Assignment Madeleine (23 page)

Still, there had been an imperceptible shift in the man, and
Durell took advantage of it. He closed the gap fast, his body slamming Charley
back against the boulder. Charley hit him in the stomach, tried to knee him,
hit him again with a sledge-hammer right. Durell took the blows and returned
them. He slashed at Charley’s throat, missed the point he sought, and slashed again.
Charley screamed. He tried to escape. He slid sidewise to get away from the
rock at his back. Durell didn’t let him go. He struck again and Charley made a
queer coughing sound, kicked at Durell, and caught Durell on the thigh. Durell
spun away, came back again. He saw Charley’s ravaged face. It was the face of
his enemy. The face of Orrin Boston’s murderer. He didn't want to stop now. He
struck again and again. His left hand was bleeding. He felt the pain all the
way to his shoulder and down his side. He did not spare himself. Charley went
to his knees.

He was strangling.

“Don’t kill him, Durell,” someone said.

Durell stopped. He was trembling. His anger shook and
churned in his belly. He kept watching Charley and didn’t turn around to see
who had spoken. Charley was trying to crawl away. The man’s huge body looked curiously
flattened and crushed. His hands scrabbled at the gravelly soil. His big
head with the curiously blond-silver crop of hair hung down from his massive,
muscular shoulders. His breathing was queer, like a wounded animal’s.

“Durell,” someone said again.

Durell turned. It was Hadji el-Abri.

The Kabyle guerrilla and his men seemed to have sprung up
all around them like ghosts conjured out of the moonlight. El-Abri stood tall
and straight, a tommy gun in his hands, pointed at Durell and Charley. His men stood
in a circle just beyond. Their faces were the faces of the wind and the desert.

“Save him for me, Durell,” el-Abri said quietly.

Durell looked at the Kabyle. “How long were you

watching?”

“A few minutes. You knew I was here?”

“I was expecting you. I know Talek must have sent you a
radio signal about us. Talek was your man, right? It couldn’t have been anyone
but you.”

El-Abri looked around the wadi. “What about the others with
you?”

“I don’t know. They need attention.”

“I have a medical officer with me.” The Kabyle gave swift
orders in Arabic. One of the armed men in ragged khaki nodded and went up the
slope toward the cave entrance where Madeleine’s body lay. Durell watched him
for a moment. He saw the Arab doctor look at Madeleine and then turn away with
a shrug and help Jane Larkin to her feet. Jane ran, stumbling, to Chet. The
doctor knelt and began doing something to Chet’s shoulder. Durell looked back
at el-Abri.

“Are we enemies?” he asked the Kabyle quietly.

“The choice was yours.”

“L’Heureux is still my prisoner. I still claim him.”

“Not any more. He belongs to me, now.” El-Abri issued
another quiet order. One of the men stepped forward and gave Durell a drink of
brackish water from his canteen. Durell sat down on the sand. His hand was
bleeding heavily. He tore a strip from his shirt and bound it roughly. He was
still shaking. He looked at el-Abri's face and saw no friendship there. No help
at all. It had all been for nothing, he thought. All the nightmare of the last
twenty-four hours, the struggle to get away from here, might never have been.

He got up and walked through the circle of guerrillas. Nobody
stopped him. He went up to the cave entrance, beyond Madeleine’s body, and
picked up the box of currency and walked back again.

He looked at Charley. Charley sat on the sand, hugging his
knees, his head lowered. He had the mark of death upon him.

Chapter Twenty

MADELEINE was buried before they moved out. Durell noted a
quick tension among the guerrillas, a wariness in the way they moved, as if
they expected to be trapped in this place. Even el-Abri showed his impatience
with the delay. But the grave was dug and Madeleine’s body placed in it and
covered over with the stones and sand of the desert.

“She was L’Heureux’ woman,” el-Abri said quietly. He watched
the gravediggers work. “But I notice he does not look at her for a last time.”

“He’s the one who killed her,” Durell said.

Yes, we heard the shot. We were searching the area for you.
Why did he shoot her?”

“Because in the end she chose my side.”

“You speak of her as if she was your friend.”

hell” think she was, Durell said. “But I couldn’t save He
turned away, a flat emptiness in him. There was something he wanted to
do, but he could not think what it was. Perhaps he was too tired, too
filled with pain. He thought he owed something to Madeleine, and he
looked at Charley, searching for it.

Charley lifted his head and looked at him from under coarse,
black brows. 'Are you going to let these gooks kill me, Durell?”

“Why not?” You hold life cheap, don’t you?”

“Look, take me back to Paris with you, huh?”

“It’s not up to me anymore.”

“You know what el-Abri will do to me? These gooks are worse
than the wild Indians ever used to be. They've got ways of torture—”

Durell turned his back on the man’s rising terror and walked
away. .

It was only a short distance to where el-Abri’s trucks were
hidden. The night was cold, and the wind blew sand viciously in their faces.
Two of el-Abri’s men made an improvised litter and put Chet Larkin on it. The doctor
walked on one side of the litter and Jane walked on the other. Jane seemed
unaware of anything that was happening except in the immediate circle of her husband,
and Durell did not interfere with her.

He spoke only briefly to the doctor. “Will the young man
live?”

“It is in the hands of Allah. But he should be in a hospital.”

“Can we do anything for him now?”

“I have given him morphine for his pain and sulfa for
infection. It is the best I can do with what we have.”

“just keep him alive,” Durell said. He looked at Jane and
spoke to her. “Chet will be all right. Don’t worry.”

She didn’t pay any attention to him.

There were two trucks hidden in a narrow fold of the low
hills. Durell could see the highway to Baroumi where they got into the trucks.
On one side of the road was a vineyard, trampled and destroyed, the vines cut down
to the ground. He looked at his watch to see what time it was, but his watch
had stopped. He only knew it must be some hours after midnight. It didn’t

matter, he decided.

El-Abri had a scout car of World War II vintage with the
troop trucks. A radio antenna whipped in the rear, and the driver looked no
more than sixteen. The Kabyle motioned Durell into the hard back seat and
joined him, lifted his arm in a signal, and the small convoy moved off,
bouncing across, the mined vineyard toward the highway. They used no lights. In
the deserted hills, enough radiance came from the wilderness of starlit sky to
let them guide their way.

“You’re going to Baroumi?” Durell asked suddenly.

“Do you remember it, Durell?”

“From the old days, yes, when you and I hid there, with your
people, from the Vichy police.”

“I have a few things to do there. And I must pick up Talek
at my father’s house.”

Durell looked at the Kabyle. “Haven't you been to Baroumi
tonight?”

"Not yet. I will satisfy myself there with Charles L’Heureux’
death. Then I will let you go, Durell, you and your American friends, the
Larkins. I will see to it that you are found quickly by the French, before the sun
gets too high. You will be in Algiers in time for lunch. I think that is fair
enough, my friend.”

Durell started to speak, then was silent.

“Is something wrong?” el-Abri asked.

“You won’t find Talek in Baroumi. Talek is dead.”

“Dead? You killed—”

“Not I. Not L’Heureux, either, although his bullet was the
last to enter Talek’s body. It was the rebels.” Durell spoke bluntly, his voice
harsh. “The extremists raided Baroumi yesterday afternoon. I thought you would
know.”

“I have been far to the south. You are sure of what you say?
You do not try to confuse me—” The Kabyle’s lean face was like stone. “What
happened there? You were in the village tonight?”

“We were there. That is where L’Heureux hid the money box you
now have. We saw the end of the extremists’ raid, and waited until dark before
we dared to go in.” Durell paused. “You know how the extremists operate,
especially the terrorists. They are as bad as those of the French who lean
toward fascist terror in a hope to end this war. They are equally evil.”

“You use words to prepare me for what I am afraid to hear.”
The Kabyle’s face was still, his whisper almost inaudible. “Did you see my
parents there, Durell?”

“I saw what the extremists did to them,” Durell said gently.
“They are dead. I am sorry, old friend.”

The Kabyle sat without moving in the back of the jouncing
scout car. They were rolling swiftly along the road, curving up into the hills
again, retracing the long, exhausting walk they had made during the day. The barley
fields came into sight. The wind whipped el-Abri’s short khaki jacket. No
sound came to him for a long minute.

“I am sorry,” Durell said again.

“But they were innocent," el-Abri whispered. “They were
old and they were innocent.”

“Yes.”

“Was it—was it had for them?”

“Very bad,” Durell said.

"You do not spare me anything, do you?”

“You will see for yourself.”

Nothing was changed in the
douar
. What had taken Durell half
a day to cover on foot was only a matter of minutes in el-Abri’s convoy. The
village looked the same. There were only thirty men in el-Abri’s patrol, and
they fell silent as they looked at the death and destruction around them.
El-Abri stopped the young driver of the scout car at the narrow street where
his father’s
mechta
loomed beyond the garden wall. He said nothing more to Durell. He went ahead
alone.

Durell got out of the car. Nobody stopped him. He walked
back to the truck where the Larkins were. Chet was on his stretcher on the
floor of the truck, and Jane sat beside him, her eyes anxious.

“How is he?” Durell asked.

“I don’t know. He’s still unconscious.”

“El-Abri promised to deliver you both to Algiers in a few
hours. Chet will be all right, I’m sure,” Durell said.

Jane made a swallowing sound. “Can’t we go there right
away?"

“I’m afraid not. There’s still some unfinished
business to take care of.”

She lifted her head. “L’Heureux?”

“El-Abri is going to execute him—the hard way.”

She shuddered. “I don’t want to see it.”

“Then stay in the truck with Chet.”

He walked to the next vehicle where Charley was held under
the guns of half a dozen of el-Abri’s guerrillas. L’Heureux was tied hand and
foot in a sitting position on one of the benches under the truck canvas. The
sergeant in charge of the guard would not allow Durell to get too near the
prisoner.

“He is a coward, this one,” the guard said quietly.

“He shakes and sweats with tear.”

Durell nodded. “Charley?”

“Durell, get me out of this,” L’Heureux whispered from the
darkness in the truck. “He’s going to kill me when he gets back.”

“It will only be what you asked for.”

“For God’s sake, Durell—!”

“You knew the risks you were taking,” Durell said.

“Look, I’m an American, you can’t let these gooks do anything
they want with me! I got a right to a fair trial, don’t I? Look, I’ll tell you
and the French authorities everything you want to know. You’ve got the money back,
right? What you want is the names of the Frenchmen who organized this deal to
make propaganda and get a grip on the Paris government through it, right?”

“Do you know their names?”

“Sure, I know who they are.”

“Do you have proof?”

”I’ve got proof,” L’Heureux said eagerly. His big frame
looked crushed, sunken in on itself. His face was haggard in the shadows within
the truck. “I’ve got letters they wrote, some of their operational plans. They’ve
got some big men in the French Parliament, in the Anny, big businessmen in
Paris and Algiers, too. They want the war to go on until they get a good grip on
the government, see, and run things their way.”

“Where are these documents?”

L’Heureux hesitated. “Can you help me?”

“Where are they?”

“You’ve got to get me out of this first.”

“I can’t promise anything,” Durell said. “And I won’t make
any bargains with you.”

L’Heureux said desperately, “But it’s all I got left to make
you help me.”

“You don't have anything left, Charley. Not even your life."

“How can I trust you, then?” he whispered.

Durell started to walk away. One of the guards laughed.

“Durell, wait!”

Durell turned, but he did not go back to the truck.

“Look, I gave the documents, all of them, to Madeleine,”
L’Heureux said quickly. “She kept them in her apartment in Paris. We hid them
behind a painting, some picture of the Seine, in her living room. They’re still
there."

“All right,” Durell said.

“What are you going to do now?” L’Heureux asked, after a
pause.

“I’m not sure what I can do,” Durell said.

He turned and walked into the garden of el-Abri’s house.

He found the Kabyle in the walled area behind the
mechta
. It was
quiet here, secure from the whining wind that blew sand and the smell of death
throughout the village. The old olive tree stood like a twisted skeleton against
the starlit sky. Durell did not see el-Abri at once. He looked first at
the tree, and saw that the mutilated bodies of the old people had been cut
down. Then he saw their mute forms on the flower beds under the tree, beneath
a blanket. He didn’t see el-Abri until he turned toward the house, and then he
saw the Kabyle standing in the doorway with a knife in his hand.