Assignment Madeleine

by Edward S. Aarons

  “Why hasn’t he been brought here?”

  Brumont said quietly, “It is a delicate situation. Such an order was given, in truth. Naturally, the French authorities wished to take part in this, but after consultation with your Embassy, we felt it might be best to let you wash your linen in private, as you say. We will waive all extradition rights to L’Heureux. He is all yours.”

  “But he’s still in Marbruk?”

  Brumont nodded. “There has been some serious fighting in that area. The telegraph lines are down, the radio from Tunis is jammed, and we get only garbled messages from the military post where it happened. At the moment, no one can be spared to escort L’Heureux back from the frontier. Unless you wish to wait a few days for the situation to clarify itself, you will have to go and get him yourself. You can do whatever you wish with him, then.”

  Hanson interrupted impatiently. “Your orders are to bring L’Heureux back to Paris for questioning. You can check with McFee on that.”

  “I will,” Durell said. “But if he killed Orrin Boston, I wouldn’t mind seeing him dead, myself.”

  “That’s exactly how McFee said you’d feel. I spoke to him on the trans-Atlantic wire just an hour ago. He said you’re to call him back on this. But L'Heureux has to be returned alive and talkative.”

  Durell lit a cigarette. There was a lull in the procession of manikins moving on the ramp. From somewhere there came a piped Piaf recording into the perfumed salon. Then a girl stepped out from behind the sequined stage curtain and began to walk down the ramp, heading toward them.

  “Here is Madeleine,” Brumont whispered.

  “Where does she figure in this?” Durell asked.

  “Madeleine works for us. She was assigned to L’Heureux long ago.” Brumont smiled and ran a thumb apologetically along the pointed lapels of his coat. “Naturally, we keep an eye on your people just as you do with us. No apologies are necessary, eh? Madeleine Sardelle operated for us to gain L’Heureux’ confidence. She did well. She reached his bed and became his mistress.”

  “But L’Heureux is from in Algeria.”

  “Yes, and she was there until last week, with him. Then he sent her back to Paris and she resumed her normal occupation here.” Brumont looked thoughtful. “She left L’Heureux before Orrin Boston was killed, but she insists her subject is innocent. She is quite passionate about it, and I charged her with having fallen in love with L’Heureux. She admits this. Now I do not trust her, and it is unfortunate, because Madeleine was a fine operative for us. It is possible that, with a woman, loyalty can be shifted because of emotional attachments. Madeleine set her own trap for L’Heureux, perhaps, and was caught in it herself. In any case, she must now be regarded as a double agent. She must be considered as having no sense of values where L’Heureux is concerned, yet we must continue to use her as if we trusted her. It is a dark and devious game we all play, m’sieu.”

  Durell looked closely at the girl. Madeleine Sardelle was a redhead, with wide brows and large gray eyes and a frightened mouth. Her cheekbones looked faintly Slavic. The fall suit of checked wool that she modeled hugged a long-legged, high-breasted Parisian figure. Her first few steps were graceful, and then she seemed to stumble and her hand moved hesitantly to the silk scarf at her throat. She looked quickly at Brumont, then her eyes touched Durell and lingered on him for a moment before jumping to the arched foyer entrance to the salon. A dark-faced man in a blue suit stood there, a raincoat over his arm. The girl’s mouth opened and closed. Turning, to exhibit the clothing she modeled, and it seemed to Durell that she was trembling, but he couldn’t be sure about it at this distance. From the corner of his eye he saw the green-haired Madame Sofie walk quickly toward the dark-faced man in the foyer entrance.

  Brumont made a small sound. “A magnificent woman, non?“

  “A very frightened girl,” Durell muttered.

  “Of course. She understands her danger.”

  “What is she afraid of?”

  “If her first reports are true, L’Heureux played between rival factions of the Algerian rebels." Even here in Paris, they employ their gangster tactics, m’sieu. They murder, kidnap, terrorize. She has appealed to us for protection. It seems that L’Heureux not only crossed Monsieur Boston and your organization, but he also double-crossed the rebels in some way. We do not know the details. It will be up to you to ascertain them—that is, if you wish to go to Marbruk rather than wait for the situation to be clarified—”

  Brumont suddenly interrupted himself and lurched to his feet. Madeleine Sardelle had halted in the white-carpeted circle at the foot of the ramp. She looked wildly at Brumont, and at the man in the foyer entrance still talking to Madame Sofie. Then she turned and ran back along the ramp to the curtained stage, plunging through the velvet draperies with a backward glance of pure terror.

  “Quickly,” Brumont snapped.

  Durell was already on his feet. The man in the foyer slapped Madame Sofie and turned to run out of the salon. Durell ignored him. He raced up the ramp to the curtained stage, while the small group of patrons stared at him in startled surprise. The curtains gave him a moment’s trouble, and then he dove through them.

  “Mlle. Sardelle!”

  A frightened brunette in scanty lingerie stared at him in confusion and then pointed. “That way, m’sieu. Is she ill?

  Durell ran to his left. He heard a dim shouting from the salon beyond the curtains, but he didn’t pause. From the wing of the stage, a corridor ran in both directions, lighted with low-power yellow bulbs. He yanked open the first door he came to and found himself stared at by four models in various stages of undress. The girls looked at him with cool, professional eyes in masked faces. He muttered an apology and said, “Mlle. Sardelle?”

  “The second door to the right, m’sieu,” one of the girls said. She took off her brassiere and turned her smoothly tanned back to him, but not very quickly. “She is always the lucky one, eh?”

  Durell hacked out and heard the girls laugh. He was almost at the second door down the hallway when he heard Madeleine Sardelle scream.

  Chapter Three

  Glass crashed somewhere behind the solid panels of the dressing-room door. Durell tried the door knob, shoved hard with his shoulder. The door was locked. The girl screamed again, the sound ending in a quick sob of anguish and terror. Durell stepped back two paces and slammed at the door in a low crouch, hitting the panel just below the latch. It snapped with a splintering of wood, and the door slammed wildly backward as he drove inside.

  As he crossed the threshold he dropped low, touching one hand to the floor.

  His method of entry saved him from the wild shot that came his way. The bullet went high into the corridor behind him. There were two men in the dressing room with Madeleine Sardelle, and the redheaded girl was struggling in the grip of the taller of the two, who had a hand clamped across her mouth to prevent another scream. The second one had the gun. With a glance, Durell saw there were no others on either side of the doorway. The girl must have thrown something at her attackers. She had missed and shattered the window behind her instead, and the man who held her was now trying to back oil: with her in that direction. There was no time to see any more.

  The one with the gun wore a cap and a turtle-neck sweater of fuzzy gray wool that smelled of the rain and acrid sweat; his face was thin and sharp, a peculiar sallow brown as if he had been deeply tanned and was in the process of losing that tan because of indoor living. Or hiding. His eyes were wild. He tried to jump aside as Durell’s momentum carried him into the room. The gun went off again, and again the shot went wide, and Durell caught him with stiff fingers rammed into his belly. The man grunted, and Durell chopped at his neck and sent him spinning against the lighted mirror on the wall. The gun hit the floor. The man’s shoulder smashed the electric bulbs circling the mirror in a quick series of popping bursts of glass. Durell kept moving, spinning on his toes.

  Madeleine still struggled in the second man’s grip. She manag
ed to bite the man’s hand at the same moment that Durell tore her free. There was a scrambling sound behind him and something clubbed at his back. The wind went out of him. He heard a sharp command in Arabic. Durell pushed the girl aside and swung to face his assailants. Something slammed into his stomach and as he fought up again, e smaller of the two men picked himself up from among the broken mirror shards on the floor and shouted in a high, lisping voice. Again, Durell thought it was Arabic. Then both men moved toward him ' e darting snakes. He kicked at the first and his heel shattered ones in the man’s face, but the other was equally adept at judo. A telegraph pole smashed into Durell’s ribs and he went down. He tried to grab at the second man and failed. The other’s face went dim and the room whirled and darkened as he fell. He saw the taller of the two kneel and help his companion to his feet. He pushed up as both men crowded out through the broken window.

  Georges Brumont ran into the dressing room a moment too late to stop them.

  Durell’s chest felt as if a ton of coal had been dropped on him. His throat burned as he drew a deep breath and pushed himself up from the floor. His hand was bleeding. Brumont barked questions at him and he waved to the window, hut he didn’t bother to go there himself. He looked at the Sardelle girl. The redhead was slumped on a pink-cushioned stool that somehow had survived the wreckage. Her head was bent forward in her hands, and her long hair screened her face.

  Fred Hanson came in, followed by Madame Sofie. Brumont, with a gun in his hand, pushed them angrily out into the corridor.

  Durell went to the girl. “Are you all right, mademoiselle.”

  "Yes. Merci.”

  “Sit still,” he said. “You're quite safe now.”

  “Take care of yourself, m’sieu,” she said. “You bleed.”

  Durell picked up a fragment of mirror and looked at himself. There was a shallow cut across his forehead. He wondered what his opponent had hit him with, but it wasn’t worth trying to figure out. He saw a small washstand in a corner of the dressing room and he walked toward it, breathing with care because of the pain in his ribs. He turned on the tap. The water looked rusty. It felt luke-warm, but he put in the rubber stopper and let the basin fill and then he dunked his head in it. When he finished, he turned, bent forward to keep the water from dripping on his clothes, and the girl handed him a coarse towel.

  “You may need a doctor, m’sieu.”

  “Hardly. You saw me in the salon with Brumont, didn’t you.

  “Yes. It is you I am to talk to, according to Monsieur Brumont.”

  He nodded. “Durell is my name. Who were those men, and what did they want from you?”

  The girl shrugged. Shed had time to partly strip off the trim woolen suit she had modeled in the salon, and her lingerie was black net over golden skin. Durell saw that her large gray eyes were tipped up at the outer corners, not by a cosmetic effect but by a faintly Oriental cast to her features. The girl said, “They were Algerian terrorists.”

  “Why do they trouble you? You knew they were about, didn’t you? You were afraid even when you came out on the stage earlier.”

  “I saw the one talking with Madame Sofie. The leader. His gang hangs out in a certain café I know. I went there often with—I knew who he was, that is all.”

  “You went to this café with Charles L’Heureux, you mean.”

  “Yes. It was my job. I was assigned to Charles L’Heureux.”

  “I understand.” He looked at her deliberately, studying her figure. She seemed totally unconcerned about her partial nudity. He said quietly, "Put something on, please. Did Charley know these men?”

  “Months ago, yes. Before he went back to Algiers.”

  “Was he very friendly with them?”

  “It is all in my reports to Brumont, Mr. Durell. Charley said it was his job to be friendly with them. just as you know from Brumont that it was my job to he friendly with Charley.”

  “Did L’Heureux ever tell you exactly what his job was?”

  “He admitted he was an agent for your government. He knew I was assigned to him by Brumont. Once our cover identities were revealed, we had a good laugh over it all.”

  Durell felt in his pockets for a cigarette and decided not to smoke. His mouth felt swollen, but his ribs no longer ached. He dabbed at the cut on his forehead with the wet towel. The bleeding had stopped. He pushed back his thick, wet hair. The girl was lying, he decided. No matter what sort of a renegade L’Heureux might be, he wouldn’t have casually told this girl of his job with Orrin Boston. He didn’t like the sound of it. There was something evasive and difficult to define in the girl’s manner.

  “L’Heureux no longer has friendly contacts with these people, is that it?” he asked.

  “They have sworn to kill him. He is on the rebels’ black list.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged smooth, golden shoulders, looked down at her hands on her bare knees. “It is a political situation. The rebels are devoted to terror and violence. Other Nationalist factions among the Moslems are willing to compromise with France, but the rebels refuse. They have embarked on a policy of assassination for anyone who dares discuss a settlement with Frenchmen. They fancy Charles did something bad to them, but you waste your breath if you ask me what it is. Brumont wished me to discover what Charles was u to, but I failed on that. Nothing works out as we wish it would, m’sieu.”

  “Their quarrel is with L’Heureux, not with you,” Durell persisted. “Why should they attack you today like this?”

  “They know me as Charles’ petite amie.” The girl’s eyes were mocking, challenging. “They think I can lead them to Charles—as if I would.” Her mouth curled scornfully. “I will not betray him, m’sieu, to them or to you.”

  “You're in love with him?"

  “It is the way of the world, m’sieu. A woman in this business must be prepared to give herself to the enemy. In the shadows sometimes one finds truth, in mockery one is surprised to learn of sincerity. I let Charles have me, and I fell in love with him.” Her eyes were level, candid. “I understand from Brumont that you are here to bring Charles back to Paris. To justice. He is not a criminal. I do not believe the charge against him. Perhaps my usefulness to Brumont is ended, but I am convinced of this as the truth. When Charles returns, he will protect me from any future attacks of these murderers.”

  Durell picked up a red flannel robe from the floor and handed it to her. “Your Charley won’t be protecting anyone,” he said. “Hell he in jail.”

  She shook her head and held the robe limply before her.

  “You know what he did,” Durell added. “He murdered my best friend. Please get dressed now.”

  She sat down on the pink stool again. She was good, Durell decided, very, very good. She had recovered outwardly from the shock of the attack by the two terrorists, and now she exhibited dismay and denial of his words, She began a swift defense of L'Heureux, then paused. Fear touched her eyes; she hit her lip and was silent. Durell was unable to evaluate his reaction to her.

  Brumont and Hanson came back into the dressing room then. Brumont looked like a fat, dark porpoise after his chase in the rain. He touched his shaggy moustache with the middle finger of his left hand.

  “No good. No good at all, M. Durell. They have flown. There are alleys and all sorts of rundown cafés and bistros only a few steps away. Monsieur Hanson thinks they got into a car, but I never laid eyes on them, myself.” Brumont looked at Madeleine. “Do you know who they were, cherie?”

  She shook her head. She still stared at Durell. “There are so many of them. I could not name these two in particular.”

  “I see.” Brumont nodded. “Rest yourself, mademoiselle, and be at ease. Monsieur Durell, may we speak privately?”

  Durell followed the fat man out of the shattered dressing room. Brumont led the way back to the salon, where the customers were answering questions of two uniformed gendarmes. “This way,” Brumont said and opened a door to Madame Sofie’s private office.

/>   “If Sofie works for you,” Durell said, looking around the plush, feminine decor of rococo pink and gold, “this place is bugged to a fare-thee-well, I’ll bet.”

  “Bugged, m’sieu?”

  “You have microphones and tape recordings.”

  Brumont smiled blandly. “But of course. Your people do the same, do they not? But since the CIA and Paris Intelligence and the Deuxieme Bureau have always maintained cordial relations and cooperate like true allies, there should be no objection.” There was irony under the Frenchman’s smile. “In any case, although we are in private here, you may guard your words as you will.”

  “You don’t trust Hanson any more than I, then.”

  Brumont shrugged and chose a small, vile Italian cigar from a battered case and lit it with care. “It is not for me to criticize your Embassy personnel. Hanson means well, but he always has the women on his mind. Always. He is a young bull, and hulls must have their way, you understand. In any case, he is merely liaison man between your organization and mine.”

  “About Madeleine Sardelle,” Durell suggested. “Was this attack on her a real one, or was it faked to throw our sympathy her way?”

  “I do not know. L’Heureux might have arranged it, even from his prison cell in Marbruk. He plays both ends against the middle, as you say. An opportunist of the first water. It is unfortunate that in our business we sometimes find it expedient to recruit the rascals and rogues with expert knowledge of the local terrain, so to speak. Orrin Boston thought the good might outweigh the evil in hiring L’Heureux. We gave him our dossier on L’Heureux’ activities but he went ahead and utilized him, anyway. You feel badly that L’Heureux murdered your friend, of course. And you have no wish to help L’Heureux. Yet your job is to go to Marbruk and bring him back to your Embassy here.”