Assignment - Lowlands (22 page)

Julian Wilde was no Erich. He shot first. Durell felt a shock go through his arm as the slug, by a fluke, hit the rifle in his hand. The gun was torn from his grip. He fell to the sand with it, shouting a warning to Trinka and Cassandra. A second bullet spanked the sand. He twisted desperately. The two girls were flat in the reeds to avoid the fire. He raised his head again and saw Wilde’s figure against the dark sky. Durell was helpless. His rifle was smashed; the Schmeisser machine pistol of Erich’s was about twenty feet away near the water’s edge. Wilde had disarmed him effectively.

He called the man’s name, but the wind and rain tore the words away from him. “Wilde, listen to me!”

Wilde seemed not to hear. Durell gathered himself for a dive at the machine pistol, and Trinka called urgently, “Sam, don’t. Please. He is only waiting for you to try it. What good will it do any of us if he kills you?”

“We’ll drown here, otherwise,” he said. “We can’t reach the boats without crossing his field of fire.”

“He is still unloading the loot from the bunker,” she said quickly. “There is yet a little time.”

“Then he’ll come down after us.”

“He is not sure you are unarmed now. Perhaps if we go back to the lighthouse . . .”

He looked at the two women. Cassandra, in her black skin-diver’s suit with its tight helmet, looked strangely

detached. Trinka seemed only concerned for himself. He looked at her again.

“Are you all right now?” he asked.

“I’m sorry I was so foolish as to get sick.”

“Was it the first time you killed?”

She nodded, swallowed.

“You were well trained,” he said.

“Perhaps. But never again—if we get away from here.” He tried for the Schmeisser anyway. He got two steps from the covering reeds when Wilde’s gun cracked and the pistol jumped in the sand. Wilde fired again and Durell felt the fan of air as the slug slammed past him and he dived back for the reeds. Trinka reached for him and caught his arm, her face angry.

“Why must you try to kill yourself like that?”

“It’s all right. He could have killed me,” Durell said, “but he didn’t. He wants to keep us here. It pleases him more, I think, to have us drown slowly than to be shot mercifully. He’s a sharpshooter. If he could hit the Schmeisser, he could have put the same slug through my head. But he didn’t. So he wants us to die in the sea.”

“It is horrible,” Trinka whispered.

Cassandra said, “One can expect nothing else, I think.” They retreated to the lighthouse. The rain had slackened, but the thick clouds brought on a premature evening gloom. The sea was covered with whitecaps, and most of the sand bars and labyrinthine channels had been swallowed by the tide. Durell estimated that less than half an hour would finish this island, too. And judging by the terrific tidal pressures when they had stumbled into the channel a few minutes ago, he knew they couldn’t survive more than a few minutes, once the sea reached them.

From the entrance to the lighthouse they could see the approaches to this end of the island, and Julian Wilde could not surprise them. Durell turned to Cassandra.

“You might as well tell me the truth now,” he said. “Surely, if you came back for more of the general’s looted paintings, you knew you had no chance to get away with them.”

“I have nothing left.” Her pale brown eyes were cool. “You showed me the truth about myself on the beach last night. I’ll never have anything unless I get what I need here and now.”

“Are you sure there are more paintings?”

“The general often talked about them. They are located in a small storage room off the biological laboratory. They were stacked in crates. I thought I could sell them in America or France—or anywhere. I could have been rich.”

“The general’s friends wouldn’t let you get away with them, would they?”

“Oh. that’s all finished for now, I think. Inspector Flaas will send all that data to West Germany, for prosecution.” She smiled cynically. “Perhaps von Uittal’s friends will escape, even then. Perhaps they are right about Germany’s future. But I don’t care. I have my chance to be safe and happy now. with all the money I’ll ever need, if I can get those paintings.”

“When did you see Inspector Flaas?”

“He questioned me this morning about Marius Wilde and the general. I heard him say to a subordinate that Julian’s visa to Switzerland had been revoked. The Swiss will not let him in. Someone in the Dutch government leaked the truth about the virus to the Swiss. So they decided in the Hague to move against Wilde once and for all. No more deals, Flaas said. Better to risk the plague than to go on dealing with Wilde.”

“Why do
you
think Julian Wilde came back here?” Durell asked.

She shrugged. “Where can he go? Who will let him in? He is like a leper, doomed to have every door shut in his face.” The girl shivered. “I would not change places with him for anything. I could not live alone like that, hated and shunned by everyone—just because he wants revenge on the whole world because of an injury that took place long ago and was overcome. He had a decent life in England, did he not? Well, I don’t envy him.”

“I do,” Durell said drily. “He has a gun.”

“Perhaps he started to sail for England,” Cassandra suggested, “and the storm forced him this way, and he decided to stop once more and clean out the bunker of the paintings and the virus vials completely.”

Durell nodded. “And possibly to pick up his hostage.” He stood up. “Trinka?”

The dark-haired Dutch girl turned. “Yes?”

“Watch Cassandra. Take no chances with her. I’m going after Wilde.”

“With your bare hands?”

He nodded. “And surprise,” he said. “I’ll reach him underground.”

“I don’t understand. How—”

“If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, try to make some arrangement with Wilde to take you two off the island.”

“I’d rather not. I can guess what his terms will be.”

“Is it better to drown?” he asked flatly. He looked at Cassandra. “I’ll take that waterproof torch on your diving outfit.” He had noticed the compact equipment belted to the woman’s rubber suit. Cassandra handed the light to him. It was small and square, and when he tested it, a narrow beam of light shone across the curving brick walls of the lighthouse. “Remember, Trinka. Don’t wait more than fifteen minutes, do you understand?”

“I want to go with you,” she whispered.

“You can’t. Watch Cassandra. She may be tricky.” Cassandra said grimly, “I won’t try anything. This one is too quick and handy with the knife.”

Trinka blanched, then set her small mouth tightly. “Yes. I can kill, if I have to, with my bare hands. And I will, if something happens to Durell.”

The trap door he had found earlier in the stone base of the lighthouse yielded without much difficulty. He squeezed through the silted opening and used Cassandra’s torch on the sea moss and weeds that grew up in his way, awaiting the return of the tide. He lowered himself down the mossy steps and looked back at Trinka’s face above him.

“Will this take you to the bunker?” she asked.

“I hope so. It’s our only chance.”

“Be careful, Sam.”

He nodded and went on, not looking back.

Beyond the stairs there was less silt and sea growth to hinder him. He was in a brick-lined tunnel where the footing was slimy and treacherous, the air filled with the sharp odors of decay. He felt oppressed, as if he were in a dark trap from which there could be no escape. Soon enough, the surging tide would pour into these old bunkers through a hundred openings and when it did, the crushing tons of sea water would fill every crevice to prevent his escape.

He moved on cautiously, through trailing sea growth and around a rusted coast-artillery cannon that was like some surrealistic representation encrusted with sea jewels of shells and barnacles. The arched and vaulted tunnels picked up the sound of the raging sea outside, and the dank air was filled with the muted tumult of the storm.

This was a desperate and calculated risk, he knew. If he could slip behind Julian Wilde this way and take the man in the lab bunker by surprise, they might reach the boats in time to save themselves. There was no other choice of action. As for the risks he ran, death could come one way or another, but it was inevitable if he failed.

Then he paused. There seemed to be no exit from the chamber he had just entered.

The flashlight shone on brick and concrete walls ahead.

Water dripped from the ceiling, and an eager trickle ran across the mossy floor. The room had been designed for storage, to judge from the fantastically barnacled racks and shelves all about. And he could find no door ahead into the next vault.

Something clicked nearby, as of steel on stone.

He snapped off the torch and darkness folded in. He might have been in a mine thousands of feet below the surface, for all the light evident. He could see nothing. And the black, inky air accented the trickling echoes of the encroaching sea water in the vaulted chamber.

There came another click, from his right and overhead. He waited. Something scraped. The sea boomed beyond the bunker walls. The smell of brine and iodine and decayed vegetation was thicker. He tried the flashlight, turning it toward the sound. The old shelves and storage scaffolds glinted with crustacean growth. He walked around them to the wall beyond and saw the crevice. He instantly turned off the light.

This time the darkness did not return completely.

Dim radiance filtered through the silted opening. It wavered, faded, strengthened. He moved forward, splashing in the water that now ran in eager tongues across the bunker floor. He felt a chill of apprehension. This chamber was already below flood-tide level. How soon would the sea fill it? Perhaps his return route was already impassable.

The light beyond the crevice faded again, but not before he saw that the tides had cracked and silted what had once been a concrete bulkhead doorway. Steps lifted beyond. The opening was narrowed by shell growth, and when he squeezed through his skin was painfully scraped. He went on sidewise, felt for a step, and suddenly got through.

The stairs ahead went up toward the wavering light. Now he could hear Wilde’s footsteps and the man’s heavy, labored breathing as he shoved crates and furniture aside in his search for whatever he had come here for. For an instant the man’s shadow leaped, gargantuan and distorted, down the stairs toward him.

The open bulkhead door ahead was one of the hermetically sealed doors to the Cassandra laboratory.

Water suddenly sloshed around his feet and he looked back. Without his torch, which he had pocketed with the sample vial of the Cassandra virus he had taken earlier, there was little to see. But he heard a thunderous roar as if water had burst through from the rising sea, and a white turbulence spun and eddied across the floor behind him. A cold wind whipped by him and up the stone steps ahead.

He plunged up with it.

The water rose violently, dragging at his knees, his thighs. It came in a great tidal surge that drowned out all need for caution. He was half driven up the steps by the impact.

When he was almost to the top, he saw the ponderous door being swung shut in his face.

For an instant he faced the possibility of being caught here, left to drown in this cauldron of tidal flux. There was no hope of retreating. He had to go up.

His shoulder slammed the closing door and drove it inward. There came a grunt of surprise from beyond. Durell fought free of the tide and drove on again. There was just enough space to tumble through into the storage room of the Cassandra bunker, and then Julian Wilde slammed shut the rubber-gasketed door against the crash of the impouring sea.

“You?” the man gasped. “Where—”

Durell kicked at the gasoline lantern on the stone floor and spun toward the startled blond man. All in an instant, he took in the purpose and achievements of the other. Stacked against the far wall were the crates of oil paintings that General von Uittal had tried to get. In addition, there were several more wooden boxes of test-tubes and vials. Julian Wilde held one of the boxes in both hands, staring in astonishment at Durell’s sudden appearance.

The darkness blanketed them both,

The tide in the chamber below made a dull, muffled pounding. Durell heard a careful scraping sound.

“Wilde?” he called softly.

“Don’t come near me,” the man replied in the dark. “I’ve got the virus culture in my hands. Unless you want me to smash it—”

“It would get you, too.”

“I’ve also got my gun.”

Durell tried to remember if he had seen the weapon before he had kicked out the lantern light. It was not there. He said, “You’re lying. You left your gun at the top of the exit stairs.”

“Even so.” Wilde’s voice was thick and disembodied in the sterile laboratory air. “What do you want, then?”

“We want to get off the island.”

“I could have killed you before, you know,” the man said.

“Perhaps you should have.”

“It’s not too late, chum. I just thought it would be more amusing if I left you and the Dutch copper girl to swim a bit before you bought it. After all, nobody invited you into this. You could have obeyed Flaas’ orders, eh? You could’ve gone back to Amsterdam.”

“Who told you that?”

“The inspector himself. Apologized for your interference, he did. Of course, this was before those stupid Swiss decided I was a leper, or some such sort of beast.”

“You are,” Durell said. “Nobody will have you. Were you planning to make a run for it to England?”

“When the weather smooths out a bit, sure. I’ll have Cassandra with me—the virus, I mean. She’ll buy me out of anything.” Wilde chuckled. “Now stand where you are, eh? I’m going to run for it, and it doesn’t matter any more if you or a million people die. They don’t concern me, you see. I’m going to get what I want, no matter what. Marius and I didn’t suffer all these years for nothing.”

“Marius is dead—or have you forgotten?”

“I don’t forget anything. Not ever. Goodbye, chum.” The last words were tighter and harsher, as if Wilde were suddenly holding his breath with a preparatory muscular spasm. Durell was ready when the light suddenly splashed across the chamber. He dived to the left and was not surprised by the roar of a gun in the narrow confines of the room. The eye of the flashlight was enormous, jerking to and fro. The room was crowded with tables, cabinets, crates of supplies. He could not see beyond the glaring eye of the torch. The gun smashed at him again, and something shattered overhead and sprinkled glass on the floor.