Assignment - Manchurian Doll (13 page)

at last, sensing through her pain and terror that he had come to help her. But it was only expediency, he thought wryly. Once they were safely away from here—if they were lucky— she would turn on him like a cat and claw him again. “Nadja, can you walk?” he asked in English.

Her eyes were clearer. “Yes . . . I think so . . .”

“You have to trust me. No more kicking or biting?” “Please ... get me out. . . the woman is a monster . . .”

“All right.” Durell turned back to Omaru. “Let’s go down to your radio room.”

Omaru nodded. “As you wish.”

Durell urged him with Isome out through the back gate of the little building. The night wind blew from the sea with a heavy, damp strength. The shredded clouds reluctantly allowed aa occasional glimpse of the moon. The stunted sea pines shook in the wind and sent down irregular showers of water from their rain-drenched needles.

The way down the circular stairs into the heart of Omaru’s bastion was still lighted. They saw no one else. From the terrace, just before descending into the island’s heart, Durell saw the rambling, geometric shape of Omaru’s cliffside villa below. The party seemed to be over. The blaze of lights had dimmed, and the lighted steps to the dock showed the last straggling guests making their way down.

The radio room was as Durell had left it, but the two men had made their way out of the metal closet. The first was gone, but the radioman was just putting on spare spectacles taken from an open desk drawer, when Durell urged Omaru and the woman inside. Nadja murmured at the banks of transmitting equipment. She had tried mechanically to straighten her disheveled, silvery hair. She limped on her bare, injured feet, and she was obviously in great pain. But the madness and terror had faded from her eyes. She kept close to Durell.

The radioman babbled frightened excuses to Omaru the moment they stepped inside. Omaru silenced him.

“At what hour,” the fat man said heavily, “do we make our usual transmission to Manchurian Station H, Yeku? Please tell the American the truth, without fear.”

The radioman peered at Durell through his thick glasses. “It is usually at 0800 daily, sir.”

“Then why are you on duty now?” Durell asked.

The man licked his lips. “My orders were to stand by—”

“To transmit tonight?” Durell asked sharply. “Have you ever called Manchuria at any hour except 0800, Yeku?”

“Sometimes, when a shipment is to be made—”

Durell nodded. “See if you can raise them now.”

Yeku looked at Omaru for confirmation. The fat man inclined his bald head. The Japanese sat down with obvious relief and familiarly snapped on switches and turned dials. Durell looked at Omaru. “Do you use a code?”

“A simple one, but quite effective. We changed frequencies on a prearranged schedule to avoid being monitored by the Chinese and Russians.” Omaru paused. “What message will you send to Colonel Kaminov? My man in Manchuria will receive it; I do not attempt to outwit you, Durell-san. It will be relayed to Kaminov, wherever he is, by further radio signal.”

“All right. Tell Kaminov we’ve done our share of the work, that we have his girl, and he can come over at once.” Omaru seemed pleased. “Agreed.”

It took only a minute to raise an acknowledgment from the clandestine smuggling station across the Japan Sea. Another four minutes passed in sending out the coded message. Without other instructions, the radioman would send the prearranged signal, Durell hoped.

There was a chattering acknowledgment; then the man shut down the transmitter and snapped off the switches.

Omaru grunted. “I trust you are now satisfied, Durell-san. But what will you do when you get there? You will not know the rendezvous point, any more than I do. Only this fanatic Russian girl can tell you where to go.”

Durell ignored his remark. He said flatly: “How many other transmitters do you operate, Omaru?”

The fat man blinked. “One in Tokyo, another in Hong Kong, another in Saigon. There are receiving stations for each one on the Chinese mainland and the offshore islands.” Omaru seemed pleased to explain his cleverness. “The operators each recognize the other’s style of transmitting. Once, when the Chinese tried to interfere by broadcasting an imitative style, I was almost captured aboard one of my boats, by the Peiping people.”

“But I thought you worked for them, too.”

Omaru smiled blandly. “My dear sir, I am a man for hire, and in this part of the world, one questions only the validity of the currency offered. Of course I sometimes work for Peiping. You understood that at our first arrangement.

I still think you are foolish not to trust me. Together, this operation could be quite simple. We could make the girl talk—”

Durell said: “I assume you arranged for no further counterfeit messages, after your near-disaster.”

“Naturally. It would lie impossible for the mainland stations to mistake our message.”

“Good,” Durell said. “Thank you. Now, have you a screwdriver and a hammer?”

Omaru blinked, looked suddenly shocked as he guessed Durell’s intention. The radioman secured the tools. Durell gave the screwdriver to Nadja.

“Are your hands good enough to take the case off the transmitter?”

“I will try,” Nadja said. “It will please me.”

She was clumsy, but deliberate and effective. Omaru breathed heavily, the sound of his anger like a gusty wind in the underground room.

Durell said coldly: “Don’t ask me to trust you, Omaru. I want to be sure that your man in Manchuria doesn’t get a message to set a trap for Kaminov before he’s taken off the mainland. You’re a crook, Omaru, who’s played both sides of the fence too long!”

“You will regret this,” Omaru whispered.

Nadja took up the hammer and began to smash the interior apparatus of the transmitter. She ripped out wires with trembling, swollen hands, smashed circuits on the floor, and in less than another minute reduced the equipment to twisted, shining bits of wreckage.

“You understand what you have done?” Omaru shouted. “There will be no escape for you now, Durell. You and this girl will die.”

Nadja’s whisper was icy. “He means it, Durell. Kill him. Kill him now.”

“The woman, too?” Durell asked.

“Both of them. Now. You must!”

Durell shook his head. The rules of his business allowed for no chivalry, and he had been trained to be merciless. But he had never been able to bring himself to apply the same ruthless rules by which Nadja’s people operated. Logic was on her side; if he eliminated Omaru now, he might save himself disaster later on. He saw dawning fear in the fat man’s face, and ultimate terror in Isome’s bottomless black eyes. His thoughts raced. He might be no more successful in finding Kaminov, through making Nadja talk, than Omaru. In that case, Omaru might be his only other hope in the future. Omaru alone did not have all the answers; but if he could get a few pieces from the girl and put them together with what Omaru had, he might get the information he needed. It was a gamble, risking present danger against possible future reward. Nadja and Omaru were both enemies. And if he killed Omaru now, he might kill the only alternative to the girl.

He lowered his gun. The fat man’s breath hissed with explosive relief. A crooked little smile flickered over Isome’s ravaged face. Nadja sagged, dull-eyed and exhausted.

“You’re lucky this time, Omaru,” Durell said.

“We shall see who lives and dies, before this is over,” Omaru whispered.

Durell found some wire and with Nadja’s fumbling help, quickly bound Omaru and Isome and then the frightened radioman, lashing them tightly to the built-in steel desk.

In five minutes he stepped out of the room with Nadja and climbed back up to the outer doorway.

Nadja limped beside him. Alone with him now, a sort of embarrassment seemed to touch her. She did not reply to his brief directions as they picked their way down the hillside to the lighted dock below. She hurried as fast as she could, pressed by the same urgency that possessed Durell. If Omaru got free before they were safely away from the island, their lives would be utterly lost.

The wind had freshened still more, and he could see the smashing white teeth of combers breaking on the rocks around the island’s perimeter. Through the thrashing pines, the lights of the mainland flickered fitfully, half a mile away. Omaru’s house was dark. Only a single light burned on the dock below. Two launches dipped and plunged in the uneasy shelter of the mooring. Durell saw no guards there, but he did not hope for any easy escape.

Nadja suddenly tripped and sprawled, rolling down the pathway on the steep slope. Durell darted after her, caught her, and pulled her to her feet again. She leaned heavily on his arm, her exhaustion dragging at him. Her eyes were closed and her face was dead white.

“I do not think I can make it,” she    whispered.

“You must try.”

She shook her head, swallowed. “Why concern yourself with me? I am more your enemy than Omaru. Why do you save me? I cannot help you.”

“No matter. Can you walk now?”

She drew a deep breath. “Yes. I will walk.”

The wind whipped her tattered skirt around her legs. She held her torn blouse with one hand, but the flimsy material, soaked with sweat and blood, was poor protection against the chill air. Her breathing was ragged as they reached the last wooden steps to the dock. Durell halted her, holding her arm.

“Wait.”

There was no one on the path above or below. The two boats bobbed restlessly at their moorings.

“We will have a bad storm,” Nadja gasped. Her teeth chattered. “It is only the beginning. I have seen such weather before. It can be frightening.”

They reached the docks just as the alarm sounded, a siren making a whup-whup hooting somewhere high on the peak of the conical island. So Omaru was free, Durell thought grimly. Lights bloomed here and there, flooding various areas of the place with brightness. Nadja sucked in a discouraged breath. A spotlight suddenly spilled brilliance down the stairway where only darkness shrouded them before. Another spotlight went on where the two boats were moored.

“It is too late,” the girl gasped. “We will be seen. They will shoot at us like targets in a gallery.”

“This way.”

She was slower than he, struggling against her pain. They had to cross the path above the dock, and it was now brightly lighted. Beyond, the island sloped sharply down and fell away in a small cliff above the dark, restless water, thirty yards from where the launches were moored. To run down the steps would expose them to marksmen, as Nadja predicted. He saw no choice but to cross the path quickly and dive into the shadows beyond. But Nadja guessed his plan and hesitated.

“I do not know if I can swim—I am so exhausted—”

“You have to try. I’ll help you.”

“You could escape, if you were alone.”

“But I came here just for you,” he said.

She looked stunned. But she did not reply, except to nod that she was ready. They could not avoid being seen when they darted across the lighted path. But their crossing was too quick for the marksmen watching from above. They were in the darkness on the other side, smashing through thickets, when the machine gun rattled and sprayed the path behind them.

“Jump!” Durell called.

The land fell away from their feet and there was nothing but the dark, roiled water of the anchorage below. Durell let his impetus take him forward, out into the dark air, the wind and sky reeling about him. Nadja cried out and he glimpsed her falling, like a boneless doll, her skirt billowing up about her lifted arms as she dropped.

Then he struck the water.

His greatest fear was the danger of submerged rocks below. But the icy shock of his descent yielded only a deep plummeting fall, and then a reflex struggle took him back to the surface. He shook water from his hair and eyes and twisted about to orient himself. The two launches were nearby. The dark loom of the island’s precipitous shore seemed to lean dangerously overhead.

He could not see Nadja.

He called her name softly, then louder. There came a dim splashing and he swam a few strokes and saw her silvery hair against the black water. He caught her, put her grateful hand on his shoulder and swam toward the nearest launch.

Two men ran down the steps, hopping and leaping the risers two and three at a time. Both held automatic rifles. One of them ran to the floodlight stanchions and turned the spotlight over the water. The other ran heavily on the echoing dock as Durell hauled himself into the launch and then turned to give Nadja a lift.

She came up limp and dripping, her body soft and shuddering against him. He lowered her to the cushioned seat and lurched to the engine controls. The keys were in the ignition. He started the engine and the man on the dock shouted something that was drowned out in the sputtering roar. The man at the spotlight turned the probing beam over the boat. Durell ducked. Nadja was not quick enough, and the light shone on her bright hair. The man on the dock started chopping at the launch with his automatic rifle.

The launch surged slowly forward. Wood splintered and the boat shuddered as half a dozen slugs smashed into the hull. Then they gathered speed, the bow lifted, and he saw they were heading out to sea. He grabbed the wheel and the speedy craft heeled far over and swept in a new course to the mainland lights of Akijuro. A few more bullets followed them from the shore. The spotlight swept past them and faltered away.

The girl touched Durell’s shoulder.

“We cannot get to the town landing. Look there!”

He followed her pointing finger. The second boat was in motion, cutting across their course to intercept them. And a third vessel, much larger, evidently Omaru’s personal seagoing yacht, was moving at a more ponderous speed in the same direction.

“There are some canals, to the left,” she said. “They go right into the town. Steer for them; I will guide you.”

She stood beside him, her long hair plastered to her cheeks and throat in thick tendrils. Her wet, tattered clothing made her look naked. She shivered as her flesh pressed against him, and for a moment their eyes met. There was puzzlement and confusion under the pain in her eyes, and she moved away a little, pointing, so she no longer touched him.