Assignment Sorrento Siren

by Unknown Author

  “It’s a deal,” Talbott said hoarsely. He bent his head, with its tight, curly blond hair, toward Durell. “But this man must be killed. I’d like to do it myself.”

  Pacek said flatly, “And the girl?”

  “She ought to be silenced, too.”

  “That would make things simple for you?”

  “It would give me a head start.”

  Pacek considered him stolidly. “Perhaps I could induce you to work for me, Talbott. We would be indebted to you. We could buy the scrolls from you ourselves, put the money in a numbered account in Switzerland—any currency you name— and then we will return the scrolls to Tuvanaphan at an appropriate time—say, a month from now—and tell him we have recovered his precious heirlooms for him. He would be most grateful to us, then.” Pacek laughed harshly in his thick throat. “Or we could make arrangements to clear you with your own people, Talbott, and you might return to your former position— although really you would then be working for us.”

  “As a double agent?” Talbott asked. “I’m not sure—”

  “You have no love for your own people. What have they done except push you down and deny you a chance to improve yourself?”

  Talbott licked his lips. “I might like that.”

  “Well, we will discuss it later. For now, I want the names and cover identities of the people in the Fremont apparatus. I want the data you took from Ellen Armbridge.”

  “They’re worth something, too.”

  “Naturally. They are worth your life.”

  “You wouldn’t kill me,” Talbott said.

  “I would. Like a fly. I want those names.”

  “They’re in Milan. I expected to make a deal with you, anyway.”

  “They are not in Milan. You were followed everywhere from the moment you left Ellen Armbridge’s house in Geneva, to the plane, to Milan and Naples and this place. You did not mail anything, deposit anything, hide anything. You have the data on your person. Please give it to me now.”

  “But I. . .”

  “Now!”

  There was a change in Pacek, a solidifying of his square, rock-like body. The moon came out from behind the clouds and touched the stone passage between the parapet and the ruined building. It seemed to Durell that he could hear the thunder of the sea a mile away down the mountainside. It was only anger pounding in his blood. He knew Pacek would do exactly as he pleased. Pacek would kill him and Deirdre— probably Jack Talbott, too. But you couldn’t convince Talbott he was of no real use to the KGU; he could not be trusted.

  He still had his own gun. He had diverted Pacek’s attention by throwing away Jack’s weapon. He could still take one last chance to break free—but then he saw Cesare walking up the ramp to the fortress ruins. The count had said he had shot Cesare, but here he came, moving with a light, long stride, sliding from shadow to shadow. No one was looking that way except Durell. He could see the glint of a gun in the man’s hand. Pacek was talking to Talbott, demanding the Fremont data; Talbott was still trying to drive a bargain in the face of imminent death. Neither saw Cesare pause, put out a hand to steady himself, and then lift his gun.

  The heavy sound of the shot was Pacek’s first warning. It was doubtful if Talbott ever heard it. The big man was talking fast to Pacek, protesting he did not have the data on his person. The bullet hole appeared as a small, round hole just above the bridge of his nose. It was a heavy caliber slug, and it blew half his skull out the back. Blood and bone and brains spattered the wall behind him. He went backward, thudding against the stone, and collapsed like a balloon that suddenly lost its air.

  Instantly Durell swept Deirdre aside, dropping her to the ground, out of the line of fire. He got his gun out with the same movement, but Pacek was slightly faster, twisting his solid, tank-like body and slamming two, then three shots at Cesare. Afterward, Durell wondered if Cesare had gone first for Talbott because of what Talbott had done to Francesca; but he was never sure about it. Pacek’s three shots found their mark. Cesare whirled, did a small dance as if on tip-toe, and came stumbling toward them, his gun slamming again and again in reflexive action of spasmed fingers. The bullets spattered everywhere.

  Durell shouted a warning to Pacek and had his gun on the enemy agent when Pacek whirled with his weapon up. Durell had no choice. He fired just once. There was no need to fire again. . . .

  It seemed a long time before the echoes winged away across the twisted mountaintop and were swallowed in the tangled walls of the old ruins. Silence gradually flowed back, except for the eternal moan of the sea wind that swept over Isola Filibano.

  Durell lowered his gun.

  “Deirdre?”

  “I’m all right, Sam,” she whispered. He saw her on the paved parapet and helped her to her feet. She was trembling a little. “Sam, I never thought it would be ..

  “Don’t think about it, please.”

  “I can’t help it, I—I’m going to be sick.”

  He left her and walked over to Anton Pacek. The man was dead. He got up and knelt beside Cesare Bellaria. Cesare’s dark face shone with sweat. There was blood on his stomach, staining his slacks, and more blood oozed from a wound in his right lung.

  “I am going to die?” Cesare whispered. “First Apollio and then this man tried to kill me. . ."

  “You knew the stakes,” Durell said quietly.

  “But I was betrayed! Francesca..

  “She’s quite safe, I’m sure.”

  He went over to Jack Talbott and turned him over and searched the pockets. Remembering Ellen, he felt no regret, but wished none of it had happened in the first place. It had happened though, and in his business there was no room for wishful thinking.

  He found what he wanted in an inner pocket. Pacek had been right. Talbott bluffed about having cached the Fremont data, and had kept his “insurance” with him. It was all there in a small black book with coded symbols. The Fremont people were all safe. Washington already would have ordered their recall and replacement; but they had been safe all the time, as long as Talbott kept this book with him. He’d never had a chance to betray them.

  Durell put the book in his pocket and walked back to the parapet where Deirdre waited. She looked at him as if he were a stranger. Perhaps he was, at this moment. She looked at the gun in his hand and at the small booklet, and he put both the gun and the book away and she drew a slow, tremulous breath.

  “Are they all—dead?”

  “Two of them,” he said. “We’ll get help for Cesare.”

  “One of them said Count Apollio was wounded.”

  “Cesare knifed him. Whichever way it works, I think the feud between them is ended.” He sighed and touched her hand. He looked at Talbott’s body. “He was a murderer and a traitor. And Pacek killed one of my best friends in Amsterdam, some time ago. He would have killed you and me, too, not because it was really necessary, but simply because it would have been more convenient for him that way.”

  She shuddered and he took her in his arms and drew her close to him. For a moment he felt a resistance in her, and then she melted against him.

  “Sam, take me away from here,” she whispered.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  chapter twenty-three

  THE Hotel Imperiale in Montecapolli basked in bright sunshine. A sea breeze had washed away yesterday’s humidity, and the sky and water sparkled with countless diamond-points of light. In Durell’s room, a fresh wind blew through the open balcony doors and stirred Deirdre’s dark hair on the pillow beside him. She slept peacefully.

  They had returned in Dom Angelo’s boat, after several delays past midnight on Isola Filibano. The excitement that stirred the villagers and the motion-picture colony still seethed on the island when Durell and Deirdre sailed for the mainland. It was dawn before they checked back into the Imperiale.

  He looked at his watch, moving his arm carefully so as not to disturb her sleep. Past two in the afternoon. He had been late joining her here, after they checked in. He had
phoned Geneva and spoke directly to Prince Tuvanaphan, promising a return of the Dwan Scrolls that night. Tuvanaphan had been pleasantly agreeable, once he was assured the scrolls were undamaged and in Durell’s possession. There was no doubt that the contracts with Noramco Tin would now go through.

  He felt little satisfaction in it. Count Apollio would live, but it was a question whether the future for him could be called living. The man had used his considerable influence with the mainland police, using radio-telephone to report the violence on Isola Filibano. When Durell left, he gave Apollio a silent promise to forget what he had discovered of the man’s mutilation.

  Durell thought of Frannie Smith, the contessa, and smiled grimly. She had been at the palazzo, mute and chastened, when he returned with Deirdre. She handed him the scrolls at once when he demanded them.

  “How is Apollio?” he had asked at once.

  “Bernardo is resting all right,” she said quietly. “The local doctor says he’ll be fine in no time at all.”

  “Will he, really?”

  She looked truculent. “Sure. Why not?”

  “He knows all about you and Cesare—and what Talbott did to you. Will you stay with him?”

  “He wouldn’t have me,” she said flatly.

  Durell looked long at the dark-haired girl. She seemed different, but he could not be sure.

  “Do you want to stay with Apollio, Francesca?”

  “I’m not Francesca. I’m Frannie Smith—a tramp, that’s all. I’ll always be Frannie Smith.”

  “Not necessarily. He tried hard to make you into a countess.” She looked at her hands. “I’m afraid he had poor clay to start with, Mr. Durell.”

  “I suspect he did pretty well, until Cesare came along.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why not ask him?”

  She lifted her head. “Ask if I could stay? I told you, he wouldn’t want me now.”

  “Try, Fran. You have nothing to lose.”

  She smiled, tentatively at first, then with a spirit of challenge. “You’re right. Nothing at all to lose.”

  Durell, looking at the sleeping Deirdre, her dark hair fanned over the pillowslip, wondered if Francesca had managed to choose her words wisely to the wounded count. He thought it might work; he wasn’t sure. He did not believe in miracles. You’re born out of stuff that stays with you all your life; there are no great changes in character, no sudden birth of noble virtues. She was Frannie Smith, and she had thrown away the big chance of her life when she became Cesare’s woman. Usually you never get a second chance. Maybe it would work. Maybe there wouldn’t be any more Cesares in her life. But he doubted that. It was inevitable, considering what the count was and lacked, because of Bruno’s vendetta.

  Still, he hoped it would work.

  He dressed quietly, not wanting to disturb Deirdre. There were dim cries from the tennis courts behind the hotel, and from the yacht basin came the obstinate sputtering of a marine engine. Deirdre’s breathing was deep and steady. He thought her mouth looked as defenseless as a child’s in her sleep. He thought he had never seen a lovelier sight.

  When he was dressed, he took the package that contained the Dwan Scrolls and carried them to the entry hall and leaned it against the wall. Then he walked back into the bedroom and sat down on the bed beside the sleeping girl. They had made love in the dawn, watching the light quicken and turn pink and gold on the sea, in the Bay of Sorrento. She had clung to him in wild response, grateful to be alive, happier still that he was alive. Afterward they stood together on the terrazzo balcony and watched the light on the sea and drank coffee brought up to the room by a sleepy-eyed but knowledgeable bellboy.

  “Sam,” she had said, “are you finished with this job?”

  “Yes. Just about.”

  “Where will you go from here?”

  “I don’t know. Washington will tell me soon enough.”

  “Can’t we have a little time for ourselves?”

  “I think so,” he had said.

  He loved her with greater tenderness than he had known before. She had been a little triumphant, teasing him gently because of the other times when he had refused to admit her to his activities in the business.

  “You see, darling, it wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “Bad enough,” he said. “Weren’t you frightened when Talbott had you?”

  “A little, yes. But then I thought of how you go through even worse times in your work.”

  “Not always. Most of the time it’s routine analysis and interpretation of data from field reports. There’s no glamor, nothing like that. When things break open, it usually gets dirty, as it was on Isola Filibano.”

  “I don’t mind. If I could work with you again..

  “No,” he said. “I don’t want you in it. . .

  He sat on the bed and watched her now as she slept. A church bell rang from the piazza of Montecapolli; the notes were like iron against the crystalline September air. He bent over and kissed her cheek. Her eyes opened and she smiled sleepily at him, a look of contentment shaping her mouth.

  “Sam, darling. You’re all dressed.”

  “I’m going to see Si Hanson,” he told her. “He’s coming along fine—already up and on his feet in the clinic—but I thought I’d drop in on him for a few minutes.”

  “All right.” Then she frowned slightly. “This afternoon I’ll have to get my stories cabled on the fashion show, you know. You’ve made me neglect my own work terribly.”

  “There will be time enough to catch up,” he said. He kissed her again. “I’ll see you soon, Dee.”

  “Hurry back,” she said.

  He got up and left the sunny bedroom, walked away from the sight and scent and beauty of her, and when he was in the foyer, out of her view, he picked up the package containing the Dwan Scrolls and left the hotel.

  There was a local train to Naples, and from there he could fly to Rome and then Geneva in time to deliver the paintings to Prince Tuvanaphan before evening. He would call Deirdre from the Fiumicino Airport in Rome. There was no other way to do it.

  The longer he waited, the more difficult it would be to leave her. It was better to go as suddenly as he had appeared, to cut it short, sharp and clean.

  He made a phone call to the clinic and spoke to Si Hanson, and then he walked to the local railroad station. He had twenty minutes to wait for the train. He carried the scrolls with him across a small square and sat in the sun at a pavement cafe and ordered coffee and rolls. He tried not to think about Deirdre, waiting for him back in the Imperiale.

  He had finished his second cup and was ready to return to the station when she appeared, walking with that light, floating grace he could recognize anywhere, in any crowd. She wore a white linen sun dress that clung beautifully to her body; her dark hair gleamed with life in the Sorrento sunlight.

  Then she stood before him, gray eyes smiling, her purse in one hand, her mouth smiling, too, and she tucked her hand in his arm and walked with him for a few steps to the railroad station.

  “Have you bought your ticket already, Sam, darling?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes, Dee. I suppose—I know you’re angry. . .

  “But I’ve got a ticket, too. I knew you had to be in Geneva tonight. If the mountain won’t go to Mohammed, I thought, then I’d go along with you, Sam.”

  “You’ve got your story to get out.. .

  “It can be done from Geneva. You’ll be in Geneva for a few days, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said. And he said, “Dee, I love you.”

  “That’s all that matters,” she told him. “It’s not all that matters to you, but it’s enough for me. Do you mind?”

  “No. I just thought it would be easier. . .

  “But how do I know I’ll ever see you again, Sam?”

  He was silent, because you never did know. He looked at her and grinned, and the sunlight seemed brighter and more benign. It was true; he would be stuck in Geneva for some days, cleaning up the affair, w
riting his reports, helping as a sub-chief in K Section to set up a new control point to replace Ellen Armbridge’s apparatus and reorganize the Fremont group once more. A lot of paper work, but it would be like having regular office hours for a number of days.

  “Thank you, Dee,” he said.

  They walked side by side to the little railroad station and he bought some flowers for her from a vendor on the platform and then they waited for the train to come in.

  THE END

  of an Original Gold Medal Novel by

  Edward S. Aarons