The Devastators

by Donald Hamilton

  “You’re sure, amigo?”

  “Quite sure. I managed to conceal the symptoms at the morning inspection, but they’ll be bound to notice them when they’re sorting us out this afternoon. Rather nasty-looking swellings, don’t you know? So I will be no help to you on the vessel, whatever it may be. I will not be there. They are taking only negatives on board. Anything you accomplish with my help will have to be done before embarkation.”

  There were no helpful comments I could make. At least I couldn’t think of any. I said, “Well, we’ll just have to hope that I threw a big enough scare into McRow. After all, the man’s searching for Utopia, not Armageddon. After thinking it over, he may well be ready for a deal.”

  “It’s a weak reed. I wouldn’t count on it too much, old chap.” After a moment, Les said in a different tone: “You look pretty rocky. If you want to sleep some more, I’ll watch, for whatever good it will do. Should the gates to freedom spring open miraculously, I promise to awaken you.”

  I hesitated, but I was still feeling half-doped and shaky; and I was going to need a very clear head when the time came, if it came. I lay down on the metal shelf again. Before I dozed off, I lay for a while listening to the stirrings and whisperings of the occupants of the other cages. I heard the slap of Crowe-Barham’s rubber sandals as he paced thoughtfully back and forth along the narrow space beside his berth. Well, that was the way the virus wiggled. I might be doing a little similar pacing in a day or two, with similar thoughts for company, if I lived that long.

  I woke abruptly, with Les’s voice in my ear, “Time to rise, old boy.”

  As I sat up, I heard the sound of a key in the lock, and of voices outside the hall door, speaking a language I did not understand.

  I said, “Give me a rundown, quick. What’s the procedure?”

  “The guard makes a preliminary inspection. You stand at the back of your cell if you don’t want trouble. Then the guard backs off with his machine pistol ready and the medical gent comes in and examines one prisoner at a time, usually starting with me. However, in this case, since there is an injection to be given, he may do you first. There is never more than one cell open at any time, and the guard is quite alert… Oh, just one thing more. This medical chap of whom I spoke. It will not be Dr. McRow.”

  I glanced at him sharply. “But—”

  “Dr. McRow is not expendable, old fellow. He is therefore not permitted in here. Some patient might seize him and try to use him for a shield or a hostage. The work is therefore done by a young technician. The guard has orders to shoot instantly in case of trouble; to cut down the rebellious prisoner on the spot, even if it means killing the technician as well. It happened once when I first arrived. The guard did not hesitate. He used the full clip, like a man putting out a fire with a hose, regardless of what might get wet. The final score was one technician and four prisoners. No one has attempted resistance since. I mean, the way those 7.63 bullets ricocheted in here was rather unnerving, don’t you know?”

  “But why didn’t you tell me—”

  “My dear fellow, why should I spoil your happy, hopeful dreams? Shhh. On your feet, here he comes. Back in the cell. No more talking.”

  The door opened. There was a kind of unanimous rustle as the prisoners took up their positions. A short, broad-faced, slant-eyed man with a submachine gun stepped inside, ran his gaze down the rows of cells, and then came down the line, checking each lock carefully. When he had worked his way clear around the ward, he spoke to someone outside. A man in a white coat entered.

  He was a slender Chinese youth with big hornrimmed glasses, definitely not McRow. He carried a stainless-steel tray like the one McRow had used in Madame Ling’s office. He paused inside the door, looked down at something on the tray, and looked at the door of my cage, apparently checking a number. Then he came inside to set his tray on my cot. The guard backed off, holding his machine pistol ready.

  “Bare your left arm, if you please,” said the young technician politely, in good English.

  I pulled up the loose pajama sleeve and offered him the arm. Helm, the human pincushion. He went through the cotton-and-alcohol routine. I didn’t watch the final operation. If he wanted to think I simply couldn’t bear to look at needles going into my flesh—after all, strong men have fainted at the sight—that was fine.

  Actually, I was trying not to watch the muddy, swaying apparition that had materialized in the hall doorway behind the guard. It had a dirty chiffon scarf in its hands, twisted to form the old thuggee noose…

  22

  When Vadya moved, I struck. I am not a karate genius, and I can’t break two-by-fours or shatter bricks with the edge of my hand—a hand good for that often isn’t good for much else—but there are ways of doing it. I hit the Chinese youth with everything I had and knew, and he was dead before he started to fall. The guard came alert, looking my way, as I’d meant him to; the submachine gun steadied; and I was going to be dead, too, in another instant. Then the twisted scarf went around his neck from behind and drew up tight, and the gun clattered to the stone floor, sliding toward me.

  I went for it, out the open cell door, and I was barely in time. The guard broke free and came for the weapon in a headlong dive, just as I snatched it and rose. That put him in precisely the right position for me to bring the butt down hard on his neck. I smashed it down once more to make quite sure.

  It was very quiet in the ward. There was no sound in the hall, either. I looked at my left arm, where a hypodermic was sticking out of the biceps, strangely unbroken. I noticed that the medical kid had managed to ram the plunger home before he died. Vadya had been just a little late in that respect, but you can’t have everything. The odds in favor of survival, disease-wise, were still sixty-forty. It seemed likely I’d be bucking greater odds long before those came into operation. I yanked out the hypo and threw it away and went over to Vadya, who was kneeling inside the door.

  I stood looking down at her for a moment. I guess I was feeling kind of embarrassed. I mean, what the hell do you say to a girl you’ve shot—regardless of the provocation—who comes back anyway to give you a chance for your life.

  She raised her head. “I’m sorry, darling,” she said. “I should have used a gun, but I was afraid of the noise. I thought I could hold him.”

  “Sure.”

  “Help me up.” When I had helped her to her feet, and steadied her, she made some feminine gestures toward brushing off the dirt that was smeared on her black pants and jersey. She’d discarded the leather jacket somewhere, probably because it was too bulky. She looked as if she’d been crawling down a rabbit-burrow, and that was probably just about what she had been doing. She looked up at me with a wry smile. “I am very dirty, am I not? And… and very tired. But you are a terrible shot, Matthew.”

  “Yeah, lousy,” I said.

  “I do not think you really wanted to kill me.”

  I led her toward the open cell. “Let’s analyze my motives later, huh? Right now you’d better lie down in here. How… how bad is it?”

  She grinned at me maliciously. “Bad enough. I will probably die of it eventually, darling, slowly and painfully, screaming in agony, and you will remember it always. That you shot me, very clumsily, and that in return I saved your life.”

  I said, “Let’s not count any premature chickens, doll. Not that I don’t appreciate your contribution.” I set the dead technician’s little tray aside, and helped her get comfortable on the cot. “How’d you get away from all those men who were looking for you, up above?”

  She gave a little laugh. “That great hairy yellow beast with the horns, remember? I decided that I could not be much worse off if he gored me or stepped on me, but he was really very friendly, although he smelled terrible. And they were afraid to come close to him. I saw you disappear into the ground with the Ling and her associate. I decided they would probably have a sentry at that entrance, but I found another way, a crack in the ground that led in the right direction. I almost stu
ck, several times. Ugh. I came into a room full of cages containing all the nasty little rats in the world. I was sneaking down the hall outside when I saw you carried in here. Then it was only a matter of waiting to catch the guard with his back turned. I hid in a passage across the way. It was a very long wait… Matthew.”

  “Yes.”

  “I wonder if it is that you are very clever, or just very lucky. Always you win, somehow. This time, by shooting me, you have forced me to help you escape, just as you planned in the first place.”

  I grinned. “I see. It wasn’t just affection that sent you wiggling down a mole-hole to rescue me.”

  “Does that make your bourgeois conscience feel better?” She smiled up at me, and stopped smiling. “I cannot… cannot finish what I was sent here to do, darling. You must do it for me. You owe me that, now.”

  I said, “Sure. I’ll get McRow for you.”

  “McRow!” She made a face. “What do I want with McRow?”

  “But—”

  “Oh, I am sure Dr. McRow is a terrible fellow and a menace to the world, and we probably do have people working on it—maybe some right in here—but it is not my business. Besides, you will take care of McRow anyway, won’t you, darling?”

  I said, “I intend to try. But—”

  She smiled faintly, lying there. “I am afraid I lied to you, a little. You see, I was not sent to Britain to save the world. I was sent to perform an execution that was, shall we say, a little overdue.”

  “Basil?” I said.

  “That is right, Matthew. Basil. I was going to trade you for him; that was my agreement with the Ling. I would deliver you to her, and she would deliver Basil to me.”

  “From what I’ve heard, she was going to double-cross you on the payoff,” I said. “You might have expected that.”

  “Why? When she is finished here, she will have no more use for him, and he is not a man one keeps around for pleasure. I thought there was a reasonable chance the bitch might keep her word. But now you will get him for me, won’t you?”

  I hesitated. “I can’t promise—”

  “I would not believe your promise. What are promises to people like us? But you will get him for me without promises, to soothe your bourgeois conscience when it feels badly about the girl you shot.”

  “Yeah,” I said sourly, “the girl who fed me a Mickey so she could throw my unconscious body to the wolves. The girl who thought she was so damn irresistible I couldn’t bear to hurt her.”

  Vadya laughed softly. “I would know better, next time, if there was to be a next time, would I not? You had better go now. Here is your gun; I took it. It has four chambers still loaded. Goodbye, Matthew.”

  I couldn’t think of a farewell phrase that wouldn’t sound sloppy, so I just took my revolver from her hand, got up, fetched the keys from the dead guard, and unlocked Crowe-Barham’s cell. I looked down at the Russian-type weapon under my aim: the PPSh41, which stands for, approximately, Pistolet Pulemet Shpagin Type 41, Shpagin being the guy who designed the ugly little beast.

  I said, “You know this Shpagin monstrosity, amigo?”

  “I know it,” Les said.

  “Well, I’m not much good with these squirters. You take it, I’ll use my old S. and W. Come, let’s go… What is it?”

  Les was frowning. “But aren’t you going to turn them loose?”

  He gestured toward the cages, or maybe toward the waiting people in them. I regarded him grimly, remembering that he’d always been handicapped, for this profession, by a lot of childish attitudes. I’d hoped he’d outgrown them, but apparently not.

  I said, “Be your age. We’ve got work to do; we don’t want the place all stirred up by hordes of… oh, hell.” I stepped back and dropped the keys on Vadya’s chest. “She’ll turn them loose in a little while, when she gets her strength back.”

  I winked at Vadya, and she winked back at me, and I knew we were in no danger of being embarrassed by prisoners released prematurely. I mean, what the hell, we were supposed to be secret agents, God help us, not the International Red Cross.

  Les was at the hall door with the burp gun poised. He gave me a nod to let me know the coast was clear, and stepped out into the passage. I followed. We headed down the slanting corridor, and stopped abruptly, as Les signaled me back against the wall. Somebody was coming out of Madame Ling’s office, at the lighted landing below. Les poked me with his elbow. I leaned out far enough to see the man stop under the light: Basil.

  He was carrying something that looked like a thin gray metal file box. I raised my revolver and lowered it again. A shot now would alert the place. Promises to the dying were all very well, but the interests of the living came first—and technically speaking I had made no promises. Basil tucked the box under his arm and disappeared down the stairs that led to, among other things, the cove where a boat could be landed at low tide, or so I’d been told.

  After he had gone, we moved cautiously down to the landing. Voices, and the sounds of bustling activity, reached us from the foot of the stairs. I sneaked forward far enough to look down. Cages and cages of rats were being carried from somewhere inside the rock toward the water’s edge. I slipped back to join Les.

  “Did you happen to learn where McRow normally hangs out?” I whispered.

  “His laboratory and quarters are supposed to be down there somewhere. The caves just above high-water level are supposed to be quite extensive. But the only way into them leads past the landing area, which seems to be fairly well occupied at the moment. I say, old chap.”

  “Yes?”

  “Which of us gets him?”

  I glanced at the man beside me. “After I’m through with him, you’re welcome to him.”

  “Unfortunately, my orders are to take him alive, if possible.”

  I grinned. “Maybe I should have left you locked in that cell. My orders happen to read otherwise.”

  He laughed. “Under the circumstances, I can probably convince the establishment that abduction was not possible. One more question, if you don’t mind.”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you really shoot her, old fellow? The lady upstairs?”

  “Yeah, I shot her,” I said. “I’m known far and wide as the lady-killer from New Mexico… What’s that?”

  The sound of a cry had leaked through the heavy door of Madame Ling’s office. I put my ear to the panels and heard, of all things, McRow’s pleading voice inside. Caruso in his finest moment had never sounded better, to my prejudiced ear.

  “No, no, I had no intention of betraying… Of course I approve of your… Yes, yes, of course I will do everything I can to help.”

  I looked at Les, who whispered, “What Vadya said about your luck does not seem to be exaggerated. There’s our pigeon. Shall we step inside and pluck it?”

  I nodded. “In case you haven’t been in there, there’s a pair of switches behind the desk. If anybody reaches the black switch, we’ll all be knee-deep in bubonic rats. The red one just blows up the joint. I’ll take the left flank, if you don’t mind. I think that thing of yours ejects to the right, and I shoot better when I’m not being showered with hot empties… Cross your fingers. I hope this door’s unlocked.”

  It was. It burst open under our combined weight, showing us Madame Ling seated at the desk, while McRow sat in the chair I’d occupied earlier in the day. He was being worked on by the dark-faced man. There was no one else in the room.

  It was a fairly simple business. I mean, the conventions are quite clear on who shoots what in a situation like that, just as when two men hunt together: the one on the left takes the birds flushing left, and vice versa. The dark-faced man was going for his gun, showing a commendable turn of speed. I shot him first, since he was the more dangerous of my two birds. That gave McRow time to rise and bolt for the bedroom door, an easy straightaway mark, and I dropped him in the doorway and swung back to make sure of the dark-faced man, who was still trying to get the gun out. He might have made it and then again
he might not, but I saw no reason to wait and find out.

  Only then did I realize that I hadn’t heard the Shpagin fire. I swung right and saw, incredibly, Madame Ling still very much alive, standing by the desk with her hand in the air. I mean, the woman should have been dead all of five seconds by now. She looked me straight in the eye, and gave her silvery laugh, and hit the black switch behind her without a backward glance, before I could get my revolver clear around. Then the burp gun went off at last.

  Sudden bloodstains blossomed on the silk tunic, and the woman slid to the floor, still smiling faintly. I jumped forward, over her body, and yanked at the switch, but it was a one-throw proposition; having done its work, it no longer functioned. I thought I could hear, far above, the whirring of the motors turning the gears that turned the long metal rods that wound up the chains that opened the cage doors. There was, obviously, only one thing left to do, before the rats got out and disappeared among the tunnels and cracks that honeycombed this rock. I’m no braver than the next man, but I seemed to hear Vadya’s voice in my ear, scornfully: He did not have the courage to die in a situation that required his death.

  Perhaps I was a little braver than Basil, at that. Anyway, I grabbed the red switch and pulled hard. Nothing happened.

  23

  When it became quite apparent that nothing was going to happen, at least not right away, I turned from the wall to look at Les, who stood there with the muzzle of the burp gun pointed at the floor, looking sick. I looked at the gun in my own hand. There was one live cartridge left, I knew, and I had an impulse to use it. He knew what I was thinking.

  “I… I just couldn’t, old chap,” he whispered. “I mean, she’d put her hands up, don’t you know? I simply couldn’t do it, in cold blood. Go ahead and shoot.”

  “Cold blood, hot blood!” I said. “Oh, Jesus Christ! What’s temperature got to do with it?”

  There was a little silence between us, during which I became aware of a faint ticking sound behind me. I went back and touched the box of the red switch. It was trembling faintly, as if alive: somewhere inside, clockwork was functioning. Well, that figured.