Assignment - Suicide (23 page)

Kronev’s eyes were wide. “Yes.”

“There is a map showing every missile base on your western
frontier. Those bases were built at great expense and effort. They cannot
easily be abandoned, certainly not in less than one year.”

“True. Where is this map?”

“I have it,” Durell said.

“Where?”

“In a safe place. No matter what you do to stop it, it will reach
my Embassy and finally get out of the country to Washington.”

“You are lying.”

“That‘s your part of the gamble," Durell said; “whether
you believe me or not.”

“Who else has seen this map?"

“Only dead men. The man who has it now has instructions to
deliver it to my people.”

Kronev’s eyes were now narrow and calculating. “You are
close to death now, Mr. Durell,” he said softly. “You are foolish to bargain
with me. Why shouldn’t I kill you now?”

“Because your bosses don‘t want you to."

“Under the circumstances, I would be decorated for it.”

“And then the map would be lost to you for good.”

“You have arranged matters that way?”

“I have certainly tried to protect myself,“ Durell said.

“Then, as I understand it, you will return the map for permission
to take Valya Hvalna out of the country with you.”

“That’s it."

“But you have memorized the contents of the map, have you
not?"

“I saw it only briefly. But that, too, is a gamble you must take.”

Kronev was silent for a long minute, then stood up. “It is
not for me to make this decision. Excuse me, please.”

He went forward into the pilot's compartment, looked back briefly
with cold, inimical eyes, and shut the door carefully. The plane droned
steadily through the blue afternoon sky. The two MVD guards smoked and talked
about their families in low, casual tones. Valya stared out through the window.
Durell spoke her name and she turned her head and looked at him with beautiful
eyes that were dead, holding nothing at all of what he remembered of the night
they had spent in the swamp.

She said in English: “He is puzzled. He—they are being very
lenient with you. Why should you risk it all for me?”

“You know why,” he said.

“But you don’t love me. I know that. I never fooled myself
about it. That night—we both thought we were going to die. I thought we had no
chance to escape. I had no hope, not for a long time.”

He told her gently, “You said you loved me.”

“And I do. But it is different now.”

“Don‘t you want to go with me?”

“I keep thinking of why Mikhail died, and Gregori and Elena
and Vassili. All of them were willing to die.” She bit her lips. Without
makeup, tired and disheveled, she still looked beautiful. “I am confused. You
don’t really have the map you told Kronev about, do you?”

He looked straight at her. “It’s in my hoot. I took it from
Gregori‘s body when he died on that ledge.”

Her eyes grew enormous with fear. “But if Kronev searches you?”

“It’s a gamble, as I told him,” Durell said gently. “I’m simply
betting that I’m a better poker player than he or his friends will ever be.”

“And you will return it, because of me? It would mean much
to Washington. And your friend Marshall gave his life for it.”

Durell touched her hands. “Valya, it isn’t the gun itself that
kills. It's the finger that pulls the trigger. If the finger is
removed, the gun is harmless.”

“And Zadanelev, the finger, is dead.”

“And off the trigger,” Durell said.

Kronev came out of the pilot’s compartment and dropped into
his seat with a sigh. His pale eyes were cold. “When can you produce the map?”

“At the Metropole Hotel."

“And your terms?”

“Safe conduct for Miss Hvalna and me to Sweden. The passports
must be ready before you get the map. And we are to be escorted to Vnoukovo by
Alex Holbrook.”

Kronev sighed again, leaned his head back against the seat,
and closed his eyes. For a moment he was motionless and silent. Then he puffed
out his lips and expelled a long breath. .

“Agreed,” he said softly‘

Chapter Nineteen

GORKI ULITZA was in deep shadow cast by the buildings, but
the broad avenue was jammed with marchers, masses of women and children
carrying banners, groups of workers, club organizations, sports teams, all with
standards and carefully rehearsed shouts and slogans, waiting their turn to
march after the thousands and thousands of others who had preceded them into
the vast, cobblestoned area of Red Square. Durell stood at the window and
watched the turmoil, seeing the
politseyskis
struggling to keep order, the various section
leaders of the teeming groups shout orders and harass their companies into
precise positions. The city wore a festive air that was like a mask that hid
recent fears and terrors. There was a stolid discipline in the masses that was
frightening.

Kronev had come and gone. Durell had given him the bloodstained
map. There had been time to bathe and shave in the hotel room, and Valya was in
the adjoining room, dressing in new clothes that had been brought in for her, along
with some for Durell. The corridor door was shut, but Durell had no doubt that
his uniformed escort to the airport was waiting for him to appear.

Alex Holbrook stood at the window beside Durell. He was a
tall young American with a crew cut so short that his blond hair looked silvery
against his tanned face. He wore a suit of charcoal gray, with a squared white
handkerchief, a dark tie striped with conservative maroon. There was an air of
health and normalcy about Alex Holbrook that made Durell suddenly homesick. He
had known Alex off and on for six years, whenever their paths happened to meet
at odd points around the world.

Holbrook looked down at the crowd and murmured in his
Princeton accent: “You’re a lucky, crazy Cajun, Sam. Are you in love with the
girl?"

“I don’t know.”

“Then you’re not, or there’d be no doubts. She’s a beauty."

“All right, don‘t keep hammering at it,” Durell said irritably.

“You know we couldn’t have peeped if they shot you, Sam?
McFee would just have had to cross you off the book as expended”

“That’s the way the game is played,” Durell said. “But they
didn’t shoot me. And by midnight I’ll be in Stockholm, talking to McFee on the
transatlantic cable."

“He’ll he sore about that map.“

“I don't think so.”

“He’d have liked to have it. And the Pentagon brass will miss
that touch of egg in their beer.”

Durell said, “Are you a. card player, Alex?”

“Only Embassy bridge.”

“Can you remember every card in every play of every hand?”

“Hell, no, I’m no genius. I’m just a dub.”

Durell said, “Grandpa Jonathan used to splash a couple of
decks of cards over the deck and let me look at them for just five
seconds and then he swept them up and handed the mess to me. I’d have to
replace every card exactly where they fell when he had tossed them to the winds.
I got so that it became fairly easy to do.”

Holbrook looked at him. “I‘ll be damned. Cajun, the map—”

“I can draw it precisely in every detail, exactly, any
time.”

Holbrook laughed softly, lit a cigarette, gave one to
Durell.

He looked astonished and happy. From the street below came
new shouts and commands and the thudding of militant boots tramping forward as
one. The connecting door to the next room opened and Valya came in.

Something in the way she stood and looked at him made him
speak quietly to Holbrook. “Be a good chap and step out in the corridor for
five minutes, will you, Alex?”

“That’s about all the time you have before you leave for Vnoukovo.”

“Then don’t make me waste any of it. Get out."

When he was gone, Valya came slowly into the room. She
looked different, not as he had seen her the first time, nor as he
remembered her from the night in the marshes. Already, that time seemed far
away and remote; not forgotten, because he would never forget any of it and
didn‘t want to forget it; but it was in the past, where it was futile to think much
about it.

She wore a blue silk dress that looked summery and graceful
on her tall, firm figure. Her hair was braided in loops on either
side of her head. She looked regal and composed, and her eyes were different
than they had been before; there was decision and a deep serenity in their
grave depths.

“You look lovely,” he said and he did not smile.

“Sam, do we have time to talk here?”

“A few minutes. Your papers are in order. There won‘t be any
more trouble about it.”

“I am very appreciative. I realize what you paid for them, in
order to help me. I am afraid you will hate me.”

“Hate you? Why?"

“I have been talking to Kronev,” she said.

Something careful was very still inside him. “And?.”

“All of Zadanelev’s followers are rounded up. His plans and
his ambitions are smashed. The people who died—died for the Soviet Union-—the
soldiers as well as Gregori and the others. It is not important now who killed
them. It was not important to Gregori to know the name of the soldier who
handled the machine gun, was it?”

“I suppose not. But—”

“Kronev says no charges will be made against me. I am free
to go back to my job with Intourist. I will not be bothered. I am not in danger
here, Sam.”

“Do you believe him?” Durell asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“You would be taking a chance—”

She said quickly, “Sam, I want to stay. I can’t leave my country.”
All at once she crossed to him and her arms were around him with a tight
desperation. She pressed her face against his and he smelled the fragrance of
her hair and felt the softness and firmness of her body. He held her
tight. He knew she was weeping. Her words were muffled against his ill-fitting
borrowed suit. “How can I make you understand what it is to be a Russian? If I
went with you, I would be a traitor and a coward far worse than Mikhail ever
feared he was. I would betray him and the reason he died, and all the others,
too. Can you understand?”

“I think so."

“I love you, Sam. But you never once said you loved me,
too."

“Valya—”

She touched his lips with her fingertips. Her eyes
were smiling and misty. “Don’t say anything just to make me feel better. It is
all right. I don’t want you to hate me. You gave Kronev the map in order to
help me.”

Durell looked down at her, startled; and when he saw what was
in her eyes, his mouth twitched and he laughed softly. Valya looked puzzled as
he held her away from him at arm’s length.

“When did you make up your mind to stay here, Valya? Was it
just now?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Look at me. Was it back there in the plane?”

“Even before that,” she whispered.

“But you didn’t tell me because you wanted me to give Kronev
the map in exchange for you, right?”

“It belongs here, in my country,” she said quietly.

“So you let me trade the map for a safe conduct in your name
that you never intended to use, right?”

“It—there was once an American correspondent here in Moscow,
and I was assigned to help him as an Intourist representative. He—he taught me
to play a little poker, too,” Valya said.

Durell kissed her. There was lipstick on her mouth, with the
faintest trace of cherry blossoms. and all at once he thought of Washington and
how it was back there, back home in the spring. And all at once he thought of
Deirdre Padgett in her Maryland house on the Chesapeake. He would go back to
her. He would see her again. He would tell her once more what he could about
his job and the way he felt about his duty. He would cable her from Stockholm when
he cabled McFee. And he knew that Deirdre would be waiting for him at the
airport when he landed there, at home.

Amusement stirred him, and Valya’s mouth moved with relieved
laughter. too. And then their kiss changed strangely from the light farewell he
meant it to be and he felt her body move closer to him and her arms tightened
about him. He felt a quickening in him and a heartache and he did not want to
let her go.

Alex Holbrook knocked on the door.

“Listen, Cajun, the airport car is here. Are you ready to leave?”

Durell looked into the girl’s eyes. “In a moment.”

He felt shaken. He had the sudden feeling that something very
precious and unique had just escaped him forever. And then he thought of Deirdre,
waiting for him at the airport in Washington.

"Go," Valya whispered. “Now. Hurry.”

He looked long at her again and then he released her and turned
to the door and went out without glancing back.

THE END