The Ambushers

VII

THE THING WAS wearing drifting white robes and stretching out its white arms to me and whispering my name. I couldn't see its face clearly. I tried to wake up and found that I was awake. That didn't seem right, somehow. Apparitions ought to stick to dreams where they belong.

It was still there in the middle of the room, illuminated only by the kickback of the yard lights outside, as much as could penetrate the drawn blinds. I'd been sleeping heavily a moment before, and I wasn't thinking very lucidly, I guess. I just knew that I didn't believe in ghosts, and that I had no midnight mistresses in the place, and that tricks were sometimes played here in the name of training and analysis, to see how fast you could react.

I went for the white thing before it could come for me. I lunged out of bed low, cut it down, wrapped it up, and pinned it to the floor. It was dressed in some material that was coarse to the touch; the idea of a shroud came to mind. The hell with that. Somebody was playing games, and they could damn well go play them somewhere else. Then I felt the weak, panicky struggles and heard the frightened breathing and I knew at last what I had. I let go and got up and turned on the light, feeling foolish and angry.

"Jesus Christ, Skinny," I said. "Don't tell me you walk in your sleep on top of everything else."

She was huddled on the floor, kind of tangled in a Navajo rug. I thought she was crying, but the face she turned up to me was dry. The eyes were dry. They were perfectly enormous, and the odd yellow light was in them. She shrank away as I stepped forward to help her rise. I stopped.

"Relax," I said disgustedly. "I figure a hundred pounds for the legal raping size. You're still safe by at least ten pounds. What the hell are you doing here, anyway?'

She didn't answer, of course. I went over to my suitcase, found the sandals and dressing gown I hadn't bothered to unpack earlier, and put them on. When I turned again, she was standing up. They'd given her some kind of a crude, straight, sleeveless cotton gown that reached the floor. So much for my dream of drifting robes. It wasn't the sexiest garment in the world, but it had a kind of convent simplicity that went well with the thin face. and the big eyes and the chopped-off hair. She could have been a martyr on the way to the bonfire.

She said, "Don't leave me here."

I stared at her for a moment. It was a perfectly good human voice. Well, I should have known she had one somewhere.

"Please don't leave me here," she said clearly.

I drew a long breath. "I haven't the slightest intention of leaving you here," I said. "This happens to be my room and I'm still way behind in my sleep. I'm booting you out into the hall this minute, unless you come up with a very good reason to the contrary, fast."

"I mean this place. I don't want to stay here."

"Why not?"

The big eyes watched me, but they were no longer yellow. They only went yellow when she was scared or mad, I decided. These were gray eyes. If they'd only blinked occasionally, they would have been nice sensible eyes. When she spoke, her voice was quite sensible, too.

"Don't be silly," she said. "It's a glorified funny farm, that's why not! And I'm the newest, cutest inmate, and I'm just going to love it here if they have to kill me to make me. Well, I don't love it! I think it's perfectly horrible. Everybody feels so goddamn sorry for me, except you!"

The blasphemous adjective went oddly with her saintly, ascetic appearance, barefooted in the rough white nightie.

"What makes you think I'm not sorry for you?" I asked, startled.

She said, "Because I know perfectly well you think I'm a clumsy little idiot who caused everybody a lot of trouble by botching up a perfectly simple job and getting caught so some people had to get shot rescuing her and others had to get blisters on their hands carting her to safety!" She got it all out in one rush of words while I stared at her. Then she said, "Of course, you're perfectly right."

I didn't know what to say to that. She watched me unblinkingly, waiting. It was funny-in a sense I'd known her for well over a week, but she hadn't really been a person until this moment. She'd just been some damaged government property for which I'd been more or less responsible, off and on. And now that she'd become a person, she wasn't at all the person I'd expected. Before either of us spoke, there were footsteps in the hail.

"There's a light," said the voice of the big nurse I'd seen earlier.

"Please!" Sheila hesitated and stepped forward quickly. It was obviously the bravest thing she'd done in her life, but she managed to force herself to touch me, to take my hand gingerly and turn it over so the half-healed blisters showed. She looked up at my face and whispered, "Please! Why did you bother to carry me out of the jungle, if you were just going to leave me in a dreadful place like this?"

Then they were at the door, and she let go my hand and shrank back guiltily, as if caught committing a monstrous perversion.

"Oh, there you are, honey," said the big nurse. "Don't you know you had us all worried, disappearing like that?"

She was an imposing figure in a striped seersucker dressing gown, with her hair in curlers. She'd apparently been called out of bed by the night nurse, a stout little woman trying to disguise her profession in a costume of brightly printed shirt and shorts.

"We're a naughty girl," said the smaller woman. 'We promised nursie we'd go right to sleep."

"Don't scold her, Jonesy. It's hard the first night in a strange place, isn't it, honey?" The big nurse smiled brightly. "We know you didn't mean to cause trouble, dearie. You were just looking for a familiar face, weren't you, honey? Now you come with us and we'll give you something to make you sleep."

She gave me a hard look that said I hadn't heard the end of this. They all went out of the room. Sheila never looked my way. I didn't sleep as well the second half of the night as I had the first; in fact, after a while I got up again and went through the stuff on the desk. In the morning I reported to. the office according to instructions.

The orthopedic surgeon they had in the place-Stern wasn't a scalpel-type doctor-was named Jake Lister. He was about six feet tail and about six feet wide and he'd played pro football to pay for his medical education. He had big white teeth in a black face, and long black fingers that could be gentle and sensitive as a musicians, but weren't always.

"Ouch!" I said. "Why don't you just pull it off and take it over to the lab for examination? I'll wait here, holding a hanky over the bloody stump."

Lister grinned and straightened up. "Nothing wrong with you that a little exercise won't cure, man. You've been sitting on your behind too much, that's your trouble." He went on to prescribe a series of squat-downs and push-ups to be performed, it seemed, continuously day and night.

"That's fine," I said. "When do I sleep and eat?"

"Ah, hell," he said. "Why do I waste my breath? Any time one of you sinister characters gets a little seniority, he's suddenly too proud to do simple exercises. I tell you what, you go over to the gym three times a day as long as you're here and have the Dago give you an hour's workout with the foils or sabers. No epйe, mind you, that's too precise and static. The hell with form. Just mix it up fast and sloppy. If Martinelli's busy, you practice lunging against a wall until your tongue's hanging out. That ought to take the kinks out of your quadriceps femoris."

He went out, leaving me alone hi the examining room behind Stern's office. I'd been told to wait for the top man himself, and if I knew my medical bureaucrats, it was going to be a long wait. They've got to put us field men in our places, even if we do get to call them by their first names. I took my time pulling on my pants therefore, and I could have taken more. After I'd waited fifteen minutes, a prim young woman came in and told me Dr. Stern had been taken suddenly busy and wouldn't be able to see me this morning. He was terribly sorry, she said. I said I shared his grief; and I went over to the gym and made arrangements with Martinelli, the edged-weapons trainer.

He was very glad to have someone to fence with. The current crop of recruits had apparently all been taught never to lead with their rights. It was almost impossible, the Dago said, to make a good fencer or knifeman of a kid brought up to fight left foot forward, in the American boxing tradition. Such a candidate did everything backwards as far as real, permanent mayhem was concerned. All he was good for was punching people in the nose with his lousy straight left.

I listened to Martinelli's plaints for a while, knowing that I was stalling. I was trying to make up my mind about something; I was telling myself not to be sentimental and mix into stuff that was none of my business. When I figured I had myself convinced, I got the map coordinates of the nearest security booth, navigated my way there, and called Washington on the direct phone.

I had a little trouble getting hold of Mac, which was unusual. There's a theory to the effect that he's actually a limited-production robot, several identical copies of which have been installed in several identical offices, each with a bright window facing you so you can't see too clearly what you're talking to. Extras are switched on as needed to handle the flow of traffic. You never know which Macmachine you're getting, but it doesn't matter, since they're all tuned to the same wave length and function off the same master computer, down in the basement somewhere. Personally, I don't believe a word of it. They haven't got computers that sarcastic yet.

When I did get him, he said, "Congratulations, Eric. Or should we change the code name to Casanova."

I sighed. "Dr. Tommy's been on the phone, I suppose. That's why he didn't want to face me this morning. He's been making complaints behind my back."

"He was just on the line. He tells me that even sick and psychotic young ladies find you so irresistible they leave their hospital beds and break the self-imposed silence of weeks rather than be parted from you. Dr. Stern is disturbed. The gist of his lengthy discourse was that he feels that you have, in a sense, been practicing medicine without a license-all wrong. He reminds me that Sheila was assigned to you only for transportation, not for brutal amateur therapy."

"Brutal?" I said. "Hell, I haven't touched the girl. Except for last night when I didn't know who or what she was. Nothing personal was intended, I assure you."

"I gather that the brutality to which Dr. Stern objects was mental rather than physical. He says that you deliberately poked fun at her appearance with a cruel nickname, even in his presence, and jibed at her for being poor company. He feels that you are probably responsible for giving her a strong feeling of guilt about her conduct in Costa Verde, a feeling that will complicate her cure tremendously. He claims that the patient has responded masochistically to this crude treatment of yours-transference is the word he used, I believe-and that the dependency-relationship thus established, if continued, will make it quite impossible for him to communicate with her and guide her recovery, in any constructive way. I hope I have all the terms correct. Dr. Stern requests, therefore, that you be ordered to leave the patient strictly alone from now on." Mac paused and went on: "Is there any reason why I should not give such an order, Eric?"

It was my turn to hesitate. I reminded myself again not to be a sentimental slob. "No, sir," I said.

"Very well. So much for that. You'll be interested to know that President Avila of Costa Verde has carried out a thorough investigation of the matter submitted to him by the government of the United States. He is happy to report that there is no basis whatever for the rumor that the so-called revolutionary forces had a nuclear missile in their possession. No traces of such a missile have been found. President Avila is glad to have been of service, and hopes we will give him more opportunities to prove his friendship and spirit of cooperation. End of message."

"Rumor, hell!" I said. I made a face at the wall of the booth. "So it's like that, eh?"

"Just like that. I won't risk your hanging up by asking if you actually saw a Rudovic III in that jungle clearing." I said, "Well, no, I'll tell you, sir. I got the description from an article in the Sunday papers. I thought it would liven things up in Washington, kind of."

"Yes, to be sure," Mac said. "Well, we'll let the diplomats worry about it. Have you studied your instructions?"

"Yes, sir."

"You will start your interviewing program in Tucson a week from Wednesday, to synchronize with a legitimate survey being conducted in other cities. You have eleven blocks to cover. In each of those eleven blocks, you will interview one person in each household as an authorized interviewer for an organization known as Market Research Associates, Inc."

"Yes, sir. I got that out of the instruction booklet. I was hoping I hadn't. You did say every household in eleven blocks?"

"That is correct. That is the technique used by the company by which you are ostensibly employed. In each of the selected blocks, there is only one address that is of real interest to us, but if the people at that address become suspicious, we hope it will reassure them to learn that everyone else in the block has also been visited by the MRA interviewer. I can't tell you exactly what to look for. We are trying to find a pattern, something these eleven homes, or at least one person in each of them, have in common."

"Yes, sir," I said. "You mean like two arms, two legs, and a head, sir?"

"More like Heinrich von Sachs," he said. "These addresses were visited in a systematic way by a man known to have been associated with von Sachs, a man who was spotted entering the U.S. from Mexico at a small border town in Arizona called Antelope Wells, somewhere east of Nogales, according to my information."

I said, "It's east, all right. It's over the state line in New Mexico."

"Indeed? I should have checked the map. You know the town, Eric?"

"Now you're exaggerating, sir. It's hardly a town, it's just a gate in the international fence. They used to close it at night and on weekends, as I recall. Maybe they still do. On our side, there's a little shack for the customs and immigration man. On the other side there are half a dozen adobe houses, a handful of trees, and a few Mexican border officials. South of that there's nothing for, ninety miles except a couple of ruts across the desert, and I mean desert. It's one of the most Godforsaken hunks of real estate on earth, just rocks, sand, cactus, and mesquite, with a bunch of desolate mountains peeking over the horizon after you get down a ways-called the Nacimientos, I think."

Mac said, "It has been determined that a permit was issued to von Sachs under another name to do some archaeological work in the Nacimiento Mountains. The question is where. As you say, it's a wild area; it is also a large one. The department working on the job before it was transferred to us reports that efforts to trace him from the Mexican end have proved fruitless. I think our first step should be to determine if one of these people in Tucson has the information."

"What about the man who visited them, von Sachs' associate, so-called. He must know where he came from, when he appeared at Antelope Wells."

"If he knows, he isn't saying. Unfortunately the gentleman must be referred to in the past tense."

"I see," I said. "That helps. That's-just ducky. What happened?"

"He was trailed to Tucson. Apparently he was some kind of a courier or contact man. Note was made of the addresses he visited. He started for Phoenix; apparently he had several cities on his route. However, something frightened him and he turned back hurriedly, heading towards Antelope Wells. Somebody decided he should be picked up for questioning before he disappeared below the border, but the arresting officers were careless, and he got his hand to his mouth. It is recorded that he cried 'Viva Quintana' and gave a smart salute before falling on his face, dead of cyanide. The salute he gave was the old straight-armed Nazi salute."

I said wryly, "It sounds just like Old Home Week. Who's Quintana?'

"Who but friend Heinrich? In Mexico he is Kurt Quintana, son of a German mother and a Mexican father. The documents proving this are fraudulent, of course, but until it's established, he is a citizen. He can have you arrested if you bother him."

"I'll keep it in mind."

"I understand your station wagon is ailing mechanically. There is a reasonably new Volkswagen in Phoenix you can have if you like. As for weapons," Mac went on, "if you need anything special, you'll have to supply yourself locally or give us time to send out what you want. If you need an assistant, one can be provided. There are some young people at the ranch for training, one of whom might as well be picking up a little practical experience. He could, for instance, get the interviews started while you make a preliminary investigation along the border."

"Well, eleven blocks is a lot of houses," I said. "I wouldn't mind a little help, but I don't particularly want a green kid tagging along." I hesitated. The idea that had come into my mind was ridiculous, but I heard myself saying: "What about Sheila? She's been around long enough to learn the ropes a little."

"Sheila?" It took a lot to surprise him, but I'd managed.

"She wants out," I said. "Out of here. That's what she came to tell me last night."

"It's out of the question," Mac said. "Dr. Stern says-"

"Dr. Tommy has a thing about curing people, I'm afraid," I said. "I think he sometimes forgets that his job isn't to make us into perfectly adjusted human beings, it's to return us to the front lines in good shooting condition. Hell, if he ever managed to adjust us, we'd quit this racket. The girl walks and talks now, and she wants out."

"You're being sentimental," Mac said.

"Yes, sir."

"She is in no shape to-"

"To ask silly questions and record the silly answers on a questionnaire? If she isn't now, she will be in ten days. It could be a damn sight better for her than staying here and having Tommy and his nurses tinkering with her subconscious. Occupational therapy, we call it."

There was a long silence. Then his voice came reluctantly: "You'd be responsible, Eric. And remember, we have doctors on the payroll but you're not one of them. You have other duties, which must come first."

"Yes, sir."

"There is no accounting for tastes, of course," he said deliberately. "But I thought there was a lady in Texas-"

I said, "What's my love life got to do with this?"

"Then what-"

I grimaced at the sound-proof paneling in front of me. "As you say, I'm being sentimental, sir. Do you remember a man we called Vance?"

"Why, yes. He died up in northern Europe."

"Yes, sir. And do you remember a man we called LeBaron?"

"Yes. He died..,. Oh, I begin to see. Vaguely."

"Yes, sir. LeBaron was killed in Juarez, Mexico, helping me. Vance was killed in Kiruna, Sweden, helping me. And how many other good agents have I taken out and lost in the line of duty? So when for once in my life I find one instead and bring her back alive, I'd just kind of like to see that she makes it all the way. Dr. Tommy himself will admit he can't do anything for her unless she wants him to, and she doesn't. Maybe I can."

"Very well." His voice was crisp. "As I say, it's your responsibility. She can start the interviews a week from Wednesday. You'd better head down towards Antelope Wells as soon as the medical department approves. But be sure you get back to Tucson in time to take over if something goes wrong."

I said, "Yes, sir. If she blows up on the job I'll ship the pieces back here and handle the rest of it myself."

"Just remember," he said, "the mental health of one agent, or even her life, or yours, is not really significant against the larger picture."

He was starting to talk like an ad man in his old age.

"The larger picture," I said. "Yes, sir. We'll get you von Sachs."