The Vanishers (25 page)

Somewhere outside it was full daylight—my watch read ten-thirty a.m.—but making the reservations so late, I’d only been able to get us a cabin in the windowless interior of the ship. Still, it did have a john, and two beds where beds ought to be, sitting firmly on the floor of whatever it’s called on shipboard. I hate clambering into those damned uppers, which are generally pretty cramped for a gent my length. Ship designers seem to figure that only short people travel by sea.

I’d hoped to be able to sail clear to Helsinki, the capital of Finland, population almost half a million, located on the Gulf of Finland, the arm of the Baltic that penetrates east as far as Russia and Leningrad. It’s easier to confuse the trail in a big city. However, I’d learned over the phone that the Stockholm-Helsinki ferries ran only at night, one each way, so I’d settled for the morning boat that, after a stop in the Åland Islands, would deposit us in Turku, on the Baltic at the southwest corner of Finland, about eight this evening. In a way it was a better port of disembarkation for us, being somewhat closer to our goal; and a little research in the tourist stuff we’d picked up on board had informed me that Turku was still a substantial metropolis of around a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, big enough that we could get lost in it if we needed to.

I hoped we wouldn’t need to. So far there had been no indication that we’d picked up any fleas along the way. We’d apparently made a clean getaway from Stockholm; and when we didn’t turn up at the Arlanda Airport, I hoped Bennett would assume I’d laid that false trail in order to give us a head start as we raced up through Sweden by road. There were several possible routes for him to cover, and it would probably take all the manpower he had in this part of the world, leaving none to waste on the remote possibility—if it even occurred to him—that we’d leave Sweden altogether, make a big detour across the water, and come up the other side of the Gulf of Bothnia.

It wasn’t as outlandish a maneuver as it might seem at first glance. We’d waste twelve hours on the ferry ride, of course, and have a little farther to drive even after we hit shore, but I’d been given no time limit for the mission. The road distance by way of Finland was still less than five hundred miles, and there were several roads from which to choose. We could easily be up north tomorrow, weather permitting, re-entering Sweden at Haparanda, only a few hours’ drive from our destination.

To be sure, having failed to intercept us elsewhere, Bennett would have plenty of time to set an elaborate final trap for us in the neighborhood of our known destination, Lysaniemi; but I’d worry about that tomorrow…

Karin was standing at the little cabin’s rudimentary dresser, uncapping the bottle I’d set out, and served us from in moderation, before the situation had turned amorous. I watched her turn towards me, unselfconsciously naked, not one of your standard long-stemmed northern beauties, but small and strong and compact. I took the drink she handed me, and moved aside to give her more room to sit on the side of the bed.

She spoke absently: “I was afraid I was going to be seasick on this voyage, the way the wind was blowing when we drove aboard. I am not a very good sailor. But it is really just like being in a hotel, except that the rooms are smaller.”

There was hardly any motion to let us know we were afloat; just the pervasive, muted rumble of the ship’s machinery.

“They must have pretty good stabilizers,” I said. “We should be out in open water by this time.”

She said ruefully, “It is sad. I wanted you to like me; but I have been such a pure widow for so long, I had no control… Now you are thinking that I am a wicked, insatiable nymphomaniac.” She gave me a crooked little smile. “And I am sure that you are also thinking it is much nicer, at least for a man your age, with a dignified older woman than with an athletic and demanding child. You are in love with her, are you not? That is why you did not kill her with your gun that night at Torsäter.”

I stared at her indignantly. “What do you mean?” I demanded. “Are you suggesting that I pulled my shots deliberately?”

Karin laughed softly. “It was a very good performance, Matthew. You sounded most convincing when you talked with her afterwards, pretending to be so distressed because you had shot so badly and failed to kill her.”

It was hard to evaluate the girl’s intelligence coldly, cute and blonde and nude as she was, but she did seem to see a lot she wasn’t supposed to.

I shrugged resignedly. “Well, maybe I have let myself get a bit too fond of Astrid. She’s a very attractive lady.”

Karin shook her head abruptly. “No, you are not that susceptible; you would not miss your shots if killing were indicated… That is the answer, is it not? It was never your intention to kill! You talked with her very freely that evening, very carelessly. She told me. You said too much; you let her guess that you were beginning to mistrust her. Of course. You did it intentionally, hoping she would take some action; and she did. But you had to make it convincing, drinking that adulterated whiskey like a gullible boy instead of an experienced agent. So you pulled out your gun as you were supposed to according to your agency’s rules, and you carefully shot her in the arm and drew a little blood from her ear, hurting her just enough so that she would feel she had missed death by a hair.”

“Actually, she did,” I said. “That damn’ automatic threw left; the ear was an accident. Another inch or two over, and the shot would have killed her. Shows what can happen when you try to get tricky with firearms. Scared me all to hell.”

“But it made your behavior very believable; no one suspected that you had taken that drugged drink willingly, as they might otherwise have done. Nobody guessed that you had
wanted
to be taken prisoner, so that you could learn all about them… us. What we were actually doing. Astrid and Olaf and I. How we were working together. What we were planning. The UFO Laxfors. Everything.”

“Give Joel credit; he extracted most of the important information.”

Karin shrugged. “You would have obtained it somehow without him, I am sure. But you are a brave man; you must have known that you might be questioned, painfully questioned, but you let yourself be captured anyway. Of course you knew that your associate would come to your rescue eventually; it was in his interest to do so for the information you held, although he might betray you later.” She hesitated. “Did you know that he was a traitor?”

I said, “That’s a big word, too big for use for a simple business accommodation such as Joel made. No, I didn’t
know
that he had switched allegiance, but I did know that he was supposed to be following another lead back in America. When he gave it up so easily and came rushing over here to join me, so cooperative and helpful, I decided that he could be useful, but he’d better be watched.”

“As I must be watched?” She was smiling faintly as she said it.

“Sure. At least until I figure out just why you’re really here. And don’t give me that stuff about keeping an eye on me for Olaf Stjernhjelm. I think you’re here for reasons of your own.” I grinned. “And please don’t tell me how you’ve been yearning for me passionately ever since the first moment you saw me back there in Hagerstown, Maryland.”

She laughed. “You mean, back where you almost spanked me?”

“Life is full of missed opportunities.”

Her smiled faded. “All right. I will tell you. I wish to accompany you up into
Norden
—the North—as we planned; and then I wish you to do me a big favor.”

“What favor?”

“When you have learned what you need in Lysaniemi, and done what you need to do—and if there is any way for me to help you I will be happy to do so—then I would like you to help me. I think there will be time, even traveling by this indirect route, if your business does not take too long. I want to be at Laxfors to watch the protest demonstration, but I do not want to be part of it. Please do not ask my reasons. I want to see, but I do not want to be seen. A man like you should be able to find us a good, concealed observation point.”

I would have loved to know what was going on inside that tousled blonde head. “It depends on the terrain,” I said. “But I guess I’m kind of curious about this demonstration myself. I’m particularly curious about your contribution to it. In fact, let’s say that’s the price I’ll charge for seeing that you get where you want to go. Tell me about it.”

“My contribution?”

“Don’t play dumb; you’re about as stupid as Einstein,” I said. “You are also Karin Segerby, grieving widow of Segerby Vapenfabriks AB, or a prominent member thereof. SVAB for short. Obviously this UFO gang had that in mind when they recruited you and flattered you and pampered you—Olaf told me as much—even though you’re not really the grim-faced idealist type they seem to go for normally, if Karl and Greta are typical specimens.”

“Well, they are not quite typical; they love each other,” Karin said dryly. “Most of the others have no love at all, not for people. They only love their cause, the cause of peace.”

“Sounds harmless enough,” I said. “In fact quite worthy. But Christianity was supposed to be a gentle, loving religion; and how many have been killed for that?”

“It is never the cause or the religion itself, it is the fanatics who adopt it who make it dangerous.” She hesitated. When she spoke again, it was in a totally different tone of voice. She said, “You wish to know my contribution to the great cause? My contribution was HG(E)Typ7F.”

Well, actually what she said was
Hoa Geh Eh Teep Sju Eff
, and it took me a moment or two to convert the Swedish pronunciation into comprehensible English symbols in my head. Then it took a little longer to translate them into militarese.

I said, “Let me guess. HG, that would be a hand grenade,
handgranat
in Swedish. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“What does E stand for?”

She licked her lips again.
“Eld.”

“Fire? An incendiary grenade, Type Seven. We’re gaining on it. And F?”

“Försvars.”

“Defensive? What’s the difference between a defensive and an offensive grenade? I’m afraid I don’t know as much about military weapons as I ought to.”

“The offensive grenade is less powerful. You are running forward, attacking, and you do not want to run into the effective field of your own
granat.
With the defensive one, you are presumably fighting from a trench or other type of cover, and you can take shelter after you throw so the blast will not hurt you. So it can be designed to take effect over a larger area. But as a matter of fact, this is not primarily an antipersonnel grenade. It is made for use against armored vehicles, personnel carriers, tanks up to a certain size. It will burn—melt—its way through the armor and incinerate anybody inside.”

“Must be quite a gadget.”

“Yes, it is a new design. Grenades employing thermite have been made, and of course napalm; but this one employs a new incendiary ingredient that is particularly hot and unpleasant. There is also an ingenious adhesive cover that, before it burns away, makes the grenade stick to any object at which it is thrown long enough to take effect. SVAB is very proud of it.” Her voice was dry.

“You seem to know a lot about it.”

“I have spent the year since Frederik was killed learning about this and other weapons.”

“I thought you were employed by an outfit called Nordic Textiles.”

She laughed. “A Segerby company. The family was very pleased when the young widow began to take an interest in the other, less peaceful, branches of the business. They helped me keep busy to prevent me from dwelling on my grief. Of course I had been instructed by the UFO, once I had attained a trusted position, not to concentrate on one SVAB product in particular; it might have drawn attention that way. Do you wish the specifications of our new recoilless rifle? The cyclic rate of our improved SVAB submachine gun?” She shrugged her shoulders. “I do not disapprove, you understand. Not anymore. I have learned what some people are like. And if some people are like that, other people must have the means to shoot them.”

This was a different girl from the one who’d been unable to watch me being burned. I said, “You’re pretty tough for a little girl with a weak stomach.”

“What makes you think… Oh, because I simply could not bear to see you in pain? That was the other Karin Segerby, the timid and obedient one. The one to whom nobody paid very much attention because she was so obviously harmless. Naturally I acted shocked and horrified; it would have been out of character not to. The character I had created for their benefit.” She shook her head quickly. “I know you have questions, but please do not ask them. What I do, it does not concern you; it will not affect your business up north. It is a very private affair.”

“Sure. May I ask about the Laxfors demonstration, or is that out of bounds, too?”

“Ask.”

“Are these UFO people crazy? Are they expecting the Swedish Army complete with tanks to join the party; and, if so, are they going to try to fight back with these incendiary whizbangs of yours? How many did you get for them?”

“I have obtained for them secretly one case of twenty-five grenades.”

“That won’t last long in a real combat situation, and most of those pacifist kids don’t know anything about combat except that they’re against it, do they? Any halfway respectable military force will walk right over them, grenades or no grenades; and I gather the Swedes are pretty good soldiers for all their love of neutrality. Staging a pitched battle is idiotic, anyway. How can even a bunch of screwballs think that’s going to advance the cause of peace?”

Karin shook her head quickly. “You have jumped to the wrong conclusion. All I said was that the Type 7 grenade was designed for use, primarily, against tanks. I did not say that they planned to use it so. They do not expect the army to intervene. They will stage a big rally, with banners and angry slogans, with shouting and speeches, outside the fence of the LSA, the Laxfors Signalanstalt, literally the Laxfors Signal Institute. The so-called communications center. While the attention of the security guards is held by this disturbance, a small striking force will cut the wire on the far side of the installation and slip inside to attack the true objective.
Mörkrummet.”