Donald Hamilton - The Menacers

"As you say, it's not much of a gun," Priscilla said softly behind me. "But I don't really think you want to be shot by anything, even a.22 derringer… Did you have any trouble, Harsek?"

IT WAS A moment of private triumph for me, and I should have felt real good about it. All my stray hunches and guesses had paid off, and my vague plans had worked out very well-it had been tricky, pretending to suspect everybody but Priscilla Decker so that she wouldn't guess I suspected her. It had taken some finagling, getting myself captured like this, and I should have been pleased at my success.

However, there were a few drawbacks to the situation. For one thing, I now had to survive until I was brought to the place where I could do the job I'd been sent to do, and that might be tough, particularly with Harsek around. For another thing, I wasn't alone in my predicament. I'd hoped Solana might keep Carol out of the action-that was one reason I'd let him take her away-but he'd used her as a decoy instead. I didn't blame him, it was -the logical thing for him to do, but it gave me an additional responsibility I didn't need. I hoped his electronic tricks would make up for it, but I had no faith in them.

"I never have trouble, girl," Harsek was saying in a guttural voice. "Now get them aboard fast, before some Mejicanos decide to make use of their fine paved road."

"Just a minute. There's something I have to do first. Cover the man. Wait, let me give you his guns. We have quite a collection and I have no place to carry them… Okay." Priscilla swung around to confront Carol. "All right, honey, where is it?"

"Where is what?" ~

Priscilla regarded her for a moment, rather like an experienced cat appraising a very young and innocent mouse. Abruptly, she reached out with both hands, grabbed Carol's neatly buttoned bush jacket by the lapels, ripped it open, hauled it down from the shoulders roughly, and yanked it free of the arms. Priscilla kneaded the cloth thoroughly with both hands, feeling for something hard. Finding nothing, she threw it aside.

"Okay," she snapped, "step out of the boots, and take off the sweater and skirt, unless you'd rather have me pull them off you, too… – Ah, I got a reaction, didn't I? It's in one of those ducky little suede boots, isn't it? Dig it out and give it to me!"

Miserably, Carol reached down and fished out a small object, which Priscilla snatched from her and threw far out into the dark. So much for electronics.

"You and your dancing partner really should have given your adagio routine a few more rehearsals," Priscilla said scornfully. "It wasn't as convincing as a lot of high school performances I've seen. So Mr. Solana thought he'd plant a tracking device on me, in the form of a ladylike blonde! What other cute ideas did he have in mind?"

Harsek said sharply, "This is all very interesting, girl, but we have an aircraft sitting on a public highway. We can question them later. Get them aboard."

I'm as brave as the next man, I hope, but no matter how much I ride in them, airplanes always scare me a little. Perhaps this is because I don't know anything about flying them except what little I've absorbed by watching other guys do it.

I can drive a car pretty well, and I've been checked out on horses, bicycles, motorcycles, skis, skates, and snowshoes; I can handle a boat in an amateurish fashion and I once managed to ride a surfboard without falling off; but the air is not my element. One of these days I'm going to take a few flying lessons so I'll at least know if the guy up front is doing the right thing or the wrong one.

In the meantime, crowded into the back seat of the little plane beside Carol, I didn't immediately do a lot of constructive thinking about our situation, although there was obviously a lot to be done. As far as I was concerned, the intensive cerebral effort could wait until Harsek got us the hell off that dark desert highway and up into the sky where we couldn't hit anything, at least not until it was time to come down again.

It took him a while. I've called it a little plane, and you could have checked it aboard a commercial jet and had baggage allowance left over, but it still had two engines and carried four people, which is a lot of plane for a private job. With a full load of passengers, it didn't really leap off the ground; and as we roared along the shadowy blacktop fighting for takeoff speed, I expected at any moment to see a car or truck appear ahead to contest our right to the road.

There was nothing to indicate the exact moment we stopped rolling and started flying. Harsek just reached out and hit a switch and I heard the wheels come up, so it seemed reasonable to assume that we were airborne. When we'd achieved a safe margin of altitude, I cleared my throat.

I said, "You drive this thing better than you did that taxi in Mazatlбn."

He was busy getting things trimmed and organized for level flight. He said without turning his head, "It wasn't much of a taxi. This is a good airplane. It is too bad that we must lose it."

"Lose it how?" I asked.

"Never mind. You will see." He glanced towards Priscilla, who sat half-turned in the right front seat so that her revolver could cover us in back, particularly me. Harsek said, "Give me a report, girl. You used the emergency code. What went wrong?"

She said defensively, "I don't have to report to you, Harsek. You are here to assist us, not to give orders or conduct interrogations. I will make my report to Command, when the assignment is finished."

"For a chicken that has just missed being plucked, if my guess is correct, you talk very bravely. But of course you are right." His voice was dry. "Harsek does not give orders here; he merely lends his well-known face and name to the operation. He also flies airplanes and drives taxis, and shoots guns if necessary. But the bright young children get the credit-and the blame, don't forget, if things go wrong."

"Nothing's gone wrong!" Priscilla said sharply. "Anyway, nothing serious."

"To be sure. Allow me to amend my request. Do not make a report. Merely bring me up to date, as one colleague to another. What situation did you leave behind in Puerto Peasуo? Since you did not bring him along,. I assume you silenced that young man, the handsome, shifty-eyed one who wanted to kill his middle-aged wife for her money. It is really remarkable how many people can be found, if one looks hard enough, who are eager to commit a murder if only the blame can be placed somewhere else, even on beings from other worlds. Or did the man escape you? Is he now in the hands of the police, telling them about our project, as much as he knows? Which is not much, but enough to be damaging."

Priscilla hesitated. "He didn't escape; he's dead. However, there's a Mexican policeman or government agent, the man with whom I rode down there, who seems to have made some good guesses. I tried to have him killed-" She threw me an angry look. "-but I was not successful. But it does not really matter. No one will believe him. No one of consequence. Besides, he'll be unconscious for – several hours, and his ingenious tracking device is lying back there in the cactus."

"So a policeman knows," Harsek said grimly.

Priscilla said, "I tell you, it doesn't matter! If we were dealing with military secrets, or technical data, it would be different, but we are dealing with flying saucers. It is a subject upon which people are not rational!" Either her vehemence, or the fact that she was talking to Harsek, who did not have to be deceived, had brought a faint accent to her speech. She went on quickly, "Let one Mexican government employee scream to heave4hat these recently 'sighted' Mexican saucers are a hoax and do not exist, that all the latest reports from this area are total fabrications: no one will listen. No one, I tell you. The skeptics will remain skeptical and the believers will continue to believe."