Assignment- Death Ship

by Will B Aarons

  “It’s all right,” he told her. “We’re out of the attic. No more rats.”

  She sat up, shivering. “Are you all right?”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  “I’ll never be able to sleep again—I know I’ll dream . . . .”

  She put her face in her hands.

  He pulled her close. “You’ll get over it.Believe me?”

  “I don’t know. Just hold me.”

  “I’ve got to go. Stay here and pull yourself together.”

  “Are you joking?” She leaned away to see his face in the pale light. “I’m not staying in this place!”

  “Caske’s got a gun—it’s dangerous out there,” he told her.

  She forced a thin smile. “So what else is new?”

  He didn’t wait for her. If she were coming, she’d have to catch up when she could.

  He headed down the snow-powdered drive. The landscape was the color of cigarette ash—and silent, as if it had been buried under a landslide.

  He ran through the snow with his gun held ready. He’d kill Caske before he’d let him escape. It would cause a boil of trouble, but that was something he’d worry about at his leisure.

  Right now, he had to contend with the possibility of two madmen loose in the world, intent on profiting from the terror of X. coli.

  The drive was some quarter of a mile long.

  What must have been Caske’s footprints led the way, a broken line that stretched ahead.

  He rounded the last bend in the drive and saw the big frame of Caske, waiting beside the monastery’s sign.

  Almost too late, he realized that Caske had heard him and raised the Luger. He dived just as the pistol spat fire. Squirming on his belly, he came onto the base of a tree, slid behind it, and triggered a fast shot to keep Caske off balance.

  The mountains echoed the gunfire. Then it got very still. He heard his breath.

  His frozen fingers ached around the cold steel of the Smith & Wesson.

  Caske must have ducked behind the stone columns that held the sign between them. The trickery of the snow’s radiance was all Durell had to see by.

  “Caske!” he called.

  “So, I missed you.” Durell thought the arrogant voice came from the direction of the sign, but he couldn’t be sure.

  “I found the Frenchman,” he called.

  “Then you know that I’m not to be taken lightly,” Caske replied. “I’ll kill you, too. If you have any reason left, you’ll use your energies to get out of the country and leave me alone.”

  Durell squinted, trying to see him. “I’d prefer that, but it isn’t possible. I have a job to do.”

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” Caske called, keeping out of sight.

  “No deals,” Durell said stubbornly.

  “Perhaps we could cooperate. I want Dr. Plettner found as much as you.”

  “Give up the files.”

  “But they’re my property!”

  Anger simmered in Durell—images of the dead he’d seen, revulsion for Caske. X. coli was a travesty, an outlaw against nature that no one should own.

  He made a dash for another tree to draw fire and pinpoint Caske. There was a shot, and it was a wide miss, coming as he made the shelter of a big fir.

  Now he knew for sure that Caske was behind the stone pillars of the sign. He could work his way around him, given the darkness and the snow. He began circling left, from tree to tree, until he had a clear view of the sign.

  It came as a jolt to find that Caske had vanished.

  He dropped down and looked cautiously about.

  A car approached, its headlights making a smear of radiance through the swirling snow, and Durell slid into a roadside ditch, waiting for it to pass.

  It slowed.

  Maybe it brought the files—or any number of Caske’s men.

  At least the element of surprise was on his side.

  He wondered where Caske was. And what had become of Muncie? She must have heard the gunshots.

  The snub-nosed .38 was a hunk of ice in his grip.

  From a distance came the rocky rushing sound of the Versoix River.

  The car was still slowing, its automatic transmission whining down, disc brakes scraping. . . .

  Before it came to a complete stop, Durell jumped from the ditch and yanked the driver’s door open, shoving his gun into the driver’s face.—but it was his own man, Nuri Borodin, K Section’s Geneva Control.

  “Sam? What . . .?” Nuri was cut short by a gunshot; a slug zipped over Durell’s shoulder into the doorpost.

  Durell killed the interior light, slamming the door and falling back into the ditch, nerves buzzing.

  “Are you all right?” Nuri called as Durell picked his face out of the snow.

  “Get out of the car!” he yelled. There was another shot, and he heard the sound of glass splintering in a window.

  The car was still barely moving; now it slithered to a halt. The doorlight flashed again as Nuri jumped out, kicked the door closed, and dived for the roadside. He wriggled up the ditch to join Durell, breathing hard.

  “What are you doing here?” Durell asked, looking around for Caske.

  “You asked me to come, remember?” He sounded angry and winded.

  “Damn! I nearly shot you.”

  “Tell me about it.” Nuri held his chest. “I have to get out of this business,” he said. “I’m not up to it anymore. Why did you have to kidnap someone like Bernhard Caske?”

  “Trust me,” Durell said. “He’s out here somewhere.”

  “Caske? Merde!”

  “Your friend double-crossed us.”

  “Brother Maurice?”

  “He bit off something that choked him—Caske killed him.” “I supposed Maurice would stab us in the back when he thought it would pay enough.” Nuri was philosophical. “Sorry it had to be you.”

  "Apologies accepted."

  “What now?”

  Durell looked down the highway. A breeze sounded in the trees higher up the mountainside. “He’s having Dr. Plettner’s file brought out. If we can just get them, nothing else that’s happened matters.” He shook his head. “But it won’t be easy to do with him taking potshots at us. We have to catch him—or silence him.”

  Nuri drew a flat little .32 automatic from his pocket. His voice was businesslike. “Very well. Shall I go right or left?”

  “Take the left. Wait!” He touched Nuri’s shoulder. “Isn’t that a car parked down there?” He pointed through the darkness. “It just moved up without lights.”

  “It is,” Nuri said.

  “They must have tailed you.” Durell felt like throwing up his hands.

  “What now?”

  Durell considered the question as snowflakes fell against his eyes. The smell of pines came through the air. “Let’s take whatever time we’ve got and get Caske—he’s the key.”

  “Look, Cajun!” Nuri pointed toward the approaching headlights of a third car.

  “Maybe it’s bringing the files,” Durell said. “They’re to be left by the sign over there. Caske will try to get into the car.”

  They watched from their cover as the automobile passed the previous one—which had pulled onto the shoulder—and came to a halt beside the stone columns holding the monastery’s sign.

  The driver got out, leaving the engine running. A brief flash from the car’s interior lamp showed a small man in a fedora and overcoat. It was no one Durell knew. In no hurry, he opened a rear door and took out a large box.

  “Hugo!” Caske’s shout bounced among the rocks and trees.

  Durell’s head snapped around, eyes searching the shadowy gloom. Nuri started to say something, but Durell silenced him with a wave.

  The man called Hugo straightened with surprise. “Herr Caske?”

  Caske spoke from hiding, in German. “Wait there, Hugo. Leave the papers inside the car. Don’t be afraid.”

  Durell was caught offguard as Caske showed himself from behind n
earby shrubbery. Someone was with him.

  “I have the woman,” Caske shouted.

  “Muncie?” He saw that it was true, even though the night was dark. The small figure could be no one else. Caske’s elbow stood out at shoulder height—he was holding his gun on her temple. “Turn her loose. This is between us,” Durell called.

  “Do you take me for a fool?” Caske moved toward the car, keeping Muncie between himself and Durell. There was no hope of picking him off in this light. “Keep your distance.” The words were harsh with desperation.

  Nuri whispered to Durell. “We’ve got to let him go, Cajun.”

  Durell’s feelings were in a turmoil. He was torn between fear of harming Muncie and the overriding necessity of getting Dr. Plettner’s material.

  Nuri saw his face through the darkness. “Give it up, Cajun,” he argued. “That other car is probably loaded with his men, just waiting for us to show ourselves.”

  Durell heard Muncie cry faintly, her mouth covered by Caske’s palm. They were close now, the crunch of their footsteps clearly audible across the snow.

  Caske was getting away, and there was nothing he could do to stop him. Durell frowned, his mouth drawing a hard line across his face. “I’ll catch up with you again,” he called.

  “Your bad luck if you do.” Caske laughed.

  Then, without warning, the mysterious third car that had been waiting on the shoulder roared to life, lurching onto the highway with spinning tires and blazing lights.

  Caske gave a surprised yell.

  That was when Durell realized Caske was as ignorant of the car as he was. . . .

  Chapter 14

  With the car zooming toward him. Caske hurled Muncie out of the way and jumped into Hugo’s vehicle.

  Almost before Durell realized what had happened, Hugo had gunned his car away in a shower of snow and gravel.

  The next moment, he and Nuri were lying in the ditch staring after the two automobiles as they raced up the mountain.

  Caske was escaping with the files; maybe those chasing him would get them. Durell couldn’t allow either to happen. “Let’s get after them,” he snapped.

  Scrambling to his feet, he found Muncie sprawled in the snow and hauled her up. “Get in Nuri’s car.”

  Nuri’s experience in Switzerland had made him an expert mountain driver, and they soon drew in sight of the taillights of the other two cars. The narrow road followed every hump and hollow of the terrain as it twisted in and out among the ravines and cliffs. The cars made a chain of thunder and light as they surged higher and higher above snowy fields and vineyards.

  “Be careful!” Muncie cried as they slithered around an unbanked curve.

  Durell sat braced, half expecting to crash any second.

  Nuri peered ahead intently, the light from the dash reflecting on his outthrust jaw. “No matter how many times you drive a road like this in the snow, it’s never easy,” he said.

  “Just don’t lose them,” Durell told him.

  They sped on another mile, the road getting higher and icier every minute. Then, rounding a curve, taillights flared ahead, and sparks and metal flew into the air—the car pursuing Caske had slammed into a roadside cliff. It spun around wildly, scattering parts, tires screeching, then rolled over twice before stopping on its top.

  Evading the wreckage somehow, Nuri brought his car to a controlled halt. “My God . . .” he said.

  The wreck had exploded in flames, and the passenger compartment was an inferno. Durell heard someone screaming, but couldn’t see him.

  He leaped from the car and ran past the fire, gazing through the blowing fog and snow. He could barely make out Caske’s receding taillights. Nuri came up beside him. “We’ll never get past this mess in time to catch him.”

  “He’s gone, then.” Durell sighed bleakly.

  The wreck burned furiously, acrid fumes of paint and upholstery whirling through the falling snow. There was a taint of burned flesh in the air.

  As they made their way back to their car, Nuri said, “I wonder who they were.”

  “Maybe we’re about to find out,” Durell said.

  Nuri’s eyes followed his gaze to see someone stagger out of the shadows into the fiery light. . . .

  His name was Viktor Paramonov, and his papers—given to Durell only at gunpoint—said he was attached to the Soviet consular service agricultural commodity section in Geneva, but Durell knew hundreds of KGB names and Paramonov’s was among them.

  He was tall and thin, with devil’s brows and eyes like a fox’s. Somehow he’d been thrown from the car and come away with nothing worse than a broken arm.

  Durell fanned him, withdrawing a Czech-manufactured 7.62 mm Model 52 pistol. Paramonov didn’t resist. He sat down in the snow, holding his arm. “Get me a doctor,” he said in good English.

  “How did you know where to come tonight? Who tipped you off?” Durell demanded.

  Paramonov grinned through clenched teeth. “I need medical treatment,” he said.

  Durell turned to Nuri. “It must have been your phone; the damn phone must have been tapped.”

  “I don’t think so, Cajun.” Nuri wore a hurt expression.

  “You don’t think so, but there’s no other explanation.” Durell kept his annoyance off his face, but he couldn’t hide it in his voice. He turned to the Russian. “You won’t tell us, will you, comrade.” It was a statement.

  “My arm has been seriously injured,” Paramonov complained.

  “You’re lucky. You could be in there, frying with your pals.” He pointed to the burning vehicle.

  “We only want what you want, Samuel Durell,” Paramonov said. “Why sound so angry? I thought you were a professional.”

  “I’m tired of you getting in my way,” Durell said.

  “Why don’t you make it easy for us, then? There are more of us than there are of you. You will lose in the end in any case.”

  “Guess I’ll just have to try harder,” Durell replied.

  “Where are you going?” Paramonov cried. “You can’t leave an injured man here to freeze!”

  “Think of it as another way of thinning the odds against me,” Durell told him, getting into Nuri’s car.

  As Nuri got behind the wheel, Muncie said, “Are you leaving that man here?”

  Paramonov was wobbling toward them, his unbroken arm outstretched in the headlights.

  “Yes,” Durell said. “Let’s go!”

  * * *

  The tables were turned. With Bernhard Caske loose—and probably screaming for the authorities to do something—-Durell was the hunted instead of the hunter.

  It wasn’t wise to go back to the hotel, so Nuri drove him and Muncie to a K Section safe house in the Vieille Ville, Geneva’s old town. It was an unprepossessing townhouse set in a row of stone facades like slices in a loaf of bread.

  Durell phoned the hotel and arranged for Nuri to pick up their luggage and deliver it to lockers in Cointrin Airport. Nuri set off, leaving Durell to soak in a hot bath and wonder what move to make next.

  The fact was, he’d run out of possibilities, he decided. After his failure tonight, he felt sure he wouldn’t be lucky enough to get his hands on Caske again. The man would be too wary.

  Which meant that the Plettner files in Caske’s possession were out of reach. He was left with no choice but to strike them off his list and forget about getting any help from Caske’s direction.

  The best he could hope from Caske was not to be arrested—or, perhaps, murdered—before he could get out of Switzerland.

  He was a fugitive here, as of now.

  A fugitive from Bernhard Caske’s power in the very seat of that power.

  Durell sat in the steaming tub, sipping bourbon and feeling the fatigue ooze out of his bones. When he’d had enough, he dried himself and dressed in the same clothing he’d worn all day. He saw the cut in his jacket and was reminded of the man who’d tried to knife him earlier. It seemed ages ago. He shrugged the memory away.r />
  “It’s about time,” Muncie scolded, taking his place in the bathroom. He’d forgotten about her, although he didn’t see how, now that he was somewhat restored. He heard water running. “Umm! It’s marvelous!” she called.

  He turned on the radio and tuned in Radio Suisse Internationale, the Voice of America and, finally, the BBC, looking for news. There was only a potpourri of music and meaningless talk.

  Giving up, he went into the kitchen. He hadn’t any appetite— not with the way the day had ended—but he knew he should eat anyway, so he slammed through the cabinets. Fifty cans of soup and no bread. Stale dry cereal. No fresh milk, only powdered. He couldn’t abide it.

  Grumpy, he made coffee.

  There was a standard provisions list for all K Section safe houses, but nobody followed it.

  His mind went back to the attempted stabbing. It could take weeks for the trail of his assailant to lead anywhere. Hoping for a break, he’d asked Nuri to notify Interpol of American interest in the man’s movements over the past forty-eight hours.

  He knew his best hope for a fresh start lay with Ronald and Tina Durso. They must have taken the photo he’d found on the assassin.

  It must be that one or both of them were scheming with Plettner.

  Another of Nuri’s tasks this evening would be to inquire discreetly of his sources in the Swiss police and intelligence communities as to the whereabouts of the American couple.

  Durell had just taken a sip of his first cup of coffee, wishing for the chicory-laced brew he kept in his Washington apartment, when Nuri called. “Good news, Cajun.”

  “Impossible.”

  “The lady named Tina Durso? She’s left a message for you at the hotel.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She has to talk to you. Very important. She’s at the Hotel Saleve. It’s on Quai Gustave-Ador, near the jet fountain. Know it?”

  “What’s her room number?”

  “Two twenty-two. Look out for a trap, Cajun.”

  “That’s probably what it is.” Durell’s tone was matter-of-fact.