Assignment Moon Girl

by Edward S. Aarons

  “What will happen to me, Mr. Sam?”

  “Nothing, I hope.”

  “I mean, when this is all over.”

  “Hannigan will make arrangements for you.”

  Her slanted eyes regarded him mournfully. “But it is for you that I have left everything I’ve ever known.”

  She paused. “I know you do not love me, or even care much for me, and I understand this, for I was too impetuous with you, and I don’t know how to care for myself in such matters of emotion.” She spoke English With a schoolgirl precision. “Nevertheless, I do not want you to worry about me now. I will help all I can. I am only happy to be free of that woman.”

  “Tell me about Madame Hung,” he suggested.

  Her words filled important gaps in the dossiers he had seen at No. 20 Annapolis Street, in Washington. Ta-Po was not merely a chief of intelligence in Peking’s hierarchy of power. Ta-Po was interested in rocketry and the use of atomic ballistic missiles in outer space. Madame Hung really ran his intelligence department. More and more, lately, Lotus explained, Ta-Po was away on secret missions dealing with the rising power of the Red Chinese nuclear development program.

  “And your own job?” he asked finally.

  “I told you, I was little more than a feudal handmaiden to Madame Hung.”

  “In a socialist society?”

  She bit her lip. “What is done privately is often at odds with the ideals of our social system. Officially, I was her secretary. But she enjoyed having me perform many menial tasks, degrading things. She gave me to Ta-Po himself once, and watched all evening.”

  Durell adjusted his sunglasses. “Sounds like par for the course, for that lovely couple.”

  “I am so happy to be free at last. But I am also afraid. It feels so strange.”

  He directed her to the eastern road, by way of Firuz-Kuh and Shahi. They began to run into showers as they descended the mountains into tropical Iran. The land turned lush and verdant, a kaleidoscope of jungle, swamp, rice fields, tobacco and sugar plantations, fruit trees. Lotus recognized a tea farm on the slopes of a rugged mountain from which they caught their first glimpse of the Caspian Sea.

  “But it is lovely here! So different!”

  “The Old King knew it,” Durell said. “That’s why he built his Riviera down there.”

  “Look! Mulberry trees! They breed silkworms?”

  Durell nodded. “The gilaki peasants aren’t much thought of, though. The sophisticates of Teheran poke fun at their dialect and call them kalle-mahikhor—eaters of fish heads.”

  She laughed. “It is good to be with you, Mr. Sam.”

  “Farther on toward Gorgan, you run into Turkoman territory. Horses, sheep, camels, and cattle. Good hunting in there. They’ve got wild boar, even wolves and tigers.” He paused, suddenly remembering Tanya in the pit with the tiger. They went through another rain shower. “Slow down a bit, Lotus. There’s time, it seems.”

  They passed Babul-Sar, with its pines and palm trees, at four in the afternoon, glimpsing the fine Swiss-managed hotel there. The Caspian looked gray-green. In a rice paddy, women in red gowns were dipping and bending, planting new shoots. The men followed longhorn buffalos behind swing plows. Then the houses, with their twin-sloped roofs and high-galleried porticos—some stenciled with D.D.T. decontamination dates—gave way to thicker forests, a smell of sulphur springs, and an architectural horror of a German-Rumanian resort hotel.

  Durell told the girl to go on a short way toward Bandar Shah and Asterabad. They passed fishing ports, and heavy clots of truck traffic from the caviar-producing canneries. Here and there a gleaming beach shone against the green of the Caspian. The air was mild and smelled of citrus fruit and melons. It was difficult to realize they were in the same country that held the grim Dasht-i-Kavir desert to the south.

  “It is not far now to the Russian border and the Turkoman S.S.R.,” Lotus suddenly said. “Is it not dangerous, what you seek to do? You have enemies on all sides.”

  “Occupational risks,” he said absently. He was looking for the road that Hannigan had described, the one on which the Teheran Soviet embassy had built a resort villa for their diplomats. “Turn left here, Lotus.”

  There were some fishing piers, boats, a bumpy boulevard lined with stunted palm trees. High walls hid a number of villas from view. Here and there, the canvas of a beach cabana flapped in the warm sea wind. The water was grayer. Farther out, there were faint whitecaps. Lotus shifted the Triumph down to a crawl. The road curved between high iron fences and tennis courts. Durell heard the Russian scorekeeper before he saw the place.

  “Stop here, Lotus.”

  Ahead was a striped barrier that blocked their way. A sentry-box stood beside it, but no one was inside. Masonry posts flanked the driveway. Durell got out stiffly. The air was cool down here by the beach, heavy with the odor of salt and fish. Electronic warning beams were set‘ into the masonry posts. He passed a. hand over them and was rewarded by a distant clamor. He walked back to Lotus, seated rigidly behind the wheel, and spoke quietly.

  “In the village we passed, about a mile up the shore, is a hotel. Go in and ask for Amir. Tell him I sent you, and give him my name. Amir is a friendly fellow, even if he looks like a Cossack. It’s been four years since I came this way, but he’ll remember me. Ask for a room—or two rooms, if you wish—and take a bath and a nice nap.” He peeled off some of Hannigan’s currency and gave it to her. “Buy yourself some clothes. Believe it or not, there’s a French couturiere with a very swank shop in the resort pavilion. Have a good time, Lotus.”

  She looked blank. “But what about you, Mr. Sam?”

  “If I’m not back for dinner, call Hannigan to bail me out.”

  Chapter Twelve

  A SECURITY guard in a loose-fitting uniform took his name at the gate with only a slight flickering of his eyes. Ile was curtly told to wait. Durell listened to birds singing, watched a squirrel bounce down the road, tried to catch the count of the tennis match going on behind the wall. After a moment or two, the game abruptly ended. Professor Ouspanaya had enjoyed tennis at Brussels, Durell recalled, when they had met before.

  The guard carne back. “This way, sir.”

  A water sprinkler threw diamonds into the late afternoon sunlight on the green lawn. Two chunky men in gray suits came toward him, unsmiling. Beyond, the villa loomed through dense shrubbery, in solemn and secretive isolation. ”Your pardon, gospodin. We must search you.”

  I have a gun, but I want it back when I leave.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Their courtesy worried him. Their eyes were hard with curiosity as they studied him. Probably they had seen his dossier at No. 2 Dzerzhinsky Square, in Moscow, Durell reflected. He hoped they would remember that this was neutral ground.

  “This way.”

  He was not allowed into the villa. That was routine security. He walked between them, feeling somewhat like a prisoner, into an arbor above the tennis court. Butterflies looped over a mass of blossoms. The strains of a Soviet Army march tune came from the villa.

  “Professor Ouspanaya?”

  The man seated on the bench, tennis racket in hand, stood up and smiled and extended a hard, lean hand.

  “Mr. Durell. The Cajun, am I correct?”

  “I’m happy that you remember me.”

  “Oh, these men would never let me forget. It seems I outraged their security by befriending you, when we met, long ago. How many hours I spent with them afterward, recalling every word of our brief conversations! And we merely talked of the weather, eh? Such nonsense!”

  “Could we speak in English now?” Durell asked.

  Ouspanaya laughed. “The watchdogs would not permit it. It will be easier for me, later, this way.”

  The two men in gray suits stood stolidly by, their eyes never leaving Durell as he sat on the stone bench beside the Russian. Ouspanaya was a fine-looking man, about fifty, with a handsome head and thick gray hair, a tanned and healthy complexion. A brilliant
man, Durell thought. He wondered about Tanya. There was a resemblance, of course. He could see the fine Siberian bone structure in the father. But then he thought of Madame Hung and wondered how Ouspanaya could ever have married the witch woman. Perhaps Madame Hung had looked like Lotus at that time.

  Ouspanaya took a towel and wiped sweat from his face and asked one of the guards if he could have some vodka sent out from the villa. “Five sets makes me thirsty.”

  One of the guards left, looking back over his shoulder until the shrubbery hid him. He was back with remarkable speed, carrying a tray of bottles and glasses.

  “We will drink to our reunion. But we must keep matters on a relatively inane social level, Mr. Durell. These people know why you are here.”

  “And do you?”

  “Naturally. We knew when you left Geneva, and when you left Istanbul, and when you came to Teheran.”

  “For a scientist, you make a good intelligence man.”

  “I only repeat what I have been told.”

  “Then you know I’m looking for Tanya. But I don’t know why you haven’t been looking for her.”

  “My daughter will be saved.”

  “Saved? From whom?”

  Ouspanaya looked uncomfortable, and smiled sadly. “I cannot speak of her. Is that understood? It is forbidden.”

  “Then we don’t have much else to talk about. Don’t you want to know how she was? I had her with me, for a short time. I should think, as her father, you’d want to know how she looked, about her health, her state of mind—”

  Ouspanaya shook his head. “You did not see her.”

  “But I did. And she’s lost again, wandering somewhere in the desert, half out of her mind.”

  Ouspanaya looked pale. “The watchdogs did not tell me any of this. Do you mean you found Tanya, and then you lost her? But how—?”

  One of the guards uttered a sullen warning. Ouspanaya answered angrily. “But I must know about my daughter, Sergei.” He turned back to Durell. “You really did see her?”

  “She was in Har-Buri’s hands. Not comfortably.”

  He described the pit and the tiger and the manner in which they had escaped and had been pursued. He spoke tonelessly, giving facts uncolored by emotion. He told of the Farsi and the Renault truck and the discovery of Tanya’s robe and how she had vanished again. “She was in an extraordinary state of mind. I was with her long enough to determine that. I spent the night with her.”

  Ouspanaya coughed. “She told you of her experiences?”

  “She says she was on the moon,” Durell said flatly. He watched the Russian’s face. Nothing changed there. “I didn’t believe her then. I believe it even less now.”

  “Why not? Why don’t you believe her?”

  “You know better. You were supposed to be with her on that space flight. There’s no monitor record of such a flight. Not a peep out of any of Moscow’s propaganda offices. Nothing in the newspapers. Not a gnat, not a hint of a suggestion. Have you been on the moon, Professor Ouspanaya?”

  “This Har-Buri.” Ouspanaya shifted his weight on the arbor bench. “He wants Tanya as a prisoner?”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “It is not permitted. It is classified.”

  “Your daughter’s life is at stake, Professor.”

  “Yes, I am aware of that.”

  “Don’t you love her?”

  “She is the most precious thing in the world to me. My life and work would be meaningless without her.”

  “But you’re pretty calm about it all.”

  Ouspanaya looked at the guards. “Not really.”

  “If Har-Buri gets her back, he’ll exchange her to the Chinese for support in his political aims—for weapons, money, everything he can chivvy out of them.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “You don’t mind Tanya going back to Peking with her mother?”

  Ouspanaya sighed. “It would be dreadful.”

  “Then help me to find her.”

  “How can I help?”

  “Tell me about the moon.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Tell the truth to the world. Then she won’t be as valuable to Har-Buri. She won’t be worth anything to him, then. And not to Madame Hung, either.”

  Ouspanaya said sharply: “But then they would kill her! If she is useless to them, they would only get rid of her and write it all off as a mistake and a loss.”

  The guards stirred restlessly. Sergei looked pointedly at his watch on his hairy wrist. “You have given the American time enough, Professor.”

  Ouspanaya said regretfully, “Yes, I think so.”

  “One more moment,” Durell said. “You understand that Tanya may die, anyway?”

  “No, they would not kill her. But they might take her to Peking, which I consider the equivalent.” The man grimaced, his fine face reflecting agony. “But our own people are working on this, of course. We want her back for more reasons than you can imagine.”

  “Oh, I have a good imagination.” Durell smiled and looked into the Russian’s eyes. There was a private torment there, worse than most he had ever seen. “Maybe Madame Hung won’t kill her until Peking has gotten every scientific morsel out of her remarkable mind. But I didn’t say she would be killed. I said she might die.”

  Ouspanaya stiffened. “She has been injured so gravely?”

  “She could use a doctor, yes.”

  “Surely they would attend to her wounds!”

  “From what I saw, they couldn’t care less. But her injuries aren’t easily visible. You know what I’m talking about, Professor. She’s dying mentally. She’s half gone, right now. She really believes she was on the moon. Unless you have an antidote, she’ll go on thinking so, until everything snaps in her brain.”

  “Antidote? What—?”

  “She needs to be debriefed,” Durell said.

  Ouspanaya swallowed hard. “Ah, you are clever.”

  Sergei looked at them in a puzzled way and said angrily, “That is enough. I do not understand what you are saying to each other, and I do not like it. Enough, da? You will go at once into the house, Professor Ouspanaya.”

  “Yes, Sergei.” He stood up. “I am sorry, Durell. I can do nothing. There are orders from Moscow—and often those who are dearest to us are expendable.”

  “You’ll lose Tanya,” Durell warned.

  Sergei made a curt gesture. Ouspanaya turned and walked away, then looked back at Durell. Something in his eyes appealed to him-a call for help, a plea that he let the matter drop? Durell wasn’t sure. The other guard touched his arm. “This way out, gospodin. You are lucky. It is not often we entertain a visitor such as you.”

  “Times are changing,” Durell said.

  He followed the guard down to the barrier gate on the road.

  Chapter Thirteen

  DURELL walked a little way down the road and saw Hannigan’s car shining in dappled shade under a tall hedge. Apparently Lotus had not obeyed his instructions to go to the resort hotel. A speedboat went by on the water nearby, with a man and three girls in it. Lotus sat rigidly behind the wheel of the Triumph. Durell walked all the way around the bend and then saw the police van, parked in deeper shadow just beyond. He checked his stride. Lotus started to stand up in the sports ear, then sat down again with a thump. Durell looked back. The barrier gate across the entrance to Ouspanaya’s villa was down again. To his right was a high wall barring access to the beach. He shrugged and started walking again. At least the guard had returned his gun when he checked out past the sentry box.

  “Mr. Sam, the police—!” Lotus shrilled.

  “I see them, honey.”

  They came tumbling out of the patrol van as if enacting the Charge of the Light Brigade. They were all young, tough, and thoroughly armed. The van had Teheran license plates. When he saw Hanookh jump out of the van, too, he made up his mind. Hanookh wore a police uniform now, and he held his gun as if he meant to use it. He looked hard and murd
erous. Hanookh yelled to his men and waved his arms and a shotgun went off with a thunderous blast. Durell leaped to the right, toward a narrow lane between the shrubs that bordered the road. A low stone wall barred his way. He went over it with a leap that wrenched at his muscles and bandages and made him gasp with pain. Beyond was a small garden, oleanders, lemon trees, a glimpse of the wide beach and the placid sea. He heard Lotus scream, dimly. He kept running. There was a row of striped canvas cabanas on the beach, and two boys were kicking at a soccer ball close to the surf. They looked up at him as he ran by the cabanas. The sand dragged malignantly at his feet. There was a square house with rococo terraces and two giant, ugly sculptures of warriors armed with maces and swords, frowning at the sea. A man and two women in summer shorts sat under an awning between the two giant statues, sipping pink drinks. All wore large sunglasses. Durell turned left, toward the house. The man stood up and shouted angrily at him. Behind him, the police tumbled onto the beach. The shotgun went off again, but the blast came nowhere near.

  He went through the house, crashed through the kitchen occupied by four startled servants, and out through the back door and up a flight of steps toward another garden area and a fence, heading for the road again. His legs felt like lead. His chest was tight with pain. The people on the beach called to the police, and he ran for the gate in the fence. A Citroen was parked there, and he swung for it, started to fall behind the wheel, and saw there were no ignition keys. There wasn’t time to jump the wiring. He slid out, ran for the gate, and opened it just enough to peer out at the road again.

  He had circled behind the police van and Lotus. Hanookh stood beside the car, gun in hand, talking to the Chinese girl. His face was dark and angry. Durell looked back to the villa. The other police were not in sight yet. He took the Browning from his pocket and stepped out from behind the shrubs and ran along the weedy edge of the road, coming up at the back of the Triumph. Hanookh heard him at the last moment and started to turn, his face a mask of surprise. Durell hit him and bowled him over, and Hanookh rolled away into a shallow ditch, trying to get his weapon up. Lotus shrilled and started the engine with a roar. But Durell didn’t jump in beside her. He knew he couldn’t get far against Hanookh and the police patrols that would be set up against him.