Assignment - Suicide (18 page)

“What did they do to you?"

“I spent two years in a forced labor camp as an enemy of the
state. My father, too. He died there with me. I don’t know what happened to my
mother. She had to get a divorce, because nobody would give work to a woman who
was married to an enemy and a saboteur.” Vassili’s laugh grated softly again.
“They say that it has all been changed. They have granted amnesty to the poor
devils still in the labor camps. They have relaxed the work laws. Well, maybe
they mean it. Maybe things will be better now. But not if Comrade Z takes command.
Then there will be terror again, and fists knocking on doors in the
night. I hope, my friend, that you can shoot straight.”

The plan was simple, after all. Vassili had four hand grenades.
Durell had no idea where he had gotten them—probably from his ubiquitous rucksack.
When the limousine carrying their target approached the bridge directly under their
post, Vassili would throw two of the grenades at the car. The limousine would
be armored, or at least have bullet-proof glass, and the problem was to
flush their quarry into the open, on the road or on the bridge. There
would only be a moment or two, then, to pick him off before he found shelter
either in the sentry tower or in the brush. That part of it was up to Durell.

“And what happens with the rest of the troops in this place?”
Durell asked.

Vassili shrugged expressively. “I will have two grenades left.
You will have some cartridges. Valya has the rifle you got from that
sentry, and Elena can use the thirty-eight. We can hold them off."

“For how long?”

“Nothing will matter then, if we have accomplished our job.”

“Are you ready to die, Vassili?"

‘.‘Yes, I am ready. Not willing. But ready.”

“Haven’t you thought of escape afterward?"

“It is foolish even to hope for it. It will be impossible.”

“Then you knew this was a suicide mission before you joined?”

“Of course. We all knew that. Didn’t you, when you jumped
from your plane? Didn’t you know you would never go back home?”

“I don’t know what I thought.”

“Well, we have today and tonight in which to think,
gospodin
. But it
will do you no good.”

The sun was directly overhead when Elena crawled up the slope
to their rock ledge and relieved Vassili. She had a chunk of bread and an open
tin of fish and a pint of vodka for Durell. She spoke in whispers to
Vassili, beyond Durell’s earshot, and Vassili bobbed his head and, returning to
his habitual silence, departed without a word to Durell. The dark-haired woman
eased herself carefully to her stomach beside Durell and looked down at the
bridge below.

“Gregori wishes to know if you are nervous, American."

“No,” Durell said. “Not yet.”

“But you will shoot straight, when the time comes?”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet, if that’s what you want to
know.”

She said, unsmiling: “Valya sends you her love."

“Thank her for me.”

“Did you sleep with her last night?”

“Yes,” Durell said flatly.

“I am glad. Mikhail is not the man for her. She needs you, American.
She is in love with you She is desperate about you, and she wants to die with
you.”

“Is dying necessary?” Durell asked.

“It is, for all of us here. I am sorry I hurt her. I did not
want to injure her face.”

“How is she?”

“Confused. She hates me and she loves you.” Elena looked quickly
away from his direct gaze and studied the bridge and the two sentries leaning
on the wooden rail. The soldiers were dreamily considering the rush of the
stream below. “What will you do with Valya, American? She wants to go with you.
She knows there is no hope that we can escape after tomorrow, but she thinks of
it and plans for it. She says you do not love her but that she doesn't care. I
am truly sorry that I hurt her.”

“I didn’t think you were one to talk of love," Durell
remarked. He brushed a small insect from the barrel of the rifle he cradled
beside him. He hoped the night would not bring too many mosquitoes. “You seem
to have dedicated yourself to other matters.”

She winced slightly and bit her lip. It was the first
time he had seen her mask of strength slip a little. “I deserve that comment.
For an American, you are clever. I used to think of Westerners as ogres, as
unnatural men. You could be one of us, after all.”

“
Spaceeba
,”
he said wryly.

“I had a husband once—he looked a little like you. And two
children. A beautiful girl, a handsome little boy.” She sighed. “They are dead
now. My husband Was with Gregori in these marshes during the war. When they
escaped the SS division that circled them, Andrei was not as lucky as Gregori.
He fell in with a detachment of our Soviet guards commanded by a man who
considered all of us who had been behind the lines as traitors. Andrei was shot
immediately.”

“And your children?”

“They were taken from me. They are not really dead, I suppose.
But for me, they are. They are lost forever. I can never find them
again.”

“I’m sorry,” Durell said quietly.

“And so I speak of love,” Elena said. Her voice was thin and
bitter. “I put all that behind me, and now I watch Valya and I remember so many
things I don’t want to remember. Are you comfortable here,
tovarich
?”

“I could think of more comfortable places to be,” he said.

“Can I bring you anything else you need?”

He shook his head. “Just hope. And you have none of that, have
you, Elena?”

“No. None at all. It is better that way.”

A high-bodied command car came racing down the ravine road
toward the bridge and stopped with a squeal of brakes. Before the dust had
settled, an officer had run toward the sentry tower. The guards snapped
to attention while the officer spoke to them and then he reached for a
telephone in a wooden box attached to the tower wall. Durell traced the telephone
line with his eye, following it across the bridge and down the road in one
direction, and up into the woods behind the tower in the other. His interest
quickened. The officer stood talking on the phone, and even from this distance
his figure looked huge and strong. The two guards were more alert than
before. After another moment the officer replaced the phone in its box and went
back to the command car, which reversed on the approach to the bridge and went
boiling back the way it had come, toward the missile base.

“They are alarmed,” Elena whispered. “They know someone without
authorization is in the area."

“Meaning us,” Durell said. “Perhaps you had better go back
and tell Gregori something is up down at the watchtower.”

"I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I must stay with you until Vassili returns."

“Doesn’t Gregori trust me?” he asked ironically.

Elena’s eyes were cold again. “How can we? If you are left
alone, you might decide to try to escape on foot with your own resources.
Gregori thinks you are a dangerously competent man. I am inclined to agree with
his opinion. No, you are not to be left alone."

“And if I decide to get up right now and go for a walk?”

“You won’t,” Elena said. She produced the P.38 in her right
hand and Durell grinned with surprise. She had lifted it from his pocket
without any suspicion from him, While they lay side by side. “If you try to
escape, I am to shoot you."

“And bring down the Red Army on your crew?”

“What will it matter then? We need you in order to succeed.
If you leave us, we will have failed. It would make no difference, you see?”

Durell looked at her hard, inflexible face. “I believe
it wouldn’t make any difference to you at all whether I were alive or dead.”

“Of course not. So you understand how things are.”

He nodded. “I understand. But let us not talk again of love."

Two hours went by. Nothing happened on the road or the
bridge. The sun was hot, as if trying to make up for the belated spring.
Insects hummed in increasing numbers around Durell’s head. Elena, beside him,
might have been asleep, but he doubted it. There had been no more conversation.
He drank a bit of the vodka, wished once again for bourbon, then wished for
water and took some of the bottled, carbonated water that Vassili had left for
him. His thoughts drifted to the dugout and Valya. He could not accurately
analyze his feelings for her. Last night had been a time of trial, when they
were both unbalanced by exhaustion and their flight. He thought of
Deirdre Padgett, back in Washington, cool and lovely and beautiful and more
desirable than any woman he had ever known. Yet there was not the elemental
understanding between himself and Deirdre that he had discovered with Valya. He
told himself to stop thinking about either of them. Deirdre was finished
with him, she did not understand his job, she knew nothing about all this. She
was on the other side of the world, and he probably would never see her again,
and it was a certainty that it he did not get back, General Dickinson McFee
would never tell her what had happened because McFee wouldn’t know the truth,
either.

“Sam?”

He turned his head sharply at the sound of his whispered name.
It was Valya. She came running up the hill, crouching to keep below the line of
the brush at the crest. Her face was white as she knelt beside him. She did not
bother to give Elena a glance.

“Sam, it’s Mikhail.”

“Where is he?” Durell asked.

Her voice was thin and tight. “He just came walking into the
dugout. By himself. Gregori hit him and tied him up and—"

Durell put a finger on her shaking mouth. “Take it
easy. Did Mikhail come back of his own free will?”

She nodded quickly and swallowed. “That’s what he says. And
I believe him. He says he was hiding in the woods not far from the dugout all
night. He says he tried to follow me when I went with you, but he soon lost us.
He came back because he—he loves me, Sam.”

“Then why did Gregori jump him?"

“Gregori doesn’t believe him. Gregori thinks he has betrayed
us. It’s the same thing, all over again.” She bent her head and covered her
face with her hands. Durell waited, looking at Elena; the woman‘s face looked
carved from dark stone.

When Valya lifted her eyes to Durell again, her expression was
anguished. “Don’t you see?” she asked intensely. “All our lives we found
ourselves suspected by the government, by the secret police, by our neighbors.
We resented it because We weren’t trusted to be good citizens. You heard
Gregori tell you how it was when we got back to our own troops during the war.
And here is Mikhail-—and just because he left us for a few hours, Gregori
treats him as a traitor! We are as bad as any of them down there, as had as
what we are fighting?‘ she whispered bitterly. She waved an arm toward the
bridge below. “As bad as those we hate and plan to kill.”

Elena said flatly: “Valya, you are simply upset. Be
quiet. You’re hysterical."

Valya swung impatiently to Durell. “Please. You must go down
there and stop Gregori from doing—what he’s doing to Mikhail. He wants Mikhail
to confess that he betrayed us. Gregori will kill him if you don’t stop it!”

Durell stood up carefully, rifle in hand; then he put the rifle
down. “Very well, I’ll go down and talk to them.”

Elena said sharply, “Your post is here. You have no right to
leave it now."

Durell looked at her. “Do you want to stop me?”

“Suppose you are needed here? Suppose—”

“You can always toss a grenade clown on your pals at the
bridge,” he said harshly. “Keep the rifle. Valya, stay here with her.
Don’t come back to the dugout until I return.”

She nodded, her eyes wet and grateful. “Thank you, Sam. Thank
you. Help him, please."

He didn’t reply. He walked down the hill from the crest of
the ridge with a long, even stride.

Chapter Sixteen

VASSILI rose up from the brush as he approached the dugout,
rising as if from the earth itself, a silent, thin phantom with the challenge
of a gun in his hand. His narrow face shone with sweat. There was a thin smear
of blood on his knuckles.

“Go back to your place,
gospodin
," he said quietly.

“I want to see Mikhail.”

“Gregori is questioning him. It does not concern you.”

“Anything that happens here is my concern. You made me one
of you, and anything that happens to you happens to me, too. Get out of my
way.”

“All right. But don’t be a fool.”

“How is that?”

“Mikhail has betrayed us.”

“How do you know?”

“He has already confessed.”

Vassili sat down with his back against a tree, watching the
narrow entrance to the dugout ravine. Durell stared at his young, impassive
face and felt a cold clutch of apprehension; then he pushed aside the tangled
brush and ducked under the limb of a twisted swamp maple bright with swelling
red flowers. The dugout entrance was just ahead. He paused as a moaning
sound came from beyond the dead vines and tangled logs that sheltered the
opening. There was a small clearing about ten feet wide to the right of the
narrow slot in the rocks, and Gregori stood there, hulking like an angry bear
over the man who sprawled on the ground before him.

Mikhail’s hands were tied behind his back, and his clothing
was as torn and muddled as the others’. His nose had been broken, and bright
blood gushed down over his mouth and chin. He tried to sit up, coughing and
gagging, and then he saw Durell and Stared at him with hot, terrified
eyes.

Gregori swung sharply, arms held at his sides in a wrestler’s
stance. Scowling, he said: “What are you doing here?”

“Valya told me about Mikhail. She said you‘re going to kill
him.”

“And you object?”

“I don’t believe in torture to get words from a man. Usually
the words mean nothing when they are obtained this way. You should know that.
You had the experience,” Durell said coldly.