I said, “No, no, you’ve got me all wrong, amigo. Although I’m usually a very modest guy, today I thought I’d do a little boasting to the boys. Showing off my trophies, so to speak. That .25 sleeve gun doesn’t count; it’s mine. I didn’t want you worrying about a hideout weapon. What you see is what you get. But those two automatics with the hush-tubes, which you’ll recognize, I took off your two characters in Oslo, Lindner and Harley. One of the .38s I took off your sneaky pal Joel after I’d shot him. The other, and the knife, I just got from your boy Crown, who you see in the rear seat of the car unharmed. And that big Browning HiPower I took off a couple of folks you don’t know, but you should; you have things in common. They don’t like me, either. Or didn’t. Unfortunately, they’re no longer with us.”
Bennett frowned. “I don’t understand what you’re driving at. Are you trying to frighten…”
I said, “The boys have probably been wondering why you had to use ten men to chase down one lonely little me. I’m just showing them that you were perfectly justified in taking every precaution. I’m clearly a very dangerous fellow. How many people have I killed and disarmed in the past week? Just count the guns. Move over, John Wayne, Wild Bill Hickok, here comes Helm. Obviously, you need to have a lot of manpower along when you go after a lethal character like me. Hell, I might hurt you if you tried to track me down all by yourself. Better to lose a few expendable agents, right? Like Harley and Joel, both dead trying to rid you of that nasty character called Helm…”
“Disarm him!” Bennett snapped.
He was realizing, belatedly, that he’d let me talk too long. The boys were listening too carefully. In any organization like ours, legends grow about the senior operatives who manage to survive, passed along in whispers to the new boys: Hey, that’s Barnett, who had to blow up his own boat on that Bahamas operation and almost went up with it. Or Fedder, or Rasmussen, or Helm. They weren’t going to switch sides because they’d heard a few interesting things about me; but they weren’t going to pass up a chance to study me in action, at least for a little, like young wolves learning from one of the old lobos they hope to replace eventually.
Bennett snapped. “Well, Bradford? I told you to take his gun!”
The dark young man addressed didn’t move. Nobody moved. I went on talking. I was in a rut, of course, employing the same needling tactics I’d used on the girl called Greta—just about the same that Karin had used to prod Astrid into disastrous action—but why change a winning, we hoped, game?
I said, “You’re right here in front of me, Bennett. Why don’t you take my gun? Come on, come on, all that’s required is a couple of long steps and a short reach. If you live long enough to reach.” I grimaced. “Isn’t it about time we settled this for good, amigo? You aren’t after me because I’m a defector; nobody believes that dumb story. You’re after me because you once had to make me a humiliating official apology after you’d made a particular damned fool of yourself. You also want me dead because later, when you were trying to hunt me down just like this, I trapped you neatly on a mountain road and threw you to an interrogation team that made you spill every last thing you knew about the folks with whom you were working at the time—rather unpatriotic people, as it happened, but they were your associates and you sold them very cheaply. And you particularly want to kill me because I saw you after the I-team was through with you, sitting on a little stool in your grubby skivvies with tears running down your face, pleading with me to let you live; and I was a damn’ fool; I did, one of the worst mistakes I ever… Ah, that’s better! Go for it, amigo! Reach for it. Shoot me down like a dog—if you think you can make it!”
I hadn’t been sure I could give him the idea: but his hand did move. Then it hesitated, and failed to complete the angry arc it had started that would sweep aside the ski jacket and bring out the gun that rested in a forward-slanting holster on his right hip, FBI fashion. It’s a good enough draw, if you’re sure your right hand will always be available to do the work. I prefer the gun in front of my left hip, where it can be reached with either hand, although it’s kind of a tricky, twisty maneuver with the left. Bennett drew a long breath and straightened up.
“Pretty obvious, Helm! A desperate last minute stratagem, trying to goad me into a ridiculous gun battle now that you’re caught…” As he said it, I saw him start to consider it seriously. I hadn’t believed it could be that easy. I mean, I’d thought I would have to spit on him or urinate on him to get him mad enough to accept the idea; but there it was in his head, full-grown. He cleared his throat. “On the other hand, as you say, it is about time we settled this for good.”
“What’s on your mind, amigo?”
I knew exactly the melodramatic plan, born of hatred, that had come into his mind, but I wanted him to be the one to say it.
He spoke contemptuously: “You seem to think that pile of firearms proves what a dangerous man you are! But how many of the owners of those guns did you meet honestly, face to face, Helm? If I know you, most of them were taken from behind or from ambush.”
I said, “Christ, this is real life, not a TV show! What am I supposed to do, stage a Wild West facedown every time some chair-bound moron like you sends a trigger-happy idiot after me?”
“Maybe you wouldn’t be so brave if you had to stand and face a pistol in the hand of a man who knew how to use it!”
He was full of it now, eager for it. It was his brainstorm, and he couldn’t wait to translate it into action. He was beginning to disturb me. This headlong rush towards a life-or-death confrontation was out of character. Well, perhaps he was good with that thing on his right hip, and, having read my dossier in Washington, knew that I was no split-second pistolero. The long-range rifle is what I do best. But there’s more to it than skill; and I’d faced a lot more guns than he had.
“A man like you?” I sneered. “Hell, there’ll never be a day when a desk-jockey in ice-cream pants could worry me! Face to face or back to back or any damn’ stupid way you want to set it up. If you really want to die today, I’ll be happy to oblige you.” I shrugged. “Of course, I’m not dumb enough not to know that you’ll have a sniper out in the brush to save your neck when the time comes, but I’ll play your game anyway. Your boy will have to shoot damn’ straight and fast to keep me from taking you down with me.”
“No sniper.” Bennett was being very honorable now. He looked around. “You heard me, men. This is between Helm and me, and I want no misguided help from anyone, is that understood?” He gave it a little time to sink in; then he said, “Very well. Now let’s see if we can agree on the details of this remarkably foolish business…”
Ten minutes later we were walking together side by side far out in the big muddy field; and I knew how the old-timers had felt stepping out into that dusty Western street… but of course they hadn’t. I’d done some research on the subject once, back when I was in another line of work, and I’d found no evidence anywhere that the formal walk-down of the Western movies had ever occurred in real life. It’s a myth, a latter-day invention like the buscadero belt of the legendary two-gun killer, and that holster-thong that every movie gunman ties around his thigh before heading for the big showdown. Real old-time Western holsters were flimsy things hanging loose on sagging cartridge belts, flapping wildly when the cowboy rode the kinks out of his bronco in the morning.
It took two hands to draw a gun back in those days, one to pull it and the other to hold down the ill-fitting leather pouch so you could wrench the weapon free. Just as I was going to have to use two hands here, because my fancy little secret-agent holster was made for clipping on conveniently and ditching quickly, not for staying solidly in place while the piece was being drawn. Well, at least it would get my left arm out of the way. I once knew a man who got excited, shooting to the left from a cross draw as I intended to, and blew off his own left elbow.
The ground was soggy underfoot; Bennett was getting his shiny leather boots muddy. It annoyed him and made him want to get the thi
ng over with.
“Pick a likely spot, Helm,” he said. “A man can’t always choose where he dies, but you have the privilege today, within limits.”
“I think we’re far enough from the cars,” I said, turning to face him. “Wave your hand at your boy when you’re ready.”
The signal to draw and fire was to be a blast on the Audi’s horn. The stillness was what got you, up here. I remembered it from last time. No birds singing, no squirrels chattering in the trees. Just an endless, cold, silent land under a low gray sky. The land of my ancestors, and I’d trade it in for sunny New Mexico any day in the week and twice on Sunday. Facing Bennett, I watched him raise his arm. It was a damn’ silly business, of course, but men have died in crazier ways in crazier places. But what was his edge, what had made him suddenly so brave and eager? Could he really be that good? If so, Mrs. Helm’s little boy was in real trouble. Then his arm came down, and I remembered the odd way his shirt had bunched under the armpit as he raised it, and I knew…
The man on the horn gave us a short three count, and sent the musical notes wavering through the Arctic air-well, the barely sub-Arctic air. I made the smart right pivot necessary to align my weapon with the target as it was holstered. Simultaneously, I put both hands to my left hip to grasp the holster with one and the butt of the .38 with the other. Yanking out the weapon, I fired as it came clear. Trick shooting, not seeing the sights, not seeing the gun, even; not seeing anything but the oval of the face that was my mark. Wishing the bullet home; and if you do it right, with enough concentration, you can toss a marble into the air and hit it with the pellet from a BB gun held at the hip. It seems like magic. Just how it works, nobody’s ever told me, but it works.
That is, it works if you’re in practice. I wasn’t. I hadn’t been to the Ranch for a while, and they don’t drill you on that kind of instinct shooting, anyway. They think one-handed marksmanship should have gone out with Aaron Burr, even though he did a pretty good job on Alexander Hamilton; and they want you to see the gun barrel, at least, if not the sights. I felt the muzzle blast sting my left hand, still holding down the empty holster. I felt the sharp recoil of the lightweight little monster of a weapon, and I knew I’d missed. Concentrate, you stupid bastard! You’ve got to THINK that slug home, remember?
But I couldn’t help being aware that Bennett’s hand had gone smoothly back for the FBI rig—he’d prepared himself, earlier, by taking off his jacket to expose it, just as I’d tucked in my sweater to make sure it didn’t get in my way. Bennett had swept the gun out of the holster and was swinging it up to bear, and his left hand was coming up to meet and steady it. He was good, all right, and there wasn’t a way in the world he could possibly miss me at this range with that firm two-hand grip, but he faltered…
He faltered, I realized, because my first bullet had just cracked past his ear. His ear; and I wasn’t supposed to be aiming that high! Didn’t I know that in a situation like this, with speed all-important, I was supposed to snap my shot at the largest target, the chest? All the rules said so. He’d counted on it, as he’d counted on the bullet-proof vest I’d spotted at the last moment—I’d noticed earlier that he’d seemed a little thick and clumsy in the body, but I’d just put it down to advancing years and a hearty appetite. It had been the secret source of his courage; but now he knew I’d caught on. Kevlar around the ribs wouldn’t protect him from a slug in the face. It shook his confidence, and his hand. His shot went wide.
The Smith & Wesson kicked back at me a second time, in the vicious way of a light weapon used with heavy loads. All the psychic target-finding instruments were calibrated now, and all the psychic connections were good; and something happened to Bennett’s jaw. A hair low. Wish the next one up a bit—and the hole appeared below the right eye, and one between the eyes, and one in the top of the head as he bowed forward slowly, like a tree. His dying hand squeezed off a second shot that came nowhere near me as he fell facedown in front of me. It’s only on TV that they’re hurled backwards across the landscape by the impact of one lousy little .38 slug, or even several of them.
I stood there for a long moment looking down at him, feeling some satisfaction as you always do upon the completion of a job, even a dirty one. I know, humanitarian regret is the fashion, but I’m not a very fashionable guy. Slowly, I became aware of the fact that nobody had come forward, either to compliment me or curse me. I saw that they were all gathered about something on the ground beside the distant Audi: a small, blue-clad figure. I realized where Bennett’s last, blind, wild shot had gone…
28
The death of a small blonde girl and an American bureaucrat in the far north of Sweden didn’t get as much publicity as I’d expected, perhaps due to the energetic efforts of Cousin Olaf, so my family mission wasn’t a total failure, even though I’d lost the subject I was supposed to be protecting. Even the Nordic peace demonstration that had escalated into incendiary violence was ignored by the U.S. papers I picked up in Chicago’s Midway Airport. They had their own big story.
I don’t know what it is about America. Hundreds die from AIDS yearly, and the number is rising. Fifty thousand get smashed up fatally on the nation’s highways. The cancer deaths number, I believe, in the millions. Hardly anyone cares. But just let a small bunch of people—well, fifty in this case—get grabbed by an even smaller bunch with guns and held for ransom, and you can hardly find the weather or the stock market reports because of the way this dreadful national crisis monopolizes our TV screens and the columns of our daily press. Perhaps I’m callous, but I can’t help feeling that the reaction is out of proportion to the stimulus. If you expend all your emotional resources on a mere fifty people, how can you cope with the multitudes starving in the Sahara?
I read up on it while riding on another plane, smaller than the monster flying machine that had brought me back across the ocean. I was now heading north over Wisconsin towards the upper peninsula of Michigan, a state which, in case you’re not up on your geography, is split in two by the Great Lakes. Why they didn’t give the upper chunk to Wisconsin, to which it’s attached, instead of to lower Michigan, to which it isn’t, I have no idea, but state lines often don’t make much sense. One of the papers I’d bought had an alphabetical list of the hostages. I found there three people I knew, at least by name: Janet Rebecca Beilstein, businesswoman; Arthur McGillivray Borden, government employee; Emil Franz Jernegan, tennis professional.
Except that the text explained that Emil Jemegan, the young athlete Beilstein was supposed to have run off with, was no longer with the others. He had been killed four days ago in a particularly brutal manner and left for the police to find. Actually, a phone call had let them know where to pick up the body, by a dirt road in western Pennsylvania. A multistate search in that part of the country had turned up no clues to where the other prisoners were being held. Obviously the kidnappers had taken Jernegan far from their hideout before executing him to let Washington know that they meant business and would kill again if driven to it—that they would slaughter the whole group if they were crowded by nosy policemen, or if their demands were not met.
Apparently, they were Central American revolutionaries who’d been impressed by the strange U.S. hostage syndrome. If it was so easy to turn the great nation to the north into a quivering mass of jelly, one would be foolish not to take advantage of the phenomenon, señor. Therefore, they had systematically abducted an adequate number of suitable victims, not so important nationally that their vanishing would trigger immediate and hysterical law-enforcement activity, but not so unimportant that their danger could be ignored. I noted that the specimen chosen for sacrifice, Jernegan, was the least prominent of the prisoners, an obscure young country club employee who’d been taken in the first place merely to provide cover for Mrs. Beilstein’s disappearance. Clearly they weren’t going to waste any of the more valuable hostages until they had to, waste being the operative word.
The organization called itself the PLCV. Their leader had been
arrested and imprisoned, they said, by the reactionary fascist politico currently oppressing the downtrodden citizens of their country with U.S. approval and assistance. The PLCV demanded that the U.S. employ its influence to effect their hero’s release and that of the brave patriot fighters arrested with him. They further demanded withdrawal of all American support for that deformed megalomaniac politician, the dictator-criminal who had the affrontery to call himself el presidente…
We landed in the town of Houghton, a little ways out the Keweenaw Peninsula that sticks up into Lake Superior. You would kind of expect a bunch of Latin American terrorists to pick some desolate scenery near the Mexican border, as close to home as possible, in which to hide their prison camp; but these people hadn’t chosen badly. That part of Michigan is still one of the less-civilized parts of the U.S., with logging the primary industry, according to the thumbnail sketch I’d been given when I reported to Washington by phone from northern Sweden and was told to haul my ass westward soonest. Doug Barnett, director pro tem, speaking. When I asked what the hell was in Houghton, I was told to disregard the Mont Ripley Ski Area, and Michigan Tech University, and concentrate first on the airport. When I had that made, I should transfer my attention to the hospital.
“He asked for you,” Doug said. “If you hurry, maybe you’ll make it in time.”
It was cold and raining when I got off the plane. The man waiting for me had only one hand, and there were scars on his face. I’d worked with him once, before he got damaged trying to defuse a homemade whizbang that had one more booby-trap circuit than he’d figured. I tried for the name and got it: Martinson. Greg Martinson.
“This way,” he said. “I’ve got a car waiting.”
The windows were steamed up, except where the defroster made a clear spot in front, so I didn’t get much of a view of Houghton, Michigan. It was a rental car, not arranged for the handicapped, but he’d clamped a little knob onto the wheel, and did all right one-handed. He dumped me in front of the hospital entrance.
The Vanishers Page 28