The Ravagers Read Free

part of which concerns us. After you’ve looked over the ground and the people, I will give you the details, as far as they’ve been entrusted to us. Right now you had better get out there and check the campground while I get on the telephone and try to pull a few international strings to make sure Gregory’s body is discovered by somebody discreet and official.”
    “Yes, sir,” I said.
    “Study the woman, and at the same time determine whether or not you are in the clear. If not, try to learn who is watching you. Do nothing hasty, however. Unfortunately we are not alone in this, if you know what I mean.”
    “I know,” I said. “I hope they know it, too. There’s nothing I hate like being shot by my friends.”
    “It’s a chance you will have to take,” Mac said. “As a matter of fact, other agencies have not been informed of our participation, and are not to be informed. Do you understand?”
    “Yes, sir,” I said, because it was the easiest thing to say, not because it was the truth.

3
    I lay in the campground bushes for over an hour, gaining patience from the fact that somebody in the silver trailer had insomnia, indigestion, or a guilty conscience. I could hear a person moving around in there restlessly, from time to time. It was two in the morning by now, late to hope to see anything, but finally the trailer door opened and the shadowy figure of a woman appeared.
    Her face was only a vague blur in the darkness. Her figure was even less discernible, being camouflaged by some kind of an elaborate, voluminous robe or housecoat. Once on the ground, she had to stop and get a fresh grip on the long skirts to keep them from dragging. While she was doing this, a small voice called to her from inside the trailer. It seemed to paralyze her for a moment. She stood perfectly still; then she replied without looking back.
    “It’s all right, Penny,” she said clearly. “I’m just closing the car windows. It’s starting to rain. You go back to sleep, darling.”
    She moved over to the Ford pickup, got in, pulled the tail of her garment in after her, closed the door, and cranked up the windows. She sat there for a while. The truck was parked looking my way. The night was too dark for me to make out her features through the windshield glass, let alone her expression, but I could see enough to know when she suddenly buried her face in her hands and bent over the steering wheel, obviously crying. Well, anybody can cry, and a woman who had recently committed a brutal murder might well want to have her reaction out where her child couldn’t see her and ask why.
    I reminded myself that it wasn’t proved that Mrs. Genevieve Drilling had killed anybody, and that I wasn’t here to prove it. From Mac’s instructions, I deduced that I was supposed to gain the lady’s trust and confidence for some altogether different purpose, as yet undisclosed. The fact that she could break down and cry was a promising sign. It indicated that an absorbent male shoulder might not be altogether unwelcome, if properly presented.
    I suppose this was a coldblooded way of regarding a fellow-human in distress, a woman in tears. If I hadn’t been cold and damp and cramped, lying there, I might have been ashamed of myself. As it was, I just wished she’d blow her nose and switch on a light so I could get a real look at her, and then climb back into her little tin box on wheels so I could leave without being spotted...
    A sound behind me drove these unprofessional thoughts from my mind. There was a faint rustling and scuffling back there, indicating that I no longer had this part of the grove to myself. Somebody else was crawling up to take a peek. Then that person was suddenly quiet, as Mrs. Drilling got out of the truck and moved back to the trailer. She drew a sleeve across her eyes, reached up to pat her hair smoothed, squared her shoulders, opened the door, and made her way inside, leaving me still without a clear impression of her face