07-The Radioactive Camel Affair Read online

  “I have your permission to proceed?”

  “So far as I am concerned, you may go ahead and take your animal pictures. But I can offer no guarantee for your safety. You would be wise to stay the minimum amount of time—and keep your eyes wide open. Caveat, old chap. Caveat!”

  He snapped his cane back under his arm, saluted, and strode smartly from the hut.

  The guards raised the pole; Illya climbed wearily back into the Landrover and drove on. For fifteen or twenty miles, the rolling grassland continued. Then the clumps of trees grew further and further apart, the herds of antelope vanished, the grasses thinned—and soon the trail was twisting up into the desolate foothills of a range of mountains that had shown as a blue smudge on the horizon at the border. Three times he passed burned-out shells of African villages, only rings of scorched earth and a few crumbling mud walls remaining. The only sign of cultivation was a ragged line of corn by the roadside that had gone to seed. The route grew steeper, dipping every now and then into a rubble of stones and rocks in a dried-up riverbed, and then mounting again towards the saddle which pierced the limestone cliffs topping the ridge.

  Once through the pass, Illya found himself descending to an upland plain—a featureless wilderness of thorny scrub broken at intervals by tangles of huge boulders. He would have to make camp for the night soon: the heat had already gone from the air and the sun was dropping out of sight behind the crest of the mountains. He pulled up and switched off the Landrover’s engine. After the continual whining of low gear and the boom of the exhaust, it was suddenly very quiet. Wind rattled the spikes of the thorn trees beside the road.

  He spread out a map. Two hundred miles further on, the road led to Wau, in Bahr-el-Ghazal province. Ninety miles before that, there was a fork, where he was to take the right-hand trail for Halakaz—and after that he would be on his own, for there were no roads to Gabatomi, nor was it marked on the map.

  The Russian shivered and restarted the motor. He couldn’t face the idea of spending the night in this Godforsaken place. But when night fell with tropical suddenness an hour later, he was still driving through the interminable scrub. To drive with headlights would make him visible for fifty miles. Reluctantly, he turned off the road and parked the vehicle out of sight behind a pile of flat rocks.

  He opened one of the baggage rolls in the back and ate. Then, wrapping himself in blankets, he settled down as comfortably as he could in the offside passenger seat and tried to sleep. Beside him, in the Landrover’s central seat, lay a heavy caliber automatic—the nucleus of the special U.N.C.L.E. gun developed at a cost of one thousand dollars each. Onto it could be screwed four attachments: a shoulder stock, a rifled barrel, an extension to the butt, and a telescopic sight—the completed device producing a spidery-looking weapon of great fire power and versatility.

  For a long time he huddled there in wakefulness, listening to a family of baboons coughing and chattering uneasily somewhere in the rocks above him and the occasional scuttling noise made by a prowling jerboa—the desert rat which somehow eked out an existence in the wilderness. He would have liked to call Solo on the radio—but Napoleon had asked him to keep radio silence until he himself called: the bleep of the receiver might attract attention in the caravan. His progress report, and the problem of the inexplicable absence of news from Waverly, would have to wait. At last he fell into a fitful sleep—to awake what seemed an age later, shivering with cold. He pulled another blanket from the roll and looked at the illuminated face of his watch: it was still only a quarter past ten.

  By midnight he was asleep again. But he awoke finally before dawn and waited in a fury of impatience for the sun to rise. It was still extremely cold. Moisture had penetrated the perspex side-screens, beading the dashboard instruments and controls and chilling him to the marrow.

  He flung off the blankets, clambered stiffly to the ground, and stamped up and down on the barren earth in an attempt to restore his circulation and bring some warmth back into his body. The baboons chattered with anger and swung away over the top of the rocks. The sky was becoming visible at last—a dirty gray expanse tinged with saffron above the scrub to the east. Slowly the mountains he had crossed the previous evening assembled themselves in undulations of purple and ultramarine. By the time the sun eventually jerked into sight above a charcoal-colored cloudbank, Illya was already in the driving seat with the ignition key inserted.

  But the Landrover was reluctant to start. The extremes of heat and cold had made the engine temperamental. Fearing that he might exhaust the battery, he got out again and swung it with the handle.

  At his fifth attempt, the motor caught. He scrambled back inside and revved the accelerator for a few minutes to warm up the engine compartment and chase the moisture from contacts and leads. Then, bumping over the stony ground, he steered slowly around the rocks and back onto the road.

  Strung out across it in two lines, barring his progress in either direction, were a score of African soldiers armed with Belgian FN automatic rifles.

  Chapter 8

  A Question of Identity

  WADI ELMIRA WAS a jumble of flat-roofed, mud-walled buildings spilling down the side of a valley gashed at the bottom by a stony ravine. At the foot of the ravine a trickle of brown water, later to become a tributary of the Bahr-el-Ghaza river, slid among the rocks. The caravan reached the place at nightfall, passing through the arched gate in the walls and turning aside soon afterwards to halt in a wide, open space before a domed mosque.

  As soon as the beasts had been fed and watered, most of the members of the caravan plunged into the narrow streets of the town. Only the pilgrims, sitting quietly among their bedrolls, the women, and some old men were left under the date palms in the dusk. When the train split into two portions the following morning, each was to be escorted by a squadron of Sudanese cavalry—so it was more than ever important that Solo should locate the canister that night and identify the camel carrying it. Tomorrow might be too late.

  For a while he debated with himself whether he should stay as he was or conduct his researches in different clothes. He was stuck with the facial disguise, for he would never be able to reapply it once it had been removed. And as far as garments went, a burnoose would undoubtedly be the most anonymous—but on the other hand it would restrict his movements if he was spotted, and it might lead any pursuers back to the caravan. Eventually he decided to dispense with it. He had erected his bivouac close to a crumbling wall which bordered on one side of the open space where they were camped. The pack camels were lying near the tethered horses, some way beyond the trees on the far side. Inside the low tent, he wriggled out of the headdress and Arab robes, drawing on a pair of khaki shorts and a bush shirt. He was wearing rubber-soled sneakers. The Mauser was too conspicuous, he decided, and would have to be left behind.

  Cautiously lifting the back flap of the bivouac, he crawled out and stood between tent and wall, listening. From somewhere over the rooftops reflected light from naptha flares flickered and there was a gabble of voices from the bazaars. Nearer at hand in the darkness only an occasional murmured conversation and the movement of tethered beasts broke the silence.

  It was now or never. Flexing his knees, he sprang lightly upwards and grasped the top of the wall. A moment later he had hauled himself up and dropped to an evil-smelling alley choked with refuse on the far side. He ran swiftly along the lane between the wall and the backs of a row of mean houses. A hundred yards further on, the passage twisted away from the square around the bulk of the mosque and eventually emerged into a narrow street. Solo paused, looking up and down. To his right, the street led towards the hubbub and the bright lights of a market place; to the left, it curved away into shadows. If he were to turn left, and left again somewhere, he should be able to double back and reach the square on the far side from his bivouac. He turned and hurried on.

  There were many people in the street, most of them drifting towards the bazaar, but few gave more than a second look at the bearded
Arab in the bush shirt: the town was full of merchants, soldiers, refugees from the rebel country to the southwest, and country people in for the market.

  Solo plunged down another alleyway to the left, squeezed past a veiled woman leading a donkey with bulging panniers, and ran on. Soon he was back in the square, crouched down behind the nearest line of recumbent camels. Fortunately, many of the traders in the caravan had unpacked their rolls to take samples to the bazaar, and to that extent his task was easier: the lead canister would be concealed somewhere in an untouched bale.

  Furtively, crawling on hands and knees across the beaten earth between camel and camel, he searched and prodded and investigated with exploring fingers. After an hour he was halfway along the third line of animals. The great beasts chewed noisily on the cud, turning their eyes to gaze incuriously at the crouching man. He was enveloped in the rank odor of their fetid breath.

  Towards the end of the line, he fell forward as his wrist turned under him on a loose stone, and lurched against a bulging bale of merchandise still harnessed to a dromedary. The pack swung away from him in an odd manner: it didn’t move as a tightly folded wad of materials should move…

  Feverishly, he turned towards it. In a moment its secret was revealed. The thin layer of cloths on the outside was stretched over a wickerwork cage: inside, the bale was bulked out with some light substance like cotton wool—and, buried in the center, his fingers slid down the cold, greasy surface of a lead container.

  He let out his breath in a long sigh. Unbuttoning the flap of his breast pocket, he drew out a small leather case containing two metal devices about the size of a matchbox. One of them emitted a continuous radio signal; with the dial of the other correctly tuned, one could follow the movements of the first one from a distance by taking the direction in which the bleeps were the loudest. For a moment he hesitated, wondering where to conceal the homing device. Its magnetic limpet attachment would be useless on lead. Finally, he shrugged and thrust it as far as he could into the cotton beneath the canister. At least now he would be able to keep track of the camel carrying the deadly load, even if he had to leave the caravan when the two portions split up. The homer had a range of over thirty miles. Just in case, though, he permitted himself the briefest flash from a pencil flashlight. Between the bogus bale carrying the canister and the balancing pack on the animal’s other side, a blanket in yellow, red and black striped material was rolled. This would give him a visual check as well.

  Carefully he replaced the coverings over the wicker cage, tightened the retaining straps, and crawled back the way he had come. He was just rising to his feet at the end of the line when a flashlight beam blazed at him from behind a tree trunk.

  “What are you doing?” a harsh voice snarled. “Stay still or I shall shoot.” There was a movement towards him in the shadows.

  Solo froze. “Pardon,” he said in French. “I was trying to find my way to the central bazaar. Perhaps Monsieur could direct me?”

  “On your hands and knees? A likely story! Come here and let’s have a good look at you. The police and the military here do not look too kindly on thefts from caravans.” The man holding the flashlight advanced. It was Ahmed, the camel-master.

  Solo went slowly forward, thankful that he had had the foresight to change clothes. “I assure you, Monsieur, that there was no question of theft,” he said. “I had lost my way and I fell. When you saw me, I was just rising again…”

  “We shall see about that,” the other sneered. “Put up your hands and we shall find out what you have thieved.”

  The agent raised his arms, standing where he was. Ahmed came closer, circling him warily, the barrel of a revolver gleaming in the beam from the flashlight. He patted Solo on both hips and under the arms, running his fingers expertly up the inside of his thighs and across his stomach. “At least you’re not armed,” he said. “That should get the sentence reduced by perhaps five years—Aha! What have we here?” His hand had touched the hard bulge of the leather case in Solo’s breast pocket.

  “A transistor radio,” Solo said truthfully.

  “I shall believe that when I see it. Let’s have it.”

  “You want me to take it out?”

  “Quick.” The gun jabbed Solo hard in the small of the back.

  He lowered his right arm slowly and unbuttoned the flap of the pocket, drawing out the case with the homer in it between finger and thumb. Then, before the exclamation of satisfaction had left Ahmed’s lips, he dropped the case and his hand streaked down and behind him, knocking the other’s gun arm aside. The heavy caliber revolver roared as Solo whirled and grasped the hand holding it in both of his own. He jerked the man’s arm up and then down, exerting a paralyzing judo grip on the wrist. As the barrel pointed at the ground, the pistol exploded again, the ricochet whining away among the trees from the stony terrain.

  As the weapon finally dropped from his nerveless fingers, Ahmed slammed the heel of his other hand under Solo’s chin, thrusting back the agent’s head with agonizing force. Solo went with the thrust, letting go of the man’s wrist and rolling backwards. At the same time, he brought up his knees, set his heels on Ahmed’s stomach and then suddenly straightened his legs. The camel-master flew over his head and crashed to the ground behind him with a clatter which echoed around the square.

  In a flash Solo was on his feet again and running towards the alley by which he had entered the place. This was no time for a prolonged combat: all that mattered was that he should get away and back to his tent before he was recognized. Aroused by the shots, people were already running towards them from the encampment. Pausing only to scoop up the leather case he had dropped and boot the revolver into the shadows, he dashed for the corner. Before he reached it, Ahmed was shouting abuse at him while he scrambled after the gun. A moment later a third shot rang out. The wind of the bullet fanned Solo’s left shoulder. Then he was around the corner and pelting down the alley towards the street which led to the bazaar.

  Before he reached the second corner he stopped abruptly and melted into the shadows of a doorway. Half a dozen soldiers with drawn pistols clattered into the alley from the street and ran past him towards the confused shouting in the square.

  Once they had gone, Solo slid out of his hiding place and walked rapidly away from the noise. “But you must have passed him,” he could hear Ahmed furiously calling as he turned the corner. “He ran down that passage only a few seconds before you arrived…”

  The agent joined the throng moving towards the bazaar and strove to conceal the fact that he was hurrying. Arab women veiled in black, fellaheen in striped shifts and tarbooshes, peasants in rags and Bedouin in flowing white robes jostled against him as he walked. Somewhere in the crowd behind, he could sense, there was an eddying and a commotion as Ahmed and the soldiers ran back into the street. Dimly over the general noise he could hear voices raised in argument and shouts of protest.

  In the market place, the shuffling of feet was drowned in the cries of barkers and the traditional haggling of merchants and customers. Hands gesticulated, fingers wagged, palms were upraised in the suffocating press among the stalls of fruit, vegetables, cloth and hardware under the flares. He had almost shouldered his way through to the far side when three shots rang out above the heads of the crowd. There was a screaming and a stampede as everybody fought to get away from the center of the market. A great stand of copper pots and pans near Solo careened over as half a dozen robed Arabs forced their way between two stalls.

  “…where you are. Don’t leave the market place!” a voice was shouting over the clangor of falling hardware and the furious protests of the stallholder. “There is a foreign thief at large here and we want to find him. This is the military. Stay where you are—you have nothing to fear.”

  Feeling as though he had suddenly been exposed in the glare of a searchlight, Solo slunk around behind the stall and made for a street twisting away into the shadows. If he was to go a hundred yards down there and then find a right
turn, he might be able to circle around and find the lane leading to the wall sheltering his bivouac.

  “Over there!” another voice was shouting. “Look—on the far side of the bazaar. Quick! After him!”

  He glanced over his shoulder. The owner of the hardware stall, his arms full of saucepans, was dancing up and down and pointing towards him. Beyond, advancing rapidly down a lane between the striped awnings, Ahmed and tile soldiers came running. He broke into a run himself and plunged into the dark street. A fusillade of shots erupted behind him as he gained the shadow. Bullets spurted the dust on either side of his pounding feet; another chipped plaster from the wall by his shoulder.

  Solo hared around the first bend in the street. There was no turning off to the right. The roadway led towards the lights of another square. He dashed into an entry on the left, ran up a flight of stone stairs, crossed a wider street and plunged through an archway into a maze of unlit alleyways. Behind him, the footsteps and voices of the hunters approached. There had been plenty of people in the street he had crossed to point out the way he had gone.

  He ran on, down a second flight of steps, and found himself in a narrow lane with street lamps at dim intervals. All around him a faint murmur of voices behind closed shutters stirred the warm air. Music rose and fell in the distance.

  He halted, panting.

  “Why do you not come inside, stranger?” a soft voice intoned in Arabic at his elbow.

  He swung around. There was a click. The upward-directed beam of a small flashlight illuminated the upper half of a girl’s body. The gleam of teeth and the highlight on a full lip shone through the shadows.

  Solo hesitated. The sounds of pursuit were only one corner away. Already feet were scrambling down the steps.

  “All right,” he said huskily, making up his mind. He stepped towards the doorway. The light vanished. A door creaked open into darkness.