Those Who Watch

Eighteen

All it took, David Bridger told himself, was a little cleverness and a lot of persistence. What was so hard about tracking a few Dirnans? You kept your ears open, you smiled a lot, you asked questions, and you got what you were after.

Of course, he hadn’t actually laid eyes on any of the Dirnans yet. But he was fairly certain that he had found at least one of them, and in a little while he’d know. The first one, perhaps, could lead him to the other two. In any case, finding even one was a major accomplishment. The Kranazoi agent grinned and tugged in delight at his heavy jowls. A little later on, he thought, he’d get into contact with the ship and pass the news along to Bar-79-Codon-zzz. She would have a lot of apologizing to do, when she learned that he had been successful!

He hunched down in his parked car and kept his eyes trained on Colonel Falkner’s house.

Putting the story together had been an intricate business.

First had come the rumor that flying saucer people had landed in the desert — true enough. Next came the story that a certain officer in AOS had taken part in the search and had found something out there, but instead of reporting it had deliberately concealed it. That was the tale Bridger had picked up in the cocktail lounge. The way it went, the AOS officer had gone out in a half-track to scout the desert, and had come back with something or someone. The only witness had been the driver of the half-track, who wasn’t overly bright, but knew that something funny was going on. The driver, so the story went, had been transferred instantly to a remote military base in the north, but not before he had done some talking.

Bridger’s next step had been to find out the names of the AOS officers in that search party. That had been hard, but not impossible. In the course of some days of investigation he discovered that the mission had been headed by the local AOS commander, Falkner, and by a Captain Bronstein. They were the logical men to check on. He found their addresses without great trouble; it was amazing how much detective work could be done at the public library, with a telephone book, a city directory, and a file of newspapers. Then he rented a car and settled down to watch their behavior.

Repeated surveillance periods convinced him that Bronstein could not be his man; The captain was hiding nothing in his home except a harried-looking wife and four children.

But this Falkner—

He lived by himself in a large house. Suspicious. No wife; she had divorced him last year, a neighbor said. He kept his windows opaqued all the time. Suspicious, too. He rarely came out, and then only to make what appeared to be brief shopping expeditions. A phone call to Falkner’s office produced the information that he was sick and would be out indefinitely. Because he had a special guest in his home, perhaps?

Bridger watched for five days. He had no clue about what was going on in there, but he was positive that Falkner was harboring one of the missing Dirnans. At last the windows cleared for a moment, and Bridger saw a woman’s face. He had no way of telling that she was Dirnan, of course, but it confirmed some of his suspicions. Now what he had to do was wait until Falkner left the house again, and get inside. He didn’t expect that the Dirnan would answer the doorbell to anyone, but he carried equipment that would cope with any sort of sealing system. Once inside, he could confront the Dirnan, throw a few triggering words at her point blank, and watch her reactions. Unless he was very wrong about all this, she’d be caught off guard and give herself away, and he could take her into custody on a charge of covenant violation. And then— The door was opening. Colonel Falkner was leaving the house. This time he didn’t seem merely to be going shopping, either. Instead of civilian clothes, he wore his uniform, as if he had ended his sick leave and was going to his office. Fine. That gives me all the time I’ll need, Bridger thought. He watched the colonel drive away. Then, pocketing his necessary equipment, Bridger eased his bulky body out of his own car and started across the street to the Falkner house. “David!” a high female voice called. “David Bridger!” The Kranazoi pivoted about, startled. An uncontrollable spasm rocked his nervous system at the interruption of his concentration. A girl was running toward him — Leonore, that was her name, the foolish child who had picked him up at the motel. He had not been looking for any such involvement, but she was there and eager, and he had just come back from his wasted trip to the nonsensical Contact Cult, and at the moment it had amused him to see what it was like to make love with a girl from Earth. He had had her and forgotten her. What was she doing now, turning up at precisely the wrong moment?

Panting, her breasts bobbling under her jacket, she came up beside him, all smiles. “Hello, David! You don’t look pleased to see me!”

“Leonore? How come — what—?”

“I live right near here. I saw you getting out of the car, and I recognized you right away. Did you come here to visit me? How nice of you!”

“As a matter of fact, I — I—”

“Yes, David?”

“Look, I’m here to see somebody else now, Leonore. I didn’t know you lived here. I — I’ll see you some other time.”

She pouted. “All right. Who are you visiting?”

“Does it matter?”

“I was just wondering. Maybe it’s someone I know.”

“It isn’t, I assure you. I—”

Bridger’s words died away. Something small and cold was pressing against the meat of his back. A low male voice said, “Get into the car, Kranazoi, and don’t make trouble. This is an antipersonnel grenade, and I’ll use it on you right out here if you resist.”

David Bridger — Bar-48-Codon-adf — felt the sidewalk turn into a yawning gulf beneath his feet.

“No,” he said. “You’re making a mistake. I’m not Krana — whoever you said. I’m David Bridger of San Francisco, and-”

The low voice cut in. “We can smell your miserable Kranazoi stink a block away, so save your breath. You’ve been caught, and get used to it. Into the car, now.”

“This is an outrage,” Bar-48-Codon-adf said thickly. “I’m merely checking on a covenant violation. Three Dirnans unlawfully descended to Earth, and obviously there were more than that. You’ll all be brainburned for this! You—”

“Into the car. Ten seconds, then you get the grenade. One? Two? Three? Four?”

Bar-48-Codon-adf got into the car. Not his own, but one he had not even noticed, that had come quietly up the street while he was eyeing the Falkner house. For the first time he saw his captor: a big, blocky Earthman who clearly was no Earthman at all. He sat beside Bar-48-Codon-adf, holding the grenade lightly but alertly. The girl he had known as Leonore was in the front seat. She still looked youthful and innocent, but Bar-48-Codon-adf realized that she must be a Dirnan agent too, and had deliberately picked him up so that she could check on his identity. This planet must be crawling with them! If he ever had a chance to file a report, he’d have to let the Kranazoi authorities know that the Dirnans were flagrantly breaking the covenants. But he suspected uncom-fortly that he never was going to get a chance to file that report.

There was a third person in the car — an older woman. Bar-48-Codon-adf watched dismally as she got out, walked across the street, and rang the bell of the Falkner house. He had tracked down one of the lost Dirnans, all right. But he had found her only to lose her to her own devilish kind.