The Damagers

by Donald Hamilton

  Dorothy said, undisturbed, “My husband was an old man. I was very good to him, I made him very happy whenever he desired me, something no other woman had been able to do for several years before he married me; but the women of our race have always had effective methods of pleasuring men, even quite elderly men. He should have been satisfied with that. It was unreasonable of him to expect me to wait around unfulfilled, a woman like me, for the few times a month he was… interested. I was always available when he wanted me; he should not have asked for more.” She paused, and went on. “Roger does what he must for his people. Our people.”

  I said, “Oh, one of those.”

  She said, “You should be able to understand people like Roger and me.”

  I frowned. “Why the hell should I?”

  “You’re not so far from your roots, either, Matthew Helm,” she said. “Not like these mongrel Americans who have long since forgotten the blood that bred them. We know that you have been back to your native land more than once to renew your ancient ties that the soil from which your family sprang…”

  I almost laughed; she made an occasional visit to Scandinavia, mostly in the line of duty, sound like a pilgrimage to a holy shrine. Well, it’s a nice enough place, and some of my Swedish relatives are pretty nice people—and some aren’t—but my spiritual ties, if any, bind me to the vast sunny expanses of the southwestern United States where I was brought up, not to the misty little country from which my folks emigrated a few years before I was born because they could do better for themselves over here… I was aware that the woman across the table had changed the subject.

  “…and you are not really interested in Roger, anyway,” she was saying.

  I said, “Tell me. I’m interested in my interests.”

  She said, “Roger Hassim is nothing to you. Please don’t try to convince me that you feel you must punish him because he was unkind to a not particularly attractive young woman you met for the first time less than an hour ago. What you truly want—the person you really want— is a certain rather dangerous young man, a Soviet-trained killer, who hates America and bears a grudge against one American in particular, you, because under orders from Washington you shot his father to death some years ago.” She regarded me steadily across the table. “I can give you Roland Caselius. For a price, of course.”

  It took me by surprise. In my mind, I’d filed this business under two separate headings: the murky Arab terror operation that was mainly of interest to Mrs. Bell, and the straightforward DAMAG mission—R. Caselius, find and neutralize—that was my concern. I’d certainly hoped, as had Mac, that one would lead me to the other, that was why I was here; but I hadn’t really expected a participant in one to go out of her way to help me to the other, even at a price…

  The waiter saved me from having to respond immediately, and when he left, after taking our orders, Dorothy seemed to have forgotten Caselius. She said, “I do not seem to be as good a judge of people as I thought. In addition to misjudging the girl, I also seem to have underestimated you, or at least your powers of resistance. And I definitely underestimated my elderly husband.”

  “In what way?”

  “I thought… I should have remembered that the old ones can be sly and dangerous. Even when you think you have them totally infatuated… It’s not like dealing with a lovesick boy, who will reject all suspicions of his beloved as unworthy and degrading. Truman surprised me once by hiring a private detective; but I thought I’d convinced him that Roger was just a brief aberration and I truly regretted it and intended to devote the rest of my life to making it up to him, my wonderful husband. Why, I was even willing to live for several weeks in that cramped little cabin on that ridiculous little boat just to be with him. Greater love has no woman, ha!” She grimaced. “Actually, I would never have dreamed of subjecting myself to such an ordeal, but Roger saw how Lorelei III could be utilized for our purposes. However, we couldn’t risk having my snoopy little stepdaughter on board sticking her nose into everything, and the only way to get her off the boat was to put me on it.”

  Well, I was learning a few things, and I had a hunch I was about to learn more. I couldn’t help wondering why the lady was confiding in me so generously. The arrival of the salads silenced her only briefly.

  Then she continued her recital. “As I say, old men are sly. I thought I had convinced Truman of my wifely devotion; I certainly made every effort to prove it during the endless boring waterway trip from one little buggy, miserable anchorage or marina to the next. He seemed contented enough, and he was delighted by the sights along the way, as if he hadn’t made the same voyage so many times before! He was forever pointing out to me new wonders… I must say that those creepy mangrove swamps down south leave me quite cold, and I’ve seen a deer, and while the dolphins are mildly entertaining, I am not a bit enchanted by the obese manatees that Truman went ecstatic over, the couple of times we managed to get a glimpse of one—the ugliest animal on earth, and so enormous! I had a vision of one bumping a hole in the boat in its moronic, friendly way. But of course I pretended to share my husband’s childish pleasure. Apparently, my pretense wasn’t good enough…”

  The arrival of our dinners interrupted her. The duck lived up to its advance publicity, and I allowed it to keep me busy for a while. It seemed best not to act too eager to hear the story she was so eager to tell me.

  “Well, what happened?” I asked at last.

  “He caught us unloading,” Dorothy said. “I had put something into his evening coffee, enough that I was certain it would keep him asleep all night no matter how much noise we made, first moving the boat to the proper location, and then unloading, and finally returning to the original anchorage…”

  “Unloading what?” A little stupidity seemed to be indicated, and I went on. “You mean drugs?”

  She shook her head irritably. “Don’t be ridiculous! If we want drugs, we have people who can obtain them at the source; we don’t need to carry them around in the bilge of a yacht. I think you have a fairly good idea…”

  The waiter came by to ask if everything was okay. Somebody should teach them in waiter school not to be forever interrupting the customers’ conversations with that foolish question.

  “Go on,” I said to Dorothy, after telling the man that everything was just wonderful.

  She said, “Truman came stumbling out of his cabin just as we were hoisting it out of the engine room and up through the open skylight. He must have got some of the drug before he poured out the coffee when I wasn’t looking; and of course, with his heart, he wasn’t supposed to drink coffee at all. Maybe that’s why he got rid of part of it, remembering his doctor’s instructions; but I think it’s more likely that he suspected… Anyway, he had enough sedative in him that he was quite groggy, and he just stood swaying in the doorway, whatever you call it on a boat, staring at us. There it was, hanging in the deckhouse, and I was helping to guide it upward, wearing the greasy old coveralls he used when he worked on the engine. There were several of Roger’s men helping, and Roger himself… I think it was the sight of Roger, whom I’d promised never to see again, that did it. He started to say something, and then his face changed and he put both hands to his chest and bent over, gasping with pain. I knew it was another heart attack, of course; I’d seen the first one…”

  I said, when she paused, “So he died very conveniently for you.”

  She shook her head. “No, he didn’t die, not then; and it would actually have been very inconvenient to have him do it there, calling attention to that neighborhood… I got him below. We saw that he was very sick, but we decided that the best thing to do was keep him alive, sedated if necessary, as long as possible while we got him, and the boat, as far as possible away from the critical area. I won’t tell you how long he lasted. Maybe it was just a few days, maybe it was weeks. In any case, it was not a pleasant cruise. He was a very tough old man, and I was beginning to be afraid we might have to expedite matters. We were getting pretty far north,
but one morning his heart finally gave out for good. We set up the charade you know, running the boat aground at the side of the channel there in North Carolina and having me supposedly wake up from my seasick nap to find my husband dead on the deckhouse floor under the big steering wheel. I used the radio to call for help, sounding very frightened and desperate, and everybody was very kind, very considerate, and there were no awkward questions at all—except, of course, from my stepdaughter, who was certain that I had murdered her father. Well, perhaps I had in a way, perhaps he would have recovered and lived a few more years if we’d taken him to a hospital. However, you will note that I did tell you the truth. I did not poison him.”

  She looked very attractive sitting across the table in the pleasant restaurant, a handsome, civilized, dark lady chatting with her escort and sipping occasionally at her innocent Perrier water as she coped with her duck. She was, of course, as Ziggy Kronquist had said, a monster. Well, we meet such a lot of them in the business.

  I suppose some people would be horrified at the thought of poor old Truman Fancher lying helpless and drugged, with a failing heart, in the master cabin of his own yacht as it raced northward—well, as fast as you can race in an eighty-horsepower motor sailer—to get a suitable distance north, while his beautiful, sexy wife hovered over him hoping he’d keep breathing long enough, but not so long that she’d have to expedite his departure with a pillow.

  Lori would, of course, have been horrified. I don’t horrify so easily. Still there was definitely something about the woman that activated certain warning circuits inside me—maybe I should call them the monster-warning circuits—keeping me from responding to her sexually; it was as if she wasn’t a real human woman.

  I cleared my throat and said, “What about his logbook? Were you afraid the last entry would tell the world where Lorelei III anchored that night, before you moved somewhere else to unload your cargo? That would still be fairly close, wouldn’t it?”

  Dorothy Fancher gave a short laugh. “Close? He had the exact position! My husband was a seaman, Mr. Helm. Awakening from a drugged sleep, seeing a strange object being hoisted out of the bilge of his boat, not to mention seeing a man he hated, he still automatically noted the loran reading from his cabin doorway.” Strangely, she sounded quite proud of the elderly husband she’d allowed to die without medical attention. “He not only noted the position, he remembered it even after falling unconscious with a coronary. And wrote it down in the log later, when we thought he was helpless in his bunk; and hid the book and told me about it. He said it was concealed where we would never find it, but somebody else would; and when I said he was bluffing, he smiled his wicked old smile and closed his eyes—he was getting very weak—and read off the figures from memory, quite correctly! We searched and searched but found no traces of the book. Of course we couldn’t be too drastic. I knew that with her father dead, my stepdaughter would inevitably accuse me of his murder; we couldn’t risk the additional questions that would have been asked if the authorities had found, not only a dead man, but a badly damaged boat. So I sent Lorelei III up to Oyster Bay before little Lori arrived; and we’ve been trying to get rid of the boat and that damned logbook, wherever it may be hidden, ever since!”

  It had been quite a recital; and I still wondered why she’d told me so much. I drew a long breath. “Okay, what’s the deal?”

  She was watching a large freighter glide past in the canal. “What did you say, Matt?”

  “You offered me a bargain,” I said. “Roland Caselius at a price.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Of course, originally I hadn’t expected to have to bargain. Since those stupid killers Roger hired had failed to cope with you, I would simply hitch a ride on your boat and drive you mad with lust to the point where you would be happy to do anything… Well, I have already told you. Oh, dear, it’s a terrible blow to my vanity to meet a man on whom I have so little effect!” She dabbed delicately at her lips with her napkin. “So I must offer a trade instead. The arrangement would be simply this: I help you carry out your mission, and you give your word not to interfere with mine.”

  The dessert, when we got to it, was almost as good as the duck.

  16

  When we left the restaurant, a night mist was again making halos around the lights. Like the land of my ancestors in northern Europe, it was another damp damned part of the world. I hadn’t seen a truly clear, starry night since I left New Mexico.

  The phone booths, a cluster of three, were located in the parking lot—if you want to flatter them by calling them booths. I refer, of course, to the fresh-air installations that have taken the place of real booths, merely protecting the equipment and to hell with the customers. Thanks loads, AT&T.

  From the one I chose, I could watch Lorelei III at the dock among the other boats, unmoving in the quiet night. I guess the seafaring life was leaving its mark on me: I was getting so I just liked to look at my boat. She wasn’t pretty, as boats go—no motor sailer is—but she was sturdy and businesslike. We’d left the lights on in the deckhouse, and she had a friendly, cozy, comfortable look, lying there.

  I could wish that I were just taking her for a pleasure cruise down the ICW, perhaps with a competent and compatible sailing friend—little Lori Fancher had written me off, but I remembered that Ziggy Kronquist was supposed to be an expert sailor and, if you looked past the splints and bandages, seemed like a reasonably bright and attractive girl, Dorothy Fancher to the contrary notwithstanding. Despite her injuries, she’d probably make a good shipmate.

  But instead of cruising for pleasure I was playing dangerous games on board with a very wicked lady whose eventual intentions, where I was concerned, were undoubtedly homicidal.

  “You can go on to the boat if you like,” I said to the wicked lady, waiting nearby. “I’m just going to clear things with my chief in Washington.”

  “That’s all right, I’ll wait,” she said.

  Well, on second thought I’d just as soon have her where I could see her, instead of opening sea cocks or mixing up roach-powder cocktails on board. Having kind of committed myself to letting her come along, I felt a little like the cowboy who’d lassoed the bear and couldn’t quite figure out what the hell to do next.

  I had no trouble reaching Mac; we seldom do. I brought him up to date. Dorothy had moved off a short distance to perch gingerly on one of the low pilings along the seawall, after carefully checking it out for dryness and cleanliness for the sake of her white linen pants. I wondered if Ziggy Kronquist was watching from out in the dark somewhere. I could see no sign of her, but if she was any good, I wouldn’t.

  “You agreed to the lady’s terms, of course,” Mac said.

  “Well, naturally,” I said. “I mean, what’s a minor atomic holocaust or two when you can nail a dangerous chap like Caselius?”

  Mac said, “I owe you an apology, Eric.”

  Startled, I said, “What the hell for?”

  He spoke carefully. “I am afraid I thought you were rather jumping to conclusions when you decided that the planned terrorist activity would be nuclear in nature, merely on the basis of the expression on a lady’s face. However, we’ve received some information that pretty well confirms your guess.”

  “What information?”

  Mac said, “I thought it odd that the life of a valuable specialist like Jerome Blum would be jeopardized on an operation that required only a reasonably strong pitching arm. On a hunch, I suppose you would call it, I requested an instant autopsy on the body. It turns out that Mr. Blum was a very sick man. Apparently his employers felt that, since they were about to lose him anyway, they might as well risk him at sea and get some use of him. And perhaps he went without protest, hoping to be killed, as he was. Radiation sickness does not give an easy death.”

  I whistled softly. “So friend Boomer had been playing around with uranium or plutonium or whatever! But, hell, I thought the guy was supposed to be an expert; you’d think he’d take all the necessary precaution
s.”

  “He was an expert with materials like dynamite, Semtex, plastique, or gelignite,” Mac agreed. “But just how many civilian atom bomb experts are there? Apparently, after dealing so long with conventional explosives, Mr. Blum failed to treat the new materials he was handling with the proper respect.”

  I said, “All the blow-’em-up boys have the secret ambition to, just once, construct a Big One. We met another guy like that some years ago over in the Bahamas, remember?” I frowned. “So I may have guessed slightly wrong about Dorothy Fancher and her friends. It’s the weapon they plan to use that’s atomic, not necessarily the target they plan to use it against.”

  Mac said, “It doesn’t take much training to make such a bomb, these days; you can buy a how-to book on any newsstand.”

  “Sure. Hiroshima Made Easy. I’ve just had a very interesting discussion with the lady in question…” I told him about it. “So the gadget Boomer Blum constructed for these people, at the cost of his own life, is presumably waiting somewhere near the area of its intended use. The questions are: where and when? You haven’t heard of any recent terrorist activity along the East Coast, have you?”

  “Nothing of the sort has been reported.”

  “If the thing has been in place for months, what are they waiting for?”

  Mac didn’t answer my question. He said, “I suppose you will have to help Mrs. Bell put a stop to this nonsense, although sabotage is not really within our designated field of operations.”

  I said, “Sir, I have given my sacred word not to interfere.”

  He spoke rather wearily. “I am told that a sense of humor can be useful to an agent, but I find yours a bit feeble at the moment, Eric.” What he meant, of course, was that nothing is sacred in our business, particularly promises. He went on. “But don’t let this distract you from your primary mission. How does the lady say she’ll set up the touch for you?”