Lovelace looked thoughtful. “Your reasoning’s sound enough about the odds against your ever being able to trace him once he’s left Athens, and about the airport being the only place that gives you any hope of doing the job here, but as Valerie says, there’s not a chance in a million of your getting away afterwards.”
Christopher stood up again. “I know, but I’ve brought that on myself. It’s the price I’ve to pay for acting like a squeamish fool when the going was good. I think I’d best say good-bye to you both now. You’ll read about what happens in the papers, I expect.”
“Sit down, you young idiot,” Lovelace snapped. “It’s revolting to see you dramatise yourself like this.” He had caught Valerie’s glance beseeching him to prevent the insane plan and went on more quietly.
“How can you talk so glibly of us reading about your being riddled with bullets. We both know you’re doing the heroic thing—sacrificing yourself for an ideal—and all that. But is it necessary? Can’t we think of another way.”
“There is no other way,” Christopher stated with a mulish look.
“Maybe you’re right; but at least you might give us the chance to exercise any brains we’ve got on it before you go rushing out to die.”
“Yes, please, Christopher, please,” Valerie added imploringly. “At least listen to what Anthony has to say.”
After that the discussion became heated. Valerie denounced the scheme as sheer madness, entailing Christopher’s certain death, while Lovelace backed her up with every argument he could think of, realising now that it was Valerie, not Christopher, whom he would be letting down by withdrawing from the affair unless he could turn the pale-faced young fanatic from his purpose. From becoming a reluctant accomplice he found himself pressing the younger man to accept his further help, for it only needed Christopher’s change of front and new desire to have them both safely out of it to spur him into a determination to save the boy from committing such a crazy action, whatever the risk might be himself.
At last, after wrangling for nearly a quarter of an hour, Christopher agreed to postpone any definite decision until after breakfast and they moved into the dining-room of the hotel. Valerie continued the discussion with him there on a lower note, using obscure phrases so that the garlic-breathing waiter should not understand what they were talking about even if he knew English. Lovelace, meanwhile, despatched a hearty breakfast almost in silence while he cudgelled his brains for some way out of the impasse.
By nine o’clock they were back in the deserted courtyard; Christopher still grimly determined to carry out his suicidal plan, and Valerie very near to tears at the ill-success of her attempts to turn him from it, when Lovelace suddenly intervened.
“Look here,” he said. “It’s quite true you were supposed to do the job in Athens, but as long as the job’s done before Zarrif reaches Addis Ababa that’s all that really matters. As there is still the best part of three weeks to go before he’s due there he’s bound to be stopping off somewhere. Why shouldn’t we follow? Then another chance may present itself where Christopher won’t have to run this insane risk.”
“That’s all very well,” Christopher muttered, “but once he’s left Athens what chance have we got of ever finding him again? His business may take him to any one of half a hundred places at the eastern end of the Mediterranean.”
“True, but you’ll remember that Barrotet gave us the names of several of the Millers who live in that part of the world. There was that Italian in Cairo, and the Dane in Haifa, and the German in Alex. If Zarrif fetches up in any of those places these lads are almost certain to hear of it and be able to tip us off.”
Christopher shook his head. “We’ve only got eighteen days, remember. Even if we got in touch with them all by cable, by the time one of them reported that Zarrif had turned up in his area, and we managed to get there, the chances are that Zarrif would have moved on again. It’s no good arguing; I’ve made up my mind and I’m going to do it when he leaves his car at the airport to-day.”
Lovelace knew that his next suggestion would entail a damnable risk to himself. He had thought of it at breakfast but dismissed it in the hope that some other way might be found. Now he saw that the time had come when he must play his last card if Valerie’s young man was to be prevented from occupying a slab in the Athens morgue that evening.
“I don’t think I told you,” he said, “that when I saw Zarrif last night he offered me a job, believing me to be Mr. Jeremiah Green, of course, and that I could give him all the latest dope about what’s been going on in Abyssinia. He asked me to report to his secretary, Cassalis, at the airport at one-thirty to-day so that I could go with them and be on hand if Zarrif wants to consult me. I agreed, imagining then that the old devil would be dead within an hour.”
Valerie’s face lighted up with sudden hope. “Then—then, if you kept the appointment, you’d be able to leave Athens in Zarrif’s party and let us know where he is directly he arrives at his destination.”
“That’s the idea,” Lovelace nodded. “What about it?”
“I don’t like it,” Christopher shook his head. “It means your running the most ghastly risk the whole time you’re with them. If they found out you’re not Jeremiah Green that bunch of thugs would be capable of killing you without the slightest compunction.”
“They might have done that yesterday,” Lovelace shrugged, “but I got away with it. And now they’ve really accepted me as the unfortunate Mr. Green, the situation’s far less dangerous. Anyhow, the risk is mine and I’m taking it with my eyes open. So that settles the matter.”
Valerie threw him a glance in which gratitude was mingled with a new fear. “I hate the thought of your doing this for us. Oh, Christopher! won’t you please let Barrotet know that you haven’t been able to manage the job, and get him to put one of the other Millers in the Near East on to tackling Zarrif when they pick him up again?”
Christopher shook his head. “No; it’s now or never. Lovelace’s scheme is sound enough, but I see no earthly reason why he should risk his neck for me. It’s best for all of us that I should stick to my original plan.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Lovelace said with quiet finality. “You agree that my scheme’s all right, so we’ll adopt it; otherwise I shall come with you to the airport and take the far bigger risk of getting myself shot down when you do your heroics. You don’t want that, do you?”
Christopher smiled. “You’re a grand chap, Lovelace, and you’ve put me in a corner. I couldn’t possibly let you do that, and you know it, so I’ll accept this scheme of your going with Zarrif as Mr. Green if that’s the only alternative.”
“There’s one big snag to it,” Valerie remarked. “You may find it impossible to communicate with us.”
“That’s true,” Lovelace nodded. “But if I can’t I’ll manage to get in touch with one of the Millers whose address we have and you’ll learn my whereabouts from him.”
“But time …” insisted Christopher, leaning forward, “… is the essential factor. By the time we learn where you are Zarrif may have moved on again.”
Suddenly Valerie laughed. “There’s only one thing for it then. We must all be ready to leave the airport at the same time as Zarrif, so that Christopher and I can follow you in the plane.”
“Good Lord!” Lovelace exclaimed. “I thought we’d ruled you out at last. It’s Christopher’s wish as well as mine now that you should take no further hand in the affair.”
Another hectic argument ensued but Christopher was obsessed again with his mission. Valerie could help him to accomplish it far better than any hired pilot, he knew, and in his mind he minimised the risk which she might run by his old belief that she would have no hand in the actual business and was perfectly capable of taking care of herself wherever they might land and whatever might happen to himself and Lovelace. In the end the two of them over-ruled Lovelace’s objection and it was agreed that Valerie should have her way.
They spent an hour with their he
ads bent over an old atlas and a number of guide books which they borrowed from the manager of the hotel, marking out all the principal cities in which it was likely Zarrif might stop on his way out to Addis Ababa. In each they agreed upon a small hotel where Valerie and Christopher should stay. Then Lovelace memorised the addresses in order that he might get in touch with them as rapidly as possible.
They had an early lunch and parted with subdued farewells, not knowing in what place or country they might meet again; it having been decided that it would be better for Lovelace to drive out to the airport independently.
At a little before one-thirty he arrived at the bookstall to keep his appointment with Cassalis. It was only then that he realised he would have to show his passport before leaving.
If Cassalis asked to see it, or even caught sight of it when he produced it at the barrier, there would be an abrupt end to the fiction that he was Jeremiah Green, Ras Desoum’s messenger to Zarrif from Abyssinia. With confused and miserable misgivings he stood there waiting for the secretary’s arrival.
CHAPTER X
THE HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE DESERT
During the minutes Lovelace spent waiting by the bookstall he felt irritable and anxious. Irritable on account of the long wrangle he had had with Christopher that morning and anxious because, quite apart from any difficulties which might arise if he had to produce his passport, he saw, now he had a chance to think things over alone, that, even though there was no actual evidence to go on, Zarrif might well suspect some connection between the two visits Mr. Jeremiah Green had made him the day before and Christopher’s attempt to murder him later. If Zarrif did suspect anything the fat would be in the fire with a vengeance.
In the distance Lovelace caught sight of Christopher and Valerie sauntering, side by side, across the aerodrome towards her plane. The sun was gleaming on her chestnut hair as she stepped out to keep pace with him. He too was bareheaded and, even so far away, his matt-white face under the short, dark, curling hair looked like the profile of some young Greek God who had just come to life again. Lovelace was conscious of a warm glow of satisfaction at the thought that he had certainly saved him from a martyr’s crown, at all events for the moment, but when they were safely embarked and ready to take the air his forebodings about his own situation returned with renewed vigour.
‘Cassalis’ arrival put an end to his gloomy speculations and concealing his anxiety he gave the Frenchman a friendly smile.
“You are punctual, mon ami,” Cassalis remarked cheerfully. “That is good. Monsieur Zarrif much dislikes to be kept waiting.”
Lovelace felt a little secret thrill of elation. It seemed that at least he was not suspected of any connection with Zarrif’s unwelcome visitor. “Mr. Zarrif has not turned up yet,” he said, “at least I haven’t seen him.”
“You would not,” the dapper secretary replied quickly. “Mr. Zarrif is a very extraordinary man and has many unusual privileges. He keeps his private plane here for convenience but no formalities are required when he and his entourage come or go in it. I left his car only this moment. It has driven straight on to the landing-ground. I meet you so you have no delay in passing the officials. Come, let us proceed.”
An ill-assorted pair, they walked over to the barrier. Cassalis slim, effeminate, quick stepping and conscious of his own importance, his dark eyes shining like polished jet in his sallow face; the Englishman a good head taller, slower of gait owing to his longer stride, his limbs moving easily with a hidden power, his healthily tanned face an unrevealing mask and his partly lowered lids half concealing his lazy glance.
At the guichet the passport officer greeted Cassalis with a friendly nod and the two exchanged flowery compliments in Greek.
The critical moment had come and Lovelace knew that somehow he had got to divert Cassalis’ attention. Putting his hand in his breast pocket he drew out his passport and with it a dozen bank-notes which, with apparent clumsiness, he allowed to flutter to the ground.
Murmuring an apology he thrust his passport through the guichet before stooping to pick up his money. Cassalis was already busy collecting some of the scattered notes. It took only a matter of seconds but, when they rose again, the officer had already given the passport the cursory glance which was sufficient to satisfy himself in the case of Cassalis’ friend. With a smile of thanks to the official Lovelace slipped the document back in his pocket. As he turned towards the flying-field he gave a secret sigh of relief. He was safely over the first fence, at all events.
Zarrif’s plane was a great, grey, four-engined monster. Three cars stood near it but he and his suite were already on board when Lovelace and Cassalis went up the gangway.
The machine was divided into four compartments. A kitchenette in the tail; a biggish saloon which accommodated the bodyguard—six tough-looking customers—two of whom Lovelace had seen the day before; a combined dining-room and office, and, adjoining the cockpit, Zarrif’s own sanctum.
Lovelace was taken through to him at once. He looked smaller and more narrow-shouldered than ever in the daylight yet his green eyes showed him to be a dynamo of mental activity and Lovelace was struck again by the unusual fairness of his skin for an Armenian.
Zarrif pulled at his little goatee beard as he inquired kindly after his new employee’s health. On learning that the night’s rest had restored him after the previous day’s attack he dismissed him with orders that he should remain in the middle cabin with Cassalis.
As the plane moved off Cassalis unlocked a low steel cupboard and Lovelace saw that it contained four machine-guns, equipment for fixing them, and several boxes of ammunition. The bodyguards were called in and, obviously following a well-established routine, they disappeared with two guns aft and two forward to place them in position. Within ten minutes of leaving Athens the plane had been converted from a private airliner into a powerful fighting machine.
Lovelace forebore to comment but Cassalis gave him a knowing grin. “It is well to be prepared—eh, Mr. Green?”
“Yes rather, but er—what on earth for?” Lovelace fingered his little upturned moustache and his brown eyes were open wide in bland inquiry.
“Ah, who can tell!” The Frenchman shrugged mysteriously. “But there are strange people about these days and some of them perhaps use aeroplanes. There are no witnesses in the sky to see what happens and if we were all picked up drowned people would say ‘this is an accident!’ Mr. Zarrif is one who has a great aversion to accidents.”
Opening a satchel, Cassalis took out a sheaf of papers, but after a moment he thrust them back again having apparently decided not to start work at once. Instead he settled himself more comfortably and said:
“Tell me, Mr. Green, about Abyssinia. As you will have assured yourself from my questions yesterday I know much of the Emperor and his principal ministers. It is my business to do so, but I have never been there.”
“I was only there myself …” Lovelace caught himself just in time. Lulled into a false security by Cassalis’ friendly acceptance of him as a colleague he had forgotten momentarily that he was impersonating the messenger who had been struck down by fever in the Sudan. He had been about to say quite truthfully, “on a visit to see the Emperor’s coronation in 1930.” The slip would have cost him his life. With a hardly perceptible hesitation he managed to substitute “… for a few months this winter. What d’you want to know about the place?”
“Of the people, the customs, the country?” Cassalis made an airy gesture; evidently having noticed nothing.
“All three vary tremendously. The ruling caste are the Amhara. They’re quite light skinned and have nothing negroid about them except their fuzzy hair and they don’t think of themselves as blacks at all. In fact they regard negroes with more contempt than most white people do. They’ve a culture of their own which was probably quite a high one in pre-Roman times but they’ve been isolated for so many centuries that it became sterile and decadent long ago. They’re such snobs that they look down on wh
ites almost as much as they do on negroes. Altogether there’s only about two and a half million of them—that’s roughly a fourth of the total population—but they hold all the important posts and are thoroughly hated by the other races of greater Abyssinia; the races they ruled in the dark ages but have only reconquered in quite recent times, I mean.”
“Who are these other races?”
“Well, the Gallas are the largest; they’re about four million strong. Then there are the Guragis; a mysterious race said to be descended from white slaves brought out of Egypt three thousand years ago. They’re the workers of the country. The others despise men who labour and particularly anyone who has anything to do with commerce. The deserts of the east and south are inhabited by the Danakils and Somalis; blood-thirsty, uncivilised savages. In the mountains to the north on the borders of Eritrea live the Tigres who’re not much better. In the west there’s a backward race of negroes called Shankalis, and round Harar you find the more cultured Hararis who come from Arab stock. Then a race of black Jews called Fallashas occupy the neighbourhood of Gondar. None of them agrees about a single thing except in their hatred of their overlords, the Amhara.”
Cassalis nodded. “It is a country of many nations then; like Austria-Hungary before the Great War? Held together only by the strength of its ruler.”
“Exactly. The fact that it might break up at any time, even without pressure from outside, is the worst problem the Emperor has to face, and what makes things even more difficult for him is that he daren’t do a thing without the sanction of the Church.”
“They are Christians of a sort—is it not so?”
“Yes. The people of the four mountain kingdoms, Amhara, Shoa, Tigre, and Gojjam, which compose true Abyssinia, are Coptic Christians. The Abuna, their chief priest, is under the jurisdiction of the Arch-bishop of Cairo. He’s really the most powerful man in the country because every third Christian in Abyssinia is also a priest and takes his orders from him. The Emperor’s big trouble is that the Church is dead against any sort of progress. They put every possible obstacle in the path of his reforms and if he seriously offended the priests they could push him off his throne to-morrow. He’d give anything to get rid of them, I think, but he’s not strong enough and, even with a war on his hands, he has to keep in with them by attending service four times a week. Services which start at six in the morning and go on until past midday.”
The Secret War Page 10
