“Hold it,” Durell said.
His voice snapped the spell for Omaru. His head jerked about and he stared. Isome seemed not to hear. Neither did Nadja, whose voice monotonously repeated the negative phrase, again and again.
“Omaru, stop your wife or I’ll shoot her,” Durell said flatly.
The fat man lurched to his feet. He smiled. “So. You have come back to do business with me, after all.”
“I’ve come back for the girl only. Do you want me to stop Isome with a bullet?”
Omaru grunted, shrugged his massive shoulders in his red kimono, and said something sharply to the woman. Isome turned her head slowly to stare at Durell. Her mouth was slack, drunken. She dropped the glowing rod with a clatter, and it smoked and fumed on the polished cedar floor. Omaru spoke to the woman again, and she complained in a whining voice. But she moved away and stood sullenly against the opposite wall.
“We can still do business, you and I,” Omaru said. “Yet you seem determined to annoy me, my friend.”
“I am not your friend,” Durell said.
“But you cannot have the girl. I have promised her to Isome. You learned nothing from her, eh? But Isome can make her talk. She seems to be suffering from some sort of traumatic amnesia, unless she has fooled me completely. You had your chance with her, Durell. Now it is mine. If I get the information, we may still come to some arrangement about Colonel Kaminov.”
“Nadja will tell you nothing. She’ll die first. But not here. I’m taking her away with me.” Durell looked at the girl, who whispered her small litany over and over again out of a battered mouth. He spoke sharply. “Nadja! Get up and come over here to me.”
She did not stir. Her muttering went on. Durell crossed the shrine, holding the gun loosely in his hand. He wondered how soon the guards he had knocked out would get here. It was ironic that this torture chamber should be in use so near the big villa where polite amenities were taking place. He knew he had very little time.
“Nadja, come with me,” he said. “Come along. You won’t be killed. No one will oblige you that way, no matter how much you want to die. You won’t be hurt any more. Can you hear me? Can you stand up?”
Her muttering ended. The blindness slowly faded from her eyes as Durell’s quiet voice reached her. She touched her puffed and bleeding mouth with a swollen hand and looked craftily across the room at Isome. The other woman breathed quietly and deeply, like a sleep-walker.
Durell held out his left hand to Nadja.
“Come, it’s all right.”
Like a striking snake, the crazed and tortured girl lunged forward and bit his hand.
Durell pulled back, reluctant to hurt her. From somewhere in the temple came the distant, vibrant boom of a gong. And he saw that in the moment his attention was distracted by the girl, Omaru had tugged at a signal cord. The island fortress was totally alerted now.
He stepped back again, his mouth taut.
“That was a mistake, Omaru.”
The fat man grinned. “Put down your gun, please—or you are a dead man. There are weapons trained on you at this moment from three points in the balcony above this room. You will not leave here alive, unless I permit it.” There was a frieze of latticework eight feet up the four walls of the temple chamber. Durell scanned it quickly, saw the glint of a gun barrel in one place, the shine of a second and a third in the opposite wall. He felt a moment’s panic. He had not underestimated Omaru, yet the fat man still had a few tricks in his bag. But he wasn’t finished yet.
He did not drop his gun. “You see I can blow a tunnel through that fat belly of yours, Omaru,” he said. “Even a reflex shot if I’m killed will do it. The gamble is yours.” “Yes. Very well. What do you want, then?”
“Get over there with Isome,” Durell rapped.
Omaru made a small sign with his pudgy hand to the three unseen marksmen behind the wooden screening and moved ponderously to the wall to stand beside the woman. Isome made a tittering sound and spoke in English. “Why not wrestle the American for the girl, darling? It would be interesting.”
“Be quiet, Isome,” Omaru snapped.
“But you always brag so much and do so little,” the woman complained. “You watch others, and do nothing yourself.” Her smile was a little crazy. “Show me, darling, and kill him by holding him in your strong arms.”
Durell looked quickly at Nadja. His left hand ached where her teeth had left deep marks in the flesh of his palm. He thought her eyes, when they met his, seemed a little less remote than before. But he couldn’t be sure.
Omaru spoke again to his men behind the screen. The guns were withdrawn. He turned his bald head to Durell, and his winged brows lifted.
“Perhaps Isome is right. If you can beat me in a fair fight between us, you can take the girl. And if you lose, you are dead, and then what I do cannot matter to you, eh?” Omaru shrugged off his red kimono and stepped out of his sandals. “Come, you have your gun, and you can kill me. But my men will kill you, in return. One of us must die, eh? I will wrestle for the girl. You have my word that you can take her, if you can make me fall.”
The man’s bulk shone with a tawny pallor, and it was not all fat. His musculature was enormous, rippling. He took a sumo wrestler’s stance, feet spread, toes pointing outward, knees flexed. His bald head seemed to shrink into his meaty shoulders, offering no grip on a nonexistent neck. Only his enormous paunch and flesh, dimpled legs seemed to be vulnerable.
“Come,” he urged. “Americans are sportsmen, are they not? You have no choice. The other way, one or both of us must die.”
Durell looked up at the lattice screen. The guns still covered him. There seemed no way out. Shrugging, he tossed his weapon aside. It landed on a tatami mat midway between him and the motionless, cringing figure of the prisoner.
With a shriek, Nadja snatched up Durell’s gun and fired it, again and again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
She squeezed off three shots before Durell jumped and reached her and silenced the clamorous gun. The echoes were deafening. Fine inlaid wood flew in splinters from the first bullet; the second hit a brass bell with brazen reverberations. And the third bullet dropped Isome.
Then Durell caught Nadja’s wrist and wrenched the gun away. The air shook with the reports and the echoes of the bell. He pulled Nadja around to his back and slammed the muzzle of the gun into Omaru’s naked belly.
“Hold it.”
The fat man looked shaken. “But Isome is hurt—this girl is insane—”
“Don’t move, Omaru. Tell your men to clear out of the gallery. Do it now.”
Omaru heard the harsh warning in Durell’s voice, but he shook his head. “No, I offered you a fair trial of strength. Nothing has changed. We both die. You can still kill me, but my men are certain to kill you immediately afterward. It is a stand-off.”
“There’s been a change,” Durell said tightly. “Look at your wife. Look at Isome.”
The woman’s elaborate coiffure had tumbled in disarray when she fell against the wall. A trickle of blood oozed from her left shoulder. She looked aged and bitter, no longer a delicate puppet; she was a crone unmasked behind the fine arts of her cosmetics. She spoke in a thin whisper.
“Omaru. Omaru, you are a fool. Let it be. I need a doctor.”
“You are only scratched,” the man said impatiently.
“It is an order. I need no heroics from you. One must be intelligent in these matters, too, as well as brave. I know you are brave, Omaru. But it is an order.”
“But we cannot allow him—”
“Nor can we allow open bloodshed here. It is stupid to think he came here without friends who wait his safe return. Can we afford a police investigation tonight, or tomorrow?” “He would call the police anyway—”
“No. In his work, he would not. But his friends might, you see. Do as he says.”
Isome’s words were sharp and authoritative. Durell noted the way she expected to be obeyed, and made a quick re-evaluatio
n of his opponents. Isome was not a pretty doll used by Omaru for public appearances. She was the brains, the one in charge of the enemy operation. This much was obvious, just from the exposed relationship between them now.
Omaru nodded slowly, his eyes glittering; then he barked a command in Japanese to the men behind the screen. The guns disappeared. There was a rustling and slapping of sandaled feet. Omaru moved to Isome and considered her wound, tore a strip of cloth from her kimono and bandaged it roughly. Then he looked at Durell with bitter eyes.
“We could have done business, Durell-san,” the fat man said. “All my efforts have been to assist you—for money, of course, but still, we could have worked together. This girl is a common enemy to both of us.”
“You have not sent your message to Kaminov yet that we are coming for him,” Durell said harshly. “Let’s do it now.” “There is a certain time for such transmissions. In the morning—it is impossible now—”
Durell pushed his gun hard into Omaru’s fat belly. The big man winced and shrugged.
“Let me put on my kimono, please.”
Durell waited. Nadja cowered behind him. She was like a shivering animal, her eyes feral, never leaving Omaru and Isome. Yet she seemed to have accepted Durell’s protection
at last, sensing through her pain and terror that he had come to help her. But it was only expediency, he thought wryly. Once they were safely away from here—if they were lucky— she would turn on him like a cat and claw him again. “Nadja, can you walk?” he asked in English.
Her eyes were clearer. “Yes . . . I think so . . .”
“You have to trust me. No more kicking or biting?” “Please ... get me out. . . the woman is a monster . . .”
“All right.” Durell turned back to Omaru. “Let’s go down to your radio room.”
Omaru nodded. “As you wish.”
Durell urged him with Isome out through the back gate of the little building. The night wind blew from the sea with a heavy, damp strength. The shredded clouds reluctantly allowed aa occasional glimpse of the moon. The stunted sea pines shook in the wind and sent down irregular showers of water from their rain-drenched needles.
The way down the circular stairs into the heart of Omaru’s bastion was still lighted. They saw no one else. From the terrace, just before descending into the island’s heart, Durell saw the rambling, geometric shape of Omaru’s cliffside villa below. The party seemed to be over. The blaze of lights had dimmed, and the lighted steps to the dock showed the last straggling guests making their way down.
The radio room was as Durell had left it, but the two men had made their way out of the metal closet. The first was gone, but the radioman was just putting on spare spectacles taken from an open desk drawer, when Durell urged Omaru and the woman inside. Nadja murmured at the banks of transmitting equipment. She had tried mechanically to straighten her disheveled, silvery hair. She limped on her bare, injured feet, and she was obviously in great pain. But the madness and terror had faded from her eyes. She kept close to Durell.
The radioman babbled frightened excuses to Omaru the moment they stepped inside. Omaru silenced him.
“At what hour,” the fat man said heavily, “do we make our usual transmission to Manchurian Station H, Yeku? Please tell the American the truth, without fear.”
The radioman peered at Durell through his thick glasses. “It is usually at 0800 daily, sir.”
“Then why are you on duty now?” Durell asked.
The man licked his lips. “My orders were to stand by—”
“To transmit tonight?” Durell asked sharply. “Have you ever called Manchuria at any hour except 0800, Yeku?”
“Sometimes, when a shipment is to be made—”
Durell nodded. “See if you can raise them now.”
Yeku looked at Omaru for confirmation. The fat man inclined his bald head. The Japanese sat down with obvious relief and familiarly snapped on switches and turned dials. Durell looked at Omaru. “Do you use a code?”
“A simple one, but quite effective. We changed frequencies on a prearranged schedule to avoid being monitored by the Chinese and Russians.” Omaru paused. “What message will you send to Colonel Kaminov? My man in Manchuria will receive it; I do not attempt to outwit you, Durell-san. It will be relayed to Kaminov, wherever he is, by further radio signal.”
“All right. Tell Kaminov we’ve done our share of the work, that we have his girl, and he can come over at once.” Omaru seemed pleased. “Agreed.”
It took only a minute to raise an acknowledgment from the clandestine smuggling station across the Japan Sea. Another four minutes passed in sending out the coded message. Without other instructions, the radioman would send the prearranged signal, Durell hoped.
There was a chattering acknowledgment; then the man shut down the transmitter and snapped off the switches.
Omaru grunted. “I trust you are now satisfied, Durell-san. But what will you do when you get there? You will not know the rendezvous point, any more than I do. Only this fanatic Russian girl can tell you where to go.”
Durell ignored his remark. He said flatly: “How many other transmitters do you operate, Omaru?”
The fat man blinked. “One in Tokyo, another in Hong Kong, another in Saigon. There are receiving stations for each one on the Chinese mainland and the offshore islands.” Omaru seemed pleased to explain his cleverness. “The operators each recognize the other’s style of transmitting. Once, when the Chinese tried to interfere by broadcasting an imitative style, I was almost captured aboard one of my boats, by the Peiping people.”
“But I thought you worked for them, too.”
Omaru smiled blandly. “My dear sir, I am a man for hire, and in this part of the world, one questions only the validity of the currency offered. Of course I sometimes work for Peiping. You understood that at our first arrangement.
I still think you are foolish not to trust me. Together, this operation could be quite simple. We could make the girl talk—”
Durell said: “I assume you arranged for no further counterfeit messages, after your near-disaster.”
“Naturally. It would lie impossible for the mainland stations to mistake our message.”
“Good,” Durell said. “Thank you. Now, have you a screwdriver and a hammer?”
Omaru blinked, looked suddenly shocked as he guessed Durell’s intention. The radioman secured the tools. Durell gave the screwdriver to Nadja.
“Are your hands good enough to take the case off the transmitter?”
“I will try,” Nadja said. “It will please me.”
She was clumsy, but deliberate and effective. Omaru breathed heavily, the sound of his anger like a gusty wind in the underground room.
Durell said coldly: “Don’t ask me to trust you, Omaru. I want to be sure that your man in Manchuria doesn’t get a message to set a trap for Kaminov before he’s taken off the mainland. You’re a crook, Omaru, who’s played both sides of the fence too long!”
“You will regret this,” Omaru whispered.
Nadja took up the hammer and began to smash the interior apparatus of the transmitter. She ripped out wires with trembling, swollen hands, smashed circuits on the floor, and in less than another minute reduced the equipment to twisted, shining bits of wreckage.
“You understand what you have done?” Omaru shouted. “There will be no escape for you now, Durell. You and this girl will die.”
Nadja’s whisper was icy. “He means it, Durell. Kill him. Kill him now.”
“The woman, too?” Durell asked.
“Both of them. Now. You must!”
Durell shook his head. The rules of his business allowed for no chivalry, and he had been trained to be merciless. But he had never been able to bring himself to apply the same ruthless rules by which Nadja’s people operated. Logic was on her side; if he eliminated Omaru now, he might save himself disaster later on. He saw dawning fear in the fat man’s face, and ultimate terror in Isome’s bottomless black eyes.
His thoughts raced. He might be no more successful in finding Kaminov, through making Nadja talk, than Omaru. In that case, Omaru might be his only other hope in the future. Omaru alone did not have all the answers; but if he could get a few pieces from the girl and put them together with what Omaru had, he might get the information he needed. It was a gamble, risking present danger against possible future reward. Nadja and Omaru were both enemies. And if he killed Omaru now, he might kill the only alternative to the girl.
He lowered his gun. The fat man’s breath hissed with explosive relief. A crooked little smile flickered over Isome’s ravaged face. Nadja sagged, dull-eyed and exhausted.
“You’re lucky this time, Omaru,” Durell said.
“We shall see who lives and dies, before this is over,” Omaru whispered.
Durell found some wire and with Nadja’s fumbling help, quickly bound Omaru and Isome and then the frightened radioman, lashing them tightly to the built-in steel desk.
In five minutes he stepped out of the room with Nadja and climbed back up to the outer doorway.
Nadja limped beside him. Alone with him now, a sort of embarrassment seemed to touch her. She did not reply to his brief directions as they picked their way down the hillside to the lighted dock below. She hurried as fast as she could, pressed by the same urgency that possessed Durell. If Omaru got free before they were safely away from the island, their lives would be utterly lost.
The wind had freshened still more, and he could see the smashing white teeth of combers breaking on the rocks around the island’s perimeter. Through the thrashing pines, the lights of the mainland flickered fitfully, half a mile away. Omaru’s house was dark. Only a single light burned on the dock below. Two launches dipped and plunged in the uneasy shelter of the mooring. Durell saw no guards there, but he did not hope for any easy escape.
Nadja suddenly tripped and sprawled, rolling down the pathway on the steep slope. Durell darted after her, caught her, and pulled her to her feet again. She leaned heavily on his arm, her exhaustion dragging at him. Her eyes were closed and her face was dead white.
Assignment - Manchurian Doll Page 10
