The Revengers (21 page)

“Okay, Elly,” I said. “You can put it away now.”

Warren Peterson’s voice spoke shrilly, “You see? He’s established power over her somehow, just like I told you. Why, she’s even willing to kill for him now!”

Nobody paid any attention to this nonsense. As Eleanor seated herself once more, her lips moved almost imperceptibly, “If you’re Wild Bill Hickok, what does that make me, Calamity Jane?”

“She was even uglier than you,” I murmured. “But then, she was lots bigger. Handled a twenty-mule team like a pair of ponies, I’m told—”

“Miss Brand.”

Eleanor threw me a wicked glance, and said, “Yes, Mr. Bennett.”

Bennett cleared his throat. “Now that we have all the dramatics and melodramatics out of the way, I hope, perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell us about the journalistic project upon which you’re presently engaged.”

I saw Mac wince. “Presently,” employed in that way offends him almost as much as “contact” used as a verb. The proper usage, according to him, is “at present.”

Eleanor said brightly, “Oh, you mean my piece on the Bermuda Triangle? Well, I’m afraid I haven’t really come up with a lot of new material yet. You know, of course, about the flight of military planes that disappeared from Fort Lauderdale, and the private yacht Revonoc that shoved off from Key West and was never seen again.”

“Please, Miss Brand. We’re aware that you’ve used, shall we say, a little misdirection to hide the true purpose of your research—”

I said quickly, “But the people with whom she’s dealing may not be aware of it yet. I thought they were, when we ran into that ambush last night, but it turned out to be a friendly cooperating agency just having a little friendly cooperative fun.. .. Incidentally, how’s the casualty?” Bennett said stiffly, “I wondered when you’d get around to showing some interest. His condition is stable; it looks as if he’ll make it all right.”

I said, “About people who wave guns at me, Mr. Bennett, and get shot as a result, my interest is very limited. Even when I shoot them myself; and in this case I didn’t. But I’m happy for Mr. Lawson’s sake that his victim is going to survive.”

The heavyset man said angrily, “Goddamn it, if you hadn’t—”

“It’s rough,” I said. “In a couple more generations we’ll have bred us a nice gentle race of citizens that’ll never fight back, and disarmed them totally for good measure. Too bad you were bom too early, amigo. You’d have loved it in a docile society where nobody had guns but you.”

Mac cleared his throat. “I think that’s enough, Matt.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “As I was saying, it may be that Miss Brand’s misdirection is still working; and before we go on here I’d like some assurance that it’s going to stay working as long as possible. Just because Peterson seems to have spilled the beans to you, Bennett, about what she’s really investigating, doesn’t mean it has to be broadcast all over the waterfront.”

“I assure you, we’re well aware of the importance of security,” Bennett said coldly. “As it happens, in this case the point is already moot, as you’ll see in a minute. However, I’ll take the opportunity to assure Miss Brand that nothing of what she tells us will be divulged unnecessarily.” He looked at Eleanor. “Now, please. How much information do you have about these terrorist activities?”

Eleanor hesitated. I knew what she was thinking; but we’d already made the point that we weren’t going to be pushed around for anybody’s convenience. She was smart enough to see that there was no sense in overdoing it. However, she did feel obliged to make her attitude clear.

“I’m not aware of any terrorist activities,” she said. “I have been investigating some recent ship losses along the coast, but I haven’t been able to determine what’s behind them. I have found no evidence that would lead me to call them acts of terrorism.”

“Perhaps we have a little more information on the subject than you, Miss Brand.” Bennett’s voice was smug. “Nevertheless, we would appreciate it very much if you would share with us whatever information you have.”

There was an angry glint in Eleanor’s eyes, but she made her report in a crisp and businesslike fashion, “I went back five years. I listed all the possibles; collisions, groundings, storms, fires, explosions, etc. I discarded a large number of incidents I was sure were simply normal seagoing accidents. I set aside a few doubtfuls; generally cases where a ship went missing but nobody, even among the survivors if any, seemed to know exactly what had happened. I was left with a small category of what I consider practically certains. Five ships, six with this last one. They all had similar characteristics. The damage was always forward. The ship had apparently hit something that either exploded of its own accord or caused an explosion on board. Well, that’s one theory. Another is that the bow blew up due to sabotage of one kind or another, although why a saboteur would pick the same location on every ship isn’t easy to understand. These incidents, it turned out, all took place within the past two years.”

Bennett nodded. “We will want all the names, Miss Brand. And all the associated information you have. In particular, it’s my understanding that you have interviewed a number of the survivors. I’d like transcripts of those interviews.”

“I’m sure you would,” Eleanor said dryly. “What’s wrong with doing a little interviewing of your own?”

“Even if we could afford to waste our time duplicating your efforts, it would be impossible in the case that concerns us most at the moment.”

Eleanor frowned at him. “You’re leading up to something. Spring it, please.”

“The man in question was named Jurgen Hinkampf. He was third mate on the
Fairfax Constellation
, the tanker that recently sank off the Bahamas. He was smothered in his hospital bed last night, with a pillow. The murderer has not yet been apprehended.”

Eleanor’s face was pale. “Oh, the poor kid!”

“You spoke with him in the hospital yesterday, I understand.”

“That’s right. But he clammed up on me. I’d . . . hoped to be able to question him again today.”

“Obviously that will not be possible,” Bennett said. He glanced at me and went on, with some malice, “That is what I meant when I said the question of security is moot in this case. Obviously, somebody is already quite aware of the true purpose of Miss Brand’s research, fairly obvious once she started looking up and interviewing these survivors. Apparently this individual or organization is trying to frustrate her efforts by eliminating her sources of information.” He looked back at Eleanor. “You were under the impression that this Hinkampf was holding something back?”

She nodded. “But I haven’t any idea what it could be. We didn’t get that far.”

“How far! did you get?”

“He’d been telling me what happened,” Eleanor said. “He said there was a violent jolt and a loud noise and he rushed out onto the open wing of the bridge—it was his watch—just as the whole bow of the ship went up in flames, like a great fireball that rolled aft toward him. He was badly burned as he tried to get back into shelter; so badly that he pretty well ceased to function. Some of his shipmates apparently helped him into the lifeboat.”

“Your description makes it sound as if the ship were carrying gasoline.”

“No, crude oil,” Eleanor said. “But that’s the whole works, you know, light and heavy stuff, just the way it comes out of the ground. And the light stuff is practically gasoline—it is unrefined gasoline—and can form an explosive mixture if the right precautions aren’t taken. Apparently, they weren’t taken on the
Constellation
. She was a fairly old and decrepit tanker, and whatever went bang up forward just set off the whole damned cargo.” Eleanor hesitated. “I suppose the Bahamian authorities will want to talk with me, since I saw him shortly before .. . before he was killed.”

“Yes, you’re requested to pay them a visit this afternoon. I’ll give you directions to the office. We can arrange transportation if you like.”

I said, “I’ll arrange transportation.”

Bennett shrugged. “Suit yourselves. Miss Brand, you say Hinkampf told you all this? He wasn’t reluctant to describe the actual disaster?”

“Oh, no. It was when I tried to . . . well, I wanted a clear picture of the situation on the bridge at the time of the explosion, but when I tried to establish exactly what he’d been doing, and the seaman who’d been on watch with him, just before hell broke loose, that was when he suddenly decided that he was too sick to do any more talking.”

“Do you have any theories as to what he may have been hiding?”

She shrugged. “Just the obvious ones; that he’d been doing something he shouldn’t, or not doing something he should. Maybe just goofing off while the autopilot steered the ship; and reading a comic book, or Immanuel Kant or whatever. It happens. Those ships practically run themselves, even the older ones. Anyway, he was too eager to tell me all about the pretty fireworks and too reluctant to discuss the technical details of his midnight watch. I think he knew that he’d done something wrong, something that, as the officer in charge, made him at least partly responsible for the loss of the ship. . . ."

“Guiltily responsible? Criminally responsible?”

She shook her head quickly. “If you mean, was he part of a plot to blow her up, I doubt it very much. From the way he told it, I’m sure that the explosion itself came as a terrible surprise to him. He wasn’t expecting anything of the sort and he had no hand in arranging it; I’d swear to that. But I do think he was aware that he’d made a professional blunder or oversight that had at least contributed to the disaster. Something he didn’t dare let anybody know about, particularly a nosy female journalist who’d turned out to know a little more about shipboard routines than he’d expected when he agreed to be interviewed.” She smiled faintly. “I spent a week on a freighter, you know, just learning my way around a ship, before I started this investigation.”

“You mentioned another man on watch, a seaman. Have you questioned him?”

“He’s not around to be questioned,” Eleanor said. “Jurgen didn’t know exactly what happened to him; but he’s not listed among the survivors.”

“If there was some collaboration with the terrorists who arranged the sinking, that could be the inside man so to speak, taken off secretly and whisked to safety.”

Eleanor said, “It’s an interesting theory, but I don’t believe it’s very plausible, Mr. Bennett. With the tanker on fire and burning oil spreading over the sea all around it? Personally, I think that man went down with the ship, but if you want to hunt for him, his name was Einar Kettle-man,” She hesitated. “And I really don’t believe it was the work of terrorists.”

Bennett gave her his slow, smug, malicious smile. “Then it’s very strange that we should have a note in our possession demanding a large sum of money in the name of a certain undercover organization, and threatening to sink another ship if the cash is not forthcoming by a certain deadline. Don’t you think so, Miss Brand?”

“Bullshit,” Eleanor said. She turned to face me. “That’s what it is, you know just fancy blue bullshit. I don’t give a damn what kind of menace notes that bald bastard claims to have gotten hold of. It’s not that kind of an operation. I can feel it.”

It had been a hard day after our long session up on the seventh floor, which itself hadn’t been easy; but she didn’t show it. It was evening again and we were back in my fourth floor room in the Paradise Towers after dinner, having spent the afternoon going through the police bit together. That had involved a lot of waiting around, in between dealing with a large number of dumb officials and a smaller number of bright ones, both types hard to take in view of the differences of race and nationality.

A long hard day, but her suit and blouse—we’d gotten back so late she hadn’t taken time to change for dinner— still looked fresh, her fragile stockings remained smooth and whole, and her businesslike hairdo had stayed obediently in place. A durable girl, but I thought I would have preferred a few wrinkles and smudges and straying locks. Her compulsive neatness was a little frightening. I guessed that she was fighting it very hard, rejecting anything that reminded her of a certain night when her tidy, disciplined image of herself had been brutally destroyed. I put a glass into her hand and raised mine.

“To terrorism,” I said. “If Bennett wants to believe in it, why worry? Having him off chasing phantom fanatics may just keep him out of our hair.”

But she was thinking of something else. “Matt,” she said. “Matt, this morning, would you really have shot that gun? That man?”

I looked at her for a moment. “Nosy, aren’t you?” I said.

“I was involved, remember. I think I’m entitled to know.”

I watched her closely. I asked, “Would
you
have fired?”

She hesitated, and shrugged minutely. “I think so. If you’d told me to. I mean, if I go to a physics expert for advice, I don’t argue with him about the validity of E=mc
²
. And if I consult a weapons expert and he tells me it’s necessary to make some loud and lethal noises with a firearm, who am I to contradict him? Yes, if you’d given the word, I think I would have fired. I would have assumed you knew what you were doing. But would you really have done it?”

I remembered that this was the tough little girl who had exacted payment for certain injuries received in a very unpleasant manner. Well, one gets tired of dealing with sentimental nitwits, and she certainly wasn’t that.

I said, “There are three men alive today who would be dead if I hadn’t exercised considerable forbearance yesterday, and run considerable risk. I had all the excuses I needed to defend myself violently, meaning lethally; but I passed them up. I told you that was the end of it. They’ve had all the breaks from me I can afford to give them. I’ve wasted all the luck on them I intend to. Let’s put it this way: I don’t wave firearms at people for fun. If I had really decided to leave the room and they had made a real effort to stop me, there would have been shooting. If any one of them points a gun at me again, or threatens me with any other weapon, I don’t care who he is or whose orders he’s carrying out, he’s dead. Does that answer your question?”