Matt Helm--The Interlopers (26 page)

Holz spoke to the three of them: “I want you to tie up the loose ends. The first thing is the dog. We couldn’t wait around for him just now; Jack and I have a long ride to make to reach the lake before dark. Besides, he was too excited. He’ll have settled down by this time. I want one of you to stay here to guard our guests in the van while the other two go back and dispose of him quietly and privately.”

There was a brief silence. I noted that Holz was carefully not looking my way. You might have thought he was a little embarrassed about giving orders to kill my dog, right in front of me. It didn’t seem in character, but on second thought I realized I didn’t know the man’s character. All I knew was his record. I’d made him up a personality to fit that record, in my mind, but it didn’t have to be the right one.

The man with the overcoat asked, “And what if the pooch won’t be caught.”

“Do what you can without attracting attention. I’d rather not leave him around. He’s obviously a valuable animal. Even without a collar, he might be traced. But leave him if you have to; don’t stay so long that you can’t be back here by, say, two o’clock. How are our young friends in the van?”

He looked at the gray-haired woman as he asked the question, and she said, “Red-Whiskers is all right. The other one is feeling sorry for himself. I took his gag out, but he moaned so loudly I had to put it back.”

Holz nodded. “Well, you know where to stage the wreck. Give them the injection—you know which one—just before you send them through the guard rail. We don’t want any miraculous survivals. You know where to turn in this camper. The people there have instructions for burying it. Take the Lincoln back to Anchorage. When Jack and I come back, we’ll dispose of the horses and trailer and meet you there. You know where.”

The man with the horses called, “All ready here, Mr. Wood.”

“All right, Jack.” Holz looked at the three in front of him. “Any questions? Very well, untie this pair and bring them over… Wait a minute.” He turned to look down at Libby and me. “Miss Meredith or whatever your name may be,” he said, “and Mr. Nystrom or whatever your name may be, you undoubtedly realize that you are scheduled to die… No, no, Miss Meredith, let me finish. It was one of the risks you assumed when you embarked on your missions of deceit and impersonation; it should come as no surprise to you now.”

Libby said quickly, “You’re making a mistake. You wouldn’t listen to me back there, you were in such a damn hurry…”

“What is my mistake?”

“I’m working for the same people as you are. I have credentials—”

“Whom you’re working for is yet to be determined, Miss Meredith. We know that in Seattle you identified your companion, positively, as Grant Nystrom. For your information, Jack over there was well acquainted with the real Mr. Nystrom and guided him on two hunting trips. Jack says that this man is no more Grant Nystrom than he, Jack, is Sophia Loren. Yet you identified this, impostor as our courier, your lover. What does that make you, Miss. Meredith?”

“I can explain—”

“You will be given an opportunity to try. But not here. There isn’t time.”

“You’d better listen to me right here!” she said hotly. “You’re making a bad mistake. You’d better check and check carefully or you’re going to be in real trouble, Mr. Wood or whatever
your
name may be. I’m working for some important people in San Francisco, people you know very well, and they gave me a message to deliver…”

“Where is the message?”

“I’m not authorized to give it to you. I was told to deliver it only to a man named Anson, George Anson. There were some corny words we were supposed to say, as usual.”

Holz smiled faintly and gestured toward the middle-aged man in the overcoat. “This is George Anson… Say the corny words, George.”

The man leaned down and whispered in Libby’s ear, and turned his head so she could whisper back. He straightened up and nodded.

Libby said triumphantly, “Well, are you satisfied? Untie my hands so I can give him the message.”

It was Holz’s turn to nod. The man called Anson worked briefly at the knots. When the ropes fell away, Libby sat rubbing her wrists for a moment; then reached well up under the front of her high-necked sweater and brought out a tiny cylindrical object which she handed to Anson. She smoothed the brown sweater down once more.

Anson produced a slip of paper and tossed aside the capsule in which it had traveled. He said, “Just a minute, Mr. Wood. It seems to be in code.”

Nobody spoke or moved as he bent over the hood of the truck, writing with a small gold pencil he’d fished from inside the overcoat somewhere near the shoulder-holstered gun. I didn’t look at Libby, or at Holz. They had me baffled. Together, they were putting on a great show, apparently for my benefit, but the purpose escaped me. Well, it would become clear eventually, I hoped.

Anson straightened up. His face was expressionless. He walked over and gave the paper to Holz, who read it and looked at Libby.

“Well?” she snapped.

“Would you like to hear the message you brought so many thousand miles, Miss Meredith?”

She licked her lips. “Yes, of course.”

“The communication, decoded, reads:
BEARER IS TRAITOR—LIQUIDATE
.”

“No!” Libby cried. “No, you can’t… It’s a mistake.”

Holz shrugged. “Perhaps. If so, it seems we’re all making it, both here and in San Francisco. I’m afraid you’re just going to have to live with it—and die with it, Miss Meredith. What I started to say earlier was that while your execution and that of Mr. Nystrom is inevitable, I have been instructed to learn certain things about you, both of you, before I carry it out.”

“What things?” Libby demanded.

“I am supposed to determine who you really are, both of you, and how much damage your treachery has done, so that steps can be taken to repair it. Unfortunately, there isn’t time to perform the necessary research here. Your presence indicates that the scheduled drop in Anchorage has probably been compromised. We have therefore canceled it and set up another meeting some fifteen miles back in the wilderness where we’re not likely to be disturbed.”

I said, “In other words, we ride.”

“Exactly, Mr. Nystrom. The immediate question is,
how
do you ride. This is rough country, and fifteen miles is a long way on horseback, even for someone unencumbered by ropes and bonds. Furthermore, I prefer to have us look as much as possible like a bona fide hunting party, just in case a stray bush plane comes over. I will therefore let you both start out with hands and feet free. Your horses will be the two slowest; the rifles on your saddles will be unloaded. I am a good rider and an excellent shot. Jack over there is an excellent rider and a good shot. The information in your heads is of interest to us, but it is not valuable enough to save you if you should try to escape. I hope I make myself perfectly clear.” He turned and walked away.

Libby called after him desperately, “I tell you, it’s all a horrible misunderstanding.”

Nobody paid any attention to her. After a moment, she shrugged and turned to me with a wry grin. “Well, hell, darling,” she said, “at least I tried.”

I was untied and herded toward a shaggy little brown mare with an independent, mulish look that proved to be an accurate indication of her character.

If I’d had any foolish notions of making a break for it and galloping off wildly with Holz’s bullets whistling around my ears, that little mare would soon have disabused me of them. She made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t galloping wildly anywhere. In fact, without a stout switch I’d never even have got her moving. All she really wanted was to stop and eat the willows and other green stuff along the way.

Libby’s bony chestnut seemed a little more willing, but he was one of the worst equine stumblebums I’d ever seen, forever half falling over his own big feet. To consider a fast escape over broken country on such a shaky plug was obviously suicidal. By way of contrast, Jack, riding ahead, had a fine, leggy buckskin that obviously wanted to go; while Holz, at the rear of the parade, was mounted on a powerful bay with a ground-eating stride that kept it nipping at the moth-eaten tail of my reluctant transportation.

Not that it made a great deal of difference. Even if we’d been mounted on registered thoroughbreds, we could hardly have made a race of it. It wasn’t that kind of country. The first stretch was wooded and mountainous, up a rocky trail that also served as a bed for a small stream, then over a fairly rugged pass, and finally down into a tremendous open basin by way of another running brook.

The high ground was bad enough, but the lowlands were worse. Except for my one previous Arctic venture in Europe some years back, I’d never seen such wet country. When we weren’t actually splashing through puddles and streams, we jolted along to the steady squelching made by the horses’ hoofs sinking in the black ooze beneath the low brush and rank, hummocky grass that covered the landscape whether it was wooded or open.

It started to drizzle once more as, working our way around the edge of the great basin, we swung northward, entering a long, gradually narrowing valley running up toward some snow-capped mountains. The ground got no drier and the trail got no better. Toward the end of the afternoon, with mountains slowly closing in on us, we came to a swampy little brown-water lake surrounded by soggy-looking evergreens on all sides except one, where an avalanche or landslide from above had left a bare and rocky shoreline.

The horses picked their way through the jumbled rocks, crossed the small inlet of the lake, and presently forded a large creek or small river. The water here was the same milky blue-green color that so many streams seemed to be up here. We rode up the river for about fifteen minutes, crossed once more, and came to the camp: three more or less white wall tents and some grazing horses in a meadow that was edged with trees and overlooked by the towering mountains that formed the east wall of the dwindling valley up which we had come, still several miles wide at this point.

The largest tent, in the middle, was equipped with a stovepipe, from which smoke was rising. An elderly, wrinkled, brown-faced gent, who could have been the father, or maybe even the grandfather, of the late Pete, came out to meet us.

He took charge of Holz’s horse. Jack dismounted and came over to hold mine. Covered by Holz, who’d produced a small Spanish automatic, I slid stiffly from the saddle and, since there was no reason not to be a gentleman, limped over to Libby and helped her down. She was heavy in my arms. It was a moment before she could stand unsupported. I thought her weariness was genuine. It had been a long hard ride for anybody, even an expert horsewoman concealing her talents, if that’s what she was. I still hadn’t made up my mind about it.

“Take them to their tent and tie them up,” Holz said. “I’ll question them later… Oh, just a minute.” He turned to face us. “Let me first make the situation quite plain. You will find your accommodations rather basic, I’m afraid: merely a roof over your head, and a canvas roof at that. You will have noticed that the afternoon is already growing cool; the temperature will probably drop well below freezing tonight. To combat the cold, it helps to be well fed. A ground cloth and blankets are also useful. Everything is available at a price. Do I make myself clear?”

I managed a grin. “And the price is information? That’s pretty childish, isn’t it, Mr. Wood?”

He shrugged. “I see that you are a strong man, probably accustomed to hardship. What does the lady think? Am I being childish, Miss Meredith?”

She stared at him dully, but didn’t speak. She’d been ahead of me during the ride, and although I hadn’t seen much of her face, I’d thought she was making it all right, but now I was shocked at the way she looked.

I don’t mean just the fact that she was rather spectacularly wet and muddy; I was by this time no sartorial masterpiece myself. What disturbed me was something dark and ugly and broken I thought I could see in her eyes. I’d seen it before, in people driven beyond their personal limits of endurance. It’s a hard thing to fake. I didn’t like it.

I took her arm and helped her to the tent that Holz indicated with his pistol. It was, as he’d warned, no palace. The floor was bare, if you want to call it that; actually it was dirt, softly and damply carpeted with a mixture of old spruce needles, humus, and decaying leaves. While Holz covered us, Jack tied us up, and propelled us inside. I landed pretty hard. When I’d caught my breath, I heard an odd little whimpering sound beside me. Libby was crying helplessly.

There wasn’t much I could do to comfort her with my hands tied. I said, “Take it easy. We’re still alive.”

“I… I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I c-can’t help it. It just isn’t
fair
!”

“What isn’t?”

“This wilderness kick. It’s just not my
thing
, that’s all! I’m very g-good in cars and bars and penthouses, but that goddamn lousy b-bastard of a
horse
… God, I’ve got
blisters
, darling! And then it has to
rain
on top of everything. I’m filthy and soaking wet and my nose is running and I’m cold clear through… Look, I don’t intend to freeze to death in here, I’m warning you. I’m just not going to do it. I’ve had it. I’m through!” She sniffled. “I’m sorry, darling, b-but that’s the way it is. For b-brave little frontier heroines, you’ll have to apply elsewhere.”

“Spell it out,” I said. “Just exactly what are you through with, Libby.”

“I mean it!” she said defiantly. “To hell with the old school tie and all that jazz. I’m copping out, darling. They just picked the wrong girl for this pioneer bit. Anything it takes to get some food and blankets I’ll do, even if it means telling everything I know about everything. Even about you!”

It was, of course, exactly the line she’d take to put pressure on me to talk if she were working with Holz. I warned myself that, judging by past performance, she was a good enough actress that there was no reason whatever for me to believe in her words or her tears. Nevertheless, I was aware of a new feeling of uncertainty. There had been too many odd, unexplained bits of behavior. Suddenly the reasoning by which I’d proved, to my own satisfaction, her guilty liaison with Holz, didn’t seem quite as convincing as it had back in Beaver Creek this morning.