Assignment - Amazon Queen

by Edward S. Aarons

  "Belmont?"

  “Yo, Cajun." It was a harsh whisper. "He shot me in the gut. It's real bad."

  "Agosto?"

  "You broke his neck."

  Agosto had no answer to make. Belmont's knife was stuck into the man's ribs up to the hilt. Agosto's suave face was already swollen and darkening; the black eyes stared, the white teeth gleamed from under the small, neat moustache.

  "Is he dead yet?" Belmont gasped.

  "Yes."

  "You got the formula?"

  "Yes."

  Belmont started to cough, grinned up at Durell in the red glare of the burning theater, then coughed again as blood suddenly gushed from his open mouth. Durell struggled to pull him out of the net, but Belmont's eyes were fixed, staring in sightless triumph.

  "Cajun," Wells said sharply. "Belmont is gone."

  Durell pocketed the stainless steel cylinder that contained the Zero Formula. "Let's get out of here.”

  One entire wall of the theater was ablaze now. The heat struck at them furiously. The Indian guards—those who had survived the collapse of the ceiling—had fled. Durell paused and looked at the fire. All of the others had scrambled up to the relative safety of the stage.

  "Sam!" Willie called imperatively.

  "In a moment."

  Durell unscrewed the metal cylinder, and took out the small roll of paper inside. It was covered with esoteric biological engineering symbols which meant very little to him. He looked at it for a moment, then added the letter of credit he had signed, and crumpled both papers in a tightly wadded ball. With a single gesture, he flung both the formula and the money into the fire. In an instant, the papers burst into flames and turned into a black, twisted lump of ash.

  "Let's go," he said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  They took the Cessna, flying from the airstrip into a hot, bright dawn. Willie Wells was the pilot. He circled the old rubber plantation once, and they looked down on the smoking shell of the hacienda, the bunkhouses on the compound, the small Indian settlement on the banks of the river tributary. The clearing looked small and defenseless in the surrounding sea of wild, implacable jungle and swamp. The men they had left behind, Vladim Vodaniev and Mr. Soo and the others, were small ants milling about in angry puzzlement amid the wreckage.

  "Do we maroon them all there?" Wells asked.

  "No." Durell used the Cessna's radio to transmit to Paramaguito. The girl he had alerted there, Connie Drew, was awake and clever, on the job. He had a brief image of her on the docks, with her birdcages of kiskadees and the harpy eagle. She monitored his call, returned an acknowledgement. He thumbed the microphone button again. "We'll be landing in about an hour. After we leave for Belem, you can wait twenty-four hours and then tell the police there are some foreigners stranded at Don Federico's. They'll get around to pulling out the others."

  "You want a head start, is that it?" Connie asked.

  "I don't have anything for them to chase me for, but they may not know that," Durell acknowledged.

  It was crowded in the Cessna, with O'Hara in the rear seat, Sally and Inocenza behind Wells and Durell. The sun came up in a burst of tropical glory, spreading light like hot melted butter over the forests and the river. It seemed only a few moments before they were over Sao Felice and heading downriver for Paramaguito and the Amazon.

  On the last leg, Wells spoke, leaning forward to squint into the glare of the sun. "Cajun, what will you tell Mr. Kendall and Mr. Carboyd?"

  "I'll tell them the truth," Durell said.

  "They won't buy it, Sam."

  Durell smiled. "Agosto has contaminated you, Willie. Eventually, the formula will be published, when Agosto's death is known to his agent who has the other copy."

  "You paid a high price for your gesture, Sam."

  "Yes. So did Andy Weyer. And Belmont."

  Wells said, "I'd like to stay in Paramaguito for a bit, Sam. Just a couple of days. A week, if you can possibly stretch it."

  "All right."

  "You see, Inocenza and I—”

  “You don't have to explain."

  When they landed at the river junction, Connie Drew was at the airport, squatting in the shade, barefooted, wearing her ragged denims. She had her cages of brightly colored birds beside her and she tried to sell them to incoming tourists and road engineers.

  "Hooey," she said. "You all look beat."

  "We are."

  "I fixed up some rooms for all of you at the Hotel O Rei Felipe. Is that okay?"

  "I want to go right on to Belem," Durell said.

  The girl sighed and looked at him. "That figures. Work is your gig, right? You don't know how to relax and enjoy nature, do you? Natural things swing, you know? You owe me two hundred, too. My Indian kids need the bread."

  "I'll send it upriver from Belem."

  She looked at Willie Wells. "Can I trust him?" "All the way," Wells said.

  A special, private jet bearing a corporate engineering company insigne waited for them in the hot, dusty sunlight. O'Hara had gone into the airport bar and was drinking beer as if he might never get the chance again. Durell went through the ramshackle waiting room and came up to the bar beside the fat old man. O'Hara felt his presence, but did not turn around. There were electric fans and open shutter windows, Bahamian style, in the bar. Some road engineers were arguing at the end of the bar, and a pretty Brazilian stewardess was having a Coke with the pilot of the regular commercial flight that had just come in.

  "Now you chop my head off, huh?" O'Hara muttered.

  "No."

  "I want to tell you something, Samuel—"

  "I think I know it already, Capitao."

  "I loved your grandma, sonny. What I did back in those days was real bad, really wrong. When she wouldn't play my game, I offered to send her back to your grandpa Jonathan. She was ashamed and afraid to go back. I tried to talk her into leavin' me. It wasn't easy. I wanted her like I never wanted any other woman, before or after. I still want her. But then she got sick with the fever, as soon as we got here, and she died. Like she wanted to die, I reckon. I can't ever pay it back.”

  Durell ordered beer from the bartender. The stewardess had looked over at him several times. Her slightly slanted eyes were speculative. Through the window, he saw Sally talking to Connie Drew.

  O'Hara said heavily, "I'm going to miss the Duos Irmaos. You burned her up. I've got nothin' left at the end of my life. Not even Inocenza."

  "I'll see to it that my 'company' finances a new river-boat for you."

  "Won't ever be the same."

  "Nothing is ever the same," Durell said.

  "You going to tell your grandpappy about me?"

  "Yes, when I get home."

  "I still don't know what all you fellers were up to."

  "I hope you never know, Capitao."

  He started to put his hand on the old man's shoulder, changed his mind, and walked out of the bar, into the sunlight where Sally waited for him.

  2

  She was long and cool, all liquid gold, sleeping beside him. The sheets were crisp and new. The hotel room in the Gran Prao Excelsior was air-conditioned, the shutters closed, the sign on the corridor door requested no disturbance. They had made love, slept for twelve hours, ordered dinner sent up, served by solicitous waiters, and then they went back to bed again. The hacienda of Don Federico was a fading nightmare, thirty-six hours behind them.

  Durell slid out of the big bed without waking her. Sally's hair lay in an ebony cascade over the white pillows. She lay with one knee drawn up, her hip and thigh long and sensual under the pale flowered coverlet. Dimly, the sound of traffic came from Belem's boulevards, the Praca da Republica. When he moved the draperies a bit, he was surprised to see it was night again, and the neon and electric lights of Belem's aggressive advertising signs made gaudy splashes against the hot, tropical sky. The city was all white stone and red tiled roofs, incongruously comingled with the ubiquitous steel and glass business towers spread all around the wo
rld.

  He thought of taking Sally to the Goeldi Museum, the Bosque, the docks at the Ver o Peso market. He watched a jet roar in from the south, from Rio, probably a Verig Cruzeiro plane. From the height of the hotel-room window, he saw an old wood-burning river steamer of the ENASA lines, chuffing against the current toward Manaus on its bi-monthly five-day trip. He closed the curtain and looked back at the bed.

  Sally was awake.

  She was shivering. Her eyes were frightened.

  "Sam?"

  "It's all right."

  "I had a nightmare."

  "I know."

  "Do I talk in my sleep?"

  "A little. It was mostly in Banda dialect. I didn't get all of it. You're still afraid of your brother. Prince Tim, is that it?"

  "Should we have looked for him before we left, Sam?"

  "He wanted to kill you, Sally."

  "Atimboku is still my brother.”

  He remembered the bittersweet manner in which they had made love, the desperation of her passion, a clinging to what could never be again.

  “I think Prince Atimboku Mari Mak Mujilikaka is dead," he said. "He died of his own greed, his lust for power. Being the ruler of Pakuru in Africa killed him."

  "Yes," Sally whispered. Her golden eyes mourned. "But he could have been—he could have done so much—"

  "But he didn't."

  "And that means that I—according to our laws, Sam—I have to take his place."

  He smiled gently. "The Queen Elephant.”

  "What a horrible title."

  "Your mother carried it proudly."

  "I thought I wanted to rule my country. I'm not so sure now, Sam. I wish I didn't have to go back."

  "You must."

  Her golden eyes sorrowed. "I'll never be able to be myself again, if I do. My true self. I'll never be able to see you except formally, as a ruling queen, even if you do ever return to Pakuru one day."

  "Yes."

  The telephone rang.

  He had been expecting it.

  He said, "I'll have to leave you for a short time. Only an hour or two. You'll be hearing from your own consulate in the morning. We have until then."

  The phone kept ringing.

  He crossed the darkened room and picked it up.

  "Yes, Mr. Carboyd," he said. "This is Durell."

  3

  Kevin Kendall and Homer Carboyd had taken an executive suite on the top floor of the hotel. A small sign on the door had the insigne of a mineral exploration company —the same insigne which had been on the private jet that had flown them from Paramaguito. It was one of many K Section subsidiary covers. From the wide glass windows, he could see all the lights of the City of Our Lady of Bethlehem, spangling the dark night. Both men wore their usual dark suits, white shirts, dark neckties. Kevin Kendall looked slender and dapper, his silver hair neatly groomed, a small sad smile on his lips. Homer Carboyd had the same bulldog expression of distaste that he had displayed back in Prince John, Maryland.

  "You didn't really do it," Carboyd rumbled.

  "Yes, sir. I did."

  "You destroyed the formula?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And the letter of credit?"

  "Yes."

  "Will you, for sweet Jesus' sake, tell me why?" Carboyd exploded.

  "One moment. Homer." Kendall spoke in his mild Boston accent. "There were certain terms and conditions Durell put forth when he accepted the job—"

  "You stay out of this, Kevin. I represent Sugar Cube. The President himself. We were prepared to pay plenty for the Zero Formula. You had practically unlimited funds, Durell. We could have used the formula exclusively, for some political leverage—"

  "I didn't promise to bring it back for that purpose," Durell reminded him.

  "You committed treason, goddam it! You destroyed a highly classified government property—"

  "It was never an American property. I never bid on it. I never really bought it. I just destroyed it."

  Homer Carboyd made a snorting noise through his flared, angry nostrils. His pale eyes glared at Durell's tall, quiet figure. "You're nitpicking. You had it in your hands, your report says. You lost two good men getting there. Your associate, Mr. Wells, admits you had it in your possession."

  "And no chance of getting away alive with it, if the other bidders knew of it," Durell said. "In any case, I took on the job with specific qualifications. I didn't trust you, Mr. Carboyd, to abide by those qualifications. You have condemned yourself just now by suggesting you had ideas for using the formula as a weapon for terror, blackmail, perhaps as the red button to destroy the world's ecology and mankind with it. I used my own judgment. I destroyed the thing."

  Kevin Kendall said mildly, "But you say it will be published, eventually, in any case."

  "Maybe. We don't know how many lies the man we knew as Agosto told us, or pretended to have arranged. I think he was bluffing. I think he had only the one copy I saw. There may be no other in existence, anywhere in the world."

  "But he said there was."

  "We may find out, someday. But then, everyone will have it, if that's the case. The balance will remain. No one nation can threaten the rest of the world with it."

  Kendall said, "You wanted it that way?”

  "Yes."

  "But suppose the other copy—if it exists—falls into private hands, is sold to our enemies and rivals. Then everything you did becomes useless, a real loss to our country."

  "Agosto wouldn't arrange it that way," Durell said quietly. "He would want his revenge, even from the grave. He said he had arranged it so that this alleged copy would be published after a specific time passed that meant he was dead. He wouldn't want to let all the fruits of his planning and scheming to go to anyone else. No, Mr. Kendall. No, Mr. Carboyd. You can forget about the Zero Formula becoming the exclusive property of any one nation."

  Carboyd took out one of his Havana cigars and chewed on it angrily. "I'll see to it that there is a complete investigation of your behavior, Durell. By God, I could have you crucified!"

  Kevin Kendall said, "That would not be wise. Homer."

  "No? But he destroyed the formula, he—"

  "Sam, do you think you accomplished anything?"

  Durell said, very quietly, "Yes. We've removed one more weapon of terror from the world."

  Homer Carboyd chewed savagely on his cigar and paced the room for a moment. It seemed as if Durell's quiet words hung tangibly in the hotel room.

  Kevin Kendall finally said, "Sam, have you had a doctor look at you?"

  "Yes. I'm all right."

  "You need some sleep. We'll see you in D.C. soon enough, I expect."

  "Yes, sir. I have to see about Andy Weyer's grave. And I’ll have to set up a new Central here in Belem."

  "Of course."

  Durell said, "Mr. Carboyd?"

  The big man waved a hand in dismissal. "Go on. Do as Kevin says. You do look a bit tired."

  4

  He went back to the suite that Sally shared with him. There was a living room, a tiled bath, and two separate bedrooms. The bed where he had left Sally was empty. He looked for her in the shadows at the window and on the small balcony that overlooked the city. She was not there. The night air outside was warm and tranquil. Overhead, the equatorial stars blazed solemnly in a sky of velvet. Even at this height, he could smell the sweet-scented trees that lined Belem's streets. He thought of the blossoms that gave off their fragrance down there and remembered the bleak sterility of George's Fields. It would not happen again.

  He turned back inside, into the dark refrigerated air of the hotel rooms. Her bedroom door was closed. He tried the handle. It was locked.

  "Sally?"

  He felt an odd relief when he heard her reply and knew she was there. The past few days had made him jumpy.

  "Go away, Sam," she said.

  "Sally, tomorrow it will all be over. Tomorrow you will fly back to Africa and I'll go back to Washington."

  "Yes."

/>   "Open the door, Sally."

  There was a long silence. The hotel management had thoughtfully provided him with a bottle of bourbon and a small box of thin Brazilian cigars. His body ached with a score of bruises, contusions, lacerations. He looked at the new Seiko watch he had bought this afternoon. Six hours to dawn. He would have to go to Bayou Peche Rouge, in Louisiana, to see his grandfather and tell him about Clarissa. It would end a nightmare that had lasted most of a lifetime for that old man, too. Later, he would go to Prince John, when Deirdre was there, and they would enjoy the peace and beauty of that old house, with the pink brick and the Chesapeake; he would take her sailing on the Bay and show her George's Fields. But that was for much later. He took a long drink of the bourbon and it hit his stomach like acid. The cigar tasted raw. He waited, watching the stars.

  After a time he heard her door open.

  "Sam?"

  She stood there, naked, seeming defenseless.

  "Salduva of Pakuru, go back to bed. Try to sleep. You're right, it's all over."

  "I'm still Sally, until tomorrow. What did those men say to you, Sam? Are you in trouble for what you did?"

  "Nothing too important. Nothing they won't have to forget soon."

  "In my country, I would give you great honors and many medals. Will they punish you in any way?"

  "I don't think so."

  She came to the chair in which he sat and leaned over him and kissed him. Her ripe breasts were touched by the dim starlight that came in from the balcony windows. Liquid silver traced the graceful outlines of her hip and thigh.