Assignment - Mara Tirana (4 page)

“When is Harry going in after him?” Durell asked. “He’s waiting for the specific contact from Bratislava.” Durell drew a deep breath. “Look, Charley, I’m going on to Vienna, whether you make it official or not. Deirdre doesn’t belong there. The competition knows Deirdre was Stepanic’s girl—don’t underestimate them. If Harry spills anything to her, they might just pick her up for a talk, to find out Harry’s plans—and, incidentally, to locate Stepanic if Harry learns that much from the contact.”

Loughlin passed a hand over his bald head and looked at Durell with a face suddenly gone hard and serious. “Jesus, so that’s what’s eating you!”

“Among other things,” Durell admitted.

“You may have something there, Cajun. Maybe she ought to be out of Vienna, just for insurance, at that.” 

“Tell it to Washington,” Durell said. “Meanwhile, I’m going after her.”

“What shall I tell Harry?”

“Tell him I’m coming,” Durell said.

He was followed from Paris to Vienna.

He was not surprised at this. He knew that his opposite numbers kept a detailed file on his activities. At No. 2 Dzerzhinski Square in Moscow, headquarters of the MVD, there was a lengthy dossier on Samuel Cullen Durell, of Bayou Peche Rouge, Louisiana, and No. 20 Annapolis Street, in Washington. There was a time when this dossier had been urgently ordered closed for good, and attempts were made to remove him. Durell had survived. He had been quick and lucky. Lately, the pressure had eased. Yet there was no outguessing the unpredictable enemy. It was better to be safe.

He followed another axiom. Better to know where your shadow is at all times than to elude the tail temporarily and have the known factor replaced by someone unsuspected and invisible. The job was usually done in this double fashion—first someone a little too clumsy to be true, appearing in the background. You shook him or her, and thought you were free of surveillance and went on with your business. But, usually there was another in the background—the real expert, the professional, who, like a chameleon, made himself invisible and thus lulled you into a false sense of security.

In the present case, Durell’s shadow was a squat, paunchy bald man with a bumbling manner and accent that suggested a salesman of woolen goods from Manchester. He let this be known at Orly airfield, speaking in a loud voice about his sales trip to Vienna and complaining about the customs delay.

There was a brief stop at Geneva. Durell got off and went to the rest room, washed his hands, smoked a cigarette, entered the cafe for a drink, and managed to miss his embarkation. The salesman of yard goods flew off into the Swiss skies and Durell went to the railroad station for a ticket. He did not congratulate himself too much on this maneuver. He had already spotted the second tail.

This one was a tall, blonde girl in a shapeless, lumpy cloth coat. She bumped into the bald Englishman while at the Geneva airport, apparently an accident. There was a brief exchange of angry words. The blonde girl lost her hat, and her long hair looked bedraggled. Durell, watching from the cafe, sipped his drink and saw the woman shake her head at something the plump man said. The bald man looked angry and adamant. The blonde shook her head again and started to turn to look at Durell, and the bald man said something sharply and she stiffened, then shrugged and finally nodded. But there was a look of anger and unwillingness in her manner, as she went about her task of following Durell.

Durell made no effort to shake her on the express to Vienna. The fact that he’d been assigned a double team was significant enough to assure him that his hunch about Deirdre’s danger was valid.

He told himself that the concern he’d expressed to Loughlin was his true motive. Stepanic had to be gotten out, with his capsule instruments, of course. And conceivably Deirdre, learning too much from Harry Hammett, might spoil the game. Also true.

But there was more.

He did not delude himself. He had explained everything to Deirdre long ago, and she was free to follow any life she chose. If she was truly in love with. Major Stepanic, she had every right to stick to him. Durell had no claim on her.

But he could not deny his emotions. And emotions in this business were dangerous. They could kill him. He had no right to come to Vienna this way. It was not his assignment. He might very well confuse things for Harry Hammett in a way that might result in disaster.

Yet he couldn’t turn back. Deirdre was in Vienna, and Vienna was dangerous ground now. He knew this with an inner conviction that defied all rational objections.

He did not stop to analyze his feelings about Stepanic, lost behind the Iron Curtain. Stepanic was the secret objective of a swift, desperate, and cumulative search by two of the cleverest and most dedicated organizations in the world.

Vienna was cold and windy when he got off the train at the Westbahnhof Station. The city was between seasons, having ended its annual fair at the Prater, but with the opera schedule not yet begun. It lay in gray and baroque splendor along the dark Vienna woods. Most of the American tourists had left for home, and the city was itself again, easy and free, ignoring the dimple of rain that fell as Durell chose a taxi and gave the moustached driver his destination as the Bristol Hotel in the Innere Stadt.

The tall, lumpy-looking blonde who had replaced his bald, pseudo-English shadow in Geneva was not in sight. But Durell knew he was still under surveillance.

At the Bristol he unpacked, gave the room a routine check in his methodical fashion that missed nothing. Then he phoned the Embassy, gave a code name, received a number to call and did so, identifying himself and alerting the K Section man in the city, Herr Otto Hoffner. The number was that of a small coffee house, and this phone, in turn, was connected with another at the K Section drop at Steubenstrasse 19. Durell had been to the “safe house” on Steubenstrasse before.

“Loughlin called me from Paris,” Otto said quietly.

“Anything official?”

“No, no, Herr Durell. He says to tell you the subject you wish to speak to so urgently is at the Bristol Hotel. Also, I want to see you tonight, as soon as possible. Can you make it at nine? I am somewhat disturbed and I would like some advice. You know where to find me?”

“I had coffee there last year,” Durell said, and hung up.

The “safe house” at Steubenstrasse 19 was not far away. He had time. He telephoned to the desk to verify Deirdre Padgett’s registration at the Bristol, and the desk clerk rang her room; but there was no answer. Then he showered and shaved, chose a fresh white button-down shirt and a maroon knitted necktie. In the shoulder holster under the specially tailored coat went his snub-barreled .38 Special.

He was ready to leave the room when the telephone rang.

He turned in surprise, thought of Deirdre, let it ring once more, and decided to answer it.

“Durell here,” he said briefly.

It was not Deirdre. He pushed down a quick sensation of disappointment at hearing the man’s harshly angry, American voice. “You’ve got a lot of gall, Cajun. You’re not even using a cover?”

“Not this trip. How are you, Harry?”

“As if you give a damn, except to wish my throat gets cut. Loughlin called Otto from Paris. Otto told me, too. You’d better go back to your desk in Washington, man.” “I’ll go back,” Durell said, “with Deirdre Padgett.” “And maybe she doesn’t want to go back with you. Then what?”

“Where is she?” Durell asked.

“I just left her downstairs in the restaurant.”

“Did you tell her I was here?”

Hammett spoke in a taut voice. “Why not? She’s waiting to tell you to go peddle your papers. You stay out of my job, Cajun, hear? You have no orders to stick your fingers into this pie.”

“I don’t intend to interfere with your assignment,” Durell said. “I just want to keep the girl out of trouble.” “Trouble? Trouble? This is routine. She just wants me to hurry up and get her boyfriend back to freedom land, safe and sound.”

“Then we have no quarrel,” Durell said quietly. “You think not? I’m wiring Washington about you. I don’t want you mixing in, understand? I handle my jobs my own way.”

“I wish you luck,” Durell said.

He hung up, aware of a tremor of unreasonable anger directed against both Harry Hammett and himself. Harry was big and tough, competent and ruthless. Too ruthless. His record at K Section was one of implacable drive, and if his methods were criticized, the results kept Dickinson McFee in ominous silence.

Durell lighted a cigarette and waited for the anger to pass. He had worked with Hammett as a team some years ago, investigating a leak in the CIA organization in West Berlin. Elements of information were getting through that were traced eventually to a German named Karl Henlein. Henlein was low man on the totem pole of a counter-espionage group aimed at getting information of IRBM sites for NATO, and there would have been more fish caught in Durell’s net if it hadn’t been for Hammett. There was a girl involved, Karl’s wife, a charming but fanatic redhead who first captivated Harry and then turned on him. Durell never proved how intimate Hammett got with Sophia Henlein, but he knew that Henlein had caught Hammett with his wife, in their West Berlin apartment. Henlein was shot and killed with Harry’s gun, and there was no other evidence against him. But the case was closed. Henlein was charged, at Harry’s insistence, with having resisted arrest. Although Karl Henlein was an elderly wisp of a man, and no match for Harry’s bull strength, he had been beaten tragically before being shot. The girl, Sophia, was a suicide, having drained a vial of poison. Her death had not been pleasant. There were marks on her wrists that made Durell wonder if she had killed herself willingly or been made to drink the poison by force; but he could prove nothing. The case against the counter-espionage ring collapsed. There was no other place to go; the rest of the ring was hidden behind Karl Henlein’s dead eyes. The missile bases had to be moved to new sites, and the whole program was delayed for several precious months.

Durell hadn’t worked with Hammett since. He had made a factual report, omitting his private inferences, but they became mutual enemies since Hammett knew that Durell had not been fooled by the evidence. On the few occasions when their paths crossed they openly expressed dislike for each other.

Durell knew that Hammett was a man who placed little value on human life, who allowed no scruple to block his objectives. In a way, this was according to the rules of the business. But Harry had an innate and gratuitous cruelty that, as in the Henlein case, defeated its own purpose.

He did not like the thought of Deirdre being in his care.

And he did not intend to let it go on.

He went downstairs to the lobby in the elevator cage and paused in the entrance to the small bar.

The blonde woman in the shapeless tweed coat sat at a round table in the corner, drinking from a cocktail glass.

She had a briefcase on the upholstered bank beside her. She wore a dark brown beret and sensible walking shoes, and she looked up as Durell paused in the arched entry. Her eyes were blank and dark, in an objective, unemotional face. For a moment their glances locked, and then she looked down at the drink between her quiet hands. She bit her lip. Then the headwaiter hurried to Durell, full of obsequious smiles.

“The f
raulein
waits for you, Herr Durell. Over here,
bitte.
”

He saw Deirdre, and any doubts he had about coming here were swept away.

The evening rain that fell on the Kartner Ring outside the hotel windows made a dimness in here, although through the dusky window he could see the wide, busy avenue that faced the Opera House. Deirdre was turned to face him, obviously waiting. For a moment he thought he saw no difference in the objective way she looked at him from the manner in which the lumpy blonde girl had raised her eyes to consider him. Then she smiled, and one slim, gloved hand gestured involuntarily, lifting slightly from her glass of Heuriger wine.

He walked over to her table. “Hello, Dee,” he said.

“Sam.” She nodded quietly.

“May I sit down?”

“Of course.” The waiter bustled about as he pulled out a chair beside her. They smiled awkwardly at each other, and Deirdre touched his hand. “It’s good to see you, Sam. You’ve changed a little.”

“You look wonderful.”

“It’s been a long time. One year, one month, and four days.” She smiled again. “You see, I could never be anything but honest with you, Sam, even if it means giving away all my secrets. Which I’ve always done with you, of course.”

She was more beautiful than ever, Durell thought. Slim and dark-haired, with an oval face and a carriage that filled the softly-lighted room with her presence. Her large gray eyes were solemn, and her smile was only on her soft pink lips. The corners of her mouth quivered slightly, and she sipped her wine. She wore a dark traveling suit, a small, winter-white hat, white gloves. There were faint shadows under her eyes. Looking at her, Durell felt incredulous at the thought that he had possessed her many times. He felt, as often happened, as if he had just met her, and was full of surprise at her beauty, always renewed each time he saw her again.

He touched her hand. “Deirdre, you know why I came here, don’t you?”

“Yes. Harry Hammett told me, a few minutes ago. But there’s nothing to worry about; I’m perfectly all right here. It’s sweet of you to be concerned, after all this time, and after—after everything.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“There isn’t any other way to talk, and if I don’t, I'll break down and cry for all the things we’ve lost. And I haven’t wept girlish tears for a long time, Sam. I promised myself I never would again. What’s lost is lost, for always.”

For a moment he said nothing. Her long black hair was smoothly groomed, done in a French knot at the nape of her neck, and it would have looked severe on any other woman but Deirdre. He felt an ache for her that had always been reserved for her alone.

“Dee, I want you to go back home,” he said finally,, “No, you have no right to ask it of me, Sam.”

“But you can’t do any good here, you know.”