Hellstrom's Hive

It had been a frantic and confused flight from JFK Airport—an hour’s layover at O’Hare, the quick transfer to a chartered flight at Portland and the noisy discomfort of a single engine all the way up the Columbia Gorge, and, then, as evening came down over them, the long haul diagonally across Oregon into the southeastern corner. Merrivale was in a violent mood when the plane set him down in Lakeview, and it was a mood amplified by the elation simmering in him.

When he had least expected it, in fact when he had resigned himself to a degrading personal defeat, they had called on him. They—a board whose existence he had known about, but never identified—they had chosen Joseph Merrivale as “our best hope to salvage something from this mess.”

With both Peruge and the Chief dead, who else did they have? This gave him a sense of personal power which, in turn, fed his anger. Who was he to be subjected to such discomfort?

The report passed to him quickly in Portland did little to mollify him. Peruge was exposed as criminally careless—spending the night with a woman like that! And while on a job!

The small plane landed in darkness and there was a gray station wagon with only a driver to greet him. The fact that the driver introduced himself as Waverly Gammel, SAIC (FBI-Special Agent in Charge) renewed the worries Merrivale had managed to keep largely suppressed on the flight, and this, too, fed his anger.

They could be throwing me to the wolves, he thought, as he got into the car beside the driver, leaving his luggage for the pilot to dump in the back. This thought had simmered throughout the long trip from Portland. He had looked down at the occasional winking of lights and thought bitterly that people were going about their ordinary business down there—eating, going to movies, watching television, visiting friends. It was a comforting, ordinary life which Merrivale often fantasized should have been his lot. The other side of his fantasy told him, though, that the silent pattern of safety below depended largely upon his efforts to maintain it. They did not know down there what he was doing for them, the sacrifices he made . . .

Even when you followed your orders to the letter, that didn’t help protect you one bit. The sudden promotion had not changed this. It was a universal law: the big fed upon the small and there was always a bigger to make one smaller.

Gammel was a man with a young face and iron gray hair, harshly chiseled planes in his face that suggested American Indian ancestry. The eyes were deeply set and shadowy in the light from the car’s dash. His voice was deep and revealed a faint twang. Texas?

“Bring me up to date,” Merrivale said as Gammel took the car out of the airport parking lot. The FBI man drove with an easy competence without concern for extending the car’s life. They bounced out a rough track from the airport and turned left onto blacktop.

“You know, of course, that there hasn’t been a word from the team you sent into the farm,” Gammel said.

“They told me in Portland,” Merrivale said, forgetting momentarily to impose his superior British accent. He added quickly, “Bloody lash-up!”

Gammel stopped for an arterial sign, turned left onto a wider blacktop, waited for a noisy bus to pass before continuing. “For the moment, we agree with your assessment that the Fosterville deputy is untrustworthy and that there may be other questionables, both in the sheriff’s office and in the community itself. Therefore, we are trusting no locals.”

“What’re you doing about the deputy?”

“He was taken along by your people, you know. He hasn’t been heard from, either.”

“What’re you telling the local authorities?”

“Spy stuff; hush-hush.”

“They’re willing to stand aside?”

“Not willing, but they’ve let discretion overcome their valor; the political suggestions we initiated on high have the general tone of absolute commands at this level.”

“Quite. Presumably, you’ve already invested the countryside around the farm.”

Gammel took his eyes off the road for a moment. Invested? Oh, yes: occupied. He said, “We’ve only brought in eleven men. It must remain at that for the moment. The Oregon Highway Patrol sent three cars and six men, but we haven’t let them fully into the picture. We’re mounting a limited operation on the rebuttable presumption that your office’s assessment is correct. However, at the slightest sign that you’ve misjudged the situation, we’ll be forced to return to our book of rules. Understood?”

Rebuttable presumption, Merrivale thought. It was his kind of phrase and he savored it, tucking it away for later personal use in other company. He did not, however, like the implications behind the phrase and he said so.

“Surely,” Gammel said, “you understand that we’re operating well outside conventions. That team you sent in there had no legal standing whatsoever. That was an assault force, pure and simple. You guys make up your own rules as you go along. We can’t always do that. My instructions are clear. I’m to do everything in my power to help you with a cover story and/or provide reasonable protection for your people as I am able, but—and this is a mighty large but—these instructions hold only for as long as your assessment of the situation is borne out.”

Merrivale listened in frozen silence. It looked more and more as though the board had not promoted him, but were throwing him to the wolves. He had been an associate of two people, now dead, whose policies no longer could be defended. The board had sent him out here in the field all alone, saying, “You’ll get every assistance from the FBI in the field. If it is consistent with policy, other backup will be sent along as you request it.”

Gobbledygook!

He was one clear target if things went any more sour. As though that were possible! He could almost hear the reorganization gears grinding back in Baltimore and Washington. Well, you knew what kind of a business this was when you got into it, Merrivale. They’d look professionally sorrowful while they brought up that standard phrase always used for such occasions: In this business, you take your lumps when that’s required of you.

That was the situation. No doubt of it. If the situation could be salvaged, he’d do that, but first he had to salvage himself. “Bloody hell!” he muttered and meant every syllable of it. “Let’s have the rest of it. What’ve you managed to learn about my people?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Merrivale was outraged. He turned, studied Gammel’s face in the light of an oncoming car. The FBI man held his features immobile, a dark piece of stone for all the emotion showing.

“I would like that nothing explained, provided you’re able to explain it,” Merrivale said, his tone distant and acid.

“As per our instructions,” Gammel said, “we have been waiting for you.”

Just following orders, Merrivale thought.

He could see the implications in that. There was going to be only one responsible target in this situation. That was in Gammel’s orders, too. No doubt of it. No bloody doubt of it.

“I find this almost inconceivable,” Merrivale said. He turned, looking out at the darkness flashing with vague movements on his right as the car sped toward Fosterville. He could make out that they were passing through open countryside, the road climbing slightly, dim shapes of hills ahead in starlight. Few other cars shared the road. The dark landscape carried a sense of loneliness which rubbed at Merrivale’s feelings of abandonment.

“Let’s not misunderstand each other,” Gammel said. “I came out here alone to pick you up just so we could talk openly.” Gammel glanced at Merrivale. The poor sod was in the jaws of the vise, no mistaking that. Was he just now becoming aware of it?

“Then why aren’t you talking openly?” Merrivale demanded.

He’s more on the attack than the situation requires, Gammel thought. Does that mean he has information that might throw his agency’s position into doubt? I wonder . . .

“I’m doing my best within my instructions,” Gammel said. “I had less than an hour at Fosterville before they signaled that you’d be coming in at Lakeview. I had to rush like hell to get there. They said you were coming in at Lakeview because it had the nearest field with lights. Was that it, or was there another reason?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m still wondering about our own casualties—up at the Sisters.”

“Oh—yes, of course. That was in the report I had at Portland. There’s still nothing conclusive or I’d have mentioned it. The fire played bloody hob with the wreckage. It could’ve been lightning and a fuel explosion. They said the pilot should’ve gone up through the Columbia Gorge, but he was trying to save time by flying direct.”

“They haven’t ruled out sabotage?”

“They have not. High probability if you ask me. Damn stupid kind of coincidence, don’t you think?”

“We’re acting on that assumption,” Gammel said.

“What’ve you done with your eleven men and the patrol?” Merrivale asked.

“I’ve dispatched three cars—two men each. One of the Oregon Highway Patrol cars with three officers was sent around to the south. That’s going to take a little time. For part of that trip they will be out of range of the radio relay equipment.”

“But what are these three cars doing?”

“We’ve set up a communications base in the motel at Fosterville. The cars are maintaining contact with that base at regular intervals. My cars are deployed between Fosterville and the farm, and they—”

“Two cars between town and the farm?”

“No, three cars. The OHP car is a fourth. My three cars are deployed in a wide surveillance pattern—one on a Forest Service road to the east and the other two spaced along the actual road to the farm. They were instructed to approach no closer than two miles.”

“Two miles?”

“Correct, and they were told to stay in their cars.”

“But two miles—”

“When we’re fairly certain of what we’re doing and what we’re up against, we don’t mind taking risks,” Gammel said. “But this case appears to be nothing but uncertainties.” He spoke in a level voice, trying to hold his temper. Merrivale’s carping was becoming insufferable. Didn’t he realize he might be wearing Gammel’s own handcuffs before another twenty-four hours was out? They might have to arrest Merrivale just to save the FBI’s neck. What did this bastard expect?

“But two—”

“You’ve lost how many people in there?” Gammel demanded, not trying to hide his anger now. “Twelve? Fourteen? I’m told there were nine people in that team you sent in today and you lost at least one team before that. Do you take us for morons?”

“Fourteen, counting Dzule Peruge,” Merrivale said. “Your ability to count is unimpaired.” In the dim green light of the dash, he noted a muscle working along Gammel’s jaw and the tense-knuckled way the man gripped the wheel as he drove.

“So we have one certainly dead, thirteen missing, and our own planeload down in the Sisters; that’s twenty in all. You dare ask me why I haven’t sent my people in there after yours? If I had my way, we’d have a regiment of marines on hand and we’d be doing just that, but I don’t have my way. Why don’t I have my way? Because this whole thing smells of a lash-up by your people! And if it explodes, we’re not going to get burned in the blast. Is that clear enough for you? Is that open enough?”

“Bloody pack of cowards,” Merrivale muttered.

Gammel suddenly swerved the car off the road onto the parking strip, skidded to a stop in gravel, set the hand brake with an angry rasping of its latch, and turned off the lights and the motor. He whirled on the seat to face Merrivale. “Look, you! I understand the hot seat you’re on; at least, I have a good idea of the bind you’re in. But my agency has not been in this from the first, although it should have been! Now, if that turns out to be a nest of commies up there, we’ll mop it up and have all the help we need. If it turns out to be an arm of a major industry in this country trying to protect a new invention from the vultures you represent, that is an entirely different ball game.”

“What do you mean - industry—new invention?”

“You know goddamned well what I mean! We didn’t sit around on our asses accepting you people as our only source of information.”

If they have the whole story, why’re they still helping us? Merrivale wondered.

As though he’d heard the question, Gammel said, “Our position in this is to try to keep the shit from hitting the fan. You rub dirt on your outfit and you rub dirt on the whole government. Now, if you’ve been sent out here as a patsy, I can sympathize. But there’s no sense in our fighting each other. If this thing’s ready to blow and you’re here to take the rap, you’d better level with me right now. Are you?”

Taken aback by Gammel’s sudden stop and attack, Merrivale sputtered a moment; then, “Now, see here! If you—”

“Are you here to take the rap?”

“Of course not!”

“Bullshit!” Gammel shook his head. “You think we don’t have our own suspicions about why your boss took the short road to hell?”

“The short road to—”

“Jumped out of that goddamned window! Are you their patsy?”

“I was sent here with the understanding that you would provide full cooperation until we could field new teams,” Merrivale said, speaking stiffly. “I don’t find your present attitude cooperative in the least.”

Still not mollified, Gammel said, “Tell me—yes or no—do you have new information that dramatically alters your original assessment?”

“Of course not!”

“Nothing new to tell me?”

“I will not be cross-examined by you,” Merrivale protested. “You know as much about this situation as I do. More! You’ve at least been on the scene.”

“I hope you’re telling the truth,” Gammel said. “If you aren’t, I personally will supervise whatever action we have to take to fry you.” He turned, restarted the car, eased back onto the highway. He turned on his lights as he moved and they startled a big black and white cow that had wandered onto the verge. It galumphed ahead of them for several hundred feet before diving off into the open grassland beside the road.

Considerably subdued and now frightened at the position he might be in if he had no cooperation at all from the FBI, Merrivale said, “I’m truly sorry if I’ve offended you. As you can imagine, I’ve been under somewhat of a strain. First the Chief’s death and then the orders to take over here personally. No sleep really since this all started.”

“Have you eaten?”

“On the plane from Chicago.”

“We can get you something at our headquarters in the motel.” Gammel reached for the microphone under the dash. “I’ll have them lay on coffee and sandwiches. What would you—”

“No need for that,” Merrivale said, feeling somewhat better. Gammel obviously was trying to get them back on a friendly footing. That made sense. Merrivale cleared his throat. “What sort of action plan have you devised?”

“We do only a minimum in the dark. We wait for morning and reconnoiter in daylight and under constant radio contact with base. That’s clearly indicated until we find out what the hell has happened up there. We can’t trust the local law yet. I’ve even been told to play it cool with the OHP. Our primary concern is to clarify some of this water that’s been badly muddied up to now.”

Muddied by our people, of course, Merrivale thought. The FBI were still a bunch of bloody snobs. He said, “Nothing more tonight?”

“It didn’t strike me as advisable to run any more risks than absolutely necessary. We’ll have more muscle by morning, anyway.”

Merrivale brightened. “More people?”

“Two marine choppers coming up from San Francisco.”

“You ordered them?”

“We’re still covering for you,” Gammel said. He turned, grinned. “They are for surveillance and/or transportation only. We stretched our good-will account considerably to get them with no better explanation than we could give at the time.”

“Very well,” Merrivale said. “Portland told me you had no telephone contact with the farm. Is that situation the same?”

“The line’s out,” Gammel said. “Probably cut by your people when they went in. We’ll have a repair crew out in the morning. Our own people, of course.”

“I see. Then I concur with your field decisions, subject, naturally, to review when we reach your headquarters. They may have more recent information.”

“They’d have called me,” Gammel said. He tapped the radio under the dash, thinking: They’ve sent a stuffed shirt. He’s a patsy for sure and the poor bastard may not even know it.