“Well, Commodore Tommy Thompson at first. Here in New York. Then he sold my debt to a guy who had a casino in the Barbary Coast and I lost more out there and he was going to kill me. He said they’d do it slow. But all I had to do to get out of it was give him one of my wagon passes and my company invoices and show ’em the ropes and everything. I know what you’re thinking, that I allowed a saboteur onto the base, but I didn’t realize that was what they wanted. I thought it was about them landing a big contract. I thought they were doing it for the money.”

“You hoped they were doing it for the money,” Isaac Bell retorted coldly.

Ted Whitmark hung his head. When he finally looked up again, he had tears in his eyes. “That’s what I hoped this time, too. But I’m scared it isn’t, and something tells me this time will be worse.”

The intercommunicating phone on Bell’s desk rang. He snatched it up. “What?”

“There’s a lady out here to see you and the gent you’re with. Miss Dorothy Langner. Should I let her in?”

“No. Tell her I’ll be out there shortly.” He hung up. “Continue, Ted. What has happened this time?”

“They want me to turn over one of my trucks going into the Brooklyn Navy Yard.”

“Who?”

“This smooth guy named O’Shay. I heard somebody call him Eyes. Must be his nickname. Do you know who I mean?”

“When do they want the truck?”

“Tomorrow. When the New Hampshire is loading food and munitions. She just finished her shakedown, and she’ll be ferrying a Marine Expeditionary Regiment to Panama to keep the Canal Zone election peaceful. My New York outfit got the provisions contract.”

“How big a truck?”

“The biggest.”

“Big enough to carry a couple of torpedoes?”

Whitmark chewed his lip. “Oh, God. Is that what they want it for?”

The door from the reception room opened, and Harry Warren walked in. Bell was turning back to Ted Whitmark when a sudden motion at the door caught his eye and he saw Dorothy Langner in a black sheath dress and black feathered hat slip through it right behind Harry Warren, who said, “Help you, ma’am?”

“I’m looking for Isaac Bell,” she said in her clear, musical voice. “There he is, I see him.” She rushed toward Bell’s desk, reaching into her handbag.

Whitmark jumped to his feet. “Hello, Dorothy. Told you I’d talk to Bell. This’ll square us, won’t it?”