Assignment- Death Ship

by Will B Aarons

  “Look here.” Phineas stooped and came up with the scope-mounted Weatherby. “It’s her gun, Mr. Durell.”

  Durell spoke with renewed urgency. “Let’s get to the beach. Bring that rifle.”

  In darkness, even with Phineas’s familiarity with the island, it took about twenty minutes to reach the pier where he had landed that morning and another five to find his way onto the jutting stones of the headland. He was below the touch of the tradewind now, and nothing tempered the still, wet heat or blew away the mosquitoes.

  He crept with extra care out of the trees and among the pitted boulders, inching his way to the lip of a low bluff overhanging the sea. The water below was oily black, almost indistinguishable from the sky it mimicked.

  Phineas’s low voice was lilting. “I don’t know how we can find her in the dark, except if we step on them and get ourselves killed.”

  “I’d be happier if she’d reached the airstrip,” Durell replied. He swung his gaze in a slow arc, watching with the light-sensitive corners of his eyes. Nothing registered on the first scan.

  On the second, he saw it.

  To the west, several hundred yards offshore, rode the dark, low silhouette of a submarine. It had the stepped outline-conning tower of a “Whisky” class diesel, he thought. He couldn’t be positive; everything was black on black. Even as he watched, a white curl rose around the superstructure, and it submerged.

  Anxiety broke out in him.

  What if they had Muncie in there and were headed for Cuba?

  He told himself not to jump to conclusions. It was just as likely that the sub had dived as a precautionary measure to await the return of its landing party. After all, these were American territorial waters. And the blazing structure could call nnwonted attention from the mainland. Besides, it seemed unlikely that Muncie’s party could have reached the beach and paddled to the sub in the short time since she’d been captured.

  He turned to the void in the night that was Phineas and told him to lead the way to the nearest beach west of there. They had to backtrack around a salt swamp in what seemed total blackness, and his clothing was torn and soaked with slime when they came out onto a narrow crescent of sand leading to what he hoped would prove to be the Cubans’ landing area.

  If they hadn’t left already, they would probably bring Muncie here.

  He stopped, listening to the night. Wavelets purled sullenly against the sand. The wind made a sound high above them. Insects creaked and chimed.

  He whispered to Phineas, told him to stay put until he returned, then moved on. He kept close to the shadows that marked a wall of dense foliage bordering the beach.

  Sweat trickled down his ribs.

  His steps marked the sand without a sound.

  At about the place he’d estimated, a lone sentry was standing guard over three rubber boats. They had been pulled out of the water and deposited in the tree line, but about half of their length projected back onto the sand. He guessed they were four-man dinghies, which would normally have brought twelve men ashore, but they could have been crowded with more.

  He regarded the sentry through narrowed eyes. The man seemed alert, perhaps nervous. He was on his feet, moving here and there as if hearing things, stopping, trying to see, moving again. Perhaps he was expecting the return of the landing party.

  A quirk of terrain or air brought the sound of the burning house crackling through the woods.

  The night held a brooding presence, an intangible aura of death and evil.

  Durell moved well into the foliage. Starlight hung in faint shards among the treetops. He picked each step with deliberate care, like a tightrope walker testing his weight. Two minutes passed, then five. He didn’t rush it; he stalked with the patience of a lynx. He recognized a movement in the night ahead as the sentry, visible again from just behind the edge of the jungle.

  Durell moved within six feet of him, then a yard. . . .

  He had a choice of weapons, for he’d been taught how to kill with anything handy. Not all methods were equally sure; in the darkness a finger could miss, or a vertebra refuse to snap.

  He chose simply to crush the man’s skull with the butt of his pistol.

  He lifted his gun and swung with all his might. He felt bone shatter as the impact of the blow jarred through his wrist, up to his elbow.

  The sentry’s legs folded; he dropped straight down, without a sound.

  Durell got under him and dragged him quickly into the bushes. He took a pair of curved PPS magazines from the webbed belt the man wore and went back and picked up his submachine gun. Next, he hauled the dinghies down the sand, leaving them near the water’s edge. He hurried, because he had no idea when to expect the return of the raiding party.

  A glance out to sea revealed no sign of the sub; it probably was hovering at periscope depth, awaiting the signal of a flare or blinker.

  Durell trotted down the beach, sweeping his fingers through the fringe of the water to rinse sticky blood from them. He kept going along the wall of jungle blackness until he came to Phineas.

  “Where you been?” Phineas asked.

  “Getting rid of their sentry.” He showed Phineas the submachine gun. “Let’s get into the trees and wait. Do you see where I put their boats?”

  Phineas nodded. “How are we going to get Mrs. Muncie?” he asked.

  Durell spoke matter-of-factly. “Our only chance is to kill as many of them as we can, before they know what’s hit them. We get them disorganized, maybe scattered, then we’ll drive in and grab her. Surprise is the key.” He couldn’t find Phine^s’s face in the darkness.

  “I don’t think I can do that, Mr. Durell. I don’t think I have the stomach for it,” Phineas told him.

  “You have to, Phineas,” Durell said.

  “No. I—I can’t. I’m sorry. Maybe I could kill someone if they were trying to kill me, but just to shoot those men when they come on the beach—it’s like murder, Mr. Durell.”

  Durell held back his anger. The world was crumbling all around them, and he had no one but amateurs to help him stop it. He didn’t argue; he just said, “You have to do it.”

  There wasn’t any reply.

  Durell continued, “We should be able to pick out Mrs. Plettner fairly easily, even in the dark. The Weatherby has a first-rate scope; starlight’s bright enough to use it. I’ll pick off whoever is holding her or has her covered. I hope she thinks to run for it when I fire. I’m moving on down the beach. I’ll be very close, so I won’t miss. When she’s out of the way or finds cover, you open up with this.” Durell pushed the Soviet-made PPS into the handyman’s rough grasp. “The safety’s up on the clip housing. Feel it? Here are a couple of extra magazines.”

  “Mr. Durell, I—”

  Durell stopped him with a touch. “I’m going now,” he told him. “I’m counting on you.”

  He went down the beach and found a place some thirty yards from the boats, from which he could fire on them most accurately. The hulk of a wind-thrown palm trunk afforded him good protection. At this range the Cubans would be impossible to miss.

  He’d just gotten settled when he heard them approaching close behind. Smatters of Spanish came through the crunching of twigs and slapping of branches. They seemed to be making no effort at concealment. He froze, waiting. Sweat pushed through the pores of his face; he held his breath.

  “No me gusta.” Something had upset one of the Cubans.

  He heard low voices. One of them said not to worry: "No se preocupe. Todo está bien.”

  They must have realized their sentry was missing. The curt imperative of an order came to his ears. They were going to search the area; he wouldn’t have a chance if they found him. Surprise was all he had to make up for lack of numbers.

  He slipped the safety on his rifle to off.

  The crunch of clumsy footsteps came nearer, grew louder. . . .

  From further away came a cry of alarm, shouts back and forth.

  They must have found the dead sentry
.

  Durell shouldered the rifle, bracing a forearm on the trunk of the fallen palm tree, as the Cubans came running onto the beach in a ragged cluster, like flushed birds. He counted six, the last one pulling Muncie along. It meant others were still abroad on the island, but he’d worry about them later. These were thoroughly alarmed. They seemed intent only on reaching their boats and putting out to sea while they still could.

  The scene was aswirl with movement and confusion, but the starry reflection on the ocean silhouetted the Cubans nicely, as Durell had known it would. He pulled the trigger with confidence.

  The flat sound of the shot echoed across the water as the first of the Cubans fell.

  Durell chambered another cartridge, aimed, squeezed.

  A second figure collapsed.

  There was pandemonium. Bewildered cries. A submachine gun began chattering blindly at the jungle.

  Durell was yelling, working the bolt, sweat in his eyes. “Muncie! Run, Muncie!”

  His name came back from her as a terrified plea: "Sam?”

  “Run!” he shouted. He fired again, saw her break away and run into the woods.

  What had happened to Phineas? He should have begun raking the Cubans with the submachine gun the instant Muncie had put a few steps between them and herself. Durell knew he couldn’t hold them back alone for long.

  The Cubans, now prone on the sand, were beginning to get the range. The palm trunk shivered under the thud of their bullets, and the air buzzed and hummed, as if he’d stuck his head into a beehive.

  He was beginning to think he’d be lucky to crawl away without catching a slug. He squirmed into the jungle, almost sightless amid the rot and dank rootings of vines and trees. He’d gone perhaps ten feet when the firing stopped. He heard a shouted command and knew they were coming after him.

  Jumping to his feet, he began beating his way frantically through the vegetation. Noise didn’t matter so much now— distance was the thing. Besides, he counted on them making so much noise they weren’t likely to hear him.

  Complicating matters was Muncie. He heard her call his name. She was somewhere nearby. He had to get her to safety or all his efforts would have been wasted. He angled toward the source of the sound. She must have heard him coming, because she was headed for him when they ran into each other. She didn’t recognize him immediately and started to scream, but he clapped a hand over her mouth and quieted her.

  Her ribs shuddered against him, from the beating of her heart. She watched him through the dusky light, eyes wide as he removed his hand. Her voice was hoarse and trembling. “Thank heavens you came!” she said.

  “Where can we hide?” he asked.

  “I know a place. Hurry.” She tugged him by the hand.

  He heard the Cubans through the brush no more than fifty feet away and cursed Phineas as he fled behind Muncie. She knew the island thoroughly and soon brought him to a trail where they quickened their pace, but the Cubans hung on tenaciously. They were using flashlights. He could have picked one off, but it wasn’t worth revealing himself.

  Muncie knew the way, but she couldn’t move fast enough.

  Yet they had to break contact with the Cubans, or, outnumbered and outgunned, they were sure to die.

  Muncie’s panting was a high, brushing sound that rode above his own harsh breathing.

  She led him up an overgrown stone staircase, and above, he saw the gleaming of what he’d seen from the boat on his arrival: a tumbledown plantation house atop a low hill.

  Running up the steps ahead of him, she spoke over her shoulder. “Secret passage inside—they’ll never—”

  A stunning brilliance cut her words off.

  The blinding glare of the submarine’s spotlight had lanced through the night to expose them mercilessly on the wide white steps.

  From the darkness beyond the dazzle Durell heard in Spanish: “There they are!”

  And then, in dismay, the order to fire. . . .

  Chapter 9

  Durell and Muncie stood out like flies in the harsh glare of the spotlight. Caught in a blazing fraction of time, motion frozen, no place to hide, they made perfect targets, and Durell had a fleeting second to foretaste death.

  A machine gun thundered; he flinched, heard a scream.

  There was a clattering of metal against stone. . . .

  He was still alive!

  He could almost touch the stunned silence of the moment. The halo of light that had held him slipped questioningly downward, revealing four dead Cubans—and Phineas, who stood over them with his smoking weapon.

  “Phineas!” Muncie called joyously.

  His face jerked toward her, gleaming blackly in the brilliance, and in the same instant, faster than the eye could follow, an immense arc of fiery tracer shells squirted from the resurfaced submarine and showered the area where Phineas stood. Twenty-three mm. bullets ripped the handyman to shreds. The torrent of steel kicked and tossed his bloody remains about in a swirl of dust and shrapnel.

  It gave Durell the moment he needed, and he hurled himself up the remaining steps into the tumbledown plantation manor, dragging Muncie after him. He’d expected her to be nearly hysterical, but she must have had deep reserves of nerve—or maybe she was just numb after all she’d been through. Stars shone their pale radiance through gaps in the roof as Sam and Muncie stepped cautiously through the trash of the abandoned building. The sound of their movements echoed in the empty rooms.

  “Phineas . . .” she said.

  “He did what had to be done,” Durell told her.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening.” She sounded lost and forlorn.

  He didn’t waste any time with it. “I’ve tried to explain it,” he said shortly. “Where’s this secret passage you told me about?” He glanced over his shoulder. “There are still Cubans on the island. The sub may send more, too,” he told her.

  She led him over a sagging floor that squeaked and trembled; he made out the bare lines of what must have once been a grand staircase. Behind it she opened a door that moaned on rusty hinges. They descended wooden steps in total darkness.

  The musty odor of a cellar closed around his nostrils.

  He could hear the rustle of her silken garments.

  There came the click of a cigarette lighter, and he saw in the glow of its flare that she was taking a candle from a shelf. She lit the candle and held it up to him, looking over the flame with an enigmatic gaze. Her cheeks were smudged, her expensive clothing torn, ruined.

  “Sam—may I call you that?”

  “Mrs. Plettner . . .’’he began.

  “Muncie. Hold me? Please?” She leaned against him. He felt her trembling sigh. “Thanks. Thanks for saving me,” she said into his shoulder.

  “It was in my own interest,” he said.

  “I suppose so. I don’t seem to care why very much. I’m still alive, thank God. That’s all that matters to me.” She lifted her face up to him. “Is that wrong?” she asked.

  “No. I hope you’ll help me find your husband,” he said. “We haven’t much time.”

  “Honestly, he’s not . . . whatever you seem to think he is—he’s not bad.”

  He regarded her closely and said nothing. She looked away. He said, “I hope that’s true.”

  She turned and began leading him down a servants’ staircase, speaking as she went. “He can’t help his drinking,” she said. “His life—our life together—has been ruined by the Caske company, by all the pressures. . . .”

  They entered a spacious kitchen replete with a huge wood-burning iron range. Cobwebs massed among termite-riddled beams. Dust and mildew covered everything. Next came a big pantry with floor-to-ceiling cabinets. Muncie pressed a hidden spring and a cabinet pivoted, revealing a secret doorway. A cool draft flooded out of the opening, wagging the candle flame. Durell followed Muncie inside and pulled the door closed behind them. Again they descended, this time on steps cut from the living stone. Drops of water plinked and plunked.

&nb
sp; Muncie said, “They say that the man who built this used the money he’d stolen as a pirate—this was back in the sixteen hundreds—and that he made his prisoners dig this tunnel, then killed them.”

  “Who else knows about it?” Durell asked.

  “I don’t know. Not many. See over there? Skeletons.” She pointed with the candle.

  They passed a row of bones scattered at the foot of the wall. Damp calcium deposits left by dripping water hung like icicles from vacant eye sockets and gaping jaws.

  “Let’s hope we don’t join them,” he said. “Where does the tunnel go?”

  “To the sea. It comes out in a water grotto. You’ve got to swim the last ten yards or so.”

  “Near the landing beach?”

  “Pretty close. I guess that isn’t good, is it?”

  Durell paused. “Let’s find a spot to sit. The sub is certain

  to leave by dawn. The Russians wouldn’t want to get caught in these waters.”

  “The tunnel widens into a room—I call it the treasure room,” she said. “It isn’t far.”

  They soon came to the widened section of the tunnel, where they sat down to rest in soft dust that had accumulated for centuries. Muncie stood the candle in the dust and leaned back against the wall, next to Durell. “I’m exhausted,” she said. Her voice saddened. “Poor Phineas ...” She shook her head as if to shake the memory of his death from her mind. “Let’s talk about something else. Can’t you tell me more? What’s happened to bring you here? And then those others?”

  Durell held her gaze. “All I can tell you is it’s bad,” he said. “Worse than you can imagine. A nightmare.”

  “What was in the lab? What killed Maj. Miller?”

  “Don’t you know? Can’t you guess?”

  She shook her head. “Honestly . . .” she said. “He shouldn’t have broken in there in any case.”

  “I helped him.” He took her hands. “And I hope you’ll help me, Muncie. I’m going to Geneva with Durso tomorrow—”

  “Why?”

  “Geneva was like a second home to your husband, wasn’t it? To you, too. It’s the next logical place to try and pick up his trail.”