Wild Country

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 attaché 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 thought, if he packed no deadly physical threat, his opponents would oppose him on his own terms. With the Placidas woman he admired the view, picking their way around clumps of weed as they neared the farmhouse, where Marianne could hear Sorel and Maazel. Presently, Slaughter and Azeri left the barn to amble toward the others.

Sorel emerged from the house, holding the screen door for Maazel, talking all the while. "I suppose it will do," he was saying cheerily, "but there may be other parcels more secluded." Marianne saw no signal pass between him and Slaughter, but perhaps none was needed.

Mills/St. Denis moved smoothly into the conversation, doing what he did best: "We could help finance the parcel you choose, but you will create less of a local stir if you haggle a bit and offer minimum down payment."

Sorel seemed to consider it, nodding slowly, then patting his pockets. "Marianne, do you have my calculator?"

Her mouth went dry. "Why, ah — oh. I guess I left it in the car," she managed to say, and moved toward the Chevy as Sorel, astonishingly, turned away from her, making some reply to the little negotiator. So it was that Aron Maazel was the nearest man to her when Marianne stumbled and fell.

She scarcely cried out at all but Maazel saw her and hurried up, puffing, attaché case in hand. She reached down to her ankle with her left hand, her right snaking under her skirt, and Maazel's fat face held such genuine concern that she could not, at first, command her finger to pull the trigger. His bulk hid her gun hand from the others, however, and in that frozen moment the fat man was the only one who saw the gun in her hand' Maazel's expression turned ugly as he opened his mouth. That change of expression became deadly for Maazel as he faced the pistol at close range, because it was Marianne's release. She fired twice from a distance of three meters, unaware of what the others were doing, her universe suddenly contracting to the bulk of the man above her.

Her first round caught the fat man just below the ribs and did not even stagger him. The second struck him near the heart while he lifted the attaché case as if for a shield, except that he held it edge on, almost like he would hold a guitar, and before she could fire again the end of the little case erupted in a stuttering burst. Spurts of dust surrounded Marianne, and she felt a searing pain in her right breast, flinching away, firing again as Maazel rocked back with the recoil of his own weapon.

Sorel had turned away for two good reasons: first, he saw that Maazel would be near the woman so that St. Denis was his nearest target, and he raised his elbows as if to stretch himself lazily. It brought his right hand near enough to his chest to reach his shoulder holster with minimum effort. Second, with this move he placed St. Denis between himself and Azeri. The cavalier disinterest of St. Denis had to mean the little man was a confident killer — either that or a man so far out of his element that he did not even know he was lost. Sorel had the soccer pro's sense of where his opponents were. Slaughter could see to his own safety. Sorel kept Marianne at the edge of his peripheral vision and did not draw his own H&K parabellum until he saw St. Denis spin toward the sounds of gunfire.

Sorel's victim reacted very oddly for a gunsel, clapping his hands to the sides of his head in horror instead of going for a weapon. For Sorel the job was ridiculously easy as the smaller man turned his back. Mills took two rounds in the back, point-blank, the mushrooming slugs flinging him forward as Sorel skipped sideways to face Azeri.

Zoltan Azeri was very quick, very silent. At Marianne's first shot, he essayed a long shoulder roll, drawing his side-arm from its waistband holster. He came up on one knee with the pistol in his hand before Slaughter triggered his coldgas weapon, arm extended, flicking his wrist repeatedly in a series of chuffing reports. Azeri went down hard, writhing and kicking, and had time to scream once as he clawed at his neck. Sorel's single round at a range of five paces was really a coup de grace into the little man's forehead.

Maazel was still standing, howling something in a language none of them understood, but now the attach^ case slid from his hands as he fell heavily to his knees, then face forward, clutching his chest. "Finish him," Sorel called to Marianne, sprinting toward her.

But Maazel stopped breathing, voiding himself noisily as he died, and Sorel knew those signs well. Marianne Placidas tried to prop herself up with one arm, grasping her breast with the other hand. Then, blinking hard and muttering, she slid down very slowly to lie on her back.

"She froze," Slaughter said with no particular emotion as he picked up the attaché" case. "What the hell is this thing?"

Sorel reseated his own sidearm without looking as he studied the deadly case. "Wipe your prints from where you are touching it, fool. And wipe carefully; God knows how many more surprises that damned thing has inside it."

Slaughter frowned, but did as he was told. As Sorel knelt beside the woman he had sacrificed, he added, "Leave Maazel's prints. Her own prints are on her weapon. If the Canadians ever find anything, they will find that they killed each other."

"She don't look dead to me."

Sorel found the small wound, checked Marianne's breathing and raised her left eyelid, then stood up. "Not quite. But she took at least one round from that needle claymore, and they are usually loaded with alkaloids. Her eyes are dilated and her heart will soon race itself to death."

"Besides which, you can't fuck around in Oregon nursing her in a goddam farmhouse, and I damn sure ain't gonna do it."

"Very perceptive," said Felix Sorel, smiling. "We must wind this up quickly, put the car into the river near Portland, get back home, and maintain the position that I never left Mexico."

"Damn shame about the Placidas bimbo. How do we handle her?"

"Into the barn with everything, unless we find a well nearby."

"Didn't see one. What about the Ford?"

"Mierdal Of course." Sorel thought for a moment, then nodded. "I shall wipe my prints, plant Maazel's, and leave it with him. You check Saint Denis for weapons; he surely has one."

Slaughter soon discovered that their third victim carried not so much as a pocketknife; nor, for that matter, had Maazel carried anything in addition to his lethal needle claymore. Watching Sorel cut Azeri's leather holster away and appropriate his unfired pistol, Slaughter said, "Man, that little case is better'n a scattergun."

"It could clear out a cantina for you," Sorel agreed. He molded the dead hand of Maazel around the H&K weapon, fired it once more into the hillside to spread powder residue over Maazel's hand, then let the pistol fall into the fat man's jacket pocket. Then, cursing himself for almost forgetting, he fished the livesnaps from the man's inside pocket. He could destroy them later.

"I think I get it," Slaughter said. "The fat man blew away the little farts, and she nailed him, and then he offed her with that claymore gadget."

"Welcome to police forensics," said Sorel.

"So how do you explain my slugs?"

After a pause: "I suppose they came from a handgun that fell from the car while it tumbled down the ravine."

"Shit-I-reckon! What ravine?"

"I leave that to you, friend Slaughter. I believe you have gloves; use them to drive the Ford, with the woman in the seat beside you. It will be thought that she left the men in the barn, got away, and then lost consciousness while driving back. When you exit the Ford, I shall pick you up."

"I'm glad you're takin' care of that little detail," Slaughter said, grasping Maazel's feet as Sorel staggered under the load of the fat man's shoulders. He saw the woman shudder, her breathing now faint and rapid, and headed for the barn. "You got it all worked out," he said, grunting with the effort. "Sorel, you shoulda been a lawyer."

"Smile when you say that," replied Sorel, and held up his end of the burden.