As I settled into my chair, glass in hand, a handsome dark girl in tailored gray slacks came in and walked around the desk to lay a paper before him. Her black hair was pulled severely back from her face, and she was wearing a mannish shirt complete with necktie. She gave me a brief, cool glance as she waited for him to read what she’d given him, letting me know that she wasn’t a bit impressed by field personnel, even senior field personnel. Any meathead could go out and shoot people; what took intelligence was working the computers and keeping the backup organization running smoothly so that when we got ourselves into a mess out there, as we usually did, somebody knew what buttons to push to get us out. The girl looked down again, as Mac scribbled something on the paper and gave it back to her.
“Keep working on it, please,” he said. “See if you can’t get a hint as to where at least one of them likes to hide out when the pressure gets heavy… Oh. Miss Dana Delgado, Mr. Matthew Helm.”
“I know.” Her voice was as cool as her look.
Mac spoke to me: “Miss Delgado is our computer expert specializing in Caribbean terrorist organizations. She has produced some interesting information about the administrative structure of the Caribbean Legion of Liberty, and a few names. She is trying to locate the owners of those names by means of their habits as recorded in the computer… Thank you, Miss Delgado.”
We don’t use the code names when dealing with the office people. The girl nodded and went out without telling me what a great pleasure it had been to meet me. I seemed to be encountering nothing but hostile brunettes lately; although my parting from my daughter-in-law had actually been pleasant enough and she’d said she hoped we’d meet again and if I should happen to be in Palm Beach I should stop by her daddy’s umpty-million-buck beach cottage and see her; she’d be there for a while, until she’d got rid of her stitches and grown some hair. Address. Telephone number. Please do come.
Then I’d said a hasty good-bye to Beth, but the grief we shared hadn’t been enough to overcome the years we’d been apart and the fact that she was the wife of another man, to whose Nevada ranch she was returning. The pup’s good-byes had been less restrained; in fact he’d almost overwhelmed me with his affection.
So now I was watching an unfriendly young woman go out of Mac’s office and deciding that her retreating rump, while intriguing, was not designed for trousers. Not that she had an overly large butt; it was really rather a neat behind, but it was too feminine, both in contour and in operation, for what is still, at least in my old-fashioned opinion, basically a masculine garment. Or maybe I was just thinking snide thoughts about the lady because she so obviously didn’t approve of me.
“Eric.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mac was studying me thoughtfully. “We had better clear the decks first, don’t you think?” he said. “I believe you have something you wish to ask me.”
“No, sir.” I shook my head. “We’ve worked together a long time. You know what I’m thinking; what I have to be thinking. You know what I’ll do if I ever find proof pointing that way. There’s nothing that needs to be discussed between us.”
He said, “I disagree. It will be better to have it in the open. That way there can be no misunderstandings.” He regarded me for a moment longer; when I shrugged, he went on: “What we have here is a troubling coincidence, am I correct?”
“Troubling is a nice word.”
“The facts are that you turned down a mission directed against certain people. Within a very short time, those people were apparently responsible for the death of a member of your family. As a result, you may now be willing to reverse your previous decision and accept the job you refused, hoping to retaliate. But you cannot help but ask yourself if someone planned it that way.” He smiled thinly. “Someone, for instance, like me.”
I gave him a small grin. “Well, you’re the obvious candidate, sir. You know me, you know about my family even though I’ve been careful not to leave many tracks leading that way, and you have contacts in strange places; setting up a blast wouldn’t be hard for you. And you were pretty unhappy with me when I left here two weeks ago.”
“Well, you must admit you were behaving very unreasonably.”
I grinned. “I don’t admit it, but let’s not start that argument again. Regardless of who was reasonable and who wasn’t, the fact was that I’d refused a mission for reasons you considered quite inadequate, even going so far as to hand in my resignation. For a lousy German shepherd bitch! You could have figured it was time I was brought to my senses and shown the difference between people and dogs. Besides, knowing Bultman, I was the only man around with a reasonable chance of carrying out the operation successfully, at least in your opinion. You may have convinced yourself that the welfare of our country demanded that drastic measures be taken to regain my services. You’ve pulled some pretty raw stuff in the past to get people to do what you wanted.”
He nodded calmly. “Yes. It is what I expected you to think. And I will not claim that I am incapable of sacrificing an agent’s family for the good of a mission. In fact, in certain situations, I would expect him to make the sacrifice himself.”
I spoke carefully: “Of course it’s only one possibility; but you wouldn’t believe me if I said it had never occurred to me.”
“Let us say I would be disappointed in you. It would indicate that you were a fool or that you thought I was.”
I said, “Of course, there’s a flaw in my reasoning. The mission we discussed here a couple of weeks ago involved only one man, Bultman. There’s no indication, as far as I know, that he was responsible for the West Palm Beach incident in which my son died, so why should it change my mind about going after him?”
Mac gave me his meager smile again. “Perhaps I should not answer that question, but I will. Bultman may not be the man who gave the orders; but he will almost certainly defend those who did, and those who carried them out. The Caribbean Legion has contributed substantial manpower to the force he is assembling on Hawkins Island, which is currently part of the sovereign nation of Montego—the part closest to Gobernador.”
“What’s a Montego?” I asked.
“When a certain colonial presence in this oceanic area was withdrawn, the islands involved split themselves up into a number of nationalistic groupings, Gobernador and Montego being the two in which we’re interested. Not that we’d be concerned about the latter in the normal course of events; but the president of Montego, Alfredo Gorman, disapproves of the boundaries that were drawn by the Convention of 1979. He feels that the Islas Gobernador should have been awarded to Montego instead of being given their independence. He is encouraging Bultman in the hope that a revolutionary struggle over there will open the door for Montegan intervention; and of course Bultman cares little who overthrows the present government in Santa Isabella, as long as somebody does. He’ll welcome help from President Gorman, although some of his followers would rather make a pact with the devil. They are under the impression they are struggling to free their country from one oppressive regime; they have no desire to trade it for another. Of course they are not aware that, in reality, they are merely fighting to avenge a dead dog.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Personally, I think this self-determination thing has been overdone; they’re making new little countries faster than I can find them on the map.”
We were talking around the awkward subject. Mac brought us back to it. “If any part of Bultman’s strike force, including the Legion, is threatened, Bultman will be obliged to deal with the threat, or his leadership of this violent coalition will be undermined. So whoever is instructed to take action against these terrorists will eventually have to deal with Bultman; he’ll have no choice.”
I asked, “Has such action been ordered?”
“Miss Delgado informs me that the Caribbean Legion of Liberty is a fairly diffuse organization of volunteer hotheads, but that it is directed by a nucleus that calls itself the Council of Thirteen, because that was the original number
of members when the gang was formed. Although they now claim a membership in the thousands, and actually do have a couple of hundred active followers, they’ve retained the original number for the governing council. It is presided over by one El Martillo, The Hammer, real name unknown.”
“El Martillo,” I said sourly. “They sure love to give themselves those menace-names. Remember our little jungle problem down in Central America, years ago, with the guy who called himself El Fuerte, The Strong One?”
“Yes, I remember,” Mac said. He paused briefly, and went on: “We have been instructed to terminate the Council of Thirteen.”
I looked at him for a moment across the desk. Then I got up and went to the corner bookcase that opened to form a rudimentary bar. I poured myself another drink.
“It would be nice if they’d make up their cotton-picking little minds,” I said without turning my head. “One moment we’re supposed to negotiate peacefully with these wild-eyed characters and make them see the error of their ways; and the next we’re ordered to stage a bloody massacre and wipe them all off the face of the earth. I just hope the folks handing down these violent instructions hold on to their tough attitude long enough to back up the poor guy who winds up with thirteen stiffs to his credit, if you want to call it credit. More likely they’ll wash their hands of him once the gore has been spilled. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve gone chicken after giving the hard-nosed orders.”
Mac said, “Seventeen.”
“What?”
“There are seventeen numbered spaces on the list, although we have few names as yet to go with the numbers. Miss Delgado is doing her best to fill in the blanks. We are instructed to destroy the nucleus of this terrorist organization in order to demonstrate that this country will no longer tolerate such murderous activities, and any group that indulges in them can expect to be demolished.”
“That’s the directive of today,” I said sourly. “What do you suppose will be the directive of tomorrow?”
Mac ignored that and continued: “We are to exterminate all thirteen members of the Council including, of course, El Martillo. He rates as Number Two on our list.” When I stirred, about to ask the obvious question, Mac said, “Be patient, we’ll come to Number One presently. Also we must identify, run down, and eradicate those who actually carried out the bombing of La Mariposa restaurant—witnesses indicate that there were three, two men and a woman. Of course, they may be members of the Council; if so, the number of targets will have to be adjusted accordingly since it is not practical to kill them twice, once for each category in which we have them classified.” His voice was dry.
“Does our computer lady have any leads in that direction?”
“Not yet, but she keeps hoping. In addition, we are authorized, indeed we are encouraged, to deal ruthlessly with any other members of the gang who attempt to interfere. The more the merrier. And finally, we are instructed to dispose of Herman Heinrich Bultman, since it is felt that he bears the ultimate responsibility for the atrocity, being the commander of the insurrectionary force with which the Legion is currently associated. In fact, he has the honor of being placed at the top of our list.”
I sighed. “Here we go again. They never give up, do they? If one reason for hitting the Kraut isn’t good enough, they dig up another. I hate to be forever defending the homicidal sonofabitch; but the fact is that random explosions aren’t his style, and he’d never have been stupid enough to authorize an action that would antagonize whatever support his invasion might otherwise have gained here in the U.S. What probably happened was that some wild-eyed CLL characters, maybe not even part of Bultman’s paramilitary outfit, decided to go off and make a little noise on their own. If it actually was the Legion.” I shook my head. “Hell, I’m as vengeful as the next guy, but I do like to go for the right throat when I go.”
Mac said deliberately, “Yes, I am counting on that.”
I spoke without expression: “You don’t have to worry, sir. I won’t come after you until I have proof.”
“And of course it will accomplish nothing for me to assure you that I had nothing whatever to do with your boy’s death.”
“Of course not,” I said. “You’d tell me that in any case. We’re all terrible liars here. And who was it who trained us never to believe anything anybody told us?”
He regarded me bleakly for a moment, and asked, “While you are making up your mind whether or not to shoot me, will you accept reinstatement and take on this assignment for us?”
There was a little silence. The fact was, of course, that I didn’t really believe he’d set up the West Palm incident, not because he wasn’t capable of it, but simply because he was smart enough to know I’d never accept it as an act of random terrorism. Still, his ruthlessness was well documented, and his motives were often impenetrable, so the possibility remained a possibility even though we were playing rough word games with it.
I said, “Do I have a choice? How else am I going to keep an eye on you, sir? I’ll take the job with a couple of reservations.”
“Name them.”
“First, I won’t go after Bultman; but I won’t hesitate to take care of him—assuming that I can, he’s pretty good—if he comes after me.”
Mac smiled faintly. “Are you saving face by not retreating from your previous position, Eric? Very well, I accept that condition. There’s no chance whatever that Herr Bultman will let you carry out the rest of this assignment without trying to stop you. What else?”
I said, “It’s possible that the CLL is claiming credit for an explosion that wasn’t theirs.” I watched him across the scarred old desk. “Whoever was striking at me through Matthew had a choice: He could point an existing terrorist organization in the right direction or, if he had no influential contacts among a suitable bunch of crazies, he could make up a little bomb squad of his own and, after the blast, publicize it as the work of the Legion. Those nuts wouldn’t deny it; hell, they’d claim credit for the eruption of Mount Saint Helens if they thought anybody’d believe them. And if it turns out that the CLL is actually innocent, the deal is off.”
Mac said, “Again, it is a risk I am willing to run. All our evidence indicates that they were responsible; and I know of no one else who has been hiring explosives experts recently.” He looked me straight in the eyes. “Myself included.”
I said, “Even if I take your word for that, you may not have been checking on the right people.”
He frowned. “What are you driving at, Eric?”
“We’ve got to keep in mind the possibility that our basic premise is all haywire. There’s a chance that whoever arranged that bombing wasn’t interested in me at all.”
Mac said impatiently, “Of course. There has always been a remote chance that it was a straight political act after all, unlikely as it may seem, and that your son’s death was a complete coincidence. Such things do happen. But I am very wary of coincidences in this business.”
I said, “So am I, but there was someone else present whom you seem to have overlooked.” I leaned forward to set my empty glass on the desk, and sat back again. I said, “Two years ago, when I returned from an assignment to find Matthew’s wedding announcements among the mail that had accumulated in my absence, I took the liberty of using our facilities to conduct an investigation. The results are in my file. Correction, you keep separate dossiers on agents’ families, don’t you? So the stuff about the girl would probably have wound up in Matthew’s file.”
“You mean that young Mrs. Helm…”
“My researches indicated that my daughter-in-law-to-be was a fairly interesting young lady. Somehow she’d wound up at the same university as my son, Northwestern, studying journalism, after surviving one of those East Coast lady-factories, you know, the expensive boarding schools where they teach you not to blow your nose on your napkin.”
“Northwestern?” Mac said. “I thought everyone truly interested in journalism went to the University of Missouri.”
“You’re behind the times, sir,” I said. “Missouri is still at the top, but nowadays Northwestern’s school of journalism is supposed to be right up there alongside it. And for a young person Evanston, Illinois, right next to the gaudy metropolis of Chicago, might have some attractions that Columbia, Missouri, doesn’t. As a matter of fact, Matthew actually went to Northwestern because they offered him a scholarship. The girl might have been sent there because her papa preferred having her near Chicago where he had connections who could keep an eye on her.”
“What connections? Who is this girl, anyway?”
I said, “Reading the stuff our people dug up on her, I came across nothing unfavorable to her personally. Some young women do remain almost human in spite of having been subjected to those cruel early disciplines, like learning what fork to use and how to hold a teacup; and if my son wanted to marry an embryo lady reporter, that was his business. I did think they were rushing it a bit, getting married in their junior year like that, but even if I’d wanted to make them hold off until graduation, it was a little late for me to throw my weight around as a papa. As it turned out, well, I’d hate to be sitting here knowing that I’d kept my boy from having had two years of happiness with his girl, since that’s all he’ll ever have, now. At least he had his marriage and a few months at a reasonable job in his chosen field… Well, to hell with that.”
The Demolishers Page 4