Assignment- Tiger Devil

by Will B Aarons

  "You look all right," the cop said. "You're a tourist? This is a bad part of town. Was anything taken from you?"

  "I'm here on business. Nothing was taken."

  "May I have your identification, please?"

  The other officer continued to jot in his notebook, behind Durell. Durell gave the first man his papers and thought this was not going to get better; it was going to get worse. Encounters with the local police could be very sticky; he always sought to avoid them. But now he decided he'd best take the initiative. "I wish to speak with your superior," he said.

  The cop's eyes could not hide a flare of surprise. Then he smiled without showing his teeth.

  "Very well," he said. He handed the papers back to Durell, and the pair escorted him to their car.

  Another police cruiser had arrived moments after the first. All the two cops in it had done was keep everybody at a distance from the shop. Despite the gunfire earlier and the brawl at the shop entrance, no questions were being asked of witnesses.

  Maybe it was just poor procedure.

  But Durell had a nagging suspicion that the police wanted him—only him—for reasons that had nothing to do with events here, and would have hauled him away in any case.

  He thought he might as well ask for it.

  As they drove, Durell recalled the map of Georgetown he had committed to memory, using mnemonics taught at The Farm. Pohce headquarters was nearby on Young Street, adjacent to the Pegasus Hotel; the Brickdam Police Station, which handled immigration and passports, was next to Saint Stanislaus College downtown.

  They weren't headed toward either.

  The two officers remained very polite, very courteous. They had not troubled to search him, and he still had his .38 and could have blown their heads off where they sat in front of him, beyond a wire screen.

  He was sure now that this had all been prearranged; that the police had been looking for him, possibly for several hours.

  He glanced backward. No one seemed to be following them. The teeming stars hung in a bright sky that was free of clouds for the moment. He sat back and noted the landmarks along their route and considered what to do with the big diamond.

  He had gone out of his way to make the stone obvious at the hotel desk. It was too soon to know if anyone had taken the bait. -

  With the world diamond supply monopolized by the Central Selling Organization in London, there would always be smuggling, and the big diamond hinted at some kind of illicit Guyanese operation. But the submarine on the river had been ample evidence of something infinitely more menacing than diamond smuggling.

  Durell surmised that Dick had been killed because he knew what it was.

  He disregarded the news story that blew Dick's cover as a clever ploy to misdirect investigation of the murder. If Dick had been hiding, or on the run, the two-day lag between publication and Dick's death would have been an acceptable risk for his assassins, just so long as Dick never managed to communicate his intelligence to anyone else.

  The police radio made throat-clearing sounds as the car bumped across a railroad siding and stopped before a steel warehouse, its high facade a sheet of black shadow. Durell saw dock cranes against the luminous sky. Ship funnels glowed beyond the warehouse roof. He was escorted from the car and scented bilge oil and garbage from below, where the river purled among pier supports. Ship's machinery and dock equipment clattered and hummed and screeched.

  The warehouse was redolent of coiffee and fruits inside, the air still and humid.

  Durell was shown into a suite of offices, utilitarian, sparsely furnished with steel desks and chairs. Shipping schedules were on the walls, bills of lading, invoices, ledgers on the desks.

  The beardless policeman spoke quietly. "Please wait here, sir," he said, and went through a door. Durell could not see in there.

  The big policeman with the toy beard was a black tower beside him. Sweat shone on the man's forehead, ran down his cheeks. His Webley was still in its holster, almost as if tempting Durell to try for it.

  The other cop reappeared, motioned Durell inside.

  The man awaiting him there was squat. He had a rigid Prussian neck, the hardened features of a drill sergeant. The hand he offered was a mahogany plank.

  "I am Inspector Sydney James, Guyana National Police. Your safety here is my personal responsibility."

  "That explains it, then."

  "The civUities? Do not regard them too highly."

  "I don't."

  James eyed him severely. His eyes were a beautiful brown, the color of coffee beans. He bent an arm and scooped his hand toward a steel chair. "Sit down," he said. The inspector saw a strand of lint on his jacket sleeve, grimaced, flicked it away. He wore an expensive navy-blue suit that should have been beyond his means. A large diamond ring graced the little finger of his left hand.

  Durell took the chair, crossed his legs widely, and said: "Something else needs explaining, doesn't it?"

  "You have a question?"

  "Why the warehouse? Surely you have a normal office."

  James cleared his throat with a small grunt. "I'm a busy man. Constantly on the move, you see. This location happens to be convenient for me at the moment."

  "And keeps our little tete-a-tete off the record?"

  "Don't be presumptuous, Mr. Durell." James' gaze turned cool as the rain that had fallen. "Where did you find the diamond?"

  "So. You're interested in the diamond. Another explanation," Durell said. "I see now why you had me brought here."

  "Just answer my question."

  '*Maybe I found it lying on the ground."

  Durell was startled when the inspector laughed. His teeth were as pretty as his eyes. Then James said, "I expected evasion. It does not trouble me; it makes my point."

  "Which is?"

  "You have no prospecting permit and no bill of sale. You have nothing to prove that you have legal possession of the diamond."

  "How do you know I have no bill of sale?"

  "Do you?"

  Durell was silent. There was a snapping sound as an electric wall clock moved its minute hand.

  The inspector sighed theatrically. "I'm afraid you are in violation of our laws, Mr. Durell. You will be sent back to the U.S.A. first thing in the morning."

  Durell was faurly certain that Eisler had put James up to this, as he remembered the mention of ^'sub rosa police connections" in Eisler's dossier. But he judged he would gain nothing by throwing such an accusation in the inspector's self-satisfied face, and, looking at the two cops standing by the door, he could end the worse for it.

  The inspector was speaking, his voice heavy with emphasis. "Do I make myself clear, Mr. Durell? First thing in the morning, or you will be arrested, charged with illegal possession and smuggling, and held in confinement, pending the outcome of your trial. It could take weeks—or months."

  "You haven't got a case, inspector."

  James made another offhand gesture. "Oh? That would not come out until the trial was held."

  Durell drew a long breath. "All right, inspector. You win. I have just one other question."

  "You may ask it."

  "You could have told me all of this in your office at police headquarters. So what did you really bring me here for?"

  James' eyes snapped, and his heavy shoulders drew up, and he did not look like a Prussian, or a banker, which he vaguely resembled in more relaxed moments, or anything, except a mad cop. His voice was tightly controlled, as he said: "What they say about you is true, Mr. Durell. You are a clever man."

  Then he whirled a finger at his two men and pointed at the door, and they went out, and he followed.

  The door closed, and Durell was left to sit and wonder.

  Durell could not figure it out at first. He checked the door and found it unlocked and looked into the great dusky bam of the warehouse. No one was there. He was aware of a sense of entrapment, although he knew with certainty that the outer door of the warehouse would be unlocked also. The inces
sant tradewind moaned against the enormous tin roof, and he felt something like hackles begin to rise at the back of his neck. He stood on the threshold of the office and his face turned from the warehouse to the office and back. He heard a scrape as the door to the street, beyond high-piled hemp bags of copra, was swung open. He slid back into the office and closed the door.

  It could be employees of the warehouse firm, or it could be a nightwatchman.

  He did not think it was either.

  He pressed an ear against the door and heard the muffled footfalls of someone approaching. There appeared to be no other exit, and the frugal, barren space of the office made it pointless to hide. He moved to the center of the room and waited, poised, he hoped, for whatever might come. At least he could be thankful that Inspector James had left him his gun.

  Then the door to the office opened.

  The face of a small Chinese that peered at him did not appear even remotely surprised. Durell remembered the Chinese-made pistol, the Tokarev, that Peta had carried, and his face hardened as his fingers moved backward along his belt, ready for the draw of his .38.

  The face disappeared. Something was said in Mandarin of the northern variety, in which Durell was fluent, but he could not hear well enough to interpret it. Then a different face came into view; the door swung wider as only the second man entered, then closed behind him.

  And Durell figured it out.

  "Stay where you are. Colonel Su," he said. He did not quite have his hand on the grip of his pistol.

  "Of course, Mr. Durell. But you have nothing to fear from me, for the moment." He was a big, bulky Manchurian with a nose that was no more than a low bas-relief on his flat face. His eyes were alert, intelhgent slits of black liquid. His mouth showed a ruthless competence and control. The humidity made quills of his short, salt-and-pepper hair, and he looked almost shabby in a poorly tailored gray business suit.

  "How much did you pay James to set this up?" Durell asked.

  "You jump to conclusions. A trait of your race, I fear.**

  Durell wondered where the other man was—how many others there might be. "I'm to believe this is just a coincidence? That Colonel Su Chung, Black House, Lotus Section stumbled into me in a warehouse?" Durell did not take his hand from his belt.

  "You know me?"

  "I know you. So do people all over Southeast Asia, not a few of them dead now."

  Su shrugged his shoulders. "Times have changed. As for this James you mention, I know of him only distantly. This warehouse is leased to us; those commodities out there are for shipment to the People's Republic of China. One of our men found you here. What was he to do but call his security officer?" Su smiled. It was a small wink of teeth, then gone.

  "Very well," Durell said. "James is covered. And now . . . ?"

  "Now that I see the interloper is no common burglar, but Samuel Cullen Durell, chief field agent for the infamous K Section of the CIA, it happens that I have something to discuss with him."

  The teeth winked at Durell again. He decided one was gold, but it was hard to tell. Durell thought of the other man—or men—again. "Am I free to leave here?" he tested.

  Su nodded. "Whenever you wish, but..."

  "No buts." Durell jerked open the office door and strode through the gloom of the storage area. No one was about. He did not look back. He went through the warehouse door, showing himself in the street, and studied the parking area. A Mercedes with a diplomatic license plate was parked there, about twenty-five yards away. He could not say how many men were inside it, but none of them got out to challenge him. He counted a few seconds, and, when there still was no reaction, he went back inside. Su had not moved. He began talking the moment Durell returned, his husky voice thoughtful, almost professorial. "As you may know," he said, "the People's Republic of China has lent friendly assistance to the people of Guyana in constructing a dam on a tributary of the Mazaruni River, not far from Tumereng." He paused, lifted thin brows toward Durell. "Go on."

  "At about 2000 hours, local time, on the night of the third, a man known to us in Southeast Asia as William Bryce Haddenfield—and here as Richard Boyer, your so-called brother-in-law—^was apprehended by us at the construction site of that dam."

  The third, Durell recalled, was the night of Boyer's desperate transmission to K Section headquarters-Colonel Su continued: "I know it would be wasting my time to ask you what Boyer was doing there—one does not attempt to draw nectar from a thorn. We have drawn our own conclusions. Mr. Boyer was questioned in vain, then placed under guard for removal to Guyanese authorities. To our embarrassment, he overwhelmed our man, injuring him slightly, and escaped. Needless to say, security has been strengthened now."

  Durell's mind turned back through the files he had read in Dick's office and came up blank. There was no mention of the dam among his papers. Everything must have come down on Dick's head at once, Durell thought, sending him deep into the rain forest, to the dam. To his death. He raised dark eyes to Colonel Su, and said, If you have a protest, take it to the ambassador." No, Mr. Durell. You are chief field agent for K Section. My words are heard where they count most, without any diplomatic obfuscation." Su's voice became angry, eyes squeezed to two inky lines. "The dam is our first major effort in the Western Hemisphere to show underdeveloped countries what the people's revolution can do for them. We will not have that endangered by agents of the United States. Be forewarned. Diplomatically, doors have been opened between our countries. They can be closed." He paused, and added, "And between men such as you and me, who remember the old days— well, I would welcome the excuse to settle some accounts."

  "I'd be happy to accommodate you, but I have other orders," Durrell replied. "Besides, the inspector says he's sending me home tomorrow."

  "I'm not stupid; you will leave when you are ready."

  The two men stared at each other, and Durell said, "I don't know why Dick should have been on your property. Your story could be pure fantasy, dreamed up after the fact. How can I know that you didn't kill our man?"

  The teeth winked again. Durell thought the big Man-churian had the meanest grin he had ever seen.

  Colonel Su said, "You cannot know, given the fact that neither of us trusts the other in the slightest degree." And then he added: "Just stay away from the dam."

  Durell picked up his rental Fiat at the Toucan Patio, urgently aware that time was an angry tide threatening to sweep him away. Somewhere, Durell told himself, Dick had left a trail that would lead him through the riddle of the submarine and the Warakabra Tiger itself.

  But by morning Durell would be a fugitive, Georgetown untenable for all practical purposes, and the jungle, without a clear path and focused destination, simply a place to die in slow agony.

  His best hope was Calvin Eisler.

  And he was to the point where he would use any means to extract information from the unwilling man.

  Chapter Ten

  Durell switched on the light in his hotel room, methodically checked closet and bathroom. No one had been there. His watch read 12:47. Thanks to Inspector James and Colonel Su he had missed his assigned transmission frame. He would just have to intrude on another station's time, he decided.

  Breaking open his suitcase, he withdrew an ordinary-looking 60-watt lightbulb that was packed in a retail box of blue and white cardboard, and a small package of expensive stationery and a pair of reading glasses in a lightweight frame of dark plastic.

  He screwed the lightbulb into the bedside lamp, slipped on the glasses and opened the stationery. The first two pages contained a letter to Dick's sister that Durell had begun while on the jet to Guyana. It spoke prosaically of the flight, remorse over the loss of Durell's "brother-in-law" and hopes of a quick return to his "wife." He put the last page of the letter on the table beside the lamp, as if in the act of completing the correspondence, then held the inner surface of the top of the stationery box under the light.

  The chemical coating inside the bulb combined with the polarized e
yeglasses to bring out a dense listing of code words and phrases in the box top.

  Durell made no notes, memorizing the encoded message as he composed it. Then he pressed a rivet on the hinge of his suitcase, releasing its plastic shell liner, and took out a small microphone.

  The powerful signal of the JCT-Mk9 transceiver spanned 2,000 nautical miles to the sealed, fluorescent-lighted guts of K Section.

  "Kappa Sigma, Kappa Sigma. Tiger requests intrude."

  There was a silence. Then, "Read you. Tiger. Hold."

  Another pause, longer this time. DureU's eyes wandered to the door, then past a factory reproduction of a neo-African wood carving that hung above the fruitwood bedstead, and he stared through the slats of the Demerara window, seeing nothing.

  "Mocha says negative. Tiger."

  "Read Tiger's request as a Q pre-empt," Durell asserted.

  Mocha was Columbia Control. That would be Barry Symonds, a young hound on his way up, jealous of his operation, tenacious of his every prerogative, but a good man. Durell was taking a chance that Mocha's was a routine report. The sweephand of his watch moved through the space of fifteen seconds, then thirty. He resisted the impulse to switch frequencies and listen to Barry bitch.

  Fmally headquarters spoke: "You're cleared to proceed. Tiger."

  Durell spoke slowly and distinctly, giving equal emphasis to each word. "Mangos steady. Bacon up. Eight-two and three-four. Ten hundred hours Demerara in. Plentiful coconuts. Turkeys and sugar in demand. Five-seven and eight-six. Turtles. One shipment. Unknown quality. Ten hundred hours Demerara out. Southern Cross brand strong. Coconuts down. Oranges available. Seventeen-four and nine-eight. Limes steady..."

  Durell continued the random numbers and commodities for another ten seconds, but the communications specialist at the other end of the transmission no longer listened or cared. Only that portion of the message between the mentions of coconuts had counted. The rest was merely to obscure and confuse unauthorized ears.