The Ambushers (12 page)

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 figures. 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.”

I watched her face closely and asked, “Ernest Head?”

She nodded quickly. “Yes. Of course. Ernst Schwarzkopf. The question is how to approach him.”

“Approach,” I said. “You put it so delicately, doll. You mean catch him and sweat him, don’t you? Like you did me.”

She shook her head. “No, that is a last resource. If we try to make him talk and fail, we have lost everything. I think we should try to make him run. That is what I have been trying to accomplish.” She made an impatient gesture. “If it were just a matter of capture and torture, do you think I would have been wasting my time playing the phonograph? But I was hoping I could make him run so that Max and I could follow. Where else would he go? I still think he can be made to do it. A little more pressure should suffice. And with three to take turns watching— you two and Max—there should be no chance of his eluding us. We will let him lead us to von Sachs. Now what about that road? Can it be traveled in an ordinary car or will we need a jeep?”

“When I went down, years ago, we used a pickup truck,” I said. “But my information is that the road’s in good shape this year, and a passenger car should make it all right. Of course that applies only to the dirt road south from Antelope Wells. What kind of a track turns off it into the Nacimiento Mountains is anybody’s guess. However, von Sachs isn’t likely to pack his stuff in by mountain goat. If he’s got any kind of big operation going back in there, in the guise of an archaeological expedition, the access trail can’t be too difficult.”

Catherine Smith frowned. “I don’t think much of your contribution, Mr. Evans. A few questions at Antelope Wells would have given me as much. It seems to me this is going to be a very one-sided partnership, in which Max and I supply most of the information and run most of the risks.”

“Sure,” I said. “How well do you and your friend know this part of the North American continent, Miss Smith?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I was brought up in these parts. I know these mountains and deserts, honey. Give me half a lead and I can tell you where von Sachs has got to be. Give me four wheels and an engine and I can take you there. How much back-country driving have you done, either of you? You look like city operators to me. When I say that road’s in good shape, I don’t mean it’s a six-lane turnpike. It’s still a Mexican desert road. You’re going to need me. Don’t kid yourself you aren’t.”

“I see.” She smiled cynically. “So now that road is suddenly so terrible it takes an expert to drive it.” She shrugged. “Oh, very well. Max will keep an eye on Ernest Head tonight. You two will cover him tomorrow. I will see that he hears the record often enough to keep old memories fresh in his mind until he can stand it no longer.”

I grinned. “You’re such a sweet girl; you have such kind thoughts. All right, it’s a deal. We find von Sachs; after that we flip a coin, or something, to see who gets him.” I regarded her for a moment. “Of course, if anybody tries a doublecross, all bets are off.”

She smiled. “Of course.”

“Okay. We’ll take over from Max in the morning. Now, where are we and how do we get out of here?”

Presently I was driving the station wagon away from there with Sheila beside me. It took me a little while to get oriented, until I realized that we were only a few blocks from Catherine’s house, in an area of new construction.

“Where’s your car, Skinny?” I asked without turning my head. Under the circumstances, I wasn’t moving anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary.

“Turn right at the next corner... Eric.”

“What?”

“You don’t really trust that... that blonde praying mantis, do you?”

I made the effort to glance at her. “Trust her? A pretty, sweet, gentle little girl like that? Why shouldn’t I trust her?” I grimaced. “I trust her to doublecross us at the first glimmer of an opportunity. Do you think I’d have made a deal with her if I didn’t?”

When I reached the motel, I saw that the blue Volkswagen had beat me home. I hadn’t felt up to any fancy driving. Besides, I’d had to stop at a pay phone and put in a long-distance call to Washington asking for full reports on a woman who called herself Catherine Smith, a man who called himself Max, and a couple of married people locally known as Mr. And Mrs. Ernest Head, who’d in the past gone by other names, specified. I’d paid for all those names. I figured I might as well go through the motions of feeding them into the machinery, although I had doubts whether the information would get out to me in time to be of much use.

I saw Sheila get out of her little car as I turned in off the street. She came up beside me as I parked the station wagon.

“Are you all right?” she whispered. “When you didn’t arrive right behind me, I got worried. Come on. I’d better look after those burns.”

She opened the car door and started to help me out, but she remembered her neurosis about heterosexual contacts and checked herself short of touching me. Or perhaps she just realized that a two-hundred-pound man has to be in pretty bad shape before he takes kindly to being helped out of a car by a hundred-pound girl. She did take the motel key out of my hand and open that door for me and close it behind me.

I said, “What the hell are you bucking for, Skinny? The title of little mother of the year? Hell, I’ve singed myself worse than this lighting a cigarette.”

She looked startled and injured; then she laughed. “All right. Be brave. Be heroic. Do you want a drink?”

“Sure.”

“Ice?”

“If there’s any left.”

“It’s all melted,” she said, investigating. “I’ll get some more. I’ll be right back.”

I started to register a gentlemanly protest, but she’d already taken the cardboard bucket and slipped out of the room. I sat down on the bed and took off my shirt. After examining the battlefield, I came to the conclusion that regardless of how it felt, it wasn’t really the scene of a major catastrophe. The only burn that went deep was on the shoulder. Elsewhere I’d merely lost a little skin. The fact that it hurt like hell was, to a tough undercover operative of my courageous and stoical nature, irrelevant. At least it was supposed to be.

I took from my pocket the tube of ointment Catherine Smith had given me. I was sitting there reading the label and feeling sorry for myself when Sheila let herself back in quietly. She put the ice bucket on the dresser, came over to look, and snatched the tube from my hand.

“You’re not going to use
that?”

“Why not?”

“I wouldn’t trust her to give me anything but syphilis!”