The Balkan Assignment

by Joe Poyer

  I regarded Mikhail unsympathetically. It was useless to try and pick him up since he weighed well over two hundred pounds. I got up and pushed him into a more comfortable position, checked on the guard outside; a new one was there; lay down on the cot and promptly fell asleep.

  It was late afternoon before Klaus came into the hut, followed by the heavy-set man who had met the aircraft. He shook me awake and sat down on the other cot while the big German waited near the door. Klaus tore open a new pack of cigarettes and shook one out for me, and lit it.

  "Well . ?" he said quietly.

  "Well ... what?"

  "I am sorry that we had to treat you as we did. But there was Mikhail. There would have been trouble if not."

  "There was anyway," I pointed out dryly. "By the way, where is he?" I asked, noticing that he was gone.

  Klaus rubbed his forehead. "Yes, I think there was. Mikhail is being looked after and you need not concern yourself with him."

  "So what next? Do you take me out tonight and give me a shovel to dig my own grave?"

  Klaus smiled. "No, that is not done anymore. The world has become too sophisticated for such crude methods." "I'm glad to hear that."

  "By now you must realize that there is more to what we have been doing this past week than . . ." he faltered. "A treasure hunt," I supplied helpfully.

  "Yes. There is more involved here than merely the personal greed." Klaus went on. "The gold will be used for other, more salutary purposes than to line the pockets of three useless soldiers of fortune."

  "If that's the case, then why did you need the two other soldiers to help you recover it?

  Why didn't you just go into Kornat and pull it out with the help of your little organization?" I knew the answer to that one, but was curious to see what Klaus would come up with.

  His lip twisted into an unpleasant smile. "For many reasons. This organization to which I belong is well-known to the Yugoslav authorities and, shall we say, not loved?"

  Yeah, I thought to myself, after five years of occupation and nearly half a million killed, you could well be described as unloved.

  "In any event, Yugoslav authorities reacted a bit more quickly than we had anticipated.

  There were times when I was beginning to doubt that we would escape with our lives."

  "You were beginning to doubt!" I snorted.

  "But, we are here," he finished, smiling broadly. "Where is here? You can't do much with one million dollars worth of gold in the middle of the desert. And I would be willing to bet that if the Egyptians get wind of that million in gold you won't have it very long."

  The fat man broke into a series of rippling chuckles. His voice was amazingly high, but pleasant. It did make a strange contrast though with his corpulent body.

  Klaus glared at him and he shut up swiftly. "You are very right. We must fly the gold out of here as soon as possible. I can offer you a job . . . with a sizable salary if you will agree to continue as my pilot."

  "Quite a comedown . . . a third of a million dollars to a salary."

  "Yes, well, bad luck happens to the best of us. In any event, I think that you will find the terms of employment agreeable . . . starting with something even more valuable than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars . . . your life."

  "You do have a point there."

  Klaus pulled a leg up, planted it squarely across the other, a most unmilitary posture, and settled his back against the wall. Now we were going to get down to business I thought.

  "In addition, we will offer you full-time employment as chief pilot and owner, free and clear, of your own charter air line operating through the Middle and Far East. We will supply you with the aircraft, a business already established and located in Cairo, operating expenses until you can get underway and in two years time, subject to satisfactory completion of your charters, the full ownership of the company and its assets including a C-130 cargo aircraft."

  My own company, free and clear, no mortgage on the aircraft to cause sleepless nights, enough funds to maintain a decent maintenance schedule, etc., etc. When the full implication sank in, it was a tempting offer.

  I finished the cigarette in silence, forcing myself to sit still with great difficulty. Finally, I dropped the butt on the floor and ground it out.

  "Who needs killing?"

  "Killing?" the fat man asked. "Killing, who?"

  Klaus glared and waved him to silence. "No one. In fact, there is very little that you have to do. You must accept all and any charters from this company when called upon to do so. You will be paid for each flight by the company and the cargo will be bonded before being loaded aboard your aircraft. You will have only to fly it to its destination and return by whatever route you desire."

  "J ust fly cargo?" I asked suspiciously.

  "Yes. Exactly as you have been doing for me for the past year or so."

  I nodded. "Uh . . . what was in those cargoes by the way? Most of them were loaded under bond as I recall."

  Klaus smiled to himself and took a final drag on his cigarette and also stubbed it out on the floor. Still bent over, he continued, "Most of those cargoes were legitimate. But the rest were supplies and equipment and other goods being shipped here and farther east."

  "And those I take it were illegal shipments?"

  Klaus nodded. "So you see, for over a year we have been engaged in shipping bonded, but illegal cargoes through small charter airfreight companies like your own. We have had absolutely no trouble. And as you would continue to co-operate, I foresee no trouble.

  "

  "Well I'll be damned," I muttered. And I was too, if certain police authorities ever caught up with me.

  "How do you propose to set me up with my own air-freight line if every cop in Europe is going to be looking for me?"

  "Why should they be?"

  I glanced over at the fat man standing near the door. He caught the look and nodded to Klaus and stepped outside. A moment later I heard him speaking to the guard.

  With a disgusted look, Klaus watched him go then turned to me. "There is no reason why the police of any country should be looking for you."

  "Oh? Seems to me there's the little matter of the killing of a Yugoslav policeman, the bombing of a Yugoslav patrol boat, a stolen airplane in Italy not to mention illegal entry .

  ."

  Klaus held up his hand to stop me. "First, there is no evidence of any kind to tie you into the killing of Vishailly. Secondly, who could possibly identify you as one of the two fishermen who bombed the patrol boat . . . the sailors saw only two men at a distance and they themselves attacked that boat in international waters. At the most, we were only defending ourselves. As far as the Italian authorities are concerned, they have no reason to suspect that you entered the country illegally or that you left it in a similar fashion since their records will show that you

  filed a proper flight plan and cleared customs formalities in Naples. As for the aircraft, you yourself purchased it from your friend, and right now your agent is waiting for him to return to his office so that he may sign the bill of sale and other necessary papers. So, you see, you have committed no crimes and are, in fact, at this moment, flying a charter for my company."

  Outside the hut, the sharp coughing of a gasoline engine began and a moment later was joined by the rapping of an oil-rig drill being lowered into the drill hole. All at once, it seemed as if all of the noise in the world was concentrated in this spot of desert. A large truck started up, the engine whine rising above the other noises.

  I nodded. "All right, you seem to have everything laid out properly enough. But why me?

  You must have your own pilots who would be a hell of a lot more trustworthy?"

  Klaus nodded and lit a fresh cigarette. "That is true. We do have our own pilots. But there are two reasons why I would like to have you involved: First, you are a very resourceful man. There were several times in the past few days when it could have gone very badly for us but for you. I am too old to be as ad
aptable as I once was. Secondly, you have established a reputation around the Middle East as an honest pilot and businessman. While the customs people do not trust you—indeed they cannot since it is their job to mistrust everyone—they are very much aware of your reputation and record and are therefore willing to make certain exceptions for you. This is very important to us.

  We have a good deal of cargo to fly and we must retain a respectable front."

  "What about Mikhail?"

  Klaus glanced at me distastefully. "About that one, some thought will have to be given."

  "What kind of thought?"

  "That need not concern you ..."

  "Like hell," I interrupted brusquely. "I'm not giving any answers until I find out what you have in mind for Mikhail."

  "If you insist." He paused for a moment, then grinned slyly. "We intend to turn Mikhail over to the proper authorities."

  I admit I must have looked skeptical . . . and it was on the tip of my tongue to make a sarcastic remark about

  nazism and the law when I caught myself just in time. Fortunately, Klaus didn't notice the lapse.

  "He did kill the policeman," Klaus pointed out. "Someone must be arrested because the Yugoslav police will not rest until they have found the murderer."

  "How do you plan to have them find him? Egypt is a little outside their jurisdiction, isn't it?"

  "Mikhail will be found at the proper time and in the proper place. We must be very careful how we handle this situation. You and I both are linked with him in Yugoslavia.

  We must first arrange to make it seem that we left the island well before the killing took place and that Mikhail was acting alone. I took the opportunity of asking questions of the villagers while you were travelling to Belgrade. It seems that the trouble between Mikhail and Vishailly was widely known. It was an accepted fact, at least on the island, that they would have to fight for honor. In this situation it may not go hard with him."

  "That's his problem," I snorted. "There was no honor in the way he settled it. Mikhail shot him point blank without giving him a chance. What the Yugoslav police do with him is not my worry. I just want to make sure you're not planning to leave him in the desert with a bullet in his head.

  "And of course," I continued, "you have figured a way around the fact that as soon as the Yugoslav police pick him up, he'll blab everything he knows about our operation in Kornat?" •

  Klaus threw back his head and laughed deeply, happily. "But that is the beauty of it all. It is our word, two respectable businessmen against his, a suspected murderer; one who was not even welcome in his own country, who is known to be not only violent but exceedingly dangerous. Also, who will believe a wild tale of a hidden fortune in gold?

  One, finally, who had every reason to kill Vishailly. Who would you believe?"

  Klaus did have a point. In fact, he had the whole thing sewed up very neatly. Every angle seemed covered. Mikhail would take the rap . . . one he richly deserved in any case. The two of us would be left in the clear. And, without firm evidence to the contrary, as long as we stayed away from Yugoslavia there really was not a whole lot they could do to us.

  "Okay," I nodded, "I'm in."

  "Fine," Klaus said. "Fine." He stood up rubbing his hands. "Now, we must have some dinner and then more sleep. By tomorrow at dawn, we will be on our way."

  If only Klaus was telling the truth, I thought . . . but of course he wasn't. I may not have known specifically where the lies were, but I knew that there were lies. We left the hut and crossed the quadrangle scratched out of the desert by caterpillar tractors and bounded by scattered tents and loose piles of equipment.

  Night falls swiftly in the desert; one minute pale twilight, the next darkness sweeps over the desert. Sitting on the top step of the hut, I had gained a perspective of three, feet and I could watch the line of darkness racing across the incredibly flat sand and gravel plain to the west. I finished my cigarette and went across the informal square to the hut where Mikhail, a wet towel wrapped around his swollen head, was squatting on his heels lighting a cigar.

  I dropped down beside him and rested my back against the canvas siding and enjoyed the lingering warmth of the sand and the quiet of early evening.

  "How's your head?" I asked.

  Mikhail squinted into the darkness for a long while before answering. "It is all right now."

  He fell silent again, gazing slowly around the scattered huts and the stars beginning to show clearly in the blackening sky. The last vestiges of sunset had disappeared and full night had fallen. The desert was terribly dark in the absence of the comforting artificial light beyond the pale circle of the encampment and the Christmas tree-like beads on the two drilling platforms. The muted bump and clank of the drilling rigs carried clearly over the half mile intervening distance. To the east, a milky haze suggested the moon lurking below the horizon.

  "What is going on here?"

  I shrugged in the darkness, but even so, Mikhail must have caught the gesture. Angrily, he muttered, "Why shouldn't you know? You have sold out to that Nazi and his friends.-

  Who are they and what do they want?"

  "Cut it, Mikhail, I don't know anything about what's going on . . . no more than you do.

  All I know is that we got off the plane this morning, and there they were waiting for us. Automatic carbines don't leave much room for argument."

  Mikhail turned on me, his voice lashing. "You are lying. You have made a deal with that pig, Maher. Who are these people? Police, or friends of yours . . ."

  The guard standing a little way off with a carbine resting on his hip, shifted restlessly and stepped closer to us. Mikhail ignored him and bored on. "Perhaps you have decided that you will kill Mikhail and make bigger shares for you. Maybe these friends of yours do not know that you have an aircraft full of gold and maybe if they did, they would not be so co-operative and . . ."

  "Knock it off," I interrupted furiously. "You overgrown windbag. Shut your mouth and try and use your head for something besides an obstacle course for a change. If they were going to kill either one of us, they would have done so immediately. I don't know who these people are, but I do know that they know about the gold, and unless we are very damned careful all we'll get will be bullets in the back of the neck. I know they do need a pilot and I'm it. Why they want you around, I have no idea. Talk to Klaus and straighten out your own messes. I'm not your bodyguard or your nursemaid and I don't intend to start now . . . and whoever they are, they are not police. Now, do what the hell you want .

  .." I got up and walked away.

  I didn't look back, but I could picture Mikhail squatting on the sand, the cigar dangling from his fingers as he squinted after me. I knew that if he had a pistol or a knife, I would have been dead within ten paces. Obviously the guard knew it, too, because he shifted his carbine into both hands and I could see him bring the muzzle around casually to bear on Mikhail.

  The hell with him, I thought. I had considered the possibility of letting him know my reason for sticking with Klaus. But that had been discarded as soon as he began raving.

  Even assuming that he agreed to help, he was too damned unstable to be of any use. Give him a pistol and he was likely to start shooting up the camp . . . just to defend his damned honor. I snorted and continued on. Honor and religion; two chief causes of more deaths than all other excuses in human history combined.

  The first thing I had to do was to contact Ley. Accord-

  ingly, about midnight, I sneaked away from the hut by working the canvas wall loose from the floor. A guard had come to sit in the middle of the square; probably to watch the camp in general. But as I watched him, it seemed to me that he was keeping a closer eye on my hut than anywhere else. At the same time, I could see the guard outside Mikhail's hut pacing back and forth in a valiant effort to stay awake.

  The night was silent except for the muffled banging of the drilling rigs and the whispering of wind over the sand . . . and cold as only a desert night can
be after the sand has given up all of the day's stored heat. My light windbreaker was no match for the chill or for the bite of the sand. The sky was brilliantly clear; the moon, barely past full, blazed down from near zenith. In spite of the cold, I hugged the sand and worked my way east away from the line of huts deeper into the darkness and the low sand dunes.

  Both guards were still busily guarding in the middle of the square. So far so good. From here on it was going to be tougher. I would have felt better with the .38 in my pocket, but perhaps it was just as well that it was still in the DC-3. I had nowhere to go if they spotted me. Without a gun I was downright scared to death and was likely to be a hell of a lot more careful than if supported by the Dutch courage that comes with carrying a pistol.

  It took me almost half an hour to work my way around the line of huts to the radio shack and up to the small window set into the back wall. The hut was lit by an oil lantern turned low, and deserted; a surprise until I saw the bell alarm rigged to the radio receiver.

  I spent another ten minutes minutely exploring the immediate area. The operator was asleep in the next hut; dead asleep. There was an empty whiskey bottle on the floor beside him and the breeze had not yet dispersed the alcoholic cloud. The graveyard shift on the drilling rigs had settled into the routine, and the swing-shift crew had finished dinner and were soundly asleep by now . . . I devoutly hoped. I took my life in my hands and snuck into the shack.

  The smell of alcohol was still quite strong inside; although not as bad as the hut next door. The operator must have been a real boozer . . . as well as having the most erotic taste in literature that I had ever encountered,

  judging by the reading matter piled on every available surface.

  First, I unhooked the alarm. All I needed was to have that damned bell ring while I was inside . . . even though the chances were against even a truck horn awakening the operator tonight.