Assignment Golden Girl

by Edward S. Aarons

  "Yes, I know that now."

  "I'll ask him to send for you," he said gently.

  She shook her head. "He won't do it. But—thanks."

  She extended her hand. He took it, held it briefly, watched her descend the steps to the taxi. Hotel servants in bright cotton skirts hurried to follow with her luggage. She looked like a queen going into exile, he thought.

  He looked at his watch. He should be at the airport now attending to protocol.

  Let them wait, he thought.

  Prince Atimboku Mari Mak Mujilikaka wore a soft gray suit of faintly Edwardian cut that enhanced the dark glow of his handsome young face. A radio was blasting in his expensive hotel suite, hammering out rhythm from a Johannesburg station. He was holding a sheaf of papers, about to deposit them in an attache case.

  "Hello, Mr. Bwana Cajun Sam." His smile was wide, but his eyes were wary and uncertain. "Just about to pack my report for your State Department."

  "Nothing good about me in it, I hope," Dnrell said.

  "You still sore at me, Sam?"

  "No."

  "Then what eats you, man?"

  "You eat me. The things you did. The things you failed to do. Not exactly princely behavior."

  "Well, those were rough times we just went through, old buddy. You have to make allowances. I couldn't just think of myself as a person, you know? I mean, I've got the stool, I have to think of myself as personifying the whole nation."

  "Yes," Durell said. "That's a good line to follow."

  Atimboku narrowed his tigerish eyes. For a moment he looked violent, then he forced another smile. "Well, let's let bygones be bygones, shall we?" He extended his strong hand.

  Durell did not see it. "No," he said. "You're a murderer, Tim. You don't belong in the UN pleading for your country. You need psychiatric care."

  Atimboku grinned. "You going to put me there?"

  "I'm going to try."

  Atimboku shook his head. "You don't pull punches, do you? I mean, what I did and what I tried to do was simply in my personage as the head of the state, trying to suppress treason, subversion, the attack of a foreign enemy, treachery from within my government itself—"

  "You'd have let Colonel Yi kill me."

  "Well, now—"

  "And Salduva, too. You didn't lift a finger to help when I came up that cliff. You were ready to make a deal with Yi and the Neighbors."

  "In my person as head of the state my first interest had to be the safety and integrity of Pakuru," said Atimboku grandly. "I'm glad you made it though. I'm glad Oyashi got the Ngami people to come and help and get the wrecked hopper off the track so we could go on. I'm planning on giving Mr. Oyashi a medal. You, too."

  "I don't want any medals. I doubt if Oyashi will accept one either."

  Atimbokn sounded plaintive. "You make it hard to get along with you, Durell."

  "I intend to make it harder," Durell said. "I've done my job. Mr. Murchison-Smith is at the airport now. You're in his hands now, the State Department's, from here on in. It wasn't a job I'm happy with."

  Atimboku grinned. "Still, I represent Pakuru as the legal head of government at the UN, right?"

  "I'm afraid so," Durell said.

  He turned and went out.

  The airport was close by the sea at the other end of the Portuguese town. There was a long spit of sand dunes projecting into the Indian Ocean, and terns and sandpipers ran about close to the concrete runway that was streaked by the skid marks of numberless jet landings. The big plane was close to the landing bay at the low, white terminal building. The red and green Portuguese flag flapped in the wind blowing from over the sea. Durell wondered briefly how long Africa would allow that flag to fly there in one of the few remaining colonial possessions of the world. The Portuguese police at the airport saluted him smartly, smiling. He did not see Gloria in the waiting room. There wasn't too much business at the airport.

  ''Senhor Durell?" the policeman said. "This way, please. Senhor Murchison-Smith is waiting. He is a bit impatient, I am afraid. The plane landed twenty minutes ago."

  "Yes, I heard it come in."

  "It is always prompt. He expected to find you waiting for him, I think."

  "Too bad," DureU said.

  The office of the airport commissioner was finely furnished with woven rugs from Oporto, heavy black walnut furniture, and a Portuguese flag on the wall. The commissioner had tactfully vacated it for Murchison-Smith, who now sat behind the desk as if he owned it. He was a fine looking man, thick in the chest and belly, his figure helped by expert Madison Avenue tailoring. He was beau-tifiily groomed. His thick gray hair and heavy eyebrows gleamed with silver. He did not look as if he had just traveled halfway around the world to escort an obscure African tribal prince to the headquarters of the United Nations in New York.

  "Ah," he said. "Mr. Durell?"

  "None other, George," Durell said.

  "I was expecting Prince Atimboku Mari Mak Mujili-kaka with you." Murchison-Smith pronounced the Pakuran name with ease and expertise. "I heard you had a rather nasty time getting out. Remarkable achievement, 'as a matter of fact. All sort of local insurrectionists, I gather."

  "Local troops," Durell said. "Chinese leaders."

  "Oh, come now. Don't make troublesome allegations. Oil on the waters, eh?" Murchison-Smith folded his heavy hands on the immaculate desk top. There was thick black hair on the backs of his hands, which were exquisitely manicured. He smelled of French aftershave lotion. He smelled of money and the indefinable arrogance of entrenched bureaucracy.

  "It's an in my report," Durell said. "Everything I could learn about Atimboku. It was sent by radio in code to you two days ago while I was still in the hospital here."

  "Yes, yes." The gray-haired man looked at Durell's cane. "Did you hurt your leg, my dear chap?"

  "Let's call it another troublesome allegation."

  Murchison-Smith said, "You were always difiicult to get along with, Sam. We try to cooperate with you—ah— cloak-and-dagger people, but after all, sometimes I do believe you are all much too imaginative. It is a simple matter, after all. Prince Tim is the legal head of government in Pakuru."

  "Prince Tim is insane," Durell said.

  "Come, now, he—"

  "He's already begun a blood-bath, a purge of tribal chiefs who opposed him. He was ready to massacre some of the people who came out with us on the train. He slit the throat of his own commander of the Army, a Colonel Abdundi, because the man objected to his behavior. And as a last resort he was ready to make a deal and sell out to the Neighbors and the Chinese, a deal with Peking."

  "I find all that difficult to accept."

  "He's your headache, now," Durell said. "I have only one request. His royal sister Salduva came out of the country with us. He tried to kill her, too, because of her equal claim to the stool. She's here at the local hotel. She should share representation with her brother."

  "Impossible," said the State Department man.

  "Why not?"

  "We've had explicit instructions on that from Atimboku himself." Murchison-Smith smiled. "After all, we need friends—all the friends we can get—^in this troubled part of the world."

  "Atimboku is not our friend," Durell said.

  "We think he is."

  Durell tried to suppress his anger. "Look, George—"

  "No. The facts are obvious." Murchison-Smith stood up abruptly. He was very graceful even then, still smiling, still polite. "It is not your agency that makes national policy, Sam. It is my department's function to do that. Each to his own last, eh? We won't argue about it. Prince Atimboku comes to the UN with me."

  "You haven't read my report, obviously."

  "It will be considered in due time."

  "All right," Durell said. "Prince Atimboku Mari Mak Mujilikaka is all yours."

  He did not offer to shake hands when he went out. He did not trust himself to say more. He went down the steps and out into the main waiting room of the airport. Some tourists, most
ly European, a few Japanese businessmen, a very rich looking, exquisite Chinese couple from Hong Kong, were waiting for the ffight to leave. There was still ten minutes. He heard sirens in the distance and knew that Atimboku was arriving, making an important entrance with an escort of police he had demanded from the Portuguese authorities. He started to turn away, and then his eye caught a small, gray figure seated alone on one of the benches at the far end of the waiting room. Durell halted. He looked through the wide, modern glass windows and saw the sea and the sandy promontory and the terns flying over the surf.

  He drew a deep breath and walked to the small gray man at the other end of the echoing terminal.

  Twenty-Eight

  "I'M HONORED," Durell said. "Sir."

  "I was concerned about you, Samuel."

  "Come to pick up the pieces?"

  "I knew you would be all right."

  "Hunch? Intuition? Your ESP? Sir?"

  "I trusted you, Samuel."

  "And what about George Murchison-Smith?"

  "Don't let him trouble you."

  "Did you read my report?"

  "I read it, yes."

  "Believed it?"

  "Yes."

  General Dickinson McFee, head of K Section, anonymous, discreet, all in gray, considered the heavy, knobby blackthorn walking stick between the neatly pressed gray trousers at his knees. In that walking stick, Durell knew, was designed and fitted a variety of the most lethal, tricky weapons the lab boys could devise in the basement of No. 20 Annapolis Street in D.C., headquarters of K Section. Only once had that walking stick been pointed at him. Durell did not like to think about that time.

  "They've chosen Atimboku," he said.

  "The choice will not last for long. I've been in touch with the Queen Elephant."

  Nothing about the little gray man surprised Durell. He said, "Then you know about Salduva?"

  "Of course. I'm thinking of bringing you back with her to Washington with me, Samuel." McFee paused. No one called Durell Samuel except McFee and his own grandfather Jonathan. Durell wasn't sure whether it was an expression of fondness or patronage. He didn't think he would ever know. McFee said, "It would not be proper, however, on the same plane with Atimboku. You got knocked around quite a bit this time. Does your leg hurt?"

  Durell said, "I wanted to talk to you about Levemore Oyashi, To take Harvey Gladstone's place as our Central here in Pakuru."

  "It has been arranged. Tell him so."

  "Well, that will make one person happy out of all this," Durell said.

  "How is your leg?" McFee asked.

  "It will heal. Torn ligament. About Salduva—"

  "Stay here, Samuel. Rest and recreation for a week or two. Please stay close to Salduva. I mean, that is—"

  "Yes, sir."

  "You know what I mean."

  "Yes, sir."

  McFee said, "I'm sure we will be needing her quite soon."

  "My pleasure, sir," said Durell.

  McFee said, "Go on."

  He found Salduva at the farthest point on the beach from the hotel. While he walked toward her, he heard the distant jet engines of the Pan Am flight roar away on the airfield on the other side of town. He paused, leaning on his cane, annoyed at the ache in his knee, and watched the great silver aircraft curve sharply upward into sight and then level off over the Indian Ocean heading east, the sun glinting on its wings. The sea sparkled. The sea birds paid no attention to the echoing din and fading throb of the engines. He watched the plane out of sight until it vanished in the path of the sun glare over the sea and sky. Then he walked on.

  Sally sat hugging her knees, staring at the spot in the blue sky where the plane had vanished. The surf came up and gently washed about her heels, dug into the wet sand. He knew she had heard his approach, but she did not turn to look at him. She wore a white bathing suit, and her dark golden skin gleamed with tiny beads of perspiration in the sun. She had a large white beaded beach bag beside her and disdained the colorful umbrella the hotel service had set out for her.

  Durell sat down beside her. She looked at him once sidewise out of her long golden eyes and then put her chin on her knees and stared disconsolately at the ocean again.

  "It will be all right, Sally.''

  She said, "I'm surprised you're still here."

  "I've been given some R and R. A week or two. That's the time McFee figures it will take for my knee to heal and for Atimboku to blow it. They'll call for you then."

  She sat very still. "Truth, Cajun?"

  "Truth."

  She said, "Why is it in this upside-down world that the alleged good guys always seem to prefer to back up the bad guys?"

  "We all make mistakes."

  "It seems to be a habit with your State Department."

  "Not really."

  "So I'm stuck here? Ignored?"

  "I'm here with you. I'm not ignoring you."

  She picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle through her long, fine fingers. She still did not look at him again. "How is your leg?"

  "I wish people would stop asking about it."

  "I honestly want to know."

  "It will be all right."

  "You look tired, Sam."

  "Not too tired," he said and smiled.

  She watched the combers rolling in from the Indian Ocean. She wore a new set of long, looped earrings. Her black hair was piled high on top of her fine, regal head. In the back of his mind he suddenly saw her again the way he had seen her on the first morning when it all began. She turned her head suddenly, her face curiously blank, and looked at him as if she too had received the same image in her own mind at the same moment.

  Her mouth twitched in a faint smile. Durell said, "The bad guys always show themselves up sooner or later."

  "Sam, when you went down that cliff when Colonel Yi shoved that gxm at you and grabbed it when he fired, I thought—"

  "Yes?"

  "I thought I'd rather trade oflE all of Pakuru to have you."

  "You still don't think that way, do you?"

  "No," she said.

  "That's the way it should be."

  She reached out slightly hesitantly and touched his hand. "I meant everything I said though, the one time we were alone on that river island, Sam."

  "I know."

  "I want to thank you."

  "Don't."

  "You'll really be here for another two weeks?"

  "I've been ordered to take care of you."

  "How nice. Like some piece of chattel? Like an actress kept waiting in the wings, waiting to be paraded out on stage when Atimboku makes a fool of himself before the whole world?"

  "Maybe," he admitted.

  "Oh, I hate you, Sam Durell!"

  He watched her eyes.

  "But I love you too, Sam."

  He took her hand and helped her up, and without question she walked with him back toward the hotel. "We have lots of time to talk about it," he said, "Let's not talk too much, Sam."

  "All right," Durell said.

  This book made available by the Internet Archive.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Pages

  Back Cover