The Infiltrators (36 page)

“Listen, Helm…!” He checked, himself. “You still haven’t said how you knew Crisler.”

I said, “You won’t like it. Years and years ago, even before that kidnapping incident we both remember involving my little girl, I had a fender-bender problem up a lane near where I used to live. The other guy came roaring out of his driveway without looking; but when he called the police from his house a young cop friend came to the rescue in a patrol car. Crisler. To protect his buddy-buddy, Crisler wrote me up for every crime since the sinking of the
Maine
in Havana Harbor in 1898. I was keeping a low profile at the time, I wanted to be an inconspicuous citizen, so I didn’t argue; I just got old Judge Marty Martinez to dismiss the charges afterwards. But I made a note of the name and the face. I always do.” I stared at him hard. “And don’t try to tell me that no cop ever did a favor for a friend in this town, or any town. My ribs hurt, and I’d hate to go into paroxysms of uncontrollable laughter.”

He answered my stare with a glare of his own, but it wavered after a moment. “Your ribs? I thought it was your head…” Then he stopped.

“Right on, man,” I said. “One of your fine upstanding guardians of the law gave me a couple of good kicks in the side while I was lying out there half unconscious.” He didn’t speak. I went on: “You’ve checked on me and you know where my orders come from. Pretty high up, right? Or you wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t be here. I’d be in a cell being beat on in relays because cop-killers always seem to be unruly fellows who have to be subdued by force, right? Now shall we get on with the listing of your possible courses of action, Chief?”

“If you wish.” His voice was expressionless now.

I said, “Here’s my next suggestion: just pull that fancy ivory-handled piece you’ve got on your hip and shoot me dead.”

“That’s a strange thing to say, señor.”

“Why strange?” I said. “I’d call it obvious. Don’t try to tell me you haven’t thought of it. Don’t try to tell me you don’t wish, at least a little, that one of your boys had got slightly trigger-happy before you got here. Don’t tell me you haven’t considered the possibility that, with me out of the way permanently, a terrible case of mistaken identity of course, and Madeleine Ellershaw also gone, perhaps never to return…” I found myself pausing here, and clearing my throat for some reason, before I went on. “With both of us out of the way, you might still be able to salvage something out of this bloody mess. That’s assuming, of course, that you still insist that you have complete control over your department, and that Officer Crisler was operating under orders from you, as were his two pals. Which is what you were more or less saying just now when you implied they were all your men. But were they? Are they? Do you really want to assume full responsibility for them and their actions,
all
their actions?”

“Mr. Helm…” He paused.

“I know, it’s hard to admit,” I said. “But your final choice, and you’d better make it fast, is to backpedal a bit and admit that you don’t have complete control of your department anymore. They aren’t all your men, really; and these three rogue cops were operating under orders from somebody else. Somebody perhaps using the code name Tolliver, representing a powerful secret organization that seems to have infiltrated a lot of law-enforcement agencies in this country and even created one of its own: the Office of Federal Security.” I looked at him for a moment. “I think it’s too late for benevolent neutrality, Chief Cordoba. Pick your side. Either use that pretty gun—they’ll pay you well for it, either in money or political influence—or sit down and relax and let’s talk this over sensibly.”

He stood looking down at me for a long moment, his dark face expressionless; and it happened the way it sometimes does regardless of the shade of the skin or the color of the hair or the language spoken by the ancestors. I don’t say that we became friends in that instant; but there’s a relationship between fighting men that the nonviolent ladies and gentlemen of the world can never understand, which may be why they fear us and pretend to despise us as old-fashioned and obsolete and dreadfully immoral—macho is the buzzword they’re always throwing around, very derogatory. Cordoba smiled faintly.

“But how would I dare draw my weapon, Mr. Helm, when you’ve had me covered from that sling ever since I walked into this room?” He shook his head. “It’s very foolish of you. Even if you have no faith in the police, perhaps with some reason, you could never hope to shoot your way out of here, you know that.”

I shrugged. “In my business, when you’ve got your back to the wall you don’t waste time figuring the odds. If your life is at stake, you just blow away the guy in front of you and grab his weapon if yours is going dry and start walking and keep firing. Eventually you’re either out of there or dead. And if you’re dead, they’ll remember you, those who’re left standing. They’ll remember how hard you were to put down, and how many you took down with you; and maybe they won’t be quite so eager to tackle the next guy from your outfit who comes along. We call it public relations, Chief.”

“But clearly my men were careless, to leave you armed,” he said.

I shrugged again, and it was still a mistake. “They found the .38 from my holster where Cop Number One had dropped it; and I looked pretty damn helpless, so they didn’t bother to search me further. And frankly I have no memory of tucking the little sleeve gun back up where it belongs; and I’d appreciate your not mentioning it to anybody, and soft-pedaling the caliber of the bullets your medical examiner comes up with. That way, maybe I can surprise somebody else sometime.”

There was a knock on the door. Cordoba went over and opened it, and spoke to the man outside for a minute or two, and came back. His face was grim.

“What was Mrs. Ellershaw wearing?” he asked.

A wave of sick anticipation hit me, but I refrained from asking the obvious question. “High-heeled blue sandals. Blue denims. White cotton wedding shirt. Quilted ski jacket, kind of violet-colored. No hat.”

“An empty police car has been found on a dirt road just outside town. Tire tracks nearby indicate where a heavier vehicle, probably four-wheel drive, had been parked for a while before being driven away; so apparently there was a change of transportation. Caught on an inside molding of the patrol car was a scrap of violet cloth. It would have been hard to snag a garment in that place accidentally, I’m told.”

I drew a long, rather shaky breath. “So she was still alive and thinking clearly up to that point. Leaving signs for us to follow. I presume it was Crisler’s official car that was left behind. Any signs of Crisler?”

He nodded. “Officer Crisler was lying in the bushes nearby. He had been killed by a skillful knife-thrust to the neck, very much as Mrs. Silva was killed. There were traces of blood on his shoe; and I will be very much surprised if the shoe does not match a partial footprint we found in the office next door, near the dead woman’s chair, that was not made on his most recent visit here, after the blood had started to congeal. It would seem that Officer Crisler was the second man involved in tearing this place apart earlier, and killing those two; he must have returned to help his colleagues deal with you, while the first man, the one in charge, waiting in the car unwilling to show himself. And then the first man, the knife specialist, disposed of Crisler after he had delivered the woman and served his purpose.” Cordoba grimaced. “At least that is one old grudge you can erase from your account books, Mr. Helm.”

“That makes me feel just great,” I said. “Considering that the lady I was supposed to protect is now riding around the boonies helplessly handcuffed, at the mercy of a wild man with a knife.”

After that, Chief Cordoba pumped me quite thoroughly about the case and, since we needed his cooperation, I let him. It was a rather frustrating experience. He was not, of course, willing to accept the idea that a man listed in the records as a fugitive was dead because his wife had dreamed that he was. And he certainly wasn’t going to buy the idea that an innocent woman had spent eight years in prison; no policeman likes to admit that such things can happen.

Nor could he accept the notion that his turncoat cops might have been influenced by mind-bending techniques developed surreptitiously in a secret government laboratory behind chain-link fencing and barbed wire. Advanced Human Managerial Studies, bullshit! As a matter of fact, I wasn’t quite sure I believed that one, either. Why go all sci-fi when a little dough will do the job? I didn’t think a man like Officer Crisler would come very high. Nevertheless, the session wasn’t a total loss. Cordoba might laugh at my crazy brainstorms, but I noticed that he didn’t laugh very loudly. He’d remember them if events occurred to confirm them.

Interrogation complete, Cordoba drove me back to the motel himself. I guess he didn’t want to trust me with any of his men, or vice versa. I didn’t know whether he was afraid that they’d go for me if they got me alone, or I’d go for them; but either way he was probably correct. Certainly, the way I was feeling at the moment, if anything in uniform—whether the uniform was blue, green, or purple with orange zebra stripes—had laid a hand on me, or more particularly a foot, I’d have shot it dead on the spot. I’d done my stint as departmental punching bag and football, thanks.

The chief wanted to take me to the hospital, but I wasn’t having any of that. I wanted to be near a phone where I could be reached by anybody who had a message for me.

“Do you expect a ransom demand?” Cordoba asked, when I explained this. He frowned. “But what will they ask for? They have already destroyed the documents they feared.”

I said, “They’ll ask for something very valuable, amigo.” I grinned. “One way or another they’ll ask for me.”

“You?” He frowned at me uncomprehendingly.

“It’s a whole new ball game,” I said. “Figure it out. Crisler and his knife-wielding partner must have reported that the dangerous papers, whatever they were, had been found and carefully burned. Yet the two of them were sent back here to help out a couple more rogue policemen. Help them do what? Well, it was known that Mrs. Ellershaw had a ten o’clock appointment, remember, and it could be assumed that her diligent bodyguard would accompany her. So it seems likely that we were still the target; but with a difference. Let’s note that after the previous earnest attempts on Mrs. Ellershaw’s life with shotguns and rifles, they used the handcuffs on her this time. Obviously, now that she’s no longer a threat she’s to be preserved, at least temporarily, presumably for bargaining purposes. But it’s clear that the orders concerning me were quite different. That first club that was swung at my skull wasn’t kidding. It would have killed me if I hadn’t been warned in time to duck a little.”

“I see,” Cordoba said softly. “You feel that your death is now considered desirable?”

I said, “Handcuffs for her, club for me, what does it look like? As an experienced officer of the law, you must know that it’s only in the movies that you go bashing people on the head you don’t want dead. Crisler and his club weren’t kidding, either; but he couldn’t quite get a solid swing at me, the way I was weaving around due to the effects of the first guy’s blow. And even after he’d managed to knock me out he presumably had to leave me for the moment to deal with Mrs. Ellershaw—perhaps she even came to my defense again—and by the time he had her subdued there were probably sirens screaming and people beating on the door asking what all the fuss and shooting was about in there. So all he could do was get the hell out the back way fast with his prisoner, leaving me alive. That could be why he wound up with a knife in the neck. He hadn’t done the job he’d been sent to do; he hadn’t disposed of me.”

Cordoba said carefully, “No offense, señor, but what would make you so important now?”

I said, “Certainly no offense, señor; and I’m afraid you’re flattering me. I’m still only of secondary importance. First there were the hidden documents, or computer printouts, or whatever, perhaps with a covering letter from a dead man, that his wife had to be prevented from acquiring and employing to damage this
CADRE
outfit. But with that taken care of, they could turn to problem number two, just a minor difficulty: a government agent who’s been making a persistent nuisance of himself and whose association with Mrs. Ellershaw has apparently brought him too close to the heart of the organization for him to be ignored. So terminate with extreme prejudice, as the Langley lads like to say. Using the lady as bait if necessary.”

Cordoba started to ask a question, and checked himself, which was just as well. He didn’t want to know how I was going to solve the problem. Always assuming, of course, that I could figure out a solution.

“Any help I can give, you have only to ask,” he said. “The department owes you that.”

I gave him a crooked grin. “Don’t stick your neck out too far, Chief. You mean any
legal
help, don’t you?”

He gave me a sharp glance and didn’t answer. He left me in front of the motel. I entered the main building, walking carefully so as not to jar my injuries unnecessarily. I asked the dining room to send to my room a pitcher of vodka martinis, a bacon and tomato sandwich on white toast, and a pot of coffee. Cream and sugar, yes. Back in my unit, after limping through the landscaped grounds and suffering no attacks upon my life, I found that the big double bed nearer the door, which had got fairly thoroughly disordered last night by two affectionate and active bodies, looked smooth and virginal once more. The bathroom was beautifully sterile, with all glasses protected from contamination by plastic armor. The telephone was silent.

I considered lying down to rest, but that would have involved getting up again when my lunch arrived, a painful prospect. I compromised by seating myself cautiously on the bed to make a couple of local calls, using certain code words specifically designed for crisis situations. I debated calling Washington as well, but I had nothing to say that could be said over an unsafe line. Then I said to hell with it and called anyway. As always, I got through to Mac without significant delay.