Assignment- Silver Scorpion

  "And what do you think of old superstitions, Pearl. Lu?"

  She laughed again in her throat and bent down to kiss him, her long jet hair making a screen on either side of his face. "Oh ho. Later, darling Sam."

  Her hands moved down his chest and his stomach and along his thighs. She was an expert at it. She should be. He could not help his response. Her body was as silken as the sheets in the big Chinese bed, as active and undulating as a serpent, but warm and eager, even avid for him. There was nothing Pearl Lu did not know about the act of love. For the next half hour she employed every trick of her trade upon him. He did not mention his concern about the; missing Georgette Finch; he did not think it would be quite diplomatic, at the moment. He yielded to Pearl and felt the tension drain away from him, and afterward he slept for two more hours, a deep, sound sleep undisturbed by any problems.

  When he awoke, Pearl was gone. Two girls, one of them the smiling Annamese, the other a slender but big-breasted German, brought more food and tea and offered to bathe him with hot towels dipped in perfumed water, carried in a huge porcelain bowl that would have graced the Chinese exhibit of any New York museum. Durell pushed them aside, not ungently, and pretended he did not understand the German girl's suggestive insinuations. He threw aside the silken coverlet and put his feet on the floor and stood up, naked, although the girls protested, playfully trying to push him back on the bed.

  "I need my clothes."

  "They have been washed and ironed, sir. They are quit ready," said the little Annamese. "But Miss Pearl said we are to please you in all ways, if you wish."

  "Maybe later. I have business with Pearl."

  "She waits," said the Annamese, and the girl looked genuinely disappointed.

  There were fresh khaki slacks, a pair of shoes that fitted remarkably well, linen, and a dark blue shirt with bigpockets made to carry bush equipment. The German girl gave him his .38 S&W, holding it in both hands, palms upward; she smiled and said in German, "I am glad you killed Ting Kai. He was too big, a monster. He hurt us all."

  Durell nodded, still pretending not to understand her, and said in English, "Miss Pearl?"

  "This way, please."

  The next bombardment, at noon, began as he followed the German and Annamese girls down the corridor. He checked the time with his watch. He must have missed one while he slept. The shells were landing on the other side of the Getoba, and he noticed again that there were few, if any, traces of damage in the little Chinese quarter. Perhaps there had been an earlier understanding between Pearl's grandfather and General Watsube-or more likely, between Pearl Lu herself and the General. In any case, Durell was grateful. Life here seemed to proceed as usual.

  Pearl was in a small, efficiently equipped business office at the end of the hall. There were slatted bamboo blinds over the two windows, and he moved past her desk and files, aware of the way her black, dispassionate eyes followed him, and looked out. The office was directly above the old man's aphrodisiac shop. The street was empty for the moment. The noonday heat had built up, and the sunlight danced and wavered before his eyes. In the office a wooden ceiling fan stirred the air and made things feel slightly better. All the same, he felt oppressed by the noon temperatures, and he wondered how Pearl could look so cool in her cheongsam.

  "Sit down, Sam, please. It makes me nervous."

  "I'd rather stand, thank you."

  "Do you realize I could say just one word and have you shot, darling? One message to the fort, where the mercenaries command, and you would be a dead man."

  "Why should you do that, after we-"

  "I was very, very glad to see you. I was carried away by my sense of joy. It does not happen very often." Pearl Lu's words were clipped and precise now, the business woman whose interests were truly worldwide. "What did you come here for, Sam?"

  "Weren't you briefed by Tom Adams in Lamy? Didn't he tell you I was coming?"

  "You know he did not. I don't work like that, on regular salary. My job is piece-work, in a way." She smiled faintly at her own words. "I wouldn't let myself become indebted to K Section in that fashion. I've done regular work, but only on odd jobs, on specialties, yes. You know all that. When I am called upon to help, I do or I don't, depending on how the project looks to me. I've got a good thing here. The rebellion does not matter to me. It will be over, soon enough. Whichever side wins, I shall endure. I'll be here for as long as I choose. I am needed more by my interests in Hong Kong and St. Louis, but my grandfather is settled here and will not move. It amuses him to stay here. And you know how we Chinese respect our parents." She smiled again. "When this is over, I will still be in business. And I do not want to risk that status by anything you say or do or try to get me involved in."

  "Telephone Tom Adams in Chad. Or Johnson in Lisbon."

  "No."

  "You have a GK-12 transceiver, haven't you?"

  The girl nodded. Her face was like carved ivory, unmoved. "I do. I rarely use it. I do not want to use it. I don't want to hear from your Mr. Adams in Lamy or from your Central in Lisbon or from Washington. You talk, Sam. If I believe you and think I can be useful, fine. If I decide to help you, I will. Agreed?"

  "All right," he said. "I'll have to put it in my report, though."

  "That doesn't matter to me. You need me more than I need you. I left my home in St. Louis a long, long time ago, Sam. Obviously, I'll probably never go back. So what can you do to me? Send some spooks to fix me up, maybe to ruin me here in Boganda or even kill me? You wouldn't do such a thing."

  "I need your help."

  "I told you. Maybe yes, maybe no. Now explain to me why you swam in the river and came in here, when most everybody in the Getoba is literally dying to get out."

  He told her. He did not hold anything back. He spoke about the international credits to be used for economic, social, and educational developments in Boganda and how the credits had been converted little by little, based on false reports of expenditures over the past six months, into hard cash as payments for projects that were never completed and some never even begun and how it entailed an international swindle of the first magnitude and the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in American taxpayers' money.

  Pearl Lu listened quietly. "And how did your K Section get into it? You're supposed to be chasing spies, not some smart crooks."

  "Anything abroad that concerns the US concerns K Section. Some clever accountant back in Washington, in the Budget Bureau, I think, took just a little extra time to check. None of this is public yet, for obvious domestic political reasons. The Senate committees, especially those against foreign aid, would make hay out of it. But it will have to come to light in the press, eventually."

  "So who stole the money?" Pearl Lu asked. "Was it the Raga? Or Watsube?"

  Durell shrugged. "We don't really know yet. But we certainly want it back, come hell or high water or local revolution."

  "So that's what the Telek uprising is really about?"

  "Perhaps. It won't be the first time a whole people were duped into martyrdom by some smart confidence men."

  Pearl Lu shook her head. "I don't like it. If the money is already gone-"

  "It isn't gone. It's here in the Getoba."

  Her jet eyes grew round, but nothing else changed in her face. She said flatly, "You mentioned three hundred million, I believe. In cash? Here, being shot to pieces with the rest of us?"

  "Don't get avaricious," Durell said gently.

  "I just can't believe it, that's all."

  "I believe it. It's right here in the bank vaults. At least, that's what Georgette Finch says. She knows the combination, she says."

  "Oh ho," said Pearl.

  "What do you mean, Oh ho?"

  "So now you tell me about that idealistic and clumsy official-agency female friend of yours. I have been waiting, for it."

  Durell smiled faintly. "Jealous, Pearl Lu?"

  "Perhaps."

  "You have no reason to be after this morning."

 
She reached across the desk to touch his hand. "Ah, Sam. Oh, Cajun. Three hundred million in cash? International currencies? You must trust me very much to tell me about it."

  "I don't trust anybody. But about Finch?"-

  "Oh ho. Yes, yes. She is very fine. I have her here. I found her wandering alone in the Getoba, near the old Portuguese plaza. I have known for some time that she worked for your people. It is my business to know such things. I thought it peculiar and dangerous for her to be here alone. So I had my men bring her to the house-not without some difficulty, I assure you. She is a stubborn girl." Pearl Lu grinned. "I also knew of your arrival in Bowganda, Sam. I always check the airport and hotels. Such knowledge is useful. So I knew you would be along here too. And I have been waiting to see if you would mention; the Finch girl. I was testing your honesty about her. A woman is a woman, after all."

  "Is Georgette all right?"

  "Are you concerned about her?"

  "I think I am."

  "You are truly honest, Cajun. But you and that overgrown girl? She speaks so oddly. She talks a lot of rumbleseat pidgin."

  "It's her hobby. A mannerism."

  "And she knows the combination?"

  "To the vault where the money is stored, yes."

  "Oh ho," Pearl Lu sighed.

  Georgette Finch looked clean and fresh in new slacks and sneakers and a clean, white, man's shirt, all obviously provided by the establishment. Her ripe mouth was sullen, however, as she watched Durell come into the room, which was one of the bedrooms used by Pearl Lu's girls. It was a very nice room, with good furniture and a big bed, but Georgette looked around it with more scom and finally sat down on the edge of the bed with obvious distaste.

  "Sam, what is this? Am I really in a whorehouse?"

  "Yes."

  She stood up quickly from the bed. "For real? Is this white slavery?"

  "White, yellow, black, and brown. But not slavery. The girls are here willingly. It's their business. They're quite happy at it, making a lot of money."

  She sneered. "And I suppose you know them all intimately, hey?"

  "I know Pearl Lu. She's a good friend. She treated you quite well, didn't she?"

  "Did you tell her anything?"

  "Everything," Durell said.

  "Oh, for God's sake. That's really the cat's whiskers. How can you trust her?"

  "We need her help, and at least she's taken us in off the streets. She's fed you, washed you, clothed you. Isn't that enough?"

  "And what else did she do for you?" she asked.

  "That's none of your business."

  "You look like a tomcat just in from a long night in the alleys."

  Fortunately, Pearl Lu came in. Georgette pointed a finger at her promptly and said, "And you look like the cat who stole all the cream!"

  "Yes, I did, my dear child. Now please be still and let us have no more nonsense. This is a discreet place. We allow no quarreling and certainly no jealousies. We have much more important business to attend to."

  "We?" Finch looked genuinely angry. "I'm supposed to be- Well, you know, I have a job in Boganda."

  "So does Pearl Lu," Durell explained. "She has done work for K Section too."

  Finch stared. "But nobody ever told me-"

  "You didn't have to know."

  She looked even angrier. "But my job here in Boganda is as K Section's Central. I'm not about to be displaced by a-by a-"

  "A madame?" Pearl Lu's smile was dangerously sweet. "My dear, I've worked with Sam while you were still enjoying college life, paid for by your rich daddy. Now please be rational. The problem we are involved in concerns a lot of money, and we must recover it."

  "What do you expect to get out of it?" Georgette challenged. "If you're thinking of two-timing and double-crossing us-? Durell slapped her. It wasn't a hard blow, but it was enough to turn her head aside and leave a growing red blush where his fingers struck her cheek. She stepped back, her brown eyes blurred by shock and uncertainty.

  Durell said, "If you can't recognize a friend, then you have no right to be in this business."

  "Do you trust this woman?"

  "I do. I have to. She knows what would happen to her if she tried for the money on her own."

  Pearl Lu said, "Sam would devote all his time afterward to getting to me and killing me."

  "But suppose you knifed him in the back first?"

  Pearl Lu smiled again. "If I could manage that, then I would deserve the money."

  There was a long silence. Georgette took a deep breath. Her breasts strained against the clean starched whiteness of her borrowed shirt. Then she said, "Yes, sir. Yes siree. Jim dandy. I'll buy it on those terms. We can get the money, and Pearl Lu has the manpower to haul it over here. We can hide it in the Chinese quarter until all this Telek rebellion is over. It's a lead-pipe cinch that General Watsube will be in the Getoba within the next forty-eight hours. All we have to do is keep the money safe until then. Then we can contact Tom Adams in Chad, and through him we'll talk to Washington for instructions. After that the money will be taken care of, flown out by plane or new arrangements made with the Raga for its disposition. And we'll all be in the clear."

  Pearl Lu said, "It will all cost something-my part of it, I mean. The men, the transportation, the hiding place after we get it out of the bank."

  "You'll be paid," Finch said coldly. "You'll be paid enough."

  There were strange lights in Pearl Lu's almond black eyes. "A percentage of the three hundred million?"

  "A very small percentage," Finch said.

  "But a fair one?"

  Durell said, "It will be enough."

  "Thank you, darling Sam. I trust you. I take your word, not hers."

  "Thank you," Durell said. "Let's go."

  Chapter 16

  THEY HAD to wait until after the one o'clock shelling. The day seemed hotter than usual, and the midday sun was a bright blinding glare directly overhead through the heat haze. The air was filled with smells and stinks that drifted over the besieged town in almost tangible waves. The smell of death and corruption, particularly, was everywhere. Regardless of the knowledge that the mortars would open up precisely on the hour, there were always a few careless victims. The defense, the water and food rationing, were efficient, however. The Teleks fought with the desperate courage of men who felt doomed in any case. The armed patrols were alert and dangerous. Almost every man outside the Chinese quarter carried some kind of weapon, a pack of rations, a canteen of water, a cartridge belt for his Kalashnikov automatic rifle. On the far walls were machinegun emplacements, and in the streets there were spider webs of trip-wires, boobytraps, and mines to slow Watsube's troops, should the wall be broken through.

  Confidence seemed to be increasing, spread by that mysterious essence of morale that seeped down through the ranks of the- Teleks, the Moslem shopkeepers, and young boys, from the very top command, the mysterious and efficient mercenary officer corps that had been recruited for the coup. There were German, French, and Russians among the small group of whites who masterminded the defense of the Getoba District.

  Twice, Durell and his entourage had to duck into dismal, black-shadowed alleys to avoid passing defense patrols. Between mortar rounds the populace of the Getoba streamed gratefully into the streets and lanes and did their shopping in the quickly-developed black markets along the souk and in the shops of the area's byways. There were almost a dozen people with Durell, strung out inconspicuously. Finch and Pearl Lu and the rest of her men, scrawny young Chinese who were much tougher than they looked. None of them had an obvious weapon, but Durell did not count on that. Finch was remote and sullen, often eyeing Pearl Lu with open hostility. The Chinese girl seemed intense and anxious.

  During a pause to let a patrol go by, Durell and Finch shared a doorway under a tattered canvas awning in front of a Hindu shop window.

  "You said you know the combination, Finch."

  "Yes, that's what I said."

  "And do you?"

 
"By golly, I know it."

  "How did you come to learn of it?" he asked.

  "What's the matter, do you think I'm lying?"

  "I'd like to learn how you operate."

  "I do just fine, thank you," the tall girl said.

  He waited a moment. "Well?"