Assignment to Disaster (11 page)

There was no way of telling how many hands were on the ranch, or where they were. The door was locked. A window next to the landing yielded to the push of his hand when he stretched for it. Durell straddled the wooden rail, pushed the window all the way up, and spanned the distance quickly and slid inside, feet first.

A fat man in blue jeans and a flannel shirt and cowboy boots sat up sleepily from the couch across the rustic room and blinked at the gun in Durell's hand. His mouth opened. Durell hit him with the gun, heard teeth break, and hit the man again. The fat man fell over sidewise and hit the floor with a thump and was still. Blood came from his mouth and was absorbed by the braided rug. A gun had spilled from the man's belt and Durell picked it up and broke it open and pocketed the cartridges, then tossed the gun to the couch. He did everything quickly, coldly, efficiently, without a wasted motion. Every sense was keyed to a high pitch. He heard a faint sound from beyond a door across the room. This door was locked, too. He returned to the fat man, found a key ring in the man's tight jeans, picked out a likely key and tried it in the lock. There were more sounds from the next room.

When he opened the door he saw it was a bedroom, with a double-tiered Western bunk in the far corner. The room was dim with shadows, but he saw the man sprawled on the lower bunk. About twenty-eight, sandy-haired, tall, and painfully thin. Calvin Padgett. He knew this at once. He had seen death often enough, too, to know at once that Padgett was dead.

For the instant that he stood there, knowing now why Cora Neville had looked backward at the barn with horror, he ignored the other person in the shadowed room. Then he heard her quick intake of breath, her murmured word, and saw her move toward him.

It was Deirdre.

Durell felt an intense relief that he had never known before. He stared at her and saw her tremulous smile. She was moving toward him and her hands came out in an appeal and he took them in his and kissed her. She was trembling violently. There was a bruise on her jaw and another on her cheek. She still wore the rust-red suit and gold blouse he had first seen her in. He could not believe that it was she, that she was here and she was alive. Yet there was no time to relish the miracle.

"How did you get here?"

"They had a plane. There's an airfield just a mile north of this place. We landed this morning. There was another girl, though…"

"Yes, she's at the Salamander."

"They wouldn't let me talk to her or warn her. And now I… Maybe I should have let them kill me," she whispered.

He followed her glance to the bunk in the corner. Durell took his hands from her and walked across the room and looked down at the dead man that every agency in the country was seeking. In death, Padgett looked young and defenseless. He had been shot twice, once in the abdomen, again through the chest. There was a lot of blood on his white shirt and on the blankets on the bunk. He felt the man's hand. It was still warm. He looked up sharply.

"When did this happen?" Durell asked.

Deirdre's lips trembled. "He came here less than an hour ago. He thought that woman, Cora Neville, would help him. But it was a trap. I was a fool to have talked to them, thinking I could help Calvin."

Durell said, "Stop that. Nothing was your fault. It would have happened anyway." Briefly he told her about the ringer at the Salamander, and went on: "If Cal had gone there, they'd have nailed him at that plush motel. But when he got suspicious and maybe panicky, he came here, right into the lion's mouth. It was nobody's fault, Deirdre. Don't blame yourself."

She was shivering. "I can't help it. Back in Washington, the man Franz wanted to kill me, but he had orders to bring me out here. The idea was that if Calvin didn't give them what they wanted, they would torture me in front of him to make him talk." Her face was white. "When they began by slapping me, Calvin broke away and tried to fight his way out. One of the men shot him. They're all over at the ranch house now, with that woman. They'll come back soon."

"Yes. One thing, though: Did Calvin tell you why he ran away in the first place?"

She nodded and swallowed. "He was working on something. He needed a day or two to finish his calculations. That's what these people wanted from him, but he wasn't doing it for them. I…"

"Did Calvin tell you where his papers are?"

She nodded again. "In a house in Las Tiengas. It belongs to a Mexican. He left some old worthless papers in plain sight, but the real computations that meant so much to him are hidden under a loose plank in the floor by the kitchen stove."

Durell cut her off with a sharp gesture. Voices came to him from the area between the barn and the house. Quickly he moved from the bedroom and crossed the room where he had slugged the fat cowboy. There was no time even to begin to digest and evaluate the few things the girl had told him. The search for Calvin Padgett was over. The search for his work and the meaning of his work had just begun.

It looked as if he was not to be given a chance at this second quest. The voices were nearer, approaching the barn. He heard the rumble of Franz's foreign tones and Cora's low protesting voice. Another man was with them. From the doorway, Durell saw them turn the corner of the barn. He ducked back, swinging to Deirdre.

"Is there another way out of here?"

"I think there's a flight of steps down to the stables."

"Show me," he said urgently.

"But Calvin — how can we leave…"

He saw hysteria mount in her eyes, ruled by a grief that made her irrational. He slapped her face lightly. "There's nothing we can do for Calvin now."

"They killed him. They shot him down without a chance."

"Come on," he said.

They went back through the bunkroom, and she showed him a door that he thought was a closet, but which opened into a dark stairway down into the cavernous area of the barn below. Footsteps sounded on the outer steps now, coming up. It was going to be a close thing. But the sound of the others approaching snapped the irrational tension in Deirdre. She moved ahead quickly, running down the steps. Durell was close behind her. He heard the door open up there, and a sudden curse, and then he took Deirdre's hand and they ran down the aisle between the stalls, toward the big barn doors. Sunlight glared on the yard beyond. From the small door inset in the larger one, he saw that the green sedan was still parked by the main ranch house. No one else was in sight. Then a loud shout came from the apartment above the barn and was followed by a sudden thumping of feet.

Together, Durell and the girl broke from cover and sprinted across the fifty yards that separated them from the car in the driveway. They were out in the blazing open sunlight, but for the first half of the run they were sheltered by the bulk of the barn from those in the apartment above. The car was a Lancia, and Durell had driven one for a short time when he was in Europe.

A rifle cracked as Deirdre tumbled into the car and Durell spun as dirt spurted at his feet. He saw the giant, Franz, and a smaller man in a ranch hand's outfit holding a rifle. Cora Neville stood behind them at a corner of the barn. Durell snapped a shot that made the trio duck back for cover and then he jumped into the Lancia. He had the motor started when the rifle cracked again and glass shattered in the back.

The rear wheels spun and the car lurched ahead. He twisted down the driveway, gained a momentary respite as the ranch house intervened between the road and the barn. The rifle cracked again. He did not look back. He felt the car bounce wildly and it slued at the first turn that curved to the valley floor, but it held the road. Deirdre kept looking back through the broken rear window. Durell checked the gas gauge. There was enough. The desert highway stretched ahead, with no other cars in sight anywhere in the barren waste.

"They're not following us," Deirdre breathed.

"No. They'll have to pull out of there now. All of them. They'll have to run for cover."

He was still not over his relief at finding Deirdre alive. Now he thought of Miguel, and Larabee's failure to appear. Something had gone wrong. But was it with Miguel or with Larabee? Dickinson McFee had been uneasy about the personnel at the Las Tiengas Base. McFee had told him not to trust anyone here. Larabee was hostile. And John Padgett, the broken eagle, the man in charge of everything? Padgett was hostile, too, making it plain he felt his brother must have been guilty of subversion. But Calvin was dead now. That part was over.

Yet he still felt that something was deadly wrong.

It was not quite four o'clock when Durell turned the Lancia into the street where Miguel lived. From the old Spanish church nearby came the dolorous clangor of iron bells, heavy in the afternoon heat. He parked the car near the corner and looked at the little Mexican fruit store across the street. Several people stood there, and included in the group was a black-garbed priest. Durell told Deirdre to stay in the car and then walked across the street to join the people in the shade of the awning. He looked back at Miguel's house, but the door was closed and it looked normal. He imagined that Franz and Cora Neville and Weederman were already flying from the ranch for the border. They were of less importance than what had to be done here.

The people outside the store were talking in Spanish. When the priest moved aside as Durell approached, a wide irregular stain was visible on the sidewalk.

Their eyes were flat and opaque, sensing he was a stranger. Only the priest seemed friendly. Durell spoke in Spanish. "Forgive me for disturbing you, but can you tell me what happened here?"

"A man was killed," said the priest.

"Some
pistoleros
shot him down," said a stout woman angrily.

"Miguel?" Durell asked.

"Ah. Did you know Miguel Santos?"

"We were friends," Durell said. "I am shocked and sorry."

"He is in the arms of God," said the priest.

"That is certain." Durell nodded. "Did anyone see the killers?"

"No one. Paco was inside. Then the shots came just as Miguel was entering the store. He had a coin in his hand. It is a great tragedy and an even greater mystery. Miguel never harmed anyone. He was a good man. Why should anyone desire his death?"

"What did the police say?"

The priest looked pained. "The police of Las Tiengas are not concerned with the death of a Mexican. I do not say this in anger, but in sorrow. They consider it as a feud between strangers. But who could hold death in his heart for such as Miguel?"

Durell returned to the green Lancia across the street. He knew now why Larabee had never come to Cora Neville's ranch. Life was cheap for those who had followed him and Miguel from the Salamander. They must have shot down the old man within moments after Durell had left to recover his car. He had not heard the shots because the bulk of the old mission church had intervened, muffling the sound.

Deirdre saw his face and said, "What's the matter, Sam? What happened?"

He told her bluntly, hoping it would help her to see her brother's death against the background of those they were fighting. She got out of the car and stood on the hot, sunny sidewalk with him. The group at the corner still stood there, and entry into Miguel's house from the front was out of the question.

Durell took the girl's arm. The priest was watching as they turned the corner and walked around the block. He felt uneasy about leaving the green sedan so prominently exposed on the street, but there was no help for it. He did not think West, or Weederman, would have anything on his mind except flight, with Calvin dead and Deirdre lost to them.

A narrow alley led them to the back door of Miguel's house. The lock to the little fenced yard was flimsy, yielding when Durell hit it sharply with his gun. He followed Deirdre across a neat little patio and then into the tiny house.

There were signs of disturbance that showed a search had been made, but nothing else. Durell went toward the old-fashioned iron stove and studied the floor boards for a moment, then used a kitchen knife to pry up the board he selected. It came up easily. Underneath was a sheaf of yellow pages, perhaps a dozen in all, every one covered with neat formulae, computations, equations. He turned them over and over in his hands. They meant nothing to him. Yet they could mean everything to someone who knew what they were all about.

Deirdre stood quietly with her hands at her sides, not looking at him. Durell found a bottle of red wine, uncorked it, and poured some into two glasses and handed one to the girl. She took it mechanically.

"Drink some," Durell said. "You need it. If you're thinking of Cal, you can still help him. You can tell me everything he said to you. Everything that happened since they snatched you away from my apartment in Washington."

She looked at him. "I thought that was a trap. I didn't trust you then, Sam. I acted like a fool and spoiled everything."

"It was a natural reaction. But I hope you trust me now."

"I do." She nodded slowly. "I wasn't going to tell them anything about my arrangement to meet Cal at the Salamander. Not at first. Franz was horrible. He was going to kill me. Then I thought that I had told you about the Salamander and I knew you would come here and I hoped that if I told them about it, you would be here to get them."

"Did Franz hurt you?"

"Not too much. They kept me in an empty house for that evening, then they blindfolded me and drove me out of the city to a farm, where there was a private plane. The other girl was there. She looked like me and I understood she was going to pretend to be me. Franz wanted to kill me then. There was a big argument and finally they telephoned to Las Tiengas and I guess they were ordered to bring me along to make Cal talk if the ruse with the other girl didn't succeed. Today, when Cal showed up at the ranch, he thought the Neville woman was his friend. She didn't like any of this, but I think George West has some hold over her. He made her obey him."