Donald Hamilton: The Ravagers

It was a frustrating situation. Usually, at the end of a job, you're closing in on somebody you're trying to catch. If you've used yourself as bait, which happens, at least there's a point at which you're allowed to stop acting meek and stupid: you can shed your shackles and start swinging. But here there was nobody to catch. In fact, my job was to see that they stayed uncaught, by me or anybody else.

There was nothing for me to do, therefore, but scramble obediently up the slope behind Jenny. If I should overpower my captor and his small female ally, I'd have to get right to work and figure out a way to let them escape convincingly, unharmed. It was simpler and safer-at least as far as the job was concerned-just to play it docile and hope that the gods, or Gaston Muir, would be merciful. I wasn't silly enough to count on mercy from Naomi.

She came scrambling up the dump behind us, with a coil of rope over one shoulder, swinging a kerosene lantern by the bail. I noticed that, regardless of Muir's orders, she hadn't put her trick gun away. Jenny came to a stop at the mouth of the mine, breathing hard. It had been a hard climb up the slope of loose rock, particularly in high heels, and her face was shiny and the thin white stuff of her blouse clung damply to her arms. Her eyes were big and dark. She looked at me as I came up, with a question in her eyes, but the others reached us before she could put it into words.

Gaston Muir had to light the lantern, since Naomi was too young to have learned about the methods of illumination that preceded universal electricity. Muir gave it back to her burning, and relieved her of the rope. No seaman can ever take a coil of rope without doing something with it; and we stood waiting while he re-coiled it more neatly.

Naomi made an impatient sound. "Just what's that for, anyway?" she demanded.

Muir looked surprised at the question. "Why, we have to tie them up, girl. We have to give ourselves time. I sent the preliminary signal this morning right after you called, but our friends will not come in all the way until they receive confirmation. They do not like being close to land. We must give ourselves time to make the final transmission and then reach the rendezvous point off shore, without interference."

Naomi was frowning. "You mean," she said, "you mean you're not going to kill them?"

There was a little silence. Muir looked at her, and started to speak, and changed his mind. He seemed actually embarrassed. He looped the rope carefully over his arm, and gestured toward the mine opening, and cleared his throat.

"You go ahead with the lantern," he said. He cleared his throat again, and went on, "Killing is not my business, girl. I just transmit signals and run a boat. For some years I have run one here. Soon I will be running one somewhere else, wherever they send me. I try to run it without unnecessary bloodshed. Killing is not necessary here, so we will not kill."

"But it is necessary!" Naomi said hotly. "You know perfectly well, if they get loose too soon, they can spoil everything. We don't have to take that risk! Besides… besides, they know too much about me. I'll never be able to come back to this continent if they're left alive to talk."

Muir was studying her thoughtfully. "Why," he said, "why, you want to kill, don't you? Do you know what Hans Ruyter said about you over the telephone? He said you were vicious, ambitious, and unreliable. Just what did happen to Hans, girl? How did he come to die? There will be questions asked about that, you may be sure." His voice did not change as he continued: "Be careful with that weapon. I am a very good shot, and one can deliver the documents as well as two."

Naomi's pretty baby face showed a moment of ugly, adult fury, quickly controlled. She shrugged her small shoulders and turned away. Muir gestured to me to follow. I guess it was a compliment: it showed he considered me the more dangerous of his two prisoners. He didn't want me too close.

"No tricks, Mr. Clevenger," he said. "As you have heard, no one will be hurt if you both behave."

"Not hurt!" cried Jenny. "Tied up way underground? Why, we'll die there before anybody finds us."

Muir said, "I doubt that, Mrs. Drilling. Your tall friend looks like a resourceful man. I'm sure that in time he'll manage to get you both free. Now follow him, if you please."

She hung back. "But you can't-"

"Go on!" he snapped, losing patience, and she was silent. I heard her enter the tunnel behind me.

It wasn't a nice place. I mean, I have no spelunking ambitions whatever. I don't like being underground, even in the best-run tourist caverns, and this was just an old, neglected, downward-sloping hole in the side of the hill. It was plenty wide enough, but a bump on the head quickly taught me it had not been cut for men six feet and above. There were rusty rails underfoot, laid on rotting wooden ties. From time to time we passed a corroded pulley or a twisted hunk of cable or a snarl of broken wire.

I didn't like it, but in a way it was a relief to know that the job was practically done. All we had to do now was let ourselves be tied up like docile children, and hope that Muir's slow sanity would continue to control Naomi's homicidal impulses. After the two of them had departed to take the papers on the final stage of the long journey that had started on the other side of the continent, we could worry about getting free. As Muir had suggested, I had some resources, including a trick belt buckle constructed specifically for taking care of ropes with which I might be tied.

The tunnel got lower, in one place so low that Naomi, ahead, had to crouch well down to pass under the downhanging rock. Her black pants were dusty now, I noticed, and her shirt tail was out. Coming to the same place, I had to get down to all fours to make it through. On the other side, the tunnel widened and there was plenty of headroom again.

Behind me, I heard Jenny complaining bitterly about her impractical, hampering clothes and the damage she couldn't keep them from sustaining in these rough and dusty surroundings. I had time to think that her griping had a contrived sound, as if she was talking to make reassuring noises, on the theory that any lady whose mind was on her nylons couldn't possibly be considered dangerous…

As the thought hit me, I turned, but I was too late. The fool woman had already gone into action. Maybe she really thought she was taking a last long chance for her life. Muir must have got careless, listening to her whining complaints. When he hunched down to make it under the low place, his gun was out ahead of him, and she was ready. There was a quick scuffle and a cry:

"I've got his gun, Dave! Here, you know how to use it!"

Then the Luger came sliding down the tunnel toward me. I'd as soon have been presented with a live rattlesnake. I didn't want to shoot anybody. Jenny was on top of Muir, hammering at him with her fists in a vigorous and unladylike manner-I remembered her telling me about all the trucks and tractors she'd driven as a girl. I wondered where the hell all the nice little movie heroines had got to, the ones that cower against the wall, whimpering, while the men fight it out. In this spot, wanting nothing but peace and quiet and some ropes around my wrists and ankles, I had to have a redheaded Irish wildcat on my side.

But there was no time for heavy thinking. I came out of my temporary daze. The gun was there and I snatched it up and threw myself aside, figuring there was bound to be acid in the air in a moment. I rolled over once and hit the side of the tunnel and came up with the gun ready, and saw that I was more or less right.

Naomi had set the lantern down. Ignoring me, she was starting to draw a bead with her vitriol gun on the violent, thrashing struggle taking place on the old mine tracks above her. Apparently she didn't care which combatant she sprayed, just so she got a piece of the action.