Assignment to Disaster (13 page)

"Who is Willie?"

"The kid brother. The Chinese Reds are holdin' him prisoner. He was 'chuted down for a look-see for the Formosa people, and he got rapped. They want to shoot him, but this crowd says no as long as I'm a good boy. You think I talk too much, chum?"

"Talk some more. You mean you work for Weederman and Franz only because they've sewn up your brother?"

"Check. The dirty bastards. But I'm sure glad they didn't hurt this li'l gal. I hauled tail outa that ranch house fast."

Durell remembered having heard a car leave Cora Neville's house while he was investigating the barn. He looked at Feener and felt he had something in the man if he handled it right.

"How drunk are you?"

Feener grinned loosely. "Pretty damned drunk."

"Can you fly a plane?"

"Hell, that's when I'm best."

"Would you fly us somewhere?" Durell asked.

Feener stopped grinning. "No."

"Do they know you're here in town, drinking?"

"Hell, no."

"Suppose you get picked up by the cops? You've got a loose mouth, Feener. You could talk a lot. You could do Uncle Sam a lot of good. Maybe you could help Willie more if you helped us."

"Are you a cop?" Feener was shocked. Suddenly he looked less drunk than before. He lurched up, but Durell caught his arm and held him in the seat.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," Durell told him.

"They'll kill me," Feener whispered.

"Wouldn't you like to help yourself and your brother and be rid of them for good?"

"They'll kill Willie."

"Do you really think he's still alive?"

"I can't take the chance he's not."

"These people don't value anyone's life highly," Durell said. "Those shots you heard weren't just to scare Deirdre. They killed her brother with those shots. They'll kill you just for talking to me. Do you understand what I'm saying, or are you still too drunk?"

Feener's eyes shifted from Durell to the girl. He looked young and helpless. "I don't know what to do."

Durell said, "Listen to me. We've got to get out of Las Tiengas. Will you help us that far?"

"Are they after you, too?"

"I've got to contact my boss in Washington. You can believe me when I say it's important. You know something big is cooking here, or the crowd you've been working for wouldn't be so jacked up, right?"

"Yeah. It's something big."

"Big enough to wreck the country," Durell said. "You were in Korea, weren't you?"

"Two years."

"That was duck soup. That was nothing to what will happen if Weederman gets me or the girl. And we can't trust the cops here in Las Tiengas. Have you got a car?"

"The one I came in. It's parked up the street."

"Are you sober enough to drive?"

"I reckon so."

"Let's go get it," Durell said.

Feener didn't move. His eyes looked at something far away. He drew a deep, shuddering breath. He started to lift his drink and put it down again. He looked at Deirdre.

"I'm glad you're alive, baby. I'll do it for you."

The field was a level green pasture, cropped smooth, with low fences and a barn that served as a hangar. The twin-motored cabin plane was parked in front of the wide doors. Bees hummed and sang in the clover. The sky to the west was bloody with a violent sunset. It had taken less than twenty minutes to cover the twenty miles north out of town in the station wagon Feener had produced. By now, Durell knew, the roadblocks were up, scout cars patrolled the highways, MP's were checking every bar, every hotel, every house in town. He knew the kind of man Larabee was. Thorough, patient, implacable.

It was five-thirty in the afternoon.

Feener showed him where the telephone was in the hangar. There was no one else at the field. While he waited for the long-distance operator, he said, "Feener, is that your own plane?"

Feener nodded. "They've got a whole network of private fields and planes. You got no idea. The organization doesn't miss much."

"Where has Weederman gone?"

"I wouldn't know. Anywhere. He's smart and tricky."

The operator sang her singsong and Durell gave Dickinson McFee's number again. The phone buzzed, clicked, hummed. It was hot inside the hangar. Deirdre stood in the wide doorway, watching the field. The telephone rang and rang. Durell sweated.

There was no answer.

He jiggled the hook and gave the operator his own office number. The operator sounded odd. There was a lot of noise on the line. Then Hazel Getcher, his secretary. He relaxed when he heard her voice.

"Hazel, this is Sam."

"Oh, Lordie!"

"Where in hell is Dickinson McFee?"

"Sam, get off the line."

"I've got to reach McFee."

"He's at the Pentagon. Everything broke loose. What have you done? No, don't tell me. Just hang up."

"I've got to talk to McFee."

Another voice, Burritt Swayney. "Durell, where are you?"

Durell drew a deep breath. "Burritt, Padgett is dead."

"No, he isn't. I just spoke to him."

"You spoke to John."

"You mean Calvin is dead?"

"I've got what he was working on. I've got to get it to McFee."

Swayney's voice was suddenly too calm, too friendly. "All right, Sam. That's fine. You've done a good job. But what did you slug Larabee for? The wires have been melting for ten minutes. Look, you stay where you are. Larabee will come for you and…"

"Nobody comes for me," Durell said. "I want to talk to McFee."

"Over my head?"

"McFee sent me out here."

"You son-of-a-bitch, you've caused enough trouble. You stay where you are and…"

Durell hung up.

It was an effort to move.

But he had to move. He had to get away fast. He knew the call was being traced. Larabee would be here in minutes.

"Feener?"

"Yeah. No dice, huh?"

"Is there gas in that plane?"

"I topped the tanks myself."

"Can you fly?"

"I'm O.K. now."

"Then let's go."

"Anyplace in particular?"

"Away from here. East."

Durell took Dierdre's hand and they ran for the plane.

East into the darkening purple of evening. Over long shadows, down the narrow slots of violent canyons to avoid the high screaming shadows of jet eagles combing the desert. Here and there a light twinkled. Then other lights and it was dark, complete night, and the plane lifted, free of the need to hug the ground and skim the hills to avoid being seen. They soared. They rose higher toward the stars, the full moon. The hours and the miles passed.

The plane seated four and the pilot. Feener's head was bent forward a little at the controls, his face reflected from the glass and the dim glow of the instruments. The twin motors sang steadily with power. Durell sat with Deirdre. She was asleep, her hand trustingly in his.

Feener took the radio earphones from his head. He twisted to meet Durell's glance.

"They're looking for you, all right."

"Where are they looking?"

"Everywhere. The air is full of it."

"Do they know about the plane?"

"Not yet, but they will. We'll have to refuel somewhere."

"How much longer can we go?"

"Couple of hours. There's a mess up ahead, too. Over Texas. A storm coming in from the Gulf."

"Can we skirt it?"

"We can sneak in behind it. Cut south, get on its tail."

"All right," Durell said. "You're flying this ship."

"I ought to have my head examined." Feener sighed. "I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know anything about you. If I hadn't been lapping it up. this wouldn't have happened. You know what? I'm scared. I'm chicken down to my toes. I don't want to listen to the radio no more. We put down at any public field, they're waiting with guns."

"It's that bad?"

"I never heard anything like it," Feener said.

The winds picked them up, bounced them, grew turbulent with a playfulness that held menace in its strength. Deirdre was awake. He sat beside her, still held her hand. When he looked at her, she smiled.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"All right now."

Feener was singing softly to himself. He had to pay constant attention to the controls. The lights of earth were blotted out and rain hammered at the cabin windows. The plane tossed, fell, lifted, slued. The rain grew heavier.

"Half an hour," Feener said. "There's Marysville."

"Are they waiting for us there?"

"They're waiting everywhere."

Durell thought of something. "You said Weederman's crowd had a network of private fields they used for courier work. Is there one near here?"

Feener said harshly, "You want to take your chances with
them
instead of the cops?"

"Who would be at the nearest field?"

"Fellow I know. Crop-duster."

"Is he like you? Is he with them willingly, or because they have something on him?"

"I don't know. We never talked about it. They pay good, y'know? Real good. And if they got something on you, you keep your mouth shut and kid yourself that it's just another flying job. Maybe you don't sleep so good, but what's a man to do? We land at Olsen's, we take the chance he keeps his mouth shut."

"It's better than Marysville," Durell decided.

The plane banked, swung farther south toward the Gulf coast. They had been flying for almost six hours. Durell tried to fight off the feeling of being trapped. Up here in the plane in the black, turbulent night, he felt helpless to do what had to be done. McFee had to be warned without delay. There was time enough to reach the general and stop the launching of Cyclops. But there was John Padgett in control of the Las Tiengas Base, swaying Larabee and the commanding officers. Durell felt frustrated. John Padgett was the traitor, not Calvin. But was Padgett involved with the Weederman apparatus? There had been no hint of it.

"Deirdre."

She looked at him calmly. "Yes?"

"About John. Did Calvin say who he was working with, or why John was sabotaging Cyclops?"

"John wasn't working with anyone."

"Then why is he destroying it?"

"Calvin thought it was John who joined all those subversive outfits in the past. We didn't have much time to talk about it, but Calvin thought John had used his name, Calvin's, when he signed up with them. He couldn't think of any other way it could have happened."

"Then John
is
working for Weederman."

She shook her head. "John is strange. He could be doing this out of a sense of grievance against the world, because he was crippled, because of our parents… I just don't know."

"He could sell us out by giving every detail about Cyclops to Weederman," Durell said heavily.

"No. John's ego is enormous. He'd do this alone, or not at all."

"I hope you're right," Durell said.

The plane went into a sharp bank. Through the cabin window he glimpsed the dark loom of earth a thousand feet below. The rain had slackened. Here and there a light twinkled as the plane lost altitude. There was a change in the set of Feener's head and shoulders as he leaned forward in the pilot's seat, a quick and competent tension in the way he held himself. The plane circled twice. The earth was a great dark pit below, waiting to receive them.

Feener gave a long sigh as lights suddenly flared. He banked again and the plane jolted and Deirdre's fingers closed on Durell's wrist. Her hand was cold. The plane jolted again and dropped and something black flashed past the window. A tree. And another. The plane bumped, bounced, settled down. The cabin rocked wildly. For several moments they rushed over a rough field as if hurtling headlong to destruction. Then Feener grunted and pulled down the tail and the brakes squealed and the plane came to rest.

For a moment nobody spoke. The warm smell of plowed earth mingled curiously with the salt of the sea. The rain made a soft, gentle pattering sound on the metal wings.

"This is Olsen's place," Feener said. "Be careful what you say to him."

He got out and Deirdre jumped down and Durell joined them. Floodlights glared and he heard the sound of a wet wind and he saw the dim bulk of a barn and a house beyond the blazing light. It was just ten o'clock. Feener strode toward a man who came at them in a jeep.

Olsen, introduced by Feener, looked at them with flat, opaque eyes that gave nothing away. He was burly, in his forties, with a sullen mouth and a grudging air. His hair was thin and straggly. He wore a white shirt open at the collar and slacks stuffed into ornate red boots. Durell asked if he could use the phone while the plane was being refueled.

"In the house, mister. I'll show you."

There was a woman in the house who looked timidly at Durell and hovered in the hallway. Olsen spoke angrily and she vanished. The house was drab and unkempt. As Durell picked up the phone, Olsen said, "You a friend of Feener's?"

"Yes."

"Courier?"

Durell looked at him. "Do you really want to know?"

Olsen was immediately defensive. "It ain't that I'm curious, mister. You just gotta be careful, is all." He had a thick Texas drawl. "Go ahead and use the phone. It ain't tapped."

"Help Feener with the gas," Durell said, putting command into his voice.

"All right. Don't get sore."

"Then don't get nosy."

Olsen went out. Durell asked the operator for Hazel Getcher's home number, and this time there was no difficulty. His ring was answered at once, as if she had been waiting for him.

"Hazel," he said, "were you able to get in touch with McFee?"

"Oh, Lordie. I can't. He's in New York, Sam."