The Interlopers

17

IT WASN'T A FANCY KNIFE. IT HAD plain wooden grips, brass caps, and a single heavy blade about four inches long, which is a little longer than I like for everyday pocket wear, although not as long as the scimitars the armaments experts in Washington would like us to lug around. It was a folding hunting knife of a well-known U.S. make, and it hadn't been used much, so that it was stiff and very hard to open. My old knife, the one I'd left a couple of hundred miles back along the road, you could flick open with a snap of the wrist.

"It is a very good knife, an American Buck knife," the storekeeper said hopefully. "I bought it from a boy just off the ferry who'd spent all his money up north and needed gasoline to get back to the States. I will let you have it for twelve dollars."

I bought it, and some supplies I needed, and went out into the sunshine and looked around at the town of Prince Rupert, B.C. It wasn't much to look at. I don't mean it was a bad little town; that was just the trouble, from the standpoint of a romantic tourist like me. A bad little town, a very bad little town, was what one expected and kind of hoped for up here in the big woods at the end of the pavement: something wicked and picturesque to bring home the fact that between this end of the Alaska Ferry system and the other, some four hundred miles to the north, civilization was represented only by a few scattered coastal communities that could be reached only by boat or plane. But instead of a ripsnorting frontier hell-hole, there was just a rather ordinary small town complete with motels and filling stations.

I went over to the truck, parked at the curb. Nobody in Prince Rupert seemed to be paying it any attention. Campers from the States, waiting to take the ferry up the coast, are a dime a dozen in that place.

I looked in on Hank, in back. He raised his head and thumped his tail on the floor when the door opened. He was going to be all right, but it had been a long night, first locating and awakening a local vet to give the appropriate shot, and then keeping the pup awake for several hours. A sixty-pound Labrador that wants to go to sleep on you gets pretty heavy toward morning. He looked kind of naked without his collar and I reached into my pocket, but took my hand out empty. Dopey as he still was, he might get hung up on something and be unable to get free; besides, in his present condition he couldn't be counted on to defend it properly.

"Okay, Stupid," I said. "That'll teach you to go taking handouts from strangers."

He grinned at me woozily, unimpressed. I closed the door, got into the cab, and drove over to the bus station and general transportation center that also, I'd been informed, sold ferry tickets. When I came out, I was in lawful possession of a one-way fare to Haines, Alaska. The sun was still shining, the weather still seemed too warm for that far north, and the town was still, at first glance, totally uninterested in me and my vehicle, but there was a difference.

On hazardous duty-and this job seemed well qualified for the title-I generally set a few telltales when I leave my transportation, to make sure there has been no tampering in my absence. Now I saw that those on the hood were undisturbed; the cab remained securely locked; but somebody had entered, or at least looked into, the camper. I drew a long breath. It had been quite a night and I wasn't really in the mood for monkey business.

I was tempted to simply yank open the door and see what, if anything, I had acquired back there. Whatever it was, it had to get along with a black dog, which made it either a man who was very good with dogs or one who'd made friends with this particular dog earlier. The only gents who qualified in the latter respect, who'd be likely to be up here in British Columbia, belonged to Mr. Smith- and why Mr. Smith's people would be jeopardizing my cover by hiding in my camper this morning, when I had a contact scheduled with them this afternoon, I couldn't guess. Well, the way to find out was obvious, but the middle of Prince Rupert wasn't the place to do it.

I got behind the wheel. Nothing showed in the rearview mirror, although the back window of the cab corresponded with a forward window in the camper that gave me a partial view of the interior. Whoever was back there, if anybody was, was keeping low. I started the truck and drove out of town the way I'd come, found a dirt road leading back into the woods, and took this to a clearing out of sight of the highway where I could get the long-wheelbase job turned around facing out.

I cut the switch, set the brake, walked back, and opened the camper door. A young man sitting in the dinette pointed a sawed-off revolver at me.

"Come in, Mr. Helm," he said. "I was sent to get the dog's collar, but he isn't wearing it. Where is it?"

I looked at him for a moment. The face and the voice were both familiar. The voice I'd heard most recently over the telephone in Pasco, complaining about grasshoppers. The face I'd seen the previous week down in San Francisco, one among many eager young faces I'd met there, all owning allegiance to Mr. Smith. I looked at the gun.

"Hank," I said. The pup was lying docilely on the floor, obviously feeling himself among friends. He looked at me questioningly. I snapped my fingers. "Hank, get out of here."

"Mr. Helm-"

I said. "On the double, pup! Easy now, watch that step, you stumblebum. Okay, go do your stuff, but stick around." Still watching the gun, I spoke to the man holding it. "We have a date this afternoon," I said. "Why not wait and get your collar then?"

"We want it now, Mr. Helm," he said.

I said, "That firearm. Put it away."

"The collar, Mr. Helm."

"Put it away," I said.

He shook his head, and gestured with the revolver. "Come inside. I have my instructions…"

I'd had enough of amateurs. I was sick of amateurs. I said, "To hell with your instructions. You have about five seconds to put that thing away. After that, you eat it."

"Mr. Helm, I am only carrying out my orders…

"Not around here, you're not." I drew a long breath. "Pee or get off the pot, Sonny, because here I come."

"But..

He was still saying something by way of protest as I stepped up into the camper, bending to clear the low doorway. I saw his eyes waver as I approached, and I knew I'd judged him correctly. No matter what kind of fancy training he'd had, he was still an amateur at heart and would always remain one. Training means nothing when applied to a certain kind of mentality. He was one of the new ones, brought up on togetherness and TV. He was one of the innocents who'd never learned, and probably would never learn, that the only thing you can do with a gun is shoot it.

He didn't shoot his, of course. He never really considered it. He probably wasn't even authorized to shoot me, when you came right down to it. He'd just been told to wave his magic.38 caliber wand at me, if necessary, and I would be his helpless slave. He was still talking, breathlessly and indignantly, when I took the weapon away from him.

I held it for a moment, almost angry enough to ram it down his throat as I'd promised-as if I hadn't had enough firearms pointed my way during the last few days, without having my own people, such as they were on this lousy job, getting into the act! I seriously considered pistol-whipping him a bit, just as an object lesson, or maybe breaking an arm or two so he couldn't wave any more guns around, at least for a little. Then I sighed, backed off, pressed the latch, swung out the cylinder of the revolver, and shook out the loads. I tossed the empty gun out the open door, and heaved the cartridges after it. It's only in the movies that you toss loaded guns around like beanbags.

The embryo secret-agent type was glaring at me, full of resentment and injured pride. I could see what was going through his mind: I had humiliated him and he ought to redeem himself somehow. It was typical of his training. They'd taught him how to use judo and invisible ink, but they hadn't bothered to teach him to think like a pro. Nobody'd hammered into the space between his ears the primary fact of undercover life, to wit, that his damn little personal feelings were, or should be, of no concern to anyone, not even to him.

I said, "If you jump me, Sonny, I'll stomp you. I swear I will. I'll mash you right into the ground. There won't be anything left but a bloody spot the dog will be glad to lick up for me."

He didn't speak. I reached into a cabinet for an oil can and put it on the dinette table. I took from my pocket the Buck knife I'd just acquired, sat down on the empty seat, put a drop of oil on the hinge of the knife, and began working the blade back and forth to free it. The white hope of the undercover services watched me warily. I guess he thought I was threatening him, or something. Maybe I was.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"That's none of your business."

I said, "What's your name, Sonny? I won't ask you again." He was silent. I said warily, "Look, I'm pretty tired. I've been up all night with a sick canine friend. All I was planning to do today was sleep until our afternoon rendezvous, and then sleep some more until ferry time tomorrow morning. But if you think I can't find reserves of strength somewhere, enough to get a few answers out of you, you are sadly mistaken. Now answer the question."

"My name… my name is Smith."

"Fine," I said. "I don't insist on the truth. Use your imagination if you like. Just so I get some answer." I looked at him hard. "Smith, eh? Would you be any relation to Mr. Washington Smith, whom I met very briefly a week or so back?" He was silent. I said, "Never mind. You don't have to answer that. But there is kind of a family resemblance. The same long, pointed, snoopy nose, the same humorless, fanatic eyes…"

"Damn you, you can't talk that way about my-!" He stopped abruptly. I grinned at him. "Okay, Junior Smith. Now tell me what this is all about. You boys hauled me off my other duties to do some work for you. You spent a lot of time and effort briefing me about a character I was supposed to resemble slightly, whom you wanted me to impersonate. It was a vitally important mission, you told me. The exact details were shrouded in security, but the fate of the nation, if not the world, depended on my playing this part for you. And now, suddenly, now that I'm on my way and doing fine, you march in with a gun, taking a big risk of blowing my cover and wrecking the whole operation-if only by making me so mad I'll throw your lousy job in your faces. Just what the hell are you people pulling on me, Junior Smith? Or trying to pull, to be more precise."

Young Smith locked his lips. "You can't throw the lousy job, as you call it, in our faces, Helm. You haven't got a job. You're through!"

"Says who?"

"Says my… I mean, the orders were issued in Washington right after the gist of your last phone call was received there, the one you made early this morning, reporting another dead body. You're finished, Helm. You're out. You're to turn over to me what's in the dog collar, and then you're to have nothing further to do with this mission, nothing whatever."

Still working the knife blade back and forth, I frowned at him thoughtfully across the table. "And just what was there about these orders that made it necessary for them to be delivered over a.38 Special?"

"Well," said Junior Smith, a little embarrassed, "well, the way you've been acting, we didn't know… I mean, we weren't quite sure how you'd take… anyway, I was supposed to take no chances with you."

I nodded. "I see. Pointing a loaded firearm at a guy in my line of work comes under the heading of taking no chances. It would be interesting to know just what you folks consider really risky." I reached for the oil can once more. The knife was loosening a bit, but it still had a long way to go before I could count on getting it into action in a hurry. "And just how have I been acting, Junior?"

"Well… well, you know," he said. "You know what you've done!"

I said, "Frankly, I thought I'd done pretty well. I was told to get through, come hell or high water, and I'm through, this far, anyway. I was given a schedule to keep and I'm right on time. There were a few obstructions to overcome, but I dealt with them without letting them delay me significantly. So what's the gripe?"

"A few obstructions!" he said sharply. "You've killed five people getting here, Helm! The Canadians are complaining bitterly about the one-man crime wave we've turned loose on them. You've left a trail of blood across the whole Northwest! Did you really expect us to sit by and approve what you've been doing in our name?"

I regarded him with a certain amazement. The idea that anybody would draft an experienced agent-a specialist in homicide, no less-for a dangerous mission, tell him that the fate of humanity depended on his carrying it out, and then complain about the breakage, was so childish that for a moment I couldn't believe he was serious.

I said, "I see. You people want the lawn mowed, but you don't want to hurt a single dear little blade of grass doing it, is that it?"

"Well," he said defensively, "well, I suppose there are times when an agent has to kill in self-defense, but…

"And what am I supposed to have been doing, shooting and knifing people for the pure sadistic fun of it?"

"The man in Pasco was shot in the back, Helm. In the back! And so was the one at the campground just east of here. How can you possibly call that self-defense?"

I studied him carefully. He was human, all right. At least he had a nose, a mouth, and two eyes. There was presumably a brain somewhere behind the eyes, but it had never been given a chance. It had early been washed clean of all practical and sensible and logical thought processes and supplied with a bunch of automatic TV clichй reactions to take their place.

It occurred to me that if I'd 'had any matchmaking ambitions, I would have made a great effort to get this specimen together with Pat Bellman. They were obviously made for each other. She, too, had been firmly convinced that, homicide-wise, there was a great moral distinction to be made between an eastbound victim and one heading west.

I said, "I will correct my statement. The man in Pasco was shot, not in defense of me, but in defense of my dog. I was told that the animal was intrinsically valuable, wasn't I? And that the whole mission depended upon my having him constantly available for identification? Besides, he's a pretty nice pup. Fuzzy-face was going to shoot him, so I shot Fuzzy-face. I apologize for not asking the gentleman to rise and turn around before I fired, but it didn't seem advisable at the time. Okay? As for the other guy, he had the collar in his pocket, and I didn't think he should be allowed to reach his car with it. Again, rotating him so the bullet hole would be in front wasn't exactly feasible, or didn't seem so to me. I wasn't aware that it was a detail of earthshaking importance."

"You don't think killing a man is important?"

He was deliberately misinterpreting my words, but I said patiently, "I think killing a man is important. But I assumed the job was more important. Most jobs I'm given are. At least that's the theory on which we operate, rightly or wrongly. And if I'm going to kill a man, I don't think it matters a good goddamn, either to me or to him, which way he's facing when it happens. This is not a sport with me, Junior. I'm not supposed to fight fair, win or lose. I'm not sent out to lose. I don't lose. At least I haven't yet."

"That's where you're mistaken!" Junior said in the same sharp voice. "You've lost this time. At least you've lost your job. We don't want the responsibility of sponsoring a cold-blooded killer."

"I see," I said. "Do I gather this job isn't really important after all? Or is it that the welfare of the world, or the U.S.A., can go hang, just so you people keep your reputations as fair-minded ladies and gentlemen with clean, bloodless hands?"

He said, "Never mind the rationalizations, Helm. Just give me the collar."

I nodded, surprising him. I said, "Okay, I'll give you the collar, since you're here. And you'll give it back this afternoon, exactly the way we planned." I looked at him hard. "Make any changes you care to, but don't even think about not returning it in good shape, Junior. Because if you give me any trouble at all, I just won't bother to give you a look at the rest of the stuff I pick up along the route. And there are three pickups left, remember?"

He licked his lips. "I told you! The orders from Washington are that you're to have nothing more to do with the operation!"

"Did Washington tell you how to stop me? Of course, you can shoot me. I mean, if you ever find your gun again. Otherwise, there isn't much you can do about it, is there?"

"You mean… you mean you're going right ahead and-"

"That's right," I said. "And if you boys behave yourselves, I'll let you play your little juggling tricks with any material I get, just the way we had it worked out in San Francisco. But if I get any more static from you, I'll just go it alone. You can blame yourself if the stuff gets delivered in Anchorage unaltered."

"You… you'd turn over the information intact? You'd betray your country's secrets…"

"You know how to prevent it from happening. All you have to do is carry through just the way we planned."

He frowned at me suspiciously. In a perverse way, I was happy to see that he was at least smart enough to spot the logical fallacy behind my position. I'd hate to think the next generation of agents is going to grow up totally brainless.

"But why?" he asked. "What reason have you for wanting to go on independently? You said you had other work to do. We're releasing you from this operation; why don't you just go back and do it?"

I said, "Oh. Now you're releasing me. A minute ago it sounded very much like you were kicking me out for behavior unbecoming an officer and a gentleman." He flushed and didn't answer. While I had the advantage, I went on quickly, "I make a habit of finishing my missions, Junior. I wouldn't want to get in the habit of copping out every time the going got tough, even when it's my own people who make it tough. It's a psychological thing. You can always find some excuse for quitting a job if you look hard enough. I just don't want to get started looking."

This was nonsense, of course, but it was, I hoped, the kind of inspirational psychological hogwash he was used to hearing. Anyway, it silenced him, and saved me from having to tell him that I was actually sticking with the crummy, cockeyed little job assigned me by his Mr. Smith only because it happened to be part of a much more important mission assigned me by somebody else. To keep him from asking any more embarrassing questions, I reached into my pocket.

"Here's Hank's collar," I said. "Where's the temporary replacement?"

Junior hesitated; then he brought out a second collar, identical to the one I was holding except that it was just a little blacker, shinier, and new-looking. We made the trade.

"I… I'll have to confer with Washington," he said.

"You do that," I said. "But at four o'clock this afternoon, I'll be at the field at the edge of town specified in the original instructions. I'll heave a training dummy out into the brush in the place I was told, the place somebody's supposed to be hiding. I'll send the dog after it, with this phony collar on him. And if he doesn't come back wearing the right one, the one you're holding now, with the contents looking just as they should, that's the last contact I'll make with you people. Tell Mr. Washington Smith I said so." I stood up. "Okay, you go find your gun while I call in the pup. You'd better ride back here again. I'll tap the horn when it's safe for you to unload. Where do you want me to let you off?"

"My partner is waiting in the lab truck. It's parked just around the corner from the transportation building or whatever they call ~

After dumping him in the proper area, I drove down to the waterfront, cooked and ate a rudimentary lunch, and slept until three-thirty. Then I went through the contact routine as specified. I could only guess at Mr. Smith's reaction to my ultimatum-he didn't look like a man who'd approve of backtalk from the hired help-but the collar I got was the right one with the right stuff in it. At least it looked right to me, and would to anyone who didn't examine it too closely, which was all that mattered.

I had dinner at a motel restaurant, fed the pup, and caught up on some more sleep, parking out by the ferry terminal this time, a mile or so out of town. Well before dawn, cars started lining up at the entrance to the boarding area. I got dressed and drove over, putting my rig in line behind a Volkswagen bus loaded with kids and camping gear. Then I went in back and cooked some breakfast, sticking my head out frequently to see what progress was being made. I could have saved myself the trouble. The ferry was three hours late, delayed by fog up the coast.

After it arrived it had to unload, so the morning was more than half gone before we were permitted aboard, first doing the customs-and-immigration bit once more since the next stop was U.S. territory. Because I was riding almost to the end of the line, I was shunted to the farthest depths of the car deck, a cavernous space that looked very much like the flight deck of a small aircraft carrier roofed over, except that the island was in the center of the ship rather than at the side.

It was a tricky piece of driving-they were packing us in like sardines-and I had no opportunity to study the cars around me until I finally got the truck parked to the satisfaction of a man in a nautical cap who undoubtedly did jigsaw puzzles in his spare time. He left me barely room enough to open the left-hand cab door and the door to the camper. The right-hand door to the cab, he said, I wouldn't be needing anyway.

I'd wiggled out into the tiny space between the truck and the car alongside and had started making my way toward a marked stairway when I saw a yellow Cadillac convertible with a dark-haired woman at the wheel being guided into a slot three cars back.