Frederik Pohl - The Cool War

“Thank you,” said Hake, and at that moment he made his resolution.

In his own bathtub, staring up at the green mermaids on the plastic shower curtain, he was calculating ways and means.

They would forgive you anything, he thought. Just so you got the job done. More so if you showed balls enough to run a game of your own now and then. Leota had been quite right; they were grooming him for a big one, and evidently they considered he was coming along just fine.

Very well. He would accept their trust. He would play their mad macho games, and do his best to earn more trust. It was a good thing to be trusted, because without the possession of trust you did not have the power to betray.

This time the receptionist at the Lo-Wate Bottling Co. was a slim middle-aged Oriental male instead of his first visit’s guardian of the gate, but he gave Hake the identical loathsome stare. “Do you have an appointment?” he asked, as if it were a foregone conclusion that Hake did not.

“I am the Reverend H. Hornswell Hake, to see Curmudgeon at once, and I don’t need one. Tell him I’m here.”

Hake sat down and opened a magazine without waiting for an answer. He had no doubt that he would get past the receptionist. If his name or the lumps on his face were not passport enough, his arrogance would be. Hake was far from sure that arrogance would melt all difficulties in dealing with the Team. But it was the best tool he had in his chest to use at that moment. And, besides, it gave him pleasure.

When he finally was led to the remembered office Curmudgeon’s scowl was black. “You jerked me out of a planning meeting!” he barked. “Man, you got a lot to learn. Never come here without orders, do you understand?”

“I understand,” Hake nodded, “and will comply, provided you cut out the chickenshit. Don’t give me any more missions where I don’t know the score. Not any. Otherwise I make a lot of trouble. Do you understand?”

“Now, listen—’”

“Not yet. First take a look at my face. I’ll grant you that half of it is my own fault, but the other half isn’t. I got these lumps because the Team let me down. That’s not going to happen again, and the way we’re going to keep it from happening is I’rii going to get a full briefing before I ever lift another finger for you. More than that. I’m going to have the right to accept or decline, whatever it is.” He stopped and leaned back. “I hope you understand and will comply,” he added mildly.

Curmudgeon glowered silently for a moment, one hand combing its fingers through his dense beard while the other hovered nervously near the butt of his.45. Then, surprisingly, he shrugged and relaxed. “Maybe Jasper Medina’s right about you,” he said.

“Depends on what he says.”

Curmudgeon said thoughtfully, “Says you’re a lot tougher than you look. Well, that’s what we need. But that doesn’t mean you can pull a stunt like this again! Once, maybe. Twice and you’ve had it, Hake, you really have!”

“I understand and will comply,” Hake said, “provided some dummy doesn’t do something that leaves me no choice. Now, what I came down here for. I’ve ordered some stuff for myself—a car, a computer terminal, some odds and ends for the church—”

“Computer! Not a chance, Hake. Grade Three field agents don’t rate personal computer terminals, do you have any idea what those things cost?”

“Charge it to KLM.”

“No computer! It isn’t just a question of the money. You’ll make yourself too conspicuous. No.”

Hake scowled, then decided to pass it. If he decided he really needed one he would get it anyhow, and figure out how to pay for it with the skills learned Under the Wire. ‘Then one last thing. I want Team help to get Leota Pauket out of that sheik’s harem.”

Curmudgeon grinned. “There you went too far. You go near him, or her, and you’re dead, Hake.”

“But I’m responsible for her being there!”

“Why, sure you are. What’s that got to do with it? No way. Sheik Hassabou’s a significant contact and not to be endangered. Don’t knock it, Hake. Outside of Jasper Medina’s commendation, about the only thing you’ve got going for you is that you facilitated making that contact. You didn’t plan it that way, but we hit lucky.”

“Him? What’s he good for? He’s a played-out oil sheik, nothing left but money.”

Curmudgeon shook his head. “That far you can’t push me. I’ll tell you this much. The Team has a major objective, and we needed someone to help. He’s it. When Medina contacted him to drop the charges against you it gave a chance for certain other topics to be raised—and they were. That’s it, Hake. You can have all your other toys.”

“But Leota—”

“Knock it off, Hake! We’ve got no reason to do that woman any favors. I’ll tell you what,” he said, relenting slightly. “She’s only got thirty days to do there. Then I’ll see. Maybe we can clean her slate for her.”

Hake had a sudden preview of what Leota would say if he told her the Team had offered to clean her slate. Still, he had found out more than he had known when he got here, and the most he had really expected was a crumb or two of information.

“I’m waiting, Hake.”

There was such a thing as pressing your luck too far. Unwillingly, Hake said, “I understand and will comply, but—”

“No but. No more conversation,” said Curmudgeon. “Good-by, Hake.”

When Hake got back to Long Branch his new car was waiting at the curb. It was a Tata three-wheeler, hydrbgen propelled, and Jessie Tunman came out on the porch to get a look at it. “Why yellow?” she sniffed.

“It was what they had in stock,” Hake said.

She shook her head disapprovingly. “After all the things you’ve said about power-piggery,” she remarked. “And with the balance of payments going crazy with these new hydrogen imports—well, it’s your life. Are you going to be able to take care of any business now, Horny?”

“What kind of business?”

“Well, some parishioners want to talk to you—”

“No counseling until my face heals up.”

“All right, but Alys’s husbands have been on the phone, twice each.”

“I don’t want to hear.”

“And that windmill makes a terrible racket sometimes, Horny. I’ve called the construction people three times but they never do anything about it.”

“Tell them,” he said, “that if they don’t get a man down here today I’m going to rip it out and buy a new one from someone else.”

“Horny!”

“Tell them. Now I’m going to take my new car for a spin.”

“Drive it in good health,” she sniffed.

That was far from certain, he thought, wincing at the pain of unfamiliar muscles as he stepped on the unfamiliar accelerator and clutch and brake. But this was not a joy ride. It might even be rather essential to his life. It had occurred to Hake in Curmudgeon’s office that it might be easy to overplay his hand, with possibly very unhappy results. On the other side, there was a way to improve the cards he had been dealt. What he was after now was a new hole card; so he drove down to Asbury Park, stopping at a discount store along the highway to buy a new cassette recorder and tapes.

The beach was full of bathers, of course, but only a few surf-casters were out on the rock jetties; there was not much to be caught any more in the sludgy New Jersey Atlantic. Painfully Hake climbed the rocks past them, to a place where wind and surf and distance blanketed his voice. He sat down, put a new tape in the machine and began to speak.

“My name is H. Hornswell Hake, pastor of the Unitarian Church in Long Branch. I was first contacted by the spy and sabotage group called ‘The Team’ on March 16th, when a person I suppose to have been a Team agent, representing himself to my secretary as an IRS man and to me as a senator’s administrative assistant, came to my house to order me to active duty…”