"We know. We'd like to talk to her for a long long time. And the people who pull her strings, and write her words. We think she's on an island off the south coast of Cuba. Maybe there'll be a lead in those papers. You shouldn't have gathered them up for us."
'I did that when I was going to blow the whole place to rubble, buildings, people, and all. I was saving the papers for you and Jake. I collected all the money. I think I was saving that for myself. Some of it is mine, about nine thousand. Some twenty-seven thousand is theirs."
'I can't understand why they didn't kill you out
The Green Ripper of hand. That's their style. That's their standard program, No infiltration. No way to do it."
"I was looking for my daughter."
'daughter!"
'Em sorry. I'm past making much sense."
"We'll leave here soon. It's a strain on you, having to stay here."
"Can we stop in San Francisco? I left my ID there, and my clothes."
"Of course. You're not under detention."
"For murder?"
'~or self-defense. We'll let the record read there was a jurisdictional squabble and they fought among themselves. Look, you should be getting a medal, McGee. But what you are going to get is some very serious and earnest advice about keeping your mouth shut forever. I think you cut down their firepower and manpower some. If the documents give us a lead to other camps, we can cut it down some more. But the summer timetable is probably still on. They can't keep their tigers waiting forever. And they have to have something to show the folks helping them from overseas. No matter how much security we lay on, they are going to create one hell of a series of bloody messes from border to border and coast to coast. A lot of sweet dumb people are going to get ripped up. Headlines, speeches, doom, the end of our way of life, and so on. Terrorism is going to pay us one big fat bloody visit, McGee. But it will only be a visit. They underestimate our national resilience. Aroused by that kind of savagery, we can become a very tough kind of people. You are a pretty good example of that."
Iy luck was running, and I let it run."
"They were supposed to be their best, huh? Educated abroad. Honed fine. Dunog the debriefing, you'll have to go into infinite detail about the training, what you saw of it."
"Everytlung I can remember."
"They'll want to go into hypnotic drugs to make sure they pull everything out."
'Tm in no position to object."
He stopped walking and turned to face me. "And when it is over and they turn you loose, all the in- formation stops, then and there. You never get any more from us, and nobody ever gets any of what you have from you."
'precept Meyer." Nobodyl"
Except Meyer."
41 am serious, dammit!"
"Me tow So you better not turn me loose. There is no way on earth that I can keep from telling him every damn detail of every damn day I spent here. Can't you remember the clearance he used to have? You checked it out. Remember?"
"Oh, hell, yes. Okay. Meyer. And only Meyer."
Two of them came out and spoke to Max in low
The Green Ripper voices. He came over to me and said, "Take your last look around, And hope they never find out who did their people in."
'A think they know."
'Of I was sure they know, I would set up a whole new identity for you, from plastic surgery to colored contact lenses."
'A wouldn't accept it anyway."
"You don't care if they come after you?"
'frankly, not a hell of a lot, Max. Not a hell of a lot."
In a little while we headed down out of the hills. Jake told me that when everything had been taken out, they were going to truck a couple of bulldozers up there and knock everything flat and push it off the edge. I said that would be nice. They said we would stay overnight in San Francisco, so I could rest up a little, and fly out in the morning. I said that would be nice. They said that maybe the money problem could be resolved in my favor. Like a kind of unofficial reward. Like, maybe, a bounty. I said that would be nice. So they stopped talking to me. I looked out the car window at the tall evergreens and wondered why all the birds had left this part of the world. Jake turned the wipers on, smearing the small sad rain. I think they were glad to stop trying to relate to me. They felt uneasy about me, about being close to me in a small car. I think they felt not exactly certain of what I might do next. And I knew they would not have felt better about it if I had told them I didn't have the faint- est notion, either, of what I might do next, today, tomorrow, or ever.
Epilogue
We had found a little cove around behind the Berry Islands, and with the small chop slapping us in the transom, I had bumped twice getting over the bar into the still water. But that was at low tide, and the charts for that day in late June said it was unusually low, so no sweat about getting out, getting that absolute jewel of a cruiser out of there.
It was named Odalisque Ill, and it was the splendid playtoy of Lady Vivian Stanley-Tucker of St. Kitts. It was a fifty-three-foot Magnum Maltese Flybridge cruiser, built in North Miami Beach. Twin turbocharged diesels cruised it at an honest thirty miles an hour. Paneling, radar, recording fathometer, air conditioning, ice-maker, tub and shower, huge master stateroom, double autopilot system, stereo music, wine locker, microwave oven, live wells, loran, pile carpeting. I knew it would knock close to a half million without extras, and it was the third time her husband had given her a boat for her birthday.
"The other two were hunuunge!" she had said. "Great vulgar monsters. Had to have a crew aboard at all times. Now this one is cozy, what? Intimate, you might say. The old boy was playing the gold market and got pinched a bit. Apologized for the smaller boat."
I was over on the beach and had found a sandbar that was supporting more than its share of clams. Lady Vivian and I had been out about two weeks, provisions were running a little short, and soon we would have to decide whether to put in to Nassau or run on over to Miami. I was putting the clams in a string bag. The sun felt needle-hot on my bare back. I was turning saddle brown, and Lady Vivian had turned to a very lovely reddish gold, except for the sunburned tip of her nose.
The deep chord of the air horns made me look out toward the Odalisque. Shave and a haircut, two bits. Then she came out onto the bow, a tiny golden figure in a white bikini, and motioned me to come aboard.
I hung the string bag around my neck, swam out through the warm crystal-clear water, and came up the boarding ladder.
The Green Ripper
"Good nap?"
"Splendid! And I felt absolutely marvelous until, like the dutiful person I am, I turned on the thing- ajiggy at call time, as usual, and damn me if the old bustard wasn't trying to get me. Baaaaad news, sweet McGeeee. I have to fly on down. His damned awful sister has decided to come out for a visit, and he thinks it would look most odd if Em not there to greet the old party. So what I told him, I would go on into Nassau tomorrow and fly from there, and find some dear friend who'll take the Odalisque on over to Lauderdale. Who might that dear friend be?"