The Silencers

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In the morning, it was snowing. To hear the Texans in the hotel lobby, this was a big thing in El Paso history. It snows every so often in El Paso, but they always act as if each time was the first in the memory of man. The clerk at the desk considered me foolish even to think of venturing out into the dangerous stuff. The very idea of driving north into the white wilderness of New Mexico, he said, was suicidal. The little town of Carrizozo, to hear him tell it, was as inaccessible, for the moment, as Point Barrow, Alaska.

When I came outside, after that build-up, expecting snowdrifts to the second story, I found the streets merely wet and black with big soft white flakes drifting out of the gray sky and a little slush building up where the traffic left it alone. I asked the doorman to retrieve my truck from the parking garage across the street and went back inside just in time to see Gail Hendricks emerging from the elevator, followed by a bellboy loaded with my luggage and hers which had been brought over from a motel, earlier.

She was certainly decorative, I reflected, watching her approach. The arrangement of her light-brown hair was still kind of elaborately loose and fluffy, but this morning she was quite simply dressed in a pleated skirt and a cashmere sweater that was neither sexy tight nor sloppy loose. It was blue and matched the subdued plaid of the skirt. A single strand of pearls dressed things up a bit. She was carrying a kind of twill greatcoat with a luxurious fur lining. I guess the height of snobbishness is wearing your mink so it doesn't show.

I said, "Good morning," in a neutral way as she came up. I had no idea what her attitude was going to be, except that it would probably be very hostile.

She surprised me by speaking quite reasonably. "You're exaggerating, aren't you, Mr. Helm? It doesn't look like a very good morning to me." She frowned at the snowflakes drifting past the door to melt on the sidewalk. "Do you think it's safe to start out? What if it keeps up all day?"

"That's my brave tejano partner, Gail the fearless and intrepid," I said. "I keep forgetting that all Texas comes to a shivering standstill when it snows."

She made a face at me. "You can't blame me for not being anxious to make this trip. It wasn't my idea, remember?"

"I remember," I said. "But you seem more resigned to the idea than you were last night."

She laughed and shrugged. "What's the saying? You can't buck city hall, isn't that right?"

She held out the big coat. I helped her on with it. We walked out, followed by the bellboy. I had him put the luggage into the bed of the pickup, which was protected by an aluminum canopy-not one of those fancy, trailer-like jobs, with stove, sink, and refrigerator, just a weatherproof shelter back there with windows and a door. There was space enough to sleep on an old cot mattress, even with all my camping gear aboard and generous headroom for sitting but not for standing. At the moment, it was the nearest thing to a home I owned.

I paid the storage charges, distributed tips all around, helped Gail inside, and we were off-blast-off time, approximately eight-forty-five. After a while, my companion, relaxing beside me, lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the windshield. Her resigned attitude bothered me a little. I hadn't thought she was a woman to take coercion in such a docile fashion, and neither had Mac.

We have three things to work with, he'd said late last night when we were planning the operation, a place in Carrizozo, a film capsule and a 1a~y who hates us but knows Gunther, perhaps better than we think. Put them all together and we may have a productive combination. It's the best we can do with the limited tune at our disposal.

Men were working in Mexico, of course, following the trail. There was an agent on his way to Midland, Gunther's home town, and the motel where Gunther had stayed with Gail was being watched, but that was none of my concern. My job was to deal with him if he came to Carrizozo, one possibility out of many, but we thought a good one.

"Matt," Gail said abruptly. "I'd better start calling you Matt, hadn't I?"

"Permission granted."

"I just don't get it, Matt," she went on. "Do we just walk up to this Wigwam place and march in the front door, or what? And those films, how are we supposed to use them? I suppose they're still valuable to somebody."

They were, of course, so valuable that they were on their way to Washington right now. Even Mac didn't swing enough weight to authorize one of his men to walk around with national secrets in his shoes, not without consulting a lot of important people first, so we had decided that, for bait, if I got a chance to use it, the capsule itself would have to do. But there was no need for her to know that.

"We don't know exactly how valuable they are," I said. "We can only hope the other side still wants them badly.

It's a pretty scrambled mess of an operation, Gail. Normally, two agents on a job like this would have rehearsed their cover stories for weeks in advance. As it is, we're going to have to size up the situation when we get there, and improvise like hell."

"And it's really Sam Gunther you're after? It's absolutely crazy! Why, I've known him for years!"

"People had known Klaus Fuchs for years. They thought him a nice, harmless sort of guy, I've heard."

"If you catch him…" She hesitated. "When you catch him, what happens then?"

She had a knack of bringing up awkward subjects. I said, "Well, that kind of depends on Sam." Well, it did, to a certain extent.

She said, "I'd hate to be the one responsible for… for getting him killed, or anything."

I glanced at her. "The man is a murderer and a traitor, Gail. Both crimes carry the death penalty." It didn't seem necessary or diplomatic to point out that somewhere in the hierarchy above Mac sentence had already been passed on Sam Gunther, who was known as the Cowboy. People outside the business don't like to think things are done that way, and it's best to leave them their illusions whenever possible, but I told Gail as much of the truth as I thought she could stand. "Whatever happens, if we're successful in our mission, Sam isn't likely to survive it very long. You might as well face that now."

We drove for a while in silence. She was looking straight ahead through the wet windshield. At last she said, "It's not… a very nice thing to face. It won't be a very nice thing to live with."

I said, "Well, you can look at it one of two ways. Either you're a brave lady patriot helping to dispose of your country's enemy at the risk of your life, or you're a cheap female Judas sending a man you know to his death to save your own skin. Take your choice."

Her head came around sharply. "Damn you! You didn't have to say that!"

"Don't be a fool," I said. "Of course I had to say it. It's what he'll say if he gets a chance, isn't it?"

She hesitated then drew a long breath. "Yes, but you've got such a lousy, brutal way of putting things, darling."

She glanced aside and spoke in an even voice. "I suppose you know you're on the wrong road. This highway leads to Las Cruces. We're supposed to be heading for Alamogordo, on the way to Carrizozo, aren't we?"

I said, "Yes, but I thought I'd take that fellow behind us for a little scenic ride, first. His persistence certainly deserves some kind of a reward."

It took her a moment to catch the meaning of what I'd said; then she started to swing around in her seat.

"No, don't look back," I said. "Use the mirror." She turned to an outside mirror. The truck sported two, one on each side, since visibility through the canopy was limited. She had to lean forward to get the proper angle.

"The gray Olds sedan," I said, "two cars back." She licked her lips. "You mean… somebody is following us?"

"Tailing is the technical word," I said. "Yes, somebody's tailing us. He picked us up right around the corner from the hotel. How's your geography, Gail?"

"I don't know… This road goes on up the Rio Grande Valley, doesn't it?"

"That's right," I said. "And the road we want goes up the Tularosa Valley on the other side of those mountains coming up on the right. For the moment, of course, we don't know anybody's behind us. We're just plugging northward innocently…

"But shouldn't we find a phone and call Mr. Macdonald before we're too far out in the country?"

I thought of what Mac would say if one of his people called up in a sweat merely because somebody, mysterious and menacing, was trailing along behind.

"He's on his way back to Washington, if his plane ever got off," I said. "We're kind of supposed to take care of ourselves. Besides, I'd like to find out what instructions the gent back there is carrying."

I looked around. We were well out of El Paso now, traveling across a flat country flecked with snow that looked wet and gray in the bad light. The mountains to our right rose up into the low clouds. The higher visible slopes were solidly white; it was coming down more heavily up there.

I said, "In Las Cruces, some fifty miles ahead, if he hasn't made a move by then, I'll stop to have the tank filled and the tire chains put on. Let's hope our friend is a good Texan. If he is, he'll have a childlike faith in his snow tires and an abiding distaste for chains. When I lived in Santa Fe, farther north in New Mexico, we used to lose more Texans off the road to the nearby ski run. Even the cops couldn't make them put chains on." I glanced at the mirror. The gray Oldsmobile had dropped back a little now that we were on the open highway, but it was still coming right along. I said, "Leaving Las Cruces, I'll suddenly discover that we've got company. I'll put on speed, pathetically trying to outrun that guy's three hundred horsepower with this old relic. Failing, I'll swing abruptly to the east and head over the pass towards White Sands and Alamogordo and the road we really want. Have you done any sports car driving, Gail? Do you know what it means to hit the cellar?"

"Well, I've ridden in them, of course, and driven a few, but they're mostly so dreadfully uncomfortable and impractical-"

"Sure," I said. It was no time for an argument on that subject. I pointed to the worn rubber mat under our feet. "Well, there's your storm cellar. I want you to have your coat buttoned and your hood up; that'll give you some protection. If we start to go and I give the word, you dive for the floor and cover your face with your arms. Got it?"

She had turned pale. "If we start to… What do you mean?"

I said patiently, "Look, glamor girl, we'll cross a pass, San Agustin pass, elevation damn close to six thousand feet." I pointed. "It's up there somewhere, but you can't see it for the clouds. Beyond, there's a nice stretch of mountain road heading into the other valley, with quite a steep drop-off on the outside, the side we'll be on going down. It'll probably be snowing pretty heavily up there. There'll be fog by the looks of it. The visibility will be real lousy, so a gent with criminal intentions won't have to worry much about witnesses. We're carrying something somebody's supposed to want, remember? Looking at it one way, this is a very encouraging sign, that they're taking such an interest in us already."

"But-"

"That lad behind us has a big, heavy, powerful car," I said. "If he's got orders to do something about this old pickup of mine, something that looks accidental, say, so he'll have a chance to search the bodies.-up there's where he'll probably make his play."

"You mean-" Her voice was strained. "You mean he'll try to run us off the road up there?"

I glanced at her and saw something that surprised me

– she had freckles. It was completely out of character, but there they were, a faint dusting of color across the bridge of her nose.

I said, "Your freckles show when you're scared, Gail. It's kind of cute.

As murder attempts go, it was kind of pitiful. The Olds was in sight behind us during the long grind up the pass until the murk got too thick to see anything. I turned on my lights to make things easy for him. We topped out at just under six thousand feet and started down through the clouds on the other side. He waited until the road emerged on the open flank of the mountain. Then he came roaring out of the snow and mist behind us and swung over to give us the nudge that would send us off the edge-blasting away with his horn to terrify us, I suppose, or to make us stop and get out of the car with our hands up.

I hit the brakes and my tire chains took hold at once. With nothing but rubber to stop him, he was past before he could connect, skidding badly. I saw his face looking at us. The glass was blurred with condensed moisture, but I recognized the sallow face and thin black moustache of the M.C. of the Club Chihuahua.

I threw a fast downshift into second gear and fed power to the rear wheels. The chains found traction in the new direction, and the old truck lurched forward, digging out hard downhill. For a moment, the touch, as we call it in the business, looked possible. He was right in position ahead, now in a bad slide to the left, having over-corrected his first wild skid. The whole flank of the big car was open and vulnerable. If I could only gain enough relative speed before the impact, it ought to slew him around broadside in front of me and also swing the truck around to the right just about the proper amount. I was ready then to slam the lever into that stump-pulling reserve low-gear that comes with a heavy-duty truck transmission and bulldoze him right off the edge.

"Down," I said, without turning my head. "Hit the basement. Cover your face."

I mean, there was bound to be a bump, and there was even a possibility that we'd go over with him if I miscalculated. Then the little man got off his brake. Only a flatlander would have braked so hard in the first place, coming down a slick mountain road without chains. The glowing taillights went out, and the big sedan, wheels no longer locked, straightened out and surged ahead, presenting me with nothing but a massive chrome bumper to shoot at.

Hitting him there was useless, even if I could catch up with him-I'd just be shoving him down the road ahead of me. So I eased up on the gas and watched him pull away into the mist. Gail, I realized, had made no move towards the floor.

I said, "Sixty-one Olds hard-top four-door, gray, one aboard. Texas license DD 2109. Write it down, please. There's a pad and pencil in the glove compartment." After quite a long time, she reached out and opened the compartment clumsily. I said, "We may see more of him later. I suppose he was after the films-unless he's just one of those unreasonable guys who get sore when you kick them in a certain place. You recognized him from the club, I suppose-the little runt of an M.C. with a Spanish accent who was telling the girls to take it off."

Her voice was shaky. "No. No, I didn't see him. I.. I wasn't looking." She hesitated, then said with a show of defiance, "As a matter of fact, I had my eyes closed."

"Your ears, too?" I said. "I told you to get down."

"I… I couldn't move," she said. ~'I just couldn't, Matt!"

"Sure," I said. "Well, we'll stop for lunch in Alamogordo. You can change into dry panties there."

Her face came around sharply. She gave me a glance of pure hatred, started to speak but checked herself with an effort. After a moment, she turned away, looking straight ahead.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, stiff-lipped. "I know I'm not very… Don't be too hard on me, darling. I'm not used to this sort of thing."

Her meekness was as phony as a drunk's New Year's resolution. She would have loved to cut my throat with a dull knife, but she was saving me for a more elaborate and excruciating fate. At least I hoped that was what was behind the phony humility.

A woman who hates you, Mac had said. Then he continued thoughtfully, Of course you can't trust her, but untrustworthy people can sometimes be very useful. There was a case during the war, if you recall, where the whole operation hinged upon one agent's known weakness..

We were being very clever, not to say diabolical. We were counting on this woman to hate, despise, and, given the opportunity, betray me-it was a desperate plan, but there was no time to be careful. I couldn't take a chance on lousing up the job by letting her develop any respect or affection for me. Well, there wasn't much chance of that.