Assignment- Silver Scorpion Read online

  As a chief field agent for K Section, that troubleshooting, free-swinging branch of the CIA directed by General McFee, he was not surprised to be sent into any dark and dangerous corner of the world. There was a clause in his contract that gave him the right to refuse an assignment, but he had never used it. He had been in the business too long to quit now, no matter how low his survival factor had dipped in K Section's statistical charts. He knew he would never be allowed to quit. In Moscow's KGB headquarters at No. 2 Dzherzhinsky Square

  and in Peking's Black House, his dossier was filed with a red tab, marked for a kill. He knew too much. He had lived in this shadow world for too many years to be permitted the dubious freedom of a suburban man, with wife and home and commuter schedules. He accepted the loneliness and the danger now without thinking too much about it. He had a permanent Q clearance, free to operate as he deemed necessary. But he was accustomed to caution, and he never opened a door without thinking of what might lie behind it; he never turned a corner or boarded a subway in London or New York without considering the potential deadliness of those pressed around him. He could kill in silence, with only his hands if necessary, quickly and without, reluctance or regret. He disdained the usual gadgetry offered by the gimmick boys in K Section's laboratory. Often he was tired of the work, faced with what seemed a hopelessly divided world intent on a suicidal rush toward self-destruction. Often he enjoyed what he did, feeling it was right and necessary. He wanted no medals, no flags waved for him. It was a job that someone had to do. He had gone to law school at Yale, after his boyhood in the Louisiana bayous, and he no longer held any illusions about this kind of work. Errors were made, both of judgment and execution. He did his best. What he valued most in the world still existed.

  He came to the end of the alley, and they were waiting for him there.

  Chapter 2

  THEIR BREATHING made gusty, rasping sounds in the hot African night. They had run fast around the adjacent building, a three-story white stone structure that had once been a Portuguese commercial warehouse, but they were not the same two who had entered Christophe's. Another pair. Their big chests heaved with the exertion. They wore the same uniform of the FKP, the dark gray suits, the neat white collars, the dark neckties. They carried with them the same aura, the same stink of secret police everywhere in the world. Their muddy eyes gloated.

  "Mr. Durell. Please."

  He had his gun openly in his hand when he paused. Their red-brown eyes considered the weapon, but they were not alarmed. Durell said, "Why do you want me?"

  "It is just for a little talk," one of them said. "You are an alien in this country, my dear fellow, and you must admit that you behave quite strangely-"

  "I'm an American citizen," Durell said, "attached to the US Embassy, thirty-four to fifty-six Boganda Boulevard

  , recently arrived in this troubled country of yours and assigned to security at the embassy because of recent unhappy events-"

  "Yes, yes. We know all that. Your passport, please?"

  "Why?"

  "And give Mr. Kantijji your gun. My partner's name is Mr. Kantijji. My name is Abraham Yutigaffa." A smile almost touched the brown black lips. "My parents were converted by your Methodist missionaries, you see. I bear a good Christian Biblical name."

  "Abraham is a Jewish name," Durell said.

  "The Israelis do not proselytize," said Yutigaffa. "Please give Kantijji your gun."

  "To hell with you," Durell said. "Am I under arrest?"

  "Let us call it protective custody."

  "Why?"

  He got a shrug of massive shoulders. "We simply obey our orders, Mr. Durell."

  Durell hit him in the breastbone, a sharp rap with the butt of his .38. There came a gust of air from the FKP man, a thin sound of cracking bone, and Durell swung away and clipped the other man with the edge of his palm against the side of the throat, making it to the neural, center without a miss. While they both staggered, trying to yell for their partners, he turned and ran for the river.

  There was no help for it. Whatever the job might be-and only Georgette could fill him in on it and give him a proper briefing-he believed her when she said there was very little time. If he went with Kantijji and Yutigaffa, there would be a cell waiting for him, days wasted, while the mortars crumped and banged and the daily executions went on each noon in front of the lovely white Presidential palace. He accepted this much of what Georgette had told him, and it was enough.

  There were two more lanes, and then he reached the edge of the river.

  A low orange moon hung in the black African sky to the west, where the enormous sweep of the sluggish river made a bend to the left. He knew the river here was more than a mile wide, and on the opposite shore were marshes and islets overgrown with jungle vines and a wide stretch of savannah. There was a ferry half a mile upstream, a rough-timbered donkey-engine affair that only operated during daylight hours. Large barges that carried copper ore downstream to the frontier were tied up in front of bulky warehouses. A government gunboat made a flat silhouette against the river bank to his right. There were more warehouses for jute and the copper mill that operated on this side of the Getoba District. The warehouses were built of corrugated tin and mahogany, with low, flattish roofs and a litter of waste and scrap around them. Long piers jutted out into the slow black current of the river.

  Durell ran to the right. They were close behind him, all four of them now, their footsteps thudding in the dirt. He headed for the area of colonial villas, just beyond the nearest warehouses, where tall palms made graceful arcs against the red moon. No lights shone anywhere. The hot river air felt like rags stuffed down his throat. He heard the Africans calling to one another, like hounds baying dimly in the bayous of his childhood.

  He was aware of anger in him, but he could not rightly blame the girl. Finch might have been careless in the past; he had no way of telling. It could simply be a routine check on foreigners at this time of crisis. But he did not think it was routine at all.

  He needed his telephone, his hotel room, the MK-5 radio transceiver in the bottom of his luggage. The Natanga Hotel was half a mile to the right, on the riverfront, set amid a new park planted with oleanders, date palms, and rose gardens. He got around the first warehouse, sprinted down a dark, sandy lane, heard the men shouting from the adjacent alley that paralleled his way. Someone skidded around the corner ahead of him, and he charged at the man, saw a gun glinting, knocked it aside and down. The man went sprawling, but not before he yelled a loud warning. Durell ran on. A gun clamored behind him, racketing in the night. It was not too unusual a sound, this past week, in the streets. He heard the bullets smash into the wall behind him, catching up. He dived headlong for the ground, came up at a fast crouch, and rounded the corner.

  "Cajun! Hey! Over here."

  He saw her battered Land Rover, a dark shape loomed against a mass of dusty shrubbery at the end of the lane.

  The hotel was still five hundred yards away. Her hand waved like a pale underwater plant in the shadows. It was stupid of her. She should have stayed clear of this. He saw her face, leaning out from behind the wheel of the old Rover.

  "Sam! This way."

  He turned and ran in the opposite direction. But it was too late. They came from both ends of the alley, meaning business now, angry and ready to kill. Their guns were up, their hands were nervous on the triggers.

  He stopped dead and raised his hand.

  "I give up," he said.

  Chapter 3

  ONE OF THEM said "Why did you run?"

  The other said "Surely you must be guilty of something, sir. It was merely routine questioning. Now, of course, we must reconsider our whole attitude toward you."

  "I have an appointment with the President," Durell said. "His Excellency, Inurate Motuku, is waiting for me."

  They smiled.

  "Do not be stubborn," the first one said. He rubbed the side of his neck. He'd be Kantijji, Durell thought.

  He said, "Cal
l the President then, if you don't believe me."

  "We do not believe you."

  "Then call Major-General Watsube."

  They smiled again. "He is too busy to be concerned with suspicious foreigners. That is our job, you see. We are in troubled times, sir. Everything out of the ordinary must be investigated."

  Another said, "Do you know His Excellency, the President?"

  "I haven't met him yet," Durell said.

  "How do you know you have an appointment with him? Have you proof?"

  "The message and invitation came through my embassy."

  "At this hour?"

  "Yes, that's right."

  "But the telephones are-" another began and paused.

  "Tapped?" Durell asked. "Bugged?"

  "You are rather presumptuous, Mr. Durell, for a stranger in our country."

  "I'm trying to help," he said.

  "Ah. Of course. But which side?"

  "I'm not on any side."

  "Those who are not for us must be against us."

  "That statement," Durell said, "has been the echo of tyranny down through the ages."

  "Ah. Ah."

  It was hot in the cell. The FKP men sweated. The light glared down on Durell like the baleful eye of some jungle idol. They had taken his gun, his passport, his belt, and his shoes, neatly arranging it all, including his wallet, on a plank table against the stone wall of the cell. There was no window, and the door was closed. The air was suffocating. It smelled of sweat, fear, urine, and the garbage in the river.

  He knew it was one o'clock when the mortars started slamming into the besieged Getoba District again. Nobody among the FKP men paid any attention.

  Abraham Yutigaffa was in charge, apparently. He licked his brown lips and stood in front of Durell, very close to him, and said, "You mention Major-General Watsube. Why?"

  "Isn't he your boss?"

  "He is not in charge of security. Do you know him?"

  "You'll all be sent back to the kraals," Durell said, "when the President hears of this."

  "Do you really know His Excellency?"

  "He has requested my aid," Durell said.

  "For what purpose?"

  "I cannot say."

  "You mean you will not say?"

  "Presumably it's a state secret."

  "There are no secrets from the FKP."

  "This one is."

  Yutigaffa blew out air from his thick lips. His eyes were tired, reddish around the black irises. "Mr. Durell, you understand that we have leaned over backward, so to speak, in order to be courteous to you. We could use other methods to end your insolence, you understand. We have been well trained. Perhaps not as thoroughly as you, but we have our own interrogative methods. Would you like us to begin with them? Why do you claim to have an appointment with the President?"

  "Because it's the truth."

  "But you can't prove it?"

  Durell said tiredly, "Call the palace."

  "That would be presumptuous."

  "It would be smart, Abraham."

  He wondered about Georgette Finch. Nobody mentioned her. As far as he knew, they hadn't bothered to pick her up. He listened to the explosions from the mortars and thought of the death that burst and burned in the other end of town, every hour on the hour.

  Yutigaffa said, "Can you at least cooperate with us enough to tell us what the President wishes to discuss with you.

  "It's about the Silver Scorpion."

  Yutigaffa stared down at him. It was as if a breath of chill wind had suddenly blown into the fetid, closed cell. Nobody moved for an instant. One of the FKP men, in the middle of lighting a brown cigarette, let the match burn down until it scorched his fingers. Yutigaffa pursed his lips and walked to the plank table and picked up Durell's passport, gun, belt, and shoes.

  "You may go," he said.

  Chapter 4

  DURELL WALKED the distance back to his hotel. The streets were quiet and empty, containing in their darkness a kind of sullen apathy. On the main boulevard, under the cassia and palm trees that reached from the riverfront to the airport five miles away, a few armored vehicles were parked in the shadows of the median strip, among bougainvillea and oleander shrubs. The cars were crammed with uniformed men wearing the distinctive red Bogandan berets. The barrels of their rifles stuck up from the truck bodies like miniature prickly thickets. Fires burned in the Getoba District, making red puffballs on the horizon. The red moon hung low over the savannah. No wind stirred. The shops along the boulevard were all closed, with steel shutters pulled down over the windows to guard their wares.

  A black Cadillac limousine was parked in the oval driveway leading to the hotel's wide, glass foyer doors. Only a few lights shone in the palm potted lobby. The big bar, called the Manhattan Unity, was closed, the glass doors emptying blackness from the casino machines and the chrome and plastic chairs and tables in there. Two Japanese businessmen sat talking on a settee in one corner, of the amoeba-shaped lobby. Heavy teak Natanga sculpture stood at various vantage points about the marble floor, imported from Livorno, Italy. The tribal faces, long and dour, with elongated ear lobes and wild, fiercely painted eyes, stared with alien animosity at Durell's tall figure as he entered through the glassed-in doorway. Zebra stripes in mosaic formed the walls.

  "Sir? Mtamba?" A gray-haired Bogandan detached himself from the desk and moved gracefully toward him. He wore the wide, flowing robes of the national costume and a small, beaded skullcap. "Mr. Durell?"

  "Yes."

  "I have been sent from the palace. The car outside is at your disposal."

  "I'm not due yet for half an hour," Durell said.

  "Yes, Mtamba. At your convenience, of course. His Excellency sees you at one-thirty o'clock."

  "Does His Excellency always work this late at night?"

  The Bogandan smiled. "It is a difficult time. A time of hamiti, as we say. Bad trouble. The Raga is devoted solely to the welfare of our nation. He gives his life for us."

  "I'll be down in ten minutes," Durell said.

  "I shall be waiting, mtamba."

  He took the glass-enclosed, self-service elevator up to his room. The hotel might have been anywhere else in the world, the usual pile of modern, air conditioned, concrete cubicles with surface decor to suit the immediate locale. His room was on the fifth floor, overlooking the wide, vast river. It had two double beds, a huge mirror, Natanga shields on the wall opposite, reed carpets done by native manufacturies, and a balcony that faced the river and the Getoba District, where the fires glowed red against the hot, ebony sky. He used his key to unlock the door, pushed it open with a rigid forefinger, waited a moment, took out his gun, stepped in and to one side, and clicked on the lights.

  "You idiot," he said.

  Finch sat on the edge of his bed. He had been in custody less than twenty minutes, but the girl had somehow managed to change her clothes. She was no longer the bare-foot hippy type. She wore a dark blue frock with white piping around the oval neckline, and she had combed out her tangled brown hair and done it up so that it swung gracefully down her shoulders. Somehow she had managed to squeeze low-heeled pumps on her feet. He wondered if she had taken the time to bathe.

  "They let you go, did they?" She grinned, her chin resting on her hand. He looked beyond her to the sliding doors of the closet and saw they were open and that his luggage had been moved a few inches to the left and the arrangement of his three suits was altered. One of the dresser drawers, where he kept his shirts, was not quite closed. Georgette said, "I knew they'd let you go. I figured you'd rap your way out of it, even if Abe Yutigaffa is a tough one. So is Sergeant Kantijji. What did you do, tell them you were due to see the President?"

  "Yes. Finch, I want-"

  "You be very careful with the Raga. He's very up tight, you know. Our job and specific orders are to cooperate with him in every way."

  "What am I supposed to do in Getoba?" he asked.

  "His Excellency will tell you."

  "Don't
you know?"

  "Sure, but-"

  "Then you'd better brief me, Finch."

  "It's not my job to-"