Assignment - Karachi

by Edward S. Aarons

  “Rudi showed me pictures from Alessa’s collection,” Sarah said.

  “You haven’t talked much to Rudi since we left ’Pindi, have you, Sarah?” he asked.

  “No. We’ve all been so busy.”

  “You said you wanted to discuss something with me, the night before we left.”

  “Did I? I’ve forgotten,” she said shortly.

  “If there’s something I should know, let me have it.”

  But she was silent, staring at the vista of valley, lake, and distant provincial town. She wore riding breeches and boots, a fleece-lined jacket with a hood that covered her hair. She wasn’t wearing her glasses. Her costume made her look younger, somehow more vulnerable. He realized with some surprise that with a little effort, Sarah could make herself into an extraordinarily attractive young woman. The chill wind colored her cheeks, and her lips were slightly parted, her eyes unguarded as she considered the majestic view. She moved a little closer to him. From the road behind them came the grunting chant of the troopers trying to get the truck back on the path.

  “I can’t get Jane out of my mind,” she said suddenly. “I feel that what happened in Karachi was really all my fault.” “You were tough enough about it when it happened.”

  “I know. But it was habit, from the responsibilities I’d like to be rid of. Don’t you think I’d like to live like everybody else?” she demanded fiercely. “Just to be anonymous, without everyone staring, or flattering me, or thinking what they can get out of me? I’ve had that all my life. It’s made me defensive, and I hoped that Rudi—”

  Durell said, when she broke off, “Was Rudi with you all the time, that last afternoon and evening in Rawalpindi?”

  “It’s not fair to ask me that.”

  “Because you love him and feel loyal and should protect him?”

  “I’ve never been in love before. In Switzerland, it was like a dream. He treated me—well, just like any other girl.”

  “Smart fellow,” Durell said.

  “Do you think his technique was deliberate?”

  “You have to decide about that. But was he with you all that day in ‘Pindi,”

  “No,” she whispered. “Not all the time. I’m sick about it.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “In the afternoon he said he would take a nap. But when I knocked on his door an hour later, he wasn’t there. The servants said he’d gone into the city.”

  “Did he tell you where he’d been when he came back?” “I didn’t ask. I had no right. I mean, I didn’t want him to feel I was putting a leash on him even before we were married. I mean, I want Rudi to know that my money leaves him a free man in all respects, and I wouldn’t make any selfish demands about anything.”

  “Do you still play to marry him when you return to Europe?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What makes you uncertain?”

  But she couldn’t reply. There were footsteps behind them, and it turned out to be Rudi, tall and handsome and blond, with the cold mountain wind blowing his long strands of hair across his flat forehead. He carried a rifle, borrowed from one of the troopers, in the crook of his arm.

  “My dear, it is best if you do not wander away from everyone like this. I know Herr Durell is supposed to watch out for you, but that is my job, too, is it not? And I think I may be more devoted to the task.” His smile never touched his eyes. “In any case, one of the forward troopers reports a party coming up out of the valley to meet us in this pass. It is a military group, believed to be Pakhustis.”

  Behind Rudi was the big figure of Hans. When they moved back to the convoy, Rudi and Hans turned aside, talking quietly. Hans shot Durell a malevolent glance as Rudi spoke earnestly to him. Sarah went back to Alessa, and Durell joined Colonel K’Ayub.

  “About one hundred men, I think,” K’Ayub said, lowering his glasses. “They may dispute our passage. Mirandha-bad is under our national control, but these mountain people guard their freedoms fanatically. They can be quite unpredictable.”

  In a few moments Durell spotted the thin line of men coming up the crest of the pass where they waited. They were mounted on tough, shaggy, little Mongolian ponies. Their sheepskin coats and caps were green, and all had rifles resting across their saddle pommels.

  “I shall meet with their commander,” K’Ayub decided. “You come with me, Durell. The rest stay here with the trucks.”

  They rode down the slope in one of the jeeps, with a dozen troopers trotting alongside. The long line of dark figures came to a halt, and a smaller group spurred their shaggy ponies up the pass toward K’Ayub.

  The commander of the Pakhustis was a man with a scarred and weathered face, a drooping mustache and beard. He wore a karakul cap and bandoliers of cartridges across his massive chest. He saluted K’Ayub, dismounted, and spoke too rapidly in Pakhusti for Durell to follow. K’Ayub’s voice was no longer soft. He was a different man in these mountains.

  There was a brief exchange, and K’Ayub turned to Durell. “The Emir has directed these men to escort us across the valley to S-5,” he said in English. “He does this as a friendly, co-operative gesture.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “No.”

  “There are a hundred of them, and only thirty of us.”

  “Yes. It makes me uneasy to have them riding our flanks. But rejection of their offer will mean no assistance thereafter from the Pakhustis. They have always been difficult. It would be tiresome to have to campaign against them, in these mountains—and they are all brother Moslems, in any event.”

  “Can you make some excuse to refuse the offer?” Durell asked.

  “Yes, but then we will not be permitted in Mirandhabad.” “Can we go around the town?”

  “It will mean another eight hours of marching.”

  “Fair enough. Make your excuses, then,” Durell said. K’Ayub went back to the Pakhusti commander and spoke briefly. The Pakhusti made sounds of objection, gestures toward his mounted men massed in the roadway below. K’Ayub pointed upward. The troopers from the trucks had taken up positions among the rocks and sunlight glinted on their gun barrels. The man in the karakul cap looked angry, scrubbed at his long mustache, and began to shout. K’Ayub spoke even more softly, but his voice was like polished steel. He turned back to Durell.

  “He says there are certainly Chinese patrols to the north.”

  “Across the border?”

  “No man knows where the border is precisely. The Emir’s excuse for offering an escort is to protect us from the Chinese. But it is difficult to tell one snake from another. We could be massacred in the night.”

  Durell nodded. “Tell him we’ll go around Mirandhabad.” There was some more discussion. The Pakhusti’s face was angry, but he wheeled his pony around, shouted to his men, and they galloped away down the pass toward the shining lake in the valley, far below.

  “From now on,” K’Ayub said quietly, “we must be on the lookout for snipers.”

  chapter thirteen

  BY NIGHTFALL they had circled the lake and gone as far as the vehicles could take them. The twin peaks of S-5 seemed no nearer in the sunset light. The trucks and jeeps were parked in a level area below sheer cliffs, tents were pitched, equipment distributed, and the evening meal cooked. K’Ayub was busy on the field radio for a time, then came to where Durell sat alone with his back against a large gray boulder.

  “I have requested aerial reconnaissance,” K’Ayub said briefly, “But only if it can appear as routine patrolling. Planes are not much good in this rugged territory.” He looked sharply at Durell. “You are still convinced that someone among us has Bergmann’s chart?”

  “I’m sure of it. But we’ll soon know the truth,” Durell said, “unless we’re ambushed. We’ve been watched all the way, today. There are watchers on that ridge right now.” He pointed to the east. “I’ve caught some flashes of light up there—probably off gun barrels.”

  “It is to be expected,” K’Ayub nodded. “T
hey are the Emir’s men. They may try to delay us, since Mirandhabad is uncertain of its political affiliation. The Chinese have been flattering the Emir into moving for autonomy, making great promises for the future.”

  “If every hour counts,” Durell said, “we should make a night march tonight. Is that possible?”

  Again K’Ayub nodded. “A good idea. But we must be careful.”

  They told no one of the plan, to keep the camp looking normal in the swift mountain nightfall. Pickets were posted, lamps were lighted. The surrounding dark seemed vast and empty. At midnight, when everyone was rested, K’Ayub said, they would quietly break camp and march to the north. A six-hour lead before sunrise might prove decisive.

  Durell turned in, but he could not sleep. The pressure of time slipping away made tension slide along his nerves. There was more danger from within the camp than from the Pakhustis watching from the higher ridges. The air was cold, breathing a warning of the snow they might reach by dawn at the higher altitudes. There was no moon, and the stars reeled overhead in a crisp black sky. He smoked a cigarette, watching the camp sleep, and thought of Sarah’s loneliness. She was not so different from Alessa there—Alessa, whose preoccupation with the past was a cover for her desire to belong somewhere, to restore her aristocratic family name to one of importance. How strong was this drive in her? He did not know. He knew only that he could trust no one.

  At ten o’clock, everyone seemed to be asleep. He smoked one more cigarette, then slid from his sleeping bag and stood up in the shadow of the nearest tent. Alessa and Sarah slept in the next one. Hans was a long mound of shadow rolled in his bag across the campfire. He looked for Rudi von Buhlen, saw him sleeping about ten feet from the mountain guide.

  Their rucksacks and gear stood near their individual sleeping areas. Durell moved softly around the tent, careful of the loose shale underfoot. Rudi’s rucksack was not far away. He paused, watching the man. There was a sharp report from a piece of wood in the dying campfire, and sparks flew; but Rudi did not stir.

  Durell knelt beside his bag and swiftly undid the straps to explore the canvas compartments. Aside from rations, an oxygen mask that fitted two small cylinders beside the rucksack, and changes of socks and linen, he found nothing. There was a compass, a flashlight, a small transistor receiving radio, a heavy envelope containing Rudi’s passport and identification papers. Durell took the envelope and held it so he could examine its contents in the firelight.

  Passport, two letters from Sarah written in New York, addressed to Rudi at Cannes. He did not read them. A photo, very faded, of a man in a turtleneck sweater with long pale hair and a defiant smile, against the unmistakable background of the Brandenberg Gate in Berlin. It was signed in German with a bold signature—from Uncle Franz to Little Rudi—and a Nazi swastika banner against a building background identified the time the snapshot was taken, somewhere in the late ’30’s. Durell frowned, trying to identify the man’s face. Perhaps only the resemblance to Rudi teased his memory. But he thought not. He had seen this man’s photograph elsewhere, in K Section’s files, perhaps, or in some faded dossier in Paris, at the Deuxieme Bureau’s headquarters. But he could not be certain.

  There was no sign of Bergmann’s chart in the rucksack.

  It didn’t necessarily mean anything. It could be on Rudi’s person. Durell felt irritated by the restraints placed upon him both by Colonel K’Ayub and Sarah. He started to rise— and something gently pricked the nape of his neck. A shadow had fallen across him, cast by someone standing between him and the firelight.

  “You are curious, Mr. Durell?”

  It was Rudi. He had not been in his sleeping bag; the bag had been made up to imitate the shape of a sleeping man.

  Durell moved carefully. A long hunting knife was in Rudi’s hand, and the man’s face was inscrutable, shadowed by the dying campfire.

  “Did you find anything interesting?” Rudi asked.

  “Who is Uncle Franz?”

  “A relative. A man I much admired. But he is dead, long ago.” Rudi gestured to the open rucksack. “I trust you are satisfied?”

  “Not quite. I think you and I have much to settle.”

  “I do not know what you suspect, or what you talk about.”

  “I think you do. Soon we will come to a time when you will be frank about it.”

  Rudi put his knife away and smiled. “We are men of the world, you and I. We need not be enemies. You still suspect me in poor little Jane King’s death, do you not?” His voice hardened suddenly. “Did you speak to Sarah about it? Is this why she has been upset today?”

  “What did you do with Bergmann’s chart, Rudi?”

  “You think I have it in my bag? You must be insane.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “You speak in riddles. I have nothing more to say.”

  Durell gave it up.

  The camp seemed to sleep again. Rudi went back to his sleeping bag. Durell returned to his own and waited for half an hour. Then he moved to the rear of one of the trucks and pulled Alessa’s rucksack from those on the tailboard. But he only got as far as unbuckling the straps, when he was again interrupted. This time it was Sarah Standish.

  “I’ve been watching you, Sam.” She stood fully clothed, ready for the night march. Her hair was tied with a small ribbon, and she wore a quilted jacket over slacks and boots. “What are you doing with Alessa’s things?”

  “Looking for Bergmann’s chart,” he said bluntly. “I don’t know if Alessa has it, but I think Rudi knows where it is. He might have given it to her.”

  “Are you accusing my fiance of being a spy or a murderer?”

  He looked directly at her. “Yes. I am.”

  Her face was pale, blank. How much did she really know about Jane King? How much was she willing to overlook? A woman like Sarah, in love for the first time, could be blindly irrational to protect what would seem most precious to her. He said, “Sarah, did Rudi give you anything to hold for him, last night in ’Pindi?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Before I got back from Qissa Khani—when you claimed you were with him all that day—did he turn something over to you for safekeeping?”

  She said dimly, “He was not with me all the time. I lied to you, and I think you know why.”

  “All right. Did he give you an envelope, or a chart?”

  “He gave me a packet of maps, yes,” she whispered. “Did you examine them?”

  “No.”

  “Where are they now?”

  She gestured to Alessa’s rucksack. “I gave them to Alessa to return to Rudi. I couldn’t speak to him about it, after you—after you told me what you suspected about him. They may still be here.”

  “We’ll see,” Durell said grimly.

  Her voice was dull. “Sam, if what you suspect is true—” “I think you know it is,” he said harshly. “But I think there is someone else—someone who was here in ’Pindi when Alessa, Bergmann and Hans came down off S-5 the first time. Someone who worked with Rudi before. It’s the only reason I don’t step on your fiance right now.”

  She said nothing, and he turned angrily back to Alessa’s rucksack. But once again he was interrupted—this time by Hans. For a camp that seemed to be asleep, he thought in frustration, everyone in it was restless enough.

  Hans put a huge hand on Alessa’s pack.

  “You will not touch anything that belongs to Fraulein Alessa, Herr Durell.”

  “I thought you were asleep, Hans.”

  “I do not sleep when Alessa is in danger. We are all in danger here. You, especially, Herr Durell.”

  “From you, Hans?”

  The man scowled; his deep-set eyes were sullen and angry. “You have taken something from me, I think, that I wanted for a long time. However, we shall see which of us comes back from S-5.”

  But then Colonel K’Ayub stalked over to the truck. Durell gave up his effort to examine the others’ belongings. K’Ayub ordered everyone ready
for the march, to slip from the Emir’s men to the ridge above. He spoke with hard authority. When the others scattered, moving silently in the starlight, Durell told K’Ayub what he had tried to do.

  The colonel looked grave. “If someone has the chart and it travels with us, what can we complain of? He—or she— will be alone against us all. We can watch and wait. My only mission is to verify Herr Bergmann’s discovery of nickel ore, for my government. If successful, a simple radio message will bring a division of troops to hold the frontier. Such a move will naturally be considered an aggressive act by our neighbors to the north. And my government does not wish to tweak the tiger’s tail without good cause. If the flags Bergmann used to mark the ore site are still there, the international difficulties will be worth the trouble. Our objective will be to occupy the area first, and I will brook no interference in this aim.”

  “Your goal is mine, too,” Durell agreed. “But someone among us is a traitor—possibly two.”

  “Then let us give our enemies every chance to show their intention. That is my decision, Mr. Durell. And I am in command here.”

  They marched in double file up the gorge that led north from Lake Mohseri. The route was always upward. A thin moon arose to shine on the twin peaks of S-5, soaring with white slopes against the night. A rough trail provided clear footing for the first two hours. The pines grew scrubby, and often the party was strung out for some distance across exposed rocky slopes. The women did not complain at the forced pace. Now and then Durell dropped back to talk with one or the other.

  There was no sign of pursuit from the Mirandhabad troops. Looking back through a narrow defile, Durell glimpsed the sheen of moonlight on the distant lake far below. A few minarets gleamed silvery in the strange mountain light. Then a growth of pine and scrub oak cut off the view, and he did not see either the lake or the town again.