The Annihilators

by Donald Hamilton

  Perhaps the face looked a bit pale and shiny, perhaps the mouth looked a bit swollen, perhaps there was a bruise on the temple, but in the fading light, with all that hair, it was hard to be sure. Perhaps she moved just a bit awkwardly, as if there were places that hurt, and certainly there was a stony look in her eyes as she passed without acknowledging our presence in any way; but it was clear from the undamaged condition of her clothes and her own lack of conspicuous injuries that she had undressed for the man obediently and done what was required, and allowed to be done to her what was required. She’d satisfied Barbera’s demands well enough that he had not felt compelled to abuse her further. Then, given permission, she’d cleaned herself up and dressed herself with care; and anybody who wanted a poor whimpering little rape victim for a pet could just go look elsewhere.

  We watched the guards step back to let her go by. She. disappeared into the fourth little doorway from the far end. I drew a long breath and moved back into my assigned chamber, the seventh and last, without looking at my assigned roommate. I sat down on my thin sleeping-pad with my back to the wall and wished, for the first time in a long time, that I had a pipe to smoke. After all, there were worse things than emphysema.

  After a while I said, “Ten pieces of silver was the going rate two thousand years ago, but I hope you allowed for inflation.”

  Frances was hardly visible at the other side of the little room. She didn’t react to my needling. She said, “You knew at the cenote, at lunch, what I was going to do. What was going to happen.”

  “Yes, sweetheart. As an actress, you’re a hell of an archaeologist. And I’m not going to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Where I hid the gun. That’s why they put you in here with me, isn’t it? To keep an eye on me as before; and to find out where I hid the revolver and ammo you’d told them I had. A missing firearm can make people awfully nervous in a situation like this.”

  “You were in there with the Putnams for quite a while.” Her voice even. “Did you tell them about me, about what I’d done?”

  “No,” I said. “I warned them against trusting certain people around here including you, that’s all. One thing we don’t need is a lynching party. What the hell do you think you’re doing, Dillman? What does Montano have on you that gives him the power to order you around and slap you around as he pleases? Your passion for archaeology can’t be all that compulsive; you can’t be doing all this just to preserve your lousy dig.”

  She said, “You’re really a pretty stupid man, aren’t you, darling?”

  I said, “Goody, does the fact that she’s got around to insulting me indicate that she’s going to break down and tell me the truth I’ve been pleading for for a week?”

  She said, “Goddamn you, Sam, look at me! Don’t you have any respect for me at all? Don’t you know me well enough by now to know there’s only one thing that could have forced me to do the things I’ve done? Can you really see me acting like this for money, or for a political cause, or even for my career—the Copalque excavations are important to me, certainly, but not that important! Not important enough for me to betray a lot of people who trusted me… She drew a deep and uneven breath. “Sam, when a married woman does strange and desperate and inexplicable things, what’s the usual answer?”

  I looked at the pale shape of her face in the growing dusk and realized how obtuse I’d been. “Your little girl, the one in the wheelchair?”

  “I don’t have any little girl, in or out of a wheelchair. That was just another of my lousy lies, to explain my concern for Ricardo Jimenez.”

  So much for the great detective. I guess when I studied the report on Frances Ransome Dillman I’d been looking for things that were there, not for things that weren’t there, like a child she’d talked about but never had.

  “So what’s left, darling?” Her voice was insistent. “You really ought to be able to figure it out by now.”

  I said carefully, “I thought your husband was attending an important conference at Canyon de Chelly.”

  “That’s what you were supposed to think,” Frances said. “That’s what everybody was supposed to think. Archie had one of his inspirations, something about the cave and the calendar wheel; and he just had to dash down here—he only planned to take an extended weekend—to recheck some inscriptions we’d only examined superficially. He didn’t tell anybody but me because he didn’t want to make his brainstorm seem too important in case it turned out to be nonproductive. The next thing I knew, there was an envelope in the mailbox with a little lump in it. I thought it was some kind of advertising, you know, where they send you a tiny pencil or something as a gesture of good will. When I opened it, I found a note.” She was silent for a moment, clearly projecting the memorized message on the screen of her mind. She licked her lips and said, “It read: I AM BEING HELD PRISONER. TELL NOBODY. YOU WILL RECEIVE INSTRUCTIONS. PLEASE OBEY EXACTLY, REPEAT, EXACTLY, OR THEY WILL KILL ME. MY LIFE IS IN YOUR HANDS. I LOVE YOU. ARCHIE.”

  Again there was silence in our little artificial cave. I found myself trying to assemble in my mind the jigsaw puzzle that was the unseen Archibald Dillman: the absentminded professor who couldn’t find his glasses on his nose, the gentle lover, the coward. Because only a coward would put “I love you” in a ransom note. Or “My life is in your hands.” Those sentences had not been dictated by Montano, although he’d undoubtedly been glad to have them. They were the frightened husband reminding the loyal, loving wife of the duty she owed him, giving her no choice whatever because he was terrified for his life and wanted her to take no chances at all, no matter what the cost to her. They left her no alternative but total obedience to the kidnapers’ demands.

  “And the enclosure?” I asked.

  She licked her lips. “A small plastic bag. There was a little scrap of… of flesh in it, all bloody. Dried, of course. I had to wash it off before I could identify it.” She swallowed hard. “It was a human earlobe.”

  Outside I heard a Jeep drive up. I was glad of the excuse to move to the chamber opening. Looking down from our minor elevation, I saw the vehicle come to a halt in front of the Chapel, in which our captors had now established their headquarters. I recognized Colonel Ramiro Sanchez in the bounce of the headlights before they were turned off. There were four uniformed men with him.

  That made it ten men and two officers total, I reflected, wondering if that was more than Putnam was prepared to handle with the armaments he’d requested. The trouble was, the way he was feeling at the moment, after what had been done to Gloria Jean, he’d probably be willing to charge the hordes of Attila the Hun with an aerosol can of roach killer. I had to hope he was professional enough not to let his military judgment be influenced by his personal feelings.

  “Sanchez is back,” I said, returning to sit on my rudimentary bed. Frances didn’t speak. I said, “So you covered your husband’s continued absence with the story that he was attending an important conference. And you didn’t confide the truth to anybody. Then your instructions came: You were to include Ricardo Jimenez in your tour group and make sure he entered Costa Verde unsuspected. Then you got further instructions: Get acquainted with me, seduce me, and find out if I was a danger to their plans. But finally Montano’s bandit instincts got the better of him, and he decided to pull a wholesale abduction with your assistance. This time you balked, and he had to knock you around a bit before you’d agree to lead our whole group into the dead-fall. But in the end you did that, too.”

  She nodded. Her voice was dull when she spoke: “It wasn’t… wasn’t because of the way he hurt and humiliated me, Sam. I could have stood that. But don’t you understand—you must understand—I’d done so much already. I’d already sacrificed my self-respect and my conscience to keep Archie alive. I just couldn’t waste all that by refusing this last request.”

  “Where’s your husband now?”

  “With Montano and his so-called Army of Liberation. Somewhere not too far from here, wherever t
heir main hideout is located.”

  I drew a long breath. “Is there anything you won’t do for this Archie of yours, Dillman?”

  Her voice came out of the gathering darkness. “No, Sam. Not anything. Not now, after all that’s happened. I have to see it through, now. Maybe… maybe at the beginning, if I’d known what I’d have to do, what they’d be asking of me, all the awful things they’d be asking of me…”

  I said dryly, “Awful things like sleeping with me.”

  I thought I saw her smile faintly in the gloom. “Awful things like sleeping with you, of course.” I heard her draw a long breath, like a sigh. “As I just said, maybe if I’d known from the start how it would be, I could have refused and… and let it happen, let him die. But not now. I have too big an investment in it now. I’ve paid too much for it. I couldn’t let it all go for nothing, everything I’ve done to save him. And he is my husband and I do love him dearly. No, Sam, I don’t think there’s any dirty thing in the world I wouldn’t do to get him back unharmed…”

  She was interrupted by the sound of a loud voice down at the headquarters temple. Somebody was really catching hell down there in machine-gun Spanish. I couldn’t make out the words that were being yelled, but they were obviously blasphemous and derogatory and should have scorched the hair and shriveled the testicles of the person at whom they were aimed. Then a man, just a dark shape down there, went hurrying across the clearing to the big pyramid and started scrambling hastily up toward the Citadel on top.

  A group of three figures, one with a light, moving more deliberately, started climbing the Nunnery slope toward us. As they came closer, I recognized Sanchez, with escort. He headed directly for the Putnams’ cell and, when he reached it, dismissed the two guards stationed there and went inside. Presently he came out and marched along the row of little doorways to our opening and aimed his electric lantern toward me, briefly, and then toward Frances.

  He spoke to her in formal tones: “I have come to apologize, señora, for what was done in my absence. I have already presented my profound regrets and apologies to the young lady chiefly concerned, and to her husband. Now I am addressing you as the director of this tour. What was done was not done with my knowledge or by my authority. The so-called officer who perpetrated the atrocity will spend the night on sentry duty on top of the pyramid while I consider what further disciplinary action to take. We are not animals, señora, we are men fighting for the liberation of our country.”

  Frances said, “Sometimes it’s a little hard to tell the difference, Colonel.”

  “I have made my apology,” he said stiffly. “And I assure you there will be no further molestation of the ladies. I apologize further for the fact that food and water have not yet been made available; they are being brought now. Sanitary facilities, unfortunately crude but I hope adequate, will be arranged on the far side of the building. There will be opportunity during the day for bathing and washing clothes. Later I will discuss the details with you, as the representative of the group.”

  Standing in the doorway, he was speaking loudly enough that his words undoubtedly carried to the other cells down the line, as he skillfully laid the groundwork for future consultations.

  “As you wish, Colonel,” Frances said.

  He went on, “I will let you know the camp rules I expect your people to obey. You will have the opportunity to protest any that you feel will cause undue hardship or inconvenience. We do not intend that you should suffer while we all wait here. If there is anything further I can do for your comfort, please inform me. I am not a harsh man.” He glanced at me briefly. “That is to say, I am not a harsh man unless I am provoked. But if you and your people cooperate in a reasonable manner, señora, I think you will find me reasonable also. And again, my apology for the shameful incident that took place in my absence.”

  He turned smartly and marched away, a clever man. Having earlier isolated me from the group, he was now announcing to the rest that they had nothing whatever to fear if they only behaved themselves, since their camp commandant was a fine, compassionate fellow who only shot people occasionally.

  24

  There are times in practically every operation when things come to a tired halt and there’s nothing to do but wait patiently for them to get moving again. Not that this was an official operation, aside from the Bultman angle that would have to wait until I had more information and was free to act on it, but the principle was the same.

  After a few days in Labal it seemed as if we’d always been there, living in our row of doorless cubicles in the ancient ruin raised a little above the clearing and the jungle. There were sunny days and cloudy days and sometimes windy days. There were no rainy days, because this was the dry season. We ate the simple food that was brought to us and went around the ends of the Nunnery to dispose of the byproducts in the primitive fresh-air toilets that had been constructed for us—the toilet paper provided was the usual Latin-American variety noted for its total slick non-absorbency. We bathed (in bathing suits, modestly) in the cool water of the cenote and washed our clothes there, under guard, of course.

  To my surprise, that liberated modern career woman, Dr. Frances Dillman, insisted on playing the old-fashioned feminine role and doing my laundry as well as her own. Perhaps she was impressing our captors with the intimacy of our relationship, or perhaps it was a simple gesture of defiance: If the other members of the group wanted to assume that we were lovers simply because we’d been stuck into the same cell, she’d wash out my lousy shorts and shirts in loving wifely fashion and give them all a real treat, the mouthy old gossips.

  Or perhaps it was a gesture of apology because, as a matter of fact, ironically, we were no longer lovers now that we were sleeping in the same little room and it would have been easy. It was definitely not my idea. After a couple of nights of purity appropriate to the changed circumstances, I found myself having a perfectly normal male reaction to the presence of an attractive and already quite familiar female body in the darkness a mere six feet away from me. I moved that way hopefully to see if something could be done about it; but when she felt my touch she drew away. After a moment she sat up to face me. I could just make her out in the darkness. She was sleeping in a shirt and her legs were bare.

  “I can’t, Sam,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, but I simply can’t, not like this, not with everybody watching us all day and wondering how long it took me to take pity on your masculine needs and betray my husband; and how often we’re doing it now. I want to be able to wash your dirty laundry and look them all in the eyes, knowing that they’re all wrong in their dirty imaginings; and the fact that I’d already been unfaithful to Archie, with you, before we ever got here, is quite irrelevant. I don’t know why, but that’s the way it is.” She reached out and touched my face, with her fingertips. “Please? I know you can… persuade me if you really try. I’m not an iron woman. But please don’t try; and I’ll be as unprovocative and unsexy as I can. I know it’s a lot to ask, my dear, with the two of us cooped up together like this, but I’d really rather not, if you can stand it.” Then she laughed ruefully. “That sounds as if I thought I was irresistible, doesn’t it?”

  “You are,” I said, “but I’ll try to resist you anyway, since you ask so nicely.”

  It was a rather touching example of feminine irrationality, if you wanted to look at it one way. After all, by any logical standard, Professor Archibald Dillman had already been quite thoroughly betrayed by us, so what further harm could we do him now? Of course there were other ways of looking at it that made it seem not quite so touching; but there was nothing to be gained by confronting her with those. It was no time for confrontations. A low profile had been prescribed, by me. If I didn’t take my own medicine, who would?

  So we lived in chastity, with considerable self-control required on my part if not on hers. We ignored the knowing glances that were sent our way, particularly by the Wilders, who resented me bitterly, considering me—or pretending to consider me—the c
ause of all their troubles. There’s never been a loud-mouth yet who could conceive that he could possibly have got himself slugged in his big loud mouth through any fault of his own. Under other circumstances, I would have felt sorry for the man with his smashed and swollen lips and the gaping emptiness behind them where much of the dental equipment in front had been destroyed. He had a hard time eating and great difficulty in making himself understood, lisping almost unintelligibly; but what he lisped was either obscene or threatening or complaining, so my sympathy soon faded.

  His wife also complained, of constant headaches. She was heard to announce that it was a pity, that I, responsible for everybody’s sufferings, hadn’t been shot instead of Miranda Matson. She had further expressed the loud opinion that any decent woman—any decent woman, mind you—would have died before allowing herself, as Frances had done in such a docile fashion, to be coerced in accepting such a shamefully compromising situation, particularly one involving a despicable creature like me. It was odd. They’d seemed like perfectly ordinary if not very interesting people until the pressure came on. I couldn’t help wondering how many other perfectly ordinary people had that much vitriol—not to mention that much stupidity—penned up inside them.

  I didn’t take much stock in her headaches. She seemed to negotiate the Nunnery slopes without dizziness, she ate well and had no apparent trouble keeping it all down—the symptoms of concussion were nonexistent. But why should her husband get all the sympathy when she had suffered cruel violence also?

  I didn’t forget my primary duty; and gradually I worked out a few possible, if rather ambitious, scenarios—all they involved was employing my superhuman strength and diabolical cleverness to dispose of three or four armed men in total silence some convenient night. Nothing to it.