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Show ,,J& CARIBBEAN IBN' ijlsk CONSPIRACY.!! ililllllli K BRENDA CONRAD J IHilll a sensitive plant over the entire Caribbean Car-ibbean area. He looked at his watch. It would be hours before he saw Anne if she showed at alL He wished to God she'd stayed at home. There was only one ray of comfort in the immediate im-mediate present. Tied to his desk with the ball and chain of Army regulations like the prisoners of Old Morro, he got some relief from the fact that Miguel Valera wanted her to go home. It meant at any rate that he wasn't going all out to glamorize glam-orize her into staying. And there was one other dewdrop in the desert. That had been dropped in passing by the General's aide. Old Iron Lung (namely Colonel Mortimer Mor-timer St. Clair De Voe, Engineer in Charge of Maintenance and Construction Con-struction of the Caribbean Area) had said to tell the CO., with his compliments, com-pliments, that he didn't give a blank blank blank blank if the Eternal Himself sent the Prophet Hezekiah down to Puerto Rico. Nobody was seeing the details of the pumps at Borinquen, or any place else he was in charge of. He would be glad to write the Senate of the United States, individually and collectively, and tell them so by blank. "What cyd the General say?" some one had asked. "The General?" said the aide. "Oh, the General. The General grinned, and sent Mr. Taussig, plus a copy of the Senate resolution they haven't passed yet for Old Iron Lung's pet project on Tortilla Cay, to the old boy, both with his compliments. compli-ments. So Mr. Taussig is on the Engineer's hands, not ours. Pete looked down at the papers in front of him. He'd been trying to Conquistadores ever fought they fought right out there, Miss Hey-wood," Hey-wood," Pete said. He waved his hand out over the rolling green golf course in front of El Morro's Officers Offi-cers Club. "It was in 1625, in case you have your notebook with you. I'll try to supply you with one fact a day. It's usually tourists who supply sup-ply us with facts, but you don't seem to have your guide book with you." Anne put down her coffee cup and looked at him across the table. "Pete," she said evenly. " What's the matter with you?" "Who, me?" "You," she said. "You've been perfectly foul all through lunch, and you know it What's the matter?" He took his last cigarette out, wadded the empty package and dropped it into the ash tray in front of him. He could see the warm flush creeping up into her cheeks and her tortoise-shell cat's eyes getting darker dark-er .. . storm warnings flying in the Caribbean. "I'm sorry," he said. "I suppose it's because I'm worried about you." Then he could have kicked himself across the graveyard into the Atlantic. At-lantic. That was just the thing he shouldn't have said. He waited for her to flare up and make some stinging sting-ing retort. But she didn't. "May I ask why you're worried about me?" she inquired calmly. Somebody must have told her about counting ten since he'd left New York, he thought. "You may ask, but I can't tell you," he said quietly. "That's the trouble." He looked at her sitting there cool and confident, and a babe in the woods, actually. If he could just take her by the back of the neck, the way you did a kitten or a Latin woman and put her in a plane and say "Go home!" everything every-thing would be easy. But he couldn't. Nobody could. Or if he could tell her why. His. job prevented pre-vented that. Anyway, it would probably prob-ably be just the thing that would makeher stay . '. . even if she believed him. "Look, Anne," he said. They were at the far end of the open porch. The boys had cleared empty tables ta-bles around them. "You know I love you ..." "If it's jealous pique, dear . . ." He interrupted her calmly. "It isn't. You're probably sick of hearing hear-ing me say it, so let's skip it. The point is, I like you, too. They're different. dif-ferent. And I think you like me." "Oh, Pete," she began. He gave her a twisted grin to try to conceal the sudden ache inside him. When her voice was like that it reduced his insides to quivering jelly. "The point is," he went on unsteadily, un-steadily, "I'm going to ask you to do something and not ask any questions, ques-tions, or try to guess the answers. Just trust your Uncle Pete . . . just once." He saw the shadow behind her .dark curling lashes and the almost imperceptible lines between her eyebrows. eye-brows. He liked her eyebrows THE STORY SO FAR: Anne Heywood, beautiful daughter of a wealthy New York newspaper publisher, goes on an assignment to Puerto Rico where Pete WUcox, a reporter on her father's pa-per, pa-per, is stationed as a U. S. Army intelligence intelli-gence officer. On the boat she meets a young Puerto Rican, Miguel Valera, and an engineer named Richard Taussig, of whom she is Immediately suspicious. She does not know that he is, in fact, a Ger-man Ger-man agent ordered to destroy Puerto Rico's water supply. When Anne's bags are searched she suspects Taussig. She goes to his hotel room to investigate and is surprised by a man she recognizes as Miguel Valera. Valera is talking to Pete Wilcox. CHAPTER V Pete blew a large white ring of cigarette smoke out in front of him and watched it dissolve in the cool silver air. Miguel Valera had been educated in the States he ought to have learned that you don't discuss a girl with a man you scarcely know. He took a deep breath and said nothing. "I'm sorry if I've offended you," Miguel Valera said quietly. He put down his glass. "I thought you were a close friend of hers." "I am." "In that case, if you will allow me to offer you some advice. Send her back to the States on Wednesday's Clipper." He got up. "Good night, Captain Wilcox." It was almost eleven when Anne got out of the elevator and went over to the desk. There was a note In her mail box from Pete, and a couple of air-mail letters from home. She went out onto the porch and sat down to read her mail. She must be careful of her skin, her mother said, and not go without a hat. Her father hoped she was having hav-ing fun and wouldn't fall in love with any damned native. She smiled, put the letters in her bag, and opened Pete's note. "Anne You're lunching with me. Same time, same place. Pete." She got up. As she started to go back into the lobby a big shiny black limousine with a uniformed chauffeur chauf-feur pulled up under the portico. Anne's heart jumped. Miguel Valera Va-lera was getting out. With him was his father, Don Alvaro. For an instant in-stant her impulse was to run. But she couldn't . . . Miguel had seen her. It was an important moment something profoundly deep inside her told her it was one of the most Important moments of her life. Then he was coming toward her. And she mustn't let him know she knew. "Good morning! This is awfully nice!" With the speed of light something so concealed that it was almost imperceptible im-perceptible relaxed behind Miguel Valera's gray-green eyes. He smiled warmly, taking her friendly outstretched out-stretched hand. Anne's face brightened. bright-ened. She'd done it. He didn't know . . . and the rest was easy. "You remember my father." "Of course." She smiled at Don Alvaro, standing stand-ing aloof and dignified in the arch- way waiting for his son. He had on the same white drill semi-military uniform or another like it, because be-cause he was spotlessly starched and ironed and the same gray felt hat in his hand. "Good morning," she said. She didn't know whether it should be Mr. or Senor or Don, so she didn't say his name at all. "Good morning, Senorita."" Don Alvaro bowed with formal courtesy. His eyes meeting hers with X-ray clarity were old and wise and calm. Yet somewhere in them was a veiled shadow of the same subtle resentment she'd felt so sharply and undisguisedly in Gra-ciela's. Gra-ciela's. She held out her hand simply. As simply, Don Alvaro took it. In the brief instant her eyes were raised to his, calm and trusting as a child's, the heavy load he had carried since his son's return had vanished. He smiled. "Will you have coffee with us, Senorita?" Miguel, reaching in his pocket for his lighter, stopped his hand abruptly. abrupt-ly. He had known his father would like her ... he couldn't help it when he once knew her; but he had expected a long uphill climb before more than a truce prevailed. He glanced at his father out of the corner cor-ner of his eye, not entirely convinced. con-vinced. "I'd love to," Anne was saying. Wilcox didn't know, he thought, how much it had taken for him to suggest sending her back to the States. He watched her slim flame-tipped flame-tipped body moving easily beside his father's erect Arm figure. Independence Independ-ence was a spiritual and physical as well as a social and economic quality. You could spot an American Ameri-can girl anywhere in the world. The way she moved was even more revealing re-vealing than the way she dressed. "Just so long as it doesn't get her into trouble," he thought. "She's not half as sophisticated as she looks." Pete Wilcox sat at his desk at General Gen-eral Headquarters, going through the morning's reports from the Department's De-partment's under-cover agents in Puerto Rico. It was a curious assortment, as-sortment, but no more curious than the assortment of people who sent it in Army Intelligence spreads like . . . the heavy load he had carried since his son's return had vanished. get up nerve to ask for a week's leave. It wasn't nerve so much, actually, as proper self-control when Colonel Fletcher turned him down. He could hear his "This is the Army, Captain Wilcox, in case you've forgotten." for-gotten." He read absently through the report of a dance-hall girl at a dive on La Marina that was out of bounds for soldiers, put it aside, read another, and started in on a third. "This man is not a personal enemy ene-my to me," he read methodically. "He is of ancient and honorable lineage and his family are all thieves, throat-cutters and swine. He is without principle himself as all his generations before him." Pete stopped abruptly, not because the tone of the letter was . unusual but because of the name he suddenly sudden-ly saw staring up at him from the florid script. "Miguel Valera seeks to undermine under-mine the government. He has been seen by me in conversation with a man who is known to steal a box of dynamite from Isla Grande and dump it in the sea off La Perla when the sailors come so they find nothing. Miguel Valera was seen by me later with an American who is hired by the yiego Rum Company. Com-pany. The American whose name is George raised his glass and drank the toast to the First President of Puerto Rico. I write without bitterness. bitter-ness. My grandfather was killed in falling in machinery at Valera Central." Cen-tral." Pete put the letter aside with a scowl. Vindictiveness wasted as much time as stupidity. He went patiently on till he came to the last letter in the pile. It was on cheaper paper than most of them even, and was signed with the initial "D." "Miguel Valera, son of Senor Alvaro Al-varo Miguel Valera y Delgado. seen by me this day speaking in back room of bar of La Rosa with Salva-tore Salva-tore Vegas. Salvatore steal dynamite dyna-mite from Isla Grande and throw in sea. The family Salvatore work long time in the sugar mill of Valera. Salvatore of good information of machines." ma-chines." "One of the bloodiest battles the they were dark and ' thick so that they accentuated her slim oval face . . . not thin plucked lines that made her look like a scared siren. She looked at him a clear steady instant before she said, "You want me to go home, don't you, Pete?" "Yes. On tomorrow's Clipper. It's full, but I can manage that." She looked up at him. "Pete," she said. "I know it isn't on account ac-count of Miguel. I mean, it isn't because you're Jealous of him, and . . . and like Sue Porter. And if it's Mr. Taussig ..." She hesitated. "Well, I'm not afraid of him. Maybe May-be I could even . . . even help you, I mean " He stared at her. Without even being aware of it, she had slipped in the connecting link he'd been racking rack-ing his brain all morning to find for himself. Taussig and his sanitary engineering. Miguel Valera and Salvatore Sal-vatore Vegas. And she was already in it . . .a child playing dolls with a stick of dynamite. He pushed his chair back abruptly. "You're going home tomorrow, Anne." Her eyes flashed dark brown and green. "I am not!" "You are too. You're a crazy fool. You don't know what you're getting into. This place is a keg of nitroglycerine nitro-glycerine and you're lighting matches to powder your nose. You're getting on that plane tomorrow tomor-row morning if I have to tie your hands and feet and put you on it myself. my-self. And as for that spic you " . He stopped abruptly. She was standing on the other side of the table, erect and vibrant as a streak of flame from a blow torch, her eyes sheets of molten gold, her face pale with anger. "Don't you dare, Peter Wilcox." Her voice was low and quivering. "I won't go. I'll leave San Juan when I'm good and ready and not one minute before. And I hate you! I'd never have believed you could be so contemptible! Good-by." Her high heels clicked across the bare wood floor of the Club house porch like the sharp tattoo of a savage sav-age drum. Pete watched her, his face a grim tight mask. Then he turned abruptly and went out the other way. i TO BE CONTINUED) |