Donald Hamilton: The Devastators

I'd already drunk plenty. I knew I had only a few seconds left. Whether I would then die, or merely be unconscious for an interval, depended on the arrangement she'd made with Madame Ling-the real arrangement, not the one she'd told me about. This didn't really shock me. I'd expected a double-cross somewhere along the line. It was the way she'd gone about the betrayal that took my breath away. Because she'd left me no choice, absolutely no choice at all.

I mean, the standing orders are quite explicit on the subject of several standard situations. There is the one where you're holding a man at gunpoint, for instance, and some misguided moron who's seen too many movies and wants to help his friend comes up behind you and sticks a pistol in your back. The standard, mandatory response is very simple: you instantly shoot the guy in front of you dead-the guy your gun is already aimed at, who else? It is presumed that you wouldn't be pointing a firearm at him if you weren't prepared to kill him; and you can do it without losing more than a small fraction of a second before you pivot and take care of the guy behind you by one of several prescribed methods.

Similarly, if you realize you've been drugged, you are required to get the person who fed you the dope before you pass out, if it is at all feasible-meaning if the guy's foolish enough to stick around and watch the show. The theory here is that people who go to the trouble to feed poison or knock-out drops to agents like us are obviously up to no good. They should be stopped and the practice should be discouraged.

As I say, I had no choice. I couldn't kid myself this was part of the trick we were supposed to be playing on Madame Ling. If Vadya had still been on my team, she'd have told me where we were going: she'd also have told me what was in the cup when she handed it to me.

She could probably have talked me into drinking it, ostensibly to make our act look good, if she'd wanted to take the trouble, but she'd preferred to do it this way, avoiding the risk of argument. She'd felt that it was surer and safer, and, I thought I knew why. She was counting on the fact that I'd once let her go when I probably shouldn't have, and that we'd just spent a night together. Just as I'd counted on Basil's weakness, she was counting on mine: on that well-known sentimentality I'd been know to display where women were concerned.

It was too bad. I wanted to tell her that it was too bad, and that she shouldn't have done it, but I didn't have that much time. I felt the stuff she'd given me starting to take hold, and I drew the.38 and fired and saw her go to her knees, with a look of shock and surprise on her face. I didn't shoot again. I knew it had been a pretty good shot-not perfect, but pretty good-and things were starting to blur out, and I don't believe in just blasting holes in the landscape at random.

"T ell them to find the woman," an oddly accented, liquid-sounding female voice was saying, somewhere outside the circle of darkness in which I seemed to lie. "Tell them to find her quickly. A shot was heard and there is blood on the ground, see? She did not take the car. She cannot be far away." A deep male voice asked a question I didn't catch. The smooth female voice replied: "No, if she has been foolish enough to get herself shot, no bargains apply now, even if I had intended to be bound by them, which I hadn't. Just get rid of her." Another question was asked, and the female voice said impatiently:

"No, no, this one we will take inside for the scientists-we need all the data we can get-but a wounded one is of no value to them. Tell the men to take her down to the boat and dispose of her at sea, as usual. Tell them to make quite sure she does not come to the surface. We want no questions from our great friends and allies, the Russians. Then have them hide the boat again and wait. The ship should arrive shortly before low tide. We must get the cages on board immediately. Where is that Basil? What has delayed him now?"

There was an interval while that Basil was being located. I was aware that I was lying in the sun, probably in the spot where I'd fallen, and that a rock was gouging my thigh and an insect crawling up my neck, but everything seemed very pleasant and peaceful. I wasn't really playing possum. I had no urge whatever to open my eyes. I was happy just to lie there and listen.

"Where have you been?" the feminine voice said abruptly, quite close.

A man's voice replied, higher in pitch than the one I'd heard previously: "I have been carrying out orders, Madame. The British agent who was tailing them has been, er, removed. His car has been hidden where it will not be found."

This was a voice I recognized. I had heard it once before, in a London office belonging to a man who was dead-two men who were dead, to be exact.

"You did not let him frighten you?" Madame Ling asked. "You are only afraid of tall Americans in little red automobiles?"

Basil said sullenly, "I fail to see what I could have achieved by letting myself be killed in a collision with a crazy man. And I suggest we all get off this open heath before that British colonel realizes that he has lost contact not only with you but with the American, and starts an open search, perhaps with an airplane or helicopter. There is no real cover here, and I presume we still do not want to call attention to this place, even if we are leaving soon."

"There seems to be cover enough for a wounded girl to conceal herself effectively."

"The men will find her, Madame."

"See that they do. And take the red car away and hide it well. And then I think you had better drive up the coast with the mobile transmitter and signal the ship again. It must come with the next tide. Use the imperative code. I do not dare make any further transmission from here. They may have electronic equipment near enough by now to give them a bearing. They are getting very close. We have not much time left, due to the stupidity of those who permitted letters to be posted and prisoners to escape."

"Madame, I-"

She cut him short, apparently with a gesture. "Well, the place has served, although with more time we might have achieved better results." Something nudged me delicately in the side, apparently a toe. "Now, this one. Can you make him capable of walking, or must we carry him?"

"If the woman used the customary drug, I believe I have something that will counteract it."

"Well, give it to him." Madame Ling waited, and spoke again, impatiently: "Well, what is it?"

"What did she want, Madame?" Basil's voice was urgent. "The female Soviet agent? What kind of a bargain did you make with her?"

"Is it important?" Madame Ling sounded bored. "I certainly did not intend to keep it."

"No, of course not."

In a detached way, I was aware that my sleeve was being shoved up to bare my arm; distantly, I felt the sting of the needle. Then a foot hit me in the side, a hard kick this time.

"Get up, you," said Basil's voice. "Don't try to be clever. I know you can hear me. Get up."

I rolled over, and discovered that my hands were tied behind me. Well, I guess I'd been vaguely aware of it, but it hadn't seemed important until now. After a couple of tries, I managed to reach my feet nevertheless. Nobody offered to help me. I stood there, swaying.

Things were a little uncertain still, but they were coming back into focus. The first thing I saw was a stocky, dark-faced man watching me. I recognized him. He was the man who'd been in the back seat of the Mercedes yesterday with Madame Ling. He was also, I gathered, the man of the deep voice to whom she'd been talking in English. Except for that, I had no clue to his nationality, and it didn't mean much. English is used for communication, these days, by a lot of people who can't understand each other's languages.