Bannister smiled a bit thinly. "Gather what you like, son, just don't ask questions." He grimaced. "Well, is there anything else you'd like to contribute to the discussion before we boot you the h.e.l.l out of here and talk about things you're not supposed to know about?"

"I can't think of anything, sir."

"What about the O'Leary girl? You met her and talked with her. Do you feel she's lying or telling the truth-what she thinks is the truth?"

"I don't know, sir," I said. "She's a bright kid. She could be a very bright kid putting on a great act. h.e.l.l, she could be a skillful communist agent planted in Mazatlan specifically to spread false and slanderous rumors about the U.S.A."

"But you don't think she is?"

I shrugged. "I didn't feel I was dealing with an experienced pro, no, sir. I'd rate her at most as a talented amateur. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if she turned out to be just a redheaded kid who went fishing at the wrong time."

Bannister glanced at Leonard. "I suppose she's being checked."

"Yes, sir. I have a preliminary report right here. There are some rather interesting things: for instance, both the girl and her deceased husband seem to have been members of a peace group while studying at the University of-"

"Half the kids in college these days seem to have joined those movements," Bannister said impatiently. "Anyway, the man was killed in Vietnam, wasn't he? Apparently his scruples weren't strong enough to keep him out of combat. Well, keep checking and let me know what turns up. Eric."

"Yes, sir."

"Mr. Leonard will give you a transcript of the taped interview. I want you to sit down somewhere and read it carefully. See if it agrees with the story you were told. Make note of any discrepancies. Keep yourself handy. We'll have new instructions for you shortly ... and, Eric."

"Yes, sir."

"Obviously you did quite right not to shoot. That gets you off the hook. You can get away with a lot of things as long as you're right." He grinned briefly. "But the independent way you operate, you'd d.a.m.n well not be wrong, son, ever. Remember that."

"Yes, sir."

I got a manila folder from Leonard. Mac gave me a key and I went down the hall to his room to do my homework and wait for my orders. I had a hunch they'd be dillies. They were.

12.

TEE FOLLOWING MORNING was clear and bright and, at that alt.i.tude-over a mile high-already crisp with autumn. The four-lane highway leading south from Santa Fe looked fresh and clean, as if it had just been laid down and n.o.body'd had a chance to mess it up with grease and rubber yet. In the distance, the ten-thousand-foot mountains near Albuquerque were sharply defined against the blue sky.

Carol Lujan's car was a big white Chevrolet station wagon with thick red wall-to-wall carpeting and shiny red leather upholstery-well, vinyl. It had all the power in the world and all the optional equipment that could be hung on it including air-conditioning, which, I reflected, might come in handy when we got farther south and lower down. After all, I hadn't really frozen in Mazatlan.

Surprisingly, in spite of all the automatic and power-a.s.sisted gadgetry that tends to bug an old stick-shift man like me, I found the big wagon not too hard to handle. At least it went down the highway quite straight at seventy, instead of wagging its tail unnervingly as so many of them do.

Carol, sitting beside me, reached out suddenly and patted my hand, resting on the steering wheel. "I'm awfully glad you're coming with me, Matt," she said. "I really hate driving, and particularly driving alone."

I let a meaningless grin answer for me, and avoided looking at her. As I've already indicated, the orders cooked up for me had turned out to be real cute. It seemed that Mac hadn't had me spend the night at Carol Lujan's place just to keep me out of sight. Becaused of my a.s.sociation with her this summer, he'd been having her investigated in routine fashion-our private lives don't stay private long in this business-and he'd been quite interested to learn that she was being sent to Mexico on a UFO a.s.signment. It had seemed to him a coincidence we might well take advantage of-if it was a coincidence. And if it wasn't, so much the better.

"But I've known her a h.e.l.l of a long time," I'd protested when he'd told me his suspicions.

"Not continuously," he pointed out. "Unless you've been concealing things from this agency, you haven't known her at all for several years. You do not know what connections she may have formed since you ceased your own photographic, journalistic, and marital endeavors and left Santa Fe to come back to work for us. Do you? Are you even quite certain that your happy reunion with the lady was entirely accidental?"

I winced. "That was weeks before I was a.s.signed to this saucer mess, sir," I objected. "If anybody put her onto me with this in mind, they must have been clairvoyant."

"Not necessarily," Mac said. "Has it never happened that an attractive woman has been persuaded, one way or another, to resume a known friendship with a known agent-unfortunately you are becoming pretty well-known in certain circles, Eric-with the expectation that she will prove useful if she should later be given a mission of importance?" Mac shrugged. "In any case, it's a starting point. You will arrange to travel to Mexico with Mrs. Lujan. But in view of the coincidences in which she figures-her making contact with you this summer; her requesting a UFO a.s.signment now-we must leave a large question mark opposite the lady's name." His eyes were cold. "I want you to keep that firmly in mind, Eric."

"Yes, sir."

"Whether justifiably or not, this business is highly cla.s.sified. Under normal circ.u.mstances, I would have no objection to your confiding in the lady if it seemed advisable, but things are not normal in Washington these days. Mrs. Lujan may be guilty or she may be innocent, but one thing is certain: she has no official clearance. And with Mr. Leonard looking for a soft spot in which to insert his well-known dagger, you cannot afford to indulge in any breaches of security, nor can I afford to have you. The very existence of this agency may be at stake. I hope you understand."

"Yes, sir."

"You will lie to her a.s.siduously even in the most tender moments. You will tell her nothing whatever about this agency or its work, and that includes your own duties and responsibilities. You will maintain your cover story-whatever you've been telling her-with a perfectly straight face even if circ.u.mstances conspire to render it totally ridiculous."

"Yes, sir," I said.

"Very well. Did you find any discrepancies in the O'Leary statement?"

"No, the kid is either telling the truth or she's memorized her lies well."

"It's too bad you lost her, but under the circ.u.mstances your action, or lack of it, was probably justified. At least General Bannister seems to think so. He has asked for you to remain on the case in spite of Leonard's objections. Of course, Leonard's people will be working on it, too, but Mrs. Lujan may give us a slight edge. At least she will give you a reasonably convincing cover. Do you know what her plans are?"

"No, except that she's shopping around for an outsize telephoto lens to snap a saucer's picture with. How she's planning to persuade it to pose for her, I have no idea. I don't think she's ever used one of those long-range optical monstrosities before; I don't think she knows how tricky they are to handle."

Mac said, "Well, I'm sure you can a.s.sist her with the technical details, Eric. You used to be a reasonably competent photographer yourself, as I recall. However, you are not being sent into Mexico just to help the lady take pictures."

"No, sir."

"We want the location from which these objects are operating, and we want it as soon as possible. The recent increase in their activity indicates that their efforts will probably reach a dramatic climax shortly, if we are not able to forestall it. You will therefore proceed into Mexico with Mrs. Lujan and persuade her to commence her photographic operations at the scene of the next incident that occurs. We have established that these saucers are quite sensitive about invasions of their privacy. Things seem to happen to people who see them and talk about it-Mrs. O'Leary's disappearance is by no means unique. It follows that even if your attractive photographic friend is not now involved, with a little luck, if she uses her cameras diligently, she soon may be. And of course you will be handy to take advantage of her involvement when it occurs, Eric."

In other words, we were going to use Carol Lujan for bait. It wasn't the best possible foundation upon which to construct a light-hearted alliance with a member of the opposite s.e.x, ostensibly for purposes of travel and photography, and I couldn't help a certain guilty awkwardness now, which I was fairly sure hadn't gone unnoticed by my blonde companion.

"This is quite a heap you've got here," I said casually, to be saying something as we drove. "The photography business must be paying off these days."

Carol laughed. "Well, I'm not quite starving, let's say. Remember when you first taught me how to use Ted's cameras after...after he was killed? And then I went off to work in New York, on your recommendation, and when I came back you were gone, and Beth was packing for Reno, and it was all very sudden and mysterious and, well, shocking. I'd figured yours for one marriage that would go on forever."

She gave me a curious glance, but my divorce wasn't something I wanted to discuss, even with Carol Lujan, so I let the conversation lapse. We spent a couple of hours in Albuquerque picking up a telephoto lens she'd located by phone, and some other stuff she needed, and a bite of lunch. It was well after noon when we hit the road again, so we didn't make it out of New Mexico that day. There was no hurry anyway, as Carol pointed out. She'd agreed that the best plan was for us to wait for another incident and make a dash for the scene-but until the saucer-men struck again, we didn't really know where we were going.

We stopped for the night in Lordsburg, therefore, down in the lower left-hand corner of the state. It was a typical western community with the Southern Pacific railroad tracks on one side of the main drag, and most of the town on the other.

After checking us into a motel, I left Carol to take a shower, and drove her car to a nearby filling station to be serviced. She was a nice girl-at least I hoped she was, Mac's suspicions notwithstanding-but the sticker on the door said she was as casual as most women about little things like grease and oil, and I didn't want any trouble south of the border where mechanics are scarce and auto parts scarcer.

It was dark when I returned to the motel. When I knocked on the door, Carol's voice said for me to come in, it wasn't locked. I found her, in a short white terry-cloth robe or beach coat, sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed with an open attache case beside her and a lot of papers scattered around her, one of which seemed to be a map of Mexico. She looked up as I entered.

"It's no use," she said disgustedly. "I can't make any sense of these sightings. The things just seem to pop up-or down-all over northwestern Mexico, without any pattern or reason or anything."

I went over to the dresser to put down the cardboard icebucket I'd filled from the machine near the office. Again, the skeptical att.i.tude seemed indicated, and I said, "Look, just between us, doll, do you really believe in these gadgets?"

Carol looked up, startled. "flying saucers? Why, of course I believe in them! After all, we saw one once, remember?"

I shrugged. "Well, we saw a funny-looking green light moving across the sky, sure. But don't let's build it up to include any whirling discs piloted by little cheese-eating moonmen. All we saw was a light. Just a light."

"Mart Helm, do you mean to tell me you think this is all a wild-goose chase... ?" She stopped abruptly. "Oh, I see," she said in a different, softer voice. "I see. Of course."

"What do you see?"

"It's security, isn't it? You're not allowed to admit that you know anything about it. Isn't that it?"

I looked at her for a moment, and put a grin on my face. "Sweetheart, you're way beyond me. Who's supposed to be telling me not to talk about what?"

"The people you work for, of course," she said calmly. "I mean the people you work for really, not that imaginary public relations outfit you talk about so unconvincingly." When I didn't say anything, Carol rose and belted the terry-cloth robe more closely about her, which was perhaps just as well, since it had become interestingly obvious that she wasn't wearing anything else. "Matt, let's stop pretending. Don't you see, I know. I know all about you. I've known for years. I know why Beth left you. She told me. She cried on my shoulder, when I came back from New York that time, and told me all about it."

"Just what did she tell you?" I asked.

"She said that before you were married you'd worked for a secret government organization, an organization that sometimes... sometimes killed people. I don't know how she found out about it. I mean she didn't go into detail, and she was pretty hysterical about the whole thing. We all knew how Beth felt about killing anything. She thought just hunting birds and animals was terrible. She couldn't face the thought that her husband had ever been in the business of... of hunting men."

I looked at Carol for a moment longer; then I grinned again and said, "Wow! On that, I need a drink. How about you?"

"Please."

Bartending, I went on easily, "Are you sure it was the U.S. government I was supposed to be working for? She didn't make me out an enforcer for the Syndicate, or a hatchet man for the Tongs?"

I turned to put a gla.s.s into her hand. She was watching me steadily. "Are you denying it, Matt?"

"Denying it?" I said. "h.e.l.l, no! I always wanted to be a dangerous gent with a shiv up my sleeve and a gat under my armpit. I think it's great. But if I'm such a terrible guy and you've known it for years, why did you fall on my neck when you saw me this summer? It doesn't seem to me you're taking my ex-wife's melodramatic tale very seriously, yourself."

Carol's eyes didn't waver. "I'm not Beth, darling. What do I care how many people you've killed?"

Her voice was a little defiant, as if she were rea.s.suring herself as well as me. There was silence after she'd finished. Outside, we could hear the big trucks going past on the highway, heading west to Tucson, Arizona, and east to El Paso, Texas; but inside the motel room there was hardly any sound at all.

"I guess I'm being forward and unladylike," Carol went on at last. "But ... well, it gets lonely. I wasn't really cut out to be a career girl, Matt. And I kept remembering a pretty nice guy who'd once held my hand and wiped my nose when I was in trouble, a guy who was now legally available. And then I went down to the bank one day and there he was. So I fell on his neck, like you say." She moved her shoulders, a little awkwardly for her. "What it amounts to, darling, is that you've had your month's free trial. Now you'd better start making up your mind as to whether you're keeping the merchandise or taking it back to the store. And in the meantime-" She stopped, and smiled at me, no longer awkward, and deliberately unfastened the robe and let it fall open. "In the meantime, you can practice making up your mind by telling me if I should put on some clothes so we can go out to eat. Or... or do you perhaps have some other ideas you'd care to put into effect before I get all done up again in girdle and stockings?"

Somehow we never did get around to dinner that evening. In the morning, we read in the newspaper that the fire-breathing UFO's had once more made hostile contact with earth, near a little Mexican fishing village named Puerto Peasco, on the Gulf of California.

13.

WE ENTERED Mexico by way of a town that was called Lukeville above the border and Sonoita-or Sonoyta-below. It was located on the section of the international boundary line between Arizona and Sonora that angles kind of northwestwards, eventually striking the Colorado River not too far above the point where it empties into the head of the gulf that the Mexicans like to call the Mar de Cortez, the Sea of Cortez: that desolate, rather narrow body of water almost a thousand miles long that's bounded on the east by the Mexican mainland and on the west by the Baja California peninsula, the long, dangling tail of the North American continent.

There wasn't a great deal of international traffic when we drove through the gate, so we were soon taking our turn at the desk inside the shabby little one-story customs-and-immigration building, watching one of the Mexican border officials making out our tourist permits. They have a dramatic, rapid-fire typewriter technique that's worth watching. Then we were on the road again, heading towards the village of Puerto Peflasco, some sixty miles away.

I heard Carol, beside me, give a funny, relieved little laugh as we left Sonoita behind and struck out across the cactus-studded desert at a legal one hundred kilometers per hour-sixty mph to you.

"What's funny?" I asked.

"Borders always scare me," she said. "I'm just a hick at heart. Mart?"

"Yes?"

"You're using me, aren't you?" She made a face. "No, don't make any s.e.xy, double-meaning cracks, and don't tell me how you are just a poor little public-relations boy trying to get along in the big cold world. You've got some idea that I can be helpful to you down here in Mexico, don't you? Maybe you figure you'll attract less attention as a lady photographer's a.s.sistant, or something. Well, I just want you to know that I don't mind, so you can stop feeling guilty about it. Remember that I didn't have to invite you along just because you gave me a very broad hint."

I said, "Carol-"

She went on unheeding, "In fact, I think it's kind of romantic and exciting, darling. Just let me know what you want me to do-in a way that won't compromise your precious security, of course!"

I glanced at her, sitting there with her nice blonde hair and neatly lipsticked mouth and fresh complexion, thinking it was kind of exciting and romantic to be a.s.sociated, even unofficially, with a dangerous character like me. I started to speak and changed my mind. First of all, I was under orders not to confide in her, and secondly, when they get that notion, all the words in the world won't drive it out of them.

She was wearing a tan skirt and jacket, with a silk shirt or blouse in a lighter color I guess you'd call beige. The fashionably short skirt had big pleats front and rear, making it suitable for reasonably vigorous activity, and the sporty, bush-type jacket had all kinds of pockets-you hail expected a few cartridge loops, African style.

It was kind of a movie-safari outfit that went with her romantic notions, made more so by the little suede boots she was wearing. However, except for the thin shirt, it looked fairly durable, and professional photographers do tend to go in for individualistic costumes at times, so I didn't really hold it against her. If male camera artists could sport fancy hats and capes, it wasn't really a crime for a girl to show up on the job in a bush jacket, particularly if she looked good in it, which she did.

"Just one question," I said. "Exactly how did you happen to get saddled with this UFO photo-a.s.signment, anyway?"

"Oh, that." She laughed. "There wasn't any 'happen' about it. I'm a determined, husband-hunting girl, darling, and I didn't really think you meant to come back to me, when you left so suddenly. So I was going after you. I asked myself why a crack U.S. undercover operative would be rushed to Mexico at just this time-"

"You're still a victim of my ex-wife's vivid imagination," I complained, going through the security motions. "The truth is, she just couldn't bear to admit we got divorced because we couldn't get along in bed." I saw that Carol was smiling, totally unconvinced, and I went on: "Anyway, I didn't tell you where I was going."

"No, but you didn't make any great effort to cover your tracks, did you? And Santa Fe is a small town, and I happen to know the girl in the travel agency, who sold you the tickets. And the big thing in Mexico right now is UFOs. I figured if I got a job covering the story, I'd probably run into you down there, somewhere...

In a way it explained one of the coincidences Mac had thought incriminating, but it didn't really prove anything. In fact, I tend to be rather suspicious of females who claim to find me irresistible. It happens in this business, but the record shows that most of the ladies involved have ulterior motives for flattering me thus-a disillusioning fact that does terrible things to my ego.

Any woman, therefore, who uses my personal magnetism-or my matrimonial desirability, for G.o.d's sake!-as an excuse for chasing me the length of Mexico, or even laying plans in that direction, will normally find her explanation received with a certain amount of cynicism. But here, for no very good reason, I found myself believing in what I was told-or not so much in the story, perhaps, as in the girl who was telling it. I had learned nothing that would convince Mac of her innocence, of course; but I'd never been sold on the idea of Carol Lujan as a desperate communist agent in the first place.

I guess I was concentrating more on my thinking than on my driving. At any rate, I almost ran us off the road when a horn blared, it seemed, just behind my left ear. I pulled aside and let a big black U.S.-made sedan shoot by: one of those mean-looking front-wheel-drive Oldsmobiles with concealed headlights. Detroit has got very bashful about its light-bulbs lately. They get some funny notions of propriety in that town. A few years ago, if I remember correctly, it was the tires and wheels that had to be decently covered, with modest little skirts that made it almost impossible to change a flat.

The car was driven by a dark-faced individual wearing khakis and an official-looking cap. I didn't know him, but the front-seat pa.s.senger was a well-dressed Mexican gentleman with a neat moustache that looked very familiar. I'd last seen it in a hotel room in Santa Fe. Apparently our friend SolanaRuiz also read the morning papers-or maybe he had private sources of information. In any case, he apparently considered the Puerto Peflasco incident worthy of his personal attention. He had to be going there since the road went nowhere else.

A woman was riding in back, but I couldn't get a good look at her through the dark gla.s.s. Nevertheless, I had an uneasy feeling that under more favorable circ.u.mstances I might have recognized her, although at the moment I couldn't think of any female acquaintance Mr. Solana and I might have in common.

"What's the matter, do you know that man?" Carol asked.

"What man?"

Carol laughed tolerantly. "You're very stubborn, aren't you, darling? I'm just going to have to learn not to ask any questions at all. How much farther do we have to go? I thought it was only sixty miles from the border. It doesn't look as if you could find a cup of water in this wasteland, let alone a whole gulf of it."

We came upon the town almost without warning. The character of the landscape didn't change much, but suddenly there were some dark objects on either side of the straight, paved road ahead. Reaching them, we discovered that they were mud houses, and that we were at the outskirts of Puerto Peasco. Half a mile farther, and we could see the water ahead: a blue bay with a sandy beach curving towards a rocky point sticking out to the left, where most of the town seemed to be located. There were docks and warehouses and a number of st.u.r.dy-looking fishing boats.

The place that had been recommended to us by an Arizona filling-station attendant who'd been there was called the Motel Playa Hermosa-the Beautiful Beach Motel. We turned off at a big sign before reaching the town proper, and bounced along an unpaved street leading to the beach. The motel area, on the waterfront, was enclosed by a wall, inside which we found a number of low buildings and a larger structure housing the office, restaurant, and bar. Driving up to this, I saw SolanaRuiz's Oldsmobile parked in front, looking like a blind monster from the ocean depths-or maybe it was just taking a nap with its eyes closed.

Several tables on the veranda by the front door were occupied. At one, a girl sat alone. She was wearing very snug, ankle-length, elastic pants, kind of orchid in color, and one of those skimpy sleeveless white jerseys that look like a man's undershirt. It bulged in an interesting way although she was not, in other respects, a bulgy girl. She had thick lipstick on, and heavy eye-makeup. The elaborately formal arrangement of her piled-up brown hair contrasted oddly with the scanty informality-if that's the word-of her costume.