Hamilton, Donald - Matt Helm 14 (28 page)

           
He started by slapping me, which was
childish. His smooth, handsome, politician's face was kind of white-pink with
rage and fear; and his eyes actually seemed to bulge slightly from their
sockets. He looked like a good candidate for a coronary, but I knew I'd never
be so lucky. It was my job. I'd flubbed it once but I'd have to take care of it
eventually.

           
The trick was staying alive long
enough to do it. There was, at the moment, no possibility of help from Martha,
bound and guarded. I saw the lady senator standing in the doorway aft, taking
in the scene in the crowded cabin. I realized that she was my best bet. She
hadn't got where she was by being stupid.

           
Leonard gave me another peevish
whack across the cheek, like an irritable mother disciplining an infuriating
child.

           
"How many?" he demanded in
a choked voice. "How many cold-blooded assassinations-"

           
I laughed in his face. "Says
the man who sent an agent clear to
Mexico
to shoot me in the back with a scoped-up
7mm rifle! Don't talk to me about cold-blooded assassinations, Leonard!

           
Who started it? How many of our
people did you actually manage to have murdered, trying clumsily to wipe us
out?" I laughed again. "What the hell made you think you could play
the killing game with us, little man? We're pros, not political dilettantes.
You never had a chance, any more than if you tried racing on the same track
with the
Unser
brothers, or playing golf with Palmer
and Trevino."

           
I couldn't tell whether or not my
arrogant speech impressed the gray-haired woman in the doorway; but it stung
Leonard to fury, which was almost as good. After all, who wants an ally who
flips his lid in a crisis? He came at me with both hands, this time knocking me
back against the cushions of the lounge.

           
"How many?"

           
I shook my head to clear it. "I
don't know how many," I said. "It doesn't matter. You can be sure
there were enough. Since last night, when you were playing hide-and-seek in
this mangrove labyrinth, you haven't got an organization any more. All you've
got is a bunch of scared civil servants waiting for lightning to strike them
out of a blue sky. A runaway truck. A bullet out of nowhere. A little synthetic
heart failure or plague in the morning milk. They know, little man, they know.
They know that the one who takes your orders from now on, dies. Try it. Pick up
your pretty blue phone. Have your radioman connect you. To anybody-of the ones
still alive, I mean. See if the person you reach will snap to attention at the
sound of your voice, or laugh at you. Or curse you for a bungling, ambitious
incompetent who got a lot of his friends and associates killed. Go ahead. Try
it!"

           
It was a bluff, of course. Actually,
I suspected, Mac had been very careful not to let the night's operations take
on the aspects of a nationwide bloodbath. The dead had, I figured, all been
agency people, of one undercover agency or another in Leonard's shaky empire.
Well, agents are always getting themselves killed, and the machinery stands
forever ready to hush it up so as not to attract attention. It would take time
before those in the know added up a freeway crash here and a drowning there
and, realizing that they'd happened on the same night, came up with something
resembling the right answer, which by that time would be ancient history.

           
Nevertheless, it sounded good, I
thought; and a worried look on the face of the man guarding Martha confirmed my
opinion. He looked like a man beginning to wonder if he'd bet more than he
could afford on the wrong nag. I hoped Mrs. Love was having similar thoughts; but
her face was harder to read.

           
"Well?" I said, when Leonard
didn't move. "Aren't you going to call the roll of your trusty henchmen?
Try the fellow running your show in
Phoenix
,
Arizona
, for instance. What was his name, now? Bainbridge, Joseph W.
Bainbridge. Give him a ring. I doubt he'll answer, but don't take my word for
it. Or the woman in
Chicago-
"

           
He swung a fist at my head, and
connected
glancingly
, and stepped back nursing his
bruised hand. "
Jernegan
!" he gasped.

           
"Yes, Chief."

           
"Take him into the pilot house
and work him over!"

           
"Yes, sir!"

           
It was the woman who stopped it
last, as I'd hoped she would. By that time, they were all gathered in the
pilothouse watching the show; and the young boatman, a tougher specimen than
either of the two who'd been guarding Martha and me, was obliging with a performance
that made up in enthusiasm for what it lacked in skill. I was playing right up
to him, of course. If I do say so myself, I'm pretty good at letting myself be
knocked down in the way that hurts the least.

           
I've had lots of practice in absorbing
that kind of punishment. You'd be surprised at the faith people have in the
power of fists. As far as I'm concerned, beating a man up is a good way to get
yourself killed-for every dozen or so you manage to intimidate that way,
there'll always be one who just gets mad and comes back with a gun. I started
getting a little mad myself as the ordeal went on; and I was sustaining myself
by thinking of all the fun I'd have carrying out my instructions regarding
Herbert Leonard, when Mrs. Love finally stepped forward impatiently.

           
"Stop it!" she snapped.
"Herbert, you're wasting time. Call off your boy."

           
"We have to have the
information. If it bothers you to watch-"

           
"My dear man, I've seen blood
before. I was raised on a farm, and when it was time for a chicken dinner, I
was the girl who was handed the hatchet. This wouldn't bother me a bit if you
were getting somewhere, but you aren't. I think you'd better let somebody else
interrogate the man while he can still talk."

           
"What makes you think
you-"

           
"What makes me think an elderly
female can succeed where you strong young males have failed? My dear man, it's
a matter of psychology. May I have a knife, please?"

           
"Mrs. Love-"

           
"A knife, Mr. Leonard. If you
please! Thank you."

           
Lying on the floor, pretending to be
in very bad shape-which didn't take hell of a lot of acting-I waited for her to
approach, wondering if I'd misjudged her. If so, I was in serious trouble; but
her footsteps went the other way, to the little group by the electronics
department consisting of the radio operator, Martha, and her guard.

           
I heard Mrs. Love's voice.
"Turn around, girl. Hold out your wrists. That's right. There you are. Now
clean up your friend so I can see his expression when I talk with him. Young
man, you with the gun, lend her your handkerchief and fetch her a pan of water
from the kitchen. If you please!"

           
Then Martha was kneeling beside me,
dabbing at my face. She was making the commiserating noises to be expected
under the circumstance, but I was listening to Mrs. Love arguing with Leonard.

           
"You've tried your way,
Herbert," she was saying. "Now let me try mine. . . . All right,
girl. He's presentable enough. Help him up. . . . Mr. Helm, you're not
unconscious. Don't try to fool an old woman. Over there on the settee. Good.
Now go back where you were, girl, and behave yourself, or you'll find yourself
tied up again so fast it will make your head swim. . . . Mr. Helm?"

           
I wasn't unconscious, of course, but
things were a trifle hazy. I looked up at the motherly figure in the printed
dress, with the neatly waved blue-gray hair, and said, "Yes, ma'am."

           
"We've been trying to get the
answers to a few questions-"

           
"No, ma'am," I said.

           
She frowned quickly. "What do
you mean?"

           
"He's been trying," I
said. "You haven't been trying."

           
She studied me for a moment.
"Are you saying you'll talk to me, Mr. Helm? Why to me and not to
him?"

           
"Why should I waste time
talking to a dead man?" I asked. "I was kidding him along before you
got here, telling him he'd be allowed to live, but it isn't true. I can't tell
him anything that'll save him, and wouldn't if I could. Anyway, I can't let him
go to his death thinking he can beat information out of a trained, experienced
agent. He's got enough misconceptions about this racket already. There are
methods, sure, but they don't involve fists."

           
Leonard, standing at the head of the
ladder leading down and aft, with
Jernegan
and my former
escort,
Bostrom
, beside him, stirred indignantly.

           
Mrs. Love snapped, "Be quiet, Herbert.
You've had your turn. Mr. Helm?"

           
"Yes, ma'am."

           
"Am I a dead woman?"

           
"Nobody's after you that I know
of, Mrs. Love."

           
"Why Mr. Leonard and not
me?"

           
"You're not one of us, ma'am.
What you do isn't our concern. But he is, or he's trying to be, and he's sold
out. He's tried to use his country's undercover services for private political
purposes-"

           
"My purposes, Mr. Helm."

           
"Sure, but there are always
ambitious politicians who'd like to use us," I said. "Their
ambitions-your ambitions-have nothing to do with us. We're not responsible for
keeping the whole world honest. What does concern us is us. Any time an agent
sells out, or allows his knowledge or skill or training to be employed for
private purposes, that's a black mark against the whole profession. At least I
figure that's how my chief feels about it. He's spent most of his life at this
business, and he has very strong opinions about the place of agencies like ours
in a democratic society-strong enough for him to pass the death sentence on any
agent who abuses his privileged position as Leonard has done and led a lot of
others to do."

           
The woman was silent for a little.
When she spoke again, it was on a totally different subject. "Why do you
call me 'ma'am'?"

           
"Perhaps you remind me of a
teacher I once had, Mrs. Love."

           
"Probably a tough old
biddy," she said. "Well, we're wasting time. Let's get to the
questions Mr. Leonard was asking you. How many?"

           
"I don't know."

           
Her eyes narrowed. "I can have
that energetic young man turned loose on you again."

           
"I don't know, ma'am," I
repeated. "That's the truth. All I know is that I was responsible for a
list of ten names, and I have no reason to believe they weren't taken care of
by the people I assigned to them."

           
"Tell us the names."

           
"Leonard already has
them."

           
Mrs. Love turned quickly. "Is
that true, Herbert?"

           
The white-haired man hesitated.
"Well, yes, they fed me some kind of a list through the girl, there. I
didn't really believe it, of course-"

           
"Why not?"

           
"Who could conceive that a
supposedly civilized man like Arthur Borden would plan a deliberate
massacre-"

           
"Your men have been shooting at
his, I understand. What's so inconceivable about his shooting at yours? What
steps did you take when you received this information?"

           
"I. . . I warned the
individuals in question and arranged for protection where it seemed to be
required. However, we were given the wrong date. We were led to believe that
the attempt, if it was made at all, would be made on the seventeenth of the month,
two days from now."

           
Mrs. Love regarded him coldly. She
said, "But you did know, and your agents were warned, and they died
anyway? I'd hardly call that an attempt, Herbert. I'd call it a successful
execution of a carefully laid plan."