Collection 1986 - Night Over The Solomons (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  BUT WHY? AND by whom? It was miles from any known front. The closest fighting was around Murmansk, far to the west. Only Japan, lying beyond the narrow strip of sea at Sakhalin and Hokkaido. And Japan and Russia were playing a game of mutual hands off. But Lutvin had been shot down and then killed. His killers had wanted him dead beyond question.

  There could be only one reason—because he knew something that must not be told. The fierce loyalty of the young flyer was too well known to be questioned, so he must have been slain by enemies of his country.

  Turk Madden began a systematic search, first of the body, then of the wreckage. He found nothing.

  Then he saw the camera. Something about it puzzled him. He studied it thoughtfully. It was smashed, yet—

  Then he saw. The camera was smashed, but it had been smashed after it had been taken apart—after the film had been removed. Where then, was the film?

  He found it a dozen feet away from the body, lying in the snow. The film was in a waterproof container. Studying the situation, Turk could picture the scene.

  Lutvin had photographed something. He had been pursued, shot down, but had lived through the crash. Scrambling from the wrecked ship with the film, he had run for shelter in the rocks. Then, as he tumbled under the hail of machine-gun fire, he had thrown the film from him.

  Turk Madden took the film and, picking up his rifle, started up the steep mountainside toward the park where he had left the Grumman. He was just stepping from a clump of fir when a shot rang out. The bullet smacked a tree trunk beside him and stung his face with bits of bark.

  Turk dropped to his hands and knees and slid back into the trees. Ahead of him, and above him, was a bunch of boulders. Even as he looked a puff of smoke showed from the boulders, and another shot rang out. The bullet clipped a twig over his head. Madden fired instantly, coolly pinking every crevice and crack in the boulders. He did not hurry.

  His final shot sounded, and instantly he was running through the soft snow. He made it to a huge fir a dozen feet away before the rifle above him spoke. He turned and fired again.

  Indian-fashion, he circled the clump of boulders. But when he was within sight of them, there was no one about. For a half hour he waited, then slid down. On the snow in the center of the rocks, he found two old cartridge cases. He studied them.

  “Well, I’ll be blowed! A Berdianka!” he muttered. “I didn’t think there was one outside a museum!”

  The man’s trail was plain. He wore moccasins made of fur, called unty. One of them was wrapped in a bit of raw-hide, apparently.

  His rifle was ready, Turk fell in behind. But after a few minutes it became obvious that his attacker wanted no more of it. Outgunned, the man was making a quick retreat. After a few miles, Madden gave up and made his way slowly back to his own ship. The chances were the man had been sent to burn the plane, to be sure a clean job had been made of the killing. But that he was wearing unty proved him no white man, and no Jap either, but one of the native Siberian tribes.

  * * *

  IT WAS AFTER sundown when Turk Madden slid into a a long glide for the port of Khabarovsk. In his coat pocket the film was heavy. He was confident that it held the secret of Lutvin’s death.

  There was a light in Commissar Chevski’s office. Turk hesitated, then slipped off his helmet and walked across the field toward the shack. A dark figure rose up from the corner of the hangar, and a tall, stooped man stepped out.

  “Shan Bao!” Madden said. “Take care of the ship, will you?”

  The Manchu nodded, his dark eyes narrow.

  “Yes, comrade.” He hesitated. “The commissar asking for you. He seem angry.”

  “Yeah?” Madden shrugged. “Thanks. I’ll see him.” He walked on toward the shack without a backward glance. Shan Bao could be trusted with the plane. Where the tall Manchu had learned the trade, Turk could not guess, but the man was a superb plane mechanic. Since Madden’s arrival from the East Indies, he had attached himself to Turk and his Grumman, and the ship was always serviced and ready.

  Turk tapped lightly on Chevski’s door, and at the word walked in.

  Commissar Chevski was a man with a reputation for efficiency. He looked up now, his yellow face crisp and cold. The skin was drawn tightly over his cheekbones, his long eyes almost as yellow as his face. He sat behind his table staring at Turk inscrutably. Twice only had Turk talked with him. Around the port the man had a reputation for fierce loyalty and driving ambition. He worked hard and worked everyone else.

  “Comrade Madden,” he said sharply. “You were flying toward the coast today! Russia is at war with Germany, and planes along the coast invite trouble with Japan. I have given orders that there shall be no flying in that direction!”

  “I was ordered to look for Comrade Lutvin,” Madden said mildly, “so I flew over the Sihote Atlins.”

  “There was no need,” Chevski’s voice was sharp. “Lutvin did not fly in that direction.”

  “You’re mistaken,” Turk said quietly, “I found him.”

  Chevski’s eyes narrowed slightly. He leaned forward intently.

  “You found Lutvin? Where?”

  “On a mountainside in the Sihote Atlins. His plane had crashed. He was dead. His ship had been shot down from behind, and Comrade Lutvin had been machine-gunned as he tried to escape the wreck.”

  Chevski stood up.

  “What is this nonsense?” he demanded. “Who would machine-gun a Russian flyer on duty? We have no enemies here.”

  “What about Japan?” Madden suggested. “But that need make no difference. The facts are as I say. Lutvin was shot down—then killed.”

  “You landed?” Chevski demanded. He walked around from behind his desk. He shook his head impatiently. “I am sorry, comrade. I spoke hastily. This is serious business, very serious. It means sabotage, possibly war on a new front.”

  * * *

  CHEVSKI WALKED BACK behind the table. He looked up suddenly.

  “Comrade Madden, I trust you will say nothing of this to anyone until I give the word. This is a task for the OGPU, you understand?”

  Madden nodded, reaching toward his pocket. “But, com—”

  The Russian lifted a hand.

  “Enough. I am busy. You have done a good day’s work. Report to me at ten tomorrow. Good night.” He sat down abruptly and began writing vigorously.

  Turk hesitated, thinking of the film. Then, shrugging, he went out and closed the door.

  Hurrying to his own quarters, he gathered his materials and developed the film. Then he sat down and began studying the pictures. For hours, he sat over them, but could find nothing. The pictures were of a stretch of Siberian coast near the mouth of the Nahtohu River. They were that, and no more. Finally, almost at daylight, he gave up and fell into bed.

  It was hours later when he awakened. For an instant he lay on his back staring upward, then glanced at his wrist-watch. Nine-thirty. He would have barely time to shave and get to Chevski’s office. He rolled over and sat up. Instantly, he froze. The pictures, left on the table, were gone!

  Turk Madden sat very still. Slowly, he studied the room. Nothing had been taken except the pictures, the film, and the can in which it had been carried. He crossed the room and examined the door and window. The latter was still locked, bore no signs of having been opened. The door was as he had left it the night before. On the floor, just inside the door, was the fading print of a damp foot.

  Madden dressed hurriedly and strapped on a gun. Then he went outside. The snow was packed hard, but when he stepped to the corner he saw a footprint. The snow was melting, and already there were three dark lines of earth showing across the track under his window, three lines that might have been made by an unty with a rawhide thong around it!

  Suddenly, Turk glanced up. A squad of soldiers was coming toward him on the double. They halted before him, and their officer spoke sharply.

  “Comrade Madden! You are under arrest!”

  “Me?” Turk gasped, incredulo
us. “What for?”

  “Come with us. You will know in good time.”

  They took him at once to Commissar Chevski’s office. Turk was led in and stopped before Chevski’s desk. There were five other men in the room. Colonel Granatman sat at the table beside Chevski. In a corner sat Arseniev of the Intelligence. He looked very boyish except for his eyes. They were hard and watchful. The other two men Madden did not know.

  “Comrade Madden!” Granatman demanded. “You flew yesterday over the Sihote Atlin Mountains? You did this without orders?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “The prisoner,” Chevski said coldly, “will confine himself to replies to questions.”

  “You reported that you found there the body of Comrade Fyodor Lutvin, is that right?”

  “Yes.” Turk was watching the proceedings with astonishment. What was this all about?

  “What are the caliber of the guns on your ship?” Granatman asked. “Fifty caliber, are they not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Comrade Olentiev,” Granatman said, “tell us what you found when Commissar Chevski sent you to investigate.”

  * * *

  OLENTIEV STEPPED FORWARD, clinking his heels. He was a short, powerful man with a thick neck and big hands. He was, Madden knew, an agent of the OGPU, the all-powerful secret police.

  “I found Fyodor Lutvin had been shot through the body with fifteen fifty-caliber bullets. His plane had been shot down. The gas tank was riddled, feedline broken, and instrument panel smashed. Most of the controls were shot away.

  “I found the tracks of a man and where he had turned the body over, and followed those tracks to where a plane had been landed in the mountains nearby.

  “On return I reported to Commissar Chevski, then received the report of my assistant, Blavatski. He ascertained that on the night of Thursday last, Comrade Lutvin won three hundred rubles from Comrade Madden at dice.”

  “Commissar Chevski,” Granatman asked slowly, “who in your belief could have attacked Lutvin in that area?”

  “The colonel is well aware,” Chevski said quietly, “that Russia is at war only with Germany. If we have a killing here, it is my belief it is murder!”

  “Colonel Granatman,” Turk protested, “there was evidence of another sort. I found near the body a can containing aerial photographs taken along the coast near the mouth of the Nahtohu River.”

  “Photographs?” Granatman frowned. “Did you report them to the commissar?”

  “No, I—”

  “You developed them yourself?” Granatman interrupted. “Where are they?”

  “They were stolen from my quarters last night,” Madden said.

  “Ah!” Chevski said. “You had photographs but they were stolen. You did not report them last night. You flew over a forbidden area, and you, of all those who looked, knew where to find Fyodor Lutvin’s body!”

  Granatman frowned.

  “I would like to believe you innocent, Comrade Madden. You have done good work for us, but there seems no alternative.”

  Turk Madden stared in consternation. Events had moved so rapidly he could scarcely adjust himself to the sudden and complete change in affairs. The matter of the three hundred rubles had been nothing, and he had promptly forgotten it. A mere sixty dollars or so was nothing. In Shanghai he had often lost that many hundreds, and won as much.

  “Say, what is this?” Turk demanded. “I’m sent out to look for a lost plane, I find it, and then you railroad me! Whose toes have I been stepping on around here?”

  “You will have a fair trial, comrade,” Granatman assured him. “This is just a preliminary hearing. Until then you will be held.”

  Olentiev and Blavatski stepped up on either side of him, and he was marched off without another word. His face grim, he kept still. There was nothing he could do now. He had to admit there was a case, if a flimsy one. That he had gone right to the body, when it was where it wasn’t expected to be—that there was no other known plane in the vicinty but his own—that the gun calibers were identical—that he had landed and examined the body—that money had been won from him by Lutvin—that he had told an unverified story of stolen photographs.

  * * *

  THROUGH IT ALL, Arseniev had said nothing. And Arseniev was supposed to be his friend! The thought was still puzzling him when he became conscious of the drumming of a motor. Looking to the runway, not sixty feet away, he saw a small pursuit ship. The motor was running, it had been running several minutes, and no one was anywhere near.

  He glanced around quickly. There was no one in sight. His captors were at least a dozen feet away and appeared to be paying no attention. Their guns were buttoned under their tunics. It was the chance of a lifetime. He took another quick glance around, set himself for a dash to the plane. Then his muscles relaxed under a hammering suspicion.

  It was too easy. The scene was too perfect. There wasn’t a flaw in this picture anywhere. Deliberately, he stopped, waiting for his guards to catch up. As he half-turned, waiting, he saw a rifle muzzle projecting just beyond the corner of a building. Even as he looked, it was withdrawn.

  He broke into a cold sweat. He would have been dead before he’d covered a dozen feet! Someone was out to get him. But who? And why?

  The attitude of his captors changed suddenly, they dropped their careless manner, and came up alongside.

  “Quick!” Olentiev snapped. “You loafer. You murderer. We’ll show you. A firing squad you’ll get for what you did to Lutvin!”

  Turk Madden said nothing. He was taken to the prison and shoved into a cell. The room was of stone, damp and chilly. There was straw on the floor, and a dirty blanket. Above him, on the ground level, was a small, barred window.

  He looked around bitterly.

  “Looks like you’re behind the eightball, pal!” he told himself. “Framed for a murder, and before they get through, you’ll be stuck.”

  He walked swiftly across the cell, leaped, and seized the bars. They were strong, thicker than they looked. A glance at the way they were set into the concrete told him there was no chance there. He lay down on the straw and tried to think. Closing his eyes, he let his mind wander back over the pictures. Something. There had been something there. If he only knew!

  But although the pictures were clear in his mind, he could remember nothing. Thinking of that lonely stretch of coast brought another picture to his mind. Before his trip to pick up Arseniev from the coast of Japan he had consulted charts of both coasts carefully. There was something wrong in his mind. Something about his memory of the chart of the coast and the picture of the coast near the Nahtohu River didn’t click.

  * * *

  THE DAY PASSED slowly. The prison sat near the edge of a wash or gully on the outskirts of town. The bank behind the prison, he had noticed, was crumbling. If he could loosen one of the floor-stones—it was only a chance, but that was all he asked.

  Shadows lengthened in the cell, then it was dark, although the light through the window was still gray. Pulling back the straw, he found the outline of a stone block.

  The prison was an old building, put together many years ago, still with a look of seasoned strength. Yet time and the elements had taken their toll. Water had run in through the ground-level window, and it had drained out through a hole on the low side. But in running off, it had found the line of least resistance along the crack in the floor. Using the broken spoon with which he was to eat, he began to work at the cement. It crumbled easily, but the stone of the floor was thick.

  Four hours passed before he gave up. He had cut down over three inches all around, but still the block was firm, and the handle of his spoon would no longer reach far enough. For a long time he lay still, resting and thinking. Outside all was still, yet he felt restless. Someone about the airport wanted him dead. Someone here was communicating with the man who wore the unty, who had fired at him with the old Berdianka in the mountains. Whoever that person was would not rest until, he, Turk Madden, was killed.
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br />   That person would have access to this prison, and if he were killed, in the confusion of war, not too much attention would be paid. Arseniev had been his only real friend here, and Arseniev had sat quietly and said nothing. Chevski was efficiency personified. He was interested only in the successful functioning of the port.

  But it was more than his own life that mattered. Here, at this key port, close to the line that carried supplies from Vladivostok to the western front, an enemy agent could do untold damage. Lutvin had discovered something, had become suspicious. Flying to the coast, he had photographed something the agent did not want known. Well, what?

  At least, if he could not escape, he could think. What would there be on the coast that a man could photograph? A ship could be moved, so it must be some permanent construction. An airport? Turk sat up restlessly. Thinking was all right, but action was his line. He sat back against the wall and stared at the block of stone. The crack was wide. Suddenly, he forced both heels into the crack, and, bracing himself against the wall, pushed.

  The veins swelled in his forehead, his palms pressed hard against the floor, but he shoved, and shoved hard. Something gave, but it was not the block against which he pushed. It was the wall behind him. He struggled to his feet, and turned. It was much too dark to see, but he could feel.

  His fingers found the cracks in the stones, and his heart gave a great leap. The old wall was falling apart, the cheap cement crumbling. What looked so strong was obviously weak. The prison had been thrown together by convict labor eighty years before, or so he had been told. He seized his spoon and went to work.

  * * *

  IN A MOMENT, he had loosened a block. He lifted it out and placed it on the floor beside him. What lay beyond? Another cell? He shrugged. At least he was busy. He took down another block, another, and then a fourth. He crawled through the hole, then carefully, shielding it with his hands, struck a match.