The Comedy is Finished

Peter now believed Davis to have been his own idea—mattered little. In truth, Davis was the best bargaining chip they could have obtained, since government officials and other people closer to the center of power were all so much more carefully guarded.

True, Mark had reasons to hate Koo Davis for himself if he wanted to dwell on them, but that wasn’t the point. Mark had left all that personal stuff behind, he was out of those emotional quagmires now, he behaved on the basis of logical necessity only. Whatever happened to Koo Davis, it would be due exclusively to the impersonal logic of the situation. Revenge, hatred, none of that would make any difference.

On balance, in fact, it was marginally better that Davis be alive. One or two more tapes should still be made—without the jokes. And it was tactically better that Davis remain a living redeemable counter in the game. So Mark’s decision to save his life had also been logical, an immediate decision among alternatives, and not the result of any misplaced emotional reaction. He had done the right thing for the right reason.

At precisely three o’clock, a blue Dodge Colt rolled by, a white cloth fluttering flaglike from its antenna. Mark leaned forward to watch, hard-edged leaves brushing his bearded cheeks and the jungly smell of the shrubbery rich in his nostrils. No other car trailed the Colt.

The white Ford Granada eased by in the opposite direction at three minutes past the hour. Mark watched it out of sight.

At five past three he stood, stretching in the dark, his ankle-bones cracking. He waited there, in the darkness, and two minutes later the Impala came along, Peter at the wheel. Mark trotted out to the road, Peter stopped, Mark slid in on the passenger side, and Peter accelerated again, toward the freeway entrance.

“Blue Dodge Colt,” Mark said. “Went through on the dot. Nobody followed it.”

“Good. That package of yours smells.”

Mark glanced at the brown paper bag on the back seat. “Can’t,” he said. “It’s very securely sealed in a Baggie.”

“It smells,” Peter insisted. “Sniff for yourself.”

Mark sniffed; there was a faint aroma, at that. “Maybe you farted.”

Peter’s mouth corners turned down. He was not amused. He steered them onto the freeway, then accelerated to sixty. There were fewer than half a dozen vehicles anywhere in sight. Peter said, “It’s a stupid gesture anyway, even if you’re right.”

“They’ll understand,” Mark said. “And I will be right.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

Mark shrugged. “Then it’s cost me one Baggie and one cassette. Besides, they’re already being cute.” And he told Peter about the white Granada.

Peter obviously didn’t like that. “What’s the matter with them? Don’t they realize we don’t have to do this?”

“They can’t help themselves. They’ve just got to play Counterspy.”

Peter drove along, drumming his fingertips against the steering wheel. “Who knows what else they’re doing? We’ll call it off,” he decided. “We’ll phone them, tell them to do it right or not at all. They’re the ones want Davis alive.”

“No, Peter. Let them do it again later? They still won’t be straight with us, you’ll just give them more time to get set up. We do it now.”

“I’m not interested in being caught.”

“None of us is.”

Peter gave him a sidelong look. “You just want to use your Baggie.”

“There’s that, too.” Then Mark pointed forward. “In the right lane.”

The Colt was moving at the modest forty miles an hour specified by Mark, and there seemed no other vehicle pacing it. Staying in a middle lane, Peter hung well back, and waited.

The San Diego Freeway north of Sunset Boulevard runs between two low barren treeless hills with virtually no buildings and an almost total lack of secondary roads. There’s only one freeway exit before the Valley itself, five miles to the north. It’s a strange landscape for the middle of a major metropolitan area, and it’s quite dark at night. At one of the darkest spots, near the top of the long straight slope down toward the Valley, Peter drove forward to flash his high beams into the Colt’s rearview mirror.

The Colt at once braked hard, swerving off onto the shoulder of the road. Peter did the same, dropping farther back, and the two vehicles stopped about four lengths apart. The Colt’s driver’s door opened, but from his angle Mark couldn’t see what was happening. “Is he getting out?”

“No. He put the case on the ground.”

The Colt’s door closed, and the car at once spurted away, throwing gravel in its wake, leaving behind a small brown-leather case with a handle; it was about the right size and shape to carry two liquor bottles. Peter drove forward, stopped next to the case; Mark opened the door, picked it up, then slammed his door and Peter accelerated.

The case opened like a book, revealing in the faint glow of the map-light a dark blue plush interior separated into more than a dozen small compartments; it reminded Mark of cliff dwellings in photographs. A folded sheet of paper proved to contain the doctor’s instructions; Mark put it away in a pocket and returned his attention to the case.

Each compartment contained a bottle or box, with a small plush strap across to keep the contents in place. Mark murmured to himself, “One of these buttons?” His thumb stroked the chrome snaps on each of the straps, feeling for one to be different. “No; they didn’t have time for structural changes. In one of the bottles.”

Peter meanwhile was driving rapidly down the slope toward the Valley, where the Ventura Freeway crossed this one, in an interchange with almost limitless options. While Mark went through the bottles, opening each, emptying the contents into his palm and then returning them, Peter took the exit ramp for the Ventura Freeway east, then switched back to the San Diego Freeway north, then at the last instant took another downramp to the local streets. His rearview mirror told him that no one had followed him through all his maneuvers.

Mark had finished his first scanning of the case by now, and had found nothing. He was frowning at it, thinking it over, stroking his beard, considering the possibilities. Peter said, “Nothing?”

“I don’t believe it. Wait a minute. Inside a capsule!” He reached for a bottle, shook a dozen or more large capsules into his palm, then picked them up one at a time, shaking each next to his ear before putting it back in the bottle propped on his lap. The capsules were red and green, opaque, and contained something with the consistency of coarse sand; a faint rattling sound could be heard inside each.

Except one. Mark nodded in satisfaction when he reached it. “Right,” he said.

Peter seemed honestly surprised. “Did they really?”

“Really.” Dumping the rest of the capsules back into the bottle, Mark broke open the odd one, and there in his palm was the transmitter, a tiny bug no bigger than a shirt button.

“Those stupid bastards,” Peter said.

A cold rage lived deep within Mark, ready to be stirred by almost anything. It was rising now, making his face bonier beneath the beard, making his voice softer and colder. “What we should do,” he said, “is dump this whole case out into the street and let them decide if he dies first or they deal first.”

“No,” Peter said. “As long as he’s alive and unhurt, they have to be cautious against us.”

Mark held up the hand with the bug in it. “Like this?”

“Devious, but cautious. Go ahead and use your package.”

“Right.” Tucking the bug into his shirt pocket, Mark closed the pill-case and put it on the back seat, then brought forward the brown paper bag, which seemed fairly heavy. He opened the bag, then reached in to remove the twisty sealing the Baggie within. When the Baggie was opened, a stench filled the car.

“Jesus!” said Peter.

“Won’t be long.” Mark dropped the transmitter into the Baggie, sealed it again, and closed the paper bag. “Stop at a mailbox.”

They drove another two blocks, then Peter angled to a stop by a mailbox. Mark got out, dropped the paper bag into the mailbox, and then they drove on.