Assignment Unicorn (5 page)

“No."

“We shall not be long.”

“Am I supposed to identify Donaldson’s body?”

“No, no, that is not necessary. Come, please.”

Colonel Ko unlatched the huge refrigerator doors and swung
them wide open, pulled another switch, made some other tubular lighting fixtures
wink, blink, and cast their cold, unnatural light on their faces. There was a
body under a coarse canvas sheet on a narrow table.

“We are really quite modern in our police methods here in
Palingpon, Mr. Durell—thanks in part, of course, to your country‘s generosity.
We have identified the body, the blood type, hair, fingernail
scrapings, etcetera, and matched up similar scrapings and hair taken from the
nails and hands of the one man we were fortunate enough to capture. There is no
doubt that the man we have in custody helped tear poor Donaldson apart. With
bare hands. You can see the results.”

Colonel Ko twitched the sheet aside.

Durell’s face did not change. He might have been examining a
rice-paper fragment of calligraphy from the Han dynasty, as he looked at what
was left of Hugh Donaldson.

The man’s neck had been broken. His eyes had been gouged out.
One ear was bitten or torn off. His back was broken. All his limbs were there,
but one arm and one leg had been torn out of their sockets. The face was not
recognizable. There were scars, gouges, rips and tears all along the twisted
torso. The genitals had been crushed, as if by a dozen boots. Very little was
recognizable. The icy cold of the refrigerator room touched the back of
Durell’s neck.

“Enough?” Colonel Ko said softly.

“Quite,” Durell said. “There were no weapons used of any
kind?”

“Only hands, fingers. Madmen, Mr. Durell.”

“Drugged?”

“We do not know.”

“May we leave?” Durell asked.

“Do you feel ill, sir?”

“Just cold.”

“But this room is safe, Mr. Durell. You can be assured there
are no—ah, bugs, listening devices or recording mechanisms to overhear us in
this place.”

“I see.”

A clock in the larger outer room whirred and rang the hour.
It was five minutes slow, which wasn’t bad for Palingpon, where almost
everything was usually late.

Colonel Ko spoke softly, gently, his dark eyes sad. “There
is the matter of the money, Mr. Durell.”

“Yes.”

“You know about it, of course?”

“Yes.”

“A sum most necessary for the continuance of our security
work here, as well as—ah—our continued friendship and cooperation.”

“I understand,” Durell said.

“A sum that Mr. Donaldson, poor fellow, was to have turned
into my office the very day he was so cruelly murdered, along with Premier
Shang.”

“You’ll get the money,” Durell said.

Colonel Ko said promptly, “When?”

“Arrangements have to be made to replace it.”

“Premier Shang’s death brings troubled times to Palingpon.
Who knows what plots are already afoot, without our beloved leader at the helm?
Plots to destroy our democratic people’s form of government, so admiring of
your own constitutional way of life. We have been so ready to be advised by you
who are older and wiser in the ways of true freedom and democracy.”

Durell looked down at the small uniformed man.

“That’s a lot of shit, Colonel.”

He did not know how Ko might react. But the man smiled and
then laughed softly. “Ah, yes. Very good. Ah, very good. We are pragmatic men,
then. We understand each other.”

“Only too well,” Durell said.

“The money, then?”

“In two weeks. I’ll arrange it.”

Colonel Ko said, “You wish to remain here in Palingpon for
two weeks, Mr. Durell?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Durell said.

“That may not be possible. We would like to be assured that
the aid in funds will be forthcoming. I am sorry, I understand your position,
you are an honored guest here, a most trusted man in the employ of your General
McFee—”

“Colonel Ko, I doubt that McFee would be too concerned if I
were fed to the water crocodiles today, tomorrow, or two weeks from now. I wish
you and others like you would understand that. What you should understand,
without question, however, is that it I do not have your permission to leave
tomorrow, you will never see the aid money, two weeks from now or ever. Is that
understood?”

Colonel Ko was silent for a minute. “You take extraordinary
liberties, Mr. Durell. Desperate chances.”

“It’s your choice,” Durell said.

“Ah, yes. Well, perhaps you have seen enough of poor
Donaldson?”

“Quite enough.”

“Then come with me. I am sure you would also like to see one
of his assassins,” said Colonel Ko.

10

“WHAT PUZZLES me, Mr. Durell,” said Ko, “is that there is
truly no motive for the murders of Premier Shang or your Mr. Hugh Donaldson. We
are a small island, sir, of scarcely any significance. Indonesia, Malaya,
even the Philippines consider us too unimportant to press their territorial
claims here. We have no mineral wealth—our tin mines are depleted and certainly
no oil. We are not at any strategic crossroads of commercial traffic. We are at
peace domestically. There are no real dissident parties who could have had
political ambitions to drive them to assassination. You have seen Palingpon for
yourself. There are no mobs raging in the streets today, no banners, no riots
or bombings. No one has made a move to seize power.”

“Except you, perhaps,” Durell said gently.

Colonel Ko smiled. “No, no. I am quite content with what I
am. The question then arises, sir, why was Premier Shang killed? And Donaldson?
If Donaldson was the true target—I am sure the thought must have occurred to
you —it would have to be terribly important to take Premier Shang with him. Then—why?”

“I don’t know yet," Durell said.

“Nothing suggests itself to you?”

“Oh, yes.”

“May I have your thoughts on the matter?”

“No,"

“You are a blunt man.”

“Perhaps it was simply a warm-up for the major leagues,”
Durell said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“For bigger game in the future.”

"Ah."

The prison was located in a Portuguese fort to the north of
the city, another martello tower of red brick, with mossy crenellated walls and
empty gun embrasures now partially bricked up or guarded with iron bars. The colonials
had made a mistake in building the fort here; the casualties from malaria must
have been enormous among the unfortunate garrison. The atmosphere on this side
of the river was miasmic. Mangrove swamps surrounded the place. The road to the
old fort was barred and chained, with a sentry box and two armed soldiers on
duty there. Colonel Ko was waved through without formalities. The road followed
a causeway through the mangroves and the dark, gleaming waters of the flooded
river banks. It was the only approach to the red brick structure. Two old
six-pounder cannon had been left as ornaments to guard the high entrance gate.
The cannon were rusted and useless, of course. A more modern lightly armored
tank was far more in keeping, parked in the shade under a huge old banyan nee.
Two more soldiers lolled here, smoking and watching a group of yellow-robed
bald priests who clashed cymbals and banged drums and chanted incomprehensible
prayers in the dust of the road outside the gate.

Colonel Ko got out of his Army jeep and the two soldiers
came to attention, surreptitiously hiding their cigarettes. There were a few
brief words while Ko gestured toward the Buddhist priests. He came back to the
jeep looking angry.

“Protesters, Colonel?” Durell asked mildly.

“One of their brothers is a prisoner here.”

“May I ask on what charges?”

Colonel Ko said, “No, you may not ask, Mr. Durell.”

“I thought you said there was no political unrest in
Palingpon.”

“It is of no importance. Come, please.”

Durell followed the small man around the ring of chanting
Buddhists. The sound of their cymbals and drums drifted after them when they
moved inside the prison.

The cell was cool and damp. The brick walls had been painted
white, but most of the paint had peeled off, leaving scabrous blotches. The
prisoner lay on a cot against the wall in a tar corner, where a shaft of
sunlight came through the barred window and blinded the man’s eyes.

The prisoner had been washed and bathed and wore a white
smock-like garment that reached down to his ankles. He looked sightless. His
hair was a dark brown, straight and somewhat lanky, and the roots were still
stained with black dye. His face was just a face, although battered and
bruised. An ordinary face, hardly that of the ravening beasts who had scaled the
Palace walls and tom Donaldson and the premier apart. There were other bruises
and welts on the man’s body, as Durell could see when Colonel Ko went to him
and stripped back the cotton smock, unbuttoned at the back, exposing the whole
torso. The prisoner’s breathing was very light, very shallow. He did not turn
his head when the guard admitted them. There was an oscilloscope hooked up to
an electrocardiograph machine with wires attached to the man’s chest, wrists
and ankles. The rise and fall of the electronic blip on the screen looked weak
and erratic. An Indian doctor with a neat white turban and a starched white
jacket rose from a stool in the corner. He had been reading a tattered copy of
Playboy
.

“Sir!” the doctor said, in a manner that reflected
British military training.

“Any change in the patient?” Colonel Ko asked.

“He is very ill, sir.”

“Has he said anything yet?”

“Not a word, sir.”

“You have tried to get him to speak to you?”

“I have tried, sir. I do not believe he intends to talk.”

Colonel Ko said sharply, “He must be made to.”

“I am doing what I can, sir.”

Colonel Ko turned bleak black eyes toward Durell. “You do
not seem surprised?”

“That the prisoner is a white man? No."

“We have to assume that all of them, all those who engaged
in the attack on Premier Shang and your Mr. Donaldson, were white Europeans or
Americans. We don’t know.”

The dapper colonel swung on his small booted feet back to
the doctor. The cell stank of stale urine, antiseptic, the swamp outside. Ko
said again, “A white man. With stained skin and dyed hair, in native costume,
dressed like a Malay. What do you make of it, Mr. Durell?”

“I don’t know,” Durell said.

“Surely you must have a theory. What country would you say
this man came from?"

“If he were black-haired and short, I would say he was from
a Mediterranean race. But there are short, black-haired Scandinavians, too. His
nose tells me nothing. I am not an anthropologist, Colonel Ko.”

“But your impression?”

"I'm not sure at all. He could be Greek, Italian,
Czech, Norwegian.”

Colonel Ko said, “I wish we could induce him to speak.”

“Impossible,” said the doctor promptly.

Durell walked over to the cot and stared down at the
prisoner. The man’s eyes did not blink, although the slant of sun that came
through the barred window was directly in his eyes. Durell lifted the man’s
upper lip and looked at the teeth. There were gold fillings, not steel
caps, on those that had dental work. Not Russian, he supposed. The man looked
to be about thirty. His build was athletic—solid biceps and strong pectorals,
stocky legs, also well-muscled, a flat stomach that lifted and tell
almost invisibly with his shallow breathing.

“Hello,” Durell said.

Nothing.

“Bonjour.
Guten
Abend
.
Buenas
tardes
.”

Nothing.

Even with such musculature, no one could have leaped up and
scaled the twelve-foot wall and torn two living men apart with his bare hands.

The oscilloscope, which had been making small, irregular
beeping sounds, was suddenly silent. The Indian doctor whirled around. Then the
heartbeat was resumed. It seemed a bit weaker, however.

“What is the matter with him, Doctor?” Durell asked.

“Exhaustion.”

“Unusual?”

“Extraordinary. Total depletion of body vitality and
functional resources. He has not urinated or defecated since he was brought
here.”

“Ever seen anything like this before?”

“No, sir.”

“Never?”

“Perhaps once. A Palingponese fisherman whose boat
capsized and threw him into the sea. He could not swim very well, but he stayed
afloat tor forty-nine hours through sheer will power, fighting to
stay up and keep the sharks away. He died shortly after he was rescued and
brought ashore.”

“The prisoner reminds you of that?”

“Somewhat,” said the doctor.

“Have you taken blood samples? Looked for drugs? Amphetamine
types?”

“We have done everything. The state laboratory is very efficient.
Very good technicians there, sir. We thought the same thing. But we can find no
traces of adrenalin-based
excitatives
, certainly no
heroin or opium-derived substances.”

Colonel Ko said, “But he must be made to talk.”

The doctor merely shrugged his shoulders.

“Could he be hypnotized?” Durell asked. “Perhaps in a
trance?”

“Farfetched, sir.”

“But not impossible?”

The Indian shrugged.

Durell said, “Do you think he can understand us?”

“I cannot tell,” said the doctor. “There has been no
reaction to any stimulus.”

Durell looked down into the prisoner’s face again. The
features were blank. The open eyes were blank. The irises of the eyes were very
dark, the pupils dilated. He cocked the prisoner’s head to one side; there was
no muscular resistance. Then he held the man’s face with his left hand under
the jaw, wet the tip of his little finger, and lightly touched the cornea
of the prisoner’s left eye, withdrew his finger, and came up with a tiny
contact lens. The eye was now gray. At no time had there been the slightest reflex
in the patient‘s face.