The Terminators (21 page)

"I read neither scientific nor Norwegian," Denison said. "But L. A. does. He sat down and learned it when he got involved with Torbotten. He's not really stupid, you know, just because he's heard that bald men are supposed to be virile, and because he shuns public appearances, and has all that money. Anyway, my job is to deliver, not decipher. I'll let him figure it out."

There was a little pause while the helicopter cruised high over a maze of islands and rocky reefs against which the gray Arctic sea broke sullenly. We'd swung north, and I wondered if we'd come as far as Altafjord where the Tirpitz was sunk. The minisubs sneaked in and crippled her, and the planes finally finished her off, but it wasn't easy. But we probably weren't that far up the coast.

I'd have been just as happy to sit watching the watery scenery roll away below us in silence—well, silence except for the steady racket of the machinery. I didn't feel much like talking. You don't after you're made a bad booboo. Denison, however, was obviously in a euphoric, chatty mood, and there were things I didn't know that I wanted to know, and guesses I'd made that I wanted confirmed. I couldn't afford to pass up the opportunity.

"You were telling me how smart you were," I said, to start him going again.

"Well, as I was saying," he responded readily, "there you were with all that valuable data, on the edge of an island airport with hostiles all around you. Would you be stupid enough, under constant threat of attack, to hold to the original schedule and wait over twelve hours for the ferry to the mainland—oh, yes, your plans are common knowledge, thanks to a few bucks and Mr. Norman Yale who got them, I gather, by virtue of a few bucks and a traitor in your ranks named Wetherill. Well, standing by an airstrip, would you call for a taxi, a boat, a horse, or a snowmobile? No, I decided after careful consideration, a logical chap like you would do none of those things. You'd send for an airplane. Clever, huh?"

"Brilliant," I said.

"And when would you schedule it?" Denison asked rhetorically. "Well, the drop was set, I gathered—both drops were set—rather loosely for the first convenient time after the ship was seen to dock. It was up to the contact to keep track of its arrival. That took care of possible delays due to fog or breakdowns. In Svolvaer, I didn't figure the evening when you arrived would be considered convenient. Your boy wasn't the kind of hero, I'd been told, who'd like playing tag in the dark. The morning, then, as soon as it was light enough for him to feel safe. Okay so far?"

"Right on, man," I said.

"So I checked some celestial tables and found that first daylight was some time after five, but with the usual lousy weather around here it probably wouldn't really be light until six or six-thirty. Okay. You'd want to give yourself some leeway. If your man was late arriving with the merchandise, you wouldn't want to have that bird circling overhead impatiently, maybe scaring him away. Say you'd give yourself a full hour or a little more; that meant you'd have your plane arriving at seven-thirty or eight. But there was a strong possibility, actually, that your contact would want to get the damned drop over with as quickly as possible after visibility allowed. I took a chance, and came in forty-five minutes ahead of the earliest time I figured your plane would be due, gambling that you'd already have your business transacted, and that you'd be anxious enough to get away that you wouldn't be suspicious of a little discrepancy in timing.. .."

That was the trouble, of course. I'd had plenty of warning. It had been the wrong kind of aircraft at the wrong time; and my subconscious had been nagging me to wake up, but I'd chosen to ignore it. I'd been too busy patting . myself on the back for the great job I'd done, and kicking myself in the pants for the girl I'd sacrificed to do it, to pay attention as I should have.

"Very clever," I said sourly, "but after all, what's the point, Paul? I mean, so you've got the stuff, but you'd have had it tomorrow or the next day, or Mr. Lincoln Alexander Kotko would, as soon as my current chief got around to taking it from me and handing it over. Why make with the guns and helicopters, except to make me look bad?"

"Well, there's that, of course; I don't deny it," Denison said frankly. "Show up the Master at his own game, and all that sort of thing. But that's just a little private bonus. The fact is, this tame naval hero of yours makes me nervous. He's got some odd contacts along this coast, and when I try to check up on him and what he's doing, I meet the goddamndest case of community lockjaw you ever saw. And then, of course, he's made a real point of his delivering the goods to Mr. Kotko, in person. My job h protection, chiefly, and when somebody's all that eager to get into the Presence, I start worrying. Okay, L. A. likes the oil deal, crooked as it is—after all, it isn't every day you're offered a piece of government-guaranteed and government-sponsored larceny—and he was even willing to come to Norway and sacrifice his sacred privacy briefly to put it over. But after he got here, I got a hell of a bad feeling about the whole thing, Eric. Damn it, it smells wrong; and I decided that Captain Henry Priest wasn't really a nice enough fellow to be allowed to associate with my saintly employer, if it could possibly be avoided. After all, look what he just did to you, or tried to do."

"What's that?" I asked. It was one of the things I'd guessed, from the way things had happened, but it wouldn't hurt to hear it said.

"Well, I got this from that same young P.R. man with the FOR SALE sign hung so conspicuously on his nose. I wasn't the first purchaser, you understand. Captain Priest had been there with the greenbacks before me. The deal that had been made between them was, Elfenbein would get the stuff, using his daughter as planned; he'd deliver to Norman Yale and get his money—Aloco's money—as promised; but Yale, instead of handing it over to his bosses at Aloco, would slip the stuff to Priest for a substantial consideration. Oh, they were going to muss him up judiciously, and he'd claim to have been set on by a bunch of desperadoes, probably including you, who overpowered him and took the papers after he'd put up a valiant but losing fight—that gray-haired old routine."

"I wondered what happened to good old-fashioned loyalty," I said sadly.

Denison chuckled behind me. "Your girl—your other girl, the one who got left—is probably asking that question right now, amigo.”

"Forget I brought it up," I said. "So Priest was going to get the stuff from Yale, who'd get it from Elfenbein, who'd get it from Greta here. And what were Mrs. Barth and I supposed to be doing all this time?"

"Getting thoroughly double-crossed," Denison said. "At least your girl had to be, obviously. They couldn't have two pretty young ladies with binoculars turning up at the rendezvous. Furthermore, Yale explained, they needed Mrs. Barth as a hostage, since they might have to trade for the data you were carrying if they couldn't catch you with it." I heard him chuckle again. "I didn't laugh out loud at that, but I wanted to. The amateur mind is delightfully naive, isn't it, Eric? But you'd think a pro like Elfenbein would know better."

"They all watch too many sentimental movies," I said.

He went on: "Anyway, Yale told me that he'd pointed out to Priest that Mrs. Barth had been armed and briefed by you, and seemed to be a tough young lady. Disarming her would get a bit hairy, not to say noisy. Priest said not to worry, he'd take care of it. Apparently he did."

"He did," I said.

"You don't seem very shocked or surprised by his perfidy, Eric."

I said, a bit grimly, "He's a practical man, our Skipper. With Yale on the payroll, he could take his choice, but he had to make up his mind. Should he sabotage Elfenbein with Yale's help, and let me get through to the contact as originally planned? Or should he sabotage me, and get the stuff from the Elfenbeins via Yale? That was the unexpected way to do it, and I guess he hoped it would throw you off if you had any tricks pending—of course, he didn't know you'd bought Yale out from under him. And then there's the fact that I don't think Hank Priest really trusts me. He knows I don't really work for him, but for a guy in Washington. He preferred to deal through somebody he could bribe." I shook my head. "No, Priest doesn't surprise me; but you do, 
amigo
.''

"How so?"

"Why did you bet on me?" I asked. "You had Yale right there. Obviously, after spilling all this to you, he was ripe for the big deal. If you'd just paid him a little more, he'd have double-crossed Hank Priest completely, and brought the stuff to you instead. All you had to do was sit tight and wait for him to drop it into your lap."

"And if I'd done that, I'd still be sitting tight and waiting, wouldn't I?" Denison said. "Hell, man, I'm not a dumb sailor like Priest I'm your old friend Luke, remember? And in the great Siphon sweepstakes, I was going to put my money—L. A.'s money—on the winning nag; and I knew damned well it wouldn't be Elfenbein or Yale or any other half-assed crook. So I bet on you, my reliable old pal Eric, and you came through for me just as I'd figured you would."

I said, "That's very flattering. I appreciate the testimonial, even if it makes me out a horse." It was time to get the conversation away from the Skipper and his odd tricks, so I said, "Incidentally, I just remembered I met another guy named Denison once, a long time ago. He was an F.B.I, man and a real stuffed shirt."

"No relation," Denison said. "No badges or stuffed shirts run in this family.. .. Matt."

"Yes?"

"What's the current word?"

"What do you mean?" I asked evasively, although I knew perfectly well what he meant. He didn't say anything. I said, after a moment, "Well, if you must know, the word is I'm supposed to take care of you as soon as I can arrange it so there'll be no political backlash."

He sighed behind me. "Goddamn it, that gray bastard in Washington never forgets, does he? So what's to prevent me from getting you out of my hair right now?"

"Not a damned thing," I said cheerfully. "In fact, it's a hell of a fine spot. I recommend it. Just pull the trigger and open the door. No problems, just a nice big splash a couple of thousand feet down. Of course, he'll send somebody else, sooner or later."

"And of course, actually you'll play hell trying to arrange it so L. A. won't light a fire under you. Even if you make it look like an accident, he won't believe it; and he's got more political clout than a lot of Prime Ministers. No, I don't really think you'd better try it. Matt. L. A. looks after his people; and I'm the best he's got, if I do say so myself. I've saved his life at least three times since he put me on the payroll, not to mention straightening out a number of cockeyed deals that might have cost him a lot of money. . . . Well, no sense being hasty. Let's see how it breaks, 
amigo
."

I didn't give a large sigh of relief but that's not saying I didn't want to. The morning's intermittent rain turned to gentle snow as we came over the mainland. The moustached pilot took us away from the coast a bit, wiggled and twisted through some nasty little white mountain passes, and then brought us into a pretty, Alpine-looking valley with a gravel road down the middle, on which the snow wasn't sticking yet. The chopper settled down beside it, among some wet, unhappy-looking cows that scattered to give it room. From there, a driveway led up to an expensive-looking house built onto, or into, the side of the mountain above us, all glass and angles and flying bridges.

A tall man in a long fur coat had been standing on one of the out-jutting porches, watching us land. On his head was one of the high fur hats I associate with Cossacks in winter. He didn't wave any greetings. He just waited until we were down, and then turned and walked into the house, unbuttoning his coat as he went, and pulling off his hat. His head was as brown and shiny and hairless as a hazelnut

XIX.

WE didn't get to meet the Invisible Millionaire immediately, but there were a couple of hard-looking characters to greet us at the door beneath the flying-bridge porch. They had the sharply tailored, south-European look the syndicate boys favor but I didn't take it too seriously—any more than I took Denison's wide-brimmed hat seriously, now that I realized it was supposed to put you in mind of safari headgear, not Buffalo Bill's chapeau. We all play these little imitative games when we want to appear kind of tough and special.

"Any problems?" Denison asked.

"Everything's been quiet, Mr. Denison," said the taller and darker of the pair.

"Take these two back into the store-room and lock them up with the skis," Denison said. "Watch out for the man, he's tricky. He'U skewer you with a ski-pole if you give him half a chance. I'll be back down as soon as I've seen L. A."

It was almost worthwhile being taken prisoner, the amount of flattery I was getting. Denison headed for a nearby flight of stairs. The shorter and blonder of the hard boys said he'd better stay on the door; Mr. Kotko wouldn't like it left unguarded. The taller one had already pulled out a big Browning automatic, the first honest-to-God firearm I'd seen on this job aside from my own revolver and Denison's. This was the 9mm Hi-Power, as they call it, using the long, he-man nine, not the short ladies' job chambered by my confiscated Llama. It would shoot thirteen times before running dry, fourteen if you stuffed an extra round up the spout before ramming home the magazine. Very handy if you've got thirteen or fourteen stupid men coming at you single file. ...

The store-room was cut into solid rock, being at the rear of the house where it backed against the hillside. As Denison had indicated, it was used primarily for ski equipment, presumably belonging to the folks from whom the place had been rented. At least I figured it was rented. Desolate northern Norway didn't seem like the kind of place Mr. Kotko would pick for one of his permanent love-nests—he liked to maintain his well-publicized privacy in fairly public places, as I recalled. And if he'd just come here temporarily with an illicit oil deal in mind, it seemed unlikely that he'd have prepared himself for winter sports, the season for which was still a month or so away.