Assignment- Mermaid

by Will B Aarons

  1

  Durell received his orders by phone in London.

  "Cajun?”

  "Here.”

  "London Central. A seat has been reserved for you on Olympic Airways Flight 524.”

  "Somebody goofed. Olympic doesn’t serve Mobundu.”

  "It serves Athens,” the voice said.

  Durell spoke in a dry tone: "This is your way of telling me there has been a change of plans?”

  "The situation with Field Marshal Azo Ausi has been stabilized, for the present. Mobundu will hold.”

  As chief field agent for K Section, the trouble-shooting arm of the CIA, Durell had spent the last two weeks backgrounding himself for a mission to that East African country, formerly part of the British Empire. Now his mind raced over the patterns of clan ties, family relationships, blood feuds and power struggles that he had learned.

  "What time does my plane leave?” he said.

  "You have”—there was a pause, as if the other were reading a watch—"exactly thirty-seven minutes to get aboard.”

  "That urgent?”

  "Consider your Q Clearance in full effect, Cajun. Marty Stone will brief you in Athens. Tallyho, as the Redcoats say.”

  Durell’s blue eyes darkened almost to black, as they often did when thoughtful or troubled. He pushed his fingers through a cap of thick, black hair, shot with gray at the temples.

  Full Q Clearance. It meant to expect trouble in double portions—and not to be overly concerned with niceties in responding. The designation was never committed in writing. It was entrusted only to the most experienced and professional agents, for it put them above the law, as far as K Section was concerned. Only one prohibition remained: "Thou shall not get caught.”

  Durell was packed in ten minutes.

  It was close to nine o’clock when Durell landed at the Eastern Terminal of Ellinikon Airport, south of Athens. He stowed his luggage in a locker and exchanged a small amount of currency for drachmas. He kept most of his money in American dollars, because he had no idea at the moment what his ultimate destination might be. That was no problem: he felt at ease almost anywhere in the world, was master of a dozen languages and a score of dialects. What was more, the same mind that had put him through Yale Law School with honors had acquired a quick grasp of the finer points of custom and culture in whatever exotic or godforsaken land he found himself.

  His taxi deposited him in Athens’ hectic Syntagma Square. Across the street was the Hellenic Parliament Building, once the Royal Palace. Evzones dressed in traditional fez, pleated skirt and pompons guarded the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, faces blank against a throng of pedestrians.

  He was adept at the bland mannerisms of anonymity. Despite his big frame—over six feet tall and heavily muscled—he seemed to fade into the crowd, then paused. His cool eyes surveyed the street with brief, blue intensity.

  There was every reason for caution.

  He had threaded the hot and deadly shadows of international intrigue for more years than he cared to remember. In the headquarters of K Section, at No. 20 Annapolis Street in Washington, D.C., was an incredibly sophisticated computer. At intervals, almost as an afterthought, it spewed out his survival factor. The number had become meaningless, nothing more than a decimal-point concession to the fact that he was alive at the moment of issue.

  He did not think he had been followed.

  From a kiosk newsstand he telephoned Martin Stone, who had taken over as Athens Control since the retirement of Durell’s old friend, Mike Xanakias. "Have you been told anything?” Marty said.

  "Nothing.”

  "There’s been a short delay. Some people can’t seem to get their act together.”

  Durell asked no questions. He held the greasy receiver against his ear and waited for Marty to go on, as traffic bleated and hooted around the square. The kiosk did a brisk business in snacks, sodas and plaster statuettes of Athena. It seemed to stock everything from transistor radios to thumbtacks.

  . "Why don’t you come out to the house and have a drink with Polly and me?” Marty said.

  "Thanks, no.”

  "There’s plenty of time. We’re to meet another party at the Acropolis at eleven—it’s open until midnight when the moon’s full. We can get lost in the crowd.” "I’ll wait here,” Durell said. His eyes roamed over the tourists who filled chairs of outdoor cafes. It was a good place to stay out of trouble, open and full of potential witnesses. Those on the other side, whoever they were, would keep their distance.

  Marty sounded disappointed. "I’ll come downtown, then. We ought to talk, beforehand.”

  "Fine,” Durell said, and hung up.

  It was sweltering, even for Athens, as he strolled across the square with its orange trees and lighted fountain. The fine mist of the fountain that carried down to him was a sweet coolness on his lips and cheeks. He would have unbuttoned the jacket of the blue summer-weight suit, but he carried a snub-nosed .38 S&W under his arm, and that might have been too revealing. A sponge vendor thrust a string of wares in his face, shouting encouragement to buy. "Óchi, no!” he snapped, and selected a seat at one of hundreds of outdoor tables maintained by the haughty King George II and Grande Bretagne hotels. Stunning prostitutes lounged in taxis in front of the hotel entrances, across the street.

  A waiter took his order for a carafe of retsína wine, a tangy, resinated beverage adored by the Greeks since ancient times, when wine had been stored in pinewood casks sealed with resin.

  Three-quarters of an hour passed before Marty arrived.

  He had straight black hair and a red mustache and intelligent gray eyes that seemed to smile even when he was not smiling. He was likable, and could be quite deadly. A few seasons ago, he had been an Ivy League quarterback. As a Rhodes scholar he already had been linked with K Section—strictly confidentially, of course. He wore conservative clothing with impeccable taste: white shirt, school tie and suit of gunsmoke gray at the moment. Durell knew of only one flaw in his taste. Marty imbibed cognac in the Greek fashion, dipping sugar cubes in it and sucking them loudly, as he now was doing.

  Durell spoke with his eyes on the throng. "You’re not being shadowed? You took the normal precautions?”

  Marty’s tone was respectful: "My trail is clean and clear, Cajun. Sorry I took so long. There’s been another change of plans.” He dabbed at his fingers with a crisp white handkerchief. "Now they want to move the meeting up.”

  "I’m ready. We can walk to the Acropolis from here."

  "We have a minute. Ever hear of Aleksei Lazeishvili?”

  Durell’s eyes narrowed. "The Russian dissident leader?”

  "The same.”

  "Nuclear physics. In his late forties. Chaired the White Door Group at Ust-Aldan in the Verkhoyansk Mountains, which at last report had produced breakthroughs too numerous to mention in application of high-energy, subatomic particles to research and military purposes—which we, unfortunately, were not made privy to. Many awards, most recently nomination for a Nobel Prize. And then—”

  "And then the roof fell in,” Marty supplied. "He thought he was big enough to speak his mind—but nobody in the USSR is that big.”

  Durell was somber. "He had everything but his personal freedom, his civil liberties. What happened to him?”

  "He’s coming out.”

  "Exiled?”

  Marty’s voice was excited. "Hell, no. He knows too much for them to do that.”

  "When is he coming?”

  "He’s out already, only—”

  "Only what?” Durell demanded, impatient and irritable.

  "I’m sorry. All right.” Marty gestured, his palms close together before him, and glanced left and right.

  "He’s lost—I mean, no one knows what’s
happened to him. He was aboard a freighter, the Nereid, Greek-owned. Smuggled aboard in Odessa, and now the goddamn ship has disappeared.”

  Durell sat back in his chair, disappointed. "You want the Navy,” he said.

  "I wish it was in the Navy’s lap—but it’s our baby.”

  "Who set it up?” It might have been Bill Stuart in West Germany or Chris Stanfield in Vienna. Nothing either had done lately had gone right.

  He was surprised, when Marty said: "The Human Rights Congress—a private organization.”

  Durell sipped his wine. He’d heard of the HRC. It was funded by donations, and international in scope. He told Marty: "Wasn’t that set up to monitor compliance with the Helsinki Accords on Human Rights? But it has branched out. I remember a stink it raised last year in Chile about political prisoners.”

  Marty snorted: "They should have stuck to signing petitions and buying ads in the New York Times. They have a world Who’s Who of board members to get them notice.”

  "If we know they took him, the Russians do, too,” Durell said.

  Marty shrugged and lifted his shaggy red brows. "Just as well count on it,” he said.

  Durell’s tone was bleak. "And the laugh is on Lazeishvili,” he said.

  He considered the situation, as a vendor of lottery tickets circulated past his table. He had admired Lazeishvili for his struggle to alter a system against insurmountable odds, just to bring a breath of freedom, one ray of hope.

  The air over the square was full of noise and fumes. Tall buildings blocked the Acropolis from view, but he could see the glow of St. George’s Chapel, near the peak of Mount Lycabettus.

  The moon had risen, pale as death.

  Street illumination effectively blotted out the stars.

  Marty spoke: "We knew over a week ago that the HRC would try to spirit Lazeishvili out of the country. We might have intervened—we could have brought him out more safely and surely, if he had trusted us. It was a policy decision not to approach him. Nobody in Washington wanted a flap between the CIA and HRC, which could claim we were trying to steal the man, and then bad-mouth us to an eager audience all over the world. So we stood aside. But we kept an eye on the Nereid’s progress through Greek waters—we used spotters furnished by Greek Intelligence. All looked well, until the ship failed to show up in the Corinth Canal. She had simply vanished, without warning.

  "The HRC is begging us for help,” Marty continued, "but it’s a delicate situation. He may not wish to come to us, assuming he’s still alive. That was the lure of the HRC for him: he could come out, escape a labor camp or mental institution—which is definitely what the KGB had in mind for him—and still not sell out to the United States. He’s an ardent communist. But Sugar Cube sees no reason why we shouldn’t derive a propaganda advantage, if we can get him to cooperate.”

  "Propaganda? The man’s a Russian patriot, and Sugar Cube knows it. Somebody wants to pick his brains.”

  "It’s not for you and me to decide, is it? We just do our jobs.”

  Durell sighed. "Who was to get him?”

  "Don’t know. Maybe the Swiss. The Swedes.” Marty took a breath. "Your job is just to make sure somebody does before the KGB catches up to him.”

  "They’ll play it safe,” Durell said.

  "They’ll kill him, if they can.”

  Durell thought a moment. "But you told me the ship has vanished.”

  "We’ll go into that when we get to the Acropolis. There is hope. It came to us in the form of something we code-named the Mermaid Memo.” Marty got out of his chair. "Let’s go sightseeing.”

  "I’ll follow behind you,” Durell said.

  "You don’t ever loosen up, do you, Cajun?”

  "No.”

  They went out of the area of airline offices and chic shops, past the side entrance to the American Express office and down Mitropoleos Street, Marty twenty yards ahead. Just beyond the cathedral he turned up Mnisikleos Street. It was closed to motor vehicles, and very narrow. It led to the bohemian Plaka district, Athens’ oldest quarter, if you didn’t count the Acropolis before temples pushed the village off it. Clashing music attacked Durell’s ears, rebétiko songs and American pop ballads that poured from tavernas and sidewalk cafés. The scent of charcoal and fried octopus wafted from vine-clad terraces and rooftop restaurants where patrons dawdled over their plates to admire the lights of Athens below. Flower vendors and sellers of pistachio nuts hawked their wares on crowded sidewalks, where mod-dressed boys in sunshades kept hopeful eyes peeled for unattached females.

  Durell moved like a shadow among sightseers, strollers and revelers.

  At other times his tall, darkly tanned presence could be striking. Women found him exciting. Men usually felt threatened. He did not hesitate to use either to his advantage. Years of hazards in jungles, deserts and the great cities of the earth, plus uncounted hours of intensive training at K Section’s Maryland "Farm” had taught him to overlook no tool in the pursuit of an objective.

  He had a flair for calculated boldness as well as cunning caution, and might be quite brutal when driven to it. He could kill with a finger, a pin or rolled newspaper, silently and without remorse. Yet he was a complex man. His Grandpa Jonathan, the last of the Mississippi River gamblers, had raised him among the ageless oaks of the Bayou Peche Rouge, aboard the beached side-wheeler Trois Belles, and instilled in him values that saved him from being a ruthless automaton.

  They had been followed from Syntagma Square.

  He closed up on Marty, flipped a penny at his back, caught his eye and nodded behind.

  Marty faded into the entrance of a small restaurant and pretended to read a menu posted on a display window. The doorway steamed with a fragrance of spices, hot cheese and grilling lamb as Durell joined him.

  "No sweat,” Marty said, out of the side of his mouth. "It’s Harry Bricklin, Embassy security man.”

  Durell studied the menu. "Why is he here?”

  "I asked him to cover our rear.”

  "He might as well have a neon hat,” Durell said.

  "There’ll be two more on top, watching the crowd.”

  "It’s like a convention.”

  Marty smiled, but his tone was serious. "We can’t be too careful with these HRC types, Cajun.”

  "That’s who we’re seeing?”

  Marty nodded. "If anything happens to them the heat from Washington will cook me like a chicken on a spit.”

  A long moment of silence passed as Durell looked back down the street. Harry had bought a souvláki pie;

  he loitered in front of an antique store that specialized in blades, scimitars, cutlasses and vicious-looking Turkish knives called yataghans. He munched the pastry and watched the girls as they passed. Durell decided if Marty wanted Harry along, Marty could stay back with him.

  "I’ll lead from here,” he said, confident of his familiarity with the city.

  He went up two sets of broad steps, bore right on a path that gave a view of the theater that Herod Atticus built in memory of his wife, Regilla, in 160 A.D. He came out among taxis and tour buses parked below the entrance to the Acropolis. A wheeled refreshment stand and souvenir booths lent a carnival atmosphere. He waited for Marty, and together they entered through the Propylaea, with the Temple of Athena Nike on their right.

  A tour guide spoke in French to a covey of shadowy followers, her coy tone only partly masking rote repetition: "Much restoration has been necessary here. The Propylaea, or processional entrance, was begun in 482 B.C. and stood until 1656, when the Turkish governor fired a gun at the little Church of St. Dimitrios, at the foot of the Acropolis, in anger at the noise of a festival. Perhaps the cannonball struck the Propylaea, although legend says the saint asked Zeus to send a thunderbolt in retaliation. In any event, the Turks had stored their ammunition in the Propylaea, and something caused the place to blow up.” Moving away, Durell heard her add: "The Turks demolished the little Temple of Athena Nike in 1867 to make room for a cannon.”

  The en
ormous stone surface of the Acropolis was rutted and pitted, littered with marble chunks from ancient temples. Phrases in a dozen different languages mingled as hundreds of dark figures picked their way in the moonlight. There was no illumination up here save the firefly glow of cigarettes, or the rare pop of a forbidden flashbulb.

  Marty hesitated. "I can’t pick out Harry,” he said.

  "Amazing,” Durell replied acidly.

  "Let’s go ahead,” Marty said.

  The chipped columns of the Parthenon shone with massive beauty in the frosty radiance. As much as the art, Durell admired as always the sheer stubborn strength of a building that had stood for twenty-five hundred years.

  Marty showed him to a wall that overlooked Athens, spread out in a fiery blanket from here to Lycabettus, the Mountain of Wolves. The man waiting there Marty introduced as Widich Santesson, executive director to the HRC. He was unusually tall, so that Durell had to look up to him, with a spare, athletic frame despite the sixty-odd years that Durell guessed him to be.

  The name was hardly a household word, but it struck a few responsive chords in Durell’s memory. Santesson had been bom at the top of the heap, heir to a hundred-year-old steel manufacturing empire in Sweden. He had never deigned to run for political office, but, owing to his connections, had amused himself in government and world-body appointive positions for many years. At one time or another he had served in the high-echelon bureaucracy of the United Nations, as well as the World Bank. He had the lordly air of a man who expected things to happen when he snapped his fingers, and was somewhat formal in an old-fashioned, courtly way.

  "Where is Mr. O’Dell?” Marty asked, after the introductions.

  "Detained by the Countess Aravantinos, probably,” Santesson said. His English was perfect. "She is so damnably talkative at the door, when one is leaving her parties. Particularly when one dares leave before midnight. But then she is so stunningly provocative, if you follow my meaning, that one is tempted to linger.” He gave a sly smile in the moonlight.

  Durell looked at Marty. Marty grinned.

  Marty said to Santesson: "Maybe Mr. O’Dell will forgive us if we begin without him?”