Assignment Maltese Maiden

by Edward S. Aarons

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why are you—?”

  “I am filled with disgust,” he said.

  Crouching over him, her slim body was clearer now as his vision adapted to the starlight that seeped into the room. She slapped him suddenly. She panted with the effort she was making with her hips and thighs. “You fool! Oh, you fool!”

  He fought the artificial excitation of the drug in his veins. He wondered how long he had been unconscious. Long enough for Hung to prepare for this travesty of love. Make it an hour, at the most. His mind touched on Perozzo and on Deirdre, somewhere on the yacht, less than a mile away.

  Something jingled, and for the first time he saw the keys to the padlocks that chained him to the bed. They dangled from a bracelet the woman wore on her wrist. At the same moment, Hung came forward, straddling his chest, and she released his right hand. She breathed rapidly.

  “Now, you see, I trust you. Together, we can manage an empire—”

  Her face was swollen with her frustrated passion. He did not waste an instant. His right hand came down across the side of her throat with a deadly impact. The woman made a gurgling sound and fell sidewise off him. In the gloom, he saw her eyes go wide and blank. As she crumpled, her legs sliding across his belly, he caught at the keys dangling from her wrist. They slipped from his fingers as she went off the bed. Her arm was limp and nerveless. He pulled hard at it as she lay across his stomach, her head dangling over the side of the bed. Panting, he forced her arm up, retrieved the keys, and loosened the second padlock that held his left hand to the headboard. In a moment, he sat up gasping. Footsteps paused outside the door and remained there for a long minute, while he froze. His legs were still shackled. With an effort, he pulled the unconscious woman’s weight down across his knees. She was heavier than he had suspected. Her thick, stiff hair made a fan across his stomach. Bending forward, he tried for the locks on his ankles. He got one easily, then struggled for the other. He was covered with sweat. The cold wind blowing through the window made him shiver violently.

  Then he was free.

  He stood up, naked, in the dark room. The woman slid off the bed with a thump. Her eyes were open, staring without sight at the dim ceiling. He hoped she was dead. There wasn’t time to make certain. There came a heavy knocking on the paneled door, and a man’s voice called in soft, urgent Mandarin Chinese.

  Clothes, he thought. He looked around, opened a wardrobe against the wall. Madame Hung had been sure of herself. His slacks and sweater were hanging neatly on the rack. His shoes were on the floor. He dressed as the knocking was repeated, and the man called, “Madame Hung! The boat is here!”

  He searched for a weapon. The woman lay on the rug on the side of the bed away from the doorway. The knocking became an alarmed thud. The door was secured with an iron Moroccan lock. The big, elaborate key was still in it. Dressed, Durell took a heavy brass lamp in his hand as he turned the key. The door slammed inward with a man’s weight. As the shape plunged into the room, Durell slammed the heavy lamp down on the man’s head. The fellow kept going, sliding on his face across the tiled floor. The door thudded against the wall. Durell knelt over the man, picked up his Chinese pistol, felt its reassuring weight in his hand. From other areas of the stone tower came shouts and yells of inquiry and alarm.

  No time to make sure of Madame Hung now. He found himself in a wide corridor and opened a heavy door studded with brass and went down a short hallway, down a flight of steps. Calls came from the stony beach outside, and a motorboat’s exhaust bubbled in the swell. He tried two more doors desperately, found nothing, then stepped into the square room at the base of the tower. The hatchway was turned up.

  “McFee!”

  In place of the brilliant light down there before, there was pitch blackness now. A feeling of emptiness echoed back with his voice. McFee was gone. They had taken him away. To the yacht, he thought. He turned as footsteps came running directly toward him. At the same time, gunfire burst from the other side of the house, on the beach,

  Chapter 25

  Durell flattened against the wall, gun raised. The fight in the corridor outside the tower room was dim, but there was a single door there, and whoever headed this way had to come through that door. He drew a deep breath. The sound of the motorboat suddenly roared as it pulled away.

  A few more shots rang out—a futile sound. Then Cesar Skoll came through the doorway like a Mark V tank.

  “Comrade Cajun! You are safe!”

  “I was, until now. Put away the gun, Cesar.”

  “Yes. I am relieved to see you on your feet—”

  “I’ll bet. Where is McFee?”

  “Alas, both our birds have flown—seaward, I think.” Skoll breathed out through his nose angrily. “Hung took McFee with her. I have your two people safely with me— Perozzo and the signorina. Our mutual enemy seems furious, according to one of her assistants I caught. He was more afraid of her than of me.”

  Another rattle of diminishing gunfire sounded from the beach. Durell ignored the Russian and pushed down the hall to the front of the house that faced the sea. A dim riding light flickered on the black water, heading south, around the point to the next cove. Durell stood in the cool Mediterranean wind and felt its comfort ease away the memories of the past hour. His head still ached, and his bandaged arm felt stiffer than before.

  Skoll said, “Are you sure you are all right, Cajun?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I am curious. What did she do to you?”

  “She wanted to make love.”

  “Love?”

  Durell was impatient. “How many men do you have?”

  “I began with three. Two are wounded. Hung’s men are good shots. We killed two, but she and the last one, with your Dickinson McFee, were safely away in the boat. Gone to the yacht, of course.”

  “Where is Major Won?”

  The Siberian grinned. “We—ah—had a difference of opinion. He wrote you off. His plan is to board the East Wind. I was more immediately concerned with you—and McFee, of course. Does Hung have the Pilgrim Project papers?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How could McFee have held out against that woman?” “I don’t know, but he did. That’s why he’s my boss.”

  “Da, of course. Richenko? Come here.”

  From around a corner of the house came a man almost as huge as Skoll. “Yes, Colonel?”

  “We have an ally, I think. Comrade Durell will join us now, at last.” Skoll grinned. “Am I right, Cajun?”

  “For the moment,” Durell said. “No promises and no guarantees.”

  “The moment is enough,” Skoll said.

  Anna-Marie still wore her round sunglasses, although the night was dim and the moon was not yet up. A silk bandana was tied around her long hair. She looked trim and capable in dark slacks and thick-soled sneakers. Perozzo looked curiously at Durell as they trotted up the slope of the headland that divided this cove from the small harbor on the other side.

  “I thought you were finished.” Perozzo said glumly. “I didn’t know what to do. When Skoll got the drop on us, I told him you’d gone into the tower alone. We thought you were dead. I’m sorry I had to brief him on you, though. You look a little funny, though. Strange, I mean.”

  “I’m all right,” Durell said.

  “You saw Madame Hung?”

  “Intimately. Save your breath, Carlo. We have to move fast.”

  The girl said nothing. An intensity in her movements betrayed her eagerness to find her young man, Lee. Durell, too, felt impatience with his fear. After what had happened with Hung, he had no illusions about the woman’s state of mind. Her rage would demand a violent revenge. And she had Deirdre aboard the East Wind. He felt as if time ran out too fast, as if everything he had struggled for was blowing away like the sand before a Fezzani ghibli.

  They topped the rise and looked down into the next inlet of the sea. Durell exhaled briefly. The white yacht was there, a few ridin
g lights agleam and some windows shining in the salon aft under the white canvas awning.

  Skoll said thickly, “We have her now, Cajun.”

  Durell said, “Her engines are running.”

  There were other lights on the dark sea, and he saw the launch just this side of the headland; the smaller craft seemed to be drifting, and a searchlight on her bow revealed two figures astern working over an open engine hatch.

  Skoll chuckled. “The ways of the Chinese can be devious. Madame Hung has been delayed by Won. He—ah—tinkered with the engine of her launch. It will be a few minutes, I think, before she can reach the yacht.”

  They began the steep descent to the cove below, scrambling through rough brush, across a terraced orchard, and down again. The light from Gordon’s Point swept over them. Anna-Marie leaped downward and ahead of them. Skoll, for all his size, was equally agile. In five minutes, they were on the rocky shore. Richenko, Skoll’s burly aide, vanished through a small grove of wind-bent carob trees. Skoll signaled them all to wait. From across the water came the sudden snarl of the launch’s engine as it abruptly revived. Through the starlight, Durell saw white foam from the launch’s wake streaking toward the yacht. Richenko whistled from up ahead.

  “Good. He has the boat.” Skoll grinned. “It is a fisherman’s. We will borrow it.”

  There were two houses about a hundred yards east of the grove of carob trees. One window in the nearest house was lighted. Durell checked Anna-Marie as she jumped ahead and let Skoll go toward a small patch of sand where the fishing boat was drawn up. It was a heavy wooden craft with an orange oculus painted on the high, curved prow, in the Greek manner.

  Other shadows ran down the narrow beach. Skoll swore in Russian. Durell counted three men, and leading them was Major Won. Skoll shoved at the heavy fishing boat.

  “We have unwelcome allies,” he muttered.

  Major Won’s roly-poly figure loomed up out of the night. His one eyebrow was raised anxiously as he stared out at the yacht and the launch coming around the point of land.

  “We are in agreement? We take the yacht? Or do we foolishly struggle here among ourselves, while Hung escapes?”

  “We take the yacht,” Durell said.

  The heavy fishing boat’s engine thumped and sent them bumbling across the black water. The launch was circling the stem of the yacht as they approached; its engine effectively covered the sound of their own progress. The fishing boat was littered with lines, octopus pots, nets; it smelled to high heaven. Anna-Marie stood anxiously up forward as the sleek yacht loomed ahead. Durell tried not to think about Deirdre aboard the East Wind. Skoll deftly shoved over the wooden tiller. They would have to be quick, striking accurately, before Hung could revenge herself by killing McFee and Deirdre.

  “Mr. Durell?” Major Won stood awkwardly beside him. His round face with the curiously lacking eyebrow was hard. “We must trust each other until this is over. Then we shall divide the spoils, so to speak. And we must do so amicably. I have more men than you, but I shall not take advantage of that. Madame Hung must be mine. Is that understood?”

  “You can have her,” Durell said.

  Feet thudded on the yacht’s deck above them, going aft to where the launch was tying up. Skoll had cut the fishing boat’s engine and they drifted gently to the yacht’s starboard bow. Richenko threw a line snaking upward to the rail.

  “Carlo, you go first,” Durell said.

  The squat Italian nodded, swarmed up, and vanished into the darkness. The rumble of the yacht’s diesels sounded louder through the hull. Major Won’s men followed up the rope. Then Richenko. Anna-Marie said, “I’m going up, too.”

  Durell did not argue as she climbed the rope. There was no alarm yet from above. Aft, there were low voices as the launch was hoisted up on its davits over the stern. Durell could not see the East Wind’s bridge from the fishing boat’s deck. There would be lookouts posted, but he counted on the professionalism of Richenko and Perozzo and Won’s men to dispose of them.

  Skoll chuckled. He had a gun in his hand. “Major? Comrade Cajun? It doesn’t matter who goes up next. We must not fear a bullet in the back from each other, eh?” There was no time for delay. Over the rail appeared Perozzo’s head. He beckoned silently. Durell caught the rope and climbed swiftly upward. The East Wind had two anchors out forward against the currents swirling through the cove. There came a rumbling as the port anchor chain was drawn up. Durell came over the rail and saw two crewmen sprawled on the teak deck. Won’s men had silenced them. There was deep shadow behind the bow rail that-sheltered them for the moment.

  “Everything is mechanized, controlled from the bridge,” Perozzo whispered. “We’ll be underway in a minute. Madame Hung got into the salon aft.” He looked at Skoll and Won, who had joined them. “She has two men and McFee. Deirdre is probably down below.”

  Durell nodded. “Let’s go. We’ll split up.”

  Won sent his men up to the bridge, and they swarmed up the ladder as sliding shadows. Richenko ran aft silently, ahead of Durell and Skoll. All at once there was a muffled cry and the sharp report of a gun.

  Skoll cursed. Durell jumped ahead of him, running aft. Someone fell from the bridge. One of Won’s men. There came a snapping sound as his neck broke. The deck suddenly shook underfoot as someone on the bridge thrust the throttles forward. There came a rattling of chains as the last anchor was slipped and abandoned. A searchlight on the mast suddenly flooded the forward deck with light. By then, Durell was under the awning aft. There were no lights here. The launch hung, dripping, from the stern davits. It was empty. A shadow came at him, a knife gleamed. He fired and the crewman fell backward over the railing. The whole vessel suddenly exploded with yells and bursts of gunfire from the port side. From a corner of his eye, Durell saw movement beyond the big glass windows of the main salon. He spun right, Perozzo suddenly at his side, and hit the door. Glass shattered. Men leaped at him from a small walkway above. Perozzo fired rapidly at them. Skoll joined them.

  “We are drifting for the rocks,” he breathed.

  Durell wondered where Won and his men might be. But he leveled his gun, shot away the lock on the salon door, and drove inside. The hot fan of a bullet grazed his cheek. He did not stop. The deck lifted as the yacht moved side-wise to the sea swell. The diesels still throbbed, but there seemed to be no one at the helm now. He flattened against paneling, searched the darkness ahead. He could not move until he located the gunman who had just shot at him. Meanwhile, Hung was headed below, he thought. Every second counted, yet time seemed to move at an agonizingly sluggish pace.

  Then he made out the reflection of a mirror against the opposite wall of the salon. A bar was built there. Something moved in the mirror, showed him the shape of a man, and he fired. The man screamed and fell to the carpeted deck.

  “Wait, Sam,” Perozzo said.

  He couldn’t wait. Crashing sounds came from a companionway up forward. Won and Skoll were at the engine-room doors. To the left, Durell saw a narrow, spiral stairway going down to the staterooms. He started down the carpeted treads, moving fast.

  From amidships, where Skoll had joined Major Won, came more shots. He paid no attention. There were no lights down below. The blackness was faintly perfumed with incense and the acridity of diesel oil. The deck lifted and fell under him. The gun felt slippery in his grip. Behind him, he heard Perozzo breathe lightly.

  He searched the darkness.

  Nothing.

  He took a step forward, his fingers sliding along the paneled bulkhead. A door. He touched a lever handle, put some weight on it. The lock clicked loudly, and he froze. Nothing happened. Where was Hung? He guessed there would be six or eight staterooms aft, with the crew’s quarters forward and the galley and dining salon amidships. The door moved inward. Perozzo urged something into his left hand. A flashlight. He held it forward and to his left and thumbed the button.

  Light leaped ahead to shine on a narrow bunk and the stout figure of a Chinese trussed
up there. The man was middle-aged, soft-looking. Liu Tze Lee, Durell thought. The man’s eyes bulged over a gag, but there was only frozen, eternal terror fixed in the man’s stare. His throat had just been cut from ear to ear, and the blood still gushed and pumped out in a thick stream over his white shirt and flannel trousers.

  “Dear God,” Perozzo whispered.

  Durell turned. “Out. Try the next.”

  Something moved in the darkness of the corridor, going forward. He could see nothing. He heard a footfall perhaps twenty feet ahead. There was still gunfire on the deck and down below, perhaps in the engine room. All at once there came a rending crash, a jolt, a screech of tom metal. The deck tilted sharply. Durell was thrown to the right. He heard someone say, “Oh, hell!” and jumped ahead, struck a soft, slim body, and brought it to the corridor deck.

  “Anna-Marie?”

  She whispered, “Did you see—she killed—”

  “Yes. Lee’s father. Where is Hung?”

  “I—I don’t know—”

  “Stay here.”

  "No, she’s killing everyone! If she kills Lee—”

  There came another crashing jolt as the yacht grounded on the rocky shore of the cove. Footsteps staggered on the deck overhead. He heard Skoll yell his name from up there, but he pushed the girl behind him and moved on down the stateroom corridor, feeling his way. The deck slanted badly now. Water gurgled below, gushing in through torn steel plates. At the end of the corridor was another stairway, going down. He wondered where Major Won might be. There was danger in the darkness that they would take each other for enemies and fire indiscriminately. Or maybe Major Won would prefer it that way.

  He went down to the deck below on quick feet.

  He sensed space around him, much bigger than the stateroom corridor. It was not the engine room or the crew’s quarters. He took two steps into the blackness and brushed against an octagonal table with a felt cover. A gambling table. He should have expected it, from the owner of the yacht. He was in a large gambling room furnished for the amusement of Mr. Lee’s Hong Kong friends aboard the East Wind.