Free MFU Whitman - The Affair of the Gentle Saboteur by Brandon Keith

explosive capsule. Well, we're going to get rid of all of that."
    "Are we?"
    "Take your clothes off. Everything."
    "Everything?" Solo said modestly.
    "Everything!"
    "And what do I do with the clothes after I take them off?"
    "You leave them here, right here. Now come on! Start!"
    Solo took off his jacket and dropped it to the ground, and his shoulder holster, and all the rest, including his shoes and socks. Then Burrows tossed him the swim trunks and he climbed into them.
    "All right. You in front of me this time. Move!" Solo understood. Burrows was not turning his back now, not giving him any opportunity to pick up some tiny harmless object that could in fact be a weapon. In sunglasses and swim trunks and nothing else Solo walked gingerly, barefoot through the prickly weeds, back to the car.
    "Going for a swim?" Stanley said.
    "This is the day for it," Solo said.
    Burrows, in the front seat, slammed the door, backed the car out from the weeds and straightened it on the road. He opened a compartment in the dashboard and drew out a microphone. He held it close to his lips and spoke softly. "All in order. We're coming in. Be there in thirty minutes."
     
     

11. "Mistake in Judgment"
     
     
    ALL WAS READY, all prepared. Burrows' message came through sounding hollow in the speaker. Tudor switched off the receiver, went out to the helicopter on the beach. Pamela Hunter, rehearsed as an assistant in murder, waited in the house. Thirty minutes! And she was to be the greeter, the hostess. Stanley would proceed at once to the helicopter; she and Burrows would escort Solo to the concrete room. That's why she was in the house—to keep Solo placid, unsuspecting. She was young, a young girl, she would be smiling and gracious. He could not possibly conceive that she was the decoy leading him to death. Once Solo was locked in, Burrows would do the rest; then the panel in the iron door would be slammed shut. Smooth and simple, uncomplicated—and horrible!
    Thirty minutes! She lit a cigarette, her fingers trembling. It was cool in the air-conditioned room, but her palms were wet and sticky and her mouth was dry. She tried to reason with herself, tried to shut the present out of her mind. Soon, soon, thirty minutes, and it would all be over; she would be with the others in the helicopter flying swiftly to safety.
    Safety! What safety is there against oneself? What helicopter can fly you away from yourself? How can you live with yourself for the rest of your life knowing, knowing...?
    She fought in her mind. She was a soldier. No! Yes! But in the wrong army—she knew that now, finally. She had been recruited, enticed by sly words, drawn in by fine-sounding phrases, slogans, speeches, all empty, untrue, enticements to ensnare her. What soldier in what army? What army entraps an innocent seventeen-year-old and murders him? He was no soldier in any army, nor was she!
    The truth struck now like a tremendous gong. She was not a soldier but a mercenary, a paid professional. She was not a part of an army but a member of a world organization of professional criminals, covering their crimes by a pretense of political activity, earning huge sums of money as the lackeys, without conscience, of governments that desired unrest and world turmoil. And she had become one of them, lured by the lower echelon of their experts, the speechmakers, the lecturers with their high-flown slogans. And now there would be no turning back. Crime is its own trap. The blackmail of one crime compels the next; she would be forever committed.
    No! Perhaps she could not save Solo. Perhaps she could not save herself from whatever punishment the American authorities would mete out to her, but she could save herself from herself! She could be free again, out of the trap, her conscience clear; free, her own self again, not hating herself, not cringing looking into her eyes in a mirror; free, remembering her blithesome nature; free, remembering her old happiness; free, no matter