MacDonald, John D – Travis McGee 18 – The Green Ripper

‘I did that when I was going to blow the whole place to rubble, buildings, people, and all. I was saving the papers for you and Jake. I collected all the money. I think I was saving that for myself. Some of it is mine, about nine thousand. Some twenty-seven thousand is theirs.”

‘I can’t understand why they didn’t kill you out

The Green Ripper of hand. That’s their style. That’s their standard program, No infiltration. No way to do it.”

“I was looking for my daughter.”

‘daughter!”

‘Em sorry. I’m past making much sense.”

“We’ll leave here soon. It’s a strain on you, having to stay here.”

“Can we stop in San Francisco? I left my ID there, and my clothes.”

“Of course. You’re not under detention.”

“For murder?”

‘~or self-defense. We’ll let the record read there was a jurisdictional squabble and they fought among themselves. Look, you should be getting a medal, McGee. But what you are going to get is some very serious and earnest advice about keeping your mouth shut forever. I think you cut down their firepower and manpower some. If the documents give us a lead to other camps, we can cut it down some more. But the summer timetable is probably still on. They can’t keep their tigers waiting forever. And they have to have something to show the folks helping them from overseas. No matter how much security we lay on, they are going to create one hell of a series of bloody messes from border to border and coast to coast. A lot of sweet dumb people are going to get ripped up. Headlines, speeches, doom, the end of our way of life, and so on. Terrorism is going to pay us one big fat bloody visit, McGee. But it will only be a visit. They underestimate our national resilience. Aroused by that kind of savagery, we can become a very tough kind of people. You are a pretty good example of that.”

Iy luck was running, and I let it run.”

“They were supposed to be their best, huh? Educated abroad. Honed fine. Dunog the debriefing, you’ll have to go into infinite detail about the training, what you saw of it.”

“Everytlung I can remember.”

“They’ll want to go into hypnotic drugs to make sure they pull everything out.”

‘Tm in no position to object.”

He stopped walking and turned to face me. “And when it is over and they turn you loose, all the in- formation stops, then and there. You never get any more from us, and nobody ever gets any of what you have from you.”

‘precept Meyer.” Nobodyl”

Except Meyer.”

41 am serious, dammit!”

“Me tow So you better not turn me loose. There is no way on earth that I can keep from telling him every damn detail of every damn day I spent here. Can’t you remember the clearance he used to have? You checked it out. Remember?”

“Oh, hell, yes. Okay. Meyer. And only Meyer.”

Two of them came out and spoke to Max in low

The Green Ripper voices. He came over to me and said, “Take your last look around, And hope they never find out who did their people in.”

‘A think they know.”

‘Of I was sure they know, I would set up a whole new identity for you, from plastic surgery to colored contact lenses.”

‘A wouldn’t accept it anyway.”

“You don’t care if they come after you?”

‘frankly, not a hell of a lot, Max. Not a hell of a lot.”

In a little while we headed down out of the hills. Jake told me that when everything had been taken out, they were going to truck a couple of bulldozers up there and knock everything flat and push it off the edge. I said that would be nice. They said we would stay overnight in San Francisco, so I could rest up a little, and fly out in the morning. I said that would be nice. They said that maybe the money problem could be resolved in my favor. Like a kind of unofficial reward. Like, maybe, a bounty. I said that would be nice. So they stopped talking to me. I looked out the car window at the tall evergreens and wondered why all the birds had left this part of the world. Jake turned the wipers on, smearing the small sad rain. I think they were glad to stop trying to relate to me. They felt uneasy about me, about being close to me in a small car. I think they felt not exactly certain of what I might do next. And I knew they would not have felt better about it if I had told them I didn’t have the faint- est notion, either, of what I might do next, today, tomorrow, or ever.

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