The Terrorizers (15 page)

“But I am,” I said. “At least I assume I am, although I haven’t seen any U.S. salary checks lying around.”

“People have been known to resign from jobs, even government jobs,” she said softly. When I didn’t speak, she went on quickly: “I’m not making that a condition. I mean, I’d never try to blackmail a man I… a man for whom I had any regard into leaving a career that meant a great deal to him, but does it, darling? Can’t you just let that mysterious, unpleasant Mr. Helm stay forgotten? Be Paul Madden. Take good pictures. Marry the girl…”

Somebody knocked on the kitchen door. There was a little silence; then the peremptory knock came again.

“Oh, damn, go let the bloody redskin in while I clear the table,” Kitty said.

“I was against it from the start,” Ross said.

I decided that he must definitely have Indian blood, as Kitty had suggested, with his rather broad, brown face dominated by strong cheekbones and a hooked beak of a nose. It was too bad. In addition to our other areas of disagreement, whatever they might turn out to be, it put the barrier of race between us. It didn’t mean that I was a better man, or that he was, but it did mean—these strange days when men’s differences seem to be considered, proudly, as more important than their similarities—that we’d have trouble understanding each other even if we were willing to try.

“I must tell you, frankly, that I tried very hard to prevent it,” he said.

“What you’re really saying,” I translated, “is that you were against me from the start and tried to prevent me—from doing what?”

Ross started to answer, but stopped as Kitty came into the room with a tray holding three clean cups, a coffee pot, and the customary accessories. He rose from his chair politely. I remained seated on the sofa, just an unmannerly white-eyed crumb of a paleface. We waited while she set steaming cups of coffee around, offered cream and sugar, and sat down beside me.

I said, “You were saying, in effect, that you were opposed to the idea of employing me from the start, Mr. Ross. Why?”

He hesitated, but after a moment he said briskly, “Yes, it’s just as well to get the cards on the table, isn’t it? You don’t remember, but you’ve been in Canada before, twice that we’re officially aware of. It was my task to clean up after you on the occasion of one of your previous visits, the last one, six or seven years ago.”

“Nothing comes back,” I said. “Tell me about it.”

He sipped coffee from his cup. “There was a two-nation project known as the Northwest Coastal System,” he said. “The details don’t matter. It’s obsolete now, but at the time it was very secret or supposedly so. However, systematic security leaks were detected. We needed a tall man to impersonate a courier on the other side who’d been found dead. The impersonator was to run the courier’s route and locate the leaks so we could stop them. You were selected, via computer I believe, partly for your general resemblance to the dead man, but also because you were trained and experienced in certain techniques of survival. Well, you survived, Mr. Helm, but your methods created almost insuperable problems for those of us who were assigned to cover for you in both countries—naturally, publicity was not desired. Speaking only for myself, in one place alone I was confronted by no less than three violently dead bodies for which plausible explanations were required. Granted that you’d been attacked, it seemed like over-reaction. For this reason, when it was suggested that we make use of your services again, my counter-suggestion was that we’d be much better off employing the bubonic plague.”

It was a revealing glimpse into my forgotten past. I glanced at Kitty to see how she was taking this gory information about a gent to whom she’d just proposed marriage. She winked at me, the callous wench. It occurred to me that it was also an interesting glimpse into the mind of the man facing me. I suppose it was funny if you looked at it one way—the old frontier way—a red man lecturing a white man on the sanctity of human life. At least that seemed to be more or less what he was saying.

“But you couldn’t find any suitable viruses for hire?” I said.

He shrugged. “You were available, right here in the Northwest; a trained agent already in place with a well-established cover. That’s a coincidence that still hasn’t been explained to my satisfaction, but my superiors refused to look the gift horse in the mouth, as the saying goes. I was ordered to cooperate with you. I’ve done so to the best of my ability, even though it’s just involved covering up another of your one-man massacres. If you read the Vancouver newspapers this morning, you’ll learn that an unfortunate schizophrenic ran amok at a local sanitarium last night. Very tragic. The poor fellow has been transferred to an institution for the criminally insane, and the sanitarium’s screening and security procedures are being thoroughly investigated. Let’s hope the press doesn’t stumble onto the fact that our conveniently murderous patient simply doesn’t exist.”

Kitty said quickly, “You’re not being fair! It was hardly a one-man massacre. I… I was responsible for one-quarter of it, and I don’t apologize for it, Mike.”

“Never mind, Kitty,” I said. “Mr. Ross and I have simply been clarifying our beautiful relationship. Now we know that he thinks I’m a murderous goon; and I’ll put in that I think he’s a sentimental schnook. So, having established our basis for mutual respect and cooperation, we can get down to business. Tell me, Ross, what’s the People’s Protest Party really after?”

After a moment, he laughed shortly. “I suppose that’s a reasonably accurate summing-up. As for the triple-initial gang, we don’t really know what they want, yet. Presumably, they’re still just trying to get our attention. The political demands will come later.”

Kitty said, “I’m not so sure they know what they want. I mean, it’s a vague, violent sort of religion, actually. I got the feeling from Joan Market that a lot of them were protesting without knowing exactly what they were protesting against, and certainly not what they were protesting for.”

“Yes, that’s what makes them so dangerous,” Ross said. “Palestinian or Irish terrorists are bad enough, but everybody knows what they’re fighting for, more or less. Most ordinary people aren’t interested in dying, or killing, for those particular causes. This mystical-violent protest group, with its still unspecified goals, is a different matter entirely. It seems to attract just about any unbalanced person with a grievance against society, as well as some more-or-less well-meaning crusaders for social justice like Miss Davidson’s late husband. The unfortunate fact seems to be that there are a good many people around these days who’d simply like to blow things up. All they need is somebody to show them how and tell them it’s quite the proper thing to do.”

He’d summed it up very neatly. Aside from the fact that he didn’t like me, he seemed like a fairly reasonable and intelligent guy.

I asked, “How many incidents have been traced to them so far? The only definites I’ve heard or read about are the recent explosion at Tsawwassen, the San Francisco blast and the Toronto job where Atwell and Market died. The paper I read speculated about some others, but they obviously weren’t sure.”

“They’re always speculating,” Ross said dryly. “Naturally, since publicity is what the PPP obviously wants, the official policy—very unpopular with the press—has been to deny it to them as much as possible. There have definitely been five others, making eight in all. Forty-seven people have died to date, including two known members of the PPP.”

I said, “On both sides of the border, I understand.”

“Yes. Three bangs above and five below, if you want the exact distribution.”

“And the terrorist headquarters, at least until last night, was at Inanook?”

He hesitated. “In a manner of speaking. We’ve found some hidden arms, and there’s evidence that the remoter parts of the grounds had been used for guerilla-type training of some kind. However, your experience and what we’ve picked up from the personnel that didn’t get away—unfortunately, the guard who escaped you seems to have had time to warn a number of key people—indicates that the real administrative functions are located elsewhere in this area.”

I grinned. “You can’t have it both ways,
amigo.
”

“What do you mean?”

“First you gripe about my killing too many people, and then you gripe about my not killing enough. I let the guard, Frechette, escape instead of drilling him through the head, as I should have. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?” He didn’t speak at once, and I went on quickly, “Did you ever find that limousine driver, Gavin Lewis?”

“Yes,” said Ross. “We found him. Unfortunately, somebody else had found him first.”

“Dead?”

“Sitting in his Mercedes with most of his head blown off by a twelve-bore shotgun. Rather a mess, as you can imagine.”

I said, “That seems to indicate he had something to tell us. Like for instance the address at which he regularly picked up the little round guy who was so interested in my interrogation. John Ovid. Any information on Ovid yet?”

“So far, none.”

“What about that interesting connection between the pilot, Herb Walters, and Emilio Brassaro? Has anybody figured out how a New York syndicate bigshot figures in all this?”

Ross shook his head. “All we have so far are guesses.”

I frowned. “What about Walters? Was he just employed as a pilot back east or did he have other duties? I got the impression that he was a little more than just a fly-boy on Brassaro’s payroll.”

Ross laughed shortly. “Quite a bit more. He was a fairly unsavory character altogether, with a reputation for being as expert with firearms as he was with aircraft.”

“A handy dual-purpose fellow for a guy like Brassaro to keep around,” I said a bit grimly. “When you weren’t using him for a hit with his gun, you could always send him and his plane to Mexico or Colombia for a load of grass or something stronger. But he doesn’t sound like the socially conscious sort of chap who’d join the PPP to clean up the world, yet he seems to have been in on all their secrets, including the details of their next action, scheduled soon. Do we have anything on that?”

Ross shook his head. “Not unless you’ve remembered something significant.”

“Sorry, that last flight is still a total blank, along with a lot of other stuff. If anything comes, I’ll let you know.”

“Yes,” Ross said, “we’d like you to do that.” He reached for his wallet and brought out a card. “Call that number, please. If I’m not there, the message will be forwarded.”

“Sure.” I put the card away, watching him.

He spoke deliberately, “In view of your amnesia, we felt we owed you this conversation, Mr. Helm. We would not want to withhold any information that might help you regain your memory, for our sakes as well as yours. Since we asked for your help, we’re also obliged to protect you with regard to last night’s killings—you and Miss Davidson both. However, if you don’t mind, we’ll handle the rest of this terrorist problem, at least on our side of the border, in our own gentle and ineffectual way.”

I nodded slowly, still watching him. “You’ve discussed this with Washington, of course.”

“Yes. Your chief says it’s entirely up to us. We asked for an agent with certain qualifications, and he was instructed to supply one. If said agent is no longer required here, I was told, there is plenty of other work for him to do. Your chief said to tell you that you can take a few days to catch your breath, but that he expects you in Washington within the week.” Ross waited for me to say something. When I didn’t, he went on, a little embarrassed: “We’re not telling you you must leave town on the noon stagecoach, you understand. That would be very rude and ungrateful in view of the sufferings you’ve endured on our behalf. However, it would please us to see you wind up your business in Canada as quickly as possible. In the meantime, we’ll appreciate it very much if you leave our business strictly alone.”

I glanced towards Kitty and asked, “What about her?”

“We’re grateful for her help to date, but her cover is blown,” Ross said. “Of course there’s no question of asking her to leave the country. She’s in a slightly different category, wouldn’t you say? However, from now on this case is no longer any of her concern.”

I studied his face for a moment longer. “If we leave your business strictly alone, can you guarantee that your business will leave us strictly alone?”

He frowned briefly. “Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, I’ll take steps to make certain of that, of course.”

There was another small silence. I got up, watching him rise to face me rather warily, as if he wasn’t quite sure what my answer to his ultimatum would be or how I would express it.

I said, “Okay, you’ve got a deal.”

We listened to the traffic on the freeway for a moment. Ross cleared his throat. “Well, in that case… Thank you for the coffee, Miss Davidson. I can find my own way out.”

She rose. “I’ll see you to the door.”

We all moved into the kitchen a bit awkwardly, in silence. With his hand on the knob of the outer door, Ross turned.

“Mr. Helm—”

I grinned at him. “Don’t bother,
amigo.
The warning isn’t necessary.”

“What—”

“You’re uneasy because it was too easy,” I said. “You expected me to kick and scream, so now I’ve got you worried. The old suspicious-cop syndrome.” I set my empty cup, that I was still holding, on the kitchen counter. “Now you want to tell me that if I’m pulling a fast one, just pretending to play along with you, I’ll regret it. For instance, those three dead men at Inanook might come back to haunt me. Right?”

He smiled faintly. “A mind reader, Mr. Helm?”

I was aware of Kitty standing there, but I didn’t look at her. I said, without smiling back, “I’d better explain it to you so you won’t get nervous, Ross. Nervous gents with official connections give me the willies. To make sure you’re nice and relaxed, I’ll tell you that Kitty and I were discussing it just before you arrived.” I felt her stir, but I kept my eyes on Ross, and continued speaking: “The fact is, I seem to have lost a lot of bad memories. We were considering the possibility of, let’s say, replacing them with nothing but good ones, together. I hope I’m making myself clear. I’ll have to thrash it out with Washington, of course. Apparently I’ve worked with that guy long enough that if he needs me for something specific, memory or no memory, I can’t just walk out on him without notice. But as far as you’re concerned, you haven’t got a thing to worry about as far as I’m concerned. Okay?”