Assignment - Quayle Question

by Edward S. Aarons

  “You truly think it is he, Samuel?”

  “Nothing smaller would suit Dr. Sinn. He took over Madame Hung’s private intelligence apparatus in Singapore, you remember. He tried to change the whole shape of religion in Asia by pretending to have discovered new writings of Buddha that would inspire a whole shift in traditional attitudes from a peaceful movement to one of violent expressions. Most of all, Dr. Sinn’s prime motivation is his search for power. Nothing less than radically shaping history to his point of view would please his monstrous vanity.”

  McFee said sharply, “That man was insane. Pretending to be an incarnation of Satan—or one of his wicked angels. Nonsense, Samuel. Nonsense.”

  “I wish it were. Mouquerana Sinn may be insane, but he’s also a genius, sir. A man who truly believes in evil as an entity. A man who claims that God has deserted this world, or lost it to Satan and the forces of darkness. He is a man convinced that this planet is the domain of wickedness, isolated from the rest of the universe. He may be insane, yes. But he has the intellect and the drive to win. I think Plowman worked for him, when he went over the wire. Dr. Sinn was always recruiting new rogue agents, buying them or blackmailing them into his ranks. Mouquerana Sinn owns the I. Shumata zaibatsu. It’s taken him months to build it up, to acquire the other press and news media abroad. Q.P.I. is the last link he needs. With control of such a network, he could do more damage by twisting and warping public opinion than several nuclear bombs. Dr. Sinn’s field is fishing in troubled waters, in manipulating international events. With Q.P.I., he could turn this world upside-down.”

  McFee picked up the empty Mexican wine bottle and studied the label. “I’ve checked out San Luis Francesco. It’s nothing, Samuel. There’s the monastery in the mountains and a few American 6migres, nothing more. It is not a popular place. I can give you Jackson’s readout on the village. It’s reached by a gravel road, forty miles inland from the Pacific, off the beaten track.”

  “Just the place Dr. Sinn would pick.”

  “I’m not certain, Samuel.”

  “I’m going there. I owe Sinn something for what he tried to do to me in the Andaman Islands. He has Deborah Quayle; she has to be there. If he can use her to make Rufus Quayle change his mind, we’ve lost the game.”

  “Yes, yes. But you’d need a number of men with you—”

  “I’ll take Marcus and Deirdre.”

  “Quayle offered you some of his own men, did he not?” McFee looked annoyed. “I can send them in one or two at a time, as drifters.”

  “If you insist,” Durell said.

  Deirdre came in with their lunch.

  McFee said, “When do you want to leave?”

  “As soon as we eat.”

  Part Six

  BAJA, CALIFORNIA

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dust blew across the plaza of San Luis Francesco, stirred by the ovenlike evening wind that came down across the high central desert of Baja California. There was the usual baroque Spanish church, a relic of Conquistador days, and a single telephone line that followed the winding gravel road for miles up from the coast, through the barrier of mountains. There were no power lines to provide even a minimum of modern facilities, although a one-lung diesel generator behind the cantina provided D.C. power for the radios and a few unshaded electric lights in the dim interior of Vincente’s bar.

  Someone played a mournful Indian lament on a guitar inside one of the adobe houses. It was a bit like a scene from the last century, Durell thought, as he waited for the moustachioed proprietor to bring him a drink out on the sidewalk terrace. A tattered and dusty awning with faded stripes offered some grateful shade. It was almost noon, and two days away from Washington. Across the plaza, in front of Rosario’s grocery, some American hippies, three long-haired, bearded young men and one girl in tight jeans stretched across ample buttocks, sat and smoked grass and looked listlessly at the dusty sunlight that lay in blinding slabs in front of the closed wooden doors of the church.

  Two battered vans were parked near the church, in an alley that ended in a crumbling stone wall that surrounded the churchyard. The vans were painted with all the usual symbols of the lost and wandering children whose day had really ended, although they didn’t know it.

  The only symbol of modernity was the cinder-block plastered inn at the opposite end of the plaza, the dubious relic of an ambitious American whose dream of establishing a new desert resort had crumbled into the apathetic dust. Durell and Marcus and Deirdre were lodged there.

  The hippies stuck to their vans, not communicating with those of the Establishment who preferred the questionable quarters at the inn.

  “Your drink, Señor Durell.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What is it that goes with you, señor?”

  “Nada, Vincente.”

  “She will be here soon, señor.”

  “Bueno, Vincente.”

  “San Luis Francesco is not an exciting place, is it, señor?”

  “One seeks peace in a strange land,” Durell said.

  Vincente, the skinny Indian proprietor of the cantina, carefully poured Durell’s uncertain bourbon. He said, grinning, “Shalom.”

  “Exactly.”

  “She is a drunkard, señor. She will be here soon for her daily bottle.”

  “Bueno.”

  “And do you like her wine?”

  “I prefer the bourbon.”

  “I fear it is not good, this bourbon, a poor variety, fit for nothing but to damp down the dust.”

  “You are a connoisseur, Vincente, a perceptive man.”

  “May I ask you something, sir?”

  “Ask away.”

  “What does a gentleman like you do in our poor little village? I can understand those others, the crazy, homeless bearded ones, always with their radios and loud music, like infants clinging to their mothers’ tits. But you are different. You and your señora—”

  “We are not married,” Durell said.

  “Oh.”

  “And I do not know the others, Vincente—those children of the sun. Like the locos, they are mostly harmless. Except to themselves.”

  “Not all crazy people are harmless. My brother-in-law, three years ago, he went crazy and killed his wife and two poor children, and ran away into the mountains.” “Yes, the mountains,” Durell said, looking at them.

  To the west, they formed a harsh barrier between the upper plateau and the Pacific. Eastward was the stretch of desert, with a secondary range in the far distance. A few fiat-topped mesas loomed at a distance of four or five miles from the village, across a featureless waste.

  Vincente looked at Durell’s bearded, scruffy men gathered about their vans; he hawked and spit into the dust of the plaza. He looked as if he had tuberculosis.

  “You do not like the hippies, Vincente?”

  “They have no money.”

  “Do you fear them?”

  “I do not think they would kill their families like my former brother-in-law. But they are strange. A man in this world can trust only what he knows. I am not an intolerant man, señor. I even accept the new ones, the strange Asiatic monks in the old monastery. I cannot remember what they call themselves, but they are not Christians. Still, I am tolerant. They have money.”

  “You have seen these monks?”

  “Twice, in groups. And they come to the village for supplies. They wear robes like a Catholic priest, but they have children’s kites tied to their waists, small black things, like bats. It is a disturbing thing to see. But they are formal and polite, and express good wishes to all.”

  “You said the old American woman who made wine in the monastery would be here at noon.”

  “As always, señor . One can ring the church bell by her arrival.”

  “She must be rich,” Durell said.

  “Ah.” Vincente rolled his black eyes at the brazen sky. “One wonders how much these strangers paid her for the use of her winery these past two weeks.”

  “Much
,” Durell said. “It must have been much.”

  “Truly, one cannot imagine so much.” Vincente sighed. “Another bourbon, señor?”

  “I think I’ll try the Maharanda wine.”

  The church bell across the plaza announced the noon hour with twelve claps of its iron bell. A dusty old Chevrolet came around the churchyard and rolled noisily to a halt in front of the cantina, and the old woman Durell had been waiting for stepped out.

  “Hello,” she said. “I’m Wendy O’Hara. You’ve been looking for me, Mr. Durell? Vincente, you old thief, is it ready?”

  “As always, Señora O’Hara.”

  “I’m not married, you little s.o.b., and you know it. Are you going to get all this down on tape, too?”

  “Si, señora.”

  Durell stood up. “What tape is that?”

  “Oh, the bunch of crazies who took over my place for a month. One of them is studying native Indian villages down here. Wants a record of cantina talk.”

  Durell looked at Vincente. The little man grinned. Durell said, “You taped our conversation, Vincente?”

  “Si, señor.”

  Durell made no more of it. Wendy O’Hara was a big woman in her sixties, with crisply cut short gray hair, a gray silk suit, a white ascot at her throat. She stuck out her hand to Durell like a man, and her handshake was firm, a little calloused. She sat down with a thump. Her face was square, her eyes Irish-blue, and her skin looked as if several desert sandstorms had helped scrape the bloom of youth from it. She was hardly the doddering old woman he had been led to expect.

  “I see you’re drinking my wine,” she said.

  “It’s not bad.”

  “It’s not good, either. I get my grapes from Lopez, over there.” She waved toward the western mountains. “Sometimes, by the time they get here, they’re sunstruck. Used to have vines here on the mountain nearby, at the monastery, but the water dried up about ten years ago. I’m strictly a gin drinker, myself.”

  Durell gestured. “Vincente, a drink for Señorita O’Hara.”

  Vincente vanished. Across the plaza, Marcus came limping around one of the vans and went to the public fountain with an armful of laundry. The sounds of transistor rock radio came from inside the nearest van.

  Wendy O’Hara eyed Durell frankly. “What are you, a cop?”

  “What makes you think I’m a cop?”

  “The police always answer questions with another question. You can’t be an American tax snooper. I’m all paid up. The winery officially belongs to the Francesco Bank; we’re nominal partners, the bank being the majority shareholder. Mexican law prohibits gringos from buying up the country. I don’t mind. So what’s wrong?” Durell was about to ask why she thought anything might be wrong. Instead, he said, “I’m just curious about the people who rented your place.”

  “Oh, them.”

  “Yes, them.”

  “They’re strange, huh?”

  “Maybe stranger than you think.”

  “Listen, I’m a member of the Maharanda sect myself. Before I started up the winery again, I took the old monastery that was deserted about a century ago and turned it into a Maharanda temple. It’s a way of peace, man. Nobody in it rips off his brothers. That’s why I came down here in the first place.”

  “Are many brothers living up there now?”

  “I got a few in, at first. And a lot of kids. But they got tired of the dust and sun and nothing around here. So I started up the winery again. And then these people flew in here in their private jet and leased the place for a month, couple of a weeks ago.”

  “They flew in?”

  “One of those company executive jets. It comes and goes, all the time.”

  “Where does it land?”

  “Oh, the desert’s flat as a billiard table out there. Easy. They signed an agreement to pay me good money, said it was for the Maharanda Brotherhood, they’d heard about me, but they needed it for a big mucky-muck who wanted to meditate. They promised me good money. But I haven’t seen a peso of it yet.”

  Durell clucked sympathetically. “Señorita O’Hara—”

  “Wendy.”

  “Wendy, did you meet any of these people?”

  “Only their Mexican lawyer from the Federal District who came down to close the deal. Twisted my arm a bit. All kinds of laws about wineries and temples and such, they could really pressure me. So I signed. I’m living over in the posada—not the Orient Hotel you’re in. The posa-da is about a mile out of town, where I have my orange trees. Tried to grow an orchard there, but it’s going sour. Again, no water.”

  “Have you been back to the monastery since you left?” Wendy O’Hara leaned an ample bosom on the round cantina table. “You are a cop, aren’t you?”

  “In a way.”

  “In what way?”

  “We think they’ve got somebody up there who shouldn’t be there. A young girl. We’d like to get her back.”

  Wendy O’Hara seemed to be enjoying herself. “Oh, you’re a private cop. I like detective stories. Paperbacks, mostly. What is it, a snatch? A runaway?”

  “We’re not sure.”

  The woman stared at him. “Well, you’ll never get her out of there without a small army, I can tell you that.” “How come?”

  “Only one road up to the top of the mesa. They’ve put all kinds of contraptions on it, too, so the big mucky-muck won’t have his meditations disturbed. They could swat you like a fly on a wall.”

  “I see. What kind of contraptions?”

  “I don’t know. Warning devices. I went up there last week about my rent money—tried to get up there—anc before I was halfway, a couple of their kite-flying acolytes politely but firmly sent me back again. I was kind ol annoyed.”

  Wendy O’Hara narrowed her eyes against the glare oi the sun on the dusty plaza. An Indian leading a loaded donkey made his way slowly from the grocery store and vanished around the corner. Dogs slept in the dust. A woman with a green parrot leaned out one of the upper windows of a house at the far end of the plaza. Two children played listlessly on an iron-grilled balcony that looked as if it were about to come loose from the crumbling facade of the house. The place was one of the world’s dead ends. Durell didn’t like the thought. He listened to the crashing, repetitive rock from the vans and watched Marcus splash his laundry in the fountain. Marcus had grown a two-day beard, wore patched denims, a Western shirt, and a battered straw sombrero.

  Wendy O’Hara said, “Who is the girl?”

  “I was hoping you could help me get up there.”

  “Can’t do. I told you, even I couldn’t get in, and I own the place.”

  “You and the bank.”

  “Yes. I can describe the layout inside the winery and the chapel to you.”

  Durell said, “That would be helpful.”

  “When are you going to try it?”

  “There’s plenty of time,” Durell said.

  “But will you tell me when?”

  “It’s better if you don’t know.”

  “Hell,” said Wendy O’Hara.

  When she was gone, Durell got up and went into the cool interior of the cantina. Vincente came up behind the bar and put a cold bottle of Carta Blanca in front of him.

  “You are angry with me, señor, about the recording tape?”

  “No. A man must make a living somehow.” “You are indeed a gentleman, señor.”

  “How many tapes have you delivered to the winery?” Durell asked.

  “One every day, sir. Like a clock. Like the Señora O’Hara.”

  “How and when?”

  Vincente hesitated. “I cannot tell you that. I am afraid of them.”

  “I’ll pay you enough to make you forget your fear.” Vincente coughed. “Fifty American dollars?”

  “It’s plenty.” Durell gave him the cash. Vincente stuffed it into his pants pocket and Durell said, “Where do you keep the recorder?”

  “Here. It is a little thing.”

  The device was co
ncealed in a package of king-sized Camel cigarettes, a trim and efficient Japanese model operating on 1.5 batteries, miniaturized to perfection. Durell opened it and took out the small spool of very fine mylar tape and pocketed the tape and kept the recorder, too. Vincente looked very troubled.

  “I’m afraid of these foreigners, señor.”

  “How do they pick it up?”

  “Each evening, one of the monks with the black kites comes here for it. At six o’clock.”

  “How does he arrive?”

  Vincente shrugged. “He walks.”

  “It is over three miles, Vincente, to the winery.”

  “He walks, señor.”

  “At six o’clock?”

  “Punctually.”

  “Vincente . . .”

  “Yes, señor?” The man had begun to sweat. “Vincente, if you give them warning, you will be killed.” Durell’s voice was quiet, but there was an abrupt hardness in it that made Vincente tremble suddenly. Durell said, “I will be here at six o’clock to meet the man with the black kite. You will make yourself absent for the moment. Is that understood?”

  “Perfectly, si, of course.”

  “You’re very agreeable, Vincente.” “I am a man of peace,” Vincente said.

  “And you have much greed. You will be paid another fifty American dollars when the kite man arrives.”

  “Yes, I am a greedy man. I belong to you, heart and soul, Señor Durell.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  He made slow, quiet love to Deirdre during the hot, dusty afternoon, Loving her, holding her dearness close to him, he did not want six o’clock to come. He knew that what had to be done was something from which he might not return. He was accustomed to taking risks. He had done so many times in the past. The scars on his body bore testimony to the times he had escaped from enemies in almost all the dark corners of the world. He remembered Dr. Mouquerana Sinn, and the jungled island in the Andamans in the Indian Ocean, and how he had been hunted like an animal, for sport, as a game to amuse the man. He had hoped, after it was over, that the man was dead. Dr. Sinn had the cunning of perverted genius. If Sinn was mad, it was the madness of brilliance, made all the more dangerous by his personal hallucinations. He knew that what he had to do would not be easy, and the long hours of this afternoon with Deirdre were made all the more precious by this knowledge.