The Terminators Read online

  "That's a slight exaggeration but you've obviously got the right man in mind."

  Well, I hadn't really thought it was going to be Arctic iron ore this time around. I groaned. "Then this whole crazy business is just another petroleum caper? With Mister Kotko involved—I hear he insists on the Mister; and he's rich enough to make it stick—it's got to be petroleum."

  "Yes, of course," Priest said. "What did you think we were all doing up here, son? You must have heard of the recent big North Sea oil discoveries: Ekofisk, Frigg, Torbotten. The information we're trying to obtain—we've promised it to Kotko, who'll put it to use to our benefit, and of course his own—is being delivered in two installments, one dealing with Ekofisk and Frigg, and the second with Torbotten and some other subjects."

  I said carefully, "Those other subjects you touch on so delicately, Skipper. Could one of them, by any chance, be something going by the odd name of the Sigmund Siphon?"

  There was a little silence. Priest sighed. "Evelyn really laid it all out for you, didn't she?"

  "Not really. She just gave me a lot of funny names to play with. When I get them all sorted out, maybe I'll know something. Or maybe you'd like to break down, sir, and tell me all about it and save my brain all that wear and tear."

  He hesitated. "It's a fairly long story, and we haven't got time for it right now. Later, if you don't mind. Matt."

  "Righto, Skipper," I said. "But you had better give me a little information about this Ivory character right now, since I may stumble over him or his boys again before we can hold a formal conference."

  Priest nodded. "Very well. Ivory is our private code name for a certain Dr. Adolf Elfenbein, a scientific genius who retired from university research some years ago to put his geological knowledge to profitable use in very non-academic ways."

  "Elfenbein," I said. "German, or Norwegian, for elephant-bone: ivory. Cute. Evelyn mentioned a daughter."

  "Yes. There was a wife, Irene, who was very much involved in her husband's schemes, but she died of cancer last year. The daughter, Greta, had been studying music in Switzerland, but she came home to stay with her father in Hamburg maybe to take over her mother's part in the family business, so to speak. Judging by her snapshots, she's fairly small and rather attractive. Elfenbein himself is a rather mild-looking, little, white-haired man, but don't be deceived. He's intelligent and he's dangerous and he's built up the nucleus of an efficient international organization that hires muscle as required. Keep it in mind, since you're probably going to have to deal with him somehow. He works on commission; and apparently he's being employed by somebody—we haven't identified the employer, but we're working on it—who wants the same thing we do."

  "Which is?"

  Priest hesitated once more, which seemed a little odd, since he wasn't what I'd call a hesitant man. "Can't you figure it out for yourself, son?" he asked. He sounded almost embarrassed.

  I studied his weathered face in the light from the restaurant windows. "Let's see just what we have here," I said slowly. "There's a respectable, retired naval person with a fine service record and a good credit rating but he's got some real funny company. A geological genius with larcenous impulses. A mysterious and unscrupulous financial type specializing in oil. And added to this interesting mixture are a nice, big, newly discovered petroleum puddle under the North Sea and a worldwide energy shortage that's got everybody in a continuing panic." I frowned. "The only catch is, if I've read my newspapers correctly, that all this North Sea petroleum has been neatly divided up among the bordering nations.' The U.S. doesn't border on any part of the North Sea, as far as I can recall; and neither does Mr. Kotko, not to mention Dr. Elfenbein. So I don't quite see. ..." I stopped, and looked, and saw the answer in his face, and whistled softly. "Captain Priest, sir, I'm ashamed of you. Going into partnership with the infamous, piratical Mister Kotko to Why, that's downright dishonest, sir! What would George Washington say?"

  Priest cleared his throat. "Officially," he said, "officially, Mister Kotko is a successful and highly regarded business-man against whom nothing illegal has ever been proved.

  His company, Petrolene, Incorporated—I should say, his most conspicuous company—has a filling station on every U.S. street corner. You've probably got a Petrox credit card in your wallet; I know I have. Hell, son, we should all be proud to be associated with such a sterling character in a patriotic enterprise like this." His voice was dry. "Anyway, there are very few Georges in Washington today, Mr. Helm."

  "Well, there never were many."

  "What there are in Washington," Priest went on deliberately, "are a great many small and scared men who shit their pants full during the last fuel crisis and are willing to go to great lengths— very great lengths—to keep their trousers clean in the future. If you know what I mean, Mr. Helm."

  I said, "I'm catching on fast."

  I looked at him for a moment longer, with considerable respect. I wouldn't have thought the conventional-looking old sailor had it in him. The U.S. Navy is a great institution, no doubt, but imagination is not one of the traits for which its graduates are usually noted. This was an interesting and ambitious project, kind of like robbing the U.S. Mint or swiping the British crown jewels. Actually, I guess, it was more like planning to walk off with a Grand Canyon that didn't belong to you, or stealing yourself a Matterhorn and a few associated Alps.

  My own line of work didn't leave me in a very good position to criticize the caper on moral grounds but I did wonder a bit about its feasibility. Of course, unlike Mister Kotko, I had no special know-how in this area. If he was involved, it meant the thing could probably be pulled off somehow.

  "The Sigmund Siphon," I said softly.

  "I'd rather you forgot you ever heard about that, son."

  "Sure."

  Priest hesitated, and glanced at Diana Lawrence, standing there silent, and back to me. "Do you really think this impersonation scheme of yours will work? It seems to me there are too many loose ends—"

  "I'll do my best to tie them up," I said.

  He hesitated, weakening. "Well, just don't forget for a moment that they've already killed once on that ship, even if they don't know it."

  "Mr. Helm will protect me, I'm sure."

  That was the girl. She'd finished loosening her hair while we talked and it was still raining hard enough that the darkened tendrils were now streaming wetly down her face just as I'd suggested. Most girls don't take well to water except on the beach but it seemed to improve this one—or maybe it was the anticipation of becoming an honest-to-God, real-life Wonder Woman that had put a hint of pink into her normally colorless cheeks.

  She spoke to Priest: "We've got to do something if we're going to salvage anything from this mess. What Mr. Helm suggests seems to be, as they say, the only game in town. Please stop being paternal, Skipper, and give me those clothes. And turn your backs, both of you. . ."

  IV.

  THE only spot on the ship from which I could watch the boarding ramp unseen was the deck directly above: the upper passenger-deck outside the first-class lounge and dining room. It was one stage up from the level to which Evelyn Benson had been taken for her final dive, two from that of the cabin where her substitute now awaited me, protected, I hoped, by the gun I had lent her, with hasty instructions in its use.

  Leaning against the rail up there in a manner I hoped looked relaxed and casual, I wondered if the shipping line kept a doctor handy with a sure cure for galloping pneumonia—I hadn't taken time to change into dry clothes. I controlled the shakes with a heroic effort, and watched the last crates of cargo being swung aboard, forward. Beyond this scene of activity was the long, empty, lighted dock in the rain. At least it was empty when I first looked. . . .

  I suppose I'd been expecting him. At least, I wasn't really surprised when Denison stepped out into the light some fifty yards away. He did it very deliberately, coming into sight around the corner of one of the warehouses and stopping in the cone of illumination of one of th
e lamps over there, looking directly at me.

  He was a big man, bigger than I remembered, wearing a belted trenchcoat, dark across the shoulders with rain, and a hat with a brim wide enough to look slightly Wild West, at least in these effete European surroundings. Even at that distance, there was no doubt at all that he'd seen me on the ship's upper deck, and that he wanted me to see him. Now he raised his hand ia a kind of salute, or maybe it was a kind of challenge. I made an answering gesture and watched him turn without haste and go out of sight.

  Of course, I hadn't seen his face well enough under the wide hat brim to identify him in a court of law but I didn't need to see it. I'd worked with him often enough and long enough, after first breaking him in—on-the-job training, so to speak—to know him anywhere: Paul Denison, code name Luke, once a friend of mine, and the man who'd repaid me for the education I'd given him by teaching me a valuable lesson in return. He'd taught me it didn't pay to make friends in this business.

  He'd put his lesson across the hard way, by almost getting me killed. Two others had died. It had not been a very nice affair and the fact that he'd sold out for money hadn't helped. Fear, yes. You can forgive fear. You'd damned well better forgive it, unless you're brave enough to be sure it will never happen to you, and who is? But money?

  I reflected grimly that it was beginning to make sense, Mac's arranging for me to have all kinds of secret, expensive support on what had seemed on the surface to be just a simple matter of repaying a favor we owed his old fishing buddy, Hank Priest. It had made sense ever since I'd heard Denison's name on a dying girl's lips. Mac was not a forgiving person. He'd put out the word on Paul Denison, priority one, immediately after I'd made it home and reported what had happened—Denison, presumably, had hoped there would be no survivors, but he wasn't that good a Benedict Arnold then. I reminded myself he might be better now. He'd had a good many years to practice in, seven to be exact.

  As soon as I'd been more or less fit for duty once more,

  I'd been given the job of making the touch. I'd been the logical choice, of course, knowing more about our agent Luke—now our ex-agent Luke—than anyone else in the organization. But it had been a kind of left-handed reprimand, anyway. It had been Mac's way of making sure I remembered never again to trust my life, or anybody else's, to simple, stupid friendship. The hints of betrayal had been there, but I'd disregarded them Because they'd involved my good amigo and protege, Paul Denison. The message I was supposed to get, and got, was that the mistake had been mine and it was up to me to correct it, permanently.

  However, while I was preparing to carry out the assignment, and waiting for some hint of the location of my quarry, the whole thing had been called off. The word on Denison had been canceled, without explanation. Around that office, you don't ask questions, particularly about a critical and embarrassing subject like an agent gone bad. As the man responsible for a very recent disaster mission, I'd been in a particularly poor position to play detective. I'd kept my mouth shut, and the name Denison had simply disappeared from our vocabularies as if forgotten; but I should have known Mac hadn't forgotten.

  Neither, for that matter, had I. To hell with Frigg, Torbotten, and Ekofisk. To hell with a guy named Robbie, barely mentioned, whoever he might be or have been. To hell with the pirate petroleum-tycoon who liked to hear himself called Mister Kotko. To hell with an ex-university scientist called Elephantbone, now lucratively self-employed, and his daughter Greta, and his wife Irene, defunct. I'd had a bushel of names served up to me tonight, but there was only one that really counted: Denison. And the fact that Mac had sent me here, with help, meant that maybe, just maybe, some situation had changed enough, somewhere—or could be changed enough—so that I'd be allowed to do something about it.. . .

  Forward, the crew was securing the cargo boom. On the dock, a couple of men approached the gangplank m a purposeful way, obviously about to remove it. There was a shout from the deck just below me, and they stood back briefly to let a youthful male figure with a backpack hurry ashore. I stepped away from the rail above in case he should throw a last glance over his shoulder, but he didn't.

  A moment later the ship was swinging free of the dock. Normally, I'd have stayed to watch how the gold-braided gent on the bridge managed the job of getting the big vessel away—in this business, you never know. Once, I found myself several thousand feet up in the air in a small plane with a dead pilot. I won't say I got that flying machine down undamaged Because it wouldn't be true but what counted was that, having paid some attention to the landings I'd witnessed over the years, I managed to keep myself without damage while I was cracking it up. One day, somebody may hand me a freighter or an ocean liner without a book of instructions, and a few minutes spent watching a good shiphandler at work will pay off. But there'd presumably be other opportunities for observation up the coast; at the moment I was too cold to wait around.

  Two decks below, I knocked a certain way on the door of the cabin assigned to Mrs. Madeleine Barth. The voice of the new incumbent answered promptly. I stepped inside and looked at the hole in the end of the short barrel of my own .38 revolver.

  "Good girl," I said, closing the door behind me. "But just point it elsewhere now, please."

  Diana Lawrence laid the gun on the berth and rose, pulling uncomfortably at the jacket of her borrowed outfit. She was a deceptive girl in more ways than one, I reflected. Physically, she'd seemed about the same size as Evelyn Benson, if anything a little smaller; but apparently her colorless personality had fooled me. There was more girl there than I'd thought. The now damp and shapeless brown tweed pantsuit was-short and tight on her. If she hadn't been designed along very narrow lines, she'd never have got into it. She pushed some stringy hair out of her face, and regarded me warily. I had the impression that, waiting, she'd had some uneasy second thoughts about this far-out impersonation drama dreamed up by me, in which she had the starring role. Maybe she'd even had some second thoughts about me.

  "Well?" she said.

  "I think they fell for it," I said. "Your gangway performance was great. I think you convinced them that Madeleine Barth has returned from the grave, a little shaky and very self-conscious about her disheveled appearance, but very much alive. Anyway, the blond thug sent his kid helper ashore at the last moment; or maybe the orders came from someone else on this ship. We can hope he went to summon reinforcements, now that getting rid of Mrs. Barth has turned out to be more difficult than expected."

  Diana frowned. "That's a hope?"

  "Well, if it's true, it means they bought your act," I said. "It also means they're short-handed here on board, until the reserves report for duty. And it means that one of the only two people we're fairly sure can identify you— well, unidentify you—isn't around for the moment."

  She hesitated, and said a little uncertainly, "Of course you know best, but should we . . . should we be talking like this, Mr. Helm?"

  "Talking?" I said. "What do you mean?"

  "Well, if we were overheard. . . . There are things like microphones and such, aren't there?"

  I grinned. "Swell. We're going to make a first-class operative of you, Diana Lawrence. However, I checked both cabins when I first came aboard, as well as I could. I think they're clean."

  "Oh."

  We stood there for a moment, silent. It had been a rushed acquaintanceship all the way. This was the first time we'd really had an opportunity to stop and see each other clearly. I don't know how I looked, but if it was anything like I felt, it was terrible. She looked even worse, if possible, if only Because girls are kind of supposed to be neater and prettier than boys. Now, after being dressed up in another woman's sodden, slightly too small clothes and run several blocks through heavy rain she looked hopelessly bedraggled and at the same time a little ridiculous, like the old movie in which the comic gets caught in a thunder-shower in his cheap new suit and it shrinks on him.

  The thought seemed to occur to her at the same time and she glanced down at herself wryly
. A funny little smile twitched the comers of her pale lips as she looked up once more.

  "We're a pair of clowns, aren't we?" she said. "You'd better get into something dry before you freeze to death. Helm?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "Why what?"

  "Why are you doing it?" she asked. "On this mission, you're contract labor, if you don't mind my saying so. It's nothing to you. Why did you go to the trouble of working out this elaborate scheme to retrieve the disaster, our disaster, and practically cram it down our throats."

  I hesitated. I couldn't tell her, of course, that I was doing it largely Because of Denison; but there were other reasons. "Nobody dies for nothing," I said.

  "What?"

  "It's an old saying we have," I said. "People die, sure. It can't always be helped. But we can see to it that everyone who dies, dies for something. Well, Evelyn Benson died. Maybe I could have saved her. Maybe I should have. So I didn't have things carefully explained to me. So I wasn't warned. So what? Guys like me aren't supposed to have to be warned. If you must know, I was just too goddamned cocksure that I had it all figured out, that if anybody came to kill, he'd come for me. Okay. She's dead. It's too late for me to do anything about that. But I can try to see that whatever she wanted done gets done, even without her."

  Diana Lawrence was watching me oddly. "You're a . .. a funny man," she said. "I mean—"

  "Hilarious," I said. "I'll keep you in stitches clear up the coast. Stay here. I mean that. Don't even stick your head out of this cabin—particularly not your head. Somebody might recognize it, or what would be worse, not recognize it, if you follow me. You're Madeleine Barth sleeping off the effects of a mild concussion and a cold midnight swim. As long as nobody sees you, nobody can say otherwise. The ladies' John is just across the way. If you need it, say so now, and I'll watch the hall while you. . . . No?"

  She smiled faintly. "No, thank you very much," she said. She hesitated. "Am I ... am I supposed to know what you're doing?"