THE UNICORN is an exceptional beast. He has the body of a horse, with a single long horn projecting from his forehead. He combines in himself a love of purity and the strength of a monster. He is usually pure white in color. As a subject of tapestries in the Middle Ages, the unicorn represents the Scottish arms. He cats no living vegetation and never treads upon green grass. His horn, when ground up and powdered, was believed to have medicinal purposes as an antidote against poison.

In the sixteenth century, a gold coin equal to eighteen shillings Scots was circulated in Scotland and was known as a unicorn.

The unicorn was never captured or killed by those who hunted it.

1

THE FUNERAL was over.

Durell stood quietly in the rain, watching the mourners in the small Chinese cemetery. The rain was heavy and warm, one of those quick storms out of the Malacca Straits that flooded the drains, gutters and canals of the city. It brought no relief from the heat.

“Let’s go,” Charley Lee said.

“In a minute.”

“I’m soaked to the skin.”

“Wait”

“I don’t see anything to wait for,” Charley complained. “The guy is dead. He’s now buried." Lee looked miserable, his white straw hat shapeless with the soaking rain. The shoulders of his white suit spread dark wet stains down over his round, comfortable little body. “For the burial of a head of state, even on this miserable island, it wasn’t very much.”

“Premier Shang wanted it this way,” Durell said.

“It bothers you, Sam?”

“Yes,” Durell said. “The way he died.”

“You shouldn‘t even be here, Cajun. Exposed like this. I think everybody knows who you are.” Charley peered through his fogged spectacles. “You were a good friend of Shang’s, weren’t you?”

“Not good, not bad. Friends. I helped him once, a long time ago. He was doing a good job for Palingpon.”

“Just another phony Red. Always in our pockets."

“He was a good man,” Durell said. “I liked him.”

“You seem to have a lot of friends on the other side of the wire, Sam.”

“To hell with you, Lee,” Durell said quietly. “Quit acting like a nursemaid."

“Well, that’s my job.”

“I don’t know about that. I don’t need it.”

“It’s my job.”

“Go find another job,” Durell said.

Charley Lee’s spectacles were round and steel-rimmed, and he took them off now to wipe away the rain and humidity. A sudden runnel of water poured from the fronds of a traveler’s palm that decorated one wall of the enclosure. The water splashed on his neat little brown shoes. He looked innocuous, but Durell knew he was a very dangerous man. He listened absently to Lee’s sigh.

“You know I have to stick with you, Sam.”

“Go find yourself a girl in the District.”

“Not without you, Sam.”

Durell said, “I’m not Chinese. You are. Most of the girls in the District are Chinese.”

“You prejudiced? You mind screwing Chinee gal?” Lee said. “You’re a damned bigot, Cajun.”

Durell paid no attention.

The mourners were already filing out through the ornate cemetery gate, leaving the aboveground white tombs, with their elaborate plaques of enameled photographs and testimonials. The last gong from the Chinese orchestra sounded on the road outside. The diplomats, those who had chosen to attend the funeral, hurried away into their beflagged limousines. The French, the Indonesian, even the Dutch, the last still in his ex-colonial isolation and ostracism, although the Netherlands had been officially forgiven for their centuries of “colonial oppression” in Palingpon. The group of yellow-robed Buddhist priests still chanted softly at Shang’s tomb. Their shaven pates glistened with the steady tropical rain.

Durell waited, wet through, careless of the downpour. His solid height made him tower over the Palingponese around him.

“Come on,” Lee urged softly. “We have much to do.”

“Go ahead. I’ll meet you later.”

“What else is there to see?” It was plain that Charley Lee, the security man from the Embassy, felt very uncomfortable. This place was far from the quiet, terrifying offices of State in Washington, D.C., from where he derived his power. Most field agents from K Section—that troubleshooting arm of the CIA for which Durell had worked for what seemed like too many years—would have been annoyed by Lee’s presence. Durell did not let it bother him. Again he paid no attention when Lee said once more, “I'm going, Cajun.”

“Good.”

But the stout Chinese did not go.

A small party had detached itself from the last group of mourners still lingering at Premier Shang’s tomb. The group now made its way toward where Durell stood so quietly in the rain, watching. A woman in a veil led the way, attended by a very old Palingponese gentleman with a wispy beard, a white gown, and a plaited straw hat. Respectfully, two steps behind them, was a slim and dapper brown man who looked as if he would have been more comfortable in a uniform decorated with medals and gold braid. The trio moved along the round steppingstones of the path, circled the decorative fish pond in the center of the cemetery, and came to a halt before Durell’s tall figure. The old gentleman bowed. The woman lifted her veil slightly and gave Durell a long, sad, comprehensive look. She was not young. A lifetime of sharing the political fortunes and exiles of Premier Shang, her husband, had left only a few lines on her round face; but her dark almond eyes looked ancient.

“Mr. Durell? Mr. Samuel Durell?”

“Yes, Madame Shang.”

Her English was halting. “It was good of you to come.”

“You are kind to say so.” He felt his words were inadequate. “I’m truly very, very sorry.”

“I grieve for my husband. I grieve for your friend, or business associate, who was slain with him.”

“They were both good friends,” Durell said.

“So unfortunate, however,” the widow said quietly. “One has come to expect terror and violence in this world. But your friend, Mr. Donaldson, was merely an innocent bystander. Or so I am told. Such ferocity. Such madmen. My husband was basically a good, gentle person.”

“I was privileged to know him,” Durell said.

“Yes, he spoke of you so often. When you helped him in— But we do not speak publicly of that.”

Durell smiled. “No.”

She put out a slim hand. “Well, goodbye, Mr. Durell. Do give my thanks to the General, your employer, for his condolences.”

“I shall do so. Again, my regrets, Madame Shang.”

“I truly believe you,” she said.

The woman turned and walked away with quiet  dignity, assisted by the elderly gentleman who, although well into his eighties, still performed as a gallant from Old China. He was probably her grandfather, Durell thought. The Hakka Chinese of Palingpon had been on the island for many generations, and some had risen from tin-mine laborers to a merchant aristocracy among the Palingponese.

The small, dapper man remained behind with Durell and Charley Lee. He paid no attention to Lee. His intelligent eyes reflected no mourning. He had the high cheekbones and golden skin of the true Palingpon native, the slightly slanted black eyes of the Malay infusion amid the island’s population. Durell was suddenly aware that the heavy rain had stopped as quickly as it had begun. Shafts of hot sunlight began to slant through the trees, and he put on metal-rimmed mirrored sunglasses. He heard small birds move in the palms and oleander bushes, saw that a small warm breeze stirred the bougainvillea along the opposite wall of the little cemetery. The breeze made everything drip and spatter. The heavily mirrored glasses made Durell’s harsh face look like a mask.

“Mr. Durell. Welcome to Palingpon. Once again. But it is sad that you arrive for such a tragic occasion.” There was nothing sad in the man’s crisp Oxonian voice. “You made quick air connections from Hong Kong."

“I was fortunate.”

“You came, of course, as much because of Mr. Donaldson’s death as for his Excellency’s.”

“Naturally.”

“It is possible that we may be of mutual help in this unfortunate matter. So strange. You see, Premier Shang had no real enemies, personal or political, these days; it is my job to make certain of this, as you must know. Madame Shang, who will be premier pro tem and take over the government in the interim, has kindly ordered me to continue in office for the time being.”

“Colonel Ko, I am at your service,” Durell said.

“That makes me very happy. Your capacities and place in this world-”

“I have no special influence,” Durell said.

“Understood. But can you possibly meet me at four o’clock”—Colonel Ko whipped his watch into sight, a large Omega electronic chronometer—“this afternoon?”

“At four. Yes.”

“Delighted.” Colonel Ko looked at Charley Lee once, but otherwise did not acknowledge his presence. “Please try to he prompt, Mr. Durell. And come alone, of course.”

“Mr. Lee is my associate.”

“I am not interested in Mr. Lee from your Embassy.

I know the public servant he is. You are the investigating officer sent by your agency, Mr. Durell. There are—ah—other matters of business to be discussed, aside from the late premier’s untidy, lamented and inopportune death.”

“Yes.” Durell’s voice was dry. “I suppose there are.”

“Good. We understand each other. At four.”

“At the Presidential Palace?”

“Why, no,” Colonel Ko said. “At the mortuary.”

There was one other small delay, however. A messenger carrying a large floral tribute arrived belatedly through the cemetery gates and hurried toward the new tomb. The messenger was a middle-aged Palingponese wearing the traditional blue trousers and turban of the working class of the city. There was nothing special about him, but the floral arrangement he carried was unusual.

It was an elaborate preparation, obviously done with great craftsmanship. It consisted of hundreds of white flowers, mostly orchids, shaped over a bamboo frame to form a horse with a great horn growing from its forehead. There were mules on the island, but few horses.

The messenger put the arrangement down at the base of the tomb, straightened his back with a grimace, and trotted away.

Charley Lee chuckled. “A unicorn, of all things.”

“Does it mean something to you?" Durell asked.

“I’m just a heathen Chinee. You’re a Westerner. Different traditions about the same object. To me, a unicorn is one of the four auspicious beasts that attended the giant P’an Ku, while P’an Ku labored for twelve thousand years to chisel out the creation of the universe. To you, the unicorn is a symbol of true purity. To the Chinese, he is a beast who combines in himself all of the exceptional virtues and principles of both Yin and Yang. But whatever is said about Shang, he was hardly pure, was he?” Charley Lee sneezed suddenly. “Jesus, I’m catching a cold. In all this heat yet.”

2

A GHARRI, a fringed carriage pulled by a tired gray mule, took them up the hill to the Palingpon International. The driver looked like any other driver in the hot, steamy city, but he had been posted a bit too conveniently outside the cemetery gate, and he had worked his vehicle with deliberate rage through the press of international reporters and photographers crowded around the entrance to the Boulevard of Mamywon Yongyak. Tall casuarina trees bent gracefully over the median strip of the commemorative route that ran out to the airport. Durell judged that the gharri driver was one of Colonel K0’s people, and he remained appropriately silent on the labored return to the hotel.

The city of Palingpon showed an eclectic influence from centuries of pull and thrust from its larger surrounding neighbors. There was an old Portuguese fort on the waterfront, built in the style of a brick martello tower, and a cluster of Dutch buildings, like something straight out of Amsterdam, along the fetid klongs. The opposite sides of the canals were lined by thatched stilt houses of fishermen and the so-called water people. There were mosques and Buddhist temples, and a Hindu monastery on the hillside, carefully erected at the same level as the old Portuguese Catholic church. There was a large enclave inhabited by the Hakka Chinese. The diplomatic area of European villas was spread out on the hill above the Dyak-type houses of the original Palingponese. Above all, atop the small green mountain that overlooked the harbor clogged with tankers and freighters and one white P&O cruise ship, was the Presidential Palace and the Palingpon International, looking like every other architectural abortion of cubes and balconies the world over. All the flags, foreign and domestic, hung limply at half mast, in deference to the state funeral of Premier Shang. In two years, Shang had done a good deal to pull the island into the twentieth century, after its bloody struggles against colonial adventurers and Malay, Filipino and Indonesian rajahs. But now Shang was dead, literally torn to pieces by assassins.

Durell showered and changed from his rain-soaked clothing into a drip-dry seersucker suit. While he dressed, he checked the impersonal room. There was a microphone behind one of the Gauguin South Seas prints, another in the telephone, a third behind the medicine cabinet in the bath. He was not surprised. He did not touch them. He added his S&W snub-barreled .38 to his waistband as he dressed. The air conditioning made the room feel clammy. He was accustomed to acclimatizing himself wherever he went, and would have preferred the old Willem Van Huyden Hotel down by the river, with its high ceilings and big wooden fans and Victorian verandas. But the Hong Kong briefing had included papers and a reservation at the International.

Charley Lee knocked and immediately came in. It was a dangerous thing to do. But Lee did not notice the quick, arrested movement Durell made; or chose not to mention it. The Chinese wore a fresh batik shirt with a gaudy flower print and pale-gray doubleknit slacks. The man’s round face and almond eyes behind his steel-rimmed glasses seemed more composed than at the cemetery.

“All right, Sam? Can we talk about it now?”

“Not here,” Durell said. “The walls have ears."

“Time’s a-wastin’, to coin a phrase.”

“We’ll have lunch.”

Lee blinked. “Shouldn’t we have it sent up? Of course, I want you to be careful, Sam, but—”

“I am. It’s part of my business.”

“And my business is to keep you alive.”

Durell’s blue eyes turned dark, almost feral. “I know your business, Charley. I don’t want you holding my hand. I don’t know why I’ve been saddled with you.”

“I’ve seen your dossier. It isn’t every man who works directly for General McFee—”

“Shut up,” Durell said.

It was too late.

The microphone behind the Gauguin print on the wall had picked him up.

Durell took Charley Lee to the Willem Van Huyden, where wide porches, set with round metal tables and bowls of hibiscus, overlooked the harbor and several of the crowded klongs. The death of Premier Shang had not inhibited the water merchants in their sampans, which glided like smooth bugs under the wooden bridges and along the tin-roofed warehouses that lined the old wharves.

Durell ordered the rijstaffel and ate hungrily, aware that he’d eaten only a prepackaged breakfast on Air Garuda from Hong Kong. Charley Lee did not like spicy food. In the dim lobby of the old hotel, a gamelan orchestra played softly, the bamboo instruments making sounds like a dozen subdued xylophones.

“You going to keep your date with Ko?” Lee asked.

If I don’t, I doubt that I’ll be able to leave the country,” Durell said calmly.

“You haven’t broken the law here. Hell, Madame Shang knows you. You’ve only just arrived.”

“For the moment, I think the laws are what Colonel Ko says they are.”

“Okay, Okay. He’s got you running scared already?”

Durell’s eyes again darkened. “You haven't been out in the field much, have you, Charley?”

“An unkind cut, Sam. You know I’m Far Eastern Affairs. The home office keeps me busy. I know you don't like me, and my job is thankless. Who watches the watchman, hey? But I'm not about to let you out of my sight.”

“This is my job,” Durell said. “Do you supervise?”

Durell stared at him. “I won’t work here, if you’re the boss.”

“Jesus, you’re a touchy one.”

“You just don’t know anything about it.”

I’m only supposed to help you and keep an eye on you Sam, while you make the report on Donaldson’s killing.”

“An accident,” Durell commented. “Donaldson was just an innocent bystander when they cut up Premier Shang.”

“So they say. But do you believe it?”

“No. It could be the other way around.”

Lee’s round glasses reflected the river scene beyond the dining veranda. He leaned elbows on the table. “You think maybe Shang was the innocent victim? That would be real tough to prove.”

“I may never really prove it,” Durell said. “But I’d like to know.”

“You really think they were after poor Donaldson?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Charley sighed. “Let’s drop it and go down to the District and get us some real Chinee poontang, Sam.”

“Go ahead,” Durell said.

“Maybe we’re all a bit overly sensitive.”

Durell said, “You get that way in K Section, or you get yourself killed.”

3

THE ASSASSINATION had taken place at high noon, the day before.

Premier Shang had not been a man to hide behind palace walls. His appointment with Hugh Donaldson was made at Donaldson’s request. The reason for the appointment was still unknown. The premier had suggested the south terrace of the palace as a pleasant place for the meal.

The south terrace of the palace was open to the hillside, above the winding road that climbed beyond to the soaring white cube of the Palingpon International. A wall protected the lower lawns and shrubbery from passing traffic, and the wall was over twelve feet high and topped with spikes and barbs and electronic warning devices. Still, the terrace was open to the sun and the cooling breeze that blew eastward from the Straits, shaded by umbrellas and a line of tall bamboo on one side, with a giant old rubber tree just between the terrace and the highway wall.

Hugh Donaldson was an old Far East hand. There had been a time, during the Cold War, when he had run a string of networks up through British Malaysia, when the Communists there first began sharpening their tactics for guerrilla warfare; he had run his people out of Kuala Lumpur, in the days when anything went and cash was unlimited. His cover then had been as a rubber planter, the odd man out among the colonial British who had been in the plantation business for several generations before. His other networks later ran through Indonesia during the Sukarno years, and finally into French Indo-China, where he was covered as an import-export man and also handled foreign aid. When the French left after Dien Bien Phu and turmoil followed, before the U.S. blundered into its own agony in South Vietnam, Donaldson had quite properly headed detachments of Green Berets among the hill people and afterward enjoyed certain privileges as adviser to Saigon’s GGK, the intelligence apparatus designed to help check the tide of matériel flowing south along Uncle Ho’s jungle trail from Hanoi.

Donaldson had grown old in the business.

The dossiers that Durell had seen back at No. 20 Annapolis Street, headquarters for K Section in D.C., also indicated that Hugh Donaldson had grown rich.

K Section was still troubleshooting Donaldson’s varied missions, but because Donaldson was now like a weary old bull buffalo, he was given the job of K Section Central officer at Palingpon, which seemed peaceful and cooperative enough.

But maybe Donaldson, shaggy and near extinction like the buffalo he resembled, was doing more than just keeping books on his coconut plantation over at Jikram Bo.

Maybe he was just an incidental victim of the premier’s assassination. Or maybe he was doing something that made someone want very much to kill him. In any case, he had been killed.

They came over the wall from the highway like a band of Malays running amok. What they did was incredible. With effortless ease they scaled the twelve-foot wall, barbed wire, spikes and all, and screamed up the bright-green lawn toward the terrace table, set for luncheon for Premier Shang and Hugh Donaldson, in the golden sunshine and restless breeze off the Straits. Their bloodiness made the red hibiscus shrubs look anemic. The two Palingpon Marine guards were cut down without a chance. A gardener, who was working on his knees at a flower bed near the wall, and who was probably one of Colonel Ko’s people, had his head lopped off with one stroke of a flashing parang. A maidservant coming toward the terrace was literally run over and trampled and kicked to death, her throat crushed, her ribs smashed. Some said there were a dozen assassins. Durell thought it unlikely. That many men debouching on the far side of the wall would have been noticed in time for a warning to be given.

However few their numbers, they made up for it in ferocity. They did not use their long knives on Shang or Donaldson. They literally tore both men apart at the luncheon table. The whole affair took place in an unbelievably short space of time. Shang and the bearded Donaldson were killed with bare hands and left as bloody, dismembered carcasses sprawled in the gentle shade of the bamboo hedge on the terrace.

There was a certain amount of screaming and shouting. One Palingpon Marine came to an upper window of the palace, saw what was happening, and fired a single shot that knocked down one of the attackers. The man fell, got up, and ran on again. On a broken leg. But he was unable to scale the wall, which the others did with extraordinary rapidity to make good their escape.

The wounded man was captured and subdued by eight Marines, who almost had to kill him to control his thrashing body.

Colonel Ko had the suspect in custody.

What had not yet reached the eager press was the fact that at the same time the assassinations had taken place, another attack had been launched at Donaldson’s coconut plantation at Jikram Bo, twelve miles south of the city.

4

DURELL RENTED a car from the hotel agency and drove with Charley Lee to the plantation. They arrived a few minutes after two o’clock that afternoon.

A gray atmosphere shadowed the place. Durell took the trail that followed the coast, with its superb white beaches drenched in sunshine, crossing small wooden bridges over lazy, muddy streams that cut through the sandy level stretches. They passed several fishing villages, stilt houses built high above the muck along the river banks, thatched huts with roofs tilting up like the prows of the two-masted boats drawn up on the beach. At this hour, most of the boats were offshore, seining the turquoise waters. The sea was calm. Inland, the mountains of Palingpon, with tea terraces carved out of the slopes, looked lavender and black in the shadowed upland valleys. Along the shore, the land was flat and swampy for the most part, until it lifted slightly at the coconut plantation. The trees had been planted in long dusky rows that stretched out of sight, away from the quiet, debris-strewn beach. The sun did not penetrate to the ground here, and the earth was spongy and gray under the coconut fronds.

Charley Lee murmured, “Queer thing. Like it’s haunted."

Durell had already smelled the place before it came into sight. The rented car was a small Toyota, and they bounced badly on the rutted plantation trail.

Charley sniffed. “What is it?”

“Charred wood. Wet wood.”

“They didn’t say the place was burned.”

Durell drove over a rattling wooden bridge and the sea came into sight again, beyond a long promontory planted with more coconut palms in mathematically neat rows. On a small knoll was Hugh Donaldson’s plantation house.

One wing had been leveled by fire, but the recent rains must have checked the flames from spreading. The place stank, fouling the clean sea breeze. There were broad tire marks from the police car that had been here, but no sign of life at the moment.

Durell stopped the car fifty yards from the ruins. For a long moment, he simply studied the area. Then he took the .38 from his belt and stepped out and stood still again, smelling the charred wood and the occasional hint of the sea that blew through the miasmic smell. Sunlight flickered, dappling the trail ahead.

“Don’t slam the door,” he told Lee.

“Nobody is here. What’s the matter, Sam?”

“I don’t know.”

“You expect something?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“I don’t see anything wrong.”

“There’s plenty wrong,” Durell said.

He walked up the trail toward the plantation house. Nothing stirred except an occasional palm frond clacking in the wind. Then he heard the radio, dimly muffled from the interior of the ruined house. The veranda ran the width of the structure, which had a high thatched roof in the native style, almost like the original long houses of the natives who had suffered their tyrannical rajahs and exploiting colonial rulers. A chi-chi, a small red tree squirrel with enormous luminous eyes, suddenly screeched at them and scampered away across the gray shadowed earth. The door to the house, big teak panels with bronze hinges, stood open before him.

Donaldson had lived richly and well in this place. There were animal trophies on the paneled walls, a Malay tiger’s head above a huge fireplace—which obviously was rarely used except to get the damp out during the rainy season and fine Sheraton furniture copied in mahogany from English patterns. There were Khomsan rugs on the teak floor, and a huge mirrored bar against one wall, behind Empress wicker chairs and a long oval wicker table. The bar was well stocked. From the doorway, Durell could see his reflection and most of the room at an angle in the mirror behind the bar. A woman’s brightly colored samsur, a kind of scarf, was crumpled on the wicker table. A white cotton bra lay draped over the back of one of the Empress chairs. Durell lifted his gun a bit.

The wet smell of woodsmoke drifted in the wind.

The chi-chi had gone silent.

A tokay lizard moved along one of the rafters of the beamed ceiling, watching him.

He stepped inside.

This room was untouched. The destruction began in the hallway and went on from there.

It was as if a band of wild animals had gone on a rampage. Furniture was smashed, hangings ripped from the walls, mirrors broken, food smeared and hurled to the floor, windows broken. The kitchen was a shambles. The big room, facing the sea, was windowless now. The freezer doors had been left open and defrosted food dripped soggily everywhere.

And there was the blood.

Blood had been daubed on the table and lay in pools on the floor and was painted on the walls.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Charley Lee murmured.

“There were two servants,” Durell said.

“Killed?”

“Torn to pieces.”

“The bodies?”

“The police took them away,” Durell said.

“It’s crazy.”

“Not quite."

“What do you mean, not quite? It’s insane!”

Durell went through the other rooms on the first floor of the house. They were all alike with their mad wreckage. Insanity did not follow a pattern, he thought. He was not an expert on it, but he knew enough about aberrations to see a pattern in this, a method, however dim and distant it might be at the moment. He knew danger, too. He could smell it in the quiet, tropic air that moved through the vandalized house.

“Upstairs,” he said.

“What’s upstairs?” Lee asked.

“Donaldson’s Central office.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Two years ago. At Shang’s inauguration. Hugh Donaldson was our Control officer here, even then. Before his wife died. But I never met Mary.”

The upper floor was long and narrow and very hot, with slanted walls formed by the Dyak-style roof, like the interior beams of a ship’s inverted hull. The same ruinous pattern prevailed up here. There had been an air-conditioned office where Donaldson did his paperwork, but the machine was not working and Durell felt the sweat start out on his chest and back, trickling down across his belly and into his groin.

The wreckage was even worse here. Papers were strewn everywhere, the desk was overturned, the drawers emptied, the GK-12 transceiver radio, powerful enough to reach Hong Kong, smashed. More blood was daubed on the walls.

The safe was open. It was empty.

“Here it is,” Durell said.

“What?”

“This is what they came for,” Durell said.

“You’re giving me riddles now?” Lee complained.

“Donaldson had seventy thousand dollars of the taxpayers’ cash up here. We subsidized Colonel Ko annually. Actually, the cash was part of a grant, meant to supplement the Palingpon civil service—a small part of the grant—but we know it actually went to Colonel Ko’s KPK security forces.”

“That’s lousy,” Lee said.

“The Russians put in triple that amount for stability. The Chinese—well, we don’t know what the CPR gave to Ko. So we don’t know where Ko’s real loyalty lies. It doesn’t matter.”

“It’s still peanuts,” Lee said, with the typical bureaucrat’s contempt for public funds.

“It’s gone,” Durell said.

“Did Premier Shang have his hand in our pocket, too?”

“No. We’re reasonably sure of that.”

Charley Lee said, “Let’s get out of here. I’m suffocating. I think I’m going to vomit.”

At that moment, Durell heard the girl scream.

5

“YOU’RE not going out there,” Lee said. “I’ve got my job to do. You’re staying with me. And I'm not going out there, either. My job is to keep you in one piece, Sam.”

“I told you, I don‘t need a nursemaid.”

“I didn’t ask for it. The Embassy gave me such and such orders about you. I’ve got a wife, kids, career and pension to think about. I’m bringing you back in one piece.”

“You’re getting to be a pain in the ass, Lee,” Durell said quietly. His dark-blue eyes glowed in the dim interior light of the downstairs living room. He kept listening for the girl to scream again. But the gray gloom of the coconut trees outside was not disturbed by another sound. “I don’t want you with me anymore, Charley.”

“I can’t help that,” Lee said desperately.

“You’re not hearing me,” Durell said.

“Stay here. It’s a trick, that yell out there."

“Maybe.”

“So you’re willing to risk—”

“I have to,” Durell said.

“Not while I’m around.”

“All right.”

Charley Lee would not have had his job if he were not competent. Despite his short stature and little watermelon belly, he knew all the tricks of his trade; he was expert with handguns, he had been trained in every form of infighting, judo, karate and just plain dirty street brawling. His looks were therefore deceptive, his reactions faster than fast. Even while Durell swung to disarm him, he started to react, dropping the gun that appeared in his hand to lessen the effect of the chopping blow Durell delivered to his wrist. It was not enough, of course. Durell had been trained in an even dirtier business. He knew that Lee would not seriously damage him, since Lee was supposed to aid and protect him. But Durell had learned in his long years with K Section that nothing was to be taken for granted. He had seen too many men go over the wire, turning suddenly and murdering companions who trusted them. He wasn’t too sure about Charley Lee.

The other’s pistol clattered to the plank floor. Lee tried to twist away, and Durell hit him in the side of the neck and then drove him head first into the wall. Lee groaned and tried to screech a protest, and Durell hit him once more. The man slid to the floor, mouth agape, blood coming from his saddle nose.

“For God’s sake, Cajun—!”

“I don’t want you to get in my way again,” Durell said softly. “I’m sorry, Charley.”

Lee’s face changed. His normally bland, even naive, expression became one of sudden, undiluted hatred. His black almond eyes glittered with a lust for murder. Saliva and blood drooled from a corner of his mouth. His round glasses had been broken in the brief scuffle, but he didn't seem to need them.

“You murdering bastard—”

“I’ll send the police and a doctor for you," Durell said coldly.

“You’re as crazy as the bastards who came in here and chopped up this house,” Lee groaned.

Durell heard the girl scream again.

6

THE GLOOM beneath the neat rows of palm trees stretching to an infinite point made everything gray and colorless. The soil between the rows was soft and spongy, absorbing sound. Durell moved swiftly about a hundred paces inland from the plantation house, then paused in the deeper shadow next to the curved bole of one of the coconut palms. He held his .38 at waist level. He took a moment to shrug out of his white shirt, fold it, and put it on the soft ground. The earlier rain had made puddles here and there, and he used his left hand to daub his cheeks and forehead with mud. He removed his sunglasses to prevent any warning reflection to whomever was out here. The gray light was sullen and oppressive. The sea wind did not penetrate this far inland from the beach, and he felt the humid heat like a sodden blanket over him.

He had no idea where the girl was. He was not even certain it was a girl who had called for help. He tried to bring to mind the exact sounds, recalling the high pitch, trying to syllabize the voice into words. His impression was that the voice had called for help in English.

Two chi-chis watched him with their big luminous eyes, busily nibbling on some rotted vegetation under the coconut palms. Durell breathed smoothly and easily. When he was ready, he moved quietly down between the rows of trees, following what seemed to be a trail that proceeded to the promontory beyond the house. There was a processing shed there, as he remembered from his last visit, where the nut meat was cut and chopped and canned. A donkey engine had provided the power then, and the Palingponese laborers who worked the plantation lived in a village just beyond the point, out of sight of the main house. He oriented himself in the gray gloom and headed that way.

Something moved through the shadows ahead of him, a ghost in the dimness, never quite clearly visible.

Durell followed.

He did not hear another scream.

The processing shed had a tin roof turned red with rust. Through wide double doors a narrow-gauge track led across the promontory to a pier where the product was shipped out by barge to the port of Palingpon for the freighters moored there. The coastal road was unfit for heavy truck transport. The narrow-gauge line was serviced by a tiny WDT shifter diesel, whose striped nose was thrust out between the doors that opened into the cavernous interior of the shed. Nobody was in sight. It was as if the attack on the plantation house the day before had driven every native worker into invisibility. A half-loaded flatcar stood on die tracks that ran lumpily across a jerry-built roadbed to the village pier, out of sight on the other side of the promontory. Donaldson’s business here, along with the other businesses he maintained, had been thriving.

The shadowy figure Durell had seen moments earlier had disappeared through the open double doors of the processing plant. Durell paused in the last aisle of trees. Whoever had drawn him here had done so deliberately; he had no doubt about it.

Nothing else happened.

He wondered if he had made a mistake putting Lee out of action.

Then he remembered the momentary transformation in the man’s face, and felt no regrets.

He stepped out from between the coconut palms, into the bright sunshine, and walked along the rusting narrow-gauge tracks toward the shed doors.

No screaming maniacs came tearing toward him.

All that happened was that someone inside the big shed shot at him.

The report echoed flatly against the quiet beat of the surf on the nearby beach. The bullet winged past Durell’s head and thudded into the bole of a tree behind him.

As he dived for the ground beside the tracks, the rifle slammed again, and the slug hit the rusted rail near his hand and screeched off into the distance, leaving behind it a scar of bright steel.

He got up and sprinted and found shelter behind the half-loaded flatcar. The third shot followed him futilely.

“You son of a bitch!”

It was a girl‘s voice, all right.

She sounded fearful and frustrated.

“Yo!” he called.

“Come on,” she coaxed. “Come on out where I can see you, you murderer!”

“Wait a minute,” he called, against her hysteria.

“Come on!”

Sunlight glinted off the rifle barrel thrust through a small square window in the big shed, just to the right of the doors where the WDT diesel was parked. Durell swore softly. He was trapped here in the open, sheltered by the flatcar but too far now from the trees to make a run backward and too far for a sprint into the shed. The girl wouldn’t miss the next shot, he thought. He had nowhere to go.

It was possible to drop her—he could see the pale glimmer of her face in the tiny window, searching for him. He could do it with a single careful shot from the .38. He had loaded the S&W with cartridges converted by himself, slit across the nose and partially hollowed out into dum-dums. Any kind of a hit would blow the girl’s head off. But he didn’t want to do that.

He noticed that the flatcar he crouched against had its rear wheels chocked to prevent it from rolling backward, and then he saw that the graded tracks across the point of land slanted toward the tin-roofed shed. A pushpole, like a heavy boat hook, was fastened to the rusted side of the flatcar. The trucks dripped melting grease. It was possible, he thought.

The shallow sea glittered with a thousand diamond points beyond the rust-red roof of the ramshackle building. Behind him, the rows of palm trees stretched into mathematical infinities. A heap of sea-wrack had piled up on the beach to his right. White gulls lofted in the wind at the tip of the promontory. On the horizon, a giant tanker plodded westward before making the turn north to the hungry ports of Japan.

Durell lowered himself carefully to his knees and moved toward the front of the flatcar. The chocks behind the wheels were merely palm logs, jacked between the two wheels of the bolster. Fortunately, only the one truck had been checked, on his side, and he did not have to crawl under the car to loosen any others. Even then it was difficult to get leverage to release the logs. He worked at them for several long minutes, pausing now and then to listen for the girl with the rifle. When he pulled the last chunk of wood free, he was drenched with sweat and the flatcar still remained motionless.

He crouched low and lifted the pushpole from the hooks on the rusted side of the ear, jammed it into its socket, and shoved hard.

The car finally moved. There came a creak of rusted metal, a heavy groan, a rumble from the wheels on the narrow track. Durell moved with it, keeping down, using the bulk of the car to shield his body. He thought he heard a cry from the girl in the warehouse. Slowly at first, then faster as the car gained momentum in its gravity ride, he approached the structure. In a matter of seconds, he had to trot to keep up with its speed. It was heading straight for the nose of the diesel loco that poked out of the high double doors.

With less than twenty feet to go, Durell leaped upon the floor of the flatcar, keeping low behind the crates and barrels it carried, then wriggled across to the other side. The car rumbled under him as he lay fiat on the splintered plank floor. The diesel engine seemed to rush at him. He could not see the girl with the rifle now, in the small window to his right. At the last moment, ho rolled off and jumped for the shadows inside the warehouse door.

The crash when the flatcar hit the nose of the parked locomotive was thunderous, echoing within the high, shadowed building. The boxes and crates piled on the floor scattered and flew in every direction. Durell landed lightly on his feet and raced for the bulky protection of geared machinery, a shredding table, and then a low partition that divided one end of the plant. He smelled the dusty odor of coconut fibers and shredded husks. Sunlight came through a high window on the seaward side of the structure in a long, slanting beam. Dust motes danced in it. The shattering echoes of the crash died away. Durell breathed easier. He kept his gun ready.

The girl was hidden in a partitioned office in one corner of the long building. He could not see her at first. He moved carefully, without sound, behind a sorting table, an endless belt that stretched toward crushing rollers powered by a steam donkey engine that bulked in the rear of the plant. The door to the partitioned office was open. The girl appeared there, holding a Remington rifle in both hands. She looked as if she knew how to use it.

The light inside the building was uncertain. Durell kept still. The girl looked at the wrecked flatcar that blocked the double doors. The car had derailed and now lay tilted to one side, heaped up with a buckled, splintered floor around the nose of the diesel. She stared in puzzlement and moved toward the side of the building where Durell crouched. When she came within reach, he jumped her.

She was a tall girl, in her middle twenties, and she wore faded denims and a man’s shirt with the tails tied about her midriff. Her hair was skinned back, pulled tightly into a knot at the nape of her neck, the hair a dark-red color obscured by dust; there were smudges on her face. Her full breasts did not seem to be restrained by a bra. She had a narrow waist, full hips, long and solid legs. The striped shirtsleeves were rolled up above her elbows.

Durell came at her fast from behind, hit her just below the waist. She gasped and grunted as she went forward with the impact, her arms going out instinctively to check her fall to the floor. The rifle slammed on the concrete with a hard clatter. She yelped and tried to retrieve her grip on the gun as Durell rolled, came up on his feet, and stamped a booted foot on the barrel. She gave a cry of pain as her fingers were pinned under the metal. Her swearing could have been learned from Donaldson, whose vocabulary had been famous. There was nothing weak or feminine about her resistance. She tried to get her knee into Durell’s crotch, failed, flailed with her right fist at his face, then stiffened her fingers and stabbed at his eyes.

“Hold it,” he gasped.

“You murdering mother—”

He hit her hard enough to cloud her eyes for a moment. Her head snapped back and her face was in profile against the concrete. He was aware of her loose breasts against his chest, the pillowing of her hips under him.

“Now just shut up,” Durell said. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

“No? Liar! You helped kill Daddy—”

“Donaldson?”

“Ah, go to hell,” she said. “Go ahead, kill me.”

“Are you Donaldson’s daughter?’

“What else?”

“Listen,” Durell said. “Stop fighting me. I’m on your side. What’s your name?”

“Maggie. What's yours?”

“Sam Durell.”

She stared up at him. Her eyes were a pale dusty blue.

They stared up widely, inches from him.

“The Cajun?” she asked, suddenly quiet.

“Yes.”

“Good Lord. I almost killed you.”

“Maggie?”

“Yes?”

“Behave?”

”Yes.”

He let her up.

7

SHE SAT against the rear warehouse wall, facing the sea, watching Durell as he washed off the mud he had plastered on his face and retrieved his sunglasses from his shirt pocket. He made a point of taking the rifle with him and keeping it out of her reach. The girl lowered her head on her forearms and hugged her knees. Everything about he r indicated exhaustion and defeat.

He wondered when she had eaten last. Now that he had a good chance to look at her, he wondered if she had been spending the hours since the attack on the plantation hiding out in the inland swamps. She wore no shoes; her feet were caked with dried mud and her legs were scratched and dirty. She was a mess.

“I didn’t know Donaldson had a daughter,” Durell said.

“That’s me. Maggie Donaldson.” Her voice was muffled in the bend of her forearm. “Listen, it’s not safe here, you know?”

“He never told me.”

“Well, he told me enough about you.” She lifted her head. “Listen, is it true? You worked with Hugh in Malaysia, long ago? And you take all your orders straight from General Dickinson McFee, getting all the crappy jobs?”

“It’s my business,” Durell said.

“But it’s true?”

Durell thought about it. “Yes.”

“Daddy was a little afraid of you.”

“I expect so. Maggie, what are you doing here in Palingpon?”

“I came to visit Hugh.”

“From the States?”

“I was in school there. Working on my doctorate at Yale. I gave it all up, It was just a crock of shit.”

“Why do you talk like that?”

“Like what?”

“Obscenity is childish,” Durell said. “Why did you come here?”

“I’m hungry,” she said.

“Yes. Why did you leave school?”

“I told you, it was a crock—”

“How long have you been hooked?"

“What?”

“Those needle marks on your arm.”

“Oh, those.”

“Is that why you left the States?”

“I kicked it.”

“Nobody kicks it,” Durell said.

“Listen, does your grandpa really live on an old Mississippi paddlewheeler, down in the bayous?”

“Yes. Did you really kick it?”

“I did. Months ago. Living on an old steamboat would really be neat.”

“Are you clean now?”

She said, “I mean to stay that way. It was just one of those things. You know. A friend of mine, a boyfriend, I thought he was fantastic, he taught me. But how he taught me. The son of a bitch. Great lover. Lousy bastard. He gave me the shi—the stuff.”

“And you’re sure you’re clean?”

“Sure.”

“What made you think I was coming in to kill you?”

“Well, with that mud on your face, at first I thought you were one of them. You looked like them.”

“I gathered that the assassins were Malays. I don’t look like a Malay,” Durell said.

“I could eat a horse,” said Maggie Donaldson. “That’s why I’m getting a bit hippy in the thighs, I mean.

Nerves. Since I kicked it. Since I asked Daddy for help and he sent me the plane fare to come here from New Haven. I want to eat all the time, now.”

“You look in fine shape to me,” Durell said. “I heard the killers were Malays.”

“No, they were not.”

“They were brown—”

“They were white men. Painted up. They were Europeans. Or maybe Americans. I don’t know.”

Durell was silent.

“Hopped to the eyes,” she said. “I ought to know.”

“Maggie, are you sure?”

“I ought to know.” She nodded emphatically. “They all wore some locket or medallion or something. I had a good look at them when they came into the house. I didn’t know they’d already been in Palingpon, already killed Daddy. They all passed within a foot of me—I was in the downstairs john and peeked out when I heard them. They came into the house like a bunch of lunatics. So fast. Maniacal. I was lucky to get out the back door in time. I didn’t know what was happening. I still don’t. I hid out on the other side of the plantation, past the trees. It’s a big swamp out there. Then I headed for the village, the other side of here. Nobody was there but an old man.

He had a radio. He told me about Premier Shang and Daddy.”

“These lockets. Did you get a look at them?”

“Sure. They were all the same. Like gold coins.”

He waited.

Maggie stood up and brushed the tight seat of her denims. “They had an animal engraved on them. Like a unicorn,” she said.

8

CHARLEY LEE had somehow managed to walk out of the Donaldson plantation house and had driven away in the rented Toyota. Maggie refused to go into the house. She never wanted to see it again. She said there was an old jeep in the village, and if there was any gas in it, they could use that to get back to town. Otherwise, it was an eight-mile walk.

The jeep was in the village. Nobody else was there, not even the old fisherman she had mentioned. The houses stood vacant and forlorn, the fishing boats were drawn up tidily on the beach the other side of the promontory. The concrete dock where the plantation products were loaded onto barges stood empty and glaring in the hot sun. The wind had died. The air was humid, breathless. Nothing stirred. The place was dead.

It was well after three o’clock in the afternoon when Durell got the girl a room at the Willem Van Huyden Hotel. The room was big and airy, with high ceilings, wooden fans, louvered windows. A gallery opened out of french shutter doors and overlooked the klong. It was reasonably quiet, except for the muted shouts of the sampan men on the canals, a hum of traffic over a nearby bridge, the muted echo of the gamelan orchestra in the lobby, getting ready for teatime. A poster in the lobby announced that a Filipino rock band would play in the bar starting at nine that evening.

Durell ordered a meal sent up for the girl from the dining room, then went upstairs with Maggie and locked the door from the inside. His height topped the girl’s by only two inches. He sent her into the bath to shower and clean up, then went down again to the shops in the lobby, locking her in first, and bought a batik blouse and slacks, stockings and boots, a pair of white pumps, a straw hat with a wide brim, several shirts—small-size men’s—a woven straw purse, a native woman’s dress in colorful silk from Thailand, somewhat like a Hawaiian mumu. He added a comb, brush, toothpaste, toothbrush, lipstick, powder. He went back upstairs.

She was sitting at the tall windows in a Bombay chair, wrapped in a towel, her feet tucked under her ample hips. She wasn’t interested in the things he had bought for her.

“Maggie, I have an appointment at four o’clock with Colonel Ko. Do you know him?”

“I’ve met him. The local fuzz?”

“Sort of. Will you wait here until I come back?”

“I don’t have any place else to go.”

“Will you stay right here, in this room?”

“Sure.”

“And lock yourself in,” he said.

“You don’t have to worry about me. Why are you going to all this trouble?”

“Why not?” he asked.

“You’re funny,” Maggie said. “Strange, I mean.”

“How, strange?”

“Daddy told me you were quite an orientalist. Said you speak half a dozen Asian languages, including Mandarin. Right now, for instance, I can see you discussing T’ang pottery, or maybe interpreting those crazy bits from the Tao Te Ching. Is that the real Sam Durell behind those sunglasses? Or is the real Durell the guy who came barreling into the warehouse behind that freight car, with your .38, scaring me half to death?”

“I don’t know,” Durell said.

“You a kind of schizo?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You have the best of both of your likable worlds, is that it?”

“Perhaps.”

There came a knock on the door. It was the waiter with the meal Durell had ordered for the girl. The waiter was a quiet, deft, middle-aged Palingponese in a white mess jacket.

Maggie sat and looked at the food without interest.

“I thought you were hungry,” Durell said.

“I'm not, now. Not anymore.”

He paid the waiter and added a tip, then peeled off several large notes and put them on the table in front of the girl.

“You’ll need some money, later.”

“No, no,” she said. “I’ve got plenty of money, in the Palingpon State Bank. Daddy put it there for me. Daddy is—was-—quite wealthy. Now that he—he—well, he always said I’d have plenty of money when he was gone.”

“Take it easy,” Durell said.

“And now he’s gone, right?”

“Yes. He’s dead.”

“I’ve been too scared to think about it, until now. Last night in the swamp, all alone, and all. And then you showed up.”

He thought of something. “What made you scream out there among the trees, when I was in the house?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maggie, don’t lie to me.”

“I wanted you to chase after me,” she said.

“So you could kill me?”

“I told you, I thought you were one of them.”

“One of the unicorns?”

She looked up at him. Her face was clean and scrubbed and shining, after the shower. He saw that she might be a very pretty young woman.

“Yes, you could call them that,” Maggie said. She looked at the faint row of needle marks in her left arm.

“I really kicked it, you know. I really did.”

“I believe you.”

“And now Daddy’s left me rich.”

She began to cry, suddenly and soundlessly.

9

COLONEL KO wore his uniform again. His boots gleamed, his gold braid glittered. His round brown face and black eyes were composed, self-sufficient. He did not sweat. His boot heels added two inches to his slight stature.

The mortuary was in a Dutch-style house on a narrow street off the Embankment, a wide avenue that skirted the waterfront a short distance from the commercial piers. It was a place the Dutch settlers had tried to use as a promenade, a century ago, while their sailing ships loaded up with spices and tin and added to the guilders clinking in their counting houses. There was no sign over the house to indicate its present use.

Colonel Ko sent the attendant away and led him down the stairs to the cellars. He snapped a switch and a string of cold fluorescent lights winked and chattered in the ceiling, then settled down to a steady, merciless hum. It was icy cold. A large, rather old-fashioned wooden door with heavy nickel-plated hinges and automatic locks filled most of one end of the room. Colonel Ko gave Durell a small, apologetic smile.

“It was good of you to be so prompt, Mr. Durell.

You won’t mind the cold inside?”

“No."

“We shall not be long.”

“Am I supposed to identify Donaldson’s body?”

“No, no, that is not necessary. Come, please.”

Colonel Ko unlatched the huge refrigerator doors and swung them wide open, pulled another switch, made some other tubular lighting fixtures wink, blink, and cast their cold, unnatural light on their faces. There was a body under a coarse canvas sheet on a narrow table.

“We are really quite modern in our police methods here in Palingpon, Mr. Durell—thanks in part, of course, to your country‘s generosity. We have identified the body, the blood type, hair, fingernail scrapings, etcetera, and matched up similar scrapings and hair taken from the nails and hands of the one man we were fortunate enough to capture. There is no doubt that the man we have in custody helped tear poor Donaldson apart. With bare hands. You can see the results.”

Colonel Ko twitched the sheet aside.

Durell’s face did not change. He might have been examining a rice-paper fragment of calligraphy from the Han dynasty, as he looked at what was left of Hugh Donaldson.

The man’s neck had been broken. His eyes had been gouged out. One ear was bitten or torn off. His back was broken. All his limbs were there, but one arm and one leg had been torn out of their sockets. The face was not recognizable. There were scars, gouges, rips and tears all along the twisted torso. The genitals had been crushed, as if by a dozen boots. Very little was recognizable. The icy cold of the refrigerator room touched the back of Durell’s neck.

“Enough?” Colonel Ko said softly.

“Quite,” Durell said. “There were no weapons used of any kind?”

“Only hands, fingers. Madmen, Mr. Durell.”

“Drugged?”

“We do not know.”

“May we leave?” Durell asked.

“Do you feel ill, sir?”

“Just cold.”

“But this room is safe, Mr. Durell. You can be assured there are no—ah, bugs, listening devices or recording mechanisms to overhear us in this place.”

“I see.”

A clock in the larger outer room whirred and rang the hour. It was five minutes slow, which wasn’t bad for Palingpon, where almost everything was usually late.

Colonel Ko spoke softly, gently, his dark eyes sad. “There is the matter of the money, Mr. Durell.”

“Yes.”

“You know about it, of course?”

“Yes.”

“A sum most necessary for the continuance of our security work here, as well as—ah—our continued friendship and cooperation.”

“I understand,” Durell said.

“A sum that Mr. Donaldson, poor fellow, was to have turned into my office the very day he was so cruelly murdered, along with Premier Shang.”

“You’ll get the money,” Durell said.

Colonel Ko said promptly, “When?”

“Arrangements have to be made to replace it.”

“Premier Shang’s death brings troubled times to Palingpon. Who knows what plots are already afoot, without our beloved leader at the helm? Plots to destroy our democratic people’s form of government, so admiring of your own constitutional way of life. We have been so ready to be advised by you who are older and wiser in the ways of true freedom and democracy.”

Durell looked down at the small uniformed man.

“That’s a lot of shit, Colonel.”

He did not know how Ko might react. But the man smiled and then laughed softly. “Ah, yes. Very good. Ah, very good. We are pragmatic men, then. We understand each other.”

“Only too well,” Durell said.

“The money, then?”

“In two weeks. I’ll arrange it.”

Colonel Ko said, “You wish to remain here in Palingpon for two weeks, Mr. Durell?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Durell said.

“That may not be possible. We would like to be assured that the aid in funds will be forthcoming. I am sorry, I understand your position, you are an honored guest here, a most trusted man in the employ of your General McFee—”

“Colonel Ko, I doubt that McFee would be too concerned if I were fed to the water crocodiles today, tomorrow, or two weeks from now. I wish you and others like you would understand that. What you should understand, without question, however, is that it I do not have your permission to leave tomorrow, you will never see the aid money, two weeks from now or ever. Is that understood?”

Colonel Ko was silent for a minute. “You take extraordinary liberties, Mr. Durell. Desperate chances.”

“It’s your choice,” Durell said.

“Ah, yes. Well, perhaps you have seen enough of poor Donaldson?”

“Quite enough.”

“Then come with me. I am sure you would also like to see one of his assassins,” said Colonel Ko.

10

“WHAT PUZZLES me, Mr. Durell,” said Ko, “is that there is truly no motive for the murders of Premier Shang or your Mr. Hugh Donaldson. We are a small island, sir, of scarcely any significance. Indonesia, Malaya, even the Philippines consider us too unimportant to press their territorial claims here. We have no mineral wealth—our tin mines are depleted and certainly no oil. We are not at any strategic crossroads of commercial traffic. We are at peace domestically. There are no real dissident parties who could have had political ambitions to drive them to assassination. You have seen Palingpon for yourself. There are no mobs raging in the streets today, no banners, no riots or bombings. No one has made a move to seize power.”

“Except you, perhaps,” Durell said gently.

Colonel Ko smiled. “No, no. I am quite content with what I am. The question then arises, sir, why was Premier Shang killed? And Donaldson? If Donaldson was the true target—I am sure the thought must have occurred to you —it would have to be terribly important to take Premier Shang with him. Then—why?”

“I don’t know yet," Durell said.

“Nothing suggests itself to you?”

“Oh, yes.”

“May I have your thoughts on the matter?”

“No,"

“You are a blunt man.”

“Perhaps it was simply a warm-up for the major leagues,” Durell said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“For bigger game in the future.”

"Ah."

The prison was located in a Portuguese fort to the north of the city, another martello tower of red brick, with mossy crenellated walls and empty gun embrasures now partially bricked up or guarded with iron bars. The colonials had made a mistake in building the fort here; the casualties from malaria must have been enormous among the unfortunate garrison. The atmosphere on this side of the river was miasmic. Mangrove swamps surrounded the place. The road to the old fort was barred and chained, with a sentry box and two armed soldiers on duty there. Colonel Ko was waved through without formalities. The road followed a causeway through the mangroves and the dark, gleaming waters of the flooded river banks. It was the only approach to the red brick structure. Two old six-pounder cannon had been left as ornaments to guard the high entrance gate. The cannon were rusted and useless, of course. A more modern lightly armored tank was far more in keeping, parked in the shade under a huge old banyan nee. Two more soldiers lolled here, smoking and watching a group of yellow-robed bald priests who clashed cymbals and banged drums and chanted incomprehensible prayers in the dust of the road outside the gate.

Colonel Ko got out of his Army jeep and the two soldiers came to attention, surreptitiously hiding their cigarettes. There were a few brief words while Ko gestured toward the Buddhist priests. He came back to the jeep looking angry.

“Protesters, Colonel?” Durell asked mildly.

“One of their brothers is a prisoner here.”

“May I ask on what charges?”

Colonel Ko said, “No, you may not ask, Mr. Durell.”

“I thought you said there was no political unrest in Palingpon.”

“It is of no importance. Come, please.”

Durell followed the small man around the ring of chanting Buddhists. The sound of their cymbals and drums drifted after them when they moved inside the prison.

The cell was cool and damp. The brick walls had been painted white, but most of the paint had peeled off, leaving scabrous blotches. The prisoner lay on a cot against the wall in a tar corner, where a shaft of sunlight came through the barred window and blinded the man’s eyes.

The prisoner had been washed and bathed and wore a white smock-like garment that reached down to his ankles. He looked sightless. His hair was a dark brown, straight and somewhat lanky, and the roots were still stained with black dye. His face was just a face, although battered and bruised. An ordinary face, hardly that of the ravening beasts who had scaled the Palace walls and tom Donaldson and the premier apart. There were other bruises and welts on the man’s body, as Durell could see when Colonel Ko went to him and stripped back the cotton smock, unbuttoned at the back, exposing the whole torso. The prisoner’s breathing was very light, very shallow. He did not turn his head when the guard admitted them. There was an oscilloscope hooked up to an electrocardiograph machine with wires attached to the man’s chest, wrists and ankles. The rise and fall of the electronic blip on the screen looked weak and erratic. An Indian doctor with a neat white turban and a starched white jacket rose from a stool in the corner. He had been reading a tattered copy of Playboy.

“Sir!” the doctor said, in a manner that reflected British military training.

“Any change in the patient?” Colonel Ko asked.

“He is very ill, sir.”

“Has he said anything yet?”

“Not a word, sir.”

“You have tried to get him to speak to you?”

“I have tried, sir. I do not believe he intends to talk.”

Colonel Ko said sharply, “He must be made to.”

“I am doing what I can, sir.”

Colonel Ko turned bleak black eyes toward Durell. “You do not seem surprised?”

“That the prisoner is a white man? No."

“We have to assume that all of them, all those who engaged in the attack on Premier Shang and your Mr. Donaldson, were white Europeans or Americans. We don’t know.”

The dapper colonel swung on his small booted feet back to the doctor. The cell stank of stale urine, antiseptic, the swamp outside. Ko said again, “A white man. With stained skin and dyed hair, in native costume, dressed like a Malay. What do you make of it, Mr. Durell?”

“I don’t know,” Durell said.

“Surely you must have a theory. What country would you say this man came from?"

“If he were black-haired and short, I would say he was from a Mediterranean race. But there are short, black-haired Scandinavians, too. His nose tells me nothing. I am not an anthropologist, Colonel Ko.”

“But your impression?”

"I'm not sure at all. He could be Greek, Italian, Czech, Norwegian.”

Colonel Ko said, “I wish we could induce him to speak.”

“Impossible,” said the doctor promptly.

Durell walked over to the cot and stared down at the prisoner. The man’s eyes did not blink, although the slant of sun that came through the barred window was directly in his eyes. Durell lifted the man’s upper lip and looked at the teeth. There were gold fillings, not steel caps, on those that had dental work. Not Russian, he supposed. The man looked to be about thirty. His build was athletic—solid biceps and strong pectorals, stocky legs, also well-muscled, a flat stomach that lifted and tell almost invisibly with his shallow breathing.

“Hello,” Durell said.

Nothing.

“Bonjour. Guten Abend. Buenas tardes.”

Nothing.

Even with such musculature, no one could have leaped up and scaled the twelve-foot wall and torn two living men apart with his bare hands.

The oscilloscope, which had been making small, irregular beeping sounds, was suddenly silent. The Indian doctor whirled around. Then the heartbeat was resumed. It seemed a bit weaker, however.

“What is the matter with him, Doctor?” Durell asked.

“Exhaustion.”

“Unusual?”

“Extraordinary. Total depletion of body vitality and functional resources. He has not urinated or defecated since he was brought here.”

“Ever seen anything like this before?”

“No, sir.”

“Never?”

“Perhaps once. A Palingponese fisherman whose boat capsized and threw him into the sea. He could not swim very well, but he stayed afloat tor forty-nine hours through sheer will power, fighting to stay up and keep the sharks away. He died shortly after he was rescued and brought ashore.”

“The prisoner reminds you of that?”

“Somewhat,” said the doctor.

“Have you taken blood samples? Looked for drugs? Amphetamine types?”

“We have done everything. The state laboratory is very efficient. Very good technicians there, sir. We thought the same thing. But we can find no traces of adrenalin-based excitatives, certainly no heroin or opium-derived substances.”

Colonel Ko said, “But he must be made to talk.”

The doctor merely shrugged his shoulders.

“Could he be hypnotized?” Durell asked. “Perhaps in a trance?”

“Farfetched, sir.”

“But not impossible?”

The Indian shrugged.

Durell said, “Do you think he can understand us?”

“I cannot tell,” said the doctor. “There has been no reaction to any stimulus.”

Durell looked down into the prisoner’s face again. The features were blank. The open eyes were blank. The irises of the eyes were very dark, the pupils dilated. He cocked the prisoner’s head to one side; there was no muscular resistance. Then he held the man’s face with his left hand under the jaw, wet the tip of his little finger, and lightly touched the cornea of the prisoner’s left eye, withdrew his finger, and came up with a tiny contact lens. The eye was now gray. At no time had there been the slightest reflex in the patient‘s face.

“Ah. Gray eyes.” Colonel Ko was pleased. “Very good, Mr. Durell.”

“It proves little,” Durell said. “He’s a member of a team of assassins, not merely Malays running amok. These were men from abroad, who sneaked into Palingpon with one object: the killing of Premier Shang or Hugh Donaldson, or both.”

The Indian doctor was listening with some interest.

Durell went on. “A gang that was either hypnotized in some way, given posthypnotic suggestions—it is well known that a man in a trance can have extraordinary physical powers—or perhaps drugged, given some stimulant—”

The doctor said, “There is no such stimulant known to the medical profession.”

Colonel Ko’s boots squeaked as he turned. “Not known to you, perhaps, Doctor.”

Durell bent over the prisoner again. He touched the man’s lower left bicep. “Doctor, come here, please. Is this a mosquito bite? An insect sting?”

There was a small red mark on the man’s pale washed skin. The white-jacketed doctor bent forward, holding his stethoscope in his pocket. “Very difficult to tell.”

“You can’t tell the difference between a hypodermic and an insect sting?”

“Sir, an insect’s sting is a hypodermic. Like a needle, precisely. This one is small. Very small. It is not possible to differentiate between them. It is also several days old, of course. You can see how this tiny puncture has already healed. There is no sign, however, that the sting was an irritant. You can see, on the skin around it, no sign that the prisoner scratched or rubbed at it.”

Durell looked down into the prisoner’s staring eyes.

“I’d like to have this man transferred to the state hospital for exhaustive tests, Colonel Ko.”

“Impossible.”

Durell raised his head. “Why?”

“He must be executed.”

“That’s foolish,” Durell said.

“It has been decided.”

“Who decided on killing him?”

“I did,” said Colonel Ko.

“When do you propose to do this?”

“In Palingpon, considering the internal security measures that must be taken since Premier Shang’s death, it must he demonstrated that justice will be swift and merciless. The prisoner will be executed directly we are finished here.”

“Even if he doesn’t talk?” Durell asked.

“He cannot talk,” said the doctor.

“He will not talk,” said Colonel Ko.

Durell looked into the prisoner’s face and eyes.

“All right,” he said. “Kill him.”

11

A HUGE old sapodilla tree, a heap of old lumber and scrap metal, and heavy, fleshy-leafed vines made the prison courtyard even gloomier than the interior. Durell followed the little procession out along a brick path to a stake thrust into a small mound in the center of the yard. Arched, barred windows surrounded them, and in most of the windows a face appeared, hands gripping the bars, watching. Colonel Ko’s boots were silent on the moss-grown bricks. There was not a breath of air within the courtyard. The stench of the swamp and the sewage floating in the Palingpon klongs attacked Durell’s nostrils. He tried to breath lightly. No one else in the procession seemed to notice.

The prisoner had to be supported by two armed soldiers of the firing squad. Everything about him sagged and flopped bonelessly. His head lolled on his shoulders. His arms dangled. His legs and feet dragged behind him. He had to be tied to the stake with secure lashings to keep him upright.

Colonel Ko said quietly, “You will not forget the—ah—subsidy?”

“No, I will not forget. Don’t worry about it, Colonel. I will keep my word. The funds will be replaced.”

“What do you suppose was the main objective of the attack on Donaldson’s plantation? The safe? Seventy thousand dollars is a lot of money. You can adjust your books so its replacement will be explained?”

“You worry too much, Colonel.”

Colonel Ko said, “And Donaldson’s daughter-the girl you placed in the Willem Van Huyden Hotel—”

“Your people are very good, Colonel.”

“She could tell you nothing?”

“Nothing.” Durell paused. “I would like her to have exit papers from Palingpon prepared immediately.”

“You will take her with you?”

“I just want her to be free to leave, that’s all.”

“Of course. In two weeks, when the money—”

“Tomorrow,” Durell said.

Colonel Ko thought about it, then nodded. He turned away as the sergeant of the firing squad came up and saluted. The soldiers were ordered into a ragged line in the shade of the sapodilla tree. The prisoner hung limply from the stake in the center of the courtyard, in a bright shaft of sunlight that pierced the leafy foliage above.

Nothing about the man indicated that he knew where he was or what was about to happen.

12

DURELL TOOK an Air India flight to Bombay, via Singapore, and found tickets for a westward Pan Am connection on to Rome. At the Palingpon Airport that morning, Maggie Donaldson joined him. Her long hair was still skinned back into its tight, schoolmarmish bun at the nape of her neck. He was again surprised at her height.

She squinted into the hot sun and did not smile.

“Hi,” she said.

“A coincidence?”

“No, I found out which plane you were taking.”

“You want to come with me part of the way?”

“All the way, Sam.”

“You should go home,” Durell said.

“I don’t have any home. Just an old aunt in New Haven. All I have is the money Daddy left me. I’m a rich young woman.” She spoke flatly as if it didn’t really mean anything to her. “I went to the bank today and they advanced me enough to keep me going until the lawyers clear everything up.”

Durell said, “What about the old aunt in Connecticut?”

“We’re not that close, Sam. My bad habits rather turned her off.” Then after a pause she added, “I really have no home, no friends. Except maybe you.”

“I’m going to Rome,” Durell said.

“Fine. Me, too.”

“I’ll be quite busy.”

“I’ll keep myself occupied visiting the ruins.”

“I don’t want you with me in Rome. You’d be safer back in New Haven demonstrating to your aunt how easy it is for a girl of strong character to kick the habit.”

“Nuts. I’m sticking with you.”

13

IT WAS raining in Rome.

Durell lay on the bed in the Hotel Vittoria and read a book in Mandarin Chinese he had picked up in a stall near the Piazza Navonna. It was a collection of poetry written by the sixteenth-century Shantung poet Tan Ch’ien. The poems were pretty little pieces dedicated to nature. He could say he read it to keep up his linguistic skills, but in fact he found solace reading Tan Ch’ien’s poems.

“Sam?”

It was warm in the room, and he and Maggie lay naked under the sheets in the comfortable bed. There were small ornamental balconies below each of the three tall windows, and through the curtains he could see the old Roman wall that marked the boundaries of the Borghese Gardens.

“Sam?”

“I’m reading.”

“Where did you learn to make love?”

“Everywhere.”

“Oh, wow.”

She was silent a moment.

“Sam?”

“Yes, Maggie.”

“Isn’t this nice?”

“Yes.”

“I mean the rain.”

“Yes, the rain is very nice.”

“And Rome.”

“Yes.”

“What’s so wonderful about that damn book, Sam?”

“It’s very difficult to read. Either there are mistakes in the calligraphy or the poet was bombed out of his skull. For instance, in this passage Tan Ch’ien says the violet willow tree was having intercourse with a yellow tiger.”

“Why don’t you put that book down and make love to me?”

“Again?”

Maggie unpinned her hair and it was gorgeous, falling in long rippling waves, as red as firelight seen through a darkling wood. She turned on her side and stared down at him, her eyes silvery in the rainy light.

Her strong hip made a beautiful line as she rolled down on top of him. “Put the book away.”

Her fingers traced the lines of his mouth. He felt the soft pressure of her breasts on his chest. She wriggled completely atop him. “What are you really worried about?”

“The telephone,” Durell said.

“Why?”

“It doesn’t ring.”

“Are you just waiting here in bed with me because you’re expecting a phone call?”

“Pm expecting a phone call,” Durell admitted. “It’s an hour late.”

“From who?”

“Whom,” he corrected her. “You studied at Yale?”

“From who?”

“Can’t tell you. It’s just overdue.”

“Screw it. No, not the phone. Me.”

Not long afterward, Maggie said, “When I was a kid—which wasn’t so long ago, I guess, although most fairy tales begin with ‘Long ago,’ or ‘Once upon a time,’ meaning the same thing. When I was a kid, I used to my myself to sleep and then I’d make myself have a pleasant lullaby dream, you know, I’d think about what I’d like to have happen to me. You notice, I was not aggressive, I didn’t dream of making things happen, I dreamed of things happening to me.” She sat up on the bed. The rain still fell on the streets of Rome outside. “No, I won’t tell you.”

“Why not?” Durell asked.

“You’ll think I’m stupid.”

“What was your lullaby dream?”

“What’s your real job?”

“I work for the government,” Durell said.

“Do you really mind my tagging along with you like this?”

“Not yet.”

“You’ll get tired of me because I’m so voluptuous.

I wish I were bony and willowy.”

“You’ll do.”

“Anyway, in this childhood dream of once-upon-a-time, I used to cry myself to sleep by inducing this dream about how I was in deep trouble, a lonely maiden in distress, and along came a tall handsome hero, maybe about your height, maybe with dark hair like you, very competent, very capable; and he’d take me to his place, see—it was raining, like today, but there was a big fireplace—and he’d straighten everything out for me. I was grateful. Boy, was I grateful. I became his slave, because I loved him and was so grateful. I adored him. And finally he came to love me.”

“And?”

“Then he got bored with me.”

Durell didn’t say anything.

Maggie rolled over with her back to him. Her voice was briefly muffled. “Stupid, huh? Stupid, pissy-eyed, maidenly dreams brainwashed by a male—chauvinist—pig world. Out of touch with where it’s really at.”

“It’s not women’s lib ” Durell said.

The rain came down.

The telephone did not ring.

“Sam, why did they kill my father?”

“I don’t know,” Durell said.

“Yes, you do. He was the pay-off man for one of your departments, wasn’t he? He was going to slip some good old Yankee dollars to Colonel Ko, back there in Palingpon, right?”

“That doesn’t concern you. Eat the pasta. It’s the best fettucini Alfredo you’ll find this side of Brooklyn.”

“It’s fattening,” she said. “Of course it concerns me. It was my father who was killed.”

“And Premier Shang,” Durell reminded her.

“They were after Daddy, though, weren’t they?”

“Maybe.”

“So. Why?”

“I told you, I don’t know yet."

“But you’re going to find out?”

“I’m trying to.”

“Stop looking at the telephone, Sam. How did those weirdos know Daddy had the money? And anyway, it wasn’t such a huge sum. Not really huge. Like, they could have busted a bank and hauled off a lot more, right?”

“I suppose so.”

“Like it was a deliberate slap in the face to you and your people in K Section, that’s what it was like. Like a special challenge, check?”

“Right.”

“Oh, boy. You admitted something. I’d like a drink. I’d like to digest what you just admitted.”

He slid out of bed and went to the small bar that the manager, who was a friend of Durell’s, had arranged in the room. He mixed negronis for them, using one part Campari, one part Stravei vermouth, and one part Beefeater’s gin. He poured them into big brandy shifters, added ice and a splash of soda, and handed one to Maggie.

She tasted. “Delicious.”

’ “Better than that damned needle?”

“I told you, I kicked it.”

“For real?”

“I’m clean.”

“I’m beginning to believe you,” Durell said. “But these negronis will bomb you out of your skull, Maggie.”

“Will it make me sexy again?”

“You’re sexy enough.”

“I mean, this afternoon.”

The telephone rang.

14

DURELL went to the telephone. He did not pick it up. After three rings, it was silent again. The room was quiet, Rain dripped softly from the copper-green gutters just above the windows. Several taxis argued with each other in an exchange of horns and dim shouts from the drivers in the street below. His watch read four o’clock in the afternoon. Durell’s tall, muscular frame looked loose and angular as he waited beside the telephone table. He was not conscious of his nudity. He had scars marking most of his darkly tanned body, among them a long one along his right ribs that went all the way around under his arm. The scar was not that old, hadn’t formed a hard white line yet. Maggie hadn’t asked about it. He kept his head slightly cocked to the left, his dark-blue eyes absent and distant.

The telephone rang again, and this time he picked it up precisely on the second ring.

“Amberjack?”

“They’re biting beautifully,” Durell said.

“This is Angler.”

“Hello, Mr. Meecham.”

“Are you tapped?”

“No."

“Sure?”

“I’m sure,” Durell said.

“But you’re not alone?”

“No. You’re late, Mr. Meecham.”

“Much too late. They surprised us. Bad news. Maybe you’d better meet us outside. Inside the gate, in the gardens."

Durell looked at the rain-dappled windows with distaste. He looked at Maggie, snug and warm and bountiful in the bed. She smiled at him. Her pale eyes looked silvery, reflecting the rain.

“Twenty minutes,” he said.

“Now.”

“Ten, then.”

“All right.”

Durell hung up.

15

HE HAD bought Italian boots, a raincoat, a Borsalino hat, a Santini sportcoat of nubby brown-gold material, and dark green slacks. He ignored the hat and did not bother with a necktie. Maggie asked if he would be gone long. He scarcely heard her, but shook his head negatively.

“Keep the door locked.”

“Sam?”

“It’s business,” he said.

He did not kiss her goodbye. It was as if he had suddenly opened a door and stepped into another place, another dimension, distant and separate from her. She felt a sudden fear for him. She watched soberly as he thrust his snub-barreled .38 into the elastic waistband of his slacks.

“Don’t leave the room,” he said.

“All right.”

“I mean it.”

“Yes, Sam.”

He went out, waited until he heard her bare feet pad to the door, listened to her throw the bolts and click the lock shut. Then he went down in the elevator, nodded from the small lobby floor into the bar where the bartender was mixing drinks for some September tourists, and stepped out into the rain. It was a short walk to the Via Veneto. The misty rain had hardened into a steady downpour. He turned right, threaded his way through the metal chairs and tables under a canopy that Stretched to the curb. In a few moments, striding beside the hissing, turbulent traffic, he went through the old Roman gate into the comparative serenity of the Borghese Gardens. The trees dripped, and there were puddles on the pedestrian walks. He turned right again, inside the thick walls, and saw John Meecham and two other men standing in the shelter of a small wooden summer house, like a tiny bandstand, amid a copse of towering beech trees. There were no other pedestrians. Lights began to twinkle here and there through the landscaped shrubbery. The flowers in their immaculate beds drooped and nodded their bright autumnal heads under the beating of the rain.

“Hello, Cajun,” Meecham said, as Durell mounted the wooden steps to meet them. “This is Wolfe. And Andrews.”

They shook hands. Durell kept his attention on Meecham. He said, “What did you mean, we‘re too late? How did they surprise us?”

“They took over at Da Vinci. The airport. Killed four people, including the pilot. Got the money. We thought they’d try en route from the airport, or at the Fremont House. Before we got it to the bank. But they took us at the airport instead. So we were too late.”

“Four people killed?” Durell repeated.

“Bystanders.”

“And they took the money?”

“Three hundred thousand.”

“How did they get into the case‘? The attaché case?” Durell sounded angry. “It was chained to the courier’s wrist.”

“They just cut off his hand. Zap. Took the case, the money, the chain, and poor George’s hand with them.”

The younger man Meecham had introduced as Andrews walked to the wooden rail at the edge of the shelter and began to vomit into the shrubbery below.

It was a question of who watched the watchmen.

Durell accepted John Meecham’s branch of K Section, the Internal Security Bureau, as a necessary evil, perhaps. But he did not like it, and rarely agreed to work with the shadowy men within ISB, regarding them as a form of Judases, pariahs, and snoops whose secretive surveillance of K Section’s own men was often dubious and always a prickly subject with General Dickinson McFee.

He supposed it was in proper conformation with the government’s basic system of checks and balances. The problem of who spied on the spies was a fact of life. Even the best of men were subject to human frailties and weaknesses. The work in Durell’s shadow world was subject to abnormal stresses and strains, loneliness, fatigue, constant terror.

Durell had rarely encountered Meecham's security teams, and while he felt he had nothing to fear for himself, he knew of abuses and personal vendettas reaching scandalous proportions, especially during the time when Enoch Wilderman, an old pro in the business, had run the ISB as a small bureaucratic empire unto itself. The ISB men knew they were outcasts from the small, tightly knit groups of men dedicated to the defensive work of K Section’s troubleshooting teams.

John Meecham had cleaned house somewhat when he had been appointed to head the ISB some time ago. But Wilderman remained as second in command, too powerfully entrenched in the private bureaucracy he had

built to be totally dismissed. No one knew who the strings of men he ran might be, or what they were doing. Their funding was separate from K Section’s, which gave ISB an independence of command and activity.

Durell never knew the exact parameters under which the Internal Security Bureau functioned. John Meecham was an extraordinary man, a walking encyclopedia of data which often seemed pointless and random, but which always correlated in the end toward problem solutions. He was perhaps the ugliest man Durell had ever known. Short and squat, he was built like a beer keg, and every inch of him was spring steel. His general appearance was toadlike; he had bulging, pale-green eyes, a fiat brow, a lumpy jaw, straight small teeth usually clamped around an unlit cigar. His thick black hair grew low on his brow. His ears were too big. His shoulders were out of proportion, like a wrestler’s. Ugly. But the green eyes were brilliant, and his proficiency and encyclopedic mind could not be denied.

The rain drummed steadily on the roof of the pergola. The man named Andrews stopped vomiting up over the rail. The man named Wolfe just kept watching Durell with a steady, dark stare.

Andrews was a Foreign Service man attached to the American Embassy, and Durell did not pay much attention to him. Wolfe was another matter, with his steady, unwinking stare. He was a big man, burly in the shoulders, and under his salt-and-pepper suit, Durell suspected solid muscles and any amount of weaponry. Wolfe was Meecham’s man. His pale-gray eyes seemed to be taking Durell apart piece by piece, with unwarranted hostility, and Durell finally said, “What’s the matter with him John?”

Meecham said, “Wolfe is taking Charley Lee’s place. Why did you do that to Lee, Sam?”

“He was your man, wasn’t he?”

“You must have known that.”

“Well, I didn’t want him around anymore.”

“You didn’t have to batter him that way,” Meecham grunted. “He won’t be useful for two more weeks.”

Wolfe said, “Don’t try that on me, Durell.”

“I don‘t want you around, either,” Durell said.

Meecham said, “It’s something we can‘t do anything about, Cajun. You have to take him.”

“Only if he stays out of my sight,” Durell said.

Wolfe said, “I won’t get in your way, but I’ll be  around when you need me. Because you’re going to need me. You can count on it.” He had a deep gravelly voice and his nose had been broken more than once. So someone had put a fist to him at least one time. He went on flatly, “It’s not the job I asked for, but I’ve got my orders from Mr. Meecham, no matter what you say, and I’m not responsible to you and I don’t take any shit from you, either. You’re going to stay alive, as long as you’re in this for the General, and I’m going to see to it that you do.”

Durell said, “Your concern is not very touching.”

“Fuck you.”

Durell turned to Meecham. “Can we talk somewhere? Alone?”

Meecham looked at his cigar. “We’ll go to Parigi’s trattoria. All right? Let’s get out of this rain. Mr. Andrews? Abner? Can you make it back to the Embassy okay?”

“Yes,” Andrews said.

“Wolfe?”

The big man stared at Durell. “I’ll be out of sight.

But not far away, sir.”

Meecham transferred his cigar to his left hand and dug into his raincoat pocket. “This is for you, Cajun. One of the assassins at the airport lost it.”

Meecham handed Durell a rather large gold coin, with a small hole drilled close to the outer rim, as if for a chain. The coin was very old and worn. Durell looked at it closely. It was an old Scottish gold piece, and he would have placed its date, although it had no date on it, at about the sixteenth century. It carried the Scottish coat of arms on one face.

A unicorn.

16

WOLFE sat near the door of the trattoria, his heavy frame slumped, only his eyes alert on the street outside, with its sheets of sullen rain spattering on the blackened cobblestones. Then his glance swung to survey the few other patrons and the back door to the kitchen.

Meecham and Durell sat at a corner table, their backs to the ocherous-yellow wall, where ancient posters pasted to the plaster were peeling back and down. The Frascati wine was untouched on the table between them.

“Sir, may I ask a question?” Durell said.

“All you like, Sam.”

Durell said, “All right, then. What are you doing in Rome in the first place? You didn’t fly in on the TWA plane, did you?”

“No. Wolfe and I were on the observation deck watching the plane’s arrival. We saw it all. From a distance, of course. Nothing we could do about it.”

“You flew in earlier, then?”

“The previous scheduled flight.” Meecham’s wide mouth twitched; it might have been a smile. “I know what you’re getting at. In your report from Singapore on Hugh Donaldson’s murder—for General McFee’s eyes only, but I got a copy—when you left Palingpon, you implied a theory that these attacks were basically aimed at K Section money transfers, They’re all arranged, by the way, through Joshua Strawbridge, our Finance officer. As you undoubtedly know. I have no doubt in my mind now that the men involved in these affairs are under some extraordinary influence, as you suggested, either hypnotized or drugged. And no doubt that it’s a vendetta against K Section. Aimed at disrupting our financial affairs, so to speak. As head of Internal Security, it comes under my province, Sam. There were two previous episodes you don’t know about. They were  minor and did not involve any killings. One was in Santiago. The other was in Helsinki. In both cases, extraordinary acrobatics took place. In Chile, they came in from the roof, atop a new skyscraper, and it required a high-wire act from the adjacent building. In Finland, they swam through near-freezing water to reach a villa where your K Section people had some money for transfer into the Soviet Union. In both cases, they took sizable sums of money.”

“Nothing else?” Durell asked.

“Nothing else.” Meecham shrugged his thick shoulders. “It’s a worldwide thing, it seems. But then, the world is a small place these days.”

“But you knew that George Donatti was being flown in here to Rome with a bundle of laundered cash, right? And you came on ahead to greet him and make sure that nothing happened this time?”

“Yes, Sam. But Security hasn’t done much good, it seems.”

“But you know about these transfers in advance, don’t you?” Durell insisted.

“Naturally.”

“And you’ve traced for a leak somewhere?”

“We’re looking,” Meecham agreed. He eyed Durell curiously. “No luck, so far.”

“And where is the next transfer of funds to take place?”

“That’s not for you to know.”

“I’ve been told to check out Hugh Donaldson’s murder,” Durell persisted. “If it’s tied to these events—and you know it is—I ought to be informed.”

“I may have to take you off this thing.”

Durell leaned forward over the round metal table.

“Why is that?”

Meecham looked at Wolfe, seated across the small trattoria from them, detached and remote and somehow sullen, yet intimately aware of them and everything around them.

Meecham said, “This thing is about to break into the news media like shit hitting the fan. You work in a different field, Cajun. This is an internal problem. It’s a job for Internal Security. Your attitude toward us is only too well known. I can understand it, but it’s not helpful to us. Witness what you did to Charley Lee in Palingpon. If it breaks in the press, and you’re in it, your usefulness in your branch as field agent comes to an end. General Dickinson McFee suggested the risk isn‘t worth it.”

“I’m just getting my teeth into this thing,” Durell protested. He was angry now. “Hugh Donaldson was an old friend.”

“I’m sorry.” Meecham’s gravelly voice was sincere.

“You’re going home.”

“No, sir.”

“What is it? Is it that girl, Maggie Donaldson, you’ve got up in your room?”

“She’s part of it,” Durell said.

Meecham was silent. His thick dark hair, salted with gray, gleamed with droplets of the rain they had walked through. His wide mouth opened and closed twice before he finally replied. “I’ll tell you what. Go see Wilderman.”

“That son of a bitch,” Durell said.

“Speak politely about my Assistant Director. He’s my right-hand man.”

“He’s a potbellied old tomcat,“ Durell said.

“If you want to stay on the job, see Enoch. He‘s at Station Four. You know it?”

Durell nodded reluctantly. “Yes. Over at Ostia.”

“Staying with his third wife for a few days. They have an arrangement, you know, even if they’re divorced. What are you going to do about the girl?”

“Maggie? She’s no problem,” Durell said.

“See that she stays that way," Meecham said.

When Durell got up to go, Wolfe quietly followed him.

17

DURELL paused at the hotel desk to order the delivery of a rental car, and then went up to the room, knocked on the door, knocked again, spoke his name. Maggie opened the door. She had dressed during his absence and skinned back her long hair again, pinning it into the bun at the nape of her neck. It made her face look rounder and more severe, and there were little shadows of strain under her eyes. It had stopped raining, but evening had come, and the windows were dark now except for the glow of street lights from below. The hotel was quiet. Maggie had the radio going and he recognized Tchaikovsky’s String Serenade in C major, the familiar moderato waltz in the second movement. He was surprised she wasn’t listening to Roman rock. She wore a skirt in plain brown wool and a pinkish blouse that didn’t quite go with the skirt, and alligator pumps. The raincoat lay across the foot of the rumpled bed. She said, “Hi,” and turned her back to him and walked to the window. Durell noticed a fresh tray of food on the table beside the door, the plate holding the remnants of fettucini, and another glass of negroni. He looked at her straight back, narrow waist, and flaring hips, and clucked his tongue.

“All right, so I was hungry,” she said.

“No harm.”

“Of course there’s harm. It’s fattening. I shouldn’t eat all that pasta. But I was nervous, wondering what was happening to you.” She flipped a vague hand. “I heard the news reports on the radio.”

“I didn’t know you understood Italian.”

“Well, I do.”

“What did they say?”

“It was all about that airport thing, the courier who had his hand chopped off. They found his hand, by the way, on the runway near the fence. The unicorns climbed a fence they said nobody could climb, and got away in cars that were waiting for them. They rushed the courier’s hand to the hospital with the poor fellow and sewed it back on. I didn’t know they could do that sort of thing.”

“It works, sometimes, with a good surgeon,” Durell said. “I’m glad of that. Donatti is a good man. We’ll give him the best of care. Turn around, Maggie.”

“Why?”

“I want to look at you.”

“I’m all strung out. I need a stick. Anything. Can you get me a stick, Sam? I really need something.”

“No,” he said. “You told me you were clean.”

“I am. I really am. It’s just that I’m—well, nervous.” She turned suddenly and he could see the lines of tension around her soft, full mouth. “I’m sorry I ate that goddam pasta. It’s really fattening. You’re mad at me now, aren’t you? I’m too tall for you, too big to please you.”

“No, that’s not true," Durell said gently. He took her hands in his. Her palms were cold and damp. “Has this been happening to you often, Maggie?”

“Not lately. Not so much. It’s just that when I heard that radio story about what happened at the airport, I knew right away it was more of the same thing that happened in Palingpon, when Daddy was killed, and you’re involved in it, and all, and I wanted—I wanted something."

“No more of that,” he insisted.

“I know."

“Never any more,” he said.

“Yes, Sam.”

“Put on your coat. We’re going to Ostia.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Coney Island. Why are we going there?”

“I think I’ve been fired,” Durell said. “I’d like to find out why. And get authority to go on with this.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t. Why should they fire you?”

“I’d like the answer to that one, too.”

“You want to take me with you just to make sure I don’t crack up and do something bad, Sam?”

“No,” he said. He eased it with a smile. “I just think you might be useful.”

“Go to hell,” she said. But she reached for her raincoat.

18

WILDERMAN was a slob.

His full name was Enoch Marshall Wilderman, and he used it in its entirety whenever he had to write his official signature on governmental ISB documents. He was tall, well over six feet, like Durell, but narrow in the shoulders, fiat-chested, with a prominent, protuberant belly, over which his loose, old-fashioned pleated slacks sagged from a narrow black belt. He wore steel-rimmed Franklin glasses and generally peered through them with his head thrown back, his lanky gray hair in disarray, tossed helter-skelter. He smoked a stubby pipe, perhaps because he thought it fitted his image as Assistant Director of ISB, and he had been with Internal Security from the very first day the special bureau was established by the former Secretary of State, over General McFee’s objections. In fact, Wilderman had been replaced only two years ago by John Meecham. Within the ranks of field agents for K Section there had been some speculation about the reshuffling, but mostly it was ascribed to politics. The House and Senate committees appointed to supervise K Section had never been much impressed by Enoch Wilderman’s autocratic and slovenly manner. Meecham, whose solid ugliness inspired more confidence, had been recommended by General McFee.

Durell pulled up outside the villa, on a side road within view of the Mediterranean, about two hours later. The heavy overcast that had drenched Rome with rain was breaking up. A wind came from the west, over the sea, and the clouds were shredding, broomed away from the mainland. Now and then a glimmer of moonlight oozed through the night clouds.

Maggie had been silent on the drive down the autostrada from Rome. Durell had not pressed her to talk.

The moment they were admitted to the villa—Enoch Wilderman always had half a dozen security men around him—Durell spotted the birds.

Durell did not dislike birds, not even the huge, mangy-looking macaw that strutted in slow motion across the marble tiles of the foyer floor, but Wilderman’s peculiar passion for birds disgusted him. Durell was willing to bet that Wilderman had not occupied the villa for more than twenty-four hours before the house was stained by droppings. And Wilderman always abandoned his feathered friends when he moved on elsewhere. They were left for someone else to clean up.

The villa had once been quite pretentious, but it now smelled of decay, a scent of mildew compounded with dust, sand, and fungus that flourished in the damp sea air. The house stood on a low rise beyond the main amusement-park area of Ostia, on a small coastal road overlooking the sea. There was a garden abandoned to the weeds, a four-car garage. A series of balconies protruded from the upper floor.

Wilderman was waiting for them in a back room once designed as a solarium. It had a domed glass roof. Heavy blackout shades had been installed and pulled over all the glass. Wilderman did not like to be watched, especially from outside at night.

“Ah. Mr. Samuel Durell. The Cajun,” he said.

Enoch Wilderman had a surprisingly deep, impressive baritone. He sat wearing an old gray-flannel robe and old-fashioned carpet slippers half off his long, bony feet, and he tilted his head back in his characteristic gesture so that light splintered from his steel-rimmed Franklins. His smile was thin and small.

“And the young lady,” Wilderman added. His thin shoulders hunched as if in apprehension. “Miss Margaret Donaldson, I believe. Take a seat anywhere. Anywhere.” His rich mellifluous voice drowned them in sweet oil. He cocked his head, much like a ragged old bird himself, and listened to a sudden burst of squawking from another room in the villa, and then the macaw strutted in, each leg moving as if in slow motion, leaving a few rather large pellets behind it. “Ah, Deborah. Behave yourself now. Sit down, Miss Donaldson. Please do. Some tea, perhaps?”

Maggie looked at Durell’s tall figure. “No, thank you, sir.”

“You have my sympathies for the terrible tragedy that overtook your father.”

Two parakeets flew into the room with their peculiarly labored form of flight, as it their strength were about to give out. One of them, yellow with blue wings, landed on top of Wilderman’s thatch of gray hair. On anyone else, Durell thought, it would look ridiculous. But Wilderman paid no attention to it. The second parakeet landed exhausted on the floor and rested, huffing and putting, its little breast like a tiny bellows.

“You are not afraid of birds, I trust, young lady,” Wilderman said, and it was plain that he didn’t give a damn whether she was or not. “Some people have a phobic dislike of the dear creatures, much as women are generally terrified of mice. No need to fear them, dear Miss Donaldson.”

“I don't,” Maggie said.

Wilderman swung to Durell and said abruptly, “You should not have brought her here to this place.”

“Her father was assassinated.”

"Granted. And you were Hugh’s friend. Hugh was not a paragon of virtue, you know, according to our rules and regulations. You could be considered suspect, too. But the girl does not belong here, much less within sight of me.” Wilderman preferred his anonymity these days. However, since she is with you, Durell, she might as well stay. As you say, she may be considered to have a vested personal and emotional interest in the matter. But you know as well as I how debilitating such emotions can be. You have met with our esteemed ISB Director, John Meecham, of course, in Rome. I understand you object to our man Wolfe, much as you objected to poor Charley Lee. Regrettable. Impulsive. Not conducive to operational efficiency. Wolfe is outside on a Lambretta. He may suffer his death of cold in this sea wind. Would you prefer that he be brought in?”

“No,” Durell said. “He can stay out there. I wanted to talk to you, sir!”

“I know all about it. You have postulated some rather thought-provoking and intriguing theories about the series of misfortunes that have lately befallen K Section. You’ve stepped into my bailiwick, Mr. Durell, and I may or may not happen to agree with your ideas, but I tend to side with Meecham about sending you back to your regular field assignments.” Wilderman leaned forward slightly, hunching his shoulders until they stood up bonily, like a vulture’s. “I know that you and most other field agents in K Section resent me and my work. Perhaps you consider it a scavenging operation. Perhaps it is. But scavengers are necessary to keep matters sanitized. You and the other field men are often under great pressure

and stress, and sometimes temptation. A man is only human, after all. No amount of indoctrination at K Section’s Farm can knock out a man’s ordinary drives and motivations completely.”

“You sound afraid of us.”

“I am,” Wilderman said. “I sometimes liken myself to being in a cage full of tigers. If you consider that a compliment, accept it as such. I know you, Durell. You can kill. You can handle grenades, thermite bombs, and for all I know, dismantle tactical nuclear weapons. You can kill with a knife, a rolled newspaper, your thumbs, a hatpin. Poisons are not alien to you. And you resent surveillance behind your back. Well, my work may not be pleasant, but it is necessary. For example, you claim friendship with Hugh Donaldson, do you not?”

Durell’s blue eyes looked black. “Yes.”

“And you are screwing this young woman here, his daughter, a drug addict, to a fare-thee-well. You have already been advised that Donaldson’s accumulated fortune is a subject of suspicion. Ergo, you could fall under the same shadow.”

“To hell with you,” Durell said.

“One moment. Another example. Your dossier shows certain activities in the past, for instance, in cooperation with a certain Colonel Cesar Skoll, of Moscow’s KGB. You have been cited several times as stating that Skoll is your friend.”

“Not a friend. An ally of expedience.”

“How do we know there is nothing more‘? How do we know you are not paving a safe haven for yourself if you ever decide to go over the wire? Can you be trusted? Should you not be observed, watched, considered with a certain suspicion?”

“You sound like the Gestapo.”

“Not at all. A check and counter-check. You are intruding in a field of security that does not concern you."

Durell drew a deep breath. “No, sir, what I want from you is to make certain arrangements in regard to the next transfer of K Section funds.” He had let Wilderman anger him, and he regretted it. He watched the green, yellow and red macaw carefully drop a pellet on Wilderman’s left slipper as the bird stepped over the man’s skinny, outstretched legs. Wilderman’s posture, slumped again in the chair, made his belly protrude even more than usual. Durell said, “Sir, We’ve come to know something about these people, whoever they are. Call them the unicorns, for convenience. We know that they are informed about our cash transfers and subsidies to various political figures, such as Colonel Ko in Palingpon, and to the GGI here in Italy, whom we’ve infiltrated with some good people. The money will have to be replaced, of course. But most important, the unicorns seem to know of our cash transfers ahead of time. And they are ready and waiting for us. Hypnotized or bombed out of their skulls, they’re ready. So we can assume there is a serious leak somewhere.”

Wilderman’s gray eyebrows lifted. His baritone voice was mild. “A leak, Durell?”

“Somewhere. They’re being tipped off. Or have access to information about K Section’s operations. Which may mean that even the Internal Security Bureau has been infiltrated. Or perhaps it’s in Josh Strawbridge’s Finance Section. I don’t know yet.” Durell paused and looked at Maggie, who in turn was watching the yellow and blue parakeet pick at strands of Wilderman’s thick gray hair. He said, “I don’t want to be handled with kid gloves, or shoved off into another assignment, just when things may break for us. I don’t think General Dickinson McFee would want that, either. He assigned me as investigating officer to check into what happened in Palingpon, and it’s tied in with what happened here in Rome, and what will surely happen again elsewhere, until it’s stopped.”

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.

“Coincidence,” Rasmussen said.

He sat on the front bench seat with Durell, his big body twisted so he could look backward at Maggie, huddled beside Wolfe behind them. He had tried to keep up a running chatter of flip conversation with her, but Maggie was sunk in a peculiar sullen silence as Durell drove the Mercedes as fast as he dared. After a time Rasmussen sighed and turned his handsome profile to watch the road ahead.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” Durell said.

“Wolfe?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you make them out?”

“No. Too much glare from their high beams. You want to stop and take them?” the big man grumbled.

“Not yet.”

“Rasmussen?”

“I’m listening.”

“Was a tail car arranged when you left Zurich?”

“No.”

“Wilderman didn’t mention it to you, you’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Just how sick was LeChaux?”

Rasmussen laughed with the contempt of the perpetually healthy for any illness. “His guts were practically hanging out, old buddy. It was legitimate.”

“Could his food have been doctored?”

“We ate breakfast together. He just got the wrong plate, maybe.”

Durell was not satisfied. He would have continued his probing, but they had started the climb up the curving, winding road through the Diablerets at the Col du Pillon. There was no opposing traffic now. The hour was getting late, close to ten. He turned the wheel for a hairpin curve to the right and the Mercedes, hugging the snow-covered road, responded handily. That was when he saw the traffic barrier ahead and the waving flashlights.

There was a steep precipice slanting high into the dark sky to the left and guard rails to the right edging the road, where a long cliff dropped into the valley. There was no place to go. Behind them, the car that had trailed them began to speed up and came along fast at their rear.

“Hang on,” Durell said quietly.

Rasmussen said, “It might be legitimate. They’re in uniform. I see snow past the barrier. Maybe it’s an avalanche—”

“Shut up,” Durell said.

He tramped on the gas and the Mercedes shot ahead, the engine thrumming powerfully. Ahead of them, the uniformed figures began to wave their arms frantically. He could not judge how many there were. Wolfe ordered Maggie down on the floorboards of the back seat and twisted about, his rifle in his hand, watching the rear. The second car turned the bend in the road and headlights flared against the bare rock cliff, then focused on the Mercedes. Rasmussen had a handgun out and braced his legs against the dashboard. Durell floored the gas pedal.

Too late, he saw that Rasmussen had been right. There was a wall of white snow just beyond the barriers where rocks and ice had tumbled down from somewhere high above on the mountainside and blocked the road. Even then, Durell did not think it was either accident or coincidence.

They hit the barrier with a crash. Boards and pipe stands flew through the air. Something hit the windshield and starred the glass and spread in a quick crackle of small opaque breaks that looked as if the glass had suddenly become wet. The Mercedes jolted, skidded to the right, fishtailed. Durell fought the wheel, went into a long slide sidewise, and the car bounced off the guardrail, slewed toward the rock wall, and slammed forward at the vast tongue of snow and boulders that blocked their way. There was no way to check the car’s forward momentum. Behind them, he thought he heard the crack of a gun and saw the pursuing car’s headlights flare in the rear-vision mirror, bathing the Mercedes’ interior in a sweep of brilliance. The wheel jerked and jumped out of his hands. The slope of loose snow over the road loomed up ahead, and then they plowed into it with a heavy, solid thud.

The engine died. Durell cut the ignition switch. There were thuds and clunks and rapping noises as small stones and clods of snow fell on the half-buried car. Durell tried to force his door open. It would not budge. Rasmussen grunted and pushed the door outward on his side, far enough to squeeze his bulk through. He vanished, floundering in snow that hissed and flowed down over him. Durell shoved desperately at his door again, gained a few inches, pushed once more, and squeezed out.

“Maggie? Maggie, are you all right?”

“Y-yes. I think so. Sam—”

“Wolfe?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Banged my noggin.”

“Bring your gun,” Durell said.

It was neatly arranged, Durell thought. The Mercedes could be pushed over the edge of the road, after the cash was removed, and it would go over the precipice and down a thousand feet to bury itself in the tongue of the avalanche below, not to be found until spring came once again to Les Diablerets. He felt a sudden rage and took out his handgun. The air was bitterly cold. The icy wind that blew down from the top of the pass made it worse. The stars were as hard as diamonds. The moon was behind the looming peaks of the Diablerets.

“Rasmussen?” Durell called.

There was no answer.

20

RASMUSSEN felt good. It was coming through to him now, rippling along his back, spreading outward to his arms and shoulders and legs, surges of power that brought a sense of delight to his purely physical being. He did not feel the cold. After sliding ten feet down through the snow on the slope, away from the Mercedes, his booted feet hit rock and he checked himself. Snow continued to hiss and flow around him, piling up around his shoulders, pushing him downward toward the edge of the precipice. He felt no fear. Exultation leaped in his chest and he drew in deep breaths of the thinly oxygenated air. When he looked back at the car that had been following them—a gray Rolls—and the guards at the smashed barrier, he felt an excitation beyond control. He didn’t need them, really. He could do it all alone. Nothing was impossible.

The girl, he thought.

The girl first. Then the money.

The girl had intrigued him from the moment he had first clapped eyes on her. A shock of surprise, of course. The same old Maggie. A tall woman, a man’s woman. Just what he had been hoping for. Nothing at all like the skinny pig he had been shacked up with in Czecho, while working Faraday’s string in Prague. He couldn’t even remember that one’s name now. Later there had been Corinne, in Paris, who had worked out of Joshua Strawbridge’s Finance Section for K Section. She had talked a lot and had been useful, and because of her he had been moved up and finally made it to this job. He was going to enjoy this. They were all stupid. It was funny how stupid they all were. How slowly they moved, how carelessly, with poor reflexes and puny reaction time and flabby bodies. He was proud of his own physique, of the swelling, powerful biceps, the long pistonlike legs that could run endlessly at top speed, of the power in his big hands. His hands were like hatchets or talons, whichever way he chose to use them.

Yes, he felt good. There would be no problems. Afterward, he would enjoy getting to know Maggie all over again. LeChaux’s wife had been a hot enough number, well versed in the arts and tricks of love. Lily had been eager, even rapacious, in her perversions. He had enjoyed special twists of pleasure in turning tricks with her in LeChaux’s own bed. Poor LeChaux. A comic. A stumblebum from the bayous. The cuckold. Lily had given him the key to LeChaux’s apartment, of course. It was easy enough to wait for LeChaux there, to wait in the predawn dark, with Lily sleeping restlessly, never sated, claiming to be not quite satisfied, always moaning for more, more and more. LeChaux came in innocently enough. He had headed straight for the bathroom. LeChaux’s kidneys were giving him trouble, and he had kept that from K Section’s medical officer at Zurich Central; but Lily had mentioned it, the frequency and burning LeChaux complained of so often, so Rasmussen had given him the case of “ptomaine” right there in the bathroom. The knife had gone into LeChaux’s gut like cheese. Then he had ripped it sideways and upward. The stink was quite impressive. LeChaux had folded over the toilet with a single low moan of surprise, of denial that this was his own blood and guts and crap spilling into the toilet bowl.

All this went through Rasmussen’s mind with the speed of electronic computer relays.

Maggie, he thought again.

With Maggie Donaldson it would be different.

Strength flowed down his back, his belly, into his groin. His booted feet gripped the snowbank, drove him upward toward the half-buried car. The tail car had stopped at the barricades, headlights flaring. The others were spilling out of it and running forward with the peculiar speed and drive that Rasmussen knew well. He felt wonderful. Durell was on the other side of the Mercedes, struggling for secure footing in the avalanche snow. Wolfe had gotten out of the back and was helping the girl. They were on this side of the car. Wolfe turned and looked at him as he came back up the snowy edge of the road; the man’s head seemed to sink into his shoulders, swinging from side to side slightly like a cornered bear seeking his enemies. Rasmussen swiped him with his arm and drove Wolfe aside like a straw man. Wolfe grunted and went down, his face bleeding. The blood looked black in the headlight glare of the car behind them. The girl was just getting out of the back of the Mercedes, her long right leg extended from the doorway. Rasmussen’s lips skinned back against his teeth. The cold air was like tonic to his lungs. He saw the girl’s face change when she looked at him, and at the last moment she gave a short cry and tried to draw back into the car. He caught her gloved hand and pulled hard. He used too much strength. The girl screamed in pain.

“Maggie, come on,” he said.

“Get away from me!"

"Maggie—"

She was too big a girl to be handled easily. But Rasmussen felt he could do anything. He pulled her out of the car with a single yank and she stumbled past him to fall into the snowbank. He heard the other men shouting, but paid no attention to them. Durell was coming around the back of the wrecked Mercedes; he seemed to be moving as if under water, in slow motion. Durell shouted something, calling to him to let the girl go. He saw the .38 in Durell’s hand, coming up. Plenty of time. Nothing could hurt him. Maggie floundered, trying to get to her feet. He still kept his grip on her. He swung her up lightly, without feeling the effort that cracked the muscles of his shoulders and back. Her fists were feathers on his chest. He grinned at her. They were all so slow, so slow.

“Don’t worry, Maggie. It’s for your own good, baby. Your own good.”

He had to turn away from her then because Durell had finally come around the back of the car and was within reach. Rasmussen dumped the girl, laughed, and grabbed for him. But Durell’s gun was up now, and Rasmussen saw the spurt of flame from the muzzle, felt the shock as the bullet tore into his arm. He felt no pain. He knew now, however, that he had waited too long. The bullet smashed bone and muscle and tore away half his shoulder, but he did not feel it. He reached again for Durell, caught his free hand, pulled savagely. Durell went spinning off to his right, into the thick fluffy snow. At the same time, in slow motion, Rasmussen felt himself turning, knew it was the impact of the bullet he had taken. His feet went out from under him. Durell fired again. This time the .38 S&W was pointed directly at Rasmussen’s heart. Rasmussen’s chest blew apart from the heavy bullet, he heard a faraway roaring in his ears, saw his chest cavity open, and went down, denying the fact, denying everything in a tidal wave of blood and surprise, and floated away somewhere, watching the stars go out one by one.

He felt betrayed.

21

"MAGGIE?”

“Y-yes.”

“Help Wolfe.”

“Was he—was Rasmussen one of them?”

“Yes. Hurry, please.”

Durell helped the girl as Wolfe climbed to his feet. Everything had happened fast; the others at the barricade and the men from the pursuing car were still some fifty yards away. There were at least half a dozen of them. They were coming on fast, running along the hard-packed snow on the road that remained between the broken barriers and the avalanche snow. Wolfe’s eyes under his beetling brows were dazed. Durell caught the girl’s hand, pulling her toward the edge of the road. In the starlight and the white reflection of the other car’s head beams, he saw the sharp, precipitous drop, the tumbled jumble of the snowfall going down the incline into the valley. A dark mass of conifers had broken the avalanche’s slide, about two hundred feet down. There was no other place to go.

“Come on.”

Wolfe’s heavy Magnum hammered as the big man squeezed off two shots at the oncoming men. One of them went down and stayed down. Another spun about, fell, called something, got up and came running forward again, on a leg that was surely broken. Durell jumped off the side of the road into the snow, holding Maggie’s hand. They both landed deeply, with a thudding impact, and then slid downward, on and on, in a swift, thundering rush of snow that carried them with it. Wolfe followed. Durell heard their pursuers shouting to one another. The sound was drowned out by the rumbling thunder of their slide. The mass of dark trees below came rushing upward with terrifying speed. Durell kept his grip on the gun with one hand, on Maggie with the other. The trees rushed toward them. There were broken limbs mixed with the snow now, branches and trunks that had been snapped off with the first impact of the avalanche. Something hit Durell in the chest, knocked the breath out of him; he lost his grip on Maggie, lost his sense of orientation as the wave of snow he rode downward turned him over. He could not tell up from down. Everything went dark. He knew he was still falling with the snow, and felt a jolting pain in his shoulder as he struck a tree, felt another one across his left thigh. The rumbling, hissing roar of the snowfall began to ease. Durell struggled and thrashed about. He still could see nothing. Finally he felt himself come to a halt with his back against a tree, his legs upward in the air. He fought his way erect, flailing his arms. Snow was in his mouth, his nose, his eyes. He dashed it away. He could still see nothing. He struggled some more, feeling one leg pinioned under a heavy, wet weight. At last there was a glimmer of light. Stars. He opened his mouth to shout.

“Maggie?”

Her voice sounded stifled. “Here.”

“Wolfe?”

No answer.

He saw lights high above. Flashlights, the beams of the car that had followed them from Gstaad. Dark figures moved around the Mercedes, tearing it apart, ripping out the back seat. He heard shots. He saw one figure clearly, peering down from the edge of the slope, looking for them.

Maggie came crawling toward him over the snow.

In the starlight, she looked as if she were crying.

“Sam? Sam?”

“I’m all right. I think.”

“I’m going to be sick,” she whimpered.

“Do you good. But don’t make too much noise.”

The cold Alpine wind soughed through the evergreens above them. The snow had carried them almost through the little wood. Moonlight touched the other side of the valley. He saw a few lights, the crawling beams of a car.

“Come along,” he said.

“Where is Wolfe?”

“Come on.”

But something loomed up suddenly among the trees, staggering, floundering about in the hip-deep snow. Wolfe’s bearlike figure was unmistakable. He held his head in both hands and wobbled about as if blind. Maggie got up and thrashed toward him. Durell kept watching the men high up on the lip of the road. They had gotten the back seat out of the Mercedes and removed the steel case with the money in it. Maybe it would satisfy them. He hoped so. Maybe they thought he and Maggie and Wolfe were dead down here. There were still one or two of them peering down from the edge of the road. He shivered suddenly, thinking of Rasmussen’s incredible strength, the man’s single-minded purpose and drive. He had felt fear then, of a sort that was unreasoning and almost beyond control. It was as if he had brushed against something beyond the norm, almost supernatural, reducing him to a kind of helpless being, incapable of coping with abnormal forces bent on his destruction.

Wolfe and Maggie staggered back through the snow under the trees.

“Are you all right?” Durell asked.

“No thanks to you, you son of a bitch,” Wolfe growled. One side of his face was abraded and bloody. “What do we do now?”

“We wait,” Durell said,

“We’ll freeze to death standing here.”

“Better that than being torn apart,” Durell said.

Wolfe looked thoughtful. “Yeah, there’s that. Can we slip down through these trees and get to that road over there?”

“The moonlight will show us up.” Durell looked down over the snowy expanse of the mountain slope below. “We’ll have to wait until they’re gone.”

“They’re taking the money,” Wolfe objected.

“Let them have it.”

Wolfe sighed. His breath made a cloud of vapor in the crystalline air.

The wind blew a little harder through the trees. The snow was quiet now, not moving. Below them, it was untracked, unmarred. It would be another hour before the moon was fully hidden behind Les Diablerets. Except for the soughing of the wind, the occasional thud of snow falling from the evergreen branches in soft clods, there was no sound. There was a ringing in Durell’s ears, and he ascribed it to the altitude. He estimated it would be a three-hour descent into the valley and up the other side, where the small road wound through a cluster of chalets.

Up above they were carrying Rasmussen’s body away, toward the Rolls Royce. He looked at Wolfe’s broad back. Wolfe did not turn his gaze from watching the men on the road.

Maggie moved closer to Durell. Her face was as cold as the white, tumbled drifts around them. “You shot him. Just like that.”

“I shot him,” said Durell. “But hardly just like that. It was him or me. Or you.”

Maggie said, “I don’t really know you, do I?”

After a pause, she said, “What did you mean, he was after you and me?”

“Me, to kill. You, to take away. The other part of their target, aside from the money. You, Maggie.”

“Why me?”

“Can’t you tell me’!

“It doesn’t make sense,” Maggie said.

“It must,” Durell said.

“Nothing makes sense.”

“It will.”

22

AT MIDNIGHT the Banque Jacques Eaux-Vives on the little side street off the Rue de Monthoux, halfway between Cornavin Station and the Quai du Mont-Blanc, was wrapped in an exclusive silence and security. It was a private establishment, next to an equally exclusive apartment house that towered over the bank building by four floors. The institution served as a drop and payout station for K Section funds fed into various strings of agents scattered through Central Europe behind the Curtain. The upper floors, above the subterranean vaults, served as control centers for the agency’s mandated activities.

The bank was a simple, slab-sided building with very little architectural adornment. The front entrance was protected by a steel grill and detection devices, as were the tall, narrow, barred windows. All of the windows on all four floors were similarly barred and protected. The underground vault and Record Room, for M. Eaux-Vive’s clients, was as electronically burglar-proof as man’s ingenuity and sophistication could make them.

The banker lived in the fourth-floor penthouse. At midnight he was entertaining Mr. Sulaki Madragaffi, the Deputy Minister of his African country’s mission to the United Nations functioning in the old League of Nations Palace set in its grand park off the Lake of Geneva. They were drinking brandy and bitter coffee grown on the mountainsides of Madragaffi’s small black nation. Sulaki wore his national costume even now, although he really preferred Western clothes for comfort; he felt that the gaudy striped robe and ornate headdress was a badge of independence from the white man’s culture, and it had to be exhibited on every possible occasion, especially one like this, when he was tentatively beginning to bargain for a private loan from the Banque Jacques Eaux-Vives for his country’s security forces.

M. Eaux-Vives was aware of the time. He knew the payments were due from Zurich this night, and he was ready to press the buttons that would roll up the underground doors for the car to enter the building.

They came down from the apartment tower’s roof, four floors above the bank. There were four of them. They used grappling hooks and half-inch steel and nylon lines, and they were swift and silent, making their descent with an expertise that any Alpine climber would have envied. Their actions seemed to be without effort. They wore identical jumpsuits and sneakers and had short-barreled Swiss automatic rifles slung over their backs. Their faces were anonymous, shadowed by the night. Beyond the west shore of the lake and the steamer docks, the clear night sky that now prevailed gave a distant glimpse of Mont Blanc and a clear view of the hill of the old city, once dominated by a Roman fortress and now crowned by the spires of St. Peter’s cathedral. None of the four men was interested in the view of John Calvin’s city, with its narrow cobblestoned streets and ramps leading up from the Pont de l’Isle in the Rhone River. There was a predatory quality in the way the quartet moved, a single-minded purpose. Their teamwork was impeccable. The subsequent swings outward from the apartment building to the bank’s roof, across the mews, were nothing short of Olympic. One by one they made it, clinging to the steel fence with its downward-curving spikes like flies. No security man would have thought it possible. The leader took a small box from the capacious pockets of his jumpsuit and set about negating the alarm triggers on the fence. The others clung there, motionless, for an interval beyond human endurance. There were small clicks, snapping sounds. The wave of an arm. Then they swarmed over and onto the roof.

M. Jacques Eaux-Vives was anything but careless. He was a banker bred and born to the tenets of security. He had installed infrared heat detectors, cameras triggered by reflective bars, sound instruments built into the terrace rail that flanked his penthouse apartment.

The leader of the quartet of raiders knew his way; knew where every device had been posted. The others followed him as he threaded his way among the ventilators and the TV antennas. Soft lights glowed from Eaux-Vives’ den, where he entertained Sulaki Madragaffi. They had not quite finished draining their brandy.

The raiders on the roof had gathered on the terrace at one of the darkened bedroom windows. The window was barred, like all the others, but the leader lifted an arm in signal and one of the four men gripped the bars and began to spread them, grunting a little with the effort as he pressured the steel. The stars twinkled in the velvet sky. An occasional car slid along the quai by the lake. The steel bars opened. The leader reached in a hand and clipped wires. In forty seconds, they were all inside, out of the cool night wind blowing off Lac Leman.

From there, they went unerringly to the banker’s den.

It was swift and bloody.

The leader pointed a gloved hand at Madragaffi and two of his men gripped the African while another cut his throat, almost decapitating him. The brandy glass fell from Sulaki’s long fingers and struck the Sarouk rug, making a small, gentle tinkling sound as it broke. M. Jacques Eaux-Vives reached for the alarm buttons on the table beside his wing-chair. His mouth was open in a silent scream as he looked, unbelieving, at the blood gouting from Madragafi’s neck. Gristle and bone gleamed yellowish-white through the red. Eaux-Vives’ fingers never touched a button. He was a small man, rather plump, with thin black hair that he brushed carefully from left to right in hopeless strands that did not hide his gleaming scalp. Something smashed down on his fingers, breaking four of them. His scream was clapped off by a hand over his mouth, pulling at the flesh of his cheeks. The strength of their violence was like a savage storm. The banker was lifted bodily from his chair and slammed against the wall. A Picasso sketch fell from its hook.

“Your keys,” the leader said in French.

Eaux-Vives could not answer. His heart was bursting in his chest. He pointed a shuddering, broken hand.

“Go get them, Hamlet,” the leader said in English.

One of the men went into the bedroom. He came back only moments later, holding the small ring of keys.

“And the vault? M. Eaux-Vives? Do you hear?” the leader asked.

“Time lock,” the banker gasped. “Cannot be opened.” His face was purple. He was already dying. “Cannot be opened,” he repeated. “I swear to you.” His eyes bulged.

Softly, “You can open it.”

"Can—not.”

“Come.”

They had to carry the banker to the stairway. There were elevators, but they were ignored as potential booby-traps. On each lower floor, where quarters for various K Section operations had been established, including several transceiver radios, files, records, coding machines, scramblers, arsenals of weapons, the quartet engaged in a storm of destruction. Several fires were started; thermite bombs were tossed at the filing cases. Eaux-Vives was dragged down level after level. His short legs spraddled. The leader carried him as if he were a child.

The main floor of the bank was not like the open, inviting spaces of a commercially licensed establishment. There was a small circular foyer with a tiled marble floor, with long corridors radiating from it like the spokes of a wheel. Off the corridors were discreet, comfortable paneled offices. Everything at this hour was dark and shadowed. The quartet knew their way around. They made for the rear elevator, an old-fashioned open cage of rococo ironwork. The banker was casually hurled inside as they descended to the vaults. A fire alarm went off. Nobody paid any attention to the ringing bells.

“Countermand the lock,” the leader ordered. He spoke in English this time.

M. Jacques Eaux-Vives opened his mouth to speak, shook his head in denial.

“I—cannot.”

“Hamlet?”

The man called by that name moved forward, his feet dancing, an energy in him that kept his body constantly in motion, twitching, jerking, his face grimacing, his head bobbing and weaving like a boxer’s. The fire-alarm bells rang on and on. The leader looked at Hamlet with distaste.

“Blow it,” he said.

Hamlet was quick. They moved back down the corridors to shelter from the explosion. Smoke began to curl in the quiet air, drifting down the elevator shaft. When the blast came, it was a dull, rumbling roar. The plastique did its work.

The master keys did the rest of the work. Only selected boxes were opened. Money poured out, spilling on the marble floor. Securities vanished. Jewels were ignored. Gold bars went into capacious pockets. They worked as a well-coordinated team.

“All right," said the leader. “Finish him.”

Hamlet hit the paunchy banker in the chest. The man’s heart, already laboring far beyond its normal capacity, exploded. He sagged to the floor of the vault.

“Let’s go,” said the leader. “I believe the car is waiting.”

23

THE APARTMENT near the Hotel Beau-Rivage on the Quai du Mont Blanc was quiet in the predawn grayness. A light premature snowfall had started an hour ago. Most of the snow melted as it hit the boulevards and narrow streets of Geneva. The lake was dark and silent. The overcast smothered the dim early-morning lights of the old city, across the water. The snow that drifted down gave everything a sense of hushed, silent peace.

The drive from the innkeeper’s house near Les Diablerets had seemed endless, even though Durell had taken the wide National Route E-4 through the vineyards of Vevey, around Lausanne and the lake toward Geneva. The innkeeper had rented them his little Peugeot for an exorbitant amount.

The apartment was one of K Section’s security bases. It was always well stocked with food, a variety of clothing, both men’s and women’s, and an assortment of spare weapons. Durell went into the kitchen and cooked breakfast, making bacon and eggs, finding fresh croissants in the refrigerator, fresh sweet butter, coffee. Wolfe went into the bathroom and washed the clotted blood from his abraded face. Wolfe’s eyes under his thick brows were deep-sunk and red-rimmed. When he came out of the bathroom he checked the doors, front and back, jammed chairs under the knobs, and leaned against the wall in the living room, his arms folded across his thick chest, glowering at Durell and the girl. Durell came out of the kitchen with the breakfast. Wolfe shook his head slightly; he didn’t want it. Maggie took one look at the tray and went into the bathroom and was sick. Durell followed her, pushed the door open, stood watching her. When she went into the bedroom and sank down on the edge of the bed, he went with her.

He saw himself in the mirror, tall and dark and a bit ragged, his eyes strange even to himself.

“Maggie.”

“Go away.”

“Why are you afraid of me?”

“Because of what you did to Rasmussen. You killed him. You blew his chest wide open.”

“He was no friend of mine,” Durell said. “Do you feel badly because he kept winking and making passes at you before it happened?”

“Jesus, Sam, leave me alone. Can’t you see how sick I am? I should have stayed in New Haven.”

“Stop talking nonsense, Maggie. Be a good girl and tell me why the unicorns want you.”

She covered her face with her hands. He stood in the doorway, watching silently, not moving to touch her or offer solace.

“Try to remember, Maggie.”

“What?”

“Anything that might be useful. Anything to give us an idea of why they wanted to grab you.”

She took her hands from her face. Her eyes were dry. “I don’t know who ‘they’ are. How can I remember something I don’t know? I’m not at all sure that Rasmussen was trying to grab me. Maybe he was trying to help me from those other people. How can I know which is which?”

“There is something you know that makes them want to question you, Maggie.”

“Oh, no.”

“How long were you in Palingpon?” Durell asked.

She looked blank. “What?”

“How long?”

“Three months, maybe. I’m not sure of the time or where it all went. It was a bad time for me, you know. Drying out. There was plenty of the stuff around, you know, in town. Daddy had to lock me up in my room a few times. I needed a kick so bad, I was half crazy some days.” She sniffed and rubbed the inner elbow of her left arm, then looked up at him with a sudden slyness. “Maybe if I got a fix I could remember better.”

“No, Maggie.”

“Please, Sam!”

“No. Your father talked a little to you about his K Section business, didn’t he?”

“Not much. Nothing important. Nothing I can remember. l can remember the days when he ran his strings of operatives out of Kuala Lumpur better than I can what just happened. I was only a kid then, too. I think he sometimes worked with Wilderman in those days."

“Yes?”

"That s all.’

“You’re sure?”

“What more do you want? He was put out to pasture, poor old Hughie Donaldson, and still something—or someone caught up with him and tore him to pieces while he was having that nice luncheon with that nice old premier of Palingpon on that nice sunny day.”

“The same day they came after you at the plantation,” Durell said. “You were out among the trees, hiding from them, when Charley Lee and I got there. You were scared half to death. You knew they were after you even then. What do you know that they want to know?”

Snow hissed against the window. He heard Wolfe cough from his post at the living-room door. The girl was sitting tailor-fashion on the bed. Her long hair was straggly, hanging down on each side of her face. It seemed to Durell that he had never felt so tired or discouraged.

The day was brightening; the windows were pale gray.

“Maggie, where did you first get hooked on the stuff?” he asked quietly.

She looked at him with a witch’s smile. “Are you still interrogating me? Is that why you dragged me along here, to Rome and then here?”

He didn’t remind her that it was she who had insisted on coming with him. He said, “You can answer that question, can’t you, Maggie?”

“Sure. It was two years ago, while I was studying

for my master’s. So what?”

“How did it begin?”

“I wanted attention. I thought I was too tall, too outsize. I was mixed up. I was lonely. Maybe I was scared. So I got hooked. It was kind of nice, at first. I stopped worrying about myself so much, you see. I relaxed. I figured I could be as attractive as any other girl.”

“You are,” Durell said. “More so.”

“I kept hoping my stupid schoolgirl dream would come true. I just wanted somebody to come along and take care of me and love me, so I could love him back with all my heart, that‘s all I wanted.”

“Who first hooked you on the stuff?” Durell asked.

She still looked at him with the bland face that told him nothing, still watching him with her witch’s smile.

“That was a fellow student. Handsome devil, he was. Very persuasive. In all sorts of ways. Actually . . . ” She paused and leaned forward, her arms thrust down against the edge of the mattress. “Actually, he turned out to be a recruiter for your agency, Durell—for K Section and then, as I later learned, the Internal Security Bureau.”

Durell felt a surge of anger. “Tell me who introduced you to heroin.”

“Rodney Rasmussen. The man you blew apart on the mountain road back there.”

24

THE SNOW changed to rain by midmorning, and a heavy fog settled over Lake Leman, obscuring the view of the mountains, and the Palais des Nations, now European headquarters for the UN. The Old Town was wreathed in slowly drifting mists. The air grew warmer, more seasonable. Durell slept for four hours, made an omelet for an early lunch, and then Wolfe turned in. Durell didn’t know whether the girl slept during that time of waiting or not.

At eleven o’clock the telephone rang. Wolfe stirred, his bulk asleep on the couch, but he did not wake up. Durell let it ring three times, after which it went silent. One hour later he found his coat and went down the staircase of the small apartment house and walked through the drizzle toward the grayness of the lake. John Meecham waited for him on the broad sidewalk of the Quai du Mont Blanc. He wore a tweed cap that looked too small for his big froglike head, and a shabby old gray raincoat. He carried an umbrella against the light rain, but he kept it furled and swung it like a cane. His popping hyperthyroid eyes were bloodshot.

“Thank you for coming, Cajun,” he said. “You have the girl?”

“Wolfe is watching her, sir. I thought I’d be meeting Enoch Wilderman here.”

“I’ve sent Wilderman hack to the States.” Meecham sounded short. “We can’t let every operation sag into neglect because of this one. Is the apartment safe?”

“No,” Durell said. “I think we’ve been blown wide open just about everywhere.”

“But the girl?”

“At least the apartment has security devices. I don’t think it can be breached,” Durell said.

Meecham touched his elbow and guided him down the wide sidewalk. “Let me tell you about the bank. You haven’t seen it in the newspapers?”

“No."

They walked slowly along the Quai des Bergues beside the rushing flow of the Rhone River, where it poured out of the lake to begin its long snake-dance down through France to the Mediterranean. They crossed the river on the Pont de l’Isle and went around the park with its floral clock, the Grand Theater and the Conservatory of Music. From there they chose a narrow street of cobbled ramps and climbed to the old city. The Grand-Rue brought them to the old Roman crossroads, the Bourg-de-Four, a charming square where the narrow streets twisted oil in every direction. If anyone were following them, it was difficult to tell. Passersby hurried along under umbrellas. The rain was not hard, but persistent, a drifting mizzle that came at them from every point of the compass. Durell was hardly aware of it as he listened to Meecham.

“You must have had a bad time of it last night, Cajun,” Meecham said.

“Bad enough. We didn’t boobytrap them. They got the money, and now they’ve wrecked our Geneva Central. They have papers, files, more cash, more than enough to blow K Section’s data collection and processing wide open, if it ever gets to the media.”

Meecham nodded. “You don’t look too well, Cajun.”

“I don’t feel very happy about it,” Durell said. “I shot Rod Rasmussen back there at Les Diablerets. Maybe I moved too fast.”

“Fast enough," Meecham said quietly. He paused to stare into the window of an antique jeweler’s shop. “Rasmussen killed LeChaux back in Zurich. Gut-knifed him, left him draped over his own toilet.”

“I see,” Durell said.

“I know you don’t like Internal Security, but perhaps you also see now the purpose we serve,” Meecham said.

“We seem to have been infiltrated everywhere.”

“Rasmussen is an example. A longtime agent who had to be killed when he went bad.”

“I wish I hadn’t had to kill him,” Durell said. “We could have learned a lot from him if I could have taken him alive.”

Meecham pointed with the ferrule of his umbrella into the shop window. “I like that Victorian brooch.”

“Is anyone following us?”

“I’m not certain.”

“Let’s walk,” Durell said. “Look for a gray Porsche.

I’ve seen it twice now.”

But they didn’t spot the suspect car again.

25

THEY romp down the cobblestone ramps from the Old City to the Rue de la Corraterie. Meecham’s ugly face was compressed in a tight, furious line. He swung his furled umbrella like a short pendulum. The snow on the sidewalks from the fall at dawn had vanished, but the air was still filled with ice crystals.

“You were right back in Rome, Sam,” Meecham said heavily. “K Section’s security has been breached. It’s a deliberate, specialized attack on K Section. Aimed to destroy us and perhaps all our intelligence defenses.”

“The unicorns seem to know everything about us,” Durell said. “Sir?”

Meecham waited.

“This has to be someone fairly high up. Someone who knows every transfer of funds we’re about to make.”

“I’ve canceled all future transactions for an indefinite time,” Meecham said. “I cleared it with your Finance officer, Strawbridge, and General McFee.”

“That doesn’t solve it.”

“We’ve had a few resignations from the Finance Section lately. Fairly high-up security people. They’ll have to be checked out. Enoch Wilderman went back to the States to take care of that.”

“Sir?”

“Yes, Sam.”

“I want to do it.”

“You’re going home. Stateside. Back for reassignment by McFee.”

“No, sir.”

“We can’t afford to have a field agent like you jumped on by the press, Sam. If the newspapers got to you—"

“You could cover that.”

“I must tell you that I’ve given definite orders covering the sort of work you’re to be permitted to do with Internal Security. Last night could have been a disaster. General McFee considers you too valuable in your field to be exposed to the public in these matters. I know how you feel, Cajun. It’s never pleasant to know you’ve been working with men ready to betray you. Wilderman seems unaffected by this sort of thing—he seems to expect it, in this business—but it bothers me as much as it bothers you. But it’s my field, and it can’t be denied. You’re out of the ballgame.”

“Then I’ll do it myself,” Durell said.

“You can’t.”

“I’ve got the girl.”

“We can handle her.”

“She knows something. Something about the unicorns. They know she knows it, but she herself isn’t aware of her knowledge.” Durell’s words were quiet but urgent.

“You’ll never get it out of her. I think I can. Maybe I’m the only one who can.”

Meecham looked at him. “Is your relationship with Maggie Donaldson such a personal one?”

“Somewhat. We—”

“You’ve made love to her already?”

“In Rome, yes. She’s alienated now because she thinks I killed Rasmussen needlessly. Recklessly. She knew him once, back in college. I can bring her out of that, now that you’ve told me about LeChaux.”

Meecham said dubiously, “She’s a drug addict, or she was. Which indicates a rather large area of irresponsibility. She cannot be trusted. She could even be a plant.”

“Yes, sir. I’ve thought of that, too.”

“You’ve grown attached to her?”

“No. Yes. Maybe.”

Meecham did not smile. “Someone is out to destroy us, deliberately choosing K Section as the target. They’re aiming for our heart, Cajun. It cannot rest simply on your amorous relationship with Maggie Donaldson.”

“It’s not—” Durell checked himself. He suddenly felt the strength in Meecham, the knowledge that John Meecham was one of the most powerful men in Washington. “It’s not just the girl.”

“Then what is it?”

“There is the drug. I am sure they’re using a drug. I want to check that out. And there is the medallion. The unicorn coin they were wearing, as if it were a badge of identification. All these men are trained as expert killers, assassins, bank robbers, drivers, you name it. Their skills seem to be heightened abnormally. It’s not natural. It seems to make them—”

“Supermen?” Meecham interrupted wryly.

“Yes, sir.”

“Nonsense.”

“They’ve performed seemingly impossible feats.”

Meecham said, “They are elite, highly trained mercenaries. Employed by someone. Someone who knows all about K Section and the ISB. Someone who wants to destroy us. Experts. Honed to a fine efficiency. Nothing more.”

“They behave abnormally,” Durell insisted.

Meecham was silent. They had walked back across the Rhone River and had taken small side streets to the Rue des Alpes and Cornavin Railroad Station. Meecham turned right, then right again. Durell watched the traffic. No one was following them. He did not see the gray Porsche. No one and no other car had appeared near them with any consistency. The wind was stronger, blowing the length of the lake, from Lausanne. The rain had stopped. The cold wind had blown away the mists hanging over the ancient city, this city of international money and politics and Swiss conservatism.

“There’s another avenue to investigate,” Durell began. “Aside from the way they’ve avoided hitting at our agency strings and instead struck directly at our Centrals, stolen our funds in transfer, killed several of our people. In every instance, there have been innocent bystanders killed.

Meecham swung his umbrella and did not reply.

Durell said, “I’d like to have the computers run down dossiers, if any, on all of these innocent victims.”

“Do you think there is a connection?”

“Everything that has happened has been carefully planned. To an extreme detail. Maybe the bystanders were included in the plan.”

“Far out,” said Meecham.

“May I use the computer files and check the read-outs?”

A passerby bumped into Meecham. Durell’s hand dropped into his pocket, wrapped itself around his gun. The passerby muttered apologies in Schweitzerdeutsch and hurried on. Durell’s hand felt sweaty on the gun.

“You’re jumpy, Cajun.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You can rest and sleep on the plane.”

“You’re sending me back to the States?”

“You and Wolfe and the girl. God help me, you can operate out of the Fort. I think that would be best. Perhaps safest. I’ve cleared it with General McFee.” Meecham paused on the sidewalk outside the small stone apartment building that constituted the safe house. He looked up at the blank curtained windows. Then he reached into an inner pocket and took out an airline envelope. “Here. Tickets for all three of you.”

“You knew all along, sir?”

“I wanted you to persuade me. You have.”

Meecham’s mouth twitched. “Wilderman will have orders to accommodate you. You look angry. I wasn’t toying with you. I wanted to hear your thoughts. You have the privilege of calling me whatever you wish.”

“Bastard,” Durell said.

They shook hands and parted.

26

No. 20 ANNAPOLIS STREET, headquarters for K Section of the CIA, was located in a modest graystone building whose brass address plates announced various import-export offices, several lobby firms, and governmental services of an innocuous nature. An innocent intruder would get as far as the main lobby, simple and rather shabby-looking, and be turned back with one excuse or another parrying his inquiries.

From one window in General Dickinson McFee’s office—den, you could see Pennsylvania Avenue and a corner of the White House. Washington was enjoying a bland Indian-summer day. Everything looked soft and misty in the golden autumnal light. The thin night, compounded of Potomac fog and smog, quietly nibbled with acid and moisture at the nation’s precious monuments. The White House, known to K Section as Sugar Cube, lay in quiet enthrallment to Washington’s web of bureaucracies, captive to the system that, like the proverbial juggernaut, kept rolling on toward undefined goals with a momentum and self-serving life of its own.

McFee‘s small den was in shadows. There was a red brick fireplace whose chimney was laddered on the inside and offered an escape hatch to the roofs. The place was scented with leather and the dim fragrance of cigar smoke, although McFee did not smoke. Durell listened to the elevator hiss softly shut at the end of the corridor and Dickinson McFee said, “Come in, Samuel, come in. How are you?”

“Fine, sir. Same as always.”

“No problems?”

“No, sir.”

“Any results with Miss Donaldson?”

“Some, sir.”

“Sit down, Samuel.”

Durell chose a small leather easy chair on the opposite side of McFee’s desk. There were scatterings of foreign newspaper cuttings, Russian, Chinese, French, Egyptian—Durell did not know how many languages the General read and spoke.

Dickinson McFee was a small man whose presence in any room or group of other men always seemed enormous. He had a predilection for grays that went with his hair and eyes; his conservative suit, shirt and necktie were gray of various shades. Durell sometimes thought that if a man’s soul had a color, McFee’s soul would be gray, too.

“Meecham says you have been handling yourself very well. Wilderman is not so enthusiastic. You seem to have ticked Wilderman off. But then, no one cares much for Internal Security, including myself. A necessary evil, they say. A result of Congressional watchdog wisdom. Well, perhaps so. One’s attitude toward the ISB is a direct result of one’s conscience. They are rather annoyingly independent of control, however.”

“Yes, sir,” Durell said, and waited.

McFee’s neat gray head turned aside toward the window which gave upon the view of Pennsylvania Avenue. “We have a problem, of course. You and I and perhaps two others are fully aware of its scope. K Section’s defenses have been infiltrated. Breached. Broken. Without intelligence, this nation is like a blind giant staggering about in a locked room full of sly, quick assassins.”

Durell waited again. He knew that McFee would get around to making his point soon.

McFee said, “I have been accused of being too powerful and independent here in Washington. Not quite so. The Internal Security Bureau is too big. In the years since it was established by the preceding Secretary, it has superseded every other intelligence agency in the country, including the FBI. The very nature of its mandate gave it options for independent activity that have grown much too dangerously. Its name is a contradiction. ‘Internal Security’ refers not to domestic intelligence, but to security within every other data-gathering agency that’s been established.”

McFee swung about in his swivel chair in the quiet den and picked up his blackthorn stick, waggled it slightly. “Your first loyalty, above all, is to me, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

McFee sighed. “I knew Hugh Donaldson a long time ago. Back in the old days of the OSS. Before your time, I really think. What is his daughter like?”

“An ex-junkie.”

“You lack compassion. Are you taking good care of her? Got her in one of your safe houses now?”

“No, sir. We don’t have any safe houses any more. I have to operate under the assumption that K Section has been blown sky-high. No place is safe. But Wolfe is with her.”

McFee almost smiled. “Have you laid this girl, Samuel?”

“Yes, sir.”

“True Durell tradition. But you haven’t gotten what you want from her, as yet?"

“I’m getting there, General.”

“I gather from John Meecham that you have several excellent ideas as to what should be done, Samuel.”

“Some leads, yes.”

“I have others working on it, of course.” McFee looked thoughtful. “I told you, we are blind until we find out who is worming into K Section. And even the ISB. We can’t afford to be blind among the assassins out there.”

McFee looked again at the window, and his voice was deeper, showing anxiety for one of the rare moments since Durell had known him. “I want it stopped. As of now. Immediately, if not sooner. We can trust no one. Not even me. Not even yourself. I’ll clear the decks for you. Ostensibly, you will be working in Internal Security for a time. Under Meecham’s and Wilderman’s orders. But you will be my man, mine only, in that mare’s nest of hypocrisy, double-dealing, hypochondria, murder and mayhem. Use the girl. Use anyone. Watch Wolfe, of course. A strange man. We have a big scene coming up, a conference on an international scale to be held on Mattatuck Island off the coast of Maine. You know it, of course.”

Durell’s face was without expression. “Yes sir, very “Yes. Well, that’s for the future. Whatever happens, I don’t want to be blind then.”

“How long are you giving me, sir? How much time?”

“None at all.”

“Do I have a free hand?”

“Yes, but don‘t show it. Not unless you absolutely have to. The silvery-haired head turned sharply back to Durell, then tilted to rest against the back of the leather desk chair.

“Yes, sir,” Durell said.

27

THE FORT, from outward appearances, was merely a collection of rather shabby beachside cottages on the Atlantic side of the Eastern Shore. Weatherbeaten, tilted on stilts, surrounded by a wilderness of dunes and marsh grasses, it seemed singularly unattractive. No more than a score of the cottages existed, connected by ill-kept paths and dune-buggy roads, and the for-rent and for-sale signs were faded by sun, wind, and scouring of the blowing sand until they were all but illegible.

Although it could not be noticed from the landward side or the air, an elaborate system of barbed-wire fences, electrified wires, heat-sensing warning devices, night-vision scopes and trigger alarms surrounded the perimeter of the desolate little colony in triple depth. An old wooden lighthouse served as command headquarters for the defenses. There were guards and dogs posted around the clock, although the guards seemed like sluggish vacationers idling about the dunes or surf-casting fishermen who never had any luck.

The road that approached from the west, branching inconspicuously from the main highways that pipelined tourists north and south, seemed to die in the dunes some distance from the nearest visible cottage. There were a few warning signs. Private. No Trespassing. Keep Out.

The Fort really existed underground. From certain of the cottages, hatchways in the floor led to concrete steps going down into a hidden labyrinth of corridors, offices, filing compartments, laboratories, and the computer known as the Beast. Because of the low elevation of the land above sea level, pumps were constantly needed and air conditioning was mandatory to keep the atmosphere reasonably dry. No expense had been spared. Everything was aimed to make the Fort a viable, hidden underground community of at least fifty times more people than had been assigned to occupy the above-ground cottages. There were living quarters, garages whose exit ramps came up through the rickety attachments to the cottages, and vehicles camouflaged as milk, bread and telephone trucks. There were soft lights, pastel colors, fine wood paneling on office walls and doors. There was a canteen, a rather elegant executive dining room, private conference offices, briefing halls. Microphotographic files kept the need for space to a minimum. The worldwide radio network operated through the tall wooden lighthouse on the beach, which in turn relayed through Andrews Air Force Base. For most of those who labored in ISB‘s Fort, time was artificially controlled by the dimming of lights to simulate sunrise and sunset. The Internal Security Bureau under Enoch Wilderman’s original guidance had done itself proud, making reasonably efficient use of its yearly growing budget.

The place had all the comforts of home.

Durell’s plastic pass, slid into a slot in an ID device, gave him access to most of the Fort’s combinations. His fingerprints were matched, his picture was taken, and the door slid aside at the foot of the concrete steps leading from a hatchway in the cottage kitchen where Maggie and Wolfe slept. Durell made his way along the corridors and down the elevators to the medical laboratories.

Dr. Saul Sinberg was relatively young, small and slender, but with a sedentary belly hung over his loose slacks. Although prematurely bald, he sported a Rudolph Rassendale waxed mustache that curled up ferociously. His eyebrows were also luxuriously thick, coming to a point above brilliant dark eyes that regarded Durell with skeptical amusement. He wore a white medical coat over his undershirt and he kept shaking his head, getting up from behind his desk, pacing back and forth, and sitting down again.

“Impossible,” Dr. Sinberg said.

“But I saw them myself, Saul,” Durell insisted.

“It’s true that men under stress or panic or psychotic motivation can perform extraordinary feats of physical strength and stamina. But such men are wild and undisciplined and violently irrational.”

“These men were disciplined and rational,” Durell said.

“And you think they were under the influence of some kind of superdrug?”

“Yes.”

“No such thing.”

“I’m certain of it,” Durell insisted.

Saul Sinberg scrubbed fingers through his bristly eyebrows. He looked suspiciously at Durell with bright black eyes. There was nothing stupid or dull about him. “Did Wilderman send you to quiz me, Sam?”

“No, it’s my own hunch.”

“That son of a bitch.”

“Is he here at the Fort?” Durell asked.

“He’s here. He left word with Nancy that as soon as you’re finished with me, you’re to go see him.”

“About the drug,” Durell urged.

“No such thing. Believe me, Sam.”

“But is it a possibility?”

Dr. Sinberg flung himself into his chair. Under his white medical coat, thick wiry hair pushed up above his undershirt. “Well, let’s see. There’s dopamine, of course. Trade name is Inotropin. This chemical is the immediate forerunner of norepinephrine, which in turn is the immediate precursor of epinephrine, which is adrenalin. Found in the peripheral nerves and in the adrenal gland, of course, as well as in the central nervous system—the brain and brainstem and spinal cord. There appear to be specific receptor sites for dopamine in the brain, brainstem, heart, blood vessels—with particular effects on the renal blood supply. It has the ability to increase cardiac output without increasing cardiac oxygen consumption. The significance of that is obvious.”

“You’re on the right track,” Durell said.

“Don’t get your hopes up. This effect is related to the dosage, and with increasing doses, the increase in peripheral resistance caused by blood-vessel constriction nullifies the effect. In short, the more you administer the stuff to the subject, the quicker the curve of cardiac efficiency descends. Its basic use is in shock treatment. Toxic, hemorrhagic, or traumatic. It seems to be superior to other catecholamines—epinephrine, norepinephrine and dopamine are labeled as catecholamines, Sam—in certain situations, primarily because it increases blood flow to the kidneys and viscera preferentially to the patient in shock. These assassins of yours with such splendid and extraordinary superpowers were hardly in shock, hey?”

“No,” Durell said.

“Well.” Saul Sinberg clicked his tongue and yawned.

“The central nervous system physiology of dopamine is not clearly elucidated, I’m afraid. We have a medication called L-dopa used extensively in Parkinsonism, a neurological disease of the aged. The L-dopa effects changes in the metabolism of the basal ganglia, the area of apparent malfunction in this disease. But that’s not very helpful to you, Cajun. One could hypothesize a new catecholamine, however; or a false metabolic precursor of these substances which, when administered, caused a new catecholamine to be produced. This could have wide effects on central nervous system activity—reasoning, co-ordination, acuity, perception, et cetera—as well as peripheral effects on the life-supporting viscera, which might increase strength and endurance far beyond the norm. Ergo, a superdrug. But your options are myriad. I’m sorry, Sam. I never heard of such a development anywhere. There just ain’t no such critter.”

“None that you know of, Saul, right?”

Dr. Sinberg was not offended. “Without any false modesty, Cajun, I’m one of the best. You know that we give occasionally what you might call pep pills to some of the K Section people in the field. But they are not to be compared with what you’ve been talking about. It’s my business. I tell you, there’s no such superdrug available.”

“But it could have been developed?” Durell insisted.

Sinberg frowned. He seemed nervous suddenly.

“One man,” he muttered.

“Who?”

“A biochemist named Alexander MacLeod.”

“Where is he?”

“Why, I don't know. But he’s the brother-in-law of our esteemed Finance officer, Joshua Strawbridge, from whom all our cash blessings flow.”

The clock on the library wall read two-thirty in the morning. Durell did not feel sleepy. The only attendant was a young woman in one of the inevitable smocks worn in the sanitized underground areas of the Fort. The young woman waved a hand vaguely at the banks of microfilm and reader machines and murmured, “Help yourself, sir.”

“I’d like a book on numismatics,” Durell said.

“Books? We have only microfilm here.”

“Any coin catalogs?”

“No, sir. What would we want with coin collectors in Internal Security?” She grinned. She was very plain-looking, very wholesome. “Charlie Duggan collects British Empire coins, though.”

“Just what I want. Where can I find Duggan?”

“He’s a radio technician. He might be in the lighthouse. It’s his duty hour. I happen to know. He’s my boyfriend.”

“Lucky man,” Durell said.

“Charlie Duggan?”

“Are you Durell? Wilderman just called. He wants to see you, pronto.”

“He can wait.”

“Sure. But you’ll pay for it.

Duggan was a stout man in his middle forties. He seemed too old for the girl in the library. It was chilly and damp in the room, and Duggan wore a windbreaker as he watched the oscillating dials and ammeters and voltage regulators set into a metal control bank on his desk.

“I hear you’re a coin collector, Duggan,” Durell said.

The man’s head turned. “Of sorts, yeah.”

“You recognize this?”

Durell took the gold medallion from his pocket, the one that Colonel Ko had given him from the captured killer in Palingpon. He dropped it on the desk. It made a dull, flat sound, rolled a few inches, and Duggan slapped a hand on it, and then slowly uncovered it.

“Fake,” he said at once.

“A copied fake, or a fake design?” Durell asked.

“It’s a facsimile of a unicorn, a Scottish gold coin. Used to be worth about fifteen shillings, originally. Time of King James.”

“Which King James?”

“Well, none of the coins in Scotland had dates in those days,” Duggan said. He seemed interested, and his voice took on a pedantic note. “English coinage was reformed under Henry VIII, who reigned from 1485 to 1509. That’s when the shilling first appeared. Used to be called a testoon, or teston. The word comes from Italian, testa, for ‘head.’ An image of the sovereign of the coin, you see. This fake coin you have here dates before 1662, because milled coinage began then. The first official copper coins, halfpennies and farthings, were issued during the reign of Charles II, 1660-1685.”

“This isn’t copper,” Durell said.

“No. Probably silver with a wash of gold over it. Even if it were authentic, it would be worthless with that hole drilled in it. It’s just a copy, probably made as a medallion to be worn on a chain around the neck.”

“Right,” Durell said. “Was it really called a unicorn?”

“Sure. There were all kinds of names for coins then —laurels, crowns, groats, guineas, nobles, lions, demys, riders, unicorns, lion nobles, thistle nobles, hat pieces, thistle crowns, unites. Wait a minute.” Duggan opened a desk drawer and took out a powerful hand magnifying glass. “It’s pretty good,” he muttered. “Made from a cast of an original. You can make out Iacobus III—maybe Iacobus IV Dei Gratia, can’t be quite sure. James III, 1460-1488—he put out the first unicorn coins, of gold, showing a unicorn with a shield, coat of arms of Scotland.” He flipped the coin over. “Yep. Reverse shows a star with wavy rays. No dates, of course, at that time. King James also put out silver coinage—I’ve got a couple-a groat with a crowned bust, a billon plack with a crowned lion shield and a floriated cross on reverse. The long cross has a crown in two of the angles and three pellets in each of the other two angles. Got a beautiful specimen of that.”

“What about this unicorn?” Durell persisted.

“It’s a fake,” Duggan repeated flatly.

“Why would anyone make a number of copies of this particular coin?”

“Search me. Never saw anything like it before. Now, I’ve got a fake billon bawbee with crowned thistles—goes back to James V of Scotland—1513-1542—and a silver testoon, too, that’s really pewter, a counterfeit. But this

unicorn of yours wasn’t meant as a counterfeit. It's a modern copy.” Duggan looked up. “It’s a curiosity, that’s all. Want to sell it?”

“No. Why isn’t there any date on it?”

“I told you, the first dated British coins were struck during King Edward VI’s reign—1547 to 1553. The first silver crown was dated 1551. Showed the king on horseback with a quartered shield on a cross on the reverse. This one was hand-hammered a century earlier. I mean, the original. This copy could have been made today.”

“By whom?”

Duggan frowned. “Let’s see—seems to me I recall —wait a minute.” The man put both hands flat on the desk and leaned back, thinking. “Company named Sanderson, Sampson—no, just Sanderson, P.I. Sanderson, Limited. They made copies that sold in Edinburgh as souvenirs. Junk, of course. No real collector would consider them. About ten years ago. Probably out of business by now.”

“Where was Sanderson located?”

“London, I think. Funny thing is, this fellow Sanderson has the finest collection of Scottish coins in the world, they say. That’s how I remember it. Real numismatists were shocked when he put out the cheap reproductions.”

“In London?”

“That’s what I recall.” Duggan scowled again. “Tell you what, though. Mr. MacLeod would know. He’s got a damned good collection of British Empire coins.”

“Mr. MacLeod? Alexander MacLeod?”

“That’s right."

28

WILDERMAN had a brightly colored, big-beaked mynah bird on his shoulder. There were birdstains here and there on the Formica desk top, and others on various pieces of furniture. Durell searched out a wooden chair that didn’t seem to have any stains on it.

Enoch Wilderman looked gray and ill. He had pushed his glasses up on top of his head, into his unkempt gray hair. His rather long nose looked pinched and thin. His angular frame slouched in the leather chair until his pot belly, out of place with his knobby knees, elbows, and narrow hunched shoulders, protruded prominently. He looked professorial, which he was not; his pale eyes looked angry, which he was.

“You kept that coin from me, Cajun. Your attitude displays a remarkable disdain for authority. Perhaps because you feel your relationship with General McFee gives you some sort of special status here—”

“No, sir.”

“Let me see the coin.”

Durell handed it across the desk. Wilderman scarcely glanced at it, then dropped it into a drawer out of sight. “So you refer to these people as unicorns because of this —uh—medallion?”

“It’s just a handy tag,” Durell said.

“And you think the leaks concerning our money transfers come, of course, from Joshua Strawbridge, your Finance officer, eh?”

“Or someone in his office, yes.”

“Mr. Meecham and I have been a bit ahead of you. You take on a great deal for yourself. Dr. Sinberg didn’t give your theory of a new drug much encouragement, did he?"

“He gave me enough.”

“You’re thinking of Alex MacLeod, Josh Strawbridge’s brother-in-law? The biochemist?”

“It’s a Scots name,” Durell said. “The unicorn is a Scottish coin.”

Wilderman locked his hands over his bulging belly. “Got anything from the girl yet?”

“No, sir.”

“Think there’s anything useful in her?”

“I’m not sure now.”

“I do not believe the girl, as a lead, will come to anything. It’s already resolved, in any case.”

“Sir?”

“The case is being shut down, Durell. There still remains the brooming of the dirt under the carpet, of course. Covering up, for the Congressional committees who may insist on full budgetary explanations in executive session. It can be arranged. These things happen. One cannot hope to exist as a barrel of perfect apples.” Wilderman’s eyes were tired. “What I am saying is that the whole matter is one for ISB now. We’ll clean our own closet. There is no need for you to pursue the matter further.”

“I’d like to talk to Joshua Strawbridge.”

“You’re a bit late. Strawbridge vanished forty-eight hours ago. At least, he did not appear here or in the Washington offices. He was due to testify at the current budgetary committee meeting. Congress likes to feel it can control us with pursestrings. It was a fairly important meeting. Mr. Strawbridge had some explaining to do. I had written a full brief for him, but he did not appear. He has not been seen since last Friday.”

“Any personal problems?” Durell asked.

“I put our best people on the matter. Josh Strawbridge was a fool. He pilfered from our till. Lived high on the hog. We assumed his life style was his own business, since his wife is independently wealthy. Supposed to be. Now it turns out she never had a cent. He was using K Section money for his sloop, his house on St. Maarten’s, his cars and servants and estate in Virginia. Pitiful. Stupid.”

Wilderman sat up straighter, but he still looked slumped, a cadaver with a watermelon belly. He said, “You seem dissatisfied, Cajun.”

“The case isn’t closed yet,” Durell said.

“For you it is. We can clean up the loose odds and ends, the crap on the floor. You can go back to General McFee for a new assignment.”

"I'm sorry, but—”

“Mr. Meecham, the Director, and I concur in the decision.”

“But what about Joshua Strawbridge‘?

“He had nowhere to go. He knew that if he ran for it, we’d find him, anywhere in the world. So he killed himself. Blew his foolish, greedy brains out. Early this morning or late last night. We need a new Finance officer now.”

“Too many loose ends,” Durell protested.

“They will be tied up. Worry not. You’ve been conscientious and efficient. I’ve recommended you for a higher grade of work, if we need you again.”

“I’ll think about it,” Durell said.

Wilderman seemed to have gone asleep, along with his birds. “Do that,” he murmured gently.

His eyes were closed.

29

DURELL left the Fort in the early hours of morning, taking one of the “company” cars, a green Chevrolet, and after checking out through the perimeter guards of the compound, he headed west, came to the opposite side of the Eastern Shore on Route 50, and crossed the bridge over Chesapeake Bay just as the first light of dawn touched the gray waters under him. From U.S. 50 he took Route 301 south, to avoid the complex of beltways and commuter traffic around the District. Even taking byways, it took two hours to reach the small town south of Washington, on the Virginia side of the Potomac, an enclave of quiet and very private estates, all with security guards visible at the brick-columned gateway and a glimpse of Dobermans on patrol through the mist that still clung to the red pines. Durell drove past the entrance to Joshua Strawbridge’s long, long Colonial home, glimpsed the blue of a heated swimming pool from which mist was rising; he turned left, found the village itself and a diner that had just opened, and stopped for breakfast. He noted in the mirror that he needed a shave.

The local police chief, who came into his office belching his breakfast of sausage and grits, considered Durell with small inimical eyes and tossed Durell’s ID papers back across the desk to him.

“Another one of them muckedymucks,” he grunted.

“Just following things up, Chief,” Durell said.

“Can’t help you. Everything’s said and done.”

“Just go over it again for me.”

“What’s to go over? Mr. Strawbridge shot himself. Shoved his twenty-gauge into his mouth and toed the trigger. Got both barrels. Blew his head off. Tough.”

“Hell, yes. Fingerprints and all. Clothing. No question about identity. Question is why. Never could figure such cases out. Motive, I mean. Rich, good government job, everything a man could want. You know why such men do it?”

“Maybe because they haven’t anything else to go for.”

“Yeah.” The police chief belched again. “Maybe.

Why are you tellers so interested?”

“Well, he worked for the government, as you said.”

“Seems like everybody works for the government around here. I’m the only one payin’ honest taxes.”

“When did he do it? When was Strawbridge found?”

“It’s all in the reports here.” The chief shoved a manila folder containing glossy photographs and typed forms across the desk. “Guess you’ve seen copies of that, right?”

“Is Mrs. Strawbridge at home now?” Durell asked.

“Why?”

“I want to talk to her.”

“Mighty fine lady. She’s been talked to enough.”

“One more time,” Durell said.

“Not until noon. She ain’t due back from the District until noon. I already checked.”

“I’d like to borrow one of your cells,” Durell decided.

“What in hell for?”

“I want to sleep in it.”

The chief shrugged. “Fine by me. Help yourself. We got five of ‘em, all empty. Take your choice.”

According to the report in the folder, Joshua Strawbridge had indeed shoved his fine English 20-gauge between his teeth and blown his head off, spattering brains and part of his skull against the wall behind him. It had happened the night before, in the bathhouse-gameroom, a separate structure on the other side of the Olympic-size pool from the main house. Oddly, no one had heard the blast. It was James’s night off—Durell leafed through the folder and saw that James had an airtight alibi—and Mrs. Laura MacLeod Strawbridge regularly took two, perhaps three, Seconals for sleeping, so she had slept right through it all.

There was no suicide note.

Strawbridge had apparently gone for a midnight swim in the heated pool, had a few drinks of sour-mash bourbon, the analysis said, nothing foreign in the liquor, and then gone to the bathhouse, hit a few balls aimlessly on the billiard table, and gone to the big shower stall after picking up his shotgun, and blown himself out of everything.

It looked final. It was complete. Strawbridge indeed might have arranged the raids in Palingpon and Rome and elsewhere. And used the loot in an effort to conceal his peculations. Strawbridge had been the only reasonable suspect for the leak that informed the unicorns of when and where funds were being transferred. So it was only robbery and murder, not a scheme to undermine national intelligence operations. So it was a dead end. All tied up.

But Durell did not buy the package.

Laura MacLeod Strawbridge was medium. Everything about her was average: her height, features, brown hair, figure. Grooming and exercise made her look chic, but she was plain. She was tired and still shocked and had enough strength to be patient.

“What more can you want to know about Joshua, MI. Durell?”

“At the moment, I’m more interested in Alexander MacLeod, Mrs. Strawbridge.”

“My brother? Why?”

“Will he be coming over for the funeral?”

“How did you know he’s out of the country?”

Durell said, “Scotland, isn’t it?”

She waved a vague hand. “Somewhere.”

“Have you notified him about your husband’s death?”

“No. We have not been in touch. I wouldn’t know where to contact him.”

“But he lived here for a time, didn’t he?”

“Oh, yes.” Vague brown eyes drifted, swooped up and down. “Would you like to stay for lunch, Mr. Durell?

“Thank you, I’ve eaten. Did he do any work for your husband?”

“Who?”

“Alex MacLeod, your brother.”

“Oh, no. He had his own research. It absorbed him completely.”

“Biochemistry?”

“Something. He was brilliant. He stayed with us over a year. He set up laboratory facilities over there.” She waved loosely toward the sunlit pool.

“In the gameroom?”

“It was a laboratory then, for Alex. It’s all been done over, you see.”

“Alex was a bit strange about it, wasn’t he?”

“Strange?”

“Involved in his work, and all.”

“He was a good brother to me. He made a lot of money on his pharmaceutical patents. He was very generous to me—to Joshua and me. That’s how we bought the place in the Virgin Islands. And the yacht. Josh loved sailing.”

Durell said, “Off the record, Mrs. Strawbridge, and on a personal note—did your brother collect coins?”

“Coins? Oh, yes.”

“He was a collector, was he not?”

“Oh, yes.”

“He took the collection with him?”

“Yes, he did.”

“But he hasn’t been in touch with you? I mean, for you to write to him?"

“I thought you wanted to talk about my poor husband, Mr. Durell. Are you a numismatist, too?”

“In a most modest way.”

“I wish I could help you, but . . . ” She made an indecisive move to rise. Durell got to his feet. “I really can’t. I feel ill, just now. It’s been a strain. Everything has come down on my poor head. I don’t understand it. I feel betrayed, and that makes me feel as if I am being unkind to his memory, you see.”

A vague flutter of hands. No gesture was extensive, no expression dramatic. Medium. She was like a bowl of gelatin that quaked aimlessly at every touch.

He asked, “Did your brother ever correspond with or purchase coins from a man named Sanderson, P.I. Sanderson, perhaps of London?”

An inexpert smile. “Philip. Oh, yes. A lot of correspondence, as I remember.”

“Would you have any of those letters left?”

A stiffening. “I fail to see what connection—I am afraid I really do not understand the true purpose of your visit here, Mr. Durell, at a time like this.”

“I’ve been rude and thoughtless,” Durell said quickly. “Forgive me. I’ll go now.”

She walked with him to the door, taking steps that were neither too long nor too short. She shook hands with him. “Alex packed up all his correspondence and lab papers and took them with him when he went to London, Mr. Durell. Alex was a very neat, very tidy man. I miss him very much.”

She shook hands again. A pin was loose in her brown hair. Her eyes saw nothing of the beauty of the autumn day. No one accompanied him to the circular drive of crushed oyster shells. His car had collected some of the heat of the day’s sun. He drove quietly through the tall impressive gates and turned north toward the Potomac bridges, the Beltway, and the Memorial Parkway.

Within two minutes, he turned off abruptly, went slowly through the village, stopped in a drugstore, drove a little farther, and entered a cafe for a glass of draft beer, lingering for ten minutes. In the Chevrolet again, he went back to the main highway. By then he knew that the black Buick Riviera was following him.

He eased the S&W .38 in his belt and drove on.

30

FIVE MINUTES later he spotted a wayside picnic area and pulled in, slid out quickly, walked to the restroom building, and stood in the shadow of the brown-leafed oaks that edged a wood. The Riviera turned in smoothly after him. The Buick had tinted reflective glass on the sides and back window. Through the windshield he saw the driver, a youngish black man, in a sedate charcoal-gray suit, white shirt, black necktie. There was a man in the back seat. Durell stepped from the shadows with his gun dangling from his fingers as the man in the back got out.

It was John Meecham.

“Sam. Relax.”

Durell raised the gun and pointed it at Meecham’s stomach. He didn’t move from the shadows beside the lavatories. Two cars went by on the road, not slowing. A truck came from the other direction. It went by. Meecham’s wide mouth stretched in a froglike grin. His bulging eyes, however, betrayed a beginning anger.

“Put that thing down, Cajun.”

“Are you armed?” Durell asked.

“What is it, don’t you trust me?”

”No.”

“You don’t think Strawbridge’s suicide settles the whole thing?”

“No. Tell your man to get out of the car, too. Hands showing. No funny business.”

“Very well.” Meecham called to his chauffeur and the young black got out of the car carefully. Durell gestured with his gun toward the toilets. The building was built of concrete blocks. “In there, son. Stay out of the way.”

“Robert is okay,” Meecham said. “You are overreacting, Sam.”

“It’s safer this way. Go on, Robert.”

The driver looked at Meecham for instructions and received a nod, then went up the three steps into the restroom and closed the door when Durell ordered him to do so. Meecham sat down at one of the concrete picnic tables. Durell moved so he could cover the restroom door and the table, too. The wind blew a scurry of brown oak leaves along the autumn grass. The sun was warm. Two more cars went by on the road. They were not the same ones that had passed before.

Meecham’s rich baritone was persuasive. “Look here, Sam. Did Enoch remove you as investigating officer?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Durell said.

“You have direct orders from General McFee?”

“Yes. Are you closing the books on the unicorn matter?”

“No, I am not. As a matter of fact, I’ve been following up one of your suggestions. I’ve been to Fort Meade, consulting the NSA computer. You’re strung out too tight, Sam. Will you listen to me?”

"Why National Security?” Durell asked.

"Just for their files. Checking on the ‘innocent victims’ of each unicorn attack. Looking for a connection.

You’re the one who suggested it, Cajun.”

"I was just on my way there myself,” Durell said.

I’ll save you time and trouble.” Meecham’s thick brows scowled. He sat in the sunlight and had to squint lus bulging eyes a bit to look up at Durell’s tall figure.

‘There were attacks in Lima, in Abu Ra’shab, in one of the Arab Trucial States, in Pakuru. Perhaps others I couldn‘t find, incidents that looked like local terrorist affairs. You know about Hugh Donaldson in Palingpon; there was also a Signor Alberto Amfalso on the plane in Rome-—-he had heavy industrial interests along the Somali Coast in East Africa-—and Deputy Minister Sulaki Madragaffi in Geneva. There were undoubtedly others that the computer did not record.”

“And?” Durell asked.

“I looked for a connection, any connection at all, between these alleged innocent victims.”

“And there is one,” Durell said flatly.

“You know about it?”

“Tell me.”

Meecham took one of his long thin cigars from his breast pocket and clamped it between his square teeth. He had trouble lighting it in the wind that blew the fallen leaves around the picnic table.

“Each man, aside from being an ‘innocent victim,’ was involved in local internal security. Mostly in unstable states. Their records are clear. A ‘normal’ matter of business, supplying police forces with arms, training in tactics and weaponry, mob control, riot control, anti-coup methods that seem necessary in this world of hijacking, assassination and political violence. Police forces, Sam. Of course, each of the dead men has since been replaced. I’ve put some people to work tracing down those replacements. We don’t have anything on them as yet, except that the budgets for these special forces—some of them supplied from our own funds, such as Hugh Donaldson took care of in Palingpon—are rather heavier than they should be.”

Durell sat down across from Meecham. He put away his gun. He said, “Heavy budgets, supplied by us. Replaced officials, filling in after their superiors were removed. Is that your connection?”

“There is to be an international conference of these people to discuss security, the maintenance of internal peace and control of rebellious elements in these unstable nations. The new administrators will be in attendance.

The thing is called the International Conference of Security Officials for Police Protection. ICSOPP. Ever hear of it?”

“McFee mentioned it in passing,” Durell said. “I don’t really know much about it.”

“You won’t. Not in the media anyway. Not much more in the papers than you could read about the way we train foreign troops here in America—or used to train them until the media blew the whistle. Since then all word has been shut down, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“When does this conference come off?”

“In two weeks. On Mattatuck Island,” Meecham said.

Durell’s dark-blue eyes were thoughtful. “That gives us some time. And will you attend, sir?”

“Yes, I will be there. So will General McFee. And, incidentally, so will the President, who is curious.”

Durell stood up, aware of Meecham’s froglike face looking at him. When he heard the sudden rush of feet behind him, it was almost too late. He half turned, glimpsed Robert, the chauffeur, coming at a dead run with a gun in his hand. Meecham stood up and said, “Don’t, Robert,” but it came after the black man had already hit Durell on the back of the head with the barrel of the gun. Durell went down on one knee, an arm outstretched to break his fall. The sunlight wavered and darkened. He turned, caught Robert’s ankle, yanked him down. Robert, sprawled on his back, tried to lash out and kick him in the ribs. Durell came around and snapped the man’s gun away and smashed an elbow into Robert’s throat. Robert gagged and choked. Meecham said quietly, “Cajun. Never mind. It’s an honest error. Robert thinks you lack discipline.”

Durell let the chauffeur go. The man rolled over, vomiting. Durell himself felt as if his head had been torn off. It was hard to breathe. Leaves crunched with brittle sounds as Meecham walked around the table toward him.

“Don’t come near me, Meecham,” Durell said.

“I won’t. I want to help Robert.”

“Go ahead.”

He smelled Meecham’s cigar smoke and it stuck in his throat, gagging him.

31

THE COTTAGE at the Fort was empty.

Durell stood in the doorway, listening to the surf. It had taken six hours to drive back to the Eastern Shore. His head still ached. He had forced himself to drive with slow care. None of the guards challenged his entry into the Fort area. Nobody seemed interested in him anymore. And then he walked to the cottage, anticipating Maggie, and the place was empty.

Wolfe was gone, too.

He checked the bedroom, saw the rumpled sheets, saw that her clothes were gone. He considered descending the large hatchway in the kitchen to the netherworld of ISB headquarters, but he did not think Maggie would go down there. He stepped outside again. The lighthouse was to his left. He turned right and walked down to the hard-packed sand at the water’s edge. The dim starlight showed him Maggie’s bare footprints proceeding into the water. He lifted his head, startled, and stared at the black Atlantic. It seemed to him suddenly that there was nothing out in that empty darkness but death.

Then he saw the footprints emerging from the sea and let out a long breath and walked that way, a sudden urgency in him. When he reached the second set of prints, he saw that a man had joined her or followed her, wearing shoes. He thought of Wolfe, and quickened his pursuit.

A point of higher land thrust into the sea, south of the lighthouse and the innocuous—looking cluster of false cottages. On the landward side, the perimeter was amply guarded by the detection devices and fences and patrolling guards. Seaward, submerged beneath the low-tide line, were more barriers, ready to rip the bottom out of any approaching boat. An underwater swimmer who attempted to cut the wires in the barrier would set off other alarms. The seaward perimeter extended more than half a mile. Toward the point, a single cottage that looked ready to collapse in the next high wind off the Atlantic contained a sentinel, alert and armed, with a radar scope that covered the surface of the sea in unending sweeps.

Durell lost the footprints a short distance from the sentinel’s cottage. They turned inland, but in the starlight he saw that the man’s heavy shoes partly obliterated the traces of the girl’s bare feet. Wolfe—or whoever it was—had been following Maggie, not walking beside her. Durell turned inland, too, climbed a low dune, crouched in the tall sea grass and looked over the crest of the southern point of land. Beyond was public territory, although no houses had been built along the shore here, and the nearest road to the beach was more than five miles away. Developers and builders had been subtly discouraged from purchasing oceanfront tracts along here. The beach looked primitive, untouched by vacationers.

He could not see Maggie or Wolfe.

A sense of deep unease began to trouble him.

He saw the skeletal remains of an old wreck, a fishing boat that had been driven ashore in a storm long ago. Little remained of the vessel except the stem and ribs, half buried in a wash of sand rippled by the tide. Beyond the perimeter wire, the surf seemed stronger, torn by rip tides and currents produced by the thrust of land into the sea. Part of the fence had been undermined along the bottom of a high dune, and a hollow existed under it, wet sand glistening in starshine.

Durell approached the fence, thinking of heat sensors and electronic beams. He lay fiat, studied the sand in the dim light, and saw that it had been scuffed by crawling bodies. Maggie had escaped through here. Wolfe had followed. He could see their footsteps descending the dunes.

In less than a minute, he went under and beyond the fence. He crouched low and followed the footprints. They headed directly for the old wreck.

He halted, crouching in the sand at the base of the dune. Clouds moved in from the east, and the starlight was dimmer. The sand felt cold under his fingers.

He saw her when he passed the skeletal wreck of the fishing boat. She sat with Wolfe, side by side, facing the sea. Wolfe’s heavy head was tilted toward her, listening as she talked in a low undertone that was washed away by the surf. Durell expelled a long, silent breath. His worry vanished. Then he saw the girl jump suddenly to her feet, Wolfe springing to his feet beside her.

And then he saw something else.

They were coming out of the sea, two, three, then four of them. Dark figures, eerie and unnatural, like oceanic beasts invading the dry land. They moved fast, loosening flippers, goggles, facemasks and tanks, emerging on the other side of the wreck.

Their silence was unnatural.

Maggie shouted to Wolfe, her words torn away by the wind and the overriding sound of the surf.

“Maggie!” Durell shouted.

He started to run down from the higher dunes. Wolfe turned his head, crouching. The girl stared, the back of her hand to her mouth.

The four men in their wet suits came up to the level of the rotting timbers at the boat’s stern. Their heads turned this way and that.

“Maggie!” Durell yelled again.

Wolfe saw the black figures now. He swung his head one way and then another, seeking a way out. He pushed the girl toward Durell, turned, moved toward the shelter of the wreck. His gun reflected starlight in his hand.

Maggie stumbled and went down. She picked herself up, came up the beach from the ocean toward Durell’s higher position. Wolfe yelled something that Durell couldn’t hear above the rumble of the surf.

There was familiarity in the way the black-suited men moved, a precision and speed that was awesome. Durell started down toward the running girl and saw he couldn’t make it. He heard the heavy rap of Wolfe’s gun, but none of the quartet from the sea stumbled or checked himself.

They came around the wreck, two of them clambering over the moldering ribs of the fishing boat, leaping agilely from timber to timber. Maggie halted, undecided. Durell saw one of the black suits lined against the starlight on the bow of the wreck and took careful aim, holding his gun in both hands as he squeezed the trigger. The shot seemed thunderous. The man on the bow dropped, dove for the sand, rolled over, and came up again.

They ran for Durell.

Durell checked himself.

They weren’t after Maggie. They ignored Wolfe.

They were coming for him.

He fired again and again. He was cut off from retreat along the beach. Behind him there was only a field of wild dunes, a jungle of marsh grass, and stagnant saltwater pools. He saw Maggie running for him, awkward, hips swaying as she struggled for speed in the yielding beach sand. He caught her arm and pulled her up on the dune.

“Sam? Wolfe—”

“Come on.”

“You can‘t leave Wolfe—”

“They’re not interested in him.”

The black suits were about a hundred feet away now. Wolfe was in the deep shadow under the ribs of the stranded boat. Durell heard him fire again and saw one of the swimmers jerk around and turn back to the shadows, as if impatient with an annoying gnat. The other three charged up the beach toward him and the girl.

“Run,” Durell gasped.

He pulled Maggie’s arm and half dragged her over the crest of the dune, then slipped and stumbled downward, splashed through a muddy slough of salt water, climbed the next dune, heading inland. The three pursuers came up the slope as if it were level. Durell turned and fired again. This time one of the men threw up his hands and fell. He did not get up again. His two companions didn’t give him a glance. Their legs pumped doggedly, their forms came closer.

Durell ran along the bottom of the gully between the next two dunes. Maggie’s breath began to whistle. She stumbled, fell, picked herself up again. Durell yanked her forward. She gasped a protest, her knees buckling. There was something irresistible about their pursuit. He thought he heard Wolfe’s yell distantly behind him at the shore, but he could not turn back. He heard the thud of feet coming up at the rear, and suddenly he knew he could not outrun these men no matter how hard he tried, no matter how fast he could force his legs to pump. He saw an opening at the end of the dune, turned left into it, climbed a grass-grown slope, glimpsed water below, turned his head, and saw that his pursuers had closed the distance by half.

He shoved Maggie aside. “Stay here. Stay down.”

“No! Don’t let them get me—”

“They’re after me,” he said. “Do as I say.”

His throat burned with each breath drawn by his laboring lungs. He threw the girl aside, saw her roll down the incline toward the shallow saltwater pond. Turning, he ran back up the dune toward the tiny pass. The two black suits swerved behind him. They halted, looked down for the girl, looked up for him. Durell shot twice, one for each of them.

One of the pursuers jerked about, fell, crawled up again. The man’s arm looked useless, but he resumed climbing up to where Durell stood. Durell turned and ran again, away from where he had left Maggie, drawing these two after him. He knew now that he had killed one on the beach. Maybe Wolfe had taken care of another at the water’s edge, too. That left just this pair, relentlessly overtaking him.

Now he could hear their breathing, a sobbing in their throats. They were like slavering hounds, determined to reach him for the kill. Durell slid down another dune, judged he was about one hundred yards inland from the beach now, and turned right, heading back for the Fort’s perimeter. If he could reach the fences, every kind of automatic alarm would go off. But the fences were too far away. They were overtaking him, they would overcome him, inevitably.

A long narrow inlet led back to the beach. He ran down it, legs pumping, splashing through cold, shallow water. They were only thirty, then twenty feet behind him.

He saw the wrecked boat, swung for it. The two men at his heels were just emerging from the sandy cut. He fired again at the nearest one. The man’s leg went out from under him and he fell, rolling over and over. He tried to rise, and fell again. He began to crawl after Durell with a single-minded, deadly purpose.

Durell jumped for the canted deck of the boat, splinters tearing at his hands. He didn’t see Wolfe. The last man jumped, too, and caught at his ankle. Durell almost toppled, got his balance aboard the ship’s planks, kicked at the pale anonymous face. The grip on his ankle did not loosen. Durell squeezed the trigger again. There was only a harmless click. His gun was empty. Desperate, he threw it into the man’s face below him. The weapon bounced off the man’s head with no effect. His ankle was being squeezed until the bones were about to break. He was being drawn inexorably downward, to fall back on the beach. Once in his pursuer’s hands, he knew he would be finished.

“Wolfe!” he yelled. “Wolfe!”

Then he was dragged down.

He landed flat on his side, spun about by the ankle as if he were an Indian club in the other’s grip. The fall knocked the breath out of him. The other man immediately swarmed over him, his moves swift and vicious, filled with power. The man in the wet suit was big and solid, alive with squirming muscles. His face was just a face.

Durell felt the unbearable squeeze of fingers on his throat. He tried to knee upward, lifted the man a few inches, then struggled sidewise. The man’s hand squeezed harder on his larynx. Durell swung at him desperately. He hit the man in the ribs, the back, tried to claw upward and push the face away from his, searching with his thumbs for the other’s eyes. He felt like a child in the grip of a maniac. The other man made no sound, offered

nothing but death. Durell got his legs up, slammed his heels into the man’s kidneys, again and again. The sky began to reel. Blood thundered in his ears.

“Who are—you?” he gasped.

There was only a grimace of bated teeth as the man struggled to crush his windpipe.

“Who—sent you?” Durell squeezed out.

The man in the wet suit lifted himself, ready for a final, smashing descent on his throat. His teeth gleamed. There was no other expression on his face. Blood dripped down from his shoulder, and Durell suddenly realized that one of his bullets had hit this man, too. By all rights, he should have been helpless, screaming in agony. It was as if the man did not feel pain.

Durell summoned his last strength, heaved, rolled to the left under the sand-embedded boat’s ribs. The other’s head slammed against the rotting timber. For a moment his grip eased on Durell’s throat and he was able to draw in a long, wheezing breath. He flailed his arm, slammed a fist into the other’s face, hit him again. More blood dripped onto him. He wondered vaguely where Wolfe could be. He tried to wriggle farther under the wrecked boat. Something hard pressed into his shoulder. It was the gun he had thrown at the man in the wet suit. He struggled to reach it, clubbed it, and struck at the man’s face. Everything was going black. The man’s strength was beyond understanding. Durell smashed the butt of the gun at the man’s head, saw the nose crush inward. He struck again, hit an eye, heard bone crack, saw the eye pop out, bloody and unnatural. Still, the man did not let him go. He had strength for only one more blow. He put all that was left in him into the short, hard swing. Then he couldn’t breathe any more. There was a roaring in his ears, a wild beating and flutter of his heart, an unbearable straining in his lungs. . . .

32

“Sam? Sam?”

Durell struggled to sit up. His throat felt raw. His head throbbed. He got his hands to his sides and pushed, and the beach under him heaved and swayed, and the stars went spinning across the black sky. Gradually the thunder in his ears modulated to the sound of the surf nearby.

“Sam? Oh, Sam!”

It was Maggie. He felt her hands on him as she knelt at his side. The shadow of the wreck was etched on the hard sand. He saw Wolfe’s bulk loom against the black sky.

"I'm all right,” Durell muttered.

Wolfe said, “You knocked his brains out.”

“Where were you?”

“Dreaming of the angels. I was out cold, myself.”

“You look strange,” Durell said.

“So do you, man. But it’s the first time we’ve beaten them. They didn’t have any real weapons. They were going to kill you with their bare hands. I found their diving raft. The surf just brought it in. A small boat must have dropped them off at sea, a bit offshore.” Wolfe turned his head. “The security guards are coming. They’re a bit late. The wind must have covered most of our shots.”

Durell got to his feet. Maggie helped to support him. He saw a squad of men trotting toward them from the perimeter of the Fort compound. They were still some distance away, coming down the slope of the dunes on the point of land that marked the boundary. He looked at Maggie. She tried a smile that was pitifully tremulous, but to him she looked beautiful.

Wolfe said, “It was my fault. I was running out of steam. Too many watches, not enough sleep. I took a benny. I think it distorted my judgment. I shouldn’t have let her slip away, and I should have dragged her back as

soon as I found her.”

Durell looked at the girl. “Why did you leave the cottage and slip out here?”

Maggie said, “I think I remember what you wanted to know.”

“I already know it,” Durell said.

33

"EAT SOMETHING, Maggie.”

“I can’t.”

“I’m a pretty good cook,” Durell said. The steaks were just right. He looked at the cot in the living room and saw that Wolfe was asleep. It was almost dawn.

“I really don’t want anything,” Maggie said.

Durell had slept for four hours. He had showered, changed his clothes. He had spent half an hour cleaning and reloading the .38 and checking the action, concerned that beach sand might have harmed the mechanism. A few telephone calls from the communications center underground had got him the necessary clearances, papers and equipment he wanted.

Aside from a few bruises and varied stiffness in different parts of his body, Durell felt well. His throat still burned and felt sore. Crews from the Fort had removed the bodies of the four unicorn men.

“Why do you have to go away?” Maggie asked.

“I want to finish it.”

“Can’t someone else do it?”

“I want to do it myself,” he said quietly.

“Because they came after you, this time?”

“That’s part of it.”

“And?”

Durell said, “I can‘t trust anyone.”

“Can you trust me?”

There was a small silence. The girl’s eyes, like silver coins in the gray dawn light, watched him with an anxiety that once he would have thought pathetic. He was unsure now.

Maggie said, “I told you about Dad and Colonel Ko. About his involvement with the Palingpon security police. That was it, wasn’t it? That was what you wanted to know. That’s why my father was killed, isn’t that right?”

“I think so. Another ‘innocent victim.’ ”

“And who is his replacement?”

“Colonel Ko,” he said reluctantly.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t remember it sooner,” she said. “You have to remember, I was in a bad way in those days.”

“Are you really okay now?”

“I think I am.”

“Why did you leave the compound?”

She said angrily, “Did you think it was just to lure you onto the beach so those men in wet suits could get you? I wanted to get away. I couldn’t know when you’d be back. Wolfe was nice to me. He told me how he’d taken benzedrine to stay awake, so he could watch over me. He told me about his daughter, who shipped out on a bad acid trip. He was very fatherly, Sam. But he told me to be careful of you. That you didn’t give a damn about anything except your job. And now you don’t trust me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Durell looked at his watch and saw it was time for him to leave, if he was to make his plane.

He said, “I do trust you, Maggie. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have left you with Wolfe. I won‘t be gone for very long. But what I want to do had best be done alone. I have a rough idea of where to find the unicorns’ base. I’m going into it, if I can.”

“Oh, God,” she said.

“It will be all right.”

“You'll want an army behind you.”

“That’s just it. An army won’t get anywhere. I figure one man can do it better.”

“Take Wolfe, then,” she urged. “I’ll be all right. I promise. I’ll wait for you at my aunt’s house in Connecticut.” She paused. “I’ll wait for you forever.”

He got up and she rose quickly with him, taking his arm. He kept forgetting how tall she was. “Keep yourself straight, sweetheart,” he said. “And leave me your aunt’s address.”

34

LONDON WAS cool and clear for a change. There was no fog. The city was one of Durell’s favorites, gray and masculine. He had a rental Jaguar waiting for him at the airport, and although his TWA flight landed in the middle of the rush hour, he made it into town in just an hour, checking into the Westbury on New Bond Street in Mayfair. He dialed a number he did not need to look up and received a barrage of complaints about the failure to receive funds due recently. He soothed the local Finance officer by explaining that Joshua Strawbridge’s unexpected and sudden death had thrown Accounting into a turmoil. The London man was not satisfied, but reluctantly promised him the information he wanted.

“Half an hour. I’ll get back to you then.”

“I’ll be waiting,” he said.

“Mr. Durell? Mr. Meecham said I was to offer you —ah—the best men available, if you requested aid.”

“Thank you. Not necessary. Just dig out the data I need on P. I. Sanderson, the coin dealer. And Dr. Alexander MacLeod.”

“Yes. Half an hour.”

Durell showered, shaved, changed his clothes, checked the .38, and strapped a knife to his calf. The windows seemed safe enough. One would have to be a human fly to reach them. Then he thought of the power and agility of the unicorn men and added bolts to the windows and a lock on the door, designed by the laboratory men at the Fort. Outside, London slid into darkness. He closed the draperies, put on a single lamp near the telephone, and sat at a distance from it.

When thirty minutes had passed, the phone rang. He slid to the floor, lay on his back, reached for it while it rang twice more, then pulled it down to him.

The Ops man said, “He’s oil in the country for a fortnight. Left this morning.”

“Time?”

“Ten in the morning. He has a town house near Wimbledon—a tennis buff, your Mr. P. I. Sanderson-and a small, very discreet numismatist’s shop in Belgravia. Want the addresses?”

“Just his country place,” Durell said. “Does he usually take off in midweek like this, closing his shop, and all that?”

“No, Mr. Durell.”

Sanderson had suddenly left for the country while Durell was over the Atlantic. The Ops man said, “Mr. Sanderson’s country place is in a small village near Tower Rising, in Norfolk. Pretty little place, I understand. The estate is called Stone Circle. Best way is up through Cambridge, on A10, then east—”

“I can find my way, thank you,” Durell said.

“Quite certain you don’t want some lads with you? I understand . . . ”

“Yes?”

“Sanderson is a reputable businessman, not wealthy, but eminently respectable, you see, quite well thought of—”

“Of course. Thank you,” Durell said.

“Not at all. If at any time—”

“Thank you,” Durell said, and reached up to cradle the telephone again.

He lay thinking about it. He was being invited to a fortnight in East Anglia and the Fens. He decided to accept.

35

IN THE MORNING he drove the rented Jaguar to East Anglia. On the road just outside Tower Rising he found a small inn that offered him a corner room. The high mist smelled of the sea. The inn was named the Little Gray Horse. The proprietor, a burly black-haired man with a pipe, suggested the golf course four miles on the other side of Tower Rising, a tour of the fifteenth-century guildhall in the marketplace, the Old Book House, or a quick trip to the beaches beyond the grassy, rolling Fens, although the season was over. His accent was difficult to interpret, especially around the pipe.

Durell was the only guest. He lunched alone, attended by the innkeeper’s dark-haired daughter. Tower Rising was a sleepy, quiet village, with "tall copper beeches, brown-leafed oaks, a tiny populace that minded its own business in a taciturn manner. The village was surrounded by vast flatfields, divided by a network of canals through which an occasional vessel sailed as if on dry land. On this foggy day there was little to be seen. After breakfast Durell asked the proprietor about P. I. Sanderson.

“Oh, him,” the innkeeper said around his pipe. “He’s mostly in London, these days.”

“I understand he came out for the fortnight.”

“Possibly. He comes and goes, comes and goes, sir. You a friend of his?”

“Actually,” Durell said, “I’m an agent for an American collector and I’m just passing through, thought I could catch Mr. Sanderson informally, while he’s here in Tower Rising.”

“He don’t see anybody at Stone Circle.”

“Is he married?”

“No. Occasional woman with him, though. Different one each time. He’s London, see, and his ways are different to ours. He doesn’t do much shopping in the village. Nobody likes him that much. But I shouldn’t be talking like this. You want to try to see Mr. Sanderson, you get to Stone Circle by taking the dike road along the canal far end of the village, toward Bury St. George. About four miles, go over the stone bridge and go another two miles into the Cots. That’s a wood next to the Taxted Fens. Can’t miss it from there. If they let you in. You’ll be back soon enough, sir.”

“Has he servants at Stone Circle?”

“All men. Three or four of them. Like guards, they are, and can’t say I blame Mr. Sanderson, considering the stories about the value of the coins he has in his house."

“Thank you,” Durell said.

He took binoculars and bought light rubber boots at a shop in Tower Rising and then retrieved the Jag from the stableyard behind the inn and drove east. He had no trouble finding the canal and the dike road. The fog began to thin out, which disappointed him, and a weak, watery sun shone on the expanses of wide fields, edged with other dikes lined with tall trees, and an occasional flashing glimpse of white cathedral towers in the far distance.

He passed two carts and a lorry on the neat, clean road, and a motor barge in the canal. The breeze felt cold and damp, blowing from the sea. After four miles, he came to the arched stone bridge. He turned right. Ahead was a long knoll, a few brick farmhouses and more green fields, a few haystacks, and a long line of oaks paralleling the road. He met no other traffic. He almost missed the entrance to Stone Circle. There was no sign, and he had passed it before he realized there could be no estate here except a few distant farmhouses. He ran the Jaguar into a copse of tall oaks and parked it in brush; from the road the car was almost invisible. He felt clumsy in the boots, but was grateful for them as he moved into the spongy ground alongside the graveled driveway that led away between the trees. When he saw the first chimneys of Stone Circle, he halted, chose one of the taller, sturdier oaks, and climbed quickly into the lower branches. Then he used the binoculars.

Stone Circle may have been a small Saxon or Roman fort in ancient times; a red-brick mansion stood here now. From his post in the trees, Durell swept the horizon beyond and thought he could see the marshes and the glitter of gray from the North Sea through the slow-moving mists. Squirrels chattered at him, annoyed because he had disturbed their hunt for acorns. Durell turned the binoculars on the house. It had steep red-tile gables, an upward thrust of chimneys at each end, a glass conservatory, gleaming green lawns, a terrace with a yellow umbrella and white cast-iron chairs cushioned in matching yellow. He thought he saw movement through thinly curtained french doors, but wasn’t certain. A separate structure housed the garage. Two cars there, a Rolls and a Volvo. No one was in sight. Roses still bloomed in a garden opposite the garage. There were pear trees behind the house, several hawthorns, a wisp of wood smoke from one of the chimneys.

He watched and waited.

An hour went by before a man in a chauffeur’s uniform left a side door of the main house, got into the Volvo, and drove out through the red brick gateway. There was an iron—grilled gate, double-leafed, but it was kept open. The Volvo went by beneath Durell’s post in the oak tree and kept going to the Cots road and turned toward the canal.

Nothing else happened.

The chill mist and damp wind blowing from the sea across the Fens made him shiver. The place looked innocent. The tree limb on which he sat began to grow more and more uncomfortable. The birds stopped singing. Durell hoped it was not going to start to rain.

“Hello!” a pleasant voice called. “Looking for me?

Or just bird-watching?”

Durell had heard no one approach. Below him was the man who had driven away in the Volvo, two other men in neat gray suits, and a small, rotund, bald fellow in a shooting jacket. All four had shotguns and rifles aimed upward at Durell.

“Mr. Sanderson?” Durell asked.

“Quite,” said the little bald man. “Come on down, old boy. Forgive us, but we really do have to be careful around here. Shake a leg, eh?”

36

“DURELL?”

He was flying.

“Can you hear me, Durell?”

He could feel the vibration of the aircraft. He had the worst headache he had ever experienced. His mouth and tongue felt numb. He was paralyzed. He could move neither arms nor legs. Somehow, he felt a great satisfaction in this.

“You can play doggo all you like, Durell. It will do you no good. You will answer all our questions. You will cooperate, and gladly. Do you understand?”

Durell slid backward into silky blackness.

For how long?

“Mr. Durell, surely you can hear me now.”

He opened his eyes. He was blind.

“The possum is a strange little beast, Durell. He plays deaf, dumb and blind until he is killed. Is that plain enough?”

Durell opened his mouth, closed it, took a deep breath. His ribs ached. He wondered if any were broken. He heard a thundering in his ears, and thought it was his heart, and then, listening carefully, with cunning, he thought it might be the crash of surf on rock. The problem with orienting himself was that he could not tell which end was up, literally, and he seemed to float on the surges of sea sound all around him. He was also very cold. He shuddered regularly, almost an echo of the crash of the sea. He raised an arm and put a hand on his chest. He was naked.

“Ah,” the voice said. “Very good. Very good, indeed. You hear me, then.”

The voice was not natural. It came with an electronic timbre, a mechanized reconstruction. He opened his eyes. He was still blind. He shivered. Something cold and very rough grated against his backside and shoulders. He was lying on a stone floor. Very good. So far, so very good. He was here, where he wanted to be.

“Durell, are you hungry?”

He spoke. “No.” It was a ghastly croaking sound.

“Thirsty?”

“Are you Dr. MacLeod?” Durell asked.

“Are you cold?”

“Go to hell.”

His voice bounced back and forth in echoes off stone walls.

Someone laughed softly at him.

At one time or another—a long time passed, and he estimated it was many hours—someone came near him out of the darkness and pushed a needle into his arm before he could object. Then they threw what seemed to be clothes at him, and left. He heard the clang of an iron door and the slam of a heavy bolt, and footsteps walked away, heels thudding on a stone floor.

He yelled aloud.

“Hey!”

His voice echoed. There was no answer.

“Hey, Dr. MacLeod!”

For a long time, he simply listened to the slow, steady thud of his heart and the synchronized beat of surf against rocks. He felt something move in his veins, circulating through his body. Pain went away. He felt sleepy. He fought against the drowsiness, the feeling of well-being. He guessed they had given him some kind of tranquilizer, a powerful shot that threatened to suck him down into placid depths.

“Hey!” he yelled again.

“Yes?”

“I want to make a deal,” he said.

“For what?”

“Information. I can give you what you want to know.”

“Do you think us so naive, Mr. Durell?”

“Listen,” Durell said. He had trouble breathing. “Do you think I came here unwillingly? I flew to London alone, right? Nobody knows where I am now. I don’t even know where I am myself. I walked into Stone Circle deliberately. I’m glad you weren’t hasty. I’m glad you waited to talk to me, before killing me. We can make a deal, all right.”

“I doubt that. Go to sleep, Mr. Durell.”

There was a click, and then silence. Durell tried to stay awake. He grew panicky, because he could see nothing at all; the darkness was absolute; he opened his eyes, shut them, squeezed them, rubbed them. Nothing worked. Then, through a dreaminess and tranquility that slid over him, he began to make out a glimmer of gray. He could not understand it. He waited, looking upward. He put on the clothes-slacks and a heavy woolen shirt. Some of the shivering eased, but the stone floor was like a tomb. He told himself to be patient. Things were getting better.

Finally, the grayness became daylight, a small square of light high in one wall, and he knew he had not been blinded, that the cell in which he was a prisoner had simply been totally without light during the night. He felt a cold, wet wind pour through the square little window. He got to his hands and knees and crawled toward it. It took a great effort. He wanted only to sleep. His arms and legs felt rubbery, but his heart was beating with great, erratic poundings in his chest. Slowly, very painfully, he got to his knees and then to his feet. The little stone cell swayed, the floor heaved, he fell down. He climbed up again, reached for the stone ledge under the window. He could not reach it. It was too high up in the wall. He wondered why there was no direct sunlight. Then he guessed that the window faced west, and it was morning, and the sun was shining on the other side of the building, whatever it was, wherever it was.

The window was not the only thing beyond reach. High on the opposite corner was a small television camera. The thing must have been operated by heat sensors, or someone on duty at remote controls. Wherever he moved, the eye of the TV camera followed him, from one corner of the cell to another. Just next to the bracket that held the camera was another, which supported a small speaker and what looked like an infrared light. The voice that had spoken to him must have come from there, although someone had actually come into the cell to give him the shirt and pants and the injection in his arm.

All at once, Durell fell asleep.

When he awoke, he saw a slant of pale-yellow sunlight almost horizontally probing the cell. The tranquilizer, whatever it was, had kept him out for most of the day. The sun was setting now in the west. It looked quite weak. The cell was still cold, smelling of the sea, of moss. They had put a bucket of water in one corner of the cell, and he used it, and then saw that the rusty iron door to the cell had a smaller door set into it, at floor level, and they had shoved in a tray containing a bowl of oatmeal, a plastic jug of milk, another plastic bottle of water, some sugar in a cone of paper, a plastic spoon, and a slice of darkish bread. The oatmeal was cold, but he ate hungrily, ignoring the television eye that implacably swung to observe him.

He took the food as a hopeful sign. They didn’t intend to kill him just yet.

37

DURELL’s hours settled into a routine that alternated between light and darkness. Before the light faded for the first time, he tried to jump for the high window ledge. His fingers clawed the rough stone, came four or five inches short of his goal. He tried again and again, but each succeeding jump was weaker. He couldn’t make it. At last he settled down, exhausted, and studied the cell. He judged it to be about eight feet wide and about twelve feet long. There was no cot or pallet to sleep on, and he had to settle for the hard stone floor. The floors were old, worn smooth by countless feet in an area near the iron doorway. The door was hinged on the outside and presented only a smooth barrier to his inspection. He tried to peer through a chink where the lock was situated, but his eye was greeted only by darkness. Nothing to see. The stones of the floor and walls were very old, and moss grew around the base of the window wall.

The television eye followed his every move.

He was awakened in the morning by the rattle of bolts and bars, and moved back from the doorway to his cell. He felt stiff and cold; he ached all over from sleeping on the hard floor.

Two men in gray jumpsuits came in. They wore unicorn medallions. One was armed with an automatic rifle; the other carried out his bucket and came back with a fresh one. Then he went out again and returned with

another tray of oatmeal, sugar, the plastic jug of milk.

Exactly what he had been fed the evening before.

“Listen,” he said to the man with the gun, “how long am I supposed to stay here?”

There was no answer.

“Why don’t you tell Dr. MacLeod that I came here to see him?”

“He sees you,” the guard grunted.

“I want to talk to him.”

“Well, you can‘t.”

Durell moved toward the man. “Look, I’d like some shoes. I’d like a bed to sleep on. And you can tell me where we are, can’t you?”

“Stand back in the corner,” the guard said.

Durell looked at the gun and the man’s strangely blank face and did as he was told.

During the day, he tried jumping for the window again. This time he came perhaps an inch higher and closer to the ledge. The sea sounds were monotonous, a crashing on rocks below. There was no sunlight this time; the day was obviously cloudy. And it was colder. He did not receive shoes or a cot. By evening, he felt somewhat disoriented.

He was fed oatmeal again.

When he tried for the window once more, his fingertips just barely reached the top of the ledge. He almost was able to hang on. He jumped four more times, until he lost his balance and fell rather heavily on his side, turning his ankle. While he lay on the hard, cold floor, panting, the guards came in, and while the one with the gun covered him, the other gave him an injection.

“What’s that for?” Durell yelled at the TV camera.

“It is a simple sedative,” came from the loudspeaker.

“Are you Dr. MacLeod?” he asked.

“You will sleep easier with the injection. How do you feel, Mr. Durell?”

“Awful.”

“Did you expect anything better?”

“I expected to be able to talk to someone of reasonable intelligence,” Durell said. He pulled himself back into a corner, facing the TV eye high in the opposite corner. “You ought to know by now that I’m here of my own choice, really. I went to Sanderson’s place at Stone Circle deliberately, hoping to contact you. Otherwise, why should I have gone there alone? I could have come with a small army of police and taken your Mr. Sanderson then and there. Think about that, Dr. MacLeod. Haven’t you checked back on my movements since I flew to London?”

“Yes. You are very clever, Mr. Durell.”

“So let‘s talk about it,” Durell said.

“Are you claiming to be a detector? From K Section?”

“I want to make a deal.”

“At the moment,” the voice said from the speaker, “you have nothing to offer.”

Oatmeal, darkness, sunlight, oatmeal.

By the fourth day, Durell was no longer sure how long he had been here. He knew all about the techniques of disorientation. It was a common enough procedure with the KGB in Russia and was often used as an interrogative technique. But even though he knew what was happening, he also knew it was working. It seemed to him that the hours of daylight were excessively short, the nights excessively long. He had to assume he was somewhere in high northern latitudes, since Dr. Alexander MacLeod had been presumed to be in Scotland somewhere. He remembered vaguely the sensation of being in a plane, shortly after he had been taken at Stone Circle near Tower Rising. Yes, they had flown him north. It explained the cold, the shortness of the daylight hours at this time of the year.

He turned to the small square window again, backed far off to the opposite end of the stone cell, ran forward, and jumped. This time his reaching hands caught the high ledge, clung there, shot upward and caught one of the rusted bars. He drew himself upward, inch by inch. His body shook and trembled. With a grip on the bars, he was able to raise his legs, flex his knees, press his toes against the cold stone. His head came above the ledge.

He glimpsed gray sky, a sheet of gray ocean, a low-lying island or point of land with a small stone tower on it. His shoulders began to scream in pain from the effort of clinging there. He could not get up high enough to see directly down. To the right was an inlet, and high combers crashed against a ragged beach. Sea birds nested and clustered there. Duck, and gray geese, whooper swans and small waders. He thought he saw a single skua slanting on the wind against the ominous sky. Inland from the shore was a series of stone fences bordering fields, a few shaggy cattle. No houses. Far on the horizon, a steamer that looked rather like a ferry made its way from right to left. Heading south.

His muscles screamed. He fell back to the floor, exhausted, drenched in sudden sweat. His heart pounded. He drew up his knees and rested his forehead on them.

“Very good, Mr. Durell,” came the speaker’s voice.

He no longer counted the days. He ate his oatmeal, used the bucket, exercised by walking back and forth in the cell, did yoga, deep breathing. He did not mind sleeping on the cold stone floor now. A light snow tell one day. He sat cross-legged and meditated. Now and then he leaped for the window ledge and clung there, looking out at the sky, the sea, the tiny strip of coast across the inlet of water. It was easy to reach the window now. He could hold on for a long time, as long as he cared to, and his muscles no longer quaked and screamed in agony.

Nothing changed much in the scene outside. Once he spotted a small fishing boat leaving the inlet and turning north, and another time he thought he saw a man and a woman walking in the dry, sere fields across the water, along one of the stone fences.

“Mr. Durell," the voice said.

Waking, he thought there was a deep satisfaction in the way he was addressed. It was just dawn, and very cold in the cell. Ice rimmed the stone walls.

“Mr. Durell?” the voice asked again. The camera swung, seeking him out. It was growing dark in the cell. “Are you ready to have dinner with me?”

“If it isn’t oatmeal,” Durell said.

“Here is your invitation.”

The slot in the door opened and closed before he was aware of it. Something rolled slowly over the floor, glinting, paused, wobbled, and settled down on the stone with a pleasant ringing sound. The camera watched him. He lifted on his haunches and picked it up.

It was a gold coin. A unicorn. Not the facsimile he had seen around the necks of the unicorn assassins. It was the real thing, very old, worn, its diameter irregular, but heavy, smooth under his fingers. He rubbed his thumb over the faint tracing of a unicorn rampant over a shield, turned it over, and saw a star on the reverse side.

“Recognize it?” asked the speaker.

“Yes,” said Durell. “Is Mr. Sanderson here?”

“Mr. Sanderson was useful to us only to make the identification copies our people wear. Mr. Sanderson of Tower Rising has been packed off happily to the Continent for a long holiday. You may ignore him henceforth. He has served our purpose and yours, too, we suspect.”

“Is that an editorial or royal ‘we’?” Durell asked.

“Or is there more than one of you?”

The silence was held just a fraction of a moment too long. Durell thought he ought to cover it, and suddenly yelled, “You son of a bitch, you’ve kept me here maybe a week, maybe longer, I don’t know or care anymore, but I’m tired of it, you hear? I came in good faith, to offer my services, and you’ve kept me in this cell like a pig, watching every move I make. I’m sick of it, understand? I won’t be toyed with any more for your remote amusement. You think I care about your goddam coins?” He seized the gold unicorn and suddenly swung his arm and hurled it at the high, barred window over his head. It sailed through and out and was gone in the gray sky beyond, twinkling for a moment before it vanished. Then, on his feet, he swept up the slop bucket and hurled it at the TV camera positioned in the opposite corner of the cell. His aim was accurate. The bucket and its contents smashed satisfactorily against the camera on its bracket, spilling, cracking metal, ripping the adjacent speaker and light from the ceiling. The camera was knocked askew. The speaker wires sparked for a moment, then went dead. Everything dripped.

Durell stared at the mess and laughed.

38

THE PATH led up across the barren crest of a hill. There was a rime of ice and a thin dusting of snow on the rough ground. There were no trees anywhere in sight. Across the low dip was another tower, this one round and obviously a prehistoric structure. Durell recognized it as a broch, dating back to beyond the first invasions of Harold Fairhair. Then the guards turned him to the left, not gently, onto another path, leading around the hill. The sea was abruptly cut off from sight. A small lake reflected the last glimmer of steely light from the sky. Near the lake, on this side of it, was a long stone house, squatting close to the ground, with a thatched roof. Other farm buildings were scattered nearby. They all seemed to have been recently reconditioned.

“Inside,” the guard grunted.

Durell stumbled across the threshold, knocked his head on the low door frame, blinked at the light.

“Sit down,” someone said.

Dr. Alexander MacLeod was the man he had seen in the shooting jacket—a round, jolly-looking man, bald as an onion, with a hearty paunch covered by a red-checked waistcoat that may or may not have been in a clan tartan. He sat at one end of a long plank table in the light of electric sconces fastened to the white-plastered wall. He had already finished a dinner of duck and trout, to judge from the plates, but at the other end of the table, well away from him, was a place set for Durell.

The inevitable oatmeal.

“If you don’t mind,” MacLeod said, “please sit at some distance from me. Your term in the cell has made you—ah—rather uncleanly and—ah—odorous.”

“Do I have to eat more oatmeal?”

“Yes, you do.”

“I detest porridge,” Durell said.

“So do I. I was brought up on it. Do sit down, please. Incidentally, the camera you destroyed cost well over three thousand pounds. If we come to any arrangement, the amount will be deducted from whatever figure we arrive at."

“Spoken like a true Scot,” Durell said.

“Every ickle makes a mickle,” MacLeod said. “Will you sit down, or must you be forced to do so?”

Durell sat. The two men in jumpsuits who had escorted him from the abbey tower stood against the wall, one on either side of him.

“Do eat, please."

Durell ate. His feet felt cold on the stone floor, although the crofter’s house was pleasantly warmed, and he immediately blinked in apparent drowsiness, after his long days in the cell. He said, “You have heard about your sister’s husband?”

“Joshua Strawbridge is now irrelevant.”

“I don’t believe he killed himself. I don’t think it was suicide.”

“Truly?”

“It was murder. Did you arrange it?”

Dr. MacLeod waved a soft white hand. “Joshua was a nuisance. He outlived his usefulness. It is quite true, as you at once suspected, that he fed us data, in his position as Finance officer for K Section, on routine transfers of funds. Funds, incidentally, that were often squandered in the wrong places, upon the wrong people. Does your Mr. Meecham truly believe that the process. of buying foreign loyalties is valid? Squandering taxpayers’ money, indeed. In any case, immaterial now, eh?” MacLeod brushed crumbs from his red vest.

Durell looked at the two attendants in their jumpsuits. Both automatic weapons were trained on him. He was careful not to make any sudden moves, but he was surprised at the good feeling in him, the sense of acuity and perception in all his mental processes; it was a well-being that, after his term in the cell, should not have existed.

MacLeod put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. He looked harmless, innocuous, rather like a pleasant faculty member of a type Durell had met many times at Litchfield College.

“We do admire you, Mr. Durell,” MacLeod said.

“Although, of course, your temper really should be more restrained. You have been quite correct in all your deductions, beginning when you first appeared on the scene as investigating officer in Palingpon. We wanted Donaldson’s daughter then, but you frustrated us. Have you enjoyed her, Mr. Durell?”

“How is Maggie?” Durell asked.

“Presumably, worried to death over you.”

“You don’t have her here?”

“We don’t want her now.”

“N o longer interested in her either?” Durell asked.

“Quite so. However, you must contain your feelings of relief, assuming you have developed some sort of affection for her. If you make any errors in the matters we have programmed for you, you will not be alone to suffer for mistakes. Maggie will be available to share your punishment.”

“All these killings haven’t bothered you, Doctor?”

“Why should they? The cost of any commodity is normally a matter of supply and demand. Any glut on the market cheapens the value of the item, and you certainly must know, the expanding world population makes human life just about the cheapest commodity available.”

“I don’t think I like you,” Durell said.

“You don’t have to, Mr. Durell. Just obey me.”

“I think I’d rather take orders from your boss.”

MacLeod’s eyes glinted behind his glasses. He sucked a bit of duckling from between his teeth. “You will get no farther than me. Understand that. It is I who command. I do not underestimate your intelligence. You were very quick to trace down the significance of the unicorn coins—a mere identity symbol, you must now realize—and the obvious fact that Strawbridge was feeding us useful input on K Section’s financial transfers, all of which made it easy—ah—to execute our demonstrations.”

“For whose benefit were you demonstrating?” Durell asked.

“Ah. Are you quite finished with your meal?”

“I don’t want any more of it. Why do you hate K Section so much?”

“Not I. My feelings are neutral.”

“It almost seems to me as if you have been carrying on a personal vendetta against K Section. You could have made other demonstrations with the use of your drug. If you wanted money, a lot of money, you could have broken into any number of banks, for example, the world over. What you got from the demonstrations you did make was only peanuts, relatively speaking.” Durell leaned forward earnestly. The table was made of two-inch planking, but he thought he could lift it. He said, “Would you answer a few questions?”

“Certainly.”

“Why did your people try to kill me on that Maryland beach?”

“My dear Mr. Durell, your progress toward us was appalling. I must admit it. And your performance on the beach was remarkable. But then, when you flew alone to London, We were piqued by further curiosity. So we let you live, to see what you would do. We decided you could be useful to us.” '

“I can be. I intend to be,” Durell said.

“An eager detector, eh?”

“Perhaps. Now that Joshua Strawbridge, our Finance officer, is dead, you have no further pipelines into K Section.”

“Perhaps none as effective as you might be.” Dr. MacLeod gestured with a small hand. “Eat your porridge, my boy.”

“No. I don’t want it.”

“Eats,

The two guards moved in closer to Durell. One of them put the muzzle of his gun to Durell’s head. Durell shrugged and picked up his spoon and dug into the oatmeal.

“Very good. Surely you have other questions?”

“I understand you are telling me all this because I’ll never get off this place alive,” Durell said. “Where are we, by the way?”

“In the Orkney Islands, north of the Scottish mainland. You guessed as much, I think.”

“Yes. The other question: What is your ultimate goal in all this?”

Dr. MacLeod smiled. He looked benign, fat and happy and contented with his achievements. He watched Durell eat the oatmeal and signaled the two guards back to the wall. Then he folded his hands over his red-checked belly and settled back in comfort at the opposite end of the table. Durell heard no outside sounds from beyond the dining room, but he did not doubt that others were nearby.

“The ultimate goal,” Dr. MacLeod said. “Well, we wish to make an ultimate demonstration. Our price for my drug—the unicorn drug, as I believe you call it, and most fitting the term is, I assure you—the price will be enormous. We have buyers ready. But it is not just the money. It is we who will control the entire operation, now, at the settlement, and in the future.”

“I should think the killings and hijackings would be enough.”

“It is you who excited our admiration, however, by noting the ‘innocent bystanders.’ You pressed Maggie Donaldson for her father’s relationship and true objectives on Palingpon. You saw there was more to it than die mere robberies of K Section funds. Very astute. A long shot in deductive reasoning, perhaps, but a correct one, of course. Hence our concern about you, Mr. Durell. Incidentally, do not think for one moment during this conversation that we are taken in by your professed desire to desert K Section and join us. We have studied your profile in extreme detail. Whether you like it or not, you are a patriot. You would not betray K Section or your country. Your claim to want to work with us is denied, of course.”

“I see,” Durell said.

“You do not see.” A note of impatient emotion finally broke through Dr. MacLeod’s jolly host behavior. “We are not stupid. You should give us credit for intelligent reactions to your moves. Surely you must expect to die for what you know. Surely you must be skeptical if we were to accept your mere word that you wish to join us. But join us you will, whether it suits you or not.”

“You’re very sure of yourself, Doctor.”

“I am. You are bound to me now, body and soul, whatever you choose to do.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.”

“How?”

“I will explain in a moment.” All at once Dr. MacLeod slid from his chair and waddled to a buzzer set into the wall. Durell was shocked. The man was no more than five feet tall, with abnormally short legs, apparently malformed at birth. There was something grotesque about his fully developed torso and those childlike sticks of lower limbs. MacLeod punched the buzzer and said something in Gaelic, waited, spoke more sharply, and then returned to the table. He looked angry now. He spoke as if he had not interrupted himself. “It is not for money alone, Mr. Durell, that we have embarked on the course we follow. It is a matter of conscience, however you may argue it. The world is a desperate place, these days, filled with violence, lawlessness, a towering contempt for the rights of others. Discipline—swift punishment, unalterable discipline—is required, if we are to restore sanity to society. Force against force. An eye for an eye, if you will. Justice for the victims, justice for the perpetrators of violence.”

“And who is to be the judge?” Durell asked. “You and your unicorns?”

“The term ‘unicorn’ is an apt one. It was not chosen by accident. The symbol was picked deliberately. The unicorn is, according to mythology, a lover of virtue, inevitably drawn to virtue, purity and decency. They say the unicorn’s hooves never touch grass.” Dr. MacLeod grinned, but his eyes were hard. “So we leave little or no trace, we unicorns. You have noticed, of course, our connections with, or against, various national security forces. An elite body, scattered around the world, will soon enough put things right."

“According to your lights, perhaps. You replace freedom with a police state, run by supermen thugs, and bind the people in iron chains, is that it?”

“Lawlessness, terror, anarchy, the destruction of man’s social arrangements that permit him to live in peace and safety with his fellowmen, must come to an end if we are to survive.” MacLeod’s breath came a little faster. His eyes were more than angry now. A gleam of fanaticism touched them. “I will not bore you with a recitation of my own personal injuries suffered by the contemptuous attitude of corporate conglomerates in the course of my work as a biochemist. The insults, not only to my physical handicaps, but to my integrity as a professional researcher, were like stones striking me from every direction, all my life. So I decided that terror must end, and only force of a new kind could prevail against today‘s international, personal and private anarchies.”

“So you merely impose a new terror on the world,” Durell said quietly.

MacLeod’s right hand clenched, then slowly relaxed. “Do not goad me. Your life depends upon my good will."

“Just as everyone will depend on you, all over the world, is that it? Do you honestly believe that two wrongs will make things right?”

“A new police mechanism, an indestructible super-agency, dedicated to virtue, as the mythological unicorn was dedicated to peace and justice, is the only way. The only rational means to restore order and harmony to the world. The only path to follow, if man is to survive side by side with his fellowman, and not cower III terror when night falls and live behind locked gates as man did in medieval times.”

“Your supermen,” Durell said.

“An elite force, strategically placed to cope with lawlessness.” MacLeod looked up sharply. “You have heard of the projected conference, ICSOPP, to be held on Mattatuck Island. Security chiefs from certain selected nations will be there. They are willing to bargain for my drug to create elite, indestructible forces of dedicated men whom nothing can stop. They are willing to pay vast sums. We intend to see that your President is properly impressed. We need your cooperation.”

Durell sat at his end of the table, his mind seething. He did not believe what he’d been told. He refused to accept it. He looked confused, angry. Would they dare to threaten the President of the United States?

The grotesque little man stood before him.

“And now we come to the drug itself, the mainspring of the entire operation.”

“Yes?”

“Have you wondered about your diet recently?”

“The oatmeal? Yes.”

“You have ingested enough of it by now, I should think. Small doses, the first days. Carefully increased amounts later. You are one of mine, now, Mr. Durell. You belong to me. Have you not questioned your recent capacities? Your ability to jump up and reach the window ledge of your cell? Your feelings of well-being, despite a restricted, stingy, and monotonous diet? Yes, you are mine, Mr. Durell. Body and soul.”

Durell reached under the heavy table, with its two-inch planking, and lifted it. Belts attached the legs to the stone floor. They came loose with ripping, popping sounds. The table heaved upward, toward Dr. MacLeod’s strange figure. It felt light and flimsy in his grip. He lifted the table bodily to hurl it at the biochemist. He felt wonderful. He could do anything. Nothing could stop him.

Then the guards closed in. From the corner of his eye, he saw the butt of the descending rifle. He felt no pain. But his knees buckled. He went down, struggling. There were more blows to his head. He tried to get up again. The table fell backward on his legs with a crash. He did not feel it. But suddenly the lights went out.

39

HE HEARD the voice from a far distance, through a grayish haze.

“ . . . very foolish of you, Mr. Durell. But your reaction is understandable . . . resent what I have done to you, naturally . . . but cooperation will be in the best interests of all. Can you hear me now? I have something of utmost importance to tell you. Are you listening?”

“Yes,” Durell said.

“Open your eyes.”

“They are open.”

“You cannot see clearly?”

“Not yet.”

He made out the dim moon face of Dr. Alexander MacLeod. Not quite as jolly as before.

“Have you any pain, Mr. Durell?”

“No.”

“Very good. You have been unconscious for twenty-four hours, unfortunately for both of us. Do you believe now that the drug is in you?”

“Yes.”

“You researched possibilities for my drug, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“The idea of possessing superstrength intrigues you?”

“Yes.”

“There is one flaw in the drug, Mr. Durell.”

“Yes?”

“You observed one of my men who was captured in Palingpon. He was dying, was he not?”

“Yes.”

“Of exhaustion?”

“It seemed so.”

“It is an unfortunate by-product of the drug. It requires continued ingestion. Failure to continue the procedure results in death. The organism is worn out, overextended. The heart sometimes bursts. The aorta ruptures. Bones break without the subject realizing it. Only further replenishment will save the subject. Are you aware now of how I own you? Without me, you will surely die. You need me now, Mr. Durell. Just as all my men need me. It is unfortunate that the drug is not perfect. But its imperfection serves a purpose.”

“I suppose so.”

“Get up, Mr. Durell.”

Durell got up.

40

DURELL judged it was nearly noon, from the position of the sun low on the southern horizon. Some years ago, he had hiked through Scotland and visited the Orkney Islands, and he recognized the green, low—lying islands now, from where he stood with a group of gray Jumpsuited men in a low field between the rolling green hills. The field had the appearance of a school athletic event. There were at least a score of the men in jumpsuits, silent and dour as the land. The obstacle course was laid out within the perimeter of a high wooden fence. There were barricades, ditches, a brook to hurdle, and finally the facsimile of a house facade that reached up two stories, complete with doors, windows, and an overhanging roof eave that looked impossible to overcome.

Durell had been given a crisply laundered gray Jumpsuit and heavy sneakers after his usual breakfast of porridge. He ate with reluctance under the watchful eyes of his armed guards.

This time they deigned to talk to him.

“Welcome to the club,” one of them said.

He was a thin, wiry little man named Marcus. Durell said, “How long have you been here?”

“Five months, man.”

“Have you been on any of the expeditions?”

“I was in Geneva. Saw you there. But you weren’t on our target list then.”

“You don’t get bored here on the island?”

“The pay is good, fella. And you feel good, besides. We won’t be stationed here forever.”

“You get a shot every day?”

“We eat the stuff, like. Three times a week. Otherwise . . . ” Marcus’s ratty face grimaced. “Well, the Old Man explained it all to you, I hear. That’s why we’re at liberty to talk to you.”

“What you do, doesn’t it bother you?”

“I told you,” Marcus said impatiently, “the pay is good. The future’s even better. Straight gold, fantastic.”

He paused. “Once we make the final hit, it’s gravy all the way.”

Marcus’s companion said, “Shut up, big mouth. He ain’t cleared that much.”

Durell said, “But your lives really depend on getting the drug regularly?”

“So what?” Marcus shrugged. “The doc takes good care of us. He’s been good to us. Picked me up out of a slum in Zaire, where I was underground from the local fuzz. Joey, here, he was wanted by Interpol for a few little items. Most of the crew are just plain mercenaries, though. You ready for field day?”

“I’m ready,” Durell said.

The jumpsuit was warm, insulating him against the bite of the Atlantic wind. He was directed to join the other unicorns, none of whom bothered to talk to him. Dr. MacLeod sat with his two armed guards at a small distance from the group. He was seated in a camp chair on a high wooden platform where he could oversee the training field. His tiny legs dangled from the chair, not quite touching the plank floor of the platform.

One of the armed guards blew a whistle and the men lined up. Their faces were a variety collected from all over the world, it seemed. Two Chinese, four Japanese, two tall, rangy blacks, the others of various sizes and coloring, some Mediterranean, some Nordic, all of them with that indelible stamp of rugged men who had lived hard lives and enjoyed danger. They seemed eager to perform.

Durell shrugged his shoulders, flexed his muscles.

The first man started at another signal from the whistle. A shrill blast, and he was off, running in a zigzag course for the first wooden barrier. It was a typical military training course, except that every hurdle, every barrier was higher and wider than any Durell had ever seen.

The man scaled the first ten-foot barricade like a cat, dropped to the other side, gathered speed like a sprint runner, hurdled a ten-foot ditch, landed easily, kept running on a long, looping footpath. His pace was dazzling. His teeth gleamed in a grin. He snatched up a coil of rope on a wooden stand along the racepath. It had a grapnel attached to it. Without slackening, the man leaped two more hurdles, then approached the framed facade of the house. The grapnel swung in a high, accurate loop, caught on the overhanging eave, came taut with a single tug, and the man went up hand over hand with no apparent effort, his feet gripping door and window frames, and the final height, without any toeholds, simply by pulling himself up with the strength of his shoulders. He vanished over the top of the false-front building, landed by jumping down the other side, rolled over twice, and then raced around the field beside the outer perimeter fence. The speed of his long, pumping stride was enormous. At the end, in front of Dr. MacLeod’s reviewing stand, he halted, breathing lightly, only a slight dew of perspiration on his rugged face.

At last Durell’s turn came.

As he ran, he felt as if his feet scarcely touched the ground. He was exhilarated, amazed at the way he covered the distance to the first high barrier. It loomed impossibly before him. He felt the wind rush by him. He gauged the distance, gathered himself, leaped for the top of the wooden fence. He didn’t think he would make it. He misjudged it, came up too high, fumbled his grip on the top, scraped skin from his forearm, and dropped down on the other side like a feather. He rolled over twice, going forward, scarcely felt the sharp cuts from stones in the tall grass, gathered his legs under him, and raced for the ditch ahead.

Now he began to feel it, the power in his muscles, the spring in his feet, an ineffable sense of being able to accomplish the impossible. He took the ditch with a long leap, thrusting his feet ahead of him to land in the earth churned up by those who had gone ahead of him. He did not feel the jolt of his landing. There was a grace in him, a coordination, a perception that keenly attuned mind and muscle, nerve and heart.

He took the next barrier, which was higher than the first, almost casually, not thinking about it. Everything chimed in him. There was a long sprint to the next area, where he had to crawl under barbed wire for about fifty feet; he slid forward on his stomach, used his elbows and knees and stomach to urge himself forward. It seemed easy. He felt exultant.

There was nothing but pure joy in moving his body this way. He was in absolute command of every muscle, every capillary, every tiny nerve ending. He seemed to sense obstacles ahead of him with an instinct he had never possessed before. He was able to gauge with a glance the exact amount of effort needed to hurdle a series of six barriers and then spin to the right toward the high façade of the frame building, the last of the group. He felt as if he had only just started. Nothing could stop him.

The coil of nylon line and the grappling hook were on a small wooden table set in the field on his line of approach. He snatched it up without pause, precisely timing the gesture, and raced toward the high false-front  building, whirling the grapnel as he went. The grappling hook went over the top, caught with a chunking sound, and he yanked it taut. There were enough foot and toe holds on the lower floor of the movie-set facade to let him scale the first ten feet with ease and speed. It was like walking up a flight of stairs, although he was poised dangerously, tilted outward, keeping the nylon rope taut. He wrapped it around his right wrist and punched his feet against the boards, swinging free, and hauled himself up, hand over hand now, toward the overhanging eave. It thrust out farther than he had thought. He clung precariously to the hook and line, but he felt no fear. He kicked out, hauled himself upward, heard his shoulder muscles crack with the effort, then swung up and over. There was a narrow platform, hardly wide enough for his feet, on the other side. He unhooked the grapnel, reset it for a descent on the fiat side of the set, and went down in great, swinging bouncing slides, until his feet touched the ground below.

The track from behind the facade made a long loop just inside the high perimeter fence. The other unicorns had put on a burst of speed from this point, following the track in a long curve back to Dr. MacLeod’s reviewing stand.

Durell did not hesitate.

The fence around the field was more than fourteen feet high, he judged, with barbed wire glinting in the feeble morning sunlight.

Instead of turning left for the return toward where the others waited for him, he kept going.

He rushed straight at the perimeter fence, a distance of perhaps fifty yards, and leaped high, summoning all his strength and agility. His arms were outstretched, high above his head, fingers hooked to grip the top. He felt the slap of the boards against his left hand; his right curled over the rough, splintery top, hooked, and held.

For a moment, he simply dangled there by one hand.

He heard a shout, thought he heard the warning rattle of a gun. He pulled himself up, shoulders cracking, feet scrabbling against the rough boards. The barbed wire parted as he pulled it aside. He wriggled over onto the top of the fence, lying flat.

Water gleamed below.

A bullet smacked into the board fence, making it vibrate.

Durell dropped on the opposite side, his knees flexed, hit the water. It was only knee-deep.

He scrambled out and kept going.

41

HE RAN.

They were behind him, like hounds after a fox.

He knew he would die soon, his body burned out, without MacLeod’s drug. But he had to try to stay alive long enough to contact K Section—and right now he had to find a hiding place. He did not know the size of the island, or the coast, or if there was a boat to get him away. There was a long, grassy slope going up, ahead of him, and a rough stone fence along the top. He hurdled the fence without pause, slid down the opposite incline, raced along the edge of a brook as the first of his pursuers came over the stone fence behind him.

He ran.

Brush ahead. He crashed through it, saw a long rise on the southerly slope of the low hill ahead, and ran up and across it on a diagonal, smashing through the long coarse growth. Branches and twigs slapped and plucked

and tore at him. He felt nothing. His legs pumped, he fell into a long, ground-eating stride. He felt no pain. There were no further shots behind him. He did not look back again.

He burst out of the brushy hillside near the crest, raced downhill again, caught the glimmer of the sea to his left, turned that way. Houses. Two of them, low, built of stone, with torn thatched roofs. A deserted lane, weed-grown, between two stone walls.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Anybody home?”

He remembered seeing what he had thought to be a man and a woman, walking across the fields, glimpsed from his cell window. The wind brushed his face. It made the door of the nearest house swing open and bang shut, repetitively. The place was deserted. Nobody at home. He ran up the lane for the second house. Dimly, he heard shouting, at some distance behind him. He swung around the second house, through a deserted crofter’s yard, saw empty sheep pens, a smoke house, a shearing shed. He hurdled obstacles in his way without having to think about coordination or timing. Nothing. Nobody here. He kept running for the pale gray glimmer of the sea.

The land slanted upward. He was coming to the top of a low cliff that overhung the ocean surf below. He could see no way down. Footsteps thudded distantly behind him. He turned his head and saw the gray jumpsuits. He had gained a little on them, but not much. A footpath ran along the top of the cliff. He followed it, for easier footing, making better speed.

Now he was aware of the slow thud of his heart. It should have been choking his throat, ready to burst from the effort he had already made; but it was remarkably, almost ominously steady and slow. He suddenly felt a sense of vertigo. He wasn’t getting enough blood to his brain. The drug, of course. His left leg suddenly developed a tremor and collapsed, and he went down, rolled over, picked himself up, and ran on again.

A mass of boulders loomed at the end of the low cliff, a tumble of rocks going down into the white-spurned sea. He headed for them, aware of something happening to his body that should not be happening. He dodged into the maze of high reddish rock, climbed downward. There was a very narrow beach below. He jumped, slid, fell the rest of the way, hit the sand, rolled into the water as a surge of surf came up at him as if to devour him.

The water was icy, unbearable. He splashed out of it, staggering now, ran down the narrow strip of beach, leaving his footprints. More rocks ahead. He went into the water, splashing, and leaped atop a messy ledge of stone, slipped, caught his balance, ducked behind more boulders. The other jumpsuits were not yet down to the beach. His footprints in the sand were clear enough to follow, then vanished into the water. On the rocks, he felt little track. He climbed up again. It seemed more difficult now. His muscles began to protest. He made himself climb higher beyond the boulders. But they were coming on fast behind him now. He couldn’t outrun them any longer.

Suddenly, he was finished.

Everything seemed to stop inside him.

It was as if he had been operating on a giant spring coiled inside him, and the tension had run out.

He staggered, fell to hands and knees, got up again. The hounds were still out of sight, but closing fast on him, down on the beach.

“Halloo,” someone said.

He whirled, his arms wide, spinning on his toes. He noticed for the first time that his feet were bleeding.

“Down here,” someone said.

“What?”

“Here.”

Hallucinating. Then he saw a pale hand and arm come up from between a crevice in the rocks. The hand and fingers beckoned to him, and he moved that way. There was triumphant shouting on the beach below as his pursuers discovered that he had come out of the water on the ledge of rock.

“Hurry, you young fool. I’ve seen them tear a man apart before.”

The hand waved. The fingers waggled. A woman’s hand, not young, veined on the back. He hesitated, jumped forward with a last surge of strength. The crevice was larger than he thought. He saw a pale face below, long black hair, a head and face like a witch, grinning at him.

He fell forward and down, and felt hands on him, pulling him quickly inward.

Darkness, and stumbling, and the sound of the sea, the smell of rotting things, the scrape of barnacles.

He felt pain now.

He thought his chest was about to burst open.

He fell.

“I’m—sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

“I think I—l think I’m dying,” Durell said.

Everything came in against him, darkness and cold and pain that was excruciating, all through his shuddering body.

“I won’t let you die,” the woman said.

42

HE HEARD them hunting, coursing back and forth among the rocks. Nothing mattered except to draw the next breath to keep the incredible hammering of his heart from breaking his ribs. The pain he felt went beyond anything he thought he could endure.

He remembered the man in Colonel Ko’s prison in Palingpon.

“You will not die.”

He gasped, “It’s a—drug—”

“I will not let you die,” the woman crooned.

“Who—?"

“Never mind. Be still. They hunt you out there.”

"But—“

“Hush. Listen to the sea. It brought you here. It will take you away. Hush.”

There was a hollow booming of surf in his ears. It reverberated from everywhere. A cave, that was it. Now and then sea spray touched his face. He did not know if it was the woman, sprinkling water on him, or if it came from bursts of surf striking rock nearby. He could see nothing. He felt blind. He could not move to lift himself up on his elbows to look around.

“Who are you?”

The woman said, “I come to visit, now and then.”

“Is there no one else on the island?”

“No one but the strangers.”

“Do they know of you?”

“No.”

“What do you do here?”

“I write poetry about the Old Ones, who were devoured by the Sea People. About ancient Dalradia and Pictavia, that noble kingdom of the Dark People. My ancestors.”

He thought she was insane.

“St. Columba converted us, and Kenneth MacFergus joined the thrones of the Picts and the Scots. Are you listening to me‘? I shall save your life.”

“Not-likely," Durell said.

“We shall see.”

43

“HARALD HAARFAGRE, son of Halfdan the Black, won his great victory at Hafrs Fjord in the year of our Lord 872. He became King of Norway, and then he conquered the Orkney Islands, and the Black Ones became slaves. I, myself, am the pure daughter of such slaves. When Harald died, his son Eric Bloodyaxe killed his brothers and was cried overlord of all. Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Our houses below the ground were destroyed, the Winter winds and ice killed us. They tore down our brochs, our sacred circles of stone, at Maeshowe and Stromness, and Stenness. Rognvald, Jarl of Orkney, built a cathedral, the church of St. Magnus, in place of my people’s sacred things. Bishops lived where we once worshiped. Listen to me!”

“I’m listening.”

“Can you see my face?”

“No.”

“They have gone. Do you understand?”

“No.”

“They did not find us. They never find me: you are safe.”

“I’m dying,” Durell whispered.

“I will not let you die. King Haakon IV of Norway died in Kirkwall in 1263. You shall not die here on Lersay.”

“The island has a name? Lersay?”

“I have food. Can you eat?”

“No.”

“You must.”

“No."

“Eat, I say.”

He ate.

Time passed.

He was still alive.

He should have died, like the man in Palingpon. Perhaps. For a long time, his heart thudded and seemed to stop and banged and fluttered in his chest. He was too weak to raise his head. It grew light, and he could see dimly.

He saw the old woman.

Her face was as craggy and seamed as the rocks that surrounded the little cave. Her long, straggling hair was as black as the night. She was small and scrawny and barefooted, with long toes that gripped the rough rocky floor of the cave. Her black eyes seemed to blaze like glowing coals in her dark face. She crooned constantly to herself, speaking and singing softly in a language he did not understand, only knowing it was neither English nor Gaelic nor Norse. She gave him cold food, a mushy kind of paste that might have been fish or meat, he could not tell; he swallowed it with great difficulty.

He said to her, “I must leave soon. Now.”

“When it is safe.”

“How long have I been here?”

“There is food enough yet. And I have not finished my poem.”

“But I must do something, it is important—”

“They still hunt for you.”

“What kind of poem are you writing?”

“I write of Inxtstalf, the Pict.”

“Never heard of him.”

“One day, you will.”

He thought the old woman was crazy.

But the food she instinctively prepared for him—a potassium-rich mash of seaweed and raw fish—kept him alive.

Slowly, his muscles were replenished, his heart grew calm, and he could see the ocean beyond the narrow mouth of the cave. The woman muttered by the hour, writing on a pad of paper with a stub of a pencil. She had a knapsack in one corner of the cave, and a sleeping bag on which she had placed him, and these ordinary, everyday days kept him from believing he had lost touch with reality.

“How do you get to the island?” he asked.

“I row.”

“You have a boat?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Where is the nearest inhabited island?"

“Beyond Lermach Firth, that tongue of sea you see. Everything is as it should be there. Crofters and herring fishermen, and tourists who go for trout in the brooks. There is a private plane service run by Tommy Campbell, who was once in the RAF and was shot down and is a little crazy.” The old woman grinned at him for the first time. “Tommy can fly you wherever you wish to go. I suppose you think I’m a batty old woman, too.”

“No, I didn’t say—”

“No need. Everyone does. I enjoy myself. And I can heal. When the spirit touches me, I come here. Otherwise, I run a gift shop in Pondwick.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Three days.”

“I don’t know how to thank you—"

“No need. No pay, either. I want nothing.”

“How often have you seen the men in jumpsuits?”

“Twice. Twice too much. I know nothing of them. They bought the island and drove the people off with handfuls of money, and now no one comes here but me; but they don’t know that. Can you stand up yet?”

“I don’t think—”

"Try."

He got on his feet and fell down.

“Try again.”

He fell down again.

“Once more.”

This time he stood, his legs trembling, as weak as a child, drenched in sweat from the effort.

“Good,” the old woman said. “Now we can go. First in my little rubber boat, when it is dark, and then we will row to where Mr. Pentland in his fishing craft will pick us up, and then we will find Tommy Campbell, who will fly you to Caithness or Aberdeen or even Edinburgh, if you wish.”

“I wish,” Durell said.

44

THE MATTATUCK cottage, long a favored place for Durell, had been built many years ago. There was a long living room, pine-paneled, with a huge fieldstone fireplace, a few mounted deer heads and one moose, comfortable old furniture, a few Navajo throw rugs. In the back end of the house were bunk rooms and a clerestory roof which accommodated a loft and railed balcony that sheltered Durell’s room. The place was built for comfort and casual ease. The furnace wasn’t working, but the living room felt cozy, the remains of a fire still glowing on the fieldstone hearth.

Wolfe looked tired. Deep fissures marked his face, running from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth; his cheeks were hollow and he had a gray look to his skin. Only half dressed, he had obviously been asleep on the big couch in front of the hearth, and his voice was raspy when he spoke.

“Mr. Wilderman isn’t here. He’s on the other side of the island.” Wolfe coughed. “It’s good to see you. We thought you’d been given the deep six.”

“What about Maggie?”

“She’s here. Upstairs asleep.”

“She’s all right?”

“Fine. Don’t ask me why, but she’s been worried sick about you,” Wolfe said.

“Why did Wilderman order you both to come here?” Durell asked.

“He said it would be safer. And if you came back—if—this is where you’d be needed.” Wolfe coughed again.

“You look like hell. Want a drink?”

“No. Have you been drinking?”

“I don’t use liquor,” Wolfe said.

“Popping speed?”

“A little. I have to stay awake.”

“Any international guests arrive yet?”

“Four came in yesterday. Achmed Mussarib, Paolo Lumbaba, Diem Xu, Colonel Ko—all heads of security in their states. The hotel was opened up for them.”

“What about the President?"

“He’s paying a brief visit this afternoon,” Wolfe said. “He’s stopping off on his way to Canada.” Wolfe looked at his watch. “Are we in for a storm?”

“More than that,” Durell said somberly. “You say Maggie is upstairs?”

Wolfe jerked a thumb. “Up there, right.” Wolfe paused. His hulking figure cast a huge shadow on the wall opposite the fireplace. “Durell?”

Durell paused on the stairs.

“Durell, Maggie’s all right.”

“Yes?”

“She reminds me of my daughter.”

“So?” Durell asked.

“So you go easy with her, understand?”

Durell smiled. “You’re getting soft, Wolfe.”

45

THE SKY was a heavy, leaden gray. The rain had stopped, and there still was no wind: the ocean was calm, oily, brooding.

No cars had ever been permitted on Mattatuck Island, and the only roads were footpaths cut through the spruce and pine forests that covered most of the land. There were two high points, with a saddle between each end, running roughly east and west to two coves behind high, granitic cliffs and tumbled boulders, where the wash and drive of the Labrador Current splashed high spume and spray. Each cove had a beach, and there was a hotel on the northern point, designed for wealthy families from Boston and the North Shore, when ladies in Gibson hairdos and gentlemen in bowlers had taken the sea air to cool off from the city’s hot summers. A little steamer had once plied back and forth from Preble Cove, where a branch of the Boston & Maine railroad had a station. But most of the island was still virginal, and the scars of the early resort days were mostly overgrown.

Durell braced himself against a giant spruce and leveled his binoculars on the hotel. The binoculars pierced the gray morning light clearly. There was a helicopter pad near the hotel and a new beach area beyond the hotel’s broad verandas, tennis courts and a swimming pool, although the pool was now drained and boarded over for the winter.

Durell studied the scene for a long time from his vantage point. The second hill to the west blocked out his view of the calm, oily sea under the heavy overcast. The spruce trees dripped from the night’s rain. An ominous feeling of waiting filled the atmosphere, as if the storm to come could bide its time and strike when it chose. The binoculars showed him four or five Secret Service men moving casually around the hotel. Two men walked rhythmically up and down the hotel veranda, exercising; one of them wore an African costume, all bright colors and challenging stripes, and Durell judged they were among the early guests.

“Sam?”

He turned to look at Wolfe.

Wolfe said, “How much more do you want?” He held a long coil of wire, a detonator and several packages wrapped in oil-yellow paper. “Gelignite. And what in hell were you doing with all this stuff down in the cellar?”

“Some of it is experimental,” said Durell. “I used to come here now and then for K Section and try it out.”

“You’re a demolition expert, are you?”

“In a small way.” Durell looked beyond Wolfe’s hulk. “Is Maggie being careful?”

“I only let her string the wires. We’ve made a pretty decent perimeter, so tar, through the trees.”

“I want more,” Durell said. “Let’s get to it."

It was ten o’clock before he was satisfied, and then he had no choice, since his cache of explosives in the root cellar under the house was exhausted. Wolfe was ingenious about arranging trip wires, snares, boobytraps, all arranged with three central points. Durell held off the final hookups until he had personally checked each trap. Wolfe considered it a waste when he placed three of the explosive caches above the high cliffs to the east, but Durell, a vision of the unicorns in his mind, with the remembrance of his own experience still in his muscles and nerves, insisted that the cliffs were just as vulnerable as the beach down by the cove.

Afterward, Durell was able to reconstruct the timing of the mornings events:

10:15—-First helicopter landing on Presidential pad, eight passengers, all foreign police and security officials.

10:42—Second landing, ten passengers.

10:46—Coast Guard patrol begun, one circuit of the island every 28 minutes.

10:58—Barometer dropping, 29.56.

11:02—Presidential helicopter lands.

11:20-Coast Guard patrol boat CG-94965 replaced.

11:37—Unicorns arrive.

46

IT WAS a few minutes past eleven o’clock that morning when Durell slipped aboard the rented cruiser with Maggie. He held her hand tightly, although she was as quick and sure-footed as he. Beyond the entrance to the cove, he saw not one, but two Coast Guard patrol boats, proceeding northerly side by side. He stared at the two vessels for a moment, grunted, and urged Maggie ahead of him.

“Get below,” he told her. “Please, Maggie.”

“But what are you going to do, Sam?”

“I intend to keep you safe. All hell is going to pop loose, any moment.”

“I don’t want to be safe. I want to be with you.”

“Never mind. Do as I say.”

“I wish I knew what you had in mind,” she objected.

“You’ll find out later. When it’s all over.”

The cabin was roomy, fitted with two long cushioned benches that could be changed into bunks. Forward was a small, tidy galley, and beyond that, a narrow hatch and three steps down led to the sail locker. Durell pushed the girl ahead, through the galley, but at the bulkhead door to the locker she suddenly balked.

“Where the devil are you taking me?” She turned in his grip, startled and angry.

Durell said, “Sweetheart, I’m putting you out of action. No one will come aboard looking for you. Certainly not in the sail locker. And I’ll have the keys, anyway.”

“You’re locking me in there?” She sounded appalled.

“To keep you safe, yes.”

“You work me like a damned slave, setting your boobytraps, and then expect me to hide while you—while you—while you risk your life? I will not.”

“Maggie, please.”

She drew a deep breath, staring at him. “Listen, Sam. It was my father they killed in Palingpon. I’ve gone along pretty meekly with you, all this time, hoping it would be ended before now. But I owe it to Hugh, to Daddy, to help end it. I’m not going to hide in the cubbyhole like a scared rabbit—”

“Keep your voice down,” Durell said.

“I will not! You can’t cheat me like this. You can’t lock me in here to hide while you go oil somewhere, risking your neck against these madmen. I’m going with you.”

“No."

“Well, I won’t hide here. Where are you going?”

“To the hotel,” he said.

“And how do you expect to get through the security screen?”

“Maggie, I know what I’m doing.”

“So you can slip through, somehow?”

“I have no question about it.”

Maggie drew another deep breath. Suddenly she took Durell’s face in her hands, as they stood in the tiny, cramped companionway, and kissed him.

“Sam, I’m pretty good at playing Indian, too. I’m going with you. If you shove me in there, I’ll just scream.”

He looked at her carefully for a long moment. Her defiance surprised him. Her anger and determination could not be denied. He had not expected her to rebel, and it somehow pleased him, in a way he had no time to define, at the moment.

“All right. Come along. We’re wasting time.”

47

THE STORM waited.

Its center was about fifty miles off Prince Edward Island, and inland it was dumping heavy rain. It moved very slowly south-southwest, stalking the Maine coast like some wild predator. Far south of the center, there was an area of calm where the low—pressure center winds had not yet reached. The turbulence seemed tightly controlled. Southward, the sea was relatively calm, although long, ominous swells had begun to move into Casco Bay and along the rocky coast beyond. The swells reached the rocky shore and burst in increasing violence against the stone breakwaters of Maine’s innumerable little coves and island groups. The fishermen stayed in harbor.

At Mattatuck, a fog still persisted offshore, hanging less than twenty feet above the smooth surface of the ocean. Now and then, the island seemed to reverberate with the thunder of an especially strong swell breaking against the gray granite rocks.

The Coast Guard patrol boat was surprised to see a companion vessel loom out of the fog bank and take up a position alongside. The skipper, a young lieutenant, assumed the new vessel was an additional security measure pending the President’s arrival. He did not deny the other vessel’s signal requesting permission to come aboard, although he did signal by radio to Preble Cove Station that he had company on his patrol. It was far too late when the skipper saw the launch alongside and noted that the men who swarmed over his port rail all wore gray jumpsuits and were heavily armed.

The Coast Guardsmen never knew exactly what hit them.

The storm began to move.

48

ENOCH WILDERMAN was making a welcoming speech to the ISCOPP delegations. He promised lectures on mob control, riot prevention, the surveillance of subversives, the training of security forces, the arms they

needed, the methods best suited to swift and accurate reaction to public disorders. The security heads in the audience listened with appreciation. Wilderman spoke with certainty and confidence. His voice, a bit too thin, carried authoritative conviction. He seemed pleased by his position on the dais; his gaunt figure slouched a bit behind the lectern, at ease, his gray hair tumbled, his Franklin glasses shoved on top of his head.

“What is it?” Maggie whispered behind Durell. They were hurrying down an aging corridor, unevenly floored under worn carpeting, in the hotel. Durell carried a long-barreled .357 Magnum; remembering the incredible vitality of the unicorns, he had put aside his stubby .38.

“One more chore to do.”

“Where is the President?”

“He’ll probably have lunch with the security representatives, and make a brief welcoming speech to them.”

“And then?”

“We’ll see.”

The government had installed a radio station in what had once been a row of bath-house lockers at the east end of the hotel. A sixty-foot steel tower, securely guyed against the Maine coast winds, kept it steady. The bath house had been connected to one wing of the old hotel, so that guests could change their clothes there before venturing onto the beach. Durell moved quickly down the long third-floor corridor, with Maggie half a pace behind him. A rusting fire-escape ladder led down to the ground again. Durell opened the door carefully and looked outside. The fog bank seemed to have receded from the island’s coast. He noted the length and intervals between the big swells coming in from the north. The air felt a bit colder. Below were the tennis courts, but no one was in sight. Most of the guards would be inside the hotel, with the President, or patrolling the beach perimeters. Durell led the way down, glancing up only once at Maggie’s bottom as she followed him on the ladder. A side door to the bath house was locked. He tried one of the small square windows. It yielded with a creak of

rotted wood. He waited, listening. There was no alarm. In a moment he was inside, helping Maggie through.

A hallway, flanked by locked doors, led straight to the radio shack, at the base of the steel transmission tower. Durell flattened against the plank wall of the corridor, raised his Magnum, and listened. There was no sound from inside. He looked at Maggie. Her eyes were pale gray in the dim light. She nodded, managed a thin smile. Durell backed oil, kicked stiff-legged at the door just below the lock, and burst in.

The wiry little man seated with earphones over his head at the bank of transceiver equipment started to swivel in his metal chair.

He wore a gray jumpsuit.

The unicorns were already here.

Fast as the man was, Durell leveled the big .357 Magnum at his head and breathed, “Hold it, Marcus. Just like that. And don’t be a fool.”

The man named Marcus froze. He was not, after all, a mental robot. He looked bug-eyed at the gun, then at Durell’s face.

“It’s you? But you’re dead—”

“Not quite. Get up out of the chair. Slowly. Very carefully. Hands on top of your head.”

“You’re dead, though,” Marcus insisted. “We thought you‘d drowned, or crawled into a hole somewhere to die.”

Durell said harshly, “I know Dr. MacLeod told you the drug killed unless it was renewed. Well, you see it doesn’t kill, after all. I managed to survive. You don’t have to hang in there as a unicorn if you don’t want to. You’ll live, given proper care. Over there, against the wall. Maggie?”

She stared at the unicorn with surprised eyes.

“Take his gun. Over there, on the steel desk.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Cover him. He can move like blazes. Don’t take any chances, understand? If he bats an eyelash, shoot his head off.”

“Right. Is he one of the ones who killed my father?”

“Never mind. Just do as I say.”

“I’d like to kill him right now.”

“Good. Do it if he even looks like he’ll move. He may be a superman, but he won’t get far with his head blown away.”

The unicorn named Marcus said, stunned, “But we all thought—all of us—we had to keep getting the drug to stay alive.”

“Shut up.”

Durell sat down at the radio equipment. There was an automatic relay for a Mayday signal, aimed at Preble Cove Station. He set it, checked the SOS, locked it in place. The equipment hummed. The electronic tape began to revolve, sending out the appeal for help in a repetitive signal. A minute later, he picked up his gun again and looked at the unicorn man.

“Turn around, Marcus. Very, very slowly.”

Durell hit the back of the man’s head with the gun butt, hard and decisively. He had to repeat the blow before the man sagged, his knees buckling, and crashed to the floor of the radio room. Maggie yanked out a length of telephone wire and lashed the man’s wrists and ankles, tied them together until his body bowed painfully backward. Durell wasn’t sure it would hold against the man’s unnatural strength when he came to. But it should keep him immobile long enough.

Durell left the radio room first. Immediately he felt the jab of a gun in his ribs. He stopped cold. Maggie trod on his heels, bumped against him.

Colonel Ko stood in the outer hallway, a small smile on his neat, round, brown face.

“You, too, Miss Donaldson. Neither of you should move. Please. Drop your weapons.”

Durell looked into the man’s black, fathomless eyes. “Do as he says, Maggie.”

“Very wise,” Colonel Ko murmured. “Are you surprised to see me, Mr. Durell?”

“No. You‘re one of the ISCOPP delegates, aren’t you?”

“Naturally, but—”

“You’re with the unicorns, right?”

“The uni— Yes. Yes, that is correct. They are here, you know, for their demonstration of super police force personnel. To sell their methods. I have already agreed to the contract. Do not do anything rash, Miss Donaldson,” the little man said suddenly. “Stand over there.”

“Take it easy, Maggie,” Durell said. He pulled her aside. Her eyes were metallic as she stared at Ko, Hugh Donaldson’s contact with death. Colonel Ko looked into the radio room and saw the unconscious bound unicorn in his gray jumpsuit. He clucked his tongue in surprise. Apparently he did not recognize the automatic whirring of the Mayday signal for what it was. He was too preoccupied with keeping Durell and the girl in his view.

“You haven’t Smashed the radio equipment?”

“No,” Durell said. “We didn’t have time.”

“Very well. Come with me.”

He picked up Durell’s and Maggie’s guns, held them loosely in his left hand, and pushed them away from the radio room. He seemed to be in a hurry.

There was a series of small balconies on the second level above the meeting room, and Colonel Ko urged them to the curtains behind one of them, three minutes later. Durell heard a familiar voice from the dais. It was the President, making his welcoming speech to the ISCOPP delegates. He spoke in platitudes, about the need for security and law and order throughout the world, the need for international cooperation between states to discourage acts of violence that spanned the borders of the world’s nations, the hope that techniques developed among them would add to the security of peoples the world over. His mellifluous voice was calm and sure. Looking down upon him, Durell could only admire the man’s poise and political ease. For the President, it was simply another speech, saying much and meaning little.

Off to one side of the platform, Enoch Wilderman stood with his paunch thrusting forward, his steel-rimmed glasses perched on the tip of his long, sharp nose, his gray hair as untidy as ever. The audience applauded dutifully at set intervals. They seemed restless and impatient, waiting for what each had been privately promised—an exhibition of the skill, strength and speed of the unicorn assassins.

They were there.

Two men appeared on each side of the platform. They had obviously disposed of the Secret Service guards quickly and efficiently, and in silence. Durell realized that this end of the island must have been taken over by the false crew of the substitute Coast Guard vessel. It had happened with speed and a grim, frightening accuracy. He had not heard a single shot fired. But there was the President, already a prisoner, and not knowing it.

He saw Wilderman nod to the two jumpsuited men nearest his end of the platform, and waited for no more.

He looked at Maggie, and she nodded slightly, and moved a little forward, as if to see better through the balcony curtain that Colonel Ko had parted. Ko made a sound of annoyance and with his gun thrust her back.

Durell hit him.

Colonel Ko’s head snapped back and his eyes crossed as he flailed backward, trying to keep his balance. He dropped Durell’s and Maggie’s weapons hands on it and twisted. She was a big girl, a full twelve inches in height over the Palingponese. The gun went off with a stuttering blast, but it was in Maggie’s grip, twisted about. The slugs tore through Colonel Ko’s chest and upward through his throat and under his jaw. The top of his head blew off. Maggie kept her finger on the trigger, her face transformed with vengeful rage. Durell, snatching up his gun, grabbed the girl’s arm and pulled her backward.

“Enough! Hold it, Maggie—”

“He helped kill Daddy!” she gasped.

“Come on. The lid’s off.”

Down below, the audience listening to the President’s bland welcoming speech had stood up, transfixed, or dived for cover, according to their disposition. Only the President seemed to remain calm, even as the jumpsuited men leaped for him with dazzling speed and grabbed his arms, hustling him aside. Durell swore softly, saw Enoch Wilderman’s glance sweep the balcony and find him. For a moment their eyes met, clashed. Wilderman grinned, showing his big teeth.

At the same time, from various places on the island, came the dull crumping blasts of explosives.

Wolfe had gone to work.

49

DURELL raced down the stairs, his boots clattering now, making no effort to be silent. Maggie was close behind him. There was a dim hubbub and uproar from the meeting room in the hotel, but he paid no attention to it. He swung down a long, broad corridor and into the hotel’s lobby.

A jumpsuit loomed in the doorway. The man turned, the movement almost too quick to be seen, and Durell’s Magnum bucked and bellowed in his hand. The man went down, picked himself up, left arm dangling and bleeding, almost torn off at the shoulder. Durell fired again and the man was blown backward off his feet.

Maggie breathed, “Oh, good.”

“Bloodthirsty, aren’t you?”

“Where are we going?”

“I want Wilderman.”

“But what about the President?”

“He’ll be all right.” ‘

“Sam, how can you—”

“Shut up,” he said.

The meeting room was on the opposite side of the lobby. Delegates to the ISCOPP convention were spilling out in panic from between the wide double doors. They jammed the entrance in a frenzied flood of thrashing, milling bodies. No way through there. Durell spun left, glimpsed a jumpsuit, ducked through a doorway and ran through the empty kitchen.

The cooks had vanished. "Lunch was still on the stoves, half cooked, plates stacked and gleaming for the delegates, who would not be eating today. He heard shouting, angry orders, and paid no attention. Maggie panted at his heels, glancing backward to cover them.

The kitchen yielded to the long pantry, a corridor, a pair of swinging doors. He was now behind the dais in the meeting room. There was no sign of the President. Or Enoch Wilderman. Durell swung left and outside.

Fifty yards away was the helicopter pad. Durell swore softly. A small group of the unicorns guarded the pad and blocked the way. He ducked back behind the corner of the hotel. At the same time, three more explosives sounded midway across the island Maggie touched his shoulder.

“Oh, God, look!”

At least a dozen of the unicorns trotted purposefully out of the hotel behind them. Each one was armed. They headed across the tennis courts, not looking to right or left, and up the path that led to West Hill and beyond.

“They’re heading for the cottage, Sam.”

He nodded. “At least the demonstration is off. Or postponed.”

“But what about the President?”

“They’ll hold him for a time, just to show what they can do. Wolfe is probably trying to hold them off with the boobytraps we set. It will puzzle them for a time; but not long enough, I’m afraid.”

“But I haven’t heard any real shooting.”

“Not yet. They’re taking the security people that Meecham set up, one by one. Perhaps there’s to be no killing.”

“And it there is?”

“We’ll try to stop it.”

“But how—?”

“We’ll get the one who’s giving the orders.”

It began to rain.

50

THE STORM began to move.

With a sudden quixotic change of the elements, the low-pressure area off Prince Edward Island slid southward, slowly at first, then with gathering momentum. It sent rain like a vanguard of cavalry. The calm sea quickly became rippled, then lifted and fell and heaved under the swirling, twisting pressures. Along the coast, it began to rain. As the wind increased, the rain came down in horizontal sheets. Visibility quickly dropped to zero. In the harbors, coves and rivers of the Maine coast, men struggled to secure their boats first, their houses next, and then their families. The tide began to come in with exceptional force, smashing with demonic fury at the rocky shore.

But when the wind struck, all the efforts of man were in vain.

51

DURELL. followed Maggie’s solid bottom through the culvert and out into the spruce trees beyond the hotel lawns, easing through the security barrier as they had penetrated it. He ignored the hand she offered when he crawled out after her. From the vantage point among the spruces that covered the hillside, he could see‘ the hotel, and the sudden wind-whipped froth on the gray ocean beyond.

All at once, it seemed, no one was in sight. He could not begin to guess what was happening among the delegates and the invading jumpsuited unicorns. He looked at the high radio mast and hoped it was still sending out his automatic Mayday signal. The tower was swaying in the sudden blasts of erratic wind. The rain came down in heavy torrents.

“Sam, what are we waiting for?”

“He has to come to me. I’m the only one who really knows.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“This time I’ll want you to do what I tell you. Everything’s really blown up in his face now. He knows he can’t succeed in his so-called display of his drugged men. He can’t hold the President as long as he planned, unless—”

“Who? Sam?”

“Will you do exactly what I say, Maggie?”

“I don’t think—”

“Please.”

The rain hissed down into the trees around them.

“All right, Sam. If you’re that worried about me."

“I am.”

“Then I’ll do what you say.”

“Fine. Stay here. Don’t move until I come back.”

“How long will that be?”

“I don’t know.”

He moved off up the gully, along the slope of West Hill. The wind hissed in the heavy, wet boughs above his head. Now and then he heard one crack and fall. He was soaked to the skin. He felt as if the wind were snatching the very air from his lungs.

At last he glimpsed what he wanted to see. Along the trail that led from west to east, he glimpsed a touch of gray, then another, trotting along behind a tall, rain-soaked figure that seemed to be making heavy going of it. Durell dashed the wet from his eyes, turned and moved uphill parallel to the trail. Although the trail offered easier footing, it went around below the brow of the hill, and took longer. He cut through the trees, leaping deadfalls, stumbled through a grove of small junipers, hazelnut brush that thrashed and whipped him with wet branches.

The wind was stronger. It made a steady moaning, roaring sound below the pounding of his pulse in his ear, the thunder of his heart, the whistle of his breath in his throat. He carne out in a small swale, along an old rock fence, and climbed straight up, scrambling at times on hands and knees. He was almost to the top of West Hill when he heard another explosion, dead ahead of him, and saw the gout of flame and clods of earth, leaves and branches leap high against the treeline along the crest of the hill.

Somewhere on the opposite peak, Wolfe must be watching, hooking up detonators as he saw fit. Durell turned right again, came to an outcropping of granite ledge, found better footing, crouched, and then slid to his stomach, raised himself on both elbows, and steadied the Magnum in a double grip.

His first target was the jumpsuit at the end of the short line of hurrying men.

His hand was shaking, his fingers were wet, the rain dashed into his eyes.

He took his time, squeezed the trigger.

The jumpsuit buckled, fell to his knees, tried to rise, fell. The second unicorn behind the leader reacted with a speed to which Durell was becoming accustomed. He pushed the tall, ragged-haired man down on the path, spun, started to charge for the ledge where Durell lay prone. Durell steadied his gun again, aimed for the chest, fired. The gun’s roar was all but swallowed by the howling wind. The unicorn vanished. The tall man in front spun away and raced along the path and over the brow of the hill.

Durell slid from the ledge, headed downward into the valley between Mattatuck’s two mountains. He moved at an easy lope now, watching his footing. He felt uneasiness in the pit of his stomach, not knowing whether his second shot had been a hit or not. His instinct was rewarded when he spotted the unicorn coming through the trees.

The man had been hit, but that did not stop him. Durell tried to duck away, but the unicorn bellowed something to him, raised his automatic rifle, and blazed away. Splintered branches, twigs and spruce boughs rained down on Durell’s head. Fear clutched at his stomach. He fired at a shadow in the rain-swept woods, fired again. The man kept coming on. He squeezed the Magnum’s trigger a third time.

The man leaped, coming at him, hurled him backward down the slope. They rolled over and over, locked in a death grip. The man’s chest was spurting blood, one arm was useless, he had a bullet in his thigh. Durell had not missed, but he hadn’t stopped die man, either. His armlock over Durell’s throat was like iron. His breath was cut off. He hammered at the man’s back, tried to get his knee up into his groin, clung to the gun. The man’s face looked demonic. Durell gouged at his eye, bent his elbow, squeezed the gun between their rain-drenched bodies. They came up suddenly against the bole of a spruce that towered high into the windy sky. The jolt separated them by inches—enough for Durell to dig the barrel of the gun into the man’s belly. He fired for the last time.

The grip across his throat reluctantly, slowly relaxed.

Durell rolled free.

For a long moment he lay face up to the rain and the wind, letting the cold lash of the elements revive him. There was blood on his chest, but it was not his own. The unicorn was dead. He got to his knees, peered through the tangle of hazelnut bushes that grew wild in the little valley. His heart still pounded. Slowly, now, he trotted for the main path, came out on it, and waited, listening to the ragged footsteps coming toward him.

“Enoch!” he called.

The footsteps ended abruptly.

“Drop it, Wilderman,” he said.

The man was a shadow among the other shadows of the storm-lashed forest.

Then he spotted the glint of the man’s glasses. Wilderman had stepped off the path and into the evergreens. Boughs creaked and cracked overhead. The rush of the wind was like a continuous, low roll of thunder; the rain felt icy cold on Durell’s lips.

“Is that you, Durell?”

“Come out where I can see you.”

“Thank God, they’d taken me prisoner. I don’t know what they planned to do with me.” Wilderman came out to stand on the path. He had a gun held low in his left hand. His gray hair was plastered flat to his long head, and a corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily. “What did you do with them?”

“I killed them both,” Durell said flatly.

“Ah. Yes. Good work, my boy.”

“Where is Dr. MacLeod?”

“Who?”

“Dr. MacLeod?”

“I believe he’s dead. In Scotland. One of his people—ah—turned on him.”

“So who has the drug formula now?”

“I—ah—I have it, Durell. Better for us, eh? I mean, my boy, it’s better that IS should have control of it, rather than an international predator like MacLeod, eh?”

“And where is this formula?”

“On my person,” Wilderman said flatly, and shot at Durell without warning.

Durell’s left leg was knocked out from under him with shocking abruptness. He fell, rolled over twice, grabbed at his thigh. He felt no immediate pain. He raised his head, peered through the brush, saw Enoch Wilderman moving cautiously toward him along the path.

Durell lay about ten feet to the south of the path and about fifty feet from where Wilderman proceeded toward him. The man was hunched forward a bit, his gun thrust ahead of him. Rain drummed down with a hissing sound. Now and then a sparkle of thin sleet was interspersed with the rain. The sky was a sulphurous yellow.

“Durell!”

He did not answer. He pulled at his wounded leg, bent it under him, saw the blood oozing through his slacks. At least it did not come in bright arterial spurts. He backed away on his belly, his gun raised. Too many trees intervened between them.

“Durell!”

He lay still. All at once Wilderman trotted forward, his paunch jiggling, his gray hair plastered tightly around his skull. His lips were skinned back in a grin. For the moment, Durell could not move. Then a distant roaring, like an approaching locomotive, sounded through the trees. The wind struck in a demonic gust, and a small pine cracked and toppled over in Wilderman’s path. The man was swept aside by the thrashing green branches.

“Wilderman, wait!" Durell called.

“Ah. You’re still alive?”

“You can’t make it, Enoch. I took out your radioman and set the transmitter on automatic Mayday. There will be forces here any minute to take back the island.”

Wilderman’s laugh was unnatural. “In this weather? Not for a long time, my boy. Meanwhile, we have the President.”

“But you’ll never get off Mattatuck alive if you harm him.”

“We did not intend to harm him. We merely wished to show the ISCOPP people how we have built up an elite superforce of security men. Using the drug, of course. And then we would all leave.”

“Why did you do it, Enoch?”

There was a long silence. Durell raised his head a bit. He could not see Wilderman through the tangle of branches in the fallen pine tree. The wind made a howling noise now. Everything thrashed, cracked, whipped, groaned. The sound of the sea smashing at the island’s rocky shore was everywhere. Durell got his leg under him and tried to rise. He couldn’t do it. He fell backward, arms flailing, and rolled ten feet down the slope into the valley between West and East Hill.

He heard Wilderman’s voice, shockingly nearby.

“I have spent all my life in security, Durell. I have devoted everything to my job. When the Internal Security Bureau was formed, I was made head of it. I created it, fashioned it the way I felt it should be organized. We became an independent part of the most powerful functioning intelligence force in the world. The most efficient. The most dedicated. And it was all taken away from me.”

“When the general put Meecham in over your head?”

“He had no right to do that,” Wilderman’s voice came.

“Maybe he had his reasons.”

“It wasn’t fair! I was cheated. He took away my life. So I used Dr. MacLeod, I used his formula, I made that poor fool of a Finance officer, Strawbridge, turn his money-transfer schedules over to me, privately. I thought it would make Meecham look incompetent, perhaps have him removed.”

“But that didn’t work,” Durell observed.

“I saw another future.” Wilderman’s voice was unnatural, calling through the roaring storm. “I saw a chance to save the world, to keep it from anarchy. Fight force and terror with power and more terror.”

“That can‘t work anymore,” Durell jeered.

“It can. It will. If it weren’t for you—”

Durell saw the movement of the other man’s figure through the wildly waving brush and fired.

He missed.

Wilderman now had him spotted. Durell willed himself to his feet. The rain blinded him. He tested his leg, limped to the left, downward, toward the sound of gushing, falling water. A huge spruce that had long ago been struck by lightning still stood, a gaunt sentinel against the gray and turbulent sky.

His leg collapsed under him again. He felt the pain now, and saw that his trouser leg was soaked heavily with blood. A moment of dizziness engulfed him. The sky and the trees reeled overhead. He thought he heard the blasting of more explosives, quite close at hand. Someone was shouting in the distance.

It sounded like Maggie.

“Sam! Sam!”

He searched the wooded hillside painfully. The rain and his pain blurred his vision. He knew that Wilderman could not afford to leave him alive.

Something cracked in the dead spruce overhead. Durell scrunched around, dragging his leg after him. Wilderman was coming up behind him, still wearing the tight, senseless grin. He looked insane.

“Durell, we have your girl!”

“You son of a bitch.”

“And we are detaining the President as hostage. You’d better throw down your gun.”

Durell fired at the moving shadow in the wildly waving brush. He knew he had missed. He fired again and the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. Frantically, he tried to delve into his pocket for more cartridges, but Wilderman did not give him much time. The man came toward him with a rush, paused on the lip of the hollow where he lay, and deliberately raised his gun in both hands and took aim.

“Goodbye, Durell,” he snarled.

Durell got one cartridge into the cylinder and had no time for more. He fired his last shot as Wilderman stalked closer to him. The sound of the Magnum was explosive, ripping and shredding the wild wind. There was a sudden whirring sound that followed as the dead spruce slanted down and fell between Durell and his wounded adversary, whose own shot had struck wide of its target.

Slowly Durell got to his feet. His left leg trembled but held his weight precariously. He limped toward the tangle of smashed tree limbs, but the huge bole blocked his passage.

Enoch Wilderman lay pinned under the crushing weight of the dead spruce with a bullet hole in his chest. Durell thought of the formula, but it was already too late. Wilderman had thought of it first, and with the flame from his cigarette lighter he had quickly reduced it to ashes before Durell could intervene. A slip of paper, outer edge charred unevenly, was clasped in blood-washed fingers.

The dying man’s face was upturned to the windy, rain-swept sky. Raindrops glittered like pearls on his broken glasses. He still held onto the lighter as Durell managed to reach his side and extinguish the small flame. The ashes of the formula were already scattered in the wind.

52

“THE FACT is, Sam, that the sight of you, alive and well, when the unicorns were all convinced they would die if not supplied with MacLeod’s drug, turned the tide of battle in our favor. That man who saw you in the radio shack passed the good word around. This produced a rebellion in the ranks, so to speak. When our troops started to arrive—thanks to your distress signal—they turned over the President and gave up without a fight.”

Meecham stopped talking and looked at the Presidential helicopter rising from the pad. His bulging eyes showed obvious relief. His wide mouth curled upward at the corners.

The rain had slackened, the wind had suddenly died. There was the other side of the storm yet to come, perhaps by nightfall, but for the moment it was calm.

“You’re sure you’re going to be okay, Sam?”

Meecham looked him over critically. “You seem to have lost a little blood.”

“I’m fine, sir.”

“You did very well. By the way, how is your girl?”

“I suspect she‘s safe and sound, sir.”

“And Wolfe?”

“Wolfe had the job of distracting Wilderman’s men by setting off explosives here and there that worried and baffled them. He did his job well, too."

Meecham nodded his head in agreement.

“I’ll see you later in the cottage.”

53

MEECHAM SAT before the big log fire in the cottage on the other side of East Hill and accepted a bourbon from Maggie, who wore one of Durell’s bathrobes as if it had been made for her. She seemed subdued, said little, and moved about the room quietly and efficiently. Now and then she looked at Durell with silvery eyes that told him nothing.

Meecham said, “Did you really want to kill him?”

“Yes,” he said. “I had to. A second later and he would have killed me. I caught him between fire.”

“And what about the falling tree?”

“It didn’t put the bullet in his chest.”

“But it gave him time to destroy the formula.”

“I don’t think we have to worry so long as we know it was destroyed. I doubt if the President would have cared to use it.”

At this Meecham chuckled. “The President didn’t think any of it amounted to a hill of beans. But wait until he reads about it in the press tomorrow morning.”

“It will make a good story, sir. Things have been awfully quiet lately.”

54

MAGGIE MADE love to him with a desperate ferocity she had never shown before, Meecham had gone back to the hotel for the night. Wolfe was asleep downstairs. The rain drummed on the roof over the dark bedroom with renewed ferocity, but Durell knew it would be over by morning, and perhaps the sun would be shining again. It was cozy under the blankets. Now and then the windows rattled.

Later Maggie lay on her back and stared at the beamed ceiling, their hips touching, their hands clasped between them.

“Sam?”

"I'm awake.”

“Does your leg hurt?”

“Not too badly.”

“I tried to be careful.”

“I know.”

“Sam?”

“I’m still awake.”

“Are you still angry with me?”

“No. Why should I be?”

“Because I didn’t hide on the boat and stay safe and sound while it all happened.”

“You surprised me,” he said.

“Did you think I was such a coward, such a—a ninny?—to hide in some cubbyhole while you did all the work?”

“No, not a coward.”

“I’ve changed.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I gave up that stupid, silly romantic dream I always had.”

“Stupid? Silly?"

“I decided to stand on my own two feet. Women’s lib, maybe. I’m a person in my own right. No waiting around for a knight in shining armor to rescue me from my own faults and keep me safe and happy forever after. Stupid, yes. Silly. I don’t want to just be taken care of now. Like a devoted slave. Or a faithful dog. That used to be my dream. It ended, all of a sudden. Just like that. Does that bother you, Sam?”

“I’m glad,” he said.

“But I still love you, Sam.”

“I’m glad for that, too.”

“So I’m going away,” Maggie said.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. Anywhere. Just to be myself. To fight my own battles.”

“I see."

“And then I’ll come back.”

“Good.”

“We’ll be equal then, right?”

“Maggie, are you sure you—”

“I’m sure, Sam.”

He kissed her.

“Good night, Maggie.”

“Good night, Sam.”