Assignmnt - Ceylon (17 page)

“To hell with you,” Durell said.

Dr. Sinn chuckled. “You think I am a bit mad, because I believe the world is ruled by evil? Think upon it, man, and you will see I am right. However, I am most pleased, today. You are fortunate I am in a pleasant mood—almost charitable, I may say. There is much I wish to receive from you, Mr. Durell; you are a greater prize than Wells, whose duty is to kill you. On the other hand, I wish to preserve you. Mr. Wells, who has nothing but unhappy memories of his boyhood in your country, has the soul of a mercenary. He will work for me. It is already agreed. A very dogged man. But you are the more valuable of the two.”

Durell stared into Sinn’s strange black eyes. He felt the humid heat of the room, the deadness of the air, smelled the man and the odor of complacent evil that emanated from his gross bulk. He looked at Willie Wells. Wells’ eyes stared blandly back, his mouth twitching in a faint smile.

“But,” Sinn added, “how can I trust you, Durell?”

“You can’t,” he said.

“Anything you promise, I could not believe it, eh?”

“Probably not.”

“You have not truly faced your situation, I think. I believe a little activity might hone your mind toward reality. On the other hand, can I trust Mr. Wells’ new loyalty to me?”

Durell looked at the black man. “I don’t know.”

“Ah. Ah. I could put you both through various tests, of course. I could squeeze you dry. You could not resist me for very long.”

Durell shrugged. “We all have to die.”

“But I do not wish your death, my dear man.” Sinn leaned forward in his heavy chair. He wagged his finger again. “I trust Kubischev. I trust the PFM and the Cobra’s Bow. Now that I have the Buddha Stone, a hundred million men will do my bidding, do you understand? So you are not as important to me as I once thought.”

“What about Aspara?”

“The woman means nothing. My men can have her, for as long as she lasts. As for her former husband—he is still necessary to decipher the script on the stone. He is harmless. And George—” Sinn sighed. “He is a plaything, an amusement, nothing more. He is already on the road to death. A few days more or less, and then I shall be rid of the lad.” Sinn laughed softly, his piping laugh like the rasp of chalk on a blackboard. “The problem is to decide which of you may be more useful, you or Wells. I have a method to decide that. I shall not waste you as I wasted Skoll. A pity, there. It would have been amusing to learn of his department in the KGB—things that Kubischev was not permitted to know. However,” Sinn sighed, “my plan for you will be most amusing.”

“Did you kill Skoll?” Durell asked.

“We had a minor accident. It does not concern you. Look at Mr. Wells, please. It is between you two. Which of you will work for me? You, Mr. Durell, are more valuable. But your conditioning is much stronger. Your loyalty to K Section is most distressing. Such a waste. Such a pity. In any case, we shall soon know the answers. You see, Mr. Wells, as proof of his loyalty to me, has agreed to kill you.”

Durell looked at Wells. The black man’s eyes told him nothing, the strong face was bland, without emotion. “How?” he asked.

Sinn said, “My island has a limited area, and yet it is quite diversified. One of you can prove to be the better man out there. We have bush and jungle and swamp. You cannot hope to swim out to sea. Sharks, you know. And rather tricky currents. Wells has a capacity for hunting. My dear Durell, I shall set him to hunt you.”

“Out there?” Durell asked.

“Precisely.”

“What makes you think we won’t get together out there and come back to clobber you?”

“The proposition is very simple. Only one of you will be alive at the end of forty-eight hours. Ah. You look puzzled. The better man will win and work for me. The odds will not be even, of course. I am not such an idealist in fair play as you Americans. Wells will have a rifle. You will have a knife. You will also have Madame Aspara to accompany you.”

“You’re setting me free?” Durell asked.

“Yes. On the island. Wells too. If he kills you, he will have proved himself to me. If you survive, you will be mine. You may be sure of that, Durell. You cannot survive long in the world with your own people against you. As for Wells, he has already accepted the injection I’ve given him.”

“What injection?”

“A drug of my own concoction.” Sinn smiled grimly. The strange obsidian eyes, like the eyes of some demon straight from hell, told Durell nothing. “The drug will be fatal in forty-eight hours. If Wells can return with your body then, he gets an antidote and lives. If he fails, he dies, anyway.”

Durell stared at the fat man. Wells stirred at last and smiled. Durell said. “Is it true, Willie?”

“It’s true. I think I can take you, Cajun.”

“In forty-eight hours?”

“Less than that, I hope.”

“You accepted his drug?”

“You heard him. In I bring your carcass in, I get the antidote and I’m safe. I work for him.”

“And if I hold out longer?”

Wells shrugged. “Then I’m a dead man. I was sent out to get you—orders directly from our mutual boss, Dickinson McFee. The little man was so mad at you for selling out, or for what he thought was a sellout, he decided you couldn’t be left running loose. So things have changed. We didn’t have all the factors then. We didn’t know about Dr. Sinn. But that’s the deal. It’s you or me. One of us lives.” Durell turned back to Dr. Sinn.

“How much of a start do I have?”

“Ten minutes. Madame Aspara is waiting outside for you. The guard there will give you a knife. Your ten minutes,” Sinn said, “begin right now.”

He did not seem to be hurrying as he went down the broad staircase and was ushered to the rear by the guards. After the long hours in the cell, the light outside struck him with blinding force. Waves of shimmering heat engulfed him. He saw Aspara waiting below the terrace. They had given her shorts and sandals and a white shirt. He didn’t like the white shirt. It would reflect light, be easily spotted. He realized he was already thinking in terms of the hunted, of being the quarry. No use wondering why Dr. Sinn had given Aspara into this game. The woman meant nothing to the fat man. Perhaps Sinn was amused by adding this handicap to everything else. He would have to think in other terms, Durell decided. He had to think of turning everything, anything, to his own advantage. Overlook nothing, miss no chance, no opportunity, to survive.

He began to appreciate the fat man’s irony. Dr. Mouquerana Sinn was playing on his one weakness—or so he thought. The drive, the will to survive. He had brought it all down to elemental basics. Kill or be killed. It was primitive but effective.

“Dear Sam—”

“Do you know what’s going on?” he asked harshly.

“Yes. But I cannot believe it—”

“You had better.” He turned to the guard. “I’m supposed to have a knife.”

“Djamana,” the man said. He gave Durell a sheathed hunting knife. “You had better start running.”

“Sam—” Aspara began again.

“You heard the man. Run.”

He pulled at her arm, but she hung back, her face pale, her mouth taut. “No. I’d only be responsible for your death. I’d slow you down. I can’t do it.”

“You used to hunt a little, didn’t you?”

“Long ago. As a young girl. We went to India—”

“Then let’s go.”

“But you needn’t help me—”

“Come,” he insisted.

She drew free and turned with him without looking back at the ruined palace. A footpath led down from the terrace toward a tall brake of wild bamboo. He ran quickly, seeking cover first, and the girl kept up with him in the heat, pacing herself with a light-footed speed that made her footfalls silent. In the bamboo, the path turned right, heading for the shoreline about half a mile away. He followed it, with Aspara behind him, and the bamboo soon gave way to a tangle of vines and shrubs. Another footpath crossed the first, and he turned left to head parallel to the shore, to where he had spotted the deserted village. Maybe something useful had been left there, somehow— something he could use as a weapon. Insects surged after them in thick, stinging clouds. The vines and creepers closed over their heads, making the path a ^dark-green, suffocating tunnel. He couldn’t see the palace from here. Which, in turn, meant he couldn’t be seen from there. He wished he had a watch. But when he judged that ten minutes had passed, he stepped off the footpath toward a dense patch of mangrove off to the right, closer to the shore.

“We’ll go this way,” he told Aspara. “We can’t make a sound from here on. Do you understand?”

She nodded, breathing lightly from their sprint. “He has a rifle?”

“Yes.”

“Would he really use it?”

‘'He’ll use it. He must, or he’ll never get the antidote to Sum’s poison that’s in his system.”

“And you? Will you kill him, if you can? He’s an American, a countryman—

“That makes no difference now.”

“But will you kill him?”

He said, “If I can, yes. Don’t talk now. Watch for my hand signals.”

She nodded, swallowing. “What do we do for water? And food?”

“Later.”

He turned away into the mangroves. Dark-green and black saltwater surged around the twisting, gnarled roots of the bushes. He stepped from one to the other, moving toward the beach. Aspara followed close behind. He estimated that Wells had started after him now. He could hear the lap of the tiny surf ahead and moved faster, ducking, twisting his body to avoid breaking any branches. He did not know how good a tracker Wells might be. Assume the best. Or worst. He really knew little of the man’s characteristics. Dogged, yes. His abilities as a fighting man had been honed sharp by his service as a mercenary in Africa. He found a small muddy ridge and started to step on it, then drew back, reluctant to leave prints. Aspara halted behind him.

“I can hear someone,” she breathed in his ear.

“He can’t have followed this fast.”

“It’s someone.”

He listened. He heard the beat of his pulse in his ear and drew in a long, slow breath of the sticky, humid sea air. He heard the lap and purl of the tropical tide on the sliver of sand ahead. Somewhere above and behind him, a branch broke. It was an animal. It had to be an animal.

He signaled to Aspara to follow him. She looked hesitant, appalled. “Come on.”

On the beach, he ran in the shallow water alongside the mangroves, spotting coconut palms ahead, perhaps a quarter of a mile away. The wall of mangroves screened them from the shore. Aspara ran lightly beside him through the shoals.

“Where?” she gasped. “For what?”

“You’ll see. Save your breath.”

They made it to the palm trees and turned inland across thick, rotting humus, cut across the point, came out through a cluster of wild oleander shrubs at the edge of the deserted fishing village. There were only half a dozen houses built with thatched roofs and eaves like ships’ prows, in Malay style. He pushed Aspara down until they crouched in the shelter of the greenery, watching. He couldn’t spot anyone. Beyond the little cluster of houses were the two fishing boats on the beach. He looked back up to the solitary knoll that crowned the island, where the palace stood. He could just make out the top of its walls above the jungle growth between them. Something flickered there, like glass reflecting sunlight. Was Mouquerana Sinn watching, waiting, enjoying the game he had begun? But it was not a game, Durell thought. It was in deadly earnest. He felt a little stir of warm air against his face. Already his mouth felt parched. But there would have to be a spring or a stream nearby, to account for the little fishing village that had once been established here.

“Sam—dear Sam,” Aspara whispered. “What are we going to do?”

“Find a safe place to hide,” he suggested. “No point in trying to run around and around the island for the next two days. We’ll snug down and let him come to us. Force him to make the move.”

“He’s clever and dangerous. If he finds us—”

“Then I’ll be waiting,” he said.

But not like this, he thought. Not with just the knife. He needed other tools, other weapons for survival. His mind moved ahead, considering the problems, turning it this way and that. He looked back and saw nothing but the wall of greenery, the narrow strip of sand, the nodding palms, the more distant mangroves they had just traversed. The smell of swamp mud touched his nostrils. A small breeze moved along his cheek, but it was as hot as the touch of an iron. On the still, placid sea, he saw a vagrant cat’s paw, and then it disappeared. When he drew a deep breath, it was like swallowing molten iron.

“Let’s go.”

The nearest fisherman’s house from the shelter of the oleanders was about fifty feet away. He got up and ran across the debris, with Aspara at his side. They reached the shadows of the far wall and threw themselves down in the deep shade cast by the westering sun. Nothing happened. A fish jumped in the sea nearby, splashing lightly, leaving widening circles of ripples. Another touch of hot, scorching breeze moved across his face. He eased forward on his belly, came up to the ladder that led into the sagging stilt house, and signaled Aspara to stay behind. He climbed fast, ducked inside. A smell of death and decay smote his nostrils. A dead dog lay in the back of the one-room house. The village had been vacated in a hurry, which was what he had hoped for. There was a clay oven for charcoal, an empty five-gallon can, a single ragged blanket. Mice scurried in the rotting thatchwork overhead. He picked up the can and the blanket, searched for a weapon, found nothing suitable, and climbed down again.

Aspara watched the line of brush beyond the house. “I thought I saw something.”

“Where?”

“There. But I’m not sure. Maybe it was a bird.”

“Maybe.”

He went through the village quickly, wasting no time. He had the feeling that Wells would try to get this over with in one fast effort, before settling down to the tedium of patient tracking and hunting later. The high-prowed boats on the beach on the other side of the village were all hulks, partly charred by deliberate fires, with holes stove in their sides. Useless. He looked for canoes, outriggers, in the brush. Nothing. He found an old paddle of solid teak, which he thought he could use as a club. He gave it to Aspara to carry for him. She took the blanket and the five-gallon can too, leaving his hands free for the knife, if necessary. The whole place, silently brooding in the heat of late afternoon, smelled of death. He didn’t like it. It made him uneasy. He let himself think with his instincts, his belly, rather than his brain. It was a primitive situation. He needed primitive reactions.