Assignment - Black Viking

by Edward S. Aarons

  “What I have done is my business. But Olaf—”

  “Just what did he mean to you?”

  “Nothing. He was a stranger.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “He tried to wreck us, did he not? Why did he do that?”

  “If we knew the answer, we’d know a lot more than we know now. Hold still again.” He plucked out one of the splinters with tweezers and she whimpered, wriggled, and settled down again. He wished he could see her face. He had the feeling that the noises she made were at variance with a small secret smile she hid in her arm. He pulled out a second splinter. “You haven’t told me all you know about the late Olaf Jannsen, sweetheart.”

  “And you didn’t tell me about that Russian trawler. It was Russian, was it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were to meet someone aboard her?”

  “Yes.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “Make other arrangements. You have a nasty one right here.” He touched her, and she wriggled again. He wondered if she were being deliberately provocative. “Did you see the man who called my name?”

  “No, Sam.”

  “He’s called the Muzhik, in our files. He’s the best assassin the KGB has in their list of bully boys.”

  “Are you supposed to work with him?”

  “Those are my orders.”

  “Oh, Sam, I don’t like this. I’m frightened.”

  “You’ll be all right.”

  “No, I mean—the storm, and everything. It’s all so unnatural.” She shivered. “There’s so little we can do.”

  “We haven’t begun yet. Hold still, please.”

  “Must you take so long?”

  “Three more to go. Who did Olaf really work for, Sigrid? He’s dead now. You can tell me, can’t you? Was it Russian counterespionage?”

  “I don’t know. Honestly.”

  “Or did he take orders from Peking?”

  “I don’t know, Sam! He’s dead. Drowned. He couldn’t possibly swim ashore to Visby, could he?” She seemed obsessed by the idea.

  “You and I,” he said, “must work with these Russians. I’d hoped for answers from Olaf. I thought we had time. It’s too bad he’s gone now.”

  “He was the Black Viking,” she whispered. “He just isn’t dead. I know.”

  Durell changed the subject. “Sigrid, tell me about your Uncle Peter, the meteorologist. Did you know him well? See him often?”

  “Often enough. He’s a strange man. Always at his experiments. He started with silver-iodide crystals, to seed clouds to make rain. He talked about rain in the Gobi Desert, the Sahara, the Negev. He said he could feed all the starving peoples of the world.”

  “How successful was he?”

  “He made it rain,” she said flatly.

  “But silver-iodide is a hit-or-miss method.”

  “He found another chemical. And he used rockets instead of seeding by airplane.”

  “Did he make public announcements of his discoveries?”

  “No, he was never satisfied. He became very secretive, and talked of saving the world. He often lectured me on my duties as a citizen of the world.”

  “Sigrid, did he defect to Russia, or China?”

  “Not Russia. He hated the Russians.”

  “Peking, then?”

  “Inquisitive man! How could he do that? I don’t really want to talk about my uncle.”

  “He’s the key. And he’s vanished.”

  “I don’t know how it happened. I wasn’t there. He— he just disappeared.”

  “Weren’t you even curious about it? After all, he’s your father’s brother.” When she was silent, he said, “What about your father, anyway? Where is he? What does he do?”

  She said nothing.

  “Answer me, Sigrid.”

  She said angrily: “My father is dead. How long will you be with those splinters? I’m so cold!”

  “Then there were just your two uncles up there? Peter and Eric?”

  “Yes. Please hurry.”

  “We’ll have to pick up some thread, find out what really happened, learn if Professor Peter really has done all these things to the world’s weather.”

  “Peter is a gentle man. He wouldn’t make these storms!” she snapped.

  “Perhaps not willingly. He may be working under duress.”

  He took out the last splinter, applied antiseptic, and shaped small, neat bandages over the girl’s firm muscles. Her injuries were more to the spirit than to the flesh. He slapped her casually and stood up, his eyes dark with thoughts that had nothing to do with the girl. She rolled over on her hip and drew up a blanket to cover her nakedness.

  “Sam, darling, I really am frightened. If men can create this storm and change the weather all over the world—what will happen to us all?”

  Her deep dismay seemed genuine enough. He did not want to admit his own disquiet. Perhaps the storm was a coincidence. Perhaps. It might not have anything to do with the theories of those troubled men in Bruges. No sane man would tamper with the world’s weather like this. The threat loomed greater than the nuclear cloud that lowered in the minds of all men. There had to be a rational explanation for what he had seen and heard back in Flanders.

  On the other hand, he might not be dealing with anything sane. It was too early to tell. He held only a few threads in his grip, and he did not know where they might lead. To speculate on it now was a waste of time and energy.

  The rain had eased. There was a normal drizzle on the deck overhead. He took dry clothes from his locker and dressed, aware of the girl’s big eyes watching him.

  “Are you really going ashore now?” she asked.

  “For an hour or two.”

  “But what has Visby to do with our job?”

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”

  She was annoyed. “You are supposed to tell me what you are doing. Will you be meeting this man—this one you called the Muzhik?”

  The girl looked at him. He could not tell what went on behind her blue eyes. She looked like a child, with her damp hair in delicate tendrils about her face. When he had finished dressing, she said: “Take me with you, Sam.”

  “No.”

  “But are we not partners?”

  “I wish I knew,” he said.

  “Impossible man!” she snapped.

  He went out.

  9

  A LINJEFLYG plane from Stockholm flew low overhead, shaking the night air. Its lights blinked briefly through the thick overcast that followed the storm. A white fog had rolled in from the Baltic, and felt colder than the wind that had blown earlier. The early evening of this northern latitude still clung to a lingering, pearly daylight that glowed through the blowing mists.

  The walled town of Visby, pearl of Gotland, showed its crown of towers and battlements as Durell came on deck. Fishing boats were tucked neatly into the harbor. He searched for the gray trawler, but did not see it and didn’t expect to. One of the car-ferries from Vastervik was nosing from its berth. Normally, it would be crowded with Swedish and Danish tourists at this time of year. But nothing was normal now. The town huddled in upon itself, silent and resentful of the unseasonable weather. Once it had been a proud, cruel place of bloody war and greedy trade. Now it depended on cement factories and tourists for economic health. The bathing beaches, with their bizarre rock formations, the steep cliffs, the pagan graves that attracted the sightseers were all but deserted.

  “Signor Durell, these are the two men you asked for. Gino, and his uncle, Mario Ginelli.” Uccelatti’s voice was troubled. “I have given them arms, as you requested. But if you expect difficulties—”

  “No more than usual. Thank you, baróne.”

  He nodded to the youth, Gino, whose defiant eyes hid the pain of his background and his father’s imprisonment in Chicago. The uncle was a squat, thick-shouldered peasant from Sicily’s mountains, quiet, patient, dangerous. He shook hands with the older man, noting Mario’s gray hai
r and seamed, olive face, the hard calluses on his hand.

  “Everyone else stays aboard, baróne. I hope to be back in two hours.”

  Uccelatti was sober. “And if not?”

  “Then your part of the job is done, and you can sail back to sunny Italy.”

  “You would not wish us to look for you?”

  “It wouldn’t be of much use.”

  All over the Vesper’s deck, the Baron’s crew was busy repairing the storm’s damage. The port officials of Visby had paid a brief, perfunctory visit, coming and going in only minutes. Two Volvo taxis waited, idling on the dock nearby.

  Durell went ashore with the two Sicilians. Mario was accustomed to silent obedience, and he ruled the rebellious nephew with an iron hand. The first taxi-driver started his engine as they approached. Church bells from Visby’s spires tolled mournfully through the fog. The dim headlights of the taxi made rainbow aureoles in the mist. “Mr. Durell?”

  “Yes. Did Olsen send you?”

  “I have wait an hour. Please to get in.”

  “What do we do, dad?” Gino asked. He had a full red mouth and curly black hair, and would have been considered pretty, except for his dangerous eyes. He had the build of a fine welterweight. “Do we just tag along? We don’t speak the lingo, and Uncle Mario and me don’t exactly like it up here, anyway.”

  “Be still, boy,” Mario rumbled. “The man will tell you what he desires of us. But it is true, we do not speak the language, Signor Durell.”

  “Just use the other taxi and follow me.”

  “You gave us guns,” Mario said. His peasant’s eyes were cruel and inscrutable. “If you have enemies here, they are our enemies, too. The baróne has so ordered it.”

  “Cops and robbers,” the boy sneered.

  Without warning, the older man hit him backhanded, a sound like an axe striking a slab of beef. Gino sprawled wildly on the dock and came up like a cat, wiping blood from his mouth. His breath hissed. “Uncle Mario, my father wouldn’t like the way you treat me.”

  “Your father, who is my brother, was a fool and a criminal. He is in jail. One can be brave as a bandit, but one does not make money from women and drugs. Your father was worse than a fool.”

  “Shut up! Shut up!” the boy cried. “Don’t talk about him like that!”

  “You will face the truth and be a man, or you will die before we see Sicily again,” the older man said gravely. “And you will obey orders.”

  The Snackgarsbaden Hotel was deluxe, a few miles out of Visby on a panoramic coastal site only minutes from the old town. Durell had only a glimpse of Visby’s famous walls through the fog. Everywhere, shop windows in the narrow streets looked empty and forlorn because of the lack of tourists. An orchestra in the hotel’s dining room played to only a handful of glum guests. The mist moved over the rosebeds and hid the bathing beach and pool in the darkness.

  At the desk, Durell asked for Herr Ole Olsen and went up to his room. Olsen was a gaunt Swede born in Minnesota; he had thin yellow hair plastered down on a long, bald head. His manner was that of an undertaker. He had returned to Stockholm as an import agent for Swedish furniture, and remained there after the war. K Section had recruited him and made him Stockholm Resident, a post he’d held efficiently for the past ten years.

  They shook hands gravely.

  “I’m glad you made it, Sam,” Olsen said. “Be seated,

  please. I have some bourbon for you. Was it very bad out there?”

  “Bad enough.”

  Olsen shook his head. “But it never storms like this here, at this time of the year.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” said Durell.

  Olsen lifted mournful brows. “Is there any truth in the story I got?” He paused. “No, I will not ask. Everyone here is talking about the weather, Sam.”

  “And somebody’s done something about it at last, to change the old maxim,” Durell returned. “And McFee thinks the somebody is Professor Peter Gustaffson.”

  “Yes, I’ve looked into it. I will give you all cooperation, as ordered. But I find it hard to accept or believe. Such things are simply not possible.”

  “You’d better believe it. Is there any ice in the Gulf of Bothnia?”

  “Some, they say. It should have gone out by now. Spring is very late this year.”

  “Spring may not come at all, unless we find Gustaffson and learn what he’s up to.”

  “I’ve asked the Swedish people about him, but they don’t have much. Or aren’t talking. I can’t tell you where to start, Sam. I have nothing to go on. Hasn’t that girl, Sigrid, explained this to you?”

  “She talks very little, too.”

  “She had a quarrel with her father, of course.”

  “Her father?” Durell asked.

  “Professor Peter. He’s her father.” Olsen lifted his shaggy brows again. “Didn’t you know?”

  “She just told me her father was dead.”

  Olsen frowned. “I wonder why she did that?”

  “Maybe she’s a congenital liar. Maybe she’s working on orders from Desk Five. Maybe not. I can’t figure her, as yet. She has something private going in this, but maybe that’s because she’s somewhat personally involved, seeing her uncle—I mean, her father—may be responsible for all this. On the other hand, the Swedes usually act to preserve their neutrality. We’ll just have to play out the cards and see who takes the pot.”

  “It’s no gambling game, Cajun,” Olsen warned.

  Durell lit one of his rare cigarettes. “What did you dig up on Olaf Jannsen? Sigrid knocked him overboard, but she seems to regret it.”

  Olsen unlocked a briefcase and tossed several photographs and dossiers on the bed. “It’s all in there. He worked one time for Professor Peter, in Uphaevn. That’s the Gustaffson home, where the two brothers lived. Near the Ume River valley. Beautiful country, normally. But I hear it’s still socked in with late snow.”

  “Olaf worked for Sigrid’s father?”

  “Didn’t she tell you that, either?”

  Durell thought angrily of the tall, golden girl, of picking splinters from her firm rump. “She skipped a lot of things. She knew him before, then. What else?”

  “She was engaged to marry Olaf before he went East. Olaf worked for both brothers. He was the son of a local fisherman, a college graduate, a dedicated sailor. Dr. Eric, who is interested in archaeology as a sideline to his medical practice, is a noted ‘character,’ you might say. Olaf helped Eric build and sail his Viking boats. All that was before Olaf went to the Orient, two years ago. Hong Kong. A round-the-world cruise on a Swedish yacht. He was skipper and jumped ship and vanished in Hong Kong. I’ve requested British M.6 for data they might have from Hong Kong Security. The people he worked for had to get another captain. It’s a reasonable premise that Jannsen cut across the border into Red China and stayed there for about six months.”

  “And he simply returned with no explanation?”

  Olaf pointed lugubriously at the dossiers. “He never worked for the Gustaffson brothers again. He broke his engagement to Sigrid and never saw her again, either.” “The beautiful bitch,” Durell murmured. “Ole, Jannsen killed the captain of the Vesper, just to get aboard the schooner. Sigrid never let on that she knew him. So Olaf knew about the Bruges meeting even before I was summoned there. But who told him? Sigrid? Or is he following orders he received during his stay in Peking?”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions, Cajun.”

  “I’m jumping in the dark,” Durell complained. “It’s curiouser and curiouser. I missed my contact with the Russians this afternoon, thanks to the storm. Was a backup arrangement made?”

  “Stockholm has instructions for you.” Olsen’s serious expression didn’t change. “They’re terribly nervous. It’s as unhappy a situation for your Soviet counterpart as it is for you, I suspect, having to work together.”

  “If it isn’t all a smoke screen to throw us off.”

  “No, they’re as anxious to settle this
weather disturbance as we are. They’ll act in good faith, we think. You won’t miss them in Stockholm tomorrow.”

  Durell put out his cigarette. The cold mist rolled over the hotel grounds beyond the window. The sound of the surf was muffled, and dim, plaintive music came from the orchestra in the hotel dining room.

  “We can’t plan,” Olsen said suddenly, “beyond your meeting with your Russian KGB friends. But while you’re here at Visby, you might visit Elgiva Neilsen.”

  Durell turned. “The famous Swedish poetess?”

  “Yes. She lives in a house here on the channel across from Faro. Not far. An hour’s drive, in the fog.”

  “Didn’t she win a Nobel prize a year ago—?”

  “She’s the one. A most unusual woman. A great friend of the two Gustaffsons. I telephoned her that you were coming to visit her tonight.”

  “How can she help?” Durell asked.

  “I don’t know,” Olsen admitted. “But she might fill in some details of Peter’s disappearance. She may even know where he is. Professor Gustaffson is the key to this matter; if we find him, we find the weather-making machine. And we find the people who are working it.”

  “Simpler said than done.”

  “See Elgiva,” Olsen said. “The Swedish Sappho. She’s a most remarkable personality.”

  “I’ll bet,” Durell said.

  10

  HE FELT all alone in the world, moving through the fog. Bells tolled, and the white glare of a lighthouse beam revolved atop the high cliffs the road —followed. He took the taxi he’d kept waiting, and the cab with Gino and Mario followed obediently. There are no speed limits in Sweden, and the driver, knowing the road, barreled through the darkness at a wild rate. Durell did not check him. He was worried about Olsen’s tension, but Olsen was reliable enough, and maybe the general disquiet was contagious. And he felt an unease himself that had nothing to do with the Stockholm Resident. The job he had to do was bizarre, and so were the people in it; there were too many threads he had to unravel before he could see a pattern in the web.

  They flashed through the tiny villages of Lummelunda and then Irevik, where the coast was carved by ages of erosion into uncanny rock formations like giant pagan stelae thrust up from the sea. The caves of Lummelunda, he knew, with their weird, sea-carved shapes, had given rise among these island folk to innumerable folk tales and songs. Tonight, the dark and the mist added to the feeling of primitive isolation, where anything might be possible.