"I'm astonished," Zircon admitted. "But get on with your story, Carl."
"Right. As I said, spies spy on each other. I contacted a French agent I know, and in the course of having lunch with him I casually asked how much he had paid for the information about an atomic pile. I was just fishing, of course. Well, he took the bait. He leaped at it like a striking tuna. I knew I had something then. From there on, it wasn't hard to uncover the whole business, just by making contact with the espionage agents of various countries."
The JANIG man wet his throat with another sip of coke. "And business is just what it was. I can't say how long ago Long Shadow found out there was heavy water in the Caves of Fear. I did find out that in his younger days he was something of a scientist and that he explored the Korse Lenken region thoroughly. That was shortly before the discovery of heavy water in Lake Baikal. I think we can assume that he pieced the story together and realized that the lake in the caverns had the same possibilities. It would have been only a matter of scientific curiosity then, but with recent developments in the atomic field, the possibilities took on a new light."
He paused as a Filipino brushed by, then resumed, lowering his voice so only those at the table could hear. "He's a smart one. I've known about him for a long time, as one of the best free-lance agents in the Far East. He has a good reputation for accuracy, and he sells—or sold—information to the highest bidder. He was riding on his reputation in this deal, because as soon as the facts became known, as they had to sooner or later, he was all washed up as a spy."
"I don't get it," Rick complained.
"I'll explain. He was selling a story to every country that was interested. He would contact the embassy, consulate, or chief espionage agent of, say, country X. He would report that country Y had a secret atomic pile—nuclear reactor, that is—in the mountains of West China. You can imagine the excitement. He would sell that information for a reasonable price. Then, for a considerably higher price, he would undertake to collect a sample of the deuterium they were using. Once he collected the sample, which of course came from Korse Lenken, he would contract to give them the location of the reactor for a very high price indeed. He made the rounds country by country, changing his story as needed. Of course he collected in advance for the location, which was to be delivered later, after he had risked his life getting it. That was the story he used—and some of the best agents in the Orient fell for it."
The daring ingenuity of the thing made Rick shake his head. "But they were certain to catch up with him!"
"Of course. He knew it. But he intended to stall in giving them the final location until he had tapped every possible source. Then I believe he intended handing them some phony location in West China, after which he would disappear and live on the proceeds. He collected enough to make him very wealthy. He hadn't reached us yet, but you can bet that if I hadn't stumbled on the story, he would have made a sale to one of our embassies or consulates."
"Ours, too," Keaton-Yeats said. "He took advantage of all the interest in atomic weapons. And of his reputation, of course."
"What about Ko?" Scotty asked.