"You are not in love with me," she whispered. "You love Deirdre Padgett."
He made no answer. Her hands slid over his chest and downward, and he felt a quick stir of response in him. It had been a long time, from Singapore to Taipei, since he had been with a girl like this.
He accepted her then as she accepted him, lovers for the moment, but with a dark area of reserve, danger, and suspicion between them.
Seven
It was three hours before dawn, there was a cool dampness in the air, as if it were going to rain soon. The military airfield was shrouded in darkness except for
the winking green and red and amber lights and the fluorescent lighting from the glass-enclosed control tower. The shadows of coveralled men moved silently around the needle-nosed jets on the strips, and the planes looked like giant, vicious insects with their dark, eager shapes poised against the black night.
Colonel Chu had picked up Durell and Jasmine in a closed, air-conditioned limousine. The KMT flyer had little to say this morning. His manner had changed and he was engrossed in his own thoughts and plans and the dangerous problem of the flight over the mainland. He was crisp and efficient in checking out the light D-5 Zebra jet, a new type for high-altitude flights, with enormously long wings and a fragile, narrow fuselage. It was an unfamiliar plane to Durell, without markings of any kind, and it was equipped with long, whiplike antennae and a radar dome with its detection and listening equipment.
"Can we get to Peking before dawn in this?" Durell asked.
"There will be no problem about that, Major Shan."
"That's what you hope."
"Yes, there must always be hope, and a little luck, in anything like this."
They were given parachute equipment by the Chinese airmen and oxygen masks for their high-altitude drop. In a small room in the hangar, Durell and Jasmine were made to change their clothing: he into a mainland Chinese suit, and she into a dress manufactured in Peking. They were given identity papers, railroad passes, and enough currency and change to amply take care of them. Durell didn't know if the money was forged or not. Chu came in while Durell was knotting his wide necktie and gave him a small Chinese revolver that slid smoothly into a small pocket inside the coarse jacket he wore.
"I don't think I should be armed," Durell said.
"Major Shan always carried this. It was his. And the clothing you are putting on was his, too. Even to the shoes."
"Yes, they're tight. A dead man's shoes."
Chu smiled thinly. "You are not superstitious, Shan?
We Chinese think of ourselves as having a monopoly on that." He looked at the plane, adjusted his complicated and burdensome flying gear, and added, "Well, I suppose we are ready. Climb aboard."
There was nothing to see, nothing to hear but the whine of the jet engines. Now and then the plane bumped and shivered, and the long wings lifted and fell in a birdlike flapping motion. Jasmine was silent and self-contained in her bucket seat. Durell occupied a monitor's chair in the cockpit beside Chu, who flew the plane with an easy and effortless appearance of efficiency. Only a small dim navigating light shone over the instruments and the knee-type calculator strapped to the colonel's leg. Now and then Chu yawned. Durell wondered if the occasional buffeting of the plane was getting on the man's nerves.
There was no sign of interception or detection of their flight. No missiles streaked up to greet them from the continental land mass shrouded under the cloud cover beneath the jet. Then the plane lurched again and Jasmine made a little sound. Durell looked at her. Her black almond eyes were wide and questioning.
A clicking noise came from the mass of detection gear in the narrow fuselage aft. Chu turned his head sharply.
"We are being monitored. They have caught us."
"Can we evade?"
"I shall try."
"How near are we to Peking?" Durell asked.
"We are only above Wuhan. On the Yangstze River."
"That's impossible. That puts us far east of Nanking, off course hundreds of miles inland." Durell was suddenly angry. "I thought we'd be cutting across the East China Sea."
"I only follow orders. Zebra flights are commanded by Lotus Group 2." Chu sounded irritable. "We must obey orders, eh? Even when they seem senseless."
The clicking came faster, with an ominous note in the mechanical sound. Chu put the plane into a sharp port bank and dived. The wings shuddered. There was a faint light in the sky now, although they had been racing away from the dawn over Taiwan. There were more bumps, and a flare of light burst with yellow and red in the cloud layer down below. Chu's mouth tightened. There was a desperate look in his eyes.
"Is it bad?" Durell asked quietly.
"This was not supposed to happen," Chu complained.
"Nothing ever goes according to plan."
"But it was arranged—it was not to happen!"
DurelTs voice was dry. "Do you mean we've been betrayed—already?"
"Perhaps. I do not know. Be prepared to jump soon. You will need your oxygen."
"We're still a long way from Peking."
Chu snapped, "Well, you will just have to make the best of it."
Durell reached back to help Jasmine arrange her breathing gear. She had a strange little smile on her moist lips. Something flashed past the cockpit window and the plane lurched, tipped, and spun down. Suddenly the world was blotted out by clouds; but they would be of no protection against the tracking gear that had caught them. Jasmine lowered her eyes when he stared at her, wondering about her inward smile. Then she looked up as if she were about to tell him something, and then nodded toward Chu. Durell shook his head and helped her from the bucket seat.
Chu rasped out their instructions for the jump. There was another burst of light off the port wing. The pla«e was lower now. They had to wait an interminable minute, then another. Jasmine was to jump first. The small door in the rear, just forward of the bulging radar dome, was ready for them as they made their way aft in the plane.
"Good luck!" Chu called. "Count five!"
Durell did not reply. A light went on and a door slid shut between them and the pilot's compartment, to prevent decompression up forward. Then the door popped open. Jasmine braced herself with both hands, but couldn't bring herself to jump into the roaring maelstrom of air. Durell abruptly shoved her out, saw her body tumble into gray, cloudy space, and stepped out himself.
For long minutes he let himself go in free fall. He could see nothing but the dim clouds. He was aware of intense cold, even through the insulated suit he wore— and which he would have to destroy, or use another cover story if he were spotted in it. After the proper count, he pulled the chute ring. He had lost sight of Jasmine. There was a jolt, and his fall was checked. He looked up and saw a violent burst and explosion in the sky above and wondered if Chu and the plane had been hit. Then he concentrated on his own safe landing.
For a long minute or two, he could see only the grayish mist of clouds, a slowly turning sky that grew pearly with the dawn light. It seemed to him that Chu would have been late for a drop in the Peking vicinity anyway, and perhaps this had all been arranged—but by whom, or for what reason, he couldn't guess.
Suddenly the mass of the earth loomed below, dark and shrouded with night mists, with a gleam of faint lights here and there that did not form a definite pattern. They were not city lights, so he wasn't over Wuhan, he thought gratefully. It also occurred to him that he had only Colonel Chu's word for their position anyway.
He saw a low range of bare hills, indefinite and misty, a flat pattern of fields, a strip of road, a gleam of water, the dark density of woods off to the right. He manipulated the chute toward the wooded area and tried to turn in all directions to see if he could spot Jasmine. She was not in sight, and he felt a deep clutch of anxiety about her. Then the fields and woods came up with an accelerating rush that, despite previous jumps, he had never been able to adjust to.
He hit hard, felt a jolt in his.left leg, rolled over severa
l times; unidentified objects battered at his body. Almost at once, however, he was up and gathering in the bright shrouds of lines to the nylon chute. The mass of the woods was only a hundred yards away. He had landed in one of the fields and fallen once over a rickety wooden fence. He could see no houses nearby, for which he was grateful.
Pausing, he stood very still and listened, but there was no sound through the drifting mist of dawn. So his landing had not yet attracted any alarm. No one was in sight. Nothing moved anywhere. The rich, pungent smell of turned earth stung his nostrils as he stripped off the oxygen gear and the jump suit, gathered in the suit with swift, strong tugs on the cords, and then made his way toward the shelter of the nearby trees.
All the equipment that might have identified him was especially made for easy destruction. He walked far enough into the forest to be sure nothing could be detected from the fields, and struck a wooden match to light the material. The chute, cords, and jump suit vanished in a quick hiss of flameless chemical destruction. The metal parts of his equipment he had to bury, and this took some moments of groping in the dark gloom between the trees. The air was cool and damp, but he sweated as he worked to dispose of all traces of his origin.
Ten minutes later there was nothing left to identify him as anyone but Major Shan Tze Peng. He tried to make himself think now in Chinese, in the language he would have to use. He drew a deep breath and walked out of the woods to look across the gray horizon of flat fields.
"Jasmine?" he called softly.
There was no answer.
He called louder, "Jasmine!"
There was no sign of her. Not a trace. He had not seen her chute open. He hadn't seen her land. He didn't know if she was alive or dead, or where she might be.
For that matter, Durell thought grimly, he didn't know where he was, either. And if he made one slip from this moment on, there would be no question about his future.
He would be a dead man.
Eight
He spent an hour hunting for Jasmine, but there was no sign of her. She could have come down miles away, of course. And she knew their contact in Wuhan. By the time he gave up the search, it was broad daylight. A mist lay in the hollows of the fields, but the sun rapidly burned away these patches of fog. Here and there a pond shimmered in the morning light, and he heard the distant cackling of geese. He had checked the edges of the wood, coursing and traversing the area for half a mile in each direction. Jasmine had disappeared. True, she had been trained for this drop, and she knew how to make herself invisible in the countryside, and since there was no sign that her drop had been unsuccessful, he had to assume she was still alive. But she had not taken the planned measures for meeting, which meant, perhaps, that she had wanted to vanish.
Far off to the west, perhaps two miles away, he saw a smudge of chimney smoke. It could be charcoal burners, he thought, and he began to walk that way across the plowed fields, crossing fences here and there. He limped a little, and his leg ached where he had bruised it when he landed. Walking soon eased the soreness out of it, however. The sun grew hotter, and the fields steamed and smelled with the rank smell of an alien culture.
In less than a mile he came to a dirt road, and he followed this toward the thin finger of smoke that stained the pale sky. So far he hadn't seen a human being, which didn't make him feel easier. So much, he thought, for China's overcrowded population. A brooding silence filled the world, as if he had landed in a place from which all the inhabitants had recently fled. It could be possible, he thought, and took off his stiff Peking jacket and slung it over his arm. In his hand under the coat he kept his gun ready.
If Colonel Chu had been shot down in his pterodactyl plane, there was no more sign of him than there was of Jasmine.
After another half hour he heard a train whistle from somewhere ahead. He quickened his step, topped a rise, and saw his first house. It was a peasant's farm compound, and he heard pigs grunting and the clucking of chickens. The farm animals were running loose. The
house was built in the old style, with a walled court, thatched roofs, tiled walks. He moved more carefully. The smoke came from here, but it was neither a chimney fire nor charcoal burners. Half the house had been burned down, and the rest was smoldering and gutted.
He paused, swearing softly, and checked himself to think in Mandarin before he called, "Good morning!"
Something made a scrabbling sound inside the recent ruin, but he didn't think it was an animal. As he stepped up to the door, a low moan of terror greeted him.
"Hello, mother," he said gently. "I will not hurt you. Do not be afraid."
She was very old and wrinkled, which was why the marauders had left her alone. He felt a brief pang of fear for Jasmine, and dismissed it. The old woman wore a blue smock, and had her gray hair pulled back in a tight, skinned knot. There was a dribble of blood on her lips and chin.
"Mother, tell me what happened here."
"Who—who are you?" Her Mandarin, surprisingly, was tolerable.
"I am Major Shan Tze Peng. I'm looking for the railroad.
"Shan?"
"That is my name."
Her black eyes rounded with fear. "They came looking for you."
"For me?"
"Truly. They asked if we had seen you. They took my man, my son, my two daughters—"
"Who were they?" he asked quietly.
"Soldiers!" she spat. There was a depth of contempt and loathing in her wise eyes that reflected a lifetime of terror.
He moved into the doorway, wondering if he were being watched; the old woman wiped the blood from her chin and walked to a kerosene stove. An iron pot of rice was still hot there. She said, "It is not as if we are disloyal to the government. We live better now than in the old days. But my husband happens to be old-fashioned, sir. We live by the old rules. Still, our children are gone. They march and wander over the countryside, and this old woman's heart is broken. Now they have taken my last son."
"When did the soldiers come?" he asked.
"At sunrise."
"And you are sure they asked for me, for Shan?"
She nodded, suspicious of him. "Are you a criminal? Have you said or done anything to displease the State?"
"No, mother. May I have some of that rice?"
"You are welcome."
He ate quietly and quickly. The pigs and chickens settled down outside. The old Chinese woman watched him. When he was finished he thanked her and said, "Was there a young woman with the soldiers, mother?"
"Several," she said contemptuously.
"A tall girl, beautiful "
"I had no time to see beauty when my home was burning," she said.
"Of course. I'm sorry. I will leave you now."
There was a village a short distance down the road. People were still there, working at a fish pond. He saw no soldiers, but decided to give the commune a wide berth and moved off through a small, carefully gleaned wood. After another hour, he came to the outskirts of a larger town. The day was very hot now, with a breathless quality in the still air. He followed a telephone line back to the main road and soon came to more houses and decided there was no help for it, he had to appear in public. He quickened his pace, walking briskly as if he had an official errand to perform.
The people on the streets paid no attention to him. He wished he knew the name of the town, but he didn't ask, and suddenly he saw the gleam of railroad tracks and followed them until he came to the station on the south side of the settlement. He was sweating, but it was not from the heat of the day. He knew his city clothes must stand out among these country folk, and he knew his presence had been noted a score of times. No help for that, he thought. The whole assignment had the aura of disaster and certainly of treachery.
He had the proper papers, a railway pass with his photo on it, a priority card for passage to Peking, and enough money to ease his way. No one seemed to be interested in him, however. The railroad station consisted of a long wooden platform and a modern cinder-block ticket
office and waiting rooms with upturned red roof tiles. It was crowded with round-faced, blank-eyed peasants, both. men and women and children, all cleanly dressed in the countryside's uniform outfit of a blue half-coat and pants and sneakers. There were only two men in railroad uniforms, and a few bespectacled officials in Western-type clothing like his own.
The station sign indicating the name of the town meant nothing to him, but another sign showing that the big industrial center of Wuhan was only one hundred miles away turned out to be comforting.
He drew a deep breath then and walked boldly into the press of waiting peasants and crossed the platform to the ticket office. Round black eyes followed him curiously. A cluster of loudspeakers began to blare out martial music, loud enough to numb the mind. A hawker selling a poisonous-looking orange drink barred his way for a moment, then shrugged and turned aside.
The ticket collector was a sharp-faced woman from Manchuria. She scarcely glanced at his credentials.
"You have priority, of course, Comrade Shan, but the train to Wuhan has been delayed. There has been some —difficulty."
"I understand. When will the train arrive now?"
"In an hour, Comrade Shan." She looked up at him. It was hard to read what moved behind her eyes; but something was there. Over the blaring speakers, which now gave out with an impassioned anti-American, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist warmonger speech, the female station-master tried to smile. Durell had seen better grimaces on the faces of the dead. "Comrade, you are too important to be kept waiting among these people. We have orders to make you comfortable. Please come this way."
"I am gratified," he said courteously, "but I am also curious. Was I expected?"
The woman blinked. "Of course, Comrade Shan."
He saw out of the corner of his eye several uniformed People's Police moving toward him, automatic weapons slung on their shoulders. He decided to accept the sta-tionmaster's invitation and murmured, "You are most kind. It is most correct behavior for a member of our glorious People's Republic."
"Use the door to the left," she said sharply.
There was a long corridor that bisected the station building. Who expected him? And why? he wondered. But so much for top-secret assignments. The uniformed woman appeared behind him and led him unsmilingly down the bleak, white station hall. Telegraph keys chattered from behind one of the doors. The blaring propaganda speech was repeated from the loudspeakers in the ceiling, but no one seemed to be listening to it.
Assignment Peking Page 5
