Assignment - Mara Tirana (24 page)

Adam Stepanic finished talking to Deirdre. Durell watched him get up and cross the shelter to Lissa. They sat in silence. The wind whimpered. Dark clouds made the night impenetrable, except where another flare burst on the peaks of Zara Dagh.

Deirdre sat down beside him. She touched Durell’s face and then put her hand in his. They sat like that for a time, and then they slept.

They reached the Danube on the fourth day. Gija went ahead to contact the underground in the town below, and came back that the purge of the organization seemed to have ended with the Luliga’s self-destruction. A fishing-boat would take them down through the delta. It would be slow, but safer, and they could reach the Black Sea that way. And the boat had a navigational radio that could be used to contact a NATO air base in Turkey.

The boat was small and crowded. It took devious channels through the vast, drowned wilderness of the Danube delta. The sky hardened and turned a cold blue. There was no warmth in the sun. They slept and ate in the holds, except when the crew signalled it was safe to come on deck. Then they sat in the chilly sunshine and looked at the birds in the reedy swampland and the distant hump of a wooded island and smelled the salt of the approaching sea.

The next day they were well beyond the coastal waters. By nightfall, they were picked up by an Army helicopter based on the Turkish mainland. Twenty-four hours later they were in Istanbul.

General Dickinson McFee was already waiting for them at the Divan Hotel near Taksim Square. The sun seemed warmed here, shining on the crowded international shipping in the Bosporus and the Golden Horn. McFee, a small, tightly-strung, gray-haired man with crackling authority, wasted no time.

“Stepanic is already headed for home, Sam,” he told Durell. “Got his orders fifteen minutes ago. His electronic equipment and tapes from the capsule are being flown to Washington in a SAC bomber. We’re giving out to the press that he was recovered in the wilds of Anatolia. No use making an unnecessary international incident out of this thing.”

Durell nodded. “About this girl, Lissa—you can arrange a special entry visa for her, can’t you?”

“It’s already done, Cajun. She'll fly commercial, of course; we’ve arranged passage, drawn against Stepanic’s flight pay—we have to stick within the budget these days.” McFee turned his trim, narrow head and looked hard at Durell. “I thought Major Stepanic and Deirdre were—”

“It’s all over,” Durell interrupted.

“Did you fix it, Cajun?”

“It happened by itself.”

“I’ll bet. . . . One other thing: this young man, Gija, and Mara Tirana. Can we arrange something for them? Should we?”

“You’ve got the authority, Dickinson, and I recommend it. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Gija. I think it would be best if they all flew together in tonight’s flight. I wouldn’t want them picked up by other agents and questioned as to how we got Stepanic out. The best place for them is Washington. You can use some authority from a Congressional committee, can’t you?”

“All right, we’ll do that, then. Something can be arranged for them as refugees seeking political asylum.” McFee paused. “You’ll make your report about Harry Hammett, of course?”

“I'll write it up when I get back.”

“When do you want to fly?”

“Any time. With Deirdre, of course.”

McFee smiled thinly. “Istanbul is a romantic place, not bad for a few days’ rest, Cajun. You and Deirdre are in no hurry, are you?”

“No,” Durell said. “Not now.”

They shook hands. McFee was busy. He did not often come aboard from K Section's headquarters in Washington. Durell watched the dynamic little man leave the hotel lobby, and then he took the elevator up to his room. He could see the shining sweep of the Sea of Marmara and the dome and minarets of St. Sophia’s basilica near the Galata Bridge. Ancient Byzantium, he thought, still endured. He would enjoy showing Deirdre the Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazaar, the Hippodrome of Constantine the Great.

They had connecting rooms. He heard the shower going in her bath when he knocked, and then she called his name and he went in and sat down to wait for her.

She came in wearing a new robe he had purchased for her that morning. Her long, dark hair was soft, incredibly alive; her eyes smiled at him. There was a tentative invitation in the corners of her mouth.

“Well, what did McFee say, darling?”

“We have some time to ourselves. I thought perhaps we could spend a few days here, Dee. We have a lot to talk about.”

He would tell her, he decided suddenly, about the inscription he had read on the stone in the light of his cigarette match, that first night of their flight from Zara Dagh. For two thousand years, a centurion of Trajan’s legions had declared his love for his lost wife. She had gone with him on the military duties demanded by Rome. Perhaps they had discussed her staying at home, as he had discussed his own duties with K Section. Perhaps the centurion wanted his wife to remain safe in the Eternal City. But she had gone with him on the campaign and lonely outpost duty in the wilderness of the barbarians, where she had died.

Was it worth it? he wondered. The centurion thought so, although he had lost his heart's love. They had been together. Neither time nor distance had separated them.

His was not a unique decision. And now Durell had made his own, and he wanted to tell Deirdre that there was a time in their lives when caution could prove a tragic trap to deprive them of happiness forever. She wanted to share his world. He would open the door, then, and let her in, and hope it would not end for them as it had for the centurion on Zara Dagh. And if it did—well, there would be a time behind them, and this time right now, when he looked at how beautiful she was and wanted her.

And Deirdre said: “When will you tell me to go home again, Sam?”

“Never,” he said. He walked toward her and she opened her arms to him and he said: “Home is here.”

THE END

of an Original Gold Medal Novel by

Edward S. Aarons