Assignment Nuclear Nude

by Edward S. Aarons

  Mr. Han put his arms on the table and whispered, "One thing. We can come to an arrangement. A deal. The other members of our kongsi —our merchant group—are equally concerned. We all want to know what happened to our daughters, and if they are safe. We fear for them, whatever you may think of us. Where is Pan?"

  "She's quite well, with Anna-Lise and Linda Riddle."

  "Where?"

  Durell was pleased. "They're all safe," he insisted.

  "I ordered the city searched for them. But they have vanished. You are so very clever and dangerous, Mr. Durell. Is it a form of blackmail?"

  "You won't see Pan again until I've finally settled with the Hung woman."

  "So." Han seemed curiously pleased. "Now we do understand each other a little better. But I beg of you, take care of Pan. I am not a heartless man. She is my most cherished possession, even though at the moment she has left me to follow an ideal, much as a Uttle child chases a butterfly."

  "She could do worse," Durell said.

  He had learned some of what he needed to know from old Mr. Han. The Chinese gentleman had spoken quietly, but fear wove a dark pattern through his words. Durell told himself not to be infected by the old man's suppressed terror of the Hung woman. She had obviously infiltrated the Five Rubies until Han himself didn't know which of the members he could trust. Her web was like that of a female spider, and she sat in the center of it, invulnerable to attack, watching, pouncing, weaving bonds of greater and greater power day by day. The Singapore poUce and the intelligence systems on the island repubHc were unable to touch her. She had broken none of the local laws, Han said quietly. It was suspected that she operated and recruited a vast espionage web all through Southeast Asia, relaying information to Peking, organizing subversive groups to wait patiently for the right time to strike. Mr. Han spoke her name with difficulty, as though it were acid in his mouth.

  "An old man like myself," he said softly, "grows lonely with the burden of his years. She flattered me, and managed to learn many of my secrets. If she learns that I have spoken this way to you, she will be capable of any vengeance toward me."

  "Tell me, is she an art collector, like the rest of you men?"

  "Yes, she has one of the finest in Asia. Everything. Porcelains, bronzes, oils. Not restricted merely to Eastern art. There is a regular flow from her agents in Western Europe and the States; her purchases are many, almost limitless, and money seems to be no object, as long as her acquisitive greed is satisfied," Han murmured.

  "Who suggested that the artist Harry, back in Key West, transcribe Deakin's formula to canvas and then paint over it for shipment?"

  "I do not know."

  "Do you think Harry was bought by Madame Hung's agents, then?"

  "It is possible. I had not thought of it." Han touched his thin gray beard. "I see what you mean, of course. Her espionage data could be reaching her in the form of the art objects she acquires and has shipped here to Singapore."

  "It figures," Durell said.

  "And this painting, the 'Nuclear Nude,' would then travel to Madame Hung along her routes, which are already well established?"

  "I think so. Can she get the painting when it arrives?" Durell asked quietly.

  "I do not know. We shall try to stop her, of course."

  "To whom did Harry actually sell the painting?"

  Mr. Han shifted slightly. He smiled. "To me."

  "Without the knowledge of your partners?"

  "I am afraid so. You see, I ^m a dishonest man," Han said blandly. "The others felt they needed the capital to exploit further research on neutrinos. I did not feel the lack of money in that way. Of them all, I confess I am the wealthiest. And I have access to many other men whose interests have never been recorded or suspected, here in Asia."

  "So you double-crossed them?"

  "I tried. I think Von Golz had plans to do the same to me. I was merely quicker, that is all." Han sighed. "But everything has gone wrong. The painting was consigned to me, out of Havana. It reached Cuba safely, via the fishing boat that took it there from Key West. This has been verified. And it was flown out of there on the first leg, via the Azores, then Casablanca, then Cairo, only a few hours ago. Or so I have been informed by my agents."

  "Red Rubies?"

  "Not precisely."

  "Chinese agents?"

  "One uses the tools at hand," Han nodded.

  "When and where will it come to Singapore?"

  "This I will not tell you. No threat on your part can make me reveal this, I assure you."

  Durell believed him. "But your agents may really be working for Madame Hung."

  Han nodded quietly. His eyes were bleak and opaque. "I am aware of her infiltration in the Five Rubies. I have taken countersteps. But if I fail, I am a dead man. We all are."

  10

  Fifteen minutes later, Durell telephoned the Halsey Clinic and inquired about Levy Liscomb. Levy was resting quietly. He had passed the crisis and the medical staff was optimistic. Durell hung up and walked back through the early-morning streets to Li Yon's tenement in the Chinese quarter. It would soon be dawn. His eyes felt gritty from the lack of sleep. His gun had been returned to him, and no further attempt had been made by Mr. Han to hold him at the Five Ruby lodge.

  He was careful making his way back to Li Yon's. For a time, he was shadowed and watched, and he decided it marked the extent of Han's concern for his daughter. The wash-amah's flat in teeming Chinatown might or might not remain a safe house for long. The girls, unless they kept indoors and out of sight, were conspicuous, inevitably; and Deakin, stubbornly standing by, stood out Hke the proverbial sore thumb, with his straw hair and freckled face, as American as apple pie in the midst of Singapore's Oriental quarter. Han's shadows would find them all, sooner or later. Or Madame Hung's subverted Triad gangsters would surely root them out. It was only a matter of time.

  He used every trick of the business to shake off Han's shadows, who slid along in his footsteps. From the warehouse, Durell walked the early-dawn streets for some miles, following the waterfront, then crossed the great padang with its silent government buildings looming above the palms. He used the darkness of alleys then, but the shadows that followed him persisted. Once he thought he had shaken them, but two men at a far corner dissolved into doorways as he approached. He had to wait, finally, until day came, and the streets filled with noisy traffic and crowds, before he could safely lose himself and make his way to Li Yon's.

  The old wash-amah was the only one awake in the apartment. Durell glanced into the room where the three girls slept on floor mats. They were all there. Their young and earnest faces looked vulnerable in the morning light. Smells of cooking, the squawk and blare of radios in the adjacent tenements, shouts and the clash of gongs, came dimly into Li Yon's rooms. Li Yon padded silently after him as he checked on young Deakin. Denis was asleep, too.

  Li Yon grumbled, "So, Mr. Durell, you come back alive? You must have powerful magic, hey?"

  "Has anyone else come here?" Durell asked, turning to consider her neat gray bun.

  Li Yon hawked and spat lustily. "You look tired, sailor-man. You sleep a time. I watch. Never mind, you be safe here."

  "This place is going to be searched some time today,"

  Durell said. He watched her carefully. "What can you do to hide your guests?"

  Li Yon wore a freshly starched jacket, a pair of limp, floppy black trousers, soft sandals, and a five-and-ten comb in her skinned-back hair. Her wrinkled face grinned. "I could put the girls in pleasure house? They be safe there. I give my word."

  "No. Every house will be visited."

  "I don't like that. I fear."

  "I fear, too."

  "When these bad people come?"

  "This morning, I think. They will search everywhere. They won't pass anything up."

  "Then all must go into street, in crowds, hey?" Li Yon frowned earnestly, then showed her gold teeth in a bright smile. "Today is big celebration. Many Chinese schoolgirls march.
Government permits this, if they behave. No trouble. Many girls march in streets. I get uniforms, cut their hair, fix faces. They be lost like three peas in bushel basket, you bet. Very safe."

  "That sounds good."

  "But young man with glasses? Deakin? Big, big problem. How to hide him?"

  "I'll take care of that," Durell said. "Li Yon, do you know how to get out to the Seven Happy Isles?"

  The Chinese woman bristled. "I respectable womans! Hear much bad things about that place! Very evil peoples there. Why for you want to go there?"

  "Maybe I'm evil, too," Durell said.

  She looked at him with shrewd almond eyes and then shook her head violently. "No, you good mans, I think. I change my mind about you. Li Yon can tell. You take good care my Httle darling Pan."

  "I'm trying to do just that. So help me get to the Seven Isles, Li Yon."

  "Bad place. No help."

  "What's so bad about it?"

  "Bad peoples go there, do bad things, think much pleasure, but sick, truly. Evil womens, singsong girls, gambling. Too much, too much." Li Yon shuddered innocently. "You go ask my cousin, fourth cousin, in true, no good child, he runs water taxi to that bad place. So I send you, Mr. Sam. His name Charlie. Not really Charlie, but that good enough, you have barbaric ear. Pay no more than five Singapore dollar—out and back, see?"

  Li Yon told him when and where to find her fourth cousin. She squinted her eyes at him, cocking her head back to match his height. "Why you go there? How you hear of this?"

  "I've heard of the Isles from a friend. You say a bad woman runs this pleasure place." Durell paused. "Do you know if her name is Hung?"

  "I know nothing. Just bad place. You too nice mans to go there."

  "All right. Thank you, Li Yon."

  Satisfied, Durell walked along the outer balcony above the courtyard teeming with children, old men in the sun, and hurrying women. He roused Denis and sent him off to the Halsey Clinic to stay with Levy Liscomb. "Don't ask questions. Just go," he told the young man.

  Deakin stood studious and stubborn. "I don't want to leave Linda."

  "The only safe place for her today is out in the crowds— and you can't march with a thousand schoolgirls. Now do as I say."

  When Deakin was gone, Durell set Li Yon to watch, chose a straw mat, dropped the blinds in the back room, and stretched out to sleep

  The boatman, Charlie, had the face and body of a child and the eyes of a wise old man who had seen most of the wickedness of the world and found it amusing. He wore a floppy flowered shirt, faded dungarees, tennis shoes broken open at the toes, and a conical hat of woven straw. His boat was a small sampan powered by an outboard motor, and it was tied up amidst a whole fleet of similar water taxis not far from the P & O steamer docks. Uniformed policemen strolled the wharves, but none gave Durell, in his disreputable merchant sailor's outfit, more than a second glance.

  The day was almost done. He had slept, eaten rice and pork provided by Li Yon, and then he slipped out into the crowded streets when a commotion in the adjacent tenements warned him that the expected search of this rabbit-warren had begun. By chance, he saw the girls swinging along diligently in long, grim files of uniformed Chinese Red Guard students; their faces, made up and darkened by Li Yon's art, were as grimly dedicated as those of their companions. He suspected, however, that they were enjoying themselves.

  He had called the clinic, too, to check on Levy Lis-comb. Denis Deakin was there, asleep, when he spoke to the convalescent K Section man.

  "I'm fine, Cajun," Levy growled. "You checked out the dope on the Seven Isles I sent you?"

  "Am about to do that."

  "No guarantee it's Madame Hung's headquarters. But I'd like to go with you."

  "Not in your condition. You couldn't get out of bed," Durell said "And I don't want company, anyway. I'm just going to scout around out there."

  "I'm not so sure you ought to do it, Cajun." Levy sounded genuinely worried. He coughed and then cursed as it kicked up pain in him. "I wish you'd keep away until there's time to set up a real probe."

  "No time for that. Levy."

  "But if Madame Hung is out there, she'll eat you up aUve, boy!"

  "We'll see about that."

  "I can make arrangements with the local M-six people. They can handle it. Drop the Hung thing. When the plane comes in with the painting, we'll grab it easily. The field can be closed, the locals will impound the plane's cargo, and we'll pick out what we want. Simple enough?"

  "Simple, if anyone can be trusted. But it won't be that easy, Levy. It's too big for that."

  "Cajun, don't go to the Seven Isles-"

  "I'li call you tomorrow," Durell said, and hung up.

  Now a pale ribbon of lime green light hung over the western horizon of the sea as Durell stepped into Charlie's water taxi. The harbor was busy as scores of other public sampans went back and forth toward the chain of islands to the south. It was the normal commuter traffic of workmen and businessmen who lived off the main island of Singapore's tiny republic and traveled by water daily to and from their work.

  "You know where to go?" Durell asked the boatman.

  "Li Yon told me, chum." Charlie chewed with small, vigorous jaws. "You looking for entertainment of special variety? Man, Seven Isles have everything. You got money? You need!" Charlie's eyes were shrewd. "Pay me return fare in advance. Some people stay long-long more than expect. Some people stay so long-long, they never come back, hey? But Charlie has wife and six childrens to support. Need my night's wages for sure, hey?"

  Durell peeled off several bills from the expense funds granted him out of K Section's green cash. Charlie's eyes widened momentarily. "You flash too much around, chum, you get lot of attention."

  "That's what I want."

  "But maybe it be the wrong kind. Terrible greedy peoples in the world."

  "Let's shove off, Charlie."

  He did not feel at all as calm and certain as he pretended to the boatman. His sleep that afternoon had been shot through with nightmare visions of Madame Hung. It could weU be that she expected just this move from him. He did not underestimate this half-mythical woman he had encountered only once before in all his years in the business. He had known at first hand her capacity for infinitely refined cruelty, and he still bore the scars of her previous vicious attentions. Durell did not deny his fear.

  He wished he had never heard of Riddle, or gotten involved in this job that held within it the seeds of disaster for himself. He wished he were anywhere else in the world but this place, pitting himself against Hung and her organization. But even if he'd had a squad of top K Section men, he reflected, he would feel no safer. He could rely only on himself and his instincts.

  His instinct suddenly warned him now. He was not alone aboard the powered sampan with the little boatman. He thought Charlie looked nervous as they glided out into the channel away from the other water taxis. The sea was calm and dark. Lights twinkled in the buildings of Singapore's waterfront, astern. He watched the tiny opening of the forward cabin of the sampan.

  "Tell her to come out on deck," he said quietly.

  "Sir?" Charlie's face was innocent.

  "Get that girl out of the cabin forward!"

  There was a little reed cubby, not much larger than a doghouse, on the high prow of the sampan. Durell drew his gun. He looked tall and ominous in the shifting shadows on the moving boat. Phosphorescence glowed in their bubbling wake. Charlie clung to the tiller and was silent, eyes fixed on Durell's gun.

  "Wait," came a muffled voice from the cubby.

  He expected Linda, somehow, but it was not Riddle's daughter, after all. It was Anna-Lise von Golz. She came out in a crouch, her heavy wheat-colored hair swinging Uke a small curtain before her face. She wore a hip-length flowered coat and under that, a fragmentary swimsuit. In the irregular reflections that came off the harbor water, her pale eyes were angry, her rich mouth set in a rebellious line. In the little sampan, she looked taller than usual, her body prou
d and defiant as she straightened to face him.

  "How did you know I was in there?" she asked in her German accent.

  "The light happened to strike your bare foot and reflected."

  "I could have been Charlie's woman."

  "Not with those feet." He watched her generous mouth signal her anger. "How did you get away from your friends in the march?"

  "It was easy." She tossed her head; her hair swung. "I just told Linda I was tired. Then I bought the swimsuit and this coat and walked down here."

  "That was dangerous. You're being looked for."

  "Not by myself," she countered. "They're looking for three girls, not just one."

  "How did you know I was taking this ride with Charlie?"

  "Must you point that gun at me?"

  "Until you give me a good reason not to. Answer me."

  "Would you shoot me if I refuse?"

  "Yes," he said.

  "You are a cruel and insulting man."

  "How did you know I was coming here?" he repeated.

  "I understand Chinese. I didn't tell anybody I did. Why should I?" She shrugged. "Let people think you're beautiful and dumb, and you can have a ball making monkeys of them." She laughed. "I just heard Li Yon talking, and understood her, and put two and two together. I didn't tell the others."

  "And why did you come?"

  "I wanted to speak to you alone. I'm willing to offer you—whatever you want—^just to listen to me." Her voice grew deeper and heavier, marked by her Teutonic accent. Tall and full-breasted, she offered an arrogant challenge to Durell. Suddenly it seemed to him that she was markedly older and more mature than her companions; her eyes measured him with a knowledge that Linda or Pan would never consider.

  "Come here," he said.

  The sampan had left the waterfront traffic far behind. Ahead, a few lights from the islands offshore glimmered like stars on the horizon. The sky was dark. Night had completely fallen. Charlie struck a match for a kerosene lamp atop a bamboo pole, but Durell checked him and sent him back to the tiller astern. Anna-Lise totally ignored the presence of the boatman. It was as if Charlie did not exist. The wind on the sea was warm, and she shrugged out of her embroidered hip-length coat. Her swimsuit might just as well not have existed, either.