by Nick Carter
“How did it—happen?” I asked.
She looked past me into the square toward the Cafe Fuentes and the Boissons Scheherazade. “They found him alone at my apartment. They shot him, Mr. Carter. Over and over.” She looked down at the small table between us. “Je ne comprends pas.”
“Don’t try to understand,” I said. “You’re not dealing with rational men.”
The waiter came with our drinks, and I gave him some dirhams. Gabrielle said “Mr. Carter” again, and I asked her to call me Nick.
“I don’t know how they found him, Nick. He seldom left the apartment.”
“They have ways. Have you noticed anyone hanging around your place since your uncle’s death?”
She made a little grimace. “I was sure somebody was following me when I went to police headquarters. But it’s probably my imagination.”
“I hope so,” I murmured. “Look, Gabrielle, did André tell you anything specific about the place where he worked?”
“He mentioned some names. Damon Zeno. Li Yuen. I have never seen him in such a state. He was afraid but not for himself. This Omega thing they are working on there, I think that’s what frightened him.”
“I can well imagine,” I said. I sipped the thick coffee, and it was terrible. “Gabrielle, did your uncle ever mention anything about the location of the lab to you?”
She shook her head. “He flew here from Zagora, but that is not where the facility is located. It is near a small village down closer to the Algerian border. He did not mention its name to me. I suspect he did not want me to know anything that could be dangerous.”
“A smart man, your uncle.” I stared out across the square to the Bazar Rif, trying to recall the names of villages along the border in that area. A caramel-faced Moroccan wearing a knit cap passed, pushing a handcart of luggage and followed by a sweating, red-faced tourist. “Is there anybody else around here that André might have confided in?”
She thought a moment. “There is Georges Pierrot.”
“Who is he?”
“A colleague of my uncle, a Belgian like us. They were school friends in Brussels. Uncle André visited him just days before his death, after he had made his escape from the research facility. It was about the same time that he spoke to Colin Pryor.”
Colin Pryor was the man from DI5, formerly MIS, that Delacroix had contacted in Tangier to get to AXE. But AXE knew everything that Pryor knew, and that did not include the location of the facility.
“Does Pierrot live here in Tangier?” I asked.
“Not far away, in a mountain town called Tetuãn. You can get there by bus or taxi.”
I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. If Delacroix had gone to see Pierrot in the short time he was in this area, he might have told him pertinent things. “I’ll have to go see Pierrot.”
Gabrielle reached over and put her hand on mine. “I’m very grateful that you are here.”
I smiled. “Until this is over, Gabrielle, I want you to be extremely careful Call me if you see anything suspicious.”
“I will, Nick.”
“Do you work in Tangier?”
“Yes, at the Boutique Parisienne, on Boulevard Mohammed V.”
“Well, go to work every day as you normally would, and try not to think about your uncle. It’s the best thing for you and if anybody is watching you, it may lead them to believe that you are not suspicious about your uncle’s death. I’ll contact you after I’ve spoken with Pierrot.”
“I will be looking forward to it,” Gabrielle said.
She was not the only one who would anticipate the next meeting with pleasure.
That afternoon I walked down to the bus station and found out that it took over twice as long to get to Tetuãn by bus as by taxi, but I decided to go at least one way by bus because it would be less conspicuous. I was told to arrive at the station early the following morning to catch the Tetuãn bus at 6:30. The tickets could not be purchased in advance.
That evening I placed a call to Colin Pryor, the DI5 agent. There was no answer, even though the operator let the phone ring a number of times. I remembered that there was a recently established drop site in the newer part of town, and around mid-evening I walked over there and checked it , out. There was no message.
I didn’t like it. Delacroix dead, Pryor not available—I was beginning to smell a rat. And then, as is too frequently the case, something happened to confirm my suspicions. I was making my way back to the hotel, walking along a dark street with almost no pedestrian traffic. It was an area of new construction where shops were going into renovated buildings. Not ten seconds after I had passed a dark alleyway, I heard a sound behind me. I ducked low as I spun on my heel, and a silenced shot thumped in the blackness.
The slug from the gun dug into the brick of the building near my head and zinged off into the night. Just as I drew Wilhelmina, I saw the shadowy figure move quickly into the alleyway.
I ran back to the alley and peered down its black length. The man was not in sight. The alley was a short one and opened onto an interior court.
I started into it but stopped short. It was a kind of parking lot for several buildings. At the moment it was full of heavy equipment, including a big crane with a demolition ball on the end of a long cable. The crane looked American-made.
A wall of one building to my left had been partially torn down, and there was a lot of rubble around. The shadowy figure was nowhere in sight. But I felt he was there somewhere, hiding in the rubble or equipment, just waiting for a second, better opportunity to get me.
Everything was deadly quiet. My eyes swept over the black hulks of heavy machinery as I moved past them, but I saw no human shape. It was possible that my assailant had gone into the rubble of the damaged building. I went slowly toward the demolished wall, watching my footing carefully.
Suddenly I heard the engine break the silence with its rumbling roar. I whirled around quickly, at first unable to tell which piece of equipment the sound was coming from. Then I saw the boom of the crane move and the enormous iron ball raise slowly off the ground. Blinded by the crane’s headlights, I squinted at the cab of the machine and could just barely make out a dark figure in there.
It was a clever idea. The crane stood between me and the alley exit, and I was trapped in a corner of the building complex with no place to hide. I moved along a back wall, holding the Luger ready.
I aimed toward the cab of the crane, but the ball was between the cab and me and was swinging toward me. It came with surprising swiftness and seemed as big as the crane itself when it arrived. It was between two and three feet in diameter and had the speed of a small locomotive. I dived headlong into the rubble, and the ball swung past my head and crashed into a wall behind me. Glass shattered and stone and brick crumbled as the metal ball demolished a section of the wall. Then the boom of the crane was pulling the ball back for another try.
The ball had missed me by inches. I reholstered Wilhelmina and clambered out of the rubble, spit-ting dust and swearing to myself. I had to get around that damned crane somehow, or I would be smashed like a bug on a windshield.
I ran to my left, toward the corner away from the crane. The big ball swung after me again, and the operator’s timing was almost perfect. I saw the black, round mass rushing toward me like a giant meteor. I threw myself to the ground again but felt the massive sphere graze my back as I went down. It crashed loudly on the wall behind me, rending and tearing metal, brick, and mortar. A couple of windows popped open in the building at the right of the court, and I heard a loud exclamation in Arabic. Apparently there were people still living in that building, despite the demolition on the far side of the court.
The man in the crane ignored the shouts. The engine thudded purposefully on, and the ball swung back to strike out a third time. I struggled to my feet and continued toward the far wall. Again the ball came, black and silent, and this time I stumbled over a piece of broken concrete just as I was about to make my attempt to avoid the round hulk.
I was thrown off balance for just a split second before I could dive away from the ball, and when it came I had not quite gotten out of its way. It grazed my shoulder as it went past, throwing me violently to the ground, as if I were a cardboard doll. I hit the rubble hard and was dazed for a moment. I heard the crane operating again, and when I looked up, the ball was poised about ten feet above my chest.
Then it dropped.
The thought of being mashed on that broken pavement by that descending spherical terror galvanized me into action. As the ball plummeted out of the night at me, I made a frenzied roll to my left. There was an ear-splitting crash beside my head as the ball hit and debris rained around me, but the ball had missed.
The man in the crane apparently could not see that he had not hit me because he descended cautiously from the cab as the dust cleared. I grabbed a hunk of broken wood and lay very still as he approached. The engine was still throbbing behind him. He had raised the ball up about six feet, and it hung in mid-air. More windows had been opened in the building and there was the sound of many excited voices.
My assailant was standing over me. I swung the piece of wood at his knees. It connected solidly with his kneecaps, and he yelled aloud and slumped to the ground. He was a big, ugly Moroccan. Covered with dust and dirt, I leaped up and onto him. He met my attack, and we rolled on the ground to a spot under the big metal ball. I saw the ball slip down six inches, and I swallowed hard. He had not quite gotten the pulley apparatus into gear before he left the cab of the crane.
I rolled quickly out from under the ball, the other man with me, hitting at my face with a big heavy fist. Then he was on top of me and had a good hold on my neck. His viselike grip closed, and he was cutting off my wind. He had more energy left than I, and his hands felt like steel bands around my throat.
I had to get him off or suffocate. I jabbed stiff fingers into a kidney, and his grip loosened some. With a violent movement, I managed to jam a knee into his groin. The grip on me was lost, and I sucked in a big lungful of air as I shoved the Moroccan off.
I grabbed at my stiletto, which I called Hugo, but was never able to bring it into play. Just as the big man hit the ground the ball jerked again and fell on him.
There was a dull crunch as the ball hit his chest. The dust cleared quickly, and I saw that he had been cut almost in half, his body mashed by the ball.
I struggled to ray feet and heard someone say something about the police.
Yes, there would be police. And they would find me there if I did not move fast. I sheathed Hugo and, with one last look at the dead man, left the scene.
FOUR
“André Delacroix? Yes, of course I knew him. We were close friends. Please step into the library with me, Mr. Carter.”
I followed Georges Pierrot into a comfortable, small room of his Moorish-style home. The room was all books and ornate carpet and wall maps of various areas of Africa. Pierrot had carved out quite a niche for himself in Morocco. He was a chemical engineer for a private industrial firm in Tetu&n.
“May I offer you a drink?” Pierrot asked.
“I’ll take a glass of brandy if you have any.”
“Of course,” he said. He went to a built-in bar on one wall, opened carved doors, and withdrew two bottles. Georges Pierrot was a small man in his mid-fifties with the look of a French university professor. His face was triangular with a goatee on the end of it, and he wore spectacles that kept slipping down on his nose. His dark hair was streaked with gray.
Pierrot handed me a glass of brandy and kept a Pernod for himself. “Were you also a friend of André?”
Since Pierrot was close to Delacroix, I answered, with at least some of the truth: “I’m the help he was looking for.”
His eyes studied me more carefully. “Ah, I see.” He looked down at the floor. “Poor André. All be wanted was to do good. He was a very dedicated man.” Pierrot spoke with a heavy French accent.
We had seated ourselves on a soft leather sofa. I sipped at the brandy and let it warm my insides. “Did André discuss the facility with you?” I asked.
He shrugged thin shoulders. “He had to talk to somebody. There is his niece, of course, a lovely girl, but he seemed to feel the need to confide in another man. He was here less than a week ago, and he was very upset.”
“About the experiments at the lab?”
“Yes, he was quite despondent about them. And, of course, he barely escaped from there with his life. They knew he was suspicious of what was going on, so when he tried to leave one night, they followed him with guards and dogs. They shot at him in the darkness, but he got away—only to have them find him in Tangier.” Pierrot shook his head slowly.
“What else did he tell you when he came here?” I asked.
Pierrot looked up at me tiredly. “Not a great deal. Probably nothing you do not already know. That the Chinese were working on a terrible biological weapon and that they had moved the laboratory to this country recently to conclude their experiments. He admitted to me that he was working with the Americans to keep a watch on the project. I am sorry if it was wrong of him to speak so openly, but as I said, he felt the need to talk to somebody.”
“Yes, of course.” It was one of the troubles with depending on amateurs.
“Did he mention the location of the laboratory to you?” I probed on.
Pierrot paused a moment. “He did not speak of the exact location, Monsieur Carter. But he mentioned that the facility was close to a village down near the Algerian border. Let me think.”
He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, pushing the spectacles down farther, and closed his eyes in concentration. “It was—the one south of Tamegroute—it begins with an ‘M.’ Mhamid. Yes, Mhamid, that is the village he mentioned.”
I made a mental note. “And that’s down near the border?”
“Yes, on the other side of the Atlas Mountains, in dry, arid country. There is almost no civilization there, monsieur. It is the edge of the desert.”
“A well-chosen spot,” I mused. “Did André describe the personnel of the facility to you?”
“Only briefly. He told me of an American scien-tist”
“Zeno,” I said.
“Yes, that is the name. And, of course, the Chinese who is the administrator of the facility. Li Yuen, I believe he said the name was.”
I sipped some more brandy. “Did André talk of Li Yuen’s personal ties to Moroccan generals?”
Pierrot’s face lit up. “Yes, he did.” He looked around the room conspiratorially as if there might be someone lurking behind the draperies. “There are two names André spoke of, men he saw at the facility, conferring with Li Yuen.”
“Who are they?”
“I remember both names because they were in the news here fairly recently. You will remember the uprising of the generals? The coup was put down by King Hassan in a bloody reprisal. The two military men that André saw were among the ones accused at first, but later they were cleared. Many believe that they were the real leaders of the coup and that they are even now waiting their chance to make another attempt to overthrow the Moroccan government and establish a leftist regime. They are General Djenina and General Abdallah,” Pierrot said. “It is believed that Djenina is the leader.”
“So Djenina promised protection to the laboratory for a limited period,” I guessed aloud, “in return for financial backing from the Chinese for a second and more efficient coup.”
I still had to have a better description of the location of the facility. I could not go down to the border and roam around in the desert for a week trying to find the lab. By then it might be too late.
General Djenina knew where it was located. And if he was like most army men, he had a written record of it hidden away somewhere.
“Where is this Djenina now?” I asked.
Pierrot shrugged. “He commands an imperial army in this area and has his headquarters in Fez. But I have no idea where he makes his home. It would undoubtedly be near
Fez.”
“And it’s his home where he would keep anything important, away from official eyes,” I said. I set the brandy glass down and stood up. “Well, I want to thank you for your cooperation, Monsieur Pierrot.”
Pierrot rose to see me to the door. “If you are going to Ibn Djenina,” he said, “you had best take care. He is a ruthless, dangerous man who wants to be dictator of this country.”
I extended my hand to the Belgian, and he took it. “I promise to be careful,” I said.
As soon as I got back to Tangier, I went to the Velasquez Palace to clean up and make another call to Colin Pryor. When I entered my room, I stopped short.
The place was a mess. My one piece of luggage was open, and the contents were strewn all over the floor. The bedding was in shreds and the drawers of the chest had been pulled out and flung across the room. It seemed someone wanted to know how much information I had at this point and thought my belongings might tell him. But the action was also a terror tactic, a show of muscle. When I went into the bathroom, I found another note, in the same scrawl as in Madrid, this time taped to the glass of the mirror over the washbowl. It said:
You’ve been warned. The girl is next. Read tomorrow’s newspapers to her.
I didn’t understand the last part. I stuck the note into my pocket, went to the phone and called Pryor. This time I got him. His accent was distinctly British.
“Good to hear from you, chappie,” he said when I had identified myself to him in code.
“Same here. I’m seeing the sights. How about taking them in with me tonight? We could meet around 11:00.”
“Sounds good. I have to stop to see a friend first, but I can meet you after that.”
“Right. See you later.”
I hung up after we’d arranged to meet at a small sidewalk restaurant on Mohammed V, a site used previously by both DI5 and AXE. Then I called Gabrielle Delacroix and was relieved to find that she was all right. I asked her to join me for dinner at Detroit Restaurant, in the casbah, at eight and she agreed.
My last call was to Avis Rent-A-Car, to see whether they would be open for a while. They said they would. I took a taxi and rented a Fiat 124 convertible. The car had five forward gears as standard equipment and was just right for driving in the streets of Tangier. I drove up the hill to the casbah, through the narrow winding streets of the medina, and met Gabrielle at Detroit. The restaurant was perched atop an ancient fortress building that had been a sultan’s palace. Three walls of the dining area were glass and gave an incredible view of the Straits of Gibralter. I found Gabrielle at a window table. She was white-faced and looked very different from the way she had sounded on the phone.
