"I guess you don't."

"s.h.i.t."

"Yeah, well those are the breaks sometimes, George. You could've been dead, you know. You still can be if you try anything humorous." He glanced at Mathieson and winked. "And with your own piece at that. Nice piece of iron. What do you use for target practice, George? Six-inch armor plate?"

There was no resistance left in Ramiro. "Look, suppose the man finds out you crossed him. The man that put out the contract on me."

"He won't find out, will he, George." Homer tapped Ramiro's sore finger. It jerked away and Homer smiled. "Where's the stash?"

Ramiro pursed his mouth and blew air through his lips. "s.h.i.t. It's right here."

"Here?"

"Where I go, this car goes. I want my stash where I can get it in a hurry, right? It stays in the car."

"Here? In the car for Christ's sake? You never heard of a Cadillac Fleetwood getting ripped off, George? You're that stupid?"

"Look, why do you care if I'm stupid or not? s.h.i.t, the organizations know whose car this is, they know the license plates. The amateurs, s.h.i.t, anybody busts into this car without the right key, he gets a faceful of cyanide gas."

Homer grinned at Mathieson. "It's a good thing we used the man's own key, ain't it, Al."

"Ain't n.o.body going to f.u.c.k with George Ramiro's car," Ramiro said, but it was only a faint dying echo of bl.u.s.ter. "Anyway the stash, n.o.body ever finds the stash. I welded it myself. n.o.body'd ever spot it."

"Where is it?"

Ramiro's raw eyes swiveled painfully toward the Magnum. "s.h.i.t. I open it and you kill me."

"It's your choice, George."

Ramiro didn't speak. Homer said, "Now we know it's in the car we could spend the next two years taking this car apart screw by screw. We know it's in the car but we ain't wasted you yet, have we? That ought to mean something."

Totally deflated Ramiro jerked his head reluctantly toward the dashboard. "Under the radio. The whole thing. You look close, you'll see two keyholes. Takes two Schlage keys to get into it."

"Let's see them."

"My shirt pocket."

Homer fished in it. Mathieson watched him extract two small bra.s.s keys and bounce them in his palm.

"Take it easy when you open it up. Everything falls out on the floor it'll take you all night to get it picked up and sorted out. You slide it out easy, it comes right out like a drawer."

Homer pa.s.sed Mathieson the keys and took the Magnum from him. "Open it up, Al."

Mathieson turned around in the seat and found the keyholes low in the metal of the dashboard, deep in shadow. He turned both locks and looked for a handle. In the back seat Ramiro said, "You leave the key in the lock. You pull with the key until it comes open enough to grab the edge."

He reinserted one of the keys and pulled and it slid easily toward him-an entire section of the underside of the dash.

The drawer was irregularly shaped, crowded with canvas money packets. There was an empty money belt, a pa.s.sport in a wallet, a leather zipper case filled with shaving gear and toiletries and an old-fashioned pineapple hand grenade.

He made sure the pin was secured to the grenade handle. It wasn't a b.o.o.by trap. If it had been we'd all be sky-high.

He looked behind him. Ramiro sat rigid with his eyes squeezed shut and his fists locked on his knees, white-knuckled. If he was going to die it would come now-that was what Ramiro had to be thinking.

Homer said, "Let's go to the airport, Al."

5.

Through the observation panes he watched the 747 taxi away from the ramp. Homer's narrow mouth was stretched back to the point of splitting. "Bon voyage, George."

They walked down the stairs. Homer said, "You were beautiful. You had me scared. That wild thing in your eyes."

"That was terror." Mathieson laughed with him.

Vasquez met them on the way out of the building. "On his way?"

"He'll keep running for a year before he stops to think," Homer said.

"Ingenious again, Mr. Merle."

Homer said, "Especially the part where we convinced him it was Pastor and Martin who put out the contract on him. That guarantees he'll never get in touch with them."

Mathieson said, "Maybe. Sooner or later he'll stop and figure out he may have been conned. But by that time we'll be done with this."

In the parking lot they transferred Ramiro's $35,000 and the rest of his goods into a suitcase. Mathieson pushed the homemade drawer shut and locked it with both keys. He locked the Cadillac and they walked across the lot to Vasquez's car. Mathieson put the suitcase in the back seat. "At any rate this will cover our expenses."

Vasquez got behind the wheel and they drove out of the lot. "In due course his car will be discovered. Evidently abandoned. A cursory investigation will disclose that Ramiro bought a ticket to Lisbon and flew there today. The police doubtless will report this information back to Frank Pastor. Pastor will a.s.sume that Ramiro absconded, the result of some transgression. Suspicion is all those people need-proof of malfeasance isn't required. Ramiro is acting suspiciously, therefore Ramiro must be dealt with. A genuine contract will be put out. You realized that from the outset, I presume?"

"It won't happen."

"Why won't it?"

"Because it will be a long time before that car is noticed. People leave their cars at airports for weeks on end-even on those twenty-four-hour lots. By the time Ramiro is traced to Portugal he'll have a month's jump on them at least. They may go after him but it'll be a cold trail unless Ramiro does something idiotic."

"Like sending for his wife, perhaps?"

"He knows he's on the run. He knows he's got to hide. It's more chance than they gave me." Mathieson felt a sour bile of anger in his throat. "He'll spend the rest of his life on the run. All right, it was my doing. Do you think I was wrong?"

"I think you may have inspired his murder, in the long run. I think you've stepped over that invisible line you're so scrupulous about."

"No. That's like blaming Hiroshima for positioning itself under the Bomb. All I've done is conned one man into running for his life. If another man ends up killing him, it's not on my conscience-it's their own doing."

"I thoroughly agree. But it marks a shift in your position."

"I don't see any shift."

"Put it this way. What has George Ramiro ever done to you?"

"He has existed," Mathieson said, "and that's enough."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

Washington, D.C.: 21 October

1.

THE FALL COLORS IN ROCK CREEK PARK WERE STUNNING. Mathieson watched them shimmer in the wind.

The wind m.u.f.fled the sound of Homer's approach; Mathieson didn't know he was there until he felt weight behind him. He turned in alarm.

Homer grinned at him. "Old Indian Joe."

"Scared half the life out of me."

"Just practicing," Homer said. "He's coming." He pointed off through the trees, down the path.

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"All right."

Homer said, "He's probably wired for sound."

"If he is it'll be a recorder, not a transmitter. He's going against company policy by meeting me."

"He says he is. Maybe it's true."

"I know him, Homer."

"I just don't trust these guys." Homer turned back into the woods. "I'll be watching." He patted the revolver under his tweed jacket.

Mathieson crossed the path and sat down on the bench.

Above him Bradleigh appeared. He came down the slope with his hands in the pockets of his topcoat. He stood above Mathieson for a moment and then turned around and sat down at the far end of the bench. "I never recognize you anymore. Somebody's been giving you makeup treatments."

"I'm rehearsing for the remake of Man of a Thousand Faces," Mathieson said. "You look a little peaked, Glenn."

"I've been losing too much sleep."

"Not on my account, I hope."

"Yes, on your account. Now what's all the mystery?"

"Are you carrying a wire?"

"Just a recorder."

"Mind if I see it?"

"Suppose I do?" Bradleigh kept his hands in his pockets.

"I don't want to be taped, Glenn. This is private."

"It doesn't look like anybody's ever taped you. Christ and I thought I knew you, once upon a time." But he went inside his lapels and pulled out a flat little recorder and held it up in plain sight while he switched it off. He put it down on the bench between them.

"I hope that's the only one you're carrying."

"No, I've got eighteen others distributed about my person. You want to tell me why I'm here?"

"George Ramiro's gone, did you know that?"

"Gone?"

"Left the country last week."

"Where?"

"It doesn't matter. He's on the run. He'll never be back."

Bradleigh studied him as if he were something on the marquee placard of a freak show. "Your doing, I take it? First Gillespie, now Ramiro."

"That's right."

"You've got a reason for telling me this."

Mathieson glanced idly up through the woods. He couldn't see Homer anywhere but he knew Homer was there.

He said, "The point should be obvious enough. I've taken two of them out of the game and put one of them in the government's hands eager to give up every sc.r.a.p of information he's got."

"You're saying you've proved you're capable of doing things we've failed to do."