Assignment - Manchurian Doll (8 page)

“It will take time.”

“We have no time,” Omaru said. “Turn the girl over to me. Once we have the information from her, she can be eliminated. We can persuade Colonel Kaminov to cooperate. He will be caught between two millstones, eh? He will be committed to defect; he will not be able to go back then. So he will dangle between them and us. We offer him safety, a new life. Can he refuse? He will divulge the military statistics you seek. The future is predictable, whatever disappointment he suffers at not having Nadja waiting for his eager arms.”

Omaru sighed and belched loudly. “Ours is a devious business. You are in it for patriotic motives, or perhaps from some private compulsions toward such a life. It is of no consequence to me. I owe allegiance to no land and no flag. Money is my only god, Mr. Durell. I have earned a lot of it through the Kaiwa Corporation, trading in bodies and propaganda in the Far East. I expect to earn more money in the future. So you know what I am, and what I do.”

“I don’t deal with double agents and murderers,” Durell said.

“You do me an injustice, sir. No doubt my activities irritate you. You would like to eliminate me and Kaiwa from events here, perhaps? But I make myself too useful to your side, as in this instance. Am I too complacent? I think not. Facts are facts. Who else can bring Colonel Kaminov to safety from Manchuria, into your hands? No one but Omaru.” “You don’t know where he is, however.”

Omaru’s voice hardened. “I act in good faith. Without Kaiwa, Colonel Kaminov could never have contacted you. Are you suggesting that we do not do business together?”

“Correct,” Durell said. “It’s no deal.”

“You owe me twenty thousand dollars.”

“You owe me some explanations. I don’t like being sent for by a couple of hoods—”

“My apologies. You seem sensitive, sir.”

“Perhaps I am.”

“Have you the money with you?”

“I have,” Durell said. “I will pay only ten thousand for what you have done now. Nothing more.”

Omaru frowned. He shifted his massive weight in the big chair, stroked his huge belly, folded pale fat fingers like sausages over his pink yukata. The charcoal in the brazier made a brief crackling sound, like paper crumpling.

“I have known your reputation, Durell, for some time. You have an enviable name. But in this case, it is a matter of kokuro, of heart. You seem to suffer from the Japanese disease of ense—a tiredness with life, sir. I could dispose of you now and take all the money at once.”

“You could try,” Durell said quietly.

“I could succeed. But—very well. Ten thousand dollars now, to show good faith for value received.”

“An explanation, first,” Durell said. “Why did your men kill Waldo Fingal?”

Omaru looked blank. “Who?”

“Waldo Fingal. You know the name.”

“I have many men in Kaiwa.”

“But you don’t murder them. You had Waldo killed this morning in Tokyo.”

Omaru’s eyes became more enigmatic than before. The pale light in the room emphasized the tinge of color in his skin. His mouth pushed out. “Is Waldo’s death important?” 

“It is, to me. He once worked for me.”

“A drunkard, a coward, a wreck of a man?”

“He was different, when I knew him.”

“He was unreliable.” Omaru was curt. “He was eliminated. It was necessary.”

“Because he tried to warn me of something?”

“Of what?”

Durell smiled. “If I were certain, I would not be here. You’re too clever to try to play games with me, Omaru. He said enough to make me feel we cannot do business at all.” “You need me,” Omaru insisted.

“I need no murderers.”

“Come, Waldo Fingal was unimportant.”

“Was he? His death costs you twenty thousand dollars.”

Omaru opened his eyes wide, then slitted them again. “This is ridiculous. I begin to feel angry with you, Durell. Waldo Fingal was given to hallucinations and lies. So you knew him once; but that was a long time ago. His elimination had nothing to do with our business arrangement.”

“I think it did. And I’m calling it off,” Durell said. “From here on, keep out of my way, Omaru. Don’t interfere with the operation.”

“Are we enemies, then?” Omaru whispered.

“You name it as you please. We are not partners.” 

Durell was aware of movement then behind the
soshi
screens. One of them slid to one side. He turned and saw the masklike face of Baroness Isome. She wore a white kimono with a scarlet
obi
and her movement was like a drifting wisp of vapor as she glided into the room. She looked through Durell as if he did not exist, and spoke to the fat man in a light, thin voice. “Omaru, my dear?”

“We are discussing business.” Omaru waved a fat paw. “Mr. Durell, if you refuse payment, I must warn you of a Japanese saying, to the effect that ‘virtue disappears in the face of poverty.’ In this case, the poverty will be mine.”

They have another saying,” Durell returned. “When one wastes money, it is ‘like throwing gold coins before a cat.’ You get nothing from me, Omaru.”

“We had a contract. I delivered a message, and I am prepared to deliver Kaminov to you, for twenty thousand dollars in American money.” Omaru lurched up, his big body trembling with anger. “You cannot do without me. I have the men and the facilities you need. All we lack is the exact rendezvous place. Osmanovna knows this. You must force it out of her.”

“Under the circumstances,” Durell said, “there is no contract and nothing to discuss.”

“I will not permit—”

“Omaru!”

The woman’s voice cut like a rasp through soft pulp. The man stopped, turned slowly, his round shaven head thrust forward a little on his monstrous shoulders. The woman’s masklike face cracked slightly with a smile. She touched Durell’s arm with a light, feathery gesture.

“You are angry because of your friend’s death. It is understandable. But this is not a time for rash decisions. We know where you plan to go—where Tagashi intends to take you. It is a small fishing village named Miyako, about five miles north of Akijuro on the coast. Tagashi has arranged quarters there for you, with an uncle, a fisherman of the village. Tagashi-san has many ‘relatives’, has he not? Have you thought of this?”

“I’ve noted it,” Durell said.

“Wherever you are, we shall send word to you. We can decide nothing tonight. Let us leave the matter open.” Omaru spoke bitterly. “But my patience is thin. Once the girl talks, my apparatus can take care of everything. I shall expect the money tomorrow, then, and when the business is concluded, I may make another assessment. I think that is all. Isome is right. We need not quarrel over the death of a drunken fool. My men will see you safely returned to your friends now, Durell-san.”

“One moment.”

Durell turned again at Isome’s words. She moved back to Omaru, hands clasped delicately before her, her painted face like a geisha’s, a mask that defied any guess as to her age or thoughts.

“One matter must be decided,” she said in her thin, piping voice. “Omaru is greedy, and sometimes he takes great risks for money. I do not interfere. But this girl you took from the train is a great risk, indeed. She refuses to cooperate. If she does not, it is Kaminov who bungled, not we. Kaminov expected her to help, and put the burden of success on her assistance to us. We are committed now, and cannot turn back. Neither can Kaminov, though he does not seem to know it.”

“What are you getting at?” Durell asked.

“Nadja Osmanovna, naturally. If she does not talk, she is too dangerous to live, knowing what she knows now.”

“I’ll decide about that,” Durell said.

Isome’s painted face was like a mechanical doll’s. “A wise man admits danger, Mr. Durell. If you have scruples about killing her, you may deliver her to us. But you must make her talk first. If you cannot, again you must turn her over to us. We will be more successful.”

Omaru said decisively, “I must have the girl now. I’ll send my men back with Durell to get her.”

“Don’t push me,” Durell said.

“I must be adamant about this, sir.”

Omaru clapped his hands and the two Japanese gunmen reappeared in the doorway. Baroness Isome smiled and gave them orders in rapid dialect. They were obsequious toward her, as if her authority equaled the fat man’s. Durell wondered at the essence of pure evil that came through the woman’s mask. He could understand Omaru as an adventurer, interested only in money. Isome was different. Her essence was that of acid, of silent poison. Of course it was a risk to let the girl live, if she eventually refused to talk. But when he looked at Isome and her fat husband, he smelled the evil in them, and he could not agree under any circumstances to turn her over to them.

One of Omaru’s men thrust a gun in his back.

“Come, we take you to Tagashi, we take the girl.”

“Put the gun away,” Durell said tightly. “I warned you, I find it disagreeable.”

Omaru gave a rumbling laugh. “He only obeys orders, Durell. I almost suspect you of bourgeois sentimentality in reference to the girl.”

The hoodlum jabbed with his gun. “Come. We go now.” One of the first things you learn when training for K Section at The Farm in Maryland is how much distance to keep when you cover a man with a gun, and especially how tight a grip to hold on your weapon. The Japanese hood was not a professional in Durell’s world. He was pitifully easy. Smiling, Durell turned and smashed the gun from the man’s hand. The man screamed, wringing a broken wrist, and Durell kicked the heavy gun aside. His partner lunged, and Durell drove a fist into his belly and smashed him through the wood and paper fusuma door. Omaru bellowed orders, his face convulsed with rage. The woman stood quietly beside him, contemptuous.

Durell felt the sudden change to enmity in the air. He had to be quick now. The two gunmen had separated, the first one holding his broken wrist, his lips skinned back, his big teeth bared. His feet in a flying judo kick could be deadly, and Durell backed carefully away to the broken doorway.

“I’ll take the car myself. Thanks for everything, Omaru.” Omaru said thickly, “I want the Russian girl. You are stupid to insist on keeping her.”

“Call your men off, or I’ll kill them,” Durell said.

“I will not tolerate this,” Omaru whispered. “You are a fool. I do not do business with fools.”

He snapped something to his two men and they jumped for him again. Durell took the one with the broken wrist first, chopping at his throat and rupturing the larynx. The man fell to his knees and bowed forward, then rolled back and forth on the floor in anguish. The second man came back through the broken doorway with a small, bright knife in his hand, and the blade flickered and weaved in a bright, dismaying pattern of thrust and parry as he closed in toward Durell.

Durell backed around the charcoal brazier in a spinning step, then kicked over the heater into Omaru’s lap. The hissing coals scattered over the fat man’s thighs. The hot iron hibachi crashed on one of Omaru’s small, pink feet.

Omaru screamed. The charcoal, strewn over the straw floor mat, promptly caused it to smoke and bum. A tiny flame leaped up. Omaru lurched, his face yellow, and screamed to his men to kill Durell.

The woman had shrunk away, but she still smiled, her winged brows lifted. She watched Durell in fascination, as he jumped across the small fire leaping up from the fat man’s chair and spun away from the men crowding in through the doorway. There was no escape in that direction. He caught the flicker of flying steel and ducked the knife, and dived for the broken wood-and-paper partition to his left. There he turned and drew his own gun, standing in the opening he had broken for himself. At his back was the cool, dark night, the sighing of the mountain wind.

“Omaru!”

The room was filled with smoke. There were shouts of panic from other parts of the inn now. The fat man lurched around and spread his enormous arms to hold his men back.

“This was for Fingal,” Durell called.

Omaru did not reply. He looked like some enormous demon rising from the red, steamy depths of hell, with the fire blazing behind him.

Durell turned and ran across the inner court of the mountain inn. The cool sound of a tinkling wind bell was ironic. He smashed through a tall bamboo hedge and found the car still parked near the carved wooden gateway. He fell in, found the keys in the ignition, and started it.

He drove away with his foot flooring the gas pedal.

Nadja tried the rope that lashed her wrists once more. Her flesh was raw, and the pain from her effort went up her arms in a shock wave of agony. She gasped and lay still, watching the dull afternoon wane into evening dusk.

For a time she was passive, studying the restricted arc of her vision. She could turn her head only partially. She had slept fitfully during the day just passed, aware of a dozen alarms. She was surprised at her fear, because she always thought she could meet death bravely; at first she thought it was because her end would be useless this way, and it was her duty—as her instructors always maintained—to stay alive to the last possible moment.

But it was more than that.

During the tortuous drive down the mountains to the coast, she had been wrapped in blankets that hid her from passing traffic. She had been able to guess where they were, at different times. She knew when Tagashi cut through the outskirts of Akijuro and turned north along the shore, by the smells of the sea and the pines. The drive took four hours on the wretched roads. They had not fed her, so she was hungry when she was finally led into the fisherman’s house on the beach.

She knew she was in the village of Miyako. Just before they halted, they’d had to wait for a suburban trolley to clang past, and she had a fairly good idea where she was.

The big puzzle was why they kept her alive.

She expected questions and torture, but nothing happened. Durell came in and gave her lunch of fish and rice and tea and sat there watching, silent, not asking anything. His silence troubled her. But then the other American agent, the young one with the yellow hair and freckles and boyish face, came in and said something in a slangy phrase and Durell took the lacquered bowls and teacup and tied her up again.