Assignment Helene Read online

  ONE

  The BOAC plane tilted and seemed to stand on one wing as it came down over the Salangap airport. For a moment the blazing blue of the sky merged with the crystal of the China Sea, then swept into the dense green of jungle and hogback mountains of Salangap’s interior. When the ship leveled off, the tin-roofed airfield shacks and sheds, hangars and waiting room, were directly ahead. The wheels touched down with a light squall of protesting rubber, and the plane was on the ground.

  Durell had searched for the Consulate car among those parked even before they landed, but he didn’t see anything that resembled it.

  Bettina Hansen, belted in her seat beside him, sighed and opened her topaz-brown eyes. “Well, we made it.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Hansen.”

  “Please, Sam. After this wild trip, we need not be formal.”

  “Sorry.” He smiled briefly, thinking of other things. “Are you all right now?”

  “Simply exhausted.”

  “It’s been a rugged trip for you, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, I asked for it. But it hasn’t been unusual for you, has it, Sam?” She touched his hand lightly. She had a habit of touching him whenever she could. “You’ve done this sort of thing before, haven’t you?”

  “Not under such unhappy circumstances,” he said quietly.

  Her topaz eyes sobered as if on cue. She was a great actress, Durell thought, greater off-stage than on. Bettina Hansen knew how to play every subtle stop on the vibrating organ of her emotions, and for the past seventy hours, since they had left autumnal Washington, she had rehearsed her role without pause, with Durell as the single, captive, and not very appreciative, audience. She was a little too coldly chiseled for his standards of beauty, too perfectly immaculate for his taste. She exhibited only the flaw of selfishness in her performance, and hinted at a lack of solid foundation under that. But even this was a studied illusion. Bettina Hansen hadn’t reached the pinnacle of theatrical success without having strength under her egotism, which was understandable in her business, and he knew there was quiet steel under the vapidity with which she tried to impress him.

  She looked soft and helpless and desirable, but he knew she was strong, not helpless at all. Her desirable attributes were only too evident. He was aware of them all. He couldn’t help himself, the way they had been thrown together intimately these past three days.

  “Do you suppose,” she said, “that Wayne will meet us?”

  “I should think so.” The plane was taxiing to the concrete apron, and already the heavy, oppressive heat of Salangap made itself felt in the ship’s cabin. “Someone will be here, anyway.”

  “It’s been such a beastly trip—so sudden—so shocking . . .”

  He played her game without objection. “Are you sure you feel well enough now?”

  “Oh, I'll be all right. Thank you, Sam. You’ve been wonderful.”

  “You can thank the Air Force, and SAC, for most of that.”

  They had flown from Washington to Tokyo by SAC bomber, an incredibly smooth, fast trip that squeezed the global reaches of the world into an illusory span of hours. From Tokyo they had used the BOAC commercial flights to Hong Kong and Singapore, and then flown east again over the South China Sea to the island republic of Salangap. Durell had travelled like this before, but usually it was alone, with an adequate cover that didn’t indulge in the risk of a civilian alongside to weaken his story.

  Under the circumstances, however, it would be all right. His papers as the new Economic Attache to the Salangap Consulate made his presence on the island seem reasonable. The fact that he came, too, as the escort for the widow was also acceptable. He did not expect trouble over it, but he reserved judgment, as he usually did; and took nothing for granted. It was one way of staying alive a little longer, in his business.

  He wished his instructions had not been so hurried and brief. Dickinson McFee, Chief of K Section at No. 20 Annapolis Street, in Washington, hadn’t wasted words.

  “You knew Greg Hansen, didn’t you, Sam?”

  Durell nodded. “I knew his son better.”

  “Anyway, Greg has been our Consul at Salangap— and his back yard is a mess. We’ve got an urgent cable from Bakitra—the capital of that new island republic. Somebody from the Consulate in Salangap, or some American—oilman, importer, government person—has been helping smuggle arms to the rebel Xu Bhien, run by that General Trang. As far as State can determine, the Xu Bhien is just one of those jungle gangster outfits similar to those that used to plague the Viets.”

  “No political aims, just opportunism,” Durell said.

  McFee nodded. “State has to define policy, but Bakitra is getting urgent about what they call our ‘interference.’ Salangap is a strategic spot, Sam. We’re playing it by ear. You know the Secretary’s policy—strict and careful neutrality. But one of our people over there is throwing monkey wrenches around.”

  “But Hansen’s a capable man,” Durell objected. “He’s right on the spot. Can’t he clean it up?”

  “He’s dead. Somebody stuck a knife in his gut.” McFee spoke flatly. He was a small man with a great deal of personal presence. “Our cable from Twill, the Acting Consul in Salangap now, is that the Bakitra people think it’s strictly our own affair—one of our nationals being responsible. You’ll have to move fast.”

  “That may not be easy.”

  “Find out who killed Hansen. Nail that arms-smuggler. The two things are tied together. We had a coded message from Hansen that the thing was ready to be cleaned up—and then nothing else. Maybe that’s why he was killed.”

  “If Hansen had evidence, maybe the Xu Bhien did it to silence him.”

  “We’re too far away to know. You get out there and nail it down, right? You’ll have company on the trip, by the way.” McFee’s small, gray figure moved impatiently. “It’s the widow. Greg’s wife, after refusing to live with him for five years, is suddenly anxious to escort the body home. Publicity, maybe. Great, sympathetic story for our actress. You’ll have to take her along, though.”

  Durell had grinned. “No sweat there. She’s a doll.”

  “A greedy one. Probably anxious to pocket Hansen’s oil royalties. Still, she’s always front-page news, so watch your step.”

  “My pleasure,” Durell had said.

  McFee had tossed dossiers at him—on Hansen, Wayne Twill, the Acting Consul, on a Dr. Hugo Van Arden, a Fred Stanier.

  “These are the people to check. All Americans resident in Salangap. Stanier and Van Arden were both at the Consulate the night of the murder. The local security police can’t pin anything down, but they have ideas. You could cooperate with Salangap or not, as you please.”

  Durell was puzzled. “I’ve read Van Arden’s books on peace, banning the H-bomb, international brotherhood. He’s a sort of Asian Dr. Schweitzer. He pulls a lot of weight. How can he be involved in murder?”

  “We don’t know. But he was on the scene.”

  “And Stanier? I seem to remember that name—”

  “Old OSS agent. Went into the hills and organized Dakut guerillas against the Japs. Gone native now; too much women and liquor. He had a quarrel with Hansen the night of the murder, according to Twill’s cable. Stanier may be just the adventurer type to smuggle arms to the Xu Bhien—playing with ar rebellion for kicks. You take it easy, Sam. It might be nasty as hell.”

  “I’ll have the widow to comfort me,” Durell had grinned.

  Over the Salangap airport buildings were signs in Dutch, French, Chinese and English, reflecting the passing tides of empire that had ruled Salangap in the past century, and also notably ignoring the native Salangapese. Bettina Hansen stood up gracefully as the ramp was lowered and they filed down to the ground.

&n
bsp; The heat, the smells, the dense, humid, tropic air struck them like the blow of a fist. Bettina promptly delved into her white purse for gaudy, erratic-shaped sunglasses, studded with rhinestones, and put them on her small, straight nose. Durell, walking behind her, admired the magnificent articulation of her smooth walk. She reminded him of a small, graceful cat, all tans, lemons, bronzes and white. Her hair was cut in the artfully shaggy Italian style, a dark blonde with touches of red in it. Her round face was young and innocent, serene under her public grief, smoothly tanned. Her white tropical suit fitted the curves and hollows of her moving body in a way that suggested much, but offered little. He wished he could see her great, golden eyes at that moment. But he knew they would be hard and searching, touched with an excitement that had nothing to do with her murdered husband, the former U.S. Consul to Salangap, Gregory Jay Hansen.

  “I don’t see Wayne,” she said. Then: “Lordie, I didn’t think it would be this hot.”

  “Come this way,” Durell suggested. He led her to the crudely screened, tin-roofed waiting room that was once part of a bombed-out Dutch airfield, used by the Japs during four years of occupation, and only recently restored to useful service. “How long have you known the Acting Consul?”

  “Wayne Twill? I didn’t say I knew him—”

  “But you do.” Durell smiled. “You always use his first name.”

  “Well, but—” She smiled in return, a brief flicker of neon, artful, bright, and utterly artificial. “How much do you know about me, Sam?”

  “Only what the average theater-goer knows.”

  “Nonsense. You must know more than that.”

  Durell thought of the dossier he had studied back in Washington. “Really very little, Mrs. Hansen. But you do know Wayne Twill, don’t you?”

  “Of course. We’re old friends.”

  “Well, that should make things easier for you.”

  “A little. If that awful man hadn’t killed poor Greg—”

  “It was just a boy,” Durell said. “A Malay boy.”

  “Murdered—for no reason at all—”

  “We don’t know the reasons yet. The boy is dead—he died quickly. I understand Twill shot him down before he got away from the Consulate.”

  “Yes.” Bettina shuddered delicately. “But how can you compare one life with another like that? As if they had the same value? A crazy, illiterate, murderous savage, and a fine humanitarian like Greg?”

  They had discussed this before, and Durell knew he could not crack the veneer she had chosen to hide what she really thought. He gave it up as they entered the confusion of the waiting room. There was no point, of course, in asking if she had loved her husband. The fact that she had chosen a career that kept her a world away from Greg Hansen spoke for itself.

  Salangap had been the island’s provincial capital when it was under successive Dutch and French rule. But with independence and the recent inauguration of the republic, the seat of government had been transferred a hundred miles away, to the opposite coast facing the Celebes Sea, in Bakitra. Salangap now tended to wither on the vine, but the Consulate here was kept open as an arm of the Embassy in Bakitra, giving full recognition to the young and struggling Central Government.

  Bettina Hansen murmured something, her mouth petulant with discomfort, and then moved off toward the rudimentary rest rooms after asking Durell to order her a cool drink at the bar. Durell moved that way. He did not miss the presence of khaki-clad, youthful troops in G.I. surplus uniforms, armed with Sten guns and long Malay kris, who lounged in whatever shade was available nearby. A stake body truck delivered a fresh squad as he looked out through the screens at the glare of sunlight furiously baking the earth and the dense green jungle on either side of the landing strip. There was even a light tank, rusty and ancient, a relic of the Japanese invasion, but still serviceable.

  Durell sensed tension in the steamy atmosphere, but there was nothing specific he could put his finger on, and he stood still for a moment, seeking its source. He was a big man, tall, with powerful shoulders under his white tropical suit. His hair was thick and black, touched on one temple with premature gray. He had a small, thin moustache, carefully trimmed, and the dark blue eyes of a man accustomed to looking at far distances and seeing sudden danger.

  Danger, in Durell's business, was something you accepted daily, like the sunrise. Distances, in his job, were often global, reaching into the strange alleys and byways of the world’s violent cities. He was the sort of man who never turned a corner or opened a door thoughtlessly.

  He had lived with danger ever since beginning his work in K Section of the CIA, and it had gone on for longer than he cared to remember. He had adjusted, as one of a select team of trouble-shooters for the State Department, to a world of dark shadows and whispered lies. He knew that this had changed him, and made him different from other men, but he would have laughed at anyone who called him dedicated, or patriotic beyond reason. If anything, he was more of a humanitarian now, more devoted to mankind in every corner of the globe, more obsessed by the need for human rights and dignity everywhere. He never expressed this to anyone, because these were tilings that were awkward to talk about in a cynical world, and usually he pushed aside these thoughts with irritation, as evidence of a weakness that might prove fatal.

  He never went anywhere without knowing if he was being followed. He never missed awareness of being under observation by curious, and usually hostile eyes.

  He was being watched now.

  He took his time. He ordered a gin and lime for Bettina, searched the rack of bottles behind the bar tended by a Cantonese, and was pleased to spot American bourbon. He ordered a short drink over ice for himself, and the Cantonese did his job quickly. There was no mirror behind the bar. When he continued to feel the scrutiny of interested eyes, he turned and saw the man.

  The watcher wore a khaki shirt and trousers in something that resembled a casual uniform. He was one of those curious Southeast Asian mixtures, Chinese, Annamese, perhaps some Malay. He was very thin, middle-aged, although this was difficult to pin down; and he had a smooth brown face and very intense, very intelligent black eyes. His hair was thick and gray.

  The watcher met Durell’s eye blandly and nodded and came to stand beside him at the airport bar.

  “Mynheer Durell?” He spoke English with a Dutch accent. “Permit me, please. I am Simeon Dak. Inspector Dak, of the local constabulary.”

  Durell shook hands. Dak’s grip was smooth, strong and cool. “You were waiting for me?” Durell asked.

  “Naturally. The Acting Consul, Mr. Wayne Twill, will be a few moments late. But he will arrive soon to take your charming companion to the Consulate.’’ Simeon Dak paused, smiled, looked at Durell’s drink. “Bourbon? Ah, yes. A favorite drink of South Americans.”

  “Not exactly. It’s popular in the American south.”

  “Yes. In Louisiana. Of course.”

  A small alarm rang silently in the back of Durell’s head. “You know I’m from Louisiana?”

  “You seem surprised, mynheer.”

  “You’re very efficient,” Durell said.

  “And this surprises you? We are not entirely ignorant here.” Dak’s lean face, in which the bones seemed like paper under the brown skin, changed apologetically. “Pardon me. I did not mean to sound like an anti-colonialist. One falls into a pattern of thinking and applies it without discrimination. It was not polite of me. Please, you are to consider yourself most welcome in Salangap. You understand, we hope to cooperate with you in every possible way in your investigation.”

  “I’m the new Economic Attaché,” Durell said.

  “Pardon me, I understand that. May I buy you another drink?”

  “Not just now.”

  “Then later, perhaps. You will wish to discuss poor Mr. Hansen’s death with me, I am sure.”

  “I’m curious, of course,” Durell said. “It would be interesting to learn what your constabulary has discovered. That is, if there was an
ything more to know, beyond the published facts.”

  “Perhaps you will come to my headquarters,” Simeon Dak suggested. “There is quite a bit that you should know, mynheer.”

  Durell put aside his bourbon. “Is this an invitation, or a command?”

  “Pardon me, only an invitation, mynheer,” Dak said quickly. “But it is one that I feel you will accept.”

  “Right now?”

  “When you have discharged your obligations to Mrs. Hansen.”

  “I think,” Durell said, “I'll have another drink, after all. Will you join me?”

  “Just lime juice for me,” Simeon Dak said.

  Durell felt a certain anger and annoyance lift in him, but nothing showed in his calm face. His anger was not aimed at Inspector Dak, nor could it find a specific objective as yet. It was this curious leak in security, the loose word and careless gesture, that could mean the difference between life and death to him.

  He knew it was no coincidence, and not mere official courtesy, that made Dak single him out like this. The man’s words implied a knowledge of who Durell was and why he was here. The cover of his identity as an Economic Attache was torn to ribbons before he had even begun to work. Nothing overt needed to be said between Dak and himself. He knew at once that they were in the same business. What remained to be decided was whether they were on the same side, or enemies.

  Sweat trickled down the back of his neck and soaked his shirt collar. The wooden fans in the beamed ceiling of the screened shed of the waiting room did nothing to dispel the steamy heat. Beyond the screens of the cafe, where the Chinese drank their tea and the Europeans looked worried and impatient, the airfield was a blinding glare of crushing light, incredibly hot. He looked back at Inspector Simeon Dak.

  He liked the man. He felt an empathy toward him, both in what had been said and what had not been said.

  Dak spoke again in his accented English. “Of course, it would not be wise to have Mrs. Hansen accompany us. Not pleasant for her in her bereavement, and it would simply enlarge her grief. We still have the body.”

  “But he was killed four days ago,” Durell said. “In this climate—”