Read Online Assignment - Suicide by Edward S. Aarons - Free Book Online

absolutely necessary.”
    “I do not like it, Valya.” Mikhail had looked at Durell
bleakly. “Why do We need the American at all, now?”
    “He has Marshall’s map—or have you forgotten?”
    “We can take the map from him. The rest we can do
ourselves.”
    Durell was grateful for Kronev’s gun when he saw Mikhail‘s
eyes consider him.
    “Miko, if we take the map from Durell he will simply go to
his Embassy and tell the world about the whole thing. Do you want that to
happen?”
    “We can send him with his friend down the Neva. He can talk
all he wants, under the ice.”
    “We are not murderers, Miko,“ the girl said impatiently.
    “And if he escapes us and goes to his Embassy anyway?“
    The girl lifted her large blue eyes to regard Durell. “You
will give your promise not to betray us, gospodin ?”
    “No,” Durell said. “I won’t promise that.”
    “You see?” Mikhail said, rising.
    Durell said, “But we all need each other for the moment. I
can promise to stay with you until we reach Moscow safely.”
    “And then?" Valya asked.
    “I have my own duty to perform.”
    “You will betray us then?“
    “It would save you from becoming assassins.” Durell pointed
out, “if world-wide publicity halted Z’s entire plan.”
    Mikhail had stood up. “This is an impossible situation. We
cannot trust this man as far as Moscow."
    Durell did not move. “I'm afraid you will have to.”
    Mikhail’s move for his knife was oddly clumsy. Durell
slapped it from his hand as it came from his pocket, his move so swift that
Valya had no time to cry out. He twisted the blade from the dancer‘s hand and flung
it aside and as Mikhail uttered a thin, bleating cry, Durell hit him, not very
hard. The ballet dancer fell to the floor, his mouth bleeding.
    Durell stood over him. “I’m sorry. I’d like to be friends. I
think we all want the same thing.”
    “Miko,” the girl said gently. “Please.”
    Thinking about it as he sat in the plane now With Valya, Durell
regretted the incident. But Mikhail had forced his enmity upon him and had not
spoken to either of them from that moment on. He knew he had made an implacable
enemy of the man because of Mikhail’s loss of face before the girl he loved.
But Durell had had no choice.
    The cabin of the plane felt cold. A uniformed stewardess
came down the aisle, smiling, and distributed chess hoards to those who Wanted
them. The man with the bandaged head asked her for tea and she came back with a
miniature samovar on a tray for him. The stewardess returned again to
distribute illustrated Russian magazines. Up ahead, two Red Army captains and a
Polish colonel engaged in a low muttering argument over chess. The American
couple uneasily tried to assume a detached air from the other passengers, as if
to pretend they weren’t really here at all. Mikhail had not stirred from his
moody pose across the aisle.
    Durell felt Valya’s hand slip into his. Her fingers
felt cold and firm. “I have been thinking," she whispered. “About
the kind of man you are. You are not a bad man, really. I mean, you are not a
brutal man, the Way our newspapers portray your kind. You are strong, yes. You
are not like Mikhail.”
    “Mikhail may be all right," Durell said. “He’s in love
with you, and you should have arranged the papers so he could sit here with
you."
    “One of us must be close to you at all times. This   way seemed the simplest." Her fingers
moved in his hand. “Do you have a wife back home?”
    “No.”
    “A sweetheart?"
    “Yes.”
    “Is she beautiful?”
    “Yes”
    “Does she know what you are doing? Professionally, I mean?”
    “She has an idea about it, and she resents it. We do not
agree about my continuing in this work.”
    Valya smiled. Her eyes were lovely and suddenly serene. “If
we have time later, will you tell me more about her? When we are alone I would
like to know how life is where you come from. I would like to learn all about
it—it seems like