Assignment Unicorn (9 page)

Wilderman kicked the macaw away with a sudden burst of
hostility. The bird set up a great squawking and then waddled away to
investigate the parakeet still on the floor. Wilderman drew his
slippered
feet under him and again hunched his thin
shoulders forward. His chest was caved in and he looked consumptive.

“So what do you suggest, Durell?"

“I think we ought to set one up.”

“Ah."

“Arrange a special situation—”

“A special transfer of funds?”

“No, sir. We can keep to the regular schedule. If there is a
leak, a change in routine would be suspect.”

“Have you made your report to McFee yet?”

“Not yet, but—”

“Incidentally, do you agree with the present
administration’s political programs and ideology?”

“It doesn’t matter whether I agree or disagree with temporary
political fashions,” Durell said flatly. “You’re making noises like the
Gestapo again.”

Wilderman nodded. “Perhaps so, Perhaps this suggestion of
yours about setting up a trap, a distraction, will be useful.” Behind his
spectacles, Enoch Wilderman’s eyes suddenly glittered. He patted his paunchy
belly. There were food stains on his old gray bathrobe. He looked at Maggie,
his glance suddenly bitter, and then his glance swung back to Durell. “We will
discuss it in private. Without the young lady. Later.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Maggie curled her lip. She seemed distressed by Durell’s
courtesy to the man. Wilderman nodded his head at them, and the parakeet in his
hair lost its balance and lurched forward, sliding down onto his forehead.
Without warning, Wilderman Slapped at the little bird and smashed it aside,
sending it sailing half across the room. It landed in a fluffy, shattered heap
on the marble floor.

Durell got up and walked toward it and picked it up. There
was a bead of blood on the broken beak. One wing was bent and twisted awry. The
bird was dead. Durell walked back and put the little body quietly on the table
next to Wilderman’s chair.

“I believe this was yours, Mr. Wilderman.”

Wilderman did not look at the tiny corpse. He did not
respond to Durell. His pale eyes glittered again. A bead of saliva gleamed in a
corner of his mouth.

19

THE WIND was bitter and glacial, blowing from the east. The
lakes of Thun and the Brienzer See, glimpsed through the valleys between the
high
upthrusts
of bare rock in the upper elevations
of the Bernese Oberland, were a frozen glare of ice that reflected the
blue light from the pale September sky. Durell shivered and lowered the Zeiss
binoculars and slapped his gloved hands together. It was a long way from the
tropical heat of Palingpon.

“Anything?” Wolfe grunted.

“Not yet.”

“Then he’s late,” Wolfe decided.

“He’s not supposed to be late,” Durell said.

“Maybe a flat tire. Traffic out of Zurich. It could be
anything.”

“No,” Durell said. “He should be here by now.”

Wolfe was silent. The thin Alpine air made his nostrils move
slightly as he breathed in and out. In the days since he had been posted to
stand by Durell in Rome, the men had achieved a kind of truce, an unspoken agreement
that Durell’s privacy would be respected as long as Wolfe was allowed to do his
job. Acting as overt surveillance on Durell as a security measure was typical ISB
work, but at first Wolfe had been resentful of the assignment. He had no
use for the wild men who served in the field, who covered the darker
corners of the globe with their freewheeling data-collecting activities. He
preferred his own work for ISB. He liked things tidy.

He kept watching the cold sun-glitter of ice on the Lake of
Thun and chewed on a Tobler chocolate bar.

Durell trudged through the snow to a better vantage point
from where he could watch the narrow, snow-packed road that wound up from Route
72 going toward Kandersteg and the Lotschberg Tunnel’s north end. There was a
haze over the pale sun and Durell thought it might snow again before dark.
Nothing moved on the road. There had been no traffic on it for the last hour,
and it was already in dark-blue shadow; the afternoon sun had dipped behind the
peaks to the west at Grimmialp. The air felt thin, lacking in oxygen. It was
between seasons, when the autumn tourists had left and the ski people had not
yet arrived. The thrifty efficient Swiss had closed down most of the inns
and chalets in the area for a week or two, in order to enjoy a well-merited
rest. High in the whitewashed sky were two jet contrails from planes heading to
and from Italy, passing each other at thirty thousand feet. Durell looked north
and south along the valley etched below and saw nothing. Albert LeChaux was not
in sight.

Wolfe plodded through the snow, his bulky body casting a
long shadow before him. He wore a Western sheepskin-lined short coat. His hands
were thrust into the slash pockets; he kept the rifle in place under his right
arm.

“You seem uptight, Mr. Durell. I understand your people
never had trouble on this payroll trip before. I heard nobody could possibly
know about it, the way you set it up.”

“Somebody knows,” Durell said.

“I understand this fellow LeChaux can take care of himself.”

“Maybe not this time,” Durell said.

“And you figure to take his place and do better for the
rest of the run to Geneva?”

“Yes. Hope so.”

“I’m going with you, you know.”

“Yes. All right.”

“I don’t think they ought to have let you even try it,”
Wolfe said. “I’ve checked up on this LeChaux fellow. He’s big and tough. He’s
got a fast car, a Mercedes 450 SEL, you said. He’s from your neck of the woods,
I gather. From Louisiana.”

“The bayous,” Durell said.

“But he knows the mountains. And he’s been warned. He’ll be
all right.”

“He’s carrying over half a million dollars in laundered cash
for our bank in Geneva,” Durell said. “It’s big enough bait.”

Wolfe stamped his booted feet to improve his circulation and
glared up at the pale sun. “It’s been done fifty times in the past,” he
said. “He’ll be fine.”

They waited.

Durcll
carried a hunting rifle
similar to Wolfe’s. Lower down the slope, almost a thousand feet in descent, there
was a closed and shuttered chalet just above the unnumbered road that branched
off Route 72 and dead-ended up here on the mountain shoulder, where a private ski
slope had been established. In the chalet were Maggie and a man named Harry
Fortnum. Harry was armed with an M-14. Harry Fortnum and Wolfe were convinced
that LeChaux was not going to be ambushed. Nobody really believed it, except
Durell.

Durell had wanted automatic rifles, perhaps Uzis or AK-47s,
but Wilderman had refused. “The four of you,” Wilderman had said, “Would be the
equivalent of a company of troops. The Swiss just might raise the smallest objection.”

Durell knew that Wolfe also had a .357 Magnum in the big
pocket of his sheepskin-lined coat. Durell had his .38 in his waistband. Wolfe
wore no hat, and his ears pinched with the cold. Wolfe was about to return to
the

higher post when Durell said quietly, “There he is.”

The white Mercedes 450 SEL was coming on fast, climbing up
the winding turns from
Frutigen
without apparent
effort, kicking out plumes of snow mist from under the tires. Durell said,
“Come on, then,” and started the descent to the chalet, his booted feet
slipping and sliding in the snow along the path they had made to come up here.
Wolfe labored behind him like a polar bear. The Mercedes was going to beat them
to the chalet by about a minute. He could hear the throb of the car’s engine as
it came around the last curve in the narrow road and settled down with a rumble
of power for the last stretch of the climb. It was moving faster now, all but
grazing the guard rail on the right. The long plume of powdered snow lifted
high behind it, hovering for a moment, then dispersing in the Alpine wind.
Durell saw Maggie’s tall figure step from the door of the chalet, and he
broke into a run going downhill.

The Mercedes stopped with a shower of snow and ice spurting
from its braked wheels and rocked a bit on its hard springs. The man who got
out from behind the driver’s wheel was muffled in a heavy car coat against the
cold. He slapped his gloved hands together and called something to Maggie and
then waited.

Harry Fortnum came out of the chalet and kept his rifle
pointed at the driver, who did not move except to turn his head and watch
Durell’s approach, with Wolfe plunging down behind him.

Harry Fortnum said, “This fellow isn’t LeChaux.”

The driver said, “I’m Rasmussen. Rod Rasmussen. Posted to
Zurich. Finance Section. Nothing to worry about.”

“Where is LeChaux?” Durell asked.

“Sick.”

“How, sick?”

“Sick like throwing up and diarrhea, what do you think,
sick? Food poisoning. Or maybe Port Chalmers flu. So I had to take his
place.” Rasmussen looked at Maggie and grinned and winked at her and Durell was
surprised to feel a twinge of annoyance. Maggie simply stared back at him. The
man was very handsome, blond and Nordic in the classic style. He stood
patiently while Wolfe patted him down.

“He’s clean,” Wolfe said.

“What happened on the run from Zurich?” Durell asked.

“Nothing happened. A piece of cake.”

“And the money?”

“Still in the car.

“No problems at all?”

“I could use a drink, that’s my only problem.” Again Rasmussen
looked deliberately at Maggie and winked and grinned. Durell felt more annoyed
this time and said, “Show us the cash. You’ll get a receipt.”

Rasmussen’s blue eyes were like the ice in a Norwegian
fjord. “Your credentials, old buddy. You make me just a wee bit nervous.”

It was only fair. He didn’t have to show the man anything,
since Harry Fortnum still stood at Rasmussen’s back with his weapon ready to
blow the man’s spine away. But Durell tugged out his ID case and flipped
it open. Then he shoved the big man back toward the car, perhaps using a bit
more force than necessary.

“Show us.”

Under the back seat of the Mercedes sedan was an innocent
panel, looking like an integral part of the auto. Rasmussen pulled it up by
touching the end of a bolt at one corner, then another. In the cavity below was
a fairly large gray steel case with a carrying handle at one end.

“Open it,” Durell said.

“I can’t. No key.”

“I want to see what’s in it," Durell insisted.

“The usual cash, LeChaux told me.”

“How much?"

“I don’t know,” Rasmussen said, smiling. “And I don’t really
care. It’s a routine run. Never had trouble with it before. LeChaux usually
took it, but this morning he was tossing his cookies all over the bathroom, and
he asked me to drive. He briefed me on this stop, and that’s all.” Rasmussen’s
handsome profile angled toward Maggie again, who began to flush and
bite her lip; then he looked back to Durell. His glacial eyes held small glinting
lights in their pale depths, as hard and cold as diamonds. “You ought to know
the routine, Durell. The case is locked in Zurich, at the Central Office there.
The only other key is up in Geneva, where Joe Feldman is waiting for it. It’s
case-hardened tempered steel, and unless you want to try to blow it up and
scatter all the bread around in the Alps, you take it from here just like it
is.” He finally turned directly to Maggie. “Aren’t you Maggie Donaldson?”

“You know damned well who I am,” she said.

“Yes, I knew your father in Malaysia, long time ago. You
were just a scrawny kid then. You’ve filled out some, sweetheart.” He
looked at Durell. “Harry is too nervous for me,” he said. “Have him take that
goddam peashooter out of my back.”

“It’s all right,” Durell decided.

The gray steel case was put back into the cavity under the
back seat and the seat was replaced. Rasmussen tossed the keys to Durell.
Maggie and Wolfe sat in the back, over the money. Durell wondered if there was really
any money in the case, and then decided he was being paranoid and accepted the
situation as it was, for the time being. They were running an hour late
already, and soon the sun would completely vanish.

He wasn’t sure now whether he still hoped a trap would be
sprung on them or not. He had planned to take Route 20 from Thun to
Saanen
, then swing onto 77 through Chateau-
d’Oex
, but at the last moment he continued on the way to
Gstaad, where in a few weeks trendy Europeans, beautiful people, would gather
to play their strange courting games after a day on the slopes. From the long
fields and slopes of Gstaad he drove on toward the jagged peaks of Col du
Pillon and the massive mountains of Les Diablerets. The moon was up, full and round
and silvery, shining on the road, which had more traffic now. His plan, if
nothing happened by then, was to swing north at the junction of
E2
at
Aigle
on Lac Leman and take
the superhighway through Montreaux and Lausanne, eventually arriving at Geneva
by midnight. He wasn’t sure now he wanted anything to happen, aware of a
growing tightness in the pit of his stomach. He thought of what the unicorn
people had done in Palingpon and Rome, and he wasn’t at all certain he wanted Maggie
in on this. She had insisted, claiming it was her right since her father had
been one of the victims.

It didn’t work out quite that way.

They were followed from Gstaad onward.

The headlights were persistent, and of course the car could
have been driven by anyone simply taking the same postal bus route to Montreaux
that Durell followed. Now and then, in the moonlight, he caught a glimpse of the
steely reflections on the car body behind them, but he could not identify
it and he did not think too much about it. A few miles beyond Gstaad, however,
he pulled over to see if the other car would pass. It did not, but stopped at
an inn just off the road. The lights went out, but no one got out of the car;
when he started up again, the second auto also took up the route.