The Vanishers (28 page)

A gray dawn found us well up in northern Finland. They picked us up after we’d had a breakfast of herring and hard-boiled eggs just south of the sizable town of Oulu.

Below Oulu the road we’d been following, Highway E4, came slanting up out of the interior of Finland to join the coast road I’d shunned earlier. The map showed that from the junction both ran together around the upper end of the Gulf of Bothnia into Sweden. Except for some unpaved wilderness tracks much farther north, there was no other road that would take us there, so it was a logical spot for an early intercept; and there were the interceptors in my mirrors, coming right along a discreet distance behind us.

There were two of them, in a sizable maroon sedan—well, sizable for Europe—that obviously had enough under the hood to cope with any speed our sick little power plant could have produced even if it had been well. The driver was trying to vary the interval between us so as not to be too conspicuous. Once in a while the maroon car would even disappear for a while, only to pop up in my mirrors again. After all, we didn’t have to be kept in sight constantly, now that we’d been sighted approaching the target area. Our destination was known: Lysaniemi. However, there is really no way for one car to tail another for any length of time without being spotted. That takes several vehicles, good communications, and plenty of teamwork.

It shook me badly. I’d never had much respect for Bennett. I was the experienced field man, dammit; he was just a lousy, desk-bound bureaucrat who’d managed, by political trickery, to achieve a shaky position of power in the undercover services. He wasn’t supposed to outguess me like this, catch me like this. It was like the brave lion hunter getting himself bitten by an overfed housecat. It was embarrassing.

“What is shit?” Karin asked, hearing me swear. “You are angry because there is suddenly a car following us?”

I glanced at her. “Don’t get too smart, or I’ll draft you into our agency. Fate worse than death.”

She showed me the little mirror in the palm of her hand. “I have been watching,” she said. “It is an Audi Quattro. A very fine car. Expensive. With four-wheel drive, so that you do not get your evening clothes wet and dirty digging your way out of a snowdrift on your way home from the opera. It is driven by a man, and there is a woman beside him.”

“A woman?” I frowned. I would have bet that Bennett was a male chauvinist who’d never employ a female operative in a critical spot that did not involve sex; but maybe I’d better stop betting on my judgment of Bennett. “You’re sure? I’ve been too busy driving to get a good look at them.”

“Yes, I am sure.” I was aware that Karin was smiling faintly, perhaps a little smugly. “She has a bandage on her left cheek, and her name is Greta Lagertsen. The name of the driver is Karl Johanson. You have met them. Astrid must have sent them… You thought the car had been dispatched by somebody else?”

I drew a long breath. I guess it was relief. I wasn’t losing my grip. I hadn’t let myself be outsmarted by a lightweight like Bennett after all; I hadn’t been wrong about him. He was still looking for me over in Sweden, where I wasn’t. Having Astrid read my mind didn’t disturb me greatly; I was willing to admit, reluctantly, that she was at least as smart as I was.

“Yes, I thought it had been sent by somebody else,” I said. “So Greta is back in the game, all patched up? She must be a determined chick, to be running around the countryside after the shock of getting slashed like that.”

“Perhaps she is angry. Fearing that she is horribly scarred for life, she is hating very much, I suspect.”

“Well, let’s hope so,” I said. “And let’s hope her boyfriend, Karl, is hating right along with her. They’re amateurs at this work; and with a good hate working on them, they’ve probably parked the few brains they’ve got, for the duration. They shouldn’t be hard to handle, if and when we decide to handle them.”

Karin hesitated. “Matt?”

“Yes?”

“Those people behind. That car. It is a very nice automobile, that Audi. And the four-wheel drive, well, we do not know how the roads are around that village you wish to visit. After all this rain and snow, they could be impassable to an ordinary vehicle. And I think you are worried about this car; I think it does not function so well any longer. Do you understand what I say?”

I looked at her with respect. “We’d really better get you under contract, fast. You have some very nice larcenous notions. But what happened to the idea that you were working for Olaf?”

“That obedient little Karin Segerby has served her purpose. She has been retired.”

“And you’re not saying what purpose she served?” When there was no answer, I shrugged and went on: “Any ideas about how to hijack them?”

We worked it out together, and the first step was to do a little shopping in Oulu, partly to show that we were totally unaware of being followed, but partly because we did need some equipment, if we were going to tackle the Arctic boondocks. Mostly, I was after sturdy boots and warm clothes; but Karin needed a costume to fit a certain role, and I also saw her buying something pale blue and brief and lacy that was not specified in the script. Apparently she planned to give me a treat tonight, if we wound up in an appropriate place, still together.

Although the border crossings we’d had to date had all been easy, I made sure once more that the lethal contraband was hidden as well as I could manage before we reached the Swedish line at Haparanda. No sense in lousing up the mission at the last minute by relaxing prematurely. However, getting back into Sweden from Finland turned out to be even easier than entering from Norway had been in the first place. The officials here didn’t even make me open the car trunk. We pulled away, next waypoint Porkkala, where we could pick up the minor forest road north to Lysaniemi—if we chose to drive that far before switching to a more cautious approach mode and a more competent vehicle. However, I had a hunch that would deliver us into Bennett’s waiting hands for sure. It was time to start getting sneaky after all the hard, straightforward driving.

I said, “Hang on, we’re about to have our infuriating breakdown; wouldn’t you think, the prices they charge, they’d rent you cars that run properly? Play up to me… But first, here’s something for you.” I reached up under the dashboard and got one of the silenced agency automatics I’d confiscated way back in Oslo. It seemed a long time ago. Guiding the car with my elbow, I jacked a cartridge into the chamber and set the safety catch. I said, “Now it’s ready to go. You push down this gizmo here with your thumb. It’s called a safety. Then you pull this gizmo here with your finger. It’s called a trigger. The magazine holds ten cartridges. But we want these people alive and talking, preferably, so try not to blow their heads off unnecessarily. Okay? Now this feeble crock of a car had better conk out on us before we have too far to walk back to town.”

I reached down and turned the ignition off. The little sedan lost momentum abruptly. I turned the key the other way; and the engine fired again, sending us forward jerkily. I made a show of fighting it, pumping the accelerator to throw, I hoped, some nice puffs of unburned gas out the exhaust; then I cut the switch once more. As we slowed again, there was a blare from a rather musical horn. The couple in the maroon Audi had let themselves come a little too near us. Perhaps they’d closed in to determine whether we’d continue down the highway or make the turn into Haparanda. Now they swerved out to avoid us and roared past, since they could hardly do anything else except hit us or come to a halt behind us. I guided the Golf to the side of the road and out onto the shoulder, nice and wide now since we were back in Sweden.

I tried the starter a couple of times, as would be expected of me, killing the engine when it caught, hoping the vibrations would not be noticed from a distance if Karl and his bandaged girlfriend had pulled up around the curve ahead and sneaked back to watch from hiding. I got out angrily and kicked one of the front tires dramatically and jerked the hood open. Karin came around the car to join me, indicating disapproval.

“Why be angry at a piece of machinery?” she said. “It is inconvenient, to be sure, but we are fortunate it happened here and not out in the forest. We just passed the intersection. The town cannot be far down that side road.”

She was very convincing as the reasonable member of our twosome. I stuck to my flashy temper tantrum: “Oh, God, save me from the eternal optimist! If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s a goddam Pollyanna!”

She stiffened resentfully. “I do not know what that is, one of your odd Americanisms, but I am sure it is rude. You are behaving very badly. I do not think that motor intends to function any longer; it has been trembling on the verge of collapse for several hundred kilometers. I will take my things and walk into Haparanda and find a hotel. There cannot be so many that you will have trouble finding me, when you decide to behave reasonably.”

“What makes you think this wide place in the road has even one hotel? But suit yourself; you will anyway. Goodbye!”

I busied myself poking around the hot engine, doing nothing in particular, while Karin collected the little rucksack—locally known as a
ryggsäck
—that she’d picked up in Oulu to hold her purchases; then she marched off briskly, back straight, chin high, obviously an insulted lady leaving an impossible gentleman to his own ill-tempered devices. I made a show of looking under the car for the cause of the engine failure; mechanically a stupid idea, but it let me collect some hidden armaments. I retrieved the others from the interior, tucked some away in my clothes, and slipped the remainder into the suitcase I’d bought in another country while traveling with another lady. Then I marched back up the road the way Karin had gone, after kicking the car door shut in a final display of irritability. Mad Matt Helm, the short-fuse specialist.

I didn’t see her ahead of me. Well, I’d given her a good start. I turned at the marked intersection and soon emerged from the woods to find Haparanda right there, rather old and shabby, looking like a town that had been bypassed by progress. A short hike brought me to the town square, the most prominent structure on which was a massive old red brick building with a sign saying
Stadshotellet
, the City Hotel. Since I’d passed no other hostelries, it seemed likely that Karin had taken refuge there; but in order to give her, and other people, plenty of time, I hiked over to some gas pumps across the square—
plaza
, we call it in the American Southwest where I grew up. The establishment was kind of a grocery as well as a filling station; but they had a reasonable shelf of automobile stuff. I found what I wanted and stood in line to pay.

Then I was out in the damp gray day once more, lugging my suitcase and my paper bag back across the square. The big hotel had obviously once been the pride of Haparanda, back when travel was slower and this made a logical overnight stop at the top of the world for folks journeying between the larger towns down in Sweden and Finland. Now it was decaying slowly; but the doors were still impressive. Inside, the elderly man behind the desk told me, in awkward English, that Fru Helm had, indeed, checked in. Room 217. It was clear from his tolerant expression that he had no faith whatever in our declared marital status, particularly now that he saw the difference in our ages; but the hotel business wasn’t so good in Haparanda that he could afford to disapprove even if he wanted to.

I marched up the fine old staircase and down the hall to the left. It was a long hike, down a corridor with a frayed carpet, past endless doors that, I was sure, hid only empty rooms. There wasn’t a human being in sight. A ghost hotel. I found the right door and knocked. After a little, the lock rattled and the door swung back.

I said breathlessly, “Hey, baby, I think I’ve got it! The car. You know how those Volkswagens are. The old bugs could go swimming without turning a hair, but the new bunnies stop in a heavy dew. But I got some bottles of fuel desiccant, you know, that alcohol stuff that takes water out of the gas; hell, I bought out the store, and I have a hunch that if I dope up the fuel tank real good… Hey, what’s the matter with you? Are you still mad at me or something?”

Karin’s face was pale. She licked her lips and said, “Matt, I am terribly sorry to trick you like this. I hoped so much I wouldn’t have to.”

“What—”

Somebody stepped out from behind the door and shoved a gun into my back, kicking the door closed. A voice I’d heard before, the voice of the boy called Karl, said, “Put your hands up, Mr. Helm. I know you are a dangerous man, so I intend to take no chances with you. Please do not force me to shoot!”

A man who says he isn’t going to take any chances, as he jabs a gun amateurishly into the back of a trained agent, makes it very hard for said agent to take him seriously. It’s one of the situations for which we’re taught several responses, mostly lethal, even though no sensible person with a firearm is going to move in that close. After all, the whole point of guns is that they can hurt at a distance.

However, I managed to control my hysterical laughter and ignore the various opportunities he gave me to take away his silly pistol and toss him across the room—which, I noticed belatedly, was a rather fine, big, old hotel room with good-sized twin beds; but the coverlets were frayed and the wallpaper was faded and badly stained. Still, with its high ceiling, it had an air of space and grace lacking in the cramped efficiency cubicles found in more modern hostelries.

I saw Karin’s little backpack on the farther bed, alongside some clothes that had been dumped out of it. The girl herself, after letting me in, had backed away to a safe distance. She was still in her snug black jeans and big white sweater, rather grubby by this time; but she’d discarded her shoes. Having got my feet stomped painfully upon occasion, I’m not sold on the barefoot routine, or even the stocking-foot routine, but you can hardly keep an American girl in her shoes, and apparently Swedish girls shared the same woodsprite impulses.