Donald Hamilton - The Interlopers

"I can explain-"

"You will be given an opportunity to try. But not here. There isn't time."

"You'd better listen to me right here!" she said hotly. "You're making a bad mistake. You'd better check and check carefully or you're going to be in real trouble, Mr. Wood or whatever your name may be. I'm working for some important people in San Francisco, people you know very well, and they gave me a message to deliver."

"Where is the message?"

"I'm not authorized to give it to you. I was told to deliver it only to a man named Anson, George Anson. There were some corny words we were supposed to say, as usual."

Holz smiled faintly and gestured toward the middle-aged man in the overcoat. "This is George Anson… Say the corny words, George."

The man leaned down and whispered in Libby's ear, and turned his head so she could whisper back. He straightened up and nodded.

Libby said triumphantly, "Well, are you satisfied? Untie my hands so I can give him the message."

It was Holz's turn to nod. The man called Anson worked briefly at the knots. When the ropes fell away, Libby sat rubbing her wrists for a moment; then reached well up under the front of her high-necked sweater and brought out a tiny cylindrical object which she handed to Anson. She smoothed the brown sweater down once more.

Anson produced a slip of paper and tossed aside the capsule in which it had traveled. He said, "Just a minute, Mr. Wood. It seems to be in code."

Nobody spoke or moved as he bent over the hood of the truck, writing with a small gold pencil he'd fished from inside the overcoat somewhere near the shoulder-holstered gun. I didn't look at Libby, or at Holz. They had me baffled. Together, they were putting on a great show, apparently for my benefit, but the purpose escaped me. Well, it would become clear eventually, I hoped.

Anson straightened up. His face was expressionless. He walked over and gave the paper to Holz, who read it and looked at Libby.

"Well?" she snapped.

"Would you like to hear the message you brought so many thousand miles, Miss Meredith?"

She licked her lips. "Yes, of course."

"The communication, decoded, reads: BEARER IS TRAITOR-LIQUIDATE."

"No!" Libby cried. "No, you can't… It's a mistake."

Holz shrugged. "Perhaps. If so, it seems we're all making it, both here and in San Francisco. I'm afraid you're just going to have to live with it-and die with it, Miss Meredith. What I started to say earlier was that while your execution and that of Mr. Nystrom is inevitable, I have been instructed to learn certain things about you, both of you, before I carry it out."

"What things?" Libby demanded.

"I am supposed to determine who you really are, both of you, and how much damage your treachery has done, so that steps can be taken to repair it. Unfortunately, there isn't time to perform the necessary research here. Your presence indicates that the scheduled drop in Anchorage has probably been compromised. We have therefore canceled it and set up another meeting some fifteen miles back in the wilderness where we're not likely to be disturbed."

I said, "In other words, we ride."

"Exactly, Mr. Nystrom. The immediate question is, how do you ride. This is rough country, and fifteen miles is a long way on horseback, even for someone unencumbered by ropes and bonds. Furthermore, I prefer to have us look as much as possible like a bona fide hunting party, just in case a stray bush plane comes over: I will therefore let you both start out with hands and feet free. Your horses will be the two slowest; the rifles on your saddles will be unloaded. I am a good rider and an excellent shot. Jack over there is an excellent rider and a good shot. The information in your heads is of interest to us, but it is not valuable enough to save you if you should try to escape. I hope I make myself perfectly clear." He turned and walked away.

Libby called after him desperately, "I tell you, it's all a horrible misunderstanding."

Nobody paid any attention to her. After a moment, she shrugged and turned to me with a wry grin. "Well, hell, darling," she said, "at least I tried."

30 I WAS UNTIED AND HERDED TOward a shaggy little brown mare with an independent, mulish look that proved to be an accurate indication of her character.

If I'd had any foolish notions of making a break for it and galloping off wildly with Holz's bullets whistling around my ears, that little mare would soon have disabused me of them. She made it abundantly clear that she wasn't galloping wildly anywhere. In fact, without a stout switch I'd never even have got her moving. All she really wanted was to stop and eat the willows and other green stuff along the way.

Libby's bony chestnut seemed a little more willing, but he was one of the worst equine stumblebums I'd ever seen, forever half falling over his own big feet. To consider a fast escape over broken country on such a shaky plug was obviously suicidal. By way of contrast, Jack, riding ahead, had a fine, leggy buckskin that obviously wanted to go; while Holz, at the rear of the parade, was mounted on a powerful bay with a ground-eating stride that kept it nipping at the moth-eaten tail of my reluctant transportation.

Not that it made a great deal of difference. Even if we'd been mounted on registered thoroughbreds, we could hardly have made a race of it. It wasn't that kind of country. The first stretch was wooded and mountainous, up a rocky trail that also served as a bed for a small stream, then over a fairly rugged pass, and finally down into a tremendous open basin by way of another running brook.

The high ground was bad enough, but the lowlands were worse. Except for my one previous Arctic venture in Europe some years back, I'd never seen such wet country. When we weren't actually splashing through puddles and streams, we jolted along to the steady squelching made by the horses' hoofs sinking in the black ooze beneath the low brush and rank, hummocky grass that covered the landscape whether it was wooded or open.

It started to drizzle once more as, working our way around the edge of the great basin, we swung northward, entering a long, gradually narrowing valley running up toward some snow-capped mountains. The ground got no drier and the trail got no better. Toward the end of the afternoon, with mountains slowly closing in on us, we came to a swampy little brown-water lake surrounded by soggy-looking evergreens on all sides except one, where an avalanche or landslide from above had left a bare and rocky shoreline.

The horses picked their way through the jumbled rocks, crossed the small inlet of the lake, and presently forded a large creek or small river. The water here was the same milky blue-green color that so many streams seemed to be up here. We rode up the river for about fifteen minutes, crossed once more, and came to the camp: three more or less white wall tents and some grazing horses in a meadow that was edged with trees and overlooked by the towering mountains that formed the east wall of the dwindling valley up which we had come, still several miles wide at this point.

The largest tent, in the middle, was equipped with a stovepipe, from which smoke was rising. An elderly, wrinkled, brown-faced gent, who could have been the father, or maybe even the grandfather, of the late Pete, came out to meet us.

He took charge of Holz's horse. Jack dismounted and came over to hold mine. Covered by Holz, who'd produced a small Spanish automatic, I slid stiffly from the saddle and, since there was no reason not to be a gentleman, limped over to Libby and helped her down. She was heavy in my arms. It was a moment before she could stand unsupported. I thought her weariness was genuine. It had been a long hard ride for anybody, even an expert horsewoman concealing her talents, if that's what she was. I still hadn't made up my mind about it.