Assignment Burma Girl

by Edward S. Aarons

  “I love you, too, Paul.”

  And she realized she had never told him in quite this way, quietly and with conviction and true meaning. She suddenly dropped to her knees before him as he sat in the Bombay chair and took one of his hands in hers and held it tight.

  “Eva—”

  “I know,” she said. “I think I’m going to cry.”

  “I never saw you cry, you know.”

  “Maybe that’s what’s been wrong with me.”

  “Don’t,” he said. “Not now.”

  She looked up at him. “Is it too late for us? I can’t say anything about the past. I couldn’t help it, Paul. I honestly couldn’t stop myself from being such a—so cruel to you.”

  “I know that.”

  “Do you? Do you think I can be different now?”

  “You are different, Eva,” he said quietly.

  He stood up and pulled her to her feet. He held her tight, and she began to tremble with an overwhelming wanting for him, him alone, and no other man, ever again. She could not put it into words for him. Perhaps she would never be able to. But she could show him what she meant, in these few minutes, when everything in the world that had seemed destroyed forever was being put back together.

  He kissed her, and that was different, too. It was no longer the kiss of a beggar, of an uncertain man, waiting for a rebuff. Paul had changed in a way that frightened her little, and yet excited her as never before.

  She could feel the way he wanted her when he held her close to him.

  “Paul?” she whispered. “Let’s go inside.”

  “Now?” -

  She managed a shaky laugh. “Any time is a good time, isn’t it? If two people love each other, the way we do?”

  He looked at her and started to speak, and then knew there was no need for words. As they went toward the door, she heard the thunder of a jet plane as it lifted from the distant airport. Eva turned to catch a glimpse of the silver ship as it soared over the city of pagodas and temples, of delta heat and strange customs.

  Maybe it was Durell’s plane, she thought, taking him back to the States to finish the business that had brought him here.

  She shivered a little.

  “What is it, Eva?” Paul asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. She couldn’t look at him, feeling a shyness that was new to her. “Are we going to make love?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s hurry,” she said.

  Fourteen

  He had almost forgotten that it was April in Washington. The sycamore trees were brushed with a more thorough green in the street below his apartment. His shoulder wound felt stiff and uncomfortable from the long jet flight, and the sense of oppression that had flown with him still weighed heavily on his mind.

  Durell made two carefully guarded telephone calls and arranged for what had to be done. Then General McFee called him back.

  “There is no need for you to bother with this, Cajun. I can put Thomson on it.”

  “There isn’t quite enough proof,” Durell said.

  “You did what you were sent out there to do, Sam. I should think that’s enough. You probably want to sleep for a week.”

  “I do. But it’s not finished yet.”

  “Let somebody else do it,” McFee said.

  “I want to do it myself. Will you set it up for me, General?”

  “You’ll have to be careful, Cajun. There’s just a chance he might move first.”

  “I expect him. to,” Durell said. “Tonight, at ten?” McFee sighed. “If you insist.” He paused for a moment. “By the way, Deirdre is quite annoyed at you.”

  “I know,” Durell said. “I had a date with her last weekend to go out to her place on the Chesapeake. Did you tell her I was in Rangoon?”

  “I said you were abroad. Shall I call her for you?”

  “I’ll do it myself. Thanks.”

  Durell hung up and let the memory of Deirdre Padgett flow into him to erase other images that haunted him at the moment. He had known Deirdre for several years. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever met. He had run into her on an assignment when she was troubled and frightened, had helped her beyond the need of duty, and fell in love with her. For Durell, she was the single constant in his solitary life, and he depended on her. Yet he would not marry Deirdre, although she was willing. Their affair had been marred by his insistence that he could not subject her to the uncertainties and dangers of his business. Durell knew it was a risk to become emotionally involved and dependent on anyone. He had seen too many men whose attention at a critical moment was hampered or diverted by a wife or sweetheart, and who paid an ultimate price for their moment of carelessness.

  Durell kept his apartment dark and did not close the windows. He sat still, thinking of Deirdre’s dark raven hair, her oval face, her gray eyes that looked at him with calm love and understanding. Suddenly he wanted her more than ever before, and he returned to the phone and called her house in Prince John, on the Chesapeake shore.

  She answered at once.

  “Sam?” she asked quietly.

  He laughed softly. “You must be intuitive.”

  “You could have let me know you’d be away, darling,” she said reproachfully.

  “I had to leave in a hurry.”

  “Don’t you always?”

  “Are you free now?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. Do you mean tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sound a little strange.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not sure, Sam. I’m still angry with you.”

  He said quietly, “See if you can make it, Dee. I do want to see you. Shall I call you back later?”

  “Of course, darling.”

  He hung up, lit a cigarette and sensed a quickening inside as he considered the sound of her voice. Then he felt let down again, oppressed by the unfinished business still at hand. There was some time still to be passed, and he decided to sleep and rest. He changed nothing in his apartment that might let anyone watching from the street know that he had returned, and he slept for two hours, while the April breeze rustled in the sycamores outside. Washington’s lights came on all over the city and thousands of government clerks and dignitaries, Senators and Congressmen and statesmen and their wives, Pentagon generals and businessmen closed up for the day and went about their planned business for the night, seeking pleasure and relaxation.

  His own business would bring him no pleasure.

  He hated it.

  Not for the first time, he resented this aspect of his work, this ugliest side of his business. The struggle for men’s minds and loyalties went on all over the world, a strange a devious affair, always with an unexpected outcome. He knew that nothing was black or white in the world of conflict, and he accepted the honest convictions of others, knowing they were men like himself in many ways, as sincere as he in their belief that their means to the end of peace was more justified than his. These men were dangerous, implacable opponents, moving with fanatical conviction against his own strength and beliefs.

  But it was those who lived in the half-world between, who were motivated by devious self-interest, who often brought destruction and grief to the innocent. For those men, he found no sympathy.

  The telephone awakened him. It was McFee again. The General’s voice was sober.

  “You were right, Cajun. We’ve dug up more data. Not enough to be absolutely certain—but Savarati handed you the right dope.”

  “Have you set it up, General?”

  “Yes. But are you sure you want to do this yourself?”

  “I have some personal matters to settle.”

  “All right. Are you ready?”

  “I’ll be there at ten,” Durell said, and hung up.

  The night was cool when he left his apartment house by the back way. A man walking his dog across the street caught his attention, and he watched the stroller for a moment, decided it was all right, and went around to his garage for the car.
It looked untouched, but he checked the wiring under the hood, with the pretense of checking the oil level. Everything looked normal. There were no signs of tampering or booby-traps. Satisfied, he got in and drove into the evening traffic, heading west along MacArthur Boulevard toward Potomac and beyond.

  Nobody followed him.

  He parked a short distance from Senator Wheaton’s house on the bluff overlooking the old C & O canal, where he had originally received his assignment. It was cooler here in the country. The Senator’s mansion was brightly lighted, evidence that Wheaton was throwing his usual evening affair for visiting dignitaries. Durell wondered if the old man and the bald man from the NSA would be here again. He decided it didn’t matter, and choosing a path that skirted the house, he descended the bluff to the level of the old canal.

  Moonlight made a dappled pattern on the towpath through the new leaves on the trees. Peepers sang a ululating song to the spring. It was a fresh and invigorating world after the steamy heat of Rangoon.

  He was alone on the towpath. On the bluff above, lights gleamed in the Senator’s windows and the distant strains of music and conversation lifted and fell as the night breeze blew. He chose a deep pool of shadow and waited patiently.

  His appointment was kept promptly at ten o’clock. The man walked briskly down the stairway from the house, his figure flickering in the patterns of shadow under the trees. There was a jauntiness to the stride, an effort at youthful vigor, assurance and confidence in the man Durell had marked for destruction.

  It was Chet Lowbridge.

  Lowbridge walked across the path on top of the centuries-old wooden canal lock and paused, stood absolutely still except to turn his head and stare first one way and then the other. His head looked strangely alert in contrast to the sudden wary stillness of his muscular body. His crew-cut hair looked pale in the moonlight, but his face was in the shadows, anonymous and watchful.

  Durell stepped out of the shadows and walked toward him. Lowbridge turned too quickly, evoking a sense of tension. Durell could not read any expression in his face.

  Lowbridge recognized him after a blank moment and spoke with a quick laugh.

  “Oh, it’s you. So you’re back, Cajun.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m supposed to meet the old man here—you know, Mr. Smith, from National Security.”

  “He’ll be along a little later, I think. He’s something of a patron of yours, isn’t he?”

  “In a way. I was his personal secretary for a time. He got me into the Foreign Service. You don’t know his real name?”

  “I don’t want to know it,” Durell said.

  “Right.” Lowbridge nodded. “Keep everything classified, eh? A little knowledge can be dangerous, as they say.” Lowbridge paused. “I’ve been trying to get hold of the old man since I got back yesterday. It’s a damned nuisance. I took an emergency leave from the Rangoon office to consult him on some rather urgent matters.”

  “Would you mind telling me what they are?” Durell asked.

  “I’m afraid that’s none of your business.”

  “I think it is. I’ve made it my business.”

  “Are you still burned because of the way things went between us in Rangoon? I was only following orders, you know.”

  “I know,” Durell said. “But whose orders?”

  Lowbridge smiled without meaning. “I don’t get you.” “You shouldn’t have come back, you know,” Durell said. “You could have reached China easily enough from Rangoon.”

  “China?”

  “But you felt you could smooth things out with Mr. Smith, the old man, and get him to cover for you, right? Smith is old and lonely. You played up to his loneliness from the time he employed you, making him believe you were loyal and dedicated. You made every effort to hoodwink him and hide your real ambitions to go far and fast, no matter who got hurt. The old man didn’t want to believe the truth about you when we told him. You’ve broken his heart. You thought you could still play the fair-haired boy to him, since you hated to give up the good thing you had going here. You thought the calculated risk of returning to the States and convincing Smith to go to bat for you was worth it, I suppose.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lowbridge snapped.

  “Or did you come back because you had nowhere else to go? You bungled the job in Rangoon, and your new masters don’t accept excuses for failure. Did you come back here as the choice of the lesser of two evils?”

  “See here, I’ve had enough of this,” Lowbridge rasped. “Where is Mr. Smith? I don’t have to stand still for this nonsense.”

  “You’ll never see the old man again,” Durell said quietly. “He knows the truth about you now. He didn’t want to believe you’re a traitor, but he had to accept our facts. You can’t count on him any more.”

  “What? You’re mistaken. He said he’d be here.”

  “That was an arrangement we made, so you and I could meet face to face, before you decided to run.”

  “I’m not running anywhere. I’ve nothing to hide. If you have any charges against me because I rubbed you the wrong way in Rangoon, you can put them through proper channels. I’m not afraid of anything you say. I’ve still got friends and plenty of influence—”

  “Not any more,” Durell said. “You’re all alone, Chet.” The man’s shoulders swung sharply, as if he were about to return to the house. The shift of his weight brought his face into the moonlight, and Durell saw the thin shine of sweat on his jaw. He felt a momentary repugnance at what he had to do, but went on implacably, “There’s no place you can run, Chet. It’s all over for you. You’re a traitor and a murderer. You arranged for the bomb in Simon Locke’s kitchen that killed the Frenchman. And you hired the assassin who threw the grenade on the veranda at Eva Hartford’s house in Rangoon. And you contacted Emmett Claye by radio in Nambum Ga to warn him I was coming.”

  Lowbridge laughed tightly. “Are you out of your mind?” “Savarati did some good police work while I was gone from Rangoon. He had something tangible to start with— the body of the Lahpet Hao agent you hired to try to kill Eva Hartford—or was it me you were after? I don’t think you meant to hurt Eva. But the man you hired couldn’t be subtle about it. His job was to get me and he meant to do it, and he wasn’t concerned if somebody else got in the way and was killed, too. As I say, Savarati traced the Lahpet Hao man and found his wife—even assassins marry and have children, you know-—and learned you had visited him the day before. You’re easy to recognize, Lowbridge. The Princeton coat and crew-cut made you stand out like a lighthouse in that Rangoon slum, where you hired your killer. All the rest of it fell into place after that. You tried to delay my trip north with the booby-trap in Locke’s house—although I could have managed to find another plane somehow, you know.”

  “Like hell,” Lowbridge blurted. “Not the way things were in Rangoon—” He paused.

  Durell waited.

  Lowbridge drew a deep breath. “I haven’t said anything you can use against me, Durell.”

  “You’ve said enough. But I don’t have to play with cheap verbal tricks, Lowbridge. Savarati furnished enough evidence.”

  “You’re lying. There was never a question about my loyalty—”

  “Colonel Savarati dug into your expense account.” Durell’s voice was remorseless. “He checked the times you went to the Rangoon Race Track and lost large amounts there. And then he learned of your gambling debts to various Chinese houses in Rangoon. Quite a large sum of money, Chet.”

  “I have private means—”

  “No, you don’t. Your dossier was gone over with a microscope.” Durell drew a quiet breath. “The men who work for us abroad come from the rich and poor, from everywhere, Lowbridge. All that’s required is their dedication and loyalty. Your family had a tough job paying for your education and clothes and giving you the polish for a diplomatic career. I’m sorry for them. But I’m not sorry for you. You’ve got a taste for fancy things and can’t r
esist getting more. You lived it up abroad, spending money you didn’t have, borrowing everywhere. You finally fell into the hands of Chinese agents in Rangoon who used your gambling debts to ask certain small favors of you. And one thing led to another. Not all men can be strong and tough—but that’s what we need for those who represent us abroad. Now and then somebody like you slips in, mistakenly patronized by somebody like your old Mr. Smith. You got into debt so deep that there was no way out except to work for our enemies or face the disgrace of being kicked out of the Foreign Service. So you chose the easy way. The coward’s way. The murderer’s way.”

  Durell’s anger and bitterness ended. He saw in Lowbridge a waste that could be replaced and remedied in time. But time was always running out and growing shorter in the state of the world’s tension.

  Lowbridge wet his lips.

  “You say you’ve really got the proof?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “It’s not in my hands now.”

  “Then why did you arrange to meet me like this?” Lowbridge began to shake, and took several steps back from Durell, looking up and down the canal. The shadowed towpath was empty. They were alone. Only the lights from the Senator’s house and the dim sound of music on the night wind reminded them where they were. Lowbridge said, “Are you supposed to get a confession from me, is that it?”

  “If you want to give one,” Durell said.

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I’ve got to kill you,” Durell said.

  Lowbridge stared at him open-mouthed. “Here? Like this?”

  “You know what the business is like,” Durell said.

  “Without a chance?” Lowbridge cried.

  Durell said, “You’ve got a gun. I can see it in that nicely tailored coat you’re wearing. It bulges a bit.”

  “I won’t,” Lowbridge said quickly. “I’ll go to prison first. I’ll take my chances on a trial, and I’ll confess. But one thing I won’t do is give you any excuse to kill me. Not now or ever, understand?” His voice lifted to a shaky cry. “Listen, I didn’t think it would come to this. They asked me to keep Eva Hartford from her brother, that’s all. They told me all about Major Mong really being Emmett Claye. They didn’t trust Emmett, you see. Nobody trusts anyone else in their world. They knew he’d written a letter and slipped it out through the Bamboo Curtain to her, but they weren’t satisfied with his excuse that he wanted to control Eva’s fortune to finance an espionage ring. I guess they couldn’t believe anybody would resist all that money and forget past loyalties. So they were working without Emmett’s knowledge to keep Eva from reaching him. My job was to obstruct her trip north, that’s all. Nothing more than that. But then they sent you to Rangoon,” Lowbridge ended bitterly. “And it got out of hand. They didn’t want you or another agent—they weren’t worried about Paul at all, you see—making contact with Major Mong. They figured Paul wouldn’t find out anything, and if he did—he’d be taken care of. But I had to stop you.”