The Spanish Connection Read Online Free Page B

softly. The shoulder of her sweater was drenched in rapidly drying blood.
    I ran into the salon.
    The big man was lying on the floor. His head had been almost entirely crushed by the force of the bullets. He had died before he hit the decking.
    Outside I stared toward the shore, but the man in the wetsuit did not appear.
    I grabbed up the ship-to-shore and called Mitch Kelly. He was shocked, but he was a pro. He went right to work and got the Malaga Guardia Civil.
    Tina opened her eyes.
    "It hurts!" she moaned.
    Then she saw the blood and fainted.

Four
    Mitch Kelly pulled open the bottom drawer of the file cabinet. He could see I was boiling mad. I watched him unbutton the leather case in which the radio-telephone transmitter was kept.
    It was a beautiful little set: Japanese-made, with solid state transistors throughout. You could almost beam to the moon and back with it.
    It hummed a moment or two after he switched it on until it warmed up. He did not look at me at all, but went to work and raised AXE after a few preliminary calls, and chatted briefly with the operator at AXE Monitor, using the usual R/T gibberish. Finally he turned to me.
    "I've got Hawk."
    I took the handset "Sir?" I could barely contain my anger.
    "Nick, this is not an authorized call! I'll have you know…"
    "Are we in clear?"
    "Yes."
    "Scramble."
    "Right." Hawk's voice turned cautious. "What is it, Nick? I always get butterflies when you observe proper security precautions."
    "Who set up this mission? Treasury?"
    "You know I'm not authorized to say."
    "It has a funny smell."
    "Say again?"
    "It stinks! Corelli is dead."
    "Dead?" Pause. "Oh, dear me."
    "Who set this up?" I asked again.
    "I'm not at liberty…"
    "It was a set-up. And whoever set it up used me to finger Corelli."
    "No! Oh, I see what you mean."
    "Check it out, sir, please! If the Mafia is clear, then something went wrong at our end. If it was Corelli playing some kind of game, then Treasury was conned."
    "You're sure he's dead?" Hawk asked crisply. His tone of voice meant he had recovered from his original shock.
    "Half a head gone? Oh, yes. He's dead, sir"
    "And his companion?"
    "She's alive, but hurt."
    "I think it was straight," said Hawk. "Rome Control checked out Corelli."
    "Rome Control may be on the payroll of the Mafia!"
    "Nicholas…" he chided me.
    "Consider the mission scrubbed at this end, sir."
    "Calm down, Nick. I'll get back to you as soon as I make a few calls."
    "Miss Rivera and I will not be available for further instructions."
    "You stay there! I want to get this cleared up."
    "It's already cleared up, Hawk. Or
mapped up
is perhaps a more accurate term. Goodbye."
    "Nick!"
    I signed off.
    Kelly was stunned at the conversation between Hawk and me. He did not go in for deliberate disobedience. That was the reason he had been talking about inconsequentialities. He walked behind his desk and sat down. He was studying me carefully, and waiting for the roof to fall in on me.
    "You think AXE was used?" he finally asked.
    "I think so, but I don't know."
    "A leak?"
    I looked down at my hands. "Maybe."
    "What about the girl?"
    "Juana? I don't know about her, really. If she was in on it, she'll be long gone."
    "Where are you headed?"
    I turned at the door. "Back to the hotel. I wonder if she'll be there."
    She was. I could hear her rummaging around in her room as soon as I let myself in my half of the suite. At least it sounded like her. Just to be sure I got my Luger out and moved to the connecting door.
    "Juana?" I said in a low voice.
    "Oh. Nick?"
    "
Mr.
Peabody."
    "How did it go?"
    It was Juana, all right. I could tell by the voice. I bolstered the Luger, deciding that if she had been in with the hit man, she would have left Malaga by now since her part in the charade would have been finished.
    I opened the door and walked in. She was dressed in a very austere but cool-looking costume that hinted at taste and expense without really being costly. She was smiling, which meant that