Assignment Moon Girl (15 page)

“She says she was on the moon,” Durell said flatly. He
watched the Russian’s face. Nothing changed there. “I didn’t believe her then.
I believe it even less now.”

“Why not? Why don’t you believe her?”

“You know better. You were supposed to be with her on that
space flight. There’s no monitor record of such a flight. Not a
peep out of any of Moscow’s propaganda offices. Nothing in the newspapers. Not
a gnat, not a hint of a suggestion. Have you been on the moon, Professor
Ouspanaya?”

“This Har-Buri.” Ouspanaya shifted his weight on the arbor
bench. “He wants Tanya as a prisoner?”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“It is not permitted. It is classified.”

“Your daughter’s life is at stake, Professor.”

“Yes, I am aware of that.”

“Don’t you love her?”

“She is the most precious thing in the world to me. My life
and work would be meaningless without her.”

“But you’re pretty calm about it all.”

Ouspanaya looked at the guards. “Not really.”

“If Har-Buri gets her back, he’ll exchange her to the
Chinese for support in his political aims—for weapons, money, everything he can
chivvy out of them.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“You don’t mind Tanya going back to Peking with her mother?”

Ouspanaya sighed. “It would be dreadful.”

“Then help me to find her.”

“How can I help?”

“Tell me about the moon.”

“Impossible.”

“Tell the truth to the world. Then she won’t be as valuable
to Har-Buri. She won’t be worth anything to him, then. And not to Madame Hung,
either.”

Ouspanaya said sharply: “But then they would kill her! If
she is useless to them, they would only get rid of her and write it all off as
a mistake and a loss.”

The guards stirred restlessly. Sergei looked pointedly at
his watch on his hairy wrist. “You have given the American time enough,
Professor.”

Ouspanaya said regretfully, “Yes, I think so.”

“One more moment,” Durell said. “You understand that Tanya
may die, anyway?”

“No, they would not kill her. But they might take her to
Peking, which I consider the equivalent.” The man grimaced, his fine face
reflecting agony. “But our own people are working on this, of course. We
want her back for more reasons than you can imagine.”

“Oh, I have a good imagination.” Durell smiled and looked
into the Russian’s eyes. There was a private torment there, worse than most he
had ever seen. “Maybe Madame Hung won’t kill her until Peking has gotten every
scientific morsel out of her remarkable mind. But I didn’t say she would
be killed. I said she might die.”

Ouspanaya stiffened. “She has been injured so gravely?”

“She could use a doctor, yes.”

“Surely they would attend to her wounds!”

“From what I saw, they couldn’t care less. But her injuries
aren’t easily visible. You know what I’m talking about, Professor. She’s dying
mentally. She’s half gone, right now. She really believes she was on the moon.
Unless you have an antidote, she’ll go on thinking so, until everything snaps
in her brain.”

“Antidote? What—?”

“She needs to be debriefed,” Durell said.

Ouspanaya swallowed hard. “Ah, you are clever.”

Sergei looked at them in a puzzled way and said angrily,
“That is enough. I do not understand what you are saying to each other, and I
do not like it. Enough, da? You will go at once into the house, Professor
Ouspanaya.”

“Yes, Sergei.” He stood up. “I am sorry, Durell. I can do
nothing. There are orders from Moscow—and often those who are dearest to us are
expendable.”

“You’ll lose Tanya,” Durell warned.

Sergei made a curt gesture. Ouspanaya turned and walked
away, then looked back at Durell. Something in his eyes appealed to him-a call
for help, a plea that he let the matter drop? Durell wasn’t sure. The other
guard touched his arm. “This way out,
gospodin
. You are lucky. It is not often we entertain a visitor
such as you.”

“Times are changing,” Durell said.

He followed the guard down to the barrier gate on the road.

Chapter Thirteen

DURELL walked a little way down the road and saw Hannigan’s
car shining in dappled shade under a tall hedge. Apparently Lotus had not
obeyed his instructions to go to the resort hotel. A speedboat went by on the
water nearby, with a man and three girls in it. Lotus sat rigidly behind the
wheel of the Triumph. Durell walked all the way around the bend and then saw
the police van, parked in deeper shadow just beyond. He checked his stride.
Lotus started to stand up in the sports ear, then sat down again with a thump.
Durell looked back. The barrier gate across the entrance to Ouspanaya’s villa
was down again. To his right was a high wall barring access to the beach. He
shrugged and started walking again. At least the guard had returned his gun
when he checked out past the sentry box.

“Mr. Sam, the police—!” Lotus shrilled.

“I see them, honey.”

They came tumbling out of the patrol van as if enacting the
Charge of the Light Brigade. They were all young, tough, and thoroughly armed.
The van had Teheran license plates. When he saw Hanookh jump out of the van,
too, he made up his mind. Hanookh wore a police uniform now, and he held his gun
as if he meant to use it. He looked hard and murderous. Hanookh yelled to his
men and waved his arms and a shotgun went off with a thunderous blast. Durell
leaped to the right, toward a narrow lane between the shrubs that bordered the
road. A low stone wall barred his way. He went over it with a leap that
wrenched at his muscles and bandages and made him gasp with pain. Beyond was a
small garden, oleanders, lemon trees, a glimpse of the wide beach and the
placid sea. He heard Lotus scream, dimly. He kept running. There was a row of
striped canvas cabanas on the beach, and two boys were kicking at a soccer ball
close to the surf. They looked up at him as he ran by the cabanas. The sand
dragged malignantly at his feet. There was a square house with rococo terraces
and two giant, ugly sculptures of warriors armed with maces and swords,
frowning at the sea. A man and two women in summer shorts sat under an awning
between the two giant statues, sipping pink drinks. All wore large sunglasses.
Durell turned left, toward the house. The man stood up and shouted angrily at
him. Behind him, the police tumbled onto the beach. The shotgun went off again,
but the blast came nowhere near.

He went through the house, crashed through the kitchen
occupied by four startled servants, and out through the back door and up a
flight of steps toward another garden area and a fence, heading for the
road again. His legs felt like lead. His chest was tight with pain. The people
on the beach called to the police, and he ran for the gate in the fence. A
Citroen was parked there, and he swung for it, started to fall behind the
wheel, and saw there were no ignition keys. There wasn’t time to jump the
wiring. He slid out, ran for the gate, and opened it just enough to peer out at
the road again.

He had circled behind the police van and Lotus. Hanookh
stood beside the car, gun in hand, talking to the Chinese girl. His face was
dark and angry. Durell looked back to the villa. The other police were not in
sight yet. He took the Browning from his pocket and stepped out from behind the
shrubs and ran along the weedy edge of the road, coming up at the back of the
Triumph. Hanookh heard him at the last moment and started to turn, his face a
mask of surprise. Durell hit him and bowled him over, and Hanookh rolled away
into a shallow ditch, trying to get his weapon up. Lotus shrilled and started
the engine with a roar. But Durell didn’t jump in beside her. He knew he
couldn’t get far against Hanookh and the police patrols that would be set up
against him.

He pointed his gun at Hanookh, knelt, and thrust its muzzle
under the Iranian’s chin.

“Will you shoot?” Hanookh gasped. -

“If I have to.”

“Like you killed Colonel Saajadi?”

“You have a lot to learn,” Durell said. He felt a brief wave
of dizziness and knew he had pushed himself too far, considering Madame Hung’s
recent treatments. He nudged the gun muzzle under Hanookh’s chin again. The
Iranian showed no fear. There was only anger, a look of betrayal in his dark
eyes. “Get up, friend.”

“You are not a friend. You killed Saajadi—"

“He needed it, Listen carefully. Your boys will be here any
minute. I don’t want to run from them—”

“You would not get far.”

“I know that. I respect you, Hanookh. Will you make a deal?”

“You are under arrest for murder, sabotage, espionage—”

“All right. But your noble colonel was a traitor and a crook
and a plotter against your government. Did you know that? He turned me over to
Ta-Po and the Chinese.”

“That is not possible—”

“Give me a chance to prove it.”

“Yes. In court.”

“No, it won’t work that way. Give me a little time with you.
If you cool me, my cover is blown, I'm no good for anything else, and I’m out
of the business and might as well be dead.”

“You will hang for murder, Sam Durell.”

But Hanookh didn’t sound quite as certain as at first.
Puzzlement flickered in his eyes. He licked his lips, started to speak,
and looked down the road. His cops were tumbling out of the back gate of the
villa, looking this way and that.

“Saajadi?” Hanookh whispered. “With Ta-Po?”

“Look at my bandages. Little souvenirs. Give me time to
convince you,” Durell said urgently.

“How can I do that?”

“I’ll go back to Teheran with you. In Hannigan’s car. Lotus
can squeeze in the back. Your van follows close behind us. What more can you
want? I couldn’t get away. But don’t make any moves you couldn’t retract,
that’s all.”

Hanookh said abruptly: “Ike Sepah’s father wants to see
you.”

“About Ike’s death in the desert?”

“And other things.”

“Do you think it’s important?”

“Ramsur Sepah is an important man, a member of the Majlis,
our Parliament. He is very rich, very influential.”

“Should I see him?”

“It would be a good thing, I think.” Some of Hanookh’s
bitter fury had ebbed, and he looked uncertain now. He waved back his running
policemen, gave them sharp orders. Durell kept his back to them, and they
couldn’t see the gun he held on Hanookh. He eased it from Hanookh’s throat. “Am
I officially under arrest?”

“No. Not if you agree to see Ramsur Sepah.”

“Would it be about Tanya, and Har-Buri?”

“I don’t know. I am only a simple man, Durell. I obey
orders. Your charges against Saajadi are—shocking. It turns my world upside
down, if they are true.”

“You can believe me. It’s true.”

“May I step away from you now?”

Durell slid his gun into his belt and covered it with his coat.
He pushed his sunglasses up a bit and turned, smiling to the policemen who now
surrounded him.

“Tell them you’re taking me back to Teheran, as ordered.”

Hanookh nodded and spoke in quick Farsi, and sent his men
back to the van. “You do the driving, Durell. I don’t understand about this
Chinese girl. Can she understand French?”

“Can you, Lotus?” Durell asked in French.

She looked blank.

“It’s all right,” Durell said. “She’s on our side, anyway.
I’ll tell you about her on the way back.”

He told Hanookh everything while he drove. They were in the
mountains, heading south, when darkness fell, and they stopped once for Lotus,
who whimpered with discomfort, and again for food at a small mountain village
hotel. Hanookh sent his sergeant into the kitchen for dinner plates. The hotel
looked empty. The men ate in the van, and Durell, Lotus, and Hanookh sat on the
edge of the road, while they finished the plates of rice and lamb. It was
cold in the mountains, and Lotus shivered as she sat close by his side. Durell
told Hanookh about Saajadi’s defection to Har-Buri’s cause, about Ta-Po and
Madame Hung, and how Lotus had helped him to escape.

“I can’t prove any of it. How did you happen to find
Saajadi’s body?”

“There was a telephone call. Miss Saajadi—the one who works
in your embassy, for Hannigan—was quite hysterical. I’m afraid she will be of
no further use to us.”

“She never was of much use, anyway, since she was a plotter
with the rebels.”

Hanookh sighed. He looked very young in the evening shadows.
He could not understand the motives of rich, powerful men playing on the needs
and hopes of the poor. He admitted to Durell that there had been sudden unrest
in a number of southern villages and towns that afternoon. There had been a
brief riot in a Teheran bazaar, too, and a mob of people carrying Har-Buri
banners had been arrested. Two men were shot, a woman injured, in the
street-fighting.

“It seems as if you triggered a response from Har-Buri,”
Hanookh said. “Let us hope it is premature and can be crushed. These are difficult
times for me. All the solid ground I’ve walked on has turned to quicksand. If
what you say about Saajadi is true, then who can be trusted? I only want to do
my job and do what is best for my country. I think that all movements that seek
change by violence are suspect from the start. Perhaps it is sometimes
necessary, but today in my country, such leaders all have personal motives of
ambition.”

“You’re lucky you weren’t killed last night,” Durell pointed
out. “Saajadi had just about decided to eliminate you, for being too honest.
It’s the one reason I’m trusting you with all this. If you were dangerous to
Saajadi, then you must be straight with your government.”

“I did not go home last night,” Hanookh admitted. “I went to
see Ike Sepah’s father—Ramsur Sepah, a fine gentleman of the old school,
you might say. I went to extend my sympathy and explain what had happened to us
in the Dasht-i-Kavir. It was very difficult. But he was very
understanding. I felt guilty, being alive and telling him that his son had been
killed by enemies of the state.” Hanookh looked at his watch. “It is time we
went on to Teheran.”