Assignment - Suicide

by Edward S. Aarons

  “I understand that. Nevertheless, you may be helpful.”

  “Would you trust me with a gun?” Durell asked.

  “I would rather not. But I would appreciate advice. Come with me.”

  They walked quietly through the moonlit brush back over the crest of the ridge to the vantage point above the road where the bridge crossed the stream. Dim lights shone in the sentry tower below. The sound of the little river came gently up to where they crouched on the overhanging ledge. Now and then the thin, scratchy bars of radio music came from the sentry’s shack. Within five minutes of their arrival, two huge trucks had crossed the bridge, stopping at the check point briefly before continuing west around the bend. Gregori lay prone on his stomach, the rifle cuddled against his cheek. “I will be able to pick him off easily when he comes."

  “And do you know the time Comrade Z will be here?”

  “In the morning of May the first. The exact horn is unknown.”

  “Your organization has good intelligence service,” Durell commented. He stood watching the lights of the watchtower below. “Why is it you do not know the name of your victim?”

  “Perhaps I do,“ Gregori said dryly. “Stand a little to one side, please.” He rolled over to lean on an elbow. “I would not like to have you jump on my back and take the rifle from me."

  “If you know Comrade Z‘s identity—”

  “It is only a guess.“

  “I see. And do you have plans for after the assassination?“

  “There will be a great deal of confusion. We will try to get back to the car while the soldiers are running around in circles. Anyway, the missile will not go off if my aim is true."

  Durell said quietly, “You don’t really expect to get out of this area alive, do you?”

  Gregori shrugged and was silent.

  “Even if you get past the barbed wire perimeter of the base, and even if you reach the car, you couldn’t get out of the area. The roadblocks would take care of that.”

  “Quite true.” '

  “Then you expect to die.”

  “We must all die at one time or another. Svoye vremina, ili nye skolka poshe, In due time, or somewhat later.”

  “Do the others understand the situation?”

  “Vassili understands. We are a suicide group. And Elena, too.”

  “And Mikhail?"

  “It is best if he has hope.”

  Durell’s voice was uncompromising. “Gregori, if we are captured and I am identified as an American, won’t that defeat your purpose? Think of the propaganda alarm. It will be considered an American plot, and war will come out of this, anyway.”

  “We can only hope for the best.”

  “But you admit that possibility? That I will be considered as your leader?"

  “There can be no help for that. It will be better if capture seems certain for all of us to die, rather than talk.“ Gregori stood up, cradling the rifle in the crook of his arm. “Now you know how it will be, gospodin. It is regrettable. But you came to this country expecting possible death. If death now is a certainty, you can blame no one but yourself.”

  A small wind came up, rattling the underbrush. From below, in the watchtower, came the sounds of jazz music. The Russian guards down there were listening to “Melancholy Baby.”

  Durell shivered in the wind.

  He was not asleep, although he made his breathing sound deep and regular when Vassili cautiously flashed a light in his face. No muscle in his face gave him away. He lay fully clothed on an upper bunk, above Valya. Across the dark dugout, he heard Elena muttering thinly as she dreamed. Gregori slept on the earthen floor near the entrance. Vassili and Mikhail had drawn the midnight watch, with Mikhail posted directly outside and Vassili at the observation post above the bridge. Durell waited for twenty minutes after Vassili left the dugout for his post, before he moved.

  He let his legs slide over the edge of the rough wooden bunk and sat up smoothly and silently. The top of his head grazed the invisible timbers of the dugout ceiling. He sat still. There was a dim glow at the dugout opening from the moonlight outside, and a shapeless bulk on the floor where Gregori slept. Nothing else. Then a cool hand touched his ankle, tightening for a moment, and he knew that Valya was awake and waiting for him.

  He slid down slowly and she guided his foot so he stood on the edge of her bunk and was able to step down to the floor without a sound. Again he waited. Elena continued to mutter and then she turned over, her clothes rustling. Now he could see the thin, angular wedge of her face.

  Valya stood up beside him, her hand on his arm. Nothing had to be said. She was ready to go with him.

  He waited for a count of twenty, maintaining the same breathing rhythm as before. Elena slept. Gregori did not move. He slid his feet toward the entrance, pausing every second step. Valya was close behind him. Her control was not as steady as his; her breath was tight and frightened.

  During the hours he had waited, Durell knew that the situation was now impossible for him. Ever since Gregori’s frank statement of the case, he knew he could never allow himself to be captured or found here with this band of assassins. He stood over Gregori‘s sleeping bulk. He liked the man. He could kill Gregori now with one blow, instantly and silently, but he did not want to see the man dead. He stepped over Gregori‘s legs and ducked his head and came out into the open, straightened, and waited for Valya.

  She hesitated, her face dim and tormented inside the dugout. He thought for a moment she had frozen in terror lest she fail to get safely over Gregori’s body. Then she took a quick, light step that spanned the Russian’s sprawled legs, and stood beside Durell. Her lips were parted. Her breathing was still fast and irregular.

  Durell took her hand and went a few steps to the right and paused again in the brushy niche of rock that led to the dugout. He was looking for Mikhail, who should have been on guard here, but he did not spot the dancer. Moonlight flooded the scene with distorted patterns of light and shadow. The air was cold. He saw by the illuminated hands on his watch that it was just past midnight. Valya shivered beside him.

  “This way,” he whispered.

  “Be careful.”

  He smiled quickly to ease the fear that gripped her. He had never seen her so close to losing total control before. Then he saw the dark swelling on her face where Elena’s gun had cut her, and he recognized that she must be suffering a dull, pulsing pain. He took her hand and led her silently away from the dugout.

  At the end of the cleft in the rock the brush was thinner and the trees were stark, black against silver in the moonlight. A thin wind shook the branches. Here and there the white blasted stumps of dead trees, shattered long ago by shrapnel, were like eerie sentinels against the night. There was a little knoll to the left, commanding the approach to the dugout from the ridge behind them. Wild blackberry bushes made a thorny barrier that way, but a small path had been crushed through them and Durell signaled to Valya to stay where she was.

  “No.” She shook her head. “Don’t leave me.”

  “Mikhail is up there.”

  “I want to go with you,” she whispered.

  He went ahead with her footsteps behind him, although his own pace was silent. He was halfway through the blackberry patch when a slim figure rose directly in his path. Moonlight touched Mikhail’s thin, sharp face. He had the P.38 in his hand, the barrel ugly and black in the moonlight.

  “Valya?” he called softly.

  The girl whispered quickly: “Here. It is all right, Miko.”

  “Who is with you?”

  The gun began to come up as Durell jumped. Mikhail made a strangled sound and tried to spin away. Durell’s hand closed on the gun. He prayed it would not go oil. He felt Mikhail suddenly spit at him like an angry cat. But Mikhail did not shout for help. It was as if the dancer saw this as a personal struggle, and his hatred for the American who had taken his girl boiled over in a rash attempt to win alone with his own strength.

  Durell blocked a knee to
his groin, twisted the gun harder, heard the breath hiss from between Mikhail’s lips, and wrenched again. They both fell, hitting the ground hard, rolling into the thorny brush. A bramble scratched Durell’s arm. He had Mikhail’s gun hand and twisted it backward until the dancer‘s fingers were certain to snap. He saw the distorted anguish on the dancer’s face, the sweat that shone on his brow, the glisten of the man‘s teeth as he tried to bite at his face. He slammed his left arm across Mikhail’s mouth and got the gun free, pulled backward, and stood up.

  Mikhail lay on his back, panting, propped up on his elbows as he stared up at Durell’s tall, dark figure.

  “Kill me!” he whispered. “I beg of you—kill me!"

  “Why do you want to die, Mikhail?"

  “Life has nothing for me now. Kill me! Hurry!”

  “If you shout, I will. And Gregori may stop my escape. But Valya will die, too. Do you want that?” Durell asked quickly.

  The man’s eyes glistened, turned to the girl. “Valya?”

  “I am going with him, Miko.”

  “You would betray Gregori—all your comrades?”

  “They will not be harmed by anything we do.”

  “It is so hopeless. You cannot succeed. Neither your plan nor Gregori’s. Everything is known—they are ready for you.”

  Durell said harshly, “How could Kronev know of our plans unless you told him?” The thought came to him that he might have to kill Mikhail, here and now. “Did you make a deal with Kronev because Valya prefers me to you?”

  Mikhail was silent. His chest heaved with the tumult of his breathing. His face was pinched and white and agitated.

  Valya said quietly: “Have you betrayed us, Miko?”

  “Would I be here with you if I had?”

  “Of course not. I believe you. But will you give us a chance to get away without raising an alarm?”

  “You're going with the American?”

  “Yes.”

  “Valya, how can you ask me to let you do this?”

  “You must, Miko. Otherwise—” She looked at Durell coldly. “Will you kill him?”

  The gun felt heavy in Durell’s hand. “The choice is his.”

  The dancer said: “It would not be through fear if I kept silent. I know I am going to die. And I promise you nothing. Kill me now, if you feel you have to.”

  Durell looked at Valya to read the expression on her face, but she turned away and he could not tell what she was thinking. He did not know what to do. The moonlight, as silent and silvery as snow on the dappled brush, gave him no answer. The breeze that made the trees click and rustle was equally mocking.

  “Get up,” he decided. “You will come with us.”

  “And if I shout for help, will you kill me?”

  Durell inwardly cursed the fatalistic Russian temperament.

  “Get up,” he said again, ‘Unless you want Valya to die, too.”

  “You would not hurt her!"

  “But Gregori and Elena would.” Mikhail rose slowly, shrugged dirt from his shoulders, and nodded "Yes. you win on that point.” He moved ahead at a gesture from the gun, and Durell followed closely as they worked out of the tangle of blackberry brush.

  It would have been a reasonable compromise, Durell thought later, and everything might have been different if luck hadn't upset things at that moment. In order to reach the path that led to the ridge and the long way back to where the Zeiss was parked, they had to recross in front of the dugout entrance.

  Elena stood there, with Gregori beside her.

  The woman saw them first. She had a hand-gun lifted, ready for them. There was a silencer on the gun, and without calling a warning or an order, she aimed and fired. The report was only a small, flattish noise. Gregori gave a subdued oath and knocked the gun up, and his moment of attention to the woman gave Durell the chance he sought. He did not know where the bullet had gone, but he was aware of its passage a little to the left of him. He spun on his heel, clubbed savagely at Mikhail, and grabbed for Valya’s hand.

  “Run!”

  Another silent shot followed, and a twig clicked down from overhead. Valya stumbled, caught herself, and ran alongside him. He saw Mikhail rise up, his face bloody, and the dancer went stumbling off in the opposite direction from the dugout. Then Gregori’s footsteps came pounding after Durell.

  Valya could run almost as fast as he. She did not slow him up. Although he had the P.38 again, he did not even think of firing back. Any alarm would bring down the guards and the Soviet Army men who were stationed at the base nearby. There was nothing to do but run and hope for better luck.

  The brush tore at his face and clothes, and once Valya tripped and fell and he had to spin around and help her to her feet again. Gregori’s progress through the woods after them was surprisingly silent and swift, considering the man’s bulk. He was fifty feet behind them when the chase began. Durell swung downhill, away from the ridge where Vassili might cut them off. His course also took him away from where he wanted to go, toward the hidden car, but there was no help for that. The brush thickened and slowed his progress. But it also checked Gregori. Then all at once Durell’s feet found hard, paved surfacing. In the moonlight he saw a doubled-laned asphalt road that curved sharply north and west. He halted at the edge.

  “What is this?” he asked Valya.

  Her breathing was ragged. “I don’t know. A military highway, perhaps. For the missile base.”

  “Come on."

  He ran along the edge of it with Valya just behind him. At the curve of the road he looked back. Gregori was just emerging from the brush. Durell turned the curve of the road and halted again. A sentry tower loomed up among the tall, leafless trees ahead. At the same moment a spotlight suddenly flared, cutting a wide swath through the brush. A voice called: “Halt! Who is there?”

  The spotlight stabbed down the asphalt roadway to the bend. Durell threw himself fiat and dragged Valya with him. She made a little whimpering sound and was silent. Booted footsteps pounded on a wooden platform in the trees almost over their heads. The camouflage of the sentry post was almost perfect. The spotlight went out, then went on again, flooding the roadway with relentless brilliance. Gregori had not come around the bend of the road. The light had forced him back as effectively as a solid barrier.

  Another man’s voice spoke irritably, and the first sentry replied in defense.

  “Go back to sleep, Pushka.”

  “But I heard someone running, Lieutenant.”

  “Idiot! Vui piani! You’re drunk.”

  “Da, Lieutenant.”

  “Turn that damned light off."

  The spotlight went out. Durell felt Valya’s body stretched beside his begin to tremble in violent reaction. He put his arm cautiously over her and drew her close to him. More footsteps moved heavily on the concealed platform in the trees above. In the sudden darkness that followed the extinguishing of the searchlight, Durell could see nothing. The footsteps faded. An invisible door slammed. Silence came back to the woods.

  He counted ten, then tapped Valya’s shoulder and got to his feet. The wind made clicking noises in the brush. Without further word, he took the girl’s hand and drew her away from the road, down the slope of the hill into the deeper wilderness of woods and marshland that surrounded them. When he thought it was safe, they began to run.

  Chapter Thirteen

  AN HOUR LATER Durell signaled Valya to halt. He had Worked his way south, using the position of the moon as his guide, but he had no real idea how much the irregular land had caused him to deviate. The moon was almost gone now, and the wind had died as well, but there was a steady, mechanical humming in the air that was more like an inaudible pulsation than anything he could clearly define.

  “What is it?” Valya asked.

  “I don’t know. Hush.”

  Twice during the past hour they had had to crouch in brush and remain silent and motionless while patrols went by. The whole area was an armed camp, Durell realized, and he mentally doffed h
is hat to Gregori, who had led them from the car to the dugout without a sign of danger. He wondered where the Russian was now. Not too far behind. He did not underestimate the man.

  “Let me see your face,” he asked Valya.

  “No, Sam.”

  “Does it hurt now?"

  “No. It is all right. Please don’t worry about me, Sam.”

  “Look at me, Valya.”

  She raised her head slowly. Her eyes sought his, the only moving thing about her, and he read her pain and her love for him in their wide, darkening depths. He said softly: “Thank you for coming with me."

  “You do not really understand.”

  “I think I do. Will you go all the way with me now?”

  “I have no choice. I can never go back now.”

  “Are you afraid of What Gregori might do?”

  “We are caught between them. But it isn’t that. During the war, we who survived and got back to our own lines were treated as criminals and traitors. It will he the same again. From both sides. I have nowhere to go except to stay with you, if you want me to stay with you.”

  “I do,” he said.

  She nodded and looked down again. Her long hair had loosened and her sturdy clothing showed rips and tatters from their flight through the brush. She kept the wounded side of her face turned from him. What he could see of her profile was beautiful and classic in design. If she was in pain, she no longer betrayed it.

  Frogs thumped in the nearby boggy patch of hollow land, and the shrilling noise of peepers suddenly made Durell think of spring in Connecticut, when he had studied law at Yale and earned his tuition by dealing a Saturday-night poker game at Gondy’s, over in Savin Rock.

  “Sam,” Valya whispered. “Can you find the car?”

  “I think so.”

  “We have tomorrow and tomorrow night before anything happens.”

  “Unless Mikhail pulls the cork out of the bottle,” he said.

  “The cork?"

  “You noticed that when Gregori and Elena jumped us, he didn’t run back to join them. He ran the other way.”