The Infiltrators (19 page)

There were no handshakes or introductions; Mr. Smith merely nodded curtly to Mac and turned to look at me. “What’s the matter with that arm?” he demanded.

Mac said, “I told you he got shot.”

“Let the man speak for himself.”

“I got shot, sir,” I said, on the theory that a few judicious sirs are never wasted.

“Kinda careless of you.”

“My orders didn’t state that I shouldn’t get myself shot, sir. They stated only that I should prevent somebody else from getting shot. I did.”

“Threw yourself into the line of fire to save a pretty-faced Commie spy just out of the pen where she should have been left to spend the rest of her treacherous life.” The blue eyes regarded me coldly. “The bitch got to you enough that you’d give your life for her, hey, boy? Did you get to fuck her?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was she any good with a man after all that time in the lezzie house?”

“Quite satisfactory, sir.”

“Must have been, since you then let her talk you into bringing her into a top-secret government installation to learn all about our classified training methods.”

I said, “Sir, I fail to see the purpose of this discussion. What difference does it make where the lady’s loyalties lie?”

His eyes narrowed. “What
difference
…! What the hell do you mean, son?”

“If she was innocent of the crime of which she was convicted,” I said deliberately, “as I happen to believe, then she can be quite useful to us in many ways. But if she was guilty, as you seem to believe, then she can be equally useful—as long as I don’t let her know she’s suspected; as long I show her how implicitly I trust her by arranging for her entry to our training center and even allowing her to go through part of the basic course, learning all about such top-secret weapons as the Smith and Wesson .38 Special revolver, the Winchester .308 sniper’s rifle, the Fairbairn commando knife, and the M16 assault rifle, all of which are available, in civilian versions at least, in any large sporting goods store. Really, sir, do you think any unqualified trainee is allowed access to classified materials at the Ranch? We’re quite aware of the lady’s record. I happen to believe she’s been the victim of a miscarriage of justice, but I’m certainly not going to jeopardize our security system for my private beliefs. And if she’s guilty, as you think, she’s bound to make contact with her husband and his unsavory Communist friends sooner or later; and I’ll be right there to take advantage of it. Unless I’m ordered to drop her because of somebody’s misguided passion for security.”

The little baby-blue eyes glared at me for a moment longer; then the shaggy white head was thrown back for a hearty laugh. Mr. Smith clapped me hard on the shoulder, the bad shoulder. I didn’t flinch; let him have the small victory of discovering that the sling was a fraud.

“Good boy!” he said. “Want them to think you’re practically helpless, hey? Good idea. As for the dame, you’re perfectly right, as long as you watch out she doesn’t put a knife in your back when double-cross time comes. And of course we can’t afford to drop her; she’s one of the few leads we’ve got to the people we have to track down. It just gripes my soul to have to make use of Commie slime like that.”

I said, “But the point is that her relationship or lack of relationship to Moscow is practically irrelevant here. Sure, if she gives me a lead to the missing Dr. Ellershaw and his subversive lady friend I’ll follow it up; but from what little I’ve been told I gather that the primary problem that confronts us has nothing to do with Communism or espionage.”

Mr. Smith nodded. “That’s right. Somehow those two brainy young traitors, the intellectual lawyer bitch and her egghead scientist husband, got themselves tangled up in something else on the side. Something big. We figure they must have stumbled on some incriminating evidence while they were snooping out scientific secrets to sell to their Russky friends. Maybe they even tried to cash in on it with a little blackmail. But the people we’re after took care of them easily enough by tipping off the authorities to their spying activities. The husband lit out just ahead of the handcuffs with the Russky wench who’d been sent to help them, but the wife was grabbed and wound up in the pen where, I gather, they knocked some of the snooty intellectual airs out of her. Well, you’d know all about that, being on such intimate terms with her. She was lucky at that; as a traitor she should have got the chair.”

He was needling me to see if I’d react to his sneering remarks; he still wasn’t quite sure of me. I waited in silence. Mac waited. After a little, Mr. Smith went on:

“When I say they tipped off the authorities, I’m exaggerating. They didn’t have to tip them off; they
are
the authorities. At least they’re the Office of Federal Security. Also they’re the Centers for Advanced Defense Research.
CADRE ONE
, outside Santa Fe… well, Los Alamos,
CADRE TWO
, on the Oregon coast,
CADRE THREE
, on an island off the coast of Maine. All staffed by perfectly respectable scientists, up to a point; just as the OFS has a large contingent of good, honest law-enforcement people from various police departments and the FBI. They’re the cover, as you sinister characters call it. But behind them in both organizations is a nuculus”—I realized that he meant nucleus—“a nuculus of very smart and particular folks who just can’t stand the way this country is being run by you and me and the man I work for. They’re going to fix it up right, their way, all orderly and moral and pure and profitable. Well, profitable for them. The
CADRES
with their fancy linked computers are the planning and organizational end of it. The OFS is the action end, with its figurehead Bennett, who wets his pants whenever somebody, somewhere, pushes the
PEE
button. Somebody who calls himself Tolliver. The question is: Who is Tolliver? And where is Tolliver?” The little blue eyes stared at me hard. “We have other people working in other places on other leads. Your job is to wring this Ellershaw bitch dry and find out if our man can possibly be working out of the Los Alamos area; if that’s the information she and her husband stumbled across that got them clobbered.” He glanced at Mac. “You got no further information out of that gunman you captured?”

Mac shook his head. “No. Just the same name, and the contact method used. I would say that we’re going to have to go after the information we need; apparently it is not going to come to us, even using Mrs. Ellershaw as a decoy. I should add that after being interrogated and released by us, reasonably intact, Mr. Ernest Maxwell Reis was shotgunned to death on a dark St. Louis street. However, we don’t feel this killing is related to our problem. We think it was merely the syndicate’s method of indicating to all and sundry, meaning us, that it disapproved of Maxie’s extracurricular activities and had not been involved in them.”

Mr. Smith nodded. “Yes. Our impression is that the people with whom we’re dealing, although they are not above hiring an occasional killer from the syndicate rank and file when they can’t find a suitable independent operator, have no real connection with organized crime. This is a bigger thing than drug smuggling or prostitution or a bit of organized larceny. These people aren’t interested in stealing a car or two, or two hundred. They want to steal a whole nation. And they’re getting close, gentlemen; they’re getting damn close.” The big man hesitated, and looked at us with an unexpected hint of embarrassment. “I’m on kind of a spot here,” he went on almost diffidently. “I’ve been making long, lousy speeches about country and flag and motherhood since right after they first run me down with dogs and put shoes on me. And maybe this ain’t exactly the right time for a speech, anyway. But I’m supposed to let you know that the Chief don’t expect to rank in the history books along with Washington and Lincoln. He tries to get along the best he can, but he’s got no idea he’s the best president this country ever had. He just wants to be damn sure he don’t go down in history for being the last. If you know what I mean.”

Mac said softly, “He thinks the situation is that serious, does he?”

Mr. Smith cleared his throat. “I can’t begin to tell you where this thing is beginning to pop up. We come across it everywhere. They seem to’ve been building it for damn near ten years, and it’s about ready to roll now. Maybe it was figured as a ten-year plan from the start. We’d sure like to know the target date, at least, but anytime we try to act against these people—even learn something about them—we find ourselves stymied. Things just don’t seem to get done. Like a poor old dog I once had. He’d try to do his thing like he used to, he was a pretty damn good coon hound, but he just didn’t have it anymore. Those heart worms were bleeding him white from inside; and when we doctored him, something went wrong and a great lump of them broke loose and plugged up his heart and killed him. Well, this country seems to’ve been pretty well infiltrated by these human worms, and we’ve picked you people to do the doctoring, giving you the most promising lead we’ve got, this ex-convict bitch. But we want you to move careful, real careful. No sense saving the nation just to wreck it.”

I said, “We’re greatly honored, or are we?”

The blue eyes narrowed. “Don’t get smart with me, son. Too damn many clever people around. Maybe that’s the trouble these days. You folks were picked because the Chief won’t have nothing to do with the FBI if he can help it. He hasn’t trusted them a bit ever since they started playing those entrapment games a few years back; he says they’re supposed to prevent crimes if they can and solve them if they can’t, not make them happen. Anyway, they’re too damn big. The CIA still isn’t supposed to operate much in this country; and it’s too damn big, too. Too easy to penetrate a big agency. That makes you the patsy. A small one-man outfit that makes its own rules and keeps its mouth shut.”

Mac said dryly, “And which, if things go wrong, can be sacrificed without a major national upheaval.”

The white-haired man grinned wolfishly. “You got it, mister.” He sobered quickly. “Again I’m on a spot. There’s another reason for using you, which you’ve probably figured out by this time. Well, I’ve done a few crooked things in my time, if not as many as my enemies like to claim. But I never gave any killing orders before. But here goes: your instructions are to find the man behind
CADRE
, Tolliver or Taliaferro or whatever his real name is, and take care of him discreetly. That big-nosed bastard Bennett, of the OFS, should also—what’s that word you spooks use?—be discreetly terminated. If any other individual seems to be in a position to take over, or just make serious trouble, he should also meet with a bad accident. In fact, kind of fatal. We’ve got to stop this thing before it moves, and it’s no time to pussyfoot around. The idea is, you remove the heads of these snaky organizations and we’ll take care of the wriggling, thrashing bodies. Discreetly.”

“Discretion is our watchword,” Mac said gravely.

“This country’s fallen in love with conspiracies,” Mr. Smith said. “Personally, I think President Kennedy was killed by a lone crazy with a rifle, and President Reagan was almost killed by a lone crazy with a pipsqueak .22 handgun. But some people are bound to make up conspiracies if they can’t find them growing naturally. So let them have their fancy imaginary plots; but they can’t have this real one. We can’t let it be known that the nation’s scientific establishment has been infiltrated and perverted by a bunch of ambitious and self-righteous citizens for their own purposes; and it certainly mustn’t get around that to help them they even managed to build up a powerful national law-enforcement agency out of a bunch of half-ass security guards. We can’t have the nation’s faith in its noble scientists and brave G-men shaken, can we now? That would be like curing the pup of live heartworms just to stop his heart with dead ones. Now get me out of here.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “Discreetly.”

I don’t suppose the plane ride west was any better than the plane ride east had been—they’re all lousy these days—but I was getting stronger daily so I was in better shape to survive it, and I had more to keep my mind busy. Besides, you gain two hours going west so it seems like a shorter flight, even though actual air time is the same.

Then the plane was setting down on the Tucson runway a couple of thousand miles from Washington, D.C. As far as I’m concerned, Arizona is what God made with what He had left over after finishing New Mexico—Texas is, of course, all the stuff He tossed out beforehand as obviously useless for His creative purposes. I mean, we all have our little prejudices. The silver Mazda was waiting for me in a protected parking area. The crazy rotary engine started on the second try, after I remembered to pull out the manual choke. It was a bit tricky managing the wheel and the five-speed stick one-handed. I went through the usual preliminary security routines, turned off the pavement onto the familiar little unmarked and unpaved road, and treated the sagging ranch-type gate in a way that let the sniper in the hidden guard post on the nearby ridge know it was all right not to shoot me.

From there it was several more rough miles to the main ranch house. The cottonwoods around it were showing pale green leaf buds; a little later in the spring they’d produce vast clouds of fluffy drifting white cotton and set us all to sneezing, but while I’d doubtless swear at them along with everybody else—assuming I was still here, which wasn’t likely—I kind of liked the great honest old-fashioned trees and to hell with the newfangled cottonless varieties they’re promoting nowadays.

In the ranch office, a girl with streaky brown-blond hair was beating on an ancient nonelectric typewriter. Her back was to me and she was making enough noise to cover the sound of my entrance. I watched her rise and move to the filing cabinets, a slender and taut and pleasing figure in high heels with her tanned bare arms and legs. She was wearing a crisp white skirt and a thin pink sleeveless blouse. She seemed to be left-handed, and a little clumsy, strange for such a healthy-looking girl. Then I saw the old scars on the left wrist, almost masked by the new tan. At the same time she turned and saw me.