Assignment - Karachi by Edward S. Aarons Read Free Book Online Page A

here under any circumstances until I’m finished with Donegan, understand?” he told her.
    “Yes, Mr. Durell.” She hesitated. “But I haven’t done anything wrong. It was Mr. Donegan’s idea that I pose as Miss Sarah.”
    “I understand that. As soon as we’re through here, we’ll find some tint and get your hair back to normal and you can wear your own clothes and get rid of those glasses.
    I won’t feel easy about you until you can’t be mistaken by some fanatic as your boss.”
    “Yes.”
    He left her sitting quietly in the windowless room and went in to see Donegan, anger riding his footsteps, thinking of Jane’s prim face and lush, provocative body.
    Daniel Donegan shook hands with a quick, limp gesture and gave Durell’s credentials only a cursory glance. He was a small man, his shoulders narrow in a white cotton suit. Although it was comfortable in the air-conditioned office, he was sweating, and there were beads of moisture on his brown, freckled scalp. He listened to Durell’s report on what had happened since he landed in Karachi, nodded once or twice, and blinked bloodshot brown eyes rapidly, offering apologies for the whole matter.
    He seemed, to Durell, to be a man living in a swamp of fear.
    “I’m sorry, truly sorry,” Donegan said, blinking again. “I’m not equipped to cope with this sort of thing. It’s really not my line.”
    “Why not?” Durell asked. “It’s a simple matter.”
    “Miss Sarah Standish cannot in any way be considered a simple matter. To be responsible for her safety in this city— indeed, anywhere in this country—is too nerve-wracking. You don’t know what she’s like. She wants everything her way. And she’s such an important personality back home, I shudder at the thought of anything happening to her.”
    “But you’re not so worried about anything happening to Jane King, is that it?”
    “Miss King does not represent Standish Nickel and eight hundred million dollars,” Donegan said thickly.
    “Does all that money bother you?”
    “Miss Standish is an influential woman back home—” 
    “And her money has thrown you off balance, is that it?” “See here, I resent—”
    “Listen to me,” Durell said harshly. His anger was thick in him, his dark blue eyes looked black and hard and cruel. “You can’t equate money with the value of anyone’s life.”
    Donegan protested feebly. “Your job is to protect Miss Standish, to see that she comes through this utterly quixotic venture without harm. She’s in the company of a rather peculiar lot of foreigners, I must say. And I merely thought it would be helpful to arrange a simple subterfuge to throw any potential fanatics off the track. We’re not wanted up there in Pakhusti, you know.” Donegan’s bald head glistened with sweat. “You know what happened to the members of the first S-5 group. The Pakhustis have people everywhere. They resent anyone coming into their province. The Emir at Mirandhabad has sworn to be independent. He’ll do anything to keep you from reaching S-5.”
    “I understand all that,” Durell said. “It’s still no reason to put an innocent girl in jeopardy.”
    “She’s all right, isn’t she?” Donegan demanded.
    “A business like this is too full of danger to have any place for amateurs,” Durell rapped.
    “I didn’t really think—”
    Donegan’s eyes were haunted. “I’m sorry, Durell. I guess it’s all that money belonging to that stony-eyed woman. It’s put me in a panic. If anything happened to Sarah Standish here, my career is finished. Years of work gone out the window. I want to go home, Durell. I’ve got a wife and kids back in Chicago, a mortgage to get rid of, education bills to pay. I don’t want to make any mistakes this last year of my duty out here.”
    Durell knew you cannot reason with fear. He felt a twinge of pity for Daniel Donegan, but an even greater apprehension for what the man had tried to do. The smell of big money created