Assignment - Ankara (12 page)

She was silent, biting her lip now. Durell watched her, one part of his mind still wrestling with the problem of how the tape had been hidden from all the searching he had done. It could not have been chewed or swallowed—the sharp plastic would be too dangerous to ingest. He had insisted that Susan search Francesca thoroughly, stripped to the skin, and then the dark-haired girl had searched Susan. He found no ready answer, and spoke next from a sudden hunch as he regarded Francesca.

“You’re after John and Susan Stuyvers, aren’t you?”

She looked up, too startled to speak—and at that moment, they all heard the sound of the plane overhead.

It was like a miracle, since each of them privately had already abandoned hope of rescue that morning. There was nothing to see in the misty dawn sky. The fog crept down the valley and clung to the mountainsides in a thick blanket, and nothing except a faint, pearly radiance marked the presence of the sun, there beyond Musa Karagh.

It was a piston engine, and a light one, at that, Durell thought, listening to the muffled wash of the prop as it beat back and forth between the shoulders of the mountain. It sounded high and to the north, groping away from them; then it turned, faded, and suddenly came back lower and stronger than before. It was like something not quite a part of the rocky, torn world here below, in this desolated valley. Yet the sound of it was real enough, beating in their ears with a promise of rescue, defying the cold and the fog to reach them.

The KT-4 made a single pass overhead, still invisible in the mist, and turned at the far end of the valley. Kappic shouted to the villagers who tended the fires, and more wood was thrown on the flames so that the crude beacons flared up with suddenly increased brightness. Apparently it was just what the pilot needed. The sound of his engine came washing back up the valley, with a lower beat; and then a shout from the villagers greeted it as it broke through the thick, rolling mist overhead.

Durell had never seen this type of aircraft before. It was a newly developed design, lightweight, with superb lifting capacity for its size and rated power. Its wings were abnormally long and delicate, its landing gear spidery as it lowered from the shiny undersurface of the fuselage. The Air Force markings stood out brightly in reflection from the bonfires below.

Then the KT-4 roared overhead and wide flaps seemed to sprout from the long wings and its air speed dropped perceptibly. It settled like a giant moth down to the rough field beside the river. Anderson murmured in admiration at the way the pilot handled the aircraft; then the wheels touched and the ship bounced. A collective sigh came from the villagers. One long, delicate wing shivered, dipped, almost grazed the earth. The plane touched again, bouncing toward the end of the field, and the brakes squealed.

Then it stopped.

As if they were all one, everybody ran for the ship.

The pilot’s name was Harry Hackitt. He wore a major’s oak leaves on his shoulders, and his freckled face showed him to be no more than in his twenties. His grin was as wide and amiable as his Texas drawl, and his cowboy boots were scuffed and battered. The KT-4 needed only a crew of one, and Hackitt was it—pilot, navigator and radioman—easy and unconcerned.

Colonel Wickham reached him first, speaking rapidly and pompously. Hackitt’s salute was careless and sloppy, just short of an insult. But Wickham’s rank could not be denied, and Durell let the colonel organize the evacuee party, arranging the seating in the narrow fuselage cramped with bucket seats and jump equipment and radar devices under metal shields. Hackitt produced several cases of emergency rations, which were tossed out to the waiting villagers. The Turks accepted the food with dignity, although every man among them must have been trembling with hunger. Coffee in gallon jugs was welcomed by the Americans. Durell gave a cup to Francesca and then to Susan, who frowned because she was second in his choice; then he accepted a cigar from Harry Hackitt and moved a little away from the plane as the others climbed aboard.

The pilot drifted beside him, chewing the cigar and looking even younger because of it.

“You’re Durell, huh?” the Texan asked quietly. “The one they call the Cajun?”

“Yes.”

“Who do you know in Ankara, chum?”

“Dinty Simpson, for one,” Durell said.

“Right. He gave me a message for you. But first you better brief me on the fat crow who’s giving all the orders and making with the hot wind, huh?”

“You mean Colonel Packard Wickham?” Durell met the Texan’s freckled grin with a smile. “I think his bark is worse than his bite—but I wouldn’t swear to it.”

“I know the type,” Hackitt mused. “Big wheel in the Pentagon. Always on the make, hanging around Big Daddy like flies on a honey pot.”

“Big Daddy?” Durell asked.

“The old man. Don’t you know Happy Hackitt?”

Durell nodded. It was a name that anyone in Defense and Joint Chiefs hastened to obey. “Yes, I know Hap. Is he really your father?”

“Sure thing. So Colonel Wickham don’t worry me the teensiest bit, see? Don’t let him dog-bite you either, Mr. Durell.”

“You said you had a message for me from Dinty.”

“Oh, sure,” Harry said. He shrugged. “It wasn’t much.

Kind of cryptic, matter of fact. He just said you’re to trust nobody. Repeat, nobody.”

“Is that all?”

“Well, he said to be careful, for God’s sake. I quote him literally, Mr. Durell.”

“That goes for all of us,” Durell suggested.

Hackitt threw away his cigar. “Let’s try flying, shall we?”

Anderson came toward Durell as the others boarded the KT-4. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Cajun. I’m not sure I ought to go along, unless you insist it’s the right thing to do.”

Durell stared at the big man’s amiable face in the misty light. “What are you getting at?”

“Uvaldi’s tapes—have you found them? After all, my job is to deliver them to Washington.”

“It’s my job, too,” Durell said.

Anderson’s gray eyes were sober. “Then you did find them, Cajun?”

“No.”

“Then you’re sure one of this crowd has the tapes on him?
⁵⁹
“That’s the gamble I’ve got to take,” Durell said.

“We could strip ’em all down to the buff right here on the field before they get aboard, couldn’t we?” Anderson insisted.

Durell studied the misty sky. “We might get socked in by fog again if we delay too long. No, I think the tapes will be on the plane, somehow.”

Anderson paused, then grinned his mountaineer’s grin, slow, amiable, tight. “Good, then. I’ve heard a lot of things about you, Cajun, and I guess you deserve ’em all. Still, it’s a big risk. I still think we ought to strip them all down, right here and now, before we leave.”

“Let’s get aboard,” Durell suggested quietly.

He went into the plane behind Susan, who clutched her black bag to her breast as if it were life itself.

The fog had thickened in only the few minutes it took to turn the strange-looking plane into the wind, and Durell knew his sense of urgency in getting out of the valley now was justified. True, he was gambling everything on the conviction that somehow one of this oddly assorted group was the enemy, in possession of the Uvaldi tape. He could not conceive yet how last night’s search had failed to turn it up.

If he were wrong, the consequences were too enormous to contemplate. But he couldn’t be wrong, he told himself. One of this group was a traitor, an enemy. Before the flight was over, he had to determine which one it was.

The KT-4’s engine roared and the extraordinary, long wings shook. The field was curtained by mist that curled across the brawling river. Hackitt paused before climbing into the pilot compartment and spoke to everyone.

“Got everything you need, friends? There’s some rations tucked in the head yonder, if anybody’s hungry. And another Thermos of coffee. Nobody’s sick, are they? Because I don’t have any penicillin. We’ll fly about six hours—not fast, but high. Notice the wings? We’re practically a glider. My orders are to skip Ankara and head straight for Istanbul. Mr. Dinty Simpson will be waiting for all of you there.”

Anderson said, “Do you fly over the Black Sea, then?”

“Some of the way, huggin’ the Turkish coast,” Hackitt said. “Got a radar beam in Istanbul that pulls us home with no sweat.”

Durell took his seat with the others in the cabin. Colonel Wickham looked pale, and under the stress of the take-off in the fog, he abandoned all pretense and took his courage in the form of deep swigs from a bottle of raki. He coughed, wiped his eyes, and sat hugging the bottle against his little round belly for comfort.

The long, delicate wings of the KT-4 shivered as they trundled across the field to pick up speed. Fog whipped by, blurring the rocky, white-foamed river beside them. Nothing could be seen of Base Four on the summit of Musa Karagh, but Durell assumed that Sergeant Isaks up there was capable of holding out until more direct aid could be sent.

The lift-off came smoothly. In a moment the rough earth vanished under them, replaced by the fog. They seemed not to be moving, except for the vibration of the ship and the endless shaking of the wings. Durell remembered the steep red shoulders of the mountains all around the valley of Karagh as the plane lifted, banked, and lifted again. He thought he saw the loom of a cliff to the right, but the fog hid it before he could be sure. Colonel Wickham drank again, loudly, and then sat as if paralyzed.

It occurred to Durell they were less than twenty miles from the Soviet frontier. He started up, then sat down again.

He had to trust someone. It might as well be Harry Hackitt.

The KT-4 banked once again, then settled into a long, steady climb. It grew cold in the cabin, although some heat and pressurization was provided. Francesca found the Thermos jug of coffee and paper cups and poured for the others. Her long gray eyes met Durell’s in quiet understanding.

“I’m glad we’re leaving like this,” she said. “Together, I mean. Have you forgiven me?”

“But there’s nothing to forgive,” he said.

“Oh, yes, there is. I made things difficult for you.”

“And how do you feel about your own job in Karagh?” he asked.

She smiled secretly. “I think it will work out all right.” “Perhaps we ought to compare notes.”

“Oh, as long as you suspect us all, I don’t think it’s necessary. Not until we establish some mutual trust, Sam.”

A few moments later she went forward to give the pilot some coffee and Susan Stuyvers slid into the seat beside Durell. Under the peasant scarf that covered her head, her yellow hair looked severe, giving her face a prim and childlike look quite different from the passion that had been unveiled to Durell last night. He turned his head to glance at John Stuyvers, but the gaunt missionary seemed to be asleep in the last seat toward the tail of the plane.

“You haven’t even looked at me this morning,” Susan murmured. “Not really, except to wonder if I had that damned tape.” Her eyes slid sidewise, watching him. “What did that black-haired bitch say just now, when she gave you the coffee?”

He grinned. “You don’t sound like a missionary’s daughter, Susan.”

“Did she ask anything about me?” Susan persisted.

“Why should she?”

“She doesn’t like me. Haven’t you noticed how she looks at you? She doesn’t want another woman near you, Sam.” “You’re imagining things.”

“I’m not. You have that look of knowing women, darling, and I’m glad, but for now I want to feel as if you belong to me alone. Does that make sense?”

“Not much, considering where we are, and the company involved.”

“Oh, we’ll see each other again, in better times. I’m sure of it. Some day, when this is all over—” She paused, then whispered, “Please hold my hand, Sam.”

“Do you think it’s wise?”

She grinned like a gamin. “Well, you know what they say about a missionary’s children, darling.”

Durell said quietly, “But John is not your father, is he?”

“Of course not.” She smiled.

He held her hand.

The KT-4 circled, climbing above the summit of Karagh, then caught the homing beam and Hackitt set the autopilot and let the plane fly itself toward Istanbul. The course was north of west, taking them above the mountains and the shores of the Black Sea.

Back in the cabin, Colonel Wickham began to feel better. They were safely aloft and on their way out of the nightmare of Musa Karagh. Anything was better than staying with those dead men at Base Four. The plane seemed safe; the pilot competent, if young. After another drink or two, Wickham decided, he would pull a little rank and let everybody know that he was the commanding officer aboard, after all. No harm in that. It was necessary to compensate for the unpleasant image he might have created last night. Probably they suspected his panic and loss of control in yesterday’s situation. They didn’t understand how it was, but it wouldn’t do to have a chap like Durell report on that sort of thing. Wasn’t true, anyway. You could easily mistake exhaustion for having had a bit too much to drink. After all, when calamity strikes an isolated post like Base Four, wiping out officers and men, and you happen to be there— well, the responsibility for pulling things together is enormous. Takes it out of you, right? But things were fine now. The fog didn’t bother the pilot a bit. A man could relax now. You were never really scared, Wickham told himself. It was just frayed nerves, tension, from having to cope with that mutinous sergeant, isolated on top of that damned mountain. . . .

He had himself believing it, presently.

They were more than an hour’s flight from Karagh when the first incident occurred.

It might have been innocent; but Durell wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was only idle curiosity on Anderson’s part; but he never had time to decide about it later.

Almost everyone had succumbed to the steady, hypnotic drone of the KT-4’s engine and the uneventful flight through the misty sky. Wickham was asleep, as was John Stuyvers and Lieutenant Kappic. Susan rested her head in silence against Durell’s shoulder, and Francesca stared quietly out at the fog from her window seat across the narrow aisle. Susan’s eyes were wide open, looking at her past, or perhaps her future. She said nothing.