The Retaliators

by Donald Hamilton

  The colonel sat quite still beside me, the chopper on his knees. François probed to one side and the other, trying to feint the driver ahead out of position; then the Frenchman found a hole and the limousine shot forward, horn blaring. As we passed, I caught a glimpse of two young men and a girl in the van, the girl in the middle, holding a can of beer where the driver could reach it when he was not too busy driving.

  Huntington drew a long, restrained breath as we pulled away. "I have a revolution to arrange," he said. "I have to deal with temperamental millionaires, incompetent generals, crazy ships' captains, untrained troops, unreliable suppliers, and a mysterious marksman with a big rifle; and what happens? Beer-swilling hippies try to play games with me on the public—"

  He stopped, as headlights moved up alongside. In spite of our considerable speed, the battered van with the U.S. plates was trying to pass us. As the cab of the truck came abreast of our rear windows, the male passenger reached out and made the standard obscene gesture with his finger, quite visible in the kickback of the headlights. Beyond him, I could see the girl and the driver laughing uproariously....

  "I believe," said the colonel calmly, "that we have suffered quite enough of that. Attend to it, François, please."

  The Mercedes increased speed. The truck stopped gaining and hung level with our rear door. Slowly, inexorably, the long limousine started to move over. I saw the expression on the face at the window of the van's cab change from malicious elation to incredulity and fear. The truck's horn bleated feebly in protest. The driver braked hard, trying to get out from under, but he was too late. He had no road left to drive on; it was full of Mercedes. I saw the headlights dip as the vehicle went off into the ditch. François pulled the limousine around a sudden curve, the steel-belted radials clawing for traction. Fortunately there was no other traffic on the road at this time of night.

  "Turn around," the colonel said. "I think we're obliged to finish the lesson, now that we have started it."

  He sat silent beside me as the car was turned and sent back to the spot. The occupants of the van had been lucky. It was fairly precipitous country in spots, but they had chosen to do their Mercedes-baiting on a level stretch. They'd simply bounced out across the wide, shallow, roadside ditch and brought up, not too hard, against one of the volcanic boulders that dotted the countryside here. When we stopped above them, the two men were assisting the girl out of the van. She'd apparently been thrown against the windshield. There was considerable blood, visible even in the dark. One of the men started towards us, to ask for assistance, I suppose, and then checked himself as he recognized the distinctive car.

  "Simi," Huntington said, "That's the fellow, I do believe, the one with the darker beard. You saw the gesture. I suggest you take steps to prevent a recurrence, if you know what I mean. Then bring me the driver."

  The black man got out deliberately, and moved down there. At the last moment, the dark-bearded youth tried to run, but he was still shaky from the accident, and Simi had no trouble catching him and bringing him down. There was a brief struggle. A moment later, a knife gleamed in the darkness, and there were a couple of screams of pain followed by some whimpering sobs. The other two, who had started that way, perhaps with some intention of helping, had stopped. The girl put her hands to her bloody face. She remained standing there as Simi brought the second youth to the car.

  "Here is the finger," the blade man said to Huntington. "He will not make that gesture again, not with that hand, sir."

  "Put it into the pocket of his friend here." The colonel leaned towards the window. "You."

  The driver of the van was staring with horror at the dripping object the black man was stuffing into the pocket of his grimy denim shirt.

  "Are you people crazy?" he cried wildly. "What the hell do you think—"

  "Be quiet," Huntington said. "You're a drunken and objectionable young fool. Let's probe the depths of your stupidity. Describe this car."

  The youth licked his lips and glanced at the knife in Simi's hand. "Why... why it's a Mercedes, I forget the exact model...."

  "Wrong answer." The colonel lifted his submachine gun and laid the muzzle on the car's windowsill "One more chance. Describe the car."

  "Oh." The boy stared at the weapon, wide-eyed. After a long moment, he said breathlessly, "Why, it's a big American car, sir, I think a Cadillac or Lincoln—"

  "That's better, much better. Now describe the man who just maimed your friend with a knife."

  "He was black...." He saw the chopper move slightly, and gulped. "No, no, please don't.... I mean, I'm sorry, what man? What knife? The whole thing was my fault, I tried to pass where I shouldn't have and we went off the road and Jerry put his hand through the windshield and the broken glass...." He stopped, out of breath.

  "I hope you have a very good memory," Colonel Huntington said. "I hope you and your friends recall the incident precisely as you have just described it. I wouldn't want to have to send somebody back to correct the official record because one of you had made an error in reporting this unfortunate accident.... Oh, one more thing."

  "Yes, sir."

  "In the future, when a faster car wishes to pass, you'll move over politely and let it by, won't you, my dear young fellow?"

  "Y-yes, sir."

  "As for your friend, since apparently he has no better uses for his finger, he's just as well off without it, isn't he? You might suggest to him that if he nevertheless persists in being rude to passing travelers, it's quite possible to find something else to cut off him, don't you know?"

  We drove away in silence. I couldn't help thinking it had been pretty stupid behavior for a pro, risking trouble with the authorities for a matter of little importance. On the other hand, it had given me a warning insight into the character of the pale-eyed individual beside me, who'd go to the trouble of stealing a mattress for an injured girl, to be sure, but who was also capable of retaliating savagely for a very minor insult and inconvenience.

  I heard him chuckle in the darkness. "You're wondering what all that was in aid of, aren't you?"

  "More or less," I said cautiously.

  He laughed again, but when he spoke his voice was serious: "Helm, we've created a world that's a perfect environment for toughs and outlaws. They feel they can do anything they please, absolutely anything, because the peaceful citizen has been disarmed and taught never to resist, no matter what happens. To redress the balance slightly, I feel it my duty now and then to demonstrate that there are a few chaps around who will strike back if sufficiently provoked."

  I grinned. "Jeez," I said, "the thinking man's soldier of fortune, no less."

  I heard him laugh once more, but I think I'd hurt his feelings, and we rode the rest of the way without speaking. Presently, a few road signs and some scattered lights off to the left indicated that we were passing—bypassing, rather—the town of Loreto. At last the Mercedes turned off the paved highway onto a track almost as bad as the one that had led me to Laguna de la Muerte that morning. The little man at the wheel coaxed the limousine skillfully through the rough going, however, and brought it to a stop on a low bluff overlooking a small bay of the Gulf of California. A shadowy shape out there indicated a sizable motor yacht riding at anchor in the center of the bay.

  François flashed the headlights in a signal. Almost instantly we heard the sound of an outboard motor and saw a small boat heading towards us. A few minutes later the colonel and I were climbing aboard the mother ship, a fairly impressive craft. A trawler is a rugged fishing vessel designed to carry big loads of fish and lots of gear through heavy seas. A trawler yacht is something else again. It retains to some extent the husky, seaworthy outward appearance of the working craft from which it is derived, because that's what sells boats these days when the docks are full of instant Magellans with fast checkbooks; but it's actually just another luxury bucket under the camouflage. I was willing to bet that no fish had ever come aboard the Esperanza (Acapulco) unless it was solidly frozen or at lea
st very carefully wrapped so it wouldn't drip on the pretty teak deck.

  The well-lighted, heavily curtained main cabin was a symphony of elaborate paneling and shiny parquet flooring. There was a rug that had never felt the tread of a heavy seaboot, a shiny cocktail table never scratched by anything so crude and useful as a sextant, and beautifully upholstered chairs that had never supported weary seamen in dripping oilskins, or whatever passes for oilskins these days. The slender man waiting for us there was very handsome and elegant, in full yachting regalia, with smooth dark hair and a penciled little moustache; but when the light hit him right it was clear he wasn't as young as he'd like you to think. I'd never seen him before or his photograph. Perhaps, unlike the colonel, I didn't pay enough attention to the doings of the beautiful rich. He spoke to us, as I had been warned, in French.

  "Monsieur Bleu wants to know why I am bothering him with you," Huntington said. "Why am I bothering him with you, old chap?"

  "To keep your General Díaz from being assassinated by a professional automatic weapons expert named Ernemann," I said.

  twenty

  The cabin serving as my detention cell was way up forward in the boat and obviously had been designed as quarters for a couple of crewmen. White-painted and unadorned, it wasn't fancy enough for guests. It had two berths, one above the other, a small washbasin, and a little head—nautical for john—hidden under a padded seat The whole thing wasn't much bigger than a train compartment. The single porthole wasn't large enough to let a cat escape, even if it could be opened, which I doubted. This was a truly modern yacht; and it seemed that truly modern yachtsmen don't go boating to expose themselves to fresh sea air—at least all ventilation here was by air-conditioning.

  I washed at the little sink. Monsieur Bleu had fancied himself as a latter-day inquisitor. Unlike his military adviser, he enjoyed slapping people around. As torture, it had been childish. If I'd had some secrets I wanted to preserve, I'd hardly have yielded them for a few slaps in the face. The Monsieur's forehand had actually been quite bearable. However, I'd had a little trouble with his backhand, since he was wearing a large signet ring....

  Some time later, voices sounded in the passage outside. The door opened, and Norma stumbled in, supported by a man who released her, once she'd passed the doorway, and let her fall into my arms. I saw that her right arm was supported by an impromptu sling—somebody's big blue bandana—and her face was cut and bleeding just like mine. That damned ring was really getting a workout. It occurred to me that there had been a lot of blood shed tonight for very little. I'd managed to kill two men the previous morning without making half the mess.

  I eased my burden gently onto the seat covering the seagoing plumbing. "How goes it, Chicana?" I asked.

  Her head came up sharply. "I told you not to call me—" She stopped when I laughed.

  "I thought that would snap you out of it," I said. "What's the matter with the arm?"

  "I think it's just the collarbone," she said. "I felt something go snap in there when the Datsun hit. I also cracked my head a moment later, and I've got the world's biggest headache, and that elegant old bastard with the nautical brass buttons and the dyed hair didn't make it any better." She hesitated. "I told him. There wasn't any reason to be heroic, was there?"

  "Not any," I said. "Quite the contrary. What did you tell him?"

  "About Ernemann, mostly. What little I knew."

  "Good," I said. "Now he's heard the same story from two sources. Now maybe he'll warm up the fancy electronics on this glamor-bucket and check it out with his fancy international intelligence system and learn it's the truth. Well, that'll take some hours. Let's clean you up and put you to bed while we wait—"

  "Matt."

  "What?"

  She was looking up at me in an odd way. "You did send me north to keep me out of danger, didn't you?"

  I hesitated, and said, "Why risk trained manpower for nothing? Okay, womanpower. And the subject of Euler does require some research—"

  She said, "Yes, that's why I went. You were very persuasive, even though I knew what you had at the back of your mind. But that's enough of that. Maybe we're not supposed to be strong, silent heroes, but we're not supposed to be sentimental jerks, either."

  I frowned. "I don't understand—"

  "Stop it!" she snapped. "You know perfectly well what I mean. I'm not in very good escaping condition at the moment, if you've got it in mind to break out of here somehow. And on the other hand, if you're planning to talk your way out, well, it's not very likely they'll let me go with you, is it? I don't know exactly how the situation stands, but if they do let you go it's because they want something from you. And in that case, it's inevitable that they'll hold me here as a hostage for your good behavior—in fact, that's probably why they grabbed me in the first place. Am I right?"

  I said, "Hold still while I mop you off a little. Let's not borrow trouble—"

  "Don't give me that big strong masculine runaround, damn you!" she said angrily. "I want you to remember that we don't play the hostage game in this outfit. I don't want to lie here after you're gone, wondering if maybe you're letting yourself be blackmailed into doing something, or not doing it, because of anything that might happen to me. Maybe I'm flattering myself, maybe you wouldn't consider it, but I want to make damned sure you don't. Men get funny romantic notions about girls to whom they've made love, if you want to use the word to describe our Mexico City quickie. Well, don't you get any funny notions about me, hear? I'm a pro, Buster, and this is my assignment as well as yours.... What I mean is, if you screw up our mission just to save the little Spanish-American cutie's precious minority-type life, I'll cut my damn throat to spite you. You'll save nothing. That's a promise."

  I looked down at her respectfully for a moment. Then I tipped her chin up and kissed her lightly on the mouth. "Not to worry, Virginia Dominguez," I said. "Rest assured that your welfare will be the very smallest of my worries. Okay?"

  They came for me towards morning. There were two of them, husky Mexicans in white ship's uniforms; and they were cautious about opening the door. One had a pistol.

  "Come," said the nearest one, the unarmed one.

  "The señorita?" I asked.

  "The señorita, she stays."

  I slid off the top bunk and winked at Norma and went out past them, hearing the door being closed and locked behind me. They nudged me along to the main cabin, where my host was having brandy out of a big, balloon-shaped glass, which he warmed tenderly with both hands. It seemed early in the morning for brandy, but maybe I was looking at it from the wrong point of view. Maybe I should have been considering it as just pleasantly late at night. Colonel Peter Huntington stood at one of the big curtained windows. There was a brandy snifter in his hand, also, but he wasn't making quite as big a production of bringing it up to the proper scientific temperature.

  "Who's Soo?" he asked.

  "Who's who?"

  I'd forgotten my host, the Gallic Torquemada. He reminded me of his presence by setting aside his drink, stepping forward, and fetching me a sharp crack across the cheek that made my eyes water. Forehand, fortunately. He spoke sharply to Huntington.

  "Monsieur Bleu says this is no time for levity, old chap. Be so good as to answer the question. A gentleman named Soo. Identity, please?"

  Actually, I'd been stalling for time to pull my thoughts together. The name was familiar, of course. Mac had made a big point of dragging in a reference to the Chinaman during one of our telephone conversations. It had obviously been a warning, but there had been no further suggestions of Oriental involvement, so it had almost slipped my mind.

  "To be accurate," I said, "the gentleman is not named Soo. The real name is something like High Fat or Low Duck; we've got it in the dossier somewhere. We don't use it because he doesn't, at least not on this continent. He calls himself Mr. Soo. We call him that, or the Chinaman. The term is not intended to be flattering."

  I knew the real name, but I saw no reason
to volunteer it. Let them pry it out of me. But they didn't bother.

  "A Red Chinese agent?" Huntington asked.

  "Correct."

  "You've had dealings with him?"

  "It depends on what you mean by dealings," I said carefully. "I've come up against him a number of times, three to be exact."

  "Who won?"

  "Well, we're both still alive, at least he was the last time I heard. So I guess neither of us has really won, yet. On points, I think I'm a bit ahead."

  "Why didn't you tell us this earlier?"

  I started to speak and checked myself. I'd been about to say that I hadn't mentioned it because it hadn't occurred to me, because I'd had only a hint of Soo's involvement, and I still had no idea how a Chinese agent figured in a Mexican revolution. However, just as it isn't smart to volunteer too much information, it's poor technique to display too much ignorance, if only because people will generally refuse to believe that you're that dumb even if you are.

  I said, "Maybe I didn't think it was any of your damned business."

  That got me a backhand from my host even before it was translated, showing how much he really needed a translator. He fired some crackling French at the colonel.

  "Monsieur Bleu says that you have wasted most of a night by withholding the information from us. If you'd let us know the truth at once, things could have been settled much more quickly."

  Frankly, I didn't know what truth he was talking about. Obviously, these people had found a piece of the puzzle I hadn't been privileged to see—Soo, for God's sake!—and just as obviously it wasn't strategic or diplomatic for me to ask how it fit.

  "Sorry," I said. "I figured it was a personal matter."

  Strangely, that seemed to make sense to Huntington, even though it made none to me.

  "Your story about this man Ernemann has been confirmed," he said. "We find your motive for wishing to eliminate him quite convincing. I apologize for the misunderstanding, old chap. It seems that we're fighting in the same army for a change, at least temporarily."