The Menacers mh-11

by Donald Hamilton

  "That's enough of that!" I panted. "One down and one to go. Climb up front there and give me some room." I helped her over the seats. "Good girl! Now we'll snake this one back here instead of trying to.

  What's the matter?"

  Carol was staring at her hands, which had blood on them. It happens when you're dealing with bodies freshly dead of gunshot wounds, but apparently this hadn't occurred to her until now. Her glance shifted, horror-struck, from the blood on her hands to the smears on her sweater and life-jacket. Her face turned a pale greenish color. She gulped and looked at Harsek in a sick way.

  "I…1 can't. Matt, I just can't bear to touch him!"

  Sometimes I have serious doubts that nice girls are here to stay. They're delightful to have around in times of noncrisis, but their survival value is open to question. They always seem to have some sentimental or fastidious reason for not doing whatever's necessary to keep on living. I found myself remembering my former wife, another nice girl who'd been a total loss when things got messy.

  I said sharply, "Snap out of it! You can puke later, Angel. Right now, just grab hold of the bloody cadaver, bravely and firmly, and give it a boost aft so I can get to those controls!"

  It worked. It angered her enough so that she forgot her incipient nausea, temporarily at least; and a moment later I was in the driver's seat, for whatever good it might do me. My surroundings looked, in some respects, like rush hour at the butcher shop, but that was irrelevant.

  What was important was that the plane's nose was down again and I was looking through the windshield at water ahead, close enough that I could see detail in the white crests of the waves. The altimeter read less than a thousand feet, dropping. I took hold of the gadget between my knees and pulled it towards me. The plane immediately made a surging, roller coaster rush skyward, and started to fall over on its side.

  I hastily shoved the stick or yoke or whatever they call it back where it had been and let go of it. The motors were laboring uncertainly. I started to reach for the throttles and pulled my hand back: I didn't really know whether we needed more power or less. The plane was flopping around in the sky like a wounded duck, but I left it alone, and presently it straightened itself out and started flying in a more reasonable manner. I took hold of the controls again, this time using only thumbs and forefingers, very gently; and I drew the thing back to me a delicate fraction of an inch at a time..

  The important thing, obviously, was to get the damn bird a safe distance up into the sky so I'd have a little room to make mistakes in. Gradually, I got things sorted out after a fashion-rudder, elevator, ailerons and the works.

  The altimeter began to show a profit instead of a loss. I was actually flying the machine, more or less, or it was flying me. Anyway, it began to look as if we might remain airborne for a while, and it was time to decide what to do next.

  I looked around. It was full daylight now, and for a startled moment I could see nothing but water below. I had a panicky feeling we might be lost out over the Pacific, heading for China, or rather, since we still seemed to be aimed generally southwards, South America and the Antarctic. Then I saw some shadowy dots of land far behind on the right quarter. The next project, obviously, was to get our flying machine headed back that way.

  It took some experimentation since a plane, I quickly learned, can't just be steered where you want it to go, it's got to be banked as well. Furthermore, the rudder pedals worked backwards from the way they had on the Flexible Flyer racing sled I'd used as a boy-a detail that tended to confuse me in moments of stress.

  At last we were headed kind of northwest, however, and I discovered some knobs and cranks-the ones Harsek had used right after takeoff-that let me adjust things so the aircraft was flying itself without my heavy-handed guidance. Early during all these efforts, I had been aware of my passenger being violently ill, but there had been nothing I could do about it, so I'd left her to her own devices. Now she spoke, steadily enough but a little apologetically: "Aren't you… aren't you steering the wrong way, Matt? The mainland is east of us, isn't it? Shouldn't we be heading into the sun, rather than away from it?"

  I said, "I've lost nothing on the mainland, doll. I'm looking for a crescent-shaped island and a boat about forty feet long."

  "But-" I sighed patiently. "Carol, we came on this ride to learn something, didn't we? At least I did. There's a place I'm supposed to find. You heard the girl. Something's planned for the next day or two. A flaming horror, a mass catastrophe connected with this flying saucer hoax, she indicated, to be framed on the U.S. I've got to know where."

  "But she's dead and so is the man-"

  "The people on that boat aren't dead, are they? If I can get us down somewhere near them, they'll take us aboard, if only to find out what happened up here. – And then, presumably, they'll head for wherever the action is to be, and that's the place I want to go."

  I made a wry face. "Priscilla gave me a hint, but it was only a hint. I can't afford to gamble when there's a chance of making sure."

  "Sure? What's sure about it? You don't know how to land an airplane, do you? You've got to find an airport; you've got to have somebody telling you-"

  "In Spanish?" I said. "How many flying terms do I know in Spanish? How many do I know in English? Hell, I'd fly us into the ground while I was trying to figure out what the guy was saying. Anyway, I'm doing all right for an instant aviator, aren't I? I'll get us down somehow."

  "And what if you kill us? How sure is that?" She drew a long breath. "Oh, all right, darling. I suppose you have to try. What can I do to help?"

  I glanced at her. I guess I'd forgotten that while nice girls often have weak stomachs, there's generally nothing fundamentally wrong with their courage. She gave me a funny, wry little smile as if she knew exactly what I was thinking.

  "I.. I'm sorry I disgraced myself," she said. "I'm not used to blood, Matt."

  "Sure."

  "Tell me what to do."

  I shrugged. "Since you ask, our friend in back should have at least three guns on him: a Luger, a Browning, and another pocket pistol belonging to our friend Solana. Priscilla handed them over to him, back there on the highway. Get them, and then strap him in. I'll get us down, but I won't say how. He's a big guy and we don't want him to come flying through the cabin when we hit."

  Carol winced. "You have the most untactful way of putting things of any man I've known. It would serve you right if I sicked up all over you!" She turned around, kneeling on the seat. "Here's your arsenal. Where do you want it?"

  I took the guns and looked at them. The plane was flying along docilely, no hands, at three thousand feet and a hundred and forty miles per hour. I could afford to take my attention off it for a little. I looked at the big, slim-barreled Luger with which Harsek had made his reputation, checked the loads, and dropped it into the coat pocket that already held Priscilla's Colt.38. I glanced at the compact Browning I'd taken from Vadya's purse, it seemed a long time ago. I rechecked that, since it had been out of my possession, and put it in the other coat pocket. I hefted Solana's very similar automatic and started to dispose of it the same way, but stopped, frowning.

  For a gun almost identical to the Browning, it had a startlingly different balance. Well, that happens. Take two shotguns of the same general type and weight but different manufacture, and one will feel light and alive while the other feels heavy and dead, depending on how the weight is distributed. The same can be true of pistols, if you've had experience enough to recognize it in the smaller weapons. But here the difference was so marked that a little investigation seemed indicated.

  I removed the clip. It appeared to be fully loaded. I jacked the remaining cartridge out of the chamber, and it seemed to be an ordinary.380 round. I picked up the clip again, to reload, and realized belatedly that it was much too light for the five or six cartridges it was supposed to hold.

  Studying it, I began to laugh. It was a very simple arrangement. There was a perfectly good cartridge in the chamber
, and another in the top of the clip, so the gun would fire two shots just like any other gun. It would seem fully loaded to anyone who made a routine check. However, the lower part of the clip held no cartridges, although it was carefully camouflaged to show a gleam of brass wherever it was supposed to. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what was inside it, and it wasn't powder and lead.

  "What is it?" Carol asked. "What's the matter with it? What's so funny?"

  I grinned. "Our friend Solana's simpleminded plot wasn't quite as simpleminded as it seemed. Here's his real tracking device. The one you were carrying was just f6ol-bait."

  She flushed. "Well, I think that's… kind of disgusting! You mean that whole act he had us go through was… wasn't really supposed to convince anybody?"

  "Well, Priscilla was obviously supposed to see through it. She was supposed to search you, and find that gadget in your boot, and relax. And all the time the real beeper was in the gun. Solana knew no pro would leave a loaded gun behind." I laughed again. "Not bad! Hell, I could get real fond of that tricky little greaser!"

  "Matt!" Carol had all the usual nice-girl horror of derogatory racial terms.

  "He called us gringos, why can't I call him a greaser? In an affectionate way, of course. But I'll call him a clever Castilian gentleman if you prefer. Anyway, that should mean we're not alone up here." I looked around at the blue morning sky. "There must be a plane up there somewhere, tracking us. Well, let's hope the pilot is on the job." I looked down at the half-dismantled weapon in my hand, and began to reassemble it. "It means, also, that I've got to..change my plans a bit. I've got to figure out how to get this damn electronic firearm into enemy hands under very convincing circumstances, preferably without getting shot in the process "Matt, look! There's a boat down there, heading this way. And there, off to the right, is an island shaped like a new moon. Is that the one you wanted?"

  It was the island, all right, but saying that I wanted it was putting things a little too strongly. Now I had to live up to my brave words and get us down somehow, preferably alive.

  21

  As we PASSED over the black power boat, it was swinging around to follow us back towards the island. Obviously it had headed off to chase the plane when it appeared to be in trouble. Now the boat was out of position for the pickup, which could be good or bad, depending on how things worked out.

  If I managed to land us in one piece, I would be happy to have a little '6~reathing space before the opposition arrived. On the other hand, if I cracked us up badly, it would be nice to have somebody-anybody-standing by to haul us out of the wreckage before it sank.

  There were three men visible on deck, looking up. That meant a probable total of four, I reflected, figuring one steering. Of course there could be another at the radio, trying to make contact with us. In fact, the boat could be crammed with concealed, hostile manpower like a Barbary pirate, but it was hard to see what the point would be. A crew of four seemed like a reasonable working assumption.

  They were having it rough down there, I saw, hammering into the big seas as they turned, with spray flying high. We passed over them at several times their speed, steady and comfortable, proving, I guess, that there's something to be said for progress.

  I dismissed them from mind, temporarily, and concentrated on the island coming up ahead. There had to be something good about that island; Harsek had presumably picked it carefully. It was undoubtedly far enough from civilization that there was no chance of having some public-spirited Mexican citizen report seeing a plane go down into the drink; but it was also, presumably, a safe place to ditch with the wind in this direction. Well, I hoped the Czech had made a good choice, because I was stuck with it.

  One of my few authenticated pieces of aeronautical information said that a plane must land into the wind. I lined things up carefully, therefore, while I was still several miles out. No windsocks were available, of course, but the waves below served just as well. At least I hoped they did.

  When the island was dead upwind from us, I made a cautious, clumsy turn and headed in, gradually throttling back the motors and shedding altitude-so gradually that we were still some eight hundred feet up when we passed over the target area. Well, it wasn't a bad idea to take a look at what I was getting myself into, I told myself.

  Two slim, curving, sandy promontories formed the outer ends of the scrap of land below. The center was wider and rose, I estimated, to some twenty or thirty feet above sea, level. It looked pretty barren. There were hints of stuff growing here and there, but it wasn't a tropical garden by any means, just an overgrown sandbar, with a couple of lumps in the middle. You could call it a fat new moon, or you could call it a skinny crab with claws embracing a sheltered bay or lagoon. Obviously I was supposed to come gliding in between the claws and make my splash in the calm water beyond.

  I made another of my shaky turns and headed back downwind, taking the time as we passed the island, just to be systematic. I gave us a good two minutes, and made another one-eighty. This time, after getting lined up properly, I pulled the throttles back more decisively, letting the speed drop significantly as we headed back in, descending.

  The airspeed indicator said we were going slower, but the water seemed to go by much faster as we neared it. Suddenly the entrance to the bay was flashing past and we were still much too fast and much too high. I had a momentary, suicidal impulse to shove the controls hard forward and dive her in and get it over with; then I put on full power instead, and climbed out of there.

  When I had enough altitude to feel safe-well, moderately safe-I made my downwind turn again. At least I was getting that technique under control. Four or five miles out, by my watch, I turned again, like an expert.

  "Okay," I said aloud. "That's enough practice. Hold your hat, we're going in."

  I didn't look at Carol as I said it. She was a smart girl; I probably wasn't kidding her a bit. This time I forced myself to put it down faster and run the throttles back even farther-so far that suddenly I realized we weren't going to make it. The airspeed was dropping fast; the controls were getting heavy and unresponsive; and the island was still a good mile ahead. The big, white-capped waves were reaching up for us, and if we hit here, away from the shelter of land, the plane would probably break up and sink too fast for us to get clear, assuming that we lived through the impact..

  I started to reach for the throttles once more, and drew my hand back. To hell with it. There are times when you can repair your mistakes, but there are also times when you'd damn well better just live with them. If I started to horse around now, at this low altitude and sluggish speed, I'd probably lose control altogether and make the crash worse. I concentrated on keeping the damn bird straight and level as it sank towards the water. Anyway, my line was good, and every second brought us closer to the entrance.

  Suddenly the two horns of the crescent were welcoming us, and I realized that, far from hitting short, we were probably going to overshoot and crash into the island. I reached out and cut the ignition switches and flipped a mental coin. It seemed better-or at least slower-to flop in tail first than to dive in. I yanked the controls brutally back into my lap. All kinds of things happened at once. The nose went up, the right wing dropped, the tail bit the water, and the whole plane came crashing down on its belly, hard. The low wing dug in, and we went plowing blindly across the lagoon.

  Then everything was very quiet, and we lay there rocking gently, with water draining from the windows and windshield. I looked at Carol, who lifted her head and looked at me.

  I grinned. "A good landing is any landing you can walk away from-as we birdmen say."

  "Walk?" she said shakily. "Swim, you mean. Let's get out of here!"

  She unbuckled her seat belt. The door opened easily, which was a relief; I'd had a sudden fear that it might have jammed somehow. Then she was out of there, and I was scrambling after her, but I stopped for a moment to look around. After all, there was some sentiment involved: this was my first aircraft command. N
ow that it was over, I realized that it had been kind ~f fun driving the thing around the sky.

  I looked at Harsek, huddled behind the seats, and felt less happy. It was a hell of a way for an experienced agent to go, shot by accident while acting as window-dressing for an operation being conducted by some vicious kids with odd sexual appetites. Harsek, the Mad Czech. I wondered how he'd come by the name; he'd seemed sane enough to me. Well, as sane as they come in this racket.

  I wondered if, perhaps, as in Vadya's case, there hadn't been a little more to Harsek's story than we'd been told. Perhaps somebody'd had some doubts about him, too, to send him here in a subordinate capacity. Maybe he'd been disciplined for making an error of some kind during the recent Mid-Eastern disturbances…

  "Matt!" It was Carol's voice. "Matt, hurry, it's sinking!"

  I gave Harsek a salute, as one pro to another, and squeezed my six-feet-four out through the door. Carol, her life preserver inflated, was crouching on the half-submerged wing. I paused to yank the tab, and felt my rubber vest fill, which was just as well. With all the firearms in my pockets, I'd have sunk like a rock without the extra buoyancy. I looked out to sea and saw that the black power. cruiser was only a mile or so out, heading straight for the entrance.

  The plane was settling fast. I sat down and slid into the water, which was warmer than I'd expected. Carol hesitated a moment longer, conventionally reluctant to go swimming fully dressed. Then the plane gave a sudden lurch, and she launched herself cautiously, being careful to keep her head above water. She glanced in my direction to make sure I was coming, and started making her way towards shore in an embarrassed, gingerly manner, as if afraid her friends might see her paddling around in the Pacific-well, an arm of it, anyway-with all her Clothes on.

  It wasn't much of a swim. Five minutes later we were wading up to the beach.

  22