Assignment Carlotta Cortez

by Edward S. Aarons

  “No,” Durell said.

  Justino’s voice was quiet and measured. “There is a telephone downstairs. You will go down and speak into it. Mr. Wittington will answer. You will tell him to give Perez back to us. Then you will be released. You will also tell him we will make these promises: first, if we are allowed to leave when we are ready, no publicity will ever be given out as to the source of the bombs. The world will not know where they came from.”

  “The world will easily guess.”

  “The General will deny it. He will help counter any propaganda that he was assisted by your government by saying the bombs came from the East.”

  “Much good that would do.”

  “It is a promise. Second, we promise not to use the bombs unless our attack is threatened by failure. We have every reason to believe we will be successful without them. They are simply insurance, no more than that. We will not use them if we do not have to.”

  “You’ll use them,” Durell said. “You have only a handful of old, scrapped bombers in your hideout down in the Caribbean. And perhaps a couple of thousand men. Your attack without the bombs would be a farce.”

  Justino scowled. “You make me impatient, señnor.”

  “Your promises are worthless.”

  “But I make them, in the name of the General. You will speak to Mr. Wittington now.”

  “No.”

  “You will ask for Perez and be exchanged for him.” “It’s no deal.”

  “You can be persuaded, señor.”

  Durell sighed. "I know.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was a bad time.

  Through it, his fear was that Justino would lose control and kill him. The pain was something else, below and above and all around and inside him. It went on for a long time. Two men helped Justino with it. There was nothing Durell could do but endure it. He knew Wittington did not have Perez. And even if he did, he would not exchange the physicist for himself. Pretending to agree would be useless. He rode it out, trying to ignore the pain, then giving himself to it like wading into the sea until it engulfed and drowned him.

  The questions and the demands were repetitive. Justino asked most of the questions. Now and then, vague and anonymous shapes assisted Justino. There was a limit, fortunately, to what they did to him; they did not cripple him permanently; apparently Justino had promised to deliver him in walking condition. But there were times when Durell weakened and wished Justino would go beyond this and end it quickly.

  Then a woman’s voice spoke.

  It was Carlotta Cortez.

  “Sam,” she said. “You were a good friend to Johnny.” He stared at her calm beauty.

  “Can you hear me?” she asked.

  “I hear you.”

  “Do you understand what I say?”

  “Not quite.”

  “I am sorry to see you like this, Sam.”

  “Your tears move me.”

  “You have spirit. You are brave. You are stubborn. And you will be stupid and die. It would be such a waste to have you die, Sam.”

  The window in the room was dark now. Night had come again. The light now came from the open door to a hall beyond. He heard jukebox music thumping dimly somewhere below on the street level of the bar. He heard men’s voices faintly. Too far away. He wondered if he yelled, would anyone hear? Only those who would be unconcerned and amused by his yelling.

  Carlotta looked beautiful in the dim shaft of light that slanted through the doorway. It was still cold in the room, and she wore a short fur coat, but it was open as she sat in the chair and leaned toward his cot, and he could see the arc of soft round flesh of her breast above the low neckline of her dress. He smelled her perfume, the essence of the woman, as she leaned even closer.

  “Justino will be jealous,” he said. It hurt his mouth to talk. There was blood on his face.

  “Justino does not know I am here, Sam.”

  "All the worse for you, then.”

  ‘‘Must you be so stubborn? We could be friends.”

  “I don’t make friends with water moccasins.”

  She leaned back. She smiled. Her lips were beautiful. Her great eyes brooded down on him, gravely and in serenity, in compassion. “Sam, he will kill you soon. Is that what you want? You would give up life itself? You are a practical man. Johnny always longed to be like you.”

  “We’ll both be dead together, then, Johnny and I.”

  “You must not talk like that.” She touched her chin with her index finger and leaned toward him again. “Do you know, Sam, I never forgot you after the night Johnny introduced us? You make an impression on a woman. You were always in my mind afterward. And Johnny, poor darling, he didn’t know, and he never let me forget, always talking in admiration about you, telling me about you. Johnny thought so much of you, Sam.”

  “All of his thinking bought him only a grave,” Durell said.

  “Please don’t.”

  “Do you pretend to be troubled by his death?”

  “No. Not really. But Justino troubles me. I am afraid of him. He cannot be controlled. I can get Papa to do as I wish, but not always Justino. When we return home, there will be trouble with him, I am sure. I will need help. Someone who knows Justino’s work as well as he, who can control men, get them to do as they are commanded. Someone I could trust and—perhaps love.” Durell laughed in her face. ‘You’re wasting your time, Carlotta. You were never an actress.”

  “I speak the truth.”

  “You speak in despair, and you lie.”

  She got up and walked away, across the room. The air was cold and damp. Durell began to shiver. Sweat had dried on him, and he felt the clamminess of the air in his bones. His shivering made the cot springs creak, and Carlotta turned back to him. She moved as softly and silently as the shadows behind her. Her face was the mournful, brooding face of a saint. Her eyes were as bleak and hard as those of a devil’s mistress. She took off her fur coat and put it over him.

  “You are cold.”

  “I expect I’ll be colder.”

  “You expect to die?”

  “Some day,” he said.

  “It may be soon, Sam. Won’t you be reasonable? I need someone to use against Justino. You see, I am frank with you. It would be a wonderful life, for the two of us. For you and me.”

  “I’m not Johnny,” he said. “I’m not blindly in love with you. Don’t con me, Carlotta. I wouldn’t have you on a bet.”

  “Am I not beautiful enough?” she whispered. She leaned over him and kissed his bruised, bloody mouth. Her perfume crept around him. He felt her breasts push hard against his chest. “Wouldn’t you want me, Sam?”

  “My hands are tied,” he said grimly.

  “Shall I untie you?”

  He laughed again. “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “I might. I could, you know.”

  She touched his face, his throat, his chest. She sought him out further. Her face, with the dim slant of light behind her, was in the shadows. But he could see the strangely luminous quality of her eyes, the way her mouth tightened momentarily in her silent hatred at the essence of all men, a revulsion against what men’s desires demanded of her. All at once her hand was no longer caressing. Sharp pain drove up through his body with a sudden vicious intensity that almost forced a groan from between his clenched teeth. He did not quite give her the satisfaction. She laughed.

  “Love is made of pain and joy, is it not, darling?”

  “Bitch,” he gasped.

  “You had my offer. I will not repeat it. I shall leave you to Justino.”

  “Justino is kinder,” he whispered.

  She was gone.

  The room was cold and dark. He endured the cold, and the pain began to ebb. There were voices from a room nearby. He recognized that of the General. He caught the name El Triunfo. The General’s yacht had arrived at last. It was waiting out there, in the darkness of the Narrows.

  He heard Justino talk about a freight yard. A truck had bee
n sent to unload the shipment. The eggs? Durell strained to listen. The voices came from a room in the front of the old hotel, over the bar on the street floor, and the noises from the bar kept sliding between the meaning of the words he wanted to understand. He twisted on the cot to look at his wristwatch, on his hand bound above his head. It was ten minutes after ten. Had he been here almost twenty-four hours? He wasn’t sure. He was aware of silence at the window now, the absence of sleet that had tapped and rattled all through the nightmare hours of the day. So the storm had ended. That was important. He struggled to listen to the conversation in the next room. Carlotta was there, too. Her voice had a fine, carrying quality.

  “. . . very well, but we need the professor.”

  So Perez was still missing.

  The General: “. . . go without him . . . can find someone else.”

  “Won’t it be dangerous?”

  “. . . no danger . . . handling the bombs. Not unless someone arms them.”

  Durell heard the sound of a truck nearby, along the side of the ramshackle wooden building. It stopped with a squeal of wet brakes. There was a general movement in the room next to his, footsteps hurrying down the stairs to the rear of the bar below. Someone called softly in quick exultation.

  He thought about it. The obvious had been overlooked. The hijacking of the CP-2 bomber had been carefully planned. It followed that all the rest of it would have been equally designed and executed. Roadblocks would have been foreseen. Ordinary methods of highway transportation would therefore have been ignored. So they had used the obvious, the most ordinary of all freight shipment methods. They had arranged to transport the eggs by railroad freight. The consignment had been delayed by a tie-up of the rail lines, thanks to the sleet storm. This was what had almost unnerved them all. But now the cargo had arrived, since the storm had ended. The truck outside held the load that Wittington and Fritsch had been turning the countryside upside down for.

  Durell twisted to look at the window again. Somewhere far out in the darkness out there, the General’s yacht waited. The eggs were here. There would be no more delay. They wouldn’t wait for Perez any more.

  The next thought was that they would no longer have any reason to keep him alive, once they abandoned hope of making an exchange of prisoners.

  There wasn’t much time. No time at all.

  He had to get out of here.

  Now. Right now.

  His wrists were lashed to the legs of the cot with lengths of ordinary electric cord. His legs were fastened in the same manner. He twisted on his side, trying to reach the cord on his right wrist with his teeth. He couldn’t make it. He tried the left. Sweat bathed his cold body. He had tried force and violence against the cords before, but it hadn’t worked. He arched his back, his neck, straining for the bonds on his left wrist. He caught the rubber insulation between his teeth, held it for a moment, lost it, and fell back, breathing heavily.

  Scraping noises came from the street below the wall of his room. He heard the sudden throb and pulse of a small boat motor moving into the slip directly beneath the single window.

  He tried again. This time his teeth caught the wire and held. He chewed and twisted. He lost it. He caught it a third time and moved his head from side to side, hearing and feeling the tiny braided copper wires inside the insulation snap and yield. The insulation was tougher. It couldn’t be done. His effort was useless. He kept trying.

  His left arm came free, suddenly, surprisingly.

  He collapsed again, flat on his back, holding his tom wrist to his mouth. It was bleeding. He breathed deeply, listening to the sound of men unloading the truck. The motorboat under the window moved away for some reason, the beat of its engine fading into the night, outward across the black water. Heading for the yacht? There hadn’t been time to shift the eggs from truck to boat. A change of plans? It didn’t matter. He had to get out of here!

  Then his right wrist came free as he plucked at the wire cord with his left. Durell sat up. A wave of dizziness forced him down on his elbows again. He waited a moment and tried again, worked at his tied ankles, got them free, rested, and put his feet on the floor. The cot creaked dangerously under his shifting weight. A trembling went through his body. He hadn’t been given anything to eat or drink all day, and he felt it now. He stood up.

  The wooden floor had an uncertain, spongy feeling underfoot. The dark, stained walls moved in toward him, seeming to lean inward, and then moved out again. He went to the door. It was locked. He guessed there was a bolt on the outside. Even if he used force, the noise would bring the others up here to stop his escape. He gave up the idea of getting out by way of the door.

  The window, then. He moved toward it through the shadows. The smell of dirty, oily water came up through the cracks in the floor, together with a bitter, icy wind. He listened to the restless slap of the tide against the pilings. From the window, by rubbing away a small area of frost and grime on the glass, he saw there was water directly beneath, with long fingers of piers extending outward into the darkness on either side. Lights blinked far away to the east, in the ship channel.

  The motor launch was gone. He could still hear the hushed, concentrated effort of the men unloading the truck on the street that ended beside the slip, but he could not see anything in that direction.

  He had no choice. It had to be the window.

  The window was tall, double-hung, with two panes top and bottom. He tried to lift it. It wasn’t locked, but he couldn’t budge it. Paint and the grime of decades had sealed it fast. The effort left him shaking and struggling for breath.

  Footsteps on the stairs beyond the barred door suddenly decided him. He took off a shoe, limped back a step, and smashed the heel against the lower glass. There came a yell from the other side of the door. He did not look back. He smashed out one more jagged piece of glass, backed up a step, then suddenly ran forward and dived out through the window.

  There was an instant of panic as he wondered if a boat might still be moored out of sight in the slip directly below. And then he struck icy water and went down, the breath squeezed out of him, his body paralyzed by the shocking cold. His foot touched oozy bottom, and the spark of resistance still in him made him shove his weight upward.

  His head broke the surface. There were routed shouts, heard dimly through a roaring in his ears. He twisted in the water, somehow summoning the strength to swim. The back of the old hotel that housed the bar loomed high above him, dark against the sky. The cold of the water laid freezing fingers on his body. Flame spurted suddenly up there, and the sound of a shot was a dim echo above him. The bullet smacked the water near his head. He dived under again, swam a few strokes toward the pilings of the pier, came up in darkness. Another shot splintered wood from the barnacle-encrusted post where he clung.

  He dived again.

  When he came up, footsteps echoed on the planking over his head. He could see nothing. He found himself clinging to a ladder. He knew that if he remained in this freezing water only a few moments more, he would never have the strength to climb out of it. The footsteps pounded past him. He hauled his weight upward on the ladder and rested. There were soft, desperate shoutings up above, but no more shots. He climbed higher.

  Now he felt the icy pressure of the wind off the harbor, and he shivered so fiercely that it took all his will and strength to cling where he was to his position on the ladder. He forced himself up a few more rungs and his head lifted above the stringpiece. No one was in sight. He had moved to the side of the building opposite where the truck was parked. He looked down the pier and saw two men in the shadows there, but they were peering down at the water, looking for him in that direction. He heaved his weight over the stringpiece, rolled over twice, and scrambled to his feet. He fell to his knees, got up, and ran.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Durell stood under a hot shower in the bathroom of the second floor at Number 11 and thought the rigid, biting cold would never ease out of his body. He had had two brandies, a
nd two cups of coffee laced with more brandy, and he felt drunk with exhaustion and the liquor. The pounding hot water smashed at his face and arms and chest. The pain of his bruises came back for a time and then receded.

  Barney Kels leaned in the bathroom doorway. “Sam, that’s enough. The doc wants to look you over.”

  “I’m all right now,” Durell said.

  “You don’t look it.”

  “All I need is something to eat and some dry clothes.”

  “Pleasure is broiling a steak for you, downstairs. I sent for your suitcase uptown, and it’s here. All the comforts of home, eh?”

  “Who is out in Jersey?”

  “Fritsch and Jensen. We’ve got another visitor, though. Your Mr. Wittington is downstairs. He looks like an undertaker, man. He’s been with us since eleven o’clock.”

  “What time is it now?”

  “One-thirty in the morning.”

  Durell turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. Barney Kels studied him critically. “Our boy was an expert, I gather. Not too many marks on you, Sam. But let’s not keep the doctor waiting.”

  “What goes on with Fritsch and Jensen?” Durell demanded.