Assignment- Silver Scorpion

by Edward S. Aarons

  Surprisingly, even after the swim through the conduit, the girl smelled good.

  They had a short run across an open area from the stream bed to the loading- platform and the burned-out truck that stood there. Yutigaffa went first this time, while Durell tried to dry his gun the best he could. Then Georgette Finch made the run, moving quickly and smoothly for all of her height and size. Kantijji took up the rear again. Durell touched Irene's arm, and the girl turned a sullen, petulant face toward him.

  "You made me swim through that pipe on purpose, didn't you?" she said resentfully. "We could have bloody well paddled right up to the shore, you know."

  "And been shot at, first thing?"

  "There's nobody guarding this riverbank."

  "The Teleks aren't worried about this area. It's an attack from the waterside that gives them the itch."

  "We were shot at, anyway," Irene pointed out.

  "Yes," Durell said patiently. "Probably on your sister's orders."

  "Mickey? Oh, no, Mickey wouldn't-"

  "But she would. You know she would. She doesn't want you to have your piece of the cake, does she?"

  "What cake? I don't know what you're talking about." Irene made a spitting sound. "You just wait. You haven't treated me very nice, you know. You're just like all the rest of 'em, thinking you're so much better than Mickey and me."

  "Let's go. Can you make it to the mill?"

  She said sullenly, "I'm all right."

  He urged her forward with him. There was no telling what eyes watched them from the dark lanes and alleys that radiated into the Getoba from the other side of the jute mill. He was aware of the stack of a donkey engine that leaned precariously toward them, with some of the guy wires snapped and dangling loosely-and then he threw himself into the dark shadow of the loading platform where the others waited. The soft slap of footsteps behind him announced that Kantijji had followed faithfully.

  "Everybody inside," Durell said.

  "I want to go to the fort," Irene objected. "I don't want to go into that broken-down place. Suppose it comes down on us? Besides, I think Mickey is in the fort."

  "You'll have to stay with us for a little longer," Durell told her. "No arguments for now. Just hope that we don't get shot at by some triggerhappy Teleks who mistake us for part of Watsube's army."

  He straightened, climbed onto the platform, and found a wide, open loading bay into the mill. The smell of dust and heat filled his nostrils, but already, in the few minutes since getting free of the conduit, his clothing was beginning to dry. He took his gun in his hand, although it had been soaked and was of dubious value at the moment. Starlight filtered down through great gaps in the twisted corrugated roofing overhead. The behemoth shapes of pulping and shredding machines loomed all around him. He paused to listen, checking the others behind him. He couldn't hear anything of consequence. Great mounds of raw vegetable fibers were heaped twice his height off to the right, against the still-standing wall that paralleled the river. The floor underfoot felt dusty and covered by smaller bits of dry pulp. Each step he took made unavoidable crunching sounds. It was like trying to walk silently on peanuts. He saw a brighter area of light off to his left, and he identified the dim glow of the night sky in panes of dusty glass windows that enclosed a roofless office area. He went that way. A rickety wooden staircase led up to the open office door. The mortar shells that had blasted in the roof of the mill had, with the fickleness of explosives, left the office floor intact. But Durell suddenly checked himself and the others behind him. The familiar smell of putridity touched him. Two dim human shapes remained at their desks inside the office area. Neither shape moved.

  Durell guessed the men in there had been dead for some days, maybe shot by the rebels or by the rebellious workmen who had been employed here. Old hatreds usually took advantage of newly troubled times, he thought grimly. Nobody had bothered to remove and bury the corpses. But they gave him an indication of conditions inside the besieged Telek fortress.

  The opposite end of the mill was completely blocked with debris from the blown-in roof. There were high walkways overhead, above the office area. They made a spider's web of precarious wooden planks that crisscrossed above the main floor of the mill and led to high lofts up there. Durell turned to the far wall beyond the offices. The others followed slowly. He finally saw what he was looking for-a door leading out on the opposite side, which would certainly get him into the alleyways of the Getoba.

  He was almost there when he heard the patrol approaching at a halfrun, urged by the barking command of an officer.

  They still could have made it. They were hidden in the darkness of the old jute mill, and by taking any sort of cover, they could have gone unsuspected. But Irene had different ideas.

  Her sudden shrieking appeal for help was like an alarm siren going oft just behind Durell.

  "Help! Hey, you there! We're over here! Come along, boys, and hurry! I'm here! The Ragihi is here!"

  Durell didn't wait.

  He grabbed Finch's hand and dived for cover.

  Chapter 12

  THERE WERE several moments when no one knew for certain what was happening. The Telek patrol crashed through the wide doorway of the jute mill and began firing without discrimination, without issuing any challenges. Their nerves must have been overly tight after the long days and nights of siege. The racket of their automatic rifles was deafening in the big, hollow area of the mill. Dust flew and splinters whined, and the storm of bullets slammed wildly overhead. Durell thought he heard Irene scream in surprise or dismay; he wasn't certain. He lay flat on the dusty floor of the mill, half covering Georgette Finch with his body, for several thunderous seconds while the muzzle flames of the patrol's guns spat and tongued at them. He had no time to shout to the two FKP men. He assumed they could take care of themselves.

  He caught. Finch's wrist and pulled her with him as he crawled carefully back toward a ladder. When he reached the bottom of it, he looked back and saw a confusion of lights probing into the open area of the mill.

  "Up you go," he whispered.

  "Sam, shouldn't we just let them know who we are and that we've come here voluntarily and maybe we should just surrender and see what they do-"

  "Up!" he said impatiently.

  She climbed with quick agility into the thick, dusty shadows overhead. An overly anxious member of the, Telek patrol began firing in the opposite direction, startled by a moving shadow. During the thunderous racket Durell took the opportunity to swarm quickly up the ladder after the girl. When he was at the top, he felt her hand reach out to guide him. They sprawled flat on one of the webs of plank catwalks high over the mill floor. He looked carefully over the edge of the catwalk. The patrol was spreading out, flashlights probing ahead of them. He thought he saw one man, a white officer, who looked as if he might be in command, perhaps one of the Telek mercenaries; but he couldn't be sure. One thing was certain, he noted grimly. Yutigaffa and his sidekick Kantijji had vanished like smoke, bent on their own mysterious errands. Durell swore softly as he saw Irene step forward suddenly, bathed in the glare of half a dozen lanterns and torches. She looked innocent and angry and defiant. Her commands were evident in the way she stood, foreshortened by Durell's vantage point high above.

  "Here, you! Stop all this nonsense and take me at once to Colonel Chance, do you hear, you perfect idiots? I mean what I say. Take me to him at once!"

  There was a dim murmur of voices from the patrol below, the words echoing sibilantly in the vast, dusty ruins. Most of the men wore ragged outfits that could hardly be called uniforms, but they were all well armed with their Kalashnikov rifles. Durell remained flat on the planks high above their heads. A few of the Teleks were idly turning their flashlights here and there over the floor of the jute mill, highlighting the vague shapes of metal machinery, the rollers and crushers, the big vats, the power belts and balers. Dust came up, thick and pungent, from their booted feet on the wooden planking. Durell felt the warmth and solidity of Fi
nch's thigh against his shoulder. Her face, in the dim glow of the reflected light coming down from the high crossbeams of the ceiling, showed him a wan smile. There was a little trickle of blood along her jaw line where she had scraped herself.

  He reached cautiously forward to touch her mouth and insure her silence.

  A surprisingly American voice, with, a trace of New York accent, said sharply, "Is this all of your party?. Where are the rest of you? Who came with you?"

  "Coo." Irene's voice echoed genuine surprise. "You're Major Willie Wells, aren't you?"

  "I am, ma'am."

  "Mickey told me a lot about you. You were in Vietnam, with the American army, weren't you?"

  "I was. I meant to send 'em back all my medals, because they busted me when I came home." The man's voice was flat, without emotion. Durell moved carefully until he could look over the edge of the catwalk. The man talking to Irene was a tall black, wearing a khaki uniform with a personal badge as a shoulder patch and an insignia that might have denoted his rank among the Telek rebels. His face was brown and smooth; he was in his late twenties. Durell hadn't known for certain that there were American mercenaries among the Teleks. The black officer, who looked subtly different from his Bogandan troopers, spoke with calm and competent assurance. "How many were you?"

  "Well, there were two men from the FKP. Both of them. officers, I think. And there were these two Americans."

  "What Americans?"

  "A man and a girl. Miss Finch used to be a Peace Corps worker. Then she worked for the Raga's government. The man's name is Durell, Sam Durell. He's called the Cajun. I, think he-but you'd better let me talk about it to Colonel Adam Chance, right? And I want to see my sister, and you had better bloody well take your hands off me, you hear? I won't stand for any nonsense. Don't play soldier with me, Willie!"

  The American mercenary said quietly, "Where did the others go when we came in?"

  Irene made a contemptuous sound. "Scattered like the wind, they did. Scared of all your ferocious mice."

  "Did they run out of the building?"

  "I don't know, for sure, but you'd better not keep me waiting too long. They're not worth looking for, to my mind, see? And you-"

  The first mortar shell burst without warning only a few hundred yards south of the ruined jute mill, in the maze of alleys and lanes leading into the Getoba.

  Durell looked at his watch.

  It was exactly on the hour, four in the morning.

  For just an instant, following the first explosion, Durell leaned over the edge of the plank catwalk and seemed to stare straight down into the searching eyes, of the mercenary as he looked upward. Then a blast of dust and rubble billowed in from the outer lane, and part of the wall blew inward as well. One of the patrol screamed as he was struck by flying debris, and there-were shouts and yells of recrimination. Apparently the Teleks were not accustomed to being taken by surprise -by the hourly bombardment, and the search for Durell's party had forced them to abandon their usual precautions. Another shell burst, a little farther away this time, but now the Teleks, about eight of them, ran from the wreckage of the jute mill. The American officer shouted impatiently at them, took a few steps with Irene, then halted, and looked up again into the gloom of the high, beamed ceiling of the mill, staring directly at where Durell and Finch lay stretched out on the planks. Georgette started to stir, but Durell clamped a hand on her thigh, forcing her down.

  "Don't move," he whispered.

  The mortar shells kept coming in, one after the other, with a deadly rhythm. The place was filled with dust and the iron stench of explosives. A fire broke out somewhere near the mill, and Durell could see the flames through the broken walls of the rambling place.

  "Now," he said abruptly. "In the back, Finch."

  The girl got up and moved quickly ahead of him, balancing on the planks with her arms outstretched like a tightrope walker. The noise of the mortars effectively covered the sounds they made. For some reason, General Watsube was concentrating this particular hourly barrage on the mill and the riverside area, almost as if he knew that Durell and the Ragihi had penetrated the Getoba at this point. But there was no time to think about the meaning of that. The roof of the jute mill had been blown down at their end, and the whole structure slanted precipitously toward the floor, squeezing them under the roof timbers. Finch halted at the end of the slanting catwalk, and he slid past her on their dangerous perch, leading the way to duck under broken beams and then slide down toward a lower level of the broken, corrugated-tin roof. Dust and heat engulfed them in the maze of wreckage. He hoped nothing would give way under their weight and bury them under the massive timbers and roof sheeting. One false move could upset the dangerous balance of the wreckage. He tested each foot of the way, moving back twice when there came a faint sound of stress and a tremor of movement under his weight. Outside, the pounding of the mortars seemed to be walking away from them, covering other areas of the Getoba District.

  "Oh, please. Let's rest," Finch gasped.

  "Do you have to?"

  "Yes. I'm really-all in. And I'm scared."

  "All right."

  He paused. He thought they might well be like mice burrowing into the tangle of wreckage at this end of the jute mill. There was an opening here among the shattered beams and a kind of plank platform that had once been part of an upper storage floor. Light from the fire in the nearby alley flickered through the broken walls and showed them the way to a reasonably solid and secure refuge. The thunderous crump and bang of the mortar shells seemed to go on and on, as if the usual five minutes of barrage had lengthened itself into hours.

  "Sam," Finch said. She put her mouth close to his ear to make him hear above the noise. "What happened?" She paused for a moment. "I thought we were supposed to get in here without anyone knowing about it. But it looks as if they were waiting for us. What went wrong?"

  "Don't you know?"

  "Sam, you know darn well what I mean. The minute we get here, Kantijji and Yutigaffa split, right?"

  "You're getting your slang mixed. All of a sudden you're out of the twenties and you're up to date. Yes, the FKP boys split."

  "Can you figure out why?"

  "They have business of their own to attend to here in the Getoba."

  "Yeah," the girl said thoughtfully. "Jiminy, I'll bet she really did tell her sister we were coming. And Mickey . . ." She paused again. He saw her face briefly in a sudden brightening of the flames outside the mill. Her cheeks were streaked with mud and dirt and dust, and her clothing was a total loss, plastered with dirt from their crawl up the stream bed and into the wrecked mill. He rubbed a smudge of mud from her nose. Her eyes looked blankly into his without acknowledging his gesture. "So what business could it be to make a couple of tough cookies like Yutigaffa and his sidekick take this buggy ride with us and risk their lives here?"

  "Money," Durell said.

  "Right. Our money."

  "Wrong. American taxpayers' money."

  "I'm a taxpayer," she said. "So are you. So it's our money."

  "And Irene?" he asked.

  "She's a flit," Georgette said. "A little conniving creep."

  "Conniving, yes. A creep, no," Durell replied thoughtfully. "Such devotion to her sister Mickey passeth all ordinary understanding."

  "She thinks Mickey is going to do her out of something?" Finch asked.

  "Nothing more or less. And the something has to be the money," Durell suggested.

  "Holy cow," Finch said. "It's going to be a regular parade to that bank vault."

  "If someone hasn't already gotten there first."

  "Gee, Sarn--but I'm the only one of the locals who knows the combination."

  The mortars stopped, right on schedule. At the same moment someone started shooting at them through the twisted tangle of broken beams and debris that sheltered them.

  They weren't mice, after all, Durell thought. They were caught like rats in a trap. The steady, deliberate hammering of a US Colt .45 deaf
ened them with echoes and brought more dust sifting around their little niche in a steady downpour. One of the crooked beams that supported their little platform suddenly creaked and moved a few inches. A beam of light flickered through the wreckage and made an outlandish pattern of brightness and shadow all around them, hazed by the dust and fibers floating in the air.

  "Durell!"

  The voice suddenly thundered up and echoed from below like the sound of doom. The shots stopped. Durell heard small metallic clickings, the sound of a boot, the sudden crash of a broken timber being tossed angrily aside. Georgette shivered with a sudden involuntary violence. Then she sat still, tailor fashion, her hands resting palms upward on her knees. Her face was blank in the flickering, stabbing light that sought them out.

  "Mr. Durell! Hey, are you all right?"

  Durell did not reply.