Assignment Afghan Dragon

by Unknown Author

  He expressed his opinion often and forcefully about McFee’s “spooks,” all of it in derogatory terms. Durell remembered the man’s heavy voice, heavy legs, polished Texas boots. The request for Durell’s aid from Nuri Qam had come through Wellington. It hadn’t seemed to be a major matter then. A question of good will toward the Afghanis, Chat was all. The only time that Wellington mentioned his son Homer, in Meshed, was to direct Durell to contact him for help in finding Mr. Qam. Even then, the man’s hostility and contempt toward Homer and Sarah was only too evident.

  “Maybe they’ll be helpful to you, Cajun,” he had said to Durell. “But to me, they’re screwballs, both of ’em. I can’t understand them. Why did Homer have to marry a Jewess? Of all the goddam stupid ass-bustin’ career-wreckin’ things to do! Then he took the woman’s name, too, even if it was Irish, I just wrote him off, that’s all. But maybe he can help you, Durell. You’ll just have to play it by ear. Nuri Qam is scared shitless, hiding deep. He ain’t much of a politician, I reckon, but you went to Yale with him and he asked for you, so off you go. There were two assassination attempts on Qam in the past month. He escaped ’em both and just vanished. Maybe Homer can locate him for you. And you go help him find that dragon and give it back to the Interior Ministry in Kabul. It’s simple. It’s harmless.”

  “Nothing is harmless,” McFee said quietly.

  Wellington grunted. “Dragons. People see dragons all the time, over Capitol Hill. Monsters. Dragons, breathing fire? Grabbing off nubile maidens?”

  “All right,” McFee had said. “The dragon is worth, at the most, about five million dollars as an antique art object. You put it to me, Wellington, that its recovery would be a gesture of goodwill toward Afghanistan. As simple as that? Nothing more? Find it and give it back to Kabul and pull Nuri Qam’s chestnuts out of the fire, because he’s a good pro-American Afghani in high political office. But it’s a fire that Qam made by his own carelessness —allegedly—in letting Berghetti escape with it, in the first place. All right, I’ll lend Durell to Nuri Qam, and he’ll do the job and come home. What else is there?” Wellington laughed, but his eyes glared with hostility. “What do you mean, what else? It’s a simple—”

  “Not with you. It can’t be simple with you.”

  “You’re seeing monsters yourself, McFee. That’s the trouble with you spooks. You get kind of inbred, and your imagination runs away with you. Maybe it’s a matter of bureaucratic survival, to blow something up and ask for bigger budgets. Not this time. It’s a small matter. No big, scary hobgoblins in this one.”

  The kettle began to boil in the kitchen. Outside, in the small courtyard, the leashed dog began to bark at someone or something. Sarah got up and poured tea into delicate cloisonne cups. Durell watched her. Her hands were steady, but the tightness of her grief was evident in every movement she made.

  She said, “I took several hours of the night decoding the signal from McFee in Washington. It was relayed by telephone from Tehran. I’m not very good at codes. Homer was best at it—after all, he translated Sanskrit and cuneiform as if he were reading a school primer. Even though it was in code, however, I could feel McFee’s anger in it. About Homer’s death, of course. And he doesn’t want to lose you, Sam, just because we’ve been tricked into a situation he didn’t know about, in the first place.”

  “Like what situation?”

  “As I told you, they’re making fools of us. Wellington, first. You’ve met him. You know about him. Proud of his military record—why not?—with General Patton in World War II. Then in Korea. Since that tune, of course, my father-in-law has made a military-political career for himself. His patriotism runs out of his ears, even if it costs humanity its survival. He’s hell-bent on America first even if it kills us all.”

  Sarah Fingal paused. She showed no emotion, but she did not drink her tea. “Wellington was at various SALT conferences, for instance, even Vladivostok, and had certain tidy meetings with his opposite numbers from the Soviet Union. Always with the hawks, like Goroschev. Always urging the preemptive strike, first to Moscow, then to Peking. Like, let’s you and him fight, right? Like somebody egging on two mastiffs in a ring, while he sat by and watched them tear each other apart. That’s what Wellington wants to happen. Then he thinks America will be safe. Even though we all know about their nuclear submarines offshore, and their orders to hit us, too, even if half of Asia and Europe is reduced to a radioactive wasteland. Maybe half our population would survive. The other half would be ashes. But then things would be run right, according to poor Homer’s egomaniacal father.” Sarah paused again and listened to the dog barking outside. “General Goroschev is Wellington’s opposite number in Moscow. They’re in touch with each other, ostensibly on SALT business. McFee suggests in his new briefing that it’s more than that. There’s General Chan Wei-Wu, in Peking, too, for instance.”

  Durell said, “What did you do with McFee’s transcript?”

  “I burned it all,” Sarah said. “Every scrap. of the code. I’m just giving you the gist of things he believes you ought to know.”

  “All right. Go on, please.”

  “Wellington has a personal acquaintance with General Chan Wei-Wu, too. He went with the State Department delegation to Peking last October. Official state dinners, meeting the new Deputy Chairman. But once, as a matter of routine surveillance, he was recorded as having a thirteen-minute conversation alone with General Chan, during an official sightseeing visit to the Great Wall. No one in the party was closer to them than two hundred yards.” Durell’s face was blank. “McFee listed all this as only a hypothesis, of course.”

  “Yes, Sam. But it’s all tied up with the dragon. Two days ago there was a plenary session in Peking, headed by General Chan, where he urged that the recently discovered treasure, like the art taken by the Nationalists to Taiwan, be claimed by the CPR as a national heritage. McFee has had signals that the Chinese are pressuring Afghanistan for an immediate return of the dragon— hence, Nuri Qam, who doesn’t have it, or claims not to have it, is in hot water with Kabul. It’s a Peking excuse, of course, or rather General Chan Wei-Wu’s excuse, to create tension and a little border warfare, and perhaps seize a bit of territory, as they did with Tibet and. India. But—” Sarah paused, staring at him.

  “Go on,” Durell said.

  “McFee thinks that a splinter group in the Black House in Peking, directed by Chan, has sent a team into this area to find the dragon and confiscate it—steal it—and hold it for General Chan’s disposition.”

  Durell nodded, said nothing, drank his tea.

  Sarah Fingal went on, “The thing is, Wellington knew all this when he asked McFee to lend you to Nuri Qam. But you weren’t briefed about the Chinese team here. You were sent here by Wellington just to muddy the waters and perhaps act as a decoy.”

  Durell seemed to be listening to something outside the apartment. “No, I wasn’t briefed about it. And what about General Goroschev, Wellington’s other pal?”

  “He’s another hawk, who’d. like a preemptive strike by the USSR against the Chinese People’s Republic. Any excuse will do to trigger off the tensions that exist along the Soviet-CPR border. Goroschev has sent a team of his own people—not the KGB, for the most part—here, too, to grab the dragon first. This man Kokin, whom you say killed Homer—must have been part of that other team.”

  “Yes, he was,” Durell said.

  “Goroschev won’t make a secret of it if his agents grab the dragon first and take it to Moscow. He’ll let the Chinese know deliberately that he’s taken it. The Chinese won’t be able to stand still for that insult, either. It’s a matter of losing too much face, an excuse for Chan to escalate the military situation between China and the Soviets. And Wellington figures this can only work to American advantage. As for you, you’re not really supposed to find the dragon for Nuri Qam. You’re only meant to lead the Russians to it. None of it will work to America’s advantage, though. The whole world will lose. If the balance of power is ups
et, we’ll find ourselves faced with an overwhelmingly hostile combination against us, and we’ll become a declining, impotent nation.” Sarah Fingal took a deep breath. “And that’s the gist of McFee’s new briefing for you. You’re caught in a nutcracker, Sam, between the Chinese team and the Russian team.” Durell stood up. “First things first, Sarah. The dragon. Nuri Qam. Where do I find Mr. Qam?”

  “I have his brother’s address written down here somewhere.” Sarah rummaged among the untidy heaps of books and manuscripts that littered the small living room. The narrow windows were turning dark with the dying day. A small electric fan in one of the windows ran erratically, pushing the warm air around. From one of the windows he could see over the roofs and the sleeping terraces to a wedge of the park beyond Khwajerabi Avenue, at the far comer of the little street. The trees looked dusty and lifeless. Traffic flowed eastward around the circle leading from Balukiaban. Sarah found the slip of paper finally in a battered old desk. “Here it is, Sam. But your Mr. Qam is a slippery customer, I gather. Naturally, the household refuses to admit he’s there, and the Afghan authorities have no official status in Meshed. I’m surprised that Qam is your friend.”

  He smiled. “Not a friend, Sarah. It was a long time ago. Men and times do change.”

  “Well, he’s slippery, all right. Won’t you stay and have more tea? Or I have some Scotch. It’s very expensive here, our one indulgence—I mean, Homer didn’t drink much, but he liked the best. Some Scotch, Sam?”

  “No, thank you.”

  She didn’t want him to go. He wondered how many visitors or friends they’d had here. Not many, he supposed. The American community, small as it was, would have shunned the Fingals cruelly because of General Wellington’s ostracism. He looked at her thoughtfully, and considered the bars and locks on the door and windows.

  “How much food do you have in the place?” he asked. She was puzzled. “I don’t know. Enough for two or three days. Why?”

  “I’d like you to stay here. Indoors. Lock yourself in, Sarah. There may be no danger for you, but you never can tell. And I need you by the telephone. I’ll be calling you, and I’d like to set you up as a relay link to Tehran and Washington.”

  She hesitated. “I don’t know if I want to go on with your business, Sam.”

  “I’ll need your help,” he said simply.

  She brushed aside her hair again with the back of her hand. Her eyes remained doubtful for a few moments more, then she nodded. “All right, Sam. There were others who helped to kill Homer, weren’t there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you get them for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well,” she agreed. “I’ll stand by here.”

  Ten minutes later, he was gone. Before he left, he memorized the address on the scrap of paper she had given him, and then he burned the paper in an ashtray.

  11

  He went first to the little hotel where he had taken the room with Anya Talinova. He did not think anyone followed him from Sarah Fingal’s place. He had seen no sign of Chou or Zhirnov, but he scouted the area carefully before entering the tiny hotel lobby and going up to the room. It was dusk, and the lights of the cinemas on Pah-levi Avenue began to wink and blink with their evening displays—the only nightlife permitted and sanctioned in the holy city of Meshed. The stairway to the upper floor was of stone, rising against the lobby wall on the left-hand side above an arched entrance to a tchaikana, a local tearoom run by the hotel. Nobody seemed to be in the restaurant.

  The upper hallway was narrow and dimly lighted. The heat that had collected there felt insufferable.

  At the doorway to the room he paused and listened. A radio played an Arabic Love song, crooning softly; it was the current hit from an Egyptian movie. The sound came from down the hall. Through the high-pitched radio music he heard a faint scuffling in the room, then silence, then a few light footfalls. He wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman in there. He took the key to the room in his hand, started to open the door, then paused again. He did not think it was Anya inside. He heard something splash.

  A trickle of water was running. But he wasn’t sure it was water, either.

  Durell backed away, moved on down the hall, found a flight of stairs going up to the sleeping roof. Several of the hotel’s guests had already put mattresses and netting on the terrace, in preparation for the warm night. They looked at him curiously as he moved past them to the edge of the roof overlooking his room window. A faint light came through the dusty glass panes below. The radio now was bellowing propaganda from the room next door, the guttural Arabic words almost hysterical, importunate and triumphant at the same time. There was a rickety wooden stairway, applied as an afterthought, attached to the back wall. He went down one flight to his room level, ignoring the curious stares of those on the sleeping terrace, and found he could reach the tiny ornamental balcony outside the window, if he could swing across just right from the wooden steps. The night was full of sounds now. He didn’t know if the ornamental balcony would hold his weight or not; he hoped so.

  He leaped lightly from the steps to the balcony, caught the railing, swung precariously over the back alley, heard the flimsy metal creak, thought he was going to fall, then pulled himself up, caught a toehold on the narrow ledge, drew himself further up, and rested, flat against the wall of the hotel beside the window.

  He breathed lightly, listening.

  A woman Was humming, inside his room.

  It was not Anya.

  The voice was deeper, more full-chested, and then he caught a murmured German word or two. He crouched on the ledge, saw that the lower sash of the window was open, although the flimsy curtain was drawn beyond it.

  He dived through, tearing the curtain, hit the grimy rug on the floor, and rolled over. He came up with the gun in his hand pointed at the tall woman who stood at the wash basin and tin tub in the corner, opposite the bed.

  It was Freyda Hauptman-Graz.

  She had taken the opportunity, while obviously waiting for him, to strip and use the facilities to wash the travel grime from her tall, voluptuous body, and she stood looking at him with only mild surprise on her face. She clutched a thin towel in front of her. Her legs looked long and powerful. The thin, small towel was entirely inadequate.

  “Please,” she whispered. “No noise. No guns. Do not speak my name.”

  “Don’t move,” he said.

  “Whatever you say.”

  The tall Nordic woman was outlined against the winking, blinking cinema lights that came through the other window. She did not look in the least frightened. He glanced about the room in the dim light for traces of Anya. The Russian girl was gone. It was as if she had never been here. He looked at his watch and saw that he had left her for more than the two hours she had promised to stay. He had told her to wait that long, and he hadn’t expected her to wait any longer, but—

  “Where is she?” he asked softly.

  “You speak of the Russian girl? But no one was here, when I came in,” said Freyda.

  “Wasn’t the door locked?”

  “No, it was open. I was a little surprised about that, myself.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I did not come here for that. I came to make a deal, a business proposition, and while I waited here for you, I made myself comfortable. Do you mind?”

  Her clothes, shoes, skirt and blouse, were tossed in a heap on the bed. Her purse, of fine cream-colored leather, was open amid her pile of clothing. He moved to it, dumped out the contents, saw tiny Parisian perfume bottles and lipstick and passport and a ring of keys. No weapons. She had used some of the perfume on herself while she waited, and the scent was too strong, too overwhelming, no more subtle than she was. She watched him with amusement kindled in her pale gray eyes. She was not as young as he had thought, when he met her first on the plane and later, during the episode in the bazaar. She was careless about the skimpy towel that covered her from breasts to hips.

  “W
hat kind of a deal?” he asked.

  “My husband Hans, you met him, of course, he is in the local hospital. He is very painfully wounded, so he is now out of it. Mr. Chou and his other people are looking for you everywhere in the city, did you know that?”

  He nodded and waited.

  “I took my husband’s wallet, and so I have all his money and am independent of him now. I do not care about him. Let Mr. Chou take care of all the expenses. It does not matter to me. I never wanted to get mixed up in this affair, anyway.”

  “So?”

  She smiled. Her eyes invited him to remove the towel. “May we make a deal, perhaps?”

  “For what?”

  “The dragon, of course, May I buy it from you?”

  “I don’t have it,” Durell said.

  “Ah, bitte—”

  “Do you want the dragon for yourself?”

  “I understand that as an object of art, it is truly worth a fortune. Perhaps as much, perhaps more than five or six of your million dollars. It is no good to you for that, I suppose, even if you could find the proper market. You would not be interested in the dragon for that, would you? For yourself, Herr Durell?”

  “No,” he said shortly.

  “I did not think so. You are a man of—business ethics? Proud of your profession? But, you see, I am sick of this shadow-world life. I want—how do you say it?—I want to get out. For myself, alone. Privately. Most personally. But in comfort, do you understand? With what I feel is owed to me. I have lived in this—this gray world— much too long. I have had to do things that I despise myself for. Ah, but if I had the dragon! Ah! Then I could take it to South America—I do not care if you know about this—where there are some of the Old Guard still living, the Gestapo villains, they made a good life for themselves there. My father—you needn’t know about him—had dossiers, bank records, shipping accounts— everything about them. They could help me, they would have to help me, I could hang them. I could make a bargain with the collectors, perhaps even hold a private auction. And I could retire and live far away from Berlin—”