Assignment - Amazon Queen

by Edward S. Aarons

  Mr. Soo said philosophically, "When man leaves, nature hastens to repair tie outrage he committed against her."

  O'Hara grumbled, "I told you there was nothin' here."

  Atimboku strode ahead, holding Sally by the wrist, and shouted into the gray noonday drizzle. "Anybody at home?" Then he laughed, his white teeth gleaming in his wet black face. "The old witch doctors of the Banda people would have had a ball in this place!"

  Vodaniev stared stolidly at the ruins, his fine white snap-brim panama a soggy mess atop his round head. His small saddlenose twitched.

  "It is foolish. Perhaps we can shelter and eat in the capitalist church."

  "We only have a few cans of rations left," Durell said.

  O'Hara said eagerly, "Then we better push on."

  Durell stared at him. "You're anxious not to stop here, Capitdo. Why?"

  "Oh, it ain't that. It just brings back too many memories, good times and bad, when we was buildin' the railroad."

  "We'll look at the church," Durell decided.

  The others pushed ahead, clambering through the vines and wreckage of the forlorn, dripping place. Agosto waited beside Durell. He had produced a poncho from somewhere, which protected his fake police colonel's uniform. He still wore it with a natty flair. His middle-aged figure looked as sturdy as a trapeze artist's. His soft brown eyes were mournful.

  "I begin to feel much pity for O'Hara, senhor," he said to Durell. "He has terrible temer —fear. As if he suffers guilt, somehow."

  "See that everybody behaves, Agosto."

  "Sim, senhor."

  "And Agosto?"

  "Yes?"

  "Have you a weapon?"

  "Sim." The Brazilian did not smile.

  Most of the church roof had caved in, and the stone floor was cracked and split by weeds and shrubs that grew in the gloomy interior. Ferns and bamboo and creepers reached for the gray sky seen through the broken roof tiles. The interior had long been stripped of all religious articles, and the place smelled as if wild pigs had made their lairs in here for a dozen generations. Great masses of mold grew on the inner stone walls. Willie Wells scouted for some dry twigs and broken timber and started a small fire. Although the air was warm, they all shivered from the long trek through the downpour. O'Hara sat with his back to a wall and his eyes never left Durell. The Russian bodyguards for Vodaniev did not sit down, although their boss huddled over the little flickering fire, his teeth chattering. Atimboku, Sally, and the two warriors kept near the entrance. Once, Sally started up as if to join Durell, but her brother detained her with a tight hand on her wrist. The Chinese explored the interior of the abandoned church with scientific curiosity, as if they had found some artifacts on a distant planet they were exploring. Mr. Soo accepted some cold beans from the last of their cans and ate with polite but finicky distaste.

  There was a broken door at the rear of the church, and Durell forced it open against the pressure of the vines that overgrew it. At first he assumed that the back of the church had simply been reclaimed by the jungle. He heard the rushing sound of the flooded river, perhaps a mile to the east. He wondered how far it was to the plantation once owned by Don Federico. They were all late for the auction. It would have begun today, he thought. But it did not trouble him. Without the major bidders, the Russians and the Chinese and himself, he did not think any final sale of the Zero Formula would be consummated. He wondered how many others had already arrived at the plantation. He was working on a hunch, following O'Hara's words, but it might all be a mistake. Perhaps he was following only a loose thread of the spider's web, and not heading for the center at all. Usually, the flies who reached the center of such a web ended up dead, snapped up by the patient trapper. In this jungle wilderness, he wondered if it all hadn't been some kind of macabre joke. But George's Fields, which seemed so far away in Maryland at the moment, had been real enough. Still, someone was amusing himself at the expense of all the others. He guessed that he and those with him had been given the most difficult approach trail of all. A plane, or a helicopter could have landed them here with little trouble, with a bit of preparation. Perhaps it was a test to discover which of them was the fittest.

  He stepped through the broken doorway and discovered the old graveyard.

  The rain had almost stopped. Through the treetops he saw the clouds tumbling, breaking up. Everything dripped. A sense of wet heat arose from the boggy ground. Monkeys chattered at him from the nearby vines, and a parrot squawked and flashed away on brilliant wings. Small animals moved hurriedly away, startled by the presence of a human after so many decades. Trees and bamboo grew in what had been the cemetery clearing, but here and there he could still see the mossy gleam of headstones.

  "Durell!"

  It was O'Hara, and there was a desperate fear in the man's voice.

  "Durell, come back, goddam you! He sent you here, all right. I know it now! You planned to come here all the time, didn't you? Come back!"

  The old man's voice echoed from the inside of the ruined church behind him. Durell moved on outward, following a fragmentary path among the gravestones. In a dozen paces, he was screened by the tumbled church wall and the brush and bamboo brakes. The monkeys overhead still scolded him. He felt a sense of somber sadness as he read the faded names on the stones.

  Riordan, John, age 26. Southby, Riddle /., 22. Randall, Lee Stokes, 25. Jefferson, Amos Claudius, age 18.

  It went on. All young men of Southern names, all Americans, who came here over sixty years ago to make their fortunes in the rubber boom. They had died of yellow fever, malaria, dysentery, beriberi, and Indian attacks out of the gray, dripping forest. The trees wept for the forgotten bones that lay under the mossy headstones. It had truly been a devil's railroad built here, one that had cost hundreds of lives, for the profit of one Don Federico who gained a fabulous fortune out of brutality and greed and exploitation, and who died at a ripe old age, no doubt, in the comfort of a villa outside of Lisbon. Anger was useless now.

  Jackson, Pickett, O'Meara, Slade.

  He paused and looked back. He did not know what had drawn him into this gloomy place, where even the trees wept, where sorrow was etched on every sad vine. He could see only the vague shape of the church belfry behind him. No one had followed him here. He went on, parting the thick, stubborn vines, squeezing between the mossy boles of trees, his boots sinking into the wet forest humus. A snake wriggled slowly out of sight, in no hurry. The monkeys in the trees off to the left had suddenly fallen silent.

  Durell, Clarissa B., Age 27.

  He stopped.

  It was a special place in the forgotten cemetery, surrounded by what had been a small iron railing, but which now was only a skeleton of rust supported by the vines that had grown over and around it. He thought he heard O'Hara shouting for him again, but he wasn't sure of anything in that moment, over the rush of shock and anger in his ears.

  Durell, Clarissa B.

  Age 27

  Born, Bayou Peche Rouge, La.

  April 10, 1888

  Died Here of Fever

  It was his grandmother's grave.

  A shaft of sunlight broke fitfully through the ragged clouds. Durell drew a long, soft breath. There was no mistake. It could not be an error. A number of things about Capitdo Jack O'Hara clicked into place in his mind, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Perhaps he had known some of it an along, ever since meeting the old man. All through his boyhood he had been led to believe that his grandma Clarissa had died suddenly in Bayou Peche Rouge, Louisiana; that it had happened while Grandpa Jonathan was up the Mississippi, gambling on the Trois Belles; that ever afterward, old Jonathan never ran the sidewheeler again because of grief and a sense of guilt that he had not been present when his love died.

  Durell stared for a long time at the mossy, tilted headstone in the dripping forest. Apparently something quite different had happened to Clarissa B. Durell, so long ago.

  It was something tied up to O'Hara's guilt and fear and hate.


  He straightened slowly, everything in him suddenly tingling, pressure sliding along his nerves and muscles. He felt a low-key, tender agony in him, pity and sudden caution, a hunter's abrupt instinct busying all his senses—

  The shot made a flat coughing sound through the dripping rainwater, the faraway rush of the river, the sough of the wind in the trees. The stem of a hanging vine suddenly parted only two inches from Durell's head. There was no time to think. His reaction came from total instinct, a product of his years in the business. He dove for the thick wet humus of the forest floor as the second shot snapped at the old headstone of his grandmother and ricocheted, screaming, through a grove of nearby bamboo.

  A rifle, he thought.

  But no one in the motley collection of hostile parties he had led here was armed with a rifle. He lay flat. He watched and listened. Rain dripped. The monkeys were silent. The forest birds had flown away, bright streaks of red and yellow. No one in the church was aware of the two shots.

  He crawled to the left, away from the headstone. A great wall of bamboo had grown up along the edge of the cemetery, some twenty feet away. He needed to get under the cover there. He rolled onto one shoulder and pulled the heavy Browning from his waistband and held it in his left hand. There was no target. He searched the surrounding bush, the glistening wet trees, taking a quadrant at a time, doing it quickly and efficiently. Silence, except for the drip-drip of the trees. He slid forward on his elbows and belly toward the bamboo. A long shaft of sunlight suddenly sliced through the parting clouds, speeding like a searchlight and through the forest gloom. Something glinted briefly, ahead and a bit to the left. It could have been only refraction from a bead of water on a leaf. He did not think so. He moved forward again. He no longer thought about the astonishing fact that his grandmother had died in this remote, desolate place almost seventy years ago. Someone had expected him here, had been waiting in ambush for him. A patient killer, a professional killer, amused by the bitter humor of Durell's situation, taking his time now until he had a perfect target. He had missed the first shot, the setup, only because Durell had straightened up so suddenly from the gravestone. The killer would be more careful now. And more sure of himself.

  He tried to picture O'Hara in the role of the ambusher, but it did not fit. He slid between the thick green stems of bamboo and elbowed forward on his stomach. Something snapped sharply to his left. Far off, the monkeys went screaming through the treetops.

  Finally, he came to the edge of the crumbled cemetery wall. He stepped over it with caution. The church was now totally hidden behind him. The Browning was heavy in his hand. To the left, he thought. That's where he is. He watched the vines and creepers, the twinkling of tiny orchids, the evanescent sheen of a butterfly's blue and gold wings. There was no glimpse of the man with the rifle. After a dozen more paces, he paused. The forest was silent. Then something tugged at his shirtsleeve and at the same moment he heard the rifle crack again. The sound was flat and spiteful. He ran in a crouch, squeezing between the trees. To the right now. The assailant had made a half-circle before him. A sudden spatter of falling raindrops from a nearby tree made him turn his head. Again the rifle cracked. This time he felt a sudden impact on his left shoulder that spun him dizzily around and down to his knees.

  He felt no immediate pain. He began to sweat. The Browning felt futile in his hand. He could be seen, he felt, his every move marked and followed. But he could not see the man with the rifle who stalked him.

  Water shimmered a few paces ahead. He found two trees growing close together and squeezed between them for some protection. His shoulder suddenly began to ache and he saw blood on his shirt. His skin burned where the rifle slug had nicked him. He swore softly and began to search the branches above him, instead of the ground level. Maybe the man was up there somewhere. He thought he heard his name being called from somewhere far behind him.

  "Sam! Yo, Cajun?"

  It was Willie Wells. Brush crackled behind him in the invisible cemetery. He kept his eyes on the lower tree branches. Light and shade, the gleam of rainwater on huge green leaves, the quicksilver trickle of water running down the smooth stem of a vine. Suddenly it was there. The pattern of darkness and brightening sunlight in the foliage suddenly resolved itself into the silhouette of a man, upright, legs spread, feet braced between two vertical tree limbs. The crotch of the trunk was about six feet off the ground. The rifle barrel made a fragile finger of metallic light, pointing at him. Everything happened at once. Durell raised the Browning, pulled the trigger, and saw the thin flicker of muzzle flame spit at him. The Browning clicked futilely. It did not fire. The rifle bullet whipped past his ear, chunked into a tree. Simultaneously, there were other shots and high yells from the churchyard.

  "Cajun!"

  The man with the rifle slid down from the tree and became just a pattern of shadows among other shadows in the gray gloom. Splashing sounds came as the man waded away through the knee-deep water that covered the forest floor. Durell tried the Browning again. Again, nothing happened.

  It was a trap, he thought. Whoever had seen him at the cemetery had known he would stop at Clarissa's grave. It was a miracle that the first shot hadn't blown his head off. He was up against a pro, a careful man who enjoyed his work. He pushed forward, wading into the water that swirled through the forest, carrying the run-off of the rain toward the distant, swollen river. He heard more yelling and a spasm of shooting from the church behind him. He swore softly and kept his eyes on the shadows ahead. The man had vanished, melting into the thick green of the forest. There were no more shots from ahead.

  He checked himself, looked back to orient himself. Only a few dozen steps into this maze of trees and vines, and a man could become hopelessly lost. His shoulder throbbed where the bullet had torn his flesh. Blood kept running down his arm.

  "Sam? Sam!"

  He turned quickly, trusting no one. It was Willie Wells. Belmont was only a step behind the black man.

  "Are you all right, Sam? Your arm—"

  "It's nothing. What's going on at the church?”

  "Capitao O'Hara ran away."

  "Hell. And Inocenza?"

  "I've got her."

  Belmont said, "Who sniped at you, Cajun?"

  "I never saw him clearly." Durell looked at the thin man's wet pants, soaked above the knees, plastered with mud. "Where have you been, Belmont?"

  "Scouting around, trying to help you." Belmont waved a thin impatient arm. "It's all flood water, out there. Willie only told you the half of it, Cajun. Agosto is gone, too."

  Durell waved the useless Browning in his hand. "Who gave you this gun for me?"

  "Agosto had it."

  "I see. You're sure the others—the Russians, the Chinese, maybe Atimboku—they didn't leave the church?"

  "They were all inside, until O'Hara made his crazy run for it, bellowing like an old b9ar."

  "And Sally?"

  "Still with Prince Tim."

  Durell started back to the church, holding his bleeding shoulder.

  4

  Inocenza said, "Hold still, Sam."

  Sally said, "I can fix it."

  "I will take care of him," Inocenza said angrily. She sneered, "Why don't you go back to your brother, your royal highness?"

  Sally turned abruptly away, her head held high. Inocenza's hands were quick and none too gentle with the improvised bandage she had torn from her blouse. As she knelt forward, her firm breasts strained against the thin fabric. She giggled suddenly. "Did you find what the capitao did not want you to find?"

  "I think so. Yes."

  "I never saw him so afraid of anyone before. Not any man. But he was afraid of you, from the start."

  "He has good reason to be afraid. And he has a lot of questions to answer.”

  "O'Hara is gone now," she said. "He ran away up the railroad bed, going south, ahead of us. I think he has gone to the old place, Don Federico's, that he always talks about from the old days. Your friend Agosto went with him.
"

  "With him, or chasing after him?"

  "They left together."

  "Before or after the shooting?"

  "Before," Inocenza said flatly.

  "Then who came after me with that rifle?" "I do not know, truly. Perhaps it was one of your own friends. They are all such strange, hard men. They are not like other men, not like—like Manoel, who seems an innocent babe compared to all of you. Or to these Russians. The Chinese seemed most civilized, do you not agree? But that Atimboku is like a madman."

  "Who do you think shot at me, Inocenza?" "Perhaps your friend Agosto," she said spitefully. She tore the bandage with her strong white teeth, her head bowed, eyes not meeting his. Her black hair was glossy, with two braided strands tied with bits of colored ribbon behind her small ears. "Why did you not take Manoel along with us? Were you jealous of him?"

  "We just didn't need him. Why do you say Agosto left here with O'Hara?"

  "Well, the two of them were talking very quietly in a comer, and then Agosto stepped out of the church and then O'Hara suddenly yelled, like a nightmare, you know? And then the capitao ran." She finished tying the bandage. "There. Your shoulder will be fine, if it does not get infected in this terrible mud and rain."

  "Inocenza, was I meant to find that grave?" "I do not know what you are talking about." "Who was waiting for me out there, with the rifle?" "I do not know. Everyone was here except O'Hara and Agosto."