The Silencers

Naldi looked at the empty capsule bitterly and flung it aside. "I would say yes, particularly if there's a set of tire chains to fit… What about it, Mrs. Hendricks?"

Gail said, "There are chains, you-all ought to know that."

Naldi frowned. "Why should we know that?"

"Well, after all, Wegma

"I have no knowledge of any such attempt," Naldi said. "Wegma

The man with the gun shook his head. "I haven't been over that pass in months, nor sent anybody."

"Gunther?"

"Not me. I've been laying low since that trouble in Juarez; I've had no contact with anybody. Hell, I just crossed the border a few hours ago, and almost got caught in a dragnet at that!"

Naldi said, "Describe the incident, Mrs. Hendricks."

"Well, a man in a big gray car followed us from El Paso and… what's the matter?"

Wegma

"Why, yes. An Oldsmobile with Texas license plates." Wegma

He stopped gri

I felt kind of sorry for her, standing there looking startled and indignant. For a sophisticated woman, she was very naive in some ways. She'd really expected they wouldn't hurt me, I guess. She'd even expected that they would let her go.

XXII

It was cold, lying in the back of the truck, face down, tied hand and foot. The fact that the piled-up duffel bags, suitcases, and supplies at the side of the narrow space barely left room for the two of us on the mattress didn't add to our comfort, although it did keep us from rolling around too much as the truck bounced and swayed.

Behind us, at the corner where the tailgate joined the side, Wegma

I could feel Gail shivering beside me. She'd said nothing since we left the lodge. When you came right down to it, there wasn't a lot she could say-she'd pulled a double cross and it had backfired. The laugh, if any, was on her. For some reason I didn't feel very much like laughing. I managed to get a grip on the sleeping bag lying nearby, but when I tried to work it over us, for warmth, Wegma

"None of that," he said. "No covers. I want to see every knot clearly, Mr. Helm."

"Hell," I said, "you can't see anything in here, man."

This wasn't strictly true. The windows of the canopy, coated as they were with frost, were begi

"I can see enough," Wegma

I was glad to have him talking at last. There were a couple of theories about him I wanted to check.

I said, "You're a pro, aren't you? Your name isn't Wegma

He hesitated; then I guess he decided it wouldn't hurt to relax and be himself for a little. Any cover is a strain to keep up, no matter how long you've been at it.

"Somebody must mind the store," he said, "while the children play their happy, destructive little games. Come to that, what are you doing here, Mr. Helm? If what the lady says is true, why would anybody send a good man after a flunky like Gunther? I know you're a pretty good man. That's why I let him have a little fun with you back there, I wanted the chance to size you up."

"Thanks," I said, "for the compliment, if nothing else. As for the question, do you get to ask why in your outfit? That's not the way I heard it."

"It is a point," he said. "But it is not an answer."

"Maybe they don't know he's a flunky," I said, choosing my words carefully. "Maybe they think he's the big wheel, the head man for this area, the fellow known as Cowboy. I told my chief he didn't have the weight for it. My chief said it wasn't our job to put him on the scales. Heavy or light, the word from Washington was Gunther."

"That is very interesting," Wegma

"And Naldi?"

"Oh, Dr. Naldi is what you would call the inside man, the mad professor, you might say, who betrayed his country because of a wild theory. And stupid Hank Wegma

I laughed shortly. "I think I've been in the business as long as you, Wegma

"It is the only way," he said. "You understand. There is nothing personal."

"Sure," I said. "I'd do it myself, if the orders were to break clean and leave no witnesses."

"I am glad you understand."

Beside me, Gail stirred slightly, listening to this. A little intake of breath said she was about to speak, to ask a question, then she sighed and was still again. The truck jolted to an abrupt halt and somebody flung open the rear. Next there was the business of untying our feet and getting us unloaded, but I didn't pay too much attention to the details. Even if there was a break, I wasn't ready to take advantage of it yet. Besides, I was looking at the contraption they had installed in the church steeple.

Maybe it was a fu

I'd guessed we were up on the Sierra Blanca somewhere, but we weren't quite as high as I'd thought. It had seemed, riding in back all trussed up, that we'd done enough climbing to be well above timber line, but there were still heavy stands of pine around us. The little forgotten town was wedged into a fold in the mountainside which opened to the west. There were some board shacks still standing, weathered silvery gray. A couple of stone huts remained almost intact, sturdily built of irregular pieces of local rock laid up carefully, Indian fashion, with mud mortar or no mortar at all. Roofless shells and stumps of walls, half buried in the snow, showed where other houses had been. Up the hillside, above the pines, was at least one mine shaft; there were probably others.