CHAPTER VI

It was early evening before we finally managed to get away from the

barbecue. Thrombley had called the Embassy and told them not to wait

dinner for us, so the staff had finished eating and were relaxing in the

patio when our car came in through the street gate. Stonehenge and

another man came over to meet us as we got out--a man I hadn't met

before.

He was a little fellow, half-Latin, half-Oriental; in New Texas costume

and wearing a pair of pistols like mine, in State Department Special

Services holsters. He didn't look like a Dumbarton Oaks product: I

thought he was more likely an alumnus of some private detective agency.

"Mr. Francisco Parros, our Intelligence man," Stonehenge introduced him.

"Sorry I wasn't here when you arrived, Mr. Silk," Parros said. "Out

checking on some things. But I saw that bit of shooting, on the telecast

screen in a bar over town. You know, there was a camera right over the

bandstand that caught the whole thing--you and Miss Hickock coming

toward the President and his party, Miss Hickock running forward to her

father, the waiter going up behind Hutchinson with the knife, and then

that beautiful draw and snap shot. They ran it again a couple of times

on the half-hourly newscast. Everybody in New Austin, maybe on New

Texas, is talking about it, now."

"Yes, indeed, sir," Gomez, the Embassy Secretary, said, joining us.

"You've made yourself more popular in the eight hours since you landed

than poor Mr. Cumshaw had been able to do in the ten years he spent

here. But, I'm afraid, sir, you've given me a good deal of work,

answering your fan-mail."

We went over and sat down at one of the big tables under the arches at

the side of the patio.

"Well, that's all to the good," I said. "I'm going to need a lot of

local good will, in the next few weeks. No thanks, Mr. Parros," I added,

as the Intelligence man picked up a bottle and made to pour for me.

"I've been practically swimming in superbourbon all afternoon. A little

black coffee, if you don't mind. And now, gentlemen, if you'll all be

seated, we'll see what has to be done."

"A council of war, in effect, Mr. Ambassador?" Stonehenge inquired.

"Let's call it a council to estimate the situation. But I'll have to

find out from you first exactly what the situation here is."

Thrombley stirred uneasily. "But sir, I confess that I don't understand.

Your briefing on Luna...."

"Was practically nonexistent. I had a total of six hours to get aboard

ship, from the moment I was notified that I had been appointed to this

Embassy."

"Incredible!" Thrombley murmured.

I wondered what he'd say if I told him that I thought it was

deliberate.

"Naturally, I spent some time on the ship reading up on this planet, but

I know practically nothing about what's been going on here in, say, the

last year. And all I know about the death of Mr. Cumshaw is that he is

said to have been killed by three brothers named Bonney."

"So you'll want just about everything, Mr. Silk," Thrombley said.

"Really, I don't know where to begin."

"Start with why and how Mr. Cumshaw was killed. The rest, I believe,

will key into that."

So they began; Thrombley, Stonehenge and Parros doing the talking. It

came to this:

Ever since we had first established an Embassy on New Texas, the goal of

our diplomacy on this planet had been to secure it into the Solar

League. And it was a goal which seemed very little closer to realization

now than it had been twenty-three years before.

"You must know, by now, what politics on this planet are like, Mr.

Silk," Thrombley said.

"I have an idea. One Ambassador gone native, another gone crazy, the

third killed himself, the fourth murdered."

"Yes, indeed. I've been here fifteen years, myself...."

"That's entirely too long for anybody to be stationed in this place," I

told him. "If I'm not murdered, myself, in the next couple of weeks, I'm

going to see that you and any other member of this staff who's been here

over ten years are rotated home for a tour of duty at Department

Headquarters."

"Oh, would you, Mr. Silk? I would be so happy...."

Thrombley wasn't much in the way of an ally, but at least he had a

sound, selfish motive for helping me stay alive. I assured him I would

get him sent back to Luna, and then went on with the discussion.

Up until six months ago, Silas Cumshaw had modeled himself after the

typical New Texas politician. He had always worn at least two faces, and

had always managed to place himself on every side of every issue at

once. Nothing he ever said could possibly be construed as controversial.

Naturally, the cause of New Texan annexation to the Solar League had

made no progress whatever.

Then, one evening, at a banquet, he had executed a complete 180-degree

turn, delivering a speech in which he proclaimed that union with the

Solar League was the only possible way in which New Texans could retain

even a vestige of local sovereignty. He had talked about an invasion as

though the enemy's ships were already coming out of hyperspace, and had

named the invader, calling the z'Srauff "our common enemy." The z'Srauff

Ambassador, also present, had immediately gotten up and stalked out,

amid a derisive chorus of barking and baying from the New Texans. The

New Texans were first shocked and then wildly delighted; they had been

so used to hearing nothing but inanities and high-order abstractions

from their public figures that the Solar League Ambassador had become a

hero overnight.

"Sounds as though there is a really strong sentiment at what used to be

called the grass-roots level in favor of annexation," I commented.

"There is," Parros told me. "Of course, there is a very strong

isolationist, anti-annexation, sentiment, too. The sentiment in favor

of annexation is based on the point Mr. Cumshaw made--the danger of

conquest by the z'Srauff. Against that, of course, there is fear of

higher taxes, fear of loss of local sovereignty, fear of abrogation of

local customs and institutions, and chauvinistic pride."

"We can deal with some of that by furnishing guarantees of local

self-government; the emotional objections can be met by convincing them

that we need the great planet of New Texas to add glory and luster to

the Solar League," I said. "You think, then, that Mr. Cumshaw was

assassinated by opponents of annexation?"

"Of course, sir," Thrombley replied. "These Bonneys were only hirelings.

Here's what happened, on the day of the murder:

"It was the day after a holiday, a big one here on New Texas,

celebrating some military victory by the Texans on Terra, a battle

called San Jacinto. We didn't have any business to handle, because all

the local officials were home nursing hangovers, so when Colonel Hickock

called--"

"Who?" I asked sharply.

"Colonel Hickock. The father of the young lady you were so attentive to

at the barbecue. He and Mr. Cumshaw had become great friends, beginning

shortly before the speech the Ambassador made at that banquet. He called

about 0900, inviting Mr. Cumshaw out to his ranch for the day, and as

there was nothing in the way of official business, Mr. Cumshaw said he'd

be out by 1030.

"When he got there, there was an aircar circling about, near the

ranchhouse. As Mr. Cumshaw got out of his car and started up the front

steps, somebody in this car landed it on the driveway and began

shooting with a twenty-mm auto-rifle. Mr. Cumshaw was hit several times,

and killed instantly."

"The fellows who did the shooting were damned lucky," Stonehenge took

over. "Hickock's a big rancher. I don't know how much you know about

supercow-ranching, sir, but those things have to be herded with tanks

and light aircraft, so that every rancher has at his disposal a fairly

good small air-armor combat team. Naturally, all the big ranchers are

colonels in the Armed Reserve. Hickock has about fifteen fast fighters,

and thirty medium tanks armed with fifty-mm guns. He also has some

AA-guns around his ranch house--every once in a while, these ranchers

get to squabbling among themselves.

"Well, these three Bonney brothers were just turning away when a burst

from the ranch house caught their jet assembly, and they could only get

as far as Bonneyville, thirty miles away, before they had to land. They

landed right in front of the town jail.

"This Bonneyville's an awful shantytown; everybody in it is related to

everybody else. The mayor, for instance, Kettle-Belly Sam Bonney, is an

uncle of theirs.

"These three boys--Switchblade Joe Bonney, Jack-High Abe Bonney and

Turkey-Buzzard Tom Bonney--immediately claimed sanctuary in the jail, on

the grounds that they had been near to--get that; I think that indicates

the line they're going to take at the trial--_near_ to a political

assassination. They were immediately given the protection of the jail,

which is about the only well-constructed building in the place,

practically a fort."

"You think that was planned in advance?" I asked.

Parros nodded emphatically. "I do. There was a hell of a big gang of

these Bonneys at the jail, almost the entire able-bodied population of

the place. As soon as Switchblade and Jack-High and Turkey-Buzzard

landed, they were rushed inside and all the doors barred. About three

minutes later, the Hickock outfit started coming in, first aircraft and

then armor. They gave that town a regular Georgie Patton style

blitzing."

"Yes. I'm only sorry I wasn't there to see it," Stonehenge put in. "They

knocked down or burned most of the shanties, and then they went to work

on the jail. The aircraft began dumping these firebombs and stun-bombs

that they use to stop supercow stampedes, and the tank-guns began to

punch holes in the walls. As soon as Kettle-Belly saw what he had on his

hands, he radioed a call for Ranger protection. Our friend Captain

Nelson went out to see what the trouble was."

"Yes. I got the story of that from Nelson," Parros put in. "Much as he

hated to do it, he had to protect the Bonneys. And as soon as he'd taken

a hand, Hickock had to call off his gang. But he was smart. He grabbed

everything relating to the killing--the aircar and the twenty-mm

auto-rifle in particular--and he's keeping them under cover. Very few

people know about that, or about the fact that on physical evidence

alone, he has the killing pinned on the Bonneys so well that they'll

never get away with this story of being merely innocent witnesses."

"The rest, Mr. Silk, is up to us," Thrombley said. "I have Colonel

Hickock's assurance that he will give us every assistance, but we simply

must see to it that those creatures with the outlandish names are

convicted."

I didn't have a chance to say anything to that: at that moment, one of

the servants ushered Captain Nelson toward us.

"Good evening, Captain," I greeted the Ranger. "Join us, seeing that

you're on foreign soil and consequently not on duty."

He sat down with us and poured a drink.

"I thought you might be interested," he said. "We gave that waiter a

going-over. We wanted to know who put him up to it. He tried to sell us

the line that he was a New Texan patriot, trying to kill a tyrant, but

we finally got the truth out of him. He was paid a thousand pesos to do

the job, by a character they call Snake-Eyes Sam Bonney. A cousin of the

three who killed Mr. Cumshaw."

"Nephew of Kettle-Belly Sam," Parros interjected. "You pick him up?"

Nelson shook his head disgustedly. "He's out in the high grass

somewhere. We're still looking for him. Oh, yes, and I just heard that

the trial of Switchblade, and Jack-High and Turkey-Buzzard is scheduled

for three days from now. You'll be notified in due form tomorrow, but I

thought you might like to know in advance."

"I certainly do, and thank you, Captain.... We were just talking about

you when you arrived," I mentioned. "About the arrest, or rescue, or

whatever you call it, of that trio."

"Yeah. One of the jobs I'm not particularly proud of. Pity Hickock's

boys didn't get hold of them before I got there. It'd of saved everybody

a lot of trouble."

"Just what impression did you get at the time, Captain?" I asked. "You

think Kettle-Belly knew in advance what they were going to do?"

"Sure he did. They had the whole jail fortified. Not like a jail usually

is, to keep people from getting out; but like a fort, to keep people

from getting in. There were no prisoners inside. I found out that they

had all been released that morning."

He stopped, seemed to be weighing his words, then continued, speaking

very slowly.

"Let me tell you first some things I can't testify to, couple of things

that I figure went wrong with their plans.

"One of Colonel Hickock's men was on the porch to greet Mr. Cumshaw and

he recognized the Bonneys. That was lucky; otherwise we might still be

lookin' and wonderin' who did the shootin', which might not have been

good for New Texas."

He cocked an eyebrow and I nodded. The Solar League, in similar cases,

had regarded such planetary governments as due for change without notice

and had promptly made the change.

"Number two," Captain Nelson continued, "that AA-shot which hit their

aircar. I don't think they intended to land at the jail--it was just

sort of a reserve hiding-hole. But because they'd been hit, they had to

land. And they'd been slowed down so much that they couldn't dispose of

the evidence before the Colonel's boys were tappin' on the door 'n'

askin', couldn't they come in."

"I gather the Colonel's task-force was becoming insistent," I prompted

him.

The big Ranger grinned. "Now we're on things I can testify to.

"When I got there, what had been the cell-block was on fire, and they

were trying to defend the mayor's office and the warden's office. These

Bonneys gave me the line that they'd been witnesses to the killing of

Mr. Cumshaw by Colonel Hickock and that the Hickock outfit was trying to

rub them out to keep them from testifying. I just laughed and started to

walk out. Finally, they confessed that they'd shot Mr. Cumshaw, but they

claimed it was right of action against political malfeasance. When they

did that, I had to take them in."

"They confessed to you, before you arrested them?" I wanted to be sure

of that point.

"That's right. I'm going to testify to that, Monday, when the trial is

held. And that ain't all: we got their fingerprints off the car, off the

gun, off some shells still in the clip, and we have the gun identified

to the shells that killed Mr. Cumshaw. We got their confession fully

corroborated."

I asked him if he'd give Mr. Parros a complete statement of what he'd

seen and heard at Bonneyville. He was more than willing and I suggested

that they go into Parros' office, where they'd be undisturbed. The

Ranger and my Intelligence man got up and took a bottle of superbourbon

with them. As they were leaving, Nelson turned to Hoddy, who was still

with us.

"You'll have to look to your laurels, Hoddy," Nelson said. "Your

Ambassador seems to be making quite a reputation for himself as a

gunfighter."

"Look," Hoddy said, and though he was facing Nelson, I felt he was

really talking to Stonehenge, "before I'd go up against this guy, I'd

shoot myself. That way, I could be sure I'd get a nice painless job."

After they were gone, I turned to Stonehenge and Thrombley. "This seems

to be a carefully prearranged killing."

They agreed.

"Then they knew _in advance_ that Mr. Cumshaw would be on Colonel

Hickock's front steps at about 1030. _How did they find that out?_"

"Why ... why, I'm sure I don't know," Thrombley said. It was most

obvious that the idea had never occurred to him before and a side glance

told me that the thought was new to Stonehenge also. "Colonel Hickock

called at 0900. Mr. Cumshaw left the Embassy in an aircar a few minutes

later. It took an hour and a half to fly out to the Hickock ranch...."

"I don't like the implications, Mr. Silk," Stonehenge said. "I can't

believe that was how it happened. In the first place, Colonel Hickock

isn't that sort of man: he doesn't use his hospitality to trap people to

their death. In the second place, he wouldn't have needed to use people

like these Bonneys. His own men would do anything for him. In the third

place, he is one of the leaders of the annexation movement here and this

was obviously an anti-annexation job. And in the fourth place--"

"Hold it!" I checked him. "Are you sure he's really on the annexation

side?"

He opened his mouth to answer me quickly, then closed it, waited a

moment, answered me slowly. "I can guess what you are thinking, Mr.

Silk. But, remember, when Colonel Hickock came here as our first

Ambassador, he came here as a man with a mission. He had studied the

problem and he believed in what he came for. He has never changed.

"Let me emphasize this, sir: we know he has never changed. For our own

protection, we've had to check on every real leader of the annexation

movement, screening them for crackpots who might do us more harm than

good. The Colonel is with us all the way.

"And now, in the fourth place, underlined by what I've just said, the

Colonel and Mr. Cumshaw were really friends."

"Now you're talking!" Hoddy burst in. "I've knowed A. J. ever since I

was a kid. Ever since he married old Colonel MacTodd's daughter. That

just ain't the way A. J. works!"

"On the other hand, Mr. Ambassador," Thrombley said, keeping his gaze

fixed on Hoddy's hands and apparently ready to both duck and shut up if

Hoddy moved a finger, "you will recall, I think, that Colonel Hickock

did do everything in his power to see that these Bonney brothers did not

reach court alive. And, let me add," he was getting bolder, tilting his

chin up a little, "it's a choice as simple as this: either Colonel

Hickock told them, or we have--and this is unbelievable--a traitor in

the Embassy itself."

That statement rocked even Hoddy. Even though he was probably no more

than one of Natalenko's little men, he still couldn't help knowing how

thoroughly we were screened, indoctrinated, and--let's face

it--mind-conditioned. A traitor among us was unthinkable because we just

couldn't think that way.

The silence, the sorrow, were palpable. Then I remembered, told them,

Hickock himself had been a Department man.

Stonehenge gripped his head between his hands and squeezed as if trying

to bring out an idea. "All right, Mr. Ambassador, where are we now?

Nobody who knew could have told the Bonney boys where Mr. Cumshaw would

be at 1030, yet the three men were there waiting for him. You take it

from there. I'm just a simple military man and I'm ready to go back to

the simple military life as soon as possible."

I turned to Gomez. "There could be an obvious explanation. Bring us the

official telescreen log. Let's see what calls were made. Maybe Mr.

Cumshaw himself said something to someone that gave his destination

away."

"That won't be necessary," Thrombley told me. "None of the junior clerks

were on duty, and I took the only three calls that came in, myself.

First, there was the call from Colonel Hickock. Then, the call about the

wrist watch. And then, a couple of hours later, the call from the

Hickock ranch, about Mr. Cumshaw's death."

"What was the call about the wrist watch?" I asked.

"Oh, that was from the z'Srauff Embassy," Thrombley said. "For some

time, Mr. Cumshaw had been trying to get one of the very precise

watches which the z'Srauff manufacture on their home planet. The

z'Srauff Ambassador called, that day, to tell him that they had one for

him and wanted to know when it was to be delivered. I told them the

Ambassador was out, and they wanted to know where they could call him

and I--"

I had never seen a man look more horror-stricken.

"Oh, my God! I'm the one who told them!"

What could I say? Not much, but I tried. "How could you know, Mr.

Thrombley? You did the natural, the normal, the proper thing, on a call

from one Ambassador to another."

I turned to the others, who, like me, preferred not to look at

Thrombley. "They must have had a spy outside who told them the

Ambassador had left the Embassy. Alone, right? And that was just what

they'd been waiting for.

"But what's this about the watch, though. There's more to this than a

simple favor from one Ambassador to another."

"My turn, Mr. Ambassador," Stonehenge interrupted. "Mr. Cumshaw had been

trying to get one of the things at my insistence. Naval Intelligence is

very much interested in them and we want a sample. The z'Srauff watches

are very peculiar--they're operated by radium decay, which, of course is

a universal constant. They're uniform to a tenth second and they're all

synchronized with the official time at the capital city of the principal

z'Srauff planet. The time used by the z'Srauff Navy."

Stonehenge deliberately paused, let that last phrase hang heavily in the

air for a moment, then he continued.

"They're supposed to be used in religious observances--timing hours of

prayer, I believe. They can, of course, have other uses.

"For example, I can imagine all those watches giving the wearer a light

electric shock, or ringing a little bell, all over New Texas, at exactly

the same moment. And then I can imagine all the z'Srauff running down

into nice deep holes in the ground."

He looked at his own watch. "And that reminds me: my gang of pirates are

at the spaceport by now, ready to blast off. I wonder if someone could

drive me there."

"I'll drive him, boss," Hoddy volunteered. "I ain't doin' nothin' else."

I was wondering how I could break that up, plausibly and without

betraying my suspicions, when Parros and Captain Nelson came out and

joined us.

"I have a lot of stuff here," Parros said. "Stuff we never seemed to

have noticed. For instance--"

I interrupted. "Commander Stonehenge's going to the spaceport, now," I

said. "Suppose you ride with him, and brief him on what you learned, on

the way. Then, when he's aboard, come back and tell us."

Hoddy looked at me for a long ten seconds. His expression started by

being exasperated and ended by betraying grudging admiration.