"Yes," she said. She looked around at the saw-tooth sithouettes of the surrounding mountains against the midnight sky full of stars, and shivered. She pulled up her long gloves to cover her bare arms, hugging herself against the cold. "Well, we had better get to work."
"Yes," I said. "That was one nice thing about the war. You could leave them where they fell."
It took us two trips to get everything out of the truck that did not belong there. Driving away, we did not speak for several miles. Presently she turned the rearview mirror towards her and started combing the dust and cobwebs out of her hair by the glow of the dashboard. I heard a small sound and glanced at her. She was laughing.
"What's funny now?" I asked. -
"Mac said you'd know what to do."
I didn't really think it was very funny. "I appreciate his confidence in me. When did he say this?"
"We hadn't expected to make the touch so easily or so soon. I telephoned him long distance for instructions. That is why I was not waiting for you in the studio when you came. Also, I had to wear her coat and drive her car to her motel to pack her things."
"What else did Mac say?"
She smiled at me. "He said that, having lived here so long, you should know where to dig a nice deep grave."
I said, "Mac should try digging graves in this country some time. That adobe clay is like rock, which is why I settled for a ready-made hole. How deep a grave did he want?"
"Two weeks deep," Tina said. "Maybe three weeks, but certainly two."
"What happens-then?"
"Everything is explained, very quietly, to the satisfaction of the police."
"This I want to see. How do you go about explaining dead bodies in peacetime?"
She laughed. "You think this is peace, my darling? What a beautiful and quiet life you people must lead out here in the West-with gauze over your eyes and cotton in your ears!" She took the purse from her lap, groped inside, brought out a small card, and held it out to me. "We found this among the Herrera's belongings. It only confirmed what we already knew, but I saved it to show to you. Stop the car, chйri. It is time we talked."
CHAPTER 14
THE card identified a female person by the code name of Dolores, with thumbprint and physical description, and stated that she was to be given any assistance she might require in the pursuit of her assigned mission. The card didn't state what that mission might have been. I gave it back.
"So?"
Tina looked surprised. "That's right." she said. "I forget, you have not fought this enemy. They were our noble friends and allies in those days. Well, this is the standard membership card for the action groups, as opposed to the groups of intellectuals who sit around and drink tea and talk about Marx and feel terribly wicked… No, not standard. I take that back. This is a very special card for a very special group. There are very few members of this group, Liebchen. Almost as few as there were of us. And the qualifications are the same." She glanced at me. "Do you understand what I mean?"
I had a little of the feeling that, I suppose, a Martian might have upon unexpectedly bumping into a nice, green, goggle-eyed fellow-Martian in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel in New York, or the Hollywood Knickerbocker.
"That kid?" I said. "Hell, she looked as if she wouldn't hurt a fly. I thought I could spot anyone in our line of work across a four-lane boulevard on a dark night."
"For a child who would not hurt a fly, she was well provided with fly-swatters, was she not? You are soft," Tina murmured, "your senses have gone to sleep. And she was good, one of their best. We expected a great deal of trouble, Loris and I. And as for her age, my sweet, how old was I when we met?"
It was starting to make sense. I should have known that Mac wouldn't have authorized the death of anyone whose removal wasn't dictated by high strategic necessity, whatever that might mean in peacetime.
"We're not avenging angels," I'd heard him say once in London, "and we're not judges of right and wrong. It would satis1~' my soul to sign the death warrant of every concentration-camp official in the Third Reich, for instance, but it wouldn't contribute much towards winning the war. We're not in business to satisfy my soul or anybody else's. Keep that in mind."
There was, of course, one exception to this rule. Whether to satisfy our souls or prosecute the war, we did try for Hitler himself-that is, certain optimists and egotists among us did, on three different occasions. I had no part in that. It was on a voluntary basis, and I'd taken a look at the preliminary reports on the job and come to the conclusion that it couldn't be done, at least not by me. I wasn't going to get myself killed volunteering for the impossible, although under orders I'll stick my neck out as far as anybody.
After the third attempt-from which, like the first two, no one returned-counter-intelligence started hearing of queries from the continent, reaching the German espionage apparatus in Britain, concerning the possible existence of an Allied Mordgruppe aimed at Der Fuehrer. This, of course, although a little off the beam, wouldn't do at all. For the Germans to suspect the existence of anything remotely resembling our organization-whether aimed at Hitler or anybody else- was bad enough; what really worried Mac, however, was the possibility of the rumor getting back to the States.
All the Germans could do, aside from taking a few precautions, was squawk; but the outraged moralists back home could put us out of business in short order. Killing Nazis was very commendable, to be sure, but it must be done, they'd cry, according to the rules of civilized warfare: this Mordgruppe sort of thing was dreadful, besides being very bad propaganda for our side. I wonder just how many good men and good ideas were sacrificed before the little shiny, cellophanewrapped god of propaganda. There were times when I got the distinct feeling that even winning the damn war was frowned upon because it might have an adverse effect upon our public relations somewhere, perhaps in Germany or Japan.
Anyway, our activities were sharply curtailed for several months, and all further volunteers for the Big One, as we called it, were told to relax and forget it; henceforth we'd confine our attentions to less conspicuous targets. -
Tina was speaking: "Do you think Mac is the only one ever to think of such a scheme, Eric? They have their specialists in death, also, and Herrera was one of them. And she was working very hard. But now she will disappear. She has checked out of her motel. Her clothes and possessions will disappear. Her car will stand unrecognized on an Alburquerque used-car lot with new paint and new identifying numbers, eventually to be sold to some honest citizen. And I, too, will disappear. But I will disappear without my car, with nothing but the clothes on my back and the purse in my hand. My husband will look for me at the hotel; he will be very upset when he does not find me-perhaps even upset enough to notify the police. Maybe it will be announced in the newspapers shortly that I have been found dead somewhere, the victim of a bullet from a certain type of.38 Special revolver, or the blade of a certain type of knife. And Herrera's people, Eric, what will they think? What would you think, in their place?"
"That you'd tangled with the kid and come off second best. That's assuming they don't know you very well."
She laughed. "It is sweet of you to flatter me. But we hope you are right. They probably already know who I am, who Loris is. If they don't, they will be permitted to find out. They will assume that Herrera met me in the line of business and was forced to dispose of me. They will guess that she went into hiding to see if there would be trouble or if it was safe for her to proceed with her job. They will wait to hear from her, for a reasonable period, at least. Meanwhile, we have gained time. In a week, Amos Darrel will have his report ready and delivered in Washington. He will have adequate protection there."