The Annihilators (33 page)

I grinned. “You don’t like that word, do you? A colleague of mine once pointed out that the Victorians had a thing about sex but we have a thing about death. But let’s note that when the lady got real upset she gripped a revolver very hard and emptied it, the whole damn cylinder, at a gent who’d annoyed her. Where do you get off sneering at killers, Dillman? If you weren’t such a lousy shot, you’d be one yourself right now.”

There was a lengthy silence. After a little I heard her voice: “Yes. I deserved that.” After a little, she asked, “Why didn’t you shoot me?”

“After your gun was empty? What would that have accomplished? And before, I had to make a choice: Who was more likely to hit me, you or Eugenio? I didn’t have time to deal with both. Well, that’s a hard little revolver to shoot straight, particularly for a self-righteous female individual who makes a big thing of being scared of nasty firearms, as if it were something to be proud of. So I took the gamble of ignoring you and concentrating on Eugenio, and my hunch paid off.”

“You forget the unarmed boy you deliberately shot to death first.”

“Unarmed, hell. There was a nice big 9 mm Browning lying within ten feet of him somewhere. Two people shooting at me was quite enough; I didn’t need three.” After a little, I said. “I told you, Frances. I warned you. I tried my damndest to explain it to you so there would be no misunderstandings; I even described the
El Fuerte
job so you’d get the idea. And what do you do? You ignore every word I’ve said and send against me three silly little tin soldiers complete with their handy-dandy dimestore popguns! Jesus Christ, don’t you
ever
listen to anything anybody tells you? What the hell did you think I was talking about, anyway? Do you think I’d have lasted as long in this business as I have if I could be wiped out so easily by a lousy little, bunch of half-ass revolutionaries?”

She licked her lips. “I… thought I had to do it. To save Archie. Maybe I was wrong. Anyway, he’ll die now, when Lupe Montano hears about this, won’t he?”

“It’s possible, but I couldn’t sacrifice a dozen people for your Archie even if you could. And I don’t want to get your hopes up, but there’s still a chance, although I’m afraid it’s getting slimmer with every day that passes. That’s one reason I held off so long, almost too long as it turned out; I was waiting for something to happen. It could still happen. Keep your fingers crossed.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. After a moment, she went on: “Look, it’s getting light over the trees. I guess we’ll be joining the others soon.” She hesitated. “I can’t say I’m exactly looking forward to it, Matt. What will they do to me? I suppose they all hate me. Not that I blame them. They have every right after the way I betrayed them.”

“Have another beer,” I said. “Save me from having to carry them.” When she nodded, I distributed the two remaining bottles, open, and said, “You’re a lousy liar, Dillman, remember that. And a terrible actress.” I mimicked her cruelly: “
Don’t touch me, I’m dirty… I just couldn’t let you be killed, my darling!
Jesus! Amateur night in the jungle!”

There was no resentment in her voice: “Is that how you knew it was a trap?”

“That, and other things. Like the sentries all carefully looking the wrong way or snoring blissfully. And before that, the way you tasted kind of sweet instead of salty when I kissed you chastely on the forehead. Not at all the way you’d expect a girl to taste who claimed to have recently been engaged in perspiring sexual activities. And not to be indelicate or anything, but even the daintiest and most fastidious ladies tend to exude at least a faint special aroma after indulging in vigorous copulation in a tropical climate. All I could smell on you was good soap. Obviously, you’d just mussed your hair a bit and pulled out your shirttail to support your touching story of how you’d grimly sacrificed your precious virtue for my sweet sake. And if you were lying about that, what else were you lying about?”

“Sherlock Holmes returns,” she murmured.

I said, “But of course I knew right along, ever since we came to Labal, that you were expecting to set me up.”

She glanced at me sharply. “Knew? How?”

I drew a long breath. “You said there wasn’t anything you wouldn’t do to get your Archie back safely, but you were wrong, weren’t you, Dillman? You learned there was one thing, something you were completely incapable of doing, Archie or no Archie. You couldn’t sleep with a man you knew you might soon have to lure to his death.” I grinned. “You even felt obliged to make his last days pleasant by washing his clothes for him.”

After a long time she whispered, “Damn you, Matt, how do you know so much about me?”

I said, “You could sleep with me to keep an eye on me. You could sleep with me for information. But you couldn’t sleep with me after you learned you might have to help them kill me, even though, as it turned out, you were quite capable of shooting me yourself, or trying to. But use sex for that purpose, no. I’m afraid you’re really rather a nice girl, Dillman, hard though you try to conceal it.”

She said softly, “It
is
getting light. We’ll have to be going soon.”

“Well hear the Jeep,” I said. “And the point of this whole discussion is that you can’t lie worth a damn or act worth a shit. That’s where we started from. So you’re going to have to be careful to say as little as possible. Tell them how terrible it was. Tell them how scared you were, so scared you don’t really remember what happened; and if anybody wants the whole story he’d better consult Mr. Felton…”

“What—”

“Shut up and listen,” I said. “We were working together. I had you get next to Colonel Sanchez deliberately and pretend to work for him, more or less, so you could obtain information from him. You did. You gave me a good description of the temple they were using. You kept me posted on how the negotiations were progressing. And last night you learned that Sanchez, tipped off by Pat Tolson, was going to make an example of me to forestall our camp mutiny. You hurried to warn me as soon as you could. You told me of a possible escape trail; and we decided to make a run for it together. We got this far when Sanchez and two men caught up with us—but what they didn’t know was that I was carrying a little knife that had escaped their search, and that I’d also, anticipating trouble, hidden a revolver I’d been carrying, near the Monastery. We’d retrieved the gun as we fled, and I’d let you pack it, figuring that if they caught us, they’d search me first. When they did, and gave me an opening, I knifed Sanchez and you shot the boy soldier, whose gun I then managed to grab and turn on Eugenio. It was awful. Blood all over the place. It was terrible. You simply can’t remember clearly and you’re rather glad you can’t. You don’t want to believe you really killed a man; you just remember being dreadfully sick afterward…”

“Matt,” she said.

“No, don’t talk, listen! We don’t have to worry about bullets and ballistics; the scavengers out there are busily destroying the evidence. By the time they’re through, nobody’ll be able to tell who shot whom with what; and I doubt that there are many forensic or ballistic experts in Costa Verde anyway. So just be the modest, inarticulate, reluctant heroine and you’ll be all right. Remember, the others don’t know a damn thing. I’ve told them nothing but the yarn you just heard. They don’t suspect a thing, so don’t arouse their suspicions by talking too much. If you just stick to this one story and don’t try to embroider it, you’ll be in the clear…”

“Matt,” she said. “Matt, I tried to
kill
you.”

I looked at her for a moment, rather a long moment. “Yes, you tried to kill me,” I said at last, “and I’ll admit it kind of upset me, but I’ve had time to cool off and remember…” I cleared my throat. “Remember that I don’t like cautious, careful ladies who hedge their bets. You didn’t, Dillman. You had to make a choice. You had to choose between me and your goddamn Archie and you chose him. All the way. And how the hell can I hate a woman, hurt a woman, destroy a woman, for doing for another man what I’d have been very proud to have her do for me?”

She hesitated. A little time passed. At last she reached out to cover my hand with hers, and started to speak, and stopped. We sat like that for a while; then she turned her head, listening.

“There’s the Jeep,” she said. “We’d better go. Thank you, Matt.”

At ten in the morning I was playing rear guard to our straggling safari, a very unmilitary procession that stumbled along the Jeep track between the vine-entangled trees, mostly fairly low, but with an occasional jungle giant among them—gigantic for that scrubby jungle at least—generally decorated with a ragged bird’s nest or some wild orchids. When the road ran straight for a while I could see the whole party strung out ahead of me except for Jim Putnam and Paul Olcott, who were scouting far out in front of the slow procession.

Gen. Austin Henderson was driving the Jeep we’d liberated from the late Colonel Sanchez. It was loaded with weapons and ammunition, food and water—our luggage had been left behind, since there wasn’t room for it all in the little vehicle. Ahead of the Jeep I could see Frances in her red shirt and Gloria Jean in her black one. The two schoolteachers, in similar dusty black slacks, marched side by side up there. Behind the vehicle stalked Mrs. Wilder in white pants that had got smudged in the seat, staying close to her damaged but healing husband, who was wearing wine-colored slacks and a red-checked sports shirt. The Gardenschwartzes trudged along together, and handsome blond Mrs. Olcott, deserted by her husband, kept company with Mrs. Henderson, whose wilted blue pantsuit did nothing to conceal the ample dimensions of her figure. Presently the younger woman said something to her companion and lengthened her stride to pull ahead, while the older woman paused at the roadside to rest, mopping her face. When I came up she fell in beside me.

“Thanks for asking Jim to let the old man drive,” she said. “His heart really isn’t very good.”

“I didn’t notice much wrong with his heart last night,” I said. “At least it didn’t interfere noticeably with his shooting eye.”

“He didn’t do too badly back there, did he?” She smiled fondly and glanced at me. “You know, in all these years, Sam, that’s the first time I ever got to see him in action. Oh, on the drill field, of course; but always before when it was for real he’d go away and be gone for weeks or months, sometimes years, and come back all shot up or at least so tired he could hardly stand, and they’d hang another pretty on him and tell me what a hero he was; and I’d have to settle for what I could find to read about it because he’d never tell me how it had been.” She hesitated. “I suppose it’s heartless of me, but I can’t help being glad about the way this has turned out. He’s having himself a hell of a time, the old warhorse; and there aren’t going to be too many more for him. We were figuring this was probably the last trip we’d get to make together.”

I looked at her quickly. “That bad?”

She nodded and said quietly, “They gave him one year five years ago. He fooled them, but it’s catching up with him now. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with myself when he’s gone. We women just live too damn long.” She found a Kleenex in her capacious purse and blew her nose. “Pay no attention to the mushy old lady. She always gets depressed when her feet hurt.”

Later, Patricia Tolson fell back to keep me company briefly. “I suppose you think you’re pretty brave,” she said. “Killing all those men.”

I said, “I don’t think I want to discuss it with you, Miss Tolson. I find it very difficult to be polite to people who’ve conspired to have me murdered. Go fink on somebody else, lady.”

Her face turned pale and grim, and she turned and marched away, holding herself very straight. Her plump sidekick, McElder, started after her, but turned back to me fiercely.

“You don’t all have to be so mean to her! She was only doing what she thought was best for all of us, trying to prevent the terrible violence you were planning. She hates violence!”

They all hate violence and cancer, but they never seem to come up with a cure. Later it was Howard Gardenschwartz, in faded khaki pants and an old white shirt, looking as if he were heading out into the garden to prune the roses or spray the delphiniums, or whatever you do to delphiniums. He walked along beside me in silence for a while. When he spoke, his voice was diffident.

“I don’t suppose it matters,” he said, “and I’m not complaining, you understand, but I am rather curious. I did wear a uniform once, you know, even though I didn’t often wear it where I could get shot at. I had a little military training, although I don’t suppose I remember much of it now. But I think I have a right to know: When you selected your… your team, you didn’t even approach me. Why?”

He had a certain dignity, and I gave him a straight answer: “CHC.”

He frowned. “CHC. What?… Oh.”

I said, “In the course of this mission, as a matter of routine, I got thumbnail sketches of just about everybody involved, including one Gardenschwartz, Howard W., Ph.D., etc., etc., secretary of his local chapter of the Citizens for Handgun Control, also member of at least one other antifirearms group. Well, I’m not going to argue the principle with you, Dr. Gardenschwartz, we wouldn’t get anywhere, but if I have an appendix to be removed, I don’t need a surgeon who’s rabidly opposed to knives. Or even an operating-room nurse: ‘I’m sorry, doctor, I can’t hand you that scalpel; my principles won’t let me handle edged weapons.’ Well, I had some people to be removed, so I didn’t call on a man who hates guns. Okay?”

After a little, he nodded slowly. “I suppose that’s reasonable,” he said. He cleared his throat. “However, theory is one thing and practice seems to be another. If you can use another recruit, I think I could overcome my theoretical objections to firearms long enough to help you get my wife out of here.”

I said, “Hell, grab a bandolier and an Ml6 out of the Jeep if you want. Just let me show you how it works; it’s considerably different from the old Ml you were probably checked out on.”

Toward noon, I made a scout back along the road and climbed a little man-made knoll surmounted by a brush-covered ruin of some kind. I sat on a dressed limestone block up there watching the road and the jungle stretching behind us back toward Labal, but nothing moved. The strong winds of the night were dying, and it was quiet and pleasant up there.