Copyright © 2005 by John T. Cullen. All Rights Reserved.

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Intersect: Danger

a novel

by John T. Cullen

31.

Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

The man formerly known as Jaguar drew near a target of opportunity, an NCO assigned to work at the nearby top secret plant.

Sergeant Nilo Pemble was enjoying his usual breakfast at Mom’s Diner on Main Street, not far from the top secret installation where he worked as an armed guard and highly cleared driver. Nilo Pemble was a man of habit, which was one reason he appealed dearly to the security apparatus devised by Brigadier General Groves to shelter the top secret work going on at Oak Ridge. Pemble liked his eggs sunny side up on toast, the toast medium and buttered. He liked a short stack of buttermilk pancakes on the side, along with orange juice, black coffee, and a ladleful of chipped beef over the eggs. He had a big job coming up, for which he’d been ordered to put together a squad of men, and a backup squad to boot, for one of those occasional extra-secret special trips across country. Everything was going his way. Wasn’t life sweet? He fairly glowed as he hummed to himself, pouring sugar into his coffee.

Suddenly a shadow fell over the table, and he looked up. There stood a tall, dark-haired Army major in dark green Class A tops and pinkish trousers, looking like one of them Ivy League officers. All he needed was a riding crop and an attitude, and for a second, Nilo Pemble felt like snarling.

“Hello, Sergeant. The place seems to be full. You and I are the only single military men here, and I was wondering if you’d let me join you.” Without awaiting a reply, the man slid into the plastic booth opposite Nilo. He had with him a tray on which sat a cup of black coffee and a bowl of dry cereal.

“Yessir,” Nilo said belatedly. “By my guest.”

“Thanks,” the major said. His nametag read Malone.

“You work on post, Sir?”

Robert Malone (Viktor Mutsev, or Jaguar, or whatever identity suited the moment) nodded. “Yes, I work on post.”

Through local informants, he’d received the information pointing him to Pemble. Nilo Pemble was the NCO usually charged with leading crews of enlisted men when fissile materials had to be transported long distances. This would be his only attempt to physically get near Pemble. There was little time to waste—none in fact—and he needed to know where Pemble was about to travel. He would gladly have taken Pemble to a dark place at night, tortured the information out of him, and left him dead, but he needed Pemble to actually go where he was going so the shipment could be intercepted. He strongly suspected it would be San Francisco. Mutsev/Malone said in nearly flawless English: “Yes, Sergeant. I’m with the Public Affairs Office.” He chuckled. “Keep the public misinformed, right?”

Pemble laughed. “Yeah, sounds about right. For their own good, the dumb shits.”

“My feeling exactly. Say, where you from? Sounds like you got a little trace of an accent.”

Mutsev laughed. “I was about to say the same about your Alabama drawl. I’m from upstate New York near Lake George.” A lie, but that sidelong glint of suspicion left the other man’s eyes and the sergeant nodded, relaxing.

The two men ate in silence. Malone knew Pemble had stopped at the Travel Office on his way home last night, without making any other stops, and had the plane tickets for his group of enlisted men someplace with him. Malone had already jimmied Pemble’s 1938 Chevrolet open and searched through it for the tickets. They weren’t in the car. That meant he had them with him, the dumb bastard, unless he’d forgotten them at home.

“Gotta go take a piss,” Nilo Pemble said delicately, making a hitching motion at his pants with both hands while getting up.

“I’ll guard your eggs for you,” Malone said with a wink.

“Thanks; you do that, Sir.”

As Pemble strode off, Malone looked around with a quick flick of the eyes. The restaurant was filled with cigarette smoke drifting in blue and gray layers. Waitresses hustled about taking orders, and men and women sat in profile in the high-contrast light, silhouetted as they leaned close to one another in conversation. Malone reached over and lifted one lapel of Pemble’s dark green Eisenhower-style jacket. Sure enough, there in his inner pocket were the tickets, eight of them, neatly bundled. Malone rose, fiddling in his pocket as if looking for change, then quickly pulled the lapel aside once more. In a glance, he had memorized the flight details.

His source had assured him the Americans were no more sophisticated than that. The tickets would not be a blind or a ruse. Sergeant Nilo Pemble was about to travel to San Francisco on the date and time indicated on his ticket. He’d go to the army airfield indicated, aboard a special charter plane, and from there it would be a matter of simply diverting his cargo in a direction more convenient to the workers of the world rather than the capitalist interests of a small number of wealthy Americans.

Satisfied, Malone sat back down and finished eating. Nilo Pemble came out of the john, hitching his pants up again. He stopped at the counter to chat with the waitresses, none of whom liked him. He smoked an entire cigarette there, and finished a cup of coffee, before returning to his seat.

Malone calmly finished eating, left a tip, and rose to leave. He brushed past Pemble on his way out. Pemble still stood by the counter, trying to impress the waitresses who had their arms loaded with heavy plates, perspired, and quite obviously wished he’d go away. Pemble took no notice of Malone, and Malone quietly left, but not before picking a toothpick from the dispenser beside the cash register, and nodding coolly to the lady cashier, who gave him an insincere squint meant to be a smile, but otherwise took no particular notice of him.

Malone, emerging in the parking lot outside, was more than elated. He had just done a month’s worth of intelligence work, or more.

His first trip was to a gas station, where he changed into his civilian clothes. He drove a few towns over to sent a telegram to the legal rezident in San Francisco, advising the time, date, and location of the arrival of the set of classic Charles Dickens novels a client had asked for.

Then he drove to the next town, where he ditched the stolen car and hotwired another one, with which he drove to Kansas City for a flight to Laramie and thence to San Francisco.