Assignment Moon Girl

by Edward S. Aarons

  “Yes. But when we get to Teheran. No sooner.”

  “We may never reach the city.”

  “Then it wouldn’t do you much good to know, would it?” Durell said.

  “Why do you not trust me?” Hanookh complained.

  “It’s an occupational hazard.”

  The trail lifted into rugged, stony hills. Now and then they skirted the edge of sheer drops into dry ravines. The sound of the laboring jeep was enormous in the chilly night. Anyone waiting for them could hear them coming for miles. But it couldn’t be helped, Durell decided.

  They had gone perhaps half the distance to the highway, according to his estimate, when he suddenly slammed on the brakes. They were faulty, and the jeep slid on the gravel and checked itself dangerously close to the edge of the drop-off. Hanookh started to explain, then saw the tire tracks going over the lip of the cliff. Durell unhooked the ignition wires and the engine coughed itself into silence.

  “Be careful,” Hanookh whispered.

  In the quiet of the hills, they heard the sigh of the wind in the brush, a distant plane motor that reminded them they were near civilization. Durell smelled woodsmoke. He got out and walked to the edge of the road and looked down into the narrow valley. Water gleamed down there, surprisingly. And the moonlight outlined the wreckage of a truck.

  It was the Farsi’s Renault.

  Hanookh was uncertain. “I think it is a trap.”

  “But I have a few questions to ask—if anybody is still alive down there.”

  He slid over the edge of the road and down the steep gully, following the deep gouges cut by the Renault truck when it went down. The smell of woodsmoke was stronger. The gurgling of the stream was strangely alien after the dry wind of the desert. Some of the cargo of used auto parts was strewn about in the stream. Of the rifle boxes, there was no trace. Then he heard the thin voice of the Farsi and the weeping of his woman. He wondered where the Arab had gone, and then he saw him, sprawled dead, nearby. His companion hadn’t bothered to bury him. It looked as if the Arab had been killed when the truck went over.

  There was a small fire on the bank of the stream, and the Farsi and his woman huddled beside it. The woman squatted, rocking back and forth, holding what seemed to be a broken arm. Her husband was digging with a shovel in the stony soil. The rifle crates were here. The Farsi kept up a stream of complaint directed at the injured woman.

  “Hold it,” Durell said, rising.

  The Farsi whirled, his hand streaking for a gun at his side. Then he saw Durell and Hanookh and froze. The woman began to screech, and then was silent as if throttled.

  “Ah, my Amerikani friend!” The Farsi smiled. He spread his fat hands placatingly. “Allah has seen fit to punish me. Would you do more, dear sir?”

  Hanookh kicked the man’s gun away. Durell saw that he had been trying to bury his smuggled rifles.

  “What happened to you?” he asked.

  “Bandits! Assassins! Foreigners!” the woman screamed.

  “Be quiet, my love,” said the Farsi. “Would you call them back?”

  Durell realized that the woman’s invective was not aimed at him. “Who were these foreigners?”

  “Only Allah knows. They were waiting on the road, many, many of them, as Allah is my witness. I am only a poor trader, struggling to survive.”

  “They didn’t rob you,” Hanookh pointed out.

  “Only because my wretched driver panicked and went off the road. Allah punished him. The bandits did not bother to follow us down here. We have been here a night and a day.” The man smiled. “I was worried about you, sir.”

  “I’ll bet,” Durell said. “Were the bandits Chinese, by any chance?”

  “Yes, yes! How did you know?” The Farsi’s one eye widened. “Oh, you Americans are all so clever!”

  “Ta-Po?” Hanookh asked.

  “Possibly.”

  “And the girl? Miss Tanya?”

  The man suddenly lost his tongue. He knew nothing. He had seen nothing. He swore it by all his hopes for Paradise.

  “But her robe was in his truck.” Hanookh was nervous. “It is dangerous here, Durell. We must move on.

  Allow me to make him talk.”

  Durell nodded. “I owe him something, anyway, for the clout on the head that he gave me.”

  The Farsi wriggled back on his haunches until he was half in the stream. The woman laughed at him. Hanookh dragged him back toward the glowing fire and forced the man’s fat fingers toward the flames. “You will tell us all about the girl, and how she came to be in your vehicle and what happened to her. Did you sell her to the Chinese, perhaps?”

  “No, no, she was gone by then!”

  “Ah, so you did know of her?”

  “Yes. Please. I am sensitive to pain.”

  “I have not begun to hurt you.”

  “She was a strange girl, sir. Another foreigner. What are all you foreigners doing in my country?”

  Hanookh said: “Am I a foreigner?”

  “No, sir, I didn’t mean you, but—”

  Durell said: “Tell us more about the girl. Where is she?”

  “I don’t know, I swear! She ran away from me. The woman here helped her. She was jealous. She was a most beautiful girl, but very strange. Not in her right mind. But my woman hated her. May Allah punish her for helping her to go free! If she was with me now, you gentlemen would have been satisfied.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know. She simply—vanished. I heard in the village that she had been seen with some Kurds, traders from the north. I think she hid herself among them.”

  Durell looked at Hanookh, who said, “The Kurds are still ahead of us. But I think he lies.”

  “Maybe. But she’s certainly not here.”

  “Then Ta-Po got her.”

  Durell sighed. “I hope not.”

  They left the Farsi and his woman and climbed back up the gorge to the jeep. Durell jumped the ignition Wires again, and the motor came to life at once.

  “I think,” said Hanookh, “that this road is absolutely unsafe for us now.”

  “I agree,” Durell said. “We’ll ditch it soon.”

  The way ahead dipped down out of the range of hills and crossed a flat, scrubby plain toward more crags ahead, There were low mesas to the left and a high mountain to the north. The wind blew from there. The smell of salt marshes came to them, and Hanookh signaled a bearing more to the north. Far ahead, a dim light flickered in the moonlight. “It may be Hajiabad,” said Hanookh. “It’s on the railway.”

  The trail climbed again. Durell felt a growing tension. The lights vanished. They were still many miles away, and the jeep only crawled. It would take three hours, at least, if the jeep could climb those high ridges. He felt as if they were being watched. But nothing was in sight in this desolate landscape. He thought of Ta-Po, hunting the girl. Ta-Po and the rebel, Har-Buri, must be working together. He began to wonder just how helpless Tanya was. She showed a remarkable facility for survival in this primitive land.

  “Go north now, sir,” said Hanookh. “The nearest railway station is at Ab-e-Garrn. A spur goes part of the way toward the highway, but we should stick to the Trans-Iranian Railroad. It’s our best chance.”

  “How far is it to Ab-e-Garrn?”

  “Maybe twenty—thirty miles.”

  “And no trails?”

  “No, sir.”

  “The jeep might make it, but it’s like flying a flag, driving this thing.”

  He began to worry about their gas supply now. The gauge didn’t operate, and he stopped to dip a twig into the tank. It came out almost dry. There couldn’t be more than a gallon left. He rummaged on the rear seat for spare cans. There were none. He yanked up the worn and greasy seat pad. Two flat fuel cans lay there. He wondered how they had escaped from thieves. When he lifted them, they gurgled satisfactorily. For a moment, he thought they might be filled with water. Then he uncapped one and smelled it. His relief made his arms quiver.
He emptied the gas into the tank quickly, and got back behind the wheel.

  Ten minutes later, he slammed on the brakes again and said, “We’d better hold it right here.”

  The trail had twisted up, and their elevation must have been over 6,000 feet. The night was bitterly cold. Hanookh shivered violently beside him, Ahead, two lofty hills made a gateway through which the trail proceeded. The coughing of the jeep engine bounced painfully off the rocky crags. The shadows in the defile were black and ominous. Durell looked to right and left. On the right, the way was impassable, leading almost vertically up the cliff. To the left, the land dropped away into salt flats that stretched to the moonlit horizon. The setting moon looked red.

  “Up there, Hanookh. Do you see them?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Moonlight on glass. A windshield.”

  Hanookh sucked in his breath. “Yes, sir. It looks like a scout car, of sorts. Perhaps Har-Buri?”

  'Or Ta-Po. Tweedledum or Tweedledee. Either would be happy to kill us and keep me from Teheran.”

  “Here they come,” Hanookh said tightly. “They’ve seen us.”

  The enemy car nosed out of the shadowed defile like an ugly beetle. It was crowded with men. Rifles stuck up like nasty nettles. Durell slammed the gear into reverse. The jeep screeched in complaint, then lurched backward.

  “Is there a way around them?” he asked.

  “We cannot escape by going back.”

  “I didn’t ask that. Around them?”

  Hanookh chewed his moustache. “We could try the salt flats. We’d have to go fast.” He smiled wanly. “It’s a chance. But we might bog down.”

  fi “They’re heavier than we are. They’d get stuck first.”

  “It’s very dangerous, Durell, sir.”

  ”No more dangerous than those people coming at us.”

  A bullet whined overhead as they rolled down the slope into the salt marsh. The land looked solid enough, but Hanookh shouted that it was only a crust over a vicious quagmire. Durell tramped harder on the gas pedal. The jeep clashed into third gear and bounced ahead, rocking and grinding. Another bullet hit the back of the vehicle with a loud spang! Hanookh ducked. The wheel was alive, resisting Durell’s grip. He held on with all his strength. They tore away down the slope from the defile and onto the-flats. Brush tore at their sides. On this lower elevation, the edge of the moon was just visible over the hills. In a few minutes, it would be totally dark. Durell tramped harder on the gas.

  The scout car was gaining. Hanookh shouted instructions. “Left, sir! Now right! Quickly!”

  The salt swamp engulfed them, seemed to swallow them. The left rear wheel suddenly sank, spun, whined, threw a spray behind them. They came free with a jolt and rocked on. Hanookh stood up, careless of the shots being fired at them, and clung to the windshield to see their way better. He was familiar with these salt swamps. His lips were skinned back in a tight grin.

  “A little to the left now. That’s it. Hold it, hold it. Now to the right again. Sharp! Ninety-degree turn!”

  The scout car was still gaining. It had entered the swamp, too, following their deeply scoured tracks. Again the jeep’s weight broke through the crust. They almost stopped. Hanookh jolted forward over the hood and Durell grabbed the slack of his trousers and hauled him hack again. The jeep groaned and pulled free.

  “That open space,” Hanookh gasped. “Try it. It’s our last chance.”

  The area looked deceptively hard and smooth. Durell headed for it. Abruptly, the moon was hidden by the mountains to the west. The darkness was absolute. He could do nothing but keep the jeep blindly on the course he’d set.

  The sound of the tires changed as they crossed the open crust. The scout car was close behind. Evidently their orders had changed. They had stopped firing. They wanted him alive.

  The front wheels went down, breaking through with a lurch. For a heart-wrenching moment, they plowed through the sand as if through a sea. Hanookh groaned. Then something under the surface bounced the front wheels up and they slid onto harder soil again. Durell gunned the engine. A twisted shrub slapped at the windshield, and another. He looked back. Hanookh did the same and gave a great shout.

  “It worked!”

  The heavier scout car had proved too much for the thin crust to support. It was over on its side, buried in a. great slew of sand and brackish water that broke through to the surface. It was sinking fast, and the men in it scrambled out for safety.

  A single frustrated shot followed them. It whined harmlessly overhead. Then a fold of land lifted them up and away from the swamp and they were free.

  Hanookh fell back on his seat and covered his face with shaking hands.

  Shortly before they reached the railway station at Ab-e-Garm, Hanookh pointed out a series of low, craterlike depressions near a mound of old ruins.

  “It is a disgrace. People live in those old cisterns. It is cooler by day, a bit warmer by night. But it is so primitive, the government must modernize this sort of thing.”

  Durell stopped the jeep. One or two black tents flapped in the cold night wind. The stars danced in a bitterly black sky.

  “Are people living in those holes right now?”

  “Assuredly. But why do you stop?”

  “I think we ought to swap clothes with them.”

  He got out of the jeep and found some coins in his pocket and went to the nearest cistern hole and leaned over it. Carefully, one by one, he dropped the coins into the blackness. There was a long pause. Then a rough ladder came swaying up and, after another pause, a bearded, sleepy-eyed nomad climbed painfully up.

  “Tell him we want to buy his clothes,” Durell suggested. “It will help us get through on the railroad, if Ta-Po and Har-Buri are watching it for us.”

  “It will be watched, certainly.”

  “So we’ll be nomads, third-class, on the way to Teheran.”

  “He will not sell his clothes to us, sir.”

  “Coins brought him up. Some folding money will get his clothing.”

  He was right. There was a long clicker in an obscure dialect that gave Hanookh some trouble, but not too much. After a time, the nomad elder leaned over the edge of the cistern and shouted to someone below. A scrawny hand and arm presently appeared above the ladder and threw a bundle of what seemed like old rags onto the sandy ledge. The nomad took Durell’s money and climbed down out of sight.

  Hanookh groaned. “It will take ten baths to free ourselves of the lice, after this.”

  “Better to be lousy than dead,” said Durell.

  Far off in the distance, echoing over the bleak landscape, came the mournful hoot of a diesel locomotive and the clatter of iron wheels on rails.

  Chapter Seven

  TEHERAN looked shockingly normal, noisy, and bright, when they arrived at mid-morning. The air was brisk, since the day’s heat hadn‘t gathered yet. Floating high in the sky was snow-capped Demavend. Durell took Hanookh to a food stall and bought round Iranian bread, a melon, and two fragrant cups of coffee. Hanookh scratched himself with impatience. No one paid attention to their ragged figures as they joined the surging crowds on the sidewalk a short distance from the rail terminal.

  “You will go to your embassy now, sir?” asked Hanookh.

  “If I can. We’re not safe here. In fact, the danger might be greatest right at the moment.”

  He was proved right. He telephoned from a bazaar on Ferdowsi, a shop filled with miniature ivories, the inevitable Persian rugs, khatan boxes made of wood and mosaic, linens, papier-maché boxes, brasswork, hand illuminated scrolls and Korans, and American picture magazines. Hanookh watched the busy street doubtfully from the door as he tried to reach Hannigan.

  An Iranair jet screamed over the city, heading for Mehrabad Airport. Upper-class women, unveiled in their homes and emancipated in Western style, still went swaying mysteriously behind ankle-length shawls that failed to cover their bouffant hair-dos, make-up, and nylon stockings. Now and then a mullah went b
y, frowning contempt for modern innovations.

  Rafe Hannigan was not in the security office he occupied as K Section’s Central for Teheran. Durell asked the clerk to ring his private number. The phone rang and rang, and was not answered.

  “I am sorry, sir. He is not available.”

  “Then I want to leave a message. All material for Durell is to be sent by confidential messenger to the Royal Teheran Hotel in one hour. Confidential. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir. There are some dispatches for you, but it’s rather unusual—"

  “Keep trying for Hannigan, please.”

  He hung up. Hanookh was restless. He wanted to report to his own office. Durell got an unmetered cab and Hanookh, grumbling and scratching, got in with him. They looked like a couple of desert beggars, and the driver glared at them as if about to refuse their fares, until Durell borrowed some money from Hanookh. The usual in-town fare was fifteen rials, and Durell gave him twenty. He decided he had enough cash left until he reached Hannigan.

  They drove by the sumptuous American embassy. U.S. Marine guards stood distantly within the gates. The streets seemed unusually busy. There were many loiterers, and parked cars with men idling in them.

  “Why can we not drive right in?” Hanookh asked.

  “We’d probably get a belly full of machine gun slugs before we reached those gates.”

  “You think the enemy has a barricade here?”

  “I’m sure of it. Let’s try the Soviet embassy.”

  Hanookh was shocked. “The Soviets? Has the desert sun affected your senses?”

  “I have some thoughts about Tanya Ouspanaya, and only the Russians can verify them.”

  “I cannot permit this, sir. Begging your pardon, but I insist you come with me to Colonel Saajadi. I must report to him at once. After all, Beele is dead, and also my friend, Sepah. You have information we have hunted for a long time, about Har-Buri. As a guest of my government and a visitor to my country, you must cooperate.”

  Durell looked at the young Iranian. Hanookh seemed grim and earnest, suddenly. His face was angry under the cowled hood of his nomad robe.

  “After I see Hannigan. All right?”