Assignment - Lowlands Read online

  “What is it, Piet?” he asked softly of the man in the bed.

  “Come in, Sam. I think it is all right.”

  Durell went all the way into the room, alertly. But no one else was there. It was not a trap. He opened the huge walnut wardrobe and looked at the Hollander’s conservative clothing hanging there, then looked into the old-fashioned tiled bath that smelled of Piet’s favorite British aftershave lotion. He turned back to the man in the bed.

  “What happened to you, Piet?”

  “As you see,” the man said faintly, “I am very ill.”

  “How ill?”

  “I am dying.”

  Durell looked at Piet and saw the Hollander try to smile. Van Horn was a small man who looked exactly like the vendor of antiques that he actually was. Bravery and devotion come in all sorts of packages, Durell thought. He had met Piet before, on other jobs in Western Europe; and he was shocked by the abrupt change in his appearance. Van Horn was no longer plump and ruddy. His sandy hair looked thin and dry; his bright blue eyes that normally snapped with quick intelligence looked faded and frightened. There was a thin shine of moisture on his pale face. He was fully clothed, in a dark gray suit, but his polished shoes were off, lying on the carpeted floor. The carpet, the old tapestry on the wall, the immense bed, and the small, gemlike oil paintings on the white walls were all treasures gleaned from the antique shop below. They looked all the brighter for Piet’s decay.

  “Have you called a doctor, Piet?” he asked.

  “No. Of what use would it be? It was all a mistake, you see. . . . A very awkward accident, which has killed me. . . .”

  “Take it easy, Piet. Do you know exactly what is wrong with you?”

  “It affects the—circulatory system—and the heart. My heart feels as if it is going to burst. It hammers against my ribs and struggles—but it will be conquered—”

  “Piet, I was told about some of this in Washington—”

  “I am the sixth victim. Look—over there—”

  A pallid hand gestured weakly from the bed. Durell picked up a folded Dutch newspaper on the nearby antique table. It was a provincial edition from Friesland. A small news item was marked in red pencil.

  He read aloud: “ ‘Five Die Mysteriously in Remote Village—’ ” and paused, looked at Piet, and read on. The village was Doorn, on the East Frisian island of Scheersplaat—a small fishing community remote from the usual byways of vacationing yachtsmen and tourists. The deaths seemed to be restricted to the crew of one fishing vessel, and a new form of virus was blamed for the epidemic. No one

  else had died, however.

  He looked at Piet again. “Is it the same? Are you sure?”

  The little Hollander nodded weakly. “It has begun. It is a warning to us, I think, so we should know that the people we must deal with are ruthless and hold life cheap. Innocent men have died as an example of the wares they have to sell. It can be nothing else. And if the men we must trade with are so callous as to kill and present the corpses to us in warning, then we are up against something difficult, indeed.” Van Horn paused, coughed suddenly. “We cannot know how far it may go and when it will be stopped—if it can be stopped. Pandora’s box of dreadful treasure has been opened, my Cajun friend.”

  “Take it easy, Piet.”

  “Do you know something? I am suddenly afraid. I do not want to die, but the world—Everything could be so beautiful—”

  “Can a doctor make you feel easier?”

  “It will be better—not to call anyone. You understand, of course.” The man’s chest heaved and his head moved spastically from side to side. Durell did not approach him or touch him. There was a sudden feverish light in Van Horn’s eyes. His tongue moistened his lips with slow and painful movements. “Can you hear me, my friend?”

  “I can hear you. What happened up in Friesland, exactly?”

  “I went to verify the information I was to give you. Yesterday I drove up beyond Leeuwarden and the Lauwers Zee to a village called Amschellig, in Friesland. Do you know the country and the sea there?”

  “Only slightly.”

  “Friesland is a beautiful province, drowned in mists and the flat sea. There is a light in the air that one can see nowhere else- in the world. It is the best sailing country, you know. And the wide green meadows filled with Frisian cattle—” The sick man paused, his face shining with sweat. “I found Cassandra there,” he whispered.

  Durell’s face was blank. “Cassandra?”

  “She was there,” Van Horn said again.

  “It is only a code name, Piet. Don’t personify it.”

  “But she was there! I know she—” The Hollander’s voice lifted, then collapsed. His chest heaved, then was still, fully expanded. Durell did not move. He watched the straining, uplifted chest. From outside came the shrill cries of children at play in the shade of the sycamore trees lining the canal banks. A barge went by, motor throbbing. He watched Piet’s chest. The man did not breathe; his eyes bulged. Durell waited. And then Piet’s chest collapsed all at once, came up again in a great shuddering gasp, and his swollen eyes again touched Durell. “You must go to Amschellig—and from there to the island of Scheersplaat. You will need a boat. In the misty light—you will find it is a wild land in a strange sea—you must find him and the woman, Cassandra—”

  “Find who, Piet?”

  “Wilde. Julian Wilde. And his brother, Marius.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Julian opened the box. And he is ready to spread death. Five have died up there, to prove his power. The people do not know why. No doctor could help them. He found the bunker, the place we have searched for all this time. The villagers were frightened—and the dike burst—”

  There was a moment of incoherence.

  Durell said, “Is the box, or bunker, on Scheersplaat? Where is it, Piet?”

  “By the sea—where the mists come in—and the Groote Kerk light shines—”

  There was silence.

  “Piet? How did it happen to you like this? You were told to be careful. You knew the danger, didn’t you?” “Yes, I knew,” came a tired whisper.

  “Then how did you let it happen to you?”

  “It was—an accident—I think.”

  “Aren’t you sure?”

  “I was told it was safe—enough—to try to bring a vial of sample culture to you—”

  “A sample? Do you have it?”

  The round head on the pillow moved negatively from side to side. “When I fell ill—it was destroyed—”

  “How?”

  “It is at the bottom of the sea.”

  “Yow should have saved it,” Durell said. “It could have been useful.”

  “It would kill you, my friend, as it—as it has killed me. The accident—if it was an accident—came because it was supposed to be still sealed. But it was not sealed. And Julian and Marius knew itl I am sure they knew it! They want to make an insane fortune out of the lives of innocent people everywhere. They—they—”

  There was silence again.

  “Piet?”

  The man’s mouth moved. His eyes were glazed, and his breathing was a harsh rasp of protest against the heat in the room. “Under the newspaper—the old map—you will need it—”

  Durell turned quickly back to the table. A folded map was there, but it was only a standard edition of a highway road map of the Netherlands, published by Michelin, and he could see no markings on it of any significance.

  “You said an old map, Piet. An antique? This one is dated nineteen thirty-eight.”

  “The land has changed. It was flooded by the Nazis— during the occupation. Nothing is the same up there. But a new dike—is being built at last—to restore the land. On the map you will see—you will see—”

  “Yes, Piet?”

  The man coughed thickly. “Be careful—of Cassandra. She—she will kill you, too.”

  His chest heaved convulsively. His body arched and rested like a bridge for an instant on th
e back of his skull and heels, taut, rigid, in a moment of incredible torture. And then it collapsed.

  And Piet Van Horn was dead.

  Three

  The children still called out to each other on the brick walk beside the canal. The bicycles hummed by. Another boat rippled past, its wake slapping and washing the ancient, moss-grown sides of the canal. Somewhere in the distance a churchbell rang, and Durell suddenly stirred and looked at his watch. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. He looked down at Piet’s small face, where a ray of ruby light from one of the stained-glass insets in the casement window touched his dead cheek and gave him an unholy look of utter health.

  “I’m sorry, Piet,” Durell murmured.

  Then he moved quickly, efficiently. Every trace of Piet Van Horn’s association with K Section had to be removed and destroyed. It took time. And while he was here, he might be destroyed, too, as Van Horn had been destroyed. Only yesterday, Piet had been healthy and alert. He was now a corpse, a thing of dread contagion, to be shunned, abhorred. . . .

  The radio came first. It was fitted into a fifteenth-century desk cabinet in a corner of the room, and no attempt had been made to hide it, since it was an authorized amateur transmission station. Nevertheless, Durell searched behind it, knowing there was a code book somewhere; and he found it in a small hidden drawer in the back of the cabinet. The code consisted of a small, leather-bound Dutch-English dictionary. Set among other books, it could be innocent enough, he decided; and he did not take it away with him. Instead, he tossed it casually upon a shelf in plain sight, wondering why Piet hadn’t done the same. Next he searched Piet’s wallet, took out some American currency, and put it with his own, replacing the amount with Dutch guilder notes.

  At the last moment he returned to the table and picked up the folded Michelin map of the Friesland and Groningen provinces of the Netherlands. He looked it over again, but nothing had been marked on it that he could see. But he folded it with care and put it in his pocket.

  There was little else. Piet had been careful. Careful, that is, until yesterday, when something—or somebody— reached out and killed him.

  Van Horn’s car keys were on the dresser. Durell picked them up and went to the door, took the big, old-fashioned key from the inner latch, and looked back just once at the dead man on the bed. Sooner or later, the body should be autopsied in a morgue. But short of removing the corpse now—an utter impossibility—he could not permit anyone to touch Piet. No one not alerted to the danger should even enter this room.

  The alternative could bring death to the entire city. It might already be too late to isolate the thing Van Horn had brought back with him, he thought grimly. Everything might be too late.

  He might be carrying the same death with him, now.

  He locked the door, pocketed the big key, and started down the steep stairway to the street entrance beside the antique shop. Shadows slanted down ahead of him. He wondered where the housekeeper might be. And on impulse he suddenly paused, halfway down to the second floor.

  He trapped the sound of a quick footfall just below him.

  It stopped at once. He could not see down there, since the next flight below, leading to the street door, was blocked by the landing. On the other hand, the colored glass panels in the street door were visible, sending shafts of bright light into the tiny, tiled vestibule.

  Whoever had paused below him would have to cross that small area of colored light to gain the safety of the street.

  He waited.

  The other person waited, too.

  He tried to remember how the footfall had sounded, fleeing from his descent. It had been light and careful, with a small secondary heel click. A woman, then, on high heels. The housekeeper? She wore heavy oxfords for her massive size, Durell remembered. Someone else, then. Someone light on her feet. A young woman.

  No one like that had been mentioned in his briefing.

  He waited.

  He knew how to be patient. He did not move; he did not make a sound. He wondered if the woman—or girl— below him really knew he was there. He did not recall making any noise when he’d left Piet’s room. Yet something had frightened her, started her on the run. Yes, she knew he was above her. She was waiting, too—

  Her patience did not equal his. All at once, Durell saw the flash of honey-colored hair, the foreshortened view of a woman in a print dress of Indonesian design as she ran across the tiled vestibule and wrenched open the street door. He was after her at the same instant. He lost sight of her as he rounded the landing, swinging to the smooth, worn newel post to implement his speed. He wanted a look at her face. But he didn’t make it. She was through the door and outside before he reached ground level.

  The street along the canal was quiet, cooler under the shade of the sycamore trees. The canal sparkled in the late sunlight. There were long shadows on the brick sidewalk and on the canal banks. Some of the children were gone. Durell stood on the white stone doorstep beside the antique shop and looked one way, then the other. He did not see the girl in the Indonesian dress. She was gone. But she could not have turned the corner in the time it took him to come down the last few steps. She had to be somewhere nearby.

  The doorbell of Piet Van Horn’s antique shop rang with a ching-a-ching sound. The housekeeper stood there in the doorway, hands folded over her ample stomach, and stared stonily at him.

  “Mynheer, have you talked with Piet?”

  “Yes,” Durell said. “He is all right.”

  “All right? But he was terribly ill, he—”

  “He’s much better now,” Durell said. “And he does not wish to be disturbed. He said he would sleep through until morning.”

  “Without dinner?”

  She looked incredulous, and Durell knew he had made a mistake. To Hollanders, food was a most important factor of daily life. Meals in the Netherlands were heavy, hearty, and frequent. It would be inconceivable to the housekeeper for Piet to pass up dinner.

  He said quickly, “It is his stomach, you see. It is very upset. He has made some tea to quiet it. He will be all right. Just do not disturb him.”

  The big woman shrugged doubtfully. “As you say, mynheer.”

  At that moment, Durell saw the girl again. She had been standing hidden behind the broad trunk of an old chestnut tree on the opposite side of the street, near the canal bank. All at once she broke from cover, perhaps assuming his attention was being diverted by Piet’s housekeeper. He saw that she was young, as he had suspected. Her print dress was a bright splash of color under the spreading tree limbs. Her long, honey-colored hair bobbed on her shoulders as she moved, her back held stiffly. Her legs were long and straight and very good. He watched the smooth articulation of thigh and hip with appreciation. But he still could not see her face.

  “Do you know that girl?” he asked the housekeeper.

  “Who?”

  “That one, going down the street to the bridge.”

  “No, sir,” the woman replied.

  Durell inclined his head in thanks, then turned to go. He started off easily, his long stride casually deceptive, covering ground with remarkable speed. He did not want to overtake the girl at once. She had been snooping in Piet’s house, perhaps listening at Piet’s bedroom door while he’d been talking to the dying man. Why? What had she heard, and who was she? He had to take time to probe for the answers.

  The girl turned the comer and got on a trolley. As she climbed aboard, she turned her head slightly to look back deliberately at Durell, and he glimpsed her face. She looked pale and frightened. He got an impression of enormous eyes, slightly uptilted, a pink mouth, an elfin beauty. Then she swung aboard and mingled with the press of other passengers.

  He was lucky. There are no cruising taxis in Amsterdam, but there was a taxi stand nearby, where a glass-domed tourist canal boat was docked. Otherwise, he would have been out of luck. He climbed into the first cab and told the driver what to do.

  He was kept busy for the next hour. The gir
l got off the trolley at Dam Square, went into a department store, strolled down Nieuwen Dijk toward Central Station; then she changed her mind and retraced her steps to Kalver-straat, where she bought a pair of white leather gloves, a small leather overnight case, sun glasses, suntan lotion, and a lipstick. She looked back twice only, searching for Durell, apparently unable to resist the impulse. He did not think she saw him, but he couldn’t be sure. He was an expert at shadowing, and patient at it, when it was not easy to be patient. He kept thinking about Ret Van Horn’s body behind the locked door of his bedroom. Something had to be done about it, quickly. The housekeeper would have closed up the antique shop by now—it was almost six o’clock, and the Dutch were habitually early diners. His admonition to the woman not to disturb Piet’s “sleep” might or might not be obeyed. He did not know how much the woman knew about Piet’s employment with K Section.

  But even more urgent was the need to establish some kind of quarantine there. He felt the urgency of settling this at once. On the other hand, the girl’s evasive behavior, her presence in the house, and her obvious attempts to shake free of him had to be explained.

  He found an opportunity at last when she turned into a restaurant called ’T Oude Schaap, “The Old Sheep,” near Rembrandtplein. She seated herself at a window table, in plain view. There was a phone booth across the broad, clean avenue, and he could observe her from there. Durell changed a twenty-guilder note at a confectioner’s shop redolent of kopjes coffee candy, borrowed an envelope from the proprietor, and stuffed the Michelin map he had taken from Piet’s room into it, then addressed it to himself at the Spaanjager Hotel. The proprietor promised to mail it on his way home on the trolley in an hour. Then Durell dodged the streams of bicycles on the street and a tourist sightseeing bus to return to the phone booth.

  The operators were quick and efficient. He asked for overseas service and gave the London number that John O’Keefe maintained for urgent contact. He knew O’Keefe would be waiting for him. He watched the girl in the window across the street being served by an elderly waiter, and then he heard O’Keefe’s quick, lilting voice.