Assignmnt - Ceylon (13 page)

“Dr. Sinn?” Durell asked.

“Dr. Mouquerana K.V. Sinn, my dear man. A messenger of the All-Powerful. I am what you see in me. I can tell. You may believe what you see, sir. No, do not approach me. You may do so only under pain of death.”

There were six or seven other men in the big room, all carrying Russian AK-47 automatic rifles. They wore a kind of uniform, gray trousers and tennis shoes and gray turbans, together with cartridge belts and clips slung over their bare brown torsos. PFM terrorists, Durell thought. They looked sharp and alert and dangerous. He checked his step toward the enormous fat man.

“You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to get me here.” Durell said. “Just tell me why. You’ve put my own people on my heels, set to kill me. Why?”

Mouquerana Sinn chuckled. “But you are here and alive, yes? It speaks very well for you. It verifies judgment. My dear sir, I need men like you. I can use you.”

“I’m not for sale, like Kubischev.”

“All men are for sale. The prices may differ, the method of payment vary. But for sale you are, and you shall be mine. It is that simple.”

“Not at any price,” Durell said.

“Not for almost any price, my dear sir. I have checked your background most thoroughly. You are a patriot, like Colonel Skoll, although you may deny it. You would sacrifice Madame Aspara, if necessary. But your own survival? It is the essence of your being. You are not a coward—far from it. You have risked your life many times. But to survive through it—ah, that is your true essence. A careful man, you are, and a dangerous and marvelous creature whom I can use, yes, use to the fullest. And you will survive with riches and power, with the true and marvelous goal far beyond your mercenary activities for your government—this, as you shall see, shall buy you.”

Dr. Sinn clapped his fat, jeweled hands. “Andrei, send in the woman, that foolish politician. And you may as well let Skoll hear what I have to say.”

“I won’t change my mind,” said Durell.

“Indeed? We shall see.”

'Kubischev left the big room quickly. None of the guards stirred. Durell rubbed the back of his head, trying to relieve his headache. The room seemed more like the audience chamber of some medieval royalty than a cave grotto. The old underground temple certainly dated back at least two millennia, he thought. He considered the entrance Sanderson had discovered, when the water burst from the tank during the fighting. But Dr. Sinn had been here before that. Since the first entrance had always been hidden under water, Sinn must have used another when establishing his quarters here; there was evidence that Sinn’s use of this place had been for much longer than the time since the PFM battle. He kept the thought of another exit in mind, for future use.

In this setting of faded splendor, Aspara looked proud and regal, her eyes challenging the gross man seated on his massive chair. Skoll shambled in after her like a shaggy bear, his face like broken stone.

“Ah, Madame Aspara.” Sinn's voice piped a bit higher.

His small eyes in his fleshy face were contemptuous. “Where a woman meddles, there are unnecessary problems. The world is still the world of men, my dear. My predecessor in this affair was a woman, you know, a certain creature named Hung. Your companions dispatched her some time ago. Durell and Skoll are very competent men. I mean to have them for my own. Hung was a fool. True, I worked for her and performed certain chores for the Black House in Peking. You are concerned about my presence in your country? Yes, I see you are. But Sri Lanka has no importance to me. I am here. I wish to depart. Your former husband provides the key. But I forget my manners, ah.” Sinn turned his huge body slightly in the chair. “Tea and cakes for everyone. Chinese cakes, please.”

One of the guards vanished through the rear entrance. Sinn sighed. Durell could not see any teeth in the man’s mouth.

Durell said, “You pretend to be your own boss, but you mentioned being someone’s messenger. Who is that?”

“Ah. Ah.” Sinn began to laugh, a thin sound that shook his chest and pendulous belly. The smell of incense came from somewhere, filling the chamber. The servant came back with a silver tea service trundled on a large-wheeled Victorian tea-cart. The sound of Sinn’s amusement abruptly ended. “A messenger? A lackey for another man? Sir, I served an apprenticeship to the devil’s own mistress, Madame Hung. But no more, no more. Her death, thanks to you, ended that bondsman’s status. I promoted myself to the service of the Superior One himself.”

Skoll said heavily, “Then you do have a superior?”

“Ah, yes, yes.” Sinn stood up ponderously, urging his massive weight up with a thrust of his arms. He would weigh, Durell guessed, at least four hundred pounds, but whether there was muscle under all that fat remained to be seen. He watched the man and felt the evil in him, the aura that emanated from him. Sinn’s high, thin voice was stretched taut with sudden nervous strength. “Sir, I be!ieve sincerely that there are true forces of evil in our universe, Perhaps you will think I am mad when I say this. Through the ages, however, this evil has been recognized in all its various forms—Light and Dark, Satan and God, the goodness of the Great Wheel of Life and Death. I have long believed that this world, because of its ills, because of all the grief and pain, the wars and pestilence, the very wickedness of man—this little planet of ours, my dear sir, belongs to Satan.”

Sinn seemed to catch his breath. His strange eyes, almost all black, gave an impression of revealing the open chasms of Hell itself. The authority and conviction in his words could not be denied.

“I repeat, this world is ruled by the Evil One, whatever his name. What exists in the rest of the universe is not our concern. But I have chosen to serve the Dark Master himself. I, Mouquerana Sinn, am his Messenger. And I shall openly establish his rule, irrevocably, and so gain Satan’s pleasures and rewards.”

Colonel Skoll drew a deep voice. His deep voice was rumble in contrast to Sinn’s thin piping. “You’re mad, eh?”

Sinn waved a fat, jeweled hand. “So says the whole world. But ponder on it, and in a short time, we shall continue our discussion. You will be fed and made comfortable. When I wish to see you again, you will be summoned.”

The hour before dawn was cold, and the wind whistled through the barred hole in the wall that served as a window. Only the dimmest of starlight Outlined the opening in the wall. The cell was empty except for a chair. The door was of heavy planking, and when Durell and Aspara were thrust without ceremony into the cell, he heard the double click of bolts being thrust solidly home. Skoll was not taken to the same cell.

For a long time, Aspara was silent, standing at the window bars to stare across the little valley with its scarred mud bottom. Now and then, her splendid figure moved as she shivered. She hugged herself against the chill.

Durell wished for a drink, a cigarette, an aspirin. He was hungry. Slowly, his headache eased. He tested the door, he paced the floor, he found nothing of interest. There was no way out. Then Aspara spoke from the little window.

“He is quite insane, of course.”

“But brilliant,” Durell returned.

“Perhaps the whole world is insane. Terror and violence are the syndromes of today.”

“Did you ever hear of Dr. Sinn before?”

“No.” She shuddered and paused. “And I am glad of it. He is so—so—She paused again. “I could almost believe him. Perhaps this helpless little w rid of ours is truly the domain of evil. How else can one explain the wars, the wickedness of men? Are we the devil's puppets, then? Does he play his evil game with us? Is Dr. Sinn right?” “No,” Durell said. “And I don’t think his madness interferes with his thinking.”

She shuddered again. “Did you notice his eyes? So strange, so dark, like gateways into an evil too awful to contemplate.”

“A physiological quirk,” Durell said.

She turned angrily. “You Americans are such optimists. Such—Pollyannas. You believe this is the best of all possible worlds. But is it so? What abou
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my son George? Where is he? Did he die in the street, back there? Did he crack his head open, or did they just slaughter him there?” Durell thought back to their poya weekend at Negombo, those hours of peaceful idyll beside the aching blue of the Indian Ocean. They had shared love generously, without restraint. Now Aspara was far from him, alien. She had been bred a Sinhala, and in her blood there probably ran the ancient lines of Sinhalese kings and princesses. He understood how she felt about her new country, struggling for security, fighting against the ancient rivalries between the peoples who composed Sri Lanka. This day and this life were only motes in the eye of time. Their efforts today might mean nothing in the long pageant of destructive history.

“Dear Sam? . . .”

“Yes.”

“I am sorry for what has happened between us.”

“You’re sorry about Negombo?”

“No, no.” She turned from the window. “Never that, dear Sam. But I have seen this violent side of you; I have seen your strength and singleness of purpose. I wonder if Negombo was simply your way of searching for Ira.”

“We haven’t seen Sanderson yet,” he reminded her. “Aren’t you concerned for him, as well as for George?” “Ira was always a foolish man. Not like you. Not like you at all. I no longer feel anything for him, except as anj decent person should be concerned about another. As you are not, poor Sam.”

“I’m alone,” he said. “I have my job to do.”

“Alone with your job, yes. With your business, as you call it.”

“My business is to stop people like Dr. Mouquerana Sinn from spreading his gospel in the world. I don’t believe in anarchism or violence. I dislike violence, myself.” “But you use it.”

“Can you stop a charging tiger with a prayer and £ pious wish?” he asked.

She did not reply.

A pearly light made the mountains seem blacker beneath their summits. Footsteps sounded outside the cell. Aspara took Durell’s hand, as if she waited for an executioner, Her fingers were cold, and they trembled.

The massive figure of Mouquerana Sinn filled the doorway. Light flooded in behind him from electric lanterns He had changed from the costume of an oriental despot to Western clothing, a dark blue suit and immaculate white shirt with a flowing black necktie. His head, with a dark shock of hair, seemed even smaller than before, on his mountainous shoulders.

His thin voice piped like a toad. “Ah. You hold hands, Your belief in the romantic is a useful tool for me. I came to inform you that my demands for the ransom of Mr. Ira Sanderson have been met. A jet plane quite adequate to my needs is now waiting at Kasmaiana Airport, south o Colombo. The ransom money, half a million in American dollars, is safely aboard. My servant, the Cobra’s Bow, has checked everything. It is all according to plan.” The thin high giggle followed the fat man’s words. “Of course, neither the plane nor the money interests me. It is not enough. Are you surprised?”

“No,” said Durell.

Aspara said quickly, “I wish to ask about my son, George. We had to abandon him on the way, and we have heard—”

“Young George is quite safe. A useful lad, when not in his cup of drugs. You will see him shortly.”

“Drugs? Are you certain?”

Sinn ignored her. “Mr. Durell, have you given more consideration to my offer?”

“Not for very long.”

“Ah. It takes time to reconcile yourself to the fact that you are a man without a country, hunted everywhere by everyone. You cannot hope to survive long, eh? Have you considered, with some small gratitude, that I have in effect rescued you from certain death?”

Durell stared into the man’s murky eyes. A sense of red lights gleamed in their depths. He looked at the armed guards. His own weapon had been taken from him long ago. He spoke quietly, “What can you gain by your scheme? Aren’t you going to collect the plane and the money?”

“The PFM can have the money. I do not despise wealth; it gives one power; but it is not enough for my purpose. Now that I am expected to deliver Sanderson at the airport, I will leave Ceylon with my trophy by another route.”

“What trophy?” Aspara asked sharply.

“Why, Madame Aspara, the fabled Buddha Stone, of course.”

She sucked in her breath. “It does not exist. It has never existed. It is a myth.”

“Not at all. Your former husband, Ira, found it. The mere discovery almost caused him to collapse with excitement. You shall see it soon. And with it, my dear woman, I can command much more than any amount of money could buy.”

“What about Sanderson?” Durell asked. “Will you give him up to the authorities?”

“Since I will not collect the money, I shall keep him. Do you think that unethical? Remember, I am a messenger. I do not abide by your foolish rules of goodness and morality. If one is once freed of such conditioning, the freedom is more heady than the world’s best wine. You cannot imagine it yet, sir. But soon you will, you will.”

“I’d like to see it now. And Ira, too.”

“Naturally. We have time, perhaps an hour, before we leave this place. I will be expected at Kasmaiana Airport; and naturally, I shall use another route to escape Ceylon with the stone. Do not be eager to know our destination.” There was a sudden chill in Sinn’s words, a breath of evil, torment, and pain, waiting in the thin words. “It is there that I shall convince you to join me—and be convinced of your sincerity—or you will have to be eliminated.”

Sanderson’s room was a cell like their own, but it contained a rough camp cot, a long table of two planks, a chair, a portable battery radio from which issued a strange medley of Moslem music from the station up north at Jaffna. The radio was going full blast when Durell followed Aspara in, ushered along by an armed PFM guard.

“Yes? I’m busy, you know. I really do not like to be disturbed.”

Ira Sanderson was very tall, very thin, so that his angular body, with his sharp nose supporting crooked, steel-rimmed glasses, looked somewhat like a praying mantis. He wore an old gray sweater with worn leather elbow patches, and baggy checked slacks stuffed into ankle boots. Behind his round glasses, his eyes were vague. He needed a shave. There was a fading yellow bruise on his high forehead. His hair was pale yellow, thinning, shot with gray.