There was a little silence, then Martha said, "My mother died two years ago."
"I'm sorry."
Lorna ended another awkward pause by saying briskly, "Well, I was checking old civil service records on another matter entirely when I came across a handwriting that looked familiar. The signature was A. McGillivray Borden, and there were papers on file-interoffice memoranda and such-signed McGillivray Borden, or simply Mac Borden. Apparently he disliked the name Arthur in his younger days. That was long before he got into this particular line of government work, before World War II."
Martha Borden licked her lips. "It would seem… it would seem that grown men and women would have better things to do than sneak around prying in matters that are none of their business!"
I said, "Hell, we work for the guy. We put our lives on the line when he says 'put.' Anything about him is our business. If he wants to be anonymous around the office, fine, none of us is going to blab what he's found out, but if a time ever comes when a little additional information is needed, we've got it. And I think he knows we've got it."
"Why would you expect to need information like that?"
I said, "I already have needed it, and so have you. if I hadn't recognized the name, and looked at you a little harder, and realized who you really were, you'd have been in a tough spot once I came to the conclusion that, with your attitude, you couldn't possibly be any kind of fledgling agent working for Mac in any capacity. And I'm willing to bet he was counting on that when he told you to use your real name."
After a moment, Lorna spoke abruptly. "That bottle does not have to be brought up to body temperature, Mr. Helm. It's not as if it were rare old brandy."
I'd forgotten the whiskey bottle I'd picked up once more but had not used. "Sorry," I said, pouring a drink and handing it to her.
She said, as if there had been no irrelevant interruption, "There is also the consideration that your father is not supernatural, Miss Borden. We respect him, but we do not attribute unearthly powers to him. Specifically, we do not consider him murder-proof or kidnap-proof."
"What do you mean?"
"There are people all over the world who have reason not to like him very much," Lorna said. "He could be shot down in the street today or turn up missing tomorrow. In either case, there would be decisions for us to make. If he were killed, we might want to avenge him. If he were to disappear, we'd certainly want to find him. In either eventuality, we'd need a better starting point than a three-letter nickname."
"Well, Daddy hasn't died or vanished yet, thank God," Martha said. "He was still answering his phone this afternoon-I guess that's yesterday afternoon now. Matt talked with him. But, as a matter of fact, he does seem to be expecting trouble, serious trouble."
"What kind of trouble?" Lorna asked.
"I don't really know. He didn't say. But if worse comes to worst, he's planning to do just as you say: disappear, for a while at least."
"That figures," I said. "He's a sitting duck as long as he stays in Washington. If Herbie Leonard feels secure enough to take over the ranch by force and send the extermination squads after individual agents like me, he's not going to hesitate to try for the head man when he figures the time is right. "Whiskey?"
Martha frowned. "What?"
"Do you want a drink?"
"Oh. Oh, no, thanks… Well, all right, just a little one. Matt, what's happening? What's it all about?"
I handed her a glass, lightly loaded. "I was hoping you could tell me."
She shook her head. "No, Daddy kept saying that the less I knew the better, except for the names I had to memorize for you. He said he was giving you enough information so you could figure it out, as long as I was sure to tell you the code was double negative."
I saw Lorna check a slight start and glance my way. I nodded minutely and spoke to the younger woman: "Okay, you've told me. Let's try to work it out from what we know. There's obviously a lot of political power involved. Somebody wants something big and is going to great lengths to get it. Well, we know what Senator Love wants: she wants her mail delivered to a certain address on Pennsylvania Avenue. In a Latin-American country, she'd be setting the stage for a coup d'etat by making sure of the army. Here in the US where we don't change governments that way, she seems to be going about it a little differently. She's apparently making sure of the nation's intelligence services well before election time. How she plans to use Herbie Leonard and his newly conquered undercover empire remains to be seen, but obviously her first concern, and his, is to make certain he's actually in solid control. That means eliminating any oddball organizations that might not go along with the big takeover, like Mac's Murderous Mavericks and their notoriously independent chief."
Lorna frowned, sipping her drink. "I'm rather surprised they haven't struck at Mac already."
"Maybe they have," I said.
"That's, silly!" Martha protested quickly. "He sounded perfectly all right when we… when you talked with him, Matt. A little tired, but otherwise all right."
"Maybe that's what got him tired, ducking knives and bombs and bullets," I said, and went on before the girl could speak again: "Look, Mac's been taking care of himself for a long time. I suppose he can be hit-anybody can – but it'll take more than a white-haired Washington glamour boy to do it. Leonard is ambitious and he may even be smart in his own way, but his genius, if any, is political, not homicidal. Hell, he's tried for me twice, or his boys have, and I'm still here. I suspect Mr. Leonard is discovering the hard way that good men in this particular line of endeavor are hard to find. Where's he going to recruit the necessary talent? He can't afford to deal with the syndicate, that would be political suicide, and there's only one government agency that really specializes in this type of work-and that's the one he's trying to eliminate."
Martha said sharply, "This type of dirty work, you mean!"
I grinned. "That's our girl. Keep after us. Maybe some day we'll straighten up and fly right."
"But it's… it's horrible! These times, when civilization has at last turned the corner away from war and violence, to think that a government organization run by my own father She ran out of breath and stopped.
I looked at Lorna. "What times do you think the kid is talking about? Have you seen us turning any corners lately, Miss Holt?" I used the cover name I'd been told about.
"Mrs. Holt, if you please, but you may call me Helen," Lorna said graciously. "Well, the body count in Vietnam was down just a little in the last newspaper I read at the ranch. And those people in the Middle East weren't killing each other much on that particular day. And the police hadn't shot or beat up any blacks or students within the previous few hours; and only one policeman had got killed that I noticed. Maybe things did seem just a little better, but I wouldn't say we'd actually turned a sharp and decisive corner, no."
Something she'd said screamed for attention. I frowned, realized what it was, and asked, "The cop you said got shot. Where did it happen?"