Assignment- Death Ship

by Will B Aarons

  She spoke a little too quickly. “You won’t find anything.”

  He considered her pale face by the light of the candle. She didn’t flinch, but she looked wary. He saw that she needed gentleness, patience. But he hadn’t time for either. “I’m going,” he told her. “If you come and help, I’ll find your husband faster and save lives. If you don’t, I'll still find him, but there’ll be more Maj. Millers.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said uncertainly.

  “It seems clear to me,” he said.

  “I may ruin his career with Caske.”

  “A lot more than his career is at stake,” Durell replied. “Another thing: The Russians are after you. They were behind the attack tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “They don’t know that Dr. Plettner locked you out of his laboratory. They probably think you know almost as much about what went on in it as he does.”

  Understanding dawned in her blue eyes. “Then that’s why they tried to kidnap me.”

  “They’re sure to come after you again, even if we get away from here,” he told her. “Maybe not with guns—maybe through a friend. They’re devious. They’ll stop at nothing.”

  She shivered, looking apprehensively over her shoulder, and moved against him. He felt her warmth, the soft curve of her hip.

  He said, “I can’t leave you here, that’s for sure. If you won’t come to Geneva, I’ll have to take you to Washington under protective custody.”

  “That doesn’t sound bad, after your description of the Russians,” she replied.

  “But I need you with me in Geneva,” he insisted.

  She gave him a tight, grim smile. “At least someone needs me,” she said, with sadness and a touch of resignation. “It wasn’t only Peter’s infidelity, not just my anger with Tina and Ron that made me bitter, Sam. I couldn’t seem to feel anything good anymore—I guess I was cut off by hatred. I—I didn’t love Peter anymore.” She seemed to be looking for understanding in his eyes. “Not really,” she said.

  He watched her and said nothing.

  She snuggled closer and laid her head against his shoulder, as if the admission had relaxed her. She felt good against him, and he put an arm around her shoulders. “It feels good—so good—not to be lonely for a while,” she said with a sigh, “even if I’m only with a stranger in this—this hole in the ground.” A touch of bitterness returned in her little laugh.

  Nothing happened for a few seconds, as he held her gently and watched the wax drip from their candle. The smell of the wax came in warm currents through the cool air.

  Then, without further preliminaries, she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  It was a pleasant surprise, but distracting. He turned to tell her so, but she closed her eyes and puckered her lips, and he thought, What the hell?

  She responded with something like wanton hunger as he pressed his lips against hers.

  He was aware of the heat of her breasts, the yearning in her embrace.

  There was no mistaking that she wanted to be loved by him.

  He was afraid it was for the wrong reasons—that she was using the moment in rebellion, as a way of lashing out at the husband who had failed her—breaking the bonds to an unhappy past. Even her kiss showed anger; he felt the sharp edge of her teeth and the stab of long fingernails into the muscles of his back.

  She smelled of perfume and sachet. Over her hot breathing he heard the hollow whisper of wind and wave, brought from the sea by the tunnel that stretched away.

  Durell was of two minds: tempted by the sheer erotic magnetism of Muncie, but concerned lest the flood of her inner furies drown them both.

  He was on the point of saying something sensible when, whispering an invitation into his ear, she moved his hand to cover her trembling breast.

  After that, rational thought wouldn’t have been easy.

  But before he could relax, something new brought them both upright.

  “Miss Muncie!”

  It was the voice of Joanna, the maid. “They say you’d better give up, or they’re going to come in after you!”

  Muncie gave a horrified gasp. “They’ve caught Joanna!” She stared at Durell.

  “We can’t do much about it,” he said.

  The maid’s voice echoed down the tunnel. “Please come out! They’re hurting me!”

  Muncie stirred; Durell held her back. “I can’t let them harm her,” she told him.

  “You haven’t any choice,” he said. He listened. “If she knows how to get in here, I suppose she knows where the tunnel comes out. . . .”

  “I don’tknow. . .maybe. . . .” Muncie looked frightened.

  “Then the Cubans may have that covered, too.” Durell chewed his lip. Worry settled like ice in his gut. “Is there another way?” he asked.

  Muncie shook her pale face. “Maybe if I just went and explained to them that I don’t know anything. . . .”

  Durell shook his head gravely. “It won’t work; they’ve got themselves in too deep to believe it. Look at it from their side—it might have looked easy when they started, but everything’s turned sour. The lab’s burned with every secret in it; they’ve had casualties, time’s running out—and they’ve got to get out of U.S. waters by morning. And all they can hope for is to take back the famous doctor’s assistant. It’s turned into a nightmare. After all that, you think you’re going to convince them that they made a mistake, turn away, and walk off?” He took a breath. “If they get their hands on you, they’ll torture you to death before they’ll accept your story,” he said.

  Joanna screamed, a long hair-raising shriek that ended in a gasping gurgle.

  “Dear God!” Muncie whimpered.

  He saw he had to get her away from it; she’d go to pieces. He took her hand and rose from the dust. “Come on, let’s go to the grotto and have a look,” he suggested, taking the candle.

  It was some fifty twisting yards to where the tunnel came out on a wet shelf of stone that barely lay above the level of the water. When high tide flooded in, it would cover the shelf and the walls up to Durell’s neck, to judge by water stains around the room. The entrance was little more than a crack, barely wide enough for him to squeeze through. Even as he inspected it, his nose was stung by the first whiff of tear gas. . . .

  He pulled Muncie roughly toward the exit. “Hurry, let’s get out of here,” he barked.

  “What . . . what if someone’s out there . . . waiting?”

  His voice was edged with impatience. “We can take our chances. Or sit here and choke on tear gas. Or maybe drown when the tide comes in. I’d rather take our chances out there.” He cast his jacket aside.

  “Listen,” she said.

  He stopped and cocked his ear to the outside. For the first time he noticed a hollow booming, muffled through the stone and water, but distinct.

  “What do you think it is?” she asked.

  “There’s only one thing I can think of,” he said, his spirits plummeting. “Waves against steel—water against a boat’s hull . . .”

  Muncie touched the base of her throat, eyes wide. “The submarine . . .” she gasped.

  Her hand trembled in Durell’s. “What are we going to do?” she asked. She coughed. The tear gas was thickening.

  “Go out under water. It’s our only option.” His eyes stung. He slipped off the ledge into the warm water. His feet didn’t touch bottom. He could see nothing beneath the sheen of reflection on the surface, laid by the candle. He held out his hand, and she sat on the ledge, then slid in beside him.

  Her face showed fear, but she sounded resolute enough. “Watch out for the currents,” she told him.

  “What about them?”

  “There are underwater pockets and caverns along the shore. If the currents carry you into one, you’ll never find your way out—you’ll drown for sure.” Her eyes were becoming bloodshot from the tear gas.

  “When you get outside, go to the left,” he told her. “Find the shore. Get in among th
e rocks. If I’m not there, wait. If I don’t show up in a little while, head for the airstrip yourself.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing, but we may get separated in the darkness. One of us could have bad luck. That sub’s out there to stop us, you know.”

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  “So am I. Let’s go.” He gulped a lungful of air, ducked

  under, and grasping the sides of the crevice, pulled himself through.

  The water outside was only a shade lighter than the ocean bottom, and Durell swam through a vague twilight provided by the radiance of the stars. He was a powerful swimmer under normal conditions, but the poison in his lungs felt as if it were eating him alive. He went to the left, as he’d told Muncie to do, but realized now that he had no idea in which direction the sub lay.

  The ringing of waves against its steel plate still sounded in his ears. Then he became aware of another noise, an intermittent grinding that reverberated through the water.

  Slowly and carefully, he broke the surface, blew the fire from his lungs, and gulped the sweetness of fresh air.

  The Russian submarine was some two hundred yards away. Its searchlight was on, but unaccountably blazed into the sky from atop a conning tower that leaned at a crazy angle.

  For a moment he could not understand what had happened.

  Then the grinding thunder he’d heard made sense—the submarine must have run aground.

  Fascinated, he watched for something to tell him what was happening, how such a thing could have transpired. The shaft of the searchlight didn’t waver. There was no movement at all—no sound except for the awful ringing of waves and grinding of stone.

  Then the whole horror of what must have happened fell on him with crushing terror.

  He swam quickly to shore and shouted into the darkness for Muncie, no longer bothering with concealment.

  “Sam! Over here!” Her voice came back out of the trees.

  He crawled from the water, slipping over stones and boulders. A faint glow from beyond the hill showed that the Plettner compound was still burning. There was a heavy odor of smoke.

  He slogged up to solid ground and sat down, coughing the tear gas from his lungs. Muncie’s feet crunched through gravel. “Here I am,” she said.

  The sub’s spotlight sizzled into the sky.

  “We’re still alive,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

  “It’s our lucky night,” he said.

  “I don’t understand why the submarine didn’t try to stop us. Why wasn’t the spotlight turned on the grotto? What’s going on?” she asked.

  “The crew’s dead,” Durell told her in a matter-of-fact voice. He felt a shiver. “Come on, let’s get away from here." He took her hand and pulled her into the woods.

  “But how. . . ?”

  “The bug. From the lab.”

  “You mean it’s spread over the island already?” she said in alarm.

  “No. Maj. Miller said it couldn’t spread far through the air; it’ll die quickly if it isn’t in a culture—or a body.” He pressed on through the woods. Muncie followed as best she could, still hanging onto his hand. “The bacteria must have been carried aboard the sub,” he said.

  “But how?”

  “I saw a couple of them run into the house, probably hoping to salvage some of your husband’s material. They weren’t with the group that took you. They must have gotten infected, then contaminated the sub, killing its crew.” They were rounding the hill on the side away from the plantation house. Now that they’d escaped out the back door of the tunnel, the Cuban commandos weren’t likely to catch up with them. They’d have to return to the sub before dawn, and they’d die there. The unfortunate Joanna was already dead, to judge by what he’d heard in the tunnel.

  He told Muncie to take the lead and show him where the airplane was expected to land in the morning.

  “What will they do with the submarine—the victims?” she asked.

  “It’ll have to be towed away and sunk. We’ll have to quarantine the island,” he said.

  She sounded bewildered. “Why would Peter have created such a terrible thing?” she asked.

  “Lots of people would like to know the answer to that,” Durell replied.

  “I just can’t believe he did it with any evil intent,” she said. She tripped, and he kept her from falling.

  The dim light filtering through the trees made her only a shadow in his hands.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he told her. “Maybe we can find out in Geneva—I’ve got to see Caske again. There’s a vaccine, if we can get it. Come with me? Help me?” he asked.

  There was a second’s pause, then in solemn tones, she replied, “After what’s happened here tonight, how could I refuse?

  It was a victory.

  Chapter 10

  Not twenty-four hours after the events on Plettner’s island, Durell’s life again hung in the balance.

  A killer struck as he and Muncie came out of Geneva’s elegant old Hotel Richmond and walked toward their rented Fiat, parked on the Quai du Mont-Blanc, where Lake Leman begins its forty-five-mile reach north between the mountains.

  It was early evening, and a thin, chill mist glistened on mansard roofs, iron, balconies, and corner cafes reminiscent of Paris.

  Durell had had little luck finding the spoor of Dr. Peter Plettner, and the weather hadn’t helped his spirits.

  He was tired and discouraged, his thoughts turned inward more than usual. Having failed to make any headway independently, he was looking forward to accompanying Muncie to an appointment she had made with Bernhard Caske—he was relying on this ruse to get in to Caske, because he knew the man wouldn’t voluntarily give him another hearing.

  He’d decided first to plead for the release of information the home office probably held regarding Plettner’s genetic engineering projects; it might help American scientists to develop a vaccine. He still hoped Caske would say something that might shed light on the scientist’s whereabouts, despite his refusal to help in Washington.

  Remembering those who had died, Durell felt he had to get his hands on Plettner soon, one way or the other.

  The clock was still running, and nobody knew when it would run out.

  Beside him, Muncie was clothed in a new tweed suit and long, down-stuffed stormcoat—she’d replenished her wardrobe with funds from an ample Swiss bank account. She looked none the worse for the terrors of the night before, but a touch of cynical reserve had set about her dusky eyes, as if she’d already begun to harbor second thoughts about this collaboration with him.

  He thought briefly about the passion that had blazed between them the night before, then, with some effort, put it out of his mind.

  Money had been no problem for him, either. A phone call had brought a shy-looking watchmaker named Nuri Borodin with five thousand dollars out of K Section’s Green Fund, on deposit at the Suisse Banque Cantonale de Geneve.

  Nuri was K Section’s Geneva Control.

  It was the dinner hour; the raw weather was unpleasant, and the lake and mountains were shrouded in mist. Durell and Muncie were the only pedestrians to be seen.

  He heard the wet slap of footsteps catching up from behind and moved aside to let the stranger hurry past.

  Muncie screamed.

  Durell half turned, snapping his head around to see what had alarmed her—but he saw it too late: the snarling face, the upraised arm. An arc of shining steel gleamed like liquid, and the knife struck against his ribs with full force, just below his upraised arm.

  He was aware of the hit, and his heart jumped.

  He caught the assailant’s forearm, pushed it away, felt nothing as the knife drew back. The edge of Durell’s right hand hacked into the bridge of the man’s nose, blinding him, and a hard, wrenching twist broke his arm and sent the knife flying. The man stumbled clumsily into Durell, gave a short scream, and collapsed.

  Everything had happened in a few seconds.


  Shocked, Durell felt under his coat, expecting to draw out a bloody hand. Instead his fingers found a cut in the leather of his shoulder holster. He withdrew his snub-nosed revolver. A gouge on the chamber showed where the knife point had struck.

  His heart labored, pulsing with adrenaline; he looked at Muncie.

  She stood back staring, dumbfounded.

  “More luck,” he told her, taking a deep breath.

  “Keep your luck for yourself. I want out,” she snapped.

  “Not until you get me in to see Caske.” His tone brooked no argument. He glanced quickly around, bending down to the man he had felled. The walkway was shrouded from view by Brunswick Garden. No one was in sight; no one had seen what had happened.

  He felt for the man’s pulse. “He’s dead,” he told Muncie.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said. “What if someone calls the police?”

  “Just a minute.” Durell had never seen the man. By the low radiance of foggy streetlamps he went through his pockets, found a wallet with a meaningless name on the papers it contained: Jacques de Gendre, purportedly of French citizenship, a resident of Marseille. He was probably a hired assassin.

  Durell replaced the wallet, found a little Beretta in the pocket of the overcoat. He wiped that off and replaced it.

  A look at the swollen, misshapen nose gave Durell a hunch about what had caused death: Splinters of the broken nose had been pressed into the man’s brain when he’d stumbled against him. Durell would have preferred having him alive to question.

  Then he made a discovery that caused some questions to be unnecessary. In another pocket was a photo of himself.

  From the background, it obviously had been taken the day before . . . at Dr. Plettner’s house.

  “It must have been Ron and Tina,” Muncie told him.

  He urged her away from the corpse. Sparkling mist haloed the streetlamps. “Let’s go to the car,” he said.

  “You should go to Ron and—”

  “How do I find him? We haven’t seen the Dursos since we landed.”

  She sounded distraught. “Well, what are you going to do?”