The Vanishers

by Donald Hamilton

  “Not unless you want me to tell you. The reason I called is that, being without wheels, they’re going to need a lift out of here. A discreet lift out of here, if you know what I mean. They’re waiting for you in our hotel room. Haparanda. Stadshotellet. Room 217. Got it?”

  She repeated it mechanically: “Haparanda. Stadshotellet. Room 217.”

  I said, “There will be a Do Not Disturb sign on the door, however, that reads in Swedish. I mean, they are very tired and need their rest.”

  In the office the old man was shuffling papers on his desk. Astrid was again silent for several seconds. “Both of them, Matt? Was that necessary?” There was anger in the question. When I didn’t answer, she said, “I was afraid you would decide to interfere with our plans. After all, there is some American involvement that could give you an interest. That is just the point of our demonstration. Peaceful Sweden does not wish to be dragged into America’s warlike troubles.”

  “Save the oratory for the suckers,” I said. “I don’t think peaceful Sweden is something you brood about during the long northern nights, sweetheart.”

  “Perhaps not, but I thought, under the circumstances, you might receive orders to intervene, in your usual brutal fashion. Karl and Greta were merely instructed to stop you and hold you until it is over.”

  I said, “That wasn’t very bright, a couple of untrained kids like that. And didn’t it occur to you that Greta, after what had been done to her face, might have some notions of retaliating involving, say, an edged implement and my face. You should see the shiv she was packing, just for me. Well, actually for Joel, but she was happy to settle for a substitute, just so she got to whittle on somebody.”

  “I did not know. She… they were available, so I used them.”

  “Anyway, they’re here, and they won’t be leaving under their own power. You’d better have somebody fetch them away inconspicuously.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then they’ll eventually go out of here publicly, if you know what I mean, and I’m afraid there’ll be something of a fuss that could interfere with your plans.”

  “Your plans could also be interfered with if the matter becomes public.”

  “Sure. But you can probably scrounge up the manpower locally to cover things up and I can’t, which puts it up to you.”

  After a pause, she said, “I suppose you are right. Very well, I will see to it… Matt, I am sorry. Sending them was a miscalculation on my part. What about the little blonde girl?”

  “Aside from being sicky to her tummy, she contributed nothing to the fracas either way. But I’m still supposed to be looking after her for the sake of the family, so she goes with me.”

  “Is that the only reason you take her with you?” I heard a soft laugh in the phone. “I am still jealous, darling.”

  “You say such nice things,” I said. “I wish there were something practical we could do about your jealousy. But I don’t suppose we’d better meet again. Even if it could be managed, it wouldn’t be a very good idea, for a lot of reasons—reasons that you know as well as I do. Goodbye, Astrid.”

  “It is too bad; but you’re right, of course. Good-bye, my dear.”

  You hit them every now and then in the business, the man-woman relationships that might have worked out if the world were a different place and the two of you were different people with different loyalties, but it isn’t and you aren’t. So you stick some more adhesive tape on your poor fractured heart, which is pretty well plastered already, and carry on bravely. Love, who needs it?

  I gave the phone back to the old gent behind the desk and thanked him, seeing nothing in his expression to indicate that he’d heard anything unusual. I told him that my wife and I were going out and probably wouldn’t be back until quite late, but first we were retrieving our car, which no longer operated, and, if he did not mind, putting it into the hotel parking area. We had made arrangements to use another; we’d have the crippled vehicle picked up in the morning. How much of this got through, what with my lousy Swedish and his lousy English, I didn’t know; but a certain amount of money, over and above the telephone charges, changed hands, the universal language, and he seemed satisfied.

  It took us half an hour to fetch the Golf from the side of the highway where we’d left it and park it where it would cause no official comment, at least for the time being. We spent a little more time having the tank of our commandeered vehicle filled with soppa, as the Swedes refer to gasoline when they’re being informal. Soup, to you. Finally we were on the road once more, in the maroon 4WD Audi, which, according to the manual in the glove compartment, had power to all the wheels all the time; but if you had some particularly large stumps to pull, there were a couple of differentials you could lock for additional traction. The upholstery was very plushy, and practically everything was either electric or hydraulic, including the windows, the sunroof, the brakes, and the steering. A real luxury heap, in spite of the go-anywhere drive train.

  Karin spoke at last: “You have said nothing, Matt.”

  “About what?”

  “You know. About what… what I did back there in Haparanda.”

  “What’s to say?” I shrugged. “If you want, I’ll ask what happened to the idea that we were just going to lure those two kids into the room and have you get the drop of them while they were concentrating on me, and maybe put a few questions to them, before we tied them up and gagged them and drove off in their car.”

  I heard her swallow hard, sitting beside me in the silent and comfortable sedan rolling smoothly through the northern forest along Sweden’s Highway E4.

  “I… She took me by surprise with that knife; I had to shoot, or she would have stabbed you. Then I just… went a little crazy, I think.”

  “Sure. Gun-happy, we call it.” I shrugged. “It’s one of the two normal beginner reactions.”

  Karin licked her lips. “And the other?”

  “Just when he’s needed most, when people are counting on him, the tender-hearted novice drops the gun and bursts into tears saying he can’t possibly be expected to shoot a fellow human being, can he? Or she?”

  “You are very callous.”

  I said, “For obvious reasons, I prefer your response. You did fine. Maybe you overdid it a bit, but you hit them, and you didn’t hit me. Don’t sweat it.”

  After a moment, she said, “One of these days I really must learn all these Americanisms. ‘Don’t sweat it.’ I will try to remember that… What did she say?”

  “Who, Astrid?” When Karin nodded, I said, “She was upset but not very. She’s a pro like me, remember? Losses are expected in our line of work.”

  “Did you do as I asked?”

  “I took all the credit, if that’s what you mean,” I said. “It wasn’t hard. She took for granted that I’d been the one who’d dealt with them. I said that your only contributions to the struggle were a few whimpers and a little vomit.”

  Karin said resentfully, “You did not have to make me sound quite so… so disgusting!” Then she laughed. “I am sorry. You did just right. We do not want to change what you would probably call her image of me. Her contemptuous image of me. I told you, there are plans; but if she should begin to suspect that I am not quite as useless, quite as ineffectual, as I have made myself seem, she might look too closely at… at certain things with which I was involved before I drove away with you. Do you understand?”

  “More or less,” I said. I left it there, and there was silence between us for a while.

  At last she said, “You know what I have to ask you. You heard what they said.”

  “H-Hour is tomorrow morning. That’s sooner than you expected, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, they must have advanced the demonstration date. I thought there was still plenty of time; but if I am to be there, I must go tonight.”

  “And you’d like me to pass up my own mission and give you a hand with yours?”

  “I will still help you as we planned, afterwards. I promis
e! And there is no specific time for you to do what you do at Lysaniemi; another day or two will not hurt; am I not correct? But I must be there at Laxfors early tomorrow when they made their protest, I must!”

  I hesitated, but she was perfectly right. Lysaniemi could wait; Laxfors couldn’t. And although I had no directive on the subject, if a certain lady with Soviet interests at heart was afraid I might interfere because American interests were involved, I’d better at least take a look to determine what the hell was going on up there at Salmon Falls on the Salmon River.

  “You’ve got yourself a bodyguard, or whatever the hell my function is supposed to be,” I said. “But maybe you’d better let me handle the shooting end from now on; we don’t want to depopulate the entire north of Sweden.”

  24

  They were starting to move in on Laxfors a day early. Apparently they’d decided to make a pilgrimage of it: Fredsmarschen, some of the signs read, the Peace March. There weren’t many signs, however; it was a long way to hike carrying a big placard, although I saw a couple being lugged that weren’t very favorable to the U.S.A. They were heading north in scattered groups with an occasional independent character striding along purposefully alone. These were the rugged ones who were willing to spend a chilly night in the open. Presumably the more delicate idealists would come up the road by car in the morning to join the demonstration.

  Although the march could hardly be a secret to the government, we saw no policemen. Presumably the authorities were playing it smart, knowing that there’s nothing like a bunch of tough, armed, glowering cops to plant thoughts of riot where none grew before. The marchers were mostly young people, the males and females mostly indistinguishable in boots, durable dark pants, and sturdy coats or sweaters; but the weather had cleared, and Scandinavians tend to strip at the first rare gleam of sunshine, so there were quite a few in hiking shorts and lederhosen. It wasn’t really that warm, and their bare knees looked red and chapped.

  There was almost always, of course, a ryggsäck. I couldn’t help wondering which of these little backpacks contained only the marcher’s food, and a spare pair of socks and some raingear, and perhaps a tarp and blanket; and which also held an incendiary grenade or two. SVAB HG (E) Typ7F, twenty-five to the case, one case missing from stock, somewhere. I wondered also how many of these pacifist pilgrims were aware that violence was intended. Mostly they looked like nice enough kids, without the cruel fanatic gleam in their eyes that had characterized Karl and Greta.

  We made our way past the straggling protest parade; at last the pavement was empty ahead. Presently the scraggly northern forest died away and we found ourselves in a different kind of country. This was the open Arctic landscape I remembered from my last visit: large vistas of low brushy vegetation broken by scattered islands of gnarled trees clinging to the areas of higher and drier ground, like palmy atolls in a tropical sea, except that they weren’t palms and this wasn’t the tropics. The sodden earth was drained by many little brown brooks and rivulets and, of course, by the Laxfors itself, the Salmon River. It was a rocky stream of moderate size. The road ran along the west bank.

  We drove a considerable distance; at last a bridge took us over to the east bank, warning us that we were getting close to the Laxfors installation. I parked so we could study Karin’s map. The Swedes go in for a lot of cross-country hiking; in fact, the schools teach a course, mandatory I believe, in orientation, where the students have to learn to find their way on foot over some pretty wild terrain, not a bad idea. To go with this obsession with the boonies, Sweden produces a lot of good topographical maps, readily available.

  Karin’s was an old one, printed before the Laxfors facility had been thought of. I didn’t know whether she was using an obsolete map to save money, or whether an updated version of this particular sheet was unavailable now for reasons of security. The age didn’t really matter, because the basic geography indicated by the contours wasn’t likely to have changed much, and she’d drawn in the new roads, and the boundaries of the fenced area, very neatly, in pencil. Inside this perimeter, shaded blocks represented the buildings. There were three rectangles, perhaps machine shops, storage sheds, or living quarters. They were not labeled, but the largest structure was a carefully drawn octagon of considerable size marked, in block printing: MÖRKRUM. I wondered what scientific reason there could be for the odd shape of the so-called Darkroom, but science is not my specialty.

  The building was located not too far from the western fence of the headquarters area, which was not very big. To the north was a much larger fenced area, blank on the map, marked only: ANTENN. Karin had made no attempt to sketch in the individual antenna masts or towers. I wondered where she’d obtained her information and how accurate it was; but I had a hunch it could be trusted.

  “Well, where do you think we should make our stakeout, Matt? That is the proper term, is it not, stakeout?” Karin frowned at the map. “How about that ridge to the west, if it has not too many trees? It is a distance from the fence, but it seems to be the only place from which we will be able to get a satisfactory view.”

  I said, “That’s what I’m afraid of. If it’s the only place from which to watch the show, who else are we going to find up there, watching the show?”

  “There is really not much choice. Do you have an alternative to suggest?”

  “No, but we can be careful making our approach, and make it early. It’s easy from the south; so let’s not go that way. I think we can hike clear around that spread of antennas to the north before dark. We’ll spend a cold damn’ night up on that ridge, but we’ll be in the right position in the morning, ready to spot anybody else who decides to sneak up there to see the fun.”

  She sighed. “You are the expert. We will do it your way, no matter how uncomfortable it is.” She put her finger on the map. “I think this little road, here, would be a good place to leave the auto…”

  At dusk, I was sitting on the ridge watching the lights come on all over the Laxfors installation, which was laid out before me. Behind me, Karin slept wrapped in a couple of blankets we’d picked up in the course of our shopping spree in Oulu, back in Finland. The fenced area below me was shaped like a pear, a geometrical pear. I was looking at the small end, and could see all the way across it from fence to chain-link fence. This area was well lighted, unlike the large antenna field that extended off to my left, the fat end of the pear. It displayed few lights except high up on the tall antenna masts and at the tops of the seven peculiar-looking black towers, chunky and rather low, that we’d got a good look at on our way in. Not that it had helped much, since neither of us knew enough electronics to guess what function they might serve.

  The place seemed to have no defenses except for the fence itself and the distant gatehouse where the road entered the premises from the east. There was a lighted window in the little shack, but I couldn’t make out the watchman inside without binoculars; however, we’d seen him step out, earlier, to admit a couple of cars. We’d made a careful survey with the glasses that we’d also picked up in Oulu, while we still had daylight, and determined that he was the only visible security personnel—which didn’t mean there weren’t concealed batteries of electronic eyes watching every square inch of the area; and a room full of TV-type monitors somewhere; and a hidden, armed protective force ready to spring into action the instant something that shouldn’t be there showed on one of the screens.

  But to look at, it was a very peaceful scene. The three rectangular buildings I’d seen on Karin’s topo map formed an open square, not uncommon in the snowy north, where farmhouses, barns, and sheds are often grouped around a courtyard for shelter and convenience when the white stuff gets ass-high to a tall giraffe, to quote an old hunting guide of my acquaintance. This court faced south, and I could look into it at an angle. There had been some foot traffic over there earlier, both male and female, but I hadn’t seen any movement recently. However, the windows of the nearest of the three buildings, apparently a residence or dorm
itory, were one hundred percent lighted on the first floor and fifty percent on the second.

  That could all have been part of any government facility. It was the Mörkrum that made the place unique. The great octagon had looked curious enough on Karin’s map; it looked even weirder in the flesh, so to speak. It was quite obviously a roof—the roof and part of the topmost story of a tall building sunk into the ground. It looked as if somebody had taken one of those Holiday Inn towers and dug a hole and buried it, all except the upper ten feet. I don’t know how it managed to convey the iceberg impression that there was a hell of a lot more below the surface than showed on top; but I found myself visualizing elevator shafts and emergency stairs leading down into the bowels of the earth. I couldn’t help wondering why, if they were going to make an underground facility, they hadn’t sunk it completely below the surface.

  The fact that what showed aboveground was painted dead black didn’t help to explain it, but suggested that there might have been a simple and non-photographic reason for the structure to be called the Darkroom. It was surrounded by what seemed to be a wide safety zone of neatly raked gravel that, in summer, would make an interesting contrast with the green grass, still winter-brown at this time of year, around the other buildings. There was a connecting concrete walk bordered by flower beds, which seemed kind of like putting window boxes on a Sherman tank, but the Scandinavians do insist on having their flowers during the short season that anything grows up there. I couldn’t see the doorway from where I sat; it was on the far side of the structure that faced the other buildings.

  Some hint of its function—at least it might have been a hint to someone with a better scientific background than mine—was given by the fact that a sizable rectangular shaft ran up each of the four sides I could see, and three of the ones I couldn’t see now but had glimpsed as we made our approach earlier; all except the wall of the octagon through which people entered the place.