Assignment- Tiger Devil

by Will B Aarons

  A brief but blinding downpour added to their misery. At first it only rattled against leaves a hundred feet or more above, but quickly it strengthened and tore through the cover and left them soaked and chilled in the gray gloom.

  Durell began to sense they were being watched.

  He saw no eyes in the dribbling, plashing shadows, no abrupt shiver of leaves to betray a presence. But something, from somewhere, pressed in on a level of awareness that was feral and instinctive.

  He kept slogging along and did not mention it

  He noted that Peta was utterly stoic, while Rick cursed and slapped, and Ana shivered. It was obvious to Durell that the youth still mistrusted him, whether because of Ana or a continuing fear that Durell schemed to steal his father's claim. But Peta never mentioned the big diamond.

  They broke free of the woods at the foot of another weather-rotted ironstone cliff, approached it through vine-clad boulders, regarded its pitted surface as the last light of day washed it with eerie green radiance.

  Peta pointed toward a dark, low hole among many that riddled the precipice.

  "My father showed me that place. It will be good for a rest."

  Durell looked back at the savage woods that stretched away. He did not know how far they had outdistanced the Chinese.

  "How close are we to the claim?" he asked.

  "Half an hour."

  "Can you find it at night?"

  "I think. It will take longer."

  "We will wait for dark in the cave," Durell said.

  Ana started to say something—but her words were cut short by the most bloodcurdling sound Durell had ever heard. It began as an angry, low mix of caterwauling gibberish and increased in volume to an ear-piercing scream, a high ululation that rode over a monstrous gallery of snarls and roars, as if a great seam had been wrenched open and loosed every demon in hell. It seemed to have no fixed point of origin, came from the sky and the earth and bounced insanely from tree to hillock and mountain to valley, the embodiment of everythmg fearsome and cruel, filling the twilight, the ears, the heart.

  It died away with reluctant mutterings and hissings.

  "God Almighty," Rick breathed in awe.

  Ana's fingers went to trembling lips. Peta and Durell exchanged stares, and Durell felt his scalp crawl.

  'Let's get in the cave," he said.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Claudius was dead.

  He had been shot in the arm and chest, but somehow had managed to drag his enormous bulk out of the jungle and into the low cavern.

  He had waited for Dick, and Dick had never come.

  He was a massive man, lying there in the dusk, at least six-foot-six and three hundred pounds. Tangled cables of raisin-colored hair and beard snared his immense head, and he reminded Durell of some figure of fable, a giant or demigod brought low. He had pulled a I grimy blanket half over him as he lay next to a dead fire. One hand extended outward, and an open leather pouch lay next to it, and diamonds speckled the dust and stuck to thick blood on his palm and fingers. He looked as if he might have died only moments before. Green eyes like Peta's seemed to glare defiance from beyond.

  Ana made a small sound in her throat, averted her face.

  Rick put a hand on her shoulder. She shook it off, and he shrugged, peered out the cave entrance at the gathering darkness. "No tellmg what's out there," he muttered.

  Peta squatted beside the body of his father, lips thin and stem. "I'll go no further," he said.

  "You scared, kid?" Rick said.

  "I am too sad."

  Ana spoke. "We should all turn back. Right now."

  "We can't quit now," Durell said.

  Peta stared at his father. "I should have been here to help him. Otherwise, what are sons good for?"

  Durell thought about it and decided he had to keep

  Peta going however he could. "Sons are good for vengeance," he said.

  Durell held his breath hopefully, as Peta raised fiery green eyes to him. "You are right," Peta said. "First, I will bury my father."

  "We can't take the time."

  "I won't leave him for the animals."

  "Then we'll start without you. Can you show me the trail?"

  Peta took him outside. Dusk had thickened over the shaggy countryside. The colors of the sunset had vanished from the clouds, which were purple against a deep blue sky. A jaguar's roar bounded through the valleys.

  "See the ridge?" Peta pointed toward a black prominence. "Keep on a line between here and there. You will go down the hill, near the edge of the lake. When you reach a broad stream on that line, you will be at the claim."

  Durell and Rick helped Peta haul Claudius' immense form away from the cave, then went back inside to Ana, who hovered over a fire she had started. The flames cast a light back into the cave, where a rusty shovel and pick lay next to a few provisions. Durell saw Dick's useless old transmitter back there and concluded that he and Qaudius must have used this cave as a base of operations. Something had driven them away from the claim. It would not be easy to calmly go down there to it, he thought, but that was what he intended doing. He turned questioning eyes on Ana.

  "I'm staying here," she said.

  "It might not be safe."

  "It'll only be worse down below."

  "What if we don't make it back?"

  "The Chinese will find me. Don't you thmk?"

  "Most likely," Durell said. He shifted the AK in his hands. "Don't try to hold Peta back. We may still need hun."

  "I won't."

  The firelight trembled against Ana's strained face, dabbed at the golden swell of a breast beneath her partly unbuttoned blouse. She was scratched and bruised and muddied, like the rest of them, and a thin web of dark hair hung from under her cap, veiling an eye that reflected the firelight like a brass andiron. She had really tried, he thought, but it was better now that she go no further. He wished he could stop here, too. He was bone-weary, but a rest of any length was out of the question. Tomorrow the dam would be blasted; blood would begin to flow in a torrent to match the Mazaruni. He took a deep breath, aware of the musty smell of the cave, started to turn away.

  "You could wait for daylight," she said.

  "That will be too late."

  "You will be killed, Sam. All of you." Her eyes were hot and dry, and her voice shook slightly. "Oh, don't give me that dark, competent look. No one thinks he will die."

  "I don't have any illusions—"

  Ana put her fingertips against his lips, and her sad, mysterious gaze held him a moment longer. Then she kissed him, hard, her lips damp and yielding as mellowed berries. There was something of dread and something of anger in the touch of her avid mouth, and then Durell broke free, slung the AK over his shoulder. Let's go," he said to Rick. I'm ready, pardner."

  "Good-bye," Ana called, as they moved silently into the night.

  Her voice was small and hollow out here, where Peta labored a grave into the tough soil down by the treehne some fifty yards below.

  It was a strange voice, Durell thought.

  The jaguar roared again, and its call rapped across the jungled ridges. The stars were out now, angry and swarming as if they had come up from the jungle. Their light made billowy curds of the massed tree crowns, and Durell thought how the air beneath those branches would be locked in darkness.

  "Wonder where those Chinks are," Rick said.

  "They can't be far," Durell said. The muscles in his jaw tightened, and he picked his way with slow care down the mossy scree, eyes on the distant ridge. They approached Peta, and Durell saw the milky light slide back and forth over his back as the youth worked with a pick beside the grotesque sprawl of his father's corpse.

  "Hurry to catch up," Durell called.

  Peta paused, back bent over the grave, and raised expressionless eyes toward the two men.

  Then they merged with the trees.

  A murmur of leaves was all that told Durell of Rick's presence at his heels. Their progress was agoni
zingly slow and halting. The air was rotten, suffocating. It fluttered and buzzed, black on black. Durell craned his neck up, and it was the same as if he'd looked at a hole in the ground. He moved like a ghost, willing his destination and approaching it implacably, as if without need of sight or touch, the imaginary line to the invisible ridge etched in his mind.

  Rick spoke from behind. "I'd just as soon go back and keep that pretty gal company."

  "Go ahead."

  "You'd like to get rid of me, wouldn't you."

  "If I wanted that, you wouldn't be here. You'll earn your pay."

  "I must be crazy, but I'll stick with you." Rick hesitated, then said, "Do you think we'll run across that Warakabra Tiger?"

  "If we're lucky—or unlucky, depending on how you look at it," Durell said.

  He continued to work his way down among the buttressed giants, listening for the sound of the stream that Peta had described. The jungle was loud with a ragged chorus of chirps and whines and clicks. If anything, insects swarmed more densely than they had during the day, but now you couldn't see them. You couldn't see anything. Durell put his trust in his instincts to keep him on course, but he might as well have been blindfolded

  He told himself that it would do to intersect the stream anywhere; then they could follow its banks to the claim.

  Abruptly he was aware of a stealthy pad of feet—off to one side. It was the kind of thing that came slowly upon the recognition.

  He did not know how long they had been followed.

  He moved on, and the crackling brush kept pace.

  There was no indication from Rick that he had heard it. Durell unslung his AK, flicked off the safety, tried to suppress his heavy breathing as he jarred and lurched along. The memory of Basil Sampson's scattered bones burned across his mind; the nightmare scream that had shaken the earth and heavens.

  A taste of iron came into his mouth, and he conquered a swirl of panic, came to a halt. Rick bumped into him, muttered an oath, a question.

  "Quiet!" Durell hissed.

  A few footpads rustled from the undergrowth, then went silent. The sounds had come from both sides of them.

  Durell was aware that his hands were sopping where they held the AK. He pulled Rick down to a crouch, and whispered, "WeVe got company."

  Rick's voice came through the gloom. Durell could not see his face. "How much farther to the claim?" Rick said.

  "I don't know. Whoever is out there won't wait that long."

  "Whoever? Or whatever?"

  Durell made no reply, listened for a long moment. He moved his eyes, but nothing changed. He became aware that his teeth pinched his lower lip, loosened his jaw. Something scuttered along a branch, high above. Toads and insects mingled a raucous noise. The sodden air was still, laden with the scent of peat, humus, sap.

  Finally, he said, "Come on."

  A few paces and the rustle of leaves sprang up on either side of them again.

  Then there was dim starlight, seen through a lacy screen of fronds and branches, and they came to a long straight swath clear of trees and underbrush. Rick started to cross it, and Durell held him back.

  "We'lI be sitting ducks out there," Durell said.

  "So? What do you suggest?"

  "Turn the tables—we'll have to take them." Rick's swallow made a thick sound in the night. "Reckon I'm game if you are," he said.

  "You go left; I'll go right," Durell whispered.

  The leaden flakes of nightglow might have been pamted on a backdrop for all the light they shed down here Durell crawled through deep ferns and rotting wood, the AK slung under his chest, steadied by a hand He paused, listened, heard nothing, then went on, inch by mch, his breath light and regular. The air had cooled and his damp shirt was a chill plaster against his shoulders. In the back of his mind was the dread of a sudden scorpion or tarantula where he placed hands and knees Bvery sense was alert, concentrated on the darkness around him.

  He thought he heard something a few yards to his left turned that way-then, all at once, he heard the smack ot Rick s pistol, and something slammed into his back knocking him onto his belly, and he jerked his face around with grit in his mouth.

  From all around came that tremendous, paralyzing roar.

  Twenty-seven

  The roar tumed to a mocking, highly amplified voice, and Durell was aware of knees in his back, a garrote around his throat, as it said:

  "Very good, Senor Durell—but futile, I'm afraid. We have observed all your movements through infrared scanners."

  Durell felt dizzy as the heavy cord cut into his breath, was dimly aware that someone had unslung his rifle. There must have been three men on his back and others around him. He did not struggle. It would have been suicide to resist. He was surprised that they had not killed him outright.

  The voice had been that of Leon Perez.

  Leon spoke again: "Are you quite content now? You did make it almost to your destination—"

  "Go to hell," Durell said through choked breathing.

  Leon laughed, and the sound of his sinister mirth clapped through the darkened valleys, just as the insane roar had earlier. "Ah, you're a man of one mind—a professional to the end. Perhaps we will postpone that end briefly. My men will bring you and your unfortunate friend to me."

  An electric torch exploded against Durell's face, and he saw in its peripheral radiance half a dozen men in combat fatigues that had been printed with tigerlike stripes. Heavy jungle knives and ammunition clips were on their belts, and their AK 47s formed a semicircle of muzzles aimed at his body.

  The man holding the flashlight said, "Come with us.'

  They took them to the line cleared through the forest and followed it down the slope. Durell decided the swatch had been cleared as a last barrier against anyone hardy enough to intrude after the electronic screams and mangled trees and mutilated bodies he might encounter on the way. It was doubtlessly under constant observation. He thought he saw the gleam of the lake in the near distance as the path rose over a low prominence, and guessed that the claim must lie not far from its backwaters. A few moments later they crossed into the forest and followed a narrow trail down to a clearing beside a wide, sluggish stream. The stream intersected numerous ditches that uncovered the diamond-rich gravel of former beds.

  Leon had no reason to fear chance discovery, buried here in the heart of this vast wilderness, shielded by electronic surveillance, the large clearing amply lighted with kerosene lanterns. A thick blind of rank vegetation that fenced the clearing's boundaries contained their yellow glow.

  The military primness and conformity of the thatch huts, the geometric paths of gravel and split logs struck Durell. The impression of an army encampment was reinforced by disciplined rows of shovels, axes and other implements beneath a shaggy-roofed lean-to.

  They were shown into one of the huts, where Leon Perez waited.

  His flame-whorled face was impossible to read, but there was satisfaction in the mad blackness of his eyes as he watched them from a canvas camp chair, booted feet on a table of rough lumber. The table was stacked with black-boxed electronic equipment, transmitter and receiver, infrared viewing screens, amplifier to carry Leon's voice or the taped screams of the Warakabra Tiger to speakers hidden in trees all over the area. Leon's Russian-made 9mm Stechkin machine pistol lay on the table. Durell recognized it from the night before.

  "We should have brought you in sooner," Leon said, "but our little game was amusing for awhile, don't you think?"

  "So Havana dreamed up the Warakabra Tiger," Durell said.

  "The legend is ancient; we merely employed it. But how did you know our nationality?"

  "An educated guess," Durell said. "Soviet weapons; Cuba's proximity and history of trying to export revolution in South America."

  Leon's breath made a sound between his teeth, and he let a moment pass before speaking. "This time we will succeed, and the capitalistic enemies of the people will be swept away with the fury of a thousand tigers." He calme
d his voice and said, "We have laid the groundwork with care. We are supplied regularly by submarine, as I believe you found out on the Peerless. We employ the wreck as a transfer point, and the men and provisions are flown here by amphibian."

  "You run the operation from Ana's plantation?"

  "It was convenient. Of course, I dare not chance that after last night." His eyes studied Rick for a moment, then dismissed him, and his fingers slid idly over the barrel of the Stechkin.

  "And the diamonds are smuggled out in the sub," Durell said.

  "For the benefit of world revolution," Leon replied, his tone smug. "Already the funds help pay for maintenance of our Cuban comrades in Angola, as well as make possible preparations for similar ventures elsewhere."

  Durell regarded his eyes, aware again of that spark of vague familiarity, a fleeting thing that was gone in an instant.

  Leon was saying, "At last we have within our grasp a foothold from which our revolution can liberate the peoples of South America. Tomorrow the highest oflScials of Guyana will be assassinated—"

  "When the dam is blown?"

  "Yes, and, given the current racial climate here—plus our own propaganda—the East Indian element will be blamed."

  "Even though they had no part in it."

  Leon nodded. "We could hardly entrust them with our plans in advance, could we. Nevertheless, they most certainly will be victims of a wave of mass repression. Then we will rally their resistance and secretly supply them with arms. A civil war will ensue. Who then will be capable of saying which side constitutes the legitimate government? Will it be the ruling blacks—who now hold de facto power—or the East Indians, who constitute a majority of the population?"

  Leon paused, as if expecting an answer, but Durell just watched him. He had no inclination to debate the topic—that was the sort of thing he left up to the diplomats with their Byzantine minds and preciosity of words.