The Terminators Read online

  I picked up my suitcase and went downstairs to check out and take a taxi back to the harbor, past the Hansa section where I'd had dinner, to Festnungskaien, which I managed to translate loosely as the Fortress Dock, presumably named for an ancient stone structure on one of the hills nearby.

  II.

  THE ship looked black and enormous, lying at the dock in the misty darkness. I guess I was judging her by the pleasure boats I'd been playing around with recently in more tropical waters—a ton-and-a-half outboard is quite a husky runabout, and a ten-ton sportfisherman isn't something you want to start dreaming about unless you can shell out half a hundred grand without hurting. This was actually a fairly small steamer; but she'd still weigh in at well over two thousand tons.

  Although far from new, she was clean and freshly painted; but I quickly learned that she was no luxury cruise-ship with service to match. The uniformed gent at the gangplank just took my ticket, told me that my cabin was one deck down on the starboard side, and let me find it for myself, carrying my own damned bag.

  The Norwegians call it their National Highway Number One: the regular daily ship service up the coast. It's also known as Hurtigruten, which translates loosely as "the speedy route." I guess it does beat walking, at that, and maybe even driving, since the roads along that rugged, mountainous, fjord-slashed shoreline mostly have to go the long way around, where they exist at all.

  If you've got an active imagination, you can visualize the main Scandinavian peninsula as a large dog standing on its forepaws (don't ask me why) near a fire hydrant called Denmark. The belly, washed by the Baltic and the Gulf of Bothnia, is Sweden, which also includes the forelegs. The back, exposed to the North Atlantic, is Norway, which also includes the head. Oslo is tucked away well up under the chin. Bergen is out on the face, halfway between the nose and the ears. The ship route runs from there up the mutt's back, clear around the rump—the North Cape, well above the Arctic Circle—and down to Kirkenes on the Russian border; the ice-cold ass-hole, if you insist on completing the picture. A round trip takes some eleven days and is popular in midsummer with sun-worshippers, who get a thrill out of experiencing twenty-four continuous hours of daylight on the roof of the world. In midwinter, it works the other way, of course; but I'm told that few people seem to be interested in seeing that much darkness.

  The ticket I'd received wouldn't take me that far. It was a one-way job entitling me only to a four-day voyage as far as Svolvaer, in the Lofoten Islands just off the coast, opposite Narvik on the mainland. Having been there once, I knew that Narvik is the ice-free Norwegian port that handles the ore from the great Swedish iron mines across the mountains in Kirunaat least the ore comes out that way in winter when the Gulf of Bothnia freezes over. It's the sort of detail you notice when you don't know what the hell's going on. Whether it was actually significant as far as the present operation was concerned, I had no idea. What would happen after Svolvaer, if we got that far—destinations marked on tickets mean very little in this racket—was up to the gods, or a girl called Madeleine.

  I'd checked both cabins, as well as I could, for electronics; and I was examining my stateroom when she arrived. I was standing there wondering how a race of reasonably husky people like the Norwegians manage to do their sleeping m the narrowest, shortest beds on earth. My fairly expensive Bergen hotel room had boasted, if that is the correct term, a pair of diminutive cots I wouldn't have wished off on a couple of stunted kids. This tiny cabin was equipped with sleeping-shelves—you couldn't conscientiously call them berths—one on each side, that were not only ridiculously inadequate in the transverse direction, but weren't significantly over six feet long, leaving me with several extra inches to dispose of somehow. It occurred to me that my prospective partner's elaborate efforts to preserve her virtue had been quite unnecessary. We might as well have saved public money by sharing one cabin. Only a pair of oversexed midgets could have managed successful passion in the cramped space provided. . . . "Matt, darling!"

  She was standing in the doorway. It was no time for taking inventory. After all, we were supposed to be, at least, very good friends. She was stepping forward, arms outstretched; and I took the cue and embraced her heartily and kissed her on the lips—cool and damp from the rainy night outside—without having had much of a chance to determine what I was greeting so affectionately. I only knew that it smelled nice and felt feminine in spite of being snugly wrapped in a tailored pantsuit of brownish tweed rough enough to earn the approval of Hank Priest in his British incarnation.

  I felt her stiffen in my arms when I carried the exploration a little too far. Apparently I'd read her written message correctly: no funny business. I withdrew my scouts from the forbidden territory; and we clung together a moment longer and parted with reasonably convincing reluctance—all this, presumably, for the benefit of a husky, red-faced, fairhaired sailor in dungarees and a navy-blue turtle-neck, who was standing out in the passage with a white suitcase in each hand. It seemed that there were ways of getting porter service on board, after all, if you knew how and were properly constructed.

  "Darling!" said my colleague-to-be. "Oh, darting!" Her eyes were angry. Even play-acting, apparently, before an interested audience, I was supposed to keep my cotton-picking hands from wandering.

  "It's been a long time, Madeleine," I said soulfully.

  "Too long, dear. Much too long!"

  She was properly constructed. She was, as a matter of fact, much better than I'd expected. As a rule, the ones who are afraid of it are the ones to whom it will never happen; but this one wasn't going to wither on the vine unpicked unless she worked at it hard. She was a fairly fragile-looking girl in spite of her tweedy, trousered outfit; a slight figure with dark, carefully arranged hair, and delicate, accurate features in a small, heart-shaped face. She was carrying a purse, a raincoat, and what T at first took to be a cased camera, and then realized was a pair of small binoculars. I wondered if it was part of her tourist camouflage, or if she was actually expecting to have to spot a distant object invisible to the naked eye, and if so, what

  "Give me a moment to clean up, darling," she said. "I just stepped off the plane and into a cab. It's wonderful to see you. Matt, it really is!"

  Our greeting dialogue wasn't the greatest, I reflected; but then we weren't really trying to fool anybody, just to make them think we were trying to fool them, if I had the game figured correctly. Even that, as far as I could see, wasn't absolutely essential. After all, judging by what Mac had said, I'd been hired as a menace, not as an actor. That meant the people I was supposed to be menacing were supposed to know it, or what was the point? And if the folks who were supposed to be scared knew enough about me to know what a scary fellow I was, they'd also know, most likely, that I'd never seen this very attractive, very proper lady before in my life.

  "I won't be a minute," she said.

  I made a burlesque thing of checking the time. "I'll hold you to that, doll," I said. "One minute. Sixty seconds. No more."

  She laughed; but her eyes had narrowed slightly. I'd gone and done it again; the crude gent with the wandering hands and the big mouth. Calling her "doll" was, apparently, not showing proper respect, or something. I watched her turn away and I sighed, reflecting grimly that it was going to be a great four-day boat ride, relaxed and informal and friendly, just fun, fun, fun all the way. Well, hell. Maybe I should look upon it as a challenge to my machismo, as the Mexicans call it and make a real project of finding out what kind of a girl or woman was hiding behind the frigid, protective shell. But my experience has been that kissing Sleeping Beauties awake isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's more fun when they already know where the noses go.

  I shook my head ruefully, and busied myself unpacking my suitcase while I waited. I'd laid out my pajamas and toilet kit; and I was tucking the bag into the wardrobe, out of the way, when it occurred to me to glance at my watch again, a bit uneasily. Six minutes.

  Of course, the lady probably hadn't taken the time
limit I'd set her very seriously. She could even be putting me in my place deliberately. Nevertheless, the old hunter-hunted instinct was stirring in its primitive way. It had been a hell of a quiet evening so far. It didn't feel right. Somebody'd had me brought a long way because I was supposed to be familiar with violence; yet no violence had occurred. Or had it?

  I stepped quickly out into the passage and knocked on the door of the next stateroom. There was no answer. I checked the door cautiously. It wasn't locked. Well, it wouldn't be. The general passenger instructions issued with my ticket had informed me that for safety reasons—I suppose so you could get out in a hurry if the ship started to bum or sink—the staterooms were not supplied with keys. If you wanted to protect your belongings while you stepped ashore at a port along the way, you were supposed to see the purser, and he'd do the honors.

  I worked the handle, gave a little push, and watched the door swing back into the cabin. There was nobody to be seen inside and there was only one place for anybody to hide. With my hand on the gun in my jacket pocket, I sidled into the stateroom, kicked the door shut, and yanked open the wardrobe. It was empty.

  Standing there, I drew a long breath. It was no time to get mad. It was no time to stand around telling myself self-righteously that nobody'd informed me I was supposed to be guarding anybody besides my own. It was time to think very clearly and work very fast. I made a hasty survey of the cabin. Her two white suitcases lay on one berth, unopened. Her large brown leather purse, her little binoculars, and her tan raincoat, lay on the other. There were no signs of violence, except that what should have been there wasn't: the lady herself. It was hardly likely that she'd departed voluntarily, leaving passport, money, ticket, optical equipment, everything, lying in an unlocked cabin for anybody to grab.

  Well, there was one possibility. I stepped back out into the passageway, closing the door behind me. I told myself firmly that I was a courageous and patriotic undercover agent accustomed to facing danger and death for my country. I made certain there was nobody in sight in either direction, and yanked open the door of the ladies' room across the hall, prepared to flee in confusion, muttering that, as an ignorant Yankee, I hadn't known that DAMER meant dames. The place was empty, with no feminine feet showing in either of the stalls.

  I withdrew hastily, reached into my own stateroom for my hat and coat, and headed for the deck above, knowing, of course, that I was too late, I had to be. I knew what I'd have done, if I'd been in the place of the red-faced blond sailor; and the biggest mistake you can make in the business is to figure that other people are any less decisive and ruthless than you are.

  The proof was that he was right there, lounging near the gangway, with a smaller, younger man beside him. They were watching the boarding and loading process idly, as if they had nothing better to do, and maybe they hadn't, now. My man no longer looked like any kind of a sailor. A quick shaking up had made the light hair look longer, under the battered, old, felt hat he was now wearing. The jeans and sweater were the same but now there was a necklace of big beads around his neck. A pair of well-stuffed packs, the gaudy nylon kind with aluminum frames, were parked on the deck beside the two men. They were, at a glance, just a couple of the semi-hippie types you encounter everywhere these days, seeing the world with their belongings on their backs.

  There was only the one gangway. Forward, a crane was hoisting some big crates aboard; but unless the whole ship was in on the gag, he could hardly have got her ashore that way. Anyway, if they'd gone to the trouble of smuggling her ashore, they'd probably keep her alive, at least for a little while. I could work on that later, if necessary. Right now I had to act on the worst assumption I could dream up, remembering that when a ship is at a dock, everybody seems to congregate on the shoreward side watching the action. A man can practically count on having the seaward decks to himself for any nefarious purpose he may have in mind.

  I drew a long breath and, without looking at the pair by the rail, walked forward to the officer who'd taken my ticket earlier, and indicated that I'd like to step ashore for a moment.

  "Yes, you have an hour and ten minutes, sir," he said in good English. "But please do not forget, we sail promptly at eleven."

  "I won't forget, thanks."

  I walked down the sloping, cleated gangway to the dock, marched straight ahead until I was out of sight in a narrow space between two large, windowless buildings on the shore—warehouses, perhaps—and began to run. Coming out on the street beyond the buildings, I turned left, pounding along at a good clip. Reaching the far end of the structures, I turned left again, back towards the water, and hit the edge of the dock far enough ahead of the ship that I couldn't be seen by anyone on the passenger decks aft. A seaman on the towering bow might spot me, but if he was just an honest seaman he wouldn't care.

  I stood for a moment catching my breath as I studied the black water of the harbor, speckled with steady rain. There were swirls and miniature whirlpools of current out there, glistening in the docklights and the lights of the far shore, moving sluggishly seaward with the ebbing tide. I glanced at my watch: eleven minutes had passed since she'd left my cabin. Say it had taken him five to get the job done, that left six: one tenth of an hour. At two knots, a current would carry a floating object two tenths of a nautical mile in that length of time, or four hundred yards. I started running again, loping to the end of the long wharf. . . .

  Not quite to the end. I was just taking a last look out there before turning inland, wondering if it would be worthwhile to go on along the street, or road, that followed the rocky shoreline ahead, when I saw something out in the dark water thirty yards from shore. Staring, I saw it make a kind of crippled movement, and another, as if trying weakly to kick its way towards land. Okay. With time short, aware that I'd start checking soon, our husky blond friend had been hasty and careless. He'd counted on the cold water and the current to finish the job. He hadn't made sure before he put her over the ship's rail; not quite sure.

  I raced around the end of the dock, ducked under a fence cable, and slid down the rocks to the water, getting rid of hat, raincoat, jacket, and shoes. I put my wallet on top of the pile, and tucked my gun underneath, wondering why the hell people couldn't ever seem to get themselves drowned—or half-drowned—in summer. She came drifting past the end of the pier as I launched myself. The water was just as cold as I'd anticipated; and I'm no great swimmer even when I'm not freezing to death. I just kind of hacked my way out there awkwardly, grabbed a fistful of wet tweed, chopped my way back, and dragged her onto a shelving rock. As I eased her down gently, so I wouldn't bruise her any more than she was already bruised, my fingers encountered an ugly, unnatural depression in the skull under the soaked hair. . ..

  "Helm?"

  I almost missed the faint whisper, as a car roared by on the road above. "Here," I said.

  "My head. ... He had a gun. He made me go on deck, and then he hit. . . . It was the sailor, the one carrying the bags. Watch out... watch out. ..."

  "Sure," I said.

  "Cold," she breathed. "It's so cold and dark Helm?"

  "Still right here," I said.

  Suddenly her voice was quite calm and clear, although still very weak: "Ivory. . . . I'm sure that man was working for Ivory, the one who hit me. He wants the Siphon—"

  "The what?"

  "The Siphon, the Sigmund Siphon!" She was impatient with my stupidity. "And the information; the data to make it work. Ekofisk, Frigg, Torbotten. The drops are Trond-heim, Svolvaer. Deliver to. . . . Don't remember. Oh, damn! Denison, the man Denison works for. Deliver to him. No, I forgot, the Skipper will deliver. Contact in Narvik. Narvik? The ferry? Somewhere up in there. Can't remember. My head. They'll tell you what you need to know. Get in touch with them."

  "Who'll tell me?"

  "The Skipper will tell you.”

  "The Skipper?"

  "Hank. Captain Henry Priest," she whispered, "and his pale, doting little shadow. . . . Madly in love with a man old enough to
. . . . Stupid little girl, really. Oh, never mind. I'm wandering. But ask them. The money's in my suitcase, two envelopes. The thick one's for Svolvaer, of course, to pay for the plans of the Siphon. The other's for the contact in Trondheim. Trondheim? I think that's right. The binoculars, you'll need the binoculars. . . . No, dam it, it won't work. Not for you; not for a man. They're expecting a woman. Can't change; they'll know something's gone wrong, and panic. Very timid people. . . ."

  "Do they know you?" I asked.

  The painful, determined whisper continued as if I hadn't spoken: "Ivory's after it, too, hired by somebody; and that smug little hypocrite his daughter pretending she doesn't really approve—"

  I interrupted sharply: "The timid people in Trondheim and Svolvaer from whom we'll be buying all this stuff. Do they know you, doll?"

  It brought her back from wherever she'd gone for a moment. "Don't call me that!" she snapped. "It sounds so cheap. . . . No, they don't know me. . . . And you really should do something about your habit of pawing girls in public, Mr. Helm. It's not very nice, you know. I must insist that in the future. . . ." Her voice stopped abruptly.

  "Sure," I said, after waiting out a long moment of utter silence. Headlight beams swung over my head suddenly, and the sound of the car washed over me. When it had died away, I rose slowly. I said, "Sure, kid. In the future."

  Then I was sorry I'd said it, because she wouldn't have liked being called "kid." Not that it mattered now.

  III.

  TRACTEURSTEDET, the restaurant with the untranslatable name—untranslatable by me, at least—was still open for business. The watcher I'd spotted in the shadows, earlier, was still where I'd left him, right on the job; a small, rather shabby man, from what I could make out. Then I saw another, larger, male shape back up one of the alleys. It's nice in the movies. You can tell the white hats from the black hats; and sometimes even the Union Blue from the Confederate Gray. Well, as long as they minded their business, whatever it might be, I'd mind mine.