Assignment The Girl in the Gondola Read online

  Chapter One

  He was dying. With him would die those of the past whose seed culminated in him, and all the millions of the future. Dying, he would take with him all those of the present whose agony would blight his soul with guilt for the disaster.

  His name was General Giuliano Virgilio della Pollini. It rolled proudly, with bitter amusement, through the corridors of his mind, an ancient name among the Roman Veneti who had fled the barbarians and founded, in these marshes, the gold and pink city of emerald canals known as Venice.

  His ancestors had been merchants, doges, cardinals, admirals. He had carried them on his shoulders all his life, sometimes as burdens, sometimes as brave epaulets. Rich and poor, generous and cruel, scholar and knave, or the murdering judge in his black robe on his black throne. He knew them all. He had lived with them in this crowded palazzo most of his life.

  Pollini opened his eyes and looked at his murderer. He felt no pain. His thoughts were remarkably clear.

  "It was useless and unnecessary," he whispered.

  "I think not. I am sorry."

  "But you made me think you were my friend!"

  "It was what you wished to think, old man."

  His murderer had no substance; there was only a shadow, sliding behind the huge carved bed where he sprawled. The knife was in his belly, thrust there with an expert, unique stroke, and he dared not move. There was no pain.

  "You have some time, Giuliano. Why not talk to me?"

  "About what?"

  "How much did you say when you betrayed me by telephoning, the moment my back was turned, the moment I began to trust you? We could have been rich; we could have been safe."

  Pollini wanted to laugh. He closed his eyes. The brief silence stretched into a clamoring emptiness, and his murderer's next words, impassioned, accusing, came so rapidly he. could not distinguish their meaning.

  No matter. Strange, when all his life had been harrowed by fear, even in that disastrous Albanian campaign of 1940, that he should die now in his ancestral bed. He felt warm, comfortable. His thoughts drifted outward. He could see the huge, somber room, the corridors of the palazzo and the beauties of his beloved Venice in this spring season. He had always been a gentle man, even timid, enduring positions of command and violence. But he had tried not to disgrace his illustrious name. To die by an assassin's hand was nothing new in his family.

  "Why are you smiling?" his murderer asked angrily.

  "You are beaten. I defeated you," Pollini said. "At last I did something to justify my life. I have saved millions of innocent people from your schemes of death."

  "Have you, really?"

  Pollini coughed, and felt a stab of pain in his belly; it frightened him. "I could not endure what you told me. It was not a secret to be kept between us. I called the NATO agent, the liaison man with my Defense Ministry—"

  "Did you?"

  "I tried—I think—and then you came back and interrupted me. Ah, you became so angry! Enough to kill me!"

  "So I have, General. You are confused."

  "Perhaps, but—it is so difficult—"

  There was soft laughter. "I asked you for help, for old time's sake. You were not interested. You were rich and safe. So I told you even more. And your foolish idealism led you to betray me, eh? But you will not stop me."

  "There will be no surprise, no sudden deaths—!"

  "You are a fool, old man."

  True, he had always been foolish. General Pollini had not been bright as a youth or clever as a man. The blood of his family had long ago run too thin for survival.

  The big house on the Rii Giacommini was quiet. There was no traffic on the canal. Dimly he heard the mutter of the motoscafos at San Marco's, the mecca of tourists already swarming down from the colder countries of Europe; even some early Americans were to be seen on the Riva delgi Schiavoni, knowing the best season for his beloved Venice.

  He had always adored the city, its beauty and age, riches and poverty, the fine palaces and filthy tenements, the gracious canals and the tiny alleys and squares. He loved the heat of summer and the misty light that had inspired Titian and Veronese, so many centuries ago. And this huge house, this warren of medieval rooms decked with faded glories from the past, and the water-level dungeons of the Renaissance. Even now, his wife, unsuspecting, entertained diplomats in the intimate suite she had decorated to her French taste. He heard the murmur of their distant voices and he smiled again, hugging to himself the secret of his dying.

  "My dear General..." his murderer insisted.

  Pollini opened his eyes. From the four-poster bed where he sprawled he could see his reflection in the tall, gilt mirrors, repeated into infinity, along with the plaster cupids in the ceiling corners and the trompe-Voeil panels on the walls. There was the gilded chair and the huge leather desk that had belonged to the Doge Imperiale Pollini himself, back in the fifteenth century. And the Doge's portrait, all umbers and blacks, long of nose, severe and cruel of eye and mouth, draped in the ebony robes of his ruling office.

  He had seized the moment when a servant came, and his visitor, unwilling to be seen, had to step into the next room. That was the instant when he decided to inform someone of what he had been told. There had been time to call Harris, the American NATO attache right here in Venice. But had Harris understood? Harris suggested he call Rome, the Defense Ministry; the American seemed unsure as to the proper channel for the problem—Pollini knew his own words had been garbled. He always lost control under stress, and he was too old for such things now. Perhaps Harris thought he'd had too much champagne, or a nightmare. So he had reached, reluctantly, for he was still not sure of the validity of what he knew, and he did not wish to appear a fool—he had reached for the red telephone, the one for ultimate crisis. Someone had to know of the appalling plot, whether it was true or not. But that was when the murderer had returned from the next room and surprised him with his hand on the red phone. The knife came so quickly; the blow was so shocking, the upward thrust, the incredible hissing tear of tissues being spitted on steel inside his belly. . . .

  The red telephone was beyond reach now.

  "General, you were so unwise. I trusted you, and you betrayed me. Now you have only a little time. It is an old but special trick with the blade, eh? How much did you tell Harris? I heard you speak his name."

  Pollini groaned. "How could I keep your secret, and still be a man? I told Harris enough—enough to beat you."

  "We could have been safe and rich and far away—"

  "With the world destroyed four days from now?"

  "Not all of it. Only our enemies."

  Pollini got up from the bed.

  The moment he moved, he coughed. And when he coughed, the blood gushed scarlet from his nose and mouth and splashed the silk coverlet where he had sprawled. The enormity of his death angered him. He was seventy, but he did not wish to end on his hands and knees. Slowly, he crawled to the Doge's desk and the telephone once more.

  His murderer walked quietly, curiously, beside him.

  The floor was a vast, featureless plain. He coughed again, a gush of bright red that puddled under his trembling, splayed hands. The desk soared beyond reach. Pollini breathed heavily, feeling deep pain where the knife had been so cleverly thrust He felt regret He had looked forward to this season in Venice. Now, because he had been told a tale of enormous danger, he was dying.

  To cry for help was beyond his strength. And who would hear him? In all the vast reaches of his magnificent palazzo, there was no one to reach or aid him now.

  He began to weep.

  "Whom do you want to call now?" his murderer asked, with amused curiosity.

  "An American. No
t Harris," Pollini whispered. "A man named Sam Durell. He will stop you. He will—"

  He reached for the telephone. The murderer moved it an inch from his trembling fingers. He tried again. This time the effort tore something loose inside him, and there was an eruption of blood and pain in his belly, an explosion of warmth that quickly faded and yielded to an eternal chill.

  And General Giuliano Virgilio della Pollini died.

  Chapter Two

  Durell had been in his apartment in the Penzione Murelli three days since his arrival in Venice, and he was tired of his enforced privacy. The last time here, he had enjoyed the Hotel Danieli, next to the Doge's Palace on the Riva degli Schiavoni, with a view across the lagoon to the Campanile of St. Giorgio Maggiore. The Murelli had little of that nature to offer. It was small, on a narrow canal, modest. It had a view, however, as he had discovered shortly after he had checked in.

  The view was of Ursula, and it lightened the burden of his waiting.

  To wait patiently was not only a virtue in his business, it was often a matter of life and death. Ursula made it easier. She was an artist, and she was usually on the next balcony overlooking the uninspired little canal that the Penzione Murelli offered. He hadn't made much headway with her. His natural caution, ingrained through long years in his business, was almost a reflex. Yet a man couldn't stay cooped up in his room in Venice, in the spring, without getting restless. Especially when someone like Signorina Ursula was next door and almost always in sight.

  She might not be an accident, and he automatically put a tracer on Signorina Ursula through Zuccamella's files. Nothing had come of it yet. Interpol said she was innocent. Innocent, that is, from their peculiarly narrow view of life.

  She'd claimed to be an art student, the time they had breakfast together. Not exactly together, Durell corrected himself. They had appeared simultaneously on their adjacent balconies over the terrace; they had nodded formally and then fallen into the usual, banal conversation of strangers meeting in an exciting, foreign city.

  For the three days while he waited for Harris to call, he had nothing more to think about except Ursula. All the beauty and mystery of Venice was compressed for him into Ursula, and the narrow hallways, balconies, and wisteria vines of the Penzione Murelli. It was Harry Harris' show, anyway—this business of an Albanian refugee named Shkoe-der, and the murder of Italy's Defense Minister, Pollini. Until Shkoeder came out of hiding and explained why he had been visiting Pollini, it was best to lie low and wait.

  At eight o'clock on the third evening he went out on his balcony. The fine weather was changing, since his flight here via BEA from London where NATO had contacted K Section of the Central Intelligence Agency, and asked for liaison in the matter of Gregori Shkoeder, the defecting Albanian who might have something useful to say to NATO. This evening it looked like rain, and a chill wind from the south crumpled the Adriatic like blue tissue paper.

  "Buon sera," the girl said.

  She had her palette and easel on the iron-railed balcony that dripped with wisteria, next to his. Below was the dining terrace on the narrow canal. The light was fading, but she applied herself with industry to her canvas. She was not very good, but her concentration was enormous.

  "Good evening, Ursula," he said in English.

  She smiled. She had a full, square mouth with very soft lips and square, strong teeth. Her eyes were the color of fine topaz. Her black hair was cut short, boyishly. "You sleep a lot, Sam. Are you the tired businessman on a restful vacation?"

  He thought her accent was delightful "Not exactly."

  "Oh, but you are so mysterious." She looked vexed. "One would think you were hiding from someone. Or something. A wife who chases you, perhaps?"

  "I have no wife."

  "Some other woman, then?"

  "No." He smiled. "Unfortunately."

  "But you never go out. Not for three days."

  "I'd go out with you," Durell said.

  "Ah, but we have not decided on that as yet."

  "When will you decide?"

  She laughed and tossed her head and bit the end of her brush between her strong teeth. Her eyes looked pale and golden. "Some time soon, perhaps. You attract me too much, you see. I do not wish to make a hasty judgment about you."

  "And you are too lovely to wait for cool judgments," he said, smiling in return.

  "Are you lonely?"

  "Often," he admitted.

  "Oh, I do not understand you. You are not an American gangster, are you, hiding from the police?"

  "Of course not."

  "Are you then a policeman?"

  "What makes you think of such things, Ursula? I'm a businessman, that's all."

  "Not an ordinary one. There is about you a look of— how shall I say it?—oh, of someone who is very dangerous."

  "Not to you, Ursula."

  She considered her canvas, her young, round head cocked a little to one side. She wore dark stretch pants and a loose white shirt that enhanced the firm strength of her long thighs, the delicate turn of her waist, her full-busted young body. Her feet were naked; her toenails were painted a vivid azure. It amused him. A bracelet jangled on her wrist when she moved her paint brush. But it was her tawny eyes, bringing thoughts of dark jungles and feline ways, that kept him alert and watchful. They were not innocent eyes.

  As if her thoughts followed his, she said quietly: "Have you ever done much hunting, Signor Durell?"

  "Sam," he suggested. "You called me that before."

  "Did I? I become Americanized and informal, eh?"

  "You do. And I do hunt sometimes, Ursula."

  "And you prefer a very special game, eh?"

  He was silent. He simply watched her.

  And she said: "Do you hunt men? Such a thing is in your face, and it is frightening. You are cruel. As an artist, I notice what is under the skin and flesh. You are like steel, under that face. And your smile really means nothing, doesn't it?"

  "You're a romantic, Ursula."

  "I try to be practical about—about you and me."

  "Are we a problem to be practical about? It's spring, and we are in Venice."

  "Oh, this beauty I know, and I am almost in love."

  "With Venice?"

  Her eyes were huge, wondering. "With you, of course, caro Sam."

  He wondered if she were very naive or very subtle. His distrust of everyone was an occupational hazard, he reflected wryly. Perhaps he had forgotten how to live the ordinary life. It seemed important to solve this question. And so the girl had assumed an importance these last three days as a test for himself, to solve this question about himself.

  Durell was a sub-chief in K Section for the CIA. He fought a dark, silent war in all the corners of the world. He was intimate with danger, and took nothing for granted. Death waited everywhere, at any time—in his room at night, around any corner, or perhaps in the dark canal under his balcony. Or in this girl's remarkable eyes. His awareness of the constancy of this danger had helped him to survive where other men had suddenly failed.

  He was accustomed to the silent clamor of alarms in his world, and he was professional about it, often indebted to that extra margin of caution he used. He preferred to work alone, free of the risk of errors from others, but he knew the value of teamwork. He was careful, but he could gamble when necessary. He knew he was not like other men. He never opened a door thoughtlessly or sat with his back exposed to others. His dossier in the KGB files at No. 2 Dzherzhinsky Square in Moscow had long been marked with a fatal red tab. He was a prime target. He did not know the exact price on his head, since his opponents were often tight about money. But he knew it was in some record-breaking category, and it amused him to think of his value in such negative terms.

  Durell was tall and heavily muscled, with thick black hair touched with gray at the temples. His dark blue eyes were of such dense color as to look opaque. He was a Cajun from Bayou Peche Rouge down in the Louisiana delta country, but he had come a long way from his boyhood in
the dark lagoons under the gum trees, and his accent was more Yale and Ivy League than anything else. He moved with remarkable coordination; his hands were dextrous, and he could kill with them in a number of ways.

  His room at the Penzione Murelli was large and quiet, but beneath his balcony overlooking the canal was a flagstone terrace with a bright awning and some round metal tables and chairs, a grilled fence with the usual wisteria, and a wall that would give any agile man easy access to his window. He did not like it. But after he had checked the room for bugs and booby traps, and found neither microphones nor sudden disaster, he had to wait here until Zuc-camella came to brief him.

  Zuccamella was an Interpol man, but he also worked for K Section. He was stout, had a beaked Roman nose, a bald scalp on which were plastered a few long, precious strands of black hair, and a silent way of walking. His coat was usually stained, unkempt, but behind this facade was a clever and resilient mind and an unflagging dedication to his work.

  Zuccamella did not know much about the red alert.

  "Harry Harris will explain," he wheezed, sitting ponderously in a fragile chair in Durell's room. "It is tied up with the Pollini assassination. Scandalous, eh? Old Pollini was a General under the Fascisti, but not much of a military mind. Rather harmless. His Albanian campaign was a disaster, one recalls. Yet he was a good administrator; his cooperation with NATO was commendable. His death is more than a loss—it is a rather desperate crisis."

  "All crises are desperate," Durell said.

  "A reflection of our times, Signor. What called you here was the touch of the professional, the expert, in the killing of harmless old Pollini. We know the techniques, you and I.

  And we know one outstanding technician of death, eh? I recognized his touch." Zuccamella sighed and pulled at his pendulous lower lip. "It was Helmuth Dinov's work. Or of one of his pupils. The master murderer of them all. Such attention for Pollini is startling, eh?"

  Durell, sitting in the quiet room, listening to the dim sounds of guests on the terrace beside the canal, felt a shock like a blow in the belly. His face showed nothing. But he knew Zuccamella was enjoying some curious amusement, and he spoke quietly: "Helmuth Dinov? Are you sure?" "I know his work, my friend." "Has he been seen here in Venice?" "Not lately."