The Retaliators

by Donald Hamilton

  "O'Hearn? But how the hell would she know—"

  "You did not speak of our rendezvous? You gave no hints?"

  "No... wait a minute. I did say something about meeting you down a dirt road in the morning. And I guess I did slow down passing the intersection yesterday, and maybe I looked around to make sure it was the right one and I'd recognize it coming the other way." I frowned. "But say she put it together, how did she get the message out? She wasn't out of my sight.... Well, I suppose she did answer the call of nature once or twice without company, and so did I. She could have slipped something to somebody or left a message where it could be found. But what would be her motive in selling me to Euler, the guy who shot her brother?"

  "For that," said Ramón, "I think we had better consult the lady. After we finish our beer."

  I did some work on the contents of my bottle. I said thoughtfully, "There is just one little thing."

  "What is that little thing, Matthew?"

  "It would be very convenient if said lady should die, now that you've decided she's guilty as hell. I mean, you can blame dead people for just about anything, can't you?"

  "Do you think I would—"

  "You or your man Friday. Remember the old ley de fuga and where it was invented. I don't want her mowed down just because she panics and starts to run, or something." I finished my beer and handed the bottle to Amado, who looked at it with disdain and tossed it into the bushes. Well, it was his country. If he wanted it littered with broken glass, I could hardly object. I said, "I think I'd like your gun, Ramón, before I lead you to her. Just temporarily, of course. And Señor Amado's also. And we'll walk it from here, just in case there's spare artillery in your car. Okay?"

  I waited. After a reasonable number of seconds had passed, Ramón grinned abruptly. "You are not a very trusting man."

  I said, "I'm here. I'm alive. I'll be trusting as hell after I retire."

  "You, my friend, will never retire. You enjoy too much gambling with your life. One day you will lose, but you will never retire.... Here."

  I took the automatic pistol he gave me, and the one yielded up reluctantly by chesty, short-legged Amado. By the time I had them tucked away, added to my own dual armamentation, I was weighted down with firearms to the point where my own legs had, I figured, diminished at least an inch from sheer compression.

  "This way, gents," I said.

  It was not far as I remembered it. I'd been afraid I wouldn't recognize the place—one brushy dune looks pretty much like another—but I brought them right to the opening of the cozy, familiar, little sandy valley with a dead man in it. My blue shirt was still visible among the bushes on the hill beyond, but there were no signs of life and something was missing. For the second time, the dead man's machine pistol had vanished, although this time he had not changed position since my last bullet hit him.

  I grimaced, glancing towards Clarissa's hideout. Don't do anything more, no matter how bright it may seem, I'd told her, but she'd never been a girl for obeying instructions to the letter.

  "Wait here," I said to Ramón. "We'd better not go charging up there in a bunch. I think the lady's got herself a stuttergun up there. She's been shot at today for the first time in her life. She may be slightly nervous."

  "Or slightly guilty," Ramón said.

  "I've heard your theory," I said. "I'm giving it due consideration.... Well, here goes." I stepped forward and yelled, "Clarissa! Hey, Mrs. O'Hearn. It's me, Matt. Hold everything, I'm coming in."

  Nothing stirred; nobody answered. Still more or less outside the danger zone, I took time to select my route carefully, past the dead man and the little hollow he'd picked for shelter but had never reached, and thence to the base of Clarissa's dune where a sandy ridge ought to give me a little cover. I mean, a frightened girl with a machine pistol—or a guilty one, if Ramón was right—isn't anything you want to approach without due care and forethought. The fact that she hadn't answered my call was indication enough that something was wrong.

  I started forward. "Hey, Mrs. O," I shouted. "Everything's okay. You can relax; the war's over...."

  I saw movement up there, and I drew a breath of relief. She was coming out of her hole. She was standing up. She was...

  I took three long steps and flung myself down behind the dead man as the automatic weapon in her hands started to chatter wickedly. Inexperienced, she was having trouble controlling it, and the bullets were spraying everywhere, but one made a solid hit on the body sheltering me; I felt it jerk with the impact. The burst seemed to go on forever with sand spurting up here and there all around me, then the clip went empty. The firing stopped, leaving a ringing silence. I heard an odd, distant, gasping sound. The girl on the hill was crying. I raised my head cautiously.

  "No!" she sobbed. "Oh, no, no, no, please no, I don't want to die! Please don't...."

  She hurled the empty weapon away from her and turned and ran. I scrambled to my feet and raced—well, as fast as you can race in soft sand—around the left of the dune. My immediate fear was that she'd seen where the second chopper had fallen, earlier, and was going for it. However, when I caught sight of her, she was heading the other way, inland, slipping and sliding down the slope and then running like a deer after reaching level ground. I could hear her sobbing hysterically as she ran, but the hysterics didn't slow her noticeably. My pockets were full of other people's firearms that didn't help my speed a bit. At last, throwing a panicky look over her shoulder, she missed a step and fell headlong. I threw myself on top of her and pinned her down.

  "No," she babbled, "no, no, no, don't kill me...."

  "That's enough, Mrs. O," I said. "Nobody's going to kill you. Now stand up and blow your nose and tuck your shirttail in again; you look like hell."

  I waited until she stopped fighting me, and got off her, and stood up. She lay there a moment longer. At last she turned her head warily and peeked at me through the wild tangle of her hair.

  "Matt? But I thought... Oh, my God!"

  "Come on, get up." I reached down and helped her rise. "Do you make a habit of flipping your wig like that?"

  "What do you expect?" She didn't look at me, and her voice was sullen. "Did... did you know how it was going to be when you put me there?"

  "I told you there might be some shooting."

  "Some shooting! You didn't say it was going to be a... a pitched battle. When that machine gun went off and the bullets started hitting all around me and whistling and screaming and kicking sand all over me I really thought I was going to... I was sick I was so scared! And then there was more shooting, and then after a long, long time still more shots far away, and I knew they'd killed you and would be coming for me and I ran down and got the gun and waited... waited... Did I shoot at you? Why didn't you call and tell me you were there? I didn't recognize... If I'd known it was you..."

  "I did call," I said.

  She shook her head. "I didn't hear a thing. All I could hear was my heart beating, kind of roaring in my ears. I just saw them coming, three of them, and one sneaking forward to kill me...."

  "Sure."

  Abruptly, she started doing the usual feminine things to her disheveled hair and disordered clothes. Without looking at me, she said, "Well, all right, go ahead and say it! Jack used to say it. The only thing worse than a coward, he'd say when I wouldn't ride a mean horse or ski a steep slope or something... the only thing worse than a coward is a big coward."

  "Dear Brother Jack," I said. "You sure picked the men in your life. Well, there's another coming, a handsome Latin type, and I'm afraid he's going to arrest you, Mrs. O."

  "Arrest me!" she gasped. "But why?"

  "Well, he has some odd theories about you, and I'm afraid he's thinking that you just confirmed them with all that shooting. Since I'm not at all certain he isn't right, and since he's got the authority here and I haven't, I guess I'll just have to let him take you."

  sixteen

  I managed to back the carryall off the steep, sandy ridge wit
hout rolling it over, but I had a couple of uneasy moments before I got it to the bottom, right side up. I promised myself that as soon as I could spare a little time I'd find myself a private piece of desert to practice on, so I'd know what I was doing with the big machine.

  The Toyota was waiting for me on the road at the head of the lagoon. Ramón stood beside it with a cased rifle slung over one shoulder and a couple of boxes of cartridges in his hand. There had been some talk of fishing tackle, but I didn't see any and I didn't ask. Ramón came forward, laid the rifle carefully in back, and got in beside me.

  "Just a minute," I said.

  I picked up the purse Clarissa had left on the seat and took it over to her. Actually, I had to reach through the open window and place it on her lap. She didn't acknowledge my presence in any way. Somebody'd found her hat and given it back to her, and she'd pulled it down hard so I couldn't really see her face, and it probably wouldn't have done me much good, anyway. Reading minds and characters isn't really what I do best.

  Amado drove the Toyota away. It was a hell of an ugly, slab-sided vehicle, unlike my sexy boondocks glamor buggy with its pretty tweed upholstery and two-tone paint. Well, pretty or not, the big Chevy had done exactly what I'd asked of it. I had no grounds for complaint. I paused in front of it to check for damage, and found only a couple of scratches in the chrome of the front bumper. I got in beside Ramón and watched the Toyota disappear out of sight.

  "Are you sure he can handle her all alone?" I asked sourly. "She's a big, strong girl."

  "Amado will take care of her."

  "That's just what I'm afraid of."

  Ramón glanced at me. "Do not fear; she will come to no harm, I promise you. With our current political difficulties we cannot afford to hurt the wealthy and influential Señora O'Hearn from the powerful Estados Unidos. In fact, I want to thank you for your foresight in disarming us; otherwise we would undoubtedly have shot her when she opened fire. It would have created a very embarrassing international situation. You have my gratitude for preventing it."

  I said, "Yeah, but you're not grateful enough to tell me about a slight case of revolution you're expecting locally."

  There was a little silence; then Ramón laughed. "You know how security is, amigo, if anyone does. The lady told you? That means she's in her husband's confidence. Very interesting."

  I started the carryall up the rutted track. "It doesn't necessarily follow. She claims she simply overheard some informative conversations."

  "Yes. She also claims she didn't recognize you at seventy-five meters. But she was most certainly trying to kill you, no matter what she claims."

  "Maybe," I said, "but I knew a scared rookie agent once who went haywire and massacred two colleagues by mistake, taking them for enemy agents sneaking up on him—just like this, in broad daylight. Hell, Wild Bill Hickock, who could hardly be called a rookie, shot down his own deputy in a moment of stress, when the guy came running into an alley to help right after an attempt had been made on Hickock's life. You never can tell how people are going to react when the guns start going off."

  Ramón laughed again. "Could it be that you are simply making chivalrous excuses for the señora because you have enjoyed her extramarital favors, amigo? You said yourself that she insisted on accompanying you clear from Santa Fe. Her motive is becoming fairly obvious, is it not?"

  I didn't answer. I just switched on the air-conditioning against the growing heat. As we topped the first rise, we saw the Toyota a quarter of a mile ahead, bouncing hard on its stiff springs as Amado pushed it along at a good clip. I had a mental picture of the big girl beside him, with her oddly sweet face and her expensive, badly wilted costume, enduring the jolting ride without expression.

  "No, no," Ramón went on. "Do not deceive yourself. That is a very cool and clever and dangerous woman. We will hold her until this business is over; but then I am afraid we will have to release her. Unfortunately, prosecution is not practical. It would involve too many awkward public explanations, and it is not, after all, as if she had actually managed to kill you on Mexican soil."

  "Sorry about that," I said.

  "A number of people will undoubtedly be sorry about it, when they learn of it," Ramón said. "Like your Señor Euler."

  "I still can't figure that guy," I said. "Incidentally, I didn't get a good look at those machine pistols but they seemed familiar. Did he actually send his flunkies down here waving a couple of U.S. government firearms?"

  "No, he is not quite that stupid," Ramón said. "Those were PAM-1 weapons. A reasonably close copy of your .45 caliber M3 submachine gun, but in the 9mm caliber and manufactured in Argentina. And in case you're interested, the second dead man was a senior special operative for the same bureau, named Ernest Dixon. A very Anglo-Saxon name, I must say, for one who in appearance could easily have passed for Mexican."

  I said, "Up in New Mexico, U.S.A., Dixon is often a Spanish name, believe it or not. I know some Dixons up there who can hardly speak English. Well, at least nobody can accuse Andrew of not being an equal-opportunity employer." I grimaced. "All races and sexes. I'd still like to know why the well-heeled Mrs. Oscar O'Hearn would play ball with the man who killed her brother. Well, to hell with it. Let's stop for a little rifle practice, if you don't mind. Not that I don't trust your armorers, Ramón, but I like to do my own sighting-in. While I'm banging away, you can tell me what's next on the agenda...."

  He did, and that afternoon I checked in at the Hotel Serenidad, at the mouth of the palm-fringed Santa Rosalia River, just outside the picturesque town of Mulege. It was located in a lush oasis of tropical jungle that was kind of startling after all the long miles of arid Baja landscape. We'd crossed the peninsula from west to east, from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of California, and we'd been tailed almost the whole way by a cautious character in a small, shabby-looking station wagon that had never got close enough for me to determine the make or license plate.

  Actually, the shadow had picked us up when Ramón and I stopped to have breakfast and pay my bill—and change me into an unventilated shirt—at the El Presidente Hotel where Clarissa and I had spent the night. I'd caught an occasional glimpse of him in the mirrors during the hundred and sixty mile drive, just often enough to be certain he wasn't hanging on back there accidentally. I'd seen no need to mention him to Ramón. Anyway, I was fairly certain that my faithful Mexican friend and loyal undercover ally was quite aware of the surveillance and had, in fact, ordered it. It was a small precaution, I figured, against my getting too independent now that we were getting down into the critical area, and I might as well pretend I didn't notice. I'll admit to a certain feeling of claustrophobia, however. Things were closing in.

  The hotel was an older one, with low, stucco cottages grouped around a main building. Its main attraction for us, I gathered, was that before the highway was paved and people could drive here in reasonable comfort, it used to be strictly a fly-in fishing resort with its own airstrip, still in operation. I took my suitcase to the unit assigned to me—I'd been glad to see that the matching bag we'd bought Clarissa had disappeared from last night's hotel room. Apparently Amado had been considerate enough to stop for it on the way to her place of detention, wherever it might be. I washed off some of the sand I still carried from the morning's adventures and went out to find the bar and rejoin Ramón, according to instructions.

  The bar was a dark, cool building, empty except for the bartender, Ramón, and a stocky individual who had the well-tanned but fleshy look of the kind of successful American businessman who plays hard in the sun when he's not making money, but not hard enough to work off everything he eats. It surprised me to hear him conversing in fluent Spanish, a hell of a lot better than my own clumsy border lingo. I didn't ask if I could join them at their table; I just walked past to the bar and ordered a martini. I guess a Margarita would have reminded me of something I preferred to forget; I was a little fed up with romantic Mexico and its romantic cactus juice.

  "Join m
e, amigo," Ramón said, behind me.

  The American, if he was an American, was gone. I took my drink over there and sat down. "I didn't want to intrude," I said.

  "A friend of mine," Ramón said. "He had information for us. Things are happening fast. You should know that we are actually one day behind General Hernando Díaz and his good Yankee friend, Señora O'Hearn's husband Oscar. They were here yesterday in O'Hearn's plane with its handsome piloto. They conferred with certain people here in Mulege, and in Santa Rosalia, forty miles to the north. Today they are having similar conferences in Loreto, sixty miles south. Tomorrow they will be in La Paz."

  I said, "It doesn't sound as if they're getting much fishing done."

  Ramón shook his head. "Since you are now aware of the situation, I will not try to convince you that angling was the subject of all these meetings. As you have undoubtedly noticed, I did not even take the trouble to supply you with tackle. It seemed unlikely, with this recent burst of activity, that you would have an opportunity to approach them as a fellow-angler, as we had planned. We will have to work out a new approach. In the meantime, I would like you to stay here. I believe we have a line on Ernemann himself, but I would like to confirm the information. He was supposedly seen leaving La Paz in an automobile heading south. I will fly down there and find out the details."

  I said, "There's not a hell of a lot of Baja California south of La Paz, is there?"

  Ramón said, "On the contrary, it is almost two hundred kilometers by road from the city of La Paz to Cabo San Lucas, the southernmost tip of the peninsula. There are some big hotels down there catering to tourists and fishermen; it is a fine fishing area. It may be that Ernemann has information about Díaz's plans we do not yet have. It may be that he is driving down there in the expectation that the general will come to him. I will let you know as soon as I have enough information. I am leaving Amado to watch over you, if you do not object. Be ready to leave at a moment's notice.... I think that is my airplane landing now. Adíos, amigo."