Spy Who Read Latin: And Other Stories (6 page)

Her companion was a grumbling man with a sinister face that seemed perpetually twisted into a frown. Lanning took one look at him and whispered to Rand, “Now that fellow could pass for a Turkish assassin any day of the week!”

But it was the coffin more than anything else which attracted attention to the odd pair. A series of adjoining seats had been removed from the rear of the plane’s passenger compartment, and six stocky baggage handlers helped carry a full-sized coffin on board. There was a noticeable stir among the passengers, and one man was even about to leave the plane. The pert young stewardess moved up and down the aisle, assuring everyone that the coffin did not really contain a body.

Rand glanced out the window at the morning mists that drifted across the field. Then, as he watched, the big jet engines came to life and the plane began to move. He glanced at his watch. It was 8:20 a.m., Japan time. They were right on schedule.

When they had reached their cruising altitude, Rand unbuckled his seatbelt and moved across the aisle to speak to the handsome brunette with the coffin.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but I must admit that my curiosity has the better of me. If there’s no body inside, what is in it?”

She smiled up at him. “Sit down. Join us. It’s been so long since I’ve heard a real British accent.”

“Thank you.”

She introduced the sinister, grumbly man by the window. “This is Dr. Hardan, my associate. I am Yota Twain.”

“My name is Rand. This is my first trip in the Far East, and I’m not accustomed to coffins sharing the passenger quarters on an airline.”

She laughed, a musical blending of two cultures. “It is rare, and we had to obtain special permission.”

“You still haven’t told me what’s inside that couldn’t be trusted to the baggage compartment.”

“And I’m afraid I can’t.” She made a pretty face. “It’s secret!”

“Classified material,” the frowning Dr. Hardan said. “Can’t talk.”

“I think it’s a body after all,” Rand said, smiling.

“Perhaps it is,” she agreed. “Perhaps I’m a witch, Mr. Rand, and it is the body of something very old, very dangerous. A monster of sorts.” She was smiling as she spoke, but somehow her words were not humorous. Rand felt a chill down his spine.

“You’re British?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Half, on my father’s side. The other side—well, a mixture of things. The dark ways of the Orient. I’ve never been to England. Is it damp and dreary?”

“Not really. Though there’s usually a time every winter when all your friends have colds. I’m used to it, I suppose. I like it.”

“What are you doing on a flight to Moscow?”

“Asking questions of ladies with coffins.”

“A journalist?”

“Of sorts.” He motioned toward the back of Shoju’s head. “My friend over there is a real one. I’ll bet he could find out what’s in your coffin.”

She smiled again. “You can see for yourself at Customs. We’ll have to open it then.”

“The great unveiling.”

“Yes.” She glanced at her watch, an expensive timepiece with a jeweled face. “This is a very long flight.”

“Exactly four thousand six hundred and sixty-three airline miles.” Rand liked to impress smiling ladies with his knowledge. “Even nonstop like this it takes over ten hours. It’ll be one o’clock this afternoon when we land in Moscow, counting the six hours we gain.”

“A walking timetable!”

“A sitting one right now, but I do have to get back to my own seat. I’ll talk to you later. Nice to have met you, and Dr. Hardan.” The frowning man nodded slightly.

Rand resumed his seat next to Mrs. Belgrave. Lanning and Shoju were in the seats behind them. “Did you have an interesting chat, Mr. Rand?” asked Mrs. Belgrave.

“Didn’t learn a thing,” he reported. “She says there’s a monster in the coffin, and that she’s a witch.”

“She said that?”

“More or less. Why?”

Mrs. Belgrave pursed her lips. “I was watching that coffin when we took off. I could have sworn it moved.”

“Vibrations.”

“No. More than that. And six men to carry it on! It must weigh three hundred pounds!”

“Maybe it’s a body after all.”

“A live body, Mr. Rand. Do you suppose they’re Russian agents, kidnaping someone and taking him back to Moscow against his will?”

“I doubt that.”

“I would have doubted that Gordon could be arrested as a spy.”

“That’s a bit different.”

“Do we really know these Russians, Mr. Rand? Do we know what they want, what they’re up to?”

“Perhaps they’re only afraid,” he said. “Like us.”

It was a long trip, without even the time-killing relaxation of the in-flight movies provided on trans-Atlantic flights. By the time nine hours had passed, Rand and the others had pulled down the window shades against the noonday sun and were dozing fitfully. Rand was aware of Mrs. Belgrave leaving her seat at one point, making her way toward the rest rooms at the rear of the aircraft.

It was a sound like a cough that awakened him finally, and even then he did not know what had caused it. He glanced around, saw Mrs. Belgrave making her way back down the aisle, saw Shoju and Lanning both dozing in the seats behind him. He got up to stretch his legs and speak to Yota Twain again, but she was not in her seat. Dr. Hardan was alone, his face buried in a Russian-language newspaper.

He found Yota in the rear of the plane, bent over the coffin like some daytime vampire, and once more he felt the chill on his spine. “Checking body temperature?” he asked.

“It would be quite low,” she replied, smiling. Then, standing up, she added, “Our journey is almost over.”

“None too soon.”

“Have you looked out the window? At the snow? It’s quite a sight with the sun on it.”

“Even in the summer Siberia holds little interest for me.”

“This is the Urals. We’re passing over them now.”

“I’ll look,” he promised.

“Rand!” He turned and saw that Lanning was motioning to him. Something was wrong—Lanning had lost his coolness.

“What is it?” Rand asked, hurrying up the aisle.

Lanning turned open the jacket of Shoju’s suit, showing the widening circle of blood. “Rand—he’s been wounded somehow! I think—”

Rand bent to feel Shoju’s pulse, then lifted one eyelid. “He’s dead,” he said simply. “He’s been murdered.”

Lanning stared hard at the body in the seat next to him, as if unable to comprehend Rand’s words. “But—I was right here all the time! How could he have been murdered?”

Rand avoided the most obvious answer and examined the wound more closely. “It looks like a bullet,” he said. “Did you hear a shot?”

“Nothing! I was dozing, but a shot would certainly have awakened me.”

“Maybe not,” Rand said, remembering now the quiet cough which had awakened him. A silenced pistol, perhaps further muffled by a pillow. With the passengers dozing and the stewardesses busy, no one had noticed. “Have a stewardess report it to the pilot. He should radio ahead and have police waiting at Moscow airport. The gun must still be on the plane.”

“What is it?” Mrs. Belgrave wanted to know. She had returned to her seat without realizing anything was amiss.

“There’s been some trouble. Shoju is dead.”

“No!”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “What will happen to Gordon now?”

“I don’t think it will make his situation worse,” Rand told her.

“But why kill Shoju just because he heard Gordon’s confession?”

“I don’t know. But somebody was certainly intent on getting Shoju out of the way. When the killer failed at the office, he followed Shoju aboard the plane.”

Lanning glanced up and down the rows of seats at their fellow passengers. “The Turkish assassin—Sivas?”

“Maybe,” Rand agreed. “Mrs. Belgrave, did you notice anyone else in the aisle when you went to the rest room?”

“Only that woman, back there with her coffin.”

Some of the other passengers were beginning to group around them now, and a stewardess had arrived. Dr. Hardan came across the aisle to look, and Rand asked him, “Are you a medical doctor?”

“I—no. What has happened?”

“A man’s been killed.” He saw Yota hurrying up to join them, and he moved down the aisle past her. While they were busy looking at the body he’d have a few minutes alone with the mysterious coffin.

Rand dropped to his knees beside the polished wooden box and pressed his ear against it. There might have been a sound from inside, but he couldn’t be sure. He took a deep breath and began to unscrew the bolts that held the lid in place.

“No!
Keep away from there
!” Yota Twain flew down the aisle at him, her little fists clenched. “Don’t open that!”

“I’m sorry,” Rand said, trying to fight her off. “I have to open it. A man’s been murdered. The weapon may have been hidden in here.”

“There’s no weapon! Don’t open it!”

“Lanning! Keep her off me, will you?”

The CIA man had appeared behind Yota, and now he grabbed her arms, pinning them to her side. “Calm down, Miss.”

“You don’t understand! If you lift that lid—”

Rand twirled the last bolt free and began to raise the lid, slowly, mindful of a bomb or booby trap.

But the thing that faced him as he lifted the lid was much older than a bomb, and perhaps more dangerous. Their eyes met for just an instant, and then the ancient scaly jaws began to open slowly.

The thing in the coffin was a crocodile.

“I wish you’d listened to me,” Yota told him when the lid had been screwed down again. “It upsets him to have it opened like that.”

“It upset me a bit too,” Rand agreed. “Suppose you explain.”

“It’s not at all that unusual, Mr. Rand. Crocodiles are sometimes shipped between zoos in coffins, simply because it’s such a perfect container for them. This particular specimen is a Philippine crocodile, almost fully grown. We’re transferring him from the Tokyo zoo to the Moscow zoo, for mating with a female they have there.”

“You couldn’t tell us this before, Miss Twain?”

She smiled. “My real name is Dr. Yota Nobea, professor of zoology at Tokyo University. I have close ties with the zoo. And no, we couldn’t tell you this, Mr. Rand. Passengers would have been just as disturbed flying with a live crocodile as with a dead body, I’m afraid.”

Rand glanced back at Shoju’s seat. “Now they have both, I’m afraid. I suppose Dr. Hardan is a zoologist too.”

“That’s correct. He’s worked closely with me on the crocodile-mating project.”

“Why would anyone want to mate crocodiles?”

She shrugged. “It is an occupation much preferred to the killing of people, Mr. Rand.”

Lanning came up from the front of the plane, carrying a Llama automatic wrapped in a handkerchief. “We found the murder weapon, Rand. It was stuffed into an empty seat. Anyone could have put it there during the excitement just now. Here’s the silencer, too.”

“Could this be the gun that killed the man in Shoju’s office?”

“Same caliber. Yes, it could be.”

“Then Sivas is on this plane?”

“Sivas or someone else.” Lanning tried to grin. “I don’t go much for mysterious Turkish assassins myself. Sometimes life is a lot simpler.”

Rand stepped away so that Yota could not hear his answer. “Someone doesn’t want Belgrave freed. Could it be his wife?”

“I’ll buy anything at this point, Rand, if you can come up with a motive and evidence.”

The plane was beginning its descent. A voice on the intercom instructed the passengers to fasten their seat-belts. In a few moments they would be on the ground at Moscow airport.

Rand had been waiting for the better part of two hours in the high-ceilinged Kremlin office before Taz made his appearance. He was as Rand remembered him from Paris—middle-aged, with a thin face, pointed jaw, and deep blue eyes. His graying hair swept back from his forehead, and his thin fingers played nervously with the metal buttons of his jacket.

“Ah, my friend Rand!” He extended his hand in greeting, speaking the same accented English that Rand remembered from their previous meetings. “I am so sorry to keep you waiting like this, but your flight from Tokyo has complicated our lives. The murder of a news reporter is not to be taken lightly.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Rand wished he had a cigarette.

“But the killing is out of my hands. You come to discuss the arrest of the spy Belgrave, no?”

“No. Belgrave’s no spy and you know it, Taz.”

“I do
not
know it, my friend. He has confessed, and we have the evidence.”

“I’d like to see that evidence.”

Taz smiled slightly and untied a folder he’d been carrying. “I like to anticipate you. I especially like it when we are deciphering your messages.”

Rand frowned. This was, in some ways, a new Taz—a man supremely confident. “We’re pretty good at anticipating too,” he countered lamely. “Now, let’s see this evidence.”

Taz spread the telegraph forms on the desk between them. There were six in all, made up of familiar five-character cipher groups. Rand scanned one at random: 3H9J4 WBRD1 SQ25F MILT7 6G8RP. “You’ve deciphered it?” he asked Taz.

“In essence. After he confessed, Belgrave read the rest for us. A SYKO cipher, of course. I suspected as much when I saw the mixture of numerals and letters.”

“Were these actually sent?”

“Of course not!” Taz chuckled at the very thought of it. “Russian telegraph offices could hardly be expected to transmit enciphered messages.”

“Exactly!” Rand pointed out. “So what did Belgrave hope to gain by trying to send them? If he’d discovered any secrets it would have been much safer to carry them back to America inside his head.”

“The fact remains that he confessed. And without torture.”

“The only witness to that is dead now.”

“The Japanese?” Taz dismissed him with a wave of the hand. “I was a witness to it. Do you not accept my word?”

Rand looked into the deep blue eyes. “I do,” he said at last.

“Then what else is there to discuss? The man was caught trying to send enciphered messages, and he confessed to being an American spy.”

“Spying on what? On your new SUM missile?”

“The particular nature of his espionage is not important.”