Donald Hamilton: The Ravagers

I kept looking straight ahead as I said it, ignoring the girl behind me. No matter which parent she preferred, she'd presumably like to think the other cared enough to come after her. It was easier to lie without looking at her face.

Genevieve Drilling laughed abruptly. "You don't mean they suspect he might be in collusion with me? Oh, that's wonderful! That must make him absolutely livid!" She stopped laughing and drew a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I just

Living with that stuffed scientific jackass for over a dozen years, being given a lecture on security every time I asked a simple wifely question… I hope they take away his clearance! That would hurt him worse than… than being castrated, or something. Oh, much worse! After all, he hardly ever…" She stopped, and turned pink, and glanced at her daughter, and at me. "Damn you! How did we get on that?" It was an interesting glimpse into the Drilling family relationships. I waited, hoping for more, but it didn't come. I said, "You're not going to make it, Mrs. Drilling. I haven't been told what all the big deal is you've got yourself into here, but everybody's got you spotted and you'll never get away. Sooner or later you'll make a wrong move and get clobbered. Do you want Penny to be there when it happens?"

Genevieve was looking at me hard. "I'm surprised, if my husband did hire you, that he didn't ask you, or Mr. Green, to take her back by force."

I said, "You've been seeing too many TV shows, ma'am. No real-life detective agency is going to get involved in a kidnapping, or in anything that could possibly kick back as a kidnapping."

"Then what are you going to do?"

I said, "First off, I'm going to ask you nicely to seed her back, like I'm doing now. Let her go, ma'am. Tell her to pack her stuff and come with me. I'll take good care of her, I promise. I'll have her home by tomorrow night."

"And if I refuse?" Her voice was hard.

I said, "I'm driving a black Volkswagen with Colorado plates. I've got a light green explorer tent-that's the little A-shaped job, not the big umbrella type. Any time you want to talk to me again, either of you, I'll be around. And when the blowup comes, I'll pick up the pieces as best I can. But I'd rather not wait that long. You hear that, Penny? Any time you want to go home, don't worry about clothes or money or anything, just come on over and we'll be on the road in five minutes. Dave Clevenger. Don't forget the name. Okay?"

There was a little silence. I hoped I hadn't been too persuasive. It would be awkward if they decided to send the kid home with me after all.

Then Penny got up slowly. She had to turn sideways and squeeze a bit to get past me in the narrow space, but she made it, and threw her arms around her mother without saying a word. Genevieve Drilling hugged her tightly and looked at me.

"You see, Mr. Clevenger?"

"I see," I said, heading for the doorhandle. "Well, you can't win them all. I'll be around."

THE MOOSEHEAD LODGE in Brandon made a valiant effort to look rustic and backwoodsy, but the phony log-cabin architecture and the stray antlers and skulls nailed up around the place didn't succeed in camouflaging the basic motel modern. I drove past to look the situation over, parked a couple of blocks away, and walked back. There was no point in advertising my visit to Elaine.

Unit number fourteen was easy to locate from a distance, by the big number on the door. It faced the swimming pool patio. A last year's Ford was parked in front-the little dressed-up Falcon with the hot V-8 engine, I noticed with envy. I'd had quite a day of driving along the Trans-Canada Highway after my interview with Genevieve Drilling. For a pretty woman, she handled a pickup-and-house-trailer combo with surprising dash and precision, and I had a hunch she'd been watching her big, truck-type rearview mirrors carefully and maneuvering to make life just as miserable as she could for me, trailing along behind.

The Canadian drivers along the road had done their best to help her. There hadn't been one who'd let a Volkswagen pass him without a fight, particularly a Volkswagen with U.S. plates. I hadn't met such an aggressive bunch of wheel-jockeys since the last time I drove in competition on a real track, and the bug was underpowered for playing high-speed traffic-tag. Hence my envious glance at the jazzy little Ford with the big mill up front.

I strolled around the swimming pool in a leisurely manner. Partly it was an act for anyone who might be watching, but partly I guess I was stalling mildly, torn between my personal desire to see Elaine again and my professional knowledge that the minute I did see her I'd have to start lying to her. We were on opposite sides. My job was to get the documents through and hers was to stop them. At least she thought it was, and I was not allowed to tell her she was actually there just to make a tricky plant look plausible. There was also a little question of murder between us, but I wasn't brooding heavily over that. Greg had been no great friend of mine. If his death didn't bother Mac, it didn't bother me. Nevertheless, it was another area of uncertainty and possible conflict.

Nobody seemed to be watching me as I came abreast of Number 14. I was just about to commit myself by turning that way when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a slight movement of the knob, as if someone inside had been about to open the door but had decided against it upon hearing my footsteps outside. Somewhere in my head the warning lights went up on the control board and the sirens began to scream, figuratively speaking. I reminded myself that I was an agent on a mission, not a schoolboy bringing his girl a bunch of posies.

It could, of course, be Elaine herself preparing to fling open the door and greet me with loving arms, but if so why didn't she do it? I moved on without pausing, to the soft-drink machine in the corner of the patio. It took me a while to find a Canadian dime and a little longer to extract the bottle and pry off the cap. The door to Number 14 remained closed.

I walked back deliberately the way I had come, past Elaine's door, taking an occasional swig of the stuff in the bottle, some local preparation that tasted like a certain cough syrup of my childhood, diluted with carbonated water. Around the next corner was the office, with a big picture window. I went inside and found a magazine rack strategically located nearby. I stood there browsing and drinking my medicated-tasting drink, and presently a man came into view at the big window. He walked past, looking neither right nor left.

He could have been any man from any unit in the motel, of course, except that he fit a description I'd recently memorized. He was about five eleven, about thirty-five, he had dark, wavy hair with a touch of gray at the temples, and he had regular, distinguished-looking features. He also had a neat, narrow, dark moustache that was not part of the description, but moustaches are easy to grow.

When he had gone by, I looked up from the magazine I'd been pretending to examine and watched him walk out across the general parking lot that served the office and restaurant. If he looked around, he'd see me through the glass, but I knew that if he was Hans Ruyter he wouldn't look around. He was a trained man-not one of their best, Mac had said, but competent-and he knew better than to give himself away by glancing over his shoulder in a furtive manner, particularly if he had something to be furtive about.

He walked straight to a parked car. In keeping with his distinguished appearance it was a distinguished car: a big, tan Mercedes sedan, its dignity only slightly marred by the cute curly fins the German designers had stuck on it in belated imitation of the American practice of a few years back. I made a note of the license, a California number. Well, if you want to blend with the tourists on any highway on the continent, you get yourself a set of California plates. I don't think anybody in that state ever stays home.