Assignment - Quayle Question (22 page)

He looked at Deirdre. Her face was pale but calm. She sat quietly at the table, her hands folded before her, her eyes reflecting concern only for him. The knife in the hand of Sinn’s creature behind her was only an inch from her throat.

“Well, Mr. Durell?” the fat man asked.

“It’s no deal.”

“But you are hardly in a position to bargain, my dear Durell.”

“Let Deirdre and Deborah go free. Then maybe we can talk business.”

“Nonsense. Do not insult me by presuming that I am foolish.”

“You can keep me. Let the girls go.”

Dr. Sinn shifted his great bulk irritably in his big chair. Still another candle sputtered and died. The shadows deepened.

“Your time for bargaining has run out, and will soon be finished, Durell. You will work for me. The girls will remain with me. If you do not return to me with Rufus Quayle, at a prescribed place and at a specific time, they will die. There will be no element of grace granted. They will not die mercifully, you can be sure. You may think I am weakened here, without much help in the way of aides. But I am not without other resources. You are a pragmatic, reasonable man. You have been in your business for a long time. You are good at what you do. Excellent, I may say. Do not protest to me that the task I set for you, in bringing Rufus Quayle to me, is impossible.”

“It’s not impossible. I could do it,” Durell said.

“Sam—” Deirdre began.

He did not look at her. The room was already cast in half shadow, and the great bulk of Mouquerana Sinn’s body cast a black blot against the ochre-plastered wall. The reflections in the big glass window were weaker now, and he could see more stars in the sky beyond its shimmering width.

He thought he saw something, just above the lower edge of the sill. A few of the lower stars were blotted out. Then several more.

Just a few more candles, he thought.

A few more minutes.

He did not look at the window again.

He looked directly at Dr. Sinn and spoke with blunt harshness. He said, “Rufus Quayle is dying. He has cancer of the throat. It seems to be beyond help. That’s why he disappeared from sight and his radio editorials are no longer heard. He was hiding out in Ca’d’Orizon in New Jersey like a wounded animal. He hasn’t lost his strength of mind, however. I tell you, he will not sell or sign over Q.P.I. under any conditions, Not for his own safety, which has become meaningless to him considering his private sentence of death—which makes one of your weapons, a man’s fear of his mortality, meaningless to him—nor will he give up Q.P.I., his private symbol of his life’s work, in exchange for Deborah’s safety. So you see, you lose whatever you try. Any trip back to Washington that I might make for you would be without meaning.”

“Is Quayle in Washington?”

“Yes.”

“With your people?”

“Yes.”

“How much time does he have?”

“A month. Maybe more. Maybe less.”

“It is enough.”

Sinn leaned back and sighed with satisfaction. His huge face creased in a smile.

He said, “There are many ways to persuade a stubborn man, even a man who is dying. Your own time is running out, Durell. You see, two more candles are gone. The shadows fall. Mahmoud likes to use his knife. Your woman is very beautiful. Would it not be a pity to have her die? It would be useless; and a terrible waste. And you would gain nothing by her death. I still have Deborah.”

“No, you don’t,” Durell said. “One of my men is with her.”

Sinn leaned his great bulk forward a little. “You have no other men. They were all killed in the courtyard. Otherwise, you would not have been so foolish as to come into this room alone.”

This time Durell was certain of the movement he had seen just above the windowsill, on the outside of the building. He saw the face of the Korean girl, the little acolyte monk, very briefly. Then the familiar mop of wild hair from Andy’s head lifted above the bottom of the window, peering into the room. He saw a glass cutter in Andy’s hand, and he began to talk again to cover any sound that the sharp little roller might make. He spoke of the secret passage into Ca’d’Orizon, and how Plowman might have used it to gain passage into the New Jersey house, and the way Plowman might have snatched Rufus Quayle long ago. He talked of the zaibatsu, how the

Tokyo government was even now beginning an investigation that would uncover I. Shumata as a commercial front for Mouquerana Sinn’s efforts to seize control of world-wide media conglomerates.

Dr. Sinn listened with the first signs of impatience glittering in his strange, colorless eyes.

There were only three candles left now. The room was deep in flickering, shifting shadows. Andy had completed cutting out the small circle in the plate-glass window. He raised his fist as a signal that he was ready to punch out the entire hole.

“You are running out of time, Durell,” Dr. Sinn said. “You are talking too much and too freely. It makes me wonder why. Your young lady will die in a very few minutes now. Do you or do you not agree to my offer?”

“No,” Durell said. “I do not agree.”

He raised his hand for Andy.

Andy’s fist came through the glass in a single, sharp, explosive blow. At the same moment, Durell swung and fired at Mahmoud, who held his knife at Deirdre’s throat. Both Sinn and the guard with the stubby automatic rifle had both swung in instinctive surprise toward the sound of breaking glass at the window. Andy’s gun clamored from outside. Everything seemed to happen at once. Durell dived, for the table, aware of Mahmoud falling, swaying like a giant tree, but still trying to raise the knife in his hand. Deirdre fell to the floor. The reports of Andy’s gun slammed back and forth in the big room. Durell hit the flooring tiles and turned, skidding on his right shoulder, and fired at the second guard. Andy had already hit him, driving him back against the wall behind Sinn’s chair; the man’s chest seemed to collapse while his automatic rifle stuttered and slammed explosive bullets across the room, gouging out great gouts of plaster from the opposite wall. The room was filled with dust and smoke.

Mouquerana Sinn half rose from his great chair and tottered to his feet. His feet were not capable of supporting his bulk. His face changed, looked incredulous, then enraged. A madness bloomed in it like some inner infection suddenly running wild.

“Dee!” Durell shouted.

“I’m all right, Sam.”

The great plate-glass window shattered with an explosive noise. Andy came tumbling in over the sill. Behind him, the Korean girl, still in her dark robes, followed with the agility of an acrobat.

“Hold it!” Durell snapped to Dr. Sinn.

The man was trying for Mahmoud’s lost knife. He had his fingers on it when Durell aimed carefully and shot him.

Durell walked to the broken window. It looked as if the building went down in a sheer drop to the desert floor a thousand feet below. But when he leaned out, he saw the narrow ridge of concrete, less than six inches wide, which ornamented the base of the monastery. It had been a reckless, hazardous path for Andy to follow.

Andy coughed and waved a hand in front of his face to dispel the drifting dust and smoke. He grinned as Durell came back from the window.

“The Maharanda people decided to help us. That ledge goes around the whole building and passes just under the window. The girl knew about it. She’s pretty good, Cajun. I was afraid to look down or I’d have lost my cookies.”

The Korean girl was looking at Sinn’s corpulent body and at the other two of Sinn’s guards. She began to weep.

“You don’t have to cry for them, sweetheart,” Andy said. He bent down to pick up the guns. The big red heart appliqued to the seat of his pants was torn. “The world is better off without them.”

Durell helped Deirdre to her feet.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

She nodded and clung to him just as the last candle in the room flickered and went out.

Dickinson McFee’s voice sounded distant and crackly over the long-distance Mexican telephone lines and the faraway connections to Washington. He also sounded very impatient.

“But what about the Mexican police, Samuel?”

“It’s all taken care of.”

“But you say there was shooting and a number of casualties. Samuel, we try to be unobtrusive—”

“Sir, it’s going into the official reports as a kind of gang war between hippie smugglers of grass and hash and LSD —you name it. This Miss Wendy O’Hara is quite a woman. She carries a lot of clout locally. Whenever any young Americans showed up in San Luis Francesco, she bullied them into giving up their little caches of dope. She managed to collect quite a bundle of the drugs. Together, we stowed it around the winery so that any investigative cop would find it with no trouble and put their own two-and-two together. There’s no sweat, six.”

McFee said, “I see,” as if he saw nothing at all. “And what about Marcus?”

“He’s in the local hospital,” Durell said. “He’ll be fine.” “But you are not in San Luis Francesco at the moment, I gather.”

“No, sir. Forty miles away. A little fishing town on the coast. There’s a qualified hospital here and a little hotel. Deirdre and I are at the hotel. I’d planned to rest up a bit, perhaps for a few days.”

“You have a week, Samuel.”

“More than enough, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Are you being sarcastic with me, Samuel?”

“You haven’t asked about Deborah Quayle yet.” Durell paused. “You have Rufus Quayle and Q.P.I. in your pocket, so you’re no longer concerned, are you?”

“Of course I’m concerned, Samuel.”

“I’ll bet.”

There was an impatient pause on the crackling line. The hotel was on the beach facing the Pacific. Some tuna boats were moving across the horizon. It was just a little after dawn, and Durell had had no sleep since leaving the Maharanda winery and arranging with Wendy O’Hara for her silence with the cops. He knew that by calling at this dawn hour he had reached McFee at about eight in the morning. He didn’t care.

There was a big double breakfast waiting for him on a tray, and a large, inviting bed. The smiling manager of the posada had been more than cooperative. The place was small, untouched by tourists. The low Spanish arcades in the courtyard were filled with dark red roses, and a tiled fountain splashed pleasantly in the center of the court, where pigeons made early-morning burbling noises. The day promised to be cloudless. A stout, black-garbed Mexican woman hurried along under the columned arcade, carrying more trays. Two chickens fluttered and clucked at her heels.

“Samuel?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I thought we had been disconnected. You’ll send in your usual report?”

“Yes, sir. You’ll have the happy task of telling Mr. Rufus Quayle that his daughter is safe.”

McFee’s voice was dry. “I assumed she was, or you would have mentioned it.”

“But she’s in a bad way.” Durell’s voice grew sober. “She’s had a very bad time of it, sir. She’s in the hospital with Marcus. They’ll both be out in a few days. She’s been physically and mentally abused to the point where

she’s in a state of collapse. It will take awhile for her to recover.”

“Rufus Quayle will see to all that.”

“Yes, sir. And Q.P.I.?”

“It stays independent, of course.”

“And the trading company, I. Shumata, that Dr. Sinn took over?”

McFee said, “The State Department will handle all that. It’s not your worry. They’re already in close cooperation with the Japanese government, investigating it. It will show up Dr. Sinn’s manipulations, of course, and his illegal acquisitions, through terrorism and murder. It will be broken up, of course. Moreover ...”

Durell stopped listening. Deirdre came out of the big yellow-tiled bath, wearing a thin blue bathrobe the maid had lent her. She had washed her long, thick hair, and it glistened like dark copper in the early-morning light. The robe was not tied about her slender waist, and he could see too much of her as she walked toward him.

He felt suddenly awkward, as if he had never been alone with her like this before. He looked carefully at her eyes, searching for anything remotely resembling the look in Deborah Quayle’s eyes. There was nothing to be alarmed about. Her smile was still the same warm, serene smile she always had; her eyes that met his told him all the close things she had always told him. He could hear the distant crash and sigh of the surf on the beach beyond the hotel’s red-tiled roofs.

“Samuel?” It was the telephone again.

“Yes, sir.”

“Deirdre is unharmed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Certain? Quite all right?”

“Very much all right,” Durell said. Deirdre came toward him, her hand reaching for him, and he added, “I’ll see you in a week, sir.”