Assignment - Quayle Question

by Edward S. Aarons

  The Orient Hotel was a low, stone building with a scraggly lawn turned gray by the desert sun. The lobby had once been pretentious, with Spanish tiling on the floor and walls, and a small fountain in the center court that no longer seemed to work. Through the slatted shades of Durell’s bedroom window, he could see across a mile or more of desert to the abrupt rise of the mesa, on top of which was the former monastery and winery. He thought about Wendy O’Hara and felt concern for the woman for a time, and then decided she could be trusted in the information she had given him. He was not sure about Vincente.

  “Sam?” Deirdre said softly.

  “Yo.”

  “You seem worried.”

  “I’m always worried. Dr. Sinn worries me.”

  “I don’t want you to do it.”

  “I have to, Dee.”

  “That’s what you always say. It’s your job. It must be done. Someone has to do it, so you go in. And I wait here and wonder if you’ll come back.”

  “I’ll come back. With Deborah.”

  “You’re not even sure this is the right place.”

  “It must be.”

  “I wish we were home, back in Prince John.”

  “So do I. We’ll be there, soon. There’s a little town on the coast here, though, maybe fifty miles from here, that hasn’t been spoiled by tourists yet. We’ll go there first, spend a few days together, like this.” He smiled at her lovely, oval face, touched her eyebrows with his fingertips. “Don’t worry about me, Dee.”

  “I do, darling. Come back here.”

  But Marcus knocked on the hotel room door, and after Deirdre put on a robe, Durell let him in.

  Marcus moved to the window and stared out at the distant mesa, at the empty, blinding gray desert, and turned a scowling face at Durell.

  “You saw the O’Hara woman. So what now?”

  Durell told him about Vincente’s tape recorder and the monk with the kite who came regularly at six o’clock to collect the tape.

  “So what does that do for us?” Marcus argued. “The guys in the vans are restless. Andy and Roger are ready to go. The girl we picked up doesn’t know anything about anything. Lou has been banging her all day. He won’t be worth a damn tonight. Harry and Dave are okay, but I don’t see how we can go up there and crash in unless we call on the Federales.”

  “No cops,” Durell said. “I’m going in alone.” He paused. “The rest of you can follow me after an interval. But I’ll want you to stay close behind.”

  “How can we get past their detection devices?”

  Durell said, “There’s a way—if it works.”

  “If.”

  “After I’m in, the rest of you follow like you were going to blow the place apart.”

  “I know the technique,” Marcus growled.

  “Then just be patient.”

  Vincente shivered in the back room of his cantina, although the heat of the day’s sunshine still lingered here with stifling breathlessness. In an hour, the chill of the desert would settle in. The plaza was already in deep shadow, and some of the young men of the village were gathered about the vans, talking to Marcus and his men, exchanging cigarettes and drinking beer. Durell waited in the back room for Vincente. Time seemed to stop moving. Each minute was an eternity.

  Finally he heard the thin tinkling of a small handbell. Vincente stirred. “He comes.”

  “Bring him back in here,” Durell said.

  “I always give him the tape recorder at the bar. That is where he pays me.”

  “Tell him you left it in this room. Tell him you think the tape ran out.”

  “Si. You will kill this man?”

  “Not if I don’t have to.”

  “I change my opinion of you, señor. I think you are a cruel person. I fear you more than I fear the others.” “Good. Keep that thought in mind.”

  The tinkling bell stopped. Durell urged Vincente gently toward the doorway and out of the back room. It was dark enough in here, he thought. He took out his gun and listened to Vincente talk to the monk in Spanish. Vincente’s voice was strained and the monk noticed it and asked if anything was wrong.

  “The recorder—it may be broken—the tape does not work. Perhaps the batteries—it is not my fault, padre—”

  “Give it to me, Vincente.” The man’s voice, which hac been polite at first, revealed a sudden hardness.

  “I left it in the back room, sir.”

  “Bring it out.”

  “I put it down, I cannot remember—”

  “Go. Bring it.”

  Vincente stumbled through the doorway as if he had been shoved violently inside. The monk’s bell jingled. Vincente’s face was very pale in the gloom. He stood and trembled. Durell, flat against the wall beside the doorway, put the muzzle of his gun to his lips in a signal for silence There were cartons of canned beer, racks for wine, some old furniture gathering dust in the storeroom. Vincente began to shove the cartons around, deliberately making it sound as if he were searching for the tape recorder. But he was trembling too much to make a decent pretense of it.

  A shadow seemed to leap from the doorway into the dark room.

  “What are you doing, Vincente?”

  “I— am sorry, señor. I cannot find it.”

  “You had better.”

  The man came into the room through the doorway. His little kite dragged unheeded on the plank floor behind him.

  Durell slammed his gun into the man’s ribs.

  “Don’t move. Don’t say anything. Don’t breathe!”

  The man was big, powerfully built. He was also either stupid or desperate. His hands went up, starting to clasp together above his head; one finger reached for a ring or the opposite hand. Durell hit him with the gun on the side of his head and the man staggered, fell against a stack oi wine boxes, tried to clasp his hands again and at the same time kicked at Durell. His robe hampered him. Durell hi1 him again, heard Vincente suck in breath in his terror. The monk fell sidewise and several bottles broke and the pungency of spilled wine filled the shadowed storeroom. A knife flickered from the black-garbed man’s sleeve. Durell caught at it, broke it free. He did not want to fire his gun and arouse the whole village. He struck again, and the big monk went down to his knees. Once more. Durell felt himself begin to sweat. The monk collapsed on his face, lay still.

  “Stand back, Vincente,” Durell said.

  Vincente nodded. Durell checked the man’s hand, found the ring, saw the small wire leading from it along his palm and up the sleeve. Very carefully, he opened the monk’s robe and took it off, peeling it back by following the tiny wire. The wire was connected to the rope that served as a belt around the man’s waist, and from there it went to the bell and the kite. The kite itself served as an antenna, in turn attached to a small box, no more than four inches long, thrust into the waistband of the man’s denim slacks.

  It took time and care to get the man’s costume completely off. Several minutes went by, longer than Durell expected. What it amounted to was a broadcasting monitor that spotted the monk’s movements from a central control, keeping track of the man.

  The monk’s outfit was a walking electronic arsenal of detection devices. Within the folds of the black robe was a “blind spotlight,” which looked like an ordinary flashlight. Hand held, its beam was so brilliant as to temporarily blind anyone. There was also a small plate that Durell guessed would respond to alarms triggered by infrared beams. And a tag that, if the activating mechanism were not turned off, would also set off an alarm like that used to outwit shoplifters. Added to that was a microwave receiver that would send a certain signal within an area protected by high-frequency radio beams. Durell had seen similar gadgets in K Section’s basement lab—honeycomb logic circuitry that could detect the difference between birds, small animals, and a man. He was aware of miniaturized sound detectors, barriers of strong, invisible infrared laser beams in which the pulse of radiation is passed from one unit to the next to form a circuit. When broken, alarms wen
t off.

  The monk, with his robe and his kite, would be the only human being able to pass through such barriers on his way back to the Maharanda winery.

  Durell slipped into the monk’s robe quickly, adjusted the ring and rope belt and kite to his own frame. Again, he was delayed by the need for care.

  “Can you tie him up, Vincente?”

  “Yes. I can lock him in the cellar. I am glad you did not kill him, señor.”

  “Be careful. He’ll kill you, if he can.”

  Durell stared out of the storeroom behind the cantina. At the same moment, someone came in through the front entrance facing the plaza.

  It was Marcus. His face was battered and bloody. He staggered as he walked.

  “Cajun?”

  “It’s me,” said Durell, wearing the robe.

  “Oh, Jesus. Cajun, they came to the hotel. They got Deirdre. They took her away. I’m sorry, Sam. I’m sorry.”

  “Sit up straight, Deborah.” “Yes.”

  “Look at me, please.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Am I so ugly, then?” “You’re all ugly.”

  “Look at me.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Deborah, is this her picture?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Surely you recognize your own cousin?”

  “I haven’t seen her for years and years.”

  “Come, come.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “This is Deirdre Padgett, is it not?”

  “If you say so.”

  “This is not a proper answer. I must confess, I grow totally impatient with you. You have delayed and lied and offered me nothing, in exchange for my kindness to you.”

  “Kindness?”

  “You are alive, are you not?”

  “Without my finger.”

  “Ah. It still hurts?”

  “No.”

  “You had excellent medical treatment.”

  “Have you sent it—sent it to my father?”

  “You told us he was at Ca’d’Orizon, did you not?”

  “Yes. But I added that it was just an educated guess. I can’t be sure.”

  “But it took you several days to decide to tell us that.

  And now our quarry has flown.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Glad?”

  “He’s my father. I don’t want him killed or hurt by your monsters.”

  ****************************************

  She felt as if everything had been harvested now from the fields of her mind. She was empty and drained of everything she had owned, all that she had been. She would never be the same. With her head bowed, seated in the same chair, before the table on which her finger had been severed and the ring taken from her, she felt an exhaustion of mind and spirit from which she would never rise. For a day and a night she had remained in shock, confined to her cell. She heard the chanting of the Maharanda monks from a distance. The striking of various gongs marked the hours that drifted by. She slept and dreamed and woke to find the stub, where her finger used to be, bandaged, the pain eased. She had been questioned again, and this time she had allowed the replies to come out, knowing it was all being taped, knowing that the capacities of her brain were being leached bit by bit, grain by grain. She had talked about Q.P.I. and Martin and most of all about Rufus Quayle. Finally she had told them about the canal that went underground, under the wide sweep of terrace behind the house. And how Rufus had told her he would die in that house.

  She was changed. There was a listlessness to her spirit that she had never known before. Her life-long dedication to her father and his enterprises, using her unique talents, had come to an end. She felt she had betrayed everything that gave meaning to her life.

  “Look at me, Deborah.”

  He was monstrous, in a flowing yellow robe, with tiny feet, his shaven head shining in the light from the window that looked out high over the empty desert. Yes, she

  thought, there was something innately evil, a malice that seemed unearthly, in him. Her mind rebelled weakly against accepting this, and she felt enslaved by this creature who called himself Dr. Mouquerana Sinn. She was beginning to accept him and his long quiet talks, laced with acid amusement, that defined him as a Messenger of Satan, a harbinger of open wickedness to the world. As if the world wasn’t wicked enough, she thought bitterly. It was true, as Sinn argued, that man called upon God to relieve humanity of war and hatred and bigotry and natural devastations; and so often, God did not seem to respond. You could rationalize it in many ways, searching for a greater good to come from mankind’s barbarity; but such goodness was difficult to find. You were urged to have faith. Faith, she thought dully, had not helped her. A cry to heaven had not saved Martin. It would not save herself.

  Rings flashed and flickered in heavy jewelry on Dr. Sinn’s short, fat fingers. He was vain. He was contemptuous. Most of all, there was no end to his cruelty.

  His guards were scarcely better, those two omnipresent companions who stood behind Sinn’s thronelike chair and stared at her with small, unwinking eyes. Most of all she feared the one called Antipholus, as if he were the Devil’s right hand. He was the one who had calmly, swiftly amputated her finger. He looked at her strangely, she thought. Now and then his face betrayed an odd, flickering smile. She looked back at him like a bird caught in the hypnotic stare of a serpent. He wore a short tunic over his great barrel chest, and very tight trousers of thin white cotton that ended in elastic just below the heavy knees. His genitals bulged enormously under the flimsy white cloth. She looked away. She sat up straighter and let her eyes go out of focus, so that she seemed to be meeting Dr. Sinn’s stare, but kept him in a blurred haze.

  ****************************************

  “Ah. Better, Deborah.”

  “Yes. What more do you wish to know?*'

  “Would your cousin Deirdre Padgett recognize you, if she saw you now?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Is there any way you could identify yourself to her so she would be convinced of your own identity?”

  “I could tell her my name.”

  “Nonsense. Do not anger me with simplicities.”

  “I could tell her some details of how we first met at Ca’d’Orizon, on that Thanksgiving Day.”

  “Ah.”

  “I could describe her parents.”

  “Better.”

  “And some things that were said at the table."

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to bring Deirdre here, too?”

  “She is already here, my dear. Do you know her fiance, this man named Sam Durell?”

  “No. I know nothing, really, about her life.”

  “A dangerous man. Thanks to your tardiness in speaking frankly, thanks to your delay in being responsive to my questions, we have lost a few small skirmishes with the forces opposing us. It is an irritation. I am really very angry with you, Deborah.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You will be sorrier.”

  “Please don’t hurt me anymore. Let me go.’*

  “Had you been cooperative, had your father Rufus Quayle agreed to our terms and given up Q.P.I., it would have been better for you. I mean to own Q.P.I., do you understand? Have you realized that yet?”

  “Yes, I know that now.”

  “Do you still think your obstinacy has been worth it?” “No, I don’t.”

  “Would you sign over Q.P.I. to me?”

  “I would, if I could. If I had the authority.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Don’t hurt me again.”

  “You need another small lesson, Deborah.51 “Oh, please!”

  “Yes, yes. I am very angry with you. You have caused me delays, the loss of two—perhaps three—excellent aides. Your female cousin and this man Durell have been most persistent in seeking me out, trying to save you. But they shall not succeed.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I can
not hear you. Do not whisper, Deborah.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “I am going to give you to Antipholus. He has developed a curious affection for you, watching you this past week or two. You may not survive his attentions.”

  “What more can I tell you?"

  “Ah. First a whisper. Now a shout. Good, good. You have been unresponsive for too long. Antipholus, you may take her.”

  ****************************************

  What had been a nightmare before was now compounded a hundred times over. She had come to accept physical abuse, slaps and kicks, the sight of Martin hanging from the hook in the ceiling, the amputation of her finger. It was as if she had been here for an eternity, and had grown accustomed to this slavish way of life, to the constant hammering on her mind, the slow draining of her personality until she had become as slavish as a whipped bitch, cowering and drooling for pity.

  Now, as the huge, gross attendant came toward her, she felt such a burst of revulsion at what was coming that she pushed back the chair and sprang to her feet. His big paw shot out and caught her arm and twisted it cruelly, toning her so that she fell on all fours to the rough stone floor of the chamber. Her hair swung down before her eyes, blinding her. Suddenly she felt choked as his fingers caught in the cloth of the yellow smock she had been given to wear. There was a ripping sound as he tore the garment from her. For a moment she was released. She sprang upright and ran across the long room to the window overlooking the desert. Naked, her body still proud, she turned and looked at the man. He stood a short distance from her, a crooked smile on his obscene face. Behind him, still seated in his big chair, Dr. Mouquerana Sinn watched with all the objectivity of a botanist pinning a butterfly to a display board.

  “No, please,” she moaned.

  This proud body of hers, that she had used with such pleasure and skill with Martin, that had been honed to a fine athletic point, was greedily devoured by the man’s eyes. He looked at her breasts, her navel, her hips.

  “Please.”

  Slowly he untied the cord that held his tight breeches up on his bulging belly. He let them fall to the stone floor. She felt a scream rise in her throat, strangling her. He was a freak. He was enormous. The lift and extension of his organ was unnatural, bringing terror to her that was like a paralyzing wave of ice in her belly. She shrank away. She could not take her eyes from him. He would kill her. He would tear her apart. It was the ultimate violation, the final pain, that Dr. Sinn had reserved for her.