The Ambushers

by Donald Hamilton

  I had a little trouble getting hold of Mac, which was unusual. There’s a theory to the effect that he’s actually a limited-production robot, several identical copies of which have been installed in several identical offices, each with a bright window facing you so you can’t see too clearly what you’re talking to. Extras are switched on as needed to handle the flow of traffic. You never know which Mac-machine you’re getting, but it doesn’t matter, since they’re all tuned to the same wave length and function off the same master computer, down in the basement somewhere. Personally, I don’t believe a word of it. They haven’t got computers that sarcastic yet.

  When I did get him, he said, “Congratulations, Eric. Or should we change the code name to Casanova.”

  I sighed. “Dr. Tommy’s been on the phone, I suppose. That’s why he didn’t want to face me this morning. He’s been making complaints behind my back.”

  “He was just on the line. He tells me that even sick and psychotic young ladies find you so irresistible they leave their hospital beds and break the self-imposed silence of weeks rather than be parted from you. Dr. Stern is disturbed. The gist of his lengthy discourse was that he feels that you have, in a sense, been practicing medicine without a license—all wrong. He reminds me that Sheila was assigned to you only for transportation, not for brutal amateur therapy.”

  “Brutal?” I said. “Hell, I haven’t touched the girl. Except for last night when I didn’t know who or what she was. Nothing personal was intended, I assure you.”

  “I gather that the brutality to which Dr. Stern objects was mental rather than physical. He says that you deliberately poked fun at her appearance with a cruel nickname, even in his presence, and jibed at her for being poor company. He feels that you are probably responsible for giving her a strong feeling of guilt about her conduct in Costa Verde, a feeling that will complicate her cure tremendously. He claims that the patient has responded masochistically to this crude treatment of yours—transference is the word he used, I believe— and that the dependency-relationship thus established, if continued, will make it quite impossible for him to communicate with her and guide her recovery, in any constructive way. I hope I have all the terms correct. Dr. Stern requests, therefore, that you be ordered to leave the patient strictly alone from now on.” Mac paused and went on: “Is there any reason why I should not give such an order, Eric?”

  It was my turn to hesitate. I reminded myself again not to be a sentimental slob. “No, sir,” I said.

  “Very well. So much for that. You’ll be interested to know that President Avila of Costa Verde has carried out a thorough investigation of the matter submitted to him by the government of the United States. He is happy to report that there is no basis whatever for the rumor that the so-called revolutionary forces had a nuclear missile in their possession. No traces of such a missile have been found. President Avila is glad to have been of service, and hopes we will give him more opportunities to prove his friendship and spirit of cooperation. End of message.”

  “Rumor, hell!” I said. I made a face at the wall of the booth. “So it’s like that, eh?”

  “Just like that. I won’t risk your hanging up by asking if you actually saw a Rudovic III in that jungle clearing.”

  I said, “Well, no, I’ll tell you, sir. I got the description from an article in the Sunday papers. I thought it would liven things up in Washington, kind of.”

  “Yes, to be sure,” Mac said. “Well, we’ll let the diplomats worry about it. Have you studied your instructions?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You will start your interviewing program in Tucson a week from Wednesday, to synchronize with a legitimate survey being conducted in other cities. You have eleven blocks to cover. In each of those eleven blocks, you will interview one person in each household as an authorized interviewer for an organization known as Market Research Associates, Inc.”

  “Yes, sir. I got that out of the instruction booklet. I was hoping I hadn’t. You did say every household in eleven blocks?”

  “That is correct. That is the technique used by the company by which you are ostensibly employed. In each of the selected blocks, there is only one address that is of real interest to us, but if the people at that address become suspicious, we hope it will reassure them to learn that everyone else in the block has also been visited by the MRA interviewer. I can’t tell you exactly what to look for. We are trying to find a pattern, something these eleven homes, or at least one person in each of them, have in common.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “You mean like two arms, two legs, and a head, sir?”

  “More like Heinrich von Sachs,” he said. “These addresses were visited in a systematic way by a man known to have been associated with von Sachs, a man who was spotted entering the U.S. from Mexico at a small border town in Arizona called Antelope Wells, somewhere east of Nogales, according to my information.”

  I said, “It’s east, all right. It’s over the state line in New Mexico.”

  “Indeed? I should have checked the map. You know the town, Eric?”

  “Now you’re exaggerating, sir. It’s hardly a town, it’s just a gate in the international fence. They used to close it at night and on weekends, as I recall. Maybe they still do. On our side, there’s a little shack for the customs and immigration man. On the other side there are half a dozen adobe houses, a handful of trees, and a few Mexican border officials. South of that there’s nothing for ninety miles except a couple of ruts across the desert, and I mean desert. It’s one of the most Godforsaken hunks of real estate on earth, just rocks, sand, cactus, and mesquite, with a bunch of desolate mountains peeking over the horizon after you get down a ways—called the Nacimientos, I think.”

  Mac said, “It has been determined that a permit was issued to von Sachs under another name to do some archaeological work in the Nacimiento Mountains. The question is where. As you say, it’s a wild area; it is also a large one. The department working on the job before it was transferred to us reports that efforts to trace him from the Mexican end have proved fruitless. I think our first step should be to determine if one of these people in Tucson has the information.”

  “What about the man who visited them, von Sachs’ associate, so-called. He must know where he came from, when he appeared at Antelope Wells.”

  “If he knows, he isn’t saying. Unfortunately the gentleman must be referred to in the past tense.”

  “I see,” I said. “That helps. That’s just ducky. What happened?”

  “He was trailed to Tucson. Apparently he was some kind of a courier or contact man. Note was made of the addresses he visited. He started for Phoenix; apparently he had several cities on his route. However, something frightened him and he turned back hurriedly, heading towards Antelope Wells. Somebody decided he should be picked up for questioning before he disappeared below the border, but the arresting officers were careless, and he got his hand to his mouth. It is recorded that he cried ‘Viva Quintana’ and gave a smart salute before falling on his face, dead of cyanide. The salute he gave was the old straight-armed Nazi salute.”

  I said wryly, “It sounds just like Old Home Week. Who’s Quintana?”

  “Who but friend Heinrich? In Mexico he is Kurt Quintana, son of a German mother and a Mexican father. The documents proving this are fraudulent, of course, but until it’s established, he is a citizen. He can have you arrested if you bother him.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “I understand your station wagon is ailing mechanically. There is a reasonably new Volkswagen in Phoenix you can have if you like. As for weapons,” Mac went on, “if you need anything special, you’ll have to supply yourself locally or give us time to send out what you want. If you need an assistant, one can be provided. There are some young people at the ranch for training, one of whom might as well be picking up a little practical experience. He could, for instance, get the interviews started while you make a preliminary investigation along the border.”

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nbsp; “Well, eleven blocks is a lot of houses,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind a little help, but I don’t particularly want a green kid tagging along.” I hesitated. The idea that had come into my mind was ridiculous, but I heard myself saying: “What about Sheila? She’s been around long enough to learn the ropes a little.”

  “Sheila?” It took a lot to surprise him, but I’d managed.

  “She wants out,” I said. “Out of here. That’s what she came to tell me last night.”

  “It’s out of the question,” Mac said. “Dr. Stern says—”

  “Dr. Tommy has a thing about curing people, I’m afraid,” I said. “I think he sometimes forgets that his job isn’t to make us into perfectly adjusted human beings, it’s to return us to the front lines in good shooting condition. Hell, if he ever managed to adjust us, we’d quit this racket. The girl walks and talks now, and she wants out.”

  “You’re being sentimental,” Mac said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “She is in no shape to—”

  “To ask silly questions and record the silly answers on a questionnaire? If she isn’t now, she will be in ten days. It could be a damn sight better for her than staying here and having Tommy and his nurses tinkering with her subconscious. Occupational therapy, we call it.”

  There was a long silence. Then his voice came reluctantly: “You’d be responsible, Eric. And remember, we have doctors on the payroll but you’re not one of them. You have other duties, which must come first.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There is no accounting for tastes, of course,” he said deliberately. “But I thought there was a lady in Texas—”

  I said, “What’s my love life got to do with this?”

  “Then what—”

  I grimaced at the sound-proof paneling in front of me. “As you say, I’m being sentimental, sir. Do you remember a man we called Vance?”

  “Why, yes. He died up in northern Europe.”

  “Yes, sir. And do you remember a man we called LeBaron?”

  “Yes. He died... Oh, I begin to see. Vaguely.”

  “Yes, sir. LeBaron was killed in Juarez, Mexico, helping me. Vance was killed in Kiruna, Sweden, helping me. And how many other good agents have I taken out and lost in the line of duty? So when for once in my life I find one instead and bring her back alive, I’d just kind of like to see that she makes it all the way. Dr. Tommy himself will admit he can’t do anything for her unless she wants him to, and she doesn’t. Maybe I can.”

  “Very well.” His voice was crisp. “As I say, it’s your responsibility. She can start the interviews a week from Wednesday. You’d better head down towards Antelope Wells as soon as the medical department approves. But be sure you get back to Tucson in time to take over if something goes wrong.”

  I said, “Yes, sir. If she blows up on the job I’ll ship the pieces back here and handle the rest of it myself.”

  “Just remember,” he said, “the mental health of one agent, or even her life, or yours, is not really significant against the larger picture.”

  He was starting to talk like an ad man in his old age. “The larger picture,” I said. “Yes, sir. We’ll get you von Sachs.”

  8

  The border country hadn’t changed much in the time I’d been away. It was still a barren, yellowish-gray-green landscape with only an occasional cottonwood for a tree and an occasional dark mountain range to break the monotony of the rolling, empty plain. The farther south I proceeded towards Antelope Wells, the less there was to see. Anybody who wants to call it a desert will get no argument from me, although once in a while I’d drive past a windmill and water tank that would seem to indicate that this desolate-looking land was, after all, owned by somebody and used for raising something besides cactus and rattlesnakes.

  After asking all the questions I could think of down there—finding somebody to ask was the real problem—I headed back to Tucson where I stopped in a sporting goods store that had a selection of hunting rifles, some with real pretty stocks dolled up with decorative inlays and thick rubber recoil pads. Unfortunately I was spending the government’s money, and I doubted that I could prove to a cold-eyed department accountant that a fancy gun shoots better than a plain one, since I didn’t really believe it myself. As for recoil pads, there’s a theory to the effect that a lot of soft rubber between you and the gun just gives it a running start before it socks you.

  Acting like a deer hunter getting a jump on the season, I picked out a standard light Winchester M70, therefore, in the good old reliable .30-06 caliber. They had some Magnums on the rack, but I didn’t have the time or the facilities to fix up this gun like the one I’d left with Jiminez in Costa Verde. I’d have to shoot standard factory ammunition, for one thing, instead of working out a special load for the gun.

  It couldn’t be an extra-long-range, super-precision deal this time, and the lighter cartridge would shoot far enough for the accuracy I could expect, besides being easier on the shoulder. I bought several boxes in each of several bullet weights. You never know which bullet a gun is going to like best until you try it. I got a medium-priced four-power scope and had them mount it while I waited.

  Then I took my packages out to the car, which was still the old Pontiac station wagon, partially rejuvenated under the hood. With two of us on the job, two cars had been needed, and this seemed to be one of those years when the CIA or somebody had got to all the undercover dough first. Since I was in better condition to deal with mechanical emergencies than Sheila, I was driving the antique.

  I hadn’t seen her since the previous weekend. We’d met for a final briefing session under the cold eye of Dr. Tom Stern, who’d done his best to discourage the whole idea, but she hadn’t let him scare her. I looked for the Volkswagen now as I drove up to the modest tourist court that had been selected as our headquarters in Tucson. I’d been told the car was blue, but there were no fourwheeled foreign bugs of any color around. Well, it was still relatively early in the afternoon, and she should be out interviewing. Nevertheless I found myself disappointed and a little worried. I hoped she hadn’t had a relapse or anything. It’s your responsibility, Mac had said.

  She’d made a reservation for me around the corner from her unit—also around the corner from the pool, which was full of yelling kids. In that part of the country, even the crummiest hostelries have pools these days. Coronado wouldn’t know the place. I moved my stuff inside, made a routine check around the room, and lay down on the big double bed after making sure the air conditioner was working full blast. There wouldn’t be anything new to think about until I’d talked with my assistant. In the business, you learn to grab sleep when you can, so I did.

  I was awakened, presently, by a knocking on the door: three short raps followed after a pause by two more. Under certain circumstances this tells the person behind the door that it isn’t necessary to go for the firearms or depart by the window; under other circumstances, such as the present, it just means hello, it’s me. I got up, yawned, and went over to let her in.

  “Mr. Evans?” she said for the benefit of anyone who might be listening. “Mr. Evans, I’m Sheila Summerton. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived. I was conducting some interviews on the other side of town, and I didn’t think you’d get in so early.”

  “It’s perfectly all right,” I said. “I’m sorry you had to start on the job alone, but I simply couldn’t break away sooner. Won’t you come in?”

  I stepped back to let her pass. It was the first time, I realized, that I’d seen her in a dress, a thin, sleeveless, full-skirted number in a gay summer print that somehow managed to make her look very small and fragile. I was a little startled to realize that I was as glad to see her as if she were somebody I knew and liked, instead of just a responsibility I’d taken on for some screwy reason of sentiment.

  I closed the door. “Hi, Skinny,” I said.

  She frowned quickly, and glanced around the room. “Should we... I mean, is it safe to talk?”
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br />   “I’ve made a rough check. Do you have any reason to believe anybody’s interested enough in us to bug our rooms?”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s been very dull. And very hot.”

  “How far have you got?”

  “Two blocks completed. One almost finished. I should clean that up tonight or tomorrow morning.”

  I said, “You weren’t supposed to kill yourself, Skinny. Your instructions were to take it easy. Three blocks in three days is overdoing it. You look like hell.”

  “Thanks,” she murmured. “There’s nothing like appreciation and flattery to make the troops feel good.” Then she began to cry. She just stood there, holding a brief case in the hand that had the tips of the fingers individually bandaged now, looking at me with the tears running down her face. “Oh, d-damn it,” she breathed. “I’m sorry. I guess I am a little t-tired.”

  “Sure,” I said. I reached out and took the briefcase and set it aside. “Sit down before you fall down.”

  She didn’t move at once. I put my arm about her shoulders to lead her to a chair, and everything kind of stopped in the room, if you know what I mean. She went perfectly still. After a moment she looked slowly from my face to the hand on her shoulder. The funny yellow light was in her eyes.

  “Excuse me,” I said, taking my hand away.

  She went to the bed and sat down. After a moment she looked up and said in a perfectly normal voice, “I’m sorry. That’s silly; I’ll have to get over it. You don’t happen to have a spare hanky?”

  I got her a clean one out of the dresser drawer. While she was mopping up, I took the cardboard ice bucket provided by the management and went out to fill it at the machine near the office. When I returned, she was sitting where I’d left her, but her face was dry and she had the brief case at her feet, open.