Assignmnt - Ceylon (16 page)

Aspara stumbled on a crack on the stairway, and Durell caught her and held her close to him for a moment. Ira Sanderson plodded ahead, his eyes lowered. The great doors to the ruined palace were opened by unseen hands, and they were urged on inside.

The interior was cool and dim. There was a huge audience hall, with ancient frescoes on the walls, mosaic tiles on the floor, serpentine columns supporting the ceiling. Nothing had been spared to renew the interior, creating an opulence that belied the shabby, ruined appearance of the palace from the outside. Gilded and jeweled statues of ferocious demons guarded each of the four doorways from the audience chamber. They were permitted only a glimpse of this room, however. The guards pushed them toward the nearest door, and they walked down a long, cool corridor, then down a flight of stairs where the renewal work on the building ended abruptly. The steps were crumbled and dangerous. Only an oil lamp guided them into the lower darkness. The air felt musty and decayed. The occasional doors, however, were new and solid, with firm locks. The thump of a diesel generator came from somewhere nearby, although the oil lanterns remained in use. A half-flight down gave Durell a glimpse through an open door into a modern, white-painted room bright with the glare of fluorescent lights. A bank of computers lined the wall, and a crew of white-coated technicians, men and women, attended the machines.

Durell paused and Kubischev began to chuckle.

“Yes, Dr. Sinn loves antiquities, comrade, and chooses to believe in an origin as old as the universe, claiming anointment from the fallen angels, eh? But we have people here from Europe, China, and the Soviet Union. In those memory banks are dossiers on every useful man in each intelligence organization in the world. Some have been recruited for us already. The other memory banks are being filled with data on men who can move nations; we have all their sins and follies well documented for future use.”

“Blackmail?”

“We can persuade or threaten, as we choose. Now come along. Madame Aspara, you go in here.”

The Russian defector indicated a door. Two of his armed men pushed Aspara into a small, dingy cell. She cast a despairing look at Durell, then entered obediently. The next cell was larger, with new benches against the walls. A tiny window high up in the far wall gave a greenish light that filtered through the outside vines that overgrew the place.

“All of you men in here. Strip off your clothes,” Kubischev ordered. “You will be given new garments later. But a man without his clothes feels defenseless, eh? And perhaps humiliated. Mr. Wells?”

The black man said, “Yo.”

“You come along with me.”

Ira Sanderson said mildly, “And I?”

“You stay in here with Durell and Skoll.”

“But I understood that Dr. Sinn and I—

“You understand nothing. In with you, quickly.”

Under the watchful eyes of the armed guard, they stripped to the skin, and their clothes were bundled up by a third man. Then the heavy door slammed shut, and they were left naked in the dim, greenish light of the cell.

By midafternoon George appeared. The steel bolts slammed and the cell door swung just wide enough to let him slip in. His thin, immature figure entered with a tiptoe swagger; he paused, looked around in the dimness, and centered on Durell. He whispered softly, “Hey, hey.” Durell listened first to the bolts shot home again. Then he looked at George’s eyes under the wild mop of black hair. Too small, too bright, moving with unnatural excitation.

“Have you seen your mother?” he asked quietly.

“Mom? Hey, she’s doing fine.”

“What does Sinn plan to do with her?”

“What’s the difference? The thing is, man, you’re here, and Sinn is going to give you to me. You pig, you got her into all this, you didn’t have to do it, but you use anything and anyone to get your pig job done, don’t you?”

Ira cleared his throat. “Son, you must realize—”

The boy whirled to his naked father, then began to giggle. “You look ridiculous. All of you. Even, that stupid Russian who got himself beat up.”

Cesar Skoll didn’t bother to look up or reply.

Sanderson said, “George, if Dr. Sinn likes you, if you have any influence with him, then you must help us.” George giggled again. “Hey, man, I work for him, he likes me, sure, but he’s in the right groove, all the way.” Durell said, “Don’t bother with him, Ira. He’s coked to the eyes.”

George said, “Hey, pig, don’t get me mad at you, dig? Dr. Sinn sent me to ask you a couple of questions, right?” 

“Ask them,” Durell said.

“He wants to know if you’ve thought things over yet.”

“I don’t have to think about it. The answer is still no.” George grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that, man. He wants to see you soon. Just thought you’d better be prepared for it.”

Skoll looked up, his bald head gleaming. “And me?” George snickered. “You’re coming with me right now, Russky. It won’t be a party. We’re going to peel you like an onion.”

Skoll looked at Durell, his pale eyes flat and hard like Siberian ice. “Our competition in the business may soon be over, Comrade Cajun. Sinn will not recruit me.”

“Take it easy,” Durell said.

“They will learn nothing from me. Nothing. Nyet.” George snickered again. “You’d be surprised, Russky. The boss has a few fancy tricks up his sleeve for hard cases like you.”

Skoll got up, his heavy, slab-muscled body turning slowly in the

Durell tried to shut off the sounds that followed a few minutes later. He got up and climbed on one of the benches and looked out through the vine-grown slit of a window high in the outer wall of the cell. Now and then a bellow of protest, a roar of pain, a sudden scream came echoing down the corridor, muffled only slightly by the door. Ira Sanderson sat hunched on his bench, his thin, insect figure pale and white. His Ups quivered and his face was ashen.

From the window, Durell saw how the land sloped toward the shore, half a mile away. The palace stood on the highest point of the little island, and although he only had about a twenty-five degree range of vision, he spotted the ruins of a native fishing village, long vacated since Sinn took over the island. Nothing moved there, but two fishing boats had been pulled up on the beach. North of the village, mangroves and tidal swamps took over, and beyond that was a small point lined with graceful, bending palms. Heat shimmered blindly over the wide expanse of blue sea. There was no wind. Great sheets of lilac and green covered the surface of the water where the shoals and submarine growth tinged the surface of the Andaman Sea. He tried to look farther to the right, but his vision was blocked by a corner of the terrace with its balustrade.

Skoll began to scream in a high, ululating animal voice that went on and on, tom from his tormented lungs. Durell felt cold sweat prickle the nape of his neck. It could be a trick, a psychological stunt to weaken his own morale, but he did not think so. Only the worst and most diabolical form of torture could pull such anguish from the big Siberian.

“Durell?” Iran Sanderson’s whisper quivered. “What does he want? What does Sinn want from you?”

“Loyalty,” Durell said grimly. “He wants me to commit treason.”

“There is no escape from here, is there?”

“I think there’s always a way out,” Durell said quietly. “You don’t have to worry yet, Ira. Sinn needs you to work on the Buddha Stone.”

“But—” Sanderson hesitated, licked dry lips. “I never told him the truth. About the water, the erosion. Perhaps I tried to fool myself, too, in my enthusiasm.”

Durell turned from the window. “What are you talking about?”

“The Buddha Stone is really illegible. I—I improvised some preliminary translations. I simply just—made it up. To please Sinn. He frightened me, and I thought I should give him something.”

“Is the stone authentic?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps experts could do something with it, I’m only an amateur, after all. I wanted so much to make a discovery that would get my work recognized, you see.”

“It’s a fake, then?” Durell asked.

Ira looked at him with tragic eyes. “Not really. But what it really means may never be known. Just the same, Dr. Sinn can use it, he can become a god—or a demon— if he handles it properly. I wish it had never happened. And George—did you see him? Lost, poor boy. And Aspara—”

An especially piercing scream from Skoll cut through the stone walls of the cell. Ira stopped talking and bit his Up, his pale eyes gone murky. Durell returned to the window. Nothing had changed in the shimmering heat of island growth and the empty expanse of warm, placid sea. He wondered if the two fishing boats pulled up on the beach at the abandoned village were still seaworthy. You have to keep hoping, he thought. But if a man Uke Skoll could be made to cry and whimper like a whipped child—

He became aware of one last shriek of pain.

Then silence.

Insects hummed and flickered in the brush behind the palace. He stepped down from the bench. Ira was on his feet, staring at the door. The silence went on.

“Oh, my God,” Ira whispered. “He must be dead.”

Long hot shadows were cast over the segment of the island he could see from his cell window. He guessed it must be about three in the afternoon. The heat was an intolerable weight that burdened both mind and body.

Something stirred in the distant white of the sky. Durell seemed to feel the vibrations in his nerve ends before the far-off rumbling thunder touched his ears. He craned his neck to see more of the arching sky to the north. A faint contrail showed against the glaring white heat. A jet. He could not make it out, but the sound of its engines came closer, from a medium altitude, heading west-southwest. It didn’t have to mean anything. It could be a regular commercial airliner from Rangoon or Bangkok, heading toward Colombo. He Ustened to the sound increase and then fade. There had been no deviation from its course. When it was gone, he stepped down again from the bench and rested. He forced himself to breathe slowly and regularly in the stifling heat.

An hour passed.

He was at the window again, searching the sky. His angle from the cell might be unique, he thought, from any other view from the ruined palace. Something was beating the air again far out to sea. He saw the mote shivering for a moment before it moved out of his angle of vision. A helicopter? A flash of light reflected momentarily from the sky. He stared at it and wondered if he had imagined it. The heat was playing tricks on his senses, perhaps.

“What is it?” Sanderson whispered. His voice was dry.

“Nothing.”

“What can you see out there?”

“Mirages. It’s the heat.”

“What’s going to happen to us?”

Durell turned his head. “I think we’re going to find out now.”

George came back. The same two guards covered him. His eyes were not quite as vacant as before, Durell wondered at Sinn’s sense of humor in sending the boy as a messenger. George’s faced looked a bit pale.

“You’re next, Durell. Come along.”

“Is Colonel Skoll still alive?”

“I—I don’t know.”

Ira said, “Son, how can you help that monster?”

“It’s none of your business.” George bit his lip. “Let’s go, Durell.”

He stood up and George backed away to the door where the armed escort waited. One of them tossed a pair of khaki shorts to Durell and George said, “Put them on. I told him you ought to be sent out there naked—”

“Sent out where?”

“—but he won’t see you like this.”

“Where am I going?”

George sneered. “What’s the matter, pig? Afraid of getting some of your own medicine?”

Durell stared at him and didn’t bother to reply. Nothing he said could penetrate the fog that clouded George’s mind. He put on the khaki shorts and noted that no belt had been provided. Barefooted, he walked between the two PFMs down the corridor and up the winding, worn stone stairs to the upper levels. The heat, after being underground for so many hours, hit him like the flat side of an axe. He drew a deep breath and went on when one of the guards prodded him with his AK-47. George almost danced as he led the way up more steps, past the computer room and across the audience hall to an upper level of the palace. More guards were evident everywhere. Durell estimated two dozen in the palace, all armed and alert. Every window was boarded up, making the place an intolerable oven, where not the slightest stir of air was permitted. At the head of the stairs, a door opened and George stepped inside. “Dr. Sinn is in there.”

Apparently Mouquerana Sinn enjoyed the heat, despite his ponderous weight. He sat in a heavy wooden armchair, amply cushioned, with a tasseled footstool under his small feet. There was not the slightest trace of sweat on the malign face, which turned and smiled at him.

“Ah. Durell. Come in, come in.”

Standing nearby was Willie Wells. His dark face turned in quiet competence toward Durell, and he half nodded but said nothing. Two other men, Europeans, big and brawny, looked at Durell without expression. One of them murmured something in French. The other replied in a Croat dialect.

“You may be seated, my dear Durell,” said Sinn.

“I’d rather stand. What are you going to do with us?” “Do not be impatient for an answer. Mr. Wells knows my plans. He has agreed to it. Mr. Wells seems to think he is a better man than you, by the way. He has almost convinced me of that—almost, but not quite. I could use either of you in my service, but I am not sure it would be wise to use you both. May I ask you again if you have reconsidered your position and recognized the fact that I have placed you in an untenable situation vis-a-vis your former employers, K Section? You are lost, doomed, my dear sir. You are in my net. Agree to work with me, convince me of your sincerity, and I shall save you. You are intelligent, you wish to survive. Ergo, you are mine.”