Assignment - Treason

by Edward S. Aarons

  He looked gravely at Gibney. “Who knew that you were going to try to get me out of Quenton’s place?”

  “Nobody. Nobody could have known!”

  “Could anyone have listened to McFee’s call, here on the island?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. It‘s a private line."

  “Quenton doesn't have it tapped?”

  “I doubt it. I checked.”

  “Nobody else was in the house when Mary said she wanted to give me the dope on Quenton?"

  “We were alone. Mary and I—we were alone.” Gibney’s voice was a hoarse whisper. His florid face was now yellow and waxen. “And now she’s truly alone. Out there, somewhere. I wasn’t very good to her. I-I thought I hated her. But we—long ago, before Roger was born—she was beautiful. She was wonderful. We shared so many things. . . ."

  “Stop it," Durell said harshly. “We have to think of now, this moment.”

  Gibney stared without understanding. Durell listened. The wind shook the old house, made wood creak, thumped a shutter lightly. No other sounds. But he had the feeling they were not alone. His eyes ranged the Victorian room: he sensed the mildew caused by the salt air, the pungency of bourbon in Gibney’s glass. Nothing. Then where was the danger? It was here, somewhere. He thought of the two guards who had plunged after them when Corinne turned back to Quenton’s. They should have arrived by now. But they were not here. His nerves quivered.

  “Do you have a car, Henry? Can we get off the island?”

  Gibney looked into his glass, put it down, and took his gun from his pocket. His voice was flat. “We couldn't possibly make it. There’s only the one road. Quenton’s phony cops would stop us.”

  “A boat, then?"

  Gibney shook his head. “I don’t own a boat.”

  “But there should be at least one, somewhere on the island!” Durell said savagely. “Think, man!”

  “There’s an auxiliary ketch. I think it belongs to one of Hackett’s men—fellow named Killian. No better than the rest of them.”

  “Where is it? Damn it, help me!”

  “At the inlet, other side of the island. Maybe a quarter of a mile.” Gibney seemed uninterested. He sank to his knees before his dead wife and took one of the fat, dimpled hands and kissed it. “Mary,” he whispered. “Mary, I’m so sorry!”

  Durell moved to the door, snapped off the light, plunged the room into darkness. Gibney struggled to his feet in surprise.

  “What are you doing?”

  “How do I get to that boat?”

  “I told you. Straight across the island. But we can’t leave Mary alone like this, in the dark!”

  There came a stumbling, crashing sound as Gibney got; up and then fell over some article of furniture.

  At the same time, from down the beach, came the sound of two shots, spaced briefly, distinct and deliberate.

  Corinne, Durell thought.

  The sea wind blew cold from the east. He stepped out on the veranda, looked to the right at the dim aureole of light from Quenton’s house. The tall dune grass rattled and clicked and cast dim shadows amid the deeper darkness. Here and there a star gleamed through the overcast. His mind jumped ahead, across the island, to the boat Gibney had described. They would be busy at Quenton’s place, with Corinne. The causeway to the island would be effectively sealed off, and they wouldn’t be worried about his escape in that direction. Would they think of the boat, too? Maybe. It was a chance, a calculated risk. He could not afford capture again. He had to get off the island at once. Gibney and Corinne were no longer important. He was through weighing one against the other, this life against that. Not when a tiny flame thousands of miles from here could suddenly flare into a holocaust that might consume the world.

  He stepped down the path toward the road. Gibney was still in the house, weeping over his dead wife. He had good cause to weep. There was no road back from the place where he had gone.

  Shadows moved in the brush beside the driveway. Gibney’s car was parked here. He ignored it and watched the shadows. Only the wind. Or was it? He walked with a long stride, sensing weakness in him from his long hours with Hackett. His strength was limited. There was danger around him. When he reached the main road he stopped abruptly and spun around, looking backward. The dark waves of the dunes seemed to be moving after him. The house was cloaked in blackness.

  When he turned back to the road, he saw the car directly ahead of him, silent, waiting, without lights. He took two steps and halted again. The moon shone briefly through the shredding overcast. There was an official government license on the sedan. Beyond the road, he saw a dim path that twisted across the dunes on the landward side of the island, and beyond that Was a small shed, about four hundred feet away, and the masts of a boat tied to a dock out in the salt-water inlet. Much farther away, all but lost in the haze of night, was a scatter of dim house lights like a handful of scattered jewels.

  He walked toward the car ahead, gripped by a sudden fatalism, and when he was perhaps fifteen feet from it, the door opened and a man stepped out holding a gun and said, “That will be all, Sam."

  It was Burritt Swayney.

  There was no surprise left in Durell. Swayney‘s voice was thick and satisfied, silky smooth, like the glisten of oil on the gun he carried. Durell halted. He kept his own gun lowered.

  “How did you get here, Burritt?"

  “There seems to be some confusion on the island. Throw your gun into the brush.”

  Durell threw his gun away. He saw where it landed and looked at Swayney. The chief of K Section, small and fat, seemed no different than he had looked yesterday morning in his office at Number 20 Annapolis Street-—trim, tidy, priggish, swollen with triumph.

  “Come over here now. Got any other weapons, Sam?”

  “No."

  “You’ve kicked up a lot of dust.”

  “I’m not through yet,” Durell said.

  “Oh, yes, you are. Quite through. I’m taking you back with me. On the other hand, it you bat an eyelash, I’ll shoot to kill. Believe that, Sam.”

  “I believe it.”

  “Where is the girl?”

  “Corinne? With Quenton, I think."

  “And Gibney?”

  “In his house.”

  “Who killed his wife, Sam?”

  Durell grinned tightly. “Maybe you can tell me, Burritt.”

  Swayney smiled without meaning. His round face glistened with sweat, although the sea wind was cool. He wore his gray suit and prissy little how tie and his small mouth pursed and stretched and pursed again. His head jerked briefly from right to left. The road was empty.

  “You’ve led our security people a merry chase, Sam. All hell broke loose when you flipped the loyalty board. Everybody breathing down my neck over you, you bastard. I swore I’d get you personally. What were you doing here? Tell me, Sam.”

  “I’ll tell Dickinson McFee.”

  “Nest of spies, hey? Pals of yours?”

  “You can make what you want out of it.”

  “I’ll make plenty, don’t you worry, you Cajun bastard. How come you’re running around loose?”

  “You said it yourself, Burritt,” Durell told him quietly. “There’s been some trouble here. Murder and mayhem. How did you get aboard?”

  “No guards. I took the chance. Turned out good, hey?”

  “You‘ve been here before, Burritt?”

  “Once or twice."

  “As a pal of Senator Quenton?”

  “Get in the car, Sam. I’m taking you into custody.”

  “All right," Durell said. “Just answer one thing. What made you come here alone? And how did you know about Mary Gibney?”

  “I was just in the house. And I don’t need any help to handle you, Sam.”

  “Why were you so sure I was here?”

  Swayney smirked. He gestured with the gun. His pudgy figure looked tense. “You forget what makes me good at my job. I don’t need any calculators or dossiers to know about th
e people in K Section. I can quote chapter and verse on the histories of more folks than you ever knew. I knew Corinne worked for Q in our section, but as long as her activities were relatively harmless, I didn’t interfere. Better a known danger than an unknown. I knew about Gibney’s connections with Quenton and Hackett, too. All about it. Chapter and verse. I finally put two and two together and came here to pick you up. Feather in my cap. Might take over McFee’s job.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Get in the ear, Sam. Last time I ask you.”

  “All right,” Durell said. “You and I can do business.”

  “No. I don’t do business with traitors like you.”

  “Then let's go back to Washington. We’ll talk about it.”

  Something glistened in Swayney’s pale eyes. Durell read temptation, and a moment’s indecision. It was enough. Swayney glanced beyond him at the house on the beach, and then Durell moved, without mercy. He hit Swayney hard. Swayney screamed like a woman and the gun went off, smashing a bullet into the sandy road. Durell hit him again, closed a hand around Swayney’s smooth wrist, and flung the stout man against the ear. Swayney screamed again. His eyes reflected fear of immediate death.

  “Sam, don’t!”

  Durell hit him a third time, saw the gun spin to the road, and kicked it aside. Swayney sprawled on the sand, arms and legs kicking in a feeble swimming gesture. Durell reached into the car, plucked the ignition key from the lock, and hurled it into the brush. His stomach churned. He drew a deep, steadying breath and looked down the road toward Quenton’s house and saw someone running toward him.

  It was Corinne.

  He did not question her appearance. He moved to meet her, seeing her bruised and battered face in a shred of moonlight that prodded down through the wind-torn clouds.

  “Sam . . . help me. They’re coming.”

  “What did you do?”

  She gasped in great, shuddering breaths, her mouth opening darkly. “Tried to kill . . . Quenton . . , for Roger.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. I couldn’t. Oh, please, they’re coming now!”

  He looked at Swayney, crawling away on the ground, and he looked toward the sea and the Victorian house where Henry Gibney knelt beside the massive bulk of his dead wife. He took Corinne’s hand and together they ran across the dunes toward the boat shed and the yawl that waited for them.

  chapter SEVENTEEN

  DAWN HAD come. Durell had slept for two hours, but the first brightening of the sky touched him and woke him all at once. Sea gulls cried plaintively in the marshes, and the surface of the Chesapeake was a vast mirror touched with all the pinks and golds and blues of the new day. The ketch was hidden in a salt-water creek miles behind them. Somebody would find it soon, he thought slowly, and then the chase would be on again.

  Corinne was still asleep in the haystack beside him, and he winced when he looked at the dark wreckage of her face. She would never be beautiful again. She had found slacks and a sweater on the ketch, and her proud body looked oddly crumpled in the misfitting garments. She had no shoes. Yet she had not whimpered or complained through the long hours after he had run the ketch into its hiding place. She had walked beside him in numb silence, hiding her face, saying little. He wondered what had given her this new impetus to escape and live. There was a hard bravery in her, a refusal to surrender, that could be her salvation in this most bitter hour she had ever known. He felt shaken by a deep pity for her.

  “Corinne,” he said gently.

  She opened her eyes, discolored and bruised, and made a moaning sound. He saw that she did not comprehend where they were or how they had reached this sloping field by the edge of the bay. Then all at once the recall came and her hands flew to cover her features.

  “Don’t—don’t look at me,” she whispered.

  “You’ll be all right. We’ll get you to a doctor today.”

  "No, no, he couldn’t help. But you need a doctor yourself." She sat up, her head turned away from him. “Where are we?”

  “Upriver from the boat. There’s a highway just past this farm. I’ve heard cars on it.”

  “It’s going to be a hot day,” she said. But she shivered. “What will we do? I think, whatever you plan for yourself, you will be better off without me.”

  “Nonsense.” He helped her to her feet. Her mouth went white as she attempted a few steps and fell to her knees. He caught her and held her erect against him. Her breath hissed. “I’m sorry.”

  “We'll find a car, or a truck.”

  “It’s no use. They won’t let us get far.”

  “Start walking.”

  “Sam, I can’t!”

  He slapped her. The sting of his open palm against her battered face shocked great tears in her puffed and discolored eyes. A little cry of animal anguish crept from her throat.

  “Come on,” he said. “Don’t quit now, Corinne.”

  “How can you be so cruel?”

  “I have to be. Let’s go."

  They moved slowly, walking in silent pain across the newly mown hayfield. The light brightened in the east. The bay turned into molten gold for a brief moment, and over a rise Durell saw the reflected light from an aluminum barn roof. He headed that way as a cock began to crow, and from far off up the shore came the sound of a motorboat.

  A small pickup truck was parked beside the barn. The house itself was across the road beyond a row of tall oaks that hid them from its view. Durell leaned the girl against the tail gate of the truck and looked for the keys. They were lying on the worn leather seat, and he cursed the darkness of last night that had made him halt so near to this means of escape.

  “In you go,” he told Corinne.

  She looked at him with helpless eyes. “I want to die.”

  “Not yet,” he said harshly. “There are some things we want to do first, you and I. Remember Roger?”

  “I want to forget. I want to sleep. I want to die.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No. Yes.”

  “Thirsty?”

  “Yes.”

  He grinned. “There you are, then. Come on.”

  She saw the gin and tried to smile back and her shoulders straightened slightly. “You are too good to me."

  “And we’re wasting precious time.”

  Five minutes later they Were on the Washington road, rolling at forty miles an hour across the dawning Virginia countryside.

  At six o’clock he found an open service station at a crossroad, flanked by a diner and a bus stop. He pulled into the back lot behind the grease racks and told Corinne to go into the ladies’ room and clean up. He doused Water on his bearded face in the rest room, wincing at the mirror. Searching his pockets, he found some crumpled, water-soaked bills and a few coins. He bought a pocket comb and a handkerchief, soaked his head under the tap, and held the handkerchief to his face when another patron came in. Outside, he waited at the truck until Corinne reappeared and gave her the handkerchief and comb.

  “It’s hopeless, isn’t it?" she murmured. “How far can we get? And where are we going?"

  “We‘re getting a doctor for you.”

  “And if the police take us?"

  “They won’t,” he said, with a confidence he did not feel. “Now clean yourself up.”

  “My nose is broken,” she said dully. “And two teeth. I am ugly.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Inside. I don’t know. Hackett did it.”

  He had no answer. A bus hissed to a stop at the diner up the road. He looked at it thoughtfully, and at the truck. A state police car slammed by, moving at high speed, heading hack toward the shore. At the same moment the gas station attendant came walking toward them.

  Durell took Corinne’s arm. “Walk naturally.”

  “Hey, you!"

  Durell looked over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

  “That your truck?”

  “No,” Durell said.

  “Where’s the guy drove it in here?�
��

  “How would I know?”

  He turned and walked toward the diner with Corinne before the attendant got a good look at their faces. The bus was almost loaded, but there were two empty seats available. Corinne kept her face averted while Durell bought tickets from the driver.

  “What in hell happened to you?” the driver asked.

  “Accident.”

  “You and the lady look in pretty rough shape, mister.”

  “Are you going to Alexandria?”

  “Sure. But you oughta go to a hospital.”

  They took a seat directly behind the driver, rather than face the curious stares of the other passengers. Now and then Durell looked up to meet the driver’s puzzled eyes in the mirror. Corinne found a newspaper on the seat and held it up before her face.

  No good, Durell thought. You should have stayed with the truck. But the truck was hot by now, reported stolen, and both Quenton and Swayney would be alert for any report that might indicate Where they could be found. The area of search would necessarily be small, once they found the ketch. The certainty that there would be road-blocks up ahead grew stronger, and with that certainty came a heavy weight of despair.

  He moved ahead through instinct, impelled by the pressure of increasing danger. Corinne was a burden, sapping his depleted strength, a dead weight that he did not once consider abandoning. The way ahead was like an interminable desert; his goal of vindication for himself and the exposure of a wide looming menace that threatened all he loved and held dear seemed like a chimera seen vaguely through a glaze of heat. His training dictated the moves he made: debarking from the bus at a small town below Alexandria; a visit to the drugstore for bandages and heavy make-up for Corinne’s face; the ride on a local train, filled with commuters buried in their morning papers; the interminable starts and stops; the glimpse of the Potomac, the glimmer of Washington in the distance. Corinne was in a stupor of exhaustion and pain. It was like a trip through hell, carried out on the dragging feet of the damned.