Donald Hamilton - The Devastators

"Damn you!" she whispered. Her voice was a hoarse croak.

"Sure," I said. "Can you sit up?"

With my help, she managed to sit up against the end of the bed. She fumbled the tangled hair out of her face and felt of her bruised and lacerated neck. Her hand made contact with the dangling collar of her blouse. She grasped it with vague curiosity and held it out for identification. The sight of the torn rag of silk seemed to shock her. She let it fall and looked down at herself, dismayed by what her violent struggles had done to her Madame Dumaire disguise.

"Oh, God, what a mess!" she croaked. Then she shrugged fatalistically. A funny, wry little grin came to her lips. "Ah, well, as you say it is a working costume and expendable. But you will have to lend me your coat to go home in. Help me up, darling."

I helped her up and steadied her as she swayed. I said, "Don't get your hopes up, doll. There was a little matter of an address, remember?"

I heard her breath catch. She looked at me with an expression of horror. Her blue eyes were big and dark in her pale face.

"Oh, you can't…!" she whispered hoarsely. "I… I really don't know… Matthew, you can't, not again!"

There was real fear in her voice-at least it sounded very real. Doubt crept back into my mind. She was good, I knew, but was she good enough to keep up the act after being choked almost to death? For a while I had been absolutely sure she had the answer, but now I felt my assurance wavering.

I said, making my voice hard, "Baby, do you remember a garage in Tucson? And a chair with a man tied in it? And a nice new electric soldering iron plugged into the wall? Somehow, I don't seem to recall anybody turning me loose just because I happened to pass out temporarily." I picked up the belt and jerked my head. "Get back to your seat."

She hesitated, and started to move dully toward the chair; then I heard a sob and she went to her knees, clinging to the foot of the bed. She turned her head painfully to look up at me. There were real tears in her eyes.

"Shoot me!" she gasped. "I mean it! You'll kill me in the end, anyway. Well, at least do it quickly, damn you! Don't put that… that thing on me again! It won't do you any good. I don't know anything about your damn wife! We haven't got her, I swear it!"

"If you haven't, who has?"

She hesitated. She looked away. "Go ask Madame Ling."

"Madame who?"

Vadya looked up again and spoke breathlessly. "She's the one who took your little blonde away. She and one of her men. I saw them from the lounge. Ask at the desk, they'll tell you. If you'd done a little simple investigating, instead of jumping at conclusions-"

I said, "Hell, I talked to the desk man. So what? An Oriental stooge is no harder to hire than an Occidental one, in a cosmopolitan city like London, and you'd know just where to go, wouldn't you?"

"Why would I lie to you?" she demanded. "If I had your wife, would I deny it? Would I not boast of it and use it as a club against you?"

I said, "You might be that dumb. And then you might be smart enough to know you'd never get any useful cooperation out of me that way. People in our line of work don't make good blackmailees." I drew a long breath. "Well, all right. Who's this Madame Ling supposed to be, anyway?"

Les disapproved of me. He'd watched Vadya come out of the building with me, a bit unsteadily. She was wearing my raincoat to cover the more spectacular damage, but it couldn't conceal her wrecked hairdo and ruined nylons. It was hard to believe there was an agent around who still believed in a chivalrous double standard, but Les shot me a reproachful glance as I helped her into the Rolls and got in beside her. He was obviously regretting his part in this ungentlemanly affair.

We rode away in silence. After a while I asked, "Have we still got an escort, driver?"

"Yes, sir. They waited up the street, but they made no attempt to interfere in the lady's behalf. They are behind us now."

I glanced questioningly at Vadya. She shook her head to indicate she knew nothing about the car astern. It could even be the truth. She could be playing this as straight as she'd claimed-with a few mental reservations, of course. As for the car behind, the purpose of this open surveillance, and the identity of the shadowers, would probably become apparent sooner or later. In the meantime, I had to let Washington know what was going on.

I said, "Driver, please let me off at a pay phone somewhere near the hotel. Then you can take the lady wherever she wants to go." When the car stopped near a phone booth, I got out and turned to look at Vadya. "If I was wrong," I said, "I'm sorry. But only a little."

She was back in control again, if she'd ever been out of it. She laughed and managed to make her hoarse voice sound quite sexy as she said, "If you come by my room in the morning, darling, I'll give you back your coat. I might even give you breakfast, to show there are no hard feelings."

"It's a date," I said.

She pulled my coat collar closer about her neck. "You can let me off at Claridge's, Sir Leslie," she said, just to let us know that our childish play-acting hadn't fooled her: she'd known who he was all along.

I stepped back and watched them drive away. The little Mini went by as I was entering the phone booth. It was a neutral tan color and there were two men in it. I didn't recognize the driver, and I couldn't see the man in the left-hand seat clearly. The throaty sound of the exhaust made me look more sharply at the car itself, realizing that it wasn't a run-of-the-mill Austin 850, but the souped-up version known as an Austin-Cooper, modified by a race-car manufacturer for British drivers who wanted to make like Stirling Moss but who couldn't afford the price of a Lotus or an Aston-Martin.

Well, it was Les's problem now. London was his town, and he could presumably take care of himself in it. If he'd wanted my advice or help, he'd have asked. I got into the booth, called our local relay man-a guy I'd never met and never expected to meet-and told him to put me through to Washington. A few minutes later I had Mac on the line. I gave him the story fast. After I'd finished, he was silent for several seconds.

"Do you believe her?" he asked at last.

"Vadya? Hell, no," I said. "That is, I don't believe I scared her nearly as badly as she pretended. I mean, that on-the-knees please-kill-me-now routine was pretty corny. On the other hand, she could be telling the truth for reasons of her own. Like she just figured we'd played enough sadistic games for one night, at her expense, and it was time to toss me a bone. Or like she'd wanted to point me in the direction of this comic-strip Dragon Lady character all along, but figured she'd first better take enough of a beating to make it look as if I'd forced the information out of her. Which still leaves the question of whether a Madame Ling really took Winnie, or Vadya just decided to frame her for the job. Do we know Madame Ling?"

"We should." Mac's voice was dry. "I do. And you would, if you'd done the required amount of work in the recognition room."

"Yes, sir," I said. "I confess my negligence, sir. I may have concentrated on the nationalities I expected to have to deal with here in Britain. Besides, I don't have a very good memory for Asiatic names or Asiatic faces, even good-looking female ones. Vadya says this one works out of Peking."

"Yes. That is another reason I assigned Claire to you. There had been some unconfirmed rumors of Chinese involvement, and I thought her experience out there might be useful to you."

"Yes, sir," I said. "In the future, I'd be flattered if you'd share your unconfirmed rumors with me, sir. The British seem to have heard the same rumor, judging by the fact that they apparently hauled Crowe-Barham in from Hong Kong to work on the case. And there's no doubt that the knife-man working with Basil was Oriental, which seems to make a link between Basil and Madame Ling. Do we have any further evidence along those lines? Is there any suggestion, for instance, that when Basil escaped that Moscow firing squad, he headed east?"