The Green Ripper

by John D. MacDonald

  I stood up quickly, turning as I rose, and saw a

  The Green Ripper dicker of movement beyond a big tree a hundred feet away. Suspicion confirmed. Keep an eye on Brother Thomas, but without giving yourself away. And we'll see what he does.

  Well, he just hung around and washed himself and some clothes. He spent an hour with Sister Nena He doesn't seem to want to take off.

  That night I got up from the table and went over to where Persival sat with Alvor. I said, 'Y don't see any good reason why you have to hang onto my money."

  "People in the Church have no need of money."

  'Tm not in the Church yet." our money is safe."

  "You give me a list of the regular camps where my Kathy might be, and I'll go check them out, and then I'll come back here whether I find her or not."

  "Would you try to take her away from the camp?"

  "No. I just want to see how she looks grown up, and tell her that her ma is dead. That's all. I want to make sure she's alive."

  'we're trying to locate her for you."

  "You keep telling me that."

  "What need would you have for money here? Ies safe. Now go back and sit down, Brother. You're doing fine here. Don't spoil it."

  "Suppose I decided to leave anyway."

  They looked up at me. Brother Alvor had eyes like dry pebbles. Brother Persival said, '`Then we'll bury you beside Brother Nicholas and say a prayer over you. And make do without you."

  I know the truth when I hear it. I went back to the other table. The others were finishing. They looked at me with curiosity, but asked no questions.

  They resumed their conversation. Chuck was being the instructor again. Topic, thermite pencils. "Remember, they maintain a temperature of twelve hundred degrees Fahrenheit for ten minutes. They aren't like the older ones we had. Those were too complicated. You twist this end one full turn, and that breaks the seal so that the acid starts to eat through the barner. It will take two hours to eat through, plus or minus ten minutes. Remember, the secret is saturation. A team of four can start at a designated point in the heart of a city, and each head out in a different direction like the spokes of a wheel, on foot. The cover story is the distribution of pamphlets. Each team member can carry and distribute two hundred pencils. You've read the list of preferred types of locations. You walk ten blocks out from the primary target area and fLen, a half hour later, walk the circumference of an imaginary wheel, building a circle of future fire around the heart of the city. In that way you can trap most of the fire fighting organizations between the two ilres, and also we're told that this dispersion is the most effective way of creating a fire storm."

  He was still talking when I walked out.

  218

  13

  On Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, the last three days of the year, I tried to find out everything I could about the area. I located everyone's quarters and realized there was room for twice as many. Haris told me there had been more travel trailers, and what was now the warehouse had been a bunkhouse, capable of accommodating a hundred and fifty.

  The one time I had looked into the warehouse, I had seen, in the light of the small bulb near the door, towering stacks of crates and boxes. It seemed to be much more than these few people could use or carry.

  On Monday I learned by accident of one deadly item they were warehousing. It was obvious I had no chance to get in there. I happened upon Ahman out behind the small mess hall, where the grass grew tan and coarse. He was backing away, looking intently at the grass. I did not see what he was looking at for a few moments, and then I saw it, a cylinder about three feet high, three inches in circumference.

  "Hard to see it?" he asked. "I've been trying different ways of painting it. The damn things came through all shiny. I striped this one green and brown, vertically. It seems to work the best. Kind of wavy lines, like the grass."

  I wallred toward it with him. 'what is it?"

  "It's a little rocket." Vhat does it do?"

  'It does what rockets do, Brother. It goes whoosh-b~m."

  Thanks a lot."

  He hesitated, then said, 'It's on a spike, see? You shove it into the ground at a little slant. You find a good place, a half mile from the end of a runway. Then you pull this top cap off and throw it away. Then you unscrew this little cap down here near the base. Then you push this little switch, and from then on you make no loud noises, Brother. It is an acoustic trigger. A loud noise, like a jet going over low, closes the circuit, and that ignites the propellant and it comes out fast. Little vanes snap open. It's a heat-finder. Little heat-sensitive guidance sys

  The Green Ripper tem. It will pick right up to a thousand meters a second, which is somewhere around two thousand miles an hour. It has a four-mile range and it'll hit the hottest thing it can find, which will be a jet en- gine, and it's got enough muscle to blow off a wing or a tail, whatever. They come six in a case, labeled kitchen equipment, and we've got ten cases. It's a low-risk operation. The best way is a telephone company truck. You always see them off on back roads, and you never think twice about it."

  "Commercial airports?"

  "We certainly couldn't get close enough to military ones even if we wanted to."

  "Where are they made7"

  "It doesn't say. The instructions come in six languages."

  I hoped I did not look as shaken as I felt. If only one out of every six ignited and hit a target, it would be the worst airline disaster of all time. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are on our final approach to San Francisco International Airport. Please put out all cigarettes and make sure your seat belts are fastened and your tray tables are in an upright position. It has been our pleasure serving you, and we hope you will fly..." team.

  He picked it up gently and, holding it so as not to smear his paint job, carried it off toward the warehouse. I went back into the mess hall. It was my turn on the food detail. I stared at the supplies and couldn't decide what to have. I felt queasy.

  I jumped a foot in the air when somebody "lapped me on the behind. It was Stella, back from her morning wars, grinning, showing a lot of uneven teeth. And smelling faintly of cordite.

  'Frey, you got bad nerves, Brother Tom."

  'books that way."

  'I should come on by tonight and relax you. But, come to think of it, well have to make it another time. I'm on the gate midnight to dawn. What's the matter with you? You act down. Is anything wrong?"

  "No. Everything is just peachy. Help me figure out what to cook up."

  "Get out of the way. Let me see what we've got. Boy, there isn't much. But there's two less for lunch, and Brother Persival and Brother Alvor will be back later on with fresh supplies."

  "Who's down on the gate??'

  "Brother Sammy, I think."

  "Should somebody take something down to him?"

  "He can eat after he's relieved."

  'I don't even know who runs the duty roster."

  "Brother Chuck? mostly. Unless Brother Persival wants something done different. Have you been studying your book?"

  "The Loving Heart? It sure isn't easy reading."

  "You can say that again. You know, there are parts I have to skip every time."

  Vhat I was thinking, if I could read some of it

  The Green Ripper into a tape recorder, one of those little ones I saw, I could learn it faster."

  "Oh, I can get you one of those. We've got two in our trailer. And lots of empty tape. Want it right now?"

  "Why not7"

  She gave me a warm look and a loving smile and went trotting off, leaving her pack, weapon, and belt in the corner of the kitchen area. I moved close enough to it to see that the Uzi clip was full up. They get used to having you around. Good old McGraw. He's getting plenty of exercise, enough food. We've got his money and we're supposed to be hunting for his daughter. Keep an eye on him, of course, but nobody is exactly worried about him.

  I had tried to give myself another advantage too. During the field exercises I had tried to k
eep going when it called for endurance, but I had dogged it when it was something calling for quick. I had blundered around when the order was for silent approach. When we ran the improvised obstacle course, I arranged to finish almost last every time. In unarmed combat, I let the men drop me with a certain amount of fuss and trouble. I was rounding off into top shape, putting on a nice edge. As I clumsied along, I studied each of them to see their flaws. Barry was muscle-bound from too much body building. Haris was very quick but without adequate physical strength. Sammy was too wildly energetic. He didn't plant himself for leverage, and he tried to move in too many directions at onch Ahman was quick and strong and crafty, once he had made up his mind, but he was prone to fatal hesitations. Chuck was the best of them, without a weakness except perhaps a tendency to exhibit more grace than was required, to turn his best profile toward an imaginary camera, to leap a little higher, spin more quickly than the exercise required.

  Stella came back with a little cardboard box, silver-colored and battered, and repaired with tape. The Olympus Pearlcorder and accessories were in a jumble inside the box, along with extra tapes and batteries.

  'everybody will have to use one when we get the assignments," she said. tow?',

  66You have to memorize every word of your assignment, and you have to be able to start anywhere, in the middle, toward the end, anywhere. So what you do is read it onto the tape, and then before you go to sleep and when you wake up, you play it and say it right along with yourself, over and over and over. It has to be so much second nature that you don't have to think about it when you go out on an operation. They're very, you know, compiete. You will get off at the corner of Main and Central. You will wale quickly north on Main on the right-hand side of the street. When you get to the bus stop at the southeast corner of Main and

  The Green Ripper

  Pearl, you will wait there until precisely fourteen hundred hours. You will turn and enter the General National Bank Building, take the first available elevator, and ride up to the fifteenth floor. You will turn left when you exit the elevator, follow the corridor to the fire door at the end.' And so on. That was only part of a practice operation I did. There were two more pages of orders. By the time I started it, I never had to think of what to do next. I knew. I was like some kind of machine, you know?"

  I took the recorder back to T-6 and left it on the bunk and came back and helped her with the meal. Since it was the last day of the year, Persival had canceled all afternoon exercises and given orders for solitary meditation and rest. I acquainted myself with my tape recorder. There was an attachment to screw onto the bottom of it which worked as a voice-actuating device. I tested the sensitivity. I put a tape in and read some of The Loving Heart.

  "Just as white reflects all colors and black absorbs all colors, the Lord both reflects and absorbs all the thoughts and desires which pass through our mind. When you know that your thoughts are turning negative, that you are losing faith in your own faith, you must become one vith a trusted Brother or Sister who loves you, and through that person renew and restore each other to the positive glory of the Church."

  I listened to it come back, with little clicks where it had turned off by itself and come back on again at the sound of my voice, sometimes eliminating the first syllable after the pause.

  It amused me to think of what Meyer would say about this mishmash. Though perfectly willing to pursue the philosophical concept to the furthest thicket of his mind, he has no patience with imprecision of thought, looseness of expression.

  I read the tattered Pearlcorder manual again and pondered where to place the device. Persival and Alvor were the ones I wanted to tap. Alvor had a little square cement house of his own. It resembled him. Persival lived in the most elegant accommoda- tion of an, a fat tan motor home with bulbous rounded corners and six soft but not flat tires. In the evenings he would confer with Chuck or Alvor or both of them in his motor home. It had obsolete Arizona plates and was not readily visible from the broad flat area of the stony plateau.

  One side of one tape was good for thirty minutes. Planting the machine was no good if I had no way to retrieve it.

  The quality of the light had changed. I opened my door. Snow was falling, big fat flakes, melting as they fell, coming down in ever greater quantity,

  The Green Ripper dimming the sky. As I stood there I heard the van coming. It stopped near the warehouse, and I went out to see if I could help, shoving the recorder into my pocket. There were some small heavy wooden boxes in addition to the supplies they had gone after. Chuck appeared, and as he and Alvor carried the boxes into the warehouse, I was detailed to move the provisions to the kitchen. It took four trips, and when I went back to the van, Brother Persival was standing, grimacing with pain, beside one of the small boxes which had fallen into the snow.

  "I shouldn't have tried to carry it," he said. '~Would you take it to my quarters, please, Brother Thomas? I'll be along in a few moments."

  It was very heavy for the size of it and contained, according to the label, some sort of electronic equipment. The motor home was locked. I rested the box on the step. Just to the left of the door there was a metal grid held in place by simple plan tic thumbscrew devices, two of them. I guessed it was to vent heat from the back of the refrigerator. I took out the recorder, set the sensitivity, put it on Automatic Record, undid one thumbscrew, pulled the flimsy metal out a few inches, and shoved the recorder into the small space inside and closed the grid again. It had been an almost instinctive reaction. I did not know how or when I was going to retrieve the recorder. I did not know if it would do me any good. Maybe, if the refrigerator was run ning, I would merely get thirty minutes of compressor effects. If Stella wanted the recorder back, I would have to say I lost it in the snow or the creek, or somewhere.

  Within moments I was wishing I had it back, but Brother Persival came along to open the door. He did not invite me in. He told me to reach in and set the box on the Boor. He thanked me, and I went away. I went to a spot where I could see who might be going in and out of the motor home. First Alvor and then Chuck. Then Alvor came out and went to his own place. Chuck stayed inside until it was time to start fixing the evening meal. Celebration. Among the supplies was a batch of barbecued chickens, needing only to be heated up. And there were several half-gallon jugs of Gallo Hearty Burgundy, and ice cream packed in dry ice. End of the year. Hooray for the New Year. Hooray for terrorism, for death and fire and confusion. We were all smiles and fun as we ate. Even Ahman was pleasant to me. Persival and Alvor ate at the big table with the rest of us. The snow was staying on the ground.

  With no better plan, I managed a wine drunk. I sang. I kissed the ladies. I was a figure of fun. McGraw, the funny fisherman. Dads, we call him. I whacked Alvor on the back. It was very like whacking the side of his little cement house. And it got just as much reaction.

  Suddenly I stopped and stood, weaving back and

  The Green Ripper forth, a hand clapped across my mouth, eyes wide with consternation, cheeks bulging. I plunged to the door and went out into the snow, leaving them laughing.

  I made sure I left erratic tracks, but the tracks took me right to the motor home. I had just fastened the thin metal grille back in place when Sammy yelled, "You! Hey! Get away from therel What are you doing?"

  I wheeled around and stumbled toward him, arms wide. "Good al' Brother Sammy. Never knew I was gonna have a Chinese brother."

  He tried to elude me, but I embraced him and began a horrible retching cough that panicked him. He struggled free and I fell to my hands and knees and said, "Gotta go home. Help me, old buddy. Can't find old T-Six. Somebody moved it on me."

  He helped me up, and I staggered a zigzag course along the direction in which he was leading me. I mumbled thanks and crawled into my trailer. Five minutes later, when I looked out, there was no one in sight. I undressed and got into the bunk un- der the blankets. The tape had been used up. I rewound it. I used the ivory ear button to listen to it.

  I
t was very indistinct. I experimented with the volume controls, trying to clear it. The voices sounded too much alike. It was Alvor, Persival, and Chuck, talking about people I didn't know. And they were too far from the recorder.

  Alvor left the conversation. I could more readily distinguish between Chuck's and Persival's voices.

  They both were muffled, but Persival spoke in slower cadence. " three more here... Ireland... woman thirty... late January..."

  " about another vehicle?"

  'later. Maybe at the same time."

  Mumble "..."

  ~ tentative approval... liked the basic idea. Oil tankers too... longer delay... arrive tomorrow... description of McGraw... take a personal look... coming up from... go back with him... you in charge."