The Retaliators

by Donald Hamilton

  More time passed. There was no sign of human life along the ridge; even the birds and rodents were playing elsewhere. Then there was another buzzing in the sky to the northeast. My watch read 8:03. This time I didn't look at the plane. I didn't look at the Chinese kid with his lethal toy. I just watched the ridge unblinkingly—well, as unblinkingly as my eyelids would allow. I heard the aircraft make its seaward turn, and caught a brief glimpse of it out there—a larger flying machine with two motors. Watching the ridge, I heard it touch down, make its runout, turn, and come back.

  For a moment, it sounded so close I had the feeling it was climbing the brushy slope towards me. Then the motors quit and I heard the door open. I braced myself for gunfire, but nothing happened. I watched the ridge, but the sound of conversation reached me with startling clarity considering the distance. Somebody was out of the plane, somebody who spoke English badly, with a strong Spanish accent. Díaz? Another voice joined the first, strictly American. O'Hearn?

  O'Hearn's voice, if it was his, called loudly: "Come on, come on, you clumsy bastards, get those rods out here, the General wants to go fishing, dammit! Krakowski, stop fiddling with your lousy plane and lend a hand...."

  I risked a glance. There were two men on the ground. They were both heavy men, both in light trousers and gaudy sports shirts, but there the resemblance ended. It was easy to distinguish the red-faced American millionaire from the dark-faced, moustached Mexican general. A third man, also Mexican, got out of the plane and started receiving luggage passed him by a fourth, American, who wore a pilot's cap. Phil Krakowski, lover-boy for hire. Still there was no gunfire.

  I returned my attention to the ridge. I heard a new American voice, presumably the pilot's, say something I couldn't make out, probably, that that was it, Mr. O'Hearn.

  Clarissa's loudmouthed husband could be heard all over Baja. "Well, haul your ass over to the hotel, Phil, boy, and get us some transportation. They seem to be all asleep down there."

  Krakowski acknowledged the command. I heard the sound of the plane door as he closed it behind him. There was a moment of silence; then the AK opened up.

  The plane motor had sounded loud in the morning stillness; this noise was louder. It went on and on. No neat little three-shot bursts for our eager Chinese prodigy; he knew what a trigger was for, and he just clamped down on it and stayed clamped until the clip was empty. It seemed like a hell of a lot of shooting for the simple job of killing one man. I watched the ridge. Nothing stirred. I risked another glance to the side; and you've never seen anything like it since a certain St. Valentine's day.

  They were all down, all four of them, and blood was running everywhere. Then, as I watched, one of the bodies moved. Oscar O'Hearn pulled himself painfully to his feet and staggered towards the buildings where people were now appearing. Fascinated, in a gruesome way, by his painful, bloody, weaving progress, I almost missed what I'd come a thousand miles to see. Suddenly there was my target, three hundred yards down the ridge. Ernemann had popped out of a patch of brush you wouldn't think could conceal a rabbit. He was kneeling with another Russian—or maybe Chinese—assault rifle at his shoulder, tracking the fleeing man. The gun began to speak.

  I swung my Remington into line, waited until the crosshairs settled in the right place, and let the piece fire when the trigger pressure reached the letoff point. After all that had gone before, the shot was easy enough. The chattering of the automatic weapon ceased and Ernemann sank back into the brush. A glance showed me that O'Hearn was sprawled by the runway, obviously dead.

  "Very good," said a voice behind me. "Now the Oriental, amigo, please."

  I glanced over my shoulder. Ramón was standing there with his little PAM-1 aimed at my midsection. Off to one side was Amado with the sister gun. They must have freed themselves somehow and tracked me to the spot where I'd dumped their artillery. I was aware of a new sound in the air. Another plane was landing. I saw that the Chinese youth was out in the open and running hard to intercept it at the inland end of the landing strip.

  "Por favor," said Ramón very politely. "We cannot reach him but you can. Please shoot him before he reaches that airplane."

  I did. The escape plane, finding no live customers, turned on full power and blasted out of there fast. Ramón was saying something congratulatory, but I turned away and walked down to take a look at the dead man who was supposed to look a little like me, enough to fool a bank teller, at least. I couldn't see the slightest resemblance.

  twenty-five

  Everybody was very sorry. There had been rumors of a proposed terrorist attempt against the life of a certain influential American industrialist visiting Baja, but detailed information had been received too late. Mexican and U.S. agents, working together, had arrived on the scene only in time to intercept and dispose of the ruthless international gangsters after they had done their bloody work. Tragically, that great Mexican patriot and military genius, General Hernando Díaz, who'd just happened to be on the same plane, had fallen victim to stray bullets from the assassins' guns. The nation mourned the loss of one of its most illustrious citizens....

  "Very neat," I said. "So the touch was aimed at O'Hearn; and Díaz's death was simply a regrettable accident, of no political significance whatever."

  "Precisely," Ramón said. "It is all very satisfactory, amigo."

  We were having coffee in my luxurious room at the Hotel Cabo San Lucas, with a wall of glass looking out upon a tiny private patio surrounded by a high, vine-covered wall. The fact that there was a husky gent named Amado lounging in the patio was just part of the service, of course. After all, nobody knew what had happened to Mr. Soo or what his intentions were now. There was also the possibility of reprisals from the Sanctuary Corporation. I was not to think I was a prisoner under guard, heavens no; this was merely a precaution to preserve my valuable life.

  "Well, I'm glad somebody's happy," I said. "You hired it done and it got done. Did it work all the way?"

  "I think so," Ramón said. "The ships we were watching have turned away, presumably to discharge their lethal cargoes elsewhere. The training encampment in the desert is empty; the guerrillas have dispersed."

  "Just because one man is dead. It seems like a very simple solution."

  Ramón said, "As I told you before, my friend, a homegrown revolt by a recognized native leader at the head of dissident native troops—he did have a few that would have followed him—is one thing, commonplace these days, of no great international importance. Naked aggression by a military force, equipped and controlled by an association of wealthy foreigners, is something totally different." Ramón grimaced. "Of course we were all wealthy foreigners on this continent once, aggressing against the simple natives of the time. It was the standard method of changing the map of the world. It may become so again. But at the moment more polite international rules are in effect; and the Sanctuary Corporation has, I believe, conceded this round—which is not to say there won't be another, somewhere."

  I hesitated. "What about the Frenchman?"

  Ramón said without expression, "The Marquis de Beaupré, after a pleasant cruise in the Sea of Cortez, is returning with his chartered yacht to Acapulco." He paused. "To answer the question you did not ask: no female bodies have been found. But the Sea of Cortez is very deep."

  "Sure." I looked at him bleakly. "With respect to the ladies, you were bluffing, weren't you?"

  He smiled faintly. "Let us just say that it had not occurred to me to leave such detailed and gory instructions concerning the Señora O'Hearn." He shrugged apologetically. "I had to try, Matthew."

  "Sure." After a moment, I asked, "Were you planning to double-cross Ernemann all the time, in your Machiavellian way?"

  "You mean, have him shot after he had done his work for me?" Ramón shook his head. "No. If things had turned out as expected, I would have kept my bargain with him. He would have been paid in full and permitted to leave safely. If only the general had been shot, no one else, there would have been no
way of concealing the fact that he was the real target, would there? And I assure you, Matthew, that I did not give orders to have three additional men killed just to make a plausible story for the press. I merely saw the possibilities after it had happened." He frowned. "I still do not understand the reason for the wholesale massacre."

  I said, "Hell, turn a kid loose with a machine gun and anything can happen. Chinese, U.S., or Mexican, they just like to hear the damn things go rat-tat-tat."

  "Yes, but—" Ramón shrugged. "Ah, well, it is over, at least for the time being. Your car is outside. Please do not think me inhospitable, but I feel it is better that you leave as soon as possible. Drive north and stop at the Hotel Mulege tonight; that is on the hill across the river from the Serenidad where we stayed before. You will be joined there by Señora O'Hearn. After a good night's rest, you will continue to drive north, with her. You can spend a second night in Ensenada, in the Bahia Hotel, since you are familiar with that establishment. Two gentlemen will join you there. You will return to them their wallets and weapons which I will give you. You will warn them to keep their security operations north of the border henceforth; next time we will not be so lenient. In the morning, you will take the little road northeast to Tecate, and then proceed east on Highway 2 past Mexicali to the little town of San Luis. Cross the border there and discharge your male passengers; the lady too, if she so wishes. Drive slowly towards Yuma, some twenty miles north. I have been told somebody will make contact with you along the road."

  "Arrest me, you mean," I said dryly. "I'm still officially a traitor, remember?"

  "It is out of my jurisdiction, but my impression after several long-distance telephone conversations is that there have been some changes in that situation. I have been told to advise you not to act hastily, once across the border." He hesitated. "Matthew."

  "Yes?"

  "Remember that it can happen to anyone."

  I looked at him and saw that we were now talking about something else. "Sure," I said. "I know."

  He said, a little defensively, "I have been offered an important administrative post—a reward for a discreet and successful operation. I will take it, of course." He set his coffee cup aside and rose and held out his hand. "Adíos, amigo."

  "Adios."

  Taking his hand, rising, I knew that this time it was a real good-bye. We wouldn't meet again, at least not in the line of business. He was leaving the real life-and-death world of the undercover agent for the unreal, safe, artificial existence people call civilized, that survives only through the efforts of uncivilized characters like us....

  Two days later I approached the border crossing at San Luis feeling more like a tour-bus driver than a secret agent. With four on board, the truck seemed crowded in spite of its size, not that it really mattered. Clarissa and I had had a day and a couple of nights alone to sort things out, but we hadn't managed too well. After all, she was now the wealthy Widow O'Hearn, and I was a guy who'd cold-bloodedly sacrificed a helpless female assistant to get a job done. Things had changed for both of us, somehow. While I won't say we were actively mourning our dead, they did seem to have an inhibiting effect on our relationship.

  So the lack of privacy wasn't significant, but the two BIS men we'd picked up in Ensenada were self-righteous creeps who acted deeply injured because some crummy Spanish-speaking officials had had the nerve to get legalistic about a lousy little international border, for Christ's sake! It was the natural reaction of humorless men who'd been caught trying to snitch fruit out of the neighbor's melon patch; but it made them even worse company than they would have been otherwise. It was a pleasure to get them out of the car after passing customs, even though they made a beeline for the nearest phone.

  I said, "In spite of what Ramón said about a changed situation, I'm betting they're calling somebody to come and arrest me, figuring it'll give them a few points on the credit side of the ledger to balance against the disgrace of being caught in Mexico." I glanced at the girl beside me. "You're allowed to get out here if you want."

  She gave me a wry little smile. "I was in at the start, Matt. I'll stay for the finish, if you don't mind."

  "Suit yourself."

  We drove north towards Yuma. Presently a big white station wagon came alongside. When I looked that way, the driver, whom I recognized as Gregory Kotis, signaled me to follow him. He pulled ahead and, presently, turned off the main road onto a small dirt track heading off across the Arizona landscape. We drove for about fifteen miles, until we came to what seemed to be an ordinary, rather shabby, cluster of ranch buildings. Kotis parked his car beside the barn, which was a little larger than you'd expect—they don't generally use Pennsylvania-sized barns in that arid country. I stopped the truck alongside. Kotis got out and came to my window.

  "Good afternoon, Mrs. O'Hearn," he said politely. "I was very sorry to hear about your husband.... This is not an arrest, Helm, so please don't do anything sudden and violent. We've already lost several men to your explosive organization; we'd rather not lose any more." When I didn't say anything, he went on: "I just thought you'd like to see our secret installation, the one you were to curious about. The one where your colleague, er, died.... You may come, too, if you like, Mrs. O'Hearn."

  The big barn door had a smaller door in it, which opened as we approached. An armed guard with a holstered .45 automatic stepped back to let us pass. Inside, there was a long hall with several open doors on each side. The rooms into which I looked were all empty.

  "Detention cells to the left," said Kotis. "Interrogation room, sick bay, and offices to the right. You saw the living quarters for the personnel: the ranch house outside."

  Clarissa asked, puzzled: "But what is it, really?"

  Kotis looked embarrassed. He spoke without looking at either of us: "If you're told often enough, strongly enough, that the safety of the nation is at stake, you tend to accept methods that are not quite.... No, I won't excuse myself. I knew it was wrong. The dirty fact is that I simply followed orders because it was easier than questioning them. Like Eichmann, I suppose. The new director of the Bureau has given instructions to dismantle this place and the two others like it located in other areas."

  "The new director?" I said.

  "Yes. The appointment has not been officially confirmed yet, so I'd better not mention the name.... You were right, of course, Helm."

  "Right about what?"

  "The bullet that killed the guard did not come from the guard's gun, a .45. The reports had been misplaced deliberately, and I had a difficult time tracking them down, but I finally discovered them in an obscure file... well, never mind that. The important fact they disclosed was that the guard had been shot by a service .38 Special, the kind of weapon issued to all our agents—and to Andrew Euler. In here, please."

  The room we entered was obviously designed for medical purposes. It had glass-front metal cabinets along the walls, a stainless steel examining table, a sterilizer, oxygen apparatus, and the usual fancy lights and appliances. There were three men in the room. Two had white coats on. One was thin, with big horn-rimmed glasses; the other was a bullet-headed bruiser. The third man, in hospital pajamas, was Andrew Euler. He was sitting in a chair looking gray and shrunken and disheveled. His eyes seemed even more unfocused and uncertain than I remembered.

  "We have to watch him," Kotis said softly. "He keeps trying to kill himself. He says the guilt is too great to bear."

  The thin man with the glasses said, "At the moment, he is heavily tranquilized."

  "I feel somewhat responsible," Kotis said. "I couldn't forget what you'd told me, Helm. I made some discreet investigations. When I finally managed to learn about the weapons, the next thing I knew, Mr. Euler had taken an overdose of sleeping pills, leaving a vague and rambling confession that we still don't quite understand." He hesitated. "Your warning was unnecessary. Nobody tried to harm me."

  I looked at the man in the chair. "I guess he felt there had been enough killing," I said. "But I couldn't be
sure of that; I had to warn you."

  Clarissa stirred. "I don't understand about the guns."

  Kotis said, "Tell her, Helm."

  "Roger... Jack, your brother, was supposed to have grabbed a gun from his guard's holster and, before he was killed, shot down four people including the guard himself, hospitalized with a bullet in the head."

  "He died two days ago," Kotis said.

  I said, "It didn't make sense to me. If you grab a gun from a guard's belt holster and pull the trigger, the bullet may go into the guts, it may go as high as the chest, but it isn't likely to wind up in the head. Not unless there's a wrestling match with the weapon waving around, and nothing of the sort was mentioned. Anyway, there wasn't time for much of a struggle, with other men right in the room. My feeling was, Roger wasn't interested in the guard except for the weapon he carried; he'd just grab the gun, boot the guy across the room, and get on with the work that really intrigued him. But if he had taken out the guard first, the man would have been shot with his own gun, right?"

  "Well, yes," said Clarissa. "But then who... why..."

  I said, "It's really very simple. Think of the two main characters involved. Mr. Euler first. He's kind of a naive gent who gets his ideas of human behavior, it seems, chiefly from TV. He'd been having Roger questioned and getting nothing because there was nothing to get. All Euler really had on him was a little money in the bank that could have been put there by anybody, and a shaky deposition from an informer with a lousy reputation for veracity—"

  "Groening has renounced his sworn statement," Kotis said.

  "Sure," I said. "Yet remember, Roger represented something Mr. Euler considered a blot on the moral escutcheon of this great nation, something evil to be wiped out any way possible. And Mr. Euler isn't beyond using a little evil to wipe out evil, like a lot of fanatics. Look at these fairly undemocratic interrogation centers he's set up to save democracy. Where Roger was concerned, evidence of guilt was needed, and Euler figured flight would be sufficient evidence of guilt. It looked very simple from Euler's naive point of view—remember, this is a man who doesn't know what the killing business is all about. All he knows is that he thinks it's terrible. He figured he'd just arrange to let Roger grab a gun; and then Roger, like a sensible man, would hold up the others in the room, maybe tie them up, and make his escape—but of course Euler would have people kind of casually stationed at all the exits. He figured, in his innocent TV way, that nobody'd be hurt. Faced with overwhelming force, Roger would simply surrender his stolen gun without firing a shot, but the escape attempt would be on the record, black and incriminating."