The Sheik of Araby Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  Konya's father pushed aside the curtains and entered, carrying his rifle at trail.

  "Ali said you wished me to report here, your highness," he said. "Sorry I was so long, but I was in bed."

  "It's all right," Ranjit said curtly. "Cover her."

  The chief of the guard showed no surprise whatever. His rifle swung up and centered on the U.N.C.L.E. agent.

  "My, you get nervous," April said sarcastically. "Don't you think two big strong men could handle a hundred-and-eight-pound girl without a gun?"

  "On your feet," Ranjit said coldly.

  The girl rose obediently.

  "Put your hands on top of your head."

  When April complied, Ranjit stepped behind her quickly and gave her a thorough shakedown. Her expression became indignant when his searching hands touched, but the cold gaze of Orkhim warned her that he would have no compunction about firing if she made a move. April suffered the search in disdainful silence.

  Satisfied that she was carrying no weapons on her person, the sheik told April she could lower her arms. When she did, she had a bobby pin palmed. It wasn't an ordinary bobby pin. It was of hardened steel and one prong was a pick-lock, the other a razor-sharp cutting edge.

  "Forward march," Ranjit said, looking harshly at her.

  April moved out into the corridor. Orkhim came right behind her, the rifle aimed at the girl's back. The sheik brought up the rear.

  "On through and out the front way," Ranjit ordered sternly.

  As they went past Konya's room, April got a glimpse of the girl's startled face peeping through the crack in the curtain's center over her door.

  With astonishment Konya drew back and the crack closed when she saw her father.

  The sentry inside the front entrance, and the one immediately outside too, snapped to sharp attention as the group stepped by. Neither showed any more surprise or curiosity than Orkhim had. April Dancer, despite her dangerous situation, couldn't suppress a touch of admiration for the discipline Ranjit had instilled in his troops.

  Outdoors Ranjit took the lead. They crossed the moonlit stretch of sand to the building just north of the administration building. There was a large sliding door in its front, wide enough for trucks to pass through. In its center was a regulation-size door for the use of personnel so that the sliding door wouldn't have to be opened.

  When Ranjit pulled this door open, light spilled out from indoors.

  The building consisted of one huge room crowded with machinery. There were lathes, drill presses, welding equipment. Chipping and polishing machines lay at random around the floor, where workers had laid them down at quitting time. In one corner was a blast furnace, and near it was a heavy piece of equipment towering twelve feet high and measuring twelve feet in width both ways.

  A tool bench with numerous small tools hanging on the wall over it and lying on top of it was against the wall between the blast furnace and the large, square machine. Overhead, on rails running the length of the building was a crane with a dangling chain ending in a large steel hook.

  Ceiling lights were spaced along the entire length of the center of the room, but only the one immediately over the blast furnace and the cumbersome-looking square piece of equipment was on.

  Piles of material were scattered around the floor: stacks of thick steel plates, steel tubing ranging in diameter from water-pipe size to pipes a man could have walked through by stooping, flanges, piles of angle irons and steel rods.

  Four men were near the square machine, but only three were upright. In addition to Maxim Karsh there was a large blond man with heavy Teutonic features and a slim, wiry-looking Spaniard.

  Another figure, bootless and wearing baggy Arab trousers and a long-sleeved pullover upper garment, lay on his back on the floor April studied the face of the man and was both shocked and relieved to see it was Mark Slate. April nearly failed to recognize him because his hands and face were stained a deep brown.

  Slate's ankles were bound together and his wrists were tied in front of him.

  Maxim Karsh said with acid courtesy, "Welcome to our little gathering, Miss Dancer. You are, of course, acquainted with your colleague, Mr. Slate."

  April said wryly, "Hello, Mark" He gave her an equally wry smile. "Hi, April. What happened?"

  "My goof, I think. I had checked my room for bugs, but it didn't occur to me to recheck it. They must have planted one after I checked."

  Mark said cheerfully, "You can't win them all."

  "Tie her up," Karsh abruptly ordered blond Fritz and the Spaniard.

  "Just a minute," Ranjit Sighn said. "I don't care what you do with the man, but the girl is mine. I have plans of my own for her."

  The squat engineer swung his oversized head toward the sheik. In a furious voice he said, "This is all your fault. You insisted the man was a native and you brought the woman here over my objections. So scuttle your plans. I'm running things from now on."

  "I still rule Mossagbah," the sheik said coldly. "She shall die as I decree. Slowly, as I watch."

  "You fool!" Karsh lashed out.

  "We have no time for personal vengeance. We need information from these people. And we'd better have it before Lin Yang arrives or both of us may die slowly while he watches."

  Ranjit emitted a loud laugh. “Maybe you will, but I won't. In my own country I am supreme.”

  "Why don't you flip for me?” April asked sardonically. “Odd man out. “

  Karsh swung back toward his two henchmen.

  "I said tie her up," he snapped. Then he added in a still vexed but less angry aside to the sheik. "What you do with her after I'm finished, I couldn't care less. But we'll do it my way first."

  Apparently this promise satisfied Ranjit, for he made no further objection. April was made to lie on the floor and was bound in the same manner as Slate. Fritz lashed her ankles together while the Spaniard tied her wrists.

  He failed to discover the palmed bobby pin.

  While April Dancer was being bound, Orkhim said in a low voice to the sheik, "Is not the man the one called Abdul the merchant, your highness?"

  "He called himself that," Ranjit told him. "He is not one of our people. He is a spy named Mark Slate."

  Orkhim decided not to mention that his daughter had been meeting the man clandestinely. It might result in Konya being put to torture too. A parental beating would be sufficient punishment to teach the girl to choose her lovers more carefully.

  Maxim Karsh said to the two prisoners, "Observe the large piece of machinery to your left, please."

  Slate and April both turned their heads to look at it. The piece Karsh referred to was the twelve-foot-square monstrosity April had previously noted.

  Its flat, cast-iron top, nearly a yard thick, was supported at each corner by eight-inch-thick threaded steel shafts---threaded, apparently so that the top could be lowered or raised to any required height. There was a six-foot gap between the top and the floor of the machine.

  A round, convex steel die about feet in diameter was bolted to the underside of the top. A concave die the same size was bolted to the floor directly beneath it.

  "Know what the machine is?" Karsh asked coldly.

  Mark Slate said, "Looks like a hydraulic press."

  "You have been in fabricating plants before, Mr. Slate. This particular press exerts the crushing force of seven hundred and fifty tons. We use it to shape steel plates into the various forms necessary for our project. I will demonstrate."

  The stocky man went over to the wall and turned a switch. A set of automatic pumps began to thump. Karsh moved to the workbench, picked out a heavy crowbar and tossed it into the press.

  Pointing to a nearby pile of octagonal steel plates about a half inch thick, Karsh said, "Actually the die now in the press is designed to shape those plates into a kind of bowl shape. But they weigh around three hundred pounds each, have first to be heated in the blast furnace and require the assistance of the crane to get them into the press. So the crowbar will ser
ve for demonstration purposes."

  He grasped a lever to one side of the machine and pushed it forward.

  The floor of the press rose about a foot and stopped.

  "Now the lower part of the die will not rise all the way until this lever is pushed all the way you see," Karsh explained. His eyes held a dark, intent gleam. "It rises in proportion to just how far the lever is pushed."

  He shoved the lever all the way home. The floor of the press rose, the lower part of the die crushed against the upper with a rumble which made the mammoth machine shake.

  When Karsh pulled the lever back toward himself again, the floor of the machine slowly sank to its original position.

  Karsh pulled out the crowbar and tossed it to the floor. It had been bent into a semicircle.

  "Can you visualize what such force would do to bones and flesh?" he inquired.

  April Dancer and Mark Slate merely stared up at him without answering.

  "All right, Fritz, Perez," Karsh said crisply. "In with them."

  The two men stooped to lift Mark Slate and heaved him into the lower part of the die. A moment later April Dancer next to him.

  Maxim Karsh gazed in at them with a gloating smile.

  "Comfortable?" he asked.

  "I've had softer beds," Slate said. Karsh put his hand on the control lever. "Now if I pushed this forward, you would both be smashed into a curved sheet a half-inch thick. Isn't that interesting to contemplate?"

  Neither April nor Slate said anything. Their real feelings were expertly masked. April wondered if anyone could hear her heart pounding.

  "Are you ready?" Karsh asked. Slate said in a steady voice, "You don't plan to do it just yet, or you wouldn't be talking so much."

  "No," Karsh agreed. "You are quite astute, Mr. Slate. I am merely preparing your minds for what is to come eventually. I want you to have a clear picture of what's in store. But actually you have some time to live yet."

  He turned to the big blond man.

  "Bring me the timer, Fritz."

  FIFTEEN

  “SPIES DIE AT DAWN”

  Fritz went over to where a heavy boxlike device about two feet square lay on the floor next to the wall and lugged it over to the press. He set it down next to the control lever.

  An upright steel rod ending in a screw clamp protruded from a slot running the length of the top of the box. On the front of the box were a clock face and a couple of adjustment dials.

  Maxim Karsh shifted the position of the device slightly until it was exactly where he wanted then attached the screw clamp to the control lever.

  He made some adjustments of the controls beneath the clock face and pushed a button. The box began to tick.

  "The control lever is now attached to a timing device," he explained to the pair in the press. "Every fifteen minutes the lever will move forward just enough to close the press exactly an inch and a half. Since the space between the lower and upper parts of the die is six feet, it will take twelve hours to close completely."

  He glanced at his watch, then favored his prisoners with a sinister smile. "It is now ten. It will be nine hours before you are in acute peril. By seven tomorrow morning there will be only a foot and a half of space left. Shortly after that the crushing will begin. Your last hours will be extremely painful, because the crushing will be so gradual."

  Ranjit Sighn had been watching the entire procedure with a frown on his face. Now he said, "Why drag this out so long, Maxim? Why not set the timer so that it will close in a half hour? I assume your purpose in all this is to force some information out of them. They'll be more eager to talk if you speed it up."

  Karsh threw him a withering look. "You obviously don't understand the psychology of interrogation, Ranjit. These people have been conditioned to resist answering questions. If I speeded up the timer as you wish, they would simply lie there and heroically let themselves be crushed to death.

  "But contemplating their gradually nearing doom over a matter of hours will be quite a different thing. The terror will build slowly, slowly enough to gradually overcome their mental programming. In the end they'll be glad to talk."

  The sheik said, "I could accomplish the same thing in a lot less time with a white-hot poker."

  Ignoring him, Karsh turned back to Slate and April. "I think you both understand what I'm doing. I'm quite sure no physical torture will overcome the brainwashing you've been given by U.N.C.L.E. I'm equally sure you won't be able to withstand the mental strain of watching a horrible death come closer and closer over a period of hours. Don't you agree that the psychology is sound?"

  "You're a genius," Slate assured him.

  Karsh showed his teeth in a humorless grin. "It is my opinion that if you don't break, you will both lose your minds before you are finally crushed to death. Now all I wish to know is exactly how much you have reported to your headquarters about our project here and what U.N.C.L.E. intends to do about it.

  "At any time during the next nine hours that you become willing to talk, I'll be quite willing to listen. The moment I am satisfied you have told all you know, I guarantee you'll be removed from the press."

  "And be killed some other way?"

  Mark Slate inquired sardonically.

  "Not necessarily. We might find a place for you in our organization. You could never return to U.N.C.L.E., of course, after breaking under pressure. It would save a lot of time and trouble if you would agree to talk now, but I don't suppose you're ready yet."

  When neither answered, Karsh said, "Obviously you're not. It might speed things up considerably if you will both keep concentrating on what the press will do to your bodies when it has closed sufficiently. Periodically I will return to inquire if you are ready to bargain for your lives. Meantime you win be under the close observation of a guard at all times, so you may give up all hope of somehow working loose from your bonds and escaping from the press. Any questions?"

  Neither Slate nor April had any. Karsh said, "Keep in mind that you will not be removed from the press until after you have answered all questions put to you. A mere promise to talk won't be enough, because you might change your minds the moment you are out of danger. So don't wait too long. Once started upward, the movement of the press can't be reversed until it has closed all the way. You would be wise to allow yourself plenty of leeway."

  The bottom of the press lurched upward an inch and a half. April felt as though her heart were in her throat.

  When the floor rose no farther, she felt slightly better.

  "You take first watch, Perez," Karsh said to the wiry Spaniard. "Fritz. You will relieve him at one A.M. I’ll appoint other guards for the rest of the night on a three-hour shift basis."

  Both men nodded understanding. Perez dragged an empty wooden box to within six feet of the press and sat down facing it.

  With a gesture to the sheik, Maxim Karsh moved toward the front door. Orkhim and the blond Fritz trailed after them.

  Outside Ranjit showed April's purse to Karsh and said, "There may be other interesting items aside from the communicator pen and the hypodermic lipstick in this. Come on over to my tent and we'll examine it."

  "The lab is closer," Karsh said.

  "Let's go there. I want to give a closer look to an item we found on Slate too. He didn't have it the first time we searched him so it may have some significance."

  He took a cigarette lighter from his pocket and flicked it alight.

  "Looks like an ordinary lighter." Ranjit said.

  "The fountain pen looks like an ordinary pen and the lipstick tube like an ordinary lipstick." He turned to Fritz. "You'd better catch some sleep, Fritz, so you can relieve Perez at one."

  The blond man said, "Yes, sir," and headed for the administration building.

  Orkhim said, "Do you need me anymore, your highness?"

  "No," the sheik said. "Go on back to bed."

  The bearded Arab didn't go back to bed, though. He made straight for the sheik's tent and entered by the back way.
>
  A light was glowing behind the curtain over the entrance to Konya's room.

  Orkhim jerked the curtain aside and found his daughter, fully clothed, kneeling on a prayer mat. She looked up at him in fright.

  "You had better pray, spawn of the devil."

  He lay down his rifle and slowly untied the heavy ropelike cord around his waist.

  "I have done nothing, father," Konya protested. "What do you accuse me of”

  "I suppose you didn't know that your fine lover, Abdul the merchant, is really an infidel spy named Mark Slate."

  She stared at him in astonishment. "Mark Slate? He is not a Mossagbahan?"

  "You know what he is. American? Englishman? What does it matter. You nearly caused me to lose caste by asking the sheik for a dowry for an infidel dog."

  "That was your idea, father. I begged you not to."

  "Impertinent wench!" Orkhim said. "I will teach you to contradict your own father!"

  He doubled the ropelike cord, raised it overhead and brought it down across the girl's shoulders. Burying her face in her hands, she crouched on the prayer mat and uttered no sound as the stinging cord fell across her shoulders and back a dozen times. Her body trembled under the impact of each stroke, though.

  Finally Orkhim halted, panting.

  She raised her head from her hands and turned her tear-streaked face upward.

  "What have they done with him?" she asked.

  "You still feel concern for the dog?" he said in outrage. "Do you wish another twelve strokes?"

  "No, father," Konya said wearily. "No matter what you believe, he was never my lover. I merely asked what has been done with him."

  "He is being taken care of," Orkhim assured her grimly.

  "And Miss Dancer? Why was she led away under guard?"

  "Ah, that one. She is a spy too.

  A comrade of your fine Mark Slate."

  "Is the sheik going to have them killed?"

  Orkhim shrugged. "His highness submits to the plan of Mr. Karsh, at least for the moment. The infidel Karsh is trying to get information from them. I suppose they will die eventually. That is not my business."

  At least they were both still alive, Konya thought thankfully.