Matt Helm - The Annihilators E-Book

Donald Hamilton

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Serie: Matt Helm
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 551

Beschreibung

Matt Helm has got a good thing going with Elly. So a terrorist organization really have picked the wrong woman when they kidnap Elly in order to leverage Helm into carrying out an assassination. Soon, Helm will find himself back in Costa Verde - amidst the ensuing revolution - with one thing on his mind: revenge.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also by Donald Hamilton

Title Page

Copyright

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About the Author

Also Available from Titan Books

Also by Donald Hamilton and available from Titan Books

Death of a Citizen

The Wrecking Crew

The Removers

The Silencers

Murderers’ Row

The Ambushers

The Shadowers

The Ravagers

The Devastators

The Betrayers

The Menacers

The Interlopers

The Poisoners

The Intriguers

The Intimidators

The Terminators

The Retaliators

The Terrorizers

The Revengers

The Infiltrators (April 2016)

The Detonators (June 2016)

The Vanishers (August 2016)

The Demolishers (October 2016)

The AnnihilatorsPrint edition ISBN: 9781783299850E-book edition ISBN: 9781783299867

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: February 20161 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 1983, 2016 by Donald Hamilton. All rights reserved. Matt Helm® is the registered trademark of Integute AB.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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1

The airlines lost or misplaced a plane in New York, the one that was supposed to take me on to Chicago. It took them four hours to find it, maintaining the breathless suspense by announcing its imminent arrival every half hour. One of these days I’m going to invent a transportation device that runs on rails and call it a railroad. It may not operate on time, either, but at least I won’t have to worry about what made it late that might cause it to fall out of the sky after I’m on board.

During the delay I managed to phone Eleanor Brand at her Chicago apartment and let her know that there was really no way of predicting how long it would take them to get the big bird to flap its wings properly so she’d better not try to meet me at that sprawling insane asylum known as O’Hare Field. I’d just take a taxi up to the Near North Side, as Chicagoans call it, whenever I finally got in.

She said that she’d be waiting with something nice for me to drink, eat, and screw. As a lady reporter—journalist—she didn’t always talk like a lady was supposed to talk. Come to think of it, I never did meet a real lady, even the certified aristocratic variety, who talked like a lady was supposed to talk; supposed to by people who weren’t ladies.

It was past eleven at night when I walked through the door of the building. The doorman knew me by this time, of course; but his attitude still said that, while he wouldn’t presume to approve or disapprove morally, he thought that a bright and attractive young career person like Miss Brand in 504 should have been able to do better for herself than a tall, skinny nonentity like me, occupation unspecified. Well, he had a point. When I got out of the elevator and rang the doorbell, to save myself the trouble of digging out the key she’d given me, nobody answered.

I hadn’t expected that. She’d said she’d be there; and when she said so, she usually was. It was like being in a sports car, caught in the wrong gear by a sudden grade; the temperamental machinery lugged and bucked a bit before I could get it shifted down into the proper working ratio. I mean, I’d just finished a job. I’d left it all behind me, I thought, way over there in Europe. I was tired after the long flight. I was out of the spook business for a while. I was a human being again, well, as human as we ever let ourselves get. All I wanted was to relax and pick up where Elly and I had left off a couple of months earlier in this apartment, when she’d handed me the phone and told me Washington was on the line.

There had been no reproach in her voice. That was part of the unspoken, unwritten deal we had. We had a good time together, a very good time together. Then the phone rang and she had an assignment or I did—in our different fields of endeavor—and we didn’t see each other for a while. So far, for over a year, it had worked quite well on an unofficial (some stuffy people might prefer the word illicit) basis.

It was understood between us that it could go either way eventually. Marriage wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, although we were neither of us particularly good matrimonial material. On the other hand, for the time being, either party was free to terminate the relationship at will, no explanations required, no questions asked. But if she hadn’t wanted me to come to her now, she’d have said so. She wouldn’t have left me standing outside her door fumbling for the key, particularly not after answering the phone with every indication of pleasure at hearing my voice, and after promising to be waiting to welcome me appropriately whenever I managed to get here. I heard the telephone start to ring behind the closed door. Nobody answered it.

I swallowed something in my throat and, having found the elusive key, hesitated, wishing I had a gun—but the airport X-ray machines make a secret agent’s life very difficult these days. It hadn’t seemed worthwhile to have somebody waiting at O’Hare to slip me a weapon, not in a city I was just visiting to see my girl. I told myself not to be paranoid; she was probably just in the bathroom with the water running or in the kitchen with the dishwasher running. But the phone was still ringing in there, nobody was doing anything about it; and you do not disregard the unexpected in my line of work.

I unlocked and opened the door and went through it fast, the way they teach us in the spook-factory-and-repair-shop we maintain out in Arizona, known as the Ranch—although they do keep changing those ballet routines on us from time to time, and I wasn’t quite certain that I was employing the latest, improved door-penetration technique. As it turned out, it didn’t matter, since there was nobody hostile waiting inside. There was nobody waiting inside. The phone had stopped ringing. I picked myself up and made my way cautiously into the bedroom and got out the snubnosed .38 Special revolver I’d left with her—for a spare, and because I don’t feel that a woman living alone should be unarmed these violent days, particularly when she has a close friend, if you want to call it that, with as many enemies as I have. I checked the loads: full house.

Then I brought in my suitcase and closed the hall door. The apartment felt very still and empty. I looked through it carefully. It was small and very neat and not particularly feminine; she wasn’t a frilly-curtains girl. The electric typewriter in the corner was tidily covered; and the pages on the table, an article she’d been working on, were precisely stacked, weighted down with an ashtray containing one crushed-out last-minute cigarette. She was a very terrible little person by modern standards; she smoked. The faint residual odor of tobacco did funny things to my throat. I wished to God she were there turning the air blue with her lousy carcinogenic fumes, just so she was there.

Drink materials were set up on the little bar in the living room. There was stuff on the stove in the diminutive kitchen; but all the burners had been turned off and no residual warmth remained. The bathroom was clean, and the big double bed in the single bedroom had been turned back for immediate occupancy, but there was no occupant. I knew a limited sense of relief. It wasn’t too many years ago that I had entered an apartment in another country to find the champagne ready to be popped, the roast ready to be carved, and the lady of the place lying dead by the window in her prettiest negligee.

At least here the clock was still running, or could still be running. I wished I knew how much time was left on it, if any. I could be drawing falsely optimistic conclusions from the lack of blood. Or I could, of course, be jumping to falsely pessimistic conclusions because of Eleanor’s simple absence. In my line of work we do tend to expect the worst, always. I told myself that she could have run out on a last-minute errand and been delayed by some quite innocent and innocuous circumstance. She might come through the door at any moment, flustered and apologetic because she hadn’t been here to greet me. Or she could call to tell me that she was stuck somewhere with a flat tire…

As if in answer to my thought, the telephone started to ring again. I let it jangle three times and picked it up with a small prayer, which was not answered. The voice that spoke in my ear, although feminine, was not Elly’s. It was a younger voice and strongly accented.

“Señor Helm?”

“This is Matthew Helm,” I said.

The girlish voice said, “You are about to have a visitor, señor. You have the reputation of being a hasty man. If you value a certain lady’s life, please restrain yourself. Negotiations are only possible in an atmosphere of restraint. Violence will be met with violence, do you understand?”

“Send in your boy, or girl, señorita,” I said. “Just remember what you said: Violence will be met with violence. And I’ve probably been dealing in that merchandise a hell of a lot longer than you have, whoever you are.”

“We are quite aware of that,” the assured young voice said. “In fact that is why we are approaching you. We require an expert in violence and we have reason to believe that you are the best. The messenger will explain, señor.”

“Give me his name so I can tell the doorman to let him come up.”

“Her name is Dolores Anaya, señor.”

The girl at the other end of the line replaced the telephone gently, severing the connection. I called downstairs; then I sat frowning grimly at the undeserving instrument. Not Cuban, I thought. Not really Mexican, although that was closer. Farther south. Guatemala wasn’t quite right and neither was Colombia; but I’d heard that particular Latin-American accent before, although not that particular voice. But educated, no wetback she. Elly, what the hell have you got yourself into? What have I got you into?

But that was a stupid question. I knew exactly what we were into, and I was coldly aware of the standing orders governing this particular situation. They were not very pleasant orders. But I was given no time to consider how unpleasant they really were. Somebody was knocking on the door.

I went over and let her in. She was of medium height and quite young, perhaps in her early twenties. She could have been even younger. They mature early down there. She was wearing high-heeled shoes, very snug black slacks that were a little wider below than current fashion indicated—flamenco-dancer pants—and a crisp white wedding shirt with a lot of elaborate ruffles. Her long black hair flowed down her back smooth and glossy and unadorned, but there were small silver earrings and a silver bracelet or two. She looked very slim in those black trousers, and not a bit boyish. Her face, with its smooth olive skin, was very pretty; it would be beautiful when she’d done a little more living, if she managed that. But she was going about it the wrong way.

There were big dark eyes that could have been irresistible—until she narrowed them slightly, seeing the gun in my waistband, and let me know that she could turn snake-mean, given the provocation.

“The weapon will not be necessary, señor,” she said coldly. It was the voice I’d heard over the phone, of course; she’d been preparing the way for her own appearance. She must have made the call from a nearby booth to get here so fast. “Lay it aside, please.”

I said, “Go out that door, baby, turn around, come back in, and start over. If I’m the man you want, the violent gent you need, I don’t lay aside my gun for the first little girl who asks.”

She did not like being called “baby,” or being told she was a little girl. Her young face hardened. “We have the señorita!”

It was no time for displays of rage, or even concern. I said, “You’re wasting my time and yours, Miss Anaya. Of course you have the señorita, so what else is new? Speak your piece and stop throwing your weight around.” When she didn’t respond at once, I said, “Just give me the name.”

She frowned quickly. “What?”

“You want somebody killed, right?” I said, watching her. Her eyes flickered, letting me know I’d guessed correctly. I went on: “You’ve swung, you and whoever you’re working for, but you’ve struck out. He’s a tough proposition and you haven’t got anybody on your team who’s good enough, so you picked me. I suppose I should be flattered. So tell me: Who are you and who do you want dead?”

She studied me suspiciously. “Who has talked, señor?”

They’re as bad as certain government agencies, these wild-eyed action groups. They never give you credit for having brains enough to figure out their dirty little secrets. If you know something you shouldn’t, there must have been a leak, and somebody must be punished.

I said irritably, “Hell, I’m in a certain line of work. Sometimes I’m called upon to do a little bodyguarding when the subject is important enough. Sometimes I’m called upon to penetrate to a little intelligence material others have been unable to reach because they weren’t willing to get rough enough or didn’t know how. But those aren’t my normal assignments. I won’t ask how you learned, but you know what they are or you wouldn’t be here. So give me the name and I’ll tell you if I’ll do it for you.”

“You will do it! We have—”

I grimaced. “You have the señorita. You have the señorita. So you have the señorita. It’s something, but it’s not a blank check. I need the name. I need to make a telephone call to find out if that name is available or unavailable. If it’s available, I’ll erase it for you.”

This was-pure distilled bullshit, of course. It’s the one game we never play. Technically I was breaking the rules by even pretending to consider the girl’s demands; but I do have a certain amount of seniority in the outfit, and I thought I’d be forgiven if I went along with these creeps a little way, far enough to find out what we had to deal with.

When Dolores Anaya still stood there frowning, I said sharply: “Do you think this has never happened before? Do you think you’re the first bunch of bloodthirsty characters who ever had the idea of employing a government guy like me for your private purposes, using a little pressure? Well, you hold something I value. To preserve it, I’m willing to make a deal if I can. It goes like this, señorita: You pick up that phone and let me talk with her so I know for sure you really have her and didn’t hurt her too badly grabbing her. Then you let me make my call. Then I’ll tell you where we stand. Okay?”

2

Costa Verde, I thought, waiting. Not everybody knows what we do for Uncle Sam, particularly not everybody down in Latin America. But certain people in Costa Verde knew because we’d done it for them once—I’d done it for them once—upon request.

There had been a bandit or revolutionary patriot, depending upon your point of view, named Jorge Santos, who’d called himself El Fuerte, The Strong One. He had not been a very nice man, but his unniceness had been, of course, strictly irrelevant. Political affiliations are seldom based on nice or not-nice. El Fuerte’s real mistake was that he’d caused embarrassment to President Avila of Costa Verde and, through President Avila, to certain people in Washington who’d considered Avila to be a stable and friendly influence in the region, although, objectively speaking, he really wasn’t a very nice man, either. So I’d been sent down there with a big rifle to remove this revolutionary annoyance to our good friend President Avila, with the help of a small military detachment commanded by a competent Costa Verde army colonel named Hector Jimenez.

Unfortunately for Washington, it became obvious shortly thereafter that Colonel Jimenez had certain political plans of his own when he used the same accurate rifle, which I had left with him as a token of the friendship between our countries—had it used, actually, since he wasn’t much of a marksman himself—to remove Avila and earn himself a promotion to president, after which he’d shipped the big gun back to me with his thanks…

Dolores Anaya had her connection. She was speaking into the phone. “Oso? Leona here. Let me speak with Lobo.” She waited; then she said, “Lobo? Is it permissible for the man to speak with the woman? He will not proceed without… Bueno.” She extended the instrument to me.

“Elly,” I said. Her voice said something in my ear, but it wasn’t clear. “Elly?”

“Matt? I’m sorry, they had me gagged and my lips don’t seem to… Matt, I’m sorry. Stupid me. After you called to say you’d be late I drove out to get some vermouth before the liquor store closed. I saw it was getting low, and they…”

I had a mental picture of her, small and angry and unafraid, but probably a little disheveled from being captured and gagged and perhaps bound; and she would hate that. She had the idea that she was a very ugly little girl, with her mobile monkey-face and straight brown hair; and that the only way to deal with this dreadful handicap was to take special pains with her appearance.

We’d happily overcome, in the past months, some of the inferiority feelings that had been hammered into her by, I gathered, a lovely and unloving mother who’d wanted a pretty doll to play with, not a bright but somewhat less than beautiful child to bring up. But she still had some distance to go; and it was unbearable to think that she might not be allowed to make it all the way now and become the person she was meant to be, the person she would have enjoyed being, just because of some hot-blooded political screwballs and a cold-blooded fish of a so-called lover who couldn’t forget his idiot notions of duty and discipline, or could he? I listened to her telling me how they had grabbed her and how dumb she’d been to let them…

“Are you all right?” I asked when she stopped.

“Yes, so far, but… Matt.”

“Yes?”

There was sudden, breathless urgency in her voice: “Matt, I couldn’t stand it if you… It would never be any good again. Nothing would ever be any good again. Please don’t let them make you do anything because of me…” Her voice was cut off abruptly, presumably by a hand over her mouth.

“Enough.” It was a man’s voice, a young man’s voice, presumably the voice of the man called Lobo, the Wolf, who seemed to be running the show. At least the girl had shown him a certain deference. He continued: “You heard her say she was all right, señor. It is up to you whether or not she will continue to be all right. Consider it very carefully. For our cause, we will kill if we must, even a pretty lady like her.”

The phone went dead, leaving Elly alone somewhere with Lobo the Wolf and Oso the Bear, while I got Leona the Lioness for company. Kid stuff. But they all have causes. It’s getting to the point, I reflected, where it’s like a ray of sunshine after a long dark winter to meet some splendid mercenary creep who simply murders for money, or a fine sadistic jerk who merely likes to see the agonized wiggles and hear the tormented screams and smell the blood. Those are natural impulses I can understand; but I’m getting pretty damn sick of these incomprehensible high-minded ladies and gentlemen who kidnap and slaughter innocent people with the purest and most idealistic motives in the world.

I started to give the phone back to Dolores Anaya and caught myself and glanced at her questioningly. She made a gesture of rejecting the instrument, nodding.

“Make your call, señor.”

I dialed the Washington number and identified myself. “Condition Blue,” I said. When the girl looked disturbed and made a move to break the connection, I said, “That means there’s a gun at my head, or somebody’s head. Is it supposed to be a secret?” The outstretched hand was withdrawn.

“I’ll put you through,” said the girl in Washington. Almost immediately, Mac’s voice came on the line.

“Matt here, sir,” I said. “Condition Blue.”

The fact that I used my real name instead of my code name—which happens to be Eric—warned my superior that the conversation was being overheard at my end.

“Yes, Matt,” he said, acknowledging the signal. “What’s the problem?”

At this hour of the night he wouldn’t be sitting at the familiar beat-up office desk in front of the bright window he liked to make us squint at. It was well past midnight in Washington, and I’d never entered his home, so I couldn’t visualize him at the phone in pajamas and dressing gown. To me he was always the lean, ageless gray-haired man in a gray suit with whom I’d worked longer than I cared to remember.

I looked at Dolores Anaya. “The name,” I said. She hesitated but gave it to me. I said into the phone: “Name check, please. Rael, Armando Rael. Is that name on the available list?”

Well, it was what the kid expected, wasn’t it? She was sitting there obviously impressed by all the undercover nonsense and even more impressed by the thought that we seemed to have the world’s population classified, presumably by computer, into available people we could blow away at will, and those few lucky folks who were unavailable to our grim assassination teams, at least for the moment.

There was a little pause, as Mac digested the request and its implications, and marshaled his facts a thousand miles away. He spoke precisely at last: “Armando Rael is the current president of Costa Verde—dictator, actually—having thrown out the former incumbent a few years ago in a sudden coup. That was Col. Hector Jimenez, whom you may remember, who replaced President Avila rather forcibly. Jimenez, although a military man, was a little too liberal, particularly on the subject of land reform; he was therefore overthrown by a junta of reactionary landowners and conservative army officers headed by Rael. Jimenez was fortunate to escape with his life—and of course some money. They never escape poor, do they? The current president of Costa Verde is not exactly a firm believer in human rights and democracy, I’m told. There have been two known attempts on his life already, both unsuccessful.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “The question is, would anybody besides Rael object to a successful attempt?”

“By whom?”

“By me,” I said. “I repeat, Condition Blue.”

“Yes, I see,” he said, and I thought it very likely that he did by this time. He wasn’t a man for whom you needed to draw detailed pictures. He said, “Very well, I’ll check.”

I spoke to Leona, the young black-maned lioness. “He’s consulting the oracle. Be patient.”

Dolores Anaya did not speak. We waited. I tried not to think of a small, brave, intelligent girl with whom I’d shared some very pleasant experiences and some not so pleasant—we’d met under rather strained and violent circumstances. What she’d gone through then had not been my fault, but this obviously was. I should have remembered that a man in my peculiar line of work draws violence the way a lone tree on a hilltop draws lightning. Well, actually I had remembered, and warned her, and she had laughed and said that she’d long since given up expecting anything good to come to her safely and free of charge…

“Matt?” The phone spoke in my ear.

“Yes, sir.”

“Unavailable,” Mac said, playing the game on my terms, which was nice of him. He could simply have ordered me to cut out the stalling and, for a start, send the pretty messenger—of course I hadn’t told him she was pretty—back to her friends with a neatly-slit throat the way I was supposed to, the way we were all supposed to, in any situation like this. As I said, the hostage game is one we simply do not play. Mac went on: “I checked the classification with State, just to be certain. I was informed that President Armando Rael of Costa Verde is not expendable; and that there must not be the slightest suggestion that we consider him so, since he is a very sensitive person in a very sensitive area and we must not jeopardize this valuable relationship in any way.” When I didn’t respond to this immediately, Mac asked, “You are in Chicago?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I think I understand the problem, but that solution must not be used, not even as a feint or distraction. No move whatever must be made in that direction. I am truly sorry.”

He sounded sincere, and I got the impression that under other circumstances he might have been willing to make an exception to the standing orders; but national policy made it impossible for him to free my hands. Check to the tall, skinny gent with the gun in his belt and the stupid look on his face. And to the tough little lady who, with her life at stake, had in effect given me my orders, telling me that nothing would ever be any good again if I allowed her to be used against me in this fashion.

“Sorry,” I said. “Yes, sir. Don’t hang up. Hold the line.” I looked at Dolores Anaya, whose beautiful dark eyes were watching me steadily. It was too bad. You hate to see them waste themselves, the young ones. She was a pretty thing; she could have become a lovely thing; but she’d never make it now. Not unless she had more sense than I thought. I said, “My chief says the name you gave me is unavailable.”

“It is too bad, señor. Then the señorita must die.”

I made the expected, reasonable, useless noises: “What’s the point? It won’t get your dictator killed.” I could see that this made absolutely no impression on her—she was locked into her predetermined course of action—and I went on: “And it could get some people killed you’d rather keep living.”

She bristled fiercely. “Are you threatening me, señor?”

“Don’t be corny,” I said. “Of course I’m threatening you. But let’s try something else first. Will you let me talk with your daddy?”

She looked startled; then she frowned suspiciously. “Who has told you? I did not give you my full name.”

I said. “Hell, I once spent several days in the jungle with Col. Hector Jimenez. I got to know him pretty well; do you think I don’t know a daughter of his when I see her?” This wasn’t quite true, of course. I hadn’t realized who Dolores Anaya must be until I asked myself why Costa Verde had popped into my head like that; then I’d looked again and seen the unmistakable resemblance. I said, “Your male parent was a sensible man when I saw him last. He wouldn’t pull a fool stunt like this; and even if he did let somebody talk him into it, he wouldn’t persist with it after it had gone sour. Get him on the phone and let me talk some sense into him.”

Dolores Anaya, whose family name was Jimenez—they weight down babies with great long strings of names down there—shook her pretty dark head. “It will do no good, señor. You are wrong, the idea was altogether my father’s. He has always remembered the very expert and professional manner in which you dealt with the bandit El Fuerte. He said we must have you now, since others have failed. Two others, one of whom was”—she hesitated—“was my older brother Ricardo. My father said it was too bad, and he regretted the necessity for coercion, but the people of Costa Verde must be saved from the butcher Rael regardless of cost. Their freedom is more important than the respect and friendship he feels for you, and perhaps you for him.”

Well, it made sense. It’s the old Savior-Of-Your-Country syndrome. And of course no conspirator, particularly no Latin-American conspirator, would ever dream of simply picking up the phone and asking me if I’d shoot somebody for him, please. It has to be done complicated, with kidnaping and intimidation, or it doesn’t count.

There was, of course, another consideration that the girl hadn’t mentioned, either because she hadn’t been taken wholly into her father’s confidence or because they’d agreed not to call it to my attention, since it might influence my decision unfavorably. It seemed very unlikely that if they did obtain the services of an agent of the U.S. Government against Rael, by whatever means, they’d keep it a secret from Rael, even if it made the job harder.

Mac had already hinted that the present dictator of Costa Verde was a sensitive person—read: paranoid bastard—who’d blow his stack at any suggestion of treachery on the part of his gringo allies. Even if I should fail, the fact that I had tried could be used to sow a great deal of discord between Rael and his Americano supporters, to Jimenez’s advantage.

I said, “Aren’t you forgetting something? Isn’t your daddy forgetting something?”

“What, señor?”

“He may have Eleanor Brand, but I have you.”

The girl tossed her head haughtily and gave a scornful little laugh that an aristocratic lady of revolutionary France might have, used when threatened with the guillotine. “So kill me now!” She made a sharp gesture. “I claimed the right to speak with you. I was not good for managing the abduction, that was work for the men, but I could do this. I could speak just as convincingly for my father as my brother Emilio, who calls himself Lobo. And the fact that I would put myself into your hands, and that my father would allow it, should prove to you how seriously we take this matter. So if you wish to kill me, kill. It will do your lady no good, I assure you. There will certainly be no trade, if that is what you are thinking. I would take my own life, first.”

She was very impressive, so young and so dedicated; but they are always slightly incredible in their arrogance, these baby martyrs. They are so ready to sacrifice themselves for their beliefs, but it never occurs to them that they may not be unique; that there may be other folks around ready for sacrifice, too.

“Sure,” I said. “It was just a thought.”

Dolores Jimenez glanced at her watch. “There is a time limit. If I am not back soon…”

It was time to play the last card, even though I had no faith in it, dealing with youthful fanatics like this one. “All right, listen closely… Sir,” I said into the phone.

Mac’s voice said, “Yes, Matt?”

“The classification on Jimenez?”

“Available. I thought you might need to know, so I also asked that question. Although of course they do not condone violence over there in the halls of diplomacy—at least not publicly—nevertheless if violence should occur, I gather they would not be displeased to have it occur to Colonel Jimenez. Well, at least as long as the act cannot in any way be attributed to the present regime. There are softhearted elements of the administration, not to mention of the liberal press, who disapprove of our support of Armando Rael and would use any terrorist act of his in this country to discredit this policy and those who favor it. But if it can be accomplished discreetly, they will not be unhappy. The colonel’s repeated loud condemnation of their man, Rael, and his constant efforts to return to power, are becoming very annoying to certain of our policy makers.”

“I see,” I said, and looked at the girl as I spoke. “The colonel is available. Very good. Then I request a complete cover on the whole Jimenez menage. In particular I want to know when Hector himself gets up in the morning and when he goes to bed at night. I want to know when he sleeps with his wife and if they both have satisfactory orgasms…”

Mac broke in: “Señora Jimenez died about a year after escaping from Costa Verde, perhaps due to the hardships she suffered getting out of there. As far as the rest of the family is concerned, the older son Ricardo was captured while making an attempt on Rael’s life and disappeared into the political prison known as La Fortaleza. It is believed that he died there, not pleasantly. There is a younger son Emilio and a daughter Dolores.”

“I have just had the pleasure of meeting Dolores,” I said. “I have even spoken with Emilio, unfortunately under rather unfavorable circumstances. But that’s beside the point. I want to know when the colonel goes to the can in the morning and whether his bowel movement is soft or hard. I particularly want to know his whereabouts at any hour of the day or night. And of course his security arrangements.”

“We have a lot of that information, or we can obtain it,” Mac said. “As I indicated, his political activities have aroused some unfavorable interest. Surveillance will be arranged.”

“Around-the-clock surveillance, excellent,” I said for Dolores’s benefit. “Next item: Please send somebody to my Washington apartment with the spare key they keep down in the office. At the back of the bedroom closet is a long plastic case containing a .300. Holland and Holland Magnum rifle with a heavy target barrel and a twenty-power telescopic sight. You may remember the gun. I’d appreciate it if you’d have it delivered to the armorer. Ask him to check it out carefully. It’s been sitting idle for several years.”

“Yes, I remember the rifle quite well,” Mac said.

I said, “Ask the armorer, when he’s overhauled it, to make me up a hundred rounds of fresh ammunition. His records will show the load we worked up for the gun—the hundred-eighty-grain bullet. The particular bullet we used isn’t manufactured any longer, so unless he still has a stock of them, he’ll have to find another with the same expansion characteristics. Remind him that I do not want an armor-plated grizzly-bear bullet that won’t open up on lighter game. The primary target will be a not-very-big human male at extreme range, where the bullet will have lost a great deal of its velocity. I want a slug with a light jacket that’ll expand reliably under those conditions and tear a nice big lethal hole through the sonofabitch. There will be some other targets, but let’s set it up for this one. What with the current rules for interstate shipment of firearms, you’ll have to get the weapon to me by courier. I’ll call later and let you know where.”

“Very well. Anything else?”

“That’ll do it for now,” I said. “Thank you, sir. Matt out.”

I passed the instrument to the girl, who replaced it firmly in its cradle. There was a little silence; then she said, “Do you really think you can frighten us?”

“Not really,” I said. “Some people are too stupid to be scared. But tell your friends, tell your daddy, that unless Eleanor Brand is returned unharmed, I go hunting. Colonel Jimenez has seen me at work. Ask him if he really wants to be at the wrong end of the rifle that finished El Fuerte half a valley away. Tell him that if anything happens to my girl, he can just forget about saving the poor suffering people of Costa Verde. They’ll have to make it on their own because he won’t be around to help them. And neither will you, Miss Lioness, or your brother Mister Wolf, or your friend Mister Bear. Don’t start this thing going, señorita. You can stop it right here. Send back Eleanor Brand, unharmed, and we’ll just forget the whole thing. Hurt her and you’re dead.”

She looked at me for a moment with those lustrous brown Spanish eyes; and I saw that I had failed. She, a Costa Verde patriot, was not to be intimidated by a little secret-agent foolishness, some menacing ballistic jargon, and a few threats. I had hoped—well, just a little—that she might be bright enough to realize that the last thing their lousy revolution, or counterrevolution, needed was a vengeful sniper in attendance; but she was hypnotized by the pure bright image of Costa Verde freedom that now required a human sacrifice…

“Good night, Señor Helm,” she said politely, turning toward the door. “I regret that we could not come to an agreement. I regret it very much. And I think you will, too.”

I watched her go; I gave her a small lead; I went after her. If they had any sense at all, any technique at all, any caution at all, it was useless, but I couldn’t pass up the slightest chance of a break, even if it was no chance at all.

I made it down four flights of stairs in time to see her go out the front door of the building. I followed the slim figure in the plain black trousers and the elaborate white blouse at a suitable distance. There was a filling station on the corner, closed at this late hour. She stopped at the public telephone there that she’d probably used to call me earlier. I prayed, if you want to call it that, that she was not as impervious to reason as I’d thought, as proud and dedicated and intractable. Maybe she could accept failure. Maybe, standing there at the phone, she was now advising delay, reconsideration. Maybe there would at least be a consultation before anything was done. Maybe somebody sensible would prevail.

Waiting, I thought about one possible course of action I’d passed up: I could have tried to beat the location out of her while she was still within my reach. The fact that she was a girl and quite attractive had not, of course, figured in my decision on the subject: Hell, they ask for equal treatment these days. Who am I to deny it to them? But that kind of interrogation is a long, slow process and doesn’t always work with the patriots and fanatics. Well, anybody can be broken eventually, but sometimes it takes days, even weeks. And even if I’d learned where Elly was being held, the odds would have been very great against my getting her away unharmed…

Dolores Anaya Jimenez was hanging up the phone. I could tell nothing from her attitude, at the distance. She started walking again, in her crisp high-heeled way, and I followed; but when we came to a larger, better-lighted street and she flagged down a late-cruising taxi, I let her go. She probably knew I was behind her. It was my obvious move because it was my only move. She would lead me nowhere useful; and the word had now been passed, one way or the other.

I walked back to the apartment building. Their timing was very good; or maybe they’d been waiting for my appearance. I saw the big old sedan turn the corner ahead very fast and brake hard in front of the building. I saw the door open. Something fell out and rolled along the pavement. Then they were roaring past me, accelerating violently. There were two of them. The street lights caught them briefly: a heavy-faced, darkly moustached young man in front, with massive shoulders, driving: and in the rear, struggling to get the car door closed again after discharging his cargo, a smaller, slighter young man, cleanshaven, whose features were quite familiar. I was getting so I could spot a Jimenez at a glance. Brother Emilio, and his friend the Bear. I suppose I could have shot at them, but what was the point? That would come, but there was no hurry now. There would be plenty of time for all that, later.

The doorman was hurrying out to look, drawn by the screech of rubber, but I was the first to reach her. You learn how to shut yourself off at times like that. You button up the emotional armor like a tank going into battle. But the defenses are never perfect; and I stood there thinking how small she looked, lying there. I thought of how it would have hurt her to know she’d be seen like that, with a shoe missing and her stockings torn by the fall and her dress dirty and disordered, darkly stained in front around the small tear under the breast where the knife had penetrated.

Elly’s face was very pale. Her eyes were open and unseeing. There was an ugly scrape along one cheek, but it had not bled significantly. They do not bleed much after the heart stops beating. I knew a sickening sense of loss and guilt. I reached down to tidy her dress a bit, but stopped. That was just me catering to my lousy conscience. The police wouldn’t like it; and it didn’t really, matter to her now…

The police gave me a hard time, of course. They don’t like to find a man with a gun, even a man with an unfired gun, standing over a dead body. In fact they simply don’t like to find a man with a gun, period. They want the firearms concession all to themselves.

But I finally managed to get my ID looked at by a plainclothes supercop of some kind named Bannon, to whom they’d turned me over at last like a curious specimen of butterfly they’d netted and stuck on a pin for careful scientific classification. Bannon was large and red-faced and sloppy-looking; and I’d met them before, those sloppy-looking law-enforcement gents who hope you’ll assume that their brains are as dull as the creases in their pants. His small greenish eyes studied the fancy little leather folder with its impressively official-looking contents that we carry to intimidate the peasants when we’re not pretending to be somebody we aren’t and secrecy isn’t mandatory. His chest heaved in a sigh under his rumpled vest, one button of which needed his wife’s immediate attention if he wasn’t going to lose it. If he had a wife.

“Three o’clock in the morning,” he said, “and I don’t just have an old-fashioned gangland-type killing and a dead reporter-girl, I’ve got you, Mr. Helm. Well, give me the number.” I gave him the Washington number and he made the call. There was a brief conversation; then I got to talk a little. Finished, I gave the instrument back to him and he returned it to its cradle. He sat for a full minute, looking at me across his scarred desk. At last he said, “I don’t have to, you know, Mr. Helm. This is my city, not yours.”

I shrugged. “It’s my country, and yours.”

“And what’s that got to do with a young lady journalist getting herself killed?” He grinned abruptly. “Okay, we’ll do it your way. Washington’s way. I’ve got troubles enough right here without getting myself or the department involved in international politics.”

So by four in the morning we were all good friends and I had my gun back. We all agreed, for newspaper purposes, that the poor girl shouldn’t have poked her pretty little nose into the local drug business like that; the boys played rough and didn’t appreciate reporters, male or female, snooping around. This theory of the case was, of course, as I’d known it would be when I proposed it, confirmed or at least supported by the half-finished draft of the magazine article that had been found on her typewriter table.

3

There were fourteen people in the small classroom in the new building on the south side of Chicago’s Midway that is known as the Ransome Institute, more formally the William Putnam Ransome Institute for Pan-American Studies. As a foreigner originally hailing from the distant and ignorant state of New Mexico—people living east of the Mississippi sometimes think we need passports to enter the U.S.—I’d been patronizingly informed that the two surnames involved were real big in Chicago. The Putnams were old railroad money, and the Ransomes were right up there in the meat-packing business with the Swifts and Armours.

It was two days since Elly Brand had died. Although I’d been functioning after a fashion throughout those two days, they were not entirely clear in my mind. Now, sitting in a chair at the rear of the little room, I felt oddly fragile, as though I were convalescing from a serious illness or a bad wound; and in a sense I suppose I was. The lady at the front of the room didn’t seem quite real—well, hell, the whole room was a little unreal—although I knew exactly who she was and why she was there and why I was there. But it was an intellectual sort of knowledge only. I was an observer of the scene, not a true participant.

The lady was named Frances Dillman—Associate Professor Frances Ransome Dillman, Ph.D., to you. And to me. She was some indeterminate age between an old twenty-five and a young forty; a tall female beanpole who somehow managed a faint air of upperclass elegance while wearing a brown tweed suit that had the comfortably threadbare look the British love and some Americans like to copy, with leather patches where she’d gone through the elbows of the jacket at last. Even the best Harris tweed, and this was the very best, doesn’t last quite forever.

Mrs. Dillman, Dr. Dillman, Associate Professor Dillman, was wearing a high-necked beige cashmere sweater with her comfortable tweeds. It was obviously expensive, very fine and soft, but she didn’t really have the frontal development to do a sweater justice. Her narrow legs were encased in knee-length wool stockings, her feet in well-worn but well-polished brogues suitable for tramping a Scottish moor, if you had a Scottish moor handy.

But the lady was not unhandsome in her way. She had a fine blade of a nose, strong cheekbones, a firm jaw, and a wide if thin-lipped mouth. Her gray eyes were rather striking under her dark, unplucked eyebrows. Her brown hair was cut quite short but neatly and becomingly arranged about her well-shaped head. She stood sternly at the blackboard with a pointer in her hand, indicating the areas of interest on the map she’d drawn in chalk—not a bad job of freehand map making, I had to admit.

“For the benefit of those who’ve joined us late,” she said, with a cold look in my direction, “I will repeat that we’ll be visiting the cradle of the ancient Melmec civilization, recently discovered in the Costa Verde jungle, here.” The pointer tapped a stylized little flat-topped pyramid that she’d drawn in an otherwise particularly empty space on her map. “The existence of this lost civilization was deduced quite recently by my husband, Dr. Archibald Dillman, in much the same manner in which the existence of the planet Neptune was deduced back in 1846 by its effect upon the orbit of the neighboring planet, Uranus…”

The unseasonably warm weather in which I’d arrived had broken, and the view out the window was typically winter-in-Chicago. Big snowflakes were drifting past the windows. The sky was bleak and gray. Good funeral weather, totally miserable, I reflected; but Elly had been hastily adopted, in death, by some family members she’d had little use for alive. She’d be buried in the family plot in the small New England town from which she’d come, which she’d left as soon as she could scrape up the fare out. Well, I’d said my good-byes, such as they were. Or maybe I was still saying them and would be for some time to come.

The tall lady at the blackboard had returned from her brief interplanetary excursion. “In other words,” she said, “down here in Central America, the behavior of the Olmecs on the one hand, and of the Mayas on the other, as revealed by their surviving artifacts and records, the ones we’ve been able to decipher, indicated clearly that they had been subjected to certain influences, linguistic and otherwise, that must have originated in this previously unexplored area. My husband and I were able to make the first scientific penetration of the area, with the assistance of this institute, and with the full cooperation of the Costa Verde government.”

She had been regarding the blackboard map as she spoke. Now she turned abruptly to face us, slapping the pointer against the palm of her hand. “One thing we must have very clear before we start,” she said. “You’ve presumably joined this tour for strictly archaeological purposes. The present politics of the area do not concern you, must not concern you. Our work is totally dependent upon the good will of the current regime down there. They can close the site to us any time they wish. Therefore, I must insist: Whatever you think of conditions in Costa Verde, please keep your opinions to yourselves. Please, no public criticism of their institutions, political or economic or social. Please, no photographs that may reflect unfavorably upon the present government. Understood?”

There was a small murmur of protest, but she stared us down, waiting for the hostile sounds to stop. At last she nodded minutely as if satisfied, and spoke in milder tones:

“Now let’s get to the practical aspects of our journey. To review what’s in the printed instructions you were given: You should have stout shoes and some durable clothes. Unlike Chichen Itza and Tikal, this area has not yet been fully developed for tourism; and if you’ve visited those older sites—older in terms of the length of time we’ve known about them—you’ll know that even there a considerable amount of hiking and climbing is required. On the other hand, let me also remind you that while the flight home is direct, on the way down we’ll be staying in good hotels in Mexico City and in Santa Rosalia, the capital of Costa Verde. You’ll want to have some reasonably presentable clothes to wear there. Having already threatened your freedom of speech, I won’t attack your sartorial principles; but if the gentlemen can bear to wear jackets and neckties, and if the ladies can bring themselves to appear in dresses and stockings, I think they’ll feel more comfortable. Sports shirts and pantsuits have not yet taken Latin America by storm, at least not for polite evening wear…”

When we emerged from the building, the snow had stopped, but the sidewalk was slushy. I made my way to my rental car without paying much attention to my fellow tour-members; I’d have plenty of time to get to know them later. I drove directly to the nearby motel where I’d taken a room. I hadn’t gone back to stay in Eleanor’s apartment, of course. Not only was it a place of too many memories, it wasn’t safe. I hadn’t even returned there to pick up my suitcase. Somebody in the organization would retrieve it for me and hold it for me until I returned.

I mean, my threats would have been reported to Hector Jimenez by his daughter, and while the girl might discount them, I knew that the colonel himself, knowing me, would take them seriously. He might even get the bright idea of striking first—a preemptive strike, in military terms. So I’d broken clean; and even though circumstances had made it necessary for me to remain in Chicago a few days longer, it’s a big city, and I didn’t think the homicidal Costa Verde patriots, self-styled, were likely to stumble upon me way down here at the other end of town, the south end, the university end. I parked the car in front of my room and went inside to call Washington.

“I’ll put you through,” the girl said after I’d identified myself properly.

“Just a minute,” I said. “Note this down, please. Information required: Frances Dillman, Ph.D., Archibald Dillman, Ph.D., both on the faculty of the University of Chicago. I’d like everything I can get on them, including the husband’s current whereabouts. And brace yourself; here are some more names for Research to play with. Ready?” I got out the mimeographed stuff I’d been given when I signed up for the tour—pulling a good many strings to get myself admitted so long after the official deadline—and read off the list of participants, and had her read it back to me for accuracy. I said, “All these people are taking an archaeological safari to the newly discovered Copalque ruins in Central America, sponsored by the Ransome Institute of Pan-American Studies. What I particularly want to know is if any of them could be using this tour to get them into Costa Verde for purposes totally unscientific. As I just found out, what with the unsettled political conditions down there, there are no regular pleasure tours available, and individual tourists are apparently eyed with considerable suspicion. That’s why I joined the group, and I’m wondering if any of my fellow explorers could have had the same idea. So please have Research find out for me if any of them has ever been associated with Costa Verde in any way that might give them a motive for sneaking back unobtrusively. I’ll try to phone in for the preliminary data tomorrow before we take off; but we’re leaving here at the crack of dawn, so somebody’ll have to get the full report to me later, either at the Hotel El Paseo in Mexico City, or at the Hotel Gobemador, Santa Rosalia, Costa Verde. Now put me through, please.”

Mac was apparently already on the line, listening, because his voice came immediately: “Yes, Eric?”

“How are they doing with my new passport and my camera gear, sir? There’ll be a bus at the institute to take us to O’Hare at seven-thirty tomorrow morning; and the bosslady was very definite about us having all necessary documents before takeoff.”

“The courier should be knocking on your door,” Mac said. “In addition to the items mentioned, he has the rifle you requested, with ammunition.”

I said, “The armorer must have worked around the clock. Thank him for me, and apologize, please. Actually, I ordered it made ready mainly to impress somebody who didn’t impress; and while I’m glad to have it handy, I don’t think I’ll be using it immediately.”

There was a little pause. At last Mac said, “You have not told me the reason for the delay, Eric. I have acceded to your various requests since time was too short for argument—besides, you were not in a highly rational condition—but now I think you had better explain yourself. Why wait? Instant retribution is essential as a deterrent to others with similar notions.”

It’s the one crime that, after all his years in the business, is still capable of arousing him to a state of cold, unreasoning fury. He once told me that if it were left to him, he would solve the skyjacking problem very simply: He’d merely send up a couple of fighter planes to blast any hijacked airliner out of the sky and to hell with the passengers and crew. To be sure, he’d said, it would cost, maybe a few hundred innocent lives; but it wouldn’t take more than one or two such object lessons to discourage this vicious type of extortion permanently, probably saving more lives in the long run.

I said, “Jimenez and his family and his political hangers-on are pretty well forted up in that estate he’s got out in Lake Park. Maybe we could blast them out, but a gory massacre attributed to this agency, with whatever justification, isn’t the kind of publicity we need, sir. When it happens, the people who count will know who was behind it and why; but give me time to set it up discreetly.”

“How?”

I said honestly, “I don’t know yet, sir.”

He said coldly, “Let me remind you that we have always operated on the principle of quick retaliation. They must learn that this kind of blackmail will earn them nothing but instant death. That is the basis for the instructions I have formulated to deal with such contingencies.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and took a big chance: “But with all due respect, sir, you’re not giving the orders here. She is.”

There was a dangerous pause; but when he spoke his voice was less harsh. “I see. A sentimental gesture, Eric?”

“Call it that, sir. I’ve had a couple of days to think it over. It will be done, I promise you that; but it’s going to be done the way she’d want it done, sir.”

When you’re bucking him, it’s always well to go heavy on the “sirs.” He’s not fool enough not to see through the phony respectful smokescreen; but it kind of amuses him and he’s somewhat easier to influence when he’s amused. It was an odd reversal of our usual relationship, I reflected wryly, for me to be acting as the advocate of caution and restraint.

When he didn’t speak, I went on: “As we both know, Elly wasn’t a turn-the-other-cheek girl. She believed in giving as good as she got, or as bad as she got. But I don’t think she’d have wanted us to indulge in a mindless vendetta on her behalf. She was, well, concerned about the state of the world. She wouldn’t have wanted to be avenged to the last drop of blood if total vengeance could only be achieved at the expense of innocent people.”

“The innocent people of Costa Verde, you mean,” Mac said dryly.

“That’s right.”

“So you do not think Miss Brand would have favored the obvious: instant and complete annihilation of the organization by whose members she was murdered?”