Assignment - Karachi (24 page)

Zalmader spoke in his precise English. “You are not wounded, Mr. Durell?”

“No.”

“The others are down there, where you come from?” “Yes.” Durell answered the Pathan’s unspoken question. “The colonel is all right. They’re trapped down there, do you understand?”

Zalmadar nodded. “There are some Chinese troops now with the Pakhustis outside the cave mouth. You were trying to out-flank them?”

“Yes.” Durell looked at the dark pit behind him “I couldn’t have gotten out without Steicher.”

“He was a brave man. I put the knife in him to help you. I had to throw it. We heard you climbing, for some time, from up here. And we heard everything you said together.” “Then you know he was a traitor.”

“Yes.”

Durell wondered what was happening in the cave. What had Alessa thought when Hans came crashing down, after all the agonized hours of waiting? Their tension down there must be enormous.

He turned back to Zalmadar. “We need help. Your friends are down there waiting for a rope. Will you give me a hand?”

“That is why we returned,” the Pathan nodded. “We followed the man, Rudi von Buhlen, and the American lady until they met with the Emir’s troops, then we trailed them to this place. We worked our way up the cliff to seek another entrance to the cave. And then we saw you.”

They lowered Durell’s rope rapidly to the bottom. A faint pink aura in the east heralded a clear day. For several moments there was no reaction from the darkness below. Then the rope was tugged twice, rapidly, and Durell signalled to Zalmadar, who made the line fast and held it as someone began a slow, laborious climb to the summit to join them.

It was Colonel K’Ayub. He greeted Sergeant Zalmadar with surprise and relief, listened to Durell’s explanation of what had happened, and spoke with rapid, crisp efficiency.

“The woman has not stopped her tears since Hans’ body came down. We found Zalmadar’s knife in him. It explained most of it to me.”

From then on, matters were out of Durell’s hands. K’Ayub took charge of lifting his men out of the pit, one by one, as the light grew stronger and the distant loom of the mountains grew more distinct. A peak to the east suddenly shone with rosy brillance as the rising sun touched its summit.

Durell turned away and sat down to watch the rapidly growing numbers of Pakistan troopers on the cliff top. He felt drained of further resources. The long climb up the rock wall with Hans had been harrowing enough, and his eyes felt as if someone had thrown gravel into them. Every muscle of his body ached. In any case, he thought, he could take no part in the fighting that was imminent. He had to remain neutral now. It was up to K’Ayub and his men, and their mood was dangerous.

Alessa was pulled up toward the end of the maneuver. She walked directly to where Durell sat and seemed to collapse beside him, as if her legs could no longer support her. In the pale light, her face looked haunted. For several moments she was silent, then she said quietly. “Did you have to do it, Sam? Must you take everyone from me? First Rudi, and now Hans?”

“Hans tried to kill me.”

She started to speak, then nodded slowly. “Yes, he was always very close to Rudi. He taught Rudi to climb in the Alps, and was often with him on the Riviera. He was a strange man. He—I think he frightened me, and that is why I could never—I mean, when he said he loved me, something in him seemed repellent. I could never understand it.”

“I’m sorry, Alessa.”

“No, it is better this way, to know the truth.” She looked sharply at him. “You are concerned for Sarah now, are you not?”

“We’ll know about her in a few minutes, I think.”

“Rudi will kill her, if he can. She could be a witness against him. I have no illusions about Rudi now. He killed Jane, and Uncle Ernst. He must have had orders from Hans about Ernst.”

“Yes.”

She turned her face away and began to cry silently. He did not touch her or speak to her.

K’Ayub was quick and efficient with his military problem. In the growing light, he went forward to negotiate the downward slope at the end of the fissure. Durell went with him, crawling until they could see the enemy encampment. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel, Durell thought.

The Chinese were camped apart from the Emir’s men, their small tents militarily precise. They were apparently secure in feeling their quarry was hopelessly bottled up. Only a few pickets were awake, and some cooks, who were starting breakfast fires. Two machine-gun crews dozed at their posts where their weapons covered the cave entrance.

Durell borrowed field glasses to study the Chinese. There were about forty in the patrol, short and stocky men who looked Manchurian. Their arms were modern. He swept the glasses to consider the Emir’s large, gaudy tent, with its pennant flapping in the dawn breeze. A sense of confidence and security seemed to prevail among the sleeping enemy.

He saw no sign of Rudi or Sarah, and spoke to K’Ayub about it. The colonel nodded. “They will be in the Emir’s tent—unless the Chinese have already removed them. I shall give my men orders to be careful of their fire when we begin.”

“I’m going down with you,” Durell said.

The colonel frowned. “It is not your battle now. It may provoke complications for you, if you take part in this.”

“I must be sure Sarah is all right,” Durell insisted.

K’Ayub said nothing, his silence giving assent. In the end, K’Ayub’s men worked with clock-like precision. Their light automatic rifles were trained on the Chinese and Pakhutis camped below. A squad of troopers, left in the cave, had orders to wait until the day brightened and the enemy began to stir. Durell lay flat behind a boulder, watching. His body ached with fatigue from the long march, the hours of climbing with Hans. But there was still this last job to be done.

Rudi came out of the Emir’s tent and went over to one of the cooks’ fires. A Chinese met him and they talked briefly. Durell focused the lenses more sharply. The Chinese was flat-faced, grim; his gestures were quick and angry. Rudi pointed to the Emir’s tent, but when the Chinese officer started there, Rudi held him back. There was a moment’s pause, and then the Chinese went back to his own men.

Sarah had to be in the tent, Durell decided. Rudi might have lied to everyone, all around, perhaps left her on the back trail or in Mirandhabad, so that he could return to her with some invented story of disaster and preserve his chances of marrying her. But not with the Chinese here, Durell thought. Rudi would have to show his good faith by bringing her with him. In that case, her life was in greatest danger the moment the fighting began—

The blast of a grenade signalled K’Ayub’s attack. It came from the cave, hurled by one of the remaining troopers down there, as a diversion. It did no damage. But it made the besiegers tumble out of their tents and sleeping bags in expectation of a counterattack, focusing their attention on the cave mouth.

Several more grenades and shots brought the Emir and the Chinese commander toward the cave entrance. Most of the Pakhustis and Chinese were awake and milling about, gathering up their weapons.

Up above, K’Ayub gave the signal to fire.

The sharp rattle of machine guns and rifles split the dawn silence. The effect was devastating, as the fire poured down from the height above the unsuspecting enemy. Screams and shrieks of panic were drowned out by the troopers’ steady onslaught. It was a complete surprise. Secure in thinking that no one could escape from the cave, the enemy was not prepared for their appearance above and on the flank. It was a massacre.

Almost at once, the Pakhustis ran in panic for their shaggy ponies. They were cut down without pity by the troopers. K’Ayub did not relent. The encampment below became a shambles. The Chinese tried to rally, and K’Ayub ordered the commander cut down. The shots were quick and effective. Disorder yielded to more panic below. The shale plateau was dotted with bodies. A fire broke out in one of the tents, sending a thin plume of smoke into the clear dawn air.

Obviously, the enemy thought they had been set upon by a relieving column of regular Pakistan Army troops. They fled on foot and pony. The Chinese tried to shelter themselves among the rocks, and few stray, futile shots came up, seeking targets. But in a few minutes their resistance broke, too.

Durell searched for Rudi and Sarah. No shots were aimed at the Emir’s tent, on K’Ayub’s orders. With the first outbreak of firing, Rudi had appeared there, then had ducked out of sight. Durell’s worry deepened. If Sarah was a prisoner and used as a hostage, their victory was weakened. He got to his feet, ignored the colonel’s shout, and started to run down the slope into the enemy camp. K’Ayub’s men could not hold themselves back. They shouted and jumped up, too, and ran downhill into the shattered camp.

Durell was well ahead of the others. A bullet whined past his head, another kicked up gravel at his feet. He saw the Emir in a white tunic and turban, running for his tent. Somehow he had escaped the first burst of fire. The Emir darted into his tent. Durell passed a few sprawled bodies, hurdled a smoldering camp fire, and swung toward the big tent.

Rudi and Sarah came out.

The Emir had a gun at Rudi’s back. Sarah’s hands were tied behind her. She looked frightened, not knowing what was happening. Durell felt a vast relief, shouted to her—and then halted abruptly.

The Emir shot Rudi in the back.

The sound was muffled in the clamor of gunfire and yelling around them. Smoke drifted around the big tent, hiding it. Durell was still fifty feet away when Rudi went down on his knees, a look of astonishment on his face. Then he pitched forward on the gray shale and was still.

The Pakhusti chief turned his gun on Sarah.

Durell’s shout distracted him. The Emir was a big man, well over six feet, with a fierce mustache and a face like a ravaged bird of prey. He looked at Durell, running well ahead of K’Ayub’s men, and hesitated. Sarah sank to her knees beside Rudi’s body. The Pakhusti raised his gun, fired at Durell, fired again.

He missed both times, and Durell jumped over Rudi’s body and grappled for the other’s gun. The Emir stumbled over Sarah, went down. His gun went off a third time. Durell felt the other man’s strength and knew that he himself was spent. He swung the butt of his borrowed rifle as hard as he could, but his blow rocked the Pakhusti backward only a step. He scrambled up before Durell could regain his footing. He still had his gun, leveled, ready to fire—

Sarah fired the last shot. She had snatched up Rudi’s gun to use it. The Pakhusti turned halfway to her, amazed, coughed blood, and staggered back into the tent.

Durell turned slowly toward Sarah. She was on her knees beside Rudi. He could not see her face, and the wind blew her hair across her cheek. Her body was in an attitude of collapse, and the gun she had used lay on the ground beside her.

“Sarah?” he said. She did not reply. He knelt beside her, and took her hands from Rudi’s body. She did not look at him. “Sarah, he’s dead. Come away.”

When she looked up, he saw there were no tears in her eyes. Instead, her face was carved by a furious anger.

“He lied to me,” she whispered. “He lied to all of us. He was going to sell me to the Chinese. He tried to say it was all a mistake, that he was helping, me; but the Chinese commander last night insisted I was to go to Sinkiang with his patrol, to be held for political purposes.”

“And Rudi agreed?” Durell asked.

“Yes. He never loved me, did he?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Like all the others,” she said dully. “The men who flattered me, cheated me, the ambitious men and the greedy ones. I think—oh, I wish I were dead, too!”

“Come along,” he said. “It will seem different, later on. You’re lucky to be out of it.”

She looked dubious, like a child. “Lucky?”

“Either way—whether he sold you to the Chinese or talked you into marrying him—it would have ended like this. He killed Jane, and he killed Ernst Bergmann. He worked with Hans, who was his boss. We’ve had him in our files for a long time. I had enough on him so he wouldn’t have lived another month.”

“Would you have killed him yourself?” she whispered. “That would have been my next job,” Durell said softly.

THEY waited two days at the cave for regular Pakistan Army troops to take over, summoned by the field radio. At regular intervals, jets of the Pakistan Air Force patrolled overhead. The Chinese were shadowed until they retired over the border. On the second day, the Emir’s son came from Mirandhabad to remove the Pakhusti chieftain’s body. K’Ayub made him swear his loyalty to the national government. The son was a quiet man of thirty, grieved by his father’s death, but fatalistic and compliant.

Durell slept for twelve hours, was awakened by Alessa, who brought him coffee and food, and then slept again. It was afternoon when he awoke and shaved and stepped out into the sunlight.

The weather had turned warmer. The sound of motors throbbed up the long valley from Lake Mohsere, and the first column of half-track mountain vehicles probed up the slopes of S-5, green pennants fluttering in the wind. Durell sought out Colonel K’Ayub in the camp. The colonel looked neat and elegant, once more his political, rather than military, self.

“You will return to Rawalpindi now, Mr. Durell,” K’Ayub decided. “Perhaps you will be good enough to escort the women. I shall remain here, of couse, to supervise the construction of a military road and insure adequate protection for the development program.”

“I doubt if there will be any further trouble,” Durell said. K’Ayub shrugged and looked to the north. “One never knows. The new Emir will be amenable, and can be persuaded to run an enlightened local government. But the dragons that live over the mountains—” He shrugged again. “None of us can foresee the outcome.”

They shook hands, and Durell went to find Sarah. She was already packed and waiting, seated alone on a camp stool, drinking coffee from a tin mug. Already the area of S-5 around them looked busy and utterly different from its earlier, empty hostility. Durell took her coffee cup, sipped from it and then said, “You’re all right now?”