The Menacers

10

THERE WERE FOUR MEN in the outer sitting room of the hotel suite when I entered, and there were four chairs arranged more or less in a semicircle around a low table. I had a pretty good idea who'd been elected to occupy the sofa upon which the chairs kind of focused.

Mac himself had opened the door for me. He closed it behind me. "This is the man we call Eric," he said. "Sit down over there on the sofa, Eric. Would you care for a cup of coffee?"

I could have used another one, but there are circumstances under which it is not diplomatically correct to eat, smoke, chew gum, or take a drink, even coffee.

"No, thank you, sir," I said.

I went over to the indicated piece of furniture, but I did not sit down. I mean, respect is cheap and looks good, why not utilize it? I waited respectfully, therefore, while Mac seated himself. Then he made a gracious little gesture, and I sat down. I thought his left eyelid half-closed in a kind of wink, as he played up to my phony show of deference, but I could have been mistaken. He wasn't really a winking man.

He looked about the same as the last time I'd seen him, which was about the same as the first time I'd seen him, more years ago than I cared to think about. A lean, gray-haired man with black eyebrows, he was wearing a neat dark-gray suit that might have been designed for a banker, but he was no banker. He was one of the half-dozen deadliest men in the world, and to one in the know, like me, it showed plainly.

The tweedy, affable-looking man next to Mac wasn't deadly. He was only dangerous if you were vulnerable to conniving and intrigue, and ~f you were stupid enough to turn your back on him. He had a handsome red face, a shock of picturesque white hair, and piercing blue eyes, and he was the coming boy in undercover politics, a character named Herbert Leonard who'd decided that our government's vast civilian intelligence establishment would provide a fertile field for his organizational talents.

He'd already managed to promote himself a new, streamlined agency that would deal with all problems of security and espionage more efficiently-so he claimed-than all us old-fashioned, stick-in-the-mud outfits could possibly do. Obviously he hoped to swallow up or supersede us all in the long run. It was said of him that he envisioned himself as the J. Edgar Hoover of the international cloak-and-dagger set; there were even those who felt that he wasn't totally blind to the fact that Hoover himself couldn't live forever.

I'd never met him before, but I'd been shown the pictures and told the rumors. I had an uneasy hunch, finding him here, that the U.S. people I'd encountered in Mazatlбn would turn out to be his. And if I'd tangled with some of Leonard's protйgйs, I was in even more trouble than I'd thought.

Next was a man I didn't know, but I bet myself I could place him with reasonable accuracy. He was crowding fifty, but when they get involved with airplanes young-particularly military airplanes-they seem to develop a characteristic Rover-boy look that lasts them the rest of their lives. Some day I'm going to find out what it is about the upper atmosphere that imparts that durable boyish appearance to those who love it. Personally, I age fast whenever I'm off the ground.

Anyway, I was willing to wager a small sum that I was in the presence of a military flyboy with a reasonable amount of rank. He was in civilian clothes-sharp gray flannels-but the eagles or stars show on a man even when the uniform gets left behind.

Next to him was a short, dark, compact gentleman with a thin black moustache. He was obviously foreign, presumably Mexican, in a dark business suit, immaculate white shirt, and silk tie-they don't go in for casual clothes much during business hours. His presence gave an international flavor to the gathering that I found somewhat reassuring. Apparently the purpose wasn't only to give one U.S. agent hell, although that might be first on the agenda.

The white-haired Leonard was the first to speak. "So this is the man caned Eric!" he said quickly. "If you don't mind, General, before we start, there are a couple of questions I'd like to put-"

"But I do mind." For all his youthful look, the flyboy could put a snap into his voice. "I have a good idea what questions you want to ask, Herb, and we've already been through all that. You're out of line. I'm not a damn bit interested in your intramural squabbles, for one thing, and for another you haven't got a leg to stand on. I'd never fault one of my pilots, in a combat situation, for returning the fire of an unidentified aircraft when there had been no warning whatever of friendly traffic in the area. As I understand it, this man did everything possible to establish identification, and it was refused. So your agent got shot because somebody got too secretive, and we're sorry about that, but it's got nothing to do with our business here."

Leonard said angrily, "General, I want to point out that I had three good operatives in Mazatlбn. One was killed by this man. One was critically wounded trying to rescue him. And the third is presently involved with the Mexican authorities-no offense, Seсor Solana-because of her efforts in his behalf. All this for an agent who, when the chips were down, failed to go through with the job he'd been sent to do."

Well, I now at least had a notion what had happened to the bullet from the Luger cartridge case I'd seen. Mac's lips had tightened disapprovingly as Leonard spoke. He doesn't mind administrative infighting-he's been through years of that-but he can't stand a man who uses "presently" to mean "at present," any more than he can abide anybody who uses "contact" to mean "make contact with." We're all very careful to leave such gobbledygook usages out of our report. But this was no grammar class, and what he said was: "Eric, did you request cover from one of Mr. Leonard's agents?"

"No, sir. I told him to get a good night's sleep and lay off. He must have decided to follow me on his own."

Leonard leaned forward triumphantly. "And why didn't you ask Hartford to help you? To make doubly sure of carrying out your assignment?"

I said politely, "If I had the situation figured right, sir, I wouldn't need him. And if I was wrong, I figured he couldn't help me much, anyway."

Leonard took the bait. "Why not?"

"Well, sir," I said, making a show of hesitating, "well, sir, Harsek's grade A material, if you know what I mean. He eats little boys like that alive. There was no sense in just setting the kid up for a target." I shrugged. "Apparently he went and set himself up, and got himself shot as could have been predicted." Leonard's red face was a shade or two darker than it had been. "His interference probably saved your life, Mister! Of course you wouldn't know that, being unconscious at the time."

"Yes, sir," I said. "And if that's true, I'm duly grateful, but I wasn't aware that saving my life was one of the objectives of this mission. He apparently didn't manage to rescue the girl, which would have been more to the point."

The flyboy leaned forward, interrupting Leonard's retort. "Never mind all, that, Herb," he snapped. "I told you to lay off. As for you, son, you've mentioned the objectives of your mission. Maybe you'd better tell us what they were, as you saw them."

It's been a long time since I've been called "son" by anybody, and he'd have had to be kind of precocious to make it as my daddy, but in the armed forces they tend to figure the generations more by rank than by age.

I hesitated. "If it's not classified information, I'd like to know to whom I am speaking, sir."

He looked a little taken aback; then he grinned. "Why, certainly. I believe you know the two gentlemen on my right. I am Brigadier General Bill Bannister, U.S.A.F.-Bannister like in stairs. I'm kind of in charge of this whole crazy operation. And this is Seсor Rainуn Solana-Ruiz of the Mexican… Well, let's just say that he represents his government here. Very unofficially, of course."

"Thank you, sir," I said. "As for the objectives of the mission as I saw them, they were twofold: to bring a certain young lady to Los Alamos if possible and to kill her if not; also to do this without embarrassing the Mexican authorities if it could be done."

Bannister nodded. "Well, at present the Mexican authorities are embarrassed. And the young lady is neither in Los Alamos or heaven. Is that correct?"

"I don't know, sir." When he frowned, I explained: "I have no firsthand information about what's taking place in Mazatlбn official circles. And I don't know what may have happened to Mrs. O'Leary since I last saw her."

"But you will admit that you were at least partly responsible for some rather embarrassing corpses left behind at your hotel, and that you did not, yourself, carry out the instructions you'd been given concerning the lady."

"That is correct, sir."

Leonard leaned forward aggressively. "The fact is, you spent the night with the girl and she got to you, isn't that it?"

I said, "We certainly spent the night in the same room. It would have been difficult for me to guard her otherwise. As to whether she got to me, or I got to her, I fail to see the relevance of this." I looked towards the general. "It's a principle of the profession, General, that what happens in bed has nothing to do with what happens anywhere else."

He looked amused. "And did anything happen in bed, son?"

"No, sir. But it's a difficult thing to prove, so I won't try."

Leonard said sharply, "In any case, you failed to do your assigned job, didn't you?"

Bannister frowned at the interruption, but said to me: "That's about the size of it, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you have an excuse, or an explanation?"

I said, "I have a reason, sir."

Bannister said, a little irritably, "You don't have to be so goddamn humble, son. I know damn well what you're thinking. You're a tough character-a professional killer, to put it bluntly-and you're thinking that if we lean on you too hard, hard enough to make you mad, you can take the lot of us, just like a fox cleaning out a chicken coop. Am I right?"

He was sharper than I'd given him credit for. I risked a grin and a little impudence. "Yes, sir. And I'd take you first, sir."

"Why? I haven't been giving you as hard a time as some in this room."

I said, "I'd take you first, sir, because I wouldn't want you loose while I took care of the rest."

At this, he grinned back at me. "Flattery will get you nowhere, tough boy. And just go easy on those greasy 'sirs', will you? I get enough of that crap in the service." He cleared his throat. "And now tell us your reason for disobeying orders. You walked into a trap, okay. It happens. Your instructions covered that possibility. If you couldn't get her up here you were to shoot to kill. Why didn't you?"

I said, "Because I discovered that was exactly what they wanted me to do."