Donald Hamilton: Murderers Row

Other garments of an intimate nature, some flimsy, some surprisingly sturdy, were distributed about the premises, again mostly on the floor, along with some wads of Kleenex, the afternoon paper, a pair of thong sandals, a fuzzy pink sweater, and a pair of pink corduroy pants, the narrow, tapered style all women seem to have adopted lately, whether it suits their rear ends or not. Female rears being what they are, mostly it doesn't.

I'm strictly an anti-pants man myself, where women are concerned, but with all the mad trousers you see on the street nowadays, it's getting so even jeans look good, while a well-cut pair of Bermuda shorts is a real treat.

I sat down to wait in the big chair facing the TV set, which was turned off. I didn't bother to look around for mikes or wires. Mac had said there'd be some, and that the phone was probably tapped as well, which figured. If the opposition was interested in our supposedly drunk and disloyal operative at all, they'd be checking up to see if she were the real thing or a plant.

I hadn't the slightest intention of interfering with any of their electronic equipment. In fact, I hoped it was all in first-class condition and working well, since it was my job to make Jean's act more plausible, and I wanted an audience.

"Plausible," I'D SAID in Washington. "Yes, sir. Just how plausible can you get? Does this lady know what she's let herself in for?"

"She knows," Mac said. "That is, she doesn't know the details; she preferred not to hear them, which was only natural. But she knows that it will hurt, and that she won't be pretty to look at for a couple of weeks. Certainly she has been consulted. She has agreed." He frowned at me across the desk. "There are two things for you to keep in mind. She has to survive, of course. She even has to be able to function after a fashion within a reasonable time, say three or four days. On the other hand, it must be convincing. Just a dramatic black eye and some spectacularly damaged clothing won't buy her a thing except a ticket to the bottom of the Bay."

"I see," I said. "Do I get to know what it's all about, sir, or would you prefer to keep me ignorant."

"A man slipped through our fingers down there, last year," Mac said. "We'd been after him for a long time; he was high on the removal list. He was finally spotted right here in Washington. There was no real error made, but as you know, for diplomatic reasons we do not operate within certain zones, of which metropolitan Washington is one. It is preferred that we take no action within twenty-five miles of the city." He grimaced. "It is a reasonable requirement, I suppose, but the people who set these limits often have no idea what their regulations mean to the people who have to do the work."

"No, sir."

"When the subject finally departed from Washington, he made for Annapolis. From there, he soon disappeared, leaving behind our agent, dead."

I raised my eyebrows. "No error, you say, sir? Getting killed is a serious mistake, in my book."

Mac shrugged. "I'll grant that, but Ames was a good operative, and he had reason to believe he was dealing with one man only. Apparently he ran into something bigger down near Chesapeake Bay."

"Ames?" I said. "I worked with him in California, a couple of jobs back."

"I know." Mac did not look up. "That is another reason I thought you might like to help out with this business, even if it means postponing your date in Texas."

I laughed shortly. "You're an optimist, sir. Some things don't postpone very well. Gail is not the patient type. As for Ames, he was one of those portable-radio jerks. I came close to making him eat the thing, one transistor at a time. Goddamn a man who'll climb an eight-thousand-foot mountain just to turn on that kind of noise. On the other hand, I'll hand it to him, he did fry a mean flapjack, and he had a way with fresh-caught trout-" I stopped. After a moment, I said, "They got him from behind, didn't they?"

"Yes. He was found on a beach with a broken neck. Apparently somebody slipped up on him while he was stalking the subject. How did you know?"

"He would get excited and forget to watch his back. It never seemed to occur to him that somebody might be stalking him. I warned him. Ah, hell. Scratch Ames, a good man with a skillet."

"Yes," Mac said. "As I was saying, after the killing, the subject disappeared completely. Some months later, he was reported in Europe, although he had not been seen leaving the country by any of the usual channels."

"Who was it?"

"His name doesn't matter," Mac said. "One of our people took care of him over there. I checked with other departments, and found that this wasn't the first mysterious disappearance from that neighborhood. They suspect the existence of a cell or organization with a way station, a cooling-off place, somewhere along the Bay, where fugitives can be hidden indefinitely until transportation is ready for them. Ships move up and down the Bay all the time, remember: big, ocean-going ships. In theory, they can be stopped and searched until they pass the Chesapeake Capes, at the mouth of the Bay, and get three miles out to sea. In practice, searching a ship of any size, under way, is an awkward proposition."

I said, "According to what I recall from my brief association with the U. S. Navy, Chesapeake Bay is some two hundred miles long and up to twenty miles wide. The map shows rivers, swamps, bays, inlets, islands-"

"The nautical term is chart."

"Excuse me, sir. Chart."

"Your point is well taken, however," Mac said. "With our limited facilities, it would be fruitless to try to search such an area for a camouflaged waterfront hideout. And we don't even know that it's on the water, although everything indicates that the pickups are made by boat, and it seems likely that the deliveries are made the same way. But in any case, it's a job well beyond our resources, which is why we approached the problem from a slightly different angle."

"I thought we were supposed to be specialists of a sort, sir. What's the matter with all the bright government boys with college degrees and button-down collars-the clean-cut lads who can teach judo to the Japanese and shoot a silhouette target to shreds in three-fifths of a second, starting with their hands tied behind them? Can't they manage to find this subversives' bus stop by themselves?"

Mac looked up. "You're forgetting Ames," he said.

"You said the man he was after had been taken care of."

"To be sure." Mac's voice was cold. "There are, however, some people in the neighborhood of Annapolis, not forty miles from here, who share in the responsibility. An organization like ours cannot afford to overlook interference, particularly when it results in the death of one of our people. That is why I asked that the job be assigned to us." He made a little face. "The others were glad to let us have it. Apparently there are some local political considerations that make it awkward to handle. You might keep that in mind."

"Yes, sir," I said. "So our objective is really teaching these outsiders to be careful who they bump off."

"Let us say," Mac said carefully, "they must learn not to monkey with the buzz saw when it is busy cutting wood."

There was a silence. I looked past him, out the bright window and could see one of the shining white buildings in which earnest men conduct the nation's business openly, with reporters in attendance. I thought about how nice it would be if it could all be handled like that.

I said, "Yes, sir. So we are throwing this agent of ours, Jean, down the rathole to see where she comes out. If she comes out. What makes you think they'll fall for her alcoholic act, sir?"

"That is your job, to make them fall for it," he said. "Don't forget, they will want to fall for it. They do not normally get any of our senior people alive and willing to talk. They'd like to know more about us. There's still a body of official opinion over there to the effect that no decadent democratic society could possibly support a tough agency like ours; that we're a fiction invented by our opposite numbers over there to excuse their failures. There are people over there who would be very glad to have an agent of ours put on exhibit. I think they will take the bait if it is properly presented."