Assignmnt - Ceylon

by Edward S. Aarons

  “We’ll rest now,” he told the girl.

  “I couldn’t.”

  “You must. Tomorrow may be even worse. He’ll be getting impatient by then, really worried about the poison in his system. He’ll be anxious to gain some margin of safety by having a few hours to spare. You’ll need your rest.”

  “And you?”

  “We’ll take turns.”

  The burrow was about a hundred feet upstream from where the little creek emptied into a spread of sand that bordered the quietly lapping sea. It felt warm and dry in the tiny enclosure. Now that the work was done, he felt the inevitable droop of weariness in all his muscles as he sat cross-legged near the entrance. Aspara sat on the blanket behind him. His ankle, where Wells’ bullet had nicked him, had begun to ache, although the slight wound was clotted and dry. He could not see Aspara, but he could feel her warmth and hear the light sound of her careful prana breathing. From where he sat near the burrow entrance, he could see the slight fall of the stream into the mangroves. It was like looking out through a tunnel of leaves. The barricade of dead broken branches and tree trunks above them made small creaking noises now and then, as animals and nocturnal lizards moved along their devious ways. It was a better place than he had hoped to find, hours ago, when this nightmare began.

  He tried to think of anything he might have overlooked. He had disarmed Willie Wells once before, on the hillside above the walauwa near Kandy. Wells would not be taken by surprise that way again.

  “Sam?”

  “Try to sleep.”

  “I cannot. I don’t want to.”

  She moved to the burrow entrance and sat beside him. He felt her shiver suddenly and knew she was thinking of that strange malignancy in his tumble-down palace up on the knoll, half a mile away. He kept listening to the sounds of mice and snakes in the dead tangled brush of the storm-tossed barricade over his head. He watched the stream, running silver in the shafts of moonlight that pierced the overhead leaves. Wells had to come up that natural tunnel of foliage to get at him. He had the knife. Wells would have to get quite close, before he could use the rifle. Should he sit it out here for the next day and night? By then, the poison in Wells—if, indeed, there was poison in the man, and he saw no reason to doubt Dr. Sinn’s evil humor—would be peaking toward its lethal level. The man would be desperate. He would come in a rush, firing again and again, blindly. But in this cul-de-sac, such a rush might succeed.

  “Sam?”

  “It’s all right. We’re safe, for now.”

  “The night seems endless.”

  “It’s half over.”

  “Sam, I’m sorry. About George, about the way I turned on you. About everything.” She paused. “No, not everything. I think of Negombo and our lovely nights together with—with much warmth.”

  “I do too.”

  She kept her voice to the lowest whisper, and because of this, she had to lean close to him, her weight against his arm, her breath moving against his cheek and ear. He put his arm around her and held her closer. She moved willingly into his embrace. He kissed her briefly, then again, longer this time. Overhead, in the thick tumbled brush, the mice rustled and paced, hunted and escaped their hunters. They came together suddenly, with a desperate, quick passion that neither could deny. Her breasts were warm, firm, and eager under his touch. He pushed her back gently on the old blanket they had salvaged. Her body was receptive to him, as if anxious to make amends. She clung to him in despair that yielded to a low, stifled moan; even in their lovemaking, she did not forget the need for silence. It was as if she needed to make up for something by begging for his love, pleading for him to possess her.

  Some of it was her desperation, her clinging to' life, a denial of all that Mouquerana Sinn had proposed. For himself, he did not think; about it. Durell accepted her love and gave his, and when it was over, he kissed her gently, touched her closed eyes with his fingertips, and sat up to face the entrance to their burrow again.

  There came a snapping, cracking sound, almost like a pistol shot, as the farthest of his traps suddenly went off.

  twenty-two

  He had not really expected it.

  He slid out of the burrow and stood up, his shadow lost among the shadows of the brush barrier above and on either side of him. The little stream trickled toward the mangroves, tunneling through the black leaves and stubborn vines. Slowly, softly, he took the knife from his belt and held it ready in his hand. He waited for the second trap to go off. Nothing happened. The last device, the sharpened stake javelins poised and tied by the old cord age, was untouched. He listened. He heard nothing. Even the creatures of the swamp and brush had gone silent. Time stretched out into the singing eternity. He heard his pulse in his ear and drew a long, slow and silent breath to check it. Someone should have been screaming by now, he thought. No matter how good Wells was, some sound would have come from his throat, some instinctive exclamation of surprise, if he’d suddenly been yanked up ii that net, jolting and rocking among the treetops, tangled like a fish in the fisherman’s snare.

  But he heard nothing.

  Perhaps it was an animal, then. But there were no animals large enough on Sinn’s island to trip the trigger of his trap. A large dog, perhaps. But he hadn’t seen any dogs on the island, either.

  It had to be a man.

  Question. Was the man dead? Had his neck accidentally been broken? Or was he so good, so professional, that even in the surprise of the trap, he had maintained his silence?

  He listened.

  Nothing.

  “Sam?”

  Aspara’s whisper was just a breath behind him.

  “Go back.” He did not turn his head to look at her. “Stay in the burrow. You’ll be safe. I’ll return soon.”

  “No, Sam, don’t go—”

  “I have to.”

  His progress was measured in inches at first. Every twig presented a potentially lethal hazard. He moved to the left along the front of the twelve-foot-high pile of dry tangled brush, and when at last he found himself far enough away from the tunneled banks of the little stream, he moved forward down the slight slope, heading toward the sea. He did not know how long he took to reach the mangroves and ease himself forward, contorting his body to avoid low, gnarled limbs, probing for a foothold on the knobby roots. Now and then he stopped to listen, but there still was not the slightest sound from the snare. When he had gone fifty laborious paces, he paused and heard the purl and lap of the moonlit sea among the mangrove roots. From a great distance came the slightest hint of wood-smoke, probably from the fires lit at the wharf where the junk was tied up. Then through the pattern of black and silver shadows, he saw something that did not fit the design at all.

  He stood there motionless, taking several minutes to identify the object. It was only twenty feet away, hauled up on the farthest reach of the mangroves, an artificial shape, ovoid, painted a dull yellow. He worked his way forward again, watching the object. Now and then he paused to listen again. Nothing. The mangroves near the shore were stunted, some of them damaged and bent into strange shapes by the monsoons that had piled up the brush barrier inland. No one could have climbed a tree, Wells couldn’t be hiding up there, waiting for him with the rifle.

  He came closer to the open water and at last identified the thing that didn’t belong here.

  A life raft.

  He seemed to hear the low, rumbling thunder of a jet, somewhere far back in his memory. And the distant, uncertain flapping sound of an airborne chopper. Imagination? He remembered his cell, recalled standing on the bench, studying the island, when he had seen a glint of something high in the sky to the east. He looked at the life raft again. It was hardly big enough for two men. Almost a child’s size. Had it been here before, and had he somehow missed spotting it? He didn’t think so. It was a new arrival on Dr. Sinn’s island. One man? Two at the most. Why? From where?

  He did not dare go nearer to it, until he checked the snare. He was deeply puzzled as he worked his way ca
refully back up the little stream toward the trap. Perhaps he was walking into a trap himself. He felt the presence of someone else here in the black tangle of mangroves. He ducked low under a vine covered with the pale stars of wild, night-blooming orchids, took another step upstream. He was near the pit now. He had heard it spring, heard the snap of the ropes, the fall of the net, the upward surge of the saplings swinging the bag high among the trees with its catch. He stopped. He went on again.

  He finally reached the place and looked up.

  The bag was full.

  The net hung about ten feet above the pit in which he had pinned it, and the sapling he had used as a spring pole was bent perilously tight. A foot, a leg dangled through the net openings. He stood in the shadows, watching. He could not see Wells’ rifle. Had the man held on to it? Was he able to aim it, fire it, even if he was tangled in the bag? Or had he dropped it in his surprise? Durell studied the

  black shapes on the mucky ground. He saw nothing that even resembled Wells’ rifle. More, he noticed something else. The leg that dangled through the net, showing a space between boot and slacks, was white.

  Not black.

  Not Willie Wells.

  Durell said softly, “Yo.”

  “Samuel?”

  “I don’t believe it,” Durell said.

  “Did you set up this damned thing?”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  “Is someone looking for you?”

  “Yes. Your hit man. Willie Wells.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “You bet. Willie Wells. He’s pretty good. You fired me and sent him after me. And he’s somewhere nearby.”

  The man in the bag said, “Listen to me. Listen, Samuel. I came myself, personally, because I realized it was all a terrible mistake.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “Jet. Chopper. You saw me?”

  “Are you alone?”

  “I thought I owed it to you to straighten this out personally.”

  Durell said, “I still can’t believe it.”

  “Get me out of this damned thing, Samuel.”

  “To hell with you,” Durell said.

  “Samuel, I know you must entertain some very hard feelings over what has happened, but you obviously have managed to survive so far.” The voice in the net paused. “Major H. K. D. Dhapura-—the man we thought belonged to us at the Royal Lanka Hotel, but we now know is from the Ceylon Security Police—he traced you and your party to Jaffna. And checked out the junk. We flew a pattern over the Andaman Islands and spotted it here. Mr. Dhapura couldn’t come with us—no jurisdiction over the Andamans—”

  “Shut up,” Durell said.

  “What?”

  “You talk too much. Didn’t you hear me? Your Willie Wells is somewhere around here, trying to kill me.”

  “That’s all right. I shall explain it all to him. I’ll explain the mistake I made—”

  “You can’t, now. It’s too late. He has to kill me, or he’ll die himself. He has only thirty-six hours now.”

  “Samuel, cut me down. Let me help you.”

  Some of the long-suppressed rage in Durell came out in his voice. “General McFee, you can swing there until hell freezes over. Now shut up.”

  Maybe he should have expected it, Durell told himself. General Dickinson McFee, top man of K Section, the gray presence himself, the man who reported in his sober, objective way to nothing less than Joint Chiefs and Sugar Cube—the White House. The man who issued assignments to field agents, who assessed and evaluated the results of Synthesis and Analysis—yes, he’d come himself. His sudden surge of anger faded. He wanted to laugh at the image of that impeccable little man, with his deadly, gimmick-loaded blackthorn stick, squashed into a humiliated ball, entangled in a net in a tree, on a nameless, miserable stinking little islet in the Andaman Ocean.

  He stepped back into the shadows, away from the pit and the sprung snare. Let him hang there for a while, he thought. He had worked for McFee for more years than he cared to remember, learning the business, following orders, playing tag with death and deceit, traveling the world around, probing into all the deadly corners of the earth, its cities and its jungles, to get what the little man wanted. He had never refused an assignment, and he could not remember when Dickinson McFee had ever given him any thanks. He never expected any thanks for the work he did, but on the other hand, he had never expected the sort of swift judgment and betrayal he had suffered in the last few days. The rules of the business were harsh and unforgiving; he had always known that. Yet he had never anticipated the day when McFee would send a killer after him on the basis of forged evidence. He had kept his anger and his sense of outrage under control until now. Well, the old man had gotten himself into a pickle of his own making. Let him sweat it out up there. At least for a few more minutes.

  He halted again near the second trap he had built. He had expected Wells to be on the lookout for the first snare. And he had hoped that Wells, having found it, would assume there were no others and fall into the second trap. The pit and the taut net, knotted to other bent saplings, was still intact. Beyond were the sharpened javelins, the third and last trap, close to the entrance of the burrow under the piled brush where he had left Aspara.

  He smelled smoke again and lifted his head suddenly. The sharp, acrid scent was stronger than before. He thought he heard a sudden crackling ahead of him, near the burrow. Alarm made his nerves jump. For a moment, there was nothing to be seen. The high barrier of storm-tossed brush made a dark wall ahead. The stream was to the right, running under the living foliage there. Then a vagrant shift of air, too light to be called a breeze, brought the smoke straight at him, and at the same moment he saw the first avid, flickering tongue of fire.

  Wells had set the brush barrier aflame.

  Dismay and anger kept him motionless for a moment. Aspara was there. If she stayed in the burrow under that huge mass of tinder-dry brush, she would be burned alive. The entire area for fifty feet on either side was utterly explosive. He cursed, grudgingly admitted that Willie Wells had out-flanked him. Even as he halted, he saw another tongue of flame suddenly leap high, jumping to the skeletal arms of a long-dead tree. The fire raced along the smaller branches, picked up new fuel from the storm-wracked wood there. Suddenly the whole quality of the night was changed. Where there had been patterns of ebony and silver, there was now a hellish red glow everywhere, making the shadows shift and jump and change shapes from second to second.

  He moved to the right. He thought he heard McFee, in the net high among the trees behind him, shouting. He paid no attention. The crackling of the fire was rapidly increasing to a wild roar. No need for silence now.

  “Aspara!”

  He reached the edge of the little stream and smashed barefooted through the thick brush, hacking at a stubborn vine that lashed itself around his shoulders and chest. The knife was still quite sharp.

  “Aspara!”

  He could not see her. Where was Wells? He must have posted himself somewhere above, where he could see the burrow opening. He had to be waiting somewhere, rifle ready, waiting for them both to be smoked out of the burrow under the huge pile of brush. Both he thought. Wells did not know he had come out of there. Durell checked himself. The red glare of the fire grew more intense, erasing the dark shelter of the night. It made the brush and mangroves waver in an insane pattern of black and red He coughed as a downdraft of the smoke reached him. Where in hell was the man? He tried to put himself into Wells’ mind as he searched the area. Everything was moving and blowing, changing shape and pattern in the growing red light. The flames had started off to the right, across the little stream. That was where the fire now leaped highest. He saw the dark shapes of living trees beyond the brush barrier. Up there. Somewhere up there. Where he could have a clear view of the burrow opening when the fire burned off more of the brush. Was Aspara asleep Had she yielded to exhaustion so that even this inferno couldn’t wake her? Durell jumped the stream and broke through the
tangle of vines. He headed for the far right end of the brush piles. Shapes and patterns danced a around him like insane, leaping demons straight from hell. There, he thought. But the shape of a man became only tangled, vine-covered tree, an illusion in the red and black glare.

  “Durell!”

  He checked himself. The sound of his name was strong and urgent. Triumphant. It came from above and a little behind him. He whirled, searching the tangle of vine grown trees overhead. Wells was there, a dark pattern of leaning shoulder, alert round head bent forward, straddling a solid limb while he stared at the head of the stream where the burrow now showed as a dark hole in the brush barrier. Durell weighed the knife in his hand and swore again. No sign of Aspara yet. Wells might shoot at the first movement down there, without waiting to identify his target. He saw the rifle, held steadily, ready, the dark hand on the trigger, the round head bent to look through the sights.

  Wells still thought he was in the burrow. His back was to Durell as he watched the dark little entrance. Durell measured the distance. Fifteen feet up, no, less than that. Make it twelve. The black man straddled the limb with his legs dangling down. About twenty feet from where Durell stood. He tensed himself, gathered his muscles, and went forward in a rush. Wells heard his approach. The round head turned, the rifle started to come up, the eyes widened, glinted white in the fire glare. Durell jumped. He reached high for the dangling leg, grabbed at Wells’ ankle, and pulled at it as he came down. There came an involuntary shout from the other man as he felt himself yanked sidewise from his perch. His heavy, powerful body tumbled down, dragged by Durell’s grip on his leg. Durell thought his shoulder was yanked from its socket by the effort. He did not let go. He came down hard, his fingers slipping, his arms wrenched painfully. Wells hit the ground with a heavy thud. His rifle went flying to one side. He rolled, shouted again, tried to pull his leg free of Durell’s grip. Durell was flat on his stomach, struggling to hold the man from pulling away. The rifle was off to the left. Wells heaved himself that way, his arm far outstretched. His fingers clawed for the weapon. Durell had his knife in his left hand. He did not want to use it. He pulled himself forward, grabbed at Wells’ arm, shifted his grip again, and slammed the knife into the soft, mucky earth half an inch in front of Wells’ grasping fingers.