Assignment to Disaster Read online

  He helped her up and led her to the door marked "Ladies." She went through quickly. Durell looked around the bar and found a phone booth where he could watch the door through which Deirdre had gone. He went over to the phone and dropped a coin in the slot and dialed an emergency number. He got through to Burritt Swayney almost at once.

  "Burritt, this is Durell. I've got the girl. I need some dope. Have you ever heard of a man named Gustl or Gustav Weederman?"

  "What are you talking about? What about the girl?"

  "Come on," Durell said urgently. "Use the memory."

  "Weederman. Gustav Franz. Last heard from in Vienna. Naturalized American, suspected of Nazi sympathies during that war, worked for the military government in Vienna in '45. Age thirty-nine, graduate of Leipzig. Family of petty Austrian nobility. A count, I think. Single. Fired from the military government on suspicion of espionage for the Russians. Went through the Iron Curtain." Swayney laughed. "They executed him."

  "The hell they did."

  "What?"

  "He's over here. Hunting for Calvin Padgett. It's his action apparatus that's onto the girl. Maybe onto Padgett, too."

  "Sam, what happened, hey?"

  Durell told him. It was difficult to talk about Lew Osbourn's death. He finished: "The girl is with me now. I think she trusts me. If I bring her in, though, she won't talk. She's in a state of half shock now, I think. She wants to protect her brother at all costs, so I made a deal. She'll take me to him, but nobody else. It's a funny thing."

  Swayney said sharply, "Bring her in. Don't waste time fooling around."

  Durell said, "I want to play it this way. For Lew. Do you understand?"

  "Damn you, are you crazy? Bring her in!"

  "I tell you, she'll freeze. She won't talk any other way."

  "Leave that to me. If her brother's been palling around with Weederman, he's a traitor, he's selling us out. And the girl is just as bad. You can't take that chance."

  "You're condemning her already," Durell said. "I'll call back later."

  He hung up. Immediately afterward, he called another number that connected him with Hazel, in his office. He told Hazel everything that had happened.

  "Will you call Sidonie Osbourn for me?" Durell asked. "I hate to stick you with it, but I may not have time. Tell her I'll be out to see her as soon as I can."

  "Of course." Then: "Sam, was that you who just called Swayney?"

  "Yes. Why?"

  "The whole place is in an uproar. What are you doing?"

  Durell said, "My grandfather was a gambler, the best there ever was. I'm gambling on the girl. I think she's innocent, but confused. I think she trusts me a little. I hope so. It's a one-shot throw of the dice."

  "Sam, you always said gambling could never be part of this work."

  "Call Sidonie, please," he said. Then he hung up.

  He was sweating, but he felt cold. He dried his hands on a handkerchief. He wished he could have gone to see Sidonie Osbourn himself. When Deirdre came out of the ladies' room, he moved forward quickly to take her arm and guide her out to the sidewalk, where he hailed a cab. The girl was silent, docile enough now. Her face was pale, but her eyes looked better. Sitting beside her, he could sense the delicate perfume she used. Her mouth looked haunted. It was a lovely mouth, a beautiful face. She was shivering slightly, but he moved away from her on the back seat of the cab so as not to be in physical contact with her. Don't be a fool, he thought. Think of Lew, the two kids. Think of Sidonie tonight. You travel farthest and longest when you're alone. Especially in this business. Any crazy notions you began to have this morning — well, forget them. Drop it quick. You were right and Lew was wrong; you're alive and Lew is dead. Drop it. Forget it.

  He gave the cab driver the address of his apartment.

  Chapter Seven

  He made a Creole omelet and a fresh pot of coffee in his kitchen and they ate on trays in the living room. The telephone rang twice, but he did not answer it. He did not think Swayney would outguess him and come doubling back to look for him with the girl here. Swayney would look everywhere else first. They had an hour, perhaps, before it became too dangerous to stay.

  The girl was silent until they had their coffee. Then she said bluntly, "You called your office from that bar, didn't you?"

  He didn't lie to her. "Yes."

  "But you still want me to trust you?"

  "My orders were to bring you in. This Weederman that you mentioned is a Russian agent. He was supposed to have been executed a few years ago, but apparently it was a phony. He has a smart, tough, and desperate apparatus in operation, determined to get their hands on your brother. Maybe to kill him, maybe to spirit him out of the country. The office thinks Calvin, with his past record, isn't too clean on it. They daub you with the same brush."

  "I see," she whispered.

  "I told them that I didn't believe either count," Durell said.

  "Why not? You don't know anything about me."

  He didn't quite know how to answer. "Call it instinct. Call it a gambler's hunch. I think you're innocent."

  "Thank you," she said, but he was not sure if her inflection was meant to convey irony or not. "I appreciate your trust in me."

  "Look, Deirdre. Two men have already died. One of them was a member of Weederman's outfit. The other, this morning, was my best friend."

  "I'm sorry," she whispered.

  "Can you imagine how I feel about it, then? I'm taking a chance, holding you out of the office. You've got to tell me about your brother."

  "Yes," she whispered. "I'll tell you what I know. But it won't help you. It will only be of help if you permit me to go to meet him."

  "I'll go with you," Durell said. "Then we'll see."

  She nodded. "There isn't much time. Four days. No, less. Most of today is gone."

  "Tell me about it," Durell said.

  She spoke earnestly, her eyes locked with his, waiting for a challenge from him. He listened in patient silence.

  "First of all, Calvin is innocent of any treason. He is sensitive, brilliant, a wonderful man. I love my brother, Mr. Durell. He suffered terribly when those unfair charges of treason and dubious loyalty were thrown at him last year. He wanted to quit the work he was doing, but John and I persuaded him to go on with it, because it was necessary and vital to the country, whatever he may have suffered personally. You know about my older brother, John?"

  Durell nodded. "Yes."

  "Calvin is not a traitor. He told me he had never joined any of the organizations that had his name on their membership rolls. He did not know how they had managed to do that to him. He was able to prove he could not possibly have attended the meetings they said he did. Perhaps it was a plot to discredit him and make him useless to our country. Is that possible?"

  "Maybe," Durell said.

  "John watched over him very carefully in Las Tiengas. I don't know what they're building out there. I don't want to know. I know it's big and important, that's all. A month ago, John wrote to me that he was worried about Calvin. He wrote that Calvin was getting too moody and introspective, doubting the wisdom of what he was doing — whatever his job required him to do. Last week John telephoned to me. He told me that Calvin had been caught in Las Tiengas, away from the base, against every expressed security order. He told me that Calvin was being held at the base hospital for observation. It seemed utterly incredible to me. I couldn't believe it. You have to know Cal — he's brilliant, a scientist dedicated to his work, but he's full of fun, too, wonderful to be with, a good companion, levelheaded. John said that Cal had cracked up.

  "I didn't hear any more about it until yesterday afternoon, when Calvin called me. He told me he had escaped from the base and that he was alone and deeply disturbed and didn't know what to do. I couldn't make much sense out of it. He said he had to see me, to talk something over with me before he decided on a course of action. He talked about his conscience, about doing the right thing. It frightened me. It upset me terribly. And then he
rang off, after arranging to phone me again at the old house in Prince John."

  "Did he sound rational then?"

  "The second time, yes," she said. "He was very deliberate. He said he would not make the decision without seeing me first."

  "Why are you so important to him?" Durell asked.

  "I don't know. I suppose he — he must feel confused. We were always very close, in many ways. He would trust me, I think, to see through whatever is confusing him and help him to do what is right."

  Durell frowned. "I still don't understand it."

  "Well, I said I would go to meet him, wherever he was. He told me to be careful. He said you people would try to stop me and trip me up and question me. He begged me not to tell you anything at all until I came out there."

  Durell said, "And where are you to meet him?"

  "In Las Tiengas," she said quietly.

  "He's waiting there for you now?"

  "He said so. Yes."

  "Where, exactly?"

  She looked at him, hesitating. "If I tell you, what will you do?"

  "You must trust me."

  "Will you go there with me?"

  "Yes," Durell said.

  "Alone? Just the two of us?"

  "Yes," he said again.

  She drew a deep breath. "He said I was to check in at a place called the Salamander, in Las Tiengas. It's a hotel, or a motel, I'm not sure which. He said he would see me there tomorrow evening."

  Durell stood up. Instantly alarm flickered across the girl's features. He smiled. "Let's get started."

  "Like this? Just as we are?"

  He nodded. "Let's go."

  She arose, an odd reluctance in her now. "I suppose you think I'm contemptible for not talking to you before. Believe me, I had no idea anyone would be killed. What I did was for Calvin's good, and I'm convinced that whatever he's done, it must be right and honorable. Calvin is not a traitor. He would never give away any vital national secrets."

  "Not even to Weederman?"

  She flushed. "I told you, Calvin's loyalty is beyond any suspicion. Truly."

  "Those men have ways of getting information. It doesn't matter how strong you are, Deirdre. Everybody has a breaking point. Are you sure you want to keep me to this bargain, for just the two of us?"

  "If I'm not there, Cal won't show up," she said. "If you send men out there to trap him, he'll know about it, somehow. He's being very wary. Please don't go back on your word. I trusted you."

  He smiled. "We're on our way. Just the two of us."

  Then the doorbell rang.

  Durell heard the girl suck in her breath as the shrill alarm jangled away. Her face paled. She jerked her arm from his grip and retreated from the door. Her eyes blazed with anger and contempt. "You lied to me! You told your men to come here."

  "No," Durell said. "Wait."

  The bell rang again, enormously loud in the small apartment. The girl backed into the kitchen. There was a rear door that led to a service stairway in the back of the apartment building. Across the street was an arm of Rock Creek Park. Durell started for the door, then spun quickly to restrain the girl. She twisted away, yanked the rear door open, and darted through. Durell plunged after her.

  Too late, he saw he had been trapped.

  Two men back here on the dark service landing, one holding the girl, a hand clapped over her mouth as she struggled in his grip. Her eyes were wide with terror. And another man, enormous, ugly, in a yellow sport shirt and gray slacks, hair cropped short to the shape of a bullet head hunched on meaty shoulders.

  Something swung in the air before Durell could turn or recover his balance. An instant's glittering arc, then a blast of white pain exploded in him and he was on his hands and knees, shaking his head, trying for the gun in his pocket. A heavy shoe slogged into his ribs. He sprawled on his face. He still tried for the gun. The shoe came grinding down on his hand.

  "Take the girl away."

  "What about him?"

  "I'll take care of this one. Beat it!"

  Durell got half erect in time to see the knee lifting for his jaw, and above it the grinning face of the bullet-headed giant.

  Then there was nothing at all for him except a long, deep dive into blackness that screamed momentarily of agonizing pain and became emptiness…

  Chapter Eight

  He swam sluggishly upward through a sea of red torment, toward the glare of light that opened above him like the mouth of a cone. The doctor working on him was quick, deft, impersonal, smelling of disinfectant. Tape on his ribs, professional fingers on his face, and a bobbing nod.

  "Nothing serious or permanent. Hurts like hell, eh?"

  Swayney's moon face loomed above him.

  "Sam, what happened to the girl? How come you let her get away, hey?" Blue eyes glittered icily. "I gave you firm orders to bring her in and you…"

  "Go to hell," Durell said.

  A red wave moved over Swayney's face. "Hey? What's the matter with you? Lew is dead, the girl is gone, you were ranting about a dead man named Weederman…"

  "He's not dead," Durell said.

  "I say he is. I've got all the facts. I'm not usually wrong."

  "This time you're wrong."

  "Well, what about the girl? Where is she?"

  "Gone. Weederman's apparatus got her."

  "Oh, Jesus."

  "My mistake."

  "Your scalp, you mean." Swayney drew a deep breath. "All right. Drop it. You're off it. You go to the hospital, then we'll have this out. Just answer one thing. What made you take off with the girl alone like that?"

  "A hunch. A gamble. I lost."

  "Did she tell you anything?"

  "Some."

  "She's a filthy Red bitch like the rest of them. What did she do, show you a leg, Sam?"

  "You bastard," Durell said. "You think I don't have a right to get sore about this?"

  Durell said, "The girl received enough of the kind of treatment you want to give her. She took it for her brother and she got enough of it for herself. All right, it wasn't anybody's fault, but she doesn't see it that way. She feels antagonism, she feels she won't get justice for herself or her brother. She doesn't like the idea of Calvin Padgett being hunted down like a bubonic rat. You try your loudmouthed, bullying tactics on her, and she'd clam up. She's tough. You wouldn't get anywhere. So I tried to win her confidence. I did, too. But Weederman's men booby-trapped me."

  Swayney's pursy mouth closed as if tightened with a drawstring. Durell pushed the doctor away and sat up. His head swam. Pain hammered at him. He closed his eyes, hearing Swayney's thin voice go on and on. After a moment he felt better, the pain ebbed, he stood up. The man with the bullet head loomed in the back of his mind. Ugly, jeering, deadly. The man who had killed Lew Osbourn. The man who had Deirdre Padgett. He felt sick. He drew a deep breath and steadied himself. Swayney watched him with curiosity.

  "You belong in a hospital, Sam," Swayney said, more softly. "I'm sorry, but I'm pulling the cork on you. You're off the case."

  "No."

  "What did the girl tell you about Calvin Padgett?"

  "She is to meet him in Las Tiengas tomorrow evening."

  "Where?"

  "A place called the Salamander." Durell wanted to hold this out, but he couldn't. Everything he had been trained to be required that he transfer this information, now that the girl was gone. "Cal Padgett is playing it cagey. He won't show unless his sister is there. And I've lost her. If you throw a stake-out on the place, you'll lose, Burritt."

  "We'll see who loses."

  "I've got to find that girl," Durell said.

  "Hell. We've got to find Calvin Padgett."

  * * *

  Dickinson McFee lit his pipe very carefully, puffing hard, watching the flame shoot up and die away as he blew on the wooden match. It was three o'clock in the afternoon. Durell sat patiently in his office at 20 Annapolis Street. His head ached, his ribs ached, his teeth were sore. There was anger in him and a sense of tension he coul
d not dispel. As usual, the little general seated behind his smooth, cleared desk wore civilian clothes, a gray flannel suit with a blue necktie and a pearl stickpin. As usual, Dickinson McFee seemed to fill the room with his presence. He spoke quietly.

  "Swayney is down on you, Sam. With some reason, you must admit. Don't interrupt me, now. You ought to be in bed for the next twenty-four hours; but if you say you're all right, then I'll accept that. Officially, you're off the case. I've got to back up Swayney."

  Durell waited.

  The pipe emitted great clouds of aromatic smoke.

  "I know Lew Osbourn was your friend," McFee said.

  "My best friend."

  "You don't want to quit on this one, do you?"

  "No," Durell said.

  "I'll tell you what I've been thinking. Swayney is throwing nets out in all directions to snare the girl. I don't think he'll find her or the son-of-a-bitch who clobbered you and killed Lew. The apparatus we're working against seems to be smart, fast, and highly organized. They must not be allowed to get their hands on Calvin Padgett. The FBI is rounding up every suspected agent in the country, but it's my hunch that this crowd is all new, never used before, held in reserve for just this kind of thing. Swayney won't find the girl. Not alive, anyway."

  "You can't let them kill her," Durell said tightly.

  "We'll try to stop it. Swayney is competent on that end. But it's my hunch she'll crack. She'll have to. It's only a matter of time, maybe hours, with luck maybe a day, before she tells about her rendezvous with her brother."

  "So?"

  "We'll work this on two levels. Swayney is the obvious, the overt activity that they'll see. He'll throw weight around, here in the East, and in Las Tiengas, too. The enemy apparatus will spot it all, you can count on it."

  "And the other level?"

  McFee pointed the stem of his pipe. 'That's you."