by Ted Mark
"That's because you have so many Russian pawns," I told him.
Vlankov snorted and walked on ahead of me across the small airstrip to the shedlike structure which served as the airport terminal for Hammerfest. Evidently, as far as he was concerned, our brief – and on the whole rather unsatisfactory – rapport was at an end. He wasn't going to resign himself to my company; he was back on the job and about to do his best to lose me.
He went straight to the men's room and entered it. When I started to follow him in, I discovered he'd locked the door behind him. It figured the men's room would have a window and Vlankov might attempt to shake me that way. I found a window farther along the same wall and stuck my head out so I'd be able to see him if he did.
My view also took in a cargo receiving platform. I spotted a female figure in a parka standing in front of it, waiting to pick up something. Then, as I watched, she was handed a package and started to walk back toward the entrance to the terminal. The package was the same one I'd been tailing since Salisbury.
Just as the female figure entered the building, Vlankov started to hoist himself out the window of the men's room. I pulled my head back in so he wouldn't see me watching him. He scurried around the side of the building to the front.
The girl stopped to talk to the porter, and for the first time I got a good look at her face. Right then I decided to let Vlankov go. I guessed that we'd meet later, he and I; the trails we were following were merging, only now I judged myself to be one jump ahead of him. You see, I recognized the girl who'd claimed the package.
I didn't know her name, but I'd have known that pixie-face and Bardot-style bosom anywhere. The last time I'd seen her she'd been crawling out of a pile of garbage at the bottom of a dumb-waiter shaft in that brothel back in New York. She was the second of the S.M.U.T. girls I'd helped escape that night, and she might well be Dr. Nyet.
As a matter of fact, there seemed a better than fifty-fifty chance that she might be the elusive Russian scientist. Her short-cropped black hair, her age and general appearance all tallied with the description – inadequate as it was – given me by Putnam back in London. And the fact that she and the priceless jeweled phallus should both be in this remote corner of the world seemed to indicate that S.M.U.T. valued her highly.
I approached her before she reached the exit. "Hello," I greeted her.
Her eyes widened with surprise as she recognized me. "What are you doing here?" she exclaimed.
"Meeting you," I told her. "Highman sent me," I added, improvising.
"He did? But why?"
"To be your bodyguard." I went on to embellish the lie. "You've got a Russian agent on your back. Highman sent me to deal with him for you. You're pretty important to Highman, you know."
"What you mean is that I'm pretty important to S.M.U.T.," she corrected me. "Well then, I guess you'd better come along and guard the body, Mr.-?"
"Victor. Steve Victor. And I've never seen a body more worth guarding." I added gallantly.
"That doesn't sound like S.M.U.T. talk."
"Well, it certainly wasn't meant to be," I said indignantly.
"I mean it isn't the sort of talk that seems to reflect the attitude of our organization."
"Sorry. I forget myself sometimes. But I'm really very dedicated to our cause."
"Oh, I'm sure you must be. Highman wouldn't have sent you unless he was absolutely sure of your loyalty."
"Let me carry that." I took the package from her and followed her out to a line of horse-drawn sleds waiting in front of the building. As she was climbing into one of them and giving the driver an address, I stole a look at the address on the label of the package. It was addressed to "Olga Duval, General Delivery, Hammerfest Airport, Hammerfest, Norway."
Olga! It was a good Russian name, even if the last name was French. As I climbed into the cab of the sled after her, it occurred to me that I might very well have found both the missing phallus and Dr. Nyet!
It was a long drive on a short day. The days are always short in Norway. My watch said it was only four o'clock, but it was dark when we reached our destination. I followed Olga out of the sled into the darkness.
There was a house, but she bypassed it. I followed her across a strand of beach, ducking my head against the bitingly cold sea wind. She led the way to a dock with a rowboat tied to it. She indicated for me to take the oars and then guided me on the course she wanted to take.
I didn't have to row far. It was only about fifteen minutes later that we reached a fishing sloop rocking at anchor. Olga tied up alongside a rope ladder and climbed aboard the vessel. I followed her.
She led the way across the deck and down a dark gangway to a cabin. She closed the door behind us. The room was pitch black. Olga lit a match and held it to the wick of a kerosene lamp. The lamp flared up and the room took on a shadowy substance. Olga screamed!
Loud! It was a scream filled with both shock and fear. I pushed around from behind her to see what had caused it.
There was my old buddy Vlankov again. He was sitting in an armchair facing us. There was a sort of half-smile on his face, as if he were greeting someone. And neatly embedded in the center of his forehead was a small hatchet. He was dead as dead could be.
Who'll bury whom? I thought to myself as I crossed over to the corpse. I reached out and pulled the hatchet free. I studied it for a moment.
I'd seen a hatchet like this only once before in my life. A friend of mine on the San Francisco police force had shown it to me. It was a souvenir from the Chinatown Tong Wars of the early 1900s. It had the same sort of carefully honed blade, expertly carved hilt and delicate balance as this one. The balance was important because, as my friend had explained, such hatchets were made to be thrown. And from the split in Vlankov's skull, this one had been thrown with deadly accuracy.
"Are there any Chinese aboard this boat?" I asked Olga.
"No." She was still shaking, and it seemed hard for her to get even the one word out.
Despite her denial, I was sure that there had been a Chinese aboard. He'd eliminated the Russians from the search for Dr. Nyet at what might have been the very moment before Vlankov found her. And if Olga was Dr. Nyet, he'd sure as hell eliminate the American competition as soon as he could.
Which meant, kiddies, that I was the most likely guy to get the axe!
CHAPTER SEVEN
Was Olga really Dr. Nyet? How could I find out for sure without giving my hand away? If she was, just how much control over her secret anti-birth control pill formula had she already turned over to S.M.U.T.?
These were the problems I pondered while drifting off to sleep that first night on the boat. When I awoke the next morning, the ship was already under way and I had no choice but to be carried along and hope for developments to provide some of the answers.
The captain and crew were Norwegian. As far as I could tell, there were no Chinese aboard. Not wanting to arouse Olga's suspicions by asking questions, I nosed around among the crew to see if I could find out our destination.
As far as they knew, we were heading for the fishing grounds just north of the Isle of Edge, a Norwegian possession well within the Arctic Circle. By the second day out there were murmurings among these experienced seamen about the change in our course which they had detected. They knew it had something to do with Olga's and my being aboard as passengers. They hadn't guessed any more than that. But by the third day our destination had become obvious to most of them. By then we had crossed into the Arctic Ocean and the only thing between us and the North Pole was Franz Josef Land.
The crew was both angry and frightened when they realized this, and with justification. Franz Josef Land is an arctic archipelago located well beyond the point where the Barents Sea turns into the Arctic Ocean. It is ringed with icebergs and frequently the ocean access to it is frozen over solid. While our ship had some ice-cutting equipment, it wasn't fully fitted out as an ice-cutter, and venturing into such waters was dangerous. That was one reason for the
crew's resentment. The second reason was that Franz Josef Land is Russian territory.
The Russians use it for weather observation and other scientific surveys. The suspicion is that they may be using it as a secret atomic testing ground, but this is unproven. On occasion they have fired on Norwegian fishing vessels which have strayed in sight of their shore settlement. This has happened perhaps half a dozen times over the years since the end of World War Two, when they threw out the score of Norse trappers in Franz Josef Land and set up an official government outpost.
Our ship, however, wasn't fired upon. We gave a wide berth to the official Russian settlement and approached the archipelago from the northwest. A boat was lowered, and Olga and I and the package containing the jeweled phallus were rowed ashore. Watching it row away, I had the feeling we had been abandoned on a deserted iceberg.
But such wasn't the case. Behind us there was movement under what looked like a pile of snow, and a man appeared. As he came up to greet us, I saw that he was an Eskimo. Odd! Franz Josef Land has no native population. That much I knew about it both from casual reading and from my conversations with the crew aboard the boat. The nomadic drift of the Eskimos across the centuries had never taken them this far east.
He and Olga spoke in a language I couldn't understand. Then we followed him back toward the snowbank from which he'd emerged. There was a snow-covered wooden trapdoor in it, and he led the way underground. Here we found a fairly comfortable setup with walls of wood and utilitarian furnishings. It was as far advanced over the typical Eskimo igloo as a palace is over a stable. I wondered at that, too.
Once inside, he said something to Olga and she turned to translate it for me. "He says that he was told to expect only one person," she explained. "And he apologizes for the meagerness of his hospitality. If he had known you were coming, he would have tried to arrange a more sumptuous welcome."
I grinned at the Eskimo. "Tell him it's all right and I appreciate his accepting me as a guest at all," I instructed Olga.
After she'd translated, he returned my grin and came directly in front of me. "Ungilak." He pointed at his chest and repeated it: "Ungilak."
I caught on and pointed at my own chest. "Steve," I told him. "Steve."
"Steve." He leveled his finger at me and his grin widened. "Steve." Then he turned back to Olga and spoke for a few moments in his native tongue.
"He says we should wait until morning to start for the S.M.U.T. settlement," she told me, taking it for granted that I knew all about the settlement. "He thinks we should eat and sleep first."
As I was nodding agreement to this, an Eskimo girl appeared. She was quite lovely, with exotic features and one of the most genuine and pleasant smiles I've ever seen. There was more finger-pointing, and I gathered her name was Poli. Olga explained that she was Ungilak's wife.
Dinner, it seemed, was to be a special treat. Ungilak had slain a polar bear in preparation for Olga's arrival, and now we were to have polar bear steaks. Poli went to prepare them. Note that I say "prepare," and not "cook." What she did was season the meat with some sort of fish oil, and then serve it to us raw. But polar bear meat is kind of tough, and it's Eskimo etiquette for the Eskimo wife to pre- chew it for her husband and guests. Politely, Poli served me first.
By the time she got through softening it up for me, I'd hate to tell you what that polar bear steak looked like. Somehow, I managed to keep from gagging, swallowed some of it, and nodded my head that it was good. Then Poli masticated Ungilak's meat and passed it to him. He tore into it with gusto. Being a woman, Olga was served last, but being a guest, she too had her meat pre-chewed by Poli. She evidently had some prior knowledge of what was coming, for she didn't flinch and managed to get a good part of her steak down. When Poli had finished her own piece, she hospitably offered us seconds. But we both declined.
Then it was time to turn in. The underground hut was partitioned off, and Olga and I were each given cubicles to ourselves. But I wasn't by myself for long.
Just after I turned in, Ungilak appeared in the entryway to my cubicle. He was holding an oil-lamp – another jarring note beyond the Eskimo culture – and leading Poli by the hand. There was a polar bearskin loosely draped around Poli, and from the glimpses of flesh I caught, I guessed she wasn't wearing anything underneath it. Those glimpses also told me that she'd anointed her flesh with seal oil, the Chanel Number 5 of Eskimo women which to a non-Eskimo nose smells as rancid and erotically unstimulating as it sounds. She giggled as Ungilak pushed her into the room.
I knew enough about Eskimos to realize what was afoot. It's an integral part of their concept of hospitality to offer their wives to a visitor for the night. The visitor's carnal use of the wife is tacitly understood. And to refuse such an offer is a great insult to the host, an insult so great indeed that the Eskimo is quite likely to kill the guest who spurns such an offer.
It would have been easy not to spurn Poli if it hadn't been for my fear that Olga might find out about my sleeping with the Eskimo girl. I had my reputation as a sex-forsaking member of S.M.U.T. to think of, after all. I couldn't have Olga thinking that I fell prey to lust so easily. I knew there was no chance that Poli might in turn lend Ungilak to Olga for the night. Eskimos strictly observe a double standard all their own in such matters.
Despite my concern about Olga, I decided to chance it. I liked Ungilak too much to risk insulting him. So I smiled up at the pair of them and spread the skins upon which I was sleeping to indicate that I was prepared to accept their hospitality. Ungilak rubbed noses fondly with Poli then – an Eskimo kiss – and left us alone, handing the lantern to her as he departed.
She set it down and came closer to me. The bearskin dropped from her shoulders, and she stood naked in the flickering lamplight. Her body was good, slender and full-breasted, with ample hips and sturdy legs. It glistened with the seal oil and seemed to quiver with the anticipation of extending the hospitality of her husband's home.
Now she knelt beside me and gently began to rub her nose against mine. To be honest, it didn't do a thing for me. But from her sighs, there could be no doubt that it was erotically meaningful to her. So I rubbed back, and this prompted her to take my hand and place it against the fullness of her swaying breast. I reached around her with my other hand and started to tug at her long black hair gently to draw her down beside me.
My hand skidded off her tresses before I could get a grip. They were thick with bear grease – another Eskimo custom the woman observes in preparing for love- making. Talk about that greasy kid stuff!
But I didn't let it throw me. I kept right on rubbing noses and trying to hold onto her breast, which was almost as slippery from the seal oil as her hair was from the bear grease. She giggled each time I lost my grip. By her standards, I guess I was somewhat inept as a lover.
Eskimo love-making was turning out to be a slippery business, but with Poli to inspire me, I lost none of my enthusiasm to learn. She slid down beside me under the skins, and while her naked body may have been hard to hold onto, it was still exciting, and very, very warm. Despite their customary climate, Eskimo women are anything but cold. Indeed, if Poli was any example, they more than overcompensate for the freezing temperatures with the warmth of their flesh and the heat of their passions.
"Oggledywoggledyglup."
Well, that's what it sounded like, anyway. I looked at Poli questioningly.
"Oggledywoggledyglup." She repeated it, a hint of annoyance in her voice at my obtusity.
I spread my hands to show her that I didn't dig. She took my hands, pressed the lower part of her body against mine, and pulled them around her so that each palm rested on one of her plump rear checks. Of course they promptly slid off. With a sigh that said she was losing patience, Poli reached around to my backside to demonstrate. She parted the cheeks and deftly slipped her small hand around. And how!
"Oggledywoggledyglup," she explained.
"Kay-rist!" I reacted, jumping halfway to the ceiling.
&nbs
p; This seemed to agitate her. She rubbed her hands together and blew on them and shivered and blew on them again, and then reached behind her to insert one of her hands in the cleft of her own rosy buttocks. "Oggledywoggledyglup!" she told me again in the tone one uses to a child in explaining something that should really be crystal clear. "Oggledywoggledyglup!"
I got it then. Poli was trying to show me the Eskimo ritual by which lovers warm each other's hands so that they will not be a jarringly cold note when the actual love-making begins. She was obviously disappointed that I'd been too tense to allow it. Now she tried again more gently, and I followed her example.
"Whoops!" I found myself giggling like a schoolboy. Although she was restraining herself, Poli's probings were making me more nervous than passionate. I was very glad I hadn't eaten too much of that polar bear steak.
When our hands were warmed to her satisfaction, she started the nose-rubbing bit again. I was getting the hang of keeping my grip on her slippery skin now, and my caresses grew more intimate. With each new thrill they provided, she laughed louder. At first this nettled me, but after awhile I realized it was her Eskimo way of paying me a compliment. Civilized women may sob, groan, or cry out during sex, but to the Eskirno girl it is sheer pleasure and to be appreciated with laughter. Why, after all, should one sob, groan or cry when the emotion one is feeling is joy?
The peaks of her breasts had grown long and fiery under my touch, and now I bent to kiss them. When I raised my head, I saw that she was looking at me with astonishment. I remembered then that Eskimos rarely use their mouths in love- making. I was about to try to apologize with sign language, but Poli's astonishment turned out to be by no means censure. On the contrary, she pushed my head back down and laughed excitedly as my lips fastened once again.
Her excitement excited me in turn. I forgot myself for the moment and my lips traveled down her belly in a series of small, passionate kisses. When they reached the mouth of her lust, she instinctively clasped her hands over the back of my neck and pressed me to her, prolonging the kiss. The laugh she unloosed then was a veritable roar of appreciation.