"Why? Have the scientific boys at White Falls cooked up something nice and misleading that they want served up with authentic trimmings to throw the other side's research off the tracks?"
Mac said, "The reasons for the instructions have not been confided to us, Erie."
I grinned at the dry tone of his voice. "I dig you, sir. It's a big cake and we get to cut only a small slice off it. Ours not to reason why, and all that jazz. Back to that mountain lake our predecessor couldn't make in his Detroit chariot. If Mrs. Drilling did meet Ruyter there for a council of war, would you say they've probably set up another rendezvous farther east?"
"It seems likely. One or more. Perhaps he will travel clear to the Atlantic coast independently and wait for her there. But perhaps not. She is, after all, an amateur; he may not trust her to make it alone. He may hover nearby, ready with secret advice and encouragement."
I said, "And if I should chance to bump into him, what do I do, sir? Bow and excuse myself politely?"
"Naturally. He must not be harmed."
I said, "Hell, can't I even drown the kid if I feel aggressive? I mean, does this whole damn caravan have to get through intact? And are you sure there isn't a dog or cat or pet parakeet I'm supposed to look out for, too?" He did not respond to my sarcasm. I sighed. "Yes, sir. Mrs. Drilling and entourage are to get where they want to go with any documents they care to bring along. Now tell me, sir, what's apt to get in their way that's so tough we've been called in for escort duty."
Mac said, sounding surprised and rather reproachful, "You're not thinking, Eric."
"What am I not thinking of?"
"Consider," he said, "that as far as all but a very few people in the world know, this woman has stolen highly secret information endangering the U.S. national security. This has, of course, been reported through all the usual channels-after as much delay as was considered safe, to give her the best start possible-and all the usual organizations are now taking all the usual actions. Well, you have already encountered three typical representatives. There may be more. Naturally we cannot request the withdrawal of agents assigned to the Drilling case by other departments. If there should be a leak, it would let our opponents know that we're not quite as eager to repossess Dr. Drilling's stolen notes as we're pretending to be. Do you understand?"
"I'm beginning to catch on. The lost-document drill must be carried out to the last detail, or somebody might begin to question the authenticity of the missing, priceless scientific material."
"Precisely. And still, Mrs. Drilling and Ruyter must get through. Not only must they get through, they must be free and clear at the critical moment, after the papers have been retrieved from the Inverness Post Office. They must get away clean by whatever route Ruyter chooses to leave the country. It is your job to arrange this after doing something very convincing to persuade them that you have no patriotic motives or connections whatever."
"Yeah, convincing," I said sourly. "Like blowing up the Washington Monument, or something. One question."
"Yes, Eric?"
"Joking aside, if things get rough, just how far do I go to achieve all this?"
"As far as necessary," he said calmly, two thousand miles away.
I started to speak quickly, and stopped. He would have thought of all the possibilities himself, before handing me the blank check with his signature on it. I didn't have to point out that with such instructions I could easily wind up knee deep in dead men of two nationalities-and dead women, too.
"Yes, sir," I said bitterly. "As far as necessary, sir. Very good, sir. Now with regard to the cover story I've been using, I'm making a few minor changes I hope will meet with your approval…
VII
SITTING IN the Volkswagen parked beside the wet campground road, not far from the silver trailer in space twenty-three, I had plenty of time to review the conversation, memorize the description of Hans Ruyter I'd been given, and work out the final details of the story I was about to spring on the Drilling duo, mother and daughter. Then I saw the kid coming through the rain. She was about what I'd expected from the advance publicity. The bare knees were perhaps not quite as knobby as I'd feared they would be, but to make up for it the brown hair was rolled up on those big cylindrical curlers that have practically replaced hats for street wear. I suppose it's stuffy and old-fashioned of me to feel that a girl with her hair pinned up belongs at home, but as far as I'm concerned, she can even stay out of the living room if there's company in the house.
The headful of parallel cylinders made Penelope Drilling look like a topheavy little robot ready to tune in on messages from outer space. Covering the electronic receiving apparatus was a kind of nightcap of transparent plastic to keep the rain off, rigged to tie under the chin. There was a tiny kid face with big stary eyes behind hornrimmed glasses. The mouth, clumsily lipsticked, looked a little strained from closing over the metal that would eventually give her nice straight teeth, just as the stuff on her head would eventually give her nice curly hair. Atom bombs or no, she obviously had a lot of faith in the future, this kid. She was willing to forever look like hell today so she could look swell tomorrow.
She was wearing a rather short yellow raincoat and yellow rubber boots. She'd been over to the camp laundry-I'd seen her go before I moved into position-and she had a bundle of clothes in her arms. She came splashing along the road at a coltish run, hurrying to get out of the rain, and pulled up, startled, when I stepped out of the Volks in front of her.
"Miss Drilling?" I said.
She eyed me suspiciously and asked, "What do you want?" She started to sidle around me so she'd have a straight run for the trailer if I tried to bite her.
I said, "If you're Penelope Drilling, I have a message for you."
"I can't talk to you," she said, with a glance toward the trailer. Then she asked quickly, "A message? Who's it from?"
"Your father."
"Daddy? What does he-"
"Penny!"
That was a woman's voice, from the trailer door. I suppose I should have felt very clever. I'd carefully picked a spot where Mrs. Drilling could see me accosting her daughter if she just glanced out the window. She'd reacted as I'd hoped, but I felt kind of disgusted with the whole business. Why hadn't the damn woman left her child out of it, if she had to go playing secret games with secret men and secret documents? And come to that, why hadn't I figured out an approach that didn't involve telling lies to a fifteen-year-old kid? I had no messages for her from anybody.
The girl gave me a glance and a kind of shrug. She ran off, hugging her armload of laundry. I hurried after her and got there as, having shooed her daughter inside, Genevieve Drilling was struggling to close the double door of the trailer
– they put the screen door inside so it won't get beat up while driving, and it occasionally makes for a little awkwardness.
"Mrs. Drilling?" I said.
She started to open the screen to retrieve the outer door, which had failed to catch, but thought better of it. "All right," she said wearily. "All right, what do you want? As if I didn't know!"
"May I come in?"
"I see no reason why you should."
"It's wet out here," I said. I couldn't really see her through the shiny aluminum screen, just a feminine silhouette in a long-skirted garment that looked familiar. "Why don't you give Penny a break, Mrs. Drilling?" I asked, going into my act. "You're grown up. What you do with your life is your business. But what's in it for her?"
There was a brief pause. "You do that very well," the woman said from the other side of the screen. "The little sob you get into your voice is particularly good. You make it sound just as if you really loved children."