Ice Station Zebra

"That was most damnably awkward for you, wasn't it, Jolly? He was unconscious, but when and if he recovered consciousness, he could blow the whole works on you. But you couldn't get at him to finish him off, could you? The bunkhouse was full of people, most of them suffering so severely that sleep was impossible for them. When we arrived on the scene you got desperate. Grant was showing signs of regaining consciousness. You took a chance, but not all that much of a chance. Remember how surprised I was to find that you had used up all my morphine? Well, I «was» surprised then. But not now. I know now where it went. You gave him an injection of morphine — and you made damn sure the hypodermic held a lethal dose. Am I correct?"

"You're cleverer than I thought you were," he said calmly. "Maybe I have misjudged you a little. But it still makes no difference, old boy."

"I wonder. If I'd known about Ki

"'Apparently' is not the word you want. And the answer to your question is easy. You didn't know Ki

"No?" I looked at Ki

"Don't come that old stuff with me, mate," Ki

"I just wondered," I said mildly. "I thought perhaps the petrol in the tractor's tank might have removed all the lubricating oil."

Jolly came close to me, his face tight and cold. "You «knew» about this? What goes on, Carpenter?"

"It was actually Commander Swanson here who found the gun in the tank," I said. "You had to leave it there because you knew you'd all be getting a good clean-up and medical examination when we got you on board, and it would have been bound to be discovered. But a murderer — a professional, Jolly — will never part with his gun unless he is compelled to. I knew if you got the slightest chance you would go back for it. So I put it back in the tank."

"The hell you did!" Swanson was as nearly angry as I'd ever seen him. "Forgot to tell me, didn't you7'

"I must have. That was after I'd cottoned on to you, Jolly. I wasn't «absolutely» sure you had a partner, but I knew if you had, it must be Ki

"I'm afraid your bluff's run out, mate." The gun was pointing directly at my face.

"Your last chance, Ki

He said something, short and unprintable. I said, "It's on your own head. Rawlings, you know what to do."

Every head turned toward Rawlings, who was standing leaning negligently against a bulkhead, his hands crossed lightly in front of him. Ki

"That was exactly how I wanted it done, Zabrinski. Thank you very much. A first-class job."

"A first-class job," Rawlings sniffed. He retrieved the fallen Mauser and pointed it in Jolly's general direction. "At four feet, even Zabrinski couldn't miss." He dug into a pocket, pulled out a roll of bandage, and tossed it to Jolly. "We kinda thought we might be having to use this, so we came prepared. Dr. Carpenter said your pal here would be requiring the services of a doctor. He is. You're a doctor. Get busy."

"Do it yourself," Jolly snarled. No "old boy," no "old top." The bonhomie was gone, and gone forever.

Rawlings looked at Swanson and said woodenly, "Permission to hit Dr. Jolly over the head with this little old gun, sir?"

"Permission granted," Swanson said grimly. But no further persuasion was necessary. Jolly cursed and started ripping the cover off the bandage.

For almost a minute there was silence in the room while we watched Jolly carry out a rough, ready and far from gentle repair job on Ki

"It was easy. Ten minutes' thinking and you'd get it. They waited until we had cleared the ice cap, then they took the films, shoved them in a waterproof bag, attached a yellow dye marker to the bag, then pumped it out through the garbage-disposal unit in the galley. Remember, they'd been on a tour of the ship and seen it — although the suggestion was probably radioed them by a naval expert. I had Rawlings posted on watch in the early hours of this morning, and he saw Ki

"Incidentally, I was being rather less than accurate when I said I didn't know the reason for Jolly's attempts to delay us. I knew all along. He'd been told that the ship couldn't reach our exit point until such and such a time and that it was vital to delay us until then. Jolly even had the effrontery to check with me what time we would be emerging from the ice pack."

Jolly looked up from Ki

"You win, Carpenter. So you win. All along the line. But you lost out in the only thing that really mattered. They got the films — the films showing the location, as you said, of nearly every missile base in America. And that was all that mattered. Ten million pounds couldn't buy that information. But we got it." He bared his teeth in a savage smile. "We may have lost out, Carpenter, but we're professionals. We did our job."

"They got the films, all right," I acknowledged. "And I'd give a year's salary to see the faces of the men who develop them. Listen carefully, Jolly. Your main reason in trying to cripple Benson and myself was not so much that you could have the say-so on Bolton's health and so delay us: your main reason, your overriding reason, was that you wanted to be the only doctor on the ship so that it could be only you who would carry out the X-ray on Zabrinski's ankle and remove the plaster cast. Literally, everything hinged on that: basically, nothing else mattered. That was why you took such a desperate chance in crippling me when you heard me say I intended to X-ray Zabrinski's ankle the following morning. That was the one move you made that lacked the hallmark of class — of a professional — but, then, I think you were close to panic. You were lucky.

"Anyway, you removed the plaster cast two mornings ago and also the films that you had hidden there in oilskin paper when you applied the plaster to Zabrinski's leg the first night we arrived in Zebra. A perfect hiding place. You could always, of course, have wrapped them in bandages covering survivors' burns, but that would be too risky. The cast was brilliant.