The Ambushers (22 page)
Authors: Donald Hamilton
“And you are not going to see her again, are you? Because deep down inside you are aware, no matter what excuses you made for her, that no woman can love a man very much if she won’t kill for him. That isn’t real love, the kind we know, is it, Mr. Evans? But still, you are feeling sad and lonely, which is nice. It will make you appreciate me more. Now you may open the wine...”
In the morning she was still asleep when I came back to the room with coffee—asleep or pretending. With her, it wasn’t safe to jump to conclusions. Anyway, she let me have a good look at her lying on the big rumpled bed, nude except for the sheer black stockings that, unsupported and forgotten, had slipped below her knees. They made her look like a naughty photograph.
When I kicked the door shut behind me, she rolled over, stretched luxuriously, and opened her eyes to look at me.
“Coffee is served, ma’am,” I said. I grinned. “Damn if you aren’t the most pornographic-looking woman I ever spent the night with.”
She laughed. “I try very hard. It is nice of you to say that I am successful.”
She sat up and discovered the untidy stockings and pulled them up for inspection. It had been a long, rough night and the nylons were hardly, let’s say, in mint condition. She wrinkled her nose at them, stripped the wreckage off her legs, dropped it into the wastebasket, and picked her ruffled negligee off the floor. She shook it out dubiously, found it undamaged, and with dignity brought it over for me to hold for her, as if it were a sable wrap and she were in diamonds and evening dress instead of stark naked.
I set the coffee aside and obliged. After tying the little bow at the throat, she tilted her face up to be kissed. I performed this service also.
She said a little breathlessly, “It was the damn sword.”
“What was?”
“The reason I came. One reason I came. You have been wondering, haven’t you?”
“Well, the question did cross my mind.”
“A man with a rifle or pistol, bah!” she said. “What is that but a machine with a machine? Bang, bang, bang. But a man with a sword... It was so beautiful, that fight. I forgot what you’d asked me to do, watching. The sunlight on the blades, the two men, the precise movements, so formal, like a ritual, like a dance of death. And then the lunge, like lightning from the sky. You could have walked over and taken me then, right there in the dust in front of all those men.”
I said, “Life is just one lost opportunity after another, Vadya.” She started and looked at me sharply. I said, “Drink your coffee. Your plane ticket is on the dresser.”
She licked her lips. “What name did you use?”
I said, “There’s a list we have. We call it the high-priority list. There was a man named Martell on it, for instance, but he died in the mountains in New Mexico, so we checked him off. There are some other men, but they haven’t been checked off yet, so the names are classified. And then there are the women, including a mysterious lady called Vadya, very dangerous. The descriptions we have are not at all consistent. Sometimes she is described as enchantingly lovely, sometimes as dumpy and plain. Sometimes she is blonde, sometimes brunette. Even the color of her eyes changes. That can be done with contact lenses, you know. Mostly they are blue, however. I have read some very lyrical descriptions of Vadya’s eyes. There are also some fingerprints on record.”
She licked her lips again, watching me. “I see.”
“The prints on the outside of your little gun were badly smeared,” I said, “but we got a very good impression off the clip. You weren’t interested in von Sachs at all, dead or alive, were you, Vadya? That was just one of your tricks of misdirection. It was the missile all the time, wasn’t it? You killed the technician, you fired it, and then you destroyed it in flight. And set fire to the truck. A thorough job.”
She reached for the paper cup of coffee, looked at it, hesitated, and looked at me. She shrugged as if to say that if I wanted to poison her, now that I had found her out, so be it. She drank, and nodded.
“Of course. We could not have a Rudovic in the hands of an irresponsible fascist, and we certainly didn’t want your country to get it. It had to be destroyed.” She glanced at me almost shyly. “Did you say there was a ticket?”
“To Mexico City. You have about forty-five minutes to dress and reach the airport. I’ll drive you.”
She said, drawing a long breath, “I’m disappointed in you, my dear. You are being sentimental again. You should kill me.”
“I know,” I said. “And I’ll probably regret this, but there’s been enough killing. I have permission to do it this way.”
She said, “We have our lists, too. There is a man on several of them. A tall man responsible for the death of one Martell. For the death of one Caselius. For the death of one Tina, and others. And now for the death of Max. There are many black marks against you over there, Eric, also known as Matthew Helm.”
I grinned. “It wasn’t entirely admiration that drew you here, then?”
“No. After making my report, I received new instructions a few days ago.”
I said, “Sure. I wasn’t certain I’d wake up this morning. But I guess you’ve got a little sentimentality, too. Enough not to spoil a pleasant reunion between two old comrades in arms. I was kind of gambling on that.”
She looked at me for a moment longer with an expression I couldn’t read. Then she laughed and turned to dress. At the airport we stopped at the gate. I put into her hand the little travel case she’d brought to my room.
“Goodbye, Eric,” she said. “Under the circumstances, I hope we never meet again. At least... I think I do.”
As I watched her walk out to the waiting plane, I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it, either.
Donald Hamilton was the creator of secret agent Matt Helm, star of 27 novels that have sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.
Born in Sweden, he emigrated to the United States and studied at the University of Chicago. During the Second World War he served in the United States Naval Reserve, and in 1941 he married Kathleen Stick, with whom he had four children.
The first Matt Helm book,
Death of a Citizen,
was published in 1960 to great acclaim, and four of the subsequent novels were made into motion pictures. Hamilton was also the author of several outstanding stand-alone thrillers and westerns, including two novels adapted for the big screen as
The Big Country
and
The Violent Men.
Donald Hamilton died in 2006.
COMING SOON FROM TITAN BOOKS
BY DONALD HAMILTON
The long-awaited return of the United States’ toughest special agent.
Death of a Citizen
The Wrecking Crew
The Removers
The Silencers
Murderers’ Row
The Shadowers
(December 2013)
The Ravagers
(February 2014)
PRAISE FOR DONALD HAMILTON
“Donald Hamilton has brought to the spy novel the authentic hard realism of Dashiell Hammett; and his stories are as compelling, and probably as close to the sordid truth of espionage, as any now being told.” Anthony Boucher,
The New York Times
“This series by Donald Hamilton is the top-ranking American secret agent fare, with its intelligent protagonist and an author who consistently writes in high style. Good writing, slick plotting and stimulating characters, all tartly flavored with wit.”
Book Week
“Matt Helm is as credible a man of violence as has ever figured in the fiction of intrigue.”
The New York Sunday Times
“Fast, tightly written, brutal, and very good...”
Milwaukee Journal
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A series of slick espionage thrillers from the New York Times bestselling “Queen of Spy Writers.”
Pray for a Brave Heart
Above Suspicion
Assignment in Brittany
North From Rome
Decision at Delphi
The Venetian Affair
The Salzburg Connection
Message from Málaga
While Still We Live
The Double Image
Neither Five Nor Three
Horizon
Snare of the Hunter
Agent in Place
PRAISE FOR HELEN MACINNES
“The queen of spy writers.”
Sunday Express
“Definitely in the top class.”
Daily Mail
“The hallmarks of a MacInnes novel of suspense are as individual and as clearly stamped as a Hitchcock thriller.”
The New York Times
“She can hang her cloak and dagger right up there with Eric Ambler and Graham Greene.”
Newsweek
“More class than most adventure writers accumulate in a lifetime.”
Chicago Daily News
“A sophisticated thriller. The story builds up to an exciting climax.”
Times Literary Supplement
“An atmosphere that is ready to explode with tension... a wonderfully readable book.”
The New Yorker
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BY DANIEL STASHOWER
The Dime Museum Murders
The Floating Lady Murder
The Houdini Specter
In turn-of-the-century New York, the Great Houdini’s confidence in his own abilities is matched only by the indifference of the paying public. Now the young performer has the opportunity to make a name for himself by attempting the most amazing feats of his fledgling career—solving what seem to be impenetrable crimes. With the reluctant help of his brother Dash, Houdini must unravel murders, debunk frauds and escape from danger that is no illusion...
PRAISE FOR DANIEL STASHOWER
“A romp that cleverly combines history and legend, taking a few liberties with each. Mr. Stashower has done his homework... This is charming... it might have amused Conan Doyle.”
The New York Times
“In his first mystery, Stashower paired Harry Houdini and Sherlock Holmes to marvelous effect.”
Chicago Tribune
“Stashower’s clever adaptation of the Conan Doyle conventions—Holmes’s uncanny powers of observation and of disguise, the scenes and customs of Victorian life—makes it fun to read. Descriptions and explanations of some of Houdini’s astonishing magic routines add an extra dimension to this pleasant adventure.”
Publishers Weekly
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless creation returns in a series of handsomely designed detective stories.
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
encapsulates the most varied and thrilling cases of the world’s greatest detective.
The Ectoplasmic Man
by Daniel Stashower
The War of the Worlds
by Manly Wade Wellman & Wade Wellman
The Scroll of the Dead
by David Stuart Davies
The Stalwart Companions
by H. Paul Jeffers
The Veiled Detective
by David Stuart Davies
The Man From Hell
by Barrie Roberts
Séance For A Vampire
by Fred Saberhagen
The Seventh Bullet
by Daniel D. Victor
The Whitechapel Horrors
by Edward B. Hanna
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes
by Loren D. Estleman
The Angel of the Opera
by Sam Siciliano
The Giant Rat of Sumatra
by Richard L. Boyer
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by Philip José Farmer
The Star of India
by Carole Buggé
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BY MICKEY SPILLANE & MAX ALLAN COLLINS
THE LOST MIKE HAMMER NOVEL
Hammer and Velda go on vacation to a small beach town on Long Island after wrapping up the Williams case (
I, the Jury
). Walking romantically along the boardwalk, they witness a brutal beating at the hands of some vicious local cops—Hammer wades in to defend the victim.
When a woman turns up naked—and dead— astride the statue of a horse in the small-town city park, how she wound up this unlikely Lady Godiva is just one of the mysteries Hammer feels compelled to solve...
