The Devastators

by Donald Hamilton

  She looked just like the nice little girl next door, the one you’d like to take to the beach or tennis court, and she’d killed seven times, twice with her bare hands. At least so said the record in Washington, and I had no reason to doubt it. Well, they come in all shapes and sizes: small shapely females as well as tall bony males. I’d been in the business longer than she. I was in no position to criticize her homicidal record.

  We held hands clear across the Atlantic. The stewardesses—healthy-looking, friendly British girls who were a pleasant change of pace from the movie queens officiating on American airlines—spotted us as newlyweds immediately, as they were supposed to. They thought my pride was a living doll, but they weren’t quite sure she hadn’t made a mistake in marrying an older man. However, I seemed to appreciate her, and that inclined them to forgive me my advanced years—I won’t say how advanced; I’ll just say that neither girl was much over twenty.

  Over the ocean, we met the new day traveling westward. The night hadn’t lasted more than a few hours, jet travel being what it is. At London’s Heathrow Airport, the passport-and-customs bit was rudimentary. Afterwards, a man from Claridge’s Hotel descended on us, stuck us in a taxi, and aimed us hotelward.

  “Is that all there’s to it?” my Winifred asked as we rode through the frantic, left-handed London traffic. I saw that she was genuinely surprised. I guess she’d come from places where border formalities were taken more seriously.

  I said, “Unless we decide to visit behind the Iron Curtain, the only time we’re likely to have any trouble is when we’re getting back into the U.S. Then we can expect to be treated as hardened criminals with evil intentions—although I’ve heard rumors that even our savage customs watchdogs are on a courtesy kick these days.” After a while, I said, “There’s where we’re staying, honey. Pipe the doorman in top hat and knee breeches.”

  Winnie played up, looking at first prettily intrigued and then a little dubious, like the naive country bride she was supposed to be. “But isn’t it terribly expensive? And… and fancy? My clothes aren’t really…”

  “Your clothes are swell,” I said. “I saved money on the plane tickets so we could blow it here. Everybody ought to stay at Claridge’s once. Don’t be scared, baby. Hell, they let the queen of Holland stay here all during World War II, and she isn’t half as good-looking as you are.”

  This exchange was probably wasted on the cab driver behind his glass partition, but it warmed us up for our performance inside the hotel. In our best self-conscious-newlywed manner, we ran the gauntlet of polite, formally attired reception clerks—the tailcoat industry would be in a bad way if it lost the trade of European hostelries—and were ushered into a third-floor room large enough so that, if you needed exercise, you could roll back the rug and play handball beyond the bed. After a couple of vigorous games, you could cool off in a tub large enough to swim in. The phone was supplemented by various auxiliary bell systems for summoning waiters, maids, and valets. It was quite a layout, in its quiet, old-fashioned, overstaffed way.

  “Gee, it’s gorgeous,” said my bride, wide-eyed. “But… but can we really afford it, dear?”

  I said, “What’s money, honey? It isn’t every day a man gets married.”

  I put my arm around her shoulders and gave her a loving hug while passing some British change to the bellboy, who bowed and withdrew. There had been some discussion in Washington as to whether a man, even an experienced agent, embarking on his honeymoon after a brief, breathless courtship, would be foresighted enough to provide himself with foreign currency. It had been decided that he would, if only to impress his sweet little bride with his worldly knowledge.

  When the door had closed behind the boy, said sweet little bride twisted free abruptly.

  “Jesus Christ!” she said. “Haven’t you any sense at all?”

  It was a different voice from the shy, birdlike tones she’d been using: deeper and harsher. It took me by surprise.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She touched her upper arm tenderly. “Here every damn horse-doctor south of the Equator has been running six-inch needles into my arms and rump—both rumps—and you’ve got to go squeezing me like a ripe lime you’re about to drop into a nice gin and tonic!” She caught the uneasy glance I threw around the room, and went on irritably: “Oh, hell, relax! Give your profession a rest, Mr. Helm. I’m just as security-conscious as you are, but if somebody knows enough about us already to have this room bugged waiting for us, our whole act’s a big waste of time and you know it. So for now, in here, we can just be ourselves, whoever that is. Sometimes I kind of forget, don’t you?”

  I knew what she meant, of course. After pretending to be a certain number of other people, you tend to lose track of the person you really are. However, it didn’t seem like the moment for a discussion of the psychological hazards of the trade.

  “Sorry about your arm,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking, I guess.”

  She pulled off her hat, threw it at a chair, and shook out her blonde hair. It was rather short, very fine, and a little mussed and matted now from long confinement. She squirmed out of her little jacket and dropped it on top of the hat. She smoothed her frilly white blouse into her abbreviated blue skirt and drew a long breath.

  “God, what a week!” she said. “I don’t think I’ve spent more than a day of it below thirty thousand feet. If I have to strap myself into another airplane seat, I’ll go stir-crazy.”

  I said, “If airplane seats give you claustrophobia, doll, you’ll flip twice when you see the car we’re getting. It’s a real shoehorn job.”

  “I know,” she said. “They told me. One of those lousy little sports cars. Whose bright idea was that?”

  “Mine,” I said. “I like them, big or little, and I’m the guy who’ll be doing most of the driving. And you haven’t seen the deer paths they use for roads in this country. I figured we’d better have something small, but fast and agile, just in case. Besides, it’s just the kind of flashy car a sophisticated jerk named Helm would buy so he could show off his driving ability to his innocent young bride.” I grinned at her. “Hi, Bridie.”

  She looked up at me for a moment. Then she gave me a funny, crooked little smile in return. I still knew her hardly at all, certainly not well enough to read her mind, but just then I knew in a general way what she was thinking about, because I was thinking about the same thing. I mean, we’d discussed everything from hypodermic injections to automobiles, but there was one subject that remained untouched, and it couldn’t be ignored forever.

  Winifred sighed, and looked down, and began to unbutton her blouse. I didn’t say anything. She looked up again, rather defiantly.

  “Well, we’d better get it over with, hadn’t we?”

  “You call it,” I said.

  She said, “Hell, we’ve got a lot of beds to inhabit in the next week or so, and orders are to make the springs creak convincingly. We’d better kind of get acquainted, if you know what I mean, before we have an audience.” She walked quickly over to her suitcase, yanked it open, and tossed some fragile white lingerie my way. “Pick the one that arouses the beast in you, Mr. Helm. We can’t have the maid seeing the bridal nighties all in mint condition. And for God’s sake take it easy. Remember I’m tender practically all over…”

  3

  It wasn’t the most passionate performance of my life. I found it difficult to work up a lot of enthusiasm over the idea of raping a business associate in broad daylight. Still, she was a good-looking and well-constructed kid, her responses were adequate if not spectacular, and biology is a fairly reliable source of motive power. Afterwards we lay close for a while; then she moved away and wiggled around a bit, pulling the various filmy layers of her trousseau nightie straight about her. Having got herself untangled, she sighed and lay still.

  “Well,” she said, “that’s that.”

  I couldn’t help laughing at her matter-of-fact tone. “I’ve heard more glowing testimonials.”

/>   “No doubt,” she murmured, “from volunteer partners, Mr. Helm, but you can hardly expect a girl to go wild over the idea of compulsory copulation. Come to that, I didn’t notice you behaving as if I were the answer to your erotic prayers.”

  I grinned. “Maybe we’ll improve with practice. Anyway, it’s nice to lie in bed after sitting up all night on the plane. We might as well make ourselves comfortable and hold a council of war; we may not have another chance to talk freely for quite a while. Can I get you a drink or cigarette or something?”

  “My cigarettes are in my purse, on the dresser… Thanks.”

  Standing by the bed, I held a match for her, and set an ashtray on the little table beside her. There was something pleasantly illicit about loafing around a luxurious hotel room in pajamas in the middle of the day with a pretty girl for company, even if she did know judo and karate and could keep all her shots inside the critical ones of a man-sized target at combat ranges. I decided that our romantic interlude, for all its shortcomings, had served a useful purpose. Certainly it had averted a lot of the strains and frustrations that would inevitably have developed had we tried to fake the essential man-wife relationship indefinitely.

  Standing there, I looked down at my pint-sized partner thoughtfully. Her eyes were very blue against her brown skin, which in turn looked smooth and warm against the pale hair and white nightie.

  She blew smoke up at me and said, “Cut it out, Helm.”

  “Cut what out?”

  “Don’t be a sentimental slob. You’re standing there willing yourself to like me, aren’t you? Maybe even fall in love with me a little, for God’s sake! Just because we’ve made a little sex together—and rather badly, at that—you feel obliged to tell yourself how cute the wittle girl looks in the gweat big bed. Well, pour yourself a drink or something and stop romanticizing. Remember that any resemblance between us and a pair of lovebirds is strictly phony. We’re just a couple of hired clowns practicing our vaudeville turn.”

  She was right, of course. I grinned and got back into bed beside her, pulled up the covers, and arranged some pillows behind us.

  “Sure,” I said. “Now if you’re quite through putting me in my place, maybe we can discuss some matters of real importance.”

  She turned to look at me, a little startled. After a moment she laughed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… well, maybe I did. Matters of importance like what?”

  “Like a guy named Buchanan, who’s dead. And a guy named McRow, who isn’t, but you’re supposed to correct that unfortunate condition at your earliest convenience. Always assuming that somehow we can manage to locate Dr. McRow and bring you within effective range of him.”

  She frowned. “McRow. They wouldn’t tell me. It was a big secret. They just gave me the general background of the job. McRow. I never heard of him. McRow.” She tasted the sound of it. “First name?”

  “Archibald,” I said. “It doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A poor guy saddled with a name like Archibald would seem to have troubles enough already without having nasty characters like us gunning for him.”

  Winnie didn’t smile. Well, maybe it wasn’t very funny. She said curtly, “Description?”

  “Forty-seven, five-seven, one-ninety.”

  “A middle-aged butterball,” she murmured.

  “That’s right. Short and chubby. Round face. Dark hair combed to cover a bald patch. Brown eyes, somewhat myopic, corrected with gold-rimmed glasses. Small hands and feet. Clean-shaven when he bothers to shave, but he’s apt to neglect such minor details when in the grip of scientific enthusiasm, and I gather he gets gripped fairly often. Clothes generally shabby, adorned with acid burns and other chemical decorations. Lots of brains and a terrible character, they say. He can’t get along with anybody, and nobody can get along with him. He sees himself as the only intelligent person in a world full of morons, all of whom are trying to take advantage of his genius.”

  “Are they?”

  “Well, sure. Isn’t that what genius is for?” I asked. “He worked for a big drug company first. They made a mint off one of his discoveries—some fancy antibiotic—and he just got his salary and a small bonus. That was the way his contract read. Then he got himself a new contract and dug up some other stuff that was interesting and potentially lucrative, only without knowing it he’d kind of crossed the fence into fields that were being cultivated by the government for military purposes. Suddenly he found himself working for the biological warfare boys under very strict security, still making no more than a lousy four-figure salary—well, maybe five by this time—and he’s a man, we’re told, who likes to dream in millions. Don’t for a minute get Archie mixed up with your idealistic, scientific dreamers, doll. His fantasies, sleeping or waking, seem to deal mainly with dough.”

  “Go on.”

  “With this attitude, it was only natural,” I said, “that when somebody came along and waved some real cash under his nose, he grabbed it and vanished. He left behind a note saying that the Fourteenth Amendment had abolished slavery and nobody had the right to tell him where to work or for how much. He also intimated that there was no need for the U.S. authorities to worry about his compromising their silly security in any way, since neither he nor his new sponsors had the slightest interest in the childish and obsolete stuff the government people had had him on. He had much more fascinating projects in mind. Under the circumstances, he wrote, he saw no reason why his departure should be the subject of any official concern whatever, and he would resent, strongly, any further interference in his affairs.” I shrugged. “In a way, you can see his point. After all, it’s his brain and it seems to be a pretty good one. You can hardly blame him for wanting to cash in on it.”

  Winnie said coolly, “It isn’t our business to see people’s points, Mr. Helm.”

  I glanced at her sideways, and moved my shoulders slightly. There had been a few moments when we’d been practically human together; perhaps it was just as well we were getting away from that. If she wanted to take a tough and humorless attitude toward the work—well, it’s generally considered pretty tough and humorless work.

  I said, “You may call me Matt. Incredible though it may seem, wives do address their husbands with such disrespectful familiarity these decadent days.”

  She said, still unsmiling, “I don’t suppose the government paid much attention to Dr. McRow’s warning, Matt.”

  I said, “Hell, you know those Washington bureaucrats, Winnie. They didn’t even realize it was a serious warning. They were so impressed with their own importance that it simply didn’t occur to them that one chubby little man with glasses would have the nerve to warn them off—them, and the United States of America. They went after him.” I grimaced. “That is to say, they sent people after him. Despite the note, they decided that he was endangering the national security, or something.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing much,” I said, “at first. They had a hell of a time locating him. Then, after several months, an agent picked up some kind of a trail out west in the California mountains. Shortly thereafter, said agent disappeared. A little while later he reappeared, dead. He’d apparently contracted a severe case of measles while he was missing.”

  “Measles? You don’t die of measles.”

  I said dryly, “It kind of depends on the measles. And on the natural immunity of the subject. There are cases on record of primitive tribes wiped out by ordinary measles, when they made contact with civilization. Apparently, since he vanished, Archie has developed a private brand that affects civilized people the same way. He was thoughtful enough to have a warning sign pinned to the infected body, or California might have had a nasty epidemic.”

  Winnie said, “That sounds like grandstanding to me.”

  “Not only to you,” I said. “The idea has occurred to others. Anyway, investigation of the area turned up a deserted building that had been used as a lab—quite an elabor
ate setup, as a matter of fact—but it was stripped and deserted. McRow’s sponsors, whoever they are, had had time to move their genius and his operation elsewhere. The next time he was spotted, he had a place up in the Andes, but again the agent who picked up the trail managed to stick his neck in a noose before he could pinpoint the location. This one died of chicken pox. And don’t tell me you don’t die of chicken pox, doll. The agent’s health record even showed he’d had a severe case as a child, but Archie’s trained bugs paid no attention to his built-in immunity. They killed him dead.”

  Winnie frowned thoughtfully. “In other words, the man has found a way of increasing the virulence somehow.”

  “In non-technical terms, that’s about it,” I said. “Which brings up the interesting question: What happens when he stops playing around with children’s diseases and applies his method to something really gruesome, like smallpox or cholera. He’s building up to something, obviously. He could have had those agents shot or tossed off a cliff. Instead, he’s been passing out samples, deliberately showing us and the rest of the world what he can do. Where does he go from here? And just who are the people helping him and what are their motives? Those are the questions bugging the big boys in Washington. The fact that the same questions are probably being considered in Moscow and elsewhere doesn’t help their peace of mind one little bit.”

  “Are we sure it isn’t Moscow that’s giving McRow aid and comfort?”

  “Sure?” I said. “Who’s sure of anything? All we know is that they seem to be just as baffled as we are. And that whoever is sheltering Archie has plenty of money and manpower, but he doesn’t seem particularly anxious to take up residence in the workers’ homeland.”