Riders of the Pale Horse

by T. Davis Bunn

  Then came a hand from the dark, gripping his throat with the pressure of a vise. His feet were lifted almost clear of the ground. His own hands clutched at an arm as solid as a steel girder.

  The voice. “Time for paying dues, Sport.”

  And then blackness.

  22

  “Until the moment we are having all informations,” the Jordanian officer crossly informed his three western visitors, “we wait.”

  “What if you wait too long, and...” Allison could not say it. To even come that close to the thought pierced her heart with an ice dagger.

  She had searched the restaurant and the street, calling his name with increasingly frantic strength. The waiters in the restaurant where they had eaten had observed her theatrics with growing concern. Finally one of them had approached, fearful, knowing without being told that he took great risk involving himself even this much. Still, he had observed their talk and their affection, and now he observed her panic and her pain.

  The waiter had not spoken much English, just enough to say that Wade had met a man. Big man. Yes, English man or American, but big. Very big. And strong. No, he had no idea where they had gone. Only that Wade had vanished into the night, taken by the big, big man.

  Fareed and Ben had driven her to Amman that very night. Judith Armstead and Cyril had gathered, and the search had begun. In Allison’s mind, there was no room for question. Wade had been taken by Robards. Kidnapped.

  Because the crime had taken place on Jordanian soil, Cyril had felt obliged to inform the local authorities. The Jordanian general had been most sympathetic. After all, Allison and the missing young man had been largely responsible for the international coup that already was reaping such benefits as press visits and interviews and urgent cables from Washington and London and elsewhere. The general had assigned an officer whom he claimed to be his best man.

  But the officer assigned to them did not want to look for a missing young American. He wanted to be involved in uncovering the cache of nuclear weaponry. And he did not like Allison at all. He was Jordanian, he was Arab, he was military, and he had no time for her borderline hysterics. He treated her with the contempt he reserved for pushy western women.

  And Allison had started off on the wrong foot from the very first moment. She had almost screamed at the officer when confronted with his reluctance to even move from his office. Allison had caustically pointed out that the two Russian scientists were being held in the same military compound; why couldn’t they ask them if they knew of safe houses anywhere in Jordan where Wade might be held.

  The Russian scientists had responded to their questions with sullen silence, and the Jordanian officer had been vastly pleased by this result.

  They were now standing in the front hall of the compound’s main building. Arguing. Getting nowhere fast, while seconds ticked away and Wade might be hurting.

  “I cannot see any problem to wait,” the officer announced pompously, his gaze brooking no further argument.

  Allison was having none of it. “No problem? He’s been kidnapped and you see—”

  “Yes, kidnap. Is much kidnapping here. Question is, for what did this? Is only one answer.”

  “Ransom,” Cyril said quietly.

  “Is correct.” The officer nodded in Cyril’s direction as if to say here, look, observe a professional. “If you add this plus this, is only one answer. For money.”

  “And if you’re wrong?” Allison found it painfully hard not to scream the words. “What if he wants something else? Like revenge?”

  “We already have this before many times,” the officer replied. “Almost never are problems. Your man here say he pay. We set up for pay only for the live man. He gets money, we get man. Is almost never problem.”

  Allison turned to Cyril and pleaded, “Can’t you get him to understand?”

  “Yes, yes, I see very clear,” the officer snapped. “Is everything out in open now. Now you do what should be first day, you talk to Jordanian military. Is Jordanian matter. Has always been.”

  “This is an international issue,” Cyril argued, “involving Russians and Americans and possibly Iraqis—”

  “On Jordanian soil,” the officer finished for him. “So now we do what Jordanian military say, with experience over years. We wait.” He pointed at Allison. “Why this woman come along? She is civilian, yes?”

  “She happens to have been in on this since the beginning,” Cyril replied. “She is a field agent working with both our governments and has been indispensable in ferreting out these criminals. Miss Taylor has as much right to be here as anyone.”

  The officer glared first at Cyril, then at Allison. “I say who has right. I say this woman not belong.”

  “Your superior officer happens to feel otherwise,” Cyril replied at his frostiest.

  That did not sit well at all. “I am speaking with them this day. Then we see.”

  “Indeed we shall. Now, can we please get on with the matters at hand?”

  “Yes. We do.” The officer drew himself up and pronounced, “We wait.”

  “Fine,” Cyril’s tone was icy. “We will do our waiting at the American Embassy, in case the man attempts to contact us there. You won’t object if we stop by the hotel where the third Russian is being kept and ask him a question or two? No, of course not.” Not allowing the officer time to respond, Cyril ushered the two women toward the doors. “Come along then, we mustn’t keep the busy officer any longer. Good day to you, sir.

  But Alexis proved equally unhelpful. He spent the entire time staring blindly from his window, responding to their questions only with silence. Allison thought his own sorrowful face mirrored how her heart felt.

  “We have so very little to go on,” Judith Armstead told Allison on their way back to the embassy. “Unless this Robards slips up and lets himself be seen—”

  “No chance,” Allison said morosely. “Wade always referred to him as the professional’s professional.”

  “—or tries to take Wade out of the country, we just have to wait.” Cyril had succumbed to the heat and the morning’s pressure, and folded his coat in his lap and loosened his tie a notch. “We can only hope that this Robards fellow will seek to gain from us what he failed to receive from our opponents.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” Allison pressed. “What if his motive really was revenge?”

  “In that case, my dear,” Cyril shook his head and turned toward the window. There was nothing more to be said.

  The car slowed and halted at the embassy’s guarded entry. Allison used the temporary stop as an opportunity to throw open her door and alight. She leaned back down and said, “You two can hang around here waiting for the phone to ring. I have to at least try to do something. I have to.”

  When the door had slammed shut behind her, Judith asked, “You’re going to let her go?”

  “We can hardly hold her against her will,” Cyril replied. “Besides, she and her young man have already worked wonders. Perhaps she can once again uncover what remains lost to us.”

  Neither the western security men nor the two Jordanian military guards questioned Allison’s right to visit Alexis in his downtown hotel room a second time. Allison had already appeared once that morning with Price and Armstead. So when she showed up by herself and asked to speak with Alexis alone, a note was made in the logbook, the door was unlocked, and she was permitted entry.

  Alexis was not actually under arrest. He had broken no law except that of leaving Russia, for which he could not be extradited under international law. He was therefore not held with the other two scientists, who had been caught transporting weapons-grade nuclear fuel. He was not, however, free. A half-dozen nations clamored for the chance, according to Cyril, to grill him and his companions for what they knew about the international nuclear arms smuggling operations—how had they heard of the jobs, what form the offer had taken, who, where, when.

  When Allison entered the hotel room, Alexis was sitting just as she had left
him an hour earlier. The room’s single comfortable chair was pulled up close to the window, angled so that he could remain hidden from view and still watch the street below. His face wore the only expression she had seen on him—that of blank despair. Life held little hope for him and less purpose. He remained motionless as Allison crossed the room, pulled up a straight-backed chair, and seated herself. He appeared totally unconcerned as to whether she came, went, stayed, sat, or danced on her hands. He was lost in the defeat that filled his gaze.

  “I need your help,” she said, filling her voice with all the quiet urgency she could muster. “Not the government. Not the others. Me. Just me. I have to find him.”

  “Slow, speak slow,” Alexis said. “Little English.”

  “Wade has talked to me about how you met. He saved your life.”

  “Yes? Save from what? For what? What I do now with this life he save? What about my wife, my child?” Alexis turned back to his window. “Too much questions.”

  “Alexis, please. I...” She had to stop and swallow hard. “I love him.”

  That brought his gaze back to her. He searched Allison’s face long and hard before saying quietly, “He good man.”

  “I know,” she said and blinked back hard at the sudden burning in her eyes.

  “Not just good. In old Russia, we have staret. Not know English word. People with problem, they go to—what is church where people live?”

  “Monastery,” she offered.

  “So. People with big problem, they go there and speak to staret. Sometime he answer with words, sometime with silence. But the people, they come back with answer in heart, because staret share wisdom. Is from heart to heart.” Alexis showed her the agony of his choice. “Your man, he show me first answer with his silence, but now I have new questions. Too many.”

  “I want him back, Alexis. I need him back.” I need him. I need him.

  “Perhaps he come and speak with me again, yes?”

  Allison felt the first electric thrill of hope. “Or perhaps we can arrange for you to go and speak with him.”

  “I can go? I free? You do that?” A spark of hope surfaced. “You bring me to family?”

  “It’s not my authority. But I will do all I can to see that you are freed. On that I give you my word.”

  “What about note?”

  “You want me to get a message to your family? I will try, Alexis. I promise.”

  Once more he searched her face. “I think maybe you good person for him. Good woman. Good friend.”

  “Please,” Allison whispered. “Help me. I don’t know where else to turn.”

  Again his gaze returned to the scene outside his window. “Trucks.”

  “What? I don’t—”

  “Many, many trucks. Outside Aqaba. Is big market there for people on trucks. You know?”

  “Yes,” she said, fighting to hold herself down, seated, still. “The souk for the drivers. Of course.”

  “Was building on main road from trucks to port. Big building with apartments, highest I see. Near market. We stay in cellar many nights.”

  “The tallest apartment building on the main road running from the truck depot to the harbor,” she repeated, struggling to find the breath to speak. “And not far from the souk. Is that right?”

  “Yes. Except for first night here in Amman, we stay there whole time until Nuweiba.”

  “Amman? You spent a night in Amman? Can you tell me where?”

  Alexis looked at her with naked appeal. “You not forget promise?”

  23

  “I fear I have no choice but to go with the major to Aqaba and follow up this lead Alexis gave you,” Cyril said distastefully. He clattered down the steps of the Jordanian compound, accompanied by Allison and Judith Armstead. The army convoy stretching out before them was in the final throes of preparation. “We happen to be walking on very thin diplomatic ice just now. After all, it is their country.”

  “But to put all of your resources into searching one place?” Allison protested. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does to our little Napoleon,” Cyril replied. “And his commanding officer informed me in no uncertain terms that the major is responsible for our search.”

  “I understand,” Allison said. “I just have this feeling that Wade is here in Amman.”

  “My dear, we have been through this twice already.” Cyril raised a hand toward where the officer strutted and shouted. “I concur one hundred percent. I have seen your so-called hunches pay off too often already to insist otherwise. But as I said, I must accompany the major to Aqaba, so I leave it to you and Miss Armstead to do what you can here in Amman. She is the best there is at this business.”

  “Second best,” Allison countered.

  “Yes, well, it is indeed kind of you to say so, considering our current state of affairs.” He offered her his hand. “Now I really mustn’t try the major’s patience any further. Do take care, my dear. And may we meet again under far more joyful circumstances.”

  Amman was a sprawling, mostly modern metropolis with an overriding quality of sameness. Virtually all the buildings were constructed of concrete blocks, then finished in either white stucco or white-dressed stone. Larger dwellings had lawns and landscaping, but most others looked as if they were planted in unfinished construction sites.

  Some of the structures were truly palatial, residences of wealthy Jordanians who had worked in the oil-rich southern lands. But the closer Allison and Judith came to the center of the city, the older and more cramped the quarters became.

  And the more talkative their driver grew.

  Judith Armstead had insisted they take a taxi for their search, in order to remain anonymous. The driver had started off in silent concentration, but the closer they drew to their destination, the harder he sought to keep hold of his western clients.

  “If you like,” he offered, “I make special price.”

  “No thank you,” Judith Armstead replied crisply.

  “Why not, hey? How you know next driver not take you wrong way, maybe leave you far in desert?”

  “Not likely.”

  “So is first time you are in Amman? You are welcome.” He was a grizzled man in dirty robes and filthy headdress. “You come with group?”

  “No.”

  “You come for business? You government officer from embassy?”

  “Just drive the car, please.”

  “Is good to be government officer. They pay you and you pay me, yes?” He turned far enough around to see them both, then swung back when a horn warned him of impending doom. He swerved, braked, stuck his head out the window, and shouted oaths at the innocent driver. Then, “You must to hire other driver for returnings. You pay much more, maybe driver not so honest like me. I take you safe. Come, go, special price. Many accidents was happened on this road. But I am always safety.”

  “So happy to hear it.”

  “Yes. Am safety driver. So why you not let me take you come, go? I have all the good roads. Old roads. Special ways. Am born here, have all life in Amman. Know all good roads.”

  Allison leaned forward. “Do you know a road that climbs a hill behind the old Roman amphitheater?”

  “Is many hills in city. Amman built on hills. You like tour of Amman city?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Wait, wait.” His brow furrowed in concentration. “Hill from ampitheater? Old city?”

  “We can find it just as easily on foot,” Judith said.

  “No, no, not easy. Old Amman very tricky place; roads all go in wrong direction, take you out, lose you in desert. Wait. Hill in old city. I thinking.”

  “We are looking for a pair of apartment buildings built side by side, and there is a view looking down across the rooftops and over the Roman amphitheater,” Allison told him, relating all the information Alexis had given her. He had been granted one brief time out on the roof. The remainder of his stay, he had said, had been spent in the building’s cellar. It had been dark and
windowless and smelled of wet laundry. More he could not say. “He was looking out over the amphitheater to some old ruins.”

  “He?” the driver demanded. “Who is he?”

  “None of your concern,” Judith replied.

  “The roofs were flat,” Allison continued, “and both of the buildings were old. There were maybe five or six stories, but he was not sure.”

  “All roofs flat in Amman old city,” the driver retorted. “All buildings old.”

  “But two buildings built together,” Allison pressed. “So close that he could easily step from one roof to the other.”

  Again the brow furrowed. “I thinking. You pay good tip for help, yes? I wait, drive you come, go?”

  “We pay a very good tip,” Allison assured him.

  “You’ve just designed an Amman taxi driver’s dream day,” Judith Armstead informed her. “Take two rich westerners on a tour of the old town, look for something they’re not too sure about, drive anywhere you like. This is going to cost us the moon.”

  “No, no, not moon,” the driver protested. “I honest man. Do good safety driving.”

  He pulled up at the edge of a large parking area. In front of them stretched a white parade ground colonnaded along one side. To the right of that, the amphitheater climbed its way up a steep hillside.

  The driver pointed to his right. “Jabal Al-Jawfa. Jabal mean hill. There Jabal Attaj. And there Jabal Al Qal’a. Where we go?”

  Allison pointed toward the remains of what appeared to be an ancient Roman circus. “He said the ruins were behind the amphitheater. That means it would have to be the hill over there.”

  “Jabal Al Qal’a,” the driver said. “I think maybe yes too.” He ground the gears and raced the engine. “Now we start.”

  It was extremely hard to eat with his hands tied behind his back. Especially when the room was pitch black.

  Wade had awakened to find himself crammed inside a jouncing coffin so small he could not stretch out his legs. Then he had recognized the sound of a roaring motor and realized he was jammed into the trunk of a car.