Assignment - Treason

by Edward S. Aarons

  An hour later he sat in a bar in downtown Alexandria, drinking rum and Coke. It was an old-fashioned taproom, not crowded. There was fine smoky paneling and big wooden fans that circulated the humid, beery air through the place. The bartender was intent on the television screen, broadcasting a ball game. Durell had changed cabs in the maze of the Pentagon, crossed back to Pennsylvania Avenue, picked up a bus that went past his apartment. He saw enough to know it was watched and guarded. He did not get off.

  Now he was faced with a temporary freedom that offered him no good purpose. His mind, trained to think with incisive clarity, seemed clogged by useless emotional reactions. He told himself not to think of Deirdre’s betrayal or McFee’s desertion. He tried to wipe out the picture of Art Greenwald‘s face when he shot him. It was not easy. It is never easy to be entirely alone. There had been a time when he needed no one, wanted no one. Something had happened to him after he first met Deirdre. He had compromised with his convictions, lost some of his self-reliance, and this had taken something from him that he needed once again. He had to have it back, or he was lost. He would never survive.

  All through the city, and beyond, he knew they were hunting for him. A hundred men, a thousand men, in uniform and out, all searching with only one objective. Find Sam Durell.

  Dead or alive.

  He knew that would be the order. He’d have given the same order himself, in Burritt Swayney’s spot, or in McFee’s position.

  Find him. Bring him back. Or kill him.

  There would be panic in some quarters, cold dismay in others. He knew too much. The Joint Chiefs, the Pentagon, the FBI, and Atomics would be in the worst flap of the year.

  The bartender came over and said, “Another, mister?”

  “Yes. The same."

  “You feel all right, mister?"

  “Just fine.”

  “You look like you could use some sleep.”

  “Thanks,” Durell said. “Maybe I’d better. Skip the drink."

  He got up, paid, and went out. He felt haunted.

  Corinne, he thought. She has the file. Or she knows

  where it is.

  He found a small tailor’s shop first, had his suit pressed, the torn pocket repaired. It took half an hour. He used the time to sit quietly and think. When his clothing was returned, somewhat more presentable than before, he found a drugstore, a phone booth, and dialed the number of Sidonie Osbourn’s office at Number 20 Annapolis Street.

  A long chance. Dangerous. But it had to be taken. There was no other choice.

  Sidonie answered. Durell spoke at once. “Sid, are you being tapped?"

  There was a moment's stunned silence. Then, “No. I don’t think so. Where are you?”

  “Don’t mention my name. It doesn't matter where I am.”

  “Of course not. Sorry I asked.” Strain ran through her Voice like tightly corded muscles. “Are you all right?”

  “So far. But I must talk to you.”

  “I don’t think you should.”

  “You’re the only one, Sidonie. I need help. There's nobody else. Please.”

  “All right. Where?”

  “Your house,” he decided. “Where are the twins?"

  “I’ll be home before the children show up. But I can’t promise that I won’t be followed. I’ll be as careful as I can.”

  “Is Swayney at his desk?"

  “He’s in conference at the White House. You can imagine why.”

  “You’re alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is Corinne?”

  “Nobody knows. They’re still looking for her.”

  “Can you help?”

  She was silent.

  “Can you tell me?”

  “Not now. Hang up. I’ll see you soon.”

  There was a click, and silence. Durell cradled the phone, sat still for a moment, feeling the sweat on the back of his neck. All at once his mind began to function again on clear, level lines, closing on his plan like the snap of a trap. One avenue was open to him. Perhaps the only way out. He knew the odds against him. It was his business to know the odds. He had perhaps half a day, maybe a full day of freedom—given luck, given the use of all the arts, wiles, and stratagems he knew how to employ. Sidonie might be a snare. He had to risk that, because he saw no other way to reach out for Corinne. And he needed Corinne. She was his only tangible point of reference on the road back.

  He sat in hot, silent shadows, waiting. He sat without moving, using patience that conquered the quick, twisting cramp of muscles, the dragging passage of time.

  Sidonie was late.

  Her house, in one of the mushroom developments outside of Alexandria, was one of a row of identical Cape Cods, on a quiet curving street of raw new lawns struggling to survive in the August sun. The sounds of children at play came from the far end of the street. A laundry truck, an occasional tradesman, a housewife going shopping made up the only traffic. There was a safe, sleepy atmosphere to the neighborhood, a sense of peace and security and comfort. Sidonie’s house was a third of the way up from the corner. Durell had taken a local bus to within three blocks, and walked the rest of the way. He had looked for signs of a stakeout, not underestimating Swayney or McFee. Nobody had been watching Sidonie’s house. When he entered by the unlocked screened porch in the rear, he had kept the gun ready for a trap. But there was no trap. It made him uneasy, this apparent lack of efficiency in the forces lined up against him.

  He waited, seated in an armchair in the tidy little living room where he had spent many evenings with Lew and Sidonie before Lew was killed. The heavy draperies over the picture window facing the street were drawn against the western sun. The room was almost dark, and still Sidonie did not come.

  A sedan rolled down the street, slowed in front of the house almost imperceptibly, and went on. Its horn sounded briefly at the distant comer. Durell did not move. The gun was quiet in his lap.

  A small clock with Roman numerals, set in a polished walnut cabinet, ticked steadily in the oppressive heat. From the top of the spinet piano, Lew’s photo smiled at him, set in a silver frame. A child wailed on the lawn opposite the house. The car turned the corner and came drifting slowly back, then went on with a quick burst of speed.

  He did not move.

  She did not come.

  He remembered a time like this in the bayou, when he was a boy, with his grandfather. They were hunting a small herd of pigs gone wild—mean, vicious animals that would kill if given the chance. The old man knew their rooting grounds, down below a crumbling cheniére, and he had taken Durell, the boy, with him, with their guns. All day long they had hidden in the wild oleander brush and waited. The afternoon had been a torment of heat and insects and still, deathly silence. The old man taught him what patience meant, both to the hunter and to the hunted. One of many lessons, Durell thought now, remembering the flies that bit him, the smell of the swamp’s brackish water, the brilliance of water hyacinth floating still on the dark bayou—and always the old man, until the gun was miraculously at his shoulder, and the crack of the .30-30 echoed high and quick, along with the grunt and crash and death of the wild boar.

  She did not come.

  He waited, wondering now what would happen if the twins came home first. He did not want to involve Sidonie in his own trouble. It would go badly for her if he were seen here. He was sure none of the neighbors had spotted him. But the twins would talk, innocently enough, and damn Sidonie and himself. He wondered about the car that had twice passed the house. A sense of pressure began to grow in him, a feeling of being encircled, trapped. Sidonie might betray him. Nothing was impossible. You can’t trust anyone now. They know you’re sitting in here, waiting. They can afford to tighten the net until there isn‘t any loophole left for you to get through. And they know you, Durell thought. They’re a little afraid of you. They won’t close in until they’re sure.

  They.

  He stood up all at once, his body light and poised and graceful for his s
ize and weight. A big man, heavily muscled, Durell was able to drift like a shadow in utter silence toward the front door.

  Then the screened door at the back of the house clicked and he heard the quick tap of high heels on the porch floor. He turned, the gun up. He waited. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck.

  “Sam, I'm sorry.”

  It was Sidonie Osbourn.

  Behind her was Deirdre.

  chapter EIGHT

  SIDONIE closed the door quietly, but the click sounded loud and sharp in the hot stillness. She smiled, but it did not touch her eyes. Small, petite, delicate, she stood where she was for a long moment, a trim little woman whose adult face was shadowed by past tragedy that she had overcome. Deirdre stood taller, copper-haired, looking at Durell’s gun.

  “Put it down,” she said quietly. “Or would you use it on me as you used it on Art, your friend?”

  Her words cut and slashed at him.

  “Are you two alone?” he asked.

  “We didn’t bring anyone along,” Sidonie said quietly. “We’ve been careful. You look awful, Sam. I don’t like the way you look.”

  “It's the way I feel. Why did you bring Deirdre?”

  “She wants to talk to you.”

  “It’s all been said. There’s nothing else to talk about.”

  “Sam,” Deirdre began, then paused. She drew a breath, came a step toward him, paused again. A pleading touched her mouth and her eyes. “I didn’t cry out to betray you back there. I know that’s what you’re thinking. I just couldn’t help myself, that’s all. I thought you were going to kill Art Greenwald.”

  “How is he?” Durell asked flatly.

  “It’s a shoulder wound. It’s not serious. Please believe me, Sam. Sidonie and I both came here to help you, in any way we can. We can’t guess what you’re planning to do, but if we can help to clear you, we want to do whatever we can.”

  He remained standing in silence, While Sidonie pulled off her white gloves and put aside her handbag. Deirdre sat down, her back straight, her mouth defensive. He went to the window and pulled the drapery apart an inch and looked out at the hot glare of the residential street. Nothing. Nothing he could see, anyway. But that didn‘t have to mean anything. He said, addressing Sidonie, “I just want to know Where I can find your cousin Corinne.”

  “Why do you Want to find her?“ Sidonie whispered.

  “Because she’s in it, too."

  “I can’t believe that.”

  “She is.”

  The small girl shook her head. Her eyes were shadowed, and she looked at Durell for a moment without understanding. “You don’t know Corinne, really. She had a bad time, long ago. She was just a youngster during the war, when France Was occupied. My uncle—her father—was killed, and she—the German troops—they used her. She got away into Spain and lived in Barcelona. It was necessary for her to use anything she could, in order to survive. When Lew helped me find her and bring her over here, she seemed to settle down and was very quiet for a time. Then she became—as you know her now.”

  “Where is she?" Durell asked bluntly.

  Sidonie folded her hands. Her small teeth bit her underlip. She did not look like the mother of twin ten-year-olds. She looked like a child herself.

  “How can she help you, Sam?"

  “The less you know, the better. Is Swayney still looking for her?"

  “Yes”

  “Have they pulled in Colonel Gibney?”

  “Who?”

  “The colonel I’ve been dealing with. You’ve been right in the office with McFee and Swayney. You know what line they’re taking. If you want to help me, tell me what they‘re doing and what they’re planning to do, so I can be prepared.”

  “I can’t do that,” she said quietly. She lifted her eyes to meet Durell’s hard gaze. She winced at the look on his face. “I can’t betray the trust they have in me, or the job I do. Not like that. Not even for you, Sam.”

  “Then tell me where I can find Corinne. You know, don’t you?”

  “Will you hurt her, Sam?"

  He could have lied. But he told her the truth. "I don’t know. I may have to kill her."

  Deirdre made a small, shocked sound. Durell saw her face close against him in protest, rejecting his statement. It couldn’t be helped. He stood with his feet slightly spread, aware of the two girls watching him and hesitating, yet with all his senses tuned for any sign of a trap outside.

  “Corinne is just wild, Sam,” Sidonie whispered. “She couldn't be guilty of anything serious. She’s free and enjoying life for the first time. She’s abusing her freedom, it’s true, but she is sure to settle down. She had to fight so hard once, simply to survive! She cannot be a traitor to this country that‘s given her peace and safety for the first time in her life.

  He leaned forward a little. “You haven’t told Swayney or McFee where she is, but you know. You’re protecting her.”

  “I'm protecting you, too,” she protested.

  “Which one of us will you help?” he demanded.

  She said despairingly, “I want to help you both. I want to help Deirdre, who loves you. Can’t you see what a nightmare this is to me, Sam? I love all of you, too. I don’t want anyone hurt. And I want so much to be sure that I make no mistakes. I don’t want to do the wrong thing.”

  “Make a choice,” he said. “I have to talk to Corinne, It’s important to me. Nothing could be more important. She has what I need to clear myself.”

  Deirdre said quickly, “You said you were guilty, Sam.”

  “I can't explain any more of that.”

  “But Corinne can help you?”

  “She’s the only one.”

  He waited. He felt Sidonie’s indecision and understood it and waited for the pendulum to swing. He could have pleaded with her in other ways; he could have demanded her loyalty as payment for things he had done for Lew in the past. But he couldn’t bring himself to set a price like that for her.

  The length of the room separated him from Deirdre. She had not come close to him, she had not touched him; but her troubled eyes never left his face, seeking an answer to what she could not understand. He had hurt her deeply. Perhaps it was too much to expect her to trust him, he thought, but he felt the galling disillusionment of her retreat from him. There should have been no hesitation in her, if she loved him as he had hoped. His mind felt remote and cool and distant from all this, however. At this moment, he was both the hunter and the hunted, all in one.

  Then at last Sidonie said, “Corinne telephoned me.”

  “Your phone is tapped," he countered harshly.

  “I know. Before she said anything to give herself away, I switched the call to McFee’s private line. He was out. I took the chance someone might come in."

  “McFee could he tapped, too.”

  She looked helpless.

  He waited, watching her.

  “Corinne wants to sec you, Sam.”

  “Is that What she said?"

  “You’re to go to a town called Locust Grove. It’s on the Virginia state highway to Cramden Beach. Do you know it?”

  “I can find it.” There were rumors about the colony at Cramden, the decadent entertainment run for a certain type of high brass. “I’ve never been there.”

  “You’re not to go anywhere but Locust Grove. At Bailey’s Drugstore, ten o’clock sharp. Someone will meet you there.”

  “Not Corinne?”

  “Someone. That’s what she said.”

  “It sounds melodramatic.”

  “She was frightened. The police are looking for her, too. Every police agency of the country, Sam. For you and for Corinne. It’s on the radio already. In another hour it will be splashed across all the evening papers.”

  “What are they calling me?”

  She bit her lip.

  “Say it, Sidonie.”

  “A traitor,” she whispered.

  He looked at Deirdre. She looked away.

  “Are you, Sam?” Sidonie
asked.

  He said roughly, “The less you know about it, the better. Thanks for your help.”

  “I don‘t want to believe it. Make me not believe it!”

  “I can’t,” he said heavily.

  “But it’s so senseless! Why, Sam?”

  “Tell me the rest about Corinne.”

  “That’s all she said. She pleaded with me not to speak about her call to anyone but you. I couldn’t make up my mind, I didn’t promise her that I’d give you the message. And then she hung up, all at once. I hope I’ve done the right thing.”

  His mind probed at the problem. A trap? Not from the police. The police could have taken you right here, if Sidonie had chosen to speak to them. More of the people who stole the file? Maybe. Should you walk into it? Yes. What could you lose?

  You could die.

  “Thank you, Sid,” he said gently. “I’m grateful.”

  He put his gun away inside his coat.

  “You will have to leave now,” she told him. “The children are due home at any minute. They shouldn’t see you here.”

  “I know.”

  “Deirdre?” Sidonie said.

  Durell swung to look at her. There was an ache in him, a brief claw of remembered desire as he watched the grace with which she moved and heard the soft timbre of her voice.

  “I bought a car this afternoon," she told him. Her eyes met his evenly. “It’s parked two blocks away. The key is under the floor mat. It’s for you, Sam. There’s money in the dash compartment. Two hundred dollars. It was all I had left. I don’t know if you need more or not. I can get more for you tomorrow. But I thought you might not be here tomorrow. The car can take you to Mexico or the other side of the world, eventually—if that’s where you want to go.”

  “I’m not running away,” he said, looking at her with a new wonder. He had thought of her as betraying him, and now she had given him this gift of trust and help. He felt oddly confused, still not accepting her with that cool, calculating part of his mind that had come to the fore. “I’ll use the car. Thank you, Deirdre.”

  Sidonie got up and went toward the kitchen. “I think it will be all right if you stay another few minutes, Sam.”