Assignment Maltese Maiden

by Edward S. Aarons

  To reach the neighboring island of Gozo from Malta, one uses the car ferry between Marfa and Mgarr across a three-mile channel named the Fliegu. It was a dozen miles from Valetta, across the Victoria Lines and along St. Paul’s Bay to the ferry terminal at Marfa. The wind had died, and the afternoon sky was hot and cloudless. Anna-Marie drove with familiar competence along the crowded roads. Beyond Mellieha Bay they could see the modem facades of the tourist hotels on the tiny island of Comino, a mile-square islet in the middle of the Fliegu Channel. They had twenty minutes to wait for the ferry. There were more tourists here, and crowds of Maltese headed for Victoria on Gozo. Durell still could not detect anyone following them. There were a few moments of difficulty about their telephoned ferry reservation. The ferry was full, the attendant said. Anna-Marie spoke sharply in Maltese to the man, and he suddenly nodded and smiled and said,

  “Iva, signorina. Yes. Of course. Dritt Vquddiem. Straight ahead.”

  Gozo was not oriented toward the tourist trade and had few conventional attractions. But the island had a lonely, craggy charm, aside from the prehistoric temples at Ggantija and the Ta Cenc cliffs. The Gozitans tended to ignore those who visited for holidays, although the beaches at Mgarr and at Ramia on the north coast, the pebbly harbor at Marsalforn, and the swimming at Xlendi Bay were some of the best in the Mediterranean. Gozo was mainly agricultural, with the farmers often doubling as fishermen. From the road to Victoria, Durell considered the fields, divided by rough stone fences, that rose from the valley to the flat-topped hills. Each hill seemed crowned by a tiny village and an oversized church dome and belfry. The style was baroque, built on old Norman ruins.

  “We have to go through Victoria,” Anna-Marie said. “Everybody still calls it Rabat instead of after the old English queen. We might be seen there if people are sent to stop us.”

  Perozzo said, “You can count on that.”

  The girl said, “There are really no side roads we can take to get to my house here.”

  The traffic off the ferry at Mgarr thinned out, either speeding on ahead or dropping behind. Taxis from the ranks near the ferry terminal at Mgarr quickly vanished toward their different destinations. A few farmers worked the fields, and a bus from Victoria lumbered toward the Fiat in a cloud of fumes. Durell thought that Madame Hung would surely have placed some of her men at the terminal to spot them if they came to Gozo, and he was puzzled by the apparent absence of any tails so far.

  There was a traffic circle on Racecourse Road, near Xewklija, less than two miles from Victoria. A dark sedan came from the left, moving fast, and shot past their little Fiat, roaring ahead along the wide—and only good —road the Gozitans could boast of. Perozzo leaned sharply forward in his seat, staring through the glare of sunlight on the highway.

  “Did you see them, Sam?”

  “Yes.”

  “Skoll’s men?”

  “Three of them. Maybe.”

  “They might be tourists. Diplomats?”

  “No. Bear left, Anna-Marie. We’ll wait five minutes.”

  He didn’t want to wait. He thought of Deirdre and perhaps McFee, hidden somewhere on this hilly, secret island, lost in silence somewhere on the craggy shore. The girl went around the traffic circle toward the stone houses of Xewklija, with its new domed church that resembled the Santa Marie della Salute on the Grand Canal of Venice. A few old women in their traditional black were on the village streets. Some men in caps and striped shirts sat drinking the strong Gozitan wine in a cafe.

  “Turn around now,” Durell said. “Victoria again.” Halfway to the town, they saw the dark sedan again, halted on the edge of a field, waiting for them. There was a scattering of houses ahead, the outskirts of Victoria-Rabat, and the high loom of Castle Hill, the Gran Castello. The acropolis now was surrounded by ruined, dead streets that had never been repopulated after the Turkish assaults four centuries ago.

  “Stop the car,” Durell said.

  The girl looked at him questioningly, a reflection of the high ruins in her big sunglasses. Durell said, “Pull in just ahead of them. Cut them off.”

  Perozzo took out his gun.

  “No,” the girl said.

  Durell reached forward and pulled hard on the handbrake. The Fiat screeched and swerved and went off the road. The girl bit her lip and fought the wheel and brought the car to a half fifty yards beyond the silent, waiting sedan.

  The sun and the heat struck them like a sledgehammer. There was no sign of movement in the other car. The sunlight shattered on the other windshield and effectively canceled out any chance to see the occupants. Durell took the ignition key, and the girl looked at him and said, “You don’t trust me not to drive off? Are you going to shoot them, too?”

  “Be quiet and stay here. Carlo?”

  “Yes, Sam.”

  They got out of the Fiat and stood for a moment looking at the dark sedan. Seagulls flew low overhead, heading westward. A bus went by, crowded with black-robed women going toward Mgarr. A truck came up behind them, loaded with bird cages and vegetables and red oranges for the market in Victoria.

  “Come on.”

  Durell started off first, walking toward the ominously parked car. Perozzo skipped a step, catching up with him. The sun was at their backs. The grass and weeds along the highway made a brittle crackling under their shoes. For half the distance, nothing happened. No one stepped from the black sedan to meet them. Then suddenly the other car roared into life and the sedan lurched forward. Perozzo shouted a warning and raised his gun, and Durell knocked it down as the black sedan swung out into the road. The car was not rushing to hit them. But what happened then was unexpected.

  Hidden by sparse cypress trees that lined the road, one of the elaborate horse and buggy rigs favored by Gozitan bachelors—the horse smartly plumed, the buggy shining with fresh lacquer—came head-on for the black sedan. There was no chance for the other driver to avoid the collision. The Gozitan, a young man, shrieked curses in dismay. Durell glimpsed the flat Russian faces of the three men in the sedan, and then the fender smashed into one of the buggy’s spinning wheels. The horse reared, whinnied, and bolted. The driver of the sedan put the car into a screeching spin, its tires smoking, and hit the edge of the road, bounced, jolted about ten yards off the paving, and crashed into a ditch.

  “A piece of luck,” Durell said. “Run, Carlo.”

  They raced back to the waiting Fiat. The buggy-driver was unhurt, but he was fighting his frightened horse for control. A plume of smoke came from the wrecked sedan.

  Durell slammed into the Fiat and started it quickly. A bus and another cart were coming from the direction of Vic-toria-Rabat. Anna-Marie turned her huge sunglasses toward him.

  “They can’t follow us now?”

  “No,” Durell said.

  He didn’t look back as he headed up the slope of Racecourse Street, past the Rundle Gardens and the Duke of Edinburgh Hotel, and into the old Norman town.

  Chapter 20

  They sat at a sidewalk cafe under the trees of the town’s main square, it-Tokk, at the west end of Racecourse Street. All the bars were busy. A small stand of taxis waited nearby. The bow-fronted palazzo of Grand Master de Vilhena loomed to the east of the square, housing the Department of Information. Through the maze of alleys and lanes leading up to the imposing ruins of Gran Castello, with its rubbled byways and arched break in the old walls, was the is-Suq, the town’s main market.

  The man who stopped in front of their table exclaimed, “Signorina Bertollini! Ah, it is a devastating pleasure. Neither the sea, the sky, the fields or our houses have been happy since you left us. You have returned at last!”

  “Thank you, Alberto,” Anna-Marie said calmly.

  The young Gozitan’s black eyes swept over Durell, dismissed him as an American, considered Carlo Perozzo’s gray hair and olive face with more speculation, then dismissed him, too. He was boldly moustached, with bright eyes and a sun-darkened skin. “May I join you, signorina? You are having an aperiti
f? Ah, I cannot say how my heart leaps with joy at the sight of you!”

  “Alberto, you’re too much.” The girl turned to Durell and said, “Alberto wants to marry me—for my money.”

  “Signorina, it is not true! About your money, of course. You devastate my heart like a Turk.”

  “Go away, Alberto.”

  “But you are home again, I have seen the cars and people at your house. Ah, I’ve been watching and waiting to see you, to present you with flowers and my broken heart.”

  “A broken heart isn’t much use to me, Alberto. Go on home and tend to your fish nets.”

  The moustached Gozitan was not insulted. He showed bright teeth in a grin and spread his arms, appealing to Durell. “You are not her fiance, are you? Nor is this Italian gentleman. He is an uncle, no doubt. The Chinese people at the villa must be cosmopolitan friends of the signorina. She travels a great deal. Tell me, signor, why does she treat my true love in this fashion? Am I not good-looking, virile, suitable for the elegant lady in many ways? I would make her a fine husband. My papa, my mama, my friends say I am crazy. But I—” He dramatically pounded at his heart—“I shall never give up.”

  “Nonsense,” Anna-Marie said tartly. “Have you been spying on my house?”

  “The Chinese interested me, naturally. We do not have many Chinese visiting Gozo.”

  “And the little American gentleman?” Durell asked. Alberto frowned. “I saw him once. Yesterday, it was. He seemed very ill, the way they supported him when he walked in the signorina’s garden by the cliff.”

  Perozzo said, “You yourself saw this little American?” “Only briefly. Poor man. So ill! Anna-Marie—”

  “We must go,” Durell said.

  He had spent ten minutes here in the it-Tokk to make sure they were not being followed now. It was almost four in the afternoon, and the shadows were long, ebony-sharp against the white glare of the houses climbing the steepsided northern bluff of the citadel hill. Anna-Marie stood up and Durell dropped some coins on the tin table to pay for their Camparis.

  “Good-bye, Alberto.”

  They walked back to the Fiat. Durell saw the young Gozitan move under the cafe awning with surprising speed. There was a telephone on the old zinc-covered bar there. Alberto picked it up, his back toward them. Durell told Perozzo to start the car, and then walked back to the cafe and stood behind the Gozitan, who was impatiently jiggling the telephone for a connection.

  “Don’t do it, Alberto,” he said quietly.

  The Gozitan turned too fast. “Signor American?”

  “Don’t tell them she’s here,” Durell said.

  “Signor, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “How much did they pay you to keep watch for her? Whatever it is, I’ll double it. The signorina will be grateful.”

  “Bah! She is a cold, heartless wench, filled with foreign ideas, a snob, too superior for me!” Alberto spat. His black eyes were angry. “Double, you said?”

  “Whatever it is.”

  “Now?”

  “And something else, Alberto.”

  “Yes, signor?”

  Durell said quietly, “If you use the phone, you will be dead before morning.”

  The young man turned pale under his heavy tan. He swallowed noisily, stared up at Durell’s height. Then he started abruptly out of the cafe for the tree-shaded sidewalk of it-Tokk. Durell caught his elbow in a painful grip and Alberto halted.

  “Do you believe me?” Durell asked.

  “Yes, signor.”

  “How much did the lady pay you?”

  “It was a man. One hundred American dollars. They are not worth as much as they used to be, of course. You understand, signor.”

  “It’s still a lot of money.”

  “Yes, yes, I agree. Who are you, signor? Polizia?”

  “No. Just a friend of the signorina’s.”

  “Will you give me two hundred? I will remember what you said. Business is business, eh?”

  Durell gave him the money. “What kind of man was it who paid you?”

  “A Chinese gentleman.”

  “Short? Fat? One eyebrow?” He described Major Won. “Le, le. No, no. He was young, he wore sunglasses, sailor’s clothes, from the yacht.”

  “What yacht?”

  “The one that just anchored not far from the lady’s place. Marsalforn, near Ramla Bay. Not far from here. No place is far from another on Gozo, signor.”

  “All right,” Durell said.

  He walked back to the Fiat.

  Chapter 21

  Durell lay in the rough grass at the edge of the bluff overlooking the sea and the stone house below, near the rocky little beach. A height of land hid the yellow sands of Ramla Bay, with its primitive statue of the Virgin and the remains of a rebuilt Roman villa. They were not far from the village of Xaghra and the valley leading to what was known as “Calypso’s Cave”—a deep slot in the bluif above the sea. He recalled that Homer’s tales of the Odyssey included the fact that Calypso, like Hecate, was a death goddess. In the growing dusk, he again felt the image of Madame Hung drift through his mind. The ancient Calypso and the modem Hung both meant death.

  Some old fig and carob trees grew near the edge of the bluff, and farther back a row of cypresses marked a footpath toward the sea. Most of the thin traffic headed for the beach at Ramla, and the little cove that he watched was not bothered by people who wandered this way.

  The sun was setting. Anna-Marie lay on her back in the grass, staring blindly at the darkening sky. She had said little after they left Victoria, except when she cut a melon and handed out the sandwiches they had taken with them. There were deep shadows now on the Nadur headland nearby. The girl picked apart one of the tiny Mediterranean irises that grew wild here. Durell lifted his head and watched a falcon going south. From somewhere behind him, he heard the sound of a homed owl, a bit early for this hour of the evening.

  “Sam?” Perozzo wriggled toward him and looked down at the stone house. A gravel road pitched steeply down toward the red-tiled roof, and no landing place on the rocky beach could be used by a boat larger than a launch. “Sam,” Carlo said again. “It’s three hours now. No signs of life?”

  “McFee is in there. Maybe Deirdre.”

  “I vote for the yacht,” Perozzo said.

  Anna-Marie said, “No, Lee is in the house.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I feel it,” she said.

  Durell said, “I think she’s right. It’s the house. They know we’re here, anyway. Alberto must have phoned them. So they’re just waiting for me to show up.”

  “Well, you can’t go in. Even with a dozen men, we wouldn’t have enough firepower.”

  “No force, this time.” Durell sighed softly. “The first shot, and Deirdre and McFee are dead. I’ll have to go in alone. That’s what Hung is waiting for. That’s the deal.”

  The owl hooted again, while the easterly wind kicked up small whitecaps on the darkening sea. Anna-Marie said, “But it is my house, so why can’t I go down there? It would seem a natural thing, after all.”

  Durell did not take his eyes from the house below. No lights were on yet, but he suddenly spotted movement in the garden that boasted a single orange tree. A ten-foot wall was around the landward end of the garden, and a wrought-iron fence and gate barred entry from the car drive. He could see a heavy Maltese knocker and padlock on the gate. There were few windows in the house where it backed against the bluff; he assumed most of the views were toward the sea. Part of the structure was a large, restored Norman tower; he could trace the new stucco where its height had been renewed. Even the old archer’s slits had been rebuilt.

  Dickinson McFee came out into the garden.

  Perozzo breathed, “Jesus, there he is. Taking the evening air, as if he were back in D.C. After all it cost us—”

  “He’s bait,” Durell said. “Don’t play the fish.”

  “But we can call for help now, we’ve found him—”

&nbs
p; “There’s no time. They know we’re here.”

  Durell watched McFee in the waning light. It had been timed with malicious perfection, just as the day faded, so that nothing was clear and the garden behind its high wall was in gloomy shadow. McFee’s slight figure moved slowly from one end of the garden to the other. He had come out of an arched doorway at the base of the Norman tower. The head of K Section wore his usual dark suit and a white shirt open at the collar—something unusual, Durell thought, for McFee to be without a tie. He looked at McFee’s feet. No shoes. He had no belt, either.

  “Anna-Marie, if we got some rope, could we climb down to the roof of the tower from here?”

  “We have no rope,” Perozzo said.

  The girl said, “I often sunbathe up there. The roof has a hatch that locks from the inside. You couldn’t ever get in if it’s locked.”

  Durell studied the craggy bluff behind the back wall of the house and decided to try it without a rope. Perozzo wanted to go, too, and Durell said, “They want me alone. Me. That’s what they’re going to get. I’ll take your knife, besides mine, Carlo. Stay here with Anna-Marie. Watch for a boat coming to the beach down there, from the yacht. If I’m not back in two hours, call Hammersmith on the radio. It’s in the back of the car. Tell Lieutenant Fisher everything up to date.”

  “Hell,” said Perozzo, “if they wanted to dangle bait, why don’t they show you Deirdre?”