Shan said, "She should have had the key by now."
"You seem to worry about Jasmine, Shan."
"Yes, I do."
"Are you fond of her?"
"More than a little, Cajun."
"She's a fine girl," Durell said.
"I am aware of her qualities. I am aware of her love for you. Perhaps there will come a time when she realizes "
Durell interrupted. "She's been gone too long."
His uneasiness suddenly exploded into a raging alarm. Turning, he threw aside caution and stalked through the crowded, elegant lobby and made for the wing beside the swimming pool. There were colored spotlights under the palms and oleanders, and more lights on the pool and its central statue of Ma Tsu. A few people still lingered over drinks at the poolside tables. Beyond, the path curved through shrubbery to the modern wing he had occupied before. He paid no attention to the curious glances he got as he strode along with Shan, his duplicate, at his heels.
The explosion seemed like the end of the world.
The shock wave and blast hit him in the chest just as he started to mount the outside stairs to the balcony of his former rooms. He staggered, felt as if he had been slammed with the flat of a board, and stumbled back against Shan. The rumbling echoes of the explosion still rolled over the extravagant hotel gardens when he cursed, heard Shan groan, and then took the steps three and four at a time to reach the room assigned to him.
The door hung crazily on torn hinges. Smoke and acrid fumes still boiled from the shattered rooms within. He heard distant screaming, and then it was as if his senses refused to accept what he saw, and he moved through a cotton-wool fog.
"Jasmine?" Shan murmured. He sounded agonized. He had a cut on his cheek. "She went ahead "
"It was a booby trap—meant for me. Or for you. It makes no difference." Durell could not recognize the sound of his own voice. "Stay here, Shan."
"No, I go in with you." His voice was harsh. "McFee arranged this. He fears you and what you may have learned."
"Shut up," Durell said fiercely.
He walked through the shattered living room and into the bedroom of the suite. He saw blood on the wall, and more blood on the floor, and a piece of Jasmine's blue cotton suit. It was as if everything stopped inside him.
She lay near the foot of the bed, and for a moment he thought she had escaped miraculously. Her face was untouched. Her eyes were open, and he thought she was watching him as he entered, for she had a small, pleased smile on her face, as if she had accomplished something she had always longed for.
But Jasmine was dead.
Twenty
Half an hour later, he walked silently with Shan through the crowded streets of downtown Taipei. He had reacted automatically, pushing Shan outside, although the Chinese had wanted to linger beside the dead girl. In the confusion that filled the hotel after the bomb blast, it had been simple to slip away, although Durell was sure that a report of the "twin Chinese" would inevitably reach intelligence headquarters. He had no illusions about his capacity to stay free for very long. Against the massed and organized forces opposing him, the state efficiency of the Kuomintang would soon stop him. He had no illusions, either, as to what would happen if he were caught. He would not be held for questioning. The word was out to shoot to kill, instantly.
For the moment, they were reasonably safe in the crowded streets, the lighted shops and restaurants. Shan shared his silence for long minutes. Then he said, as if he had been considering it for some time, "The bomb was meant for us. For you. McFee ordered you to the Ma Tsu. So he wants you dead."
"If so, he killed Jasmine," Durell said grimly.
"You cared much for her?"
"Yes. Much."
"And I, too," Shan confessed. "Like a flower that was suddenly watered and blossomed. As if I had come out of a wide and hostile desert. We—we understood each other."
"I know."
"I've been with L-5 for many years, as you have been with K Section," said Shan. "We are not only alike in looks, for the present, but similar inside, adjusted to our world. There is no place for emotion in it. You and I have both lost good friends in years past; we accept it and try to forget and never seek useless vengeance. To allow private emotion to distract us is a certain way to quick death for ourselves. And yet "
"What are you trying to say?" Durell asked.
"I have lost everything. I need not keep to the rules that have kept me alive all these years."
"Meaning?"
Shan said, "I am going to kill your Dickinson McFee. You can do it, if you wish; if you do not, then I shall."
"Because of Jasmine?"
"And other reasons."
"I think it's time you gave them to me," Durell said.
It felt strange to accept this Chinese as an ally when he normally would have been a deadly enemy. But he broke all rules of logic and trusted Shan. He expected Shan's decision to kill McFee. Evidence had piled up, one straw after the other, to form a damning pattern. He felt as if he had been thrust outside of his old loyalty to K Section. He had been betrayed and had escaped death several times by narrow margins. He could not deny his bitterness and resentment, and he did not like to think of himself as a pawn in a game that might destroy the world.
"Name the other reasons, Shan," he insisted.
They paused at a traffic light, crossed with a surge of chattering Taiwanese, and entered an arcade filled with bright neon Chinese characters. No one had followed them, for the moment.
"It is true," Shan said slowly, "I have not told you all I know. My job was to learn about the Six Sentinels. What happened to Jasmine confirms all I suspected. Only McFee, and his men who picked us up at the airfield, knew we were going to the Sea Goddess Hotel."
"If those were McFee's men. They could have been working for Haystead. He should be checked out first."
"Haystead's office in the I.P.S. building is impregnable. That was how I happened to be caught the first time, remember?" Shan paused. "It was McFee who sent Chien Y-Wu into China as a false defector. McFee ordered Chien to enrage the Chinese regime and incite them into a nuclear attack on Taiwan and the renegade Nationalists." Shan smiled thinly. "I think I know more about your boss than you do. We have good people in Washington. Did you know that McFee is heavily in debt, to the tune, as you say, of over two hundred thousand dollars?"
"I don't believe it," Durell said flatly.
"What do you know of his private life?"
"Very little," Durell admitted, "but... "
"Unfortunately, I can prove almost nothing to you. But he is heavily in debt to Senator Haystead—the General's uncle, the far-right reactionary in your government who has been the seat and center of a number of conservative plots and cabals."
"Why did McFee borrow that much money? And why from a man like Senator Haystead?"
"I cannot say. I do not know."
"You'll have to prove all this to me," Durell demanded.
"I can prove only part of it." Shan's eyes were opaque. "I worked on the Six Sentinels job for many months. I am not inefficient. I know my job." He hesitated again. "I can give you half the names of the six military and political men who comprise the cabal known as the Six Sentinels."
Durell sighed softly. "Half is better than none."
"Only half of each. None is complete. It is a code list that Colonel Chu had, and which I stole from him. It was one reason he was so anxious to see me dead. And the list is all in symbols. I have never learned the key to the other half. It is like a piece of torn currency, you see. Without the other half to match it, the list will buy you nothing."
"Do you have it with you?"
Shan tapped his forehead. "It is in my mind. Dragon, White Horse, Yellow Tiger, Blossom of Tranquillity, Pink Cloud, and Far Mountain."
Durell stared at him. "What does all that mean?"
"Those are the Six Sentinels."
"They have no value as they are," Durell objected.
"You have them fixed i
n your mind? Well, then, McFee has the other half, the key, so to speak, that will translate those names into the names of well-known, powerful personages in the United States."
Durell sighed. "Not good enough."
"Then get the rest from McFee," Shan suggested. "If you do not, I shall. You have until morning. After that, I will do what I must." He made the slightest movement of his hand in his pocket. "No, do not try to stop me or keep me with you, Cajun. We have been allies until now. But since Jasmine's death—well, I must do as my conscience dictates and kill McFee if you do not."
"McFee is a clever and dangerous man."
"I can do it," said Shan. "So can you. It is McFee's life, or ours."
"You sound sure of yourself."
They stared at each other in the garishly lighted arcade. Over Shan's shoulder, Dwell saw a blue-uniformed policeman pause and scan the crowd of teen-age Chinese inside. He turned his back and walked with Shan toward the rear entrance, which debouched on the next narrow street. The evening air was filled with the smells of cooking and wine and the inescapable effluvium that marks every Oriental city. Shan touched his shoulder. "I will find you at dawn. Do not try to stop me. When we meet again, you can report what you have done. After that, our alliance may come to an end." Durell did not try to stop him.
He moved like a lonely shadow through the darkening streets of Taipei. He had kept the Chinese automatic machine-pistol, and its weight was comforting in his coat. Durell was accustomed to working alone and felt a sense of freedom as he proceeded. He knew what had to be done. Everything that had gone before had been a series of tricks like those on a magician's stage. He saw his way clearly now. When the image of Jasmine's death crossed his mind, he drew a curtain over it.
He decided to hit General Harry Haystead first.
I.P.S. Electronics, E Branch headquarters, was surrounded by a high fence topped by wire, electronic sensors of infrared and body-heat detection, sound devices, and explosives. It stood in stark modernity amid Taipei's small, tangled streets. Floodlights made the gate impossible. The windows of the office where he had been briefed by the bluff, fanatic Air Force general were brightly lighted. He made a wide circuit of the building, noted cars parked in the guarded lot, saw the brief shadow of a dog race across the open area, as if pacing him, and then retired. He knew better than to try to force his way in.
From a nearby telephone booth, he dialed Haystead's number. The operator gave him a tired secretary with a Bronx accent, and she told him Haystead was in conference.
"Tell him it's Durell," he said shortly.
"Who?"
"Or Major Shan."
"Oh. Justa minnit."
It took ten seconds. Haystead was cordial. "Cajun? For God's sake, I've been waiting—where are you?"
'"Don't tap the line. I won't be here for more than a few minutes. I don't trust you."
"Look, I heard about that poor girl. I swear to God we didn't have anything to do with it!"
"You son of a bitch," Durell said.
"What?"
"You set me up from the start."
"No, I tell you, it was an open assignment. You were to shut Chien's mouth in Peking "
"It's shut. He's dead, you bastard."
There was silence, punctuated only by Haystead's hard breathing. "Look here, I'm not accustomed to being addressed "
"Come out of that fort of yours and talk to me."
"Impossible. There's a conference going on. I give you my word, you'll be safe here. Safer than on the streets, or wherever you are. I urge you to come in for sanctuary."
"Against whom?"
"You got a lot of people sore at you, Cajun."
"What did I do wrong?"
"Nothing. You did all the right things. So they'll kill you. They think you know too much."
"About the Six Sentinels?"
"That's right, Cajun." The man's voice went hoarse. "Look here, it's imperative that you report to me at once. Otherwise, it's all wasted, you understand? You're a dead man if you don't take sanctuary."
"Come and meet me," Durell said.
"No, I can't "
"On my terms. My time and place."
"I don't trust you, Cajun."
"That makes it mutual," Durell said and hung up.
He felt dissatisfied. Haystead seemed genuinely desperate to help. It might be the truth; it might not. He felt as if he were on a toboggan ride, slamming downhill at a breakneck speed, with no one to steer him. He had never felt so alone. He walked quickly away from the telephone, found a crowded food stand a block down the street, ordered a bowl of noodles, and waited and watched. Haystead's men came on fast. Two cars blocked off the arcade and uniformed policemen tumbled out, cordoning off the area. Durell watched from a distance. He did not spot any of the gray-suited hoods who had met him at the airfield. When he had seen enough, he faded away.
McFee was next.
He found his way to the old temple lodgings that McFee had used as his own headquarters for K Section's Control in Taipei. It was after ten o'clock at night. The thought of Jasmine's death began to ride him like a waking nightmare, and now he could not shake it off.
In contrast to Haystead's headquarters, everything about K Section's Control was dark, shut up tight, and looked abandoned. He did not believe it. The low Chinese building brooded before him like a trap waiting to be sprung. He told himself to quit, that he was not thinking clearly, but he had come a long way since his strange, hostile interview with McFee over two weeks ago. McFee had sent him into China almost certain that he would never return. McFee knew he was back now, certainly. Durell had known tough opponents in the past, but McFee would be the toughest. He didn't doubt now that McFee had the answers he needed in order to survive. He was certain of this as he had never been certain of anything before.
Every step of the way, he thought, he had been confronted by evidence pointing to McFee who, for reasons of his own, had been ready to sacrifice him and destroy the troubleshooting K Section branch of the C.I.A. -Two weeks ago, he would have scorned the thought. He had worked too long for the general to take such a premise lightly. He knew he had been groomed by Haystead, who was convinced of McFee's guilt in the Six Sentinels conspiracy. Everything that had happened was just frosting on the cake. Haystead had prepared him to kill McFee.
And now, since Jasmine's death, he was almost convinced that Haystead was right.
At the same time, he felt oddly detached from the problem. Perhaps he had been carefully fashioned as a lethal instrument to remove McFee, and except for this thought, his mind felt blurry about all that had happened. It was almost as if some dark drug had been injected in him, turning him into a hunting predator with only a single-minded objective. *
If McFee was dangerous, so was he. Durell was aware of his own capacities. He could kill, if necessary, in a dozen swift and efficient ways. He did not enjoy it, but when it had to be done, he did it, and put the event quickly from his mind afterward. It was one reason his dossier at L-5 in Peking and at the former KGB headquarters in Moscow—now reverted to the MVD—Minis-terstsvo Vnutrennikh Dyel—was marked with the red tab indicating: dangerous — kill on sight.
Still, McFee had taught him most of the. tricks of this deadly game, and he moved with utmost caution.
The nearby Buddhist temple, adjacent to the long, low building where he had first met McFee in Taipei, was fully lit, with saffron-robed priests moving about and sounding gongs in some sort of ceremony. A low compound wall separated K Section's Control from the brighdy lighted temple. He walked by it, mingling with the crowd of Chinese about the entrance. There was a separate moon gate around the corner that yielded into a path across a garden to the main house door. Durell watched it for twenty minutes, saw no one, spotted no movement through the circular entrance. There were carved stone good-luck tiger dogs on either side of the gate, and from his vantage point he saw a lighted stone lantern in the garden. But all the windows remained dark.
He had no doubt th
at somewhere inside, McFee was waiting for him.
At last he spotted a low-growing banyan tree whose roots and branches could get him over the wall. He moved at once from the shadows of the doorway where he had stood and followed a small group of Chinese, led by a saffron-robed priest. No one paid any attention to him. The sound of gongs and chanting filled the street. He looked as Chinese as the others around him, and he reminded himself that he could fade away anonymously if necessary.
When he passed the banyan tree, he dropped back and flattened against its wide, rooty bole. The shadows were friendly. With the procession safely past, he jumped, then climbed up the numerous hanging roots that descended into the rough ground. He took his time. Every grip, every branch had to be studied with care before he moved on. At last he was level with the top of the compound wall. The light available was only a dim reflection from the temple area nearby, but he managed to trace the fine, delicate wires that had been laid on top of the stone wall. It would be lethal to touch them, he decided.
He climbed to a higher branch, placing his hands and feet carefully. The faintest humming touched his ear, and he froze. The noise, no louder than the drone of an insect, was momentarily drowned by the cymbals from the temple. Then he heard it again. He scanned the leafy branches around him. With one long leap, he could make it down over the wall and inside the garden. That, too, could be deadly. He did nothing for five minutes while he searched among the leaves. Then he spotted a faint metallic reflection behind a twig, carefully reached up, and exposed a tiny microphone wired there. It would be powerful enough to pick up his breathing, he thought grimly. And if there was one device, there would be others. Perhaps he had been detected already.
He decided to retreat.
With the first move, he sprang a defense trap. His foot came down on a small twig sprouting from the lower branch. There was a click and a snap and he let go of everything and let himself drop. A branch came up like the lash of a whip and he felt something slash across his forearm. He glimpsed the bright sheen of a razor-sharp knife flashing past his eyes, and he fell, stunned and in pain.
Assignment Peking Page 16