The Infiltrators by Donald Hamilton

happen. I rose and moved to where I could watch through the windows and make certain she got safely across the parking lot to her room.
    I saw two men close in on her as she reached the door, and accompany her inside.

6
    I drew a long breath, walking back to the table to pick up the check the waitress had left there. The trouble was, I knew the men I’d seen—although I couldn’t remember the name of one of them—and they were not the kind of men I’d expected to have to deal with on this mission. It was a complication I hadn’t been warned about and didn’t need.
    I paused briefly to drain the last of my coffee. I moved quite naturally, I hoped, in case somebody was watching, to the cashier’s desk. We’d slept late enough that the scattering of winter tourists had mostly all breakfasted and blasted off along the highway, east and west. The place was almost empty, and the money lady had retired to the kitchen. I’d already checked us out at the motel desk, so I couldn’t put the meal on the bill. I rang a little plink-plink bell, and presently the woman came out to work the credit-card machine. Having rung up the sale, she went right back out again. So far, so good.
    And where was the takeout crew? They wouldn’t grab Madeleine without making provisions for neutralizing her escort. Most likely they were waiting to catch me outside, as they had her.
    I located the lighted RESTROOMS sign, and walked quickly that way. It was a dark, blind hallway with a payphone cubicle just inside on the left, followed by the two doors. One of the discriminatory sanitation arrangements, I noted. Any kind of MEN , gentlemen or bums, could use the male facilities, but only superior-type LADIES were permitted in the female establishment. Women of lower social status were presumably sent outside to squat in the bushes. With a quick, guilty look around, I slipped into the LADIES ’ chamber, the first beyond the phone.
    Waiting, hoping that none of the female help or remaining female customers would need to go, I extracted from a hidden inside pocket of my jacket the little drug kit we usually carry on duty, a new model this year. The old-fashioned hypos they used to give us had been pretty slow to load, and the needles had tended to snap off under stress before the full dose had been transmitted to the patient, unless he was first tranquilized with a gun butt. The new gadget was cartridge-loading and spring-fired. I selected one of the green capsules—the red and orange ones kill—and charged the little squirt-machine and cocked it and waited, gun and hypo-gun ready in left and right hands respectively.
    They held out for only about ten minutes, counting from the time Madeleine had run out of there. Then they got nervous about me and came in after me. Two of them. Holding the restroom door slightly ajar, I heard them enter the restaurant and make a quick check of both public rooms, the little coffee shop where we’d breakfasted, and the larger dining room, now unoccupied, where we’d had dinner the night before. I let the john door sigh shut automatically. It seemed unlikely that they’d be dumb enough to charge into the kitchen leaving the men’s room uninspected behind them. They weren’t.
    I heard them hurry past my door—excuse me, the ladies’ door—and I heard a whispered consultation in the little hallway. Then I heard the men’s door being opened cautiously. In those cramped quarters, I guessed, only one man would actually go in; the other would wait out in the corridor as backup. I gave them a slow three-count and elbowed my door aside and stepped out there.
    A handsome and neatly dressed young fellow with a revolver in his hand turned belatedly to meet the threat, but he was right-handed and his gun was on the far side of his body. There was no chance in the world of his swinging himself around far enough to bring it to bear in time.
    “Federal government,” I said. “You’re under arrest. Drop the