Read Assignmnt - Ceylon for Free Online Page B

other way.”
    “I worry about the reputation of my hotel. This man— this black man?—surely escaped, even if he was injured. But now that he is hurt, will he not give up?”
    “No, he will not give up.”
    Mr. Dhapura skipped a step .o keep pace with Durell’s long stride. “Where do you wish me to take you now?” “The police station on Maradana Road.”
    Dhapura was aghast. “The police?”
    “I’ll have to trust you. I want to make inquiries about my two men, King and Thompson.”
    “You wish me to go in to speak to the police?” Mr Dhapura smiled. “I am most pleased. It means that yo\ trust me, sir, and return my great admiration for you—”
    “I don’t trust you.”
    “But with the police, I could betray you—”
    Durell said quietly, “I don’t think you will.”
    In a side street Mr. Dhapura found some shade in which to park his battered Toyota. Durell got out and sat on a wooden bench set out on the sidewalk. He watched the cycles and buses and cars and carts; he watched the varied costumes of the Ceylonese drifting by in the late afternoon heat. Colombo was a clean city in contrast to most Asian towns. He felt alone in it. He had never felt so alone before. K Section had been his home for too many years, he thought. He was aware of a bitterness in him that could not be subdued, and regret about Harry King and Joe Thompson. They had been reliable, dedicated men Nothing should have gone wrong at Kandy. It was a routine check-out of Ira Sanderson’s empty house up there in the hills of central Ceylon. He listened to distant temple bells. Several shaven-headed monks shuffled by in the windless heat, chattering amiably, their saffron robe bright patches of color among the passersby. He could see the police station door from where he sat and waited for Mr. Dhapura. He realized he was beginning to accept what Wells had said. Someone had framed him by depositing five hundred thousand dollars in the Swiss bank, an by murdering King and Thompson and making it look as if he had done it himself. He had an alibi for that, if he wished to use Aspara. His loyalty was first to his own survival and the success of the assignment. That was a right for a professional. You knew the risks and accepted them. But Aspara was innocent. Her career would be ruined if their weekend tryst became public knowledge. He was not ready to destroy her, as yet. In any case, K Section might not accept the alibi. The net that had been cast over him was too secure for that. Washington must be very sure he had betrayed K Section and sold out—to whom?
    He wondered. Someone had hired a reasonably close double to appear in Geneva when he was there last March and open the numbered account in his name. A look-alike who had been trained and who had practiced forging his signature. Which meant a long period of preparation, a far-reaching plan begun not yesterday but weeks and months ago. He mentally flicked through the dossiers he often studied at the Washington headquarters. Nothing came out of it. No special face or data emerged.
    There had to be a rational plan behind the scheme to make him look like a defector. It was a costly thing, involving half a million dollars and a cold-blooded killing of two men, simply to make him an outcast. Sooner or later, he would be approached by someone, somewhere, somehow.
    The thought made him feel better. If he could stay alive until then, avoiding Wells, he might catch a thread that would lead him into the center of this tangled web.
    As it was, he felt like a fly kicking at the sticky strands of a spider’s trap that had caught him.
    He began to feel even better, thinking of this. He did not underestimate Willie Wells, who was an angry man, a ruthless man, a mercenary devoted to returning due weight for his pay. Wells would not give up. There was no way in which Durell could get K Section to call him off.
    He watched the police station doorway.
    Mr. Dhapura did not appear.
    He checked his watch