The Vanishers (12 page)

Presumably they’d been waiting to deal with me in a more private place than the capital city of Norway. I had no doubt they had people standing by to dispose of the body or bodies discreetly after the silent execution. In his precarious position as temporary director of the agency, Bennett couldn’t afford to leave corpses around. It might be noticed in Washington that some U.S. agents were busily killing off others at his orders.

I stuck the weapon inside my waistband and approached the figure on the bed reluctantly. By the time I got through, Mr. James Aloysius Harley looked as if he were nicely tucked in and sleeping peacefully; but it hadn’t been the most pleasant task I’d ever performed. I made a bundle of the soiled stuff, hauled it into the bathroom, dumped it into the tub, and closed the door on it. Then I turned out the light and sat down to wait some more. This time I had a warm room and a comfortable chair, so it wasn’t too bad, even if the company left something to be desired.

I figured dawn would be the time. Mr. Harley’s partner wouldn’t be likely to hang around in somebody’s backyard after daylight. Unfortunately, I had no almanac to tell me when the sun was supposed to rise in this part of the world at this time of year. All I could do was peek through the window curtains occasionally. They were the heavy lightproof draperies provided in that part of the world to let you sleep at those times of the year when the day lasts most of the night. We weren’t in that season yet, but some time after four the luminous misty sky out there seemed suddenly to be a little grayer than it had been. Then I heard his footsteps in the carpeted hall outside, and his key in the lock. I slipped into the dressing alcove just before the door opened and the room light went on.

“Jesus Christ, Jim!” said the young man in the doorway angrily, after surveying the peaceful scene. “What the hell do you think you’re doing; you’re supposed to be dressed and ready to go in case they make an early start… Come on, Sleeping Beauty, rise and shine!” He was over by the bed now, shaking the figure under the cover. It rolled over onto its back, displaying the slack gaping mouth and the staring blind eyes. “Oh, my God!”

“Just hold that pose, amigo,” I said.

Standing in the doorway behind him, I held the silenced automatic on him, cartridge in chamber, safety off. There was a tense moment while he thought of various things he’d been taught to do in such a situation. He decided not to do them.

“Helm?”

“It ain’t Santa, Sonny. Okay, you can turn around now, very slowly.”

Holding his hands safely clear of his sides, he swung around to face me. His face was contorted with shock and anger.

“You killed Jim, you damn’ traitor!”

“Unbuckle your belt and drop your pants,” I said. “And I want to hear a good, solid thump when they hit the floor. Like there was something in them, a gun perhaps.” When he didn’t move, I said, “What’s your name? The one on your current passport will do.”

He was watching the automatic in my hand and thinking hard, planning hard perhaps. We were both aware that the .22 is not a manstopper like the .38; even that is marginal. He might make it. He’d have some little holes in him, but he might manage. He might get his own pistol out. He might even put a bullet into me; but it would also be a .22 and the chances of its being instantly fatal weren’t overwhelming. It would be a brave sacrifice play, but it probably wouldn’t bring in the winning run. To hell with it, there’d be better chances later. That’s what we always tell ourselves when we don’t feel like dying today.

“Lindner,” he said. “Marshall Lindner.”

“The pants,” I said. “Strip right down, please… Now the sweater and shirt and undershirt. And the shorts and shoes and socks. Turn around slowly. Nothing taped to the body beautiful, swell. Okay, you can pull the shorts back on if you’re feeling modest. Sit in that chair by the window, please.”

He did as he was told. Sitting there, looking scrawny and vulnerable in his knitted jockey shorts—he was one of the dark, wiry ones; and I judged he’d be fast but not dangerously strong—he regarded me bleakly.

“They said you were very polite and always said excuse me when you shot a man to death. Or a woman.”

“Or a baby, like you?” I grimaced. “What kind of dumb-dumb games were you boys playing on that hillside, anyway? Four-hour watches, for God’s sake! The way you were milling around up there at midnight, it was like watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. What’s the matter, can’t you little fellows sit still a whole night? You’ve got to go peepee, maybe? They must be slipping, out at the Ranch, to turn loose a couple of incompetent infants like you.” I looked at him, frowning. “What’s this traitor crap, anyway?”

“Are you denying it?”

“I don’t have to deny anything, friend. I’m holding the gun. Are you denying that you and your friend were sent here to kill me with your cute little noiseless peashooters?”

I kicked at the clothes on the floor, felt a solid object, and reached down for it left-handed; but it was the Nordic paperback romance that had been keeping the outside door from latching. I tossed it aside and tried again. This time I got a silenced High Standard just like the one I was holding.

I said, “One for me and one for my female companion, right? Did you flip coins to see which of you comic hitmen would get the great sexy thrill of shooting a woman?” He flushed, and I saw how it was and said, “Or did you feel sentimental and flip to see which of you wouldn’t have to. The ladies will hate you, Lindner. That’s sexual discrimination. What did they ever do to you, that you won’t treat them as equal to men, even with a pistol? Who won me?”

“Won? Oh, well, I did.” He licked his lips and went on quickly: “Big funny talk for a defector!”

“Who am I supposed to be defecting to, the local chapter of Vikings Incorporated? Do I get to ride in a dragon ship, with my own battle-axe and homed helmet, just like a real Norseman?” I grimaced at the young man who’d won the right to kill me, and wondered if I’d been heads or tails. “Incidentally, I read somewhere that they didn’t really wear those horns, that’s movie stuff. Some people take all the romance out of life, dammit.”

Lindner glared at me. “A lot of words saying nothing! We know all about you, Helm. The hotshot secret agent; the chief’s right-hand man. Only the great Mister Mac thought he wasn’t being given the recognition he deserved, so he sulked and sold out; and now you’re on your way to join him. He’s got it all arranged for you, hasn’t he?”

“Tell me about it.”

“Oh, we know where you plan to contact your Russian friends. It’s a little village called Lysaniemi, population one-fifty, up in northern Sweden. You slipped there, Helm, trying to get information about the place out of Research; but of course that was while you thought you’d still have people high up in the organization to cover for you. Like Barnett, who was slated for the top spot, reporting daily to Mac in Moscow no doubt; only he had to duck for cover very fast, didn’t he? And your slippery friend Joel. Well, your fancy little subversion scheme didn’t turn out so well, and we’ll catch your accomplices eventually. In the meantime we’ve done some work on Lysaniemi for you. In case you didn’t know, it’s on a small lake called Porkkajarvi—
jarvi
means lake in Finnish, and there seem to be a lot of Finnish names in that part of Sweden. It’s still frozen at this time of year, solid enough for a helicopter to land; and the Russian border is only…” He stopped. “What do you find so humorous now, Mr. Helm?”

I stopped laughing and said, “You’ve been smoking that dreamy-stuff again. You ought to watch that.” He started to speak angrily, and checked himself. I went on: “The Swedish space program is centered at Kiruna, about a hundred and twenty miles northwest of Lysaniemi. I think they’re planning a launch soon; it seems unlikely they’d welcome gate-crashers. And the biggest military installation in Sweden, as far as I know—it was the biggest last time I was in the country—is at Boden, a real fortress of a place, only some sixty miles southwest of Lysaniemi. Do you really think a Russky whirlybird is going to try to make it first across a couple of hundred miles of Finland where the radars can see it coming, and then across this sensitive frontier and into this sensitive security zone of northern Sweden? Do you think even the dumbest Russian is stupid enough to think he can make an air pickup there without attracting attention? After the continuing scares about Russian subs down along the Baltic coast, the Swedes are paranoid as hell about anything approaching their country from the east. Anything larger than a Commie mosquito will set the sirens wailing and the red lights flashing. Even if I wanted to go to Russia, there isn’t the remotest chance of my doing it that way. You’re hallucinating, or somebody is.”

“Then why were you so interested in Lysaniemi?” When I didn’t answer, Lindner shook his head abruptly. “Shit, what difference does it make where you’re planning to cross? Maybe we’ve got that wrong, but the fact that you’re going over is obvious. Now.”

“How do you figure that?”

“You’re here, aren’t you? Why else would you slip off to Europe without clearing with anybody?” He waved his hand at the bed. “And if you aren’t guilty, if you’re not a defector, why would you kill Jim Harley, a man from your own agency?”

I stared at him incredulously. “My God, who’ve they got teaching you kids now out in the Arizona desert, Elsie Dinsmore and the Little Colonel? Look at me, Sonny. I’m twice your age; and if you have any ambition to make it as long as I have, listen closely. This is the basic principle you’ve got to remember: if something comes after you with a gun, if
anything
comes after you with a gun, it isn’t human and it belongs to no agency and you owe it nothing. Stomp it quick before it stomps you. I earned that knowledge with a lot of hospital time, Buster; it could have been grave time if I hadn’t been lucky. I’m handing it to you free of charge.”

“That’s no justification—”

“Bullshit. The fact that I’m breathing and he isn’t, and he intended to have it the other way around, is all the justification I need. I’m not going to take a quiet little forty-grain bullet in the back of my skull, I’m not going to run the slightest risk of taking a quiet little forty-grain bullet in the back of my skull, just because a dumb young agent bought a lot of crappy misinformation about me from a gent in Washington who happens to be an expert at shoveling that kind of manure. Your partner was armed and stalking me. Or Mrs. Watrous, who’s under my protection, but that’s the same thing. It wasn’t my job to have a heart-to-heart talk with him and tell him what a big mistake he was making, and maybe get my head blown off trying to persuade him that he should lay off because I’m really a very patriotic guy. No, it was his job to get his facts straight before he set out to kill people. He didn’t do it, so now he’s dead. And you’d be dead, too, if I didn’t need you to bury him and take a message back to Mr. Bennett.”

“If you think I’m going to—”

“You’re going to,” I said. “If you give it a little thought, you’ll see you have no choice. Mr. Bennett can’t afford to have any dead agents lying around, whether or not their names are Helm. You’ve got the machinery all set up for making a body disappear, haven’t you? My body. And maybe Mrs. Watrous’ body. Well, put your dead pal into that hopper and push the button and disappear him instead of us. And then deliver a message to that guy in Washington?”

“What message?”

I said, “Tell your Mr. Bennett that I said that obviously I made a mistake out in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a couple of years back. I didn’t shoot him then, when I had a great opportunity; but I’m not too proud to admit my errors and correct them. Tell him that if he keeps looking down the street, sooner or later he’ll see me coming for him. He’ll have to wait till I clear up this business; then I’ll take care of him. This time permanently.”

“My God, you’re an arrogant bastard!” Lindner stared at me for a moment, and frowned. “You’re bluffing, aren’t you?”

I said, “You don’t know me, but Bennett does. I don’t think he’ll kid himself that I’m bluffing. And since you’ve got another chance to live, why don’t you spend a little time asking yourself why he picked a couple of puppies like you and Harley to run down a battle-scarred wolf like me, instead of selecting a brace of seasoned old hounds that might have been able to handle me. Could it be that he couldn’t sell his subversion-defection scenario to the old-timers in the outfit, so he had to use a couple of gullible kids?”

“He didn’t know how far the corruption had spread in the agency. He didn’t know how many of the older men…”

“Sure, sure,” I said. “He’s a very persuasive guy. Handsome and impressive, too, with that big Roman nose, the kind of man you enjoy taking orders from, right? A commanding presence, I believe it’s called. Makes you feel all warm inside to know that a man like that trusts you and has confidence in your ability to carry out his instructions even though you’re a bit short of experience. Well, no hard feelings, I hope.”

I’d already pocketed one of the silenced automatics. Now I rammed the other under my belt and held out my hand in a friendly fashion. Kid stuff: kiss and make up. He hesitated, almost falling for it, but he wasn’t quite dumb enough. I saw the sudden hope in his eyes as he realized what a beautiful opening I was giving him. He took my hand and made the obvious move. He was as fast as I’d expected, but I was ready for him. I countered with an instant wrist lock that immobilized him and left him twisted around to ease the pressure, gasping with pain. Holding him right-handed, freeing my left hand, I found the little spring-loaded hypo that was ready in my pocket, and fired it into his bare thigh.

“Relax, you’re not dying,” I said when he struggled against the agonizing grip, wide-eyed with sudden panic. “You’ll wake up in four hours as good as new. Sleep well.”

When I returned to the room I shared with Astrid Watrous, she was asleep; but she wasn’t wearing the lacy nightie in which I’d last seen her. She was lying on top of the covers, facedown, dressed like me, in jeans and jersey and rubber-soled shoes. She stirred when I closed the door behind me. After a moment she rolled over and sat up abruptly to stare at me. I saw that her face was streaked with old tears.