"No need. Did you get the jeep started?"
"It can be done in ten minutes."
"Make it five," DureU said. "I'll find some water."
20
A rough trail paralleled the narrow-gauge rail tracks that came down out of the northern hills, and Durell did the driving, the Uzi down on the floorboards at his left side. The convoy of defecting Triads had a twenty-minute start, but he did not push the jeep too fast. The rail tracks looked rusty, and he hoped Kuala Lumpur's information on the 4:40 was correct. It left him three hours and some minutes. Quite possibly, he wouldn't make it. But he had to. There was no other choice.
Red Rod had found sandwiches in the operation shack's refrigerator, and they ate these while they drove. The valley narrowed, the rice paddies became terraced along the converging hillsides, and then they gave way to jungly growth, a few patches of teak forest, a small tea plantation that showed no signs of life.
The saddle in the hills ahead seemed as far away by two o'clock as when they had started. But the outlines of the ruined pagoda became sharper, and as the jeep labored up the roughenmg road. Red Rod pointed out a dark cavity in the cliffs and said, "That is one of the caves where the Communist terrorists hid out. They are all linked, remember?"
"I also remember," said Durell, "that it's a bad trail up there. One man could hold off a hundred if he liked."
"It will not be easy. We might kill ourselves."
"Nothing like trying," Durell said.
Presently the rough road diverged from the railroad and took to the top of a narrow, jungled gorge above the tracks. Below, there was a trestle bridge at the upper end of the gorge where only the tracks had room to go through. Durell stopped the jeep a hundred feet from the spot and frowned.
"We could use some plastic explosives."
"Why should we destroy the bridge?" Red Rod asked. "You are interested in the train that comes through here?"
Durell said: "I never hked to run for the 4:40 express. It would be fine if we could make it wait for us."
"There are trees, and an ax on the back seat. Do they not complement each other, if we have the time?"
"We'll make the time," Durell said. "I hate being rushed."
In moments, they clambered down the side of the gorge. A white-spumed stream came down the mountain here, and the air was cooler than in the valley that now stretched far below them. Durell looked up at the vine-covered escarpments that hid the old guerrilla caves. Wild monkeys chattered at him, and parrots made brilliant streaks of color as they flickered through the foliage. Above the little river, there was an ineffable sense of calm and peace and beauty.
Then, again, they heard the sound of shooting.
From not more than a mile up the notch came three regularly spaced shots. Then a quick fusillade of more. Then silence again.
Red Rod lifted his cadaverous face toward the sound.
"Are you not disturbed by that, Durell?"
"A little. Let's fell a few trees across these tracks. Then we'll see who's having afternoon tea up there."
"I am getting nervous," Red Rod said, "and you keep making jokes."
"I'm not nervous," Durell said. "I'm just scared. You whistle in the dark when you're scared."
"I never learned to whistle," said the Chinese. "It must be a great comfort to you."
The ax echoed and clanged in the high ravine. They dropped two trees just above the trestle bridge, and then another for good measure, and all this took twenty minutes that Durell could not afford. He listened for more shots up the valley, but there were none. Sweating, wiping his face and sunglasses, he returned to the jeep with Red Rod.
They did not have to drive far.
The trail started to dip down again toward the tracks, and from this height in the notch between the hills, they could see the matted jungle ahead, bisected by the gash of the railroad right-of-way snaking north. It was at this highest point that they found one of the jeeps, wrecked, hanging precariously over the lip of the cliff.
Durell braked at once. He heard only the squawking of the parrots and the rush and tumble of the river behind them.
"See anything?" he asked softly.
"The other cars will be parked half a mile ahead," whispered Red Rod. He picked up his gun. "The trail to the caves and over the mountain begins there."
"Look again," Durell said.
He pointed to three bodies in the road.
"Three shots," he said grimly. "Remember?"
They got out and walked carefully along the trail. Sunlight hit the side of the ravine and splashed the road where the trees did not cast any shade.
"It's Mr. Han," Red Rod said flatly.
"And the German. And Riddle." Durell paused. "What you see, friend, is about twenty billion dollars' worth of bodies."
"It is an awesome sum," murmured the Chinese.
Little Mr. Han had been shot in the back of the head; he lay sprawled on his side in the middle of the road like a forgotten heap of rags. A white-necked crow lifted itself, flapping, reluctant, from the body. About four feet to the left was Von Golz. The fat German looked surprised. His round face bulged from the bullet that had burst his brain. His pudgy nose was swollen and his mouth hung open. His heavy paunch was deflated, like a burst balloon.
"Sic transit," Durell said. "When thieves fall out, somebody gets it in the neck."
Then a voice shouted: "Hold it just like that, you two! .. . Lise! Come get 'em, Anna-Lise!"
C. C. B. Riddle was far from dead. His blunt face and cropped gray head lifted from the tall weeds beside the jeep trail. There was blood on his neck and shoulder where a bullet meant for his spinal cord had only grazed him. His eyes were bitter. He rolled over on his stomach and pointed his submachine gun at Durell and Red Rod; he looked like a tough, old, and irritatingly wounded bear.
"What happened here?" Durell asked quietly.
"Those two so-called Tiger Generals." Riddle spat. "They went over to the other side, not liking the odds."
"Did you meet the others?"
"No, but I reckon they're not far off."
Durell said accusingly: "But you left us at the airstrip. You had it fixed between you and Mr. Han? Tried to make the play without us? But it didn't work out, right?"
"Just drop your gun and don't try anything."
Durell kept the Uzi in hand. "Don't be a fool. Riddle. You need us. You won't be so lucky again. One of us can kill you, whatever you do."
Riddle laughed and chmbed to his feet. "Anna-Lise is quite a gal. And she's right behind you."
Durell did not doubt it. Red Rod started to turn, and Anna-Lise's voice rapped: "Stand still or I'll blow your heads off. Believe me, I'd like to."
"You're a true angel," Durell said.
The blond girl swung wide around them and halted about five feet from Riddle. She had a Russian PPS-41, too, and seemed anxious to use it. Her blue Valkyrie eyes were glacial, and her mouth was crooked with a small smile.
"Where are Deakin and Linda?" Durell asked.
"The gooks took them up the cliff, as hostages."
"But you got away?"
"I'm smart. I saw it coming. They thought I fell down the ravine when I jumped, but it was just a loose log I kicked over and down into the river."
Durell sighed. He saw Red Rod move his feet slightly apart and said quietly: "Hold it, Red Rod. We can use them."
"Maybe they killed Mr. Han, Durell," said the Chinese.
"You owe no loyalty to a dead man." Durell looked at Riddle. "Just what do you propose to do?"
"I'm getting what's mine," Riddle grated. He looked insane. "I paid for the painting and the formula, didn't I?"
"How do you propose to get them back? Hung's plane that was carrying the stuff crashed north of here. That doesn't bother me, because her people reached it and are on their way back with it, over the old guerrilla trails. So there's no need to find the crashed plane now. Hung did that work for us, and she's bringing what we want straight at us. But how do you propose t
o get it away from them?"
Riddle squinted at him. "Can I hire you again?"
"No."
"Anna-Lise, what do you think?" Riddle asked.
"Kill them. You can't trust them," she said.
"Yes, you're a sweet girl," Durell told her.
She stepped forward and lifted her gun in fury, as if to smash it across his face. Durell moved smoothly, aware of Red Rod moving in the same split second to take advantage of her mistake. Durell came in under the girl's swinging gun, caught it and twisted it down, and she staggered, went off balance, and started to fall. He went down with her, since she still clung to the weapon, and they rolled over and he felt the edge of the road at the cliff. She gasped and made a spitting sound. She was strong, writhing under him, then over him. Her skirt tore wildly. At the same time, he heard Riddle's gun chatter, releasing six slugs before it was cut off. He had no time to look. The girl's long hair swung acrdss his face and they rolled over once more and gravity then took over. They were falling. Durell wrenched the gun free, felt a jolt against his ribs as he came up against a tree, and twined his fingers in the girl's thick hair with a quick, instinctive grip. Anna-Lise screamed. She fell, and he held her by her long hair, dangling from his grip, while he whipped his free arm around the trunk of the tree that had saved him. Her weight almost wrenched his arm from its socket. Pain hit him all the way down to the ribs and the base of his spine. But he did not let go. It hurt her, he thought savagely, a lot more than it hurt him.
For some seconds, Anna-Lise dangled like a life-size doll, hanging by the long hair of her scalp above the ravine.
Then, slowly, Durell pulled back, braced his boot against the tree, and hauled the girl upward. Her arms flailed, and he got his other foot against the tree, braced himself, hunkered back a few inches, then a few inches more, dragging Anna-Lise with him. He noted with passing satisfaction that she had dropped her gun. Sweat bathed his body. He pushed himself up and back once more, still seated on the sharply tilted ground, and now his legs were straight out before him, pushing against the tree trunk.
"Grab at something," he said quietly.
Her face was dead white. Her eyes rolled up to look at him. "Oh, you son of a bitch! Why don't you drop me?"
"Don't tempt me. Are you going to help, or not?"
She wrapped one arm around the tree bole and he was able to ease the pull on her long hair. A moment later he Caught her free hand and heaved himself back up on the road again. The girl fell flat beside him and put both hands on the top of her head and wept with pain.
"Red Rod?" Durell said.
"All is well," said the Chinese. "But you should have dropped her."
21
Riddle stood disarmed, rubbing the side of his square face. Durell walked slowly, aware of a trembling in him. He saw Anna-Lise look at the dead Mr. Han and her father, but the girl's face was an emotionless mask.
"I think we'd better be friends," Durell said. "We're hardly home free, yet."
Riddle spoke slowly. "We haven't got a chance."
Durell tossed a gun back to him. "Oh, yes, we have. Depending on whether we have some rope, and if you can climb mountains."
There was a coil of nylon in the back of the wrecked jeep. Durell wound it around his waist and shoulder and led Riddle and the girl off the narrow road to the steep slope soaring overhead. Red Rod moved down the way a bit before he, too, started to climb on their flank.
Anna-Lise proved to be expert at finding the best upward path. She moved on lithe legs, easily and surely. Riddle followed, his square body clumsy, his feet slipping and sending small landsUdes of gravel bouncing down to get in Durell's way. They were all armed again, but it was a vicious kind of truce, he reflected. The world ought to be saved from such fanaticism as the girl's, he thought grimly. But it always seemed that a new crop came along with each generation.
In twenty minutes, the railroad and the trestle with its barricade of fallen trees looked like a small model down in the gorge. The air was hot and lifeless again. It was fifteen minutes after three. Durell called a halt and listened, but only natural sounds filled the gorge. Red Rod lifted an eyebrow and then at Durell's nod he skinned his Ups back over long teeth in a strange grin and cUmbed up ^ead of them. Anna-Lise watched him speculatively.
"Where is that man going?"
"Scouting for the trail to the caves," Durell said. He explained that the area had been used by Communist guerrillas in the early '50's. "We'll meet up with the painting up there, I should think. Does Red Rod bother you?"
"He looks like death. Can you trust him?"
"No. But right now, he has nowhere else to go."
They climbed again. The cliff was steeper, the slope unmanageable without the rope. Red Rod was out of sight, but now and then Durell heard the slight sounds of the Chinese man's progress. They were sweating and suffering muscular tremors from the effort to ascend. They had to use the rope finally, with Anna-Lise scrambling up ahead. He didn't quite trust her when he had to put his own weight on the rope. For an instant, as he swung and dangled in empty air, while she supported him, he saw the strange smile on her face above him. Her eyes were like Alpine glaciers. But she did not let him fall. Riddle came up more slowly and laboriously.
"Now we're even," Anna-Lise said.
"Not quite. Do you know about Pan?" he asked abruptly.
"What about her?"
"Do you know what happened to her?"
"I can't guess. She helped us organize this whole thing, you know."
"Yes, and you fell for it, didn't you? You and poor Ryana and Linda. Three innocents."
"Shut up," the blonde said angrily. "You're confusing me. That's an old trick, and I won't fall for it."
Soon afterward they found a narrow footpath and Red Rod stood waiting for them, his bony face turned outward across the valley. Far down the nether slope, they could see the Jeep trail and the tiny, glinting cars halted there. It was the command car and the two jeeps, and they were guarded by pinpoint figures of Triad men lounging beside them.
"They have climbed up ahead of us, Durell." "It was expected. We've only forty minutes now. Add twenty for the railroad crew to clear the track, and we have it made. Where is the nearest cave entrance?"
"Just ahead."
"We'll need some light."
"There should be lanterns, cached long ago."
Durell went first now. Red Rod took up the rear, and Riddle and the girl walked between. It had been many years since Durell had been here, but memory flooded back easily and accurately. He found the first cave entrance, a narrow cleft between scrubby brush growing in the face of the escarpment. The trail had turned, and they could see the vine-grown, eerie outline of the old Buddhist temple that once had towered above the gorge as a stopping place for pilgrims. He studied the mossy terraces up above and suddenly did not feel as confident as before. Six or seven men stood, armed, on the lowest terrace. They seemed to be waiting for something. He wished he had field glasses, and adjusted his sunglasses to see better, but it was no help.
"Inside," he said.
They ducked into cool, damp shadow. The cave widened at once, and Red Rod dropped to his knees and grunted with satisfaction. He came up with a white nylon parachute bag.
"Right where you left it long ago, Durell."
There were grenades and plastic explosives and fuses in the bag, together with electric lamps and a kerosene lantern and a can of kerosene. The battery lamps were long dead, and Durell lit the oil lantern. Anna-Lise watched him.
"You have been here before," she said accusingly.
"Don't talk so loudly. There's company up ahead. Years ago, during and after the war, I did some work here. Now move on ahead. There's a fork in the passage after about sixty paces. Take the right-hand one. It's a
steep climb. It used to be a water flume for an underground lake just under the top of this mountain." He waved his Uzi, thinking about it. "Now let's move."
He was by no means certain that the
painting would arrive at this place by now. But the others had seemed sure, those who had preceded him here and who had killed Han and Von Golz, certain they had success in their grip. His face went grim. They threaded the maze of tunnels and caves quickly, following the erratic glow of the lantern Red Rod held. After some minutes of steady climbing, Durell paused to divide the grenades and explosives between Red Rod and himself. In the lambent flame. Red Rod looked more cadaverous than ever.
The sound of rushing water came to them, louder with each upward step. Red Rod squeezed through a narrow fissure and they found themselves on a ledge with deep black water sliding about their feet.
Red Rod was troubled. "All this rain, from the storm. The underground lake must be spilling over."
"That's fine," Durell said.
The Chinese looked at him and smiled his death's-head smile. "Yes, it could be done. Let us see."
They came to an opening where daylight filtered in lime-green tints through concealing vines. Durell looked out. They were just above the temple, and the daylight came through the pattern of ruined walls and floor of what had been the main hall of the sanctuary. The walls were intact on each side, forming a broad corridor toward the former entrance. Two men crossed the opening, about fifty yards away. Both were armed Triads. Then he saw a small feminine figure stride impatiently across the open slot, after the two men.
"Can we get a higher view?" he asked Red Rod.
But Red Rod had vanished.
"Stay here," he told Anna-Lise and Riddle. Riddle grated, "How can we tackle them, just the four of us? And none of us trusting the other? You're mad." Durell watched the feminine figure on the mossy temple floor. She was watching something up-valley through field glasses, and she spoke briefly to one of the armed men.
"Good. Right on time," Durell said. "Now don't move."
Anna-Lise looked rebellious, but he didn't wait for her explosive reply to his order. He slipped out of the cave and sidled along the vines growing up the back wall of the temple. The enemy on the platform did not turn to look his way. In a moment he was over the left-hand wall and up on the rubble behind a tree to survey the trail that wriggled up the mountain saddle. He looked for long moments before he spotted the little convoy of people climbing up toward the temple ruin. He made a soft, pleased sound and returned.
Assignment Nuclear Nude Page 17
