Assignment - Suicide by Edward S. Aarons Page B

with
no animosity whatever. He came up to Durell and thumped him heavily in the
chest with his knuckles. “You are very good, Americanski. Very good, indeed. I
respect and admire you. I have never seen anything like it,” he said again. He
shook his shaggy head slowly. “The way you woke up. You would have gotten clean
away from all four of us.”
    Elena said, “Take care of Vassili.”
    The second man was groaning on the floor where Durell
had left him. He was younger, in his twenties, and as thin and stringy as
Gregori was huge.
    “I‘ll get him some vodka,” Gregori said cheerfully. He had
thick black brows and thick dark hair and a gold tooth gleamed in the left side
of his mouth. He thumped Durell chest again. “Very, very good, gospodin .
We will be friends.
    Turning, Gregori hauled his younger comrade to his feet and
into the kitchen. Durell looked into the muzzle of Elena’s gun and decided not
to try anything. Gregori might be cheerful and friendly enough after the fight,
but there was cold death in the woman’s black eyes.
    “Sit down, spy,” she said.
    “Who are you?”
    “We are Valya’s friends.”
    He looked toward the bedroom door and saw Valya standing
there. She was fully clothed in the gray flannel dress she had worn
before, and he was suddenly conscious of the torn flannel robe he wore,
with his muddied trousers underneath, and the boots in which he had decided to
sleep. Valya’s pink lips trembled, parted as if she wanted to say something to
him, and then closed stubbornly under his hard glance.
    “Did you call them?” he asked her.
    “No, Sam.”
    '“But you knew they would come. This is one of their
hide-outs. This is where you were to rendezvous with Mikhail, isn’t that so?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then everything you told me was a lie.”
    “Not everything,” she whispered.
    The black-haired woman looked from Durell to the girl with
sharp and cold interest. She was about thirty, slim under the hulkiness of her winter coat. She held her gin familiarly.
There was an air of command in the set of her shoulders and the severe, mannish
cut of her dark hair.
    “Did he reach the Embassy, Valya?” she asked.
    “No, Elena.”
    “So this man still has the map?”
    “Yes, he has the map, Elena.”
    “Good.” Elena turned to Durell, who had sat down in one of
the shabby, mouse-colored overstuffed chairs. “You will give me the map that
your comrade Marshall gave to you in Leningrad."
    “You’re well informed,” Durell said.
    “It is my business. Where is the map?”
    “Suppose you find it,” Durell suggested.
    She looked at him with annoyance. Gregori and Vassili came
back from the kitchen, each with a bottle of vodka. They were grinning.
Gregori‘s black, thick hair was streaked with gray. The younger man‘s eyes were
now clear. Elena looked at Valya. and said shortly: “Do you know where he put
the map?”
    Valya did not meet Durell’s eyes. She whispered: “It is in
his boot. I saw him put it there. The left one.”
    Gregori rumbled: “You were not very successful with him, doragaya .” His
eyes slid from Valya. to Durell, squinting. “You did not succeed in disarming
the Americanski."
    “You learned the kind of man he is,” Valya said coldly.
    “ Da . Very much of
a man. In his boot, you say?"
    Mikhail still spoke softly. “Allow me, Elena.”
    He advanced toward Durell. There was an unnatural look in
his eyes that Durell had seen before—in the eyes of the sadistic guards at
Belsen and Buchenwald. Mikhail’s knife flickered in his hand.
    “The map, gospodin spy.”
    Valya whispered, “Please take off your boot, Sam. Please!”
    He did not look at her.
    Mikhail’s narrow face shone with sweat. The knife glittered
inches from Durell’s eyes. Gregori rumbled a dim protest, but the dark-haired
Elena and Vassili did not seem interested. Durell shrugged.
    “I don‘t have the map.”
    “It is in your boot, spy,” said Mikhail.
    Durell took off his right boot. His