Assignment White Rajah

by Edward S. Aarons

  Only chance, a turn of the dice, had brought Hammond to the surface again. He might not be prepared for it. He knew it, and Durell knew it.

  "Cajim. Good to see you. You've grown older."

  "Before our time," Durell said. Hammond's grip was limp and bony. He wore his thinning hair brushed forward to hide his receding hairline. His limp was scarcely noticeable. They had done a fine prosthetic job on his blind eye. The ofi&ce was a dim, damp cubby down in the lower regions of the elegant consulate building. The air-conditioning, which wasn't working this day, thanks to the shattered glass facade, wasn't even piped in. A small electric fan on a subexecutive civil service desk pushed humid air around. The desk was clear of papers. It didn't look as if Hammond had been very busy in this tropical backwater.

  "I'm flattered they sent you," Hammond said.

  "I'm glad to be working with you, George."

  "Not much work here."

  "There's going to be."

  Hammond said, "I was thinking of getting married. Settling down here."

  "You like Pasangara?"

  "It's as good a place as any."

  "Who's the woman?"

  Hammond looked uncomfortable. "A local girl, Chinese. Premier Kuang's daughter, as a matter of fact. Maybe too young for me, but—" Hammond laughed. "Kuang has a lot of shops in town, and I tried to help with police protection this morning. It's all a lot of crazy shit that hit the fan, this race rioting. People will never learn."

  "What started it?"

  Hammond wet his lips. Durell couldn't tell the bad eye from the good. "The Chinese run the businesses and are energetic and profit-minded. The Malays are agricultural and are happy in their paddies. The Chinese grabbed too much, I guess, and some incident blew the top off. Sit down, Sam."

  Durell sat down. The fan blew hot air into his face. There were no windows in the ofiice. The place was suffocating. It was, he reflected, a syndrome of the present century that architects took no notice of nature or human failings and presumed windows unnecessary and air-conditioning infallible.

  "Did you ask for the Pasangara assignment, Sam?" Hammond asked.

  "No, not especially."

  "I wonder if McFee forgot I was here. I sent in the original reports, you know."

  "On the Thrashers?"

  "Sure, the Thrashers. The Navy is in a flap. Eleven sorties mysteriously disappear, no Maydays, no claims by the Viet Cong or Hanoi, no trace of planes or pilots. I heard 'em coming over three times, so far."

  "The Navy claims eleven missing, and you heard three," Durell said. "And nothing else?"

  Hammond lit a thin black cigar. It didn't help the dead air in his cubbyhole of an oflBice. He looked tired and unhappy. He looked at Durell as if he wished Durell were not there.

  "It's a waste of time, Cajun. I checked it out. Nothmg but my imagination, maybe." Hanmaond's grin was dubious. "Perhaps I merely hoped to get back into the center of things. It's been quiet here in Pasangara. I figure they'll bury me here some day."

  "You're sure you heard Thrashers?" Durell persisted.

  "Yes, I'm sure."

  "You asked around?"

  "Quietiy. Cajun, don't push it. I know this business. I was in it while you were still at Yale, cracking law books and town girls."

  "I know."

  "And don't tell me times have changed and passed me by. Nothing really changes that much."

  "George, I told you I didn't ask to be sent here."

  "I could handle it myself, you know. Be a nice change from considering my constipation. All this rice ties you up sometimes." Hanunond's voice was a quiet complaint. His seersucker suit was rumpled and sweat-stained. Durell wondered how it could be because there seemed to be no juice left in him at all. "I don't know what more you can do here, Sam, than I've done. I imagine you read my reports in Washington."

  "In Taiwan. I was briefed there. Happened to be handy, that's all." Durell didn't know why he should be concerned with Hammond's sensitivities. "George, can't you give me any leads beyond your reports?"

  "AU the planes went thataway," Hammond said, and flapped a bony hand vaguely. "South-southwest, toward the mountains."

  "And they didn't come back?"

  "They didn't come back."

  "No rumors, no fairy tales among the hill people about crashes, prisoners, American pilots wandering around?"

  "Nothing."

  "George, Washington wonders if it could be a ring of defectors."

  "Hell," Hammond said.

  "I don't believe it, either," Durell said. "But the planes and the pilots have to be somewhere. In the hills, you think?"

  "That's what I think."

  "Can we set up a spotting station up there?"

  "Kuang won't give permission. Cites racial tensions, pohtical instability in the province, subversives, potential guerrilla warfare, extending the Congs all the way down here. A lot of horse manure. Personally, I think it's because his daughter and I—well, anyway, no spotting station. No trips into the interior. You'd have to ask the White Rajah, if you can get him to speak coherently."

  "Who is the White Rajah?"

  "Old man, son of an adventurer in the '80s who set up a private principality here in the bad old days of colonialist enterprise. When he was kicked off his throne, they let him stay, him and his twin grandchildren. The boy's okay—hard-working, industrious, they say. The girl ran wild in Europe for a time, married, divorced twice, and came home recently."

  "How recently?"

  "A year ago."

  "No connection with the Thrashers?"

  "Impossible. She's in seclusion. A nut."

  "How can she or her grandfather help?"

  "Pala Mir owns land up in the mountains. She just might give you permission to go up there and set up a listening post. A waste of time, but that's up to you."

  "Did you ask for her cooperation?"

  "Couldn't get near her. But then," Hammond said grinning, "you're young and handsome, Cajun, a real tough attractive type, and you might just make it with her. Any way you like. Pala Mir is quite a dish, they say. I've never even been able to see her. You want a dossier on all the Merrydales?"

  "The who?"

  "Anthony Merrydale was the Englishman who became the great White Rajah of Pasangara. Fascinatmg history. The Malays loved him. Lots of pomp and circumstance. He married a native ranee, the blood got mixed, and the name gradually changed. It's just Mir, now. From Merrydale. They live here on sufferance. Are you really interested?"

  "Yes, I'm interested," Durell said.

  "All right, you'll get the dossiers. But they won't go against the provincial government's refusal to let any of us into the mountains. Where are you going to bunk?"

  "The consul got me a room at the Kuan Diop Hotel."

  "It's a fleabag. He's a pompous little bastard. New breed. A flit, I think."

  "I'm not complaining. About this Pala Mir, how do I get to wherever she lives?"

  "Chiang Gi will take you. Chiang Gi works for me. Odd jobs. The big ear. He's got sons and daughters in civil service and everywhere. You want to know anything at all about Pasangara, ask Chiang Gi."

  "Sounds invaluable," Durell said.

  "He is."

  Hammond did not offer him a drink. He talked about his impending marriage and did not mention the missing Thrashers again. Durell was relieved when he could politely take his departure.

  4

  CHIANG GI seemed glad to get away from his haunted hut. The river was dark, but the rain had ended, and a foggy steam drifted over the jungle and the sluggish water. Again, Durell heard the pealing of iron convent bells. The Malay did not use his outboard motor but instead poled his way up the stream, using a single sweep at the stem. Presently a few lanterns appeared on the river bank, set on poles among thatched Dayak houses with sweeping, Polynesian-type eaves. Water purled quietly at the prow. Fishing boats were tied up at the river piers, but no one was in sight, either on the banks or in the beaten dirt streets or outside the houses
. Chiang Gi twisted his pole deftly, and the shallow boat turned a sharp left into a secondary channel, slipped past sampans and native rafts, then came to a wide place in the river where an island loomed out of the misty darkness. Durell looked back at the deserted village but saw no one watching their passage.

  "This is where Pala Mir lives," said Chiang.

  There was a chain of sandbars, overgrown with stunted trees and lianas. Parrots squawked and something big splashed in the muddy water. A few lights gleamed ahead. To the left on the main river bank was the convent where he had heard the bells. There was a glow in the eastern sky where the moon was about to rise over the jungle.

  Chiang Gi wove an erratic way among the channels to the house. It was a European-style building with a high fence around it and wide, sweeping eaves. There was a second-floor veranda above. A dog barked suddenly. There was a twist of current that turned the prow of the boat inland and, in a moment, Chiang Gi tied up to a pole on the sturdy pier. A gleaming motor launch was moored farther toward the shore.

  The house was silent.

  "I wish you luck with the royal lady." The old boatman grinned. "Remember, she is wicked and dangerous."

  "We'll see about that."

  Durell stood up in the gently rocking boat and jumped to the pier, then walked toward the gates in the wall that enclosed the massive, dim house. '

  George Hammond's dossiers had given him a rundown on the notorious Pala Mir, but there were contradictions in the picture. At twenty-four the yoimg ranee had lived in the European scandal sheets for a time, appearing in the nude in underground films made by the Roman director Bardoni; she had been twice married and divorced. The first marriage was to a young Texan whose oil wells turned out to be dry. She had flown to Mexico for a divorce two months later. The second marriage was to an elderly Egyptian with villas at Montreux, Cinquaterra, and Nice. No one knew the secrets of that marriage. The Egyptian's wealth and reputation were mysteries. All that was known was a brief news item that the young ranee had been foimd brutally beaten and half drowned in Lac Leman, and a divorce was granted behind closed judicial doors.

  The Merrydales, so many generations away from their native England, remained impoverished and pathetic figures in the Malayan province they once had ruled.

  There was a twin brother who still kept his Anglo-Saxon name of Paul Merrydale and seemed to have adapted to the new order of things. He became a solid businessman of Pasangara, seemingly as good as his twin sister was depraved. Hammond's dossiers, Durell thought, were equivocal. Paul Merrydale had deplored his sister's behavior a little too strongly and publicly, it seemed. Durell preferred to draw his own conclusions.

  Subject Pala Mir returned from Europe almost a year ago. Rumored she had gone to Red Belt and Moscow, no confirmation. A guest of China at Fifth International Women's Conference of Asia, remained Peking two months, frequently seen with Han Li Chao, said to be one of the five council officials of Black House.

  Subject returned to Pasangara three weeks prior first Thrasher vanishment. Has lived in monastic retirement at river house ever since. Sees no one. Said to be considering entering convent. No confirmation.

  Durell didn't like it. He thought Hammond was drawing unwarranted conclusions. It could be that George was too eager to get back into the field and prove he wasn't washed up. You operated in this business from solid data, a mixed bag of seemingly unrelated facts, drew conclusions, made corrections, spread a net, followed up for more data, and hoped something would come to the surface when you pulled in the bag.

  Sometimes, what came to the surface could kill you.

  The gate at the compound wall was locked tightly. There was no bell. Durell walked along through tall, unkempt grass and heard something slither away in the darkness. He paused and listened for the dog, but there was only an occasional twitter from the jungled river bank, the purl of the current, and the sound of the hot wind in the black trees. He looked back and saw Chiang Gi in his delicate little boat, then found a place where the wall had crumbled a bit. He jumped, caught the top, hauled himself up, and dropped down on the other side.

  After all, the message from Pala Mir in reply to his note had invited him here.

  Then he heard the dog growl.

  He had landed in some unkempt shrubbery, and his linen suit was further torn by a probing branch. The beast came padding across the gloomy bit of lawn like some gray, yellow-eyed creature out of Asian mythology.

  The animal halted, ears pricked forward, teeth bared, eyes baleful.

  Then it launched itself at him without further sound.

  He had time to fling up an arm and smash it across the bared fangs that snapped for his throat. The impact of the dog's weight drove him back against the garden wall. The dog fell, quickly found its feet, and came on again. Durell used his knee, chopped at the dog's throat, caught at his collar, and twisted hard. If you keep a dog trained to attack, you don't hamper it with a collar. The dog's breath squeaked and wheezed. He twisted harder, strangling it with the leather strap. Its weight seemed enormous. It fought him, sounding its enmity in the sleek throat and angry eyes until the clawing legs jerked spasmodically.

  "Tatzi!"

  Durell ignored the sound of the woman's voice. He held the beast down on the grass now, not relaxing his grip for an instant.

  "You need not kill Tatzi," the woman said. "He will obey me."

  He raised his head and saw her dim figure in the light of the doorway on the veranda. "Call him again, please."

  "Tatzi?" she said.

  The dying animal quivered. Durell relaxed his grip. The woman spoke in swift, fluent German, and the dog got unsteadily to its feet, flanks heaving. The woman spoke again, and the animal padded away across the grass and lay down on the veranda at her feet.

  "You cannot blame Tatzi. Your entrance was unorthodox." She spoke English as fluently as her German. "You are Mr. Samuel Durell? From the American consulate?"

  "You agreed to keep an appointment with me. Miss Merrydale."

  "Please, call me Pala Mir. I am not English any more. I am a citizen of Pasangara."

  She was beautiful. Neither European nor Asiatic, she combined the best of both possible worlds. Her skin was golden Malay, her eyes Chinese, her mouth and nose English. She wore a flowered, silk sarong that clung to a tall figure of ideal proportions. Her black hair, thick and lustrous, was piled up in regal braids like a crown atop her aristocratic head. The male Merrydales had chosen their native women well. She wore no makeup, but her mouth was full and pink, the lips soft and slightly everted. Oddly, her eyes were a dark blue, almost matching Dur-ell's. She wore no rings, little jewelry. The family gems, he reflected wryly, had long gone to a pawnbroker or had been confiscated by the new state. "Please come in," she said.

  The large chamber into which she ushered him might once have been a provincial throne room, but now it held all the faded gentility and shabby splendor of an epoch of adventuring rajahs long gone by. There were no servants in sight, and he wondered if Pala Mir actually lived here alone in the steamy melancholy of the delta jungle. The dog lay in front of a worn Sarouk rug placed over teak plank flooring. The yellow eyes were fixed on Durell and never moved. He was a Doberman, out of his climate, and the tropics didn't agree with him. (It would have been more appropriate to see a tamed cheetah or leopard as a pet.) On the walls were two great heads of Malay tigers, moimted on mahogany but moth-eaten and seedy-looking.

  The girl fixed him a drink—bourbon, Durell's preference—without asking him his choice; he wondered if it was just a lucky guess or if she knew more about him than he supposed. Her smile was distant, a mechanical gesture of civility.

  "I tried to send a letter to you in Pasangara, but the riots, of course, frightened the runner. And I have no telephone here. There was no one else to send. The villagers have all fled, afraid of the disturbances, and the Sisters never leave their convent down the river. It is a pity you had your trip here for nothing. Was it dangerous?"

 
"Something like jaywalking in Times Square."

  "I do not know New York. I never had any desire to visit it."

  "Did you like Peking?" he asked.

  "Ah. You Americans are so terrified of that."

  "Not exactly."

  "I have become tainted in your eyes merely because of my visit to the People's Republic of China?"

  "Not tainted, no."

  "If you think it strange," she went on, "that I live here as I do, without friends and only slight contact with Pasangaran society, I must say at once that I tolerate no personal questions, certainly none about my past, and I must request you, since Americans are usually so tactless—"

  "Don't you like Americans?" he asked.

  She went on, "—to refrain from any inquiries about me. It is a small miracle that my name has not been in the Continental scandal sheets for some time now. I am sure the journalists miss me, but I have no regrets and certainly do not miss them. If you wonder why I came back here, it is simply that I have come home."

  She wore long, pendant jade earrings that looked antique Chinese. Her strangely dark-blue eyes in her Eurasian face regarded him with candor.

  "We're off on the wrong foot," he said.

  "Yes."

  "I've come to ask a favor of you, that is all."

  "Yes, I know about it. You wish to visit the family's old estate—the plantation, really, it's a ruin—in the mountains. You wish to stay there for a week or so?"

  "That's about it."

  "I cannot help you. It would be up to my brother, or my grandfather—and the provincial militia."

  "I understood from your note—"

  "I have changed my mind," she said flatly.

  She had not asked him to sit down, and he would not have done so, anyway. There was a generator, which sup-plied power and hght to this island house in the river, but shadows lurked in every comer of the huge, bare room. He heard a door close softly somewhere and knew they were not alone in the house, after all. He turned slightly so that he could watch both the veranda doors and the wide French-type doors that were closed and curtained, leading into other areas of the house. The dog panted, tongue lolling, and stared at him with a promise of murder in his yellow eyes.