Assignment - Black Viking by Edward S. Aarons Page A

easily be panic.
    He dismissed his taxi and used Elgiva’s Mercedes for the foggy drive back into town. It was not a comfortable trip. Elgiva drove, and he sat between her and Sigrid. Both women maintained a stony silence. He had explained to Elgiva that the isolation of her house made it dangerous for her to stay there; and after Sigrid minimized the danger, Elgiva perversely agreed to obey all of Durell’s orders. Sigrid ground her teeth and was silent.
    It was after ten, and true nightfall had come over the Baltic at last. Most of the shops in the cobbled streets
    of the walled town were shuttered for the night. Tourists were in rare supply these days.
    Durell told Elgiva to park around the corner in an alley that led downhill toward one of Visby’s battlements. He was reluctant to leave the two women alone together, and decided it could do no harm to take them with him. They maintained a silent truce as they walked toward the shop.
    The small display window in the medieval building was dark and partly curtained. Polished modern mahogany chairs were glimpsed inside. But Durell saw no lights within.
    “Your resident agent is not here,” Sigrid said.
    “He is. Ole wouldn’t get out of touch tonight.”
    He led the way down a dark alley to the back entrance. A cat ran across their path and leaped over a wooden fence. Sigrid shrank back for a moment.
    “Perhaps he has gone to the Vesper .”
    Elgiva spoke coldly. “If you are anxious to go, then leave us. Your blood is not that of a true Viking woman. I will stay with Durell.”
    “Oh, you talk such nonsense, darling.” Sigrid went with them to the back door of the furniture shop.
    A dim light shone inside. The wide service door was locked. Durell frowned. Visby, a town marked by many churches, suddenly came awake with the sound of old church bells tolling in the misty air. The iron clanging was just what he needed. He found a slat of wood near the door, wedged it between the two panels, and shoved against the bolt. There came a snapping sound, drowned out by the carillon. Something clattered to the floor inside, and the door swung open.
    Sigrid started forward. He caught her arm. “Stand back.”
    “I am not afraid!” she retorted.
    “Well, I am.” He was a cautious man, and he knew better than to ignore his hunches or the technique of IPE—Illegal, Perilous Entry. He moved in at a fast crouch, his gun at hip level cocked up at an angle that would hit a man in the lower abdomen if he had to fire. His leg grazed a crate, he turned left, and then paused. There were dark geometric shapes of crated furniture stacked to the ceiling, and a smell of wood shavings and steel nails. The nails glittered on the plank floor where they had been strewn to trap the unwary. He was grateful for his caution.
    “What is it?” Sigrid called softly.
    “Stay where you are. Both of you.”
    A door stood open at the far end of the storage room, the source of light he had seen outside. He moved around a wood-working bench cluttered with mahogany shavings and a partly built modern chair, then used his technique on the second door.
    Nothing happened.
    He followed a corridor to a flight of old wooden steps that creaked no matter how carefully he placed his feet. Sigrid came in behind him, disobeying his orders, and he halted, anger in him. Sigrid raised a great many questions in his mind. Before all this was over, he thought tiredly, he might have to kill her.

    Someone breathed with a deep, irregular effort in a room at the far end of the upper hall. He could see a modern desk, an aluminum pole lamp, a corner of a splashy op art painting on the wall. The breathing halted. There was silence. Then it began again.
    “Ole?” he called softly.
    It began to rain again, a sullen drumming on the roof just overhead. Through the sound came a grunt, a gasp, a dragging noise. Durell went into the office.
    “Ole?”
    The Stockholm agent was trying to crawl from behind the desk where he had