Assignment Madeleine (7 page)

“DeGrasse says there's a plane coming in soon,” he told
Jane. “We can leave on it in the morning.”

“About time,” she said.

He stood behind her, facing a small rococo mirror that reflected
their images as Jane took another swallow of the brandy. He looked chunky and
graceless beside her. When Jane had agreed to marry him, he had thought it a
miracle of good fortune. He wasn’t particularly good-looking, although his
square features had a clean ruggedness. His dark hair looked thick and unkempt
at the moment. His quiet, patient manner bordered almost on shyness, and this
had caught Jane’s attention first, that day when her father gave that
cocktail party at the Houston ranch and he had been invited, in a patronizing
gesture to the hired help, along with the other engineers. Jane’s father had a financial
interest in
Davide
et
Fils
,
and Chet had already applied for a job with the geophysical exploration team
due to go into the Sahara.

Jane gave him special attention because he had been the most
reserved of the lot. Perhaps it intrigued her to draw him out. Certainly
neither had expected the explosive attraction that built up between them during
those next hours. Jane was bored, and Chet was something new to her. She was
accustomed to flattery and adulation from many men, and Chet was
different. Honest, she thought, and sincere. He was in love with her from the
start. Because of what she was and what her money represented, he had stepped
back until it was impossible to keep silent. Two weeks after they met, when he
had seen her every day-usually at her demand—he asked her to marry him. And she
had accepted.

His trip to Sahara had been postponed for months while he
worked in her father’s Houston offices. But he didn’t want to think about that
time now. In self-defense, he had insisted on going into the field, and
Jane had joined him after a two-month delay.

It had taken just one year and two months, he thought
bitterly, to turn them from impassioned lovers to enemies, coining! together
now only to claw and hurt one another. Well, he was surrendering. Giving up his
one chance to break free and stand on his own two feet. He loved her too much,
he told himself. He couldn't help it.

He put his hands on her shoulders, but she twisted free.
“Don’t, Chet.”

“We’ll be out of here by morning. Doesn’t that make you feel
better, Jane?”

“We should never have come here in the first place.
You can see that now, can’t you?”

“All right, yes. It was a mistake.”

“You know you had no right to ask me to come here.”

“We’ve been over that before. I told you I was sorry.”

“Well, we'll talk about it when we get home,” Jane said.

He hesitated. “Honey?”

She sat on the edge of the bed and studied her broken fingernail.
He felt helpless. He felt angry. He wanted to slap her and make love to her,
right now. He wanted to take her by force, no matter what happened. He started
toward her, and someone knocked on the door.

Jane looked at him, startled. For a moment, fear shone in
her wide gray eyes. Chet picked up the gun. ‘Who is it?” he called. ”

“
M’sieu
Larkin? Madame? You are
safe? It was Felix Bourges, the proprietor. “May I enter for a moment?”

“Of course,” Chet said.

He shifted the gun to his left hand and tossed his own flannel
robe to Jane. Then he slid back the bolts on the wooden door and opened it an
inch or two. It was Bourges. The Frenchman was small and dapper in a gray
seersucker suit, with a round perspiring face and a heavy moustache. His hair
was very thin, s owing a freckled scalp through the strands. He stood alone in
the corridor. Chet let him in, and Felix entered with a sidling motion.

“
Mon
Dieu
, it was a close one, no? You are certain you are
all right,
madame
?”

Jane said, “It's a fine thing, when your guests get
shot at.

“Jane, it wasn’t Felix’ fault,” Chet said quickly.

“My apologies,
madame
. But the
danger is ended, I think." Felix laughed and reached back into the hallway
and lifted a rifle, patted it, and put it down out of sight again. “I am
a member of the territorials, you know. We colonists have to fight our
own battles many a time. Some of those devils actually reached the market place
here, but my friends and I drove them back.” His eyes lingered on Jane’s body.
She hadn’t bothered to throw on Chet’s flannel robe. Chet felt a pang of
embarrassment for her and said, “Is everything all right here?”

“Oh, yes, no one was injured.” Bourges sank into a rattan
chair and puffed out his lips as he expelled an exhausted breath. “It is a
serious matter.” Felix got up and helped himself to brandy from the Martel
bottle.

“You two are the last of my guests."

“I’ve had a call from DeGrasse, by the way, Chet said.

‘“There’s a plane coming in tonight. We re flying out
on it in the morning.”

“Perhaps you are the fortunate ones, then. A plane, you
say?” Felix swallowed the brandy. His round face was shiny with sweat. “It will
be the regular mail flight from Algiers.” He looked at his watch. “Due
now. We can go on the roof to watch for it, if you like.”

“Good,” Jane said. “I could use the air.”

“Is it safe?” Chet asked.

“The fighting in the town is over.”

Felix was correct about the fighting in the town, but
the crackle of gunfire still came from the outskirts of Marbruk as Chet
and Jane stepped out on the roof of the hotel. From the crenelated parapet,
Chet could see across the jumbled alleys and streets to where a fire
burned luridly on some farm in the foothills. The hot wind blowing from the
south made the flames leap crazily.

“The airfield is over there," Felix said,
pointing.

Chet saw lights come on in the long crisscross pattern to
the southwest. At the same moment he heard the drone of a single-engine plane
over the town He looked at Jane as she leaned against the parapet. She was
smiling. She had not looked so happy since he had met her at
Maison
Blanche in Algiers. She had looked like that on the
Rue Michelet, that day they went shopping. And that afternoon, in the shadowed
heat of their hotel room, when they were alone. It was a lifetime ago, never to
be recaptured.

He knew what Jane was thinking. The plane meant rescue for
her, deliverance from heat and boredom and dirt. Freedom from him, too. He
didn’t want to think about it. Anger moved in him. He had yielded everything he
could, including his self-respect. But he still didn’t know if it would be
enough for her.

The plane was landing now. He saw it distinctly, a bright
yellow bug in the glare of a beacon that picked it up as it headed into the
wind.

“It’s awfully small,” Jane said.

“The roads to the coast are blocked,” Felix Bourges told
her. “The telegraph lines are down. And those devils out there have a radio-jamming
station that prevents reliable communication. You are lucky,
madame
, that we retain control of the air.”

The plane had touched down. The wings rocked a little on the
rough landing strip. Chet saw Jane lean eagerly over the parapet to watch. Then
the plane stopped and more lights came on, making the military hangar stand out
against the black of the night. It was like watching a tiny stage far away,
surrounded by dark velvet.

He saw the explosion before he heard the sound. Even before
the tiny plane lurched up and went over on its nose, one wing crumpling, he
knew it had been a grenade, thrown by someone on the dark edge of the landing
strip. He saw some people get out of the plane and stumble away. Two, then
another. He couldn’t be sure about it, because the distance was too great.
Felix began to swear in a mixture of French and Arabic. Jane made a small
moaning sound.

There came another explosion, and the plane in front of the
hangar burst into red and yellow flames.

Chapter Eight

DURELL felt the blast of heat from the exploding plane like
the slap of a giant hand. The thought flickered through his mind that the
man who had thrown it had Waite just a minute too long. The pilot and Madeleine

had already descended, and he had just followed them. There
had been no other passengers.

A sheet of flame burst from the tanks, and he fell,
grabbing at Madeleine to shield her from the heat, and then they picked
themselves up and ran into the darkness at the edge of the strip. The light
from the burning plane expanded, following them. The pilot was all right. There
were sirens, and a racing jeep that swung toward them. Durell watched the plane
burn from the edge of the field. He kept a firm grip on Madeleine’s
arm. The girl was shaken, but nobody was hurt. He heard the sudden rattle of an
automatic rifle at the edge of the field, and the spotlight caught
the running figure of a man in ragged khaki. The man screamed and twisted
and fell as the rifle chattered again. Half-a-dozen French paratroopers in
green berets, their weapons slung from shoulder straps, ran toward the
guerrilla. The jeep swung their way, raising dust and sand in the eerie shafts
of light moving over the landing strip.

“You don’t have to hold me,” Madeleine said. “I’m all right.
And I won’t run away.”

Durell let her go and they walked toward the jeep. It
stopped in front of them. A man in the uniform of the regular French Army
jumped out and waved his driver to stay behind the wheel.

“Monsieur Durell? Mademoiselle Sardelle? Captain DeGrasse.

Durell shook hands with the Frenchman. DeGrasse was over
forty, blond and hard and slender, wearing sweat-stained khaki with a string of
grenades slung from one shoulder, a carbine from another. On his shirt were red
captain’s insignia, and among the ribbons on his breast was the black and green
of the Cross of the Liberation with a number of palms, the Legion of Honor, and
several from the Indo-Chinese campaign that had ended so tragically at
Dien-bien-phu
. There was a thin streak of blood across his
jaw. He smiled ruefully. His voice was calm, deep, assured.

“My apologies. You landed in the middle of a boiling kettle,
eh? The rebels surprised us again. Our plans will have to be changed, I am
afraid. However, your prisoner is quite safe. How you will get him out of here
is a matter we must consider with care tomorrow.”

“By tomorrow I want to be back in France,” Durell said.

DeGrasse shook his head. “Quite impossible, monsieur. But we
can discuss the situation at ease at Felix’ hotel. I am sure you will wish to
rest the remainder of the night. Mademoiselle, will you please sit up front
with the driver?”

Madeleine said, “How is L'Heureux, captain? Is he all
right?”

“You mean is he well, in good health? Yes, the beast lives.
I wish I had shot him out of hand two days ago. I have a feeling that tonight’s
disturbance was an effort on the part of the rebels to take our prize from us.”
DeGrasse took Madeleine’s arm and helped her into the jeep. “We will go to the
hotel first It is quite safe now. The rebels will not attack again
tonight. You can see how the situation is here, very uncertain, quite dangerous
for visitors.” DeGrasse smiled briefly. He had a boyish face enhanced by
his rakish black beret and bright tawny eyes. “We managed to kill a round dozen
of the devils tonight, at any rate.”

“I would like to see L’Heureux as soon as possible,” Durell
said. “And I would like to talk to you in private about Orrin Boston, if I
may.”

“Of course. My orders are to give you every assistance.

Both you and your charming aide.” DeGrasse told the bearded
driver to go to the Marbruk Hotel and sank back on the hard seat of the jeep.
He slung his carbine around to hold it on his knees. “You will wish to refresh
yourselves first.”

“Just what is your situation, captain?” Durell asked.

“Are we cut off from the coast here?”

“In most ways. Communication is impossible for the moment. I
had planned to send a military convoy with you, but I will not be able to spare
the men and equipment, after tonight. Not until things settle down, at any
rate."

“When do you expect that to be?”

“Two or three days, monsieur.”

“Perhaps you can spare a single truck or car.”

“I would not attempt the trip alone,
m’sieu
.”

“I know the country,” Durell said. “I’ve been here before.”

“Ah, I see. During the war?”

“Yes.”

“I shall give your suggestion serious consideration,”
DeGrasse said.

It was only a ten-minute drive from the airfield to
the hotel. The streets were narrow, sometimes barely passable for the jeep, and
DeGrasse kept his carbine ready, his eyes on the dark, leani.ng walls of the
houses that loomed over them. No one moved on the streets except an occasional
hurrying figure, sometimes in burnoose and robe, sometimes in European
clothing. At frequent intervals they passed patrols of territorials or regular
armed troopers on guard.

The bearded French jeep driver escorted Madeleine into the
lobby, carrying the small piece of luggage she had salvaged from the plane.
Durell halted DeGrasse on the silent terrace under the lights.

“Could you spare a man or two for the next hour?”

he asked quietly. “I would like to have the girl guarded.”

DeGrasse looked mildly surprised. “But she is your
associate, monsieur.”

“Not exactly,” Durell said. “She is suspect. I’ll explain
later. But it is important that she be prevented from making any local contacts
without my presence.”

“You will return here for the night, however?”

“I’d like to see Orrin Boston’s room first—the place
Where he lived and look it over. Then I’ll want to talk to L’Heureux.”

DeGrasse’s face clouded. “I will be glad to get rid of that
one. I was fond of Orrin Boston, you know. He knew this country and the people,
and he was of great assistance to me in the matter of maintaining contact with
the local population. His death was a tragedy that never should have happened.”