CHAPTER FIVE
Seven-Eleven
Dave and Freddy didn’t say anything for a moment or two. They simply sat still and looked at the Colonel as their hearts bled in sympathy for his visible suffering. Then Dave slowly licked his lips, and put a faint sharp edge to his voice.
“That’s one way out of it, sir,” he said. “But it still wouldn’t help Uncle Sam much. Uncle Sam, and the rest of the United Nations.”
“Quite!” Freddy Farmer echoed evenly.
Colonel Welsh stiffened a little, and a hard brittle light leaped into his eyes. Then he suddenly relaxed, and one corner of his mouth went down in a faint grimace of self-reproach.
“I deserved that,” he said. “And thanks, you two. Trust you two to snap a man back to his proper mood. Among ten million other things, you’re certainly a pair of tonics. Too bad all of us can’t have you around at the same time. Seriously, though, I am in the middle of a horrible mess, the worst one I’ve ever got tangled in. And the rotten part of it is that I was so close to ironing everything out as nice as can be.”
The Colonel paused, brightened visibly and made a little waving gesture with one hand.
“But things are never as bad as they seem at first look,” he said. “Almost any minute, now, one of my agents may arrive. And then we can all get down to brass tacks and slug this thing through to a satisfactory finish.”
Dave and Freddy looked at each other. Freddy bit his lip and then nodded.
“Go ahead, Dave,” he said quietly. “He should be told, of course.”