Assignment Sorrento Siren

by Unknown Author

  Durell picked up the gun. It hadn’t been fired. He remembered it, having seen Ellen with it three years ago.

  He went into the bedroom.

  chapter five

  SHE WAS dying, but he did not touch her or try to help her. To touch her would be to kill her, and he did not want her dead, now or ever. But there was nothing he could do about it, because he had returned too late.

  Her breathing made a soft, irregular susurration in the quiet bedroom. The walls here were painted a pale daffodil yellow, and a very good Corot hung over the antique Italian tester bed. She was not on the bed. She lay propped in the far corner of the room, half-sitting, her shoulders squeezed between the wall and an ivory French Provincial chest of drawers. One leg was doubled under her, and Durell thought it might be broken; but that was the least of her injuries.

  She looked like a doll that some idiot had battered and broken in a frenzy of rage, and then thrown carelessly aside.

  “Ellen?” he said gently.

  Only her eyes were still alive. They had been fine and lovely and intelligent, reflecting her composed nature, and he remembered her quiet, somewhat self-conscious humor. Humor did not belong in his business, he thought.

  “Ellen, are you listening?”

  She was naked. Her clothing had been torn off and what remained of it was strewn in shreds around the room. There was blood on the bed, on the clothes, on her long tanned legs, on her stomach. A great many things had been done to her in a very short time, reducing what had been perfect and lovely to a splintered, ravaged mechanism that was dying with each gasping breath she took. He straightened and took a blanket from the prim-looking bed and put it over her, moving very carefully; but aside from that, he did nothing. There was nothing that could be done now.

  A door closed quietly in the living room behind him. That would be Silas, looking, hunting, moving about. Durell kept his attention fixed on the girl.

  “Ellen, honey, it’s very important. I know it hurts. I want you to talk to me, honey. Can you come back just a little? Can you try? Please, Ellen. Try to understand me.”

  “Hello—-Sam,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry I got back too late. Tell me who did it, Ellen. Make it fast, if you can.”

  She shook her head.

  “Was it Pacek?” he asked.

  “N-no. . . .”

  “Jack Talbott?”

  She nodded. The gesture was very fragile.

  “Jack came back here? He’s been in Geneva all day? He has the scrolls?”

  “Yes . .. yes. . . . I hurt, Sam. . . .”

  Her voice trailed off. He did not press her for the moment. Everything in him rebelled at the sight of her, because of what had been done to her. The work of a maniac, an implacable brute. He wanted to shout at her, to make her tell him all about it, but he was afraid that if he raised his voice or even knelt closer to her, the fragile crystal of her life would suddenly shatter and she would be gone forever. He heard Silas Hanson come in and stand beside him. The FBI man sucked in his breath and began to swear in a thick, monotonous voice that was choked with hatred and shock. “Shut up, Silas,” Durell said.

  “I can’t stand it. I can’t look at her, Sam.”

  “Then don’t.” Durell’s voice was harsh. “Get on the phone to the Consulate and ask for our doctor to get over here, understand? Tell him to make it quick and quiet.”

  “All right. I didn’t find anything upstairs. Was it Jack?” “Yes. There’s nothing here, is there, Ellen?”

  Si went into the other room to the telephone. Ellen’s battered lips and bruised cheeks tried to smile. “Just. . . me. . ."

  “You’ll be all right, Ellen.”

  “No . . . you always were a . . . sweet Cajun . . . liar, Sam.”

  “How long have you been here like this?”

  “Half . . . hour . . . a lifetime . . .” She paused. She opened her eyes wide and looked straight at him with a startling and significant surge of vitality. “Sam?”

  He tried to smile at her.

  “Sam, I always . . . hated this business.” Her voice was stronger. “Did you—know that?”

  “Yes, I suspected it.”

  “Why did I—stay in it?”

  “For the same reason any of us stay in, Ellen. Somebody has to do these jobs. We chose it, and we’re stuck with it.” “Wanted to . . . go home. . . . Wanted to . . . marry him.”

  “We all want to go home, Ellen.”

  “When—you home last, Sam?”

  “I don’t know. Six or seven months ago. Do you think you can drink some brandy, honey?”

  “No . . . he—my insides—”

  “He wasn’t really a professional, was he?”

  “Worse. . . . If it was . . . one of Pacek’s . . . be more merciful . . . I think.” Her mouth quavered. The broken lips began to bleed again, the blood running slowly, like her dying pulsebeat. Her eyes slid away from him; her lids

  closed. “He walked in . . . like nothing had happened. . . . Wild. . . . Talked of big—plans, lots of—money. Said . . . tired of being government . . . errand boy . . . boot-boy for . . . Tuvanaphan.”

  “Take it easy,” he said, alarmed by her surge of energy. She shook her head with mechanical slowness; her throat moved when she swallowed pain. “No. . . . I asked . . . why he still . . . Geneva . . . why he—he came to me. . . .” She shivered. “Sam, I—I was so . . . wrong. Knew all— about me. My job . . , K Section . . . He said I—I was . . . insurance.”

  “Insurance?”

  Her words came more haltingly, and Durell pieced it together to get a vivid picture of Jack Talbott walking in here, big and handsome and smiling, self-confident. Ellen had been surprised. She had tried to talk him into giving himself up, before Pacek or Durell caught up with him. He had bragged he wasn’t afraid of any man. He had started something and he was going to finish it. He didn’t give a damn what troubles he was making for the government. However, he said, he’d been double-crossed.

  “Double-crossed?” Durell interrupted. “By whom?”

  “Didn’t . . . say,” Ellen whispered. “Think . . . woman.” “Her name?”

  She shook her head slowly. “Once I. . . trusted ..

  “You loved him, you mean,” Durell said.

  Her eyes closed. “Yes . . .”

  “And he did this to you, himself?” Durell whispered.

  “Yes .. ”

  Si Hanson said thickly, “For God’s sake, Sam, do you have to sandbag her with it now?”

  He did not look around. “Yes, I have to.”

  “It’s damned inhuman.”

  “That’s right. That’s it, exactly.”

  Tears ran down the girl’s bruised face. Silas had not seen what was done to the rest of her, since Durell had covered her naked body with the blanket before the FBI man returned from searching the upper floors of the house. Silas had known Ellen better than he—as well as any of them knew each other—and Durell did not want Silas to remember the way she really looked now. He could count on Hanson to keep his head, because this was a thing they all knew; but Durell saw no point in making it worse for the other man.

  Bad enough they had come back half an hour too late. Bad enough she was dying.

  He was angry, but anger was a luxury he could not afford, and he put it aside deliberately. He was shaking, and he made himself draw a deep, steadying breath. He gestured slightly for Silas to stay with her and went out into the other rooms.

  The doctor from the consulate would be here in a few minutes, but that wouldn’t help. He searched the house quickly, although he knew that Si was thorough. There was nothing here, no one but Ellen, and she would soon be gone. He preferred to remember her as she had been before; but he knew he would always think of her now as the bloody and discarded doll thrown in a broken heap in the corner of her room. And the worst of her torment was not physical, he thought. She was going out knowing she had failed.

  He turned and walked back fast into the bedro
om.

  “Ellen!”

  Silas turned, lifting himself from his kneeling position beside her, and said savagely, “Leave her alone!”

  “Stand clear, Si. . . . Ellen, what did you mean—when Jack said you were his insurance?”

  “Knows . . . you’re after him.” She whispered with her eyes closed. Durell watched her breathing falter, but he could not let her silence go on. He started to speak again, and she said abruptly, “Jack knew . . . my real work. . . . Hasn’t gone to— Pacek yet. But he will if you—if you try to—try to take him. . .

  “What will he go to Pacek with?” Durell insisted. “The scrolls? They’re not all that important. That’s no insurance.” He saw a waxen pallor cross the girl’s face, and he stood over the dying girl with his face anguished. “What did Talbott get from you, Ellen? Why did he do this to you? What was it, honey?”

  “I tried—my gun—and he beat me.” She shuddered violently. “Got the . .. 22 Form . . . for Fremont apparatus . . ."

  "Fremont’s crew? How many?”

  “I’m so—sorry. . ."

  “How many?” he repeated harshly.

  “Four men. . . . Names, covers, assignments . . . all in Middle Europe. . . .” The girl opened her eyes suddenly and looked fearfully at nothing at all. “Couldn’t help it . . . he hurt me . . . so much . . . like a wild man. . . .” Her voice trailed off and her words became a low muttering in her struggle to breathe. “Took my—gun . . . and my knife . . . and made me tell. . . . I’m sorry . . . sorry. . .

  Durell straightened. The Fremont apparatus and the 22 Form was a courier operation involving four of the best men in K Section. He felt utter dismay. As operator of the message center in Geneva, Ellen had enough information to condemn each of the four people to sudden and ugly death. And now Jack Talbott had that information.

  The telephone rang.

  In the momentary silence, the soft sound of the bell shook the apartment like an explosion. Silas jumped, and was checked by Durell’s hand on his arm. Durell looked down at Ellen, then shrugged.

  “Wait a moment.”

  The phone rang again. And again.

  “I’ll take it,” Durell said. “He wouldn’t be calling back here, after what he’s done to her.”

  “It could be Pacek.”

  The telephone rang once more.

  Silas said, “I told my men checking the terminals that I’d be here if they found anything useful.”

  Durell sighed. “Go ahead, then.”

  Silas went into the living room and picked up the phone. His tension cleared at once and he spoke briefly, gave a curt order for two reservations on Flight 23 Swissair for Rome and Naples, and hung up. His scrub-brush of white hair gleamed in the pale apartment lights. Some of his color had come back.

  “That was Daniels. Talbott just took the 2300 Swissair flight to Rome. His ticket went all the way through to Naples.” “Why didn’t your man stop him?”

  “It was too late for that. I’ll call Zuccamella in Rome—he’s our man there now. We’ll get the sonofabitch.”

  “Was Talbott’s luggage checked out?”

  Silas nodded. “Yuh. Jack didn’t have the Dwan Scrolls with him. Just a briefcase.”

  “All right, call Zuccamella.” Durell turned back to the bedroom. Ellen lay in her corner with her eyes closed. He knelt beside her, an agony of impatience in him.

  “Ellen, why?” he asked harshly. “Why did Jack force the apparatus layout from you? Is he going over to Pacek?”

  Her eyelids fluttered. “Don’t—know. . . . Said . . . it was insurance . . . so you wouldn’t kill him. . ."

  “We’ll get him,” Silas said thickly. “Don’t worry, Ellen. I’ll kill him myself.”

  “Save your breath,” Durell said quietly. He stood up. “She’s dead.”

  chapter six

  DURELL spoke thinly to Si. “Wait down in the shop for the consulate doctor. Don’t use any lights; don’t let any disturbance touch the street. If Pacek had a hand in this, he may call the cops to embarrass us. But we’ll assume we can keep it quiet.”

  “But Ellen’s body . . .” Si protested.

  “Use the doctor’s car. He can be discreet. Take her to the consulate. Arrange to have the medical certificate state that she died of an unsuspected coronary condition; the doctor will go along with it. Don’t do anything to make the Swiss police curious. Make the funeral quiet. Closed casket.” “Sam, she has a family in Illinois.”

  “Notify them. But have the burial arrangements made quickly. She should be interred here. If her family wants her body back, the red tape will take a few weeks and by then there won’t be any further inquiries.”

  “Sam, she was my friend. It seems pretty cold, what you propose. She was brutally murdered, tortured—”

  “She was my friend, too.” Durell looked strained. “We’ll do something about it, Si. Now go wait for the doctor and brief him.”

  “What will you be doing?”

  “I’ve got to take this place apart—dismantle the whole apparatus—call Washington—burn everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “We can’t leave evidence for the Swiss cops to connect with K Section, Si. We’ll bum the house. Now get going.” Durell knew his way around the building from previous visits. On the fourth floor, under the steep slate roof, he found the short-wave radio and the yellow phone that was a direct line to a wholesale bric-a-brac dealer in Paris. The dealer would connect him with a modeling and couturier shop. There was no help for it. The Fremont apparatus had to be pulled apart and destroyed; its agents behind the Curtain had to be contacted by courier, on a crash program. No chances could be taken if Jack Talbott knew their covers and work assignments. They were all dead men, if Talbott talked to Anton Pacek.

  He worked with an enormous feeling of time and opportunity eluding him, juggling the lives of four brave people who were doing a job that was risky enough, without the threat of treachery waiting to destroy them. The courier’s job would be dangerous, too. He might be sending the courier into a trap. But it had to be done.

  His calls were brief, the service efficient. Then he yanked the yellow telephone off its wires and tossed it aside. Washington would be in a flap by morning. A red alert would turn No. 20 Annapolis Street upside down with urgency. Maybe four lives would be saved. Maybe.

  Durell destroyed the radio, scattering its parts through the two upper floors of the house off the Rue Saint-Pierre. There were quiet voices downstairs in Ellen’s apartment, and then the sound of men descending to the art shop with an obvious burden between them. He looked down at the street from the attic window. A consulate car was parked there. He saw Si Hanson’s white brush of hair and another stoutish man; between them, they carried a blanketed bundle that was all that remained of Ellen.

  Durell swallowed a taste of copper in his throat. When the car moved off down the dark, placid street, he set about his incendiary work. Every K Section safe-house had emergency provisions for swift destruction, and he knew the location of several of these incendiary devices. He set one on each of the two top floors, then went down to the shop below.

  Si Hanson had returned, looking haunted.

  “All set?”

  Durell looked at the ceiling. “It’ll go up fast enough. The house won’t be gutted—but enough of it will burn to wipe out what has to be destroyed.”

  There’s a plane for Rome at one o’clock,” Si began. “Shall we take it?”

  “Yes. But first I want to look at Villa del Sol. Talbott was here two hours ago. Maybe that’s where he was hiding all day, with the scrolls.”

  “Sam, about these agents of yours he can finger—if he throws in with Pacek . . .”

  “Then they’re dead men,” Durell said flatly. “Let’s go.

  The doctor can handle Ellen’s body all right, can’t he?” “I gave him instructions, yes.”

  “Right. We haven’t time to be cagey here, Si. We’ll just go down the line with it—check out the vi
lla that Jack knew about and maybe visited, and get back here in time for the Rome flight. We’ll play it by ear. If you get a chance, dig out a make on Count Apollio. I’m only trusting to my memory and the things I’ve read about him. Something new may have cropped up. He married that American girl, Francesca, not long ago, and we know Jack saw her in Rome, enough for Ellen to be jealous about it. But we’ll keep an open mind for now.”

  He wished for a less conspicuous car than Si’s red Floride, but there was no help for it. Smoke began to curl into the shadowed art shop when they locked the front door behind them. The street was quiet. Durell told Si to drive, and they headed for the highway north of Geneva that twisted along the lake shore beyond the romantic pile of the Chateau d’If. Durell watched the mirror for a time, but he was sure they were in the clear.

  “Nobody is tailing us,” Si said.

  He nodded. “Pacek may have gone ahead, if he had a tap on Jack’s phone. Don’t underplay it. You can be sure Pacek had wires on Jack from the minute the negotiations with Tuvanaphan first began.”

  Durell settled back and closed his eyes, but his mind was receptive, rejecting several patterns of thought that came to him. It was too soon for firm conclusions, but they had this one lead, and the knowledge that Talbott was just one jump ahead of them, flying to Rome. He felt better than an hour ago. With Si driving, his alert senses picked up the sound of the engine, the irregularities of the road, even the taut sigh of Hanson’s breathing. He knew he was strung too high for safety. He knew the men in the Fremont group, and he hoped they could be warned in time, but that was out of his hands now. His job was to get Talbott, to retrieve the stolen information, to keep the man from going over to Anton Pacek.