The Terminators (16 page)

"Outside Oslo, while we were getting things set up for all this. Have you seen those Norwegian roads, the high ones? A mountain goat could break his neck."

"But you suspected, as the saying goes, foul play?"

She said judiciously, "When you're playing games with people like Dr. Elfenbein and somebody dies unexpectedly, you can't help wondering, can you? We'd heard he was interested and had people snooping around. Robbie had been assigned to check the rumor—Operation Ivory—and if it turned out to be true, to find out whom Elfenbein was working for. Then he died." She shrugged. "Obviously, we had to consider the possibility that he'd got too close to something they didn't want us to know."

"Aloco?"

"What else? You saw that slick P.R. creep with the little pistol who tried to bribe you." She grimaced. "I'd bet he'd sell his grandmother for a quarter and give back twenty cents change. And you heard what he said: anything he couldn't handle, he knew where to hire people who could. Those big companies wall do anything to protect their lousy corporate reputations. And Parson Elfenbein, as you call him, would do anything to protect a lucrative job. Matt?"

"Yes?"

"I don't think that little man likes you very much, judging by the way he looked at you. You'd better watch yourself as long as he's around."

"I always do," I said. "No matter who's around. But you'd better watch yourself, too."

''What do you mean?"

"I have a hunch friend Elfenbein has the modem hostage mentality: if the guy you want to hurt—or the society—is too big or tough or elusive, just grab somebody easier and take out your hate on them. In this case, you." I grimaced. "Well, to hell with it. It's been a delightful, relaxing, ocean cruise, Mrs. Barth, and tomorrow we go to work. Trondheim at the crack of dawn, the schedule says. Contact number one."

There was a brief silence. "Matt."

"Yes?"

"Am I 
supposed
 to be scared?"

"Drink your beer," I said. "You're the little girl who loves being scared, remember?"

XIII.

BACK down the coast in Bergen, I'd heard they were feeling very cocky nowadays, because the latest census figures indicated they'd overtaken Trondheim and were now the largest city in northern Norway. It seemed like an odd cause for pride, these crowded days. If I were a Trondheimer, I reflected, I'd concede the population title graciously, happy to know that people were settling elsewhere and leaving my home town alone.

Trondheim was still a sizable community, as far as I could make out from the ship. It looked like an old, historical, well-established place; apparently it had not been systematically wrecked by the withdrawing Germans back in '45. The guidebook said there was an old cathedral, intact and worth seeing. There were also, apparently, some massive ex-Nazi submarine pens at the end of the harbor, now used for peaceful ship repairs and associated activities. I couldn't make out either of these points of interest but it was only a little after six on a misty and drizzly Arctic morning, and the visibility was terrible.

Not terrible enough, however, I thought wryly. What I needed, if I was going to be subtle, was a fog with less than ten feet of visibility, that would allow me to get myself—and later, Diana—off the ship without being seen; but maybe that was too much to ask for.

The water looked too cold and dirty for swimming. I'd never learned to fly without an airplane—as a matter of fact I wasn't much good at flying with one. That left only one way to get ashore, and I made my way down the damp, steep, cleated gangplank to the pier, flipped a mental coin, and turned left.

The Trondheim railroad station is quite near the docks. The roof of it had been pointed out to me by the ship's purser. However, there are all kinds of tracks and railroad yards in between, and to reach the station, I'd been told, I'd have to either go left a couple of hundred yards around the end of them, or right a quarter of a mile to an underpass tunneling beneath them. My simple-minded plan was just to make the circle tour and see what Diana might have to cope with in keeping her—well, Madeleine Earth's —rendezvous in the station restaurant, time unspecified. In the meantime, she was staying in her cabin with my .38 for company, although she'd complained that by this time she and Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson had very little left to say to each other.

It was a damp walk in the penetrating drizzle, and I hoped the gent behind me had forgotten his raincoat and was getting good and wet. I wasn't quite sure where I'd picked him up, but suddenly I was just aware of him back there. Well, he'd keep. I paid him no attention. I just hiked along the curving road and made my way through a muddy construction area—one of these days, I hope, they'll stop rebuilding the world and let us settle down to live in it. Then the station was ahead of me, a big building obviously designed by folks who'd had the old-fashioned notion that railroad stations were fairly important structures and ought to look it.

The restaurant was at the near end, a big, high-ceilinged cafeteria. I went in and got a cup of coffee and a piece of pastry, which wasn't as good as the stuff I remembered eating in Sweden some years back; but maybe I'm prejudiced because my ancestors came from there. Anyway, it beat the plastic doughnuts served up in equivalent U.S. eateries.

Sitting in a small booth, I surveyed the room, sparsely populated at this hour of the morning. The only individual at all out of the ordinary was a well-dressed, elderly gent sitting half a dozen booths down the aisle; and he was distinctive only because he had with him a pair of handsome hunting dogs—German short-haired pointers. That's the good-sized spotty one with the stubby tail. Well, all the Continental breeds have docked tails, as far as I know. In case you haven't got them straight, the cute little ones are Brittanies, the handsome, red-brown fellow is a Vizla, and the odd, smoky-gray guy is a Weimaraner. Anyway, that's what I was told by a Labrador fancier, but he had no use for any dog that wasn't black. He wouldn't even have a yellow or chocolate Lab around the place, although the colors are perfectly legitimate, according to the breed standard I'd had to read in the line of duty—I was pretending to be a guy who knew something about dogs, at the time.

Sipping my coffee, I wondered idly if maybe the dogs might not be a secret signal of some kind. After all, there had been an old man with a dog in the restaurant in Alesund where I'd last talked with Hank Priest. I toyed with the notion playfully. One dog, all clear. Two dogs, condition yellow. Three dogs, condition red. . . .

It was an intriguing idea, but I decided regretfully that I probably just kept seeing dogs in restaurants because the relaxed Norwegians allowed dogs in restaurants, and more power to them. By now the gent outside—he hadn't followed me in—had had time to get nicely soaked, I hoped. I went out without looking around and hiked off through the drizzle in the direction from which I hadn't come. Pretty soon I had him behind me again. Here the road ran along a kind of canal or inlet. There were some beautiful, sturdy fishing boats tied up along the sides. You can say what you like in favor of fiberglass, and it may well be the boat material of the future if the petroleum from which it's derived holds out, but for pretty, it doesn't compare with wood, particularly varnished wood.

Then the road curved right, away from the canal, and ducked down into the underpass beneath the railroad tracks. I'd reached the end of my orbit in this direction and would shortly be heading back for reentry. It was a long tunnel, not very well lighted. I stopped when I'd come about thirty feet from the entrance.

I didn't have long to wait. I heard his footsteps coming. They never paused. He just marched around the comer, a husky familiar figure with that wide-brimmed hat, and walked up to me. I was happy to see that he was actually pretty wet, although he did have a raincoat. We faced each other for a moment.

"You make a lousy shadow, Paul," I said. 'T hope you weren't really trying. I taught you better than that. . . . What the hell are you doing?"

There was a black-and-white-striped barricade, like a sawhorse, standing at the side of the tunnel. Apparently there had been some construction or road-patching done down here, too. Denison had hung his hat on the end of it. Now he was taking off his raincoat and jacket, together. He laid these across the horse. Then he took a snub-nosed Colt revolver from a waistband holster and tucked it into the pocket of the coat. He reached down and got a flat little knife from under his pants leg somewhere, and stuffed that in with the gun, and turned to face me.

"These's been enough horsing around," he said. "You can't kill me; L. A. will put too much heat on your outfit if you do. But I can't kill you, either. If I do, Mac will say to hell with Mr. Kotko and send out the executioners, the termination squads, anyway. Agreed?"

"Okay so far," I said. "Which brings us where?"

He stood there for a moment, his handsome, tanned face wet and shiny in the dusk of the tunnel. "It's a funny damn' thing," he said slowly. "Do a guy a good turn, and often he'll detest you the rest of his life for putting him in your debt. Do him a bad turn, and pretty soon you find yourself hating the self-righteous sonofabitch you double-crossed. ... It ought to be the other way around, don't you think?"

"Well, I'm not exactly fond of you these days, Paul," I said.

"Ah, but you don't 
hate
 me," he said softly. "You'll flatten me like a mosquito, given a chance—or try—but you don't live it and sleep it. I know you. Hell, after the first, you probably never thought about me once a year. I was just a bit of unfinished business you'd take care of if you ever got the word to go; meanwhile it was ancient history and to hell with it. But I've been looking over my shoulder for seven years, waiting for you, you bastard."

As he said, it was kind of a backwards situation. By any reasonable standard, I was the injured party. The whole thing was ridiculous, but he was rolling up his shirtsleeves, and what he had in mind was fairly obvious, if fairly childish. Well, hell, when it came to a personal matter, like an old betrayed friendship, I could be as childish as anybody. I removed my hat, coat, and jacket, and laid them beside his. I stuck my gun and knife into the coat pocket as he had. Then we had to stand there a moment, looking innocent, as a car made its way through the long tunnel.

I said, "Hell, I haven't done this since grammar school. We used to go out behind the gym where the teachers couldn't see us."

"That's enough talk," he said. "Let's fight."

He put down his head and came in swinging. It was rather touching in a way. I mean, he was putting himself into my hands. It was his party, and he was indicating how he wanted it run; but there was nothing compelling me to play by his infantile rules. There are a number of adult responses to that clumsy windmill attack that leave the other party in very bad shape. We're taught most of them and he knew it because he'd been there. If I wanted to trot out the fancy stuff, he was telling me, that was my privilege; but it would cancel all obligations between us, because this time he was playing it straight. . . .

I met him and traded blows with him, blocking, chopping, feeling him out awkwardly. It would have looked like hell in a ring or gym. The honest-to-God fact was that we weren't very good at it. The manly sport of boxing wasn't part of the repertory of dirty tricks we'd been taught, so we didn't look very professional as we circled each other, fists up, looking for openings. Then I slipped one through and caught him on the mouth, and at the same time he got me hard in the ribs. Stung, we both forgot about caution and started slugging heedlessly. Abruptly he broke away.

"Hold it!" he panted. "Car coming!"

We leaned against the tunnel wall, looking as peaceful as possible, while a small truck came through heading for the docks.

"Ding-dong bell," Denison said. "Second round. Ready?"

We went at it again. Twice more we had to stop and act innocent while vehicles passed. It was, I suppose, a stupid damned business, two grown men pounding each other with knuckles. My own theory had always been that you leave the guy alone or you leave him dead. There are often sound arguments for removing people permanently but none, I used to feel, for beating them up.

Well, I'd been wrong. Denison had found one, or made one. Remembering a man called Mark, and a man called John, and a girl named Luisa, all dead due to his treachery, I found myself taking a good deal of satisfaction in each blow that landed solidly. I found it even more satisfying when he began to give ground and I drove him backwards savagely, looking for a way to finish him off. He slipped and went to one knee.

Old reflexes came into action; I started the lethal kick that would do the job right, and stopped with some difficulty. This crazy fight wasn't like that. Instead of killing him, I stepped back politely to let him get to his feet. I was surprised to see him try, and fail to make it.

"Soft living, Luke?" I gasped. My voice sounded harsh and rusty.

"Hell, you can hardly stand up yourself, Eric," he panted and I realized that he was perfectly right. "Give me a hand, you sonofabitch," he breathed.

The thought of a final trick passed through my mind as I stepped forward to help him up; but of course there was no trick. He leaned against the striped sawhorse, breathing deeply and raggedly, while I steadied myself against the tunnel wall trying to catch up with my own respiration.

"I guess that's enough exercise for one morning," he said at last. "If you want to say you licked me, you're welcome."

"Go to hell," I said.

"You understand, I don't regret a goddamn thing," he said without looking at me. "Not any of it. Except maybe that I couldn't put you down just now."

"Sure."

He drew a long, uneven breath. "Well, I guess we haven't settled anything except that we're the world's two lousiest boxers. They'd have booed us out of the ring. . . . Matt."

"Yes?"

"You can send the girl in safely. Tve had somebody keeping an eye on Elfenbein since you put him ashore with a mangled hand—some day you'll have to tell me about that. Whatever you did to him, it made him mad as hell, but he's a pro and he's playing it cool nevertheless. He's letting this drop go by, figuring to get the stuff from you later, before you hand it over to your naval captain up north—I guess he knows Priest has specified he's to make delivery to L. A. in person, no substitutes accepted. Maybe Elfenbein figures letting you make this first contact peacefully will throw you off guard, or something."