Chapter Twenty-six

WHERE I trained during the war, they had a subject called preparedness or alertness or some such title. They've toned it down since. I guess it was too rough for peacetime; people sometimes got hurt. When I took my refresher course recently, we just got a couple of inspirational lectures on the subject.

The way it was done in wartime was this: you'd be walking innocently between buildings at the school, or having a beer at the canteen, and you'd be chatting with an off-duty instructor in a friendly manner. Suddenly, smiling, patting you on the back and telling you what a swell guy you were and how he'd never had a pupil like you, he'd produce an unloaded gun and shove it into your side. At least you hoped the gun was unloaded. At that place you were never quite sure. And it wasn't just the instructors; it could be the guy you bunked with, or the pretty girl at the canteen. Your job was to react and react fast, even if it was Mac himself. If you wasted any time in conversation, you flunked the course.

She'd made the usual two mistakes the inexperienced make with a gun: she'd got in too close-why use a gun at all if you're going to work at knife range?-and she'd pointed a gun at a man she wasn't ready to kill. After all, she wanted the films. Dead, I was going to be no use in helping her find them. I won't say I figured this out in detail. You just kind of sense if the climate is favorable, so to speak: have you got a chance or haven't you?

It took me no more time than required to let go the camera I was holding; then various articles of furniture, one camera, and one pistol, went in various directions. Elin von Hoffman doubled over abruptly, hugging herself where-after striking the gun aside-I'd driven four fingers into her, rigid and together, like the blade of a dagger. I checked myself barely in time to stop the chopping, edge-of-the-hand blow to the neck that was supposed to terminate this particular exercise.

Then I stood there, watching her go to her knees, gagging for breath. I suppose disillusionment is the proper word for what I felt, now that I had time to do some feeling about it. Anger and incredulity were there, too, and a kind of grief. I'd never made a pass at this girl-hadn't even thought of her in those terms-but in some way she'd been a bright and reassuring light in a dark business, something clean and lovely and innocent to remind me that somewhere there was a different kind of world where lived a different kind of people… But obviously there wasn't. It was all the same world, and if you wanted to survive in it, you could damn well keep your guard up. If an angel came down from heaven with a genuine, certified halo, you were still a sucker to turn your back.

I sighed, and set the furniture aright, and picked up and pocketed her gun-one of those little Spanish automatics-and came back to her.

"Get up," I said.

She got up slowly and steadied herself against the table. Presently she smoothed down her gray sweater and reached up to tuck back an escaping wisp of hair. Strangely, she was still beautiful, if a little pale. She rubbed her midsection ruefully, and gave a small laugh.

"That was quite a fine demonstration, Cousin Matthias," she said. "I must say, I did not expect… now I really believe you are a dangerous man, as I have been told."

"Thanks," I said. "May I ask how you figure in all this, Cousin Elin?"

"Why," she said calmly, "I am the person who was to get the films from you, perhaps on the train or plane going south. You did not know we were to travel south together, did you? But it would not have been too difficult to arrange, I think. You did not find me unattractive. Or if not then, I would have taken them in Stockholm, or at Torsдter… That was before you suddenly decided to ship them off to America and we had to change our plans."

I was thinking that I should have known. Lou had tried to warn me, for one thing. And then there was the fact that last night, after learning what I planned to do with the films, Lou must have passed the word to somebody. Yet she had not been out of my sight all evening; she'd hardly been out of my hearing, except once at the dinner party when she'd been talking to Elin.

I looked at the girl before me. "Just out of curiosity, is there really such a person as Colonel Stjernhjelm, or did you make him up? And are we really related?"

She laughed. "Colonel Stjernhjelm certainly does exist; he would be indignant to hear that you doubted it. I went to considerable trouble to make his acquaintance. And of course we are related. Sweden is a small country. I do not think there are any of the old families that cannot trace a relationship somewhere." She looked at me and smiled. "You have a reproachful expression, Cousin Matthias. I deceived you, if not in this respect, in others. Well, did you not try to deceive me, too, pretending to be a nice Airierican photographer who didn't know a word of Swedish?" She continued to smile, watching me. "Vad gцr vi nu?" she asked.

"What do we do now?" I translated. "Why, now we pay a visit to Mister Caselius. Nu gцr vi visit hos Herr Caselius."

She shook her head gently. "You are much too optimistic. Just because you took my gun away from me… I should not have tried to force ~ou with the gun. It was a mistake. I should have followed my instructions, but I found them distasteful. But one cannot be squeamish in this work, can one, Cousin?"

"I'm interested," I said. "Let's hear more about your instructions."

She said, "I will have to put my hand in my pocket. I am not reaching for a weapon. Please do not hit me again." She didn't wait for a response, but reached down and came up with a small bundle, which she spread on the table. "I think you will recognize these," she said.

I looked. There was a wedding ring, a rather nice engagement diamond, a long cigarette holder, and the large linen handkerchief, no longer quite clean and fresh, that I'd lent to Lou Taylor a few hours ago so that she could dry her eyes. My first feeling was relief. Anyway, she was still alive. At least that was what I was supposed to think.

"Yes," I said. "I recognize them. Where is she?"

"The woman is in our hands. I am to tell you that if the films are not delivered to me, and if I do not appear with them at a certain place within a certain fairly short time, she will die. She will suffer first, and then she will die."

I looked at her, speaking her bloodthirsty lines with a kind of childish innocence. It was obvious that she didn't really know what suffering meant, and if she'd ever seen death, it had been neat and tidy, in a setting of sad organ music and lovely flowers. She was playing an exciting game involving dangerous weapons and melodramatic speeches and, no doubt, pure, rebellious motives of one kind or another. She had a Cause, I was sure. They always do. At that age, they're always saving the world, or some small part of it, from something. I suppose it's a good thing, in a way, even if it makes them suckers for any sharpie with a fast line of talk. Certainly, if the world ever is saved, it'll be by somebody young enough not to know that it can't be done.

As for the threat itself, it was all I could do not to laugh in her face. I mean, they must have been watching TV or something. It was the corny, classic move: grab the heroine and immediately the hero, previously a raging tiger, be-comes a little woolly lamb, bleating his concern for his beloved.

I suppose that's okay for the kids who watch those shows. In real life, it doesn't work quite like that. I mean, I'd been sent to do a job, and when you send a man like me to do a job you don't expect him to louse it up any time somebody happens to threaten some stray female he happens to like. Sara Lundgren was dead. She'd had it coming, in a sense; but Vance was dead, too, and he'd been a pretty good man. Others had died, and others were going to die, and if one of them had to be Lou Taylor, it was tough. I'd feel real bad about it, but sentiment is one thing and business is another. I might even have to die myself. I'd feel like hell about that, too.