The Threateners Read online

  Madeleine had another question: “Who are Vasquez’s companions?” When he looked at her sharply, she said, “You talked about Vasquez’s ruthless companions. Companions? It seems a funny choice of words. Do you mean his business associates?”

  Mark laughed shortly. “Not exactly. They are his acolytes rather than his associates. They call themselves Los Compañeros de la Hoja.”

  He pronounced it “Oh-Ha,” and it was a new word to me; my Spanish vocabulary is fairly limited. “What’s an hoja?” I asked.

  “Hoja means ‘leaf.’ The Companions of the Leaf. Of the coca leaf.” Mark grimaced. “I told you it was a religion. Gregorio Vasquez is the high priest. For business and personal reasons he has become involved with other drugs, but cocaine is more than mere merchandise to him. And the people shadowing me, I think they are all Companions of the Leaf, prepared to do the old man’s bidding when he sends them the word, after purifying themselves by certain dark rituals involving the sacred drug.”

  I said, “They’re also watching Madeleine and me, you know, and have been for some weeks.”

  He frowned. “That is strange. Are you certain?”

  “I can show you one sitting just up the street from here.” After a moment I went on: “Let’s work it out. You disappear from your old haunts after the kidnapping. They track you out here somehow. Their instructions state, presumably, that you can’t be killed until it’s certain that your research materials can be confiscated or destroyed at the same time. It’s also customary, before drastic action is taken, to learn something about the habits and acquaintances of the victim, to see if they could cause any problems. I don’t know how many friends you and your wife have made in Santa Fe—”

  “Not so very many,” Mark said.

  “But among them,” I said, “is a certain character who seems to be very familiar with firearms, a tall, skinny galoot who’s always out shooting with one gun or another. Well, if you’re planning a takeout operation, you want to know exactly what you’re up against. You don’t want an ugly gunslinger, six four, opening up from the bushes with an Uzi or M16 as you move into the target area for the kill. ’ ’

  Mark looked surprised. “You mean they think I’ve hired or drafted you to . . .”

  “Or they believe that I’m associated with Dennis Morton’s outfit in some way, God forbid, and that you were sent out here where I live to be under my wing, but we were supposed to be sneaky about making contact so they wouldn’t suspect me. But they were too smart for us; they spotted me immediately, or so they figure.” I laughed. “Hell, you wondered about me. I wondered about you. These people wouldn’t even wonder. They live by the conspiracy theory of human relations. If two people meet fairly frequently, it can’t just be that they both like to shoot and are members of the same gun club; there’s got to be a plot brewing. In this case, obviously a plot for me to protect you against them. ”

  Madeleine said, “That explains why they’re watching you, Matt, but where do I come in?”

  I said, "When they checked up on me, they probably didn’t have the clout to learn my Washington connections; however, the local history wouldn’t be hard to come by. They’d only have to go back through the newspaper files a few years to discover that I’d been involved in quite a hassle right here in Santa Fe—accompanied by whom? A tough dame just released from prison who’d saved my life twice during the proceedings and killed two men doing it.” I glanced at Mark. “Never mind the details right now. But anybody doing a thorough job of planning a hit on you, and thinking I was acting as your bodyguard, would want to know where my dangerous female associate was now and whether or not she might turn up unexpectedly.” I turned to Madeleine. “So they traced you to Denver and found, surprise, surprise, a high-priced lady lawyer in a smart business suit. But when they became annoyingly persistent in their surveillance, said high-priced lady lawyer produced a gun and behaved in a very unladylike manner, undoubtedly confirming their worst suspicions.”

  “It’s crazy!” she protested. “You mean these Companions think I’m a gun moll or something?”

  I grinned. “Well, aren’t you? I remember, at the Ranch, doing my damnedest to have you turned into one. I wouldn’t be alive now if I hadn’t.”

  After a moment she laughed. “Poor Mark doesn’t know what the hell we’re talking about. You’ll have to give him the details of my gaudy past some day.” Then her expression changed. “The Old Man of the Mountain!” she exclaimed.

  “What?” I asked.

  “He lived up in the rocks of . . . well, I can’t remember where, but it was somewhere in the Middle East. He had a kind of religion, I believe, a murderous kind of religion, and a bunch of fanatic followers. He fed them hashish and sent them out to kill. Hashishin, assassin. That’s where the word comes from.”

  Mark said, “It is not unique. There are other religious cults involving mind-altering drugs, for instance the peyote cult among the Indians in this country. However, I have never heard of peyote being used for any but peaceful purposes. ” I said, “The Old Man of the Mountain, eh? Maybe we should call our South American friend the Ancient of the Andes. I gather he isn’t a kid.”

  Mark laughed shortly. “You are guessing well. He is actually referred to nowadays, very respectfully, as El Viejo, the Old One. He will have seventy years next month. It will be a cause for celebration among the Compañeros. If he achieves that age.”

  I looked sharply at the stocky man occupying the chair beside mine. “Have you any reason to think he won’t, aside from the fact that he’s already no chicken?”

  Mark hesitated. “One gets tired of being pursued,” he said slowly. “Amigo, if someone offered a million-dollar reward for your death, what would you do?”

  I said, “That’s easy. I’d get one of my rich friends to offer a two-million-dollar reward for his death. Assuming I had some Mends that rich, which I don’t.”

  “So what would you do?”

  I shrugged. “Hell, I’d sight in my old .300 Magnum and go after the son of a bitch. ”

  Mark smiled thinly. “That is a fine, uncivilized answer. I wish I—” He stopped, and his smile vanished. He licked his lips. “But if you had never in your life shot at anything but paper or metal targets ... I gather that you have some experience, Matt. Will you show me how? I am very sick of living like a hunted animal and watching my wife breaking under the strain. Will you help me find this man so I can kill him, this Gregorio Vasquez, El Viejo?"

  Chapter 8

  I became aware that Happy was barking outside, giving me an excuse to stall a little before responding to the outlandish proposition that had been put to me. I don’t mean that I’d never before been asked to participate in a wet operation, as the Washington spooks so colorfully call it, but it was the first time I’d been asked to hold the coat of an amateur while he did the actual shooting. At least I gathered that was what Mark had in mind, and I didn’t know quite how to answer without hurting his feelings or giving him the impression that I disapproved of his project morally, which I didn’t—anyone who sends out the wolves can’t complain if he finds a few toothy predators on his own doorstep. Outside, Happy was still sounding off. I went to the side door and stuck my head out and saw, over the fence, the brown top of a UPS truck parked in front of the next house up the street.

  “Happy, shut up!” I said, and he came to me, wagging his tail, proud of protecting the premises so efficiently. I scratched his ears. “Take it easy, you big loudmouth, you’ll disturb the neighbors,” I said.

  I went back inside. He went back to yapping happily at the UPS truck. Discipline. Actually, my neighbors had fairly loud dogs of their own, which were also tuning up, and nobody locally paid much attention to an occasional canine serenade. I was glad to be living in one of the older parts of Santa Fe, where barking dogs were still an accepted part of the environment, even though the mournful coyotes we used to hear when this was the edge of town were long gone. To hell with modem communities that serve up not
hing but car horns and rock and roll and motorcycle exhausts.

  When I returned to the table, Madeleine was saying angrily to Mark: “. . . hell of a thing to ask him! Even if it were the way to do it, which it isn’t, it’s your fight. It isn’t his fight!”

  Ever since our brief moment of passion, I’d detected a certain possessiveness in her attitude as she served lunch to our guest and, now, tried to protect me against his unreasonable demands. I found that I didn’t mind it in the least.

  "If that is not the way to do it, what is?" Mark demanded. “If you were sitting here with a price on your head, what would you do?”

  “There are civilized ways of handling—”

  “What civilized ways? I have already done the civilized things. I have fled my country with my family to avoid violence. I have trusted your government’s protection and had my wife kidnapped. I have fled again and hidden under a false name, and they have followed and found me. Should I now give up and wait for the knife or the bullet? Is there a law saying that this man can strike at me, but I may not strike at him?”

  “I don’t know about laws and rights; I just know you’ll never make it. You’ll just get both of you shot. This man will have all the protection money can buy!”

  “All the money in the world will not protect him out to a thousand meters or even five hundred, unless he is willing to live in a bunker like Hitler. I am a good marksman, a very good marksman. I am not asking anyone to kill for me; I will do the killing. With great pleasure. However, I will need a guide.”

  “A guide? I don’t understand.”

  “Hunters hire guides, do they not? Never having hunted animals, I would hire a guide if I were after moose or elk or deer for the first time; a guide who was familiar with the habits of the quarry, one who could bring me into position for a shot. It occurred to me, just from what I have already learned about him, that our amigo here would make a very good guide for anyone who was hunting a man; I simply do not know what I can offer him in return.”

  When he looked my way, I shook my head. “Sorry. I’d like to help out, but I’m hardly in a position . . . Christ, what’s the matter with those damn dogs? I wish that UPS guy would get the hell out of here. ”

  Happy had switched his serenade to the backyard now; apparently the truck had moved on to make a delivery to my neighbors on the other side. Their little terrier-type mutt was singing tenor to Happy’s deep Labrador bass. It was getting just a little too noisy, even for our neighborhood, and I started to rise, but Madeleine was on her feet before me.

  “I’ll go bring him in the house; it’ll give me a chance to get acquainted with him. You finish your coffee.”

  There seemed to be a kind of understanding between us, even though nothing had been said. Well, I had no objections. In fact, it gave me a kind of warm and comfortable feeling that I hadn’t known in all the years of transient ladies, no matter how nice.

  When she had left the room, I said to Mark: “As for this proposal of yours, I sympathize with your motives, and as I told you, if I were in your shoes, I’d take my gun and go hunting; but there’s only one man who can give me killing orders and I doubt very much that I can persuade him that this is a mission suitable for our organization. . . ."

  The explosion shook the whole small adobe building. I heard the crash of broken glass as the big French doors at the rear of the house were blown into the bedroom. Shocked, I was aware of a sense of outrage and anger at my own stupidity: anybody can buy a van and paint it brown. It’s Sunday, you moron; since when does UPS deliver on Sunday?

  I was on my feet, snatching the hidden Smith & Wesson revolver from under my shirt and starting for the side door, strangling the suicidal impulse to dash straight to the scene of the explosion and learn the worst. Then I came back to the gun rack and yanked the big bowie fighting knife out of its sheath. In tight places like my limited property an edged weapon can be worth a dozen firearms; besides, the atavistic instinct that I’ve learned never to ignore told me it was now knife country out there.

  I snapped instructions to Mark, who had his gun out: “Stay right here. This is my kind of game, not yours; let me handle it. Besides, I’m a real trigger-happy character and I don’t want to have to worry about shooting you by mistake. Your job is to use the Llama on anything that comes in here that isn’t Madeleine, Happy, or me. Don’t think about it, just purely shoot the living hell out of it, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Moving to the door, I was bleakly aware that the chances of his having to worry about Madeleine or Happy, after that backyard blast, weren’t very great—the delivery made by the phony UPS truck had sounded like a grenade—but they were not my immediate concern. Survival was. The gun in my left hand and the big knife in my right made opening the door something of a problem, but I solved it, wondering how many boom-booms awaited me outside—well, in the narrow space between the fence and the house it would only take one. With the door open, I could hear the whimpering of a dog in pain. Earlier, I’d rushed heedlessly to Happy’s rescue and got away with it, but the little voice inside was telling me that death was now waiting for me to answer the cry of my hurt dog.

  I took a moment, standing back a bit from the open doorway, to scan the neighboring roofs for a sniper; then I made my death-defying dive into the rosebushes for the second time that day. This time, at least, I had pants on. Nobody shot at me or threw anything at me. Crouching there, I could see, past the rear comer of the house, the dust of the explosion still settling in the patio. I rose cautiously and moved over to the path at the side of the house—and a heavy body dropped off the roof and landed on the flagstones behind me.

  Out of the comer of my right eye, I was aware of something black whipping toward my face. I thrust the big bowie upward to ward it off, but it wrapped itself snakelike around both the knife and my neck and tightened instantly; there was a moment when I thought I was going to be forced to cut my throat with my own blade. I was holding it edge outward, but the back of a bowie is also sharpened for several inches back from the point. With a major effort I sliced downward and outward, grateful that the strangler wasn’t a wire man. The noose parted.

  I didn’t wait to give a sigh of relief. I simply spun to my right, swinging the heavy blade like a scythe, backhand. As I turned, the strangler came into my view, a black-clad figure, trying to duck; but I allowed for that and chopped him across the side of the neck, leaning into the blow. I must say I found the impact highly satisfactory, feeling the keen edge drive through flesh and bone. Bomb my home, will you, you son of a bitch?

  It wasn’t quite a beheading, but it was close enough, and I stepped back to avoid the spurting blood as the man fell, still clutching a remnant of black cloth. The clumsy old Thuggee scarf, for God’s sake, in this age of efficient wire and nylon nooses! How obsolete could you get?

  A sharp pistol report from the back patio reminded me that I’d better postpone my study of ancient weapons of assassination. But the scarf had added to my sense of unreality. The idea of modem grenades blasting my patio and old-fashioned stranglers dropping from my roof was hard to accept. I cast a wary eye upward as I made my way toward the rear of the property, but there were no more acrobatic surprises; then I made a rolling dive past the comer of the house and came up to take in the nightmare scene: the shattered outdoors furniture and tom plantings, the wounded dog who saw me and tried to drag himself toward me, the dead or unconscious woman lying in a pool of blood—and the dead man in khakis with his once-fired gun still clutched in his hand. Well, twice-fired if you count the shot let off by his wife, earlier.

  Mark had to be dead; his head was cocked at a crazy angle to his body. Later, I might miss the guy; at the moment it was merely another loss on top of the losses I hadn’t begun to assimilate, and I just thought grimly, Stupid bastard asks for help and then won’t stay where he’s told! So much for Mr. Marcus Steiner, whatever his real patronymic might have been in German, Latin, Spanish, or English. He’d got brave instead
of obeying orders, and somebody was richer by a million bucks.

  Not that I called time out to think all this, it simply went through my head as I took stock of the live ones—first the girl in jeans and a dark jersey reaching into a big woven shoulder bag. Over the fence behind her, parked in the neighbors’ driveway, I could see the roof of a brown truck, the one I’d so carelessly assumed to be UPS. Well, the neighborhood dogs had also been fooled, and whoever said I was smarter than a dog? In addition to the girl, there was a black-clad man in the patio, just rising from Mark’s body with another scarf in his hand. He leaped toward the fence, which made him no immediate threat.

  I gave my attention, instead, to the giii, who was smallish, with long black hair and mad brown eyes. A big white dressing, not quite clean, was taped to one side of her face. Except for the crazy eyes, which had not been mentioned, she fit a description I’d heard: she was undoubtedly the girl Madeleine had caught in a Denver alley and pistol-whipped. Her hand came out of the bag with a grenade. Her other hand fumbled for the pin. The fact that we’d both die in the explosion, in this confined space—she must have tossed the first one from behind the shelter of the fence—obviously didn’t concern her a bit. I didn’t trust my left-handed pistol marksmanship for the job. The heavy fighting knife, thrown hard, drove through her like a spear and nailed her to the fence. She dropped the grenade. It rolled toward me. I fielded it and checked it; the pin was still in place. I won’t say it wasn’t a relief. The second strangler had vanished. I heard the phony UPS truck pull away with a roar.