Assignment- Silver Scorpion

by Edward S. Aarons

  He stared at the blank iron door. Dim light came through a break in the wall at the top of the tower. The iron rivets mocked him. There was fighting nearby on the roof and the walls. It was coming closer. He couldn't wait.

  He opened the door and plunged through fast, note knowing what lay beyond. He ducked right, keeping low, his gun up; but his hip hit an obstruction, and he bounced back to the left, hit something else, and went down on one knee, feeling steel slats under him. For an instant he could see nothing. He had the feeling of open space all around him, as if he were on a tiny platform above a far drop. He thought he heard water lapping below. The place smelled of the river. The light, such as it was, seemed to come from down there, rather than from above. Water dripped on his head, suddenly cool and evil smelling, from the arched brick ceiling over the steel platform on which he crouched.

  He thought he heard something slide and scuffle somewhere ahead. The platform was not limited in that direction. The railing extended forward, over the open space.

  He could not figure it out. Then he suddenly realized that; he was in an old watergate, with the light coming through the opening to the river. He remembered ground-floor palazzos in Venice and how gondolas were withdrawn from the canal into a sort of water garage. He was on a transverse walkway high above this tiny inlet of the river, where Portuguese colonists had once kept their steam launches safe from Natanga tribesmen.

  A smell of age and decay, of rotted wooden docking, of mud and scum and offal, touched his nostrils.

  "Durell!"

  Colonel Chance's voice echoed like brass in the dark space. Durell could not locate him. The brick walls bounced back the sound from every direction, distorting and repeating his name. He crouched lower, holding his gun ready.

  "Durell!"

  Durell called, "Give it up, Colonel."

  Instantly the racketing burst of automatic fire reached for him, chipping at the brick wall, screeching off the iron slats of the high walkway. The winking muzzle flame came from almost directly ahead, perhaps a little to the left. Durell fell flat and aimed a careful burst in that direction. The noise was deafening in the enclosed space. There was no chance to hear an outcry, to tell if he had aimed true. He released the trigger. The echoes died away.

  His eyes were adjusted to the gloom now. Lying flat on the iron walkway, he saw there was a T-junction with another platform on the other side; he made out a second door over there. Down below, there was a small dock, and a long, sleek motor launch was moored to it. A ladder went down from the walkway on that side, toward the dock and boat. He could not be sure, but he thought he saw movement against the wall.

  "Chance! Mickey!"

  There was no answer now. He had fired almost blindly and did not know if his burst had been Effective. He got up carefully and ran in a crouch across the walkway. More shots came at him. He reached the other side of the Watergate. There was a faint burning sensation in his left shoulder, just about the collar bone. He had been grazed. It would be painful later. But it did not hamper his movements. He slid sidewise, his back to the brick wall, toward the ladder that led down to the dock and the launch.

  All at once he saw them, about thirty feet directly below. He did not challenge them again. Chance was just waiting to spot his location. He knew he was invisible to them now, against the dark, arched ceiling of the Watergate. He aimed a burst at the boat, poking the muzzle of the Uzi between the iron slats. He heard a faint cry above the echoes of his firing and checked his finger on the trigger.

  "Durell! Hold it!"

  "Drop your guns," he called. "Both of you."

  "Mickey's been hit. She's hurt badly."

  "Drop the guns," he said again.

  "Right. We quit."

  He heard the clang of their weapons striking the deck down there.

  "Now stand still," he called. "Don't move."

  "I need help for Mickey," came the man's voice.

  "You'll get it."

  He started down the ladder. He saw them now, standing, beside the launch. The woman was on her knees, holding, her stomach. Adam Chance stood with his hands away from his sides, fingers splayed open, to show he was now; unarmed. Durell was halfway down the ladder when Mickey Maitland suddenly straightened up. In the dim light her face was venomous. Her eyes looked insane. She held a small revolver in her hand. In that moment she seemed the very personification of the mythical figure of the Silver Scorpion, the jungle goddess she had tried to emulate. Just before she fired, he thought of all her avaricious efforts to, rob and rule through terror in this new, struggling nation He thought of how she had betrayed everyone-General Watsube, Irene, and the Raga himself, who had allowed her to seek a new life here in Boganda.

  The bullet hit him in the left leg.

  He heard the sound of the shot afterward, as his grip on the ladder suddenly slipped and he began to fall. He thought he heard Chance yell in sudden triumph. They were both turning to jump into the boat. He had lost his footing on the iron rungs and now dangled by his hands. He told himself he could not let himself be destroyed by, this woman who called herself the Silver Scorpion. His shoulder muscles cracked with the effort to pull himself up by one hand. He had not dropped the Uzi. He tried his left; foot, getting his knee on one of the ladder rungs. It was a long way down. He pushed upward and put his weight on the injured leg. Not bad. Mickey had been too hurried take careful aim. He got his other foot on the next rung; and steadied himself. He was sweating.

  Mickey's taunt echoed up to him. "Durell?"

  He did not answer.

  "We're going to make it. You hear the barge's motor, you bloody spook? It's coming for us. Watsube can never stop us!"

  The thrumming beat of the diesel engine washed into the watergate. A shadow crossed the opening into the river. Adam Chance started the launch's motor. It throbbed at once with easy, latent power. Durell tried to shift the Uzi around to fire one last time. He couldn't make it. His left leg suddenly gave way under his weight, and he almost fell again. Then the barge halted outside the gate, blocking the launch's way out.

  He suddenly became aware that all the firing and shelling had ended throughout the old fort. The battle was over. In the abrupt silence the loom of the big motor barge, with the two canvas-covered trucks on the deck, made a sullen, stubborn blockade, preventing the launch from exiting. Mickey Maitland spun the wheel angrily. She screamed at the men on the barge and then maneuvered the launch in quick, splashing lurches, until the bow was pointed at the other boat. Durell began to lower himself again. He had to move slowly, his leg paining him now. Blood dripped down into his shoe. The men on the barge were all armed, lined up around the trucks.

  A powerful flood lamp sprang to life on the big boat, glaring like an enormous eye into the dark cavern of the watergate. Mickey and Colonel Chance were bathed in the hot illumination. They stood upright in the launch, their weapons lowered, staring in dismay.

  Chance started to call out, had to clear his throat. "We're coming aboard!"

  Durell reached the bottom of the ladder. From his angle he could see what the mercenary could not.

  General Watsube was in command of the barge. He stood just to one side of his bereted paratroopers, squat and froglike, his black face tired and sullen.

  He said quietly, "You must surrender, Colonel."

  Chance stiffened in shock. He looked at Mickey, and it was obvious that he was thinking he'd been caught with the General's wife, the woman he had stolen, who had" used him to start the insurrection, who had used the FKP to spread lies, terror, and myths throughout Boganda. His smile was crooked.

  "General Watsube?"

  "Be very careful, Colonel."

  "Yes, sir."

  Mickey suddenly shouted, "Adam, you bastard! Are you giving up?"

  "We can't do anything else," Chance said quietly. "It's the fortunes of war-right, General? Watsube has won. We've lost everything. Are you looking for the money, General?"

  "We know it is in the trucks," said W
atsube. "It will go back into the National Treasury of Boganda."

  "If you don't steal it yourself," Chance sneered

  It was his fatal mistake. Watsube shot him. The single report was like a hammer blow. It knocked Adam Chance backward, his face dissolved in blood and broken bone, his smile gone forever in a splintered mass of flesh. He fell from the launch, splashed heavily into the dark, oily water, disappeared for a moment, and then came up, floating face down.

  General Watsube's broad dark face turned to the wife who had betrayed him. "It is your turn now, my dear."

  Mickey Maitland remained an angry, greedy woman to the end. She was unable to comprehend the man she had married in this distant country. She was unable to yield, compromise, or surrender. Perhaps, however, she knew Watsube better than anyone. Perhaps she was aware of her future in a Boganda prison and could not face it.

  She raised her gun suddenly, aiming at Watsube. Watsube did not hesitate. He fired once, just as he had shot Adam Chance, and Mickey fell forward over the bow of the launch. Her gun slipped from her dead hand. Watsube came forward along the barge rail and peered down at her. He made a brief signal to a corporal nearby, who fended off the launch and shoved it back through the watergate.

  Durell limped forward. "General?"

  Watsube looked up from contemplating his dead wife. His dark, square face was expressionless. "Yes?"

  Durell threw down his Uzi and walked to the barge. The rank of elite troopers stirred. He saw Watsube raise and point his gun at him. He did not know if the angry man would shoot him too. He kept walking until he was clearly in the light of the floodlamp on the barge. He was pleased that he had not shot the woman and Adam Chance himself.

  "Come aboard, Mr. Durell," said Watsube. "The Raga will wish to thank you personally for all you have done for us."

  Durell, with the image of Finch in his mind, did not think it mattered.

  "General, about my friend-the girl-have you found her?"

  "Miss Finch? Come, sir. I believe you need some medical help yourself."

  Chapter 25

  FOR THE first time since Durell's arrival in Boganda, the hours were not marked by the ugly crashing of mortars. He did not remember being taken out of the battered, burning Getoba District. Watsube had a Portuguese doctor with him who promptly injected a sedative in his veins. He remembered seeing Pearl Lu, oddly enough, and her old father and several of Pearl Lu's girls. Pearl had bent over him and kissed him sympathetically and whispered, "I'll cover the preliminary reports to Lisbon Central.

  They'll clean it up and cable to Washington. Don't worry about anything."

  "Pearl Lu, where's Finches She was shot-"

  The Chinese girl kissed him again. "Don't worry about anything, Sam. Please. Just relax."

  He could not help himself. He wanted to keep going, as if something had wound up like a steel spring inside him and had to finish its effort before he could relax. But his physical exhaustion and the doctor's needle settled all that. He felt himself drifting off into sleep, and finally he stopped fighting it. Pearl Lu held his hand, and then her . image faded away into the darkness.

  When he awoke, an air conditioner purred in the window. He studied the ceiling for some time, considering the hot afternoon sunlight reflected there. The room was modern, with a wide bed, fresh coverlets, and soft pillows. It was a woman's room he could smell the scent of perfume. On a mahogany dresser to his right there was a display of bottles, and near it stood a very feminine chaise lounge, upholstered in flowered silk in a subdued pattern. Not a hospital, definitely, he decided. There was still a smell of smoke from burning Getoba, but now, even above the hum of the air conditioner, he heard the sound of a car outside and the sounds of small boys playing. A flame tree rubbed its knobby branches against the upper part of the curtained window.

  His eyes focused gradually. He felt comfortable. He tried his left leg. It was bandaged high up on the thigh, but obviously nothing important had been damaged by Mickey Maitland's bullet. It hurt, but the leg was operative.

  He turned his head as a shadow fell across the bed. Near the paneled doorway stood a tall figure, a dark carving out of Africa's past. The figure moved, came closer, and became Captain Abraham Yutigaffa.

  "Mtamba?"

  "Hello."

  "I have been keeping watch, sir."

  "Thank you. I'm alive."

  "You will be up and about in a day or two, the doctor says. You needed rest more than anything else."

  "And you?"

  "I have slept. I bathed you. I helped the doctor."

  "Thank you again."

  The African's tribal scars glistened on his narrow brown face. His eyes were perpetually solemn. Yutigaffa wore a European brown linen suit, polished shoes, a white shirt, and a solid brown necktie. Underneath the facade the jungle brooded, competent and dangerous and unpredictable.

  Durell said, "I'm truly very sorry about your friend Kantijji."

  Yutigaffa shrugged. "Many were killed, both women and children, in this foolish and treacherous attempt to destroy my country. But it is over now. General Watsube has named me as head of the FKP. I am now a lieutenant-general. There will be much to do. The FKP was almost destroyed by the Silver Scorpion. It was built into a terrible thing of blood, designed to betray the Raga, to turn brother against brother, and detach the Teleks from the Natanga people. It will take a long time to ease the sorrows and to placate the bereaved."

  "Is the Silver Scorpion really dead?"

  "Miss Maitland-she was divorced by our laws during the fighting; and General Watsube denounced her-yes, she is dead."

  "And Colonel Chance?"

  "Dead too. It is all over, sir."

  "What about Willie Wells? He helped us, you know."

  Yutigaffa shrugged. "Gone, mtamba."

  "How, gone?"

  "He has vanished."

  "Can you tell me where I am?" Durell asked.

  "You are in Miss Finch's bungalow. She insisted that you be taken here to recuperate."

  Durell sat up abruptly. His gun, his wallet, his passport and papers were all neatly arranged on a table beside the bed. He felt an ineffable shock of pleasure at Yutigaffa's words.

  "Is she alive?"

  "Yes, mtamba."

  "But when I saw her last, her head and face were covered with blood. I thought she-"

  "It was a scalp wound, sir. It looked very bad. If you had had the time at that moment, you might have realized it had only stunned her. But it bled a great deal. Miss Finch is in excellent shape. There is nothing to worry about with her."

  Durell sank back with a long sigh. "Nothing for you, maybe. Where is she?"

  "Waiting anxiously to talk to you, sir. Can I get you, anything? Are you hungry?"

  "Get me Miss Finch," Durell said

  He waited.

  He could not believe that Yutigaffa had lied to him. Fifteen minutes passed. A half hour. And an hour. The bungalow was quiet. It seemed deserted. During part of the, hour he dozed off. When he awoke again, the light was fading from the window. The day was ending. Somewhere; along the corridor water ran. He slid his feet and legs over the edge of the bed. There were Natanga rugs, woven from native fibers, on the floor. They felt bristly under the soles of his feet. Very gingerly he put his weight on his left leg. A quick spasm of pain went up his thigh, then faded away. He broke into a sweat. He looked down at his naked body, saw the scars of past work he had done, saw the new clean white bandage on his leg. He took a step, almost fell, took another step.

  "Please, Sam. You're supposed to be in bed."

  He looked up, holding on to the carved post at the foot of the big bed, and saw Finch standing there in the doorway. He thought for a moment he had never seen a finer, sight. He was getting sentimental, he thought ruefully.

  She smiled. "You're doing just great."

  "Yes."

  "May I come in?"

  "It's your house."

  "How do you feel?"

  "Worse than I loo
k."

  "Then get back into bed."