07-The Radioactive Camel Affair Page 8

  Solo brushed past the girl and stood waiting as she closed the door. In the airless dark of the passage, the perfume of some exotic, cloying cosmetic washed over him. Outside, footsteps scraped to a halt. He could hear the voice of Ahmed: “…a foreigner. Medium height, bearded, and wearing western clothes.”

  Somebody mumbled a negative.

  “But he must be here somewhere. He can’t have got away…I’ve seen that man before somewhere, but for the moment I just can’t place him. There’s something familiar about him all the same…”

  “He could be anywhere here,” another voice chimed in. “You know where we are? This is the street of—”

  “It doesn’t matter what street it is,” a third voice, clipped and commanding, interrupted. “We’ll post sentries at either end and search it house by house.” The footsteps moved away decisively.

  The girl, whose breath had hissed in sharply the first time Ahmed had spoken, now moved past Solo towards the back of the building. She said in a low voice, “This way. I will show you….”

  Light stabbed the blackness as she switched on the flashlight and shone the beam at the floor behind her to light the way. Solo followed her to the end of the passage and up a flight of stone stairs. Apart from the clip-clop of the girl’s slippers and the swish of garments against her legs, they mounted in silence. At the top of the stairs a dimly lit foyer appeared with a number of doors opening off it. He followed the girl through one and found himself in a tiny room about eight feet square, furnished with nothing more than rugs and cushions upon the floor. As she crossed to draw heavy drapes across an arched window embrasure, Solo closed the door silently and leaned against it.

  “I am sorry,” he began, “I only want to…”

  For the first time, the girl turned to face him. It was Yemanja—the belly dancer from the caravan who had been giving him the come-on throughout the journey.

  “So,” she said softly. “It is you!”

  “Yemanja! I didn’t recognize you. I—”

  “Why would you, my friend? How could you recognize that which you will not see? But I recognize you—although evidently Ahmed does not…yet.”

  “I do not wish you to misunderstand me, Yemanja. When I came in here—”

  “I know. If you had recognized me, you would have run away—the way you always retreat with your eyes when I look at you. Why do you rebuff me, my friend? Am I not beautiful? Am I not desirable?” The girl sank down on a pile of cushions, staring at him with her enormous eyes.

  “You are very beautiful,” Solo said, “and very desirable. I swear it.”

  “Then…?”

  The agent hesitated. Could he trust the girl? If she had taken such a fancy to him, it might be worth the risk. On the other hand, a woman scorned…Mentally, he shrugged. He really had no choice.

  “I am engaged upon a certain mission,” he said carefully. “In order to complete this successfully, it is vital that I do not in any way attract attention while I am with the caravan.”

  “So? You are running away, are you not? It was you that Ahmed and the soldiers were chasing, no? Evidently you are on some secret business, for you are dressed as an effendi. But this is no concern of mine. Why do you not stay here with me? Come—sit here beside me and I will send for some refreshment.”

  “Yemanja, I cannot.”

  “But I wish it. You are beautiful. You have a kind and gentle face. You are different, my friend. In my life I have not met men like you. If you find me pleasing, why do you reject me—”

  “If I become ‘friendly’ with you, it will make Ahmed jealous. And if he becomes more jealous than he already is, he will notice me all the more in the caravan—and that must not happen. Because, you see, he does not yet connect the man he is chasing tonight with the man his woman so obviously likes in the caravan.”

  “Ahmed!” The girl’s voice was full of scorn. “He is a brute, that one. He beats me. Look—I will show you…”

  “No, no,” Solo said hastily. “I believe you.”

  “Anyway, I wish to leave him. I do not understand this of the caravan and your private business. I have said it does not concern me. You need not be afraid of Ahmed: he is a bully, all brag and no courage.”

  “I am not afraid of him. It is just that he must not notice me.”

  “Well, he cannot notice you here,” the girl cried triumphantly.

  She broke off abruptly. From somewhere below a persistent hammering was echoing up the stairway. Yemanja rose on to her knees, her eyes wide with alarm. “The soldiers,” she whispered. “They said they would search every house…”

  “Oh, no! Not again!” Solo said in English.

  “You are right, my friend. They must not find you here. You must go.”

  “Yes, but how?”

  “Nobody saw you come in. So far as they know, I have been here alone all the time. If you leave through this window…”

  “Does Ahmed know you are here?”

  “Of course. I am here at his command. Where do you wish to go?”

  “I want to get back to a lane which runs behind the wall at one side of the square where the encampment is.”

  The girl drew back the curtain over the window embrasure. “Out here is a flat roof. Beyond is an alley. You cannot get back directly without crossing the street in front here. So take the alley in the opposite direction and you will find you are in the street circling the town inside the walls. Turn right along this and you will find that the—one, two, three, four, yes, fifth—the fifth turning will lead you to the mosque. And from there, the lane you speak of—”

  “Yes, yes. I know the way from there,” Solo said. The hammering had stopped and there was the sound of many voices below. He swung a leg over the window-sill, and then turned back towards the girl.

  “You are very beautiful and very kind,” he said. “I am grateful. If ever there is anything I can do…”

  “You know what you can do,” the girl said.

  Solo grinned, leaned inwards and kissed her briefly on the lips.

  “I will not forget you,” she said softly. “You will see me again, my friend. I am a determined woman…”

  Solo waved and jumped lightly to the flat roof. The curtain slid back over the window.

  The drop to the alley was about fifteen feet. Even in his rubber-soled sneakers, he seemed to himself to make quite a noise when he landed. But nobody appeared to have heard; no voice questioned him and no footsteps advanced. After waiting a moment, listening, he ran lightly off in the direction the girl had suggested. The beaten earth road inside the wall of the town was deserted. Just before he got to the fifth turning, he saw the back of a patrolling sentry silhouetted against the sky on top of the wall. But he had reached the safety of the corner before the man had reached the end of his beat.

  The mosque was nearly a quarter of a mile down the quiet street. There was one dangerous spot, when he had to cross an open space between the end of the street and the domed building—but the few passersby were all facing towards the lights of the bazaar, which showed through an archway on the far side. Shouts of command from the soldiers could still be heard above the hubbub of the market.

  Solo passed noiselessly behind the watchers and turned the corner of the mosque. Two minutes later, he was jumping for the top of the wall bounding the encampment. Peering cautiously over the top, he saw that he had overestimated the distance by about two yards. He dropped back into the lane and climbed up again behind his bivouac. Then, lowering himself quietly behind the tent, he lifted the back flap and crawled inside with a sigh of relief.

  As soon as he had stripped off the bush shirt and shorts and resumed the burnoose, he looked out across the square from the front. Flares had been set up where the beasts were tethered. One of the horses was restive, snorting and rearing on the end of its rope. There was a group of soldiers lounging by the entrance to the alleyway down which he had made his escape, and, nearer at hand, Ahmed was pacing up and down with a tall, dark man
in Arab robes.

  “I don’t see how he can have got away,” the camelmaster was saying angrily. “We had the whole street bottled up….I don’t think it likely, but just in case he did come from here, I am asking the soldiers to arouse all these people”—he gestured towards the corner of the encampment where Solo and the other pilgrims were quartered—”and get them out so we can have a look at them.”

  The tall man took his arm. “It is not necessary,” he said. “There are plans, my friend, of which you know nothing. Leave it.”

  Solo withdrew like a tortoise into his bivouac and rolled himse1f in his sleeping bag. Ten minutes later, he was asleep.

  Chapter 9

  The Retreat of Napoleon

  THE RENDEZVOUS WITH the cavalry was outside the south gate of Wadi Elmira. From here, the pilgrims continued along the left bank of the river, while the pack train negotiated a ford and climbed up into the hills on the right.

  Napoleon Solo kept his head well down as Ahmed rode up and down the long line of camels and horses with a Sudanese officer, separating the travelers and their beasts into two sections. The dromedary with the red, yellow and black striped blanket roll was one of a string of three led by a paunchy Bedouin immediately behind the head of the column. The camel-master’s heavy features were set in their usual scowl as he maneuvered his horse in among the throng of riders, roughly shepherding them into the correct line.

  Solo kneed his camel as unobtrusively as he could towards the file of pilgrims, hoping to escape notice while Ahmed’s back was turned. But the army officer saw him move and called out, “Hey! You, there! Where do you think you’re going?” He spurred his horse towards the agent, cursing freely. Fortunately Ahmed was disputing some point with a burly pilgrim and did not come with him.

  “I was but joining my fellow pilgrims,” Solo said meekly as the soldier reined up beside him.

  “You wait until you are told. And that is a strange manner in which you speak, my friend,” the officer said.

  “My speech is not as yours by virtue of the fact that I have traveled far,” Solo said. “I come from Al Khuraiba in Saudi Arabia.”

  “Hmm. Well, see that you do not get out of line again.”

  The cavalryman wheeled his mount and rejoined Ahmed.

  When his turn came, Solo showed his papers with bent head and suffered himself to be pushed into the line of pilgrims. The camel with the striped blanket, as he had expected, was with the other train.

  A few minutes later, the pilgrims and their escort moved off along the river bank while the baggage train with its attendant squadron splashed across the ford and began climbing the rocky trail on the far side. Solo deliberately lagged, hoping that he would have a chance to break away from the caravan and somehow rejoin the other train undetected. After a half mile, his chance came—the trail wound through a twisting gorge—and all the escorting soldiers were up at the head of the column. He reined in his beast behind a group of enormous boulders and allowed the others to move slowly around the corner out of sight. Then, turning about, he rode back up the trail as fast as the dromedary would go.

  Fording the river, he urged the animal on up the steep path followed by the baggage train. The road mounted steadily past tiny squares of cultivation planted with millet, maize and sorgho, through a belt of trees, and across an exposed slope of bare rock before turning unexpectedly to the right and following a dried-up valley towards the crest of the ridge. A huge natural tunnel through the porous limestone led beneath the ridge itself—and on the far side he could see, far down the slope, the long line of horses and camels he was trying to join. If he could manage to link up with the caravan without being noticed, there was a slim chance that he could stay with it at least until nightfall. The track, although it was dry, produced very little dust from the passage of the camel’s feet. He rode on down, steering his swaying mount behind the shelter of every rock outcrop and pile of boulders that the terrain offered.

  An hour later, he was within a quarter of a mile of the caravan. Clearly around the bends in the trail he could hear the sounds of its progress. He took the chance to close up when the route was following a tortuous path between an alternating series of dried-up alluvial deposits. If only there were no cavalrymen riding at the back when he tagged on…

  But when he rounded the last corner and caught up, he saw that his luck had changed: two horsemen in uniform were riding behind the last pack camel.

  Before he had time to withdraw, one of them turned around and saw him. There wasn’t a chance of escape: the men were carrying rifles across their cruppers, and anyway a horse could run rings around a camel. Fuming inwardly, he rode straight ahead until he caught up with them.

  “What the devil do you think you are doing?” the man who had seen him said roughly. “Show me your papers at once.”

  While the other soldier kept him covered, Solo reached inside the folds of his robe and produced the documents. “But you should be with the other train!” the soldier exclaimed. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  “I got lost. I was wandering about when I heard the sound of your caravan and thought it might be the one I missed—”

  “Impossible. The others are miles away on the other side of the river. You couldn’t have got here by mistake. Here, Ali: ride up to the front of the column and fetch Ahmed and the captain while I keep an eye on this man.”

  The second cavalryman spurred his horse and rode away after the disappearing caravan while Solo remained motionless under the other’s watchful guard. In a few minutes, four horsemen galloped into sight around a bend in the trail: the soldier, Ahmed, the officer who had spoken to Solo before the trains separated, and a tall, dark man on a splendid gray mount. It was the stranger Solo had seen talking to Ahmed in the square the previous night.

  “What is the trouble?” the dark man asked curtly.

  “This man was attempting to join the train, Excellence.”

  “But I have seen him before,” the officer said. “I had trouble with him when we were separating the two caravans.”

  “So have I seen him before,” Ahmed snarled. “I knew the face was familiar!” He leaned across and twitched the enveloping headdress from the agent. “Aha! So the foreign thief is revealed! Foreign thief…and, perhaps, foreign spy, eh?”

  The cavalry captain was looking inquiringly at the dark man. “I suppose so,” the latter sighed. “It was planned otherwise—but, in the circumstances…At least it seems we now know the mystery of the radio transmissions from the caravan. We can search his baggage afterwards.” He nodded imperceptibly at the officer.

  “Get down,” the captain ordered Solo curtly.

  The agent slid from the dromedary, his mind racing. The homer and his tiny two-way radio were safe in the money belt around his waist; the Mauser was in its improvised holster under his robes; and on his other side a pair of powerful binoculars were slung. The rest of his gear would have to be sacrificed along with the bedroll on the camel…assuming he could get away at all. Unobtrusively, he grasped the big automatic through a fold in his burnoose.

  As his feet touched the ground, Solo heard the chilling sound of a rifle bolt being drawn back and slammed home. He knew that he was very near to death: the soldier behind him was preparing to shoot…

  Exploding into motion, he ducked under the camel’s belly and fired at the cavalryman through his robes. The soldier toppled forwards over his horse’s neck, his rifle clattering to the ground. Before any of the others had time to move, Solo bobbed up on the far side of the animal and the Mauser roared again. The second man, winged in the act of raising his rifle, clutched at his shoulder and sagged in the saddle.

  An instant later, in a smooth, continuous flow of motion, Solo had bounded across the space between the camel and the first soldier’s horse, hauled the dead man clear of the harness and vaulted into the saddle. Then, driving his heels into the animal’s flanks, he rode straight at Ahmed, the officer and the stranger, scattering them b
efore they could draw their guns, leaped the horse over a four-foot thorn hedge by the side of the trail, and galloped away into the scrub.

  From behind him, Ahmed’s revolver boomed. The report was followed by the sharp crack of an automatic and a duller, flatter explosion—probably someone had snatched up a rifle from one of the fallen soldiers.

  Solo rode like the wind, zigzagging among the stunted trees. He was thankful that the soldier’s horse—unlike most Arab steeds—was harnessed and saddled. Crouching low over the animal’s flying mane, he glanced back over his shoulder. Ahmed and the officer had jumped the hedge and were galloping in pursuit; the dark man had stayed behind. His head and shoulders were visible over the line of thorn bushes, one eye squinting along the barrel of a rifle. Four more shots rang out. Then for a long time there was no sound but the drumming of hooves on the hard ground.

  Solo was making a big circle through the scrub, trying to come back on a course parallel with the trail but about a mile away from it. He hoped to gain a range of low hills some way ahead and keep watch on the caravan for as long as he could before relying on the homer. In the meantime, there was the pursuit to be disposed of. Next time he looked back, Ahmed had dropped half a mile behind—but the cavalry officer was only about a hundred yards away and gaining fast. There was a puff of smoke from in front of his chest and a bullet sang over Solo’s head. Regretfully, the agent fumbled inside his robes until he reached the money belt. From a back compartment, he drew out a small, lozenge-shaped metal object. As he rode, he twisted a pointer on the face to the mark 5 SECONDS. Then, deliberately reining back a little, he waited for a straight stretch between the thorn trees and dropped the thing to the ground. The Sudanese was firing again—but after three shots a heavier detonation roared out and drowned the noise of horses’ hooves as the grenade Solo had dropped went off.

  He looked behind him again. Horse and rider were lying in a grotesque tangle among the trees. The bare earth, and parts of some of the tree trunks, glistened redly in the mounting sun.