Assignment- Silver Scorpion

by Edward S. Aarons

  Colonel Chance weighed the Uzi in his hands and said mildly, "Really, baby?"

  "Kill him," the woman said urgently. "And do it right now. The way you did the bank manager."

  "All right," Colonel Chance said matter-of-factly. "If you say so, hon."

  He raised the Uzi and pointed it at Durell.

  Durell took a deep breath. The big portals of the old church were open now, and he could see the Telek troopers out there, armed with their Russian rifles, waiting to see what their mercenary white officers would do. The sunlight made a blinding triangle of light that came into the darkened bank vault. The smells of dust and heat and death drifted in from the old Portuguese plaza outside.

  Major Wells said quietly, ".Take it easy, Adam."

  "What?"

  "Who are you fighting? The Natangans, which we are paid to fight, or the US government, which spells a lot of gratuitous trouble? Ever since Vietnam, you and I agreed we'd make a living this way, but it wasn't just because we had to put in two years in that bastardly war. So take it easy."

  "Mickey says-"

  "Since when does Mickey command here?" Wells said.

  Mickey Maitland said, "Why, you black son of-"

  Major Wells spoke quietly, with no change of expression on his brown face. "Shut up, you bitch."

  "Listen, don't you-!"

  "Shut up," he said again.

  Something in his quiet manner, in his soft voice, suddenly made the older Maitland sister retreat a step. She put a hand to her cheek as if she had been slapped. "Adam, you can't take any risks with this man, this Durell. He can upset everything."

  Irene wailed, "Mickey is bloody right about that. Kill him and get it over with."

  Adam Chance smiled. "My partner says we'd better-wait. Right, Willie? Anyway, Durell and his girl aren't going anywhere. There's plenty of room at the fort for everybody, while we parlay with Watsube. There's a deal to be made here, I can see that, and any sensible man will be reasonable until he learns what terms he can get."

  "You're not making a deal with Watsube," Mickey, snapped. "That wasn't in the arrangement."

  "Maybe not. But I'm betting that the General thinks it is." Colonel Chance sighed and looked at Durell with lugubrious brown eyes in his handsome, lean face. "So you've got a reprieve, Cajun."

  "Thank you," Durell said.

  "And about Pearl Lu-"

  "She doesn't know anything. Let her go."

  "All right. I don't want any trouble with the Chinese here in the Getoba. None of us can get out, anyway. So let's go, huh?"

  Durell looked at his watch. It was exactly two o'clock in the afternoon. Promptly on the hour the mortar shells began to fall and burst again.

  Chapter 18

  THE CELL was dark and stifling hot. It smelled of the river and rat droppings and garbage. There were two cots in it, and a narrow window that had been boarded up so that only the thinnest hint of daylight seeped through between the cracks. Georgette Finch lay on the cot under the closed window, her hands clasped under her head, her eyes considering the vaulted stone ceiling. Durell tried not to let his anger and frustration move in him too much. He was annoyed by her withdrawn silence too. He had examined the cell, checking the solid iron door with its narrow ventilation grill, and he stood on his cot to test the tiny barred window with its wooden shutter that all but cut out the daylight. There was no way out. He prowled the cell restlessly. The girl lay on her back and bit her lip now and then and stared at the ceiling. He checked the door again. And checked the window once more. Another mortar barrage began, lasting the regular precise five minutes. It was after three o'clock now. The heat in the cell was intolerable. Every effort to move brought about panting exhaustion. They had not been given anything to eat or drink. He was aware of the thirst raging in his throat, and he looked at Georgette and wondered what was going on in her mind.

  "You seem crushed," he said. "Did you have your mind so set on just walking in here and recovering the money?"

  "I guess so. It certainly seemed simple enough," she murmured. "Are they going to feed us soon?"

  "I don't know. Nothing is simple in this business, Finch. Just take it easy."

  "I am. There's nothing else to do. But I'm so thirsty too."

  "That's part of Colonel Chance's technique."

  "Do you really think he got the money?" the girl asked.

  "It's here in the fort. I can smell it," Durell said. "That's what the whole thing is all about."

  "Jiminy. The sisters, you mean?"

  Durell said quietly, "It's pretty plain now, isn't it? The two Maitland sisters from Liverpool, Mickey and Irene, are trying to rape this country of everything they can beg, borrow, and steal, and they're ready to use any means and any man who might help them to do so. They can't be counted as unimportant, compared to Colonel Chance. He's mean enough, but I think Mickey is meaner."

  "She's a real bitch. Were you scared when she asked Adam to shoot you, then and there?"

  Durell sat down on the edge of her cot. She did not move away from him. In the dim light her face looked almost pretty. She was pretty, Durell decided ?A lot of woman?, he thought. He said, "Would it have bothered you if I'd been killed back in the bank?"

  "Sure. I still need you, Sam. I haven't given up yet, have you?"

  "No," he said.

  "But we can't get out of here, can we?"

  "Not for the moment. What kind of edge does Mickey have over Adam Chance?"

  Finch said, "Oh, she's his lover, that's plain. She's got him tied over a barrel. They started together just before the coup, when Chance was an officer under Watsube, on the Boganda Frontier Patrol. But Adam spent more time in the capital than on the borders. He saw Watsube at his home in the city quite a lot. Mickey made a play for Adam, and the first thing you know, everybody was talking about how he had hopped into her bed. General Watsube didn't seem to hear or notice anything. By then Mickey had control of the FKP, so the security people were in her pocket and kept their mouths shut. But I guess the General knew, all right. And about two weeks after that all started, Adam led the Telek rebellion. It can't be a coincidence, Sam."

  "Was Irene in on it from the start?"

  Georgette shook her head and kept staring at the ceiling. "I don't know. Irene plays dumb, but she isn't. Both of those girls are on the make for anything they can get out of Boganda. I think we can agree that they're out to rob the country blind. I think they talked Adam Chance, and the Teleks into attempting the coup just to get the money. But General Watsube happened to be one jump, ahead of them." She laughed grimly. "They didn't get far Watsube bottled them up here in the Getoba right at the start."

  "Is the Raga, President Motuku, innocent of all this?"

  "He's like a lamb. A dear man. Much too idealistic to survive in this world."

  "The Raga has done well enough in the survival department. Don't write him off," Durell said. "He and Watsube didn't live in Africa this long, building a new nation together, to be put down by a couple of Liverpool tarts."

  "They married those tarts, didn't they? You men!" Finch snorted. "Just like you and Pearl Lu-"

  "You sound jealous."

  "Don't be ridiculous."

  He said, "How many other mercenary officers do you know here, Georgette?"

  "Forget them. The Frenchmen, the two Germans, the renegade Russian they're only on the payroll, that's all."

  "Do you think they know about the money?"

  Finch said, "Not if my estimate of Mickey Maitland is correct. She wouldn't share a nickel of it that she didn't have to. She'll lie, steal, desert her husband, hop into bed with Adam, start a revolution, kill anything, to get that money. It obsesses her, I think. And Irene goes along with what her sister tells her to do."

  "What about Chance? Mightn't he have plans of his own?"

  "He's a hard, ruthless character, under all that overt charm. He and Mickey deserve each other, all right. I used to run into him at official affairs, now and then, before the cou
p. I wouldn't put anything past him. He could even give Mickey back to General Watsube, in exchange for a truce that would let him get out with the money."

  "Is Mickey smart enough to think of that?"

  "She's smart enough to cover all the bases."

  Durell said, "What about Willie Wells?"

  "He's decent enough," Finch said.

  "How decent? Would he help us?"

  "Well, that I don't know."

  "What about Kantijji and Yutigaffa? I haven't seen any sign of them since the jute mill. They took off into the Getoba the moment we got through the walls, on business of their own. What business could that be?"

  Finch said irritably, "I don't know all the answers, Sam. That's your business, to find out these things."

  "I just don't want you to hold out anything else on me, Georgette."

  "I'm not. Cross my heart. Sam-?"

  He looked at her, waiting.

  "Sam, are you scared?"

  "I don't like it," he admitted.

  Time passed slowly. There were two more shellings that concentrated on the far side of the Getoba District, before anyone acknowledged their existence in the cell. The heat built up hour by hour. Durell took off his shirt, but kept his slacks and boots on, in view of the things that scuttled across the old stone floor. The girl took off the man's shirt she wore and her slacks and tried to cool off in her bra and panties. It was no time to stand on ceremony. There was something defenseless about her now, in her simplicity. Her antagonism toward Durell had evaporated. She seemed willing to be guided entirely by what he said. He did not think it was fear that motivated the change in her. He had to admit that his own attitude toward her was changing. Her initial obnoxious behavior seemed to be totally gone, and she had proved competent enough during the night and day that had passed.

  After the last barrage, when the echoes of the distant explosions faded away in the twilight of the late afternoon, booted footsteps suddenly rang and clattered on iron stairs outside the cell. Voices muttered, and there was a metallic clink of a key, and the iron door to the cell creaked open. Georgette sat up quickly on the bunk, her legs pressed together, her hands folded in her lap. In the light that came inside from a battery lantern, her face was pale.

  Major Willie Wells entered with a tray of hot food and two Thermos bottles of water and coffee. His brown face was impassive as he put the items down on the floor. Behind him two shaggy Telek militiamen kept their rifles at the ready. Wells stepped back a bit and said, "The condemned eat a hearty dinner, eh?"

  "Who has condemned us?" Durell asked.

  "You did it yourself, man-by coming into the Getoba and trying to mess things up for Colonel Chance. He's not a man who likes to be crossed. Neither is his woman."

  Finch said, "Are we going to be shot?"

  "Probably," Wells said in a flat voice.

  "When?"

  "Would it do you any good to know that, ma'am?" The black American looked at Durell. "I am trying to argue them out of it. Don't ask me why. It isn't because I'm sorry for either of you or want to help you. It's a matter of instinct, a case of self-preservation. I don't think Mickey and Adam are going to get away with what they're trying to do, and even if they do get out of the Getoba, you people will never let them rest, I figure. You'll hound them anywhere they go on earth."

  "That's correct," Durell said.

  "I've told them they won't have any place to hide anywhere in the world. No matter where. China or Russia, Algeria or Cuba. What good will all that money do them in those places? South America? Hell, man, you people have all the connections."

  "Then why did you get into it?" Durell asked.

  Major Wells shrugged. "A guy sometimes just drifts into things. I want to tell you the truth, I kind of enjoyed Vietnam. It was bad enough, but it gave me a sense of pride and honor for a while. It taught me a lot of the facts of life. I'm not an American anymore, you see. I'm a citizen of the world. I'm not talking about the immature and impractical movements of black people back home. They're all dreams, man. The only way out is to belong to the whole world. As for being in Boganda, I don't feel any special affinity to these people. It's just a job. Like I say, I drifted into it. But I don't want Mickey and Adam to make it any worse."

  "Is the money here?" Finch asked. "In the fort?"

  Wells stared at her with blank brown eyes. He looked tired, as if he hadn't really slept since the siege of the Getoba had begun. There was something very remote, very self-sufficient about the man, and Durell wondered what had turned him off, and then he thought of a dozen obvious possibilities, considering his heritage, and he wished it hadn't happened to someone like Willie Wells.

  "You ask me a foolish question, Miss Finch," Wells said in his flat voice. "Did you know I once met up with your father?"

  "The banker?" she asked.

  "The Senator. When they were handing out medals for, Vietnam. I'm one of the boys who kept mine, no matter how I felt about the tin ware then. I didn't send any of them back. They look nice when I apply for military work in other places around the world." The black man paused. "Yes, the money is in the fort, Miss Finch. But you can forget about it." The man's brown eyes slid toward Durell. "I reckon you'd better come along with me; man."

  Instantly, Georgette was on her feet. "Why? What are; you going to do with Sam? Wherever he goes, I go."

  "Shut up," Wells said. His voice changed, turned as sharp and hard as a razor. "You wouldn't like it. Eat your stuff there, Mr. Durell, and then come along. You've got about ten minutes."

  "I'd like to know where I'm going, myself," Durell said.

  "You can eat first," Major Wells said. "And you can make your peace with God while you eat. The lady wants to see you. Miz Maitland, sub, Miz Mickey, Colonel Chance's woman, the ex-wife of General Watsube."

  "Right now?"

  "I said, eat your dinner first. But it won't make her feel more kindly toward you."

  Durell sat down beside Finch and ate his dinner. He didn't hurry.

  Chapter 19

  MICKEY MAITLAND looked even sharper and harder than the first impression he had gained of her at the bank. She was a bit taller than her sister Irene, not quite as plump and curved, and her blond hair, streaked by the African sun, was pulled back in a severe knot at the nape of her pale neck. The room had been one of the old cannon emplacements in the martello fort, and now it had been turned into a bed-chamber which she obviously shared with Colonel Chance. The colonel's uniforms, desk, maps, and military equipment were scattered around, some on the furniture and some on the floor. It was obvious that Adam Chance, who seemed outwardly meticulous and even neurotically tidy, had not been able to cope with Mickey's slum habits of slovenly disorder. The bed was rumpled and unmade and stained with last night's lovemaking. Mickey Maitland Watsube wore light white cotton slacks, slightly belled and flared, hugging her low on her hips. There was nothing of her flesh left to the imagination. She wore a striped singlet on top, no bra-obviously-and her face held only a bit of powder and lipstick, although an elaborate makeup kit stood open on an old wooden trunk that was shoved against the stone wall.

  "Thank you, Willie. You can leave us alone now."

  Major Wells said, "He is a dangerous man, ma'am.?

  ?I can handle him. You can go."

  Wells nodded. "If you say so, ma'am."

  He backed out of the room and closed the heavy plank door. Mickey said, "That's one soldier who knows his place, huh?"

  Durell said nothing.

  The woman paced back and forth, twenty feet from him. There were rattling noises somewhere in the fort, the echo of a man's call, and a distant tramp of feet. He saw the small nickel-plated revolver on a crate beside the bed that served as a lamp table. He wondered if he could go for it. He thought that maybe she had planted it there as bait for him, to give her an excuse to kill him out of hand. He decided to be very careful with this woman.

  "What happened to Captain Yutigaffa and his sergeant, Kantijji?" she asked abruptl
y. "They came in with you, didn't they?"

  "Yes, Yutigaffa showed me the way."

  "So where are they? Why did they disappear?"

  "I don't know."

  "Can't you even guess?"

  "I thought they worked for you," Durell said.

  She smiled. "For me? Why for me?"

  "They are FKP men, loyal to Watsube, I think. So they'd be loyal to you, as Watsube's wife."