He said, "You've got to try."

"I feel like Humpty Dumpty-a lot of little pieces n.o.body will ever put back together."

"I know."

"I'm learning to hate you."

"I'm learning to hate myself."

She took the pin out and put it down very gently in the little box. Then with growing ferocity she began to brush out her hair.

He stripped off his sweat-sodden clothes and went into the shower. When he came out of the bathroom the lights were turned off in the bedroom; before he switched off the bathroom light he saw her in the bed, lying on her side, facing away from him, crowded as far over as she could get without falling off.

He turned it off and felt his way to the bed and got in. He was careful not to touch her.

Too charged to sleep, he just lay there. Something Homer had taught him kept coming back: A man comes at you hand-to-hand, there's one way to put him out and it works every time if he doesn't know to look for it. Doesn't take much of a blow. Hit him with the heel of your palm-bring it up, short and hard, right up into his nose. Drive the nasal cartilage right up into the head. You hit a man hard enough that way, just once, it'll drive the splinters right up into his brain and kill him instantly.

The thought had sickened him at the time and he'd changed the subject immediately. But now in fevered visions he saw himself slamming his palm up with vicious rage into face after face-Gillespie, George Ramiro, Deffeldorf, Tyrone, Ezio Martin, Frank Pastor ...

And then all at once he had it, the structure of the plan. It brought him bolt upright in bed.

He got up and left the room, striding down the hall barefoot, belting his robe. At Vasquez's door he banged impatiently and when he heard a grunt he pushed inside.

Vasquez lay across the bed, reaching for the lamp. When it came on he flinched from the light and sat up squinting. He was wearing satin pajamas-bright green. "What the devil?"

"I've got to talk to you."

"Evidently." Vasquez reached for the clock and turned it toward him. "At half past two it had better be utterly fascinating."

"I've figured it out."

"Have you?" Vasquez threw the sheet back and slid his feet into a pair of moccasins. "I can't really see you. You'll have to wait a moment." He padded to the bathroom.

Mathieson was too keyed up to sit; he walked to the door and back. Vasquez hadn't shut the bathroom door and when Mathieson pa.s.sed the foot of the bed he saw Vasquez bending over the sink, running water, prying his eyelids open one at a time.

Contact lenses, he thought. I'll be d.a.m.ned.

From a hook Vasquez took down a green-lapeled dressing gown; he folded it around his trim shape and crossed to the straight chair at the writing desk. He sat down before he spoke. "Proceed."

"We've been making a mistake in our whole approach to this thing. I just figured it out."

"Indeed."

"We've been trying to contrive some c.o.c.keyed scheme to nail them all together-simultaneously."

"It's hardly c.o.c.keyed. We can't attack one or two at a time and leave the rest free to retaliate."

"Sure we can. That's been our mistake. You ever go bowling?"

"Not for a good many years."

"Neither have I. But that was the image. We've been trying to bowl a strike-figure out how to hit all ten pins with one ball. But if you bowl a strike into the pocket-you know the term?"

"Yes."

"Then think about what really happens. The ball doesn't actually hit all ten pins. At most it hits three of them. Those three pins take care of the rest. They knock the other pins down."

"That's attractive," Vasquez said, "but I've never put much trust in a.n.a.logies. We're not dealing with bowling pins. Suppose you bowl a spare instead of a strike? You've got one pin left standing. But this one would be a bowling pin that can shoot you to death."

"All right, it's a sloppy metaphor. But it got me to thinking. There's no reason why we have to go after them all at the same time. If we can peel them off one at a time-"

"We've gone over all that. While we're peeling them off one at a time, what do you suppose the others are doing?"

"They'd have to know who to come after and where to find us. If we start taking them out individually, and if we do it in such a way that n.o.body else knows what's really happening ..."

"Starting where? At the bottom? We've discussed that before. We can't hope to disrupt their operations by stinging individual enterprises. You might annoy them a bit by hitting a few front operations but that sort of campaign would be like trying to kill an elephant with sandpaper. In any case it would be stupid to disperse our attacks-we haven't the manpower. Save up your punch and when you use it, use all of it in intense concentration. Mr. Merle, none of this is new. Sometimes an idea coined at two in the morning seems brilliant but loses its l.u.s.ter in the light of day. We've already demonstrated that you can't injure Frank Pastor by hitting his subsidiaries. There are too many of them and in any case those operations are protected by the police ..."

"You're getting off the track."

"Am I? You're talking about taking them out individually. I suggested that at the outset. But the only effective method of achieving that is to kill them. I still suggest your preclusion of murder is an artificial stricture-because the methods you'll be forced to use are bound to be as reprehensible as murder or more so."

"I can think of very few things as reprehensible as murder."

"You're wrong. Whatever method you choose, it must lead to the same end-the willful destruction of your enemies. Nothing less than that will suffice. You may leave them alive and breathing but you must destroy something vital-if only their freedom to make choices. Ultimately you'll be forced to a.s.sume absolute power over their decisions and their lives. You must see that much. I'm not as certain that you also see the inevitable consequence. Such power will corrode your soul."

"It can be done without killing," Mathieson said.

"Very well. How?"

He pulled the chair closer to Vasquez and sat down. "We start with C. K. Gillespie."

PART THREE.

THE HUNTER.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

CaliforniaIllinois: 29 September

1.

HE SAID HIS GOODBYES TO AMY AND BILLY AND THE MEUTHS; he carried the suitcase down to the car and put it in the back seat and walked off beyond earshot with Jan and Ronny.

Because of the boy they were both holding back a great deal. Ronny shook his hand gravely. Mathieson fought back the impulse to embrace him: Ronny would hate it in front of the others.

"I want you to take d.a.m.n good care of your mother. Don't sa.s.s her."

He took Jan in his arms. "It's going to work, you know. Things are going to be all right."

"Sure." She kissed him. He was startled by the ferocity with which she clenched him against her as if she could draw strength from him.

Ronny said, "You still look lousy in that moustache. It makes you look like Zachary Scott."

"What have you got against Zachary Scott?"

"He's dead," Ronny said and turned away.

"I'm not dead, Ronny. Listen to me."

The boy turned reluctantly.

"Are you listening?"

"Sure I am."

"Put a little trust in your old man. I'm going to pin these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds like b.u.t.terflies. They'll never touch us again. I want you to stop feeling sorry for yourself. If you don't, you'll feel like a d.a.m.n fool afterward-all that sour worry for nothing. Understand me?"

"I just don't want you to get hurt. You don't even have a gun."

"Guns don't answer any questions, Ron."

"Who's asking questions? They just want to kill us."

"They won't get the chance. Believe that."

"All right."

"I mean it now."

But the boy wasn't convinced and he couldn't think of any way to rea.s.sure him.

Jan said, "You'll miss your plane." It was the next thing to a whisper.

He kissed her again, trying to mean it. Then he walked away from them to the car.

Vasquez got in behind the wheel.

Homer held the pa.s.senger door. Mathieson shook his hand. "I'll see you in Washington."

"And me in little old New York," Roger said. "Ride easy, old horse."

"You know this is going to work," Mathieson said.

"d.a.m.n right I do." Roger smiled a little; of them all Roger was the one who had no reservations.

"Take care now, old horse."

Vasquez drove him down past the paddock fence. Behind them Jan and Ronny stood in the driveway waving.

They rolled very fast down the gravel track. The dust lifted high and their pa.s.sage exploded birds out of the trees. Vasquez said, "I'll have four men down here by tonight to keep watch. Don't alarm yourself over their safety. No one will get through to them. If there's an attempt my men have orders to use their weapons."

"If there's no other choice."

"There won't be if Pastor's men come here again. They'll come only if they know they've got the right place. But I still believe they're safest here. Pastor has already searched it-he'll have no reason to come back."

"I hope you're right."

Vasquez slowed for the turning into the county road. "You're one of the most closely guarded people I've ever met. Have you always been remote or is it something that's happened since these attacks began?"

"You're a great one to talk."

"I haven't got a marriage to save."

Mathieson closed his eyes. Vasquez's smugness made him want to snarl. "You've got a wife."

"In name," Vasquez said. "We don't share premises. You're evading the point."

"I don't need two-penny psychoa.n.a.lysis from you."

"You're frightened. It's understandable. But aren't you confusing the source of your fears? It's not your friends or your wife you need to fear."

2.

When the flight was called he left Vasquez and went along to the boarding gate, being careful to stay in the center of the crowd, neither first nor last.

The plane was not crowded; to his relief the seat next to his was empty. Stewardesses went down the aisle looking at pa.s.sengers' seat belts and offering magazines and headphones. At takeoff he felt a belly-churning sensation when the wheels thudded up into their sockets while the plane still seemed only inches off the ground. Then they were climbing steeply and he relaxed his grip on the arms of the seat.

He spent the three hours neither sleeping nor reading; he stared at the clouds and worked out pieces of the scheme in his mind. But anxious thoughts about Jan kept distracting him.

At O'Hare he took the first taxi in the rank. He was empty-handed; the bag was checked through and he had four hours between planes.