Assignment - Black Viking (12 page)

The ball whirred over the man’s hand.

“Keep your hands down, Mr. Durell.”

“What are you doing here?”

A grin, a flash of strong teeth. “Visiting Sigrid.”

“Is she here?”

“Asleep. A pity to waken her.”

Durell started to call, then checked himself. He felt his breath coming too fast, and watched the whirling, vicious weapon intently. Olaf was an expert with it. He had only to let it fly, and he’d never get the gun from his pocket.

“Put that away, Olaf.” His voice sounded odd in his own ears. “It’s time we had a long talk.”

The big, black-haired man grinned and stood with his feet slightly spread for balance, his strong arms uplifted as he continued to whirl the mace with a deceptively lazy swing. His handsome face looked distorted in the dim light. He wore a black singlet and tight khaki slacks that bulged with the musculature of his powerful legs. His thick hair looped over his flat forehead.

“Olaf, who are you working for?”

“It does not matter to you now. Nothing will matter for you now, will it?”

“Did you send those men after me on Visby?”

“If you must know, yes. You are a cool one, Mr. Durell.” The mace whirled a few inches closer. “I have my duty to do, even if I regret it. You are a worthy opponent. But you are too sure of yourself, perhaps. How did you find your Russian friends, by the way?”

“They know all about you, Olaf.”

“Indeed. Do you count on them to avenge you?”

“I’m not that foolish. But I count on your being reasonable.”

“A pity. Do you know the term ‘berserker,’ Mr. Durell? I am a berserker. A Viking filled with the lust for blood. Your blood.”

Durell felt sweat trickle down his back. The whirling iron ball came closer, almost grazed his face. He turned his head instinctively aside, and Olaf laughed. Beyond his dark figure, Durell saw that the apartment was like a museum, cluttered with Viking weapons, swords and shields and strange faded pennants on ancient iron spears. The furniture, too, was massive and crude, of dark and heavy wood carved with pagan designs. His cheek touched cold iron as his head was forced against the wall by the approaching mace. The iron ball sang as Olaf spun it slightly higher above his head. The strange light in his eyes brightened. . . .

Durell reached up and tore the buckler from the wall. It was heavy, a round shield with a grotesque spike protruding from the center. He dropped to one knee as Olaf grunted and swung the mace; then he came up fast, shielding his head with the buckler, and the full impact of Olaf’s blow hit the shield with a shattering, clanging noise.

He thought his arm had broken.

The chain that held the whirling iron ball snapped against the edge of Durell’s shield. The ball flew across the room and thudded heavily against the wall. Olaf laughed and stepped lightly back, biting his lower lip. He threw the handle of the mace at Durell, and that, too, clanged harmlessly against the shield. Durell leaped after him, but his arm felt numb, and he was not quick enough. Olaf got a heavy, double-edged sword down from the wall.

“It is like the olden days. You have no chance, Durell. I am expert with these weapons. As a boy, I was employed by Sigrid’s Uncle Eric, who has a passion to recreate the past. He taught me the art of these weapons. You should die quietly, instead of annoying me this way.”

“You talk too much,” Durell said.

And he leaped for the other’s sword.

Olaf gripped the sword in both of his big hands and, grinning, slashed at Durell’s shield. The clang of iron was deafening in the room. Durell slipped on a throw rug on the polished floor and Olaf gave an ancient battle cry and raised his sword to prepare for a blow that would split Durell’s skull. Durell kicked him in the groin. Letting go of the shield, he rolled on one hip and came up with fingers rigid and rammed them into the man’s plexus. Olaf went white. Durell hit him with his left, again with his right. The sword slashed down viciously and pinned itself in the wooden floor. Splinters of oak flew. The big man staggered. Durell picked up the shield and slammed it against the strong, dark head. Olaf’s eyes turned into pale crescents. He stumbled across the room and went down on his knees, very slowly, his body twitching, like a slaughtered animal that does not know it is dead.

Durell stood up slowly. His legs trembled. He knew he had been closer to death than ever before. He walked toward Olaf Jannsen. The man’s head was bleeding copiously. But he still breathed, although his eyes were open and unseeing.

There came a sound from somewhere else in the apartment. Durell turned and walked down a long hall.

“Olaf? My Viking, it is you?”

Sigrid’s voice was sharp with alarm. Durell threw open a bedroom door and stood looking at the blonde girl.

She sat on the edge of a huge bed, about to rise, and she was stark naked again.

“MANIACAL man,” Sigrid said.

She had that indefinable look of a woman who has just been loved. Her long hair was tumbled about her smooth, golden shoulders; her eyes were dazed. She fumbled a silken pink sheet up about her hips, and for a moment she looked bewildered and at a loss.

Durell stood with his feet slightly spread, looking down at her. She was very beautiful and appealing.

“It didn’t take you long,” he said wryly.

“What—what do you mean?”

“You didn’t waste any time getting together with Olaf, as soon as you got back to Stockholm.”

“Oh.”

“Is he your lover?”

“Is that any of your business?”

“I think it is.”

“Are you jealous, poor Sam?”

“I just want to know.”

“He wanted to kill you?”

Durell nodded. “He tried hard enough.”

“Is he—what did you do to him?”

“Put him away for a bit. He called himself a berserker. What’s the matter with you people? You try to live in a time long gone, as if you could recreate the bloody Vikings in yourselves. Why is Olaf so anxious to kill me?” Sigrid said abruptly, “I want to see him.” She stood up, using the sheet to cover herself. Durell let her take a few steps to the door, then shoved her hard, back to the bed. She fell and bounced. She had long, wonderful legs. “I must see him! I think you killed him!”

“I might do that,” Durell said.

“You wouldn’t dare—!”

“I would. Believe me. Tell me all about it, Sigrid. Otherwise, his life isn’t worth a plugged nickel. I have no sentiment about a man who comes after me with a mace and a sword.”

She looked astonished. “Did Olaf do that? He used to practice with them, hour after hour, with Uncle Eric. He was very good. And you beat him?”

“I beat him.”

“Olaf is the Black Viking. I told you. He’s a legend come to life. The Black One, who comes with the ice and storms, the wind and the sleet. He brings death wherever he goes. One must be kind to him—or else.”

“You seem to have been kind enough.”

“I think I love him. He is crazy about me, nasty Sam.” “He was crazy to kill you, back on the
Vesper
.” 

“That was a mistake,” she said thoughtfully. “Anyway, I knew he could swim ashore. I told him to go. I told him he was foolish to try to stop you from going north. I said that nothing could stop you. Perhaps I said the wrong things. I told Olaf you were a better man than he.”

She looked at him carefully through lowered lashes. It was very appealing, and very false.

“Go on,” he said. “Tell me about Olaf.”

“We were children together. He spent a lot of time with Papa and Uncle Eric, up north. Eric loved him. Papa wasn’t so sure, and didn’t trust him. It was Eric who first called him the Black Viking. They spent their time talking of the olden days, the dreams of empire and glory. Olaf and I became lovers when I was fourteen.” She looked demure. “Does that make you jealous? I want to see him now. I want to know what you’ve done to him.”

Durell barred her way. “Who does Olaf work for? He’s not in your security department, is he?”

“Oh, no. Olaf couldn’t stand the discipline. He used to be a submarine officer in our Navy. He was cashiered for disobedience. That was typical of him. He was too young to have been in World War II, but his father was a Nazi sympathizer, and Olaf always felt that was a stigma. He came to live with us, and then he went away on ships and became an adventurer, a smuggler, everywhere in the world. He lived in Hong Kong. He was there when Papa went there and disappeared.”

“It figures,” Durell said dryly.

“Olaf had nothing to do with that!” she snapped.

“How can you be sure?”

“He told me about it.”

“Just what did he tell you?”

“That’s confidential material,” she said quietly. “Swedish security data?”

“I’m not permitted to tell.”

“Your people don’t really want me to go north, do they? They don’t want anyone up there, really. They want your father’s machine for themselves.”

“Why not?” She was defiant. “After all, Papa is of this country.”

“I thought he might be with Peking now. How many other national agencies are after this thing?”

“Everyone. Greedy, lustful, dreaming of power. They

dream of making rain in the Sahara, of flooding enemy seaports by melting the icecaps; they dream of making droughts to starve their enemies. It’s beastly. If Papa only realized what he’s done!”

“Where do you fit into it?” he asked.

“I have my job to do. May I get dressed?”

He nodded. “You’re supposed to cooperate with me.” “True. Up to a point.”

“Where does the point exist?”

“I cannot say. I have not been told.”

“All right.” Putting questions to Sigrid was like punching into soft taffy. She was sticky and tricky and her answers were shapeless, pulled out of proportion by her personal motivations. He turned away. “Get some clothes on. I’ll have a chat with Olaf. It’s time I got some answers from him.”

The black-haired man was on his hands and knees on the floor, shaking his head in confusion. Durell walked toward him. Olaf’s eyes were crescents of pure hatred, his big shoulders hunched as he pushed his weight upward.

“Sit with your back to the wall,” Durell said. He held his gun and stood a safe distance away. “We’ll have a few minutes of question and answer now.”

“I have nothing to say,” Olaf growled.

“You have plenty, and you’ll say it.”

“What more can you do to me? Kill me? I am not afraid of death.”

“I know that. But I could turn you over to the police. Interpol has an all-points out for you, for the murder of Uccelatti’s captain in Brighton. It’s been checked out. We found his body. You killed him, didn’t you?”

Jannsen breathed heavily, his enormous chest expanding, then falling. He said nothing.

“You were anxious to get aboard the
Vesper
, right?” Durell continued. “Who gave you your orders?”

“I will answer no questions.”

“Who do you work for? The Chinese Reds?”

“You are mad.”

“You know where the WMC submarine is. You’re getting your orders by radio from them, right?”

“I don’t know what you talk about.”

“I’m discussing weather modification control. Professor Peter’s machine, the one that’s making everybody talk about the weather. It’s in a Chinese sub up in the Gulf of Bothnia, isn’t it?”

Jannsen was silent.

“And they put you ashore so you could get aboard the
Vesper
and become one of the crew members?” Jannsen’s mouth was a cruel, adamant line.

“You helped talk Sigrid’s father into going over to Red China,” Durell said, “when you met him in Hong Kong. You helped the submarine get set up with the mechanism for controlling weather. You were aboard on this shake-down cruise, until you went ashore secretly in England to take care of Uccelatti’s captain. It’s easy to guess that somebody, in one of the agencies at Bruges, is a defector, a spy, a traitor, and sent you our plans by radio.”

“You spin a clever web, Mr. Durell.”

“It just makes sense. And you’ll confirm it. I won’t mind killing you, if I have to. I owe you a few lumps.”

“I shake with fear,” the big man sneered.

“And I’ll shake answers out of you. Why did the sub get itself bottled up in the Gulf of Bothnia? It will never get out now, you know. The Baltic is closed. The Russians, the NATO fleet, are all on patrol. The Skaggerak and Kattegat are closed. The Kiel Canal is impossible. There’s no place for your people to go. It was a stupid thing, to go up there to the Lapland coast.”

Olaf twitched his shoulders. He touched his bloody mouth. When he moved his legs, he winced from the pain in his groin where Durell had managed to kick him.

Durell said: “I’ll tell you what I think, Olaf. Your submarine
had
to go up into that bottleneck. And the only thing that could draw your people there is Professor Gustaffson’s house there—and laboratory, probably— because you need something from Professor Peter’s lab. Some piece of machinery, perhaps. You know the coast, you know the land, you know the house. It all adds up.” Something stirred in the other’s glittering eyes. Then the stare became blank and emotionless. But Durell knew he had hit something.

“Until now,” he went on, “the weather experiments you made in other parts of the world during your cruise from China were all brief and reasonably managed. But what is happening here is different. It shows no sign of control. It goes on and on, and it’s getting worse. That isn’t what Peking wants, is it? So something has gone wrong.”

“You make wild guesses, Durell,” Olaf muttered. “Your machinery went out of whack. And Professor Peter can only fix it if he gets some equipment out of his house in Lapland, right? That’s why the sub had to go up into the bottleneck, where we can get at it and destroy it.” “You’ll never—” Olaf began, then checked himself and bit his lip.

At that moment, Sigrid screamed in the bedroom.

THE SOUND was sharp and shrill, a quick yelp of terror, and it was enough to distract Durell for a fatal moment. When he turned his head, Olaf moved. The man had enormous recuperative powers. He came at Durell with a quick rush, his head down like a charging bull. But Olaf was not aiming at Durell. He drove for the apartment door instead, moving at incredible speed. Durell spun, lifted his gun, then checked himself. A shot in this apartment would bring all of the Stockholm police down around his head. The damage would be irreparable. And Olaf knew it.