Assignment - Karachi by Edward S. Aarons Page B

files of K Section’s cabinets. Except for the name, the card was blank, empty of specific data. But there were stories enough, and none of them were pleasant, he thought grimly.
    The name had cropped up six years ago, in connection with the theft of some Nike missile data from an Italian-site NATO base. A girl had been involved, the daughter of a Roman baronial family named Ispiglia—a very young girl, in her late teens. She had been found brutally beaten, her face disfigured, her skull cracked. She died whispering her love for a man, unable to describe him except in romantic and idealistic terms. He was called Red Oboe. She had gotten data for him from her brother, an Italian Wing Commander being trained in Nike missile handling. She died before she could say much more.
    Red Oboe cropped up as a free-lance peddler of international secrets a few more times. Smuggling arms to the Algerian rebels, setting an explosion in an Oran cafe that killed eighteen people and a French general, selling oil prospecting data in Moroccan interests backed by the Czechs. Involved with Lumumbists in the Congo; selling the Dutch information on Indonesian plans to take over the disputed East Indies territories on Papua. Organizing an underground safe line for East Germans to the West; and by the same token, intercepting and betraying certain important technicians wanted by the East who were induced to use the safe line.
    The only fixed pattern of behavior in Red Oboe’s dossier was money and women. There were always women involved. And they always seemed to come out the worse for wear—some of them dead, some maimed.
    K Section wanted to fill in their file card and a jail cell with Red Oboe’s mysterious person. But no agent of K Section had ever been directly involved with Red Oboe until the case had ended.
    Durell considered Swerji Hamad’s round, bland face.
    “Did Red Oboe have anything to do with Bergmann?” he asked.
    But the fat teahouse proprietor seemed suddenly to have fallen asleep, pudgy hands folded over his vast belly, like a smiling Buddha. He spoke with his eyes closed. “It will cost you two thousand dollars, American currency, in cash.”
    “It may be worth five hundred,” Durell bargained. Bargaining was expected of him. The value of Swerji’s information might depend on it. “That’s the top price these days.” “Two thousand,” Swerji repeated. “I am oppressed by many creditors. A Bengali merchant who deals in cotton swindled me out of a consignment I took on speculation—” “What do you know about Red Oboe?”
    “Nothing—yet. I may know something later.”
    “When?”
    “Tomorrow morning.”
    “All right. And Ernst Bergmann?”
    “They say the old Austrian gentleman is still alive.” “Here, in ’Pindi?”
    “It is what they say.”
    “Where?”
    “It will cost some money to find out. I will need two thousand American dollars, in currency, plus cost of expenses—”
    “One thousand, and no expenses.”
    Swerji Hamad sighed painfully. “I am glad that all Americans are not like you, M’sieu Durell.”
    The fat man went off on another tack. He discussed the difficulties of the closed border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the increasing obstacles to smuggling and bribing border guards, the Soviet offer of shipping and communication facilities to Kabul to replace those cut by Pakistan recently. There was the never-ending problem of Kashmir, desired by both India and Pakistan, and the explosive tensions between the Hindu and Moslem populations. It was difficult to do business in such unsettled times. Most dangerous. However, one had to live, somehow. Every rupee, every anna, was snatched away by the growing demands of wives and family, the high cost of living, the increasing prices of merchandise.
    “All right,” Durell said. “One thousand and expenses—a limit of fifteen hundred.”
    Swerji Hamad opened his muddy brown eyes and smiled. “You have cash, of course?”
    “American