The Terminators (7 page)

When I knocked on the cabin door two decks down, Diana's voice told me to come in. Inside, the light was still on and she was sitting on the berth as before, armed, alert, and ready to repel boarders. I'd kind of expected to find that she'd retired, or at least got out of her ill-fitting, borrowed costume but she'd only discarded the jacket and combed her hair. Obviously, not quite knowing what to expect, she hadn't wanted a sudden crisis to catch her with her clothes off.

It showed a commendable attention to duty and the revolver was steady in her hand. It occurred to me that, for a member of an outfit so ineffectual that it had to use imported muscle, she showed a surprising tolerance for firearms. Generally, an inexperienced young lady—I'd had to tell her the difference between hammer and trigger —grasps a loaded gun as if it were a live and angry rattlesnake.

"Is everything all right?" she asked. "You were gone a long time."

"Everything's fine," I said. "Any trouble here?"

"There hasn't been a soul around to bother me." After a moment, she said, "I figured it out. What you had to do."

"Good for you," I said. "Point that thing somewhere else, will you? The theory is, you don't aim it at anything you don't want to shoot." 

"I'm sorry."

She lowered the weapon. She'd had time to warm up and dry off and the white turtleneck she was wearing— Evelyn Benson's white turtleneck—while not quite immaculate after its dip in the harbor, was a lot more becoming without the too-tight jacket buttoned over it. With her hair nicely combed, she looked reasonably human once more. She had a symmetrical, oval face, I noted, and odd, greenish eyes. Once you got used to it, the pale skin was kind of striking, setting her apart in a world of conventionally tanned or rosy beauties. She really wasn't a bad-looking girl.

"The man who murdered Evelyn," she said. "He'd seen her up close. I fooled him on the gangplank, at night, hurrying past him in her clothes with my hair all down my face and your coat over my head; but if he saw me in daylight, he'd know. So ... so he had to be killed."

"Yes," I said.

"Did you?"

"Yes," I said. "Of course. That's what you people got me here for, wasn't it, my goddamned lethal reputation? I said I had a few shocks in mind for the opposition, remember?"

She hesitated. "What about the other one?" she asked. "The one who went ashore. He probably saw Evelyn too, you said."

I studied her for a moment, puzzled. It wasn't going at all the way I'd expected. Working with a shy, sheltered maiden brought up on tender principles of humanitarian-ism and nonviolence, I'd been braced for the old hand-wringing, breast-beating, bleeding-heart act, or at least a few conventional expressions of shock and dismay, but I wasn't getting them.

"The kid?" I said. "Not to worry. He's just juvenile help."

"But you'll have to deal with him, too, sooner or later, won't you?"

Her voice was quite calm and matter-of-fact. I realized that I'd got hold of something kind of special here, maybe even unique, but it was too early for me to tell whether it was good or bad.

"He's on shore," I said. "We're afloat. We don't have to worry about him tonight."

"You're really taking this masquerade seriously," she said. "I mean, killing a man to protect it."

"Well," I said, "let's just say it made a hell of a good excuse."

She was silent for a little. "Vengeance, Mr. Helm?" she murmured at last.

"I don't go out of my way for it, usually," I said. "I certainly won't jeopardize a mission for it. But if it's right in front of me for the taking, sure, I'll take it. People shouldn't go tossing people into the drink if they're not prepared to do a little swimming themselves."

She licked her lips, watching me. There was a funny gleam in the greenish eyes. "Was that what you did, threw him overboard?"

"That's right," I said. "I got him separated from his gun, kicked him in the head, and dumped him over the side." I glanced at her. "Why?"

She said steadily, "Because, since I'm here, I don't want to miss anything, Mr. Helm, not even murder. I want to learn all about it. Everything." She drew a long breath and when she spoke again, her voice wasn't quite so steady: "I . . . I've always been a very nice girl. I don't mean I'm a virgin, or anything silly like that but I've worked hard at being a truly 
civilized
 person. You know. Peaceful. Considerate. Kind. Intellectual. Sympathetic to all the good, worthy, conventional causes. Nonviolent, of course, Because that's the only way to be, isn't it? I mean, we've all got to be that way, or get that way, if the world is going to survive, don't we? People like you, people with guns, are ugly, dangerous anachronisms threatening our peaceful modern society. . . . 
What
 peaceful modem society, Mr. Helm?"

I didn't answer. She didn't expect me to answer. I just listened to the steady rumble of the ship's machinery, that turned the tiny cabin into a very private place, insulated by the noise from the rest of the universe.

"I'm tired," she said softly. "I wish I could make you understand how tired I am of pretending to be something I'm not—I don't mean just an imaginary Madeleine Barth; I've been an imaginary person all my life—and pretending the world is something it isn't, like everybody else of my generation. Who's kidding whom, Mr. Helm?"

If there's a screwball with an identity crisis around, we'll get him every time. Or her.

I said, "Sweetheart, I think you got the wrong door. The psychiatric department is down the hall to the right."

"You don't understand," she said, unruffled. "I've found what I was looking for right here, waiting in this cramped little stateroom in a dead person's soggy clothes. I've died of fear ten times while you were gone, don't you

know that, Matthew Helm? And I've loved every terrified minute of it!" She'd got to her feet as she talked. Now she glanced at the blunt revolver she was still holding, and tucked it into her waistband. "And I've happily killed two dozen people with that, one every time the door rattled, don't you know that?"

"Quite a trick, with a five-shot gun," I said.

"Five? I thought they all shot six times."

"Don't count on it," I said.

"What are we talking about?" she asked.

I said, "You know damned well what we're talking about, and the answer is no."

"No?"

"No, I won't go to bed with you, just to make your thrilling evening complete, Miss Lawrence."

There was a little silence, then she laughed quite cheerfully. "Oh, dear," she said. "Is that what I was leading up to? I guess it was." She grinned at me impishly. "And of course, you're perfectly right not to humor the shameless whims of an unbalanced female who really ought to be in a clinic with bars on the windows. I mean, if you took ungentlemanly advantage of her aberration, you'd never forgive yourself, would you?"

Something had changed in the room, the way the atmosphere changes noticeably after a weather front moves through. She was looking up at me, laughing at me with those odd, greenish eyes in that strangely pale face. I found myself thinking uncertainly that, well, hell, there was really no good reason for me to fight for my virtue, or hers. The girl might be a kook, but she was a grown-up kook. We had a long boat-ride ahead of us. If it made her feel thrillingly wanton and wicked to precipitate tonight what would probably happen between us later, anyway, under the intimate circumstances of our mission, why should I hold back like a timid bride?

Just to keep up appearances, I said defensively, "Look, you're supposed to be Mrs. Madeleine Barth, a very proper lady who carefully arranged for us to have separate cabins on this trip." When Diana said nothing, I went on feebly:

''Anyway, none of these damned Norska bunks are big enough for two."

"Do you want to bet. Mr. Helm?"

I didn't bet. It was just as well. I'd have lost

VI.

BREAKFAST was a self-service meal, with a fine display of anchovies and herrings on the big table at the end of the first-class dining room. With silent apologies to my Scandinavian forebears, I passed up this fishy feast and tracked down a couple of boiled eggs and some bacon, a glass of orange juice, and a cup of coffee. In the meantime, my current partner in business, and other endeavors, was heaping stuff on her plate in the manner of a lady who doesn't have to worry about her waistline.

It disturbed me to note that this morning she looked very good, slim and willowy in her own nicely fitting gray slacks and the neat little short-sleeved gray sweater she'd been wearing when I'd first seen her in Tracteurstedet— I'd smuggled the garments aboard under my jacket. Her long coat had been too bulky and had been left with Hank Priest. She had a kerchief over her hair to hide the fact that it wasn't quite as dark as Mrs. Madeleine Earth's hair was supposed to be. She looked quite bright and attractive, and I didn't like it, remembering how drab and colorless I'd thought her the evening before. While I'd have liked to think that a night in my company could cause a perfectly plain female to blossom into quiet beauty, honesty forced me to admit it wasn't likely. The change must therefore be in the way I was looking at her. Changes like that you've got to watch.

There was, of course, also the fact that she looked as serene and untouched as if she'd spent the night chastely alone in her narrow Nordic berth. Professional caution made me wonder uneasily, for a moment, if maybe she wasn't a truly clever little actress putting me on for some sinister purpose. Well, if she was, I had to hand it to her: it was a great act.

"No," she said, sitting down at a table by a window.

"No what?" I asked, seating myself to face her.

"No, it's not an act, darling. That's what you were just thinking, isn't it, looking at me so suspiciously. You were wondering if maybe . . . maybe I hadn't lured you into bed for wicked conspiratorial reasons of some kind."

I sighed. "Kooks I can stand, but clairvoyants give me the creeps."

"Then you're in fine shape," she said, "Because that's all I am, just a simple country kook. And the funny thing is, I never realized it until a few months ago. I thought. ... I thought everybody had those crazy, uncivilized impulses from time to time. And I never dreamed I'd really have the nerve to. . . ." She stopped, and laughed abruptly. "You were wrong, Matt."

"How wrong?"

"Those beds. You said they weren't big enough, remember?" She blushed, and busied herself with some pickled fish on her plate. "Matt."

"Yes?"

"I feel all funny inside. Reckless-funny. Does it show?"

"Not one little bit," I said. "You look very genteel and proper, as a matter of fact." After a moment, I went on, "You did say the Elfenbeins probably don't know you by sight? I hope you're right, Because if I've got the right people spotted, here they come."

"Don't hoard the salt, darling," she said. "Other people eat eggs, too, you know. . . . It's really magnificent scenery, isn't it? I understand it gets even more spectacular up north."

She'd turned to watch the rocky coast passing off to starboard, illuminated by shafts of bright sunshine as the clouds of last night's rain broke up. It was nicely done, giving them no more than the back of her head and a thin profile to compare with any description the blond man might have given them. Then they were coming past us. Greta Elfenbein had changed to brightly checked red-and-white slacks, which was a pity, considering her legs. A white ski-sweater made her look like a sporty elf. Adolf was wearing a dark blue business suit and a conservative blue tie. In daylight, close up, he was just an ordinary-looking, mild-looking little blue-eyed gent in his fifties. All he needed was a backwards collar and a prayer book to appear like a gentle village parson, instead of the very clever scientific character he was supposed to be, with a gang of unscrupulous thugs under his command. They went on to the serving table without glancing our way.

"Yes, that's Adolf Elfenbein all right," Diana said softly. "At least he fits our description; and so does she."

"How the hell did you get involved in all this, anyway, Diana?"

"It's a long story. Don't ask if you don't want to know."

I said, "Somewhere up the line, my life may very well depend on your reactions. Naturally I want to know what kind of a female nut I've got for a partner on this screwball operation."

She laughed again. "Well," she said, "it was the gas shortage that did it, believe it or not."

"Since you give me the option, I don't believe it," I said. "I mean, it was a damned inconvenience and still is from time to time; but I can't see you getting so upset about it that you volunteer for a crazy, crooked, international mission to swipe fuel for all the thirsty Cadillacs of America. Hank Priest, sure. Those old Navy boys come all over patriotic from time to time: my country right or wrong, and all that jazz—"

"Actually, the Skipper is avenging, or atoning for, his wife's death, didn't you know?"

I frowned. "I thought Mrs. Priest drowned in a boating accident. That's the way I read it in the Florida papers."

'Trances Priest drowned Because their thirty-foot sport-fishing boat—the Skipper's pride and joy, called the 
Frances II
 —had just run out of fuel when she fell overboard, so he couldn't go after her. The current carried her away, or something. You'll have to get the nautical details from the nautical expert, but it was a traumatic experience for him, as you can imagine: a man who'd spent his life at sea losing his wife like that! I guess he decided that no more nice U.S. ladies were going to die for lack of diesel oil, if he had to go and steal it. Anyway, he worked out this scheme and sold it in Washington. He used to be a congressman, you know, so he knew his way around and they were all in a panic at the time. This was back when things were really tight and they were scared to death of an honest-to-God revolution at the gas pumps. They were ready to grab at any idea, no matter how far out. As for the illegality of it, well, that city isn't noted for its respect for the law these days, or hadn't you noticed? So here we all are. The Great Petroleum Caper."