Assignment - Ankara

by Edward S. Aarons

  All at once he knew what had to be done.

  He himself was finished. It had to be so. And all the others would be finished, too, unless—unless. . . . The idea crystallized, grew hard and cold in his mind. Someone had to be sacrificed.

  Somehow he had to make amends for his mistake. He had to choose one to denounce, to be taken as the goat while the most important of the group was given a chance to escape. He did not decide willingly. He felt regret, and a sense of guilt, but his duty allowed him no wavering when he turned to watch Durell move out along the wing, a dark figure in the spotlight’s glare. Then he turned to the fishing captain and used his halting, army-sponsored Russian and pointed to Bert Anderson.

  “Do not believe that big one here,” Kappic said. “He is an American spy. The rest of us are only refugees from the earthquakes, which I am sure you have heard about.”

  The bearded captain spat on the deck. “I have heard of your troubles, Turk. Am I to believe you when you say this one is a spy? Why should you help us?”

  “The rest of us are innocent,” Kappic said urgently. “If you call your shore station, they will confirm what I say. He is a spy. Your planes are looking for us, because of him. Did you not hear of this, on your radio?”

  “We do not use it much.” The captain’s eyes were hard, a yellowish color. “I do not understand what you are doing in Soviet waters—but you are all my prisoners. Is that understood?”

  “Of course, and I—”

  Kappic pretended to step forward impulsively and collapsed on his injured leg. The pretense was not difficult to achieve. He fell to his knees on the slimy deck, smelling the fish scales and fish blood that stained the steel plates. He felt something grate in his broken leg and a piercing pain shot up the inner side of his thigh into his groin, like the sadistic stab of a bayonet into his abdomen. The feeling was at once terrifying and satisfactory. The Moskofs would not think he was faking his distress now.

  Anderson came striding back along the deck, followed by a protesting fisherman. The captain, confused by Kappic’s fall and Anderson’s impatient shout of command, turned angrily to the big man and smashed at him with a back-handed blow that caught Anderson by surprise. Anderson fell back, shouting, a rage in him that Kappic was interested to see. The captain shouted in return, substituting loud rage for his confusion. Two of the crew jumped on Anderson and threw the big man down on the deck. Anderson made the mistake of struggling. The fishermen began to beat him, and one picked up a heavy wooden billet and smashed it down across Anderson’s head.

  Anderson’s big body shivered strangely and lay inert.

  The captain grunted an order for Anderson to be taken below, then turned malevolent eyes to Kappic. “Can you walk, Turk?”

  “I can crawl,” Kappic said.

  “Then crawl into my cabin, if you have to. We shall see about your story. The American shouts he is one of my people —and you, a Turk, offer me stories about spies. It is topsyturvy, you understand. I am not one of your politicians, Turk. I am only a fisherman, and my ship has been damaged in this cursed storm, as you have seen. If you are lying, it will be simple to kill you.”

  The captain signalled to another crewman, who hauled Kappic to his hands and knees and urged him toward the steel deck housing. Kappic gasped and struggled forward. Before he fell across the threshold, he looked back and saw that Durell had successfully joined the others on the trawler’s deck. Beyond Durell, the sea was whipped by a vengeful wind that seemed determined to smother the fragile-looking wreckage of the KT-4. Then the trawler’s spotlight blinked out, and only a violent darkness raged where the derelict had been.

  A taste of steel came into Kappic’s throat as he crawled into the cabin. If Allah was good to him, he would die soon. But not until he had dealt this particular Moskof one last blow.

  The captain was obviously his own radio operator. The radio equipment stood on a desk beside a worn leather couch in the small cabin, and the bearded skipper threw himself into a rickety swivel chair with a grunt, considered the radio with the obvious distaste of a simple man for modem complications, and then snapped on the various switches. A low hum filled the warm air of the cabin as the transmitter began to warm up.

  One of the crewmen prodded Kappic forward, and he crawled into the cabin, thinking of himself as a dog who dragged a broken leg behind him. The pain in his belly and groin was a steady stabbing, like white-hot knives shooting up into his intestines from between his legs. His hands and face were slippery with blood, and when he forced himself to rise, he felt a terrible fear that he would faint and fail to do this last act of his life.

  “Tell me, Turk,” the captain said, “what were all you people doing, hanging to that bit of rubbish in the middle of the sea?”

  “We were shot down,” Kappic whispered. “Many hours ago. By your planes.”

  The captain looked impressed. “Do you know why, Turk?”

  “No. Perhaps because you are afraid of the rest of the world, afraid when a plane is storm-tossed and crosses your borders. So you shoot first and ask questions later. We were flying toward Istanbul—”

  “This cannot have been on your course to Istanbul, Turk.”

  “We were lost. We were all refugees from the earthquakes—”

  “The Americans are refugees?” the captain asked with heavy irony.

  “They were helping with the relief.”

  “How can you lie like a snake? You said they were spies. As soon as I make radio contact, I will know the truth.”

  “I have told you the truth,” Kappic said.

  And then he threw himself upon the radio.

  He had gained enough time to see what he could use, and he had timed his effort with the last flicker of strength in him. The radio had to be smashed. Perhaps, with the few hours thus gained, Durell might be able to do something. But once the location of the fishing boat was sent out on the air, it would be over for Durell and his mission.

  There was a heavy steel book end on the desk that held the radio logs and navigation texts of the captain. Kappic jumped for it. His fingers closed around the steel bust of Lenin like a claw, and with the same sweeping gesture, Kappic brought it down on the glowing radio tubes of the trawler’s old-style transmitter.

  Glass shattered and wires tore free. Kappic smashed again and again at the equipment, in the brief seconds he was left untouched.

  The captain’s bellow of rage and the shot were the last things Mustapha Kappic heard.

  He felt as if a heavy board smashed into his back, and he was thrown away from the desk by the impact. He fell to the floor. There was a last twist of pain from his leg, and then he felt a wave of strange warmth sweep up from his vitals and into his chest. The cabin grew dim. He felt another jolt in his body as the dark shape of the bearded captain loomed over him, the gun smashed flame at him again.

  But it seemed to be happening to someone else. He smiled, somehow thinking that he had done everything a man could do on this earth; he had died trying to help others, and in the performance of his duty. He had been a good soldier. Long ago, when he was a boy, he had dreamed of being a soldier, when he lived in the remote hills of his shepherd home. It seemed to Kappic that he was back there now in the soaring, singing, rugged mountains of his boyhood. He could smell the wind that came from the rocky meadows, and he saw his father walking along the path toward him, and he turned with a little cry of joy—and lost his footing somehow. Under him, a terrible cliff stood on the edge of an endless abyss, and in his earerness to run to his father, Mustapha Kappic, the shepherd boy, fell and fell, turning and twisting in the cold mountain air. And he never stopped falling. . . .

  One by one, they were taken to the captain’s cabin for questioning. At first they were herded in one of the empty fish holds aft, near the diesel engine room—a steel box whose rusted, riveted sides sweated with the cold chill of the sea, malodorous, dimly lighted by a single small bulb, ringed with refrigeration pipes that fortunately had been shut off. No
furniture, chairs or cots, were provided, and only as an afterthought had some woolen blankets been thrust down the hatchway. These were spread on the cold steel deck for the women, Susan and Francesca. Wickham had snatched one of the blankets for himself, and refused to part with it, standing in a comer of the cell and shuddering, his round face buried in the coarse wool

  Durell had heard the two shots and waited for Kappic to return to the others. After a moment or two, he knew that Kappic was not coming back. He could guess that the Turk had deliberately sacrificed himself to gain something, and he supposed it could only be the radio. Obviously, for some reason, perhaps because of the storm, the trawler was not part of the search squadrons that were scouring the northern latitudes of the Black Sea during these hours.

  It was possible they had been presumed lost and drowned, Durell thought, when the KT-4 was seen to crash in the sea.

  The Stuyvers were questioned first—Susan being summoned, and handing the black bag to John before she left. She was not gone long. Then Stuyvers was called, and he in turn gave the black bag to Susan. The fishermen on guard at the hatch did not notice the maneuver, and John Stuyvers looked every inch the fanatical missionary when he left and when he returned. Neither said anything to the others. Then Francesca was called on deck.

  She was gone a long time.

  Durell crossed to the opposite side of the compartment where Anderson was sprawled on the deck. The trawler lurched under the impact of the heavy seas, and it was obvious they were in for stormy hours that night. Durell knelt beside the big man and shook him.

  “Anderson, can you hear me?”

  The wide mouth opened and sighed. The big eyes stared coldly. “Got a nasty crack—on the head—from those fools.” “What were you trying to tell them?”

  “Your friend, the Turk—he screwed things up real good.” The courier’s voice was thick and uncertain. “He told the skipper that I was an American agent. God knows what he had in mind.”

  Durell’s face was blank. “Mustapha opened you up like that?”

  “Yeah.” Anderson’s nose had bled, and there was a trickle of blood from one ear. He kept shivering, and now and then his teeth chattered. He was badly hint. Yet outwardly he seemed to be recovering. His enormous strength was too stubborn to yield to the brutal blow he had received from his argument with the trawler captain. Durell saw that the man’s right hand was swollen, and the ring containing his good-luck charm, the chunk of coal from the Tennessee hills, was cutting into the puffy flesh.

  “Let me help you with that, or you’ll never get it off,” Durell said, and began working to get the gold and black ring off. Anderson started to protest, then sank back, regarding Durell with calm eyes.

  The ring came loose with some difficulty. Under it, the flesh looked tight, but hard and tanned as the rest of the big man’s hand. Durell glanced up and saw Anderson’s strange, hard face watching him.

  “We were all betrayed by the Turk,” Anderson murmured. “He’s the one who probably arranged for the false radio beacon that pulled us off course. And also probably heaved the tape into the sea, no matter what he told us on the plane.” “Maybe,” Durell said. “But maybe we can use Kappic’s accusation to some advantage. It will help keep the fishing captain here off balance, trying to decide which of us is the real agent.”

  “What good will that do?” Anderson asked.

  “We need time. Something might turn up.”

  “You always such an optimist, Cajun?”

  “No,” Durell said. “But you see, the tape wasn’t destroyed by Kappic. I know where it is.”

  Before Anderson could reply, Durell turned as Francesca came slowly down the ladder into the hold. Her face was pale. Wickham was summoned next, and Durell noted how the fat colonel responded eagerly, smirking at the others as if in some secret triumph. Wickham trailed the blanket with him as he climbed the ladder, moving awkwardly as the trawler pitched in the heavy seas.

  Durell sat down beside Francesca. He saw from the marks on her face that she had been slapped around, and her eyes were shocked and quiet.

  “Did they hurt you much?” he asked gently.

  “Not really. It was just—terrifying. They’re simple fishing people, yet they’ve been taught to hate and fear us. The captain is the only educated man aboard, yet he just mouths newspaper and propaganda slogans—calls us imperialists, warmongers. It was senseless, and frightening.”

  “It’s the trap the whole world finds itself in,” Durell said. “We move toward a destruction that nobody really wants. But it’s as if we all wear blinders that only permit each side to see their way, into the future, and every other possibility is to be ignored or destroyed.”

  “I didn’t think you—you would feel like that, with your job—”

  “What did the captain ask you?” Durell interrupted.

  She shivered. “I couldn’t understand much of his Russian. But he’s got the fact that we’re carrying secret information back to Washington.”

  “Where did he get that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t tell them anything?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Not even about your father, I mean?”

  “My name meant nothing to them.” The girl tossed her black hair impatiently. Even without make up, after all the hours of this turbulent day, she looked somehow clean and lovely. Under the firm lines of her mouth, however, there was a soft, inner trembling, a beat that Durell did not miss. “But of course,” Francesca said quietly, “Susan Stuyvers spoke to them first, and now Wickham is probably spilling his fat little insides for a drink or a cup of coffee.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “Wickham is a coward,” Francesca said flatly. “He’ll sell us out.”

  “He can’t be blamed for everything, though.”

  “He’ll tell them about you, Sam. They’ll do things, make you talk to them—”

  “Did you see Kappic?”

  “They said Mustapha is dead.”

  “Did they say why?”

  Francesca looked at her hands. “He smashed their radio.” “I see,” Durell said. “Good.”

  She turned abruptly, her gray eyes anguished, twisting to face him. “How can you be so calm and quiet about it?” “I’m not, really. I’m as afraid as any man, I think.”

  “Are you? Are you really? I’ve been watching you, trying to figure you out. If I thought you were a little more human, with the ordinary weaknesses of other men—” She paused and laughed bitterly. “It’s the little mother in me, you see. I don’t like men to dominate me. Just enought, you understand. But I seem to enjoy taking care of men who need me for something. It’ gotten me into trouble before, and I don’t want it to happen again.” She paused and shook her head in wonder. “Isn’t this a foolish time to talk about such things?” “No, it’s better than just shivering and worrying.”

  “I suppose that’s it. But all the same—” She paused, then said without warning, “Do you care much for that Susan Stuyvers?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “She isn’t what she seems to be. You know that. Both of them—Susan and John—will kill anyone who gets in their way, if they can.”

  “None of us are in a position to try that,” Durell said. “They’ve taken all our weapons. Susan and John are as helpless as any of us.”

  “But more desperate, perhaps.”

  He smiled. “Yes.”

  She stared ruefully at Durell. “I’m afraid I’ll never understand you. I was jealous of Susan for a little while. Now I think I know why you let her act the way she does with you.” “There’s nothing to be jealous about.”

  “No.” She paused again. “And yet, I somehow wish you needed me. If only for a little bit.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  WICKHAM was still absent from the hold when Durell was summoned for questioning.

  He smelled brandy in the captain’s cabin and saw the crudely wiped bloodstains on the deck, and
wondered what had happened to Kappic. The fisherman who was his guard thrust him without ceremony along the deck into the cabin, and Durell’s brief glimpse of the stormy night was hopeful. The darkness and the howling wind seemed to funnel all its fury on the plunging fishing boat. The trawler was headed into the wind, her blunt bow thrusting and smashing into the ribbons of foam that whipped from her steel plates and fled in streamers through the noisy air. Everything creaked and groaned and gave forth metallic sounds of agony. Except for the riding lights on the masthead, everything was in darkness, and the bright glare of a gooseneck lamp and the heavy scent of Russian cigarette smoke in the captain’s warm cabin made Durell pause and blink and cough.

  “So,” he heard in Crimean dialect, “this is the famous spy, eh?”

  The captain was a thickset man with a black beard and a saddle nose. His hands were big and horny, resting on his desk. Durell noted the smashed radio at once, and lifted his brows.

  “You have not been able to call for help?” he asked sharply.

  The captain grunted. “Does that please you, Amerikanski?”

  “Who charges me with being a spy?” Durell asked.

  “The Turk, who was a fool, and who died because of it. And the American colonel, who likes to drink. And the big one with the face of a frog, who claims to be from the MVD—but is without credentials, of course.”

  “They all accuse me?”

  “Not all. Some say it is the big one.” The captain fumbled in his desk for a cigar and held it in his big, calloused hands, pointing it at Durell. “I am a simple man, comrade. I do not like it when people make puzzles and pronounce riddles and accuse each other. It is not for such a man like me to make judgments.”

  “No. And you don’t want to make a mistake, either,” Durell said.

  “Eh? You speak with a fine Muscovite accent—but I don’t understand your meaning.”

  “You could lose your boat, your pension, your standing— everything, if you mistreat the wrong man, captain.”