Assignment - Lowlands (21 page)

“But he knows this is a tidal island,” Trinka objected. “It will soon be under many feet of water.”

“Perhaps he came back for you,” Durell said flatly. 

Her face went suddenly blank. “For me?”

“Or for something here that he needs and wants.”

“He does not need me. He left me here to die.”

“I wonder,” Durell said.

She said coldly, “I don’t like what you are thinking. It isn’t fair. I thought we were friends.”

“Lovers, you mean.”

She flushed. “Very well. Maybe I was foolish. I was frightened. I wanted the comfort of having you make love to me—and it was wonderful,” she said, a low hostility in her tone. “But now I wonder what you are trying to say.” “It’s my business,” he told her, “to be suspicious of everything. Of you and everyone and everything.”

“Do you suggest I am an ally of Julian Wilde?”

“Are you?”

“But how could I be, when he tied me up and left me—” “He came back, didn’t he?”

“Not for me.”

“Maybe it was arranged to look good for you, in case I or someone came along and found you. It makes you look like an innocent victim, rather than Wilde’s ally, motivated by the same wish for money.”

“Oh, you must be insane,” she whispered. Her face was white and her eyes were uncomprehending. “How can you talk to me like this? Do you think money is so important that I’d sell out my country and my people and inflict a plague upon them?”

“People do strange and terrible things for money.”

“I hate you, Sam Durell,” she said slowly. “I would cry if I could. But I have gone beyond tears. If our last hour on earth must be spent as enemies, them I will thank you not to speak to me again.”

“I have to know the truth.”

“How could I lie to you, after we made love? How?”

She began to tremble. She was small and delicate and she looked totally defenseless, as if her last resources had crumbled under his suspicion. He felt sorry for her. But he had to test her, to know who and what she really was. There was only a little time left. Danger waited outside for them. And he could not risk a shot in the back.

He stood up and walked into the gloom of the lighthouse ruin, taking the rifle with him. She remained seated, facing the opening, watching the sea and the arc of beach where Julian Wilde might appear.

The base of the lighthouse was a large circular room filled with the tidal debris of many years. Barnacles, mussels and seaweed covered the stone floor and walls, waiting for the tide to return and nourish them again. The air was rank with the smells of iodine and brine. Rain filtered through the steel beams and abutments overhead that had supported the vanished light tower. He circled the base wall slowly. The diameter of the ruin was about fifty feet. He went halfway around and saw the trap door.

It was revealed by the shell-encrusted ring set in the stone floor. The wooden hatch was long disintegrated, and silt had partially filled in the steps going into the dark hole below. He had no idea where the passage led.

“Sam?”

He turned, rifle ready, and saw Trinka staring north. He walked back and she looked at him with impassive eyes.

“Could we make a run for the boats now?” she asked.

“If Wilde lets us. He’s got a gun, too.”

“If we got to the boats first, we’d be saved from the tide. I’ve been expecting to die here; I’d made up my mind to it; and now like a miracle he’s come back with the boat—”

“Or by prearrangement,” he said thinly.

“You don’t trust me at all, do you?”

“I want to,” he said. “I wish I could.”

“Can’t we have a truce, at least, and save ourselves?” she demanded angrily. “Must you be so blinded by your professional training that you lose all human values? Are you a machine, or what?”

“I want to live as much as you, Trinka,” he said quietly. “That’s why I’m trying to be careful.”

She spread her hands. “I am unarmed. How can I hurt you? Did you suspect me an hour ago, when we made love?”

“Wilde hadn’t come back then,” he said. “He wasn’t sitting somewhere out there waiting to knock me off. It was just luck, poor aim, and the wind that saved me,” he finished grimly.

“And you think I arranged—” She paused, hand to her mouth. “Oh. Oh, I see. I understand now. You think I’ve been waiting for Wilde to pick me up and that I talked to him and told him to kill you when you came up out of the bunker a few minutes ago.”

“Did you?”

“No, I did not. Believe me. I am everything I said I was. And if we don’t trust each other, we won’t get off the island alive.”

“So you suggest we make a run for the boats?”

“Wilde has gone into the bunker,” she said. “The way is clear.”

She was right. When he stepped carefully from their shelter, he could not see Julian Wilde. The
Suzanne
, with Wilde’s launch tied astern, swung in the wind and rain not more than a hundred yards down the shrinking shore of the island.

“All right. Let’s try it,” he said.

If Trinka was lying, he decided, then he had to expect to find Wilde lying in ambush somewhere along the route. He scanned the terrain with care. The island was relatively featureless except for the lighthouse ruin and the long, artificially straight ridge facing west. Tall grasses and reeds rippled in the rising wind. The crash of the surf shivered in the air, and the cold rain pelted their faces.

He pointed to the sandy beach that curved north to the former lagoon where the boats were moored. The rain cut off their view as they started out. In the gloom, very little could be seen. But he consoled himself with the thought that Wilde was equally handicapped.

They sprinted quickly, digging their toes into the wet sand, then dropped flat in the reeds. No shots greeted them.

Nothing was to be seen. The rain lightened, and he made out the boats, nearer now. They represented rescue from the encroaching tide. Two more sprints would bring them to the beach opposite the sloop. Then they would have to swim for it. That would be the bad time, he thought, when his rifle would be useless. Maybe Wilde was waiting for that.

They got up and ran in a zigzag course across the reedy dune toward the boats. It was like a nightmare in which your feet bogged in glue while terror snapped at your heels. Trinka fell sprawling in the sand. He dropped to his knees beside her. They were only halfway. Ahead was an open stretch of sand, dimpled by the rain. They sheltered for the moment in the last clump of reeds.

“Did you hurt yourself?” he asked.

“No. I’m sorry, I’m just clumsy.”

“We can’t stop next time until we hit the water and swim for it” he said. “Are you sure you can make it?”

“I’ve got to try. I’ve got to do it,” she said.

“Good.”

“Do you honestly care?” she whispered bitterly.

To her astonishment, he kissed her. “Of course. Let’s go.”

On their feet, they ran down the slope toward the
Suzanne
. As if to confound them, the rain suddenly came down with cloudburst intensity, hammering them with a cold fury that filled the world with driving spray and blinding wind. They could see nothing. Durell shouted to Trinka to stop, but she plunged on, and suddenly they were in water that surged hungrily about their ankles and then leaped at their knees. Trinka reeled in confusion. Their wet clothes were plastered tightly to their bodies. She shouted something above the hissing rage of the storm, but the wind tore the words from her lips. He caught her hand as the tidal current abruptly eroded the sand from underfoot.

They turned blindly, searching for dry land. Durell felt the strain of the tide on his legs; his thigh muscles trembled. The girl’s wet hand began to slide from his grip. She could not stand on her feet. A comber smashed at them suddenly, rearing out of the wind and driving rain. Trinka coughed and gave a little cry and suddenly went under. He clung to her hand with all his strength. If his left arm were free, he could have hauled her up easily; but he did not want to let go of the rifle.

For an agonizing moment it was in balance. The tide, pouring through a channel sluiced across the island, smashed them out into the lagoon. The water lifted to Durell’s waist. The girl had struggled up, coughing and strangling, until her arms were around him. She clung to him then and he knew her feet were not touching bottom.

Thunder crashed. Lightning flared. The surge of tide pushed once more, then abruptly yielded with a sudden release of pressure that made him stagger. In a momentary pause in the rain, he saw the island shore. It had changed radically. Little more than the bunker ridge was left, running about two hundred yards northerly.

He looked for the boats, but could not see them through the rain. There was nothing to do but regain the fast-dissolving land.

It took moments of desperate struggle. Trinka simply lacked the strength to do more than cling to him as he fought his way out of the tidal current.

But even then they had no chance to rest.

Trinka screamed when he dropped to his knees with her in the sand, and he turned to look in the direction she was staring. He saw a motor dinghy pulled high on the beach. It hadn’t been there before. And beyond, offshore, was the dimly visible hull of the
Valkyron
.

Closer at hand, on a low ridge above them, was a trio of black-rubber-suited figures, their skin-diving outfits and skull-tight helmets glistening in the rain. There was Erich, and Cassandra von Uittal, and the pimply-faced crew member who tagged along with the fat mate.

Erich had a Schmeisser machine pistol in his hand and a hard grin on his face. As Durell turned, Erich raised the gun and squeezed the trigger.

The Schmeisser’s hammering seemed muted by the thunder of the storm. At that moment Durell could not have saved himself. Later, Durell remembered how they had looked in their glistening frogmen’s outfits. And it was Cassandra who prevented Erich from finishing him off in that instant of incredulity.

She gave a sharp cry and knocked the muzzle of the Schmeisser aside. The racketing slugs whined high overhead. Erich cursed and stepped back, and the blonde woman, whose black rubber suit effectively emphasized the fullness of her voluptuous body, stepped between the sailor and Durell.

“Be patient, Erich. Please.” Then she turned to Durell. “You will drop your rifle, please.”

“What do you want here?” Durell countered.

“We would have come sooner, but we had to wait for the tide to rise high enough to bring the yacht in close. And of course you know what I want. I intend to get the rest of the general’s treasure-trove of paintings and
objets d’art
.”

“I thought they were all gone.”

“No, no. There are storage rooms—secret places in the bunker. The general told me about it. Be kind enough to drop your rifle. You can help us load. Afterward, we will let you go to your boat.”

Durell kept his rifle in hand. “How can I trust you?” He watched her tightly. “You and I are not allies or friends now.”

“No. I offered you more than friendship, and you rejected me.” Cassandra’s voice was thin, but it cut through the sound of wind and surf. “But I am not inhuman. You and this girl can go safely from here, if you cooperate and help us now.”

Durell shrugged. “All right.”

“Now, then. Drop your gun.”

He looked at the three unearthly, rubber-suited figures and decided the time had come to cut the cards for Erich. He owed Erich a lot. The fat man was holding the machine pistol a little laxly as Cassandra spoke. Perhaps he was winded from his climb out of the sea. Or perhaps Trinka’s scanty wet costume intrigued him to much.

Instead of dropping the rifle, Durell let his hand slide down to the trigger and he shot Erich in the stomach, rapidly, twice.

The fat man’s pistol yammered as he fell. Durell did not watch him die. He swung the rifle fast as Cassandra moved, and she froze when he covered her. But he missed the other sailor. The third rubber-suited figure showed unexpected imagination and daring. Until now, he had been a shadowy hanger-on to the fat Erich. But now he dived forward suddenly, a knife in his hand, and grabbed for Trinka. But his first effort was a mistake, and his first mistake was a lethal one.

Trinka disarmed him quickly, efficiently, professionally. As the sailor lunged for her with the knife uplifted, she stepped under it and toward him instead of retreating instinctively. This threw him off stride and her hand shot up, caught the rubber-clad wrist, and twisted sharply. The man was stronger, but her knowledge of leverage and neural centers was better. He screamed suddenly and tried to twist away and Trinka caught his knife as it fell. Before the sailor could recover she made a quick, ripping gesture. The sailor screamed again, a bubbling sound of shock and incredulity.

The knife hilt glistened in his chest.

Trinka fell to hands and knees, gasping, her head bowed. She was violently sick. Durell walked over the dune toward Cassandra, who stood frozen by the sudden turn of events.

“I should have known,” she said bitterly. “The general and his men bungled everything, always. In one moment, I am stripped of my men and my weapons.” She looked at Trinka. “Such a sweet little killer. So petite and so deadly. It makes me sick, too.”

“She had to do it,” Durell said. “She doesn’t have to like doing it.”

“You surprised Erich. He looked forward to killing you.”

“It was a mutual ambition. I meant to kill him.”

“And me? What will you do with me?”

“We’ll save you for the police. Come along. Trinka?” The small girl lifted her head. Her face was very white. She looked at the dead men and shuddered again, but she got to her feet.

“Take Erich’s pistol, will you?” he asked.

She said thinly, “Oh, do you trust me now?”

“I have to. We’ll use Cassandra’s dinghy.”

“And leave Wilde here?”

Cassandra sucked in a shocked breath. “He is
here?
” 

“In the bunker, right now,” Durell said.

“No. No! He will destroy everything!”

Cassandra started to run, disregarding Durell’s gun. Durell, turning to warn her away from the ridge with a shout, saw Julian Wilde emerge from the bunker door at that instant.