Assignment to Disaster

by Edward S. Aarons

  The front door stood open.

  Dark, empty shadows yawned inside.

  Miguel said something in rapid Spanish that Durell did not catch, and started forward. Durell held him back with a hand on his arm.

  "How many rooms?"

  "Two only."

  "I will go first."

  He moved in fast, but he knew there would be no danger now. The open door told him all that was needed. The rooms were small, immaculately clean, with white-washed walls and heavy, ornate furniture. They were empty. No one was here.

  Calvin Padgett was gone.

  The bed in the back room was unmade, and there was a litter of cigarette butts in a souvenir ash tray of Los Angeles. One entire wall of the bedroom served as a kitchen and cooking area. There was a heavy wooden table across from the bed, near the kerosene stove, and papers were scattered and torn upon the walnut surface. Durell picked them up, hearing Miguel's tight, tired breathing. The sheets of paper were covered with all sorts of mathematical symbols, formulae, and computations that were meaningless to Durell. Great heavy lines had been drawn across the equations, as if they had proved useless. Durell gathered them up and put them all in his pocket.

  Miguel looked tortured. "It is my fault. I acted hastily. I heard them speak of the girl's arrival, and then I saw her and telephoned to the fruteria to have them tell Calvin that his sister had arrived at last. How was I to know she was not the true one he waited for? Senor, are you sure…"

  "It's not your fault, Miguel."

  He tried to think. He dismissed the idea that Padgett had stepped out of the house only temporarily. Padgett had been waiting impatiently for word from Miguel about Deirdre, and he had acted promptly. What had he done, where had he gone? Not to the Salamander, or Durell would not have been followed as tenaciously as he had been. Where, then? Think. Don't make any mistakes. Padgett would have called the Salamander to speak to Deirdre. The switchboard girl would have been readied for the call, quick to notify Cora Neville. What then? Would Padgett have insisted on speaking to his sister, personally? Likely. Better than that. Almost certain. And? They would have had to put the ringer on the other end of the line. Would they? No choice, if Padgett insisted hard enough. And Padgett was not taking any chances. Whatever his game, whatever these calculations meant, whatever his reason for causing this man-hunt, he was playing it smart and careful. Small wonder Larabee could not find him, hidden away here in the Mexican quarter.

  Durell walked to the open front door. The street was empty, blazing with sunlight. A woman in a black dress walked to the corner grocery. So Padgett had called, demanded to speak to his sister. They'd had to put the ringer on the phone, prompting her with what to say. But Padgett wouldn't have been fooled by that. He'd have known at once that it wasn't Deirdre. He'd give the Salamander a wide berth after that. He'd know that the others were after him, that a trap was set for him at the Salamander. So he wouldn't go there. Nor would he dare to stay here in this neighborhood, where his call might be traced.

  Padgett would fly to sanctuary. Who would he trust? To whom would he turn at this crisis?

  Cora Neville.

  But he'd stay clear of the Salamander.

  "Miguel."

  "Yes, señor?"

  "You said Miss Neville has a ranch somewhere?"

  "Yes. In the Tiengas Hills. Twenty miles from here. You go north out of town, and when you come to a dirt road with a sign, you turn right. It is a horse ranch, but she does not live there very much." Miguel's face was gray, "You think Calvin went there?"

  "No other place." Durell spoke quickly. "You must help me. We will need others. Use the telephone at the fruteria, and call the Army base and ask for Colonel Larabee. You will speak for me, do you understand?"

  Miguel nodded. "And what shall I say?"

  "You will tell Larabee everything that has happened. Do not be afraid of punishment for helping Padgett. You will tell Larabee I have gone to Cora Neville's ranch and that he is to come and help me at once."

  "You go alone?"

  Durell nodded. "You will also tell Larabee that he is to pick up the manager of the Salamander, the man who calls himself George West. Tell the Colonel that George West is really a wanted agent named Gustav Weederman." Durell drew a deep breath. He could be wrong, but he didn't think so. The man with the bullet head had thought Padgett had double-crossed Weederman, and had mentioned the name to Deirdre back in Washington. Swayney thought Weederman was dead. Durell did not believe it. Neither did he believe that Padgett had really made a deal with Weederman. Everything that had happened pointed the other way, to a mix-up among the enemy as to where Padgett stood. Maybe Cora Neville had been too sure of herself in reporting to the others, or had colored her story in her favor.

  "Go now," he said to Miguel.

  He waited until the old Mexican trotted across the square toward the fruit store. Then he walked quickly in the other direction, to the alley where he had left his car.

  Driving north from Las Tiengas, he saw how it all fitted together. Somewhere in the past, Cora Neville had been indiscreet; perhaps in Europe. Perhaps a love affair with Weederman. She had made it plain in the conversation Durell had overheard last night that she was an unwilling accomplice. Weederman, as George West, had forced her to give him the position as manager at the Salamander. A fine spot for an espionage agent, where high-ranking officers from the base came to relax, maybe to drink and talk too much about their hardware. It figured. It fitted. Cora Neville had played for Padgett deliberately, on orders from West. Padgett still did not know the truth. Cora, anxious to please, anxious to get out from whatever hold Weederman had over her, did as she was told. All right. The thing now was to get Padgett out of the box they had fitted for him. He did not let himself think too much about Deirdre.

  The road was an empty ribbon unwinding under him. It was two o'clock when he spotted the sign, in the shape of a horse, and the arrow to the right. The country was barren and desolate, with stratified hills rising at sharp angles from the desert valley. It was a country of lizards and rattlesnakes and death.

  He drove more slowly now, between rusted barbed-wire fences, climbing steadily. A few trees struggled to live in the narrow canyons opening on either hand, and then abruptly the countryside was greener, with grass on the slopes and a grove of cottonwoods here and there at the site of brief mountain springs. Another sign indicated a left turn onto what was obviously a private road. Durell drove on beyond it, found an outcropping of red rock, hid the car there, and walked back.

  Five minutes of walking brought him in sight of the ranch house, a low spreading structure of dun-colored stone and glass, built into the hill. Horses moved in a pasture beyond. He saw a corral, a barn that was also built of stone, and several outbuildings. The green foreign car was parked in front of the main house.

  Durell halted to study the terrain. In the silence he heard the sudden neighing of a palomino, the piping of a bird, the gurgle of water, the hum of a Diesel power generator. The sky was a brassy bowl of heat pressing down between the distorted hills. No one was in sight Nobody had followed him.

  He saw a trail that led up behind a butte, and he climbed it, hugging the rocks and shadows. Heat reflected from the stone and shale and made the sweat roll off him. He took the gun from its holster and held it in his hand. Once he had to climb a paddock fence, and another time a dog came barking at him, but with tail wagging, and he let the dog sniff at his trousers. Satisfied, the animal trotted away.

  Ten minutes passed before he crawled flat on his stomach to the overhang of rock beyond the stone barn. From here he could see the road winding down the valley toward the desert. There was no sign of Larabee.

  Voices drifted up to him, but he could not locate their source. Then a door slammed and he saw Cora Neville walking from the barn toward the house. She was almost running. Her blonde hair was burnished by the blazing sun. Then a man came after her with a long, angry stride. It was Bullet Head. He caught the woman's arm and flung
her violently against the paddock fence. He heard her voice faintly.

  "Franz…"

  He said something quickly, and when she shook her head, he slapped her. Durell felt a coldness creep into him that not even the heat of the sun or the rock where he sprawled could dispel. He had never felt hate like this before. In place of Cora Neville, he saw Deirdre in the hands of the giant His name was Franz. His name was Death. It was eighty or ninety yards down from where Durell lay hidden to where the big man argued with the woman. Durell's ringer tightened on the trigger of his gun. Then he forced himself to relax. Franz pushed Cora Neville roughly toward the house. When she stumbled and fell in the dust, he yanked her up and flung her loosely ahead of him again. Her long blonde hair swept wildly across her face. She stopped once and looked back at the barn. Her hands were at her mouth, as if to suppress horror. Franz pushed her into the house.

  Durell focused on the stone barn. There was a second floor above the stalls, with curtained windows, and he assumed there was an apartment there for the help, or perhaps for an overflow of guests. Thinking of Cora Neville's backward glance of horror, he dismissed the main house as a point of interest. The sunlight was blinding on the windows, and he could not see inside. Where were Miguel and Larabee? To the south, the road wound away empty as far as he could see. Uneasiness moved in him. Perhaps something had happened to Miguel. Perhaps he should have made contact with Larabee himself.

  He waited five more minutes.

  Then he could wait no longer.

  Sliding backward from the edge of the rock overhang, he ran in a crouch toward the back of the barn, where a flight of outside stairs led up to a landing and a door on the second floor. Gravel slid in a small avalanche under his feet, raising what seemed to him to be a thunderous noise. He came up against the shadowed wall of the barn and flattened there, the gun in his hand, waiting.

  Nothing happened. There was no alarm.

  Again he thought of Cora Neville's look of horror. His mouth felt dry. He wiped his hand on his thigh and held the gun in a lighter but firmer grip. A horse nickered in one of the stalls. He moved on toward the neatly painted wooden stairs that led up to the second floor.

  He was on the little landing above when he heard the sound of a car starting. He waited again, unable to see the main house, since he faced the butte from where he had watched before. The car drove off. He tried the door.

  There was no way of telling how many hands were on the ranch, or where they were. The door was locked. A window next to the landing yielded to the push of his hand when he stretched for it. Durell straddled the wooden rail, pushed the window all the way up, and spanned the distance quickly and slid inside, feet first.

  A fat man in blue jeans and a flannel shirt and cowboy boots sat up sleepily from the couch across the rustic room and blinked at the gun in Durell's hand. His mouth opened. Durell hit him with the gun, heard teeth break, and hit the man again. The fat man fell over sidewise and hit the floor with a thump and was still. Blood came from his mouth and was absorbed by the braided rug. A gun had spilled from the man's belt and Durell picked it up and broke it open and pocketed the cartridges, then tossed the gun to the couch. He did everything quickly, coldly, efficiently, without a wasted motion. Every sense was keyed to a high pitch. He heard a faint sound from beyond a door across the room. This door was locked, too. He returned to the fat man, found a key ring in the man's tight jeans, picked out a likely key and tried it in the lock. There were more sounds from the next room.

  When he opened the door he saw it was a bedroom, with a double-tiered Western bunk in the far corner. The room was dim with shadows, but he saw the man sprawled on the lower bunk. About twenty-eight, sandy-haired, tall, and painfully thin. Calvin Padgett. He knew this at once. He had seen death often enough, too, to know at once that Padgett was dead.

  For the instant that he stood there, knowing now why Cora Neville had looked backward at the barn with horror, he ignored the other person in the shadowed room. Then he heard her quick intake of breath, her murmured word, and saw her move toward him.

  It was Deirdre.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Durell felt an intense relief that he had never known before. He stared at her and saw her tremulous smile. She was moving toward him and her hands came out in an appeal and he took them in his and kissed her. She was trembling violently. There was a bruise on her jaw and another on her cheek. She still wore the rust-red suit and gold blouse he had first seen her in. He could not believe that it was she, that she was here and she was alive. Yet there was no time to relish the miracle.

  "How did you get here?"

  "They had a plane. There's an airfield just a mile north of this place. We landed this morning. There was another girl, though…"

  "Yes, she's at the Salamander."

  "They wouldn't let me talk to her or warn her. And now I… Maybe I should have let them kill me," she whispered.

  He followed her glance to the bunk in the corner. Durell took his hands from her and walked across the room and looked down at the dead man that every agency in the country was seeking. In death, Padgett looked young and defenseless. He had been shot twice, once in the abdomen, again through the chest. There was a lot of blood on his white shirt and on the blankets on the bunk. He felt the man's hand. It was still warm. He looked up sharply.

  "When did this happen?" Durell asked.

  Deirdre's lips trembled. "He came here less than an hour ago. He thought that woman, Cora Neville, would help him. But it was a trap. I was a fool to have talked to them, thinking I could help Calvin."

  Durell said, "Stop that. Nothing was your fault. It would have happened anyway." Briefly he told her about the ringer at the Salamander, and went on: "If Cal had gone there, they'd have nailed him at that plush motel. But when he got suspicious and maybe panicky, he came here, right into the lion's mouth. It was nobody's fault, Deirdre. Don't blame yourself."

  She was shivering. "I can't help it. Back in Washington, the man Franz wanted to kill me, but he had orders to bring me out here. The idea was that if Calvin didn't give them what they wanted, they would torture me in front of him to make him talk." Her face was white. "When they began by slapping me, Calvin broke away and tried to fight his way out. One of the men shot him. They're all over at the ranch house now, with that woman. They'll come back soon."

  "Yes. One thing, though: Did Calvin tell you why he ran away in the first place?"

  She nodded and swallowed. "He was working on something. He needed a day or two to finish his calculations. That's what these people wanted from him, but he wasn't doing it for them. I…"

  "Did Calvin tell you where his papers are?"

  She nodded again. "In a house in Las Tiengas. It belongs to a Mexican. He left some old worthless papers in plain sight, but the real computations that meant so much to him are hidden under a loose plank in the floor by the kitchen stove."

  Durell cut her off with a sharp gesture. Voices came to him from the area between the barn and the house. Quickly he moved from the bedroom and crossed the room where he had slugged the fat cowboy. There was no time even to begin to digest and evaluate the few things the girl had told him. The search for Calvin Padgett was over. The search for his work and the meaning of his work had just begun.

  It looked as if he was not to be given a chance at this second quest. The voices were nearer, approaching the barn. He heard the rumble of Franz's foreign tones and Cora's low protesting voice. Another man was with them. From the doorway, Durell saw them turn the corner of the barn. He ducked back, swinging to Deirdre.

  "Is there another way out of here?"

  "I think there's a flight of steps down to the stables."

  "Show me," he said urgently.

  "But Calvin — how can we leave…"

  He saw hysteria mount in her eyes, ruled by a grief that made her irrational. He slapped her face lightly. "There's nothing we can do for Calvin now."

  "They killed him. They shot him down without
a chance."

  "Come on," he said.

  They went back through the bunkroom, and she showed him a door that he thought was a closet, but which opened into a dark stairway down into the cavernous area of the barn below. Footsteps sounded on the outer steps now, coming up. It was going to be a close thing. But the sound of the others approaching snapped the irrational tension in Deirdre. She moved ahead quickly, running down the steps. Durell was close behind her. He heard the door open up there, and a sudden curse, and then he took Deirdre's hand and they ran down the aisle between the stalls, toward the big barn doors. Sunlight glared on the yard beyond. From the small door inset in the larger one, he saw that the green sedan was still parked by the main ranch house. No one else was in sight. Then a loud shout came from the apartment above the barn and was followed by a sudden thumping of feet.

  Together, Durell and the girl broke from cover and sprinted across the fifty yards that separated them from the car in the driveway. They were out in the blazing open sunlight, but for the first half of the run they were sheltered by the bulk of the barn from those in the apartment above. The car was a Lancia, and Durell had driven one for a short time when he was in Europe.

  A rifle cracked as Deirdre tumbled into the car and Durell spun as dirt spurted at his feet. He saw the giant, Franz, and a smaller man in a ranch hand's outfit holding a rifle. Cora Neville stood behind them at a corner of the barn. Durell snapped a shot that made the trio duck back for cover and then he jumped into the Lancia. He had the motor started when the rifle cracked again and glass shattered in the back.

  The rear wheels spun and the car lurched ahead. He twisted down the driveway, gained a momentary respite as the ranch house intervened between the road and the barn. The rifle cracked again. He did not look back. He felt the car bounce wildly and it slued at the first turn that curved to the valley floor, but it held the road. Deirdre kept looking back through the broken rear window. Durell checked the gas gauge. There was enough. The desert highway stretched ahead, with no other cars in sight anywhere in the barren waste.