Assignment Star Stealers Read online

  "I'm glad the Emperor is gracious enough to receive me," Durell said.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Lead on, madame."

  "You will please to be brief." She might have been barking orders to march prisoners into the gas ovens. "Herr Stephenson has three other appointments waiting. It is very exceptional."

  The smell of money and power can't be defined, Durell thought, but you can sense it and know it's there, and have no doubt about it. The long corridor was faced on one side with tall glass panels, twenty feet high, and there was a helicopter pad on the roof below it. The machine that rested there looked familiar. It could have been the same one he had seen east of Taouz, but not necessarily. HCI could afford a fleet of them.

  There was a row of blank mahogany doors on the other side of the glassed-in corridor. It was night now. Floodlights illuminated the chopper pad, but beyond that, there was only the twinkle and glitter of Zurich's windows. The blonde woman stopped at the last door.

  "In here, Herr Durell. Please be brief."

  Gary Stephenson came up from around his desk with his left hand outstretched. Durell lifted the chained attache case apologetically.

  ''You travel fast, Durell."

  "So do you."

  "Sit down, sit down. Drink? Cigarette? I have some business to attend to, or I'd never have left Amanda in Fez, of course. I'm hoping to go back there tonight or tomorrow." Stephenson's smile exuded charm and personality. He looked as if he had just stepped from a shower and the barber's. "What can I do for you? You government people are certainly persistent. Washington is so security conscious, it's a wonder anything really gets done."

  "That's true, but we manage,*' Durell said.

  Stephenson wore a gray pinstripe suit with wide lapels and a Dickensian cravat at his throat. He looked lean and athletic, well scrubbed, well cared for. His blond head was narrow, his face triangular, his jaw strong. He would be good at tennis, Durell thought. In bed with a woman, too. But you never knew about that. His jewelry was discreet.

  Stephenson repeated, "I hated to leave Amanda, as I say. I understand you and she are old childhood friends. It's odd that she never mentioned you before."

  "We never expected to meet again," Durell said.

  "Terrible thing, that business in the desert. I had no idea she'd get so involved. I must confess, I was a bit annoyed with you, dragging her into that sort of thing. Frankly, I've tried to dissuade her quixotic attempts to find Richard." Stephenson lighted a cigarette. It was long vrtth a gold filter. His gray eyes were careful; his eyelids were heavy, with a deceptively sleepy look.

  "Are you going to marry her?" Durell asked abruptly.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Going to marry the boss?"

  Stephenson's flush was very famt. *'I really don't think you—"

  "She depends on you. She's grateful to you for all your help, ever since her husband died. Gratitude leads to love, dependency to marriage."

  "I see no reason to discuss personal matters," Stephenson said coldly. "Just why did you come here?"

  "A matter of classified government files that you gave to Amanda to turn over to people we consider enemies of our national security."

  "She told you about them?"

  "Yes. And about Richard."

  "That poor, misguided young man. But then, when one is endowed with extraordinary intellectual capacities there always seems to be something withheld in another area. Social and personality adjustments, let us say. He was always rather—ah—strange."

  "Do you love her?" Durell asked.

  "Sir?"

  "Do you love Amanda?"

  "That's hardly your business. If you have come here to harass me, as seems to be a penchant among people in security agencies—"

  "Not at all. Just explain the files you stole."

  "I don't have to."

  "I think you do."

  Stephenson smiled grimly. "You're one of those bastards who like to make trouble for people, I can see that."

  "That's right," said Durell. He knew he was taking a chance. "Especially for traitors."

  Stephenson stared at him and swallowed and seemed to tremble a little, then he said in a flat, controlled voice, "Get out."

  "First, about the files."

  "Out!"

  "The files—"

  Stephenson pushed a button on his desk. He looked pale with anger under his carefully modulated tan. "Just to keep the matter straight, and avoid and negate your petty nuisance value, you son of a bitch, you might know that Senator Henley and General Grogan, as well as Thomas de Vries of State, all consulted with me on the matter and gave me full clearance to act on my own discretion."

  "That's all I wanted to know," Durell said. "I thought it might be something like that."

  "As for Amanda—I suggest you stay away from her."

  "Reserving the territory?"

  "You might say so."

  "We'll leave that up to her," Durell said. He stood up and left before he was escorted out.

  17

  He waited in his dingy hotel room until ten minutes before midnight, as much a prisoner of the money chained to his wrist as if he were in Death Row awaiting execution. The figure of speech, he thought, might prove to be only too appropriate.

  It was still raining when he went down to the street. He walked to the corner coffee shop and ordered a cup and a plate of veal stew, and then got up and went to the men's room and kept on going down a dim narrow corridor and through the back door. An alley led him to a street that took him to the Dreikonigstrasse. He walked with a long stride, the money case tucked under his arm. He thought he saw the same man, in a longish topcoat imder a black umbrella, twice within the first five minutes of his walk. The bite of the rain held some ice in it. The wind was very cold, coming off the lake. Traffic was light. The attache case felt abnormally heavy chained to his wrist.

  Once, when he looked back and glimpsed the Gothic spire of the Grossmlinster church, he thought his shadow had caught up with him. He wondered if it might be one of Colonel Skoll's men. But you couldn't take anything for granted in this business. Considering the cash he carried, McFee could be flying a protective wing formation over him.

  He passed two girls with pale hair and belted white raincoats that flicked six inches above their knees. They turned and looked back and their youthful faces touched as they whispered. He kept going. There was a smaU hill, a tiny cobbled square running deep with rainwater, and medieval-fronted shops, half-timbered houses, and a small bronze statue of ZwingU, the Reformist.

  For a few moments, astonishingly, the moon came out, and then it rained again. He was reminded of James Joyce's comment about Zurich's weather when he was writing Ulysses here—it was as unpredictable as a baby's bottom.

  He found the Zuricher Uberhaus Akademie a moment later.

  There was a comer Beerstaub with great lettering in German Gothic, carved in flowing red neon. A long street climbed upward into a dark area unlike the rest of modem Zurich. The houses were old and somehow forgotten in the newness of chrome, steel, and glass, downtown. The Akademie towered in narrow-shouldered isolation behind high, spiked iron fencing.

  Durell followed his instructions and walked through a narrow alley to the rear of the school building. Boards had been neatly nailed up over the lower windows of what had once been a private institution, but which now was obviously out of business. The gate in the rear, which should have been locked, was left open for him. He slipped into deep shadows in the tiny schoolyard that once had echoed with the shouts of Zuricher schoolboys.

  The back door consisted of two tall wooden panels, their polished surfaces wet with rain. The cold wind clattered the bare branches of a sycamore tree in the concrete yard. Durell went up the worn steps, hollowed by generations of youngsters, and found the back door unlocked. He stepped in.

  Smells of chalk, dust, small boys, sweat, and the slightest tinge of urine lingered in the vaulted halls like small ghosts. He waited until h
is eyes adjusted to the darkness. He heard nothing except the gurgle of water in the leaden downspouts outside. Light came through the front door in pale, pink washes of color, and he remembered the beer hall down the cobbled street with its Gothic neon sign. The light was a help and a hindrance, all at once. He had been given a rough sketch of this building by McFee, and careful directions on how to proceed.

  The stairway led down into a white-washed basement. No light trailed him down here after he went a few steps. The darkness was absolute. He walked ahead into the black void with great care, pausing now and then to listen. He seemed to hear the ghostly cries and screams of young boys playing in this basement gymnasium, and he wondered how long the Akademie had been empty. Then he sensed something and halted. It was another presence, somewhere out there in the complete darkness of the gymnasium floor.

  He waited.

  "Herr Durell?"

  The two words tumbled out of the void. They were uncertain, although they attempted to be sharp and abrupt.

  "Here," said Durell.

  "You are alone?"

  "Yes."

  "And the money, Herr Spy Durell?"

  "I have it."

  "One million. We demand it!"

  "We are ready to pay it, if you have the information you say you have, the data from our satellites."

  There was a chuckle. "Not just from yours. From Comrade Colonel Skoll's people—and Mr. Chu Li's, from Peking. Yes, I have their information for you, and your information for them. So I am told. Of course, I am only a go-between, actually I am only an innocent cobbler, but I have always been loyal, from the very start." The voice came stronger and more certain now. "In any case, I was told a little of the meaning of this work tonight."

  The man was too talkative. Durell tried to determine whether he was young or old, and decided on the first. He turned in a silent, complete circle, utterly blind in the darkness. Then he turned again and knew he was facing the voice that came at him. He moved forward quietly, his right hand extended, and was startled to touch a heavy stuffed canvas bag hanging from the invisible ceiling. There was a faint thud, the creak of a heavy rope, as his movement set it to swinging slightly.

  Instantly, the man in the dark said, "What are you doing?"

  "Looking for a match. I'm blind this way." "You know your instructions! You must obey our orders, or not at all!"

  There was a touch of pomposity and self-importance in the voice. Durell said, "You're not an ordinary courier, like the others. I doubt that you're a cobbler. The other people who exchanged information for our money knew nothing of what they were doing, nothing at all."

  "Ah, well. One must be flexible, eh? Something came up. I had to come, myself. I am unimportant, however. Don't get the idea that I am a big fish, worthy of capture. You could learn nothing from me. And don't try any tricks. You know what happened to Dodd, your friend?" "You son of a bitch," Durell said flatly. "Well, he tried to trick us, eh? Are you sure you have the money?"

  "Yes. Do you have the key to this damned lock on my wrist?"

  There was a soft laugh. "Does the weight of a million dollars prey on your conscience? Why did Dodd try to trick us with blank paper, instead of money?"

  "We don't know what happened. We acted in good faith."

  "That's stupid. He did not have the money. Did he try to keep it for himself, Durell?" "We don't know."

  "Would you like to keep the money for yourself?" "I have a job to do, that's all. My orders are to exchange the money for your information, right here. Let's get it over with." Durell paused. *'How do you know my name?"

  '*We are quite pleased that you were selected for this matter."

  Durell said suddenly, "Are you an American?" "Natch."

  "Then you're a traitor."

  "Canary seed, chum. Now let's get our business done, eh? You will come forward, straight ahead. Watch out for the brick wall. It's glazed. When you reach it, move along to your right, quite slowly. I hope you won't try to be clever. Just obey your orders, right? Don't worry if the arrangements have been changed."

  *'We weren't notified of any change."

  "It's nothing to worry about," said the invisible man. "Just do as I say. I have to check the lock on your wrist."

  Durell moved forward, but he took with him the heavy canvas punching bag that hung by its rope from the high ceiling. He made certain it did not creak as he went, and he hoped he would not have to go too far with it, or its long arc would rise too high to take it with him.

  He spoke into the darkness to cover any sound the weighted bag might make and to hide the creak of its rope. "What do I call you? You seem to know all about me."

  "You don't have to know about me. Be careful, now. You must be almost at the wall."

  The other man was nearer now, somewhere off to the right as Durell touched the wall with his outstretched hand. His right hand held the canvas bag at a foot above his head, taut on its rope that stretched down from the ceiling. He halted.

  "Come on, come on."

  "Can't you use a light?" Durell asked.

  "Hell, no."

  "Look here, what about putting the information down on the floor, then come and get the money?"

  "It's not that easy. Are you worried we might fix you like we fixed Dodd? You're going to have to keep that money for a little while longer."

  "What are you talking about? You have the HV-4 key, haven't you?"

  "Come along. I just have to check it. We'll be finished in a moment. Just a couple of steps to your right."

  "Hold it," Durell said.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Why do I have to keep the money for a while?"

  "Because you don't deliver it to me. We've changed things a bit. You're coming with me and we're going on a plane and we're flying to—^we're going on a flight, okay? You deliver the money and collect your data elsewhere."

  "That's not what I was told."

  "You don't contact anybody, you don't call or see your boss. Nobody. You disappear. If you think they'll worry that you took off with the cash, forget it. Maybe they'll figure we bought you. Maybe we will buy you." The man laughed. "It will all come out all right."

  "I want to know where we're going."

  "Africa, of course."

  "Morocco?"

  "Yes. Agadir and—" The voice was annoyed. "You don't have to know any more, just now."

  "Suppose I refuse?"

  "Then we make no more deals with your people. We will do all our business with the Red Chinese. Mr. Chu Li is most anxious to get a monopoly on all the information we have. Or maybe Colonel Skoll will bid a bit higher."

  "All right," Durell said.

  He let go of the weighted bag. At the same time, he took one step to the right, feeling the cool glazed brick of the gymnasium wall. The rope creaked in its ring, and the punching bag rocketed far back across the dark void and then came hurtling and swinging back.

  There was sudden alarm in the other's voice. "Listen, what's all that—"

  The bag hit the wall with a resounding thump on its return swing. It didn't strike the other man, but there was no need for it. His opponent was startled enough to cry out in sudden fear. There was a scrape of feet on the maple floor, a rustle of clothing as a body twisted, a sudden explosive glare of light from an electric torch.

  Durell hit him.

  He glimpsed only a hollow, agonized face, heavy brows over deeply sunken eyes, an open mouth like a hole of blackness in a bony jaw. Then the heavy steel case containing the money smashed into those disembodied features revealed by the light. There was a gargled scream, a mangled thud and thrash of the man's body. Durell gave him no chance to recover. Above them, the taut rope holding the swinging bag shuddered and twanged. The man tried to roll away, grabbing for the flashlight. Durell jammed his heel on the other's wrist, wanting the light now. The man gasped and tried to pull away, and could not, and kicked upward, aiming for the groin. Durell jumped back, kicked the flashlight across the floor, where its eeri
e rays were directed away from them into the cavernous room. There was dust on the hardwood floor. Leather stuffed apparatus, rings, horses and jumps made grotesque shadows on the ceramic brick walls. Even more grotesque was his opponent's face, wild with fear, the face of a skeleton, the cheeks deeply sunken and cadaverous, the teeth showing yellow in a mouth stretched in a taut grimace. The man was hunkered down on his haunches, staring up through massive brows.

  "Joke's on you, Cajun," he whispered. "What are you trying to do? You're a fool. You had your orders—"

  "To exchange the money for the stuff, right here."

  "So we changed the plans a httle!"

  "I won't be tagged as a defector."

  "Your job is to do as we say!"

  "Where is the information I'm to buy?"

  "Irhan Kadir has it, in Fez. Okay? Now come along like a good boy. Your people won't even know what's happened to you, they might even think the money got the best of you, like maybe it did for Dodd, but it won't be for long. I ought to call the deal off now, you've got such a low flash point." The man's hand came backward in a swipe across his bleeding mouth. The sunken eyes were malevolent. "I'll sell the stuff to your competitors. To Skoll, maybe, you stupid—"

  Durell kicked him in the side of the head just in time. He saw the man's clenched, white-knuckled hand fly open as he fell backward. The knife had been hidden there, ready to be driven into his heart. The blade went sliding and scraping across the dusty gymnasium floor. The man rolled over backward like an acrobat, came up, and swung toward Ehirell, and it was plain that there never was any intent to make an exchange, he had been sent to kill Durell. Durell hit him again mth the heavy steel case, using his right hand to follow up with a chop across the throat. The man fell back and hit the wall with a thud and a slightly squashed soimd as his head struck brick.

  Everything went silent.

  He stood still, breathing a bit hard, and listened. He heard the gurgle of rain outside, nothing more. He picked up the flashlight and the knife and walked over to the man who sprawled like a broken doll against the wall.

  "I owe you something for Dodd," he said.