassuringly. They went through a tiled passage. Jn the broad lovely patio Don Alvaro came forward, bowing as he took her hand. "It is a great pleasure, Senorita," he said. there." Mr. Taussig's mouth tightened to thin line. "Take this envelope up, put the letter in it and seal it. I don't want . my own fingerprints on it. Thank you. Now take another piece of paper and write to Mrs. Porter. " 'Dearest Sue, Don't be shocked, darling, but I'm going away with Mr. Taussig. I decided it this morning. morn-ing. I'm sorry about Russell's plans. I shouldn't have taken them. 1 put them ' " He stopped. "Write wherever you did put them." Anne wrote quickly: ". . . inside the skirt of my blue jersey dinner j dress in the closet." She looked up, clear-eyed. "Yes?" "Sign it, Miss Heywood." She wrote, "Love Anne." Taussig motioned to her to push the letter over to him. He bent over, reading it slowly. His bands shook a little suddenly, his face was distorted dis-torted and horrible. She shrank back instinctively. His hand moved toward the gun on the table, and topped. He got up slowly. "Miss Heywood," he said, his voice cold and deadly soft. "You are lying. Those plans are not in your room. Nor do you have a blue Jersey dinner dress in your closet." 1 Her voice was so steady and cool that she hardly recognized it. "Let them go, Wilcox! Let them go, I tell you!" buried almost out of sight in the banana and orange and coffee trees on the slope. Miguel had not moved or said a word. He was bent forward rigidly, waiting. Suddenly he relaxed. She looked at him. "Miguel!" He turned to her, his face haggard and tired. "It wasn't supposed to happen that way, Anne," he said gently. "It wasn't supposed to get off the ground at all." Anne started unzipping Sue's frilly blue dress as soon as she closed the door of her room in the Granada Gra-nada and got one of her own out of the closet. She came back into the room and looked around. It seemed ages since she and Sue and Mr. Taussig had been there. A note was propped up in the middle of the bed. She picked it up. "Anne I've decided to try to save the pieces like you said. Call me as soon as you can. Love, Sue." She went to the telephone. Senora Porter had gone to the Airport to meet Senor Porter. She was combing her hair when the phone rang. "Captain Wilcox He led her around to the right where a woman in a heavily beaded bead-ed blue crepe dress was talking excitedly ex-citedly to another woman. "This is Miss Heywood, Rosa. My niece, Mrs. Arias." They shook hands. Anne glanced along the terrace. There was nothing noth-ing but women, all sitting in a long row, chattering and laughing. She looked across to the other side. Over there there was .nothing but men. She listened with bewildered attention atten-tion to the voluble stream that Mrs. Arias was pouring out into her ear about poor Graciela having to miss the party to be at her father's side in the hospital. Don Alvaro was gone, Miguel was the center of the group on the other side of the patio. Anne took her place in the row oi chairs and sipped the cool champagne cham-pagne puncfi a servant brought her. So far as she could see she was the only Continental American there. After a few moments Mrs. Arias brought up an attractive woman in a blue linen sports dress and introduced intro-duced her. She was English. "Is this your first Spanish party?" she asked with a smile. "I thought so. You look so bewildered." "I guess I do, too," Anne laughed. "Do we just stay here like this? What would happen if we went over on the other side?" "You'd go alone. I haven't eot is here, miss," the operator said. "Thanks. Tell him I'll be down." She crossed the terrace. Pete was standing against the marble balustrade, looking out over the ocean. When he turned she had the impression that he was sorting his face out so she wouldn't see what was really in it. "Hi, Annie," be said. "I hope you don't mind my coming back this way. I thought you'd like to have the latest dope." "Oh, don't, Pete," she said. "You know I always love to see you." He grinned. "Thanks, Anne. I wanted to tell you about Sue. She was wonderful, poor little devil. She barged into Fletcher's office, flags flying, this morning at nine o'clock and demanded to be taken to the General and have Old Iron Lungs brought in. Fletcher listened to her a little and did it, and she shot the works." "Oh, Pete!" "Fletcher said she was swell. She didn't try to find an out of any sort" "What's going to happen?" 'They're pretty human even tf they are tough," Pete said. "I guess they figured she'd learned her lesson. Anyway, they wouldn't have so much of the goods on Taussig if " "Nor, Mr. Taussig, do I have the plans. I haven't got them now, nor have I ever had them. The whole thing, as you will probably remember, remem-ber, was your own idea." He stared at her, livid with fury. In the darkened inner room Miguel Mig-uel Valera moved the bolt on the door slowly and silently. Pete touched his arm. "Wait!" he whispered. whis-pered. The door to the inner room opened as Mr. Taussig was starting slowly toward Anne Heywood. Pete Wilcox Wil-cox took two quick steps to her side, thrust her back across the room. Taussig lurched for the revolver, and as Miguel Valera caught the corner of the desk pad and flicked the revolver onto the floor, he turned and dashed out onto the gallery. Diego Gongaro was already gone. A door slammed; there was the sound of running feet in the courtyard. court-yard. Pete dashed across the room . . . and Anne leaned back against the wall, sick with fear, for Miguel Valera Va-lera caught Pete by the arm, holding him. "Let them go, Wilcoxl Let them V r go, I tell you!" For an instant Pete stood there tunned. The motors of the plane that much courage." "But look there's a boy talking to a girl." "But he's engaged to her." "Oh," Anne said. "And there he goes back to the men." She and Miguel were engaged too, and he could have come and talked to her. But that was her fault She hadn't wanted it public knowledge until her parents came. Anyway, he was watching her. She smiled across the patio at him. At lunch they sat at a long table under the trees in a walled garden, Anne and Miguel and the Englishwoman English-woman and her husband. It was fun then, except that still most of the women stayed in the house and the men stayed clustered in their own group. The crisp roast pig and the asopao were wonderful, but Anne felt the way she used to when she was a small child and they had Christmas dinner in the middle oi the day. She was glad when Don Alvaro came and she could get up and move around. They walked across the garden and into the patio. "Shall we go inside, Senorita?" he said. "I hav wished several day to talk to you." TO BE CONTINUED) |