Assignment - Helene by Edward S. Aarons

Author:Edward S. Aarons [Aarons, Edward S.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-06-04T07:00:00+00:00

The moment they began to walk along the narrow, twisting footpath, they became conscious of the stifling, breathless heat that blanketed the jungle. Durell, watch ing the armed guards, had no illusions about their position. He put his gun in his pocket and walked along, conscious of the sweat that soaked his white suit, watching Bettina Hansen stumble on her high heels and sag against Twill. Twill put his arm around the blonde girl and helped her along. Stanier staggered at a drunken gait, but kept going, singing softly to himself.

The path led inland, twisted through a wild bamboo grove, lifted over several hummocks. The sound of firing died down behind them. They crossed a sluggish, muddy-green stream on a log bridge, followed a leafy ravine where the air was absolutely dead, with no breeze at all able to penetrate the dense jungle growth. Insects whined and hummed in dense clouds all around them, biting, stinging, sucking, buzzing in their ears and their eyes. Now and then the shrill scream of a bird or a monkey echoed through the leafy world like the agony of a ghost.

Presently they came to a small clearing where two or three native houses stood on log stilts, their clipper-prow gables of thatching high and graceful against the brazen sky. The path crossed two small rice fields, plunged into the jungle again, broadened and leveled out. Durell swung up beside Hélène Phan’s small, determined figure.

“Hélène, take it easy,” Durell said. “What are we going to do about Twill and Bettina Hansen?”

“We take them with us.”

“You’ll make an international incident out of this. Can the Xu Bhien afford it? After all, an Acting Consul of the United States, an American motion picture star—”

“General Trang is a student of world affairs. He learns by the experiences of other small movements for political freedom. Perhaps he feels the publicity, to focus world attention here, will work to his advantage.”

“You’ll have to let them go,” Durell said flatly. “It’s partly my fault, since we needed their car—"

The girl looked at him with bitter amusement. “You think so? How do you suppose they happened to arrive at the airfield so conveniently? Mynheer Durell, they were sent for. A telephone call, in Dak’s name, brought them there. If you had not been the one to force them to come along, I would have done so. It was Trang’s orders.”

“But what do you want with them?” Durell insisted. “The girl—Bettina—can t take this sort of thing.”

Hélène looked back over her shoulder at Bettina and Wayne Twill. “She will have to take it. Or die. Let her adjust to life or she will be left behind us.”

“Then you and I are not on the same side at all,” Durell said.

“No. We are enemies.”

“I was told you plan to kill me here if I learn too much.”

“Perhaps.”

“Yet you argued with Katib to let me keep my gun.”

“I owed you that much,” the girl said. “A fair chance for survival, perhaps, because you saved me from Dak.

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