The Assignment by Per Wahlöö Read Free Book Online

rolled-up handkerchief.
    “Ye-es,” he said. “I’ve told them. I’ve done that.”
    The offices were one floor up, a suite of rooms along the length of a white corridor. Most of them were empty and looked as if they had hardly ever been used. It was almost dark in all but two of them, for the shutters had been closed in order to keep out some of the heat. Nevertheless, the air inthem was heavy and dusty and suffocating. A relatively young man in a black sateen jacket and dark glasses was sitting in one of the rooms. He had pulled out the bottom drawer of the desk so that he could put his feet up on it while he read the newspaper. When they opened the door and went in, he looked up, put down the newspaper, and stood up.
    “I’m in charge of the chancery,” he said. “But there isn’t a chancery.”
    “Are you the only official here?”
    “Yes. There were only three of us. The General and I and an ex-lieutenant who was the General’s adjutant and secretary. He left immediately after the General’s death.”
    “Probably given a medical discharge, yes, no doubt,” said Frankenheimer.
    Before they had had time to close the door behind them the young man had once again sat himself down with his feet on the desk drawer and was reading the newspaper.
    At the end of the corridor was the room which Orestes de Larrinaga had used. It was large and light and bare, but at least there was an electric fan on the ceiling.
    Danica Rodríguez stood by the window, smoking. She looked out over the square, and when the draft from the fan lifted her short hair, he saw that the slim nape of her neck was covered with tiny beads of sweat.
    On a chair by the wall a short fat man was sitting with his legs apart and his hands on his knees, doing nothing whatsoever.
    “This is López,” said Frankenheimer. “He and I’ll be on duty together and we’ll always be near at hand. Twelve hours at a stretch from midday to midnight. Then the others change with us. You meet them tonight.”
    Manuel Ortega looked around. There were no files in the room, no books, no papers, nothing except the furniture. He pulled open one of the drawers in the desk. It was empty. He went out to the secretary’s room. Equally empty. A green safestood there, its door open. It was empty. He went back to the others.
    “If you don’t mind then, we thought we’d do it like this,” said Frankenheimer, and then he fell silent.
    “Like what?”
    “You take this room and the lady sits in the other; don’t you think it should be like that?”
    The woman by the window looked dejectedly at him.
    “One of us will always be in here. Where the other is—well, you needn’t worry about that.”
    “You must have one of us here in the room because there are two doors,” he added gloomily, as if complaining about the plan of the building.
    Manuel began to feel tired and irritable.
    “Hurry up,” he said.
    The man in the linen suit looked sadly at him.
    “Then we’ve got the problem of where you’re to live,” he said.
    He took a couple of long strides out into the corridor, glanced to the left, took out a key, and unlocked the door on the opposite side.
    “Here,” he said. “This way it’s all right. Two rooms, one through the other, bedroom farthest in. There’s a bathroom and shower too. When you’re in in the daytime and in the evenings, then the one on close duty will be in the corridor.”
    “Close duty?”
    “Yes, we call it that. It’s usually called that. I’ll put a chair here—a swivel chair will be fine.”
    He said this very thoughtfully.
    “Couldn’t we get all this over and done with a little quicker? I’m tired and would very much like to have a shower and change.”
    “When you’re asleep or staying permanently in the inner room, then the one on close duty will be in here, in the outer room. Is that all right with you?”
    “What do you mean by permanently in the inner room?”
    Frankenheimer did not answer the