The pickup was pulling off now. It stopped a scant twenty feet from the road. Romstead slowed. The driver was hatless, and he’d taken off his sunglasses as he leaned out the window to wave, a man with prematurely gray hair and a lean, alert face stamped with a questing intelligence. During their college years Brooks had wanted to be an actor; his only drawback was an inability, or unwillingness, to learn lines, when it was so much more fun to make them up himself. Give him one cue, and he’d ad-lib the whole play. Romstead sighed.
He slowed a little as the pickup fell in behind them. They had only four miles now to the transfer point. The road ran straight ahead across absolutely flat terrain unbroken by any irregularity except for another low hummock or stony ridge far ahead. Kessler had chosen his spot well. With his telescope he could see for miles in any direction across a landscape where nothing could be concealed. They and the pickup were the only vehicles anywhere in the immensity of it. Three miles.
Okay, he thought; air time. He began to whistle “Sweet Georgia Brown,” drumming the beat on the wheel. Paulette Carmody raised her head and stared at him in horrified disbelief. He grinned and winked and cupped an ear in the listening gesture.
“My God, aren’t you even scared?” she asked.
“Relax,” he replied. He had no idea where the bug was, but it didn’t matter. He’d be heard. And of course, there’d be another in the trunk to monitor Brooks. “They’re not going to blow it while the money’s still in the pickup, that’s for sure. And I don’t think they’re going to blow it afterward either.”
She swallowed, and moistened her lips. He could see her wanting desperately to hope but not daring to. “What—what do you mean?”
“Intelligence slipup. Theirs is pretty good, but they didn’t go quite far enough. They investigated you, and Jerome Carmody, and me and my background, but they should have done just a little checking into Brookie’s background, too.”
Two point six to go. Her eyes were imploring. Her lips formed “Please,” but nothing came out. He went on. “That’s the reason I kept nudging him on with that bat sweat about its being impossible, that the FBI would find a way to ring in one of their men. I wanted him to insist on Brooks and get him. You see, Brookie and I used to be a team in an outfit that forgot more dirty tricks last week than Kessler’ll know in a lifetime—”
She nodded, and said in a small voice. “I thought so. The CIA.”
“You said it; I didn’t. Anyway, we operated in Central and South America because we’re both bilingual in Spanish and English. We’ve been through kidnappings before—from both sides of the fence, whether you agree with it or not. So I don’t think they’re going to blow this car. I know what I’d do if they had Brookie, and our minds always seemed to operate along the same lines. I would have told you before, but it had to wait till they were committed. They can’t call it off now, so they’re stuck with Brookie. Right, Kessler?”
It was less than two miles now. She had lowered her head again, and her hands were clenching and unclenching. He looked back. Carroll was hanging a steady quarter mile behind. The road, if you could call it that, ran straight on with nothing to break the monotony of the desert floor except the low stony ridge coming up on their right. The seeds of doubt should be planted now, they had a few minutes to germinate, and now it would all depend on Carroll. He reached out a hand and squeezed Paulette’s arm. She raised her head, tried to force a semblance of a smile, and checked the odometer again. He glanced at it. It read 86.8. Nine-tenths to go.
He looked off to the left toward the three hills that resembled truncated cones. One of those was bound to be where Kessler was. There was no real elevation anywhere off to the right, and anyway that hummock or ridge was coming up on that side not more than two hundred yards off the road—
Panic hit him then for an instant, along with a surge of guilt and rage at his own stupidity. Maybe it was already too late, and he’d killed the friend behind him. He’d been so intent on the other thing he’d missed it entirely. He’d blown it. The odometer read 87.1, and the .1 was already past the center and moving up. He cut the throttle and rode the brake. It would look like a crash stop to them, so he said, “Damn! Almost overran it.”
Paulette Carmody jerked her head around and was opening her mouth to speak when he got a finger to his lips and gave a violent shake of the head. He looked at the odometer again as they came to a full stop, and then at the nearest point on the ridge. Call it nine hundred yards. Maybe he’d saved it. Just maybe. The rifle would be sighted in for two hundred, and changing the elevation on the scope was guesswork without a few rounds to check it, but the man, whichever one he was, was plenty good. He’d seen some of his work.
How in hell could he have fallen for that rock-slide story? He’d heard the car go off toward the north, hadn’t he, and then a little later another car go by them headed south? Kessler couldn’t keep that communications frequency jammed for very long at a time or the FBI would use their direction finders to zero in on his jamming transmitter, and anyway they had to keep Carroll from getting back to the highway for longer than any hour or two. He should have seen all that, but he’d been too wrapped up in some way to save his own neck.
He looked back through the settling dust of their passage. The pickup was stopped a hundred yards behind them, and Carroll Brooks was getting out.
Pal, he thought, this could be the biggest role you ever played; just pick up your cues and ad-lib the hell out of it.
12
Paulette was still looking at him imploringly. He pointed toward the ridge and crooked his index finger in a triggering motion. She shuddered and closed her eyes, and he realized she was very close to the edge. This kind of tension continued long enough could break anybody. He looked back again. Carroll had the two big suitcases out now; he picked them up and started toward them. They seemed to be heavy; well, no doubt they were. Two million dollars, in any denominations, would be a lot of tightly packed paper. Shadows were lengthening; it would be dark in less than an hour.
He was getting closer. Fifty yards now. Romstead stuck his head out the window and called, “¿Que tal, amigo? Hace muchos anos.” Carroll didn’t know a word of Spanish, but his reply, if any, wouldn’t be distinguishable at that distance. The other appeared to shake his head, but he said nothing. He came on.
He was at the back of the car now. He put the suitcases down. “Been a long time, Brookie,” Romstead said out the window. He never called him Brookie. “That crummy barrio back of Lake Titicaca, wasn’t it?” Carroll was the only one he’d ever told about it.
“When they sent Ramirez back to us in two boxes and a rolled poncho?” Brooks asked. “Who could ever forget it?” He was ready. He raised the lid of the trunk. No doubt he’d seen the pictures and knew what the steel box was for, but another look at it would help. And he’d be speaking right into the bug.
“What did you use?” Romstead asked. “Thermite or acid?”
“Acid,” Brooks replied with no hesitation at all. “Fooling around with ignition hardware for thermite gets too complicated.”
“Nitric?” Romstead, winking at him in the mirror.
“Sulphuric.” Brooks set the first suitcase in very carefully, as though it contained eggs. “Two liters in each bag, side by side in scored flasks. If he blows it, he’s going to have two million dollars’ worth of beautiful green slime.”
“With bubbles,” Romstead said. “Hold the second bag a minute. There’s a sniper on that ridge. I goofed and didn’t get it in time. His rifle will be sighted in for two hundred yards, and I make it between eight and nine, but he’s an artist. He won’t open up till you’ve got the trunk closed, so slam it fast, hit the dirt on this side of the car, and I’ll back up and give you cover to the truck.”