The Devastators (2 page)

“She’s the backup man, or woman?”

“Precisely. She will be the featherheaded little blonde bride—naive, ineffectual, and, we hope, ignored. This will give her an advantageous position from which to make her move when the time comes.”

“You mean,” I said, “when some natural causes try to make me dead like they did Buchanan?”

“That is more or less what I mean,” Mac said slowly. “However, you must remember that Claire’s job is not to serve you as bodyguard. The subject is her chief concern. Her assignment is to take care of him after you have, we hope, led him to reveal himself. She is under strict orders not to break cover—not under any circumstances—until she is certain that it will lead directly to the completion of the mission.” He paused, looking at me steadily. “I hope I again make myself clear.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “You always do, sir. In other words, as far as staying alive is concerned, I’m on my own. Claire will play helpless, letting the bodies fall where they may, until she sees the big break coming. Okay, I’m warned. I won’t look to her for protection.” I regarded him across the desk. “And now, sir, just what is the mission—or should I say, who is the mission? I’ve still heard no names and received no descriptions.”

He said, as if in answer, “You’ve had all your shots?”

“Yes, sir. I’m immune to everything but the common cold. Any mosquito or tsetse fly that tries to stick germs into my hide is wasting his cotton-picking time. You’d think I was heading for a tropical-fever belt instead of the Scottish Highlands. I suppose there’s a reason.” I studied his face a moment longer. “Could it have some connection with the so-called natural causes that killed Buchanan?”

“It could,” he said. “Don’t count too much on those shots, Eric. Buchanan had had them, too.”

“I see,” I said. Again, it wasn’t exactly true. “Perhaps you’d better tell me about it, sir,” I said.

He did.

The information he gave me was very secret, so secret that it was known only to Washington and London, and maybe Moscow, Berlin, Paris, and Peking. Anyway, it was so highly classified that it hadn’t been transmitted to Claire, in transit, because Mac didn’t have authority to entrust it to an ordinary messenger. I was going to have to give her the final details after we’d met and found a secure place to talk.

Whether or not the dope I’d been given was actually as secret as its classification indicated—very few things are—it gave me plenty to think about on my flight from Washington to New York. I was still thinking about it as I climbed the stairs to the BOAC economy-class waiting room after going through the usual ticket-and-passport routine. I had the description, so I had no trouble spotting my bride. The world isn’t exactly crowded with pretty little sunburned blondes, although it would be nice if it were. To clinch the identification, she was reading the current copy of
House Beautiful
, presumably boning up on how to furnish the split-level honeymoon cottage when we got home.

I stopped in front of her. She looked up from her magazine. It was a funny moment. She’d presumably been given as much information about me as I’d been given about her. We knew everything about each other that mattered professionally, and we didn’t know each other at all, and now we were under orders to play man and wife—with all that implied—for days, maybe weeks, depending on how the job went.

There was an instant of wary appraisal. I got the impression she wasn’t any happier about being told whom to share her bed and toothpaste with than I’d been. Then she went smoothly into her act. She jumped to her feet, letting the magazine fall unheeded to the floor.

“Matt, darling!” she cried, and threw her arms around my neck and kissed me hard, attracting some bored glances from our fellow travelers-to-be. “Oh, I was so afraid your plane was going to be late, dear!” she went on breathlessly. “How was Washington? Did you get your last-minute business all taken care of?”

I nibbled affectionately at her ear. “Sure,” I said. “Did you have a nice visit with your folks, honey? I wish I could have gone with you and met them as we’d planned, but we’ll stop by when we get back…”

These histrionics were probably unnecessary, since there was no reason to think anybody would be watching us with more than casual interest until I made my first move to follow Buchanan’s trail, in London. Still, somebody might check back this far later, and I always feel that if you’re going to play a part, you might as well play it all the way, at least in public—and it’s hard to tell what’s public and what isn’t, these electronic days. I was glad to see that Claire had the same professional attitude. I reminded myself that she was no longer Claire to me: she was Winifred Helm, my sweet little wife.

I looked her over and decided that I could have done worse. In fact, she was probably the cutest wife I’d ever had, for pretend or for real. I was married in earnest once, to a tall New England girl—I was a respectable, home-loving citizen for a number of years—but anybody who’s been in this line of work is a poor matrimonial risk and it fizzled in the end. Now I had a pretty, phony little spouse, imported from the Orient, who had to stand on tiptoe to kiss me.

Her summer tan—well, it looked like a summer tan, however she’d got it—gave her an air of wholesomeness that was probably more convincing, for the role, than a pink Dresden-doll complexion would have been. That baby-face gag has been pulled a little too often. The warm dark skin also made an attractive contrast to her pale hair and clear blue eyes. She had just the right figure for her diminutive size, by no means sturdy and still not so fragile that you had to worry lest the first breeze carry her away. She was all done up for honeymoon purposes, to use Mac’s terminology, in a little blue suit rather scanty in the skirt, a tricky white blouse, little white gloves, and one of those soft ruffled hats or bonnets, kind of resembling big fuzzy bathing caps, that seem to have taken the country by storm.

She looked just like the nice little girl next door, the one you’d like to take to the beach or tennis court, and she’d killed seven times, twice with her bare hands. At least so said the record in Washington, and I had no reason to doubt it. Well, they come in all shapes and sizes: small shapely females as well as tall bony males. I’d been in the business longer than she. I was in no position to criticize her homicidal record.

We held hands clear across the Atlantic. The stewardesses—healthy-looking, friendly British girls who were a pleasant change of pace from the movie queens officiating on American airlines—spotted us as newlyweds immediately, as they were supposed to. They thought my pride was a living doll, but they weren’t quite sure she hadn’t made a mistake in marrying an older man. However, I seemed to appreciate her, and that inclined them to forgive me my advanced years—I won’t say how advanced; I’ll just say that neither girl was much over twenty.

Over the ocean, we met the new day traveling westward. The night hadn’t lasted more than a few hours, jet travel being what it is. At London’s Heathrow Airport, the passport-and-customs bit was rudimentary. Afterwards, a man from Claridge’s Hotel descended on us, stuck us in a taxi, and aimed us hotelward.

“Is that all there’s to it?” my Winifred asked as we rode through the frantic, left-handed London traffic. I saw that she was genuinely surprised. I guess she’d come from places where border formalities were taken more seriously.

I said, “Unless we decide to visit behind the Iron Curtain, the only time we’re likely to have any trouble is when we’re getting back into the U.S. Then we can expect to be treated as hardened criminals with evil intentions—although I’ve heard rumors that even our savage customs watchdogs are on a courtesy kick these days.” After a while, I said, “There’s where we’re staying, honey. Pipe the doorman in top hat and knee breeches.”

Winnie played up, looking at first prettily intrigued and then a little dubious, like the naive country bride she was supposed to be. “But isn’t it terribly expensive? And… and fancy? My clothes aren’t really…”

“Your clothes are swell,” I said. “I saved money on the plane tickets so we could blow it here. Everybody ought to stay at Claridge’s once. Don’t be scared, baby. Hell, they let the queen of Holland stay here all during World War II, and she isn’t half as good-looking as you are.”

This exchange was probably wasted on the cab driver behind his glass partition, but it warmed us up for our performance inside the hotel. In our best self-conscious-newlywed manner, we ran the gauntlet of polite, formally attired reception clerks—the tailcoat industry would be in a bad way if it lost the trade of European hostelries—and were ushered into a third-floor room large enough so that, if you needed exercise, you could roll back the rug and play handball beyond the bed. After a couple of vigorous games, you could cool off in a tub large enough to swim in. The phone was supplemented by various auxiliary bell systems for summoning waiters, maids, and valets. It was quite a layout, in its quiet, old-fashioned, overstaffed way.

“Gee, it’s gorgeous,” said my bride, wide-eyed. “But… but can we really afford it, dear?”

I said, “What’s money, honey? It isn’t every day a man gets married.”

I put my arm around her shoulders and gave her a loving hug while passing some British change to the bellboy, who bowed and withdrew. There had been some discussion in Washington as to whether a man, even an experienced agent, embarking on his honeymoon after a brief, breathless courtship, would be foresighted enough to provide himself with foreign currency. It had been decided that he would, if only to impress his sweet little bride with his worldly knowledge.

When the door had closed behind the boy, said sweet little bride twisted free abruptly.

“Jesus Christ!” she said. “Haven’t you any sense at all?”

It was a different voice from the shy, birdlike tones she’d been using: deeper and harsher. It took me by surprise.

“What’s the matter?”

She touched her upper arm tenderly. “Here every damn horse-doctor south of the Equator has been running six-inch needles into my arms and rump—both rumps—and you’ve got to go squeezing me like a ripe lime you’re about to drop into a nice gin and tonic!” She caught the uneasy glance I threw around the room, and went on irritably: “Oh, hell, relax! Give your profession a rest, Mr. Helm. I’m just as security-conscious as you are, but if somebody knows enough about us already to have this room bugged waiting for us, our whole act’s a big waste of time and you know it. So for now, in here, we can just be ourselves, whoever that is. Sometimes I kind of forget, don’t you?”

I knew what she meant, of course. After pretending to be a certain number of other people, you tend to lose track of the person you really are. However, it didn’t seem like the moment for a discussion of the psychological hazards of the trade.

“Sorry about your arm,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking, I guess.”

She pulled off her hat, threw it at a chair, and shook out her blonde hair. It was rather short, very fine, and a little mussed and matted now from long confinement. She squirmed out of her little jacket and dropped it on top of the hat. She smoothed her frilly white blouse into her abbreviated blue skirt and drew a long breath.

“God, what a week!” she said. “I don’t think I’ve spent more than a day of it below thirty thousand feet. If I have to strap myself into another airplane seat, I’ll go stir-crazy.”

I said, “If airplane seats give you claustrophobia, doll, you’ll flip twice when you see the car we’re getting. It’s a real shoehorn job.”

“I know,” she said. “They told me. One of those lousy little sports cars. Whose bright idea was that?”

“Mine,” I said. “I like them, big or little, and I’m the guy who’ll be doing most of the driving. And you haven’t seen the deer paths they use for roads in this country. I figured we’d better have something small, but fast and agile, just in case. Besides, it’s just the kind of flashy car a sophisticated jerk named Helm would buy so he could show off his driving ability to his innocent young bride.” I grinned at her. “Hi, Bridie.”

She looked up at me for a moment. Then she gave me a funny, crooked little smile in return. I still knew her hardly at all, certainly not well enough to read her mind, but just then I knew in a general way what she was thinking about, because I was thinking about the same thing. I mean, we’d discussed everything from hypodermic injections to automobiles, but there was one subject that remained untouched, and it couldn’t be ignored forever.

Winifred sighed, and looked down, and began to unbutton her blouse. I didn’t say anything. She looked up again, rather defiantly.

“Well, we’d better get it over with, hadn’t we?”

“You call it,” I said.

She said, “Hell, we’ve got a lot of beds to inhabit in the next week or so, and orders are to make the springs creak convincingly. We’d better kind of get acquainted, if you know what I mean, before we have an audience.” She walked quickly over to her suitcase, yanked it open, and tossed some fragile white lingerie my way. “Pick the one that arouses the beast in you, Mr. Helm. We can’t have the maid seeing the bridal nighties all in mint condition. And for God’s sake take it easy. Remember I’m tender practically all over…”

It wasn’t the most passionate performance of my life. I found it difficult to work up a lot of enthusiasm over the idea of raping a business associate in broad daylight. Still, she was a good-looking and well-constructed kid, her responses were adequate if not spectacular, and biology is a fairly reliable source of motive power. Afterwards we lay close for a while; then she moved away and wiggled around a bit, pulling the various filmy layers of her trousseau nightie straight about her. Having got herself untangled, she sighed and lay still.

“Well,” she said, “that’s that.”

I couldn’t help laughing at her matter-of-fact tone. “I’ve heard more glowing testimonials.”

“No doubt,” she murmured, “from volunteer partners, Mr. Helm, but you can hardly expect a girl to go wild over the idea of compulsory copulation. Come to that, I didn’t notice you behaving as if I were the answer to your erotic prayers.”