"I'll forward your recommendation. It's supposed to be a hands-across-the-border job, so maybe we can swing it for you. Anything else?"
"Yes. What the hell is NCS?"
The man in Vancouver laughed. "If I knew that, I certainly wouldn't blab it over the phone. The Northwest Coastal System is one of the biggest secrets on this continent since the Manhattan project."
"Sure," I said. "A secret everybody knows except the poor suckers trying to protect it, like us."
"Not me, friend," said the man in Vancouver. "And not you. Protecting systems is other people's work. We're protecting a man, remember?"
"Keep talking."
"Never mind NCS. We want the Woodman, and we want him dead; dead enough so that he can't fire his little rifle a few months from now at a very well-known gent- exact identity not yet determined-about to assume a very important office. It's been a rough summer and we'd hate to see a worse autumn. This country just can't take any more snipers mowing down any more popular citizens. If it happens while election hysteria is still upon us, indications are that the lid will blow off. Our job-your job-is to head the Woodman off at the pass, and to hell with NCS. You don't have to announce this to Mr. Smith and his merry men, but on the other hand, you don't want to forget it for a moment. Message received?"
"Received and understood," I said. I'd been about to ask a silly question about the mysterious Woodman to whom he'd referred, but when he'd repeated the nickname I'd caught on: it was just one of the in-jokes that circulate through an organization like ours, easy enough to dig if you remembered that wood translates to Holz in German. I just said, to put it on the official record: "In other words, I have now been instructed that chopping the Woodman down to size takes priority over dealing with secret information no matter how priceless and irreplaceable."
"You have been so instructed. Sleep well."
"And pleasant dreams to you," I said. "Eric out."
I hung up. No cars had passed on the highway, and Pat Bellman hadn't moved. I got back on the seat beside her and drove off, keeping an eye on the big, truck-type mirror on my left, the one outside the cab she couldn't see me watching. No lights appeared in the glass, but I kept catching ghostly hints of movement far back on the road behind us. Well, that figured.
I mean, the girl beside me had seemed like a very competent person when I'd first met her in Pasco. She'd set me up for murder with cold-blooded efficiency. Yet tonight she'd treated me to a brainless-ingenue performance that would have shamed a high-school melodrama. She'd walked in on me too carelessly, acted too shocked and stunned by the gory scene in the cottage, and lost her dinner too dramatically.
Lots of girls in the business can blush and weep and faint on demand. A determined young lady, trying to create an impression of total helplessness, might even manage to puke as required. I hadn't believed her act even before I'd spotted a car running dark behind us. Now the question was: just what did she and her accomplice have in mind for me, and where did they intend to try it? It occurred to me that there was no reason for me to await their pleasure.
I put my foot on the brake as a roadside sign flashed into the headlights, advising of a campground ahead. Pat Bellman glanced at me quickly but did not speak.
"Chow time," I said. "Your friends kind of interfered with my dinner and I'm getting hungry."
The camp turned out to be located on a fair-sized stream. I swung in, found a suitable parking space along the bank, and placed the rig so it was reasonably level. There were no other truck-type campers here, and no trailers or tents, either. We had the place to ourselves.
I escorted Pat to the rear of the camper, hitched the pup to a chain outside, and ushered the girl into the little cabin. There was a dinette forward that converted to a double bed, if you needed a double bed. Aft, stove and refrigerator faced sink and clothes closet across a narrow aisle. A space heater, and various racks and lockers, were ingeniously fitted into the remaining space.
Pat made her way forward and sat down on one of the dinette seats, shrugging off her denim jacket. I sat down to light the stove. Nystrom's choice of camper was decidedly limited in headroom, perhaps on the theory that a man six-four is bound to bump his head, anyway, so he might as well get a low unit, easy to drive, and learn to do his indoors chores sitting down. After a little, as I juggled pots and pans and groceries, the girl on the other side of the booth looked up.
"You're going to kill me, too, aren't you?" she said dully. "Just as you killed all the others. My God, they're all dead, all of them! I'm the only one left."
Outside, as if to call her a liar, Hank hit the end of his chain suddenly, shaking the camper. I looked around, putting a frown on my face. At the edge of my vision, I was aware of Pat Bellman grasping the edge of the dinette table tightly, starting to push herself up. She was obviously trying to think of some way of keeping me from going out there, or looking out. Then she forced herself to relax, with an obvious effort.
I rose deliberately and went to the door, crouching to avoid the low ceiling. I looked out at the black pup, almost invisible at the end of his shiny, galvanized chain.
"What's the matter, Hank?" I called loudly. "You got nightmares or something? Lie down and go to sleep."
I saw that he was eating something. As I watched, he licked up some invisible scraps from the ground in front of him. Considering the contents of the collar he was wearing, it was the obvious play, but that didn't make it any easier to take. I realized that I'd become quite fond of the mutt in the week or so we'd been together. I reminded myself that it was always a mistake to get sentimentally involved with your partner in a mission; and that applied whether your partner was human or animal.
"You be quiet out there, hear?" I said, deliberately turning my back on the pup and his unauthorized midnight snack, not to mention the stuff he had around his neck. The priorities had been assigned. We were protecting a man, not a system-and not a dog, either.
I saw Pat Bellman's face go smooth with relief as I pulled the door shut behind me. I stopped to fiddle with the stove, to give her time to get her expressions sorted out, before I returned to my seat facing her. Outside, the pup jangled his chain once more, either picking up a new tidbit or cleaning up the final scraps of the one he'd just swallowed. I looked at the girl across the table; the girl who'd claimed to be a dog-lover, who'd already had one good Labrador shot, along with his master.
"Hi, Skinny," I said. "Under other circumstances, this would be nice and cozy, don't you think?"
She didn't smile. "What's your name?" she asked. "What's your real name? I think I'm entitled to know that before you kill me. And who you're working for."
"The name is Nystrom," I said. "Until the job is finished, that's my real name. And I work for a man in Washington whose name wouldn't mean anything to you."
"Are you trying to make me think you're employed by the U.S. government? A killer like you? I don't believe it!"
"That's your privilege," I said. "How do you like your eggs?"
"What?"
"Eggs."
"Oh, I couldn't… Well, all right. Sunny-side up. Two. And three strips of that bacon. And black coffee, lots of black coffee. And some toast if you've got it. Lots of toast." Apparently she felt the need to explain her sudden hunger, because she laughed brightly. "You've kept me so busy chasing you that I've hardly had time to eat. I guess my last real meal was the one you bought me in Pasco. I really shouldn't have let you pick up that check, should I? After all, it was my invitation."