The Detonators Read Free Page A

and were put into a waiting room. I gestured toward a chair. “Rest your feet,” I said to the girl. “You said you wanted to see him alone and it’s all arranged; but I’ll see him first, if you don’t mind. Business. After that he’s all yours, lucky man.”
    When an escort arrived for me, I left her sitting there primly, knees together, skirt modestly in place, underwear still a mystery even though I’d watched her entering and leaving a car, an operation that usually reveals everything revealable. But it was a mystery that no longer interested me greatly. I mean, the very proper and modest ones are usually a challenge—you like to see if you can’t at least win a relaxed and friendly smile from the inhibited lady—but the masculine curiosity Miss Barnett had aroused in me originally, because she was really a rather pretty girl, was fading fast. Her mother had done too good a job on her.
    I was shown into a small visiting room and heard the door shut solidly behind me. It wasn’t too bad a room. It was clean and had a table and some reasonably comfortable-looking chairs. It also had illumination enough to shoot a movie by, even with fairly slow film; and they should have no trouble with the sound, I figured, since the place was undoubtedly already miked and wired. There were no windows. Doug Barnett was sitting in one of the chairs when I came in. He nodded at me but he didn’t get to his feet and hurry forward to shake my hand; we don’t go in much for effusive greetings. Or partings, for that matter. And maybe rising wasn’t all that easy for him at the moment. I started to sit down in the nearest chair, on his left.
    “The other one, if you don’t mind, Matt,” he said, gesturing to the identical chair on the other side of him.
    “Sure,” I said. When I was seated, I said, “I’m supposed to ask if you want us to cart this joint away brick by brick and sow the foundations with salt like the Romans did with Carthage so nothing would grow there again, ever. Or is it all right if we just blow it up and leave the debris where it falls?”
    He didn’t answer that. He knew it was just a fancy way of telling him the old team was behind him. We’re not a buddy-buddy outfit, but there is a certain
esprit de corps
that surfaces at times like that. We spent a moment taking stock, since we hadn’t seen each other for a while. Although I was senior in the organization, having been in it practically from the start, Doug was considerably older. He’d come to us from some other nasty outfit, like maybe the old OSS after they’d sanded it smooth and painted it pretty and called it CIA and he couldn’t stand it any longer. He was a husky man with shoulders broad enough to make him look shorter than he really was. Actually he stood, when standing, only an inch or so under six feet. He looked better than I’d expected. I guess they’d cleaned him up fast when the pressure came on from Washington. He was neatly shaved and wearing a clean white shirt and clean dark trousers that looked a little too dressy for his well-worn brown moccasin-type boat shoes, the kind with the patent no-slip white soles.
    He was watching me steadily with his head cocked a little to the side. His tanned, smooth face, which didn’t betray his age, was unmarked. He still had most of his hair. Where it wasn’t gray, it was considerably darker than his daughter’s; apparently her fairness had come from her mother’s side of the family. A spot had been shaved on Doug’s head to make room for a lump of white tape, presumably where the police club had split the scalp. That was the only visible injury; but they’re very good at demonstrating their disapproval of obstreperous prisoners without leaving marks that’ll show in court. I’m not criticizing, really. They have their methods, and we have ours.
    “Tell Mac thanks,” Doug said. “I had no right to drag him into it:”
    “To hell with that,” I replied. “Nobody really