Donald Hamilton: The Wrecking Crew

"Sorry, I don't read you," I said. "Can't you put it into English?"

A woman's voice said, behind me, "He wants to know if you're a cowboy."

I looked around, and there she was again, blue suit, blue hair, and all. Bumping into her a second time didn't please me a bit. It wasn't a contact, because there was nobody here I was scheduled to meet in this manner; and I'd once survived a war mainly by putting no faith whatever in the power of coincidence. It still seemed like a sound principle to follow.

"Thank you, ma'am," I said. "Please tell the kid that I'm sorry, but I never roped a steer in my life. The hat and the boots are just for show."

This was another of Mac's fancy ideas. I was supposed to be something of a rustic Gary Cooper character, as well as a hunter and a camera-clicking screwball. Well, I had the height for it, if no other qualifications; but I couldn't help feeling, with this woman's eyes upon me, that the act I was being asked to put on was unnecessarily detailed and complicated, not to mention corny. However, I'd asked for the job-after first turning it down twice-so I wasn't in a position to complain.

The woman laughed, and turned to speak to the boy, in swift and fluent Swedish that had, however, a trace of an American accent. He looked disappointed, and ran off to tell his pals that I was a phony. The woman turned back to me, smiling.

"You broke his heart," she said.

"Yes," I said. "Well, thanks a lot for interpreting." I got into the cab, leaving her standing there. She had quite a pretty smile, but if she had some reason besides my masculine appeal for wanting to talk to me, she'd undoubtedly turn up again; and if she didn't, I had no time for her. I mean, I've never had any sympathy for agents who can't refrain from complicating their jobs with irrelevant females. The relevant ones usually present problems enough.

I rode away without looking back, bracing myself against the psychological impact of the cockeyed traffic, which seemed even more unnatural because the cab was an ordinary American Plymouth with the steering wheel in the usual place. If they had to drive contrary to everyone else, you'd think they'd at least shift the driver over to where he could see the road. In addition to cars, the streets swarmed with ordinary bicycles, bikes with little motors, motor scooters, and full-grown motorcycles driven at furious speed by kids in round white crash helmets and black leather jackets.

At the hotel, I had to register on a police card that required me to state, among other things, where I'd come from last, how long I was staying here, and where I planned to go next. I was a little shocked to meet this sort of police-state red tape here, in time of peace. The Swedes were, after all, supposed to be among the most secure and democratic people in Europe, if not in the world, but apparently a foreigner had to be reported to the cops every time he changed hotels; and I wasn't forgetting that bringing an ordinary rifle and shotgun into the country had demanded -the equivalent of an act of Congress. I couldn't help wondering what they were afraid of. Probably people like me. My room turned out to be big and pleasant, overlooking one of the wide, picturesque estuaries that seemed to be just about everywhere you went in Stockholm-my taxi ride had confirmed my first impression that the city was half water and bridges. I got rid of the bellboy and looked at my watch. Eventually I'd have to report my arrival, as a matter of interdepartmental courtesy, to certain fellow-citizens on the spot, but this was a little detail I could postpone without a qualm of conscience. The less I had to do with professional diplomats and intelligence people, the better I liked it.

However, I also had an appointment of sorts directly connected with the job, and the train had made me later than I'd expected. I picked up the phone.

"I'd like to speak with Mrs. Taylor," I said. "I believe she's staying here. Mrs. Louise Taylor?"

"Mrs. Taylor?" The desk clerk's voice, speaking English, had a strong British accent with Swedish overtones. It made an odd combination. "Righto," he said. "Room 311. I'll connect you, sir."

Standing there, waiting for the call to be put through, I became aware that someone had stepped out of the closet behind me.

A CANNY secret-agent type would, of course, have looked the place over carefully before turning his back on the closet and bathroom doors. Under other circumstances, I might even have done so myself, but I was playing a part, and my script didn't call for any displays of professional vigilance. Mac had been emphatic on this point.

"You've now been given a thorough refresher course of training, courtesy of Uncle Sam," he said at my final briefing. "It's possible that Uncle, being a peaceful sort, wouldn't approve of everything in the curriculum, but what Uncle doesn't know won't hurt him. Security has its advantages, and we're very top-secret here. We're supposed to be developing some kind of a mystery weapon, I believe. Well, one might call it that. After all, the greatest mystery on earth, and the most dangerous weapon, is man himself."

Having delivered himself of this weighty philosophy, he looked at me expectantly across the desk. I said, "Yes, sir."

Mac grimaced. "I have your record here. It's quite outstanding. I haven't seen a worse one in a long time. Your reflexes and reaction times are lousy. Your score with a pistol, on all courses of fire, is pitiful. With a rifle you're a little better, but then, practically anybody can shoot a rifle. With a knife, thanks to your long arms, you almost reached adequacy, it says here, once you stopped falling over your big feet. At unarmed combat, thanks again to your ridiculous height and reach, you finally succeeded in scaling the highest peaks of mediocrity. Your physical condition was deplorable when we got you, and it's still nothing to cheer about. You've lost fifteen pounds, and could dispense with another ten without missing an ounce. What the devil have you been doing with yourself all these years, just sitting around on your rear elevation?"

"That's about it, sir," I said.

I'd been about to protest that my record couldn't possibly be as bad as he claimed. As a matter of fact, for a man coming back to the organization after a fifteen-year layoff, I thought I'd done fairly well. About to say as much, I'd changed my mind, realizing that he wasn't asking me, he was telling me. Regardless of what scores I'd actually made, this was what was going into the files, just in case somebody came snooping. He was being clever again. For some reason he considered it advantageous for me to seem practically helpless.

"The recommendation of the staff was unanimous," Mac went on, poker-faced. "Not one of them would take the responsibility of clearing you for a dangerous mission." He shoved the papers away from him. "They're a bunch of fools," he said. "I told them my reasons for wanting you, and still they send me this! We've got so much red tape, it's a wonder we get anything done. Nowadays everybody's supposed to have a signed certificate from a doctor, a psychologist, and six coaches and trainers, before he's permitted to cross the street to fetch the evening paper. Remember the time I sent you across the Channel with a man we called Vance? You had a half-healed bullet hole in your chest, and he had his arm in a sling. It made your impersonations of German soldiers on convalescent leave much more convincing, and there's no evidence that it affected your performances adversely. I don't put much stock in physical condition. A man's mental condition is what counts."

"Yes, sir," I said. He was getting wordy in his old age. He'd never talked this much during the war.

He frowned at me for a moment. "Vance is still with us, incidentally," he said. "If you've forgotten what he looks like-we've all changed a bit since those days-you can identify him by the scar just above the elbow where