Operation Stranglehold

THERE WAS ONLY ONE WAY TO GET OFF THE TRAIN …

I made a loose bundle out of our clothing, unscrewed my lighter and poured the fluid over the bundled material. I touched a light to it and it burned—fast with a clean pure flame. In seconds there was a pronounced acrid smell and gray-looking smoke billowing about the compartment.

Suddenly there were screams of
“Fuego! Fuego!”
and the entire car boiled into motion as passengers fled their compartments.

I swung open our outer door. The train began to slow down. Now was the moment for us to get away. “Jump,” I shouted above the din in the car.

“For God’s sake, jump!”

Hazel was still asleep when I eased out of bed. I
dressed quietly and went downstairs to the ranch house kitchen where I heated up the remains of last night’s coffee in the percolator on the big gas range. Hazel doesn’t like instant coffee. I downed a half cup of the resultant steaming brew. Ambrosia it wasn’t, but it shocked me wide awake.

I walked down the gravel path from the kitchen to the barn, an added-onto, weathered structure behind which were split-rail corrals. The early-morning Nevada sunlight seared my eyeballs which had gazed upon a few too many before-the-fireplace brandies the night before. Overhead, the hard, bright blue of the mountain-valley sky formed a brilliant canopy for Hazel’s ranch and its backdrop of hills.

Inside the barn I took three boxes of 9-mm. Parabellum ammunition from an oak chest. It’s a useful cartridge because it’s interchangeable among a number of weapons, including my Smith & Wesson 9-mm. automatic and several European handguns. I always like to be sure that the ammo I’m using is dependable and does what I expect it to do.

A battered Jeep was parked in front of the barn. I backed it inside and hitched up to a low-sided trailer loaded with old tires. Then I drove the Jeep and trailer along the pine-bordered, deeply rutted route to the ranch’s gravel pit. Its aggregate was used to repair the constant ravages of rain, frost, snow, and wind erosion to the ranch road that led out to the highway a mile beyond.

I drove around the pit to its unworked side, away from the ranch house. The hillside serves as a sound baffle. Hazel never likes to hear my target practice. She equates it with my background of lawlessness. I put the Jeep in four-wheel drive and aimed it up a steep hillside trail I’d slashed through juniper and scrub oak with an ax and quarts of perspiration.

At the top of the hill a long, wooden, inclined chute tilted downward over the craggy, brush-filled terrain below. I loaded tires Indian-file into the chute after I’d stuffed their centers with roughly rounded-off cardboard sections. These were my targets. At the bottom of the hill there was a dangling rope which operated a bar gate at the end of the chute, and allowed me to release one tire at a time to go bouncing wildly down the uneven slope.

I took the Jeep back down the bumpy trail and parked, then walked to the release rope. I removed my automatic from its Bianchi belt-holster, sighted once, and pulled the rope. High above me a tire dribbled from the end of the chute, bounced high, then started its free-wheeling, careening descent of the hillside.

I had self-imposed shooting limits for these cavorting targets. When they reached it, I never knew whether the tires would be high or low, right or left, or heading right at me. It was wing-shooting at its least predictable, but an eighteen-month session of daily handgun practice in an Oregon lumber camp while I was avoiding the attention of irritated police departments had left me capable of shooting results equaled only by trick-shot artists.

The first tire ran low through brush and rocks until it hit a boulder and soared in a graceful arc. It swerved at a sharp angle before hitting another and zooming skyward again. It was high and to the left when it reached the shooting area. I fired twice before it crossed the road and disappeared into the woods.

For the next twenty minutes I pulled the rope, released tires, and fired steadily, pausing only to reload the three clips I kept interchanging in the automatic. Sometimes I had four tires coming down the hill at the same time. When the chute was empty, I scoured the wooded area across the road for the downed tires. A pleasing number of the cardboard centers had bullet punctures. Some holes were small and clean-looking from wide-angle shots, while others were jagged serrations from almost head-on snap shots.

I drove up the hill and reloaded the chute after I collected the tires. I was halfway through the second series of rope-releases when Hazel’s red MG squirted around the end of the gravel pit and pulled in behind the ranch Jeep.

I let two tires bound across the road unmolested while I reholstered my automatic. Hazel’s six-foot figure was clad in its usual ranch costume: faded Levis, a sleeveless buckskin vest exposing her milky-skinned arms, and silver-conched cowboy boots. Her flaming red hair looked as though it hadn’t been visited by a comb that morning.

“Expecting visitors, Earl?” she called when she scrambled from the MG and was still striding toward me.

“No. Why?”

“Manuel Benitez just called from town and said two strangers had asked how to find Earl Drake.”

I’m Earl Drake, although no one will ever find a birth certificate that says so. Benitez is a Spanish-speaking post office employee, part of Hazel’s early-warning system in Ely, the town nearest the ranch. It’s almost impossible for anyone to approach the place unannounced. Strangers have to ask directions, and when they do Hazel gets a telephone call.

“Did Benitez say what they wanted?” I asked.

“To find you. Manuel overheard one of the other clerks giving directions to the ranch. They’re on the way now.”

I didn’t like it.

Nobody should be looking for Earl Drake at the ranch who didn’t already know how to find him. Not too many people know me as Drake, for that matter, and some who do I’m not fussy about seeing again.

“It’s not trouble, is it, Earl?” Hazel asked. She looked and sounded anxious. It’s not unpleasant having her concerned about me. She’s not only a big girl, but a beautiful one. She doesn’t care about my past unless it threatens our present.

“I don’t think so,” I soothed her. “But we’d better go back and set up so I can look them over while you’re talking to them.”

We got into her car. Hazel slid into the driver’s seat and slammed through the gears. “Look!” she exclaimed when we came in sight of the ranch house.

She needn’t have said a word.

A dust boil was proceeding rapidly along the mile-long gravel road leading from the highway to the ranch.

“Benitez didn’t know anything about what they wanted?”

“You know how fast he talks. I’m not sure I understood it all.” Hazel had learned Spanish from her second husband, mystery man Lou Espada. “I don’t think Manuel knew anything about them.”

“Stand out in the center of the yard,” I directed. “Don’t go into the house with them. I’ll be watching from the barn.” I unpeeled my legs from the confining shell of the MG and walked rapidly toward the barn.

Hazel stood in a casual attitude, watching the dust-covered car approach. Hard-driven, it entered the yard full-bore and braked to a skidding stop. The car had rental plates.

Two men got out and walked toward Hazel.

They were easterners; the cut of their business suits announced that.

They weren’t cops; I have a built-in radar for fuzz.

There was something coplike in their confident, swaggering attitude, though.

“Hey, sister,” the smaller one said to Hazel. He had a sharp-looking, keen-bladed, weasel face. “If the corn around here grows half as tall as you, the farmers must be laughing all the way to the bank.” He cackled loudly at his own humor.

“Cut the comedy, Bruno,” his companion said. Bulkier, with a wrestler’s shoulders, he sounded impatient.

I could hear the voices clearly.

“What can I do for you?” Hazel asked levelly.

“Well, now,” Bruno remarked in an exaggerated drawl, “I dunno about ol’ Smitty here, but
my
priorities just changed.” He paused to give his new witticism time enough to be appreciated. “What’re you doin’ tonight, sister?”

“Shut up,” the burly Smitty ordered. “Ma’am, do you know a man named Earl Drake?”

“I’ve heard of him,” Hazel answered.

“We wanna talk to him,” Bruno thrust in. Obviously he wasn’t a man used to being excluded from conversations.

“He’s not here,” Hazel said.

“We were told he is!” Bruno snapped. He glanced toward the house. “I’ll look inside, Smitty.”

“The hell you will!” Hazel said briskly. I could tell from the tone of her voice no less than her choice of language that she was starting to heat up. “Unless you’re police with a warrant.” Neither man said anything. “Who are you?”

“She’s a nosy bitch, isn’t she?” Bruno said patronizingly. “You take the house, Smitty. I’ll take the barn.” He shouldered Hazel aside roughly as he started to walk toward me.

She caught up to him in two long strides. Her knuckled fist, accelerating at the end of her healthy right arm, exploded massively under Bruno’s right ear. He went sideways in a staggering trot, then lost his balance altogether and sprawled heavily on hands and knees in the dusty ranch yard.

The big man, Smitty, brayed with laughter in a surprisingly high-pitched voice. Hazel blew on her knuckles while Bruno lurched to his feet, his weasel face dark with rage. He started toward Hazel, fists raised. “Goddam wise-ass cunt,” he snarled.

I found my automatic in my hand without being conscious of having drawn it.

Its barrel was still warm from my target practice.

I could see Bruno starting a roundhouse swing.

“Hold it!” I shouted, stepping out into view.

Bruno never even looked around.

I snapped off a shot.

The little man yelped, grabbed at his shoulder, spun halfway around, then collapsed in the dirt for the second time. He was on his back, whimpering.

Bruno’s screech of pain and the sharp CR-RACK! of the automatic were still echoing from the nearby hills when I walked toward the frozen tableau in the center of the yard. I carried the automatic loosely in my hand. “I’m Drake,” I said to the popeyed Smitty.

“You—you—you s-shot him!” he stammered. He backed away, whitefaced, his eyes riveted on the Smith & Wesson.

It wasn’t the reaction I’d anticipated. I’d concentrated on the big man after Bruno hit the dirt again, expecting Smitty to go for his own hardware. “Frisk him,” I told Hazel.

She moved behind Smitty and gave him a thorough once-over, just as I’d taught her. She quick-patted him right down to his ankles. “Not even a Boy Scout knife,” she reported. She was careful not to intrude upon my line of fire as she moved away from the big man. Without instruction, she knelt behind the moaning Bruno, who was sitting up. “Nothing,” she said when she completed her second body-search.

It didn’t make sense.

They weren’t cops, and they weren’t hoods.

Then what the hell were they?

I moved toward Bruno and stared down at him. He’d been looking extremely sorry for himself, but he glared up at me. “I’ll fix your wagon!” he rasped. “Goddam motherfu—”

I punctuated his expletive with a gumful of gun-butt. He went over backward, mewling, both hands cupped to his bleeding mouth. I turned to Smitty, who despite his size shrank away. “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

He wet his lips nervously. “We’ve got a l-letter for you.” His voice was unsteady. “If you’re Drake,” he added.

“A letter?” It was such an anticlimax I couldn’t believe it, but the big man nodded. “Hand it over.”

He pointed at his blubbering partner. “He’s got it.”

Hazel again approached Bruno from the rear. She raised a lapel of his jacket and removed a cream-colored envelope from his inside breast pocket. She glanced at it, then straightened up, walked around Bruno, and handed it to me. The envelope had
EARL DRAKE
neatly typed on its front. There was no address. I turned it over. The back flap had a gob of red sealing wax on it. Impressed upon the wax was a bold-looking W in Old English style.

I ripped open the envelope.

There was a single sheet of the same cream-colored, stiff-feeling paper. A duplicate of the Old English W was embossed in red at the head of the page. A two-line message was carefully centered. It said
KARL ERIKSON IN SPANISH PRISON BADLY INJURED. COME TO WASHINGTON IMMEDIATELY FOR INSTRUCTIONS.

There was no date.

The typed signature said Edwin Winters.

I didn’t know an Edwin Winters.

I did know a Karl Erikson.

He was a government agent employed by sub rosa Washington groups to pull their hottest chestnuts from the fire. He’d run across me when I was reaching into the wrong cookie jar, and ever since he’d provided me with a police-proof federal umbrella in exchange for my help with a few of his wild problems. The last one had seen us wind up in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

I’d already made up my mind there would be no more adventures after that one, despite the implied threat that the umbrella would be removed if I didn’t continue to cooperate. Now it looked as though the umbrella had been blown somehow without my having a word to say about it. I refolded the message and slipped it into my pocket. I didn’t want Hazel to see it. She likes Erikson. I don’t exactly hate him myself. I was just tired of the trouble that follows him around.

“Do you know what this says?” I asked Smitty, tapping the pocket that held the letter.

“No,” he answered. He anticipated my next question. “He—” he waved at Bruno “—doesn’t, either.”

So Bruno and Smitty were errand boys.

In Bruno’s case, a bad-mannered, foul-mouthed, incompetent errand boy.

Just thinking about the position they’d put me in had the back of my neck feeling hot. Only Karl Erikson could have sent them to Ely to find me. Or Erikson’s office, now that I thought of it. But regardless of the circumstances, I’d blasted a government man. Right now I had just two things in mind: getting off the ranch before any more idiots came blundering down the same pipeline, and then setting Hazel and me up some place where Erikson’s people couldn’t find us. If the umbrella I’d thought I had leaked morons like this pair, I wanted no more of it.

“Drive out to the strip and get the plane ready,” I told Hazel. She flies a Cessna 310N I’d given her from some ill-gotten gains. The Cessna was staked down a half mile away on the ranch landing strip I’d bulldozed.

Hazel went directly to her car. One of her unfeminine traits is that she can follow orders in a crisis. She can turn feminine as hell, though, when the mood music is appropriate.

“Get that damn fool inside,” I said to Smitty when Hazel’s red MG roared away. The big man lifted the whining Bruno and half led, half carried his wobbly legged partner into the house. I directed the pair through the kitchen into the “old” livingroom. There is an almost palatial “new” part of the house that Hazel added recently. “Why did you come to Ely looking for me?” I asked Smitty when he’d put Bruno on a couch.