“And just what did happen?”
“I’m not certain. He was at the window, talking. He was a fine man. Essentially gentle, I think. And there came a shot from the beach. He simply—fell. That’s all there was.”
“You didn’t see who had shot him?”
“There was no one out there,” she said quietly. “The shot broke the window. The glass is still on the floor there. But the wind was blowing the sand, and it was quite dark.” She shook her proud head. “No, I saw nothing.”
“He said nothing about expecting danger?”
She met his hard gaze. “Why should he?”
“You didn’t notice anything strange about him?”
“Mr. Durell, I had just arrived here myself. This house of mine was closed all winter. I came here to look it over and turned on the furnace and water. I am accustomed to doing these things myself. I had just finished and settled everything when he arrived. Perhaps he took the electric train and walked from the station. I did not expect him. He had to introduce himself, since I did not know him.”
“But who knew you were coming here?”
“I assume that you did. Or one of your people.” “Nobody in my group mentioned you to Traskin.”
“Then I cannot explain how he found me.”
Mark Talmage said: “Perhaps he followed Miss Elgiva, sir. It’s possible. And someone followed him.”
Durell looked at Sigrid. It hadn’t been she, nor could it have been Olaf. He felt frustrated. He thought of Colonel Smurov, the Muzhik. There would be hell to pay. Smurov would be furious, in a murderous rage, suspicious of everything. He would demand an explanation.
Durell turned to Talmage. “Does Smurov know of our change of plans about the Vesper?”
“Yes, sir. He’s coming here.” Talmage shot his cuffs and consulted his fancy Omega. “In twenty minutes.” Smurov might have arrived earlier, Durell thought grimly. No telling what wheels revolved within the KGB hierarchy. Smurov wanted to command. Perhaps he resented being teamed with the quieter, more sophisticated Traskin. Maybe Smurov wanted it this way. But he could only guess at the answers now. And guesses weren’t good enough.
Colonel Traskin’s body was heavier than he expected. Talmage and Durell carried him while Elgiva opened the kitchen door. Sigrid walked silently alongside. Wind and rain hammered them as they went outside. The nearest house was some fifty yards away. It seemed empty. A low board fence divided the properties. Beyond the other house was a small marina, with motorboats and a few fishing trawlers that heaved restlessly at their moorings. The Vesper was due in there. Durell heard a curious sound, and realized that Talmage’s teeth were chattering. There were lights in other houses down the beach, and now two men came out in raincoats and stood on the distant dock. But they did not seem to be examining any of the boats there.
He had to break open the door of the next vacant house. The sound seemed loud, but he knew the wind would snatch it away. With the house in between, he could not see the men on the dock. And they could not see him and his grim burden, either.
It took five minutes to cache Traskin’s body in the empty house. Durell hoped it would be some time before the authorities or the owner happened by. When he stepped outside again, he had made up his mind.
The Vesper came ghosting out of the rain ten minutes later, for which he was grateful. She drove out of the gloom with her sails furled, like a graceful white gull in the gathering night. Navigation lights blinked along the channels and outer banks of the Maleren archipelago. All about were little islands, sandbars, the gleam and glitter of houses and restaurants forlornly trying to evoke business in the face of the unnatural season.
The two men on the dock had vanished.
Durell herded Sigrid and Elgiva aboard, where they were greeted urbanely by Baron Uccelatti. The Baron had a hard time concealing his worry from Durell.
“You are certain it is feasible to go north? The authorities and the barometer seem to agree that it will be most dangerous.”
“No help for it. They won’t let me fly, certainly.”
“But their patrol vessels—”
“We’ll pray for luck in the weather. It may help us, instead of working against us.”
Sigrid halted abruptly. “I do not think I will go with you, after all. I will not share a cabin with Elgiva.” “There are other cabins. You have no choice.”
“But my people haven’t given me clearance to go farther—”
“You have it from me. Elgiva?”
The poetess nodded. “I will go with you. It seems that the old gods still drive us wherever they choose.”
“Good. You’re being very sensible.”
Sigrid was angry. “But why should she go along? Maybe she killed Traskin! How can you be sure?”
“I’m not sure of anything,” Durell said.
“And will you go without Colonel Smurov? It was not in your arrangement to double-cross and desert him.”
“Can’t be helped,” said Durell. “And we’re better off without him.”
Uccelatti coughed. He was distressed. “I am sorry, Cajun. Colonel Smurov is already aboard. He arrived at the Vesper before we left Stockholm.”
19
SMUROV sat like an Asiatic warlord in a shadowed corner of the main salon. He wore a lined raincoat and a broad-brimmed fedora, rather than Oriental robes and turban, but his Tartar features were those of a suspicious Mongol separated from his horde. He showed caution and suspicion, but no fear. But something glittered in Colonel Smurov’s slitted eyes. Durell could not be sure what it was, but he thought there was a gleam of triumph behind the speculative look of the man.
“We do not sail without comrade Traskin,” Smurov grunted.
“But he’s dead.” Durell quietly flicked a finger at the PPSH gun Smurov fondled in his lap. “And you can put that away. If you hold us up by waiting for a dead man, we’ll be here forever. The Swedish authorities will be along soon enough.”
“Who killed him?” Smurov asked.
“We don’t know.”
“He was soft, an intellectual, given to seeing two sides to every question, like a solicitor. The legal mind can be fatal in our business. One should see only black or white, or one is lost.”
“Then Traskin is lost,” Durell said. “And we sail without him. And without you, if you like.”
“Oh, no.” Smurov’s thick lips smiled, but his eyes were bleak. “Where you go, I must go, until we settle both our public and private differences.”
Durell turned. “Baron? Smurov won’t use that gun. Tell your men to cast off.”
“I must advise you that the weather reports—”
“We must go now, or not at all,” Durell insisted. Uccelatti shrugged in resignation. “As you wish.”
“One moment,” Smurov said softly.
He stirred in the shadowed corner of the luxurious cabin. There was an aura about him like a tangible smell, a darkness, an evil. The Vesper pitched restlessly at the dock. Somewhere a bell buoy clanged in the thrust of the wind. Uccelatti had sent some crewmen to block off the small pier where they were tied up. Colonel Smurov cocked his round, bristled head as if listening for something.
“A moment,” he said again. “I feel you do not want me with you, Durell. You think you do not need me. But you have orders to cooperate with me.”
Durell waited.
“And you do not disobey orders, eh?”
“I might,” Durell said. “Push me, and we’ll see.”
“Ah. You pretend anger. It covers your guilt for the murder of my countryman.”
“Maybe you killed him, Smurov. I wouldn’t put it past you. I know your main weapon. You use fear better than the gun in your lap. You lay about you with terror to keep everyone at their distance. It keeps you safe. It holds your power. But no one here is afraid of you. You can come or go, as you like. I’d prefer that you go.”
“But if I killed you now,” Smurov said heavily, “I would be justified. My superiors would
listen to me, if I told them how you murdered poor Traskin.”
“We didn’t kill him,” Durell said.
“Then who did? Someone killed the poor fool. Yes, Traskin was a fool, and often troubled by the things we do to survive against your imperialist schemes. So he was careless.” Smurov shrugged again. “Very well. He
was a nuisance to me. It is not my fault he has been eliminated. And it leaves me with a free hand.”
“To do what?”
Smurov gave him a cold, reptilian stare. “You will know when the time comes, Gospodin Durell.”
“Don’t threaten me,” Durell said softly.
“I shall sail with you. I give you permission. We will leave now,” Smurov said.
“Thanks for nothing.”
“But I shall remember Traskin. I will remind you of him again, when our work is finished.”
LAPLAND
Beyond the shores of the Bootenviken, that last arm of the Baltic Sea that reaches up to the Arctic Circle, the sun never sets from May to mid-July. Sweden has introduced trains, plane service, and fine highways into this region that once was accessible only to the most daring and the Laplanders who live there with theii reindeer herds and indigenous economy.
The lure of iron ore at Kiruna, the glacial peaks and remote snow-clad valleys and tundras, attract tourists in increasing numbers to this unreal world, to ski and to view the spectacular mining operations at Luossavaara.
Southward, the Ume River valley leads through the beautiful university town of Ume a on the coast. Cars and buses go through the highlands to Mo in Rana on an Atlantic fjord in Norway. Farming homesteads are found even up in the mountains.
In winter, the Gulf of Bothnia is iced over from shore to shore. By May, in normal weather, the seas are open again for the short summer season.
20
THE Vesper shuddered and shook cakes of ice off her bow as she plunged into the green sea. Rime shrouded her rigging and masts, and stiffened the storm trysail that steadied her against the gale winds that blew now from the north, now from the east, in disconcerting and irregular cycles. The helmsman had to be relieved every hour. The Sicilian crew, accustomed to the mild Mediterranean, suffered bitterly from the cold. Now and then the world was blotted out by swirling snowstorms that roared down to envelop them in an icy white grip.
Durell used a lifeline to work his way below. It was evening of the second day out of Stockholm, and the weather proved a mixed blessing. The Vesper’s spoon bow was capable of riding over and smashing the occasional ice floe they met. And the overcast, the driving sleet and lowering cyclonic clouds and general gloom effectively hid them from the Swedish Dragon jets that risked destruction to hunt for them. Now and then the howl of the wind was mixed with the boom of the jets as they came in low for the search; but although they heard the planes several times, they were not seen, and the Vesper continued undiscovered.
He estimated another hour to their destination. But this was difficult to judge, since they hadn’t seen the sun since they left Saltsjobaden. The lingering twilight at this latitude made it difficult to judge if it was day or night. An eerie whiteness prevailed, a combination of driving snow and the half-gloom of the Arctic daylight.
They had made a landfall in the Kvarkin, off the island of Holmon, and adjusted course by dead reckoning. But they might be an hour from the village of Skelleftsvik, or almost upon it. Durell worked forward to the bow lookout, ordered him to stay sharp, and went below.
He was grateful for the warmth of the cabins. He exchanged a few words with Baron Uccelatti, working at charts that were useless without a look at the sun. The Palermitan nobleman was pale and strained. Durell went to Sigrid’s cabin, knocked, and entered without waiting for a reply.
She looked at him with sullen eyes. “I have nothing more to say to you, Sam. You are taking us all to destruction. The voyage is one of suicide.”
“That should suit your Swedish temperament,” he said. “Have you anything to drink?”
“Only your bourbon. Most of the liquor was smashed in the last gale. Help yourself.”
He poured a stiff three fingers, bracing himself against the lift and pitch and plunge of the laboring vessel. He kept ducking his head to keep from scraping against the cabin ceiling. The girl huddled in a blanket on her bunk, her long hair loose about her shoulders. Her mouth was sulky.
“What’s bugging you now?” he asked.
“You do not know this coast. You. are blind and foolish, filled with rage against defeat. You will not admit that you are defeated.”
“If men have made this storm,” he said, “then they must be made to end it.”
“You blame my father, do you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you think it is all his fault, through some quixotic, idealistic belief. And you are the hard-headed American engaged in fighting the Cold War. You hold my father in contempt.”
“I didn’t say that, either. You’re simply projecting your own thoughts on me, Sigrid.”
She turned away. “Leave me alone,” she whispered. “I feel miserable enough.”
“I promise you,” he said gently, “if your father is alive, we’ll find him and get him back.”
“Suppose he does not wish to come back?”
“I’m sure he didn’t want this. If he’s the man you say he is, he didn’t intend his weather machine to freeze and destroy so many innocent people.”
“But if you find him, what will you do to him?” “That depends on many things. One thing is certain, we mustn’t let Smurov get him.”
“That man frightens me.”
“He frightens me, too,” Durell admitted. “He’s very sure of himself. He has power behind him, and he’s not far from his own borders. He can call for help whenever he feels the time is right. But something else is bothering you, isn’t it, Sigrid?”
She looked at him. “Perceptive man.”
“Are you worried about Olaf? You do love him?”
“I don’t know. I am attached to him, a part of him, since we were children. Yes, I suppose I love him.”
“But he’s a bit mad. He called it himself—a berserker.” “He would never hurt me.”
“Sigrid, if he must, he’ll kill you.”
She turned her head away. The Vesper shuddered as an exceptional sea broke over her. She heeled far to port and took a long time to right herself. Ice scraped along her stout planks. Nothing could be seen through the cabin ports. Durell sat on the bunk beside the girl.
“Sigrid, be honest with me. Don’t you think that Olaf will kill you, if you get in his way?”
“I cannot believe it. We are such old friends, and we have shared so much together. . . .” She turned in sudden anger. “It is you, strange man, who brought this trouble with you. Everything was clear until you came along. I cannot understand myself. My duty to my job struggles with my feelings for Olaf. And I cannot understand you, either.”
She clasped her hands behind his neck and looked long into his eyes. Then she abruptly released him and shook her head; her long, pale hair swayed. “No, I do not know myself. How can I do my work and love Olaf, too?” “Perhaps you don’t care much about either of them,” he said gently.
“I am confused. My duty must go against both you and Olaf.”
“Can you tell me what your orders are, exactly?”
“It is for—no, I cannot say.”
“Have you kept your people informed of what you’re doing? Are those planes from your Air Force? Are they hunting us?”
“Some of them,” she admitted.
“And the others?”
“Russian, I suppose.” She looked miserable at the thought, then abruptly took another tack. “Have you talked to Elgiva today?”
“Only briefly, at lunch.”
“She loves my father, too. But she is so strange—such a witch. She offers something to all men. Love, to my father; a kinship of spirit to Uncle Eric, with her infatuation for old things of t
he pagan world. In those days she would have been a priestess, I think, cutting the hearts out of quivering, living sacrifices.”
“She’s not as bad as all that.”
“Why do you suppose she came on this insane voyage? We will all die, you know. The storm will destroy us. It will be impossible to get into Skelleftsvik.”
“Why do you say that?”
She shrugged. “One must know the coast intimately, as I do, or we shall be wrecked on the coast and thrown into this icy sea.”
“We’re almost there. Will you help pilot us in?”
She thought about it for a long time. Then she said, “No, I am afraid. I do not want the responsibility.”
He went to see Elgiva. She was drinking coffee in the salon and trying to read, although the schooner pitched so extremely he could not see how she could concentrate. Sigrid’s image of a priestess was not dispelled by the way Elgiva looked. There was something unearthly in her amber eyes that met his gaze, a fanatic joy in the storm that imperiled them all. She closed the book, but kept a finger in her place. Her eyes were speculative as Durell sat down beside her.
“And how is that devoted and impossible child, Sigrid?” she asked softly.
“Confused,” he said.
“So she has always been. It is a question of being in love with her own father. She resents me and any other woman who approaches him. And she holds up every other man to an unhappy comparison.” Elgiva sighed. “She could ruin us all.”
“Not if you help us,” Durell said.
Her eyes widened. “My dear Durell, what could I do?” “The waters here are tricky. The storm makes it worse. Sigrid won’t help to guide us in. But you’ve been here many times before. Perhaps you can do it.”
“I write poetry,” she said coldly. “I am not a sailor.” “But you know this shore. You’ve walked along it and explored it intimately.”
“Only in the sunlight, and in peaceful weather. Not in this—this darkness of the gods.”
“The gods didn’t make this weather. Peter Gustaffson did it. And I don’t think he can stop it now. So we’ve got to find him and help him, or it’s the end for everybody.”
Assignment - Black Viking Page 11
