Assignment- Death Ship

by Will B Aarons

  “Did Dr. Plettner know anybody named Mother Mary? Do you?”

  “No,” she said flatly.

  She wasn’t even thinking, he could see that. She’d answered too fast.

  She said: “If Mr. Biner mentioned such a person, why didn’t he tell you more?”

  “He’s dead. Killed this evening.”

  Her hand covered her mouth. “Oh, my God!”

  “So you did know him.” Durell shook her. “Why didn’t you tell me about him?” He had an urge to slap her, but he swallowed his anger. “Talk!” he growled.

  Tears ran down her cheeks. “Okay!” She sobbed. “Oh, Sam, Ted—Mr. Biner—was supposed to be our go-between, so no one could trace Peter’s mail.”

  Durell flung her away. It was all he could do to keep from punching her. She banged into the wall and turned her face to it, sobbing. “You knew where your husband was all along. That’s why you played down his disappearance from the start. You’ve been shielding him and making a fool of me.” His tone became menacing. “You must know what he’s guilty of, then.”

  “He isn’t guilty of anything.” She raised her voice. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what happened to start all of this, but he hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  “Stop protecting him, Muncie,” he threatened.

  “I really don’t love him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “That’s immaterial. I’m waiting to hear where he’s hiding.” His face was hard, his tone unbending.

  “Listen, our marriage was a laugh, and then there was the pressure from Caske. Peter said he just couldn’t take it anymore, he had to do something. I thought he’d break off with Caske; it never occurred to me he’d do something like what he did.” Her eyes looked for his understanding. “He gave me no warning . . . but he did leave a note. I burned it—there wasn’t much in it. He said where he’d gone and begged me not to tell. He said Ted Biner would be his go-between if I had to get in touch. But he didn’t say where he was going. Didn’t trust me that much, I guess. But . . . now I know.”

  “Because of Mother Mary?”

  She nodded reluctantly.

  “Well?”

  “Mother Mary is Peter’s sister. She’s a nun. . ."

  “A mother superior?”

  “Yes.” Muncie hesitated. “She heads a nursing order in Calcutta.”

  Sweet relief flowed through Durell. Muncie hadn’t failed him, and he’d been so close to failure.

  She was speaking. “I went there once for a visit. She’s Peter’s only close relative, and she works in a mission for the poorest of the poor.” She shuddered at the memory. “It was awful.” She came closer and looked up into Durell’s eyes. “Peter didn’t go away to make mischief, Sam. He went for time to think, for renewal. Don’t you see?”

  “Did he explain that?” Durell asked, his face stern.

  “No, but—”

  “Then your guess is ho better than mine. Remember, Durso killed Biner, apparently to keep Plettner’s whereabouts a secret. He wouldn’t do that to protect a spiritual holiday.”

  “Ron killed him?” She was aghast.

  “Most likely.” Durell crossed to a grandfather clock in a heavy oak case. He felt down the sides.

  “What about Caske, then?”

  “Durso could have something going with Dr. Plettner— maybe it doesn’t include Caske.” He felt a bulge, pressed it with a finger and pulled the clock away from the wall on silent hinges, revealing a safe. He didn’t know the station combination to the safe, but he didn’t need to. A three-digit combination acted like a master key to such safes in Control stations all over the world, and he was one of no more than half a dozen men who knew those three digits.

  Opening the safe, he reached past code books and a file of secret communications, and withdrew a metal box.

  “What’s that?” Muncie asked.

  “Phony passports, among other things. Here.” He handed her one. “Dream up a name and type it in, along with your vital statistics.”

  “What about a photo?” she asked.

  “We have a Polaroid camera.”

  “It’s so simple. Are you taking me to Calcutta with you?”

  “You know where the mission is. It’ll save me time.”

  A thoughtful sadness clouded her gaze. “I feel like I’m betraying Peter, taking you there.”

  “Look at it this way,” he said, “you’re betraying lots more if you don’t.”

  Chapter 18

  The green landscape below was pocked and lined with ponds and canals as Durell’s Boeing jetliner made its final approach to Calcutta’s Dum Dum Airport.

  Then there came the haze of a city, gleaming oil tanks and ships at anchor on a brown river. Another turn revealed new green, with palm trees and bullock carts and a white church steeple as English as Suffolk sticking up out of the jungle.

  The giant aircraft bumped down on a runway.

  Muncie turned to Durell. “I hope I’m doing the right thing. What would you have done, if I hadn’t told you where to come?”

  “You would have told me.” His reply was as simple as he could make it.

  They paused in the busy terminal long enough for him to make a phone call, then boarded a taxi driven by a turbaned Sikh.

  No one seemed to have been waiting for them.

  A pall of industrial smog hung over much of the fifty-mile swath carved for the metropolis from the swamps and jungles of the Ganges delta, the road was bordered by water-filled ditches where women flailed laundry, men bathed, children played.

  Sacred Brahmani cows strayed into the way and the Sikh honked furiously. Buzzards and vultures perched atop billboards beckoning travelers to fly BO AC or Pan Am. Durell noticed shanties crowded under the protection of the billboard walkways; further away were thatch dwellings amid palms, then moss-green jungle walls.

  The air reeked of heat and humidity, rot and vegetation.

  A leopard might still be found in these environs. Jackals roamed the suburbs, killing an occasional indigent at night, and crocodiles sometimes snatched a bather or cow in the Hooghly, an overburdened arm of the divine Ganges River that had nourished Calcutta since its founding by British merchants almost three hundred years ago.

  Muncie came back to the topic. “But what if you thought I was on the other side?” she asked.

  He regarded her quizzically, wondering if she really wanted to hear the answer. “Let’s drop it,” he told her.

  “You’re awfully quiet.” She took a compact from her purse.

  “I’m saving my breath,” he said morosely.

  She looked tired, with a hint of circles under her blue eyes, even though she’d napped aboard the plane most of the night. It was about seven in the morning now, and although it was only March, the day would be a scorcher. He held his suit jacket on his knees and loosened his tie and collar. They hadn’t even managed a fresh change of clothing before leaving Switzerland-—their suitcases had vanished with Nuri. So they were not only hot, but grimy. Their heavy coats lay on the seat between them, as alien to this climate as space suits. The bullet crease in Durell’s arm burned.

  “Let’s go shopping,” Muncie said. “If I don’t get out of these things, I’ll go crazy.”

  “Maybe later,” he said.

  “Can’t you let up for a moment?”

  “I can let up when I’ve done my job. Do what you like when that’s finished.”

  She looked into the compact mirror, lipstick poised. “Is that your way of telling me you’re ditching me when you’re finished with me?” With bitter humor, she added, “My mother warned me about guys like you.”

  “I’m not thinking beyond finding your husband,” he said.

  The street became increasingly congested. There were battered double-decker buses, people clustered on them like bees on a hive. There were rickshaws with jingling bells, trucks and private cars, trolleys and bullock carts and the everpresent cows, strolling between tram tracks to mun
ch the trash of coconut husks thrown away by drink vendors.

  Pedestrians were everywhere, crowding the streets and spilling off the sidewalks. Men and women dressed western style or Indian, in saris and chadars and astrakhan caps and grubby, makeshift turbans.

  Shopkeepers squatted cross-legged on the counters of their tiny arcade shops, some with another ragged businessman plying his wares from space rented under their counters. Coolies staggered along carrying enormous bundles. Office workers gripped briefcases.

  Here and there Durell discerned the almost skeletal form of someone sick or dying—maybe of starvation—on the sidewalk. Only the closest kin would notice the loss in a city with the world’s worst poverty and highest population density. They said it was home to a million beggars.

  The beggars shuffled and squirmed everywhere, showing their stumps, their blind eyesockets, whining. . . .

  Muncie rolled up her window in spite of the heat.

  They threaded through ranges of dingy walkup flats. The hammer and sickle had been painted on a wall. Gradually the featureless blocks gave way to older buildings interspersed with red brick factory walls that might have been hauled intact from Scotland. Durell recognized other legacies of the British Raj in the birthday-cake buildings of quasi-Victorian, bastardized oriental architecture.

  And everywhere, squatters had a toehold, camping wherever the flow of people allowed an eddy, their few belongings piled in doorways as they cooked chapatis over a fire on the sidewalk.

  The taxi came to a halt before a three-story apartment house with paint peeling from its stucco sides. An outdoor staircase was visible through wooden latticework. Down the street was the muddy Hooghly, busy with hay boats and junks, ferries and freighters. There was an odor of cremation in the air, blown from the burning ghats above the Howrah Bridge.

  Fending off beggars and street urchins, Durell told the driver to wait, and took Muncie into the building with him. He was determined not to let her out of his sight on the street.

  He never forgot that the Russians would take her, if they could; that Calcutta, with its swarming poverty, was a communist stronghold.

  A slight, dark-skinned man named Ajoy Gupta, a K Section operative, welcomed them into his two-room home on the third floor of the building. “Sri Durrelji! Long time!” He extended a wiry hand. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt and khaki slacks. His face was eager and intelligent.

  Durell introduced him to Muncie, then took him onto the roof, leaving her to contemplate the outdated calendars that decorated his walls.

  Before leaving Switzerland, Durell had used Nuri’s transmitter to brief Washington as to his destination, although not his exact purpose—he didn’t even trust code with that information. Codes were broken every day—or bought—or stolen.

  So Gupta, through Washington, had known to expect him. Trouble was, merely contacting a man like Gupta exposed one to jeopardy. Foreign nationals tended to be lax and poorly motivated. The security problems were legion. The roof was the only safe place to talk with him.

  Durell took a rare cigarette from a week-old pack and lighted it, cupping the match against the breeze. He gave one to Gupta, who accepted it gratefully in lips stained red by betel nut juice. “Ah, American! I am an educated man, as you know, but even I cannot afford them anymore.” He puffed lightly, making it last. Durell gave him the pack. “Shukreva.” Gupta thanked him.

  Hungry crows flew overhead. The sun bored into Durell’s face. “You had word from Washington?” he asked.

  “Yes. Nothing is changed. I’m sorry, no elaborate.”

  It was all he needed. There was still time, but no one knew how much. "Atcha." Durell drew on his cigarette, thinking. “Do you know the Little Sisters of Mercy?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry, no.”

  “It’s a religious group, Christian nuns. They have a shelter for the sick.”

  Gupta nodded wisely. “There are many charitable organizations in Calcutta, Durellji. They come, they go.”

  Durell gave him a wad of rupee notes. “This is for expenses,” he told him. Gupta began babbling his gratitude, and Durell interrupted him. “Use it to take a taxi and follow me—any extra is yours.” There would be lots extra—Durell judged it would keep him interested. “I need a backup. You have a gun? Bring it with you. Mrs. Plettner is taking me to the Little Sisters of Mercy, where I must apprehend a man, her husband. Don’t ask questions. He isn’t likely to be alone, and it may be difficult. Let me go in first and follow when you can without anyone thinking we’re together. Keep in the background unless you’re needed.”

  They got Muncie and went down to the street to find a taxi for the Indian. Then they set off for Mother Mary’s shelter, which Muncie remembered vaguely as being off Bellagata Road. It was among the bustee slums near Circular Canal.

  They were half an hour getting there. Traffic was at a crawl, the pith-helmeted police in the intersections virtually overwhelmed.

  Durell remembered that Calcutta was a city of slums. Over a third of its population were slum dwellers, and that didn’t include people sleeping on the street or in train terminals.

  They passed low brick huts built for factory workers, where a hundred people might share one outdoor hydrant and a couple of outdoor toilets.

  Filth overflowed onto the mud, mixing with rainwater and draining into the nearby Hooghly. There the Hindus worship-fully bathed, not only in sewage, but amid the garlands and ashes of their cremated dead.

  Durell had lost sight of Gupta’s taxi. He swore and ordered his driver to pull over to wait. When several minutes passed and Gupta still hadn’t emerged from the jostling throng of animals, people, and vehicles, he told the Sikh cabbie to drive on. He knew he was acting recklessly, but his impatience had become almost impossible to quell.

  The loss of Sri Gupta wasn’t the only disappointment: Muncie, after some meandering, found the place—but it was vacant.

  They stood on the bustling sidewalk in the heat with kangali street orphans badgering them. “This is it. How could I forget it?” Muncie said, viewing the turreted, Gothic house.

  Durell looked back, hoping to see Gupta. The gutter smelled of feces and was black with flies.

  Muncie was defensive. “It was five years ago, for heaven’s sake. Anything can happen in five years.” Her face was flushed with the heat.

  Durell pointed to one of the urchins molesting them for a job. “Ha-ji, sahib?” the boy said. He had rogue’s eyes, cunning and unafraid.

  “Do you know where the nuns went?” Durell showed him five rupees.

  “Ha, sahib, I know,” the boy said.

  “Can you direct me to them?”

  The child looked at him blankly.

  “Can you show me where they are?” Durell asked.

  "Ha, sahib!”

  “Then get in the taxi.”

  They drove until the sun’s rays beat down from straight overhead and the cows hid in the shade. By then it was clear that the boy merely wished he knew where the nuns were.

  With a disgusted sigh, Durell gave him a rupee and put him on the street again, then sought the air-conditioned comfort of a Park Street restaurant. He and Muncie shared cold beer and bekti. The perch was the first meal they’d eaten since the previous day.

  “What now?” she questioned. “Can I buy some new clothes? There are some beautiful shops on this street.”

  “Rich man’s turf,” he told her. “I can’t have you out there drawing attention to yourself. The Great Eastern Hotel has a shopping arcade. I’ll take you there, and we can get a room as well. Kill two birds.”

  Her hand came over his, a small, cool touch. “Sam, I’m not sure we should share a room. It isn’t that I don’t want to. . . .” She dropped her gaze.

  “You don’t owe me any explanations,” he said. “You’re entitled to your feelings.”

  “It’s just that . . ."

  “You’re a married woman?”

  “I suppose you’re wondering why I should let th
at bother me now. Are you making fun of me?”

  “I wouldn’t do that. Some people take a while to know what they want.”

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  “But we still have to share a room.” He paid the waiter. “I’m not going to let you out of my sight any more than I have to,” he said.

  “Oh, is business all you think about? Don’t you ever let up?” She rose angrily.

  Outdoors the sunlight was blinding, and it was reflected off cars and windshields. He sensed something wrong, then saw the two white men lounging in front of a newsstand.

  They were bull-necked, with meaty shoulders and florid faces, and they wore identical full-cut suits of a dark, tropical-weight material.

  Two peas out of the same KGB pod. He could tell a mile away.

  When he glanced back, they were following him.

  Chapter 19

  “What’s the rush?” Muncie complained.

  “No rush,” Durell replied, but he kept his hand against the small of her back, urging her along a little faster.

  He pretended to ignore the KGB men following them as they passed the spire of the Ochterlony Monument commemorating the British-annexation of Nepal.

  He supposed he’d been followed since leaving Gupta’s flat. At least there was nothing to fear as long as they kept their distance.

  He took Muncie into the Great Eastern, registered as Mr. and Mrs., and they then went shopping. This time the Russians weren’t visible, but it made him feel no better. They were somewhere on the fringes, waiting their chance.

  Returning to their room. Durell locked the door and barra-caded it, propping a chair under the doorknob. When Muncie had showered, it was his turn. He cleaned the bullet wound on his forearm with hydrogen peroxide and applied antibacterial salve and a gauze dressing acquired in the hotel’s pharmacy.

  Muncie was napping when he came out of the bathroom, but Durell couldn’t have slept if he’d showered in chloroform.

  He was concerned for Gupta and wondered if the Russians had arranged his disappearance. He tried calling Gupta’s apartment, but got no answer. Gupta aside, Dr. Plettner was the real issue. Would the whole “Mother Mary” lead turn out to be a ruse? And would Durell find Plettner in time to stop him from striking again?