The Interlopers mh-12

by Donald Hamilton

  "Well, Mr. Nystrom, are you satisfied?"

  "Satisfied?"

  "That was the type of interrogation you expected, was it not? I didn't want to disappoint you." When I said nothing, he went on, "Of course, we are no longer interested in the dog's missing collar. We know that all five studs contained nothing but substitute messages. Four substitutions were engineered by the young men in that very interesting mobile laboratory, and the last one by me. I, of course, took personal charge of the real information from the final drop. From the young men in question, I got the material from the previous drops. They'd kept it in an ingeniously hidden safe in their van, the location of which they were persuaded to disclose to me."

  He drew a small white envelope from the pocket of his heavy wool shirt and shook five tinfoil disks into his hand, answering one question posed by Mr. Smith's compulsive secrecy. I'd never been told exactly what juggling tricks were being performed in the fancy lab van, but apparently it had been a simple disk-switch routine that you'd think could have been performed in an ordinary family sedan-if you didn't know the way things worked in Washington. After a moment, Holz replaced the wafers in the envelope and put the envelope back into his pocket.

  "Persuaded," I said. "As a matter of curiosity, which one did you persuade?"

  Holz smiled faintly. "That is a stupid question. You know perfectly well that the young fellow with the beard was the tough one of the pair. It was easy to determine. Any captive who wastes his breath telling me what I cannot get away with is obviously a fool and probably a weak fool. The bearded one kept his mouth shut; the other one babbled dire threats and promises of violent retaliation. So we started with him. It did not take long. He soon told us everything-well, almost everything."

  "What didn't he tell you?"

  "He didn't tell us about you, Mr. Nystrom. His principles were at stake, it seems. He could be persuaded to tell us about things, inanimate objects, but he wouldn't be-tray, as he put it, people." Holz laughed shortly. "They draw all kinds of high-principled lines, these foolish young men." He raised his slaty eyes to study my face. "Are you going to be afflicted by principles, Mr. Nystrom?"

  "Hell, no," I said. "I lost my last ones years ago. What do you want to know?"

  "The collar. Just out of curiosity, I would like to know where it is."

  "I honestly don't know," I said, which was technically true. I might guess, but I didn't know.

  Holz stared at me for a full minute. Then he shrugged his heavy shoulders. "Very well. I'll accept that. Will you give me your real name?"

  "Sure, why not?" If he didn't get it from me, the way things were, he'd get it from Libby. I might as well get the credit for frankness. "The name is Helm, Matthew Helm. Cross-filed under the code name Eric."

  "Ah. I thought there was something familiar…"

  He stopped. There was a lengthy silence. Well, it was about time he made the connection. As it was, my professional pride was hurt. I'd thought I was better known in the circles in which Holz moved than his reactions had indicated.

  "Yes, I've heard of you," he said at last. I didn't say anything, and he went on slowly: "What are you doing here? If I remember the dossier correctly, counterespionage is not your line."

  "Another organization had a dead man to match," I said. "They needed to borrow a trustworthy agent, six-four, a hundred and ninety, blue eyes, white hair. The personnel computer doubled up in agony and vomited up my name. The hair was bleached, and here I am, Grant Nystrom at your service."

  Holz heard me out, but he didn't seem to be listening very hard. His eyes, narrowed, were studying me intently, and I knew that he knew, instinctively, what I was there for. I also knew, suddenly, that he wasn't going to act upon this instinctive knowledge because he, too, had his professional pride.

  The sensible thing for him to do was to pull out his little Spanish gun, or load up the big 7mm, and shoot me through the head right now. But if he did that, right after being informed of my identity, I might, in my dying moments, have thought he was afraid of a fellow pro named Matt Helm. Or he might have thought he was afraid of me, and that would not do. So, to reassure both of us, he was going to behave toward me exactly as he'd planned from the start. Well, we all have our weaknesses, dogs or pride or whatever.

  "And the lady?" Holz said at last.

  I gave him the story Libby had given me, watching him to see what it meant to him. "She works for the same department as the bearded guy you got and his talkative friend, the people who drafted me for this play acting. She was planted on your San Francisco people some time back, I gather. She recruited Nystrom for them-the real Nystrom-and gave him the sex treatment, and he responded very well. She had him under perfect control and pumped him for information at will, whatever information she couldn't get herself as a member of the cell in good standing. She was probably the one who recommended trying this impersonation when he got killed, but I don't know that for sure. She did come along north to give me a hand in playing the role, and as you know I found her especially useful in Seattle."

  "Yes," Holz said, "but that man of ours, Stottman, was apparently not deceived."

  "No," I said. "But it took him a little time to get his message across to the rest of you by way of Pete. I can't tell you the lady's real name. She never told me."

  Holz nodded, apparently satisfied. After a moment, he smiled faintly. "For what you are, you were remarkably easy to catch, Mr. Helm."

  I shrugged. "I got careless, I guess."

  He said a strange thing then. He said, quietly, "It's a lonely life, my friend."

  I didn't know what to say to that. He didn't speak for a little, and I could hear the night breeze going through the trees outside. The canvas of the tent stirred and subsided. The old Indian shoved a couple of sticks of wood into the stove, and juggled some pans to catch the heat exactly right.

  Holz said, "I was in prison once, Mr. Helm. Well, I have been there more than once, but this time it was intentional. I was assigned to reach and silence a certain prisoner. First they put me in a cell alone, for observation. It was not a very clean or well-run place. There were, among other things, rats. One in particular considered my cell his territory. As the weeks went on, I made friends with him. It was something to do. One day the guard came in unexpectedly. My rodent friend had lost, to some extent, his fear of man; also he'd learned that visitors usually meant food. He came too close, and the guard stamped his boot, once. It was what the man had come in for, to deprive me of that bit of companionship. I killed him."

  I didn't say anything. Holz waited a little and went on: "I couldn't help myself, Mr. Helm. I struck once and he was dead. It was a blow that, in my role as prisoner, I should not have known. It blew my cover instantly. It wrecked my mission and almost caused my death. All for a small, dirty, brown rat."

  There was another silence. I didn't speak. Anything he wanted to give me, I was happy to take. He'd already given me more than he should have. He'd given me the clue to his sad, soft way of talking. He'd told me I was dealing with a man who'd been in the business too long.

  He said gently, "I am explaining how I knew you would come to the cry of the dog, after traveling with him for a week. It is a lonely and dirty business. We take what friends we can get, do we not, Mr. Helm?" After a moment of silence, he went on more briskly, "Jack will escort you back to your tent. You will live, if you do not try to escape, until the plane arrives tomorrow afternoon. There may be some further questions they'll want to put to you or the woman. This impersonation of yours has worried them greatly. They may even take one or both of you away with them alive, but I would not count on that. Good night, Mr. Helm." He waited until I had reached the door, where Jack had appeared as if summoned. Then he said, "Oh, just one more thing."

  I watched him rise and come to me. He was smiling faintly. He said, "Now I remember the dossier more clearly. I think I will take that belt. Since you are going nowhere, you should have no trouble keeping up your trousers without it."
r />   Well, it wasn't unexpected. These days the belt trick is only good for amateurs anyway, and for all his sadness, he was no amateur. Back in the tent, I told Libby as much as she needed to know. We were fed and given a tarpaulin to lie on and a couple of blankets to wrap up in. Huddled together for warmth, still in our damp clothes, we lay and listened to the rain start up again, pattering on the canvas above us.

  "Matt?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "Did he ask about the collar?"

  "Yes. I told him I didn't know where it was."

  She sighed. "I suppose he'll question me in the morning. I'm not looking forward to it. Have you got any bright ideas for getting us out of here."

  "No," I said. "Not any."

  I didn't, either, now that the belt was gone. There should have been some way I could take advantage of the weakness Holz had shown me, but I couldn't think of an appropriate lever.

  I lay beside Libby, wondering who the hell she really was. I mean, there in the big tent just now it had been clearly established that she had not been in communication with Holz, after all. I was as sure as I could be of anything that my name had come as a real surprise to him tonight; yet she had known it for the better part of a week.

  I must have gone to sleep. The next thing I knew, something energetic had burst into the tent like a cyclone and my face was being licked by a cold, wet, affectionate tongue.

  31 THE PUP WAS CRAZY WITH HAPpiness at having found me. He was all over me-all over both of us. Libby woke up with a gasp.

  "What-"

  "Shhh!" I hissed. "It's just Hank… Easy now, Prince Hannibal. Relax. You'll have them all rushing in here…"

  "You mean he's followed us all this way?" Libby sounded incredulous. "My God, how could he? We must be forty or fifty miles from that filling station… Ouch, can't you keep him off my face?"

  "Hank, down!" I whispered. "Lie down, boy. Quiet, now!"

  It was a wonderful thing. He'd been left at least twenty miles back along the highway. He'd trailed the truck along those twenty miles of pavement to the horses, and then he'd tracked the horses another fifteen miles through the wettest, soggiest country in the world, over mud, running water, and bare rock.

  It was Faithful Fido's Fortunes, or Rover's Revenge. It was Lassie with bells on. It was beautiful and touching, man's best friend at his best and friendliest, a real tear jerker. I didn't believe a word of it. I wouldn't have believed it even if he'd been a bloodhound trained on a convict a day; and he wasn't a tracking dog at all but a goddamn bird dog. But if anybody wanted to fall for the gag, I wasn't about to disillusion them.

  "Hey, what's going on in there?"

  It was Jack's voice. I heard him come charging toward the tent. There was only a moment to make the decision. I sat up as best I could.

  I said softly, "Dead bird, Hank. Dead bird."

  There's no command for telling a retriever just to get the hell out of wherever he may be, say a confined space in which he can easily be cornered and killed. You've got to send him for something, but even in the dark I could tell that the pup was looking at me oddly, wondering just what the hell kind of dead bird he was supposed to be fetching from inside this nine-by-twelve tent. Jack's footsteps were almost at the door.

  I said, "Go get it… Hank!"

  He'd been trained to go on his name, and he went, charging off the way I had him pointed, right out the tent door, just as Jack came pounding up. I heard the man stumble and swear.

  Holz's voice shouted: "What's the matter over there? Jack?"

  "It's the dog, Mr. Wood! It's that damn dog we-~-"

  "You're crazy. No dog could have followed-"

  "Well, it's too big for a squirrel and too small for a wolf, sir. Look over there by the woodpile. If that isn't that same black mutt, I'll eat it!" There was a little pause. "By God, he must be quite a dog, coming all this way to find his master! Do we have to kill him?"

  The Lassie syndrome was at work. Even the hardboiled Jack was falling for it, taking for granted that any loyal dog could perform any kind of a TV miracle to find the man to whom its loving canine heart belonged. Holz didn't answer at once. I had a sudden hope. Maybe I'd found the lever for which I'd been looking.

  "Well," Holz said at last, and I could tell that he was remembering a small brown rat in a jail cell, "well, let's see if we can't catch him. But first get your rifle and check the prisoners. It could be a trick. Wake up the cook to give us a hand."

  Jack stuck his head into the tent and shone a flashlight at us briefly and disappeared. What followed had a lot of the elements of slapstick comedy; at least the sound effects were ridiculous, considering that they came from a bunch of sinister conspirators who'd kill a man as soon as look at him. But this wasn't a man; it was a miracle dog, and you don't shoot Lassie or Rin-Tin-Tin.

  As I'd hoped, once out in the open, away from the tent, Hank proved as elusive as an eel. These were the same people who'd manhandled him before-some of them, at least-and hung him on a fence to choke. He obviously recognized them and would have no part of them, even when they tried to lure him within reach with a nice, juicy piece of meat.

  When the chase got really lively out there, I wormed my way out of the blankets and back to the rear wall of the tent. I rapped my bound hands against the canvas lightly.

  "Anybody there?" I whispered.

  "Here, sir." I recognized the low voice. It went with a red beard. "Watch out, I'm going to cut the tent."

  "Are you alone, Davis?"

  "No."

  "Well, tell Ronnie-"

  "It isn't Ronnie, sir. They worked Ronnie over pretty badly; we had to leave him with the lab truck. It's a girl, Mr. Helm. She knocked out the woman they'd left guarding us and cut us loose. She'd picked up the dog where you'd left him. She says you know her. Her name is Pat."

  There wasn't time to ponder the implications of that news. I heard the whisper of a knife slicing through canvas.

  "All right, sir, stick your wrists out the hole and I'll cut you loose… There you are."

  "Thanks. I'll take the knife, if you don't mind. Tell Miss Bellman to keep an eye on the circus and warn me if anybody starts this way. What's the weapons situation?"

  "Well, they got ours, but I took a little pistol off the lady guard."

  "Hang onto it, but don't shoot unless I give the word."

  I heard Holz's voice: "Never mind, let the dog go. He won't leave the neighborhood as long as his master's here. Just don't let him back in the tent."

  "Watch out!" Pat Bellman's voice hissed. "The man with the cowboy hat is coming this way. I think he's going to take another look at you."

  "I'll handle him," I said. It was about time I handled something. "Let him come in. Get down and keep quiet."

  I dropped beside Libby and flipped the blankets over me, holding the little knife. It was a boyscout model, which seemed appropriate: the kind with a screwdriver, can opener, awl, and bottle opener, but no corkscrew because scouts aren't supposed to associate with that kind of bottle. The blade was between two and three inches long and not very sharp. I thought regretfully of the fine Buck knife, carefully sharpened and oiled, that I'd last seen lying on the table in the cook tent.

  Then Jack yanked back the canvas door and aimed his flashlight at us. In spite of the glare, I could make out that he was holding a scope-sighted rifle in his left hand; a fine weapon but not very suitable for work at night or at close range.

  He frowned at the heap of blankets with the two heads protruding from the far end; then he stepped forward, reached down, and snatched the blankets away for a good look-and I kicked him hard in the pit of the stomach with both feet before he could get the rifle up. He lost his breath with a bellows-like sound and sat down hard. I was on top of him and had his throat cut before he knew he was dead. Outside, somebody was rushing toward the tent.

  "Shoot that man, Davis!" I yelled.

  A little pistol cracked three times and I heard something fall. I grabbed the rifle Jack had
dropped and went out the tent door fast, to stumble over a dead body. Even in the dark I could see that it wasn't the man I wanted but the old Indian cook. The vanishing American seemed to be going fast these days.

  A shape recognizable as Holz showed at the dark door of the cook tent, carrying a rifle that seemed to be the twin of mine. Holz threw his weapon to his shoulder as I took aim, or tried to take aim; but in the dark, in that powerful telescope, I couldn't find my target. I couldn't even find the cross hairs. Desperately, I threw myself flat as the other gun fired. The bullet came nowhere near me. Apparently Holz couldn't see his sights any better than I could.

  I was trying to line up the fool gun by feel and instinct, without using the sights. I saw that Holz was doing the same thing, but the range was too great-about forty yards-for that kind of trick hip-shooting. We'd both handled firearms too long to do much blasting without a reasonable chance of success. Holz reached inside his coat for a pistol, a better weapon under these conditions; then Davis' little gun cracked, and Holz winced. He turned and ran for the nearest horse, his own, as Davis emptied his undernourished weapon in that direction without any further reaction from the target.

  Holz yanked the rope loose, leaped astride like a stunt man, and galloped off bareback toward the head of the valley. I tried once more to get him in the fancy telescopic sight, but there was simply not enough light coming through all that glass. I lowered the gun, watched him disappear among the trees, and turned to see young Davis standing over the dead cook. His face, where the beard didn't cover it, was pale in the darkness.

  "He… he didn't have a gun. But you said to shoot."

  There was accusation in his voice. I said, "That's what I said. You did fine."

  I couldn't help thinking that tonight the boy- and girl-scouts had done a lot better than the old pro, me; or even the old pro, Holz. All I'd managed was to cut one man's throat with a dull knife somebody'd handed me. Holz hadn't even accomplished that much. He'd just managed to escape with his skin, slightly damaged. A couple of inexperienced youngsters and a black dog had done the real work. I patted the pup as he came up, a little guiltily, to lick my hand and tell me he hadn't been able to find the dead bird I'd sent him for. There had been distractions.