Solana stood in the middle of the room with his hands up. Despite the awkward position, he looked nice and relaxed, and maybe even a little wryly amused at his own predicament. There were some questions I would have liked to ask him, but not before witnesses-and particularly not before the witness we had-so I didn't ask. We just waited, and presently Carol returned with a small, flat case, which she gave to me after a moment's hesitation.

"Matt, you're not going to... to hurt him?"

I said, "Sure I'm going to hurt him. I'm going to stick a sharp needle into him, brutally, cruelly, without anesthetic, because I'm just a s.a.d.i.s.t at heart. Shove your sleeve up a bit, Ramon, and remember, I'm the guy who's keeping you alive. The lady over there wants you dead. So if you jump me, better make it good, because I'll throw her the gun if I can, and if she gets it she'll shoot, you know that."

I loaded the hypo I got from the little drug case. Solana watched me in silence. When I was finished, he asked, "May I inquire what you are planning to give me?"

"About four hours' sleep," I said. "You'll feel a little groggy when you wake up, but it'll wear off fast."

Priscilla stirred. "Matt, so help me, if you don't put him out for good-"

I said, "You were running this your way and you ran yourself right into a trap. Now I'm running it my Way. - . . Okay, Ramon. Whichever arm you prefer to have punctured. Swell. Now come on over to the bed and lie down, like a good boy."

Five minutes later he was sound asleep on the bed. I looked at the two girls, without appreciation. Not that I don't like girls, but this job had been overloaded with them from the start: Vadya, the blonde woman I'd shot, the red-haired girl who'd disappeared with Ha.r.s.ek, and Carol, who might originally have been cla.s.sed as an innocent bystander, but was now as deeply involved as the rest of us, something I might feel guilty about later, when I had the time.

And, of course, there was the girl of many faces-well, at least two-who called herself Priscilla Decker, whatever her real name might be.

I said, "Okay, Priss. Now whistle up your magic carpet and get us the h.e.l.l out of here."

She frowned. "I don't know what-"

"Cut it out," I said. "It was arranged for you to come here in Solana's car, without any transportation of your own. It's an isolated Mexican fishing village, sixty miles from nowhere, served by just one desert road that can be blocked anywhere between here and the border. You had some dirty work to do, cleaning up after friend Henderson-maybe I should say cleaning up on friend Henderson-and it could go wrong, as it did. Don't tell me Leonard didn't arrange a back door of some kind for you. Well, now's the time to produce the key to that door."

She said sharply, "If you think I'm going to help you-', I sighed. "Why didn't you say so before I put him out? Now we'll just have to sit here until he wakes up again and carts us off to prison." I glanced at Carol. "Pick a chair and make yourself comfortable. The girl's being stubborn. It looks as if we may be here for a while."

"d.a.m.n you!" This was Priscilla. "When we get back, I'll have your scalp if it's the last thing I do! And I don't know if there'll be room for all of us; I don't know how big a plane they've got standing by."

I said, "We'll worry about that when we see the plane. Where's it supposed to make the pickup, on the local airstrip I saw from the road?"

"Don't be silly, right there in town, practically? No, there's a place out on the desert just to the north where the highway runs straight for miles, roughly in the direction of the prevailing winds. We'll have to watch our steps;there may be a road block if they're still searching for Henderson." She glanced at the dead man on the floor without visible emotion, and looked up again. "Well, all right, d.a.m.n you. Get me the radio stuff out of my suitcase and I'll make the emergency signal. - . ."

Leaving the room, a few minutes later, I glanced back. Solana was, stretched out on the bed, breathing evenly; but that wasn't what I was looking at. As I'd said earlier, it's only actors and amateurs who don't keep track of guns. I was checking on the little .22 derringer I had carefully neglected to pick up earlier, when I was collecting the rest of the armaments. It had been lying on the linoleum floor near the corner of the bed, but it was there no longer.

I grinned to myself, and closed the door behind me. Everybody was full of tricks tonight, even I. With a little luck, some of them might come off.

I put the girls into the front seat of Carol's station wagon, with Carol driving, and got in back where I could. keep an eye on them. We drove out of town, switched off the headlights as we pa.s.sed the last adobe shacks, and proceeded cautiously along the empty highway that led northwards to Sonoita and the border.

Presently we saw a gleam of light ahead, warning us of the expected road block. We turned off into the desert to make a wide swing around the spot. It was rough going, and pretty soon the wagon hung itself up on a hump between two gullies. These low-slung new vehicles appear very stylish on hard pavement, but they look kind of ridiculous stuck in terrain that any old pickup truck with reasonable clearance would take in its stride.

Rather than make a lot of noise trying to dig out, we just left the glamor-wagon there and continued on foot. Priscilla, impatient, forged ahead, which was all right with me. It turned out to be quite a hike in the dark. I plugged along beside Carol, and after a little she took my arm as if to steady herself, moving closer as we walked.

"Well," she whispered, "well, did I do all right, darling?" She laughed softly. "I'll admit I was a little slow to catch on. I even got a little annoyed when it looked as if you were trying to wish me off on another man so you could have the s.e.xpot for yourself. But when - . . when you just sat there and let me be arrested, I realized that you wanted me to go with Solana for some reason. I hope I looked convincingly indignant"

"You did fine," I said. "I figured that since Solana seemed to want you so badly, he'd better have you; obviously he had something in mind. Now you'd better tell me just what was the purpose of the show the two of you put on... . What's the matter?" I noticed that she was limping. "Did you twist your ankle?"

She laughed again, ruefully. "No, it's just the transmitter-thing Ramon gave me. I hid it in my boot, and it's rubbing a hole in my shin."

I said, "So that's his plan. He slipped you an electronic dingus to carry? A sending device of some kind?"

"Yes, of course. He's got it all fixed; they'll be able to track us wherever we go."

I made a face. "Well, it's not exactly an original idea, and I never trust those gadgets very far, but let's hope it works. Did he have any message for me?"

"Not really. I was just to grab him when he gave me the sign, so that you could overpower him, and we could all get away with her." Carol glanced towards the shadowy figure stumbling along ahead of us. "He hopes she'll lead him to the rest. To the headquarters or whatever it is, where they're getting things ready he thinks, for some really big UFO demonstration that'll make all the others look silly. He says we haven't got much time, and he hopes you'll help. But, Matt, I don't understand. Who is this Mr. Leonard she is working for, and what kind of a U.S. agency would think of doing anything like this? I can't really believe-"

"Hold it!" I whispered sharply. "She's stopping."

Priscilla was waiting for us on a low ridge overlooking the highway. "I think this is the place," she said. "He ought to be here pretty soon; he's had plenty of time. Have you got the flashlight I told you to bring?"

I gave her the flashlight. We stood and listened. For a long time the night was silent except for the uneven murmur of the wind; then we heard the sound of a plane in the distance. Priscilla waited until it was overhead, and raised the flashlight, and sent some kind of a dot-dash message skyward. The plane circled away from us and came in over the dark ribbon of the highway, lower and lower. There was a chirp of rubber as its wheels touched the pavement and began to roll. We ran down the sandy slope to intercept it.

The plane had stopped by the time we reached it, and the pilot was already climbing out on the wing. He was a big, burly man, and there was something familiar about his head, even in the dark. Not his face, I'd never seen that before except in photographs, but I'd once seen that shaved bullet-head from behind, in a Mazatlan taxi piped for gas. I stopped abruptly, as if-taken totally by surprise. Something touched me between the shoulderblades.

"As you say, it's not much of a gun," Priscilla said softly behind me. "But I don't really think you want to be shot by anything, even a .22 derringer... . Did you have any trouble, Ha.r.s.ek?"

19.

IT WAS A moment of private triumph for me, and I should have felt real good about it. All my stray hunches and guesses had paid off, and my vague plans had worked out very well-it had been tricky, pretending to suspect everybody but Priscilla Decker so that she wouldn't guess I suspected her. It had taken some finagling, getting myself captured like this, and I should have been pleased at my success.

However, there were a few drawbacks to the situation. For one thing, I now had to survive until I was brought to the place where I could do the job I'd been sent to do, and that might be tough, particularly with Ha.r.s.ek around. For another thing, I wasn't alone in my predicament. I'd hoped Solana might keep Carol out of the action-that was one reason I'd let him take her away-but he'd used her as a decoy instead. I didn't blame him, it was -the logical thing for him to do, but it gave me an additional responsibility I didn't need. I hoped his electronic tricks would make up for it, but I had no faith in them.

"I never have trouble, girl," Ha.r.s.ek was saying in a guttural voice. "Now get them aboard fast, before some Mejicanos decide to make use of their fine paved road."

"Just a minute. There's something I have to do first. Cover the man. Wait, let me give you his guns. We have quite a collection and I have no place to carry them ... Okay." Priscilla swung around to confront Carol. "All right, honey, where is it?"

"Where is what?"~ Priscilla regarded her for a moment, rather like an experienced cat appraising a very young and innocent mouse. Abruptly, she reached out with both hands, grabbed Carol's neatly b.u.t.toned bush jacket by the lapels, ripped it open, hauled it down from the shoulders roughly, and yanked it free of the arms. Priscilla kneaded the cloth thoroughly with both hands, feeling for something hard. Finding nothing, she threw it aside.

"Okay," she snapped, "step out of the boots, and take off the sweater and skirt, unless you'd rather have me pull them off you, too... - Ah, I got a reaction, didn't I? It's in one of those ducky little suede boots, isn't it? Dig it out and give it to me!"

Miserably, Carol reached down and fished out a small object, which Priscilla s.n.a.t.c.hed from her and threw far out into the dark. So much for electronics.

"You and your dancing partner really should have given your adagio routine a few more rehearsals," Priscilla said scornfully. "It wasn't as convincing as a lot of high school performances I've seen. So Mr. Solana thought he'd plant a tracking device on me, in the form of a ladylike blonde! What other cute ideas did he have in mind?"

Ha.r.s.ek said sharply, "This is all very interesting, girl, but we have an aircraft sitting on a public highway. We can question them later. Get them aboard."

I'm as brave as the next man, I hope, but no matter how much I ride in them, airplanes always scare me a little. Perhaps this is because I don't know anything about flying them except what little I've absorbed by watching other guys do it.

I can drive a car pretty well, and I've been checked out on horses, bicycles, motorcycles, skis, skates, and snowshoes; I can handle a boat in an amateurish fashion and I once managed to ride a surfboard without falling off; but the air is not my element. One of these days I'm going to take a few flying lessons so I'll at least know if the guy up front is doing the right thing or the wrong one.

In the meantime, crowded into the back seat of the little plane beside Carol, I didn't immediately do a lot of constructive thinking about our situation, although there was obviously a lot to be done. As far as I was concerned, the intensive cerebral effort could wait until Ha.r.s.ek got us the h.e.l.l off that dark desert highway and up into the sky where we couldn't hit anything, at least not until it was time to come down again.

It took him a while. I've called it a little plane, and you could have checked it aboard a commercial jet and had baggage allowance left over, but it still had two engines and carried four people, which is a lot of plane for a private job. With a full load of pa.s.sengers, it didn't really leap off the ground; and as we roared along the shadowy blacktop fighting for takeoff speed, I expected at any moment to see a car or truck appear ahead to contest our right to the road.

There was nothing to indicate the exact moment we stopped rolling and started flying. Ha.r.s.ek just reached out and hit a switch and I heard the wheels come up, so it seemed reasonable to a.s.sume that we were airborne. When we'd achieved a safe margin of alt.i.tude, I cleared my throat.

I said, "You drive this thing better than you did that taxi in Mazatlan."

He was busy getting things trimmed and organized for level flight. He said without turning his head, "It wasn't much of a taxi. This is a good airplane. It is too bad that we must lose it."

"Lose it how?" I asked.

"Never mind. You will see." He glanced towards Priscilla, who sat half-turned in the right front seat so that her revolver could cover us in back, particularly me. Ha.r.s.ek said, "Give me a report, girl. You used the emergency code. What went wrong?"

She said defensively, "I don't have to report to you, Ha.r.s.ek. You are here to a.s.sist us, not to give orders or conduct interrogations. I will make my report to Command, when the a.s.signment is finished."

"For a chicken that has just missed being plucked, if my guess is correct, you talk very bravely. But of course you are right." His voice was dry. "Ha.r.s.ek does not give orders here; he merely lends his well-known face and name to the operation. He also flies airplanes and drives taxis, and shoots guns if necessary. But the bright young children get the credit-and the blame, don't forget, if things go wrong."

"Nothing's gone wrong!" Priscilla said sharply. "Anyway, nothing serious."

"To be sure. Allow me to amend my request. Do not make a report. Merely bring me up to date, as one colleague to another. What situation did you leave behind in Puerto Peasoo? Since you did not bring him along,. I a.s.sume you silenced that young man, the handsome, shifty-eyed one who wanted to kill his middle-aged wife for her money. It is really remarkable how many people can be found, if one looks hard enough, who are eager to commit a murder if only the blame can be placed somewhere else, even on beings from other worlds. Or did the man escape you? Is he now in the hands of the police, telling them about our project, as much as he knows? Which is not much, but enough to be damaging."

Priscilla hesitated. "He didn't escape; he's dead. However, there's a Mexican policeman or government agent, the man with whom I rode down there, who seems to have made some good guesses. I tried to have him killed-" She threw me an angry look. "-but I was not successful. But it does not really matter. No one will believe him. No one of consequence. Besides, he'll be unconscious for - several hours, and his ingenious tracking device is lying back there in the cactus."

"So a policeman knows," Ha.r.s.ek said grimly.

Priscilla said, "I tell you, it doesn't matter! If we were dealing with military secrets, or technical data, it would be different, but we are dealing with flying saucers. It is a subject upon which people are not rational!" Either her vehemence, or the fact that she was talking to Ha.r.s.ek, who did not have to be deceived, had brought a faint accent to her speech. She went on quickly, "Let one Mexican government employee scream to heave4hat these recently 'sighted' Mexican saucers are a hoax and do not exist, that all the latest reports from this area are total fabrications: no one will listen. No one, I tell you. The skeptics will remain skeptical and the believers will continue to believe."

"If you say so, girl." Ha.r.s.ek sounded unconvinced.

"I say so. That was the beauty of the scheme from the beginning. We are not dealing with scientific facts, we are dealing with a variety of religious fanaticism. Indeed, that is one of our problems. Even when we have demonstrated that all these individual deaths, and the final ma.s.s catastrophe, can be blamed on callous aeronautical experiments-perhaps even hostile military demonstrations-carried out by the United States over Mexican territory, some people will remain firmly persuaded that the real responsibility rests on creatures from Jupiter or Polaris, and that somebody is covering up the truth for reasons of policy."

Ha.r.s.ek shrugged his ma.s.sive shoulders. "It is an interesting theory. Personally, I have the old-fashioned notion that secrets should remain secret, particularly from the local authorities, but as you have pointed out, this is not my mission. For your sake, I hope you are right."

There was silence in the plane for a while, as far as conversation went. The motors out on the wings were far from silent, however, and there were a number of small, constant, unidentifiable-at least by me-vibration noises. Presently I felt Carol grope for my right hand and grip it tightly. I glanced at her. Her white sweater and pale face were dim blurs in the darkness of the cabin.

"They're going to kill us, aren't they, Matt?" she breathed. "And Ramon can't help us now."

"They probably intend to. But let's not confuse intention with execution, doll. Can you fly one of these things?"

"What?"

"Can you handle a plane?"

She shook her head quickly. "Heavens, no! The few other times I've been up in little private jobs like this, I was scared half to death." She laughed wryly. "And people weren't even thinking about murdering me, those other times."

Priscilla, in front of us, shifted position irritably. "Be quiet. We have a long way to go, too long for listening to a lot of chatter."

The plane flew steadily on through the night in a southerly direction, judging by the compa.s.s I could see past Ha.r.s.ek's head. Priscilla kept the muzzle of the .38 aimed at me over the back of her seat. It could not have been a comfortable position, but her attention did not waver as the hours pa.s.sed. At last Ha.r.s.ek glanced at his watch, studied a map or chart briefly, and looked down through the darkness that was no longer quite as dark as it had been.

"The life preservers are in the rear," he said. "Get them out and put them on. We are about twenty minutes from our ditching point. Remember, do not inflate the preservers in the cabin or you will have difficulty getting through the door."

Carol found my hand again. I felt her fingers tighten fearfully. "You mean - . - you mean we're going to crash?"

"Not crash, Mrs. Lujan, ditch. I will put the aircraft down on the water in the shelter of a certain deserted little island down there. A boat is waiting to pick us up. There is no danger. The Plane will float for several minutes. Miss Decker and I will disembark first, then you two from the rear. And, Mr. Helm, please remember that while we have adequate time to get out, if we work quickly, we do not have time for any foolishness. Don't be clever, unless you want to accompany the plane down into fairly deep water. Drowning is not a pleasant death, I am told. Now the life preservers, if you please."

We put them on awkwardly, in the limited s.p.a.ce, and settled ourselves to wait some more. The sky was getting light to the left, now, and looking down I could make out that we were flying over water, presumably the same Gulf of California we'd known at Puerto Peflasco. I could see some ghostly islands far ahead, one kind of crescent-shaped; and near it was a small speck that might have been a boat. I leaned over to get a better look.

"Sit still!" Priscilla said sharply. "Ha.r.s.ek will do the navigating. Your a.s.sistance is not needed, Helm."

I grinned at her, and glanced at Carol, whose face looked pale and strained in the growing light.

I said, "Anyway, your question is answered, Carol." She seemed startled at being addressed. "My question?"

"Back there you kind of asked if the lady was a real American agent working for a real American agency. The answer is: she isn't."

Priscilla laughed. "But I am! I am a very highly regarded operative of a fine new department run by the coming man of U.S. intelligence-an arrogant, handsome, ambitious, pompous nincomp.o.o.p who knows nothing about our kind of work whatever. That is the great American fallacy, that there is such a thing as an administrator, per se, and that what he chooses to administrate is unimportant. Your schools are run by educators who know nothing of what is taught; your government is run by politicians who know nothing of governing; and now you commit the final absurdity of entrusting the delicate task of international intelligence to a pipsqueak who only knows how to outmaneuver other pipsqueaks for positions of administrative importance."

I grinned as she paused for breath. "Don't look to me for an argument. I don't like the guy, either."

Priscilla went on: "Planting a few agents on such a man, when he was building his organization, was ridiculously simple; and guiding him to the proper att.i.tudes and actions was no more difficult, since he had no real grasp of what he was supposed to be doing." She laughed again. "Of course, I am telling this only to you, because you will not be repeating it to anyone. As far as the world is concerned, this vicious U.S. Air Force crime against Mexican sovereignty was only made possible by the ground activities of disciplined agents obeying the sinister orders of a fiendishly clever American spymaster."

I said, "Sure. Our undercover genius, Herbert Leonard. Well, it couldn't happen to a nicer fellow. I suppose some of those disciplined U.S. agents are going to get themselves captured by the Mexicans when the smoke has cleared, so they can spill the international beans."

"They will be captured or perhaps, driven by their consciences, they will defect in the next day or two after seeing the flaming horrors for which they have been responsible. And while you will disown them, as is the custom, you will not be able to do it very convincingly, since it will be well known in Washington that they were actually employed by an American agency."

I would have liked to ask more about the flaming horrors that were being planned for the next day or so -a ma.s.s catastrophe, she'd called it earlier-but she would probably have refused to answer a direct question on the subject, and I didn't want to stop our little chat while it was still producing valuable information.

"And friend Ha.r.s.ek, here?" I asked. "What function does he perform?"

Priscilla smiled. "Why, he is the communist menace against whom we, as Mr. Leonard's operatives, have been struggling. There had to be some obvious and conspicuous adversary, did there not? If there had been no visible enemy, even Mr. Leonard, stupid as he is, might eventually have begun to wonder suspiciously why things were forever going wrong with his brilliant plans. But with the great Ha.r.s.ek opposing us, we raw U.S. recruits could be excused for a few failures-the great Ha.r.s.ek and the equally well-known Vadya."

"I see," I said. "Very ingenious."

Priscilla said, "Of course, where Vadya was concerned, there was a further motive: the people back home had been somewhat concerned about Vadya lately. Her continuing relationship with a certain U.S. agent had caused a few doubts about her reliability. We were asked to investigate. We found the doubts to be justified and took action accordingly-first selling it to Mr. Leonard, of course, as necessary retaliation for her murder of one of his agents in Acapulco. We persuaded him that his 'image'-a word he loves-that his image and that of his agency would be forever tarnished if the woman were permitted to live, and he gave the appropriate orders."

I asked, "And just exactly what did Vadya do to justify those doubts of her reliability?"

Priscilla laughed maliciously. "Need you ask? Are you going to pretend, at this late date, that there was nothing between you? I saw the way you greeted each other, remember? I was following when she took you for a cozy evening tour of Mazatlan, including. - including a certain area that should not have been called to your attention. I saw you afterwards speaking together very seriously in the restaurant where you had dinner, the place with the odd name: The Gla.s.s of Milk. Obviously she was negotiating with you, her lover, for sanctuary in the United States. What was she offering and what price did she ask?" Priscilla shrugged. "It does not matter. I saw enough to confirm that she had to be eliminated. I had already made the arrangements; one likes to be prepared. It was only a question of carrying them out."

I felt Carol stir uneasily beside me, listening to these details of my secret life, but for the moment she didn't count. I was thinking of another woman I'd known, and of the fact that there are always people, on both sides, who have a thing about fraternizing with the enemy, even when it's done with the most patriotic motives. So Vadya, without a thought of betraying her country, had died at the hands of her own people because a vicious, suspicious girl had misconstrued her behavior. Well, it wasn't exactly a new idea. The possibility had occurred to me before, when I'd had time to think about what had happened. Ha.r.s.ek spoke suddenly: "There is the island, below us. And there is the boat, on schedule."

I looked down and saw the crescent-shaped island below, and a black power cruiser of reasonable size, the kind with a c.o.c.kpit large enough to hold a couple of fishing chairs.

Ha.r.s.ek was still speaking: "Have no fear, Mrs. Lujan. You will be picked up almost before you have time to get wet."

He was a little too rea.s.suring, a little too soothing; and Priscilla was watching me too closely. There was something in her eyes that I did not understand; I could think of no personal, private reason for her to show so much hatred and triumph. Between agents, even agents of hostile nations, it was an unprofessional display of emotion.

She said, "Of course, it was not expected that Laura would die because of your trigger-happy behavior. I am not forgetting that, Helm! You killed her and you will pay for it. Very soon now you will pay!"

She was quite a pretty girl, but I saw again the funny dry look in her face that I'd once taken for unawakened virginity, but which I now realized was something quite different. I remembered a red-haired girl saying casually: come to that, I'm not really sure she likes boys. If true, it explained a number of things about Priscilla Decker, including the fact that her s.e.xy getup had never seemed quite convincing, even when she was presumably luring me to her room for purposes of seduction.