The Executioners

IV

I was right The grim anger in me had hardened overnight and when I went to Major Rothwell's office I got the airbase number and made the call myself. I told the base commander who I was and what I wanted and the telephone line fairly smoked with the tight fury in my voice.

"I want to know exactly when this Lieutenant Dempster is going to report for duty, Commander," I said. I'll be there to meet him, but just in case, I want him given an escort from his house or wherever he's coming from to the base."

"Most unusual, Mr. Carter," the commander had grumbled.

"This whole business is most unusual," I answered. 'Tour Lieutenant Dempster is very valuable to me at the moment. I don't want anything to happen to him."

"He's due to report in for flight duty at eight A.M.," the senior officer said. "I have a report that he returned from leave this morning and is at his apartment."

"Have him escorted wherever he goes until he checks in tomorrow morning," I said. "If you need any further clearances, I'll turn you over to Major Rothwell's assistant."

I handed Mona the phone and she verified my priority demands and finally put the phone back in its cradle. Her eyes were boring into me.

"All right, let's have it," she said. "You storm in here, start making your own contacts and hardly say a word to me. Isn't it the girl who's supposed to be upset and filled with second thoughts the next morning?"

Tm sorry," I relented. "It's just what happened last night. I'm still angry as hell about it." I told her what I'd found when I reached the harbor patrol base and her eyes softened.

Tm sorry," she said. "I guess I am to blame, in a way. It was my clock that did it" She got up and came over to me and I found her arms around my neck, her breasts pressed against me. "But it was wonderful, Nick," she said. "Really wonderful."

With her body pressed against mine, her deep breasts softly pushing against me, the night flooded back to me. It had been wonderful. She was a creature of rare passions and talents to match. The phone rang, breaking the gathering force of the moment. Mona picked it up and then handed it to me. "For you," she said and I saw the curiosity in her eyes. I recognized little Judy's voice at once."

"I thought of something." she said. "It might be important. John Dowsey had a wife. She lives here in Townsville. He told me about her. said they were separated and she used her maiden name, Lynn Delba."

"Good girl," I said. "I'll be in touch." I put down the phone and recalled Dawsey's service record in my mind. There had been no mention of a wife in it. I found a listing for a Lynn Delba on the other side of Townsville in the phone book and started out of the office.

"I'll be back," I said to Mona. "I might have a new lead."

"Not so fast," she said. "If you get delayed, please come to my place tonight."

Her eyes were adding their own meaning to her words. I brushed her lips quickly with mine and went outside. If I did go to Mona, later, I knew one thing in advance. I was going to be at the airbase at eight tomorrow morning and Cleopatra, Helen of Troy and Madame DuBarry wouldn't stop me.

I drove into Townsville, skirted the edge of the big copper-smelting refinery and found the address on the other side of town. It was an area of small, two-story brick apartment houses. Lynn Delba lived in a ground-level flat. I rang and a woman in a faded housecoat answered. Quite a bit younger than I'd expected, she was mousey blonde with a washed-out look about her. Her eyes, a light blue, looked at me with unabashed interest but there was wariness in them, too. The housecoat, the front zipper open more than a quarter of the way from the neck, revealed that she had long, thin breasts and no bra on.

"Sorry to bother you," I smiled at her. "I want to talk to you about John Dawsey."

The expression of faint boredom in her eyes suddenly and abruptly changed. "What about him?" she said defensively.

"He's dead," I said flatly and saw what little color she had drain out of her face. Her hands, holding the door, grew white as she clutched the door tightly.

"Maybe you better come in," she said quietly. I followed her into a somewhat worn, faded apartment, very much like her in its own way.

"I'm working with Australian Intelligence," I said. "I've been told that you're his wife."

She shook her head and sat down on the edge of a stuffed chair. Her legs were a surprise, long and beautiful, with slowly tapering calves and delicate ankles. No doubt she knew they were her best feature because she revealed a good bit of them. "I know he used to say that sometimes," she answered. "But I wasn't his wife, not really. I guess you could say we lived together for quite a few years, at least whenever he was off duty. Then I called it quits. Only he wouldn't believe me."

"How long ago was this?" I asked.

"Maybe six months ago," she said. "Then after he got in trouble in the army over that accident and was dismissed, he came here to live with me but I threw him out. He told me he was onto something where he'd make big money."

"Did he tell you anything about it?" I pressed.

"No," she answered quickly. Almost too quickly, I felt. "All he said was that we'd have everything I always wanted, all the things he never could give me. I promised to go back with him if he were telling the truth."

"And he never told you who he was involved with or what it was?"

She shook her head and her eyes were a mixture of sadness and apprehension. "No, she said. "But I never figured it was something he'd get himself killed over. It makes me scared, mister."

"Why?" I asked quickly, watching her eyes as she answered.

"Maybe he told whoever killed him about me," she said. "Maybe they think I know something about what he was into."

"I doubt it" I told her. She was biting her lower lip and her eyes were round and worried. She was scared, all right, and maybe it was for the reasons she'd said. But maybe it was for other reasons. I decided that if Lieutenant Dempster didn't show any cracks, Lynn Delba might bear further watching. "Don't try hiding out," I said to her. "I'll want to be talking to you again."

I left and drove to Judy Henniker's place. She wouldn't be at The Ruddy Jug yet — it was a little early for her to start work. She answered the door in shorts and a halter top.

"Come in," she said, her eyes lighting up.

"Did you find his wife?"

"I found the woman he'd been living with," I answered. Judy hadn't put all her makeup on yet and once again she looked younger, fresher — her high, round breasts very girlish and virginal.

"I just came by to say thanks for the lead on Lynn Delba." I grinned at her. "You've got a leg up on that visa to the States."

She chuckled happily and looked up at me, her eyes searching mine. You're really a good chap, Yank," she said.

"Not really," I said. "If you're holding out on me, you'll find that out." Her eyes clouded at once and she looked away. I wasn't at all certain how much Judy had told me of what she really knew. I'd keep dangling the bait in front of her. It might pay off, eventually. If I read the smoldering, masked fire in her eyes correctly, perhaps there was another kind of bait I could use on her.

"'I'll be in touch, Judy," I said. "Keep remembering things." I turned to go and her hand was on my arm.

"Be careful," she said. She sounded like she meant it. I patted her cheek and left. Mona would be at her place now, I saw by my watch. I drove there and she greeted me in a silk robe. The thrusting points that pushed the fabric sharply out told me she hadn't a damn thing under it. I kissed her and my hands told me I was right.

"Stay here tonight, Nick," Mona said. "You're only twenty minutes from the airbase here. I'll drive you out in the morning."

I had been about to say no to her but suddenly that seemed like a lousy idea. Only this time I'd go by my own watch. I moved my hands down the neck of the silk robe and it fell open. I bent down and buried my head in those great, soft pillows. I didn't really come up for air until sometime near midnight. We went to bed formally then, to sleep, and I slept well with Mona in my arms. But I'd set my inner alarm clock and I woke up on the dot of seven. Mona pot up sleepily, and peered at me as I dressed.

"I'll drive myself out to the base." I said. "You go back to sleep. You'll only have to turn right around and come back again anyway. This could be a while."

She nodded and lay there, watching me shave. When I was ready to leave got up and went to the door with me, beautifully naked. Her eyes, as she watched me go, were a mixture of undecipher able thoughts, but they glowed with a strange intensity. She was, I decided again as I drove off, a most unusual creature.

I was waiting at the base when Lieutenant Dodd Dempster arrived. He was tall, blond and handsome, but there was also self-indulgence in his face, a just-beneath-the-surface weakness. He was also nervous as all hell.

"I know you've been asked a lot of questions during the inquiry on the beachhead tragedy," I began. "But my government has a few more. In fact, Lieutenant, I've been involved in certain other aspects of a broader picture. How many times have you been at The Ruddy Jug?"

The question took him off guard and his eyes looked at me quickly. I didn't wait for an answer but pressed further.

"We know you've been there so there's no need lying about it," I said. "Who were the men you met there? What did they want of you?"

The man glanced nervously about the room where we'd gone to talk, an officers' lounge.

"Look, I've been waiting for all this to come out sooner or later," he said. "And there's a lot I'd like to tell. I just can't keep it bottled up any more. But I won't talk here. Let's get away from here and maybe we can make a deal."

The deal part was strictly out, I knew, but I let him think differently. "I'll listen," I said. "Where do you want to go?"

"I'm supposed to take this jet out for a practice flight," he said. "It's a two seater. Why don't you come with me and we can talk in the plane."

"I guess you can't get much more private than that," I said. "I'll suit up with you. Let's go."

I wasn't letting him out of my sight, not for a single minute. In the pilot's wardroom I found an extra suit that I could struggle into and I followed Dempster out to where a jet, a new and advanced version of the Hawker-Siddley, waited on the runway. Dempster took the controls and we streaked skyward. In seconds, we were moving across the horizon. Dempster began to talk, his voice agitated.

"I got into something," he said. "And I want out. But I want to protect myself, too."

"Suppose you start with some answers first," I said. "You were put in contact with some men. Who were they and where did they come from?"

"I never knew more than their first names," he replied. "But they operated out of a ranch in the outback. I was there three or four times for conferences. I could fly you over the place if you like."

"Go ahead," I said. "I'd like that very much." I was beginning to feel elated. A few of the breaks were going my way for a change. Dempster had obviously been hiding from the inevitable for some while and was ready to stop running.

"They wanted you to wreck the war-games maneuvers," I said. His silence was more revealing than anything he might have said. Finally he spoke.

"I can't name names because I don't know them," he asserted. "But I can lead you to them. It's up to you to do the rest."

"You just point out that ranch for me," I said. "You didn't really seem surprised when I showed up. Why?"

"I guess I've been expecting it ever since the inquiry" he answered. "I didn't really think they'd close the books on it." He lapsed into silence again and I looked down at the dry, arid, parched land of the outback. It was land that had become a vast dustbowl, forbidding, seldom explored by white men. Only the aborigines, one of the oldest nomadic races in existence, seemed able to live off the arid land. Poor soil conservation practices had done their share, but years of drought had done more. It was a flat land, with occasional great meteoric rock formations dotting the vast reaches. On the fringes some hardy pioneers managed cattle but in the heart of it there was nothing but the parched land, the winds and the aborigines. I looked at the vast territory as it rushed by beneath our wings. It was red-brown country with the ridges of the mountains like corrugated cardboard. The very air seemed to shimmer from the unceasing heat of it, the burning sun turning it into a vast oven. It was a forbidding and frightening land and I knew that from the jet, streaking high across it only a vague idea of its awesomeness came through.

As we continued to fly deeper into the outback at jet speed, I knew that we'd covered damn near six hundred miles already, and I wondered how the men could move in and out of Townsville so frequently if their ranch was way the hell out here in nowhere.

"Dempster," I called. "Are you sure you haven't overshot the place?" The pilot turned to look at me and I saw his hand reach out to the instrument board. Too late, I saw his finger come down on the ejector button. I felt myself being hurtled, seat and all, out of the plane. I went upwards with the tremendous force of the ejection mechanism and then, all in a matter of seconds, I felt the tug of the parachute opening up. As I floated down, the jet was a small streak receding in the distance. I'd been suckered in. They had gotten to Dempster another way, no doubt convincing him that to get rid of me was the only really safe move. The chute swayed a moment, then dropped me gently onto the dry soil.

The jet was out of sight as I unsnapped the harness that had me strapped to the chute lines. I let it fall to the ground and lay there — a silken shroud. I quickly pulled the flight suit from me. I'd only been down a minute and I was already feeling like a boiled lobster in it I gazed around and saw empty space, as far as the eye could see, dry land, parched soil. And there was silence — the silence of a tomb, unearthly, unbroken. I tossed a coin and started walking toward what I thought might be east. I'd walked perhaps twenty minutes when I took off my clothes, stripping down to shorts and my shirt, which I tied around my waist Thinking about Dempster made me forget my plight for a little while. He'd no doubt crash the plane somewhere and go into hiding. Or his flight schedule had been already laid out for him. In any case, he wouldn't be around. I'd kept them from killing him like the others, only to have him turn the tables on me.

The sun burned into me and though I kept walking, I could feel the enervating effects of the unfiltered rays. Soon I was dropping to one knee every little while and resting. I began to take a realistic look at my position. It was a lot worse than I admitted to myself then. I'd only been on the desert land for a little while. I had plenty of optimism and hope left. I decided that the only was to keep walking in as straight a line as I could manage. I'd come to something, sooner or later. And I did. More space.

My throat was starting to dry up and I knew what that meant. Thirst would be worse than hunger, especially out here, but they'd made me a candidate for both of them. As the day wore on, I began to feel dried out. Not only my throat but my body felt dry, baked. I began to walk in short spurts, resting between each one to conserve strength. But I knew that distance and strength weren't the real problem. It was the sun, relentlessly, unyielding, drying me out, withering, sapping all energy — the life-giving sun that was giving death.

By the end of the day my mouth was dry cotton wadding and I'd used up all of my own saliva. My stomach was starting to cramp up and I welcomed the night that covered the sun. The coolness was a form of relief, the millions of stars overhead, somehow a form of hope. I found a small hollow of hard soil and stretched out on it. Sleep was not hard to come by. It drifted over me gently, as though it were a dress rehearsal for death.

I woke up in bright sun, hot and burning, and found my lips cracked and painful. Standing up took an effort. My throat was raw — crying for water — and my stomach was still cramped with hunger. But I moved on to nowhere, in a land that was a huge, burning bush and I an insect on that bush. Only the bush was the arid land, with not even a cactus to break for its precious fluid.

I had kept some track of hours, but as my eyes ached more and more, time became a meaningless nothing, like everything else. By the afternoon, I no longer walked. I crawled along the ground in small moments of energy. The pain in my stomach was a constant, dull ache now, and my throat was swollen and raw. I could have gone much longer without water, certainly without food, if it were not for the relentless sun. But I was being dried away, little by little, and I knew that if I found no relief, I'd soon be as the dust, blown away by the first wind. I had reached a point where anger began to seize me, anger at the unseen foe that I couldn't fight. I staggered to my feet again, fed by the adrenalin inside me, lurched forward like a drunk and then fell. The process was repeated until I had no more anger and no more strength. When night came, I hadn't moved in hours. The night wind stirred me and I opened my mouth to it, hoping it would blow something wet into it. But there was nothing — and I fell back and lay spread-eagled on the ground.

I no longer knew if another day came, or two days, or three. I only knew there was the sun and my aching body, my mind hardly able to think any longer, my eyes barely able to focus. I was crawling along the ground when I raised my head, a major effort now, and strange shapes swam in front of my eyes. I squinted and pressed my hands against my pupils, squeezing out a few drops of lubricating fluid. I finally focused and saw a clump of trees, the short, zig-zag trunked tree the Australians call the Gidgee. My mind thought in slow motion but I realized that no tree lives without water some place. Yet to dig down to where there might be underground water to nourish the roots was as impossible as it would be to climb to the moon. The soil was hard as rock, dried clay, as unyielding as the sun above it.

But then I saw other shapes, some motionless, others moving in long jumps. Kangaroos, the big gray variety, grouped under the Gidgee trees. They would need water to survive. They would lead me to water. I crawled forward. But the mind, distorted by thirst and sun, functions like a short-circuited system, giving off sparks in the wrong places, sending electrical currents through the wrong wires. I inched forward like some hungry wolf, drawing closer to the kangaroos. Dimly, I remembered that the kangaroos had a kick that could kill a man. I had to watch out for those huge back legs and feet. Inching still closer, I rose up on my haunches and stayed motionless.

The kangaroo is a curious beast and finally two of them hopped toward me cautiously. A big male came closest and, with my sun-baked mind intent on the impossible, I waited. When he hopped still closer, I leaped with the strength borne of desperation. I landed on his back, wrapping my arms around his neck, my legs around his back like a big jockey on a strange steed. The big 'roo, as the Australians call the animals, took off in a gigantic bound. He landed and I lost my grip. He leaped again and I went sailing off into the air to come down on the hard, dry ground with a tremendous crash. It would have been a doubtful move in possession of all my strength and wits. In my present state, it was a piece of pure foolishness — the result of my tortured, distorted mind.

I lay there and felt the sun drift away as everything closed in on me, a blanket of grayness deepening into a void of nothingness. I lay still, unfeeling, uncaring, and the world stopped for me.