Assignment White Rajah

by Edward S. Aarons

  Pala Mir broke the momentary silence. "It is not, after all, a very pleasant time for touring the province. But then, I understand, you are not a tourist. You are really attached to the consulate?"

  "Yes, but I have no immediate duties there," Durell said. "I just thought I'd—"

  He saw the inner doors to the room open slightly, and when he paused, he knew his silence had forced the other man to come in openly and stop eavesdropping.

  "My brother," said Pala Mir coldly, "who calls himself Paul Merrydale."

  It was odd, Durell thought, that the twin sister looked Eurasian but the twin brother looked as if he had just stepped off the curb on Camaby Street. Then he saw that the longish blond hair, carefully brushed over the tops of the ears and worn in thick, curly waves at the nape of the neck, must be dyed and that the tan was not a tan but the natural pigmentation of the skin. They looked alike in the eyes, though. The brother's might have been darker, almost black. And you don't have to be in the business long to recognize eyes that are hostile and wish you dead or, at least, far away and out of sight.

  But maybe the gun prejudiced Durell. Paul Merry-dale carried a beautifully chased, heavy-bored shotgun, slung loosely under a finely tailored arm of his Edwardian, wide-lapeled, white jacket. The muzzle of the shotgun was pointed casually about two inches below Durell's navel.

  Durell did not bother to shake hands.

  "Dear Paul," said Pala Mir, a touch of irony in her voice. "Really, your weapon is overly dramatic, don't you think? The city may be having its troubles, but nothing can bother me here. Still, it's sweet of you to be so protective."

  They might have had the kind of telepathy that folklore attributes between twins, but it wasn't working.

  "Who is this man? Is he the American?"

  "Obviously."

  "I thought you told him you would not see him."

  Durell cleared his throat. He didn't like being talked about as if he weren't there. "Your sister, Mr. Merrydale, was kind enough to offer me the hospitality of your family's plantation up in the mountains. For a littie vacation before I settle down to my consulate duties."

  "Nonsense," Merrydale said.

  "Paul—"

  "Be still," he snapped at his sister. "This man is up to something. You can't trust any of these people, and our position here is deUcate enough without getting involved in something that may prejudice the state's attitude toward the family. God knows, there's enough on record against us from the old man, the great White Rajah himself, even after eighty years." Merrydale didn't mind sneering at his ancestors. "I'm in business here, Pala, and on good terms with the provincial government, and they've been kind enough to leave us alone. Why should we get involved in any of this man's dirty games?"

  "You're jumping to conclusions," Durell said.

  "Ami?"

  The challenge was obvious. It occurred to Durell that Merrydale had a pipeline into the American consulate or perhaps he was a great buddy of Consul Condon, since they liked the same hair fashions and probably spoke the same language. He wasn't sure if his cover had been blown or not, but Merrydale tipped the odds that more was known about Durell's mission than he cared to think about.

  The case could be lost.

  Durell said, "I'm sorry if I've intruded, then. Your pardon. Miss Pala."

  Turning, he crossed the Sarouk rug under the moth-eaten tigers' heads on the wall. Paul Merrydale swung his body slightly, keeping the shotgun pointed at his belly. Durell smiled at him, then reached to catch the chased barrel and knocked it downward to the left. Twisting it, he used his other hand to chop at Merrydale's wrist, closed his fingers around the trigger, and forced the gun to go off. The explosion was shattering, echoing in the mildewed room. Merrydale was stronger than he looked. He gnmted and tried to switch to the trigger of the second barrel, but Durell squeezed his fingers painfully against the metal guard until the man gasped. The shotgun came free. Durell stepped back, holding it, not taking his eyes from the other man. He emptied the second shell, pocketed it, kept the weapon broken, and tossed it to one of the Bombay chairs nearby.

  "I don't like to have people pointing weapons at me," he said. "It's an old neurosis from military service."

  Merrydale was pale. He smoothed his long hair, rubbed his slender, elegant hands with a handkerchief, and looked as if he wanted to wipe off the stain of Durell's touch.

  "Tatzi?"

  The Dobennan stood up immediately. The girl said, "Tatzi is mine. Leave him alone, Paul. I am ashamed of you."

  "This man can have no business with you," said Merrydale thinly. He was trying to recover his normal rate of breathing. "You were a fool to ask him here."

  "I realize that now. However, he is leaving and he will go in safety. Is that clear?"

  "As you say. But you and I wiU come to a new agreement in the future."

  "I want no part of your schemes—or your partners."

  Merrydale looked at her. "Be silent, darling."

  "I shall be. But if you behave like this again, I just might speak to Mr. Durell once more and let him go up to the mountain house—^no matter why he wants to go there."

  Merrydale backed down. He knew his sister better than anyone else. He looked at Durell with a sudden smile. "I do apologize, my dear sir. It was a misunderstanding. You must be a very nervous man to imagine I threatened you with my bird gun."

  "Yes, I'm always nervous," Durell said.

  "Goodnight, then. Your boatman is still waiting."

  Pala Mir said nothing. Glancing at her, Durell read something in her almond-shaped eyes that reflected both anger and fear. He did not think she was afraid of him or angry because of his visit here, and he decided the trip hadn't been without some gain, after all.

  5

  Chiang GI sighed as Durell stepped into the little open boat. His thick white hair gleamed with beads of moisture. The night was hot and a mist curled over the river. "You were nicely entertained, tuan?"

  "I thought you didn't care for colonialist hangovers. The term tuan goes back to the days of the White Rajah."

  "It amuses me."

  Durell sat down in the boat. "Be very careful now, Chiang. How much could you hear?"

  "I heard the shot, but I was not worried about you. There was a wind, and the river was noisy."

  There was no sign of a wind now, and the river was sleek and oily under the rising moon. "Don't start your motor just yet."

  "I understand."

  Chiang poled the little craft along the island's low shore toward the deserted fishing village. The few lights they had seen on the way up were doused now, so someone was still there. But the houses on their tall stilts above the river mud all looked dark and empty. Now and then, rickety poles slid by, marking devious channels in the delta current.

  "We can cross to the Channel of Dead Men, since you are worried," the Malay suggested. "It will be safer. And I think your worry is well-founded."

  Durell looked back. There was a fleck of white on the broad surface of the river, and the sound of a launch's high-powered engines. The launch carried no running lights. It would be the one he had seen tied up at Pala Mir's dock.

  Chiang Gi said, "If they are after us, they will find a watery grave. Long ago in the great days of the Rajah, criminals were executed here by secretly rowing them into this channel and drowning them. They say there were over a hundred, one year. The bones may still be in the mud."

  Durell looked back at the pursuing launch. It was closing fast. The river narrowed, with branches overhung and interlaced high above. It was like entering a hot, humid tunnel. Insects whined, bit, and stung. The roar of the motorboat's engme was quite loud now. Chiang turned his pole abruptly and leaned into it. The boat spim on a dime and shot off in a new direction. Mud scraped the bottom, jolting Durell's spine. The littie craft heeled far over as the old man put his powerful shoulder to the oar. Again they bumped bottom. A dead tree glimmered briefly ahead. Durell took out his gun.

  "Can they follow?" />
  "They can try."

  He counted three men in the launch. It was that close, now. He wasn't sure if Merrydale's face was among the pale, anonymous blobs behind the windshield. The engine was pounding, and the bow-wave made a creamy arc against the dark night. Durell ducked as vines scraped overhead. The channel was very narrow. Chiang Gi began to breathe hard.

  "Give me the pole," Durell said

  "I am all right."

  "You are seventy years old. Tell me how to go, that's all."

  The launch swept past the narrow channel into which they had darted. The sound of its engine echoed away. Durell poled harder, and Chiang Gi sat in the prow, indicating with his left hand for a turn, then waving straight on.

  "Can they cut us off?"

  "Perhaps, tuan"

  "Can we use your outboard?"

  "It is very shallow here."

  Durell pushed the pole harder into the mud. The channel twisted right, left, and divided among low-growing mangrove islets. Now and then the jungle thinned, and the moonlight shone down, letting him see more clearly. He thought he could hear the sound of the surf somewhere to the north and to the left. The moon swung as the channel turned, came around to their back, then vanished under lacy branches overhead. He saw the twinkling of pale orchids opening for the night. A monkey chattered at them briefly. A bird's wings flashed. He remembered his boyhood in the Louisiana bayou country at Bayou Peche Rouge and did not feel completely lost.

  "How much farther, Chiang?"

  "Now. To the left."

  He shoved the pole into the bank and swung the prow around with a purling of water. A drooping branch slapped his chest. An insect bored into the nape of his neck. Water opened before them, and at the same moment light flickered through the jungle, bright shafts that swung from side to side stabbing through the black trees. Durell braked the boat with the pole, aware of sweat soaking his shirt and back. Chiang Gi held up a hand with fingers spread wide.

  "They beat us here. They are waiting."

  "I see."

  "Motor is ofif."

  "Yes."

  The Malay felt around on the bottom of the boat and came up with a long, wickedly curved knife and laid it across his bare knees as he crouched in the prow. His head was bent, as if in thought. Durell debated their chances. There was no hope of reaching the open channel to Pasangara harbor, but there might be a way into the klongs that made a network of waterways through the city. There was a dim glow to the north and east that marked the town. He judged it to be three, perhaps four miles off. Meanwhile, the launch waited. It was invisible except for the probing stabs of light that marked it, the light coming through the branches like the flexing legs of a giant insect stalking in the trees.

  He did not know why Paul Merrydale had come after him like this. It might be petty anger because of the shotgun, but he did not think so. A psychosis of pride and frustration might have impelled the man to start out, but this was too careful, too determined, almost professional. He stood up and poled the boat slowly forward along the narrow channel. The wider waterway opened ahead. He saw a gleam of metal reflected from the launch's chrome trim.

  On the other hand, it could just be part of the racial madness that had seized the province, with men running amok, slashing and burning.

  Either way, you could be just as dead.

  It was safe to assume there were arms aboard the launch, perhaps heavy hunting rifles. The shotgun had been bad enough; it would be reloaded now.

  The others had made one error, however. Their inboard engine was cut, and they should have left it idling, regardless of the soimd, since they were confident enough to give away their position with the spotlight. He turned and considered the shiny new outboard that was Chiang Gi*s pride. They hadn't used it yet. He spoke to Chiang in a whisper, and the old man grinned and made a whipping gesture with his hand across his naked chest. They would have to risk it.

  He poled cautiously almost to the exit of the tiny canal, keeping themselves hidden behind the mangroves. The spotlight wavered up and down, scaaning the tree-tops. He thought he heard voices in Malay, but then a parrot squawked in the vines, and he wasn't sure. You calculate the percentages and then make your try, he thought. Chiang whispered the distances to him, knowing the waterways intimately, and Durell thought about it and saw no way out short of returning the way they had come. But soon the nameless men in the launch would grow impatient and edge into the mangroves, too. Time was running out. If they retreated now, they might be cut off again at the other end. It all depended on the outboard.

  The men in the launch were not sure they had arrived yet. Durell looked up at the moon. It was in its third phase and rising now so that its orb was above the trees. He wished there were clouds, but you can't have everything, he thought.

  He pulled the lanyard on the outboard engine.

  Either it started immediately, or it didn't. If it coughed and died, they would have given themselves away.

  The outboard sprang into roaring life that racketed through the jimgle. Durell slatomed the throttle full over and pointed the bow into the larger waterway. It was a matter of timing. He saw that the width of this arm of the Pasangara river was almost a fifth of a mile across, and there was the glimmer of surf on a shoal far to the right where the sea began. Chiang Gi remained in the prow, his long parang gripped in his hand. The launch was to their left. There was a glimpse of startled faces, a shout, an order. The spotlight swung wildly, stabbing after them, shot overhead, then wavered out across the river. There was stumbling movement in the launch as someone stabbed for the starting button of their engine.

  Chiang Gi pointed to starboard, and Durell slammed the boat that way. They were well out on the river's surface before the launch's engine coughed and roared. From here Durell glimpsed the riding lights of the tanker out in the harbor and a blinking navigation beacon atop the government building. There was a clump of fishing boats farther downstream near the shoal, but that was much too far away to reach.

  "Straight ahead," Chiang Gi said.

  They were halfway across the river before the launch could swing after them. Its engine made a deep-throated, implacable roar. There was no hope of outrunning it.

  "Left, now," the Malay said quietly.

  Durell swimg the bow a little, saw Chiang wave for more, and the little boat heeled sharply, took a long wave of river water, heeled some more, and then slowly righted. The spotlight swept over them, came back, held them in a blinding glare.

  There was a sudden series of bumping waves, a large shoal ripple, and then a wall of blackness looming ahead. The jungle bank still seemed far away. The launch closed fast. Durell wondered if they would risk shooting and decided they could do so, considering the riots in the city. He felt like a fly pinned to the wall. The open boat shuddered, and the outboard kicked up automatically as the screw hit bottom. They lost way immediately, drifted, and he slammed the motor back to vertical. It bit into deeper water and they surged on. It was all painfully slow. The launch was close behind them now. He heard a shout, and then the spotlight slewed off them, canting far to the left and upward. The pounding of its motor became a scream of agony as the launch hit the shoal they had just crossed.

  Chiang Gi laughed. "Scratch one," he said.

  Durell turned their boat to the right again, then straight ahead, taking advantage of the confusion aboard the laimch. For a moment, the spotlight had lost them. He thought he heard a rifle shot, but the bullet came nowhere near.

  "In there," Chiang Gi said. "Right ahead."

  Durell could see very little, but there was no time to recover his night vision after the blinding glare of the spotlight. He heard the rifle crash again, and this time a small plume of spray marked where the bullet hit the river's surface, ten feet to starboard. A wall of dark growth rushed at them, grew enormously taller and wider. It seemed certain they would smash into the river bank. Chiang Gi crouched forward, nodded, and they roared into a slot of water between tall trees, dangling
vines, and mud banks. Their wake made a splashing wash behind them.

  Durell eased back on the throttle.

  There were no more shots. The river and the stranded launch were cut off from view.

  "From here," Chiang said quietly, "we go straight into the city's canals. Take the first klong to the right, and you will be back at your hotel, tuan."

  "And you?"

  "It is my birthday," the old man said quietly. "My family waits for me to celebrate."

  6

  The Kuan Diop Hotel stood on the river bank next to a small park and boulevard that ran downstream toward the resplendent Government Square. The rioting and fire-bombing had come close to the old hotel but hadn't touched the immediate vicinity. The hotel had been built in Victorian splendor by an enterprising Welshman who had once dreamed of tourists and expansionism. The tourists rarely came, and the promise of rubber and tea in the mountains of the province never materiahzed. There was another hotel of American style, a sprawling concrete and glass cube on the waterfront near the Chungsu slums, which had be6n considered colorful by the Madison Avenue executives of the chain. This one was used by diplomats, a few daring tourists, and the local businessmen from the capital. It was mostly empty and echoing, its glitter attracting no one. The Kuan Diop, on the other hand, smaller and cozier, if shabby, was always reasonably full.

  Durell's room, procured for him by the consul, faced the river. A stem-wheeler, out of the '90s, was tied up at the dock just beyond the strip of green park. There was a smell of cooking in the seedy corridors, a murmur of radios and conversation behind closed doors. The bar was crowded with Europeans discussing the race riots, red-faced men who drank their gin straight and sweated under the old-fashioned, revolving wooden fans in the high ceiling. Above the bar was a portrait of the first White Rajah of Pasangara, resplendent in white turban and peacock feathers and jeweled pendants. Long ago someone had defaced the portrait by making a scratch across the surface, and it had been poorly repaired. Chinese businessmen huddled by themselves in one comer of the bar and whispered to each other of their losses from fire-bombing that day and discussed the possibility of insurance from their tong brotherhoods.