The Retaliators

by Donald Hamilton

  "Yes, sir," I said. "I remember."

  He went on: "Nor is there any chance Norma could have been trying to establish liaison with a Mexican agent in the line of duty, since our relations in that quarter—you remember the fiasco of your assignment down there a few years ago, the one involving flying saucers, for heaven's sake!—have deteriorated even further, and I've strictly forbidden all such contacts. No, both Norma and Roger must simply have been seeking sanctuary among the Mexicans.... I believe it's proper to call them Mexicans if they live in Mexico, although I gather that people of the same racial lineage insist on being called Spanish if they live above the border. People are very sensitive about such things these days, are they not, Eric?"

  "Yes, sir," I said, listening closely.

  "For instance," he went on, "you come from Swedish ancestry, as I recall, but I doubt that you object strenuously to being called a Swede. I know a gentleman from Denmark who's quite happy to be called a Dane. But a citizen of Japan, of my acquaintance, becomes quite irate if he is called a Jap. And then again, most male residents of England refer to themselves as Englishmen. I've never heard a French citizen object to being called a Frenchman. Yet a certain gentleman from China is said to consider Chinaman a very derogatory term. I must say I am getting tired of catering to all these odd historical prejudices, aren't you, Eric?" He laughed shortly. "Of course this is entirely beside the point. I must ask you to forgive and forget this digression. The point, of course, is that I must strongly advise you to give yourself up to Mr. Euler or his representatives. You know that he has always been a good friend of this organization; and that you can expect fair treatment from him, which, I must say, is more than you really deserve after betraying..."

  I glanced at the second hand of my watch. It had turned far enough, perhaps a little too far. It was time for me to hang up and get out of there, not that it would make much difference if the BIS people already had me spotted—if, say, the cruising Lincoln was theirs. I didn't really think it was, however. Andrew Euler, their boss, was noted for two things: fanatic morality and penny-pinching economy. No employees of the Bureau of Internal Security dared to sleep with anyone to whom they weren't married, went the rumor; it was even said that a cocktail or cigarette could seriously damage your career in that outfit. Euler's paper-clip-counting parsimony was also legendary, making it unlikely that any of his people would employ a Lincoln for surveillance when a Volkswagen would do.

  I replaced the phone gently, and drew a long breath as I stepped out of the booth. So far, so good. Considering the handicaps under which he was operating, Mac had given me as clear a briefing as I could have hoped for....

  "Please get in! Quickly!"

  It was the Arizona Lincoln again, having made the tour around the block. The driver, who'd thrown open the curb door to address me, was a woman. One small mystery, at least, was resolved.

  "They're waiting at your hotel!" she snapped. "They were asking for you at the desk. They'll arrest you if you go there. Get in, please, I'm blocking traffic!"

  I didn't know her; but, although I keep trying, there are still some handsome ladies around with whom I'm not acquainted. At least I didn't know anything bad about her; and I'd already decided that the wheels she was driving made it unlikely she was working for government security or its straight-laced, tight-fisted chief. I got in.

  two

  She drove the big car badly. That is, she drove it timidly, like a graduate of one of those training schools that are the curse of the American highway; the ones that don't teach driving but something called "defensive driving," meaning that their students are brainwashed to believe that the sole purpose of putting a vehicle on the road is to get it back into the garage again unscratched, no matter how many people you obstruct or delay in the process. The idea that automobiles were invented to provide efficient and reasonably rapid transportation had obviously never occurred to her.

  Resigning myself to this slow and fearful progress, I leaned forward a bit so I could study the view in the right-hand rear-view mirror while I organized in my mind the information I'd just received over the phone. Obviously, the situation in Washington was very difficult at the moment. Mac had had to go to elaborate lengths to transmit the data and instructions I needed without leaving himself open to a charge of aiding and abetting an employee suspected of treason. The reference to an investigation of a gent named Ernemann had been, of course, pure doubletalk. We don't investigate people. The government of the United States of America is lousy with investigators of one kind or another, but we're not among them. Our duties are somewhat different, and we don't discuss them over bugged telephones. Nevertheless, the orders had got through: I knew what to do and whom to do it to.

  Beyond that, the key was Mac's deliberate statement that this Ernemann had never yet been known to set foot off city pavement in the line of business. Well, Ernemann was not well known in many circles. Since espionage was not his bag, it was unlikely that the security people had anything on him. However, we try to keep track of up-and-coming specialists in our own line of work, and Ernemann was coming up; in fact he could be said to have reached the top. More or less a free lance in the political field—there was no evidence that he'd ever accepted a syndicate or private contract although I had a hunch he might be willing to compromise his principles if there was enough money involved—he was supposed to be particularly good with automatic weapons. He was supposed to be, also, a pretty good woodsman and a hell of a mountain climber. His idea of relaxation, apparently, was scrambling around precipices for fun, hanging by his toenails and pitons, if I've got the right word. It's not my idea of splendid outdoors sport; I get dizzy when the terrain gets too vertical. But the point was that, contrary to what Mac had said, Ernemann was exactly the chap you wouldn't pick for dirty work in dark alleys. His forte was fresh-air assassination.

  It was my cue. It mean that, lacking time to be fancy, Mac had been using a direct mirror code to brief me, and everything he said—everything of any importance, at least—had to be reversed before it made sense. He'd told me not to try to prove I'd been framed; that meant I was supposed to work at it. He'd ordered me to give myself up; that meant I was supposed to stay at liberty as long as possible. He'd told me our relations with our opposite numbers in Mexico were terrible and contact was forbidden; that meant I was supposed to get down there and look up a Mexican agent at once.

  What Mexican agent? Well, Mac had referred me to the fiasco of an assignment I'd had down there involving UFOs, which had actually been a fairly successful mission. (In case you're wondering and worrying, the Youfoes had been strictly phony.) It had been run from the Mexican end by an impressively competent operative named Ramón Solana-Ruiz. Apparently we were working with Ramón again, Norma was trying to make contact, and I was supposed to locate him, too, or hope that he'd get in touch with me once I was safe in Mexico.

  Finally, there was the question of the individual who, Mac had said, objected to being referred to as a Chinaman. Well, there was only one Oriental for whom we used that word, derogatory or not—a Peking emissary with whom I'd had some dealings in the past. Just how he fitted into the puzzle wasn't really clear—if anything was—but Mac had used a lot of tortured verbiage to warn me about him, so obviously he was of some significance.

  Well, Mr. Soo could wait. In the meantime, the situation, as far as I could piece it together, involved two of our people, both of whom I'd worked with before, tracking down a known professional hitman who, for some reason, had made himself a little too unpopular in Washington. Just what he'd done to achieve this unpopularity remained unspecified. Talking against time, on a bugged line, Mac apparently had figured it was information I could do without for a while. It occurred to me that we had some things in common besides our work, Ernemann and I. He was, according to the record, younger, blonder, and a bit heavier than I was, and one inch shorter; but if somebody wanted to do a spot of impersonation, and had Ernemann and a bottle of hair dye handy, he might jus
t possibly get away with it in places I didn't visit frequently, like certain banks.

  It was an intriguing thought, and I intended to keep it in mind, but again there were matters of more immediate importance. Apparently our two agents had suddenly found themselves in trouble with our security people, presumably for having large, unexplained sums of money in their bank accounts, like me. At least, although Mac hadn't been specific on this point, it seemed likely that the same type of frame had been used for us all. Roger, real name Jack Salter, had been arrested. Norma had made it into Mexico, perhaps because her Spanish blood and knowledge of the language—her true name was Virginia Dominguez—had given her a bit of an edge down there along the border. Or maybe she'd simply been following Ernemann's trail south and still had no idea of the situation she'd left behind.

  The question was, then: where did I come in? The answer wasn't difficult. I was, after all, the unofficial troubleshooter, the patsy who usually got the job of cleaning up the baby after somebody else had dropped the diaper and lost the safety pins. Now, with hindsight, I decided that Mac could very well have sent me to the goddamned ranch so he'd have me handy out here if things went wrong. Only, some foresighted and well-heeled individual or organization, acquainted with our setup, had gone to a lot of trouble and expense to put out of action, not only the two operatives who were threatening to embarrass their hired hand Ernemann in the performance of his current chores, presumably homicidal, but also the backup man who'd undoubtedly come after them if they got into difficulties.

  "You're not very chatty."

  I glanced at the woman behind the wheel. "You picked me up, ma'am. It's your party. Anyway, I wanted to see if we were being followed before I got engrossed in conversation."

  "Are we?"

  "Apparently not."

  "Oh, good. I really mustn't be seen with you. I mean, I just can't afford to be connected with.... Oh, damn!"

  She was trying to get across a four-lane thoroughfare, one of several that have been plowed, in the name of progress, through the pleasantly cluttered old Spanish-style town I used to live in. Of course, being that kind of a driver, she couldn't move until traffic had come to a complete standstill all over the southwestern United States, or at least all parts of New Mexico visible to her.

  "Oh, shut up!"

  She spoke irritably, as somebody honked behind her, where cars were piling up. Then, the boulevard was deserted and we crept across.

  She glanced at me apologetically. "You see, I have to be very careful. Oscar gets so angry if I get the slightest dent in any of the cars, even my own."

  "Oscar?"

  "My husband. He doesn't know I'm.... He's off on one of his Mexican fishing trips, thank Heaven, and he thinks I'm in Sedona, Arizona, visiting friends up Oak Creek Canyon. If he even dreamed I.... Oh, dear, it's such a mess, isn't it?"

  The funny thing was, she didn't look at all the timid, breathless way she talked. She was a big girl in a smart, yellowish pants suit, a floppy-brimmed matching hat, a creamy silk blouse with a scarf at the throat, and expensive brown shoes with square heels less clumsy-looking than most these boxy days. In size, she was close to Amazonish: a gray-eyed, brown-haired, sweet-faced female nearly six feet tall and not skinny. Well, I guess it figured in a way. There are two kinds of big girls, the ones who're proud of it, and the others, who've spent their lives apologizing for it and won't quit until they're dead. Having got into the habit, they tend to apologize for everything else as well. There was something familiar about the shape of her face.

  "Salter," I said.

  She glanced at me quickly. "I'm Clarissa O'Hearn, Mr. Helm. Mrs. Oscar O'Hearn."

  I didn't ask how she'd learned my name; it was becoming obvious. "Go to hell," I said. "You're Jack Salter's older sister. He mentioned you when we worked together some years back. A handsome fellow was needed, never mind the sexy details, and they said I didn't qualify, I can't imagine why. It hurt my feelings very badly, I can tell you. But I do remember those attractive, smiling, boyish features.... The funny thing was, for a toothpaste-ad type, he turned out to be a pretty good man to have around, if you made allowances for his impulsive nature."

  She said, "I'm surprised that you can see a resemblance. Everybody always said poor Clarissa, Jack certainly got all the looks in that family. I used to hate him for it when I was younger. Yes, he's my kid brother. He's in trouble; he was expecting to be arrested any minute, so he sent me to warn you."

  "Some warning," I said. "You've trailed me around for three days without a word."

  She looked surprised and hurt. "Oh, did you see me? I thought I was being very careful." When I made no comment, she went on: "I... I couldn't make up my mind. I really shouldn't risk ... I don't dare get involved, really. I mean, you don't seem to understand. Oscar O'Hearn. You must have heard of...."

  "Oh, the department store O'Hearn," I said.

  That shocked her mildly. "Oscar wouldn't like that," she said. "He's in so many other things nowadays besides O'Hearn, Incorporated.... But you can understand why I have to be careful, even if Jack is my brother, can't you? Actually, I was hoping to catch you at breakfast this morning, at your hotel. I'd really made up my mind to talk with you, and then I overslept a little. When I came in to see if you were still there, they were asking for you at the desk, sounding very official and nasty, so I knew if I was going to be any help at all I had to catch you...."

  "So you drove over to the Chevy place, knowing I was about to close the deal, and tailed me to the bank, and finally got up enough nerve to make the contact." I frowned, thinking hard. She didn't speak. I said, "Well, I'm going to need reliable transportation and that rental car I've been driving sounds like a terminal case.... Maybe I can pick up my new vehicle before they unravel my trail. Would you mind taking me there? But don't get too close."

  She drove for a little, and asked without turning her head: "How much?"

  "What?"

  "How much did you find in your bank that wasn't supposed to be there?"

  "Twenty grand," I said. "In this account. I gather there's a matching sum elsewhere. How much was planted on Roger?"

  "Roger?"

  "Sorry, that's Jack's code name with us, Mrs. O'Hearn. I suppose you know he works for the U.S. government."

  "Yes," she said primly, "if you want to call it work. I made him tell me something about it before I agreed to help by coming here to find you, and I must say.... Well, before Watergate and all that stuff I'd have been absolutely horrified. Even now I find it hard to believe that my own country... my own brother... but he never told me what he was called."

  "Sure," I said mildly. You get used to it. They expect protection, all the respectable citizens. If they don't want to know how it's achieved, why do they keep asking? I said, "You didn't tell me how much was planted on him."

  "Oh," she said, "well, it was exactly the same amount, Mr. Helm. Twenty thousand in his Phoenix account; and another twenty in Tucson, but he didn't have time to go there, he just checked by phone. But he took out the Phoenix money, all of it. Half he kept for expenses and the other half, well, he gave me that to give to you. He said, if anything happened, you should... you should find the man responsible and cram it down the bastard's throat; that is, unless you preferred to insert it into the other end of his alimentary canal." She was a little pink, looking straight ahead as she drove. "I'm giving you his exact words, Mr. Helm, as he asked me to. Personally, I think it's very stupid and... and childish. Thinking about petty retaliation when you're facing disgrace and imprisonment!" She hesitated, glanced at me, and asked curiously: "Did you take your money out? I mean, the part that didn't belong there?"

  "Naturally," I said. "As much as I could without attracting attention. I expect to use part of it, like Roger, for necessary expenditures, but I'm sure as hell going to make the guy who framed me eat whatever's left. Civilized forbearance isn't a habit with guys like Roger and me, Mrs. O'Hearn. I'm afraid we're just natural-born, eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-
tooth retaliators."

  It sounded good, tough and menacing. I couldn't help remembering, however, that it's difficult to stuff a guy full of hundred-dollar bills, from either end, when you haven't the faintest idea who he is.

  three

  As far as I'm concerned, what Detroit does best is the half-ton truck. I'd had one as my personal transportation when I lived out there. After my marriage broke up, and I went back to work for Mac, I made the mistake of using it on one job too many, and lost it off the side of a mountain, with a little help. That had been a two-wheel-drive pickup with a so-called camper shell over the bed that protected my gear and gave me a place to sleep if I was caught out at night. It was painted dull green and had originally cost me, as I recall, a little over two grand.

  My present acquisition, with power to all four wheels, was a nine-passenger station wagon on a truck chassis, called a carryall. I don't know eight people I care to drive around with all at once, so I'd had the rear seat yanked out. The middle seat folded neatly into the floor. That left me plenty of room for a mattress and sleeping bag back there, plus quantities of hunting gear, not that it mattered now. The equipment I'd been preparing was piled in a corner of my hotel room, and I wasn't about to take the risk of trying to retrieve it under the noses of Euler's men.

  The new vehicle was four times as expensive and four times as glamorous as its predecessor, with a flashy blue-and-white paint job and, so help me, flossy blue tweed upholstery. Why, with vinyl available, any sane person would want delicate cloth upholstery in a rugged boondocks vehicle remained a mystery to me, but being short of time I'd settle for what they'd had on the lot. It looked enormous among the low, sleek passenger cars parked outside the salesroom.