Free Assignment - Lowlands by Edward S. Aarons Page B

boat?”
    “Yes. That is the general idea.”
    “Then I sincerely hope we’ll be friends,” he said.
    “Oh, you are so gallant—for an American, that is. Of course, Jan comes along, too. As crew—and perhaps as bodyguard.”
    “A pity.”
    She laughed. “Oh, Jan can be useful.”
    Durell rubbed his wrist reminiscently. “I suppose so.” He looked at the hulking young Jan, whose bright blue eyes were fixed in abject worship of the tiny Trinka. “All right, Jan? No hard feelings?”
    His English was thick and stubborn. “Of course not, sir.”
    “We thought it best to begin at once on the cruise,” the girl said. “I was about to send Jan to the Gunderhof for you, since I think Inspector Flaas makes too much out of precautionary measures. You were pointed out to us when you checked in this morning. There is little time to waste. So I decided to begin our search today.”
    “Search?”
    “For the bunker-laboratory, of course.”
    “Have you been trying to find it for long?”
    “We have been cruising the Frisians for almost a week—since before Piet came here. But we haven’t found anything so far.”
    “Did you see Piet yesterday?”
    “No. But Flaas telephoned and said Piet has vanished and he fears—We all think Uncle Piet is in serious trouble. Unless you can reassure me—” She looked at him questioningly. “Can you tell me anything about Uncle Piet, Mr. Durell?”
    “Nothing good,” he said soberly.
    Her eyes quickly searched his face. Under her diminu-femininity there was a toughness of steel, he decided. He saw by the look on her face that she understood his words, accepted them, mourned, and adjusted to this new fact, all in the space of a few brief seconds.
    “Is he—dead?” Her voice was quiet.
    “Trinka—” Jan began.
    “It is all right. Is Uncle Piet dead, Heer Durell?” “Yes,” Durell said.
    She was silent. An outboard motor started up in the anchorage, popping and stuttering, then settling down to a roar. A woman laughed on one of the moored yachts. Sea gulls slid down the edge of the wind blowing from over the North Sea. The air felt colder, somehow, although the sun was still bright and the tourists nearby were still gay. The girl nodded slowly and rubbed her arm. The wind caught little tendrils of her dark hair and blew them across the bloom of her cheek. Durell saw she was in her late twenties, mature and with a bright intelligence.
    “Thank you for not lying to me, as you did to Flaas,” she said quietly.
    “I didn’t exactly lie—”
    “It is all right. I trust you will continue to be frank with me, if we are to work together on this Cassandra project.”
    Jan Gunther said clumsily, “Shall we go aboard now?”
    “Why not?” Durell asked.

    The Suzanne was a thirty-six-foot sloop of polished mahogany, teak and brass, with an immaculate cabin divided into two compartments with double bunks in each, the one amidships serving as lounge and messroom. Forward was a head, a thoroughly equipped galley, and a fully stocked pantry. There were an auxiliary engine that was exclusively Jan Gunther’s domain.
    Durell told Trinka he had to be back at the Gunderhof by six o’clock that evening, and she nodded agreement.
    “I understand. You will make contact with the Cassandra people then?”
    “I’ve already made contact. They’ve jacked up the price to ten million dollars.” He told her briefly of his encounter with Julian Wilde, and Trinka frowned, biting her pink lip. She had not seen anyone like Julian Wilde in the area before, she said, and she would have noticed him, she thought, if he’d been around Amschellig much.
    “If Uncle Piet contacted this Wilde yesterday, he had no time to tell me about it,” she said. She made a frustrated mouth. “We have had the usual difficulty in coordinating operations, however. But what will you do about this ultimatum?”
    “There’s no real hurry on that, I think. But I’m going to look for Marius Wilde,” Durell