The Ambushers

by Donald Hamilton

  “Perhaps too much,” I said harshly.

  “Always the threats,” she murmured. She took a step forward and placed her hands flat against the front of my shirt, and smiled up at me. “Would you hurt me, Mr. Evans? Would you beat me? Would you kill me?”

  She was very good. And the man in the bedroom was pretty good, too, but not quite good enough. I’d heard him come in and take up his post. I was a hunter of sorts before I went into this line of work, and I’d waited in a good many stands, listening for the rustle in the nearby brush, the rap of a hoof or antler against a log or branch, that would tell me game was near. The only trouble was, I was pretty sure this game was stalking me.

  Well, it didn’t seem likely they’d go to all this trouble just to kill me; and you have to take a few risks now and then, if you want information. I looked down at Catherine Smith like a man getting certain ideas, and I reached out with finger and thumb and plucked at a little black bow of ribbon at her throat. The negligee fell open in front. I used both hands to slip it off her shoulders. She let her arms fall, and it dropped to the rug about her feet, leaving her clad only in an interesting black dual-purpose garment designed to give support both to the breasts above and the stockings below.

  I suppose my grandmother would have spoiled everything by calling it a corset, being a prosaic old lady; Madison Avenue has undoubtedly invented a much more glamorous and seductive name for it. I’d never encountered one in actual use before, perhaps because my tastes normally run to lean girls who don’t require so much support. It made a novel and stimulating picture. There was an old-fashioned air about it that was kind of sweet, if you know what I mean, reminiscent of Lillian Russell and Lily Langtry. I could have given it more attention if I had not heard the door opening behind me.

  I couldn’t help wondering if it was going to be a blackjack job or if he knew his stuff well enough to hit the right pressure point barehanded. It was distracting, but I managed to take the intriguingly half-naked Miss Smith into my arms in the crudely passionate way of the aroused male. Her lips responded to my kiss, her hands gripped me fiercely—and moved down suddenly to pin my arms to my sides. She was a strong girl. Then the needle went into my neck.

  Whatever they were using in the hypo worked fast enough that I never knew when I hit the floor.

  12

  I was in a car for a while. It was hard to tell how long. I kept leaving, so to speak, and coming back. The car stopped. I was carried a very short distance. Then everything was peaceful and I slept for a while and woke up tied to a wooden chair in front of a pair of blinding headlights belonging to a station wagon, the shape of which looked vaguely familiar.

  It was a garage long enough to take the big car and still leave some space in front. Perhaps the architect was expecting Detroit to make them even bigger in the future; or perhaps the man of the house was supposed to use the extra space for a workbench for his do-it-yourself projects. The garage was still in the process of construction. Raw ends of wiring stuck out of junction boxes here and there. Bags of cement and plaster were stored in one corner, along with other odds and ends of building materials.

  I tested my bonds as a matter of routine. I didn’t expect to find any slack in the cords or any weakness in the chair, and I didn’t. It had been a smooth, pro job from the start. These were people who knew what they were doing. The problem was finding out just what the hell that was.

  “He is awake.”

  It was Catherine Smith’s husky voice. Her shape came between me and the headlights. After a little I could make out that she’d got out of her sexy pinup costume and into a loose flowered blouse and tight white shorts, still not a picture of demure innocence.

  “How do you feel, Mr. Evans?” she asked.

  “Frustrated,” I said. “Things were just getting interesting, as I recall. What happens now?”

  “You talk,” she said.

  “About what?”

  “You tell us where to find Heinrich von Sachs, or if you prefer, Kurt Quintana.”

  I suppose I should have expected it. After all, I was supposed to be a mysterious Nazi character with influence and authority, if she really believed that. The question was, what did it make her?

  I said, “Go to hell, honey.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I am not bluffing, Mr. Evans.”

  Well, that was what I had to prove, or disprove. If she really wasn’t bluffing, if she really didn’t know where Heinrich was, and really thought I did, then I was wasting my time on her. But there were things about her story I didn’t buy, the Argentina part for one. It sounded like one of those cover stories that are carefully designed to sound plausible and be hard to check. Besides, I’m pretty good at spotting accents, particularly Spanish accents. I’ve lived with them in New Mexico, off and on, since I was a boy. She should have had some trace of one if she’d spent a lot of time in Spanish-speaking Argentina, and she didn’t. I couldn’t identify the faint accent that flavored her English, but it wasn’t Español.

  “Go to hell,” I repeated bravely. “Whatever your needle expert’s cooking up back in the corner, have him trot it out. He’ll find it’s a lot easier to stick a man from behind than to make him talk.”

  She hesitated. Then she held out her hand toward the man outside the lights, the man I hadn’t yet seen who was presumably named Herman Smith, or at least went by that name, her alleged father. She snapped her fingers impatiently when nothing was handed to her at once. So she was going to do the work herself. I suppose this made her a dreadful person, in conventional terms; but it had been a long time since I’d dealt in conventional terms. It increased my respect for her. I mean, I don’t go for these delicate types, male or female, who want the cattle branded but can’t bear to touch the iron themselves.

  The man came into the glare of the lights holding a cheap new soldering iron. The cord ran off into the darkness somewhere. The tool had obviously never been used before; you could smell the store finish burning off it.

  The man was considerably older than I. He had grizzled black hair and a face like an eroded farm. There was a big blade of a nose, a thin, almost lipless mouth, and a bony chin. His eyes, when he looked at me, were shiny and expressionless, but I didn’t gather he felt a great deal of sympathy for my predicament. He was wearing dark wash pants and a white shirt with the collar open and the sleeves rolled up. I caught the hint of a gun under the armpit. He’d have to get past at least two buttons to reach it there, but in summer, in the coatless southwest, there aren’t too many places a man can pack a concealed firearm.

  He gave the hot soldering iron to Catherine, and came over to unfasten my sport shirt and pull it down as far as my tied hands and the back of the chair would let him, preparing the patient for the operation. He stepped back into the darkness. Catherine came forward.

  “Von Sachs,” she said quietly. “Where does he have his headquarters, Mr. Evans? We know it’s south of the border in Mexico, but where?”

  “Try scopolamine, honey,” I said. “That mail-order gadget won’t get you anywhere.”

  “Von Sachs,” she repeated. “Where is Heinrich von Sachs?”

  “You’re taking a chance that close, honey,” I said. “I used to be the champion spitter of Santa Fe County, New Mexico. I’ll put it right in your eye... Ahhh!”

  After that, it got a little rough. I mean, it was worse than hitting your thumb with a heavy hammer or dropping a brick on your toe because it didn’t stop. It was about like having a clumsy, persistent dentist working on you without Novocain. People have stood that and I stood this, but I don’t pretend I was heroic about it. I grunted and sweated as it went on; I even considered screaming occasionally but decided against it. Things were tough enough without adding a gag to my discomforts.

  “Von Sachs! Where is Heinrich von Sachs?”

  After a while I passed out. I couldn’t have been unconscious long, because when I opened my eyes she’d only stepped back a pace, waiting for me to revive. I noticed she wa
sn’t as pretty as she had been. Sweat had turned her face shiny and streaked her make-up. Her big, fancy hairdo was starting to fall apart. She made no attempt to repair the damage. Perhaps she wasn’t even aware of it. More likely she just let her wild-woman appearance alone because she knew she looked more scary that way. When she saw my eyes open, she lifted the iron and stepped forward again.

  “Katerina.”

  It was the voice of the man behind me. Catherine glanced his way irritably.

  “What is it, Max?”

  So his name was Max, not Herman Smith. I’d learned something, after all. It hardly seemed worth the effort.

  “It is no good,” Max said. “In a week, maybe. In a month, yes. One can break any man in a month. But the construction crew will be here in the morning.”

  “I will burn his eyes out if he does not talk!” she said violently. “I will...”

  She described the other ingenious things she would do to me. She was talking for effect, of course, to intimidate me, but there was no doubt in my mind now that her basic emotion was genuine. She wasn’t bluffing, certainly. She really wanted to know where von Sachs could be found. She really thought I could tell her. She obviously didn’t have the information we wanted, since she was searching for it herself.

  It seemed that I’d come a long, painful way for a negative answer. I’d eliminated a possibility, that was all. As far as the job was concerned, I was back where I’d started. That wasn’t strictly correct, either. I’d started from a comfortable motel room. I wasn’t quite back there yet. I tried to think of the right card to play next. Now I had to convince these pleasant sadists, not only that I didn’t have what they wanted, but that I’d do them no harm if they let me go. I wished that my head were clearer and that I didn’t feel quite so much like being sick to my stomach.

  Catherine had finished her catalog of horrors. She was back on her where-is-von-Sachs? kick. As she stepped forward, raising the soldering iron to continue the treatment, the small side door of the garage slammed open and Sheila stepped in, holding a little .38 revolver that, to my prejudiced eyes, looked prettier than any rose.

  13

  In a TV show, that would have been it. In real life, unfortunately, there’s a little more to a daring rescue than just pointing a gun at the villain and telling him to behave—particularly when there are two villains and they know their villainy.

  Sheila should have shot, of course. She should have dropped one of them instantly, and maybe the other would have stayed put; but it’s the hardest thing in the world to teach the recruits. Even during the war, some of them never learned that you didn’t wait to inspect the church and count the congregation, you just kicked in the door, tossed in a grenade, and went in behind the explosion with your machine pistol firing...

  They didn’t wait for her to make up her mind. I saw Catherine make a catlike leap for the shelter of the car; she might not be built lean, but she moved lean. I heard Max come for me, since I was the best protection within his reach. I heard shirt buttons go as he went for the armpit gun. I managed to dump the chair on its side and my timing was good; we connected and got tangled up on the floor. He rolled free. There was nothing I could do about that, tied as I was. I’d made my small contribution to the cause. Catherine reached the switch and the station wagon headlights went out.

  I lay in the dark and listened to them jockeying for position around me and the car. They were trying to get each other located. Sheila still had the advantage. She knew where I was; she knew which way not to shoot. Max and Catherine had to identify a target before firing or risk killing each other. I didn’t think, however, it would take them long to get a systematic campaign under way.

  I thought about this, and I thought about a small, relatively inexperienced girl crouching somewhere in the dark with a revolver in her hand. I thought about various things that had happened tonight that I hadn’t had time enough, or sense enough, to add together before.

  “Skinny,” I said, “don’t answer, don’t move, but listen. You see the open door you came in by. There’s a patch of lighted floor. Got it? Throw your gun there.”

  I heard a shocked gasp somewhere to the right. I heard somebody move a little off to the left, presumably to get a clear shot at the source of the gasp, if it should reveal itself again.

  I said, “Hold everything, everybody. Let’s not make a massacre of this. Sheila, that’s an order. Toss your gun over there where they can see it.”

  There was complete silence for some forty to sixty seconds. Then the short-barreled .38 hit the lighted patch of floor with a solid sound. A man’s hand showed in the light for an instant, raked it up, and vanished.

  I said, “Fine. Now, Sheila, walk over there slowly and stand with your hands in plain sight where they can see you.”

  There was another long pause. I heard her stir. She came into sight and stood there, silhouetted in the gray rectangle of the doorway.

  I said, “Your move, Miss Smith.”

  Abruptly, the car lights came on. They showed Max flat on the floor not far from Sheila, covering her with a gun in each hand. He looked kind of silly in the light. Catherine came around the side of the car, brushing dust off her shorts. She had a small automatic pistol in her hand. I speculated on where she might have had it concealed. There was no room to spare inside the shorts, but of course the blouse offered some interesting hiding places.

  I said to Sheila, “Now you can come over here and cut me loose. I think there’s still a knife in my right pants pocket—”

  “Don’t move, girl!” That was two-gun Max, getting up.

  I said, “Don’t be silly. Come on, Sheila. Oh, and pick up your gun from the nice man on the way. He can unload it first if he’s scared.”

  “Katerina!”

  I looked at Catherine. She was watching me, frowning slightly. She was a little behind me in her thinking, but she was catching up fast. I saw her come to a decision.

  “Give the little girl back her toy, Max,” she said. “Leave the cartridges. It is all right.” She smiled at me. “You look very foolish lying there... It is all right, Max!” she snapped, seeing that her man still hadn’t turned over the gun. “Would he have disarmed her in the first place if he were what we think? There has obviously been a mistake.”

  She tucked the little automatic away inside the flowered blouse somewhere, and knelt beside me to cut me free. While I was getting to my feet stiffly, she went over to the fender of the car, where a white purse lay. She opened the purse and took out a tube of some kind of ointment and tossed it to me.

  “Use that. It has an anesthetic that will reduce the pain.”

  I stuck the tube in my pocket and buttoned my shirt courageously. “Pain?” I said. “What pain? Hell, I juggle red-hot pokers for kicks. I drink flaming brandy; I walk on burning coals to keep my tootsies warm. Who the hell are you, Miss Smith? And don’t give me any more of that Argentina jazz. If you really had a proposition from the swastika kids down there for Heinrich von Sachs, you wouldn’t start out by cooking a guy you thought was one of his henchmen piecemeal. So let’s hear who you really are. A little honesty, please, Miss Smith.”

  “First, who are you?” she asked.

  “I am an agent of the government of the United States of America, God help it,” I said, having decided the only way to play this now was straight. Well, reasonably straight. “Apparently I’m trying to find the same man you are.”

  “You thought I would know?”

  “You were playing a very interesting tune. I thought it worth investigating. We seem to’ve been working at cross purposes. Your turn. Identification, please.”

  “I am an agent of...” She hesitated. “I cannot give you the name of the organization, Mr. Evans, or the country from which it operates. I am sorry. You would be duty bound to tell your government. I can tell you this much, however: it is our mission to bring Heinrich von Sachs to justice for his crimes against humanity.”

  “Sure,” I said. “That fi
gures. But it makes things kind of awkward. I suppose you want him alive.”

  “We are not murderers, Mr. Evans.”

  I touched my chest gingerly. “You don’t seem to have many other scruples. Unfortunately we seem to be operating under contradictory orders. My solution to the von Sachs problem is supposed to be immediate and permanent. Are there any circumstances under which we might, say, compromise?”

  She hesitated, and said with obvious reluctance, “Well, if it proves absolutely impossible to take the man prisoner...” She stopped. After a moment she said, “Perhaps we could waive the question of jurisdiction temporarily. We both want von Sachs. It will be difficult enough to get him without fighting each other. If we were to combine our resources...”

  “Resources,” I said. “Your soldering iron and my chest?”

  “I am sorry. It was a mistake.”

  I said, “I wouldn’t join forces with you, you sadistic slut, if you had the map of von Sachs’ hideout tucked in your brassiere along with that toy pistol!”

  She smiled. “Now you feel better, having called me names, don’t you?”

  I grinned. “Lots better. What do you know that’s of any use to me.”

  “What do you know, Mr. Evans?”

  I sighed. “All right. Gentlemen first. I know the only road down into the area. I’ve been down it myself once, a long time ago. I have the latest reports on its condition.”

  “I understand it is not a very good road.”

  I said, “Easy does it, honey. I’ll tell you all about it, but first you give a little.”

  She shrugged. “Very well. I have a cover story that will get me in to General von Sachs once I know where to find him. There have been overtures made to him by people in Argentina. I think I can make him accept me as one of them, long enough to serve our purpose. I also know somebody who knows where to find him. It was for this person I was playing the music when you blundered in and very cleverly made me think you were a more promising candidate.”