The Infiltrators

by Donald Hamilton

  We were entering Los Alamos now. I said, “Which brings up a question. The question.”

  “Yes,” she said, “it does, doesn’t it?”

  “Just what the hell were they doing in Lab Alpha that they had to go to such lengths to hide it? Whatever it was, we know that a few years later they got Lab Delta built larger so they could do more of it. Advanced Human Managerial Studies…”

  Madeleine said, “I hate to change the subject, but we’ve got another interesting question, Matt. Blue Boy is back.” She gestured towards the rearview mirror. “That pickup truck that left us when we got into town on the way up.”

  I leaned forward for a look at the right-hand mirror. “I see him.”

  “Maybe I should take the back road out of here. It’s a little longer, but it’s good and wide and not perched on the side of a cliff.”

  I shook my head. “Jackson said just stick to the regular route and watch for a signal; he’d see that we got through.”

  “If you say so, Boss. There’s the intersection. One left turn coming up.” Presently she said, “We’ve still got company behind… My God, what’s that monster semi doing up ahead? This isn’t the truck route. Okay, he’s stopping; he must just have made the wrong turn back there.”

  We were passing the little airport now, and she guided the Mazda around the big eighteen-wheeler that was just slowing down and pulling out onto the shoulder. The trailer was labeled in large letters: INTERMOUNTAIN EXPRESS. A couple of hundred yards ahead, parked, was a black van with psychedelic decorations involving scarlet streamlines and golden flames, a real hippie truck, if the word isn’t obsolete. As we approached, all its lights went on, and off, and on, and off again.

  “There’s our boy,” I said. “Speed up and give him some space to tuck in between us and the pickup so he can take it off our backs.”

  Madeleine dropped down a gear and hit the accelerator; the Mazda leaped ahead obediently, and the black van lurched into motion and cut in front of our unwanted escort, the driver of which leaned angrily on his horn. The driver of the van honked back contemptuously. I sat twisted in my seat to watch the show. It all happened very rapidly: the incensed pickup driver, perhaps thinking of the steep and winding downgrade ahead, where passing would be impossible, tried to get around while the road was still straight, and the driver of the van let him come almost abreast and then simply took him off the road and into the shallow ditch where I lost sight of them as our road turned and dipped down into the canyon.

  “What happened?” Madeleine asked.

  “Scratch one blue pickup,” I said. “I think we’re free and clear… Oh, Jesus!”

  “What’s the matter?” Her eyes went to the mirror, and she gasped. “Oh, my God! Do you think it’s chasing us? Let’s get the hell out of here!”

  Behind us, the big semi had lunged into sight. It seemed to fill the whole little mountain road as it thundered after us, gaining speed. Madeleine’s hand went to the gearshift lever; I grabbed it.

  “Easy, easy!”

  “But—”

  “No rush, sweetheart. He looks ferocious, but there’s no way a heavy rig like that’s going to catch a sports car on this hill, so what’s the point…? Goddamn it, watch your driving!”

  She cut hard right to make room for a big sedan that had appeared around the curve ahead. It whipped past, horn blaring; looking back I saw it squeeze past the oncoming truck, just barely.

  “Please don’t yell at me, Matt.”

  “Sorry. You watch ahead, I’ll watch behind. Slow down a little, let him get a little closer… That’s fine, hold that while we figure things out. Obviously he’s the beater.”

  “Beater?”

  “Sure, he’s coming through the forest stomping and yelling and beating the bushes, driving the game to the guns waiting silently up ahead. In this case, down ahead… A little faster now, don’t let him get too close. That’s it, you’re doing fine.”

  “You mean they’ve got an ambush…? But what can we do? If we let him catch us, he’ll mash us flat and roll right over us, won’t he?”

  I said, “Remember the scenic overlook about halfway down? We’ll try to shed him there, hoping they’ll let us get that far… Ease off a little. Don’t get too far ahead of him yet.”

  “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  Her face was pale and shiny and her hands gripped the steering wheel fiercely as she threw us around the curves with an occasional glance at the rearview mirror; but she was holding position ahead of the onrushing semi quite consistently now, speeding up as it gained momentum in the straights, slowing a little so as not to pull away from it in the curves the little Mazda negotiated easily while the giant rig astern had to scrub off speed in order to lurch around with its great tires screaming at the very edge of adhesion. I had to hand it to the man behind the wheel, he was handling all those tons in a very professional manner. I saw the sign ahead: SCENIC OVERLOOK 1 MILE.

  “Ready now,” I said softly. “Remember, goose it as soon as you’re around the curve; you want room enough to brake hard. And do your heavy braking while we’re still on the pavement. The parking area itself is gravel; if you hit it too fast we’ll slide right through the Armco and off into space before you can get us stopped.”

  “But I’ve got to get over to the left… What if there’s a car coming the other way?”

  “Then there are going to be a lot of squashed people all over the road, including us,” I said.

  “Gee, thanks loads!”

  I grinned tightly. “You’ve got to learn to play the odds. If you know there’s definitely a guy behind trying to kill you, and probably some guys ahead trying to kill you, you can’t be bothered with the minor statistical possibility of meeting a stranger on a blind curve. It’s one of the lesser risks, let’s say… Okay, here we go!”

  She was getting very good with her downshifts; and the Mazda leaped ahead as she accelerated through the curve, leaving our oversized pursuer out of sight for the moment. Then the parking area was coming up, ahead and on the left, and the brakes went on hard, and the semi was coming around the curve astern like a runaway locomotive, roaring down on us as we lost speed.

  “Good,” I said. “Come left now… slower, slower… you’re doing fine… no, don’t worry about the fucking mirror, keep your eye on the… Ease off a little and let her roll now, tease him along, waggle your pretty tail at him…”

  I guess I’m not a very nice guy. My original idea had simply been to get clear, assuming that the driver astern, knowing that he had another hard curve to negotiate with his enormous vehicle, would have to let us go—but he wasn’t letting us go. Towering over us only a couple of car lengths astern, hypnotized by the pursuit like a hound after a rabbit, he was following us over to the left as we approached the parking area. Already he was out of position, and it seemed like a hell of a fine idea…

  “Now!” I said. “Hard left, downshift, and floor it the minute she hits the gravel. Spin her out!”

  With the massive truck bumper almost upon us, the Mazda lunged aside. Madeleine slammed the lever across and hit the gas hard. The rear end broke loose and we were spinning and sliding across the little parking area perched on a point of rock with a spectacular view, in which nobody was interested at the moment. A top-heavy sedan or pickup might have rolled, but the low-slung sports car simply skittered sideways over the gravel like a hockey puck… And the driver of the semi, realizing his position, was trying to make a retrieve, too late. He was too far out, too far left. As he tried to come right and pull his big rig back to safety the left front tire of the tractor hit the gravel and he lost it completely and went sliding across the gravel bent clear out of shape, as the hotshot drivers say, totally out of control, with the tractor at a crazy angle to the bulky trailer. Sparks flew as the rig brought up against the steel barrier, but only for a moment. The supporting posts, never designed to resist such an impact, pulled right out of the mountainside, and the eighteen-wheeler went over the e
dge, taking a long ribbon of steel with it.

  I became aware that, sliding broadside, we’d come to a halt well short of the barrier. Madeleine was hunched over the steering wheel with her hands covering her face. I got out and pulled my arm out of the annoying sling and went around to open her door. She let herself be helped out, and tried to cling to me.

  I said, “Later. Let’s get the hell out of here before we indulge in hysterics.”

  Her giggle had an uncontrolled sound. “I can’t stand all that mushy sympathy!”

  She stumbled around the car, and I eased back the driver’s seat for my longer legs and folded myself into it. Our doors slammed shut almost simultaneously. I took us out of there fast, and back up the mountain the way we’d just come. When we topped out at the airport, the van and the pickup were still in the ditch, locked together, and the drivers were standing nearby arguing hotly. Although it seemed incredible that so little time had passed, there were no police or wreckers or ghoulish spectators on the scene yet. I made a left turn at the intersection beyond, where we’d turned right, earlier, to Conejo Canyon. A little farther on, at the next intersection, I turned westwards.

  Madeleine looked up dully. “This isn’t the way to Santa Fe.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “These are clever people. They set up that pickup as a decoy to take out our escort. They could have thought of setting up another ambush on the back road, just in case. But I doubt that they’ll be covering the road west across the mountains. It’s a considerable detour. We’ll have to drive clear over into the next big valley, and then almost down to Albuquerque before we can pick up the interstate and come back north, but I don’t feel like playing any more games today, and I don’t think you do, either.”

  It was quite a climb, on another twisting little two-lane road; but there were no indications that we were being followed by anybody, friendly or hostile. For the moment we were on our own. It wasn’t a bad feeling. The high country was quite lovely, and I saw that Madeleine was recovering, beside me, and enjoying the mountain scenery.

  “Can we stop?” she asked at last. “That’s a pretty place up ahead.”

  “Sure,” I said, and pulled up among the trees, far enough so the car couldn’t be seen from the highway. “What did you have in mind, Mrs. E?”

  She laughed. “Well, I was promised an opportunity to have some hysterics, remember. But first of all I’ve got to pee very badly, if you must know. Don’t go away, I’ll be right back.”

  Being better equipped for the purpose—as the little girl said enviously, watching her little brother, it’s such a handy thing to have on a picnic—I had my own bladder problems solved and was back at the car before she returned. I watched her come towards me and felt a kind of possessive pride at the attractive picture she made even in her shabby jeans. I mean, hell, I’d practically built this handsome wench from scratch, hadn’t I? I warned myself to cut it out; she’d hate me if she ever got a hint I felt that way. I was taking too much credit, anyway. The good stuff had been there right along, just badly disorganized by her devastating experiences. She’d merely needed a little help in putting it back together.

  She stopped in front of me. “We killed that man, didn’t we, Matt?” she said quietly.’

  I shook my head. “As far as I’m concerned, he killed himself. We didn’t ask him to come chasing after us.”

  “But at the end, there, you deliberately had me tease him, tempt him, let him think he could catch us and finish it right there.” She shook her head quickly. “No, I’m not blaming you,. my dear. Because I… I loved doing it to the great big bully in his monster truck!”

  “Good girl,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “No, I’m not a good girl, not any longer. Not at all the sweet young lady I used to be, the gentle and sensitive person who died in Fort Ames, or maybe even earlier in one of those dreadful jails into which they stuck me on the way there. That’s what made me so sick just now, Matt. Not just the reaction, but the knowledge that I liked seeing that truck falling down into the deep canyon with that man in it! It was a… a wonderful triumphant rush, almost a sexual feeling, knowing that we’d beat the bastard at his own game!” Her face seemed to crumple and her eyes grew shiny with tears. “Oh, God, Matt, what have they made of me? What have you made of me?”

  Then she was in my arms, crying. I tried to hold her in gentle brotherly fashion and let her work her own way through it; but her distress was too disturbing and her nearness was too tempting. Soon I found myself touching my lips to her hair and, when she raised her tear-wet face questioningly, to her lips. The kiss was tentative and passionless at first; but soon it became something very different. Her breathing changed, and I felt her breasts pressing warmly against me as she drew me against her hard, her nails digging fiercely into my back; and my own hands moved downwards from her slender waist to possess the smooth roundness of her buttocks, finding them, although I’m normally a lace-and-satin man at heart, very pleasing and exciting under the taut rough cloth of her jeans…

  20

  She drove us away from there in silence, and I said nothing, because it had been a fine thing that really didn’t need talking about. I just hoped she wasn’t hurt or angry at the impulsive way we’d broken her stern nonintercourse pact. Then I heard her laugh softly, and I knew everything was all right.

  “I’ve still got pine needles in my hair,” she murmured. “No self-control, no self-control at all! And you weren’t much help, Buster!”

  “What do you want me to say, that I’m sorry?”

  “If you do, I’ll slug you. It was a dumb idea anyway, that one of mine. My God, with people trying to kill me all over the place, I’d better do all the living I can while I’m still around to enjoy it.”

  “Sir Matthew at your service, Milady.”

  “Service?” She laughed again. “Keep it clean, darling. Now tell me how the hell we get out of this lovely mountain wilderness…”

  We stopped for dinner at a little Mexican restaurant in the town of Bernallillo, just before picking up the interstate north. The food was chile—hot, but we put out the fires with adequate quantities of cold Mexican beer. It was a pleasant starlit night by the time we’d finished, traffic was light on the four-lane highway, so it was an easy enough drive; but sitting in the copilot’s seat with nothing to do I found myself yawning repeatedly. It had been a long day.

  But it wasn’t through with us yet. When Madeleine stopped the car under the sheltered breezeway in front of the motel office, and I went inside to check for mail and messages, a young man coming out—Marty—brushed against me and spoke a couple of words in a lipless way. I went on to the desk and found nothing there for us. I went back and got into the Mazda.

  “Brace yourself,” I said. “Welcoming committee of some kind. Your room.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “Do you think, if I ask nicely, they’ll give me back my nice quiet cell in Fort Ames?”

  I said, “It seems a kind of simpleminded way for anybody to lay for us, but we’d better give it the full-dress treatment anyway, if only for practice.”

  “Matt, am I supposed to be scared all the time?”

  “If you weren’t scared, I’d worry about you,” I said. “When we go in, don’t brandish any weapons unnecessarily, and don’t shoot anybody you don’t have to, including me.”

  Actually, of course, I did worry about her. She’d done very well so far, but you always worry when you’re working with one of the new ones; and this one, I couldn’t help remembering, had been brought up to be afraid of guns. If she’d been brought up to be afraid of golf clubs, I wouldn’t have been happy having her behind me with a number two iron or, heaven forbid, one of those terribly dangerous woods. But it really went quite smoothly.

  She stopped the car in front of her door. We got out on opposite sides and strolled up the walk together. I spoke clearly, “Let me make like a gentleman, doll. Where’s your key?”

  I felt the small tug at my wai
st, left side, as I slipped the key she’d handed me into the lock. We’d worked out all the moves pretty carefully; and I was wearing a left-handed FBI-type holster high on my belt back under my jacket. Usually I prefer the gun more in front, rigged for a cross draw but available to either hand; but at present we didn’t want anybody getting the idea that I might possibly consider using my poor useless right hand, and this made it easier for her, too. As long as she was somewhere to my left, front or back or side, she could get at the weapon; and still I’d been telling Chief Cordoba the gospel truth when I said she wasn’t carrying, as the jargon goes.

  In an obvious emergency she would, of course, simply go for it. Otherwise the signal for her to arm herself was any term of endearment. As long as I called her Madeleine, or Mrs. Ellershaw, or just plain Ellershaw, or Mrs. E, or Convict #210934, nothing was supposed to happen, but if I called her sweetheart or honeybunch, or dear or darling, or doll, she was supposed to go to battle stations soonest. I’d been afraid it might have an inhibiting effect on our relationship, having her grab for a loaded revolver whenever I whispered tenderly that she was my own true love; but as we’d demonstrated a few hours earlier, that fear had obviously been groundless.

  “Excuse me,” I said politely, entering the room ahead of her.

  I elbowed the door clear back with my left arm. I’d already pressed the release, and the little sleeve gun had slipped down into my right hand, concealed by the black silk of the sling. We moved into the room like that, and I was ready to throw myself aside to clear the field for her weapon while bringing my own into the open to lay down a barrage of nasty little jacketed .25-caliber slugs—I didn’t have much faith in the accuracy of the lousy little palm-sized automatic, but even a small bullet just whistling past your ear can be distracting. Madeleine, with her heavier .38-caliber artillery, was supposed to really mow them down while I and my popgun were holding their amused attention.