Assignment - Ankara

by Edward S. Aarons

  He ran around the doctor, shouting, hoping to get someone downstairs to delay or stop the fugitive. So far, he knew only that the man was big, powerful and ruthless—and perhaps panicked by having been trapped in the corridor when he and Kappic arrived. The man must have been cursing his bad luck in choosing the precise moment when he and Kappic left Uvaldi’s cell to make a break for it. But beyond this, Durell had not seen the man’s face and had no idea of his identity.

  He slammed down the worn, circular steps just too late to catch another glimpse of his quarry. In the main hall to his right, where the sick and injured earthquake victims had been gathered to lie on their straw pallets, a native woman stood staring, open-mouthed. She pointed wordlessly toward the open entrance to the courtyard, saw Durell’s gun, and tightened her mouth in antagonism. He did not stop to find out what this meant. With Kappic at his heels, he ran out into the courtyard.

  Smoke from the campfires of the refugees drifted with the cold night wind across his face. He halted, looking at the strangely medieval scene. Kappic paused with him.

  “Is he here?”

  “I don’t know,” Durell said quietly.

  “Be careful, then.”

  The tunnel-like passage to the street opposite them was a dark hole beyond the fires and the huddled, listless shapes of the villagers. Durell was aware of a few curious, pale faces turned toward him, but there was a strange, oppressive silence that seemed hostile, like a dark pall of the family groups hunched about their fires. Any one of the black shapes around any of the campfires might be their man, holding those next to him in the silence of terror. He tried to pick out the biggest of the men, but they were only anonymous shadows in the strange, ruddy glow of the charcoal fires.

  Kappic swung harshly toward the nearest group and barked a question in gutteral Turkish. He received shrugs and a gesture from a withered old woman. She pointed to the arcaded entrance of the courtyard. Durell started that way without waiting for more.

  They were too late again.

  A shadow suddenly lunged from the darkness of the tunnel, silhouetted against the gray night light in the street beyond. Durell shouted a warning and threw a snap shot at the dim, huge figure. He missed. The man vanished to the left, and as Durell plunged for the courtyard exit, a bundle of rags around the last campfire spitefully thrust out a foot to trip him. He stumbled slightly, kept going, but the momentary delay was enough. By the time he reached the village street, there was nothing to be seen again.

  Kappic breathed hard beside him.

  “He is fast, this one.”

  “And big," Durell said.

  “Not big enough to hide forever in the village.”

  “We don’t have forever in which to find him,” Durell said.

  They spoke in quick, soft whispers, scanning the ruined village street before them. Nothing stirred except for the shape of a cat slinking in the shadows of the rubble of a wrecked house. With the clearing sky, the stars shone like burnished metal over the dark gloom of the surrounding mountains. The air was cold, cutting at Durell’s face. The street slanted upward, following the shoulder of the mountain, for several hundred yards toward the huts where Durell had put Francesca and the Stuyvers couple. But nothing moved that he could see, except for the prowling cat.

  They started up the street, hugging the shadows of the dark stone houses. Durell had the indefinable sensation of being watched. He tried to put himself in the place of the fugitive in order to out-think his quarry. The man was frightened, despite his size and physical strength. He had just committed a cold and brutal murder, and stolen the tapes from the dead Dr. Uvaldi. So far, he had been successful. But at the last moment, he had been unwittingly trapped in the caravansary, and it was plain that Durell’s arrival with the Turk had been totally unexpected. There was no way at the moment to guess the man’s identity. But it didn’t matter. He was a murderer, an enemy agent trained in cunning and force, in brutality and violence, dedicated to his mission. Durell wondered if he was armed. No shots had been returned for the one he had snapped at the running man. But that didn’t mean anything necessarily, either.

  The cat suddenly scampered away up the middle of the stone-paved street, tail erect, moving in quick erratic leaps, as if chasing an evasive rat. It vanished among the towering mass of rubble where a stone house on the slope above had collapsed in yesterday’s tremors and poured a small landslide of building blocks and timbers on the house below. The street was partly blocked at this point, almost like a deliberate barricade. He could not see completely around it, and halted again.

  “I do not like this, Durell,” Kappic whispered.

  “You think he’s waiting somewhere for us?”

  “We are his only known enemies. It would be wise for him to get rid of us—”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  Kappic was slightly ahead, halted under the crumbled wall. At that moment the cat uttered a thin scream of fright and came scampering out of the rubble again, streaking across the village street. Another movement caught Durell’s eye, overhead on top of the wall. It was only a vague shifting of the shadows up there in the ruined house, but it was enough—

  He shouted a warning, leaped forward, and shoved Kappic ahead and out of the way with both hands. Simultaneously, a huge building stone came loose from the top of the wall and crashed down upon the spot where the Turk had been standing. Durell jumped over it, ignoring Kappic who was sprawled in the street, and leaped up onto the rubble heap. Above him loomed the tall, massive figure of his opponent, outlined for a frozen instant against the starry sky. Then, with astonishing speed, the man turned and leaped away and vanished.

  “Halt!” Durell shouted.

  He fired again at the flickering shadow, then jumped from the rubble after him. Kappic shouted something from below, but Durell did not pause. Beyond the wreckage of the house, a flight of stone steps led up into a narrow alley that climbed the mountainside. Several other houses had suffered collapsed roofs here, and their tiles littered the paving. Durell scrambled upward, gun in hand, angry at the other man’s attempt to kill them and frustrated by the fugitive’s speed. He reached the top of the stone steps and looked to the right and left. The wind blew across an open field that tilted sharply upward to a stone wall, where barren fruit trees rattled their limbs under the starry sky. He paused, drew a deep breath. To the left were more houses; to the right were the back gardens and plots of the villagers, reaching toward the end of the settlement where Francesca Uvaldi was quartered. He started that way.

  The man had fewer choices of hiding places now, having been flushed out of the village streets and away from the earthquake rubble. But again he was nowhere to be seen. Durell moved cautiously, aware of the danger of another lethal trap. He heard Kappic call faintly from the street below, but he did not reply, hoping their quarry might think they were both still down there. A stone wall with a wooden gate in it blocked his way. Beyond was a small orchard, a field of brush, and a stone hut. He eased up to the gate, paused, listened, breathing lightly, hoping to catch some sound that might betray the other’s position. But he heard nothing except the wind in the fruit trees. Then there was a vague shouting from the dark shadows of the caravanary behind him. He turned his head and saw lights flickering down there, and a small group of men came out into the street with torches and lanterns. Perhaps the doctor had rallied them to hunt for the murderer. The villagers scattered, some heading toward the small bridge over the flooded river at the lower end of the village. A few others moved tentatively in Durell’s direction; but they were too far away to do much good, and he did not want anyone else to confuse the area at this moment.

  He went through the gate fast, dropped into a crouch, felt something whistle through the air close to his head, breaking with a clatter against the stone wall. It was a rock, thrown with brutal strength and speed. Durell leaped up and ran forward through the orchard. The earth was hard and rubbly underfoot. He heard a man’s thick-throated cry an
d saw his quarry rise like a giant from the shadows and run away again, from the opposite side of the clustered fruit trees, zigzagging into the brushy field beyond. Durell drove after him, holding his fire. If the man had had a gun, he would have used it instead of throwing the rock. And if it was possible to capture the killer alive, he wanted to do so.

  He fired once into the air, however, as a warning, and kept running. He closed the gap only slightly. Ahead, and a little to the left down the slope, was Francesca Uvaldi’s hut, and beyond that was the one occupied by John and Susan Stuyvers. The big man wavered, slowed, half-turned. In the starlight, Durell saw his chest heave as he struggled for breath, saw the dark open mouth in a strong, frustrated face, and also saw that the man was wearing a dark suit of Western clothes. The man ran again, evasively, down the hill—and then suddenly went down with a cry of alarm and surprise to go headlong down the gravelly slope.

  Durell was on him in a moment.

  “Hold it,” he gasped. “Don’t move.”

  The man looked up at his gun and said something in English between panting breaths and then lunged up again. Durell hit him with the gun barrel to drive him back, but he wasn’t to be stopped. The man tried to grapple with Durell, and his lightning move was unpredictable. His strength was enormous. He shouted something and Durell hit him again, trying to break free of the other’s grip; but he felt himself flung aside. He staggered, tried to regain his balance. The man started to run again, and Durell jumped, brought him down on all fours. They locked together, rolled over and over down the hill toward the hut.

  “Let—go!” the man gasped.

  He punched at Durell’s throat and tried to knee him. Durell slammed the gun against his opponent’s jaw and the man’s head snapped aside and blood gushed from a broken tooth.

  “Hold still,” Durell rasped.

  The man turned an astonished face upward. “You’re American?”

  “What did you think?”

  His chest heaved. “I didn’t know—Russian, maybe—”

  “Here, among these Turks?”

  “Somebody killed Dr. Uvaldi—I thought you were the one who did it—”

  "Hold still,” Durell said again. He stood back and leveled the gun at the man, who turned his head and gestured carefully toward some boulders in the rubbly field.

  “I think somebody is back there—a girl. Didn’t you see her? I tripped over her. I think she’s dead.”

  It could be a trick, Durell thought. The man spoke with a Tennessee twang, and his clothes were American. He looked at the man’s hands. A black ring that could have been fashioned from a lump of coal glistened on one of his fingers. “Just a minute,” Durell said. “Who are you?”

  “I was sent to take Dr. Uvaldi back to the States,” the man said. “But I was too late to save him, I reckon. I’m Bert Anderson—folks call me Andy—and I’m a diplomatic courier out of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara.”

  Chapter Six

  ANDERSON climbed slowly to his feet, absently dusting his clothes, a rather rueful smile on his wide mouth. He looked even bigger and tougher close up than when Durell had chased him at a distance. There was something of an amiable frog in his expression—he had a broad mouth and large gray eyes, long legs and a barrel chest that gave an impression of awkwardness that, Durell knew, was not justified. He dabbed at a cut on his cheek and sucked at his broken tooth. His hands were big, with thick wrists—and now Durell saw that the ring he wore was a cut and polished piece of coal. Anderson must have weighed thirty pounds more than Durell, who was a large man, and he stood two inches above Durell’s six-foot-one.

  “Suppose you tell me who you are,” Anderson suggested grimly. “You seem to know a lot about my business.”

  “Have you an I.D. card?” Durell countered.

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  Anderson shrugged and carefully handed him a plastic-cased card. Durell glanced at it and handed it back.

  “All right, Bert.” He was satisfied. “It looks like we’re in this together. Ankara sent me to help you and Uvaldi out of here, with the radar tapes, and get you to Washington. My name is Durell.”

  “Sam Durell?” Anderson was surprised, then grinned his frog’s grin again. “Heard about you, friend. I’m impressed. Who’s the Turkish cop with you?”

  “A friend. He’ll escort us part of the way. Have you got Uvaldi’s tapes?”

  “No. I don’t know where they are.”

  “What happened to them?” Durell asked sharply.

  “I don’t know. Look, we’d better see about that girl—” Durell hesitated, then saw Kappic jogging uphill toward them out of the darkness, and nodded. He turned with Anderson and retraced his steps among the boulders strewn over the brushy field.

  “Here she is,” Anderson muttered. “Jesus, look at her.” Durell knelt quickly beside the still figure of Francesca Uvaldi. He thought for a moment she was dead. Then she moaned and lifted one hand in a feeble, defensive gesture, and he turned her gently until he could see her face. Wincing, he helped her sit up on the stony ground, his fingers on her pulse. She drew a long, sighing breath and opened her eyes wide and suddenly began to scream in terror.

  “It’s all right,” he said quickly. “It’s Durell.”

  Her scream ended. She touched her throat wonderingly, looked at Anderson’s huge, looming figure, saw him smile quickly, and returned her dazed glance to Durell. Her face was battered and bloodstained, and there was a deep cut on her temple; her dark hair was loose, streaming down her shoulders.

  “Somebody—somebody tried to—kill me,” she whispered, wonderingly.

  “That’s obvious. Do you know who it was?”

  She shook her head in silence.

  “Did you see anything of him at all?”

  “Only a shape, a shadow—he wouldn’t stop—I hurt all over. He was like a madman—”

  “Can you tell us why you were attacked like this?”

  She hesitated. “No.”

  “There must be a reason,” Durell insisted.

  “No. No reason. A—a looter, perhaps.”

  She was lying, even dazed as she was. Durell had the impression she had quickly regained control of her clever, alert mind. She was giving nothing away. But it was obvious that she certainly couldn’t have been in the village to kill Uvaldi if she had been unconscious here at the time. The bruises on her face and body couldn’t have been faked.

  He said abruptly, “We found your father, Francesca.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s dead. Someone just killed him.”

  If he was ever to catch her off guard, he thought, brutality now might do it, however cruel it might be to tell her about it like this. She stared at him for a moment without comprehension. Her eyes widened, then narrowed; she moistened her bruised lips with her tongue.

  “I—I hurt,” she whispered.

  “Didn’t you understand what I just said?” Durell insisted.

  She nodded without replying. She closed her eyes and her face became a mask, innately lovely despite the scars and blemishes inflicted on her. Durell straightened and looked Anderson and at Kappic, who had joined them silently, then nodded and lifted the girl in his arms and carried her down the hill to the hut where he had left her two hours ago. Anderson and Kappic followed, walking heavily. Inside the hut, Durell put the girl down on the big peasant bed and turned to Kappic. “Better get Susan Stuyvers to look after her, Lieutenant. She’s in the next house.”

  “Shall I bring the father, too?”

  “Not just yet. Just tell them there’s been an accident here.”

  Francesca seemed to have fainted. He watched her breathing and saw where the native clothes she wore had been ripped and stained by her struggle. No, it hadn’t been faked. But the girl, even though dazed, was acting strangely. He was sure she had grasped the news about her father’s death, and he felt annoyed because he wanted to trust her and knew he couldn’t.

  He turned to And
erson as Kappic went out. “We have only a few moments before the Turk gets back. Kappic was cleared by our security people, but we have to be careful just the same.”

  “Right.” Anderson’s slow Tennessee drawl sounded strange in the peasant hut. His gray eyes were direct, watching Durell. “I can’t tell you much. Dr. Uvaldi looked worse yesterday from his injuries than he did this morning, so we decided not to move out until tonight, if he improved. I decided to wait, and I got the local medic to take care of him, at the inn.”

  “What about Uvaldi’s tapes?” Durell asked.

  “He had them—then,” Anderson sighed.

  “Did you see them?”

  Anderson shrugged. “They were in a small attache case, and he wouldn’t show ’em to me. But I got a look at them, when he was sleeping. They were there, all right. He was spooky about security, so I didn’t bother him, once I was satisfied I had the real thing and we were on our way home.”

  “What happened this evening?” Durell asked.

  “Well, I heard there was a ham radio operator in Musa Karagh, a retired Turkish army sergeant. I know a little about radio myself, so I went looking for him, thinking I might get word back to Ankara about the situation here and conditions at Base Four. But the man was hard to find. And when I located his place, he was dead, killed when a wall of his house collapsed on him.”

  “And his radio?”

  “I found it, all right. The aerial was down, of course, and the components were banged up a bit, but I hunted around in the wreckage for spare parts. He had ’em. Then I went to work putting the thing together again, stringing up the antenna wire, and so forth. The batteries were okay. I finally got it working, but I lost track of time while I was at it. I wasn’t worried about Uvaldi, because the doc said he’d be okay, and he was sleeping like a babe when I left him.”

  “It was a long sleep,” Durell said grimly.

  “He was alive when I left him in the afternoon.” Anderson started to say more, then shrugged. “Anyway, I got the radio going and raised Ankara. They were glad to hear from me, and they asked about you. I didn’t think you were here already—that’s why I took off, back at the inn. I’m glad to have you backing me, though—somebody is around who’s tough and smart, and he’s going to try every which way to stop you and me from getting out with the tapes.”