Assignment Afghan Dragon (22 page)

At the same time, he heard the beat and thud of a helicopter’s rotors in the black sky above.

“Jules?”

The pilot appeared out of the gloom. Jules Eaton scarcely glanced at Nuri Qam’s dead body.

“Zhirnov is up in the tower,” Durell said.

“Yo.”

“Have you seen Howard?”

“No. How do we get up there?”

“Good question.”

A brilliant shaft of light suddenly poured down from the black sky. The chopper up there was a big one, a new Russian KV-20 model. The sound of its descent grew louder as it lowered to a landing on the seafront terrace. Its searchlights played back and forth on the burning villa. The thermite bombs were doing their work. Apparently the flames confused the Russian pilot. He checked his descent and the helicopter swung out to sea in a wide circle for another approach. Durell studied the tower. It was hexagonal-sided, all blue and gold tiles, with a bulbous spire on the top and a small iron-railed walk just below the bulb. He saw something move up there. A man, clutching something to his chest. It would be Zhirnov, he thought, with the dragon box. In a sense, it no longer mattered. Peking would not take the bait. There would be no rumbles of war, no blistering diplomatic notes, no preemptive strikes from either side of the Siberian border. But Zhirnov did not know that. And Durell suddenly held Sarah Fingal’s thin, mournful face in his mind, and thought of Homer’s ugly death in the desert.

Jules said, “There’s one door at the base of the tower. There. Probably a spiral stairway up to the gallery at the top. Like shooting ducks in a rain barrel, Cajun. No way to get up there against him.”

The chopper came back from over the calm, oily sea. Its searchlight flickered and probed, found the tower, bathed its blue projectilelike height in a dazzling glow. Now Durell could see the door at the top, a wooden panel that opened onto the gallery that went around the six-sided tower. Nobody was in sight there now. The underbelly of the chopper hovered directly over the tower. Suddenly a small hatch opened and a weighted ladder tumbled downward. It swung wide, swung back, hit the tower with a tangled thump, and was withdrawn a bit while the pilot steadied his aircraft.

“He’s good,” Jules Eaton murmured.

“I must get up there,” Anya said.

“No way,” Jules told her. “By the time he stops covering the inside steps to get out on the balcony, there wouldn’t be a chance for us to get up. He’s going to make it.”

“No,” Anya said bitterly. “He must not.”

She raised her gun and aimed it at the high doorway.

Durell said, “Fire a couple of rounds, Anya, so he’ll know we’re covering his exit up there.”

She did as she was told. They could see the bullets smashing into the small paneled door high above. The door started to open inward and Zhirnov appeared, holding the dragon box. Another shot drove Zhirnov inside again.

“Keep it up,” Durell ordered.

He turned and ran for the base of the tower. One of the chopper’s spotlights caught him, but there was no fire from the aircraft. In a matter of seconds, he was at the lower door to the tower. The ladder from the chopper swung high above, at the level of the upper gallery fifty feet in the air. Anya fired again, and then Jules Eaton’s heavier rifle took over. Durell opened the lower door. Dim light came down the interior of the hexagonal tower from the chopper’s spotlights. Something stirred up there. A shot bellowed savagely in the narrow interior. The bullet spattered against the stone wall. Durell caught the iron rail of the inner steps and ran upward, gun raised, his back scraping against the rough stone.

“Zhirnov!”

A second shot crashed, echoed deafeningly.

“Give it up, Zhirnov! You can’t get out!”

He slid up two more steps, Jules Eaton had been right. He was a duck in a rain barrel. Over the thudding of his pulse in his ears, he heard the rythmic beat of the chopper’s blades. A loudspeaker called something in Russian. The words were like those of a giant descending from the sky. Durell heard the slap of the craft’s ladder against the outer wall. Zhirnov had left the upper door open a crack, and the floodlight outside bathed his face momentarily. Durell fired and instantly ran up half a dozen more steps. Zhirnov’s gun stuttered, seeking him out. Then the man threw open the outer door and tried to lunge out and grab the swinging ladder lowered from above.

There came the sound of one carefully aimed shot.

It was Anya’s gun.

Durell went up the inner stairs in a swift, desperate rush. Zhirnov crashed back through the doorway and slumped to the platform floor up there. Durell went up the rest of the steps two and three at a time, and slammed the muzzle of his gun into Zhirnov’s throat.

There was no need to pull the trigger.

Anya had shot him neatly through the heart.

The chopper did not go away. Apparently, the pilot could not figure out what was happening. The persistent beat of its blades was a drumbeat in the black sky. Durell picked up the ornate box that had fallen from Zhirnov’s grip and saw it had been damaged at one corner and the lid sprung up.

Inside was the dragon.

Small and serene, its jade sides glowing with inner fire as the chopper’s spotlight poured through the open door, the beast held the pearl that represented the soul of the moon still secure between its golden teeth. The ruby eyes held secrets no man would know. The golden egg in its belly felt soft and warm under Durell’s fingers.

It was not worth the price.

He stepped carefully out on the little balcony. He meant to wave the helicopter away, but it had already swung aside to hover over the lawn that led down to the little dock. From this height, he could see the quadrangle clearly. Someone ran across the grass, followed by the spotlight and the ladder. It was Anya. She signalled in an obviously predetermined way and the Russian pilot followed her. The ladder dropped lower and she grabbed for the rungs, whipped her legs around it for a secure grip, and was promptly hoisted upward. The roar of the helicopter’s engines increased suddenly and the craft tilted, swung away from the island and beat its way out over the dark waters of the Gulf of Oman. The last Durell saw of it, the girl was still climbing up toward the hatch.

Jules Eaton’s voice echoed up the tower.

“Cajun?”

“I’m ail right,” said Durell.

“You’ve got it?”

“I’ve got it.”

“What in hell made the girl do that?”

Durell did not have to think about it. “She wanted to go home,” he said.

“Well, that boy Howard won’t be going home. He’s dead. They got him in the first ambush fire.”

“I know,” Durell said quietly.

“Amateurs,” Jules Eaton muttered.

“He only wanted to help.”

Jules waited at the bottom of the tower stairs. His square face was impersonal. The sound of the helicopter faded away to the south. The island was quiet, except for the crackling of the flames as the villa burned.

Jules shrugged heavy, slablike shoulders. He did not ask to examine the dragon. He did not care about it.

“We can take Nuri Qam’s power boat back to the mainland,” he said. “And use the plane to get to Tehran. The sooner you’re back on a flight to the States, Cajun, the better. I’ll square the authorities if there are any questions. Right now, we’d better make tracks like a coon with a fire up its tail.”

“Yes,” Durell said.

He walked toward the dock with Jules Eaton, holding the dragon gently in both hands.

It was raining in Washington. Fog covered the Potomac Basin. At nine o’clock in the morning, Durell had a surprise visitor at his apartment. He was making a pot of Louisiana coffee, a rasher of bacon and three eggs, with juice, for breakfast. His apartment overlooked the park, with its fallen leaves and dripping brown tree branches. Mist moved along the park paths. He had checked the cars in the street below, and everything seemed normal. Checking was part of his regular routine. His books needed dusting, and the tomes of law from his graduate school days, aging on his shelves, needed a thorough cleaning. His desk was tidy, his leather armchair by the good reading lamp welcomed him. When the doorbell rang from the lobby below, he waited. When it rang again, three short times, he pressed the buzzer and then went back to his breakfast.

His visitor was General Dickinson McFee, boss of K Section. The small gray man looked unhappy to be away from his aerie on the top floor of No. 20 Annapolis Street. He shook water from his knobby blackthorn walking stick as Durell helped him out of his raincoat.

“Good morning, Samuel. I’ve brought you some of your accumulated mail.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And your debriefing report.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Some matters of commission—and omission.”

“Yes, sir. Have you had breakfast, General?”

“Samuel, I am in no mood to eat.”

“Then excuse me, sir. I’m very hungry.”

“Yes, you’ve been sleeping for twenty-four hours.”

“Yes, sir. I needed it.”

Durell took the letters and dropped them on his desk and went into the small kitchen, dried the bacon on paper towels, slipped his scrambled eggs from the iron skillet, and poured a mug of the chicory-flavored coffee, then set everything on a wooden Swedish tray and carried it to his desk. McFee sat in the red leather armchair, his blackthorn stick held upright between his knees.

“Commission and omission,” McFee repeated. Rain rattled against the windows. “Open your mail, Samuel.”

“Why? Have you read it already?”

“I took the liberty, yes.”

Durell surveyed the two envelopes. The seal on the flaps seemed unbroken. “Nice work. Abe Steehnan’s?”

“I opened them myself. Aren’t you curious?”

Durell bit into his toast, forked some bacon and eggs, chewed thoughtfully, his blue eyes dark with thought. Not until he had had some of his home-brewed coffee did he open the envelopes. The first letter bore a Swedish stamp and was postmarked from Stockholm. It was in the peculiar crabbed hand of a European, in English, and it read:

Dear Sam—

      We know your headquarters address, of course. This 

is just a brief word to let you know I returned safely. 

Moscow had a different atmosphere when I arrived. 

There have been no problems and few questions. My 

mission failed, but no one is interested any longer. It was 

all for nothing—which is for the best.

   Is the dragon beautiful?

Annie.

McFee was watching him with cool gray eyes.

“Your KGB collaborator?” “Yes, sir, if you want to put it that way.”

“Precisely, Samuel. Open the other letter.”

“I’m glad she’s safe.”

“To be sure.”

Durell opened the second envelope. It bore two Syrian stamps and was postmarked—and censored—from Damascus. Airmail, he noted. This letter, too, was written in a cramped hand.

My dear Cajun—

   Once again I owe you thanks. Anya told me kindly 

of your activities. Quite admirable. I am free again and 

on duty. I wish I could have been there. I might have 

been helpful. But now I must accept reluctantly the burden 

of another debt to you.

   What will you do with P’an Ku’s old companion?

Cesar Skoll.

Durell pushed the letters aside and finished his breakfast. McFee waited. Durell had no intention of making the first remark. A car passed by on the wet street below, tires whining. He looked at the logs laid in his fireplace across the room. It would be pleasant to spend the evening with a fire going.

McFee lifted his blackthorn stick and tapped the top of the desk with it. “Well, Samuel?”

“Don’t point that thing at me, sir. It makes me nervous. I know how the lab boys loaded that stick.” 

“Omission, Samuel.”

Durell said mildly, “The dragon, you mean?”

“Its final disposition is not mentioned in your reports, or in the addenda added to it, or in the debriefing we had to give Sarah Fingal and Jules Eaton.”

“I see. You want to know where it is?”

“I expect you to tell me,” McFee said.

“Right. Look behind you.”

McFee turned his head to look into the open bedroom door. Peeping around the base of the door was the dragon’s head, gold teeth gleaming, the large pearl clenched carefully between the fangs upon the ruby tongue. It seemed to be laughing as it tasted the soul of the moon.

“A
doorstop?
”

“Yes, sir,” Durell said.

“Samuel, you can’t—”

“What would you like me to do with it, sir?”

“Samuel, in any art market, it is worth over five million dollars.”

“And it would earn a lot of publicity,” Durell pointed out. “We’re not supposed to have it.”

McFee frowned. “You’ll have to turn it in.”

“Officially? Perhaps to the National Art Gallery?”

“Samuel, don’t be flippant with me.”

“I’m open to suggestions then,” Durell said. “Think about it.”

“You can’t just keep it here!”

“No, sir.”

“Some way must be devised to get it back to the Afghani authorities,” McFee said.

Durell said, “There’s a diplomatic reception at the Afghanistan Embassy next week. Perhaps in the form of a little gift, made anonymously—”

“Yes, perhaps. I’ll have to consider it.”

“On the other hand, it might then never reach Kabul,” Durell pointed out.

McFee raised his brows again. He was not normally so expressive. He turned his head again and stared at the dragon on the floor, just beyond the doorway.

“I’ll have that cup of coffee with you, Samuel.”

“With a little brandy, perhaps?”

“Very good. I’d like that.”

“I thought you might,” Durell said.