Free Assignment Unicorn by Edward S. Aarons

prominent, protuberant
belly, over which his loose, old-fashioned pleated slacks sagged from a narrow
black belt. He wore steel-rimmed Franklin glasses and generally peered through
them with his head thrown back, his lanky gray hair in disarray, tossed
helter-skelter. He smoked a stubby pipe, perhaps because he thought it fitted
his image as Assistant Director of ISB, and he had been with Internal Security
from the very first day the special bureau was established by the former
Secretary of State, over General McFee’s objections. In fact, Wilderman had
been replaced only two years ago by John Meecham. Within the ranks of field
agents for K Section there had been some speculation about the reshuffling, but
mostly it was ascribed to politics. The House and Senate committees appointed
to supervise K Section had never been much impressed by Enoch Wilderman’s
autocratic and slovenly manner. Meecham, whose solid ugliness inspired more confidence,
had been recommended by General McFee.
    Durell pulled up outside the villa, on a side road within
view of the Mediterranean, about two hours later. The heavy overcast that had
drenched Rome with rain was breaking up. A wind came from the west, over the
sea, and the clouds were shredding, broomed away from
the mainland. Now and then a glimmer of moonlight oozed through the night
clouds.
    Maggie had been silent on the drive down the autostrada from
Rome. Durell had not pressed her to talk.
    The moment they were admitted to the villa—Enoch Wilderman
always had half a dozen security men around him—Durell spotted the birds.
    Durell did not dislike birds, not even the huge, mangy-looking
macaw that strutted in slow motion across the marble tiles of the foyer floor,
but Wilderman’s peculiar passion for birds disgusted him. Durell was willing to
bet that Wilderman had not occupied the villa for more than twenty-four hours
before the house was stained by droppings. And Wilderman always abandoned his
feathered friends when he moved on elsewhere. They were left for someone else
to clean up.
    The villa had once been quite pretentious, but it now
smelled of decay, a scent of mildew compounded with dust, sand, and fungus that
flourished in the damp sea air. The house stood on a low rise beyond the main
amusement-park area of Ostia, on a small coastal road overlooking the sea. There
was a garden abandoned to the weeds, a four-car garage. A series of balconies
protruded from the upper floor.
    Wilderman was waiting for them in a back room once designed
as a solarium. It had a domed glass roof. Heavy blackout shades had been
installed and pulled over all the glass. Wilderman did not like to be watched,
especially from outside at night.
    “Ah. Mr. Samuel Durell. The Cajun,” he said.
    Enoch Wilderman had a surprisingly deep, impressive
baritone. He sat wearing an old gray-flannel robe and old-fashioned
carpet slippers half off his long, bony feet, and he tilted his head back in
his characteristic gesture so that light splintered from his steel-rimmed
Franklins. His smile was thin and small.
    “And the young lady,” Wilderman added. His thin shoulders
hunched as if in apprehension. “Miss Margaret Donaldson, I believe. Take a seat
anywhere. Anywhere.” His rich mellifluous voice drowned them in sweet
oil. He cocked his head, much like a ragged old bird himself, and listened to a
sudden burst of squawking from another room in the villa, and then the macaw
strutted in, each leg moving as if in slow motion, leaving a few rather large
pellets behind it. “Ah, Deborah. Behave yourself now. Sit down, Miss Donaldson.
Please do. Some tea, perhaps?”
    Maggie looked at Durell’s tall figure. “No, thank you,
sir.”
    “You have my sympathies for the terrible tragedy that
overtook your father.”
    Two parakeets flew into the room with their peculiarly
labored form of flight, as it their strength were about to give out. One of
them, yellow with blue wings, landed on top of Wilderman’s thatch of gray