Assignment Unicorn

by Edward S. Aarons

  “Do eat, please."

  Durell ate. His feet felt cold on the stone floor, although the crofter’s house was pleasantly warmed, and he immediately blinked in apparent drowsiness, after his long days in the cell. He said, “You have heard about your sister’s husband?”

  “Joshua Strawbridge is now irrelevant.”

  “I don’t believe he killed himself. I don’t think it was suicide.”

  “Truly?”

  “It was murder. Did you arrange it?”

  Dr. MacLeod waved a soft white hand. “Joshua was a nuisance. He outlived his usefulness. It is quite true, as you at once suspected, that he fed us data, in his position as Finance officer for K Section, on routine transfers of funds. Funds, incidentally, that were often squandered in the wrong places, upon the wrong people. Does your Mr. Meecham truly believe that the process. of buying foreign loyalties is valid? Squandering taxpayers’ money, indeed. In any case, immaterial now, eh?” MacLeod brushed crumbs from his red vest.

  Durell looked at the two attendants in their jumpsuits. Both automatic weapons were trained on him. He was careful not to make any sudden moves, but he was surprised at the good feeling in him, the sense of acuity and perception in all his mental processes; it was a well-being that, after his term in the cell, should not have existed.

  MacLeod put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. He looked harmless, innocuous, rather like a pleasant faculty member of a type Durell had met many times at Litchfield College.

  “We do admire you, Mr. Durell,” MacLeod said.

  “Although, of course, your temper really should be more restrained. You have been quite correct in all your deductions, beginning when you first appeared on the scene as investigating officer in Palingpon. We wanted Donaldson’s daughter then, but you frustrated us. Have you enjoyed her, Mr. Durell?”

  “How is Maggie?” Durell asked.

  “Presumably, worried to death over you.”

  “You don’t have her here?”

  “We don’t want her now.”

  “N o longer interested in her either?” Durell asked.

  “Quite so. However, you must contain your feelings of relief, assuming you have developed some sort of affection for her. If you make any errors in the matters we have programmed for you, you will not be alone to suffer for mistakes. Maggie will be available to share your punishment.”

  “All these killings haven’t bothered you, Doctor?”

  “Why should they? The cost of any commodity is normally a matter of supply and demand. Any glut on the market cheapens the value of the item, and you certainly must know, the expanding world population makes human life just about the cheapest commodity available.”

  “I don’t think I like you,” Durell said.

  “You don’t have to, Mr. Durell. Just obey me.”

  “I think I’d rather take orders from your boss.”

  MacLeod’s eyes glinted behind his glasses. He sucked a bit of duckling from between his teeth. “You will get no farther than me. Understand that. It is I who command. I do not underestimate your intelligence. You were very quick to trace down the significance of the unicorn coins—a mere identity symbol, you must now realize—and the obvious fact that Strawbridge was feeding us useful input on K Section’s financial transfers, all of which made it easy—ah—to execute our demonstrations.”

  “For whose benefit were you demonstrating?” Durell asked.

  “Ah. Are you quite finished with your meal?”

  “I don’t want any more of it. Why do you hate K Section so much?”

  “Not I. My feelings are neutral.”

  “It almost seems to me as if you have been carrying on a personal vendetta against K Section. You could have made other demonstrations with the use of your drug. If you wanted money, a lot of money, you could have broken into any number of banks, for example, the world over. What you got from the demonstrations you did make was only peanuts, relatively speaking.” Durell leaned forward earnestly. The table was made of two-inch planking, but he thought he could lift it. He said, “Would you answer a few questions?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Why did your people try to kill me on that Maryland beach?”

  “My dear Mr. Durell, your progress toward us was appalling. I must admit it. And your performance on the beach was remarkable. But then, when you flew alone to London, We were piqued by further curiosity. So we let you live, to see what you would do. We decided you could be useful to us.” '

  “I can be. I intend to be,” Durell said.

  “An eager detector, eh?”

  “Perhaps. Now that Joshua Strawbridge, our Finance officer, is dead, you have no further pipelines into K Section.”

  “Perhaps none as effective as you might be.” Dr. MacLeod gestured with a small hand. “Eat your porridge, my boy.”

  “No. I don’t want it.”

  “Eats,

  The two guards moved in closer to Durell. One of them put the muzzle of his gun to Durell’s head. Durell shrugged and picked up his spoon and dug into the oatmeal.

  “Very good. Surely you have other questions?”

  “I understand you are telling me all this because I’ll never get off this place alive,” Durell said. “Where are we, by the way?”

  “In the Orkney Islands, north of the Scottish mainland. You guessed as much, I think.”

  “Yes. The other question: What is your ultimate goal in all this?”

  Dr. MacLeod smiled. He looked benign, fat and happy and contented with his achievements. He watched Durell eat the oatmeal and signaled the two guards back to the wall. Then he folded his hands over his red-checked belly and settled back in comfort at the opposite end of the table. Durell heard no outside sounds from beyond the dining room, but he did not doubt that others were nearby.

  “The ultimate goal,” Dr. MacLeod said. “Well, we wish to make an ultimate demonstration. Our price for my drug—the unicorn drug, as I believe you call it, and most fitting the term is, I assure you—the price will be enormous. We have buyers ready. But it is not just the money. It is we who will control the entire operation, now, at the settlement, and in the future.”

  “I should think the killings and hijackings would be enough.”

  “It is you who excited our admiration, however, by noting the ‘innocent bystanders.’ You pressed Maggie Donaldson for her father’s relationship and true objectives on Palingpon. You saw there was more to it than die mere robberies of K Section funds. Very astute. A long shot in deductive reasoning, perhaps, but a correct one, of course. Hence our concern about you, Mr. Durell. Incidentally, do not think for one moment during this conversation that we are taken in by your professed desire to desert K Section and join us. We have studied your profile in extreme detail. Whether you like it or not, you are a patriot. You would not betray K Section or your country. Your claim to want to work with us is denied, of course.”

  “I see,” Durell said.

  “You do not see.” A note of impatient emotion finally broke through Dr. MacLeod’s jolly host behavior. “We are not stupid. You should give us credit for intelligent reactions to your moves. Surely you must expect to die for what you know. Surely you must be skeptical if we were to accept your mere word that you wish to join us. But join us you will, whether it suits you or not.”

  “You’re very sure of yourself, Doctor.”

  “I am. You are bound to me now, body and soul, whatever you choose to do.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly.”

  “How?”

  “I will explain in a moment.” All at once Dr. MacLeod slid from his chair and waddled to a buzzer set into the wall. Durell was shocked. The man was no more than five feet tall, with abnormally short legs, apparently malformed at birth. There was something grotesque about his fully developed torso and those childlike sticks of lower limbs. MacLeod punched the buzzer and said something in Gaelic, waited, spoke more sharply, and then returned to the table. He looked angry now. He spoke as
if he had not interrupted himself. “It is not for money alone, Mr. Durell, that we have embarked on the course we follow. It is a matter of conscience, however you may argue it. The world is a desperate place, these days, filled with violence, lawlessness, a towering contempt for the rights of others. Discipline—swift punishment, unalterable discipline—is required, if we are to restore sanity to society. Force against force. An eye for an eye, if you will. Justice for the victims, justice for the perpetrators of violence.”

  “And who is to be the judge?” Durell asked. “You and your unicorns?”

  “The term ‘unicorn’ is an apt one. It was not chosen by accident. The symbol was picked deliberately. The unicorn is, according to mythology, a lover of virtue, inevitably drawn to virtue, purity and decency. They say the unicorn’s hooves never touch grass.” Dr. MacLeod grinned, but his eyes were hard. “So we leave little or no trace, we unicorns. You have noticed, of course, our connections with, or against, various national security forces. An elite body, scattered around the world, will soon enough put things right."

  “According to your lights, perhaps. You replace freedom with a police state, run by supermen thugs, and bind the people in iron chains, is that it?”

  “Lawlessness, terror, anarchy, the destruction of man’s social arrangements that permit him to live in peace and safety with his fellowmen, must come to an end if we are to survive.” MacLeod’s breath came a little faster. His eyes were more than angry now. A gleam of fanaticism touched them. “I will not bore you with a recitation of my own personal injuries suffered by the contemptuous attitude of corporate conglomerates in the course of my work as a biochemist. The insults, not only to my physical handicaps, but to my integrity as a professional researcher, were like stones striking me from every direction, all my life. So I decided that terror must end, and only force of a new kind could prevail against today‘s international, personal and private anarchies.”

  “So you merely impose a new terror on the world,” Durell said quietly.

  MacLeod’s right hand clenched, then slowly relaxed. “Do not goad me. Your life depends upon my good will."

  “Just as everyone will depend on you, all over the world, is that it? Do you honestly believe that two wrongs will make things right?”

  “A new police mechanism, an indestructible super-agency, dedicated to virtue, as the mythological unicorn was dedicated to peace and justice, is the only way. The only rational means to restore order and harmony to the world. The only path to follow, if man is to survive side by side with his fellowman, and not cower III terror when night falls and live behind locked gates as man did in medieval times.”

  “Your supermen,” Durell said.

  “An elite force, strategically placed to cope with lawlessness.” MacLeod looked up sharply. “You have heard of the projected conference, ICSOPP, to be held on Mattatuck Island. Security chiefs from certain selected nations will be there. They are willing to bargain for my drug to create elite, indestructible forces of dedicated men whom nothing can stop. They are willing to pay vast sums. We intend to see that your President is properly impressed. We need your cooperation.”

  Durell sat at his end of the table, his mind seething. He did not believe what he’d been told. He refused to accept it. He looked confused, angry. Would they dare to threaten the President of the United States?

  The grotesque little man stood before him.

  “And now we come to the drug itself, the mainspring of the entire operation.”

  “Yes?”

  “Have you wondered about your diet recently?”

  “The oatmeal? Yes.”

  “You have ingested enough of it by now, I should think. Small doses, the first days. Carefully increased amounts later. You are one of mine, now, Mr. Durell. You belong to me. Have you not questioned your recent capacities? Your ability to jump up and reach the window ledge of your cell? Your feelings of well-being, despite a restricted, stingy, and monotonous diet? Yes, you are mine, Mr. Durell. Body and soul.”

  Durell reached under the heavy table, with its two-inch planking, and lifted it. Belts attached the legs to the stone floor. They came loose with ripping, popping sounds. The table heaved upward, toward Dr. MacLeod’s strange figure. It felt light and flimsy in his grip. He lifted the table bodily to hurl it at the biochemist. He felt wonderful. He could do anything. Nothing could stop him.

  Then the guards closed in. From the corner of his eye, he saw the butt of the descending rifle. He felt no pain. But his knees buckled. He went down, struggling. There were more blows to his head. He tried to get up again. The table fell backward on his legs with a crash. He did not feel it. But suddenly the lights went out.

  39

  HE HEARD the voice from a far distance, through a grayish haze.

  “ . . . very foolish of you, Mr. Durell. But your reaction is understandable . . . resent what I have done to you, naturally . . . but cooperation will be in the best interests of all. Can you hear me now? I have something of utmost importance to tell you. Are you listening?”

  “Yes,” Durell said.

  “Open your eyes.”

  “They are open.”

  “You cannot see clearly?”

  “Not yet.”

  He made out the dim moon face of Dr. Alexander MacLeod. Not quite as jolly as before.

  “Have you any pain, Mr. Durell?”

  “No.”

  “Very good. You have been unconscious for twenty-four hours, unfortunately for both of us. Do you believe now that the drug is in you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You researched possibilities for my drug, did you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “The idea of possessing superstrength intrigues you?”

  “Yes.”

  “There is one flaw in the drug, Mr. Durell.”

  “Yes?”

  “You observed one of my men who was captured in Palingpon. He was dying, was he not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of exhaustion?”

  “It seemed so.”

  “It is an unfortunate by-product of the drug. It requires continued ingestion. Failure to continue the procedure results in death. The organism is worn out, overextended. The heart sometimes bursts. The aorta ruptures. Bones break without the subject realizing it. Only further replenishment will save the subject. Are you aware now of how I own you? Without me, you will surely die. You need me now, Mr. Durell. Just as all my men need me. It is unfortunate that the drug is not perfect. But its imperfection serves a purpose.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Get up, Mr. Durell.”

  Durell got up.

  40

  DURELL judged it was nearly noon, from the position of the sun low on the southern horizon. Some years ago, he had hiked through Scotland and visited the Orkney Islands, and he recognized the green, low—lying islands now, from where he stood with a group of gray Jumpsuited men in a low field between the rolling green hills. The field had the appearance of a school athletic event. There were at least a score of the men in jumpsuits, silent and dour as the land. The obstacle course was laid out within the perimeter of a high wooden fence. There were barricades, ditches, a brook to hurdle, and finally the facsimile of a house facade that reached up two stories, complete with doors, windows, and an overhanging roof eave that looked impossible to overcome.

  Durell had been given a crisply laundered gray Jumpsuit and heavy sneakers after his usual breakfast of porridge. He ate with reluctance under the watchful eyes of his armed guards.

  This time they deigned to talk to him.

  “Welcome to the club,” one of them said.

  He was a thin, wiry little man named Marcus. Durell said, “How long have you been here?”

  “Five months, man.”

  “Have you been on any of the expeditions?”

  “I was in Geneva. Saw you there. But you weren’t on our target list then.”

  “You don’t get bored here on the island?”

 
; “The pay is good, fella. And you feel good, besides. We won’t be stationed here forever.”

  “You get a shot every day?”

  “We eat the stuff, like. Three times a week. Otherwise . . . ” Marcus’s ratty face grimaced. “Well, the Old Man explained it all to you, I hear. That’s why we’re at liberty to talk to you.”

  “What you do, doesn’t it bother you?”

  “I told you,” Marcus said impatiently, “the pay is good. The future’s even better. Straight gold, fantastic.”

  He paused. “Once we make the final hit, it’s gravy all the way.”

  Marcus’s companion said, “Shut up, big mouth. He ain’t cleared that much.”

  Durell said, “But your lives really depend on getting the drug regularly?”

  “So what?” Marcus shrugged. “The doc takes good care of us. He’s been good to us. Picked me up out of a slum in Zaire, where I was underground from the local fuzz. Joey, here, he was wanted by Interpol for a few little items. Most of the crew are just plain mercenaries, though. You ready for field day?”

  “I’m ready,” Durell said.

  The jumpsuit was warm, insulating him against the bite of the Atlantic wind. He was directed to join the other unicorns, none of whom bothered to talk to him. Dr. MacLeod sat with his two armed guards at a small distance from the group. He was seated in a camp chair on a high wooden platform where he could oversee the training field. His tiny legs dangled from the chair, not quite touching the plank floor of the platform.

  One of the armed guards blew a whistle and the men lined up. Their faces were a variety collected from all over the world, it seemed. Two Chinese, four Japanese, two tall, rangy blacks, the others of various sizes and coloring, some Mediterranean, some Nordic, all of them with that indelible stamp of rugged men who had lived hard lives and enjoyed danger. They seemed eager to perform.

  Durell shrugged his shoulders, flexed his muscles.

  The first man started at another signal from the whistle. A shrill blast, and he was off, running in a zigzag course for the first wooden barrier. It was a typical military training course, except that every hurdle, every barrier was higher and wider than any Durell had ever seen.