Assignment Zoraya

by Edward S. Aarons

  "Stand up, Englisi lady."

  She got to her feet—naked—before the two Arabs. It didn't matter. Their eyes searched her body, lingering with interest. She didn't look at Paul. She didn't know if he was still alive or not.

  Messaoud slowly and deliberately took off his clothes and stood as naked as she. His body was thin and bony and angular, marked with sores. He came toward her and when she tried, suddenly, to run around the table, he caught her and threw her hard against the rock wall of the cave. An acid taste rose in her throat. She felt his weight fall on her and smelled his fetid breath as he gasped excitedly. The other Arab said something in a shrill voice. Esme tried to turn her head aside. She could see the entrance to the cave. It was dark. When had night come?

  She bit off her screams when Messaoud was deliberately cruel. She felt crushed, smothered, suffocated under his dirtiness. The Arab smelled of grease and sweat. She tried to bite his throat. Her teeth caught his skin and came away with a small piece of flesh. Messaoud did not seem to feel it. But then, suddenly, the fat Arab shouted a warning and Messaoud lifted up from her and she saw that Paul had somehow gotten one wrist free of the stakes that tied him to the cave floor. He had scrabbled in the dirt and found a shard of flint, and he threw this at Messaoud.

  It caught Messaoud in the left eye with a strange, wet, smacking sound and Esme saw Messaoud's eye, torn partly from its socket by the jagged flint. Messaoud screamed and sprang up and snatched at his knife. Paul tried to get his other wrist free, but Messaoud jumped on him and the fat Arab sat on Paul's head and chest and Messaoud began driving the knife into Paul's body—first here and then there —with quick, punching gestures. Blood streamed down Mes-saoud's face from his torn eye that hung against his cheek. Paul's long white legs jerked and quivered. Blood ran over the floor. Messaoud kept driving the knife into Paul's body over and over again. And then Esme saw Paul's legs stop % moving, and she knew he was dead.

  After a while, the fat Arab got up and threw himself on her. She tried to fight him off. But it it was useless.

  What followed seemed to go on for hours.

  One small part of her mind floated in detachment and wondered that the night was so dark and starless.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Durell was aware, first, of the chill bite of the night in the desert. Then he listened to the peculiar stillness. The truck into which he had been thrown by the Al Murra people, who had bound him hand and foot, had come to a grinding halt. For several hours, it seemed, since he had been beaten unconscious on the beach, they had travelled in irregular fits and starts. The journey, in company with three other trucks, was a slow and jolting one that followed no special road that he could determine. Nor was there much he could see. By straining awkwardly, he had been able to look out through the underside of the flapping truck canvas. But there was nothing except the desert, obscured by dust, and an occasional glimpse of a tribesman trotting alongside the slowly jolting, grinding vehicle which went no faster than a man could walk.

  Other armed men had sat on the tail gate of Durell's truck. He did not know what had happened to Zoraya and Prince Amr. They were up front, he supposed, with Ibn Ibrahim, the old sheik. All he had been able to do, when he revived, was make himself comfortable and wait for the trip to end.

  Now the truck had halted. He did not think it was because they had reached any special destination. The armed men on the tail gate had jumped off and run away somewhere, and he could hear their thick, gutteral voices in argument about something. He gathered that one of the trucks had broken down and that there was some question about the wisdom of going on—immediately, anyway. A storm was coming.

  Durell rolled over and sat up. His hands were tied behind his back; his ankles were lashed with a leather thong. His head ached. He was as thirsty as if every drop of liquid in his body had been sponged up by the desert heat. But no one had thought to offer him any water.

  A sudden gust of wind surprisingly slatted the canvas top of the truck. He heard someone shout, and a motor started up somewhere. There was very little he could see from under the canvas. The night had just fallen, he supposed, and he wondered how he could have dozed off in such discomfort. Long ago, however, he had learned to take advantage of any respite and try to recoup his energies for what might come.

  By twisting to one side, he could see the dim desert landscape under the strangely hazy moon. They were in an area of twisted rock formations, with, here and there, long tongues of sand sifting down from above. The wind blew again, in a second sudden gust, and sand stung his face and his eyes. He dropped back to the shelter of his other position on the truck floor.

  Now there were more shouts and Arab curses and the whine of a motor again and the spinning of wheels. The wind moaned, plucked at the truck canvas, died again. He saw the light of the moon fade away as something obscured the sky.

  A sandstorm was coming.

  He wished he knew what time it was. Someone had stolen his watch. He wished he had a cigarette. And water. Or something to eat.

  He tried to estimate and analyze his situation, but there were too many unknown factors to permit him a glimpse of any developing pattern. He thought wryly of Amr's turning on him, like a spiteful, petty child. He should have expected it, should have believed in the man's threats to punish him for what Amr considered to be insolence. Or perhaps Washington had committed the gravest error of all in assuming that the prince's political attitudes would make him favorable to the West. Obviously, Washington's information had been all wrong. Amr was not so far gone in dissipation as the world believed. That one glimpse he'd had of the prince's face before he'd been knocked out told quite a different story. Under the soft fat there was a core of irony and hard-, strength that should have died out long ago in the man.

  All this made matters quite different from the original picture Durell had received from Haggarty. Washington was due for an unpleasant surprise. The trouble was, Durell thought, he should have spotted these underlying attitudes in Bogo sooner than this, should have been forewarned and taken the man's threats seriously. Now it might be that he had brought back to Jidrat the one man who could really take this tiny but important country out of the orbit of the West.

  When the storm came a few moments later, it struck like a hammer blow, with the howling of a thousand devils. A vast hissing roar blotted out all other sound. The truck trembled and shook under the impact of the wind. Sand flew in under the canvas of the truck and rippled in swift layers across the plank floor, stinging his eyes and his cheeks, crawling into his nostrils and his ears. He could not breathe. He lay on his side on the floor, doubled up, trying to mask his face with his arm to provide some kind of filter for his lungs. But his effort was only partially successful.

  With the wind came a biting cold that set him to shivering. The shouts of the Al Murra were drowned in the tumult of the storm. No one came to the truck. He wondered if he had been abandoned by the others, who were better able to take shelter, or perhaps forgotten by those who had made him a prisoner.

  He tried to loosen the thongs that held his wrists behind him. Not a chance. He rolled over, coughing. Sand gritted his eyes, and he squeezed them shut. The storm howled, the truck shook. The hissing blast of sand was scouring the paint off the metal body of the truck. He coughed again, felt sand creeping up over his legs, filling the truck. A feeling of panic touched him. He fought it. The very violence of the storm meant that it couldn't last too long. But it might go on long enough to bury him, in his helpless state, and slowly suffocate him.

  He wondered where everyone else had gone. He yelled once, and felt the sand slash into his open mouth and grate between his teeth, and he did not yell again. He wriggled to one side of the truck and tried to scrape the thongs against the metal hooks that held the canvas. Dimly, then, in a momentary lull, when the wind suddenly died, he heard shouting and confusion from Ibrahim's men.

  Someone scratched at the back of the truck. "Durell?"

  He sat up, list
ening. There was more shouting from the distant head of the column and the grinding of a truck's motor trying to start. He could see nothing in the dark night. Then the back flap of the canvas was opened and someone moved inside, wearing a dark Arab robe. He smelled perfume. "Zoraya, what—" "Be still. I have a knife and a gun for you."

  "But you can't—"

  "I cannot let you stay like this either. They are planning to kill you. Don't you know that? Far inland, in the desert, when they feel safe and wish for some amusement. I heard them talking." She paused. Her face was dim as she knelt beside him inside the truck. "And a terrible thing has happened."

  "What?"

  "The Al Murra are no longer loyal to Amr. It was a trick. They belong to the Q'adi Ghezri's movement and Ibn Ibrahim expects a huge reward for killing both you and Amr."

  "It didn't look that way on the beach."

  "They were amusing themselves."

  "How do you know all this?"

  "Abdhuahram, the nakhoda, warned me. He is loyal to Amr."

  "Good. We need him."

  The girl leaned against him, her soft body trembling a little as she felt along his arms and wrists. A moment later there was a sharp jerk, and his wrists were free. Then his ankles. He knelt and massaged his wrists. A gun was thrust into his hands. He could see her face only as the faintest of ovals. Her hair brushed his cheek.

  "And Amr?"

  "Abdhuahram will carry him."

  "Carry him?"

  "They . . . they fell upon Amr all at once, as a great joke. It ... it was terrible. He asked for food and they served him with such a show of deference, and all the time they were laughing and laughing because it was such a great joke to them. He did not know it. He could not guess how it was. When they were deliberately clumsy and spilled coffee, he jumped up and kicked the Arab who did it—thinking he was still held in high esteem, he was still Prince Amr al-Maari who commanded their loyalty. He flew into a rage and demanded punishment for the Arab who was so careless as to spill coffee on his royal personage."

  The girl halted, then went on bitterly. "Ibn Ibrahim asked him what punishment he wanted them to give the Arab, and Amr insisted on twenty lashes. They then had the Arab plead for mercy, beg Amr to reduce the sentence, let him go free. Meanwhile, I could see there was something wrong—and so did Abdhuahram—because they were laughing and joking behind Amr's back. When Amr refused to the punishment, Ibn Ibrahim suddenly threw Amr to the ground and handed one of his men the whip. And the sentence was carried out, not upon the slave but upon Prince Amr himself.

  Durell straightened. "Twenty lashes?" he whispered.

  "Yes."

  "And then?"

  "He was given to me and Abdhuahram to care for, to keep alive until they are ready for more amusements. But that is not the worst of it for Amr. The worst is what happened to his spirit when he saw he was no longer a 'prince' to the Al Murra."

  "I can imagine," Durell said gently.

  "No. No, you cannot. It is impossible. He ... he is lil one who has died inside. He says nothing. He looks nothing. He can only remember the humiliation, the the dirty, howling tribesmen played this trick upon dignity. Against this, the lashes of the whip were nothing."

  "Where is Amr now?"

  "Coming. Abdhuahram carries him. During this storm have our only chance to escape. We can use this truck."

  The wind lifted again, buffeting the truck. Durell jumped off the truck's tail gate and held up his arms and the girl dropped with him to the flinty ground. He could see the dim lights up ahead in Ibrahim's column. Then they ran around to the cab of the truck. It was deserted by the driver, who had evidently sought companionship with the others while they waited out the storm. The windshield was covered with sand. Durell brushed it off. He turned and saw the giant nakhoda holding Prince Amr in his arms.

  "Get in the cab," he ordered.

  "Yes, effendi. You will drive?"

  Durell looked at Zoraya, who nodded. "We can hide in the ruins of Ain Gemilha," she said. "I know where we are. It is only a few miles from here. But we must hurry!"

  The nakhoda carried Amr around to the back of the truck and Durell climbed up into the cab with Zoraya. He thought he heard someone shout from far off, but the wind was too strong and noisy and he could not be certain. Then lights began flickering again from the head of the column, as if men were running toward them. Durell stamped on the starter, heard the motor whine and grind for what seemed an eternity. It finally caught with a roar. He slammed the engine into gear and they lurched off to the right. He had to snap on the headlights. In the glare from the twin beams there was nothing to see but the wild, blinding turmoil of blowing sand driving straight at them. Nevertheless, it was better than total darkness.

  "Go on," the girl said. "They will not follow yet. In a few minutes you will come to a road, and we can feel our way from there. I will guide you."

  Durell tried to look back to see if they were being followed, but behind the truck he could see nothing but a blinding swirl of dark, wind-driven sand.

  The truck faltered, coughed, stalled, jolted on again. They had to halt twice when the storm grew too violent. The wind was too strong for them to go around to the back and see how Amr and Abdhuahram were faring. The second time they stopped, Durell cut the headlights and sat in total darkness with the girl. Sand hissed along the metal sides of the truck, whispered through cracks around the doors and windows.

  "It will soon be over," the girl said.

  She sat close to him. It was cold in the desert now. The wind was a demon, howling for their lives, shaking the heavy truck, making the windows rattle. He felt her shiver.

  "What will you do now?" she asked Durell.

  "I don't know yet."

  "You were so sure the Jidratti would follow Amr if you once brought him home. But you see what has happened."

  "Was the Al Murra tribe always loyal to Amr's family?"

  She was silent for a moment. "No. No, not always."

  Something in her voice made him ask, "What is it, Zoraya? What are you thinking of?"

  "I am reminded of the time I was kidnapped, on my wedding day. The day I married Amr I was so happy," she whispered. "I was only eight years old, you know, but one is trained for an early marriage and taught what to expect from life. And then, all in a moment, everything was changed and my life was destroyed, my future made homeless . . . and Amr no longer loved me."

  "You were both children that day."

  "A child in the desert cannot stay a child for many years. I knew all there was to know about my destiny and my future life—until the men came and there was all that shooting and one of them grabbed me and took me out here in the desert and held me for ransom. Ever since then, Amr refused to look upon me. He thinks I was defiled. But it is not true. It isn't true!" the girl whispered in anguish. "They did not touch me. Yet he would not listen. He still will not listen/'

  "Was it a tribal feud?" Durell asked.

  "Yes. The Al Murra and the al-Maari family were enemies for a long time. When I was returned, Ibn Ibrahim swore allegiance to Amr. But you see what such an oath is worth today."

  Durell sat up straighter. "It was the Al Murra who kidnapped vou on your wedding day?"

  "Yes. Why?"

  "Then they . . . it's not a fair test," he said tightly. "It doesn't mean that the people of Jidrat will reject Amr."

  She was silent a long time. Durell felt her shivering in the cold fingers of the sandy wind that gripped the vehicle.

  "What will happen to you, Durell, if you fail?" she whispered. "How you must hate Amr for turning on you as he did! It was such a petty, foolish thing to do. To hate you for trying to help him. It made me ill; I wanted to weep, to strike at him. When I saw you lying there with that Al Murra ready to kill you—and Amr watching it all and wanting it to happen to you simply because you risked your life to help him come home where he belongs—"

  "I was only doing my job."

  "It was more than just the job," she
said. "More than that. You hide behind your duty as I've hidden behind false hopes. Neither of us are true to ourselves. I have lived in a dream world all my life—since my wedding day. And you . . . you are good and kind and strong and you do things in the name of duty which you do not really have to do."

  He said nothing.

  "We will not live to see the sunset tomorrow," the girl whispered. "It is hopeless, what you've tried to do."

  "No."

  "If Amr were a man, if he had any strength—"

  "I haven't given up on him yet."

  He felt her turn on the rough seat. She sat very close to him.

  "Put your arm around me," she said. "I'm so cold." He held her gently. She was shivering. She twisted convulsively and lifted her face to his, and he kissed her. Her lips were cold and tremulous at first. She spoke against his lips. "I don't want to talk about dying tomorrow. I'm sorry. I know it will happen, but now I feel as if there were no one else alive in the world except you and me—here, in this little box of darkness in the middle of the wind and the sand. . . ."

  "Zoraya— "

  "No, let me dream a little longer. It will end soon enough. I have been dreaming all my life, it seems. If I were a wiser woman, I would have forced myself to see what Amr was, long ago. I would have faced the truth of what was in my heart/ 7

  "We won't die tomorrow," Durell said. But he did not believe it.

  "There will be no escape. Please. Tell me something," she whispered. "Tell me the truth at this moment. Did you really never forget me? In all the years between then and now, did you still think of me and remember that morning you took Amr to see me, down on the Chesapeake?"

  "Yes," he admitted. "I never forgot you."

  "I fell in love with you," she whispered. "I think perhaps I have loved you ever since. Is that so foolish?"

  "You were only twelve. . . ."