The Intriguers

XXVII

It looked like one of the tree blinds used for deer in the brush country of Texas; or perhaps a machan designed for ambushing a tiger at its kill in India-not that I considered my present quarry in the tiger class, but even a domesticated pussycat can be dangerous when you're dealing with the human variety.

As far as concealment was concerned, it was a pretty good job: a basketlike framework seven or eight feet off the ground that blended well into the surrounding tangle of branches. It wasn't the most comfortable blind I've ever occupied, but there was a sort of platform for standing and a tree limb for sitting. The only catch was that, when the time came, I'd have to rise and shoot without a rest for the rifle. There was nothing solid enough to serve the purpose. In fact, since they don't grow very big trees on those islands, the whole woven-together structure was a bit shaky. Well, a hundred yards isn't very long range for a rifle, even offhand.

"Okay, cap'n?" Jarrel whispered from below.

"Okay. Take her away and hide her," I said. "And, Jarrel-"

"Cap'n?"

"Don't be a goddamn hero, charging the flaming muzzles of the guns. If you know what I mean. I can assure you I wouldn't do it for you; don't you do it for me. If it goes sour, it goes sour, and to hell with it. Just blast out of here, tell them their fancy scheme didn't work, and hoist a beer to my memory. Okay?"

"I'm a guide, mostly," the black man said softly from the darkness below me. "I take my sports out and I bring them back. Haven't lost one yet and don't aim to, if I can help it. Good hunting, cap'n."

The world was full of high-principled lunatics, black and white, which was strange, I reflected, since you wouldn't think they'd last long, any of them. Well, I'd given him an out. If he didn't want to take it, that was his business.

I listened to him making his way back down to the shore, or tried to. He was pretty good in the woods; and I didn't really hear much until a very faint splashing told me he was poling the boat back out into deeper water so he could lower the motor. Then the hydraulic tilting mechanism whined, the starter whirred, and the sound of the big powerplant, at low speed, diminished gradually in the direction of the brushy little islet he'd pointed out to me, some four hundred yards distant.

I checked the rifle as well as I could in the dark. It was another of the bellowing, shoulder-busting Magnums that are very fashionable these days. It's getting so no hunter who values his image will even set out after rabbits without a portable cannon that will shoot through a bank vault and a couple of feet of masonry, and kill two or three innocent bystanders in the street outside, if they're lined up properly.

This was a bolt-action Winchester rifle using the.300 Winchester Magnum cartridge, a shortened and modernized successor to the old Holland and Holland.300, with a muzzle velocity over three thousand feet per second, and a muzzle energy approaching two tons. It was a hell of an artillery piece to have to fire out of a treetop, and I warned myself that I'd better make the first shot good because the goddamned howitzer might very well boot me clear out of the blind.

I made certain I had a round in the chamber and a full magazine, and that the floor plate was securely latched. Those big guns kick so hard they've been known to jar the floor plate open and dump out the contents of the magazine. It can be embarrassing to find yourself with only one cartridge when you thought you had four, particularly if, after the first shot, there's a hostile elephant heading your way under a full head of steam. At least so I'd been told. I've never met an elephant except in a zoo, but I have met some fairly hostile people and might encounter a few more tonight.

The telescopic sight was of the four-power variety recommended to beginners as the best all-round choice for hunting. I was glad they hadn't given me anything stronger, considering the shaky perch from which I'd be shooting: the greater the magnification, the greater the visible shake. I removed the protective caps from the lenses and peered through the instrument to make certain a hole ran clear through it. That was about all I could determine in the dark. I hoped no target would arrive until I had light enough so that I could actually make out the cross-hairs.

The mosquitoes were the worst part of the waiting. I thought nostalgically of the pleasant hillside in Oklahoma, cool and bug-free, where I'd lain in wait for Sheriff Rullington, but it didn't help a bit. Without the dope I'd squirted liberally on myself, plus the mud I'd applied to my face and hands for camouflage purposes, I couldn't have stood it. As it was, I had to shut off part of my mind, the part that wanted to slap and scratch and, as time passed with interminable slowness and dawn approached, even scream a bit just to let me know I wasn't really having fun.

They came with the sunrise, well after it was light enough to see and shoot. Long before I saw them I could hear their motor approaching from the north and west. The sound faded for a while, and I wondered if Martha had lost her way in that swampy maze and what Leonard would do to her if she had, although I don't normally spend much time worrying about the fate of traitors-even young and pretty ones with whom I've slept. Then the motor noise came in again strong and increased in volume steadily. I saw them come into view, well out in the wide fairway to my left, too far for a shot even if I'd wanted to try such a fast-moving target from my unstable position.

I watched them through the leaves and thought I really had to hand it to Mac. The crazy, complex plan was working. In spite of lack of communications, in spite of everything, he'd stage-managed everybody to the right spot at the right time. The hidden hunter was waiting and the tiger or pussycat was coming to the bait, or what he thought was the bait.

There was the boat, a husky yellow inboard-outboard runabout some eighteen feet long with a tall whip antenna that reminded me of the houseboat, equipped with similar whiskers, that the admiral had spotted entering these waters-a communications ship of sorts, perhaps. But I didn't spend much attention on the boat, because there was the man with the white hair who'd caused everybody quite enough trouble already. Tiger or pussycat, he'd worn out his welcome. I mean, goddamn it, we do have a certain amount of professional pride, and we don't take kindly to outsiders forcing their way into our closed little undercover community, and trying to use it for their own cheap purposes. We'd tried to make this clear to Herbert Leonard the last time he'd come bucking for the title of Spymaster-in-Chief, but he hadn't taken the hint. It was, therefore-, time for him to go.

He had the left hand seat behind the windshield-excuse me, the seat to port. To starboard, behind the steering wheel, sat a collegiate-looking youth in a blue yachting cap, with a pipe stuck jauntily into a corner of his mouth. Between him and Herbert Leonard, steadying herself with a hand on top of the windshield, stood Martha Borden, still in her light blue dress. How her bare arms and legs had survived the buggy night, I hated to think.

She used her free hand to point out the dock. The boat slowed and dropped off plane and swung that way, but only a little, not enough to bring it within rifle shot of the shore. It was all very cute, and 1 had to hand it to Leonard, too. He was almost as cute as Mac, using himself for a decoy like that. I hadn't thought him that clever or dashing, or even that brave; but I guess there comes a time for every desk officer when he feels he must go out and prove himself in the field, just once.

Anyway, this was one job Leonard would want to witness. He'd never be quite certain it had got done properly unless he saw it happen. AJI that now stood between him and the fulfillment of his ambitions was one man, but that man was one of the half-dozen most dangerous people in the world. Leonard would never sleep soundly until he saw Mac dead; and Mac had known this and taken advantage of it to bring Leonard here under my gun. The rest was up to me.

It was very cute, and it got cuter when they ran the boat aground out there, still well out of range, of course. They went into an act designed to show anybody watching from shore-Mac and whoever might be occupying the cabin with him-how terribly mad they were at each other for this stupidity. The words couldn't be heard at the distance, of course, but the pantomime was clear: the college boy was obviously blaming the navigator, Martha, who was obviously telling him hotly that if he'd steered where she'd pointed it wouldn't have happened. Leonard was obviously telling both of them to shut up and do something constructive. It was a fine diversion; and in the meantime the real attack was moving silently towards' the hidden cabin-at least I suppose they thought they were being silent.

One boat was approaching along the bank just below the blind. I could hear the rhythmic, liquid whisper of the pole urging it along. It landed-a large, flat-bottomed rowboat with a small kicker on the stern-and four men in camouflage clothing disembarked at the exact spot Jarrel and I had used some hours earlier. This was not surprising since a gap in the wall of mangroves made it a logical landing spot. Having them come so close was a little disconcerting, but there was an advantage: by the time they'd all got ashore, conferred together in whispers, spread out, and sneaked inland through the tangled undergrowth, the best tracker in the world couldn't have made out the signs of our earlier landing, Jarrel's and mine.

I watched the man on the right flank slip by only twenty yards distant, never looking up, of course. That's the advantage of a tree blind. Neither a deer nor a human being normally expects danger from above. He was another clean-cut young fellow in top-notch condition, educated to the teeth, no doubt, trained to break bricks with his bare hands, capable of picking the buttons off your vest with the machine pistol he carried, and totally useless in the woods.

I could follow him by ear long after I couldn't see him any longer; and the others were no better, the ones moving up the other shore of the island, presumably from another impromptu landing craft. I could trace the progress of the attack quite accurately from my elevated position by the snapping of twigs, the rustling of leaves, the clink of weapons, and the breathless curses. Well, Herbert Leonard could hardly be expected to have a squad of trained jungle fighters readily available, at least not a squad of trained jungle fighters he could trust to keep their mouths shut about a curious operation like this.

The sun had cleared the horizon now; and out on the water the college boy with the yachting cap had managed to push Leonard's boat free. He jumped back behind the wheel and started the craft moving slowly towards the dock, as a man made his way out along the catwalk holding a bulky object that turned out to be an electronic megaphone or bullhorn-loud-hailer, I believe our British friends call it. By now, another boat was coming into view far down the channel beyond the dock, the way Jarrel and 1 had come. It had been a carefully planned trap; the only trouble was, there hadn't been anybody to catch in it. The man with the bullhorn confirmed this loudly.

"Cabin secure, sir!" he bellowed across the water. "Nobody home!"

Leonard produced a howler of his own, and his voice reached me quite clearly: "Repeat."

"Cabin empty. No sign of occupation. Repeat, no sign of occupation. Empty. Unoccupied. Orders?"

On board the boat, the college-boy yachtsman produced a pistol and aimed it at Martha. The man on the dock lifted his megaphone once more.

"Orders, sir?" he repeated.

"Hold everything. I'm coming in," Leonard shouted.

I watched him come. I won't pretend that my pulse and respiration remained absolutely normal as my target moved slowly into range. The college boy put the boat alongside the rickety pier, and spoke to the bullhorn artist, who put down his instrument, unslung a machine pistol, and aimed it down at Martha. The college boy put his revolver away, pulled down his yachting cap more firmly, and climbed up to secure the dock lines. Leonard, still in the boat, gestured towards the girl, and the two men on the dock reached down and dragged her up between them. Only then did Leonard move to disembark.

I guess I'd known it was coming, as Mac must have known it was coming when he gave me a gun capable of shooting through a bull moose lengthwise. The heavy, souped-up rifle was as good as a written order. It said clearly: You will carry out your mission disregarding anything, or anybody, that may stand in your way.

Well, it wasn't the first time I'd had this decision to make, and had made it: and this time it wasn't even very hard. I mean, the girl really meant very little to me. I find it very easy to control my passion for cocky, treacherous young ladies who make it clear that they consider me a lecherous idiot, ready to park my brains behind the door at the sight of any willing female body.

It was like watching a bad movie the second or third time, with the same old beautiful-female-hostage scene coming up. They always try it, figuring, I guess, that what works on the screen ought to work in real life. I eased the rifle forward cautiously so I'd be ready to take a clear shot if Leonard gave me the chance, but he was careful not to. He was bright enough to know that he'd been decoyed here for some purpose, and he wasn't about to expose himself until he learned what it was. That's what he'd saved the girl for, instead of having her shot at once when he learned that her information had led him to an empty cabin.

Sitting in the boat, he'd given me no target, and he offered none as he came ashore, carefully sheltering himself behind the boat's windshield pillars and a dock piling. Then he had the girl in front of him. The whole procession was moving shorewards along the catwalk. I drew a long breath. With a rifle I'd sighted in myself, and with a steady rest, I'd have tried to slip one past the girl's head into the head of the man; but this gun could be six or eight inches off at this range, and I couldn't call my shots that well from my rickety perch, anyway.

I had no choice. I rose up deliberately and placed the black crosshairs carefully on Martha Borden's body, a little to one side, figuring the angle that would center the bullet in the body behind her. They came on, still unsuspecting. I placed my finger on the trigger, and my mind gave the order to the appropriate muscles, and nothing happened. I take no credit for humanitarianism. In my mind, the girl was dead. So sorry. If you don't betray people, sweetheart, you don't get shot. if you do, you do. Goodbye, Martha Borden…

But she was still coming, and so was the man behind her, and my sentimental fingertip simply wouldn't move the necessary fraction of an inch. Then there was a sudden flurry of movement down there. The girl threw herself back against Leonard, knocking him off balance, and jumped. She landed in six inches of mud, almost fell but caught herself, and started floundering diagonally towards shore. Leonard, recovering, spoke sharply to the ex-bullhorn-artist, who raised his current instrument, the machine pistol. It was a setup shot. With an automatic weapon like that, he couldn't possibly miss the girl struggling shore-wards only twenty yards away-but Leonard was standing unprotected at last, wide open, as fine a target as any marksman could wish for.

My finger finally decided to obey the urgent orders from my brain. The big rifle roared, and recoiled violently against my shoulder. The man with the squirt gun, as I like to call them, dropped his weapon unfired into the low-tide mud below the dock and followed it limply, dead before he hit.