I said irritably, "Now what's the problem, doll? First I catch hell for not trusting you and then I get a big song and dance when I do…"
She said, very softly, "Darling, it's all right. You hurt me, you really did, with your crazy suspicions, but it's all right now."
As I say, she was good. Busy driving, I never did see what she actually did with the damn dog collar. An hour or so later we hit smooth black pavement. A sign featuring Smoky the Bear welcomed us to the state of Alaska and begged us not to set fire to it. At the moment, it was difficult to see how anybody could ignite any part of that soggy landscape.
By the time we reached Tok, however, the rain had stopped. The U.S. customs-and-immigration man asked a few questions and passed us through. In smooth, quiet, dry comfort we rolled down the paved highway. After a while we encountered, on the right-hand side of the road, a big sign proclaiming the nearness of The Antlers Lodge. I pulled up at the gas station below the main building, which was constructed of peeled logs and located on a wooded knoll a little back from the road. Near the door labeled "Coffee Shop" stood a muddy Ford van.
Libby said, "My God, look at all the horns! What's that big mounted one, a moose?"
"The one with the fancy shovels sticking out front? No, that's a caribou," I said. "Reindeer to you. The snooty white one with the swept-back stickers is a Dall sheep. Are you hungry?" It seemed a safe question. She never ate much before lunch.
"No, but I could use a rest room."
As she moved off to find it, I got out of the cab and went back to release the pup, telling him to stick around. I would have preferred to leave him locked up, but I'd turned him loose at practically every previous stop, and I didn't want anybody watching to think there was anything different about this one.
I'd been tempted not to stop at all, since there was nothing to be accomplished here without the proper collar. However, I didn't know how carefully young Smith and his red-bearded friend would be watching the highway. If they missed seeing me go by, they might hit the panic button and betray themselves, or me, by running back and forth looking for me when I failed to show up. This way, seeing me stop and go on without making the prearranged contact, they'd know something was wrong and, I hoped, proceed cautiously.
A sudden animal howl of fright and pain spun me around where I'd been standing, ostensibly watching the man fill the gas tank, actually watching the corner of the station around which Libby had disappeared and wondering what she might be up to. I realized belatedly that Hank, despite orders, had taken advantage of my preoccupation to slip away. His cry had come from up the hill, near the main lodge.
I ran that way hastily as the half-choked canine call for help came again. I was honestly worried. On this trip I had learned that it takes a lot to hurt or scare a Labrador seriously enough to make him open up and tell you about it. I pounded up the hill and around the corner of the lodge, where the brush was thick, and slowed down, drawing a breath of relief. There was an old barbed-wire fence running through the bushes, and he'd just got himself hung up on it, that was all.
"Okay, pup," I called. "Take it easy. I'm coming."
He stopped fighting it as I came up and awaited me, trembling, suspended half off the ground. I reached for the substitute collar he was wearing, caught in the rusty wire. With his weight on it, it was impossible to free it, so I unfastened the buckle to release him before tackling the wire. Only then did I realize that it would have been practically impossible for a dog just running into some loose fencing to get himself so badly entangled in the brief time he'd had.
As the thought came to me, there was a movement behind me, and I knew that I'd found the elusive Mr. Holz at last, or he'd found me. Pain went through my head, and the world turned blazing white, then glowing red, then black.
28 I AWOKE IN FAMILIAR SURROUNDings. Somehow, even before opening my eyes I knew I was lying on the floor of my own-well, the late Nytrom's-camper. It seemed to be proceeding along a reasonably well-paved road at moderate speed.
I lay there, tied hand and foot, rocked back and forth gently by the motion of the rig. Without moving, I sent my mind on a quick perimeter check, so to speak, and detected no gun-bulge under my belt and no knife-bulge in my pocket. Well, that figured. I thought about my colossal, sentimental stupidity, since there wasn't much else to think about, except the pain in my head. I reflected bitterly on the philosophical truth that no matter how hard a man tries to be inhuman, or superhuman, he never quite makes it.
On this job, I'd managed to be tough and professional and heartless practically all the way. To be sure, in just one instance, to cut down on the bloodshed that seemed to be getting out of hand, I'd taken the calculated risk of releasing somebody who perhaps should have been silenced instead-the returns weren't in on that-but otherwise I'd killed ruthlessly as required. I'd refused, as it had turned out quite correctly, to let humanitarian considerations, or any other considerations, send me back to see about the driver of a car I'd wrecked. The best efforts of a clever and beautiful woman had failed to make the slightest dent in my armor of suspicion.
And then, I reflected grimly, and then, knowing that the critical moment of the mission had to be close at hand, I'd let the frantic howling of a year-old pup send me rushing blindly into an ambush any first-year trainee could have avoided in his sleep.
"Grant. Grant, are you all right? Can you hear me?"
The voice was familiar, perhaps too familiar. Rather surprised to hear it here, I opened my eyes. As I'd figured, I was stretched out on the camper's narrow floor, between the stove and the sink cabinet. My head was against the door. My feet were under the dinette table.
Avoiding them with her own bound feet was Libby, still in her open trenchcoat, somewhat awry, and the natty pants costume that was now, as she herself had pointed out this morning, just a bit the worse for several days of strenuous wear. Her hands, like mine, were tied.
Apparently Holz thought he was being clever, sticking her in here dramatically bound hand and foot to share my misery, keep an eye on me and, perhaps, learn something from me that somebody wanted to know.
I felt a little stir of hope. If Holz did want something from me-and if not, why wasn't I dead?-then I still had a chance. And the more carefully I played my attractive companion along, the better that chance would be.
"Greetings, doll," I whispered. "Don't say it. I goofed."
She was tactful enough not to comment on that. "Your dog got away," she said. "They tried to catch him, but they'd already scared him so badly he wouldn't come near them."
"Good for old Hank," I said sourly. I was glad to hear of his escape, but I'd expended quite enough sympathy on him for one day. "How did they catch you?" I asked Libby.
"I ran up there right behind you when I heard him screaming. A man stepped out from behind a tree and put a hand over my mouth and a gun in my back. Afterward, he made me walk back down with him and pay for the gas and drive the truck up the hill so they could load you aboard without attracting attention. Darling, what are we going to do?"
"Could you tell which way we turned from the lodge?" I asked, ignoring her question because I had no answer to it.
"Yes, I can see pretty well out the front here. We're still on the same highway, heading toward Anchorage."
"How long have I been out? Specifically, how long have we been driving?"
"Well, I'm not in the best position to keep checking my wristwatch, but it's only been a few minutes."
"Who's up front?"
"A couple of real characters. There's a woman, plain and plump, in a plastic raincoat and green pants. Why is it that the fatter the fanny, the tighter the trousers? Then there's a plumpish male type who looks as if he'd just stepped off a rainy city sidewalk. He's even got galoshes on, for God's sake!"
I said, "Be charitable. I think it's a disguise. Who's driving?"
"The man. The woman keeps rubbernecking to make sure we're not setting fire to the bus or rolling out into the road." A round, unpr
etty face I'd seen before appeared at the forward window of the camper, looking back at us suspiciously. When it had vanished, Libby said, "You see what I mean."
"Keep talking," I said. "How many more?"
"It's a real caravan, darling. There's an older couple, middle-aged, driving a big car-" I asked wearily, "It wouldn't be a Lincoln, by any chance?" I was remembering the large, slow-moving sedan I'd passed and repassed on the Haines cutoff. It seemed likely, now, that after seeing me on my way, the tourist-appearing couple had turned back in pursuit of the lab truck. Judging by this morning's events, the pursuit had been highly successful.
"Yes," Libby said, "yes, it's a Lincoln. And then there's a kind of boxy delivery van. The guy who gives the orders is driving that, a man they all call Mr. Wood."
"Mr. Wood, eh?" I kept my voice casual, wondering if the boys in the van were still alive, and if so, for how long. Well, they weren't my boys. "What does Mr. Wood look like?" I asked.
He wasn't very subtle, I reflected, or maybe he was just arrogant. Maybe he thought nobody knew enough German, up here in the benighted wilderness, to remember the English translation of "Holz."
"He's kind of a tallish man," Libby said. "Not a bean-pole like you, but probably about the same weight, since he's broader. He's got metal-rimmed glasses, slick black patent-leather hair, and a silly little black moustache, but I have a hunch there's some dye involved. Nobody's got hair that black. And I don't think his real name is Wood. It's probably Rubinsky or Kubicek or Ivanoff or something. I know a Slav when I see one."
It was my man, all right. She had sharp eyes, or she'd been told exactly what to say in order to gain, or maintain, my confidence, probably the latter. The fact that Holz's name wasn't Holz at all was fairly common knowledge, but we'd never learned the real name and likely never would. Maybe he'd forgotten it himself; he'd been Hans Holz so long. They often go in for Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon labels, I guess because these days, over here at least, people tend to look a little more closely, in cases involving security, at anyone named Vladimir, Ivan, or Olga.
Thinking along these lines, I found myself wondering just what might be the real name of the lady known locally as Elizabeth Meredith.
She asked, "Do you know him, darling?"
I shrugged. "Not under that name. Do you?"
"No, but I can tell just by looking that he's not a very nice man. In fact, he scares hell out of me. Darling, what are we going to do?"
I still had no answer to that question, and if I'd had one I wouldn't have confided it to her. I asked, not because it mattered, but because I'd be expected to be concerned about it, "What about the item I gave you to take care of?"
"It's safe. They didn't get it. They must think the one the dog was wearing is the right one."
"Where is it safe?" I asked.
She hesitated. "I don't think I'll tell you right now. I mean, that way, if things get tough, you can say quite honestly that you don't know."
"Thanks," I said. "That's sweet of you. But suppose we get separated; how do I find it?"
"You'll find it," she said cryptically, smiling a bit. "You'll need some help, but you'll find it."
"Sure."
I didn't press it. Except for the material I'd picked up this morning, which might or might not be genuine, the collar wasn't worth much to anyone. Certainly, it had served my purpose: it had brought me within reach of the man I'd come to Alaska to find-not under the most favorable circumstances, granted, but still within reach.
I was no longer in the dog-collar business, and if anyone really yearned for the lousy strap, I could probably locate it, assuming that she'd really hidden it where she'd hinted. There was, after all, only one place she'd been where I, a man, would need help to find it: the room marked LADIES, back at the filling station.
The woman up front looked in on us once more, giving us a careful scrutiny this time to make sure we hadn't changed positions suspiciously, or tampered with our bonds. I lay there, trying to figure things out. The timing was important. The ropes around my wrists and ankles posed no real problem, since a trick belt with a sharp-edged buckle-well, sharp if you know how to get at it-is part of the standard equipment. The question was whether to use it now or wait.
I decided to wait. At the moment, the risk of detection was too great, and according to Libby's census, the odds were five to one against me, six to one if I counted Libby herself, and there was no good reason not to. It seemed better to let the situation sort itself out a little. Maybe I could somehow, eventually, separate my bull from the cows and steers.
The truck slowed down suddenly, made a sharp left turn, and started bumping over the ruts of a very rough road, little more than a track by the feel of it, leading away from the highway.
"What do you see?" I asked Libby.
"Just trees," she said. "We seem to be in some kind of mountains. The car ahead is stopping in a little clearing. That's the Lincoln. There are some horses, four of them."
"Horses?" I said. "I didn't know they used horses up here. I thought they all traveled by bush plane and dog sled."
The truck stopped. The camper door opened. Somebody reached in, grabbed me under the armpits, dragged me out, and stood me on my feet to face a tall, solidly built man dressed for the woods in boots, wool pants, a heavy lumberman's coat, and a cap-the kind with earflaps-of the same reddish plaid material. Among all this rugged clothing, the little black Hitler moustache and the gold-rimmed glasses looked lost and effeminate.
29
I DIDN'T LOOK AT HIM TOO HARD or too long. There's a kind of telepathic recognition that sometimes passes between people in our line of work. Maybe a couple of artists occasionally feel the same odd little tingle of kinship when they meet, or a couple of auto salesmen. I wouldn't know about that.
I only know that I can often spot one of my fellow specialists, even at a distance; and I didn't want Holz to spot me or guess my real mission. As long as he thought I was just a dim-witted counterespionage type, I was much more likely to keep on living.
He looked me over for just a moment, giving nothing away; then he indicated a nearby log for the man behind me to park me on. Libby was hauled out of the camper and set down beside me. She tossed some displaced hair out of her eyes and shifted position uneasily.
"He might have picked a drier log," she murmured.
"I don't think Mr. Wood spends a great deal of time worrying about preserving the seats of our pants. Quite the contrary," I said, with a meaningful look toward the horses. "I don't know where he intends to take us, or why, but how are you at riding with your hands tied behind you?"
She said, "Ugh. If there's any animal more objectionable than a dog, it's a horse, if only because it's bigger and stupider."
I refrained from making a face at her, but I felt like it. She was back on her antilivestock kick and to hell with her. Probably it would turn out that she'd taken the equestrienne gold medal at the last Olympics. As for me, I've held down a saddle or two in my time, but I'm still the kind of rider who requires some cooperation from the horse.
The little clearing was fairly crowded. The Ford delivery job had pulled up behind the camper. Ahead a ways was the Lincoln, the four-horse herd, and, half hidden in the brush at the end of the opening, another sedan with a big cattle trailer hitched on behind. I saw the younger man, the citified one with galoshes, who'd given me the password in Beaver Creek-the one who'd just dragged me out of the camper-head that way on some unknown assignment.
Holz had attacked the Lincoln. Helped by the younger woman, now without her plastic covering, he was dragging horse gear and other equipment out of the rear seat and trunk. I noted four scabbarded rifles, one for each horse. Two were strictly nothing-guns. They were the movie cowboy, bang-bang rifles; the short, flat little lever-action carbines that, although handy to slip under your leg when riding, don't have much more range or accuracy than a good revolver.
The other two I couldn't make out in detail since their scabbards were equipped
with leather hoods for full protection, but they were obviously longer and heavier, real big-game guns, bolt action rifles with telescopic sights, suitable for serious marksmanship if properly assembled and prepared. Since they were presumably Holz's guns, I thought they'd probably be tuned pretty well. Maybe one was even the weapon intended for his next assignment, down in the Lower Forty-Eight, right after election-time-the date I was supposed to prevent him from keeping.
The old woman, the one I'd seen riding in the Lincoln the day before, wasn't visible anywhere. Her companion, the older man, was leaning against the truck watching over Libby and me. He had no weapon out, but there was a hint of armament under the armpit of his civilized overcoat; not the most convenient place in the world, but plenty available enough under the circumstances.
After Holz and the lady in the green pants had worked between the Lincoln and the horses for a while, the galoshes gent came out of the brush beyond, a changed man. Now instead of city shoes with rubber protection, he was wearing well-worn cowboy boots. There was also a pair of greasy jeans, a faded denim jacket that reminded me of Pat Bellman, who'd favored a similar garment, and a wide-brimmed hat that had real character, obviously seasoned by years of Alaska weather and a multitude of campfires. Even his walk had changed to the rolling gait of the horseman, and he was lugging a saddle with each hand. Well, he'd never made a very convincing city slicker.
He moved across the clearing to where Holz was now adjusting the cinch of a bony-looking chestnut gelding.
"All right, Mr. Wood," I heard him say. "I'll take care of this."
I saw Holz glance my way and I heard his voice: "Better lengthen the stirrups on the little mare. The man has long legs."
"So his knees bump his chin today, who cares? Tomorrow he'll never feel it."
"Lengthen them, Jack."
"Sure, Mr. Wood."
It was a revealing exchange, in more ways than one. I watched Holz come across the clearing toward us, accompanied by the unattractive female in the tight pants. He passed some sort of signal to the man guarding us, who walked back to the lab van and returned with the older woman: a sturdy, gray-haired lady in a tweed skirt, cotton blouse, and cardigan sweater. She stuffed a small automatic pistol into the pocket of her skirt as she came up.
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