The Infiltrators (45 page)
Authors: Donald Hamilton
She leaned down and kissed me gently on the lips, and raised her head a bit to look at me searchingly, very close. In that moment I knew she was mine if I wanted to take her; but I also knew that gratitude for what she still thought she owed me, regardless of my protests, would play a large part in her decision, and who the hell wants a grateful woman? Anyway, I couldn’t give her what she really wanted: the security and peace and total respectability she needed now, after all the shocking years of abuse and despair.
“Your fiancé is waiting, Mrs. E.,” I said.
“Take care of yourself,” she said. “Oh, here’s something you’d better have back. I… don’t think I’ll be needing it anymore.”
I looked down at the little penknife she’d put into my hand. I watched her go out of the room, very straight and lovely in her black mourning dress. Two weeks later I was pronounced, optimistically, fit to travel. By the time I’d made it down to Albuquerque to catch the plane east, and stumbled aboard after the usual endless wait, I wasn’t so sure about that diagnosis.
I found my way to the first-class seat I’d blown myself to—or the government had blown me to, if I could manage it—since I was still taped up and needed all the fidget-room I could get. I’d picked the aisle seat for easy access and egress. I was glad to see that the occupant of the window seat was already in place with her nose buried in a magazine: a small girl in a neat beige gabardine suit and a pretty, ruffly white blouse who, judging by what could be seen of her, was hardly old enough to be traveling by herself. I got my coat stowed in the overhead locker, with an effort, and tried to shove my bag into place under the seat ahead, but bending over that far wasn’t easy. The child in the window seat put down the magazine behind which she’d been hiding and leaned over to help me, making me feel quite senile.
I realized abruptly that she wasn’t all that small; and she wasn’t all that young, either. All dressed up in her expensive traveling suit, she was a very pretty young woman; and the cap of dark hair was very smooth, and the black eye was gone, and the freckles were subdued, and the snub nose… Well, there’s no law saying that all girls must have perfectly straight aristocratic noses. In fact it would be a very dull world if they did.
When she straightened up to look at me, I saw that she’d grown up a lot since I’d seen her last. She was no longer a kid playing games with unrequited love. There was adult heartbreak in her gray-green eyes, behind the smile she gave me. We had something in common. We were both recent losers in the emotional crap game.
“What are you doing here, Vangie?” I asked.
“I don’t know, really,” Evangeline Lowery said with intriguing honesty. “But there isn’t anything left for me to hang around Santa Fe for, and you’re not really well enough to be traveling alone. And I kind of thought that, together, we rejects might be able to figure something out.”
We did.
Donald Hamilton was the creator of secret agent Matt Helm, star of 27 novels that have sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.
Born in Sweden, he emigrated to the United States and studied at the University of Chicago. During the Second World War he served in the United States Naval Reserve, and in 1941 he married Kathleen Stick, with whom he had four children.
The first Matt Helm book,
Death of a Citizen
, was published in 1960 to great acclaim, and four of the subsequent novels were made into motion pictures. Hamilton was also the author of several outstanding standalone thrillers and westerns, including two novels adapted for the big screen as
The Big Country
and
The Violent Men
.
Donald Hamilton died in 2006.
The Matt Helm Series
BY DONALD HAMILTON
The long-awaited return of the United States’ toughest special agent.
Death of a Citizen
The Wrecking Crew
The Removers
The Silencers
Murderers’ Row
The Ambushers
The Shadowers
The Ravagers
The Devastators
The Betrayers
The Menacers
The Interlopers
The Poisoners
The Intriguers
The Intimidators
The Terminators
The Retaliators
The Terrorizers
The Revengers
The Annihilators
The Detonators
(June 2016)
The Vanishers
(August 2016)
The Demolishers
(October 2016)
PRAISE FOR DONALD HAMILTON
“Donald Hamilton has brought to the spy novel the authentic hard realism of Dashiell Hammett; and his stories are as compelling, and probably as close to the sordid truth of espionage, as any now being told.” Anthony Boucher,
The New York Times
“This series by Donald Hamilton is the top-ranking American secret agent fare, with its intelligent protagonist and an author who consistently writes in high style. Good writing, slick plotting and stimulating characters, all tartly flavored with wit.”
Book Week
“Matt Helm is as credible a man of violence as has ever figured in the fiction of intrigue.”
The New York Sunday Times
“Fast, tightly written, brutal, and very good…”
Milwaukee Journal
A series of slick espionage thrillers from the
New York Times
bestselling “Queen of Spy Writers.”
Pray for a Brave Heart
Above Suspicion
Assignment in Brittany
North From Rome
Decision at Delphi
The Venetian Affair
The Salzburg Connection
Message from Málaga
While Still We Live
The Double Image
Neither Five Nor Three
Horizon
Snare of the Hunter
Agent in Place
PRAISE FOR HELEN MACINNES
“The queen of spy writers.”
Sunday Express
“Definitely in the top class.”
Daily Mail
“The hallmarks of a MacInnes novel of suspense are as individual and as clearly stamped as a Hitchcock thriller.”
The New York Times
“She can hang her cloak and dagger right up there with Eric Ambler and Graham Greene.”
Newsweek
“More class than most adventure writers accumulate in a lifetime.”
Chicago Daily News
“A sophisticated thriller. The story builds up to an exciting climax.”
Times Literary Supplement
“An atmosphere that is ready to explode with tension… a wonderfully readable book.”
The New Yorker
BY DANIEL STASHOWER
The Dime Museum Murders
The Floating Lady Murder
The Houdini Specter
In turn-of-the-century New York, the Great Houdini’s confidence in his own abilities is matched only by the indifference of the paying public. Now the young performer has the opportunity to make a name for himself by attempting the most amazing feats of his fledgling career—solving what seem to be impenetrable crimes. With the reluctant help of his brother Dash, Houdini must unravel murders, debunk frauds and escape from danger that is no illusion…
PRAISE FOR DANIEL STASHOWER
“A romp that cleverly combines history and legend, taking a few liberties with each. Mr. Stashower has done his homework… This is charming… it might have amused Conan Doyle.”
The New York Times