The Detonators, page 2
The following day, as Doug was preparing to tackle the next leg of his long-planned voyage, feeling pretty good again, the Coast Guard descended on him, guided by an anonymous telephone tip. They found a small cache of marijuana hidden on the boat where they’d been told to look—apparently the punk hadn’t kept all his smoking materials in his pack. Although Doug identified himself politely and asked them to call Washington, they’d heard that I’m-an-important-guy-and-anyway-I-wuz-framed routine before. They impounded the boat and called the police to take Doug away and charge him, or whatever the legal procedure is in such cases. Mac wasn’t specific about the details.
Anyway, the cops got into the act somehow. When Doug protested, they apparently got a little rude and physical. Public servants ourselves in a sense, we don’t react at all well to being manhandled by our fellow workers in the governmental vineyard, city, state, or federal. We’ve had to take too much shit from the real enemy, whoever he may be at any given time. One thing led to another and somebody made the mistake of bouncing a nightstick off Doug’s head…
Well, that was the Doug Barnett story as I’d pieced it together from what I already knew and what I’d been told over the phone. Fortunately, one of the Coastguardsmen who remained intact had a sharp pocketknife and knew how to perform an emergency tracheotomy on a crushed larynx, so the baton-happy cop survived. The three fracture cases were hauled off to the nearest hospital for splints and casts. The walking wounded were patched up so they wouldn’t bleed all over everything while they waited for proper dressings to be applied in the emergency room.
Douglas Barnett, subdued at last, was dragged off to jail. Eventually he got to make the phone call to which he was legally entitled; and Mac passed the word to me, as well as, I had no doubt, to various influential personages at various levels of government. We take care of our own. Maybe Doug shouldn’t have blown his stack like that; but Mac knows perfectly well that the work he wants done would never get done by a bunch of docile characters who, falsely accused, would hold out their wrists for the handcuffs without argument. He also knows it’s money in the bank. I mean, the word gets around. Next time one of our people asks politely to be put through to Washington to clear up a misunderstanding, maybe he, or she, will be shown a phone instead of a bunch of overbearing cops.
“It’s all so stupid!” said the girl riding beside me in the rental car. “I mean, even if he was innocent, why did he have to fight them like that?”
I said, “When a man has spent his life fighting, he finds it pretty hard to stop, Miss Barnett. And you don’t really believe he was innocent, do you?”
“Well… well, they did find that horrible stuff on his boat, didn’t they? Drugs, ugh! How could he? And people always do say they were framed, don’t they?”
I said, “Maybe it’s just as well I’ve had very little contact with my own kids. This way I can keep my illusions. If they have so little faith in the veracity of the man from whom they’ve inherited half the genes they carry, I don’t want to know it.”
She glanced at me quickly and started to speak, then checked herself. When we reached it, we found the jail to be located in a massive building that looked reasonably modern and handsome on the outside. Inside, although the interior decoration was pretty sharp, if a little worn, it was basically just another king-sized cop-house. There’s something about a bunch of big men swaggering around in uniform with guns and clubs that arouses in me an atavistic hostility. I guess I just want to tell them I’m pretty tough myself, so don’t give me that hard cop look unless you’re ready to back it up, Buster. Childish.
We went through the usual visitors’ red tape and were put into a waiting room. I gestured toward a chair. “Rest your feet,” I said to the girl. “You said you wanted to see him alone and it’s all arranged; but I’ll see him first, if you don’t mind. Business. After that he’s all yours, lucky man.”
When an escort arrived for me, I left her sitting there primly, knees together, skirt modestly in place, underwear still a mystery even though I’d watched her entering and leaving a car, an operation that usually reveals everything revealable. But it was a mystery that no longer interested me greatly. I mean, the very proper and modest ones are usually a challenge—you like to see if you can’t at least win a relaxed and friendly smile from the inhibited lady—but the masculine curiosity Miss Barnett had aroused in me originally, because she was really a rather pretty girl, was fading fast. Her mother had done too good a job on her.
I was shown into a small visiting room and heard the door shut solidly behind me. It wasn’t too bad a room. It was clean and had a table and some reasonably comfortable-looking chairs. It also had illumination enough to shoot a movie by, even with fairly slow film; and they should have no trouble with the sound, I figured, since the place was undoubtedly already miked and wired. There were no windows. Doug Barnett was sitting in one of the chairs when I came in. He nodded at me but he didn’t get to his feet and hurry forward to shake my hand; we don’t go in much for effusive greetings. Or partings, for that matter. And maybe rising wasn’t all that easy for him at the moment. I started to sit down in the nearest chair, on his left.
“The other one, if you don’t mind, Matt,” he said, gesturing to the identical chair on the other side of him.
“Sure,” I said. When I was seated, I said, “I’m supposed to ask if you want us to cart this joint away brick by brick and sow the foundations with salt like the Romans did with Carthage so nothing would grow there again, ever. Or is it all right if we just blow it up and leave the debris where it falls?”
He didn’t answer that. He knew it was just a fancy way of telling him the old team was behind him. We’re not a buddy-buddy outfit, but there is a certain esprit de corps that surfaces at times like that. We spent a moment taking stock, since we hadn’t seen each other for a while. Although I was senior in the organization, having been in it practically from the start, Doug was considerably older. He’d come to us from some other nasty outfit, like maybe the old OSS after they’d sanded it smooth and painted it pretty and called it CIA and he couldn’t stand it any longer. He was a husky man with shoulders broad enough to make him look shorter than he really was. Actually he stood, when standing, only an inch or so under six feet. He looked better than I’d expected. I guess they’d cleaned him up fast when the pressure came on from Washington. He was neatly shaved and wearing a clean white shirt and clean dark trousers that looked a little too dressy for his well-worn brown moccasin-type boat shoes, the kind with the patent no-slip white soles.
He was watching me steadily with his head cocked a little to the side. His tanned, smooth face, which didn’t betray his age, was unmarked. He still had most of his hair. Where it wasn’t gray, it was considerably darker than his daughter’s; apparently her fairness had come from her mother’s side of the family. A spot had been shaved on Doug’s head to make room for a lump of white tape, presumably where the police club had split the scalp. That was the only visible injury; but they’re very good at demonstrating their disapproval of obstreperous prisoners without leaving marks that’ll show in court. I’m not criticizing, really. They have their methods, and we have ours.
“Tell Mac thanks,” Doug said. “I had no right to drag him into it:”
“To hell with that,” I replied. “Nobody really retires from this crazy outfit. You know that. It works both ways. If you’re ever needed again, really needed, you’ll be called.”
“Well, I thought a long time before I dialed that emergency number; but it looked as if they were going to bury me so deep nobody’d ever find me. And I…” He stopped and drew a long breath. “I’d heard the girl was looking for me. I wanted to see her again, Matt. My little girl. Just once before… Is she here?”
Well, people do get mushy about their kids, even fairly tough people. “She’s outside,” I said.
“So she came!”
I said quickly, “Don’t get your hopes up, amigo. She’s been brainwashed most of her life. You’re an evil, violent man. Brutally beating up half a dozen helpless little cops and coastguardsmen and smuggling nasty marijuana are exactly what she expects of you. She’s just surprised it wasn’t coke or heroin.”
He grinned at me crookedly. “You don’t pull any punches, do you?”
I shrugged. “You’ll see her in a minute. What would be the point in letting you entertain any fond expectations, even briefly? To be blunt, your daughter is a fairly impossible, stuffy, little female prick. But she did come.”
“Yes,” he said. “And if anything happens to me, you’ll look after that impossible, stuffy, little female prick for me, won’t you? Because you owe me one and I’m asking.”
I nodded. That was the second personal matter involved here, the fact that he’d once saved my life. “You didn’t have to say it.”
“Sorry. I had to know. She’s got nobody else, now that that self-righteous bitch I married is dead.”
“Consider it signed and sealed. But Mac has pulled the right strings, and you’ll be out of here in a few hours. Maybe you can make your peace with her and do your own looking-after.”
He shook his head. “It’s a nice thought, but I doubt that what’s between us can be changed in an afternoon, after all the years her witch-mother had to work on her. And I may not have too much time, if you know what I mean; so let me give you a quick rundown on the arrangements I’ve made for her, just in case.” After he’d finished, he said, “Well, that takes care of that. Now, what about the boat?”
I said, “That’s the tough part. The Coast Guard is apparently being sticky. Pressure is being brought to bear, and we’re looking for that creep you were dumb enough to invite on board, to get a confession out of him. But it’ll be another few days, at least.”
He grimaced. “Bunch of uniformed pirates! What do they do with all the vessels they steal? Oh, excuse me! Impound. Confiscate. For a bit of grass worth a few hundred on the street—even assuming it was my grass, which it wasn’t—they grab themselves a boat worth fifty grand easy. What the hell kind of justice would that be, even if I were guilty? Legal larceny!”
I said, “Take it easy. Don’t flip all over again. And incidentally, you didn’t do so well the first time, did you?” I stared at him hard. “Granted, that seems to’ve been a good enough blow to the throat, judging by all reports, and you couldn’t know that Coast Guard guy would be so handy at doing emergency surgery with his little knife. But as for the rest, just a bunch of piddling little fractures and lacerations. Very bad for the team’s reputation. We’re supposed to be the guys who leave them dead, Mr. Barnett.”
He stared right back at me with his head held at that odd angle. “You know the answer, Matt. That billy club didn’t do me a damn bit of good in the vision department. I haven’t recovered from it yet and probably won’t. Cop bastard.”
I nodded. “I just wanted to be sure. Anything I can do?”
“There’s nothing anybody can do. That was checked out by the medical experts a long time ago. They told me at the time not to let people bounce things off my skull, ha-ha; that’s why I was retired, although we didn’t publicize it. But thanks anyway. Now let me talk with my daughter, please.”
“One self-righteous young lady coming up.”
“Matt…”
“Yes?”
“Don’t tell her about my eyes, damn you. Not before I’ve seen her, at least.”
“Is that fair to the girl?” When he didn’t speak, I said, “If that’s the way you want it. Be good.”
“I tried that, and they took my boat away and locked me up in here.”
“Well, be careful,” I said.
3
Amy Barnett was gone less than half an hour. When she returned I saw from her pale, resentful face that the family reunion hadn’t turned out well. She said a polite good-bye to her police escort, and we made our way out the door, down the elevator, and out into the Florida spring sunshine. She didn’t say anything until we were driving away. Then she opened the neatly buttoned jacket of her flannel suit and turned one of the car’s air-conditioning vents her way.
“If I were staying in Florida I’d have to get some lighter clothes, I guess.”
“But you aren’t staying?”
“No. When I get back to the hotel, I’ll see about getting a flight back to Cincinnati tomorrow. It’s too late today.” She glanced at me a little defiantly. “There’s nothing to stay for. I found that out in there.”
“He was just as you expected?” I said. “No surprises? Exactly the same wicked man your mother always told you, right?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
I spoke deliberately: “Pretty well preserved for his advanced years, though, wouldn’t you say? Nice and tanned and healthy after all that sailing. Or were you so busy reciting all your mother’s old grievances that you didn’t really look at him at all?”
She studied me for a moment. “What are you trying to tell me, Mr. Helm?”
I said, “Hell, you spent twenty minutes in there. Why should I have to tell you anything? You’re a smart girl; you can see things for yourself. If you bother to look.” When she didn’t speak, I asked, “Where did you sit?”
She frowned. “Well, I started to sit down in the nearest chair, of course, but he said he’d rather have me on the other side of him.” She looked at me, puzzled. “Does that have some kind of mystic significance?”
I said, “No peculiar mannerisms that caught your attention?”
“Well, he did hold his head to the side and kind of peer at me, but I thought that was just a nervous habit he’d acquired since I last saw him all those years ago… Mr. Helm, will you stop this, please! Tell me what you’re driving at!”
“There’s something else,” I said. “You’re shocked at the amount of damage he did in the fight. We’re shocked at the amount of damage he didn’t do. I mean, we never fight for fun, just for keeps. That’s the way he was trained; yet there wasn’t a single lousy dead man on that dock when he got through. A very poor performance, even for an agent who’s been retired for a while and hammering on a boat instead of practicing his lethal skills.”
She shivered. “What a horrible attitude, to criticize a man for not killing!”
I said, “Jesus, that knee-jerk humanitarianism! From a dame who doesn’t even bother to find out why her own father had to be retired. Why don’t you practice a little of that bleeding-heart stuff at home, Miss Barnett?” Driving one-handed, I worked a paper out of my inside jacket pocket and passed it to her. “One of our people, the one who’s negotiating for Doug’s release, stopped by and gave me this while I was waiting for you. Read it.”
There was a little silence. At last she turned to me, aghast. “But this medical report says…”
I said, “Apparently there was a light plane that crashed; I gather Doug made it crash. It was the only way he could accomplish his mission, his last mission. I don’t know what it was; as a matter of fact, I didn’t know any of the details before, only that he’d been retired with a disability a year or two back. But it seems he was knocked unconscious by the crash. He was in a coma for a while; later they had to go in and relieve the pressure or something. Dig out bone splinters. Whatever. As a would-be nurse, you can probably decipher the jargon of that report better than I can. They put the lid back on and sent him to a place we have out west to recuperate. They were just about to turn him loose, put him back on active duty, when the trouble started.”
Amy started to speak but checked herself. She stared at the official-looking paper in her hand.
I went on as I drove: “It’s all in there. Blurred vision in the left eye. Violent headaches. Brief dizzy spells that were almost momentary blackouts. They ran their fancy tests and scans on him. The consensus was that something was going bad in there and would get worse. While they could go in again and try to fix it, the operation might leave him a vegetable; and what was in there probably wasn’t fixable, anyway. Recommendation: immediate retirement. Advice: take it easy, live right, and avoid any more blows on the head. Prognosis: maybe two years, maybe five, you want fortune-tellers, yet?”
Amy Barnett whispered. “Oh, my God!” So she wasn’t totally incapable of blasphemy.
I said, “Apparently he decided to carry out the plans he’d been developing for years, get the boat, fix it up, and sail it as far as he could. Why sit around waiting for the dark?” I shook my head irritably. “And I’m guessing that the reason he didn’t kill anybody in that marina hassle was that he just wasn’t seeing very well after being cracked by that police club. I think he felt something go very wrong inside his head when he was hit and knew he didn’t have left even the few years of vision he’d been promised. Half-dazed, he instinctively used his best shot on the guy who’d hit him, who was right there within easy range. After that, I guess, he was hurting pretty badly and just fighting shadows as they came at him.”
“But he didn’t act as if… I mean, I’m sure he could see me, just now.”
I nodded. “After a fashion, sure, but he obviously has to work at it. My guess is that both eyes are affected now, but the left is worse than the right, which is why he doesn’t like to have people sitting on that side of him.” There was a little silence. Amy Barnett glanced back over her shoulder and started to speak impulsively; but I cut her off: “No, I won’t take you back there. What do you want to do now, offer to hang around and tie his shoelaces and hand him his white cane because you’re so sorry for him?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered.
“He asked me not to. He was running a little test, I guess, to determine just what kind of a brat he’d begotten—was she going to accept her remaining parent at last even though he was behind bars, or was she just going to tell him how much she disapproved of him? He didn’t want the exam complicated by a lot of cheap sympathy. And you flunked, so you can get your damn airplane ticket and go home to Cincinnati. As you said yourself, there’s nothing to keep you here.”
