Assignment - School for Spies Page 3

  "I can't tell you."

  He poured himself another bourbon. The girl watched him with careful eyes. It was growing shadowed in the apartment over her shop, but she didn't turn on any of the ornate beaded lamps. He drew a breath and spoke quietly.

  "Marge, all I know is that this started about a week ago, while I was in the hospital in Athens, getting some pieces patched together after an operation we tagged Cairo Dancers for the files. I was away in the Sinai Desert, and then I was ordered to report to Geneva on a 'woman I knew' who had—again, quotes—'defected to the East.' It was Deirdre, of course. We'd been in love for a long time. I suppose they thought I knew her better than anyone else, and it was assumed by someone that I could handle the affair. But when I arrived yesterday, the whole atmosphere was changed. I was made to feel suspect, like a pariah, as if I'd committed some kind of crime simply by having known Deirdre. The whole extremist tactic of guilt by association, you see. So all classified information was kept from me. I was surrounded by stone faces and a silence thick enough to gag me."

  He paused. "Well, I know the treatment, Marge. It's the way we handle suspected traitors, unreliables, and double agents we spot in sensitive jobs."

  "But nobody regards you that way, Cajun."

  "Don't snow me," he rasped. "I've been in the business too long not to spot the symptoms of sudden distrust."

  The redhaired girl leaned forward and he could see the deep cleavage below the open throat of her man-tailored shirt. She lit a cigarette. In the gathering dusk, her long eyes flared with fiery jade as she struck a match.

  "Maybe it's just that they feel you're too close to the problem to be objective about it," she said.

  "But I'm not off balance, or anything like that. I'll work with anyone they choose to send along. But I don't think Deirdre went across the line willingly; I can't believe it. It's more complicated than that, and I think it's all designed to reach out for me, personally. But who might be behind it, I just don't know yet."

  "You're supposed to be an old pro, Sam, but you don't sound like one just now."

  "I can't help what I sound like. It's what I can feel. Call it instinct, or a hunch, or intuition—"

  "Call it love," she drawled. "Call it jealousy."

  Five

  He wanted to shake the truth out of her. Instead, he swallowed his bourbon and wondered if he could get her drunk enough to talk freely. He didn't think this would work. She wouldn't be the resident here if that were possible. Then she said: "Suppose you're right, Sam? Suppose your girl, Deirdre Padgett, was lured or tricked through the Curtain as a maneuver to get you there, too, so they could take you? You are important enough for that, and it shouldn't be risked."

  He shook his head. "I'm not important at the moment. There's nothing new on the agenda they'd like to squeeze out of me."

  "Are you sure? Maybe there's some kind of a personal vendetta?"

  He smiled. "That wouldn't be too professional in our business, Marge. In any case, I'd still go in after her."

  "And risk blowing a computer-load of classified data to them?"

  "They won't take me. I'd be careful."

  "You're not in a careful mood now, Sam."

  "I think you can understand that I'm angry, Marge. I've asked for help, and I'm dismayed that I don't get it."

  "You know all the good reasons why not."

  He was getting nowhere. The room was growing dark. A luminous green light hovered over the raw Alpine peaks beyond the window, as jade bright as the girl's eyes. There was nothing stupid about her. When she looked at him like this, he felt as if he were impaled like a bug on a pin.

  He got up, and gave her the little leather bag containing Geneva's coding machine. She took it without a word, and led the way upstairs and through a small, very feminine bedroom with white swag curtains, then through a wardrobe closet into what had been an attic area. It was set up now as a phone and radio station, with listening devices and tapes, a bed and a small kitchenette for transient agents who needed to hide, a small green steel safe, and the old coding equipment. She shoved the mechanism into its slot and put the leather bag aside, then turned with a slow, small smile.

  "You didn't have to accommodate Geneva on this, Sam. So, all right. Into every life a little rain, and so forth. I'll tell you what I've got on the Deirdre Padgett affair."

  He exhaled slowly and followed her downstairs again. As she spoke, her green eyes constantly searched his face as if hoping to probe an ultimate truth out of him. She had met Deirdre at the fashion show at the Oberhaus. Geneva had sent along a routine note about her relationship with Durell, but it hadn't meant anything, since Durell at that time was working the Middle East and was known to be due in Athens. Deirdre's assignment covering the fashion display was routine. She had flown up from Rome more on a holiday than on a job, and she had arrived in Count Faulk's company. Marge had made a point of meeting her, after she was constantly seen with the man.

  "What bothered you about it?" Durell asked.

  "Faulk has had nominal Austrian citizenship since 1948, and a Silesian title that goes back six hundred years. That makes him East German, of course, although in the People's Democratic Republic, his old feudal holdings were distributed long ago by the State to the peasants. Just the same, Faulk transferred substantial funds to the State Bank in Vienna in 1959, out of a Zurich account. We can't get anywhere on its original source, which is not surprising if you know anything about Swiss bankers, but he claims he got it out before the Soviet steam-roller reached Berlin, and just kept it there for a rainy day, hah-hah." Marge Jones recited Faulk's dossier in a flat, matter-of-fact voice. "We've watched Faulk for a long time—we think he's a sleeper, working for the other side in a quiet way until now. But he's adapted well to capitalism." Her smile was wry. "The funds given him as a refugee aristocrat to get started again were wisely invested in a sintered-metal-alloy plant in Austria, for small-machine-parts fabrication, and it's become one of the biggest powdered metallurgy factories in this part of Europe. Faulk has become a millionaire now, on the profits gained by investing the People's Democratic funds. He makes frequent trips into Slovakia and East Germany, by the way, ostensibly on official trade missions. We haven’t tried to stop him."

  "Does he suspect your surveillance?"

  "We think it's been secure. It's a hit-or-miss affair, really, since nothing can be pinned on him with any verification. He's very suave, handsome, cosmopolitan. All the smooth culture of the aristocrat who has soiled his hands with trade—but most successfully." Marge Jones laughed. "Mama should see me hobnobbing with such types now. When I left college to come to Europe and got the chance to buy into this little business here, I didn't dream I'd end up in all this cloak-and-dagger stuff. But I like it, you know. And I feel," she said seriously, "as if I'm doing something really useful with my life."

  He nodded. "Tell me more about Faulk, please." "Well." She licked her full lower lip pensively. "He's handsome, blond, muscular; drives a Mercedes 220-SE convertible, gunmetal gray, Vienna license 45-606K; and likes to bobsled, ski, hunt, sail, dance and romance. All of which he does with great expertise. You name it, Cajun, and he's got it. So don't blame Deirdre."

  He said nothing.

  "After the fashion show, Faulk drove off to Vienna with her, ostensibly to visit his newly purchased castle on the Danube. How romantic can you get? We put a routine tracer on her, because of her connection with you. You were on Central's mind, because of your condition when you got back and out of the Sinai and lost contact with Franz Bellau, who got clean away from you." She paused. "Does it annoy you, how much we know about you and your Deirdre?"

  "Somewhat," he admitted.

  "But who has privacy in our lives, Sam?"

  "We could wish for more. It's bad enough to find enemy bugs planted on you; we shouldn't have to look for those from the people we work with."

  "Who can be trusted, in our world?" Marge Jones touched her lower lip with the tip of a finger. "Things were simpl
er back home, I admit. When I majored in poli-sci at good old State U., I never thought I'd wind up living in a fishbowl."

  "And do you?"

  She grinned impishly. "I have my moments. I'm not always lonely, Sam. But I don't rate with someone like Deirdre. I must admit she seemed very special, even to me."

  "She's special, all right."

  "I like to hear you say that," Marge told him. "People are so afraid to admit to sentiment these days. I'm beginning to like you, Sam."

  "What happened to Faulk and Deirdre when they reached Austria?"

  "We don't know, for certain."

  "What does that mean?"

  "Well, they went and—oh, you won't like this one bit, Sam."

  "Go ahead," he said flatly.

  "Well, they got married."

  He felt as if she had hit him on the back of the head. His mouth went dry and he blinked. Then he heard himself say, calmly and inanely: "Was it a civil ceremony?"

  "No, it took place in the rectory of a village minister near Faulk's new country estate in Austria."

  "Verified?"

  "The records are there, but of course, they could have been forged and—"

  "Why do you suspect the records at all?"

  "Because Geneva can't find the minister now. He went on vacation to Zurich, but he never showed up there, and G.C. put out a 'quiet alert' for him. I'll give you his name and where he was supposed to stay. After all, we'd like to talk to him, too, because when the Vienna section people searched his rectory, they found a letter hidden in the altar Bible, where she must have put it."

  "She?"

  "Deirdre. It was addressed to her newspaper employers in Rome, and said she was getting married and moving to Silesia, in East Germany."

  He was pale under the dark tan that he had acquired in the Sinai Desert recently. "Just like that? Who has this letter?"

  "G.C. has it. They had it when you spoke to them yesterday. I'm sorry to hit you with it like this, Sam. But you're the one who insisted on knowing."

  "Never mind. Was her handwriting checked?"

  "Completely. There's no doubt that she wrote the letter, Sam."

  "And Bruno Faulk? He gave up all his Western comforts to go back behind the Curtain? That doesn't make sense, you know. If he's a sleeper agent, as you suggested, it doesn't seem worth it to blow his cover just because he married Deirdre."

  "Unless," she said carefully, "someone over there thinks the price isn't too much, if it gets you over there, too." She paused. "On the other hand, why assume he won't come back? He has legitimate business in both Slovakia and Silesia. In Silesia especially, where the iron mines are for his powdered metallurgy plants. No reason why he shouldn't return—after the honeymoon."

  He winced. "It's too flimsy. It doesn't ring true."

  "Then let us handle it, Sam."

  "I don't believe she married this man at all."

  "Why not? She was in love with him, I tell you. A blind person could tell it, just from the way she spoke to him when they were together. If I turn the knife, Sam, it's for your own good, believe me."

  He got up and paced the room. It was darkish now. The redheaded girl turned on a lamp and drew the front curtains. From the Oberhaus on the upper level of the village street came the sound of dinner music. She asked when he had eaten last, and he told her he couldn't remember and that it didn't matter.

  "I wish you'd take it easy, Cajun," she said earnestly. "I'll fix us something. One thing I took with me from home was how to do some good old-fashioned Midwestern home cooking. I've got all the fixings for T-bone steak and home fries. Some good wine from the Rhine country and French bread. The wine is because I've become sort of subverted to it since I broke away from Mama and went into business here last year. If you'd prefer beer—"

  He stared evenly at her. "I want to get moving."

  "After you eat. Then we'll move."

  "We?'"

  She sighed with resignation. "I was ordered to persuade you to drop this thing, but that's obviously not possible, since you're determined to stick your head in the noose no matter how persuasive I may be." She grinned her impish grin. "I have other weapons, but I think Deirdre has blunted them for me. Anyway, the other directive as an alternative from G.C. was that if I couldn't persuade you, and couldn't distract you, then I'm to go with you."

  "As campfire guide and good companion?"

  "Any way you like," she said, "as long as I can keep an eye on you and help keep you out of too much trouble."

  He felt much better.

  "Let's eat," he said.

  Six

  At eight o'clock he walked alone up the village street to the Oberhaus. It had been soothing to listen to Marge Jones chatter away about her college days in Ohio and the impulse that had made her an expatriate shopkeeper in this secluded Swiss valley. Or perhaps the shock of the news of Deirdre's alleged marriage—he refused to think of it as an irreversible act—had numbed his nerves. Marge was a vivacious, endless talker, attractive in a wholesome way. He suspected she was trying td verbalize him out of his determination to find Deirdre. It didn't work, since he would never give up a hunt he had started. And for Deirdre, it wouldn't end until resolved, one way or another.

  Marge had suggested they leave at once.

  "The cog railway is closed for the night by now, but I expect you want to get moving at once," she said.

  "As soon as possible. When does the next train go?"

  "In the morning." She spoke with impudent confidence. "But I've got a car. Where do we go from here?"

  "Vienna, and then Faulk's Schloss on the Danube to listen to the siren songs out of the woods."

  "Sounds romantic."

  "It won't be," he promised. "More likely, it will be dark and dirty."

  "I mean, getting out of the shop. Ever since your people signed me on, because I had already started the place here, I've just sat around getting a broad beam, dragging down subsistence pay and making routine reports. It will be nice to get away from Tiigensberg for a while."

  "I'm not so sure I want you with me," he told her. "It will be dangerous, and you haven't had the field training—

  "No?" Her green eyes challenged him. "Just make a pass at me. Back home I was known as the Girl Horror, because Papa taught me judo and karate—he was an ex-Marine out of Iwo and Saipan. Geneva checked me out on it. They thought they'd have fun wrestling, but I showed the desk jockeys there it wasn't all joyous games, Charley. You don't have to worry about me, Cajun. I'm also a crack shot. Papa went hunting tigers out of Nagpur in India for vacations, and took Mama and me with him. I remember I dropped a big cat that was stalking us, under a catechu tree, that was about to jump Daddy. I was carrying his Winchester .458, which throws a .510-grain bullet and it was a little too much even for the cat. And for me!" She laughed. "Maybe that doesn't fit into the picture of a nice middle-class Midwestern family, but that's the way Daddy was. I grew up with guns, all kinds, and had a beautiful .308 of my own. I'll be all right, Sam. You won't stumble over me."

  He asked her to check out Rudi Kampp, the Gehlen operative with the broken dentures, and she said she would and that she would pick him up at the Oberhaus within the hour. She kissed him lightly on the mouth when he opened the back door of her little shop and stepped out into the crisp, Alpine evening.

  There was a crescent moon over the Zuttspieg, brushing the snow with bright silver that made the shadows as black as a raven's wing. His shoes crunched in the hard snow. A small wind cut at his face with a breath of death from the Alpine crests. He walked quickly, climbing the slope of the street toward the lights, the crowds, and the music of the Oberhaus.

  There was no sign of Kampp or his cohorts, although the bar was crowded and the restaurant looked filled to capacity. Behind her wide, carved desk, Frau Schmidt stood like a monolith of butter, surveying her empire of hostelry and cash. She looked at him as if she had never seen him before. But when he entered his room to pack, the telephone gave a single, discreet ri
ng, and then was silent again.

  He paused with his hand on the light switch and then turned it off and let the Alpine moonlight flood his room. Light shafted up from the parking lot, which seemed crowded and noisy. He picked up the phone with care.

  "Herr Durell?" It was a girl speaking in German accented English. "Is it you, sir? Herr Durell?"

  "Yes. Lotti Schmidt?"

  "True. I am at the switchboard at the moment. I saw you come in. Mama makes me work tonight. But I must see you at once."

  "What is it, Lotti?"

  "I have a duty to perform. You can trust me, it is all right, because it has nothing to do with Rudolph Kampp."

  "Where is he, by the way?"

  "He checked out after—after you fought with him. It was not nice. He—he was using me—and I did not understand that this would make me betray my trust—"

  "What trust?"

  "It is about Fraulein Deirdre Padgett. Before she left Tiigensberg with Count Faulk, she said to me that you might come to Tiigensberg soon, to look for her. I do not know how she expected you, Herr Durell, but she wrote a letter which she said I must give you very quietly, if you did arrive. Rudi Kampp—I am afraid I talked too much, and he knew of this—he wanted that letter from me, very much. But I did not understand this until now."

  "Did you give the letter to him?" Durell asked.

  "Of course not." Lotti Schmidt sighed. "But he is so handsome and so much fun—he was good company until —until you came here today—"

  "Lotti, I want that letter."

  "I understand. But do not come down to the switchboard. Mama would be very angry. I can get Carla to take my place in fifteen minutes, to give me a rest. I can meet you somewhere—perhaps in Fraulein Padgett's empty cottage?"

  "Why not come up here?"

  But there was a sudden electronic buzzing in his ear, then a series of switchboard clicks, a man's voice, very loud and American, asking for room service, a gasp of dismay from Lotti, and silence.

  He hung up.

  He didn't like it.

  But he couldn't ignore it.