There was a hesitation and then Burt rose to his feet. "Well, Mel, believe it or not, I think this SOB could be in the picture on the wall just outside the communications room. I swear it. I saw it about a month ago. I'm good about faces and lousy about names. Let's take him with us and go look. Maybe he's really wanted by the 'big boy'. He'd like to see this guy anyway, I think, no matter what. Maybe only to ask him why he's here. Maybe to see this guy in the picture. I think his name is Pinkerton, or Plumb, or something like that." Melvin nodded.
"But what will we do with him," asked Melvin, "if nobody wants him around? I don't want to know more than we should, Burt. Makes us expendable, you know, if we know too much."
"I dn't want anybody to see him," said Burton. "He's just trouble, if I can remember what's been said about him. They want him dead, I think. We'll complete the contract on this guy, and take credit for it - and get our bonuses, too. I have a feeling that this NNR program is having trouble, you know. If our paymaster fallls apart, I don't want to fall apart, too. Get me? Let's get what we can, while we can. And here's what we should do. And don't forget that we had advance warning that someone was coming here - this guy maybe - and we had to take care of them."
There was a smile on his face. "I think we should take him off the trail, march him to a spot where we can kill him, dig a shallow grave with this handy trenching tool, which I happen to have with me on my belt, and roll him into it. Handy tool when when we're carousing in the woods, you know. Then put rocks over the grave and nobody will ever find him."
Parker, who had been awake for the past three minutes, continued to keep his eyes closed and to adopt a looseness of his body. And they had a warning of his appearance up here. Somebody was planted in their midst and was passing the word along to creeps like these two. With that, Burton slapped Parker's face until........
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