Assignment- Death Ship

by Will B Aarons

  "Want me to come and back you up?”

  “You have other things to do.”

  When Durell hung up, he turned and saw Muncie watching him with worried eyes. She was wrapped in a towel, beads of bath water standing on her shoulders. “Was that Nuri?” she asked.

  Durell nodded, coming from the kitchen. He took his tie from the bedpost and knotted it neatly around his neck.

  She hadn’t moved. “Well?”

  “Tina wants to see me,” he told her.

  “Don’t go,” she said. “Please.”

  “I don’t really have any choice,” he said.

  “Send the police!”

  “You seem to forget that if I called the police, they’d come for me, not her. You’d end up in jail, too.” He opened a closet and took out his hat and overcoat. He didn’t hear her bare feet cross the room, but somehow he felt her come up behind him. “Don’t you ever stop taking chances?” she asked.

  He turned and found her dusky eyes pleading with him. He gave himself a pleasant second to take her all in, from the autumn browns of her hair to the skimpy towel and good legs, then back again. “I’m not the only one taking chances,” he said, wanting to reach for her.

  “Stay,” she breathed. “For me?” He decided she meant that literally, but before he could 'answer, she let the towel drop.

  Her skin glowed from the steamy bath.

  She was beautiful, compelling. As she held her arms out to him, the taut globes of her breasts lifted, beckoning. . . .

  He decided half an hour couldn’t make that much difference to the end of the world.

  Just as he reached for her there was a knock on the door.

  “Damn!” she exclaimed, crossing her arms. She kissed him quickly, promising him with her eyes, and ducked into the bathroom. He hung her towel over the back of a chair, relieved that temptation had been taken away.

  Yet he could hardly relax—no one but Nuri was supposed to know where he was. . . .

  Chapter 15

  Durell stood to one side of the door, back against the wall, gun in his hand. “Who is it?”

  “Wilson, Greg Wilson. From the consulate.” The words held a furtive urgency. “Let me in.”

  Durell didn’t know any Greg Wilson, but he didn’t keep up with the consulate personnel. He turned out the light, then unlatched the door and swung it inward, staying against the wall. “Come in,” he said.

  Wilson came inside, light from the street flooding in with him. “Stop there. Don’t move.” Durell saw that he was dressed in a blue suit of continental cut. Moving behind him, he frisked him. No gun.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, stop playing games,” Wilson sneered.

  “I leave the games up to the diplomats. Your ID,” Durell growled.

  The man handed him a wallet. Durell motioned with his gun.” Close the door. Turn on the lights.” Wilson found the light switch beside the door. He looked about thirty, with short red hair and the smug superiority of a career foreign-office type. Durell studied his papers.

  “You’re the cause of considerable embarrassment, Mr. Durell,” Wilson said.

  “No doubt.” Durell returned the wallet.

  “Fortunately, the Swiss government will allow us to send you back to the United States—fortunately for you and for us.”

  “Us?”

  “We in the diplomatic corps represent the U.S. government abroad. We have a certain image to maintain, and you are persona non grata.”

  “How did you know the location of this safe house?” Durell asked.

  Wilson blinked. “I don’t have to answer to you, sir.”

  Durell persisted. “This is a K Section safe house: State Department personnel aren’t privy to such information.”

  “Does it really matter? You’re an outlaw. How dare you point to rules and regulations!” Wilson made an impatient gesture. “Put on your hat, and let’s go.”

  Durell didn’t move. He was thinking: Wilson wouldn’t have been able to get in touch with Nuri—Nuri had been too busy since they’d returned from the monastery. And if Nuri had been prevailed upon to reveal the location, why would Wilson want to hide his source?

  What had obviously happened was that Caske had yelled loudly enough to be heard in Washington, and somebody there had sold Durell out.

  Not General McFee, though.

  If his boss had wanted him to terminate his mission, he’d have contacted Durell at the safe house by now and withdrawn his Q clearance.

  But he hadn’t.

  McFee meant for him to proceed as he saw fit, and that was all that mattered.

  Durell lifted his gun. “Sit down,” he snapped.

  “Now, see here—”

  “Shut up. Muncie!”

  She came out of the bathroom, fastening a last button, her eyes intimate in their brief glance at Durell. She didn’t seem to know what to say to the irate diplomat.

  “Bring us a bed sheet,” Durell told her. “We have to tie him up.”

  “Are you sure we should?” she asked.

  “You can’t do that!” Wilson cried.

  “Just get the sheet.”

  The look in Durell’s eyes dampened Wilson’s combativeness; his voice took on a more reasoning tone. “Mr. Durell, you’re going to get yourself into an awful mess of trouble. I am expected back at the consulate, you know.” He looked down the gun barrel and licked his lips.

  When Muncie returned he told her to hold the gun. He took the sheet and tore it into strips.

  “This is really outrageous, you know that?” Wilson fumed as Durell tied him to a chair. “All we want is to save you from prosecution by Swiss authorities.”

  Durell tightened the last knot and stood back.

  “If you want to help, stay out of my way,” he said. He cracked the door and regarded the snowy street. It was almost deserted; the hour was late.

  “You’re not going to leave me here like this?” Wilson protested.

  Durell nodded toward Muncie. “She’ll be here—and she’s good company.”

  “One last time—don’t go,” she said.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can. You’re not to worry. Lock the door and don’t answer it for anyone but Nuri.”

  Then he went into the night. . . .

  Durell left his taxi a block from the Hotel Saleve and went inside through a service entrance that smelled faintly of food and steam tables. He got to the second floor by a back staircase.

  The hotel was old and elegant, its genteel corridors hushed as midnight approached.

  He knew the risk he was taking. Only three persons could have photographed him on Plettner’s island, and he didn’t think Muncie had done it. That left only two: Ronald or Tina or both.

  Even if this were a trap, it would be a step forward. All he had to do was survive, and he’d know who he was after. Sometimes he wondered how he could think of his survival so coolly, but it was old habit by now, no emotion to it. The almost certain knowledge that someday he wouldn’t survive didn’t make him feel much either. He’d lived with it too long.

  He approached the room cautiously.

  The corridor was decorated with several Chinese vases and glided plaster moldings. Subdued street lighting shone through an arched window that filled the end of the hall. Waves of reflection came through it from moving headlights, winking signs.

  He tapped on Tina’s door. “Mrs. Durso?”

  No response.

  He knocked again, not loudly. He thought he might have heard something inside, but couldn’t have said what. A tautness gathered in his middle.

  He inspected the door for anything that might trigger a boobytrap and, finding nothing, tried the knob. It wasn’t locked. “Mrs. Durso!” He stared at the door, helpless to know what was on the other side. He had a hunch someone was in there.

  With a look up and down the hallway, he took out his pistol, turned the doorknob, and pushed the door inward half an inch, just enough so the bolt couldn’t spring back into its recep
tacle.

  Moving back a step, he raised his foot and slammed it against the door, knocking it open with a clatter, seeing a darkened room.

  A woman screamed.

  He leaped into the darkness hearing an evil cough, his mind yelling silencer! as he scrambled for cover.

  Another coughing report and a vase exploded at his shoulder.

  He couldn’t return the fire; he didn’t know where Tina was.

  Pain seared across his forearm.

  The man was shooting quickly, indiscriminately.

  Tina cried out, sobbing incoherently as Durell ducked and dodged, scrambling through the darkness for his life. The darkness was friend and foe. He dumped a table, heard a slug thump into the wood.

  He was puzzled by a dull thud, overlaid by the ding of a telephone bell . . . a muffled cry of pain. Then he heard the phone crash against the floor.

  “I got him, Mr. Durell. Help!”

  Tina had cracked the man across the head with the telephone. Durell heard them scuffling and he lunged into the reeling frame of his assailant, knocking Tina aside and grappling for his gun. They went down groping blindly, unsure where the gun lay. A fist hit Durell, sending lights flashing through his head, and then he was on his back, the heavy weight of the other man crushing into him. A grip of iron clamped onto his throat. He heard his own breath as if from a distance, like an animal in a trap.

  The blackness of the room seemed to be creeping behind his eyes.

  Desperately he swung at the man’s kidneys, heard a yelp of pained surprise, and threw him off.

  Tina flipped on the lights as they scrambled to their feet, and he found himself staring at someone who for some barely remembered reason was startlingly familiar. He had high cheekbones and dark almond eyes, thick wavy hair, a cleft chin and mustache. Something unconcealed in the eyes betrayed mad dreams; they were as merciless as an attack dog’s.

  He fitted Miss Nydia Duka’s description of the man who’d vaccinated her in San Juan, and who must have planted the X. coli aboard the Sun Rover.

  “You’re Luis Alegra!” Durell said.

  Tina spoke up. “Don’t move!” She’d found the silencer-equipped Colt that Alegra had dropped, and she had it aimed at the Puerto Rican.

  Alegra moved with astonishing speed, darting for the door. Tina fired but missed. Alegra threw a lamp table at her and knocked her down.

  Durell made a grab for him, but he had the advantage by a step and dashed out of the room.

  Durell chased him into the corridor in time to see him dive through the enormous arched window at the end. He ran there and looked through: Alegra was sliding off a canopy over the hotel entrance, taking a cascade of powdery snow down with him.

  Durell, realizing there was no hope of catching him, watched him vanish into the night.

  He drew back from the broken window, avoiding the faces of startled onlookers on the street below. He dared not draw any attention to himself—if he could help it.

  “Monsieur? Shall I call the police?” The speaker was a short, dark Frenchman who peered from his hotel room. Other doors were opening.

  Durell straightened his lapels and spoke gravely. “I think not, monsieur. The matter involves an affair of the heart.” “Ah! Of course. I thought, perhaps, a burglar . . .”

  “Non. Only one who would steal a wife’s affections,” Durell replied with assumed gallantry. “I will compensate the hotel for damages. Bonne nuit."

  Durell did not smile as the door closed respectfully. He returned to Tina and held out a hand, helping her to her feet. “You all right?”

  “I guess. Thanks.” Her red hair was disheveled, and she had a bruise on her cheek. “Luis Alegra, huh? How’d you know his name?”

  Durell pocketed the man’s gun. “It’s a long story,” he said. He led her to the sofa. “Sit down.”

  “No need, really.” She smiled warmly. “Your arm’s bleeding. Be back in a sec.” She brought a hot washcloth and bathed the flesh wound as they talked.

  “When I told Ron I’d asked you to come, he blew his stack. I don’t really know why. He called this, this Luis Alegra to wait for you here. There wasn’t a thing I could do about it, honestly. And when you knocked, he put his hand over my mouth.”

  “If you hadn’t hit him with the phone, I might be dead now,” Durell told her.

  She looked frightened and despondent. “But he got away. I’m so scared he’ll come back!” She wiped a tear from the corner of an eye. “And I’m really scared for Dr. Plettner, Mr. Durell. I . . . I really love him—oh, I know you must think I’m awful, but . . .” She put her face in her hands. “What’s happening?” she sobbed. “What are people like that man, Luis Alegra, after? And those men who came to the island?”

  “Your husband’s in it, too,” Durell said. “Otherwise he wouldn’t have sent Alegra here tonight. Has he told you anything? Given you any hints?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Nothing, Mr. Durell.”

  “Very well. But you called me here for something— something that got him very upset. . . .”

  “I guess it did, but I knew you were looking for Dr. Plettner, and I didn’t see any harm in it.”

  “In what?” He held her gaze.

  “In telling you there’s a man who works for Mr. Caske—-I guess word must’ve got around today about you—he wanted you to come to his place tonight. He told me he’s Dr. Plettner’s best friend.”

  “Best friend?” Durell was shocked to hear that the scientist had a best friend in Geneva and Muncie hadn’t told him.

  Tina went on. “He said he’s worried about Dr. Plettner. He thinks Peter’d be better off if you found him.”

  Durell couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “This man knows where Dr. Plettner is?” he asked.

  “He said he did,” she replied.

  Durell gripped her shoulders. “Tell me where I’m to meet him,” he said urgently.

  Theodore Biner lived in Geneva’s Bohemian sister city, Carouge, on the south side of the Arve River. His apartment was above a blue-painted shop with a steep roof of mountain slate. Paintings of the Matterhorn, clocks, and china bric-a-brac in the shop window were visible by the radiance of old wrought-iron street lamps.

  Durell paused as he approached, because he saw a knot of people standing on the sidewalk talking in hushed, excited tones. Then he went on, filled with dread.

  From a distance came the sound of a police car or ambulance.

  The dread grew: He’d guessed that Durso meant to get to Biner first. He should have known that Durso also intended to silence him.

  On the island, Durso had made a pretense of wanting Durell to find Dr. Plettner—but that had been a cover, a smokescreen—and the man certainly had been careful not to give Durell any concrete assistance.

  Now that Durso seemed to be in league with Plettner, it was obvious he’d try to seal Biner’s lips to keep Plettner’s whereabouts from Durell.

  A question that nagged at him was why Muncie hadn’t taken him to Biner. Surely she’d know a man who claimed to be her husband’s best friend.

  Ignoring the bystanders, he entered the building and ascended a cramped staircase. Two women, both dressed in cheap, heavy sweaters and shawls, probably Biner’s neighbors, stood on the small landing. They looked worriedly at him and seemed unable to decide whether they should challenge him.

  He went past them and found Biner, just as he’d feared.

  Biner was nearly dead.

  He lay in the middle of a cluttered room in a pool of darkening blood. Durell rolled him over as the women watched, and found two bulletholes in the chest of the silk dressing gown.

  The police car was drawing close.

  A faucet dripped.

  “Biner!” Durell shook the man.

  The dazed eyes fluttered weakly.

  “I’m Samuel Durell. You told Mrs. Durso you wanted to see me.”

  The eyes closed.

  Durell bent close. “Where’s Dr. Plettner?”
>
  A bloody hand lifted with effort, as if to fend him off.

  “Tell me!” Durell shook him again. There wasn’t much time left.

  Once more the gray eyes glittered in the pale face. Biner’s lips worked to speak. Durell waited, willing the man to tell him. The police were nearly outside the building entrance. He looked about and located a window that would open onto the back side of the building. There was an alley there.

  Biner was trying to say something. . . .

  “What?” Durell lifted his head close to Biner’s face, wanting to force the words out.

  “M . . . Mother . . . Mary . . .”

  Biner went limp. Durell knew he was finished, but he couldn’t accept it. Was this it: Mother Mary?

  “Who’s Mother Mary!” he shouted at Biner. But he was shouting at a dead man.

  A restraining hand gripped his shoulder, and he remembered he wasn’t alone. It was one of the women. “Stop that!” she scolded. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  Durell heard the police car pull up outside. He hurried to the window and opened it. Below was a roof covered by deep snow and, beyond, the black abyss that was a twisting alley.

  “Arrêtez! Police, police!” the woman yelled.

  He crawled through the opening, sinking up to his knees in snow. The sky was the color of hot coals where clouds reflected the city’s lights.

  A frigid breeze whipped grains of snow against his eyes and cheeks.

  The snow-covered roof was dangerously slippery, but he was in a hurry—he had to get back to Tina. He could wait for Durso there.

  The slap of running feet came to him. Cops were rounding the corner into the alley—he was cut off with nowhere to go.

  He tried to go faster but his feet zipped out from under him and he sat down hard. Suddenly he was sliding with the whole snowpack toward the edge of the roof. The next second he shot into the air.

  Disoriented and out of control, all he could do was brace himself. Amid the jumble of alarmed thoughts that raced through his mind in the second before impact, the fear of being injured did not stand out, but the regret he’d feel at being caught by the Swiss police.

  Then something slammed into his back.