Hamilton, Donald - Matt Helm 14

by The Intriguers (v1. 1)

  Lorna, still without looking around, said, "Miss Borden, what is the one thing we have plenty of in this world? What is the single material that is not in short supply these days?"

  "I don't know what you mean!"

  The older woman said quietly, "We're running out of clean air and water, are we not? And not only clean water. I read in the same newspaper that in the capital city of New Mexico, practically right next door, they are not watering their lawns or washing their ears this summer because they have hardly any water, clean or dirty. We are running out of important metals and minerals. Some areas of the world cannot produce enough food to support their populations adequately. Fuels of all kinds are becoming scarce. In fact we are running out of just about everything, Miss Borden, with one spectacular exception. What is the one resource that's practically unlimited'?" The girl licked her lips and didn't answer. Lorna said, "The one thing we have plenty of, my dear, is people."

  Martha licked her lips once more. "Assuming that what you say is true, Mrs. Holt or whatever I'm supposed to call you, what's your point?"

  Lorna sipped her drink, still studying the tanned, aquiline face in the mirror. Her voice remained very soft. "We are going to have to take a long hard look at the so-called sacredness of human life in the very near future, if the race is to survive. We are going to have to apply a little logic to the problem, instead of continuing to wallow in the sentimental humanitarianism currently fashionable. And the simple fact is, Miss Borden, that on strictly logical grounds we should consider war a tremendous, if rather inefficient, blessing. We should look at the yearly traffic toll as a great, beneficial contribution to population control. We should applaud every suicide as a public benefactor voluntarily yielding up his place on this crowded planet and making it available to somebody else."

  I didn't like it. When they start thinking deep thoughts, and particularly when they start talking about them, they're apt to get kind of unreliable in action.

  I said, "Hooray for cancer and emphysema. Bring on your drugs and cigarettes. Cut it out, Lorna. You can solve the problems of humanity some other night. Right now let's tackle something important, like who's going to sleep where."

  She paid me no attention, and neither did Martha. The younger girl said, "You must be crazy, Mrs. Holt! That's a terrible way to think!"

  Lorna shrugged. "I'm not crazy, just realistic. The basic trouble with your generation, Miss Borden, is that you will not face the facts. Subconsciously you realize that you're mostly superfluous-that the world would be much better off if only a fraction of you had been born-but you can't bring yourself to admit it and face the logical consequences: that your lousy little lives are not particularly valuable, let alone sacred. There are too many of you. Anything that plentiful can't be worth much, can it?"

  I said, "Damn it, Lorna, shut up! it's too late at night-"

  "No," said the woman at the dresser, gulping down the last of her drink and reaching for the bottle again, "no, it's not too late at night, and no, I will not shut up! I am fed up to here with children who consider themselves something special simply because they happened to be born. And I am particularly tired of the hypocritical attitude towards death they all display. They live on death. Every antibiotic they take-and they gobble penicillin like candy-kills millions of living organisms. The slaughterhouses of the nation run knee-deep in blood to supply them with hamburgers and hotdogs. Even if they're vegetarians, they're eating bread and cereal and salads from fields protected by lethal farm chemicals that murdered countless innocent insects that had a perfect right to exist-and after all, a stalk of wheat or a head of lettuce is a living thing, too, something they carefully ignore. This girl is right now sitting in a motel room which was undoubtedly constructed on the graves of hundreds of small living creatures, slaughtered and dispossessed by the cruel bulldozers

  "You're here, too!" the girl protested.

  "My dear, I'm not carrying on a crusade against death. You are. It's the great fashionable cause of modern times. The Victorians thought sex was horrible, but they accepted death. You accept sex, but you think death is perfectly dreadful. That makes both of you hypocrites. No life is any more sacred than any other. Why should you be more important than a streptococcus or a mosquito, just because you happen to be a little more highly developed from one point of view-your own? Either all life is sacred, which is ridiculous, since most life forms, men included, have to live by preying on other life forms; or no life is sacred, not mine, not Helm's, not yours.

  “Of course, his and mine are a little more sacred than yours-"

  "Why?" Martha demanded. "Because you're older? That's just silly!"

  Lorna started to drink from her replenished glass, but frowned and set it aside carefully. She gripped the edge of the dresser, staring at her image in the mirror. She spoke, still without turning her head.

  "Not because we're older," she said slowly and deliberately, "but because we make our lives more valuable by making it damned tough for anyone who tries to take them away from us. But they could have your life just by reaching out for it, couldn't they, Miss Borden? You wouldn't defend it. You've backed yourself into a philosophical corner from which you can't strike back; and even if you could bring yourself to do it, you wouldn't know how. Which, my dear, makes your life about as valuable as that of a sick mouse, worth only the slight effort required, by anyone who doesn't mind messing up his boot heel, to stamp down hard. And in the truly overcrowded world that's coming, those who aren't prepared to fight will get stamped on, girl, and that goes for nations as well as individuals. We haven't turned any peaceful corners and I can see none ahead. I see just a very tough battle for room enough to live in halfway decent fashion. . .

  Her voice stopped abruptly. Her fingers released the edge of the dresser; and she slid to the floor in a dead faint.

  Chapter XI

  Kneeling beside the woman on the floor, I was aware of Martha Borden rising from the bed and coming to stand over us.

  "Is she . . . is she drunk? She certainly talked as if she were drunk."

  I said, "Help me get her on the bed. Now, unlace those clodhopper boots and get them off her, will you?" I arranged the pillows under Lorna's head and went into the bathroom for a towel, which I moistened under the tap and brought back to wipe off her face, oddly pale now under the recent sunburn. I said, "Call it what you want. She's just spent two days on the desert living on a couple of candy bars and half a gallon of water. Maybe the alcohol hit her, maybe just reaction. . . . Hi, there," I said to Lorna as she opened her eyes. "Come back and join the party."

  She made a wry face, lying there. "What happened?"

  "You gave us a lecture on the desperate state of this overcrowded world, and passed out."

  "Oh, God," she said. "I ought to know better than to drink on an empty stomach. It always makes me gloomy as hell. Call me Cassandra for short."

  She started to sit up. I pushed her back down. "Stay put. Martha, pop out to the candy machine by the office and get a fistful of Hersheys or something to fill the aching void until the restaurant opens. Here's some change."

  When the girl had left, Lorna sighed, and patted her hair back from her face with both hands.

  "Sorry, Helm."

  "Think nothing of it."

  "I don't particularly want candy. I'd rather wait for bacon and eggs, if you don't mind. That one little hamburger just reminded me of how many meals I'd missed, I guess."

  "You don't have to eat the stuff. I just wanted her out of the way for a moment. Remember, Mae said double negative. Even her daddy realizes the kid presents some- thing of a problem.

  You did frisk her, didn't you?"

  Lorna was watching me carefully. "Yes. She's clean."

  "Where's your gun?"

  "Right here."

  "Keep it handy. I want you feeble and helpless, understand, but armed and ready. Okay?"

  She frowned quickly. "Are you giving me orders?" In the armed forces, they've got discipline. It m
ust be nice. All we've got is temperament. I said, "I sure as hell am, Mrs. Holt.

  Mac sent the girl to me, not to you. Take it up with him when you see him next. In the meantime, keep that gun handy, please."

  She hesitated; then she smiled faintly. "Very well. As long as you say please. I hope you know what you're doing."

  "That makes two of us. Shhh, here she comes now."

  In the early morning stillness, the approaching footsteps sounded very loud outside. Martha entered with half-a-dozen candy bars, which she dropped on the bed. Then she turned to me.

  "Who's Cassandra?" she asked.

  "What?"

  "Mrs. Holt said to call her Cassandra for short. What did she mean?"

  The woman on the bed laughed quickly. "Cassandra was a Greek girl who could foretell the future, Miss Borden. The only trouble was, nobody'd believe her."

  Martha looked back to me. "And what's Ragnarok or however you pronounced it? Back when you were giving her the password, you asked, 'Will Ragnarok do?'"

  I said, "Ragnarok is the Scandinavian equivalent of Gotterdämmerung, which is the German equivalent of Armageddon. The end of the world in Technicolor."

  "Thanks, I just like to get these things straight. I hope you're feeling better, Mrs. Holt."

  "I . . . I feel fine as long as I don't try to stand up," Lorna said bravely. "I'll be all right in a minute."

  I said, "Well, you just lie there while Martha gives us the word from Washington." The girl glanced at me quickly. I went on. "M the words from Washington, doll. Names, addresses, and telephone numbers. The whole list you're carrying. All ten names. Well, nine, since we've already made contact with number one." When Martha hesitated, I asked, "What's the trouble now?"

  She glanced towards the bed, and back to me. "I was supposed to tell it only to you, Matt."

  I shrugged. "The minute you tell me, I'll tell her, so what's the difference?"

  "Do you trust her that much?" The younger woman's voice was sharp.

  "I have to trust her that much," I said. "In this business there are two kinds of damn fools. There are the damn fools who trust everybody, and then there are the damn fools who trust nobody. I try not to be either kind."

  "All right," Martha said reluctantly. "All right, but it's your responsibility."

  She had a good memory. She stood there with her eyes partly closed and rattled off, without any hesitation, the code names of nine agents, their current cover names, where they were to be found, and how they could be reached by telephone. Some of the names were familiar to me: men and women with whom I'd worked in the past. Others I'd never heard of. Well, they'd probably never heard of me, so we were even. I made the girl go over the list once more; then I repeated it back to make certain I had everything straight. I knew Lorna was assimilating the material right along with me.

  "That's it?" I asked when we were finished. "That's everything you were supposed to tell me?"

  Martha's eyes wavered slightly. "Yes, that's it. Daddy said you'd know what to do without having it spelled out for you."

  I regarded her for a moment, rather grimly, trying to figure the whole thing out: why Mac had used his daughter on this critical mission-even with a built-in warning code-instead of sending a trained agent, and what additional information he'd given her that she was now holding back for some screwball reason of her own. Looking at her I realized, with some surprise, that properly cleaned up she could be beautiful. Even in her dirty pseudo-pirate outfit she was an attractive kid, not that it mattered. What was important was that she was an infuriating nut, if not worse.

  "There's another list, there's got to be," I said slowly. Her face told me I'd guessed right, so I went on: "It's got ten names on it, too, or maybe eleven. Give."

  "I. . . I can't!" She frowned suspiciously. "How did you know there was another list?"

  "I told you. There had to be. Mac said I'd know what to do. Sure, I know. But I don't know who to do it to. Tell me."

  "I can't!" she protested. "If I do-"

  "What?"

  "If I do, I'll be responsible for what happens to them."

  "That's right," I said. "And if you don't, you'll be responsible for what happens to us, your dad included. Not to mention a couple of hundred million fellow citizens who may be adversely affected by your decision." I grimaced, and went on flamboyantly, "The fate of your country is in your hands, Borden. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are counting on you."

  She said angrily, "Stop it! You're not funny!" She was probably right, at that. After a moment, she went on:

  "You can't really believe that just you and she and Daddy and a few others are going to. . .to change anything? And even if you can make a difference by using violence, how do you know you're right?"

  I said, "Go to hell, doll. How do you know we're wrong? Can you take the responsibility of assuming that your father is just a bloodthirsty nincompoop who doesn't know what the hell he's doing?"

  She stared at me for a long moment. Her gray eyes were wide and shiny; I thought she was going to burst into tears. Abruptly, she drew a long, shaky breath and said, "Bainbridge, Joseph W., office 2243 Federal Annex A, home 77 Archuleta Circle, Phoenix, Arizona; Dunn, Homer P., office.

  There were ten names again, in alphabetical order. Again I went over them with her until I had them and got a nod from Lorna saying she had them, too.

  "Fine," I said to Martha. "And now, the date. There's got to be a date."

  She drew a long breath, shaky with anger this time. "Damn you, if you can read minds, why do you bother to ask questions?" When I didn't say anything, she said, "June 17."

  "Just June 17. No hour or minute?"

  "No. The date was all he gave me."

  I regarded her bleakly. "Why are you so reluctant to cooperate, Borden? You took the job, didn't you? Why-"

  "Yes, and I wish to heaven I hadn't!" she gasped. "After watching you kill three men just like snapping your fingers. . .Anyway, I don't trust you and I don't trust your Mrs. Holt with her dreadful ideas, and I'm sure if Daddy really knew what kind of people he'd hired . . .Now that you have all the information, what are you going to do with it?"

  I said irritably, "Oh, stop trying to kid your lousy little conscience. You knew what we were going to do with it before you gave it to me, so don't ask stupid questions you don't want to hear the answers of." I turned to Lorna. "He's got them pretty well divided," I said, "east and west of the Mississippi, five and five. You take the Western division of both lists. Get in touch with the other four agents out here. He's got each of them located pretty close to a target address, you'll notice. I guess the one in Phoenix was meant for you. Of course, if one of your people gets into trouble, or you can't make contact with him, you'll have to arrange for his touch to be made by somebody else, or make it yourself. Oh, and tell your people it had better look as accidental as they can make it look."

  "Yes," she said, "but you've forgotten something, haven't you, Helm?"

  I looked down at her. She waited, smiling faintly. I grinned and said, "Goddamn a world full of temperamental females. Please?"

  "That's better."

  I looked at Martha. "Okay, is that it? Is there anything else you were supposed to tell me?"

  "No," she said, "no, that's all. Just the two lists of names, and the date, and that you'd know what to do."

  I studied her grimly. She never gave up. She was still holding out something. After a moment I realized what it had to be.

  "You're forgetting one item, aren't you, Borden?" I said wearily. "One more thing he told you. An address, a place on the water, but where?" She faced me and didn't speak, but the resentful gray eyes told me I was right. I said, "Eleven hot-shot agents, the best he's got, specially selected, carefully hidden out of harm's way. Eleven agents but only ten targets. That's one left over: me. Me, and a boat he was very eager for me to have. Tell me where I'm supposed to go boating, Borden, and when."

  She started to blurt out something frustrated and fur
ious but held it back. "He. . . he wants you to report to him the night before."

  "The night of June 16th. Where?"

  She glanced towards Lorna, and back to me. "That I'm not going to tell you in front of her! If you want to risk having her know Daddy's hiding place, you'll have to tell her yourself."

  Lorna swung her feet off the bed and stood up. "It's something I'm better off not knowing, anyway," she said. "If I don't know, it wasn't I who spilled it. Excuse me, folks, while I go wash my face."

  The younger woman watched her go, waiting until the bathroom door had closed fully.

  Then she looked at me once more. "If you betray him, I'll kill you!"

  I said wearily, "Oh, shut up, doll. Don't make loud noises about things you're not going to do. You're the little girl who doesn't believe in killing anything, remember?"

  She glared at me. "Damn you! Why do you have to be so-" She stopped and drew a long, ragged breath. "It's in Florida," she said, "but I don't know the exact. - . - There's a man Daddy goes fishing with, a friend, Hank Priest, Congressman Henry Priest, who's got a waterfront place near a little town called Robalo, on Robalo Island. That's on the west coast. You're supposed to get in touch with him. He'll tell you where to go and get you a reliable guide. Give yourself time enough so you can pick the right tide. It's somewhere out in that maze of mangrove islands off the edge of the Everglades, I think, but you'll never find anything in there without a guide-anything, that is, except snakes, alligators, and mosquitoes."

  "It sounds real inviting," I said wryly.

  "Of course you're supposed to make sure nobody follows you."

  "Of course," I said. "Naturally. A station wagon the size of a Greyhound bus towing a great big white boat, and I'm supposed to drive it invisibly across two-thirds of the continent-"

  "It's spring. The roads are full of cars towing boats. Anyway, Daddy's got confidence in you for some reason. He knows, with the information I've given you, you'll make it good."

  I nodded slowly. "All right, I'll try to live up to his goddamned confidence in me." I regarded her deliberately, until she shifted position and licked her lips as if to protest. Then I said, "Now tell me how much of all this is the truth, if any, and who really told you what to say. Lorna!"