Assignment - Mara Tirana

by Edward S. Aarons

  “So you drove a knife into the boy,” she said flatly.

  “He was a boy, but he was the enemyl”

  Mara Tirana said nothing.

  Gija fell to his knees before her. “Mara, can you forgive me?”

  She said nothing.

  He told himself he loved her. He did not know how or when it had happened. But he knew this had been a truth from the moment he first saw her with Durell. She had been lifeless then, but in the days that followed she had come alive a little, animated by the hope of saving her brother. Now she was like the dead again, unmoved by what was happening around her. He had destroyed her as surely as he had killed Mihály. . . .

  Later that day, they had found an obscure fishing hamlet where the rickety dock was hidden from the main stream of river traffic by minor channels. The Luliga tied up there to put the scout car ashore, and it was then that Galucz insisted that the two women, Deirdre and Mara, go along in the car rather than stay on the barge.

  “I might as well tell you,” the captain said heavily. “It’s been on the radio this morning—wholesale arrests in Bratislava, Racz and Budapest. It means our underground railway organization on the Danube is being smashed without pity. Our turn is next. If they do not know yet about the Luliga, it is only a matter of time. And when that time comes, I mean to stand by my plan to blow up the barge. Better that than a mock trial or slave camps and a walk to the wall some cold, dark morning.”

  “You seem sure it will happen,” Durell said.

  “I am sure,” the bearded man said heavily.

  The few peasants and fishermen who watched them unload the car seemed dull-eyed, without dangerous curiosity. A mud road led through the swamps and lakes toward the distant outline of rising foothills and mountains beyond. The Luliga would remain at the village for forty-eight hours, waiting their return. But it was plain that Captain Galucz did not expect destiny to let him survive that long.

  They drove north on the dirt road until they joined a major highway that paralleled a railroad track, and Gija pushed the scout car at its top speed. The only traffic was an occasional convoy of trucks or a speeding military cyclist.

  There were no check points to pass. And Gija, who kept a map of the district in his mind’s eye, detoured around all the larger towns.

  At dusk they were hidden in pine woods five miles from Viajec. It was a cold and lonely spot. They had decided to wait until complete darkness, but Gija was too impatient, and went scouting ahead alone. He was gone a long time. The night was dark, and the rain had begun when he returned.

  “Could you get close to your house?” Durell asked.

  Gija shook his head. “I did not try. I saw Stana the Gypsy. He told me my father is dead, and Lissa is in jail in Viajec. Medjan took her there. There are traps on Zara Dagh, men watching the house. It is a trap for us, ready to spring when we reach in for the American.”

  Durell was silent for a moment. “What do you suggest we do?”

  Gija’s gloved hands moved aimlessly, smoothing the pine needles on the ground where he knelt in the shadows. “If we go in, it must be done quickly. But a smart animal can snatch the bait and avoid the teeth of the trap if he is fast enough.”

  “Then we must be fast enough.”

  “I don’t know. Stana says it is impossible, except by the Roman road.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A trace trail over the mountains from Zara Dagh. A back way in. Very rugged. Difficult to follow.”

  “Do you know it?”

  “Not I. But Lissa once explored it alone, on a hiking trip. She likes such things. She says the old trace follows the ridges. It would take us straight along the mountain tops to the Danube and beyond. But only Lissa could show us the way.”

  “Then let’s get Lissa,” Durell decided. . . .

  Now, two hours later, Durell stood alone with Petar Medjan under the bridge behind the Viajec police post. The rain was cold, dappling the river. Long icicles hung from under the bridge. He had a gun thrust under Medjan’s jaw and the security man looked at him with brooding black eyes, ignoring the blood that ran down through his black moustache.

  When Gija was out of earshot, returning to the scout car and Deirdre and Mara, Medjan said: “You will not fire that gun. It would create an alarm.”

  “We have only our lives to lose,” Durell said, “and they are forfeited already. Understand that. Either we succeed or we die. If you force me to fire, I will. Believe that.”

  Medjan’s head was tilted back uncomfortably by the pressure of the gun muzzle. He looked down from his strained attitude at Durell. “I believe you,” he whispered. “What do you want of me?”

  “I want Gija’s sister. Is she in there, in the station?” “Yes. Since yesterday.”

  “Why was she arrested?”

  “We know everything, about Stepanic, the American, and you. You are here to smuggle him home, eh? But you won’t succeed. We know Adam Stepanic is on Zara Dagh. You’ll never get him. We are only waiting for you, I think. I'm not in command here, though. I'm not responsible for what happened to Lissa. I didn’t want to do it.”

  “Did she give you a statement?”

  “No. It would have been better for her if she did. I begged her to talk. I didn’t want to—to question her. But I had to obey orders.”

  “Yes,” Durell said bitterly. “You obey orders. You are innocent. You torture and murder, just like the Nazis, in the name of obeying orders, in the name of duty.”

  “Please, I—”

  “I know what you are,” Durell said, and he sounded dangerous, more threatening than Gija’s early violence. Medjan knew he could die easily now.

  “Please, I want to help her too. I—I am fond of Lissa—”

  There came quick, crunching footsteps along the river bank ravine. Durell stepped back and turned his head to see who it was. It was Gija, returning from the scout car. Gija dropped to one knee in the shadows under the bridge. “We cannot wait much longer. Is Lissa in there?” “Yes, but I don’t know her condition.” Durell looked at Petar Medjan. “Can she walk?”

  “I—I think so.”

  Gija sucked air between his teeth. “You did it, Petar?” “I had to. It was Kopa’s orders. Please, Gija, let me help you. We’re old friends, we understand each other—”

  “Is it because you’re afraid to die?” Gija asked the Turk.

  “No, it isn’t that at all! It—”

  In that moment they heard the scream begin from inside the police station. They turned their heads together to stare at the high, blank wall above them.

  The screaming went on and on.

  They knew the sounds were torn from Lissa’s throat. Then they heard a shot. And another.

  And the screaming ended.

  CHAPTER XIX

  After the shots, the silence flowed back in a thick, frozen wave.

  Then someone shouted far down the village street. Another shout came from inside the police station. Medjan groaned and fell to his knees. Durell grabbed his collar and hauled him up again and rasped: “How many men do you have inside?”

  “Five—no, six. . . .”

  “Where?”

  “The guard room, downstairs, but—”

  Gija cursed, spun around, scrambled up the river bank. Durell shouted after him, but the river pilot did not stop. Durell gestured with his gun. “Go on, Medjan. Inside. Show us where Lissa is.”

  “I don’t know what happened, I don’t—”

  “Let’s go see.”

  Medjan stumbled after Gija. Durell was hard on his heels. They were at the back door, open where Gija had plunged inside, when the grenade went off somewhere in the front of the police station.

  The explosion was thunderous. Acrid smoke billowed out into the yellow-lighted passage ahead. Medjan coughed and threw an arm across his face. There were screams and groans from up ahead. Then running steps sounded. Gija appeared. His teeth shone in a grimy face. “That was me. Come on. She’s upstairs, with
Kopa.”

  A shot cracked from the head of the stairs. A uniformed man stood there, gun in hand. Gija fired in return. The man fell down the stairs, sprawled at their feet. Gija jumped over him, ran up.

  “Give me a gun,” Medjan gasped. “Let me help.”

  “You?” Durell was startled. “Why?”

  “I—they’ll kill me—for failing, you see—no use—”

  Durell looked at the big man. Petar Medjan looked half wild in his plea. He could understand the other’s confusion, but Medjan could not be trusted. He shook his head. “Go up,” he ordered again.

  Medjan thudded up the steps, with Durell after him.

  They found Gija in the doorway to Lissa’s cell. The pilot and his sister stared at each other over the body of Colonel Kopa. Lissa had a gun in her hand; her face was blank, dull. Her mouth was bruised and one eye was cut. Yet she stood in defiance and pride, unbeaten in her tall body. . . .

  “So you came, Gija. . . .” she whispered.

  “Am I too late?”

  “No. . . .” She looked at Durell and Medjan. “I think not.”

  “What happened here?”

  “He came to question me. He thought Petar was—was with me. He grew angry and told me the Luliga had blown up in the Danube. It happened at four o’clock this afternoon, he said. I thought—you-—”

  Gija made a sound of anguish and despair, shook his head as if to rid himself of the image of fat, bearded Captain Galucz’ self-destruction.

  Lissa added: “Kopa said you were all dead. So I said I would sign his confession. And when he handed me the paper, I snatched his gun and shot him.”

  “Your screams? We heard you screaming,” Gija whispered.

  “He—he took my arm—” The girl’s face was white. Durell saw the way she held her left arm. The wrist looked broken. But she ignored the pain. “Gija, they are watching the house. Only Jelenka is there, with Adam Stepanic. It is a trap, so be careful. They wait for you—”

  Durell paused another moment to look at Colonel Kopa’s body. The bald man had fallen to his knees, and then his pudgy body slid over to a foetal position. The slack jaw and heavy lips opened in inevitable surprise. This one, too, Durell thought. Like Harry Hammett, Kopa’s victim. Killer and victim both ended in surprise. You did your job in this business, and you had to work as if you were sure of survival. But you were never sure of anything—least of all the time and place when the end would come.

  He lifted his head as Lissa said: “You, Petar? You are here?

  “I want to help,” Medjan said hoarsely.

  “We need him, I think,” Gija said.

  The girl’s eyes blazed. “Gija, he is one of them. If you knew how he was with me—”

  A siren began to wail distantly at the far end of the village.

  “Let’s go,” Durell said. “We’ve run out of time.”

  They raced down the steps to the back door. Shots echoed from the far end of the main street. Yells of alarm came from the military barracks, but it meant only panic excitement among the troops there. Durell hoped they would keep themselves busy shooting at shadows for the next few moments.

  Deirdre was behind the wheel of the scout car. She looked like a slim boy in her uniform coat and cap. She halted the car at the back door of the police post, near the river bank. They all tumbled in, crowding Mara on the back seat. Once more, Gija indicated Medjan.

  “Do we take him with us?”

  “He’ll get us through the men on Zara Dagh,” Durell decided.

  Medjan nodded. “Yes, let me prove to you I will help. I am sick of things here. I did not realize—I did not know myself—”

  “He is lying,” Gija snapped. “He’s a torturer, a killer—”

  “Get in, up front with me,” Durell said to Medjan.

  They took off with a jolt as Deirdre clashed the unfamiliar gears, jouncing past the police station to the bridge approaches. The wail of the siren split the dark, rainy night with shivering torment. A spotlight glared into life from a wooden watchtower across the bridge. It scoured the road and focused on the scout car. At once Gija lurched up and grabbed at the mounted machine-gun. The first burst of racketing shells shattered the bright lens. The darkness came back and they plunged on across the bridge.

  At once the highway was left behind, under Gija’s shouted directions. Deirdre swung into a dirt road that swept under the wooden guard tower. A bullet screamed off the hood. The windshield starred, shattered. The sound of gunfire swept after them.

  “Turn off your lights!” Gija shouted.

  “But I can’t see—” Deirdre gasped.

  “I will tell you how to go!”

  Deirdre snapped off the lights. The car seemed to fall into an endless black tunnel, lurching and twisting. Above the straining motor came Gija’s harshly shouted directions. They were climbing a dirt road, nothing more than twin ruts that twisted up the lower slopes of Zara Dagh, through thickening pine woods.

  Durell looked back. The village of Viajec blazed with lights, seen dimly in the valley below through the flicker of dark trees. The car struggled upward on the primitive path. He saw that Deirdre’s face was pale and strained. Her strength, as she fought the jolting wheel, was limited. But when he signalled that he wanted to take over, she shook her head. He reached for the wheel and signed for her to slide over his lap and take his place on the front seat, and at last she yielded. During the maneuver, the car slithered dangerously on the trail. Trees, shrubs and rocks swung in a wild pattern before them. Then Durell had his foot on the gas pedal and a solid grip on the wheel.

  He tramped on the gas, listening to Gija’s directions. Pursuit had been organized finally in the village below, - but it was still confused. Still, the time gap was dangerously narrowed now.

  Then all at once the wheels spun helplessly on slick pine needles as the grade up the mountain became too steep. For a moment they almost turned over. But Durell fought the car to a halt, there came a crash as they slapped into a grove of young pines, and he cut the engine.

  Silence and darkness flowed thickly over them.

  Then a spotlight suddenly stabbed from above and a man shouted an order to halt. Gija jumped from the car.

  “Hold it,” Durell snapped. He swung to Medjan. “Are they your men on watch around the hut?” When Medjan nodded, he went on: “Identify yourself to them. Quickly!” Medjan nodded again and cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted into the glare of arresting light. There came an answering hail and the spotlight was turned out. Medjan said: “We can go on foot from here.”

  Durell looked down the mountainside. The nearest lights of their pursuers were still at the bridge. They should have blown it up, he thought, with the dynamite Gija had taken with him. As it was, they had only a ten-minute start. Time to get to the hut for Stepanic and the old woman, and then lose themselves somehow on the dark mountain.

  They got out of the car. Gija loaded weapons on everyone except Lissa. The red-haired girl looked white and agonized from her injured wrist. They climbed into the woods. When a challenge came to them where the light had been, Medjan shouted back harshly. His words carried authority. There were no further challenges.

  They reached the hut in fifteen minutes. Medjan insisted they had enough time. “I ordered the men down off the mountain,” the big lieutenant said. “They’ll run into those coming up from the village and create a fine confusion. It will be some time before they sort themselves out.”

  Gija toiled along the dark trail through the pines. “Why do you help us now, Petar? You have always been our enemy.”

  “No, no. I was your hidden friend.”

  “Because of Lissa?”

  “It is more important than a woman,” Medjan said. “It is as important as Viajec, what we have been and always stood for. There is no understanding between Viajec and the regime. I always knew that. But now because of all this there will be trials and executions and perhaps everyone will be shipped off to labor camps. I know, Gija. I hav
e seen it happen to other villages that refused to change their old-fashioned ways. They look only for an excuse and an opportunity to destroy the old way of life.”

  “So you decided to come over to our side?” Durell asked.

  “You do not accept me. But I am here. And I will help you.”

  “Do you want to go even farther with us?” Gija asked.

  “No, I belong on Zara Dagh. I will stay here.”

  The hut loomed up out of the shadows, small against the bulk of towering mountains around them. The rain drove harder across the hills. It was difficult to walk, and they slipped and stumbled for the last few steps.

  As far as Durell could see, Medjan had given them the last help they needed. There was still no pursuit from the valley below.

  Adam Stepanic met them at the door. Durell shook hands briefly. There was little time for talk. He did not miss the way Stepanic turned eagerly toward Lissa, taking her in his arms with gentle, incredulous relief.

  The old woman, Jelenka, was like dark, monolithic stone. She betrayed no surprise at Gija’s return with all these strangers. She did not seem aware of them, in fact. She sat in silence, mourning as she had from the moment her husband had died.

  Durell organized things quickly. Of first importance were Stepanic's instrument packages from the wrecked capsule. He distributed these among the group in the hope that at least some of the records of Stepanic’s historic flight could be returned to the Pentagon. They took what food there was in the hut, working swiftly against the inevitable chase that would crawl up the mountain after them. Then it was time to leave.

  It was Stepanic who pointed to the old woman.

  “She won’t go with us. She says she couldn’t make it.” “We can’t leave her,” Durell said. “Talk to her, Lissa.” The girl spoke briefly to her mother. From far down the mountain came a dim, echoing shot. The old woman asked for something and stood up and pointed to Medjan.