101 Mystery Stories

57 Schedule for an Assassination Robert Edmond Alter

The highroad snaked up to the very rim of the steep hill. From their car window the two assassins could look straight down to the blue floor of the cliff-girt harbor, where the little Mediterranean city — all whitewashed and slate-roofed — squatted like a broken angel food cake, They could see the tiny fishing boats moored in the pumice-white water, and the little ant-like people moving about the quays and squares.

Katov — the man who had actually fired the shot that had killed the visiting politician — drummed his fingertips nervously on the dashboard, and when he spoke his eyes and voice were edged with anger.

“All right, all right. They’re not after us yet. Let’s get on.”

Vologin, who dated his term of service back to the Spanish Civil War, grunted and ground the gears. His physical appearance — short and swarthy — matched exactly with his temper and disposition.

“They better not come after us. I’ll give them something—”

Katov looked at him, exasperated by his surly bravado. “Shut up, can’t you?” he snapped. “Of course they’ll come after us. They’ll phone ahead, and the police will be out... probably the army too.”

Vologin was a driver who fought the wheel instead of steering with it. He swerved away from a boy driving a sledge ox along the shoulder. The boy shouted after him, and Vologin shouted back and put on speed.

“Stop complaining,” he said to Katov. “I’ve outwitted the bourgeois for twenty-four years. We’ll be down at the villa in an hour.”

“If we miss the roadblocks.”

“By the time they get their roadblocks up. we’ll be playing vingt-et-un at the villa and I shall be winning your money.”

Vologin skinned past an oncoming Mercedes-Benz, almost forcing it from the road. A horn hooted indignantly. “Fat swine!” Vologin muttered darkly.

“But we’re two hours ahead of schedule,” Katov fretted. “The yacht won’t come for us until four.”

Vologin looked ahead and then dodged a pothole in the road, making the tires whine. “That couldn’t be helped,” he said shortly. “Our orders were to shoot him when he landed. It was their fault, not ours, that the government yacht was two hours ahead of time.”

“Yes, but we’ll pay for it.”

An old man walking the road missed death by an inch. Vologin didn’t spare him a glance. “Why must you always be a worrier?” he wondered. “Why must you be one?”

Katov didn’t know. He was, but he couldn’t help it. For two days they had sat in the greasy little rented room overlooking the quay... and he’d worried. Then the government yacht had arrived and had tied up at the buoy, and then the politician had come ashore with a flock of minor visiting dignitaries.

Secret servicemen and uniformed policemen had been pushing everywhere and everyone on the quay, and Vologin, scowling out the window, had snarled, “Lackeys — all of them. I’d like to give them something in the neck to remember me by.”

Damp with nervous sweat, agitated, Katov had pushed him aside and aimed the rifle out the window, picturing his victim in the scope. It had brought the politician in as clear and lifelike as an actor on a theater screen. Katov had set the fixed reticules on the man’s chest... then he’d stalled.

“I don’t think we should do it,” he’d whispered. “We’re too far ahead of schedule. We’ll be stuck in that deserted villa for two hours while the police are searching for us.”

“What do you mean not do it?” Vologin had gasped. “We’re not private individuals who can call the turn. We have no choice. Our orders are to shoot him when he lands. Here, give me the gun if you’ve lost your nerve.”

But Katov had no qualms about killing. He turned back to the window and put the politician in the scope again. The man was still standing down there, shaking hands, laughing; Katov could see his lips moving...

And then he’d squeezed the trigger, with one convulsive movement.

As they had fled the building, they’d bumped into a woman heavy with child, coming up the stairs. Vologin had slammed by her rudely, but Katov had been careful not to touch her, had murmered, “Pardon me,” in passing.

When they’d piled into the waiting car, Vologin had said, “We should have shot her. too. She’ll give them our description.”

But Katov had said nothing. He’d thought how odd it was that he’d just killed a man. and then immediately had bumped into a woman who was bringing a new life into the world. I suppose that’s what makes the balance, he’d thought. But Vologin had been right. They should have killed her. And then he really began to worry.

Forty-five minutes later the road was still on the rise. The mountains were sparse, pumice-streaked, and with blotches of shrubbery like a green leprosy. Katov was sick with suspense. Beyond each new curve he expected to see a roadblock confronting them, and he kept his right hand inside his jacket fingering the butt of the Mauser that was bolstered under his armpit.

Vologin was gripping the wheel as though he were thinking of an enemy’s throat, but he smiled when he glanced at the worried Katov.

“You see? Like I said — no trouble. We’ll be down at the villa in fifteen minutes or so.”

Right then the left rear went PLAM! and the car veered wildly toward the edge of the cliff, Vologin fighting the wheel savagely, and Katov shouting, “Keep your foot off the brake!”

The car lurched to a jarring halt and Katov put a trembling hand to his face to wipe at his mouth. Having to shoot the politician ahead of schedule had been the first mishap: then meeting the woman with child and not killing her. and now this. What’s coming next? He wondered. Something is... I can feel it.

Vologin swore viciously, and poked his head out the window to look back at the defunct tire.

“Would you believe it?” he muttered. “That’s the first blowout I’ve had since the war.”

Katov looked around at the mountains with a cold glow of desperation. There was a green-choked cut leading off to his right. He eyed it reflectively. tasting his lips.

Vologin turned from the window. “Well,” he said decisively, “it doesn’t matter. We’re way ahead of our schedule anyhow. Ten minutes to change the tire won’t hurt us.”

“A roadblock can be erected in ten minutes also. And that’ll hurt.”

“Worry about it when we get to it. will you? Give me a hand.”

But Katov’s creed was caution. He’d had enough. He opened the door and let himself out. “They’re looking for two men in a car,” he said. “Perhaps you can get through by yourself. I’m going to cut across country.”

Vologin was stunned. “Are you mad? They’ll pick you up on foot like a rabbit with a broken hindleg. Come back here!”

Katov shook his head and turned away.

“I’ll meet you at the villa,” he called. “Providing we both get through. Luck, good luck!”

“Katov — you’re insane!”

Katov ignored the announcement. He dashed across the road and dodged into the shelter of the bushy ravine. He’d lasted ten years in the world’s riskiest business; he wasn’t going to throw himself away now by walking blindly into a trap. Caution, caution. Vologin was a fool who left too much to chance.

He created a dry wake of billowing dust as he worked his way down the ravine and into a shallow valley. The place was lifeless and fallow. Its agriculture had deteriorated years ago with the invasion of the Axis powers.

Katov hurried across a dead checkerboard that had once produced olives, grapes, and grain. The abandoned peasant huts were gaping ruins with tumbled-in roofs, over-grown with burdocks, splotchy with rust and decay. It suited him fine; being observed was the one thing he didn’t want, right now.

He cleared the silent valley and started up the barren hills. Overhead the hazy sun smouldered like a branding iron and everything was dry dust and slipping shale. He paused, fighting for breath, and looked at his wrist watch, 3:00. It was going to be a near thing. He simply had to reach the deserted villa by four. From experience he knew that those in the yacht wouldn’t wait. He cursed softly and started climbing again. At that moment he felt very underpaid and put upon, and wished that he’d gone into another profession. Something with security to it.

He stumbled onto a shaggy plain and was confronted by a great sprawling ruin — a palace once, long before the coming of Christianity. But history — other than that which concerned the organization for which he labored — meant nothing to Katov. He could see a road running below the ruins, and to save time he decided to cut through the old palace. He walked across a spoiled courtyard, up broad steps and under an archway.

He tramped heedlessly down stilled corridors, through a queen’s suite and sunken baths, into chambers pock-marked and ringed with mammoth black pillars...

Suddenly he was lost.

He scowled, looking around at the tortuous arrangement of endless rooms and corridors. He was in a labyrinth. Silly, he said. Retrace yourself. Well... turn right? No, that wasn’t familiar. All right, go left then. He looked at his watch. 3:20. Bad. Very bad indeed. He started walking fast. He walked for three minutes and came into a chamber with black pillars. Back to his starting point.

Katov looked at the lichenous walls desperately, tasting a sharp irony when he reminded himself that he was the man who never walked blindly into a trap.

Something incongruous to the dusty stillness of the four-thousand-year-old ruin sounded in the air. Katov started, turning his head, then recognized the sound. Car brakes squealing on the road. He heard the muted, distant slam of a car door, and he started to shout.

A voice — not too far off — answered. “Where are you?”

“Here! I can’t find my way out.”

“Continue to call!”

Katov went toward the voice, his right hand inside his jacket and resting on the Mauser-butt. The stranger had a car, and that was something Katov needed. He rounded a corner and almost ran full-front into a uniformed policeman.

For a dead moment they appeared to belong in the ruin as two forgotten statues. Then the policeman said, “Who are you? What are you doing in here?”

“I... I’m a tourist. I got lost.”

“How did you get up here? I saw no car on the road.”

Katov swallowed and managed to work out a smile. “I hiked up from the village... I’m staying there.”

“What village? Do you mean Vikiros?”

Katov grabbed at it. “Yes.”

The policeman put a hand to the top of his holster, casually.

“I’d better see your papers,” he suggested. “Vikiros has been an abandoned ruin since ’42.”

Katov retained his smile, nodded slowly, saying, “I’ve got them right here, officer.”

The Mauser’s explosion let loose a thunder of running echoes.

The policeman went over backwards as though struck by the blast of a grenade. He was dead when he hit the aged flagstones. Only his hands continued to twitch, as if seeking something.

The man in the uniform who left the ruin and cut through the weeds down to the police car waiting on the dirt road, walked with a grim smile. The time was 3:45. That gave Katov fifteen minutes to drive to the deserted villa. Ample time. He opened the car door, slid in, and paused to adjust the officer’s cap on his head. He checked his appearance in the rearview mirror. Very satisfactory. He really couldn’t help chuckling as he started the engine.

The old villa was at the end of a promontory, clinging tenaciously in decay to the rocky shore. Katov drove down the wooded drive with complete confidence. He rounded a bend and saw the glimmer of limestone walls through the latticework of greenery. He was wondering if Vologin had also managed to get through when he heard a shot.

He jammed the brakes, grabbed his pistol, opened the door and crouched down in the road, looking around at the shrubbery. And then he saw another police car drawn up in the weeded drive before the old villa. A gun crashed again, somewhere.

He stalled, wondering. They couldn’t be after him, not in this uniform. And they couldn’t have found out about the dead policeman, because he’d hidden the body in the ruins only ten minutes ago.

Vologin must have reached the villa then, was here somewhere waiting for him. But he hadn’t come alone. Somewhere along the road Vologin had picked up the law.

I knew it, Katov raged. The careless fool! He can’t keep out of trouble. And now III have to help him. He went at the shrubs in a running crouch and worked his way up closer to the walls of the old villa. Then he paused catching his breath, and looked around.

He saw an armed policeman standing behind a pine tree. The officer was waving at him to get down. “I’ve chased one of those assassins in here,” he called to Katov. “He’s in that patio somewhere. Now that you’re here we can circle him.”

Katov nodded numbly, wishing that the policeman wasn’t so far off and that he might risk a shot at him. But he couldn’t afford to tip his hand until he was certain of success. Then he had an inspiration; he would pretend to capture Vologin, and when the policeman lowered his guard...

Katov waved and started slipping through the shrubbery around to the north end of the crumbling patio wall. He heard Vologin trade a shot with the policeman, and grinned. What a surprise this was going to be for his friend.

He edged up to the wall and raised his head to look into the patio. It was a great, wildly unkempt place, like a secret garden in a fairy tale. He saw Vologin’s hunched back sixty yards away. Vologin was crouching behind an old marble statue, peering out at the shrubbery in the tense posture of a man looking for a shot.

Katov, still watching him, started to scramble over the wall. He saw Vologin straighten up suddenly and start to raise his pistol... but the policeman was quicker. A shot whacked out of the shrubbery, and Vologin’s head snapped back. He spun around grotesquely, got twisted in his own legs and sprawled headlong onto the flagstones.

Katov couldn’t believe it. Just when everything was going his way. That impetuous trigger-crazy Vologin! Still — the game wasn’t over yet. Perhaps Vologin wasn’t dead. But no matter, the important thing was to get close to the policeman when his guard was down and let him have it.

He started picking his way through the tangled growth hurriedly.

Vologin, blood dribbling from his mouth, raised his head and looked at Katov coming for him. He was going out in the same manner he’d lived — hating.

Katov didn’t even get a chance to call before Vologin’s bullet hit him high in the chest.

He slammed into the ground, tried to raise himself, tried to shout at his distant friend, but his arms turned to liquid, and the only thing that came from his mouth was a warm, briny liquid. As from far away he heard Vologin shout:

“There’s something to remember me by... you capitalist lackey!”