The Demolishers

by Donald Hamilton

  Mac came after lunch, in the same or another gray summer-weight suit. He told me I was doing very well and would probably be released in a few days. When I take the bad one that awaits everyone in the business, and am on my way out, I’ll probably wait around out of habit until he can tell me officially that I’m dying.

  “You seem to’ve pried the kids loose in record time, sir,” I said.

  “Under the circumstances, they were not eager to prosecute knowing it would inevitably become a news circus.”

  I said, “I hear Tallman really blew his stack.”

  “Yes. Of course Mr. Alexander Varek was well overdue. There is no grief in law enforcement circles, except for the fact that the act was committed by an officer of sorts. They’re calling it temporary insanity.”

  “I gather it happened on the estate and the dogs killed him; but how did he get in? Security was pretty tight when I was there.”

  Mac shrugged. “Mr. Tallman was, after all, a professional, Eric; and he did a professional job of penetration. If somebody hadn’t turned the Dobermans loose ahead of schedule that evening… Actually, the dogs didn’t kill him, although that was the first report we heard. They simply rounded him up and disarmed him; one of the guards shot him.” Mac stopped and smiled thinly and went on: “As a dog lover, you will like this. Mr. Tallman could easily have shot both animals as they were coming at him, but he didn’t fire. He said before he died that they were good dogs just doing their jobs and he’d got the beast he was after, so why should he kill them?” Mac shook his head. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry about him coming after you, as he’d threatened to do.” He pulled the chair he’d taken closer to the hospital bed. “Now, is there anything you’d care to take up with me before I return to Washington? As I recall, you were asking about a code that didn’t exist. Would you care to elaborate?”

  I said, “I was just talking with Paul Encinias. Modesto. He told me he’d received a message from Washington a few weeks back. It had come through the computer by way of Dana—Dolores. It concerned some negotiations the Legion of Liberty had been conducting, or trying to conduct, with Sonny Varek. It appears that the CLL crew got a lot of its finances from the drug trade. And far from being the wild-eyed political fanatics blowing up people at random we were supposed to think them, they usually combined their politics with business. In other words, if you screwed the Legion on a drug deal, or refused to play ball, or whatever, you might just kind of accidentally find yourself in the middle of a loud patriotic protest incident. Boom.”

  Mac said, “I am quite aware of this. Modesto sent several reports on the subject. It was a detail you didn’t need to know to perform your mission.”

  “Good old need-to-know,” I said. “Anyway, that colorful old drug dealer up in Newport, Pirate Williams, had been shortchanging the Legion on the stuff he’d been getting from them, so he wound up victim of a terrorist atrocity, as an object lesson to others who might get greedy.”

  “That reminds me,” Mac said. “A certain Mr. Benison of a certain drug agency called to let you know that a certain big fish in that neighborhood is taking the bait; he thanks you for not muddying the water.”

  “Well, I had no reason to interfere in his case, so I don’t deserve much thanks. I’m all for interdepartmental cooperation when it doesn’t hurt.” I paused and went on: “So the Newport explosion was actually a punitive action in the line of business. Modesto didn’t know the commercial reason behind the bombing here in San Juan that killed Dana’s husband and kid; maybe there wasn’t any. The Executive Board that managed the action end of things didn’t always consult the whole Council. Maybe when things got dull they’d set off a firecracker just for fun, so folks wouldn’t forget the Legion was still around. But the West Palm Beach job was a business proposition just like Newport.”

  “To influence Mr. Varek?”

  “To punish him for refusing to deal with them. Varek was a respectable citizen now, he told them, retired from the import business; he didn’t want to deal with the CLL, he didn’t want to deal with anybody. No, repeat no. There was some disagreement in the Council about what should be done about him. Normally they’d have slapped his wrist hard as a matter of course, but some members felt that Sonny Varek with his syndicate connections was too big to touch and they should just forget the whole thing. Modesto said that the message he received from Washington, signed Elsie, instructed him to throw his weight on the side of punitive action, suggesting the Varek daughter as a suitable target.” I cleared my throat. “As we know, Modesto was successful in swinging the vote that way. Angelita, with her bomb squad, went for Sandra and missed by just a little. But she got my son.”

  Mac spoke without expression: “This order ostensibly originated in Washington? It was transmitted by computer?”

  “Correct.”

  “Signed Elsie. Could Modesto identify Elsie?”

  I said, “Yes. The routine communications Modesto received from Washington were signed Dolores. Dana. Special action instructions were attributed to Elsie. It was a private joke between Dana and Encinias. Somehow one of them had learned the full name of the man at the top of this outfit. Arthur McGillivray Borden. Borden’s milk. Elsie the cow. So they picked that name to identify orders coming directly from you.”

  Somebody ran a cart down the hall outside. It had a squeaky wheel. Watching Mac, I reflected that any hospital’s medical equipment really ought to include an oilcan.

  Mac spoke quietly: “Are you convinced of my guilt, Eric?”

  I said, “It was pretty foolproof. There was no logical reason for the CLL to hit Matthew, so it wasn’t possible to sic them on to him directly. But they preferred restaurants for their dirty work; and if Sandra went out to eat, who’d most likely be with her? If the bomb got both of them as they dined and wined, fine, I’d be mad enough to come back to work for you. If it just got Matthew, as it did, ditto. And if it only got Sandy, it seemed likely that her young husband would feel strongly enough to look up his secret-agent pop and persuade him to hunt down the miscreants. Actually, Matthew was a nonviolent type and probably wouldn’t have reacted like that, but this wasn’t known to the person setting it up, and the problem never arose.”

  Mac smiled thinly. “When can I expect to be shot, Eric?”

  I studied him thoughtfully. “We’ve worked together a long time,” I said. “I know you’d sacrifice my son, or me, or your son, or yourself, if the fate of this country really depended on it. But not just for a lousy antenna field on a lousy Caribbean island. Not just to track down one crummy bunch of terrorists when the world is full of them. Not just because we had an argument about a dog.” I drew a long breath, and grinned at him. “Anyway, the last thing Dana said to me was that she was sorry.”

  He studied me for a moment, and spoke thoughtfully: “Mrs. Delgado? Dolores? Yes, of course, she had the opportunity; the message came through her.”

  “Actually from her, although Modesto didn’t know that,” I said. “She must have been pretty crazy with grief and anger in her quiet way. She wanted to strike back at the people who’d killed her child. She’d been directed to us by a reporter, Spud Meiklejohn, who seems to have an inflated notion of my capabilities. He apparently gave me a big buildup. So she got the idea that invincible Superagent Helm was the only man for her vengeance mission; but suddenly she found out that I’d had a fight with you and quit the agency. A stupid fight about a dog, when her baby was dead! At the time she didn’t know me at all, of course. I was just a walking gun, a grim instrument of vengeance that had let her down. So, as she monitored her computer information on the CLL, she saw a way to bring me back to do what she wanted done. Why shouldn’t I learn, as she had, what it was like to lose a child? She instructed Modesto, in your name, what action to take in the Council of Thirteen. When we met in your office afterwards, she behaved as if she hated me. She had to, after what she’d done to me. Of course the one she really hated was herself.”

  “And that code busine
ss?”

  “Just something she threw out in desperation, to sidetrack me, when she sensed I was getting close to the truth. I think she’d have told me everything very soon, but she never got the chance.”

  And she’d cried the night we’d made love because she’d known that, after the unforgivable thing she’d done, we could never have more than this together. But I didn’t tell that to Mac…

  The helicopter pilot’s voice dispelled the memories that plagued me. “Smoke up ahead. Looks like a beached vessel of some kind, burning.”

  It was a curving half-moon of a beach at the head of a sheltered cove. The ancient landing craft had run right up on the sand after first dropping the big stem anchor that was supposed to haul her back into deep water after her cargo had been put ashore; but the old vessel’s life had finally come to an end and she would never float again. The government jets had found her, smashed her, and set her on fire. It must have happened several hours ago, say about dawn, since there were no longer any visible flames, just the thick, black, greasy smoke.

  I noted that the bow ramp was down. Maybe Bultman’s skipper had had time to unload a cargo of tanks before the air strike, although this seemed a long way from the landing site… Then, as we passed over, low, I could see that there had been no tanks. The blasted cargo hold was full of twisted, blackened wire that looked like tortured chainlink fencing, although that didn’t make very good sense.

  “Can you set me down?” I asked.

  “I was afraid you’d say that. Sure, that beach is like a billiard table. But don’t be long; those government flyboys seem to have got hold of some of those there high explosives I’ve read about, and I don’t want any.” He was silent for a moment; then he glanced back at the wreck and said, “Poor old girl. Well, she died with her boots on. I wonder if she remembered Normandy when they hit her.”

  Well, some people are sentimental about dogs and some about ships. Then we were settling in and climbing down to the sand. I still hurt enough in various places to make it a chore.

  “Maybe you’d better stay and watch your bird,” I said to the pilot. “You’re supposed to be here in a strictly non-combatant status. If there’s trouble, light out fast. If I’m dead, nobody wants the body; if I’m alive I can take to the brush. Just get that whirly with its U.S. markings to hell out of here.”

  “Check.” But he walked a few steps towards the beached ship with me. “Hell, those are cages!” he said suddenly. “All smashed up now, but they started out as animal cages. The old bucket was a fucking Noah’s ark; and there’s a dog now… Here, boy!”

  Hunting-dog men go by the unwritten law: Never touch, or give orders to, somebody else’s dog. The ones who’ve had nonworking, canine pets, however, seem to have a compulsion to run up to any strange mutt and make friends with it. I grabbed the pilot by the arm.

  “Easy, that looks like a very disturbed pooch, amigo. You’d better get back to your chopper while I take a look around.”

  He went reluctantly. He still wanted to pat the pretty doggie. I had no such desire. A big, shaggy beast of the husky persuasion, the animal would have looked great in front of a sled on an Alaskan snowfield; in this tropical climate he made about as much sense as an igloo. He was drooling a little as he stood there, and I heard the low, rumbling growl that said clearly: Buzz off, Buster, this is my territory. But the smoke-blackened tangle of wire behind him had definitely been cages of some kind before the bombs hit and scrambled them. A lot of cages holding a lot of animals. Like the man said, a fucking Noah’s ark, where we’d expected a shipful of secret weapons. There were no visible bodies except for the live one guarding the ship’s bow door.

  I said, “Relax, friend, nobody’s going to trespass on your property.”

  I limped on, surveying the lush green vegetation that bordered the smooth sand of the beach. Something moved in the bushes off to my right. I saw the dog first, a small curly-haired terrier-type with a stub of a tail that was working very hard as he—excuse me, she—tried to play with something or somebody hidden in the brush. The little bitch heard me approaching and came running to dance happily in front of me on two legs. I was tempted to give this one a pat and an ear-scratch, but it seemed better not to get too friendly until I knew what the hell was going on. Getting no affection from me, the little dog ran back to its former friend. Not knowing what hid there, man or beast, I made the approach with care, gun in hand.

  “I have been expecting you, Herr Helm,” a voice said. “It is all right. I have no weapon.”

  I recognized the voice, of course. I said, “You’ll excuse me if my normal paranoia prevents me from taking your word for it, Herr Bultman.”

  But when I reached a spot from which I could see him lying there, he had nothing in his hands. He made a strange black figure in some kind of protective clothing; after a moment I realized that he was dressed in heavy motorcycle leathers, complete with gauntlets and boots. There was also a helmet. He had the plastic face-plate pushed up. He’d apparently been caught by one of the blasts that had wrecked the LCT, and the leather was badly ripped along his right leg, side, and arm. There was blood on the sand under him. As I watched, he scratched the ears of the little terrier left-handed, lying there, and offered her the leather of his gauntlet to tug at, delighting her. However, after a moment she decided to favor me with her attention again.

  “No, no,” Bultman said, as I reached down to let her sniff my hand. “It is too bad, she is a nice little dog, but she has had the injection. Do not touch her. Will you help me off with this helmet, please?” When I had it off, keeping an eye on his hands in case of tricks, he said, “Protection. I did not know what stage of the disease they would have developed when the time came to release them; and I preferred not to be chewed, although considering my last medical report it would have made hardly any difference. I had very little time left anyway.”

  It showed in his gaunt, lined face. Of course the wounds made a difference, too. I said, “You didn’t bring that bucket here alone.”

  “Bucket? Oh, the ship. The crew went inland, that was the arrangement. They wanted nothing to do with my cargo of sick dogs. I had to unload them myself. I heard the planes coming as I was finishing, but there were still a few left in their cages and I couldn’t leave them trapped.” He laughed again, a short bark. “We all have our little weaknesses, do we not, my friend?”

  I stood looking down at him. So he’d had a secret weapon after all. “You brought a load of dogs to Gobernador?”

  “What did you think I brought, a load of tanks to help those patriotic fools dying twenty miles from here?” He saw the answer on my face, and shook his head at my stupidity. He said, “The people of Gobernador would not accept my healthy dog, their officials shot her to death, so I have brought them my sick dogs instead. The poor animals will not last long, the incubation period is ten days and they go fast after that; but I have been assured that they will last long enough to infect the entire island.”

  “Rabies?”

  “Of course, rabies. It is endemic in many countries. We lived with it in Germany. You live with it in the United States. Let them learn to live with it here, since they cannot administer their quarantine decently.”

  “And your whole invasion plan was simply a diversion…”

  He shrugged, and winced at the pain. “It is a good plan. They have a chance, those gullible heroes, but most likely they will commit suicide by fighting over who is to lead them now, and be pushed into the sea. But they will kill many Gobernador soldiers before they go, and keep the government forces too busy to worry about a few infected dogs. By the time action is taken, my slavering pets will be well dispersed…” He winced as a pain went through him hard. When it eased, his face was even grayer than before. He licked his lips and said, “I need a favor, Herr Helm.”

  “Do I owe you one?”

  “It is the favor we all owe each other, in this business. I would prefer not to be finished off by the government troops, or my dogs.
It is what you came here to do, is it not? I ask you to do it now…”

  When I returned to the helicopter, the pilot looked at me oddly; and he didn’t speak on the way back to base although he’d bent my ear the whole way down. There were several other flying machines between me and Washington, but they all made it, unlike the invasion force. It held out for three days but, contained by the government ground forces and hammered by the jets, it surrendered on the fourth day after the landing.

  35

  In Texas, the big yellow Labrador pup was very glad to see me. He was even happier, the morning after my arrival, to be taken hunting. It was a good day for waterfowl, gloomy and windy, but with no real rain to make things too uncomfortable. Bert Hapgood took us out to the same blind. The ducks flew well, I shot well, and Happy did a beautiful job of retrieving; but as usual he couldn’t understand why we had to quit so soon, with plenty of birds still buzzing the decoys.

  I was sitting on the embankment cleaning my ducks when I heard the four-wheel-drive pickup approaching. It stopped behind me.

  “I’ll be through in a minute,” I said without looking around.

  “Don’t hurry,” said a woman’s voice.

  I turned quickly. Mrs. Rosalia Varek was wearing snug, tailored jeans and a matching jacket. The jeans were tucked into little boots with high heels. Her hair was uncovered and she wore it loose to her shoulders today, black and glossy, the way I’d seen it one night in Palm Beach, with her husband’s approval.

  “No, no,” she said. “You’re a good doggie, but I don’t need my face washed.”

  “Happy, down!” I went over and pulled him off her.

  “I said, down! What are you doing here, Lia?”

  “I’m a widow now,” she said.

  “I know,” I said.

  “I have no intention of marrying again,” she said. “I have the security I wanted.”

  I said, “Is that what you came here to tell me?”