Assignment Burma Girl

by Edward S. Aarons

  “Not rebels,” Savarati said mildly. “The provincial govemments have internal autonomy. Mr. Locke made his own arrangements with those people. The liaison suits us, for the time.”

  “But the times are changing,” Durell suggested. “Precisely. And people like Simon Locke and Paul Hartford become less useful. Embarrassing, in fact.” “Then you’re changing your tune. It isn’t what I heard about Hartford’s trip in Washington.” Durell looked at Lowbridge. He didn’t like the man with his sport jacket and flannels and easy manner. Lowbridge’s manner hid a callousness that rubbed Durell the wrong way. You had to be cold, and even cruel, in Durell’s business. Sometimes you had to sacrifice a friend for the sake of the assignment’s success. Men died in sudden and anguished ways to carry out their orders. And sometimes you had to kill, but it was never without guilt and regret, another shade of darkness draped over your soul for the rest of your days.

  But Chet Lowbridge looked as if none of this would bother him, as long as his efficiency reports in Washington remained high. His boyish manner could kill good men, Durell thought—and probably had.

  “You rigged up a mission for Hartford and talked him into accepting it,” Durell said. “He obviously wasn’t equipped for the job.”

  “It was in line with what he wanted to do,” Lowbridge returned defensively. “You know how difficult it is to recruit personnel.”

  “In line with what his wife wanted, you mean.”

  “Yes, in a sense. Eva Hartford demands special consideration.”

  “Were those your orders from the Senator?” Durell asked.

  “I must say, I don’t like your tone, Durell. I’m not guilty of anything; but you talk as if I were. In any case, things have changed. Colonel Savarati can explain it better than I.”

  The Burmese smiled. “It is a delicate situation, sir. Matters are in balance at the moment. It was rash to assume that an American like Paul Hartford could change things.”

  “By killing this insurgent Major Mong?”

  “We did not hire him as an assassin,” Savarati said mildly. “His mission was only to point out to the local Karens that their basic loyalty is to the Union of Burma, and not to the Communist movements that spill over the northern frontiers. It was felt that Hartford, with his background of having fought against the Japanese with Stillwell’s forces so many years ago, might still have some influence there.”

  “And could arrange an ambush for your Major Mong?” “If he could, yes.” Savarati smiled. “None of my people are trusted there and could hardly be effective. Mong is a fanatic and a genius at the sort of warfare that is most successful in that region. In the past two months he has already become a legend. Yet we have no specific details on him at all, nothing on his background. It is rumored he is a Chinese, detached from Kunming under Peiping orders, to operate over the Yunnan borders. It is also rumored he is a renegade Englishman, a defector.” Savarati spread his small, delicate hands. “There seemed to be nothing wrong and everything right about employing Paul Hartford to help us get information on Mong. We knew that Mong expected a high-level contact in the provincial town of Nambum Ga some time this week. If Hartford could organize local resistance and capture Mong for us, it would be a great victory. He agreed to do so. He had other matters to pursue up there of a personal nature that provided him with a perfect cover. It seemed agreeable to all concerned.”

  “But you’ve changed your mind,” Durell said flatly. Lowbridge said, “Frankly, Durell, there is certain sentiment against American interference here. The government is friendly, but likes to preserve an appearance of neutrality.”

  “So Paul Hartford rots up there? In prison? Or dead?” “Let’s say we’ve cancelled the project to cut losses,” Lowbridge suggested easily.

  “And what does Mrs. Hartford say? You and the Senator have been anxious to please her up to now.”

  “It is embarrassing, I admit—”

  “Doesn’t she want her husband back?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “Then I’m going in after him. That’s my job,” Durell said, “and I’m going to do it.”

  Colonel Savarati made a small sound. Durell looked at him. The Burmese seemed different. His easy, placid manner concealed a touch of steel, he thought.

  “I regret, Mr. Durell, it will not be possible to carry out your mission. It will not be permitted.”

  “Why not?”

  “A matter of government policy. It is not in my hands.” Savarati paused. “Your registration at the Foreigners’ Registration Office suggests some irregularities. If you can come to my office in the morning, we may straighten it out. But the best thing, of course, would be for you to return to the States at once. Probably tomorrow.”

  “What happened?” Durell asked. “Is it because of the bombing at Simon Locke’s house?”

  “It is being investigated. You may be helpful, but—” Savarati shrugged. “I do not make policy. I only take orders.”

  “Thanks for nothing,” Durell said.

  Lowbridge smiled. “That’s the way the ball bounces, old boy.”

  Four

  Eva Hartford moved through the shadows of her bedroom with a sound of rustling silk. The house she had rented on the wide, clean street near Lake Victoria was quiet, except for the occasional soft tap of a servant’s foot. The night was hot. The air conditioning did not work. She took these annoyances with patience, because she had known times when what she had at this moment would have seemed as unattainable as the moon. Eva had come a long way since she shared a back room with Lucy Kowalski in the house behind the Shady Grove Cafe, in the coal hills of Pennsylvania. A long way, by several paths, all of them totally unexpected. Her stroke of luck had been beyond all conceivable imagination; and a year ago her money, power and social status would have been a wild dream, to have been laughed at with rich scorn, an acme of happiness beyond hope.

  But she wasn’t happy. She had been brought up in a hard, savage world of barren economics where romantic illusions were lost when you were twelve, even before the first rough-handed coal miner took you and threw a dollar bill on the bed when he left.

  And yet—

  She thought herself hard, a woman who knew her own mind, who after years of ignominy had come into her own. Her past was dead, forgotten or deliberately obscured so that no snooper from the press could possibly dig it up. She was safe, secure, beautiful.

  Yes, more beautiful than ever.

  Turning, she looked at herself in the tall mirrors that decorated her bedroom. From the heat of the garden compound came the servants’ dim murmurings, a rustling of birds, a distant hum of traffic on the Sule Nam Road. Eva wore her blonde hair in a halo, braided regally atop her small, fine head. It was a nuisance in this heat, but some perverse vanity in her forbade cutting it. It was natural ash-blonde. Her features were fine and haughty, with no trace of the wear and tear that might have been exposed on it, considering what her earlier years had been.

  Her silk robe could not conceal the figure that once had been her major asset. She put her hands on her breasts, lifting them, then slid her hands along her flat stomach and hips and loins.

  She felt anguish, an ache inside her.

  Where was Paul? Why hadn’t he come back?

  He really hadn’t wanted to go north on what he called a fool’s errand. Why had she succumbed to the illusion that some trace of Emmett might still remain in that damned jungle after twenty years? In any case, why bother? Her brother Emmett was someone she could not even remember, except in a most dim way. He had been so much older, to begin with. But he had taken care of her until the war came and had arranged for that convent to take her in when he went into the OSS. He tried to do what he could for her, struggling against the dark weight of poverty in the coal hills. She remembered his bitterness, his slashing, tigerish fury against life. But she could not remember anything else about him. Why had she risked Paul’s life on a stupid hunt for some trace of his grave?

  She wond
ered if there was something in her that wanted to destroy Paul, too.

  Poor Paul! He was only a man like the others, to be used and despised. From the very beginning of her knowledge of men, because of the way she had been used, she carried on her own private war against them.

  But Paul was innocent of everything except that he loved her.

  It had been hard to believe, at first.

  And perhaps, even now, it wasn’t true.

  Three hundred million dollars can be an adequate substitute for love, she thought grimly. And how could she ever learn the truth?

  She’d never met a man she could truly respect. She wished such a man existed; but she doubted it. Eva did not really blame herself for destroying what Paul once had been. The weakness had been in him long ago. But she had eroded whatever manhood remained in him, from the time they first met.

  At the bedroom door there came a soft scratching that interrupted her thoughts, and she said impatiently, “What is it?”

  It was one of the servants. “An American gentleman, a Mr. Durell,” the man said.

  “Yes. Bring us drinks, please.”

  She changed her clothes quickly and went out to meet him. Chet Lowbridge, that arrogant and overconfident man, had told her about him.

  Durell stood tall in the dim veranda shadows overlooking the stone paths and shrubbery of the garden. A Japanese fish pond was artfully lighted nearby, and the grass looked emerald bright. He tinned when Eva came out, and she saw his lean, angry face, competence in his dark blue eyes. She seemed to recognize something in him that was different from Paul and Lowbridge and all the rest, and she felt strangely cautious with him at once. They shook hands briefly.

  “You’ve come a long way to help me, Mr. Durell. It is very good of you.”

  “It’s my job,” he said. “I’m glad to do it.”

  “I suppose you’ve seen Colonel Savarati and learned that all our plans have been cancelled?”

  “I’ve seen him. I haven’t cancelled anything.”

  She smiled. “What will you drink, please?”

  “Bourbon, if you have it.”

  “We have everything here. A little bit of America carried with us wherever Paul and I go. Please be comfortable.”

  The drinks came quickly. Durell lit cigarettes for the blonde girl and himself. He glanced several times at the garden. There were too many shadows out there among the oleanders and the thick-leafed banana trees. He felt exposed on the veranda. Music came from an adjacent bungalow in the exclusive residential section. A plane droned high overhead. Fireworks splattered the southern sky with gaudy, flashing color from some local festival, and the air was heavy with the scent of flowers and an oppressive humidity.

  Eva had changed to a sheer Burmese angyi of richly embroidered silk, and had even rearranged her pale hair into the chignon worn by Burmese women. She looked composed, haughty, and lovely, with a softness of body that was belied by the direct manner in which she considered Durell. Her legs were long, perfect—what he could see of them. He watched her mouth, however, and saw the very slight trembling of tiny muscles at the comers of her lips.

  She leaned forward earnestly when their drinks arrived.

  “Can you help me? I am so discouraged tonight. All my plans have gone awry. I must help Paul. I must find out what happened to him, Mr. Durell. I feel guilty, since it was I who urged him to go along on this rather foolish, romantic gesture of his.”

  “Whose idea was it in the first place?”

  “Paul’s, of course.” She seemed surprised. “Why?”

  “From all I’ve heard,” he said carefully, “your husband was unwilling to make the trip and had no real interest in it. And this extra job, urged on him by Lowbridge, was something he had no stomach for.”

  “Yes, Simon Locke told me about it. He said Paul was a coward—or acted like one. But it can’t be true.”

  “Why not? All men are cowards about some things.” She smiled. “Are you, Mr. Durell?”

  “About some things,” he said.

  “I can’t imagine what they might be. Not women, of course.”

  “No.”

  “Or any man, either, I should think.”

  “I’m afraid of some men, like your husband, Mrs. Hartford.”

  She looked scornful and surprised. “I find that difficult to believe.”

  “Men who engage to do something of which they are afraid, or who are forced to do it because of a woman, can be dangerous to those associated with them,” Durell said. “Your husband is—or was—a man like that.”

  She frowned. “Do you think he is dead?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think you can find him?”

  “I’m going to try.”

  “But Savarati has forbidden any rescue missions.”

  “I can’t help that. I’ve got my job to do.”

  “And how will you do it? You seem so sure of yourself.”

  “I’ve arranged for a flight north to Nambum Ga, the last place your husband was heard from.”

  “With Simon Locke? That poor wreck of a man?” she asked.

  “Simon still has a lot left,” Durell said.

  “Yes, a few old planes and a homesick Frenchman as pilot.”

  “Not the Frenchman any more. Houphet was killed by a bomb today in Locke’s house,” Durell said bluntly.

  He had reached her, he saw, when she started to rise from the graceful, Bombay chair where she sat. Her lips parted, then she decided against speaking impulsively, and relaxed again.

  “Terrorists?” she asked quietly.

  “I don’t know.”

  “There seem to be many things you don’t know, Mr. Durell. May I call you Sam? There is no need to be formal.” She smiled. “I don’t care about terrorists or their activities. I’m only interested in what happened to my husband?”

  “Do you love him?”

  “That is an insulting question.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course. I find your manner—”

  “Or did you really send him up there to find out about your brother Emmett?”

  She stood up and turned her back to him. Her shoulders were straight and proud. The radio still sounded faintly from across the darkly shadowed garden, and from the kampong bungalows for the servants came the low, silvery laughter of a Burmese woman.

  “What do you know about Emmett?” Eva said finally. “I studied your dossier in Washington. He came into it. I know he was killed in the jungle about twenty years ago, that’s all.”

  “Well, then—”

  “I want to know why, after all these years, you’re so interested in learning the details of his death—interested enough to send your reluctant husband into danger to get the information.”

  “You presume a lot,” she said angrily.

  “Am I wrong?”

  She faced him again. In the moonlight, her face had hardened subtly. “I think we can consider this discussion closed. It’s useless, anyway, since the local government forbids further action on our part. I think you should go, Mr. Durell.”

  He sat still, watching her.

  “Please go,” she said again.

  “Tell me about Emmett, your brother,” he said.

  “There is nothing to tell. I hardly remember him. He was much older than I. I was only six years old when he enlisted in the OSS and was parachuted into the jungle here. We—we never had much, back home. We were poor, frankly. I’m not ashamed of that or of anything I’ve ever done. And it’s been plenty. You know that they call me the Cinderella girl, don’t you?” She grinned. “So you know that until a year ago, I didn’t have a dime I didn’t work or beg for. Now I’m rich. Is that a dirty word? I like the sound of it. I like to be able to say I’ve got three hundred million in stocks, bonds, oil and cattle. The fortune runs itself, Mr. Durell.”

  “Call me Sam,” he said. “You suggested it.”

  “Now that I have money,” she went on, “I find I can do things I nev
er hoped to do. Emmett was my only relative, my only brother. There was no one else.”

  “There is—or was—your husband.”

  She gestured impatiently. “It’s not the same, is it? Do you think I’m morbid, wanting to know the circumstances of Emmett’s death after all these years? I can afford to satisfy my curiosity now.”

  “I don’t know if you can afford it or not,” Durell said. “What do you mean?”

  “What price did you put on your husband’s life?” he asked.

  She tried to slap him. Her carefully cultivated veneer gave way to a flash of sudden animal fury as she swung toward him. He was quicker than she. He caught her wrist and twisted sharply, heedless of her pain. She gasped, tried to pull away. Her face went white. Her mouth was open, and her pale brown eyes were alight with rage. “Don’t ever do that,” he said quietly.

  “Let me go!”

  She was strong and pliant as she struggled against him. He hurt her a little more, deliberately, and she gasped at the pain in her wrist. His face was a mask that told her nothing, neither enjoying her writhing body against his, or regretting it.

  “I want you to tell me the truth now, Eva,” he said. “Oh, please. It hurts.”

  He released her.

  “All of the truth,” he said.

  “Do you think you can beat it out of me?” she gasped. “What kind of a man are you, anyway?”

  “A man with a job to do. I told you that.”

  “And you don’t care what methods you use to do it? You couldn’t force me to tell you the truth,” she whispered.

  “Yes, I could. You know I could.”

  “Is all this supposed to make me afraid of you?”

  “No. Just to get you to talk a little. And you already have. You’ve admitted there is a truth that you haven’t told me. It’s about Emmett, isn’t it?”

  She hesitated, then whispered, “Yes.”

  “I’ve no wish to follow your husband into the same trouble he’s in. One man died today, a Frenchman who only wanted to see Paris again. He never knew what hit him, what spattered his insides all over the walls. I won’t have it happen to me, or to you.”