The Ravagers
( Matt Helm - 8 )
Donald Hamilton
Donald Hamilton
The Ravagers
I
IT WAS an acid job, and they're never pleasant to come upon, even when you're more or less prepared to find something wrong, as I'd been. One of our people had failed to call in when he was supposed to, and I'd been pulled off another job nearby-well, five hundred miles south in the Black Hills of South Dakota-and sent up to investigate. I'd crossed the border into Canada well after dark, I'd found the right motel, named The Plainsman, in the right town, named Regina, in the right province, named Saskatchewan, and I'd given the right knock on the door and received no answer.
Following instructions, I had then circumvented the lock with a special piece of plastic disguised as a credit card, slipped inside, and waited in the dark for a reasonable length of time, to see if anybody cared to jump me or shoot at me. Nobody had. Hearing nothing breathe or move in the room, I'd turned on the light and seen him lying on the floor at the foot of the bed.
It wasn't pretty. I don't monkey with the stuff myself. Not many professionals do, although I have met a few-on both sides-who felt there was nothing like a splash of nice corrosive chemical reagent to make the most stubborn subject forget his principles and talk, if that was needed. For quick information, they'd claimed, it beat the thumbscrews and hot pokers all hollow. And as a distraction in a tight spot it was a natural, since people weren't apt to give much trouble while being painfully consumed alive.
On the other hand, acid is messy, risky to keep around, and hard to use without getting some on yourself; and the resulting burns, on flesh or clothing, are distinctive and hard to explain away. So we generally leave it to the jealous ladies who want to spoil their rivals' looks. But it had been used here, liberally and viciously. It had made brownish charred splotches on the pale motel carpet, and it had pretty well destroyed the face of the man I'd come here to check up on.
At least I thought he was the man I'd come to find, but it was a little hard to tell. He wasn't a colleague I'd ever known well, although we'd worked together briefly a couple of times, and the visible part of his face bore little resemblance to what I recalled of the agent we knew as Gregory, normally a wavy-haired, clean-cut, American-boy type who specialized in the gigolo bit and other techniques requiring youthful masculine charm. The hands, which had presumably gone up in a vain attempt to shield the face, were also seared and blistered almost beyond recognition.
He lay half across his own suitcase, which he'd pulled off the stand at the foot of the bed-or somebody had arranged things to look that way. His belongings were scattered about the floor, as if he'd flung them aside crazily, feeling for something in the bag with his burning hands. Or maybe, blinded and in agony, he'd simply lost his way, fallen over the luggage stand, and thrashed around deliriously, trying to make the bathroom to wash the fiery stuff off.
I'd stepped away from the switch, crouching, after getting light into the room. Now I straightened up slowly, but I didn't really relax, nor did I put away the little.38 Special revolver I'd neglected to declare at customs when crossing the border. First I made quite sure the room was uninhabited except by me and the motionless figure on the rug. Then I checked the closet and found it unoccupied. That left the bathroom. I stepped over Greg and made my entry in the manner recommended by the training manual. I determined that this cubicle was also empty except for the shiny new US-style plumbing. I drew a long breath, put the gun away, made sure the door to the outside world had latched properly, and returned to kneel beside Greg.
He'd been dead long enough to feel cold to the touch. Well, it takes a certain amount of time to drive five hundred miles, even with your foot flat on the floor. The acid used had been sulfuric-oil of vitriol-I judged from the fact that it gave off no seriously annoying fumes. Most of the others will set you coughing when they're concentrated enough to do that much damage.
There was a small prescription bottle by his right hand. The name on the label was Michael Green, the name he'd been using. The directions read: Take one (1) at bedtime if needed for sleep. The cap was off and the contents were missing except for a couple of yellow capsules that had got spilled among the tumbled clothing: probably the sedative known as nembutal. If you want to sound hep, you can call them yellow-jackets.
I frowned at the dead man. Apparently I-or the Canadian policeman who'd investigate this-was supposed to think that after the acid attack Greg had gone groping for his sleeping pills to kill himself, as an escape from blindness, disfigurement, and intolerable agony. I didn't believe it for a moment. Not that Greg might not have reacted in this general way-he'd been vain about his good looks-but it takes a lot of barbiturate to kill and quite a lot of time, and we carry much more effective tickets to oblivion. I made a quick search and found his, never mind where. That's a business secret, but the significant thing was that, having handy on his person a little pill that would give him death in a few seconds, if that was what he wanted, he'd hardly have gone to the trouble of tearing apart his suitcase for a clumsy substitute.
It followed that, since acid burns don't generally bring death-and then only slowly-unless very large skin areas are affected, and since making a man dripping with acid swallow a large quantity of sedative capsules isn't really practical, the vitriol thrower must have finished the job by other means. I could see no signs of direct physical violence, so he'd probably used something poisonous, tricky, hard to detect, and impossible to trace. To hell with that. I'd been sent to check on Greg, not to get caught here playing detective around his dead body.
I got up and looked around. Washington would want me to clean up as much as possible, I decided, to make the cover-up easy if it was to be handled that way. I already had the little death pill that, if discovered at the autopsy, would have revealed that Greg was something other than the innocent U.S. tourist he'd been pretending to be. There was nothing else in the room that wasn't strictly in character. Well, there wouldn't be. He'd been a little too cocky to be one of my favorite people, but there had never been any doubt that Greg was a pro, which made it all the more peculiar, his getting caught like this.
As I moved toward the door, I saw something white under a chair close by, and picked it up: a woman's white kid glove. At least it had been nice and white once. Now it was stained with brown and some other odd colors where the acid had reacted only partially with the soft, expensive leather.
I put the glove into my pocket, hoping it wouldn't eat a hole there, and slipped out into the night, silent and, I hoped, unseen.
II
REGINA IS a goodsized Canadian town on the great plains some hundred miles north of the border. You couldn't tell it from a U.S. prairie city if it weren't for the billboards advertising Canadian brands you never heard of-that is, in addition to such international commodities as Coke and Chevrolet. The money, I had already discovered, is Canadian dollars and cents, currently worth between five and ten per cent less than the equivalent U.S. currency; and the filling stations sell gasoline by the imperial gallon, which has five quarts instead of four. It makes your car's gas mileage look terrific until you catch on.
The night was dark and starless, with a misty promise of rain that put haloes around the neon lights of the motel and the street lights beyond. I strolled away casually, like a man with nothing on his mind and time on his hands. The little Volkswagen I'd been using in the Black Hills was parked a couple of blocks away. It was apparently the car you got these days if you were west of the Mississippi and east of California and needed four wheels for official purposes. We're not a big government agency and the budget is limited, so they can't keep the latest airconditioned Cadillacs and racing Ferraris spotted a
round the world for our convenience, although it would be nice.
I was familiar with this particular VW, having used it on an assignment farther south the year before. It had changed color and license since then-it was now painted black instead of pale blue, and it had Colorado instead of Arizona plates-but either the odometer had been set back or it hadn't seen much use in the intervening months: it had been in good shape when I picked it up in Denver to drive north to Rapid City, S.D.
Now, still farther north by some five hundred hasty miles, I settled myself deliberately behind the wheel, switched on, and spent a few seconds listening to the engine critically. The one thing those little Volkswagen fours won't take is being strenuously over-revved, and I hadn't lifted my foot much on the way here, not even on the downgrades. But the mill just made its usual healthy outboard-motor racket. I maneuvered out of the parking space and drove away, jazzing the throttle a bit from time to time and cocking my head to listen- acting the part of a man whose troubles, if any, were strictly mechanical.
I didn't check the rearview mirror too often, and I was careful not to look around. If anyone had followed me from the motel, I didn't want to scare him off. I wanted to bring him right along with me until I had instructions telling me what to do with him. Or her.
I found a phone booth at the corner of a shopping center parking lot. The stores were closed at this hour, the lot was empty, and I could stand at the phone undisturbed and watch the street casually through the glass of the booth while waiting for my call to go through. If there was anything significant about any of the cars that passed, I didn't spot it.
"Eric here," I said, when I heard Mac's voice on the line.
My real name, if it matters, is Matthew Helm, and at the moment I was going under the name of David Clevenger- at least I had been, on the other job-but we use the code names for official conversation.
Two thousand miles, and one international border away, Mac said, "Well?"
I made a face at the Volkswagen standing under the lights of the empty parking lot. "Have you got your red pencil handy, sir?"
"Go on."
"Scratch Agent Gregory. Our charm boy's had it."
There was a brief silence at the other end of the line, then Mac said flatly: "I see. Details?" I gave them to him, and he said: "Describe the glove."
"White kid, dressy, somewhat damaged. No manufacturer's or retailer's labels. No size marked, but it wasn't worn by a midget. The lady has long, slim, artistic fingers-or maybe just big, strong ones, it's hard to tell. Assuming, of course, that the glove was bought for the person who wore it tonight."
Mac said, "There is always the possibility of a frameup, but in this case it is unlikely."
"Well, you know more about the over-all situation than I do, sir."
"You will take over," Mac said. "The woman with whom we're dealing is five feet seven and a fraction inches tall, not an Amazon, but big enough to be eligible, I should think, as the advertising gentlemen would say, glove-wise. I can think of no other female candidate at the moment. She is heading east, accompanied by a young girl- her daughter. She is driving a pickup truck, pulling a house trailer."
I said, "That makes her a Westerner, born or transplanted. No delicate eastern flower would be caught dead in a truck."
"She has been living in the state of Washington for several years-at the White Falls Project on the Columbia River. You may have heard of it. Her husband is an eminent scientist attached to the project."
I said, "The picture is becoming clearer. Slowly."
"Gregory was supposed to make her acquaintance on the road and gain her confidence. However, she was on her guard and his reports indicate that beyond a speaking acquaintance he had so far got nowhere."
"If he'd got nowhere, why was he killed?" I asked.
"That is a very good question," Mac said dryly. "Perhaps you can find an answer."
"There's one catch, sir. My instructions emphasized speed. Secrecy was not, I gathered, of primary importance. You wanted to know why he hadn't called on schedule, as soon as possible. To find out, I had to enter the motel room. There was no way of doing it without being seen, if anyone was watching. And if anyone was, he's probably got his eye on me now. Or she has. At least a connection between Greg and me may have been established."
Mac said, "If it has, it's unfortunate, but perhaps you can work out a cover story to account for it. Did I remember to ask you to bring along the camping equipment you were using in the Black Hills?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, you will find your subject a few miles east of Regina on the Trans-Canada Highway, in a campground provided by the state-that is, the Province. Check trailer space number twenty-three. It should contain a blue Ford truck and a silver trailer. Here are the vehicle license numbers, state of Washington." He read them off. "If they are still there, have yourself assigned a camping space and stay the night. Check with me in the morning for further instructions."
"And if they're gone?"
"Report back immediately. We may be able to re-locate them for you. Incidentally, the woman's name is Drilling. Genevieve Drilling."
I said, "Nobody's named Drilling. That's making a hole where there wasn't any. Or it's a special kind of three-barreled gun."
Mac ignored my feeble attempt at levity. "The daughter's name is Penelope. She is fifteen years old and wears glasses for myopia and has braces on her teeth. Apparently mother and daughter were staying over a day in Regina to see a dentist for some minor adjustments."
"Urn," I said. "Spectacles and orthodontal braces. A real little Lolita."
"The husband and father is Dr. Herbert Drilling, physicist. Mrs. Drilling has left his bed and board, and is presumed to be joining, sooner or later, a man of considerable physical attraction and questionable political affiliations calling himself Hans Ruyter. We have encountered Mr. Ruyter before under other names. Not really first-team material, but competent."
I sighed. "Don't tell me. Let me guess. Could it be that Mrs. Drilling just happened to latch onto a few scientific documents of national importance belonging to hubby, as she went out the door to meet her lover?"
"I'm afraid it could be and is."
I said, "My God. The old secret-formula routine. How corny can we get? I suppose it deals with some kind of nuclear-power super-gizmo? That's what they're doing up there on the Columbia, as I recall."
Mac said, "As a matter of fact, Dr. Drilling's specialty is lasers, if you know what that is."
I whistled softly. "Laser-maser. The latter-day death ray; disciplined light waves or something. Okay, so it's important, but how did we get roped into this one, sir? We're not the national lost-and-found agency. J. Edgar Hoover's boys are real sharp on stolen documents, I'm told, and so are the members of several other agencies. What's so special about this particular batch of misplaced cellulose that they have to call on the wrecking crew, the hit-them-below-the-belt department, to find it?"
Mac said, "You are jumping to conclusions, Eric. Have I instructed you to find any documents?"
"Oh. Pardon me."
"There are some rather tricky matters involved," Mac said. "It seems to be a large and complex operation, only part of which concerns us. After you've looked over the ground and the people, I will give you the details, as far as they've been entrusted to us. Right now you had better get out there and check the campground while I get on the telephone and try to pull a few international strings to make sure Gregory's body is discovered by somebody discreet and official."
"Yes, sir," I said.
"Study the woman, and at the same time determine whether or not you are in the clear. If not, try to learn who is watching you. Do nothing hasty, however. Unfortunately we are not alone in this, if you know what I mean."
"I know," I said. "I hope they know it, too. There's nothing I hate like being shot by my friends."
"It's a chance you will have to take," Mac said. "As a matter of fact, other agencies have not been informed of our particip
ation, and are not to be informed. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," I said, because it was the easiest thing to say, not because it was the truth.
III
I LAY IN the campground bushes for over an hour, gaining patience from the fact that somebody in the silver trailer had insomnia, indigestion, or a guilty conscience. I could hear a person moving around in there restlessly, from time to time. It was two in the morning by now, late to hope to see anything, but finally the trailer door opened and the shadowy figure of a woman appeared.
Her face was only a vague blur in the darkness. Her figure was even less discernible, being camouflaged by some kind of an elaborate, voluminous robe or housecoat. Once on the ground, she had to stop and get a fresh grip on the long skirts to keep them from dragging. While she was doing this, a small voice called to her from inside the trailer. It seemed to paralyze her for a moment. She stood perfectly still; then she replied without looking back.
"It's all right, Penny," she said clearly. "I'm just closing the car windows. It's starting to rain. You go back to sleep, darling."
She moved over to the Ford pickup, got in, pulled the tail of her garment in after her, closed the door, and cranked up the windows. She sat there for a while. The truck was parked looking my way. The night was too dark for me to make out her features through the windshield glass, let alone her expression, but I could see enough to know when she suddenly buried her face in her hands and bent over the steering wheel, obviously crying. Well, anybody can cry, and a woman who had recently committed a brutal murder might well want to have her reaction out where her child couldn't see her and ask why.
I reminded myself that it wasn't proved that Mrs. Genevieve Drilling had killed anybody, and that I wasn't here to prove it. From Mac's instructions, I deduced that I was supposed to gain the lady's trust and confidence for some altogether different purpose, as yet undisclosed. The fact that she could break down and cry was a promising sign. It indicated that an absorbent male shoulder might not be altogether unwelcome, if properly presented.
The Ravagers mh-8 Page 1