Donald Hamilton: The Interlopers

"Damn, damn, damn!" Pat Bellman said. "They must have had her in the house and forgot to wire the latch down when they put her back… Now where's your dog got to? Let's not lose both of them."

I blew the whistle. After a moment, Hank came charging around the barn and romped up to me where I stood at the kennel door. He sat down beside me automatically, as he was supposed to, and looked up, obviously wondering why he'd been summoned. I gave him a pat for his obedience.

"He's all right," I said. "He sticks around pretty well. What do we do about yours? We'd better get her back quick, before she meets some virile male."

"Well," she said, "well, if you don't mind helping-"

"Just tell me where to look."

"There's a house over that ridge," she said, pointing. "They've got a kind of collie-looking mutt that plays with Maudie; she could have headed over that way. Why don't you take a quick look, while I take the car and drive around a bit; I know the back roads better than you do."

"Sure," I said. "Okay, pup, off we go to find your lady love."

As I walked slowly through the brush toward the bare, open ridge ahead, with Hank cruising back and forth in front of me, I heard the Mustang start up and drive away. I didn't glance around. I was busy trying to find the rifle, without seeming to look, and presently I had it located by the glint of light off the telescopic sight-a big one by the looks of it-on a little brushy knoll some hundred and fifty yards off to the left, from which the sniper could easily cover the entire hillside.

Well, it wasn't a bad trap, or wouldn't have been if the girl had known as much about dogs as she'd pretended to.

WHEN YOU'RE HUNTING AN ANIMAL that can smell you, you've got to figure your approach very carefully according to the wind; when man is the quarry you can forget such refinements. The wind was right, anyway, blowing gently from the sniper to me, and there was good stalking cover the whole way-if I could only break away to take advantage of it without getting shot first.

I mean, if I could see him up there through the intervening brush, he could undoubtedly see me down here, and he was presumably doing his looking through the rifle-scope, with his finger on the trigger. I was gambling that he wouldn't try to drive a light, high-speed, easily deflected.243 bullet through a mess of twigs and branches as long as he had a good chance-or thought he had-of F catching me in the open if he waited. But the minute he guessed that I was aware of the trap and trying to get out of it, he'd undoubtedly shoot rather than risk losing me.

Of course, it didn't have to be a.243 and he didn't have to be the mysterious marksman who'd killed Nystrom and his dog with two well-placed shots for reasons still to be determined. But that sharpshooter was the most likely candidate, and I wanted badly to get out of his sights before he chalked up two Nystroms-one real and one phony-to his credit.

Luck helped me out, in the form of a rabbit that took off in front of Hank, who was too young to resist the temptation. He was gone in a flash, right on the bunny's heels. Running rabbits is a serious crime for a bird dog of any kind, and it gave me an excuse to blast fiercely on the whistle and shout loud imprecations that I hoped carried well against the wind to the man with the gun while I stumbled clumsily after the chase-until it carried me out of sight into a brushy gully.

Crouching there, I continued to whistle and yell until the pup came slinking back, very guilty and ashamed of himself. I spoke to him severely and used the leash to tie him to a tree, letting him think that was part of the punishment. Then I drew a long breath; I'd made it out of sight, and there were no bulletholes in me, and my adversary was not alerted. At least I hoped he wasn't. Leaving the pup tied, keeping low, I made a quick circle of the little knoll, slipping up behind the rifleman without further trouble. When I got within a couple of hundred yards of the spot, I could see that he was still there.

I had a good view of the sole of a boot sticking out of the brush, and from this angle I could see about half a bare head above the undergrowth. It had a lot of hair on it, but sexwise that means nothing these days, and as far as I'm concerned, no double standard applies to people who hide in bushes with rifles, anyway.

With a rifle of my own, I might have tried the shot, but all I had was Grant Nystrom's choice of sidearms: a short-barreled Colt.357 Magnum revolver with the butt trimmed down for concealment purposes. It wasn't a bad gun as revolvers go-it was a lot more gun than the.38 Specials we're usually issued-but it was no long-range weapon, and I'm not much of a long-range pistol-shooter, either. The long-range capabilities were all with the opposition, which made my problem clear if not simple: I had to get close enough for one good shot before he spotted me, since I probably wouldn't be given time for a second should the first one miss.

I looked around. The ground rose to the left toward another bare hillside-bare of brush, but there was some scraggy grass that I thought would give me at least partial cover. I worked my way up there, using my knees and elbows, until I was above the sniper and about eighty yards away. instinct warned me that was as close as I'd better go.

I slipped the.357 out of its trick holster inside my waistband, and cocked it, muffling the click under my jacket. I made myself steady and comfortable, flat on my stomach. Parting the screen of grass in front of me, I tried the square, target-type sights against the prone figure below me, with both elbows firmly on the ground and both hands on the gun. One-handed pistol shooting is mandatory in target matches, but this was simple homicide and there are no rules for that.

The man down there-if it was a man-stirred uneasily, obviously wondering where I'd disappeared to and what I was up to. Well, it was about time. He lifted his head from the rifle stock and glanced over his shoulder as if he'd sensed my presence, and it was nobody I'd ever seen before in real life or in photographs, just a hippie-looking youth sporting longish hair, a droopy moustache, and long fuzzy sideburns.

I drew a long breath, realizing that, hair or no hair, small rifle or big, I'd subconsciously been expecting to see a man I knew-well, a man whom I'd never actually met, but whose dossier I'd studied very carefully, a man who was supposed to be good both with knives and rifles. Without quite realizing it, I'd been looking forward to finishing right here the principal part of my mission, the part assigned me by Mac. Somehow I'd convinced myself it was Holz I was up against already, although why Holz should be shooting down Nystroms wholesale hadn't been quite clear in my mind.

Still, as Mac had pointed out, couriers had been eliminated before by the people for whom they'd worked. Mr. Smith's mysterious source of information to the contrary could be all wet. It still wasn't totally out of the question that this espionage ring we were after had first summoned their kill-specialist to handle a personnel problem, and then sent him on to deal with an obvious impostor. But the man in front of me was not Hans Holz.

I sighed and lowered the gun, wondering who the hell the young marksman was and what to do about him. Of course, he had been trying to kill me, which was naughty of him. It even prejudiced me against him rather strongly, but we're not supposed to act on prejudice. Dead men are awkward to have around. They tend to get the local police all upset, and I still had work to do in Pasco that would be more easily done without police interference. Reluctantly, I started to let down the hammer of the Colt. Regardless of their age or importance-or unimportance- I don't like leaving behind me, alive, people who've clearly indicated their eagerness to shoot me dead, but sometimes it has to be done.