Assignment Unicorn

by Edward S. Aarons

  Durell drew a deep breath. “No, sir, what I want from you is to make certain arrangements in regard to the next transfer of K Section funds.” He had let Wilderman anger him, and he regretted it. He watched the green, yellow and red macaw carefully drop a pellet on Wilderman’s left slipper as the bird stepped over the man’s skinny, outstretched legs. Wilderman’s posture, slumped again in the chair, made his belly protrude even more than usual. Durell said, “Sir, We’ve come to know something about these people, whoever they are. Call them the unicorns, for convenience. We know that they are informed about our cash transfers and subsidies to various political figures, such as Colonel Ko in Palingpon, and to the GGI here in Italy, whom we’ve infiltrated with some good people. The money will have to be replaced, of course. But most important, the unicorns seem to know of our cash transfers ahead of time. And they are ready and waiting for us. Hypnotized or bombed out of their skulls, they’re ready. So we can assume there is a serious leak somewhere.”

  Wilderman’s gray eyebrows lifted. His baritone voice was mild. “A leak, Durell?”

  “Somewhere. They’re being tipped off. Or have access to information about K Section’s operations. Which may mean that even the Internal Security Bureau has been infiltrated. Or perhaps it’s in Josh Strawbridge’s Finance Section. I don’t know yet.” Durell paused and looked at Maggie, who in turn was watching the yellow and blue parakeet pick at strands of Wilderman’s thick gray hair. He said, “I don’t want to be handled with kid gloves, or shoved off into another assignment, just when things may break for us. I don’t think General Dickinson McFee would want that, either. He assigned me as investigating officer to check into what happened in Palingpon, and it’s tied in with what happened here in Rome, and what will surely happen again elsewhere, until it’s stopped.”

  Wilderman kicked the macaw away with a sudden burst of hostility. The bird set up a great squawking and then waddled away to investigate the parakeet still on the floor. Wilderman drew his slippered feet under him and again hunched his thin shoulders forward. His chest was caved in and he looked consumptive.

  “So what do you suggest, Durell?"

  “I think we ought to set one up.”

  “Ah."

  “Arrange a special situation—”

  “A special transfer of funds?”

  “No, sir. We can keep to the regular schedule. If there is a leak, a change in routine would be suspect.”

  “Have you made your report to McFee yet?”

  “Not yet, but—”

  “Incidentally, do you agree with the present administration’s political programs and ideology?”

  “It doesn’t matter whether I agree or disagree with temporary political fashions,” Durell said flatly. “You’re making noises like the Gestapo again.”

  Wilderman nodded. “Perhaps so, Perhaps this suggestion of yours about setting up a trap, a distraction, will be useful.” Behind his spectacles, Enoch Wilderman’s eyes suddenly glittered. He patted his paunchy belly. There were food stains on his old gray bathrobe. He looked at Maggie, his glance suddenly bitter, and then his glance swung back to Durell. “We will discuss it in private. Without the young lady. Later.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Maggie curled her lip. She seemed distressed by Durell’s courtesy to the man. Wilderman nodded his head at them, and the parakeet in his hair lost its balance and lurched forward, sliding down onto his forehead. Without warning, Wilderman Slapped at the little bird and smashed it aside, sending it sailing half across the room. It landed in a fluffy, shattered heap on the marble floor.

  Durell got up and walked toward it and picked it up. There was a bead of blood on the broken beak. One wing was bent and twisted awry. The bird was dead. Durell walked back and put the little body quietly on the table next to Wilderman’s chair.

  “I believe this was yours, Mr. Wilderman.”

  Wilderman did not look at the tiny corpse. He did not respond to Durell. His pale eyes glittered again. A bead of saliva gleamed in a corner of his mouth.

  19

  THE WIND was bitter and glacial, blowing from the east. The lakes of Thun and the Brienzer See, glimpsed through the valleys between the high upthrusts of bare rock in the upper elevations of the Bernese Oberland, were a frozen glare of ice that reflected the blue light from the pale September sky. Durell shivered and lowered the Zeiss binoculars and slapped his gloved hands together. It was a long way from the tropical heat of Palingpon.

  “Anything?” Wolfe grunted.

  “Not yet.”

  “Then he’s late,” Wolfe decided.

  “He’s not supposed to be late,” Durell said.

  “Maybe a flat tire. Traffic out of Zurich. It could be anything.”

  “No,” Durell said. “He should be here by now.”

  Wolfe was silent. The thin Alpine air made his nostrils move slightly as he breathed in and out. In the days since he had been posted to stand by Durell in Rome, the men had achieved a kind of truce, an unspoken agreement that Durell’s privacy would be respected as long as Wolfe was allowed to do his job. Acting as overt surveillance on Durell as a security measure was typical ISB work, but at first Wolfe had been resentful of the assignment. He had no use for the wild men who served in the field, who covered the darker corners of the globe with their freewheeling data-collecting activities. He preferred his own work for ISB. He liked things tidy.

  He kept watching the cold sun-glitter of ice on the Lake of Thun and chewed on a Tobler chocolate bar.

  Durell trudged through the snow to a better vantage point from where he could watch the narrow, snow-packed road that wound up from Route 72 going toward Kandersteg and the Lotschberg Tunnel’s north end. There was a haze over the pale sun and Durell thought it might snow again before dark. Nothing moved on the road. There had been no traffic on it for the last hour, and it was already in dark-blue shadow; the afternoon sun had dipped behind the peaks to the west at Grimmialp. The air felt thin, lacking in oxygen. It was between seasons, when the autumn tourists had left and the ski people had not yet arrived. The thrifty efficient Swiss had closed down most of the inns and chalets in the area for a week or two, in order to enjoy a well-merited rest. High in the whitewashed sky were two jet contrails from planes heading to and from Italy, passing each other at thirty thousand feet. Durell looked north and south along the valley etched below and saw nothing. Albert LeChaux was not in sight.

  Wolfe plodded through the snow, his bulky body casting a long shadow before him. He wore a Western sheepskin-lined short coat. His hands were thrust into the slash pockets; he kept the rifle in place under his right arm.

  “You seem uptight, Mr. Durell. I understand your people never had trouble on this payroll trip before. I heard nobody could possibly know about it, the way you set it up.”

  “Somebody knows,” Durell said.

  “I understand this fellow LeChaux can take care of himself.”

  “Maybe not this time,” Durell said.

  “And you figure to take his place and do better for the rest of the run to Geneva?”

  “Yes. Hope so.”

  “I’m going with you, you know.”

  “Yes. All right.”

  “I don’t think they ought to have let you even try it,” Wolfe said. “I’ve checked up on this LeChaux fellow. He’s big and tough. He’s got a fast car, a Mercedes 450 SEL, you said. He’s from your neck of the woods, I gather. From Louisiana.”

  “The bayous,” Durell said.

  “But he knows the mountains. And he’s been warned. He’ll be all right.”

  “He’s carrying over half a million dollars in laundered cash for our bank in Geneva,” Durell said. “It’s big enough bait.”

  Wolfe stamped his booted feet to improve his circulation and glared up at the pale sun. “It’s been done fifty times in the past,” he said. “He’ll be fine.”

  They waited.

  Durcll carried a hunting rifle similar to Wolfe’s. Lower down the slop
e, almost a thousand feet in descent, there was a closed and shuttered chalet just above the unnumbered road that branched off Route 72 and dead-ended up here on the mountain shoulder, where a private ski slope had been established. In the chalet were Maggie and a man named Harry Fortnum. Harry was armed with an M-14. Harry Fortnum and Wolfe were convinced that LeChaux was not going to be ambushed. Nobody really believed it, except Durell.

  Durell had wanted automatic rifles, perhaps Uzis or AK-47s, but Wilderman had refused. “The four of you,” Wilderman had said, “Would be the equivalent of a company of troops. The Swiss just might raise the smallest objection.”

  Durell knew that Wolfe also had a .357 Magnum in the big pocket of his sheepskin-lined coat. Durell had his .38 in his waistband. Wolfe wore no hat, and his ears pinched with the cold. Wolfe was about to return to the

  higher post when Durell said quietly, “There he is.”

  The white Mercedes 450 SEL was coming on fast, climbing up the winding turns from Frutigen without apparent effort, kicking out plumes of snow mist from under the tires. Durell said, “Come on, then,” and started the descent to the chalet, his booted feet slipping and sliding in the snow along the path they had made to come up here. Wolfe labored behind him like a polar bear. The Mercedes was going to beat them to the chalet by about a minute. He could hear the throb of the car’s engine as it came around the last curve in the narrow road and settled down with a rumble of power for the last stretch of the climb. It was moving faster now, all but grazing the guard rail on the right. The long plume of powdered snow lifted high behind it, hovering for a moment, then dispersing in the Alpine wind. Durell saw Maggie’s tall figure step from the door of the chalet, and he broke into a run going downhill.

  The Mercedes stopped with a shower of snow and ice spurting from its braked wheels and rocked a bit on its hard springs. The man who got out from behind the driver’s wheel was muffled in a heavy car coat against the cold. He slapped his gloved hands together and called something to Maggie and then waited.

  Harry Fortnum came out of the chalet and kept his rifle pointed at the driver, who did not move except to turn his head and watch Durell’s approach, with Wolfe plunging down behind him.

  Harry Fortnum said, “This fellow isn’t LeChaux.”

  The driver said, “I’m Rasmussen. Rod Rasmussen. Posted to Zurich. Finance Section. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Where is LeChaux?” Durell asked.

  “Sick.”

  “How, sick?”

  “Sick like throwing up and diarrhea, what do you think, sick? Food poisoning. Or maybe Port Chalmers flu. So I had to take his place.” Rasmussen looked at Maggie and grinned and winked at her and Durell was surprised to feel a twinge of annoyance. Maggie simply stared back at him. The man was very handsome, blond and Nordic in the classic style. He stood patiently while Wolfe patted him down.

  “He’s clean,” Wolfe said.

  “What happened on the run from Zurich?” Durell asked.

  “Nothing happened. A piece of cake.”

  “And the money?”

  “Still in the car.

  “No problems at all?”

  “I could use a drink, that’s my only problem.” Again Rasmussen looked deliberately at Maggie and winked and grinned. Durell felt more annoyed this time and said, “Show us the cash. You’ll get a receipt.”

  Rasmussen’s blue eyes were like the ice in a Norwegian fjord. “Your credentials, old buddy. You make me just a wee bit nervous.”

  It was only fair. He didn’t have to show the man anything, since Harry Fortnum still stood at Rasmussen’s back with his weapon ready to blow the man’s spine away. But Durell tugged out his ID case and flipped it open. Then he shoved the big man back toward the car, perhaps using a bit more force than necessary.

  “Show us.”

  Under the back seat of the Mercedes sedan was an innocent panel, looking like an integral part of the auto. Rasmussen pulled it up by touching the end of a bolt at one corner, then another. In the cavity below was a fairly large gray steel case with a carrying handle at one end.

  “Open it,” Durell said.

  “I can’t. No key.”

  “I want to see what’s in it," Durell insisted.

  “The usual cash, LeChaux told me.”

  “How much?"

  “I don’t know,” Rasmussen said, smiling. “And I don’t really care. It’s a routine run. Never had trouble with it before. LeChaux usually took it, but this morning he was tossing his cookies all over the bathroom, and he asked me to drive. He briefed me on this stop, and that’s all.” Rasmussen’s handsome profile angled toward Maggie again, who began to flush and bite her lip; then he looked back to Durell. His glacial eyes held small glinting lights in their pale depths, as hard and cold as diamonds. “You ought to know the routine, Durell. The case is locked in Zurich, at the Central Office there. The only other key is up in Geneva, where Joe Feldman is waiting for it. It’s case-hardened tempered steel, and unless you want to try to blow it up and scatter all the bread around in the Alps, you take it from here just like it is.” He finally turned directly to Maggie. “Aren’t you Maggie Donaldson?”

  “You know damned well who I am,” she said.

  “Yes, I knew your father in Malaysia, long time ago. You were just a scrawny kid then. You’ve filled out some, sweetheart.” He looked at Durell. “Harry is too nervous for me,” he said. “Have him take that goddam peashooter out of my back.”

  “It’s all right,” Durell decided.

  The gray steel case was put back into the cavity under the back seat and the seat was replaced. Rasmussen tossed the keys to Durell. Maggie and Wolfe sat in the back, over the money. Durell wondered if there was really any money in the case, and then decided he was being paranoid and accepted the situation as it was, for the time being. They were running an hour late already, and soon the sun would completely vanish.

  He wasn’t sure now whether he still hoped a trap would be sprung on them or not. He had planned to take Route 20 from Thun to Saanen, then swing onto 77 through Chateau-d’Oex, but at the last moment he continued on the way to Gstaad, where in a few weeks trendy Europeans, beautiful people, would gather to play their strange courting games after a day on the slopes. From the long fields and slopes of Gstaad he drove on toward the jagged peaks of Col du Pillon and the massive mountains of Les Diablerets. The moon was up, full and round and silvery, shining on the road, which had more traffic now. His plan, if nothing happened by then, was to swing north at the junction of E2 at Aigle on Lac Leman and take the superhighway through Montreaux and Lausanne, eventually arriving at Geneva by midnight. He wasn’t sure now he wanted anything to happen, aware of a growing tightness in the pit of his stomach. He thought of what the unicorn people had done in Palingpon and Rome, and he wasn’t at all certain he wanted Maggie in on this. She had insisted, claiming it was her right since her father had been one of the victims.

  It didn’t work out quite that way.

  They were followed from Gstaad onward.

  The headlights were persistent, and of course the car could have been driven by anyone simply taking the same postal bus route to Montreaux that Durell followed. Now and then, in the moonlight, he caught a glimpse of the steely reflections on the car body behind them, but he could not identify it and he did not think too much about it. A few miles beyond Gstaad, however, he pulled over to see if the other car would pass. It did not, but stopped at an inn just off the road. The lights went out, but no one got out of the car; when he started up again, the second auto also took up the route.

  “Coincidence,” Rasmussen said.

  He sat on the front bench seat with Durell, his big body twisted so he could look backward at Maggie, huddled beside Wolfe behind them. He had tried to keep up a running chatter of flip conversation with her, but Maggie was sunk in a peculiar sullen silence as Durell drove the Mercedes as fast as he dared. After a time Rasmussen sighed and turned his handsome profile to watch the road ahe
ad.

  “I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” Durell said.

  “Wolfe?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you make them out?”

  “No. Too much glare from their high beams. You want to stop and take them?” the big man grumbled.

  “Not yet.”

  “Rasmussen?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Was a tail car arranged when you left Zurich?”

  “No.”

  “Wilderman didn’t mention it to you, you’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Just how sick was LeChaux?”

  Rasmussen laughed with the contempt of the perpetually healthy for any illness. “His guts were practically hanging out, old buddy. It was legitimate.”

  “Could his food have been doctored?”

  “We ate breakfast together. He just got the wrong plate, maybe.”

  Durell was not satisfied. He would have continued his probing, but they had started the climb up the curving, winding road through the Diablerets at the Col du Pillon. There was no opposing traffic now. The hour was getting late, close to ten. He turned the wheel for a hairpin curve to the right and the Mercedes, hugging the snow-covered road, responded handily. That was when he saw the traffic barrier ahead and the waving flashlights.

  There was a steep precipice slanting high into the dark sky to the left and guard rails to the right edging the road, where a long cliff dropped into the valley. There was no place to go. Behind them, the car that had trailed them began to speed up and came along fast at their rear.

  “Hang on,” Durell said quietly.

  Rasmussen said, “It might be legitimate. They’re in uniform. I see snow past the barrier. Maybe it’s an avalanche—”

  “Shut up,” Durell said.

  He tramped on the gas and the Mercedes shot ahead, the engine thrumming powerfully. Ahead of them, the uniformed figures began to wave their arms frantically. He could not judge how many there were. Wolfe ordered Maggie down on the floorboards of the back seat and twisted about, his rifle in his hand, watching the rear. The second car turned the bend in the road and headlights flared against the bare rock cliff, then focused on the Mercedes. Rasmussen had a handgun out and braced his legs against the dashboard. Durell floored the gas pedal.