Assignment Star Stealers

by Edward S. Aarons

  "The Russian gentleman? I shall ring him at once.''

  "No, I just want his room number."

  "Yes, sir. It is Cottage Four, sir. Past the pool."

  "All right. Now go back to sleep."

  A light shone behind the door. Durell walked around the cottage, through black shrubbery, and found a back door. The wind that blew over the cliff smelled of salt and seaweed. He used a tiny set of picklocks, and when the door clicked, he waited for a count of ten, then carefully palmed the knob, waited again, then pushed the door inward with his fingertips. There was a tiny hallway, and beyond it he could see a section of the sitting room and two bare, knobby feet outstretched. He smelled a curious mingling of hot tea and vodka.

  He had his gun in his hand when he leaned casually in the doorway.

  "Boom, boom, Skoll You are dead."

  Skoll reacted with an explosive movement that lifted him half out of the chair in which he sprawled. His heavy face was carved of frozen rock. His reactions were good, very good. He had his gun up and swinging toward Durell before he halted and stared. His peasant's mouth opened, and he brayed with a deep, rumbling laugji.

  "Ah, very good, Cajun. You got me first."

  A very cultivated voice said, "Do you gentlemen always play such dangerous games?"

  Chu Li sat on the couch against the near wall. The Chinese and the Russian had been indulging in their favorite drinks—tea for Chu Li, a near-empty bottle of vodka for SkoU. Chu Li looked like a round kewpie doll, a veritable Buddha of Happiness, innocent and benign. Durell knew that the man personally ran the interrogation rooms of the Black House, where the Imperial tortures of China's Middle Kingdom were revived and refined by modem techniques.

  "We are honored by your presence," Chu said. "It makes our little conference complete. We are, after all, almost forced to become alHes, however temporary."

  "Just what I've been arguing, Chu," Skoll grumbled. "Sit down, sit down, Amerikanski. You look terrible."

  "So I'm told. Have you been here all evening?" . "We are discussing ways and means to arrive at a compatible understanding of our goals and the division of the spoils," said Chu Li blandly. "It was difficult, since you are the X factor in the problem. Please, join us."

  "I just want to know what you've heard of Richard."

  "Ah, that brilliant, misguided boy!" Chu Li's slanted eyes gleamed mockingly. His round doll's figure rocked a little. "You will make an arrangement with us? A troika, as Skoll puts it? Whatever our other differences, this one is a mutual affair, and we must work together."

  Skoll gargled some vodka. "In or out, Cajun?"

  "An ultimatum?"

  ''Chu and I are going to work together."

  *'And who will watch your backs, if you have to turn aside for a moment?"

  "Colonel Skoll and I must trust each other," Chu Li said. "It is necessary, for this one affair. Our superiors grow impatient with us. It is all very embarrassing."

  "What Chu means," Skoll grunted, "is that he keeps his knife up his sleeve for the time we work together."

  "And you're working to get Richard?"

  "Of course. And more. It remains for the spoils to be counted and then divided."

  Durell walked to the front cottage door. "I wish you the worst of luck, gentlemen."

  Skoll said, "You won't join us? You will regret it. I hate to use threats, but you may be very, very sorry."

  Durell saw another empty vodka bottle on the floor beside Skoll's thick, heavy figure. Skoll looked a little drunk, but he couldn't be sure of that. There were the soured remains of two dinners thrust aside on the table. The air smelled stale from Skoll's cigars; the big ashtrays overflowed wdth a dozen mashed butts.

  He was satisfied that his two rivals had spent the evening here, while he had been chasing rabbits down the coast.

  Amanda had the tub full of steaming water when he returned. She sighed with relief when he appeared. She had refreshed her makeup and changed her clothes; she wore a long green housecoat with a large upturned collar that framed her anxious face and her gleaming red hair. She had changed from the girl he had met originally. If she still grieved for her dead husband, she kept it to herself. If she were still timid of the world, there was no more sign of it. She had suddenly come to realize her position and her power—not only the power of her money, but her ability as a woman.

  Durell soaked for half an hour in the hot tub. Amanda brought him a tall bourbon with plenty of ice cubes. He drank quietly, his mind reviewing the past few days.

  He was in a deadly race with Chu and SkoU, who would not be satisfied merely to snatch Richard Coppitt for their respective governments. Richard, angry at the world, contemptuous of the lesser intelligence of those he worked with, naive in everyday matters, could be manipulated easily enough by professionals. He might balk at finding himself a prisoner in Moscow or Peking, but he could be persuaded to pursue his development process, if only for the sake of intellectual achievement, and ignore the political results of his work. But—^Richard was not the true goal.

  Chu and SkoU aimed to find the secret headquarters of those who were picking data from the spy satellites. To achieve such a monopoly for their home governments could upset the delicate balance of peace in the world. The powers in the race would find it intolerable to be blinded by this means, losing their sources of intelligence from the stars. It might trigger a hundred H-bombs. Neither the Upited States, the Soviet Union, nor Red Chma could afford to allow themselves to be placed at such a disadvantage.

  War could follow, and the green earth turn into an ugly, polluted atomic cinder. He wondered if Skoll had thought this out. Skoll and Chu wanted the process for themselves. But they might be opening a Pandora's box that could unleash horror on the whole world.

  They were the victims of their own ideologies, however, and the bureaucracies governing them gave them no choice. Obey, or be eliminated! It would never occur to them to make an independent choice in the matter.

  Amanda came cheerfully into the bathroom.

  "Do you feel better, Sam?''

  "Not much," he admitted.

  24

  The sun came through the open window, and the sea wind flapped the heavy curtains back and forth like a snail in irons. Amanda slept with one long, smooth leg thrown over his, and her copper hair made a pleasant tangled fan on the pillow beside him. His arm circled her slender waist, and the warmth of her hip and thigh cradled against his stomach was an expression of trust and confidence. Birds sang outside, and someone splashed into the swimming pool with a mighty thwack and a screech of pleasure.

  She did not waken when he gently disentangled himself and slid out of bed. He dressed and shaved quietly and left her a note, telling her to wait for him, and then he went out, taking her car keys with him.

  The Atlantic was dazzling under the morning sun. There was a new clerk at the desk. The terrace restaurant was filled with tourists exchanging the prices of their souvenirs. At Cottage Four, his knock went unanswered. Back at the desk he made a brief inquiry.

  "I am sorry, M'sieu Durell. The Russian and the Chinese gentlemen have checked out."

  "Any forwarding address?"

  "They expressed interest in Taureg country, I believe. They hired a desert Jeep, a modified vehicle, sir, to travel south. They said something about going all the way to Timbuktu."

  "Really?"

  "Timbuktu really exists, sir."

  25

  "Kadir," DureU said. "Irhan Kadir."

  He had spent an hour searching Agadir's schools and the Founti district for someone to answer to that name. It was the only clue he had. Richard had mentioned Kadir to Amanda, and so had the man at the Akademie in Zurich. It made a pattern. Professor Von Handel, who might or might not be the head of the star stealers had an academic career. The use of the empty schoolhouse in Zurich and the Arabic medersa in Fez were part of the pattern. He tried the one in Agadir, driving there in Amanda's Mercedes, and had been referred to this little village ten m
iles north, toward Cape Rhir on P-8. He was in a little ksar, a fortified village on a rise above the seacoast, a place called Sidi Ouidane. The village smeUed of poverty. Within the crumbling walls of the ksar, the houses were dusty and neglected. The people here had neither the pride of the desert folk nor the sturdy independence of the coastal fishermen.

  "Irhan Kadir," he said again.

  "You were sent here?"

  "Yes, I was sent here."

  "By whom?"

  "An old friend in the desert," he hazarded.

  The Arab nodded and smiled. Durell gave him some money and the man showed poor teeth. "The Hadj is at meditation. But he will receive you."

  The Arab scuttled off toward a slightly larger house than the others. Under a reed awning at the back was a canvas-covered stake-body truck with extra wide sand tires. Durell walked around the back of the low, red stone building and stood beside the truck. A plank door painted yellow burst open in the rear, and a short, stout man ran out, practically into his arms.

  ''Hadj Kadir," Durell said, and he pushed the muzzle of his .38 into the man's round little belly. *'Not a whisper, please.We will borrow your vehicle."

  *'Sir! Sir, I am innocent—"

  ''Everyone is. You will drive. Where were you going?"

  "But this is criminal—a kidnapping—please!" The man quaked. He was short and stout, and wore a green-striped jellaba with a lined, pointed hood. His fingers glinted with half a dozen jeweled rings. There was a softness in his shaking jowls and in the terror in his eyes that made it almost too easy.

  "You're taking me to your boss," Durell said. "And you will do the driving."

  "But surely—this is a mistake—"

  "No mistake. You know where Von Handel is?"

  The fat little man drew a deep breath and seemed to collapse like a deflating balloon. Everything about him sagged in the sweat that ran down his round face. "I knew it would happen," he whispered. 'T knew it. Sir, I beg of you, do no harm to me. Please. I was afraid of this moment from the very beginning."

  "When they recruited you?"

  "Yes. I will tell you all. But I cannot take you where you want to go."

  "You will, or you will die."

  "Then I will die. As Allah wills. It is because I do not know the answer to what you will ask me."

  Hadj Irhan Kadir knew enough. There were two 50-gallon gasoline drums in the back of the desert truck, and a supply of water in smaller drums. The fat man, for all his fear, was an expert driver. Durell left Amanda's Mercedes-Benz in the village. It would probably be stripped within minutes after they were out of sight, but she could afford it. The truck was just what he needed.

  Halfway back to Agadir, he ordered Kadir to turn down a sandy ramp to the beach. Nothing was in sight. The long Atlantic combers came roaring in, their endless noise counterpointed by the screams of gulls gliding down the slopes of the wind.

  "Get out of the truck," he ordered Kadir.

  "What—what will you do with me?"

  "You said you know Von Handel?"

  "Only by name, sir. Please, I will help you. I never wish to be involved in this. I am a student, a scholar. I simply took messages, packages, from one person and gave them to another. I have never been to where Handel lives. Believe me." Kadir's round face and wattles shook. "I have never even seen him. I have heard his name, it is true, Allah will bear witness, but I am innocent of'Wrongdoing."

  "How far south were you ever sent?"

  Kadir licked his brown lips. "Once, two months ago, sir, I delivered a—a box of equipment. But they never let me go all the way. Only to Foum Asni."

  "How far is that?"

  "Two days to the south. It is the country of the R'guibat Tauregs. It is an oasis village only. I was met there by a man I did not know, who took the box which contained things I never saw, and I was sent back again."

  "You will take me that far, then," Durell said.

  "Sir, they will kill me!"

  "They paid you well, didn't they?"

  "As Allah is my witness, it was a pittance I needed for my sick wife! Must I die for it?"

  "We all die when Allah wills it."

  He found some rope in the truck among the camping supplies and bound the fat man's wrists and ankles, shoving him out of sight under the canvas top.

  Agadir, with its villas gleaming white in the morning sun, was awake when he returned. The bay at the mouth of the Oued Sous sparkled in the clear light. Umbrellas had flowered on the clean beaches, overlooked by Founti Hill with its apartment houses and kasbah. The earthquake of Leap Year Day, 1960, which had killed 15,000 people in less than half a minute, seemed to be forgotten. He took the river road in from Taroudant, from the villages of Inezgane and Oulad Teima, and the morning air was filled with the scent of oranges from the surrounding groves. Traffic was heavy—donkeys, camels, trucks, and European sports cars with their tourist sightseers.

  Amanda was up, dressed, and waiting anxiously when he drove the truck back to the Auberge de la Plage, his captive safely hidden under the canvas top.

  26

  They had crossed the Sous and the Oued Draa, leaving the rich coastal country far behind on their way through Bou Izakam. A little beyond, the main road ended in a limitless waste of gravel and scrub brush and occasional hints of the sandy ocean of the Sahara beyond. They had left the country of the Chleuhs, those merchant Berbers, and were deep in Taureg territory, a land of nomads, tents, and camels, east of Goulimine.

  The Anti Atlas mountains were behind them. A pipeline formed a kind of piste that twisted southward. Now and then they passed a walled village, the red stone gleaming in the bright light that poured down from the vast bowl of the sky. Here and there in the empty land they passed camel riders swathed in desert robes. Another truck passed them on the way north and once, incredibly, they overtook a rickety busload of adventurous French tourists. Gradually, however, the signs of people and civilization merged into the awesome emptiness of the Sahara.

  Irhan Kadir proved useful. When he finally overcame his terror, he seemed eager to be of help.

  "Si Durell, I am happy this happened," he murmured. "It has been on my conscience for many months, let Allah be my witness, ever since I yielded to temptation and took their money to do errands for them. Perhaps, if it is God's wish, I will die for my sins. But perhaps, too, Allah will forgive me for what I have done, if these men are indeed murderers. I am a holy man, a hadj who has journeyed to Mecca. I am a scholar as well, and my life has not been happy since I became involved in this miserable matter. You may trust me, Si Durell. I beg of you to do so."

  His round brown face was earnest. By evening of the second day he had taken on the duties of cook, pitching the tents, and speaking with the rare camel riders or travelers who came up over the horizon beyond the pipe line.

  He plodded toward Durell like a sad Humpty-Dumpty. "Si Durell, these others you are interested in—the Russian and the Chinese gentleman? They are much ahead of us. And the young man, this Richard Coppitt, he, too, travels ahead."

  "Richard?" Amanda asked.

  "Yes, Lalla. He travels with four R'guibat, on camels." Kadir spread smooth, fat hands. "They can go faster than this old truck, I fear."

  "One would think," Amanda suggested, "that these people vou're after, Sam, would have planes available."

  "They probably do," Durell said. "But I think Richard was scared away from the Asadir airport." He paused. "I'd say SkoU and his Oriental buddy did it."

  The pipeline ended exactly nowhere—in a vista of sand and someone's shattered dream. The second day of travel had been hot, with a scorching east wind blowing in their faces. The truck jounced and skidded through an endless nightmare of sameness. They saw no travelers now. The glare of the sun and the whimper of the wind made Amanda nervous. She let her face get sunburned, and tied her hair in a knot. She donned the jellaba that was in the truck and made a face veil out of her scarf.

  When they were less than five miles from the oasis of Foum
Asni, Durell ordered a halt for the day. Kadir set up the tent and got the gas stove going. Night came with its usual suddenness, and with it, a relief from the heat that yielded quickly to the desert's chill.

  Amanda huddled close to Durell as they ate rice and lamb. "Sam, if I remember the map correctly, there's not a darned thing beyond that collection of hovels over the next dune, until you hit Timbuktu.".

  "Yes, there is. There's Von Handel and a cute batch of electronic equipment strong enough to intercept satellites that fly by. And efficient enough to knock down and set up again anywhere in the world, to cancel any efforts to change orbits."

  "Has that been done?"

  "Our tapes have been stripped in several orbits. Lately, of course, the activity has centered out here." Durell waved his hand to the empty south. "So that's where we're going. T have a little black box with me—a sort of direction finder. It's a gimmick, and maybe it won't work; it only has a range of a hundred miles. So far, I haven't heard a peep from its wirey little gut."

  "And what happens if you find this place, Sam? Do you go in alone? Whoever is running it has bought a lot of muscle. Maybe we ought to turn back and get help."

  Later, when they lay under the vast sky that looked as if a barrel of diamond stars had been spilled over it, she said, "Sam, do you trust Irhan Kadir?"

  "Not out of my sight."

  "Well, he's gone out of sight, all right. He's walking toward that oasis."

  "Hell." Durell stood up and brushed sand from his trousers. He needed a bath and a change of clothes; he could imagine how Amanda, accustomed to luxury, must feel. But she hadn't complained. A moon hung low on the horizon, and he could make out Kadir's footprints. "When did he go?" he asked quietly.

  "Just now," said Amanda. "That-a-way."

  He shook loose his gun and followed the footprints. He did not have far to go. Just over the ridge of dunes, from the crest of which he could see a dim glow on the horizon marking Foum Asni, he saw Irhan Kadir. The stout little man had halted, his round body leaning forward as if Ustening. His hand came up and circled, palm down, as he heard Durell. Durell dropped to a crouch and joined the Hadj.