Assignment - Ankara (8 page)

Durell was on him in a moment.

“Hold it,” he gasped. “Don’t move.”

The man looked up at his gun and said something in English between panting breaths and then lunged up again. Durell hit him with the gun barrel to drive him back, but he wasn’t to be stopped. The man tried to grapple with Durell, and his lightning move was unpredictable. His strength was enormous. He shouted something and Durell hit him again, trying to break free of the other’s grip; but he felt himself flung aside. He staggered, tried to regain his balance. The man started to run again, and Durell jumped, brought him down on all fours. They locked together, rolled over and over down the hill toward the hut.

“Let—go!” the man gasped.

He punched at Durell’s throat and tried to knee him. Durell slammed the gun against his opponent’s jaw and the man’s head snapped aside and blood gushed from a broken tooth.

“Hold still,” Durell rasped.

The man turned an astonished face upward. “You’re American?”

“What did you think?”

His chest heaved. “I didn’t know—Russian, maybe—”

“Here, among these Turks?”

“Somebody killed Dr. Uvaldi—I thought you were the one who did it—”

"Hold still,” Durell said again. He stood back and leveled the gun at the man, who turned his head and gestured carefully toward some boulders in the rubbly field.

“I think somebody is back there—a girl. Didn’t you see her? I tripped over her. I think she’s dead.”

It could be a trick, Durell thought. The man spoke with a Tennessee twang, and his clothes were American. He looked at the man’s hands. A black ring that could have been fashioned from a lump of coal glistened on one of his fingers. “Just a minute,” Durell said. “Who are you?”

“I was sent to take Dr. Uvaldi back to the States,” the man said. “But I was too late to save him, I reckon. I’m Bert Anderson—folks call me Andy—and I’m a diplomatic courier out of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara.”

ANDERSON climbed slowly to his feet, absently dusting his clothes, a rather rueful smile on his wide mouth. He looked even bigger and tougher close up than when Durell had chased him at a distance. There was something of an amiable frog in his expression—he had a broad mouth and large gray eyes, long legs and a barrel chest that gave an impression of awkwardness that, Durell knew, was not justified. He dabbed at a cut on his cheek and sucked at his broken tooth. His hands were big, with thick wrists—and now Durell saw that the ring he wore was a cut and polished piece of coal. Anderson must have weighed thirty pounds more than Durell, who was a large man, and he stood two inches above Durell’s six-foot-one.

“Suppose you tell me who you are,” Anderson suggested grimly. “You seem to know a lot about my business.”

“Have you an I.D. card?” Durell countered.

“Sure.”

“Let’s have it.”

Anderson shrugged and carefully handed him a plastic-cased card. Durell glanced at it and handed it back.

“All right, Bert.” He was satisfied. “It looks like we’re in this together. Ankara sent me to help you and Uvaldi out of here, with the radar tapes, and get you to Washington. My name is Durell.”

“Sam Durell?” Anderson was surprised, then grinned his frog’s grin again. “Heard about you, friend. I’m impressed. Who’s the Turkish cop with you?”

“A friend. He’ll escort us part of the way. Have you got Uvaldi’s tapes?”

“No. I don’t know where they are.”

“What happened to them?” Durell asked sharply.

“I don’t know. Look, we’d better see about that girl—” Durell hesitated, then saw Kappic jogging uphill toward them out of the darkness, and nodded. He turned with Anderson and retraced his steps among the boulders strewn over the brushy field.

“Here she is,” Anderson muttered. “Jesus, look at her.” Durell knelt quickly beside the still figure of Francesca Uvaldi. He thought for a moment she was dead. Then she moaned and lifted one hand in a feeble, defensive gesture, and he turned her gently until he could see her face. Wincing, he helped her sit up on the stony ground, his fingers on her pulse. She drew a long, sighing breath and opened her eyes wide and suddenly began to scream in terror.

“It’s all right,” he said quickly. “It’s Durell.”

Her scream ended. She touched her throat wonderingly, looked at Anderson’s huge, looming figure, saw him smile quickly, and returned her dazed glance to Durell. Her face was battered and bloodstained, and there was a deep cut on her temple; her dark hair was loose, streaming down her shoulders.

“Somebody—somebody tried to—kill me,” she whispered, wonderingly.

“That’s obvious. Do you know who it was?”

She shook her head in silence.

“Did you see anything of him at all?”

“Only a shape, a shadow—he wouldn’t stop—I hurt all over. He was like a madman—”

“Can you tell us why you were attacked like this?”

She hesitated. “No.”

“There must be a reason,” Durell insisted.

“No. No reason. A—a looter, perhaps.”

She was lying, even dazed as she was. Durell had the impression she had quickly regained control of her clever, alert mind. She was giving nothing away. But it was obvious that she certainly couldn’t have been in the village to kill Uvaldi if she had been unconscious here at the time. The bruises on her face and body couldn’t have been faked.

He said abruptly, “We found your father, Francesca.”

“Oh?”

“He’s dead. Someone just killed him.”

If he was ever to catch her off guard, he thought, brutality now might do it, however cruel it might be to tell her about it like this. She stared at him for a moment without comprehension. Her eyes widened, then narrowed; she moistened her bruised lips with her tongue.

“I—I hurt,” she whispered.

“Didn’t you understand what I just said?” Durell insisted.

She nodded without replying. She closed her eyes and her face became a mask, innately lovely despite the scars and blemishes inflicted on her. Durell straightened and looked Anderson and at Kappic, who had joined them silently, then nodded and lifted the girl in his arms and carried her down the hill to the hut where he had left her two hours ago. Anderson and Kappic followed, walking heavily. Inside the hut, Durell put the girl down on the big peasant bed and turned to Kappic. “Better get Susan Stuyvers to look after her, Lieutenant. She’s in the next house.”

“Shall I bring the father, too?”

“Not just yet. Just tell them there’s been an accident here.”

Francesca seemed to have fainted. He watched her breathing and saw where the native clothes she wore had been ripped and stained by her struggle. No, it hadn’t been faked. But the girl, even though dazed, was acting strangely. He was sure she had grasped the news about her father’s death, and he felt annoyed because he wanted to trust her and knew he couldn’t.

He turned to Anderson as Kappic went out. “We have only a few moments before the Turk gets back. Kappic was cleared by our security people, but we have to be careful just the same.”

“Right.” Anderson’s slow Tennessee drawl sounded strange in the peasant hut. His gray eyes were direct, watching Durell. “I can’t tell you much. Dr. Uvaldi looked worse yesterday from his injuries than he did this morning, so we decided not to move out until tonight, if he improved. I decided to wait, and I got the local medic to take care of him, at the inn.”

“What about Uvaldi’s tapes?” Durell asked.

“He had them—then,” Anderson sighed.

“Did you see them?”

Anderson shrugged. “They were in a small attache case, and he wouldn’t show ’em to me. But I got a look at them, when he was sleeping. They were there, all right. He was spooky about security, so I didn’t bother him, once I was satisfied I had the real thing and we were on our way home.”

“What happened this evening?” Durell asked.

“Well, I heard there was a ham radio operator in Musa Karagh, a retired Turkish army sergeant. I know a little about radio myself, so I went looking for him, thinking I might get word back to Ankara about the situation here and conditions at Base Four. But the man was hard to find. And when I located his place, he was dead, killed when a wall of his house collapsed on him.”

“And his radio?”

“I found it, all right. The aerial was down, of course, and the components were banged up a bit, but I hunted around in the wreckage for spare parts. He had ’em. Then I went to work putting the thing together again, stringing up the antenna wire, and so forth. The batteries were okay. I finally got it working, but I lost track of time while I was at it. I wasn’t worried about Uvaldi, because the doc said he’d be okay, and he was sleeping like a babe when I left him.”

“It was a long sleep,” Durell said grimly.

“He was alive when I left him in the afternoon.” Anderson started to say more, then shrugged. “Anyway, I got the radio going and raised Ankara. They were glad to hear from me, and they asked about you. I didn’t think you were here already—that’s why I took off, back at the inn. I’m glad to have you backing me, though—somebody is around who’s tough and smart, and he’s going to try every which way to stop you and me from getting out with the tapes.”

“What else did Ankara say?” Durell asked.

“They’re sending a KT-4 first thing tomorrow morning— one of the new types, lands on a dime, carries ten for a four-thousand-mile range. I told them to land on one of the fields across the river. Nothing else except a chopper could sit down there, and the fog socked in the whole valley yesterday, so nothing could fly in. Tomorrow it should be okay.”

Anderson paused and spread his big hands and looked curiously around the room. Francesca seemed to be asleep. The charcoal fire in the tiled stove had gone out, and it was growing chilly in the hut. Anderson shook his head slowly and grinned his wide grin, and Durell found himself liking the man and glad he was on hand.

“I ought to resent Ankara sending you to help me,” Anderson said. “I’ve been in the business almost as long as you, Durell. But I’m in a jam here, no mistake. The tapes are missing, and we’ve got to find them fast, before whoever got them manages to escape from this valley.”

“What happened when you got back from locating the radio?”

“Uvaldi was dead. It was only two or three minutes before you showed up. I had no time to ask questions or learn if any strangers had been around. You and Turk came along and I figured I’d really bought it—I lost my gun yesterday, in the quake. So I hid in the hall—”

“Are you the one who turned out the lanterns?” Durell asked.

“No. I found the blasted things just the way you did. My only thought was to get away from you and the Turk—you looked dangerous to me. I had an idea of getting back to Base Four and picking up Sergeant Isaks and some other men for reinforcements. Dinty Simpson said on the radio you were coming, but I couldn’t be sure when, and I didn’t even guess it was you, back at the inn.” Anderson grinned. “Glad I didn’t brain you when you were chasing me, anyway, Cajun.”

Durell smiled. “My luck. Do you know Dinty well?”

“Just from around the Embassy.” Anderson’s prominent gray eyes looked almost colorless in the pale light of the kerosene vapor lamp inside the hut. Then, as Durell wondered what was taking Kappic so long in fetching Susan Stuyvers to take care of Francesca, Anderson walked over to the bed and frowned at the unconscious girl. His big hands looked surprisingly gentle as he adjusted the thin blanket over her form.

“Quite a looker,” the courier said. “Who is she?”

“She’s Dr. Uvaldi’s daughter.”

Anderson was startled. “Hell, Uvaldi never mentioned her.”

“He wasn’t expecting her.”

“I mean, he never mentioned having a daughter.” The big man looked troubled. “Do you trust her?”

“I don’t trust anybody,” Durell said quietly.

Anderson nodded, not surprised. “Yeah, I know your training, Cajun. You’d kill her or me or anybody in your way, if it was necessary. Killing is part of your business, I hear.”

“Not exactly,” Durell said.

“Well, I hope you trust me,” the big man said. He started for the door of the hut. “I’m going to see this Susan Stuyvers.”

“Why?”

Anderson drew a deep breath. “Because she’s got the tapes.”

Durell looked quickly at the sleeping girl. Francesca had not moved.

Anderson said quietly, “It can’t be anyone else. When I came back after hunting for the radio, the local medic stopped me down in the inn. He said Uvaldi had sent an old woman with a small package to the missionary’s daughter, only a short time before I returned.”

“Why would Dr. Uvaldi do that?”

“Search me. Maybe he thought I’d gotten into trouble and wasn’t coming back,” Anderson said. He looked angry for a. moment. “Of course, I’m not sure the old woman really delivered anything to John or Susan Stuyvers, and even if she did, I’m not sure it’s the tape we want. But that’s why I want to see her.”

Durell was silent. Until he had more facts, there was no point in jumping to quick and possibly wrong conclusion. He felt trapped in this desolate valley, alone with an urgent problem to solve. Back home, in Washington, they were waiting impatiently for Uvaldi’s taped data. Something big was brewing over the mountainous frontier, and whatever it was, Washington had to know about it. He was glad he had met with the Tennessean, Anderson. But everyone else here could only add to his uncertainty. He could trust none of them. And he was trapped here as much as any of them. The only positive fact he had was Dr. Uvaldi’s murder and the ominous loss of the tapes. It meant someone was lying, and that person was in Karagh or somewhere in the valley, determined to head for the Soviet border with the tapes Washington needed.

Durell walked quietly over to the girl who called herself Francesca Uvaldi. She breathed quietly and easily, as if in a natural sleep of exhaustion. Under the thin blanket, her body looked firm and shapely. Her face was composed and lovely. Then, as he continued to look down at her, she turned on the bed and whimpered and flung out an arm, disarranging the blanket and exposing a firm, tanned breast. He straightened the blanket to cover her nakedness and returned to Anderson.