Assignment- Tiger Devil

by Will B Aarons

  Durell crawled to the wall of the pit away from the gunmen, raised himself to its brim. Peta was beside him as they wormed through the narrow space between table and JBoor.

  The cool air was like a stiff drink.

  Durell's eye caught movement at the nearby door. He had expected that, and scooted his .38 across the floor toward the heavily armed man who stepped into view.

  Then he told Peta: "Better put up your hands."

  Durell knew that Leon would execute them quickly; that the next few moments would spell escape or death.

  The guard fired at the ceiling and the steam roar withered to silence. Durell watched through filaments of mist as shadows approached the long cane table from the other side. He backed half a step unnoticed, bumped the wall lightly, seeking the switchbox for the cane feeder. He kept his hands at shoulder height, and hoped desperately that his elbow would find the switch button on one try.

  Peta's sulking eyes clung to the approaching men, as the dim light revealed one, then another, and Leon's scar-mottled face was in their midst. They began scaling the table. One turned and gave Leon a hand up. Durell felt his guts shrink as he looked up into the unforgiving muzzles. He saw few seconds to spare in their hostile eyes. Leon pointed his machine pistol at Durell's face and looked down from his height contemptuously. Durell had thought that would appeal to his vanity, to be able to look , down and see him cringing, but Durell did not cringe, 1 and that seemed to anger the man. ^

  "You thought you could stop a revolution single-handed?" Leon rasped. "You are stupid, senor."

  Some of the men still were on the other side, but Durell knew time had run out.

  His elbow jabbed the ON button.

  The cane table's steel-link conveyor belt yanked the feet from under the men up there, and Durell spun on the incredulous guard, his knuckles crushing the man's larynx. Shrieks came from above. Men floundered and were tossed in bewildered terror, while the wide belt hurried them into a hideous whirl of cane chopping knives. Horror seemed to have stunned those on the far side of the table as Durell grabbed the guard's AK assault rifle and heard the flashing knives chunk heavily into a screeching victim.

  He rushed out the door, away from the nightmare of jabberings and blood-tinged air. Peta followed as he zigzagged toward the bam.

  Mud gushed around them as a flat stutter of gunfire stitched the wind. Peta did not stop running. Durell dived, swiveled, and his rifle hammered at the distant factory door. He caught up with Peta near the car in the night shade of the bam, saw the youth lurch back from the door handle.

  "Someone's in there!"

  "Wait, Sam! It's just me!" Ana's imploring face shone out the car window. "You're not ditching me now. What took you so long?"

  "Get your head down," Durell barked. He fired a last burst at the mill, spent cartridges making a chain in the air, then jimiped behind the wheel. Peta scrambled into the rear seat, the door still open as the car spun around the bam and lurched onto the cane-walled lane by which, it seemed, Durell had arrived a century ago.

  He rued the forfeit of Ajit—it had not been that one's lucky night, after all. But he could not remain effective in the business and brood about the losses, he thought darkly.

  Ana drew a sharp breath.

  And, at the same time, Durell felt the steely snout of a gun against the back of his head.

  Part of Durell's mind stood objectively aside and noted that Peta, with remarkable restraint, had kept a gun hidden, doubtlessly in the leather pouch, through everything that had happened in the mill, chancing capture, possibly torture, certainly death, anticipating a moment when he could use it on Durell and be reasonably certain of a safe escape. The other part of Durell's mind stormed with anger and dismay, but he kept his voice calm, as he said: "Why didn't you use that when it was needed, Peta?"

  "Against them? It would have made no difference— but here, it does." The boy's voice tightened. "I wish you no harm, Mr. Durell. You are very much of a man, and a good man, I think. Just tell me where my diamond is."

  The car did not slow in its flight through the wind-stroked cane. Ana's face was as pale as the tropical star-shine. Oddly enough, she had not asked what diamond, but maybe she was too frightened.

  Finally, Durell replied: "If you pull that trigger, Peta, you'll never know."

  He felt the gun go uncertainly away from his skull, and added: "I guess you're along for the ride—all the way."

  Durell's hands trembled slightly. Adrenaline. Weariness. Anticipation. And his clothing was a chill mess that grated soggily on patches of tender skin.

  But he was on ihe road to Bartica, on the track of the Warakabra Tiger. Rapidly, his thoughts ordered themselves into a list. All he had to do was:

  Hope that Peta would tell him how to find Claudius.

  Go through the motions of selling a diamond he did not have, under the nose of Peta, who would try to kill him if he knew.

  Get a look inside Dick's police-sealed house, even as the police sought his arrest and deportation.

  Check the Chinese dam in the face of Colonel Su's warning not to venture there.

  And then, remembering Leon's words, attempt to stop a revolution single-handedly.

  Chapter Seventeen

  "You won't let Peta keep that gun, wfll you?" Ana said.

  "I'm not going to take it away from him," Dureil replied.

  "You're afraid you'll have to harm him?"

  "Maybe."

  "Why do you protect him?"

  "I need him."

  Ana sighed, sat back, folded long, narrow hands in the lap of a raincoat she had thrown over her apricot silk gown. Dureil noted she'd had the presence of mind to pack a suitcase. It filled half of the cavity between seats, crowding Peta, whose resentful green eyes paced back and forth, from Dureil to Ana, never resting.

  Distant headlamps flared above the cane just as they turned from the plantation road onto the highway, and Dureil knew they were being pursued. Thankful for the AK rifle beside him, he put his foot to the floorboard and drove with one eye on the rear-vision mirror. The little car split through the spanking wind, and the palms did a witch's dance against the sky.

  A ferry took them across the Demerara to Vreed en Hoop, and they dashed around a long curve of the shore to Parika, where the highway ended at another red-dirt trail gouged through the jungle. It paralleled the Essequibo River, Guyana's mightiest stream, whose headwaters mingled near the green-shrouded Akarai Mountains with tributaries of the Amazon. Dureil caught Ana's apprehensive glance and let up on the gas as the Fiat rocked and banged over ruts. They had gained a comfortable margin of time at the ferry, but if anything happened to the car, their lead could evaporate—and there was nowhere to turn but the alien jungle or the impossibly wide and swift Essequibo.

  "What do you think, Peta?" Durell asked. "Will the road be passable to Bartica?"

  "This time of year?" Peta's words were thoughtful. "I think so. I have traveled it this season. But that was in a truck, with Mr. Eisler." The low light of the dash patinized his coppery face as it swung toward the river, and something like fondness softened the points of his green eyes. "Alone, I go on the river, instead of this road," he said. "I have been its length, past Watu Falls. I know it like the Kwitaro, the Rupununi and the Potaro, where the Patamona tell of their great chief Kai."

  "What was so great about Kai?" Ana asked. Her tone suggested that she expected to be amused, and her smile was flippant.

  Peta's face darkened. He said nothing.

  "You've heard of Kaiteur Falls," Durell supplied, the steering wheel jerking in his grip.

  "Of course—five times higher than Niagara, for whatever that's worth,"

  "Legend says that Kai sacrificed himself by canoeing over the falls in hopes that Makonaima, the Great Spirit, would save his tribe from the Caribishi cannibals."

  "Did it work?" Ana asked.

  "As Peta said, the Patamona are still with us."

  "We could use a Kai now." She turned, put
a casual hand on Peta's rough knee. "Would you be my Kai, Peta? Would you sacrifice yourself to save me from those awful men?"

  "Shut up and leave the boy alone," Durell snapped.

  Peta said, "I will help you, if I can." He looked at the hand on his knee as if it were a rare bird, and his eyes shone on Ana with a light of new possibilities and on Durell with increased resentment. "Don't tell her to shut up," he said.

  Durell understood that Ana was different from the short-breasted and stubby girls of Peta's native village; a rarity to the boy's experience among hard-faced harlots of porkknockers' dens. The look in Peta's eyes said she was the most beautiful being he'd ever seen, with the white sweetness of delicate kakaralli flowers, the grace of a jaguar. Durell saw clearly that Peta was a little afraid of her touch, that he struggled to keep his fierce pride at a safe distance.

  Then a yawn curled Ana's sharp little nose, and she turned to Durell and said: "What's next, Sam? What do we do Li Bartica?"

  "You go with Eisler to the dedication of the dam; I take care of my business."

  He glanced back. The darkness behind on the jungle trail was complete. Freckles of starshine swarmed in the black overlap of trees above. Not even that much sky would be visible a few yards to either side of the road. Now and then the road bent close to the river, the water was a brief flash of platinum. Suddenlv something like a rough log shone across the ruts, and the little car crashed and leaped over a cayman.

  "You don't mean we're splitting up in Bartica, Sam?

  "Exactly." Durell's tone was blunt.

  "Why?"

  "You have no more place m this."

  Ana's face turned petulant. "You mean you have no more need of me. Maybe I can show you differently, given the chance."

  "Put it however you like," Durell said. A gentle note came into his voice. "You're an amateur. Ana. You might get yourself killed. You might get me killed."

  "But what about Dick? He was my friend. You said I could help."

  "And you have. That's enough."

  Peta's voice came low and solid from the rear. "Mr. Boyer was my friend, too. And my father's." He liftpH his pistol, and added, "I will use this on whoever harmed Mr. Boyer—and, if they've harmed my father . . ." He left the sentence hanging over an abyss of menace.

  Ana tossed her hair and turned to the youth. "M^vbe we should team up, Peta. We'd show the Cajun a thmg or two. What do vou think?" She smiled.

  Peta gazed at her out of the sides of his eyes.

  The road turned progressively worse. The potholes became long, yellow pools, and large branches snarled with flowering lianes formed obstructions that had to be moved. Durell was glad the rainy season just ending had not brought down whole trees. The tires mired to the hubcaps, and Durell and Peta put limbs under them and heaved and sweated, while Ana gunned the engine.

  It was less than forty miles to Bartica, but they had made only half the distance in two hours. Durell saw why guests for the dedication chose to fly. Then something caught his eyes on the right, beyond the trees. He stopped the car and surveyed what appeared to be a river camp a few yards away.

  "We'll try to get some rest," he said, and turned the car onto a trail. It was overgrown with young sawgrass two feet high, and little river bats fluttered in the headlamp beams. The lights spun a large lean-to out of the darkness. Durell parked behind it, out of sight of the road The ground was soft underfoot, a wet clay overlaid with a rotting corduroy of thin logs. Below the riverbank, sand and pebbles formed a narrow beach, recently uncovered by the falling water level. A boat dock stood three feet above the surface, which would drop another three yards, Peta said, before the dry season ended.

  Peta walked about with a knowing air, his gun now in the leather bag strapped over a shoulder. He sniffed and poked and told them to watch out for scorpions under the rotting logs. The big scorpions—some six inches long —were not the worst, he said. The worst stings came from the tiny gray ones, and there were many more of those.

  Finally he said, "This is Manatee Point. We're first here after the rains," and seemed satisfied that he had said enough.

  They built a smudgy fire inside the lean-to, taking care that its glow did not reach the road, and, by its low, waffling light, strung up three of the hammocks that had been left hanging coiled in a comer. There came a tremendous smack from the water nearby, and Ana jumped.

  Peta grinned and said, "Just a cayman calling fish,

  Miss Morera, or a big lau-lau catfish, come up and slap his tail."

  Ana's sugar-brown eyes showed no comfort. She insisted on dressing before lying down, and Peta and Durell stood behind the lean-to while she changed into cotton slacks, high lace-up boots and a safari jacket.

  Durell wondered where Leon's men were. Maybe they had turned back at the ferry; maybe they hadn't. "We'll stay here three hours, each taking an hour's watch and getting two hours' sleep," he said. He spoke to Peta: "You take the first watch down by the road. Keep out of sight, and, if anything stops—"

  "I'll let you know," Peta said. He went into the snatching shadows, the low grass silent beneath his feet.

  Durell filled a rusty tin can with water and snuffed out the fire with it, then collected the AK rifle from the car and crawled into a hammock, the rifle beside him. The river sang and threw sparks of white fire, seen beyond the ebony outline of a monkey pipe tree that smelled of jasmine and cast pale cream flowers. The overtowering jungle assaulted the ears with a thousand sounds, made more intense by the darkness of the moldering shelter.

  "Sam?" Ana's hammock squeaked at its knots. "Sam, if you turned back now ..."

  "Not a chance, Ana."

  The predawn breath of the forest chilled Ana, as her long legs swung out of the hammock, and she made her way toward the slatted luster of the river. The loom of enormous trees dwarfed the little clearing and rained an irregular patter of leaves, twigs, fruit that mixed with the purling of the current, the dainty crush of Ana's boots. She went carefully, hips, knees loose and yielding to the bumps and dips on the hidden earth; eyes wary in a face of faint radiance; long hair an invisible flow in the dark.

  She did not know exactly where Peta was.

  She was certain she would find him down here, bathing in water that flowed like liquid silver from distant mountain vaults.

  Her pulse quickened at the thought of his hard, young body, and her tongue ran a predatory tip around her small mouth. She did not care to dwell on that; put it out of her mind. That would take care of itself, she reflected as she slid the last few feet down the grassy bank to the beach. The air was thick as honey and smelled of dew-bent flowers. The night shouted with stars.

  Her clothing was tight and damp, uncomfortable around her waist and at the knees and armpits. She walked silently, slowly down the beach, unbuttoning her blouse as she went, the sparkled brass of her eyes searching the sand, then rising to the distance or turning back over her shoulder.

  She did not think Sam had seen her leave.

  He was down by the road, where he had relieved Peta. He had risen from his hammock with slow reluctance, looking tired in gait and posture. Poor Sam. He should have married Deirdre and got out of the business. But he was a legend and would never quit, not until he was dead, she thought sadly.

  Abruptly she pulled the tail of her blouse from under her belt and smiled to herself. The chill was invigorating, liberating as it crept over the roundness of her pointed breasts, her ribs and stomach. She unbuckled her heavy leather belt, wondering again of Peta, and thinking she knew how he would respond. Her excitement tingled in her chest, pulsed at the side of her neck.

  She had never killed before.

  She regretted it—but Peta was really too dangerous to let live.

  She had expected to be afraid, but fear did not come. Only a heady anticipation.

  The air was delicious against her tawny skin as she untied her boots and stepped out of her slacks. It was like being stroked with mittens of cool fur, she thought, and she made a pur
ring sound in her throat. She closed her eyes and pursed her lips, face upturned, as if to kiss the sky.

  Then the stars tracked a shadow of lithe limbs and swinging breasts, as she moved on down the damp sand. Branches rattled where they overhung the water a few yards ahead, and Ana knew that would be Peta, coming back this way. She felt fully competent agamst the youth. He was little more than the animals that crept through forest trails beyond the shoulder-high riverbank. They scavenged on the fringes of the modem world, obsolete and outmoded—or worse, got in the way of real people and societies.

  She must get him near her—on her—to be sure of the kill.

  The thought blew a hot, erotic breath across her loins, and her heart quickened. Peta moved with dark, lean grace around the fronds ahead, the river frothing in white bands at his thighs, face turned down toward the water, as if lost in thought. The long muscles of his naked body rippled under a sheen of starlight as he splashed onto the sand.

  As Ana had expected, he carried his leather pouch with him.

  Her resolve slackened briefly when his face turned toward her and he stood still. But then she smiled inwardly at the spectacle of the stupid boy frozen to the spot. That's right, she told herself: stupid boy. Dead boy. Building up her hatred and, oddly, she noted, her lust. He was beautiful.

  Then she spoke, her voice light in the huge wilderness space: "Come here, Peta."

  "What—what do you want?" He did not move.

  "What do you think I want, silly?"

  "Leave me alone." Peta's green eyes flashed, and he shook his head.

  "You might like it, Peta. You just really might like it, you know." She lifted her long hands, and her breasts rose.

  "Mr. Durell will be angry."

  "Are you afraid, Peta? Well, if you are afraid . . ."

  Peta crossed the shadow-strewn space and looked obliquely at her. She held out a hand. His grasp was tentative. She arched her neck and looked beyond him at the million stars that hung above river and jungle, and put his dark fingers on her breast. She did not look at him; he was merely a shadow closing around her as his arms embraced her, and she bent her knees and pulled him down on the cool sand.