Assignment Unicorn

by Edward S. Aarons

  THE UNICORN is an exceptional beast. He has the body of a horse, with a single long horn projecting from his forehead. He combines in himself a love of purity and the strength of a monster. He is usually pure white in color. As a subject of tapestries in the Middle Ages, the unicorn represents the Scottish arms. He cats no living vegetation and never treads upon green grass. His horn, when ground up and powdered, was believed to have medicinal purposes as an antidote against poison.

  In the sixteenth century, a gold coin equal to eighteen shillings Scots was circulated in Scotland and was known as a unicorn.

  The unicorn was never captured or killed by those who hunted it.

  1

  THE FUNERAL was over.

  Durell stood quietly in the rain, watching the mourners in the small Chinese cemetery. The rain was heavy and warm, one of those quick storms out of the Malacca Straits that flooded the drains, gutters and canals of the city. It brought no relief from the heat.

  “Let’s go,” Charley Lee said.

  “In a minute.”

  “I’m soaked to the skin.”

  “Wait”

  “I don’t see anything to wait for,” Charley complained. “The guy is dead. He’s now buried." Lee looked miserable, his white straw hat shapeless with the soaking rain. The shoulders of his white suit spread dark wet stains down over his round, comfortable little body. “For the burial of a head of state, even on this miserable island, it wasn’t very much.”

  “Premier Shang wanted it this way,” Durell said.

  “It bothers you, Sam?”

  “Yes,” Durell said. “The way he died.”

  “You shouldn‘t even be here, Cajun. Exposed like this. I think everybody knows who you are.” Charley peered through his fogged spectacles. “You were a good friend of Shang’s, weren’t you?”

  “Not good, not bad. Friends. I helped him once, a long time ago. He was doing a good job for Palingpon.”

  “Just another phony Red. Always in our pockets."

  “He was a good man,” Durell said. “I liked him.”

  “You seem to have a lot of friends on the other side of the wire, Sam.”

  “To hell with you, Lee,” Durell said quietly. “Quit acting like a nursemaid."

  “Well, that’s my job.”

  “I don’t know about that. I don’t need it.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Go find another job,” Durell said.

  Charley Lee’s spectacles were round and steel-rimmed, and he took them off now to wipe away the rain and humidity. A sudden runnel of water poured from the fronds of a traveler’s palm that decorated one wall of the enclosure. The water splashed on his neat little brown shoes. He looked innocuous, but Durell knew he was a very dangerous man. He listened absently to Lee’s sigh.

  “You know I have to stick with you, Sam.”

  “Go find yourself a girl in the District.”

  “Not without you, Sam.”

  Durell said, “I’m not Chinese. You are. Most of the girls in the District are Chinese.”

  “You prejudiced? You mind screwing Chinee gal?” Lee said. “You’re a damned bigot, Cajun.”

  Durell paid no attention.

  The mourners were already filing out through the ornate cemetery gate, leaving the aboveground white tombs, with their elaborate plaques of enameled photographs and testimonials. The last gong from the Chinese orchestra sounded on the road outside. The diplomats, those who had chosen to attend the funeral, hurried away into their beflagged limousines. The French, the Indonesian, even the Dutch, the last still in his ex-colonial isolation and ostracism, although the Netherlands had been officially forgiven for their centuries of “colonial oppression” in Palingpon. The group of yellow-robed Buddhist priests still chanted softly at Shang’s tomb. Their shaven pates glistened with the steady tropical rain.

  Durell waited, wet through, careless of the downpour. His solid height made him tower over the Palingponese around him.

  “Come on,” Lee urged softly. “We have much to do.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll meet you later.”

  “What else is there to see?” It was plain that Charley Lee, the security man from the Embassy, felt very uncomfortable. This place was far from the quiet, terrifying offices of State in Washington, D.C., from where he derived his power. Most field agents from K Section—that troubleshooting arm of the CIA for which Durell had worked for what seemed like too many years—would have been annoyed by Lee’s presence. Durell did not let it bother him. Again he paid no attention when Lee said once more, “I'm going, Cajun.”

  “Good.”

  But the stout Chinese did not go.

  A small party had detached itself from the last group of mourners still lingering at Premier Shang’s tomb. The group now made its way toward where Durell stood so quietly in the rain, watching. A woman in a veil led the way, attended by a very old Palingponese gentleman with a wispy beard, a white gown, and a plaited straw hat. Respectfully, two steps behind them, was a slim and dapper brown man who looked as if he would have been more comfortable in a uniform decorated with medals and gold braid. The trio moved along the round steppingstones of the path, circled the decorative fish pond in the center of the cemetery, and came to a halt before Durell’s tall figure. The old gentleman bowed. The woman lifted her veil slightly and gave Durell a long, sad, comprehensive look. She was not young. A lifetime of sharing the political fortunes and exiles of Premier Shang, her husband, had left only a few lines on her round face; but her dark almond eyes looked ancient.

  “Mr. Durell? Mr. Samuel Durell?”

  “Yes, Madame Shang.”

  Her English was halting. “It was good of you to come.”

  “You are kind to say so.” He felt his words were inadequate. “I’m truly very, very sorry.”

  “I grieve for my husband. I grieve for your friend, or business associate, who was slain with him.”

  “They were both good friends,” Durell said.

  “So unfortunate, however,” the widow said quietly. “One has come to expect terror and violence in this world. But your friend, Mr. Donaldson, was merely an innocent bystander. Or so I am told. Such ferocity. Such madmen. My husband was basically a good, gentle person.”

  “I was privileged to know him,” Durell said.

  “Yes, he spoke of you so often. When you helped him in— But we do not speak publicly of that.”

  Durell smiled. “No.”

  She put out a slim hand. “Well, goodbye, Mr. Durell. Do give my thanks to the General, your employer, for his condolences.”

  “I shall do so. Again, my regrets, Madame Shang.”

  “I truly believe you,” she said.

  The woman turned and walked away with quiet dignity, assisted by the elderly gentleman who, although well into his eighties, still performed as a gallant from Old China. He was probably her grandfather, Durell thought. The Hakka Chinese of Palingpon had been on the island for many generations, and some had risen from tin-mine laborers to a merchant aristocracy among the Palingponese.

  The small, dapper man remained behind with Durell and Charley Lee. He paid no attention to Lee. His intelligent eyes reflected no mourning. He had the high cheekbones and golden skin of the true Palingpon native, the slightly slanted black eyes of the Malay infusion amid the island’s population. Durell was suddenly aware that the heavy rain had stopped as quickly as it had begun. Shafts of hot sunlight began to slant through the trees, and he put on metal-rimmed mirrored sunglasses. He heard small birds move in the palms and oleander bushes, saw that a small warm breeze stirred the bougainvillea along the opposite wall of the little cemetery. The breeze made everything drip and spatter. The heavily mirrored glasses made Durell’s harsh face l
ook like a mask.

  “Mr. Durell. Welcome to Palingpon. Once again. But it is sad that you arrive for such a tragic occasion.” There was nothing sad in the man’s crisp Oxonian voice. “You made quick air connections from Hong Kong."

  “I was fortunate.”

  “You came, of course, as much because of Mr. Donaldson’s death as for his Excellency’s.”

  “Naturally.”

  “It is possible that we may be of mutual help in this unfortunate matter. So strange. You see, Premier Shang had no real enemies, personal or political, these days; it is my job to make certain of this, as you must know. Madame Shang, who will be premier pro tem and take over the government in the interim, has kindly ordered me to continue in office for the time being.”

  “Colonel Ko, I am at your service,” Durell said.

  “That makes me very happy. Your capacities and place in this world-”

  “I have no special influence,” Durell said.

  “Understood. But can you possibly meet me at four o’clock”—Colonel Ko whipped his watch into sight, a large Omega electronic chronometer—“this afternoon?”

  “At four. Yes.”

  “Delighted.” Colonel Ko looked at Charley Lee once, but otherwise did not acknowledge his presence. “Please try to he prompt, Mr. Durell. And come alone, of course.”

  “Mr. Lee is my associate.”

  “I am not interested in Mr. Lee from your Embassy.

  I know the public servant he is. You are the investigating officer sent by your agency, Mr. Durell. There are—ah—other matters of business to be discussed, aside from the late premier’s untidy, lamented and inopportune death.”

  “Yes.” Durell’s voice was dry. “I suppose there are.”

  “Good. We understand each other. At four.”

  “At the Presidential Palace?”

  “Why, no,” Colonel Ko said. “At the mortuary.”

  There was one other small delay, however. A messenger carrying a large floral tribute arrived belatedly through the cemetery gates and hurried toward the new tomb. The messenger was a middle-aged Palingponese wearing the traditional blue trousers and turban of the working class of the city. There was nothing special about him, but the floral arrangement he carried was unusual.

  It was an elaborate preparation, obviously done with great craftsmanship. It consisted of hundreds of white flowers, mostly orchids, shaped over a bamboo frame to form a horse with a great horn growing from its forehead. There were mules on the island, but few horses.

  The messenger put the arrangement down at the base of the tomb, straightened his back with a grimace, and trotted away.

  Charley Lee chuckled. “A unicorn, of all things.”

  “Does it mean something to you?" Durell asked.

  “I’m just a heathen Chinee. You’re a Westerner. Different traditions about the same object. To me, a unicorn is one of the four auspicious beasts that attended the giant P’an Ku, while P’an Ku labored for twelve thousand years to chisel out the creation of the universe. To you, the unicorn is a symbol of true purity. To the Chinese, he is a beast who combines in himself all of the exceptional virtues and principles of both Yin and Yang. But whatever is said about Shang, he was hardly pure, was he?” Charley Lee sneezed suddenly. “Jesus, I’m catching a cold. In all this heat yet.”

  2

  A GHARRI, a fringed carriage pulled by a tired gray mule, took them up the hill to the Palingpon International. The driver looked like any other driver in the hot, steamy city, but he had been posted a bit too conveniently outside the cemetery gate, and he had worked his vehicle with deliberate rage through the press of international reporters and photographers crowded around the entrance to the Boulevard of Mamywon Yongyak. Tall casuarina trees bent gracefully over the median strip of the commemorative route that ran out to the airport. Durell judged that the gharri driver was one of Colonel K0’s people, and he remained appropriately silent on the labored return to the hotel.

  The city of Palingpon showed an eclectic influence from centuries of pull and thrust from its larger surrounding neighbors. There was an old Portuguese fort on the waterfront, built in the style of a brick martello tower, and a cluster of Dutch buildings, like something straight out of Amsterdam, along the fetid klongs. The opposite sides of the canals were lined by thatched stilt houses of fishermen and the so-called water people. There were mosques and Buddhist temples, and a Hindu monastery on the hillside, carefully erected at the same level as the old Portuguese Catholic church. There was a large enclave inhabited by the Hakka Chinese. The diplomatic area of European villas was spread out on the hill above the Dyak-type houses of the original Palingponese. Above all, atop the small green mountain that overlooked the harbor clogged with tankers and freighters and one white P&O cruise ship, was the Presidential Palace and the Palingpon International, looking like every other architectural abortion of cubes and balconies the world over. All the flags, foreign and domestic, hung limply at half mast, in deference to the state funeral of Premier Shang. In two years, Shang had done a good deal to pull the island into the twentieth century, after its bloody struggles against colonial adventurers and Malay, Filipino and Indonesian rajahs. But now Shang was dead, literally torn to pieces by assassins.

  Durell showered and changed from his rain-soaked clothing into a drip-dry seersucker suit. While he dressed, he checked the impersonal room. There was a microphone behind one of the Gauguin South Seas prints, another in the telephone, a third behind the medicine cabinet in the bath. He was not surprised. He did not touch them. He added his S&W snub-barreled .38 to his waistband as he dressed. The air conditioning made the room feel clammy. He was accustomed to acclimatizing himself wherever he went, and would have preferred the old Willem Van Huyden Hotel down by the river, with its high ceilings and big wooden fans and Victorian verandas. But the Hong Kong briefing had included papers and a reservation at the International.

  Charley Lee knocked and immediately came in. It was a dangerous thing to do. But Lee did not notice the quick, arrested movement Durell made; or chose not to mention it. The Chinese wore a fresh batik shirt with a gaudy flower print and pale-gray doubleknit slacks. The man’s round face and almond eyes behind his steel-rimmed glasses seemed more composed than at the cemetery.

  “All right, Sam? Can we talk about it now?”

  “Not here,” Durell said. “The walls have ears."

  “Time’s a-wastin’, to coin a phrase.”

  “We’ll have lunch.”

  Lee blinked. “Shouldn’t we have it sent up? Of course, I want you to be careful, Sam, but—”

  “I am. It’s part of my business.”

  “And my business is to keep you alive.”

  Durell’s blue eyes turned dark, almost feral. “I know your business, Charley. I don’t want you holding my hand. I don’t know why I’ve been saddled with you.”

  “I’ve seen your dossier. It isn’t every man who works directly for General McFee—”

  “Shut up,” Durell said.

  It was too late.

  The microphone behind the Gauguin print on the wall had picked him up.

  Durell took Charley Lee to the Willem Van Huyden, where wide porches, set with round metal tables and bowls of hibiscus, overlooked the harbor and several of the crowded klongs. The death of Premier Shang had not inhibited the water merchants in their sampans, which glided like smooth bugs under the wooden bridges and along the tin-roofed warehouses that lined the old wharves.

  Durell ordered the rijstaffel and ate hungrily, aware that he’d eaten only a prepackaged breakfast on Air Garuda from Hong Kong. Charley Lee did not like spicy food. In the dim lobby of the old hotel, a gamelan orchestra played softly, the bamboo instruments making sounds like a dozen subdued xylophones.

  “You going to keep your date with Ko?” Lee asked.

  If I don’t, I doubt that I’ll be able to leave the country,” Durell said calmly.

  “You haven’t broken the law here. Hell, Madame Sh
ang knows you. You’ve only just arrived.”

  “For the moment, I think the laws are what Colonel Ko says they are.”

  “Okay, Okay. He’s got you running scared already?”

  Durell’s eyes again darkened. “You haven't been out in the field much, have you, Charley?”

  “An unkind cut, Sam. You know I’m Far Eastern Affairs. The home office keeps me busy. I know you don't like me, and my job is thankless. Who watches the watchman, hey? But I'm not about to let you out of my sight.”

  “This is my job,” Durell said. “Do you supervise?”

  Durell stared at him. “I won’t work here, if you’re the boss.”

  “Jesus, you’re a touchy one.”

  “You just don’t know anything about it.”

  I’m only supposed to help you and keep an eye on you Sam, while you make the report on Donaldson’s killing.”

  “An accident,” Durell commented. “Donaldson was just an innocent bystander when they cut up Premier Shang.”

  “So they say. But do you believe it?”

  “No. It could be the other way around.”

  Lee’s round glasses reflected the river scene beyond the dining veranda. He leaned elbows on the table. “You think maybe Shang was the innocent victim? That would be real tough to prove.”

  “I may never really prove it,” Durell said. “But I’d like to know.”

  “You really think they were after poor Donaldson?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  Charley sighed. “Let’s drop it and go down to the District and get us some real Chinee poontang, Sam.”

  “Go ahead,” Durell said.

  “Maybe we’re all a bit overly sensitive.”

  Durell said, “You get that way in K Section, or you get yourself killed.”

  3

  THE ASSASSINATION had taken place at high noon, the day before.

  Premier Shang had not been a man to hide behind palace walls. His appointment with Hugh Donaldson was made at Donaldson’s request. The reason for the appointment was still unknown. The premier had suggested the south terrace of the palace as a pleasant place for the meal.