Assignment - Lowlands (12 page)

“That’s the song all you yellow canaries sing,” Durell said.

“I paid the penality prescribed for me. I served out a long term in prison.”

“And now you look forward to another big
Tag?
” 

“Perhaps.” Von Uittal smiled. “We are not dead and buried yet. We never will be. Everyone knows Germany’s position today is precisely as some of us predicted. You need us, and you will accept us on our terms, eventually.” 

“I doubt that.”

“We shall dictate the future peace. You will see. The war has never really ended, you know. What we have witnessed for the past fifteen years is simply a breathing-space, a cooling-off period, a phase that most people in their foolishness do not recognize as war.” He looked up sharply at Durell, his pale eyes gray, almost colorless. “But you do. I see you are a man who knows the truth. So we are enemies. But even an enemy can be reasonable, and I shall make this brief. I have an excellent chef aboard, and dinner will be served in twenty minutes. If you are wise, you will be dining with me then or going ashore, as you choose; or you will be dead.”

Durell shrugged. “I never misunderstood your kind, I’m happy to say, Uittal.”

Erich snapped, “You will address the general as General von Uittal.”

The German waved a negligent hand. “Do not be overly zealous, Erich. I have a feeling you will get your chance. Perhaps you should summon two more of the crew. That will leave your hands free.”

“Yes, sir. I understand, sir.”

“Now, then.” Von Uittal sat forward in a businesslike manner. “I will explain what I can, briefly, so we will have no doubts as to my meaning and intentions, Durell. We meet because of your connection with Piet Van Horn and Cassandra, my wife. By the way, did her name startle you? It was intended to do so. When I began this project, I asked her to assume the name for its shock value. —You were about to say something?”

“Yes,” Durell said. “Does she know what it means?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

Cassandra frowned, but said nothing. Her husband went on as if at a military briefing. “This began during the Occupation, of course. And I’m sure you know that I was commanding general of this area for several months, before we were forced to retreat. I was in charge of demolitions designed to delay the Allied advance. And I was also in command of various experimental and research projects.”

“Such as Cassandra.”

The general waved a hand again. He, too, wore an emerald ring, larger than his wife’s. “I was not concerned with details. I knew its name and general aims, and I inspected the bunker construction from time to time. It took certain materials that were a nuisance to procure. The bunker, as you must have guessed, had to be hermetically sealed, airtight and watertight, so its contents could survive indefinitely, as if under controlled laboratory conditions. However, certain events were unpredicted.”

“Such as the sudden Allied advance,” Durell said.

“Yes. And I had some small undertaking of my own that needed attention. I—ah—I was and am an ardent collector of art.”

“A thief, you mean,” Durell said. “Like others of your kind, you looted and plundered occupied lands for art treasures. Is that it?”

He felt his head snap around and knew that Erich had hit him with the gun, and then the carpeted deck came up and he was on his hands and knees, shaking his head to get rid of the ringing pain that clamored agonizingly in his brain. Cassandra cried out in protest. He shook his head again and saw blood spatter from a cut on his scalp and he decided Erich was chalking up a very unfavorable balance in his ledger. Then Erich kicked him, and he rolled away, got to his feet again, and leaned against the paneled cabin wall. The snowy linen and shining silver on the dining table were seen through a slowly clearing haze.

“You were told not to speak unless the general asked a question," Erich grumbled. “Speak then, and not before.” 

“I’ll remember you, Erich.”

“Not for long. You will soon be dead.”

“Enough,” said the general. He leaned forward slightly, and Durell could almost hear his corset squeak. “I continue. It is encouraging that Herr Durell is talkative, Erich. Let us hope he goes on that way. In any case, Herr Durell, I was a collector of art, or a thief, or plunderer—whatever you choose to name it. And since I was intimately associated with the construction of the Cassandra bunker, and knew the facilities for hermetically sealing the contents against air, water and even temperature changes, to an extent, I stored my—ah—acquisitions there. When I heard that the Dutch were at last repairing the dikes here, ready to pump out the sea and reclaim the land, I sailed here to see what could be done about finding the Cassandra bunker first. We learned that Piet Van Horn was asking questions, and I sent Cassandra to Amsterdam to learn more about him. Then you entered the picture, and Cassandra tried to elicit information from you.”

Durell thought of the prostitute’s bedroom and smiled at the blonde. “It was a very effective effort. I enjoyed it.” She flushed, bit her lip, and looked away.

“What is it?” Durell asked her. “Doesn’t this godlike creature permit you to dine at the same table with him, Cassandra? Do you have to stand beside him like a faithful dog?”

She flushed again. “I am not hungry.”

“She is being punished,” von Uittal said calmly. “When one fails, one pays the penalty for failure.”

“It wasn’t for lack of trial,” Durell said.

The girl looked away. The general seemed unconcerned, although Erich made another threatening move, checked by von Uittal’s raised hand. “We will be patient, Erich. Americans pretend to be casual and humorous in the face of a desperate difficulty. Just how desperate Herr Durell’s situation is, will be seen. It depends on his cooperation, eh?” He turned back to Durell. “Your coagent, Piet Van Horn, apparently stumbled by pure luck on the bunker site, although I have searched for two weeks and have not been able to relocate it, thanks to changes in topography and the sea bottom in the past fifteen years. I did not expect to be confused by the North Sea tides, but—” Von Uittal shrugged. “There you are. I know Van Horn found the place, from his appearance in Doorn and his questioning of the fishermen’s families there, together with the local doctor. And there was the small Hals hanging in one of the cottages. I have it now, but there it was, and I recognized it. It was one that I collected myself and stored in the bunker. I bought it last night. Paid good guilders, cash, for it. The foolish woman did not know its value. She said her husband —one who died, you understand?—had brought it home a few days ago, before the dike was sabotaged. Which is another matter. That was puzzling, but it is explained now. I know who did it, and why it was done—to delay me, of course. But it won’t work.”

“And Marius Wilde?” Durell asked suddenly. Nothing changed in the general’s face except that the icy eyes grew icier. “We have talked enough, I think. Cassandra knows that you got a map from Piet Van Horn. She did not manage to get it from you, and you told her it was mailed to England, and she was stupid enough to accept that story. I do not. I want the map, Herr Durell. I want it at once.”

“I don’t have it with me.”

“Then where is it?”

Cassandra spoke in a thin voice. “What about Marius Wilde?” Her words were only a whisper, but her eyes were suddenly enormous in her lovely face. “What about Marius, Friedrich?”

“Be still,” the general said.

“I want to know.”

“Do you? Do you really?” All at once the general’s voice lifted in suppressed rage. “I suppose you do, you bitch! You have bungled and blundered like a stupid woman at every turn! The maps you brought from military headquarters were all useless! ” The man abruptly lurched to his feet, almost upsetting the elaborate dining table, and opened a cabinet against the wall and began hurling out rolls of military and hydrographic charts that unfurled and rolled across the cabin deck. The general’s face was dark with anger as he swung to the blonde girl. His fist shook as he raised it. “All my work, and it is you who bungle it now! The maps you brought from Berlin are useless. And what you paid for them, selling yourself, is not my concern! You are only a whining, useless bitch, good for one purpose only! And then you claim to fall in love with an untermensch, a slave, such as Marius Wilde—a half breed, a distortion, a mixture of the lower orders, when you are my wife!”

He slapped her. The blow rang like a pistol shot, and she fell sprawling to the floor. Her hair came undone and rippled in a heavy blonde screen across her bruised face. Durell took a step forward, and checked himself as Erich slammed the gun into his ribs. The atmosphere in the cabin vibrated with the general’s unnatural, unbalanced rage. Not a sound came from the girl. She stood up quietly, holding her cheek, and did not look at Durell.

Durell said, “Cassandra, do you know the significance of the name that your husband gave you?” He watched her shake her head dumbly; her eyes beseeched him to be silent. But he went on. “Did you know that what the general really wants is a plague-virus culture that was developed by Nazi biochemists and medical people—a virus that can wipe out half the people on earth? He wants to find the laboratory again, not for the art treasures he stole and hid there, but to regain the virus and be in a position to bargain for power again. Didn’t you know that?”

The girl watched with wide, dazed eyes. Neither the general nor Erich interrupted, to Durell’s surprise. Cassandra shook her head slowly.

“No, I knew nothing of such a horrible thing.”

“And he gave you the code name of the virus, Cassandra.”

Von Uittal laughed. “I thought it quite fitting.” Cassandra said, “Is it true, Friedrich?”

“Of course, my dear.”

“It is the virus you are after?”

“Why not? Our organization could come to light again, with such a weapon. We could sweep away all the stupidities of the past fifteen years and take our rightful place of power again. We could manipulate West against East for the greater glory and eventual domination of the New Reich.”

“You are mad, Friedrich,” she whispered.

“All great men seem mad, to the ignorant and the stupid,” he said easily. Then his manner changed abruptly again, charged with military precision. “Herr Durell, you have shocked my wife, and I have permitted you to do so, because she has been an extraordinary bungler and deserved some punishment. However, the amusement is now over. You will tell me where Van Horn’s map is, and what it shows upon it to indicate the location of the Cassandra bunker.” “But it’s under water now, anyway,” Durell said, “since the dike was sabotaged.”

“The pumping goes on. It may be in reach again tomorrow. Will you tell me what I want to know?”

“No.”

“Do you understand that I can kill you here without fear of punishment? No one will know. You can die in agony, if I order it. Erich will be pleased, if you are obstinate.”

“I don’t have the map.”

“But you know where it is. Where is it?”

“It wouldn’t tell you anything.”

The general said impatiently, “Erich?”

Erich said, “With pleasure, sir.”

And so it began.

He could have escaped it. Erich, after all, was not a professional. He made mistakes that could have been used to turn the tables in that glittering dining salon. The fat man was vicious and overly eager, and therefore he was careless. But Durell decided to wait him out. There was more to be learned here, and he was not ready yet to end the visit.

The general held a Luger on him while Erich did his dirty work. Durell took Erich’s blows and efforts to paralyze him with pain and, although he scarcely enjoyed it, it was endurable. In Durell’s world, one had to learn the limitations of the body; you had to know your personal threshold of pain, your breaking point. It was a cardinal rule with all the field agents of K Section. When you fell into enemy hands, you had to be prepared for quick and painless death. In Durell’s case, he carried a poison capsule built into a molar by careful dental surgery. He carried death around with him like a ticking time bomb. It would not take too much to break the capsule—enough so it could not be done unconsciously, in sleep or in a drugged state; but it would be easy enough. You had to be willing to face this possibility, sooner or later; and it took a certain personality, lonely and self-sufficient, detached from the ordinary entanglements of family, friends and ambition, to be able to live with this.

He had learned how to live with pain, control his body reflexes, and absorb punishment by accepting it and not fighting back when it was best not to do so. Erich was not a professional. Durell had been worried about this, because some of the Nazis were diabolically ingenious in devising torments for body and soul; but Erich was not one of them, fortunately. He could have done better.

Even so, it was not easy. Questions alternated with blows, shouts and curses, with kicks and twists of limbs. Durell sweated it out. The cabin was blurred, the faces of the general and Erich and Cassandra were vague in the moments when he could look around and breathe deeply in preparation for the next round.

“Herr Durell, why are you so obstinate?” The general’s voice seemed to come from a vast distance. The scent of tobacco touched him and he saw that von Uittal stood at one of the cabin windows, lighting a thin cigar. The window was dark, and he realized with some surprise that night had come since his arrival on the yacht. “You may be sure that I and the people I represent are reasonable. After all, the virus does belong to us, by virtue of our discovery of this particular strain. Our technicians perfected it; we spent time and treasure upon its development. It belongs to us, and no one else.”

“It should be destroyed,” Durell gasped.

“One moment, Erich.” Von Uittal peered at Durell with sudden interest. “You were in contact with Piet Van Horn, who died of it?”

“Yes. And I may now be a carrier, if that’s of any interest to you.”

The general shook his head. “No, no, you cannot frighten me like that. The strain has a twenty-four-hour virulence only. Otherwise, how could our troops have been expected to occupy enemy territory that had been seeded with Cassandra? No, my friend, you are safe. And so are we. But you may die of Erich, you know.” The general considered the tip of his cigar. From somewhere out in the harbor came the sound of a boat engine, throbbing through the cool fog. The
Valkyron
rode easily at anchor, solid and magnificent. “Herr Durell, I am not noted for my patience. I do not believe that you mailed Piet’s map to England.