The Vanishers (15 page)

Hi, Cousin Alan, sorry you lost your mom so young.

For some reason I wasn’t entirely comfortable about learning that Astrid’s husband was a relative of mine; perhaps my thoughts about his wife hadn’t always been as pure as they should have been. Even as this went through my mind, I heard movement on the second floor. I rose and went to the foot of the stairs.

“Are you okay?” I called.

Her head appeared above me, looking over the railing of the elaborate staircase, with a towel working on the wet blonde hair. Her shoulders were bare; maybe the invisible rest of her was, also. I found it an intriguing idea, but dismissed it firmly. She looked rosy and young and pretty.

“Yes, I am fine,” she said, “but I almost fell asleep in that great wonderful tub. Now I am really going to bed. Good night again, Matt.”

Returning to my drink, I gulped down what was left of it, and headed for the front door. Hanging on a hook in the nearby closet, I found a well-worn and grimy old tweed overcoat that had obviously been used for chores around the yard. Putting it on, I discovered to my surprise that it was large enough for me. Apparently we Stjernhjelms came in tall sizes on two continents. I slipped outside cautiously. It was a dark and misty night. The patchy snow around the house showed up vaguely in the blackness as blotches of dirty gray. After giving my eyes a little time to get accommodated, I made my way around the corner of the house and waited.

Presently a shadow moved among the nearby trees, and a voice spoke softly: “McGillivray?”

Only the more senior operatives in the outfit know Mac’s true name, in particular the middle name from which the nickname is derived. I had therefore, when I called a special number from Oslo, specified it as the contact code for this occasion.

I answered with the full name. “Arthur McGillivray Borden,” I said. “Hi, Joel.”

“You took your ever-loving time getting out here,” he said. “I’m damn’ near frozen solid. What a lousy climate!”

He was a husky character in what seemed to be tan slacks and a quilted brown ski jacket, although the exact colors were hard to determine in the dark. His head was bare. He had all his hair—thick and black—and he’d grown a bushy black moustache since I’d last seen him. Maybe it was a disguise. Tough-looking, with a pug nose, a square jaw, and heavy shoulders, he was about five years younger than I was, and he thought he could take me. Which was just one of the things I didn’t like about him; but affection between agents is not mandatory.

“Let’s get around to the other side of the house,” I said. “There’s a window I want to keep an eye on. Keep it quiet.”

“Aw, shucks, I was thinking of firing off a gun and singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’”

“Back behind those berry bushes or whatever they are,” I said. When we were established in the proper vantage spot, not too badly scratched, I said softly, “So you lost Mac.”

“Hell, I was supposed to lose him,” Joel said defensively. “My instructions were to lose him.”

“And find him again.”

“Yeah, but how? How do you track down a man who vanishes off a busy Washington sidewalk in front of a big department store?”

I considered this for a moment. “No leads at all?”

“Sure. Valuable clues. Subject purchased one tie, blue with white. Subject purchased six pairs of gray socks, size ten. I can give you the prices if you think they’ll help. Maybe it’s a code. Shit. After chasing around for a day or so and getting nowhere, I was tipped off by old Douggie Barnett that that bastard Bennett had outshuffled him for the top spot in spite of the contingency plans Mac had set up; watch out. A neat political coup, Washington style: if a vacancy comes up you want, fill it now, and dispose of any staff loyal to the previous incumbent fast. Only usually the disposal isn’t so permanent. The sonofabitch actually put a couple of juvenile bloodhounds on my trail with takeout orders.”

“Join the club,” I said.

Joel glanced at me in the dark. “You, too? Well, it figures. Bennett’s got things made the way it is; he doesn’t want Mac found by anybody. And this cutthroat agency of ours is real great for a spot of private extermination, but he didn’t pick his exterminators so good: a couple of young punks still wet behind the ears. After taking care of them, I used an escape identity I keep in reserve and headed this way to give you a hand, since you couldn’t be doing worse than I was. When I checked in with the old-boy network in Denmark, I found you’d called from Oslo telling me to get in touch if I was available, and where.”

I said, “I figured you’d come after me if you lost the trail, or never found it. If you were still alive.”

“Well, here I am, Mr. Paul Haraldsen taking a nostalgic vacation in the land of his Norse forebears.” His big white teeth flashed in the darkness as he grinned at me. “Actually, I’m a good Polack named Valdemar Konowski—you didn’t know that, did you?—and to hell with all these mad Scandihoovians, present company included. Why are we freezing our balls off out here?”

“Because I don’t want the pretty lady, or anybody else, to know I’ve got you in reserve. And because I have a hunch she’s up to something…
Shhh
!”

We were silent, listening to footsteps approaching from the direction of the road: an occasional squelching sound as a shoe found some mud still unfrozen, an occasional crunching noise as it mashed down some crusty snow. A dark figure appeared, a shadow among the dark trees. It stole forward and bent down and rose again to toss something at a dark window above, a pebble by the sound of it. The window opened and something dropped out of it to be caught by the man below. They have mostly swing-out windows over there, not the slide-up variety favored at home that are harder to manage quietly. The man stole away, not as unobtrusively as he’d have liked: I heard him swear softy in Swedish as more crusted snow crackled under his feet.

I said sadly, “I keep talking to her, telling her what a mean sonofabitch I am, but I don’t seem to make any impression.”

Val Konowski, alias Joel, said, “You’d better know there’s something going on up at the big house. Several cars have pulled in and out while I was waiting for you. Seems like a hell of a lot of traffic for a farm in the country, even an aristocratic farm in the country. You’d better watch yourself. Remember, you ain’t no Swede; you’re a goddam foreigner here. Your fancy Svenska family could be cooking up something cute for the poor American relation. Like selling him to somebody who wants to nail his hide to the barn, and mine, too.”

“It’s a thought,” I said. “Keep your eyes open. Cover me, but don’t be too damn’ quick to move in for the rescue, if anything should happen. Whoever makes a move, let them commit themselves all the way.”

“Sure. I won’t interfere until they’ve got the coffin buried and the gravestone in place.”

“Keep an eye out for Bennett’s hopeful hotshots, particularly. Try to spot them and find out what they’ll be up to next. We’ll use the regular contact routines.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Helm, sir!”

I grinned. “Good to have you on board, mister. It was getting kind of lonely, up here in the frozen north, with nothing but a beautiful woman for company.”

“I should be so lonely.” Joel hesitated. “Hey, do you really come from a bunch of barons? Far out!”

“Yeah, with that and twenty cents I can make a phone call, except where it costs a quarter. And talking about phones, there are a couple of things I’d like you to check out for me when you get a chance. I shouldn’t be needing you here until I’ve had tea at the baronial hall tomorrow afternoon, so in the meantime…”

I gave him his instructions, and waited while he slipped away into the dark. Being friendly with people I don’t like but have to work with always makes me feel slightly fraudulent. But I had to hand it to him, even though he was a husky specimen, he made less noise than Astrid’s midnight visitor. Well, people will keep sending amateurs to do the work of pros.

I stood there leaning against a tree trunk in the misty darkness, comfortable in my borrowed coat, telling myself that this ancestral-homeland routine was a lot of bull. My folks had left this country for reasons that seemed good to them, and there was really nothing pulling me back. I had a home, three thousand miles away. At least I had a perfectly good apartment in Washington, D.C. And if I wasn’t really a big-city man at heart—and I wasn’t—my spiritual home, if you wanted to get fancy, was out in the wide, arid, sunny American Southwest, where I’d lived both as a boy and a married man. Not in this cold and wet and gloomy little northern land where I could manage the language only clumsily.

Still, I’d been brought up on the old Norse names and legends. King Olaf Tryggvason sailing to his doom among the islands, at a place called Föret, where a great coalition of rival sea-kings lay in wait for him and his ship,
Ormen Lange
, the
Long Serpent.
Styrbjörn Starke landing his invading army not too far from where I stood, and burning his ships before marching on Uppsala, to let his men know that, one way or another, they were there to stay. And they were; they died right there, all of them, driven back to the beach and the smoking embers of the ships that had brought them. I could visualize the final stand: the shield wall shrinking as men fell and those still standing closed ranks above the bodies, the long bloody swords and great gory axes cleaving and smashing under the dull sky while the flights of arrows searched for the weak points in the heavy chain mail that got even heavier as the deadly day wore on…

“Matt?”

The metallic din of the ancient battle faded. I saw that the side door of the house was opening.

I said, “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

Astrid stepped out onto the little stoop, an incongruous figure in the chilly night in the flimsy lingerie I’d bought her. I went up the steps and reached for her wrists and raised them until the lace fell back to show that her hands were empty.

I said, “I told you to keep that Smith & Wesson handy.”

“You’ve been watching out here? I was afraid you might be.”

“I’ve been watching.”

“Don’t be angry, please. It’s not what you think. I mean, it’s not a dark plot against you. Please believe that.”

“We’ll see,” I said. “But when I’m responsible for somebody, friend or enemy, I like them to follow my instructions at least a little.”

She hesitated. “I know, but it just didn’t seem… advisable.”

“Advisable?”

“You weren’t in the house; I couldn’t find you. I was afraid that if you were actually out here, if you’d seen… Well, if you were angry with me, suspicious of me, I didn’t want to run into you with a pistol in my hand and maybe have you misunderstand and do something… something hasty.”

“You mean, like Wild Bill Hickok shot his best friend because, according to the version I heard, the stupid bastard came blundering into the alley behind him with a drawn revolver when Hickok had just fought his way out of an ambush and didn’t know who else might be gunning for him?”

“Something like that.” She laughed softly. “It’s really rather like playing house with a saber-toothed tiger. You have to be so careful not to startle the beast.”

“Flattery, flattery,” I said. “What man minds being Called a tiger?”

“What are you doing out here, anyway, Matt? Now that you’ve seen me pass the secret message.”

“What secret message?” I shook my head quickly. “Never mind. I won’t put you to the trouble of making up a lot of lies. I presume it will all become clear in time. And if you must know, I was just fighting the battle of Uppsala. It must have taken place somewhere around here.”

“Actually, I believe this was seabottom back in those days. The beach on which they fought must have been farther inland. Styrbjörn the Strong burned his ships within sight of the church at Old Uppsala, remember? The famous one that’s still standing.”

“That’s right. I’d forgotten that detail. But how do you know it?”

“My father was enthusiastic about all Scandinavian history, not just the Finnish part. He used to tell me the old sagas, even though they were not very suitable entertainment for a small female child, all that torture and bloodshed.”

I said, “Well, we’d better get you back inside, or find you some long wool underwear. Inside is more practical.” I guided her through the door and locked it behind us. I found a light switch, and studied her for a moment in the sudden illumination, and said, “It would really be very nice to know what the hell is going on here, Astrid. I suppose I could beat it out of you.”

“I suppose you could,” she said without expression. “I am not very brave. But it is not my secret, and you will know all about it tomorrow afternoon.”

“When we go to the big house for tea?” I asked, still watching her. She nodded. I said, “It looks as if that could turn out to be quite a tea party the young baron and his wife are throwing for us.”

She said quietly, “Please, you must do nothing drastic. Nothing violent. I promise there is no threat to you. Or your country, our country. Quite the contrary. Remember that your chief assigned you to help me, after I had told him what would be required of you and why.”

“And after you’d made yourself sick as a dog. Well, bitch.”

She hesitated. “All right. That, too.”

I said, “I have only your word for how much you told him, and how much of that was the truth. And not much of a word, at that. I never saw such a close-mouthed wench.”

“Yes.” She smiled at me, and reached up to touch my cheek. “Of course, I could try to distract you from all these questions with that ancient Mata Hari nonsense, but you are much too experienced and cynical to fall for that, are you not, darling?”

The brown eyes, which contrasted so strikingly with the fair hair, were laughing at me.

I said, “Oh, God, the old seduction routine. You seem to forget that you’re supposed to be a sick lady.”

“You could try to make me well.” She grimaced. “That is pretty terrible dialogue, is it not? I always wondered how those fascinating females worked up to… to the subject. You do not trust me, of course; but have you ever made love to someone you did not trust? I think, after these days together, we are both curious. You have been wondering what it would be like, what I would be like. I certainly hope you have. And maybe I have been wondering what you would be like. This may be our last chance to find out. If you lock the door carefully and keep your pistols handy… I am certain you have managed love before under somewhat risky circumstances, a man like you. And actually there is no risk. You say we have thrown off the ones who were following us, and you are not wanted hurt or dead by anyone here, quite the contrary.” She studied me for a moment longer. There was a challenge in her eyes. “Well, what is it to be, my dear? Shall we proceed upstairs?”