Free The Detonators by Donald Hamilton Page B

yesterday.”
    He stared at me bleakly. “I’ve got to, don’t I? I’m running this thing. I’ve got to treat her like any other member of the opposition. I’ve got to figure out the very worst she can do, the very worst she can be, and plan accordingly. Hell. I can’t do her any favors at all, because I’m too damned involved; I won’t know if I’m doing them because they make sense or because I’m her papa. So any breaks she gets, any consideration she gets, will have to come from you. And then only because you think it’s safe, not because she’s my kid, damn you!”
    “Sure,” I said. After a moment, I asked, “What’s the target?”
    “Minister’s target? That’s what we have to find out, like I said.”
    “No hints, no clues?”
    “We only got onto this PNP outfit recently, remember, when the Preacher was spotted in Cincinnati.” Doug grimaced. “I said he and Amy were shacked up, but that’s a slight exaggeration due to paternal disillusionment. They weren’t actually living together, and they were very discreet about their meetings. Not to say secretive. They had a hidden little basement apartment where they’d get together. Considering Minister’s known habits, I don’t want to think about what went on there. They’d come and go separately. Our local man, keeping an eye on Minister after he’d been spotted while waiting for somebody with experience to take over—unfortunately I was in the hospital for my semi-annual checkup—only saw her coming there once; but he was smart enough to follow her and identify her. Smart, but maybe not the best shadow in the world. At least Minister seems to’ve realized, a few days later, that he was under surveillance; by the time I got there he was gone, and we haven’t managed to pick up his trail since.”
    “But you figure Amy doesn’t know we’re aware of her Minister connection.”
    “More important, we’re gambling that Minister doesn’t know we’re aware of his Amy connection. But he’d hardly have sent her here to pull the long-lost daughter act on me if he were.” Doug drew a long breath, dismissing the subject. “Back to the PNP. We ran the membership list through the computer and found that the Bahama Islands seem to be a very popular vacation spot these days for people from Cincinnati with antinuclear leanings.”
    It seemed to be that, disturbed by his daughter’s behavior, he was being a little too hard on all protest movements.
    “Practically everybody’s got antinuclear leanings these days except the Pentagon and the Soviet High Command,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind a bit seeing the bomb stuffed back into its box myself; the world was a simpler place without it. But then, gunpowder complicated hell out of things, too, when it came along, a few centuries earlier. But we learned to live with that.” I frowned. “A lot of wealthy people visit the Bahamas.”
    “The computer says the statistics are out of line,” Doug said. “We haven’t had time to work it out in detail, and we don’t even have all the data yet, but indications are that Mrs. Williston’s well-to-do friends in the PNP don’t seem to go anywhere else, recently. No vacations to Paris or London or the lovely fiords of Norway. No tours of the mysterious Orient. No round-the-world cruises. Just the damn Bahamas. So if my daughter does make a play in your direction, as I firmly believe she will, that’s where I’m sending the two of you. Of course, you’ll swear her to secrecy, and you’ll have a fancy cover—we’re arranging it for you—and you’ll go through all the proper secret agent motions, very hush-hush; knowing all the time that she’s reporting your every word and move to her PNP friends.”
    “The old decoy act, in fact,” I said. “And what will you be doing while I’m holding their attention by playing wooden duck out there?”
    “You won’t be entirely a decoy,” he said. “At least there’s an odd situation out in the