The Interlopers

29

I DIDN'T LOOK AT HIM TOO HARD or too long. There's a kind of telepathic recognition that sometimes passes between people in our line of work. Maybe a couple of artists occasionally feel the same odd little tingle of kinship when they meet, or a couple of auto salesmen. I wouldn't know about that.

I only know that I can often spot one of my fellow specialists, even at a distance; and I didn't want Holz to spot me or guess my real mission. As long as he thought I was just a dim-witted counterespionage type, I was much more likely to keep on living.

He looked me over for just a moment, giving nothing away; then he indicated a nearby log for the man behind me to park me on. Libby was hauled out of the camper and set down beside me. She tossed some displaced hair out of her eyes and shifted position uneasily.

"He might have picked a drier log," she murmured.

"I don't think Mr. Wood spends a great deal of time worrying about preserving the seats of our pants. Quite the contrary," I said, with a meaningful look toward the horses. "I don't know where he intends to take us, or why, but how are you at riding with your hands tied behind you?"

She said, "Ugh. If there's any animal more objectionable than a dog, it's a horse, if only because it's bigger and stupider."

I refrained from making a face at her, but I felt like it. She was back on her antilivestock kick and to hell with her. Probably it would turn out that she'd taken the equestrienne gold medal at the last Olympics. As for me, I've held down a saddle or two in my time, but I'm still the kind of rider who requires some cooperation from the horse.

The little clearing was fairly crowded. The Ford delivery job had pulled up behind the camper. Ahead a ways was the Lincoln, the four-horse herd, and, half hidden in the brush at the end of the opening, another sedan with a big cattle trailer hitched on behind. I saw the younger man, the citified one with galoshes, who'd given me the password in Beaver Creek-the one who'd just dragged me out of the camper-head that way on some unknown assignment.

Holz had attacked the Lincoln. Helped by the younger woman, now without her plastic covering, he was dragging horse gear and other equipment out of the rear seat and trunk. I noted four scabbarded rifles, one for each horse. Two were strictly nothing-guns. They were the movie cowboy, bang-bang rifles; the short, flat little lever-action carbines that, although handy to slip under your leg when riding, don't have much more range or accuracy than a good revolver.

The other two I couldn't make out in detail since their scabbards were equipped with leather hoods for full protection, but they were obviously longer and heavier, real big-game guns, bolt action rifles with telescopic sights, suitable for serious marksmanship if properly assembled and prepared. Since they were presumably Holz's guns, I thought they'd probably be tuned pretty well. Maybe one was even the weapon intended for his next assignment, down in the Lower Forty-Eight, right after election-time-the date I was supposed to prevent him from keeping.

The old woman, the one I'd seen riding in the Lincoln the day before, wasn't visible anywhere. Her companion, the older man, was leaning against the truck watching over Libby and me. He had no weapon out, but there was a hint of armament under the armpit of his civilized overcoat; not the most convenient place in the world, but plenty available enough under the circumstances.

After Holz and the lady in the green pants had worked between the Lincoln and the horses for a while, the galoshes gent came out of the brush beyond, a changed man. Now instead of city shoes with rubber protection, he was wearing well-worn cowboy boots. There was also a pair of greasy jeans, a faded denim jacket that reminded me of Pat Bellman, who'd favored a similar garment, and a wide-brimmed hat that had real character, obviously seasoned by years of Alaska weather and a multitude of campfires. Even his walk had changed to the rolling gait of the horseman, and he was lugging a saddle with each hand. Well, he'd never made a very convincing city slicker.

He moved across the clearing to where Holz was now adjusting the cinch of a bony-looking chestnut gelding.

"All right, Mr. Wood," I heard him say. "I'll take care of this."

I saw Holz glance my way and I heard his voice: "Better lengthen the stirrups on the little mare. The man has long legs."

"So his knees bump his chin today, who cares? Tomorrow he'll never feel it."

"Lengthen them, Jack."

"Sure, Mr. Wood."

It was a revealing exchange, in more ways than one. I watched Holz come across the clearing toward us, accompanied by the unattractive female in the tight pants. He passed some sort of signal to the man guarding us, who walked back to the lab van and returned with the older woman: a sturdy, gray-haired lady in a tweed skirt, cotton blouse, and cardigan sweater. She stuffed a small automatic pistol into the pocket of her skirt as she came up.

Holz spoke to the three of them: "I want you to tie up the loose ends. The first thing is the dog. We couldn't wait around for him just now; Jack and I have a long ride to make to reach the lake before dark. Besides, he was too excited. He'll have settled down by this time. I want one of you to stay here to guard our guests in the van while the other two go back and dispose of him quietly and privately."

There was a brief silence. I noted that Holz was carefully not looking my way. You might have thought he was a little embarrassed about giving orders to kill my dog, right in front of me. It didn't seem in character, but on second thought I realized I didn't know the man's character. All I knew was his record. I'd made him up a personality to fit that record, in my mind, but it didn't have to be the right one.

The man with the overcoat asked, "And what if the pooch won't be caught."

"Do what you can without attracting attention. I'd rather not leave him around. He's obviously a valuable animal Even without a collar, he might be traced. But leave him if you have to; don't stay so long that you can't be back here by, say, two o'clock. How are our young friends in the van?"

He looked at the gray-haired woman as he asked the question, and she said, "Red-Whiskers is all right. The other one is feeling sorry for himself. I took his gag out, but he moaned so loudly I had to put it back."

Holz nodded. "Well, you know where to stage the wreck. Give them the injection-you know which one- just before you send them through the guard rail. We don't want any miraculous survivals. You know where to turn in this camper. The people there have instructions for burying it. Take the Lincoln back to Anchorage. When Jack and I come back, we'll dispose of the horses and trailer and meet you there. You know where."

The man with the horses called, "All ready here, Mr. Wood."

"All right, Jack." Holz looked at the three in front of him. "Any questions? Very well, untie this pair and bring them over… Wait a minute." He turned to look down at Libby and me. "Miss Meredith or whatever your name may be," he said, "and Mr. Nystrom or whatever your name may be, you undoubtedly realize that you are scheduled to die… No, no, Miss Meredith, let me finish. It was one of the risks you assumed when you embarked on your missions of deceit and impersonation; it should come as no surprise to you now."

Libby said quickly, "You're making a mistake. You wouldn't listen to me back there, you were in such a damn hurry…"

"What is my mistake?"

"I'm working for the same people as you are. I have credentials-"

"Whom you're working for is yet to be determined, Miss Meredith. We know that in Seattle you identified your companion, positively, as Grant Nystrom. For your information, Jack over there was well acquainted with the real Mr. Nystrom and guided him on two hunting trips. Jack says that this man is no more Grant Nystrom than he, Jack, is Sophia Loren. Yet you identified this impostor as our courier, your lover. What does that make you, Miss Meredith?"

"I can explain-"

"You will be given an opportunity to try. But not here. There isn't time."

"You'd better listen to me right here!" she said hotly. "You're making a bad mistake. You'd better check and check carefully or you're going to be in real trouble, Mr. Wood or whatever your name may be. I'm working for some important people in San Francisco, people you know very well, and they gave me a message to deliver."

"Where is the message?"

"I'm not authorized to give it to you. I was told to deliver it only to a man named Anson, George Anson. There were some corny words we were supposed to say, as usual."

Holz smiled faintly and gestured toward the middle-aged man in the overcoat. "This is George Anson… Say the corny words, George."

The man leaned down and whispered in Libby's ear, and turned his head so she could whisper back. He straightened up and nodded.

Libby said triumphantly, "Well, are you satisfied? Untie my hands so I can give him the message."

It was Holz's turn to nod. The man called Anson worked briefly at the knots. When the ropes fell away, Libby sat rubbing her wrists for a moment; then reached well up under the front of her high-necked sweater and brought out a tiny cylindrical object which she handed to Anson. She smoothed the brown sweater down once more.

Anson produced a slip of paper and tossed aside the capsule in which it had traveled. He said, "Just a minute, Mr. Wood. It seems to be in code."

Nobody spoke or moved as he bent over the hood of the truck, writing with a small gold pencil he'd fished from inside the overcoat somewhere near the shoulder-holstered gun. I didn't look at Libby, or at Holz. They had me baffled. Together, they were putting on a great show, apparently for my benefit, but the purpose escaped me. Well, it would become clear eventually, I hoped.

Anson straightened up. His face was expressionless. He walked over and gave the paper to Holz, who read it and looked at Libby.

"Well?" she snapped.

"Would you like to hear the message you brought so many thousand miles, Miss Meredith?"

She licked her lips. "Yes, of course."

"The communication, decoded, reads: BEARER IS TRAITOR-LIQUIDATE."

"No!" Libby cried. "No, you can't… It's a mistake."

Holz shrugged. "Perhaps. If so, it seems we're all making it, both here and in San Francisco. I'm afraid you're just going to have to live with it-and die with it, Miss Meredith. What I started to say earlier was that while your execution and that of Mr. Nystrom is inevitable, I have been instructed to learn certain things about you, both of you, before I carry it out."

"What things?" Libby demanded.

"I am supposed to determine who you really are, both of you, and how much damage your treachery has done, so that steps can be taken to repair it. Unfortunately, there isn't time to perform the necessary research here. Your presence indicates that the scheduled drop in Anchorage has probably been compromised. We have therefore canceled it and set up another meeting some fifteen miles back in the wilderness where we're not likely to be disturbed."

I said, "In other words, we ride."

"Exactly, Mr. Nystrom. The immediate question is, how do you ride. This is rough country, and fifteen miles is a long way on horseback, even for someone unencumbered by ropes and bonds. Furthermore, I prefer to have us look as much as possible like a bona fide hunting party, just in case a stray bush plane comes over: I will therefore let you both start out with hands and feet free. Your horses will be the two slowest; the rifles on your saddles will be unloaded. I am a good rider and an excellent shot. Jack over there is an excellent rider and a good shot. The information in your heads is of interest to us, but it is not valuable enough to save you if you should try to escape. I hope I make myself perfectly clear." He turned and walked away.

Libby called after him desperately, "I tell you, it's all a horrible misunderstanding."

Nobody paid any attention to her. After a moment, she shrugged and turned to me with a wry grin. "Well, hell, darling," she said, "at least I tried."

30 I WAS UNTIED AND HERDED TOward a shaggy little brown mare with an independent, mulish look that proved to be an accurate indication of her character.

If I'd had any foolish notions of making a break for it and galloping off wildly with Holz's bullets whistling around my ears, that little mare would soon have disabused me of them. She made it abundantly clear that she wasn't galloping wildly anywhere. In fact, without a stout switch I'd never even have got her moving. All she really wanted was to stop and eat the willows and other green stuff along the way.

Libby's bony chestnut seemed a little more willing, but he was one of the worst equine stumblebums I'd ever seen, forever half falling over his own big feet. To consider a fast escape over broken country on such a shaky plug was obviously suicidal. By way of contrast, Jack, riding ahead, had a fine, leggy buckskin that obviously wanted to go; while Holz, at the rear of the parade, was mounted on a powerful bay with a ground-eating stride that kept it nipping at the moth-eaten tail of my reluctant transportation.

Not that it made a great deal of difference. Even if we'd been mounted on registered thoroughbreds, we could hardly have made a race of it. It wasn't that kind of country. The first stretch was wooded and mountainous, up a rocky trail that also served as a bed for a small stream, then over a fairly rugged pass, and finally down into a tremendous open basin by way of another running brook.

The high ground was bad enough, but the lowlands were worse. Except for my one previous Arctic venture in Europe some years back, I'd never seen such wet country. When we weren't actually splashing through puddles and streams, we jolted along to the steady squelching made by the horses' hoofs sinking in the black ooze beneath the low brush and rank, hummocky grass that covered the landscape whether it was wooded or open.

It started to drizzle once more as, working our way around the edge of the great basin, we swung northward, entering a long, gradually narrowing valley running up toward some snow-capped mountains. The ground got no drier and the trail got no better. Toward the end of the afternoon, with mountains slowly closing in on us, we came to a swampy little brown-water lake surrounded by soggy-looking evergreens on all sides except one, where an avalanche or landslide from above had left a bare and rocky shoreline.

The horses picked their way through the jumbled rocks, crossed the small inlet of the lake, and presently forded a large creek or small river. The water here was the same milky blue-green color that so many streams seemed to be up here. We rode up the river for about fifteen minutes, crossed once more, and came to the camp: three more or less white wall tents and some grazing horses in a meadow that was edged with trees and overlooked by the towering mountains that formed the east wall of the dwindling valley up which we had come, still several miles wide at this point.

The largest tent, in the middle, was equipped with a stovepipe, from which smoke was rising. An elderly, wrinkled, brown-faced gent, who could have been the father, or maybe even the grandfather, of the late Pete, came out to meet us.

He took charge of Holz's horse. Jack dismounted and came over to hold mine. Covered by Holz, who'd produced a small Spanish automatic, I slid stiffly from the saddle and, since there was no reason not to be a gentleman, limped over to Libby and helped her down. She was heavy in my arms. It was a moment before she could stand unsupported. I thought her weariness was genuine. It had been a long hard ride for anybody, even an expert horsewoman concealing her talents, if that's what she was. I still hadn't made up my mind about it.

"Take them to their tent and tie them up," Holz said. "I'll question them later… Oh, just a minute." He turned to face us. "Let me first make the situation quite plain. You will find your accommodations rather basic, I'm afraid: merely a roof over your head, and a canvas roof at that. You will have noticed that the afternoon is already growing cool; the temperature will probably drop well below freezing tonight. To combat the cold, it helps to be well fed. A ground cloth and blankets are also useful. Everything is available at a price. Do I make myself clear?"

I managed a grin. "And the price is information? That's pretty childish, isn't it, Mr. Wood?"

He shrugged. "I see that you are a strong man, probably accustomed to hardship. What does the lady think? Am I being childish, Miss Meredith?"

She stared at him dully, but didn't speak. She'd been ahead of me during the ride, and although I hadn't seen much of her face, I'd thought she was making it all right, but now I was shocked at the way she looked.

I don't mean just the fact that she was rather spectacularly wet and muddy; I was by this time no sartorial masterpiece myself. What disturbed me was something dark and ugly and broken I thought I could see in her eyes. I'd seen it before, in people driven beyond their personal limits of endurance. It's a hard thing to fake. I didn't like it.

I took her arm and helped her to the tent that Holz indicated with his pistol. It was, as he'd warned, no palace. The floor was bare, if you want to call it that; actually it was dirt, softly and damply carpeted with a mixture of old spruce needles, humus, and decaying leaves. While Holz covered us, Jack tied us up, and propelled us inside. I landed pretty hard. When I'd caught my breath, I heard an odd little whimpering sound beside me. Libby was crying helplessly.

There wasn't much I could do to comfort her with my hands tied. I said, "Take it easy. We're still alive."

"I… I'm sorry," she gasped. "I c-can't help it. It just isn't fair!"

"What isn't?"

"This wilderness kick. It's just not my thing, that's all! I'm very g-good in cars and bars and penthouses, but that goddamn lousy b-bastard of a horse… God, I've got blisters, darling! And then it has to rain on top of everything. I'm filthy and soaking wet and my nose is running and I'm cold clear through… Look, I don't intend to freeze to death in here, I'm warning you. I'm just not going to do it. I've had it. I'm through!" She sniffled. "I'm sorry, darling, b-but that's the way it is. For b-brave little frontier heroines, you'll have to apply elsewhere."

"Spell it out," I said. "Just exactly what are you through with, Libby."

"I mean it!" she said defiantly. "To hell with the old school tie and all that jazz. I'm copping out, darling. They just picked the wrong girl for this pioneer bit. Anything it takes to get some food and blankets I'll do, even if it means telling everything I know about everything. Even about you!"

It was, of course, exactly the line she'd take to put pressure on me to talk if she were working with Holz. I warned myself that, judging by past performance, she was a good enough actress that there was no reason whatever for me to believe in her words or her tears. Nevertheless, I was aware of a new feeling of uncertainty. There had been too many odd, unexplained bits of behavior. Suddenly the reasoning by which I'd proved, to my own satisfaction, her guilty liaison with Holz, didn't seem quite as convincing as it had back in Beaver Creek this morning.

However, it really made very little difference whether she was now going to spill her guts through weakness, or whether she'd already betrayed me to Holz because she was working for him or with him. In either case, the man knew or soon would know all he really needed to know about me: my name. It made me feel no better to remember that I'd supplied her with the information, at a time when it didn't seem particularly important.

So far Holz had given no sign that he recognized me, but that could be just part of the cat-and-mouse game they like to play. My dossier was in files to which he had access, I was quite sure. With the name, he'd be bound to make the connection, if he hadn't already. Knowing for whom I really worked, he'd know what I'd been sent here to do.

"All right. Up, you!" It was the man called Jack, sticking his head in the canvas doorway. He was addressing me.

I said, "Sure, if you tell me how."

He knelt to untie my ankles. "All right, come along and no funny business!"

The big tent to which he took me was warm and comfortable, with a fire crackling in the sheet-metal stove. The elderly Indian was busy cooking something that reminded me I hadn't eaten since early morning. At the rear of the tent, some planks had been laid across impromptu trestles to form a table. The chairs were just chunks sawed off an eighteen-inch log. Jack kicked one of these up to the table and wrestled me down on it with unnecessary force.

I was beginning not to like the man very much, but I had to admit that, despite the plump appearance I'd noted this morning, he was no weakling. Besides, he didn't look nearly as soft and flabby in the rough clothes he was wearing now. I decided that he wasn't as much plagued with incipient obesity as he was simply built round to start with.

Holz was sitting on the other side of the table, on another improvised stool, or chopping block. In front of him lay a number of exhibits: Grant Nystrom's.357 Magnum revolver and holster, the Buck knife I'd picked up in Prince Rupert, and two black dog collars. There was also some other gear, including a fine, scope-sighted, bolt-action rifle and a box of 7mm Remington Magnum cartridges. They're all Magnums these days, rifles and pistols both.

"Well, Mr. Nystrom?" Holz said.

"Is that a question?" I asked. "If so, rephrase it, and I'll decide whether or not to answer it."

Jack swung a hard fist to the side of my head and knocked me off the log. I picked myself up with some difficulty, since my hands were still tied. Jack slammed me back down on the primitive chair.

"Don't talk like that to Mr. Wood," Jack said mildly.

I didn't say anything. Holz waited a little; then said, "These are the collars we got from the dog and from the two boys in the delivery truck. They are worthless, as you doubtless know. Where is the real one?"

"I don't know," I said.

Jack knocked me off the log once more, and I went through the routine of getting up and being rammed back into my seat.

When he was through, I said again, "I don't know" Jack started to raise his fist. Holz shook his head. "No," he said, "that'll be all, Jack."

"But, Mr. Wood…"

"That'll be all."

Jack shuffled out reluctantly. The Indian at the stove continued his cooking, oblivious of the rest of us. I faced Holz across the table, remembering that he'd killed, among a lot of other people, a colleague of mine called Kingston-but I hadn't been fond enough of Kingston for it to matter here. Holz's soot-black hair and moustache looked phonier than ever. Then I realized they were supposed to look that way. It wasn't a question of deceiving anybody now, it was a matter of preventing anybody from recognizing him later.

Shave the toothbrush from the upper lip, wash the dye and stickum out of the slick, shiny hair, throw away the silly, gold-rimmed, schoolteacher glasses, and you'd have a different man, one nobody who'd seen him in Alaska would find even slightly familiar. He had the dead-white, coarse, rather thick-looking skin with large pores that often seems to grow in eastern Europe. His eyes were a slatey gray color. They watched me steadily across the table. Abruptly and surprisingly, he gave a little laugh.

"Well, Mr. Nystrom, are you satisfied?"

"Satisfied?"

"That was the type of interrogation you expected, was it not? I didn't want to disappoint you." When I said nothing, he went on, "Of course, we are no longer interested in the dog's missing collar. We know that all five studs contained nothing but substitute messages. Four substitutions were engineered by the young men in that very interesting mobile laboratory, and the last one by me. I, of course, took personal charge of the real information from the final drop. From the young men in question, I got the material from the previous drops. They'd kept it in an ingeniously hidden safe in their van, the location of which they were persuaded to disclose to me."

He drew a small white envelope from the pocket of his heavy wool shirt and shook five tinfoil disks into his hand, answering one question posed by Mr. Smith's compulsive secrecy. I'd never been told exactly what juggling tricks were being performed in the fancy lab van, but apparently it had been a simple disk-switch routine that you'd think could have been performed in an ordinary family sedan-if you didn't know the way things worked in Washington. After a moment, Holz replaced the wafers in the envelope and put the envelope back into his pocket.

"Persuaded," I said. "As a matter of curiosity, which one did you persuade?"

Holz smiled faintly. "That is a stupid question. You know perfectly well that the young fellow with the beard was the tough one of the pair. It was easy to determine. Any captive who wastes his breath telling me what I cannot get away with is obviously a fool and probably a weak fool. The bearded one kept his mouth shut; the other one babbled dire threats and promises of violent retaliation. So we started with him. It did not take long. He soon told us everything-well, almost everything."

"What didn't he tell you?"

"He didn't tell us about you, Mr. Nystrom. His principles were at stake, it seems. He could be persuaded to tell us about things, inanimate objects, but he wouldn't be-tray, as he put it, people." Holz laughed shortly. "They draw all kinds of high-principled lines, these foolish young men." He raised his slaty eyes to study my face. "Are you going to be afflicted by principles, Mr. Nystrom?"

"Hell, no," I said. "I lost my last ones years ago. What do you want to know?"

"The collar. Just out of curiosity, I would like to know where it is."

"I honestly don't know," I said, which was technically true. I might guess, but I didn't know.

Holz stared at me for a full minute. Then he shrugged his heavy shoulders. "Very well. I'll accept that. Will you give me your real name?"

"Sure, why not?" If he didn't get it from me, the way things were, he'd get it from Libby. I might as well get the credit for frankness. "The name is Helm, Matthew Helm. Cross-filed under the code name Eric."

"Ah. I thought there was something familiar…"

He stopped. There was a lengthy silence. Well, it was about time he made the connection. As it was, my professional pride was hurt. I'd thought I was better known in the circles in which Holz moved than his reactions had indicated.

"Yes, I've heard of you," he said at last. I didn't say anything, and he went on slowly: "What are you doing here? If I remember the dossier correctly, counterespionage is not your line."

"Another organization had a dead man to match," I said. "They needed to borrow a trustworthy agent, six-four, a hundred and ninety, blue eyes, white hair. The personnel computer doubled up in agony and vomited up my name. The hair was bleached, and here I am, Grant Nystrom at your service."

Holz heard me out, but he didn't seem to be listening very hard. His eyes, narrowed, were studying me intently, and I knew that he knew, instinctively, what I was there for. I also knew, suddenly, that he wasn't going to act upon this instinctive knowledge because he, too, had his professional pride.

The sensible thing for him to do was to pull out his little Spanish gun, or load up the big 7mm, and shoot me through the head right now. But if he did that, right after being informed of my identity, I might, in my dying moments, have thought he was afraid of a fellow pro named Matt Helm. Or he might have thought he was afraid of me, and that would not do. So, to reassure both of us, he was going to behave toward me exactly as he'd planned from the start. Well, we all have our weaknesses, dogs or pride or whatever.

"And the lady?" Holz said at last.

I gave him the story Libby had given me, watching him to see what it meant to him. "She works for the same department as the bearded guy you got and his talkative friend, the people who drafted me for this play acting. She was planted on your San Francisco people some time back, I gather. She recruited Nystrom for them-the real Nystrom-and gave him the sex treatment, and he responded very well. She had him under perfect control and pumped him for information at will, whatever information she couldn't get herself as a member of the cell in good standing. She was probably the one who recommended trying this impersonation when he got killed, but I don't know that for sure. She did come along north to give me a hand in playing the role, and as you know I found her especially useful in Seattle."

"Yes," Holz said, "but that man of ours, Stottman, was apparently not deceived."

"No," I said. "But it took him a little time to get his message across to the rest of you by way of Pete. I can't tell you the lady's real name. She never told me."

Holz nodded, apparently satisfied. After a moment, he smiled faintly. "For what you are, you were remarkably easy to catch, Mr. Helm."

I shrugged. "I got careless, I guess."

He said a strange thing then. He said, quietly, "It's a lonely life, my friend."

I didn't know what to say to that. He didn't speak for a little, and I could hear the night breeze going through the trees outside. The canvas of the tent stirred and subsided. The old Indian shoved a couple of sticks of wood into the stove, and juggled some pans to catch the heat exactly right.

Holz said, "I was in prison once, Mr. Helm. Well, I have been there more than once, but this time it was intentional. I was assigned to reach and silence a certain prisoner. First they put me in a cell alone, for observation. It was not a very clean or well-run place. There were, among other things, rats. One in particular considered my cell his territory. As the weeks went on, I made friends with him. It was something to do. One day the guard came in unexpectedly. My rodent friend had lost, to some extent, his fear of man; also he'd learned that visitors usually meant food. He came too close, and the guard stamped his boot, once. It was what the man had come in for, to deprive me of that bit of companionship. I killed him."

I didn't say anything. Holz waited a little and went on: "I couldn't help myself, Mr. Helm. I struck once and he was dead. It was a blow that, in my role as prisoner, I should not have known. It blew my cover instantly. It wrecked my mission and almost caused my death. All for a small, dirty, brown rat."

There was another silence. I didn't speak. Anything he wanted to give me, I was happy to take. He'd already given me more than he should have. He'd given me the clue to his sad, soft way of talking. He'd told me I was dealing with a man who'd been in the business too long.

He said gently, "I am explaining how I knew you would come to the cry of the dog, after traveling with him for a week. It is a lonely and dirty business. We take what friends we can get, do we not, Mr. Helm?" After a moment of silence, he went on more briskly, "Jack will escort you back to your tent. You will live, if you do not try to escape, until the plane arrives tomorrow afternoon. There may be some further questions they'll want to put to you or the woman. This impersonation of yours has worried them greatly. They may even take one or both of you away with them alive, but I would not count on that. Good night, Mr. Helm." He waited until I had reached the door, where Jack had appeared as if summoned. Then he said, "Oh, just one more thing."

I watched him rise and come to me. He was smiling faintly. He said, "Now I remember the dossier more clearly. I think I will take that belt. Since you are going nowhere, you should have no trouble keeping up your trousers without it."

Well, it wasn't unexpected. These days the belt trick is only good for amateurs anyway, and for all his sadness, he was no amateur. Back in the tent, I told Libby as much as she needed to know. We were fed and given a tarpaulin to lie on and a couple of blankets to wrap up in. Huddled together for warmth, still in our damp clothes, we lay and listened to the rain start up again, pattering on the canvas above us.

"Matt?"

"Yes," I said.

"Did he ask about the collar?"

"Yes. I told him I didn't know where it was."

She sighed. "I suppose he'll question me in the morning. I'm not looking forward to it. Have you got any bright ideas for getting us out of here."

"No," I said. "Not any."

I didn't, either, now that the belt was gone. There should have been some way I could take advantage of the weakness Holz had shown me, but I couldn't think of an appropriate lever.

I lay beside Libby, wondering who the hell she really was. I mean, there in the big tent just now it had been clearly established that she had not been in communication with Holz, after all. I was as sure as I could be of anything that my name had come as a real surprise to him tonight; yet she had known it for the better part of a week.

I must have gone to sleep. The next thing I knew, something energetic had burst into the tent like a cyclone and my face was being licked by a cold, wet, affectionate tongue.

31 THE PUP WAS CRAZY WITH HAPpiness at having found me. He was all over me-all over both of us. Libby woke up with a gasp.

"What-"

"Shhh!" I hissed. "It's just Hank… Easy now, Prince Hannibal. Relax. You'll have them all rushing in here…"

"You mean he's followed us all this way?" Libby sounded incredulous. "My God, how could he? We must be forty or fifty miles from that filling station… Ouch, can't you keep him off my face?"

"Hank, down!" I whispered. "Lie down, boy. Quiet, now!"

It was a wonderful thing. He'd been left at least twenty miles back along the highway. He'd trailed the truck along those twenty miles of pavement to the horses, and then he'd tracked the horses another fifteen miles through the wettest, soggiest country in the world, over mud, running water, and bare rock.

It was Faithful Fido's Fortunes, or Rover's Revenge. It was Lassie with bells on. It was beautiful and touching, man's best friend at his best and friendliest, a real tear jerker. I didn't believe a word of it. I wouldn't have believed it even if he'd been a bloodhound trained on a convict a day; and he wasn't a tracking dog at all but a goddamn bird dog. But if anybody wanted to fall for the gag, I wasn't about to disillusion them.

"Hey, what's going on in there?"

It was Jack's voice. I heard him come charging toward the tent. There was only a moment to make the decision. I sat up as best I could.

I said softly, "Dead bird, Hank. Dead bird."

There's no command for telling a retriever just to get the hell out of wherever he may be, say a confined space in which he can easily be cornered and killed. You've got to send him for something, but even in the dark I could tell that the pup was looking at me oddly, wondering just what the hell kind of dead bird he was supposed to be fetching from inside this nine-by-twelve tent. Jack's footsteps were almost at the door.

I said, "Go get it… Hank!"

He'd been trained to go on his name, and he went, charging off the way I had him pointed, right out the tent door, just as Jack came pounding up. I heard the man stumble and swear.

Holz's voice shouted: "What's the matter over there? Jack?"

"It's the dog, Mr. Wood! It's that damn dog we-~-"

"You're crazy. No dog could have followed-"

"Well, it's too big for a squirrel and too small for a wolf, sir. Look over there by the woodpile. If that isn't that same black mutt, I'll eat it!" There was a little pause. "By God, he must be quite a dog, coming all this way to find his master! Do we have to kill him?"

The Lassie syndrome was at work. Even the hardboiled Jack was falling for it, taking for granted that any loyal dog could perform any kind of a TV miracle to find the man to whom its loving canine heart belonged. Holz didn't answer at once. I had a sudden hope. Maybe I'd found the lever for which I'd been looking.

"Well," Holz said at last, and I could tell that he was remembering a small brown rat in a jail cell, "well, let's see if we can't catch him. But first get your rifle and check the prisoners. It could be a trick. Wake up the cook to give us a hand."

Jack stuck his head into the tent and shone a flashlight at us briefly and disappeared. What followed had a lot of the elements of slapstick comedy; at least the sound effects were ridiculous, considering that they came from a bunch of sinister conspirators who'd kill a man as soon as look at him. But this wasn't a man; it was a miracle dog, and you don't shoot Lassie or Rin-Tin-Tin.

As I'd hoped, once out in the open, away from the tent, Hank proved as elusive as an eel. These were the same people who'd manhandled him before-some of them, at least-and hung him on a fence to choke. He obviously recognized them and would have no part of them, even when they tried to lure him within reach with a nice, juicy piece of meat.

When the chase got really lively out there, I wormed my way out of the blankets and back to the rear wall of the tent. I rapped my bound hands against the canvas lightly.

"Anybody there?" I whispered.

"Here, sir." I recognized the low voice. It went with a red beard. "Watch out, I'm going to cut the tent."

"Are you alone, Davis?"

"No."

"Well, tell Ronnie-"

"It isn't Ronnie, sir. They worked Ronnie over pretty badly; we had to leave him with the lab truck. It's a girl, Mr. Helm. She knocked out the woman they'd left guarding us and cut us loose. She'd picked up the dog where you'd left him. She says you know her. Her name is Pat."

There wasn't time to ponder the implications of that news. I heard the whisper of a knife slicing through canvas.

"All right, sir, stick your wrists out the hole and I'll cut you loose… There you are."

"Thanks. I'll take the knife, if you don't mind. Tell Miss Bellman to keep an eye on the circus and warn me if anybody starts this way. What's the weapons situation?"

"Well, they got ours, but I took a little pistol off the lady guard."

"Hang onto it, but don't shoot unless I give the word."

I heard Holz's voice: "Never mind, let the dog go. He won't leave the neighborhood as long as his master's here. Just don't let him back in the tent."

"Watch out!" Pat Bellman's voice hissed. "The man with the cowboy hat is coming this way. I think he's going to take another look at you."

"I'll handle him," I said. It was about time I handled something. "Let him come in. Get down and keep quiet."

I dropped beside Libby and flipped the blankets over me, holding the little knife. It was a boyscout model, which seemed appropriate: the kind with a screwdriver, can opener, awl, and bottle opener, but no corkscrew because scouts aren't supposed to associate with that kind of bottle. The blade was between two and three inches long and not very sharp. I thought regretfully of the fine Buck knife, carefully sharpened and oiled, that I'd last seen lying on the table in the cook tent.

Then Jack yanked back the canvas door and aimed his flashlight at us. In spite of the glare, I could make out that he was holding a scope-sighted rifle in his left hand; a fine weapon but not very suitable for work at night or at close range.

He frowned at the heap of blankets with the two heads protruding from the far end; then he stepped forward, reached down, and snatched the blankets away for a good look-and I kicked him hard in the pit of the stomach with both feet before he could get the rifle up. He lost his breath with a bellows-like sound and sat down hard. I was on top of him and had his throat cut before he knew he was dead. Outside, somebody was rushing toward the tent.

"Shoot that man, Davis!" I yelled.

A little pistol cracked three times and I heard something fall. I grabbed the rifle Jack had dropped and went out the tent door fast, to stumble over a dead body. Even in the dark I could see that it wasn't the man I wanted but the old Indian cook. The vanishing American seemed to be going fast these days.

A shape recognizable as Holz showed at the dark door of the cook tent, carrying a rifle that seemed to be the twin of mine. Holz threw his weapon to his shoulder as I took aim, or tried to take aim; but in the dark, in that powerful telescope, I couldn't find my target. I couldn't even find the cross hairs. Desperately, I threw myself flat as the other gun fired. The bullet came nowhere near me. Apparently Holz couldn't see his sights any better than I could.

I was trying to line up the fool gun by feel and instinct, without using the sights. I saw that Holz was doing the same thing, but the range was too great-about forty yards-for that kind of trick hip-shooting. We'd both handled firearms too long to do much blasting without a reasonable chance of success. Holz reached inside his coat for a pistol, a better weapon under these conditions; then Davis' little gun cracked, and Holz winced. He turned and ran for the nearest horse, his own, as Davis emptied his undernourished weapon in that direction without any further reaction from the target.

Holz yanked the rope loose, leaped astride like a stunt man, and galloped off bareback toward the head of the valley. I tried once more to get him in the fancy telescopic sight, but there was simply not enough light coming through all that glass. I lowered the gun, watched him disappear among the trees, and turned to see young Davis standing over the dead cook. His face, where the beard didn't cover it, was pale in the darkness.

"He… he didn't have a gun. But you said to shoot."

There was accusation in his voice. I said, "That's what I said. You did fine."

I couldn't help thinking that tonight the boy- and girl-scouts had done a lot better than the old pro, me; or even the old pro, Holz. All I'd managed was to cut one man's throat with a dull knife somebody'd handed me. Holz hadn't even accomplished that much. He'd just managed to escape with his skin, slightly damaged. A couple of inexperienced youngsters and a black dog had done the real work. I patted the pup as he came up, a little guiltily, to lick my hand and tell me he hadn't been able to find the dead bird I'd sent him for. There had been distractions.

"It's okay," I said. "There wasn't any bird, amigo. I was just kidding you." I looked up, frowning. "Where'd the girl go?" I asked Davis.

She answered for herself. "Over here. Come on, give me a hand with the horses so we can go after him."

"In the dark?" I said. "To hell with that. We'd either fall into a swamp or run into an ambush."

"You mean you're going to let him go?" Davis' voice was accusing once more.

I said, "He's not going anywhere."

"What do you mean? I didn't wound him badly, I don't think."

I said, "Never mind. He'll be around. We'll wait for daylight."

I thought of Hans Holz, wounded, out there on a horse without a saddle, with his fancy gun, the one designed, perhaps, for killing a brand-new president-elect. But before that he had another job to do. He'd been assigned to cover this espionage operation and to make sure the goods were delivered-the goods he carried in his shirt pocket. He wouldn't ride off and leave the job unfinished; he wouldn't let the people he was expecting fly into a trap.

It was time for the old pro, me, to show that he could do something besides lie around to be rescued by a couple of kids and a dog. I started thinking my way into Holz's mind. It wasn't hard, since it was a mind very much like mine, but I was interrupted by an indignant female voice from the nearby tent.

"Matt, for God's sake! Are you going to leave me tied up in here all night with a corpse for company?"

Davis started that way. I said, "Hold it. Untie her feet, take her to the cook tent, and tie her again, securely. Make sure the stove is nice and warm and she's got plenty of blankets."

I was annoyed with him and with Libby. I was trying to read Holz's mind at long range, and they weren't being a bit of help.

"Do it," I said.

"But I thought-"

"How much security clearance has she got with your people?"

"Well, none, but-"

"And none with me," I said. "So leave her tied. Okay?"

So much for our mystery woman. She could remain a mystery, a hog-tied mystery, until I had time to bother with her.