The Annihilators Read online

  “Matt? I’m sorry, they had me gagged and my lips don’t seem to… Matt, I’m sorry. Stupid me. After you called to say you’d be late I drove out to get some vermouth before the liquor store closed. I saw it was getting low, and they…”

  I had a mental picture of her, small and angry and unafraid, but probably a little disheveled from being captured and gagged and perhaps bound; and she would hate that. She had the idea that she was a very ugly little girl, with her mobile monkey-face and straight brown hair; and that the only way to deal with this dreadful handicap was to take special pains with her appearance.

  We’d happily overcome, in the past months, some of the inferiority feelings that had been hammered into her by, I gathered, a lovely and unloving mother who’d wanted a pretty doll to play with, not a bright but somewhat less than beautiful child to bring up. But she still had some distance to go; and it was unbearable to think that she might not be allowed to make it all the way now and become the person she was meant to be, the person she would have enjoyed being, just because of some hot-blooded political screwballs and a cold-blooded fish of a so-called lover who couldn’t forget his idiot notions of duty and discipline, or could he? I listened to her telling me how they had grabbed her and how dumb she’d been to let them…

  “Are you all right?” I asked when she stopped.

  “Yes, so far, but… Matt.”

  “Yes?”

  There was sudden, breathless urgency in her voice: “Matt, I couldn’t stand it if you… It would never be any good again. Nothing would ever be any good again. Please don’t let them make you do anything because of me…” Her voice was cut off abruptly, presumably by a hand over her mouth.

  “Enough.” It was a man’s voice, a young man’s voice, presumably the voice of the man called Lobo, the Wolf, who seemed to be running the show. At least the girl had shown him a certain deference. He continued: “You heard her say she was all right, señor. It is up to you whether or not she will continue to be all right. Consider it very carefully. For our cause, we will kill if we must, even a pretty lady like her.”

  The phone went dead, leaving Elly alone somewhere with Lobo the Wolf and Oso the Bear, while I got Leona the Lioness for company. Kid stuff. But they all have causes. It’s getting to the point, I reflected, where it’s like a ray of sunshine after a long dark winter to meet some splendid mercenary creep who simply murders for money, or a fine sadistic jerk who merely likes to see the agonized wiggles and hear the tormented screams and smell the blood. Those are natural impulses I can understand; but I’m getting pretty damn sick of these incomprehensible high-minded ladies and gentlemen who kidnap and slaughter innocent people with the purest and most idealistic motives in the world.

  I started to give the phone back to Dolores Anaya and caught myself and glanced at her questioningly. She made a gesture of rejecting the instrument, nodding.

  “Make your call, señor.”

  I dialed the Washington number and identified myself. “Condition Blue,” I said. When the girl looked disturbed and made a move to break the connection, I said, “That means there’s a gun at my head, or somebody’s head. Is it supposed to be a secret?” The outstretched hand was withdrawn.

  “I’ll put you through,” said the girl in Washington. Almost immediately, Mac’s voice came on the line.

  “Matt here, sir,” I said. “Condition Blue.”

  The fact that I used my real name instead of my code name—which happens to be Eric—warned my superior that the conversation was being overheard at my end.

  “Yes, Matt,” he said, acknowledging the signal. “What’s the problem?”

  At this hour of the night he wouldn’t be sitting at the familiar beat-up office desk in front of the bright window he liked to make us squint at. It was well past midnight in Washington, and I’d never entered his home, so I couldn’t visualize him at the phone in pajamas and dressing gown. To me he was always the lean, ageless gray-haired man in a gray suit with whom I’d worked longer than I cared to remember.

  I looked at Dolores Anaya. “The name,” I said. She hesitated but gave it to me. I said into the phone: “Name check, please. Rael, Armando Rael. Is that name on the available list?”

  Well, it was what the kid expected, wasn’t it? She was sitting there obviously impressed by all the undercover nonsense and even more impressed by the thought that we seemed to have the world’s population classified, presumably by computer, into available people we could blow away at will, and those few lucky folks who were unavailable to our grim assassination teams, at least for the moment.

  There was a little pause, as Mac digested the request and its implications, and marshaled his facts a thousand miles away. He spoke precisely at last: “Armando Rael is the current president of Costa Verde—dictator, actually—having thrown out the former incumbent a few years ago in a sudden coup. That was Col. Hector Jimenez, whom you may remember, who replaced President Avila rather forcibly. Jimenez, although a military man, was a little too liberal, particularly on the subject of land reform; he was therefore overthrown by a junta of reactionary landowners and conservative army officers headed by Rael. Jimenez was fortunate to escape with his life—and of course some money. They never escape poor, do they? The current president of Costa Verde is not exactly a firm believer in human rights and democracy, I’m told. There have been two known attempts on his life already, both unsuccessful.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “The question is, would anybody besides Rael object to a successful attempt?”

  “By whom?”

  “By me,” I said. “I repeat, Condition Blue.”

  “Yes, I see,” he said, and I thought it very likely that he did by this time. He wasn’t a man for whom you needed to draw detailed pictures. He said, “Very well, I’ll check.”

  I spoke to Leona, the young black-maned lioness. “He’s consulting the oracle. Be patient.”

  Dolores Anaya did not speak. We waited. I tried not to think of a small, brave, intelligent girl with whom I’d shared some very pleasant experiences and some not so pleasant—we’d met under rather strained and violent circumstances. What she’d gone through then had not been my fault, but this obviously was. I should have remembered that a man in my peculiar line of work draws violence the way a lone tree on a hilltop draws lightning. Well, actually I had remembered, and warned her, and she had laughed and said that she’d long since given up expecting anything good to come to her safely and free of charge…

  “Matt?” The phone spoke in my ear.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Unavailable,” Mac said, playing the game on my terms, which was nice of him. He could simply have ordered me to cut out the stalling and, for a start, send the pretty messenger—of course I hadn’t told him she was pretty—back to her friends with a neatly-slit throat the way I was supposed to, the way we were all supposed to, in any situation like this. As I said, the hostage game is one we simply do not play. Mac went on: “I checked the classification with State, just to be certain. I was informed that President Armando Rael of Costa Verde is not expendable; and that there must not be the slightest suggestion that we consider him so, since he is a very sensitive person in a very sensitive area and we must not jeopardize this valuable relationship in any way.” When I didn’t respond to this immediately, Mac asked, “You are in Chicago?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I think I understand the problem, but that solution must not be used, not even as a feint or distraction. No move whatever must be made in that direction. I am truly sorry.”

  He sounded sincere, and I got the impression that under other circumstances he might have been willing to make an exception to the standing orders; but national policy made it impossible for him to free my hands. Check to the tall, skinny gent with the gun in his belt and the stupid look on his face. And to the tough little lady who, with her life at stake, had in effect given me my orders, telling me that nothing would ever be any good again if I allowed her to be used against
me in this fashion.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Yes, sir. Don’t hang up. Hold the line.” I looked at Dolores Anaya, whose beautiful dark eyes were watching me steadily. It was too bad. You hate to see them waste themselves, the young ones. She was a pretty thing; she could have become a lovely thing; but she’d never make it now. Not unless she had more sense than I thought. I said, “My chief says the name you gave me is unavailable.”

  “It is too bad, señor. Then the señorita must die.”

  I made the expected, reasonable, useless noises: “What’s the point? It won’t get your dictator killed.” I could see that this made absolutely no impression on her—she was locked into her predetermined course of action—and I went on: “And it could get some people killed you’d rather keep living.”

  She bristled fiercely. “Are you threatening me, señor?”

  “Don’t be corny,” I said. “Of course I’m threatening you. But let’s try something else first. Will you let me talk with your daddy?”

  She looked startled; then she frowned suspiciously. “Who has told you? I did not give you my full name.”

  I said. “Hell, I once spent several days in the jungle with Col. Hector Jimenez. I got to know him pretty well; do you think I don’t know a daughter of his when I see her?” This wasn’t quite true, of course. I hadn’t realized who Dolores Anaya must be until I asked myself why Costa Verde had popped into my head like that; then I’d looked again and seen the unmistakable resemblance. I said, “Your male parent was a sensible man when I saw him last. He wouldn’t pull a fool stunt like this; and even if he did let somebody talk him into it, he wouldn’t persist with it after it had gone sour. Get him on the phone and let me talk some sense into him.”

  Dolores Anaya, whose family name was Jimenez—they weight down babies with great long strings of names down there—shook her pretty dark head. “It will do no good, señor. You are wrong, the idea was altogether my father’s. He has always remembered the very expert and professional manner in which you dealt with the bandit El Fuerte. He said we must have you now, since others have failed. Two others, one of whom was”—she hesitated—“was my older brother Ricardo. My father said it was too bad, and he regretted the necessity for coercion, but the people of Costa Verde must be saved from the butcher Rael regardless of cost. Their freedom is more important than the respect and friendship he feels for you, and perhaps you for him.”

  Well, it made sense. It’s the old Savior-Of-Your-Country syndrome. And of course no conspirator, particularly no Latin-American conspirator, would ever dream of simply picking up the phone and asking me if I’d shoot somebody for him, please. It has to be done complicated, with kidnaping and intimidation, or it doesn’t count.

  There was, of course, another consideration that the girl hadn’t mentioned, either because she hadn’t been taken wholly into her father’s confidence or because they’d agreed not to call it to my attention, since it might influence my decision unfavorably. It seemed very unlikely that if they did obtain the services of an agent of the U.S. Government against Rael, by whatever means, they’d keep it a secret from Rael, even if it made the job harder.

  Mac had already hinted that the present dictator of Costa Verde was a sensitive person—read: paranoid bastard—who’d blow his stack at any suggestion of treachery on the part of his gringo allies. Even if I should fail, the fact that I had tried could be used to sow a great deal of discord between Rael and his Americano supporters, to Jimenez’s advantage.

  I said, “Aren’t you forgetting something? Isn’t your daddy forgetting something?”

  “What, señor?”

  “He may have Eleanor Brand, but I have you.”

  The girl tossed her head haughtily and gave a scornful little laugh that an aristocratic lady of revolutionary France might have, used when threatened with the guillotine. “So kill me now!” She made a sharp gesture. “I claimed the right to speak with you. I was not good for managing the abduction, that was work for the men, but I could do this. I could speak just as convincingly for my father as my brother Emilio, who calls himself Lobo. And the fact that I would put myself into your hands, and that my father would allow it, should prove to you how seriously we take this matter. So if you wish to kill me, kill. It will do your lady no good, I assure you. There will certainly be no trade, if that is what you are thinking. I would take my own life, first.”

  She was very impressive, so young and so dedicated; but they are always slightly incredible in their arrogance, these baby martyrs. They are so ready to sacrifice themselves for their beliefs, but it never occurs to them that they may not be unique; that there may be other folks around ready for sacrifice, too.

  “Sure,” I said. “It was just a thought.”

  Dolores Jimenez glanced at her watch. “There is a time limit. If I am not back soon…”

  It was time to play the last card, even though I had no faith in it, dealing with youthful fanatics like this one. “All right, listen closely… Sir,” I said into the phone.

  Mac’s voice said, “Yes, Matt?”

  “The classification on Jimenez?”

  “Available. I thought you might need to know, so I also asked that question. Although of course they do not condone violence over there in the halls of diplomacy—at least not publicly—nevertheless if violence should occur, I gather they would not be displeased to have it occur to Colonel Jimenez. Well, at least as long as the act cannot in any way be attributed to the present regime. There are softhearted elements of the administration, not to mention of the liberal press, who disapprove of our support of Armando Rael and would use any terrorist act of his in this country to discredit this policy and those who favor it. But if it can be accomplished discreetly, they will not be unhappy. The colonel’s repeated loud condemnation of their man, Rael, and his constant efforts to return to power, are becoming very annoying to certain of our policy makers.”

  “I see,” I said, and looked at the girl as I spoke. “The colonel is available. Very good. Then I request a complete cover on the whole Jimenez menage. In particular I want to know when Hector himself gets up in the morning and when he goes to bed at night. I want to know when he sleeps with his wife and if they both have satisfactory orgasms…”

  Mac broke in: “Señora Jimenez died about a year after escaping from Costa Verde, perhaps due to the hardships she suffered getting out of there. As far as the rest of the family is concerned, the older son Ricardo was captured while making an attempt on Rael’s life and disappeared into the political prison known as La Fortaleza. It is believed that he died there, not pleasantly. There is a younger son Emilio and a daughter Dolores.”

  “I have just had the pleasure of meeting Dolores,” I said. “I have even spoken with Emilio, unfortunately under rather unfavorable circumstances. But that’s beside the point. I want to know when the colonel goes to the can in the morning and whether his bowel movement is soft or hard. I particularly want to know his whereabouts at any hour of the day or night. And of course his security arrangements.”

  “We have a lot of that information, or we can obtain it,” Mac said. “As I indicated, his political activities have aroused some unfavorable interest. Surveillance will be arranged.”

  “Around-the-clock surveillance, excellent,” I said for Dolores’s benefit. “Next item: Please send somebody to my Washington apartment with the spare key they keep down in the office. At the back of the bedroom closet is a long plastic case containing a .300. Holland and Holland Magnum rifle with a heavy target barrel and a twenty-power telescopic sight. You may remember the gun. I’d appreciate it if you’d have it delivered to the armorer. Ask him to check it out carefully. It’s been sitting idle for several years.”

  “Yes, I remember the rifle quite well,” Mac said.

  I said, “Ask the armorer, when he’s overhauled it, to make me up a hundred rounds of fresh ammunition. His records will show the load we worked up for the gun—the hundred-eighty-grain bullet. The particular bullet we u
sed isn’t manufactured any longer, so unless he still has a stock of them, he’ll have to find another with the same expansion characteristics. Remind him that I do not want an armor-plated grizzly-bear bullet that won’t open up on lighter game. The primary target will be a not-very-big human male at extreme range, where the bullet will have lost a great deal of its velocity. I want a slug with a light jacket that’ll expand reliably under those conditions and tear a nice big lethal hole through the sonofabitch. There will be some other targets, but let’s set it up for this one. What with the current rules for interstate shipment of firearms, you’ll have to get the weapon to me by courier. I’ll call later and let you know where.”

  “Very well. Anything else?”

  “That’ll do it for now,” I said. “Thank you, sir. Matt out.”

  I passed the instrument to the girl, who replaced it firmly in its cradle. There was a little silence; then she said, “Do you really think you can frighten us?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Some people are too stupid to be scared. But tell your friends, tell your daddy, that unless Eleanor Brand is returned unharmed, I go hunting. Colonel Jimenez has seen me at work. Ask him if he really wants to be at the wrong end of the rifle that finished El Fuerte half a valley away. Tell him that if anything happens to my girl, he can just forget about saving the poor suffering people of Costa Verde. They’ll have to make it on their own because he won’t be around to help them. And neither will you, Miss Lioness, or your brother Mister Wolf, or your friend Mister Bear. Don’t start this thing going, señorita. You can stop it right here. Send back Eleanor Brand, unharmed, and we’ll just forget the whole thing. Hurt her and you’re dead.”

  She looked at me for a moment with those lustrous brown Spanish eyes; and I saw that I had failed. She, a Costa Verde patriot, was not to be intimidated by a little secret-agent foolishness, some menacing ballistic jargon, and a few threats. I had hoped—well, just a little—that she might be bright enough to realize that the last thing their lousy revolution, or counterrevolution, needed was a vengeful sniper in attendance; but she was hypnotized by the pure bright image of Costa Verde freedom that now required a human sacrifice…