Assignment Maltese Maiden

by Edward S. Aarons

  Deirdre had ordered breakfast sent up, crisp rolls, a pot of strong coffee, jams and small eggs and bacon. He ate hungrily at a table by the window, from where he could watch Valetta’s Grand Harbor. Traffic clogged the narrow streets, heading for the docks and shipyards. He briefed Deirdre on Libya, and she listened quietly, her dark red hair gleaming in the hot sunshine that poured through the windows.

  “I think you should know,” she said, “that the Cairo radio this morning, before you awoke, ranted about a new ‘Western imperialist plot’ to seize the Suez canal again, against ‘Islam’s Soviet friends and allies.’ And there was a dispatch from Zurich about Sixth Fleet maneuvers to challenge the Soviet naval presence in the Eastern Med. And of course, more rumors about another war with the Israelis, due any moment.”

  Durell nodded. “Somebody knows about Pilgrim Project and is spreading the word about hypothetical maneuvers.” She said, “It’s not hypothetical in Pravda. Moscow is already rumbling about ‘provocative acts and plans.’ It’s worrisome, Sam. The wrong people, with Project Pilgrim in their hands, could come to the wrong nuclear conclusions. The top brass in Moscow might assume that Pilgrim is a hard decision, not just a parenthetical exercise on the drawing boards.”

  “That’s the tempest that Madame Hung is trying to brew in her teapot,” Durell said flatly.

  “Do you think Skoll and Won are sincere in trying to eliminate her?”

  “They’d all like to grab McFee—without paying for him. I don’t care how good our little general is, he’ll talk. Drugs, psychological torture-—no man can stand up under modem interrogative techniques.”

  “I don’t like to think about that,” Deirdre said.

  Durell turned to the door. “I’d better check to see how Anna-Marie is doing.”

  “Sam? Don’t leave the hotel without me.”

  He said earnestly, “The same goes for you, Dee.”

  Signorina Bertollini had noticed the white yacht in Grand Harbor, too. When Durell knocked and entered her room, wearing slacks and a blue shirt and linen coat that Deirdre had obtained for him, the girl turned from the window. This morning her big eyes were hidden behind a pair of round cosmetic sunglasses, and their blue tint made her look drawn. Keefe got up from his chair, yawned, stretched, and announced he would go for breakfast.

  “All right. What about Perozzo?”

  “Sacked out in the next room. He took first watch.” When Keefe was gone, the girl asked for a cigarette,

  apologetically, since she had quit smoking. She studied Durell from behind the mask of her glasses. “You look better, Sam.”

  “I wish I could say the same for you. You didn’t sleep much?”

  “How could I? I’m so worried about Lee. And I’m just plain frightened.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  “I don’t want to eat. I’ve been watching Lee’s yacht. Where do you suppose he is? And that Chinese woman?” “I’ll have Perozzo check the passenger lists of airline arrivals last night. She might have flown on Alitalia or a Libyavia jet. Or in a private plane. Carlo will find out.”

  “What about those two men—the Russian and the fat little Chinese? Why didn’t you accept their proposition?”

  “I don’t trust them. They want McFee so badly, they itch all over. Their offer was just so much moonshine.”

  She turned away. “I wouldn’t want to be in your business, and that’s a fact. Trusting nobody, thinking everyone lies, looking for devious motives in the simplest of things. I hate being mixed up in all this. I used to think life was relatively simple. Survive and enjoy yourself. My grandmother, the Contessa, was old-fashioned and lived only in memories of Mussolini’s grand dream of reviving the old Roman Empire. She often cursed II Duce for failing her. Sometimes she cursed the Libyans, the Allies, Hitler—you name it. I learned to shut my ears to it all and go my own way.”

  “What about McFee?”

  “My alleged father? What did he ever do for me, except to beget me?”

  “That was wartime,” Durell said gently.

  “Yes, that’s the big excuse for murder, rape, and excusing animal behavior. Am I suppose to love McFee for what he did? I don’t owe him anything. When I was little, I dreamed romantic dreams of hunting all over the world for him, and then throwing myself into his arms to be hugged and kissed and taken care of forever after. I’ve grown up since then.”

  Durell said, “Not for the better.”

  “You’ve no right to say that. You’re just like McFee.”

  “You don’t refer to him as your father?”

  “I have no father. I don’t owe him anything.”

  “You lured him here. You may have caused his death.”

  “I did it for Lee. I’d do anything for Lee. He’s all that’s important to me. Why should I owe anything to an old man who abandoned my mother and me long ago, saying, ‘Thanks for the roll in the hay signorina, but I’m off to bomb Naples or somewhere tomorrow and see how many Italians I can kill!’ ” The girl paused abruptly. “But that’s ancient history now, isn’t it? As dead and buried as the Greeks who hunted for their precious silphium in Cyrenaica and built their three cities of Oea, Leptis Magna and Sabratha, giving Tripoli its name. As dead as the old Roman farmers who made Libya the Empire’s granary. All dead, and best forgotten now.”

  “Take it easy,” he said. “I’ll do my best to get Lee back to you, safe and sound.”

  “But not for my sake, right? I’m learning about you people,” she retorted bitterly. “You’ll do it only to bleed him white about Hung’s spy outfit. You’re all spooky, if you ask me. I don’t think any of you is worth a hoot in hell.” She turned abruptly and picked up a light blue sweater from her rumpled bed. “I need some clothes. I have a bank account here in Valetta. I’ll get some cash and do some shopping.”

  He said, unsmiling, “You can’t do that.”

  “Do what? You yanked me out of Tripoli with no warning, no suitcase, no cosmetics or clothes—”

  “You can’t go to the East Wind," he said.

  She checked herself, and her round blue sunglasses caught and splintered the harsh -light from the window. “Yes. You’re so smart.”

  “Go along with me for another day,” he urged.

  “Suppose I insist on leaving this hotel?”

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “So I simply exchanged Madame Hung for you?”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

  “But you’d like to lock me up somewhere and use me for what you’re after, and then to hell with me and Lee when you have no further use for us? Look, we’re not in Libya now. God knows that’s a strange country, all mixed up between trying to become modern and filled with paranoia about Israel, even though that little country is far away from Libyan problems. We’re in Malta now. A little place, but with law and order. I could call the police and put your whole group in jail.”

  “If you do that,” he said, “Lee will surely die. That’s not a threat. A simple statement of fact.”

  He did not know what she might have decided ultimately. She was a woman with a mind of her own, intelligent and beautiful enough to gain any man’s sympathy. But just then there was a knock on the door, three short raps, and he went to open it.

  Keefe stood there. He still chewed on a breakfast roll. His broad, tough face looked troubled.

  “Cajun, did you send Deirdre on an errand?”

  “No, she’s in my room.”

  “The hell she is. I just saw her leaving the hotel, with a couple of men. I couldn’t see their faces, just their backs. By the time I got out of the restaurant, they got in a taxi and drove off.” Keefe slashed an angry hand downward. “Toward the harbor, Cajun. Nothing I could do about it.”

  Chapter 17

  “All right,” Durell said. “Start over again, Keefe. What time was it?”

  “About eight forty-five.”

  “You were doing what?”

  “I told you. Having breakfast on the t
errace.”

  “Where were you seated?”

  “Take it easy, Cajun. I didn’t—”

  “Could you see the street doorway to the lobby?”

  “I had a table near the railing, on the outside.” Keefe was resentful. His eyes were ugly. “Valetta is a nice little town. Interesting. All these dames wrapped in their black dresses and scarves, and you wonder what’s under them, huh? I was also watching the harbor—that East Wind yacht. There were some crewmen on the forward deck, doing work there.”

  Durell felt his nightmare writhe in him. When you awake from a bad dream, the light of reality soon makes it fade, and daylight problems seem concrete and manageable compared to the torrent of terror that drowned your mind in the night. Now the nightmare lived on inside him, shivering deep in his belly.

  “What was she wearing?” he asked.

  “Deirdre?”

  “Are we talking about someone else?”

  “Look, Cajun—”

  “Tell me, Keefe.”

  “A yellowish linen skirt. A blue flowered blouse. She had her hair done up in a French knot. Jade earrings.” Durell had given her the jewelry in Vienna.

  “A handbag?”

  “Shoulder bag. Strap. Yellow, like her skirt. Walking shoes.”

  “Sunglasses?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She went straight out of the lobby?”

  “I just saw her cross, through the terrace doorway. I was surprised. You said none of us was to leave the hotel. I figured you were sending her on some job. But I got up anyway and crossed the terrace in time to see the two men close in, one on each side of her, very smooth job. Each took an elbow. Probably used a nerve grip.”

  “Did they say anything to her?”

  “I couldn’t tell. They were at the street door. Their backs were to me—including Deirdre’s.”

  “But you got the impression they used force?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And shoved her into a taxi?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What kind of taxi was it?”

  “Black. Small. Maybe it wasn’t a taxi.”

  “But there was a driver waiting?”

  Keefe said, “Motor was running. Yeah.”

  “Were they Chinese?”

  “I couldn’t tell. Truth is, the sun was in my eyes.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Durell said.

  “Look, Cajun—”

  “You’ve made trouble since we started,” Durell said. “Okay, then I quit this lousy Q job.”

  “That’s right. You’re finished with it.”

  “So I’ll go.”

  “No, you’ll stay,” Durell said.

  A red flush was under Keefe’s prominent cheekbones. His greenish eyes looked dangerous. He sucked in a deep breath, nodded, and sat down.

  Perozzo said quietly, “Sam, take it easy.”

  They were all in Durell’s room. Carlo Perozzo sat on the edge of the bed, wearing a charcoal business suit, a white shirt with very long collar points, a wide maroon necktie with pale blue horizontal stripes. Keefe was like a tourist, in a flowered shirt and yellow slacks and brown loafers. The sunlight coming through the windows was hot and relentless. The water of Valetta’s Grand Harbor reflected in an upward glare through the windows. They listened to the sounds of motor traffic out of Kingsgate Circle. There were tennis courts around the comer, and Durell could hear a woman’s voice calling the score and laughing. It seemed far away. He was still in the fetid darkness of his nightmare.

  “Any suggestions, Carlo?” Durell asked.

  “We can’t call the police. Keefe didn’t get the license tag, doesn’t know what kind it was, either.”

  “Fiat,” Keefe said. “One of the bigger ones.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “Sam didn’t ask.”

  “Sam is right,” Perozzo said. “You’re a bastard.”

  “Listen, I don’t have to take any crap from you. I can cancel my contract any time, anywhere.”

  “No, you can’t,” Durell said.

  Perozzo said, “Three possibilities. Skoll and his Russians—he’ll be here by now. Major Won and his Black House people. Or Hung.”

  “I choose Hung,” Durell said. “She’s finally gotten the leverage to make me move her way.”

  Keefe said, “It’s you who ought to resign, old buddy. You’re off-base because of Deirdre. You can’t think straight. I could report how you jumped me, half-cocked, just because your babe got herself into a little trouble—”

  Durell wanted to hit him. He didn’t even like to hear Deirdre’s name in the man’s mouth. He stood quietly, thinking, and didn’t like the conclusions he came to.

  “Question,” said Carlo.

  “Yes?”

  “Why did Deirdre disobey your orders, Sam? Did you send her to do something?”

  “No.”

  “She understood she wasn’t to leave the hotel?”

  “She understood.”

  Keefe said, “Maybe she just went down to buy something. You know, woman’s things.” His tone indicated a willingness to smooth things over, a little out of character, Durell thought. “Come to think of it, she was headed for the pharmacy counter when I first glimpsed her.”

  “You think so?” Durell asked.

  “Yeah. Come to think of it.”

  “Not likely,” Durell said.

  “Then why would she leave this floor at all?”

  “You tell me, Keefe.”

  “Cajun, I’m trying to cool it. It’s a strain, right? That Hung woman has given us all the jumps.”

  Durell came to a decision. He didn’t like it, but there were many things in his business that he didn’t like, that he didn’t care to do; but he always did what was necessary.

  “All right. We won’t argue. Carlo, you and Anna-Marie go down to the harbor. Maybe the Port Authority office. See what you can learn about the East Wind. See if she has papers to clear for another destination. Find out how long she’s been here, who’s reported to be aboard, passports, all that.”

  Anna-Marie said, “Yes, I can help with that. It’s what I want to do. Find out about Lee, I mean.”

  “Be back at the hotel by noon,” Durell said.

  Perozzo gave Durell a strange look, his brown eyes going opaque for a moment. But he nodded and stood up and put on his sunglasses. “Whatever you say, Sam.”

  Keefe said, “And me?”

  “You come along with me, “Durell said. “Maybe we can find out where that Fiat came from.”

  Chapter 18

  There was a car-rental agency next to the Phoenicia, and it took only ten minutes to hire a small blue Volkswagen. It was not in the best of shape, but the choice was limited, and he did not want a larger American car to negotiate Valetta’s narrow streets. He used a credit card for the deposit, saw that the tank was full, and motioned Keefe behind the wheel.

  “You drive. Head for Santa Venera.”

  “Where?”

  “Turn right along the Mall, along Saria Street. At the Argotti Gardens, go left to St. Anne Street, then right again along the National Road.”

  “You’ve been here before?” Keefe asked.

  “Yes.”

  “My specialty is Eastern Europe. This is new territory to me.”

  “You’ll enjoy it,” Durell said.

  “Look, don’t jump me again. I did the best I could.”

  “All right.”

  “I’m sorry if I said anything about Deirdre—”

  “Forget it.”

  Keefe drove well, being careful of the buses and motorcycles and pedestrians, as they headed toward the greenery of the Argotti Gardens. To the right, Durell glimpsed the blue of Marsamxett Harbor. A few blocks in the opposite direction lay the wharves of Grand Harbor. Durell and Keefe left Valetta and Floriana behind. Durell looked back and glimpsed through Kingsgate the jumble of white stone houses and the loom of St. Elmo at the seaward end of Kingsway, blinding i
n the glare of the morning sun. The sky looked white, the sea was a blaze of blue fire. The star-shaped fortress, rebuilt by the Knights of Malta in 1553 in their passion to defend the harbors, commanded both Marsamxett and the entrance to Grand Harbor.

  “So what’s in Santa Venera?” Keefe asked. “Why are we going there?”

  “There’s nothing much—an old aqueduct, you’ll see it here and there along the road. It won’t take long to reach it. The island is small. Bear left there to Mdina. Used to be Roman, and walled. With the Knights, it was the real capital. Held off the Turks in 1565. During the French Revolution, the Maltese nobles hatched a conspiracy and were butchered in 1798.”

  “You’ve got a good memory, Cajun. What’s it all got to do with Deirdre?”

  “Nothing. From Mdina you bear left again past the Verdala Palace.”

  Keefe said, “That’s the other side of the island. Look, are you putting me on?”

  “Shut up and let me think. Be careful of your driving— stay on the left side of the road. Look out for buses and sheep. Don’t hit anything. There’s no hurry.”

  “I just wish you’d tell me what we’re up to.”

  Durell did not reply. He seemed more relaxed as Keefe tightened up. Malta was fifty-eight miles due south of Sicily and 220 miles north of Tripoli. The sun was hot, and the land looked worn and barren, a rocky reflection of the white sky and blazing sun. Here and there were dark rows of cypress trees that only emphasized the blighted land. They climbed very gradually toward the higher elevations of the western shore, and occasionally the road crossed over arched stone bridges above deep wieds—in Arabic, wadis—where crusts of coralline were exposed over limestone.

  At Mdina, Keefe turned through the Greek Gate into the tiny, walled city, crossing a bridge over the moat. The walls reflected old conquerors—Roman, Byzantine, Arab, and Norman structures. The small city was silent under the hot morning sun. On Inguanez Street, Keefe turned left, then right again, along Magazines Street, Keefe turned left, then right again, along Magazines Street, past the church of St. Peter ad Vincula. To the right were tiny lanes, a few sleepy shops, women in black shawls, men with caps on their grizzled heads seated against the houses. A dark blue bus from Valetta was waiting for passengers in St. Paul’s Square. The cathedral had been built in 1100 by Count Roger, the Norman, with Sicilian stonemasons; it had been gutted several times by fire and earthquake. Keefe stopped the car behind the blue Valetta bus. “All right, Cajun, tell me,” Keefe said.