Operation Stranglehold

by Dan J. Marlowe

  His stay at the council fire was brief. He came back to us smiling, his manner more open than I had seen it previously. “Maybe I’ve had you figured wrong,” he said to me.

  “Oh? What changed your mind?”

  “How long have you two been teamed up together?” he answered a question with a question. He glanced toward Erikson and then back to me. “Well, I’ll look for a little more firewood,” he said when he saw I wasn’t going to reply. He went outside.

  “Karl’s turning into a case of verbal diarrhea,” I said to Hazel. “The fever must be getting to him.”

  “He seems more lucid right now than he has in the past several hours,” she objected. “He must have a reason for whatever he’s saying.”

  “If he was up to par, I’d say yes.”

  “I still think he knows what he’s doing, Earl.” Hazel began to make wood shavings with a hunting knife.

  The conference broke up.

  Lisa, predictably, went outside to join Walter.

  Hazel took the matches from my pocket and lighted her wood shavings. She added twigs to the resulting tiny flames, then branches. The fire took off and roared up the natural flue. I went outside to check whether any smoke was visible. It was dark enough that I couldn’t see a thing.

  Erikson was back on the wooden-framed bed when I went inside. “Oh, Earl,” he said to me. His voice was clearer and stronger than it had been all day. “A new dimension,” he said when I knelt down beside him.

  “What kind of a new dimension?” I humored him.

  His forehead was still damp but his eyes were film-free. “Would you believe—the girl is more important—than the boy, Earl?”

  “Not to me, she isn’t,” I said emphatically. “What are you trying to peddle?”

  “I said enough to her just now to—gain her trust.”

  “In eight minutes?”

  “After a question or two I—knew what to say.”

  “Why would she answer your questions, Karl?”

  “Because I know some names that she knows.” He hitched himself around on the bed, trying to get more comfortable. “It was the newspaper, Earl. Her—reaction to losing it, I mean.”

  “So? I think she’s a kook.”

  “Listen—carefully.” Erikson paused to draw breath, still a difficult task for him. I was sure he had ribs broken. It reminded me that I was coming up to a decision about him tomorrow that I’d been postponing. “I saw her yesterday—rewrapping her old shoes—in that paper,” Karl went on. “I got a look at it, and it’s—a local Paris suburban weekly that—normally doesn’t circulate outside—central France. It didn’t register—with me at the time but I knew—neither the girl nor young Croswell—had been anywhere near Paris.”

  He paused as Hazel joined us. Her fire was blazing briskly. “How’s the water—holding out?” he asked her.

  “There’s a beautiful spring right outside,” she replied, handing him a canteen.

  He drank deeply, swallowing several times. “Neither Walter nor Lisa—speaks French,” he went on, “so I asked myself—why this devotion to a—French newspaper?” The effort to talk was interfering with his breathing; Hazel and I waited while he gathered strength again. “Then I remembered—Walter telling you her name—and her father’s name. It didn’t—impress me at the time, but Dr. Draznek’s activities—and those of some of his associates are—well known in certain U.S. government circles.”

  “So her old man’s important,” I said when Erikson stopped. The sheen of fever perspiration was back on his forehead again and his voice was getting weaker. “How?”

  “Newspaper’s—a courier device, Earl. More than factual death notices—been printed in its obituary column. False entries include—coded information concerning delicate, vital negotiations of prime—interest to the U.S.”

  “That’s the craziest thing I’ve heard since Winters’ two goons showed up at the ranch,” I snorted. “All of a sudden we’re involved in a ‘can’t fail the country’ operation?”

  “The newspaper is a clever idea,” Hazel broke in. “Who’d ever think wrapping paper worth a second look?”

  “She said her tennis shoes—had been examined at two borders,” Erikson said. “Even—x-rayed once. No one—looked at the newspaper.”

  “Are you sure she isn’t pulling your leg?” I asked skeptically. “She could be just another smartass kid running away from home.”

  Erikson had been leaning up on one elbow; he stretched out on the bed again. “No,” he said wearily, but his voice carried conviction. “Dr. Draznek’s part of unusual organization—with which I’m familiar. Organization—in best interests our country—to preserve. Lisa’s message is—that secret organization has been—blown. American and British agents—in her country must be warned to get out because—exposure imminent.”

  “What has that to do with us, Karl?”

  “Got to steer her—in right direction.”

  “We certainly do,” Hazel affirmed.

  My own patriotism doesn’t assay as high to the ton as Hazel’s two hundred percent brand. While she accuses me of being too pragmatic, there are times I wish she were less starry-eyed.

  So I preached them the gospel according to Drake. “I want the pair of you to listen to me,” I began. “I’m not about to change my priorities on this project just because you’ve got a bug up your ass about this Lisa situation. The kid should never have been included in the package in the first place as far as I’m concerned. My job—your job, for that matter, Karl—is to get young Croswell back to the U.S. quietly.”

  Erikson struggled to a sitting position again. “Other—more important!” he got out.

  “Forget it,” I said with what I hoped was finality. “Delivering papers for a bankrupt spy organization isn’t why we’re here.”

  “Remember those civilians—in black sedan who showed up—and talked to the police—in Jeep?” Erikson paused to clear his throat. “Lisa just got across border—ahead of secret police. They’re—looking for her. She’s in danger.”

  “It still has nothing to do with—”

  “If you think you’re going to throw that girl to the wolves, Earl Drake, you have another think coming!” Hazel interrupted spiritedly.

  I might have known.

  “Wake me in three hours,” I growled, abandoning the argument.

  Not that I had abandoned my conviction, but I had a job to do that night, and if it wasn’t successful, it might be quite a while before any of us made it out of Spain.

  • • •

  I woke with a start to find Hazel’s hand on my arm. I pulled my hand away from the butt of the Luger. “It’s nearly midnight, Earl,” she whispered.

  “Thanks for playing alarm clock,” I yawned. I stretched lengthily to ease muscles cramped from contact with the unyielding floor of the cave, then looked over at the rope-bed upon which Erikson twitched in uneasy slumber. “How is he?”

  “His temperature is up again.”

  “Maybe I can latch onto something medicinal in the village.” I rose to my feet. “Try to get some sleep yourself.”

  “You’ll be careful?”

  “You know it.”

  I went over to the other side of the cave, dimly illuminated by the light of the dying fire. Walter and Lisa had economized by using one sleeping bag, and the love-musk odor still in the air indicated he’d had less sleep than I had. I searched out his hip through the bag and prodded it with my toe. He muttered something without waking, and I applied more pressure. He bounced to a sitting position with a jerk. “Zip up your fly, stud,” I said when I saw Lisa was still asleep. “We’ve got work to do.”

  I went back to the fire while he got himself organized. Beside it I picked up the meat scraps I’d salvaged from Hazel’s tin-can stew before I sacked out. Walter Croswell was ready at the cave entrance. I turned to look back. Hazel was already curled up with her head cradled upon her outstretched arms. We’d had a long couple of days.

  I’d memo
rized the direction of what could be seen of the path leading down to the village. Convection clouds had again formed over the mountains in the late afternoon, diffusing the wan light from a nearly full moon. There was enough light to see, but each bush and rock was in heavy shadow. It was a good night for our purpose.

  The descent was made with no more incident than the occasional night thrill of a toe caught upon a projecting root. The dark bulk of the village loomed up ahead of us. I wasn’t concerned that we’d find a night watch; the village was too small for that. What did concern me was the half-wild dogs that were part and parcel of every village in Spain.

  “What a one-horse burg,” Walter Croswell muttered at my elbow. We were upon the last prominent elevation before entering the village. The narrow, cobblestoned streets, and single-storied, tile-roofed houses built of stone or some material smoother than stucco or adobe were plainly visible.

  The stench of open sewers was wafted to us upon the night breeze. A light burned in the largest building, almost surely the cantina. A goodsized building next to it, probably a general store, was dark. The town was quiet. Spanish villagers, like other tillers of the soil, lead lives geared to the sun.

  I executed a flanking movement before we approached the village. I wanted the breeze behind us so the dogs could smell the meat I was carrying as well as the strange man-odor. Unless specially trained, a dog will quickly forget his watchdog qualities if he thinks a meal is close by.

  There was no fusillade of barking of the type I had feared. Instead, three hundred yards from the village we were surrounded by silent, sniffing animals of all sizes and shapes. I tossed the meat behind us, and we were at once deserted. There were the thuds of colliding bodies and an occasional growl or snap, but nothing to draw attention. A dog’s mentality is such that if he finds meat he will search quite a while in the same area for more. By the time the pack gave up I expected to be gone.

  We entered the village proper with our footfalls muffled in yielding dust. There were only two streets; the road fragmented by the washout, which was the main street of the village, and another a short block away which acted as a service road to a loading dock alongside the station at the railroad track. The station was a shed, and the loading dock a raised platform, freight car high. Primitive wasn’t the word to describe the facilities.

  I led the way from the station between the silent, whitewashed houses to the building with the light in it. We stopped under a roofed-over porch while I scouted the interior through a window that needed washing even worse than I did. It was Walter who noticed the letters CANTINA EL CORSARIO above the door. I motioned for him to follow me to the next building.

  Its front consisted of a single-entry door and a narrow plate glass window. A variety of canned and bottled goods, tumbled clothing, and the inevitable rebozos and hand-woven rugs were displayed in the window in the manner of small-town rural America a couple of generations ago. “A gold mine,” Croswell whispered to me. “We should have brought a truck.”

  “We’ve got to leave no sign of having been here,” I returned.

  I’d already been studying the lock on the door. It was a simple spring type, presenting no problem, but through the window I could see a steel support with a bell attached to it. I couldn’t see to what the support was fastened, but the logical place would be the back of the door. If I opened the door and the bell sounded, it would be as effective as a fire alarm in the sleeping village.

  It was noticeably warmer down on the floor of the valley than it had been up on the hill, and I was beginning to perspire. I motioned Walter Croswell around the corner of the building so that we could approach it from the rear. The depth of the Spanish buildings in contrast to their narrow frontage was surprising; the disparity could have been as much as ten or fifteen to one.

  The area behind the store was a cluttered wasteland of discarded cartons, broken bottles, and damp excelsior. We had to be careful where we put our feet down. There was also an open, bricked-in well that could have been the town’s major water supply. The back door of the store was of sturdy-looking oak, but there was a small, four-pane window shoulder-high in the wall to the right of the door.

  I stationed Walter, who was looking increasingly nervous, at the corner of the building. “When I get inside, if you hear anything suspicious, rap on the door once, but hard,” I instructed him in an undertone. A single sound doesn’t draw too much attention.

  “Okay,” he gulped.

  “And if you’re approached, hide your face and make like a drunk,” I continued. “But knock on that damn door first.”

  “Okay,” he repeated.

  I went back to the window. It was important that no evidence be left that strangers had been in the village; otherwise the railroad station would be one of the most closely watched places the next day. I took out the all-purpose hunting knife that was part of the camping gear and with its sharp point I pried away sun-seared, crumbled putty from one pane of the window. I applied careful pressure at one corner till the opposite corner bulged outward, and then I was able to take hold of the glass and lift the pane out.

  I set it down on end at the back of the store. I reached through the opening and found the simple catch on the window lock. The frame was hinged at the bottom, and it had a restraining chain that permitted the window to lean back only partway. I went to the corner of the building and collected Walter and brought him back with me. I signaled to him what I wanted him to do, and he made a stirrup of his hands.

  I stepped up into them, then placed a knee on his left shoulder. With that support I pushed the window open, leaned inside, and attacked the bolt of the restraining chain with the knife-point. By the time I pulled it free from the plaster and let the window down all the way I could hear Walter breathing heavily under my weight. I wriggled inside awkwardly, headfirst.

  My questing hands contacted boxes. I couldn’t see, but it was plain that a pile of them was stacked under the window. I slithered down over them and then switched ends so I could put my feet on the floor. The silence in the black-dark of the interior magnified every little sound I made myself.

  I waited till I felt my eyes had adjusted to the absence of light as much as they were going to adjust. I was just ready to start exploring when I became aware of a faint strip of light on the floor. After a moment I identified it as the gap of a door ajar between the storage room I had entered and the room beyond it. I stared at the strip of light, a comparative term since it signified only a lesser area of darkness. I looked away, then looked back.

  There was no question about it.

  The light strip was getting wider.

  The door was opening silently.

  I drew the Luger but reversed it so I could use its butt. I kept my eyes on the door-gap, but after widening to six inches the door’s movement stopped. The almost sepulchral silence was broken by a whirring rush of movement, and then a warm, furry body rebounded from my legs. A soft meow echoed through the storage room.

  It was a damn good thing I hadn’t had my finger on the Luger’s trigger. Instinctive reaction would have fired it. I bent down and stroked the friendly cat for a moment, then picked it up and dropped it through the open window. I couldn’t risk stepping on it while I moved around inside. The resultant caterwauling could have been as disastrous as the bypassed bell on the front door.

  I removed my shoes, widened the gaping door further, and eased through into the next room. The light was better, enough to determine that it was another storage room, but one in which items had been removed from boxes and stacked on shelves. Another door was at the far end of this room.

  I approached it, half expecting it to be locked. It wasn’t, and I opened it with just a faint squeaking sound. I found myself in the store proper, with the cloud-shadowed moon through the front window giving enough light to enable me to really see for the first time.

  Above one counter a row of hooks supported enormous sausages. A phallus-fetishist would have gone out of his mind. A batt
ered refrigerated case contained bottled milk, eggs in a splintery wooden box, and several kinds of cheese, none of it appetizing. I scoured the department-store corner until I found two canvas carriers. I laid these carefully aside.

  I emptied a crate containing two sad-looking heads of lettuce and began filling it from the shelves of canned goods. The majority of the Spanish-titled labels were also illustrated. I found two loaves of black bread about the size of flattened bowling balls. They weighed almost as much too, but their smell was delicious. When I had the crate filled, I started on the canvas sacks.

  I took down a sausage about a foot-and-a-half long from a hook above the counter. It had a pungent, mouthwatering odor. I broke it up to fit it into a sack. Then I went back to the refrigerated case and threw in some cheese. Sustenance, that’s what was needed. I rearranged everything left on the shelves carefully to conceal the spaces left by missing items.

  When I had the first sack full, I carried it and the crate to the rear of the building and left them against the inside of the back door. Then I went back to the front of the store to see what I could find for Erikson. One shelf proved helpful: Aspirina and Linimento didn’t require much translation.

  Back in the dry goods section I found a rack of women’s clothing and threw two skirts, shawls, and head scarves into the sack. I took men’s pants from a pile on the counter after testing waist bands against my middle for size. The material was coarse, somewhat similar to denim. From a side shelf I picked out two wide-brimmed hats from a nested stack.

  I carried the second load to the rear door. I slipped the bolt and opened it, then one by one put the crate and sacks outside. The cat reappeared at once, sniffing at the sacks. I tried to catch it, but it dodged away. I opened a sack, broke off a piece of sausage, then let the cat smell it. I tossed the piece of sausage inside, and the cat bounded after it, gurgling hungrily. I closed the door from the inside and bolted it again. I didn’t want to leave the cat outside since it was apparently an indoor pet, and suspicion might be aroused if it were found outside in the morning.