“It left a sour taste, you know, that whole mess. They were freaked-out junkies. The ones who snatched the Stedman kid.”
“Some kind of radicals, weren’t they?”
Homer shook his head, not in denial but in disgust. “Look, you turn on the TV, the radio, you look in the newspapers, all you see day after day is hijacks and terrorists. All over the world. These little bastards—the Stedman case—calling themselves revolutionaries. The truth is they’re just crazies. A pack of hophead jerk-offs. Any cheap psycho with a gun can call himself a revolutionary but what the fuck does that mean?”
“What happened down there that’s got you so worked up?”
“I don’t know. Vasquez and I went in there alone first. The kids started blazing away. We dumped Stedman on the floor under his cot and we held the front door—it was the only way in, there weren’t any windows. There were seven of those junkies with enough guns between them to fight World War Three and they decided to charge us. I suppose they expected to grab Stedman and use him for a shield. They saw we were only two guys, so they came at us. It just wasn’t any contest at all. It never is when the pros go up against the amateurs. We had all seven of them dead or shot up or handcuffed inside of thirty seconds. But it’s the dead ones that get to you. We killed two of them on the spot and a couple of others died in the hospital later on. It leaves a bad taste. I never thought so much of myself that I believed I had God’s right to decide who lives and who dies.”
“I take it the boss doesn’t think the same way.”
It was a while before Homer replied. “Diego Vasquez has his own way of looking at things. And his own reasons. You’d need to know something about him. His background and all.”
“Such as?”
“I’d rather you asked him. Come on—time to put the gloves on.”
2
When he saw Ronny trot past the gate he walked over to the barn to meet him. The boy brought the horse into the corral at an easy single-foot, knowing better than to run it; its coat was a little damp but obviously he’d walked it most of the way home from the lake to cool it down.
Mathieson helped him strip the saddle off; he lugged it to its peg in the barn and watched Ronny rub the horse down and take out the currycomb. They talked about inconsequentials and the boy seemed to be enjoying his company but when he stripped the bridle off and drove the horse out into the paddock he turned suddenly after closing the gate and said, “How long are we going to be stuck here?”
“I thought you liked it.”
“I like it fine. I like living like a king. I like having my pick of a bunch of great horses. I like everything about it. But there’s nobody around.”
“No kids your own age, you mean.”
“Dad, I can’t exactly have a ball with old Perkins or Mr. Meuth, can I. I mean you can only spend so much time on a horse.”
“It’s not as if there wasn’t plenty to do, Ronny. Besides ride.”
“I’ve read a dozen books in the library. I’ve looked at movies until I’ve started seeing everything in Technicolor. But I can’t spend the whole day like that. You know what I mean, Dad?”
“I know what you mean.” He heard the car before he saw it; he looked down the long driveway. “Here comes your mother.”
“I wish I’d changed my mind and gone to town with them. At least it would have been a change.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t feel like it,” Ronny said obscurely. They went up to the house and got there by the time Meuth parked it by the kitchen delivery entrance. Mrs. Meuth came out to help unload. Vasquez and Jan came up to the steps. There was stress in Jan’s face.
“Anything wrong?”
“Some trouble at the Gilfillans.”
“Trouble?”
“Your friends are being watched,” Vasquez said. “By a group of improbably clumsy goons.”
“Goons? Pastor’s people?”
Vasquez’s glance slid across Ronny and back to Mathieson. “I shouldn’t be alarmed. It’s almost textbook, really. Probably they’re hoping to reach you through your friends—hoping their harassment of Roger Gilfillan will bring you out of hiding. I find it encouraging, actually—it indicates they’re clutching at straws.”
That wasn’t all it indicated to Mathieson but he held his tongue until Jan and Ronny had gone inside the house. Vasquez returned to the car with the evident intent of putting it away. Mathieson walked around it and got into the passenger seat. “You’re taking it too casually.”
“I didn’t want to alarm your wife unnecessarily. She’s high-strung enough as it is.”
“You see what it means, don’t you? They’ve found out I’m not under federal protection. Otherwise they’d never bother trying to locate us through our friends.”
“That’s true. But it doesn’t really put them any closer to you, does it.”
“It suggests the leak in Washington was never really plugged. And that means Pastor may know we’re going under the name of Baxter.”
“What of it? You haven’t used any names at all in this area.” Vasquez shook his head. “That’s not what troubles me.”
“Then what does?”
As usual Vasquez provided an answer in his own roundabout way; his apparent non sequiturs always led to the point eventually but Mathieson’s patience was goaded. Vasquez said, “Your friend Glenn Bradleigh and his colleagues are professionals. A great many of their regulations are the results of experience. One of their most steadfast rules in the relocation and protection of their charges is the complete break of all past associations—family and friends. Undoubtedly this is the most difficult thing their clients must adjust to. Undoubtedly the government has spent years trying to find alternatives. They have discovered none. Therefore they maintain the rule as an absolute.”
He saw what Vasquez was getting at.
Vasquez said, “When you came to me you were already in touch with the Gilfillans. There was nothing I could do to undo that thread of contact; therefore I wasted no effort in the attempt. But you must recognize now that it was exceedingly unwise.”
“Maybe it was. I had no one else to turn to.”
“You could have turned to me. Directly, without involving your friends.”
“If it hadn’t been for Roger I’m not sure I ever would have made the decision to come to you.”
Vasquez reached for the key and started the car. “All right. It’s useless recriminating.”
He drove it sedately around the loop and up past the paddock toward the barn, talking steadily.
“I suspect Pastor’s men have tapped the Gilfillan phone. Pastor would have no reason to disturb Gilfillan if he didn’t know you were in communication with him. Now if we can assume that Pastor knows you are in contact with Gilfillan, then you are vulnerable.”
Perkins’s tractor was on the far slope dragging a block of rock salt toward the water trough. Vasquez said, “For the moment Pastor may be satisfied to stir things up and wait to see whether the stirring brings you to the surface. When it doesn’t he may decide to use one of the Gilfillans as hostage for the acquisition of Edward Merle. It would not require kidnapping. It would require merely a threat, delivered anonymously and easily to Roger Gilfillan, stating that if Edward Merle were not produced then an unfortunate accident might deprive young Billy Gilfillan of his eyes, or his legs, or his life. The nature of the threat isn’t important; the pattern is clear enough. If Pastor made such a threat and Gilfillan passed it on to you, what would you do?”
Vasquez racked the station wagon beside the other cars in the barn. He switched it off. In the dead silence he inspected Mathieson’s face.
“Don’t be too dismayed. There’s a countermove available to us—the only course of action I’d recommend.” Vasquez opened the door. As he was getting out he said, “We’ll have to persuade the Gilfillans to join us here.”
3
He needed something to do; he insisted on doing the driving. Vasquez rode with him and on the way they rehearsed the scheme.
“We’re assuming their phone is tapped,” Vasquez said. “What does that suggest to you?”