Read Assignmnt - Ceylon for Free Online

gun. I did not guess it would come to this—”
    Mr. Dhapura’s hands shook as he took out a shiny first-aid kit from a locker and thrust it at Durell. Then he hurried up the flight of steps, looking back with frightened eyes. The communications room was in the rear of the hotel, in a small wing beyond the rooms where the hotel servants were quartered. Dhapura worked at a ring of keys, and at last the door was open. Durell felt a momentary dizziness as he followed the man inside.
    The TK-12 transceiver gleamed against the wall in the hot, shadowed little room. Durell was aware of the pressure of time, of Wells, who had vanished, but who certainly would not give up his objective. He felt exposed on all sides, hunted by Wells, perhaps by the PFM, an outcast from the world in which he had lived and worked for so long. He did not want to think about it. It was too much to accept.
    He waved Dhapura aside, paused a moment to collect the Q Code in his mind, and snapped on the. transceiver. The world-wide radio transmissions established by K Section would reach Washington in seconds, his message confirmed by his code call. He began working out a Q inquiry directly to General Dickinson McFee at No. 20 Annapolis Street. Mr. Dhapura made small moaning sounds -and tentatively pushed the first-aid kit toward him across the table. Durell nodded and shrugged out of his shirt. The Sinhala made shocked clucking sounds as he looked at Durell’s back.
    “A doctor, sir. All these metallic fragments—”
    “From a bomb,” Durell said.
    “But—why, sir?”
    “That’s what I’d like to know.”
    “But who did it, sir?”
    “One of our people,” he said grimly.
    “S-sir?”
    “Put a bandage on it, please.”
    “Yes, but I am not a doctor, I know nothing of wounds, it might be serious and get infected.”
    “Do as I say.”
    He sent his Q inquiry and waited, sent it again. Silence. The transceiver hummed. Mr. Dhapura attended to his shoulder, patting fearfully at the flesh wounds.
    He sent his message a third time.
    Nothing happened.
    “Are you sure this is operative?”
    Mr. Dhapura patted his hands together. “Yes, sir. Only the other day—”
    He stared at the radio. It was working, all right. His message had gone through. But there was no reply.
    He was cut off from Washington.
    He was outcast.
    His Q code should have received a reply in no more than ten seconds. But Washington did not want to talk to him. There was no court, no judge, nowhere to appeal.
    He snapped off the radio.
    “Sir?”
    “Let’s go,” he said.
    “Where, sir?”
    “Come with me.”
    “Sir, that man in the room—did you kill him?”
    “No. I didn’t want to. He was mistaken in his orders.” He urged Mr. Dhapura out of the little cubicle and along the corridor back to the staff’s quarters. From the end of the hall, he could see into the lobby. Things had quieted down, but there was a uniformed policeman questioning the clerk at the desk. The clerk turned and pointed back toward Dhapura’s office, and Durell took Dhapura’s thin arm and urged him out through a side door.
    “Sir, I cannot leave the Royal Lanka. There is too much to be done here—clerical work—and my wife’s brother-in-law is coming to dinner, all the way from Jaffna, to stay with us. Besides, I am not accustomed to your sort of—ah—work, sir, and I would only be a hindrance to your efforts—”
    “Is your car outside?”
    “Yes.”
    “We’ll get it.”
    The parking lot behind the Royal Lanka was hot and stifling, boxed in by buildings on every side. Durell moved with Dhapura across the hot pavement. The car was a Toyota that had seen better days. Mr. Dhapura nervously unlocked it. There was a streak of dark sweat-stain soaked through the back of his drip-dry coat. He was growing bald on the top of his head. Durell was certain he carried no weapons. The parking lot seemed empty of any interested spectators.
    “Where to, sir?”
    “The general post office, at the