Assignment Unicorn (16 page)

Durell let the chauffeur go. The man rolled over, vomiting.
Durell himself felt as if his head had been torn off. It was hard to breathe.
Leaves crunched with brittle sounds as Meecham walked around the table toward
him.

“Don’t come near me, Meecham,” Durell said.

“I won’t. I want to help Robert.”

“Go ahead.”

He smelled Meecham’s cigar smoke and it stuck in his throat,
gagging him.

31

THE COTTAGE at the Fort was empty.

Durell stood in the doorway, listening to the surf. It had
taken six hours to drive back to the Eastern Shore. His head still ached. He
had forced himself to drive with slow care. None of the guards challenged his
entry into the Fort area. Nobody seemed interested in him anymore. And then he
walked to the cottage, anticipating Maggie, and the place was empty.

Wolfe was gone, too.

He checked the bedroom, saw the rumpled sheets, saw that her
clothes were gone. He considered descending the large hatchway in the kitchen
to the netherworld of ISB headquarters, but he did not think Maggie would go down
there. He stepped outside again. The lighthouse was to his left. He turned
right and walked down to the hard-packed sand at the water’s edge. The dim
starlight showed him Maggie’s bare footprints proceeding into the water. He
lifted his head, startled, and stared at the black Atlantic. It seemed to him
suddenly that there was nothing out in that empty darkness but death.

Then he saw the footprints emerging from the sea and let out
a long breath and walked that way, a sudden urgency in him. When he reached the
second set of prints, he saw that a man had joined her or followed her, wearing
shoes. He thought of Wolfe, and quickened his pursuit.

A point of higher land thrust into the sea, south of the
lighthouse and the innocuous—looking cluster of false cottages. On the landward
side, the perimeter was amply guarded by the detection devices and fences and
patrolling guards. Seaward, submerged beneath the low-tide line, were more
barriers, ready to rip the bottom out of any approaching boat. An underwater
swimmer who attempted to cut the wires in the barrier would set off other alarms.
The seaward perimeter extended more than half a mile. Toward the point, a
single cottage that looked ready to collapse in the next high wind off the
Atlantic contained a sentinel, alert and armed, with a radar scope that covered
the surface of the sea in unending sweeps.

Durell lost the footprints a short distance from the sentinel’s
cottage. They turned inland, but in the starlight he saw that the man’s heavy
shoes partly obliterated the traces of the girl’s bare feet. Wolfe—or whoever
it was—had been following Maggie, not walking beside her. Durell turned inland,
too, climbed a low dune, crouched in the tall sea grass and looked over the
crest of the southern point of land. Beyond was public territory, although no houses
had been built along the shore here, and the nearest road to the beach was more
than five miles away. Developers and builders had been subtly discouraged
from purchasing oceanfront tracts along here. The beach looked primitive,
untouched by vacationers.

He could not see Maggie or Wolfe.

A sense of deep unease began to trouble him.

He saw the skeletal remains of an old wreck, a fishing
boat that had been driven ashore in a storm long ago. Little remained of the
vessel except the stem and ribs, half buried in a wash of sand rippled by the
tide. Beyond the perimeter wire, the surf seemed stronger, torn by rip tides
and currents produced by the thrust of land into the sea. Part of the fence had
been undermined along the bottom of a high dune, and a hollow existed under it,
wet sand glistening in
starshine
.

Durell approached the fence, thinking of heat sensors and
electronic beams. He lay fiat, studied the sand in the dim light, and saw
that it had been scuffed by crawling bodies. Maggie had escaped through here.
Wolfe had followed. He could see their footsteps descending the dunes.

In less than a minute, he went under and beyond the fence.
He crouched low and followed the footprints. They headed directly for the old
wreck.

He halted, crouching in the sand at the base of the dune.
Clouds moved in from the east, and the starlight was dimmer. The sand felt cold
under his fingers.

He saw her when he passed the skeletal wreck of the fishing
boat. She sat with Wolfe, side by side, facing the sea. Wolfe’s heavy head was
tilted toward her, listening as she talked in a low undertone that was washed
away by the surf. Durell expelled a long, silent breath. His worry vanished.
Then he saw the girl jump suddenly to her feet, Wolfe springing to his feet
beside her.

And then he saw something else.

They were coming out of the sea, two, three, then four of
them. Dark figures, eerie and unnatural, like oceanic beasts invading the
dry land. They moved fast, loosening flippers, goggles, facemasks and
tanks, emerging on the other side of the wreck.

Their silence was unnatural.

Maggie shouted to Wolfe, her words torn away by the wind and
the overriding sound of the surf.

“Maggie!” Durell shouted.

He started to run down from the higher dunes. Wolfe turned
his head, crouching. The girl stared, the back of her hand to her mouth.

The four men in their wet suits came up to the level of the
rotting timbers at the boat’s stern. Their heads turned this way and that.

“Maggie!” Durell yelled again.

Wolfe saw the black figures now. He swung his head one
way and then another, seeking a way out. He pushed the girl toward Durell,
turned, moved toward the shelter of the wreck. His gun reflected
starlight in his hand.

Maggie stumbled and went down. She picked herself up, came
up the beach from the ocean toward Durell’s higher position. Wolfe yelled
something that Durell couldn’t hear above the rumble of the surf.

There was familiarity in the way the black-suited men moved,
a precision and speed that was awesome. Durell started down toward the running
girl and saw he couldn’t make it. He heard the heavy rap of Wolfe’s gun, but
none of the quartet from the sea stumbled or checked himself.

They came around the wreck, two of them clambering over the
moldering ribs of the fishing boat, leaping agilely from timber to
timber. Maggie halted, undecided. Durell saw one of the black suits lined
against the starlight on the bow of the wreck and took careful aim, holding his
gun in both hands as he squeezed the trigger. The shot seemed thunderous. The
man on the bow dropped, dove for the sand, rolled over, and came up again.

They ran for Durell.

Durell checked himself.

They weren’t after Maggie. They ignored Wolfe.

They were coming for him.

He fired again and again. He was cut off from retreat
along the beach. Behind him there was only a field of wild dunes, a
jungle of marsh grass, and stagnant saltwater pools. He saw Maggie running for
him, awkward, hips swaying as she struggled for speed in the yielding beach
sand. He caught her arm and pulled her up on the dune.

“Sam? Wolfe—”

“Come on.”

“You can‘t leave Wolfe—”

“They’re not interested in him.”

The black suits were about a hundred feet away now. Wolfe
was in the deep shadow under the ribs of the stranded boat. Durell heard him
fire again and saw one of the swimmers jerk around and turn back to the
shadows, as if impatient with an annoying gnat. The other three charged up the
beach toward him and the girl.

“Run,” Durell gasped.

He pulled Maggie’s arm and half dragged her over the crest
of the dune, then slipped and stumbled downward, splashed through a muddy slough
of salt water, climbed the next dune, heading inland. The three pursuers came
up the slope as if it were level. Durell turned and fired again. This
time one of the men threw up his hands and fell. He did not get up again. His
two companions didn’t give him a glance. Their legs pumped doggedly, their
forms came closer.

Durell ran along the bottom of the gully between the next
two dunes. Maggie’s breath began to whistle. She stumbled, fell, picked herself
up again. Durell yanked her forward. She gasped a protest, her knees buckling.
There was something irresistible about their pursuit. He thought he heard
Wolfe’s yell distantly behind him at the shore, but he could not turn back. He
heard the thud of feet coming up at the rear, and suddenly he knew he could not
outrun these men no matter how hard he tried, no matter how fast he could force
his legs to pump. He saw an opening at the end of the dune, turned left into
it, climbed a grass-grown slope, glimpsed water below, turned his head, and saw
that his pursuers had closed the distance by half.

He shoved Maggie aside. “Stay here. Stay down.”

“No! Don’t let them get me—”

“They’re after me,” he said. “Do as I say.”

His throat burned with each breath drawn by his laboring
lungs. He threw the girl aside, saw her roll down the incline toward the
shallow saltwater pond. Turning, he ran back up the dune toward the tiny pass.
The two black suits swerved behind him. They halted, looked down for the girl,
looked up for him. Durell shot twice, one for each of them.

One of the pursuers jerked about, fell, crawled up again.
The man’s arm looked useless, but he resumed climbing up to where Durell stood.
Durell turned and ran again, away from where he had left Maggie, drawing these
two after him. He knew now that he had killed one on the beach. Maybe Wolfe had
taken care of another at the water’s edge, too. That left just this pair,
relentlessly overtaking him.

Now he could hear their breathing, a sobbing in their
throats. They were like slavering hounds, determined to reach him for the kill.
Durell slid down another dune, judged he was about one hundred yards inland from
the beach now, and turned right, heading back for the Fort’s perimeter. If he
could reach the fences, every kind of automatic alarm would go off. But the
fences were too far away. They were overtaking him, they would overcome him,
inevitably.

A long narrow inlet led back to the beach. He ran down it,
legs pumping, splashing through cold, shallow water. They were only thirty,
then twenty feet behind him.

He saw the wrecked boat, swung for it. The two men at his
heels were just emerging from the sandy cut. He fired again at the
nearest one. The man’s leg went out from under him and he fell, rolling over
and over. He tried to rise, and fell again. He began to crawl after Durell with
a single-minded, deadly purpose.

Durell jumped for the canted deck of the boat, splinters
tearing at his hands. He didn’t see Wolfe. The last man jumped, too, and caught
at his ankle. Durell almost toppled, got his balance aboard the ship’s planks, kicked
at the pale anonymous face. The grip on his ankle did not loosen. Durell
squeezed the trigger again. There was only a harmless click. His gun was empty.
Desperate, he threw it into the man’s face below him. The weapon bounced off
the man’s head with no effect. His ankle was being squeezed until the bones
were about to break. He was being drawn inexorably downward, to fall back on the
beach. Once in his pursuer’s hands, he knew he would be finished.

“Wolfe!” he yelled. “Wolfe!”

Then he was dragged down.

He landed flat on his side, spun about by the ankle as
if he were an Indian club in the other’s grip. The fall knocked the breath out
of him. The other man immediately swarmed over him, his moves swift and
vicious, filled with power. The man in the wet suit was big and solid,
alive with squirming muscles. His face was just a face.

Durell felt the unbearable squeeze of fingers on his throat.
He tried to knee upward, lifted the man a few inches, then struggled sidewise.
The man’s hand squeezed harder on his larynx. Durell swung at him desperately.
He hit the man in the ribs, the back, tried to claw upward and push the face
away from his, searching with his thumbs for the other’s eyes. He felt like a
child in the grip of a maniac. The other man made no sound, offered

nothing but death. Durell got his legs up, slammed his heels
into the man’s kidneys, again and again. The sky began to reel. Blood thundered
in his ears.

“Who are—you?” he gasped.

There was only a grimace of bated teeth as the man struggled
to crush his windpipe.

“Who—sent you?” Durell squeezed out.

The man in the wet suit lifted himself, ready for a final,
smashing descent on his throat. His teeth gleamed. There was no other
expression on his face. Blood dripped down from his shoulder, and Durell
suddenly realized that one of his bullets had hit this man, too. By all rights,
he should have been helpless, screaming in agony. It was as if the man did not
feel pain.

Durell summoned his last strength, heaved, rolled to the
left under the sand-embedded boat’s ribs. The other’s head slammed against the
rotting timber. For a moment his grip eased on Durell’s throat and he was able
to draw in a long, wheezing breath. He flailed his arm, slammed a fist
into the other’s face, hit him again. More blood dripped onto him. He wondered
vaguely where Wolfe could be. He tried to wriggle farther under the wrecked boat.
Something hard pressed into his shoulder. It was the gun he had thrown at the
man in the wet suit. He struggled to reach it, clubbed it, and struck at the
man’s face. Everything was going black. The man’s strength was beyond
understanding. Durell smashed the butt of the gun at the man’s head, saw the
nose crush inward. He struck again, hit an eye, heard bone crack, saw the eye
pop out, bloody and unnatural. Still, the man did not let him go. He had
strength for only one more blow. He put all that was left in him into the
short, hard swing. Then he couldn’t breathe any more. There was a roaring in
his ears, a wild beating and flutter of his heart, an unbearable straining
in his lungs. . . .