The Infiltrators by Donald Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

one unspeakable little jail to another for a couple of weeks, presenting her at the penitentiary at last all filthy and lousy, stinking of the disgusting cells in which she’d been held, quite unrecognizable, even to herself, as the proud young professional woman she’d been.” Madeleine drew a long, shuddering breath. “After that, of course, the prison routine took over. They stripped me and inspected me like a cow, every hole in my body from ears to anus, and scrubbed and deloused me, and stuck me into an ugly uniform that didn’t fit, and herded me from place to place; but by that time I wasn’t really there anymore. It was all happening to somebody else. Being brutally arrested and subjected to a shameful public trial like that had been degradation enough; but
this
simply couldn’t be happening to me, not to wonderful, beautiful, intelligent, very superior me.”
    I heard the warning whistle in the woods near where the crows had taken flight. I grabbed my companion and swept her from the seat to the ground. A shotgun boomed from the brush at the edge of the trees, and buckshot ripped the dead winter grass nearby and splashed against the concrete uprights of the heavy picnic table that protected us. I slapped Madeleine on the rump and she worked her way obediently under the table. I had my own gun in my hand—a short-barreled Smith and Wesson .38 Special, if it matters—and I saw her look at it with interest. There was, I noticed, absolutely no fear in her expression. In fact her face was flushed and rather pretty with the excitement of the moment.
    The shotgun boomed again, but the charge did not come near us; the heavy report was answered by a burst of fire from a lighter weapon. Silence followed.
    “Oh, shit!” I said. “Stay here… No, you’d better come along. There might be another one. You’re all right?”
    “Yes, I think so.”
    I raised my voice. “Coming out,” I shouted.
    A man’s voice answered from the trees: “All clear here.”
    I backed out of our hidey-hole and she followed me and sat up, a little embarrassed because her skirt and slip had ridden up about her waist as she extricated herself. She pulled them down, and examined the torn knee of one stocking.
    “I’m surprised,” she said calmly. “I didn’t think you could damage these armor-plated hose they bought me with anything short of an axe.”
    I helped her up, and we walked together towards the woods, where two men now stood looking at something on the ground.
    I said, “If you’ve got some objection to dead men, you’d better wait here. I think it’s safe enough now.”
    She said, speaking in cold, even tones, “No dead man ever hurt me. It’s the live ones I worry about.”
    The sudden hostility in her voice made me look at her in surprise. I saw that her exhilaration had vanished, and that she was regarding me with none of the friendliness she’d begun to show earlier; but I didn’t have time for her at the moment. I moved forward and looked at the man on the ground, of medium height, dressed in wind-breaker, jeans, and scuffed work shoes. And a lot of blood; he’d been pretty well riddled by pistol bullets, 9mm at a guess. I didn’t know him. A heavy 12-gauge automatic shotgun lay beside him. Remington Model 1100, if it matters. I looked at the lined farmer-face of the older of the two men standing over him. Jackson was a wiry man with pale blue eyes. He was holding an automatic pistol; and I’d guessed the caliber correctly.
    “You plan to use a Ouija board to interrogate him, I suppose,” I said softly. “The word was he was to be taken alive, amigo.”
    “I don’t play games with shotguns,” Jackson said stiffly. “He was about to cut down Marty with his next load of buck; I had to ice him.”
    I looked at the younger man for a moment, husky and dark-haired. Unlike Jackson, who was in city clothes, he was in jeans, like the dead man. Well, I guess denim goes just about everywhere these days,