Assignment- Tyrant's Bride

by Will B Aarons

  "For me, you mean.”

  "For you.” He opened his mouth to call the woman back, but never got the chance.

  Durell spun, swiped at the gun, knifed fingertips into the pit of the other’s stomach. The gun thundered and fell; the man clutched at his gut and sank. Durell wasted no more time on him and ran for the trees where the woman had vanished. Half blinded by the muzzle flash, he tried to blink away the white images fuzzing his retinas. The shot had raised a din of barking from the direction of the house. The song of innumerable crickets combined to an angry whine.

  The wind hurled the treetops, and moonshine wriggled and jumped under the trees like blown seafoam.

  There came another sound, sensual, incredible: the woman was laughing nearby, her voice low, almost inviting. He held his breath, waited uncertainly. Was she straight ahead? Right or left?

  What made her so sure of herself?

  He felt the hair rise on the back of his neck in this darkness of flickering shapes and ghostly images. The wind howled, and the dogs barked.

  Reluctantly, he drew a snub-nosed .38 S&W revolver from his shoulder holster. He hoped he would not have to harm her.

  As he strained his eyes, something more substantial than a shadow broke off from a tree trunk and darted away. At the same moment the sandy pad of the Shirazi’s hurrying feet came to him. That one hadn’t learned his lesson. Durell glanced back, picked out the thin form, decided with a bit of patience he might not have to kill him.

  "Over here,” the woman called in Swahili.

  Her voice had a youthful, alluring roundness. It was the first time he had heard her speak.

  "Where?”

  Again, her laughter, close by.

  Out on the beach the surf crashed and boomed.

  This time he was ready when she ran from hiding, and he dashed after her just as a gunshot split the night. Over his shoulder he glimpsed a second wink of the Shirazi’s muzzle; then something tripped him, catapulted him face first into the dewy sand, and his gun went wheeling.

  He lay there dazed, wondering what had happened.

  Then he was jolted by a terrifying bellow of agony only a foot or so away, and his hands clawed blindly against wet sand, searching for his gun; but instead he found the cold iron and needle points of long spikes set in the ground all around him. And he knew what had happened. He was in an area where plantation laborers husked coconuts against spikes set permanently into the earth. The woman had led him into a trap, but he’d been lucky. The Shirazi had followed, and his luck hadn’t been so good.

  The oily gleam of bright blood shone from a spike that protruded inches out of his back. He lay still and waxen, dead or so close to it that nothing Durell could do would save him.

  Durell peered ahead as if from a foxhole and lay flat. He wondered whose plantation he was on, and whether the Shirazi’s last cry might bring someone. There were the shots to consider, also. He did not suppose they would welcome him with open arms if they found him out here like this.

  He wished for his gun.

  And that woman.

  He would not leave here without her, damn her murderous heart.

  The seconds stretched out as he watched and waited. Rollers tumbled shells and sucked at sand; crickets made a racket of high-pitched electric sound. The dogs had gone crazy, down by the house.

  "Durell?”

  She waited.

  He made no move, the heat lying over him with suffocating humidity. He watched from the rims of his eyes as she came closer. Her tread was tentative, one slow step at a time, as she returned to check on him. The wind pasted her buibui against her, revealing by moonlight a rounded length of thigh, the voluptuous molding of hip and breast. Now she picked her way among the spikes, her vision clearly difficult. She came to the Shirazi first and knelt by the man and extended her hand, as if to touch his face.

  Durell did not know if she had seen him, but it didn’t matter. If she had, she seemed to think he was as dead as the other.

  He sprang.

  She went backward like a toy. A sob of fright caught in her throat as she hit the ground, and her veil and cowl fell away, and he saw whipping braids of long black hair, the carved, clear beauty of a face neither quite Indian nor European. Fury contorted her lips and her foot swung in a crushing kick at his groin, but she missed. He slammed his body across her, pinned her down, swept the air to gather in her thrashing fists, missed, missed again and felt the fiery rake of her nails. Real anger got him then. She was small under him; he could kill her easily, like crushing a wounded finch in his palm—but he mustn’t. He ground his teeth and let off a bit of the pressure of his hard-muscled forearm on her windpipe. She was still potentially useful.

  "Be still,” he growled, speaking Swahili.

  "Turn me loose.” She whimpered. Gasps racked her chest.

  "Not likely.” He pressed harder, aware of the vulnerable trachea beneath the soft flesh of her throat.

  There was a desperate gurgle and her green eyes widened in pain and terror and she clawed at his arm. Sweat rolled down his temples. Her mouth went round. She clenched her eyes and bucked against his weight.

  He let up again.

  "Talk,” he growled. "Who are you? Why did you try to kill me?”

  She made a choking noise, then found her voice and the words spewed like venom:

  "You came to take back that bitch, Teresa!”

  "Sorry. That’s politics.”

  "I’ll kill you first!”

  She squirmed. He studied her face, holding her down almost effortlessly. She was young and angry—too angry for the calculating murderer he had first guessed.

  And then it struck him, and he said, his tone incredulous:

  ’'You’re jealous. Of Teresa?”

  "I hate her!”

  "And you love General Ogwang.”

  "Ndio!”

  Durell’s sigh was disgusted. He sat up, still on top of her, and wished for a drink of good Kentucky bourbon. He didn’t know whether to break her neck or turn her loose. She obviously had no intention of making his mission easier. She was technically a murderer—the cooling body of the Shirazi lay where it had fallen— but the man had asked for it, and he would waste no tears over him. Besides, Durell could hardly take her to the police and attempt to explain it all: the authorities took a dim view of men in his profession.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?” she demanded. She had stopped struggling, but the same anger shone from her eyes.

  "You’ll have to take me to General Ogwang,” he said.

  She started to protest, but he cut her off. "I know you don’t want to, but you’ll have to.”

  "And if I won’t?”

  Durell’s voice turned gravely. "Then I’ll have to make you. It won’t be pleasant.”

  Another voice came out of the darkness. It was coarse and suspicious and very threatening, and it said: "That will not be necessary. Put up your hands.”

  3

  The harsh radiance of a powerful flashlight blinded Durell. He raised his hands and averted his face. He felt naked, helpless, as rough hands seized him and dragged him off the girl and threw him down in the sand. He did not know how many men were around him, certainly more than two or three, and he waited with surly composure for what would come next. The girl had scrambled to her feet and run out of his vision. But now he heard her speak, off to one side.

  "Albert, I’m sorry. . ."

  "Sorry? My dear, are you all right?”

  Durell called out: "General Albert Ogwang?”

  "How do you know me?”

  A current of relief surged through Durell. "I am Sam Durell,” he said simply. He got up and brushed sand from his trousers.

  Ogwang strode forward with the flashlight. He turned the light out of Durell’s eyes, and Durell saw that he was big and paunchy, going to seed in his middle age. His size made the woman look tiny as she accompanied him back to Durell, but she wasn’t all that small. His eyes were hooded, set wide on either
side of a broad, flat nose; his lips were thin and amused—or was it derisive? He looked like a man of hungry appetites, cunning and unforgiving. He smoked a clove-scented cigarette and wore a collarless bunge shirt outside his trousers.

  "How did this happen?” he demanded in Swahili. "Indrani was to meet you and bring you to me.”

  "I am here,” Durell said.

  "Humm,” the general growled. He puffed twice, quickly, on the cigarette, blew smoke, flicked ashes. Then he aimed his electric torch at the dead Shirazi and asked: "Who is this?”

  "Ask her.”

  General Ogwang’s hooded eyes turned on Indrani, who seemed to huddle beside him. She said nothing, looking away.

  "She knows,” Durell said. "She hired him.. To lead me into a trap.”

  "Is this true?” Ogwang asked. "Why?”

  Her green eyes were cold on Durell. "He has come to take you to destruction with that Teresa bitch leading the way.” Her voice melted, and she threw her arms about the general. "I’ll never see you again,” she cried.

  Ogwang patted her like a child. "That’s all right,” he said.

  All right? Durell watched this ludicrous scene without humor. He saw a jack-in-the-box girl who might pop up and stab him in the back at any time and a doting fool who could hardly be expected to administer a nation if he couldn’t control her. He saw the Ndolo massacred by the thousands and hundreds of thousands, while gleeful Russians shackled their country with debts and obligations because no one else would deal with bloody Ausi. He saw failure. Disaster. And nothing to do but march straight into it, because people already had been committed, and affairs like this rapidly gained an irresistible momentum of their own.

  He merely suggested that Indrani be left out of his future dealings with General Ogwang.

  At which Ogwang showed a certain puzzlement, and replied: "No harm done. Come.” As an afterthought he aimed his light at the dead man and told his half-dozen rifle-toting men: "Dispose of that. Cigarette?”

  "Thanks, no,” Durell said. It occurred to him that Ogwang was tipsy.

  The house sat far back in the plantation, for safety. Word had it that President for Life Field Marshal Azo Ausi would reward highly the man who brought him General Ogwang’s head. It was a dwelling of dressed coral stone cut in heavy blocks, with arched Arabic windows, Portuguese-style wrought-iron grilles. The air was refreshingly cooler inside the thick walls and high ceilings, where rooms were simple whitewash over plaster, teak flooring, the usual mangrove-pole beams. Furnishings seemed to show a woman’s touch, and Durell attributed that to the lovely Indrani. There were brightly cushioned chairs and sofas of rattan and wicker, flame-colored sisal rugs and russet curtains made of pounded bark, the same material worn by the kabakas of Mobundu in the days of the kingdom.

  The surf-beat came in here regular and heavy. Men’s voices, too, calling to each other in the darkness down by the beach.

  Ogwang moved to a liquor cart, eyed Durell. "Bourbon, please,” Durell said.

  The general spoke as he poured the drinks. "The arrangements have been made?”

  Durell nodded. "It’s in process.”

  "When do we leave?” He handed Durell his drink.

  "We don’t; that is—” He looked at Indrani, heaved a sigh. She made her mouth tight and determined. She was beautiful, some mixture of Indian and English or German, he’d say.

  "What’s the matter?” Ogwang asked, his gaze following Durell’s.

  "I’d feel better if we talked alone, sir.”

  Annoyance sparked in the general’s eyes. "I told you. . .he said.

  "I am indispensable to Albert,” she said.

  "Really?” Durell looked to the general for rebuttal; the man’s eyes just went vacant. How a seductive woman could tie a giant of a man to her will was not beyond his understanding, but he hadn’t been prepared for it. He wasn’t sure how to handle it, except just go along.

  Then the general said: "Let’s hear no more of it, Mr. Durell. You were saying?”

  The corner of Indrani’s lush mouth curled in a smirk. Durell said: "I was saying that you won’t leave with me. I came to fill you in on the details. Then I head for Kenshu, in Mobundu, for the second phase of the operation.”

  "Are your people already there?”

  "At the palace, yes, sir. Teresa was to have had her first modeling session today.”

  "Oh, yes. Now I recall. They were to pose as staff for an American fashion magazine. Clever. Bloody Ausi gave his approval?”

  "Of course. We counted on his egotism.”

  "And he played right into your hands. Having that woman splashed across the pages of a western fashion journal was irresistible to his vanity—what beautiful irony that it is to cover stealing her back. And Teresa—” Ogwang's eyes cut to Indrani, as if naming names were an indiscretion, then back to Durell. "Will she go with them when the time comes?”

  The question struck Durell as queer. "We have to hope so; I can’t be certain.”

  "Why not?” General Ogwang was irritable. He tossed down the last of his drink, poured another.

  "I’ve been out of touch since leaving the States. I presume everything has gone according to plan.”

  "You are assuming she wants to leave Azo Ausi.”

  "Aren’t you?”

  There.it was again: Ogwang seemed to be saying he did not trust his own wife to choose him over her kidnapper. It hadn’t occurred to Durell—and he realized now to anyone else—that she might prefer staying with Field Marshal Ausi. It was one of those incredible oversights that sometimes happened. There was an uneasy silence. Durell regarded the general’s hooded gaze and saw a narrow, selfish pride that Ausi’s could hardly have exceeded. It dawned on him that he did not like this man.

  He thought if Teresa did not want to come out, he’d have to make her.

  The lives of his own people had been placed in the balance for this.

  As for the knit of Ogwang, Teresa and Indrani, that was Ogwang’s problem: Durell didn’t have to feel embarrassed. He said: "While we’re on the subject of staying and going, Indrani should stay here.”

  The man’s face went sour.

  Indrani’s tone was alarmed. "You’re trying to come between us! Why? How dare you judge—”

  "I’m judging nothing,” Durell snapped. "Thousands of lives are at stake; the odds are better if General Ogwang’s private life doesn’t get in the way. It has nothing to do with you personally, or with his love or lack of it for his wife. Do you understand?”

  Her eyes showed malice so clearly they might have been a child’s.

  Durell turned to Ogwang. You couldn’t read his thoughts, now.

  Fronds clacked in the wind; crickets sawed and screeched. The deep rubbing sound of a freighter’s horn came off the strait. Long ago Zanzibar had been the capital of fabulous sultans, their fortunes built on spices and slaves. Today it was just a tacky backwater, no better than a hundred others. The sort of place where a man might disappear without a trace.

  Voices of Ogwang’s men no longer sounded from outside, Durell noted.

  The general was speaking. "This hasn’t only to do with the welfare of Mobundu. Ausi is flirting with the communist bloc; the only way to save the situation— besides dealing with him, which your countrymen find so repugnant—is to get rid of him.”

  "So it’s a two-way street.”

  "Then let’s be realistic,” Indrani asserted. "Let us talk of money.” There was a ruthless daring in her green eyes. Durell guessed her to be eighteen or nineteen.

  "If you can’t kill me, you’ll rob me: is that it?” He swung his gaze to Ogwang. He’d expected something like this.

  Ogwang spoke matter-of-factly. "I am in need of funds. I must be practical.” He sipped his gin.

  Durell’s tone was blunt. "Only expenses.”

  "I have an establishment here—”

  "You won’t need it; you’ll reside in Mobundu.”

  "I require certain—employees.”

  "Body
guards? The Ndolo will work for free. For their lives.”

  "I won’t leave my men.” Ogwang looked stubborn. "There’s no place for them. We won’t pay them.” General Ogwang did not seem to take this sort of bargaining well; his face said it was beneath him. But Durell was aware that in the last days of the general’s former struggle with Field Marshal Ausi, when he had been reduced to little more than a bandit chieftain,

  nothing had been beneath him: he’d raped and looted with the worst of his men.

  Ogwang blurted: "Five thousand dollars a month.” He glanced at Indrani, then fixed his eyes on the ceiling.

  "No dice, sir. A thousand,” Durell came back. His orders were to be tough.

  Indrani said: "Four thousand. Not a penny less.” "Fifteen hundred. That’s my limit.”

  Ogwang said: "Five years I’ve been out of the country; five years out of the fight. I don’t even know if the Ndolo will support me. I’m older now. The risk is great—greater than when I fought as a guerrilla.”

  "A bandit, some say.”

  "Yes—some say.” Ogwang’s words were slow and grim. "When Ausi overthrew the old kabaka and killed all his relatives except my wife, it was easy to run to the bush and oppose him. But it was not so easy as time passed, and he tightened his grip on the army, and his agents spread through the countryside like ants.” He took an angry breath. "Yes, we raided, and we stole. One could be sure that anyone who retained wealth or position had curried favor with Ausi for the privilege. So what if I made them pay for it?”

  "Fifteen hundred is as high as I go, general.” Indrani cursed in Hindustani, and said: "Then go without him; see how far you get.”

  "I’ll do better than that,” Durell bluffed. "I’ll abort, cut our losses starting right now.” He paused for effect. "Too bad for the Ndolo nobody can call off the massacre just as easily.”

  There was a long silence. The tension in the sultry air was palpable. Durell did not hear the ship any more, or the men or the dogs. The only sounds were made by wind and surf.

  Then General Ogwang said: "You bargain like an Omani sailor.”

  "Yes, sir.”

  "Fifteen hundred it is.”