The Silencers

XXVII

With the usual Washington logic, the underground test in the Manzanitas was postponed. The threat of sabotage was past, the desert roads were passable again, so they put it off another week over Rennenkamp's screams and howls of protest.

Experts were called in, and they could detect no harmonic vibrations in the earth's crust. They stated firmly that the North American continent was no more subject to massive instability, whatever that might be, than any other, and that no continent was in the slightest danger of suffering collapse under the stimulus of such a relative fleabite-compared to real geologic forces-as the explosion of a nuclear weapon anywhere, aboveground or below. The kindest view was that Naldi had simply flipped, poor fellow. There were also less charitable attitudes in evidence.

Well, all that was none of my business. I spent the week in and around Alamogordo, getting bawled out by people in and out of uniform. They admitted that it might be unreasonable to expect me to produce a complete circuit diagram of a mass of electronic equipment I'd only seen the outside of for about a minute, under fire, but they couldn't understand why the hell I couldn't at least produce an accurate sketch of the antenna.

Somebody turned up a report on Peyton and Bronkovic, two loyal and experienced security men who had been brutally assaulted in a motel room registered in my name. This odd circumstance got quite a play until the official word on the matter came through and the whole subject was dropped into the pool of embarrassed silence reserved for inter-departmental boo-boos.

The final verdict in my case was that I was probably a well-meaning cluck, but that a man who could retain so little useful information was one hell of an intelligence officer to be working for Uncle Sam. I didn't bother to point out that I wasn't an intelligence officer and that my training hadn't been along the lines of retaining information.

They let up on me gradually, but warned me to hang around in case they thought of anything else to ask, so I was stuck in Alamogordo. I was drinking alone in the motel bar when a young lieutenant came up. His face looked vaguely familiar; he'd been hanging around in a minor capacity through the interrogations.

"I guess we gave you a pretty rough time, sir," he said. "May I buy you a drink by way of apology?"

"Sure," I said. "After the past few days, I'll take anything I can get free from the Army."

He laughed as he ordered the drink. "That friend of yours," he said. "Romero. Even if he was sure he was dying, it must have taken a lot of nerve for him to pull a stunt like that. Reversing the polarity so that the bird would home in on the beam instead of…

Anyway, he gave me some technical jargon that sounded like that. I sipped my drink and remembered Wegmann telling me: We can steer it towards us, or away across the valley. There hadn't been much time, and Romero had had the tracking instruments downstairs with him. There had been no way for Wegmann, up in the tower, to tell that the great bird of death had turned the wrong way.

He would have had no warning until he looked up at the last instant, if he did look up.

"I don't know why they're so hot to learn all about that gizmo, anyway," the young lieutenant said. "After all, it was obsolete. It still worked fine on an old missile like the Wotan, but obviously the new guidance systems had it licked. We haven't had that kind of a malfunction in over a year. I figure that's why Wegmann and the people above him decided to blow the works as spectacularly as they could."

"Just how do you figure that?"

"Why, if it was still good, they'd have kept it a secret, wouldn't they? But they saw we were getting ahead of their interceptor devices, so they decided to get themselves some hot scary publicity while there were still a few missiles flying around that they could work on. At least that's the way I see it… Well, excuse me, sir, there's my target for tonight."

I hadn't known that corny old wartime phrase was still being used, or did he think he was originating a new and bright turn of speech that would take the country by storm? He was young enough, and I watched him go to meet a girl who was just as young, in very high heels and a short wide dress bouncing on top of a lot of frilly petticoats. When I was a kid, it practically killed a girl to have her slip show, but nowadays girls seem to consider themselves undressed without a few lingerie ruffles on display.

Well, if they wanted to show off their pretty underwear, that was their business; I was thinking like an old-timer bemoaning the passing of the beautiful bustles and high-button shoes of his youth. I looked at myself in the mirror and didn't like what I saw. Sure, the job had got done, and I suppose that was the main thing, but a guy named LeBaron had died bailing me out of one hole, and a guy named Romero had died bailing me out of another-all I'd done was talk tough and mean and run like hell.

"Hello, darling," she said. "I don't think much of it, either. That face, I mean."

I turned slowly. She was there, all right. The last time I'd seen her, I'd hauled her out of the truck cab looking like a broken and tattered doll that might have cost somebody a lot of money once but wasn't worth much now. You don't ride a half-ton truck down a steep hillside and bump up against a couple of pine stumps without a little damage. Also keep in mind she'd been no vision of immaculate loveliness at the start of the plunge.

I'd left her, I recalled, so I could attend to some business at the rear of the wrecked pickup; then I'd come back and dragged her away… But there was no hint of that in the appearance of the woman who faced me now. She'd had her hair re-done in the loose, fluffy way I remembered, and she was wearing a startling, short, cocktail dress of some velvety material that looked blacker than black. The startling thing about the dress was that it not only had no sleeves, it had no back, either. In front, covered to the throat, she looked almost demure; behind, bare to the waist, she was practically naked.

"That," I said, "is one hell of a garment to spring on the fine old cowtown of Alamogordo."

She smiled. "I know, darling. According to Helm, my taste in clothes is lousy. My pants are too tight, and my dresses are too bare. What are you celebrating, the end of the world? If so, may I join you?"

"Be my guest." I made room for her beside me and got her a drink. Then I frowned belatedly. "My God, is it tonight? I'd forgotten."

She tasted her whiskey and nodded. "At two o'clock. Oh-two-hundred, according to the Army's silly way of telling time. Why they want to shoot it off in the middle of the night, I don't know. But then, I don't know why they do anything they do, including asking questions." She hesitated. "Matt?"

"Yes?"

"What do you think?"

"About what?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Don't be stupid. You know what I mean. Naldi wasn't crazy, and he wasn't faking. We both saw him. Maybe he was wrong, but… maybe he wasn't. Anyway, he believed it." There was a little silence; then she said, "Matt, I'm kind of scared. Let's get out of here. If it should come, crazy as it sounds, I don't want to be in a bar."

"What's better than a bar?" I asked. "I mean, what's the choice?"

"You're being very obtuse, darling. I don't usually have to spell it out for a man. The choice, naturally, is your motel room or mine."

I glanced at her quickly, but she was busy producing a cigarette, tapping it, and leaning forward so I could light it-which I did.

"Matt?"

"Yes?"

"Even if it doesn't happen, we won't know, will we? I mean, it's been a week. He said that might be long enough, remember?"

"Yes," I said. "I remember. Maybe we're safe, this time."

"Maybe." She glanced at me. "Well, we wouldn't be much of a loss, would we? Either of us? I saw you, you know."

"Saw me?"

"Yes, I was pretty badly shaken up, really, and everything was kind of hazy; but I came to for a little when you left me there by the truck and went back to… Was it Injection A or B, darling?"

I said, "B, naturally. The one that leaves no traces. Orders were to make it look like an accident. Your friend Mr. Gunther was pretty mashed up back there. That aluminum canopy wasn't nearly as strong as the steel cab that protected us. But I had to make sure. Fortunately, my suitcase was handy, with the kit."

She said, "You're a horrible person."

"Sure," I said. "A motel room was mentioned. Let's not get too far off the subject."

"Don't rush me, darling," she said. "You're a dreadful cold-blooded, ruthless person, but I had to find you tonight. Do you understand? You're the only person I'd care to be with tonight, whatever happens."

"Sure," I said. "I don't think much of you, either, glamor girl You're unreliable and treacherous and arrogant and selfish. If you happen to think a man's done you a bad turn, you can't even be trusted tied hand and foot. You're mean and vengeful, and the only reason I love you is that I can't hurt you, and even if I do you've had it coming for years. Besides, I know you'll always get back at me somehow."

She was smiling happily at the end of this recital. "But you do love me, don't you?"

"Hell," I said. "You know I do. I-"

Somebody was tapping me on the shoulder. It was the young lieutenant. "Pardon me, sir," he said politely. "You're wanted on the telephone. You were being paged in the dining room. I thought I'd better tell you."

I sighed. "Sure. It might be some important officer wanting to know the exact number of stones in that damn church tower."

But it wasn't. It was Mac, calling from Washington. "Deckhoff," he said, "Stanislaus Deckhoff, unlikely though the name may sound."

"Well, it doesn't really matter now," I said. I'd asked him to run a make on Wegmann, giving him what I knew.

"The agency responsible for the file wants to know if the card should be removed to inactive."

"I'd say so," I said, "but you'd better warn them they'll never get a firm post-mortem identification. Wegmann-Deckhoff and some other guys and a church and some other buildings are scattered all over the side of a mountain. But, yes, I guess it's safe to call him inactive."

"How is the local situation?" he asked.

"Tapering off," I said.

"If I clear you with the authorities, is there any reason you can't start for Washington at once?"

"Yes, sir," I said. "One. She's waiting in the bar."

He was human after all. He said, "Very well, make it tomorrow morning."

I went back to Gail. In the morning, the world was still there, unchanged. Well, almost unchanged.