Dean Ing - Soft Targets

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For my parents

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is

purely coincidental.

A portion of this novel was published as "Very Proper Charlies" in the October 1978 issue of

SOFT TARGETS

An Ace Science Fiction Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY

Ace original / October 1979

Ace Science Fiction edition / May 1980

Second printing / July 1986

Cover art by Peter Atterd.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without

permission.

For information address:

The Berkley Publishing Group,

200 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016.

ISBN: 0-441-77407-5

Ace Science Fiction Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

". . . I found fear a mean, overrated motive; no deterrent and, though a stimulant, a poisonous

stimulant whose every injection served to con-sume more of the system ..."

—T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

FRIDAY, 19 SEPTEMBER, 1980:

Still naked and sleep-fogged after his morning coffee, the wire-muscled little man retrieved his

attaché case from his pillowslip and placed it with reverence on the apartment's sleazy table. He

touched the case in a necessary spot, then traded regal glances with Elizabeth II of England, whose

likeness faced him from predom-inantly brown engravings. As an eye-opener, he reflected, caffeine

was no match for cash.

The twenty-five thousand was in hundreds, all Canadian money. There would be more soon, if his

sources were sufficiently pleased with his Buffalo broadcast of the previous night. Next to the

money was his Hewlett-Packard hand cal-culator; American, modified in France. His German

passport, tucked into a flap, had been faked in Italy. The Spanish automatic with its armpit holster

took up most of the remaining space; he had obtained the piece in Quebec while killing

time—among other things. He flicked his great dark eyes to the note pad flank-ing his passport,

deciphering his personal shorthand which was by Arabic out of Gregg. Altogether, he thought

contentedly, a cosmo-politan survival kit.

He grasped the little HP calculator and queried it. 9:37 A FRI, the alphanumeric display read. He

could easily have programmed it to add, 19 SEP 80 TORONTO; or perhaps 6 DAYS TO

BORDER. Even among HP units, it was a very special gadget. He winked—a signal Americans

usually misread as harmless duplicity—at the stacks of Elizabeths, closed the case, and stood.

There would be time for calisthenics before mak-ing the buy.

He began with simple hand and foot exercises, progressed to ritual defensive maneuvers, then

dervished through a repertoire of offensive moves, breathing easily in marvelous silence as he

negotiated the furniture. No surplus flesh masked the tendons that slid just beneath the skin. The

knee was solid again, so he covertly eyed the pencil mark he had made chin-high on the door

moulding. He took one bare-footed step as if to flee but rebounded, the other leg sweep-ing up

flexed, then extended in a vicious slant-ing blur.

The ball of the foot gently swept within cen-timeters of his target, then thrust away. He landed

quietly and rolled, to freeze into a crouch, mouth open to quiet his breathing. His weaknesses in

martial arts were philosophical ones. He knew few peers in the prime requisites for unarmed combat:

speed, silence, ferocity.

Not once had he made enough noise to excite comment from the next apartment. He was pleased

with himself but he was not smiling. In his apparatus of deceit, the smile was a favored tool. He

essayed two more flying side kicks, test-ing his eyes, his precision, his right shin's peroneus longus

muscle that really made the move so murderous, and stopped only because of a creaky board in the

floor. Satisfied, he ta-pered off with mild arm and leg flexures before his shower. The cold water

sent blades of pain twisting up his limbs. Now he smiled, and turned the water on full force.

His scrub disturbed the flexible cobbler's ce-ment on his fingertips and he applied a fresh coating.

When dry, its sheen was unseen as it filled the tiny whorls of flesh. Now his touch was anonymous,

matching the prosthetic tip of his left small finger.

He dressed quickly, choosing the ice-blue silk dress shirt and the deeper blue conservative jacket

above dove-gray trousers. He shrugged into the harness, placed his piece carefully in the holster

against spring pressure, and decided he would have time to find chemicals at supply houses enroute

to the big buy. He flipped through the thick yellow-page Toronto direc-tory, made several notations,

and checked the window telltales. Then, taking the attache case, he paused to emplace a telltale on

the bottom door hinge before sliding out to the hall.

The garage attendant wheeled his rented Toyota to him, proof that no unfriendly hands had dallied

under the car. Then he drove down Bathurst on his shopping foray. At the paint store, paying for

the aluminum powder, he asked to use a telephone.

A young woman's voice tinned through the earpiece, "Salon du Nord," making it sound like a

beauty parlor.

"Monsieur Pelletier, s'il vous plait," he replied. His accent gave away less in French than in

English. There were advantages to operating in a bilingual country.

Pelletier was in, Pelletier was oozing charm. Pelletier had the stuff. "But of course," he said,

"packaged as you requested, Mr. Trnka."

"Quality assurance tests?"

"Of course. I believe your appointment was this morning."

"Precisely," said the little man, pronouncing his favorite English word. Though fluent in En-glish,

he had chosen the name 'Trnka' because so few people could say whether his accent was truly

Czech. Once he had preferred the Turkish 'Jemil,' but no longer. Turkish was too close. He

reaffirmed the appointment and minutes later drove into an area of new light industry.

Salon du Nord occupied half of a two-story building. Its logo phrase, "Electronique—Recherche

et Perfectionnement" had its English equivalent below: "Electronic R & D." He had dealt with the

firm only through an intermediary, but Pelletier was known as a useful source.

He was immediately shown to Pelletier's of-fice. Pelletier was short, scarcely taller than his visitor

but heavier by a good twenty kilos, all smiles and reeking of bonhomie. 'Trnka' smiled, detesting him

on sight. "I trust you're enjoying your stay in Toronto, Mr. Trnka," Pelletier be-gan.

"Very much; but I am pressed for time," the little man replied, placing the attache case in his lap.

Pelletier sighed. "Of course." His soft hands reached into his desk, reappeared with a plastic belt.

Aligned like cartridges along the belt were twenty black oblongs, somewhat more slender than

dominoes. "Unusual packaging," Pelletier said, offering the belt. "But, ah, very practical." Again the

smile like an oil slick, bright and wide. And thin.

The visitor nodded and detached one of the black oblongs. The tiny microprocessor boasted

eighteen gold-plated prongs down its length on each side, giving it the look of a centipede by

Mondrian. "Certified for all functions, you say," he prompted.

"Yes indeed. But there's an exceedingly smart little computer in each one, Mr. Trnka. We can't

test every one for every function although I per-sonally supervised random sampling of the entire

lot."

"Random? You are telling me that most of the microprocessors are untested," the visitor replied

softly.

"On such short notice, and for such a price . . ." Pelletier displayed his palms.

"Fortunately," said 'Trnka,' "I can test them myself." He took the HP unit from his case, withdrew

a tiny circuit board with a flimsy cable and IC socket. Pelletier gaped in silence as the HP, the test

circuit board, and the microproces-sor were assembled. Lastly, `Trnka' energized the HP and fed it

a slender tongue of ferrite tape. They watched the alphanumeric display flicker for perhaps twenty

seconds.

Pelletier smiled engagingly. "Forgive my curiosity," he wheedled. "It occurred to me that your

circuitry could have—unusual applica-tions."

"Games," was the reply. "We hope to give the Atari people a rude shock."

"I see," said Pelletier, unconvinced. "Something like war games." He flinched at the re-sponding

glance. It softened in a flash, but for one harrowing instant Pelletier felt that he gazed into the eyes of

a Comanche warrior.

At length the HP display stabilized on CONFORME. Silently, `Trnka' substituted another

microprocessor. "Sixty-three seconds," he said to the restive Pelletier. "It would have taken you just

twenty-one minutes to run exhaustive func-tion checks on this group." He was not pleased.

"Mr. Trnka, it will take you seven hours to check them all. May I suggest you simply return any

you find faulty?"

"Like this one?" The HP display read OP AMP X.

"It is not easy or conventional to include that operational amplifier in a unit of that size," Pel-letier

reminded.

He was answered by a grunt. The faulty cen-tipede was pocketed while another took its place.

Pelletier fidgeted as two more microprocessors were tucked away. At last the belt was reassembled

with its seventeen conforming units. `Trnka' snorted softly. "It will be neces-sary to use your

telephone."

Pelletier indicated his desk phone and wad-dled out to give the illusion of privacy. `Trnka' was

certain his call would be recorded. He had no other reason for the call.

He reached McEvoy with the phone's third buzz. Mr. Trnka was unavoidably detained. No,

nothing serious. Yes, he was still interested but must delay his trip a few days. Still, they might meet

today as planned. Two o'clock? Fine; Slip Three.

Pelletier, in his photoreduction lab, listened to the call while querying his own system at his lab

computer terminal. The detectors built into his entryway insisted that Mr. Trnka carried roughly a

kilogram of some dense metallic arti-cle near his left armpit. Pelletier was not sur-prised, but he was

perspiring lightly now. How could he have known the salaud would have such a test rig? He

considered the alarm button, then the money, which Trnka had promised would be in cash. If Trnka

paid fifty cents on the dollar for such faulty units, Pelletier and his partner would lose little. If

Pelletier got more, he could still claim it was fifty, and then Pelletier alone would profit very well

indeed.

And the damned Czech expected to be in To-ronto a few more days. Pelletier wondered why,

and then heard the conversation end. He allowed the little foreigner, still grafted to his attaché case,

to find him slurping coffee from a foam cup in the hall. Then—insultingly—he was ushered back

into his own office.

"I am prepared to discount the entire lot of four hundred microprocessors, Mr. Trnka, by fifteen

per cent," Pelletier said blandly.

"I need four hundred units, twenty of the belts. And I shall take delivery of four hundred," the

smaller man lied. "With such a high failure rate we must test them all. Do you agree?" A glum nod

from the fat man. "It is my intention to pay you in cash for half of them now, discounted as you

suggest, and to test them. You, meanwhile, will test the rest—all of them—and man-ufacture a

sufficient number that I will have," he paused, closed his eyes and said as though to a child, "four

hundred microprocessors."

Pelletier's mental circuits flickered. Eighty-five hundred dollars in the raw, today, and an equal

amount to come later. He debated the ways in which he could profit from this frightening little

Czech. "I could have them in a week," he offered.

"Tuesday," the man said. Pelletier did not like even a little piece of the smile that accompanied the

ultimatum.

"I will do what I can." To see the last of you, he added to himself.

The attache case opened and the visitor counted out eighty-five brown Elizabeths. He pushed

them across the desk. "You will want to count them."

"I trust you," said Pelletier, his voice quaver-ing as he stroked the cash. He watched the swar-thy

little man walk to a small sedan, the attache case burdened with nearly two hundred

micro-processors. Then Pelletier counted the money. Next he replayed the telephone call. The

number was that of a fly-for-hire outfit located at Island Airport just south of Toronto. McEvoy did

not seem to know Trnka well, and Slip Threesuggested a boat rather than an aircraft. Pelletier knew

little of such things and did not much care. It was enough to know that Trnka would be good for

another eighty-five hundred, after which Pel-letier could pay his respects to the police in return for a

certain latitude they allowed him in business. Trnka was a fool, thought Pelletier, to deal directly in

cash. Even though his micro-processors were very, very smart.

`Trnka' did not assume that Pelletier was a fool. He drove directly to the new bridge over the

Western Gap and onto the seaplane slips on To-ronto Island. At one o'clock he found the de-crepit

old Republic Seabee wallowing in its slip, its high wing seesawing gently. The amiable curmudgeon

pumping water from the fuselage bilge turned out to be Ian McEvoy, and soon they were sharing

lunch at a counter with a view. The little man could spot anyone approaching the aircraft, the better

to learn if Pelletier really wanted his anonymous cash more than he wanted to inform. He had seen

Pelletier tremble like a pointer while raking the money in; but he had not come this far by trusting

nuances.

McEvoy accepted the stranger at face value: a sinewy little Czech given to expensive clothes, on

the long side of thirty and able to pay for eccentric notions. Between bites of his sandwich, McEvoy

said, "Sure she'll get you and the lady to Lake Chautauqua, Mr. Trnka. It's maybe an hour's flight

time, but there isn't much to do when you get there." He brightened. "For a little more I could take

you to the Finger Lakes. They're in New York State too. A little more action."

A pause, as though genuinely pondering the idea; as though there really was a woman. Then, "She

humors me, Mr. McEvoy, and I shall humor her. She tells me that Lake Chautauqua is a good

location for the film and I need to take some footage along the shoreline for study. You are famil-iar

with cine cameras?"

"Just home movie stuff." McEvoy held a hunk of bread to his face. "Clickety-click, and off to be

developed. Nothin' like an honest-to-God movie. You mean you aren't interested in land-ing at all?"

"We hadn't considered it. Why?"

A shrug of the narrow shoulders. "Just makes it simpler. If we land, I hafta notify Customs when

I file my flight plan. They say it's recip-rocal clearance, I say it's a hassle." A twinkle in the moist

blue eyes as McEvoy studied his client's tailoring. "But you don't look like a shit-runner to me." He

took another mouthful of his monte cristo.

'Trnka' assembled a smile for the pilot. "I am merely combining business with pleasure, Mr.

McEvoy." He watched two people stroll toward the seaplane in the distance, spied the cameras,

noted that the woman was stout, the man clum-sy. He continued talking with McEvoy, discussing

fees and weather, increasingly sure that the pair at the slip were only tourists. The couple continued

their stroll and presently passed beyond the slips. Pressed for a time estimate by McEvoy, he said,

"Wednesday or Thursday. We may pay you a visit before that." He left the buried implication that

he would be somewhere in Toronto.

"Speaking of pay," McEvoy put in slyly. The little man's blue jacket yielded a slender envelope

which McEvoy inspected. He withdrew the three hundred dollars, then absently stuffed the bank

notes into his oil-stained leather jacket. "Half of that would've done it, Mr. Tee," he grinned. "This

retainer just bought me a fathometer."

"And your silence," said the smaller man. "Film companies have their little secrets. There is one

more thing ..."

"I thought there might be," McEvoy mumbled. He seemed ready to give back the retainer.

"You can stow some equipment for me un-til then. Just a piece of luggage; camera, film, clothing.

But my car is very small and the suitcase is both a bother and a temptation to thieves." He saw strain

lines disappearing from McEvoy's face and continued, "A pilot of your years must be a careful man.

I think the cine camera equipment may be safer in your care than in mine. I have a tendency to forget

things." He delivered this last phrase sadly, tentatively, the confession of one ill-equipped to deal

with details.

McEvoy sealed his agreement by paying for lunch, then walked with his client to the Toyota. If he

had any lingering worry, it evaporated when `Trnka' opened the suitcase, poked among the clothing

and equipment. These were not the actions of a guy running heavy shit, McEvoy thought; the thing

wasn't even locked. He hefted the suitcase and shook the small man's hand. "What you need is a

bigger car," he joked.

"And struggle to fuel and steer and park it? How I loathe the American product," said `Trnka,'

frowning, pleased to wedge more mis-direction in as he climbed into the Toyota.

Ian McEvoy trudged back to his Seabee, pleased with an honest negotiation, cudgeling his

memory to recall where he had seen Trnka before. Movies? He had heard that voice somewhere, for

sure. Maybe on the TV ...

The telltales in the apartment were undis-turbed, the weather report optimistic. He left the clothes

on their hangers but applied more ce-ment to his fingertips, scrubbing glassware and fingers

meticulously as he had the Toyota's in-terior. Then he turned his attention to the telephones. First

there was the microprocessor, which passed an on-the-spot function check before he installed it on

a circuit board and patched the tiny rig into the automatic answering device. He disconnected the

smoke alarm in his kitchen, then placed the answering device, connected to both telephones, in the

sink. He dumped his small potted plant on the floor, cleared the hole in the pot's bottom only to

cover the hole with tape, and twisted coat hangers into a sling that suspended the empty clay pot

over the circuit board.

Next he mixed a cupful of magnetite and aluminum powder, pouring the potent stuff into the clay

pot. He used squibs and an igniter com-mon to model rocketry though he always, always employed

them in threes, wired in parallel for reliability. Finally, though its crudeness irri-tated him, he

deployed the twenty-meter exten-sion cord and connected its bared wires directly to the squib

circuit. He knotted the free end of the extension cord around a chair leg near a wall socket and spent

several minutes taping the mousetrap firmly to the chair. Adhesive tape was so damnably adhesive it

could take a faint impression of a fingerprint even through the protective cement. He had plenty of

time, and he knew how to use it.

After he wired one leg of the extension cord to the trap, arranging it to complete the circuit when

triggered, he deformed another coat hanger and taped it, centered vertically, to the inside door knob.

He measured a length of cord with great care, tying a loop in its exact center and securing the loop

over the mousetrap's trig-ger. Each end of the cord was then loop-knotted to an extremity of the

coat hanger. The cord was very slightly slack. He turned the door knob sev-eral times. Either way

the knob turned, the lengthened arm of the coat hanger would assure triggering, completed circuit,

squib ignition—and a few more gray hairs for the apartment manager.

At last he was ready, going through his prep-arations again, checking every connection. It was

rush hour by now on a Friday afternoon, and he would be all the more anonymous. He took up the

attaché case, studied the entry rig again, and then plugged the extension cord into the wall. That

moment always set him on edge: you never knew.

Then he slid one loop knot loose and opened the door, peering casually into the empty hall before

he swiftly secured the loop again and tightened it. He set the lock on the inside, picked up the

attaché case, and stepped into the hall, pulling the door closed. He did not test the knob. If the lock

was faulty the knob would turn, and if the knob turned much he would get the gray hairs. He strode

from the building and down the street to another parking complex where an at-tendant brought all six

meters of his dun-brown Pontiac Parisienne, the Canadian version of a Catalina. Moments later he

turned north on Route Eleven toward Lake Simcoe, chafing at the need to drive around Lake Huron

en route to Winnipeg. But, "To regain the initiative we must ignore the main body of the enemy and

concen-trate far off," he quoted silently. El Aurans had known.

He held the big Pontiac at the legal maximum, unmoved by the occasional view of sunset over

inlets from Georgian Bay. At Parry Sound he fed seventeen imperial gallons to his brute, nagged

himself into checking the equipment in its trunk, and made a toll call to one of his two Toronto

numbers. His own voice said, "Mr. Trnka regrets that he is unable to take your call at the moment.

At the tone, please leave your name and number." The response tape was blank. More important, his

communication center was still functioning, which meant that no one had traced him to the

apartment. Yet.

He drove nearly to Marathon before he entered a rest stop, evacuated himself, and fluffed out the

slender goosedown mummy bag. It was not op-timal, but neither was confrontation in a motel by

some red-suited lackey of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He slept.

On Saturday he passed Winnipeg ahead of schedule, crossed Manitoba, stopped well into

Saskatchewan. Hunger, as he knew, kept a healthy animal poised for the hunt—whichever end of

the hunt it was on. He nibbled at fruit, then, in the mornings and feasted at the end of each day's

travel.

Sunday he was immersed in listening to a mysterious noise in the Parisienne's luxurious vee-eight

and nearly failed to hear a news item on the radio. Government sources had disarmed two charges

of high explosive hidden in the structure of the Cap Rouge Bridge north of Quebec City. The

massive charges would have rendered the bridge useless for weeks. On un-disclosed evidence, both

metropolitan police and the RCMP sought one Jean Bonin, known as a violent Quebecois separatist.

He snorted to himself, certain that the evi-dence was as simple as fingerprint impressions in the

plastique. Bonin was an excellent pro-vider, but an idiot with explosives. He would wind up in

Archambault Penitentiary yet. The Cap Rouge fiasco, at least, explained why Bonin had refused him

even a kilo of plastique. And now it belonged to the government! C'est la guerre; another toll call

assured him that in To-ronto, Mr. Trnka still regretted .. .

The terrain was a distinct drawback as the Parisienne labored into the Canadian Rockies, its

malaise now more pronounced. He skirted Banff, stopped near Lake Louise, and nestled into the

mummy bag at midnight. The cold was one thing he had never mastered, and anger at this failure in

himself kept him awake too long.

Monday he flogged the car through Kamloops and past Ashcroft, unwilling to admit that the

Parisienne was no vehicle for mountain driving. He found a turnoff with a downhill slope leading

to the highway, nearly backing the big machine over a precipice. He was grimy, he was hungry, he

was in no mood to appreciate the cataclysmic rush of the Thompson River that boiled southward

below him in the moonlight.

He was in the same mood at dawn on Tuesday and feared for long minutes that, even after

glid-ing down onto the highway and building up to cruising speed, the Parisienne might not start. It

guzzled fuel at an infuriating rate but, once past Chilliwack, he knew he would make it to the ferry

south of Vancouver.

Thirty-three hundred kilometers to the east in the offices of Salon du Nord, Pelletier gnawed a

cuticle and waited for a call which, he was in-creasingly sure, would not come. If Trnka was buying

the remaining microprocessors, he was infernally slow about it. If Trnka was buying time, Pelletier

himself was dilatory. He thought about the anonymous cash again. He would wait one more day.

TUESDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER, 1980:

During the long ferry ride across the Strait of Georgia to Sidney on Vancouver Island, the little

man poked at the vast pig-iron innards of the Parisienne as long as light permitted. Unknow-ingly he

moved two frayed plug leads apart and, at Sidney, was intensely relieved to hear the engine splutter

to something like a willingness to move the two thousand-kilo machine. He drove to Victoria, found

the upper harbor, and left the car near the small boat flotilla off Wharf Street. It might never start

again, but this possi-bility did not disturb him.

Wednesday morning he contacted Bonin's man, Charles Graham, identifying himself as Domingo

Baztan. The Basques, too, had a separatist movement and unusual accents.

He stood some distance from the boathouse at first, pleased that the long individual boathouse

was in good repair. The man who unlocked the door was a tall windburned specimen dressed in

ducking to his shoes. The beret said he was Graham. The accent suggested he was a New Jersey

transplant. They met inside the boathouse and traded ritual handclasps, Graham standing so near he

seemed to loom.

"Hope you didn't want me to pick up your man today, Baztan," the larger man said. "I've got to

put her in tune first." He indicated a powerboat that lurked beyond.

Forgetting himself, 'Baztan' cursed in Arabic. The boat was fifteen meters long, eel-slender, its

lines promising great speed and minimal radar echo. Though no sailor he knew instantly that some

rational alternative must be found. "It looks very fast," he said.

"Runs like a striped-assed ape," Graham chuckled, motioning `Baztan' alongside the craft. "Twin

turbocharged chevy four-fifty--fours, sixteen hundred shaft horses between 'em. A Cigarette will

cross Juan De Fuca Strait in fifteen minutes with weather like this."

"Cigarette?"

"That's what they call this breed. Designed for ocean racing; the only thing that'll catch it is a

bullet. They're sots for fuel, though. That's part of the three thousand you're paying."

The little man studied the boat, realizing that it would have to reach one hundred forty kilometers

per hour to cross the treacherous ocean strait as Graham boasted. Anyone lying under its hull would

be pounded to marmalade at that speed. No, the Cigarette would not do. Well enough for Bonin's

uses, perhaps. He cleared his throat, choosing to sound vulnerable." Is it a smooth crossing? The

man is very old, very frail."

Graham thought about it. "Maybe I could strap him in foam cushions, when we clear Port

Angeles on the way back." He jerked a thumb at the sleek craft. "This thing is the Can-Am car of

powerboats, Baztan, at eighty knots she'll rearrange his guts. There's nothing I can do about that,"

he smiled.

"His heart is very bad," was the response.

"Then he'd need a transplant in ten seconds. Do you care?"

The little man brightened. Graham had given him another idea in his cover story. "After I cross

over tonight and bring him to meet you at Port Angeles tomorrow, my responsibility is dis-charged.

If he arrives with you here in Victoria, well and good. If he should happen to fall overboard and you

arrive back here alone—again, well and good." A brief smile for Graham. "But he is not a fool, and I

think he would refuse to accept your trick Cigarette. And then I would not be paid."

"I'm not the dumbest jack-off in the world either. If you can't drive him across the border he must

be pretty hot."

A shrug. "What we need is a craft that is docile and looks it."

Graham led him along creaking planks until they stood at the mouth of the boathouse, blink-ing in

the strong light. He pointed toward the nearest of the sloops that nodded at moorings. "The Bitch is

the only other boat I have, a refitted Islander Thirty-Four. She'll do all of six knots with the big jib,

friend; she wouldn't outrun a pissant with waterwings." He eyed the little man with shrewd good

humor: "But I won't have to be fast on the south crossing, and maybe not on the return trip. If you

really don't care whether the old geezer makes it all the way," he added.

'Baztan's' smile was bland. "I believe the sailboat will do. How long will you need for the

crossing?"

"Four hours, maybe five; I have to run close-hauled a lot with the fuckin' winds in the strait. What

do you care, so long as I make Port Angeles tomorrow?"

"My client asks such things. When should we rendezvous?"

"High noon, with a brass band?" Graham laughed. "I'll start from here about noon tomorrow.

That way we'll have your guy on deck without too much light. I want it dark before I'm back in the

strait if I'm gonna, like, dump some ballast."

There was no need to ask about that ballast. The smaller man produced an envelope from his

wrinkled but very expensive jacket. Moving back into the shadow he allowed Graham to watch him

peel fifteen bills from the stack and tuck them into a pocket. The other fifteen he handed to the

Canadian, who counted them without apology. "You will have the rest in Port Angeles."

"Why not right now," asked Graham, stepping closer, and a trifle too quickly.

"Because that is as it must be," he heard, see-ing for the first time how a spring-loaded armpit

holster works. The little man's right hand did not actually disappear into the jacket butonly seemed

to flicker at its lapel, and then Graham was dividing his time between staring into the barrel of a

Llama automatic and into the still darker barrels of the little man's eyes. Given the choice, he found

he honestly preferred star-ing at the pistol. The death it suggested would at least be swift and clean.

Taking two backward paces, 'Baztan' moved against the boathouse wall. "You will understand if I

ask you to precede me."

Graham was still protesting as he stepped through the doorway. "I never meant to spook you,

fella," he said, turning to see 'Baztan' who now stood relaxed with empty hands. They were small

hands, carefully groomed, and he noticed that they were not shaking as his were. He thrust his hands

into his pockets, feeling the money again. He had thought it would be interesting, though no contest,

to take the entire three thousand just to see what would happen. Now, stand-ing a head taller than the

innocently smiling 'Baztan,' he felt like a tame bullock beside a wolverine. "No hard feelings, Baztan.

I should've moved slower." He thrust out his hand, feeling the limp dry fingers in his own. "See you

in the States tomorrow about five," he said. "I'll have to go to diesel and switch main-s'ls, so look

for a dark red sail on the Bitch." He strolled toward the sloop. The back of his neck itched. He let it

itch.

'Baztan' walked back to the business district, choosing a hotel at random. In the telephone booth

he extracted the HP from a pocket, punch-ing a simple program into it before dialing his second

Toronto number. After a moment he placed the HP to the mouthpiece and punched the Memory

Return key. A series of tones came to him faintly. It would be lunchtime in Toronto, he mused;

perhaps McEvoy was consuming another sandwich.

Then the relay connection fulfilled its task as he heard McEvoy answer. The filters masked the

background which might otherwise suggest a long-distance call. "This is Jan Trnka, Mr. McEvoy,"

he said. "I seem to have overlooked another detail."

"Anything I can help with?"

"No, regrettably. Business compels me to delay our flight. And yet I need the film. You don't

suppose," he began quickly, then laughed. "No, I don't suppose you could fly your aircraft and use

a camera simultaneously." He spoke as if asking for some rare feat of valor.

McEvoy could, of course. Changing film might be a chore but he was, after all, his own

mechanic. "But jeez, Mr. Tee, how do I know what you want to shoot?"

An excellent reply crossed his mind but was throttled. "As much shoreline as you can on the

lake," he said, "a cross-section of everything that is—the word?—photogenic? I myself could do no

more. And," he lowered his voice, "I shall be very grateful."

McEvoy squirmed between rocks and hard places. "You think you could pay me the balance

before I take off, Mr. Tee? I could drive over and pick it up now."

A pause to simulate weighing the idea. "That may not be necessary, Mr. McEvoy. Where is my

suitcase?"

"Stowed in the Seabee."

"Would you mind bringing it to the tele-phone? You can call me here when you have it." He gave

a number. What could be more inno-cent? It was obviously a Toronto prefix.

He heard McEvoy hang up, waited seven min-utes, then heard the connection come to life again.

"Mr. Tee? Ian McEvoy. I got it here." He was puffing from exertion.

"Open it, please, and check the coat pockets. My damnable memory may have done us a favor

for once."

There ensued a long pause, then a faint rau-cous chuckle. Clearly, then: "Jesus Christ, man,

there's twelve hundred dollars here!"

"Two hundred more than we bargained for. It is yours, Mr. McEvoy, if you will allow me to pick

up cartridges of exposed film on Friday. Will you be going today?"

"Don't see how. It'd be dark before I could get over to Lake Chautauqua. Would tomorrow be

good enough?"

It was perfect. He let McEvoy twit him about leaving hard cash lying around in unlocked luggage,

then mentioned being late for an appoint-ment.

He stepped from the booth, checked the time, and walked to the bus depot where he took his

attaché case from a storage locker. He found a restaurant with two entrances, expecting no

sur-veillance but taking the usual precautions, and ordered filet of sole. Awaiting his early lunch, he

pondered the likelihood that Ian McEvoy was working with Canadian authorities by now. Yet it took

time to check the location of a telephone; still more time to secure a large apartment build-ing. It was

unlikely that police would cut power to the apartment, or to the telephone. But it was possible.

At the moment when the little man started toward the pay telephone in the restaurant, Pelletier was

scanning a collection of photographs maintained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Pelletier

drew a blank with the Que-becois, another with known elements of Meyer Cohane's people in the

Jewish Defense League. He had basked in virtue when complimented on his ability to remember a

telephone number; Pel-letier would have been unwise to admit indis-criminate bugging of a client's

calls because police saw such criminal activity as their own particular vice.

RCMP plainclothesmen had already checked on Ian. McEvoy. He had no previous record and

eked out a precarious presence by flying sportsmen into wilderness lakes. To a business-suited

gentleman of endless curiosity he said yes, the Seabee was for hire but he was already booked for

the following day. Yep, he had plenty of hull storage, even for a moose head. Tomorrow? Oh, just a

photorecon job for some movie people. Nope, he would be carrying no passengers.

The RCMP left a staff sergeant in plain clothes with field glasses in an unmarked car, unwilling to

confide in McEvoy. Their job might have been simpler had they simply asked him about his client.

But McEvoy was under suspicion.

While Pelletier's eyes grew red-rimmed in his search for a make on Mr. Trnka, the little man in

Victoria reached his Toronto number. With a casual glance around him, he brought the HP from his

pocket, punched an instruction into it, then let his machines confer. A poignant three-second tone

from the HP was identified in the sink of the Toronto apartment and its instruction executed. The

little man fidgeted for another fifteen seconds before the line went dead. He nodded to himself,

replaced the receiver, and ambled back to his table.

In the Toronto apartment, beads of light had grown in the clay pot over the sink as the squibs

energized pyrotechnic igniters. The beads began to sink from sight into the silvery mixture before,

reluctantly, the thermite caught fire and pros-pered.

Thermite is a simple composition of great util-ity when it becomes necessary to weld, say, the

frames of locomotives. Because one of its com-bustion products is pure liquid iron. The other

product is aluminum oxide, also common in solid rocket exhaust.

A tiny ravening sun radiated from the top of the clay pot as its temperature rose to approxi-mately

twenty-five hundred degrees celsius. Since thermite is hot enough to melt concrete there was a

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摘要：

FormyparentsAllcharactersinthisbookarefictitious.Anyresemblancetoactualpersons,livingordead,ispurelycoincidental.Aportionofthisnovelwaspublishedas"VeryProperCharlies"intheOctober1978issueofDestinies,copyright©1978byCharterCommunications,Inc.SOFTTARGETSAnAceScienceFictionBook/publishedbyarrangementwi...

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Dean Ing - Soft Targets

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