Assignment - Mara Tirana

by Edward S. Aarons

  “Hey, pal.”

  He turned, saw Gija behind him. The pilot looked grim. “You were right. There are two police cars back there. One of them is parked by the back door, with a chauffeur. Would that be Kopa’s?”

  “Probably.”

  “They haven’t touched Mara yet, I see.”

  “They’re waiting for me.” All at once, Durell’s decision was clear. He spoke rapidly and urgently. “I’ll go in with Mara and get the boy. I’ll be captured, do you understand? We have to take the chance that Kopa is on hand in person, and that he’ll escort Mara and me to the car at the back of the theater. Can you handle the chauffeur?”

  Gija nodded. “I can. But you take big chances, friend.”

  “So do you. You have to do the job right—no noise, no alarm. And be ready for others with Kopa when we come out.”

  Gija nodded again. “I’m beginning to like you, friend.” A thin shaft of sunlight broke through the overcast, and he squinted at the sky beyond the trolley wires and the wheeling pigeons. He spoke with sudden anxiety. “If the fog lifts, we won’t have much time to spare. The Luliga will have to push on downstream.”

  “Then get going. And be careful.”

  Durell waited until Gija vanished around the corner. Then he walked across the wide, cobblestoned square toward Mara Tirana. He felt as if a score of eyes followed. Mara saw him, but did not stop her pacing at the north end of the square. Nothing in her face showed any recognition. Durell walked after her, lit a cigarette, and went on until he was beside her.

  “You could have waited for me before doing this,” he said.

  “Would you have come to Racz, then?” she whispered bitterly.

  “Probably not.”

  “Then you walked into the trap with your eyes open.”

  “Is it a trap?”

  “Kopa is in there with Mihály.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Like a fool, I went in. They were sitting in the auditorium. Kopa was laughing. Mihály seemed to be enjoying the conversation. I drew back just in time.” She looked sidewise at Durell, who said quietly: “Keep walking. We’ll circle the square before we go in.”

  “But Kopa is waiting—” She paused, swallowed. “It is useless. You will be killed or captured. They will have a trial with a lot of publicity about you as an American spy.” He said impatiently: “Do you want Mihály out of there, or not? Will you go back to the barge without him?”

  “No, but—”

  “You forced me to come after you, Mara. If Kopa gets you, it will cost the lives of many people.”

  “I wouldn’t talk,” she whispered. “At least, I think not—”

  Two men in blue overcoats had fallen into step behind them. Durell flipped away his cigarette. “It’s too late to turn back now.”

  She hesitated. “I—I’m afraid.”

  “It’s late for fear, too,” he said.

  He guided her up the wide steps of the conservatory. Behind them, the two men in blue overcoats fed the pigeons, although one stood watching the door while he scattered peanuts aimlessly. Durell felt Mara shiver. Then they were inside, in a wide theater lobby, with corridors to right and left opening into classrooms and dormitories. Durell turned left, avoiding the auditorium, and followed a narrowed hallway toward the rear. Now and then some youths hurried by, either in stage makeup or in smocks or costumes dedicated to some rural drama. There was not much laughter among the students; their discipline was grim and competitive.

  “Where are you going?” Mara whispered.

  “Backstage, first.”

  Durell moved into the echoing cavern of the wings, with its careful confusion of flats and props, stagehands and apprentices. Three girls in yellow leotards crashed into him, one after the other, as they fled someone’s angry jeers. Durell turned another corner and looked out over the brightly lighted rows of audience seats beyond the proscenium arch. “You said Mihály was sitting out there with Kopa?”

  “Yes. Twenty minutes ago, in the third row over there.”

  The seats were empty.

  “Where would they go?” Durell asked.

  “Perhaps to Mihály’s room. I’ve been here before, to visit him. I could take you there, but I—suppose Mihály doesn't like you?"

  He looked at her curiously. “Will that matter? We won’t have time to worry about what the child thinks.”

  “But Mihály isn’t—” Mara paused. “All right. Follow me. He’ll be in the dormitory wing. But if Kopa is still with him—”

  “He will be,” Durell said grimly.

  But he wasn’t.

  Mara knocked on the plain brown door with the painted number on it. The room was near the end of a corridor. No one was about—apparently all the students were engaged in classes or rehearsals at this hour. Yet Mara’s knock was answered immediately.

  “Mihály?” she replied to the querulous sound. “Is that you?”

  “For the love of—come in! Come in, Mara!”

  The door was pulled open and Mihály stood there.

  He was not a child.

  He stood tall and gangling, almost like a caricature of his sister. But where her regular features could turn her into a creature of ultimate beauty, Mihály’s handsome looks were petulant, egocentric, and intolerant. He was about nineteen. He wore a white shirt open at the throat, a pair of tight slacks and light dancing shoes. He examined Durell, entering behind Mara, with amusement.

  “Sister,” he said, smiling. “What a surprise!”

  Durell answered for Mara. “Is it?” He shut the door, found no lock on it, and surveyed the cubicle. There was a cot, an open closet, a single window in an embrasure, where the yellowish stone of the theater building framed the cobbled square of St. Stephen below. “Are you Mihály?”

  "I am."

  “Get your coat. You’re coming with us.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mihály smiled. He turned to Mara. “Your friend is so impetuous, darling sister. What gives him the idea I wish to go anywhere?”

  Mara sounded desperate. “Mihály, this is no time to tease. We talked of this before. I told you if there was a chance to get you away—”

  “Yes, you told me. And what did I tell you, in reply?” “You—you were joking,” Mara whispered.

  “I certainly was not.”

  “Mihály, you must come with me! We have risked so much—”

  “I will not go anywhere with you, my foolish sister. How could you believe I would give up my career for a wild flight into the jungles of a capitalist land? I am happy here. My name will some day be famous all through the Soviets, all through the world—”

  Durell said: “You’ll be on your way to a labor camp in a week, if they take Mara this time.”

  “I am not responsible for her treachery!”

  “You’re a fool if you think they’ll consider you as a safe Soviet citizen ever again,” Durell snapped.

  Mihály moistened his lips and touched his forehead with a theatrical gesture. Durell felt as if he had come upon some exaggerated version of a witless rock-and-roll idol. He felt a surge of anger, because of the way Mara had misled him. But it was too late for argument now.

  “Get his coat, Mara,” he rapped. “Hurry.”

  “Really,” Mihály said. “Do you think you can come in here like an American gangster and persuade me, kid nap me—!”

  Durell slapped him, carefully pulling the punch against his impatience. Even so, Mihály fell to the cot with a squawk of surprise and pain. His mouth twisted, and his eyes slid venomously to Mara’s stiff, awkward figure. He got up, darting for the door. Durell caught him and slapped him again, harder. Mihály began to curse Mara in a loud voice. “Shut up and get your coat,” Durell rapped. A trickle of blood sprang from the handsome boy’s mouth. His eyes slewed back to Durell and he laughed. Durell said: “Go on, call for your friend, Colonel Kopa. Call him now.”

  And a voice spoke behind him:

  “That will not be necessary, Mr.
Durell.”

  The bald, stocky man stood in the doorway to the room. Kopa wore a dark blue overcoat, like those of his agents, and a rather flashy silk tie and gray fedora. He gestured with the Tokarev in his hand.

  “You will not raise any objections, Mr. Durell. Throw your gun to the cot. Mihály, take it. Mara, you understand you are to cooperate?”

  The girl stared mutely. Mihály snatched up Durell’s gun and slashed Durell across the face with it. Durell fell against Mara, who cried out against her brother, but Mihály swept her aside and struck Durell again, only to be cut short by Kopa’s harsh voice.

  “Enough. You have proved your loyalty, Comrade Tirana. Your sister is simply a victim of propaganda. As we agreed, she will be re-educated. You are to be congratulated, both of you.”

  Mara shook her head violently. “No. Not me. I am not part of this. Oh, Mihály, you poor, blind fool—!”

  “It will be best,” Kopa said, “if we leave without any disturbance.” He looked at Durell, who pressed a handkerchief to his face where Mihály had cut him. Beyond Kopa in the dormitory corridor were two other men, with drawn guns. Cross and double-cross, he thought. But how much of a chess player was Colonel Kopa? Kopa had expected Durell to come here, convinced by Mara. But did he expect Mara to warn him and did he expect any counter-measures? Hard to tell. Durell was up against an expert in Kopa. In any case, however, the throw of the dice was over.

  Kopa urged Mara into the corridor. “You, too, Mihály.”

  “But I have rehearsals, Colonel—”

  “Your rehearsals are over for now. We will need your testimony and sworn statements. You will come with me now.”

  “Very well.” Mihály tried to sound assured, but his moment of surprise was unmistakable. He got his coat and joined Mara, while Durell walked quietly ahead of the armed men who closed in around him. He wondered if the odds in this calculated risk were not too great, after all. He had banked everything on Gija’s move outside, to get Kopa alone in a moving car. But if Gija failed . . .

  The last of the fog was shredding away as they stepped into the narrow back street behind the theater. Durell immediately spotted the car Gija had mentioned. It was a black Zim sedan, with bullet-proof glass that dimmed the view he wanted of the interior. Kopa gave brisk orders and his assistants scattered to other waiting cars, and two remained for the waiting sedan.

  “Get in, Mara. You, too, Mihály.” He turned to a burly man with the face of an ox. “Pavel, in the back with them. I ride up front. Durell, in the back.” He leaned in and spoke to the chauffeur. “Ready, Ilyan?”

  The man behind the wheel should have been Gija, with a gun pointed at Kopa’s heart at this moment. But it was not Gija.

  He was a stranger.

  Gija had failed his part of the assignment.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Kopa’s two assistants sat on jump seats in the back, their bulks crowding out a view through the windshield of the road ahead. Durell sat on the back seat with Mara and Mihály, facing the guard’s guns. Up front, Kopa lit a cigar beside his chauffeur. The streets of Racz, after they made a wide turn in St. Stephen’s Square, gave way to flat farmland. They bumped over a rail crossing, topped a small rise, and from the side window Durell glimpsed the Danube, its channel divided by many small, wooded islands that made the waterway seem extremely wide, a world unto itself. River traffic in the form of a tug pulling a string of rafts, and a flotilla of barges, was moving again, now that the fog had lifted.

  Mara’s hand slid into his, and Durell looked at her. Her face was still and cold. She had expected him to command the situation somehow, after warning him that Kopa would be in wait at the theater. He had certainly expected to. Part of his plan had been to capture Kopa at this point. But from the moment they left the school, nothing went according to schedule. He did not think Gija had deliberately betrayed him. On the other hand, if Gija had been captured, Kopa seemed unaware of it. Surely Kopa would have spoken of it, if only to brag a little.

  So Gija was on the loose somewhere. But where?

  If the river man waited too long, and Durell landed in a cell, it would be too late for everything, then.

  It seemed to Durell that time rushed by like the thunder of a waterfall. The heavy limousine turned left, and clumps of alders and acacia trees screened out the river.

  “Mara, you will be all right,” Mihály said suddenly. “You were simply misled, that is all. You should have considered me before you tried this foolish scheme. I did not want to be rescued! How many times have I told you this? But I will take care of you. You need not worry.”

  “You have killed me, Mihály,” she said quietly.

  Up front, Kopa chuckled.

  And up ahead, a wooden bridge across a small stream suddenly dissolved in a red mushroom blast of explosion.

  The car was already upon the bridge approach, and the timing of the blast was perfect. The earth lurched under the heavy car. The driver cursed and yanked wildly at the wheel to avoid the hole where the road had been. But it was too late. The brakes screamed, and twin bursts of sound came as two tires ruptured, and the limousine careened off the road and smashed down into the spindly trees along the banks of the stream.

  Durell’s move was almost simultaneous with the blowing of the bridge. As the car swerved, he drove a fist at the guard on the jump seat before him. At the same time, he smashed at the gun in the man’s hand.

  The next moments were pure confusion. They caromed into a heavier tree and came to a sudden halt, tilted crazily on two wheels only a few feet from the little river. Inside the car, everyone was momentarily tangled. The doors were sprung, and one of the guards had been thrown free. The driver looked dead, impaled on the steering-wheel post that had smashed into his chest. Kopa lay half in and half out of the car. From the woods came brief, triumphant yells and a scattering of wild shots.

  Durell had the guard’s gun. The man was struggling up, eyes dazed. Durell slugged him without mercy, turned, saw a flicker of movement to his right and twisted, sliding out of the car. It was Mihály. The boy’s petulant face was wild with terror. Durell leveled the gun at him.

  “Hold it.”

  “Please—let me go-—!” Mihály gasped.

  “Get your sister out of the car.”

  “Those men—they’re partisans—”

  “Get her out and stay with her!” Durell’s voice brooked no argument. Mihály swallowed and climbed back into the wreck and helped Mara free. She seemed to be only dazed. Durell heard someone call his name and turned. It was Gija, scrambling up the bank of the stream along the splintered bridge timbers. The river pilot was grinning broadly.

  “Had you worried for a minute or two, hey?”

  “Who are the others with you?” Durell asked.

  “Just friends. They’ll fade away now. They owed me some favors—I helped some of their families get away to the West-—and we had a couple of expert dynamiters, as you can see, in the crowd.”

  “All right.” Durell spoke briskly. “Help me with Kopa.” “Is the bastard dead?”

  “No, and we don’t want him dead, either.”

  “You have a better idea for him?”

  “We’re going into Racz Prison. He’ll lead the way.” Gija looked dubious. “I think you’re crazy to try it. And you don’t know for sure if your girl is in there.”

  “We’ll ask him,” Durell said grimly.

  Ten minutes later Kopa spat on the ground and vomited and tried to crawl away from Durell. They were hidden in the woods, a mile from the damaged bridge. So far, the alarm had not touched them, but there could not be much time left. Mara and Mihály sat under a pine tree, watching.

  “Let me try,” Gija said. “He’ll talk to me.”

  “We can’t have any marks on him,” Durell said. “There won’t be. I studied the art of questioning, too.” Gija hauled Kopa back. Kopa’s mouth was bleeding. His bald head shone in the bright sunlight that flooded down through the bare trees. They were about
fifty yards from the highway,

  inland from the Danube. Gija’s friends had melted away, leaving two small cars for their use, hidden in the brush. Gija looked at Durell and said: “I couldn’t take the chauffeur’s place, you know. There were two other agents on the sidewalk, talking to him. I had to go get things organized fast.”

  “You did fine. But we have to make Kopa front for us, or we’re finished, anyway.”

  “I’ll kill him,” Gija said. “It will be no loss.”

  Kopa breathed thinly and looked at Gija with blank eyes.

  “He’s shamming,” Gija said. “Look. One of his own techniques.”

  Gija bent over him and Kopa screamed. Gija hit him, turned his squat body over, pressed his face into the earth as if to smother him. Kopa flopped about like a fish out of water. When his legs began a spasmodic twitching, Gija released him and let him breathe.

  “Now, Colonel, for the last time—tell us where the American girl is. If she is still in Bratislava, you die. If she is anywhere but here in Racz, you will die, here and now. Do you understand me?”

  “She is here,” Kopa whispered. “In Racz Prison. I brought her with me last night.”

  “Then you will take us to her and lead us all out.” “But I cannot—”

  “If you cannot, then you will die.”

  Kopa’s eyes slid to Durell. “What do you want of me?” “I want Miss Padgett. You have her in Racz Prison. We’ll go in together, and I’ll have a gun at your back, and if anything goes wrong, you will get a bullet in your spine.” “Do you really think you can escape with her?”

  “I intend to.”

  “And what will you do with me, if I help you?”