A Korean Tiger Read Online Free

him, but I doubt that they were as tough and thorough in 1936 as they are now. Anyway he was cleared and went to work as a typist and file clerk.
    "He must have been in some sort of pool at first, because he worked around, and I mean
all
around, Washington."
    Hawk paused in front of Nick. "That is important. Damned important. Here are some, just some, mind you, of the agencies Bennett worked for." Hawk ticked them off on his fingers. "He started with the Post Office. Then, over the years, he worked for the Treasury, the Secret Service, the OSS, the FBI, the CIA and, finally, for us. For AXE. Just before his retirement last month."
    Nick whistled softly and dared to interrupt. "He sure got around. But that doesn't make him a spy, or a traitor. And as I said before, he must have been checked and rechecked over the years. He must have been clean or..."
    Hawk nodded and resumed his pacing. "Oh, he was clean. Never a breath of suspicion. Bennett was like Caesar's wife — above suspicion. Besides being damned near the invisible man! But let me go on.
    "Over the years Bennett became an expert stenographer. He learned to use a stenotype machine and he sat in on a lot of important conferences. Not any top-level stuff, as far as we know, but enough. He could have picked up a lot."
    Noting the expression of near pain on Nick's face, Hawk paused. "Okay. Ask the question. Before you burst."
    Nick asked. "Supposing he was a plant, and I'm presuming you mean Commie plant, how could he pass on his information without getting caught? Over a period of thirty years! The FBI isn't that bad!"
    Hawk clutched the back of his scrawny neck, his features contorted as if in agony. "Now you're starting, just starting, to see how screwed up this whole mess is. First thing — we don't really know, can't prove, yet, that Bennett was a spy. But if he was — and we think there's a good chance he was — we don't think he did pass on any information. That clear things up a little?"
    Nick was aware that his mouth was open again. He closed it on a fresh cigarette. "No, sir. It clears up nothing. But I think you were right — I'll have to hear the whole story. Go on, sir. I won't interrupt again."
    Hawk paced again. "I'll have to jump ahead a little in the story, just to give you the peg on which we're basing this investigation. So it will make a little sense. Without it the whole story is just so much smoke. Okay, to jump ahead. When Bennett and his wife disappeared a couple of weeks ago a routine investigation was started. Just routine, nothing more. It got more and more involved, and less routine, as it went along. But just one thing is important right now — they came up with some information that was missed thirty years ago. Raymond Lee Bennett did have some Commie friends! At Columbia, when he was going to college. This fact wasn't caught at the time and Bennett was cleared. He was clean. No Commie leanings, he belonged to no front organizations, he was absolutely in the clear. Then! Now, thirty years later, the picture is a little different. He could have been, all those years, a well-hidden Commie plant."
    Hawk went back to his desk and put his feet on it. He had a hole in the sole of one shoe. "To get back to the present, in the right order. Bennett retired a month ago. No breath of suspicion. He took his gold watch and his pension and retired to his little house in Laurel, Maryland. That's about twenty miles from here.
    "Okay. So far so good. Nothing. But then the milk and the mail and the papers start piling up. The meter readers can't get in. The neighbors begin to wonder. Finally the local police are called in. They force their way into the house. Nothing. No sign of Bennett or his wife. He had been married for twenty-five years.
    "A lot of their clothes are gone, and some suitcases that the neighbors remember seeing. So at first the Laurel police don't think too much about it. Natural, I suppose." Hawk found a fresh cigar and actually lit it.