The Interlopers

34

THE COOK TENT LOOKED AS IF IT had been subjected to machine-gun fire. I glanced at Davis and he nodded bleakly. He pulled the flap aside to let me go in. A familiar-looking trenchcoat had been tossed on the table. There was something under the blankets near the stove.

I shrugged off the two rifles I carried-I didn't need both of them, but you don't leave good guns lying around outdoors-and went over and drew back the blankets gently to look at Pat Bellman. She was quite dead, of course. I still didn't know everything about the woman who'd called herself Libby Meredith, but I'd learned enough to know she wouldn't miss.

I said softly, without looking at Davis, "That's damn good shooting for a lady tied hand and foot… how did she talk you into turning her loose?" Davis looked miserably at the ground and didn't speak. I said, "Never mind. Don't tell me. Let me guess. She blackmailed you. She convinced you that if you didn't untie her she was going to starve to death painfully, or wet her pants humiliatingly, right before your eyes…"

Some muscles in his face twitched, telling me I'd guessed right on the second try. I started to say something sarcastic and bitter to the effect that sacrificing one girl's life to save another's kidneys wasn't really a very good bargain, and that in any case people had been known to go to the bathroom with their hands tied, but I kept it back.

So they'd turned Libby loose, all the way loose, and Pat Bellman had escorted her out behind the bushes and, of course, looked discreetly away at the critical moment, because even if you're a woman you don't stare rudely at another woman answering the call of nature. That moment of inattention had been all Libby had needed to grab Pat's.30-30 carbine, shoot once, and then spray the tent with rifle bullets to keep Davis from interfering as she ran for the horses.

I looked down at the dead pale face among the blankets and remembered a riverbank far to the south, early in the morning, and a handsome steelhead trout. I remembered a Labrador bitch called Maudie that I'd never actually seen. Well, the girl had had an accessory-to-murder charge to answer to. We'd have had a hard time getting her out of that, no matter how much we owed her, but I'd been prepared to go to work on it, or get somebody else to work on it who wielded a lot more influence than I did.

"Mr. Helm! Listen!"

I listened and heard a distant humming sound, growing steadily closer. I glanced at my watch. The hour was barely noon. Well, Holz hadn't said when in the afternoon the plane was arriving. It buzzed the pond twice, apparently needing some kind of signal to land. Getting no response, it flew away in the direction from which it had come, but not before Davis had made careful notes of its description and number.

When the sky was silent again, we climbed on our horses and headed out with Hank, released from bondage, romping happily around us. Soon we were passing the dead buckskin at the foot of the rock slide. The body of Hans Holz, the Woodman, was of course not visible from below, but I could feel its presence, sad and lonely. For some distance after leaving the lake we saw, from time to time, the small tracks of a woman's shoes in the trail ahead of us.

I took a few precautions, but I didn't really think Libby would try to tackle us. She'd fired six times back there in camp, and her weapon held only seven cartridges fully loaded. Like the pro she was, she'd saved one shot for emergency use, but it wasn't enough to deal with two well-armed men.

Anyway, we were not attacked, and presently there were no more footprints in the trail. Hearing us coming, she must have hidden to let us go by. Hank did act rather oddly at one point, but I whistled him to heel and kept him there for the best part of a mile. We reached the highway shortly after five o'clock and found a welcoming committee waiting. Apparently young Smith-Ronnie Ryerson, to give him his right name-had got on the radio and called out the reserves after Pat and Davis had headed off into the bush to rescue me. Our arrival interrupted a great debate as to whether or not a second rescue mission should be dispatched.

They weren't my people and it wasn't my job they were talking about anyway. That was all taken care of. I wasn't proud of it-I'd needed a lot of luck and a lot of help- but it had got done, which was what counted. I gave Davis' people their little envelope full of ducky little tinfoil wafers, accepted their thanks and congratulations modestly, and checked my watch constantly as the talkfest dragged on. At last I cut young Davis out of the herd and choused him to one side.

"I want a car," I said. "They took the keys I grabbed, the ones to Holz's sedan over there, and I couldn't get it out of this traffic jam, anyway. Get me something to drive, quick. You can come along if you like."

"Where are we-" He changed his mind about asking questions. "All right, but if you're thinking of the Meredith woman, she's being taken care of."

I refrained from speaking my thought, which was that it would require a hell of a lot of boyscouts, young or old, to take care of the Meredith woman, however you wanted to interpret the phrase. I glanced at my watch again. Figuring roughly three miles per hour for men on horseback, as against two for a woman on foot, we might have only some forty minutes left.

"Maybe so," I said. "But I still want a car. Let's go."

It took us twenty minutes to reach The Antlers Lodge. There was no reason to think anybody would recognize the borrowed vehicle, but I took no chances and parked it out of sight. Then I led Davis into the brush at the side of the building, the same cover into which I'd charged incautiously the other day to help a howling dog.

The stuff ran down the hill to a point almost opposite the filling station rest rooms. We made our way there and lay down among the bushes on the damp moss and leaves that soon soaked through our clothes, but I'll have to hand it to my companion, he knew how to lie still. Occasionally, like now and when he'd fired instantly on command, back in the camp, he showed real promise. It was too bad he hadn't learned to follow instructions consistently, but that could be fixed..

Twenty minutes passed, and another twenty, and still another. She was behind schedule, but it had been a long, tough walk, and afterwards there would have been arrangements to make. She couldn't be blamed for being a bit slow. At last, when it was fully dark, she came.

The big car drew up to the gas pumps and she got out on the right-hand side and headed for the rest room. She didn't look good. She'd changed from the yellow-brown corduroy outfit, of course-it would have come out of the brush much too tattered and muddy to appear in public- but in spite of fresh clothes, pants and a heavy sweater, she looked tired and bedraggled. She needed a bath, a beauty parlor, and about twelve hours sleep. Nevertheless, despite the show of utter weakness she'd put on for me yesterday, complete with tears, she was by no means crippled or exhausted by her greater ordeal today. She'd eluded the posse sent out to capture her, she'd made contact with her principal somehow; and now she was completing her mission.

At least I hoped the driver was the principal for whom she was working. In the darkness, I couldn't see his face as he gave instructions to the filling station attendant and came around the car. He walked along the building to the door marked MEN. I still couldn't get a clear look at him in spite of the lights above both rest-room doors. He paused with his hand on the knob, stalling, until Libby came out of the adjacent room. She had the dog collar in her left hand, and she was shaking water off the other hand.

"Here you are, Mr. Soo," she said. Her voice reached us clearly. "Damn it, why do they make those cisterns so deep?" She started to squeeze the sleeve of her sweater, soaked at the wrist.

"You're sure these are the right ones? There seem to have been a lot of substitutions going on."

"I told you. Four of them are good. The fifth was probably never transferred-that man who called himself Wood most likely just passed a dummy at the last drop- so I wasn't able to get it. At least I don't think he'd use the real information as bait."

"Too bad. It would have been better if we could have had the complete set. But you have done well."

As the man turned, I saw the familiar Chinese features I'd known briefly in Hawaii. Everything was perfectly clear at last. Mr. Soo had hired the young interlopers for fifty thousand dollars to carry out the murder-and-impersonation job set up by the female agent, Libby, whom he'd planted in the Russian espionage cell in San Francisco. Apparently Libby's control over the real Nystrom hadn't been as great as she'd claimed, and she'd decided to have him killed and use a substitute courier instead.

But then she'd found a better substitute-me-in Seattle, and decided that she could gain my confidence and get the stuff from me when delivered. That had canceled the usefulness of Nystrom Three and Pat Bellman and their friends, who'd loused up their first rendezvous anyway. Libby, claiming revenge as a motive, had sent me out to get rid of them so they couldn't talk; and Mr. Soo had helped by giving them instructions that made it easy for me to wipe them out.

Davis stirred beside me as Libby and Mr. Soo walked back to their car.

"But aren't you going to…

"Stop them?" I whispered. "What the hell for?"

"She's a murderess!"

"She'll be taken care of," I said. "You know what's in the collar; you helped prepare it. Do you want it to go to waste? If we can't get it into Russian hands, what's wrong with letting the Chinese have it? And what do you think is going to happen to the lady when her superiors discover, belatedly, that they've been misled by a lot of phony information supplied by her?

Davis was silent. We watched the big car drive away. I remembered a woman in a Seattle motel room early one morning, reminding me how Moscow deals with failures. Peking's reaction would be no less violent, I hoped. Or did I?

The city of Anchorage was surprisingly large and civilized considering the amount of wilderness through which I'd had to pass to reach it. From my comfortable room high up in a very plush hotel named after the same Captain Cook I'd heard a lot about in Hawaii-that sailor really got around-I could look out upon miles of metropolis, as well as upon several empty blocks destroyed in the earthquake of some years back, now mostly converted into parking lots.

I said into the phone, "Very well, sir. I'll get right over there." I hesitated. "One question?"

"Yes, Eric."

"Now that we're through with this lousy friendship job of yours, sir, what the hell is NCS, anyway?"

Mac's voice was expressionless. "Do you have a need to know, Eric?"

I grimaced. It was the old security catch phrase, the idea being that even a fancy title and an astronomical security rating do not in themselves entitle a government employee to any classified information he does not actually require in the line of business. In some of those Washington buildings, they won't even tell you the way to the cafeteria if you can't demonstrate that you haven't eaten for six hours and really need a meal.

I said, "Go to hell, sir. I should have pried those damn disks open and used a magnifying glass."

Mac's dry laugh reached me across thousands of miles of wire. "I am merely giving you the answer that was given to me when I asked the question. I should also inform you that our late associates, while they approved of your results, felt obliged to inform me that they considered your methods deplorable. Somehow I got the impression that they will not require your services again."

"Golly," I said, "that makes me feel just terrible, sir."

"I thought it would. Well, take it easy. And if you, like the late Holz, ever start brooding about the lonely, desperate life of a secret agent, please let me know at once. You cut this one quite fine enough without that handicap."

"Yes, sir."

I made a face at the phone as I put it down. Then I told Hank to be good and took my hat and topcoat, feeling kind of strange and sawed-off in my civilized clothes and low-heeled shoes. Those cowboy boots are habit-forming. I had a taxi run me to the hospital on the edge of town-the camper rig had been returned intact, but it was being serviced after the long journey.

The nurse at the desk directed me to the room. Heading that way, I met Mr. Smith, Senior-I mean Mr. Ryerson. He was accompanied by Lester Davis.

Ryerson gave me a bleak, unhappy nod and kept on going. At the moment, he looked like a man who might have trouble handling one set of agents, let alone two at the same time. Davis stopped and said, "I'm sorry, Ronnie can't have any more visitors today, but he'll appreciate your coming."

I said, "I'm not here to see Ronnie, and I doubt that he'd appreciate a visit from me. Tell me, how was the old man, stern and understanding or stern and unforgiving?"

Davis said angrily, "Damn you-" I said, "So Ronnie spilled his guts under pressure; why make a federal case of it? Everybody talks, given adequate persuasion. Some people can take a little more than others, that's all. There's only one way to deal with the problem: if the guy is carrying information that's truly important, you give him a death pill to take if captured. And if the information isn't all that valuable-and this wasn't-you just damn well leave him free to sing like a bird. This business of requiring everybody to be great close-mouthed heroes all the time is pure TV, and you can tell Ronnie so from me. Tell his pop, too, if you like, but he won't thank you for it." I hesitated. "Davis."

"Yes, sir."

"If you ever get tired of playing Rover Boy with these clichй-bound jokers, there's a number in Washington you might call." I gave it to him.

He looked at me for a moment. "I suppose I should be flattered," he said slowly, "but I'm not. If this world is to be saved, Mr. Helm, it's going to be saved by people who still retain a few illusions, not by people like you. I'll stay a Rover Boy and a boyscout, if you don't mind."

Well, I'd asked for it. I grinned. "Sure. Your choice, amigo. But watch those illusions. The last one you had killed a girl very dead, remember?"

It was unfair and I shouldn't have said it. I walked away quickly from the stricken look on his face. The room I wanted was down the corridor. I knocked on the door. A feminine voice answered. I went in. It wasn't as bad as I'd expected. Mac had said she'd had a real rough time.

"Hi, Justellen," I said. "A guy in Washington asked me to bring you some flowers, but I forgot them. What the hell happened to you after you left the ferry at Petersburg, anyway?"

The small, brown-eyed, blonde girl whom I'd known briefly as Ellen Blish sat up painfully in her bed as if to prove she could. She said, "We were right. They did suspect me; that's why they sent me to make contact with you on the ship. Apparently something we did there proved something to them about me. Afterwards, they damn near killed me."

"So I see."

She had a tremendous black eye, puffed almost shut. The whole side of her small face was swollen and discolored. One arm and shoulder was covered with bulky bandages. If there was other damage, it was under the covers where I couldn't see it.

We faced each other for a moment in silence, sorting out the questions that could be asked and answered from the ones that couldn't. There was, of course, no eager comparing of professional notes on the job just past. I. didn't inquire as to precisely what her mission had been, or even whether or not it had been successfully completed. My hunch was that, in spite of having her cover blown, she must have managed to pull it off somehow, whatever it was, or Mac wouldn't have sent me here to cheer her up. He wasn't much fonder of failures than Moscow or Peking.

Ellen gave me a lopsided grin. "It's all right. I'll get over it, they tell me."

I said, "In about two weeks, I hope."

"Why two weeks?"

"I'm going hunting," I said. "But I'll be back."

"Hunting!" She sounded shocked and at the same time amused. "Talk about your busman's holiday! Or do you mean you've got another job " I said firmly, "Hunting, like with a shotgun. I have a friend, a black, four-legged friend, who's earned a reward for services rendered. I-" I stopped and cleared my throat. "I'm going to have to give him back pretty soon. I'm hardly in a position to keep a pet. But in the meantime… well, he's a damn nice pup, and he's had a long, dull trip. And while you may turn on with beautiful music, or LSD, he turns on with ducks. I've got nothing against birds, these days, but if ducks are what he wants, ducks are what he gets. Okay?"

She gave me her crooked smile again. "Okay. Two weeks. I'll try to be presentable by that time… Oh, Matt."

"Yes."

"I shouldn't ask, but I did work on it, and I feel I deserve… I mean, after all, it almost got me killed. Just what is the Northwest Coastal System, anyway?"

I put a stern look on my face. "Do you have a need to know, Miss Bush?" I asked and grinned as she stuck out her tongue at me.

Then I stopped grinning and her face grew serious and we studied each other for a long moment, knowing exactly why we'd been brought together like this: two agents, male and female, after a tough assignment. It was Mac's idea of safe rest and rehabilitation for both of us- simpler, cheaper, and less obvious than turning the wigpickers loose on us; and more effective if it worked.

It worked.