"Truly, it is the way the world goes. Your own motives are not above reaching an honorable arrangement "
"With you? No."
The stout German waved helplessly. There were dark sweatstains under his arms. "All will be lost, when— when ?"
"When thieves fall out?" Durell asked, imsmiling.
"You are amused? You have the map now. You seem to have the loyalty of these—these gangsters. But do you think you will ever get out of this outlandish jungle aUve?"
"I aim to." Durell looked at the tall Anna-Lise and remembered her full Valkyrie's body on the sampan, offered to him without inhibition. He felt a pang of regret.
The blonde smiled at him coldly. "Hadn't you better join Denis and Linda?" Durell suggested. "You can cook up your last plans with them."
She remembered the sampan, too. It was in her eyes. "You are a heartless man," she said. "I hope you die today."
Mr. Han rode in the- scout car with Durell. He was nervous, and spoke of his daughter. He felt he was deserting Pan while she was in danger in the hands of Madame Hung.
"I think we'll see her soon," Durell said calmly.
"Why do you expect that, sir?"
"Young people can be remarkably stubborn. They don't give up easily."
The old man looked thoughtful. "Yes, it is this modern world. Children rebel against authority. Perhaps it was always so, but everything moves faster, too fast for my tired eyes to see anything but confusion. And confusion is the father of foolish fears."
Durell glanced at Red Rod, who drove the heavy command car. He had never known the cadaverous Chinese by any other name. The gaunt face told him nothing. But plainly, after this day, Mr. Han would no longer control the myriad tentacles of power embodied in the Five Rubies. The Triads would despise him for his failure to prevent the desertions induced by Madame Hung. Durell wondered if Han was aware of this; but he could tell nothing from the old man's face, either.
They headed north by devious jungle trails, some of them so overgrown that the Triads had to get out and hack away the vines in their path. There had been much rain, confirming the report from Kuala Lumpur, and now and then they splashed and fought through bogs where the mosquitoes whined about them in voracious clouds, where the sun could not penetrate the leafy overhead, and where it seemed they were totally lost in a primeval jungle of a tropical world long past.
Durell held the compass, and occasionally guided Red Rod when they came to a fork in the trail. Progress was slow. He was aware of precious hours passing, and the heat mounted until the men were somnolent and exhausted.
Von Golz and Riddle sat in the middle row of seats in the scout car. Behind them were crowded three Triads, armed with their submachine guns. In the jeeps behind them were the other men, with Deakin, Linda, and Anna-Lise grouped immediately behind the scout car. Now and then Durell turned to catch them in animated conversation, their heads close together.
At noon, he estimated they had gone only halfway to Duphonong, according to Han's chart. Several times they skirted working plantations or small villages hacked out of the jungle. Twice they forded small streams whose swollen waters attested to the recent jungle storm. There were windfalls where the men had to haul away trees that blocked their way. And once they came to a mile-long valley devoted to rice paddies, where Malay women worked knee-deep in the water, their colorful skirts tucked up between their knees and knotted over their bellies, making them all look pregnant. The brown faces stared at them from under wide conical straw hats. Water buffalo snorted uneasily at the groaning engines of the little convoy.
The men hid their weapons when they passed such settlements, but it was plain that the villagers knew who and what they were. Their faces became closed and hostile; the liquid brown eyes, ordinarily friendly and laughing, were blank.
"It is an old trail we follow," Red Rod said, "when the Communists guerrillas terrorized the plantations here. Of course, the Singapore miUtary ran sweeps through this country, but no one ever knew when there would be an ambush. In those days, every man walked about with a gun in his hand, always." The Chinese paused. "I have not been here since you and I fought in this place, many years ago, Durell. It is changed."
Duphonong lay in a valley between ranges of hills that ran north and south. There was a small river, rice paddies, a wide and flowered kampong, a narrow airstrip with a tin-roofed shack, and the inevitable Coca-Cola signs on rusting metal. A Buddhist temple thrust its tower against a metallic noon sky. The river had overflowed its dikes and washed into the rice fields.
The main street of the town, a dusty extension of the road that came through, was empty.
Not a human being was in sight. Not a water buffalo, not a child, not a dog. There was no sound except the distant chittering and clucking and rustling of the jungle trail they had just left.
Duphonong looked as if it had just died.
19
The brakes of the command car squealed gently as Red Rod brought them to a halt. The other jeeps parked behind them on the grassy edge of the road. A hot wind blew dust devils between the wooden houses with their thatched roofs and long eaves that looked like the prows of ships. Under a banyan tree on the kampong, there was a food shack, and wisps of steam came from the rice kettles and bowls on the counter. The wind made the Coca-Cola sign creak dismally.
"We are too late," Red Rod whispered. His sunken eyes glittered, and he put on sunglasses against the open glare. "The others have come before us. See the tire tracks?"
"I see them," Durell said. "I also see that the food stand was busy only minutes ago. We're not far behind."
"Yes, but which is the true way to go?"
"Let's try the airstrip."
"I think the temple would be best," said Red Rod. "I wonder if the caves are still used up there?" He pointed to the left, where a saddle slot in the high, green hills made a natural route for any planes landing here beside the rice paddies. "The Communists used the caves, you remember, when they terrorized the countryside here. Here, you need sunglasses, too, Durell."
Durell took the pair that Red Rod handed him. He still couldn't see any caves up there in the jungled cleft between the hills. But through the green lenses he saw artificially straight lines cut into the mountainside, and he pointed them out. "What's all that?"
"An old pagoda ruin."
"All right. Go on, slowly." Durell kept his Uzi on his lap, his finger on the trigger.
If there had been any law in Duphonong, it had had the good sense to melt into the jungle when the other Triads approached. The command car's engine sounded abnormally loud when Red Rod started it. Behind them, the other jeeps jolted down the dusty main street. Mr. Han stirred, as if he were about to speak; but he tugged at his thin beard and was silent.
Von Golz, however, broke the silence with a harsh curse. "Are you mad? It is a trap! We ride as if on parade "
"Shut up," Durell said.
Riddle spoke up. His cropped head turned from left to right, surveying the empty shops of the town. "Golzie is right, you know. Maybe we ought to give it up." »
"That doesn't sound like you."
"A smart man knows when he's in too deep, or when he's in unfamiliar and enemy territory."
"That's where we are, all right. Now keep quiet."
Red Rod stopped the car in front of the gleaming Buddhist temple off the kampong. The broad steps were worn and old, and the tinkle of wind bells came from somewhere. Durell got out, cradling the Uzi at the ready. Red Rod took the car keys with him before joining him at the temple door. The Chinese was almost seven feet tall, and he cast a long shadow in step-pattern as they paused before the open doors. Durell smelled incense and paused to adjust to the gilded gloom inside. The wind bells suddenly clashed and he raised the Uzi with a jerk. Then he saw the priest.
The priest was a stout man in the usual saffron robe, moon-faced, with a shaven head. He came forward in silence, ignoring their weapons, and his almond eyes shifted from the Chinese to Durell, and
he spoke in passable nglish.
"There is no one here, sirs, but myself."
"Why has everyone gone away?"
"Because they are afraid, sir, when the others come, your companions. Some of us remember the bad days, the old days, so the villagers fled."
"Where?"
The priest shrugged. "Into the paddies, the jungle."
"What happened here?" Red Rod asked hollowly.
"Nothing, sir. I recognize you. Your men came and asked questions, rather brutally, of the mayor and some others, about a plane crash, which we had heard about. We know you and fear your kind, sir. So the people ran away."
"When did the other men come through?"
Again a shrug of saffron shoulders. The Buddhist was not afraid. "Three, four hours ago, perhaps earlier."
"Which way did they go?"
"North, where they were told the plane had crashed. They were told the truth. Why not? If we lied, they would come back and kill us and bum the village. It was not of importance to us, so we did not lie."
"Did they say when they were coming back?"
"I have been praying that no one in Duphonong will see them again. Do you intend to kill me, sirs?"
"We're not with them," Red Rod said curtly. "We will do no harm. If you remember me, from the old days and bad days, then you will remember that those I fought were your enemies."
"But that was before you lost your ideals and your sense of God and became a criminal," said the priest calmly. "I am ready to die, if you insist on eliminating; me.
"You seem anxious for it," Red Rod whispered. The bloody lights in his cavernous eyes brightened, and he lifted his gun restlessly. "Durell, show him your map. Priest, where did the plane crash?"
The Buddhist's ifingers roved over the folds of paper and picked the same coordinates that Mr. Han had indicated. "There, sir. The people in the plane were killed, we heard. We had a violent storm then. It is a desolate area, but your friends will have reached the place by now. They will be returning here. There is no other way south. That is why the villagers are still hiding."
Durell nodded. "All right. Let's go." ;
The airstrip was small and dilapidated, baking and shimmering in the heat and dust. The wind sock lifted and a fell in the gusts of hot wind. Durell wondered if they were : not too late after all. The priest's words might not be I counted on. He got out of the command car in front of the tin-roofed operations shack. To the left was a canal that stretched north to the saddle in the hills. On either hand were the rice paddies, empty of the usual bent figures of peasants. The door to the operations shack was open.
Tied down in front of a hangar shed was a Piper Comanche four-seater and the hulk of an old DC-3 that still carried traces of its World War Two camouflage on the fuselage, but the props were gone and it looked as if it hadn't been moved for years. In the hangar was a workbench, engine parts, drums of oil and fuel, another Piper, newer. Durell walked carefully into the gloom and circled the second Piper and saw the sunburst symbol on its wings, identical to the jewelry worn by the girls as their flower device.
"Be careful," he said to Red Rod.
"Can you fly this plane?"
Durell opened the cabin door and peered inside. "The instrument panel is smashed. Ignition key's gone." Then he heard a sound and lifted his head and the gun. "Let's find out why."
He stepped through an open door into the adjacent operations office. The sound he'd heard was the groaning of an injured man. There was a window facing the airstrip and a door in the back. On the wall was a dusty chart of the area, a photo group shot of old Flying Tiger pilots, a small flag of Malaya, a Union Jack. The man sprawled behind a wide wooden desk. All Durell could see of him were heavy work shoes and khaki trouser cuffs. The right shoe looked bloody, and twitched. With a gesture, he sent Red Rod out to check the back door, then stared at the new radio transceiver on a metal stand nearby. It was humming softly. He felt better.
Red Rod returned, ducking his head under the doorway. "There is a Jeep out there. No keys, though."
"Find them," Durell said. "We'll need it."
"What about this man?"
Durell shrugged. He guessed the injured man was European, a redheaded Englishman, from the cockney curses he muttered now. He had been shot in the groin, and there was a large puddle of blood between his legs. He looked half dead, and would probably die in a few minutes, having been lying here unattended for a couple of hours.
Durell knelt beside the man. "It's all right," he said in English. "Who did this to you?"
"Bloody—bastard—Chicoms " the man gasped.
"Chinese? Was a woman with them?"
"Coo—a witch—bitch—oh God, I hurt, I hurt!" The cockney accent spiraled into a suppressed scream. Durell held the man's hand tight enough for his grip to get through.
"How old was this witch—the woman who shot you?"
"Who? Oh—young—blimey, a youngster—"
Red Rod drew a hissing breath. "Why did they shoot you?" he asked the man.
"Wanted to use—me radio—then she—she shot me, anyway " The wounded man jacked himself up on his elbows, looked down at the bloody mess of his body, then at Durell. His snub, freckled face twisted with horror. "For God's sake—"
He died.
As he fell backward, suddenly boneless, Durell turned. Red Rod stood with his PPS-41 pointed at his head.
Durell's Uzi was flat on the floor under his hand. He did not pick it up. He looked into the reddish, almond-shaped eyes of the Chinese and spoke quietly.
"Something worrying you, old friend?"
"Everything about this worries me."
"Point your gun somewhere else. We're through here."
"Not yet." Red Rod did not move. "Tell me what I'm doing here, please. Tell me why I was called back into this. Han is my superior, but the Five Rubies are in civil war. Which is my side, Durell?"
"Neither. You're with me, as in the old days."
"And afterward? If we live through this?"
"You go back to your wife and kids."
"And the police? And M.I.6?"
"No trouble," said Durell. "I'm going to pick up my gun now and you're going to start that Jeep somehow, right?"
"Why should I trust you?"
"Because you and I are alone in this."
"For old time's sake?" Red Rod asked. "For money?"
"You name it, old friend."
Red Rod lowered his gun. His grin was corpselike. "For old time's sake, yes. Frankly, I enjoy being with you."
He went out through the back door like a ghost.
Durell put his Uzi on the table next to the radio transmitter. He stared at the dials for half a minute, his hand on the metal top, feeling its warmth. There came clanking noises from outside the back door. There came other noises from the airstrip, where the little convoy was parked and waiting in the hot noonday sun.
When he was sure he could operate the radio set, he put on the earphones and began to broadcast on the wavelength he had memorized back in Singapore.
"Broker Two, Broker Two, red signal, red signal, over.**
There were only cracklings in reply. He turned the dials very gently. "Broker Two, Broker Two, reply, please."
Loud and clear came the answer from Kuala Lumpur. "I hear you, come in, Broker Two."
'T need the train schedule through Duphonong," Durell said. He was told to wait, and he heard shouting out on the airstrip, the sound of argument, a man's yell. Then a shot.
"Here it is," said the radio. "Four-forty. It's a plantation freight, Broker Two, narrow gauge."
"Afternoon? Four-forty? Daily?"
"Right, Broker Two. What else can I do?"
"Any more word on the plane wreck?"
"Rumors only. Pilot killed. Rescue squad not there yet. No word on the cargo, either."
"Can you get on the train?" Durell asked.
"No time, sir. But I could fly in. How many men can you use?"
"All you can get. Wait at the a
irstrip in Duphonong for me if I'm not there. Out."
Durell switched off. The vicious rattle of rapid-fire w^eapons came from the sunlit field outside. The window suddenly shattered as bullets tore through it and showered glass over the desk and the dead man and made the faded flags on the oflfice wall jump with puffs of dust. Durell grabbed the Uzi and crawled across the floor to the back door. The hot sunlight blinded him. He took his sunglasses from his shirt pocket and put them on with his left hand and kept his finger on the Uzi's trigger. Red Rod had vanished. The Jeep he had mentioned stood in the shade under the overhanging roof. Durell edged past it and looked around the comer to the airstrip. Distantly, to the north over the rice paddies, glass winked from^ a windshield, and there was a long curl of dust hovering over the airfield.
The command car and the two jeeps were gone. Three Triads who had foolishly resisted the betrayal were sprawled in front of the open hangar doors.
Durell watched the dust drift away in the hot wind that blew across the valley. The sound of laboring engines racketed in diminishing echoes from the surrounding hills.
"Red Rod?" he called softly.
He walked around the shack into the open. No one was in sight except the three dead gangsters. There hadn't been time for Red Rod to join the defectors. He thought of Han and Von Golz and Riddle and swore at the avarice of mankind.
"Yo, Durell."
Red Rod came out from behind a row of oil drums. He held his Madson PPS-41 loosely in his left hand, unfolding himself to his gaunt height. There was blood on his cheek and the sleeve of his right elbow was torn. Durell looked at the oil drums and said, "Not a good place to hide from bullets. You could've gone up in smoke."
"They are empty." Red Rod spoke flatly. "Everyone has gone. It seems that Mr. Riddle and the others have crossed you." He waved a thin, flapping arm toward the dust trails.
Durell smiled. "I half expected it. They'll only do some of our work for us."
"But your young Mr. Deakin was taken with them, too. Is he not of some value?"
"Everything is relative. Denis doing his job, like the others."
"I don't understand."
Assignment Nuclear Nude Page 16
