The Living Death (3 page)

"Nothing, if you're telling the truth," I answered. "And well find that out when we visit your boyfriend. But till I'm certain of it, I'm going to keep you out of trouble."

More silence followed. I could feel her trying to decide whether to go along quietly or try to break for it. She kept glancing at me and she had more than enough street wisdom to read the score right. She also had enough guttersnipe in her to use everything she could in self-protection.

"I'll bet you re a bit of all right in other ways, too," she said, giving me a sly, sidelong glance.

"Maybe," I said. "Would you like to find out?" Two could play her little game, what the hell.

I might," she said, gaining immediate confidence at my rising to the bait. Her cleverness was of such a low-grade transparency I felt almost ashamed.

"Maybe well look into it," I said. "But I've got to wait for a phone call first."

She settled back and I could feel the tension go out of her, confident she had bought a degree of safety with the age-old weapons of woman.

When we reached my room at the hotel, my watch read five minutes to two. Vicky obediently sat down in a stuffed chair, letting me see plenty of leg. At precisely two a.m., the phone rang. It was a woman's voice again, but this time the accent Hawk had described was there, heavy, Russian or Slavic. I had thoroughly memorized the identification code she had set up and I waited.

"You have come to see me?" the woman's voice asked.

"I have come to see you," I echoed.

"Why?"

"Because you wanted me to come."

"Why did I want you to come?"

"Because the world needs help."

There was an almost inaudible sigh of relief, and then the heavily accented voice went on.

"You will go to Alton. Walk along the west bank of the Wey River. A quarter of a mile above Alton, you will find a rowboat. Take it and row toward Selborne. Stop at the second stone bridge. At dawn, six o'clock, I will meet you there. Do you understand clearly?"

"Perfectly," I answered. The phone clicked off and went dead. But the call had proven three very important things. First, that the original message to AXE had indeed been legitimate. Two, the woman was still alive, and three, she was being closely watched. Whoever was watching her had known about her call to AXE and decided to play it through, watch for my arrival and nail me. The question now was whether they'd get to her before I did. It all depended on how soon they found out their trap for me had backfired. I turned to Vicky.

"Take your stockings off, honey," I said. She looked up at me, indecision in her eyes and then, as I watched, she stood up, lifting her dress to unclasp her garter belt. She had a round little belly under white, modest panties.

"I'll take them," I said, reaching for the stockings. Sudden uncertainty tinged with apprehension leaped into her eyes. "What for?" she said. "What are you up to? I thought we were going to get chummier, luv."

She was still in there pitching. I grinned inwardly.

"The answer to that is still 'maybe, " I said. "Right now I have to go somewhere and I want to be sure you'll be here when I get back."

I tied her to a straight-backed chair, using the stockings to securely bind her ankles and wrists. Women's stockings make excellent bonds for a short period of time. They are resilient but tough. I put a handkerchief gag in her mouth, taking care to see that it was tight enough to keep her quiet and loose enough to keep her from suffocating.

"Don't bother answering the door," I said to her as I left. Her eyes glowered at me from above the gag. To add insurance, I hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the outside of the door and hurried downstairs. It was a quarter to three and I hadn't any time to waste. Vicky's little Sunbeam Imp was no Aston-Martin either.

The London streets were deserted now, except for a few girls still hopefully wandering about. Alton was south and a little west of London and I took the Old Brompton Road through Kensington and Chelsea. There was little traffic and hardly any when I got out of London. I bore down on the little car and winced as the engine strained. The ever-present curves of the English country roads kept me plenty alert as I passed road signs with the very English names of Brookwood, Farnborough, Aldershot.

Alton, when I reached it, was silent and sleeping. I found the wandering river Wey, really not much more than a large, placid stream, and pulled the Sunbeam off the road under a cluster of sturdy oaks. I began to walk along the west bank and saw that the sky was beginning to hint at the coming dawn. The woman's instructions had failed to mention the English fog which, alongside the river, was thick and constant I had to walk slowly to avoid going into the river by accident. Occasionally, the fog would lift enough for me to get a glimpse a few feet ahead. It was at just such a break that I avoided falling over the rowboat pulled halfway up on the bank. I pushed off into the water and began to row. Fogbound, silent, the only sound the soft splash of the oars in the water, I was in a world of my own. The gray of dawn was coming up, but it did nothing to dispel the fog. That would take the sun, which in England seldom burned it away until mid-morning. Then, looming up ahead, barely visible, I saw the arch of a footbridge over the river and caught a brief glimpse of the heavy stones that formed the arch. I passed underneath, rowing a little faster.

My eyes hurt from trying to peer through the fog. About a third of a mile on I dimly made out another bridge span. When I passed under it I saw it was a wooden bridge, with rails of wood and sides of log. I kept rowing and then, around a curve, I saw another arched bridge, ghostly, ethereal, substance made shadow by the fog. When I reached the bridge I saw the stones forming the arched sides. Only the walkway was wood planking. I stopped the rowboat and waited in the silent, shrouded river. My watch read six o'clock. I counted the minutes that passed. Two, three, five, ten. I wondered. Had they gotten to her first? Then I heard the sound of oars dipping into the water. I took Wilhelmina out and held her in my hand. The other boat, my ears told me, was coming from upriver and would pass under the bridge to get to me. Slowly, the rowboat began to materialize, more a shadowy shape than anything else. All I could see was the upright form of someone seated at the oars. The boat halted a distance from me, the voice across the water the same one I'd spoken to on the telephone. Obviously, the woman had chosen this spot because of the fog. She wanted to be sure I didn't see her.

"Good, you have come," she said. Her accent in person was, if anything, heavier. From her voice, I guessed she was not a young woman.

"First, you must understand something," she said, speaking with deliberate slowness for emphasis. "I am not a traitor. Do you understand that?"

"I have nothing to understand so far," I answered.

"I know they are watching me," she went on. "I spoke out too freely about how I felt They might decide to send me away any moment. That's why I had to arrange this meeting."

I decided to say nothing about the attempt on me, at the moment. She plainly was unaware how closely she was being watched. If I told her what had happened I had the feeling she might clam up and take off. The woman transmitted great inner torment, even in her fogbound, disembodied voice.

"I would not betray my country, do you understand?" she said again. "You must not ask me any questions that would do that. I will tell you only what I have decided to tell you. Is that clear?"

The thought of her being a traitor was bothering her tremendously. She seemed to be trying to convince herself, more than me, that she wasn't being disloyal. I wanted her to get on with it. The
iog
would be lightening before long and God knows what other complications might set in then.

"I will understand when you tell me what you have to say," I answered. "Suppose you start at the beginning.

"I just cannot sit by and watch it go on any longer," the woman said. "These men have a value to the world that comes before anything else. I cannot see it any other way."

"What men?" I pressed.

"It is a terrible thing," she said. "I thought long about it before I made up my mind."

She never went any further. The shot split the foggy air and I saw her figure topple silently forward, face down, into the rowboat. I dived to the bottom of my boat as the second shot thunked into the wood of the seat Whoever he was, he was a helluva a good shot, and he had a rifle. He was too accurate for a hand gun in this fog. The boat was drifting toward the bridge where he obviously was. In moments he'd be able to shoot right down at me. My fingers found the edge of the gunwale. Pressing down hard with my leg muscles, I half jumped, half flipped myself over the side. His shot sent slivers flying from the gunwale where my hand had been but I was underwater already. Fully clothed, I knew I hadn't much time underwater and I struck out for the bridge, surfacing underneath it just as my wind gave out. I treaded water, listening to the footsteps above on the wooden walkway of the little bridge. He'd already figured out where I would head and he was on his way to the end of the span. I swam for the same end, the wet clothes feeling as though I'd bags of cement tied to me.

Where the bridge arched down to the shore, I pressed myself against the flat underside of the span, still in the water but at the very edge of the bridge underside. I heard a loose stone roll into the water. He was carefully moving down the embankment. I hung there, waiting. The muzzle end of the rifle appeared first as he came carefully nosing down to the water's edge. Then he appeared, crouched over, his eyes searching the wispy fog floating beneath the bridge. He was a slender, wiry man wearing a one-piece coverall. Pushing off against the underside of the bridge, using the strength of my shoulder muscles, I dived at him. He spun at the sound but I was on him, catching him around the waist. He lost his footing and went backwards off the bank into the river with me hanging onto him. The rifle went slithering from his grip to sink at once. I drove a fist into his face and he went backwards in the water. He made a quick, shallow dive and tried to come up underneath me. I managed to move away, and he was on the surface again in front of me. We struck at each other and I felt the pain of his blow, felt my head go back. Again I swung and again he beat me to the punch. His one-piece coverall, not soaked through, spelled the difference. I might as well have had weights tied to my arms. He knew it, too, and he came at me, treading water and swinging. I backed water. Even if I struck out for the bank, he'd still have the advantage ashore. My arms were already tired. I backed again and dived, wrapping both arms around his right leg, pulling him under with me. I'd done some hard long-distance swimming on occasion. I was hoping he hadn't. That plus the fact that I'd taken him quickly. He'd had no time to draw a long breath. He was raining blows on my back but underwater they were nothing more than harmless taps. I clung to his leg, hunched over, like a crab hanging onto a fish. He was using up precious wind trying to twist away, while all I had to do was hold on. His struggles grew rapidly weaker, and my own lungs were burning now. Suddenly I felt his body grow limp. I hung on five seconds more, and then let go and struck out for the surface. I burst into the air a second before my lungs were ready to burst, drawing deep draughts of the precious stuff, fog and all. His body floated up alongside me and I pulled him onto the bank with me.

I unzipped the coverall and looked for identification. There was none, as I'd figured. But under the coverall he had a transistorized walkie-talkie hanging by a leather belt It was becoming increasingly clear that they, whoever «they» were, hadn't missed any bets. The man had been covering the woman all along, while the others were out trying to nail me. When I showed up, he knew something had gone wrong. No doubt he radioed his central immediately and was told to go into action. This was a professional outfit and their methods smelled of the Russians. The Russians had learned a lot about espionage since World War II, and while they were still pretty heavy-handed with anything that called for imagination, they were efficient enough at this kind of operation. The fog had lightened enough for me to see that both rowboats had drifted onto the far bank. I raced across the bridge and hurried to the woman. She was dead, of course. I knew that the minute he'd gotten off that first shot. I climbed into the rowboat and lifted her to a sitting position. She had on a light brown coat over a simple print dress. her face, wide and Slavic, was framed with gray-streaked brown hair. She was a woman of about forty-five, I guessed. There was no purse, nothing to identify her. Then my eye fell on the lining of the coat that had come open. A name tag was sewn into the inside. Maria Doshtavenko, it read. The name imprinted itself on my memory. I lowered her body gently to the bottom of the rowboat. I suddenly felt sorry for this woman. She had been disturbed about what she wanted to tell me. She was a woman who had been trying to do what she felt was the right thing. There weren't too many like that.

I felt the anger rising inside me. As I rowed back to where I'd left the Sunbeam, my mind raced and my plans crystallized. I wouldn't contact Hawk and tell him what had happened. Not yet, not until I had something more. I could just see the severe, disapproving set of his face, those steely eyes, if I reported in now. They'd nearly killed me, they'd shot the contact out from under me, and I still hadn't the faintest idea what the hell this was all about. But I did have a little blonde dish waiting in my hotel room. She was my one remaining lead, she and her boyfriend. I gunned the Sunbeam back toward London as the day lightened and the morning traffic began to crowd the roads. Anyone watching the Sunbeam would figure I was awfully late for work.

Vicky was still there, neatly trussed up. I left her that way while I shed my watersoaked clothes, letting her watch as I stripped, enjoying the appreciative look in her eyes. After I dried and changed into a fresh suit, I untied her. From the condition of the stocking, I saw she hadn't just sat there quietly.