Assignment- Tyrant's Bride

by Will B Aarons

  The two dugouts went in file. Their paddles dipped quietly, came up dripping, dipped again. They were about to pass the old Arab wall.

  Wells spoke to Durell’s back. "Another five minutes, and I believe we can go into the bank.”

  "We’re into the city proper, now,” Durell said.

  "If they don’t catch us by then, they never—”

  His words were cut off by the sullen hammering of a heavy machine gun, and spray threw up a shining fence across the bow of the lead canoe.

  One of the women screamed.

  "For chrissakes. . .!” Wells shouted.

  They had been discovered. They were as vulnerable as ants on a plate.

  25

  "Stop where you are!”

  The amplified Swahili skipped like a stone, echoing across the water.

  "Produce your papers!”

  "They have a boat. Damn!” Wells said.

  "Just be glad that machine gun didn’t catch us amidships, and remember, they don’t know we’re armed,” Durell said.

  He watched through desperate eyes as a cabin-style cruiser broke away from the confusing jumble of waterfront wreckage and sped toward them.

  "We’ll have to put Teresa in the other canoe,” he told Wells.

  "With the general and Indrani?” Wells’ face was doubtful.

  "They may be able to get away, if we play our cards right.” He turned, called to General Ogwang to bring his dugout alongside, his voice urgent. "Hurry,” he said.

  The men held the canoes together as Teresa reluctantly crawled over the gunwales. "All right?” Durell called.

  "What is the point of this? They have us dead to rights.” It was Dager’s quarreling voice.

  "Willie and I will do what we can. The minute you hear the action, dig your paddles into the water and don’t look back.”

  "Wait!” Teresa cried. "What about you?”

  "You mean Mr. Wells, don’t you? He’s doing his job.” Durell pointed. "That godown over there, beyond the long pier, is inside the walls. It’s your best bet to reach Ndolo-held territory. Head for it.”

  "Sam, let me come with you.” It was Indrani. "What?”

  "Let me come with you.”

  Dager said: "Hell, let her.”

  Ogwang came to life. "What is this?”

  Durell said, "No. Here’s the launch. Be ready, general.”

  "You fool,” Teresa sneered, her voice raking Ogwang like claws. "She likes Durell better.”

  "And who do you like, bloody butcher’s whore?”

  "Shut up. Both of you.” Anger was crisp in Durell’s words. "Be ready, I said.”

  His job was to get them into Kipora; he had nearly succeeded, against all odds; but once there—provided he survived the next minutes to relish it—he wouldn’t have bet a dime against Ogwang’s weight in gold that they stood a chance of working together, and he was beginning to think he did not give a damn.

  "Willie, get Mkondo’s shotgun. Keep it out of sight until we’re ready.” He swallowed. His throat felt tight, his mouth dry.

  The cruiser slowed; its engines wound down; the cut of its bow made a splashing noise on the tranquil river. Now Durell picked out the heavy machine gun, apparent as a snouty silhouette on the flying bridge. A soldier stood on the foredeck, legs braced against the rocking of the boat, and held his FN assault rifle at port arms. It drew alongside with a low growl of reversing power and stopped, dead in the water. Durell saw the face of an officer flanked by two red-bereted soldiers looking down on him from the after well deck. They were no more than five feet distant.

  The officer was curt, speaking in Swahili. "No one allowed downriver, beyond this point. What is your purpose? Who are you?”

  Durell squeezed the trigger of his shotgun. It made a sharp racket on the water, and the officer’s head disintegrated in a garish orange mist. A soldier beside him spun down holding his neck, riddled by the same blast. The thunder of Wells’ double-barrel split the night, its light flashing back from the white hull, and a man on the flying bridge screamed, tumbled over, slid down, splashed into the river.

  "Go! Go!” Durell shouted at the other canoe.

  His second shot took out the last man on the well deck, as the soldier seen on the foredeck came running, fired blindly and was slammed backward into the water by Wells’ other barrel. Durell’s final blast crushed the chest of the machine gunner, who was attempting to train his weapon on them.

  It was over in seconds.

  Dager and Ogwang had surged away, paddles digging frantically into the orange-and-black surface.

  Durell sat on his knees in the bottom of the dugout and breathed deeply, blowing away tension. They were dead in the cruiser, and he was alive, and he was thankful for both.

  Water slopped and purled in the slot between canoe and cabin cruiser. A vagrant breath brought scorched air across the river, a reminder of the destruction within the city.

  Another howitzer round banged near the bridge.

  Wells wiped his black face and laughed grimly, easing stretched nerves. "Whoee! We did it, Cajun. Look at Dager and Ogwang plow that river!”

  "Climb aboard the cruiser,” Durell said. "Let’s go get them.”

  After sunup, when word had got around that Kabakaliya Teresa was in town, the people made a procession, led by sweating drumbeaters. They escorted her through the rabble of shelled streets, holding a silk-fringed, scarlet umbrella over her, and, in a grove by the river, she paid obligatory respects at the ancestral shrine—three low, wheellike tables of dried mud guarded by fantastically carved elephant tusks and topped with figurines and tokens, some of them hundreds of years old.

  General Albert Ogwang participated in the procession and took his place among the elders, some of whom wore robes and thongs woven through pierced ears. Other elders were dressed in business suits and seemed quite westernized and businesslike.

  Indrani had been advised to stay out of sight.

  She called to Durell from the shadows of a splintered street kiosk. "Sam, you are finished here?” she asked. "My job is done,” he replied.

  "Then you will be leaving soon.”

  "The sooner the better.”

  Her green eyes studied him from under the soft brushes of her lashes. She had bathed and shampooed, and her hair hung fine and loose in the smoky breeze. A nicely fitted print dress had replaced the camouflage fatigues. She looked very young and winningly helpless. Her voice was strong, neither pleading nor demanding, as she said, "Take me with you.”

  At least she offered herself with pride, he thought. He shook his head. "I can’t do that,” he said.

  "I will go anywhere. To America, even.”

  He suppressed a smile. "I’m sorry.”

  She watched the procession as it came back up from the royal shrine. "Albert will not protect me. He has given in to her. She will get rid of me; this is her city,” she said.

  "What remains of it,” he said.

  "You won’t help me, then?”

  "I will escort you to Ruwidi, if you can get across the bridge.”

  "That is not what I had in mind.”

  "General Ogwang will take care of you. I think you know that. Teresa is through with him—can’t you tell? He is free enough.”

  She looked sad. "You still don’t trust me.”

  "No.”

  "Is it that woman you loved?”

  "No.”

  "I do not believe you. Is she still in your heart so much?”

  "She is still in my heart, yes.”

  Later, the party split up, Durell and Dager returned to the Hotel Afrika, a low, pink cube with white and sky-blue trim. The management plied them with double pancakes stuffed with spiced omelet, called mta-bakiya, which they washed down with millet beer and followed with a dessert of sweet elephant’s-leg bananas cooked in coconut milk.

  Shells banged every few minutes, sometimes rattling the dishes on the dining table.

  Durell did not know where Wells was.

  H
e fretted over Indrani.

  He could not help wondering when the government troops would assault the walls, but he’d had a hot bath and a good meal, and right now all the assaults Ausi could muster seemed minor compared to clean sheets and sleep. Then he must prepare to steal across the border.

  His sleep was a dreamless drug. Not even the shelling disturbed him. He was awakened at last by a sharp, urgent rapping on his door. His groggy eyes swung about the room, noted his clothing, from shorts and socks to suit and tie, had been thoroughly cleaned and pressed. All were lovingly arranged on a nearby chair. The yellow of late-afternoon sunlight shone in dusty beams through louvered shutters. Flies buzzed.

  He snaked a hand under his pillow, drew out his Browning automatic, stepped naked out of the bed.

  "Nani?” he demanded.

  "I, bwana. The manager, you remember. . .?”

  Durell told him to wait a minute—"Ngoja kidogo”— and slipped into underwear and slacks, the pistol still in his grip. "Come in,” he said, and unlocked the door.

  The short, broad-shouldered manager apologized and wiped his cheeks with a linen handkerchief.

  "What brings you?” Durell asked.

  "The most awful thing, sir. A man—a—some sort of ruffian, it would appear—but in the mo§t miserable state...”

  Durell felt growing impatience, slipped into his. shirt, said: "Get to the point, man.”

  "He says he is a Mr. Mkondo—”

  "Mkondo!”

  "You know him?” The manager sounded incredulous.

  "Where is he?”

  "In the lobby, bwana. You will see him, then?”

  "Bring him up. Don’t let him get away.” A rare elation flowed through him, independent of cares or responsibilities, the simple joy of seeing an old survivor survive once again.

  Moments later Mkondo was led somewhat diffidently into the room, his half-naked and somewhat withered body scraped, scratched and begrimed. There was a look of fierce cunning in his Chinese face, as if he were thinking of various ways to amuse himself with Mr. Fancypants, the manager. He shook Durell’s hand with stiff correctness, then smiled. A livid knot stood out on the side of his forehead.

  "Mkondo, are you all right?” Durell asked, in English.

  "Good.” He nodded.

  "I'm glad. You were captured?” He waited a moment. "Ausi get you?”

  Mkondo’s lips parted, and he struggled for words. He put a gnarled hand on Durell’s shoulder, as if to hold him to the spot until he could express himself. Finally, he licked his lips, and said:

  "Ausi—get—”

  "Yes. He got you. But you got away. Come, I’ll buy you a drink.” Durell started for the door, but Mkondo grasped his shoulders with both hands, an expression of urgency in his eyes.

  "Ausi—get—bibi Pawhjet-a!” he said, and smiled triumphantly.

  "Paw—? Padgett!” Hope exploded like lightning.

  "Deirdre Padgett is alive? Ausi has her?”

  Mkondo nodded vigorously. He pointed at Durell’s watch and held up six fingers, then jabbed his forehead to the north. "Wall,” he said.

  Durell thought a moment and said under his breath:

  "I am to go to the north wall at six o’clock.”

  26

  Field Marshal Ausi had not given him much time. Fifteen minutes to get from the Hotel Afrika to the north wall, which lay across town, beyond the stadium. He started immediately, walking because there were no taxis in operation.

  The city was a strange mixture of destruction and normality. Street vendors chanted their wares as shells whistled overhead and rescue crews dug through rubble. Smart shops that sold chic leather goods on fashionable Selassie Way were interspersed with blown-up buildings, but were open for business as usual.

  The windy, flushing noise of an incoming round sent him diving into the gutter. The shell impacted a block away, down a cobbled sidestreet, and a small sidewalk cafe with three tables under a blue-striped awning was demolished. Two men playing bao under the awning flew through the air, cartwheeling into the golden haze of the evening sky.

  Dust blew into the street and brought the acrid stench of high explosives.

  Death lurked everywhere.

  At the old Arab wall Ndolo sharpshooters traded shots with army snipers. Bullets spanged and whirred away, and dust gouted in no-man’s-land, amid the litter and craters left by an unsuccessful government assault. Insults were shouted back and forth. The wall had been broken some three hundred yards to the east, but the army had not gotten through and now it was barricaded with rubble. Two burned-out tanks sat there.

  Then something else caught Durell’s attention, and his eyes darkened and his jaw muscles knotted. He borrowed binoculars and looked closer.

  To the north, out of rifle range beyond a small stand of shell-torn thorn trees, the troops had stood atop a small hillock a sort of X-shaped frame.

  Deirdre was fastened to it. Spread-eagled. Her berry-red suit was so ripped and tattered now it barely covered her.

  Durell was relieved, then enraged. Currents of murderous hatred surged through his heart.

  He wished with trembling eagerness to make Azo Ausi pay for this outrage.

  But at least she was alive.

  He stared at the hillock, keeping his head low and resting his binoculars on the gritty mud brick that made up the wall. Her hands and feet were bound to the X-frame, which was canted slightly backward, so that her face was tilted somewhat toward the sky. Rays of the dipping sun came from behind her and made the fringes of her tousled black hair blaze golden red. It cast her shadow down the little hill toward the wall. Her face was calm, exhausted, proud. She looked bruised and beaten, but not seriously injured. It was hard to tell.

  "Sam Durell!”

  The electronic megaphone hurled his name contemptuously across the wasteland before the walls.

  "I am here!” he shouted through cupped hands.

  "Come out. You will not be harmed. His excellency the president wishes to confer with you.”

  "I can’t; I have no authority to deal with your president.”

  The voice rose angrily. "Your lady will be punished for your stubbornness.”

  "She is a foreign national. You have no right.”

  "We will punish her before the entire city!”

  Durell shook his head gravely. "I am coming,” he called.

  He trotted along the dusty parapet, skipped down worn, gritty steps, told the Ndolo gatekeeper, "Open it.”

  The man had seen and heard. He gave an order for the opening of the gate, not the huge main one, but a smaller door made of weather-bleached teak planks set to one side.

  "Take care, sir,” the gatekeeper said, in English.

  "Keep these.” He gave him his gun and panga knife, walked out and heard the heavy plank bar clap back into place behind him. He went toward the rocky hillock where the X-frame made an evil silhouette against the sky. The low sun was blinding as he walked into its glare, squinting. There was the crunch of his soles against the gravel. The stench of death.

  Vultures picked at the ragged ribs of a man’s corpse, ignoring him.

  Passing beyond the stand of splintered thorn trees, he heard his name called again, close by and not very loudly, and he looked to the left and found a red-bereted officer crouching in a gully. They went on down, around and behind the hillock, where a battalion was encamped below the line of sight from the town’s walls. There was a swamp and the iron-colored river, off to the left. On the right, in an old orchard sheltered behind the hill, was a silent battery of 105mm howitzers, not dug in, not even sandbagged. The gunners lounged amid brass shell casings, smoking and chatting.

  He was escorted to a large green tent under a eucalyptus tree. There he was shown into the presence of President for Life Azo Ausi. The enormous man sat in a cushioned chair placed in the center of a carpeted floor. Oil lanterns already had been lighted. Among furnishings they showed was a full-size double bed with mosquito netting on which reclin
ed one of the two women he had seen at poolside when he had last met Ausi. He wondered if she was wife number two, wife number three or one of some dozen concubines known to be kept by the butcher. She drank a Coke and watched without much interest.

  The president was sweating profusely, clearly uncomfortable in the still heat. He was dressed in starched battle fatigues, with several rows of unidentifiable ribbons and paratrooper’s wings over his breast pocket. A pearl-handled, silvered Colt .45 hung from his web belt.

  Durell waited in angry silence as his small red eyes sullenly studied him.

  "So that dried-up old snake found you,” he said, speaking in his gruff, British tones.

  Durell remained silent, waiting.

  "I thought you must be here, if he was. He would not say where you were.”

  "Release Miss Padgett,” Durell demanded. "Perhaps. Later. Beer? Gin?”

  "Let me speak to her.”

  "You are not thirsty? You like to eat the dust?”

  "Miss Padgett is an American citizen. I demand—”

  "Shut up!” Ausi’s bellow was like a slap. His voice lowered. "You demand nothing. I could have you gutted. Castrated.”

  "You didn’t ask me here for that.”

  "Perhaps I did.” He breathed heavily. "I want you dead, make no mistake. But Albert Ogwang—I want him dead more.”

  "Why not Kabakaliya Teresa, while you’re at it? All the Ndolo?”

  Ausi’s everted lips twitched; he frowned deeply. "All of them, yes,” he growled. "But Teresa? Who cares— she’s only a woman, and no good in bed. I give her to my men first.” His eyes focused on Durell again, as if coming back from some satanic recess of his mind. "I never expected you and Ogwang to get this far. He must not prolong this siege. Already my men are restless.”

  "Then retire; negotiate; make peace.”

  "Never! It would be a defeat. A dishonor to the pride of the nation—”

  "To your pride, you mean.”