'I've never tried,' I said. 'So I don't know.'
'For Christ's sake!' he said. 'What are you going to do if you do come up against Gatt on even terms, as you call it? Kiss him to death?'
'I don't know,' I said. 'I'll see when the time comes. I believe in handling situations as they happen.'
He passed his hand over his face in a bemused way and looked at me for a long time without saying anything. He took a deep breath. 'Let me outline a hypothetical situation,' he said mildly. 'Let us suppose that you've managed to separate Jack from his bodyguards, and that's a pretty foolish supposition in the first place, And let us suppose that there the two of you are, a pair of city slickers, babes in the wood.' He stuck out a rigid finger. The first -- and last -- thing you'd know was that Jack had bush-whacked you with a lupara, and you'd be in no condition to handle any situation.'
'Has Gatt ever killed anyone himself?' I asked.
'I'd guess so. He came up through the ranks in the Organization. Served his apprenticeship, you might say. Hell have done a killing or two in his younger days.'
'That's a long time ago,' I observed. 'Maybe he's out of practice.'
'Agh, there's no talking to you,' said Pat in a choked voice. 'If you have any brains you'll go back where you came from. I have to stick around, but at least I know what the score is. and I get paid for it. But you're the kind of guy that Kipling wrote about -- 'If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, then maybe you don't know what the hell is going on.''
I laughed. 'You have quite a talent for parody.'
'I'm not as good as Fallon,' he said gloomily. 'He's turned this whole operation into a parody of security. I used the bug Gatt planted on us to feed him a queer line, and what does Fallon do? He stages a goddamn TV spectacular, for God's sake! I wouldn't be surprised, when you fly down to that airstrip he's built, if you don't find the CBS cameras already rolling and hooked up into a coast-to-coast broadcast -- and a line of Rockettes from Radio City to give added interest. Every paisano in Mexico knows what's going on. Gatt doesn't have to bug us to find out what we're doing; all he has to do is to ask at any street corner.'
'It's a tough life,' I said sympathetically. 'Does Fallon usually behave like this?'
Harris shook his head. 'I don't know what's got into him. He's turned over control of his affairs to his brother -- given him power of attorney. His brother's a nice enough guy, but I wouldn't trust anyone that far with a hundred million bucks. He's thinking of nothing else but finding this city.'
'I don't know about that,' I said thoughtfully. 'He seems to be worried about something else. He goes a bit dreamy at unexpected moments.'
'I've noticed that, too. Something's bugging him, but he hasn't let me in on it.' Harris seemed resentful at the idea that something was being kept from him. He rose to his feet and stretched. 'I'm going to bed -- there's work to do tomorrow.'
IV
So there it was again!
First Sheila, and now Pat Harris. He hadn't said it as bluntly as Sheila, but he'd said it nevertheless. Apparently, my exterior appearance and mannerisms gave a good imitation of Caspar Milquetoast -- the nine-to- fiver, the commuter par excellence. The trouble was that I wasn't at all sure that the interior didn't match the exterior.
Gatt, from Pat's description, was lethal. Maybe he wouldn't shoot anyone just to make bets on which way he'd fall, but lie might if there was a dollar profit in it. I began to feel queasy at the thought of going up against him, but I knew I couldn't turn back now.
Pat's assessment of Halstead was quite interesting, too, and I wondered how much Katherine knew about her husband. I think she loved him -- in fact, I was sure of it. No woman in her right mind would tolerate such a man otherwise, but maybe I was prejudiced. At any rate, she consistently took his side in any argument he had with Fallon, The very picture of a faithful wife. I went to sleep thinking about her.
Six
We went to Camp One in Fallon's flying office -- a Lear executive jet. Pat Harris didn't come with us -- his job was to keep tabs on Gatt -- so there were just four passengers, Fallon, the Halsteads and myself. Fallon and Halstead engaged in another of their interminable professional discussions, and Katherine Halstead read a magazine. Halstead had done a bit of manoeuvring when we entered the plane and Katherine was sitting on the other side of him and as far from me as it was possible to get. I couldn't talk to her without shouting across a technical argument so I turned my attention to the ground.
Quintana Roo, seen from .the air, looked like a piece of mouldy cheese. The solid vegetative cover was broken only .occasionally by a clearing which showed as a dirty whitish-grey among the virulent green of the trees. I did not see a single water-course, no rivers and not even a stream, and I began to appreciate Halstead's point of view about the difficulties of archeological exploration in the tropics.
At one point Fallon broke off his discussion to speak with the pilot on the intercom, and the plane wheeled slowly and began to descend. He turned to me and said, 'We'll have a look at Camp Two.'
Even from a thousand feet the forest looked solid enough to walk on without touching ground. There could have been a city the size of London under that sea of green and you'd never see it. I reminded myself not to be so bloody cocky in the future about things I knew nothing about. Halstead might be a faker, if what Pat Harris said was true, but a faker, of all people, must have a knowledge of his field. He had been right when he had said that this was going to be a tough job.
Camp Two came and went before I had a chance to get a good look at it, but the plane banked and turned and we orbited the site, standing on one wingtip. There wasn't much to see: just another clearing with half a dozen prefabricated huts and some minuscule figures which waved their arms. The jet couldn't land there, but that wasn't the intention. We straightened on course and rose higher, heading for the coast and Camp One.
About twenty minutes and eighty miles later we were over the sea and curving back over the white surf and gleaming beaches to touch down at the airstrip at Camp One. The jet bumped a bit in the coastal turbulence but put down gently and rolled to a stop at the further end of the strip, then wheeled and taxied to a halt in front of a hangar. As I left the plane the heat, after the air-conditioned comfort of the flight, was like the sudden blow of a
