Free The Vanishers by Donald Hamilton Page A

Russians.”
    I grinned. “There’s a good Finnish reaction. Has any Finn said anything nice about a Russian since the receding glaciers of the Ice Age uncovered their respective countries?”
    “But it was cold-blooded murder!”
    “Sure. Surprise, surprise. What did you think—what did anybody think—those paranoid bastards would do when a strange aircraft blundered into their airspace in a fairly sensitive area? Jesus, all the corny, outraged noises that were made because Russians behaved in a perfectly normal Russian manner! What I want to know is what the plane was doing so far off the course. Nobody seems to be a bit concerned about that. But if that’s normal airlines navigation, I feel I’m entitled to a few consoling Scotches when I put myself into their hands. One airliner ran into a bunch of ruthless Muscovites; how do I know this one won’t run into a bunch of rugged mountains, or mistake the North Pole for the Oslo airport?”
    “Now you are being very silly. SAS has an excellent safety record. There is really no reason for you to be frightened.”
    “Yes, Mama, I’ll be brave if it makes you feel better.”
    The oversized plane, some kind of monster Lockheed, rumbled on through the sky that was clear and blue at this altitude; but cottony white clouds obscured the world below us. The great circle course shown in the airlines magazine in the seat pocket before me indicated that we’d actually spend considerable time over land before venturing out across the big water; but if one of the eastern provinces of Canada was down there, it was well hidden.
    “I do not really understand what has happened in Washington that we must flee like this,” Astrid said at last. “Just because your chief has disappeared, and the person you expected to take charge in his place, temporarily, has been pushed aside by this man called Bennett… Why does that mean that we have to leave the country, Matt?”
    I’d told her as much about the situation as seemed advisable on our flight from Washington to New York; now I said, “Washington is a funny place, Mrs. W. Discreet thievery is perfectly all right, of course—let’s not be unreasonable—but if you’re found with your hand in the till and the news gets out, they’ll clobber you self-righteously to show how they really hate dishonesty, being so honest themselves. Even sleeping in the wrong bed can ruin you if there’s any kind of a scandal; and Heaven help you if you’re found smoking a little pot or—God forbid—sniffing a little coke, at least if your dreadful crime becomes public. The guardians of public morality will bury you. But if all you’re caught doing is betraying your country, no sweat. Don’t give it another thought.”
    Astrid studied my face to see if I was kidding. “Aren’t you exaggerating a little?”
    I shrugged. “Oh, sometimes they don’t quite have the gall to take you back into the government afterwards, and you’ll have to make it on the celebrity circuit; there seems to be a good market there for traitors. I’m using the term loosely, to refer to individuals who betrayed either the laws they’d sworn to uphold or the country they’d sworn to serve, or both. It seems to be a very safe thing to do. I’ve now been involved in two different cases where a high-ranking bureaucrat allowed himself to become a patsy for folks who, let’s say, were not exactly working for the good of the United States of America or the preservation of its constitution. In each case, even though we’d exposed him thoroughly, the man went on to more prestigious posts in Washington.”
    “The Mr. Bennett we are discussing?”
    I nodded. “He’s the most recent specimen, yes. We came up against him twice while he was head of a certain undercover agency—you might call it a rival agency—that wasn’t being operated entirely in the public interest. The second time, a couple of years ago, we had him cold on various charges of conspiring and