Assignment - Black Viking (13 page)

The door slammed in his face. Durell yanked at it a second later, leaped out into the private foyer. The elevator was still there. The doors hissed shut in his face. The indicator spun downward.

There was no hope of chasing him. He stood for a moment, swearing softly. Anger built up in him. He turned on his heel and walked back to Sigrid’s bedroom.

She had stopped screaming.

She was dressed in a soft gray jersey that clung to her

beautiful body. She looked almost more naked than

before. She was calmly putting orange lipstick on her

mouth, and her back was toward him as she faced the mirror.

“What was it, Sigrid?” he asked harshly.

“Nothing. I was silly. I thought I saw a man on the terrace, peeping in at me.”

“You’re lying.”

She laughed. “Did Olaf leave?”

“He got away, thanks to you.”

“I’m glad.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I told you, he loves me. And you were asking all sorts of bad questions.”

He wanted to slap her. “And getting bad answers.”

She shrugged. “Do you want to beat me, angry man? Go ahead. I am strong. But Olaf is gone now. He is safe.” 

“He’ll try to kill you again.”

“I can handle him. He loves me,” she said again.

“Why do you want him free? He’s the enemy. He helped to kidnap your father; he’s been running that submarine; and he’s stopped at nothing so far to check us.” She spoke gravely. “People are more important than things. Friends are more important than ideologies. Lovers are more important than the struggle for world power.” 

“You don’t really believe that.”

She turned suddenly, and her great eyes were filled with tears. “Olaf is a part of me, don’t you understand? Maybe the bad part, yes. I don’t know. But we were childhood friends, adolescent sweethearts. No one in the world knows me as Olaf knows me. We have shared secrets since we were children. We have the same memories, the same past. Who else could be closer to me?”

“He’s a murderer,” Durell said flatly. “He’s killed senselessly, killed innocent men. He’ll kill again.”

“But Olaf—”

She halted as the telephone rang.

Durell picked it up. He kept Sigrid in view, blocking her way out of the bedroom. It was Ole Olsen.

“Cajun? Glad I caught up with you. I’ve been phoning all over Stockholm for you. Young Mark Talmage is in a funk.”

“What is it?”

“The
Vesper
came in. But the port authorities won’t let her sail out again. They’ve wrapped her in a snarl of red tape. It’s obstructive, and it’s apparent that one department here doesn’t know what the other is doing. I’ve told Baron Uccelatti to take the boat to Saltsjobaden. That’s where Elgiva’s house is, you know?”

“I know.”

“Elgiva is definitely there. As soon as it’s dark, the
Vesper
will move out. Uccelatti says he can handle the customs guard on the schooner. You’ll have to pick up the
Vesper
and Elgiva at Saltsjobaden.”

“Why is Talmage in a funk?”

“Well, Miss Elgiva has been trying to reach you. She tried your hotel and here, at the hospital. You told her about me, I gather.”

“Yes.”

“A good thing. Anyway, she got me here and asked for you. I convinced her she could tell me her troubles.” 

“What troubles?”

“It seems that your KGB friend—Colonel Traskin, not the Muzhik—greatly admired Elgiva’s poetry. He went out there to see her.”

“Without Smurov?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’d like a private talk with him.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible now, Cajun. Traskin is dead. He’s been murdered. In Elgiva’s living room.”

Durell shoved Sigrid roughly ahead of him. She stumbled, and he followed her, and closed the door. In forty minutes they were through the city and at Elgiva’s house.

It stood on the beach, a small replica of a fisherman’s home, painted red as they usually were, in sharp contrast to Elgiva’s ultra-modem house at Visby. It was small, simple, and rustic. In the gloom of evening, the resort town and beaches looked dreary and deserted. The weather had changed again. The burnished sky had clouded over as the sun set, and now the wind came with a different note, whooping and keening in argument with the uneasy surf. Now and then a spit of rain darkened the sand and the roofs of other houses nearby.

Sigrid tried to look dignified, but she was frightened and uneasy. “Do not be so cruel, angry man.”

“You’ve used up all my patience, Sigrid.”

“I had nothing to do with this!”

“We’ll see.”

Mark Talmage came to the door as they entered. His young face was pale. His Ivy League manner had been pulled out of shape in the past hour.

“Glad you’re here, sir. God, it’s an awful mess. We must reorient the whole program.”

“Stop jittering. Where is Elgiva?”

“She’s here.”

“Keep your eye on this one,” Durell said, indicating Sigrid.

Elgiva looked as serene and remote as the night before. She came into the little “parlor” with her smooth, gliding walk and held out a hand to Durell. Her fingers were warm and friendly and held his a fraction longer than necessary. Her great eyes were filled with mystery.

“I am so happy you came. He was such a nice man. He wanted me to autograph one of my books of poetry. That was all. And then—”

“Where is Traskin?”

“In the back.”

Talmage stuttered. “I—I had to move him, sir. She insisted. Miss Elgiva, I mean.”

Durell looked at him. “You got here quickly.”

“Yes, sir. I hope I did the right thing.”

“Right enough.”

Durell had forced Sigrid to drive here, in a car she had produced which she claimed belonged to her Uncle Eric. It was a Mercedes convertible, and he had parked it in the lane beyond a picket fence smothered with roses. Durell listened to the wind rise outside and felt a sense of doom and despair.

“We haven’t much time,” he murmured.

“This way,” Talmage said anxiously. “I have no idea what we can do. The Russians will be suspicious now—” 

“Be quiet,” Durell said.

Elgiva tucked her hand in his arm as he walked down a short corridor to an old-fashioned, brick-floored kitchen. Colonel Vladimir Traskin’s body lay there. His fine, intellectual face carried a look of surprise that death had come to him this way. There was a single drop of blood on his beard, and a small patch of it on his white shirt, where the bullet had gone into his back and burst his heart and come out the chest. Durell went through the man’s pockets with swift efficiency. He found a CPSU card, other identity documents, and no weapons. He breathed out angrily through his nose.

“How did it happen?” he asked Elgiva.

The tall, fair-skinned woman looked distant; her voice was calm and controlled. “He simply knocked on the door and asked for me. He told me who he was and said it would be a privilege if he could talk to me for a short time.”

“What did he want to talk about?”

“My work, of course. He had read everything I’ve written. It was most flattering. He knew my poems from memory, and understood them very well, I thought.” “How long was he here?”

“No more than twenty minutes, before it happened.” 

“And just what did happen?”

“I’m not certain. He was at the window, talking. He was a fine man. Essentially gentle, I think. And there came a shot from the beach. He simply—fell. That’s all there was.”

“You didn’t see who had shot him?”

“There was no one out there,” she said quietly. “The shot broke the window. The glass is still on the floor there. But the wind was blowing the sand, and it was quite dark.” She shook her proud head. “No, I saw nothing.”

“He said nothing about expecting danger?”

She met his hard gaze. “Why should he?”

“You didn’t notice anything strange about him?”

“Mr. Durell, I had just arrived here myself. This house of mine was closed all winter. I came here to look it over and turned on the furnace and water. I am accustomed to doing these things myself. I had just finished and settled everything when he arrived. Perhaps he took the electric train and walked from the station. I did not expect him. He had to introduce himself, since I did not know him.”

“But who knew you were coming here?”

“I assume that you did. Or one of your people.” “Nobody in my group mentioned you to Traskin.” 

“Then I cannot explain how he found me.”

Mark Talmage said: “Perhaps he followed Miss Elgiva, sir. It’s possible. And someone followed him.”

Durell looked at Sigrid. It hadn’t been she, nor could it have been Olaf. He felt frustrated. He thought of Colonel Smurov, the Muzhik. There would be hell to pay. Smurov would be furious, in a murderous rage, suspicious of everything. He would demand an explanation.

Durell turned to Talmage. “Does Smurov know of our change of plans about the
Vesper
?”

“Yes, sir. He’s coming here.” Talmage shot his cuffs and consulted his fancy Omega. “In twenty minutes.” Smurov might have arrived earlier, Durell thought grimly. No telling what wheels revolved within the KGB hierarchy. Smurov wanted to command. Perhaps he resented being teamed with the quieter, more sophisticated Traskin. Maybe Smurov wanted it this way. But he could only guess at the answers now. And guesses weren’t good enough.

Colonel Traskin’s body was heavier than he expected. Talmage and Durell carried him while Elgiva opened the kitchen door. Sigrid walked silently alongside. Wind and rain hammered them as they went outside. The nearest house was some fifty yards away. It seemed empty. A low board fence divided the properties. Beyond the other house was a small marina, with motorboats and a few fishing trawlers that heaved restlessly at their moorings. The
Vesper
was due in there. Durell heard a curious sound, and realized that Talmage’s teeth were chattering. There were lights in other houses down the beach, and now two men came out in raincoats and stood on the distant dock. But they did not seem to be examining any of the boats there.

He had to break open the door of the next vacant house. The sound seemed loud, but he knew the wind would snatch it away. With the house in between, he could not see the men on the dock. And they could not see him and his grim burden, either.

It took five minutes to cache Traskin’s body in the empty house. Durell hoped it would be some time before the authorities or the owner happened by. When he stepped outside again, he had made up his mind.

The
Vesper
came ghosting out of the rain ten minutes later, for which he was grateful. She drove out of the gloom with her sails furled, like a graceful white gull in the gathering night. Navigation lights blinked along the channels and outer banks of the Maleren archipelago. All about were little islands, sandbars, the gleam and glitter of houses and restaurants forlornly trying to evoke business in the face of the unnatural season.

The two men on the dock had vanished.

Durell herded Sigrid and Elgiva aboard, where they were greeted urbanely by Baron Uccelatti. The Baron had a hard time concealing his worry from Durell.

“You are certain it is feasible to go north? The authorities and the barometer seem to agree that it will be most dangerous.”

“No help for it. They won’t let me fly, certainly.”

“But their patrol vessels—”

“We’ll pray for luck in the weather. It may help us, instead of working against us.”

Sigrid halted abruptly. “I do not think I will go with you, after all. I will not share a cabin with Elgiva.” “There are other cabins. You have no choice.”

“But my people haven’t given me clearance to go farther—”

“You have it from me. Elgiva?”

The poetess nodded. “I will go with you. It seems that the old gods still drive us wherever they choose.”

“Good. You’re being very sensible.”

Sigrid was angry. “But why should she go along? Maybe she killed Traskin! How can you be sure?”

“I’m not sure of anything,” Durell said.

“And will you go without Colonel Smurov? It was not in your arrangement to double-cross and desert him.” 

“Can’t be helped,” said Durell. “And we’re better off without him.”

Uccelatti coughed. He was distressed. “I am sorry, Cajun. Colonel Smurov is already aboard. He arrived at the
Vesper
before we left Stockholm.”

SMUROV sat like an Asiatic warlord in a shadowed corner of the main salon. He wore a lined raincoat and a broad-brimmed fedora, rather than Oriental robes and turban, but his Tartar features were those of a suspicious Mongol separated from his horde. He showed caution and suspicion, but no fear. But something glittered in Colonel Smurov’s slitted eyes. Durell could not be sure what it was, but he thought there was a gleam of triumph behind the speculative look of the man.

“We do not sail without comrade Traskin,” Smurov grunted.

“But he’s dead.” Durell quietly flicked a finger at the PPSH gun Smurov fondled in his lap. “And you can put that away. If you hold us up by waiting for a dead man, we’ll be here forever. The Swedish authorities will be along soon enough.”

“Who killed him?” Smurov asked.

“We don’t know.”

“He was soft, an intellectual, given to seeing two sides to every question, like a solicitor. The legal mind can be fatal in our business. One should see only black or white, or one is lost.”

“Then Traskin is lost,” Durell said. “And we sail without him. And without you, if you like.”

“Oh, no.” Smurov’s thick lips smiled, but his eyes were bleak. “Where you go, I must go, until we settle both our public and private differences.”

Durell turned. “Baron? Smurov won’t use that gun. Tell your men to cast off.”

“I must advise you that the weather reports—”

“We must go now, or not at all,” Durell insisted. Uccelatti shrugged in resignation. “As you wish.”

“One moment,” Smurov said softly.

He stirred in the shadowed corner of the luxurious cabin. There was an aura about him like a tangible smell, a darkness, an evil. The
Vesper
pitched restlessly at the dock. Somewhere a bell buoy clanged in the thrust of the wind. Uccelatti had sent some crewmen to block off the small pier where they were tied up. Colonel Smurov cocked his round, bristled head as if listening for something.