Assignment - Quayle Question (20 page)

He had left Marcus with Vincente, who said he would get the priest, who doubled as a doctor in emergencies among the villagers. Most of the blood on Marcus had come from a scalp wound. Behind him, at a short distance, the two agents dressed as hippies followed Durell. He did not know them or their capabilities. He would have to depend on himself alone.

He saw the first unobtrusive stake set beside the road among a clump of cactus. A small metal box was attached to it. He could not see its mate, but he waved an arm and the two hippie agents closed up fast in a line abreast with him as he strode through the invisible electronic beam. His black kite bobbed high in the air above his head.

Nothing happened. He could only hope that the sensors could not detect the difference between one human body and three.

The two DIA men who had been with Marcus moved with efficient professionalism. The one named Andy wore a tattered striped polo shirt and blue jeans with a big red heart appliqued over his buttocks. He was of medium height, but he had the muscular build of a wrestler or an acrobat, and he moved with easy competence. His companion, Roger, was thinner, smaller, with a great shock of curly yellow hair almost like an Afro haircut. He had a beard that was equally curly, and bright blue eyes that always looked amused. He wore a denim jacket and tennis shorts that had turned a mouse gray with dirt and grime and sweat. He sported striped tennis shoes. His small smile seemed to be a perpetual fixture on his face.

The third man that Marcus had brought, along with the girl, was tripped out on something the girl had provided him during their afternoon in the van.

Nobody was perfect, Durell thought.

The image of Deirdre flickered through his mind. He saw her aboard their Chesapeake skipjack, her hair blowing in the wind. He saw her in bed beside him. He saw her walking a beach, her stride matching his. He put the images of her out of his mind.

There was one more switchback on the road and then a level space with the loom of the old stone winery behind it. They had passed several more detection devices. Andy had spotted one of them, pointing with a dirty finger to the clump of tough grass that grew beside the road. He had bent to study it, the red heart sewn over his buttocks stretching tight. Roger grinned and whistled softly and they had walked through the electronic barrier three abreast, as they had done with the others.

Again, nothing happened.

The sky was filled now with the darkness of the desert night. The stars looked as if a jeweler had spilled the contents of a diamond box out over velvet. The sickle moon gave them a surprising amount of light.

There was a smell of fermentation in the air.

A heavy plank door, with two panels and big iron hinges, opened into the old winery yard, where big casks were piled and stacked like giant cordwood. From somewhere, Durell heard the chanting of male voices and then the heavy sound of a gong.

To the right of the winery doors was a three-sided area bounded by arcades, enclosing a courtyard. One of the arcades led to what had been Wendy O’Hara’s house, which once had been used by the monks as a dormitory in days long gone by. Two feeble lights glowed there, and from another direction came the thump and bang of a diesel generator that provided power for the place. A truck without tires stood near the tall winery doors. The air of economic disaster and dilapidation did not speak too highly for Wendy O’Hara’s business acumen. She had not seemed like the alcoholic that Vincente had described, but evidently, in investing in the winery, she had chosen the wrong business for herself.

“Hold it,” Durell said.

His two companions checked themselves, came to an immediate halt.

The kite attached to Durell’s robe flopped limply to his heels like a broken-winged black bat. It was going too easily, he thought. He listened to the muffled chanting and wondered how many Maharanda disciples were quartered here, how many were genuine, and how many were creatures obedient to Dr. Sinn’s orders.

The wind made the shadows move in the deserted courtyard. It had a chill bite to it. He thought again of Deirdre, and her image touched his mind once more, in ski clothes, laughing from a spill in the Vermont snow. His stomach jumped and tightened, then grew quiet again.

“What’s the problem?” Roger asked. His halo of curly blond hair and thick beard made his face look almost angelic. His smile was steady. “We’re in, aren’t we? No alarms yet.”

“Maybe.”

Andy rubbed his buttocks. “Hell, I’m cold. Let’s have some action, huh?”

Both men lifted their automatic rifles, vicious, stubby weapons of enormous firepower. Roger reached inside his shirt and pulled out a grenade and a thermite bomb.

“All right, Cajun?”

“No.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know yet, but—”

“Durell!”

The scream was thin and high, filled with alarm. It was Wendy O’Hara’s voice. It broke the quiet of the monastery courtyard like a thunderclap. Durell jumped for the protection of one of the columns in the nearest arcade. He could not see the woman, but her shout had come from his left, back in the direction of the winery warehouse they had just passed. Before the echoes of her single cry died, Roger’s bushy-haired head burst like an overripe tomato. The racketing burst of automatic fire filled the courtyard with deafening noise. Bullets whipped and flared and made small explosions all around them. They were all special cartridges, designed to burst on impact. Roger’s headless body stood upright in the courtyard for a long instant, then sagged to the flagstone floor, jumping and twisting and coming apart as more bullets sought out his corpse and struck him.

Andy dived behind the next column in the arcade that sheltered Durell.

“Oh, Jesus. Look at him! Goddamn it!”

There were two guns. They stopped firing as suddenly as they had begun. The echoes faded away.

Roger’s mangled body lay sprawled in the courtyard. Durell turned left, toward die point where Wendy O’Hara’s voice had come. He jumped for the shelter of the next column. Immediately, the automatics opened up again, blasting and bursting against the stone shelter of the arcade. Chips flew everywhere. Andy’s pale face, surrounded by his hairy growth of beard, made a startled blob in the shadows of his sheltering niche, two columns away under the arcade.

Durell waited.

The firing ended again.

Dim shouts of surprise came from inside the main monastery building. The speed and accuracy of the shots just ended warned Durell to move with utter caution. Twisting behind the narrow shelter of the stone column, he tore loose the little black kite from his monk’s robe. The wire inside was stubborn for a moment, then it

snapped apart. He calculated that they were using the wire to identify and spot his location with precision. The robe itself was a nuisance, and he tore that off, too, feeling less hampered by its bulk. It had gotten him through the detection devices for the most part, but evidently at close range the infrared heat-seeking beams had spotted three human bodies, not his alone. He was better off without it.

“Andy?"

“Yes, sir.”

“Into the winery. Follow me fast.”

Without waiting to see what Andy did, Durell broke from the arcade and threw himself into the doorway at the opposite end. This time there were a few tentative, uncertain shots sprayed after him, nothing more. He flung himself down in a darkness redolent of stale wine, must, sand, and the bulking shadows of huge wooden vats ranged against a far wall. Something pale moved off to his left. He raised his gun instantly. Andy’s feet slapped the cement behind him. He dropped to his knees at Durell’s side, breathing quickly and lightly.

“Mrs. O’Hara?” Durell called.

“I’m here. Oh, my goodness. Help me.”

She came wavering out of the gloom, down a flight of wooden steps from a gallery at Durell’s left. He looked up at the balcony under the high, beamed ceiling. Wendy O’Hara was drunk. Her old woman’s face looked sunken and ravaged, and she moved uncertainly, arms out wide to keep her balance. Her hands reached for Durell, but he avoided her touch, keeping his gun clear.

“Watch the door, Andy.”

“Yes, sir.”

The woman said in a slurred voice, “Mr. Durell, what in heaven’s name—?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I saw them take your girl. That lovely young person.” Mrs. O’Hara was weeping. “After all, this is my place. I rented it to these terrible people. It’s all my responsibility.”

“Keep your voice down,” Durell said.

“I had a—a l’il too much—of your gin.”

“Are you all right?”

“I think s-so. But I’m—I’m so s-scared. I’m only an old woman. I’m tired. They let me come in, but then they told me I had to s-stay. In here. They told me they’d sh-shoot me if I stepped out of the door.”

“Where did they take Deirdre?”

“She’s in my house. Across the courtyard. What are they, Mr. Durell? Kidnappers? Murderers? I don’t understand it. The disciples of Maharanda believe in peace and love. These people aren’t really Maharandas, are they? They’re fakes, that’s what they are.” The old woman’s voice grew stronger. “Killers, that’s what. They took your girl.”

“Did you actually see her? Was she all right?”

“I don’t know. Yes, I saw her. But she—-she was unconscious. Maybe—maybe—” She paused, anguished. “They were carrying her. She couldn’t walk.”

He remembered carrying Deirdre out of the surf at a small, rocky beach on Capri, when they had worked together on an assignment in Rome. Her weight had been negligible to him. He could have carried her in his arms forever. He never wanted to let her go. Her face had been beaded with the salt drops of the Mediterranean, and when she pressed her lips to his in a warm and promising kiss, he could taste the salt of the sea on her mouth.

“Oh, Sam,” she had said. “Sam.”

“What is it?”

“I couldn’t ever love you more,” she had said.

He turned back to Wendy O’Hara.

“When did you get here?”

“It was just a few minutes ago. I just obeyed an old woman’s curiosity, that’s all.”

It was clear, he thought bitterly, that she had come blundering up and had alerted all the detection gadgets so that when he followed with Andy and Roger, everything had been manned. They had been ready and waiting for them to walk into this trap.

But there was no point in regrets.

“You’ll be safe in the winery, Wendy. Can you tell us if there is another way into the main house? Not using the arcades and the courtyard?”

“The monastery? Oh, yes.” Her hand gestured, a vague blur in the gloom. Her voice echoed slightly. “There is an outside walk. That door, over there, gets you to it.” She began to weep. “Oh, Lord, I’m sorry. I’m just a useless old woman who drinks too much. I started out just trying to forget things, and now I. .. I. .

Her voice trailed off. Durell turned from her, touched Andy’s shoulder, and he walked along the huge wine casks against the plastered stone walls in the gloomy cavern until he found the door she mentioned. There was no sound anywhere. Andy held his automatic rifle ready as Durell turned the massive iron key in the lock. It was stuck, rusted together, and had not been used, obviously, for quite some time. He felt impatient with the precautionary measures he had to take with each step of the way. He wanted Deirdre. A rage began to grow in him. He thought of Dr. Mouquerana Sinn and remembered the tortures the man had inflicted on him, long ago in the heat of the Indian Ocean. It would be different this time, he promised himself.

He opened the heavy door just enough to slip through. Andy followed close behind him, a grenade in his hand. Starlight greeted them. The cold desert wind blew stronger on this side of the mesa. The back wall of the winery storehouse was almost flush with the very edge of the mountainside, except for a narrow footpath built of flat, rough stones, with a wooden railing that served as a guard against the sheer drop to the desert floor far below. As far as he could see, beyond the reach of his vision, the desert stretched below and away, featureless and without color under the pale light of the thin moon. No one was on the walk. He moved quickly toward the main monastery building, and soon heard the voices of men, not angry but incredulous, asking questions, talking together. Presumably, these were the legitimate monks who had gathered in Wendy O’Hara’s Maharanda temple. Suddenly he heard two or three muffled shots. The voices fell silent. He did not know how many men Sinn had here. There had been two guns trained on them when they had ventured into the courtyard. There were surely others.

He came to another door at the end of the path. The door was recessed into the thick wall of the building. It was locked. He tested it carefully, aware of time running away from him. There was no key available.

He stepped back.

“Blow it, Andy.”

“A pleasure.”

They retreated to a safe distance and the long-haired man smiled and lobbed his grenade at the solid barrier. There was a violent burst of smoke and flame. Before it ended, Durell leaped through the broken, smoking doorway, his gun ready. Andy was hard on his heels. Coughing, Andy swung to right and left, spraying the interior darkness with wild bursts of automatic fire. There was no return fire. In another moment, they were racing down a long corridor. There was a row of monastic cells, all identical, each facing the sheer drop of the mountainside. The doors to the cells were all open, revealing emptiness inside, with slivers of moonlight shining through the narrow slots of the windows.

A man in a black robe, with a kite tied to his waist, appeared at the far end of the arch-roofed hallway. Durell fired once, saw the man stagger and fall, dropping his stubby automatic that was slung by a strap to his shoulder. Andy leaped over him. There was a dim light in the last cell at the end of the corridor. Durell checked Andy and stepped inside.

The huge, naked fat man who looked like nothing more than a pale, enormous bear, was in the act of turning away from the cot in the cell. His face was stupefied. Behind him, on the cot, was Deborah Quayle, her body covered with ugly, battering bruises. There was blood soaking the cot under her.