Assignment Unicorn

by Edward S. Aarons

  Durell said, “Your concern is not very touching.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Durell turned to Meecham. “Can we talk somewhere? Alone?”

  Meecham looked at his cigar. “We’ll go to Parigi’s trattoria. All right? Let’s get out of this rain. Mr. Andrews? Abner? Can you make it back to the Embassy okay?”

  “Yes,” Andrews said.

  “Wolfe?”

  The big man stared at Durell. “I’ll be out of sight.

  But not far away, sir.”

  Meecham transferred his cigar to his left hand and dug into his raincoat pocket. “This is for you, Cajun. One of the assassins at the airport lost it.”

  Meecham handed Durell a rather large gold coin, with a small hole drilled close to the outer rim, as if for a chain. The coin was very old and worn. Durell looked at it closely. It was an old Scottish gold piece, and he would have placed its date, although it had no date on it, at about the sixteenth century. It carried the Scottish coat of arms on one face.

  A unicorn.

  16

  WOLFE sat near the door of the trattoria, his heavy frame slumped, only his eyes alert on the street outside, with its sheets of sullen rain spattering on the blackened cobblestones. Then his glance swung to survey the few other patrons and the back door to the kitchen.

  Meecham and Durell sat at a corner table, their backs to the ocherous-yellow wall, where ancient posters pasted to the plaster were peeling back and down. The Frascati wine was untouched on the table between them.

  “Sir, may I ask a question?” Durell said.

  “All you like, Sam.”

  Durell said, “All right, then. What are you doing in Rome in the first place? You didn’t fly in on the TWA plane, did you?”

  “No. Wolfe and I were on the observation deck watching the plane’s arrival. We saw it all. From a distance, of course. Nothing we could do about it.”

  “You flew in earlier, then?”

  “The previous scheduled flight.” Meecham’s wide mouth twitched; it might have been a smile. “I know what you’re getting at. In your report from Singapore on Hugh Donaldson’s murder—for General McFee’s eyes only, but I got a copy—when you left Palingpon, you implied a theory that these attacks were basically aimed at K Section money transfers, They’re all arranged, by the way, through Joshua Strawbridge, our Finance officer. As you undoubtedly know. I have no doubt in my mind now that the men involved in these affairs are under some extraordinary influence, as you suggested, either hypnotized or drugged. And no doubt that it’s a vendetta against K Section. Aimed at disrupting our financial affairs, so to speak. As head of Internal Security, it comes under my province, Sam. There were two previous episodes you don’t know about. They were minor and did not involve any killings. One was in Santiago. The other was in Helsinki. In both cases, extraordinary acrobatics took place. In Chile, they came in from the roof, atop a new skyscraper, and it required a high-wire act from the adjacent building. In Finland, they swam through near-freezing water to reach a villa where your K Section people had some money for transfer into the Soviet Union. In both cases, they took sizable sums of money.”

  “Nothing else?” Durell asked.

  “Nothing else.” Meecham shrugged his thick shoulders. “It’s a worldwide thing, it seems. But then, the world is a small place these days.”

  “But you knew that George Donatti was being flown in here to Rome with a bundle of laundered cash, right? And you came on ahead to greet him and make sure that nothing happened this time?”

  “Yes, Sam. But Security hasn’t done much good, it seems.”

  “But you know about these transfers in advance, don’t you?” Durell insisted.

  “Naturally.”

  “And you’ve traced for a leak somewhere?”

  “We’re looking,” Meecham agreed. He eyed Durell curiously. “No luck, so far.”

  “And where is the next transfer of funds to take place?”

  “That’s not for you to know.”

  “I’ve been told to check out Hugh Donaldson’s murder,” Durell persisted. “If it’s tied to these events—and you know it is—I ought to be informed.”

  “I may have to take you off this thing.”

  Durell leaned forward over the round metal table.

  “Why is that?”

  Meecham looked at Wolfe, seated across the small trattoria from them, detached and remote and somehow sullen, yet intimately aware of them and everything around them.

  Meecham said, “This thing is about to break into the news media like shit hitting the fan. You work in a different field, Cajun. This is an internal problem. It’s a job for Internal Security. Your attitude toward us is only too well known. I can understand it, but it’s not helpful to us. Witness what you did to Charley Lee in Palingpon. If it breaks in the press, and you’re in it, your usefulness in your branch as field agent comes to an end. General Dickinson McFee suggested the risk isn‘t worth it.”

  “I’m just getting my teeth into this thing,” Durell protested. He was angry now. “Hugh Donaldson was an old friend.”

  “I’m sorry.” Meecham’s gravelly voice was sincere.

  “You’re going home.”

  “No, sir.”

  “What is it? Is it that girl, Maggie Donaldson, you’ve got up in your room?”

  “She’s part of it,” Durell said.

  Meecham was silent. His thick dark hair, salted with gray, gleamed with droplets of the rain they had walked through. His wide mouth opened and closed twice before he finally replied. “I’ll tell you what. Go see Wilderman.”

  “That son of a bitch,” Durell said.

  “Speak politely about my Assistant Director. He’s my right-hand man.”

  “He’s a potbellied old tomcat,“ Durell said.

  “If you want to stay on the job, see Enoch. He‘s at Station Four. You know it?”

  Durell nodded reluctantly. “Yes. Over at Ostia.”

  “Staying with his third wife for a few days. They have an arrangement, you know, even if they’re divorced. What are you going to do about the girl?”

  “Maggie? She’s no problem,” Durell said.

  “See that she stays that way," Meecham said.

  When Durell got up to go, Wolfe quietly followed him.

  17

  DURELL paused at the hotel desk to order the delivery of a rental car, and then went up to the room, knocked on the door, knocked again, spoke his name. Maggie opened the door. She had dressed during his absence and skinned back her long hair again, pinning it into the bun at the nape of her neck. It made her face look rounder and more severe, and there were little shadows of strain under her eyes. It had stopped raining, but evening had come, and the windows were dark now except for the glow of street lights from below. The hotel was quiet. Maggie had the radio going and he recognized Tchaikovsky’s String Serenade in C major, the familiar moderato waltz in the second movement. He was surprised she wasn’t listening to Roman rock. She wore a skirt in plain brown wool and a pinkish blouse that didn’t quite go with the skirt, and alligator pumps. The raincoat lay across the foot of the rumpled bed. She said, “Hi,” and turned her back to him and walked to the window. Durell noticed a fresh tray of food on the table beside the door, the plate holding the remnants of fettucini, and another glass of negroni. He looked at her straight back, narrow waist, and flaring hips, and clucked his tongue.

  “All right, so I was hungry,” she said.

  “No harm.”

  “Of course there’s harm. It’s fattening. I shouldn’t eat all that pasta. But I was nervous, wondering what was happening to you.” She flipped a vague hand. “I heard the news reports on the radio.”

  “I didn’t know you understood Italian.”

  “Well, I do.”

  “What did they say?”

  “It was all about that airport thing, the courier who had his hand chopped off. They found his hand, by the way, on the runway near the fence. The unicorns climbed a fen
ce they said nobody could climb, and got away in cars that were waiting for them. They rushed the courier’s hand to the hospital with the poor fellow and sewed it back on. I didn’t know they could do that sort of thing.”

  “It works, sometimes, with a good surgeon,” Durell said. “I’m glad of that. Donatti is a good man. We’ll give him the best of care. Turn around, Maggie.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to look at you.”

  “I’m all strung out. I need a stick. Anything. Can you get me a stick, Sam? I really need something.”

  “No,” he said. “You told me you were clean.”

  “I am. I really am. It’s just that I’m—well, nervous.” She turned suddenly and he could see the lines of tension around her soft, full mouth. “I’m sorry I ate that goddam pasta. It’s really fattening. You’re mad at me now, aren’t you? I’m too tall for you, too big to please you.”

  “No, that’s not true," Durell said gently. He took her hands in his. Her palms were cold and damp. “Has this been happening to you often, Maggie?”

  “Not lately. Not so much. It’s just that when I heard that radio story about what happened at the airport, I knew right away it was more of the same thing that happened in Palingpon, when Daddy was killed, and you’re involved in it, and all, and I wanted—I wanted something."

  “No more of that,” he insisted.

  “I know."

  “Never any more,” he said.

  “Yes, Sam.”

  “Put on your coat. We’re going to Ostia.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Coney Island. Why are we going there?”

  “I think I’ve been fired,” Durell said. “I’d like to find out why. And get authority to go on with this.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t. Why should they fire you?”

  “I’d like the answer to that one, too.”

  “You want to take me with you just to make sure I don’t crack up and do something bad, Sam?”

  “No,” he said. He eased it with a smile. “I just think you might be useful.”

  “Go to hell,” she said. But she reached for her raincoat.

  18

  WILDERMAN was a slob.

  His full name was Enoch Marshall Wilderman, and he used it in its entirety whenever he had to write his official signature on governmental ISB documents. He was tall, well over six feet, like Durell, but narrow in the shoulders, fiat-chested, with a prominent, protuberant belly, over which his loose, old-fashioned pleated slacks sagged from a narrow black belt. He wore steel-rimmed Franklin glasses and generally peered through them with his head thrown back, his lanky gray hair in disarray, tossed helter-skelter. He smoked a stubby pipe, perhaps because he thought it fitted his image as Assistant Director of ISB, and he had been with Internal Security from the very first day the special bureau was established by the former Secretary of State, over General McFee’s objections. In fact, Wilderman had been replaced only two years ago by John Meecham. Within the ranks of field agents for K Section there had been some speculation about the reshuffling, but mostly it was ascribed to politics. The House and Senate committees appointed to supervise K Section had never been much impressed by Enoch Wilderman’s autocratic and slovenly manner. Meecham, whose solid ugliness inspired more confidence, had been recommended by General McFee.

  Durell pulled up outside the villa, on a side road within view of the Mediterranean, about two hours later. The heavy overcast that had drenched Rome with rain was breaking up. A wind came from the west, over the sea, and the clouds were shredding, broomed away from the mainland. Now and then a glimmer of moonlight oozed through the night clouds.

  Maggie had been silent on the drive down the autostrada from Rome. Durell had not pressed her to talk.

  The moment they were admitted to the villa—Enoch Wilderman always had half a dozen security men around him—Durell spotted the birds.

  Durell did not dislike birds, not even the huge, mangy-looking macaw that strutted in slow motion across the marble tiles of the foyer floor, but Wilderman’s peculiar passion for birds disgusted him. Durell was willing to bet that Wilderman had not occupied the villa for more than twenty-four hours before the house was stained by droppings. And Wilderman always abandoned his feathered friends when he moved on elsewhere. They were left for someone else to clean up.

  The villa had once been quite pretentious, but it now smelled of decay, a scent of mildew compounded with dust, sand, and fungus that flourished in the damp sea air. The house stood on a low rise beyond the main amusement-park area of Ostia, on a small coastal road overlooking the sea. There was a garden abandoned to the weeds, a four-car garage. A series of balconies protruded from the upper floor.

  Wilderman was waiting for them in a back room once designed as a solarium. It had a domed glass roof. Heavy blackout shades had been installed and pulled over all the glass. Wilderman did not like to be watched, especially from outside at night.

  “Ah. Mr. Samuel Durell. The Cajun,” he said.

  Enoch Wilderman had a surprisingly deep, impressive baritone. He sat wearing an old gray-flannel robe and old-fashioned carpet slippers half off his long, bony feet, and he tilted his head back in his characteristic gesture so that light splintered from his steel-rimmed Franklins. His smile was thin and small.

  “And the young lady,” Wilderman added. His thin shoulders hunched as if in apprehension. “Miss Margaret Donaldson, I believe. Take a seat anywhere. Anywhere.” His rich mellifluous voice drowned them in sweet oil. He cocked his head, much like a ragged old bird himself, and listened to a sudden burst of squawking from another room in the villa, and then the macaw strutted in, each leg moving as if in slow motion, leaving a few rather large pellets behind it. “Ah, Deborah. Behave yourself now. Sit down, Miss Donaldson. Please do. Some tea, perhaps?”

  Maggie looked at Durell’s tall figure. “No, thank you, sir.”

  “You have my sympathies for the terrible tragedy that overtook your father.”

  Two parakeets flew into the room with their peculiarly labored form of flight, as it their strength were about to give out. One of them, yellow with blue wings, landed on top of Wilderman’s thatch of gray hair. On anyone else, Durell thought, it would look ridiculous. But Wilderman paid no attention to it. The second parakeet landed exhausted on the floor and rested, huffing and putting, its little breast like a tiny bellows.

  “You are not afraid of birds, I trust, young lady,” Wilderman said, and it was plain that he didn’t give a damn whether she was or not. “Some people have a phobic dislike of the dear creatures, much as women are generally terrified of mice. No need to fear them, dear Miss Donaldson.”

  “I don't,” Maggie said.

  Wilderman swung to Durell and said abruptly, “You should not have brought her here to this place.”

  “Her father was assassinated.”

  "Granted. And you were Hugh’s friend. Hugh was not a paragon of virtue, you know, according to our rules and regulations. You could be considered suspect, too. But the girl does not belong here, much less within sight of me.” Wilderman preferred his anonymity these days. However, since she is with you, Durell, she might as well stay. As you say, she may be considered to have a vested personal and emotional interest in the matter. But you know as well as I how debilitating such emotions can be. You have met with our esteemed ISB Director, John Meecham, of course, in Rome. I understand you object to our man Wolfe, much as you objected to poor Charley Lee. Regrettable. Impulsive. Not conducive to operational efficiency. Wolfe is outside on a Lambretta. He may suffer his death of cold in this sea wind. Would you prefer that he be brought in?”

  “No,” Durell said. “He can stay out there. I wanted to talk to you, sir!”

  “I know all about it. You have postulated some rather thought-provoking and intriguing theories about the series of misfortunes that have lately befallen K Section. You’ve stepped into my bailiwick, Mr. Durell, and I may or may not happen to agree with your ideas, but I tend to side with Meecham
about sending you back to your regular field assignments.” Wilderman leaned forward slightly, hunching his shoulders until they stood up bonily, like a vulture’s. “I know that you and most other field agents in K Section resent me and my work. Perhaps you consider it a scavenging operation. Perhaps it is. But scavengers are necessary to keep matters sanitized. You and the other field men are often under great pressure

  and stress, and sometimes temptation. A man is only human, after all. No amount of indoctrination at K Section’s Farm can knock out a man’s ordinary drives and motivations completely.”

  “You sound afraid of us.”

  “I am,” Wilderman said. “I sometimes liken myself to being in a cage full of tigers. If you consider that a compliment, accept it as such. I know you, Durell. You can kill. You can handle grenades, thermite bombs, and for all I know, dismantle tactical nuclear weapons. You can kill with a knife, a rolled newspaper, your thumbs, a hatpin. Poisons are not alien to you. And you resent surveillance behind your back. Well, my work may not be pleasant, but it is necessary. For example, you claim friendship with Hugh Donaldson, do you not?”

  Durell’s blue eyes looked black. “Yes.”

  “And you are screwing this young woman here, his daughter, a drug addict, to a fare-thee-well. You have already been advised that Donaldson’s accumulated fortune is a subject of suspicion. Ergo, you could fall under the same shadow.”

  “To hell with you,” Durell said.

  “One moment. Another example. Your dossier shows certain activities in the past, for instance, in cooperation with a certain Colonel Cesar Skoll, of Moscow’s KGB. You have been cited several times as stating that Skoll is your friend.”

  “Not a friend. An ally of expedience.”

  “How do we know there is nothing more‘? How do we know you are not paving a safe haven for yourself if you ever decide to go over the wire? Can you be trusted? Should you not be observed, watched, considered with a certain suspicion?”

  “You sound like the Gestapo.”

  “Not at all. A check and counter-check. You are intruding in a field of security that does not concern you."