I whistled softly. "Our naval friend plays rough." "I was only a boy at the time," Rolf said, "but I remember that there was much talk against Sigmund by those who thought it was too terrible a thing even for war—you heard my grandmother. But others, well, it was a bad time for Norway, and there were many who took new heart, hearing that the brutal Nazis had for once been given a taste of—how do you say it?—their own medicine, by someone as strong and brutal as themselves. Because the joke was on the Nazi Oberst, the colonel. He could not, even if he wanted to, even if he had the authority, execute five or six thousand Norwegians in reply. Not up here in the north where there are not so many people. There would have been no one left to do the work. He was removed shortly afterwards in disgrace. . . . Here you are, Eric. Good luck."
"Sure," I said, getting out. "Thanks." "Just walk straight down the road to the left." It was a long hike in the dark, but it was easy walking along a reasonably good, gravel road, and at this time of night there was no traffic. For a while I had the sea, or an arm of it, gleaming on my right; then the bay ended, and the road swung out onto a peninsula of sorts, and there was the airstrip behind a chain-link fence. The road branched, the main thoroughfare such as it was leading left to what seemed to be an unfenced boarding area, while a smaller track swung off to the right. I took this, and found a little dirt parking lot behind a knob of rock, the top of which could be reached by climbing a fairly steep footpath, visible even in the dark. Obviously, this was where the local folks came to watch the flying machines land and take off. Obviously, it was also the hill specified for the rendezvous.
I climbed up there and looked around, first glancing at my watch: two o'clock. It seemed unlikely that there'd be enough light for our timid contact man to make his appearance much before six, not with the sky overcast and a fine rain falling. And if I'd calculated correctly, Elfenbein could hardly have got his people out here yet.
Again, I was betting on human nature. There are advantages to hiring mercenaries on a temporary basis—you don't have to pay them when they're not working for you —but you don't have the control over them that you do over men, or women, who depend on you for their regular paycheck. I doubted that some stray thugs picked up in an Oslo alley, or wherever they'd been recruited from, would accept an order that involved waiting in ambush half the night in an Arctic drizzle. Even if they did say ja, I was betting that, being sensible men, they'd stop their car somewhere along the way and kill a couple of hours, at least, with the heater running, before they exposed themselves to the cold and wet.
I studied the situation carefully, therefore, in the misty darkness, as if I had all the time in the world. After all, if anybody was ahead of me, he'd already seen me, and I'd worry about him when he made his move. There was another dim, rocky rise back along the road, from which I could watch the approaches as well as the rendezvous; but that was too obvious. I decided on a slight elevation even farther back, and made my way there, and settled down to wait.
Four hours is a long time to sit on a wet hunk of granite in the dark without moving. Fortunately, it was a windless night; I probably couldn't have survived the wind-chill factor, as they call it nowadays, if an icy breeze had been blowing. I was pretty well protected from the rain by an overhanging rock behind me, but that didn't help as much as it might have, since I'd already got pretty damp, walking. What I needed was a pair of insulated duck boots, a goose-down hunting jacket with a waterproof parka over it, warm mittens, and a heavy hood or cap. What I had was city shoes, a lined raincoat designed to keep me warm and dry while making the safari between the house and the car, a pair of thin, leather gloves, and a soggy felt hat. It wasn't the most comfortable morning of my life.
I'd told myself four hours, so as not to get my hopes up, but I'd actually expected action before then. Elfenbein was bound to plant some men out here before daylight. It was the obvious move, of course, but it was also, I thought, the only move. He had no alternative, unless he was a lot brighter than I was and had been able to think up something I couldn't. Apparently, geological genius or no, he wasn't quite that smart, which was just as well for me.
They came without lights, just a car's black shape moving along the shore. It stopped where the road made its turn around the head of the bay. Two figures got out, indistinct blobs in the darkness. Okay. Denison had said three, and there they all were, if you counted the driver. I hadn't expected Elfenbein himself to appear at the battle-front. It wasn't his style or what I figured to be his style, and he had a crippled hand. The car drove away. The two left behind came along the road. They stopped to hold a consultation; then one headed for the rocky elevation I'd rejected as too obvious, while the other disappeared towards the parking area.
The stalk was easy. I don't know where Elfenbein got them, but an Oslo alley was actually a pretty good guess. Certainly they weren't outdoorsmen. I found the first one, the nearest one, smoking a cigarette; you could smell him a quarter of a mile away. I just followed the scent in, and heard him fidgeting uncomfortably among the rocks up there. He'd be facing the parking lot, the scene of future action, I figured. He was. I came in behind him silently, dropped my looped belt over his head, drew it up tight, and held it for a moment against his frantic struggles; then I released it briefly.
He made a harsh sound, halfway between a choked gasp for breath and a terrified scream for help, very horrible and effective in the still night. I bore down again until he was unconscious, and slipped into his neck the needle of the little drug kit we carry, using the injection that lasts four hours. There are some that last forever, and I had those, too; but it didn't seem necessary or diplomatic to clutter up the Norwegian scenery with a lot of awkward dead men.
The other came in to the scream like a hummingbird to a feeder full of bright, sweet syrup. He hesitated for a moment at the foot of the little hill.
"Karlsen," he hissed, but Karlsen didn't answer. "What's the matter, Karlsen? Is something wrong?" Well, it translated to that, approximately.
Then he started climbing the rocks. He jumped a crevice gracefully—that is, the jump started out gracefully. I spoiled it by reaching up and grabbing a foot, slamming him face-down on the rocks. I hauled him down, half-stunned, and gave him a sleepy-shot, too. I stuffed him into the crack in which I'd been hidden, and went back up to Number One, who'd actually picked himself a pretty good observation post. Sitting there beside him, I reminded myself not to be too proud. There were people around who didn't smoke on duty or march naively in to investigate desperate screams. It wouldn't do to forget it.
The exercise had warmed me, so the rest of the wait was almost tolerable. Gradually, very gradually, things got lighter. Details began to show here and there. A little traffic began to move on the shore road, but the parking area remained empty. The rain had stopped; but it wasn't a climate in which you dried off very rapidly, so my comfort quotient remained at about the same level, low but not unbearable. Five thirty came and went. Now, in the hotel room, Diana would be dressing, I figured, making suitable remarks to a nonexistent male companion. Is it considered improper to talk about love, Mr. Helm? What did she think we were, anyway, a couple of happy kids on a Vermont ski-tour? Love, for God's sake!
After another long half hour, I heard the car coming, bouncing along the gravel, turning onto the dirt track to the parking area, splashing through the puddles left by the rain. It nosed up against the rocks and stopped. A small girl got out from behind the wheel. It wasn't Diana, of course. She'd have come in a taxi, not a private car.
I don't suppose I'd even hoped she'd make it. You can give them instructions until you're purple from lack of breath but they simply will not believe what they're told in perfect English, or any other language. Not if they're amateurs, they won't. I'm not an operative, I'm just a girl, she'd said; and obviously she'd been as right as could be. Well, I'd taken it into account. I'd made allowances for it, if you want to call them allowances.
I watched Greta Elfenbein climb the path to t
he lookout, take her little binoculars from the case slung over her shoulder, and pretend to admire the craggy, snow-capped Lofoten scenery around her.
XVII.
I HAD to hand it to our contact. He'd been there all the time, back among the glaciated rocks of the little airport peninsula. He must have arrived very early, even earlier than I, or I'd have seen him come; and he'd stayed silent and unmoving while I scouted the area and found myself a hiding place. He'd remained motionless watching the other two delivered by car. He'd witnessed, more or less, as well as his angle of view and the darkness permitted, the three-man Battle of Svolvaer. He'd waited in his secret spot, betraying nothing, until the girl drove up, parked her car, climbed the hill, and waved her identifying binoculars conspicuously for his benefit.
Now he appeared at last. I was suddenly aware of him among the rocks and brush far off to my right, looking like a gray teddy-bear, in a heavy, hooded, insulated Arctic coverall inside which, I reflected sourly as I shivered in my damp city clothes, he'd probably spent a very comfortable night—a little too warm, if anything. He moved closer and disappeared behind a boulder for several minutes. When I saw him again, he was a changed man: a smallish, middle-aged gent in a dark suit and a sporty leather cap. On his back was a pack, stuffed, presumably, with his survival gear. It didn't make him any more conspicuous in that ryggsekk country—rucksack to you—than a lady carrying a purse is conspicuous on a New York street.
He passed below me, and I got a good look at him: the Skipper's drunken, bitter, genius. He had an ordinary, sharp-featured, small-man's face. He didn't look like a genius, but they often don't. He didn't look particularly bitter, but that's hard to tell at fifty yards. The big trouble was, he didn't look much like a lush, either; and they mostly do. Well, as I'd already sensed, a lot of things about this operation weren't exactly what they seemed.
He stopped and shrugged the pack off his back and dropped it behind a scraggly bush. Moving quite openly now, he walked up to the small car that had brought the girl—actually a diminutive station wagon. He looked inside and seemed satisfied. I gave him silent thanks for doing that job for me. Wherever Elfenbein's third hired hand was hiding, it apparently wasn't in Miss Elfenbem's back seat. The man in the dark suit started climbing the path up to where Greta awaited him.
It was my turn to move, and I slithered out of my den and wiggled through the rocks and brush, heading in the general direction of the parked car by a fairly well-protected route I'd picked out, waiting. I found a handy hole nearby and crawled in. It was great ambush country. I wondered how many other armed gents with dubious motives had stashed themselves away among the rocks over the centuries, in that convenient Nordic scenery.
By the time I was established, they'd made themselves acquainted up on the lookout hill. They were admiring the girl's unique and priceless little binoculars. The man was permitted to look through them. He approved what he saw. He made the offer. The girl said she wouldn't dream of selling for all the oil in Arabia—well, she said something obviously negative. The man gave a resigned shrug, wound the strap around the glasses, lifted the case hanging from Greta's shoulder, and put the instrument away for her, tenderly. He raised his cap in polite farewell, came down the hill, retrieved his ryggsekk, and hiked away in the direction of Svolvaer. If he'd been hitting the bottle all night, as the Skipper's description would have led me to expect, he certainly carried it well.
Now the girl was coming down the path, still in the red-checked slacks she'd worn on shipboard. She was really kind of a cute little thing, protected by a jaunty yellow raincoat and sou'wester hat—well, that's what they were called years ago when they were made of heavy oilskin and considered high-fashion headgear by the rugged fishermen on the Grand Banks schooners. There's probably some cutiepie name for them now.
I waited for her to reach the car. That missing third man made me nervous. I waited until the last possible moment, hoping he'd reveal himself if he was around. Then I rose with the Llama pistol in my hand.
"Please hold it right there. Miss Elfenbein.''
With the car door half open, she froze; but I saw her move desperately, sweeping her bleak surroundings, looking for the help she'd obviously been promised would be there if she needed it. I moved forward.
"They're sleeping soundly, ma'am," I said. "Let's not disturb the poor fellows. After traveling so far to give your dad a hand, I'm sure they can use the rest."
She licked her lips. "Did you kill them like you did Bj0rn?"
"No, I just put them gently to sleep, as I said. Where's Madeleine Barth?"
Her head came up. I could see hope and courage return, at the reminder that she wasn't really in such a bad spot, after all.
"My father has her! She is his prisoner. And if anything happens to me—"
"Aren't you being just a wee bit stupid, Greta? It cuts both ways."
"What do you mean?"
"I've got you," I said. "And I can be just as nasty as Papa—"
I stopped, listening. The sound of a plane motor was in the air, faint but growing stronger. I glanced at my watch: six-forty. The boys were early. According to the arrangements proposed by me, and made by Rolf, they weren't supposed to arrive until seven-thirty. I'd given myself that much time to get the job done. Well, early was better than late. The job was done. I'd be happy to get out of here sooner than anticipated, although I'd have preferred to be leaving with other company.
I took the cased binoculars. Greta made no protest. The case wasn't properly closed; it couldn't be, with all that paper stuffed inside. Apparently Dr. Elfenbein, unlike our team, hadn't taken the trouble to construct a specially oversized case for the job. There were two envelopes. One contained a lot of scientific-looking stuff in Norwegian, very much like the stuff in the envelope already in my pocket. The other went in more for mechanical drawing. There wasn't time to examine it closely. I put the two envelopes where they could keep company with the third. I was a success. I'd obtained the secret formula upon which depended the fate of great nations, or something. Now all I had to do was deliver it.
"Okay, get into the car," I said, and when she was behind the wheel and I was sitting beside her, I went on: "Now start up and drive us around to the boarding area. Leave the car pointing straight out to sea."
There was nobody around. Maybe there was never anybody around unless a plane was due; or maybe Mac had pulled some strings somewhere. Rolf had said the formalities were being arranged. The sea was a few hundred yards beyond the airstrip. There were spectacular rocky islands out there, rising abruptly from the water to heights entitling them to mantles of snow, but I wasn't really interested in scenery. I was thinking of a pale, slim girl with funny greenish eyes; but she wasn't significant, either, any more than the view, not any longer. All agents are expendable, I reminded myself firmly. Nobody lives forever, particularly if they get themselves mixed up with ingenious, effective, and ruthless individuals like a certain Henry Priest—and a certain Matthew Helm. Anyway, with the daughter for leverage, maybe I could pry her loose later, when I had the time and if she lasted that long.
I looked towards the approaching plane, frowning, because it wasn't sounding quite right. Then I saw it take shape in the misty distance, and it wasn't a plane at all, but a helicopter. Well, come to think of it, Rolf hadn't said anything about airplanes. He'd used the word aircraft, covering everything from gliders to Zeppelins. But I'd kind of been figuring on the pilot making a swing over the runway to look things over, before he went around and came on in. With a chopper, he could take his time and see everything he needed to see, hovering if necessary, as he made his landing on the first pass.
I said, "Turn the car a bit, facing that way."
Greta obeyed. I reached across to get the headlight switch and gave the signal; three and two. She made no attempt to take advantage of my awkward position; but when I straightened out, she said rather accusingly: "You're just going to fly away and leave your assistant behind?" •
"Th
at's right," I said. "What was your daddy's plan, anyway?"
She hesitated, and shrugged, realizing that it was a little too late to be concerned about security.
"The same as it has always been, right from the start, Mr. Helm," she said. "To remove your Mrs. Barth and substitute me. Those two men were supposed to protect me if you tried to interfere. We hoped they'd be able to trap you, of course: but even if they didn't, if they just drove you off, well, I'd get the material on the Sigmund Siphon and the Torbotten oil field—as I just did. You'd still have the Ekofisk and Frigg data, but we'd have your Mrs. Barth. An exchange would have been arranged—"
She stopped, because I was laughing. "Oh, dear," I said. "Oh, dearie me. And I'd docilely turn over the papers, any papers, rather than see my precious Girl Friday get hurt? Oh, my goodness gracious me. Miss Elfenbein, what a pretty dream world you folks live in, to be sure!"
"You mean you wouldn't have—"
"We don't play the hostage game, ma'am. We can't afford to. We let it be known that it's no damned use anybody holding any of us for ransom, because it won't be
paid. Your daddy should have checked a little more thoroughly."
"You'd let her die—"
'If necessary," I said. "At the moment, it isn't necessary. I've got you, and your papa's smart enough to know that one pretty girl is just as vulnerable as another, I hope. But please don't figure it's ironclad insurance. If you make enough trouble that it's simpler just to shoot you and roll you into a handy ditch, well, to hell with Mrs. Barth. She didn't make it. We don't have much patience with people who don't make it. She had her instructions. She had her gun and plenty of ammunition. . . . How many shots did she get off before your goons managed to disarm her, just as a matter of curiosity?"
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