Assignment Unicorn by Edward S. Aarons Read Free Book Online

corner. He had been reading a tattered copy of Playboy .
    “Sir!” the doctor said, in a manner that reflected
British military training.
    “Any change in the patient?” Colonel Ko asked.
    “He is very ill, sir.”
    “Has he said anything yet?”
    “Not a word, sir.”
    “You have tried to get him to speak to you?”
    “I have tried, sir. I do not believe he intends to talk.”
    Colonel Ko said sharply, “He must be made to.”
    “I am doing what I can, sir.”
    Colonel Ko turned bleak black eyes toward Durell. “You do
not seem surprised?”
    “That the prisoner is a white man? No."
    “We have to assume that all of them, all those who engaged
in the attack on Premier Shang and your Mr. Donaldson, were white Europeans or
Americans. We don’t know.”
    The dapper colonel swung on his small booted feet back to
the doctor. The cell stank of stale urine, antiseptic, the swamp outside. Ko
said again, “A white man. With stained skin and dyed hair, in native costume,
dressed like a Malay. What do you make of it, Mr. Durell?”
    “I don’t know,” Durell said.
    “Surely you must have a theory. What country would you say
this man came from?"
    “If he were black-haired and short, I would say he was from
a Mediterranean race. But there are short, black-haired Scandinavians, too. His
nose tells me nothing. I am not an anthropologist, Colonel Ko.”
    “But your impression?”
    "I'm not sure at all. He could be Greek, Italian,
Czech, Norwegian.”
    Colonel Ko said, “I wish we could induce him to speak.”
    “Impossible,” said the doctor promptly.
    Durell walked over to the cot and stared down at the
prisoner. The man’s eyes did not blink, although the slant of sun that came
through the barred window was directly in his eyes. Durell lifted the man’s
upper lip and looked at the teeth. There were gold fillings, not steel
caps, on those that had dental work. Not Russian, he supposed. The man looked
to be about thirty. His build was athletic—solid biceps and strong pectorals,
stocky legs, also well-muscled, a flat stomach that lifted and tell
almost invisibly with his shallow breathing.
    “Hello,” Durell said.
    Nothing.
    “Bonjour. Guten Abend . Buenas tardes .”
    Nothing.
    Even with such musculature, no one could have leaped up and
scaled the twelve-foot wall and torn two living men apart with his bare hands.
    The oscilloscope, which had been making small, irregular
beeping sounds, was suddenly silent. The Indian doctor whirled around. Then the
heartbeat was resumed. It seemed a bit weaker, however.
    “What is the matter with him, Doctor?” Durell asked.
    “Exhaustion.”
    “Unusual?”
    “Extraordinary. Total depletion of body vitality and
functional resources. He has not urinated or defecated since he was brought
here.”
    “Ever seen anything like this before?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Never?”
    “Perhaps once. A Palingponese fisherman whose boat
capsized and threw him into the sea. He could not swim very well, but he stayed
afloat tor forty-nine hours through sheer will power, fighting to
stay up and keep the sharks away. He died shortly after he was rescued and
brought ashore.”
    “The prisoner reminds you of that?”
    “Somewhat,” said the doctor.
    “Have you taken blood samples? Looked for drugs? Amphetamine
types?”
    “We have done everything. The state laboratory is very efficient.
Very good technicians there, sir. We thought the same thing. But we can find no
traces of adrenalin-based excitatives , certainly no
heroin or opium-derived substances.”
    Colonel Ko said, “But he must be made to talk.”
    The doctor merely shrugged his shoulders.
    “Could he be hypnotized?” Durell asked. “Perhaps in a
trance?”
    “Farfetched, sir.”
    “But not impossible?”
    The Indian shrugged.
    Durell said, “Do you think he can understand us?”
    “I cannot tell,” said the doctor. “There has been no
reaction to any stimulus.”
    Durell looked down into the prisoner’s face again.