The Wrecking Crew (24 page)

The squirt gun didn’t have much in the way of noise and recoil. It didn’t have much punch, either, at that range. I saw my man jerk, and knew I’d got a solid hit somewhere in the thorax area, but that lousy little jacketed bullet didn’t knock him down or even stagger him badly. He started to turn, swinging his own weapon toward me. I fired again. He went to his knees, still trying stubbornly to get lined up to shoot back. It took a third bullet to put him down. God damn those lousy little pipsqueak weapons, anyway. Most states back home would call them illegal for deer, but I guess these armaments specialists figure it doesn’t much matter what you shoot a man with.

My heart was acting up a little now. The dance was open and the music was playing. I swung back to cover the cabin door, saw nobody there, and looked at Elin von Hoffman. The kid was bending over the fallen man. She raised her head to look in my direction. I thought I could see an incredulous look on her lovely, dirty face, even at that distance. There may even have been something of reproach: after all, she’d given me a break, out there in the woods.

She stared at me, or at the spot from which my shots had come, for several seconds. Then she snatched up the fallen machine pistol and ran for the cabin door, just as a blunt automatic poked out there and spat noise and flame…

I don’t suppose we’ll ever know his precise motives. Maybe he thought she’d betrayed him. Maybe he thought she was attacking him, with that businesslike weapon in her hands. Maybe he was shooting at me—although the range was long for a hand gun—and she just ran into the line of fire. My own theory is that he was merely wiping her out angrily because she’d been inefficient. She’d brought trouble to Caselius; she deserved to die; and he was just the boy to see that she got her deserts.

I could see nothing to shoot at, but I put a bullet through that doorjamb on his side, hoping. Like most hope shots, it was a dud. It was too late, anyway. She was lying there in the sunshine, a small crumpled heap. Beside her lay the machine pistol. Behind her, near the dead man, lay the two packets of film she’d brought such a long distance. I could have felt bad about that, too, if I’d let myself. Well, she’d never know she’d wasted all that effort on blank film. I’d gone over the marked boxes with artgum that morning, and marked up another batch for purposes of bait. I won’t say I felt any particular obligation to Grankvist or his government; but it always helps to keep an ace in the hole, and I had lots of film. Even if Caselius should get me, I’d still have the last laugh when his technicians pulled the stuff out of the soup and he discovered he’d fallen for the same gag twice.

There was silence for a while, after all the noise, but the little man inside made his decision fast. He didn’t sit around hoping for help from his guard up the road. He gave me credit, at last, for brains and ruthlessness equal to his own; I wouldn’t be out front shooting off firearms loudly if I hadn’t already cleaned up the premises. And the day wasn’t getting any younger, and I guess waiting for darkness didn’t appeal to him. He wasn’t a wilderness boy himself, and I’d just proved I was. He had reason to know I could handle a knife, and he wasn’t aware I had no blade with me. And there are a lot of otherwise brave men who prefer not to wait for a knifeman in the dark.

He decided to take his chances with the gun, while daylight lasted, and he made the obvious play. The door opened and Lou came out. She looked pretty good at a distance. I could tell that she hadn’t been drastically abused, at any rate. She seemed to be kind of dusty, that was all—not surprising, considering the place where she’d been kept. She came out, still wearing her black beatnik outfit, with her hands tied behind her. Caselius, followed, no taller than she, holding his pistol in her back. He was pretty dusty too, and his hair needed combing. It was longer than you’d have expected, meeting him normally; and, disheveled, it gave him a wild look.

Pausing beside the dead girl, he snatched up the weapon she’d dropped, tucking his pistol inside his belt. This put us on even terms, with maybe a slight balance in his favor, since it was a weapon he knew and liked, and he also had Lou. They kept on coming until they reached the dead man on the ground. Caselius spoke a command, and Lou picked up the packages of film. He crouched down behind her as she did so, not exposing himself a bit. They went on past the dead man and a little farther. Caselius gave another order, and Lou stopped, with the muzzle of the gun in her back.

Caselius raised his voice. “Helm. Helm, are you there?”

I called back, “I’m here.”

He shouted, “Throw out your gun and come in sight with your hands up. You have ten seconds before I shoot Mrs. Taylor to death. One, two...”

I let him hear me laugh. He was running that gag into the ground. He must really have been watching American TV, the corny ideas he kept kicking around.

“Go ahead, little man,” I shouted. “When you shoot, she falls. When she falls, you’re standing there naked. I’ve got the sights right in line. I’m waiting.”

He stood there a moment longer. He didn’t resume his count. Presently he spoke to Lou, and they started moving again. As they came closer, he swung her to one side to keep her between us as they passed my position. My problem was simple enough. I merely had to shoot him. Even if I had to reach him through Lou’s body, it was better than letting them get away together. Wounded, she still had a chance of living—she’d already survived one bullet from a weapon similar to the gun I held. If he once got clear, however, and no longer needed her as a shield, she’d certainly die…

But I decided to try less drastic measures first. I stood up in plain sight, to tease him. He’d closed the range enough now so that it was an easy shot for both of us. But of course he was protected by Lou, while I was protected by the fact that his weapon was pressed against Lou’s back.

I saw him fight it out with himself and lose. He was thinking, of course, of the long, impossible walk along that brushy road with me hovering nearby, maneuvering for one clear, safe shot. If he could only get rid of me now… Suddenly he snatched the gun out of her back and swung it toward me one-handed, holding her before him with an arm across her throat. The chopper began to speak, but it was a heavy weapon for a little man to work with one hand. His aim was off. The bullets sprayed dirt to my left, and for the moment Lou was not threatened.

I lowered my aim slightly. I had four legs to choose from. She could have made it easier for me by sticking to skirts, but I got what I hoped was a male pants-leg, steadied down on it, and fired.

He slumped down, carrying her with him. His gun ceased firing. Then, to my relief, Lou was free and running, and I had him at last. He knew it, of course. He knew that the sights were in line and that my finger was bearing hard on the trigger. He made the last play in the book. Kneeling there, he flung the machine pistol violently aside. He snatched the automatic from his belt and threw that away. He stuck his arms high in the air.

“I surrender!” he shouted. “See, I am unarmed! I surren—”

Like I say, he must have been watching TV. Or reading books about sentimental Americans. I shoved the selector to full automatic. The burst cut him short and knocked him down.

Then I stood there for a minute or so, watching him. It’s not advisable to walk up on them too soon. But he didn’t move, lying there, and I went up and turned him over and saw he was quite dead. Lou had had sense enough to throw herself flat after getting clear. Now, with her hands tied behind her, she was having trouble rising. I went over and helped her up. I had nothing with which to cut the ropes, and she’d pulled the knots pretty tight. It took a little time for me to pick them open.

“All right?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m all right.”

In real life, somehow, you don’t embrace the girl and settle the details of your future together while smoke still trickles from the barrel of your gun and the body of your adversary lies warm on the ground before you. I left her there, rubbing her wrists, and went back to the cabin. Halfway there, I started to run. The smaller of the two figures on the ground had changed position since I’d seen it last.

Elin’s eyes were open when I came hurrying up to kneel beside her, but I couldn’t be sure they were seeing me until her lips moved.

“You... tricked me, Cousin Matthias.”

I had to clear my throat. “You shouldn’t ever give a man like that a break, kid. Or any man, when the chips are down.”

“A break?” she whispered. “The chips?” The Americanisms confused her. She frowned. “I wish...” she said. “I wish...”

I never did learn what she wished—maybe to keep on living. Her voice just stopped. Her eyes remained open, until I closed them. I found a blanket in the cabin to spread over her.

Lou had already started down the logging track toward the highway. When I caught up with her, she was standing quite still, looking at the dead man I’d left in the bushes at the side of the road. His head was at a peculiar angle to his body. Her face was very pale. She glanced at me and started walking again. I fell in step beside her. We didn’t talk, all the way back to civilization. There wasn’t anything to say that wouldn’t keep till later.

In Kiruna, we got snarled up in a running mile of red tape. When I finally had time and liberty to look for Lou, she was gone. Inquiry disclosed that, having answered all the questions and signed all the papers required of her, she’d grabbed the next plane south. I suppose I could have learned her destination, being a trained undercover man, but I didn’t make the effort. If she’d wanted me to know, she’d have left a message for me. If she wanted to see me again, she knew I’d be in Stockholm presently. I wouldn’t be hard to find.

I went hunting, instead. Somehow, after all the talk about Colonel Stjernhjelm and the family estate at Torsäter, I felt obliged to go there and talk to the old gentleman. He was very pleasant. I never did discover how much of the story he knew—probably all of it. After all, he had a military title, and Sweden is a small country.

My hunting luck was in. On the second day a bull moose with a fine head wandered past my stand. I had a real gun in my hands, no little pipsqueak squirt gun, but somehow I never got around to pulling the trigger. I just watched the big beast saunter out of sight. He’d never done anything to me, and I wasn’t under orders. Like most sentimental gestures, it didn’t accomplish a thing. The fellow in the next stand knocked him over with a 9mm Mauser. The next day I was in Stockholm, where more red tape of various kinds awaited me;

Somehow, a couple of weeks got away from me there before, on a hunch, I wandered one evening into the restaurant to which I’d taken Lou the first day I’d met her. A good Stockholm restaurant, even one with music and dancing, is never noisy. I don’t know how they manage it, but a roomful of Swedes can do their eating, drinking, talking, and laughing at a sound level several decibels lower than that of the same number of Americans. I don’t say this as a reflection upon my native land. It’s merely an observation of fact.

Sitting alone at a table for two by the wall, not really expecting much of anything to happen, I found it quiet enough to reread, with complete concentration, a letter I’d just received. So when someone spoke my name, I was startled. I recognized the strange, husky voice at once, of course. It wasn’t a voice you forgot. I scrambled to my feet. She was standing there with the headwaiter who, on seeing that she was taken care of, bowed and retired.

“Hello, Matt,” she said.

“Hi, Lou.”

She hadn’t changed much. She was still wearing her hair quite short. Well, it hadn’t really had time to grow much. She had a new dress on, navy blue, with a full skirt and a kind of stiff, stand-up collar. It looked like the simple kind of button-up-the-front dress a girl might wear to work, done in a more glamorous material. The dress and supporting petticoats rustled nicely when she sat down. I sat down. We looked at each other for a while in silence.

Abruptly she said, “I just had to think things out, Matt. I had to get used to the idea that Hal was really dead.”

“You didn’t know?” I said.

“I… I wasn’t quite sure,” she said. “I suspected it, of course, or I’d never have risked approaching an American agent, but there were times… Like after Caselius was arrested and everything started going wrong. Suddenly I was quite sure Hal was alive and I’d gambled with his life and lost. Of course, I never told anybody, not even Wellington, that I thought Hal might be dead. If there had been a leak, if it had got to Caselius, he’d have known I was double-crossing him.” This was ancient history. She made a gesture of dismissing it. “What’s the letter, if I’m not prying?”

“From my wife,” I said. “My ex-wife, I should say. It’s now official, and she’s met a wonderful man, a rancher, who just loves the kids. They love him, too. Or maybe they love his horses. The boys, at least, were always nuts about riding. I’m not to worry about the support money specified in the decree. Whenever I can pay it is all right, and she’ll put it in a fund for their college educations. She didn’t ask any alimony, you know. She’s well and hopes I am the same. Sincerely, Beth.” I grimaced and put the letter away. “Sincerely. Well, she always was a sincere girl.”

Lou shook her head. “Don’t, Matt.”

“I know. Why be bitter? She’s being just as nice as she can. Actually, she’s a damn nice person, and I’ll clobber that damn rancher with one of his own saddles if he doesn’t...” I broke off abruptly. After a little, I said, “I guess I’m not the guy to talk about clobbering people. Somebody might think I meant it.”

She glanced down at her hands, not speaking. I looked around for the waiter, and he was right there. In that country, waiters really wait. I ordered drinks.

She said, “Martini for you? I warned you about their gin.”

I shrugged. “If it kills me, I can’t think of a nicer way to die.” Then I stopped talking again. Somehow the subject of mayhem and death just seemed to keep cropping up.

Presently she asked, “What happened after I left Kiruna?”

I said, “It was Operation Cover-up, with bells on. Didn’t you read the papers? You were a wealthy female American tourist who’d been kidnaped for money by wicked international gangsters. Elin was a brave Swedish girl who was acting as my guide, trying to save you. Who I was wasn’t quite clear. The word espionage wasn’t mentioned, the subject of photography never came up, and a certain great nation to the east never figured in the deal at all.” I glanced at her. “I have a surprise for you. Your article is being published, with pictures.”