"Ashore? No, no, I couldn't—"
"Safer than on this tub. If you can give Ta'arife the slip for even twenty-four hours, things might straighten out."
Naomi studied Esme Kenton uncertainly. The tall woman looked tense and strained, as if her outwardly calm efficiency
was a facade maintained only by a trembling, extraordinary effort.
"You have your own troubles, Mrs. Kenton," Naomi said quietly, astonished at herself for her words. "I could not burden you with mine, too."
"It's my husband/' Esme said. "I think they've killed him. He's been missing for three days and I can't get anyone to help me look for him. Nevertheless, I can't let you stay here, child. Do you need to take anything with you? We may be away for two or three days, as I said, until things settle down and some sort of arrangement is made with whoever wins the fighting today."
"I ... I can go as I am. But are you sure—?"
"It's now or never. While the city is confused."
"All right," Naomi decided suddenly. "I felt so trapped just waiting here, where they knew they could find me. I . . . I'm grateful."
"Just hurry, that's all. We'll stay at the al-Zaysir. It's a ratty hotel and there are only a few foreigners there, but we've all decided it's the best place to hole up until things blow over. The oil people have their own places out in the desert. None of us can get through the roadblocks to join them now, unfortunately. So we stay at the al-Zaysir. All right?"
Naomi managed a tremulous smile and nod. Her fear moved in her and made her physically ill. She conquered it only by a great effort. She felt as if the nightmare that had haunted her since Budapest had at last become real. She could almost feel her flesh being torn apart by the maniacal mob.
Colonel Ta'arife listened for a moment to the noise of the street crowd, and was satisfied. Then he let the Negro slave close the door behind him and ascended the cool, dark stairs to the inner garden of the Q'adi Ghezri's house. It was like stepping into another world: to leave the hot stench of the streets and the screaming, dirty people; to quit the sporadic sounds of gunfire and the wailing of sirens. It had begun! That was the principal thing. The first step was taken. Perhaps a little sooner than planned, but one could not always anticipate the plans of Allah.
His companion, Major Kolia Mikelnikov, had landed safely at the airport and now mounted the steps behind him. Nothing was betrayed on the Russian's long, tired face. The lavish luxury of the Q'adi's quarters, with its garden of jasmine and bougainvillea and the serenity of its softly tinkling fountain, seemed to make no impression on Mikelnikov, whose face was a flat mask, official and unemotional.
The Q'adi stood like a tall black bird of prey upon a cushioned platform at the far end of the garden. On a table nearby were massive, ornately tooled leather-bound volumes of the Koran and the Sunna. A houseboy in a snowy white robe bowed himself away. The Q'adi's long black robe and turban with the band of green that indicated he had made the hadj to Mecca looked like a well of midnight against the ivory carving of a screen behind him. For a moment Ta'arife considered the screen with a certain nervousness, not wishing to be surprised by eavesdroppers or armed men of the Q'adi's. And for another moment doubt shook him—he who was so emancipated from the orthodoxy of Islam—and he wondered if,. indeed, this man in black could be the Mahdi, here today to deliver true believers into eternal paradise.
They greeted each other formally with the graceful Arabic salutation of fingers to forehead, lips, and heart.
"This is the man who will help us," Ta'arife said. His narrow face wore a smile. His teeth, under his neat mustache, were shining. "He has just flown in from Baghdad as the head of a mission to cooperate in the delivery of arms, as well as in new engineering projects in the oil fields. He has gone beyond this, Q'adi, with plans for new irrigation developments and all the other matters we have discussed. This is Major Kolia Mikelnikov."
"The desert kites know where the dead have fallen," Ghezri said. "Their flight in the sky, describing great wheels of bad fortune, are always the first sign of a man's death." The hawk face with the great nose and the fanatic eyes regarded Ta'arife angrily. He spoke, then, in Arabic. "He came quickly. Does he understand me?"
"I do," Mikelnikov replied. He smiled and bowed. "I hope to change your impression of me as quickly as possible."
"You came with arms for Islam?"
"A shipment is on its way. We can bring some in by plane. The vessels will arrive in three days."
"But the revolution has begun this morning. The shipment may be too late, if matters go badly for us. We could not wait. We understand that Prince Amr al-Maari is coming back. We must win quickly, or not at all."
"That is understood/' Kolia said.
"Colonel Ta'arife has told me your price. The American who will arrive with the prince—he is to be yours."
"With your permission, Q'adi."
"BillahiJ A man's life is of no importance in the face of the eternities of Allah, Allah be praised."
"Then we are agreed, Q'adi?"
"Let us see how the battle progresses. Come," the Q'adi said.
He led the way behind the screen, where, Ta'arife noted with relief, no one lurked. A balcony yielded a view of Jidrat. The Q'adi's slippered feet made soft, sliding sounds on the tile floor. From the balcony the Q'adi could see the mob rioting in the streets and bazaars. Most of the merchants had been forewarned, and steel shutters guarded their wares, and their baradas were empty.
This quarter of the city—the one nearest the quays and the harbor—was definitely in the hands of the Q'adi's forces, who were dedicated to a new and greater jihad, a holy war to give rebirth to the glory and power of Islam, Allah willing. But the Imam's guards still controlled the hillside approaches to Faiz, the Imam palace. Yet, Ghezri thought, the Imam Yazid is old and weak, lost in the poetry and philosophies of former times. Jidrat was a small nation. Only a tiny seed.
As he watched the smoke rise from the sabotaged oil fields beyond the city, the Q'adi felt within himself the flames of a holy voice, an unquenchable dedication to the cause he was destined to lead. It was regrettable that Colonel Ta'arife— that petty, strutting imitation of other dictators—had to be used, as well as this big, ungainly, sad-eyed foreigner. One shook hands with one's enemies these days and smiled over cups of black coffee and made plans for mutual tasks to be carried out. But when the time came, the Q'adi's voice would cry out from all the minarets in all the mosques of Islam in a sound of thunder that would shake the world. . . .
Colonel Ta'arife studied the same scene and noted with a military eye the movement of the tanks in the narrow streets leading to Faiz. He tried to conceal his worry over the way things were going. The mob in its violence was not violent enough. He knew them. He could play upon the temper of this rabble the way a musician fingers the nuba. He had paid agitators, of course, and other officers had joined the rebellion, seeing in it a chance for personal advancement when the Imam's palace fell to dust. But the mob was the true implement of revolution. And the mob was a dangerous, two-edged sword. Whip them with words and promises and anger and they responded, screaming, by destroying whatever came in their way. But they had not yet reached the defenses of Faiz and if matters went on much longer, the mob would recoil, frustrated, and with the fickle temper of a headless monster, turn upon those who had called it into being.
Ta'arife knew this must not happen. He still had the Israeli girl. He could take her, when he needed her, and spread the rumor of spies; then exhibit her as fact, a deadly enemy admitted in Jidrat by the senile Imam Yazid. Ta'arife, thinking of this, felt more confident....
Major Mikelnikov was not interested in the current confusion in the city. He had not slept for forty-eight hours, and he knew he needed rest desperately. But he dared not sleep. He had failed twice in his mission. He could not fail again. When he thought of Durell, frustration moved in him and ended his weariness.
Perhaps, he thought, it is because you are not a professional assassin you
rself. One can devote a lifetime to intelligence work and feel that the fruits of one's work made some small contribution to the safety of Russia. But to kill a man coldly—not in the heat of war, but by stealth and with snares —this was different. No rationalization could convince him that this shadow war of counter intelligence was the same as the heat of battle.
But Moscow was impatient. So far, he had failed to prevent Durell from contacting the prince. And he had not eliminated Durell. A sorry record, Mikelnikov thought broodingly. And a dangerous one.
A man had his life to lose, if he failed. This was understood. In the Stalinist days, one received short shrift for failure. Today, the agony of the end might be lengthened, even postponed under "humane" punishment. He would be banished to some obscure province, given dull and stultifying work, and worst of all, he would not be able to go on with his search for Naomi, his wife.
If he could see her just once, he thought, and explain how it had happened. Not that it would excuse anything. But if he could just one more time tell her he loved her, beg her forgiveness for what he had done under the implacable pressure of military orders—well, he could die then. To see her face again, as it once had been; to hold her in his arms, as he once had held her—these were dreams, impossible to fulfill. She might be dead. She might be anywhere in the world. Yet he had gone on searching and asking wherever he could, wherever his work took him.
Now he was here, and soon Durell would be here, and it was necessary to kill again. He admired and liked Durell. He would have preferred this man as a friend to all the other men he had ever met. They were alike, perhaps: recognizing each other as an enemy, having suffered the same dangers, the same pangs of conscience, perhaps even the same grief.
Still, Durell had to die.
There was no way out of the trap. It was either Durell or Mikelnikov.
Kolia looked up at the sky. It was just noon.
Chapter Twelve
Sun, sea, and sky coalesced in an inferno of blind white heat. The sea and sky had no end and no beginning. They merged with each other at an indefinable distance, in a melting haze. On the sea, the dhow lifted and fell in the long swells, moving as on hills of oil over the surface of the water. There was nothing to see but the mist, which was like the inside of a furnace. Overhead, there was an aureole of colored light around a hole in the sky where the sun breathed its fiery light upon an empty world.
The nakhoda said, "It is the breath of Allah, effendi. When He so desires, the wind will come again." Abdhuahram was a big man with a weathered face. He was haked to the waist, bearded and wild. As master of the two-masted dhow, he looked as all nakhodas have looked since ancient times. "Yes, the wind will come again, effendi. Perhaps by evening."
"The sooner the better," Durell said.
"It will be according to Allah's mercy. One cannot guess the time it takes for God to destroy that which He has built. He made the sea and sun and the sands of the desert—even the smallest grain—and every drop of water. He made this calm. He will make the wind again."
"You promised it would take only one day to run down the coast to Jidrat."
"Yes, master. If Allah was willing," the nakhoda nodded.
The dhow smelled. It creaked and groaned and plashed against the burning sea. Under the striped cotton awning slung across the cushioned afterdeck, Prince Amr sipped water and fell back, gasping, on his mat. He was naked except for shorts, and his fat, pale body labored to live, sweated and glistened and heaved with each heartbeat, shaking like the fat of a woman's body. The patch of dressing where he had been wounded looked relatively clean. Durell left the tafFrail and walked back to him. He squatted in the shade of the canvas. It seemed hotter under the awning.
"How do you feel, Bogo?"
"At the moment, I am happy. And do you know why?"
Amr whispered. "Because I lie here and dream of what I will do to you, Cajun, for bringing me into this. Soon I will have the power of revenge. I was happy where I was. I have no political ambitions. What am I doing on this filthy old vessel, with these filthy men? When I can, Cajun, I will cut out your eyes and your tongue. I will emasculate you. I will—"
"Can I get you anything right now?" Durell asked calmly.
"Reach Death for me, and hand it to me as a gift. Blind me, and wipe this inferno from my sight. I ask you again— what am I doing here?"
"You're going home," Durell said.
"The rebellion has begun. You heard the radio in Karachi yesterday. It is too late."
"Not for you."
"At home they will kill me."
"Not if you stand up to them."
"It is too late for that, too. Too late in time; too late for me. What am I, Cajun? Less than a man, you say. And it is true. Will the people listen to me? You are mad."
"They will follow you if you ask them to."
"I have no wish to be the Imam Amr al-Maari of Jidrat."
"It is your destiny," Durell said.
Amr simply groaned and rolled away from him. Durell lifted his eyes to the horizon. The stony flint and limestone and basaltic cliffs of Southern Arabia hung off the port quarter in the haze of the heat like something dimly seen in a nightmare. He wiped sweat from his face. The dhow rolled and groaned and creaked. The lateen sails flapped. They drifted.
At the huge tiller, Abdhuahram's huge body bowed in drowsiness. Amidships; the ragged, piratical crew of Arab sailors had built a charcoal fire in the huge turtle shell that served as a cooking hearth. The lamb that was still alive made a faint bleating sound, as if it knew it would soon be spitted and roasting over the coals.
Nothing else seemed to live in the sea except the sharks. The sharks followed the dhow in circles, their black, triangular fins cutting through the white haze over the water in lazy, patient patterns.
They had flown to Karachi in Pakistan and then had gone by train and truck to a small port on the eastern shore of the Gulf where sixty miles of brazen sea separated them from Jidrat.
That morning, the radio had been full of conflicting stories of revolt in Jidrat: of looting, and burning, and street fighting; of an assault against Faiz. Zoraya had arranged for the, nakhoda and his dhow, paid for with Durell's American dollars. There was no other safe way to enter Jidrat. The airport would be closed and guarded. It was rumored that a number of Europeans were prisoners in the Hotel al-Zaysir and were being threatened by the howling mobs. But now they had been at sea for hours, and there was no radio aboard, and no news.
Zoraya came out of the cabin shelter. She wore a white blouse and dark skirt and had a ribbon tied in her thick black hair. She looked more English than Arab. Her astonishing amber eyes touched the nakhoda's barbaric figure at the tiller, rested on Amr for a moment, and then looked at Durell. He walked toward her. From amidships came the sudden burst of high, thin quarreling among the crew. Zoraya rested against the taffrail. She looked exhausted.
''Are you all right?" Durell asked.
"I wish you would not be so thoughtful," she said. "It makes it difficult for me."
"Did you sleep?"
"No. Are we near the port?"
"The wind's died. We're drifting." He gestured to the barren cliffs and desert of the shore. Now and then they could hear the thunder of surf on basaltic reefs. It was a dangerous coast. "Have you talked again to Amr?"
She shrugged. "He is full of pity for himself. Nothing I say will make him into the man you wish he was, Durell. I am afraid for you. He talks of vengeance for having his pleasures disturbed. If he lives, he will injure you. If he lives."
"I've brought him this far for him and for his people."
"He needs steel in him, and it is not there. Perhaps it was never there."
"But you remain loyal to him," Durell pointed out.
"Yes, loyal. But loyalty is not love."
"But you still love him."
"I do not know," Zoraya said quietly. "I am confused. The world spins, and I fall with it, and I lose all perspective. I do not know if what you pla
n for Amr is right. And it may be too late now anyway."
"Zoraya, if you appeared in Jidrat with him—"
"He will not have me at his side."
"But if you could persuade him, the people would support him. We need this."
"We?"
Durell «said flatly, "Jidrat is as much a part of the world struggle as any other place on earth. At the moment, it is more important than most. Tomorrow, perhaps, it will be forgotten."
"Yes. If Amr is killed."
"Talk to him, Zoraya. Try to make him listen to you."
"It is no use."
"You must try," Durell said.
She went across the deck and sat beside Amr under the awning, and began to talk to him. He would not look at her. He smoked one of Abdhuahram's narghiles and watched the sea. After a time she got up and stood alone, watching the sharks that circled the boat.
At two o'clock the wind was still dead. The dhow drifted closer to shore, and the roar of the surf was louder, and the spume of the breakers was visible. The crew finished eating and watched the shore worriedly. The nakhoda stood like a giant idol at the tiller, motionless. Zoraya again sat in silence beside Amr.
Durell was the first to hear the beat of the other vessel's motor. There was a thin heat mist over the oily sea, and nothing could be seen. Then the nakhoda heard the sound and issued a sharp, brief command to his Arab sailors. They stirred uneasily. Then, out of the heat mist, there appeared another dhow—diesel-driven, sails furled, a white curl of foam at its high bow.
At the same time the air carried with it the smell of the other vessel. It was a smell Durell thought unknown in this century: the smell of many human bodies penned below the decks in a filthy sailing vessel. Chained in miserable slavery. Abdhuahram reached for a polished ram's horn and blew a series of curious blasts that carried sharply across the water. The second dhow fell to drifting, fifty feet off the port side.
Durell crossed to the giant nakhoda. "Are they slavers?"
"We do not question them, effendi. The captain is my brother." Abdhuahram grinned and tugged at his barbaric beard. "The traffic is legal here in Jidratti territorial waters. He will help us. He will take us to the village of the Al Murra, the tribe of our fathers. He unloads his cargo there."
Assignment Zoraya Page 11
