Assignment - Karachi (23 page)

He heard a faint exhalation from the other’s lungs, a scrape of spiked boots on rock, a new series of tugs at his waist.

A few moments later, Hans was back on the tiny ledge beside him.

And a flare burst, thrown in from the outside, brightening the fissure with an implacable, deadly brilliance.

THEY did not move. They were exposed like flies on a wall, easy targets for searching eyes that looked for the source of the sounds they had made. At any moment, if the eyes lifted, they would be seen. Two easy shots could pick them off, where they clung to the face of the rock.

Hans was shaking. In the glare, his hard face was pale, shining with sweat. His eyes were white. A few sniping bullets screamed into the fissure; but they were aimed at ground level, and one of K’Ayub’s men answered with a burst of fire that shook the air with its echoes.

Two minutes dragged by.

The flare sputtered and went out. Darkness returned, seeming more absolute after the brilliant blue light.

Hans shifted his weight carefully to release the pressure on the climbing rope around Durell. His whisper was an exhausted sigh.

“You could have let me fall, you know.”

“Would you have done that to me?” Durell asked.

“I think so, yes. I promised it to myself.”

“Because of Alessa?”

The big man was silent.

“Or is there some other reason, Hans?” Durell asked quietly.

“No. No other reason.”

“It seems to me that Alessa has finally chosen you, these last few days.”

Hans stared into the dark, his body slumped, drained of its strong, rock-like quality. “I do not know. You saved my life now. I would have let you fall, if our positions had been reversed. It would have been an easy thing to do, even if the others were watching.”

“You had another chance, on the road up here. Why didn’t you kill me then?”

“I don’t know. I do not understand myself, these days.” Durell looked at the overhang. “Are we stranded here, then?”

“No. I shall try again. I am all right now.”

“Take your time,” Durell said.

“No, it will soon be daylight. We must get to the top before we can be seen.” Hans straightened slowly. “A man is full of weaknesses that betray him,” he said heavily. “One tries to be strong in all things. It is the only way to survive in this world. Our lives are made unreal by sheltering propaganda. But reality is stern, and we live only once in this foolish world. One guides his life by such realities as he can discover, and then—”

Durell smiled slightly. “Then you fell in love.”

“Yes.”

“It is no great weakness, Hans.”

“It is, with me. It leads to mistakes, perhaps to destruction.” The big man turned his head and looked at Durell again. “But sometimes one gets the chance to correct such mistakes.”

He tackled the overhang again, and the second try went easier and quicker, as if the fate that had almost destroyed them had resigned its opposition. A new piton was hammered home to replace the one that had torn loose. Again Hans swung himself into dark space, clawed upward, gained a toehold, got his knee over the edge, and then swung out of sight, dangling the white climbing rope behind him.

Now it was Durell’s turn.

He waited for the signal on the rope and looked down at the bottom of the crevasse. It seemed utterly black down there, impossible to see the straining faces trying to watch their progress. He drew a deep breath and swung out on the taut line belayed by Hans, above him.

But some small instinct warned him not to depend on the rope entirely. He kept one grip on the pitons at all times, and the nylon rope was actually slack as he wriggled up and over the bulge of rock that had stopped them at this point.

Hans was waiting, silent, hauling the rope in hand over hand.

“It will be easy now. You did not quite trust me, eh?”

“No,” Durell said.

“It is just as well.”

He saw that Hans had estimated the problem beyond the overhang with surprising accuracy. The bulge had offered a false top to the cliff’s edge, when seen from below. For another hundred feet upward, the fault slanted back and away. The rock surface was rough, affording easy handholds, inclining in a relatively easy direction for the next twenty minutes’ climb.

A few more moments, and they both heaved themselves over the top into the outer world.

It had taken over three hours to get out of the cave. For long minutes, they sat side by side in the cool wind, sucking thin air into their aching lungs, waiting for the trembling of their muscles to ease. Neither spoke. There was a rising moon, and the tumbled mountains lifted in awesome grandeur in every direction, a sight that Durell had begun to doubt he would ever see again.

There was no sign of the Pakhustis. The night was clear, cold and empty. In an hour, it would be dawn.

Durell stood up, slipping free of the climbing rope. Hans got up, too, his movements oddly cumbersome. His face looked chiseled from granite. Under his heavy brows, his eyes gleamed, reflecting the moonlight.

“Let’s get some troopers up here, Hans,” Durell said. “There isn’t much time left.”

“There is no time left at all. I am sorry. It was not my plan to have anyone escape from the cave,” Hans said heavily. “Not even you, Durell. But I needed your help to get up here.” Durell looked at the big man and saw the gun Hans had taken from his coat. He held it loosely, muzzle pointing down beside his leg. The wind made a soft keening sound against the naked mountainside.

“You had a plan of your own?” Durell asked softly. “All the time,” Hans said.

“Let me remind you that Alessa is still down there.” “She will be safe. That is why I wanted to get out first, to be sure nothing happens to her when it is all ended.” 

“And the others?”

Hans shrugged. “It is the fortune of war. You should know about war, Durell. You have been in it for a long time. A quiet kind of war, is it not? Full of silences, and full of surprises.”

“I’m not surprised,” Durell said. “Put away the gun Hans.” “I cannot. It is too bad, because you are a brave man, and you saved my life. It is a sad duty for me. But as I said, one must be a realist to survive today. The world is too crowded for two kinds to survive. Only the strong and the scientific can exist. Humanism and democracy are only words that are as dead as the last century.”

Hans paused. “I knew you suspected Rudi. But when did you begin thinking about me?”

“From the beginning,” Durell said. “A free-lance romantic like Rudi von Buhlen is usually teamed up in your so-called shadow system. Someone was behind him, giving the orders, making the plans, receiving the information he gathered and passing^ it on. It had to be someone who was on hand here when "Ernest Bergmann first disappeared. Obviously, it was you.”

“So you knew all the time?”

“I guessed. I wasn’t sure. I had to give you both enough rope to expose your system of silent partnership. Does Rudi know who you are?”

Hans shook his head. “He has never known. Our system of dual teams, with one in command and hidden behind a perfect cover, like my own, gives the orders by various systems of signals. Rudi never knew who gave him his jobs, although several times he tried to find out. Rudi was a fool. But his personality was a good cover for the things he had to do. He had been useful to us. Between the two of us, we earned much money.”

“Selling international secrets?”

“Yes.”

“So Rudi played the instrument—the Red Oboe—but you called the tune, Hans?”

“Yes. Always.”

“And you expect the Chinese to pay you for the location of this mineral deposit?”

“The arrangement is for the equivalent of one hundred thousand English pounds sterling, in Swiss francs, deposited in Geneva. Rudi splits his share with me. He deposits my part of it in a numbered account there.”

“I see.”

“Do you?” Hans asked. “You know what I must do?” “You’ve got to kill me,” Durell said. “And everyone else down there. You must join the Pakhustis and the Chinese to make sure Alessa comes out alive, however. But none of the others. You can’t quite trust the Chinese commander, though. If you’re in the cave at the end, they might wipe you out, too. After all, you’ve kept your secret well. Rudi doesn’t even know you’re his boss. You might have a hard time saving yourself.”

“It will work out satisfactorily,” Hans said slowly.

“And how will Alessa feel about the way you’ve used her foolish brother? You’ve made him a gambler and a woman-chaser, encouraged his extravagances to get him into debt, wrecked his life to make him obey orders. Not a pretty picture for her, when she learns about it.”

“She will never know. And she will forget about you, too, once you are out of the way.”

Durell looked at the other’s gun. “You’ve arranged with the Chinese patrol to take over this section of the border, is that it? No report will be made about the nickel ore, so nothing more will be done by the Pakistan Government. There may be some international exchanges about border violations in the next few months, a few top-level conferences, an appearance of negotiation, some yielding by the Chinese, a grant of autonomy to the puppet Emir of Mirandhabad—and Red China gets the nickel mine.”

“These things,” Hans said, “are for others to settle. My job is done. I arranged for Ernst Bergmann’s questioning in Rawalpindi, but I needed Rudi to get the charts from the old man. Ernst was too stubborn for me to handle. As for Jane King, that was Rudi’s personal foolishness—but I have always had to cope with Rudi’s silly problems. His usefulness compensated for the trouble he gave me.” Hans laughed thickly. “It takes a fool to idealize the foolish image of one’s Uncle Franz.”

The sky was lighter behind the peaks to the east, and the dim loom of the mountains showed the paling, starlit sky. The dawn wind blew icily across the huge ledge where they stood. Hans’ gun still dangled from the man’s fingers. Durell’s gun was in an inside pocket, out of reach.

“If you shoot me,” Durell said, “they’ll hear it in the cave. They’ll know what you’ve done.”

“None will survive. What will it matter?”

“Alessa will know, because you plan to save her.” Hans stared. “You are right. I don’t need the gun. If you fell back into the fissure it will satisfy her that your death was accidental.”

“I won’t oblige you by jumping,” Durell said.

Hans unsheathed the ice axe with a swift movement. The sharp blade on one side of the head, the pointed pick on the other, gleamed with murderous brilliance in the strange light. “Back up, please.”

Durell stood still. The edge of the cliff was not far behind him. Then he took a step backward. The cold wind cut at his face. The big man stood with his back to the east, his dark hulk outlined against the pallor of the sky. He looked implacable, armed with gun and axe, beyond argument.

Behind him, something moved against the pale scree of the little plateau. Durell did not turn his eyes from Hans’ face.

“Another step, please,” Hans said quietly.

Durell backed up again. He turned his head as if to see where the edge of the cliff lay at his heels; but he used the opportunity to look beyond Hans at the movement of shadows against the glimmering rock. One. Two. And a third. Three men, moving stealthily toward Hans Steicher. He could not identify them. They were soundless phantoms, their detail obscured by their mountain clothes. But a faint gleam of light caught on a rifle barrel and shone briefly.

“You can’t win, Hans,” Durell said. “They’ll kill you, too.” 

“Why should they? It is only a business arrangement.” 

“They may not do business your way in this wilderness.” 

“We have talked enough.” A thin edge of impatience rasped in Hans’ rumbling voice. “Two or three more steps, please.”

Durell deliberately looked beyond Hans and called in Urdu, “Don’t shoot him, sergeant! We want him alive! Don’t make any noise here!”

Hans started to turn, checked himself, grunted impatiently—and Durell hit him with a thrusting charge that closed the gap between them in an instant. Hans was fast. His axe came up, slashing at Durell’s head. Durell ducked, felt the shaft strike his shoulder, slammed into Hans’ belly to force him back a step, drove the axe handle back and down with his free hand. Hans dropped his gun, grabbed him in a bear hug. Durell drove an elbow into the other’s face, felt the nose bone crush and splinter. It did not stop Hans. Hans swept him literally from his feet, carrying him toward the edge of the precipice. For a shocked instant, Durell knew the big man had the strength to throw him into the dark fissure below. He struck again with his free arm, felt Hans cough and strangle. Blood was running from the man’s crushed nose, into his mouth and throat. It was all that saved Durell for the moment. His own lungs were squeezed beyond endurance by the other’s grip. The sky turned black. There was a roaring in his ears. Through the wild sound of his body’s panic, he heard a quick scrape of booted feet on the rock. Hans Steicher made a thin, agonized sound. His body jerked, his grip slackened. Durell tore loose, spun away, and fell to his knees. The earth yielded, slid away under him, and he grabbed at Hans’ leg to pull himself back from the edge of the cliff.

Hans tried to kick free and came down on top of him. For a moment, the impact drove Durell closer to the precipice’s edge. Hans got a massive hand under his jaw and drove his head back until Durell heard the bones of his neck crack. He summoned his last strength from somewhere to heave upward and free himself. Hans, too, staggered to his feet. The edge of the crevice was only a step or two from where they stood, facing each other.

Hans rushed at him.

Durell flung himself aside, felt the big man’s jarring impact, and went spinning away. Hans kept going.

There was a moment when Durell saw the glitter     of     a knife in the other’s back, and in that instant of wonderment saw the shapes of other men carefully circling toward him— Hans went over the cliff.

There came a deep outcry, a bellow of rage and denial as Steicher fell. And then there was silence again.

DURELL turned to the three men who kept him pinned to the edge of the cliff. In the dawn’s light, he thought one looked familiar. It was Sergeant Zalmadar, the Pathan. He remembered that K’Ayub had sent Zalmadar and others on their back trail to hunt for Rudi and Sarah. Only these three had survived. He looked at them and could read nothing in their dark, savage faces.