The Demolishers

by Donald Hamilton

  “But you didn’t.” Varek signaled to the maid to refill his wineglass. “Tell us about the heavy artillery. What the hell kind of a howitzer did they have mounted in that window? They boys said it shot right through armor and bulletproof glass like it was cheese.”

  I said, “I’ll have to do some guessing. I just caught a glimpse of the muzzle up there; but of course I saw the results and checked how long it took the guy to reload. I’d say we were dealing with an overgrown and kind of clumsy single-shot rifle, probably on a tripod mount. At least I didn’t see a bipod at the muzzle; and even if you could lift it and hold it steady, say, kneeling inside that window, you wouldn’t want to fire a piece like that off your shoulder. It would kick you back into last week. I’d say it used fifty-caliber machine-gun ammunition with armor-piercing bullets.”

  “Where would one acquire such a weapon?” Lia asked.

  “One would probably make it,” I said. “The barrel and ammo can be picked up as military surplus, if you know where to look and whose arm to twist. A clever gunsmith could cook up some kind of an action without too much trouble. I seem to recall that years ago somebody made up a bunch of similar weapons for insurgency use, kind of a poor man’s antitank gun.” I grimaced. “I’d hate to be a ragged campesino lying in the road firing that thing one round at a time at a government tank clanking at me; real tanks have armor that won’t quit. However, those AP projectiles took care of the supposedly bulletproof stuff on your family Mercedes all right. Maybe you should take it back for a refund.”

  “We didn’t expect they’d be shooting anything like that at it,” Varek said.

  I said, “Which brings up the question: Why did you expect them to be shooting anything at it? Or to put it differently, how did they know we’d be coming there to be shot at? They were ready and waiting for us, with all the right equipment.” There was a little silence. I looked at Varek for a moment, and turned to Sandra. I said, “Maybe I should tell you what I really came down here for. I wanted to ask you to help us out in a kind of risky way.”

  Sandra glanced quickly in the direction of her father before speaking to me. “What risky way, Matt?”

  I spoke carefully: “My chief and I had a very bright idea. Here was a young lady, you, who’d been involved in the bombing and had actually seen the bombers. Of course she claimed she’d only caught a fleeting glimpse of them through the restaurant window before the world blew up in her face, and that she couldn’t possibly recognize them if she saw them again—but that’s what she’d naturally say to protect herself. If she admitted to being able to identify them, she’d have been up to her pretty butt in cops and feds and prosecutors, and she’d have faced the strong possibility that the people she could finger would try to silence her.”

  Sandra licked her lips. “Go on.”

  I said, “Our computer lady is still kind of short of names to work with; she needs more information. This seemed to offer a possible way of teasing some of those fanatics out of the woodwork and into the open where we could catch them and squeeze them dry. The idea was, I’d come down here and protect you, with whatever manpower I needed—with your permission, of course—while my chief spread the word through some of his underworld contacts that, in spite of her disclaimers, the young widow who’d survived the Mariposa bombing was a secret government witness who, when the time came, would definitely identify the guilty parties. That should give somebody the notion that maybe it would be better if you didn’t live long enough to testify in court.” I grinned at Sandra. “But I’ll have to report back to Washington that we were just too slow with our bright idea. You and your daddy have already used you as bait in just that way, right? That was what it was all about his afternoon, wasn’t it?”

  She licked her lips. “Yes, and I feel terrible about exposing you to… That car was supposed to make it perfectly safe, or I’d at least have told you what we were trying to do. I should have, anyway.”

  “Forget it. I’ve been shot at before,” I said. “Did you dream it up yourself or was it your pop’s plan?”

  Varek spoke up quickly: “Sis had the idea. I thought it was too risky, but she insisted on trying it, so I used the bulletproof heap for insurance.” He grimaced. “The barge was supposed to be safe against the kind of weapons a gang like that would be likely to use; and we leaked the rest of our plans to them on purpose. To pull them out of the woodwork, as you put it. I’ve got a few connections, too. I primed them with the phony information about Sis and her photographic memory to get them interested. Pretty soon…”

  He looked around the room, but the maid was in the kitchen temporarily. “Pretty soon, one of the girls we had working here quit very suddenly for no good reason. We guessed that somebody’d leaned on her and got her to move out and recommend a sneak to take her place, great. Of course, we left the new girl strictly alone, just keeping an eye on her while figuring out what information to feed her.”

  Sandra said, “It wasn’t hard. Everybody in the house knew I’d had bad nightmares after… after the bombing. I just pretended that they’d started up again, all about La Mariposa. I kept saying that I didn’t want to go to a shrink. I didn’t need to go to a shrink; all I needed was to face it, to go back to the lousy place again and look at it hard and get it out of my system. Only I just couldn’t work up the nerve to do it, after what had happened there. But this morning I suddenly announced at breakfast that I was going to be brave at last and make the lousy pilgrimage on my way home from the airport. Naturally, I waited until Bernadette was pouring the coffee. Daddy says she went out right afterwards.”

  “She called her boyfriend from the house. Just lovey-dovey stuff, but there must have been a special word in there somewhere,” Varek said. “Afterwards she kept looking at her wristwatch. After forty-five minutes, she went out of the house and slipped out a side gate on foot. The boys had been told not to interfere. A young fellow came along in a commercial van: A-I PLUMBING CO. They drove back over to West Palm and stopped at a gas station. He used the pay phone. They headed for the freeway south. They took the Miami airport exit. The boys ran them to the curb. They had airline tickets for San Juan, Puerto Rico. It’s where you’d normally go if you were heading for Islas Gobernador, or nearby Montego where there’s some kind of half-ass invasion force being trained, according to the boyfriend.”

  I said, “Yes, we’ve heard about that. Is that where the two of them were heading?”

  Varek shook his head. “They didn’t have reservations beyond San Juan. You have to switch to a smaller airline to get to the little islands, but there was nothing indicating that they’d been going to. The boys got the idea they were aiming for some kind of a CLL hideout right there in San Juan. It would make sense for a terrorist outfit to have a regional headquarters, sort of, in a big city with good air connections handy to the scene of their current operations. But neither Bernadette or her boyfriend could come through with an address. They’d been told, when they got the word to run, they should get themselves down to San Juan. Somebody’d meet them at the airport and take care of them from there.”

  “Where’s the loving couple now?”

  Varek looked at me coldly. “Don’t ask. I might tell you.”

  Sandra was shocked. “Daddy!”

  “She was planted on us, Sis. She set you up for it today, at La Mariposa. She admitted it; she said she was sorry, she liked you okay, but one life was not important in the great forward march of history. Anyway, the way she was after the boys had worked on her awhile, she’s better off where she is, along with loverboy.” He frowned at his daughter. “I told you it would get rough.”

  The girl shivered. “All right. I suppose it’s all right. I’ll just work on remembering how… how things looked in La Mariposa right after the blast.”

  I said, “What about the ambush? Did you pick up anybody there?”

  Varek shook his head. “We had a fancy envelopment maneuver, as they say in the military, all figured out; but when they sprung the f
ield artillery on you, everybody was ordered to start shooting and bust straight in, to keep them busy dodging bullets while you got clear. The boys counted five of them, including the guy working the big gun. One was hit hard—he had to be carried away—and a couple of the others were probably nicked, but as far as information is concerned we wound up with zilch, unless that kid told you something.”

  “He told me something,” I said. “How much it’s worth, I won’t know until it’s planted in the computer and watered to see if it grows.” I gave him a hard look. “But we still haven’t really settled the big question. You didn’t want me on this job; you tried to get Sandy to steer me off it, but I’m here. Are you willing to cooperate with a lousy G-man?” I reached into my pocket, brought out a folded slip of paper, and gave it to the maid to take around the table to him. “Do you recognize that phone number?”

  Varek frowned. “Area code three-oh-five. That’s right here on this side of Florida.”

  “A penthouse in Miami Beach. Sixty miles away. The call won’t break you.”

  He hesitated; then he rose and left the dining room.

  Lia looked at me curiously and asked, “Who’s in Miami Beach, Matt?”

  “A man whose name I don’t bandy around if I don’t have to,” I said. “If Alex wants to make it public when he gets back, that’s his business.”

  She made a little face at me. “I was just making conversation; I wasn’t snooping. How about some more dessert?”

  “Thanks, it’s delicious.”

  Actually, it was some kind of a fruity mixed-up mess; and I’m an old ice cream man from way back, although I’ll settle for cake if I have to. Then Varek was returning.

  He sat down and drank from his wineglass. “How did a guy like you ever make connections with Giuseppe Velo?”

  “I did him a favor once, kind of accidentally, in the line of duty.”

  Varek frowned. “Hell, Seppi retired from his New York enterprises and moved down here, it must be twenty years ago. He must be pretty damned old by now.”

  I said, “I don’t know his age, but he looks ancient enough, like a lizard that’s died and dried out in the sun. But he still keeps in touch, a little.”

  “I know. Everybody knows. He says… Well, to hell with what he says about you. You knew what he’d say or you wouldn’t have had me call him. So what do we do next?”

  9

  The phone was an elaborate job with a keyboard, some extra mysterious buttons, and, in addition to the usual handset, a loudspeaker. There had to be a mike in there, too, since you could talk into it as well as listen to talk coming out of it. Philip had to check me out on the controls before he’d trust me to fly it. He was very polite about it, going heavy on the “sirs.”

  I’d asked for a speaker-phone so both ends of the forthcoming conversation could be heard by everyone present. A gesture of good faith. No tricks. No secret messages. Nothing up my sleeve. Call me Honest Helm for short. I punched out the number for the direct line, and Mac’s voice came on almost at once.

  “Yes?”

  “Matt here,” I said, using my real name rather than my code name, our signal that the conversation wasn’t private. Well, honesty and frankness can be overdone.

  “Yes, Matt?”

  I said, “We’ve had some activity down here in Palm Beach—actually over in West Palm—but I’ll make my full report later. Right now I’d like to speak with Miss Delgado if she’s available.”

  “I believe she left the office several hours ago, but she’s on call. Just a minute.”

  It wasn’t surprising that the lady had left for home, since my wristwatch read close to eight o’clock. Mac, of course, never requires food or sleep as far as anyone has been able to determine—evidence to support the theory, very popular throughout our small agency, that he’s not really human. Evidence against: the fact that he has a lady out west, a fairly powerful businesswoman, with whom he spends some time occasionally. However, he doesn’t seem to let this relationship affect the organization, although it can’t be an easy thing to manage.

  We’d left the dinner table and returned to the gunroom for coffee, because our hostess felt it was cozier than the enormous, formal living room for a small party like ours. As we waited for Mac’s voice to stir the speaker into action once more, she came in accompanied by a maid carrying a tray, which was placed, at her direction, on the low table by the red-leather sofa. Lia settled herself gracefully behind the tray.

  “Matt? Regular or decaffeinated?”

  “I’ll just have a touch of brandy if it’s available.”

  “It will be,” Lia said, “but right now we’re in the coffee business, darling. Sandra, you’ll have decaffeinated, won’t you?”

  Instinctively, the girl started to protest against being protected from real coffee as if she were a child; but she checked herself.

  “Yes, Lia,” she said. “We wouldn’t want to stunt my lousy growth, would we?”

  As the maid was carrying the steaming cup across the room, the speaker came alive again.

  “Go ahead, Miss Delgado.” That was Mac’s voice.

  I heard Lia say, “That will be all, Maria.”

  The maid delivered the cup to Sandra and went out, closing the door behind her.

  Another voice, female, came through the speaker: “Delgado here.”

  It seemed unnatural to carry on a phone conversation without holding something to my face, but I spoke to the electronic marvel on the table. “This is Helm. Have you got your screen and keyboard handy?”

  “I’m at my apartment, Mr. Helm, but I have a computer terminal here, yes. Do you have some information for me? Just a minute… All right, go ahead.”

  I said, “For your information, present and listening to this conversation are Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Varek, and Mr. Varek’s daughter, Mrs. Cassandra Helm. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were also being recorded. How about it, Alex?”

  Varek said, “The boys tape all phone conversations in the house unless they’re told to get off the line. You want me to tell them?”

  I said, “Hell, no, let them get an earful. Anyway, we may want a record of some names and addresses… Why don’t you start the ball rolling by telling Miss Delgado about the maid who was planted on you?”

  Varek shrugged. “Whatever you say. Her name was Bernadette Saiz. Loverboy was Ronnie Juan Jackson.”

  “Did you get that?” I asked the phone. “Bernadette Saiz. Ronnie Juan Jackson.”

  “I heard.” There was a little pause before Miss Delgado spoke again. “Sorry. We have no data on those names.”

  I said, “Well, file them and asterisk them, or whatever you do to indicate that they’re no longer with us. They helped set up a hit for the CLL, but it didn’t work and they didn’t get clear.”

  “Give me the details, please. We never know what information will be useful.”

  “Mr. Varek will tell you all about it.”

  While he was relating how the girl had come to be hired as a maid, Sandra put a big round glass into my hand. There was a splash of brandy rolling around in the bottom of it. Very high class, but I’ll have to admit that I prefer less glass and more booze. I have a tendency to strangle on that strong stuff, trying to sip it daintily from one of those big snifters. I listened to Varek telling the microphone what little had been learned about Bernadette and her boyfriend.

  “Could I have the name of the former employee, please?” asked the speaker. “The one who quit and recommended Saiz.”

  “Ernestine Jaramillo.”

  “Jaramillo with a J?”

  “That’s right,” Varek said. He’d pronounced it Haramijo, Spanish fashion.

  “Go on.”

  “That’s all I have,” Varek said. “Except that they were on their way to Puerto Rico when we stopped them. Matt?”

  I said, “Okay, I’ll take over. Miss Delgado?”

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Varek’s people got the impression that those two had been p
romised sanctuary in San Juan somewhere; but apparently they hadn’t been given the address. They expected to be taken there on arrival.”

  Dana Delgado’s voice said, “Yes, there are indications that the Legion is operating from a San Juan base convenient to both Gobernador and Montego. It is being investigated. Anything else?”

  I said, “Antonio Morelos.”

  There was a pause. “No data… Wait. Morelos? Young?”

  “He was well under twenty and he won’t get any older.”

  “I see.” The voice was steady. “Another asterisk job, Mr. Helm?”

  “That’s right. Why did you ask the age?”

  “We have no Antonio Morelos, but we do have a Dominic Morelos. This one is on our master list. Member of the Caribbean Legion of Liberty, member of the Council of Thirteen. One reference to a nameless kid brother on record.”

  “Give me Dominic, please.”

  “Thirty-three, five-ten, two-ten. A burly, muscular type. Hair black, medium length at last report. Large bandido moustache at last report. Eyes brown. Small scar on left side of chin. Nails of left hand missing or deformed—we understand that, as a guest of the current government of Gobernador, our great democratic ally in that island region, Morelos underwent an interrogation involving a pair of pliers. Primitive, brutal, and apparently useless; we understand that the desired information was not forthcoming. Morelos seems to consider himself God’s gift to women; and some women seem to agree. The record shows considerable military training. Unarmed combat, expert. Edged weapons, expert. Firearms, average. It is recommended that, if you have to deal with Mr. Morelos, you take him at long range. Don’t let him get close.”