The Puppet Master

little, then discover I didn't know what I'd been reading—that I was too busy worrying. A time or two I was interrupted in all this by crows cawing, but it was never three caws, then pause, then three more. It was always some other pattern, and answered from somewhere else—genuine conversations among genuine crows. They helped keep everyone more or less alert.

In my planning, I'd figured the SVI people might come out in ground cars, but I'd allowed for the chance that they'd fly to Fillmore in a floater or maybe two, which would be a lot quicker. Then fly in the rest of the way at near road level, in order to follow the signs. They'd surely have flown to L.A., and Masters no doubt had an LAPD temporary permit to operate out of the city's various shuttle fields.

At 9:12 by my watch, I heard Wayne's crow call, and my guts tightened. I was glad I'd taken time to relieve myself at the restaurant. Ten or twelve seconds later, an eight-passenger skyvan floated into sight, just centimeters above the road. I recognized the driver as Masters; this was no scouting party. Steinhorn sat next to him in front—I could see his black eyes—and there were several guys behind them. They saw me almost at once and stopped in the road. Masters gave an order, then got out, leaving Steinhorn in front. I got up slowly, staring as if I'd just then realized who they were. Three guys got out of the back, carrying old AK-47s. Masters himself held a .45 caliber service pistol pointed loosely in my direction.

The hair bristled on the back of my neck.

'Mr. Seppanen,' Masters said with exaggerated courtesy. 'I'm delighted to meet you at last.'

I dropped the pretense. 'The feeling is mutual, Masters. Please drop your weapons. My people are all around you, ready to blow . . .'

That's all I got out. Masters raised his automatic with both hands and I started to throw myself behind the fireplace. There was a lot of gunfire—the boom of the .45, the brief vicious sound of AK-47s, the heavier boom of shotguns, and the swoosh-whump of two car-killers hitting the engine compartment, all of it seeming simultaneous with a stunning pain in my head, a searing pain in my buttocks. Somehow I was still conscious, even though my vision had turned off. Someone was shouting 'Jesus Christ, guys, hold your fire! Hold your fire!'

By that time it had already stopped. Voices called sharply; I don't recall what. Then someone right next to me said 'Shit! God damn it! He took one right in the head!'

It hurt, all right, and my butt felt like someone had run a red-hot poker through it from one side to the other. I couldn't see anything, but for some stupid reason tried to get up. All I accomplished was to nearly pass out.

'Hey, he moved! He's alive!'

I wanted to say 'Hell yes I'm alive,' but didn't. It occurred to me I might vomit, and choke on it.

The next thing I was aware of, an indeterminate time later, I was on a stretcher, being loaded by paramedics into a floater.

35

LEGAL WRAP-UP

I was more or less conscious in the ambulance at first. I was aware of a paramedic saying, 'I don't think his wound is that serious,' and then, 'Him? We may lose him.' And realized vaguely that I wasn't the only casualty in the ambulance. When they were satisfied my skull wasn't fractured, they shot me up with something, after which I didn't remember anything for a while.

Actually they evacuated four wounded in two ambulances: me and three of the SVI people, while two lay dead back in the campground: Masters and one of his men. We got out of it so cheaply because our men were shooting at seen targets while Masters' men weren't. In fact, only two of Masters' men fired their AK-47s, a short burst each, one apparently while already hit and falling.

In my case, a .30 caliber slug—technically a 7.62mm from an AK-47—had hit the right side of my head at an angle. It tore its way across the top of my skull beneath the skin, and exited the other side near the top, actually creating a shallow groove in the bone. A weird wound. A doctor told me later it was remarkable I'd remained even semiconscious. I guess he doesn't know Finns, or half-Finns in my case. Another bullet had penetrated both buttocks from the right side, damaging nothing but meat. It seems that the lower half of my body never reached the shelter of the fireplace.

Joe told me about it in the hospital, after I woke up. He was also the one who told me that Masters was dead. Steinhorn had shot him in the back of the head, and Masters' .45 had kicked out one shot that went God knows where. It turned out that apparently none of Masters' guys had been very eager for this mission, and except for Steinhorn's shot that killed him, the men still in the skyvan hadn't shot at all. They'd come to the conclusion, the last few days, that their boss had gone bonkers. They'd stayed with him as long as they had because of old loyalties, and because they were in so deeply themselves.

Steinhorn had shot him hoping to prevent a firefight. For his troubles, he took some buckshot through the open door, in the left arm and leg, and in the guts.

Meanwhile the cube I'd mailed the day before made the KCBS noon news. So did the shoot-out at the Rito Oso Picnic Area, and the apparent LAPD involvement with SVI. Joe posted guards in my hospital room, more than anything else to protect me from possible news cameras. He loves publicity for the firm, but tries to keep his investigators' faces off the tube, for obvious reasons.

The survivors on Masters' team verified just about all our conjectures, mine and Carlos', and explained some things we'd missed. For example, what the SVI was all about, or had been to start with. While in the OSS, Masters had developed a dedicated hostility toward terrorists. Then he'd inherited investments that would enable him to live more than comfortably without working, so he'd taken an early retirement. But not to play golf. He and Reyes, along with a well-to-do veteran of the Mexican Foreign Service, started SVI as an aberrated expression of idealism, to assassinate and otherwise terrorize terrorists. Masters and Reyes had recruited men they'd known from the Rangers, Special Forces, and OSS.

It was about the time they'd contracted to abduct Ray Christman that Masters began to change. We got some insight into that because the PEF raided SVI's offices late on the day of the shoot-out, and arrested Aquilo Reyes. Reyes was an American citizen, originally from Casa Grande, Arizona. According to him—and this was validated by computer records of SVI and Security Pacific Bank—Christman's death was contracted for by Alex DeSmet, a retired OSS official, and one-time mentor and patron of Masters in the agency. That's right; that DeSmet. Fred Hamilton's ex-father-in-law.

According to Reyes, Masters was at first unwilling to even consider the contract, though he pretended to, to avoid offending his old boss. Such a contract was very much at variance with his principles. But it troubled him to refuse the man who'd done so much for him, troubled him enough that he'd talked about it repeatedly to his partner. Masters also said that such a proposal was totally out of character for DeSmet, and wondered if the older man was having psychological problems.