The Betrayers (23 page)

Mr. Soo, or whatever his name was, hesitated for a second or two. Then he said smoothly, “I told him it was a breach of hospitality, but he would insist on bringing it.” The only sign of strain he showed was that his English, surprisingly, got a little more fluent as he talked. “So there are faults on both sides, Mr. Rath. A terrible thing, but it is done. You will take care of him?”

“Yes, of course. If you still want to look aboard the boat…”

Mr. Soo smiled gently. “Not right now. I am hardly, as you say, in the mood. I will return to my tent, if you please.”

He started to walk away. Monk nodded. The nearest man stepped forward and chopped him down with the butt of a carbine, using no more force than required. There was a little silence after he had fallen.

Monk looked at the man on the ground and at me.
“There’s your shipmate, Eric.”

It was time for somebody to ask a stupid and obvious question, and I seemed to be the logical candidate. “So you and the lady from Moscow are double-crossing your Chinese associates,” I said. “What the hell kind of complicated deal are you trying to pull here, Monk?”

“Not trying, friend.” His eyes were bright and hot and intensely blue. “Pulling.”

I glanced at the girl and looked back to Monk. “With her help. Did you sell out for rubles instead of yen, is that it?”

“Nobody sold out!” His voice was harsh. “We merely discovered, shall we say, that our interests were identical in certain areas. Large areas. When the fate of mankind is at stake, friend, one takes one’s allies where one finds them! I tried to convince people in Washington, but I couldn’t find anybody who’d face the facts and do what needed doing. We’re governed by cowards and sentimentalists. I had to go elsewhere to find a realistic approach to international politics.”

“Realistic,” I said, with another glance at Irina, who kept her young face expressionless. I looked at the man she’d shot, lying there on the bank, and I remembered a woman she’d also shot, and I said, “She’s realistic, all right. Are you going to tell me about this realistic approach, amigo, or do you expect me to guess?”

Monk stepped up to Mr. Soo and with his foot contemptuously rolled the unconscious Chinese over and looked down at the broad yellow face.

“There’s the true enemy, Eric!” he said grimly. “They’re arrogant bastards. They think they can use and outsmart anybody. They thought they could use and outsmart me. They figure civilization started with them and will end with them. And unless something’s done with them soon, they may be right.”

The picture was beginning to come into focus, gradually.

“And you’re just the boy to do it,” I murmured.

“Let’s say I’m the boy to see that it gets done,” Monk said. “I’ve spent years studying them, out here in the Pacific. They’re the most dangerous people in the world, and there are more of them than there are of anybody else. Once all four hundred million of them break loose, there’ll be no stopping them. We’ve got to do it now, Eric! Now!”

I said, “And that’s what you’re really working for? You’re not protesting against the war we’ve got; quite the contrary. You’re trying to promote a bigger and better one. You figure on sinking a U.S. transport with Red Chinese equipment and having the body of a Chinese technician found on board the boat that set off the explosion. You figure that will force Washington’s hand. We’ll have to retaliate somehow, and there’ll be counter-retaliation, and what you’re really hoping is that it will build up—escalate, to use the jargon—to a nuclear payoff. Is that it?”

He smiled. “You underestimate me, Eric. I’ve made
sure
of forcing Washington’s hand. There will be found on board the boat not only a Chinese technician, but a cowardly American peacemonger fairly high in
government employment. Don’t forget yourself, my friend. Why do you think we were so careful to lure a man out from Washington, hoping for a fairly senior agent who, unlike the kids we’d hired for show, couldn’t possibly be called a dupe or a catspaw. As Irina said, you played right into our hands with your pacifist cover. Your body found on the boat along with the Chinaman’s will discredit both the pacifist groups and the wishy-washy government that tolerates them. There’ll have to be action, real action, to quiet the national uproar that will follow.”

I glanced at Irina. “And supposing you get your war, what part will her people take?”

Monk said, “They will fight with us. They’ll have to. They have just as much to lose as we have.”

“That’ll be the day,” I said.

“We fought together to defeat the Germans, didn’t we? This is a greater danger than Hitler.”

I said, “Suppose they just stand by rubbing their hands gleefully while the two largest nations they share the world with kill each other off, after which they simply move in to pick up the pieces.” I didn’t look at Irina, but I was aware that she’d stirred minutely, as if I’d touched a sensitive nerve. I said, “You’re dreaming, Monk. I won’t argue with your premise; I don’t know that much about Asiatic politics. But I don’t trust your allies.”

“They’ll have to fight,” Monk said stubbornly, his eyes hard and bright. “They know as well as we do that the fate of the white race is at stake.”

It startled me. I mean, I’m not particularly tolerant, and
I don’t really believe that everybody’s equal. Depending on what I need him for, I’ll judge a man by his IQ, or the score he makes on the target range, or the speed at which he can take a car around a track; and anybody who tries to tell me that some people aren’t brighter than others, or better shots, or faster drivers, is wasting his time. But except for recognition purposes, I’ve never found the color of a man’s skin to be of much significance in our line of work, and the idea of killing off a bunch of people just because of a slight chromatic difference seemed fairly irrational to me.

But what really startled me was hearing it from Monk. Not that he’d ever been particularly tolerant, either, back when I’d worked with him, but he’d subscribed to no special racial theories that I’d been aware of. But now it appeared that he’d bought the old yellow-peril package complete with paper and string, and I had a hunch I knew who’d sold it to him, although I was careful not to look toward the tall blonde girl in the muddy white jeans. I had certainly underestimated her, and by the looks of things I wasn’t the only one.

Well, it was bound to happen. Somebody was bound, sooner or later, to take advantage of that strain of fanaticism that I’d always mistrusted in the Monk.

During the long afternoon that followed I had plenty of opportunity to consider what I’d learned, in all its worldwide implications, but I didn’t really take advantage of it. My job is a practical one and I don’t feel comfortable in the rarefied atmosphere of theoretical international politics. I do hold a few private opinions about world affairs, fairly moderate ones, but I’m perfectly willing to admit they may be all haywire.

Hell, racial theories aside, maybe the Monk was right, and we should blast the Chinese off the face of the earth. Maybe we should have used the bomb on the Russians way back when we had it and they didn’t. Maybe we should use it on them now, regardless. Maybe we should obliterate Castro’s Cuba, or just Castro. We might even, while we were at it, do a little something about other troublesome parts of the American continents, not to mention odd areas of Africa, Asia, and Europe, if those people didn’t straighten up and fly right. There were
all kinds of interesting possibilities, once you started considering the idea of fixing up the world by armed force.

I wasn’t qualified to say that all of them were wrong—considering my profession, I’d look silly objecting to a little judicious force—but I didn’t really think the Monk was peculiarly qualified to say that one was right, not when the evidence indicated that his decision had been strongly influenced by people—one person, at least—whose motives I had no reason to trust.

In any case, it wasn’t his decision any more than it was mine. I was glad I wasn’t the man or men whose decision it was, but I was reasonably certain that it could be made without the help of any spectacular fireworks off Honolulu harbor.

My job wasn’t to judge a political policy, it was to prevent an explosion and incidentally save a few lives—although strictly speaking, as Monk had pointed out, we’re not a great, humanitarian, life-saving agency like the Red Cross or the Coast Guard. It’s not, let’s say, our primary objective. As a matter of fact, I recalled, my primary objective was to deal with a traitor. I concentrated on trying to figure out how to manage this, tied hand and foot on the floor of a guarded tent. I came to the conclusion that I was going to need a little luck. Well, one generally does.

I had company in the tent, of course, and presently I heard the man beside me come around to consciousness once more. His breathing changed, and he stirred briefly, testing his bonds. Having determined the nature of the
predicament in which he found himself, he sensibly saved his strength and lay still.

I suppose I should have talked to him, pumped him, appealed to his pride and his sense of self-preservation, and made some kind of deal to insure his cooperation, but I didn’t. I couldn’t think of anything he could tell me that I needed to know at the moment, and he was too bright, I figured, not to cooperate if it seemed to his advantage to do so—and probably too unscrupulous to stick by any deals if it didn’t.

Toward evening, Irina entered with food and water. I was interested to note that she’d exchanged her artfully tattered shirt for a whole one, equally gaudy. The guard stood by at the open tent door with his carbine ready while she untied the hands of Mr. Soo, let him eat and drink, and lashed him up again. Then it was my turn. She got a good deal of innocent fun out of my clumsy efforts to absorb nourishment with my feet still tied and my fingers stiff from bondage. Afterward, Monk came in to check the knots.

I said, “Aren’t you afraid of spoiling the evidence, Monk? Regardless of how you set up the actual killing, bodies full of rope burns and bullet holes aren’t going to look very convincing, no matter how you plant them.”

He said, “Hell, you know better than that. I remember a case where a man was found shot in a hotel room without a gun anywhere near him. Absolutely no firearm within blocks. But he’d lost a lot of money that wasn’t his and written his wife a despondent letter, and the police
called it suicide anyway, as I’d figured they would. Set it up right, and they’ll believe what they want to believe, and to hell with the so-called clues. I’ve set this one up right, believe me. All that’s required is the bodies.” He looked down at me. “Anything I can do for you, friend? A drink, a smoke, a pillow for your head? Always happy to oblige.”

He really meant it. He’d won; he could afford to be generous. Well, it was nice dealing with someone who felt no need to slug and spit in the hour of victory.

I said, “Well, I could use a nice sharp knife.”

He laughed. “Good old Eric. It’s a long way from Hofbaden, isn’t it?”

I grinned. “It’s also a pretty long way from Honolulu, amigo. You aren’t there yet.”

“That’s right, keep the old courage up,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll see you in the morning, early. Sleep well.”

I tried to settle myself comfortably on the hard floor. After I’d achieved the best compromise possible, I heard Mr. Soo’s voice, puzzled, from the growing darkness beside me.

“He speaks like a friend.”

I said, “Friend, enemy, what the hell? He’s hated me a long time. He’s feeling nostalgic; he’s going to be a little sorry to end all those fine years of hatred by killing me tomorrow. It will leave a hole in his life until he finds somebody new to hate, and he knows it.”

Mr. Soo said softly, “Incomprehensible people!”

I said, “Hell, you folks would be lost if you couldn’t
shake your fists at the U.S. twice a day. You ought to know what I mean.”

Mr. Soo said, “I will not discuss politics. I suppose you have no clever plan for escaping tonight.”

“No,” I said. “Do you?”

“Unfortunately not. I will sleep. Good night, sir.”

“Good night, Mr. Soo.”

He said, “My name is not Soo. No matter. Soo, for purposes of reference, will suffice. Good night.”

They didn’t give us much sleep. Monk had trained them well. They came in almost every hour with flashlights to check the ropes. Even so, I managed to doze off between inspections. But suddenly I found myself wide awake and sweating, although there was no man bending over me. Something had changed. The trade winds weren’t blowing any longer.

Particularly on the windward side of those islands, you get so used to the steady murmur of the wind—even in a few days—that when the trees fall silent and the little breezes stop, you look around uneasily, expecting something terrible to happen, and of course it does. At least so I’d been told. The temperature rises, dogs run mad in the streets, men jump out of high windows, and lovers part, never to meet again—until the trades start blowing once more.

This didn’t concern me, but I was thinking of a wounded woman in a small sailboat.
Straight downwind to Kalaupapa
, I’d said, but now there was no wind. Without the steady, driving trades it could take her days to make it, if she lasted that long…

Well, there was obviously nothing I could do about it, except count her out as far as the assignment was concerned. It had been a forlorn chance, anyway. Picturing what she might be going through out there wouldn’t help anybody, so I put it out of my mind, or tried.

In the morning they came for us well before daylight. It was hot and still. We were untied and led down to the inlet in the dark. Both boats had been brought out of cover and were lying against the bank, quite motionless. Soo and I were put aboard the larger one, which had a motor box in the stern, and a funny sort of propulsion unit sticking out behind the transom that looked like the sawed-off lower end of a giant outboard. I was used to the old-fashioned type of motorboat, where the power plant shared the cockpit with you and drove a propeller by means of a shaft running through the bottom of the boat, and the steering was done by a simple, old-fashioned rudder. Maybe this rig had advantages, but I wasn’t seaman enough to spot what they were.