Assignment Madeleine (21 page)

“The jeep’s got to be there, Mad. Is it a trick? Something
you cooked up with Durell? You expect me to go in there first?” L’Heureux
suddenly smashed his knuckles across the girls face. Madeleine fell, sprawling,
her hair across her eyes. “That’s for trying anything at all, see? Now get in
there and drive that jeep out.”

She didn’t get up. She shook her head.

“Mad, I’m warning you!”

Durell said quietly: “It’s possible she’s telling the truth.
Maybe the jeep 'isn’t there. You said yourself this place was used by the
rebels. Maybe they came back and found the jeep and drove it away.” In the dim
starlight, he saw Charley's figure as something enormous and glowering. He
could hear the man’s harsh breathing. Durell walked over to Madeleine. He
couldn’t help her up; his hands were tied behind his back; but he dropped to
his knees beside her. “Tell him again. Tell him the jeep is gone.”

Charley cursed. “All right. Nobody moves. I go in there and
if anybody moves a finger, they get it, understand?”

Madeleine whispered, “He means it. Be careful.”

Charley went into the cave. Nobody moved.

When he came out again, Durell saw by his face that Madeleine
had told the truth. The jeep Charley had been counting on wasn’t there.
Charley, for all his careful planning, was trapped along with them.

Charley stared at them and licked his lips. The starlight
glistened in his narrowed eyes. “So it’s gone,” he announced. He looked at
Durell. “But don’t get any ideas. There's still a radio in there. I’m calling
the rebels, and we’ll sit tight until they pick us up here.”

“What happens to us then?” Durell asked.

“Whatever they want. You’ll make a great hostage for them.
Good propaganda, being an American agent.”

“Do they know about the money?”

“No,” Charley said. “And they won’t know, either.”

They looked at each other.

“Suppose one of us mentions it when they get here?” Durell
asked. “You can’t watch us all. And the minute you took off alone, we could
talk. They’d be on your heels before you got very far.”

“So?"

“So don’t lie to us,” Durell said. “You have to kill us before
they get here.”

“Don’t push it,” Charley said. “Don’t push it now.”

Madeleine whispered, “Please, Charley. No more right now.
Please.”

“He wants me to knock him off,” L’Heureux said heavily.

“You know he didn’t mean it that way.”

“Then let him ask me to save him for a few hours.” Charley
walked across the gritty sand and put the muzzle of his carbine against
Durell’s head. Durell could smell the oil on the gun. He still knelt beside
Madeleine.
 
The huge shape of his former
prisoner loomed over him. Charley said, “Go ahead, beg for it, you son of a
bitch.”

“Let it go, Charley,” Madeleine whispered.

“Shut up and stay out of it. Well, Durell?”

“No man wants to die,” Durell said carefully.

“That ain’t enough.”

Durell saw Jane and Chet staring at him. They seemed to be
holding their breath. Then L’Heureux laughed explosively.

“Funny thing, Durell. I got a gun at your head and I can
kill you now and get away with it. No reason why I shouldn’t. But you can’t
kill me. You wouldn’t, even
it
you had the chance.”

“Don’t count on that, Charley.”

“I don’t. But in your mind, I’m still your prisoner. Your hands
are tied, my gun is on you, but you still think I'm your prisoner, right?”

“Maybe.”

“No maybes. I know your kind. I know the training they give
you. You never give up, you bastards. You got orders to take me back to Paris
so the French cops can pick me apart and then hand all the bloody little pieces
back to you so you can take me to Washington where they’d do it all over again.
Those are your orders. That’s what you hope to do. So you wouldn’t kill me,
even if you had the chance.”

Charley took the gun away. The muzzle scraped Durell’s head
with a harsh twist and then was lowered to point at the black sand.

Chapter Eighteen

THEY ATE the last of the sandwiches. Jane refused to eat and
gave her portion to Chet. Madeleine sat down with Durell and helped him with
his, since he was still tied. He
 
had
hoped, faintly, that Charley might permit his wrists to be unbound, but Charley
had ignored the problem. He was worried, too, about his wounded hand. The pain
in it had become a steady, pulsing throb that reached up into his arm, and he
mentioned it to Madeleine when she asked him how it was.

"It can be changed,” she murmured. She looked at the mouth
of the cave where Charley had vanished briefly with Durell's remaining
brandy. "It will be dangerous. You saw how he was when he found the jeep
was gone?

He could have killed us all without a qualm.”

“He's
quiet
enough now.”

“Because he has made contact by radio with the rebels. The
radio was there, in the cave. I saw it. Charley has already sent off his
message. He feels secure now. He thinks his friends in the extremists will come
and bring a vehicle for him.”

“When does he expect this to happen?” Durell asked.

The girl shrugged. “He will not say. It is difficult to guess.
Here, finish this last bite.”

She gave him the last of her sandwich. There was no water
left in the thermos jug now. Durell knew that if the rebels didn’t come soon,
the sun tomorrow would finish them all. He kept watching the cave
entrance where Charley had gone and said quietly, “Can’t you untie me now,
Madeleine?”

She was combing her hair. “It would be suicide, and I will
not help you with that. Not now. He has all the weapons and he is alert. When
he finishes your brandy, he will not get very drunk, but he will relax a
little and then he will send for lane Larkin.”

"Or you,” Durell said.

No, it is the blond girl from Texas he wants, not me.”

"And then?”

He is like a bull, that type. It will be quick. We will plot
have much time, only a few minutes. I will untie you then."

“When will it begin?”

“When he finishes the brandy.” Madeleine’s blouse was tom,
and her shoulder gleamed through the ripped cloth. Her eyes were luminous in
the starlit ravine. It was very quiet. Durell swept the rim of rock where they
waited, but nothing stirred. He heard Jane murmuring to Chet, where they sat a
little apart. She was holding his face in her hands, talking quietly and
persistently to him. All he could see of Chet was the gleam of crude bandage on
his shoulder. His head looked bowed and stubborn, as if he refused to listen to
her.

Then Charley appeared in the black mouth of the cave. He
threw something, and glass shattered. It was the empty brandy bottle. His legs
were apart, his head was thrust forward on his massive shoulders. Everything in
his black silhouette reflected ugly suspicion.

He turned at last to Jane Larkin.

She hadn’t told Chet, and he had no idea that the night in
Algiers would have a lasting meaning for them both. She prayed now that nothing
would happen to make things go wrong. It didn’t matter right now that Chet was
remote, removed from her by a barrier of pain and his stubborn decision to stay
in North Africa. Maybe he was right. She had reached a willingness to concede this
much. No question about it, she had been a bitch. It took something
fundamental, like seeing Chet shot and falling, seeing his blood and his tired
face, thinking for a heart-stopping moment that he’d been killed. Then you knew
what really mattered and what was trivial. She wished she really knew how to
pray. She tried, but it seemed as if she had forgotten, or didn’t know how. The
words ran through her mind without conviction or meaning. Maybe it was too late
for her.

“There he is, Jane," Chet whispered. “Watching you.”

She didn’t look at the cave. “Give me your knife, Chet.”

“Too late now, honey.”

“He can’t see. It’s too dark. Where is it? You said you had
one.”

“Jane, you can’t kill him!”

”I’ve got to try," she said quietly. “You heard Durell.
If the guerrillas get here, he has to kill us so we won’t tell about the
money.”

“Then why doesn’t he do it now and get it over with?”

“He wants me,” she said flatly. Chet looked at her.
His face was haggard. She touched his cheek, and his beard felt rough and
stubbly. “But part of his wanting me won’t be satisfied unless you and
Durell and Madeleine know he has had me. That’s the kind of man he is.”

“How do you know about that? What do you know about men like
Charley L’Heureux?”

“I just know,” she said. “That’s how he is.”

Chet started to speak in violent protest, then paused, swallowed,
and looked at her in wonderment. “And afterward?”

“Afterward, he’ll kill us. Me, too. I have no illusions about
that.” She listened to the sound of her whispered words and it seemed like the
calm conversation of a stranger. It was not the way she felt inside. There were
storms of confusion and terror in her. But for Chet’s sake, she had to seem
calm. "There won’t be any afterward, though. So hurry and give me your
knife.”

“He’s gone back inside,” Chet said, looking at the cave.

“Hurry, then. Where is it? You said you had it.”

“In my boot.”

He tried to get it for her, but his shoulder wound had stiffened
him, and he groaned involuntarily with the effort. Jane told him to lie still.
The knife was in his left boot, in a small leather pocket made for it. It was a
spring knife, with a long bone handle and a small silver button at one end. She
pressed it experimentally. The blade
snicked
quivering into sight, long and thin, glistening in the starlight. She touched
the point. It was like a needle. She touched the edge of the blade with her thumb.
It was very sharp.

She tried to imagine driving this blade into Charley’s flesh.
She couldn’t picture it. It was.an event that didn’t exist. But she had to make
it happen.

She got to her knees and knelt beside Chet.

“Jane, I can’t let you do it!” He sounded desperate.

She kissed him. “Don’t worry about me.” His face was in the
shadow. She could see the agony of his love and fear for her. “Chet, I’m sorry
about all the—all the quarreling, you know—”

“Don’t talk about that now.”

“I wish I could forget it. I’ve been terrible to you.”

“I've been no saint, either.”

“Yes. Yes, you are a saint, Chet. Later, if everything works
out all right—” She swallowed over the words that didn’t say what she was
thinking. “Well, we’ll talk about it later, all right?”

“Sure,” Chet said.

She kissed him. His beard scratched her, She stood up
quickly and closed the knife and unbuttoned the bottom button of her blouse and
slid the knife against the skin of her stomach. The touch of it made her
muscles jump and contract.

Charley’s voice reached for her in the night.

“Jane? Come here, Jane.”

She looked that way, pretending indecision. “What do you
want?”

“Come here,
Janey
.”

She walked up the rough slope to the cave entrance. None of
them since their arrival had been near the cave. Her legs trembled as she
climbed toward him. She prayed for the strength to do what had to be done.
Smile, she told herself. Play it the way you did all day. Play it as if you
were still the idiot you were this morning. Smile again. Now. And when he
touched you, don’t flinch. Whatever you do, make him think you like it.

“Here I am,” she said. She pretended to be interested in the
cave. “What’s in there?”

“Nothing. I had a jeep, and somebody swiped it. Good thing
they left the radio.”

“Charley. . . .”

“Yeah,
Janey
.”

“It’s kind of hard for me to figure out what’s right
and wrong.” She made her voice naive and plaintive. Her belly quivered. “I
mean, things have happened, everything is so crazy and unreal—”

“I'm real.” He grinned down at her and put his hands on her
shoulders. “I know what you’ve been thinking all day. Same as me. We both knew
it, the minute you first saw me. I know you,
Janey
.”

“You make me feel—sort of funny, she said. She looked down
and put her arm across her belt and felt the hard pressure of the knife. She
heard his breathing. She could smell the sweat and animal odor of him. His
fingers caught in the open throat of her blouse and she heard the buttons
tear, one by one, as he slowly pulled his hand down and ripped e blouse open.

“Don't,” she whispered. “Not here. They can see—let's go
inside—"

“They don’t count,
Janey
. Forget
them."

He ripped the blouse away. She felt the night air on her
body. It had to be now. Her forearm hid the knife, and she dropped her hand
with the knife lying in her palm and then she suddenly felt the brutal pressure
of his arms as he pulled her to him and kissed her. His mouth was hard and
cruel. His strength was enormous. She couldn’t move. Her arms were pinned to
her sides by his embrace. All at once she was terrified. She felt him crush
her down. She hit him, breaking free for a moment, in an instinctive effort to
resist. Her fist was small and puny. He laughed. He threw her down, and
as she fell she pressed the button on the knife handle, and the blade sprang
out with a tiny
snicking
sound.

He heard it and was motionless.

Straddling her, his silhouette was enormous.

“
Janey
,” he said reproachfully.

Jane lunged, driving the knife upward toward his body. And
she knew before the stroke went half the distance that she had missed.

His knees came down, crashing on her upper arms, and his
hand flicked aside the blade with astonishing ease. His face hung over
her, laughing silently. His head and shoulders blotted out the sky. Everything
seemed to stop inside her. She felt his weight on her and then the shock of his
desire.