The Detonators Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Donald Hamilton

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

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  30

  About the Author

  Also Available from Titan Books

  Also by Donald Hamilton and available from Titan Books

  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 Infiltrators

  The Vanishers (August 2016)

  The Demolishers (October 2016)

  The Detonators

  Print edition ISBN: 9781783299898

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781783299904

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: June 2016

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 1985, 2016 by Donald Hamilton. All rights reserved.

  Matt Helm® is the registered trademark of Integute AB.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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  1

  The girl Mac had sent to me, presumably because he didn’t know what else to do with her, was a very proper young woman in a severely tailored gray flannel business suit and a severe white silk blouse with a neat little ascot thing at the throat. Nicely constructed, of slightly less than medium height, she had a grave oval face dominated by very serious gray-blue eyes. The mouth, although adequate in size, didn’t look as if she’d ever taken advantage of its potential for laughter. A shy, pinched, reluctant little smile was the best she’d managed for me so far. Well, it wasn’t exactly a laughing situation.

  She had a lot of fine light-brown hair pinned up about her head in a ladylike Victorian manner, displaying a graceful neck. The hair was light enough that she could have become a striking little blonde without a great deal of effort—a simple rinse would have done the job. The fact that she hadn’t made the effort said a lot about her. She wore very little makeup, just a touch of lipstick; and her face was pale, but that could have been the result of the awkward and distressing circumstances that had brought her to me. I noticed that her hands were quite attractive. Locked in her lap as she sat facing me stiffly, on a small straight chair she’d chosen in preference to the mate of the comfortable number in which I was sprawled, they were slender, shapely hands, but not too small to be useful. The nails were well cared for but trimmed fairly short, with clear, colorless polish, very discreet. No blood-red talons here.

  However, she’d yielded to conventional femininity in a couple of respects. Her neat black pumps, which matched the purse in her lap, had fairly high slim heels that did nice things for her pretty ankles; and her smoky stockings were very sheer, emphasizing the pleasant shape of her legs. But unlike most modern young ladies, who’re happy to display their erogenous zones to anyone who cares to look, Miss Amy Barnett still hadn’t let me determine whether she was wearing panty hose or sustained the smoothness of her nylons with more elaborate feminine engineering. So far she’d managed her narrow skirt with faultless modesty. But I would have bet a considerable amount of money on the tights. She didn’t look like a girl who’d go in for frivolous lacy garter belts and cute little bikini panties; and she certainly didn’t need the support of a girdle.

  “Well, after all, he is in jail and he is my father,” she said a bit defiantly. “Even if I haven’t seen him since I was a child.”

  It was a mass-produced hotel room in a mass-produced hotel near the Miami waterfront. The Marina Towers, if it matters. Never mind what I was doing there. Actually, it was done, and I’d been making arrangements to return to Washington when the phone had rung and Mac had instructed me to sit tight and expect a visitor. He’d also given me the background of the situation and apologized for dumping the job on me because I was handy, since there were personal reasons why I might find it distasteful—but personal doesn’t count for much with us. If it did, there were also personal reasons, which Mac seemed to have forgotten, why I didn’t mind as much as I might have.

  “But I gather you don’t approve of him,” I said to the girl facing me. “Even though he is your pop.”

  “How can I? The work he does… used to do! If you can call it work! I was terribly shocked when Mother explained it to me all those years ago—I was seven at the time—explained why I no longer had a daddy, why she’d had to leave him. But I understood perfectly. I mean, what else could she do when she finally learned what he’d been hiding all those years, what kind of a man he really was.” Amy Barnett hesitated. “But now that Mother’s dead he’s my only living relative, Mr. Helm, and I felt obliged to come when I learned he was in trouble.” She shook her head quickly. “No, that’s not quite accurate. I was already trying to locate him when I heard about that.”

  “You’ve had no contact with him since your mother walked out on him and took you with her?”

  She didn’t like the way I’d expressed that, but she decided hot to make an issue of it. “Well… well, afterward he tried to write me from time to time, like on my birthdays, but Mother made me send his letters back unopened, so after a while he gave up. Except for the last letter that came quite recently, right after her death, that let me know how to get in touch with the government agency he worked for, if I ever needed any kind of help. Your agency. He wrote that now that he was retired he’d be traveling outside the country for a while, where he’d be hard to reach. He wanted to be sure I was taken care of, now that Mother was gone.” She gave me that pinched little smile again. “Of course, I have a very good job managing an office for a group of docto
rs; I also have some nurse’s training and plan to get my cap eventually. In other words, Mr. Helm, I’ve been taking care of myself perfectly well for several years; but he seemed really concerned about me. I was feeling very much alone in the world, so I called the number he’d written right away. I did feel that I was betraying Mother in a small way; but it really wouldn’t hurt just to see him and talk to him a little, get to know him a little, if I could catch him before he left the country. Would it?” She shook her head abruptly. “Only, when I called I learned what… what he’d done now, where he is now.”

  “But you still flew down here to see him,” I said. “All the way from Cincinnati, Ohio.”

  She shrugged resignedly. “I’m just stubborn, I guess. I started this and I had to finish it, even though I don’t know how I’ll pay for the ticket I charged to Visa yesterday, not to mention the hotel bill here. But I guess I’ve had a few doubts—I mean, Mother was a little unreasonable at times. However, it seems that in this case she was perfectly right.” Miss Barnett’s lips tightened primly. “Apparently, my father, a retired professional man of violence, now smuggles drugs and resists savagely when arrested, putting several police officers into the hospital! Not exactly a parent to be proud of, would you say? But I do feel I should face him once, myself, so I’ll know… know Mother made the right decision all those years ago.”

  “Sure. Anybody else you want to lock up or execute without a trial while we’re at it?”

  There was a brief silence, while the big gray-blue eyes—mostly gray at the moment, I noticed—studied me carefully. Amy Barnett nodded slowly.

  “I see. You feel I’m condemning him without a hearing?” When I didn’t speak, she went on quickly: “But that’s exactly what I’m here for, to hear what he has to say!”

  “But you’ve already made up your mind about him, haven’t you? Or let your mom make it up for you?”

  She frowned. “You don’t like me very much, do you, Mr. Helm?”

  I said, “You seem to have made a fine recovery, Miss Barnett.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I said, deadpan, “Oh, the way he used to kick you around the room after beating up on your poor mother. Battered child, battered wife. But it’s all healed now, I see. But the memories remain even after all these years, of course. The way he strangled the cat with his bare hands and chopped up the dog with a carving knife, blood and guts all over the place, horrible. Naturally your mother had to snatch you away before the disgusting, degenerate brute crippled you for life, or even murdered both of you in your beds. Right?”

  She looked bewildered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Actually, Daddy was very fond of old Buttons, our springer spaniel. And he certainly never laid a hand on… Oh, you’re being sarcastic!” She licked her lips. “I’m sorry. I’m a little slow today, Mr. Helm.”

  I said, “Yes, ma’am. Sarcastic.” I got up and walked across the room to the dresser. “Would you care for a drink?”

  “Thank you, I don’t drink.”

  Picking up the bottle, I glanced at her over my shoulder. “And I don’t suppose you smoke, either.”

  She shook her head minutely. “Anybody’d be a fool to do that to themselves in view of the scientific evidence.”

  I said, “And I’ve noticed that you don’t swear. No vices at all, Miss Barnett? Do you fuck?”

  She wasn’t going to let me shock her into silence. Her voice was very stiff when it came, but it came: “I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you mean. But I… I wasn’t impressed with it as a form of casual entertainment the… the few times…”

  She stopped. When I turned and walked over there and looked down at her, I saw that her ears were quite pink. I took a deep swallow of the drink I’d made myself.

  “Miss Barnett.”

  She looked up warily. “Yes?”

  “Will you accept my humble apology?”

  Her eyes widened. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m sorry for giving you a hard time,” I said. “But then you’ve been giving me a pretty hard time, too. There’s no way you could know it, but a considerable number of years ago my wife left me, taking our three children with her, just the way your mother left your dad; and for exactly the same reason. So when I hear of a man who’s done his best, within his limitations, to be a good husband and father, being deserted by his family for beautiful moral reasons relating to the type of work he’s chosen for himself, I find it hard to be sympathetic with the family that left him; I’m on the other side. But at least my wife—ex-wife—didn’t brainwash my kids into thinking that their daddy was a monster or prevent me from communicating with them occasionally, although in our business it’s usually best to stay pretty much away from people you love so nobody gets the bright idea of using them against you. So I have.” I raised my glass to her. “Anyway, I apologize for getting personal. Your vices, or lack of them, are really no concern of mine, right? But you did go pretty heavy on that professional-man-of-violence stuff. We’re very sensitive fellows, we professional men of violence.”

  “I’m sorry. It was pretty tactless of me, wasn’t it?” But her heart wasn’t in the apology; she had more important things to worry about than my sensitive feelings. She drew a long breath and glanced at her watch. “Well, judging by what I saw from the taxi that brought me from the airport, Miami traffic is pretty awful. If we’re going to get there during visiting hours, we’d better start driving, hadn’t we?” Her voice turned disapproving. “As soon as you’ve finished your drink, of course.”

  I said, “Don’t worry, ma’am. I hold my liquor pretty good. But if I do feel a drunken stupor coming on, I promise to turn the wheel over to you.”

  2

  Driving the rental car across town with the girl beside me, I reviewed what I’d been told about the situation. I’d already known, of course, that Doug had long been a victim of the Slocum syndrome. Old Joshua Slocum was the first man to sail alone around the world. Men, and a few women, have been dreaming of following in the wake of his clumsy Spray for almost a century now, and even doing it. Well, there’s nothing like a good dream to sustain you during the long dull day stakeouts and night vigils involved in our profession. Some men make the time pass by dreaming of climbing high mountains, or catching big fish, or shooting deer or elk that have enormous antlers. Some dream of food or liquor or women, or various combinations of the above. I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong in dreaming about boats.

  Retired for medical reasons—he was getting on toward that age anyway—Doug set about turning his dream into reality. He bought a husky thirty-two-foot fiberglass sailboat hull, double-ended. The ones that are sharp at both ends are supposed to be more seaworthy, according to some authorities. According to others, not. But Doug had been sold on the virtues of that pointy stern that would part the raging seas gently as he ran before the howling gales in the great Southern Ocean.

  I knew, because I’d done a job with him during which we’d had time for some idle talk before things got very busy and he’d had to save my life a bit, that he’d originally planned to do the whole construction job himself. However, now that retirement was a reality, he had a number of old aches and twinges, and some new ones, to remind him that nobody lives forever. He decided that if he wanted to carry out his sailing plans, he didn’t have time to waste on building from scratch. So he acquired a ready-made hull—apparently they were available in all stages of completion—and finished and rigged it to his own specifications in a little less than two years.

  He was a midwestern boy who’d never seen an ocean until World War II sent him overseas; but since the dream hit him he’d spent his free time—the little we get—in learning seamanship and navigation. Now he took a few more months to get acquainted with his new ship, with progressively longer cruises from his home in St. Petersburg, on the west coast of Florida. Feeling himself ready at last, with some knowledge of compass and sextant, and a little practical experience in handling his boat under
a variety of conditions, he embarked upon his epic voyage, first heading south to Key West, at the tip of the Florida Keys.

  From there he planned to head up the east coast of Florida to Miami, where he’d take care of any deficiencies in boat or supplies that had come to his attention. Later, as the seasons permitted, he’d proceed to Bermuda, the Azores, and the Mediterranean and make his way through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea and across the Indian Ocean to Australia. After that, the palmy islands of the South Seas beckoned.

  Well, that was the master plan. Remember, this was no crazy kid with wild hair and a yen for publicity, but a sober and very tough and competent gent of mature years, who’d spent a lot of his life working out, in his spare time, the details of his voyage and accumulating the charts and other publications required. With no family responsibilities except for the daughter he’d never been allowed to know since her childhood, whose welfare he’d nevertheless provided for—there was money waiting in Washington if she should need it—he felt free to indulge his romantic vision. If other people thought him nuts, too bad about them. Let them buy retirement homes in Florida or Arizona if they chose. His choice was the boat.

  However, when he reached Key West he wasn’t feeling very well. Ironically, considering his medical history, he wasn’t hit by a flare-up of one of his old injuries, but by a simple touch of stomach flu. He saw a doctor and got himself fixed up with antibiotics, but he was too impatient to get on with his voyage to rest a few days, as recommended. Instead he took along a young man he met on the dock to help him sail the boat as far as Miami, about a hundred and fifty miles. He figured that by the time they got there he’d be well enough to manage alone once more. But as they rode the Gulf Stream north along the Florida Straits, the kid slipped down into the cabin to smoke a cigarette that wasn’t tobacco.

  There was an instant showdown when Doug, in the cockpit, got a whiff of the smoke drifting out the main hatch. He wasn’t about to jeopardize his boat and his dream by having on board any illicit substances, as they’re known in the jargon. There may even have been a bit of a struggle, which was a laugh. Although no longer young and not altogether well, a trained man like Doug would have had no trouble tying an untrained, spaced-out kid into fairly painful knots. He searched the shabby pack and threw overboard the illegal stuff he found there. After docking in the big marina in Miami, he tossed the punk ashore with his belongings and told him to get lost, fast.