Free Assignment - Ankara by Edward S. Aarons Page B

throat wonderingly, looked at Anderson’s huge, looming figure, saw him smile quickly, and returned her dazed glance to Durell. Her face was battered and bloodstained, and there was a deep cut on her temple; her dark hair was loose, streaming down her shoulders.
    “Somebody—somebody tried to—kill me,” she whispered, wonderingly.
    “That’s obvious. Do you know who it was?”
    She shook her head in silence.
    “Did you see anything of him at all?”
    “Only a shape, a shadow—he wouldn’t stop—I hurt all over. He was like a madman—”
    “Can you tell us why you were attacked like this?”
    She hesitated. “No.”
    “There must be a reason,” Durell insisted.
    “No. No reason. A—a looter, perhaps.”
    She was lying, even dazed as she was. Durell had the impression she had quickly regained control of her clever, alert mind. She was giving nothing away. But it was obvious that she certainly couldn’t have been in the village to kill Uvaldi if she had been unconscious here at the time. The bruises on her face and body couldn’t have been faked.
    He said abruptly, “We found your father, Francesca.”
    “Oh?”
    “He’s dead. Someone just killed him.”
    If he was ever to catch her off guard, he thought, brutality now might do it, however cruel it might be to tell her about it like this. She stared at him for a moment without comprehension. Her eyes widened, then narrowed; she moistened her bruised lips with her tongue.
    “I—I hurt,” she whispered.
    “Didn’t you understand what I just said?” Durell insisted.
    She nodded without replying. She closed her eyes and her face became a mask, innately lovely despite the scars and blemishes inflicted on her. Durell straightened and looked Anderson and at Kappic, who had joined them silently, then nodded and lifted the girl in his arms and carried her down the hill to the hut where he had left her two hours ago. Anderson and Kappic followed, walking heavily. Inside the hut, Durell put the girl down on the big peasant bed and turned to Kappic. “Better get Susan Stuyvers to look after her, Lieutenant. She’s in the next house.”
    “Shall I bring the father, too?”
    “Not just yet. Just tell them there’s been an accident here.”
    Francesca seemed to have fainted. He watched her breathing and saw where the native clothes she wore had been ripped and stained by her struggle. No, it hadn’t been faked. But the girl, even though dazed, was acting strangely. He was sure she had grasped the news about her father’s death, and he felt annoyed because he wanted to trust her and knew he couldn’t.
    He turned to Anderson as Kappic went out. “We have only a few moments before the Turk gets back. Kappic was cleared by our security people, but we have to be careful just the same.”
    “Right.” Anderson’s slow Tennessee drawl sounded strange in the peasant hut. His gray eyes were direct, watching Durell. “I can’t tell you much. Dr. Uvaldi looked worse yesterday from his injuries than he did this morning, so we decided not to move out until tonight, if he improved. I decided to wait, and I got the local medic to take care of him, at the inn.”
    “What about Uvaldi’s tapes?” Durell asked.
    “He had them—then,” Anderson sighed.
    “Did you see them?”
    Anderson shrugged. “They were in a small attache case, and he wouldn’t show ’em to me. But I got a look at them, when he was sleeping. They were there, all right. He was spooky about security, so I didn’t bother him, once I was satisfied I had the real thing and we were on our way home.”
    “What happened this evening?” Durell asked.
    “Well, I heard there was a ham radio operator in Musa Karagh, a retired Turkish army sergeant. I know a little about radio myself, so I went looking for him, thinking I might get word back to Ankara about the situation here and conditions at Base Four. But the man was hard to find. And when I located his place, he was dead, killed when a wall of