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Authors: Edward S. Aarons

Assignmnt - Ceylon (8 page)

BOOK: Assignmnt - Ceylon
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around the car to get to the avenue where the elephants lumbered by.

“Sam?”

“Keep going. Is there another way around—?”

“Perhaps. The university grounds—”

Durell said tightly, “Try it.”

She eased the heavy, open car backward through the chanting, shouting crowd. Elephants in velvet, satin, and silk paced by, enormous, silvered and gilded, with dancers on every hand. A block or two behind them, the shops that normally sold everything from mangos to jeweled caskets were tightly shuttered, closed against this night that followed the full moon.

At last Aspara found a side alley, turned the Rolls into it, eased her way down for another block, turned left, found a less crowded street beyond the King’s Pavilion, and accelerated toward the Mahaiyava Railway Station.

A large black car waited for them at the next intersection. Headlights winked on and off. The signal was repeated from another car a block behind them.

Aspara drew a quick breath. “Who can they be?” She touched the brake, and Durell said sharply, “Keep going.” “I can’t. That other car—

“Then stop right here. Right now.”

She slammed on the brakes so hard that George tumbled from the back seat with a yelp. Durell had the door open and was running around the Rolls before it quite stopped. The big car ahead nosed slowly forward, almost blocking the way. Durell could not see through the black windshield to identify anyone in it. Overhead, the full moon shone down on the celebrating city of the Five-Kingdoms-On-The-Hill. From far away, he heard the deep chanting of a processional crowd shouting, “Sadhu! Sadhu!Sadhu!”

He saw the other car moving toward them from behind, down the narrow street Aspara had chosen. He felt a moment of sharp suspicion toward her, then put it aside, jumped in behind the wheel of the Rolls as the girl slid over on the front seat. Then he slammed his foot down on the gas pedal.

The great old car leaped ahead. Aspara made a murmuring sound. The limousine that partially blocked their way was rolling forward to reach the middle of the intersection and leave no room to pass on either side. Durell swung the car to the right, as if he were automatically going to drive on the right-hand side of the street. Ceylonese traffic kept to the left. The limousine was moving that way to block him off. So that driver instinctively obeyed Ceylonese rules. It wouldn’t be Wells. But maybe it was. No way to tell. At the last possible moment, Durell swung the heavy touring car to the left again. There was not enough space to go through. Taillights flared red as the other driver braked. Behind him, the other car came up at a faster speed, only forty feet behind. Headlights blazed in the rear-vision mirror. Something made a sharp ping! along the side of the Rolls. Durell did not see the flicker of gun-flame from the car ahead. Then another bullet whipped the air overhead, and a third cracked the windshield. Aspara ducked and George yelled and stood up and swung one leg over the low rear door and stood on the running board. He waved his free arm and yelled something unintelligible to those in the car ahead. Durell wondered if, in spite of everything, he had managed to inform the PFM. He knew of no way George could have done so. At the same time, the young man apparently expected privileges from those in the cars ahead and behind. But he received none.

There was a lurch, a crash, a pang of regret in Durell at the damage to the old Rolls as they came around the rear end of the big limousine. The car sawed back and forth, skewed half around, smashed into something in the rear, then responded beautifully as he swung the wheel to the right.

He heard Aspara scream George’s name.

George had vanished from the running board.

Durell could not see him in the street behind them. He gave all his attention to handling the heavy car.

“Stop, Sam! They have George! He fell off!”

“No way. Not a chance.”

“But you can’t just leave him here!”

“I have to.”

He saw the shock and dismay, the hostility in her slightly slanted eyes. Her pale brown face was a sudden mask, withdrawn, remote. He glimpsed a road sign, incongruously recalling British hegemony—Lady Horton’s Drive. He swung into it, disregarding Aspara now; she bent forward, a palm pressed to her forehead. Down another side street, there was a flash of bright lights, a glimpse of a Kandyan dance troupe; their bronzed bodies reflected white and scarlet and silver. Then the lake opened out below them, and he heard the thudding of the dancers’ drums recede. Near the Peak View Hotel Aspara said, “Left, now. Please. Be careful.”

The two other cars rocketed doggedly along 3n their dust. The road curved between large private estates, some government buildings, a wooded area, then straightened for a rim uphill toward Katugastota Road and the bridge over the Mahaweli Ganga. The second car behind them vanished, its headlights cut off by intervening trees and houses.

“There is a short cut to the top here. That one will try to beat us,” Aspara said. “Sam, I’m so worried about George.”

“He can take care of himself.”

“I know he’s apt to do you harm, dear Sam; but why does he hate you so?”

“He hates himself really, not me.”

The houses thinned out. The road lifted sharply again, with a ferny, bamboo-grown chasm to the left, and on the right the flickering groves of forest, the sudden iridescent gleam of the eyes of a tiny loris clinging to a branch overhead. Then they were out of the central area of the city.

“We have to go over the bridge,” Aspara murmured. “If the police wait there, we can’t escape.”

But the bridge was not blocked. The second car did not appear to intercept them. The Rolls streaked across the shimmering river, which reflected a full moon over Katugastota, where elephants bathed during the day. Now they were on mountain roads, still climbing out of the bowl in the hills where Kandy nestled, far behind. The limousine clung persistently to their trail, headlights shining now and then around the twisting curves of the road. There was a sense of remoteness in the dark night, a feeling of towering mountains, plunging valleys, terraced tea farms, bamboo thickets, forests trailing weeping vines. The road became rough, bumping around tight curves where no guardrails existed. The road narrowed rapidly as they climbed toward the first summit. Although the Rolls had power to spare, the other car still clung to their trail.

“It won’t do,” Aspara said finally. “We’ll lead them straight to Ira’s
walauwa
if we keep on.”

Durell spotted a rough trail cut by bullock carts off to the right. At the last moment he twisted the wheel, glimpsed grassland to one side, swung off the rutted path, and whipped the wheel in a circle to come back headed the other way. He doused the lights and let the motor idle. The Rolls engine made a low murmuring sound that allowed the noises of insects in the field to mingle with the quiet rustle of the mountain wind. Moonlight flooded the hillside. To the left was a thick woods; to the right were pastures lifting to a thatched cluster of village houses. No lights showed there. He watched the road.

The headlamps of the other car came on fast. Red flared from the taillights as the driver discovered the cart-track and glimpsed the waiting Rolls. Durell slid out from behind the wheel.

“Get out, Aspara. Hurry. Get away from the car. Lie down in the grass over there, just past that rise.”

She said tightly, “What are you doing to do?”

He gave no reply. He walked forward with his gun hanging loosely from his fingers. The heavy limousine was trying to turn around. He ducked to avoid its headlights. He still did not know how many of his pursuers were in the other car, but he allowed himself some anger now, thinking of the impossible situation in which he’d been placed, knowing that someone was responsible, someone he meant to find and settle accounts with. He did not think Wells was in the limousine. Wells would be much more careful now. He thought he heard another car, the second one, which had vanished back in the city; but he paid no attention to it.

Car doors slammed. Shadows moved among the trees along the bullock path. The full moon of the Perahera gleamed on a small temple set on the other side of the track, about five hundred yards to the east, nestled among tall banyan trees. The place seemed deserted. The moonlight showed him the crumbled flight of steps leading up to the open, broken temple doors, and he moved sidewise in that direction, parallel to the road. He did not look back for Aspara.

There were three of them.

The flat sound of a shot broke the quiet night. A leaf fluttered down over his head. Their intentions were plain. He continued retreating along the cart path, sliding through the thin line of trees toward the deserted temple.

They were eager enough. Two of them came on too fast, exposing themselves on the path. Another shot snapped through a bush just behind him. Durell flattened against the trunk of a tree and leveled his .38 at the nearest running man. He took his time, fired once. The sound of his S&W seemed louder than the others’ shots. The first man on the path tumbled, yelping, and sprawled flat as if diving into a pool. The farther man shouted something in Tamil dialect. Durell was halfway to the temple now. He put on a burst of speed, crossed the path, ran up the opposite bank into the weedy hillside. Bullets whistled after him. At least, he thought, he had drawn them away from Aspara. He was worried about the third man, and hoped that one wouldn’t get the bright idea of going after the girl and using her as a hostage. He didn’t consider what he might do in that case.

At the temple steps he crouched behind the crumbled stone image of a legendary beast. The mountain wind was cool on his face, blowing his thick, black hair. The two others had paused beside the man he had hit, but only briefly. They were more careful now, breaking from shadow to shadow, coming at him.

The steps led up into the open temple doorway. He thought he saw a faint light deep in the recesses of the old temple. The two pursuers had separated to come at him from different sides. He took aim at the nearest, not the leader, and paused at the sound of the second motor car coming up the mountain road. Headlights glared against the full spread of the moonlight, bouncing in the ruts of the bullock path. The wind soughed around the ornate eaves of the little temple. He retreated halfway up the steps, aimed again, fired as the first man came up at him with a rush, yelling violently. He did not miss. The man came on a few more paces, climbed the lowest steps of the temple entrance, then sank down on his knees, clutching his belly.

The second car rocked to a halt beside the limousine. Men tumbled out of it, quick and efficient forms.

“Sir! Mr. Durell?”

He felt a moment of fear- or Aspara. They might recognize the Rolls, know she was nearby, and fan out across the pasture to locate her. He did not think she could evade them for long.

“Durell!"

The voice echoed back and forth from the dark hillside. Durell jumped from the steps into thick brush alongside. Shots slammed from the men in the second car. The last one from the limousine ran in a wild, zigzag pattern down the hill and away from the road. In a moment, he was gone. Durell moved very carefully back toward the road. The second man he had shot was dead. The newcomers were gathered about the first one. He listened to his name being called for a third time and tried to identify the voice, aware of its familiarity, and then he swore softly and walked out into sight on the path, letting his gun dangle from his hand at his side.

“Mr. Dhapura?” he called.

“Of course. Sir, are you safe?”

“Safe enough. Get Madame Aspara, please.”

“Naturally. A pleasure. I was so worried we might be too late. We had an eye on you all the time, but you drove so well, and so deviously, I might add, that I thought for a time we had lost you and the PFMs might have their way with you.”

There was a note of authority in the Sinhalese that had not been present in Colombo. They met on the path, and Mr. Dhapura formally shook his hand, smiled apologetically, and waved to the three men who had arrived with him.

“My people, sir. All very good men.”

Durell said, “It was you who told the cops at the roadblocks up here that we were to be allowed through?” “Naturally, sir.”

“You know now where I spent the last poya day?”

“I know, and I have forgotten it. I will be most discreet, sir. Sir, Madame Aspara is safe. She will be here in a moment. I will pretend to know nothing. She is a great lady, and I would not embarrass her. One must be sophisticated, to say the least, in such delicate matters. But since I learned you could not possibly have been in Kandy when your two men were killed, I thought I would lend you assistance.”

Durell wondered why Mr. Dhapura was always so verbose. He said, “And your true rank, Mr. Dhapura?”

The Sinhalese said, “I am a major in the Ceylon counterintelligence, the DS-7 department. Are you angry about it?”

“You are supposed to be working for us.”

The man bowed slightly. “In our profession, sir, one must expect—ah—deception. I am ashamed of it. Of course, the salary that K Section paid me to maintain my listening post as manager of the Royal Lanka Hotel has been carefully accounted for and will be returned in due time.”

“So you were a double agent,” Durell said.

“Ah. Sir, you are angry.”

“Not at all. I’m glad you’ll be along.”

Dhapura shook his head. “My excuses, sir. I will not go on with you. The
walauwa
of Ira Sanderson is not far from here. We will be unseen and unheard, if you are willing to go on as a lamb for bait, when the tiger appears. You may count on me, sir. My curiosity as to what has been happening to you truly consumes me. Do you mind?” Durell watched Aspara being escorted up the hillside from her hiding place. Dhapura’s men were most solicitous. He waved a hand at the wounded man and the dead man on the road.

“What about them?”

“PFM terrorists. Murderers. You will not be troubled by the affair here.”

“My thanks. So you want me to go on?”

“Please do. As I say, we will be on hand—unseen, but present to assist you. I am honored to cooperate with you. Your name has not been unknown in the DS-7 department.”

BOOK: Assignmnt - Ceylon
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