Assignment- Mermaid

by Will B Aarons

  There were many old scores.

  They would settle them with merciful quickness, he hoped.

  His throat ached with thirst and bruises; the gag was a stifling filth in his mouth. Hands and feet were turning numb, wrists and ankles throbbing where the tight bonds restricted blood circulation to an insufficient trickle.

  The lamp guttered, sent up an oily tendril of smoke, settled to a steady glow once more. Little fuel was left in its clear glass base. The odor of burnt kerosene tainted the air. It mingled with the musty reek of ages.

  Link lay beside the rough-hewn table on which the lamp rested. His slack face was turned up, as if to find the light, dark eyes half open, a chalk-mark of teeth gleaming from a comer of the lips sardonically parted, even in death.

  Durell remembered the pocket knife that Link had lent him to open the crate. Was the knife still in the man’s jumpsuit? How could Durell possibly get it out, when every move was torment?

  It was hopeless to try.

  But he tried.

  He hopped the chair forward, and the noose yanked at his windpipe. His breath stopped in his throat, and there was a frightening moment when he thought he was finished. He kept his thoughts calm, fighting his instinct to struggle, drew slowly with his lungs and was aware of a minimum of life-giving oxygen.

  He waited a moment, hopped the chair again.

  The noose snapped at his neck, threatened to crash his larynx. He thought his mind would reel into lethal unconsciousness—lethal, because he now saw that if his head dropped forward and stayed there, he was certain to strangle.

  Again he waited, poised on the verge of swimming oblivion.

  Pain crawled spitefully through his chest. His tongue was dusty and dry, beneath the wad of the gag. He could barely swallow.

  If he got the knife, he might saw the rope in two where it led past his hands, from the back of his neck to his ankles.

  If he could get it . . .

  The room held an eerie silence, broken only by the thump of blood that pounded in his ears. He had no way of tracking the passage of time.

  His assassins would come: that was all he knew.

  His hope of escaping before they arrived was futile.

  But he would not give it up. He waited, taking the pleasure of pained, raw breaths, glad for the little air that sustained him.

  As he rested, his thoughts turned to the uranium. Panagiotes had said it was intended for Italian industry. But had he fooled the Russians? Did they really believe that? It was unlike them not to have checked and checked again. Plodding Slavic patience was one of their hallmarks. They never before had been eager to sell uranium in the west. Had they been in such a rush to do so this time that they had neglected to pierce the facade of Panagiotes’ story? It should not have taken much effort. There were only so many fronts, and all of them flimsy, to cover the truth about the destination of a shipload of weapons-grade uranium ore.

  Durell intuited conspiracies within conspiracies, but that was all. Hunch and intuition.

  He clung to one certainty: it just was not possible that the Soviets wanted Uzuri to have a nuclear capability.

  Yet, when they got the uranium back, they had headed south with it, seemingly headed toward Uzuri again.

  He put it out of his mind.

  He dreaded hopping the chair again. He had to, that was all.

  He waited a moment longer and tried not to think how, if the chair toppled, the rope was likely to break his neck. His oxygen-deprived heart beat with great, muscular throbbings that shook his rib cage.

  He dared delay no longer. The faces of Colonel Cesar Skoll and Lieutenant Maximov swam before his mind, leering and deadly.

  He planted his feet and sprung, lifting the chair legs from the floor in the same motion. A horrible, twisting pain gripped his trachea, and his tongue swelled at the back of his dry throat. Luminous nits swirled and swarmed before his straining eyes. The room hazed.

  Once more he willed himself to consciousness.

  His air seemed to come through a fragile straw that was too narrow. He scented blood from within his bruised air passages.

  At least he was alive. He regarded the sprawled corpse and saw with abrupt surprise that his toe was touching it. He had reached his destination, but now what? He slumped back in the chair, released the tension of the rope as far as possible from his throat. It wasn’t much. He realized that his jaws ached from clenching his teeth. There was no real feeling left in his hands.

  He stared at Link, listening to the rasp of air in his throat, the thrum of starved blood, his head swimming. Link had acted the fool and paid the fool’s price. In the business, that could amount only to death, whether it be sooner or later. Hadn’t he known Durell would go to any length to get him? Still, if he had not returned to the windmill to make sure that Hank was dead . . .

  But he had returned. Like a fool.

  And then he had trusted Panagiotes to extricate him.

  A rooster crowed, shaking him from his dreary reverie. He craned his sore neck and peered through the cracks in the shutters. The first light of dawn spilled over the east.

  He wondered about Sirena, remembering the quick play she had made for him in Panagiotes’ study. After that, she seemed to have put a wall of indifference around her, as far as he was concerned. Erratic behavior. There had to be a cause; the pressure of fear was enough. Or torn loyalties. For all he knew she was in with Panagiotes up to her nose. That was the way it had seemed.

  A sigh caught painfully in his throat. He fought a raw coughing spasm, choking on the grimy gag that filled his mouth, then caught his breath. The first droplets of sweat oozed into the comers of his eyes, stinging. He sensed a feverish heat in his racked body, thought wearily of just giving up and waiting.

  A long time had passed now.

  His killers would arrive soon.

  He had no idea how many minutes or hours he had taken to move the chair a couple of feet. The cost in physical torment had been enormous, and still nothing seemed effectively changed. But having reached Link’s body, he was forced to confront the formidable problem of getting the knife from the jumpsuit pocket. It would be in the right pocket, if still where he had carried it earlier, and that was good, because Durell was on the right side of the corpse. He could look down and see the pocket where it gaped slightly open at the dead man’s hip.

  A clang of goat bells came from outdoors. More light streamed through the shutter cracks. Soon Lindos would awaken. Panagiotes would try to get the Russians here before that happened.

  The meltémi wind soughed under the eaves.

  The lamp flame guttered on the table at his elbow, sent up another wisp of black smoke and died. A short thread of soot drifted down and landed on Durell’s leg. The room was filled with dusky shadows.

  It was difficult to know whether any residual feeling was left in his hands. He questioned whether he could open a knife if he found one, or even hold onto it.

  He had to keep trying. His wrists were not tied to the cord that ran from neck to ankles, so he could move his hands without endangering his throat. He strained, as he attempted to loosen the bonds. He worked at stretching the rope, and groaned, choking slowly, unable to swallow down his swollen throat. Sweat bathed him—and still he was as much a captive as before.

  There remained one slender hope.

  If he turned the chair around, so that his back was toward Link’s body; if he pushed himself over backwards, falling in such a way that his hands landed within reach of the pocket . . .

  The rope might break his neck; failing that, the noose might tighten, implacably crushing his windpipe, suffocating him. Or his head might simply hit the floor too hard, leaving him unconscious to await the KGB killers.

  But death was sure, if he did nothing.

  He made his decision: he would stake everything on this one toss of the dice.

  First, he must go through the ordeal of turning the chair around, so that the back was toward Link’s body and his
hands lined up as nearly as possible with the pocket. He was in the midst of that, his faculties hazed with pain and fatigue and desperation, when somehow he lost his balance.

  He sensed with a stab of alarm the backward sway of his seat, realized he was going over, felt his shoulder crash into the table and steeled himself, as the glass lamp splintered against the floor with a rattling thunder. Then his back jolted against Link’s corpse, and his head arced down and slammed into the floor.

  He saw an explosion of lights, was only dimly aware as the noose throttled him. Feebly, his hands groped for the pocket in Link’s jumpsuit. They found nothing.

  His vision blurred.

  The gag seemed to crawl wickedly down his throat,

  toward his stifling lungs. His heart raced. His hands clenched and unclenched helplessly.

  Then his fingers spread out, strained stiffly to their widest extent. Fluttered. Trembled.

  And went limp.

  20

  From afar came the creak and swipe of an opening door.

  Durell sensed, as if through a consciousness removed from his still and blinded body, a rush of cool morning air.

  Footsteps out of a hollow distance.

  The core of life that burned stubbornly at the back of his mind was like a burrowed, hunted animal. It put nothing together, was unreasoning, without intellect. He did not know if he were dead or alive, was incapable even of recognizing the question, much less pondering it. All that was left were tenuous, fragile senses. He was as close to death as he had ever come.

  Now a primal, feral alarm pinched and pricked him.

  He knew no cause or reason, but his instinct struggled up to light through a thick, suffocating blackness, until he was reminded of the garrote laced into the exposed helplessness of his throat. It seemed like hours, but only a second passed before he saw dimly the backs of his eyelids, the colored light that strained through their thin flesh.

  His lungs burned for air.

  The footsteps came closer.

  The KGB. There was a whiplash of panic. Then:

  "Sam? Sam Durell?”

  His eyes flickered.

  Through a mist of pain, he saw Sirena.

  She knelt quickly, removed the gag. "Sam?”

  He tried to speak, but couldn’t. She sat back, surveyed the intricacies of his bonds. He ground his teeth together, his face a silent plea for quick release from the strangling cord.

  She worked with frantic fingers, hands quivering with urgency. But the knots had turned tight and hard. They were beyond her capability. Durell felt himself slipping into the void again, fought to sustain consciousness, rolled his eyes toward shards of the lamp that were scattered across the floor.

  With immediate understanding, she snatched up one of them and slashed at the rope that stretched between his neck and ankles. Her hair fell in curtains that hid her cheeks as she worked hastily. There was a sudden painful tug of release, and he took air into his starved lungs in grateful gulps. He lay there, just breathing, as she sawed away the bonds on his hands and feet.

  With a whimper of effort, she tugged at the shoulders of his jacket, trying to help him up.

  "Just a minute,” he gasped. He felt giddy. His voice was a hoarse whisper as it came through a hot, sore throat. "Check the door.” His head was clearing. As Sirena darted for the door, he rolled over onto hands and knees, tried to shake the cobwebs from his brain.

  "No one’s there,” she said.

  "Give me a hand,” he croaked, coughing. He stared at his hands. They were swollen and slate-blue, numb but for tormenting pinpricks as blood pumped through them again.

  Sirena hesitated over Link.

  "You couldn’t have saved him,” Durell said. "You’d only have got yourself killed.”

  "I came back to save you; I came as quickly as I could.” She lent him her hand.

  He took it and staggered up; his feet felt like iron plates hinged to his ankles. The pressure of his weight brought a million stabs at his soles, as if he were walking on razor blades. He swayed, faltered, caught himself.

  "Are you going to be all right?” Her husky voice was solicitous.

  "In a few minutes.”

  "Come. Lie down.”

  "No!” He calmed himself. "No. There isn’t time. Get me a drink.”

  "Yes, a drink.” She flew through a doorway that was screened by a heavy green curtain. Durell glimpsed a faded red rag carpet, a Karelia cigarette calendar two years old. She hurried back with a dripping dipper. The cold water soothed his throat, and he drank greedily.

  She said: "I knew the only hope of helping you was to pretend indifference and bide my time. When Costa told you he would let the Russians kill you, I saw a chance. Provided I could get away from him.”

  Durell held the dipper away from his mouth and drew a breath. "And how did you do that?” he asked. He put the dipper back to his lips.

  "He thinks I’m in my apartment, resting. He thinks women are fragile.”

  Durell snorted. He tossed the dipper onto the table, plodded on unwieldy feet to the door. A vise of pain still gripped his throat. "Let’s get out of here,” he rasped.

  "Wait—you don’t understand.” She put a hand against his chest. "We must save Mr. Lazeishvili, too.”

  "Sure. But not if we’re dead.” He opened the door, leaned out, fell back against the wall stung with dismay.

  Sirena saw the look on his face, and her dark, almond eyes went big as daisies. "The KGB?” she whispered.

  "You got it.”

  Three of them came up the alley, the lanky, sunburned figure of Lieutenant Maximov in the lead. They seemed in no particular hurry, in keeping with procedures designed to avoid undue notice. All wore the kind of straw hat manufactured on the island and had cameras slung over their shoulders.

  They had every reason to believe Durell would wait.

  Few of the inhabitants were up and about; the fisherman had returned and gone to bed. Most of the rest counted on tourist traffic, and that would not start to flow until much later. It was only a bit after five o’clock now.

  Lieutenant Maximov and his men could do as they pleased and still stand a good chance of getting away clean at this hour.

  That included shooting someone down in the street.

  Durell hobbled and shuffled past Link’s corpse, into the kitchen, out the back door. Even this humble house had a small walled garden on the island of roses. Willowy branches of oleander dribbled red blossoms; the black fruit of a mulberry tree spotted the stony earth; honeybees made brass darts in the brightening air. There was a fragrance from the fields.

  Sirena caught up. "Don’t. Don’t run away,” she said.

  "What’s the matter with you?” Durell’s tone was bewildered.

  "Aleksei Lazeishvili—we have to help him!”

  She had been through too much; her slipping mind had turned obsessive.

  Durell almost shouted, but his raw, constricted throat prevented that. "He is not here!”

  "No, but—”

  "Then we come first.”

  He pushed through the weathered wooden gate, the nerves in his swollen hands jangling and protesting.

  She clutched at his sleeve, but he brushed her angrily away. She was acting as if she had lost her senses.

  The house was at the edge of the village; nothing but tumbled stone, maqui shrub, thorny stone walls and stunted olive trees troubled the steep shoulder of the hill before him. At its top lorded the crusader castle, founded on an ancient acropolis bound in dressed stone and still harboring at its furthest reach the sanctity of a temple to Athena Lindia, whose mantle Alexander the Great had worn reverently in battle.

  Durell scrambled across the dew-laden, rosemary-scented spaces, glad for the pain that meant his feet were regaining feeling and agility. Sirena clambered up behind him, hips swinging in feminine cadence. No one was out here. Below was St. Paul’s Bay, where the sea shimmered like a blue butterfly’s wing. Crowning the promontory above, the acropolis loo
med closer, the stone of the knights’ castle glowing the color of cedar wood in the early morning light.

  Between bay and hilltop was the horizontal spread of the village, like a line of white seafoam cast up at high tide.

  He turned his face back up and kept going.

  Then a shout touched his ears from far below, and he knew they had been seen.

  He looked down, sweating in rivulets despite the cooling wind. He was high enough now to see over the red-tiled house, into the street that fronted it. The three men darted into it. They would come through and give chase in seconds.

  A few yards behind him, Sirena gasped something, her long, black hair tumbling and streaming in the wind.

  "They’ll come out the back in a minute,” he called, his voice strained.

  "Sam—you have no gun, of course.”

  "Of course.”

  He moved on, half bent against the sharp incline of the hill. His body felt easier. He was recovering rapidly, except for his bruised throat. He had his eye on the screen of cypresses at the base of the acropolis. If only they could get behind that ... He swung his face back downhill. The houses had begun to glare with a painful, snowy brilliance.

  Lieutenant Maximov burst through the garden gate.

  Durell heard a wail of ricochets before the small pop of gunshots reached his ears. He angled behind a thick, gnarled olive tree, waited for Sirena, jerked her around with him.

  "You have to listen to me,” she gasped. "If you go back—”

  Durell shook her. "I don’t get you; did you get me loose for the fun of throwing me to the sharks?”

  "I’ve been trying to tell you: Mr. Lazeishvili wants to make a deal—”

  "Well save it, god damn it!”

  Maximov was running up the hill, stumbling, mouth working with curses. The other two tumbled out of the garden gate and joined the chase.

  Durell measured the distance to the foot of the acropolis, the hopeful cover of the trees. He made it fifty yards. A long, deadly fifty yards. His quick look tested Sirena: she was tired, but not out. She found her breath in pinched gasps through pretty, quivering lips. The knee of her white slacks had been ripped in a fall; blood oozed from a scrape in the soft, tan flesh that showed through the rent.