Assignment - Manchurian Doll (14 page)

“There, to the left again. Can you see?”

“There seems to be no place to land.”

“When we get closer, you will see the canals. Take the biggest one. There is a restaurant right on the waterfront there. Go past it.”

He nodded, then abruptly swung the wheel hard as something huge and black loomed ahead of their plunging boat. It was a fishing trawler, showing only a dim gleam of light in its afterhouse. The launch sped by its anchor chain with only inches to spare.

A machine gun chattered and flared from the pursuing launch. Durell strained to see through the murky darkness. Houses slowly materialized on the shore, a few block warehouse sheds, some fences built on the stone breakwater, a few feathery trees. He saw the canal entrance then, like the mouth of a tunnel, black under the arch of a wooden bridge. A fenced terrace and the gleam of a tiled roof indicated the restaurant Nadja had mentioned. Lights glowed there. There were willow trees on both banks, dipping their branches into the black canal.

The other launch was cutting across to intercept them when the police boat happened along. Afterward, Durell wondered if it was a lucky accident, or not. He never knew. The patrol craft was twice the size of Omaru’s launches, and it proceeded at a pedestrian pace, its spotlight fixed dead ahead.

But its presence stopped Omaru’s men from using their weapons again.

Durell throttled down and let the boat surge into the canal. The bridge slid over them, dripping with moisture. The stone banks rose high on either side. The willow trees whispered, brushing the top of the launch.

He looked back. There was nothing to see.

He could hear the thrum of Omaru’s boat against the deep beat of the harbor patrol craft. He slowed down to cut the wash of their wake against the peaceful canal banks. Houses lifted on either side, dark and asleep. A few lights gleamed, but the mutter of their idling engine was softened and awakened no one. Nadja moved closer to him again, shivering.

“Take the first canal to the right now. I do not think they will dare to follow us into the heart of town.”

“They might. Omaru is just angry enough.”

“I do not understand it yet,” she said quietly. “I thought he was working for your people, was he not?”

“We used him in the past—but not this time. Washington decided to end the association,” he said grimly.

“Yes. I almost forgot who and what you are.”

“Is it so terrible, Nadja?”

“I do not know what to think. I was taught that all imperialist agents were murderers and monsters, enemies of society. But you are just like—just—”

“Just a man,” Durell said. “Quite human. Two eyes, arms, legs, head and heart, all the usual appurtenances.”

“But not an ordinary man. I wish we were not enemies.” 

“We don’t have to be.”

“There is no other way.” She did not look at him. “I am grateful that you saved my life and kept that woman from torturing me. I never thought I would be treated like that by my own people. I—I am all confused. I am grateful to you, but I cannot help you. Perhaps I would, I don’t know. But I cannot. I cannot seem to remember what you want.” 

“Perhaps you will, later.”

She shook her head. “I do not want to, I think.”

“Not even to save Alexi Kaminov?”

She was silent. He turned the launch into the intersecting canal, a smaller and shallower one than the first, with many small, wooden bridges crossing it. Here and there the channel was almost blocked by moored fishing craft tied to the stone embankments. But more lights shone ahead, from the center of the town, glimpsed through the waving screen of willow branches dipping in the water. The air was warmer here, sheltered from the storm brewing at sea. Durell felt as if, in using the canals, he had slipped back several centuries into the past, into the old Japan, a land of dreaming isolation. The houses were small and old, the bridges arched with delicate precision over the dark water—

He almost ran into the waiting boat before he saw it. It was Omaru’s launch, and it had debarked men on the canal banks to form an ambush. They were premature, when one man suddenly opened fire, heedless of the sleeping neighborhood. The shot was Durell’s first warning. But he needed no other.

He slammed the launch into reverse, but their momentum made it impossible to back out of the canal. Their stem crashed into a fishing boat tied to the bank under a tree. “Get out,” Durell snapped to the girl. “Quick!”

He helped her jump into the boat they had crashed and worked his way forward to the rope ladder that hung down from the embankment. A bullet splashed on the stone wall at his hand. Nadja stumbled, wavered, and he extended a hand to haul her bodily upward. Then they crouched for a moment on the bank of the canal.

The shadows under the willow tree offered them shelter for a moment. A narrow street paralleled the canal, and tea-shops fronted the sidewalk. They were all closed. He looked for a parked car, but there was nothing except a hand cart drawn across an alley entrance. He pushed it aside and dragged the stumbling girl into the dark alley after him. A shout and a querulous, seeking complaint came from behind them. Another gun cracked, but it did not seem to Durell that the shot was aimed at them.

The alley was narrow and dark, reeking with unfamiliar smells. A high board fence hemmed them in, and for a few seconds he wondered if he had plunged into a blind trap. Then he saw a glimmer of light at the far end and he pulled the girl that way. Too late, he saw the light abruptly blocked by a man who appeared there. There was no chance to check their flight. A shout came from behind, then Durell hurtled into the newcomer, his fist driving at his throat. The man shouted in protest, reeled aside, and came back in a defensive posture that Durell luckily recognized before he struck again.

“Eliot?”

“Hey, Cajun—take it easy! You pack a mean wallop!” “Omaru’s men are after us—”

“You got the girl, hey?” Eliot laughed. “Looks like you stuck your fist into a hornet’s nest, though.”

Durell looked back. The alley was dark and brooding and silent. Too silent, too dark. He pushed the girl aside against the damp brick wall.

“How did you get here, Eliot?”

“We were waiting for you on the waterfront when we saw the fireworks on Omaru’s island. Tagashi scattered some people around—he picked them up in town, local cops, I think —but Omaru’s got a small army fanning out around us now.”

“Can we get out?” Durell asked.

“I don’t know. The girl looks pretty beat, huh?” Eliot took a deep breath. “Take her down this alley to the next street, Sam, and turn right. There’s a car waiting. Another one of Tagashi’s relatives is the driver. The kid, Yuki, is there, too, busted nose and all. Worried about you. Get to that car, and you and Nadja are safe.”

“I hate to leave you here alone, Eliot.”

Eliot Barnes grinned. “Tagashi’s folks are coming up fast. I’ll be fine.”

Durell hesitated. Eliot looked tall and lean, as homey as apple pie with his straw hair and freckles and Midwest accent. He looked tough and capable and completely out of place in this back alley of a provincial Japanese seacoast town. Durell looked back again. The alley was still dark, still brooding. He thought he saw a shadow slide along the black wall, but he wasn’t sure. He felt reluctant to leave Eliot here. Then he looked at Nadja and saw she had spent the last of her reserve strength. It was a miracle she had managed to come this far.

A boat whistle hooted dimly, coming to them from all directions in the alley. Misty fog touched them, smelling of mud banks and the sea.

“Go on, Cajun,” Eliot urged. “Don’t worry about me.”

Durell took the girl’s hand and they walked on as fast as she could go. She stumbled with every step, and her breathing was ragged. She had gone dull with fatigue, insensitive and not caring what happened to her now.

The car was waiting where Eliot said it would be. The driver jumped out, but Yuki was faster. She ran to Durell and paused, hesitated, then looked at Nadja sheepishly. The tape gleamed whitely across the bridge of her nose.

“Come. Hurry. It is all arranged,” Yuki said.

Durell pushed Nadja into the car. She seemed unaware of him now. “Take care of her, Yuki, understand? Take her to your father and keep her safe, no matter what happens. Can I trust you with her now?”

“Yes, Durell-san. I am sorry for my behavior before.” She saw him turn away. “You are not coming with us?”

“I’m going back for Eliot.”

“Then I will wait. My father ordered me to wait.”

“All right. I’ll be right back.”

He ran back to the alley where Eliot had posted himself as a rear guard against Omaru’s gunmen. The streets were quiet, asleep, the local people unaware of the private war raging silently in the alleys of their town. Durell took his gun out, but he did not know if it would fire after his swim in the waters off Omaru’s island. His wet clothing hampered him, clung icily to his limbs. He turned into the alley and tripped, stumbled over something, recovered and spun around.

Nothing.

He looked down and saw Eliot Barnes sprawled on his face on the cobblestones. Eliot still had his gun in his hand, but he hadn’t fired it, or Durell would have heard the sound. He looked up and down the alley, suddenly cold. He saw no one. Everything was silent. He knelt beside Eliot and turned the straw-haired man over so he could see the SEATO agent’s face.

“El? Eliot?”

He felt colder. The bloody, gaping mouth of a knife wound in Eliot Barnes’ throat smiled a smile of grotesque death at him. It had been swift and sudden—and unnecessary. He could not imagine how it had been done, but Eliot had been taken by surprise, in the five brief minutes he had been alone here. His throat was cut from ear to ear, and there was a dark puddle of still-hot blood on the alley stones.

Omaru had exacted his first payment for revenge.

In Durell’s business, there was always the problem of keeping things quiet. Ideally, the operation of K Section’s field force should leave not so much as a ripple in the area of activity. No local police alarms could be risked, no news items printed of mysterious actions, no trace of the apparatus’ objectives could be left for the curious eye and probing mind. The enemy could be anywhere. The enemy could be anyone.

Leaving Eliot Barnes’ body in an alley of Akijuro would make more than a ripple in the international news dispatches. Questions might be asked in the Japanese Diet. The Japanese security people would have to respond publicly.

Durell picked up Eliot’s gun.

“I’m sorry, El,” he whispered.

He knelt quickly and flipped open the SEATO man’s coat, and ripped all identification from the body. He took Eliot’s papers and stuffed them in his own pocket, pulled off the coat, since it betrayed its American origin, and wrapped it in a tight ball. He took keys, wallet, passport, American change and currency, Japanese yen notes.

The alley was quiet and somber. There was no trace of the murderers. He wondered where Omaru’s men had gone, and why they apparently had called off the chase. Then some of the questions were answered when he heard the quick slap of footsteps running toward him in the alley.

He stood up, straddling Eliot’s body. It was Tagashi. The tall Japanese looked at Eliot without emotion. Durell could read nothing in the man’s face.

“Mr. Barnes was a likeable young man,” Tagashi said softly. “It is too bad he was so careless.”

“Yes. Can you arrange something about him?” Durell was angry, but he could not direct his inner rage against the crop-headed Japanese. “He has to be disposed of quietly.”

“Of course. My men have covered the neighborhood. But I do not think we will find Omaru now.”

“I want him,” Durell said flatly.

“Not now, Durell-san. I know how you feel. I can arrange for the police to question the shooting at his villa, but beyond such surface action, we can do no more.”

“We can close down his operation now,” Durell said.

“And delay our trip to get Kaminov?” Tagashi brushed his thick, black mustache. “I do not have good news for you,

I am afraid. It is something beyond our control. I speak of the weather. There are typhoon warnings out for the North China Sea. The fishermen report high seas and much damage to their trawlers. We could spend a day or two, waiting for the storm to subside, and use the time for Omaru, of course, but—”

“A day or two may be too late,” Durell said harshly. “We can’t spend it, I agree with you, wasting time on Omaru.”

“We will see,” Tagashi said heavily. He looked down at Eliot’s body. “We cannot change the winds and the seas, or exile death from the world.”

Durell slept uneasily that night in the fisherman’s house in Miyako. The weather worsened within minutes of their return with Nadja, and the rain came down in thunderous torrents that filled the air with wild noises. The wind lashed the beach surf into a thundering fury. Yet even this was not the main storm threatening the Japan Sea, Durell knew.

When he awoke in a gray, damp dawn, he lay still for a time, listening to the sounds of the sea and the wind around the house. A shutter banged and clacked; the surf roared; a harbor bell rang in brazen, irregular alarm. Inside the house, the silence of early morning held command. He thought of Eliot Barnes. He did not know any of Eliot’s people back home, but if he made it safely back himself, he would have to go there with an appropriate cover story of how Eliot had died. It would be a good story, he thought grimly. It always was. And it rarely related to the truth of how men died in this business.

He got up from the low, hard bed and dressed, walking on silent feet through the sleeping house into the bath, with its polished, wooden Japanese tub. There was hot water and a razor and fresh shirts. He washed and shaved and felt a little better, then walked to the front of the house that faced the sea. Huge, blazing chrysanthemums grew in a small garden there, rocking and flashing in the wind. A misty rain cut off his view of the rugged coast. The air felt warm, smelling of southern seas. A small charcoal fire in an antique brazier seemed unnecessary.

Tagashi squatted there, his gaunt face without expression. His dark military mustache drooped to follow the discouraged lines of his harsh mouth. It was a cruel mouth, Durell noted. Tagashi wore a dark blue shirt and a sweater and worn sneakers. He looked up at Durell and nodded.