Assignment — Stella Marni (24 page)

"Immigration cleared the ship half an hour ago," Markey said heavily.

"When does she sail?"

Markey looked at his watch. "Fifty minutes."

Durell did not want to admit the fear in him. Everything possible had gone wrong. He had lost Stella. She might be dead by now. She could have been a tremendous force for good, telling the truth to the world. No human life was so small or unimportant that it wasn't worth fighting for. Alive or dead, he had to find her.

"Don't look at me like that," Gerda whispered.

He bad not realized he was staring at her. "The last time, Gerda. Save your neck. Tell us where Krame took her."

Her mouth curled and she laughed thinly, hysterically. "She got to you, didn't she? Like she got that fat Frank Greenwald and that crazy Harry Blossom. You're in love with her, aren't you? The big tough cop! Just look at you! The bitch got under your skin, didn't she?"

Durell wondered. "Gerda, if you don't talk, well throw the book at you. You know where Krame has gone. You can turn witness for the government and get leniency for yourself. Or you can keep your mouth shut and take the rap for all of them. It's your choice. Krame was the brains of the outfit, and maybe he'll be out of the country by morning. But we've still got you. Krame made the deal to bludgeon these poor people into going back home, and he's the one who'll get paid off. He'll be taken care of. I'm sure he told you about the rewards be was promised for running this ring. But you won't get any of it, Gerda. You're going to a federal pen. Maybe we can't break the world's headlines with what we've got, but there's enough in it to put you away for a long time. Long enough so you won't be pretty when they let you out. And all those years you're in the pen, Krame will be living it up high, because he didn't give a damn about you and ran out on you to save his own skin."

The girl stared at him. Her mouth shook and she suddenly pressed her hand against her cheek as if to test the softness of her young skin and wonder how it would be years from now, when she was free again.

"Yeah. Yeah, Johnny Krame ran out on me," she said with slow wonder. "Y'know, he could've waited a second, just a second, to help me jump. Given me a hand so's I wouldn't be afraid. But no. Not Johnny Krame. He never even looked back. He just kept going."

"Let's go," Markey said to her. "We're finished here."

"Wait. Can't we... can I make a deal, like Durell says?"

Markey shrugged. "It depends on what you have to offer, miss."

She drew a deep breath. "Krame is scheduled to sail tonight on the
Boroslav,
all right. It was all set up just in case something like this happened." Gerda looked at Durell. "Stella Marni and her precious papa are aboard, too. But I'll bet a thin dime you never find 'em."

Durell took ten minutes to call Washington once more. Impatience seethed in him while he waited to make contact with Clem Anderson again. His voice rasped when he asked if there had been any news about Grozni's family.

"Not too bad, Sam," Anderson told him. "We just got a code message from our man in Copenhagen. Our man's fishing smack was chased by an East German patrol boat and they put in at Ronne, on Bornholm Island. That's Danish territory. The whole crew landed there, including Grozni's wife and daughters, and asked for political asylum. The story ought to hit the newspapers in an hour or so. Okay?"

"They're all safe?" Durell asked.

"Fine and dandy. They're anxious to have Captain Grozni know so he'll stay here and wait for them."

Durell expelled a long breath. "Good. That's going to help."

He hung up, turned to Markey. "Let's get to the water front."

It took fifteen minutes to reach the
Boroslav's
berth. The pier looked different at night. The cargo had all been loaded and the noise and confusion were gone from the sheds and dock area. A cold wind blew from the North River and the tide was high, smelling of the sea and flotsam that drifted in the murky harbor water. Over on the Jersey side of the river, the winking advertising signs made rhythmic patterns of color that alternately brightened and faded on the scene. Durell parked his car a block from the pier entrance and Markey pulled up silently behind him. The local police had offered men for a raid in force, but Durell had declined with thanks. The Immigration office was sending a squad, but they would not be here for twenty minutes yet.

Markey tapped the dottle from his pipe into his palm. Tony Isotti surveyed the pier and vacant, dark sheds. Overhead, traffic hissed and rumbled on the elevated highway.

"I don't see what this can buy for us, Sam, except an international headache," Markey said quietly. 'They only thing to do is keep her from sailing with an order from Immigration. You won't find the girl working alone."

"I want to try first," Durell said tightly. "She's got to be aboard."

"And if she isn't? Or we don't find her?"

'Then we'll stop the sailing. Then we'll use the local cops and the Immigration people to bottle up the pier — not that it will do us much good. It will only sign Stella's death warrant. Or Krame's. Even then, my feeling is we won't find either of them. And I want Stella Marni. If we go after her in force, we'll lose her."

"Is she as important as Krame?" Markey asked quietly.

Durell did not answer directly. "Let's go, Tom."

He walked toward the pier entrance. There were two watchmen in an inner office beyond a steel chain drawn across the ramp to the sheds, and one of them suddenly burst from the door and started to run down the pier toward the bulking shadow of the freighter. Durell vaulted the chain and caught the man and clipped him with his gun and the man went skidding face down on the rough pier planking. He hadn't made any noise. Turning, Durell saw the second watchman staring in simple astonishment. He was a scrawny old man with a yellow muffler knotted around his dirty neck and a stained gray fedora set squarely on his bald head.

The watchman did not know anything. He had not seen anything. He had been smoking and reading in the shack with Danny, and what was the idea of Danny running off like that, and why did Danny get slugged? Markey told him he was to answer questions, not ask them. But the watchman had not seen anyone who resembled John Krame. Nor had he seen Stella Marni.

"Ain't no woman gone aboard that ship," the old man muttered. "What dame would want to?"

Durell sent the old man and his dazed companion back into the custody of one of the car crews and walked into the shadows of the sheds with Markey. The FBI man was dubious. "She sails in twenty minutes. We can't cover this tub properly, just the two of us."

"Go on back to your office, then," Durell said irritably.

"What's the matter with you, Sam'.'"

"She's aboard. She's got to be aboard."

"And how do you expect to find her? And what if she decides to sail for home? You can't hold her, Sam. She's all cleared for sailing. If they've got her father, you think she'll let them kill him, just to do us a favor?"

"You talk too much," Durell said. "And it's all negative."

"You're as nutty over that girl as Harry Blossom ever was."

Durell made no reply. A single gangplank was still connected to the pier. Steam was up on the
Boroslav,
and floodlights played on her afterdeck. where a dozen seamen worked at securing hatch covers. The gangplank was lighted by two spots attached to the roof of the shed, making sharp areas of brightness and shadow along the rust-streaked sides of the freighter. The throb of the ship's idling engines made the damp air pulse. Durell tried to see if anyone was on watch on the bridge, but the windows up there shimmered blankly and it was impossible to tell.

"Keep your other men posted here in the shed," Durell said quietly. "Nobody goes off the ship for any reason until we get back."

"We?"

"You and me, Tom."

Tony Isotti said: "Hell, I'd like to go along for the ride."

"You stay here, Tony."

Markey said: "Well, it's been a dandy life so far."

A tug hooted out on the river and a probing spotlight ranged the misty river and touched the
Boroslav's
stern. A brief whistle answered the signal from the freighter's single raked stack. One of the deck hands working aft shouted something in Polish. His companions laughed. Durell drew a deep breath and walked boldly and quickly up the gangway to board the ship.

Tom Markey was hard on his heels. They were exposed to the glare of the floodlights for perhaps five seconds.

The gangway led to the deck above the one by which Durell had boarded the ship before. Dim bulbs in wire cages illuminated the steel passage that led along the narrow deck of the superstructure. Quickly he crossed the empty dining saloon to the stairs leading up to the officers' quarters behind the bridge. There was no alarm. They met no one, saw no one. He did not waste time searching the passengers' cabins. He knew that Stella and Albert Marni would not be hidden in any of the obvious places. He headed for the captain's stateroom.

A small placard on the brown wooden shutter door gave the captain's name: Grozni. The louvered door was closed but not locked. Light sifted through the slats and made a ladder pattern on the white bulkhead opposite. Durell moved soundlessly to take the knob in his hand, then paused to listen. There was only the trembling throb and beat of the ship's idling engines. Then the tug hooted out on the river, much closer now. He heard Tom Markey breathe quickly and lightly and glanced at the FBI agent's face. Markey's eyes were icy, his face shining a little with perspiration. He had a gun in his hand and he nodded and Durell turned the knob and then pushed the door inward with the flat of his hand and stepped into the cabin.

Captain Grozni lay on his bunk in his shirt sleeves, reading a Polish-language newspaper. His bearded face twisted with alarm, surprise, and then anger as Markey closed the door behind Durell. He stared at the gun in Durell's hand and wet his lips, sitting up slowly. The newspaper went rustling to the deck.

"Don't say a word," Durell whispered. "Not a sound."

The captain nodded. His breathing was suddenly gusty.

"Where is Stepov, your second officer? Your boss, the political commissar aboard. Where is he?" Durell asked softly.

"I do not know," the captain said in his precise Oxford English. "Why have you come back? You were lucky the last time, I had a moment of ideological weakness that has made me suspect..."

"We want Stella Marni."

"She is not here."

"And we want her father," Durell went on. "And one more. The redheaded man, John Krame."

"You must be insane." The captain's voice was not loud and not frightened and not angry, either. He swung his legs off the bunk and sat gripping the wooden edges, his narrow shoulders hunched under his khaki shirt. His brindle beard looked unkempt. The newspaper was crumpled under his feet "This might be called piracy," Grozni said. "You have no authority for coming aboard. Or is this another of your government's nuisance and search raids? Do you think we have an atom bomb here? We have been checked and checked again. The cargo hatches were sealed by your own Customs men an hour ago. How did you get aboard?"

Durell said flatly: "Your guards aren't too alert. Probably Stepov is too busy discussing matters with Krame to attend to it." His grin was hard and tight. "We want the girl, the old man, and Krame. Alive. All of them. Do you understand?"

"I cannot help you. I must ask you to leave my ship."

Durell said: "Lock the door, Tom."

Markey locked it.

"Stand there. Listen for anyone coming."

The captain said: "What do you think you can do, just the two of you?"

"You're going to help us," Durell said. "It's your big chance. Captain Grozni. You can have safety and political asylum here, freedom from bloody-handed masters like Stepov."

The bald, bull-like man spoke with quiet violence. "No. What I told you before — about my family in Gdynia — I would be insane to risk their lives." He was sweating suddenly. "Of course I would like to help you! I did so once, and you would not have got ashore with the old man without me. But this time — no. They have always suspected me, Stepov and his men always watched me — and now they are doubly cautious. They have only kept me aboard as nominal master of this ship because they needed me. But I have a feeling this is my last trip. Do not ask any more of me."

"Captain Grozni," Durell said quietly, "When I saw you last, I promised I would do what I could about your family. We have our organizations and methods. Every year, tens of thousands of people like you flee to freedom in West Europe. I made arrangements for your family to follow the same path. We have been successful. In an hour, the newspapers will have the story. Your wife and daughters were taken from Gdynia in a fishing boat and have landed at Ronne, in Denmark. They are safe. They have asked that you remain here in New York until they can join you. Every effort will be made by our State Department to hurry their entry into the United States."

Grozni stared with incredulous eyes at Durell. "This is true?"

"You have my word for it. You must believe me. You must take what I say on faith, at this moment, but in an hour you will have the proof. Unfortunately, we cannot wait for an hour. We need your help now, this minute. We need you on our side, Captain. Now is the time for you to join us."

Grozni was sweating. Doubt, hope, suspicion, and sudden elation swept in succession across his face. His fists were clenched.

"You ask much of me," he muttered.

"Make up your mind," Durell said. "Freedom against slavery. Master of your own ship, or a flunky taking orders from a snake like Stepov. It's your choice. Make it fast. Are Stella and her father aboard? And Krame?"

Grozni shook his head, scrubbed fingers through his beard, breathed heavily. Various sounds drifted through the leather curtains over the porthole. The tug was coming alongside. The shouts of deck hands and the thumping of the tug's diesels echoed against the ship's plates.