The Devastators

chapter SIXTEEN

In the morning, when we came outside for breakfast, the sun was shining. A few spectacular white clouds still hung over the mountains that edged the high valley or bowl in which the hotel was located, but elsewhere the sky was as blue as you could wish.

The sunshine turned the treeless moorland scenery from bleak to beautiful. It was really a hell of a fine, wild-looking country, and I wished I could go hunting in it, or even fishing, although I haven't got quite enough sadism in me to really enjoy fishing. I can rationalize killing a living creature quickly, with one well-placed shot-after all, we connive at death every time we order steak-but letting it fight its heart out against a nylon leader, and then boasting about its game, despairing struggles over a beer afterwards, is a little too specialized a form of amusement for my simple soul.

Vadya said, "Someone has been in the car, Matthew." We had, of course, arranged the usual system of telltales to let us know if our transportation had been tampered with. I stopped admiring the view and checked the trunk and hood. Neither had been opened. The wheels had not been moved or lifted. Since it was a very low-slung little car, this made it reasonably safe to assume that nothing fancy had been hung on us underneath. But the left-hand door had definitely been opened.

I said, "Maybe Stark's boys came to get their beeper." That would explain its disappearance, if Vadya should notice.

She frowned. "Or maybe somebody has arranged to blow us up as we get in. After my phone call last night, Madame Ling knows where we are, and I don't have a great deal of faith in that little yellow slut."

"What a way to refer to a fellow-believer!" I said. "And I thought you people were always reproaching us for our racial prejudices… Well, it's easy enough to check, in a roadster."

I unsnapped and unhooked various fastenings and managed to work the cloth top free without disturbing either door. Sports car tops do not come down hydraulically at the touch of a button. They have to be dismantled piece by piece, folded, and put away by hand. At least this is true of the tops of inexpensive British sports cars. Having uncovered the cockpit, I examined the interior, and found nothing. I grasped the handle bravely and pulled open the suspect door. No explosion resulted.

I grinned at Vadya, who'd instinctively stepped back. 'Well, now we've got it off, on this lovely morning, we might as well leave it off," I said, and I stowed the framework in the trunk and folded the top carefully so as not to further damage the plastic rear window, which already displayed a bullethole as a reminder of yesterday's adventures. "What are you doing?" I asked.

Vadya was kneeling on the seat. There was a narrow luggage space behind. At the back of this was a removable panel leading to the gas tank compartment, which also served to hold the folded tonneau cover, and any other small items you cared to tuck out of sight. She had the compartment open before I could distract her.

"Just checking," she said. "No, they didn't get it."

"Who didn't get what?"

"Stark's boys didn't get their beeper. It's still here."

She picked it off the metal to which it clung magnetically, and showed it to me on her palm. It was the tiny British homing device, all right, identical with the one I'd sneaked out of there yesterday and left in the trunk of Madame Ling's wrecked Mercedes.

I managed to conceal my surprise. For a moment I wondered if Vadya, or Madame Ling, was being very tricky; then I realized that I had simply underestimated Colonel Stark. The man had brains after all, and even a sense of humor. He'd found the beeper in the Mercedes, and then he'd had it-or another just like it-put back in my car in exactly the same place as before. This got me off the hook if Vadya should investigate, as she'd just done; it also told me that my message had been received and appropriate action was being taken.

Vadya said, "I think it's time we got rid of this, don't you? We don't want interference by the British."

Before I could give her an argument-I couldn't think of a plausible one-she'd thrown the little transmitter into the nearby stream. Well, I wasn't too eager to have Stark right on our tail myself, but I found myself feeling a little more hopeful about the guy. He might turn out to be of some use eventually.

I closed up the compartment, and set the overnight case behind the seats, along with a picnic lunch supplied by the hotel, and our thermos bottle, refilled. If everything went according to plan, I wouldn't be at liberty long enough to do much eating or drinking, but I couldn't let it look as if I were anticipating captivity. The sandwiches and coffee indicated, I hoped, that I was innocently looking forward to a full, energetic, outdoors day spent searching for a place called Brossach.

"Give me course and speed," I said as we drove away, "and estimated time to target."

"Turn right when you reach the highway," she said. "Go on through the town of Ullapool and several miles further-she didn't give me the exact mileage-and turn left toward the coast on a little one-track road. The sign is supposed to say Kinnochrue. They'll be lying in wait for us somewhere on that road."

"Sure," I said. "Well, let's hope they make it good. I have a reputation of sorts to maintain; I can't just fall into their arms or they'll know it's a plant." I paused to give the right of way to a couple of shaggy sheep, and swung the Spitfire onto the main road. Presently I glanced at the mirror and said, "Well, there's one of them already. Our little tan Austin-Cooper from London, with only one man aboard. He must have had a long, sad, lonely ride up here, grieving for his lost friend, the guy you finished off in Nancy Glenmore's room. I guess he's supposed to shepherd us into the trap."

Vadya had her purse open and was studying the mirror inside. She said, "I don't recognize him. He is too far away."

I said, "Quit your kidding, doll."

She laughed softly. "Very well. I do recognize Basil, although I never did know him well. I guess I was just… well, ashamed to admit that we have people like that, self-seeking, ambitious, and cowardly."

"I never heard that Basil was yellow."

"He did not have the courage to keep faith with the Party!"

"Oh, that," I said.

"Furthermore, he did not have the courage to die in a situation that required his death. The details do not matter-it was hushed up, of course-but that is why he became a traitor. He knew that his career with us was finished so he switched his allegiance elsewhere; now, finally, to the Chinese. A cheap, dirty little turncoat, but well trained and quite clever. Do not underestimate him."

"I'm not likely to," I said. "He made a sucker of me in London. Almost a dead sucker, or a kidnapped one." I glanced at her, and said, "Talking about kidnappings."

"Yes?" Her voice was cautious.

"You have Winnie, don't you?"

After a moment, she glanced at me. "Yes. I have her."

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Framing poor Madame Ling like that? Where'd you get the woman to impersonate her?"

"As you said yourself, an Oriental stooge is no harder to find than an Occidental one, in a cosmopolitan city like London. As you also said, I wanted you to myself, but of course you could not be permitted to know I had arranged it, so I threw the blame on Madame Ling." Vadya laughed. "I did not think I could get as much… cooperation from you, if you had a wife along."

"And the kid, Nancy Glenmore? Did you have her disposed of, too. For the same reason?"

Vadya was not offended by the question. She merely shook her head. "No. Basil must have ordered that. I might very well have done it, but I did not. And your little blonde playmate is quite unharmed and will be released as soon as I can get word to the people who hold her. Are you angry?"

"Sure," I said. "I'm mad as hell I let you out-bluff me, when I had that strap around your neck."

She laughed. "You are a sentimentalist, my dear. I knew you would not kill me, or even hurt me badly, no matter how threateningly you talked."

I grinned. "Crowe-Barham wouldn't agree with your opinion of me. He thinks I'm an uncouth Yankee brute. If he's still alive, poor guy. You didn't happen to get any word on him from Madame Ling?"

We hadn't discussed the details of her telephone conversation the night before. Sleep had seemed more important, once she'd let me know that contact had been established and satisfactory arrangements made.

Vadya said, "No, even if I'd thought of it, how could I have asked? What interest could I have in your friend? I merely made my offer, we haggled a little over terms, and she consulted her associates and came back to the telephone to let me know what I was expected to do. When we stop, of course, I will point my gun at you."

I said, "Sure. But be damn certain you don't do it before we stop, or I'll have to go through the motions of piling up the car, or doing something equally desperate and messy."

What I meant was that it's only on TV that a guy in a fast-moving vehicle, with a steering wheel in his hands and a hot engine under his foot, lets himself be held up by a character with a mere pistol. who obviously can't shoot since if he does his victim will be sure to wreck the heap and take him to hell for company.

"I will wait," she said. "Then I will get your revolver. Then they will come up and take you prisoner."

I asked, "Did the Ling make any provision for communicating with you again if something went wrong?"

"Nothing is supposed to go wrong. But she gave me an emergency number to call, yes."

"And just how are you supposed to be selling this lonely coastal detour to me?"

"Why, I called our people in London, did I not? And they were very efficient-much more than yours-and discovered that the Kinnochrue road goes on past Brossach, which is a very old castle, crumbling into the sea, only a few stones left on the edge of the cliff. It was the ancient home of the clan McRue, destroyed in one of those bloody Highland feuds you read about. Since this obscure clan died out long ago, and since there is not enough of the castle left to attract tourists, and since it is a long way from the road and the cliffs are not safe, hardly anybody knows about it. So said Madame Ling, pretending to trust me with important information. I am fairly certain that Brossach is not on that particular road, and it may not even be an old castle on a cliff, but that is what I was told to tell you."

I said, "Well, with luck they'll take us there, wherever it is. I'm glad we came across the Ling when we did. Or she came across us."

"What would you have done if she hadn't?"

I shrugged. "They knew I'd got information from Walling, and they didn't know I didn't know what it meant. As long as I headed in the right direction and looked as if I knew where I was going, they were bound to try to stop me. We couldn't help but run into somebody you could make your treacherous offer to, somewhere along the line."

She laughed and patted my arm. "Darling, you are an ingenious man and a good poker player, even if you are sentimental about women."

I opened my mouth to warn her not to count too much on my famous sentimentality; then I closed it again. If she wanted to keep thinking I was a soft-hearted slob, that was her privilege.

chapter SEVENTEEN

I had been warned about the one-lane roads of the real Scottish hinterland, and the courtesies and conventions governing their use. They are, for the most part, smoothly paved and well maintained, but they are barely wide enough for a single car-just narrow little tracks of black asphalt winding through the rocks and heather.

At intervals, there are passing places marked by white, diamond-shaped signs set high on tall posts for better visibility. If a car comes up behind, you are supposed to pause at the next passing place and let it pull around you. If one approaches from ahead, you are expected to wait at the next passing place for it to go by, unless it reaches a diamond first and waits for you.

We'd come through Ullapool, a picturesque but tourist-infested fishing village on an inlet called Loch Broom, where we'd had our first glimpse of salt water on this rugged western shore of Scotland. Beyond, the main road had swung inland again, and presently we'd seen the sign pointing to Kinnochrue and made our left turn, followed faithfully by the squatty tan Austin-Cooper.

Now I was ramming the Spitfire hard along the twisting black track through the coastal hills. I was kind of testing the skill of the guy behind and the capabilities of his chunky little sedan. I had to admit that while my streamlined red roadster looked a lot faster, I didn't really have much if any edge, mechanically speaking, and Basil seemed to be a pretty good driver. Well, they're all pretty good until the chips are down: then some get suddenly better and a few get suddenly worse.

I put my foot down harder. The exhaust began to sound raucous and impatient, the wind started buffeting us in the open cockpit, and the tires whimpered in the curves. Basil began to fall back. Of course, there was no real need for him to take chances. He couldn't lose us on that road; there was no place for us to go. Still, it looked as if he just didn't have the urge. I could see why he'd had another man to handle the car in London. He could drive, but he wasn't a driver, if you know what I mean. His machinery could catch me, but he never would.

Vadya said tartly, "I hope you are enjoying yourself, darling." She had to speak loudly to make herself heard over the noise.

I glanced at her and grinned. "What's the matter, are you scared?"

"Of course I am scared," she shouted. "You are driving like a fool, and I have no particular desire to die."

"Neither does he," I said, jerking my head backwards. "Which is what I wanted to find out… Ooops!"

I hit the brakes and swerved into a providential passing place barely in time to miss a big Morris sedan that had appeared out of nowhere-at least it looked big on that skinny little road. Then we were off again, while Basil had to wait at a passing place up the line for the larger car to go by. That gave us an additional lead as we charged the next rise hard enough to feel the car kind of lift as the road dropped away beyond the crest-and there they were.

They must have had somebody on a height to give the signal we were coming; they were already busy setting a Volkswagen Microbus crosswise down there. It was plenty big enough to block the road completely. On either side, the shoulders dropped off into rank, soggy-looking grass and brush studded with occasional nice big boulders.

In a jeep, or maybe even a rugged American pickup truck with plenty of clearance and low-gear pulling power, I might have considered an end run nevertheless. In a fragile, low-slung sports job with high-speed gearing, it was out of the question. Even if I got it down from the road intact and right side up, I'd never get it back to the pavement again beyond the roadblock. It would either sink belly-deep in the peat bog or disembowel itself on a rock.

They'd seen us now. The driver of the bus had set his brake and was running for cover, and there were a couple of men on either side of the road, waiting to close in on us when we came to a halt. But between them and us was a white diamond on a post, marking a rather skimpy passing place.

I said, "Hang on, doll. This may work. If it doesn't, it will still look as if I'd given it the old college try."

She said something that I didn't catch. We were really flying down the narrow strip of pavement now. All you could hear was the scream of the exhaust and the howl of the wind. The passing place was coming up fast. At the last moment I stood on the brake and rammed the gearshift lever into low. As we came sliding up to the wide spot, while we still had momentum, I got off the brake, cranked the wheel all the way over, and hit the accelerator hard.

It's a trick we used to play long ago, in our folks' flivvers on snowy roads back home. If you swung the heap hard and really goosed it, you could skid it around in its own length. If you chickened out, you wouldn't spin far enough, and you'd jump a curb or clobber a couple of parked vehicles. If you hit it too hard, you'd do a complete three-sixty, and go sliding on down the street, spinning end for end. But if you did it just right, you'd have made a neat U-turn using hardly any street at all.

This wasn't snow, of course, but I saw a little gravel in the turnout that might help, and the Spitfire had a much smaller turning circle, and a much faster steering ratio, than the cars I used to play with. After all. I'd picked it for its spectacular maneuverability; now was the time for it to show its stuff.

For a moment, however, it seemed as if we'd go flying off the bank and out into the rocky field: I couldn't break the rear wheels loose. The car simply tracked around tightly, shuddering and protesting, in a circle that, small as it was, was several feet too wide for the space we had. Then the straining rear tires hit the gravel and went sideways with a jerk and we were spinning nicely. The tail of the car whipped completely around. I caught it at a hundred and eighty, overcorrected and almost lost it, and fishtailed wildly before getting it back under control. Then we were heading back up the slope.

Basil was not yet in sight. We came over the crest again, turning about five thousand in third gear-about fifty m.p.h.-and saw him just approaching the passing place that we'd used to avoid the Morris. I suppose I should have let him reach it, but I remembered a girl who'd died of poison, probably at his orders, and I saw no good reason to be nice to Mr. Basil. Besides, sitting in an open car, a perfect target, I had to keep him too busy to use a gun until we were out of range. He might shoot better than he drove.

I raced him for the white diamond, therefore, taking the revs clear up to six thousand before I grabbed high gear. He wasn't a real driver, as I've said. He couldn't see that if he slowed down, he was lost. He had to reach the wide place first, if he wanted to avoid a real sudden-death showdown, but still he tried to hedge his bets and make the crash a little less terrifying if it should come.

"Chicken!" I heard myself shout like a crazy kid. "Get off my road, chicken!"

I was aware of Vadya glancing at me, presumably contemptuous of this childishness. Basil couldn't hear me, of course, but he eased off irresolutely nevertheless; and the passing place flashed by us. He'd lost the race, and now the red Spitfire was hurtling at him downhill at seventy-five, crowding eighty, wide open, and there was no room for him to dodge on that one-track road, and nothing left for him to do but ditch or die. He ditched.

I had a glimpse of the Austin going over the edge as we roared past. I drew a long breath and carefully let the roadster slow down, and I looked at the steering wheel to see if I'd actually squeezed finger marks in the hard plastic. I hadn't.

I said, "Some bottle, with a coward for a cork. Did he crack up hard, I hope?"

Vadya said calmly, "Unfortunately, not too hard. He was not going very fast. The car bounced a couple of times and hit a big stone and fell over on its side. I think it is seriously damaged. But he was getting out when we turned the corner." She glanced at me. "What would you have done if he had not got out of our way, Matthew?"

"Hit him head on," I said, "and he knew it."

We drove in silence for a little, and then she said softly, "You are a surprising man in many ways, darling. Or are you just a reckless boy? And do you not care at all whether you live or die?"

I said, "Hell, everything indicated that he'd weaken if I came at him hard enough. Look at his record. The only real risk was that he might panic completely and freeze at the controls. I wouldn't have tried it on you. You're too stubborn. You'd have hung on and got us all killed, out of pure meanness."

She laughed, and pulled her scarf off her hair, and used it to pat her forehead. "I do not know, darling. I am not so sure. You were bluffing in London, but you were not bluffing here." She sighed. "Well, what do we do now?"

I shook my head ruefully. "That wasn't much of a trap. I couldn't let them get away with it. Madame Ling either has a very low opinion of me, or she was testing me to see if, perhaps, I really wanted to get caught. It looks as if you're going to have to call that emergency number. Bawl her out. Tell her I don't really suspect anything yet, but she'd better make her next setup good." I looked around, seeing no landmarks, nothing but rocky hills, and a few sheep. The sheep over here had white faces, I noticed. They didn't have the sturdy, independent, go-to-hell look of the black-faced ones. I said, "Well, we'd better hunt up a phone. I don't see any booths around here."

Vadya had the map out. "Kinnochrue should be the closest place from which to call. There's another road we can use. Turn left up ahead."

I followed her directions mechanically. I was feeling a little drained, I guess, as the adrenaline wore off; you get yourself all keyed up to put your life on the line and there's bound to be a reaction afterwards. Presently I found myself negotiating a small dirt road on which the Spitfire scraped bottom no matter how hard I tried to maneuver around the high spots. It got progressively worse. At last I pulled off to the side and turned off the engine.

"As a navigator," I said, "you make a swell secret agent. Let me see that map. Where the hell are we? I mean, where the hell do you think we are?"

She put her finger on the map. "I think we are here, darling."

"Nuts," I said. 'We haven't crossed the main highway, have we? I'd have noticed that."

I got out to stretch and spread the map on the hood of the car-the bonnet, in the local parlance. There was a rustling of waxed paper in the car; I looked up to see Vadya munching a sandwich.

"Want one?" she asked.

"No, but I could use a cup of coffee."

She brought it to me, and reached up to pat my cheek lightly. "You're a funny man, Matthew. Chicken, you shouted, get out of my road, chicken. Your road! What arrogance!"

I said, rather abashed, "I got a little carried away, I guess. I-" I looked beyond her. "My God, what's that?"

She whirled, putting her hand to her bosom where her little gun, apparently, still reposed. Then she let her hand fall, and we stood looking at the fantastic creature that had appeared on the ridge to the west of the road. It was big as an ox-in fact it was an ox, but like no ox you ever saw. It had long, shaggy, ragged, yellow-orange hair, and great, spreading horns like an old-time trail steer. It looked at us calmly for several seconds before it turned and moved deliberately out of sight.

I glanced at Vadya, and we scrambled up there like two kids at a zoo, rather than two ruthless secret operatives on a mission upon which might depend the fate of the Western world. We stood watching the great beast walk slowly away from us, hairy and prehistoric-looking. Far beyond it, I saw, was the ocean, and at the edge of the coastal cliffs were some piles of rock that looked as if man might have had a hand in getting them there. I looked at the yellow Highland ox again, and gulped my coffee, and turned to Vadya, grinning.

"Well, all I can say is that if it gives milk, somebody else can have the job of-"

I stopped. Her expression was very odd, and suddenly I remembered something. A very old castle, crumbling into the sea, she'd said, only a few stones left at the edge of the cliff… the ancient home of the Clan McRue. We'd found Brossach, and I didn't for a moment think we'd stumbled on it by accident. She'd been instructed to bring me here, somehow, If I should escape the picayune trap on the Kinnochrue road, as I'd been expected to do. But there had been more to her instructions, I knew. I glanced at the plastic cup in my hand, and at the husky girl in the black leather jacket, waiting. I remembered that she'd always been a fast girl with a Mickey.

I'd already drunk plenty. I knew I had only a few seconds left. Whether I would then die, or merely be unconscious for an interval, depended on the arrangement she'd made with Madame Ling-the real arrangement, not the one she'd told me about. This didn't really shock me. I'd expected a double-cross somewhere along the line. It was the way she'd gone about the betrayal that took my breath away. Because she'd left me no choice, absolutely no choice at all.

I mean, the standing orders are quite explicit on the subject of several standard situations. There is the one where you're holding a man at gunpoint, for instance, and some misguided moron who's seen too many movies and wants to help his friend comes up behind you and sticks a pistol in your back. The standard, mandatory response is very simple: you instantly shoot the guy in front of you dead-the guy your gun is already aimed at, who else? It is presumed that you wouldn't be pointing a firearm at him if you weren't prepared to kill him; and you can do it without losing more than a small fraction of a second before you pivot and take care of the guy behind you by one of several prescribed methods.

Similarly, if you realize you've been drugged, you are required to get the person who fed you the dope before you pass out, if it is at all feasible-meaning if the guy's foolish enough to stick around and watch the show. The theory here is that people who go to the trouble to feed poison or knock-out drops to agents like us are obviously up to no good. They should be stopped and the practice should be discouraged.

As I say, I had no choice. I couldn't kid myself this was part of the trick we were supposed to be playing on Madame Ling. If Vadya had still been on my team, she'd have told me where we were going: she'd also have told me what was in the cup when she handed it to me.

She could probably have talked me into drinking it, ostensibly to make our act look good, if she'd wanted to take the trouble, but she'd preferred to do it this way, avoiding the risk of argument. She'd felt that it was surer and safer, and, I thought I knew why. She was counting on the fact that I'd once let her go when I probably shouldn't have, and that we'd just spent a night together. Just as I'd counted on Basil's weakness, she was counting on mine: on that well-known sentimentality I'd been know to display where women were concerned.

It was too bad. I wanted to tell her that it was too bad, and that she shouldn't have done it, but I didn't have that much time. I felt the stuff she'd given me starting to take hold, and I drew the.38 and fired and saw her go to her knees, with a look of shock and surprise on her face. I didn't shoot again. I knew it had been a pretty good shot-not perfect, but pretty good-and things were starting to blur out, and I don't believe in just blasting holes in the landscape at random.