The Silencers (6 page)

She glared at me. “Go to hell!”

I sighed, and leaned down, and picked up the ruined dress I had dropped on the rug. Ripped open down the side, with its broken straps dangling, it looked bedraggled and shapeless.

“Look at it, Gail,” I said. “Five minutes ago, it was a pretty dress. Now it’s just a rag. Right now you’re a pretty woman. Five minutes from now...” I paused significantly.

“You bastard!” she whispered.

“I’ve seen it happen,” I murmured. “One minute a lovely girl is standing there, resisting interrogation bravely, just like you, and the next minute there’s just something half human crawling along the floor, something crippled and bloody and whimpering with its nose smashed flat in its face and its mouth full of broken teeth... Oh, I suppose they’ll be able to fix you up eventually, Gail. They can do all kinds of things with dentistry and plastic surgery these days. But I doubt it would be much fun.”

She crushed out her cigarette violently. “You bastard!” she breathed. “You filthy, sadistic bastard!”

I didn’t say anything more. She wasn’t sure, of course. I could still be bluffing. So far all I’d done was tear a dress; that didn’t prove I had the ruthlessness to destroy a woman’s face. But she wasn’t a gambler; she couldn’t take the chance. The stakes were too high. I didn’t even have to put on a demonstration, although I had the arm of a chair picked out that I thought I might be able to crack with the edge of my hand. I saw her bare shoulders sag.

“You bastard,” she said without looking at me, “does Wigwam mean anything to you, you filthy, sadistic bastard?”

“Wigwam?” I got out my pen and wrote it down. “Like an Indian tent?”

Gail didn’t answer directly. “She said, ‘Take it to the Wigwam in Carrizozo, New Mexico. The new date is December thirteenth.’”

“The Wigwam,” I said, writing. “Carrizozo, New Mexico—I just drove through there today. December thirteenth.”

“Stop interrupting me, damn you!” She didn’t look at me. “Janie said that. Then she was quiet for a little. Then she said, ‘December thirteenth. What’s the date today? If it happens, I’ll only have missed a few days, won’t I, Gail? But you have to help them stop it...’”

“Have to help them stop it,” I read from my notes. “Go on.”

“That’s all. Then she died.” Gail’s voice was flat. “Tell me... tell me, would you really have hit me, smashed me, or were you bluffing again?”

I hesitated. Of course I wouldn’t have hit her. There would have been no point to it. If she’d been tough enough to refuse to talk, knowing what she might be facing, she’d have been too tough for me to handle here, particularly since I still didn’t know if the matter was important enough to justify really drastic measures. I had the film safe, and the knowledge in her head would keep. If she’d stood firm, I’d just have checked with Washington. If they were interested, they could damn well send somebody with authority and official standing to pry it out of her legally.

But she hadn’t been that tough, and I’d broken her with a threat, and a phony threat at that. It had been a shortcut, saving everybody time and trouble. She saw the answer in my face.

“Never mind!” she said quickly. “Don’t answer that question! Just give me a drink and a dressing gown, please.”

As I went to the closet and reached inside, somebody knocked twice on the door of the room.

I tossed aside the dressing gown I had taken down and got my gun from among my socks in the open suitcase at the foot of the bed. The knocking came again, a triple knock this time. It added up to a simple signal we sometimes use—two and three—to make sure the guy inside doesn’t greet the guy outside with a bullet or a knife. That made it LeBaron, I figured, and I tucked my little snubnosed .38 under my belt and went over to open the door. Mac came in.

I closed the door behind him in a mechanical way. I was kind of startled, I guess. I mean, he doesn’t get out in the field much. When you see him, normally, you see him behind his office desk—not that there’s anything spectacular to see, just a lean, middle-aged gray-haired man with black eyebrows, wearing a gray suit as a rule, as he was today. Or you hear his voice over the phone or receive a message in code. You don’t, on a job, expect to take time off to entertain him personally.

He didn’t even glance at me. His face showed that he was looking for someone else, that he was very much concerned about that person’s welfare. Then he spotted the slender woman standing there without a dress on—she wasn’t exactly inconspicuous—and his lips compressed themselves tightly. He walked quickly to the bed, picked up the dressing gown I’d thrown aside and carried it over to her, holding it for her to put on. She slipped her arms through the sleeves and tied the belt at her waist.

“Mrs. Hendricks?” Mac said when she was decently covered.

She glanced at him quickly, surprised that he knew her name since she did not know his. “Yes. I’m Gail Hendricks.”

“My name is Macdonald,” he said. It wasn’t. I’d learned his real name once, by accident, and it didn’t even begin with Mac, but never mind that. He was still speaking with concern in his voice and manner. “When I learned that you’d been brought here against your will, I came at once, but it seems I’ve arrived too late to prevent...” He cleared his throat and glanced at the tattered blue dress I’d tossed over the back of a nearby chair—clear evidence that she hadn’t disrobed voluntarily. Mac threw me a reproachful glance and said stiffly: “Sometimes my men exceed their orders, Mrs. Hendricks, I’m sorry to say...”

As he talked, I remained standing by the door, more or less at attention, like a private summoned from the ranks for disciplinary action. I didn’t pay much attention to his words. I’d already heard enough to know which routine he was going to use. Instead, I amused myself by guessing where the nuke might be hidden.

He’d been listening, of course. His approach and timing were just a little too good to be true. He’d waited until I’d got everything out of her he wanted, and then he’d hurried in here to apologize and smooth things over, at my expense. Well, I could hardly blame him for not wanting to have a rich Texas female raising hell with her senators and congressmen.

Of course, I reflected, he could have saved himself the trouble by interrupting us at the very start of the proceedings. He could have broken it up and reprimanded me sternly for even considering such methods. He could have established his identity and asked for her patriotic cooperation—but he wouldn’t have been Mac if he’d done that. This way he got a double check, first having me bully the information out of her, and then appearing himself, all consideration and apology, to gain her confidence and confirm that what she’d told me was the truth.

It was a beautiful example of the two-man interrogation technique, even though I hadn’t known anybody was backing me up, but I couldn’t help wondering exactly what he was doing here, two thousand miles from Washington, and how he’d come to have my hotel room bugged in the first place. After all, he hadn’t been expecting me to bring this particular sister out of Juarez...

“You speak of your men,” Gail was saying. “Just precisely who and what are you, Mr. Macdonald?”

Mac reached into his pocket. “Here, I think, is sufficient identification. You’re entitled to see it, under the circumstances, but I must ask you to keep the information in strict confidence.”

I watched her read the papers he’d given her. Presently she gave them back. “Of course I won’t talk,” she said. “But I don’t understand... is this hoodlum really a government agent?”

Mac said quickly, “Mrs. Hendricks, you must understand, when men are trained for dangerous missions, when they are indoctrinated for violence, they sometimes find it hard to draw the line...”

“I see,” she said. “Like savage dogs.”

“If you want to put it like that. Actually, this is one of our best operatives. His name is Matthew Helm and he has done very good work...”

She wasn’t following the summation for the defense. “And my sister,” she said. “He said she was a member of the same outfit. Is that true?”

“Yes. At least, she was supposed to be.”

There was a brief silence. Gail frowned. “Supposed to be. Just what does that mean?”

Mac said deliberately, “Mary Jane Springer, or Sarah as we knew her—that was her code name with us, as Mr. Helm’s is Eric—was sent to Juarez after a certain individual who, we believe, is acting as an enemy agent and whose headquarters of sorts is in the Club Chihuahua. As you may know, this desolate southwestern country contains a good many secret government installations of great interest to the other side.”

“I know,” she said dryly. “I hear there’s even a new breed of radioactive jack rabbits out on the desert. They glow in the dark.”

“Yes,” Mac said. “Well, your sister was selected for the task of dealing with this man who was becoming troublesome to various people. Having been born in Texas, she knew the area well and spoke Spanish fluently. There were other considerations that helped make her a logical choice. However, after she’d been on the job for a while, another government agency, running checks on a certain security matter, sent the fingerprints and description of a suspect through channels. In due time, they reached my office in Washington. They tallied with the data in your sister’s file.”

“But—”

Mac went on, overriding the interruption. “I was not greatly disturbed, Mrs. Hendricks. This sort of thing happens. It only meant that, unknown to us, another agency had been watching the Club Chihuahua for other purposes, and Sarah’s behavior had aroused their suspicions, which was only natural. I had a conference with the director of the agency in question, hoping to straighten things out so we wouldn’t be working at cross purposes. He was very secretive—these security people are always hard to deal with—and he would give me no information whatever about his people or their activities in the area. He would not even give me access to the pertinent reports. He did, however, have excerpts made, which I compared with Sarah’s reports. There were large discrepancies.”

“Discrepancies?” Gail said. “What kind of discrepancies?”

“Sarah’s accounts of her contacts and operations in the Club Chihuahua did not coincide at all with the accounts of the other operatives on the scene. In other words, somebody was sending in falsified reports.”

“The other agency—”

“It’s a possibility, of course, and they are checking the people involved. Meanwhile, I intercepted Mr. Helm, here, on his way east and diverted him to El Paso. He was to get your sister out of Juarez and bring her to this room.” Mac rose and walked to a picture on the wall. He raised it to display the microphone underneath. “There are recording instruments next door. We like to have complete transcripts in cases like this. I flew in from Washington to conduct the interrogation myself. In our business, we cannot afford to take disloyalty lightly.”

Gail licked her lips. “Why, you’re assuming that Janie is... you’re taking for granted she was guilty! Without proof!”

“Proof, Mrs. Hendricks?” Mac held out his hand towards me, palm up. I had the little film capsule ready, figuring he’d be wanting it sooner or later. I gave it to him. He held it out to show her. “Is any further proof needed? I might add, it wasn’t entirely by accident that Mr. Helm was in the club at just that time. We had information that something of an incriminating nature might be passed, and that Sarah would act as the go-between. Our man likes to play safe, apparently. He prefers not to take delivery of dangerous materials directly.”

“But—”

“I’m afraid there’s no room for doubt. Mrs. Hendricks,” Mac said. “It was a hard assignment. I would not have let Sarah take it on if she had not seemed quite certain she could handle it and eager to try. I believe revenge was a motive; I did not inquire too closely... Your sister was a rather difficult psychological case, you know. I have medical reports to the effect that her sexual attitudes were confused and immature. Normally, I pay little attention to such reports. I’m interested in the scores my people make on the target range; they can work out their sexual attitudes for themselves. But perhaps I should have given a little more weight to these reports, under the circumstances.”

“I... I don’t understand.”

Mac said, “As I told you, your sister was ideally suited to the task in many respects—but most particularly because she was already acquainted with the man we were after, so there were none of the usual problems of identification and contact. But there was an emotional problem—it isn’t easy for even a well-balanced woman to deal objectively and ruthlessly with a man with whom she has once been... shall we say, very close?”

Gail frowned quickly. “Close? You mean she’d known this man that well...?” Her voice stopped. Her eyes widened. She said, “My dear man, you can’t be hinting that this mystery man of yours, this elusive enemy agent...?” She was silent again. Mac did not speak. She said flatly, “Sam? Sam Gunther?” Then she began to laugh.

She laughed and laughed. I guess it was nice to find something funny at last on this dreadful evening. There was also, no doubt, a little hysteria involved. After she’d gone on for a while I took a step forward with the thought of snapping her out of it, but Mac gave me the lay-off signal with a slight movement of his hand. He hadn’t cracked a smile. I took my cue from him and waited with a perfectly straight face.

Her laughter died gradually. She sat down on the bed, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of my dressing gown, and looked up at Mac helplessly.

“My dear man,” she gasped. “My dear man, if you knew how utterly ridiculous... Sam Gunther, of all people, the professional Texas charm boy!” She couldn’t help giggling at the thought. “I’m sorry, Mr. Macdonald. Somebody’s given you an awfully bum steer. Now, if you were after him for victimizing rich old ladies with his boyish grin, or getting some susceptible divorcee to pay his way from Reno to the Riviera... But Sam Gunther as the Master Spy in cowboy boots, why, that’s just downright crazy!” She fought another giggle and lost.

“I’m sorry that I can’t share your amusement, Mrs. Hendricks,” Mac said. His voice was cold. “I may be prejudiced, but I always find it difficult to see anything humorous about a man who has killed one of my operatives.”