The Demolishers

by Donald Hamilton

  “He’d told you about the CLL?”

  She nodded. “I’d met him when we helped install his office system. He wanted some lessons in how to use it. The girl he’d hired was quite competent to run it but impossible as a teacher. On the last day he took me out to dinner to celebrate and… well, he was a sweet man, a widower, and I’d had another battle with Roger; and afterwards we said it was a beautiful accident but it mustn’t ever happen again. But of course it did. And that second night, since it was obvious we weren’t going to stop there, he said there was something he had to tell me about himself, and he told me about the brutal regime in Islas Gobernador from which he’d had to flee and the brave band of patriots to which he belonged, working to free their country from the Yankee-supported dictatorship… Well, the world is full of people trying to free something, you meet them everywhere. I just thought it was kind of intriguing, having a lover who was a secret revolutionary. But when the police told me that Paul’s noble Legion of Liberty was claiming credit… credit!… I felt totally betrayed, and I charged out blindly to avenge my daughter; but my vengeance turned into a farce. I had a hard time getting the knife loose from the tape, and Paul stared at me as if I’d gone crazy, which of course I had. He grabbed for it and cut his hand; the blood just poured out. It made me so sick I had to run in the bathroom and throw up, still holding the bloody knife. It was just a ridiculous mess instead of high tragedy.”

  I said, “I suppose, since you still seem to be fond of him, he convinced you that he hadn’t known what was planned.”

  Dana said, “Yes, when I came to my senses, and told him why I’d wanted to kill him, told him about Dolly, he was terribly shocked. He hadn’t known that any action had been planned in San Juan. He explained to me that strike decisions are not made by the Council of Thirteen as a whole. A small group of Council members, picked for experience in the field, makes those decisions in secret and doesn’t reveal them to the Council, or the membership at large, until it’s time to announce another great victory for the cause of Caribbean liberation, in this case a victory over three little children and two parents. This small secret group calls itself the Executive Board. Its chairman is El Martillo.”

  “Clever. Executive as in execute, ha-ha. Did your Paul give you the identity of El Martillo?”

  She said, “I told you that. Dominic Morelos. But now Paul thinks that El Martillo is really an elective office, so to speak; so probably by this time, with Dominic gone, they’ve picked somebody else to be their chairman. The Hammer. The Chairman of the Murder Board!” Her voice was bitter. “Anyway, I asked Paul if he intended to remain a member of an organization that makes war on children. He said he’d been finding it harder and harder to go along with the CLL policies of random terrorism; but it wasn’t a social club from which one could resign at will. I said, well, maybe he shouldn’t resign. If he really loved me, maybe he should stay in and, from inside, find a way of helping me strike back at them. In the meantime I looked around for a U.S. contact. I didn’t want the FBI or the CIA; they’re too big and have too many rules. I wanted a small government agency that wasn’t bound by rules. I heard that a clever reporter from one of the Miami papers was down here doing a piece on the Puerto Rican freedom movements. It occurred to me that he might know of such an agency. I managed to get to talk with him and he said a tall, skinny gent from just such an outfit sometimes called him for information.”

  “Spud Meiklejohn. Miami Tribune.”

  “Yes. He said you seemed to be a pretty effective character, probably tops in your organization, which wasn’t really a recommendation if I was interested in sound morals and fine citizenship. However, if I was involved in something rough, I couldn’t do much better. Mr. Meiklejohn said your agency didn’t go in for public relations and I wouldn’t find the number in the Washington directory, but he just happened to have come across it a while back and he’d jotted it down in his little black book. He said in return it would be nice if I gave him a head start on the story when and if it could be released.” She drew a long breath. “So I called the number and I was afraid I’d get the crackpot treatment, but the man I talked to sounded interested and the very next day Mr. Trask was down here. By this time I’d, well, persuaded Paul… Anyway, we set it up the way you know, using his office computer; but I couldn’t stand it if anything should happen to him because I twisted his arm and made him help me…”

  I was flattered by the thought that Spud Meiklejohn thought enough of me, or at least of my abilities, to recommend me to troubled ladies. I glanced at her, sitting beside me on the park bench, and decided I knew very little about women; I hadn’t sensed the fierce fires that must be burning inside her to make her set up this elaborate scheme of vengeance.

  I said, “Okay. Superagent Helm to the rescue. We’ll give it a try, at least. The question is how. Is that the right address the girl gave us?”

  “How would I know?”

  I said, “Cut it out. If Modesto is on the Council, he sure as hell knows where the Legion’s San Juan headquarters is located, and there’s no reason he wouldn’t pass the information along.”

  “I’m sorry. All this intrigue… I can’t keep track of who’s supposed to know what; I just instinctively go into a spasm of security whenever… Yes, Pacheco Street is correct.”

  “Why hasn’t the place been hit, if everybody knows where it is?”

  “Not everybody. Mac has been holding the information until the thing could be done properly.”

  “Properly? You mean by me?”

  “No, by irate citizens demolishing the terrorist stronghold in revenge for their dead. These fanatics have had a certain amount of popular support throughout the Antilles. If they should be wiped out by government action… Well, Mrs. Gandhi destroyed the Sikhs’ Golden Temple and India has been in an uproar ever since. Nobody wants to set the whole Caribbean on fire. That’s why you were instructed to find some plausible scapegoats in the private sector. You’ve done very well. They’re very pleased, in Washington.”

  “Thanks for the pat on the head,” I said sourly. “Everybody’s being so clever I can hardly stand it.”

  Dana glanced uneasily towards the car. “I can’t see her. What’s she doing in there?”

  “Waiting,” I said. “Just waiting to do her job. Don’t worry about her, Dana. She’s being clever, too. She’s not going to run away. She wouldn’t dream of going anywhere without us.”

  Dana frowned. “I don’t understand. What are you trying to say? What job does she have to do?”

  I said, “Hell, it should be obvious. She’s a tough little girl pretending to be a softy, our La Margarita. She’s waiting patiently, accepting humiliation and abuse, so that she can decoy us into a nice little trap her friends have arranged for us on Pacheco Street.”

  30

  When we returned to the car, La Margarita was half reclining on the rear seat, as comfortable as she could make herself in the cramped space. There was no indication that she’d tried to escape her bonds. She pushed herself up to a sitting position and held out her wrists. They were tied in front since I’d been fairly sure she had no Houdini ambitions at the moment. I shook my head.

  “We’ll leave that hanky on you; but if you’ll swing your feet this way, I’ll take back my belt.” Retrieving it, I ran it through the loops of my pants and buckled it. “Okay, move over.”

  “Ready?” Dana asked over her shoulder as I settled in back there.

  “Not yet. Let me talk to this kid for a minute. I don’t think she knows what her friends are getting her into. She doesn’t look like kamikaze material to me.”

  The girl beside me laughed harshly. “You can’t frighten me, Yankee pig!”

  I said, “I promised you that you’d live if you behaved yourself. And if your friends behaved themselves. But they aren’t going to, are they?” I regarded her sadly for a moment. “Look, I’m going to give you a break. I’m going to tell you exactly what will happen when you lead me to that address
your friends had you feed me—I didn’t really scare you with the knife, did I? You just held out long enough to make it look plausible; then you told me exactly what you’d been told to. But what your friends didn’t tell you is what’s going to happen to you when we get to 427 Pacheco Street and start inside.”

  She glared at me. “So tell me what will happen, fascist dog!”

  I said, “I can’t wait to hear what I’m going to be next, a Nazi worm perhaps? When we get to the place, I’ll have my gun in your back, of course. Bonnette’s gun. Encinias’s gun. And whose before that? It’s traveled a long way, that pistol, and it’s getting hungry for action. Well, when you get me inside 427, one of two things will happen. Either your friends will shoot me in the back, in which case I’ll die pumping bullets into your back. That’s the way we operate. There are very few marksmen who can drop a man so fast and so dead that he can’t pull a trigger; and I’ll pull it, believe me. And keep pulling it as long as there’s a breath left in me. I’ll be very much surprised if I can’t get two or three into you before I die.”

  The girl stared at me in a puzzled way. “But why? Do you hate me so much? Why would you make such an effort to kill me?”

  I said, “I don’t hate you; and while I’ve got orders concerning the CLL, nobody’s told me to go after your FFPR. But we never die alone, baby. That’s the rule in this outfit. It’s supposed to discourage people with homicidal intentions. Often it does, if those people have done their research and know what they’re up against, which you people don’t seem to. We aren’t bulletproof. We aren’t immortal. But nobody gets one of us free. We always take company to hell with us; and in this case you’ll be the logical candidate. So if your friends take me, I’ll take you, and we’ll make the long, black journey together, Señorita Margarita.”

  She hesitated. “My friends do not shoot people in the back!”

  I laughed scornfully. “No, they only blow up people in restaurants. But say you’re right. Say they don’t shoot me. Say they just tell me to drop my gun and put my hands up, the old TV gambit. That’s the second possibility. In that case I’ll pull the trigger once and dive and roll whichever way seems most promising, and hope to get at least one of them when I come up. But you’ll have one of my bullets in you and maybe one or two of theirs because the boys do get excited when the shooting starts.” I looked at La Margarita. “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Last chance, sweetheart. Have you nothing to tell me? No way to make it easier? No way for me to get into the place and release Paul Encinias without a lot of fireworks in which people will be killed, one of whom will certainly be you? Once the guns start, you’re dead, honey. I’ll see to that if I see to nothing else. So if you know any way for me to slip into the place and do my job without being caught… Otherwise we march in the front door and see how far we get. You won’t get very far, but I’ve shot my way out of tougher traps than I think a bunch of sneaky, bomb-throwing creeps can dream up. Well, we’ll see. Or I’ll see. You won’t be around to see anything. What’s your real name, anyway?”

  The girl hesitated, and shrugged. “Margarita. That is true. Margarita Bustamente. Rita, it was before. But I chose the other when I joined the FFPR.” After a moment, she said a bit defiantly, “Perhaps I do not want to die. They did not tell me how it would be. What is it you need to know?”

  “I need to know an unlatched skylight and a way of getting onto the roof. Or an unprotected cellar entrance. Or an open window, an unlocked back door, any way of getting in without being spotted. And I need to know where in the building they’re holding Encinias.” I waited, but she didn’t speak. I shrugged. “Okay, Rita Margarita. It’s your funeral. Let’s go, Dana…”

  “Wait!”

  There was a long pause. At last I said, “She’s stalling, Dana. Take it away.”

  “No!” The girl licked her lips. “At 427 Pacheco, your friend is in a small room, a closet, I do not know its purpose, on the second floor at the rear. You open the street door and there is a corridor and a stairway. You ascend the stairs and you are in the upstairs hallway. You continue towards the rear of the building, and the door is the second to your right.”

  “Locked?”

  “There is a padlock. I do not know who keeps the key, but I should think it would not be difficult to pry away the hardware, it is a very old building.”

  I said, “That’s coming in from the front. Is the street door locked?”

  “No, not at this time of day. It is only locked at night.”

  “Any other way of getting into the building?”

  “I do not know about skylights or cellars, but there is a rear door from the courtyard behind. You have to reach that from the next street, San Remo. The alley is very narrow, no vehicles, just a walkway, you must go on foot. The courtyard is not very big. As you cross it, the entrance you wish is farthest to your right. It will take you into the downstairs hall, right by the backstairs.”

  “No fire escape?”

  “No.”

  “Rear door locked?”

  She shook her head. “Again, only at night.”

  “Trusting souls, these Puerto Ricans.”

  “Perhaps we have nothing left to steal. Perhaps it has all been stolen from us already by greedy Norteamericanos.”

  I grinned, and stopped grinning. I said, “Dana, please pop over to that hardware store and buy a hank of clothesline. No, on second thought, make it a roll of that silver duct tape, if you can find it. Otherwise the clothesline. Otherwise a couple of electric extension cords. And a small crowbar, not one of the big brutes for demolishing houses. Something for dealing with that lock, reasonably short, that I can tuck inside my pants. A big screwdriver if you can’t find the right size wrecking bar. You’ve got money?”

  “Yes. I’ll be right back.”

  She got out and walked across the little park, and disappeared inside the store. Rita Bustamente stirred uneasily beside me.

  “What will you do to me?”

  “Fasten you up so you can’t give her any trouble while I’m away checking what you’ve told me. For both our sakes, I hope it’s the truth. The lady who just left us lost her husband and little girl in a CLL bombing, right here in San Juan. She’s got a particular hate for the Legion; but she’s not very fond of terrorists in general, even if they call themselves patriots or freedom fighters. She’ll have orders to kill you if I don’t get back within a reasonable time, because that’ll mean you lied to me.”

  The girl protested: “That is not fair! If you are stupid and get yourself shot or captured…”

  “Then you die anyway, it’s too damn bad. What happened to my son Matthew wasn’t very fair, either. Or Dana’s daughter Dolly. The husband wasn’t much of a loss, I gather, but she doted on that kid. All you can hope is that you’ve given me enough correct information that I can make it safely.”

  She was silent for a little; then she said, “They will be waiting for you inside the front door. Waiting to kill you.”

  “Yes, I figured that,” I said.

  Then Dana was back with a paper bag. I laid aside the miniature crowbar temporarily, and got to work with the silvery tape on the kid’s ankles. When they were secure, I took the handkerchief off her wrists and turned her around—not easy in that narrow space—and taped her wrists behind her. Finally, I used the handkerchief as a gag and wedged her into the space between the seats. Fortunately she was a small girl.

  Dana said, frowning, “I don’t understand. Before, you didn’t seem a bit worried about her getting away.”

  I said, “Before, she hadn’t told me everything she wanted to. She wasn’t going to run away until she had. But now she’s got nothing to stick around for.” I held out my little knife, which I’d got out to use on the tape. “Here. It opens normally, but you have to pull back this little bolt to close it.”

  “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  I said, “You told me this park is pretty close to the address she gave
us.”

  Dana indicated a direction with a nod of her head. “I think the street is three or four blocks that way; but you may have to go over a block or two to find the right number.”

  “Okay, you wait here with the car. I understand this island’s got some pretty wild spots inland. If I’m not back in an hour, take the little bitch back there somewhere and haul her off into the bushes and cut her throat with that knife, because it’ll mean she double-crossed me.” I winked at Dana as I spoke; but I was watching the prisoner’s back for some sign that she was having useful afterthoughts. I saw none. I went on, “After you’ve disposed of her, you’re on your own; and it’s been nice knowing you.”

  “It’ll be a long hour,” Dana said. “Be careful, Matt.”

  “Sure. Always.”

  It wasn’t much of a street. Five blocks long, it ran from a busy boulevard to a small church and died there. In front of the church was a statue of a hooded friar or priest in long robes. When you’ve figured out how the religious boys managed to survive the sun in these latitudes all wrapped up in thick scratchy wool, you can tackle the problem of how their military counterparts escaped heatstroke in their iron vests and tin hats. I guess they just grew a tougher breed of men back in those days; and the women enduring those multiple petticoats in this tropical climate were obviously no sissies either.

  After locating the street, and determining where 427 had to be without getting too close, I scouted the nearby San Remo Street and spotted the walkway described by Miss Bustamente. This was a shabby, out-of-the-way corner of Old San Juan, but nobody seemed to pay me any attention. Strolling tourists were clearly a dime a dozen.

  It was an interesting problem, I reflected, pausing by the church again to put my thoughts in order. It was kind of like guessing which walnut shell hid the pea. The question was how tricky the kid was, and how tricky she thought I was. I’d waved a knife at her and she’d told me certain things. Then I’d threatened her with death and she’d told me some additional things. The big question was, had I managed to break through to a little truth in the end, or was everything she’d given me merely what she’d been told to give me…