Assignment - Lowlands (13 page)

Nor do I believe that it was a simple tourist map, and no more. I want the truth. I want the map. I have spent too much time in fruitless cruising of these waters, from Borkum to Terschelling, and I am without patience or pity. I leave you here with Erich. When you are ready to talk—or when you are dead—I shall come back.”

Cassandra spoke suddenly, her face frightened. “No, Friedrich. Why didn’t you tell me about my name? Is it amusing to you that I innocently accepted a name synonymous with death?”

“I thought it amusing, yes. But be quiet.”

“I will not. You could have told me about the virus.” “It was not necessary to tell you anything. A woman’s mind is a treacherous and stupid thing, at best. Go to bed, Cassandra. I shall see you later.”

“I have not dined yet,” she said.

“And you won’t. You’ve done badly enough.”

“Am I a child, to be sent to bed without supper?”

“We will talk about it later.”

“No, Friedrich. Now.” She looked defiant and frightened, all at once, as if surprised at her temerity in speaking up to him. “You are a monster, you know. You take as much pleasure in torturing me as you do with Durell.”

“Do you deny you’ve behaved badly?”

“I deny nothing.”

“Ah. You were in love with Marius Wilde?”

“Perhaps. I hadn’t thought much of it. He was pleasant to me. I did not know he was your enemy. I thought he was an Englishman, an engineer working on the dikes, and useful to us.”

“So you went to bed with him,” von Uittal said, his voice trembling. “Bitch! Whore! To go to bed with an animal of the field, to couple with a dog, to fornicate with a beast—this is the same as giving yourself to Marius Wilde. A Pole, a slave-laborer, a—a—”

His rage took possession of him and he struck her hard. This time the blonde girl, though staggered, did not fall. She pulled herself up straighter, defiant, her face white, her eyes blazing.

“I will leave you, Friedrich! I will go to Marius now!” “Yes.” He laughed harshly. “Do that—into the grave.”

“You will not hurt either of us.”

Durell spoke sharply. “Cassandra, Marius is dead.”

She stopped, frozen by the impact of his words. It was plain she had not heard about the murdered man on the dike. Her eyes widened in horror, and she swallowed and looked at Durell.

“It is true?”

“He was shot today while working on the dike. It looked like an accident, but there’s a bullet in his brain.” Durell turned to look beyond Erich’s fat bulk at the general. The general had lifted the Luger, and it was a dangerous moment. But he went on. “What happened, General von Uittal? Did you run into Marius accidentally, while probing around the dike? Did he recognize you as the Nazi in charge of the slave laborers, the prisoners of war lifted out of Buchenwald and sentenced to work on the Cassandra bunker?”

Von Uittal nodded. “He was a madman when he recognized me. It was a mutually unpleasant surprise. He tried to kill me, and I shot him in self-defense.”

“And his brother?”

“I am not worried about his brother. He was not there, of course. Marius recognized me. He was shocked and startled. I suppose that after all these years, to come upon me in this same place, under somewhat similar circumstances—his resentment must have been enormous. He must have harbored longings for revenge all these years.” Von Uittal smiled grimly. “He was weeping with his fury when I killed him.”

“But I don’t think you met him by accident,” Durell said. “You sought him out because Cassandra became friendly with him, isn’t that true? You went to the dike deliberately to kill Marius Wilde.”

“Friedrich?” Cassandra whispered.

Von Uittal turned to look at her. His smile was cold and cruel. He started to speak, and then there came a small crashing sound, not very loud or alarming, and Durell saw the glass of one of the salon windows blow in, crashing, and the general’s face changed in a strange fashion, suddenly blowing and swelling in distortion as his skull exploded outward.

The sound of a heavy gun fired from the deck outside came an instant later.

The impact of a heavy-caliber bullet striking the back of a man’s head has a horrifying effect. Because of internal pressures in the cranium, fluids, brains, and bone are thrust forward into the face, distorting and swelling the features instantly into an ugly caricature of what the victim had looked like.

Erich saw his master an instant before von Uittal fell, and he screamed like a woman. Cassandra stood frozen, smiling queerly. Durell used the moment to good advantage.

Confused shouts and footsteps sounded on the fog-bound deck outside. Durell swung hard as Erich screamed, sank a hard left into the fat man’s belly, hit him again, caught the man’s gun as it fell, and slashed it across Erich’s face. Erich screamed again, from personal pain this time. Terror became painful agony under Durell’s hard, chopping blows. The man scrambled awkwardly aside, fell, and tried to get up again. Durell let him reach his feet, then hit him again in the stomach and straightened him with a slashing, numbing, side-handed chop that drove Erich in sprawling paralysis to the carpeted floor. He felt reluctant that it came so easily for Erich; it should have taken more time. But the score was now a little more even. Turning, within the same few seconds it took to dispose of Erich, he picked up the gun and thrust von Uittal’s Luger at the blonde girl.

“Are you with me, Cassandra?”

“But I—what happened?”

“Will you come with me?”

She seemed to be in a dream. “Yes. Yes, I want to get away. I—-I’ve had enough. I feel sick—”

“Time later for such luxuries. Come on.”

“But who was it?”

“Brother Julian, ten to one. He found out what happened to Marius and came aboard to even the score. Now, run!”

They scrambled out of the cabin and onto the dark, misty deck. A running sailor caromed into Durell. Durell tripped him, caught Cassandra’s hand, and turned toward the bow where someone had had the presence of mind to turn on one of the boat’s spotlights. The lights of Amschellig harbor all around them made a dim, pale curtain through the fog. Durell was aware of stiffness and bruises all over his body, but he did not permit his injuries to slow him down. He saw the probing finger of the spotlight sweep the oily water and pick up the white wake of a speedboat heading for shore. The blond man’s head visible behind the speedboat’s wheel could only be Julian Wilde. He had guessed correctly.

“Is that the
Valkyron’s
boat?” he snapped to the girl. “No, ours must be at the ladder—”

“Let’s go back astern, then.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Catch up to Julian, if we can.”

They ran back along the deck to the ladder where they had first boarded the yacht. It was still lowered, and the launch Erich had used to bring them from shore was now tied there.

“You first,” Durell told Cassandra.

“I don’t think I— Is Friedrich really dead? Is he?”

“He is. Hurry!”

She went down the ladder quickly, her blonde hair swaying on her shoulders. Up forward, the spotlight still held the retreating motorboat in its grip. A rifle cracked from the bridge. Shouts and cries and questions rattled in the confusion aboard the yacht. No one knew what was happening. Then someone saw Durell and Cassandra going down the ladder and the spotlight swung blindingly to bathe them in its dazzling glare.

“Halt! You, there, halt! Frau von Uittal, please—!” Durell aimed, squeezed the trigger, and shot out the spotlight. The darkness struck down like a falling curtain.

Cassandra thumbed the starter button of the launch engine. It whined, reared, died. Durell pushed her aside and tried again. This time it roared loudly, coughed, and he eased out the choke until it settled down to a decisive rhythm. Cassandra scrambled forward and threw off the painter and they surged away from the yacht’s towering side.

Julian Wilde’s boat was already out of sight, heading for the dim, iridescent line of lights on Amschellig’s docks. Somewhere on shore an alarm siren went off in response to the vague shots and confusion on the
Valkyron
. Other lights came popping on among the sloops and fishing boats in the fog-bound harbor. A general babble of shouted questions filled the dark evening.

Durell paid no attention to these distractions as he headed for shore. He was not sure where Julian would land, but the only place to moor was near the
Suzanne’s
berth, and he headed that way.

The other boat was faster, however. He spotted it drifting away from the stone wall after Julian Wilde abandoned it with a single mighty leap that took him to the top of the embankment, shoving the speedboat out toward the harbor again. Durell knew Cassandra could not duplicate his quarry’s leap, and he swung the launch toward the landing steps. It gave Julian an advantage. By the time they reached the sidewalk above, facing the medieval shops and chandleries, the sound of a motor car came beating back though the drifting fog.

“This way,” Cassandra gasped.

“No, he’s heading there.”

“But my car—a Mercedes—we can overtake him. It’s parked in front of the Boerderij.” She caught his hand. “It is the leading hotel here. Haven’t you been there?”

“Not yet.”

“Then come. The Mercedes will do the job for us.”

He waited a moment. He heard the girl panting for breath, and he could hear the muffled clamor of search and alarm in the harbor. The air was cold and damp as he drew a deep breath and listened. The sound of Julian Wilde’s motor car drummed off to the north, on the dike road that led to the Gunderhof. He waited until he was sure that his quarry had gone beyond the hotel, then he ran with the girl for two blocks along the brick walk atop the embankment.

Her car was sleek, low-slung, powerful, seating just two. Cassandra gasped, “You drive. I don’t think I can— I feel so—”

He slid behind the wheel, felt the quick, powerful response of the motor, and swung the Mercedes in a scream-mg circle around the embankment and onto the road after the fleeing Julian Wilde.

At no time until now had he analyzed his motives in giving chase to Wilde. It was not from any desire to catch a murderer. In this case, Durell was not concerned with criminal justice. His assignment was above all ordinary considerations. It did not matter that Julian had killed General von Uittal—whose death, in any case, was long overdue. But he could not let the only man who controlled the Cassandra virus drive off in a red, lustful fury for vengeance. He had to stop Julian before the man took other drastic steps. There was no telling what might be in Julian Wilde’s mind.

He glanced sidewise at Cassandra. Ten minutes ago she had seen her husband murdered, after he accused her of an affair with Marius Wilde. But she sat now in the careening Mercedes with a strange small smile on her lips.

“Did you get a look at Julian’s car?” he asked her.

She stared ahead. “Yes. It was English. A Jaguar, I think.”

“Can we catch it?”

“You can try.”

“Don’t you want to?”

“I never met Julian,” she said quietly. “Marius never mentioned his brother. But I will not let you take him to the police for what he did to Friedrich, if that’s why you are chasing him.”

“No, it’s not for that,” Durell said.

“I did not think so.”

They flashed past the lights of the Gunderhof and bored north through the fog on the dike road. It was like driving through a dark tunnel that curved slowly to the northeast, following the shore toward Groningen. There was very little traffic. Two ruby tail-lights far ahead on the flat landscape told him where his quarry was, when they became suddenly visible though a momentary break in the sea fog. But the lifting of the curtain was frustratingly brief.

“Where does this road go?” Durell asked the girl. “North, through Groningen Province to Germany.” “Did Marius live in this area?”

“I never learned where he lived.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why do you always doubt what I say?”

“Why do you always lie? You had an affair with Marius, but I’m not concerned about that. But surely you met somewhere in private.”

“I never slept with him. Friedrich was wrong about that.” “All right, you never did. But you met him where he lived.”

She was silent.

“Where was it, Cassandra?”

“I can’t tell you. That would be where you would go to find Julian, too, is it not?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I’ve just decided I don’t want you to find him.” He spoke in exasperation. “Then why did you come with me? Why did you lend me your car?”

“To make sure you don’t catch up with him. You see, we’re going to run out of fuel in a moment. You’ll see.” And she laughed softly.

It was not a normal sound. It was quiet, but it was laced with a deep, sensual pleasure, and she wriggled deeper in the car’s bucket seat, like a cat turning around to curl up in cozy security.

A few moments later the Mercedes’ engine sputtered and died. The fuel gauge showed empty, exactly as she had predicted.

Durell let the heavy sports car glide slowly off the road lane to the shoulder of the dike. In the silence, when they rolled to a halt, he heard on the right hand the singing of crickets in the field below the level of the sea wall; on the left, he heard the easy crash and sigh of surf on a beach where the North Sea surged in tidal strength against the dike. He settled back behind the wheel in controlled anger.

“Well, we’re stranded. Have you got a cigarette?”

“In the glove compartment,” the girl said.

“What do we do now?” he asked, helping himself.

“We can walk back. Or wait here. Someone will be along soon.”

“Not too soon, on a foggy night like this,” he said.

“You don’t mind sitting here with me, for a while?”

“You shouldn’t have tricked me,” he said thinly. “It’s important to get to Julian Wilde.”

“I don’t want him to be punished. He struck off my chains and set me free tonight.”

“You don’t sound like a grieving widow.”

“I’m not. You saw what my husband was like—how he treated me, what he thought of me. Why should I weep for him? Oh, he wanted so much to marry me, when he thought he loved me and passion had inflamed him. For once in my stupid life, I did the right thing, and I gave him nothing, you understand, until we were married and he signed over an irrevocable settlement of his estate that will make me a rich woman. But even then I was stupid. He was stripped of everything by the West German courts. He lived on his neo-Nazi party funds, you see. Things were provided for him by those who still dream of revived glory and power. But von Uittal himself turned out to be penniless.” She laughed bitterly. “However, the yacht is now mine, and everything aboard it. So I do have something after all from the humiliation and degradation he gave me. It was worth it, to be patient.”