"Nothing's gone wrong!" Priscilla said sharply. "Anyway, nothing serious."
"To be sure. Allow me to amend my request. Do not make a report. Merely bring me up to date, as one colleague to another. What situation did you leave behind in Puerto Peasуo? Since you did not bring him along,. I assume you silenced that young man, the handsome, shifty-eyed one who wanted to kill his middle-aged wife for her money. It is really remarkable how many people can be found, if one looks hard enough, who are eager to commit a murder if only the blame can be placed somewhere else, even on beings from other worlds. Or did the man escape you? Is he now in the hands of the police, telling them about our project, as much as he knows? Which is not much, but enough to be damaging."
Priscilla hesitated. "He didn't escape; he's dead. However, there's a Mexican policeman or government agent, the man with whom I rode down there, who seems to have made some good guesses. I tried to have him killed-" She threw me an angry look. "-but I was not successful. But it does not really matter. No one will believe him. No one of consequence. Besides, he'll be unconscious for – several hours, and his ingenious tracking device is lying back there in the cactus."
"So a policeman knows," Harsek said grimly.
Priscilla said, "I tell you, it doesn't matter! If we were dealing with military secrets, or technical data, it would be different, but we are dealing with flying saucers. It is a subject upon which people are not rational!" Either her vehemence, or the fact that she was talking to Harsek, who did not have to be deceived, had brought a faint accent to her speech. She went on quickly, "Let one Mexican government employee scream to heave4hat these recently 'sighted' Mexican saucers are a hoax and do not exist, that all the latest reports from this area are total fabrications: no one will listen. No one, I tell you. The skeptics will remain skeptical and the believers will continue to believe."
"If you say so, girl." Harsek sounded unconvinced.
"I say so. That was the beauty of the scheme from the beginning. We are not dealing with scientific facts, we are dealing with a variety of religious fanaticism. Indeed, that is one of our problems. Even when we have demonstrated that all these individual deaths, and the final mass catastrophe, can be blamed on callous aeronautical experiments-perhaps even hostile military demonstrations-carried out by the United States over Mexican territory, some people will remain firmly persuaded that the real responsibility rests on creatures from Jupiter or Polaris, and that somebody is covering up the truth for reasons of policy."
Harsek shrugged his massive shoulders. "It is an interesting theory. Personally, I have the old-fashioned notion that secrets should remain secret, particularly from the local authorities, but as you have pointed out, this is not my mission. For your sake, I hope you are right."
There was silence in the plane for a while, as far as conversation went. The motors out on the wings were far from silent, however, and there were a number of small, constant, unidentifiable-at least by me-vibration noises. Presently I felt Carol grope for my right hand and grip it tightly. I glanced at her. Her white sweater and pale face were dim blurs in the darkness of the cabin.
"They're going to kill us, aren't they, Matt?" she breathed. "And Ramуn can't help us now."
"They probably intend to. But let's not confuse intention with execution, doll. Can you fly one of these things?"
"What?"
"Can you handle a plane?"
She shook her head quickly. "Heavens, no! The few other times I've been up in little private jobs like this, I was scared half to death." She laughed wryly. "And people weren't even thinking about murdering me, those other times."
Priscilla, in front of us, shifted position irritably. "Be quiet. We have a long way to go, too long for listening to a lot of chatter."
The plane flew steadily on through the night in a southerly direction, judging by the compass I could see past Harsek's head. Priscilla kept the muzzle of the.38 aimed at me over the back of her seat. It could not have been a comfortable position, but her attention did not waver as the hours passed. At last Harsek glanced at his watch, studied a map or chart briefly, and looked down through the darkness that was no longer quite as dark as it had been.
"The life preservers are in the rear," he said. "Get them out and put them on. We are about twenty minutes from our ditching point. Remember, do not inflate the preservers in the cabin or you will have difficulty getting through the door."
Carol found my hand again. I felt her fingers tighten fearfully. "You mean -. – you mean we're going to crash?"
"Not crash, Mrs. Lujan, ditch. I will put the aircraft down on the water in the shelter of a certain deserted little island down there. A boat is waiting to pick us up. There is no danger. The Plane will float for several minutes. Miss Decker and I will disembark first, then you two from the rear. And, Mr. Helm, please remember that while we have adequate time to get out, if we work quickly, we do not have time for any foolishness. Don't be clever, unless you want to accompany the plane down into fairly deep water. Drowning is not a pleasant death, I am told. Now the life preservers, if you please."
We put them on awkwardly, in the limited space, and settled ourselves to wait some more. The sky was getting light to the left, now, and looking down I could make out that we were flying over water, presumably the same Gulf of California we'd known at Puerto Peflasco. I could see some ghostly islands far ahead, one kind of crescent-shaped; and near it was a small speck that might have been a boat. I leaned over to get a better look.
"Sit still!" Priscilla said sharply. "Harsek will do the navigating. Your assistance is not needed, Helm."
I grinned at her, and glanced at Carol, whose face looked pale and strained in the growing light.
I said, "Anyway, your question is answered, Carol." She seemed startled at being addressed. "My question?"
"Back there you kind of asked if the lady was a real American agent working for a real American agency. The answer is: she isn't."
Priscilla laughed. "But I am! I am a very highly regarded operative of a fine new department run by the coming man of U.S. intelligence-an arrogant, handsome, ambitious, pompous nincompoop who knows nothing about our kind of work whatever. That is the great American fallacy, that there is such a thing as an administrator, per se, and that what he chooses to administrate is unimportant. Your schools are run by educators who know nothing of what is taught; your government is run by politicians who know nothing of governing; and now you commit the final absurdity of entrusting the delicate task of international intelligence to a pipsqueak who only knows how to outmaneuver other pipsqueaks for positions of administrative importance."
I grinned as she paused for breath. "Don't look to me for an argument. I don't like the guy, either."
Priscilla went on: "Planting a few agents on such a man, when he was building his organization, was ridiculously simple; and guiding him to the proper attitudes and actions was no more difficult, since he had no real grasp of what he was supposed to be doing." She laughed again. "Of course, I am telling this only to you, because you will not be repeating it to anyone. As far as the world is concerned, this vicious U.S. Air Force crime against Mexican sovereignty was only made possible by the ground activities of disciplined agents obeying the sinister orders of a fiendishly clever American spymaster."
I said, "Sure. Our undercover genius, Herbert Leonard. Well, it couldn't happen to a nicer fellow. I suppose some of those disciplined U.S. agents are going to get themselves captured by the Mexicans when the smoke has cleared, so they can spill the international beans."
"They will be captured or perhaps, driven by their consciences, they will defect in the next day or two after seeing the flaming horrors for which they have been responsible. And while you will disown them, as is the custom, you will not be able to do it very convincingly, since it will be well known in Washington that they were actually employed by an American agency."
I would have liked to ask more about the flaming horrors that were being planned for the
next day or so – a mass catastrophe, she'd called it earlier-but she would probably have refused to answer a direct question on the subject, and I didn't want to stop our little chat while it was still producing valuable information.
"And friend Harsek, here?" I asked. "What function does he perform?"
Priscilla smiled. "Why, he is the communist menace against whom we, as Mr. Leonard's operatives, have been struggling. There had to be some obvious and conspicuous adversary, did there not? If there had been no visible enemy, even Mr. Leonard, stupid as he is, might eventually have begun to wonder suspiciously why things were forever going wrong with his brilliant plans. But with the great Harsek opposing us, we raw U.S. recruits could be excused for a few failures-the great Harsek and the equally well-known Vadya."
"I see," I said. "Very ingenious."
Priscilla said, "Of course, where Vadya was concerned, there was a further motive: the people back home had been somewhat concerned about Vadya lately. Her continuing relationship with a certain U.S. agent had caused a few doubts about her reliability. We were asked to investigate. We found the doubts to be justified and took action accordingly-first selling it to Mr. Leonard, of course, as necessary retaliation for her murder of one of his agents in Acapulco. We persuaded him that his 'image'-a word he loves-that his image and that of his agency would be forever tarnished if the woman were permitted to live, and he gave the appropriate orders."
I asked, "And just exactly what did Vadya do to justify those doubts of her reliability?"
Priscilla laughed maliciously. "Need you ask? Are you going to pretend, at this late date, that there was nothing between you? I saw the way you greeted each other, remember? I was following when she took you for a cozy evening tour of Mazatlбn, including a certain area that should not have been called to your attention. I saw you afterwards speaking together very seriously in the restaurant where you had dinner, the place with the odd name: The Glass of Milk. Obviously she was negotiating with you, her lover, for sanctuary in the United States. What was she offering and what price did she ask?" Priscilla shrugged. "It does not matter. I saw enough to confirm that she had to be eliminated. I had already made the arrangements; one likes to be prepared. It was only a question of carrying them out."
I felt Carol stir uneasily beside me, listening to these details of my secret life, but for the moment she didn't count. I was thinking of another woman I'd known, and of the fact that there are always people, on both sides, who have a thing about fraternizing with the enemy, even when it's done with the most patriotic motives. So Vadya, without a thought of betraying her country, had died at the hands of her own people because a vicious, suspicious girl had misconstrued her behavior. Well, it wasn't exactly a new idea. The possibility had occurred to me before, when I'd had time to think about what had happened. Harsek spoke suddenly: "There is the island, below us. And there is the boat, on schedule."
I looked down and saw the crescent-shaped island below, and a black power cruiser of reasonable size, the kind with a cockpit large enough to hold a couple of fishing chairs.
Harsek was still speaking: "Have no fear, Mrs. Lujan. You will be picked up almost before you have time to get wet."
He was a little too reassuring, a little too soothing; and Priscilla was watching me too closely. There was something in her eyes that I did not understand; I could think of no personal, private reason for her to show so much hatred and triumph. Between agents, even agents of hostile nations, it was an unprofessional display of emotion.
She said, "Of course, it was not expected that Laura would die because of your trigger-happy behavior. I am not forgetting that, Helm! You killed her and you will pay for it. Very soon now you will pay!"
She was quite a pretty girl, but I saw again the funny dry look in her face that I'd once taken for unawakened virginity, but which I now realized was something quite different. I remembered a red-haired girl saying casually: come to that, I'm not really sure she likes boys. If true, it explained a number of things about Priscilla Decker, including the fact that her sexy getup had never seemed quite convincing, even when she was presumably luring me to her room for purposes of seduction.
It also explained the cold hatred in her eyes; and I realized suddenly that all this business of life-jackets and ditching-advice meant nothing where Carol and I were concerned, because we were not intended ever to leave the cabin. We were merely being kept docile and unresisting until the time came to slam the door in our faces-to the accompaniment of a few shots if necessary-and let us sink with the plane.
After all, we served no useful purpose. We'd merely been brought along because there had not been time to dispose of us neatly, earlier. Well, it was too bad. I'd hoped to get farther and learn more, but obviously this was, for the moment, the end of the line. Somehow I'd have to find another streetcar to take me the rest of the way.
I looked at the girl in the front seat, and gave a malicious laugh. "Sure," I said deliberately. "Sure, I killed her. But what's one bull dyke between friends? You can find another soon enough."
I heard Carol gasp at my crudity-I was getting a little tired of that mechanical ingenue reaction-but I was really watching Priscilla, waiting for her response, and it came. Her face went totally white, her eyes narrowed dangerously, and her finger tightened on the trigger.
I yelled loudly, as if giving a prearranged signal: "All right, Carol! Now!"
Priscilla's eyes wavered for an instant, giving me time to grab the gun and force it aside before it fired. The crash was very loud inside the cramped cabin.
Harsek did not move for a second or two. The bullet hole in the right side of his neck was clean and small, but the exit hole on the left side was ragged and much bigger, and there was blood and stuff splattered all over the window beside him.
Then he slumped forward against the controls, and the plane nosed down in a screaming dive towards the Sea of Cortez, five thousand feet below.
20
I HAD NOT, of course, intended for anything of the sort to happen. In fact, I would have been happy to remain a model prisoner as long as the plane was in the air. As I have indicated, they kind of scare me. On the other hand, the idea of plumbing the depths of the Gulf of California trapped inside a winged plexiglass-and-metal coffin scared me even more.
My spur-of-the-moment plan, if you could call it that, had merely involved distracting and disarming Priscilla while Harsek had his hands full with the plane, and then coming to terms with the Mad Czech somehow. It wouldn't have been easy, since a man at the controls of an aircraft has certain advantages over a passenger with a pistol he's obviously not going to shoot unless he wants to commit suicide for everybody on board. But it had seemed worth trying. However, when you start wrestling for firearms in a confined space, anything can happen..
The plane was still heading downwards at a considerable angle and steadily increasing speed. My impulse was to strap my seat belt tighter, close my eyes, and pray for heavenly intervention, but this seemed impractical, since my praying experience has been very limited, and some truly expert praying was obviously required here, if anything was to be accomplished that way.
I remembered reading, or being told, that modern light planes are pretty good at flying themselves out of trouble if you give them a chance. I drew a long breath, unfastened my belt, leaned forward, and pulled the dead man back into his seat.
Carol was clutching at my coat and making some panicky noises, to which I paid no attention. I'd already determined that she couldn't fly. Priscilla, bracing herself stiff-armed between the seat and the instrument panel, was staring at Harsek wide-eyed and shocked, as if waiting for him to come back to life and take over again.
It was fairly obvious that she didn't know what to do or she'd have started doing it already, but I shouted: "Can you fly?"
Her face turned towards me. "What?"
"Can you handle this plane?"
She shook her head convulsively. "No. No, of course not. Can't you? My God, what are
we going to do?"
Still hugging Harsek with one arm, I turned the gun around and shot her. She stared at me blankly, uncomprehending. Then she died and fell back against the right hand door. I thought that was rather nice of her. At least she'd had the decency to stay off the controls.
Carol was yanking at me again. "Matt, have you gone utterly mad-" I was studying the instrument panel for inspiration. I'd seen quite a few of them on one job and another, and I'd whiled away the long hours of various secret flights trying to figure out which dial meant what; sometimes I'd even asked a silly question or two. Now was obviously the time to fuse all those scattered scraps of aeronautical information into real understanding.
"Matt-" I said without turning my head: "Get her out of here."
"What?"
"You heard me," I snapped. "Open the door and dump her. Then give me a hand with this one-"
"But you shot her!"
I looked aside irritably. "For God's sake, Carol! We've got a dead man and an out-of-control airplane on our hands! Do you want us to keep a dangerous enemy agent around for a pet, as well? Sure I shot her. What else could I do with her? If I hadn't, she'd have loused us up the minute she stopped being scared, and I'd most likely have been too busy to stop her. Now, for the love of Christ, let's dump the stiffs so I can maybe do something with this berserk machine before it flies us straight into the drink!"
There followed a rather ghoulish performance that had some elements of what I think is known as black comedy. The door of an airplane traveling at well over a hundred miles per hour doesn't open easily, and a dead body isn't very maneuverable under the best of circumstances. I had to leave Harsek to give Carol a hand, and even then we might not have made it if the plane hadn't obligingly executed a kind of sideways flip that released the air pressure for a moment, almost dumping out live and dead indiscriminately. I hauled Carol back inside and latched the door.
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