Assignment to Disaster (10 page)

Miguel nodded. "Yes. I will take you. But they will see us leave. There is no other driveway out of the Salamander, except by the main gate. And they will be watching. They will follow us."

"We'll lose them. Come."

Durell's rented car was parked in the shade beside the cottage. The sunlight was blinding. Miguel got in as Durell started the motor. Heat struck at him as he drove down the winding driveway to the entrance. He did not drive too fast. People strolled in the way, wearing tennis shorts, bathing suits, all sorts of sports garb. Everyone was leisurely. He saw everything as if the world moved like a slow-motion film.

From the gate, Miguel directed him south onto the main highway that led to Las Tiengas. Neither spoke. There was heavier traffic as they neared the town, and they passed two military convoys. Now and then Durell looked back in the mirror to see if they were being followed. There was nothing suspicious in sight.

Las Tiengas baked in the blazing sun. On Cactus Street the bars were open and thriving, the slot machines whirred, the crowds on the sidewalk milled and surged back and forth. Most of the populace consisted of construction workers and military personnel and their families. There was almost a wartime air of frenetic excitement about the place, although two years ago the town had been nothing but a whistle stop on a little-used branch of the Southern Pacific.

"We are being followed," Miguel said.

"Which car?"

"The green foreign car. Senor West is driving. Two others are with him."

Durell saw the rakish green sedan in the rear-view mirror. "What is our destination?"

"My home," Miguel said. "Calvin is there."

"Do they have your address at the Salamander?"

"It is possible, yes. Can we lose them, señor?"

"We'll try," Durell said. "You direct me."

"My house is in the Mexican quarter, to the south of the city. You turn at the next traffic light, go for four streets, then turn right. My house is the third one."

"You live alone?"

"Yes, señor."

Durell did not turn at the traffic light. He went on, checking the green car behind him. It did not turn, either. He felt more hopeful. He waited for the next traffic light, then turned north, tramped on the gas, and roared down a street busy with bars and shops. He turned at the next corner, shot into an alley, twisted out and doubled back. The green car was still behind him. He could see West's face over the driver's wheel, dark glasses glinting in the sun. They were much nearer now.

Durell swung south. He jumped a light, heard a blare of outraged auto horns, rocketed down a side street, twisted south again, turned once more, and drove the car into an alley. Sirens wailed far behind him.

"Out, Miguel."

The old Mexican moved fast. They were at the corner, in deep shade, under an awning outside a
fruteria
in the Mexican quarter. The green car went by fast, looking for them. Durell saw the three men in it very clearly, but they did not see him. They went on past the alley and did not come back.

"This way. señor."

Miguel trotted down the sidewalk. There were small, poor houses on this street, dominated by a fine old Spanish mission church. There was a small square that could have been anywhere in Mexico, and then a narrow side street, and Miguel stopped at the third house from the corner.

The front door stood open.

Dark, empty shadows yawned inside.

Miguel said something in rapid Spanish that Durell did not catch, and started forward. Durell held him back with a hand on his arm.

"How many rooms?"

"Two only."

"I will go first."

He moved in fast, but he knew there would be no danger now. The open door told him all that was needed. The rooms were small, immaculately clean, with white-washed walls and heavy, ornate furniture. They were empty. No one was here.

Calvin Padgett was gone.

The bed in the back room was unmade, and there was a litter of cigarette butts in a souvenir ash tray of Los Angeles. One entire wall of the bedroom served as a kitchen and cooking area. There was a heavy wooden table across from the bed, near the kerosene stove, and papers were scattered and torn upon the walnut surface. Durell picked them up, hearing Miguel's tight, tired breathing. The sheets of paper were covered with all sorts of mathematical symbols, formulae, and computations that were meaningless
to
Durell. Great heavy lines had been drawn across the equations, as if they had proved useless. Durell gathered them up and put them all in his pocket.

Miguel looked tortured. "It is my fault. I acted hastily. I heard them speak of the girl's arrival, and then I saw her and telephoned to the
fruteria
to have them tell Calvin that his sister had arrived at last. How was I to know she was not the true one he waited for? Senor, are you sure…"

"It's not your fault, Miguel."

He tried to think. He dismissed the idea that Padgett had stepped out of the house only temporarily. Padgett had been waiting impatiently for word from Miguel about Deirdre, and he had acted promptly. What had he done, where had he gone? Not to the Salamander, or Durell would not have been followed as tenaciously as he had been. Where, then? Think. Don't make any mistakes. Padgett would have called the Salamander to speak to Deirdre. The switchboard girl would have been readied for the call, quick to notify Cora Neville. What then? Would Padgett have insisted on speaking to his sister, personally? Likely. Better than that. Almost certain. And? They would have had to put the ringer on the other end of the line. Would they? No choice, if Padgett insisted hard enough. And Padgett was not taking any chances. Whatever his game, whatever these calculations meant, whatever his reason for causing this man-hunt, he was playing it smart and careful. Small wonder Larabee could not find him, hidden away here in the Mexican quarter.

Durell walked to the open front door. The street was empty, blazing with sunlight. A woman in a black dress walked to the corner grocery. So Padgett had called, demanded to speak to his sister. They'd had to put the ringer on the phone, prompting her with what to say. But Padgett wouldn't have been fooled by that. He'd have known at once that it wasn't Deirdre. He'd give the Salamander a wide berth after that. He'd know that the others were after him, that a trap was set for him at the Salamander. So he wouldn't go there. Nor would he dare to stay here in this neighborhood, where his call might be traced.

Padgett would fly to sanctuary. Who would he trust? To whom would he turn at this crisis?

Cora Neville.

But he'd stay clear of the Salamander.

"Miguel."

"Yes, señor?"

"You said Miss Neville has a ranch somewhere?"

"Yes. In the Tiengas Hills. Twenty miles from here. You go north out of town, and when you come to a dirt road with a sign, you turn right. It is a horse ranch, but she does not live there very much." Miguel's face was gray, "You think Calvin went there?"

"No other place." Durell spoke quickly. "You must help me. We will need others. Use the telephone at the
fruteria,
and call the Army base and ask for Colonel Larabee. You will speak for me, do you understand?"

Miguel nodded. "And what shall I say?"

"You will tell Larabee everything that has happened. Do not be afraid of punishment for helping Padgett. You will tell Larabee I have gone to Cora Neville's ranch and that he is to come and help me at once."

"You go alone?"

Durell nodded. "You will also tell Larabee that he is to pick up the manager of the Salamander, the man who calls himself George West. Tell the Colonel that George West is really a wanted agent named Gustav Weederman." Durell drew a deep breath. He could be wrong, but he didn't think so. The man with the bullet head had thought Padgett had double-crossed Weederman, and had mentioned the name to Deirdre back in Washington. Swayney thought Weederman was dead. Durell did not believe it. Neither did he believe that Padgett had really made a deal with Weederman. Everything that had happened pointed the other way, to a mix-up among the enemy as to where Padgett stood. Maybe Cora Neville had been too sure of herself in reporting to the others, or had colored her story in her favor.

"Go now," he said to Miguel.

He waited until the old Mexican trotted across the square toward the fruit store. Then he walked quickly in the other direction, to the alley where he had left his car.

Driving north from Las Tiengas, he saw how it all fitted together. Somewhere in the past, Cora Neville had been indiscreet; perhaps in Europe. Perhaps a love affair with Weederman. She had made it plain in the conversation Durell had overheard last night that she was an unwilling accomplice. Weederman, as George West, had forced her to give him the position as manager at the Salamander. A fine spot for an espionage agent, where high-ranking officers from the base came to relax, maybe to drink and talk too much about their hardware. It figured. It fitted. Cora Neville had played for Padgett deliberately, on orders from West. Padgett still did not know the truth. Cora, anxious to please, anxious to get out from whatever hold Weederman had over her, did as she was told. All right. The thing now was to get Padgett out of the box they had fitted for him. He did not let himself think too much about Deirdre.

The road was an empty ribbon unwinding under him. It was two o'clock when he spotted the sign, in the shape of a horse, and the arrow to the right. The country was barren and desolate, with stratified hills rising at sharp angles from the desert valley. It was a country of lizards and rattlesnakes and death.

He drove more slowly now, between rusted barbed-wire fences, climbing steadily. A few trees struggled to live in the narrow canyons opening on either hand, and then abruptly the countryside was greener, with grass on the slopes and a grove of cottonwoods here and there at the site of brief mountain springs. Another sign indicated a left turn onto what was obviously a private road. Durell drove on beyond it, found an outcropping of red rock, hid the car there, and walked back.

Five minutes of walking brought him in sight of the ranch house, a low spreading structure of dun-colored stone and glass, built into the hill. Horses moved in a pasture beyond. He saw a corral, a barn that was also built of stone, and several outbuildings. The green foreign car was parked in front of the main house.

Durell halted to study the terrain. In the silence he heard the sudden neighing of a palomino, the piping of a bird, the gurgle of water, the hum of a Diesel power generator. The sky was a brassy bowl of heat pressing down between the distorted hills. No one was in sight Nobody had followed him.

He saw a trail that led up behind a butte, and he climbed it, hugging the rocks and shadows. Heat reflected from the stone and shale and made the sweat roll off him. He took the gun from its holster and held it in his hand. Once he had to climb a paddock fence, and another time a dog came barking at him, but with tail wagging, and he let the dog sniff at his trousers. Satisfied, the animal trotted away.

Ten minutes passed before he crawled flat on his stomach to the overhang of rock beyond the stone barn. From here he could see the road winding down the valley toward the desert. There was no sign of Larabee.

Voices drifted up to him, but he could not locate their source. Then a door slammed and he saw Cora Neville walking from the barn toward the house. She was almost running. Her blonde hair was burnished by the blazing sun. Then a man came after her with a long, angry stride. It was Bullet Head. He caught the woman's arm and flung her violently against the paddock fence. He heard her voice faintly.

"Franz…"

He said something quickly, and when she shook her head, he slapped her. Durell felt a coldness creep into him that not even the heat of the sun or the rock where he sprawled could dispel. He had never felt hate like this before. In place of Cora Neville, he saw Deirdre in the hands of the giant His name was Franz. His name was Death. It was eighty or ninety yards down from where Durell lay hidden to where the big man argued with the woman. Durell's ringer tightened on the trigger of his gun. Then he forced himself to relax. Franz pushed Cora Neville roughly toward the house. When she stumbled and fell in the dust, he yanked her up and flung her loosely ahead of him again. Her long blonde hair swept wildly across her face. She stopped once and looked back at the barn. Her hands were at her mouth, as if to suppress horror. Franz pushed her into the house.

Durell focused on the stone barn. There was a second floor above the stalls, with curtained windows, and he assumed there was an apartment there for the help, or perhaps for an overflow of guests. Thinking of Cora Neville's backward glance of horror, he dismissed the main house as a point of interest. The sunlight was blinding on the windows, and he could not see inside. Where were Miguel and Larabee? To the south, the road wound away empty as far as he could see. Uneasiness moved in him. Perhaps something had happened to Miguel. Perhaps he should have made contact with Larabee himself.

He waited five more minutes.

Then he could wait no longer.

Sliding backward from the edge of the rock overhang, he ran in a crouch toward the back of the barn, where a flight of outside stairs led up to a landing and a door on the second floor. Gravel slid in a small avalanche under his feet, raising what seemed to him to be a thunderous noise. He came up against the shadowed wall of the barn and flattened there, the gun in his hand, waiting.

Nothing happened. There was no alarm.

Again he thought of Cora Neville's look of horror. His mouth felt dry. He wiped his hand on his thigh and held the gun in a lighter but firmer grip. A horse nickered in one of the stalls. He moved on toward the neatly painted wooden stairs that led up to the second floor.

He was on the little landing above when he heard the sound of a car starting. He waited again, unable to see the main house, since he faced the butte from where he had watched before. The car drove off. He tried the door.