offered a lovely golden smile.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Marianne sat on the edge of the bed, now and then glancing from her companions to the panorama outside the window of their suite. 'This is truly a beautiful place,' she mused. 'Felix, do you suppose we could come back sometime?'
She might as well have been talking to herself. 'It was that little sonofabitch Azeri,' said Slaughter, standing with legs apart, arms out and parallel to the carpet, raging as Sorel ran a pocket debugger over every inch of his clothing. Sorel had already found one tracer bug, no larger than a grain of wheat, stuck to the elbow of Slaughter's jacket, 'I can't figure when he did it,' Slaughter went on.
'I know exactly when — Marianne, close the curtains, please,' said Sorel.
'I wanted to look at the mountains. Weren't you listening?'
'Just do it, please.' He waited until she had drawn the heavy drapes, then paused in his work, facing her, using the elaborate courtesy of one whose patience is beginning to fray. 'A bare windowpane is like the head of a drum, Marianne. A tiny laser beam could be bounced off the corner of that window in such a way that someone far away could hear, from the vibrations of the window, every word we say. We are paying well for three adjoining rooms in a one-floor luxury inn, so that we are assured privacy here in the middle.' He resumed passing the debugger over Slaughter's clothing and eventually found the second tiny audio device.
'Azeri needs offing,' Slaughter growled.
'A wonder he didn't pick your pocket,' Sorel said, taking his turn while Slaughter held the debugger. When Marianne had been pronounced clean in turn, the three of them sat on the big bed for Sorel's briefing. Slaughter put in a few curt questions and a suggestion here and there. Marianne grew silent, lips pale, and responded only with nods and headshakes. When the men agreed on the signal Sorel would give, she knew that this was no optional plan, but a firm decision.
'I don't think my falling down will divert any of them,' she said. 'Maybe the old man; I don't know.'
'We must chance it. Most men will turn aside to help a woman in distress,' Sorel replied. 'Draw and shoot the nearest one, and do not hesitate.'
'Most likely we'll be on broken ground,' Slaughter put in. 'Problem is, they've probably checked the area already. They could have somebody staked out there, and I don't want none of that OK Corral shit if I can help it.'
'Very unlikely,' Sorel snapped. His hard look suggested that they would chance it anyway. 'But if they are not all three with us from the start, the stakeout becomes a possibility; and in that case we cancel the plan. Questions?'
Slaughter was impassive. Marianne swallowed hard and shook her head, then moved toward the telephone handset near the bed. 'I'd better make our travel arrangements,' she said.
Slaughter moved faster than she thought possible; his grip on her wrist bit like pliers, but her glance was a plea to Sorel.
'We have your car,' he said, and nodded to Slaughter, who made no apology as he released her arm. 'After such work as this, you never rely on public transportation. Marianne.' She bit her lip and rubbed her wrist gently, more angry than anything else. One day, she thought, this hardcase brush-popper. Slaughter, would pay for treating her so brutally.
It was midafternoon when Maazel called, a half hour later before their two-car convoy eased out of the parking area. Mills leading in a rented Ford. Maazel using the Ford's dashboard mapfiche, directed him while Azeri sat in the backseat.
Marianne, driving the Chevy as they ascended the blacktop mountain road, tried to quell her nerves in silence. 'Azeri is their prime hitter, all right,' said Slaughter over his shoulder. 'I kinda thought it could be Saint Denis.' No answer from Sorel in the backseat, but Marianne realized for the first time that seating arrangements had their own meanings. She wondered whether Felix Sorel was deadlier than the man beside her. In any case, she would soon find out. She fought an urge to pull over, to argue against violence, to — But she knew it was far too late. It had been too late when she'd rented the Chevy. Perhaps she was fated to gamble with men like Sorel, instead of playing out her life with the likes of Lieutenant Alec Wardrop. At the moment, she wished she could be riding with that fool Wardrop as he sought a four-footed killer in Wild Country. Better than a showdown in these mountains with two- legged carriers of death…
The blacktop was old and broken. For long stretches, there was no gravel shoulder to speak of. One wheel off the edge could mean an endless plunge, down and down, headlong through scrub oak and madrone, and once Marianne saw a rusted hulk, prewar limo by the look of it, lying on its side in a ravine far below. She was careful to avoid that crumbled shoulder verge. Then, twenty klicks into the mountains, the Ford nosed off the blacktop to a rough unsurfaced road and stopped for moments while its occupants argued over the mapfiche. 'They dunno where the fuck they are,' Slaughter said with satisfaction.
“Or would like us to think so,' Sorel said from behind him.
'We're leaving Dead Indian Road,' Marianne put in, pleased that she had remembered the road signs.
'And headed for dead Israeli gulch,' Slaughter said. It was Marianne's first inkling that the man had any sense of humor. Was it possible that some men actually looked forward to the killing of near strangers?
Then the Ford lurched forward, its wheels very near the lip of a roadbed cut by a bulldozer many years before. To one side was a steep uphill slope covered by dry grasses; to the other, a slope that was almost a precipice. The breeze was cool. Far away, Marianne could see glints of sunlight from solar panels on the outskirts of Ashland; she judged they might be a full kilometer higher than the valley by now. The diesel's subdued clatter, the grit of stone beneath her wheels, were reminders that she was really here; and 'here' was the last place she wanted to be. She willed herself to remember what Sorel had told her: kill these men today, or be marked for death herself. That would make it easier to use the automatic that lay against her thigh. Would she hesitate? She told herself that these Israelis, alive, meant death to her, and when
Sorel gave the signal she should save her life by killing as quickly as possible. And, if possible, without pausing to think about it.
Five minutes later the road swung in a downward curve, the Ford passing from sight for a moment. Sore I cursed in Spanish and urged her onward. But no ambush had been intended, and a half kilometer farther the road simply stopped at a ruined farmhouse with a barn. Sorel and Azeri were the first men to exit their cars, glancing at one another in mutual respect.
Maazel brandished a plastic map in one hand, still carrying that attache case in the other, and announced that this property had been worked for salsify during the war. 'Or so the agent claimed,' he said. 'A few soil samples will tell us more.' The fat man wheezed louder than ever now, in the thin mountain air. Following Sorel. he trudged to inspect the wood-framed little house with its broken windows and tumbledown porch.
Slaughter pulled a thin cheroot from his shirt pocket, found his lighter, puffed for a moment, then ambled toward the bam, which seemed sturdier than the house. Marianne realized that any fourth Israeli staked out here would probably choose one of the structures for cover — or would he? In any case her companions seemed to be checking the possibility as they made their casual inspections.
When little Azeri followed Slaughter into the barn, the dapper Mills chose to stay with the woman. 'I take it that poking around in musty corners isn't your cup of tea,' he said amiably. When she fed him the best smile she had, he smiled back. 'Nor mine, Miss Placidas. I'm a negotiator, not a dirt farmer. And you?'
As elitists they had much in common. She warmed to the Mills charm in spite of herself, saying she was a friend and courier, her nerve endings all tuned for any sign that things were going wrong.
Boren Mills displayed nothing but boredom. When the others finished tramping around in the wilds, it would be his turn; and in earlier days, Mills had proved one of the sharpest businessmen in Streamlined America. This would not be the first time he had cut a deal with dangerous men. Since his escape to New Israel, he had often dealt with sensitive business issues, always backed by Israeli clout and his own intuition for the precise limits of an acceptable deal. His weapons were all in his head. Like many an intellectual before him, Mills assumed that he needed no lethal hardware. It was Mills's pride that he was a man of ideas, and not a man of action. Surely, he
