Assignment White Rajah

by Edward S. Aarons

  He knew that Hammond heard him, but the man made no effort to return. He went under the fence on the airfield side, charging the enemy positions alone.

  The Navy pilots started forward. The young JG said, "I don't know who you are, sir, but—thanks. What can we do to help?"

  "Come along," Durell told them. "Those of you who are fit enough and have some guns."

  "We'll manage. We owe these people something."

  Durell went off ahead with Pala Mir keeping pace with him. He looked at her smudged face and said angrily, "This is no place for you. Get back there."

  "I want to find Paul!"

  "So do I. Especially before Hammond gets to him."

  "But I don't think George will—"

  "He wiU," DureU said flatly.

  Her face went white under the smudges. The sky was almost dark now, and the red glare of the burning prison shed cast an unearthly glow on the compound and shadowed jungle. Durell quickly crossed the prison yard, skirted the burning shed, and found the broken wire where Hammond had gone. The airfield was a short distance beyond. To the left farther in the jungle were long native sheds with glints and glimmers of giant metal shapes.

  "The Thrashers," he said.

  "Would they really use them to bomb Pasangara?"

  "One or two, anyway. Paul is a qualified pilot."

  "But Paul wouldn't—"

  "Not now, he won't."

  He saw the private Beechcraft pulled off the strip into the brush at the other side of the field. There was fighting going on at the other end of the valley. Probably Tileong's men, he thought. He searched for Hanunond but couldn't see him in the dusk.

  "George!" he called again.

  There was a sudden burst of fire from the right. He pulled Pala Mir down with him, and the slugs ripped and slashed through the foliage overhead, spraying the area. For some moments they were pinned flat in the rough grass. He turned his head carefully and saw the winking muzzle flare of the gun in a tree near the clearing. He slammed a new magazine into the Uzi and fired deliberately in short, sharp bursts. There was a thrashing in the branches, a sudden scream, and then the Pao Thet's body hurtled down.

  "Let's go."

  He ran with Pala Mir for the parked Beechcraft. Men were running away across the airstrip now, caught between his own fire and the fire of the freed pilots, as well as the approaching forces of Colonel Tileong. He ignored them, searching the thick gloom for Hammond.

  Suddenly he saw Hammond slipping through the brush to his left, making for the hangar sheds. The man was intent on his own business. As yet, there was no sign of Paul Merrydale. Maybe he had been caught in the village, but Durell did not think so. Paul would stay close to his plane.

  "George!"

  Hammond turned his head. His face was a death mask, gaunt and haggard, stained with mud and smoke. He motioned for Durell to stay back, but Durell ignored the signal and ran toward him. Hammond raised his gun, as if to warn him, but Pala Mir shouted something that was lost in the noise of the fighting nearby. Durell slid down the slope and skirted the long reed wall of the hangar. He could hear men in there, shouting to each other, and he was aware of the danger of explosions from the Thrashers' armaments. There came a rustle from his right and Hammond came up to lay beside him. Durell waved Pala Mir to cover them from a few yards above.

  "Get her out of here," Hammond snapped. His breath came in hard, quick gasps. "I don't want her behind me."

  "You can trust her. What are you after?"

  "What do you think?" Hammond grinned. There were scratches on his face and blood on his left arm. "I'm getting Paul Merrydale's scalp. He'll make a break for his plane any second now, you'll see."

  "I want him alive," Durell said. "He has to stand trial in Pasangara."

  "Hell, no. You want this all over the world's newspapers? We'll wipe him."

  "No," Durell said.

  "You won't stop me."

  Without further warning Hammond lurched up and raced for the hangar shed beside the airstrip, his gun blazing. There were shouts from inside, a scream, a burst of return fire.

  Then Durell saw the familiar figure of Paul Merrydale break from a side door and run for the airstrip.

  What followed was as inevitable as the approaching dark of night that was imminent. It was as if the demon that had driven Hammond this far in his single-minded purpose had arranged them all like puppets on a stage. There was no help for it, no turning back. Merrydale's tall figure and yellow hair were plain to identify in the flickering light of the distant fires. He carried a submachine gun as he ran for the plane, but Hammond's yell froze him for just an instant. Durrell saw Hammond raise his gun and drive at him, bowling him over, while Merrydale gasped and snarled, looking like a convulsed, enraged animal. He might have survived to stand trial in Pasangara if he had dropped his weapon then. But he spun away on his feet again, his back to the Beechcraft; his handsome face was almost unrecognizable in his fury. His machine gun came up and began to chatter, slamming slugs over Hammond's head and then swinging toward the line of prisoners running from the compound. In another instant they would have been blindly mown down by the man's rage.

  The Rajah's heavy hunting rifle boomed just behind Durell.

  The single shot was like a punctuation to all the hammering of guns and grenades that had gone on for the last ten minutes.

  Everything went silent.

  Paul Merrydale slumped to his knees, dropping his smoking weapon. Hammond turned his head, calling out something to Durell between his teeth, then walked back toward them. Behind Durell, the Rajah said in a flat voice, "I could not let him do it, not really, I could not."

  Shuddering, Pala Mir came to Ehirell.

  Merrydale was still on his knees, staring up at the tall figure of the White Rajah striding toward him. His face was anguished, mystified, not imderstanding.

  "You, Grandpapa?"

  "Yes."

  Hammond made a whistling sound as his breath was sucked in. "I'd have done it for him. I wanted to do it. I had to do it. It was my job."

  "Shut up, George."

  Pala Mir shivered. "Is Paul dead?"

  "Yes."

  "It's over?"

  "Not quite," said Durell. "Not quite over."

  27

  Nothing had changed in the apartment over the Chinese herbalist's shop. The canal was quiet, mirroring the moon in its calm surface. The sound of gongs came from somewhere, along with the puttering of motorbikes and the tinkle of pedicab bells. Pasangara was quiet but sweltering under the tropical sun that blazed down over the South China Sea. The sampans had collected again around the bridge over the klong, and the smells of cooking and the sounds of chattering women came clearly on the warm night air.

  Durell rested quietly on the big platform of the Chinese bed in the room that faced the klong. He had been waiting in the darkness for over an hour, as he had waited once before, and it seemed like an eternity. It was the second night since his return from the jungle.

  He had seen David Condon and Premier Kuang. The roly-poly Kuang had visited the American consulate to formally express his regrets and appreciation, both at once, about the affair at the mountain palace. Arrangements had been made to ship the rescued Thrasher pilots back to their aircraft carrier. There had been no political diflBculties. Everyone had been poUte and formal, and not too many questions had been asked. Most of all, Durell thought, the big answer had not come up.

  Colonel Tileong had lifted the curfew on the city. The rioting was at an end, as abruptly as it had begun, and although racial enmity between Malay and Chinese still smoldered, Pasangara had every appearance of normality.

  No one had reminded Durell that he had been ordered out of the province, a gesture for which he was mildly grateful. He was not finished here yet. He had spent a day sending coded messages via K Section's control at Kuala Lumpur, and two hours ago in Hammond's little basement office at the consulate, he had received his reply from General Dickinson McFee, who was flying
from Taiwan to Washington tonight. Hammond had not been in the consulate then. Hammond had not been seen since their return to Pasangara.

  Durell had tried to telephone to the waterfront palace and speak to Pala Mir. Anandara, the Indian woman, said quietly that the Rajah and his granddaughter were not seeing anyone. She was sorry. Perhaps in a few days, if Mr. Durell were still in Pasangara?

  He did not expect to be in Pasangara after tomorrow night.

  He still had the Walther P-38. Keeping two fingers on it as he lay on the Chinese bed, he listened to the bell of a pedicab as it went by. A Chinese woman was arguing with someone on a sampan across the way near the klong. The smells of cooking and canal mud drifted through the open window. Durell had kept the lights off, but after waiting patiently, he now began to wonder if he were too late. In some ways he wished he were. He envied his boss, McFee, on his flight over the Pacific back to the States.

  The apartment furnishings loomed in heavy dark teak around him. The bed was comfortable. He wished he could sleep. He felt the heavy, oily metal of the gun beside him on the bed and watched lights move across the ceiling as a car went by. It was a Renault; he could tell by the sound of the engine. The car paused near the edge of the klong and the motor ran for another moment or two. Then the car started up again, and the normal sounds of the night resumed.

  It was difficult to believe that an insane massacre had raged in the city only a few days before.

  All of a sudden he heard the very faint creak of the stairs. The steps had been soundless before, but he had worked with screwdriver and chisel, loosening one tread, testing it again and again until he was sure it would sound a warning when a man's weight rested on it.

  Durell lay still, closing his hand on the gun.

  Hammond came into the apartment. He made no attempt to conceal his entrance now. The end of his small, crooked Dutch cigar made a red glow in the darkness as he opened the door with a key and then closed it meticulously. His shadow was tall and lean, tilted a little to one side to favor his injured leg. He wore a rumpled seersucker suit with a thin, black string tie and a white Thai silk shirt.

  "Cajun?"

  "Here," Durell said.

  "You like my bed?"

  "I'd like to sleep in it for a week."

  "You keep surprising me like this, and you might sleep in it forever. I don't like unexpected visitors."

  "You've been expecting me, George. Haven't you?"

  Hammond's big teeth gleamed. "Yes, I have."

  "Then you're not surprised."

  "No. I know all about you, Cajun. You like everything tied up in neat packages, pretty bow, string and all. But our business doesn't end that way."

  "It will," Durell said. "Where've you been?"

  "Busy. Out and around. Is it okay for a light?"

  "We don't need one," Durell said.

  Hammond peered. "You throwing a gun on me, Cajun?"

  "I figured you have strange visitors. It happened the last time with Lily Fan."

  Hammond sat down in a chair facing the bed; Durell sat up, cross-legged, and rested the gun on his knee. He did not point it at anything in particular. Out in the harbor a freighter hooted. The hot night wind brought the sound of Buddhist temple bells from somewhere in the city.

  A silence rested between them. Hammond dragged at his cigar, and the red glow lit up the seams of his face, his scar, the heavy gray brows, the thick hair that seemed all white now. His eyes under the brows were dark, careful pools of watching and waiting.

  Finally, Hammond said, "All right, get it off your chest. You didn't like the way I handled my piece of the action. You don't have to like it, Cajxm. I'm the control in Pasan-gara. You're supposed to take orders from me. You didn't. And I've sent a prejudicial report to K Section to that effect. If that makes you sore at me, too bad. I don't think we'll work with each other again."

  "No, I'm sure we won't."

  "I expect I'll be called back to Washington for doing this job. Maybe I'll get back into the middle of things. I did admit," Hammond said quietly, "that you were something of a help. Both a help and a hindrance. I didn't need you and I didn't want you here. I had the Thrashers located and I had Paul spotted. It was just a question of getting through the riot curfew and cleaning it up."

  "So you plan to leave Pasangara, George?"

  "Hell, yes." His tone was smug and pleased. "I've waited a long time for a break like this. A comeback, if you will. A chance to prove I've still got it. HeU, the business is my life. I was dying here."

  "You had Lily Fan," Durell said.

  "Oh, well. ..." The cigar made an arc in the darkness, a gesture of dismissal.

  "I thought you wanted to marry the girl."

  "You know how it is when a man gets frustrated and lonely, away from the action."

  "I hear Premier Kuang has taken her back into his personal custody. A question of her being too young and simply out for excitement."

  "Yes," Hammond said.

  "Have you seen her since we got back?"

  "No."

  "I have," said Durell.

  "Well, she was a pretty piece."

  "Then why were you so anxious to kill her, George?"

  There was a silence. Hammond sighed, then answered, "Get it off your mind, Cajun." His voice had changed very subtly, hardening just a little.

  "That's what I'm here for, George."

  "Listen, I used Lily Fan to find out what was going on in the premier's office. She was—she is—his favorite daughter. He'll forget and forgive her affair with me. It was my business to get information, right? My business was to know what goes on in Pasangara. Premier Kuang wasn't about to hand me the data I wanted, but Lily got it all for me whenever I asked. It was as simple as that."

  "I think not," Durell said. "You broke every rule in the book with her. You were crazy about her. You were out of your mind with lust for her. But you wanted to kill her. You didn't make it out there, but you managed to get Paul Merrydale out of the way. You managed to get that poor old man, the Rajah, to kill his own grandson. A break for you. But it didn't matter with me. Either way you were out to kill Paul and silence him."

  "So I hate traitors and Commies," Hammond said.

  "Do you hate yourself?" Durell asked.

  Hammond leaned forward in the chair and silently tapped the ash off his cigar. Light flickered across the ceiling. As Hammond moved, Durell swung his legs off the huge Chinese bed and sat up, the Walther in his lap resting on his right thigh. There was the puttering sound of a motorbike outside along the canal, and when it faded, Durell heard Hammond's breath sigh softly again.

  "I guess you'd better explain that one, Cajun."

  "If I have to."

  "You'd better.'*

  "I'm sorry for you, George," said Durell.

  There was a quickly stifled note of impatient exasperation in the other's voice. "I'm tired of people being sorry for me. I'm tired of sitting here at the end of the world, wasting myself. Everything I know I can do damned well, damned better than you. Don't say that again."

  Durell watched Hammond's hands.

  Hammond drew on his cigar. "Everything here is cleaned up. I don't know what you're after, Cajun. We found the Thrashers, we got the pilots out, they're on their way home to R & R and a fat bonus in their pay. Okay, so the old Rajah had to shoot his grandson. Good for him. He had guts. That crappy Paul was going to mow down the pilots we went in to save, wasn't he? He was trying to escape in his private plane. He could've made it to Cambodia, anywhere. You say I wanted to kill him. But the way it turned out, I didn't, did I? What are you sore about?"

  "I don't like double agents," Durell said.

  Hammond said softly, "Meaning me?"

  "You tried to play both ends against the middle, George. When it started, when the Pao Thets began their killing around here, you thought you were at the end of the line, buried in Pasangara, not trusted any more by K Section. But you've always been a security man to your fingertips. You saw a chance
for a new career. Was it Paul who first approached you? Made a fat offer for you to work for the Pao Thets as their intelligence chief? Granted, Paul got the Boomerangs and thought up the whole idea of luring our planes down here, guiding them in as a Judas pilot, using them, hopefully, to bomb the city and set up a smoke screen for international propaganda. Then, during the confusion you'd take over the whole province. Paul was ambitious. He rode his old grandfather hard when the Rajah still pretended to have some authority here from the old days. Paul wanted that authority back; he wanted to run Pasangara as the White Rajahs had once done—only, this time, under a red flag, perhaps as a Red Rajah. Paul wanted to prove himself just as you wanted to—but you both went off in the wrong direction."

  "Speaking of proof—" Hammond began.

  "I don't have any," Durell admitted.

  "Then stop talking yourself into the grave, Cajun."

  "I won't, buddy-wuddy."

  Hammond sat very still. "Ah."

  "You used Lily Fan to get information out of her father's office, right out of Premier Kuang's files. She was just a silly girl who climbed into bed with you, whom you glamorized into thinking you were something important. For a time, I thought Lily was working with Paul, that maybe she was really Paul's woman. I didn't know. But you were using her. You've been in the business too long. You're too old, George, to flip over a younger woman the way you pretended. I didn't buy it. I never did."

  Durell paused. "You tried to kill me when I went to save Pala Mir that night in the canal right here. You tried to kiU me several times on the way to the mountain. Every booby trap you left had your trademark on it, George. The bridge, the dranghs, the trip wire in the cave that could have dropped a rock on my skull.

  "You were afraid Lily Fan might convince me of the truth when she got away from you. And when you got your hands on her again, you gagged her, saying she might alert the Pao Thets. But what you really wanted was to keep her quiet. The same thing went for Paul Merrydale. You weren't worried about the pilots' lives. You just wanted to shut Paul's mouth, knowing he was really weak, knowing he would babble all about your part in the Pao Thet insurgency. You did your damnedest to kill him before I could reach him, and it worked out pretty well for you, except for one thing."