The Kiwi Target

moment, and then let it out. “Ted, you’re not using those fine reasoning powers you displayed a few moments ago. A most important investigation is going on right now, one that involves considerations I’m sure you know nothing about.”
    “In that case, why bring me into it.”
    Winston refused to be sidetracked. “What I would like you to explain, Ted, is why, if you don’t know Peter Ferguson, you sent a message to him in Greymouth directing him to return to Queenstown and signed his boss’s name to it. That’s actually forgery, you know.”
    He stopped and let the silence settle in.
    “You see, I saw a copy of that message, quite legally, and we traced it back to you with no trouble at all.”

CHAPTER 14

    As Constable Robin Harkness drove his marked patrol unit through the streets of Christchurch, his mind drifted from time to time from the subject of his duty to his pretty young wife, who was six months pregnant. The fact that this kind of thing h ac j been happening since humanity began to populate the earth did not concern him. It was the first time for Alice and him. self, and he was gravely aware of his soon-to-be-increased responsibilities.
    It was a very quiet evening. He was alone in his car, which was equipped with a blue light on the roof, a compact little radio and that was all. For a routine patrol in New Zealand, nothing more was required.
    As he neared the car-park area in front of the new American- style supermarket, he slowed and turned in. Although the market was not large, it was open extra hours, and four times during the past ten months there had been an incident. None of them had been serious, but he had been told to keep a careful eye on the premises. From the outside he could see no need for his services, but that morning Alice had asked for some canned peaches in heavy syrup.
    In the line of duty he got out of his car to walk once through the store. It was not strictly necessary, but it would show the manager that his request for police attention was not being overlooked.
    In the corner of the store opposite the check-out register, seventy-six-year-old Mrs. Enid Wilks looked over the tops of the counters, saw the blue helmet coming toward her, and was utterly terrified. She had already slipped a thin package of soup mix into her purse, and she was too far from the display bin to put it back.
    She did not doubt for an instant that she had been caught and that the police had arrived to take her into custody. For weeks she had been rationalizing her minor pilfering as an informal profit-sharing arrangement between herself and the store, but that fiction now deserted her, and she was engulfed by a too-late bitter repentance. Clutching her purse tightly with both hands, she silently swore before God that if He would allow her to escape, she would never do it again. She was even willing to pay for the soup packet if she could get it out of her handbag and into her cart on time.
    She was fumbling as the policeman walked past her and paused before the canned fruit display. When he picked a can of sliced peaches off the shelf, she knew that he was only doing ¡t so that he could observe her more fully. She was caught !
    Outside the store a powerfully built man reached into the patrol car, seized the microphone, and with one swift jerk pulled it free of the radio. He dropped it onto the ground and crushed it under the heel of his right shoe. He had seen the young constable go into the store, but it didn’t matter: if he tried to get heroic, he would be handled like anyone else.
    The big man strode into the store, not caring if his intentions were visible or not. It took him only a second or two to reach the check-out counter; his size and his very manner terrified the girl there long enough to keep her from pressing the silent alarm pedal underneath the register.
    He seized her from behind and clamped her head in the crook of his left arm, almost choking off her breath. She had been serving a customer, a woman, who stood momentarily aghast in frozen horror. The bandit swung the girl in front of the register and barked, “Open it!”
    Virtually helpless, the girl tried to obey, but her fingers refused to function. The powerful man shook her sharply and then pressed her face downward toward the machine. The girl reached out, pressed two keys, and the drawer sprang open.
    In one concerted movement the bandit slammed the girl hard against the wall behind him. There was a sharp crack as her